Encore Episode: How Does Blood Sugar Affect The Brain?
Episode 148
Blood sugar, or glucose, is the main sugar found in your blood and is used as energy by your cells. However low or high blood sugar levels are associated with a variety of serious health issues. This week on Integrative Wellness Radio, Dr. Nicole and Dr. Nick talk about the connection between blood sugar and its effects on the brain. Both doctors dive into various symptoms and give us an insight into the potential root of various blood sugar issues and how that relates to your cognitive function. Tune in as the duo focuses on how to better your brain and have optimum blood sugar levels. Interested in working with IWG? Book a complimentary consult call to learn more using this link: https://bit.ly/IWRcall2022 Noteworthy Time Stamps: 01:09 Dr. Nicole’s personal journey 03:23 What induces Type 3 Diabetes 10:24 Pancreas and parasite 18:03 What does hyperglycemia does to insulin resistance? 25:28 Most of us have settled for feeling like crap 32:03 All blood sugar problems are not separate entities 42:50 Everything affects everything
Topics: blood, sugar, brain, health, unknown, type, episode, integrative
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## Encore Episode: How Does Blood Sugar Affect The Brain?
- Fluctuations in blood sugar significantly influence cognitive abilities, including memory, focus, and mood.
- Understanding the interplay between the pancreas, blood sugar regulation, and even parasitic influence can offer a new perspective on health.
- Hyperglycemia can exacerbate insulin resistance, creating a challenging cycle for the body and brain.
- Many common health complaints may stem from underlying blood sugar dysregulation, often accepted as normal.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Nick and Dr. **Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey.
Hello, everyone. **Unknown:** Welcome back to another episode of Integrative Wellness Radio.
Transcript
**Unknown:** I've been up all night, no sleep. Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr.
**Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey. Feel like I'm always dreaming. Sometimes I tend to lose myself when I'm out here on my own. Hello, everyone.
**Unknown:** Welcome back to another episode of Integrative Wellness Radio. I am here with Dr. Nick. Hello, hello.
**Unknown:** And we are going to be talking about how blood sugar affects the brain. Unfortunately, there has been such a rise in depression, anxiety, and also everything from dementia to Alzheimer's, and I think that it, it is something that is becoming very scary for people because they're seeing it in their family and they're wondering, are they next? And I know that part of my personal journey, I had always had symptoms of hypoglycemia, and not that I knew it. Uh, I knew it obviously as I became more educated and I got into this world of integrative and functional medicine.
**Unknown:** And when I was dealing with, you know, just finding my memory wasn't as good and I wasn't able to concentrate as well, and kind of beat myself up that I wasn't able to excel as fast as my peers in school, I found myself thinking there was something wrong with me, and not necessarily realizing that there were other pieces to the puzzle. Um, one of them was actually mercury toxicity, which I'll touch upon shortly, but that had a lot to do with my massive fish consumption, um, didn't know that all sushi was not created equal. Um, but more importantly, it actually had a lot to do with the major instability in my blood sugar. And for me, I was more in this hypoglycemic state, and I'm gonna go through the symptoms of that, but it really doesn't matter.
**Unknown:** It could be that you are hypoglycemic, hyper, meaning too much blood sugar or too much sugar in the blood, um, diabetic, either type 1 or type 2, meaning the autoadi- autoimmune version or the acquired version, or you are developing something called insulin resistance. So again, we're going to expand upon what those mean, but the biggest key is for you to take away, do you have a blood sugar problem? Do you have cognitive effects because of the blood sugar problem? What can you do about it, and how can you start to see improvement?
**Unknown:** Cool. Got anything for us? I would just like to add, y- let's talk about type 3 as well. Yes.
**Unknown:** Well, what they're actually talking about in the research now, and Dr. Perlmutter was one of the, uh, physicians who wrote a paper about it most recently, is they're actually calling, uh, Alzheimer's and dementia potentially being type 3 diabetes. Yep. All the research is saying type 3 diabetes and dementia are 100% correlated, which- Yeah ...
**Unknown:** makes 100% sense. I mean, we'll take a step back but give an overview. Really, type 3 diabetes is lifestyle, um, brought on, you know, blood sugar problems. That's too much, too much sugar, and when we have that increase, that hyperglycemia, it actually has the opposite effect on the brain.
**Unknown:** So it's like increased sugar, decreased brain size. Mm. Decreased brain size, increased inflammation. With that, a laundry list of, um, things- Mm-hmm ...
**Unknown:** that actually start functioning improperly, but with that you have all the signs and symptoms of dementia. Mm-hmm. So long story short is when your lifestyle brings on even beyond type 2, type 3 diabetes, uh, you're gonna have dementia. Yeah.
**Unknown:** Well- First and foremost, the brain does run on glucose, and something we actually talked about in our last podcast is that too much of anything is not a good thing. So when your brain runs on glucose, it's a very specific type of glucose, which I wanna talk about the American diet and the sugar that's hidden in a lot of our foods. But if you have this overabundance of glucose that cannot be used properly, which comes back to insulin, then that's where your problem lies. And like Dr.
**Unknown:** Nick said, you're gonna have this neurodegeneration. So with that being said is, yes, glucose is important, but it can become a problem in excess if other pathways are not working properly. But before we go into that, I wanna kind of establish a foundation here because first of all is you might be listening to this and say, "I can relate to feeling really foggy and having some cognitive issues and having memory loss, but I don't eat sugar. I don't eat a lot of sugar.
