If you haven’t heard the current diabetes statistics, prepared to be shocked. The other day while doing research on how to prevent and reverse insulin resistance, the piece I’m writing for you now, I came across a 2004 study that predicted the 2010 world statistics for diabetes. It’s amazing how much we exceeded their expectations.
Here’s what they said:
The number of people diagnosed with diabetes is growing rapidly worldwide and has reached epidemic status. As of 2002, the estimated number of individuals with diabetes is 151 million; this number is expected to rise to 221 million by the year 2010 and to 300 million by the year 2025.
Again–this article was written in 2004. Boy were they off.
Double that projected figure for 2010 to the 422 million diagnosed with diabetes in 2014.
Why are cases of diabetes worldwide nearly doubling in number every 20 years? What does this alarming figure tell us?
Well, it has to tell us we’re not eating right, doesn’t it? It has to tell us that the majority of us aren’t making enough effort to be healthy humans.
If everyone were getting so “healthy,” these rates would be going down.
By 2040, 642 million will have the disease and, as, The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) adds, and “1 in 3 people will be diagnosed with diabetes by 2050.”
1 in 3.
That’s a frightening speculation, isn’t it?
Can we change this?
If we start eating right, watching for hidden sugars, limiting our food intake, cutting out all junk food, and getting more nutrient dense food into the diet, and GET moving, active, and muscular (to burn that adipose tissue off the body!)—can we change this alarming doubling trend in new diagnoses of diabetes?
I hope so!
So, today, I want to talk all about how to not get diabetes.
I want to talk about how all of us can avoid the whole domino effect that beings with not eating right and not exercising enough.
Not eating right starts the whole cascade of it doesn’t it?
Not eating right, eating too much, and not exercising enough to overcome all this toxic negative “energy in” leads to becoming overweight, out of shape, obesity, and/or insulin resistance.
Once you get to insulin resistance, you’re in trouble because it won’t take long, if this domino effect is allowed to continue, before it develops into prediabetes, then diabetes, and then a number of other conditions if one does not take magisterial care of themselves (and even still then) such as kidney disease and failure, blindness, cardiovascular disease and others.
First, I want to give you better understanding of insulin. You have to know the enemy to fight the enemy. But is insulin really our enemy? Or is it . . . us?
Insulin: The Janus-Faced Hormone
Although heavily demonized by weight loss “gurus” about the web, we cannot live without insulin, folks.
Everyone is always talking about how we need to “suppress insulin” “suppress insulin”—as if it’s a protestor outside the White House – or a toxic invader in the body wreaking all kinds of disastrous effects.
But we release insulin every single time we eat, folks. Not just when we eat sugar. Insulin helps us absorb all our nutrients at a cellular level and regulates blood sugar, when the body allows it to – or should I say, when the body is healthy enough to allow it to.
The role insulin plays in the body is crucial and far reaching. It’s everywhere, doing everything for us. It even helps us with spatial learning and long term memory.
Besides giving us energy and helping to keep the blood sugar stable, insulin aids in protein synthesis, increases DNA replication, helps us to absorb nutrients, like potassium and fatty acids, into our cells, helps us excrete sodium into the urine, increases our amino acid uptake, forces our arterial wall muscles to relax to aid in blood flow, and aids in the excretion of hydrochloric acid, which is crucial for nutrient absorption in the stomach. For an excellent article on the history and discovery of insulin and a detailed account of insulin’s full role in physiology (which also addressed IR), see this excellent article by Gisela Wilcox published in The Clinical Biochemist.
Insulin is also crucial for breaking down food into basic nutrients which flow into the blood and the cells, nourinshing all of our organs and systems.
Insulin and Glucagon: A Delicate Balancing Act
Understanding Insulin, Glucose, and Energy
Every living thing on earth loves glucose for energy. Plants, humans, cats, dogs, all the animals. Cats get diabetes, too. And sometimes they need insulin injections to manage their blood sugar.
The whole photosynthesis process in plants is an effort to create glucose, for example. Light energy from the sun plus carbon dioxide (CO2) and H20 and you have glucose (C6H12O6).
While plants need sun, water, and air, we need all of these elements plus food (including the plants).
What you may not know about food and insulin is that our relationship with food is complex when it comes to insulin. We release insulin not just when we ingest carbs but when we ingest anything because we strive to turn every single thing we eat into glucose through different enzymatic processes—all of which are about GLUCOSE. We LOVE GLUCOSE. We LOVE energy.
