Diabetes and intermittent fasting do they go together is it a good idea or
there's some diabetics that shouldn't do it and are there some that definitely
should well we need to understand that there's different types of fasting and
there's different types of diabetics so today we're going to talk about that and
explore it so that you understand when it could be appropriate so that you can
help yourself and maybe guide some others as well
coming right up
I'm doctor Ekberg I'm a holistic doctor and a former Olympic decathlete and if
you'd like to truly master health by understanding how the body really works
make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you don't
miss anything so diabetes is a disease of blood sugar issues it's a disease
where blood sugar runs high and untreated it runs so high that it spills
over in the urine and it starts destroying the kidneys and both high and
low blood sugar can be very dangerous what's the difference between a type 1
and a type 2 diabetic well we will look at blood sugar both type 2 and a type 1
are characterized by high blood sugar that's what they have in common the
difference though is a type 2 diabetic generally develops it gradually it's an
overload on the system it's abusing the carbohydrate tolerance machine over a
period of decades 10 20 30 40 50 years until finally it just says I can't do it
anymore and it has no ability to control the blood sugar and the blood sugar goes
high that's a type 2 diabetic a type 1 diabetic is someone who rather suddenly
loses the ability to make insulin at all it's a pancreas problem it's a
destruction of the pancreas and typically it is an autoimmune process or
an infection of some sort that takes out the pancreas that the beta cells
oftentimes very very quickly in a matter of days or weeks the high blood sugar in
type 1 diabetics it typically happens very very fast a type 2 diabetic a lot
of these people are undiagnosed because if they don't go check for it they may
not know a type 1 diabetic will typically always know very quickly
because they get very very sick they no matter how much they eat they can't
gain any weight they can't use any glucose because there is no insulin to
help the glucose out of the blood and into the cells so all the sugar is being
pushed out through the kidneys and lost in the urine so they doesn't matter how
much they eat is called the starvation in the midst of plenty even though they
both have high blood sugar the development is quite different and type
2 diabetics may or may not know that they have it's type 1 diabetics
typically know that they have it insulin is very high in a type-2 diabetic
because they have pushed the insulin production over a long period of time
but they can still make insulin their pancreas is perfectly capable to make
insulin even though in some cases they the system their bodies their health can
be in such poor shape that the type-2 turns into a type 1 that they can
actually have pancreas destruction because it's just so worn out and weak
that you can start getting autoimmune attacks as a result of the pancreas not
working and type 2 turns into type 1 but for the most part type twos have a
highly functioning pancreas they can make lots and lots of insulin but the
insulin still isn't enough to control the blood sugar in type once they have
zero insulin that if that's the criteria that's how they diagnose it they do a
fasting insulin test and if there's below detectable levels then they're
diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic so they have no insulin so in in that regard
they are complete opposites for the longest time they didn't know this that
when you look back in history hundreds of thousands of years then what they
talked about was type 1 diabetics those were people that for some reason had
their pancreas destroyed and type 2 diabetes was basically non-existent
because it took a lot of sugar and a lot of carbs and processed grains and
abundance food really to develop type 2 diabetes'
day we have probably 25 30 times more people with type 2 diabetes than type 1
diabetes but both of them are on the rise this one is growing steadily this
one is growing exponentially if they're both growing then there's probably
something to do with lifestyle because our genes don't change that fast so we
have everything to gain by learning how to manage these the best when we look at
insulin resistance a type-2 diabetic has like we said very high insulin
resistance because we have driven we have created a very high insulin level
for a long period of time and now the cells become resistant and we've got
lots of videos on those topics if you want to check out the more detailed
explanation on that a type one however they can kind of be either/or in the
beginning they are usually very insulin sensitive because there was nothing
wrong until their pancreas got destroyed and then they had no insulin so now the
body is screaming for insulin because there isn't any so they are super super
insulin sensitive in the beginning and then they discover that their type 1
diabetics and now they start injecting insulin so now if they stay insulin
sensitive or if they become insulin resistant depends on how much carbs and
how much sugar and how much processed foods they eat so some people believe
that oh just eat whatever you want and just inject enough insulin to control
the blood sugar and that's sort of unfortunately the the standard of care
for type 1 diabetics a lot of times the standard recommended diet for healthy
people in this country is about 300 grams of carbohydrates and if we count
in the the fruits and the dairy products and the refined sugar even staying
within the recommended guidelines you can still eat a hundred and fifty grams
of sugar per day and eat the recommended food if you eat
like that then then the low insulin resistance will turn into significant
insulin resistance so even if you type one and you're having to inject that
insulin from the outside you can become insulin resistant by following the diet
that turned the type 2 diabetics into type 2 diabetics that turned them
insulin resistant so where does intermittent fasting fit into this well
it's all about insulin so the foods that stimulate the most insulins are sugar
and refined carbs so the more of those foods you eat the more insulin you
stimulate so the whole idea with low-carb and keto is to eat less of the
foods that stimulate insulin so that you can reverse insulin resistance and
become insulin sensitive and help the body burn off the fuel and find blood
sugar balance again and if low-carb and keto work then fasting is gonna work
even better even faster because when you're fasting you're not eating
anything then your carb intake is zero the low-carb the keto and the fasting
they're good tools to reduce the insulin response so let's look at a few
scenarios here who might be a good candidate or not so great candidate for
for intermittent fasting and/or low carb so if we take a type 2 diabetics who are
