Heather Bedard, C.H.E.
Ready for Part 2 of our insulin resistance series?? Let’s go! If you missed Part 1, check out our basic or individual membership for access to all past articles as well as ones that have never been released publicly!
Like I mentioned in our previous article, insulin resistance is a result of high levels of glucose in the blood because of too much energy consumption. Typically, this comes in the form of processed sugars and high fat diets. I want to look at this a little closer because I think there are some misconceptions when it comes to what causes insulin resistance, and it leads to people making dietary choices that are not optimal.
When you hear insulin resistance, you can also think, type II diabetes. Type I diabetes is an autoimmune disease where the pancreas does not produce insulin. Type II diabetes is when the body produces insulin, but the cells are resistant to it allowing a build-up of glucose in the blood. Many people just think about sugar or blood glucose when it comes to insulin, but insulin also plays a very important role in storing fat in cells. Insulin resistance is your body’s way of preventing the excess storage of fat in your cells. What we see once again, is that when it comes to many of the diseases or health struggles we face, symptoms are your body’s way of protecting you. Your body is not against you!
A study on the children of people who had type II diabetes showed some interesting things regarding excess fat and insulin resistance.[1] Intramyocellular lipids are fats that accumulate in muscle cells. When these lipids accumulate, mitochondria which burn fat, cannot burn it fast enough. The participants in this study had muscle cells that had this build-up of fat, and glucose could not get into the cells. Additionally, they did not have to be overweight to have this accumulation of lipids. One thing to keep in mind is that people with type II diabetes have a lower level of mitochondria, and the level of mitochondria is affected by the diet. Another good reason to eat an optimal diet and avoid insulin resistance!
Even with the American Diabetes Association recommendations of eating less starchy foods and calories as well as little sugar, this hasn’t changed the glucose levels much of the people that follow it. This is because diabetes isn’t caused by carbohydrates or starches from whole plant foods, it’s caused by diets high in animal foods and fat.
In one study, 25 type II insulin-dependent diabetics were placed on a whole-foods, plant-based diet high in carbohydrate and fiber.[2] At the end of the study, 24 of them were able to completely get-off of their insulin medication!
The more meat you consume, the more your risk of insulin resistance grows. This is because animal foods are a big source of heme iron and heme iron increases insulin resistance.[3] Another study compared insulin resistance and iron stores of meat eaters and lacto-ovo vegetarians, and vegetarians had better insulin sensitivity.[4] Now, I’m not saying you need to be a vegetarian to be healthy, but it is food for thought on where your iron is coming from in relation to this topic.
Now, I’m going to challenge you a bit with this next bit. Diabetics are often told to eat low carb, high protein diets. Research shows that this is not the optimal diet to reverse or prevent diabetes.[5] High carbohydrate diets are more effective in increasing insulin sensitivity than high protein diets because high protein foods cause higher insulin responses.[6] Now, I know that this seems counterintuitive, however, I urge you to look into the sources I’ve mentioned and reconsider what you’ve been told about insulin resistance and the cause of it.
Next month we’re going to get into the symptoms of insulin resistance, glucose monitoring, and more, to give you some practical information so that you can make the best decisions you can make for your health. Until next month, keep resisting insulin resistance!
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[1] Petersen K, Dufour S, Befroy D, Garcia R, Shulman G. “Impaired Mitochondrial Activity in the Insulin-Resistant Offspring of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes.” NEJM Feb 12 2004;350(7):664-671 [2] Anderson JW. “Dietary fiber in nutrition management of diabetes.” In: G. Vahouny, V and D Kritchevsky (eds), Dietary Fiber: Basic and Clinical Aspects.” Pp.343-360. New York: Plenum Press,1986. [3] Rajpathak S, Ma J, Manson J, Willett W, Hu F. “Iron intake and the risk of type-2 diabetes in women.” Diabetes Care June 2006;29(6):70-75 [4] Hua, N, Stoohs R, Facchini F. “Low iron status and enhanced insulin sensitivity in lacto-ovo vegetarians.” Br J Nutr 2001;86:515-59 [5] Komiyama N, Kaneko T, Sato A, et al. The effect of high carbohydrate diet on glucose tolerance in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2002;57(3):163-170. doi:10.1016/s0168-8227(02)00053-0 [6] Holt SH, Miller JC, Petocz P. An insulin index of foods: the insulin demand generated by 1000-kJ portions of common foods. Am J Clin Nutr. 1997;66(5):1264-1276. doi:10.1093/ajcn/66.5.1264