Glucose Revolution: The Life-Changing Power of Balancing Your Blood Sugar

by Jessie Inchauspé

To understand how mitochondria respond to a glucose spike coming their way, imagine this: your grandfather, finally retiring after a long career, is able to fulfill his dream of working on a steam train. Everyone in the family thinks he’s crazy for doing it, but he doesn’t care. After some training, he enlists as a stoker in a train’s engine room: his job is to shovel coal onto the fire to generate the steam that pushes the pistons and makes the wheels of the train turn. He’s the mitochondria of the train, if you will. Periodically throughout the day, as the train speeds along the tracks, coal is delivered to your grandfather. He places it by the furnace and shovels it into the flames at a steady pace to fuel the process that moves the train. The raw material is converted to energy. And when the stock is used up, another batch is promptly supplied. Just like the train, our cells hum along smoothly when the amount of energy that is provided matches up with the amount of energy needed to function. Now it’s the second day of your grandfather’s new job. A few minutes after the first delivery of coal, he gets a surprising knock on the door. More coal. He thinks, Well, it’s a bit early, but that way I’ll have some extra. He sets it aside next to the furnace. A few minutes later, another knock. More coal. And another. The knocks keep coming, and the coal keeps being delivered. “I don’t need all of this!” he says. But he’s told that it’s his job to burn it, and he’s given no other...