08/04/2024
Diabetes Is Not A Disease Of Blood Sugar!
By William P. Wladyka, Ph.D.
Contained herein is one concept that we would like to make well-known that can save lives, is that diabetes is not a disease of blood sugar, but a disease of insulin and perhaps more importantly leptin signaling, and until that concept becomes well-known in the medical community, articles like this one will fortunately continue to be revealing the inadequacy of current conventional medical treatment for chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, and the falsity of their advice about nutrition.
Typically, treatment concentrates on fixing a symptom, in this case elevated blood sugar, rather than the underlying disease. Symptoms are generally the way that nature has taught our bodies to deal with a disease. For instance, a runny nose is a symptom designed to cleanse the nose and sinuses of viruses and bacteria when one has a "cold." Taking a decongestant just inhibits our own body's mechanism for dealing with that infection and will therefore prolong it.
Similarly, treatments which concentrate merely on lowering blood sugar for diabetes while raising insulin levels can actually worsen rather than remedy the actual problem of metabolic miscommunication. It just trades one evil for another.
Elevated insulin levels are highly associated and even causative of:
• heart disease,
• peripheral vascular disease,
• stroke,
• high blood pressure,
• cancer,
• obesity and
• many other so-called diseases.
Since most treatments for (type 2, insulin resistant) diabetes utilize drugs which raise insulin or actual insulin injections itself, the tragic result is that the typical, conventional medical treatment for diabetes contributes to the manifest side effects and the shortened lifespan that diabetic’s experience.
To Be Victorious, One Must "Know Thy Enemy.
Traditional medicine appears certainly not to, especially with diabetes. For two millennia diabetes has been considered to be a disease of sugar. Despite centuries of scientific progress including the discovery of insulin and more recently leptin, that has not changed. It appears that medicine has made little to no progress with that myth. Furthermore, the actual purpose of insulin is widely, if not uniformly, mistaken even among the medical community.
The Main Purpose Of Insulin Is Not To Lower Blood Sugar.
It may surprise you, as well as your doctor, that insulin's main role is not to control blood sugar. The control of blood sugar is mostly in an upward direction, not a downward direction. A few types of tissues and cells in our body such as red blood cells require glucose for energy (the rest can and even desires to burn fat or byproducts of fat metabolism called ketones). Thus, it is important to always have a little bit of glucose dissolved in our blood.
The trick throughout most of our ancestral history was to keep sugar in our blood from falling too low since there was not that much sugar to be had. Most starches and grains that would turn into sugar are mostly indigestible unless cooked. You might even strain your jaw trying to eat an uncooked potato.
The major source of sugar was fruit, and that was mostly available only seasonally, and even then, we had to work and exercise to obtain it, burning the sugar and preventing it from spiking very high. The hormones cortisone, epinephrine, norepinephrine, glucagon, and growth hormone make sure that we always have some glucose available to the tissues that need it.
High Blood Sugar Was A Rarity.
However, when our blood sugar did become elevated it was a sign that we had more energy available than we could currently burn and thus it would be a good idea to store the extra. "Waste not, want not." Food was not always available; feast or famine was the rule. When blood sugar becomes elevated it is a signal for insulin to be released to direct the extra energy into storage.
A small amount is stored as a starch called glycogen in our body, but the majority is stored as our main energy supply -- fat. Thus, in this regard insulin's major role is not to lower sugar, but to take the extra energy when available and store it for future times of need. Insulin lowers glucose as a side effect of directing the extra into storage.
Insulin's purpose may go far beyond even that. Insulin is being researched very heavily by scientists who study the biology of aging. It has been found that when insulin is kept low either through diet or via genetic manipulation animals live much longer and the rate of aging is significantly reduced. This appears true in many different species of animals from single cell yeast, to worms, to flies, and appears likely to be true also in primates.
Apparently, low insulin is a signal that energy is scarce and animals need to focus their energy needs on maintaining and repairing themselves so that they can outlive the famine to be able to reproduce at a future, more opportune time. Insulin's purpose has gone from controlling blood sugar, to directing energy stores, and now to actually regulating the rate of aging including the major symptoms of aging -- diabetes, heart disease, obesity, osteoporosis, dementia, and even cancer.
All Chronic Disease Is Due To Miscommunication Of Messages Between And Within Cells.
All chronic disease is due to miscommunication of messages between and within cells. Certainly, diabetes is a disease of insulin miscommunication, and recognizing insulin's true purpose certainly goes much deeper to the roots of diabetes and other chronic diseases. Yet we can go even deeper.
Insulin May Not Even Be The Most Important Hormone In Diabetes Or Other Chronic Diseases Of Aging.
That honor likely goes to ‘leptin’.
It appears that the hormone leptin is largely responsible for the accuracy of insulin signaling and whether one becomes insulin resistant or not.
Leptin, a relatively recently discovered hormone produced by fat, tells the body and brain how much energy it has, whether it needs more (saying "be hungry"), whether it should get rid of some (and stop being hungry) and importantly what to do with the energy it has (reproduce, up-regulate cellular repair, or not).
