High-fat Diet To Promote A Normal Insulin Resistance

Insulin resistance occurs when your body is no longer responsive to insulin, and it can lead to high-blood sugar and type 2 diabetes. A high-fat diet may help promote insulin sensitivity, but many other dietary factors affect your blood-sugar levels. Talk to your doctor about dietary modifications and other steps you can take to lower your risk of type 2 diabetes and its complications.

Diet and Blood Sugar

After you eat a meal with carbohydrates, your body releases them into your bloodstream as sugar, or glucose. An increase in your blood sugar signals your pancreas to release insulin, which normally helps lower your blood-sugar levels, because it helps sugar get from your blood into your cells. However, if you have insulin resistance, your blood-sugar levels do not fall in response to insulin, and you may develop pre-diabetes or diabetes. A high-fat diet may lower your normal insulin resistance to a healthier level if you also reduce the amount of carbohydrates you eat.

Monounsaturated Fats

A high-fat diet should emphasize unsaturated fats to promote insulin sensitivity. Monounsaturated fatty acids may normalize your insulin levels and help regulate your blood sugar, according to the Mayo Clinic website. Good sources are avocados, olives, olive oil, peanuts, peanut oil, tree nuts, such as almonds, macadamias and cashews, seeds and canola oil. Although there is no minimum requirement, it may be healthy to get up to 25 percent of the total calories in a high-fat diet from monounsaturated fatty acids, according to the Harvard School of Public Health.

Other Fats

A high-fat diet for promoting insulin sensitivity limits saturated and trans fats, because they can increase your risk of diabetes, according to the Harvard School of Public Health. Saturated fat should provide no more than 7 percent of your total calories, or 15 g saturated fat per day on a 2,000-calorie diet. Avoid butter, fried foods and fatty meats and cheeses. Polyunsaturated fats are in nuts, canola oil and soybean, sunflower, safflower and corn oils, and they may be healthy when you eat them instead of saturated fats. Aim to get up to 10 percent of your total calories from polyunsaturated fatty acids on a high-fat diet.

Recommendations

Even if you only eat healthy fats, a high-fat diet can promote abnormal insulin resistance if it contains too many calories and causes weight gain, because obesity increases insulin resistance. Instead of avoiding carbohydrates, focus on healthy sources, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans. The recommendations for controlling your weight while getting the nutrients you need are to get 45 to 65 percent of your total calories from carbohydrates, 10 to 35 percent from protein and 25 to 35 percent from fat, according to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.