Category Archives: Insulin

About Omega-3s and Omega-6s

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This week I’d like to share some of the things I’ve learned about two particular polyunsaturated fatty acids, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. 

Let’s start with omega-3 fatty acids. These are compounds in the form of a long chain of carbon molecules with several double bonds, each of which acts as a pivot point. Flexible pivot points confer the ability to move in many directions, essential for movement and flexibility. Omega-3s owe their flexibility to all those double bonds, the last of which is located just three carbons from the tail, or omega, end of the molecule. That’s why it’s called an omega-3 fatty acid. Omega means end. In contrast, omega-6 fatty acids contain fewer double bonds, and the last one is located six carbons from the tail. Hence, omega-6. 

Among many other essential functions, omega-3’s play a vital role in photosynthesis, whereby green leaves convert sunlight to plant food. This is why green leaves are an important source of omega-3s.

Omega-3 fatty acids are found in all green plants (another reason to eat your vegetables). The largest mass of greens on Earth is phytoplankton, tiny sea plants that are eaten by little fish, which are then eaten by bigger fish, and so on. Sea creatures eat literally tons of phytoplankton, in part because fish must take in at least one full percent of their calories as omega-3s in order to keep their blood liquid and survive in cold water environments. Warm-blooded animals, on the other hand, need only half that. This is why fish, fish oil, and algae are such good sources of omega-3s.

In biological systems, two significant omega-3 fatty acids are called DHA and EPA. EPA is a blood thinner with anti-inflammatory properties. DHA is incorporated into cell membranes to keep them flexible and functional. DHA is like a “quick-change artist” with hundreds of possible configurations. According to Susan Allport*, “DHA creates membranes with…behavior that is almost liquid-like.” Cell membranes aren’t inert like dry wall. They live and breathe, and they function to keep the cell’s internal environment completely separate from the outside environment.

DHA has other important functions. It makes up 25 percent of brain tissue. It reduces the likelihood of heart arrhythmias, or abnormal rhythms. It helps the eye to see better by increasing the amount of rhodopsin, a light-responsive protein in the retina’s rods. DHA also appears to improve insulin sensitivity, meaning that it lowers the risk of diabetes and obesity.

Omega-3s do, however, have one important limitation: All those double bonds react easily with oxygen, which makes them, chemically speaking, unstable. In fact, oxidation is the major cause of food rancidity. This reactivity makes omega-3s an unreliable way to store fat in nature.

And that is where omega-6s enter the picture.

Omega-6s, less reactive because they have fewer double bonds, are a much better choice for a different job — storage. This is why omega-6s are the main fat in grains and seeds. Where long-term storage is all-important, the stability of omega-6s makes them the preferred form in which to store fat. Plants store fat as omega-6s until seeds germinate and initiate photosynthesis. Then they release an enzyme that converts omega-6s to omega-3s. Plants are able to convert omega-6s into omega-3s whenever they need.

With the exception of lions, most animals and humans do not have this enzyme, so once an omega-6, always an omega-6. And if you eat a diet high in omega-6s, your cell membranes will not be as flexible as if you ate sufficient omega-3 fatty acids.

The stable chemical configuration of omega-6s increases shelf life considerably, which makes them the leading fatty acid of choice for ultraprocessed food products, including vegetable oils. It explains why it is not coincidental that the ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s in our diet has climbed from approximately 1:1 throughout history to upwards of 50:1 or higher today. People living on fast food and doughnuts may be eating 50 times as much omega-6s as omega-3s. That’s a problem.

Don’t think of omega-3s as good for you and omega-6s as bad. It’s not about good and bad. It’s about being in a balanced ratio. Omega-6 fatty acids in plants serve as a stable, reliable system for storing fat until the plant needs omega-3s. Omega-3s are flexible, and omega-6s are stiff. Omega-3s are reactive, whereas omega-6s are stable. We need both to function optimally.

Omega-6s, with fewer double bonds, are more stable and, therefore, less prone to oxidation and breakdown, which is why omega-6s are found in highest concentration in grains and seeds. Dry beans may remain viable for centuries under certain circumstances. That is obviously not true of lettuce, under any circumstances.

Stiff membranes may be good for seeds and grains, but they are a tremendous liability for green leaves, not to mention brains, blood vessels, eyes, and joints. High blood pressure, inflammatory diseases, and insulin resistance are predictable consequences of stiff cell membranes.

