Sugar, insulin and body weight

You don’t have to follow a restrictive, low-sugar diet to manage your weight. Dr Coy’s research looks at how different sugars affect the way the body stores and releases fat, without giving up your favourite foods.

People who want to lose weight are usually encouraged to restrict their diets and limit sugar consumption. But research shows that sugar awareness could be a more effective strategy than counting calories and avoiding cakes and biscuits.
Dr Coy’s argument is that calorie counting treats every calorie as equivalent, when the body does not. What a food does to insulin decides whether the energy in it is burned or stored, so two foods with the same calorie content can have opposite effects on body fat.

The problem with restrictive diets

Poor diet and obesity can increase the risk of many health problems, such as high blood
pressure, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer. The response is often to limit the amount of calories consumed each day, but following a strict diet can be frustrating and stressful, and not necessarily achieve the desired results.

Fad diets may help with quick weight loss, but studies show that people tend to regain weight over time, and sometimes gain back more. Extreme diets that eliminate carbs and sugar can damage vital glucose-dependent neurons in the brain and have a lasting negative impact on stress levels, aging, and overall health.

Could sugar awareness be a better route to lasting weight loss? Why Dr Coy looks at insulin rather than calories

Instead of tracking calories, we can manage our weight by making smart choices about our sugar intake. This could be as simple as adding or replacing our usual sugars with Dr Coy’s sugars, and replacing our go-to flours with Dr Coy’s flour mixtures.

Insulin is the hormone that moves sugar out of the blood and puts it into storage, and some of that storage is fat. The important part is that the body cannot store fat and burn fat at the same time. While insulin is high, it is storing. Only when insulin comes down does it start using what it has put away. Dr Coy’s research concludes that a diet which keeps pushing insulin up keeps the body in storing mode for most of the day, no matter how many calories it adds up to, and that sugars which leave insulin low give the body the chance to burn its fat instead.

How Dr Coy’s sugars and starches behave in the body

Tagatose

Dr Coy describes tagatose as acting like a sugar blocker. It is only partly absorbed in the small intestine, and it slows down the uptake of other sugars eaten alongside it, so the blood glucose rise after a meal is lower than it would otherwise be. Because so little of it is absorbed, it also contributes very few calories for its sweetness.

A study using 45g of tagatose a day, taken as three 15g doses, reported a weight loss of 5.1kg over a year.

Another recent study also demonstrated that insulin leads to the first steps of cell division and DNA duplication in fat cells. As a result, the fat cells produce substances causing inflammation and organ dysfunction as well as premature aging. Therefore, high levels of insulin cause a very negative effect in fat cells. This study supports what Dr Coy has long argued. Fat cells do not simply sit there as stored energy. When insulin keeps driving them, they begin producing substances that cause inflammation and damage elsewhere in the body, so excess weight becomes a problem well beyond the weight itself. His conclusion is that keeping insulin low is what stops that process starting, and that is what his sugars are chosen to do.

 

  • Stabilises blood glucose levels and decreases sugar-caused damages (e.g., HbA1c).
  • Fermented by bacteria in the large intestine, which produce the short-chain fatty acid butyrate. A 2010 trial also reported a rise in HDL cholesterol, the form associated with lower cardiovascular risk.
  • Harbours a low amount of energy which reduces the calorie uptake
  • Consumption of foods/drinks containing tagatose instead of other sugars contributes to the maintenance of tooth mineralisation.

Galactose

Galactose has the same calorie content as glucose or cane sugar but converting galactose into glucose requires a lot of energy. As a result, sugar cells don’t like using galactose for fermentation because the cell must invest as much energy as is subsequently released. The bottom line is that galactose provides no energy when it is used for fermentation. Therefore, the cell has no choice but to reactivate the mitochondria (combustion engines) to obtain energy from galactose. As a result of the activation of the combustion engines, the mobilisation and burning of fat is also increased.

Galactose is a sugar which forces the mitochondria to be active and activates fat mobilization and fat burning. Studies demonstrate that galactose consumption leads to increased fat mobilization and fat burning during eating. A 2011 study in obese lactating and non-lactating women found that where glucose switches the body from burning fat to storing it, galactose produces much less insulin, and the women carried on burning fat while they ate.

Galactose has a low glycaemic index (20), which prevents high insulin levels in the blood. Dr Coy’s conclusion is that keeping insulin low avoids driving fat cells into the state described above, and the inflammation and premature ageing that follows from it. This is why galactose sits at the centre of his work on weight.

 

  • Forces the cell to burn its fuel with oxygen in the mitochondria instead of fermenting it, and burning fat is part of what that switch turns back on
  • Doesn’t spike blood sugar in the same way as traditional sugars

Isomaltulose

Consuming foods high in classic sugars often lead to an insulin surge, which slows fat oxidation and causes inflammation. Using isomaltulose instead of sucrose or glucose produces a smaller insulin response, because the glucose it contains is released slowly rather than all at once. Isomaltulose is a good source of energy for the brain and muscles.

Dr Coy’s conclusion is that because insulin stays lower, the body is not pushed into storing mode, and fat burning is less interrupted.

Consumption of foods/drinks containing isomaltulose instead of other sugars induces a lower blood glucose rise after their consumption compared to sugar-containing foods/drinks.

 

  • Stabilises blood sugar levels
  • Produces a lower insulin response than classic sugars

Resistant dextrin

Resistant dextrin is a great low calorie alternative to starch. The body cannot digest it, so it passes through the small intestine and is fermented by bacteria in the large intestine. In Dr Coy’s description it acts as a prebiotic. With a low calorie content and pleasant flavour, it can be used in bread, cookies, desserts, and drinks.

 

  • Stabilises blood sugar
  • Pleasant taste
  • Undigestible, prebiotic fibre with very low calorie content

Glucomannan (konjac flour)

Glucomannan is a resistant starch. It is full of fiber and gluten free which makes it a great replacement for traditional flours when baking. It’s a water-soluble fiber made from elephant yams.

It absorbs a very large amount of water for its weight and forms a thick gel, so a teaspoon is enough to thicken a whole dish.

Glucomannan contributes to the loss of weight in the context of an energy restricted diet.

This applies to 3g of glucomannan a day, taken as three 1g doses with one or two glasses of water, before meals and as part of an energy restricted diet. Anyone with difficulty swallowing should take it with plenty of water, as it expands in the throat.

  • A water-soluble fiber
  • Gluten free

Our recipes page is packed with ideas for incorporating Dr Coy’s sugars into your diet.

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Find out more about Dr Coy’s sugars and weight management

Get in touch with Intelligent Sugar

Got a question about Dr Coy’s sugars? Contact info@intelligentsugar.info

If you have a question about a specific health condition, please speak to your doctor.

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