He followed exactly what the doctors told him to do and died from complications, diabetes at 67. They really need health care, but they're getting disease management.
SPEAKER_02Why can't I feel better? And it's like, well, the doctor didn't believe that you could.
SPEAKER_01The goal of the pharmaceutical industry is to have long-term customers. It's just a massive windfall for Big Pharm.
SPEAKER_02They are so unwell from the drug side effects. There is no such thing as a side effect, it is a direct effect of the medication.
SPEAKER_01Type 2 diabetes is one of the easiest conditions to put in remission when it's treated with this three-pronged approach.
SPEAKER_02You're bringing hope back into the conversation. Welcome. Today my guest is Dr. Salvatore Gorla. For years, he ran one of the largest functional medicine practices in America, and it's how thousands of people reclaim their health naturally. He's appeared on numerous TV networks as a wellness expert and even spoke at Harvard on reversing type 2 diabetes. Thanks for being here today, Doc. My pleasure. I'm excited because your background in Chinese medicine means we get to talk shop a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your journey. How did you go end up being such a type 2 diabetes natural health expert?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it started back. I did my undergrad in clinical psychology and I watched my grandfather, who was diagnosed with diabetes, early 60s, and took the pharmaceutical path and ended up having strokes and heart disease and kidney problems and died from complications of diabetes at 67. So I remember thinking to myself, how was his outcome so poor? But yet he followed exactly what the doctors told him to do. And that stuck in my head. And then I finished my clinical psych and did pre-meds, and I never wanted to be a surgeon, but I wanted to practice medicine, but I didn't want to trace symptoms. So I looked at, you know, effectiveness of the pharmaceutical model, safety of the pharmaceutical model, and decided I didn't want to do that. So I went and did my MS degree in Eastern Medicine, did postgraduate degree in naturopathic medicine, and then, you know, developed this large functional medicine practice, then went back to my doctor in Eastern Medicine and focused on evidence-based internal medicine. So it was a long journey. And during that whole time, did all my CUs in blood chemistry and advanced blood chemistry and functional medicine. So I just, the practice just continued to grow and grow and grow. It's actually a fantastic job. And it's it's amazing. The reality is that I think one of the key differences between functional medicine and corporate dictated conventional medicine is we're always looking at why can the body not heal and removing barriers so that the body can heal itself. That's what it's designed to do. So I think functional medicine asks the key question of why do you have, say, type 2 diabetes versus, oh, you got type 2 diabetes? That's the what. If we can get at the why, we can get people healthy. And it's a total, uh, totally different perspective. And it offers people the ability to be free from their type 2 diabetes versus managing it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's the huge distinction, right? Is like one of the things that I was shocked when I was in school was I learned when like you could, just like your grandfather's story, you could do everything right, right, managing type 2 diabetes and still have massive complications and have things go horribly awry.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And in my webinar, I cite a lot of the research where mixing diabetes drugs, um, and some of these research uh research um is uh not on. Um there's one article from Journal of American Medicine from 2019, and they even name the the um article is common diabetes drugs associated with increased rates of stroke and heart attacks. Now, these are not people on four or five diabetes drugs, they're on two. So what people are not told is what about the whole issue of medication safety? That's often not looked at. So sometimes um, you know, when you get into treating of symptoms can be dangerous, managing with certain combinations of meds can be dangerous, but I would find people are they're never told anything really. They're just oh, take this, try this, take this. Uh, that does not empower the patient. And I think that the the model of corporate dictated care is really a model for managing and it's really set up for efficiency. This is a big problem. It's not really set up for safety, it's not really set up for empowerment or resolution of a condition. It's set up for efficiency for the providers and for corporate income. And who suffers is the patient. And, you know, it's it's well known that whether we look at Bloomberg Health Index, we look at the World Health Organization, all these massive studies, right? There's another one called Commonwealth Fund, and they say the same thing over and over. Americans, we pay the most, right? We pay the most, and it but we get the least. Our outcomes are the poorest. So who's the winner in that model? Corporations, right? Big pharma, big insurance, who suffers? The patient. So I saw it so much over the years. And um, evidence-based, this this uh three-pronged approach I've developed for types of diabetes. It's safe, it's evidence-based, and it works fantastic. So why not help more people?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I got my journey started in all this when I was 19. I was diagnosed with um ulcer of colitis or Crohn's disease. So I think terrible symptoms. And like the the day I've diagnosed this, the doctor was like, uh it was basically like, Congratulations, you have this disease, you're gonna have it forever. Um, he literally was like, You and I are gonna see a lot more of each other. Uh at best, you'll take medication for the rest of your life, and maybe you'll be able to manage it. And like I'd never been sick before, you know, and I was just like, this is insane. This is insane. Took me years to like unravel the sort of the hex of a diagnosis, you know? And then I finally like realized like, holy shit, like there's a totally different way to go about this. And like, why is the bar set at best managing this? Like, there was no conversation around reversing it, eliminating it completely, correct. Uh, you know, managing it without medication. And then when I finally, you know, got like feeling good, the doctor was I was obviously I don't know, like my fourth doctor. I've been fired by doctors in between because I wouldn't do what they said. Uh, you know, and he was just like, Well, I was supposed to tell you to keep taking medications that you're not even taking. And uh, you know, and then he turned off his like dictophone and his medical notes, and he was like, just keep doing what you're doing. Like, congratulations. Off the record, congratulations. You know what I mean? Yeah, well, that that tells you something right there. Yeah, yeah. And that's what and and so I see the same this what to me looks to be the same thing in the type 2 diabetes realm. You know, is like you get labeled and you know, yeah, good luck.
