Insulin & Blood Sugar Balance
Why insulin levels are critical for good health.
If you haven’t read my previous blog, ‘Fueling for Life’, now might be a good time to go back and have a look - it’s all about what to focus on putting in your mouth when eating for health, rather than what to avoid. Here, I’m going to talk about some things to avoid if you really want to keep your body and mind in good health and avoid chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Let’s start with some science.
Insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas and, in a healthy body, is involved in maintaining blood sugar balance. When you eat a meal, foods are broken down by enzymes in the stomach and sugar is absorbed into the bloodstream through the gut. This triggers the release of insulin from the pancreas which signals cells in the liver and muscles to take up glucose. The muscles use it for immediate energy production or it can be stored in both the muscles and liver as glycogen for use later.
However, if you drink a coke or eat a doughnut, blood sugar levels spike rapidly. This is dangerous if it happens regularly or remains elevated for long periods, so again insulin is released, but this time, there is too much sugar for the muscles and liver to store, so excess is moved for storage in fat cells as triglycerides. This is fine occasionally, but if you constantly eat a diet high in refined sugars, and your body is producing high levels of insulin on a regular basis, as well as putting on weight due to the excess sugar being stored as fat, you will become insulin resistant, when the body stops recognising insulin because it is constantly circulating in the bloodstream - a bit like the boy who cried ‘wolf’. Insulin resistance can be present without type 2 diabetes being diagnosed, but it will still be causing damage to the body in the form of excess fat being laid down around the gut and internal organs, high triglycerides in the bloodstream, inflammation throughout the body and imbalance in other hormones.
Fat around the internal organs is absolutely guaranteed if you have belly fat. If you are eating a highly processed, high sugar diet, then I know you will be carrying too much fat around your middle, and even if you think you aren’t, try this: Take a tape measure and measure around your middle, an inch below your belly button, with the tape measure horizontal - no tucking it under your belly!! Now take a measurement around the widest part of your hips, again with the tape measure horizontal. Divide the first number by the second. If it is more than 0.8 for a female, or 0.9 for a male, then you are carrying belly fat and are risking poor health.
Insulin resistance puts stress on the body - anything which pushes the body out of balance can cause the release of cortisol and adrenalin, which compound the weight gain and hormone balance issue, elevate blood pressure and causes inflammation throughout the body. This is why I tell my clients if they are struggling with swollen or sore joints, cutting out sugar should be the first thing to try. Not only might they reduce their joint pain, they will likely be lengthening their life!
Insulin also inhibits the breakdown of fats, which makes sense, because if it is released as a result of blood sugar being high, why would you want to release triglycerides from fat cells into the bloodstream - the body already has plenty of fuel in the form of blood glucose (or so it thinks, because insulin levels are high!). So if your levels of insulin are elevated, you will struggle to burn fat, and as we all hopefully know by now, carrying excess weight is detrimental to good health and an indicator of risk for all types of chronic diseases - not conducive to living a long, healthy and happy life - high blood triglyceride levels are associated with a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. This is also why I help my clients to balance blood sugars in order to lose weight and improve health - it’s almost impossible to burn fat in the presence of insulin!
High insulin is like a one-way turnstile. It sweeps all the fuel out of your bloodstream into your fat cells and the gate closes like a one-way turnstile and it can’t get out! So keeping insulin levels in check is vital for maintaining healthy body fat, balancing hormones, keeping blood pressure and blood triglycerides low, and reducing inflammation in the body, all of which are associated with aging poorly.
So, what should you avoid to keep your insulin levels low and age well?
Liquid calories - soda, fruit juice, some milk alternatives (particularly oat milk), energy drinks, coffee with added sugar or syrups
These drinks are rapidly absorbed and cause a huge spike in blood sugar and a huge spike in insulin.
Soda usually has all kinds of other nasties in it - flavourings, preservatives and of course it is carbonated which makes it acidic.
Fruit juice is not healthy! Taking all the fibre out of the fruit by juicing means not only does it spike your blood sugar, but you lose the fibre which is vital for gut health.
Alternative milks have come on the scene majorly over the last 5 years and people are drinking them in their coffee, having them on their cereals and using them in their cooking. The latter is OK - combined with veggies, protein and good fat, the effect on insulin is mitigated. But in a coffee or on cereal, they are compounding the problem. Caffeine causes the fight or flight response, like stress, and the body releases stored glycogen from the muscles and liver into the bloodstream to use to run away or fight the sabre-toothed tiger. If you are simply sitting in a cafe or at your desk, and you add oat milk into the mix, which has been shown to spike insulin more than cow’s dairy, then you will have a double dose of glucose in the bloodstream to deal with!
Energy drinks - Well, I really don’t know where to start! Have you seen what’s in these things??? Chemical shit storm! Just don’t do it!
And coffee - see above. If you add in a caramel syrup, well, you are just asking for trouble! I’m sure many of you remember a few years back there being a comparison in the numbers of tsp of sugar equivalent in various coffee drinks? The Starbucks Gingerbread Latte with oat milk in venti size, contains more than 14 teaspoons of sugar!
So limit these - sugar should not be a daily habit - keep it for an occasional treat.
Flour - Any refined flour made from grains.
Flour is everywhere AND it is worse than table sugar for raising blood sugar and hence raising insulin. Read that again!
Pasta, bread, cake, pastry, biscuits, bagels, muffins, crumpets, hot cross buns, crackers…
Wheat, Rye and Barley all contain gluten and there’s been a lot of press about gluten and how it affects us in terms of gut health, allergies, autoimmune conditions, inflammation. This is not a post about gluten, but all these, when made into flour, will have a detrimental effect on your blood sugar and spike insulin.
Any other grain or cereal made into flour will have the same effect. So oat and rice flours will also spike insulin, despite the fact that they won’t affect you (if they are gluten free - not all oats are, as they take up gluten from the soil where they are grown and are often processed in a factory where gluten containing grains are processed) if you are gluten intolerant or coeliac.
So eat flours occasionally only. Choose coarsely ground flours, buckwheat flour which contains loads of phytochemicals and has a lower glycaemic load (raises blood sugar less), coconut or almond flour, which contain more fat, fibre and protein, or stick with the whole grains as whole grains are full of fibre, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, but excessively processed flours have all the goodness stripped out.
Eat your flour as part of a balanced meal - so have your cake for pudding, so the protein, fibre and fat from the main course slows the absorption of the sugar into the blood and reduces the spike.
So together with all the good stuff from my last blog, cutting out refined sugar and flours is a great way of improving your overall health and your chance of living well into your 80s or 90s! And you may find that as an occasional treat, they really are special! Remember when we were growing up and going to a cafe and having a cup of tea and a bun was a real treat and pasta was a once in a blue moon meal or maybe not at all? Let’s get back to real, good, wholesome, homemade food and live long, healthy and happy!
#onehealth.