Carbs = sugars = converted into glucose
Proteins = amino acids = glucose (this process is called gluconeogenesis)
Fats = Glycerol= glucose via gluconeogenesis
Fatty acids = Acetyl CoA = glucose by beta oxidation
So we try to convert everything we eat into glucose for energy to grow and thrive, just like plants.Everything wants to thrive. It’s our most basic evolutionary mechanism. They body wants to stay alive.It also wants energy for all the things we have to do. We just don’t do enough with our glucose like our ancestors did and this is part of the problem. We sit down and binge watch The Walking Dead or Homeland (love it myself). But binge watching, folks, without getting up for walks, situps, pullups, basic resistance training, might be the new cause of rising rates of diabestey, as Kresser calls it. (Another good thing to do is to walk at least fifteen minutes after your midday and evening meals—heck, a short walk after all meals won’t hurt you).
By the way, I’m getting all of this information from three great physiology books that are informing my discussion here, and I highly recommend them all if you’re a health geek: Guyton and Hall’s Textbook of Physiology, Keith Freyn’s Metabolism: A Human Perspective, and Costanzo’s Physiology.
Onward and Forward . . .
No matter what we eat, our bodies wants that glucose to enter our blood and go to the tissues that need it.
When we don’t get enough glucose, we end up with hypoglycemia—a lack of energy and ATP because not enough glucose is getting into our cells, tissues, etcetera. This is why people with hypoglycemia feel tired, faint, groggy, grouchy . . . they don’t have enough glucose to power their bodies and brains.
You’d think we’d want a lot of glucose then— because we all want a lot of energy. But we don’t want hyperglycemia either. Hyperglycemia, high blood sugar, leads to death – diabetes, insulin resistance, as well.
So our bodies work very hard to maintain our blood glucose levels between 3.6 and 5.8 mM (mmols/liter).
Insulin and Glucagon: A Delicate Balancing Act, If We’re Healthy
Insulin is secreted by the beta cells of the pancreas when your blood sugar levels are high. So, following a meal that contains mostly sugar, fructose, high level complex carbohydrates, and too much lean protein (high amounts of lean protein past 6 ounces will spike insulin too), your blood sugar level may skyrocket well past the desired level of 110 mg/dl.
This will result in excess glucose flooding to the fat cells and muscle tissues.
Glucagon is secreted by the alpha cells of the pancreas when blood sugar is low.
This is that process we are striving for with Intermittent Fasting (IF). We’re striving to dip into those glucagon releasing periods between feedings, sleeping, and abstaining from foods (glucagon is released when we exercise, too).
Glucagon causes the liver to release stored energy – glucose from fat cells into circulation.
As Howard Glicksman explains quite well,
Several hours after a meal, the blood glucose falls as the body takes glucose out of the blood and uses it for its energy needs without new supplies coming in through the gastrointestinal system. As I noted, the alpha cells react to this drop in blood glucose by sending out more glucagon. Glucagon travels in the blood where it locks onto specific receptors on target cells, mainly in the liver, and tells them to release the glucose from within glycogen and other forms of stored energy. In general, glucagon is a catabolic hormone, which promotes the breakdown of more complex molecules into simpler ones. Not only does glucagon cause glucose to be released from the glycogen stores, it also tells cells to break down certain proteins and fats into glucose and ketones, so the brain can be use them for energy. In other words, glucagon tells the body “We haven’t been fed for a while. Release the energy we stored up before.”
Once again, you can see that insulin and glucagon order the liver and other cells to do things that are opposed to each other. Insulin tells the body when it is fed and must take glucose out of the blood and store it in the liver and fat cells for later use. Glucagon tells the body when it is in starvation mode and must release glucose and other chemicals from the liver and fat cells into the blood so the brain will have enough energy.
Keeping our glucose/blood sugar levels in a healthy balance, then, will hep you to release more stored fat and promote less storage of excess glucose in the fat stores. In other words, eating abstemiously is key to stay lean.
Abstemious, in fact, is a good word for how we need to eat to avoid insulin resistance and diabetes, because it means, literally “not being indulgent, especially in what we eat and drink.”
