Importance of Controlling Blood Sugar

A patient recently asked,

What are the most important things you do every day to positively impact your health?

It’s an excellent question, and my response may surprise you. As a constant self-experimenter, I’ve been known to use some unconventional methods in seeking my best possible health. I call these counterintuitive strategies because they take an opposite approach to increasing health, challenging mainstream cultural codes and ideals, and I hope that they will transform your health and life as they have mine.

The real key to living a longer and healthier life is controlling blood sugar.

Many well-intentioned folks are constantly seeking the next pill or potion to increase health, but the bottom line is if your blood sugar is out of whack, you’ll never maintain significant weight loss or your best health. And since so many Americans suffer from blood sugar challenges, it’s an extremely important topic. But why does our blood sugar level have such an impact on overall health? Let me explain…

Spikes in Blood Sugar Accelerate Aging.

If you want to age faster than anyone in your neighborhood, simply raise your blood sugar. A repetitive blood sugar roller coaster produces substances called AGEs (Advanced Glycation End Products) via a glycation reaction. AGEs are aptly named since they cause cellular oxidation and inflammation by literally accelerating the aging process from the inside out, contributing to an array of degenerative diseases.

Think of glycation like rust forming on a car bumper, but it’s slowly eating away at YOU. Furthermore, constant blood sugar spikes shorten something called telomeres, parts of cells that act as a human “biological clock” and affect how we age. Science has shown that by looking at the length of your telomeres, you can understand the age of your cells. You may be 45 years old, but your telomeres could show your cellular age clocks in at 65. In effect, out-of-control blood sugar ages you prematurely AND shortens your telomeres, thereby shortening your life.

Blood Sugar Spikes Dysregulate Hormones.

Hormones are directly affected by our blood sugar levels. And when it comes to anti-aging, weight loss, and optimal cellular function, hormones are the real answer.

Blood sugar spikes equal cellular inflammation, and cellular inflammation equals hormone problems that are typically not solved by taking more hormones.

Diabetes and Insulin Resistance Explained

As an example, think of diabetics: they suffer from cellular membrane inflammation which consequently triggers hormone dysregulation and the host of problems that go with it. To explain, hormone receptors reside on the cell membrane, including receptors to the hormone insulin that allows your body to use glucose for energy. When the cell membrane is inflamed, hormones cannot communicate with the receptor to get the message into the cell where it needs to go for normal function. Simply put, the cell cannot “hear” the message from the hormone insulin to bring the glucose needed for energy into the cell. As a result, glucose builds up in the blood leading to elevated blood sugar levels and more inflammation. This is the state of hormone resistance, or in the case of diabetes, insulin resistance.

Moreover, remember that diabetics do not die of diabetes. Rather they age prematurely and develop other inflammatory diseases such as heart disease, stroke, obesity, and more. Diabetics literally age faster at the cellular level, evidenced by outward signs such as age spots and wrinkles, and symptoms such as necrosis (lost appendages due to nerve degeneration).

Most diabetics end up with thyroid problems because the thyroid hormone receptors, like most hormone receptors, are also on the cell membrane and are blunted by glucose-driven inflammation. Therefore, many people take thyroid hormone and the blood work improves, but they don’t feel any better. If the message from the thyroid hormone (T3) can’t get in the cell, due to inflammation, then the blood levels of hormones can be normal, but your hair keeps thinning, energy dropping, and weight going up (or at least stalling despite what you eat). You must get to the real cause. Hormones can be crutches, but they are not a long-term lasting answer.

Blood Sugar is Affected by Grains.

Now, I know most everyone recognizes that sugar should be avoided for good health, but did you know your morning bowl of oatmeal spikes blood sugar as much as a 12 oz. can of soda? Most Americans, even the “healthy” ones eating a daily bowl of steel-cut oats or twelve-grain toast, experience major blood sugar spikes throughout the day due to grain consumption, and this includes whole grains.

Imagine a typical day: cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, pasta or pizza for dinner; this diet creates a blood sugar roller coaster that contributes to cellular inflammation, premature aging, and chronic disease.

Aside from spiking blood sugar, grains contain toxic anti-nutrients like lectins, gluten, and phytates. Gluten may be the most famous. These denatured proteins lead to problems for those who consume grains in large quantities or have leaky guts.

Most of these denatured proteins in grains, like gluten, came from the hybridization of grain that took place in the 1970’s. After grains were hybridized to make them easier to grow and harvest, the proteins became a foreign invader to the human immune system. This is especially true when they end up in our bloodstream from a leaky gut that allows them to cross into the bloodstream undigested.