Exercise & Sugar: When Sugar Can Be a Good Thing

it's clear that exercise causes some pretty incredible changes within the human body and one of these changes is how exercise affects the body's ability to process utilize and even store sugars now we've actually done some videos in the past about sugar and even discussed whether or not sugar is bad for you and as you can imagine that can get quite controversial so in today's video we're going to clarify some of these topics about whether or not sugar is bad for you and of course discuss how exercise can change or influence this it's going to be a sweet one so let's do this so one of our goals today is to figure out how we get this all the way down into something like this a skeletal muscle but again let's quickly talk about what most people are referring to when they're talking about sugar most are talking about this stuff the table sugar but in biology in the exercise physiology world the term sugar is most often used to refer to simple carbohydrates which includes monosaccharides and disaccharides mono means one die means two and saccharide just means sugar so a monosaccharide is one molecule of sugar and you've likely heard of some of these glucose is a monosaccharide fructose is a monosaccharide and a disaccharide would be two monosaccharides bonded together and table sugar is one of these simple carbohydrates it's a disaccharide called sucrose so if we were to ingest this wonderful Spoonful of Sugar we would be ingesting multiple multiple molecules of sucrose and interestingly enough your body can't absorb sucrose at least not without some help from your digestive tract so after swallowing the sugar or the sucrose it'll move down the esophagus and into the stomach now the stomach does Aid in digesting multiple substances with the acid the enzymes and even the muscular contractions to help mix everything together but sucrose is actually digested or broken down in the next part of the tube which is the first part of the small intestine called the duodenum and within the duodenum we'd find an enzyme called sucra and sucra would break down sucrose into the individual glucose and fructose molecules and it's these monosaccharides these individual sugars that we can absorb and how they will get absorbed is that they will move through the intestinal wall and then move into these blood vessels that you can see within this tissue called the mesentary and all these blood vessels will funnel into a large vein called the hepatic portal vein hepatic just means liver so in other words once absorbed the glucose and the fructose will go immediately to the liver and here's an important checkpoint which will help us with our discussion of exercise and sugar and even if sugar should always be considered bad the liver is extremely efficient at capturing fructose and even another dietary monosaccharide that we often ingest called galactose and as an FYI galactose and glucose are the two monosaccharides that come together to form lactose which is a disaccharide I'm sure you've heard of before that's found in milk products but again the liver will capture any fructose or galactose and immediately convert it to glucose this will prevent any fructose or galactose from leaving the liver and circulating the blood throughout the body so this means the endg game is glucose no matter what carbohydrate Source you ingest whether it's a simple carbohydrate or table sugar or some complex carbohydrate starches or vegetables no matter the carbohydrate Source your body will first have to break it down into indiv idual monosaccharides before it can be absorbed and any monosaccharide that was not already glucose in that original food source will have to be converted to glucose by the liver because glucose is the form of sugar that our body utilizes if you've ever had like a finger stick or a blood sugar level test we don't test for blood fructose levels or blood glct those levels we test for blood glucose levels so now that the sugar or the glucose is in the bloodstream it can be transported to virtually any cell throughout the body and for for the purposes of exercise we want much of that to get into the skeletal muscle fibers but we also need to talk about insulin as the glucose enters the bloodstream obviously blood glucose levels will start to rise and how fast it rises is often measured by something called the glycemic index the glycemic index is a measurement or a number given to carbohydrate containing foods or even beverages so a food or a beverage that has a high glycemic index would be broken down and absorbed into the bloodstream more Qui Qui ly than say like a food with a lower glycemic index generally highly refined starchy Foods many simple carbohydrates and even certain sugary beverages will have a high glycemic index and therefore be absorbed into the bloodstream more quickly and cause a greater spike in blood glucose levels but as those blood glucose levels start to rise this stimulates the pancreas to release insulin and this is important because insulin causes or mediates the transfer of glucose from the bloodstream and into many of the cells throughout the body so without insulin many of the cells couldn't bring in the glucose and that's why I say someone with like type 1 diabetes can have such high blood sugar or blood glucose levels because they don't produce any insulin and therefore that glucose will stay in the blood rather than moving into the cells and with all this talk about blood glucose levels maybe you've wondered about your own glucose levels and so I wanted to take a second to show you this really cool device on the back of my arm called a continuous glucose monitor or CGM from the sponsor of today's video nutrients sense is an amazing program that gives you tons of science-backed insights by combining real-time data from the CGM with expert support from a dedicated nutritionist the continuous glucose monitor is placed on the back of your arm or for you Anatomy nerds out there the posterior brachium and it monitors your blood glucose levels in real time the CGM easily syncs with the neutr sense app which allows you to monitor the impact of your choices from food sleep exercise and even how stress impacts your blood glucose levels for me it was very interesting and a lot of fun to do little food experiments to see the impact that certain foods and even supplements could have on my blood glucose levels and based on what