The Insulin Response Hormonal balance is a key to health maintenance and/or restora-tion. Since food elicits hormonal responses that can be beneficial or detrimental, it’s a good idea to cultivate the habit of conscious eating. We need to be aware of the effect our food choices will have—not only on our health, but on our appearance and mental state as well. Losing weight on the high-carbohydrate diet can be difficult for some men, and keeping it off may be even harder. The unsus-pected key to successful fat-burning is the hormone insulin.
And insulin levels are controlled by the amount of carbohydrate in the diet. When we consume carbohydrates, the pancreas secretes in-sulin, which makes it possible for glucose, or blood sugar, to enter the cells and be converted into energy. Insulin prevents blood sugar from rising too high after a meal. It is a storage hormone that’s responsible for storing excess blood sugar as glycogen in the liver and muscle tissues.
The Insulin Response To Glucose is a key to health maintenance
Glycogen storage capacity is lim-ited. Once it’s exhausted, the body will convert excess carbohy-drate to fat and store it under the direction of insulin. Insulin is one of two hormones that is critically important to blood sugar control. The other, called gftwagon, is released in re-sponse to protein consumption. Glucagon’s action is the opposite to that of insulin. They are inversely paired hormones—when one is high, the other is low. Glucagon is a mobilization hormone.
When blood-sugar level drops—and with it, energy level—glucagon is secreted by the pancreas, causing stored sugar (glyco-gen) to be released as glucose from the liver to replenish the sugar supply in the blood. Glucagon release also raises energy levels by increasing the release of fatty acids from fat cells. So, while insulin lowers blood sugar and stores fat, glucagon raises blood sugar and mobilizes fat from storage. Obviously, too much insulin will sap energy and increase body fat.
Carbohydrate overloading tends to displace proteins needed by the body for immunity, stable blood-sugar levels, hormones, and tissue repair. Additionally, carbohydrates such as bread, pasta, and potatoes are deficient in essential fats needed for the produc-tion of fat-burning hormones known as eicosanoids. The overcon-sumption of carbohydrates, with its subsequent stimulation of the insulin response, can lead to such effects as bloating, cardiovascu-lar disease, fatigue, food cravings, and weight gain.
Many people consume complex carbohydrates in hopes of sta-bilizing blood sugar. What they are not aware of, however, is that some complex carbohydrates have a very high glycenric index, which means that they convert quickly to blood sugar and there-fore raise insulin levels rapidly. The glycemic index is a measure of the effect of carbohydrate on blood glucose levels. It compares how rapidly carbohydrates are converted to blood sugar compared with glucose which is given an index of 100.
