Diabetes and Blood Sugar Regulation Through Nutrition and Supplementation
Just as a refresher, diabetes is a disease that can cause blood glucose to stay in the bloodstream for prolonged periods. Our bodies secrete a hormone called insulin from our pancreas, which helps glucose be used for energy. When diabetes comes into play, our bodies don’t use insulin correctly resulting in increased blood glucose levels in the bloodstream. This can lead to cardiovascular complications, glaucoma, nerve damage and even limb amputation. It’s serious stuff that affects nearly half of the American adult population according to the American Diabetes Association.
On this week’s episode we want to address a few of the consistent questions we’ve been getting about this issue. There are measures that can be taken early on to help limit your possibility of developing diabetes, mainly stemming from a diet, nutrition, and supplementation perspective. Ed talks about why American diagnoses of diabetes are increasing, the typical problem areas that can be addressed naturally, and basic supplements that can help restore optimal health.
Some Topics We Discussed:
What is a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes? (6:08)
What can impact your A1C levels? (6:45)
What are ideal blood sugar levels? (8:59)
What are the negative effects of elevated insulin levels? (13:17)
What would Ed do if he was diagnosed as pre-diabetic? (14:55)
What is the appropriate amount of protein to consume? (24:07)
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
There are over 90 million people with type 2 diabetes in the US. (5:07)
Diabetes is not a disease of blood sugar, actually, it's a disease of insulin. (10:09)
Addressing your diet is priority number one. (15:52)
Consume healthy fats with every meal. (26:15)
Intermittent fasting is an incredible way to help control your blood sugar and lower inflammation. (32:27)
Consistent exercise not only lowers stress levels, it helps burn glucose and manage insulin. (34:12)
Products + Resources:
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Brian Strickland 00:00 Hey, everyone, welcome back to The Holistic Navigator Podcast, where we talk about all things holistic health, and believe in the body's ability to heal itself, if given the proper nutrients and care. For those of you who may happen to be new to the podcast, let me say welcome and thank you so much for listening today. My name is Brian Strickland. I'm the producer of the show, and I'm joined in the studio by our host, Mr. Ed Jones. Our goal with this podcast is simply to educate anyone who may be interested in learning more about natural, holistic healing. And Ed has spent the last 40 years helping clients navigate the complexities of supplementation, nutrition and exercise. So if you've been looking for answers on how to do things differently, you're in good company, and we couldn't be happier that you found the podcast. Well, we've got another great show for you today. And we've been getting a lot of questions about blood sugar and type two diabetes lately. So we're gonna spend a little time addressing some of the more frequent questions on today's episode. And with that being said, let me go ahead and throw it over to the host of this show. Mr. Ed Jones.
Ed Jones 01:49 Thank you so much, Brian, that there was just a great intro very informative. And one of the points you made was, you know, how many people want to learn maybe a different method of managing their health. And I have been gone for a week, which is rare for me, but I go on this yearly trip. And on the return, I stopped in Los Angeles for one night, and I was standing at the airport, waiting for the shuttle to this specific hotel. And if anyone's been to LA international, it is a crazy airport. It seems to be kind of outdated, nothing like Atlanta or other ones. And so it's kind of like stepping back in time. So you got all these I mean not exaggerating, 50 plus types of shuttles that are pulling up every 25 seconds. Well, I have to find the exact shuttle to get on. Well, it's very hard to find, because of the complexity of it. I kept stepping on different shuttles saying does this go to my specific hotel and I got all kinds of responses, some of which were not very friendly. Some of which were I don't know, when I'd asked the question, Where is my shuttle, I had absolutely no help. And in a way, it's kind of like the journey when you have a health issue. You get on and you you can choose the shuttle that you want to get on as far as your next step as far as managing your health. But if you get on that shuttle, you're not getting on any other shuttles, number one. And the only shuttle is going to take you is the ones that generally like your insurance and or your credit cards because it's so profit driven system that we have in conventional health care. It's actually a sick care system, not a health care system. And in acute medicine or acute injury they're phenomenal. If I have a heart attack, I want the conventional prescriptions and the interactions that will come with that or a broken leg or car wreck. There's so many things a baby delivery. Those they are magnificent in that, but in the chronic disease state that we seem to have an epidemic of in this country, you have to be so careful about finding the right shuttle. And hopefully the Holistic Navigator I really value the encyclopedia we're building which is the shuttle of believing in the body's ability to heal itself but only if we know how to nourish it and remove things that are damaging it. So today because I get so many people for so many