Diabetes & Insulin Resistance

Do you know what’s really going on with diabetes and insulin resistance?

The mainstream conventional view is that diabetes and insulin resistance (we’ll call this D/IR for short) is simply the result of a transport problem. Insulin is the hormone that allows the sugar from the blood to be transported into the cell. The mainstream view supposes that as sugar in the blood rises, it requires more and more insulin to get the sugar into the cells. Over time, the cells become “resistant” (the insulin receptors lose their sensitivity), requiring more and more insulin to try to transport the sugar in. This raises fasting blood sugar and insulin and causes D/IR.

The mainstream conventional solution to this problem is to eat foods that don’t raise blood sugar too much. Eat “low glycemic foods.” Eat “complex carbs” and stay away from simple carbs and sugars. Then less insulin will be needed. And that’s good because sugar and insulin are the enemy.

Blaming the firemen for the fire.

This is a totally backwards approach. 

D/IR is not really the result of a transport problem, or even an insulin problem. The problem is what’s going on (or lack thereof) INSIDE the cell. 

See all that stuff pictured INSIDE the mitochondria in the picture below? 👇🏽 

All of that is completely messed up in D/IR. THAT is the problem, my friends.

As we have discussed previously, your body’s main source of energy is through glucose oxidation in the mitochondria. In D/IR this process is inhibited. Glucose is not being “burned” efficiently or properly. Therefore, glucose waiting to be burned builds up in the cell and it gets to a point where the gradient (between the cell sugar and the blood sugar) doesn’t allow for the proper movement of glucose into the cell. This is what causes the blood sugar to rise.

And insulin’s role is completely misrepresented. Insulin is in fact trying to lower stress by forcing (in multiple ways) the glucose burning to ramp back up. It’s trying and failing, because it can’t help or control the fact that the glucose burning ITSELF is debilitated.

What is the evidence for this? Check out this video as well as this podcast by Jay Feldman, which includes links to numerous studies.

Here is a summary:

1. In several studies of diabetics, scientists found that even when insulin levels remained constant, they could increase the participants’ glucose uptake by raising blood sugar, indicating that insulin is not what is inhibiting the glucose transport into the cells.
    

2. In several studies, scientists found evidence that glucose oxidation is impaired in D/IR, and of the glucose that is used, the process of glycolysis is favored as opposed to the entire process of oxidation. Meaning much of the glucose gets converted to pyruvate and then lactate (bypassing oxidation) because oxidation is not working correctly. This is extremely inefficient, and causes a build up of glucose in the cell, not to mention a deficiency in ATP.
    

3. Scientists found that hepatic glucose production (when the liver produces glucose) is elevated in D/IR. Liver glucose production is the primary way our bodies raise blood sugar, and it happens when blood sugar is low OR when our bodies are under stress. So why is the liver doing this even though blood sugar is already high in D/IR? Because the cells don’t have enough energy, and this signals a high stress situation.
   
   The body is trying to raise the gradient between the glucose in the blood and in the cell, to force the glucose into the cells. When scientists raised the insulin in these patients, this sugar production by the liver was reduced. So, this is why higher insulin results in lower blood sugar. Insulin is NOT increasing glucose uptake in the cells but is decreasing glucose release from the liver.
    

4. Scientists found that insulin is able to reduce fat burning in the mitochondria (fat oxidation). When glucose oxidation is impaired and energy is low, stress goes up and the cells switch to fat oxidation in order to survive. The stress hormones glucagon, adrenaline and cortisol not only stimulate the liver to release glucose, but also to increase fat oxidation. One of insulin’s jobs is to counter-balance these reactions. So insulin is an anti-stress hormone, trying its best to stimulate glucose burning by lowering fat burning. It will eventually fail in diabetes primarily because the glucose burning itself is inhibited, NOT because of “insulin resistance.”

Wow, that was a lot to take in!

So here it is in a nutshell:

D/IR is ultimately a problem with glucose metabolism. In D/IR, glucose burning is greatly impaired and is the root cause of all the escalating problems. If you don’t fix that first, you will never fix anything. 

Conventional recommendations only make things worse because they DO NOT ADDRESS the root cause.

The fact that these recommendations say to both eat “low glycemic foods” AND “complex carbs” doesn’t make sense. First of all, “complex carb” foods like grains and root vegetables should really be called “starches” and their carbs are made up of entirely glucose. They have a HIGH glycemic index! “Simple carbs” are foods like fruit and honey. They are made of fructose and glucose. Fructose is mostly picked up by the liver and doesn’t raise your blood sugar as much. So these higher-sugar foods have a LOW glycemic index. The mainstream medical complex can’t even get their terms straight!

And the reason a low-carb/keto/carnivore/fasting approach will seem to work for a time is that it completely avoids and ignores the underlying problem, which is the inhibition of glucose oxidation. Using these methods, you don’t have to address the root cause (for now), because you just bypassed it. Unfortunately, you are forcing the body to survive on fat oxidation, stress hormones and gluconeogenesis and this is going to catch up with you eventually. Trust me. Try to eat a high carb meal after trying this approach, and you will know right away that you are certainly not “healed.”

So I know you are all wondering….how is glucose oxidation inhibited? 

But you shouldn’t even have to ask.

IT’S PUFAS AGAIN (aka seed oils, aka vegetable oils, aka machine lubricant).

Though there are other factors as well, this is the main culprit and is why diabetes, along with obesity, has shot up since “vegetable oils” were introduced into our food supply. It’s also why you can look around you on a beach and see a major change vs just a few decades ago.

The mitochondria want to burn glucose predominantly, as it is the most efficient and clean-burning fuel and allows the cells to achieve maximum energy and a high metabolism. However, in D/IR the cells are “stuck” in fat burning mode because glucose burning is being inhibited from the seed oils (we’ve already discussed this here). In addition, fat burning contributes to the slowing down of glucose burning (as we talked about here), making a big problem even bigger. 

And unfortunately the fat burning is MUCH less than the fat storage. All the stress hormones will eventually make sure of that, especially in women. Gotta make sure we have fat for the next famine.

Insulin is trying its best to lower stress hormones and diffuse the situation, but it takes more  and more and eventually things begin to spiral out of control. 

So what do you do? How do you truly “heal” your metabolism?

Well, I hope you already have a clue, but we will talk about his more next time.

Hint: It’s SUGAR.