Healthy eating habits lead to good nutrition, which leads to good overall health. The link between what we put in our stomachs and our health is the endocrine system, which is directly affected by nutrition. Healthful eating habits can help prevent diabetes and help the endocrine system maintain optimum body mass.
Link Between Nutrition and Hormones
The interrelationship between nutrition and endocrine function has been well-documented in medicine. The connection between blood sugar levels and diabetes is one obvious example; because the pancreas of people with diabetes does not secrete adequate insulin, management of the disease involves nutritional regulation as well as insulin intake. More recently, researchers have found complex relationships between nutritional status and endocrine health in regulation of blood fats, or lipids, obesity and proper function of the gonads. There is a connection between eating disorders and bipolar illness, and the mind-body interface is evident in nutritional problems associated with bulimia and anorexia nervosa.
How Diet Affects Insulin, Sex Hormones
Another example of a direct link between nutrition and endocrine function is the impairment of gonadal hormone secretion caused by a protein-deficient diet. Protein deficiency also causes a defect in production of pituitary sex hormones. Intake of carbohydrates and protein affects both production of human growth hormone and insulin, according to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Human growth hormone, or HGH, is a key factor in lean body mass, and its release is triggered when blood glucose levels drop precipitously. HGH acts to mobilize free fatty acids from adipose tissue deposits as part of the body's survival mechanisms. Even though insulin is also released when blood sugar levels drop, HGH is the hormone that helps burn off stored fat--important not only to athletes but to those trying to lose weight.
Effects of a High-Protein Diet
The amino acids arginine, histidine, lysine and phenylalanine are instrumental in stimulating the secretion of HGH, as demonstrated by a measurable rise in plasma HGH among volunteers who ate a high-protein meal. The rise in HGH followed secretion of insulin and is thought to play an important regulatory mechanism for metabolism of amino acids, or protein, according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. After injection of the amino acid arginine, women experience an increase in blood levels of HGH that is more than three times as strong as men's response. People with Type 2 adult-onset diabetes do not exhibit higher levels of insulin or HGH after injection with arginine. Obese people show a weak HGH response but a normal insulin response to arginine injection.
"Inseparable Relationship"
"Nutrient intake exerts a fine control over synthesis and release of hormones," according to Albert Eisenstein, M.D., in his paper, "Interrelationship of Nutrition and Endocrinology," published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. He adds, "The physiological effects of insulin and growth hormone in utilization of carbohydrates, amino acids and lipids serve to emphasize further the inseparable relationship of nutrition and endocrinology."
Obesity, Diabetes and Nutrition
As Western societies grapple with an epidemic of obesity coupled with an epidemic of diabetes, the nutritional component of overall health is receiving more attention because of its far-reaching effects on the body.
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