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May 10 - June 1, 2023
A glucose spike from a sweet food (cupcake) is worse for our health than a glucose spike from a starchy food (rice).
A sweet food contains table sugar, or sucrose – that compound made up of glucose and fructose. A starchy food doesn’t.
Until they do, remember that if the food you ate was sweet and it created a glucose spike, it also created an invisible fructose spike, and that’s what makes a sweet spike more harmful than a starchy spike.
Glucose’s primary biological purpose once it enters a cell is to be turned into energy. The powerhouses responsible for this are microscopic organelles found in most of our cells called mitochondria.
when our mitochondria are drowning in unnecessary glucose, tiny molecules with large consequences are released by our cells: free radicals. (And some glucose is converted to fat; more on that shortly.) When free radicals appear because of a spike, they set off a dangerous chain reaction. Free radicals are a big deal because anything they touch, they damage.
When there are too many free radicals to be neutralised, our body is said to be in a state of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a driver of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline and general ageing. And fructose increases oxidative stress even more than glucose alone. That’s one of the reasons that sweet foods (which contain fructose) are worse than starchy foods (which don’t).
Over decades cells become ravaged. Because they’re stuffed, crowded and overwhelmed, our mitochondria can’t convert glucose to energy efficiently. The cells starve, which leads to organ dysfunction. We feel this as humans: even though we’re fuelling up by eating, we suffer from lassitude; it’s hard to get up in the morning, and we have no energy throughout the day. We’re tired. Do you know the feeling? I sure did.
The more glucose we deliver to our body, the more often glycation happens. Once a molecule is glycated, it’s damaged forever – which is why you can’t untoast a piece of toast. The long-term consequences of glycated molecules range from wrinkles and cataracts to heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Since browning is ageing and ageing is browning, slowing down the browning reaction in your body leads to a longer life. Fructose molecules glycate things 10 times as fast as glucose, generating that much more damage. Again, this is another reason why spikes from sugary foods such as cookies (which
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The haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) test (well known among people with diabetes) measures how many red blood cell proteins have been glycated by glucose over the past two to three months.
The combination of too many free radicals, oxidative stress and glycation leads to a generalised state of inflammation in the body. Inflammation is a protective measure; it’s the result of the body trying to defend against invaders. But chronic inflammation is harmful because it turns against our own body.
Chronic inflammation is the source of most chronic illnesses, such as strokes, chronic respiratory diseases, heart disorders, liver disease and diabetes, as well as of problems like obesity.
Worldwide, three out of five people will die of an inflammation-based disease. The good news is, a diet that reduces glucose spikes decreases inflammation and along with it your risk of contracting any of these inflammation-based diseases.
One of the pancreas’s main functions is to send a hormone called insulin into the body. Insulin’s sole purpose is to stash excess glucose in storage units throughout the body, to keep it out of circulation and protect us from damage. Without insulin, we would die;
Insulin stashes excess glucose in several storage units. Enter storage unit number one: the liver.
The liver can hold about 100 grams of glucose in glycogen form (the amount of glucose in two large McDonald’s fries). That’s half of the 200 grams of glucose that our body needs for energy per day.
The second storage unit is our muscles. Our muscles are effective storage units because we have so many of them. The muscles of a typical adult weighing around 68 kilos (10st10lb) can hold about 400 grams of glucose as glycogen, or the amount of glucose in seven large McDonald’s fries.
Once insulin has stored all the glucose it can in our liver and muscles, any excess glucose is turned into fat and stored in our fat reserves. And that’s one of the ways we gain weight. And then some. Because it’s not just glucose that our body has to deal with, it must also dispose of fructose. And unfortunately, fructose cannot be turned into glycogen and stored in the liver and the muscles. The only thing that fructose can be stored as is fat.
The fat our body creates from fructose has a few unfortunate destinies: first, it accumulates in the liver and drives the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Second, it fills up fat cells in our hips, thighs and face and between our organs, and we gain weight. Finally, it enters the bloodstream and contributes to an increased risk of heart disease. (You may have heard of it as low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or ‘bad’ cholesterol.)
This is another reason why, if two foods have the same number of calories, I’d recommend that you skip the sweet food (which contains fructose) in favour of a savoury food (which doesn’t). The absence...
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About 60 minutes after a meal, our glucose concentration reaches its maximum and then starts coming down as insulin arrives and ushers the glucose molecules away into our liver, muscles and fat cells.
