Day 2: What Is
Insulin Resistance and Why Should I Care?
By Cyrus Khambatta, Ph.D.
Now that we understand that inefficient muscle, fat, and
liver form the basis of insulin resistance, we can now figure out what causes tissue
inefficiency. Insulin resistance can actually
be caused by a number of factors, the most important of which include the
following:
(1)
Excess body fat or a high fat diet
(2)
FAKE carbohydrates
(3)
Insufficient exercise
Excess Body Fat or a
High Fat Diet
Excess fat has a nasty way of being stored everywhere in
your body. It is stored inside of your
muscle tissue. It is stored in your
liver. It is stored in your heart. It is stored in fat tissue. It is stored in your pancreas. It is stored in your intestine.
Excess fat is stored in all tissues in the human
body, including those that are not designed to store fat.
Mitochondria are the energy producing factories inside of a
cell that are responsible for burning carbohydrates, protein and fat for
energy. If the cell were a city, then
mitochondria would be the power plant that supplies electricity to all
residents. A city may have a single
power plant that to provide power for thousands of residents; cells possess tens
to hundreds of mitochondria in order to produce large amounts of energy.
Mitochondria are vital for cell function. When mitochondria cannot effectively burn
carbohydrates, protein and fat for energy, the cell is deprived of energy and
enters a state of stress which can ultimately lead to cell suicide. Therefore, maintaining healthy mitochondria
is essential for optimal tissue health.
Excess fatty acids in the muscle and liver block the
mitochondria from doing their job. When
the mitochondria in muscle and liver can’t do their job effectively, the cell
enters a state of stress. Cellular
stress in turn causes cellular inflammation.
Inflammation is a dangerous condition which is often associated with the
development of insulin resistance.
Mitochondria are the
powerhouses of all cells in the human body. In a given cell, there are hundreds to
thousands of mitochondria, and this is the location inside a cell where
glucose, fatty acids, and amino acids are “burned” for energy.
Excess
fatty acids impair the mitochondria from burning fuel at a normal rate,
resulting in a slowed metabolic rate and inflammation. Therefore, maintaining proper mitochondrial
function is essential for
preventing insulin resistance.
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In addition, excess fatty acids inside of a cell directly
block the action of insulin. Therefore,
having excess body fat can impair the ability of muscle and liver tissue to use
insulin, which causes whole-body insulin resistance.
Excess fatty acids significantly block the ability of
insulin to vacuum glucose out of the blodstream.
The combination of (a) inflammation and (b) reduced insulin
action significantly impair the ability of the muscle and liver to vacuum glucose
out of the bloodstream, resulting in high blood glucose. Take a look at the diagram below to
understand the sequence of events that often leads to muscle and liver insulin
resistance:
Most diabetic nutritionists attempt to control the amount of
carbohydrate that you eat in order to reduce your insulin usage. While
controlling carbohydrate intake can decrease your insulin requirement, your
level of insulin resistance will stay the same or increase over time.
Instead, reducing your level of dietary fat can protect
against tissue long-term dysfunction, keeping your liver, muscle and fat
tissues highly insulin sensitive.
Fat plays a major role in determining how much
insulin you use. By limiting your fat intake
and reducing body fat, whole-body insulin resistance can be easily controlled.
Focusing on fat is exactly what makes this program different
from the carbohydrate-focused view used by many diabetics and medical
professionals. This program is designed
to combat the cause of the diabetic condition rather than treating the
symptoms.
These recommendations are designed to counteract the
root cause of the problem in diabetes - insulin resistance - and not just treat
the symptoms of high blood glucose.
Increasing insulin sensitivity will make you less dependent
on insulin altogether, which in turn will preserve the function of vital
organs. Regaining insulin sensitivity is
an incredibly powerful method of treating diabetes, which results in lower
blood glucose values, improved energy and significant fat loss.
FAKE Carbohydrates
FAKE carbohydrates are foods that are high in carbohydrate
yet low in nutrients. FAKE carbohydrates
are the products of a manufacturing process.
FAKE carbohydrates often have additives, in order to replace the
nutrients that were lost through processing.
FAKE carbohydrates have a long list of ingredients, most of which are
hard to pronounce.
FAKE carbohydrates have names like High Fructose Corn Syrup
(HFCS), sugar, cane sugar, organic cane sugar, molasses, aspartame, splenda, etc.