SPEAKER_01Manage it, don't reverse it, don't empower the patient. That's not, you know, there this is the thing why so many Americans are so sick, too, is that they really need health care, but they're getting disease management. And they don't even uh, you know, they don't realize that. And when you look at why so many people are so sick in America, when you think about it, and I've said this many times, times the patients over the past 25 years, when you think about a few things, how is a patient going to get better with number one, right, 10, 15-minute appointments. Number two, the model is the vast majority of the times is treating symptoms. Number three, it's basic labs. Number four, there's no patient education or nutrition advice. So it's like when you roll those four together, how do they get better? Well, that's the whole point. They don't, and that's what every health index says, right? Massive amounts of consumption of pharmaceuticals and yet massive disease rates. So it's not a model that's um, it's it's a failure for chronic diseases and it's a failure for type 2 diabetes. And um, the other thing that's very important, I think, to say is how great conventional medicine is for trauma care, laurensy medicine. But again, the reason it's so great is they're treating the colors of the problem, right? Somebody's a broken femur, the cause is a broken femur, the symptoms are the symptoms of a broken femur. Internal medicine, type 2 diabetes are totally different, right? So this whole thing of insulin resistance being treated as a sole cause. Oh, you have type 2 diabetes, you know, you're not responding to insulin, you're insulin resistant. Okay, well, those are symptoms. People are not told that either. Insulin surges, insulin resistance, those are symptoms of much deeper problems. And uh, you know, we've got you know multiple things that can cause that. We got adrenal hormonal imbalances can cause that. We've got gut inflammation, we've got nutrient deficiencies, right? Poor diet, high inflammation, right? So there's all these other things that are going on in endocrinology, it's usually called like the endocrine web. So we're just looking at insulin in isolation, does not, that makes no sense. That's not how the body functions. So, you know, it's like treating one illiteral area, and that's also, I think, why so many medications have so many side effects, right? Because they're not working with the intelligence of the body. This is a key, another key difference between functional medicine and Eastern medicine and and allopathic or conventional. We want to work with the intelligence of the body and use the intelligence of the body to heal the body. Not, you know, just put put, you know, have a leaky roof with eight holes and just put eight buckets. That's not fixing the roof. Let's fix the roof. The pharmaceutical model is not it's it does that's not even the objective. It's not to fix the roof, it's just put buckets under the holes. So, you know, it's it's um it's my wife's work and my my my staff and I have been doing this for 25 years, and it's uh it's uh it's fantastic. It's a great job.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. The um that sick care distinction is like it's everything, right? It's just a massive windfall for big farm.
SPEAKER_01Yep, that's correct. And you know, what what always drives me is the individual suffering. I mean, the level of mismanagement management that I've seen in the past 25 years, it's just it's epidemic. And if I had a dollar for every time a patient came in and said how frustrated they are, I'd be very wealthy. I mean, and the word frustration comes in with diabetes type 2 constantly because either they're taking multiple drugs and they can't tolerate them and diarrhea or indigenous and hypoglycemic or whatever the side effects are, uh, or their liver enzymes don't look or they're getting kidney problems. But the level of frustration that you hear from type 2 diabetes, it's unbelievable. It's constant. So that's one of the reasons I decided to zone in on watching my grandfather pass so young and us suffering and watching that mismanagement and watching the mismanagement of patients with type 2 diabetes is what really um, you know, put me it put me in a space like to put together this this program so I can help more and more people.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful. I mean, it's so, so necessary. The numbers of people having type 2 diabetes and the stories that I've heard, they get diagnosed and you know they're given like a pamphlet. They're just like, here you go. Yeah, like like what is type 2 diabetes? Like, what is insulin? What is my pancreas? And then it's like they're just sort of left to figure it out on their own, or maybe they get a prescription for like metformin or something and um, you know, Godspeed.
