I am fascinated by the physiology of food. By this, I mean how food and drink (and sometimes their absence) interact with our body to affect our physical and mental sense of well-being as well as our overall health.
Let me illustrate my point with a vignette.
Picture yourself at a great feast, such as a holiday buffet. You fill your plate with succulent meats, creamy starches, buttery veggies and wash it all down with a glass of wine. Finish it off with a selection of delectable desserts. This delightful gustatory experience is pure joy, fueled by a spike in blood sugar and neurochemicals, which are part of the brain’s reward system.
What happens next is the reason why I generally dislike buffet meals. Fresh off the pleasure high of the meal, your energy level begins to plummet, and you start getting tired. Think of a lion sleeping lazily on the savannah after engorging on its kill. Why does this happen?
As blood-sugar levels rise in response to simple sugars in the meal, the body’s chemical signaling system initiates a surge of insulin to drive sugar into cells for storage. The higher the sugar load, the bigger the insulin surge and the greater the fall in blood sugar. Falling blood-sugar levels, combined with the sedative effects of alcohol and blood diverted to the gut for digestion combine to turn you into that lazy lion.
Not long after you recover from your excess volume of food, you feel hungry again. Does your body need more nutrition?
The answer is no. Your physiology is at work again. The relative decline in blood sugar fueled by your prior indulgent meal stimulates your hunger, and you begin snacking. If you again choose fatty or sugary foods and beverages, the cycle repeats itself.
In a physiologic sense, food over-indulgence begets more. We’ve all been there. Unchecked, if this pattern persists, the cumulative effects on our overall health can be detrimental.
One of the great challenges of human nutrition is the concept of eating for nutrition itself. Food has so many other roles in our lives – pleasure, social, mood – that nutrition is often an afterthought. When we think of nutrition, too, perhaps we feel overwhelmed. There are so many diets and talking heads (myself included) out there, it can seem confusing.
I’ve always thought if you want to learn how to eat healthy, watch how healthy people eat.
The fact is that basic nutrition is fairly simple. I like the advice of one expert who summed it up simply by saying, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
This brilliantly concise statement sums up for me the secret to finding balance with our natural physiology. It highlights the importance of dietary moderation and reminds us that whole grains, fruits and vegetables should form the basis of our nutrition.
Dr. Matthew A. Clark is a board-certified physician in internal medicine and pediatrics practicing at the Ute Mountain Ute Health Center in Towaoc.
