Diabetes

In this episode of The Nutrition Factor, Dr. Jimmy Steger takes a closer look at diabetes and the important role nutrition plays in how the body manages blood sugar.

Dr. Steger breaks down what happens in the body when blood sugar regulation begins to change, explores factors that can contribute to diabetes, and discusses how everyday nutrition and lifestyle choices can influence overall metabolic health. He also shares practical insights for better understanding the relationship between what we eat, insulin, and the body’s ability to properly use glucose.

Whether you’re looking to better understand diabetes, support healthier blood sugar levels, or simply learn more about how nutrition affects the body, this episode offers an approachable look at one of today’s most common health concerns.

www.drjimmysteger.com

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Welcome to the Nutrition Factor. I'm your host, Dr. Jimmy Steiger, and today's show we're going to be talking about diabetes. Diabetes is a big deal in this country, and today I'd like to help you with ten of my favorite foods that will help you with potentially reversing your diabetes, whether you be type 1 or type 2. We see a lot of patients throughout this country that come into our office or call us, and uh we see a lot of people that have this condition, and it's truly not necessary if we get a hold of them early on and teach them about proper diet before they get to this point. And for those of you that do have it and uh have issues, you can give us a call. We'll be glad to put you on a program and help you with this. But today, if you have a pen and pencil available, uh I'd like to give you some foods that will help you, explain some things to you about diabetes, and understand that diabetes can be a fatal condition, especially if you're not controlled. So if your current medical doctor is not helping you, then that's where we come in and help people understand more about proper diet, proper nutrition, and what we can do to help you achieve total health by reversing this condition. Diabetics face a real risk of suffering from conditions like heart disease, stroke, cataracts, and many other issues as well. And I believe we see it all right here in my clinic. If one is not really careful with their diet, they can actually die as a result of a stroke. So please get help if you have diabetes and uh get this going in the right direction. It doesn't take long, about four to six weeks, and you can start to reverse things pretty quickly, and uh you'll be glad you did. Um being a diabetic does not mean in any way, shape, or form that it is the end of the road for you. So don't settle for taking drugs or a shot and thinking, well, this is it, you're done. Well, that's not true. You can actually reverse diabetes by eating a diet that helps to reduce your blood sugar levels, improve your insulin sensitivity, and taking the right nutritional supplements to help actually heal the pancreas, which is a problem in the first place. There's four major minerals that control the pancreas and the islands of Langerhans, and I produce a product with my Lifeguard nutrition line called Propanplux that does just that. So, what we do with all of our patients, like everyone, is we do a VMA, vitamin, mineral, and amino acid test with our patients when they first come in and help them understand what's truly going on and help them correct that through proper nutritional therapy or what we call orthomolecular nutrition or biochemistry. Very important. So without proper nutrients, you cannot heal the pancreas, and it takes about six to nine months to do this. I see this a lot with our patients who have uh alcoholism or they have drug dependency, they're really cracked out on this stuff. It's destroying our country, and we can help you with all this. So if you have a loved one that's in this situation, give us a call here at the office. We'll be glad to help you, and I'll teach you and explain it to you better one-on-one and help you understand what's truly going on. And we see this daily in our clinic. So here are 10 foods to incorporate in your diet to help you with your diabetes issues. Number one, and this is one of the most important foods you can put in your body. It's listed in the Bible, and almonds are amazing. Almonds are what we call the king of nuts and have been in existence since the beginning of time, obviously. And ancient times are one of the main diets in the Mediterranean diet, and that is a heart-healthy diet, including almonds. Almonds are filled with uh vitamin E as well as monosaturated fats that assist in lowering heart disease risk. These healthy fats assist in lowering LDLs, which is low density lipoproteins, cholesterol, when used to replace trans or saturated fats in your diet. A small quarter cup of almonds has more protein than an egg. They also have magnesium, which aids in boosting dopamine that regulates moods and prevents depression. Very important mineral in the body. We have a lot of people who have magnesium deficiencies, and I can sit here and talk