The Leptin Link........

AliB

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334
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
I have been reading about the connection between Leptin levels and Insulin resistance and it is pretty interesting.

Leptin is not something that most people, including Doctors are aware of simply because there is no pill for it! There has been quite a bit of research done on it however.

Diabetics, particularly type II's appear to have not only insulin-resistance but also Leptin-resistance and it seems that Leptin is the major player. It can also affect other things including thyroid, etc.

It does seem to be affected by the amount of carbs we generally consume in the 'Western' diet, but also the constant need to snack. Because we don't start our lives with a properly balanced diet - throwing the routine into a carb-fuelled yo-yo blood sugar/insulin process, Leptin, like insulin eventually becomes unstable and starts to throw the whole thing out of gear.

Getting the insulin stable is as much to do with getting the Leptin stable as anything else it seems. And the way to do that is yes, to cut down on carbs, particularly processed ones, but also to facilitate the fat-burning process properly by eating at the right time and not snacking, by getting good sleep - during sleep is a crucial fat-burning time, and by exercising at the right time.

One of my problems for years has been an overwhelming urge to snack in the evenings, but I have been trying this, particularly not eating again after having my dinner by 7pm and by the time I go to bed my blood sugar is sitting quite happily and stably at around 5. Any snacking in the evening, even if I have had insulin seems to whop it up - then it is high in the morning too.

If we snack in the evening the body is using carbs or protein for fuel and is not triggered into the fat-burning mode.

Here, I think maybe Byron Richards can explain it far better than I can...........

http://www.naturalnews.com/025405_sugar ... sulin.html

One interesting thing although I have only been following the protocol for a few days, usually I wake up with no appetite and rarely eat much before lunch, this morning I awoke with a proper hunger response and went down and did myself a couple of scrambled eggs. So it does make a difference.

I have been reading several articles and pieces of research on the net, I have Byron Richards book and am just awaiting Ron Rosedale's book too.

PS. Another point Byron Richards makes is something I twigged recently with myself - if the body is toxic, weight loss won't happen because fat is a toxin store. It won't release the toxins if they have nowhere to go so getting the elimination process working better is an important part of the weight-loss procedure.

Byetta 'forced' my body to lose weight, and fairly rapidly, but my body became very toxic because it couldn't get rid of it fast enough and I became quite ill. Funnily enough I was talking to someone from Diabetes UK yesterday who said that he knows someone who uses Byetta and she became very ill for a while on it although she is still taking it. I wonder if she became very toxic too......
 

cugila

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LEPTIN. I understood it had more of a connection with Obesity ? Is there more specific research/trials relating to Diabetes.

An extract:
Pharmacological use of leptin
Unsurprisingly there was huge media interest in leptin as it was thought of as the miracle cure for obesity and the biotechnology company Amgen paid $20 million to license leptin. However the results of the clinical trials on obese people were disappointing with very few of the participants losing weight. It appeared that the majority of people were not obese due to a deficiency in leptin but were just unable to respond to it; they had more fat cells and so more circulating leptin and as a result reduced sensitivity of the leptin receptor. The failure of the trial, however, overshadowed the fact that around 30% of the people did actually lose weight and so may actually have low circulating levels of leptin. Potentially these people would then indeed benefit from leptin therapy. The task now though is to determine those people that have a lower circulating level of leptin, a mammoth task.

The use of leptin as a drug has proved invaluable in the disease lipodystrophy and in people who have a defective leptin gene and so are constantly hungry. Administration of leptin has provided a cure for these diseases.

Here is a link to the full article:
http://www.eurodiabesity.org/Leptin.htm
 

AliB

Well-Known Member
Messages
334
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
It is Leptin resistance that is the issue and it is that that seems to have a knock-on effect to insulin and the way we process carbs - that and the tendency that we in the 'West' have to constantly 'graze'. Because we don't eat properly and allow enough time between each lot of food the body never gets into a proper energy (and fat) burning mode, and therefore a proper insulin response mode. The article is really applicable to those T2's who have weight issues, but it seems that even if weight is not a problem Leptin imbalance can still be affecting insulin response.

Lower carbs will help, but it is important to not keep topping up the blood sugar levels with more food, otherwise the liver never gets a chance to work properly.

What Byron is saying is that it is only by getting the Leptin issue back into balance that the other things will follow. It is not a case of looking for yet another 'pill to end all ills', it is about re-training the body back into a condition where it will work better on its own. Those of us who are following a low-carb regime are already part of the way there. We are able to control our sugar levels far better by re-training ourselves to enjoy a lower carbohydrate lifestyle.