decades asking about how do I keep blood sugar in an optimal range? How do I you know please my doctor if I have type two diabetes? And I must say at the start, we are not here to prescribe. We are not here to treat. I'm not telling you how to to to diagnose yourself or how to medicate yourself with either drugs and or nutrients to treat a disease. I am here to educate you only and if you choose to stay on the shuttle, then we can go forward. And if you don't, that all is still fine. But there are 90 million people right now with diabetes in this country, type two. And the annual cost for each of those patients is approximately $14,000 per year, because they have had a diagnosis and, obviously, are many times using drugs and or other health concerns. And drugs, of course, are the mainstay of the solutions in conventional thinking. And I've said this many times, I think we all need to find practitioners or other people who have bigger toolboxes. Because if you only have certain tools, like, you know, if the only toolbox that you have has a hammer in it, and you know, you're just going to go find nails to stick in the wall, because you don't have enough of the other tools to actually build a house. Well, that's the case, because drugs are the only major solution when you are diagnosed with type two diabetes. And what is a diagnosis of type two diabetes? Well, if you know about hemoglobin A1C, it's a blood test that is given to people that can give a number that would reflect the average blood sugar over the past 60 to 90 days based on a hemoglobin in the blood cell. If you have a one, say a 5.7 or below it's optimal. 5.7 to 6.4 is pre diabetes, supposedly, and if you're a 6.5 or above, you are diabetic by the medical standard. If that is a consistent blood test. Let me tell you real quick people. People who all of you who've had a one season, you're falling into the category of prediabetes, make sure that you know these things, these facts. Statin drugs will raise your level sometimes have A1C and the nation's I think one out of three people are on a statin drug. If you're anemic, it's going to make A1C look worse when it isn't. So that's a scary thing. And if you have low thyroid, it's going to make A1C look worse. So how many people in this country actually really don't have an issue, but were diagnosed because they were not asked the question or looked into are you anemic? Do you have low thyroid? Blank, blank blank. So A1C is a relatively good test, but do not live and die on that test. There are too many and accuracies. Use it but be respectful of its inaccuracy. I far prefer people to own and this is the first of my what I will call the Holistic Navigator take home point number one, get a glucose monitor yourself. We all and I've seen this for four decades, we have to be our own best advocate. Give up on thinking that the person in the white coat is the wizard with all the answers and you don't have to do any thinking. It's not like you've just had a computer crash and you're gonna take it in your car and drop the computer off at a big store that fixes them and you're gonna come pick it up. That works great for computers, it doesn't for health concerns that are chronic, people. So you have to be your own best advocate and construct your own team of trusted individuals. And that can be everything from health coaching to your physician, of course. We want a world where we can all work together, but it's not always easy. So you will have to work at that. So getting a home unit is the only way that you're going to be able to truly know the effects of your life, your sleep, your food, your supplements and your drugs. Because doing these tests at home is really the accurate way to determine how you reacted to something. Now, if you do a blood sugar, if you have fasting blood sugar at 100 to 125 you are considered a pre diabetic. Anything over 126 on two readings, you are officially a diabetic. I will say be careful of letting the mainstream industry know you're a diabetic because from that point forward, you will be rated for the rest of your life as far as insurance, perhaps jobs. And who knows what else can come down the pike with this diagnosis. So some people are doing more self care and trying to fix it before they get it actually imprinted on their forehead for the rest of their life. So we all know that diabetes has to do with elevated blood sugar. But the problem is that as Dr. Ron Rosedale who I so respect Rosedale, if you want to Google Dr. Ron Rosedale and the word diabetes you will be blown away by some of his writings. And he says that the name should not even be type two diabetes, it should be called insulin resistant diabetes. And the reason is, is because diabetes is not a disease of blood sugar, actually, it's a disease of insulin. And typically, treatments in the conventional world concentrates on fixing a symptom, which in this case would be elevated blood sugar, rather than addressing the underlying disease. Anyone who's listened to me on The Holistic Navigator, I am adamant about the fact that 90% of all treatments in conventional world is treating a symptom. It's like patching the tire when it has a little nail in it, and you know, is still gonna leak, but we're gonna patch it. And that's fine to get to the next destination. But there's a point where you want to actually take care of the underlying issue and that is not being done in this country. Treating symptoms is a very profitable thing because you have to keep doing it, on and on and on. And, you know, symptoms are generally the way nature has taught us and our