Recently I interviewed Dr. Beverly Yates, and we talked about insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here [1].
Dr. Eric Osansky:
Excited to chat with Dr. Beverly Yates. We are going to be talking about insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes. I am going to dive into Dr. Beverly’s bio.
Dr. Beverly Yates is a licensed Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine. She is the nation’s leader in online type 2 diabetes care. Her virtual practice has programs and supplements to help people lower their blood sugar naturally at home without ever having to step foot in a clinic.
Dr. Yates is on a mission to help three million people heal from type 2 diabetes and prediabetes. She used her background in MIT electrical engineering and work as a systems engineer in Silicon Valley to create effective online programs for people with diabetes to achieve blood sugar control and live the life they love.
Dr. Beverly is also an internationally recognized speaker and expert in diabetes and heart disease. She is the published author of Heart Health for Black Women: A Natural Approach to Healing and Preventing Heart Disease, and co-author of multiple books, including Jack Canfield’s The Soul of Success: Volume 2. Dr. Yates is writing a new book on type 2 diabetes and prediabetes based on her Yates protocol, focusing on five practical, enjoyable steps for reversing type 2 diabetes and prediabetes and living the life you love.
Last but not least, Dr. Yates has been featured in numerous media outlets, including ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, Black News Channel, FOX, SiriusXM, mindbodygreen, Essence Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Women’s World, Reader’s Digest, Rodeo Press, and more. Again, thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Beverly.
Dr. Beverly Yates:
You’re very welcome. I’m looking forward to our conversation. I hope people listening can get some benefit and clarity from it.
As you well know, there is all sorts of information that’s available. Some of it is not good information, and I think it’s challenging for people who aren’t health professionals to tell what’s actual and helpful versus things they probably ought to steer clear of.
Dr. Eric:
I definitely agree with that. Before we dive into the topics, can you talk a little bit about your background? How did you start focusing on helping people with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes?
Dr. Beverly:
Sure. Originally, my focus clinically when I first graduated from naturopathic medical school was on heart disease. I had had an amazing journey with one person who had severe congestive heart failure during my clinical training, as we went through the residency and internship process. Other folks I had worked with had problems with stress, sleep disorders, gut problems, skin, those things. Often in the realm of what we would consider to be primary care.
My shift to diabetes came for two reasons. One was something that became clear to me in the mid-2000s to the 2010s. This amazing shift of people coming into the clinic who had prediabetes and type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance or some kind of metabolic dysregulation. I saw this big uptick that also matched any of the grassroots data you could find from the CDC or other places. You saw the big shift coming into the 2000s of more and more people showing up with blood sugar problems. It fueled my own growing sense of alarm because those are the kinds of metabolic problems that are deadly and shorten lives. People have a low quality of life.
To me, part of the concern was this was a threat to humankind, but also, because it is so lifestyle-sensitive, it’s good news. You can do something about it. It’s not something where we’re helpless. You have to know specifically what to do. Poking around, Googling for tips is not going to get it done. You have to take care of it now.
Sometimes, people don’t have that sense of urgency. They don’t feel a fire lit under their butt because the ebbing tide of their health is a gradual, relentless shift. It isn’t a big spike to misery; it is an ongoing cycle. They might not feel the same mortal threat someone feels when they have a disease like cancer or some neurologic diseases that can be so devastating, and it is quickly obvious that they are devastating. This is gradual devastation. Nonetheless, it’s devastation.
The other reason was my own realization as I reconnected to my family of origin on my father’s side, my birth family. My parents divorced when I was about a year old, so I didn’t get to know my dad’s family when I was growing up. As an adult, I gathered up the courage—God bless my best friend, as she was a great model for this—to go and reach for that relationship. God bless my mother because she didn’t interfere. She encouraged that connection. She was so brave to do it because I know she was upset with him, but she did it anyway because she thought it would be helpful to me. What a gift a mother can give a daughter.