Personally I am not interested in the 'Pharmaceutical' interest in Leptin because they are only looking at it as a potential 'cash cow' for drug presentation. Even if they made a drug to stop Leptin resistance I wouldn't be interested not only because my field of interest lies in getting my body back into a condition where it will work more efficiently naturally, but also because drugs just complicate the way our bodies work and often create as many. or even more problems than they solve. The less of their toxic rubbish I need to take the better.

I know what I need to be doing in order to heal my body and I can see evidence that it is working. I still have a way to go but I am determined to get there. The fact that I no longer suffer with debilitating IBS or raging restless legs, that I sleep much better, have more energy, that Candida issues are virtually now non-existent, that my digestion is so much better than it was 18 months ago when I could hardly eat anything, that I have been able to drop from about 40 units of insulin per day to about 12, that I no longer need blood-pressure medication, that I have lost 3 stone in weight, and that I no longer get those awful gouty needle-sharp pains in my toes are huge indicators to me that I am travelling in the right direction.

Did you read the article, Ken?

PS. There are 843 study and pharma references in the back of his book 'Mastering Leptin'.
 

cugila

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AliB

Yes, of course I read the article. Why would I not ? My question to you was Is there more specific research/trials relating to Diabetes. Perhaps I should have said not by this particular gent, Byron ? Not by using his research references either.

I was not being critical I just want to know more about it, but from a different viewpoint. I want to see what is being said about the subject by other researchers, that's all. Are there any drawbacks. I like to see several different viewpoints before I make my mind up about something. :D As you are the person that seems to know so much about this, I thought you were the best person to ask ?

Do you think your very low carb diet has had a part in the massive improvements that you mention as well ? You see I have lost nearly 4 stone, improved my eyesight, lowered my bg levels, gained so much energy, no longer have any skin problems etc. I put this down to the low carb diet I use. I would like to know if I would have any further improvement with what you are advocating here ?

Ken.
 

AliB

Well-Known Member
Messages
334
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Sorry Ken, I had done some further research on the net but hadn't retained any links.

I have had to go back and see what I can find. Here are a few interesting ones......

http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2008 ... edfellows/
http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v22/n ... 0559a.html
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... f4221f1670
http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/full/17/9/1130
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nQNS ... in&f=false

Whilst some of the Medical information is interesting, personally I have a bias towards those 'bigger picture' thinkers like Byron Richards and Ron Rosedale who have analysed the available information and have been able to piece together at least a reasonable part of the jigsaw.

As an analyst myself I prefer to look at the 'bigger picture' in order to try and figure out what is going on and so far it has stood me in pretty good stead. Most Medical studies focus on one extremely small aspect of research or interest and rarely do they ever seem to cross-reference with much other information. It is not until you start to put all these little pieces together that the bigger picture starts to become apparent.

I do believe that Ron Rosedale's interpretation of the fact that those who are the longest lived do seem to follow a fairly restricted diet may have a good ring of truth in it. Obviously not having enough to eat is not good, but then neither is having too much, and unfortunately we have so gradually slipped into the course of having too much that it has now become the norm. We live in the era of the 'Big Mac' and the 'Hungry Horse' and despite eating so much food and gaining so much weight there are an awful lot of people out there who unbelievably are obese, yet malnourished.

I have learned over the past 18 months since my digestion collapsed that what you eat is far, far more important than how much you eat. The more nutritious the food, the less the body needs because it can call on that food for its needs. Enough, is enough. Problem is that we have forgotten how to recognise what enough actually is..............
 

AliB

Well-Known Member
Messages
334
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Oh, and on the low-carb thing, yes my diet is relatively low-carb, but that is because I have known for years that I don't tolerate carbs at all and it took the collapse of my digestion to finally spur me into taking it all seriously. I had 'dabbled' with low-carb for years but my diet is naturally low carb now.

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet set me off on to that road because it has been the only thing that has helped my digestion and my body sort itself out. Because it focuses on getting nutrition from good quality natural foods - nothing processed, or with additives, no grains, no starches, little dairy and only honey as a limited sweetener it is naturally low-carb. But it is also high nutrition, so I no longer need to eat as much as I used to.

I always felt, that in comparison to many others, I didn't actually have that huge a diet, but have realised that even what I did eat was not only at least partially 'dead' in terms of nutrition, but also too much for my body.