bodies to heal with a disease. For instance, if you have a runny nose, it is a symptom designed to cleanse the nose and sinuses of the viruses, the bacteria, that dust, the dirt, or one has a cold. And taking a decongestant simply inhibits our own body's mechanism for dealing with an infection. And it drives it deeper and will cause more problems down the road. Now it makes you feel better initially. But you know what, it feels really good to spend all your money on a big, fancy luxury car, if you don't have a whole lot of it, the minute you get the car it feels good. But how about a few months down the road when you're making those big payments? It doesn't because it was not wise. And the thing is that the treatments that conventional medicine is offering, which is nothing but to lower blood sugar actually does not show itself to decrease many of the diseases such as cardiovascular disease. We think it should, but it isn't. It's the same case with cholesterol and using a statin. Those drugs can make your test results look phenomenal, because they can make a number dropped by 30% in six weeks, and the patient, the doctor are celebrating that they've done such a great job. Again is treating a symptom. And what we have to look at is it's insulin people, it's not blood sugar. Significantly, I like doing the blood sugar test at home, because it has some correlation to insulin. And we can't do insulin at home. Most of the time very few of my listeners or people I speak to, when I say has your physician checked your insulin levels? I can count on one hand the amount of physicians have done that. They do not understand the implications of insulin, and it's the insulin we need to lower. And that will take care of the issue. And the thing is when you get treated for type two diabetes with drugs, is slowing the glucose which is blood sugar, but not lowering the insulin levels. And elevated insulin is directly associated with fast aging, heart disease, peripheral artery vascular disease, strokes, high blood pressure, obesity, and so many other diseases. If you've listened to many of my podcasts, I say the chronic inflammation is at the root of everything we do not want as we age. Well guess what? Insulin is the is the cousin that's producing this inflammation. So and before I get too long winded here and forget to say it, you need to also be able to order your own bloodwork, which you can do through many of your local labs. But you can also do it on the Holistic Navigator under the products tab at the top and you go to direct labs. And on insulin, the goal is two and under. When you see people at awry do at 10 and above they will not age well. When we looked at people 80 years old, who were totally robust, resilient on their own, did not need self care. When they did all the bloodwork they couldn't find any common denominators until they looked at insulin. When you have an insulin at 10 and over, you're not going to be strong at older ages. It just can't happen. It's corrosive insulin is. We have to control insulin. We know how to do that people or I certainly have some good ideas about it. So again, if you want to read a ton more about this insulin and blood sugar issue with Dr. Ron Rosedale, just type in his name and do the Google search with diabetes. Alright, getting down to the nitty gritty where the rubber meets the road. What would I do if I all of a sudden or kind of snuck up on me that I was pre diabetic, what would what would I do if I was a normal person, and you must know by now I'm not normal. Or I would, you know, I would probably be retired. I was a policeman, and I would have a retirement and I'd be just fishing and doing crazy stuff. But I'm not, I'm not that normal person. I have a passion for education of people, because I see such a broken healthcare system. And there's not many of us out there that are what I call ambassadors of true health. And I've kind of crowned myself as an ambassador of nutrition and holistic health. Well, first off, we have to if you're going to have optimal levels of insulin, which then will make optimal levels of blood sugar. Number one, we have to change the diet, we have to know that actually, that diabetes is truly nothing but a disease of nutrition. Do not let your healthcare professional, wave the wand and say you were just dealt a bad hand a card of a hand of cards, and you have bad genes. And you know, it's your age. You know, sorry, but here's your drugs, because this will take care of it. Do not believe that fantasy because it's simply not true. It's caused, because 90% of the time, because of things we did for far too long that we did not recognize were causing this imbalance. One of the biggest is your knife and fork. And while I'm gonna, before I get into the diet, I do want to say one thing. We've got several documentaries that are out. The first one began many years ago called Forks Over Knives. And it talks about the tremendous convincing evidence of plant based diets as far as health and I am 75%, embracing everything that these documentaries are saying and 25%, I am putting a warning label on. Part of these agendas of these documentaries is coming from a very almost radical group of vegans, who think is their job to convert the whole world to stop eating meat. So they're kind of using the the evidence of building health by not eating meat. The problem is, I do not agree with that fully. We have to have more protein than what they're saying. I don't see anything particularly wrong with clean meats. Clean meaning better ways of raising it with less chemicals, less antibiotics, you know, grass