To optimize fat reduction, it all gets back to what we’ve had pounded into our heads for years: eat properly and exercise sensibly. However, closer attention to the diet component to maintain an optimal blood sugar level can facilitate more fat burning throughout your day.”
The Insulin Release Process: It Happens When We’re Not Eating Too!
Whenever we ingest food (and often just in anticipation of it, as I will address in a moment), our bodies have to quickly adjust to the sudden flood of glucose entering our systems as our meals are digested.
Insulin is released to prevent us from going into a hyperglycemic state when we eat. Our bodies release insulin right before and during eating, and that insulin tells our bodies to start taking glucose out of the blood to lower our blood glucose levels to a normal, healthy level.
The way our body removes insulin from the blood is one of two ways:
Without insulin, we would all become hyperglycemic eating a salad.
It’s our blood sugar checker. It keeps us at homeostasis.
Think of insulin as our homeostasis hormone. When we’ve repected it is.
Once it gets out of whack through too much constant spiking of insulin, we have FISSION.
If you want a good analogy, I like to compare our pancreas to the nearby adrenal glands. After awhile, they simply become exhausted if we demand too much from them.
Why We’re Becoming Insulin Resistant: Dynamics of Insulin Need to Knows
Once we eat, we release insulin. In fact, we store insulin in the pancreas—specifically in the Beta cells within islets of Langerhans within the pancreas.
Here’s where part of the problem lies, I think, with insulin resistance. One writer, Christie Wilcox, writing for a new resource I highly respect called Nutrition Wonderland notes,
While insulin levels are mostly regulated by the amount of glucose in our blood, other things can stimulate its release. Other molecules from digestion, like certain amino acids, proteins and lipids, can similarly stimulate insulin release. But most incredibly, our bodies begin releasing insulin before we even take a single bite of food. When we think about, smell, or slightly taste foods, our brains trigger what is called Cephalic Phase Insulin Release. A food’s color, appearance, flavor, aroma, and texture can all impact how our brains respond to the idea of eating it. The goal is to prepare the body for what the brain thinks will be a sudden flood of glucose. The sweeter and sugarier the brain thinks the meal will be, the more insulin it stimulates the pancreas to release before the food even enters the mouth.
So, what happens if we’re expecting yummy but bad-for-us foods all the time? What happens if we’re an obsessed-with-food comfort eater? Food for thought . . .
Another reason we’re becoming insulin resistant:
Okay so when we eat, our Beta cells release stored insulin in an effort to keep blood sugar levels stable so we don’t go into hyperglycemia. This is called the first phase of insulin release and one reason why we want to watch our sugar and refined carb intake is our body releases glucose based upon how much insulin release was required for the meal before it.
But our body releases insulin at a slow level when we are not eating as well. As researchers for
Diabetes Education Online explain in their article “Insulin Basics”:
Insulin is continuously released from the pancreas into the blood stream. Although the insulin is quickly destroyed (5-6 minutes) the effect on cells may last 1-1/2 hours. When your body needs more insulin, the blood levels quickly rise, and, the converse – when you need less, the blood levels rapidly fall —
At mealtime, a little insulin is released even as you are first smelling or chewing the food. This gets your body ready to receive the sugar load from the meal. Then as you eat and the food is digested, the sugar levels rise which causes a surge of insulin. The insulin levels rapidly climb and peak in about 45 minutes to 1 hour before falling back to the background or basal levels.
So, as we begin to smell and chew our food we release a first amount of insulin. Then, as Wilcox adds,The β-cells then take a quick pause. If the first pulse was enough, then they slowly take up the insulin they released, and store it for the next meal. If the blood glucose levels stay high, though, the β-cells begin producing and releasing insulin in pulses every ten to twenty minutes. They continue this until the body’s blood glucose gets back to normal levels. The blood sugar rise caused by the meal peaks about half an hour after eating, and this, in turn, leads to a decrease in insulin production and release.
However—and here you have another key to insulin resistance . . . stress can also lead to high blood sugar. Why? Well, just in case we have to run from a tiger, when the body is stressed physically, emotionally, or mentally, the body stops releasing insulin, leaving your blood sugar/glucose levels in the blood high on purpose. You’ll need that sugar to flee from enemies, right?
Can you see how we’re all becoming insulin resistant?
