It is widely believed that eating too much sugar and carbohydrates increases the risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes in modern humans. However, there are key reasons that surprise you.
“Insulin resistance is an epidemic you’ve never heard of,” said Dr. Benjamin Bikman, a scientist and researcher at Brigham Young University, a top private research university in the United States.
Robert Califf, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a professor at Duke University School of Medicine, published an article in the European Heart Journal Supplements as early as 2003 titled Article on “Insulin resistance is a global epidemic that requires effective treatment.”[1]He emphasized that the global prevalence of type 2 diabetes will explode.
The seriousness of the situation in recent years can be seen from a study published in the “Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health” by the University of the United Arab Emirates in 2020.[2]
In high-incidence countries, even more than 1 in 10 people have type 2 diabetes. And the more economically developed areas, the higher the prevalence. Despite a series of public health measures, the prevalence of the disease has risen significantly in some developed countries, and the growth trend shows no signs of slowing down.
Insulin resistance, in addition to being the cause of type 2 diabetes, is also directly related to the pathogenesis of many chronic diseases. Many chronic diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and vascular disease, will increase if the insulin resistance prevailing in the population is not effectively controlled.
Many people are experiencing insulin resistance even for a long time without realizing it. When one day, when the blood test results show abnormality, it may have developed into pre-diabetes, diabetes, or even accompanied by other chronic diseases and complications. It was then that I woke up: the insulin resistance that had been quietly lurking in the body had developed into a stubborn disease.
Silent Pancreatic Alert! What exactly is insulin resistance?
The organ that looks like a corn on the cob, right behind your stomach, next to the liver, is the pancreas.
The pancreas lowers sugar in the blood by making a hormone called insulin, which sends excess sugar into the cells. After a meal, your blood sugar rises, and so does the secretion of insulin to keep your blood sugar stable. After exercise or prolonged starvation, blood sugar levels drop, and insulin levels drop accordingly.
Pancreas is a perfectionist. To keep blood sugar normal at all times, it makes a precise amount of insulin, no more, no less. However, when insulin resistance occurs, cells become less sensitive to insulin. The original amount of insulin is no longer enough to lower blood sugar. At this point, the pancreas, under pressure to lower blood sugar, is desperately trying to make more insulin to complete the task.
Take the economy as an analogy. A healthy system of insulin and blood sugar balance in the body is like a healthy economy. Insulin resistance is like inflation: the pancreas used to spend 1 insulin coin to reduce a certain amount of blood sugar levels; when insulin resistance, it took 10 insulin coins to achieve the same hypoglycemic effect.
And people can’t directly feel insulin resistance. At first, from the outside of the body, everything was fine and the blood sugar was in the normal range. But in the human body it is a different story: the pancreas is overloaded for a long time, its ability to produce insulin is maximized, and eventually fasting blood sugar begins to rise. And this may be a clue that the body is explicitly giving insulin resistance. In addition, elevated blood triglyceride levels are also a judgement indicator. By checking insulin and triglyceride levels in the blood, insulin resistance can be detected earlier, before type 2 diabetes develops.
The surprising cause of insulin resistance
Many people think that insulin resistance is caused by eating too much sugar and sweets, or obesity; the solution is to eat more vegetables, low GI fruits, and reduce the intake of refined sugars. As everyone knows, there are some hidden and unknown key factors that cause insulin resistance.
1. Pesticides on fruits and vegetables
When you eat apples to lower blood sugar, you ignore the pesticides on apples. These pesticides trigger insulin resistance, which directly increases diabetes risk.
The commercial scale production of modern agricultural products generally uses pesticides. The efficacy of pesticides mainly has three aspects: insecticidal, bactericidal and weeding. Although the regulations of various countries have set an upper limit on the level of pesticide residues in food, the fruits and vegetables that people buy from the general market have more or less pesticide residues. There are also opportunities to be exposed to pesticides such as pesticides and herbicides when caring for your yard.
Pesticides are not metabolized or excreted well, and even small doses can build up in the body over time. Pesticide residues have been widely measured in human blood, body fat and breast milk.[3]
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the United States from 1999 to 2002 found that more than 80% of people had six kinds of chemical pollutants in their blood, most of which were commonly used chlorinated pesticides and herbicides.[4]
The researchers further found that with higher levels of pesticides in the blood, a person’s risk of developing diabetes soared. People with low and moderate levels of pesticides in their blood were 14 to 15 times more likely to develop diabetes than those with very low levels. People with more and the most pesticides in their blood were 38 times more likely to develop diabetes.