fed antibiotic free. Yes, it costs more. But that is the best method if you're going to eat those foods, because here's the deal. The people I say who switched 100% to these type of only the totally vegan, carbohydrate rich, tons of greens and colored vegetables. But what happens is eventually, they're A1C goes up. Their blood sugar gets more difficult to handle. And it just can't handle the amount of excess carbs because of the diet. So take that with a grain of salt. But don't please I do not recommend a total vegan diet. So number one, we have to severely limit your grains. What are grains, it is what most people live on the bagels. And it includes in the big picture of the rice, all the carbohydrates that come from pasta. Grains and pasta make up about a third of everyone's diet in this country. So we have to minimize to a greater degree, the amount of breads and pastas and rice, and fast acting carbs like potatoes and corn. Those are humongous. And they're damaging us whether you have diabetes or not, because they're going to feed into the inflammation cycle. So when you start eating your next meal, you have to think about this, you have to think about every meal people. This isn't like pulling in the gas station, and you're gonna stick the hose into your car to fill the gas tank. There's no thought process with that. And the way to look up a diet with how to pick your foods, the best one I've ever seen. And the one I still use is the bulletproof diet roadmap, if you go to bing.com because I'm not a huge fan of Google anymore because they changed the algorithms on June 9, 2019, where you can no longer search for the holistic nutritional information that was previously popping up. And they actually have a campaign to discredit anything but conventional thinking on health care. So If you start seeing that you don't find information as easy as before, it's not your fault. It is a concise philosophy of Google to change the way that our healthcare system works. Bing.com seems to be far more open because they haven't changed the algorithm. So if you want to Google things about health, just know about the Bing. Okay, go to bing.com type in bulletproof diet roadmap is the coolest little chart. And that chart is going to have three colors on it a green, a yellow, and a red, and under the green will list every food that would be I consider perfect as far as low glycemic which means it won't elevate blood sugar, toxic free, reduce inflammation, feed your phytochemicals, which reduce disease, it makes the choices so easy. So just bing.com bulletproof diet roadmap, print that off, have it on your phone, and after a few weeks of following it, it will be ingrained into your psyche. Now, the thing I've spoke about so many times, and I know Brian, you've heard it often is my value of the morning drink. And the thing I've learned over 41 years is I won't say absolutely but almost absolutely you cannot consistently eat a breakfast that I will consider anti inflammatory and healthy. You just can't because we're in a rush in the mornings, we have to choose fast acting foods like bagels, cereal, or if we are actually eating low carb, then we're eating eggs, maybe some meats. And those become also a problem because we can get too much protein. And we don't want to be living on a high diet of lots of meat. So I have found that the only way to start your chemistry correct in the morning is through a meal drink that would consist consist of my protein, which is always low carb. And I have to say I do use Metagenics Keto drink, it is my favorite of my entire life. Because it already has the high fat levels and I'm gonna make a big point of this that we have to consume fat with every meal. Well this product already has the fat and the protein. Secondly, I put it in a green drink. Green vibrance is awesome. And that way I get all the phytochemicals I get the alkalinity I get the cleansing of the greens. And then I will add MCT oil to it because MCT fuels the brain and burns body fat. I've spoke of it before. In fact, on the Holistic Navigator when I did the podcast on the keto diet, I go into this more specifically, I recommend MCT only up to one tablespoon or you will get loose stools. And lastly, we'll always add fiber. And I will mention more about this in a minute. The fiber I love is the chia and flax by garden of life I've used every fiber there is and this one is mixes really great, I never even know it's in the drink, I do use a Nutrabullet. But doing all this with other cold water, which is what I normally do every morning. Or you could use unsweetened almond milk, or you could use I used to use some organic half and half to give me more calories. But with the keto drink, I don't need that. So if you start your day, right people with this drink, you actually have room to make a few errors the rest of the day. When you start your day wrong, and insulin gets jacked early. You cannot fix it regardless of how well you eat the rest of the day. So breakfast is the most important meal of the day, as it has always been said.
Brian Strickland 24:00 Isn't it a mistake? Don't you think people eat too much protein a lot of the time and that can actually inhibit like weight loss and some other goals that you may have?
Ed Jones 24:07 Absolutely. And you know, I've been around gyms my whole life and you know it was always the more protein you can eat, the better you will be and the stronger and more fit. And it's simply not true because what we want to shoot for is approximately no more than one gram of protein per pound of body weight.
Brian Strickland 24:25 Okay.