Recent compelling research reveals that the two most important organs that will determine whether one becomes (type 2, insulin resistant) diabetic or not are the liver and the brain and it is their ability to listen to leptin that will determine this.
Leptin largely influences, if not controls, the manifest functions of the hypothalamus in the brain, including:
• Reproduction,
• Thyroid function,
• Adrenal function and the
• Sympathetic nervous system.
Fat, and leptin, strongly influences chronic inflammation and therefore diseases associated with this including heart disease, Alzheimer's, and diabetes. It appears now that rather than your brain being in control of your body, fat, by way of leptin, is really in the driver's seat.
The Enemy Is Not Only Foreign To The Medical Community; It Appears To Not Even Be Recognized.
It is no wonder that (type 2) diabetes has not been conquered.
By some estimates, diabetes has increased over 700% in the last 50 years. This reveals two very important facts.
Diabetes cannot be primarily a genetic disease, since the prior statistic has taken place within the same generation and presumably essentially the same genetics.
Something that we have been doing is obviously wrong and needs to be changed.
That something is diet.
It is difficult, or perhaps even impossible, to actually prove that something is true. However, it is not difficult to prove that something is false. Americans have been following (at least partially), for the last 50 years, the nutritional recommendations of a high complex carbohydrate, low saturated fat diet from the:
• American Dietetic Association,
• American Heart Association, and the
• American Diabetes Association
That, in itself, is an oxymoron since most of those "complex" carbohydrates, such as potatoes, rice, cereals, pasta, and breads rapidly turn to sugar and the excess sugar (glucose) rapidly turns into long-chain saturated fatty acids (palmitic acid; "palm oil"). Concomitant with that recommendation the incidence of diabetes and obesity has skyrocketed and has become one of the worst worldwide epidemics the world has ever seen.
Eating a high "complex" carbohydrate, low saturated fat diet for health and longevity has been shown, and perhaps even "proven," to be wrong. Minimal common sense would say to try something else.
Diabetes Is A Disease Of Nutrition, And It Is The Science Of Nutrition That Must Treat It.
Science is telling us that we must eat a diet that maximizes the accuracy of insulin and leptin signaling allowing cells, you, to better listen to their life-giving messages. (The need for those hormones to have to "yell" to be heard is reduced and the levels of insulin and leptin are therefore lowered.)
That would be the eating plan emphasizing good fats and reduced non-fiber carbohydrates/starches as outlined in the new Fit For Life® Weight Management Program. Doing so will greatly improve and even reverse type 2 "insulin resistant" diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, many other chronic diseases of aging, and even aging itself, as many of our clients who have been able to greatly reduce and even totally eliminate the use of their drugs, including insulin, can attest. Following those guidelines will let you -- and your genes -- "be the best that you can be."
Summarized at-a-glance
• In the US, about 80 million, or one in four, has some form of diabetes or pre-diabetes
• Even worse, more than one-third of British adults are now pre-diabetic. In 2003, 11.6 percent of Britons had pre-diabetes. By 2011, that figure had more than tripled, reaching 35.3 percent
• Between 2001 and 2009, incidence of type 1 diabetes among American children under the age of 19 rose by 21 percent. Incidence of type 2 diabetes among children aged 10-19 rose by 30 percent
• Type 2 diabetes is a disease rooted in insulin resistance and perhaps more importantly, a malfunction of leptin signaling, caused by chronically elevated insulin and leptin levels
• One of the driving forces behind type 2 diabetes is excessive dietary fructose, which has adverse effects on insulin and leptin, so it’s important to address the fructose and other sugars in one’s diet that come in many forms
• A growing body of research suggests there’s a powerful connection between your diet and your risk of both Alzheimer's disease and glaucoma, via similar pathways that cause type 2 diabetes
Tips to Avoid Diabetes
In 2012, over 90 million people had diabetes or pre-diabetes. One out of every 2 people with diabetes do not know they have the condition. Lifestyle choices are the best strategies to controlling one’s blood sugar, reducing one’s risk of diabetes and preventing secondary health problems from the condition.
Over the past years, both Great Britain, Canada and the U.S. have experienced a rapid increase in the number of people suffering from pre-diabetes and diabetes. In 2003, 11.6 percent of people in Great Britain were diagnosed with pre-diabetes. That number had tripled by 2011, reaching over 35 percent.
These numbers demonstrate the rise in people suffering from diabetes originate outside a genetic cause. Historically, the rise in diabetes was prompted by a flawed nutritional and exercise program initiated by the now-refuted Seven Countries Study.
The study, published in the 1950s by economist Ancel Keys, Ph.D. sparked an increase in the quantity of carbohydrates recommended in your diet and a severe reduction in healthy fats.2 This imbalance affects your cellular resistance to the hormones insulin, leptin and ghrelin.
This cellular resistance is the real foundation to problems with diabetes and not the symptom of high blood sugar.
