Coconut Oil and its health benefits
Filipinos are well-known for their youthful appearance and soft, wrinkle-free skin, even though they live in a climate that exposes them to the sun's rays year round.Page: 1 2 3 4
Why is insulin resistance medically important?
Insulin resistance (IR) is the basis of almost all chronic diseases of aging. A high level of blood insulin causes many unhealthy body reactions which lead to diseases of all kind.
Insulin resistance syndrome promotes:
It is unfortunate that cholesterol has been blamed for all our woes when the actual culprit is still left loose. Time and space will not allow me to show to you that the cholesterol / heart disease theory has no scientific basis.
Below are some of the possible ways the hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance promote diseases.
Fructose (not glucose) the main sugar in most soft drinks has been shown to cause an increase in the plasma triglycerides (fats) and a raise in plasma cholesterol. This is because fructose (from table sugar or soft drinks) is rapidly metabolized in the liver and converted into fatty acids. These fatty acids are incorporated into the Very Low Density Lipoprotein, VLDL (a combination of proteins and fats) by the liver. The major function of the VLDL is to transport endogenous triglycerides i.e. the fats formed in the liver from fructose, glucose and not from the fats in the diets. This distinction is important. As the VLDL travel through the blood it loses some of the fats it is carrying and finally become LDL (popularly called bad cholesterol).
It is important to realize that most of the circulating cholesterol is located in the LDL (which is the main carrier of cholesterol) and the majority of the endogenous triglycerides are transported on the VLDL. Therefore if you have a raised cholesterol level it certainly means your LDL is raise. But since LDL is formed from VLDL, it also means high cholesterol level is the result of high VLDL level. All these processes are made possible because fructose provoke insulin spikes. With time the cells become resistant to insulin and the extra free insulin floating around converts the extra glucose into body fats which are deposited in the arteries (blood vessels) and organs causing arterial diseases, heart disease, strokes, blood clots etc.
Insulin does this by pushing the small dense LDL molecules into the artery wall to start the atherosclerosis process. Animal research (by Dr Cruz 1970) with insulin has proven many years ago that the artery (blood vessel) will plug with atherosclerosis just downstream from the point of insulin injection. This is because insulin causes endothelial proliferation.
The mineral magnesium (Miracle Mineral) plays a major role in our body. You can take all the calcium you want, without magnesium your dream of building strong bones can not be realized. I have a lot to say about this miracle mineral but I will do that another time when our paths cross again.
Magnesium is necessary for the action of insulin and the manufacture of insulin. Insulin also stores magnesium. But when your cells become resistant to insulin, you can not store magnesium so you lose it through urine. And when you keep on losing magnesium the activity and manufacture of insulin are affected. This is what we call “two trouble one God”.
Apart from that, intracellular magnesium also relaxes blood vessels. Magnesium deficiency may then lead to blood vessel constriction (narrowing of blood vessels). So when you are insulin resistant and therefore can not store magnesium you may bein danger of developing high blood pressure and diabetes.
Whilst you are losing a lot of magnesium because your cells have become insulin resistant due partly to the excess carbohydrates, at the same time sodium (salt) is retained and potassium is pushed out of the cells. But you need potassium to keeps your heart functioning well. When sodium is retained it causes fluid accumulation. Fluid accumulation is an extra burden on your heart. The deadly combination of fluid retention and high blood pressure is recipe for Congestive heart failure: CHF
High level of plasma insulin (Hyperinsulinemia) does not only cause the excessive excretion of magnesium in the urine but it also causes the excretion of calcium. As we grow older our ability to absorb calcium decreases so we can not afford to lose the little we have through our urine. You need a lot of calcium to maintain a healthy heart and blood vessels. Without calcium you age faster and your blood pressure goes high.
People walking around with high insulin can take all the calcium they want by mouth and its all going to go out in their urine. Unfortunately nobody tells them what the culprit is. They are only encouraged to buy more drugs to treat their condition.
Women are told to drink lots of milk and eat plenty of yogurt to get additional calcium with the promise that it will prevent bone loss, but the advice is based on faulty logic. The additional lactose in the milk and yogurt plus the additional sugar and fruit added to yogurt only serve to increase the dietary carbohydrate load. The net result is harmful to the bones as many are discovering.
Insulin influences the enzyme nitric oxide synthase. But when the cells become resistant to insulin, there is less nitric oxide production in the endothelium ---the lining of the blood vessels. Endothelial dysfunction with reduced bioavailability of nitric oxide appears to be an early aspect of the insulin resistance syndrome; and may contribute to the accelerated atherosclerosis (narrowing of the blood vessels) associated with insulin resistance and type II diabetes.
Drugs for the management of erectile dysfunction (impotence) work through the nitric oxide mechanism and erectile dysfunction is often seen as a strong pointer for possibly unsuspected Coronary Heart Disease.
Dear reader what I have been struggling to point out to you in this chapter is that in most of the age-related diseases, whether it is hypertension, diabetes, sexual dysfunction, congestive heart failure, you can be sure thatinsulin resistance has part in it and the resolution of the problem can only be found in restoring insulin sensitivity.
In the next chapter we will discus some ways of improving insulin sensitivity.
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