Avoid gestational diabetes by throwing a roof raising party

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Transcript of “How to make more insulin, so you avoid gestational diabetes”

One of the things you need to worry about as a pregnant women, is developing gestational diabetes.

It’s risky for you and risky for junior.

Unfortunately, it’s an all too common problem, because….

Being insulin resistant is part and parcel of pregnancy.

Blame it on baby

You can appreciate, growing into a brand new human being, is an energy intensive process. Dips in energy, can be catastrophic……so mother nature, stacks the deck in baby’s favour.

Baby gets fed first.

To achieve this, mother nature makes Mom’s power hungry cells, a little less sensitive to insulin.

This insulin resistance is 100 % normal.

By making it that much harder, to get the glucose gates open, the sugar molecules are shuttled across the placenta, where baby can use them to grow big and strong.

But, it is a balancing act………..

Mom must be fed too

Mom’s cells do need to eat too.

So, plan B kicks in.

The pancreas ramps up it’s game – the beta cells, whose job it is, to produce insulin – produce more insulin, to compensate for the insulin resistance.

The production of more insulin happens because……..

the beta cells that are there, get bigger
they produce more insulin
and new cells arrive to help out

The pancreas knows to do this, because the placenta, “unintentionally” tells them too.

More than MAKE MILK

The placenta is hard at work, directing the assembly of the milk factory, through lactogen hormones.

Beta cells can intercept this message, because, they come with prolactin receptors.

The make MILK signalling, also signals the pancreas to make more beta cells.

Indirectly….

So how does this happen ?

A team of researchers from Japan, pieced together the beta cell construction process in mice.

Raising the roof….

The prolactin hormone, inspires the trypotophan hydroxylase enzymes, to do a little construction too.

The TPH enzymes, mix tryptophan, iron and tetrahydrobiopterin, in the mixing bowl, to create hydroxylated tryptophan. Once this has been created, other enzymes, finish off the job, creating 5-hyroxylated tryptophan, better known as serotonin.

The serotonin creates a party atmosphere.

And next thing you know, the beta cells are raising the roof……

And the insulin is flowing.

Keeping the insulin flowing

When the team cut off the supply of tryptophan, either by removing it from the animals diet, or by blocking the tryptophan hydroxylase enzymes, with a chemical inhibitor.

The party stopped.

Insulin stopped flowing…………..

And the pregnant “Moms” could no longer handle glucose, efficiently.

They had hyperglycemia, aka…..

Gestational diabetes

It happens because there just isn’t enough insulin to go round……

There are probably a multitude of reasons, why the insulin is in short supply, but this research suggests, pregnant Moms can boost their insulin supply, by throwing a roof raising party.

Buying supplies for the party

To throw the roof raising party, you need lots of serotonin, inside the pancreas.

Now to make serotonin, inside the pancreas, you need the raw ingredients : plenty of tryptophan and a dash of iron and tetrahydrobiopterin.

Your body gets tryptophan from the food you eat, specifically foods that are protein, such as fish, eggs and milk.

So you need to ensure you’re getting adequate levels of protein, to create BETTER BODY CHEMISTRY.

Current recommendations, suggest you should aim to eat a little protein at every meal, somewhere between 20-30 g is ideal.

Serotonin Regulates Pancreatic ?-Cell Mass during Pregnancy. Nat Med. (2010) 16(7): 804–808. Hail Kim, Yukiko Toyofuku, Francis C. Lynn, Eric Chak, Toyoyoshi Uchida, Hirok I Mizukami, Yoshio Fujitani, Ryuzo Kawamori, Takeshi Miyatsuka, Yasuhiro Kosaka, Katherine Yang, Gerard Honig, Marieke van der Hart, Nina Kishimoto, Juehu Wang, Soroku Yagihashi, Laurence H. Tecott, Hirotaka Watada, and Michael S. German.