As I got to know them, I found out that my father was one of 13 siblings. All 13 of them had some kind of diabetes. They had type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, prediabetes. I would argue now that type 1.5 was possible. The glycemic issues on that side of the family, you don’t usually hear of 100% prevalence in one generation of a disease. It’s just amazing. I had seen the issues around unhealed, unrecognized, improperly treated blood sugar devastate that side of the family. That got my undivided attention.
At that point. I was making the transition from being an electrical engineer to becoming a licensed Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine. Now, I was becoming equipped with the tools to make sure my own health could stay healthy. Hopefully, knock on wood, continue to do the things to stay out of trouble. Myself and a handful of other cousins in that generation don’t have diabetes.
Boy oh boy, I tell you, what a wakeup call. That shifted my clinical work and focus. Two things: the change in the general population, and the fact that it became personal for me.
Dr. Eric:
You mentioned a lot of people don’t take it seriously enough. Can you explain what are some of the consequences of unmanaged type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance, which eventually could and often does lead to type 2 diabetes?
Dr. Beverly:
One of the things that can go on is people may come to find that they have mild cognitive impairment. They may have problems with their memory and ability to stay organized and live a normal adult life. This is what precedes the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s typically. There is a reason why Alzheimer’s is often called type 3 diabetes because of this threat to the brain in the face of this rising tide of unrelenting blood sugar.
I want to emphasize for people that it’s often the folks who have prediabetes who will wind up with dementia or Alzheimer’s. You don’t necessarily have had to go all the way from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes. Some people think that only if you’re a type 2 diabetic, you are at risk for brain health. No, no. This is what I’m telling people.
I watched this happen in my own family on my husband’s side with my mother-in-law. At the time, when this first started, I was an engineer, so I didn’t know. Knowing what I know now, I wish I had known it then, so we could have helped her and helped her quickly before this became a problem.
Anyone who is sitting there feeling a little smug, thinking “I am a prediabetic. A1C range of 5.7-6.4, I’m okay.” No, you’re not. Please take it seriously.
Just to define what is type 2 diabetes? That is an A1C. A blood test is measured as such. 6.5 and higher.
Dr. Eric:
Prediabetes, do you consider it synonymous with insulin resistance?
Dr. Beverly:
For most people, most of the time, yes. It is quite possible to have insulin resistance and not have an A1C above 5.7. I think it depends on the factors of your life. There is no such thing as one size fits all. That old 1950s advice of eat less and move more in today’s busy, complex, stressed-out world is just inadequate. There are plenty of people who are eating less and moving more, and they aren’t able to get in and stay in a healthy blood sugar range. They have this ongoing problem.
I think when it comes to insulin resistance, it’s a warning sign. It also should be a motivation to stay in a healthy range, eat healthy foods, foods that are great for your body. They don’t cause you to have a big food coma or energy crash. They don’t cause gas and bloating. You can eat and have normal digestion and even energy.
I think one of the things that might be misunderstood around insulin resistance is that it can precede other serious things, but you can do things that are helpful to keep it from becoming a problem. If you have consistent, regular exercise, that is always helpful. People ask, “What’s the best exercise?” It’s the one you’ll do. That’s the best exercise. Forcing people to do exercise that they hate doesn’t work. If you like to dance, dance. Whatever movement that you can do qualifies.
Eating foods that you know are healthy for you and not causing blood sugar spikes and crashes. That’s important. If you have the blood sugar rollercoaster, if you have a lot of ups and downs, that is hard. It’s hard on your brain, your moods. You become more irritable, or maybe you’re hangry. It’s hard on your entire body and psyche. You want that even flow for your blood sugar measurements.
It’s great if you can get a glucometer and test strips and test your blood sugar, so you know what’s going on. I think that should be in everyone’s home health kit.
If you find it’s painful to stick your finger and get a necessary drop of blood, if you’re in the U.S., you can always get a prescription written. If you’re in other parts of the world, it’s over the counter. You can get a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, and wear it for a few weeks, to see where you’re at, what’s going on.
You might find that some things you think of as being unhealthy for you might be fine from the point of view of your blood sugar. I’ll bet you there are two or three things you do that you think are healthy for your blood sugar that are not. You will see these massive spikes that stay up for hours. That’s your clue. That’s not good. That’s a problem.