So, to your answer as to whether low-carb has helped my health issues I would say, to a certain extent yes, but by far the biggest support has come from the higher nutrition and less food.
 

cugila

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Hi AliB.

Thanks for the links. Looks like I may be getting a headache sooner than i thought. :?

I will look at each one but I'm not sure how long it will take. I do try to digest all the info but sometimes it just becomes overload, so forgive me if I take a few day or so.

Thanks for taking the time to get them for me.

Ken.
 

byatt

Member
Messages
19
Ali, wow, this makes a lot of sense to me. I had not heard of leptin before and have just read the article. I have alway had problems of needing to eat in the evenings...no matter how well I had done during the day...I would scour the kitchen for food. When I started my diet, back in May, I was using a delivery service and it consisted of 3 meals a day, no snacks and nothing after dinner. I did really well, but couldn't continue because of the cost, and have plateued (sp) weight wise and also started to eat after dinner, snacks and so on even if 'healthy.'

So I am going to try and follow the 5 rules. I have increased my exercise.

My fasting BG is high even when taking metformin the night before.

I would love not to obsess about food...I went through a short spell when I didn't and thought, this is how 'normal' people live; it was wonderful. I've had the constant hunger, cravings and so on. It's much better now I low carb, but my meal times have been somewhat erratic again.

Very interesting post, thank you!
 

AliB

Well-Known Member
Messages
334
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
I actually think that the Rosedale Diet makes even more sense. Certainly some of the protocols that Byron Richards suggests are good but Ron Rosedale takes it further into an actual diet and seems to have had tremendous success in treating and in his words actually 'curing' Diabetes.

By far the majority of his patients are still following his diet years later and are still well and non-diabetic.

It seems then that the low-carb regime is not just a 'pretty face' - yes it logically reduces blood sugar because the carbs that push the blood sugar up are much lower, but there are obviously other processes that are being re-trained too.

I am hugely intruiged by Anticarb's experience in the 'Am I taking low-carb too far?' thread where he has found that his appetite appears to have been switched off. Knowing what I now know about Leptin, I would hazard a guess that his 'switches' are starting to work a lot more efficiently and he is not feeling all that hungry at the moment because his body is now using his stored fat as fuel in the way that it should do and is no longer demanding the sugar fix.

This is really SO interesting.

I have bought the Rosedale Diet book which came this morning and am ploughing my way through it - a lot of sense is coming out of it. If, when I get the the diet pages, I find that there is any deviation to what I am already doing I am going to adapt my diet to fit the protocol.

As it is low-carb, medium protein and higher fat then it seem that many of us are already on the right track.

One interesting point I have already picked up is that Diabetics should not eat too much protein either otherwise the body then switches to converting the protein into sugar as well. It seems that we have to be careful how we transfer to the low-carb diet because a body used to burning sugar will, if it doesn't have access to it any more, start to break down muscle protein in order to get its sugar fuel.

As I understand more I will add anything relevant to the thread.
 

Katharine

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I am waiting on "Mastering Leptin" being delivered. The leptin / insulin / adiponectin connection sounds complex and I hope that increasing my understanding of these hormones will help me and others to better health.

I have been low carbing for six years now. I would like to lose some body fat (but not muscle) and reading the article has tweaked my brain. I have no problems with the low carbing, exercising and three meals a day, but I have already been doing this for years. I do like to have two glasses of red wine with my evening meal which is eaten quite late on at night most nights- 7-9.30 pm. It seems possible that my liver is too busy dealing with this late meal and the alcohol to burn as much fat as it could otherwise do when I am asleep. I wonder how the Italians manage, when they tend to eat 9-11.30 pm! Maybe they burn off a lot of fat with their siestas?
 

Ardbeg

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I've had the "Mastering Leptin" book for a few years now, but have never read it. :oops:

Now I clearly see the relevence it is back on my reading "To Do" list - straight after "The first year type 2 diabetes" and "Diabetes for Dummies".
 

Ardbeg

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Just been flicking though the Leptin book again.

It is so interesting but also so difficult to read and follow.

However, what I can get my head around in the various chapters makes a lot of sense.

In particular, the Five Rules appears to concur with many of the views expressed by regulars/gurus on this forum. They are:

Rule 1 = never eat after dinner

Rule 2 = eat 3 meals a day and DO NOT snack

Rule 3 = do not eat large meals and eat slowly

Rule 4 = eat a high protein breakfast

Rule 5 = reduce the amount of carbs eaten