Summary of Benjamin Bikman's Why We Get Sick

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Insulin is a hormone that is produced in the pancreas and regulates our blood glucose levels. It has a wide range of effects on every cell in every tissue of the body, from the brain to the toes. It is an anabolic hormone.
#2 Insulin resistance is a reduced response to the hormone insulin. When a cell stops responding to insulin, it becomes insulin resistant. Ultimately, as more cells throughout the body become insulin resistant, the body is considered insulin resistant.
#3 One of insulin’s main roles is to regulate our blood glucose. Because high glucose levels are dangerous, our bodies need insulin to usher the glucose from the blood, lowering blood glucose back to normal. But with insulin resistance, insulin levels are higher than expected relative to glucose.
#4 The first recorded evidence of this family of diseases comes from ancient Egypt, where physicians noted that people with a certain condition experienced too great emptying of the urine. Later, physicians in India observed that certain individuals produced urine that attracted insects like honey.

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 22 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669357919
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Benjamin Bikman's Why We Get Sick
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Insulin is a hormone that is produced in the pancreas and regulates our blood glucose levels. It has a wide range of effects on every cell in every tissue of the body, from the brain to the toes. It is an anabolic hormone.

#2

Insulin resistance is a reduced response to the hormone insulin. When a cell stops responding to insulin, it becomes insulin resistant. Ultimately, as more cells throughout the body become insulin resistant, the body is considered insulin resistant.

#3

One of insulin’s main roles is to regulate our blood glucose. Because high glucose levels are dangerous, our bodies need insulin to usher the glucose from the blood, lowering blood glucose back to normal. But with insulin resistance, insulin levels are higher than expected relative to glucose.

#4

The first recorded evidence of this family of diseases comes from ancient Egypt, where physicians noted that people with a certain condition experienced too great emptying of the urine. Later, physicians in India observed that certain individuals produced urine that attracted insects like honey.

#5

While glucose is still the easiest substance to measure in patients with diabetes, insulin is much more difficult to measure, and has not been standardized as a clinical value.

#6

Insulin resistance is the first sign of type 2 diabetes, and it is a hyperinsulinemic state. It means that a person with insulin resistance has more insulin in their blood than normal.

#7

Insulin resistance is a condition in which the body's cells do not respond to insulin properly, and this leads to many serious chronic diseases. Understanding how insulin resistance causes these disorders is essential to appreciating how important insulin is to our health.

#8

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the world. It is often blamed on cigarette smoking, alcohol, dietary cholesterol, lack of exercise, and too much belly fat. But insulin resistance is also a major cause of heart disease.

#9

Having excessively high blood pressure dramatically increases the likelihood of developing heart disease. As the pressure in your blood vessels increases, your heart has to work harder to move blood adequately throughout your body and all its tissues.

#10

One of the ways insulin raises blood pressure is by affecting the hormone aldosterone, which is released from the adrenal glands and helps regulate the balance of salt and water in your body. If you have more insulin, as during insulin resistance, its effect on your aldosterone happens abnormally often, and it raises your blood volume and blood pressure.

#11

Those who develop hypertension due to salt consumption are known as salt-sensitive hypertensives. In a healthy state, when we eat salt, the body senses the increased salt and turns off aldosterone, which ensures normal blood pressure. But in the insulin-resistant state, the body has artificially elevated levels of aldosterone.

#12

High insulin levels lead to high blood pressure, as insulin is a growth hormone that signals cells to grow, including the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels. As these cells grow, the endothelium thickens, and blood vessels narrow.

#13

Insulin activates the production of nitric oxide in endothelial cells. When insulin flows through a series of blood vessels, it signals those endothelial cells to produce nitric oxide, which makes the blood vessels dilate, boosting blood flow to that area.

#14

The sympathetic nervous system, which regulates the body’s unconscious actions, including heart rate and heart contraction force, blood vessel size, sweat glands, and more, is activated in response to a perceived threat. It is often referred to as the fight or flight response because its events drive the body to action.

#15

Lipids are fats or fat-like substances that are present in our blood and tissues. Our body stores fats for future energy use, and when it needs energy, it can break down lipids into fatty acids and burn them like glucose.

#16

The connection of dyslipidemia to high blood pressure is thought to be due to the accumulation of lipids in the blood vessel walls, which reduces vessel diameter. As insulin levels steadily climb with increasing insulin resistance, the liver is getting the signal to shift the individual toward a pattern B LDL profile.

#17

Statins are one of the most commonly used medications. They are used to reduce cholesterol levels and thus are intended to reduce risk of heart disease. However, they have side effects that are relevant to insulin resistance.

#18

There are several types of cardiomyopathy, and they are all related to the structural changes in the heart muscle. Insulin resistance is most closely associated with dilated cardiomyopathy, or DCM.

#19

The brain has insulin receptors, and insulin regulates many processes in the brain. Insulin helps the brain take up glucose for fuel, and it also plays a role in learning and memory formation.

#20

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, and the cause is still unknown. However, it is believed that the brain accumulates plaques made up of amyloid beta peptide in Alzheimer’s, which disrupts normal brain function.

#21

The most significant risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease is having the APOE4 gene, which fails to perform its anti-Aβ plaque duty at typical levels. People with APOE4 are roughly 10 to 30 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease by their mid-70s.

#22

The brain has a high energy demand, and it is extremely sensitive to any energy deprivation. It is a high-performance engine that starts to sputter as fuel gets low. The brain of a person in a fed state receives 100 percent of its energy from glucose, as opposed to less than half in a fasted state.

#23

The vascular form of dementia is the second most common form of dementia. It occurs when the brain suffers from insufficient blood flow, and its symptoms are similar to those of Alzheimer’s disease.