You know that friend?

You know that friend?

You know that friend? Everyone has had that friend. The one who is the most fun to hang out with, who is crazy and funny and charismatic and you can’t help but adore this person. But, no matter how fond you are of this friend, you keep him or her at a distance and are always kind of careful about what you say. Because if you cross that person, he or she will FUCK YOU OVER. Insulin is the endocrine system’s version of that friend.

Insulin is the master hormone that controls and impacts pretty much all other functions in your body. After all, it is the stuff that gets other stuff (blood glucose) INTO your cells. Insulin is responsible for allowing us to store glycogen in our muscle cells and also in our liver. You need insulin to, you know, be able to move around and live and whatnot. Seriously, insulin is the life of the party.

Insulin is released primarily in response to carbohydrate consumption, minimally in response to protein consumption and not one iota when fat is consumed. Interestingly enough, the consumption of foods of no real caloric value but that are sweet can cause an insulin response... one of the many, many reasons that fake sugar like splenda, stevia and aspartame are not good for you. There are even some people who even experience insulin spikes just looking at pictures of food. FUN STUFF!

So, what happens when your gas tank (liver and muscle glycogen stores) are topped up but you’ve just put more fuel (carbs) into your body? Blood glucose, which is actually toxic in the blood stream, is converted to triglycerides and then stored in your adipose tissue cells. Adipose tissue is otherwise known as your chub. Kelly, who is nine kinds of awesome, did a spectacular job of explaining this in far better detail on her blog both HERE and HERE and HERE. Go, read and enjoy.

What we’re going to focus on is what happens when your cells give the finger to insulin and how this terrible metabolic tragedy can occur. In a later post, we’ll meet good ole glucagon and how it can make your cells and insulin hug it out.

For our health we want to enjoy some quality low insulin levels. We want to be able to get the most from insulin that we can. This is called “insulin sensitivity”. If you have chronically elevated levels of blood glucose, are a stressed out monkey or a serious lack of sleep, you can mess up your sensitivity to insulin causing various degrees of insulin resistance.

Here’s what the nasty little cycle of insulin resistance looks like. So, you eat carbs and your body spikes your insulin to clear the blood glucose. And if a little bit of insulin doesn’t work to get that blood glucose into your cells because they’ve decided they’re too tired/bored with insulin’s antics/stressed, your body’s response is to jack out more insulin. And more. And more. And more. And if that doesn’t work, your blood glucose is converted to triglycerides and stored as fat. Meanwhile, you’re wanting to eat more dang carbs as you’re wacked out on insulin and still actually hungry on a cellular level even though you’ve just sucked back 1,000 calories of Mountain Dew slurpee 30 minutes ago.

Chronically elevated high insulin levels lead to
- abdominal adiposity (spare tire around your abdomen and lower back)
- high circulating blood glucose
- high triglycerides
- high blood pressure

This lovely deadly quartet is called Sydrome X. Beyond that, elevated insulin levels is a risk factor for a whole chocolate box assortment of health issues including cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, PCOS (ding!), fibroids and infertility (ding!). And, of course, everyone’s fave… the diabetus, otherwise known as overt, severe insulin resistance.

Beyond that, insulin is the FAT STORAGE HORMONE. Your body won’t actually dip into its fat stores if your insulin is all cranked up. So, if the grab bag of lovely disease states listed above doesn’t get you fired up but losing weight does, good freaking luck actually getting any smaller if you haven’t worked to improve your insulin sensitivity FIRST.

Now for the good news. If this little write up is ringing some alarm bells and you think you might have insulin sensitivity issues, unlike any other hormone, you can strongly control your body’s insulin release by nutritional, exercise and lifestyle choices.

I was always kind of jealous of my friends who could eat carbs all day long and not end up 200lbs and metabolically deranged. Why did I have to be the one with the crappy genetics? Boo freaking hoo. But you know what? An exceedingly high carb diet, and one filled with crap carbs at that, will do no one’s health any favours at the end of the day. We’re the lucky ones who get told pretty early on by our bodies that we need to start living differently – and usually young enough to make a real difference. So, I guess I’m actually kind of grateful, even though it means I have to tweak my diet a bit more than some others in order to keep my insulin sensitivity high.

Okay, hopefully I've managed not to mess up Mr. Wolf's info extravaganza too much. Next up, glucagon. It’s everyone’s friend!