Carbohydrates and Insulin
On a typical busy morning, a person has a fairly good dose of carbohydrates in the form of a sugary cereal, a bagel, a pastry, or a breakfast sandwich from a drive-thru. Then a couple of hours later, they seem to crash—not their car, but their energy seems to drain away. Maybe they start to sweat and even get some brain fog. If it happens with regularity, people get concerned and may even see their doctor. Is this a food problem? A metabolic problem? We’ll spend some time talking about it; let’s begin with a couple of studies.
The first study recruited a group of healthy subjects who had symptoms like I mentioned. They were tested, together with a healthy control group that had never responded that way, for a condition known as “reactive hyperinsulinemia,” also called the insulin overshoot phenomenon. In short, that means too much insulin is released and can drop the blood sugar below 55 mg/dl.
The researchers tested all subjects for problems in processing carbohydrates: oral glucose tolerance test, mixed meal tolerance test and a bunch more.
They found no specific pattern in either group of subjects:
- Some in both groups had symptoms, but their blood sugar never went too low.
- Some had their blood sugar go below 55 mg/dl with no apparent symptoms.
- In subjects with glucose lower than 55 mg/dl, none had a high insulin level to cause that effect.
- Not one subject responded with problems to the mixed meal tolerance test.
The conclusion was that a lot more research has to be done to find out why what everyone thinks is happening really isn’t happening in everyone. Fortunately, this same research group did an interesting follow-up. We’ll talk about that on Saturday.
What are you prepared to do today?
Dr. Chet
Reference: J. Pers.Med. 2021,11,276. https:// doi.org/10.3390/jpm11040276