Dr. Eric:
I’m guessing if someone has not just type 2 diabetes but prediabetes, you recommend a CGM. Is there a time prior to that? If someone’s hemoglobin A1C is on the higher side, like 5.5-5.6. Is there a threshold where you recommend that it’s a good idea to get the CGM?
Dr. Beverly:
Yeah, that’s a great question. There is a transitional phase. When an A1C shows a steady climbing pattern. Say you’ve been checked over the course of the past two years every six months, so we have four data points. Maybe your A1C started out at 5.0. Then 5.3. Then 5.5. The last time you checked, it’s 5.6. Clearly an upward trend. It would be a great idea to have a CGM or use an old-school glucometer and test strips, just to see what your blood sugar reactions are to the foods that you eat and beverages you drink, so you really know how you’re doing.
To me, the CGM wins because you can get that health data from overnight while you’re asleep. You’re not typically waking up in the middle of the night to do finger sticks unless you already have a problem. I do know people who have type 2 diabetes who do finger sticks if they wake up at 3am or 4am as a way to check and test. I think there is a lot to be said for having a great night’s sleep and having continuous data.
Dr. Eric:
Agreed. You talk about hemoglobin A1C. What are your thoughts on other markers like fasting glucose or fasting insulin? Do you rely primarily on hemoglobin A1C?
Dr. Beverly:
No, we look at the bigger picture. Fasting blood sugar or fasting hemoglobin, the morning sugars as some people refer to it more informally, are really helpful. They’re a guide because it lets you know if your blood sugar resets overnight.
Here’s the deal. After you eat dinner, until you go to bed, then you go to sleep, then you wake up the next morning. That entire period should be your fasting window. Fasting literally means you are not eating any food. You are not drinking anything either that could cause a rise in blood sugar or insulin. At that point, you will be drinking water. Maybe unflavored herbal tea, not a sweetened one, something with a bland flavor. We are not trying to invoke any kind of sweet response.
When you wake up the next morning, here’s the deal. Sleep, every day for all of us, is an opportunity for your entire body, mind, spirit, psyche, gut, everything to reset. Part of the reset that you should be able to enjoy and experience is getting to a healthy blood sugar range.
Your fasting morning blood sugar numbers should be 75-95. I love it when it’s in the 80s, so I know it’s not too low. It’s not hypoglycemia, which most people would say is 70 or lower for a fasting morning blood sugar number. It’s not too high, like 105-120 or even in the 200s. It should have reset to under 100.
If that’s not happening, then that means your blood sugar is at a higher level in terms of its average blood sugar exposure; therefore, your A1C number is more likely to be higher. Not always though. There are people who have higher morning sugars, yet their A1C is okay. It’s not in a prediabetes or type 2 diabetes range.
Dr. Eric:
Have you also seen discrepancies sometimes where maybe hemoglobin A1C is on the higher side, but fasting insulin is on the lower side? Is that a false negative? Sometimes, it can be frustrating when they oppose each other. One looks like the person has maybe not yet prediabetes but heading in that direction. Then you look at another marker, and it looks perfectly fine. Maybe not necessarily fasting glucose. Even that, too. As far as focusing on fasting insulin and hemoglobin A1C, do you see sometimes one marker looks good, and the other marker on the higher side?
Dr. Beverly:
Yeah, they can be a paradox. Let’s talk for a moment about fasting insulin, to tie off what you had asked earlier. I do look at fasting insulin. I love to see it in the single digits, 9 or under. If it’s a 4 or 5, yay. We know that when the body is fasting, insulin is down; therefore, it’s not in a mode of trying to store excess glucose somewhere. Otherwise, it will try to park the extra glucose as fat.
