by Harry Chrissakis Herbalist / Natural Medicine
This is an interesting profile; a 50 year old person whose blood tests reveal excess glucose, insulin, elevated low density lipids (bad fats), high triglycerides and low HDL ( good stuff). Often their stress levels are high and so are their stress hormones, particularly cortisol. This is not a good combination of events and represents the first leg of a silent, systemic disorder known as Insulin Resistance. Insulin Resistance is on a continuum with Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes. The gravity of how Insulin Resistance harms us is really not properly grasped by the general public or scrutinized and acted upon by modern medicine sufficiently. The relationship between this blood profile and heart disease (as well as Cancer and Stroke) can be clarified if we first look at diet. What I mean is let’s look at the daily diet that some people subsist on for decades.
Breakfast – Some form of refined carbohydrate; i.e. corn flakes, sugar and milk or bread and jam or perhaps a croissant. These forms of sugar and refined carbs are quickly digested and produce a large amount of glucose in our blood streams. The result is a sharp spike in insulin.
10 o’clock break – Some cake and coffee with sugar – again an insulin spike.
Lunch – Pasta with salad and sweetened iced tea – another spike.
Mid afternoon break – more sweets. Another spike.
Dinner at 8 pm is a full meal.
All day long eating a lot of refined carbs and getting relatively continuous insulin spikes.
Insulin is a hormone produced and released by the pancreas to get excess glucose out of the bloodstream and into the cells. Sustained high levels of glucose in the blood is toxic, so the pancreas is working hard to create blood sugar balance and in doing so is producing excessive amounts of Insulin. After years on this type of diet the levels of glucose and insulin remain elevated. They do not come down to a normal level without intervention. Sustained levels of high Insulin in our bloodstream, long term, is even more damaging than the excess glucose. The body adjust very slowly to this condition, so that it is hard to see or feel until many undesirable things start to show. This a good reason for yearly blood testing post 40. Things begin to show around that time in the blood stream.
Lets add poor quality fats into the picture. Our cell walls are made of fatty acids which come from the fats we eat. Eat margarine, deep fry, and abundant poor quality saturated fats and that’s the stuff your cell walls consist of. These fats reduce the cell walls capability of letting things in or out (glucose, nutrients and insulin in and waste out.) The cell walls become hardened and resistant to the insulin. Insulin binding proteins are reduced and something called IGF (Insulin Like Growth factor is released). Excess IGF is a common growth factor in many Cancer Profiles.
Next is deficiencies in our diet.
It is a known fact that our soils are depleted of trace minerals, specifically chromium. Chromium is needed to properly construct the receptor that the insulin will bind to on the cell wall and do its job of delivering glucose and nutrients into the cell. Two other important minerals are zinc and magnesium, both of which are often low, all of which contribute to insulin resistance as well as many other disorders. In the U.S, zinc, magnesium and chromium deficiency is common. Vit D runs low in about 80% of the US population. All of these thing are easy and inexpensive to blood test for and to supplement if necessary.
High stress
When stressed, the body releases the hormones adrenaline and cortisol into the bloodstream.
Of the two, cortisol remains for much longer and has more profound and far-reaching effects. People under a lot of stress maintain high blood levels of cortisol. If you release lots of cortisol often, the excess washes over the insulin receptors on the cells and reduces their ability to have insulin bind to them, creating more insulin resistance. Excess cortisol, reduces immune function, growth hormone, inhibits protein synthesis and contributes to both a reduction in muscle and bone mass.. That’s a short list of excess Cortisol’s down sides. For a much more complete list of damaging effects of excess cortisol check out Wilson’s Book Of Endocrinology.
When blood glucose is above normal, the pancreas tries to compensate by producing more insulin to force the glucose into the cells, in order to maintain crucial blood sugar balance. When the above scenarios continue for years and years, both glucose and insulin remain elevated. This combination of high glucose and high insulin is extremely damaging to our arteries, veins and general blood quality. Blood is thickened, platelet aggregation is increased, triglycerides, LDL are elevated and HDL depressed. Over an extended period of time this sets things up for some real bad problems. This profile is a cardio vascular bomb waiting to go off. Insulin Resistance is on a continuum with Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes. All three disorders have the same etiology with almost equally damaging results.
Heart disease kills about 650,000 Americans each year, stroke about 2 – 3 hundred thousand. A growing number of medical professionals are seeing this problem as an epidemic and feel that this silent disorder is directly contributing to heart attacks and stroke. The term Metabolic syndrome (previous Hyper Insulinemia/ Insulin Resistance) is its medical name. Main difference between Insulin Resistance and Metabolic Syndrome is that in Metabolic Syndrome there is excess weight/obesity. Metabolic syndrome is also the basis for a number of other major disorders besides heart disease and stroke i.e. obesity, type 2 diabetes and indirectly to cancer. Insulin resistance/ Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes can act as foundations for our neurological disorders as well. Those would include Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease as well as neurological decline in general. So how does a person get out of this mess.
1 Reduce or eliminate sugar, refined carbs and poor quality fats
2 Use good quality virgin olive oil, butter and coconut oil.
3 Increase consumption of cooked and raw vegetables.
4 Supplement with chromium, zinc, magnesium, Vit D and omega 3 fish oils
5 Take some form of tonic herbs i.e. Siberian Ginseng.Rhodiola, etc.
6 Do some form of resistance exercise, walking uphill, mild weight lifting etc.
7 Find ways to modify stress response
8 Sleep a sufficient amount of time. Most people need between 8 and 9 hours a night.
9 Get blood tested in 3 – 6 months to look for positive changes
There is a lot more that can be said about Insulin Resistance/ Metabolic Syndrome ( the lecture I give is about I hour long) but this is its basic frame work in relationship to heart disease.
This article is not intended to carb bash. However if you have this problem, carbs and types of carbs have to be controlled.
Harry Chrissakis Herbalist, Natural Medicine
HerbalistandHerbs.com
(530) 933-8244
Oregon House Ca.