Realfoodology - An Integrative Approach to Diabetes with Dr. Mona Morstein

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

121: **REALFOODOLOGY PODCAST IS NOW ON YOUTUBE!** Dr. Mona Morstein has been a naturopathic physician for thirty-one years. She sees patients for all types of chronic conditions, but has an expertise in hormonal conditions, such as prediabetes, Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, thyroid (Hashimoto’s and Graves), adrenals, reproductive (in women and men). She is the author of the highly esteemed book “Master Your Diabetes: A Comprehensive, Integrative Approach For Both Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes.” Topics Covered: Difference between diabetes 1 & 2 Is reversing diabetes an option? Is there a cure to diabetes? Symptoms of diabetes  Insulin resistance  Nutrient deficiency  Obesogens and diabesogens Toxic Chemicals and weight gain  Insulin resistance  Endocrine disruptions  BPAs Plastics Phthalates  Herbicides and environmental toxins Importance of sweating  Overconsumption of sugar  Grains and gluten  Glyphosate  Are low carb diets good for diabetes? What is considered a low carb diet? The dawn phenomenon  Why having a regular exercise regimen is so important  A1C Gestational diabetes  Check Out Dr. Morstein: Book Online Sponsored By: BiOptimizers: Magnesium Breakthrough www.magbreakthrough.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 10% off any order Higher Dose higherdose.com use code REALFOODOLOGY FOR 15% OFF SITEWIDE Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% Off ION - Intelligence of Nature www.intelligenceofnature.com Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 15% off all one time orders Check Out Courtney: **REALFOODOLOGY PODCAST IS NOW ON YOUTUBE!** Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Further Listening: Glyphosate, GMO's and How To Navigate the Food System with Zach Bush MD

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. When we want our blood sugar to be around 100, the amount of glucose that it takes to run a body at 100 is like four-fifths of a teaspoon. Now, a can of Coke is 12 teaspoons. If your body is not even running off of one teaspoon, what do you think all of this sugar is doing to systems that were never evolved or designed to handle this kind of raw sugar intake? Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. As always, I am your host, Courtney Swan, and I am so grateful that you're here. Today's episode is one that I have been wanting to do for a while. I just needed to find the right expert to come on and talk all about it. So today's episode is one where we dive fully into diabetes. So I brought

on Dr. Mona Morstein. She's a naturopathic physician who has been practicing for 31 years now. She's also the author from the esteemed book, Master Your Diabetes, a comprehensive integrative approach for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. And I want to be clear here, we talk both about diabetes 1 and 2, but primarily we are talking about type 2 diabetes. So even though I don't name specifically type 2 diabetes when I'm asking her questions about diet related and lifestyle changes that people can do. I want to be very, very clear in differentiating between the two. And as you hear in the very beginning, there is a difference between type 1 and type 2. Type 1 is an autoimmune disorder.

And once diagnosed, it is something that you do live with for life. Another thing that I did want to point out that we did not have time to talk about on the episode, and I was kind of bummed because I wanted to ask her about this, but something that is really important to note, there is a new school of thought that Alzheimer's is actually type three diabetes. There are a lot of experts

that are referring to Alzheimer's as type three. And I think it's really important for people to understand this because as we talked about throughout this episode, there are many ways that we can either keep ourselves from getting type two diabetes or we can reverse it. And the same can be applied for type three diabetes. So this is why it's incredibly important for us to stay on top of our diets and our lifestyle and make sure that we are really taking care of our blood sugar and our sugar intake because it could affect us down the line and could potentially lead to Alzheimer's or

type 3 diabetes. So I thought that was really interesting to note while we're talking about diabetes. And with that, let's get into the episode. And before we get into the episode, if you could just take a moment to rate and review, it would mean so much to me. It really, really helps the show and I am so grateful for your support. And also bear with me because I'm kind of losing my voice today. I went to a music festival last weekend and screamed my heart out and I am still paying for it. So bear with me while I'm getting my voice back. I hope you guys enjoy the episode. If you're like me and you struggle with insomnia and stress, you're going to want to listen to this. Four out of five Americans are actually magnesium deficient and almost everyone is at suboptimal levels. And the problem is,

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If you have listened to this podcast for a while, you know, I talk a lot about our exposure to environmental toxins, whether that's pharmaceutical drugs and heavy metals and herbicides and pesticides in our tap water or our food and finding phthalates in our food and pesticides, et cetera. There's a lot of stuff that we're being exposed to on a day-to-day basis. And while there are some things that we can do to control and mitigate our exposure to these toxins, there's only so much that we can do. So one of the things that I am a huge proponent for is sweating every day. Now this means moving your body, getting exercise, getting your lymph flowing. Another great way to do this is with a sauna. I am a huge fan of the higher dose sauna bag. I've personally had one for about three years now.

And what I love so much about it is that it does not take up a lot of space. So if you live in a smaller apartment or a small house and you don't have the space for a big sauna, this is the perfect option for you. Or even if you do have a big space, it's really great because it's super portable. I personally lay in my sauna bag on my bed and then I either read a book or I watch TV. And it's great because you get all the benefits of an infrared sauna, but you don't have to have a big, huge sauna in your house or you don't have to leave your house either to go to a sauna. The higher dose sauna bag is so great. I always make sure to get a sweat in at least a couple of times a week. And what's so great about it is that you are supporting your detoxification pathways and helping your body to sweat out everything that we were being exposed to on a day-to-day basis. If you want to try any of the higher dose products today, including their

sauna bag, you are going to get 15% off if you use code REALFOODOLOGY. So go to higherdose.com, that's H-I-G-H-E-R-D-O-S-E.com, and use code REALFOODOLOGY, and you're going to save 15%. Mona, I am so happy to have you on the podcast today. And like I said before, I was very excited to bring you on to talk about diabetes because I have yet to do a podcast about diabetes. And I'm really excited to talk to you about an integrative approach to diabetes, especially now with the rising rates of diabetes in our country. So thank you so much for coming on today.