Insulin, Leptin and Ghrelin
One’s body is a complex combination of chemicals, enzymes and hormones. While it might be tempting to believe that one hormone controls an entire health condition, the reality is far more intricate.
The same is true of diabetes. One may have learned that diabetes is a function of too much sugar in one’s blood, but it's actually a function of insulin resistance at one’s cellular level.
Insulin is a hormone secreted by one’s pancreas responsible for ushering blood sugar across cell membranes for use as fuel inside one’s cells. When one’s cells become resistant to insulin, glucose (sugar) stays in one’s blood, thus, raising their blood sugar levels.
Another function of rising blood sugar is the malfunction of leptin signaling. Leptin is a hormone produced by one’s fat cells. The function of leptin is to tell one’s brain that they have enough fat stored, have eaten enough and to burn calories at a normal rate.
Leptin does not function only with one’s metabolism and fat stores. It is also involved in your immune system, fertility and regulating how much energy one burns.
The third hormone most intimately involved with diabetes is ghrelin. This hormone is secreted by one’s stomach lining and is one’s "go" hormone, or the hormone telling one’s brain that they are hungry. Ghrelin is affected by growth hormone in one’s body, and therefore works differently in men and women.
These are the three main players, in a cast of others, playing a role in the development of diabetes. With a malfunction of leptin or ghrelin signaling, one may eat too much food for their activity level and rate of one’s metabolism, resulting in weight gain and obesity.
With obesity often comes a resistance at one’s cell level to insulin, resulting in high blood sugar and a diagnosis of diabetes.
Diabetes and Your Body
Chronically high blood sugar from poor nutrition and exercise choices may trigger long-term damage to one’s body. This damage may even result in death.
It is imperative that one evaluates their current dietary and exercise choices against the natural ways one can prevent diabetes, listed below. Damage one may face if diagnosed with diabetes includes:
Heart disease
Heart attack Stroke
Glaucoma Cataracts Retinopathy
Blindness Bacterial infections Fungal infections
Itchy skin Diabetic dermopathy Diabetic blisters
Digital sclerosis Disseminated granuloma annulare (a skin condition) Diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage)
Kidney disease
High blood pressure
Foot ulcers
Foot amputation Gastroparesis Hyperosmolar hyperglycemic nonketotic syndrome (a metabolic complication of diabetes)
Hearing loss Alzheimer's disease
Gingivitis and periodontitis (stages of gum disease)
As with most medical conditions, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A healthy lifestyle can not only prevent type 2 diabetes but also typically may reverse it as well. With proper attention to diet and lifestyle, type 2 diabetes is curable, and in the vast majority of cases does not require any form of medication.
The Fiber Factor
One important change to make in one’s diet is to increase the amount of fiber one eats each day. There are two types of fiber: soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber can absorb water in one’s intestinal tract, slow the process of digestion and help one to feel fuller, longer.
Insoluble fiber increases one’s rate of digestion, reduces their risk of colon cancer, prevents constipation and helps weight maintenance. One needs both soluble and insoluble fiber for a healthy and balanced nutritional plan.
On average, North Americans eat approximately 15 grams of fiber each day. The American, as well as the Canadian, Heart Associations both recommend between 25 grams to 30 grams of fiber for a 2,000-calorie diet. We believe one needs 50 grams of fiber for every 1,000 calories one eats to maintain a healthy gut and good overall health.
The benefits of a high-fiber diet begin with regulating one’s food digestion and the release of leptin and ghrelin. These hormones are essential in one’s efforts to lose weight, feel full and prevent diabetes.
Fiber also reduces one’s risk of heart disease, normalizes one’s bowel movements, lowers one’s cholesterol levels and may reduce one’s risk of gallstones and kidney stones.
Get Your Fiber On
Before one reaches for a bran muffin to fulfill their fiber requirements, it's important to understand that grains are not essential to one’s health and may actually cause damage to one’s gut. Loren Cordain, Ph.D. from Colorado State University, explains:
"There's no human requirement for grains. That's the problem with the USDA recommendations. They think we're hardwired as a species to eat grains. You can get by just fine and meet every single nutrient requirement that humans have without eating grains. And grains are absolutely poor sources of vitamins and minerals compared to fruits and vegetables and meat and fish."
The best sources of fiber in one’s diet come from whole foods and include:
Chia seeds Berries Almonds
Cauliflower Root vegetables and tubers, such as onions and sweet potatoes Beans
Peas Vegetables, such as broccoli and Brussel sprouts Psyllium seed husk
Green beans Air popped popcorn, try it seasoned with cayenne pepper or cinnamon Flaxseed meal
In the Net
One of the benefits of eating high-fiber foods is one can more easily reduce the amount of carbohydrates one consumes. When metabolized in one’s body, carbohydrates turn to sugar, increasing one’s release of insulin and affecting one’s leptin function.
