What Is Insulin? – Dr.Berg

 What Is Insulin? – Dr.Berg

I want to answer the question what is insulin now insulin resistance ketosis talked about sugar but I think I forgot to do a video on actual what is insulin woops better late than never but let's talk about what it is insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas so the pancreas is a gland underneath the left ribcage and insulin is a hormone so hormones are communication particles that are made by glands that travel through the blood okay so the purpose the main purpose of insulin is to lower blood sugar okay so insulin lowers the sugar in the blood now normally you have about a teaspoon just a small amount of sugar in all of your blood so an average person roughly has about a gallon and a half of blood okay that's only one teaspoon diluted in a gallon and a half of blood so anything more than that would be excessive and your body would have to get it out of the blood and it uses insulin to do that okay so the average person consumes thirty-one teaspoons of sugar every single day so you can see that's a big problem and what I mean by normal sugars I'm talking about like 100 milligrams per deciliter that's one teaspoon per one and a half gallons of blood so anything more your body activates insulin to get it out of the blood so so it allows the cells to absorb glucose you can think of insulin like a key that unlocks the cell opens the door to lab glucose to go into the cell to feed the cell okay so that's what it does now it also stores sugar in the liver and the muscles and that's called glycogen which is a like a string of sugar molecules string of glucose that's called glycogen so you have that stored sugar to be released if you need it for quick energy okay so it stores sugar and then anything extra it converts to fat so it's a fat making hormone especially the visceral fat in the gut it also helps you absorb amino acids that's protein wow that's interesting is that it also absorbs potassium so this is a real key mineral and involved in so many functions influen is necessary to help you absorb potassium it blocks fat burning in the presence of just a little bit of insulin you are not going to burn fat okay it retains sodium that's why after a sugar meal you could gain like a pound of fluid and you feel like you gain more weight okay so basically store sugar stores fat reduces blood sugars got that so far now what happens in the body is you become a diabetic or a pre-diabetic that's called insulin resistance so when insulin becomes dysfunctional it starts to be resisted in the cell so now the key doesn't work so if we were to block that entry that's called insulin resistance okay.

so now we're going to actually have less insulin in the cell and less glucose in the cell now what's going to happen signals are going to go back to the pancreas and tell the pancreas to release more insulin so with insulin resistance you have high levels of insulin but it's not working that's why you have all the damage okay if insulin is blocked guess what's going to happen to the blood sugars it's going to go higher and higher and higher and that's diabetes so high sugar is diabetes hyperglycemia so you have a situation where you have out-of-control blood sugars yet your cells of starving of insulin and glucose inside the cell that's why you crave sweets okay and a lot of other damaged insulin resistance will cause a lot more conversion of fat into your gut into the other cells of the body it'll also starve the cells of glucose in the brain that's why you're going to lose your memory you're going to have all sorts prawns that you won't be able to absorb the amino acids that's why I diabetic they lose their muscle strength in muscle mass they won't be able to sort potassium so that's what their blood pressure goes up their energy goes down their sodium goes up because it retains more sodium and they're not able to lose weight because they have too much insulin and that's blocking any chance of burning fat okay all right so you know what insulin does now it's very very very important isn't it but the problem is that you had too much of it that's where the there's a problem because it blocks the absorption so your body dislikes a certain amount what controls the level of insulin is the sugar in the blood so whatever's in the blood so let's talk about what stimulates insulin sugar and anything that converts to sugar refined carbohydrates bread pasta cereal crackers alcohol things like that if you combine sugar with protein you'll exaggerate the spike of insulin even more so it's a compound effect excessive protein will also stimulate insulin so I like to recommend between 3 to 6 ounces of protein per meal MSG monosodium glutamate and it's a modified food starch that's in a lot of junk food that will increase insulin by 300% okay eating in general stimulates insulin so let me just show you one thing on that here's my favorite book guidance physiology and I want to just show you this one little point it says other factors that stimulate insulin secretion gastrointestinal hormones okay what does that mean gastrointestinal it means every time you eat anything you stimulate insulin and this is why intermittent fasting is so powerful because you're cutting down the time that you eat the frequency of eating and you're dropping insulin you're actually correcting the dysfunction okay so actually this goes beyond just cutting out your carbs cortisol will increase in some that's the stress so stress converts your muscle protein into amino acids which is then converted into so it basically changes your proteins in the sugar and then it exhausts themselves with pancreas and then you get become a diabetic other than that you're perfectly fine and then we have nicotine in excessive amounts will also increase insulin and then you have caffeine that in a large amount if you drink coffee all day long will affect the adrenals and increase cortisol but.

if you're just doing like one in the morning you're going to be fine but excessive amounts of caffeine will stimulate insulin now the things that inhibit insulin turn it off would be cutting out the sugar and the refined carbs fasting in a minute fasting will greatly help fix insulin resistance consuming fat has kind of a neutral effect on insulin apple cider vinegar improves insulin sensitivity to tasks IAM in foods and is acceptable increase insulin and so will chromium okay so I just want to give you an overview of exactly what insulin is now you have a foundation to understand even more the other factors thanks for watching hi guys listen I created an evaluation quiz it is quite long it 104 questions but it's very thorough click the link below and take it and it will help you to find out what's really behind all your symptoms.