Thanks very much, Courtney, for inviting me. My pleasure. So what's your background and how did you get into an integrative diabetic approach? I'm a naturopathic physician and I've been practicing for 33 years. And my story is, you know, is I hope kind of embarrassing and inspiring, I hope. But when I was first starting out in my medical practice in Great Falls, Montana, I actually missed the diagnosis of a type two patient who was in an acute, a really acute state. And so that made me question everything about myself as a physician. Was I a responsible physician? Should I be in care of people's health? And it really threw me deeply into self-analysis. And what I decided is that I do want to be a physician, but I was going to make sure I never missed anything related to diabetes again. And so I went and worked with Dr.

Richard Bernstein in his clinic in New York, and I launched upon a lot of study and, you know, became, I guess, really an expert in all aspects of diabetes, type 1, type 2, kids, insulin, medications, and of course, all of the beauty of naturopathic, you know, integrative methods of looking at it and also treating it. Yeah. Wow. That's an amazing story. So let's just start with the basics. What is the difference between diabetes 1 and diabetes 2? Well, I mean, so the difference, just a quick difference is diabetes 2 is a disease of insulin resistance where these patients are able to make insulin. And in fact, they're usually overproducing insulin because, you know, almost all the cells in our body, aside from there's a chemical phosphorylation reaction that stimulates inside the cell for glucose transporter four to reach out, grab glucose and bring it inside. And there, based on insulin's guidance, it should turn into fat and store as energy.

But once people start getting overweight and into obesity or even worse, morbid obesity, and especially with weight gain around the abdomen, the cells have enough fat in them and they don't want more glucose and they don't want more fat. And so they become resistant. The insulin will land in their receptor, but they're not listening. The glucose goes higher in the bloodstream since it's not entering the cells. And at a certain number, fasting 126 and above, they have diabetes, right? So the process for them, now there's many, many, it's not just abdominal fat that causes it. There are many etiological reasons for the insulin resistance process to begin. Now with type one, this is an autoimmune disease.

For also other reasons, our own immune system just starts attacking some aspect of the pancreas. And that causes enough damage to the beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin that they're no longer able to produce life-supporting amounts of insulin. And so these patients at some point in their health will need to live on insulin to enable their food and their glucose to get in their cells. So now a type 2 diabetic patient can be so poorly controlled for so long that there's so much damage to their beta cells that they no longer are able to produce insulin and need to go on injected insulin. But they're still type 2. They're just poorly controlled type 2, now insulin dependent, right? But they never become type 1, which is that autoimmune situation.

Okay. Yeah. That's really interesting. And I know that once someone is diagnosed with type one diabetes, that they will be on insulin for life. There's no sort of reversing of that. But with type two diabetes, some people say that you can reverse it or a lot of say, or it just becomes asymptomatic, whatever you decide to call that. The best term is controlled. Now you can have controlled or you may be reversed. What we shouldn't say is cured, right? So whether it's controlled without medications or it's been reversed, I think those are good terms. Well, and that's really why I wanted to do this episode because I want to give people hope that

even if you have a diabetes 2 diagnosis, that this is not the end of the world, that there are things that we can do, especially diet related, to control it, like you said. And I definitely want to dive into that, but I want to dive a little bit more about the mechanisms of this before we do that. First of all, you mentioned this and I want to hear what some of the other signs and symptoms are. So what are the signs of diabetes too? I know that you mentioned the fat around the middle. What are some other signs and symptoms that people would look for? You know, there's unfortunately, you know, not many necessarily. They're not really getting into what we see with the extreme onset of type one. They're probably a little tired, fatigued. They could have more of an appetite. Insulin

resistance drives appetite, which then kind of is this catch-22 of eating more and gaining weight and having more appetite and so forth. But, you know, there may be, for example, wound healing may not be good. There may be in women more vaginal yeast. In men, maybe some jock itch sort of fungal overgrowth, more athlete's foot because fungus, of course, when we make bread, you know, flour, yeast, sugar to feed the yeast and water. And so too much sugar in the body, if there's yeast, which is a natural microorganism in our skin and our internal microbiomes that they're going to, you know, they can really go to, you know, they can really proliferate, right? There are some skin changes

that can darken the skin, nigrocans. There's skin tags, right? So neck skin tags are associated with insulin resistance. So there's some varied kind of changes that can happen. that before most, like ironically, the patient who drove me into diabetes expertise was in an advanced state of type 2 diabetes. But I've had patients walking in my door, oh, you know, they're a little tired, they're not feeling good. And there's just enough that I like poke their finger in the office and they're 443. And you know, how are you even getting out of bed? And there's just enough that I like poke their finger in the office and they're 443.

And, you know, how are you even getting out of bed? Just to give people an understanding, what's the healthy range? So our ideal fasting glucose should be around 80 to 85. After we eat, you know, maybe anywhere from 100 to 120, that 80 to 120 will be an average of 100, which is an A1C, one of our long-term monitor labs of the last three months. That'll be a 5.0. So that's kind of an ideal A1C. So that kind of spread. So if you're, I mean, you're a diabetic patient fasting, if you're 126 or above or after you eat at 200 or above. So walking around at 443 is very- I mean, that's frightening. Yeah, that's really scary. So you've mentioned insulin resistance a couple of times.

