Some people face the problem of inadequate production of insulin as opposed to having insulin levels which are too high. There are a number of reasons for this and some of them seemingly contradict each other. Sometimes insulin production is too low because the body is not able to produce it for whatever reason. This is usually the hallmark of type 1 diabetes which becomes apparent in children and young adults.

Most often however insulin production becomes too low not because the body can’t produce it but because the cells in the body lose their sensitivity to it and the body can’t produce enough of it to metabolize glucose adequately.

As I said, the former is usually the result of predisposition or developmental abnormalities that damage the body’s ability to produce insulin. In this case insulin production is too low and as a result the cells in the body end up thinking that blood sugar is low when in fact it is not.

This causes the secretion of more glucose from the liver and elevated blood sugar levels increase to incredibly dangerous levels. For people like this there is little that can be done to increase low insulin production other than to closely monitor blood sugar levels and stay very regular with insulin treatment.

On the other hand, most people end up producing plenty of insulin until insulin resistance causes the body to require more insulin than it can produce on an ongoing basis. As this condition progresses insulin levels increasingly become insufficient at metabolizing blood sugar and glucose levels slowly climb to dangerous highs.

The later is actually a bit different from the former because glucose levels climb because the cells of the body stop responding to the insulin hormone. This is very different from the former in which the cells respond quite well to insulin, they just don’t get enough of it.

So the question remains, can insulin production be too low? Yes, it can and for very different reasons. Unfortunately there’s not much you can do in the case of type 1 diabetes but in the case of insulin resistance you can change your lifestyle to be more accommodative to reversing insulin resistance while you can also eat foods which both help with the production of insulin and with the management of insulin sensitivity issues. Above all however, weight should be lowered and exercise should be increased. These two functions alone will bring insulin production back in line with the body’s systems.

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