What 5 Days of Junk Food Can Do to
Your Metabolism
April 29, 2015
Story at-a-glance
When men ate a junk-food diet, their muscles’ ability to
oxidize glucose was disrupted in just five days’ time
If you lose this key player in glucose metabolism it could
pave the way for insulin resistance, diabetes, and other
health problems
By Dr. Mercola
If you overdo it on pizza, macaroni and cheese, chips, and
ice cream, you might worry about what it's going to do to your
thighs or mid-section. But binging on junk food isn't only a
matter of weight gain. It might have far more serious
repercussions than that.
People who ate a diet focused on macaroni and cheese,
processed lunchmeat, sausage biscuits, mayonnaise, and
microwavable meals with unhealthy fats, for example, showed
serious negative changes to their metabolism after just five
days.
After eating the junk-food diet, the study participants (12
healthy college-aged men) muscles' lost the ability to oxidize
glucose after a meal, which could lead to insulin resistance
down the road.1
What Happens to Your Metabolism After Five Days of Junk Food
Even though their caloric intake remained unchanged, when men
ate a junk-food diet their muscles' ability to oxidize glucose
was disrupted in just five days' time. This is a significant
change, because muscle plays an important role in clearing
glucose from your body after a meal.
Under normal circumstances, your muscles will either break
down the glucose or store it for later use. Your muscles make up
about 30 percent of your body weight, so if you lose this key
player in glucose metabolism it could pave the way for
diabetes and
other health problems.2
As reported by TIME:3
"'The normal response to a meal was essentially
either blunted or just not there after five days of high-fat
feeding,' [Matthew] Hulver, [PhD, department head of Human
Nutrition, Food, and Exercise at Virginia Tech Hulver] says.
Before going on a work-week's worth of a fatty diet,
when the men ate a normal meal they saw big increases in
oxidative targets four hours after eating.
That response was obliterated after the five-day fat
infusion. And under normal eating conditions, the biopsied
muscle used glucose as an energy source by oxidizing
glucose. 'That was essentially wiped out after,' he says.
'We were surprised how robust the effects were just with
five days.'"
Just One Bad Meal Can Mess with Your Health
Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super Size Me was one
of the first to vividly demonstrate the consequences of trying
to sustain yourself on a diet of fast food. After just four
weeks, Spurlock's health had deteriorated to the point that his
physician warned him he was putting his life in serious jeopardy
if he continued the experiment.
But as the featured study showed, it doesn't take a virtual
month to experience the health effects of a poor diet. In fact,
the changes happen after just one meal, according to
research published in the Journal of the American College of
Cardiology.4
When you eat a meal high in unhealthy fats and sugar, the
sugar causes a large spike in your blood-sugar levels called
"post-prandial hyperglycemia." In the long term this can lead to
an increased risk of heart attack, but there are short-term
effects as well, such as:
Your tissue becomes inflamed (as occurs when it is
infected)
Your blood vessels constrict
Damaging free radicals are generated
Your blood pressure may rise higher than normal
A surge and drop in insulin may leave you feeling hungry
soon after your meal
The good news is that eating a healthy meal helps your body
return to its normal, optimal state, even after just one. Study
author James O'Keefe of the Mid America Heart Institute in
Kansas City, Missouri told TIME:5
"Your health and vigor, at a very basic level, are as
good as your last meal."
See Inside Your Stomach After a Meal of Instant Meals…
Dr. Braden Kuo of Massachusetts General Hospital used a
pill-sized camera to see what happens inside your stomach and
digestive tract after you eat ramen noodles, one common type of
instant noodles. The results were astonishing…
In the video above, you can see ramen noodles inside a
stomach. Even after two hours, they are remarkably intact, much
more so than the homemade ramen noodles, which were used as a
comparison. This is concerning for a number of reasons.
For starters, it could be putting a strain on your digestive
system, which is forced to work for hours to break down this
highly processed food (ironically, most processed food is so
devoid of fiber that it gets broken down very quickly,
interfering with your blood sugar levels and insulin release).
