Understanding How Your Body Uses Glucose
Understanding How Your Body Uses Glucose
Diet Wars: Plant-Based, Low-Carb, Keto: Which One Is Correct?
How To Build A Balanced Plate
+ PART 2: Type 2 Diabetes Crash Course
Diana and I truly believe that knowledge is power, and when it comes to nutrition having the knowledge of how your body works and how it responds to food will empower you to make the right decisions every single day. And since this is a course about diabetes health, there’s no better way to start off than by talking about glucose metabolism. As always, we are going to keep it simple and straight to the point -- no need for a PhD-level class on biochemistry to get the main points across.
Today, we will be talking about glucose metabolism, which is essentially how your body processes sugar. I will start by explaining what glucose is and where it comes from. Then, I will explain what happens when glucose enters your body and how your body responds to it. I will go into detail about what tissues need glucose to function, and how they use glucose to make energy at a cellular level. It's also important to understand “normal” glucose metabolism in order to fully understand what happens when insulin resistance develops and “impaired” glucose metabolism sets in. This lecture will explain the key points that you need to grasp in order to start painting a mental picture of why this approach (plant-based eating) works to reverse insulin resistance—the underlying factor behind type 2 diabetes.
What is Glucose?
Glucose is actually a VERY important molecule and without it, life wouldn’t be possible. But like anything else in our body, glucose also has to exist in homeostasis—in a state of equilibrium. There are multiple biological pathways and hormones that play a role in this homeostasis. In other words, we want glucose to be at the perfect level -- not too high, not too low. The two hormones that take care of this “dance” are insulin and glucagon. These two hormones interact with our cells and communicate with our organs in order to maintain the perfect glucose levels at all times.
In simple terms, glucose is a simple sugar (also called a monosaccharide) that our body uses for energy production. Glucose is needed for energy production inside our body. This is the energy that we use to fuel our brain, muscles, and other organs. Without glucose, they wouldn't be able to function. When you eat carbohydrates (regardless of the kind), your body transforms them into their most simple form - glucose. Once it’s inside your body, your body makes a decision - to either store it for later use or use it right away for energy. If it decides to store it for later use, glucose transforms into glycogen (fancy name for the storage form of glucose) where it is stored in the liver and muscle. Alternatively, if your body decides to use it right away for energy, then glucose goes directly into the cells of the organs that need it. Every organ in the body -- brain, muscles, fat tissue, liver, kidney, etc. -- needs glucose for energy. When everything in homeostasis, all the cells in your body are “fed” the right amount of glucose and a hormonal “checks and balance” system keeps the levels under control.
Where Does Glucose Come From in Your Diet?
Whenever you eat carbohydrates, they transform into glucose inside of your body. It's important to distinguish the KIND or TYPE of carbohydrates because this will play a crucial role in your diabetes health. There are three main types: simple, complex, and refined carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates are those carbohydrate molecules that contain either one or two sugar molecules. This is why they are called “simple”. They are digested and absorbed quickly into your bloodstream. They include fruit juices, dairy products, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, and table sugar (sucrose). It's also important to pay attention to the SOURCE of the carbohydrate—this is where the distinction between “good” and “bad” carbohydrates comes in. Yes, fruits contain some simple sugars but they come pre-packaged with fiber, water, antioxidants, phytochemicals, vitamins, and minerals. These compounds are necessary and good for your health and should be included in your diet. On the other hand, other simple carbohydrates like plain table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup do not provide any nutritional value and should always be avoided. These types of simple carbohydrates can usually be found as “added sugars” in certain products like sodas, fruit juice concentrate, cookies, breakfast cereals, candy, baked treats, chocolates, etc.
Refined carbohydrates are complex carbohydrates that have been processed or ultra-processed. Many processed foods are made from refined carbohydrates. These include cakes, cookies, doughnuts, cereals, crackers, white rice, pasta, buns, and many pastries. Note, that these foods are not only a source of processed carbohydrates but also have added sugars and saturated fats (more on saturated fat in the upcoming lectures). We discourage their consumption of refined carbs at all costs since they are one of the main influencers of insulin resistance. Lastly, complex carbohydrates are those with three or more sugar molecules. When I refer to a “sugar molecule” I’m just referring to its molecular structure. When I refer to a simple carbohydrate, picture one sugar molecule - one circle. And when I say complex carbohydrates and I tell you they have more sugar molecules, picture multiple circles attached to each other (like the image below).