SPEAKER_01They are really not helped. Yeah. They're really not. And um the the other thing you see a lot, like I'm in patients, uh I've had hundreds of patients who are um, you know, prescribed metformin and they can't even tolerate it. They just get diarrhea. The other thing that people aren't told it can induce neuropathies, you know, it can block B12 usage, and then they start getting poor memory or they start getting numbness in Krebinese, AK neuropathy, and nerve damage. They start getting fatigue and depression because they're not being able to bind B12. So even though metformin, I think, is the sapist, it comes with a whole host of other problems, and it's still not dealing with the problem, right? Oh, it yes, it can it can decrease insulin resistance, but it's still not dealing with the problem, whether it's you know, fatty liver, high inflammation, right, hormone problems, right, nutrient deficiencies, you know, no activity, lack of exercise, poor diet. It's still not dealing with these other six to eight things that are actually the causes of insulin surges and the causes of insulin resistance. It's still not really dealing with that. So it's still back to the you know, roof, the leaky roof, it's still put in a bucket.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So when someone comes to work with you, what's the what's that initial assessment that you're doing? What does that look like to pinpoint what your cost is?
SPEAKER_01I mean, in prior practice, they would um fill out you know very detailed paperwork and upload their labs or bring your labs with them. And then we'd go over them. But the the reality is, is most people would come with very basic labs. So then I'd order more thorough labs to pin down exactly why the sea was high. It's very interesting that um I have found that this three-pronged approach that I've developed is so successful that when people come in, they'll come in their paperwork and they'll they'll write and random paperwork, the diabetes, the death sentence. And, you know, they're they're they're pain through the nose. They feel like that they're wasting all this money and the rainwind seed goes up and down, up and down, uh, they're suffering the side effects. And I, you know, the reality is with this three-pronged approach I've developed over the past, you know, 25 years, basically, it's very effective. It's very effective, and it's one of the easiest conditions to put in remission when it's treated with this three-pronged approach.
SPEAKER_02What is the is there um talk about where inflammation fits into this, into this?
SPEAKER_01Well, the inflammation, when we think about inflammation, right? We know inflammation is the root of many, many diseases, either the cause or aggravator. But with type 2 diabetes, inflammation, it can either lead to type 1 and have the pancreatic beta cells die. So the beta cells and the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. So inflammation can destroy those cells, right, leading to type 1 or aggravation of type 2. But inflammation can also cause insul resistance. So we have an inflammation component to the disease, and there are no pharmaceuticals that deal with that. There's no anti-inflammatories for diabetes. That's there is no such drug. So we got the inflammation component, we've got fatty, the fatty infiltration component, uh, fatty infiltration into the pancreas, fatty infiltration into the liver, and there are no pharmaceuticals that deal with that either. That's another key difference, I think, between functional medicine and Eastern medicine and and and conventional medicine is what about again, promoting health of a system, right? Or gland and optimizing that that system or gland so that the body the body can just heal it, right? That's not the allopathic, that's not the gimmical model. So we got the inflammatory component to type two, we've got the fatty infiltration component, and then we have the whole component of hormones. Now, you know, insulin is a hormone. And but the thing about insulin is that you can't look at it in isolation. That's not, again, how the body functions. So insulin can be very, very affected by other hormonal shifts, right? So things like leptin and cortisol and glucagon, uh DHEA, all these adrenal hormones can affect insulin, nutrient deficiencies can affect insulin, like sleep problems, stress, and of course, diet. So looking at insulin in isolation of other hormones is not how the body functions, right? In real time. So again, it's it's taking something that's very, very complicated and go, oh, just you're insulin resistant. Why?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's that's the key. That's the question. That's the question that that uh Western medicine tends not to ask, right? Because it requires time, it requires a lot more education than what they may have learned in school. It's correct. A lot of med schools are sponsored by big pharma. That's correct.
SPEAKER_01Right. And people are not told that either.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That's true. Yeah. That's absolutely correct. And so to unravel that that tangled mess takes uh you know expert eyes and and a willingness to look at a whole bunch of systems that Western medicine, you know, they've just they're so compartmentalized. Correct that they're not.
