What Is Insulin? – Dr. Berg

hey guys I want to answer the question what is insulin now I've done a lot of videos on insulin resistance ketosis talked about sugar but I think I forgot to do a video on actual what is insulin whoops better late than never but let's talk about what it is um insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas so the pancreas is a gland underneath the left rib cage and insulin is a hormone so hormones are communication particles that are made by glands that travel through the blood okay so the purpose the main purpose of insulin is to lower blood sugar okay so insulin lowers the sugar in the blood now normally you have about a teaspoon just a small amount of sugar in all of your blood so an average person roughly has about a gallon and a half of blood okay that's only one teaspoon diluted in a gallon and a half of blood so anything more than that would be excessive and your body would have to get it out of the blood and it uses insulin to do that okay so the average person consumes 31 TPO of sugar every single day so you can see that's a big problem um and what I mean by normal sugars I'm talking about like 100 milligrams per deciliter that's one teaspoon per 1 and 12 gallons of blood so anything more your body uh activates insulin to get it out of the blood so so it allows cells to absorb glucose you can think of um insulin like a key that unlocks the cell opens a door to allow glucose to go into the cell to feed the cell okay so that's what it does now it also stores sugar in the liver and the muscles and that's called glycogen which is a like a string of uh sugar molecules string of glucose um that's called glycogen so you have that stored sugar to be released if you need it for quick energy um okay so it stores sugar and then anything extra it converts to Fat so it's a fat making hormone especially the visceral fat in the gut it also helps you absorb amino acids that's protein wow that's interesting isn't it it also absorbs potassium so this is a real key mineral involved in so many functions insulin is necessary to help you absorb potassium it blocks fat burning in the presence of just a little bit of insulin you are not going to burn fat okay it retains sodium that's why after a sugar meal you could gain like a pound of fluid and you feel like you gain more weight okay so basically stores sugar stores fat reduces blood sugars got that so far now what happens in the body is um you become a diabetic or a pre-diabetic uh that's called insulin resistance so when insulin becomes dysfunctional it starts to be resisted in the cell so now the key doesn't work so if we were to block that entry it's called insulin resistance okay so now we're going to actually have less insulin in the cell and less glucose in the cell now what's going to happen signals are going to go back to the pancreas and tell the pancreas to release more insulin so with insulin resistance you have high levels of insulin but it's not working that's why you have all the damage okay if insulin is blocked guess what's going to happen to the blood sugars it's going to go higher and higher and higher and that's diabetes so high sugar is diabetes hypoglycemia uh so you have a situation where you have autocontrol blood sugars yet your cells of starving of insulin and glucose inside the cell that's why you crave sweets okay and a lot of other damage insulin resistance will cause a lot more conversion of fat into your gut into the other cells of the body it will also starve the cells of glucose in the brain that's why you're going to lose your memory you're going to have all sorts of problems with that you won't be able to absorb the amino acids that's why a diabetic they lose their muscle strength and muscle mass they won't be able to absorb potassium so guess what their blood pressure goes up their energy goes down their sodium goes up because it retains more sodium uh and they're not able to lose weight because they have too much insulin and that's blocking any chance of burning fat okay all right so you know what insulin does now it's very very very important isn't it but it's the problem is if you have too much of it that's where the there's a problem because it it blocks the absorption so your body just likes a certain amount what controls the level of insulin um is the sugar in the blood so whatever's in the blood so let's talk about what stimulates insulin sugar and anything that converts to Sugar refined carbohydrates breads pasta cereal crackers alcohol things like that if you combine sugar with protein you'll exaggerate the spike of insulin even more so it's a Compound Effect excessive protein will also stimulate insulin so I like to recommend between 3 to 6 ounces of protein per meal um MSG monosodium glutamate and as modified food starch that's in a lot of junk foods that will increase insulin by three 100% okay eating in general stimulates insulin so let me just show you one thing on that here's my favorite book guidance physiology and I want to just show you this one little point it says other factors that stimulate insulin secretion gastrointestinal hormones okay what does that mean gastrointestinal hormones it means every time you eat anything you stimulate insulin and this is why intermittent fasting is so powerful because you're cutting down the times that you eat the frequency of eating and you're dropping insulin you're actually correcting the dysfunction okay so it actually just goes beyond just cutting out your carbs cortisol will increase insulin that's the stress so stress converts your muscle protein into amino acids which is then converted into glucose so it basically changes your proteins in the sugar and then it exhausts the cells of the pancreas and then you get become a diabetic other than that you're perfectly fine and then we have nicotine in excessive amounts will also increase insulin and then you have caffeine that in a large amounts if you drink coffee all day long it'll affect the adrenals and increase cortisol but if you're just doing like 1: in the morning you're going to be fine but excessive amounts of caffeine will stimulate uh insulin now the things that inhibit insulin turn it off would be cutting out the sugar and the refined carbs uh fasting intermittent fasting will greatly help uh fix insulin resistance consuming fat has kind of a neutral effect on insulin uh apple cider vinegar improves insulin sensitivity potassium in foods and as a supplement will increase insulin and so will chromium okay so I just want to give an overview of exactly what insulin is now you have a foundation to understand even more the other factors thanks for watching hi guys listen I created an evaluation quiz it is quite long it's 104 questions but it's very thorough click the link below and take it and it will help you to find out what's really behind all your symptoms

Channel: Dr. Eric Berg DC

Views: 221,472

Keywords: what is insulin, what is insulin resistance, insulin, diabetes, glucose, insulin receptor, how insulin works, pancreas, weight loss, insulin resistance, insulin animation, blood sugar, glucose channel, health care, glucose level, glucose metabolism, what is insulin dr berg, dr berg, eric berg, dr eric berg, drericberg

Id: AicW5_-soU4

Length: 7min 59sec (479 seconds)

Published: Sat May 20 2017