We all know those people who look like they are approaching their 60th birthday while they are still in their mid 40’s. They are overweight with wrinkly sagging skin, thinning hair and typically have very low energy. If you were to spend a few days with these people and watch what they eat, the reason for their premature aging would become clear. Too much sugar in all forms (fructose, sucrose, glucose, galactose, lactose and others) will inflict serious damage to your body and speed up the aging process. To understand how excess sugar destroys your body inside and out, here is a crash course on insulin.

Insulin is a hormone that is secreted by the pancreas (an organ that lies behind your stomach) primarily after eating carbohydrates. It secretes insulin when you eat other foods too, but not to the same extent. When we eat carbohydrates they are absorbed into the bloodstream, they elevate your blood glucose levels and this elevation is detected by the pancreas. It then secretes insulin to help the body process the blood glucose. In a relatively healthy body, insulin will bind with receptors on your cells. When a cell has insulin attached to it via the receptor, the cell activates other receptors acting like a messenger to absorb glucose from the bloodstream into the cell to be used for energy. This occurs in a healthy body with strong insulin sensitivity.

When pasta, bread, cookies and donuts are staples in your diet, you will find yourself running insulin all day long. When you eat like this over several years, your cells will eventually become resistant to the normal effects of insulin. They will struggle to absorb glucose from the blood to use for energy. Your pancreas is forced to go into overdrive to produce more insulin. Despite the excess insulin trying to do its job, the cells still do not respond and accept the glucose. This results in excess sugar floating around in your bloodstream, with nowhere else to go. It is called insulin resistance.

The negative health effects of insulin resistance are numerous. In addition to fat gain or obesity, your triglyceride levels will increase leading to arteriosclerosis and heart disease. Your body will begin to produce free radicals leading to chronic inflammation and disease. Insulin resistance when maintained over several years will ultimately lead to type 2 diabetes, which will affect just about every aspect of your health.

The good news is that insulin resistance is reversible. You can become insulin sensitive again and reverse the aging process. I’ll show you how in Part 2 of this blog next week.