SPEAKER_01And that's another problem, right? You see this specialist, this doctor for this, and this for that. Well, that's great for trauma care, emergency medicine. But for internal recurrent problems, breaking up the body into different pieces is not how the body functions in real time. So, you know, we've this crosstalk between everything from the thyroid to the adrenals to the pancreas to the liver to the gut. So you know, you have to look at all these moving pieces if you really want to put it in remission. And really what putting it in remission does is it gives the person their life back because diabetes is such a serious condition, right? I mean, we're talking about everything from their limbs to their kidneys, their eyes, their brain. I mean, everything is related to blood sugar. So when I would order, you know, real lab work on people, it's very interesting. You know, it's called a comp bio screen, or and it would be four pages of blood work, five pages of blood work, and then so insurance are gonna get you know one page or half a page. But what's so interesting about the labs is that the A1C and glucose would be the first two markers, even before the liver, the kidneys, iron panel, cardiovascular risk markers, blood thickness, blood. So why is that? Why is A1C and the glucose the first two, right? Because that is such a foundational system. The other thing I think a lot of people, a lot of patients are now told is this whole thing of how important glucose is to the brain and to fuel. So metabolic fuel like fat burning, but also that the brain, the brain chemicals, right, whether it's dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, they all require glucose at some step to be made. So this is why so many people with high A1C suffer from right, memory problems and mood disorder and exhaustion or anxiety, depression, because the brain uses glucose in large amounts to make brain chemicals. So as a person is fluctuating throughout the day, so is their mood. And then if they have these insulin surges, right, then they're right in a fat storage. And then they get the whole, you know, right, the the the weight gain. So this is why it's such an important condition to put in remission, not manage. Put it in remission and keep it in remission. Yeah, save your eyes, save your brain, have a good metabolic rate, right? Save your kidneys, prevent stroke, prevent heart attacks. I mean, it just has this um massive impact all the body. Another thing about type 2 diabetes, again, that patients are never told, is it could really be considered a long-term insulin damage disease. So, you know, when the cells don't respond to insulin and insulin is just floating around the bloodstream, it's very dangerous, right? It creates small vessel inflammation, it can create thick blood. So people can guess why we get all this small vessel damage thing, right? Everything from ED to memory problems to numbness, all these things in the extremities or eye damage, right? So it's very important to understand what insulin is. It's a hormone, right? For type one, it's life-giving without type without insulin type one, the patients would eventually literally die. And for type two, it's life-giving. For people who are non-diabetic, it's life-giving. It allows glucose to get into the cell, then we get fuel. The problem is with these people that are type two, we they occur, you know, people are not educated about this, but you know, it's a jackline hyde hormone. We do not want lots of insulin floating around the blood shrink. We want the person to take a glucose load in, pancreas makes insulin, right? The glucose, the glucose gets into the cell, we get fuel. That preserves the pancreas and makes sure their the metabolic rate is running efficiently. What's interesting though, and this is why certain pharmaceuticals are associated with a lot of dangers, is this whole phenomenon of telling the pancreas, because there are full drug categories that tell the pancreas to make more insulin. Well, here's the problem with that. That's what refined carbs do. That's what jolk food does and sugar. So they can actually be draining the pancreas, right? Actually converting the type 2 to type 1, and the patient doesn't even understand it because they know they're not told anything. So we want to make sure we preserve the pancreas and reduce these endosone surges, make sure that that communication is very efficient. And that's part of the three-pronged protocol that I've developed over the past 25 year, uh 25 years, right? Which is they reduce the inflammation, we remove the fatty infiltration, the liver, and the pancreas, and we restore hormone balance and and resensitize the cell's response to insulin. And if we do this three-pronged approach, the person can um get the rain one C down, keep it down, right? Preserve their brain, lose weight efficiently. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's the that's what everyone wants. Talk about where what where diet fits into the picture.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think diet is, you know, one of those things that the thing about type 2 diabetes diet is really not that complicated. I tell patients, just eat real food. And, you know, eat, you know, lean protein, eat fresh vegetables. Fruit can be a little confusing, right? Maybe they can do some low-glycemic fruit, but I tell them, make sure your diet should be lean protein, good fats, fresh veggies or sauteed veggies, like low-starch veggies. You know, grain confuses people. A lot of patients with diabetes do not do well with grain. So the areas that they get very confused, I'd say would be grain and fruit. And I'm not saying they can't have any grain. Maybe they maybe some people can do okay with you know, maybe some quinoa or wild rice, but if they eat white rice, I I've had patients, they eat white rice, and it's worse than. For their blood sugar, than ice cream. It just spikes them through the roof. So, you know, what we call natural