THE MOST INTERESTING AND EDUCATIONAL THING I HAVE EVER READ!!!!
The reason why a lot of people are jumping onto the low carb/no carb high protein & fat diet ride is because of the whole "Carbohydrates cause an insulin spike and therefore stores fat" idea, right?I made it my mission to find something to show all of you that this is not true and that Insulin and especially Carbs like potatoes and rice do not deserve the bad reputation they have been given.
MYTH: Carbohydrate Drives Insulin, Which Drives Fat Storage
FACT: Your Body Can Synthesize and Store Fat Even When Insulin Is Low
One of the biggest misconceptions regarding insulin is that it’s needed for fat storage. It isn’t. Your body has ways to store and retain fat even when insulin is low. For example, there is an enzyme in your fat cells called hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL). HSL helps break down fat. Insulin suppresses the activity of HSL, and thus suppresses the breakdown of fat. This has caused people to point fingers at carbohydrate for causing fat gain.
However, fat will also suppress HSL even when insulin levels are low. This means you will be unable to lose fat even when carbohydrate intake is low, if you are overeating on calories. If you ate no carbohydrate but 5,000 calories of fat, you would still be unable to lose fat even though insulin would not be elevated. This would be because the high fat intake would suppress HSL. This also means that, if you’re on a low carbohydrate diet, you still need to eat less calories than you expend to lose weight.
MYTH: Carbohydrate Is Singularly Responsible for Driving Insulin
FACT: Protein Is a Potent Stimulator of Insulin Too
This is probably the biggest misconception that is out there. Carbohydrates get a bad rap because of their effect on insulin, but protein stimulates insulin secretion as well. In fact, it can be just as potent of a stimulus for insulin as carbohydrate. One recent study compared the effects of two different meals on insulin.
The fact is that protein is a potent stimulator of insulin secretion, and this insulin secretion is not related to changes in blood sugar or gluconeogenesis from the protein. In fact, one study found beef to stimulate just as much insulin secretion as brown rice. The blood sugar response of 38 different foods could only explain 23% of the variability in insulin secretion in this study. Thus, there’s a lot more that’s behind insulin secretion than just carbohydrate.
So how can protein cause rapid rises in insulin, as shown in the whey protein study earlier? Amino acids (the building blocks of protein) can directly stimulate your pancreas to produce insulin, without having to be converted to glucose first. For example, the amino acid leucine directly stimulates pancreas cells to produce insulin, and there’s a direct dose-response relationship (i.e., the more leucine, the more insulin is produced).
Some might say, “Well, sure, protein causes insulin secretion, but this won’t suppress fat-burning because it also causes glucagon secretion, which counteracts insulin’s effects.” I mentioned earlier how insulin will suppress lipolysis. Well, some people think that glucagon increases lipolysis to cancel this out.
The thought that glucagon increases lipolysis is based on 3 things: the fact that human fat tissue has glucagon receptors, the fact that glucagon increases lipolysis in animals, and the fact that glucagon has been shown to increase lipolysis in human fat cells in vitro (in a cell culture). However, what happens in vitro isn’t necessarily what happens in vivo (in your body). We have a case here where newer data has overturned old thinking. Research using modern techniques has shown that glucagon does not increase lipolysis in humans. Other research using the same techniques has shown similar results. I will also note that this research failed to find any lipolytic effect in vitro.
It should be remembered why glucagon is released in response to protein in the first place. Since protein stimulates insulin secretion, it would cause a rapid drop in blood glucose if no carbohydrate is consumed with the protein. Glucagon prevents this rapid drop in blood sugar by stimulating the liver to produce glucose.
See the results or the studies referred to and more detail on original article: Link below....
Insulin: Not Such a Villain After All
The fact is that insulin is not this terrible, fat-producing hormone that must be kept as low as possible. It is an important hormone for appetite and blood sugar regulation. In fact, if you truly wanted to keep insulin as low as possible, then you wouldn’t eat a high protein diet…you would eat a low protein, low carbohydrate, high fat diet. However, I don’t see anybody recommending that.
I’m sure some are having some cognitive dissonance reading this article right now. I know because I experienced the same disbelief years ago when I first discovered this paper and how protein caused large insulin responses. At the time, I had the same belief that others have…that insulin had to be kept under control and as low as possible, and that spikes in insulin were a bad thing. I had difficulty reconciling that study and my beliefs regarding insulin. However, as time went on, and as I read more research, I learned that my beliefs regarding insulin were simply wrong.
Now, you may be wondering why refined carbohydrates can be a problem. Many people think it’s due to the rapid spikes in insulin. However, it’s obviously not the insulin, because protein can cause rapid spikes in insulin as well. One problem with refined carbohydrate is a problem of energy density. With refined carbohydrate, it is easier to pack a lot of calories into a small package. Not only that, but foods with high energy density are often not as satiating as foods with low energy density. In fact, when it comes to high-carbohydrate foods, energy density is a strong predictor of a food’s ability to create satiety (i.e., low-energy density foods create more satiety). There are other issues with refined carbohydrate as well that are beyond the scope of this article.
The bottom line is that insulin doesn’t deserve the bad reputation it’s been given. It’s one of the main reasons why protein helps reduce hunger. You will get insulin spikes even on a low-carb, high-protein diet. Rather than worrying about insulin, you should worry about whatever diet works the best for you in regards to satiety and sustainability. As mentioned in last week’s issue of Weightology Weekly, individual responses to particular diets are highly variable and what works for one person will not necessarily work for another.
While I do agree that different eating plans and diet styles work for different people, I can't agree that consumption of a pure protein meal would spike insulin significantly enough to warrant this belief, type 1 diabetics only inject insulin based on their carbohydrate intake, no other factors play a role. Blood sugar levels spike after exercise (without carbohydrate consumption) in response to the liver releasing stored glycogen into the blood stream as glucose, the longer an individual follows a no carb diet (or very low carb) , the less likely this will occur. That being said I don't believe carbohydrates are evil and every macronutrient should play a role in your eating plan to be sustainable, as well as eating carbohydrates from natural sources and not refined or processed carbs
ReplyDeleteCamella, did you go to the site and read the full article and look at the study results which was done on which the assumption about protein raising insulin levels were based before you posted your comment?
ReplyDeleteThat is why I said that the full analysis of the studies can be found on the original article... to avoid misunderstanding it.
Go and do that and then you will better understand.
How can you not agree with studies done by giving people food then testing and documenting their insulin levels thereafter?
You cannot disagree on a fact proved by an experiment based on how Dr's treat type 1 Diabetics.
You also do realize that a "spike" in insulin would only occur when carbohydrates are consumed without any fats or fiber present. Fats & Fiber delays the release of glucose into the bloodstream and additional insulin is therefore not needed.
A slow release of anything into the bloodstream will also cause a slow release of insulin.
The point is that the science behind nutrition is much more complicated than the average person might think and to start a huge nutrition hype based on the thinking of Low Carbs = low insulin = no fat storage is not a good idea when there is clearly much more to it than that.
Just to make sure... You are saying that the longer a person follows a no carb diet the less likely the liver will release glycogen into the blood stream as glucose?? Is that right?
ReplyDelete