SLO LIFE Magazine Aug/Sep 2018

#2
YOU CAN THANK
INSULIN FOR YOUR
LOVE HANDLES
#1
WE NEED INSULIN TO LIVE
It used to be that Type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. What is a hugely
inconvenient, and potentially dangerous, disease today—especially for
so many of the children it afflicts—can now be managed with the use
of synthetically manufactured insulin. Until 1921, when the Canadian
physician named Frederick Banting first discovered insulin, Type 1 diabetics
did not live long. A year after his revelation, the first patient, a 14-year-old
boy wasting away on his deathbed, received an insulin injection and his
blood glucose immediately dropped to near-normal levels. Without insulin,
we cannot metabolize our food, or more accurately, we cannot access its
energy. Today, insulin is a multi-billion dollar business, and growing quickly
as it is increasingly prescribed to Type 2 (non-insulin dependent) diabetics.
Following a meal, we have sugars floating
around in our veins as the end result of the
digestive process, and the pancreas is alerted to
start pumping out insulin from an area known
as the islets of Langerhans. The hormone, now
loose in the bloodstream, then unlocks the
receptors found in our muscle tissues, as well as
our internal organs, allowing the sugars—the
fuel—to enter and provide its energy. When
we eat a Twinkie, we feel an immediate burst of
energy because of the insulin frantically shoving
as much sugar as possible into every available
receptor. This, of course, is what we call a “sugar
rush.” When our tissues become full of sugar
and start overflowing, insulin then takes the
excess glucose and pushes it instead into our
fat cells. Dr. Fung uses a metaphor to explain
the concept: When we come home from the
grocery store, we first load everything into the
refrigerator (our muscle cells), but once it is full,
and there is no more space available, we have to
go out into the garage to put the excess in the
freezer (our fat cells).
#3
ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS
CONFUSE INSULIN
Much has been said about the pros and cons of substituting artificial
sweeteners for sugar, but often left out of the conversation is the
fact that it confuses the pancreas, releasing huge amounts of insulin
when we ingest them. The issue is that our bodies sense the hypersweetness
and assume that we just ate a case of king size Kit Kat
bars when, in reality, all we did was tear open a packet of Splenda
and dump it into our coffee. Just so you know, Splenda is 600 times
sweeter than sugar, which baffles our bodies, since there is nothing
naturally occurring that comes close. The extra insulin released into
our veins packs away any sugar floating around, but since there is so
much more of the hormone than what is required, our blood glucose
levels drop precipitously, which then triggers a signal in our brains
that we are hungry, which is why eating more, sometimes a lot more,
is a common side effect with artificial sweeteners. >>
82 | SLO LIFE MAGAZINE | AUG/SEP 2018