medicine, we don't want a lot of white junk food. So, you know, lean, lean protein, right? Good healthy fats, fresh veggies, salated veggies, low, you know, low on the grain, obviously, all this high fructose corn syrup, you know, seed oils, those are just they're garbage. But again, it's not the thing about it. I mean, my family is Italian American, I love food. I love pasta. Um, you know, the thing about nutrition is it's very important to be balanced with the patient. And what I mean by that is, you know, you can't say to somebody, you know, don't do this, don't do that, don't do this. You have to respect their culture. You have to respect, you know, people love food. I mean, so does life, right? So you have to work with them and be reasonable. And by the way, that's also where the nutritional compounds and herbal compounds come in, because if somebody sees a doctor that has passed the herbal medicine board and understands human biochemistry and nutritional science, another powerful way to put it in remission that offers them some leeway with diet is doing the herbal compounds and the supplements and nutraceuticals accurately. I had so many patients over the years, they come in, they're have bags of nutraceuticals and supplements, they're spending all this money, but they're they're they're called a control and spore. They're not even valid. Formulas throwing the wrong herbal compounds, throwing the wrong nutrients. It's a huge field. So you can't ask an allopathic provider, a conventional medicine provider about herbal medicine, nutritional science. Um, you know, it's not what they do, right? So um I have done pre- and post testing on thousands of people. And I can tell you that nutraceuticals and supplements and herbal compounds, when applied accurately, are incredibly effective, right? With with pre- and post-testing. So it's very important that we do do diet with people. Uh, you know, it's funny, and I've been in private practice 25 years. I had one patient in 25 years tell me that a conventional doctor discussed nutritional with her, came in, she was in her 60s, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular risk, weight gain on their once in 25 years, and the cardiologist said to her, You should um, you would probably benefit from Mediterranean diet. One time in 25 years that a um, you know, conventionally trained provider mentioned nutritional, that's a problem. Yeah. We eat three times a day. I mean, you know, we're either going to eat new, we're either gonna eat to be healthy and give ourselves what they need, or we're gonna eat foods that are gonna inflame us. I mean, you know, again, I don't believe in being erotic with diet. I really don't. Um, I love pasta, I love my red sauce and garlic. But, you know, we have to eat whole foods as much as possible if we want to have real health, right?
SPEAKER_02I remember, I remember when I was sick, I, you know, I went, I was like, I had the lecture of going to some top medical center. It was a Mayo, I was at Rush in Chicago. And uh I remember I asked both, I was like, you know, does it matter what I eat? Right. And I had inflammatory bowel disease, right? It's like, does it matter what I eat? And uh this one doctor was like, no, it doesn't matter. Even though the food goes, the food goes right through the cup. I was just like, uh even in my 19-year-old brain, I was like, but wait a second, like if if you ask a plumber, does what flow through the pipes impact the integrity of the pipes? You know, it's like it's pretty obvious, right? It's uh it's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_01But again, it goes back to the model, the massive influences of big insurance, of big pharmaceutical industry, is that the reality is, this is well documented, is that the goal of the pharmaceutical industry is to have long-term customers. That's how it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um, it's um there's a great book by Dr. Dr. Marcia Angel. She was the chief editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Med uh New England Journal of Medicine, and um for over 20 years, she's a medical doctor, and she wrote a book called uh the you know the the pharmaceutical industry, right? A story it's the doctors in the pharmaceutical industry, uh a story of corruption. It's well documented now for the past you know couple decades that it's this whole move in uh corporate America in the medical field to develop long-term customers. That's a problem. Yeah. They should be treated with the utmost respect. They're suffering people. So the idea that they should be turned into customers is not right. What they should be turned into is somebody that doctors are there to serve. And this is an early I think that's missed is that one of the roots words, definition of doctors teacher. I think that's a very important thing. We just want to teach people, right, how to become healthy and then teach them how to stay there. This is a key difference between disease management and healthcare. Disease management treats symptoms, right? For chronic disease, just treat their symptoms, ensuring that they never get better. Healthcare, right? First of all, we believe in more thorough labs for one, but the idea in healthcare is to get the person healthy and then have them stay there by optimizing their weak systems, right? And teaching them how to stay healthy. They're very distinct models. And of course, the results are totally different, right? In healthcare, you're helping people get there, helping people get the right one to see down and keep it down for years, right? That yeah, that's not the disease management model.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and to be clear, like this isn't doctor bashing, right? Like there's lots of good people that are doctors. It's some it's a reflection of the system. I see that it's a reflection of the system that they that they were educated. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, they're under a massive umbrella. I get med page two or three times a week for a mainstream. There's always articles there on the broken system of American medicine. I mean, it is a very broken system um as far as the results that that are achieved with just the pharmaceutical model. It's a broken, it's a disaster statistically. And we have epidemic um rates of almost every disease uh uh as far as chronic diseases. So, you know, it's not it has nothing to do with bashing, it's just a fact and has more to do with in my mind of how do you really how do you how do you really help people? Right? They uh you know the corporate medicine is just that, it's corporate dictated, right, between big pharma and big insurance, and it just has that the whole idea is to manage, not put that types of diabetes in remission, not reverse it, right? It's not very empowering to the patient. Um, and it can come with a whole slew of other problems.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I this is reminding me of a of a book that I read years ago. I hope I get the I think that I think it was called Hope. Uh if I'm remembering it right. It was basically a book about hope and like the basically the health outcomes and the quality of life when people have hope versus when they don't. And like that's why I'm so passionate about this podcast in particular, and it really amped up talking to you, is because you're bringing hope back into the conversation. And what I get we got so frustrated in my own experience, and then as a practitioner for 20 years, um, listening to people's interactions with typically allopathic medicine, they kill hope. Yeah, still hope. And they when you kill hope, then you're you you take someone away from the dream of remission and getting their life back. That's exactly just like managing. That's right. And it's a totally different mindset. Yeah. And then people are like, why can't I feel better? And it's like, well, the doctor didn't believe that you could, right? And it's like the the the opportunity for hope was removed.
SPEAKER_01Which is a uh which is a huge problem. We always want to give people hope. We want to give people evidence and evidence-based hope, right? It's kind of what I would say. Tell me. Let's apply science and and a good mindset, aka hope, together.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and uh, you know, this whole thing that um the whole thing of mindset is very important too, because it's very common with types of diabetes that, you know, they've been so they've seen numerous doctors before, me, most of them, and um they're suffering. And the whole thing of mindset and belief is very powerful. Very powerful want to get the person in the right frame of mind, right? So that, you know, so that they, you know, the whole thing of the let's just say, I think I mean it's a spiritual mindset, right? It's a mindset of I can get there and I can stay there. Because when you deal with people who've been diabetic for years and they've had drug side effects, and maybe they have kidney problems now or high liver enzymes, whatever they've had strokes that, you know, they they can, and in particular, and then you mix the aging process or maybe stress that we all go through. And, you know, they people can get very, very down. And of course, we got the glucose with the brain, so they can have those problems, right? So it is very, very important to have an evidence-based system and also help people get to where they want to go with their A1C, but also very important to have them also have a good mindset and help them with their mindset. And by the way, when glucose starts getting into the cell efficiently and they start making dopamine and serotonin and acetylcholine and all this, that inherently helps their hope because now they have fuel for their brain. So, you know, there's a physiological mechanism as well as an emotional component.
SPEAKER_02One of the most diagnostic questions I used to ask in my practice was uh, can you imagine yourself feeling better? Yeah. And it was just a, you know, I wouldn't make a big deal about it. It was just sort of like uh to them, it would maybe be a throwaway question, but to me it told me a lot. How severe they were, where their brain was at, and like how much work would we have to do on that mental, spiritual side to even because we, you know, I've I've lived it like when you're so sick, after a while, you're just trying to like survive your day. You're not even thinking about feeling great. You're just like, maybe I can I not shit myself today, you know. It's like you know, uh, and so I love that your work pays attention to that because if you can't imagine yourself feeling better, if you can't if if they're if you've lost that that bandwidth and that frequency, you know, we've got to get that back. Otherwise, it's hard to, it's like trying to build a house without a blueprint.
SPEAKER_01Yep. And you know, the other thing I think is very common, it's just the amount of side effects that diabetes meds have. A lot of people just can't even tolerate them. You know, maybe they can take, oh, I can tolerate a low dose metformin, maybe, but once they're on three, four, or five meds, they are so unwell from the drug side effects within, you know, and again, what happens is when you're trying to force, right, instead of having the body repair itself and deal with causes, when you're trying to force physiology and not removing the barriers, right, that are that are that are causing their problem. So, you know, it's like the roof analogy. The more you don't deal with the roof, you're right, the less you pay attention to the cause, aka the hole in the roof, the more buckets you're gonna need. And that's the same thing with this pharmaceutical management of type two. So try this, take this, take that, take this. And then the next thing you know, they've got dizziness and exhaustion and weight gain and diarrhea and brain fog from the meds themselves. So, you know, around and around they go.
