Number of words: 409

Here’s where the long-term problems occurred. Since carbs are energy food and should be eaten in quantities that match a person’s individual metabolic health and activity level, when you eat more energy than you are currently burning you’ll gain weight. But Americans weren’t given this message. They were virtually badgered into eating more carbs.

The most damaging result of our radical increase in the consumption of carbs was that Americans were now suffering with chronic high insulin levels. This is not a condition that creates immediate alarm. A person doesn’t feel any different when insulin levels soar and remain elevated. But the damage occurs within, insidiously and inexorably. Chronic high insulin levels are implicated in every single degenerative disease, including type 2 diabetes, cancer (insulin is a growth factor for cells), and heart disease, (high insulin labours encourage coronary artery plaquing). In fact, studies on insulin and arterial plaque date back to the 1960. Researchers actually infused insulin into the femoral arteries of dogs and arterial plaque occurred in every dog. (High insulin levels are also caused by stress, dieting, caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, aspartame, steroids, sedentary lifestyle, recreational, and OTC and description drugs, but our focus here  is sugar).

Here’s how it works: Hormones are the chemical communicators between cells. For the body to function well, they must be kept at normal levels, as hormones depend on each other to do their jobs. Because all the systems of the body are interconnected, one hormonal imbalance causes another. A key hormone to keep balance is insulin, which is secreted by the pancreas. Insulin’s major function is to regulate blood sugar levels, thereby protecting the brain and other vital organs from receiving too much sugar, which damage cells. When you eat carbs they turn immediately into sugar in your system, and when too much sugar is in your blood stream, insulin binds to insulin receptors on your cells so that they will open up and accept that extra sugar.

Years of eating too many carbs mean that your cells will be clogged with sugar. When they’re filled to capacity and can’t fit another sugar molecule, cells reduce the number of insulin receptors so there are fewer receptors for insulin to activate. This is insulin resistance. If you live long enough, you’ll likely develop at least some degree of insulin resistance, which is the condition of ageing. What’s not normal is that elementary school children are now developing insulin resistance. The recent fashion trend of low-rise jeans (prehistorically known as hip huggers) has revealed a population of young American women with fat tummies. Today, because girls are raised on sugar, they’re insulin resistant, with expanding middles, by the time they reach adolescence. The reason for this weight gain around the midsection is that when cells refuse to accept sugar, extra sugar in the bloodstream is diverted into fat production, and fat accumulates around the waist first.

When cells become insulin resistant, alarm bells go off in your body. Your pancreas will secrete even more insulin in an attempt to overcome this resistance. So now you have too much insulin in your bloodstream which is called hyperinsulinemia. Your cells are being bombarded with insulin, which is like a frantic knocking, pleading to allow excess sugar to enter. But stuffed as they are to capacity with sugar, your cells react by further reducing insulin receptors, which increases insulin resistance.

If you continue putting too much sugar into your system until your cells have closed down all insulin receptors, the sugar has nowhere to go and remains in your bloodstream. You now have high blood sugar levels and high insulin levels. i.e., type 2 diabetes, an ugly progressive disease that causes blindness, kidney disease, nerve disease, heart disease, stroke and premature death. 1 in 10 Americans has type 2 diabetes, and it’s the seventh leading cause of death in the US. By the year 2050 the CDC predicts one in three Americans will have type 2 diabetes. We now have a generation of adults who are very likely to outlive their children, and in fact, experts predict that we will see teenage deaths of heart disease on a regular basis within the next decade.

Excerpted from pages 186-188 of ‘Death by Supermarket’ by Nancy Deville