The important number is one’s net carbs. This number is calculated by taking the total number of carbohydrates in grams one has eaten in the day and subtracting the amount of fiber in grams. The resulting number is one’s net carbs. A key way of preventing diabetes is to keep one’s net carbs below 50 grams per day.
The only way one will know how many carbs, fiber and net carbs one has eat is to keep a diary of what one eats. One may be surprised at how quickly sandwich bread, pasta, soda, cookies and cakes add up — sometimes to over 350 grams per day. This high carb level increases one’s resistance to insulin and malfunction of leptin, increasing one’s risk of diabetes.
7 Ways to Naturally Control Your Blood Sugar
1. Increase Your Fiber
Seek to include both soluble and insoluble fiber in one’s daily diet. Berries, nuts, vegetables and chia seeds are a great way to slip in the fiber daily. Aim to include 40 to 50 grams of fiber in one’s daily regimen for every 1,000 calories one eats. One may want to start tracking the foods they eat each day until they are a good judge of how much fiber and carbohydrates they are eating.
2. Reduce Your Net Carbs
A low-net carbohydrate diet reduces the stress on one’s body, reduces inflammation and reduces the amount insulin required to use the energy from the food they eat. One will want to reduce the number of net carbs one eats to about 50 grams per day. However, it is the net carbs that one will be measuring.
This number is calculated by taking the grams of carbs one has eaten and subtracting the number of grams of fiber. In this way a high-fiber diet also helps one to lower the amount of insulin one needs to utilize their food for fuel.
3. High-Quality Fats
When one reduces their carbohydrates, what are they going to replace them with? Their best alternative is high-quality, healthy fats necessary for heart health, feeding one’s brain and to modulate genetic regulation and prevent cancer. Healthy fats include:
Avocados Coconut oil
Organic butter from organic grass-fed milk
Organic raw nuts Olives and olive oil Grass-fed meat
Organic pastured eggs Palm oil
4. Exercise
Short-term and long-term exercise do not appear to have any effect on the amount of leptin secreted in one’s body. However, exercise has a significant impact on the resistance one’s body builds up to the hormone leptin. The more one exercises, the more one’s cells are sensitive to leptin. As one’s body becomes sensitive to leptin, it reduces one’s potential resistance to insulin and therefore one’s risk of diabetes.
5. Hydration
When one becomes dehydrated, one’s liver will secrete a hormone that increases one’s blood sugar. As one hydrates, blood sugar levels lower naturally. One can better stay well-hydrated by monitoring the color of one’s urine during the day. The color should be light yellow. Sometimes one’s first indication that one’s body requires more water is the sensation of being hungry. Drink a large glass of water first and wait 20 minutes to determine if one is really hungry or one was just thirsty.
6. Reduce Your Stress
When one becomes stressed one’s body secretes cortisol and glucagon, both of which affect one’s blood sugar levels. Controlling one’s stress levels using exercise, meditation, yoga, prayer or relaxation techniques can be the answer. These techniques may reduce one’s stress and correct insulin secretion problems. Combined with strategies that reduce one’s insulin resistance, one may help themselves to prevent diabetes.
7. Sleep
Enough quality sleep is necessary to feel good and experience good health. Poor sleeping habits may reduce insulin sensitivity and promote weight gain.
Summarized at-a-glance
• Over 100 million people in the North America today have diabetes or pre-diabetes, and yet one out of every two do not even know they have the condition
• Diabetes is more than high blood sugar; long-term effects can result in blindness, heart attack, stroke and death
• Increasing one’s fiber content, reducing one’s net carbs and including high-quality fats in one’s diet are three simple and effective ways of reducing one’s risk of diabetes
Some Modest Amounts Of Saturated Fat – Can Help One to Avoid Diabetes
About one in three North Americans now has diabetes or pre-diabetes. That's nearly 80 million people, the majority of whom suffer from type 2 diabetes – a preventable and, often, reversible condition.
The problem is that many North Americans are unaware that the foods they are eating could be setting them up for a dietary disaster, and this is not their fault. Public health guidelines condemn healthy fats from foods like butter and full-fat dairy and recommend whole grains and cereals – the opposite of what a person with diabetes, or any person really, needs to stay healthy.
For the last 50 years, North Americans have been told to eat a high complex carbohydrate, low saturated fat diet. Even diabetics have been told to eat 50 to 60 percent of their daily calories in the form of processed carbs!
Research, including a new study involving dolphins, again suggests that this movement away from traditional full-fat foods is contributing to the rising rates of diabetes and metabolic syndrome across the globe.
Dolphin Study Suggests Saturated Fats Are Beneficial for Diabetes
Researchers from the National Marine Mammal Foundation (NMMF) discovered that dolphins are able to switch in and out of a diabetes-like state, as well as develop metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms that is often indicative of pre-diabetes in humans (and a sign that full-blown diabetes, and other conditions like heart disease, may not be far off).
To determine what might be driving metabolic syndrome in the dolphins, the researchers looked into their diet, which is primarily fish. It turned out that the saturated fat heptadecanoic acid was most beneficial for metabolism, and dolphins with the highest levels in their blood had lower insulin and triglyceride levels.
