Gutsy Health | Nutrition and Medicine

Insulin, Sugar & Blood Sugar - An Explanation

05.25.2021 - By Juanique Roney & Gina WorfulPlay

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play

Show Summary: “When blood sugar stays in the bloodstream, it causes inflammation and damage to other organs.”

Last week's episode with Dr. Benjamin Bikman was a very beneficial & comprehensive education about insulin and blood glucose. He spoke about the biochemistry of what happens in the body when we overeat sugar and how we get sick from hormone dysfunction and inflammation.

But for those who find it quite overwhelming and technical, Juanique and Gina created a short bonus episode for you, which explains the mechanism of glucose & insulin. They use different and simple analogies to help you understand better how to monitor the food you eat, the daily activities you do, and familiarize yourself with the terminologies you can use to educate your loved ones.

Don't forget to share this with your family and friends who have listened to the Megamind episode with Dr. Benjamin Bikman. Also, be sure to subscribe and follow us on our social media accounts, where we create more content that you need to live a better, healthy, and happy life.

Exceptional Highlight:

Even though coconut sugar, maple syrup & honey are nature-made, they still have tons of sugar and no fiber to stabilize blood glucose.If you have a 20-year-old liver versus the liver of an 80-year-old, the 20-year-old liver is going to handle the fruit beautifully.  But if you have the liver of an 80-year-old, you are not going to regulate all the sugar from the fruits you eat.Check your protein bars because many of them are around 20-25 grams of sugar, while your standard Snickers bar is 25 grams of sugar.

. Show Highlights: 

What is blood glucose mainly about?

Juanique 2:00

When talking about blood glucose, we're mainly talking about carbohydrates. And the most simple form of carbs is the monosaccharides.

A great analogy of how carbohydrates work

Gina 12:09

If you eat carbohydrates, they get digested and broken down. They're all linked together like a pearl necklace. Then each little pearl is like a little molecule of glucose. So when you eat a lot of carbohydrates,  they get flooded in the bloodstream really fast.

What foods are high in sugar?

Juanique 17:33

Table sugar, any pastries, icings, cakes, cookies, fruit juices have tons of sugar. Soda has tons of sugar, even the healthy sources, I hate to say this, but coconut sugar, maple syrup, honey, even though they are nature-made, they still have tons of sugar & no fiber to stabilize the blood glucose. 

What to check first in the food label?

Juanique 23:41

When you're looking at labels, you need to look at sugar first, carbohydrates second. So if it has zero sugars, but it has 60 carbs, that's still going to break down into sugar, and you'll still need a lot of insulin to break that down.

Important Links Podcast Episode with Dr. Benjamin Bikman Juanique Roney IG Gina Worful IG Provo Health IG Dr. Benjamin Bikman IG Gutsy Health Website

More episodes from Gutsy Health | Nutrition and Medicine