**Unknown:** I never have. So how could I have type 3 diabetes?" And part of that is it comes back to the pancreas, and your pancreas can dysfunction not necessarily because of too much sugar, but because of other problems in your gastrointestinal system, which again, we're gonna, we're gonna touch on. But when it- You love making things complicated. Well, no, it's important.
**Unknown:** Yeah. It's very important. Um, but when we do wanna talk about the change over time is when we go back to our genetics and we go back to the foundation of our bodies, our bodies and our genetic, genetics haven't changed too much over, you know, the past few hundred years. And we went from this hunter/gatherer type of lifestyle that, you know, we pretty much worked with the seasons.
**Unknown:** We ate what was available, and we ate a lot more plants, and we ate the animal protein when it was available.And we went from that to then this American diet, and don't get me wrong, it's other places in the world, but we have so much hidden sugar in everything that we consume. And I know for me, I remember thinking back when I got into school and we were talking a lot about nutrition, and I remember thinking, "Well, you know, I didn't, I'm not a sugar person. I don't eat pastries. I don't have a sweet tooth." I, I couldn't relate to any of that.
**Unknown:** And I remember sitting back one day and thinking like, "Oh my gosh, my sugar consumption is through what I drink." And it's not s- it wasn't soda. It wasn't even milk. It was the, uh, Starbucks lattes. Oh, yeah.
**Unknown:** You know, a, a mocha latte was like a dream to me. It was like the best thing in the world. And not only was I getting sugar from the syrup, but I was also getting sugar from the milk. And what was more eye-opening to me is when I started to become more aware, I shifted and was like, "I'm just gonna get a regular latte, none of the syrups," et cetera.
**Unknown:** And I started to go dairy-free, and I started to do the almond or coconut milks. And I remember making myself a latte at home, a coconut milk latte, and thinking like, "Wow, this is kind of bitter." It ha- it was not sweet at all. And then I went to a local coffee shop, and I had a coconut latte, and I was like, "Did you add sugar to this?" And they responded with, "No." And when I lo- I asked them to look at the coconut milk, and there was literally 30 grams of sugar in the coconut milk. Yeah.
**Unknown:** And even just regular dairy is the same. Like, if you wanna jump on, like, YouTube, there's amazing video, it's old now, um, but the guy talked about like, "This is how much the standard American diet- It was Jamie Oliver, who's a, a famous chef ... Okay, sorry, I couldn't remember who it was, um, like, had a handful of sugar cubes like, "This is what you get in a day, and then like this is what you get in a week, in a month." And then he came out with like a wheelbarrow of sugar cubes and like, "This is how much your kid is consuming of sugar just via- It is, yeah ... just via milk in a year.
**Unknown:** Yeah. Well- And like that's just milk. Like, think of all the other crap that we eat, whether it's hidden or not. Like, that's a lot of wheelbarrows.
**Unknown:** Yeah. Like- That's what was crazy, is he dumped the wheelbarrow and was like, "This is how much sugar your kid gets in a year from milk," and we were all like, "What?" Mic drop. Yeah, exactly. So, so again, when we, when we sit back and we say, "I'm not a sugar person, I'm not a pastry person, I'm not the sweet tooth person," chances are you're still getting exposed to a boatload of sugar if you know it or you don't.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. So, okay, so- But then also I thought you were gonna go in the pancreas with just like, not to get off tangent. My favorite, my favorite thing to do is to get off tangent. Um, but you have a whole lymphatic system that covers all of your, your entire body, especially all of your organ systems.
**Unknown:** So it's like infections in the body a lot of times will travel through this lymphatic system. So it's like if you have an infection in your stomach, it's right next to your pancreas. Yeah. So it's really easy from an infection to go from the stomach to the pancreas, and that can alone cause, you know, an, an imbalance.
**Unknown:** Geez, Nick, I was gonna get there. I'm sorry. You just like jumped right in. Doh.
**Unknown:** Okay. So yeah, so you are 100% correct. When it comes to... A- and just to kind of give you something more relatable is when you have an infection in your stomach, if, again, if you know it or you don't, that's one of the big culprits bet- behind indigestion, heartburn, reflux.
**Unknown:** So what I often see in practice is that people have those types of symptoms. Some people have it really bad. Some people have it come and go. Some people say, "No, I used to have that." But regardless of however long that problem was there, that bacteria that was hanging out in your stomach causing those symptoms, that can eventually make its way into the pancreas 'cause the pancreas and the stomach are connected, let alone the lymphatic system being part of that puzzle.
**Unknown:** Yeah. I mean, I've even found liver flukes, a liver parasite, affecting somebody's pancreas. Yeah. So it's like you never know.
**Unknown:** There, and one of the most common parasites that we see affecting the pancreas, I'll talk about parasites in a second, but one of the most common that we see is something called giardia. Giardia is a parasite that you can be exposed to from your pets, from cats and dogs especially. So when it- You can get it in water, you can get it- Yeah ... a lot of places.
**Unknown:** And it's very, um, easily to be transmitted. So when it comes to this concept of parasites is parasites are thought to be not common, and it's like, "Oh, well, I didn't go to the, go to Mexico, drink the water, and get sick." So we kind of assume that we can only get parasites outside of the country, and that's 100% not true. You can get parasite exposure from water contamination, and that doesn't even just mean drinking it. That means swimming in it as well.
**Unknown:** And you can get it from your pets. You can get it from sushi. You can get it from bad meat. Literally, the sky is the limit with the exposure.
**Unknown:** But interesting enough, for those of you that are like, "Oh, well, you know, I don't have parasites," so if you notice people acting crazy around a full moon, and we go, "Oh, must be a full moon. Everyone's acting really crazy. Everyone's driving like lunatics," that is because parasites are the most active under a full moon. So does everybody in Jersey have parasites 'cause they're all- ...
