Friday, August 26, 2011

The Trilogy of Diabetes (4)

Excessive amino acids triggers
high blood sugar level,
cancelling the effort of insulin.
Episode 3: Excessive proteins induces insulin resistance

Q:  Why does this happen?

A:  It's all related to the confusion of another signalling pathway.

The story goes like this...

During starvation or emergency (e.g. life threatening events)
glucose are consumed quickly and low blood sugar situation occurs.

Our body will then be signalled to increase the blood sugar level
in order to feed the relevant muscles for emergency rescue,
via the release of two hormones:
cortisol (a stress hormone) and glucagon.

And, how exactly these two hormones are triggered
is, interestingly, via an elevated level of blood amino acids (or proteins)
which originate from
injured tissues (e.g. animal attack) or
digested muscles (due to starvation).

On a normal day,
when we have our 3 proper meals at proper timing,
comfortably at our dining table,
cortisol and glucagon shouldn't exist in significant level
(as there is no starvation or emergency occuring).

with the large intake of meat and dairy in a meal,
our body mistakes those increased amount of dietary proteins/amino acids
as a signal of starvation/emergency!
Consequently, when cortisol and glucagon
(which act in the exact opposite direction of insulin)
are released,
they create a condition similar to insulin resistance,
subsequently forcing the pancreas to secrete exaggerated amount of insulin
to bring back the blood sugar to normal after the meal.

In long term, same drill, the pancreas gets exhausted and
fails to keep up the insulin production with the 'false emergency alarm'
after every high protein meal that we eat,
leading to high blood sugar level eventually.

The above are actually very established biochemical facts
which one can easily find in textbooks.
But, the general public who are under-informed about this "general knowledge",
may perhaps be mistaken that eating more protein food (meat and dairy)
in place of carbohydrate food,
is a 'wise' way to avoid the risk of diabetes.

How many times have we seen diabetic friends
dedicatedly cut down their carbo food,
but only to worsen their condition
by taking in large amount of proteins via a meat-based diet?
-- whenever I see that, I sense the shiver down my spine...

Next, we will discuss on two "magic bullets"
to mitigate the severity of insulin resistance
and the principles to formulate a diet to prevent diabetes.

Take care,
Kee Yew

{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}

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