I read that a carb is a carb and if it fits your macros then don’t worry. But then I also read that sugar is terrible for you and you should eat complex carbs because of blood sugar levels. Whats this all about? Blood sugar, glucose, insulin, and diabetes? Can someone ELI5?
In: Biology
A carb is a carb, kind of. All carbs are made of molecules of sugar, and for our body they are just sugar. But complex carbs will take more time to be fully absorbed before converted to energy. For instance a carb that also has lots of fiber will take more time to be digested.
When the energy provided by the carbs is not used by the system it will be converted as fat in your body. That is the main problem with simple carbs, since you will become with a lot of energy available that must be wasted in a short amount of time, while with complex carbs it’s more sustained. So when calculating your macros be aware that refined sugar is completely different from sweet potato.
The faster the absorption of sugar the more glucose you will have in your bloodstream. Glucose is the sugar you got from processing the carbs you eat.
Insuline is an hormone and one of it’s main functions is to promote glucose into the cells in order to reduce glicemia in the bloodstream.
Glycemia is the amount of glucose in the bloodstream that comes from processed carbs by the body.
Diabetes is a disease where the pancreas can’t produce enough insuline to prevent glycemia.
When you eat simple sugars, you will become with a lot of glucose in your bloodstream very quickly and insulin must be released by the pancreas in order to reduce glycemia. This causes an insuline spike. If you do it very often you will become insuline resistant, and this is whats called diabetes type 2.
Sugar is terrible and inflammatory and your body basically doesn’t need it for anything but it’s the preferred source of energy because its easier for the body to process carbs than it is to process fat.
Our body is capable of producing it’s own glucose through the liver in a process called glycogenolysis, for all functions where its needed.
As far as calories go its the same thing as far as your body is concerned. The difference is in how fast they are put into your bloodstream.
100g carbs in a bowl of oatmeal is going to be released into your bloodstream over a few hrs. Giving you a constant blood sugar level.
100g carbs in a soda will hit you bloodstream almost instantly, spiking your blood sugar, which will cause your body to produce a lot of insulin to deal with it.
The difference is how long it takes your body to get the carbs out of the food.
As well, if the goal is to eat less calories, drinking a soda will add calories without actually making you feel like you’ve eaten. As well it can make you crave more carbs when your blood sugar drops back down.
So carbs and calories that make you feel full and are released slowly are better in that sense.
So yes, if it fits your macros it’s fine as far as calories are concerned, but if you get 1/3 of you calories from sugar in a day you’ll probably be left feeling hungry and grumpy and craving food from having low blood sugar at some points throughout the day.
Depends on your goal.
>Calorie consumption?
A carb is a carb.
>Nutritional benefit?
A carb is a carb
>Feeling of satiation?
Carbs differ significantly.
Different sugars, carbs and other starchy molecules are handled differently by your body.
Some carbs, like Glucose or Sucrose (table sugar) are processed very quickly by your body, allowing a nearly immediate spike in your blood sugar. This is great if you need a burst of energy, but not so great if you want to feel full all afternoon.
More complex carbohydrates take longer to break down, they’re still the same calories per gram (or near enough) but they release that energy slowly.
This comparison is known as the glycemic index and compares the effects of sugars to glucose in terms of how quickly they increase your blood sugar. “High GI” carbs increase it quickly for a short time, “low GI” carbs increase it by a little over a long time.
Other carbs, like Fructose, don’t directly increase blood sugar – meaning they don’t satiate your appetite at all in the short term- but are later repurposed into sugar storage, meaning they still increase body fat and cause other issues. This is why high fructose foods are often very “moreish” and also terrible for your health
Rule of thumb is this:
If you want a burst of energy, or to fix hypoglycemia, use a high GI sugar.
If you want to feel full and maintain a daily percentage of carbs, use a low GI carb.
If you will look up Glycemic Index foods all have a Glycemic Index number.and basically the higher the # is giving reference to how much insulin your body secretes into the blood stream.As mentioned in the other post, a can of soda is going to to have a greater response than a piece of fruit. 3 sugars are sucrose, fructose and glucose. Some diabetics often carry around glucose because it is lowest in the GI scale.Eating high sugary foods are often empty calories w/ no nutrition and can lead to becoming overweight. Obesity cabl definitely put you on the road to being diabetic. This diabetes can usually be controlled on a pill form, therein different than those that are predisposed to being diabetic and begin insulin injections as children.
As far as diabetes goes people have explained glycaemic index ( or GI – slow release vs fast release carbs) quite well.
In diabetes management (more for type 1, insulin deficient diabetes) we use carb units that then relate to the amount of insulin a person will need for that amount of carbs (this ratio varies a lot person to person). However the rate of release can depend on both the GI and other things about the meal – amount of fat say makes a big difference, as that delays absorption by slowing stomach emptying. The persons sugars will also be different if they are exercising, or stressed, or depending on the time of day.
This is mainly to say even if we have a really good grasp on the carbs going in and their GI (which we do now, which is great), diabetes and blood sugar control is still really difficult due to all the factors involved.
(Sorry for going a little off brief, but i love this stuff and miss explaining diabetes to patients now I’m on maternity).
>I read that a carb is a carb and if it fits your macros then don’t worry
If you’re not diabetic, this is sound advice.
>But then I also read that sugar is terrible for you and you should eat complex carbs because of blood sugar levels.
The devil is in the dose. Too much of anything is bad for you, including water. The people that demonize sugar are often keto fanatics and they never state the dose they’re talking about. Diabetics should be educated about their disease separately, including close monitoring of their BG levels.
All sugars fall under carbohydrates. The recent demonizing of them is a sad trend by the uneducated chemophobic nitwits that inhabit twitter and facebook. Were their claims about carbs remotely true, large regions of asia that consume ungodly amounts of rice(carb) would see tremendously damaging effects. They don’t.
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