Of all the reasons to avoid a high carb and sugar diet, insulin stimulation if one of the best. After you consume carbs, or carb’s twin sugar, your pancreas floods your blood with insulin, to bring down the high sugar levels.
If you do this long enough, you will overwhelm your system, and become insulin resistant. Also, there is another piece of the metabolic puzzle called leptin, which is a hormone produced by your good friends- your fat cells! When functioning well, when the fat cells are full-up, meaning you are “fat enough”, this leptin is produced by your very own fat cells to signal you to stop eating- no more food (or FAT) is needed!
And so, if you eat a typical, SAD American diet of cereal and skimmed milk for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, and pizza for supper- chances are you will become both insulin and leptin resistant. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? But trust me, it really is-
You will get progressively fatter and fatter- more and more insulin and leptin resistant- and most importantly- you will become prone to all of the worst diseases of modern times. Think of insulin like this: insulin regulates its own production and directly regulates tissue aging. Keep insulin levels low and cells are stronger, staving off infection and age-related diseases such as cancer, dementia and stroke.
So there you go- insulin is an aging hormone, both in terms of body image, and in terms of disease! We should all strive to keep our insulin, and thus our leptin levels low. If we don’t, then the body simply “gets used to” the high levels, and can even burn out our poor little pancreas from trying to keep up with flooding our system with aging hormone. Fattening hormone, too- and who would ever want that, unless you are a Sumo wrestler.
Think about it- if you lived in the wild, spear in hand, roaming the landscape looking for food… how many carbs would you find? The cave wife might find some tubers along with the green vegetables she gathered as you hunted, but you would mostly come up with, through hunting, meat and fat. And hopefully, plenty of both.
The modern fear of fat is founded in the McGovern commission in the 1970’s that adopted Ancel Keye’s wrongheaded conclusions about fat causing heart disease, which sent us on a sugar/carb overload of almost 50 years that has made us the fattest, sickest people in the history of the planet. Real fat is our friend; our savior really. Fat raises insulin not at all.
Protein doesn’t either, unless we overindulge- then, our body will convert the excess into carbs, which is just what we want to avoid. More carbs = more insulin, more aging, more insulin and leptin resistance, and a fatter sicker human. I mean, forget the standard testing of cholesterol, etc. that really tells us almost nothing about real disease risk. Insulin resistance tells us almost everything we need to know, since if you are insulin resistant you are also prone to a number of other age-related diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, and all-cause mortality risk.
The strange thing is, this is all rather simple, once you understand it. Why are we not told this simple preventive stuff?
Most doctors and clinics really haven’t digested, or don’t really know about all of this stuff- they went to school 30 or more years ago, when none of it was known. And the clinics and hospitals, well they have built a huge, profitable business model around treating these diseases. To prevent them? Why kill the insulin/leptin goose that lays the golden egg??
I hate to be so cynical, but I’ve seen it proved over and over. And you know what is the best advice I can give you?
Stay away from doctors and clinics. Really! They are bent on prescribing, and surgeries, because they make money for them- LOTS of money!
Spend your money and time building your natural health, your bodily terrain! Buy good, real foods- pastured meats dairy. Exercise daily, with natural movement in the form of Perfectly Paleo Exercise- sleep 8 hours minimum per night, meditate and/or pray daily, and spend time walking barefoot in nature. Get rid of processed foods like breads and other tainted carbs and sugars, and keep your insulin low by consuming lots of good fats.
The health and pharmaceutical industry would love to sell you more and more and more drugs to mask your disease symptoms- I mean what business wouldn’t want to sell a lot of their “stuff”?
I mean, if your auto repair shop said “Come on in, every 6 months, and we’ll go over and test every part of your car, to make sure it is OK- we’ll give it a piston-ography, a chassis-smear, and test the oil for oh, all kinds of things, like high oil-oc-ity which is so dangerous! It will only cost 5,000 dollars each time, and is the responsible thing to do. Don’t worry, your Obama-Car will cover it, mostly…”
Of course you would ignore this “deal”. But somehow, most of us have bought into the ridiculous notion that our own bodies need to be tested, measured, and “gone over” on a regular basis- at huge cost each time! Actually, the car tests make better sense, since cars can be repaired by humans. The human body repairs itself! Proper food, proper lifestyle, and the body does it all.
So come on, paleoista! Now you have seen the light. Be self-sufficient, kick your doctor and clinic to the curb, and do it yourself! You are a Paleo Man! Or a Paleo Woman! Take the bull by the horns and get healthy on your own terms.
