What You Need to Know About Sugar and Insulin

In the last week or so I have had several conversations about sugar metabolism and diabetes, both which hinge on the action of insulin. So, what exactly is insulin? Lets take a look at this molecule and why you want to keep your insulin levels low and cells highly responsive.

Here is a good explanation on insulin by Dr. Ron Rosedale:

We come from a time of feast and famine when if we couldn't store the excess energy during times of feasting, we would not be here because all of our ancestors encountered famine. We are here because our ancestors were able to store nutrients, which they were able to do because they were able to elevate their insulin (which is a hormone) in response to any elevation in energy that the organism encountered.
When your body notices that sugar is elevated, it is a sign that you've got more than you need; you're not burning it so it is accumulating in your blood. So insulin will be released to take that sugar and store it. How does it store it? Glycogen.
Your body stores very little glycogen at any one time. All the glycogen stored in your liver and muscle wouldn't last you through one active day. Once you fill up your glycogen stores that sugar is stored as saturated fat, 98 percent of which is palmitic acid.
So the idea of the medical profession recommending a high complex-carbohydrate, low-saturated-fat diet is an absolute oxymoron. A high-complex-carbohydrate diet is nothing but a high-glucose diet, or a high-sugar diet. Your body is just going to store it as saturated fat, and the body makes it into saturated fat quite readily. (click here for full article)

Yikes... High insulin levels also negatively effect magnesium absorption by the cells, which in turn causes blood vessels to constrict, which raises blood pressure... It also causes sodium retention and is a powerful stimulator of the sympathetic nervous system. Not at all good for the heart. In fact, studies have shown that those already prone to have a heart attack are mostly to suffer one after having a high-carbohydrate meal. Elevated insulin levels are closely correlated with high triglycerides (excess sugar is also metabolized into cholesterol and triglycerides in the liver). Not good. Have you noticed that people with diabetes suffer from more illness? One possible reason is that vitamin C and glucose (sugar) are shaped very similar and use the same receptors to enter the cell. When there is too much glucose in the bloodstream, vitamin C gets crowded out. And if you are taking calcium for strong bones and have high insulin levels? You literally flush it down the toilet. And some may even end up in your arteries. You can obviously see where this is going: poor health and rapid aging. Ugh.

A lot of attention has been given lately to insulin resistance (or syndrome X, metabolic syndrome...). So what is it? The way it helps me to understand it is with the following analogy:

Say you go to a concert where they play REALLY loud music. At first it is so loud that you cover your ears, but over time you become accustomed to it. After you leave the concert, you talk quite loud because your hearing has been affected. But, over time, you hear normally. But, let's say you go to this very loud concert every night. Over time, your hearing becomes permanently affected and now you must wear a hearing aid... The loud music is like sugar and insulin, blasting into your bloodstream. Under a normal response, your cells respond to the insulin. But, over time, just like being at a loud concert every night would eventually damage your hearing, your cells lose some of their ability to "hear" insulin because of the continuous assault of all that excess sugar. Result: insulin resistance - and all this can lead up to diabetes, where the pancreas can not live up to the insulin demand and begins to malfunction... and all kinds of bad things can happen.

And, countless studies have proven the fact that sugar feeds cancer. (link for excellent article on sugar and cancer) And remember the discussion on beneficial bacteria (see previous post)? Well sugar feeds bacteria - the BAD bacteria. And that bad bacteria can cause leaky gut syndome, allowing undigested food particles and toxins into your blood, causing a major immune response and all sorts of inflammation. (New research shows that inflammation is a major cause of obesity.)

You see, it is super important that your cells remain responsive to insulin, so that your poor pancreas does not have to continue shelling out truck loads of the stuff.

Bottom line: The best way to keep your cells responsive to insulin is to keep your sugar intake low. Even whole grains metabolize into sugar, so try to limit these and get your nutrients from veggies. (Plus, lots of people are allergic to wheat - or to the protein in wheat called gluten - and may not even know it, but we will save that one for another time.) If you are going to eat a carbohydrate, try to combine it with a protein and/or a fat to lessen the glycemic load (measurement of how quickly sugar hits the bloodstream) of the meal (more on that later as well). This is tough stuff, I know. (Trust me, I am definitely talking to myself as well. ) Research shows that sugar can be even more addictive than heroin and goes through the same "addiction pathways." But cutting sugar has so many benefits, such as slowing down the aging process and disease, that it outweighs having large amounts of it in your diet. After cutting sugar for a while, you will notice that your cravings will subside, and your overall health will improve.

We want to be around to fulfill our ultimate purpose in life, right? God gave us these magnificent bodies. Let's take care of them - and a great way is to cut sugar. :) Anybody out there up for taking a challange to eliminate it for 3 weeks? Starting next week that is what I am going to do (I figured this week is a bust with Valentine's). I would love to hear from you!!!! Leave me a comment if you are up to it, and we will conquer sugar together! :)

Tomorrow we will cover the good fat that we all desperately need. And this type of fat can help keep the mind sharp, the heart in great shape and body thin. Stay tuned!