Monday, February 24, 2014

My lunch

My lunch of chicken sandwich and fries is an example of what I have been trying to avoid lately because it has two servings of carbohydrates.    My usual solution is to break that into two meals or eat a meal with fewer carbohydrates.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Health Matters: Your craving may be your addiction - Opinion - WKU Herald

When you first take a bite of sugary cereal, your taste receptors that respond to sweetness, found at the tip of your tongue, send a signal to the portion of your brain called the cerebral cortex. 

This signal activates ‘the reward system’ and causes you to want to take another bite. Excessive activation of this reward system, Dr. Avena suggests, can cause ‘loss of control, craving and intolerance to sugar.’

Friday, February 14, 2014



The basic premise


The Carbohydrate Hypothesis, as attacked by Guyenet, looks basically like this:


Excessive amounts of carbohydrates (especially refined carbs / sugar) increases insulin and results in fat gain.


Guyenets argues in his post that carbs are not necessarily the cause of increased insulin, and insulin certainly do not result in gaining weight (maybe the opposite!). Basically he says that while low carb works, the theory to explain it is wrong.


However, as every doctor who has ever treated diabetics with insulin (and their patients) probably knows, injecting insulin certainly does tends to increase fat gain. And in untreated type 1 diabetics, with no insulin, weight plummets. Guyenet does not mention that.


Thin people usually have low insulin levels, obese people usually have high levels of insulin. Guyenet does not believe that is significant.


In short: Carbohydrates drives insulin, which drives fat.



Monday, February 3, 2014