They are called “complex” carbohydrates because there are multiple sugar molecules attached to each other. Your body takes longer to break these down and they release glucose into the bloodstream at a much slower rate. These include whole-grains, starchy vegetables, non-starchy vegetables, beans, and legumes. You can download a list of the foods in each category below the presentation. Additionally, these foods are also a great source of fiber—another form of a complex carbohydrate. Fiber is not digested by our body and it does not breakdown into glucose. It passes right through your digestive system and it’s extremely important for optimal gut health and blood glucose control.
What Happens When Carbohydrates Enter Your Body?
Whenever you eat carbohydrates - regardless of the type of carbohydrate - your blood glucose levels rise which tells your pancreas to release insulin. Insulin is a very powerful hormone that acts as a key to unlock millions of "doors" located on the surface of the cells in your body. In other words, once the pancreas senses glucose in the bloodstream, it releases insulin so that the glucose can be either stored or used up right away as energy. As your cells absorb glucose, the glucose levels in the bloodstream begin to fall.
There is a point where glucose falls below a certain threshold and your body senses that there is not enough glucose in the bloodstream. So, the pancreas releases another hormone called glucagon, which makes your liver convert glycogen (the stored form of glucose) into glucose, and then it releases it back into the bloodstream, so blood glucose levels can go back up. This feedback loop between insulin, glucagon, and your liver gives your cells a steady glucose supply. This is considered normal glucose metabolism and this same process occurs when you eat ANY form of carbohydrate.
Now, what happens when this simple process is disrupted and transformed into a life-threatening condition? The answer is insulin resistance. Once insulin resistance develops, this whole system gets thrown off. The communication between hormones and organs doesn't become impaired, and as a result blood glucose also gets thrown off. Insulin resistance makes your cells "blind" to insulin. The cells stop responding to insulin in the bloodstream, and as a result, blood glucose cannot get into the cell. When that happens, glucose stays in the bloodstream causing damage. That is why if you develop insulin resistance, you have high levels of blood glucose.
In other words, type 2 diabetes is just the name for the main symptom of insulin resistance, which is elevated blood glucose levels. Conventional diabetes treatments tend to place an emphasis on treating the symptoms (lowering blood glucose) and completely disregard the root cause of this condition (insulin resistance). I'm not saying treating the symptoms with medication is a bad thing. Some people truly need their blood glucose levels to come right down because they are too high. But the problem with medication or a low carb diet is that they only place the attention on the high blood glucose and disregard why that high blood glucose is happening, which is insulin resistance. In order to successfully reverse type 2 diabetes, we need to take a closer look at what is causing insulin resistance in the first place. We will go into this in great detail in the next lectures. In order to get the full picture of type 2 diabetes health, you also need to understand what impaired blood glucose looks like.
What Does Impaired Glucose Metabolism Look Like?
Insulin works like a key that opens the “door” of your cells so glucose can go in. If glucose stays out of the cell, it cannot be used as energy and will continue to circulate in the bloodstream. Constantly high blood glucose levels damage your organs, blood vessels, and nerves. When you develop insulin resistance, your cells become “blind” to insulin and the cell “door” does not open anymore. Over the course of time, insulin becomes less and less effective which leads to less “doors” opening up, and more glucose being left out.
If nothing is done to correct this condition then insulin production decreases over time which leaves us with two problems: (1) Not enough insulin secreted by the pancreas, and (2) cells that don’t respond to the little insulin that is left. This is the main reason why if you have had a test for diabetes, your results may have shown both high glucose levels and high insulin as well because your pancreas is trying to make up for the amount of glucose that is still in the bloodstream by creating more and more “keys” (insulin). Your pancreas doesn't know that the reason why the keys aren’t working is that insulin resistance has developed in your cells. So the only thing it knows how to do is create more keys in hopes that it will bring blood glucose down. But unfortunately, it won’t do this indefinitely. Your pancreas gets tired and more specifically, the beta cells (the cells in charge of making insulin) die through a process called apoptosis -- cell death. As a result, your natural insulin production goes down. This means that you may need to inject insulin and inject “keys” into your body to keep opening cell doors whenever you eat carbohydrates. That is the reason why some people with type 2 diabetes have to inject insulin especially during the late stages of the disease.
