Topic 4 Part 2
Carbohydrates & Insulin
So we’ve all heard, I think, of this substance within our bodies called Insulin.
Well what is it? What does it do? Why is it so important and vital? And how is it so linked to diet, nutrition and carbohydrates?
Insulin is a hormone produced in the Pancreas organ of our body’s. It is a key component to carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the human, and other mammals, body’s.
Basically Insulin causes cells in the Liver, muscle and fat to take-up glucose (sugar) for our blood to store it in these tissues. Only so much of this blood glucose (sugar) from the blood can be stored in the Liver and muscles, once these stores are full any extra blood glucose (sugar) is stored in the body’s fat cells. The body’s fat cells can store a seemingly limitless supply of this blood glucose (sugar).
If we remember from Part 1 of this topic, this storage mechanism was in the past, 300- to-thousands of years ago, a vital survival mechanism. The body would store this extra energy for times of drought and famine, times of travel for nomadic humans, in the abdomen of males for hunting and gathering, on the hips and thighs of women for pregnancy and baby feeding.
Now, especially in the super-calorie loaded American and Western diets, we still have this storage mechanism, but we very rarely have a sustained period of calorie restriction, famine or drought. Even if we do, we ship the calories in from elsewhere, so constantly our bodies are storing calories.
This is possibly a reason crash diets don’t work, this ancient mechanism for energy/calorie storage sees or identifies a crash diet as a famine or drought period, maybe for week maybe for 3 months, how ever long the diet lasts, and sure you’d loose weight, just like our ancestors hundreds and thousands of years ago. But then soon as we go back to our usually/normal calorie, and often empty calorie (high calorie low nutrient foods) excess, we put this weight back on, Yo-yo dieting.
So what is Insulin’s role in this?
Well possibly our greatest survival hormone in times of past may actually turn out to be modern humans Achilles’ heel! In the past it enabled us to survive and thrive in times of drought and famine, now its causing rapid weight gain, leading to mobility issues, fitness issues, illness and disease – all leading to a huge stress on our survival.
But this isn’t Insulin’s fault; it’s just doing the job it’s evolved to do. The problem is our excess nutritional intakes, or truer, excess calorie intake with actually less nutritional content. And of this excess calorie intake, the biggest trouble maker is sugar, processed refined carbohydrates, and excess traditional carbohydrates.
Traditional carbohydrates, this include sugar, brown, white, cubed or granular, all the same, white refined flour (Wheat, rye, etc), white pasta, white noodles, white rice, white potatoes. And as noted in some earlier topics, whole might be better than refined, but its still excess energy and still raises blood sugar, whole flour (Wheat, Rye
So as we digest food, the sugars in that food, they are all broken down to sugars, enter into the Liver for processing, If the Liver needs some Glucose (sugar) cause its stores are low, it takes it, (The Liver actually prefers Fructose, which is the sugar from fruit), then excess is released into the blood circulating around the body.
The blood sugar needs to be kept within a certain range, (between about 3.6 and 5.8 mM (mmol/L, i.e., millimoles/liter), or 64.8 and 104.4 mg/dL (What are mg/dl and mmol/l? How to convert? Glucose? Cholesterol? Advameg, Inc.)).
As the Liver releases glucose (Sugar) into the blood and the levels in the blood go up above the desired range it becomes toxic, so the Pancreas sends out it clean-up team, Insulin. Insulin ‘picks-up’ this excess blood glucose (sugar) and tries to ‘give’ it to the muscles of the body, in the hopes that they can store it and get it out of the blood to prevent it from being toxic. But if the muscles have been dormant and inactive, not really using their stored energy, well they refuse this extra glucose (sugar). Now the body only has one option left, to ask the fat cells (adipose tissue) to store the excess blood glucose (sugar) before it has a serious toxic affect on the body (and besides this is good energy for the next drought and/or famine). So the fat cells come to the rescue and accept the glucose (sugar) and store is in the fat cell, making the fat cells bigger, increasing the excess weight of the body.
Blood sugars drop, insulin levels drop in the blood. BUT! During this panic of higher blood glucose the body panics and stores a bit too much blood glucose (sugar) and now blood sugar is low and now the fat cell don’t want to give it back!! I mean their energy is for emergencies only; they are waiting for a famine and drought. “Go eat some more energy while it’s readily available”, it tells the body!
Hello sugar/carbohydrate craving! The brain, the mind (powerful things), send us on a mission to eat and digest some glucose (sugar). So the whole process starts again!
This is one of the reasons we as humans, as mammals, are so attracted to sugar, carbohydrates and why insulin has such a vital role to play in our bodies, it’s a survival thing!
What’s the big problem then?
Well the first problem is weight; excess glucose combined with a more and more sedentary lifestyle means only one thing, weight gain, 1lb of body weight is equal to 3500 calories. So to be fair, most of us have more than enough energy sitting on our body’s in storage than we need to take in from nutrition, but we have to mobilise this energy. If we keep just taking in glucose through our diets why are out body’s going to mobilise the excess energy we are storing.
