The Role Insulin Plays in Obesity Perhaps you've been overweight
for a long time. Once there may have been a time when you could
drop pounds pretty easily, if you sharply cut your caloric
intake. You'd gain the weight back but, at least at the price of
hunger, you could shed it again. Then, although your weight
continued to yo-yo up and down, you began to notice that the yo-
yo went up easily, but getting it to fall down again got harder
and harder. Now you may be simply unable to drop pounds. If you
are at that stage, it means that you have a metabolic disorder
and insulin has closed the trap. Because you have been eating
too many refined carbohydrates, your pancreas (the organ that
secretes insulin) has become so efficient that just a touch of
blood sugar will release a flood of the hormone. Insulin is
needed to transport glucose (blood sugar) to your cells, where
it is either used for immediate energy, stored as a future
source of energy or stored as fat. Your body only requires so
much energy, so the highe