Sugar Cravings After A Meal Caused By Insulin Or Stress Response? How Do You Know?

redsun

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Dec 17, 2018
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Although I think McDougall's diet is somewhat flawed, I definitely agree with him here. Randle et al. showed this quite nicely in the 60's and others have shown in the decades since. Fat is the problem, not sugar.

My issue with McDougall is the heavy starch consumption and relative protein deficiency. He has age spots now and has prematurely aged skin. He looks about 10 years older than his age to me which makes me think the heavy starch consumption is leading to elevated insulin (despite insulin resistance being low since his fat intake is very low) and the lack of adequate protein may be leading to premature wrinkles due to insufficient collagen production. It's speculation but it's a likely possibility. So basically, I think his insulin is high but he isn't insulin resistant so his blood sugar is normal.

I think Peat is right about getting adequate protein (80-100 grams per day). McDougall claims we only need about 28-30 grams per day but I get ravenously hungry and my brain gets foggy if I don't eat a lot of protein consistently throughout the day no matter how much sugar I get. I'm at about 120 grams per day now with 2ish quarts of milk and lots of shrimp/lean chicken breast.

Lack of animal fat and especially cholesterol is also the problem in aging not just the lack of protein. Dietary Fat (not including PUFA oils) is not the problem causing insulin resistance, body fat is the problem raising FFA very high in the blood and reducing the ability to use glucose like you are supposed to. Of course there is much more to what affects IR (such as liver health) but thats the main issue imo. Clearly Mcdougall's aging problem is primarily a protein thing because he eats almost none, but fat is also necessary just like protein to reduce and prevent aging.

Eating almost entirely starch leaves the body with very little raw material for cell membranes (choline, cholesterol, fatty acids, amino acids etc.) and bodily tissues. Plant based diet is also incredibly low in zinc not too mention its bioavailability is already low and this lack of zinc (which is required for protein synthesis) is not helping the cause.

A lack of carbs will cause aging in its own way, just like a lack of protein or fat. Extreme macro ratios cause the most aging.

Mcdougall diet if I recall correctly is a very low fat, low palatability diet which causes the body to burn through its body fat to provide energy from fatty acids in cells that primarily use fat (which is most cells). So insulin sensitivity is improved by loss of body fat.
 

stargazer1111

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Feb 16, 2017
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Lack of animal fat and especially cholesterol is also the problem in aging not just the lack of protein. Dietary Fat (not including PUFA oils) is not the problem causing insulin resistance, body fat is the problem raising FFA very high in the blood and reducing the ability to use glucose like you are supposed to. Of course there is much more to what affects IR (such as liver health) but thats the main issue imo. Clearly Mcdougall's aging problem is primarily a protein thing because he eats almost none, but fat is also necessary just like protein to reduce and prevent aging.

Eating almost entirely starch leaves the body with very little raw material for cell membranes (choline, cholesterol, fatty acids, amino acids etc.) and bodily tissues. Plant based diet is also incredibly low in zinc not too mention its bioavailability is already low and this lack of zinc (which is required for protein synthesis) is not helping the cause.

A lack of carbs will cause aging in its own way, just like a lack of protein or fat. Extreme macro ratios cause the most aging.

Mcdougall diet if I recall correctly is a very low fat, low palatability diet which causes the body to burn through its body fat to provide energy from fatty acids in cells that primarily use fat (which is most cells). So insulin sensitivity is improved by loss of body fat.

The scientific literature is clear on fat. Dietary fats are what cause insulin resistance. Fat and glucose compete for absorption into cells from the blood. The more fat you consume, the harder it is to get glucose into cells and, in fact, fat physically blocks the insulin receptors from doing their job. This forces the pancreas to produce more and more insulin to get the glucose into the cells. This results in an increase in beta cell mass, endoplasmic reticulum stress and eventual beta cell death. All fats cause this, even saturated fat.

Randle et al. demonstrated this in 1963 and it has been supported by many other papers since then.

A lack of fat does not accelerate aging. In fact, a lack of fat slows down aging because it reduces insulin levels which lowers activity of the mTORC pathway. Although de novo lipogenesis from fats is quite low in humans, it is sufficient to produce enough for cell membranes, especially in the brain. In fact, the brain makes its own cholesterol and other lipids because most lipids have a hard time crossing the blood-brain barrier.
 

Hgreen56

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Apr 8, 2020
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How to know that the cravings for sugar after a high GI index meal occur due to insulin or due to counter-regulatory stress hormones? Since both of them probably generate cravings to compensate by providing fast energy..
did you figure it out yet?
 

Recoen

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Jun 8, 2020
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Why a focus on only insulin? Insulin only works with GLUT4 in terms of getting glucose not into the cell- obviously has other hormonal effects too. I think the discussion needs to look at potassium and the other GLUTs.
 

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