Ed Jones 24:25 But we're fine with one half gram of protein per pound of body weight no less than that people. And also do not at least I do not believe that the mixture of rice and beans can produce a very efficient protein. It does keep us alive. It cannot build muscle as well as the better quality proteins it just simply can't
Brian Strickland 24:49 Better quality being whey?
Ed Jones 24:51 More complete with the amino acids. There are actually some really good plant based proteins that for vegetarians that are excellent these days. I love Sunwarrior And in fact, you know, I will mention our number one sponsor is nutritionw.com, which will have the best prices. Actually in the summer will ship with cold packs. Has vetted every product to make sure you never have to worry about the quality. So at nutritionw.com you can go on and shop and purchase any of these products. So I will say that several studies have shown that if you drink one sweetened drink a day, you will raise your diabetes risk by 25%. One a day and how many people are drinking 2-4-6 of these a day? Most. So if you're drinking six drinks of Coca Cola every day, that's got sugar. You're doomed people.I'm sorry.
Brian Strickland 25:46 It's not just eight ounces, it's people are getting 32 ounces at a time.
Ed Jones 25:49 Yes. Yes. And if you're doing the artificially sweetened one, then you've got another whole list of potential side effects that come with that. So don't think that's an easy answer. Okay, so we're gonna, you know, change the diet. You listen to my podcast on Holistic Navigator under keto, do the Google bullet or the bing.com bulletproof diet roadmap, those are the two ways to learn how to choose the right foods. Second, always consumed fats with every meal. We were led down a primrose path in the 70s, that fat was bad. So we raised our carbohydrates. Everybody played into this game, including the USDA, because again, follow the money trail, and it had to do with the selling of foods. And they wanted to they could sell carbohydrate foods so much faster, easier and more profitable than they could the fat foods. So it was and it really was suicide for this country. That's where we turned the corner to obesity that we've never recovered from. So what we want is healthy fats. And those are the ones that I use every single day, avocados almost every day, almond butter, coconut oil, organic butter, MCT oil, those are used every single day with every single meal. Including, we have to watch the protein food bars that we purchase, because some of them are far, heavily laden in carbohydrates with too little fat, I actually formulated my own food bar that we sell in several places across the nation called Zunta. And Zunta has the right level of fat, and the most clean, toxic free ingredients of almost any bar that is available. So if you want to read about that go to zuntabar.com. Zunta is an Indian word for honesty. Next, we are going to be your own best advocate means that you actually have to do something sometimes, you need to monitor three things in your blood, your vitamin D level, your insulin, and your omega three levels. These are generally never ever done at any medical visit. And really and truly, I'm not putting the full blame on them. They are not trained to be about prevention, functional medicine, holistic knowledge, they just simply aren't which is fine. But don't act like you're the only game in town. Again, it needs to be a team approach. And you need to find people who understand how to interpret and help you with these things. Or we're in an age where you can learn on your own if you have the right connections with the right podcasts and people that you respect that know. Now, so, what will you do again, if we need to get this blood test your doctor will not do it, I will and I recommend highly to not push them into doing it because they will not write it up correctly. And that means you will get a bill for far more than you ever dreamed. It will be excessive because of the way the system works. So what you got to do is order it on your own. Again Holistic Navigator under products, you can go under direct labs and order these get them drawn in your local town. So knowing what your insulin should be at two and under, that will be a wonderful way to appraise your success in your program. And also know this if your omega threes are at seven and above on most of the omega three test, that is the number one test for mortality over your next decade. They have done studies that if your omega three is at the optimal level, the chance of you dying from an acute or chronic disease in the next 10 years is only about 1% and when it is far lower than that that the risk is excessive. So number omega three is critical to know those levels because of how it works with heart rhythm, brain function, anti inflammatory all the way down the list. But again, get omega threes that have been tested to have no heavy metals. And many are not tested and are not trustworthy. So again, getting these levels is important. And then of course, the tests that I did recommend that you do at home is the home unit glucose monitor. What you'll want to do is start writing these numbers down and you want to check your numbers in the morning when you're fasting. Just a few mornings, you know, maybe three mornings a week for the first couple weeks, then you could go a little longer until you see a pattern of keeping your blood sugar, ideally at 82 to 85. What happens when your blood sugar's at 82? Your pancreas is sleeping. It doesn't have to work. The American's pancreas is 24-7 constantly, non stop producing insulin. Guess what? Why do you think that we have