Today’s Topics
Three changes that fueled my successful ‘rebirth’.
Study: Insulin and Cancer
Study: Insulin, Weight Loss and Body Composition
Three Main Areas of Change
Since my diabetes diagnosis in 2009, I maintain truly normal weight and truly normal blood sugars. Within a couple of months of diagnosis, I had reversed all ‘known’ diabetic complications.
For the past 12 years since diagnosis, I have rarely gotten sick. Except for a few mild colds I have gotten the flu twice, in 2015 and in 2018, and recovered in less than a week.
I attribute my success to changes I made in three main areas, you’ve heard them all before…. healthy diet, exercise, and lifestyle, but the ‘devil is in the details’.
The first two are pretty self-explanatory, lifestyle is a bit more complicated.
Healthy Diet - I follow a very low carb, meat-based diet.
Exercise - I perform weight resistance exercises ‘most days’ of the week.
Lifestyle - Diet and exercise are a part of ‘lifestyle’ of course but it’s much more than that. It’s daily sunshine (and/or D3 supplementation) and even better if it includes a walk in nature.
It’s also about limiting (or avoiding) toxins in food, water and the air…. this includes limiting BPA or equivalent toxins in packaged foods, and avoiding insecticides and herbicides, etc.
Could these changes make a positive difference for you? There’s only one way to find out! … do it! Do It! DO IT!!
Below is a picture of the two insulins I was prescribed 12 years ago. I was taking 4 insulin shots a day when diagnosed.
Reduced Insulin Requirements
One of the benefits of my diet, exercise and lifestyle changes is … reducing insulin requirements. When I exited the hospital as a freshly diagnosed diabetic, I was taking 4 shots of insulin a day!
I don’t recall the number of units I was taking per day, but after I began reducing my carbohydrates, my insulin requirements dropped like a stone and in 1 1/2 months, I’d weaned off all insulin and diabetes drugs.
Point being: I know from personal experience that the changes I made (reducing carbs) lowered my body’s insulin requirements.
This is a segway to the study below.
Study: Insulin and Cancer
Science supports the notion that elevated blood sugars are harmful to every cell in the body and that maintaining truly normal blood sugars should be the goal of everyone on the planet.
Science also supports the notion that elevated insulin is harmful and that maintaining lower levels of insulin is beneficial to health.
Both elevated glucose and elevated insulin are harmful to the cells in our bodies. If any of these statements are new to you, stick around … by subscribing. :)
This morning I read an interesting study, @JimJohnsonSci shared a paper he’d participated in, “Endogenous Insulin contributes to pancreatic cancer development”.
Note: Endogenous Insulin is just insulin your body produces. Exogenous is externally produced insulin… as in insulin shots, etc.
Excerpts from the paper:
“Hyperinsulinemia is a cardinal feature of obesity and T2D, and is independently associated with PDAC [pancreatic cancer] incidence and mortality, even in non-obese people.“
Plain enough, elevated insulin and elevated blood sugars are associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer and mortality.
Using mice with reduced insulin gene dosage, we show here that a modest reduction in endogenous insulin production leads to a ~50% reduction in pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) pre-cancerous lesions in high fat diet-fed mice expressing the KrasG12D oncogene.
The study shows that a modest decrease in insulin production leads to a 50% reduction in pre-cancerous lesions.
Collectively, our data indicate that endogenous insulin hypersecretion contributes causally to pancreatic cancer development. This suggests a modest reduction in fasting insulin via lifestyle interventions or therapeutics may be useful in cancer prevention.
Chronic elevated insulin ‘contributes’ to pancreatic cancer development. Furthermore, modest reductions in fasting insulin via lifestyle interventions may be useful in cancer prevention.
This study adds to a growing list of scientific literature showing the harmful affects to elevated insulin (and elevated glucose).
Again, if this is new information for you, stick around we’ll talk about this topic a lot more in the future.
Given my improvements in health and fitness, my only real concern looking forward is not diabetic amputations or organ failure … or even heart disease, it’s … the big “C” word… Cancer.
Cancer can have many causes including environment and genetics but as I’ve said many times regarding my risk of cancer, I like where I ‘sit’ from a diet and lifestyle point of view. I could still get cancer, but I think my diet and lifestyle are reducing my chances.
Next up …
Study: Insulin Levels, Weight Loss and Body Composition
Outcomes
When you lose weight, you want to lose body fat, not lean mass (muscle).
Participants with a higher insulin secretion lost less weight as fat mass, lost more weight as lean mass, and had greater central adiposity compared with those with lower insulin secretion.
Similarly, adverse body composition changes were predicted by higher insulin resistance at baseline.
This study suggests that diets that reduce insulin levels are more advantageous because the weight loss will be more body fat and less lean mass.
My own personal experience with fat loss efforts supports the study’s conclusion.
Side Note: When I go into fat loss mode, I eat highER protein to preserve lean muscle mass. 💪
Today’s Take Home Points
From my personal experience… I know that a very low carb diet decreased my insulin requirements. A low carb diet and workouts allowed me to lose 80 lbs while increasing my strength and stamina.
Elevated insulin is associated with an increase incidence of pancreatic cancer. We know that a low carb diet will lower your insulin and help lower your blood sugars too.
A diet that lowers insulin levels can allow for increased body fat loss and preserve more lean body mass.
Steve Note: Preserving lean body mass (muscle) becomes more and more important as we age!!
That’s all for today folks! I hope you find the information interesting and helpful. If so feel free to share to those that may benefit from it. ❤