So for people listening, I want them to understand, can you have insulin resistance without having diabetes? And what exactly does insulin resistance mean? So you can't, I mean, certainly pre-diabetes is the beginning of insulin resistance. And like most things, there's a mild and a moderate, and then a severe that can happen literally over years. Right. So, um, as I said, insulin resistance just means the cells of the body that use insulin to take glucose in are not doing that, even though there is insulin in the body to stimulate that. But they're not listening. Now, there's many reasons cells can become insulin resistant and that can drive the development of diabetes. For example, nutrient deficiency. So the cells require

nutrients to have that system work. It requires chromium and zinc and vanadium and magnesium and omega-3 oils. And these are needed to have that system really work. And not everybody may be eating these or having, I mean, honestly, omega-3 deficiency is pretty common. They say magnesium is an undiagnosed, very common nutrient deficiency. Although honestly, when I test my patients, it's very rare that I find anybody with an eating deficiency. So I don't know.

But nutrient deficiencies, obviously the weight gain. And the weight gain is usually, right, ascribed to eating too many calories and not exercising to help balance that. Now, the whole calorie in calorie out exercise, I mean, there's other factors, which I'll talk about in a second, but if you are just eating Big Macs and candies and soda pop, and then you're just playing video games or watching TV, it's going to be pretty easy today to gain weight and become insulin resistant, right? Now, one, sleep apnea in studies will help produce insulin resistance, right? So people may not even know they're having that kind of a sleep difficulty.

Certainly, environmental chemicals are, there are environmental chemicals that are known as obesogens that help cause obesity and diabetogens that help cause insulin resistance and diabetes. And given the preponderance of chemicals and toxins, I mean, when a newborn baby today has over 200 chemicals from the environment in their core blood, like toxic chemicals are a huge problem and are leading to a lot of people gaining weight and developing diabetes because not everybody genetically detoxes at the same rate. And so if you're just born into a toxic world and your detox is a little slower just because your liver came out that way and that puts you at higher risk of having these chemicals settle in your fat tissues initiate insulin resistance and then of course we have our microbiome right so the microbiome we're

understanding has a lot to do with how well we metabolize our food, how insulin resistant we are. A lot of insulin resistance can be driven by inflammation, not just in the body, but also gut inflammation can get through the lining, go to muscle cells and produce insulin resistance. And of course course our gut microbiome with all of our antibiotics and other drugs that affect the microbiome, like birth control pills, as well as just our diet and eating genetically modified foods and poor diets. And these, our guts take a huge amount of insult to them on a daily basis for the vast majority of our population.

And that's changing the microbiome oftentimes to microbiomes that are not going to enhance metabolic burning of food, of energy, and will produce insulin resistance. So, you know, we've got so many different factors that can be involved in each individual patient leading to this true crisis of diabetes. Now, I mean, we have at least 30 million people with diabetes out of, say, 320 million patients. So practically one out of every 10 people in America is a diabetic and around almost 100 million are pre-diabetic. So we're looking at one out of every three American is either pre-diabetic or diabetic now. And things are just going to get worse because age-wise, one out of every four person over 65 is a diabetic. And we're having, you know,

our patients, the baby boomers, we're getting this population where people, if we can just be, I'm not trying to be ageist because I'm entering that population soon myself, but if we're just going to stereotype, which is not always very good, but sometimes we look at older people as they have some medical conditions or on some medications, they're not exercising as much, they're not as active or these things that can be factors in leading to weight gain, you know, obesity, being overweight, that's 60 to 70% of our population. Like we're in a crisis and it's not us. Let's not pick on America.

This is worldwide, right? This is worldwide. I talk a lot about glyphosate on this podcast, as you guys know, because it is a huge concern of mine right now, especially considering that the World Health Organization has deemed it as a probable human carcinogen. Something you may not know about glyphosate though, which is equally as concerning, according to peer-reviewed articles,

toxins like glyphosate, as well as gluten actually, can degrade tight junctions in the epithelial layer of the gut lining. And because we know this, I have been taking something called gut support from ION or intelligence of nature daily. It was developed by Dr. Zach Bush and it has been shown to strengthen the tight junction integrity at the gut lining. So it protects the immune and neurological systems and it regulates the delivery of water

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Again, that's realfoodology. You're going to save 15% and you go to intelligenceofnature.com and start restoring your gut today. Again, that's real foodology. You're going to save 15% and you go to intelligenceofnature.com. We really don't talk enough about the importance of liver health. And I think a lot of us don't think enough about all of the things that we are being exposed to on a day-to-day basis. Pesticides that show up in our food and water, not to mention chlorine and farm runoff and pharmaceuticals in our water. Additives in our food, lotions that we put on our body on a day-to-day basis, makeup, any sort of cleaning products that you're using in your home. There is so much stuff in this modern world that we are being exposed to on a day-to-day basis and our bodies have to filter

that out and get it out. And our liver plays a huge role in that. This is why it is so important that we do things to protect our liver and make sure that it is functioning at optimal levels. So I take something every single day to protect my liver, and that is called Liver Reset from Organifi. It has tryptophan in there. It also has organic dandelion extract, organic milk thistle, and of course, artichoke leaf. All of these help to support the detoxification pathways of the liver.

