As Your Blood Sugar Rises

    Consuming carbohydrates impacts your blood-sugar levels. The amount of carbs-and the type-will
determine how your blood sugar responds. For example, a food full of refined sugar and
white flour, such as a jelly doughnut, will raise blood sugar much more dramatically than does a
salad.
    To be useful to your body, blood sugar has to be transported to your cells. Think of insulin as
the barge that transports glucose from your blood to your cells. Once it reaches the cells, three
things can happen to that glucose: It can be mobilized for immediate energy; it can be converted
into glycogen for later use as a source of energy; or it can be stored as fat.
    Let's delve in a little deeper. Insulin is manufactured in a part of your pancreas called the Islets
of Langerhans. As the sugar level in your blood goes up, the pancreas releases insulin to move
the sugar out of the blood. It then transports the blood sugar to your body's cells for their energy
needs. But as we previously mentioned, when these needs are met the liver converts excess
glucose into glycogen, which is stored in the liver and muscles, where it is readily available for
energy use. Once all the glycogen storage areas are filled, the body has to do something with
excess glucose. And here is the big revelation: The liver converts the remaining glucose to fat,
which becomes the "storage tanks" of fat on your belly, thighs, buttocks and elsewhere. That's
why insulin is called "the fat-producing hormone."
    Since fat is much more efficient-and has more capacity to store energy-than glucose, we can
store a lot more fat in our bodies than glucose. That, my friends, results in obesity. And by the
way, the main chemical constituent of all this fat (the fat you're reading this book to get rid of) is
triglyceride, the very same triglyceride that, in your blood, can be a risk factor for heart disease
and stroke.
    Insulin is a pretty efficient worker. If it were not, your cells could not get enough glucose,
their basic fuel, and blood-glucose levels would rise while the cells searched for other fuels-first
for protein in your muscles and organs, and then for fat in your fat stores. That's why people with
poorly controlled, insulin-deficient diabetes can lose weight when no insulin is present. And
that's why a person on a low-calorie diet may lose lean body mass. (This shouldn't happen on
Atkins, where sufficient calories and protein are consumed to meet the body's energy needs.)
    On the other hand, excessive carbohydrate intake results in high amounts of blood sugar and
may, in turn, overstimulate insulin production. When this happens, it causes a drop in blood
sugar, robbing the body of energy for the cells. The result of the process is destabilized blood-sugar
levels, quite possibly causing fatigue, brain fog, shakiness and headaches.
    The body attempts to adjust by liberating counter-regulatory hormones-such as adrenaline-to
raise the glucose level, but another stiff dose of insulin can overpower the effect of those
hormones. Fortunately for most of us, this glucose balancing act takes place automatically and
our blood sugar stays in a fairly narrow, normal range.
    But for some, the bodily insult of massive insulin release to deal with massive blood-glucose
levels has been going on for years, causing the glucose-regulating mechanism in the body to
break down, initiating unstable blood sugar and eventually diabetes. For more on diabetes, see
Chapter 24.