Several dolphins with low heptadecanoic acid levels were then fed fish high in the saturated fat. Within six months, their markers of metabolic syndrome, including elevated insulin, glucose, and triglycerides, were normal.
Also striking, elevated levels of ferritin (iron), which is a precursor to metabolic syndrome, were also lowered within three weeks of the high saturated fat diet. The fish in the study with the highest level of heptadecanoic acid (also known as margaric acid or C17:0) was mullet – but it's also found in whole fat dairy products, including whole milk, whole milk yogurt, and butter (non-fat dairy products had no detectable amounts of heptadecanoic acid).
Study author Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson, director of NMMF's Translational Medicine and Research Program, told Science Daily:
"We hypothesize that widespread movement away from whole fat dairy products in human populations may have created unanticipated heptadecanoic acid deficiencies… and, in turn, this dietary deficiency may be playing a role in the global diabetes pandemic."
Butter May Reduce Your Diabetes Risk
While many people with diabetes think they are following sound nutritional advice by shunning butter in favor of whole grain, the opposite is actually true. Butter need not be shunned and, in fact, is a beneficial source of healthy saturated fats, especially when it is raw, organic, and grass-fed.
In the dolphin study, butter was found to be particularly high in the beneficial heptadecanoic acid, so perhaps it is not surprising that past research has also linked it to a lower diabetes risk.
The study included nearly 27,000 people between the ages of 45 to 74 who were followed for 14 years. Those who ate eight portions of full-fat dairy products a day cut their risk of diabetes by nearly 25 percent compared to those who ate fewer portions. According to lead author Dr. Ulrika Ericson of the Lund University Diabetes Center in Malmö, Sweden:
"Our observations may contribute to clarifying previous findings regarding dietary fats and their food sources in relation to type 2 diabetes. The decreased risk at high intakes of high-fat dairy products, but not of low-fat dairy products, indicate that dairy fat, at least partly, explains observed protective associations between dairy intake and type 2 diabetes…"
In 2010, a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine proposed that it's the palmitoleic acid, which occurs naturally in full-fat dairy products, that protects against insulin resistance and diabetes.
People who consumed full-fat dairy had higher levels of trans-palmitoleate in their blood, and this translated to a two-thirds lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to people with lower levels.
Replacing Saturated Fats with Carbs Leads to Diabetes and Other Chronic Diseases
The American and Canadian Heart Associations began encouraging all North Americans to limit dietary fat, particularly animal fats, in order to reduce their risk of heart disease as far back as 1961.
Yet research has been pouring in refuting the saturated fat/heart disease link while linking processed carbs to higher rates of disease. As of 2015, the current dietary recommendations from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) still make no distinction between healthy saturated fats and decidedly unhealthy synthetic trans fats in your diet.
Every five years, the US Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) convene a 15-member panel to update the nation's dietary guidelines.
The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) scientific report is an important part of this process, and this year's report finally acknowledged:
"Dietary advice should put the emphasis on optimizing types of dietary fat and not reducing total fat."
As noted by Forbes:
"[T]he recommendation to have no more than 35 percent of one’ calories coming from fats is over. 'Placing limits on total fat intake has no basis in science and leads to all sorts of wrong industry and consumer decisions,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, one of the authors of the new [JAMA] paper.
“Modern evidence clearly shows that eating more foods rich in healthful fats like nuts, vegetable oils, and fish have protective effects, particularly for cardiovascular disease.
Other fat-rich foods, like whole milk and cheese, appear pretty neutral; while many low-fat foods, like low-fat deli meats, fat-free salad dressing, and baked potato chips, are no better and often even worse than full-fat alternatives. It's the food that matters, not its fat content."
Evidence of this was highlighted in an editorial in the journal Open Heart. In it, research scientist and doctor of pharmacy James J. DiNicolantonio reviews the cardiometabolic consequences of replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates, which includes the following:
Shift to overall atherogenic lipid profile (lower HDL, increased triglycerides, and increased ApoB/ApoA-1 ratio) Increased risk of coronary heart disease, cardiovascular events, and death from heart disease and increased overall mortality (all causes) Increased thrombogenic markers
Increased oxidized LDL Increased inflammation Reduced HDL
Impaired glucose tolerance, higher body fat, weight gain, obesity, and diabetes Increased small, high-density LDL particles Increased risk for cancer
Why Too Many Carbs Trigger Type 2 Diabetes…
The underlying problem in type 2 diabetes is improper insulin and leptin signaling. In type 2 diabetes, one’s pancreas is still producing some insulin — in fact, usually too much insulin is being produced on a chronic basis — but one’s pancreas is unable to recognize the insulin and use it properly.
This is an advanced stage of insulin resistance, which is typically caused by a diet that is too high in sugars and sugar-forming foods such as grains. Type 2 diabetes also involves malfunction of leptin signaling, which is caused by chronically elevated insulin and leptin levels — again due to a diet that is too high in sugar.
