It’s February. Your typical New Year’s resolution of eating less and exercising more has probably been forgotten. Don’t worry, I’m right there with you. Like many of you, I enjoy food, particularly starches (potatoes, rice, bread, which are primarily carbohydrates) that rapidly go to glucose, then fat as I eat too much. However, there is hope, but first, I need to explain a little discovery from food science.

When starch is eaten, it passes through the stomach into the small intestine, where digestive enzymes secreted by the pancreas convert it to glucose. Glucose is rapidly absorbed, which is followed by a spike in insulin secretion. Insulin then drives the glucose into muscle and liver cells. If the muscle and liver cells are already full of glucose, the excess glucose is converted into fat. Unfortunately, this conversion is a rapid process that causes the glucose level to sharply fall, which the brain then senses as needing more food. Hunger returns quickly. The cycle repeats itself.  The way to cheat this process is to slow down glucose absorption, decrease insulin release, and prevent glucose conversion to fat.

An amazing discovery found that food starch can be modified simply by cooking the starch, letting it cool in the refrigerator, then eating it cold or reheated. This “cooking-cooling” process changes the rapidly digested starch into “resistant starch”. Resistant starch is not absorbed in the small intestine but is passed on to the large intestine, where it is slowly digested by the gut bacteria. This large intestine digesting process does not produce any glucose, but yields a molecule called short chain fatty acid (SCFA).  These SCFA’s can directly nourish the cells of the colon, improve colon health, and are slowly transferred to the liver.

The net result of all this is a lower glucose level, improved insulin sensitivity, enhanced GLP-1 signaling to the brain (which is how Ozempic and Wegovy work), a sensation of greater fullness, and hence no signal from the brain to eat more!

Unfortunately, you can eat too much starch, overload the system, and still gain weight.  Total caloric load still matters.

Food science can help you avoid obesity and diabetes, but your help at the dinner table is still needed.  Sorry, nothing is ever easy.

Dr. Charlie Barnett is a contributor to KnoxTNToday, where he writes a weekly column, DocTalk, sharing his expertise on health and wellness management.

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