Postprandial glucose levels, HbA1c, and arterial stiffness: Compared to glucose, lipids are not even on the radar screen

Postprandial glucose levels are the levels of blood glucose after meals. In Western urban environments, the main contributors to elevated postprandial glucose are foods rich in refined carbohydrates and sugars. While postprandial glucose levels may vary somewhat erratically, they are particularly elevated in the morning after breakfast. The main reason for this is that breakfast, in Western urban

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Does tallness cause heart disease? No, but sex does

var citeN=0;Popular beliefs about medical issues are sometimes motivated by a statistical phenomenon known as “spurious relationship”, among other names. Two variables X and Y are influenced by a third variable C, which leads to X and Y being correlated and thus the impression that X and Y are causally associated. Take a look at the table below, which I blogged about in a previous post (citeN=

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How lean should one be?

Loss of muscle mass is associated with aging. It is also associated with the metabolic syndrome, together with excessive body fat gain. It is safe to assume that having low muscle and high fat mass, at the same time, is undesirable.The extreme opposite of that, achievable though natural means, would be to have as much muscle as possible and as low body fat as possible. People who achieve that

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Strength training plus fasting regularly, and becoming diabetic!? No, it is just compensatory adaptation at work

One common outcome of doing glycogen-depleting exercise (e.g., strength training, sprinting) in combination with intermittent fasting is an increase in growth hormone (GH) levels. See this post for a graph showing the acute effect on GH levels of glycogen-depleting exercise. This effect applies to both men and women, and is generally healthy, leading to improvements in mood and many health

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Blood glucose variations in normal individuals: A chaotic mess

I love statistics. But statistics is the science that will tell you that each person in a group of 20 people ate half a chicken per week over six months, until you realize that 10 died because they ate nothing while the other 10 ate a full chicken every week.Statistics is the science that will tell you that there is an “association” between these two variables: my weight from 1 to 20 years of age

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Blood glucose control before age 55 may increase your chances of living beyond 90

I have recently read an interesting study by Yashin and colleagues (2009) at Duke University’s Center for Population Health and Aging. (The full reference to the article, and a link, are at the end of this post.) This study is a gem with some rough edges, and some interesting implications.The study uses data from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS). The FHS, which started in the late 1940s,

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Alcohol consumption, gender, and type 2 diabetes: Strange … but true

Let me start this post with a warning about spirits (hard liquor). Taken on an empty stomach, they cause an acute suppression of liver glycogenesis. In other words, your liver becomes acutely insulin resistant for a while. How long? It depends on how much you drink; possibly as long as a few hours. So it is not a very good idea to consume them immediately before eating carbohydrate-rich foods,

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The huge gap between glycemic loads of refined and unrefined carbohydrate-rich foods

I often refer to foods rich in refined carbohydrates in this blog as among the most disease-promoting agents of modern diets. Yet, when one looks at the glycemic indices of foods rich in refined and unrefined carbohydrates, they are not all that different.The glycemic index of a carbohydrate-rich food reflects how quickly the food is digested and generate a blood glucose response. Technically, it

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