Introduction: [00:00:00]

Welcome to the Wellness Surge Podcast with Dr. Adeola Oke. Each week we discuss our wellness journey with real people like you and me. We have conversations about food, fitness, mental health, financial wellness, and much more so you can get back to the real you. To make sure that you’re up-to-date with this and other wellness topics, visit wellnesssurge.com. Information presented here is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease please do not apply any of the information presented here without first speaking with your primary care provider. Now, let’s head on to the show.

Dr.Adeola Oke: [00:00:41]

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Wellness Surge podcast. My name is Dr. Adeola Oke. And today we’re going to be talking about effective type two diabetes management. Alrighty. So why is this important? Right. So in the year of COVID-19, we’re seeing that people with chronic diseases are having worse outcomes. With the coronavirus infection. Right? And so this is why this is important, and this is where we want to use this to empower ourselves, right. And empower people that we love. So that they know how to manage their diabetes properly and how they could possibly prevent right. Prevent themselves from having diabetes. So what are we going to discuss?

Obviously, we’re going to talk about diabetes, how to effectively manage type two diabetes. Seek the management and complications of diabetes. So a little bit about myself, right? I have worn several hats in the healthcare field as a clinical pharmacy specialist, I work with patients to improve their health through diet ,exercise, and of course, medications. Science continues to show that. lifestyle managements are not inferior to medications, especially at the beginning of a disease process. And they are often more efficacious in stabilizing or reversing a disease. So you got that reversing a disease. If you catch it early and you do the right things, you could possibly reverse diabetes.

So you should also know that many classic drugs were originally derived from natural compounds. So because of this, I am very passionate about the medi- medicinal benefits of foods to prevent and treat diseases.

So what is diabetes? Right. We all know diabetes is high blood sugar. So when there’s too much sugar in the blood.

That’s why we have diabetes. So blood sugar, how does that come about? It’s not just that the sugar gets into the blood. No, this comes from what you eat. So when you decide to put in your mouth, decide how much sugar will be in your system. So when we talk about diabetes, right? You talk about something called insulin.

Insulin is a hormone produced by your body and it’s acts like a key to a door. So this insulin helps glucose. The sugar from your blood get  into your cells where it will then be used as energy. So what do people don’t have? They have diabetes that is usually the problem. This people often don’t have enough insulin or the insulin is not working properly.

So we then have sugar buildup. The insulin is not opening the door for the sugar to get into the cells. And so that’s where we have diabetes. Worsened cases of diabetes.

So what are the types of diabetes? The most common types of diabetes are Type one, Type two and gestational diabetes. Type one diabetes, in this case, the body cannot produce insulin. The Immune system attacks and then destroys the cells and the pancreas, the make the insulin .Type one diabetes is usually diagnosed in children or young adults although it can appear at any age.

People with type one, diabetes need to take insulin to stay alive. Okay. So in this case, there’s nothing you can really do. It’s just, that’s how your genetics are- is. That’s how your body is. When in case of Type two diabetes, that is a totally different case, right?

In this case, your body does not make or use insulin properly. You can develop type two diabetes at any age, even during childhoods. Sadly, because in this day and age, a lot of children are eating a lot of high sugar foods and causing obesity and possibly diabetes for themselves. So that Type two diabetes is the most common type of diabetes.

And then lastly, the one- the other one is gestational diabetes. This is diabetes that occurs  in some women when they’re pregnant. Most of the time, this type of diabetes goes away after the birth. Thankfully. All right. But however, keep this in mind. People with gestational diabetes have a greater chance of developing type two diabetes later on in their life.

Right? Sometimes diabetes diagnosed during pregnancy is actually type two diabetes that they didn’t even know. Right? So. We said that the Type two diabetes is the most common form. So that’s what we’re going to be focusing our talk to talk about today. So let’s just get, keep some statistics in mind, right?

Every 17 seconds, since someone is diagnosed with diabetes. About 23 million people in the United States have type two diabetes, but now listen to this, but about 7 million of these people don’t even know that they have diabetes. So this is when you will then start hearing cases of ‘oh this person died of coronavirus’. Or ‘this person is so sick from Corona virus’, but they didn’t know that there was anything wrong with them. That’s because about 7 million people don’t even know that they have diabetes. Right. So let’s just keep that in mind. Right now, diabetes is the seventh leading cause of deaths in the United States.

Right? So now let’s focus on African Americans. 50%. They are 50% more likely to have type two diabetes when compared to Caucasians. They are two times as likely as Caucasians to die from Type two diabetes. They’re three times more likely to have type two diabetes related adverse effects and amputation. Right. And four times more likely to have end stage kidney disease when compared to Caucasians. So the statistics is mind boggling. All right. And as a beautiful race, we can do better than this.

