Not All Carbohydrates Are Created Equal
What are carbohydrates? They are a bunch of sugar molecules daisy-chained together. For our bodies to use these carbohydrate string as energy, we need to break them down into their component simple sugars.
The speed at which this breakdown takes place determines how much sugar enters our bloodstream, and how quickly, after a carbohydrate-rich meal. That speed is important, because it has an impact on how much insulin we produce.
When sugar in our blood rises quickly, we make a lot of insulin. When sugar rises slowly, we make much less insulin.
As long as we’re not diabetic, our bodies make exactly as much insulin as is needed to control our blood sugar within a certain range. If the blood sugar begins to rise rapidly, our bodies’s response is to release more insulin in an effore to control our blood sugar level. But releasing a lot of insulin is not a good thing.
As we release more insulin, our livers become sluggish, our cholesterol and triglyceride levels rise; we put on weight and feel tired as well as hungry.
Over the long run, if execssive amounts of insulin are released regularly, our body develops a degree of tolerance, or resistance, to the effects of insulin, and we lose our nomal response to it.
We then fall into a vicious cycle. As we become less sensitive to insulin, our blood sugar tends to run higher thatn normal, which triggers the release of more insulin, which leads to more tolerance, or resistance, which leads to higher insulin levels, and so on.
The process reveals the reasons why all carbohydraes are not created equal. Some carbohydrates can be converted to sugar very quickly, while other sources of carbohydrate are converted to sugar very slowly. How quicly any particular carbohydrate can be converted to sugar is indicated by something called the glycemic index of the food.
To be continued…