Hi {!firstname_fix}
Please feel free to pass this week's newsletter on to your friends and family. And let me know if there are any particular topics you would like to see covered here.
Warmly,
Kathleen
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January 19, 2004
** Quote From Kathleen **
What seems like a story of food is really a story of possibility.
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** Testimonial for the Week**
I started the program in July 03 at a high of 148.3, my highest ever, I'm 5'2". I am proud to say I saw 140.3 on the scale this morning!! I'm so elated, I was so frustrated about my weight creeping up, I haven't seen 140 in a long time. But I know it's not about the weight, because I feel like a whole new person.
Brenda
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** Your Last Diet: More Than What You Think**
So, you want to deal with the insulin resistance? This is the place...come work with a group of loving, committed and funny folks just like you who are ready to change. I LOVE YLDonline!!!
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Have you wondered what good things to fix? Our little cookbook is packed not only with sugar free options, but also has LOTS of great tips for building your program.
Poached Pears with Blueberry-Tofu Sauce
Ingredients:
4 firm pears, peeled, cored and cut in half
2 cups unsweetened pear juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 pkg frozen blueberries, defrosted
1 10 oz pkg extra firm silken tofu
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla
Directions:
In a large saucepan, combine pears, pear juice, and 1 tsp cinnamon, and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and let pears gently poach until they are soft but not mushy. They are ready when they can easily be pierced with the tip of a knife. Remove from heat and cool in liquid.
While pears are poaching, combine remaining ingredients in a blender and process until creamy. Add a little pear poaching liquid if sauce is too thick.
To serve, drain pears from poaching liquid and spoon blueberry sauce over the top. Dust with cinnamon if desired.
Yield: 4 servings
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This and more can be found in our
cookbook.
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** Featured Topic**
Insulin Resistance
Part Two of a Four Part Series
Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.
Insulin Effectiveness
How well the insulin message works plays a huge part in how we feel and how fat we become. If we are insulin resistant, the message doesn't get through and the glucose doesn't get into the cell . We can end up with lots of glucose in our blood (high blood sugar) and have cells that are starving. This happens to diabetics when they are not producing insulin. It can happen to us even if we do produce insulin but our cells are “resistant” to its message.
Before we talk about the problem, let's look a little more at what should be happening. Ideally,
we eat carbohydrates and they are digested into glucose,
insulin is released in proportion to the amount of carbohydrates eaten,
the insulin message works and the glucose goes from the blood into the cells to be used for fuel.
Sometimes, and often for those of us who love to eat, we eat more carbohydrates than we actually need to fuel our body, brain and muscles. If we eat more carbs than we need for energy, the first thing the body does is to store the extra glucose. First in our muscles and second in our liver. The glucose is stored in these places as glycogen. Glycogen allows the glucose to “keep” longer. I think of it as freeze dried glucose .
If we keeping eating, and the cells have enough to eat and the body has filled the cupboards and the shelves in the garage, the extra needs to be put away somewhere. Ah yes, we have a storage unit down the street. The storage unit down the street only lets things be stored in a particular way. It won't take glycogen. You have to convert the glucose into fat. The extra glucose is stored as fat.
If the muscle and liver storage is full, our body will store the overload as fat. So the amount of carbohydrates eaten and the effectiveness of the insulin to getting them burned have a direct relationship on how fat we may become.
The Irony of This Story
This story seems reasonable, yes? Eat food; store what you don't eat. If you eat too much, or eat more than you need, you will get fat. Right? Seems to make sense. But that isn't true for many of us who are sugar sensitive. Sometimes we know we eat less than our “normal” friends do, and we still gain weight. We know we can gain weight on 500 calories. We know we don't lose weight if we eat 800 calories a day for three weeks. They tell us we have “efficient” metabolisms or a “low set point” or we don't exercise enough. They reinforce that it is our fault, we must be lying, and we don't exercise enough.
And part of us believes this because logically it makes sense. Eat food; store what you don't burn. If we are fat, it has to be because we eat too much and don't exercise. And the rage of the injustice simmers right below the surface. We KNOW that something is off. We know that our bodies work differently, but we don't understand it. We go between wanting to cry and wanting to scream .
But let's just keep going with the story. It is going to make sense and soon you will have a renewed hope that there is a way out of this.