And they also just work really hard to protect the liver itself. You know, another little hot take that I will tell you as well, when I was struggling really hard with acne, something that helped me finally eradicate it once and for all was starting to take things that supported my liver. And one of them was all of

these properties that are in this liver reset. If you would like to get liver reset, make sure you go to Organifi.com slash realfoodology. You're going to save 20%. That is O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash RealFoodology. Or you can also just use the code RealFoodology at Organifi.com. You mentioned something earlier that I want people to understand what this means. Obesogens and diabetogens. So I've actually never heard of the diabetes one. The obesogens are something I don't think I've ever mentioned on the podcast before, but I know that they are like phthalates that we get in plastic. So plastic water bottles, if food is stored in plastic, if you heat up your food in plastic, et cetera, what are some of the other

obesogens and diabetogens? Is that what you call them? Yeah. So yes, exactly. So these are what we call, we call them endocrine disrupting chemicals that they actually can interfere with our endocrine system and, you know, with, with our hormones, right? So for example, bisphenol A, right? Now, of course, they're taking that out of a lot of foods, but then they're putting in other bisphenols. Well, all of the bisphenol, the BPAs and these polycarbonate plastics that you've said, these are clearly, you know, seen as obesogens. Also, the phthalates, which you also are up on, and this is plastic packaging, even hold, you know, grabbing the receipt, you know, you're just going to be getting phthalates on your hand. Um, so this is, uh, these are very big hormones that can cause problems in people. There's another herbicide called atrazine. So that's a very

widely used herbicide. It's found in, of course, therefore it's in surface groundwaters or food. It's also associated with being a diabetogen. And that's the one that's known for changing the sex hormone of frogs, right? It's turning male frogs... It's affecting the male androgens. Yes, exactly. Turning them into female frogs. Very scary, right? And then there's polyvinyl chlorides. So this is, um, uh, is another, you know, these chemicals are, even if people don't know about them, you know, they're out there now, another one, the PFOA, which is very long for me to stumble. Uh, it's like her per fluoroactinic or something like that, PFOA, it's a surfactant. And that's what is put on a waterproof clothing and the non-stick, you know, Tupperware or stain repellent. So like you're going to, oh, let's put stain repellent on our sofas and our carpeting. And if it's this FOA, then every time your child, you know, sits on the sofa or you do,

or is on the floor, you know, they could be exposed to this chemical, right? So, I mean, these are some of the top ones. So when we're talking with patients, not just with diabetes, but certainly with prediabetes or diabetes, you know, going over on their lawn pesticides um like there's a good company where i am i'm in the phoenix area and it's you know there's a company that truly does organic right organic pest control like they'll use peppermint oil, you know, instead of, so, and it works. So, but it's all their toiletries and all of these things that we're exposed to. Now we can't do anything about walking into our work or our business or shopping where they're, you know, those store, everything is sprayed and this is just the world. And even if you're getting 100% organic food,

the next field over, you know, was sprayed. And that goes up into that atmosphere. And then the cloud moves it over your organic farm and it rains down. So even- And it's in the groundwater. Organic is 100% just because of rainwater. Right. And we actually can get pesticides from China over, you know, coming over the Pacific and raining on our fields. Right. But at least they are clearer and at least your money is supporting those farmers, right? And more we have money supporting them, of course, we have much more of them out there, right? And you're getting less exposures to those chemicals, at least, because they're not applying the chemicals to the food specifically.

Even if it is getting the runoff, you're still getting at least a less of an impact, which is really important. And I tell people this all the time that like you were just saying, there's only so much we can control. So this is why it's really important that we also support our detoxification pathways. So support your liver, take supplements that support your liver and also sweat every day. If you can move your body, get your lymph flowing, like things like that are really important because there's only so much we can do about our exposure. So then we also need to make sure that we're detoxing out and cleaning out our system. Right.

And just, you know, that's completely correct. And I agree with it a hundred percent. You know, in naturopathic medicine, the four among threes, right, is the liver colon. So we also have to make sure that people can have a good bowel movement every day because you can have the liver dump it into the gut and have it be reabsorbed, right? The kidneys, the skin, and then the breath.

But just picking up on sweating, I mean, absolutely. We know, when I was in medical school, we did, well, we did what's dead lab, it was cadaver lab which was we had to cut up a cadaver well they're all preserved with formaldehyde and so right after that class was over even though we were dressed in plastic and we'd run down to the gym right at the bottom of the hill from our medical school i'd hop in in the sauna. So within 20 minutes, I'm in the sauna and I could taste the formaldehyde coming out of my skin. I could taste it. It's crazy. But the problem is in America, we're like, oh, we don't want to sweat. Oh my God, I have a sweat stain. Sweating is, we want to always be cool and God forbid we, so for sure, I tell people,

even when they work out, you know, wear enough clothes that your top is soaked every day. Like you're not supposed to work out and just always be cool, be hot, sweat. And then definitely getting into saunas and sweating. We know scientifically that chemicals, heavy metals, even mycotoxins can come out through the sweat. And that is definitely underused by so many people around the country and around America with our deodorants and all that. People don't welcome sweat as well as they should as such a powerful detoxifier. So we've already talked a little bit about what causes diabetes, but I wanna talk about the overconsumption of sugar in this country because it is in everything now.