*Author of The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s were Removed from the Western Diet and What We Can Do to Replace Them

Toast and Jelly Waste Your Insulin

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You probably already know that diabetes and obesity in the United States have reached epidemic proportions, but you may be surprised to learn that many, if not most, cases of diabetes are preventable. How? The best strategy for preventing diabetes and obesity is to learn how to conserve your body’s insulin supply. Continue reading →

Insulin: Like Money in the Bank

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Have you ever considered that the amount of insulin you are capable of making over your lifetime is limited? Maybe your pancreas can make, let’s just call it 1000 pounds worth of insulin, and after that it starts to have trouble keeping up with the demand? What would happen if you used up most of your supply by the time you were 40 or 50? Then what? Then your blood sugars would probably start to rise dramatically, and you would need to start taking medicine, whether to make your remaining insulin work more efficiently, to get your pancreas to make more, or to augment your existing supplies. Continue reading →

Make Your Insulin Last a Lifetime

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If you’ve seen my TED talk, then you know I spend a fair amount of time teaching folks how to use their insulin more efficiently so that they don’t run out, and so they have enough (hopefully) to last a lifetime. Insulin is like a valet service that escorts blood sugar from your blood to all your cells. If you don’t have enough, your sugars start to rise. The fact is that even though you need insulin to live, it is not your friend. You want to use as little as possible. You want the levels of insulin in your bloodstream to stay as low as possible. Just like blood sugar, you want your insulin levels to remain low. Why? Continue reading →

Stripped Carbs First Thing in the Morning? No!

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Having a hard time understanding why breakfast is the one meal of day that you should not eat toast, bagels, muffins, waffles, pancakes, cereal, biscuits, bread or grits? Here’s why:

When you eat foods that are rich in fiber, fat and protein, it takes quite a while for your body to break them down. So they get absorbed into your bloodstream very slowly. But whenever you eat items made primarily from sugar and other kinds of stripped carbs, your digestive system absorbs the ingredients very quickly.  Continue reading →

Gains and Losses

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There is a clear connection to be made between stripped carbs, insulin release, and weight gain. High insulin levels cause us to gain weight and store fat. How does that happen? Little by little we are figuring it out. The fact that the obesity and diabetes epidemic continues to worsen day by day underscores that we are operating under a fundamental misconception: If things continue to get worse no matter how hard you try, it’s time to reexamine the fundamentals. The information we get from advertisements and cereal boxes is frankly inaccurate. I have a special name for the nutritional claims on food products: advertising. Continue reading →

The Glycemic Index

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Many people have heard of the glycemic index (GI), but they are not exactly sure what it means, or how it works. A low glycemic index diet is thought to significantly lower your risk of type 2 diabetes, obesity, coronary heart disease and even certain cancers. This is probably true, but not for the reasons people think. Continue reading →

Insulin is Like Money in the Bank

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Have you ever considered that the amount of insulin you are capable of making over your lifetime is limited? That your pancreas can make, oh, let’s just call it 1000 pounds, of insulin, and that after that it starts to have trouble trying to keep up with demand? Think about that. What would happen if you used up most of your supply by the time you were 40 or 50? Then what? Continue reading →

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning

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Wherever I go, people always want to talk with me about the blog. Lately, I’ve heard a lot of this: “I went to your website and saw a lot of interesting stories, but I didn’t know which ones to read first. Where should I start? What is the first thing you would want me to understand?”

There are two things I want everyone to understand: First, there’s a big difference between real food and manufactured calories. And second, manufactured calories cause all kinds of serious medical problems, like diabetes and obesity.

So today I want to take you on a field trip. We’re going to step out the back door, and into a field of wheat. Pick a single grain, and take a good look at that grain. What do you see? Each and every grain contains 1) a bran fiber coat; 2) an endosperm, composed primarily of starch; and 3) the wheat germ, where the nutritious oils are. If you strip away the bran coat and wheat germ, as we humans figured out in the past two hundred years or so, all that’s left is a pellet of white starch. This is also known as white flour.

Now, if you could look at that pellet of white starch under a microscope, you would see a long, simple chain of sugar molecules. Our bodies are able to break the links between those sugar molecules so efficiently that when you eat white flour, your blood sugar rises as fast as — if not faster — than when you eat sugar straight from a sugar bowl. How do I know this? I learned it from my diabetic patients who check their blood sugars after they eat. White flour and sugar both spike blood sugar.

You may have heard white flour and sugar referred to as “refined” carbohydrates. According to the dictionary, to refine is to remove coarse impurities. The term “refined” was selected to intimate that whole grain flour was coarse, or unrefined. With rare exceptions, like honey and maple syrup, refined carbohydrates are not found in nature. In nature, carbohydrates are almost always found attached to fiber. Consider dates and beets, for example. Both of these are used by industry as raw material for the manufacture of sugar. But in their original state, they are so rich in fiber and phytonutrients that they are considered superfoods.

