(upbeat music)
- Alright, Jigsaw, it's time to get down to brass tacks
when it comes down to insulin.
Insulin sensitivity, insulin resistance,
and insulin as a flat out hormone that dictates
whether or not we burn fat or we store it.
So, let's get into the details.
It has to do with a couple of different hormones,
but for the sake of this video, I'm gonna focus
on insulin, because I feel like it's extremely
important that you have a solid understanding
of what insulin does in the body so that you
can understand how you can get the most out of
your diet, and the most out of your life in general.
So, first and foremost, insulin is produced by
the beta cells within the pancreas
and it's triggered as a response to any
kind of food consumption.
Generally speaking, glucose, okay?
So you consume carbohydrates, they get
broken down into glucose by your digestive system.
And once you have glucose floating around in the
bloodstream, insulin opens up the cells to allow
the glucose in.
Now insulin doesn't just affect specific cells,
you see, insulin generally affects both the
muscle cells, the liver cells, but also affects
the fat cells as well.
And that's the thing, a lot of people don't realize
that insulin does affect fat cells and can
actually cause them to store more free fatty acids
and get bigger and get larger.
That's one of the biggest problems
that we face today.
So, now we know that insulin's job is to
take that blood glucose and put it into
the cell for energy.
Well, if insulin isn't functioning well,
then of course we have too much blood glucose,
which can lead to a lot of different things.
Which leads me into two things I want to talk about.
Insulin resistance and insulin sensitivity.
But hear me out through the entirety of this video
because I'm going to break down exactly what
you can do to start getting your insulin
working in your favor, so you can
get in the best shape of your life.
So if you don't produce enough insulin,
or if your cells are immune to insulin
and don't respond well to it,
that leaves you with a lot of excess
glucose in the blood stream.
Well, what can that lead to?
It can lead to storage.
So believe it or not, insulin can also regulate
what is stored as fat and what is stored in the cells.
So let's focus on insulin resistance for a second,
because it plays a role.
Insulin resistance is when you are so accustomed
to having insulin at so many different times of the day,
that your body stops responding to it,
or slows down in terms of response to it.
In fact, there was even a study that took
a look at some interesting stuff.
The Journal of Diabetes and its Complications
did a two-part study and ultimately what they found
over the course of two separate time periods
was about 32 to 33 percent of all people
are insulin resistant.
Not necessarily just diabetics, but all people.
Now how does this play into you?
Well most of the time we just think of diabetics
as being insulin resistant.
But the fact is you can become somewhat insulin
resistant without being diabetic, and that can
lead to a lot of things, like poor absorption
of nutrients, poor glucose delivery,
and of course elevated blood glucose,
which leads to a multitude of different things.
But what about for fat storage?
You see, when your body doesn't respond well
to insulin, your pancreas has to produce more of it.
And this is the thing that people don't always talk about.
The more insulin that your body has to produce,
the less fat burning that occurs.
Every single time that you eat something,
you're generally secreting insulin,
unless you're only eating high protein, high fat.
But generally speaking, you're always producing
insulin when you eat.
Well this insulin shuts off the fat burning
mechanism within your body.
And when that happens, well, do the math,
you're not burning fat.
So if your body has to consistently produce
more and more insulin because it's trying
to respond to the fact that your cells are
insulin resistant,
well there you go, your body's never
really getting into that optimal fat burning stage.
Now, what exactly is causing this insulin resistance?
Well, for one, it's just eating too many calories flat out.
If you're constantly consuming foods, your body
is becoming immune to the insulin.
The insulin that's supposed to let the sugar into the cell.
So a lot of scientists believe it has to do with
something known as intramyocellular fat accumulation.
What this is is fatty acid metabolites that build
up inside the muscle cells that basically
block the absorption of insulin.
How does this happen?
Well, years of combining fats and carbohydrates
together will cause this.
Every time you spike your insulin with a
high sugar or carbohydrate rich food,
and you have fat in the equation as well,
i.e. something like a donut,
you're opening up the muscle cell
to insulin and glucose, but you're also
opening it up to fat.
Those fatty acids go into the muscle cell,
and there you have it.
You have that intramyocellular fatty acid accumulation,
making it so that the cell does not respond well to insulin.
Therefore, next time you eat, your body has to
produce more and more and more insulin.
Think of it as like a door to a building,
that just gets thicker and thicker and thicker
and thicker, and in order to batter it down,
you need a bigger battering ram.
That's the way insulin in your cells work.
That leads me to the next side of the equation,
which is insulin sensitivity.
It's essentially the opposite of insulin resistance.
I want you to think of it like this.
If insulin resistance is a super, super thick door
that barely lets anything in unless you have a big
battering ram, then being insulin sensitive
is like barely having a screen door.
It allows the cell to absorb things that you eat
with very, very little resistance.
Very, very little force is required.
Very little amounts of insulin.
Why is this a good thing?
Well, the more sensitive to insulin
that you are, the less insulin you produce.
The less insulin you produce, the more fat
you're able to burn.
Because remember, it's very, very hard,
if not impossible for you to burn fat
in the presence of insulin.
So, if that's the case, you want to keep your
insulin levels as low as possible.
Then, when you do consume food, your
body is going to absorb it, your cells are
gonna absorb it, and you're going to feel
and look a heck of a lot better.
So this is great.
You now know what insulin is,
you know what insulin resistance is and
you know what insulin sensitivity is.
But how do you take action and put a plan
into effect here?
Well, I've got a couple of solutions for you.
One, is going to be intermittent fasting now and then,
simply by reducing the amount of food that you
consume and going periods of time where you're
not consuming food, it allows those beta cells
in the pancreas to relax a little bit,
but it also allows the intramyocellular fatty acids
that have accumulated to leave the cell,
start being burned, so that the cell can
be more receptive to insulin.
Now, another thing that you can do is
temporary carbohydrate fasting.
Basically, a short stint of ketosis
that doesn't even put you fully into ketosis.
You can go two to three days of restricting carbs
as much as you possibly can, keeping fats
moderately high, basically just allowing yourself
to become more insulin sensitive.
Now, a perfect example, a lot of body builders
or fitness competitors do this, but they
don't generally know the science as to
why they're doing it.
Basically, what you're doing is you're depleting
just enough so that your body can rebound
and be a lot more sensitive.
You can apply this in your everyday life by
doing a carb starvation for really just two
or three days out of the course of a month.
And lastly, for all you magnesium gurus out there,
magnesium plays a critical role
in keeping your insulin sensitivity high.
And it does this simply because of an
intracellular enzyme known as tyrosine kinase.
Tyrosine requires magnesium to allow
insulin to do it's job in terms of lowering
blood glucose.
There have been a multitude of studies
that have linked magnesium to lower blood glucose levels.
But, in this case, we're talking about just
becoming more insulin sensitive so that you
can get the most out of your food, but also
get the most out of every single thing
you do in your life.
So keep it locked in here with Jigsaw,
and as always I'll see you in the next
Science Saturday.