However, the more glucose spikes we experience, the more insulin is released in our bodies. In the long term, chronically elevated levels of insulin bring problems of their own. Too much insulin is the root cause of obesity, type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and more.
our body can call on glycogen in our liver and muscles to turn back into glucose whenever the thousands of mitochondria in each cell need it. Then, when our glycogen reserves begin to diminish, our body draws on the fat in our fat reserves for energy – we’re in fat-burning mode – and we lose weight. But this happens only when our insulin levels are low.
But if our glucose levels, and therefore our insulin levels, are steady, we shed pounds.
weight loss is always preceded by insulin decrease.
As I’ve discovered more about glucose, I’ve learned that there is a wide array of unwelcome short-term symptoms associated with spikes and dips, and they vary from person to person. For some, they’re dizziness, nausea, heart palpitations, sweats, food cravings and stress; for others, like me, they’re exhaustion and brain fog. And for many Glucose Goddess community members, a glucose spike can also bring on poor mood or anxiety.
In the long term, the processes that spikes set into motion – oxidative stress, glycation, inflammation and insulin excess – lead to chronic conditions, from type 2 diabetes to arthritis and depression.
Short-term effects Constant hunger
If you compare two meals that contain the same number of calories, the one that leads to a smaller glucose spike will keep you feeling full for longer.
Second, constant hunger is a symptom of high insulin levels. When there is a lot of insulin in our body, built up over years of glucose spikes, our hormones get mixed up. Leptin, the hormone that tells us we are full and should stop eating, has its signal blocked, while ghrelin, the hormone that tells us we are hungry, takes over. Even though we have fat reserves, with lots of energy available, our body tells us we need more – so we eat.
Cravings
When the subjects’ glucose levels were stable, they didn’t rate many of the foods highly. However, when their glucose levels were decreasing, two things happened. First, the craving centre of their brain lit up when pictures of high-calorie foods were shown. Second, the participants rated those foods much higher on the ‘I want to eat it’ scale than when their glucose levels were stable.
Flattening our glucose curve leads to fewer cravings.
Chronic fatigue
too much glucose makes them quit, energy production is compromised, and we are tired.
If you have damaged mitochondria, picking your kid up is more challenging, carrying groceries is exhausting and you won’t be able to handle stress (such as a layoff or a breakup) as well as you used to. Mitochondria-generated energy is required to overcome difficult events, whether physical or mental.
When we eat something that tastes sweet, we may think that we are helping our body get energised, but it’s just an impression caused by the dopamine rush in our brain that makes us feel high. With every spike, we are impairing the long-term ability of our mitochondria.
Poor sleep
Going to bed with high glucose levels or right after a big glucose spike is also associated with insomnia in postmenopausal women and sleep apnoea in a segment of the male population. If you want a good night’s sleep, flatten your curves.
Colds and coronavirus complications
people with elevated glucose levels have been shown to be more easily infected, to more easily suffer complications, and to be more than twice as likely to die from the virus as people with normal glucose levels (41 per cent versus 16 per cent).
Memory and cognitive function issues
It turns out that big glucose spikes can impair memory and cognitive function.
Long-term effects Acne and other skin conditions
When we eat in a way that flattens our glucose curves, acne clears up, pimples get smaller and inflammation is tamed.
Ageing and arthritis Depending on your diet, you may have spiked your glucose (and fructose) tens of thousands more times than your neighbour has by the time you reach 60. This will influence not just how old you look externally but how old you are internally. The more often we spike, the faster we age. Glycation, free radicals and the subsequent inflammation are responsible for the slow degradation of our cells – what we call ageing.
Alzheimer’s and dementia Of all organs, the brain uses the most energy. It’s home to a lot of mitochondria. That means that when there is excess glucose in our body, our brain is vulnerable to the consequences. The neurons in our brain feel oxidative stress as any other cells do: repeated glucose spikes, because they increase oxidative stress, lead to neuroinflammation and eventually cognitive dysfunction.
Alzheimer’s and glucose levels are so closely connected that Alzheimer’s is sometimes called ‘type 3 diabetes’ or ‘diabetes of the brain’. For instance, people with type 2 diabetes are four times as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as people without diabetes.
Cancer risk Children born today have a one in two chance of developing cancer in their lifetime. And poor diet, together with smoking, is the main driver in 50 per cent of cancers. For starters, research documents that cancer may begin with DNA mutations produced by free radicals. Second, inflammation promotes cancer’s proliferation. Finally, when there is more insulin present, cancer spreads even faster. Glucose is the key to many of these processes, and it shows in the data – people with fasting levels higher than 5.5 mmol/L, what is classified as prediabetes, have over double the likelihood
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Depressive episodes
When people eat a diet that leads to erratic glucose levels, they report more depressive symptoms and more mood disturbances