we've learned about glycemic index probably not a big shocker what that ice cream is going to do but it was also awesome to see how exercise could affect those blood glucose levels which could help provide valuable insights on things like how I might time certain food types to help optimize athletic performance and even recovery which we'll definitely get into more detail about that later in the video neutrient gives you free access to a dedicated expert nutritionist for one month to help you unlock insights from the data plus guide you towards the ideal personalized diet so if you're interested in starting this amazing program and getting one of these Nifty little cgms go to nutrients. i/h um50 we'll also include that information and the link in the description below so now we know the process of how we get this or any other carbohydrate source for that matter into the skeletal muscle fibers as well as into the other cells throughout the body but once the glucose enters into a cell pretty much one of two things will happen depending on the current energy state of the cell and in this case let's use a skeletal muscle fiber as our example and let's say that muscle fiber is quite active you're exercising it's Contracting and therefore the energy need of that fiber would be high in this case the glucose could be immediately utilized for energy or in other words be broken down to create ATP but let's say that the same skeletal muscle fiber is now less metabolically active it's at rest and in this case the energy need would be low in this case the glucose could be stored as glycogen within that muscle fiber for later use now keep in mind there are multiple cell types throughout the body that can store glycogen it's just that the majority of it is stored in the liver and the skeletal muscles on average the liver can store about 90 to 100 gram of glycogen whereas the skeletal muscles throughout the body can store about 400 gram of glycogen but one of the amazing adaptations that occurs with exercise and how it relates to sugar is that regular consistent exercise and training will increase the storage capacity of the skeletal muscles meaning they can store even more glycogen almost like you're creating bigger glycogen gas tanks within the muscles throughout your body and the glycogen levels or resting glycogen levels in a trained individual can be up to 20 to 30% higher than they would be in an individual who is untrained or doesn't exercise regularly so if regular exercise can increase the amount of sugar or GL glucose that we can store as glycogen within the muscles that means we could perform longer at higher intensities it also means that we could potentially ingest and store more carbs or sugar prior to that Sugar being converted to and stored as fat maybe you've heard someone say carbs and sugar makes you fat that statement can be a bit misleading when we ingest food we usually ingest a combination of fats carbohydrates and proteins fat is already fat so the funny thing about the statement of carbs or sugars making you fat is that fat will already be stored as such there's no conversion necessary there but with the glucose or the sugar you first have to fill up your glycogen storage capacity in your liver and skeletal muscles before it will get converted to Fat so yes ingesting excess sugar which is actually pretty easy to do and we'll talk about that in a second can lead to the eventual conversion of that glucose to fat but again you would have to to maximize or eat it in excess of your glycogen storage capacity another incredible thing about exercise is that it has a very strong insulin like effect on the skeletal muscle fibers remember the majority of the cells throughout the body required insulin in order to bring in the glucose from the blood but an exercising or Contracting skeletal muscle fiber does not require the insulin for its glucose uptake and so this would be considered insulin independent glucose uptake however a resting skeletal muscle fiber one that's not Contracting would still rely on that insulin to bring in the glucose from the bloodstream and this would be considered insulin dependent glucose uptake but here's another really cool thing even though a resting skeletal muscle fiber relies on insulin for its glucose uptake exercise will change how the muscle fibers respond to that insulin in other words exercise will greatly sensitize the muscle fibers to insulin therefore requiring less of that insulin in order to bring in the glucose from the blood and you've likely heard of type 2 diabetes in the case of type 2 diabetes the cells throughout the body become desensitized or resistant to insulin and the pancreas will try to compensate by releasing more insulin almost trying to wake up or scream at the Cell saying take in that insulin but over time as the resistance gets worse blood sugar levels and even insulin levels can be chronically elevated which can lead to multiple health concerns but exercise again has this opposite effect to what happens with type 2 diabetes es the cells throughout the body become much more sensitized to insulin especially those skeletal muscle fibers and you could think of the sensitization in the short term and the longterm there's an overall long-term sensitization to insulin or in other words consistent exercise will continually promote the cells to respond properly to that insulin and therefore would require less of it over the long haul this would essentially ensure that your body is going to utilize and process sugars or that glucose properly as well as other macronutrients such as fats and in the very short term meaning 1 to 2 hours after exercise your muscles become extremely sensitive to insulin and many athletes or Fitness junkies will try to take advantage of this one to two hour window let's say someone had a long or highly intense exercise session and they greatly depleted their glycogen storage within their muscles it has been shown through multiple studies that you can more quickly and effectively replenish those glycogen stores by ingesting carbohydrates that mostly contain glucose and or that suc during that 1 to 2H hour window of increased insulin sensitivity after exercise and of course ingesting those carbohydrates as soon as you can after exercise would be better than waiting to draw it out closer to that 2hour point now some of the main benefits to quickly replenishing our glycogen stores would be