So, let’s pause and reassess this information. We release insulin in anticipation of food. We release more insulin in anticipation of sugary foods and we release insulin based upon the meal we consumed before the next one. We stop releasing insulin when we’re stressed, leaving blood sugar levels high. We’re constantly ingesting hidden sugars, we’re constantly snacking, we are not exercising to keep blood sugar levels in check and create sugar-burning, calorie-burning muscle (which also helps reverse IR).
Can you see how we’re all becoming insulin resistance and diabetic then?
Insulin: Our Loyal Friend, Until We Betray It
So insulin can also be our enemy. It’s not a loyal friend unless we respect its power.
Insulin resistance is the chief cause of acquired diabetes worldwide.
So, the problem occurs when we spike insulin so much that insulin resistance happens. Although the causes of insulin resistance are not fully understood, surely our constant snacking, over-ingestion of trans fats, and lack of exercise are much to blame. The typical “couch potato, Cheetos, litres of cola, you name it, plus binge watching regulation sitcoms” that we all need to avoid more.
Well, we all need to avoid like the plague, actually. Because guys, this is no joke.
We have to be vigilant about this fight.
Diabetes is a major epidemic and some of the factors that are contributing to our skyrocketing rates of diabetes might be factors we cannot control—such as the toxins in our environment.
See my article “You Really Are What You Eat” for more on this here.
Since we can only control the toxins we are exposed to in the environment to a relative degree and stay healthy . . . we desperately need to control the factors we can: diet and exercise.
Let me say that one more time: We DESPERATELY need to control ALL the factors we can to avoid diabetes. We’ll discuss this more in part 2.
We have to be vigilant to avoid the insulin resistance domino effect.
Insulin resistance is the first of only one or two small steps it takes to get to full blown diabetes. Diabetes, of course, then leads to a breakdown of all the most important systems from the kidneys to the heart. Sure, people live with diabetes. But it is a constant fight to stay alive and not progress into much deadlier diseases once you have it.
Our fight not to get it needs to be just as vigilant. In fact, in my own life, I attack this mission not to get diabetes as if that monster is just around the corner unless I am vigilant in my fight to prevent it. Because if one in three people will have diabetes in 30 years, we have a problem, ladies and gentlemen. And you have to keep in mind that out of those 422 million currently with diabetes, some 8.1 million are yet undiagnosed.
So the hormone insulin is what I call the Janus-faced hormone. Deadly, powerful, and pervasive. Something to be both feared and respected.
Today, we’re going to gain a fuller understanding of insulin’s complex role in the body and how insulin resistance happens, why we need to prevent it, how we can prevent it, and how we can reverse it through supplements, good behaviors, and eating strategies.
Glossary
| Term | Definition |
| glucose | sugar that travels through your blood to fuel your cells |
| insulin | a hormone that tells your cells either to take glucose from your blood for energy or to store it for later use |
| glycogen | a substance made from glucose that’s stored in your liver and muscle cells to be used later for energy |
| glucagon | a hormone that tells cells in your liver and muscles to convert glycogen into glucose and release it into your blood so your cells can use it for energy |
| pancreas | an organ in your abdomen that makes and releases insulin and glucagon |
What is Insulin, Anyway?
Insulin is a hormone. Hormones themselves are complex figures in the body, which play vital and still somewhat mysterious roles in our fates. Just look at the whole debate on HPA Axis dysfunction versus adrenal fatigue and you’ll see we’re still learning. We still don’t fully understand cortisol’s far reaching effects upon the body either.
Insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas. In fact, the pancreas’ sole functions in the body are to provide pancreatic enzymes to help us digest food and to release hormones to help regulate metabolism. I got the below from EndocrineWeb, a good resource for developing a good understanding of insulin, the pancrease, prediabetes, etcetera.
As Robert Sargis, M.D., notes
The pancreas is unique in that it’s both an endocrine and exocrine gland. In other words, the pancreas has the dual function of secreting hormones into blood (endocrine) and secreting enzymes through ducts (exocrine). The pancreas belongs to the endocrine and digestive systems—with most of its cells (more than 90%) working on the digestive side. However, the pancreas performs the vital duty of producing hormones—most notably insulin—to maintain the balance of blood glucose (sugar) and salt in the body.
There are five hormones the pancreas produces:
Gastrin: This hormone aids digestion by stimulating certain cells in the stomach to produce acid.