the epidemic of pancreatic cancer that is ravaging this country? I mean, just even the movie stars that you know, constantly are getting pancreatic. And the lifespans only about two years at best when you have that. And when they looked at the pancreas of animals that were fed the correct diets of raw foods and all the right components. Their pancreas was a certain size. And then when they looked at the animals that were fed the American types of diet, their pancreas was twice as big. Why is that? Well, any muscle that gives working and working will get bigger because it's trying to adapt to the hardship of it's job. But what happens is it finally falters because it can't keep doing it all day long. Everything needs to rest. I mean, your heart rest in between the beats, but the pancreas never stops in the American way. So we want that to happen. So ideally, your blood sugar should be about 80 to 85 on a fasting level. If you get really confused about you know, and things are not working well, you want to start looking at maybe a testing some an hour after eating certain foods to see if maybe your trigger foods you might like. There are people who simply can't eat a certain type or category of food, I doubt it. But who knows, it could be an avocado could be you know, the magic for most people. And for you, it might be something that keeps raising it. But that's where you will have to be your own best detective. Next step, intermittent fasting. I have done a 180 degree turnaround on this over the past years, I used to believe that we needed to eat consistent three meals a day and two snacks. In order to achieve the goals of slowing aging, less inflammation like blank blank, I have now reversed that, by my own personal experimentation. What's happened is I because I have a super fast metabolism, I don't have to do it super strictly. So I eat supper at 5:30. And I do not eat again till I get up the next morning, which is pretty early, but I get a good 12 to 13 hour, no food. And my morning drink is a keto drink. So it's actually like I'm doing even more intermittent fasting. Because the drink has basically almost no carbohydrates in it and I'm using the MCT oil. So intermittent fasting people, that means you need to have a minimum of 12 hours of no food that means no calories. That means no cream in your coffee. It means not a tiny bite of cracker because that's stops the fast. And in a perfect world if you have if you don't have my fast metabolism and you're not worried about losing weight and try to choose a 14 hour window of opportunity. That could mean that you miss breakfast. You can have black coffee, in my opinion, some people don't believe that, but I believe it's perfectly fine. But again, start your day with something that is as near perfect as possible. You could actually start your day with a drink at lunchtime, or you can start it at nine o'clock in the morning and then have lunch at 12 whatever works for you and your life. But do embrace intermittent fasting to balance blood sugar and lower inflammation. Of course we all know the benefit of exercise. What does exercise do? It actually burns glucose and helps manage insulin. It does it through many mechanisms, one of which is when you don't sleep or you're under terrible stress, cortisol is elevated. Well guess what one of the things that lowers cortisol is exercise. That's why you can go to the gym. If you're in a really pissed off mood and you're aggravated and had a terrible day. A big argument with your wife or your dog or your husband. You know and you just always feel better when you finish that's because cortisol went down. And exercise I've got a podcast on exercise of what I have done in the gym in 40 years if you want to listen to that on The Holistic Navigator but the main thing is, is a type of aggressive movements of some sort, for 30 minutes every other day. Three days a week, you can maintain four days a week, you're making great advances and two days a week, you're slowly slipping backwards. So you have to shoot for the four day a week program, if you can add 30 minutes now I do an hour, five days a week. But of course, you know, that's just built from that. And I've always done it. It is my medication of choice. It is what got me through deaths of loved ones and divorces and hardships in business and is my go to that helps me to keep trudging on. So we have to value exercise is one of the key components. We talked about fiber for type two diabetes, fiber is imperative because it slows down the way the carbohydrates are going to be ingested and the speed of which they are. And again, the most Americans get about 20 grams a day. That is why we have so many colon problems and also diverticulitis and constipation. But you need ideally about 40 grams of fiber a day. Let me tell you people, very few people eat as whole plant based as I do and as diligent as I am. And I have to struggle to get 40 grams. That's why I'm using a lot of the chia and flax. I'm not as big a fan of psyllium. But it is, is fine if you want to do that because it can cause gas and some people. But whatever fiber works for you is fantastic. But don't be taken in by some of these fibers on some of the food bars. In fact, isn't a bar list, that we have a tremendous amount of fiber. And there's two ways to look at that this is still very beneficial, very healthy. But when they say 10 grams in a food bar, it's not the same as chia and flax. It just isn't. It's not as bulky but legally they can call it that. But try to get most of it from your foods and from chia and flax if possible. And then again, on the sleep, lack of it will produce cortisol. Guess what cortisol