**Unknown:** cra- crazy lunatic drivers? I think we are effective drivers. That's what I say. But more serious, a recent study actually just came out, one in four people have parasites.
**Unknown:** Yeah. So it is not uncommon, and if you are the person that has gone and gotten blood work, and your doctor is telling you you're pre-diabetic or even diabetic, and you're sitting back going, "I don't even eat that much sugar, and I never have," you need to get checked to see if your pancreas is dealing with a bacterial or a parasite issue because that is the culprit as to why the pancreas is dysfunctioning in the first place.So when it comes to this blood sugar instability concept outside of the pancreas dealing with an infection, then we have this hypoglycemic, hyperglycemic, and then we also have diabetes. But even when it comes to the hyper and hypoglycemic, this can have a lot to do with the pancreas functioning or dysfunctioning. It can also have a lot to do with our diet.
**Unknown:** And I don't wanna just say what you eat, but also how you eat. 'Cause I know for me, dealing with the hypoglycemia, meaning low blood sugar, I was the person who woke up in the morning, I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat. And then intermittent fasting became really cool, so then I was like, "Oh, well I'm intermittent fasting, so now I have an excuse for why I don't eat in the morning." And then- But if, but if you intermittent fast every single day, this is like a big problem people do, is they- Yeah ... intermittent fast or they think like, "Oh, intermittent fasting, there's so many benefits of it, I'll do it every single day." Yes.
**Unknown:** And then that challenge doesn't become a challenge anymore, it becomes your actually normal. So your body holds onto sugar better- Mm-hmm ... so that you actually don't get into burning fat as well. So that disrupts your blood sugar balance even worse.
**Unknown:** So what is the best approach for the intermittent fasting? How many times a week? Everybody's different, but I would say like max probably three times- Yeah ... you know, honestly.
**Unknown:** Yeah. And I think that's just so important for people to know, because when it comes to the intermittent fasting, it is such a craze, and it has massive, massive benefits, but you can start to not have those benefits if you're doing it too much. Right. Yeah.
**Unknown:** So for me, I was doing it every day, hence some of the issues, but I also was getting to a point in my day that I was starving, and that was because my blood sugar dropped dramatically. And then because I was in that starvation mode, I was eating an abundance, more than I normally would, and then I was massively spiking my blood sugar. So if I, if you're relating to this, but you're also a person who is eating at lunchtime, then a big bowl of rice, or you're eating a sandwich, and you're eating a lot of carbohydrates, you're spiking your blood sugar so massively, and then you're going to come down crashing, AKA, you're gonna need coffee or need a nap in the middle of the day. And then in addition, you find yourself going home, eating dinner, and what do you want after?
**Unknown:** You want sugar. You want something sweet. You have to have something sweet. And you're just kind of further spiraling your blood sugar issues.
**Unknown:** And I know this very well, because I, that was me. So in addition to that, when it comes to the hyperglycemia, I'm gonna let Nick talk a little bit more about that. 'Cause I And, and- I would say that Nick was hyperglycemic probably most of his life. We're a balance, you know.
**Unknown:** She was hypo- Growing up in Iowa ... I was hyper. Um, I mean, hyper is pretty simply put, like you're just consuming tons of sugar. Um, and that was me growing up.
**Unknown:** I mean, I would say ironically looking at the milk, my family went through about, especially when, and I have two little brothers, when we were all at the house, we were averaging about 13 gallons of milk a week. Yeah. That's crazy. That is crazy.
**Unknown:** That's a, that's a lot more than just one wheelbarrow just of milk. Um, yeah, that's disgusting. Um, and it took me a long time to, to work on my gastrointestinal issues from everything. Um, but besides that, so- Oh, in addition, why don't you tell them what you used to do at night with, with Dad, your, uh, your dessert.
**Unknown:** Oh, yeah. Des- After dinner we'd sit down and take a, uh, ice cream, sometimes in a bowl, sometimes it was just in the pint and we'd share it with a spoon. Um- Yeah ... but you know, eat more dairy.
**Unknown:** Yeah. And eat more sugar. So talk about sugar just from- Yeah ... those two sources, let alone everything else.
**Unknown:** And then it could, you know, you're drinking your soda, your pop, your Coke, whatever you wanna call it. Mm. Um, and that has tons of not even actual sugar, just, you know, high fructose corn syrup- Mm-hmm ... which is a whole other story that we could talk about and how it affects us differently.
**Unknown:** Um, but it's just, yeah, compounding, and then, you know, you think that you're actually not having any sugar 'cause none of it's candy. I mean- Yeah ... the ice cream, uh, I guess is, but sometimes even as a kid or, you don't even think of it as candy- Mm ... 'cause it's not like wrapped up in something or a candy bar or something like that.
**Unknown:** So then it's like, you know, you have some cookies or you have this, and then it's like end of the day if you tally all that up- Mm-hmm ... like wow, that's a lot of awareness that, yeah- Well, and if you had a sandwich, and then you had pasta for dinner, or you had a piece of bread with dinner, like- Right ... all of that is still converting into glucose. Yeah.
**Unknown:** So, but it's the, you know, it's, it's a little bit more so with the hyper, like excess glucose that starts to compromise the insulin. Mm-hmm. So just to clarify what insulin does, is insulin's made by your pancreas, but insulin allows your brain and your other organs to use the sugar properly. So if the insulin is not there, then the sugar just floats around in the blood and creates a massive amount of inflammation.