Glucagon: Glucagon helps insulin maintain normal blood glucose by working in the opposite way of insulin. It stimulates your cells to release glucose, and this raises your blood glucose levels.
Insulin: This hormone regulates blood glucose by allowing many of your body’s cells to absorb and use glucose. In turn, this drops blood glucose levels.
Somatostatin: When levels of other pancreatic hormones, such as insulin and glucagon, get too high, somatostatin is secreted to maintain balance of glucose/salts.
Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP): This hormone helps control water secretion and absorption from the intestines.
Insulin’s Role in the Body
Insulin’s job is a very important one: when you eat food, it’s broken down into basic nutrients. Insulin breaks down fats into fatty acids, protein into amino acids, and carbs into glucose.
Insulin is like a messenger-hormone. It “signals” or “instructs” our cells to open up when we eat and absorb nutrients.
It basically says to the cell “Hey! Open up already! Here’s those nutrients this guy just ate for you!”
So, whenever you eat food, your pancreas releases insulin into the blood. Insulin/glucose then “ushers” nutrients into cells such as amino acids, fatty acids, and/or glucose. But it doesn’t just “usher” them in or “bid” them to go into the cell—insulin accompanies those nutrients into the cells.
In other words, when the cells stop listening to insulin, the nutrients are lost with them.
When cells are insulin sensitive—normal—nutrients + insulin will be slowly absorbed into the cells, so insulin levels in the blood drop, until finally all the nutrients are absorbed.
At that point, insulin levels then remain steady at a low, normal level. Your blood sugar will test normal.
This cycle occurs every time we eat anything—not just carbs. (There are some foods, like cream cheese and water, which don’t release insulin at all, btw).
Once the job is done, insulin levels drop to “normal” and the pancreas waits for us to eat food again and repeat the process.
Why Is Insulin the Bad Guy Then?
Well, insulin is not really the bad guy. We are. We eat too much food in general, spiking insulin all the time. So we are bad for spiking it. It is not something “toxic” to the body. We are just making our bodies toxic by overfeeding them.
See, sugar isn’t the only thing that spikes insulin. Everything does. Including a nice, broiled lean protein, like chicken.
Insulin is portrayed as the bad guy because it is also a fat storage hormone. It’s our ancient “energy store” in case of famine.
If we were under siege or starving and hiding out from a big predator, as our ancestors often had to, we would need “stores’” of energy to live off of. And our body has a built in kind of “in case of fire” mechanism with insulin.
As Heath Easton explains in his book Overcoming Insulin Resistance
Prehistoric humans didn’t need insulin spikes too often, but when we did, it allowed us to use that high quality energy and also allowed us to store the excess as fat and liver stores of glycogen. So, when we found a berry patch during the stone age it was not inherently unhealthy to eat only berries for the whole day because chances were that we were not going to find such a berry bush for a while, perhaps for the whole winter – frequent periods of fasting and starvation were part of the nature of life for our ancestors. Problems start when we find that “berry patch” every day, and we never go through periods of real physiological starvation. What was designed as a quick response system to the occasional sugar rush became used several times a day.
Insulin’s role in fat storage is one for our own self-preservation. But when we overeat, of course, the amount of insulin shuttled to fat instead of cells will of course, be stored as fat.
So, to sum this up, insulin is an ancient signaling hormone. As Stephen Guyunet, one of the best authorities on insulin resistance explains, “Its main role is to manage circulating concentrations of nutrients (principally glucose and fatty acids, the body’s two main fuels), keeping them within a fairly narrow range . . . by encouraging the transport of nutrients into cells from the circulation, and discouraging the export of nutrients out of storage sites, in response to an increase in circulating nutrients (glucose or fatty acids).”
Good and good.
Insulin Sensitivity
Here’s what insulin does when a normal person, without insulin resistance, eats:
As the National Institute of Diabetes explains,
When blood glucose levels rise after a meal, the pancreas releases insulin into the blood. Insulin and glucose then travel in the blood to cells throughout the body.
So, Just What is Insulin Resistance?
In insulin resistance, the cells won’t let insulin, glucose, and whatever nutrients accompany it into the cells as it normally would.
So the body reacts by sending more insulin just in case that insulin got lost along its way somehow.
It sends more insulin to the rescue thinking your cells need more messengers—more insulin messengers to get these cells to open up and absorb glucose for your energy.
