Ep. 40 Can puberty cause insulin resistance?

Are the weight loss struggles of your teen linked to something deeper than diet and exercise? I  explore the complex relationship between insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, abnormal lipid profiles, and how these factors compound the difficulty of achieving a healthy weight during puberty's hormonal turbulence.

This episode also brings to light a pivotal study: 
Bergström E, Hernell O, Persson LA, Vessby B. Insulin resistance syndrome in adolescents. Metabolism. 1996 Jul;45(7):908-14. doi: 10.1016/s0026-0495(96)90168-7. PMID: 8692030.

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders

Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens
podcast.
If you're a mom and want tohelp your child who is
struggling to lose weight, youare in the right place.
If you are looking for healthylifestyle tips, dr Gorgery is
here to help you understand thescience around safe weight loss
in teens and children, becausewhat works for adult weight loss
is not always the best forchildren.

(00:29):
This podcast is for educationalpurposes only.
Dr Gorgory does not providemedical, psychological or
nutrition therapy advice.
You should not use thisinformation to diagnose or treat
any health problems withoutconsulting your own medical
practitioner and now your host,dr Jenny Gorgory.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle
and Weight Loss for Teenspodcast.
This is Dr Jenny Gorgory and ontoday's episode I wanted to
talk a little bit about insulinresistance in teenagers.
Now, insulin resistance is thefirst red flag that happens

(01:15):
before prediabetes develops,that can lead to diabetes.
Insulin resistance is also thefirst sign that can affect the
metabolic syndrome.
It is linked to abnormal lipidprofile.
It can lead to more difficultyto get to a healthier weight

(01:36):
because your body cannot processthe sugar easily the same way
that it can process it if youdon't have insulin resistance.
Now one of the main drivers ofinsulin resistance is to have
unhealthy weight.
Now teenagers have a particularextra reason and that is the

(02:01):
puberty and the growth thathappens during teenage years and
that can make puberty and thegrowth that happens during
teenage years and that can makeinsulin resistance even worse.
There was a great study that waspublished several years ago.
It was done in Sweden.
Actually, the actual title ofthis manuscript is Insulin
Resistance Syndrome inAdolescents and it was published

(02:23):
in the Journal of Metabolism inJuly of 1996.
So what the researchers did?
They actually did bloodmeasurements.
They took the height, they tookthe weight.
They also looked at the bodymass index, which is a
measurement how unhealthy is acertain weight?

(02:44):
If you don't know what BMI is,I invite you to go and listen to
episode one of this podcast.
But basically they collectedall these measurements of all
these different hormones inteenagers and they also looked
at their puberty hormones andthey wanted to see when is
insulin resistance that can makeit harder to lose weight in

(03:07):
teenagers?
When does it actually start toincrease?
So they gathered data from manyteenagers.
There were a total of 462 boysand 380 girls.
There were two different groupsof teenagers.
Girls there were two differentgroups of teenagers.
One group was a group of 14years old and the other group

(03:30):
was a group of 17 years old, andresearchers went and checked
their puberty.
They checked their insulin,they checked their bad
cholesterol, they checked thegood cholesterol and they did
measurements of their puberty.
At the same time that they didmeasurements of their insulin

(03:50):
resistance, they also didmeasurements of their waist
circumference to look at theirbelly fat.
They also look at the fat attheir arms and they also
calculated what is their bodymass index and what they found
was that the insulin resistancewas higher in the group of

(04:13):
teenagers, that they were 14years of age, compared to the
group of 17-year-old teenagersthat had already been done with
their puberty, which of coursethat makes sense, because the
spikes of growth hormone, whichis responsible for growth in

(04:35):
teenagers, are higher in theyounger groups compared to the
older group that they are donegrowing.
And what the researchers alsofound was that there was a
direct and clear associationbetween the amount of insulin
resistance that teenagers hadwhile they were growing with

(04:56):
their bad cholesterol and alsowith their body mass index.
So the higher the body massindex, the higher the insulin
resistance.
And they also find anassociation of the insulin
resistance with the unhealthylipids, which again is not a

(05:17):
surprise, because we know thatinsulin resistance is what can
lead to diabetes and unhealthycardiovascular profile and a
higher risk to get strokes andheart attacks compared to people
that don't have insulinresistance.
So when they looked also at theassociation between the belly

(05:41):
fat and the body mass index,they found no extra information
that they could gather from thefat position the waist to hip
ratio, as we call it compared tothe body mass index, which
tells us that both measurementsmeasuring the belly fat or
measuring the BMI is actuallygiving you very good information