**Unknown:** Inflammation is like this puffiness, makes your joints achy, makes your body hurt, makes your brain foggy. It c- And if you look at old pictures of me, I was like a little puff ball. You were. Your mom looked at a picture of me and she's like, she didn't even know it was me.
**Unknown:** She's like, "What?" I... Oh my God. I'm like, "Yeah, thanks Shel, that was, that was me." Yeah. I think she actually called you fat, but I won't- Yeah.
**Unknown:** We're in, we're in, in Jersey, we kinda just say whatever we want here. Mm. But, so with that though, when you go into these long-standing periods of the hyperglycemia, then you can actually start to develop the insulin resistance, which, you know, really kind of spirals the, the issue even more. So now maybe you're hyperglycemic for a long time, you start to not have your insulin work very well, and you-Decide to make a lifestyle change, and you're like, "Oh, well I really need to cut down the sugar, and I need to, you know, go dairy-free, and I need to do all of those things." But unfortunately, the insulin is already compromised, so now even despite you shifting into a better lifestyle, you might not be feeling the benefits that you hope for, and it's because there's some serious repair that needs to be done to actually get the insulin working again.
**Unknown:** And that happens almost, like, on ev- every single aspect of the body. You know? Yeah. It's like we finally hit this threshold that, like, wow, life kind of sucks right now, and I'm in a lot of pain.
**Unknown:** Something's, you know, forcing me to change, and I make all these great changes, but at the same time it's like it wasn't, wasn't that great of a change. I'm feeling awesome. Yeah. You know?
**Unknown:** I still don't feel... So it's a lot- Well, I think that's where it comes in, is being able to have a better guide and have better testing. When you actually can understand about, okay, is your pancreas stressed because of all the residual effects from your past lifestyle and your diet, or is your pancreas stressed because of a bacterial infection? When you have that clarity and you have a strategy, you can 100% heal and get better quite quickly, but it's really just a matter of knowing, you know, what the, the biggest issue is.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. And, you know, when it comes to this insulin resistance concept, one of the visuals to keep in mind is this is the people that are holding a lot of weight in their midsection. They're holding a lot of weight in the abdomen, especially the lower belly. Especially in females, we're holding a lot of weight in the hips and the thigh area, and we're finding that it's extremely, extremely difficult to get rid of this, no matter what our efforts are when it comes to working out or dietary changes.
**Unknown:** So that is actually an indicator that your insulin is not working properly. Mm-hmm. So, um, so outside of that, when it comes to the concept of diabetes- Can I add one more thing- Yeah, sure ... before that?
**Unknown:** So it's like dealing with a lot of brain issues, uh, especially, like, whether it's a concussion or a stroke or any, like, actual brain- Mm-hmm ... um, trauma that occurs, that a lot of times doing the history you'll find that blood sugar's always an underlying problem. And it's like even my own story, that way I don't use somebody else's, but I had about 13 different concussions. And kind of going through that and now, like, realizing the past, uh, sugar issues that I had, and sugar decreases the size of the brain and adds that much more stress, it's like a lot of times you'll find that most doctors, physicians, they're looking at, like, a post-concussion syndrome like you shouldn't, you shouldn't have this many effects.
**Unknown:** You know, it was just a concussion. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't even... It was a minor concussion, a chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
**Unknown:** Like, you weren't even concussed. You didn't black out. Like, like, for you to be sad or have these anger issues, it c- it's not connected. And it's like you're only looking at one piece- Yeah ...
**Unknown:** of the stress on the brain, and it was that stress that took it over the threshold that allowed you to be depressed or allowed you to have these under- under-resolved just anger issues. And once you're able to really dig deep and put all the pieces and, like, yeah, your, your brain was stressed from sugar issues. Your brain was, you know, stressed from gastrointestinal issues. Your brain was stressed from brain trauma.
**Unknown:** Your brain was stressed from having the emotional issues of, you know, why can't nobody figure me out? Yeah. Like, I don't feel good. I'm angry.
**Unknown:** I'm depressed. I, I'm all over the place. And you're being told that you're fine. You're told that you're fine and it's- It's in your head ...
**Unknown:** it's all emotional. Mm-hmm. And then you go see, you know, a psychiatrist, and you talk about your problems, but your problems were literally never emotional in the first place, and now you have an emotional problem, that it, it's just... it's a lot of stress onto the system that it's, unless you're able to really, you know, navigate through all of the pieces and help which one at a certain specific time and point when necessary, it's like you're not gonna fully resolve and get your life back.
**Unknown:** So it's- Mm-hmm ... you know, not to, like, get too deep down this hole, but it's just, like, it's very personal that if you, if you don't evaluate all of those pieces together, like, you're not gonna get out of your depression. You're, you're gonna have this anger that's just not allowing you to be free, and you're, you're trapped in a prison. And I just know that personally, 'cause that's where I was at, and I had to figure it out myself because nobody was able to put those pieces of the puzzle together.
**Unknown:** Yeah. So it's like, you know, blood sugar, we, diabetes, oh, but it's actually, like, it can cause tons of really severe, uh, issues, and people aren't looking at all of, all of them together. Well, and I think your story is very relatable to probably a lot of people that are listening, is, you know, there's a lot of people that have had some level of a head injury. You know, even for me, I wasn't a, a huge athlete, but I had some really significant snowboarding injuries.
**Unknown:** And, you know, and nobody necessarily talks to you about what can happen after when it comes to a post-concussion syndrome. They're a little bit more aware of it now, but when I left that hospital, nobody told me to be careful with my sugar intake, I'll tell you that. Right. So, you know, when it comes to the residual effects of brain injuries, and then we have the compounding factors of is your blood sugar unstable, is it low, is it too high, are you pre-diabetic, uh, and then on top of it there's, you know, you have gut issues and you have inflammatory issues, it's, it's definitely a compounding factor.