So what are the causes of type two diabetes? Well, One, we have several, but there’s one. You can do anything about it and that’s both genetics, right? If you get the genes from your mama and your Papa, I’m sorry. There’s nothing you can do. There’s there’s no way that you can change that. Okay. But, there are ways you can control it, right?

So genetics is one. Another would be being overweight. Um, and another will be lack of physical activity. Like just sitting around and telling people, no, not moving around as much. That will be a problem. And then another is insulin resistance. Right? So what is that? Insulin resistance is when cells in your muscles fat, and  liver don’t respond well to the insulin and can’t easily take up the glucose from your blood.

So, but in this case, the key is not working properly for the sugar to get into the cells. So who is at risk? Well, people that are age 45 and above. Yeah. One of the people that are at risk for diabetes, and then. People that yeah. Have a family history of diabetes. Like that’s the one I said, you really can’t do anything about is from your genetics.

Mama and Papa, thank you. Okay. Being overweight or having a physical inactivity. Right? So when you have a lot of fats, right? We, the more fat you have, the less likely insulin, your body’s able to walk appropriately. Right? Um, If you have a history of gestational diabetes, then, like I said, you’re already at risk.

We already talked about like your, your health. We already talked about like being African American, right? And the statistics. But our African race here puts us at risk. I don’t know why, but it does. That’s what the statistics show. People that have diabetes while pregnant. Um, like we talked about, they’re already at risk of having later in life.

So certain drugs also increase your risk of insulin resistance. And so this medications include like the steroids shots or steroid injections- oh steroid medications I mean- medications for mental health conditions. And HIV medications. These medications, um, they put people at higher risk of having higher blood sugar and possibly developing diabetes if they don’t already have it.

So what are the signs of high blood sugar? Right. People will start to feel very tired. The three big ones that I look for. Frequent urination, frequent thirst. So yeah, you’re going to the restroom all the time. You’re thirsty all the time. Or you’re hungry all the time. Okay. So those are the three big ones I look for, but there are so many other ones.

So how do we effectively manage type two diabetes? Right? How do we do that? There are three main ways. One, exercise, right? Be active for at least about 30 minutes. Every day, you can either dance, you can walk, you can do, do something you love. That is the only way you can be consistent. And that is the only way you will actually do it.

Right? So you can start out with about 10, 10 minutes every day. Actually 10 minutes is too much, cause that are about five minutes every day. And they were like, Oh, I can do this thing increased to 10 minutes. Um,I can totally do this increased to 15 and then slowly, slowly build on what you love and then you’re exercising.

You’re being active, right? That’s it. It’s as simple as that. We just need to take. Baby steps and we get to where we are trying to go. Um, another is medications, um, that’s not the focus of the conversation today. And then another is diet. All right. Or, you know how I like to talk about diet and using it to manage, manage, um, diseases and stuff like that.

All right. So when it comes to your diet, right? You may worry that, having diabetes means that going, going without foods….. a lot of patients, let me just say this, a lot of patients that I know, they’re like, Oh, you’re going to talk to me about the foods I can’t eat. I’m like, no, that’s not what I’m talking about here.

The good news is this. You can still eat your favorite foods, but you need to eat them in smaller portions. That’s it. All right. So your fats, examples will be like your coconut oil, your cheese, your nuts, and then your proteins, right? Meat, chicken fish. And we all know what carbohydrates are like bread, rice and things of that nature.

Another one important one is vegetables, right? We need to keep this in mind. You have the startchy vegetables, and we have the non starchy vegetables. So the problem ones that people love to eat will be your fries, right? That is starchy vegetables. Okay. And then the non starchy ones will be like your leafy greens and your tomatoes and peppers.

And then we have fruits, right? Fruits are sweets naturally. So we need to just know this, their sweets. And so when somebody has diabetes, you have to very careful, which one are you choosing to eat? Is it a low sugar fruit, such as like your, your berries are really good in low sugar. Like, so like your cranberries, your raspberries, your avocado, and or moderate sugar food, such as like your strawberries, your grapefruits and  cantaloupe, or is it high sugar food such as like dried fruit.

So those are that’s when you start to get in trouble, dried fruits, dates, things like that, those ones, those dried foods, right? The sugar becomes concentrated in the dry food. And someone that has diabetes. That’s just going to make your blood sugar go up really high. So the good news is this just a small amount is all you need aim to eat about five, seven servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit.

Every single day. We need to keep this in mind how much sugar is in your drink. We all know that the best drink you can possibly have is water. There’s no sugar in it. Okay. So for the other drinks you eat, you like to enjoy a Coca Cola, fruit juices. I can say, oh it’s juice. No, honey. It is juice, but it is concentrated sugar.