does? It's exactly like prednisone. It keeps you fat. It may make you hungry. It can make your mood swing. Those are the three big things that prednisone does and guess what cortisol is your own internal prednisone. And lack of sleep is one of the biggest reasons why we continue with the high cortisol levels. So and I there is no simple easy answer for insomnia. I am a chronic Insomniac. It is the one thing I've dealt with for almost my 63 years. Well, actually, I did sleep well for the first 23 years. But after that, something happened, some switch went off. But I managed it extremely well with non toxic methods. So if you want to listen to what I have found, please listen to The Holistic Navigator on sleep. And now as far as the nutritional intervention, I speak constantly of something that I came I kind of created called the Core Four protocol. The Core Four is because of my four decades of experience dealing with 10s of 1000s of people, it's hard to make a choice of what plan do I put together because everybody has their own. I advertised products, programs, protocols, everyone has like a different idea of what we should be taking. Well, I can tell you people if you want to respect or listen to what I have observed, I know that there are some core nutritionals nourishment products that you have to have, you have to embrace if you want optimal health. Now if you don't want optimal health and you're happy with average, then you can continue on with just hoping for the best. The problem is hope doesn't isn't a good companion when you're starting to fall apart at 50 years old, and you're running into the shuttle that is the more medication shuttle. It is simply going to buy you time but it's not going to buy you any true solutions. So the core four. I don't care who you are, I don't care as long as you're breathing and you are an adult and you want to have optimal brain function, lower inflammation, feel better, be less acidic, blank, blank, blank blank, you need to be on the Core Four plus. What is it?omega three is the number one product that you have to be consuming and you need to be doing therapeutic doses. That is about 2000 milligrams of EPA DHA. You can look on the back of your bottles to see sometimes That requires two pills and sometimes requires 10. Now, I would not recommend the 10 pill because that means they're dose is way too low per pill. Second, a green drink. This is not a drink, that is really great tasting, I will be honest with you. I put it in my keto drink in the morning, but what it's gonna do is open the liver and kidneys, so that they can dispose of the excessive toxins that we are every single minute surrounding ourselves with. I'm sitting here in a nice little room, but I can assure you that there's even fumes from who knows what's in the air ducts, to construction that was done, to you know, the water that I go and wash my hands in, and maybe the soap that had chemical. All these things we have. I mean, we did an interview last week with Cady Kuhlman on the toxicity of our home. And it was you know, she has a Facebook group called the Earth Conscious Mama that is posting information constantly, how do we clean up our in our internal environment as far as home, car, and cosmetics, and she just was very enlightening of the steps on how to do that. So if you go to our Facebook group, Earth Conscious Mama, and sign up, you will be you will be blown away people, especially if you are raising young children. So the Core Four, we talked about omega three, the green drink. Probiotics, we have to have that. And we've done so many good episodes about the importance of probiotics. And it is critical that you reestablish the good bacteria, because that's half your immune system. And at least 50% and perhaps 70% of your brain chemistry. Why is it do you think that you get so anxious when you have a stomach bug or you're nauseous or you've eaten bad food is because the chemicals that are being produced in the gut lining actually are brain chemicals, and then and they're out of balance. And that's why you feel out of balance. So doing a great probiotic. And Brenda Watson is the queen guru of this country. She was on PBS for years. And I interviewed her quite some time ago, and just was enthralled by her her information and details on how do we truly implant these good guys, because implanting, which is putting a seed in the ground basically doesn't solve all the problems. We need to know that we can pass through stomach acids and plant and they will continue to grow. You could throw a grass seed on this floor right now Brian and I could water it and it would sprout, but it wouldn't grow very long. And that's the same with most probiotics. I am very disappointed in most I did get a stool test done. I told people before I that I was getting a new one and I'm going to talk about that on an upcoming podcast. It was very revealing as to what what I did to change my microbiome. So Core Four, got the omega three, the probiotic, the green drink. And lastly, or almost lastly is a multivitamin. Not the Centrum pieces of worthless garbage. We're talking about something that's pure, free of all the chemicals. I mean, you know, talc powder is actually found in some of these multivitamins. And I mean all TV ads are talking about attorneys suing because the companies have used talc powder, knowing that it causes diseases. And that doesn't even count the red dyes number seven and all the way down the list. We need to have cutting edge based on research type of multivitamins as nutritionw.com sells. They're the ones who who maintain the list of the best quality ones. And then I call the core four plus. The plus is vitamin D. Looking at probably 3000 people's vitamin D levels over the past 10 years. 