A friend sent me the following post from a Facebook keto group. I was wondering if the science behind this article is correct. Can the kind folks here please comment on the various points raised in the article? I am a bit skeptical because I was told that someone commented that he " read a study that even thinking of food can increase your insulin "
I think this topic had been discussed to death many times already. What raises insulin? I would like to touch on this topic again.
Anything we put into our body will raise insulin. The question is how is it been raised? Whether it is GI vs GL? Whether it is in the absence of carbs and glucagon do its part to raise blood glucose and then, insulin is raised to stop it or taking sweetener with zero calories.
Whatever we put in our mouth, it will raise insulin.
Whether artificial or natural sweetener, it will raise insulin. The brain cannot differentiate whether when you eat that sweet food, it has carbs or not.
Anything that has carbs will raise insulin. Everyone knows.
Even if you are on a zero carbs diet, insulin will still be raised because of glucagon. However, this is different because it does not spike like eating carbs. It does not have that rush that the pancreas have to keep up to produce the insulin to bring the blood glucose down.
If you are a diabetic, more than 50% of your beta cells are already gone. The only objective you want to do in a low carbs way of life is to preserve your pancreas. Losing weight, losing fat, stop taking medicine and etc… is the positive side effect of doing low carbs. If the day your pancreas can no longer produce insulin, your life will become like a type 1 diabetics. When you reach there, you will need to follow a strict protocol of low carbs and manage properly. So think about it.
And then, apart of having your beta cells dead, your alpha cells maybe malfunction as well. There are people who have reported with higher HbA1c in a higher protein almost zero carbs diet. So, if they don’t eat carbs, isn’t logical that HbA1c should drop but some reported higher? That means, there is a high possibility of alpha cells have malfunctioned as well. This is still one area under research. And that means, it become logical that their HbA1c will be higher if they are insulin resistance or Hyperinsulinemia and their alpha cells are unable to function properly.
Lastly, stay away from sweet stuff if possible. Whether Keto baked or not. If you really want to eat keto baked stuff, ensure your fasted insulin and HbA1c are at a healthy level. If not, think thrice before you eat.