It is important to understand what really happens when one simply adds insulin without addressing the underlying insulin/leptin resistance. When one’s blood sugar becomes elevated, insulin is released to direct the extra energy (sugar) into storage. A small amount is stored as a starch called glycogen, but the majority is stored as fat.
Insulin's primary role is not to lower one’s blood sugar, but rather to store this extra energy as fat for future needs when food may not be available. The fact that insulin lowers one’s blood sugar is merely a "side effect" of this energy storage process. So, taking more insulin just makes one fatter!
Saturated Fat Health Benefits
The latest science suggests healthy fats (saturated and unsaturated fats from whole food, animal, and plant sources) should comprise anywhere from 50 to 85 percent of your overall energy intake. Saturated fats provide a number of important health benefits, including the following:
Providing building blocks for cell membranes, hormones, and hormone-like substances Mineral absorption, such as calcium Carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K
Conversion of carotene into vitamin A Helping to lower cholesterol levels (palmitic and stearic acids) Acts as antiviral agent (caprylic acid)
Optimal fuel for one’s brain Provides satiety Modulates genetic regulation and helps prevent cancer (butyric acid)
Further, it is becoming increasingly clear that the same pathological process that leads to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes may also hold true for one’s brain. As one may over-indulge on sugar and grains, one’s brain becomes overwhelmed by the consistently high levels of glucose and insulin that blunts its insulin signaling, leading to impairments in one’s thinking and memory abilities, eventually causing permanent brain damage.
Alzheimer's disease has even been dubbed "type 3 diabetes." Here again, saturated fats play a role, as they are crucial for healthy brain function. This mistaken fat phobia has undoubtedly played a significant role in the dramatic rise in dementia and other neurological disorders along with type 2 diabetes, because one’s brain cannot function properly without fats. In fact, most people benefit from up to 50 to 85 percent of their daily calories in the form of fats for optimal health while they are seeking to resolve their insulin resistance.
A Tried-and-True Plan to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes: All the Healthy Fats You Want
Type 2 diabetes represents the vast majority of all diabetics, and contrary to conventional medical and media teaching, it is nearly 100 percent curable through lifestyle changes alone. The following nutrition and lifestyle modifications should be the foundation of one’s diabetes prevention and treatment plan. Also, make sure to monitor one’s FASTING insulin level. This is every bit as important as monitoring one’s fasting blood sugar. One will want one’s fasting insulin level to be between 2 and 4.
The higher one’s level, the greater one’s insulin resistance and the more aggressive one needs to be in one’s treatment plan, especially when it comes to altering one’s diet. As you will see, a focus on reducing processed and/or refined sugars and grains and increasing healthy fats is important to this plan.
Swap out processed foods, all forms of sugar — particularly fructose — as well as all grains, for whole, fresh food.
A primary reason for the failure of conventional diabetes treatment over the last 50 years has to do with seriously flawed dietary recommendations. Fructose, grains, and other sugar-forming starchy carbohydrates are largely responsible for the body's adverse insulin reactions, and all sugars and grains — even "healthy" grains such as whole, organic ones — need to be drastically reduced.
If one is insulin/leptin resistant, have diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, or are overweight, one would be wise to limit their total fructose intake to 15 grams per day until their insulin/leptin resistance has resolved. This includes about 80 percent of North Americans. For all others, we recommend limiting one’s daily fructose consumption to 25 grams or less, to maintain optimal health. The easiest way to accomplish this is by swapping processed foods for whole, ideally organic foods. This means cooking from scratch with fresh ingredients.
Processed foods are the main source of all the primary culprits, including high fructose corn syrup and other sugars, processed grains, trans fats, artificial sweeteners, and other synthetic additives that may aggravate metabolic dysfunction. Besides fructose, trans fat (NOT saturated fat) increases one’s risk for diabetes by interfering with one’s insulin receptors. Healthy saturated fats do not do this. Since one would be cutting out a lot of energy (carbs) from their diet when they reduce sugars and grains, they will need to replace them with something. The ideal replacement is a combination of some of the following choices.
Low-to-moderate amount of high-quality protein.
Substantial amounts of protein can be found in meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, legumes, and nuts. When selecting animal-based protein, be sure to opt for organically raised, grass-fed or pastured meats, eggs, and dairy, to avoid potential health complications caused by genetically engineered animal feed and pesticides. Most North Americans eat far too much protein, so be mindful of the amount, moderation is key. We believe it is the rare person who really needs more than one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass.
Those that are aggressively exercising or competing and pregnant women should have about 25 percent more, but most people rarely need more than 40 to 70 grams of protein a day. To determine one’s lean body mass, find out their percent body fat, and subtract from 100. This means that if they have 20 percent body fat, they have 80 percent lean body mass. Just multiply that by their current weight to get their lean body mass in pounds or kilos. The chart below shows some common foods and their protein content:
Red meat, pork, poultry, and seafood average 6 to 9 grams of protein per ounce.