The amount of sugar in your juice is very close to the amount of sugar in your Coca Cola. Huh? Yes, it is a lot. So it’s buried by you eat the fruit, then drink the juice. All right. If you don’t get anything from this today, make sure you go ahead. That it is better to eat the fruits than drink the juice.

Alrighty. So we had to talk a while he comes to diet, right? We have to talk about something called glycemic index. Glycemic index is a system that arounds foods on a scale from one to 100, based on their effect on blood sugar levels, the smaller, the number, the less impact the food has on your blood sugar.

So the general rule of thumb justice, white foods. Often have a high glycemic index. That means they make your blood sugar shoot up really fast. All right. Versus foods of all the color, they don’t do that in general. We like to say out with the whites. All right. And so like your white bread, he can replace it with like rice that is not white, right? Like your Brown rice. Oh, sorry. Did I say that? Let me say that again. Like your white bread, you want to replace it with breads that are not white, like your whole grain bread will be better alternative your white rice. You can replace it with. Brown rice, things like that. Um, your potatoes, your white potatoes, whites looking potatoes.

You can replace this with sweet potatoes, but if you choose to eat this foods that have high glycemic index, you just want to have very, very little. Especially if you have, this is, this is only pertains to people that have diabetes. You just want to have very small amount because if not, it will make your blood sugar go up really high.

Okay. Okay. This is something else. I have a slide, right? So this is something you need to keep in mind. Should you build limiting the amount of ice cream you’re are taking? Juice you’re drinking. Coca Cola, soda, cupcakes, donuts, cookies, pancakes, sugar! Should  you be limiting them? That’s just food for thought for you can only, you can answer that question.

So what else? Um, what else can we do to effectively manage diabetes? One is control your aunt in, so you may hear your healthcare provider talk about A1C. So what is this right? AIC is the average blood sugar for the past three months. And this is a number you cannot cheat on. You should set up, you should set up an A1C goal with your provider because it’s not the same for everybody.

All depends on your weights and other disease rates you have. So it should be individualized. Other things you can do : if you have high blood pressure, try to keep it your blood pressure below 130 over 80. And so things you can do would be like to eat foods rich in potassium, um, such as banana and things like that.

If you have high cholesterol walk to keep the cholesterol under control, if you smoke. I invite you to quit. It’s not easy. It is a journey. It is a process and it is totally doable. You just need to ask for help. All right. You want to limit the amount of alcohol you’ve taken because alcohol can increase your blood pressure and things like that.

Um, and that’s it. Right? So just keep this in mind too. E-cigarettes are not a safe option because they contain other harmful ingredients in them. And we’ve seen that, right. We’ve seen that from history. So. Because this things get inhaled into your lungs. So when we talk about high blood sugar, we need to talk about the comparison, low blood sugar.

What are the causes? Well, if you’re taking so much medicine that you need, yeah. Your blood sugar would go down. They cost too much. It will cost a low blood sugar. If you don’t eat when you’re supposed to eat, or you take medicine and you don’t eat afterwards. Duh, your blood sugar will go down. If you exercise excessively, when you don’t eat to balance it out.

Yup. Your blood sugar will go down and alcohol, alcohol can actually sometimes lower blood sugar. So if you choose to drink alcohol. Um, make sure that you eat because, while you, well, while you’re drinking to? How are we going to? What are the signs of the slow blood sugar? Right. The bigger ones are like shaking, sweating.

It can be anyone of this, dizziness being hungry. Of course! Your heart may be beating really fast, your vision starts to become  blurry. You are having a headache. Yeah. That’s a very common one. You start to get irritable, but keep this in mind though. I am more concerned about a low blood sugar than high blood sugar. Why?

Because a low blood sugar can kill somebody way faster than a high blood sugar. That’s why. Okay. So we all want to keep diabetes in check, but we want to make sure that we don’t go to the extreme end of over-treating or being excessive in our ways that we didn’t have low blood sugar, which can kill somebody way faster than high blood sugar.

Right. Especially in the elderly population. So how do we treat this to low blood sugar? Well, check. If you start to feel like dizzy, like your heart is beating really fast, you’re hungry, irritated, and things like that. Check your blood sugar right away. Um, if you start to notice that you have, um, if your blood sugars is less than 70 milligrams per deciliter, or 3.9 millimoles per liter.

Then you have low blood sugar and you want to treat it based on the rule of 15. Okay. Um, so what is, what does that mean? Rule of 15 means eat or drink 15 grams of carbohydrate quickly. Okay. So what are those? My goats who will be easy? Tablespoon of sugar, right? If you don’t have that in the house, tablespoon of honey, if you don’t have that in a house, a glass of milk, four ounces of fruit juice, or four ounces of regular soda, no diet. Diet won’t work here, or three to four pieces of glucose tablets or hard candy.