to you about magnesium alone for an hour and tell you all the things it does to the body. So magnesium is extremely important for a lot of things. Additionally, almonds also have calcium, riboflavin, and fiber. Due to their content of fiber, it can help in improving stomach issues such as diarrhoea, irritable bowel syndrome, while boosting your absorption of calcium as well. And remember for the best overall absorption, always soak your nuts and seeds for about 10 hours before you eat them. Yes, do not eat dry nuts, ladies and gentlemen. You must soak them properly for 10 hours before you consume any type of nut or scene to get maximum absorption and to release enzymes into the body correctly. So please stay away from dry roasted nuts. And of course, with the heavily salting that a lot of people do with refined table salt, that's not good for you as well. So we always use Himalayan pink salt or Celtic salt on our nuts if you're going to do that at all. So there is research out there that consuming one serving or handful of nuts about three to four times a week can help aid you in reversing the diabetes. A study discovered that including two one-ounce servings of almonds every day in the diet helped participants have better intake of their primary nutrients that assisted them in the minimizing their intake of dietary detractors such as cholesterol, sugars, trans fats, and excessive sodium, i.e., once again, refined table salt, which is a double-binded molecule. It's not good for you. So please stay away from refined table salt. Now, don't get this confused with what the medical doctors tell you to cut down on your sodium intake, because that is not true in itself. You need sodium, you need good quality sodium in your diet, but refined table salt is not what we want. We want the use of good quality sodium that comes from food and once again Himalayan pink salt or Celtic salt, which is extremely healthy for your body and will help you overall with your heart problems as well as any other type of problem you may be having in the body. So, sodium in itself is not the problem or the villain, it's what type you're putting in the body. Next will be walnuts. Walnuts are my second favorite. I eat them every day with our diet as well, and they will help with prevention of inflammation of the body, diabetes, and heart disease as well. There's a lot of research out there that indicates that eating about 8 to 12 walnuts per day minimizes overall cholesterol by up to 4%. Almonds like walnuts, I like to put in my people's diets with their fruit. Could it help slow down the absorption of fruit in their body so you don't get that spike? And depending on what type of fruit you're using, anyway, is important. So when we build diets for our patients that have diabetes, we want to make sure that they are consuming their nuts with a piece of fruit. Walnuts are rich in omega-3s, which are essential in reducing the risk of diabetes, cancer, depression, high blood pressure, and heart disease. And the recommended daily intake is about 200 to 250 calories of walnuts, which is approximately a handful. So probably 20 to 25 walnuts a day is sufficient. So depending on the patient, I always start my patients off at about 8 to 10 and then work our way up. They can be consumed as a snack or even incorporated into some of the recipes if you want. And you can enjoy this nutty flavor in all types of dishes simply by crushing them up. We chop them up when we use them for our recipes here at our facility. So make sure you soak them, chop them, and then you can add them to a lot of different types of dishes. Walnuts are also full of an amino acid called tryptophan, which is an amino acid that is required by your body to create serotonin. A feel-good chemical, and they are digested gradually, which helps to stabilize your mood and can aid in tolerating stress, also. They also have elagic acid that reduces the artery-forming plaque in the body. So walnuts are an amazing nut as well. Next, number three would be uh good forms of fatty fish, which consist of the healthiest types, um salmon, mackerel, anchovies, herring, and even sardines, which are a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, which are extremely beneficial to the health of our heart. Consuming these fats regularly assists to reverse the diabetes, which increases the risk of stroke and overall heart disease. So EPA and DHA, fatty acids which come from these fish, especially salmon, aids in protecting the cell's lining. They line your blood vessels, uh, minimize inflammation, markers in the body, and boost the functioning of your arteries after eating. There are a lot of studies out here on this as well showing that people who consume fatty fish regularly, about two or three days a week, which is what I put on my people's diets, um, have a lower likelihood of heart failure and have a lower risk of dying from heart disease. Big deal. Um in a study, a lot of the older patients who ate fat three to five days a week for two months had massive uh reductions in inflammatory markers and their triglycerides