When Carbs, Proteins, & Fats Switch Metabolic Roles

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

In A Rush?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Glucose is the well-known driver of insulin response, but it may be only part of the story

  • Today’s main feature looks at new research (published just yesterday!) showing that for 9% of people, insulin response to fats could be higher, and for 8% of people, insulin response to proteins could be higher.

  • For most people this changes nothing, but for the minority who have things a little different, this research has interesting implications.

• How’s your hydration looking? For most people, at any given time, it’s not great. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

  • Today's sponsor NativePath is offering a 365-day money-back guarantee on their range of electrolyte and amino acid drink mixes, which are great for your kidneys, bladder, and pelvic floor muscles.

• Today’s featured recipe is not only tasty and fiber-rich, but also, it contains propionic acid, which further lowers cholesterol. The dish's health benefits don't end there, though, especially with its longevity-giving ergothioneine content; check out the science section at the end of the recipe!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

Before You Eat Breakfast: 3 Surprising Facts About Intermittent Fasting

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Wildcard Wednesday

Strange Things Happening In The Islets Of Langerhans

It is generally known and widely accepted that carbs have the biggest effect on blood sugar levels (and thus insulin response), fats less so, and protein least of all.

And yet, there was a groundbreaking study published yesterday which found:

*saying ”too low” here is potentially misleading without clarification; yes, Type 1 Diabetics will have too little [endogenous] insulin (because the pancreas is at war with itself and thus isn’t producing useful quantities of insulin, if any). Type 2, however, is more a case of acquired insulin insensitivity, because of having too much at once too often, thus the body stops listening to it, “boy who cried wolf”-style, and the pancreas also starts to get fatigued from producing so much insulin that’s often getting ignored, and does eventually produce less and less while needing more and more insulin to get the same response, so it can be legitimately said “there’s not enough”, but that’s more of a subjective outcome than an objective cause.

Back to the study itself, though…

What they found, and how they found it

Researchers took pancreatic islets from 140 heterogenous donors (varied in age and sex; ostensibly mostly non-diabetic donors, but they acknowledge type 2 diabetes could potentially have gone undiagnosed in some donors*) and tested cell cultures from each with various carbs, proteins, and fats.

They found the expected results in most of the cases, but around 9% responded more strongly to the fats than the carbs (even more strongly than to glucose specifically), and even more surprisingly 8% responded more strongly to the proteins.

*there were also some known type 2 diabetics amongst the donors; as expected, those had a poor insulin response to glucose, but their insulin response to proteins and fats were largely unaffected.

What this means

While this is, in essence, a pilot study (the researchers called for larger and more varied studies, as well as in vivo human studies), the implications so far are important:

It appears that, for a minority of people, a lot of (generally considered very good) antidiabetic advice may not be working in the way previously understood. They’re going to (for example) put fat on their carbs to reduce the blood sugar spike, which will technically still work, but the insulin response is going to be briefly spiked anyway, because of the fats, which very insulin response is what will lower the blood sugars.

In practical terms, there’s not a lot we can do about this at home just yet—even continuous glucose monitors won’t tell us precisely, because they’re monitoring glucose, not the insulin response. We could probably measure everything and do some math and work out what our insulin response has been like based on the pace of change in blood sugar levels (which won’t decrease without insulin to allow such), but even that is at best grounds for a hypothesis for now.

Hopefully, more publicly-available tests will be developed soon, enabling us all to know our “insulin response type” per the proteome predictors discovered in this study, rather than having to just blindly bet on it being “normal”.

Ironically, this very response may have hidden itself for a while—if taking fats raised insulin response without raising blood sugar levels, then if blood sugar levels are the only thing being measured, all we’ll see is “took fats at dinner; blood sugars returned to normal more quickly than when taking carbs without fats”.

You can read the study in full here:

Proteomic predictors of individualized nutrient-specific insulin secretion in health and disease

Want to know more about blood sugar management?

You might like to catch up on:

• 10 Ways To Balance Your Blood Sugars

• Track Your Blood Sugars For Better Personalized Health

• How To Turn Back The Clock On Insulin Resistance

Take care!

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This Or That?

Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between celery and cucumber—both are great, but we picked the celery (click here to read about why), as did 46% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

Recipes Worth Sharing

Luxurious Longevity Risotto

Pearl barley is not only tasty and fiber-rich, but also, it contains propionic acid, which further lowers cholesterol. The dish's health benefits don't end there, though, especially with its longevity-giving ergothioneine content; check out the science section at the end of the recipe!

Click below for our full recipe, and learn its secrets:

One-Minute Book Review

Sciatica Exercises & Home Treatment: Simple, Effective Care For Sciatica and Piriformis Syndrome – by Dr. George Best

Dr. Best is a doctor of chiropractic, but his work here is compelling. He starts by giving an overview of the relevant anatomy, and then the assorted possible causes of sciatica, before moving on to the treatments.

As is generally the case for chiropractic, nothing here will be "cured", but it will give methods for ongoing management to keep you pain-free—which in the case of sciatica, is usually the single biggest thing that most people suffering from it most dearly want.

We get to read a lot about self-massage and exercises, of the (very well-evidenced; about the most well-evidenced thing there is for back pain) McKenzie technique exercises, as well as assorted acupressure-based techniques that are less well-evidenced but have good anecdotal support.

He also writes about preventing sciatica—which if you already have it, that doesn't mean it's too late; it just means, in that case do these things (along with the aforementioned exercises) to gradually reverse the harm done and get back to where you were pre-sciatica.

Lastly, he does also speak on when signs might point to your problems being beyond the scope of this book, and seeking professional examination if you haven't already.

The style throughout is straight to the point, informative, and instructional. There is zero fluff or padding, and no sensationalization. There are diagrams and illustrative photos where appropriate.

Bottom line: if you have, or fear the threat of, sciatica, then this is an excellent book to have and use its exercises.

Click here to check out Sciatica Exercises & Home Treatment, and live pain-free!

Penny For Your Thoughts?

Wishing you a Wednesday of wonderful wellness,

The 10almonds Team