Blood Sugar Levels Terminology Made Simple – Dr.Berg On Glycemic Index & Insulin

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hey guys in this video we’re gonna talk about blood sugar terminology there are several people recently that mentioned I don’t really understand the terms that you’re throwing out there and so I’m really confused so would you just back up and explain these terms and I agree with them that we need to have a video to make it really simple so this video is for those people number one the word glycemic means relating to glucose or sugar okay and when we’re talking about glycemic index we’re talking about a scale from high to low of the measurement of how fast the body digests in absorbs and raises the sugar in the blood okay so right here if we ate jelly beans for example it’s going to spike up and that would be very high in the list if you ate celery okay it’s not very sweet it’s going to be very low alright so that’s what glycemic index means how fast you can spike your sugars alright now what happens when you do spike your sugars you have a hormone that comes in they’re called insulin and insulin is basically gonna it does has one really main purpose is to drop the sugar it does not want the sugar to high so as soon as you spike it it’s gonna come in there and remove it from the blood so insulin is a hormone that removes the sugar it lowers this sugar okay now the next term going to talk about is glycemic load okay so that would be a combination of the glycemic index and the carb carbohydrate content okay what does that mean carbohydrate content well if something was very high and this is another scale - okay if something was very high on the glycemic load it would create a long duration of this spike blood sugar okay something below on the list it would create a little spike and then come right down really fast so it’s kind of like the duration okay the quantity of how much carbon how much effect that it’s creating it’s like it’s really like the true glycemic response because let’s say for example you eat carrots that are hi in carbohydrate well they’re so also high in fiber so they’re gonna have a low glycemic load okay but a baked potato that’s gonna very have a very high glycemic load because it’s going to create a longer duration than something else with fiber so that’s another term and so we want to look at both of these terms when we’re measuring things because there’s some subtle differences all right now let’s talk about the insulin index what is that that’s another scale of how much insulin the body is going to release now the difference between glycemic index and insulin and X is the glycemic index measures the blood sugar spike the insulin index measures the insulin spiked okay completely different situation and so you could have non carbohydrate things that can spike insulin Europe mostly its carbohydrate that will increase insulin but you can have other things that can trigger insulin too so the insulin index are usually the it goes beyond just the carbohydrates okay so you have protein for example that can spike insulin now it’s interesting if you have low fat protein like some type of fat-free dairy for example that gives more insulin spike than if you had a fattier protein like a fatty or dairy like brie cheese for example that would give a lower response okay so that’s interesting because most people go for the low fat so the insulin index is a really good thing to look at and measuring your insulin because the whole goal is to keep the insulin low as possible to normal so you can lose weight and get healthy the higher the insulin the more damage to the body okay the more you’re gonna get diabetes okay so that’s what that’s all about then we have carbohydrates proteins and fats these are called macronutrients okay so carbohydrates are going to be the thing that’s going to spike this and of course this all right that would be at the top of the list you’re gonna have all the refined sugars I for jenos corn syrup and the refined grains and corns and things like that and starches it’s gonna raise it but protein is a little different protein how it has the capacity to raise insulin if it’s in an excess amount okay so the main reason we need protein in the diet is to provide a structural material for the body parts so the hair the nails the collagen the bone all need and the muscle all need proteins so we need these to build up our structure when you consume excessive protein it will increase insulin okay so what does that mean well anything more than 35 grams per meal of protein can be converted into sugar okay or glucose now this all depends too on your age and your metabolism and all that but generally speaking this is a rough number so this is relating to about three to six ounces of protein per meal that’s what I’m gonna recommend for you just to be safe I mean a little bit more is okay a little less is okay but right around this range here just to make sure that protein doesn’t stimulate insulin okay so but typically if you have a moderate amount of protein you’re not going to raise insulin too much okay then we have this thing called fat this is what people are avoiding and what’s interesting is that fat has near zero response of insulin okay so it doesn’t it doesn’t have that response like carbohydrates so so really when when you talk about ketosis or a ketogenic diet we’re talking about a diet that is very low in carbs moderate protein in higher in fat why because the whole purpose of the ketosis is to run your body and an alternative fuel source when you go in to a state of ketosis you’re you’re no longer using glucose for your fuel you’re using ketones which is a byproduct of and the way you get into ketosis is by reducing your carbs down to 20 to 50 grams per day so you’ve got to load the carbs now the body is forced to use another fuel system which is ketones so it’s going to start burning your fat or the dietary fat that you’re eating and this is gonna give you another fuel source right here which is ketones and it’s a much cleaner fuel source it’s better there’s a lot of other health benefits you’re going to lose your belly cognitive function there’s a lot of great things that are gonna happen okay so we have that term next term we’re talking about is insulin sensitivity so you have you know this huge population and each person could be rated by their sensitivity to insulin so the higher sensitivity that that means the more the insulin is working in the body the better the control of blood sugars so the people that have high sensitivity insulin and it’s working don’t have a weight problem they’re thin and they’re usually healthy maybe for other things or not but typically yes so then we have the opposite scale which is resistant so if insulin is no longer sensitive and it’s resistant it’s not working its dysfunctional we have the condition called insulin resistance okay and what happens with that condition is that the body no longer absorbs insulin like it should so it blocks it the cells block it when that happens it causes the feedback loop overcompensation where your body’s going to make more insulin the pancreas is going to make more insulin and it’s going to come in there to try to compensate so now we have a situation insulin resistance where we have a lot higher amounts of insulin like 5 to 7 times versus a normal person so these people are going to be fat ok two thirds of the population have this problem they don’t even know it okay so we have too much insulin and there’s a lot of issues that come with that which I’m not going to get into so here you have insulin resistance right and then over time it gets worse worse worse worse until now the body is going to fail to compensate it’s still going to compensate and to the insulin resistance so now it’s shutting down now you’re going to get a condition called diabetes so really diabetes is failure to adapt to the insulin resis