If the fasting insulin number is higher, like 20, 25, 30, your insulin is working overtime. It is trying to find a way to work with all the glucose. If it’s not signaling well with your cells, then the available blood sugar that should be grabbed by insulin and taken inside the cell as energy is saying, “We have to put this energy somewhere.” It starts to park it as extra fat, often in the abdominal cavity, particularly around the abdominal organs, or inside the liver. This is different than the fat that is just under the skin, the subcutaneous fat. That kind of fat gives off lots of inflammatory cytokines, those chemicals that can cause damage. It’s not a good kind of inflammation; it’s damaging. If you see those together, fasting blood sugar is high and fasting insulin is high, that is a problem you need to address.
You can see the paradox of if fasting insulin is higher, but A1C is okay, or you can see a fasting insulin number in the single digits and A1C is still higher. You’re looking at windows in time. The A1C is an average of the last 3-4 months of your life in terms of your average blood sugar. Your bone marrow every day is putting out brand new red blood cells. That’s the good news. If they are coming into an environment of high blood sugar, they will get sticky with that extra blood sugar.
If I can just take a moment to explain the process because I find people often don’t know what is A1C? Why do we care? Is it okay if we take a peek at what that’s about?
Dr. Eric:
Sure, go for it.
Dr. Beverly:
Great. Hemoglobin A1C, or A1C, is a measure of the average amount of blood sugar exposure your red blood cells have had over time. Your body naturally every day creates and puts out a fresh new set of red blood cells for you.
What happens inside that red blood cell, you might remember from science class in middle school or high school that there is a chemical called hemoglobin. That heme molecule sits in the center of the red blood cell. Its job is to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen. The carbon dioxide leaves, and oxygen comes in.
When this is a healthy working mechanism, you will have energy and feel good. if for some reason the works are gummed up, your energy system will crash. You won’t feel as good. You are more likely to feel fatigued; you might need to take a nap. You can’t get through your day.
Here’s why: When you have too much glucose, this exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide is getting compromised. The extra blood sugar, those molecules, stick onto this hemoglobin molecule, the heme, and gum it up. Therefore, this easy exchange is more like where it’s just too much to work. It’s a much different process. Which one will be a better flow?
This is where the blood sugar complications that happen create a process called glycation. With that comes that damage that causes the heart attacks, strokes, and other flow problems for your vasculature. Your blood literally can’t flow as well as it should through your cardiovascular system. That’s why diabetics tend to have problems related to gummed up blood with too much blood sugar.
They are at risk for diabetic retinopathy, losing their vision and going blind.
They’re at risk for having their kidneys be destroyed and wind up on dialysis. Kidneys hate extra blood sugar. They don’t like it at all and will cause you to pee a lot and do whatever needs to happen to try to change how much glucose concentration is in your blood.
Your nervous system doesn’t like it either. That’s why people get peripheral neuropathy. Fingers, toes, nose, things going on with their ears, problems with their mouth and dentition, their pelvic floor. Men wind up with erectile dysfunction, and women wind up with clitoral dysfunction. Inability to enjoy sex and reach orgasm. This is all a function of blood flow. When it gets compromised, these are some of the symptoms that show up.
Problems with the immune system. The immune system is a part of this system. People become much more vulnerable to infections and infectious processes. They will have wounds that don’t heal. If they have gone numb, they can’t feel they were injured, and they got wounded. It becomes bad. Things become abscessed. It’s terrible.
In terms of the lower body circulation, the legs and feet are really sensitive to this. People wind up with amputations and start to lose body parts. They lose toes or lower legs or the entire leg. I have known people who have had double leg amputations off of this. They got terrible advice and followed it. Maybe they didn’t know it was terrible advice on how to deal with their diabetes. Or they ignored good advice. Both roads will lead you to the same destination of the awful consequences of diabetes. It leads nowhere good. You have to be proactive about it.
The good news is there are five basic lifestyle choices that will make the biggest difference in turning it around where possible or preventing further damage.
Dr. Eric:
Are you okay with sharing at least some of those steps?
Dr. Beverly:
Sure, let’s go through it. There are five steps I bundled up in the Yates Protocol. As much as it might seem that it’s obvious, you still have to do things that are specific or relevant to you and your needs and how you live your life. It’s a proven program with customizable elements. We are all unique individuals.