An ideal amount for most people would be an 85-gram (3-ounce) serving of meat or seafood, not 255 to 340-gram (9-12-ounce) steaks! which will provide about 18 to 27 grams of protein Eggs contain about 6 to 8 grams of protein per egg. So, an omelet made from two eggs would give you about 12 to 16 grams of protein.
If you add cheese, you need to calculate that protein in as well (check the label of your cheese)
Seeds and nuts contain on average 4 to 8 grams of protein per quarter cup Cooked beans average about 7 to 8 grams per half cup
Cooked grains average 5 to 7 grams per cup Most vegetables contain about 1 to 2 grams of protein per ounce
As much high-quality healthy fat as you want (saturated and monounsaturated).
For optimal health, most people need upwards of 50 to 85 percent of their daily calories in the form of healthy fats. Good sources include coconut and coconut oil, avocados, butter, nuts, and animal fats. (Remember, fat is high in calories while being small in terms of volume. So, when one looks at one’s plate, the largest portion would be vegetables.)
As many non-starchy vegetables as you want.
Exercise regularly and intensely.
Studies have shown that exercise, even without weight loss, increases insulin sensitivity. High-intensity interval training (HIIT), which is also central component of our individualized Fit For Life® Weight Management Program, has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity by as much as 24 percent in just four weeks.
Improve your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.
Today's Western diet has far too many processed and damaged omega-6 fats and is far too little omega-3 fats. The main sources of omega-6 fats are corn, soy, canola, safflower, peanut, and sunflower oil (the first two of which are typically genetically engineered as well, which further complicates matters). The optimal ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 is 1:1. However, recently ratio has deteriorated to between 20:1 and 50:1 in favor of omega-6. This lopsided ratio has seriously adverse health consequences.
To remedy this, one should reduce consumption of vegetable oils (this means not cooking with them and avoiding processed foods) and increase one’s intake of animal-based omega-3, such as krill oil. Vegetable-based omega-3 is also found in flaxseed oil and walnut oil, and it is good to include these in one’s diet as well. Just know they cannot take the place of animal-based omega-3s.
Maintain optimal vitamin D levels year-round.
Evidence strongly supports the notion that vitamin D is highly beneficial for diabetes. The ideal way to optimize your vitamin D level is by getting regular sun exposure or by carefully using a high-quality tanning bed. As a last resort, consider oral supplementation with regular vitamin D monitoring to confirm that one is taking enough vitamin D to get their blood levels into the therapeutic range of 50 to 70 ng/ml. Also, please note that if one takes supplemental vitamin D, one will also create an increased demand for vitamin K2.
Get adequate high-quality sleep every night.
Insufficient sleep appears to raise stress and blood sugar, encouraging insulin and leptin resistance, and weight gain. In one 10-yearlong study of 70,000 diabetes-free women, researchers found that women who slept less than five hours or more than nine hours each night were 34 percent more likely to develop diabetes symptoms than women who slept seven to eight hours each night.
Maintain a healthy body weight.
If one incorporates the diet and lifestyle changes suggested above one will greatly improve their insulin and leptin sensitivity, and a healthy body weight will follow in time. Determining one’s ideal body weight depends on a variety of factors, including frame size, age, general activity level, and genetics. As a general guideline, one might find a hip-to-waist size index chart helpful. This is far better than BMI for evaluating whether or not one may have a weight problem, as BMI fails to factor in both how muscular one is, and one’s intra-abdominal fat mass (the dangerous visceral fat that accumulates around their inner organs), which is a potent indicator of leptin sensitivity and associated health problems.
Incorporate intermittent fasting.
If one has carefully followed the Fit For Life® diet and exercise guidelines and still is not making sufficient progress with their weight or overall health, we strongly recommend incorporating intermittent fasting. This effectively mimics the eating habits of our ancestors, who did not have access to grocery stores or food around the clock. They would cycle through periods of feast and famine, and modern research shows this cycling produces a number of biochemical benefits, including improved insulin/leptin sensitivity, lowered triglycerides and other biomarkers for health, and weight loss.
Intermittent fasting is by far the most effective way we know of to shed unwanted fat and eliminate one’s sugar cravings. Keep up one’s intermittent fasting schedule until one’s insulin/leptin resistance improves (or one’s weight, blood pressure, cholesterol ratios, and/or diabetes normalizes). After that, one only need to do it "as needed" to maintain one’s healthy state.
Optimize your gut health.
One’s gut is a living ecosystem, full of both good bacteria and bad. Multiple studies have shown that obese people have different intestinal bacteria than lean people. The more good bacteria one has, the stronger one’s immune system will be and the better one’s body will function overall. Fortunately, optimizing one’s gut flora is relatively easy. One can reseed their body with beneficial bacteria by regularly eating fermented foods (like natto, raw organic cheese, miso, and cultured vegetables).
