Managing your weight doesn’t have to become a full-time job. Too make it easier and not as stressful, it is important to understand certain factors that can hinder weight loss. One well-known factor is inflammation. It can not only hinder weight loss but can cause spikes in blood sugar levels and lead to health conditions such as diabetes and arthritis.
More importantly, when inflammation is present, gaining and losing weight can become a vicious cycle.
What Is Inflammation?
Inflammation is the natural response of your body to fight invaders. These invaders can be toxins, chemicals, or a microorganism – all trying to make you sick. Familiar with the Coronavirus? It’s also an invader. When your body is exposed to these invaders, it calls the array of cells to fight them and keep you protected.
A rash after a bug bite and pain due to a sore throat is an indication of your body fighting invaders. Fortunately, inflammation also brings healing substances to the site of infection, which is why your rash disappears and the sore throat heals in a few days.
How Can Inflammation Be A Problem?
Inflammation is not a problem if it lasts for a few days. However, if it goes on for months or years, it needs your attention. Long-lasting inflammation is called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is like a wild-fire. It progressively affects the activity of the cells, ultimately destroying them.
Imagine a chronic inflammation occurring in your pancreas. The pancreas is the organ responsible for producing insulin that takes up sugar from the blood to convert into energy or store it to your muscles, fat cells, and liver. Insulin, therefore, helps keep your blood sugar levels normal. When chronic inflammation extends to the pancreas, it causes insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance means your body is not responding to the instructions of insulin anymore. It is not taking glucose AKA sugar molecules from the blood to the cells for conversion into energy or for storage, this then leads to a high amount of sugar in the blood, fat accumulation in the liver, which then supports the insulin resistance. And ultimately can lead to weight gain.
That’s how inflammation can cause higher sugar levels. Let’s now discuss how high levels of sugar in the blood can cause inflammation.
High Blood Sugar leading to Inflammation
Since inflammation occurs in response to something unwanted, a high sugar level being an abnormal body function paves the way for the occurrence of inflammation.
This can particularly be understood by knowing that Insulin helps in the digestion of fats, happening in adipose tissues of your body. High blood sugar levels mean there is an absence of sufficient insulin. As a result, the digestion of the fats is interrupted. An attempt to digest the fatty acids now produces inflammatory chemicals in the adipose tissue. This inflammation of adipose tissue is a marker of heart diseases, arthritis and kidney problems.
Hence, it is important to control inflammation. Keeping your body protected from allergens, toxins, and following an anti-inflammatory diet can help control the inflammation as well as high blood sugar levels.
References
Oleocanthal NCBI. 2015. The Science of Fatty Acids and Inflammation
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4424767/
Nature. 2016. Fatty acid synthesis configures the plasma membrane for inflammation in diabetes
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature20117
NCBI. 2012. What causes insulin resistance underlying obesity?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22327367
Rich Farina, M.S. is a Metabolic Health and Conditioning Specialist with over 30 years of experience helping thousands of individuals lose weight, rebuild their metabolisms, and improve their health in his Metabolic Testing & Weight Loss Centers.
He holds both Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Exercise Physiology and Public Health respectively and is a passionate advocate of using proven, scientific principles in his approach to exercise and nutrition.
He is a contributing author, professional speaker, and advisor on topics that include weight loss, human performance, and medical fitness.
He continues his deep-seated passion to help people improve their health and longevity through his own line of premium, all-natural nutritional supplements called Truthentics™. The Truthentics™ brand of nutritional supplements is specifically designed to help people compensate for nutritional deficiencies and bring their bodies back into balance.
