Rhonda Patrick· PhD
What your skin reveals about insulin resistance
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The headline is broadly defensible, but the qualifications matter. Effect sizes vary by population, the strongest claims rest on shorter trials, and credible voices push back on how it's typically framed.
What your skin reveals about insulin resistance
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the the skin is a window to the metabolic soul where if there are two things you can observe just on your skin and they're both generally going to be right around the neck. One of them is a a condition called aanthosis nigricans which is when around the little skin fold that most people have around their neck. The skin will get darker pigmented which can be harder to tell depending on the pigment of the person's skin. But what is obvious regardless of pigment is the kind of crinkled tissue paper texture of the skin. So the skin will be very sort of roughed like crinkled tissue paper. So that's echanthosis nigricans around the neck. And then the other one people know is called skin tags. And that is those little it's not like a rounded little mole but rather a distinct little kind of mushroom stock column of skin. People probably know what I'm talking about. You can see them around the neck. Sometimes you can see them around the armpits. But again, it's just a teeny little like a little mushroom stock almost of skin. Skin tags. Both of those are very very strong evidence of insulin resistance.
And the nice thing is as the insulin sensitivity improves, those problems go away just like everything else will.