So those lollipops, this is where they come handy. And I usually tell an encouraged patients, especially those people that live at home. Make sure you have this go to items by your bedside. So the easy go to item will be like a lollipop or like a butterscotch hard candy. They’re not for you to be snacking on they just for the emergencies.

So you wake up in the middle of the night, you’re feeling dizzy, lightheaded, having headaches. You’re, you’re sweating. You’re like, Oh, I’m having a low blood sugar. Even if you don’t have time to check it, you know that you have that emergency. Sugar next to your bed because you don’t want to get up. When you’re feeling that way.

If you get up, you can break a bone, you can break a lean, but I’m, that has more effects. Like I was a lot of pain and a lot of money that you will have to spend on that. Okay. So please keep something by your bedside . This is always my favorite, right? How to lower blood sugars. Naturally. I really enjoy talking about natural therapies and.

If you can use the natural then so be it right. Um, she’s for that, there has been assured by science to help lower blood sugars include black seed. So about one gram, twice daily usually does the trick. Um, another is psyllium husk about 10 grams, about 22 grams per day, but you have to kind of spread it out throughout the day to help lower your blood sugar and cinnamon.

That’s a very popular one and, Oats it’s so the fiber and the oats they’re really good for you. And that also usually helps with cholesterol to be sure to tell your healthcare provider that though, if you’re taking any supplements to lower your blood sugar, because like I said, a low blood sugar can kill somebody way faster than high blood sugar.

Right. So in this case, your healthcare provider can possibly reduce the medications they ordered for you. Okay. If needed, we can’t do diabetes management  ustice. If we don’t talk about sick day management, when you’re sick, your bodies are under a lot of stress and he produces hormones to fight the disease.

So this hormones then,produces, um, causes the blood sugar in your body to go higher, right? So it’s not you, it’s just the illness process. And that’s why you noticed that when you are sick, your blood sugar just continues to go up and up and up. All right. So make sure you have a sick day plan before you’re sick.

When you’re sick, though, you’re sick plan shall include checking your blood sugars every four to six hours drinking a lot of fluid. Water, especially helps like keep your body hydrated and hubs dilutes the sugar and stuff. Um, if you aren’t able to eat, try to drink soups, crackers, fruits, Gatorade, and things like that, and take your medications as prescribed, but have a plan that you have set up with your provider first, um, so that, you know, he’s gonna work for you.

You want to make sure you have the sick day plan before you are sick. Not when you’re sick. Plan ahead. So why should you care? Diabetes can affect almost every part of the body. So many effects include stroke, heart disease. Okay. And so this is what I’m talking about in the year of COVID COVID-19 .People who had had chronic diseases are having worse outcomes.

So keep this in mind, you can affect the eyes. Diabetes can affect the eyes and cause blindness. All right. It can affect the kidneys and cause people to have to be on dialysis. Right. That’s not fun either. And it costs nerve damage. So in men, right? This may  manifest as erectile dysfunction, also in other people, right?

Everybody else, the nerves in your fingers and your feet and all that can get affected by this high blood sugar. And it can then start to cause some numbness, tingling, pain, and believe me, talking to patients opinions, that pain is not fun. Okay. So we will recommend that this people, that people have diabetes check the extremities frequently.

And this is why when you start to have numbness, tingling, pain, numbness, you may not start to feel that extremity anymore. So you want to make sure that every single day you put your hands and you just put it around your feet, right. Just make sure that there are no sores. There are no injuries that you did not notice because you, that part of your body may have now become. Numb, you can feel anything.

So that’s why you see that. Sometimes people that have diabetes, they have end up having amputation because they missed an injury because they were not checking their feet being developed. And so maybe sometimes you’ll see this. Some people actually put their feeding water and it gets burned because they can’t feel it.

And he did not know, or Neil is stuck in bed. They did not know. They didn’t feel it. And then they develop an infection or something, and then they have to lose that. Extremity. And so that’s not fun. I know that we’ve said a lot today. I mean, they seem a little bit overwhelming, but I want you to know this site two diabetes is preventable and you can effectively manage it, especially in the beginning.

You can actually possibly reverse it with diet exercise, and if needed medications, the sky’s, the limit and most important thing you can do. Today is take the first step. I was talking about exercise, physical activity. Start with about five minutes. Then you can increase the 10 when you feel comfortable, but take the first step.

Keeping your blood sugar under control can save your life. All right. I have a cheat sheet for people that are want foods that can help reduce inflammation in the body. So you can just check on my website, WWW dot wellnesssurge.com. And you just get on there. A pop up will show up and just put your name in there.

You get your, you get your cheat sheet. All right. So stay tuned for our next episode, about how a 470 pound Canadian man reversed his diabetes. Naturally , and totally changed his life. I hope you have a good week. Enjoy yourself. Bye Bye

Ending: [00:24:52]

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