Heart Disease, Insulin, Hypertension, and Diet 

Why does a chiropractor care about things like diabetes and diet?

Simple! Diabetes causes many health problems in patients seen in our office.

Diabetes results in slower healing of soft tissue injuries, can cause nerve damage and peripheral neuropathies.

Slower healing of problems commonly seen in a chiropractic office is problematic whether the injury was due to a fall, a motor vehicle accident, a sports injury, or something else.

Diet is closely associated with both general health and weight.

If you are overweight than it places significantly more stress on our musculoskeletal system and may result in accelerating arthritis and pain as seen so often in our office.

Chiropractors are concerned with helping people live healthier lives, so we need to look at other things outside of neck and back pain.

Diet is critically important for health.

Cardiovascular problems are the leading cause of death.

Here are some of the most significant risk factors of cardiovascular disease.

• High blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels (a type of fat found in the blood)
• Diabetes and prediabetes
• High blood pressure
• Inflammation
• Overweight and obesity
• Smoking
• Lack of physical activity

Other factors exist beyond your control, things like family history, race, and age.

The first 5 heart disease risk factors all tend to dramatically worsen with a high carb diet.

Some people can eat more carbohydrates than others.

However, many people suffering with the health problems noted above are occurring due to problems with excess sugar and starches.

The following is a general simplification of what occurs in many people when eating a high carbohydrate diet over time.

Here’s how…

The common misconception is that if you eat more fat, you have higher levels of fat in the blood and that you store more fat.

Here’s what generally happens (there are individual differences).

Carbs are tasty and are recommended to be the major macro-nutrient in your diet by our government, so many people eat a lot of carbs over a period of time.

Many are questioning this advice as we’ve seen so many chronic health problems occur at ever-increasing frequency while Americans and other countries follow this approach.

When you eat very high amounts of carbohydrates, your body has to get the high blood sugar levels down.

It does this by releasing insulin.

Fructose is different and a high fructose diet is a problem for different reasons.

Insulin drives the sugar into cells and the liver.

The liver produces trigylycerides that are released into the blood resulting in high levels of blood trigylerides, the 1st risk factor above.

Over time your body starts to adapt to high sugar levels and high insulin levels.

Cells become less sensitive making you more carbohydrate intolerant leading to pre-diabetes.

This will lead to type 2 diabetes which is the 2nd risk factor above.

Carbohydrates alter sodium excretion in the kidneys resulting in higher plasma volume.

This causes more blood volume in the vascular system that relates to hypertension, the 3rd risk factor.

Chronically high levels of insulin increase systemic inflammation as indicated by studies that essentially show significant increases in C-Reactive Protein as insulin resistance increases, the 4th risk factor.

High carb diets increase insulin.

In fact, there are individual differences and you may get greater responses than others.

Higher insulin levels mean you increase fat storage and prevent access to fat stores already accumulated in your body.

You gain weight and body fat, the 5th risk factor.

Of course, every person is different and therefore often requires a personalized approach to diet.

This is best done through seeing a qualified health care provider that understands your unique status.

 

DISCLAIMER: Heart disease, diabetes, and other health problems are complex. This information is meant to be educational.

You should see a good health care practitioner in person to evaluate your specific health conditions. This post is not meant to be specific health recommendations for you.