Is It Necessary To Avoid Carbs?

February 15, 2012 by  
Filed under Nutrition

As you may have learned from the last installment, dietary fiber, or complex carbohydrates have quite a nebulous molecular structure as well, which makes them similarly immune to the majority of the body’s digestive enzymes. This prevents them from being converted to other nutrients, including glucose. As a result, the release of fiber from the digestive tract is mostly, if not completely undigested. This leads to a sudden and abrupt slow-down to the speed of carbohydrate digestion in the body. This leads to a situation where the enzymes are not quite able to handle the starch as quickly as normal, because of the presence of indigestible fibrous wrapping that “protects” some starches. In addition to that, the soluble fiber in the digestive system makes it extremely hard for carbs and enzymes to amalgamate because of a viscid substance made out of the food being digested in the interim. Result? Carb digestion slows down.

Going back to what was discussed, all carbohydrates are transformed into glucose in our digestive system, because after all, this is what makes the body operate. This leads us to a figure known as “blood glucose”, which increases as the glucose infiltrates the bloodstream.

We Should Keep Blood Glucose Within its Limits

A very high level of glucose in the blood is toxic, while a very low level is detrimental to bodily functions. Therefore the body has a system to regulate the amount of glucose in the bloodstream to ensure that it remains balanced within safe parameters. The fate of the body’s blood glucose balance would depend on two things, namely insulin and hunger.

Low Blood Glucose Triggers Hunger If blood-sugar levels drop, the brain causes us to feel hungry. And? We would eat food, which is thereby converted into glucose, thus making blood glucose levels rise once again. If we don’t eat and blood-glucose levels fall too low, we trigger the condition known as hypoglycemia.

The reaction of the body to eating too many high GI carbs, or in other words, carbs that are converted into blood glucose quicker than others, would be to release a voluminous amount of insulin, to quell the glucose onslaught unleashed by the GI carbs. Over time this excessively high level of insulin can cause the “insulin-receptors” in our cells to become less sensitive to insulin.

The effect of hunger versus insulin is akin to a see-saw, and it could work well for us in general, with the proviso that our diet remains low on high GI carbs that could be converted into glucose rather quickly. It is but logical if you come to think of it – TREMENDOUS amounts of glucose, once roaming freely in the bloodstream (loosely referred to as a “sugar spike”), the system would counter this with a TREMENDOUS dose of insulin. (It thinks we’ve eaten a huge amount of food.) And not only that, the aforementioned amount of insulin is SO TREMENDOUSLY HIGH that there is much more than just food glucose that is dispersed, but way more than that! So what next? Our blood glucose falls too low. And it is, without question, unhealthy, if our blood glucose levels fluctuate wildly due to the excess production of insulin.

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