When food remains in your digestive tract for such a long
time, it will also impact nutrient absorption, but, in the case
of processed ramen noodles, there isn't much nutrition to be
had. Instead, there is a long list of additives, including the
toxic preservative tertiary-butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ).
This additive will likely remain in your stomach along with
the seemingly invincible noodles, and no one knows what this
extended exposure time may do to your health. Common sense
suggests it's not going to be good…
Eating Processed Foods Linked to Chronic Disease
Research published in the Journal of Nutrition found
that women who consumed more instant noodles had a significantly
greater risk of metabolic syndrome than those who ate less,
regardless of their overall diet or exercise habits.6
Past research also analyzed overall nutrient intake between
instant-noodle consumers and non-consumers, and found, as you
might suspect, that eating instant noodles contributes little
value to a healthy diet.
The instant-noodle consumers had a significantly lower intake
of important nutrients like protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron,
potassium, vitamin A, niacin, and
vitamin C compared with non-consumers.7
Those who ate instant noodles also had an excessive intake of
energy, unhealthy fats, and sodium (just one package may contain
2,700 milligrams of sodium).8
Not to mention, refined carbohydrates like breakfast cereals,
bagels, waffles, pretzels, and most other processed foods
quickly break down to sugar in your body. This increases your
insulin and leptin levels, and contributes to insulin
resistance, which is the primary underlying factor of nearly
every chronic disease and condition known to man, including
weight gain.
Not only that, but remember… when you eat junk food you are
not just feeding yourself… you’re feeding your
microbiome, too, and in so doing altering its construction
for better or worse. Your body’s diverse army of microbes is
responsible for many crucial biological processes, from immunity
to memory to mental health, so feeding it wisely, with fresh
unprocessed and naturally fermented foods, is crucial to your
overall health and well-being.
Is Junk Food as Dangerous as Cigarettes?
In the US, about one-quarter to one-third of adults fall into
the obese category. A staggering two-thirds of Americans are
overweight, and poor diet is in large part to blame. Last year,
UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter,
said that "obesity is a bigger global health threat than tobacco
use," and that this fact isn't taken as seriously as it should
be. His statements were delivered at the opening of the 2014
World Health Organization's annual summit. De Schutter
ultimately wants nations to join forces to place stricter
regulations on unhealthy foods:9
"Just as the world came together to regulate the
risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate
diets must now be agreed," he said. 'The Special
Rapporteur has previously agitated for greater governmental
action on junk foods, including taxing unhealthy products,
regulating fats and sugars, cracking down on advertising for
junk food, and rethinking agricultural subsidies that make
unhealthy food cheaper,' Time Magazine noted. 'Governments
have been focusing on increasing calorie availability,' he
said, 'but they have often been indifferent to what kind of
calories are offered, at what price, to whom they are made
available, and how they are marketed.'"
The idea that being overweight can be more harmful than
smoking is likely to make many balk, considering how
"normal" it has become to carry around extra pounds, but in
terms of overall health effects and subsequent health care
costs, it's likely true. For example, data collected from over
60,000 Canadians show that obesity leads to more doctor visits
than smoking.10
Further, according to a report by The McKinsey Global
Institute, the global cost of obesity is now $2 trillion
annually, which is nearly as much as the global cost of smoking
($2.1 trillion) and armed violence (including war and terrorism,
which also has a global cost of $2.1 trillion).11
For comparison, alcoholism costs are $1.4 trillion annually,
road accidents cost $700 billion, and unsafe sex costs $300
billion. What's more, if current trends continue, the McKinsey
report estimates that nearly half of the world's adult
population will be overweight or obese by 2030.
Junk Food Is Incredibly Addictive
Your body is designed to naturally regulate how much you eat
and the energy you burn. But food manufacturers have figured out
how to over-ride these intrinsic regulators, designing processed
foods that are engineered to be "hyper-rewarding." According to
the "food reward hypothesis of obesity," processed foods
stimulate such a strong reward response in our brains that it
becomes very easy to overeat. One of the guiding principles for
the processed food industry is known as "sensory-specific
satiety."
