Balancing Blood Sugar Does Not Resolve Diabetes

The elephant in the natural health care room is that helping someone go from being clinically diabetic, or defined with high fasting blood sugar (over 125 and an A1c over 6.0), to having normal blood sugar and A1c ranges, does not free them from being physiologically diabetic.

Is it a step in the right direction? I would say YES. Has having normal blood sugar values alone really changed their risk for all the complications that come from diabetes….not necessarily….and usually no. How disappointing to say the least!

High blood sugar in diabetes is the symptom, or the effect of the problem. The cause of the underlying problem is insulin resistance. With insulin resistance being the actual problem that leads to the chronic blood sugar problems, you need to think of the whole Diabetes issues differently.

Along the road to becoming diabetic, as in type 2 diabetes specifically, statistically someone starts with high blood (serum) insulin, or hyperinsulinemia, for about 7 years before they develop metabolic syndrome (3 out of the 5 metabololic risk factors of LOW HDL, HIGH Triglycerides, HIGH blood pressure, HIGH fasting blood sugar, LARGE waist circumference of 40 for men or 35 for women or larger), or pre-diabetes just having a fasting blood sugar of 100-124. They then progress with metabolic syndrome and pre-diabetes for about 2-3 years before they get diagnosed with full blown type 2 diabetes. That is if they get diagnosed early, some people go for years with diabetic blood sugar levels before they realize it or are formally diagnosed.

Once they officially get type 2 diabetes, the option of simply “managing” their blood sugar, naturally or with medication to keep it in “range,” will not make them any less insulin resistant at that point. Keeping their blood sugar under “control” does not mean they are no longer diabetic physiologically because of the insulin resistance.

Reversing insulin resistance is not a blood sugar game, it is a hormonal game. Blood sugar levels will follow the improvement of insulin resistance, but insulin resistance does not follow simply lowering blood sugar. Just as an example to put this in context, carbs as in sugars, grains, and starches (and yes veggies but not what drives this issue), only account for 23% of our body’s insulin response. Protein is responsible for 10%, fat 0%, leaving 67% of the insulin response to other mechanisms and combinations of biochemical reactions like hormones and feedback loops. A good example of this is the fast that when you eat or inject into your veins 50 grams of glucose your insulin goes up about the same. BUT, only a small percentage of the glucose from what you ate actually gets into your blood stream….yet it creates the same insulin response. Obviously other mechanisms at play here. Insulin is stimulated indirectly via stomach stretching and sensations, from our brain sensing anything sweet (even artificial, no sugar/cal sweeteners) and believe it or not, even from thinking about eating certain foods or smelling them. Here is a mind blower…..the bacteria have the ultimate say in how much glucose, when and at what speed actually gets into your system, but that is another post. So yeah, there is a lot more at play that simply looking at blood sugar, so think outside the glucose box.

When you focus on hormones, and attempt to lower insulin levels, you need to change your habits and lifestyle and do the things that are shown to improve insulin resistance like: lose belly fat as well as extra body fat, metabolic exercise, decrease insulin exposure, improve hormonal resistance, build cortisol resilience, re-balance brain chemistry and improve the food addiction cycle, and then……and this is the hardest part, as well as the least understood and practiced step…..you have to heal, repair and regenerate the liver and pancreas.

If you do all of this, then you have a chance of recovering from diabetes fully. Skip any part of it, and especially if you ignore the last part, then you have no chance to reverse this process and will remain physiologically diabetic (advanced insulin resistance) whether your blood sugar is in range or not, and believe it or not, whether you continue to eat carbs and sugar or not.

We must change how we are looking at things. This can be done, but there is no quick fix, no one size fits all gimmick, no short cuts, no box detox or cleanse, no shake mix and food list that will do this FOR you. After all, for most adults, it has taken at least a decade and a lot of negative efforts to do the damage we are talking about……the sad part is that we see kid developing this process earlier and earlier and without that 10 year progressive ramp up…..but that is a whole separate post.

So my friends, put on your hormonal glasses and look through the lens of insulin vs. blood sugar. Work on when you eat as much as what you eat, focus on how you move not just moving, prioritize your sleep, and if you are an American or live in a western country, live as if you have this already started, because it has, don’t wait until your system is so damaged that a doctor tells you. And of course, seek help from appropriate professionals who work with this to guide along the way.

Fist steps? Lose weight if needed, get your fasting insulin under 5 and if you have a history of issues like 2, get that blood sugar under 90 and THEN look to work on healing your liver and pancreatic damage that has built up along the way in this process even if “standard” tests say you don’t have any issues in your lover or pancreas….by the time they can “see” it, you are in an uphill battle and it may be too late…..may be. Oh, and work on healing that chronic pain, see your chiropractor at least, since chronic pain DOUBLES your chances of developing diabetes on top of all this!

Context is everything, think about things differently and you will discover options you didn’t even know you had.

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Be well my friends!

Dr. Don

Message me if you have specific questions: [email protected]