Insulin Resistance = Carb Intolerant

If you eat a high carb diet (as in breads, starchy vegetables and processed foods), are overweight, been diagnosed with Type II diabetes or are insulin resistant, watch this video. I've included a summary of the highlights. Very interesting theories about what our bodies need and do not need to be healthy and at a healthy weight.

Disclaimer: For your information - I am not responsible for what you chose to do with the information.

The Many Facets of Keto-Adaptation: Health, Performance and Beyond

Jeff Volek

http://youtu.be/GC1vMBRFiwE

Ketone Terminology

Ketones - small energy containing substances derived from fatty acids that provide fuel to the body.

Ketosis - a metabolic state characterized by an increase in ketone production, usually marked by blood levels greater than 0.5 mmol/L.

Nutritional Ketosis - the process of accelerating production of ketones through restriction of dietary carbohydrate.

Keto-Acidosis - a dangerous side effect of Type I diabetes where ketone production reaches levels above 10 mmol/L. this does not happen in non-diabetics.

Keto-Adaptation - the process the body goes through when it is exposed to limited carbs and continuous elebated ketone levels. It is characterized by a shift to using predominately fat for fuel, and takes at least several weeks if not months to fully develop. Evolutionary - we evolved with a low carb diet.

·         Once body adapts to low carb, ketones help with symptoms of hypoglycemia, can have lower blood sugars with no symptoms

·         less generation of free radicals with ketones

·         more efficient with providing ATP energy

·         act as signals to increase gene expression of whole array of anti-oxidant genes/suppresses oxidative stress

·         decreased inflammation

·         decreased blood pressure

·         improved insulin sensitivity

·         better fuel delivery to brain

·         decreased central fatigue

·         less lactate

·         better/faster recovery

·         improved host defense against infection

Insulin Resistance = Carb Intolerance

So when you are lactose intolerant you avoid milk, if gluten intolerant, you reduce/avoid gluten containing foods. So why, when we are carb intolerant do we continue to eat unhealthy carbs?

Carbs are more than fuel, it's a potent regulator of metabolism. They control how body burns fat.

·         Storage is limited, thus when we digest carbs and absorb it as sugar, the body is forced to prioritize burning that sugar while simultaneously impairing access to and use of fat. Most peopple do not burn all the energy from carbs from activity so instead it is stored as fat. This also locks people into storage mode.

Ideal scenario of carb use:

Ingest carb - blood glucose - converts to glyogen - oxidized in muscle (burned for fuel)

If insulin resistant/carb intolerant:

ingest carb - blood glucose - glycogen - lipogenesis (fat synthesis) in liver and makes saturated fat - damage (metabolic syndrome, type II diabetes)

How low to go?

Some need to restrict to 50 grams a day to bring on nutritional ketosis, but for highly insulin resistance, may need to lower to 30 grams/day.

Despite being higher in saturated fat, a low carb diet decreases circulating levels of saturated fatty acids. The SFA's are being used for fuel in absence of high carbs.

Clinical applications of low carb, ketogenic diet:

• ·         prevent/reverse type II diabetes
• ·         weight loss
• ·         decrease cancer
• ·         neuroprotection: epilepsy, aging, Alzheimer's, etc.

 "Half of what we know is wrong, the purpose of science is to determine which half." - Arthur Kornberg