The good news is that by following a whole-food, plant-based diet you actually become more insulin sensitive, which means your cells respond to insulin better. In the next lecture, you will learn the pathophysiology (or mechanism of disease) of insulin resistance. Understanding the science behind insulin resistance and its relationship to blood glucose is key to implementing long-lasting lifestyle changes and making the correct nutrition decisions day in and day out.
Next Lesson
Previous Lesson
How To Build A Balanced Plate
In this lesson, we go over the following:
- How to build a balanced plate
- What foods to include, why, and in what quantities
- Examples of how to build a balanced plate
Next Lesson
Previous Lesson
Understanding How Your Body Uses Glucose
Diet Wars: Plant-Based, Low-Carb, Keto: Which One Is Correct?
How To Build A Balanced Plate
+ PART 2: Type 2 Diabetes Crash Course
Diet Wars: Plant-Based, Low-Carb, Keto: Which One Is Correct?
There are a lot of different diets pushed out there to reverse type 2 diabetes. From low carb to keto to paleo to plant-based, it can be a lot of information and it can be very confusing. So today we are going to breakdown all those diets and teach you about the underlying mechanisms of each diet, and why one may be better to reverse type 2 diabetes than the others. In order to fully understand which approach is best for you, you need to understand the underlying mechanisms of the different diets often used for diabetes treatment. By not fully understanding nutrition and the impact that diet can have on your health, it's easy to make uninformed choices that may lead to detrimental problems in the future. We're here to give you an overview of each diet so you can fully understand how each of them works.
Insulin resistance doesn’t develop overnight. It takes years and years of eating a diet high in saturated fats, refined carbohydrates, oils, and too many animal products. We’ve all been there at one point in our lives. It's called the Standard American Diet (SAD, right?). Eggs and bacon with a muffin for breakfast, maybe combined some coffee with creamer, a burger and fries for lunch with a soda, then a pizza or an ultra-processed microwavable meal for dinner. As our lives become more fast-paced, we choose to save time wherever we can, and unfortunately, cooking healthy meals often falls off our list of priorities. Eating this way may be convenient now, but it's shortening our health in the long term.
Paleo Diet
The truth is that even a small deviation from the SAD diet will have a huge positive impact on your health. Eating less saturated and trans fats, less refined carbohydrates, less processed oils, less added sugars will help improve your diabetes health. Most people who eat a Standard American Diet tend to see improvements in their health when they avoid fast food and cook more homemade meals—even if their diets still include animal products. This is the reason why people who follow a “Paleo” (Paleolithic-caveman) approach to reverse their diabetes sometimes show promising results at the beginning. A paleo diet is mostly a whole-food diet that includes animal products.
Many people think that since our ancestors ate this way, then we must eat this way as well to preserve our long term health. But they fail to realize, Paleolithic cavemen didn't have easy access to meat and actually ate it very sparingly - it wasn't available to them on a daily basis. They relied heavily on plant-based foods for survival. Also, they didn’t have to worry about diabetes or heart disease, which develops over a long period of time. The average life expectancy was 25 years old—injury and being eaten by wild animals were the major contributors—not metabolic diseases. That being said, a modern Paleo or “whole-food” approach is MUCH better than the Standard American Diet to reverse type 2 diabetes, but it’s not the most optimal diet out there to maintain long-term health and prolonged quality of life. The problem with the paleo diet is that it's still very high in proteins and animal products. And there is an abundance of research that shows high protein diets reduce your life expectancy and increase your risk for chronic diseases.
