Diabetes Fasting

The Diabetes Fasting Switch is something that every person needs to understand even if they aren't diabetic. It's one of the reasons why you must strive to eat in a way that maximizes your insulin sensitivity.

A lot of doctors and diabetes educators (as well as nutrition guru's) recommend you eat five or six small, but frequent, meals a day. Many appear to have decent results but I am very critical of this general idea.

I've said before that one of the things that's happening in this country is that more and more people are unknowingly becoming sub clinical diabetics. That is, they may not be showing extreme signs of diabetes that we normally hear of but so many people are obese and eat poorly that it is frankly, only a matter of time before they will be diagnosed with diabetes.

In my opinion too many health care providers ignore the biochemistry and physiology of diabetes for the latest fad or trend. Just like the diabetes educator you mentioned above. Yes, small frequent meals can 'boost' metabolism but at what cost? Usually, it's at the price of decreased insulin sensitivity which present even worse problems. This can often be seen if you've had your fasting blood sugars measured - as your liver will be kicking out sugars to compensate for the insulin resistance. This is the primary reason why my eating style not only includes minimal processed foods but also includes intermittent fasting.

To drive this point home more I recently read a study where the researchers have discovered a "fasting switch" that is turned off by obesity and overeating.

Diabetes and Intermittent Fasting

Here's what science is beginning to discover. Let's say you are eating five or six small meals a day. While you may likely NOT have huge insulin spikes your basal insulin level in your blood will rise. Over time, your body recognizes this constantly higher level of insulin in your blood and down-regulates your bodies cells sensitivity to it. In short, you are becoming more and more insulin resistant.

But now scientists have also discovered this same kind of effect in the liver. The reason this is important is because when you aren't eating your body produces glucose as part of it's energy source from stores in your liver. Then, when you begin eating again - say in the morning after an all night fast - insulin is released in response to that meal. In addition to insulin being released to handle the glucose in the meal you just ate it also sends a signal to your liver telling it to stop producing glucose. This is the "Fasting Switch" I mentioned earlier.

But, over time the increased insulin release from constant meals can also dull your fasting switch to the point of it not working anymore. Hopefully you can see how problematic this would be because not only are you getting glucose from your meals but your liver is still producing glucose because it can't read the bodies signal to shut production down. This only makes blood glucose levels higher and causes the body to release more insulin which it is already resistant to and so the problem continues to compound itself.

Eventually you are likely to have your pancreas burn out and be forced to take insulin injections. Or, you'll have to take oral medications like metformin which 'sensitize' your cells again to insulin. This sounds great but if the root cause of the problem - i.e., frequent and/or poor eating - isn't addressed it will still only make things worse.

I continually see diabetic patients everyday who continue to slide down this slippery slope. Either they or their doctors have no understanding of the underlying biochemical process and continue down the dark road of end-stage diabetes.

Of course, everything that I just described doesn't happen over night. I would consider this an advanced stage of insulin resistance. But, once you get to this stage it will be very hard to reverse the damage from years of high insulin levels.