Insulin

: a protein hormone that is synthesized in the pancreas from proinsulin and secreted by the beta cells of the islets of Langerhans, that is essential for the metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, that regulates blood sugar levels by facilitating the uptake of glucose into tissues, by promoting its conversion into glycogen, fatty acids, and triglycerides, and by reducing the release of glucose from the liver, and that when produced in insufficient quantities results in diabetes mellitus

The hormone insulin indirectly affects silent inflammation. One meal has been shown to reduce the levels of insulin in your body, starting you well on your way to wellness. Of course on the contrary one meal that increases the levels of insulin can put you right back to where you started.

As much as you hear about insulin everyday, no many people really understand its significance to our bodies. “To start with, insulin is the storage hormone that drives nutrients into cells. It is vital for your survival, since it allows cells to either store nutrients or immediately use them for energy. Without adequate levels of insulin, you cells would literally starve to death. This is exactly what happens in type-1 (childhood-onset) diabetes, in which the person is producing no insulin. (In fact, only a small percentage of diabetics have this type of diabetes.) Without daily injections of insulin, death is the inevitable outcome. But most of us are much more likely to have the opposite problem: we make way too much insulin. This is bad news, since it is excess insulin that makes you fat and keeps you fat. And it is also excess insulin that increases silent inflammation. This is the smoking gun that links excess fats to a wide range of chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes (more than 90 percent of all diabetics have this type), cancer, and Alzheimer's.” (Pg. 24 from The Anti-inflammation Zone by Dr. Berry Spears)

“The hormonal systems of both eicosanoids and insulin are intricately linked. They both trigger silent inflammation if they're out of balance. They both reduce silent inflammation when they're brought back into balance. Neither operates in a vacuum, since they are interrelated. The bad news is most of us have both systems out of balance at the same time, and it only gets worse as we age. The hood news is the Zone Diet can normalize both systems, which is why it's the ultimate antidote to silent inflammation.”

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text provided by megan