SPEAKER_02I had this uh this teacher at school, this guy was a character, and he would scream in class. He would say, There is no such thing as a side effect. It is a direct effect of the medication. You know, it's aside as like if you get the benefit that you want from the medication, but they're all effects of the medication. And I think what most people, you know, it might be helpful for the audience to know too, that most people don't even realize is that from what I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, there aren't studies done on the safety of a lot of uh medications when you are looking at like what happens when you've combined three, four, five medications. It's too expensive, too much variable, the dosage, the body weight, the whatever. Maybe there's some studies showing when two medications are mixed, but like once you start adding a third and a fourth, if you are the laboratory, you are the lab.
SPEAKER_01Polypharmacies very dangerous. Polypharmacies, by definition, either three or three or more meds or four or more meds, it's a leading cause of hospitalization. Uh it's very, very dangerous. It's no man's land. I mean, drugs.com can be helpful. You can plug them in there. It's what my my case managers used to do. You go to drugs.com and you can type in your meds and click interaction. That could be helpful. The problem is if you get a drug study, and of course, that the only doctor's office that does that that I've ever covered all across is us, even though we're not the prescribers. But we, of course, see all kinds of problems there. Uh, it's not uncommon for people who come in with high liver enzymes, they're never told. They got declining kidney function, they're spilling protein in their urine, they're never told. Then my case managers would do a drugs.com and it will say right on there, you know, you don't do this, it can damage your liver. We're mixing these drugs, can cause kidney problems, but never people are not told. That's why so it's it's that whole thing of paying attention and healthcare is so important, right?
SPEAKER_02Can we uh I want to ask you about genetics and how much uh like genetics play a picture?
SPEAKER_01Are you running in type 2 diabetes? Yeah. I think there probably is a genetic component, but I have to say I think it's relatively small. I don't run those type things, I've never seen them run, but I think there is probably a genetic component to type 2 diabetes, but I would have to say that it's by far large, right? Much more a hormonal, nutritional, metabolic lifestyle nutrition disease. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Than it is genetic. Yeah. One of the things that I've I've come across recently is the conversation around Alzheimer's being a type type 3 diabetes, right? You see that now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's not an official diagnosis, but we know that out-of-control type 2 insulin surges, ongoing, right, small vessel inflammation created by insulin surges can create small vessel inflammation. That's why that's why men get ED, and you know, uh patients get nerve damage and eye damage and you know, um, retinopathies, they get all these small blood vessel damage, kidney damage. That's all those insulin surges and insulin floating around the bloodstream. So um we know that people, you know, with insulin surges and ongoing insulin resistance can develop brain inflammation, definitely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned ED a few times, and I think it's important to like hit that, hit that point. Like I it was told to me that for men, especially like in their 40s, you know, relatively healthy, like one of the most important indicators of your cardiovascular health and your sugar is like, do you still get a morning erection? Correct. That's right.
SPEAKER_01Yep, because you have to because it's blood flow. That's the thing. All these, anything through blood flow to the extremities, right? Penis, extremity, right, feet, hands, brain, all the small blood vessels, are they getting perfusion, right? Are they getting glucose oxygen nutrients? And then this just goes back to also the reality that, you know, somebody could be on other pharmaceuticals. Of course, they're rarely told this through allopathic model, is that they can be on other pharmaceuticals aggravating their blood sugar. That's very, very common, but they're never told that. Nobody that that's you know, you can't dissect these things in 15-minute appointments, right? It's in and out, in and out, in and out. So there's a whole slew of pharmaceuticals that can aggravate diabetes um and blood sugar issues. So it's you know, it's fantastic work. There's no other kind of work I'd like to do. So who's your who's your ideal um patient? Who's your ideal client? Well, my ideal client as far as types of diabetes is anybody suffering with types of diabetes, really. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's amazing. Because like for context, I've seen a lot of practitioners like, well, I only want to know where someone who is like newly diagnosed, or you know, they they choose sort of like subsets of it. And so the I love that you're open to it, and especially even it sounds like the severe cases, right?
