Insulin resistance is the root cause of type 2 diabetes: liver, muscle and fat cells need larger and larger quantities of insulin to take up the same amount of glucose. Eventually, the system doesn’t work any more. Glucose is no longer stored away as glycogen or starch, even though our pancreas produces growing quantities of insulin. The result is that the glucose levels in our body are increased for good. As our insulin resistance gets worse, we go from prediabetes (fasting glucose levels above 5.5 mmol/L) to type 2 diabetes (above 7.0 mmol/L).