Investigative reporter Michael Moss describes this as "the
tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm your brain."12
The greatest successes, whether beverages or foods, owe their
"craveability" to complex formulas that pique your taste buds
just enough, without overwhelming them, thereby overriding your
brain's inclination to say "enough." In all, potato chips are
among the most addictive junk foods on the market, containing
all three "bliss-inducing" ingredients: sugar (from the potato),
salt, and fat. Further, as reported by TIME:13
"Studies suggest that fatty, sugary foods promote
excretion of the stress hormone cortisol, which seems to
further stimulate appetite for calorie-dense foods. And the
big post-meal spikes in blood sugar are more likely in
people who don't exercise or those who carry weight around
their abdomen. All of it makes it tough for people to stop
eating junk food once they're in the habit. 'The more you
eat it the more you crave it. It becomes a vicious cycle,'
says O'Keefe."
And while food companies abhor the word "addiction" in
reference to their products, scientists have discovered that
sugar, in particular, is just that. In fact, sugar is more
addictive than cocaine. Research published in 2007 showed that
94 percent of rats that were allowed to choose
mutually-exclusively between sugar water and cocaine, majority
chose sugar.14
Even rats that were addicted to cocaine quickly switched their
preference to sugar, once it was offered as a choice. The rats
were also more willing to work for sugar than for cocaine.
The researchers speculate that the sweet receptors (two
protein receptors located on the tongue), which evolved in
ancestral times when the diet was very low in sugar, have not
adapted to modern times' high-sugar consumption. Therefore, the
abnormally high stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich
diets generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which
have the potential to override normal self-control mechanisms
and thus lead to addiction.
Does Junk Food Have a Hold on You? How to Break Free
Replacing processed foods with homemade meals made from
scratch using whole ingredients is an ideal and important way to
ensure optimal nutrition. This will automatically cut out the
vast majority of refined sugars,
processed fructose, preservatives, dyes, other nasty
chemicals, and many addictive ingredients from your diet. This
will allow your body to depend less on sugar and more on fat as
its primary fuel—provided you eat enough healthy fat, that is.
As a result, you will no longer crave sugar to keep you
going. The key elements for a healthy diet that can help kick
your junk food cravings to the curb are the following. For a
comprehensive guide, please see my free
optimized nutrition plan:
Avoiding refined sugar, processed fructose, grains, and
processed foods
Eating a healthy diet of whole foods, ideally organic,
and replacing the carbs you eliminate with:
As much high-quality healthy fat as you want
(saturated and monounsaturated). Many would benefit from
getting as much as 50-85 percent of their daily calories
from healthy fats. While this may sound like a lot,
consider that, in terms of volume, the largest
portion of your plate would be vegetables,
since they contain so few calories.
Fat, on the other hand, tends to be very high in
calories. For example, just one tablespoon of coconut
oil is about 130 calories—all of it from healthy fat.
Good sources include:
Large amounts of high-quality organic, locally grown
vegetables, fermented vegetables, and ideally sprouts
grown at your home
Low-to-moderate amount of high-quality protein
(think organically raised, pastured animals, or eggs)
Planning Your Meals Is Key
Ditching processed foods requires that you plan your meals in
advance, but if you take it step-by-step as described in my
nutrition plan, it's quite possible, and manageable, to
painlessly remove processed foods from your diet. You can try
scouting out your local farmer's markets for in-season produce
that is priced to sell, and planning your meals accordingly, but
you can also use this same premise with supermarket sales. You
can generally plan a week of meals at a time, making sure you
have all ingredients necessary on hand, and then do any prep
work you can ahead of time so that dinner is easy to prepare if
you're short on time (and you can use leftovers for lunches the
next day).
Finally, if you're an emotional eater, I highly recommend
using the Emotional Freedom
Technique (EFT). EFT is simple and effective, and can
rapidly help you eliminate your food cravings naturally.
Copyright 1997- 2015 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.