Insulin Levels and Breathing

What and how much we eat can have a powerful influence on our aerobic capacity, which depends in large part on the diameter of the capillaries around our lung tissue. The larger the diameter of the capillaries, the more oxygen will be transferred to the red blood cells.

According to Barry Sears in The Age Free Zone (New York: Regan Books/Harper Collins: 1999, p. 21), elevated insulin produces excessive amounts of hormones called vasoconstrictors that decrease the diameter of the capillaries and thus impede oxygen flow to the cells. When our insulin is in the normal range, we produce more vasodilators, which actually increase the diameter of the capillaries, thus facilitating oxygen transfer.

What’s more, says Sears, oxygen transfer depends on ‘the flexibility of your red blood cells.’ Certain hormones in the body either make it easier or harder for the red blood cells ‘to contort or deform themselves as they squeeze through the capillaries. . . .’ Elevated insulin produces hormones that make our red blood cells less flexible and thus less able to bring oxygen to the cells.”

Copyright by Dennis Lewis, text extracted from my book Free Your Breath, Free Your Life