Ep. 681 - Are Carbohydrates and Insulin Causing Obesity?

Dec. 1, 2021

This is a common myth that we’re going to completely rip apart, today! Listen in on this research review to better understand the role of insulin, what actually causes obesity, and why you can't blindly take advice in the fitness and nutrition industry.

Background: The carbohydrate insulin model (CIM) states that  increasing fat deposition in the body—resulting from the hormonal responses to a high-glycemic-load diet—drives positive energy balance.

Said differently, Diets with a high proportion of carbohydrate elevate insulin secretion and thereby suppress the release of fatty acids from adipose tissue into the circulation and direct circulating fat toward adipose storage and away from oxidation. This altered fuel availability is theorized to lead to a state of cellular ‘internal starvation’ leading to adaptive decreases in energy expenditure and increased hunger.

•  Concept: High glycemic load (GL) foods (e.g., high carbs) raise insulin, suppress glucagon, and elicit glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) response. This cascade drives glucose into muscle/liver/fat cells for about an hour. At about 3 hours post-meal glucose rapidly decreases to (theoretically) lower than pre-meal state which tells the brain “I need food” and induces a hormone response increasing the drive to eat(ghrelin, etc).

The carbohydrate-insulin model suggests that endocrine dysregulation of adipose tissue is the primary driver of positive energy balance.

Overlap: Both theories suggest that changes in food quality drive weight gain. However, according to the CIM, hormonal and metabolic responses to the source of dietary calories, not merely calorie content, lie upstream in the mechanistic pathway. In the Energy Balance Model (EBM) all calories are metabolically equivalent.

Other Discussion points:

• How does our environment play a role in how we act?

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