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Ep 344– The Rogue Pharmacist: Insulin and the Skin
00:11:26
We all know insulin is key for blood sugar regulation - but what about its effect on the skin? In this episode of The Rogue Pharmacist, we explore the effects of insulin on the skin and what estheticians should look for. Associated Skin Care...
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- [00:00]
A
Hello and welcome to ASCP and the Rogue Pharmacist with Benjamin Knight Fuchs. In each episode, we'll explore how internal and external factors can impact the skin. I'm Maggie Stasik, ASCP's program director, and joining me is Ben Fuchs, skincare formulator and pharmacist. Hey, Ben.
- [00:15]
B
Hey, Maggie.
- [00:17]
A
We all know insulin is key for blood sugar regulation, but what about its effect on the skin?
- [00:22]
B
Hmm, that's a great question. You know, insulin's kind of an interesting hormone because it is so tied in with other hormones and other metabolic functions. And it's really tricky to deal with insulin. In fact, most people, when they get their sugar checked to see if they have signs of blood sugar problems pre diabetes or diabetes, the doctor will check blood sugar, but they won't check insulin. And because insulin regulates blood sugar, your blood sugar can be normal while your insulin's high. And because nobody's checking your insulin, you could be suffering from the untoward effects of elevated insulin, but not even know it, because your test will. The doctor will say, oh, your blood sugar's normal and which could be true, but the insulin could be high. So what does insulin do? Insulin is a rev you up hormone. It makes things happen. Bodybuilders are famous for injecting insulin to get bigger muscles. Farmers used to, I don't know if they still do inject their cattle with insulin to make them bigger, because insulin is growth substance. It's actually a type of growth factor, which means it revs up skin cells and it revs up all the biochemistry in the skin and revving up the biochemistry of the skin and revving up metabolism in the skin is not necessarily a good thing. Now, in the short run, small amounts of insulin are important for things like wound healing and barrier recovery, synthesis of lipids. So insulin plays an important role in skin health. But it's when insulin goes high, elevated insulin that you run into a problem. So what is it that causes elevated insulin? Well, most importantly, elevated insulin is caused by elevated blood sugar. So dietary issues can cause eating a lot of sugar, which most of us do. We eat way too much sugar. And when I say sugar, I'm including bread and starches and potatoes and french fries and, you know, all the foods we all love, those are all insulin spiking foods, and those will eventually cause your insulin to be high. Also, cortisol stress levels will cause blood sugar to go up, which in turn will cause insulin to be elevated. Those are probably the two most important reasons why insulin insulin levels go up. There's a really interesting phenomena that happens in the body when anything is high, any. Any chemical, biochemical is high, eventually cells will stop listening to that chemical. They become resistant to that chemical. You probably heard that term resistance, right? So as the impact of elevated blood sugar kicks in over the course of the months and the years and the decades, eventually the cells stop listening to insulin. And this creates a serious problem because sugar is very caustic stuff. And sugar has to get removed from the blood quickly. And when it's not removed from the blood quickly, you run into health problems in general and skin health problems specifically, which I'll talk about here in a second. But the body has a compensatory system, a way of adapting to these, to this resistance, this insulin resistance phenomena where cells stop listening to insulin. Does that make sense how chronically high levels of insulin will eventually turn the dial down on the cell's responsiveness?
- [03:13]
A
Oh, yeah, a hundred percent, right.
- [03:14]
B
It's a resistance phenomena. But the body has to. Blood sugar's an emerg. Elevated blood sugar is an emergency. So insulin is really important. So it's an intolerable situation for cells to not be paying attention to insulin. So in response to that resistance, you get more insulin secreted on the pancreas, which leads to higher levels of insulin. And then the blood sugar is handled. But eventually even those higher levels of insulin become resistant, or the cells become resistant to even those higher levels. So of course the dial goes up on insulin. Eventually this keeps happening. And that's called insulin resistance syndrome. Because what happens is over the course of time now you start to deal with problems of high insulin. And that's where really all of the problems, the skin problems come from. These rev you up problems. So think of all of the ways that increased metabolism in the skin can show up. Things like oily skin, hyperproliferation of keratinocytes, but hyperproliferation of keratinocytes that are incompletely formed. So you get hyperproliferation of keratinocytes that may be forms things like skin tags or even tumors or even skin cancers or even boils or cysts can be related to this. Any kind of condition where skin cells are dividing rapidly, psoriasis, acne, these can all be caused by elevated insulin levels. Hyperpigmentation, classically caused by elevated insulin levels. Now, as the insulin levels are, as the cells are becoming less resistant to insulin, remember, the sugar is going up. So blood, elevated blood sugar is also a problem with this whole insulin resistance picture, if you will. And elevated blood sugar can Cause things like glycation. You probably heard of this kind of condition. And this is sort of an underappreciated cause of aging or where sugar damages the proteins in the skin and glycation can actually occur in the fats. So you could actually have damage to the fats in the skin. Also the elevated blood sugar, which is secondary to the body not listen to cells, not listening to insulin effectively can cause an increase in cortisol stress response because this represents a stressor these elevated, this, these high levels of sugar. So now you're dealing with more oily skin. Now you're dealing with hyperpigmentation, hyperpigmentation