Are Your Foods Changing Your Insulin Receptors? by Joan Kent, PhD

Are Your Foods Changing Your Insulin Receptors?
By Joan Kent, PhD

Type 2 diabetes is epidemic in this country, and typically begins with insulin resistance.

Quite a few other conditions start with insulin resistance: hypertension, high triglycerides, atherosclerosis and heart disease, high or dense LDL (bad) cholesterol, certain cancers, and more.

We usually read or hear that insulin resistance results from overweight or obesity. That’s not always the case; the reverse can be true. Insulin resistance may actually cause overweight.

No matter which comes first – insulin resistance or overweight – the metabolic consequences are exactly the same. The resulting high insulin leads to inflammation, and that’s the underlying cause of most – some say all – disease.

This post is on the role diet may play in causing insulin resistance.

How Your Diet Can Cause Insulin Resistance

Insulin resistance may result – and this is just one way – from changes in both the number of receptors and their activity or sensitivity. Insulin secretion – how much is released when we eat certain foods – can change insulin receptors.

A high-carb diet with a lot of carbs that are high on the glycemic index (GI) can lead to insulin resistance. I don’t advocate using GI as a diet-building tool for a number of reasons – but that’s another post.

Sugar would be a prime example of a high-GI carb. High-glycemic carbs are quickly absorbed and trigger a high insulin response. High insulin secretion can, in turn, blunt the body’s response to insulin. That’s due to something known as “down-regulation.”

Down-regulation is a term originally borrowed from brain chemistry research. It’s a reduction in both the number of insulin receptors and the sensitivity of the remaining receptors. When those changes occur, whatever insulin is available no longer works as well as it did before.

Down-regulation is even more likely to occur in someone who is carbohydrate sensitive. Carb sensitivity is extra-high insulin release to sucrose or other carbs. The exaggerated insulin can easily down-regulate the insulin receptors. Down-regulation of insulin receptors occurs fairly rapidly.

So eating sugar – especially lots of sugar, as with sugar addiction – can cause insulin resistance.

What About Fructose, the Sugar In Fruit?

In research lit, it’s a well-known fact that fructose triggers insulin resistance.

There’s a rather odd adaptation here. Fructose has been shown to change muscle fibers from type 1 to type 2.

Type 1 is a high-endurance fiber that responds well to insulin. Type 2 is better for explosive power but less responsive to insulin.

Studies suggest that this change in muscle fiber type is the mechanism behind the triggering of insulin resistance by fructose. Although the original research was done on lab animals, studies on human subjects have shown similar results. Athletic training can modify the results somewhat.

Bottom line, fructose in large quantities may cause insulin resistance in this interesting way. And fructose is half of the sucrose molecule.

It might even be said that sucrose (granulated table sugar that everyone knows is junk) could cause insulin resistance through both mechanisms: down-regulation of insulin receptors and modified muscle fiber type due to the fructose in it.

All research seems to confirm that fructose is what makes sucrose the junk that it is.

Especially if it’s eaten in large quantities.

Healthful Recommendations

Skip the sugar.

Skip processed fructose or concentrated fruit juice used as a sweetener.

Get your wholesome nutrients primarily from vegetables, and only in limited quantities from fruit.

Don’t eat carbs alone.

This isn’t what you’ll hear most places, but it may work better than what you will hear elsewhere.

—
Reversing insulin resistance – and the diseases it causes – is an important step in transforming your health. The psychoactive effects of foods can improve mood issues, as well.

On October 3 & 4, I’ll be running a brand new 2-day workshop in the SF Bay Area. It’s called Last Resort Nutrition® PLUS, and it’s serious business if you’re serious about better health, moods, energy, sleep, weight, and more.

Special pre-launch offer available now: big discount for you, and you can bring a friend for free! Please go to www.LastResortNutrition.com and register today.

Hope to see you there!