I mean, you look at salad dressings and tomato sauce and like just all these things are nut milks, are peanut butters, everything. And when you add up, if you look at the end of the day, how much products that you've consumed that have added sugar, it's really getting concerning. And I've seen a little bit of resistance recently, like people talking about this on Instagram saying, no, it's not the sugar, but I don't believe that's true. Do you think that our overconsumption of sugar is leading to this? I mean, overconsumption of sugar, well, first of all, let's state food groups, right? Vegetables, fruits, protein, grains. Sugar is not part of them. Sugar is a poison. It's been a poison since day one,

and it is just a poison. It's not a food group. It's not something to eat. It's just something we do eat. It's like cigarettes are not part of our breathing. It's just a food group. It's not something to eat. It's just something we do eat. It's like cigarettes are not, you know, part of our breathing. It's just what people do, but it's not like naturally a part. So sugar is a poison. And I think, you know, it's been around stable around 150 pounds of sugar a year. And a lot of that is because it can be hidden in all of these other foods. Now, the good news is, of course, you can buy all your foods without refined sugar in it, but you have to be cognizant and look for it and be aware of that. But for sure, here's the deal. When we want our blood sugar to be around 100, the amount of glucose that it takes to run a body at 100 is like three is four fifths of a teaspoon. That's it. That's like how

much sugar is in your body running everything. And that extra quarter teaspoon puts you into diabetes. Now a can of Coke is 12 teaspoons of refined sugar. Wow. Right. So if your body is not even running off of one teaspoon, what do you think all of this sugar is doing to systems that were never evolved or designed to handle this kind of just overt raw, you know, sugar intake. Right. So anybody who's saying it's not a problem, I mean, why would we listen to them? Like, we just need filters. You just need filters. Like, you know, sometimes it's like, I just watched a little bit of Iron Man last night and, you know, Tony Stark is in his, and he's got the holograms and he just throws this out and he throws that out to focus on what he

wants. And that's what I think, you know, we have to do with a lot of people's thoughts. You're like, sugar's not a problem. Bye. I know. Yeah. You know, you just gotta just send it away like a useless hologram. Well, because you have to think about this logically because to me, it makes perfect sense. It's just common sense that if you are over consuming sugar and overloading your body, there's only so much like you were just saying that your body can utilize. And then what's happening to the rest of it? And of course, we're dealing with insulin resistance when we're just constantly flooding our body with more sugar, we're having to pump out more insulin. And eventually, our body's going to say enough. And that's what we're witnessing right now and what's happening. And I want to be really clear

for people listening, because I know there's a lot of confusion. When we say sugar, we're not talking about fruit in its whole real form. We're talking about refined white sugar that's being added to things like cane juice and white sugar, brown sugar, et cetera. Fruit is okay. I still tell people that you want to be careful with how much fruit you're consuming every day. You don't want to be eating five bananas a day, but fruit is okay. It's healthy. It's a healthy form of sugar because it also comes in a package of fiber and minerals and there's other nutrients in there that helps slow down the sugar. Yeah. And antioxidants and vitamins. And so absolutely, we are on the same page with all of your comments. One or two fruits a day is plenty. And then you want more produce? Turn it into vegetables.

You know, that's where the next phase of your produce intake should be, right? Totally. So what are some ways that people, what can they do? What are ways that they can prevent from developing diabetes? So let's talk a little bit about diet changes, lifestyle changes. Well, you know, type two. Yeah, that's what I mean, type two. Yeah. So you're going to have people that are equally overweight and maybe equally don't exercise and they have diabetes and they don't. And so there is a genetic component to who has a higher risk.

There's also lean type two. So I've had patients that have grandmother had type two and mom has it and brother and they're lean, but we're just eating badly and got type two, right? So one is what is your own personal risk factor? Where is it in your family? Are you Hispanic? Higher risk. Are you African-American? Higher risk. Are you a Pacific Islander? Higher risk, right?

And so obviously, honestly, just trying to maintain a healthy weight somewhere within the range of what a healthy weight would be for you and your height and weight and body type and bone structure, et cetera. But generally, I mean, I don't know of anybody who's becoming diabetic, eating whole foods and getting some exercise and getting their sleep. And, you know, also emotionally, I mean, if you're stress eating, then we have to process the way a person handles stress. I mean, life is, it's a tough planet, as I say, you know, so if, if stress eating is one of your methods, then we just need to sit down and work on other ways. Do we need counseling? Do we need to engage many other stress-reducing therapies that there are, right? And so a lot of it is, honestly, if people

honestly picture the most commonsensical things, that would work, right? Eating a whole food, you're eating a healthy diet, getting exercise, getting sleep, managing your stress well. I'm an advocate in everybody taking a multiple vitamin and fish oils so that every day, all the nutrients that your body needs to run, including those for prediabetes are being taken in so that if this day is a little less than that or a little that, at least we know nutritionally the body has what it needs to not become as easily insulin resistant nutritionally, right? So, I mean, I don't think like I'm, I think a bigger Instagram thing would be, should

we eat grains? Like grains have gotten this horrid word like, oh my God, you know, grains are so terrible, but you know, they're really not. I mean, grains have always been a part of humanity's life for the last at least 10 or so thousand years. And I mean, they, you know, Rome ate the bread conquering the world and the Chinese built the Great Wall of China with eating rice. I mean, it's not like we've been sick and weak as a human species because we have historically been eating grains. That's just not been the case. But the thing is, is of course, things in balance and the quality of the grains and how you are eating them. So I do think that if you're just trying to live life and be healthy,

I do believe that grains can be a part of that for sure. Yeah, I actually, I just had Zach Bush on my podcast and we talked a little bit about this and he believes and many people in our field believe that it's really not about the grain so much as it is about what we're doing to the grain, which means that we're spraying it with glyphosate, we're spraying it with other herbicides and pesticides to dry it out.

And then also we're not using the same heirloom seeds and strains that we have eaten for a long time. Yeah. Now if we're talking specifically about gluten, right? So historically, yes, we would use something like eikorn wheat, which is lower innately in gluten. And we would always make bread with mother's yeast. Now mother's yeast will break down gluten in the bread so that it isn't something we have to digest. And then came the twenties and women are kind of getting, you know, are getting liberated and we don't want to spend the time in the kitchen all the time. Well, they made packets of yeast, baker's yeast. That'll make bread, but it won't break down gluten. And over the 1900s, we decided, you know what? Bread is good, but I want pizza crust and noodles. Well, that takes more protein.