The bull’s eye of the target is nutrition, and I know you will agree with me on this. You have to have a healthy nutrition that gives you good blood sugar, good glycemic control. We cannot ignore the importance of food in this. It’s literally let food be your medicine, and let your medicine be your food.
In that, you have to understand what foods you’re eating that are having a good blood sugar response for you, and which ones are causing you spikes. Which ones put you on that rollercoaster, where you are slamming up and down? Not good.
Sometimes, healthy foods can have unusual reactions. On a generic list, people would say things like cauliflower, quinoa, berries would probably be okay for most people, particularly in a normal portion. There are people who have unusual blood sugar reactions to seemingly healthy foods. If you’re one of them, this might be why you’re struggling to get control of your blood sugar.
It’s good to test and not guess. That’s why I’m a fan of either the glucometer and test strip idea or using a CGM, so you know what’s going on. How are you responding? You might find that a smoothie or another combo is not a good combo for you. Or maybe you are keeping yourself from eating bananas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams because you think they will spike your blood sugar. You should test and be sure. They might be fine for you. Just because they weren’t okay for your neighbor doesn’t mean they’re a problem for you.
The next is meal timing. The time of day you eat your food matters for good blood sugar control. In particular for insulin resistance, same advice. I will give you two tips here.
One is to make sure that you allow at least 3-5 hours between your dinnertime and when you put your head on your pillow to go to sleep. The reason I say that is this is part of the magic of getting your blood sugar to reset overnight. You have to give your gut a rest. You don’t want to have a heavy meal and go to bed on it. This is a disaster for a number of reasons. It will more likely lead to heartburn or GERD and most likely will lead to higher blood sugar numbers in the morning. You won’t have time to reach that healthy range.
The other tip is this: I notice for many people who have type 2 diabetes, they often get so busy in the middle of the day that they forget to eat lunch. That’s a mistake for two reasons:
Our body expects input on a rhythm. When we fail to meet that rhythm, things get out of order. Your whole hormonal system, including your thyroid system, is unhappy when you are inconsistent.
The other thing is you get so hungry that by the time you eat dinner, you are ready to eat whatever. That is where people make mistakes because they are hungry. They will eat the fastest, simplest, easiest thing because it solves the problem quickly. In an environment of 24/7 food, much of it is ultra-refined and highly processed. This is not good.
Step three would be the power of sleep. Sleeping is healing, and healing is sleeping. We have to get rest. Be able to restore, regenerate, and help those rest mechanisms. Some people have a phenomenon where their blood sugar rises around 4am or 5am. That’s an inappropriate response. It should rise a little bit to get you ready for your day, so you don’t pass out when you go from horizontal to vertical. It shouldn’t spike when you’re sound asleep. If it does, you need to do something about that, and that will determine your activities during the day to get rid of that bump.
The next piece around that for sleep is to know that it should be a friend. If you’re struggling with sleep, if you get feedback from someone that you snore a lot, or even worse, that you go completely silent and don’t breathe. Maybe your family member or lover tells you this. There are even apps that can help you. If you live on your own or don’t sleep with anyone else, you could still get this data. You should have a sleep study done because this is serious. This could be life-threatening. You could have sleep apnea or some other disorder that needs to be assessed. Test, don’t guess. It’s a rallying cry.
The fourth step is stress. Stress is underappreciated in the general public on how many things it can break. I liken stress as the bully that grabs you by your genetic collar and slams you against the wall of whatever is hanging out in your genes, your epigenetic expression. This means that some of us will be more vulnerable to problems with diabetes than others. Some people don’t have this as their weak link. Maybe it’s asthma or osteoporosis or any number of things.
Our fifth thing of course is exercise and strength training. Here’s the beautiful thing about this. It’s true for all of us at any age or stage. Exercise, active working of muscles, our blood sugar sponges. Whenever you can exercise, take that opportunity. It makes the difference. Those muscles open right up and are like, “Yes, give us that glucose.” You will see a rise. It is natural. Don’t freak out.