not on any medication they've just driven up their blood sugar but they
haven't gone to the point where they haven't started or accepted any
medication yet these people are the prime candidates for intermittent
fasting if you want to do low carb or keto first great but if you don't want
to just go straight for intermittent fasting because it's going to be the
fastest most powerful way to start bringing that insulin down and reversing
this disease there very few drawbacks if any so just learn more about the
different patterns try the different kinds the
different timing and you see what works for you and what what gets the results
that you want if you are a type 2 diabetic and you're taking metformin or
some similar drug then you're still pretty safe you are a great candidate
there is a risk for complications oh if you all of a sudden take all the carbs
out of your diet and you keep the same level of medication it probably won't
happen super fast but there's a chance that that medication can drive your
blood sugar too low too suddenly so you want to monitor very very carefully
monitor your glucose levels and watch it very closely and probably it's a good
idea also to consult your doctor so that he knows what you're doing and you can
talk about how much metformin to take and so forth if your type 2 diabetic on
metformin and/or insulin and you're actually on insulin then I would
strongly recommend that you talk to your medical doctor and you talk about how to
dose this insulin because there are concerns with hypoglycemia that's
basically what's going to happen if you are on a certain level of carbs and a
certain level of insulin and then you cut out all the carbs now you are over
medicated and there's a good chance that you're gonna push that blood sugar too
low and develop hypoglycemia so some people say oh well that's the reason
that you should never do intermittent fasting as a diabetic but if the the
insulin is only there to handle the carbs that you're eating then if you
reduce the carbs why not just reduce the insulin the only trick is that you have
to be careful and match it and monitor it very carefully if you are a type 1
diabetic that means you are on insulin and you are insulin sensitive meaning
that it's well managed that you're probably not eating a ton of
carbohydrate the and there's not too much reason for you
to change anything depending though on how much insulin are you taking because
it can still be beneficial to reduce the insulin and we'll talk more about that
so this would be the only candidate out of these who really wouldn't be a great
or an obvious candidate for for intermittent fasting but if you're type
1 diabetic who has eaten lots of carbs and your insulin dose has been going up
over time then you would still be a great candidate for intermittent fasting
if you want to start slower and just go to low carb and keto gradually then it
would be much easier for you to figure out to gradually change your medication
but realize that soon as you cut back on your carbs you are over medicated you
have to change both of them and match them together you have to change the
food the carb intake and the insulin dose at the same time but look here at
why you would want to do that because both blood sugar and insulin are very
destructive they're both very damaging a lot of the complications of insulin
resistance and diabetes such as blindness and kidney failure and
cardiovascular disease and obesity they have to do both with glucose with blood
sugar and insulin resistance so if you can reduce the amount of insulin it
takes to get the job done then you're that much better off so if you're eating
the recommended 300 grams of carbs and you're taking the corresponding amount
of insulin but then you figure out a diet that works for you where you can
eat a hundred grams then you should be able to get by on a third of the insulin
you can get down to cut it down by 2/3 and probably you could cut it down even
more because if you do any form of exercise
if you go walking once in a while then you need even less insulin the the
muscles become much more sensitive to to the insulin when that when you're when
you're exercising and if you went from 300 down to sixty grams now you could
get by on one fifth on 20% of the original insulin if you get down to
thirty grams you could get by on one tenth so it's not just the cost savings
but it's a health savings primarily so most of the complications for both type
2 and type 1 diabetics is because they really mismanaged they are not doing
what they need to bring the insulin down and the goal is to get the job done with
the least amount of insulin you're eating certain amount of calories you're
eating a certain amount of food to fuel your body and to rebuild your body and
you need to take some as a type-1 you need to take some insulin to move that
food from the bloodstream into the cells but the less insulin you can take to get
the job done the better off you are and a lot of this has to do the reason a lot
of this becomes difficult is because of blood sugar swings and the more sugar
and the more carbs you eat the more blood sugar swings you're gonna have the
best blood sugar levels you're gonna get when you're fat adapted when you're in
ketosis because now you have very very few blood sugar swings your body has
learned to depend on fat and ketones for fuel so because you depend less on
glucose not only do you need less insulin but you're going to have much
less swings so that's going to make it much easier in the long run to to dose
and reduce that insulin so the overall goals that you want to think about is
you want to lower your a1c and you want to lower your insulin resistance so for
the type to diabetic it means get off the insulin
and then as long as your pancreas is working you want to have it make less
insulin so that again means low carb diet maybe intermittent fasting and for
the type one diabetic that means you're still going to be taking insulin for the
rest of your life probably but if you can inject less then you're going to be
that much healthier so there are a lot of people diabetics and non diabetics
who can benefit from low carb and intermittent fasting that can make their
bodies more insulin sensitive so learn as much as you can watch my other videos
on the topic and see how it could work for you learn enough that you can do it
safely and then consult with your doctor so that you can get some good guidance
in monitoring and measuring and regulating if you're on some medication
please leave your comments below if you have any questions I'd love to see those
and if you have any good stories or any experiences that'd be great as well if
you're new to the channel make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification
bell so that you don't miss anything and please share this video because insulin
resistance and diabetes is the fastest-growing epidemic of our time and
if we don't get it under control it's going to be even more of a disaster than
it already is thanks for watching