So we had to, so we hybrid wheat, which is not GMO, hybriding wheat. There's nothing the matter with hybriding something for the human body to eat. It's the same natural DNA. We're just picking out one aspect and focusing on that. But our wheat, we want it to have more protein. Well, that's gluten. So we made a lot more gluten in the bread, processing it, and then baking it with a baker's yeast that doesn't break down the gluten. Now, whenever we do stuff like that, you just have to wait 50 or 60 years and people that will be sensitive to gluten will start having that problem. There's still, though, nowadays, many people who aren't sensitive to gluten, but there are, there are people who certainly are right. So that's kind of a gluten-y

thing, the history of how gluten has become more of a problem and the factors, you know, that developed it now glyphosate. Yeah. That has a real screw up with gluten, even potentially producing celiac disease in the gut, right. Roundup. But it's not on our food, Roundup. I mean, my neighbors, you know, I'll tell you my neighbor next door, I sprays all our weeds with Roundup. And my cat who was wandered, got lipoma and passed away. And I believe that it was the exposure to, you know, my neighbor's lawn. Yeah. Because this is what people get.

They get lipoma. Right. So glyphosate, it's not really, you know, it's roundup on food, but you are surrounded by it with all of your. Yeah, it's everywhere. And so forth. Yeah. Luckily, you know, Bayer is not going to be producing it in the United States anymore

because of all the lawsuits. We will, within a year or so, we won't be able to get it in our country. Which is really, it's a huge victory. We've been fighting this for a long time. So this is a huge victory. Do you suffer from IBS or other digestive issues? Are you looking for a new podcast to listen to? From the producer of the Real Foodology podcast

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Wednesday. Produced by Drake Peterson and Resonant Media. So do you think that a low-carb diet has been proven to be an effective treatment? Oh, so we have the two extreme ways of diet for type 2 diabetes. And one is the low-carb. Now Now for sure, there's the low carb diet has definitely been proven to be really the best starting treatment for a person with diabetes. No doubt about it. This has been promoted by Dr. Bernstein and in my book, Master Your Diabetes, there's no doubt that this is the first phase diet. On the other hand, you have what's called the MP2 diet, which is, so there's another diet philosophy of a high carb, low fat, like vegan diet, Right. And that is also out there and promoted as being very helpful for controlling diabetes. The problem is you can't combine the two. Like you, you can't eat the,

you can't eat beans on a low carb diet, just because, you know, but, or you can't have a bunch of meat with your, you know, your vegan, you know, but, or you can't have a bunch of meat with your, you know, your vegan, you know, grains and like, you cannot, they don't mix, but there are really good studies. Even with a macrobiotic diet, I have the studies of how a macrobiotic diet made incredible improvements in men with type 2 diabetes from around the world, if you can live on that diet and so forth. So we have these extremes. Now, most people, at least in America, for sure, you can socialize better and the diet is more familiar and eating a low carb diet. We can have bread made from almond flour and it's so much more applicable to a typical Western diet that that is by far the most prevalent and most desired diet and follow diet of people with type two.

But it is for sure, you've got to, in that regard, you've got to remove the grains now, you know, or not the grains, of course, the biggest part of that in a type two diet, but also other high carb aspects of food, right? Yeah. Okay, wait, so you're saying that it's better to go low carb or it's better to go, like you were saying, the low fat, high carb? My definitely, I mean, the one I work with diets 99.9% of the time is a low carb diet. Yeah. But if you go online and you're searching, you're going to find well-established people promoting this vegan high-carb diet, right?

Yeah. Well, in the USDA food pyramid, which we know is complete garbage, they promote a high-carb, low-fat diet for diabetes, which I think is asinine. It drives me crazy. Well, but the good news is that the American Diabetes Association, which I obviously have enormous issues with, but in their guidelines, they do allow that a low-carb diet is a valid option that physicians can follow, put their patients on with diabetes. And that's been a, that was the most recent, that was a huge change for them because for 40, let's see, from 75 to 2018, whatever, how many, 40, 40, 50 years, 50 years, they were obviously a high carb diet because fat. So here's the deal.

We had people dying from, we didn't have much type 2 diabetes early on, but we had a lot of type 1. We didn't have a lot, but we had enough that we could start following it. And these patients would just die pretty horribly. We invented insulin in 1922, actually a couple of Toronto researchers did. And then, so they started living a little longer until they all died of heart disease. And so then we did autopsies and found that their arteries were all full of cholesterol. So the ADA said, wow, we better have a low cholesterol, low fat diet because in the 70s, that's how they understood cardiovascular disease. So that is what they've been doing forever. Now, of course, we know, for example, elevated triglycerides are not due to fat intake. It's

too much carb intake. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So finally, the ADA, maybe kicking and screaming, but they are now saying a low-carb diet is a valid diet you can do. So that's a start. So let's get really granular here for people so they can understand. So how many carbohydrates per day does that look like in a lower carbohydrate setting? Generally, a low carbohydrate diet is saying around 30 grams total of carbs a day, generally less in the morning. Bernstein came out with 6, 12, and 12 with the idea that we have less in the morning because of this phenomenon called the dawn phenomena, which is there are a few things happening overnight, but particularly cortisol is very high in the morning. So cortisol wakes us up and it also stimulates our liver to make blood sugar so that we have energy before we break the fast and eat breakfast and get on with our day. So because we have this dawn phenomena and higher blood sugars generally in the morning, especially in people with diabetes, we have less

carbs right in the morning. And then because we're up and moving and being a little more active, more at lunch and supper for around 30 a day, 30 grams. So that's pretty low carb. Yeah. Keto, a keto diet gets down to maybe under 20, right? Or 10 grams, very low. But 30 is a little, is going to work just as well and allows more things like nuts and nut flours and things and more variety that people enjoy being on this diet long-term. And is that including net carbs or is this just regular carbs? It is net carbs. So for example, you teach patients that if you're looking at a nutrition label and it says this has 10 carbs but eight are fiber, then you just have to count two. Absolutely. It's definitely net carbs.