**Unknown:** And it- And it, and it re- works in the reverse. You know, if you have a brain trauma, then that can affect the part of the brain that's also gonna not allow the proper signaling to the pancreas. Mm-hmm. So it's being able to evaluate, you know- Which is which ...
**Unknown:** do you work on both? Do you work on just one first? Like, what's, what's really gonna help someone? And that was the last podcast that we did last week, was more so talking about how if you are struggling with getting your gut better- Right ...
**Unknown:** it could be a brain problem. And that- And- ... that vagus nerve, we didn't talk about the pancreas, but that vagus nerve goes- Mm-hmm ... to the pancreas as well.
**Unknown:** So it's literally- Yeah Extremely important So I guess like the point of even th- what we're saying right now is it really should be eye-opening to those of, uh, you listening because when it comes to medicine and assuming that all of our systems are separate and that we are going to find a solution, find a cure, or find success by looking at the brain separately from the gut, and then looking at the endocrine system separate from the pancreas, 'cause technically the pancreas is part of the endocrine system. I- if we're trying to separate the systems and think that they don't communicate with each other, that's where we run into problems, and that's where, you know, our system just allows us to sit back and say, "This is a lifetime condition. This is a lifetime disease, and you just have to manage it through medication, and that's your only option." And it's not... That- that's not the only solution.
**Unknown:** There... When you truly understand how the body works, you understand basic physiology, you do better testing, you can actually piece the puzzle together and give people an actual solution to get better. And you know, what frustrates me is that most of us have just settled for feeling like crap. We've just settled for the brain fog.
**Unknown:** We've settled for the fatigue. We've settled for the loss of memory. We've settled for the gut issues that come and go. We've just settled for it, and it's partly because of the way we've been programmed and all of these, you know, ridiculous commercials about, you know, "Oh, just take this medication." And then secondary to that is all of our friends and family feel like crap too.
**Unknown:** Everybody's just like, "Oh, well, isn't everybody tired? Oh, doesn't everybody have indigestion? Doesn't everybody get bloated after they eat pasta?" It's normal. Exactly.
**Unknown:** We've normalized it, and one of our biggest missions is to have people ask for more, demand more out of their healthcare because this doesn't have to be the normal. It just takes a matter of stepping outside of the box and being able to truly understand what your body needs. There's my tangent. So, um, when it comes to diabetes, obviously diabetes is not necessarily much different than what we've been talking about so far, but the diabetes is just a hyperglycemic state that became very, very progressed to the point that there is actual damage to the pancreatic tissue.
**Unknown:** But when it comes to the autoimmune version of diabetes, which is called Type 1 diabetes, this is usually happens very, very early on y- at a young age. But they've actually had quite a few cases of Type 1 manifesting later in life. S- Why do you, why do you think that is? So we're doing a webinar right now, um, that has been all about the gut, and the webinar that I just did this week on Tuesday was actually all about the autoimmune gut conditions.
**Unknown:** And one of the things that I talked about is just the foundation of autoimmunity. And just clinically what I've seen, and honestly i- it's what I feel like makes sense, and it always applies to my clinical cases, is that when somebody is dealing with an autoimmune condition, it's just kind of assumes that we have no idea why it happened. We have no idea, um, you know, what is the root cause, and it just happens. And the only science that has been talked about is this concept of molecular mimicry.
**Unknown:** So what that means is that your immune system sometimes gets confused and just starts to think that your thyroid tissue is a foreign invader and starts to attack it. In my mind, it's like, well, why? Why would that happen? And if we wanna talk about that it's all stemmed back to leaky gut, yeah, maybe, but I personally find that when the immune system is doing its job, the immune system is attacking bad things.
**Unknown:** It's attacking infections. It's attacking toxins. It's a, a, it's attacking foreign substances. That's its job.
**Unknown:** That's always been its job. So if you have an infection in an area, in a specific tissue, maybe it's in your stomach, maybe it's in your pancreas, maybe it's in your thyroid, then it makes sense that if the immune system is doing its job to try to fight the infection, but it's almost like that organ is in a bad neighborhood, or it's in the line of fire, then that tissue is gonna start to become damaged and inflamed. When it's damaged and inflamed, that's when you see the antibodies that come up in the blood work. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** So if you had a stomach problem that was just deemed as, "Oh, you have indigestion. You have high stomach acid," but at the end of the day the right testing was never done, and it was truly a bacterial problem, one of the most popular bacterias in the stomach is H. pylori. So if that H.
**Unknown:** pylori, and I should say E. coli as well. If those bacterias were in the stomach, they were there long enough that they started to affect the pancreas, I guess 'cause, again, they're connected. So it starts to affect the pancreas.
**Unknown:** The immune system is just like, "Get it out. Get it out. Get it out," trying to do its job. And now we're starting to have damage to the pancreatic tissue, and then we start having damage to the beta cells.
**Unknown:** Now we don't have insulin anymore because the beta cells make the insulin, and boom, now we have Type 1 diabetes. So w- Why do you feel like that happens, I mean, most of the time at such a young age, like Type 1 being more genetic? You know, it's hard to say, but you know, when it comes down to kids that have, um-Reflux- Mm-hmm ... issues W- like most of those babies would probably have like colicky and a lot of other issues Yeah, colic, reflux, uh, babies.
