The silent damage of sugar: Understanding insulin resistance and glycation

With countless trends in health and wellness, many are searching for the secrets to becoming the healthiest they can be.

For Doctors Benjamin Bikman and Paul Reynolds, the answers lie within the processes of insulin resistance and glycation Bikman specializing in the former and Reynolds in the latter.

Applicable to those even without diabetes, Bikman and Reynolds shared that problems with insulin resistance and glycation lead to chronic diseases such as heart disease, Alzheimers, infertility, Type 2 diabetes, erectile dysfunction in men, kidney damage and accelerated aging.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explain that insulin resistance is what happens when your body is exposed to too much blood sugar over an extended period of time. Your insulin, which carries sugars from your blood into your body cells, becomes unable to carry out its proper functions.

Reynolds teaches that with all the sugars or glucose left in the blood, the issue of glycation begins to occur. Glucose is a chemically reactive molecule, and so when it sits in the blood for an extended period of time, it begins to bind to proteins in the body and forms advanced glycation end-products (AGEs).

When it's at high levels, it just runs around, and it touches everything. It's like a misbehaving child on the playground with sticky fingers, Reynolds said. It just messes up everything. And everything glucose touches, it sticks to it that's what glycation is.

Reynolds explained that this is an issue because every protein, fat and nucleic acid has a special site that sugars love to attach to.

You build them up in your eye proteins, you build them up in your kidney, in your liver, in your heart, everywhere. And if they're short-term, your body can break them down well, but if they build up over time, that's where they cause problems, Reynolds said.

The likelihood of glycation increases with poor metabolic health and insulin resistance.

Most people hear that term and think, well, I'm not a diabetic, so it doesn't affect me. But it statistically probably does, Bikman said. A paper published from the School of Public Health at UNC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, found in 2016 that 88% of adults within the United States have poor metabolic health. And so only 12% of the adults were considered metabolically healthy.

Explaining that insulin resistance is the most common health disorder within the United States and globally, Bikman has traveled to countries such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam and France with more upcoming to speak about the issue. He also recently sat on the board for the Department of Health and Human Services to modify Americans dietary guidelines focusing on cardiometabolic disease.

I just thought, I want to be a good citizen, and I want to help this country be healthy and capable and help this country have bigger, better families which we can do if we feel better and we're healthier, Bikman said.

Bikman also shared how these ideas connect to his faith.

I sometimes wonder at the reason we have a body, Bikman said. Why is the body so important to the plan of salvation? And I think a part of it is to learn how to responsibly wield or manage the power these bodies give us. These bodies give us a certain level of power or authority that we wouldn't have without them.

He shared how he believes that at the end of our lives, we will all show how we have learned to be responsible and disciplined with the power that our bodies have given us. In doing this, we may be found worthy of greater power and authority.

All this to say, how is it done? How does one mitigate the negative effects of insulin resistance and glycation?

It all comes down to a proper diet.

Genevieve Parker a research assistant for Bikman and Reynolds shared some insights that she has learned during her studies.

When you eat something, your insulin spikes, and it goes back down after a while. But when you eat sugar, it spikes a lot, Parker said. So, if you eat more meat and more vegetables, you're going to have way steadier insulin levels, which leads to steadier energy, and you feel better.

She explained that although she has not been perfect at following this diet, she feels better and has more energy when she does.

Reynolds also added that eating nutritionally does not mean that sweet treats need to be completely cut out of your life.

So you're definitely welcome, as I am, to eat that birthday cake, Reynolds said. I'll take two slices on special occasions. But the key is just don't do that every day. It's the excursions that should rebound and get back to normal as fast as you can.

He explained that instead of constantly consuming carbs, you want to control carbs.

Continuing this idea, Bikman highlighted a concept that President Nelson touched on in his talk Think Celestial.

He reminded us that President Nelson mentioned an addiction to food being among things that offend the Lord.

Well, in all of the research that focuses on food addictions in humans, there's no evidence of addiction to protein, Bikman said. There's no evidence of addiction to fat alone. All of it touches on addiction to carbohydrate that is, the macronutrient that appears to be the most addictive.

Just as Reynolds mentioned, Bikman also asserts that this does not mean that carbohydrates must be completely cut out. He explained that if they come from a bag or a box with a barcode, they are something to be careful with.

But if the carbohydrate comes in the form of whole fruits and vegetables, they can be enjoyed liberally as should fat and protein.

Reynolds also taught that it is important not to eat as often throughout the day.

We've all become kind of hobbits in Lord of the Rings, remember those guys? You have to have a breakfast, a second breakfast, a snack, and then you have lunch, second lunch there's a snack in the middle probably, an afternoon snack, and don't forget, we got to eat a bag of chips while we're watching Netflix at night, Reynolds said.

It is wise to limit the number of times that we eat during the day, and practice periodic fasting which Bikman shared is best to do before bed. Claiming that that would be his best piece of advice, he explained that this practice is beneficial in many ways.

If you go to bed with really elevated blood glucose and a very full stomach, like you've overeaten right before you go to bed, that will activate the sympathetic nervous system, which is the part of our nervous system that makes us feel anxious and ready for action, Bikman said. Our body temperature goes up, our heart rate goes up, our blood pressure goes up all when we're trying to calm down and go to sleep.

Not only does this affect sleep, but it also impacts our bodys functions for the following day.

It ends up making our sleep worse, which makes our insulin resistance the next day worse, not to mention the effect of the foods we just ate. That, of course, has its own effect. As we go to bed, our insulin is elevated for four or five hours, Bikman said. Nighttime is when we should be fasting.

Small, daily choices eventually make a big impact on overall health and quality of living.

The parting comment is that all of the avoidable diseases we have in our society are fed and worsened by too much sugar, too much inflammation, too much glycation, Reynolds said. You'll find that in every disease.

According to Reynolds and Bikman, control what you eat now, and your future self will thank you.