New Research – 2017

A documentary for NHK, filmed in Japan, the USA, and Italy.

Prof. Antonio Ceriello says that, “Glucose spikes undermine our health, even though we are unaware of it.” As well as obesity, glucose spiles are a driving force in type II diabetes, heart disease, poor circulation, diabetic foot ulcers, amputations, Alzheimer’s and many other health problems

As I will explain in a later post, both fasting blood glucose, and HbA1c are not good markers of your biological health. We use those markers because it’s cheap and easy. But it’s also misleading, disguising the onset of health problems for 20+ years, because we are using the wrong indicator. This also has you thinking wrongly about yourself and your diet, because your tests report that you remain healthy, while in fact you’ve been getting sicker and sicker for years.

The body tries to keep your blood glucose levels stable between 80 and 100 mg/dl because high glucose levels cause inflammation in your cells, creating reactive oxygen species, which damage cell walls and even your DNA. After eating a meal your blood glucose will rise, normally to about 120 gm/dl and in response the pancreas will produce insulin that has three purposes, to direct glucose into body cells, to store glucose in the liver or the muscles as glycogen, and to send any surplus glucose (energy) to your fat cells where it’s stored in preparation for winter or the next famine.

In the Japanese town of Hisayama, they have been recording the Oral Glucose Tolerance Test for 40 years, at Kyushu University. Prof. Hoshiharu Ninomiya says that they have records for over 8000 people, and 40% of them have glucose spikes using that test.

Awareness will protect you

The first 22 minutes of the video explain what glucose spikes are, and how insulin is supposed to control your blood glucose levels. They do not explain insulin resistance. They do explain that children, young slim people who look healthy, and people who are sleep deprived can all have unusual glucose spikes. Your protection has to be you own awareness that when you eat sugars and carbohydrates, you are probably causing a glucose spike. And that will make your blood thicker and sticky, and cause inflammation and the production of reactive oxygen species, all of which is causing long term damage to your metabolic health.

But the real damage (completely hidden) is the long-term effect of very high insulin in the blood over an extended period of time. This damages all the blood vessels in the body, including your arteries, your veins, and the very smallest blood vessels in your body like the capillaries in your eyes.

Don’t ignore this, it’s very fundamental to our understanding to metabolic disease, and the chronic ill health suffered by more than 80% of the population over 60. There is no medical “cure” for what you do to yourself because you lack knowledge about the best human diet, sensible exercise, the value of group activities, and how to get enough sleep.

As I say in other places, the root of the problem is embedded in the way we organise our society, politically, socially and commercially. The manufacture, advertising and sale of unhealthy food is a substantial part of our “free society”, as is your own right to eat as much of it as you choose. No government is likely to forbid the commercial production of sugar laden cakes, biscuits, pastries, and lollies. Nor are they about to tell you that supermarket bread, potato’s chips, rice, noodles and pasta, common starchy foods, within 30 minutes of being eaten, become glucose in your blood, and can in some people cause a glucose spike. The rule of law is “Let the buyer beware.”