10 ms·

> However, some proteinand fat-rich foods (eggs, beef, fish, lentils, cheese, cake, anddoughnuts) induced as much insulin secretion as did some carbohydrate-ric

> However, some proteinand fat-rich foods (eggs, beef, fish, lentils, cheese, cake, anddoughnuts) induced as much insulin secretion as did some carbohydrate-rich foods (eg, beef was equal to brown rice andfish was equal to grain bread). what? that makes zero sense, at least in case with fat. anybody got quick explanation for this? Edit: found the TLDR explanation in another part of the paper > postprandial insulin responses are not always proportional to blood glucose concentrations or to a meal's totalcarbohydrate content. Several insulinotropic factors are knownto potentiate the stimulatory effect of glucose and mediatepostprandial insulin secretion. These include fructose, certainamino acids and fatty acids, and gastrointestinal hormones suchas gastric inhibitory peptide, glucagon, and cholecystokiin(25, 26). Thus, protein- and fat-rich foods may induce substantial insulin secretion despite producing relatively small bloodglucose responses.

wdewind 8y ago
This actually makes a ton of sense and is what people on the sidelines of the insulin debate have been screaming since Gary Taubes starting publishing his work about dietary sugar. Unfortunately it's given people a very non-nuanced view of the science. The problem is not dietary sugar, it is blood sugar levels, which are elevated by many things (including protein and fat), but more than anything by excess calories. The problem is not peak blood sugar levels, it is average blood sugar levels. Edit: to quickly reply to your TLDR edit: > Thus, protein- and fat-rich foods may induce substantial insulin secretion despite producing relatively small bloodglucose responses. This is only true if you completely ignore everything else going on in the body. Gluconeogenesis is a thing, and just because dietary fat or protein doesn't immediately increase blood sugar levels does not mean long term they don't. This stuff can't just be looked at as "input/output" you have to take into consideration the existing state of the person before the input. /edit You can reason about this fairly easily: take a caloric intake of 2000 calories consumed all at once vs in 10 meals over the day. The all at once crowd gets a huge insulin spike. Oh no! Fat storage, right? Sure, but what happens the rest of the day when there is no dietary input? Fat burn! The 10 meals/day crowd probably never gets as high blood sugar levels, but also has much higher throughout the day, and accesses fat stores less. But guess what? Net the body is really pretty good at smoothing this stuff out, it's sort of the entire point of fat storage. Where this gets tricky is that high insulin can eventually lead to low blood sugar dips. People without diabetes can simply wait this out, and the body will start burning fat again and raise the blood sugar. But this also makes many people feel hungry, and so they eat more, which raises their average blood sugar levels, and the cycle continues. Some people have a hard time with this, others do not, but it's really important to understand that the insulin is causing people to consume more calories which is causing damage, not the insulin itself.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Intuitively, you would expect that "drinking from the firehose" is not going to let you capture as much of the water as if you sipped from a trickle, and that same dynamic should apply generally: all customers come at the same time vs an hour, all enemies attack at once vs individually, etc. Unless, of course, the human body historically faced strong selective pressures to efficiently store energy when you have to eat a lot at once.
  - wdewind 8y ago
    > Unless, of course, the human body historically faced strong selective pressures to efficiently store energy when you have to eat a lot at once. Right, and the intermittent fasting crowd uses the same tricks as Gary Taubes but in reverse: look what happens when you fast! All these great reparative things happen. But it's all basic science and ignores a long term (even 24 hour) view of consumption. Ultimately there might be small, statistically significant metabolic differences between consuming the same number of calories in 1 meal as spread out over multiple meals (ie: 1 big insulin spike vs multiple smaller ones), but we've had a hell of a time showing them, and and even harder time showing clinically significant differences.
    - SilasX 8y ago
      Definitely! Don't get me wrong: no matter how intuitive an idea might be, you still need to validate it with experiment.
    - hodder 8y ago
      Spot on. But one of the main reasons fasting protocols “work” is that people are likely to reduce caloric intake and count macros/calories when they only eat in a tiny time window. It is difficult to eat 2k+ calories in a few hours and if you adhere to an intermittent fasting diet you will be much more likely to alter the nutritional profile and caloric intake of food you consume. It is no shocker people are noticing anecdotal improvements in bodyfat composition. So while the actual intermittent fasting may not make much of a statistical metabolic difference if you hold caloric and macro consumption flat, in reality when people follow a fasting protocol they do not hold consumption flat. Similarly when people follow ketogenic diets, they tend to eat far less calories. These diets tend to “work” mostly due to caloric restriction.
will_brown 8y ago
I have personally had to work through this concept... When in deep ketosis I was experimenting with various types of protein supplements and (surprisingly) found whey would spike my insulin. Of course this seemed odd as my supplement was pure and contained no sugar/no carbs. After researching come to find out this is well known and in fact whey has a bigger impact on insulin levels than pure glucose. Apparently the amino acids in whey trigger insulin secretion directly in pancreatic beta cells. Edit: I thought it kind of funny doughnuts made its way into your fat/protein list and not the carb list.
- GordonS 8y ago
  I'm not aware of any way to check insulin levels from home - how did you do that?
  - will_brown 8y ago
    In my case I wasn’t measuring for insulin in the blood I was measuring ketones before and after intake of the various proteins. In the case of whey my ketone readings would be around or above 3 mmol/L and after whey it would be <.5 mmol/L which would be indicative of being knocked out of ketosis through an insulin spike.
  - trentlott 8y ago
    Walmart blood strip tester?
    - GordonS 8y ago
      Which can test blood sugar and ketone levels - I've never heard of strips for insulin levels.
- avinium 8y ago
  Did the whey contain artificial sweetener?