Okay. Awesome. This is so helpful. What else? So let's say someone's listening and either they're already pre-diabetic or they have it in their family and they're concerned, or maybe they are already diabetic. What are some really helpful things that we can tell them outside of maybe going low carb and being really mindful of your sugars, make sure you exercise daily. What are some things that we can tell them to help them? I understand. Those are huge things for patients. That's like, you know, I mean, especially exercise.

Patients, you know, can do the diet, but man, there's a lot of patients that have never really established an exercise regimen. And that, you know, they'll take the supplements, they'll get a sleep study and they'll, you know, and they'll do, maybe they'll meditate or they'll, you know, clean out the green, you know, make their house green.

And, but exercise like that, getting people to consistently do it and fit it in, that is, that's not an easy thing to just say, okay, well, we're just gonna take care of those things. That is the bugaboo. Well, and what people don't understand is this couldn't be something as simple as going for a walk after a meal.

It doesn't have to be like CrossFit and these insane high intensity workouts. If you like those, great, but it can also just be a walk around your neighborhood. I mean, a 15 minute walk after meals has been shown to significantly reduce glucose. There's no doubt about it. But walking or even there are just so many aspects of exercise from even YouTube videos or even just doing, you know, some weights, some simple things at home, it's pretty easy to get a machine, get an elliptical machine, like one piece that you won't just hang your long,

you know, your clothing on, but that you can just pop on and do 20, 30 minutes before you run to work and so forth. We just have to train people to fit this into their life because a huge amount of Americans do not have exercise as a habit. And so that is probably some of my focus a lot with them, putting them on, you know, they should be on supplements, diabetic damage. So remember I said four cells that don't need insulin. So those are the eyes, the kidneys, the nerves, and the blood vessel lining. And those are the cells of the body that if diabetes has been uncontrolled for long enough, develop diabetic complications, right? Diabetes is the number one reason adults go blind. It's the number one reason for end-stage kidney disease and dialysis. Aside from trauma,

it's the number one reason people get amputations. And of course, people with diabetes have a four to six times increased risk of dying of cardiovascular disease, which is bad because most Americans die of cardiovascular disease. Now it's, you're even higher. That's what most that, you know, so, so that is the, the, the pathways that produce that damage are oxidative. So people with diabetes need to take a lot of antioxidants. Now I want to, I'm not trying to shill my stuff, but I have a very good product called Diamend by a company called Priority One. And if I do a multiple and fish oil and just give them that product, they're protected. And they're, because it also reduces insulin resistance. It decreases cravings for sugars. Gymnema sylvestre can do that. It can protect their pancreatic beta cells, and it also can prevent the complications of these end organs if their numbers aren't perfect. And numbers aren't perfect and numbers aren't always perfect, but it's easy to get a lot of your patients,

my patients, have an A1C of six or less. And it's gonna be really difficult to get damage with those kinds of A1Cs because those are still pretty good for anybody. They're not even diabetic A1Cs, which start at 6.5, right? And for people listening that don't know what A1C is, can you explain that really quickly? The A1C is a measurement of how... So we have our red blood cell and the red blood cell lasts for three months.

So we're measuring a protein on the red blood cell called the hemoglobin A1C protein. We're measuring what percentage of those proteins are covered in glucose. So if you have an A1C of five, it means 5% of your A1C is covered in glucose, which we can translate to a glucose number of 100. If your A1C is six, it's 6% is covered in glucose, which translates to a glucose of 126. And so then we have seven and eight and so forth. So we're using this to see over the last three months on average, where was your blood sugar, right? So that's our long-term monitoring lab, the hemoglobin A1C. And that's where people get diagnosed with diabetes, right? When you look at the A1C number on their lab range? Two things. So the ADA says that you can just, if the A1C is 6.5 or above, and that is a diabetic A1C, but the endocrines,

the endocrinologists say, you know, we really want the blood to match that. So like if you have a fasting glucose of 115 and an A1C of 6.5, you know, are you or are you not? So maybe with insurance, you could say, hey, you know what, let's say you're pre-diabetes right now because your fasting isn't supporting it, but let's really aggressively treat this because you are like, you're like, you are almost in the diabetic pool. Like, you know, your hand is holding on to the edge, but you know, in six months, you're going to be fully diabetic. We don't get this back, right? So I like to actually see the glucose and the A1C merge together. Because I think a lot of people kind of admit defeat when let's say like diabetes runs in their family or their numbers already rising. But what's really important is to keep a watch on those numbers because just because maybe you're headed in that direction or just because your parents have it does not necessarily mean that you are destined to get it.