You will see a rise in your blood sugar while exercising because your body is mobilizing the energy sources to meet the demand of your active working muscles. It’s a good thing. Active working muscles are a blood sugar sponge. If you see a spike, you can start to do wall squats and sits or go for a walk. There is a lot you can do to get that blood sugar down. When you exercise, you will see it up. It should reset in about a half hour to an hour. Normal occurrence. Nothing to worry about.
Dr. Eric:
Earlier, you mentioned the most important exercise is whatever someone is willing to do. Ideally, you would say it would be a combination of some resistance training along with cardiovascular exercise?
Dr. Beverly:
Yeah. I think cardiovascular, as long as you are physically able and not in pain or otherwise compromised, ideally should be about five days a week if you want to do something about insulin resistance and diabetes. In this case, the regularity of that rhythm makes a difference.
That doesn’t mean it has to be for two hours a day. 30-40 minutes daily for most people will be fine. As we get older, the 30-minute mark is super. You don’t have to pound yourself. It’s not like you are preparing for a half-marathon or marathon every day. Everyone has to rest and reset.
If you are paying attention to sports, you are seeing professional athletes tap out sometimes depending on the sport and strategically resting because they have so much more information and data, so they don’t get worn out. As a result, in some of these careers, like basketball or soccer, some of these more aerobically and anaerobically intensive sports, people have longer careers than they used to. These athletes are taking much better care of themselves than was historically the case because they have better information.
The thing about strength training, especially as we get older, particularly for women, as we enter our 50s and 60s, from what I understand from the research and other experts I work with, it’s best to train three times a week. When you first start a weight training regimen, you will start off in a way where you are emphasizing great form. You may start with lower weights for the first 2-3 weeks. Work with a personal trainer, so you know what you’re doing and don’t injure yourself, so you can keep going.
Once you have your form down, then you want to emphasize going heavy. Let’s say you started out with five-pound weights. Then you want to graduate to 10, 15, 20. Particularly for women. This is important both for bone health, so you can avoid osteoporosis; balance, so you don’t wind up with a fall that we hear about older people going through, which opens up a Pandora’s box of problems. You also want to have good blood sugar control and maintain it as you age. Working with your musculature and neuromuscular balance and those receptors, like your inner ear, that give you balance. You want to be able to do these things.
That piece of self-care, every day if you commit to that 40 minutes or so, whether it is the aerobic side or the strength training side, whatever exercise you will do is the best. It could be dancing. Just get it done. Make sure that is on your calendar. If they already have diabetes or insulin resistance, now your first and primary job in your life is going to be your self-care. These are often very generous people. They are the rock of their community. They do so much for others. You have to do this for yourself. Self-care has to be job #1. That way, whatever else happens the rest of the day, you have already taken care of you.
Dr. Eric:
I agree with everything you said. We all know diet is important. Not everybody follows a healthy diet or eats a healthy diet. When it comes to supplementation, there are also a lot of supplements that potentially can help with blood sugar, or at least play a role. They are not a substitute for diet. What are your thoughts on the supplements out there, like berberine, alpha-lipoic acid, even chromium and magnesium?
Dr. Beverly:
I’m a real fan of alpha-lipoic acid. I think its oxidative fighting powers are great. It’s a wonderful antioxidant. I personally use it to protect your nervous system and all the other things that might be affected by free radical damage. Whether you live in an environment that has more environmental toxicity, or to combat the normal changes that come along with aging, it’s a great member of the toolbox.
Chromium is one of the minerals that is often deficient in the diet. You can test for it to see how much chromium someone might need.
Another consideration is berberine. When I went to naturopathic medical school, we were always taught to be cautious about the use of berberine. It might be too antimicrobial and disturbing of the gut microbiome.
In today’s world, there has already been so much damage to people’s microbiomes that berberine can be helpful. It might be a shorter-term tool or a longer-term tool. It depends on a person’s health history. Some people as kids were given antibiotics back to back to back many times for ear infections, like it was candy. It’s an odd thing. It depends on the kind of medical help people got when they were little. If you know that’s in your history, you probably need to do some other microbiome replenishment strategies.
