Insulin is a critically important body signaling hormone
made by the pancreas and released whenever you need to lower the level of glucose in your blood.
Insulin signals the liver and muscles to store excess blood glucose as glycogen for future use. If there is insufficient storage space in the muscles or liver, the excess glucose, is converted to fat and stored. You get fatter.
Because more than around 1 teaspoonful of blood glucose is toxic, depending on your diet, insulin can be very active.
Another insulin driver is cortisol, the stress hormone, which stimulates glucose, for fight or flight, which then activates an insulin release to lower the glucose level. All carbohydrates, including sugar, convert to glucose, so if you eat/drink carbohydrate heavy meals and snacks, (breads, cereals, pasta, rice, potatoes, soda), or have lots of stress, this will result in a continuous, maybe heavy, load of insulin in your body.
Insulin has another trick for people trying to lose fat. High insulin prevents your body from accessing your fat reserves. Maintain low insulin and your body will frequently consume your own fat for energy. A low carb diet can do this.
Insulin is critically important for many functions in the body, and without it you will die. However continuous high insulin is toxic. It can damage blood vessels, eyes, promotes obesity, ED, hypertension, almost always leads to heart disease and significantly raises your cancer risk.
A Type-1 diabetic cannot make their own insulin. A Type-2 diabetic has, over time, subjected their body to excess glucose with resulting high levels of insulin. The reaction of many cells in their body to this insulin onslaught is to reduce the number of receptors for insulin slowly but surely making them “resistant” to the wave of insulin signaling. The result is that the pancreas makes more insulin to try and activate the hormone signaling and bring down the blood glucose level.
If your glucose is high and your insulin cannot control it (Type-2 diabetic), there is a choice: 1. add more insulin to drive glucose down or 2. Reduce the incoming glucose load. Either can work, but adding insulin increases the toxic load on the body almost guaranteeing weight gain and massively raising heart disease risk. Some clinicians now recognize this and are promoting low carbohydrate / higher fat diets (LCHF) to lower glucose.
While traditionally trained doctors were taught that Type-2 diabetes is forever, we now know that a very high percentage of Type-2 diabetics can put the disease into remission, get off their medication and return to normal life when they adopt a low carbohydrate diet. So long as they continue to keep their carbohydrate intake low. How low? It varies, but under 50 grams per day seems to be a magic level. FYI, carbohydrates are not essential for your brain or health.
Find my book on Amazon here. Seek professional medical advice before making dietary changes, particularly if you are taking diabetes medications.
Good health, George Elder, Diet Researcher, Dip. Nutrition.