Have you ever thought about why insulin resistance is on the rise? Join us as we dig into this important issue with our two amazing experts, Amanda Yue and Shannon Davis, who are dedicated to addressing the root causes. This isn’t just about health; it’s about taking back control of your life.

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Show Notes:

• Guest Introductions: Amanda Yue, Functional Medicine Practitioner & Shannon Davis, Registered Dietitian

• Topic Overview: Insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes discussion

• Key Points Discussed:

• Rise in pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes

• Impact of the modern food environment on metabolic health

• Critique of traditional dietary advice

• Concerns about medication reliance and the need for natural solutions

• The role of fasting and time-restricted eating in reversing insulin resistance

• Introduction to the Feel Great system and its benefits

• The launch of the American Diabetes Society as an alternative resource

• Personal stories highlighting the negative effects of certain medications like Ozempic

Key Takeaways:

1. The modern food environment contributes significantly to the rise of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

2. Fasting and time-restricted eating can help reverse insulin resistance by allowing insulin levels to drop and enabling the body to burn stored fat.

3. The Feel Great system, including yerba mate tea and fiber matrix, offers a natural alternative to medications, helping to manage blood sugar and improve gut health.

4. The American Diabetes Society is being formed as a new, trustworthy resource for reversing insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

Transcript:

Welcome back to Better Than A Pill. Today I'm so excited to have Amanda Yue and Shannon Davis on. And Amanda is our functional medicine practitioner. And remember she's been able to transform her own health and her mission is to help others achieve outcomes sustainably.  And she has a product that works better than medication.

For chronic health issues, including mental health and metabolic health, which are correlated, which I know to be true. Shannon is our registered dietitian for the past 18 years. She specialized in metabolic health. She has experience in organ transplant, bariatrics, sports, nutrition, and nephrology. And her passion is helping people shift their focus to insulin resistance in order to heal from chronic disease.

So welcome ladies.  Thank you. 

Today we are gonna be talking about insulin resistance and type two diabetes. And this is a topic I know that a lot of you listening today can relate to. A lot of you are struggling with type two diabetes and or insulin resistance. We're gonna get right into it. Let me just say that. So it's high the rate of pre-diabetes and type two diabetes.

So both of them, pre-diabetes, which I know myself, that I've been told I'm pre-diabetic, I had no idea. And type two diabetes is on the rise. So I'm going to throw it at you guys and ask you what, why, what's the reason? I'll just jump in there. I, it's the food environment. It's what we're faced with today.

As a dietician, I was taught to teach people to eat every two to three hours and to focus on a diet full of low fat fruits and vegetables, six to 12 servings of grains. And. That's the food pyramid. But what that has done, if we look at the last 20 to 30 years, when fat got erased and was shunned, diabetes. 

And obesity went through the roof. And diabetes is the far extreme of insulin resistance. It is insulin resistance. Type 2 diabetes is a disease of too much insulin and a resistance to that insulin. Prediabetes  is really just diabetes. It's only a difference of a few percent. Hints of a number and I feel like pre diabetes is more dangerous than diabetes because it gives people, Oh, I'm not there yet.

I don't really need to make a lot of changes. I'm just pre diabetic. So if we live in the space of pre diabetes, are we really going to take it seriously? And are we really going to make the changes that we need? But it's truly due to an environment full of highly processed foods.  sugar laden foods and an environment where we need to eat every, or we're told that if we don't eat every two to three hours, then we're going to starve or we're going to slow your metabolism down. 

Yeah. And so that's a big shift for me too, in thinking, because I was taught that way too. And that is very prevalent. And even the weight loss centers that I've spent time in, the Duke Dighton Fitness Center, that's what they're teaching, Structure House, where I'm at now, they're, they're teaching that.

And so the shift in thinking that it's going to, it's going to help us not to do that has been really. A big shift for me. I know when we talked about this before, it's like, what? You mean like, you're talking about not so much the processed food part. I'm aware of that and I agree with that, but I don't eat six times a day.

That's not serving me. And it's still being taught that way as well because I had just finished doing a continuing education for my pharmacy license. It's still, yes, low fat. Vegetable oils, seed oils, cut out the saturated fat, and then still recommend a higher amount of carbohydrates per meal. And coming from a pharmacist point of view, is Shannon's talking about pre diabetes, and then you go see your doctor, and  Guess what?

If your A1c is elevated, the first line of therapy is medication. It's not a diet. It's not, or they say eat healthier and move more exercise and diet, but they're not really teaching patients. Okay.  So, to even tag on to what Amanda's saying, people don't even know where to go or what to listen to, because, so if you're told you're pre diabetic, most people are going to go American Diabetes Association Google, and then they're going to open it up, and the American Diabetes Association keeps, I'm sorry, but they keep people sick.

They're funded by Eli Lilly. Who makes insulin and the American diabetes association tells people that they need to eat 45 to 60 grams of carbohydrates per meal and that you need to have two snacks. Now, when someone has insulin resistance, Carrie, we tell people 30 grams or less per day total. So what we're telling people is that their total daily intake of insulin is  less than what the American Diabetes Association is saying per meal.

And I told y'all I had something super special and I'll squirt this in there now. Cause it is perfectly related that I wanted to let y'all know. So the American Diabetes Society is developing right now. So y'all can Google that. That is a movement that we are creating To move away from the American Diabetes Association to truly teach people how to reverse insulin resistance. 