Berberine can be helpful for blood sugar management in and of itself. It may not necessarily be an automatic problem for the gut’s microbiome.
Things like fenugreek. There is banaba. Any number of other things. Gymnema. I am a real fan of fenugreek and gymnema, especially if people have cravings. They find they have such a sweet tooth that it ruins any ability to make good choices around the things they eat or drink. It can help reset the tongue and buy you some time.
The good news is the cells on the tongue turn over every 10-14 days. You get a whole fresh crop. Within the course of half a month to a full month, you can really change your palate if you want to. If you are struggling with cravings, know you can take charge of it.
Dr. Eric:
With berberine, there is some controversy. I had Dr. Jason Hawrelak on the podcast; I’m not sure if you are familiar with him. He has a site called Probiotic Advisor and is an expert on the gut microbiome. He is opposed to berberine because of some older studies. Most of the newer studies seem supportive of berberine and the gut.
I don’t know if you are familiar with Dr. Rhonda Patrick, Find My Fitness. She does a lot of research. She had an episode on her podcast on berberine. That was one of the things she covered about the gut microbiome. According to her research, it doesn’t seem like it’s negative. At least short-term. If someone is taking it for six months or a year, it may be unknown. For taking it for a few months even, she didn’t seem too concerned.
Dr. Hawrelak would probably say not. Specifically what he said, maybe if someone takes probiotics with the berberine, it would be okay to replenish. You could tell he wasn’t a big fan of that. Again, Dr. Rhonda Patrick said it was okay. The research I have done. If you go into PubMed and search for berberine and gut microbiome, most if not all of the recent studies are all positive on the effects of berberine on the gut microbiome.
Dr. Beverly:
It is interesting to see that shift in the research. People’s own lived experiences and the environment we are in right now, it’s not only more complex, but we have more chemicals in the environment that we are often eating or being exposed to unwittingly than has ever been true before in human history. We are all in the midst of a giant experiment, and the outcome is unknown. We are the laboratory. Maybe that’s why people have different points of view or experiences with berberine.
I haven’t seen any catastrophes from it. It’s been fine. I have also had so many things in my toolbox as a naturopathic physician that I haven’t had to rely on one thing in order for it to make that clinical difference.
Dr. Eric:
What are your thoughts on metformin?
Dr. Beverly:
It’s a helpful medication, and it buys people time. I always tell anyone who has type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, type 1, insulin resistance that you still have to do lifestyle pieces. Obviously, in the case of type 1, where someone’s body no longer makes insulin, for the rest of their life, they will need to take insulin as a medication. We don’t have a cure for type 1 yet. I’m hopeful they will figure that out, but we’re not there yet.
You still need to do all you can not to be on that blood sugar rollercoaster. Those spikes and the crashes can be devastating. For type 1, potentially deadly. Absolutely to be avoided. You want to keep everybody, wherever they are on the blood sugar response spectrum, in that healthy zone as much as possible.
With that in mind, paying attention to those lifestyle factors—nutrition, meal timing, stress, sleep, exercise—is the way to go. When you get and stay in that healthy range as much as possible throughout the day and night, now, you’re keeping yourself out of the danger zone for the nasty consequences of uncontrolled diabetes.
Dr. Eric:
There is a time and place for certain medications. I wanted to get your opinion.
Dr. Beverly:
It serves a place. I am not opposed to medication. It absolutely buys us time. If that’s the thing that’s working, do it. You still have to do lifestyle stuff though.
Dr. Eric:
I definitely agree with that. Circling back to the consequences of diabetes, you know that most if not all of the listeners have a thyroid or autoimmune thyroid condition. Have you seen any relationship between blood sugar imbalances and thyroid imbalances or thyroid autoimmunity as a trigger or contributing factor?
Dr. Beverly:
Absolutely. I’m glad you asked that. When I think of the thyroid, I think of the whole hormonal system, the endocrine web if you will. I do think of it as a spider web. If you pluck one strand, you will see the whole thing quiver. When you look at the system, I think of the thyroid as the conductor of the symphony. If the thyroid is not functioning well, if it’s under autoimmune attack, or if it’s just hypo or hyper, you really want to get that into balance because it will drag down other things with it.
