Several factors are related to the risk of hyperinsulinemia. They include:

• Type 2 diabetes. Patients with type 2 diabetes have a buildup of glucose (blood sugar) in their bloodstream because their cells are resistant to insulin. As levels of glucose rise, the pancreas tries to compensate by producing extra insulin. This results in a buildup of insulin in the bloodstream. Conversely, patients who have hyperinsulinemia but do not yet have diabetes are at increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes, especially those who have prediabetes.

• Metabolic syndrome. This cluster of conditions may include abdominal obesity, unhealthy levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, high blood pressure, prediabetes and insulin resistance.
  
  
• Pregnancy. Diabetic women and their infants are at increased risk for hyperinsulinemia. In transient hyperinsulinemia, newborns have abnormally low glucose, usually because the mother’s diabetes was not under control during pregnancy. This form of hyperinsulinemia usually resolves after a few days of intravenous drip-feeding of glucose.
  
  
• Genetics. Some forms of infantile hyperinsulinemia, notably persistent hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia of infancy, appear to have genetic roots. Recent research implicates mutations in an enzyme called glutamate dehydrogenase.
  

• Lipatrophic diabetes. A rare form of type 2 diabetes that is characterized by a lack of subcutaneous (underneath the skin) fat, and hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia.
  
  
• Insulinoma. A tumor of the beta cells, the insulin-secreting cells of the pancreas. Such tumors cause the pancreas to produce excessive amounts of insulin, leading to hyperinsulinemia.
  
  
• Lawrence-Seip syndrome. A disorder that includes a skin condition called acanthosis nigricans, an absence of subcutaneous fat, muscle hypertrophy (abnormal increase in size), hyperlipidemia (excess of fats in the blood), diabetes and hepatosplenomegaly (an enlargement of the liver and the spleen). Hyperinsulinemia is a characteristic of this syndrome.