overall. Fish also offers a high quality protein that assists you in feeling full and boosting your metabolic rate. So once again, I like to see people eat fish two or three days a week, no more, uh, like any other type of meat. We limit our meat intake on our diets for our people for two or three times a week. And if you have prostate issues, uh, probably sometimes no more than three for sure. Next would be greens on our list. Number four, greens, leafy green vegetables are low in calories and packed with plenty of nutrients. Ladies and gentlemen, you can eat almost all the greens and salads you want and never ever put on any weight. Now, keep in mind calories do put on weight. Excess calories put on weight, not protein, not carbs, not fats, but extra calories in general will put weight on you. But you don't have to worry about that with leafy green vegetables. So it's reason to have all my patients doing a healthy green salad every evening, sometimes at lunch, and they have a low level of digestible carbs that increases your levels of blood sugar. That's why they can help you to reverse your diabetes or diabetic situation. So we like to look at kale, spinach, and other leafy greens are ideal sources of many vitamins or minerals, which most people are lacking, like vitamin C. Vitamin C is a big deal. And in uh a particular study I read and studied many years ago, increasing the intake of vitamin C minimized inflammatory markers and levels of blood sugar in participants with high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes. Additionally, um, leafy greens are a perfect source of antioxidants, uh xanthin and lutein. These antioxidants safeguard your eyes and are extremely good for uh keep people from having cataracts and macular degeneration, which are common complications of diabetes. So if you uh have problems with diabetes, once again I have a product. If you're just not joining the show called Propanplex, it can help you with this. It's custom designed for you and made to help put the nutrients back in the pancreas and start to heal the body. Number five, extra virgin olive oil, very important, and it's very advantageous for the health of your heart. It has oleic acid, a kind of monosaturated fat that has been proven to boost your HDLs, which is the high density of lipoproteins, and triglycerides, which are present in unhealthy levels in most of your diabetics. It also helps improve the satiety hormone, the GLP1, which is a big deal now in this country, and everybody's running around going to their doctors and getting these GLP shots, which I highly discourage. You don't need to do that if you eat correctly, and you will never have to stick a needle in your body if you do this right way. According to the study of various types of fats, the risk of heart disease was only reduced by olive oil. Extravirgin olive oil is the best. It should be green if you're buying olive oil from the store and it's yellow. Pretty much we'll need to consider it uh trash. Throw it away. Uh look for your best organic certified sources. Non-GMO, organic certified USTA, and it should be green always. Olive oil also has antioxidants referred to as polyphenols, which are extremely important. They minimize the inflammation, reduce blood pressure, and prevent the damage of the LDL cholesterols, which is the low density lipoproteins, and they help lower this through oxidation and safeguard the cells lining the blood vessels. Very important we take care of the internal component of our blood vessels. And this is done by olive oil and making sure you have a proper amount of copper in your diet. Yes, copper is huge for interior lining or the arterial health and blood vessels. Extra virginol is usually not refined and has numerous antioxidants and other nutrients that make it healthy. Make sure to pick this oil from a source that is reputable, once again, because many olive oils are combined with cheaper oils in the factory, and they combine them a lot of times with soy and corn to spread out the oils so they can sell you less true virgin olive oil and more soy and corn. So please be careful what you're buying. Like I told you in previous um blogs, we had be very careful about what you read. Extremely important you look at this stuff. If not, call the company. Number six, turmeric. Turmeric is a spice that, when used to cook meals, can offer a tremendous amount of benefits to your overall health. It has an active ingredient in it called curcumin that lowers levels of blood sugar and inflammation while minimizing the risk of heart disease. Moreover, curcumin seems to benefit the health of the kidneys in diabetics. And most of my diabetic patients are already starting to have some type of kidney dysfunction. So that's very important. We help correct that before that gets worse as well. And this is crucial for kidney disease because it is truly common and a big deal in a lot of diabetics, especially later on if they let it linger too long without getting correct nutrition and getting their body well. Unlikely, curcumin is not properly absorbed on its own. Therefore, if you want to ensure this spice to be absorbed, you want to consume it with a product called pepperine, a compound found in the black pepper to improve absorption by up to about 2,000%. So if you're combining these two spices together, you get a lot more bioavailability, more absorption, works much better for the body. Number seven, chia seeds. It's been a big deal the last 10 years. A lot of people are learning more and more about chia seeds. And I put them on a lot of my people's diets, and we put them in a lot of our recipes when we're building uh food dishes. So chia seeds can help your diabetics to reverse this disease as well. They're very rich in fiber, but poor in digestible carbs. 