Muscle Health and Diabetes

Strengthening  your muscles and increasing your muscle size are obviously important. But muscles play a much bigger role than most people realize. In fact, the benefits of your muscle health might just amaze you!

Muscle plays a key rle in regulating the blood concentration of glucose (blood sugar) as well as the amino acids.

Under normal conditions, the brain relies entirely on glucose from the blood for energy. A drop in blood glucose concentration can cause loss consciousness and even death. In contrast, an increase in glucose concentration in the blood is responsible for many of the adverse effects of diabetes.

It is important to understand:

All carbohydrates are ultimately converted to glucose in order to be metabolized in the body...

After you eat carbs, your blood glucose level increases. The hormone insulin works to moderate this increase by stimulating the uptake of glucose, mostly from muscle. Once in the muscle cell, the glucose is converted to a chemical form of energy or stored as glycogen for later use.

Muscle is not only important in blunting the magnitude of increases in blood glucose after meals. It also helps prevent decreases in the blood glucose level between meals that could impair brain function.

This is because the liver can product new glucose from amino acids when you are not absorbing dietary carbohydrates.

What this means to you is this...

Maintaining healthy muscles is crucial for keeping your blood glucose levels in the normal range.

Keeping your muscles healthy is vital for the prevention of diabetes as well as other health problems caused by hypoglycemia (low blood glucose level).

Who knew healthy muscles were so important... Right!

Dr Robert Wolfe: Build It Stronger