SPEAKER_01It's like Absolutely. Oh, I've had people come in with A1Cs of 13, 14, they didn't want to plan, they're down to six or seven. Oh, yeah. It's incredible. I mean, it's I've even had some people come in where they're A1C, because we'll work with lab core and principal labs, if they're A1C is that they stop counting above 15.5, so it'll just have an arrow, right? Wow. Yeah, I've seen a few. But you know, the here's the thing why I don't different, you know, um, why I work with any types of diabetes is because if somebody's beginning the stage and they apply this three this three-pronged approach I developed, then right, I was just say they're pre-diabetic. Well, we put intermission early, keep it down early, save your eyes, save your limbs, save your kidneys, save your brain. Or somebody's A1C is 10 and they're on four meds and they got chronic diarrhea and kidney damage. Here's the thing, in my perspective, what does it matter? There's still a person that needs help, right? I mean, you know, they still need help. And this is another thing that um I discussed in my webinar, this whole thing of prediabetes, right? A lot of people are told, oh, you got prediabetes. Some people are never told. It is estimated that um, I think about what is it, um, 40 million people have uh prediabetes. I forget the numbers, but many, many Americans of prediabetes don't even know. So the thing about it, stroke.org says that just prediabetes increases strokes. And there's literature from endocrine society groups that say even pre-diabetes increases heart attacks significantly. So a prediabetic number, say between, depending on the lab, it's usually 5.7 to 6.3, is pre-right, an A1C between 5.7 and 6.3 is pre-diabetic. Well, here's the thing. That should not be ignored. That needs to be taken seriously because even that is showing that that person is already under physiological stress, right? So, you know, that's why I say this, you know, if people don't understand that, they have to take their diabetes very serious and find an evidence-based plan that is safe and the fact that if they don't understand how important it is, I don't think they understand how important they're not understanding what diabetes is. I mean, you know, you know, people still get amputated, they get kidney disease, they cross strokes. I mean, you know, the the very serious thing. So I I think a lot of patients just don't understand. You know, what is it? What does it mean? You know, what are the consequences that I don't get it under control uh safely? Um, you know, it's just, you know, uh again, that's part of the the corporate model. People are not educated. What does it even mean, the insular resistance? Why the insular resistance were the causes of that or have a pullback? And in fact, a lot of Americans don't even know the term insular system. They've heard it, but millions of million earned it. Right. But they're being treated more as it's the cause. When in fact, it's a way people are insular resistant, yes, but that's a symptom of much deeper problems, and they're never told that.
SPEAKER_02Yes, they never folded it, and then they were stuck trying to DIY it themselves, right? So for like the sappy users, I or user, the patient who knows this problem, but they don't know where to go locally. Yeah, there's not much out and so they're stuck trying to sort of figure it out themselves. But then it's like listening to you, what I what I'm the nerd in me is loving this because it's like I get the feeling that you're just gonna leave, like there's no stone left unturned when I'm still helping people reverses.
SPEAKER_00I'm neurotic about it. Except we had towards grandfather.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And my mom, my own family suffering, have an anti-67 suffer with it.
SPEAKER_01No, it's it's it's my wife's work. I love it. And you know, this thing about information, I think we should talk about that. Here we are in a culture that is with the internet with so much information you can never even process in a lifetime. But here's the thing is we have massive amounts of information and massive amounts of chronic disease. Information is not the answer. It's not even close to the answer because if it was the answer, Americans would be healthy, healthy, healthy. And we're massively diseased. So information is not the answer. What is the answer is finding an evidence-based plan under a doctor's care that understands the causes of the problem. That's the answer, not just winter formation. In fact, I find that diabetes patients are massively confused by the internet, right? Because they get different information. Oh, I should take this, and oh, maybe I should try that. They don't, you know, they're, you know, they're they're massively confused. The information doesn't help them all. In fact, it usually drives up their anxiety. Because they don't know, they don't have no idea. Oh, I don't know what's specific to me. And then, of course, then then you throw them in the the mainstream medical model basin labs, and then they have no idea. You know, cardiovascular basis, now? Do I have thick blood now? Do I show Brisbane now? Like, where where am I on the continuum? Um, give it ideas and what's easier to buy. Where am I? Right? These things get insurance those basic laps. It keeps the cost down. So that's the other thing I forget looking at those other grams, uh, like blood thickness and blood viscosity and small vessel inflammation. Those things can all be pinned down in a lapse because diabetes have those issues. Right, diabetics have those issues. So, yeah, it's a it's a cash show. My team and I will love it. It's fantastic. We've been doing it for 25 years and going Sean, we love it.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful. I'm fired up. I'm feeling the hope and you know, for for humanity, you know, the old first for these diabetes patients. Um, thank you so much for being here. Well, as we wrap up, is there um is there any message that you might have for you know someone listening who's got type 2 diabetes, the uh A1C is super elevated, they just haven't got any answers. Is there anything else?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'd like to watch uh my webinar. Um you can go to uh uh drvorlo.com or the diabetes coach and you can learn more through our webinar.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. Thank you so much, Doc, for being here. Uh be sure to check him out. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.