**Unknown:** Like they have something going on in their gut. Mm-hmm. I don't know what they have going on in their gut unless they're my patient. But for us to assume that like, "Oh, s- just some babies get reflux," or, "Some babies are colic and then others are not," and we just say, "Oh, it's just normal." No, there's a reason.
**Unknown:** Your kid is in pain, that's why it's crying. Um, and the same thing goes for your baby is spitting something up because there's something wrong in the stomach. And then a lot of times it, it, they say it's physical, "Oh, the sphincter isn't working," and then the kid ends up getting surgery, when at the end of the day it was always a bacterial or infectious problem. So you might be thinking, "Well, how does that happen to an infant?" So first of all, if an infant is born in a hospital, there are many opportunities for bacteria.
**Unknown:** If the child was a C-section and did not go through the vaginal tract, that means that that child was not exposed to all of the protective bacteria that was in mom's vaginal canal. Mm-hmm. And so the baby has no protection, then gets handled by a bunch of hospital administration, which all, they have all different types of microbes all over their hands, bodies, gloves, et cetera. So there, it's a perfect storm for the possibility of bad bacteria.
**Unknown:** And looking, I mean, I'm always looking at the nervous system 'cause that's just my- Mm-hmm ... expertise. And it's also, as the baby comes out of the womb, like that squeeze activates all of the enteric nervous system. And it's like you don't- Enteric is the gut nervous system, by the way ...
**Unknown:** sorry, thank you. So you don't have that stimulation- ... so it's never firing. And if, a nerve's just like a muscle, you know.
**Unknown:** If you can't fire a muscle, it's not necessarily you don't have a strong muscle, it's just that the brain can't actually communicate with that muscle. Mm-hmm. So it's the same thing with an organ system. Like if the brain can't actually communicate with the pancreas or the stomach and say, "Hey, we're supposed to do this," it's not gonna do it, and then you're gonna have compounding problems.
**Unknown:** Definitely. So with that, you know, that's all really important to just understand the manifestation of diabetes, and also the potential for Type 1. But, you know, the moral of the story is, is if you have hyperglycemia, if you have hypoglycemia, if you have diabetes Type 1 or 2, you're going to have massive issues with your blood sugar, which is then going to massively impact your brain. So they're not separate entities.
**Unknown:** If you are having depression, anxiety, other more significant neurological conditions, um, or you're just having loss of memory and massive brain fog, you have to look at how well this system is working, and is your blood sugar playing a significant role in that? So I'll let you kind of talk about your story as well with kind of some of the approaches that you take, because we're, you know, kind of flip-flopped. Mm-hmm. I know for me, when I really took charge of my blood sugar, being hypo, meaning low, I really had to be, make an effort to eat in a certain way.
**Unknown:** Because for me, it wasn't about what I was eating, it was more about how I was eating. So what I started doing was I started to lean more towards a ketogenic diet. So I started to cut out a good amount of the carbohydrates so I wasn't having massive spikes when I was eating. Because if you're hypoglycemic, you might think, "Well, don't you need more sugar, so eat more carbs?" But that's not really how it works.
**Unknown:** If I keep eating these carbohydrates with low blood sugar, and spiking and dropping, that's gonna cause more problems. So I started to move towards using a lot of protein, fats, and carbohydrates strictly from vegetable sources. But first and foremost, I started to eat within 20 minutes of waking up, and I did not have coffee, tea, or anything else, or juice. I know everybody loves celery juice right now.
**Unknown:** Nothing else before. Yeah. I just would eat some type of ketogenic breakfast. Like today we actually had, um, cauliflower rice mixed with a bunch of veggies, and we had scrambled eggs on top.
**Unknown:** And then yesterday we had, it's actually delicious. It's like a taco frittata, like a ground beef taco seasoning with, um, a raw cheddar on top in like pretty much as a frittata, and then a scoop of, um, organic sour cream. So don't get me wrong, I'm dairy-free most of the time, but there's select, if I can get really, really good quality dairy, I actually get a lot of our dairy from an Amish farm, then I'll consume it in small amounts. But waking up, eating right away, making sure that it is protein and fat oriented is super, super important for balancing the blood sugar.
**Unknown:** And then making sure that my three main meals of the day are going to be heavier in the protein, veggies, and very light in the carbohydrates. Um, I personally am not a big snacker. I know that there are many people that are hypoglycemic that are probably more severe than I am, and they need to eat frequently through the day. I personally, my body doesn't need that.
**Unknown:** But if you are that person, my two kind of go-tos to make sure that you're getting, you know, the, that fat, protein, and balancing the blood sugar, is these, uh, little energy balls. Um, actually I'll shout out Nutrition by Sam. Her website is fantastic. She actually is our clinical nutritionist at Integrative Wellness Group.
**Unknown:** But she makes these, um, little balls that are, uh, kind of- Delicious They're so good. But they're a culmination of like nuts and seeds and chia, and like they all... She has all different flavors, but you make those in a batch and you kind of keep them in the fridge, and they're so easy to consume. And then the other thing is, is I'll just literally have like roasted chicken or hard-boiled eggs, and I'll use those as a snack if I need to.
**Unknown:** So those are some key things to, to keep in mind. Um, and if you are gravitating towards like, if you want to embark on this concept but you're more vegetarian, check out Dr. Will Cole's book, because his book is about being keto for a vegetarian, um, which is really helpful. So you can still encompass the concepts without eating a lot of animal protein.
**Unknown:** Yeah. And I mean, looking at my storyI'm a little more probably complex than you. I did not drink 13 gallons of milk a week, so It, it's, you know, I had tons of digestive problems from my diet growing up, Midwest diet, and I had tons of brain issues from 13 concussions. Like, that's just a small part of my story.