from the elevated insulin and hyperpigmentation from the elevated cortisol glycation and accelerated aging. Defects in the barrier leading to susceptibility for things like eczema, dry skin, in fact, diabetic skin or insulin resistant skin is notoriously dry, particularly at the levels of the extremities. Accelerated aging, defects in collagen, glycation and collagen. It's a big mess. And the real tragedy of the whole thing is, is it's so easy to control. It's not like anybody's cursed with insulin resistance or elevated blood sugar. You can control that through simple dietary strategies and nutritional supplementation. I might also add that deficiencies in key nutrients can cause problems with insulin resistance as well and with elevated glycation. So nutritional deficiency is compounds the problem. And nutritional deficiencies can be caused by not taking in the nutrients, but also by eating a lot of sugar, by problems with the diet. So you can see it's a kind of convoluted mess. But the beautiful thing is you can cut the head off a snake, you can just take one or two lifestyle moves, make one or two lifestyle moves and you can end the whole problem. Most important thing you can do is restrict your calories in general. And that's why fasting is so important. And restrict your calories that come from fast burning carbohydrates. That's another really important strategy. Not just for, not just for the skin, but for just overall longevity. And because our dietary lifestyle, standard American diet kind of thing is loaded with insulin spiking foods, it can be hard for people to withdraw if you will. But a super super powerful strategy for the skin, particularly for people who are either dealing with accelerated aging, poor wound healing, hyperpigmentation or severe dry skin. All of these are things that you can control through dietary strategies and nutritional supplementation. So going on a ketogenic diet is one strategy. I mentioned fasting, or even intermittent fasting is another strategy. And then there's incredibly valuable nutritional supplements that are important for blood sugar control and also for supporting the potentizing, if you will, insulin making insulin stronger. If insulin's stronger, if it's potentized, your body doesn't have to secrete as much. And so supplements that potentize insulin can be very helpful. Alpha lipoic acid is one supplement that has a potentizing effect on insulin. Chromium has a potentizing effect on insulin. There are nutrients that are important for blood sugar control. Thiamine is important for blood sugar control. In fact, thiamine deficiency is not that uncommon because thiamine is utilized by the body to process sugar. The more sugar you're eating, the more likely you're going to be to be thiamine deficient. Thiamine deficiency, by the way, is notoriously problematic for the brain and for neuropathies. In addition to being an issue with skin glycation, if you will, carnosine, you probably heard of carnosine, is an anti glycating agent. Niacin can be very helpful for blood sugar control. In fact, chromium and niacin work together to help the body process sugar by potentizing insulin. There's a molecule in the body called the glucose tolerance factor, and this glucose tolerance factor is composed largely of niacin and chromium. So supplementing with niacin and chromium, especially after sugary meals or after sweet meals, and after meals, is a great way to lower blood sugar so your insulin becomes more effective. So drinking a lot of water after meal, after sugary meals, particularly after sweet meals, high carbohydrate meals, drinking a lot of water can dilute blood sugar, and that can have a supportive effect for insulin and protect against insulin resistance and elevated insulin levels. And then also moving the body will shunt sugar out of the blood into the muscles, and that can have a blood sugar, blood sugar lowering effect and support insulin secretion as well. So keeping insulin stable is one of the most important, not just skin health strategies, but longevity strategies. And the best way to keep insulin state your insulin level stable is to reduce your intake of sugar. And keep in mind that you're not going to really know what your insulin levels are, except for your effect, except for the effects on the body, because there's really no way to test for it. There is a way to test for it, but most doctors don't do it. It's kind of expensive. And because insulin's involved in so many different biochemical functions. It's hard to get a direct read on what your insulin levels are because it's, it's always fluctuating. There's also cross talk between estrogen and insulin and testosterone and insulin and cortisol and insulin. So it's because insulin's tied in with all of these other hormones. It's hard to know exactly where your insulin levels are except for by your biochemical side or your biological side effects, particularly fat around the middle is a sign that there's a problem with insulin. Chronic inflammation is the sign that could be a problem with insulin. There's a condition called acthenosis nigricans. I don't know if you've ever heard that. That, that is a sign that that can be a sign of elevated insulin or insulin resistance. And that's kind of a weird type of hyperpigmentation that's sort of fuzzy for, for the estheticians who are listening. So insulin is a super, super relevant hormone, especially for skin health, but for overall metabolic health and for longevity, and is so easy to control because it's largely responsive to food, although not, not totally responsive to food. As I say, there's connections between other steroid hormones and lifestyle factors. But the most important control point is going to be food. As well as nutritional supplementation are also nutritional deficiencies. Pretty much any skin condition you can think of, from psoriasis to eczema to dry skin to hyperpigmentation to skin tags to accelerated aging. Skin or accelerated aging of skin can be tied into insulin resistance or elevated insulin levels.
- [11:10]
A
That concludes our show for today and we thank you for listening. But if you just can't get enough of Ben Fuchs, the ASCP's rogue pharmacist, you can find him@truthtreatments.com for more information on this episode or for ways to connect with Ben Fuchs or to learn more about ascp, check out the show notes.