There's a lot of things that we can do, like everything we were just talking about in this entire episode, to keep you from actually developing. And it doesn't mean necessarily that you're going to have it. I mean, I can say, you know, I have a relative whose father had a terrible case of diabetes

and had his legs cut off and died of a heart attack, horrible. And when she got pregnant, she had gestational diabetes. And this was a wake-up call for her. And she saw her dad. And this, we're now 38 years later, and she is not a type 2 diabetic. She changed her diet. She got into exercising. She, I mean, she took care of herself and she has not developed the type two. So yes, even when it's graphically right there in front of you, making these changes can overcome that genetic risk for sure. So what is it about being pregnant that

makes women more susceptible to diabetes? What is the whole thing behind gestational diabetes? Well, I mean, so it's not pregnancy. If you become pregnant and you gain the 28 pounds that you're supposed to gain as a woman, as a general healthy amount that is enough for baby and amniotic fluid and so forth, you're not going to become a person with diabetes. But if you gain enough weight, if, you know, if you decide, oh, you know, I've been skinny all my life. Now I get pregnant, I get to gain weight. I'm going to just eat this and eat that. And you don't want to exercise and it's in your family, then it's easy to gain the extra weight, which will initiate the insulin resistance, right? So it's really how much weight are you gaining, the quality of food, your nutrition stature, your exercise. Really this is the things that

come together in that regard. Now, estrogens, you know, we have higher level of estrogens, and that can initiate some insulin resistance. For example, in women who have type 1 diabetes, almost all of them will know right before their period, which is when their estrogens are now shooting up to initiate the bleed, they're going to need more insulin, right? pregnancy to be maintaining it. So if you add weight in and then you have that estrogen, it can just be a negative combination. Okay. Thank you for that. And then I want to ask you, is there anything else that we haven't gone over about diabetes or really, I guess, just health in general that you think people should know? Well, I mean, health in general, you know, you know, I think it's, I think one of the things, I mean, diabetes, you know, go to your physician and have them help you with supplementation. You know, don't, there's a lot of good ones and a lot of unnecessary,

and then there's therapeutic doses and so forth. You know, life for me in general, I would say it is important to have filters up. And anything that is depressing or sad, like, you know, you don't have to look at the news 100 times a day. And, you know, and I think one of the best things about health is to just really work on, on being happy, you know, not to the exclusion of making other people like trying, we have so many people, anxiety and depression and, and then eating and not feeling like they can exercise and just, this can trickle over into their health in so many different ways. Right. And so striving for just happiness and putting blocks up, like, you know, you don't have to listen to this or that or let it go. And, and having gratitude, just thinking of, you know, if I, you know, if I hit my toe into something, I'll probably say some

expletive. And then like immediately, like I thank God for the ability to walk. Like any negative thing, like I might automatically come out with something, but I always stop and put a blessing, a thank you for whatever happened. Because if you can turn your mind around like that, it can become more of a habit, right? And I just, it worries me, even younger kids, the amount of anxiety and depression, you know, in our younger populations and just working with people to try to do everything you can to feel happy. And that's that what I say is a really vital part of all of us working or podcasting, you know, just promoting so many different avenues to promote people feeling good about themselves and and having happy chemicals in their brain regularly. Yeah. No, that's a really great point. I'm glad that you brought that up. So I ask all my guests this question before we go, what are your personal health non-negotiables?

So these are things no matter how busy you are throughout the day that you prioritize for your own health. So I do exercise regularly do exercise regularly and that is, I do need to do that. So that is something that I do incorporate. For me, with regarding refined sugar, for 34 years, which is probably older than you, I made a rule because sugar was a real poison to me. It caused obsessive compulsive disease when I was a kid. And so I have this, for 34 years, I have this rule that if I will only eat refined sugar on Sunday and six days a week, it will never pass my lips.

And no matter if Thanksgiving is there or a wedding, like everybody knows I don't break that rule ever in any way. And doing that now, this probably does mean I do have a little sugar on Sunday, right? But I also usually hike around nine or 10 miles on Sundays. I'm like, well, that's a good day to combine those two together. But I mean, I won't eat. There's no way it will happen for six days a week, every week. It ain't going to happen. So for me, confining, you know, really getting the sugar under control and having a regular exercise regimen. And I will say I'm also blessed. I've worked on this since I was 10. I have a quiet mind. And from what I talk about with patients and, you know, having a quiet mind for me, it is a blessing. And I've worked on that

a lot that there's just not chatter in it, you know, regularly. So those, so keeping a quiet mind and those other things are non-negotiables for me. That's really impressive. And you gave very unique answers. A lot of people say the same stuff, but I liked that a lot. That was really helpful for people to hear, I think too. And also, I'm very flattered that you think that I'm younger than 34 because I'm actually 38. So thank you. You could pass for 10 years easily thank you thank you well oh thank you i appreciate that well i attribute that to my healthy lifestyle and eating really well you know it's showing up right you know really clearly i appreciate that a lot uh well please tell everyone listening where

they can find you where they can find your book and your supplement. Just make sure you plug everything. Yeah, I should have. You'd think I would be more better at promoting myself and having my book here. But if you go to Amazon and you look up Dr. Morstein, M-O-R-S-T-E-I-N, and just Google or I mean, Amazon, master your diabetes. And then the rest of it is a comprehensive, integrative approach for both type one and type two diabetes. You can see a lot of great reviews on Amazon, none of which I've paid for. I don't know who any of those people are. So that makes me feel better. And my, I'm at my clinic right now. I'm at a multidisciplinary clinic called Nevy Health, N-E-V-Y health.com. And I have my own website, Dr. Morstein, D-R-M-O-R-S-T-E-I-N.com. So those are where people can track me down. I do telehealth a lot, actually across the world.

I have patients in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Turkey and Hungary. But I also, of course, mostly see patients in the States. So cool. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This was such an enlightening episode and I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you. You're great. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. If you

liked the episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resonant media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie. Georgie is spelled with a J. For more amazing podcasts produced by my team, go to resonantmediagroup.com. I love you guys so much. See you next week. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute

a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.