80% are, no 60% are low and 30% are extremely low and 10% are fine. We just it's really weird because you can't look at a person and tell. So vitamin D. Again, if you follow recommendations, you will have a blood test done. And remember people that blood tests for vitamin D it says 32 nanograms to 100 is the range. Do not believe that. It should be 50 nanograms to 100 not 32. You want the magic sweet spot of vitamin D which is reducing every kind of disease we don't want you need to be at 50 nanograms per milliliter or above. I do recommend 5000 units for people who haven't gotten the test and who are not planning too soon and then but eventually do get the blood test. When you do these five things, they're going to set you up for health success. You know if you were climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and you didn't have the right backpack and You would really didn't know how to put the good stuff in, you would not be prepared to climb that mountain without the core for plus, climbing the mountain of aging will be almost impossible, unless you're one of those few genetically blessed people. And that is in the 2% range people, so don't count on that, okay. But this will set you up for health success. Now lastly, if you have and you want to maintain optimal levels of your blood sugar, which is my legal way of saying it, you need to had, in my opinion, for three other ingredients, one of which is magnesium. Magnesium, which we hold again, I'm repeating a lot here we did another podcast on the magic of magnesium. And if you hear that you will be blown away about what can happen when you supplement with the right magnesium. But it has to do with a lot of three actually 300 functions in the body rely on magnesium, one of which is balancing blood sugar. Secondly, alpha lipoic acid. It is a compound that you can take it protects the liver from toxins, but it also has the ability to keep glucose from residing in your body. It helps it to burn up and to be actually be removed. And most people who use 200 milligrams morning and 200 at night will be very pleased with their results. And then there's an herb that very few people know about called hintonia. That is my go to and people come in and say I want to be better at A1C. I want to make sure I'm balancing my blood sugar levels. And actually I live a life just acting like I am a pre diabetic. I do my supplements a lot based on it, I do my foods based on it, I do my exercise based on it because the one thing that will make you age vastly quicker is high inflammation slash blood sugar. Those two things you are you're going to be a 60 year old who's like an 80 year old or you're going to be a 40 year old who's like a 60 year old. It's going to put you up 20 years if you continue with those two things elevated. So that's a really scary scenario. And if you know you know all about the excessive blood sugar, you know, the diseases that come associated with that are the following glaucoma, blindness, itchy skin, kidney disease, foot amputation, hearing loss, Alzheimer's, gastro paralysis. That's where the you know, you basically went I've talked to people a lot with gastroparesis. They go the bathroom, maybe twice a month. Bacterial infections, cataracts, strokes, fungal infections is huge, and fungus is another epidemic, gum disease. All of these things are potentially going to happen if you don't have a really good control of your blood sugar. Now, when I say blood sugar, it is really insulin, but it's so common to call it blood sugar that we just continue to do that. So I hope this has been a super informative podcast. I know it's a lot of information. Feel free to send us questions if you would like I cannot be answering medical questions as we have the disclaimers that we are not treating anything disease wise, we're here to educate only. And you know, there was a lady back in the 60s named Adell Davis and only the old timers who are who are the really the naturalist, like I was back in the 60s would even know the name. She had written many books about children and about being healthy. And I found her a quote of hers. I think it was from 1967. And I love quotes like this because it really kind of recalibrates that sometimes we think we're living in a new age of troubles and concerns when in fact, many of the concerns we have have been ongoing for so long. They just kind of changed the shape or maybe the name of them. But she said this in 1964. "If this country, (America) is to survive. The best fed nation myth had better be recognized for what it is: propaganda designed to produce wealth, and not health." And it's so true today as it seemingly was in the 60s and it's a scary thing. So this is Ed Jones again with the Holistic Navigator. Blessings to all. Thank you.
Brian Strickland 49:35 The information on this podcast and the topics discussed have not been evaluated by the FDA or any one of the medical profession and does not aim to replace any advice you may receive from your medical practitioner. The holistic navigator assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any purchaser or reader these materials. The holistic navigator is not a doctor nor does he claim to be please consult your physician before beginning any health regimen.
“When you treat Type-2 Diabetes with drugs, it’s going to lower glucose (blood sugar), but not insulin levels. Elevated insulin is directly associated with fast aging, heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, strokes, high blood pressure, obesity and so many other diseases. ”
-ED JONES, THE HOLISTIC NAVIGATOR