More than 2.1 billion people, or close to 30 percent of the global population, are overweight or obese, and obesity is responsible for about five percent of all deaths each year, worldwide.¹ In the US, nearly one in five deaths is now associated with obesity.

That obesity factors into your mortality risk isn’t so surprising when you consider just how many chronic and serious disease it’s associated with.

In the US, just eight obesity-related diseases account for 75 percent of all healthcare costs! Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), dementia, and cancer are among them, but there are many others as well.

When you consider that two hallmarks of obesity are insulin/leptin resistance and chronic inflammation, you can begin to recognize that excess weight is fertile ground for a wide array of other ailments—many of which can cut your life significantly short.

The Links Between Obesity, Insulin Resistance, and Other Chronic Diseases

Previous research has shown that fat tissue secretes an inflammatory factor called CXCL5 that is linked to insulin resistance² and participates in the development of type 2 diabetes.³

When you’re insulin resistant, your cells have become seriously impaired in their ability to respond to the insulin your body makes. At the heart of this problem is a diet too high in sugar (especially processed fructose).

While you can be insulin resistant and lean, obesity places far greater stress on your cells, which makes insulin resistance more probable. Insulin resistance is at the core of nearly every chronic degenerative disease and is typically what needs to be addressed first to turn around any disease.

Research4 shows that chronic overeating places stress on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)—the membranous network found inside the mitochondria of your cells. And when the ER receives more nutrients than it can process, it signals the cell to dampen the sensitivity of the insulin receptors on the surface of the cell.