**Unknown:** I had a, a, a lot of things to, to kind of overhaul. Um, but from, from that, the interesting part of it is that I've actually had many different diets. Like, part, part of my life I've been paleo, part of my life I've been keto, part of my life I've been vegan, vegetarian. Like, and, and understanding that, for me, you know, it was kind of my, I guess, progression to understand that, you know, one thing's great, but you should never identify yourself with being just a vegan or being just a vegetarian, 'cause it can be great for you- Mm-hmm ...
**Unknown:** at a certain point in your life, but that doesn't mean that's where you're gonna be six months to a year- Yeah ... two years from now. Like, use it for what's gonna benefit you at the time, but understand that that's not you. That's a diet.
**Unknown:** And utilize something that's gonna help you, but then move on and utilize what's gonna help you become a better version of you next. Mm-hmm. Um, and if, I mean, unless you wanna be who you were yesterday, do the same thing. But if you wanna be something different, then we have to make changes in life.
**Unknown:** Um, and part of that's, quote-unquote, changing your identity, whether that's just... 'Cause it's really our emotions that drive everything. Uh, so being able to change our emotional connections to who we were yesterday to what we're gonna do today to be somebody different, um- And our food. Yeah, and that's- We all have emotional connections to food.
**Unknown:** Yeah, and that's, I mean, honestly, that's all food is, and when you look at it. Like, we don't need that many calories, um, to survive. Uh- Yeah. It's just, I mean, everything's energy, but it's like if you look at Chinese, you know, Eastern medicine, like they use breath to circulate energy.
**Unknown:** Like, we sit all day and we sit leaning back. Like, you know, the Chinese, they don't have backs to the chairs, so they're constantly sitting up to allow their ribcage to open up so they can breathe and circulate energy around. Like, they're just a lot more efficient, and, and doing so, you don't need as many calories, uh, to give you, quote-unquote, the energy you need to move. But I think even when we were in Europe, we just found that people were more in tune with food because of their culture.
**Unknown:** Like, when we were in France, like we can look at the French and think they're so gluttonous because all they do is like drink wine, eat cheese, and drink espresso. But what I found so fascinating is that, you know, there were little things that they do to actually stabilize the blood sugar. So, like as an example, they, every time after a meal, they, like you literally could not leave a restaurant unless you had an espresso. Like, even if you said, "No, I don't want espresso," they would not bring you the bill- ...
**Unknown:** until you decided that you want an espresso. And it's primarily because the espresso is bitter, so it helps you digest, and they would always give you like a little cookie because they wanted to make sure that you had that satiation when it came to like the sweet so you were not craving the sweet later, or even craving- In order to do it, yeah. Exactly. Because, I mean, it, it was tiny.
**Unknown:** It was- Yeah ... yeah. It was just like so fascinating to me that they just were so much more in tune with how digestion works. And- And I'm, I'm not certain on the facts, but it's like espresso doesn't really honestly have that much caffeine, especially just a single shot.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. It's just like, you know, it's a, a quarter or a third of- Yeah ... whatever. It's a digestive.
**Unknown:** Yeah. That's what they call it. So it's not like coffee that's crazy high in caffeine. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** Yeah. Yeah. So I guess jumping back to my story is like I, I jumped around on, quote-unquote, a lot of different diets of what my body really needed, you know, at certain times. There was times where I was, you know, really crazy into fasting, and I would intermittent fast and then I would, you know, do the actual fasting of going two, three days of, you know, just doing a water fast.
**Unknown:** And then there was times where I was keto and giving my brain all these, you know, animal fats and everything that it needed. And so it's, it's really just transitioning to what stage your body needs to be able to heal, and then it's like layers of an onion. Like, all right, I've moved through this stage. What's gonna benefit me next?
**Unknown:** So. But you were quite hangry for many years. Oh, well- So what do you feel like has helped your hangriness the most? Like, literally so hangry.
**Unknown:** Well, I mean- The, the, the big part was transitioning off of d- being dependent on the sugars. I mean- Mm ... when we crave something, it, it's, usually we're craving a bad thing, but it's when you look at it for what it is, the awareness is telling you, you know, you're craving salt, you're craving sweet, you're craving, you know, sugar. Like, you're craving something because there's an imbalance in the system.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. And like once you can be aware of that and not necessarily go for what we're craving, but understanding why we're craving it, and then, you know, help balance out those deficiencies, that's, that's when my hangriness, uh, really stopped. Well, I think, I w- I'm, I love what you just said because I think it's really important to understand kind of the vicious cycle of this insulin sugar concept, because your brain runs on glucose. And if you don't have glucose in the mix, sugar meaning, then it will start to run on ketones, which is the whole premise of the ketogenic diet.
**Unknown:** But if you are someone who is craving sugar a lot, especially kids, um, especially kids with like autism and ADD and things like that, is you're craving it for a reason, because your brain wants more glucose or needs more glucose. But the problem is, is if your insulin doesn't work and your insulin is not allowing for the brain to use the glucose, then you're craving it, you're eating it, and then it's just floating around causing more problems 'cause your insulin is not working properly. So, so it's really important to kind of understand that your body is very intuitive, and it is gonna crave the things that it needs, but if you're that person who is constantly craving the sugar, to do a reset, you might need to be ketogenic for a short time to kind of reset how your insulin is working before you can-Actually use the sugar properly that you are consuming. Right.
