What happens to food in the body?

With the thought of eating, the body begins to secrete insulin, a hormone that helps control the amount of sugar (glucose) levels. Insulin is produced by the pancreas. As you eat, the more insulin is secreted in response to the carbohydrates in the food. When you eat foods rich in protein, insulin is secreted, but more slowly. If the pancreas works well, the amount of carbohydrates you eat is what usually determines the amount of insulin to be secreted.

As you digest carbohydrates, they enter the bloodstream as glucose. To keep under control blood glucose, insulin tells the body's cells to take up glucose from the bloodstream. Cells use of glucose for energy and store elsewhere for later use. The way glucose is stored depends on the type of cell that stores. Muscle cells store glucose as glycogen. Liver cells store a part of the glucose as glycogen and fat make elsewhere. Adipocytes store glucose as fat.

Special Remarks on corn syrup high fructose: this syrup was introduced in 1978 and about 1985, had replaced sugar in most soft drinks. The total annual consumption of sugar (excluding artificial sweeteners) immediately increased from 120 pounds per person to 150 pounds per person. The corn syrup is high fructose 55% fructose, 42% glucose and 3% of other carbohydrates. An important fact about fructose: is the carbohydrate that the body converts fat more easily. By digesting corn syrup high fructose, glucose largely containing ends in the bloodstream, thereby increasing blood sugar. However, this syrup fructose is almost entirely processed in the liver, which has the right to perform this task enzymes. Therefore, fructose has no immediate effect on insulin and blood glucose, but it has many long-term effects.

The liver is not ready to process the amount of fructose that most people currently consume. The fruit has quite small amounts of fructose; a cup of blueberries contains about 30 calories of fructose. However, soda or juice sweetened with corn syrup high fructose have much larger amounts: 12 ounces of Pepsi or Coke has 80 calories of fructose; 12 ounces of apple juice has 85 calories of fructose.

The answer to this avalanche liver fructose is convert most of it to send fat and fatty tissue. At the same time, the glucose that comes with fructose corn syrup high fructose raises blood glucose levels and causes the body to secrete insulin, which tells fat cells to store all received, including fructose converted into fat from the liver.

The more corn syrup high in fructose and consume the more years consuming countries, the body will adapt more to convert this fat syrup. Over time, fat accumulates in the liver (condition called hepatic steatosis and is known as "fatty liver disease"). In other words, while fructose has no immediate effect on the content of sugar and insulin levels after a few years, probably it will cause the body to store calories as fat.

As the glucose from the bloodstream is removed, insulin concentration decreases and the cells begin to use fat as fuel instead of glucose. Therefore you can spend extended periods, such as overnight, while you sleep, without eating. Cells use fat as fuel.

Two types of body fat: fatty acids and triglycerides. The fatty acids are small enough to get in and out of cells, which can be used as fuel. Fat is stored in adipocytes as triglycerides, ie three fatty acids attached. Triglycerides are too large to pass through cell membranes, therefore, they are stored for future use.

Insulin plays a key role to tell the body when to store and use fats and proteins. It makes controlling the action of two enzymes, lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and hormone sensitive lipase (HSL).

LPL is located on the surface of cells, extracts the fat from the bloodstream and carries into the cell. If the LPL is a muscle cell, fat leads into the cell, where used as fuel. If the LPL is an adipocyte, fat leads into the cell and becomes more fat.

Importantly, the hormone estrogen inhibits LPL activity of adipocytes. This might be one reason why some women gain weight after menopause or after treatment of breast cancer greatly reducing estrogen levels. With less estrogen in the body, the LPL may take grease into adipocytes and store there.

Adipocytes to have less fat, the HSL enzyme breaks down triglycerides into fatty acids which can then leave the adipocyte and used as fuel by other cells. Therefore, the higher the concentrations of HSL, more fats are broken down and burned.

Insulin lowers the concentration of HSL enzyme, which prevents triglycerides decompose and results in higher amount of fat stored in adipocytes. When insulin concentration is high, even by a small margin, fat accumulates in adipocytes.

Some research suggests that maintaining stable insulin concentration may help some people lose weight. Eating healthy sources of protein and fat (lean meats, fish, poultry, nuts and seeds), and complex carbohydrates that are good sources of vitamins and minerals (vegetables, fruits, whole grains) instead of refined carbohydrates (sweets , sugar, sweet biscuits, cakes, white bread, cakes), can help prevent insulin spikes.