When you eat, your gut breaks down food into sugar, which is then absorbed into your bloodstream. When foods are easily broken down (like white flour and sugar), absorption is quick and blood sugars rise rapidly. When food is broken down slowly (like produce, nuts, whole grains, beans, eggs, meats), it is absorbed slowly so that blood sugars remain more or less stable.

After food crosses the walls of your gut to enter the bloodstream, the body releases insulin to catch the incoming sugar and escort it to the cells of your body. The insulin is manufactured by your pancreas.

Here comes the most important part of this explanation: The more quickly you absorb sugar, the more insulin you need to escort it to its destination. The more slowly you absorb the sugar, the less insulin you need. This works like a valet service. Imagine you were invited to a huge party, and the invitation said to arrive at 7 pm. So at exactly 7 pm, 1000 cars show up at the party center, in which case there will need to be a great many valet staff to park those cars.

But let’s consider another scenario, one in which you receive an invitation to an open house from 3 to 9 p.m. At the end of the day, the party center will still park 1000 cars. But they won’t need nearly as many valet staff.

The sugar is the cars, and the insulin is the valet staff. If all the sugar shows up all at once, you’re going to need a lot of insulin. But if the sugar gets absorbed bit by bit, you won’t need nearly as much insulin. The more insulin you use, the higher your levels go. The higher your insulin levels, the more fat you store in your belly. Insulin is a fat-storage hormone.

Which nutrients do we absorb slowly? Fiber, protein, fat. Think whole grains, dates, beets, avocados, peanuts, eggs, beans, fruits, vegetables. Which ones do we absorb quickly? Stripped carbs such as cake, sugar, breakfast cereals, doughnuts, bagels, cookies. Is it starting to make sense?

Don’t Eat Bread for Breakfast

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     Having a hard time understanding why breakfast is the one meal of day that you should not eat toast, bagels, muffins, waffles, pancakes, cereal, biscuits, bread or grits? Here’s why. When you eat foods that are rich in fiber, fat and protein, it takes your body a while to break them down. They get absorbed into your bloodstream very slowly. But whenever you eat foods (or food-like products) made primarily from sugar or refined (stripped) flour, your digestive system breaks down the ingredients and absorbs them very quickly. The faster you absorb food, the more insulin your body has to release to catch the food and escort it to the cells throughout your body. Now it’s important to remember that insulin doesn’t work very efficiently in the early morning hours. In the early morning hours, we are all somewhat resistant to the effects of insulin. Naturally. All of us. Believe me — you’re not alone. 

     Think of it like this: Let’s pretend that you have two cars in your garage. One is a Ford F-150 truck, and the other is a Volkswagen. And now let’s say, for the sake of argument, that due to atmospheric conditions, gasoline doesn’t work as efficiently in the morning. That’s not really true, of course. I’m just saying it to set up a teaching point. So…back to the garage. Now, all things being equal, and assuming that gasoline works inefficiently at daybreak, which vehicle are you going to choose to drive your kid to school tomorrow morning? The Volkswagen, of course! Does this mean you’re never going to drive your Ford truck? No. But you’re not going to drive it in the morning —  you’d just be wasting your gasoline. Most of the time you’ll drive the Volkswagen. Unless you have some really good reason why not. Like you want to impress your kid. Or the Volkswagen is in for a tune-up. 

     Now, just like it doesn’t make sense to waste the gasoline in this story by driving a gas-guzzler first thing in the day, it doesn’t make sense to waste your insulin by eating rapidly-absorbed food for breakfast. I’m not saying that you can never eat white flour. I am saying you can’t eat it for breakfast. It’s okay to eat a slice of toast, or a bagel, or pancakes for lunch, or for dinner. (As long as your blood sugars can handle it: Folks with diabetics, please take note!) Or to have a bowl of cereal for dessert, after lunch. But not for breakfast.

     Here’s another way to think about it. Eating stripped carbohydrates (like white flour and sugar, both of which have had all the color and fiber stripped out of them) first thing in the morning is like hitting a man when he’s already down. Stripped carbohydrates stress out your insulin-production system. Why stress your insulin production at the one time of day when it works least efficiently? Imagine that it takes a gallon of insulin to eat a bowl of cereal. But if you eat that cereal at breakfast time, it will take a gallon and a half. And you don’t have a gallon of insulin to waste in the first place! It just doesn’t make sense to eat stripped carbs for breakfast. Well then, you might ask, how did they get to be typical breakfast foods? And that is a topic for another day.