(06:04):
about the insulin resistance.
Now, what is the key point inthis?
The key point is that whenteenagers go through puberty,
they have an extra reason tohave insulin resistance, and
that is because they are growingand that is because they are

(06:27):
having the puberty hormones, andthat can make it more difficult
for them to get to a healthierweight if they are not following
a healthier lifestyle ahealthier lifestyle compared to,

(06:47):
let's say, younger kids thatare five or seven years of age
that don't still have pubertyand therefore they don't have
this big insulin resistance.
Now, what can teenagers do toimprove their insulin resistance
?
It's not that there's nothingthat they can do about it,
because there are healthy waysthat they can follow to improve

(07:11):
their insulin resistance, and mygoal during this podcast is to
talk about all these differenthealthy lifestyle modifications
and ways to do them, likehealthier adding more exercise
in your daily routine.
That can help improve insulinresistance that is associated

(07:34):
with puberty.
Another thing that you can dois that you can try to eat more
fruits and vegetables that havemore fiber and they're more
natural carbohydrates.
That can improve the insulinresistance compared to having
refined carbohydrates that leadto higher insulin spikes.

(07:56):
And there are also other waysthat I'm not going to go into
details during this episode.
But what I wanted to point outis that we know that we all need
to do our best to eat healthier, do our best to exercise, but
it is particularly moreimportant to do so when

(08:16):
teenagers go through the biggrowth spurt and the big puberty
changes because there is moreinsulin resistance.
That happens during that timeand of course that comes with
also the benefit that teenagershave when they're growing that
as they become taller, justkeeping the same weight can lead

(08:41):
to a better body mass index.
And again, you can go toepisode one and figure out what
is the healthy weight for aparticular teenager that is a
certain age and has a certainheight, because there's not the
same weight.
It's not the same good healthyweight for everyone.
Kids have different normalweight according to their height

(09:02):
weight and according to whetherthey're boys or girls.
So you can go to Epson Run tolisten more about it.
But it is also a good thing thatteenagers are growing because,
as I said, they can keep thesame weight and get into a
healthier body mass index justby growing taller and if they

(09:25):
can combine both of those things, meaning they can have
healthier habits that give themless insulin increase, less
insulin resistance, that canimprove their efforts to get to
a healthier weight.
If they are only just growingtaller but they're not making

(09:46):
any changes in the way that theyare eating or in their way
they're exercising, or in theiramount of fiber they're eating,
or in like how much sleepthey're getting, or in like how
they're managing stress and allthose other things Like if
they're only getting tallerwithout addressing, by healthy

(10:08):
habits, what they can do toimprove the increased insulin
resistance that comes withincreased growth, then they are
less likely to get to ahealthier weight or it's going
to be more difficult for thembecause they are fighting
against the pubertal hormones.
So my take-home message is goalong with your puberty hormones

(10:31):
, use them to your advantage.
You're still growing, you canget into a healthier weight, and
even if you're done growing,then that's also good.
That means your insulinresistance is not as bad as when
it was, when you were stillgrowing.
However, now it can also bemore difficult to get to a

(10:54):
healthier weight, because ifyou're not growing anymore, then
you actually need to loseweight to get to a healthier
weight.
So I hope this was helpful foryou all, and my question to you
and my action step for the dayis to choose one thing that you

(11:16):
can do to improve your insulinresistance today, whether that
would be going for a walk, goingfor a run, go and play
basketball or tennis some kindform of physical activity,
whether it is you're choosingmore fiber in your diet or more
natural carbohydrates, orwhether you're choosing to cut

(11:39):
back on those unhealthy snacks.
Just think about one littlechange that you can do to get to
a healthier weight.
If you are a teenager, or ifyou're a parent of a teenager,
then you can have thatconversation with your teenager
about the implications ofpuberty on insulin resistance

(11:59):
and little ways and little stepsthat they can do to get to a
healthier weight by gettingbetter at their insulin
resistance of puberty.
That's all I had for today.
I'll talk to you again nextweek.
I hope you have a wonderful day.
Take care Bye.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, I
invite you to come check out thelift program.
It's Dr Gregory's 12 weekcoaching program for teens and
their moms, where we take allthis information, we apply it to
your daily life and we worktogether so your teenager learns
how to create a healthylifestyle so they can feel
happier, more confident, lessstressed and love their body

(12:37):
again.
Visit the website atlifestyleforteenscom and click
on the work with me and freeresources to learn more about
this program and get free helpto start this journey right away
.
Thanks for tuning in and we'llcatch you in the next episode of
Lifestyle and Weight Loss forTeens.