FAKE carbohydrates are often purchased at gas stations,
quick-e-marts, 7-11’s, in the center aisles of the grocery store, and in liquor
stores. FAKE carbohydrates come in
packages with fancy logos, pretty colors
and ingredients like “all natural flavorings.” FAKE carbohydrates are foods that your great
great grandmother would probably not recognize.
FAKE carbohydrates are cheap, because they are cheap to
manufacture.
What’s the main problem with FAKE carbohydrates?
FAKE carbohydrates are often disguised as healthy foods, so
it’s your job as the consumer to know the difference between the two.
Take a look at the following graphic for a good idea of what
FAKE carbohydrates look like:
Refined (FAKE) carbohydrates
are found everywhere in the grocery store.
FAKE
carbohydrates are generally packaged, bottled, coated with sprinkles and contain
a long list of difficult-to-pronounce ingredients. As a general rule, if you don’t think that
your great great grandmother would recognize the food, it’s probably not
something you want to be putting into your body. Foods that were sold only a hundred years ago
were less refined, resulting in a higher consumption of perishable, REAL
food.
REAL carbohydrates are
fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, and legumes.
REAL
carbohydrates tend to have a short shelf-life because they are generally fresh
fruits and vegetables, containing a large quantity of water, fiber, vitamins,
minerals and antioxidants.
FAKE carbohydrates are the equivalent of poison for
diabetics.
REAL carbohydrates are the equivalent of gold for
diabetics.
FAKE carbohydrates increase insulin resistance by increasing
the amount of fat stored in the liver. Remember
what we learned earlier – storage of fat in the liver impairs mitochondrial
function and sets the stage for liver inflammation. Inflamed tissues are a metabolic disaster,
because they block the action of insulin and keep glucose from entering
tissues. Glucose then stays in the
bloodstream for long periods of time.
One of the main problems with FAKE carbohydrates is that
many of the artificial sweeteners used in the manufacturing process contain
high quantities of fructose. Fructose is
a cousin to glucose – they are both “monosaccharide” molecules that can be used
by many tissues for energy.
Fructose differs from glucose in the way in which it is
handled by the liver tissue. Glucose has
two fates in the liver, and is either (1) immediately burned for energy, or (2)
stored for future use. Fructose, on the
other hand, is often converted to and stored as fat in the liver. Over time, the accumulation of fat in the
liver impairs the ability of insulin, impairs mitochondrial function, increases
inflammation, and results in insulin resistance in the liver. This is bad news altogether.
Insufficient Exercise
As you’ll read in tomorrow’s lesson, muscle tissue is the
largest tissue in your body by mass.
More importantly, muscle tissue is your body’s largest consumer of
glucose, meaning that your muscle can vacuum large amounts of glucose out of
the bloodstream. This is great news for
you.
Your mission is to make your muscle tissue as hungry for
glucose as possible. And it’s simple,
all you have to do it use it. That’s
right, all you have to do is use your muscle tissue, and in return it will
vacuum glucose out of the bloodstream during the recovery period.
We’ll cover the details of muscle physiology in tomorrow’s
lesson. For now, it’s important to think
about the amount a few things:
(1) How much movement you perform on a daily
basis?
(2) How strenuous is that movement?
Muscle tissue is unique for many reasons, but the one that
is most important in today’s lesson is this:
You are in complete control of how much glucose your
muscle tissue can vacuum out of the bloodstream.
You see, muscle tissue has it’s own form of onboard glucose
storage specifically for use during exercise called glycogen. This is one of the
fuels that your muscle tissue uses when you are exercising, which allows for
quick energy during exercise because the glucose is stored inside the muscle
fibers themselves. When you exercise, that
tank of glycogen gets depleted, leaving your muscle tissue hungry for more
glucose to refill the tank. So after you
exercise, your muscle tissue is primed to vacuum large quantities of glucose
out of the bloodstream so that it can refill those fuel tanks.
Use this to your advantage. Exercise makes muscle tissue very hungry or glucose.
Now let’s think of the situation from the flip side. If you don’t exercise often, your muscle
tissue does a poor job of using up the stored glycogen. Instead the glycogen tanks remain full, such
that when you eat a meal that contains carbohydrates, the glucose in the
bloodstream has nowhere to go. Because
your muscle tissue is not hungry for glucose, the strength of your glucose
vacuum is low. Even worse, insulin does
a poor job of pushing glucose into the muscle, resulting in insulin
resistance. Glucose then remains in the
bloodstream, leading to…you guessed it.
High blood sugar.
Stay tuned for the next lesson on how to create high
quality muscle tissue. For me, this one
concept changed EVERYTHING for the better.
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