The body keeps releasing insulin, in an effort to make the cell accept the glucose, nutrients, and insulin into the cells.
So the beta cells of the pancreas are desperately manufacturing insulin, trying to keep up with this increased demand. As long as the pancreas can keep up—to manufacture enough insulin to overcome “resistance to it” our glucose stays stable. We remain in a state of homeostasis.
But eventually it cannot.
Over time, insulin resistance can lead to type 2 diabetes and prediabetes because the beta cells fail to keep up with the body’s increased need for insulin. Without enough insulin, excess glucose builds up in the bloodstream, leading to constant high blood sugar, diabetes, prediabetes, and other serious health disorders.
The domino effect.
Insulin Resistance: Is It Simple Overeating?
Insulin resistance is being researched like crazy right now. All kinds of theories are being tested to explain why and how diabetes is so rampantly progressing in a world somewhat obsessed with getting healthier.
What we know is that we are either overfeeding the body, overstimulating the body with too many foods with hidden sugars
As Stephen Guyunet explains, “Insulin resistance is how the cell says “stop sending me more energy– I have too much already!” It is a deliberate response to mitigate the negative effects of cellular energy excess.”
So if cellular energy excess causes insulin resistance, what causes cellular energy excess?
Consuming energy (food) in excess of what the body can constructively use.
As Guyunet adds,
“In summary, a variety of lines of evidence suggest that insulin resistance, in large part, is a cellular defense mechanism against energy excess. Cellular energy excess is caused primarily by the chronic consumption of energy in excess of what is expended. Fat tissue can mop up the excess energy for a while, but if the excess is chronic and fat tissue enlarges (particularly abdominal fat), other tissues will be exposed to progressively more energy (fatty acids and glucose), and cells will act to protect themselves by reducing insulin sensitivity.”
So, we’re eating too much. That’s obvious. Whether it is sugar, excess carbohydrate, refined carbohydrates, or Porterhouse steaks, we’re simply consuming too much food, right?
Add that with the hidden sugars in food that we constantly consume plus sugary sodas, sugary snacks, lattes, mochas, energy drinks and candy bars and we have a constant and deadly surge of insulin and energy overload to our cells.
Combine this with a toxic world and toxic food making the gut punctured and disharmonious in terms of good bacteria (other purported causes of IR).
Add that to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and except for the few devotees to clean living, eating, and exercising daily, you have a world epidemic.
Other Causes of Insulin Resistance (We Think)
Keep in mind we’re still figuring out the Ur-cause for IR if there is one. But if IR is caused by a cluster of causes, here are some that seem highly probable.
Because there is such a high correlation of increased waist circumference with IR, some experts believe obesity, especially excess fat in the belly, is a primary cause of insulin resistance.
Yes, belly fat and fat tissue are energy stores, but we also know from what we know about adrenal fatigue and menopause and how these cause fat storage around the middle, that fat can also act as an endocrine gland as well.
As the NIH/NNIDK adds,
Studies have shown that belly fat produces hormones and other substances that can cause serious health problems such as insulin resistance, high blood pressure, imbalanced cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Belly fat plays a part in developing chronic, or long-lasting, inflammation in the body. Chronic inflammation can damage the body over time, without any signs or symptoms. Scientists have found that complex interactions in fat tissue draw immune cells to the area and trigger low-level chronic inflammation. This inflammation can contribute to the development of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and CVD. Studies show that losing the weight can reduce insulin resistance and prevent or delay type 2 diabetes.
Here we can see some of the most important benefits of weight training. As the NNIDK notes, “Many studies have shown that physical inactivity is associated with insulin resistance, often leading to type 2 diabetes.”
Since more glucose is used by muscle than other tissues, we need to challenge our muslces to” “burn their stored glucose for energy and refill their reserves with glucose taken from the bloodstream, keeping blood glucose levels in balance.”
Studies show that after exercising, muscles become more sensitive to insulin, reversing insulin resistance and lowering blood glucose levels.
Exercise also helps muscles absorb more glucose without the need for insulin. The more muscle a body has, the more glucose it can burn to control blood glucose levels.
Studies show that untreated sleep problems, especially sleep apnea, can increase the risk of obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. Anything that limits the amount and quality of sleep is going to destroy your reparative, delta wave sleep, when all our hormones are rebalanced and everything is reset, including blood sugar.