What This Means For YOU
Now that you have a little understanding of the background, let's take a look at how this applies to you. Why is it that some people can eat all the carbs they want and not gain weight and others will seem to gain weight (fat) at the sight of an extra carb on the shelf? Most likely it is because of insulin resistance.
The effectiveness of the insulin message determines what happens to the glucose, i.e. whether it gets “burned” or stored as fat. The body can produce all the insulin the world, but if the message doesn't work properly, there will be big trouble .
There are many, many reasons why insulin may not work as well for us. This is a very complex and difficult area to understand. It is also why we don't have a simple answer. But I am going to chose the factors that seem to be the most likely culprits in the story of sugar sensitivity. The story will be incomplete, but will give you some sense of what you can do to change things.
Insulin Resistance
Insulin resistance can be inherited, acquired or both. There are insulin receptor sites throughout your body. The insulin which has been released into your blood by the pancreas hits the receptor, the receptor opens and sucks the insulin into the cell and says, “Burn, baby.” The cell uses the glucose to make energy.
There are insulin receptor sites on muscle cells because muscles need glucose as fuel. People with more muscle have more places to burn. People with leaner muscles have more insulin receptor sites. People with “fatty” muscle (most of us) have fewer insulin receptor sites in proportion to the muscle because the fat displaces muscle. Fat does not have insulin receptor sites. People with 34% body fat are going to burn a whole lot less than people with 27% body fat.
So, the first and sort of practical reality is people with more muscle burn more of what they eat. Most of us have figured this out. We just get to understand how the insulin part fits it.
The second part of the story comes with what we are eating rather than simply how much. Different foods may or may not evoke an insulin response. Different foods evoke an insulin response in varying degrees. The measurement of the insulin response has been done with something called the glycemic index. The glycemic index was originally developed for dieticians working with diabetic patients.
Before the 1980's, physicians and dieticians who were working with diabetic patients recommended a certain number of “carbohydrate” exchanges. These would include such things as bread, rice, potato, cereal, etc. Little consideration was given to any difference that the starches might have in the body.
In 1981, David Jenkins published an article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition describing different blood sugar effects of certain selected starches. He gave 34 men and woman 50-gram servings of different starches and measured the effect on their blood sugar. He called the results the Glycemic Index (GI).
The foods with the lowest GI were legumes (lentil/29 and soy/15). The highest GI went to parsnips at 97 and potatoes weighed in at 70. The foods were eaten alone rather than as part of a complete meal. Since then, scientists have continued to explore the usefulness of the GI.
In 1993, David Trout published a study that discussed the complexity of measuring the Glycemic Index. He found that a number of variables have an effect on the scores. Things like the source of the starch (legume, grain or tuber), the species of the starch, the way it was cultivated, the cooking methods, and the degree of ripeness all contributed variation. In addition, the reduction of the starch particle size before, during and after cooking all affected the GI.
The majority of the studies (approximately 2/3) were being done with diabetics, and no studies were being done to compare the effect of the same foods, cooked in the same way, on diabetic compared to normal individuals. In addition, no discussion of gender differences was done.
In 1995, Kaye Foster-Powell published the International Tables of Glycemic Index in which she reviewed and compiled the 73 studies that had been done on the subject. Her compilation was partially funded by the Australian Sugar industry. She found great variations for the same foods and in some cases could offer no explanation. For example, porridge (i.e. oatmeal) varied from as low as 42 to a high of 75. Significantly, she noted that as particle size decreases, the GI increases.
The total amount of the carbohydrate eaten, the amount and type of fat, and the fiber content all affect absorption rates and the impact on the blood sugar. But it is pretty clear that lots of high glycemic carbs means lots of insulin.
And when we are bathed in a lot of insulin, our body tries to compensate for it. It reduces the number of insulin receptors so there are fewer places where the “burn” message can be recorded. This reduction in receptors is called down regulation - the same thing you have been learning about with the neurotransmitter story in the science story of Potatoes Not Prozac . Over time, down regulation means the burning efficiency will be reduced. As the person eats more carbohydrates, the insulin levels increase but the receptors decrease and the person becomes insulin resistant.
Okay, see if you can follow all this. Write notes…think about it. Come to chat and let’s work on it more.
Copyright © Kathleen DesMaisons, 2004. All Rights Reserved. 