Nige's Diet & Nutrition Blog: How eating sugar & starch can lower your insulin needs.
This is a bookmarking post. Jason Sandeman is a chef who has a couple of web-sites at Well Done Chef! and Jason Sandeman — Real Food For Your Life. He has Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adulthood (LADA), which has resulted in a total loss of his pancreatic beta cells which means that he has to take insulin.
Now, it's generally believed in low-carb circles (and by myself) that people with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) should minimise their intake of sugary & starchy carbohydrates as these promote wild fluctuations in blood glucose. See The problem with Diabetes.
Jason wrote the following comment on Richard Nikoley's blog. The relevant part is as follows:-
"Even more weird – now that I have introduced the starches into the diet – I have actually got better control now. I thought my insulin needs would go up – but they haven’t. They’ve gone down."
To which I replied:-"How about this for an explanation? You now have a well-controlled glucose input to your circulation via diet, which has suppressed the poorly-controlled glucose input to your circulation via hepatic glucose production."
Hepatic glucose production (HGP) is increased by Glucagon, Cortisol & Adrenaline/Epinephrine. These are secreted as blood glucose level falls below certain values in order to keep our brains alive. See Blood Glucose, Insulin & Diabetes.
As keeping our brains alive is rather important (!), the mechanism is fairly crude in operation and blood glucose can overshoot in a positive direction, as a bit of glycation is less harmful than brain death. See "Funny turns": What they aren't and what they might be. Hyperglycaemia requires insulin to lower blood glucose back to the normal range.
Therefore, eating some (but not too much) sugar & starch can result in lower blood glucose level and lower insulin secretion. Eating fibre/fiber (a carbohydrate) is also good for keeping blood glucose low, as only just mentioned in Fiber and Insulin Sensitivity. Ain't the human body weird?
Now, it's generally believed in low-carb circles (and by myself) that people with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) should minimise their intake of sugary & starchy carbohydrates as these promote wild fluctuations in blood glucose. See The problem with Diabetes.
Jason wrote the following comment on Richard Nikoley's blog. The relevant part is as follows:-
"Even more weird – now that I have introduced the starches into the diet – I have actually got better control now. I thought my insulin needs would go up – but they haven’t. They’ve gone down."
To which I replied:-"How about this for an explanation? You now have a well-controlled glucose input to your circulation via diet, which has suppressed the poorly-controlled glucose input to your circulation via hepatic glucose production."
Hepatic glucose production (HGP) is increased by Glucagon, Cortisol & Adrenaline/Epinephrine. These are secreted as blood glucose level falls below certain values in order to keep our brains alive. See Blood Glucose, Insulin & Diabetes.
As keeping our brains alive is rather important (!), the mechanism is fairly crude in operation and blood glucose can overshoot in a positive direction, as a bit of glycation is less harmful than brain death. See "Funny turns": What they aren't and what they might be. Hyperglycaemia requires insulin to lower blood glucose back to the normal range.
Therefore, eating some (but not too much) sugar & starch can result in lower blood glucose level and lower insulin secretion. Eating fibre/fiber (a carbohydrate) is also good for keeping blood glucose low, as only just mentioned in Fiber and Insulin Sensitivity. Ain't the human body weird?
Labels: Blood glucose, Carbohydrates, Fiber, Fibre, Fibrous carbs, Insulin, LADA, Resistant starch, Soluble fibre, Starches, Starchy carbs, Sugar, T1DM, Type 1 diabetes
- If we look at the classic car-spring-shocks model of dampening, depleting muscle glucose is going to help add a reservoir to the shocks or the dampening response, but I think that's quickly filled. Overall insulin sensitivity is necessary for the system to be properly damped. And of course not constantly driving your car over potholes (sugar binges) helps also.
- Nigel Kinbrum said...
- The average person can store up to 400g of muscle glycogen (which can't be used to make blood glucose). As that becomes depleted by high-intensity exercise, muscular insulin sensitivity increases. When there is insufficient glycogen to fuel activity, muscles suck in glucose whatever serum insulin level there is.
- praguestepchild said...
- Yes, although for the average person it's way less than 400g, let's say 200g. 4 (dietary) calories in a gram of sugar, so that's 800 calories. That's less than two chocolate chip cookies from Starbucks: http://www.healthyweightforum.org/eng/calorie-counter/starbucks_calories/ What I'm saying is that depleting muscle glucose doesn't come close to cutting it if the dampening system itself is broken.
- Nigel Kinbrum said...
- The SAD makes a great muscle & liver glycogen filler, so many people who eat it never significantly deplete their glycogen. Which is why many people who eat the SAD have muscular *and* hepatic IR. Being sedentary reduces muscular carb-burning, which makes a bad situation even worse.
About Me
- Nigel Kinbrum
- Hi! I have a BSc(Hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and took early retirement from my job as an Electronic Engineer at Thales (formerly Racal) in September 2006. I have no qualifications in the field of diet, nutrition & fitness, which is why I back up what I write with as many clickable links to peer-reviewed studies as I can find. You can contact me on nigel.kinbrum@nospam.ntlworld.com (delete nospam.). No link or article requests, please!