Summarized at-a-glance
• The saturated fat heptadecanoic acid was most beneficial for metabolism in a study of dolphins
• Dolphins with the highest levels of this saturated fat in their blood had lower insulin and triglyceride levels
• When dolphins with low heptadecanoic acid levels were fed fish high in the saturated fat, their markers of metabolic syndrome, including elevated insulin, glucose, and triglycerides, normalized
• Heptadecanoic acid is found in certain fish as well as whole milk, whole milk yogurt, and, especially, butter
Broccoli Can Also Reverse Diabetic Damage
Eating broccoli could reverse the damage that diabetes inflicts on heart blood vessels. The key is most likely a compound in the vegetable called sulforaphane.
Sulforaphane encourages production of enzymes that protect the blood vessels and reduces the number of molecules that cause cell damage -- known as Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) -- by up to 73 percent.
People with diabetes are up to five times more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes -- both of which are linked to damaged blood vessels.
Keeping your heart healthy is extremely important if you have diabetes. Heart disease is actually the most common side effect of the condition, and 65 percent of people with diabetes die from heart attack or stroke.
If diabetes is not controlled, it can damage blood vessels, including those leading to the brain and heart. This encourages the formation of plaques (also known as atherosclerosis), which can ultimately make it difficult for blood to flow through the vessels and cause your blood pressure to rise.
The Mayo Clinic actually has some revealing statistics on this topic. If you have diabetes you:
Are two to four times as likely to have a heart attack or stroke (compared to someone without diabetes)
Are more likely to die from a heart attack
Have the same risk for sudden death from a heart attack as someone who has already had a heart attack. Tim Russert, the NBC correspondent who recently died without warning of a heart attack, actually had diabetes and coronary artery disease, both of which increased his risk of sudden death.
Yet, it’s estimated that 70 percent of people with diabetes are not aware of these increased risks.
On the flip side, if you’ve had a heart attack, you should be checked for diabetes or pre-diabetes. One study found that over two-thirds of heart attack patients had blood sugar abnormalities in the form of undiagnosed diabetes or pre-diabetes.
How Might Broccoli Help?
One of broccoli’s most powerful compounds is the phytochemical sulforaphane. This compound has been found to restore your immune system as you age and increase your liver's ability to detoxify carcinogenic compounds and free radicals. This in turn protects against cell mutations, cancer and other harmful effects.
It turns out sulforaphane also protects your heart, via two routes:
1. It reduces levels of harmful molecules called Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS).
2. It activates a protein called nrf2, which triggers protective antioxidant and detoxifying enzymes that protect your cells and tissues.
Broccoli is not the only vegetable that contains sulforaphane, though. Most of the veggies in the cruciferous family also contain it, and this includes vegetables such as turnips, cabbage, bok choy, rutabaga, mustard greens, cauliflower, radishes and many others.
To really get the most benefit, it helps to find out your nutritional type, as some people actually do not do well with broccoli.
For instance, one of the most serious mistakes is for a protein nutritional type to consume a lot of dark green vegetables. This tends to over-alkalinize your system and worsens rather than improves your health if you’re a protein type. This is despite the many beneficial phytonutrients that are present. We are very familiar with this mistake as it’s one that even I made prior to understanding nutritional typing.
However, other cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower, which happens to be beneficial for protein types, can have a similar beneficial effect.
We want you to be aware of just how important it is to understand your body at a deeper level, because if you are a protein type and were to eat broccoli, the other effects of broccoli might push your metabolic biochemistry in the wrong direction and thus override its benefits.
What’s the Best Way to Eat Broccoli?
If you want to get even more of broccoli’s benefits, opt for the sprouts. Just 5 grams (0.17 ounces) of broccoli sprouts contain concentrations of the compound glucoraphanin (a precursor to sulforaphane) equal to that found in 150 grams (5.2 ounces) of mature broccoli.
If you opt to eat mature broccoli, keep in mind that the way you cook it can greatly alter its nutrient content. Lightly steaming this vegetable should keep most of its phytonutrients intact, but if you decide to microwave it you could be reducing the beneficial compounds by 74-90 percent.
You can always just eat broccoli raw, of course, and this will ensure that most all of its phytonutrients are intact.
Other Natural Methods to Prevent Diabetes and Protect Your Heart
Eating broccoli and other veggies is only one small piece of the puzzle when it comes to keeping healthy.
Swapping out your grains and sugar for high-quality sources of protein, healthy fat (which INCLUDES saturated fat) and vegetables according to your nutritional type, all of which is outlined in our new Fit For Life® Individualized Weight Management Analyzation Program, is also essential, and especially important for those with diabetes.
Next, add in regular exercise. This, combined with diet, will help you to shed excess weight, and a weight loss of 10 pounds can reduce your risk of diabetes by nearly 60 percent.
Diet and exercise are your two keys to preventing both heart disease and diabetes, but the third factor, especially for heart disease, is your emotions. Stress is the most common cause of heart attacks, so make sure you know how to keep your emotions under control using methods like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), meditation, or even just a long soak in the tub with a really good book.
