Research
Hormonal
Elevated plasma free fatty acids (FFA) and/or glycerol increase hepatic glucose output (HGO) by approximately 50%, contributing to hepatic insulin resistance.
High levels of fat in your blood can cause your liver to produce more glucose, even when you are trying to lower blood sugar. This happens because fat and its byproduct, glycerol, interfere with insulin's ability to stop the liver from making glucose. This contributes to higher blood sugar levels and insulin resistance.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In addition, FFA and/or glycerol increased insulin-suppressed hepatic glucose output by ~50%.
Why this rating
Controlled human clinical trial.
Source
Mechanisms of fatty acid-induced inhibition of glucose uptake.
G Boden et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1994
DOI 10.1172/jci117252
rct · n=14Cited 3,473×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Elevated plasma free fatty acid (FFA) concentrations cause a dose-dependent inhibition of insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in skeletal muscle, primarily by reducing glycogen synthesis and secondarily by reducing carbohydrate oxidation.Good
- High plasma FFA concentrations impair muscle glycogen synthase (GS) activity, but this impairment occurs late (after 4-6 hours) and is associated with increased glucose-6-phosphate levels.Good
- Medium plasma FFA concentrations reduce glycogen synthesis by impairing glucose transport or phosphorylation, leading to decreased glucose-6-phosphate levels, before glycogen synthase activity is affected.Good
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