Studies have shown that individuals who consistently have a bad night’s sleep are more likely to develop conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.
Apnea and loud snoring sleepers are especially prone to developing metabolic syndrome, diabetes, obesity, and high blood sugar.
Other causes of insulin resistance. For all the currently debated causes of IR, see Stephen Guyunet’s Seven Part series on insulin resistance. It’s a whole education in seven articles.
Guyunet’s 7-part series is published on Whole Health Source’s blog.
Why We Want Insulin Sensitivity
In an insulin sensitive individual, insulin does good things for the body.
When our cells are properly responding to insulin, everything flows smoothly and insulin does a host of friendly things for the body.
Yes, insulin does block fat from being burned for fuel—but that’s only because our body uses energy from the food we just ate as a first resource and only dips down into those fat stores when we really need them. They are our “bomb shelter” food stores, so to speak.
As Mark Hyman explains, when we eat and insulin is released
Lipolysis is temporarily blunted so that we can burn or sequester the glucose coming in.
Once the glucose is handled, lipolysis resumes. We oscillate between fat burning and glucose burning, seamlessly switching fuel sources when needed. Sure, we’re not burning any fat when insulin is elevated, but once our insulin levels normalize we’ll be back on track. When you’re insulin sensitive, this is pretty much how it works. You secrete enough insulin to get the job done, but not so much that you gain weight and stop burning fat.
. . . What happens when insulin stays elevated? Lipolysis is inhibited to an even greater degree. Body fat becomes even harder to burn. Susceptible brain, artery, and pancreatic cells are exposed to higher levels of blood sugar for longer. Muscle protein synthesis falls off a cliff. Glycogen is replenished at a diminished rate. And if cells are already full of glycogen and there’s nowhere else to put the glucose, it converts to fat for storage.
Do you already have insulin resistance?
Until I talk to you next time I want everyone to do one cheap, easy thing for their health.
GO TO YOUR LOCAL DRUGSTORE and BUY a GLUCOMETER.
**Don’t forget the test strips if it needs them.
The word is there are apps to turn your smart phone into a glucometer, folks. I do not know how reliable they are, but sounds fascinating!
Also, ask the pharmacist what they recommend for their most accurate glucometer they sell. They’ll know by customer complaints what the bad ones are.
Step two: test your blood sugar
As Kresser advises, test your blood at the 1, 2, and 3 hour marks after lunch.
Record the results, along with what you ate for lunch. Do this for two days. This will tell you how the foods you normally eat affect your blood sugar levels.
Then you might want to try comparing these result what happens when you eat a different kind of meal – say Paleo, or what happens when you do eat complex carbs.
Record your results.
As Diabetes Self-Management tells us,
Normal blood glucose numbers
Fasting
Normal for person without diabetes: 70–99 mg/dl (3.9–5.5 mmol/L)
Official ADA recommendation for someone with diabetes: 80–130 mg/dl (4.5–7.2 mmol/L)
2 hours after meals
Normal for person without diabetes: Less than 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/L)
Official ADA recommendation for someone with diabetes: Less than 180 mg/dl (10.0 mmol/L)
HbA1c
Normal for person without diabetes: Less than 5.7%
Official ADA recommendation for someone with diabetes: 7.0% or less
As Kresser notes, [ideally] “The goal is to make sure your blood sugar doesn’t consistently rise higher than 140 mg/dL an hour after a meal, but does consistently drop below 120 mg/dL two hours after a meal, and returns to baseline (i.e. what it was before you ate) by three hours after a meal.”
** Even the most reliable glucometers have an error margin of up to 10%. See Kresser’s article linked below on how to interpret your results given this margin for error.
The further away you are from the area of 140 after meal kind of numbers the more insulin resistance you have and the more crucial it may be for you to get help now.
For more on interpreting your results, see Kresser’s article “How to Prevent Diabetes and Heart Disease for $16.”
Next time, I’m going to tell you about all kinds of ways to halt insulin resistance IN ITS tracks with specific types of behaviors, foods, and supplements. These are ways that work to REVERSE insulin resistance so you don’t get diabetes.
See you next time, and remember, my mission is to bring the research you’d like to do for your health if you had the time.
To bring you this information in an honest, unvarnished way that aims to sell or promote nothing but health and life.