Low-Carb and Keto Diets
Low-carb and ketogenic diets are very popular right now. As you can see, the bulk of the calories come from fats and proteins, and carbs are really restricted. One of the main problems with the keto diet is that there are so many beneficial, nutritious foods that are carbohydrates. Veggies, fruits, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds - all these fantastic foods that have so many vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients that are so good for your body, are extremely limited on the keto diet. It’s so hard to reach your recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals and nutrients following a keto diet.
The keto diet is also very well known in the diabetes nutrition world for its benefits on blood glucose reduction. The mechanism of action here is simple. If you’re not ingesting carbohydrates then your blood glucose levels won’t change, right? Most people who go on a low-carb or keto diet don’t eat many carbohydrates so therefore, their glucose levels are mainly unaffected. But the minute they decide to eat an apple or a banana or beans, their blood glucose skyrockets! It really can’t be such a healthy diet, if the minute you eat a piece of fruit, your glucose levels are out of control. The reason for that is that you continue to be insulin resistant. You’re not fixing the underlying cause with is insulin resistance. Think about it this way: treating insulin resistance with a low-carb, high-fat diet is like “fixing” a clogged sink by reducing the water flow of the faucet. Although reducing the water flow (carbohydrates) from the faucet can keep the sink from overflowing (high blood glucose), the drain is still clogged (insulin resistance). A better solution to fix this overflowing sink would be to take a look at what is going on inside that drain (insulin resistance).
Whole Food, Plant-Based Diet
We already know that a whole-food approach is better than the Standard American Diet which is full of processed meats, refined carbohydrates, and added sugars. We also know that a low-carb diet takes care of elevated blood glucose but not insulin resistance. So which diet can reverse insulin resistance, restore glucose levels (aka being able to eat carbohydrates), and provide all the necessary nutrients we need to live a healthy, long life? A diet composed of mostly plants, whole unrefined carbohydrates, with no added oils and sugars. It’s more simple than you think, and we are really excited to show you exactly how and why this sort of diet is the best diet to reverse type 2 diabetes and live a long healthy life.
Noticed, how we said MOSTLY plants? Yes, in a perfect world you would be 100% plant-based but we know that this might not be possible for everyone. Having a meal containing animal products every once in a while will not make you go back to “square 1”. Here is the catch: This is not just about eating a plant-based, whole-food meal every now and then and going back to old eating habits the rest of the week. You have to commit to following a plant-based, whole-food lifestyle consistently to see the results—just like everything else in life, right? We are here to show you exactly what you can eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks so you never run out of delicious ideas. You don’t have to go hungry at any time, you don’t have to count your calories...none of that...you only have to worry about eating high nutrient-dense foods whenever you’re hungry. It also happens to be that plant-foods have the highest amount of nutrients per calorie consumed. So why does a whole-food, plant-based diet work so well to reverse insulin resistance, therefore, type 2 diabetes? As you can see from this chart, plant-based foods are very nutrient-dense and have a lot fewer calories. So you’re able to eat a lot more nutritious foods compared to foods that are very processed, high in sugar, and animal-based - foods that don’t have many nutrients and are much higher in calories.
Eating a plant-based diet provides you with so many great benefits that work to reverse insulin resistance. Dr. McMacken's paper outlines some of the benefits of a plant-based, whole-food diet for the reversal of type 2 diabetes. She goes on to show all the nutrients that a plant-based diet offers. They are high in fiber, antioxidants magnesium, etc - all of which have been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, and the list goes on. There are hundreds of studies looking at a plant-based diet's effect on type 2 diabetes, and study after study shows such promising results. And that is why we 100% believe in the power of plant-based eating for the reversal of type 2 diabetes. In fact, this way of eating allows you to take control of your health in so many different aspects. It helps with heart disease, blood pressure, obesity - and more. It helps you live a longer life and thats why we want to teach you how to incorporate more plant-based eating into your lifestyle so you can live disease-free and live a longer, healthier life. With this lecture, we hope we gave you a better understanding of the different diets out there so you can make an informed, evidence-based decision of which one to follow for long-term health. Now, we’re going to help and guide you every step of the way to implement the best eating habits to fully reverse type 2 diabetes.
Next Lesson
Previous Lesson