How Sugar Affects Insulin Levels

Yuri Elkaim, BPHE, CK, RHN & Amy Coates, RHN, BSc.

Insulin is the body’s way of controlling blood sugar levels. When your blood sugar is too low, you become hungry. As a result of hunger, you eat and the food is then converted to glucose, which boosts blood glucose levels, hopefully, back to normal. It is possible to boost blood sugar too much when we eat high-sugar foods or high-fructose corn syrup. Sugar and high-fructose corn syrup send blood sugar sky-rocketing and, to control your blood sugar levels, the body releases large quantities of insulin. Insulin acts by allowing your body’s cells to uptake glucose from the blood, thus lowering overall blood sugar levels. However, when high levels of sugar are present, a big surge in insulin results in crashing blood sugar levels, more cravings, and more eating.

While insulin’s primary job is to balance blood sugar, it does more. Insulin helps your body store extra energy (sugar) in the liver and in fat cells. Insulin also controls some liver secretions to keep the blood from becoming too toxic.

Sugar is detrimental because it elicits a large surge of insulin within your body, which prevents the body from burning fat (thus ridding itself of toxins stored in fat), and encourages the body to store more fat. Thus, consistently high levels of insulin are note desirable because they keep your body from burning fat and causes cells to become insulin resistant.

Perhaps the most common result of a high-sugar diet, type II Diabetes, is a direct result of insulin resistance. If left untreated, type II Diabetes can cause obesity, blindness, dizziness, fatigue and even death. An insulin-resistant body can no longer clean itself or maintain appropriate blood-sugar levels, and is very prone to debilitating disease. For this reason, our high sugar intake can be blamed for many of the physical problems “Westerners” have today.

One study estimates that the average American consumes three to four pounds of sugar per week. Can you believe it? There is no doubt about it, refined sugar is terrible for the body, especially in the high doses we consume daily.

The constant spike and dip of blood sugar and insulin levels wreaks havoc on the immune system, the digestive system, the liver and the kidneys, and thus it is best to avoid refined sugar altogether.

Because high amounts of insulin increase fat storage, insulin resistance, and a sluggish, slow, metabolism, keeping our blood sugar steady can help us burn more fat, ridding ourselves of fat-soluble toxins. Keeping insulin levels low will also keep our mental and physical energy up so that we experience even levels throughout the day. Once we break the rise and crash cycles, which come from spikes in blood sugar that are followed by a flood of insulin, we can end our cyclical sugar cravings and get on the track to better health. And being more healthy is something that everyone wants, especially when faced with the long list of disease that results from too much sugar.

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