11 out of 12 grams of carbs present in one ounce of these seeds are fiber, which fails to increase your blood sugar. So they're good for you. The viscous fiber present in chiz seeds can aid in lowering levels of blood sugar by reducing the speed of food movement in the digestive system. The seeds help in achieving a healthy weight, and due to the fiber that they have in them, they also help reduce your hunger and increase the satiety. So that's a big deal when you're trying to keep people from overeating, is increasing the satiety level or value in some of the meals they consume so they're not rapidly getting hungry an hour or so later and ravaging running for some more food until their next meal. Additionally, the fiber minimizes the intake of calories absorbed from other foods present in the same meal. Also, there are studies that out there that have shown the ability of chis seeds to reduce inflammatory markers and blood pressure as well. Next, one of my favorites, eggs. All of us bodybuilders love eggs. We grew up eating eggs our whole life, and most people have a problem with eggs because they think one thing versus another. They read this versus another. Well, let me tell you, folks, the bioactivity of eggs, the biological value, the net protein efficiency ratio of eggs are perfect. They're amazing, and they offer numerous benefits for your overall health. They are great for increasing the satiety, once again, for hours, especially if you consume one or two egg yolks with the eggs. So depending on how many eggs totally you're eating, I'll always have my people eating a certain amount of egg whites and a certain amount of egg yolks, depending on what we're trying to achieve with their diet. Also, regular consumption of eggs can minimize the risk of getting heart disease in many ways. Number one, eggs can help reduce inflammation, increase the levels of the good HDL, once again, the HDL cholesterol, change the shape and size of the bad LDL cholesterol. That's right. It helps to improve the sensitive insulin. And in a study we had years ago, diabetics that ate two eggs every day as part of their diet high in protein, they experienced improvements in the blood sugar and cholesterol levels. So it didn't go up just because they were eating eggs. So one or two egg yolks a day is not going to hurt you. And when I look at my patients and their cholesterol levels, always dictate and help them understand how many we're going to add to or put on their diet program, depending on what we're trying to achieve. Moreover, eggs are a great source of xanthane and lutein antioxidants, which once again are great for your eyes, especially cataracts and macular degeneration. These eye diseases are a very common condition in diabetics, and so it's important that you remember to consume the whole egg since many of these nutrition factors are present in the egg yolk. Eggs should be drank. If you're doing the egg yolks, I like to tell my people that are doing eggs as a total. If you're going to cook them, you can eat one or two yolks a day. Other than that, egg yolks should be drank. And I put most of my people on black cherry juice. About four to eight ounces of black cherry juice first thing in the morning with one or two egg yolks in it. It's extremely good for the brain. While the egg whites should be cooked, clearly don't drink the egg whites. Cook them if you're going to separate them. Other than that, it's safe to eat one or two egg yolks a day while cooking because they have a lot of good quality nutrients in the egg yolk in itself. Number nine, cinnamon. Cinnamon is a sweet spice that has a robust antioxidant activity. We use cinnamon in a lot of our uh formulas as well. And according to many different types of research, cinnamon can help reduce levels of blood sugar and boost the sensitivity of insulin. Very important. To reverse diabetes, you need to measure the hemoglobin A1C, which shows your average level of blood sugar over a two or three month period. So when patients come in and show me their A1C levels, we help them adjust. And when I build their diet program, we go through all this one by one and help explain this to them uh very closely. And in a particular study, a lot of diabetic patients who took this particular spice for twelve weeks experienced more than twice the reduction in hemoglobin A1C than those who were given some type of