**Unknown:** And before that, you might have to do some liver support and gallbladder support. Mm-hmm. Because when you do something so heavy in protein and fat, that stresses your gallbladder and liver out. Yeah.
**Unknown:** So it's like you kinda have to look at everything. Well, lucky I just wrote an article. Wow. You're so awesome.
**Unknown:** I actually just wrote an article, um, for Mindbodygreen, so check it out. And it was about is keto safe, and one of the things that I, I talked about its safety because you have to understand, like, a condition called ketoacidosis. But like you said, one of the things that I talked about is not understanding you might have to modify this concept of, of a ketogenic diet if you have gallbladder troubles or you don't have a gallbladder. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** Or you have a lot of hormonal issues, et cetera. So just understand that everything is up for interpretation. And when you're talking about diet, it, you do have to cater it to your body and your needs. I feel like that should be our motto now.
**Unknown:** Everything affects everything. So we evaluate everything. We'll really confuse people. So any closing comments in reference to blood sugar, the brain, and everything we talked about today?
**Unknown:** There's a lot, a lot of things. Um, I would say i- starting out, just keep it simple. I mean, be aware. Cut out, you know, the sugar, um, as much as possible.
**Unknown:** But in doing so, and it's not, it's not just biochemical. You know? Mm-hmm. It's like it's been proven that exercise works better than every single antidepressant out there.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. So it's like do little bits, you know? It, it's in like... I was a personal trainer first, um, before doing anything, and you don't increase weight by 10% because your body can't handle that much change, that much stress.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. I, and it really applies to every single concept in life. So it's like only change 10% of your diet. Otherwise, it's gonna be too overwhelming, and it's not gonna be sustainable.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. And, and it's like ch- increase your exercise by 10%. Like, if you do 10 percents in all of these different systems, it's not overwhelming, and it's actually gonna be sustainable, and you're gonna get amazing results. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And after a month, ch- increase another 10% change. Mm-hmm. You know, it's just like, and after a year, like you're gonna be a completely different person. Yeah.
**Unknown:** So it, it's not just going like holy cow, like wild and- Mm-hmm ... you know, being a completely different person tomorrow because it's not sustainable. It's not who you are. But little changes over time- Mm-hmm ...
**Unknown:** it, you know, it, you'll, you'll have that compounding effect, and it'll be very powerful. Well, and I think the, you know, two biggest things that you can implement right away is one, starting to change what breakfast looks like. And if you don't eat breakfast, start eating it. Even if you feel nauseous in the morning, once you cont- just give your, make sure you eat a little something.
**Unknown:** That will stabilize after a few days. People don't realize that. They usually kinda give up. They're like, "I just feel too nauseous in the morning." And that's because you're hypoglycemic.
**Unknown:** Do you f- do you feel with that, like a, like a shake, something liquid would be easier for them or? It might be, but again, you're still probably going to be adding things that are sugar based. Sure. You might be adding a banana.
**Unknown:** Yeah. You might be adding, you know, some type of coconut milk, um, almond milk. So if you are just gonna have, you know, a hard-boiled egg, something small, you're making yourself a frittata, you're, you know, even if you're just having, like a small piece of chicken or a small piece of fish, uh, it's being able to get yourself that protein. Or even having an avocado 'cause you're getting that good fat.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. So starting to eat breakfast is really the key and making sure it is protein, fat based and it is eliminating carbohydrates out. I think that's one really important thing. Um, when it comes to different supplements that are really fantastic for blood sugar balancing- Mm-hmm ...
**Unknown:** uh, two of them are called purslane, P-U-R-S-L-A-N-E, and then the other one is called gymnema. So those are two amazing herbs that you can, um, get access to that can also assist you in balancing your blood sugar as well. Also, water. Making sure that people, nobody's drinking enough water today.
**Unknown:** Yeah. Um, and they'll drink, like, you know, maybe six cups of water. I'm like, "Oh, great, but you drank three cups of coffee." And for each cup of coffee or a diuretic you drink, you need to drink twice as much just to get back to neutral- Mm-hmm ... for hydration, so.
**Unknown:** Yes. You- So what he's saying is if you had a cup of coffee today and you had two cups of water, you're at zero. So a- and that's a big part of, you know, just having the balance between, you know, the blood and the sugar and everything else that goes along with it. Yeah.
**Unknown:** Water is one of those things that we kinda take for granted, and, and we don't realize how important it is for our health and our organs. Um, so outside of that, for those of you that make these couple of tweaks and you still feel like you hit a plateau, it's time for you to get some testing. It's time for you to understand what is the root cause of the blood sugar instability. And for those of you hypoglycemic that related to my story, don't let that go because I know that that is thought to be such a benign condition.
**Unknown:** Like, oh, you have hypoglycemia. No big deal. I remember growing up, and I didn't know, you know, anything when I was in high school, but tons of my friends were hy- hypoglycemic, and it was just kind of deemed really normal and this benign, you know, non-problematic issue. And knowing what I know now, it is, has huge implications for the brain.
**Unknown:** So you may have been this person, hypoglycemic most of your life, and you suffer with depression, and nobody's connecting those dots. So get the testing, figure it out, and get tools that are customized to you so that you can really, you know, get your brain back and get your life back 'cause I know how debilitating anxiety and depression can be. So it's really just important for you to understand that there are tools out there, and you may be working with a physician that just doesn't understand how to connect those dots. Thanks for joining us.
**Unknown:** All right, everyone. We'll see you next week. We thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio. If you're looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group as well as Dr.
**Unknown:** Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com. All night, no sleep. 'Cause I feel like I'm always dreaming.
**Unknown:** Wide awake. That's okay. I feel-
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Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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