Dr. Mirkin: Exercise Helps to Prevent Diabetes
Exercise, sugar, insulin, diet and the development, progression & prevention of diabetes
Sugar and Refined Carbs in Your Diet, from Dr. Mirkin’s Fitness and Health E-Zine 4.17.11
Sugar cannot enter resting muscles unless insulin is there to drive the sugar into muscles. However actively contacting muscles can draw sugar from the bloodstream without needing insulin.
So during exercise, muscles can remove sugar from the bloodstream to prevent the extra sugar from damaging cells and being converted to fat. It also helps make insulin receptors on cells respond to insulin and push sugar into cells.
You Need to Exercise Every Day
Muscles draw sugar from the bloodstream without insulin only when they are actively contracting or lack oxygen and they can continue drawing sugar without insulin maximally for up to an hour after you finish exercising. They lose all ability to remove sugar without insulin 17 hours after you finish exercising.
Since the sugar-lowering benefit of exercise lasts in muscles no more than 17 hours, you must exercise every day to retain this benefit.
The Highest Rises in Blood Sugar Come from Sugar in Drinks
All sugared drinks cause very high rises in blood sugar levels. Orange juice will cause the same high rise in blood sugar as sugared soft drinks. When food enters your stomach, the pyloric sphincter at the end of the stomach closes. Then solid food is converted to a liquid soup that is pumped into the intestines by stomach muscle contractions.
An orange can stay in your stomach up to five hours, while orange juice passes immediately into your intestines where it is absorbed, causing a rapid rise in blood sugar.
Foods Made from Flour Also Cause High Rises in Blood Sugar
Grains are seeds of grasses. They have a thick capsule that is so tough that you have to cook them for at least an hour just to make them palatable. Blood sugar barely rises after you eat WHOLE grains.
However when you grind whole grains into a powder, the flour that is formed can enter the bloodstream immediately to cause a high rise in blood sugar. So pastas and breads can cause high rises in blood sugar, even if they are made from whole grains.
Diabeteics Should Eat Fruits and Whole Grains, and So Should You
Fruits are full of sugar. However, diabetics who do not eat fruits do very poorly. Everyone should eat fruits and whole grains, even those who are overweight, diabetic, or have high cholesterol levels.
Everyone should restrict sugared drinks and flour, particularly if they are overweight, diabetic or have heart problems.
Where Does Meat Fit into This Picture?
The saturated fat in red meat has been shown to block insulin receptors and raise blood sugar levels. The monounsaturated fats in fruits, whole grains and vegetables have been shown to unblock insulin receptor.
What’s the Best Way to Lower High Cholesterol?
The best way to lower cholesterol is to restrict calories. It is far more effective than restricting dietary fat and dietary cholesterol. If you ate nothing but fatty meat and reduced your calories by a third, your cholesterol would drop significantly.
The cholesterol that you eat in meat, fish and chicken goes to your liver where it is broken down into 2-carbon units. If you do not have enough calories, these 2-carbon units are burned for energy. On the other hand, if you have lots of extra calories, the 2-carbon units are converted to cholesterol to raise your blood cholesterol level.
What is a Healthful Diet?
You can eat all the fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, seeds and nuts you want. You should restrict all refined carbohydrates made from flour and avoid sugared drinks, except when you are exercising. I believe that you should also avoid red meat.
Tags: blood sugar, diabetes, Dr. Gabe Mirkin, exercise, insulin, plant based diet, red meat, Sugar
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Hi Kate, I wish I could do that for you, but I am not a dietitian or at all professionally qualified to tell you what you should eat at every meal in detail. All I can say is very general: eat whole foods: tons of fruit & veg, whole grains, avoid sugar, processed food, junk food, exercise, drink lots of water, get lots of sleep. Even if I were qualified, I don’t have enough information about you. Growing teens especially need good nutrition, and I know it’s hard at 14 to plan a healthy diet for yourself without knowing much about veg nutrition, and without your parents support. I’m not saying that you should give up on being vegetarian, just that you should think long term. Learn all you can about vegetarian nutrition, starting with the Savvy Veg Nutrition Report, and get a copy of the veg nutrition book Becomng Vegetarian. And find out what foods you like and can make for yourself. And take supplements: B12, calcium, Vit D, iron are important for girls your age. And gradually ease into the vegetarian lifestyle. That might not be what you want to hear, but it’s the best way to become a strong vegetarian for life, and the best advice I can give you. I’ve written many advice letters for teens over the years, and you could get some good tips from reading them. At least you’ll know you’re not alone!
Hi! I’m a 14 year old girl and I’ve been a vegetarian for about a month. I’ve been trying to eat healthy by eating more nuts, veggies, beans, and eggs, but I don’t think I’m eating right. Right now I have a sore throat and I normally don’t get sick, especially in the summer. I’m a little nervous that I’ll be sick alot. My parents are meat eaters and they say it might be because I’m a vegetarian. I don’t know if this is true or not. Can you please let me know what I should be eating at every meal.