standard medical care. So cinnamon can help you tremendously if done correctly. Research also shows us that cinnamon can degrees uh your triglycerides and cholesterol levels. However, restrict your consumption of the case of cinnamon, the kind present in the majority of uh grocery stores, to one teaspoon daily. So it's important what type you consume as well, um, because the case spelled it C-A-S-S-I-A, if you're trying to spell this out. Cinnamon uh has cumarin, which is associated with health issues at larger doses or what we call higher doses, so try not to eat too much of this. But the true cinnamon, also called saline, which is C-E-Y-L-O-N. Saline cinnamon is the type that you want to use. It is lower in cumarin and is not going to destroy your body like the Casey form will. So please, if you're doing cinnamon, listen closely and take that as a very important note. Next, apple cider vinegar. A lot of people will do apple cider vinegar. I'm careful with this only because of the blood types, and certain blood types do better with apple cider vinegar than others. A and O's need to be careful with apple cider vinegar, whereas the B's and ABs uh do uh much better with ACV. It has numerous health benefits, although it has been created from apples. Its sugar has been fermented into acidic acid, and the final product has less than one gram of carbs per tablespoon. So it's not going to hurt you if you think it is. It's not. It really is good for a lot of people out there. Studies have clearly shown the ability of ACV to boost the sensitivity of insulin and lower levels of fasting blood sugar. It can also help minimize blood sugar response by up to 20% when consumed with foods rich in carbohydrates. So a lot of people get kind of misconstrued on the carbohydrate issue, too, like many things. And so I have to straighten them out when they come to our facility and help them understand carbs are good for the body. You need them, and they support the brain health, and the only thing the brain can function and fuel is from glucose, which comes from carbohydrates, simple carbohydrates and complex as well. So the body has to break it down regardless from a fructose molecule to glucose to be absorbed, and the brain can only utilize glucose to do this. In a particular study, diabetics had a 6% decrease in fasting blood sugar after consuming two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar prior to sleeping. So for my people I put on that, we tell them to take the ACV about 30 minutes before in water. Mix a little lemon with it as well. How much lemon? Four ounces of water, half a teaspoon or one teaspoon of lemon with two tablespoons of ACV. And this food could also slow the emptying of the stomach and help boost the satiety as well. But this could be an issue in people who suffer from what we call gastroparesis, which is a condition characterized by delayed emptying of the stomach, which is common in diabetics. And so incorporating apple cider vinegar into your meals by mixing a glass of water, once again, with a teaspoon of the liquid daily as a start before the meal can help. And this helps increase intake up to two tablespoons daily. And incorporating these foods into your daily diet will help you tremendously. However, the real key is always in the minerals. Once again, if you're just not joining us, I have a product called Propanplex, and it will help you with your pancreas problems, regardless if you have type 1 or type 2. And the minerals are always the key to it all. The foods I just listed has some of these minerals in them. And uh a little bit later on in some of my other articles, I'll discuss strictly minerals that help you with this. I love minerals because minerals are the catalyst to the human body. There are 22 minerals we need on a daily basis. When you are deficient in the four that control the pancreas, you will have health issues. So when people come in and we test their VMAs, vitamin, mineral, amino acid test profile, I look at these, which are chromium, vanadium, indium, and bismuth. These four minerals control the pancreas and the islands of Langerhein. So if they are low, not in a proper order, at the cell, when the cell needs it, you will be in trouble. Later in life, you'll develop diabetes. And even for the young kids that have prediabetic conditions, they're already on their way downhill because their diet was poor sometimes from pre-birth in the womb of the parents, or the mother, shall we say. And then, of course, uh, as soon as they were starting to be fed, a lot of parents are feeding their kids incorrectly, which just sets off this juvenile diabetes very early on. And no kid should ever have or suffer from diabetes ever. To learn more, you can go to our website, drjemmystiger.com, or give us a call here at the office, 251-660-1240. We'd love to help you. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure you stay in tune for our other shows coming up on other topics. We love helping people around the world and have been doing this for over 50 years. So until next time, stay healthy and God bless.