There is a lot of bad information about high insulin levels that has been repeated so often by diet book authors like Gary Taubes and people on diet web sites that it is widely believed. But it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. In particular, the link between high insulin levels and weight gain doesn't pan out. Stephan Guyenet has done a masterful review of the research in that area which you can find on his Whole Health Source Blog.
I have massive problems with the post-meal hunger at various times in my life so I know exactly what you are talking about and I really hope that Afrezza does eliminate that problem for you and, eventually, if I can use it safely and if Medicare ever will cover it, me.
But I'm pretty sure that that hunger comes from your blood sugar dropping from that 50 mg/dl rise, not from long exposure to high levels of insulin.
When my blood sugars suddenly deteriorated dramatically, back in the 1990s, I became ravenously hungry every time I would start eating and packed on over 30 lbs in a year. I'd never had a problem with weight before.
Because I was told I was Type 2 I assumed it was the high insulin levels causing the hunger. I started eating low carb because it was the only way I could avoid spending my whole life with the raging munchies.
But when I finally started injecting insulin I discovered I am insulin sensitive. Two units of Apidra would perfectly cover 40 g and my appetite was so well controlled that I lost weight without dieting (scaring my doctor into thinking I had cancer.) So that suggested that for me, at least, the hunger was not because of high insulin, it was because of the steeply rising blood sugars which Apidra eliminated since it worked so physiologically for me.
Now, Ironically, now my blood sugar has become much easier to control than it was for that long 15 year period, but that makes it impossible for me to use insulin as my peaks are about 70 mg/dl lower than they used to be. But because I am going up and down from the 90s to the 140s, I am much hungrier all the time. Except if I eat a very low carb intake, which keeps the sugars flat and elminates hunger (though it also eliminates most of the foods I like to eat.)
That said, there are other hormones involved with hunger, like those incretin gut hormones, and a couple others, including the cannabinol receptors, so there may be other factors that make some of us have such issues with hunger.
I took Byetta (once) and it completely abolished hunger, which was a weird sensation. I looked at my plate of food and felt the same way about eating it I would have felt about eating rocks. Bizarre! Unfortunately, the Byetta also sent my blood pressure up into the stroke zone, so I couldn't take it. But it gave me new respect for the power of those incretin hormones. But interestingly, only 1 out of 3 people with diabetes who take Byetta respond to it. So it would be interesting to know what distinguishes the nonresponders from the responders.
Anyway, I look forward to hearing if the Afrezza helps with the hunger.