to aid in recovery and also to help reduce fatigue during that next exercise session and obviously this would become even more important for someone who is exercising more than once a day and something else to consider is that there are multiple studies that suggest adding protein with the ingestion of carbohydrates can further enhance the rate at which glycogen is replenished also certain proteins and amino acids can prolong and enhance the insulin response so this is a win-win we replenish our energy stores in our muscles that glycogen and also provide the structural component that protein for any protein synthesis or rebuilding that needs to take place within the muscle during that recovery process and this is why many post exercise shakes will contain Pro protein mixed with a simple carbohydrate and often that simple carbohydrate comes in the form of sucrose or some other carbohydrate that would have a high glycemic index because if the goal is to maximize recovery and help to reduce fatigue for that next exercise session we want a carbohydrate source that can be absorbed as quickly as possible so it can be funneled into the muscle as quickly as possible so now that we've covered how we get carbohydrates into the body and into the skeletal muscles and how exercise affects the storage processing and utiliz of those carbohydrates we now get to address if certain carbohydrates like that table sugar or sucrose is bad well based upon what we've already learned you probably have a pretty good idea that just labeling sucrose as completely bad isn't totally appropriate because you really need to consider the context and the frequency of its consumption we just recently discussed that ingesting sucrose directly after exercise is one of the most effective ways to replenish glycogen stores as quickly as possible and in the context of maximizing recovery and reducing fatigue for upcoming sessions ingesting sucrose after exercise is pretty reasonable not only is sucrose a reasonable choice to ingest after exercise but sucrose could also be reasonable to ingest during exercise sessions that last longer than 1 to two hours or maybe somebody's running a half marathon or a marathon in either one of those cases a person could be depleting their glycogen stores and so they would want to have a carbohydrate source that could be absorbed as quickly as possible to again get funneled into those muscles so that they could maintain energy levels during that exercise session and even during the event also remember the endgame is glucose no matter the carbohydrate source that we ingest so anything that wasn't already glucose that made up that carbohydrate if they also contain fructose or galactose remember those are just going to be converted to glucose by the liver anyway also the glucose molecule that makes up sucrose and say like a glucose molecule that's found in a vegetable they're the exact same structure exact same molecule so if we were to ingest sucrose at the same time as ingesting a vegetable our body would not be able to differentiate the glucose molecule that came from the sucrose versus the glucose molecule that came from the vegetable and would be utilized in the same way but when and how can sucrose become a problem well sucrose is considered empty calories meaning all it does is provide energy it lacks fiber vitamins minerals and pretty much all that good stuff that you'd find in whole food sources that haven't been refined or highly processed it's also pretty easy to eat a ton of it for a couple of reasons one it's added to so many different things two it's easy to eat a lot of it without feeling full plus we just love the taste of it and an example that I'll often give my patients is let's say you went out to dinner with some friends and you're there for about an hour and while you're eating you drink three glasses of water versus three glasses of soda if you pick the soda over the water you could easily add 400 to 600 extra calories just from the sugar found in the soda so this can add up quickly and from the perspective of say like weight loss someone who's trying to lose a pound a week the recommendation is to restrict caloric intake by about 500 calories so you could see how drinking a few sodas each day could make that a little bit more of a difficult process you can also see that it's not particularly hard to surpass your glycogen storage capacity through the ingestion of sugars and remember once we surpass that glycogen storage capacity then the glucose will be converted to and stored as fat and if this happens continually over time this will contribute to weight gain and potentially other health concerns now of course from the overall perspective of Health the majority of carbohydrates eaten should be minimally processed fiber containing carbohydrates such as whole grains beans legumes fruits and vegetables and the highly processed carbs like sucrose should be eaten sparingly but these could be adjusted based on a person's energy expenditure or in other words they could be adjusted and timed based on the type of exercise one participates in the frequency and duration and even fitness goals so hopefully this gave you some new and useful information about how our body processes and utilizes sugar and even how exercise can influence this now this topic inherently creates a lot of questions with people so if you have any comments or specific question questions post them below because we will likely be doing some follow-up videos or more videos on sugar and if you're interested in monitoring your own blood sugar levels be sure to check out nutrients that link is in the description below and if you want to support the channel further go ahead and give us a like subscribe if you feel the need and of course we'll see you in the next [Music] video [Music] oh

Channel: Institute of Human Anatomy

Views: 742,959

Keywords: high blood sugar, how to lower blood sugar fast, blood sugar, carbohydrates, exercise, exercise tips, protein, monosaccharides, disaccharides, glucose, insulin, sugar regulation, Type II diabetes, carbohydrate, health, institute of human anatomy, insulin resistance, human anatomy, sucrose breakdown, insulin function, long-term benefits, short-term benefits, protein impact, glucose metabolism, sugar adaptation, healthy lifestyle, body's energy, gym tips

Id: PHkFoiqTe9o

Length: 18min 7sec (1087 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 22 2023