Such a significant association is enough to challenge epidemiological research.
2. Environmental hormones
In fact, not only pesticides, but also the ubiquitous “environmental hormones” in modern times can increase insulin resistance.[5]
Perhaps you are not familiar with the term environmental hormones, but you must have heard of “plasticizers” and “preservatives”, which belong to the family of environmental hormones.
Environmental hormones are also called endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Because the molecular structure of these substances is similar to that of endocrine hormones, if they enter the body, the body will think that it is “our own person” and act according to its instructions. In this way, the endocrine system is disturbed and the body is dysfunctional.
Environmental hormones are lurking in every corner of life. Various decoration materials, plastic-textured water cups and water bottles, takeaway lunch boxes and tableware, food wrapping paper with plastic coating, inner coating of cans, detergents, and daily necessities such as cosmetics, toothpaste, lipstick, hand sanitizer, etc. may contain. People are surrounded by environmental hormones and are not easily aware of the dangers.
The European Commission screened 575 chemicals and found that 320 of them can disrupt endocrine; while the FDA investigation found that more than 1,800 environmental hormones can disrupt endocrine.[6]
A 2020 review by The Lancet highlights that environmental hormones are linked to a myriad of non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, thyroid disease, neurodevelopmental disorders, hormone-dependent cancers such as breast cancer, and reproductive disorders. And called for re-setting regulatory requirements and standards for such substances to reduce people’s exposure to these substances.[7]
Environmental hormones that are often encountered in life are as follows:
● Environmental hormones in plastics: Phthalates and BPA
Phthalates are one of the most commonly used plasticizers. It is a plasticizer for PVC plastic products and does not chemically bond with PVC itself, so it can continue to be transferred to the environment. Although phthalates are metabolized in urine and blood in the short term, the reality is that we constantly ingest these substances in our lives through exposure to plastic products.[8]
They can induce adipogenesis and inflammation in the body, increase insulin resistance and promote the development of type 2 diabetes. People with high levels of phthalates in their urine had a 48 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.[9][10]
Bisphenol A (BPA) is probably one of the most produced chemicals in the world. You may not think that when you buy something, the receipt that the merchant gives you also contains BPA. Skin contact and breathing will allow it to enter the body. They can also seep into food from the container and end up being eaten.
In France, 755 healthy people were followed for more than 9 years. The results showed that compared with those with the lowest levels of BPA in their urine, those with progressively higher levels had a 56% to 156% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes.[11]
● Non-stick coating: perfluorocarbon
Perfluorocarbons (PFAS) are a large class of man-made fluorine chemicals, mainly including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS). It’s the stuff on non-stick pans, the coating on the inside of canned foods, and the wrappers around hamburgers. It’s in our hand soaps, body washes, and more. Different from plasticizers that can be metabolized quickly, perfluorocarbons are heat-resistant, acid-alkali-resistant, very difficult to degrade, and can accumulate and exist in the human body for many years. Some types of perfluorocarbons can cross the placenta and enter the fetus.[12]
Researchers in the United States have conducted experiments on nearly 1,000 people for more than ten years and found that each doubling of the amount of perfluorooctanoic acid in human blood increases the risk of diabetes by 14%.[13]
But another conclusion of this experiment is also worthy of attention: if you adopt a healthier lifestyle, control your weight, adjust your diet, exercise properly, etc., even if the concentration of these substances in the blood increases, the risk of diabetes does not increase.
This shows that we can protect ourselves from harm by living a healthy lifestyle in response to the fact that environmental hormones are constantly accumulating around us.
● Preservatives: Triclosan, Parabens
Many cleaning products, such as toothpaste, hand sanitizer, and body wash, have added Triclosan as an antibacterial preservative. Triclosan disrupts bacterial lipid synthesis and cell membrane integrity, thereby inhibiting microbial growth. But when we brush our teeth, bathe and wash our hands, if we use products containing triclosan, then this environmental hormone will enter the body through the oral mucosa and skin, affecting human hormone secretion.
Another preservative, Paraben, can also be antibacterial and is relatively cheap, so it is commonly used as a preservative in daily necessities, even food and medicine.
Parabens have estrogen-like effects. Once in the body, it is stored in fat cells along with natural estrogen, increasing overall estrogen levels in the body. The accumulation of estrogen in the body not only disrupts the body’s fat and sugar metabolism, making people more susceptible to diabetes, but also increases the risk of breast cancer.
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Responsible editor: Li Qingfeng