What I have classically seen is if someone has been really stressed, if they have a clear diagnosed thyroid problem, often the next thing that breaks if they haven’t gotten the help they need is their cortisol regulation will go bonkers. If cortisol becomes out of balance, because it is meant to be a life emergency system, and not a normal life system. What I mean by that is cortisol is there as a partner to let you respond to an actual emergency. Most emergencies were brief, not sustained. In today’s world, I don’t know. Things are changing.
You’re supposed to be able to be superhuman with the use of cortisol and adrenaline rushing through your bloodstream for 10 minutes. This is how you hear about a petite woman who is maybe 90 pounds soaking wet lifting a car off of a loved one. A superhero move in that moment that she ordinarily wouldn’t be able to do. She can because it was a clear threat. Able to perform a miracle.
In that process, if it’s a 10-minute moment, it’s okay. Your body will eventually bring your cortisol and adrenaline back to a normal level, and you will be all right. But if you are under threat, real or perceived, maybe you live in a place that is dangerous. Maybe you have a terrible work environment. Maybe your family relationship or love life is just a harmful, difficult thing. Maybe you have gotten some other kinds of surprises that are shocking to the system.
What will happen is cortisol and adrenaline will get so used to being elevated and high that any time they go up, at the same time, your body releases glucose because it thinks you’re lifting the car off the loved one. Or you need to run away from something. But you’re not getting the exercise that goes with that activity. You aren’t burning off the extra cortisol or adrenaline. Therefore, it keeps circulating in your blood system, and it has the opportunity to act like little jackhammers on your blood vessel, putting pockmarks if you will along the way in your vasculature, particularly around the heart. Therefore, you’re more at risk for things like heart attack and stroke. This is where this comes from.
That is why people who have combinations of problems that include diabetes are more likely to have cardiovascular problems and heart attacks. You want to get your thyroid situation straightened out. If you have thyroid and adrenal problems, you need both straightened out. If you don’t, they will cause the insulin resistance that leads you straight to prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. One link grabs another link grabs another link grabs another, and you need to unlink them.
The good news is working on one or two usually yields a result and lowers the threshold of risk for the others.
Dr. Eric:
I agree. It’s amazing how everything in the body is connected. Those five factors that you mentioned earlier, incorporating those, it’s not just about blood sugar, but those could help with- I don’t want to say everything, but a lot of things, if not everything.
Dr. Beverly:
It’s incredible. That is so helpful in healing. No one situation is too complex. It’s all figure-outable. The path won’t be linear. Get to know yourself better.
Dr. Eric:
Again, you shared a lot of great knowledge. I want you to let everyone know about your upcoming summit. Of course, other places people can find out more about you if someone wants to work with you. Talk about your summit that’s coming up.
Dr. Beverly:
Sure. I’m the host for the online Reversing Type 2 Diabetes Summit. It will be live and free October 3-9, 2023. You’re welcome to check that out.
My websites are DrBeverlyYates.com and NaturalHealthCare.com. We are literally redoing that one right now as of our recording. It will be up and wiggling by the time this is released.
We will have opt-ins for more information about CGMs, for people who want tasty, simple recipes for blood sugar management. One of the fun things about that is it includes both options that have meat as well as plant-based, 100% vegetarian and/or vegan recipes. Wherever you’re eating, whatever is working for you, because I know nutrition is not one size fits all, I got you. People are welcome to grab those.
Dr. Eric:
This was an amazing conversation. Thank you so much, Dr. Beverly for talking about insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Beverly:
Thank you. Please make sure you’re following Dr. Eric wherever he may be, so you get all the latest posts. He has been very focused on his mission for working with thyroid and autoimmune support, and I love when colleagues have a clear focused mission. Let’s all link arms together and work together to have this world be healthier.
Dr. Eric:
Agreed. Thank you so much.