For example, if we are 200lbs in weight, at 40% body fat level, that’s 80lbs of body fat. Say a desirable, ‘healthy’ body fat % is 20%, and then this is 40lbs of excess body fat. 40lbs X 3500cals is equal to 140,000 stored calories. A good 1 hour athletic high intensity workout burns maximally 1000 calories, that’s at least 140 high intensity athletic workouts. Most people’s workouts will burn 400-600 calories an hour, that’s 280 workouts, 280 good hours of exercise/activity. At 5 hours a week that’s gonna take 56 weeks! And that’s just using the energy already stored on the body; never mind what we eat during those 56 weeks.
So what I’m saying here, or trying to highlight is just how important nutrition is! And preventing excess glucose storage in fat cells through what we eat. Vigorous exercise and activity is vital, it stimulates the body to adapt and change, get stronger, get fitter, build muscle which will need more energy to function. But also it uses this glucose stored in it to function, this means that Insulin can restock our muscles with excess blood glucose (sugar) instead of putting it in ‘long-term’ storage in the fat cells.
WHEN you eat is just as important as WHAT you eat.
So I’m not saying with this, never eat carbohydrates all together, what I’m doing is explaining what happens in the body with excess energy, especially carbohydrates and sugars. How what used to enable us to survive is now hindering us.
What is just as important as WHAT we eat is WHEN we eat. As I’ve often repeated, the key is to eat unprocessed, unrefined, ‘un-messed with’, non-genetically modified, non-chemically grown, non-artificially made/added, unpreserved, organically, grass raised free-range etc etc. this is the WHAT to eat for optimal Health, Fitness and Wellness.
So WHEN? Do we need to eat Carbohydrates or Sugar in our evening meal before we sleep, when our Liver and muscles are already probably full of their stores of glucose (Sugar)? Probably not, and even if they are low in their stores, let the body replace this with energy it already has in storage while you have a good 8 hours of sleep dreaming away.
The optimal time, and when I digest carbohydrates, and make sure I’ve optimal energy for the day is in the morning, usually about 30-60 minutes after I wake. This consists of whole, unprocessed organic Carbohydrates, usually Oats (Steel Cut) or on occasion a Whole grain sourdough slice or 2 with eggs (poached).
After this, its rare that I’ll take on more traditional carbohydrates, and I’m on my feet being active probably about 6 hours a day, that’s including an hour of vigorous exercise/activity. When I say traditional carbohydrate, I’m talking about the ones I listed earlier in this article. After the morning meal, I’ll eat, in an unprocessed whole form about 8-10 servings of fruit and vegetables throughout the day, weighted more onto vegetables. Fruit I’ll eat up to lunch time (as stated earlier, the Liver prefers the carbohydrates from fruit, fructose) and then pretty much stick to vegetables, mostly greens at night, Broccoli, Kale, Brussels, Cabbage, Bok-Choy,
Taking these fruit and vegetable carbohydrates in ensures that I digest plenty of awesome fibre that’s vital and crucial for digestive and positive gut bacteria health, and per calorie I digest a massive amount of vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, all vital for optimal health, fitness and wellness.
So just to finalize this Topic on Carbohydrates and insulin I just what to finish with diabetes and the risk of diabetes.
There’re two types of diabetes, Type-1 and Type-2.
Type-1:
Can occur at any age but is mostly diagnosed in children, adolescents or young adults. In Type-1 diabetes the Pancreas produces little or no insulin and so when blood sugar becomes too high, there is no insulin to move the glucose (sugar) into the muscle or fat cells. The exact cause of Type-1 diabetes is unknown, but it is thought to be probably an autoimmune disorder and can be passed down through families.
Type-2:
This is the most common form of diabetes, and is the prolonged elevated levels of glucose (sugar) in the blood. Type-2 diabetes occurs when the muscle and fat cells stop ‘refuse’ to work with Insulin anymore, they stop listening to insulin and stop accepting blood glucose (sugar). This causes the blood glucose to remain high, Insulin resistance, hyperglycemia.
Type-2 diabetes usually, most often, occurs when we are over weight and are storing excess fat. When this occurs, the body can not use insulin in the correct way. The level of this threshold varies from person to person, just as alcohol threshold varies person to person, but just like alcohol if we kept drinking we WILL eventually become drunk, with excess weight and fat storage we WILL eventually become Type-2 diabetic.
Often people with type-2 diabetes will show no symptoms at first, they may not have symptoms for a number of years, but early signs may include-
- Bladder, kidney, skin or other infections that are more frequent and take time to heel
- Fatigue
- Hunger
- Increased thirst
- Increased urination
- blurred vision
- pain or numbness in feet and/or hands
- erectile dysfunction
PubMed Health - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002194/
Thank you all, I hope this is informative, helpful and makes sense!
Hope you are having a great weekend!
Be Active, Eat Whole, Choose Health!
Marlon
Marlon Steele
MSc BSc CSCS Pn-1
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