wdewind 8y ago

This actually makes a ton of sense and is what people on the sidelines of the insulin debate have been screaming since Gary Taubes starting publishing his work about dietary sugar. Unfortunately it's given people a very non-nuanced view of the science. The problem is not dietary sugar, it is blood sugar levels, which are elevated by many things (including protein and fat), but more than anything by excess calories. The problem is not peak blood sugar levels, it is average blood sugar levels. Edit: to quickly reply to your TLDR edit: > Thus, protein- and fat-rich foods may induce substantial insulin secretion despite producing relatively small bloodglucose responses. This is only true if you completely ignore everything else going on in the body. Gluconeogenesis is a thing, and just because dietary fat or protein doesn't immediately increase blood sugar levels does not mean long term they don't. This stuff can't just be looked at as "input/output" you have to take into consideration the existing state of the person before the input. /edit You can reason about this fairly easily: take a caloric intake of 2000 calories consumed all at once vs in 10 meals over the day. The all at once crowd gets a huge insulin spike. Oh no! Fat storage, right? Sure, but what happens the rest of the day when there is no dietary input? Fat burn! The 10 meals/day crowd probably never gets as high blood sugar levels, but also has much higher throughout the day, and accesses fat stores less. But guess what? Net the body is really pretty good at smoothing this stuff out, it's sort of the entire point of fat storage. Where this gets tricky is that high insulin can eventually lead to low blood sugar dips. People without diabetes can simply wait this out, and the body will start burning fat again and raise the blood sugar. But this also makes many people feel hungry, and so they eat more, which raises their average blood sugar levels, and the cycle continues. Some people have a hard time with this, others do not, but it's really important to understand that the insulin is causing people to consume more calories which is causing damage, not the insulin itself.

SilasX 8y ago
Intuitively, you would expect that "drinking from the firehose" is not going to let you capture as much of the water as if you sipped from a trickle, and that same dynamic should apply generally: all customers come at the same time vs an hour, all enemies attack at once vs individually, etc. Unless, of course, the human body historically faced strong selective pressures to efficiently store energy when you have to eat a lot at once.
- wdewind 8y ago
  > Unless, of course, the human body historically faced strong selective pressures to efficiently store energy when you have to eat a lot at once. Right, and the intermittent fasting crowd uses the same tricks as Gary Taubes but in reverse: look what happens when you fast! All these great reparative things happen. But it's all basic science and ignores a long term (even 24 hour) view of consumption. Ultimately there might be small, statistically significant metabolic differences between consuming the same number of calories in 1 meal as spread out over multiple meals (ie: 1 big insulin spike vs multiple smaller ones), but we've had a hell of a time showing them, and and even harder time showing clinically significant differences.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    Definitely! Don't get me wrong: no matter how intuitive an idea might be, you still need to validate it with experiment.
  - hodder 8y ago
    Spot on. But one of the main reasons fasting protocols “work” is that people are likely to reduce caloric intake and count macros/calories when they only eat in a tiny time window. It is difficult to eat 2k+ calories in a few hours and if you adhere to an intermittent fasting diet you will be much more likely to alter the nutritional profile and caloric intake of food you consume. It is no shocker people are noticing anecdotal improvements in bodyfat composition. So while the actual intermittent fasting may not make much of a statistical metabolic difference if you hold caloric and macro consumption flat, in reality when people follow a fasting protocol they do not hold consumption flat. Similarly when people follow ketogenic diets, they tend to eat far less calories. These diets tend to “work” mostly due to caloric restriction.

will_brown 8y ago

I have personally had to work through this concept... When in deep ketosis I was experimenting with various types of protein supplements and (surprisingly) found whey would spike my insulin. Of course this seemed odd as my supplement was pure and contained no sugar/no carbs. After researching come to find out this is well known and in fact whey has a bigger impact on insulin levels than pure glucose. Apparently the amino acids in whey trigger insulin secretion directly in pancreatic beta cells. Edit: I thought it kind of funny doughnuts made its way into your fat/protein list and not the carb list.

GordonS 8y ago
I'm not aware of any way to check insulin levels from home - how did you do that?
- will_brown 8y ago
  In my case I wasn’t measuring for insulin in the blood I was measuring ketones before and after intake of the various proteins. In the case of whey my ketone readings would be around or above 3 mmol/L and after whey it would be <.5 mmol/L which would be indicative of being knocked out of ketosis through an insulin spike.
- trentlott 8y ago
  Walmart blood strip tester?
  - GordonS 8y ago
    Which can test blood sugar and ketone levels - I've never heard of strips for insulin levels.
avinium 8y ago
Did the whey contain artificial sweetener?