[Insulin resistance: related clinical syndromes]

The authors, after having defined and listed the pathogenetic mechanisms of insulin resistance, describe the main, more or less frequent, syndromes with accompany this condition, classified on the basis of the prevalent etiology (dismetabolic, disendocrine, genetic, mixed), identifying of each one, when possible, the modes of determining the same insulin resistance. The more frequent diseases, whose common feature is the insulin resistance (obesity, non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, acanthosis nigricans, polycystic ovarian syndrome) are particularly considered on the basis of recent literature and of personal data.