Ketones and Insulin

(Danielle) #1

I’m hoping someone can help me with something that is confusing me.

I understand that (apart from other health benefits) the reason for being low carb is so that your body will begin to use fat as fuel, thereby leading to fat loss. Do insulin levels have anything to do with weight loss? More specifically, does maintaining a steady insulin level assist with losing weight?

So my question is, do you need to do both (low carb and steady blood sugar levels) in order to maximize weight loss? To my mind, they are two separate metabolic processes.

To give an example, if you eat something low carb, but that has a sweetener in it that causes your blood sugar to rise, what is the effect? Does your body still burn fat as fuel?

(Carl Keller) #2

Yes and Yes. Insulin is necessary for turning glucose into energy and distributing it to cells all throughout our body. Insulin signals the liver, muscle, and fat cells to store excess glucose. If insulin levels are low, access to energy reserves is enabled and fat burning is more likely to happen.

When we eat something with a high glycemic index, it raises our blood glucose levels. This triggers insulin to try to stabilize the BG level (homeostasis) since our body prefers our BG level at a certain level. Insulin remains active until the BG level is normalized. Eating low carb has a minimal affect on blood glucose levels, therefore a minimal counter-response by insulin.

The problem with artifical sweeteners is that they may not cause a spike in blood glucose levels but they often cause our insulin levels to rise. I’m not 100% but I believe the insulin response is because our bodies are tricked into believing that our BG levels will or should rise, but they don’t. In a weight loss scenario, the rise in insulin is counterproductive.

(Jane) #3

No. If you snack all day (even on keto) and keep your insulin elevated all day then your body won’t be able to access your fat stores for energy.

That is why NOT SNACKING is so key to losing weight. And compressing your eating window down to keep your insulin low for a long as possible - but not to the point of being very hungry.

This is how I grew up eating - when obesity was rare. We ate 3 meals a day, no snacking (will ruin your supper!) so nothing between 6 pm and 6 am - fasted for 12 hours. Every day.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #4

Insulin is the primary hormone promoting the storage of fatty acids in adipose tissue. As long as insulin remains elevated above a certain level, those fats are trapped in your fat cells and cannot be metabolized. Once insulin drops low enough, the fat cells can release the fats to be metabolized. So the key is not avoiding fluctuations, but keeping insulin low.

This is why we recommend eating so little carbohydrate, since carbohydrates are long strings of glucose molecules, and when all that glucose gets into our bloodstream, it raises our insulin level. Protein can stimulate insulin as well, though at a lower rate, but its effect on insulin is minimized when we eat a low-carbohydrate diet. The effect of the fat we eat on our insulin level is minimal, so it is a good source of calories to make up for the carbohydrate we are no longer eating. It is much more satisfying to eat than carbohydrate, so it takes much less to stop our hunger, and our body can set our appetite to a level that lets it burn both the fat we eat and the excess fat from our fat cells.

Some people have a reaction to one or more of the artificial sweeteners that causes their insulin to rise. Not everyone reacts to every sweetener, it seems to be an individual thing.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #5

Read Dr. Fung’s The obesity code. The science is explained in simple terms.

It has been a life saver for me. I now work my eating and way of life to have longer periods of insulin being as low as my body will allow. Weight loss improved, fasting glucose improved. I feel better.

(Cathy) #6

I think the most succinct way of saying it “I resist insulin” (Dr. Peter of hyperlipid). Keeping insulin as low as possible for long periods of time seems to be best for weight loss.

Many people who seek out keto are overweight and insulin resistant. Being insulin resistant means that your body has become somewhat immune to insulin and therefore produces more than an non insulin resistant person. Insulin has the added effect of blocking fat burning. It may take a long time to turn it around and become more insulin sensitive.

As far as I know, the class of artificial sweeteners is still being studied in terms of insulin reactions. Lots of anecdotal stuff but no good science as far as I know. It is going to be a personal experience thing. I do think there is some fairly good science that a.s. alters the gut biome and that is another very complicated science that is still in early stages.

If you want to be sure, just avoid a.s… If a.s. makes low carb doable, then try to pick one that seems the least problematic and keep it to a minimum.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #7

I don’t know where I saw this (well here in some post) but there have been studies of obese people’s responses to artificial sweeteners and shows that more insulin is released than non-obese people.

So yes, I avoid these additives.

#8

I am now listening to their podcast, thank you for sharing, I am learning so much and feeling hopeful that I will eventually get this plan worked out to be healthy and drop all this excess weight :thinking:

(Cathy) #9

I would kindly love a link to that study if you can find it. TIA!!!

(Ken) #10

Our cells do not release fat from our cells only because our insulin is low. Lipolysis is also dependent on two other factors. The secretion of glucagon, which initially enables glycogenolysis, and once that occurs, actual Lipolysis. Both occur in the absence or reduction of insulin.

Thinking only insulin is a factor is an incomplete understanding of both lipolysis as well as lipogenesis leading to an incomplete understanding of both processes.

(Jane) #11

Nobody said low insulin was the ONLY mechanism to burn fat, but if insulin remains high then fat cells remain locked up and inaccessible to be burned as energy.

Or did you store your extra 240 lbs because your insulin was low but you failed to understand the mechanism of lipolysis? Somehow I suspect your insulin was also high in order to maintain your warehouse of stored energy.

I could be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time

:smiley:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #12

While it is true that cortisol and adrenaline can stimulate hormone-sensitive lipase, in the presence of a high insulin level, the action of HSL is inhibited in any case. As Yalow and Berson put it in 1965, the release of fatty acids from adipose tissue (lipolysis) and the consequent oxidation of fatty acids in the muscles and in hepatic ketogenesis “requires only the negative stimulis of insulin deficiency” (S.A. Berson and R.S. Yalow, 1965, “Some Current Controversies in Diabetes Research,” Diabetes, Sep;14:549-72).

On the other hand, gluconeogenesis and ketogenesis absolutely require the stimulation of glucagon, as various experiments on animal models have shown. In fact, there are researchers who believe that the role of insulin in those processes is merely to keep them from getting out of control. I know that experiments have shown that mice lacking the ability to produce either glucagon or insuliln (whether the ability was inhibited genetically or the islet cells were destroyed) never show signs of diabetes, regardless of their sugar intake.

(Ken) #13

Insulin and Glucagon are antagonistically paired hormones. You cannot really understand one without the other, and how Glycogen acts as a bridge between Lipogenesis and Lipolysis. It is only after you cross and leave the bridge that you really go into either State. The bridge provides the balance, enabling Lipostasis and as long as not deranged, metabolic health. Occasional forays off the bridge to either side are fine, as long as you don’t spend an excessive amount of time.