I got picked to be on the founding board of the American Diabetes Society. So Dr. Eric Westman, who is at Duke.  Oh, Dr. Westman, yes! So I was on a Zoom yesterday with Dr. Westman and Dr. Ken Berry, Dr. Ben Bickman. Dr. Westman? Dr. David Cabin, who is an endocrinologist in the UK. Dr. Mariella  Gant, who is an endocrinologist in New York.

Dr. Tony Hampton, who is an obesity medicine specialist in New York. We're part of, and then three other dieticians, Dr. Temple, or not a doctor, but Temple Stewart. Shanna Huson and Michelle Hearn, all of us together are forming the American Diabetes Society. So this will be the place to go if you are sick with insulin resistance and you want to truly know how to reverse it.

I am so happy to promote this because it is the target of insulin resistance. So if it is going to change people's lives and it's in your backyard or Dr. Westman's in your backyard.  I'm super excited. Everybody is listening today. And I know a lot of people have heard of Dr. Westman. He is a big low  carb.

Let's look at that low carb. And here he is while you're collaborating with him and Mary and obviously a lot of other knowledgeable people to form a new society because this old society is killing us.  It's wonderful.  Wow. That's exciting. I'm super excited because the other thing I want to mention here is these medications, right?

We've got  these, I don't know, these people, everybody's being told medications. I even think some people are being told when it comes to, correct me if I'm wrong, the type two diabetes or prediabetes. And if I had my way, I would have my client come on here, but she's not open to that. She's a retired physician and she's not in public.

Doesn't want to be in the public eye. Listen, she just started ozempic. She was hospitalized, hospitalized,  traumatized. Yeah. And I know because I know her and she was not able to do it, we had the Stopped working together for a while. She's back now, but she's hospitalized for six weeks because of the drug ozempic.

I want people to hear that today because I care about her And I will never condone ozempic again after her story, which she won't share, but she's been traumatized by it So I just want to say that a lot because it's on my heart and mind So ari, you're not the you're not the only one. There's a guy that works out at the gym with me who  got semaglutide, which is the compounded version of ozempic.

He has lost enormous amounts of weight on his own. He doesn't need to lose weight, but he was told that his loose skin would go away if he took this weight loss drug. He got one injection. He had to leave. He has not been in the gym an entire week. He's so sick. And that, And I'm sorry to cut you off there.

Well, like the old Zempic, it's actually people who are losing weight. They're not losing fat mass. They're losing muscle mass. So like what Shannon just said. And bone mass. Exactly. And these are something, these are, you can't get back. And plus the synthetic GLP 1 agonist.  These are like super human level doses for the, that's available for weight loss.

It's, it, that's sad. It's very sad for me to dispense so many of these medications as a pharmacist. I see it every day. I get a call because it's on back order and people get upset because they can't get it because. So they have this idea that this is a miracle drug, a miracle injection that they're going to just inject and then make all their fat go away.

It's not, actually, the side effect, potential thyroid cancer, blocked intestine, gastro, permanently  paralysis. We're talking about, and there's a neurosurgeon that I work with who says  he has seen food.  In their gut that's three weeks old.  Goodness.  Yeah, you have these ozempic breaths. Yes. It's like  putrefying foods coming out.

It's,  but the sad thing that we are all getting to is this medication is being prescribed. Number one, it's being abused, but number two, it's being prescribed for diabetics and diabetics trust their practitioner. And it's not that their practitioner is intentionally harming them. Okay. But it's because they don't know that there are other options.

Yeah. A hundred percent. And I know you guys agree with me on this. We are, we're all aware of our first line of defense. First of all, we want it to be natural. And some of those things we can take charge of right away. We know that. So we can take charge of our way. What I teach, preach and live. And I know you all do too, is what we're putting in our mouths and how we're using our bodies.

So. Definitely. We have some control over that, but there's more to it as I'm learning. And so I wanted to put the floor in addition to lifestyle modifications that we can, what are other, let's talk about some other natural alternatives. So we don't have to go on these medications that are going to kill us and keep us in the hospital.

I don't know. I can ask you guys real quick. In addition to that, in addition to Ozempic metformin, Is that another drug? What are some of these drugs? And yeah, metformin is the first line of therapy for if you're diagnosed with diabetes, insulin. And then the thing is,  When you have, when you're diagnosed with type two diabetes, it's due to insulin resistance due to too much insulin in your body, hyperinsulinemia.

And then to give somebody an insulin injection, it doesn't make sense. So the cell that's not responding to insulin, that's why you have insulin resistance instead of teaching people how to lower insulin, which is what Shannon and I and our team are doing. Doing is to teach people how to lower insulin through intermittent fasting to lower Carbohydrates intake to remove processed food sugar and eat prioritized protein healthy fats and fiber and to lower your insulin and how to reverse insulin resistance and Reverse all these chronic illnesses that's linked to insulin resistance So when someone goes to the doctor and we you mentioned prediabetes and diabetes You That is diagnosed by something called a hemoglobin A1c.

And so the hemoglobin A1c is a three month average of someone's glucose. Glucose is the sugar that floats around in the bloodstream. And that comes from the food that we eat. And so doctors will measure the red blood cells. So over time, the life of a red blood cell is about 120 days. 90 to 120 days. So they will measure how glycated.

that blood cell gets and that sugar glycates it, it browns it, it  caramelizes it.  And if your A1C is normal, you're going to get a clean bill of healthcare. You are great. You go home, you take, you continue to do what you're doing, but what we don't know and what we're missing is in the background, what is really going on because our body is an amazing thing and it will do what it needs to do to maintain homeostasis.

So if you have blood sugar, You eat high processed foods, high sugar foods we eat all the time. Our glucose is going to start to go up. So to counteract that, our body squirts out more insulin. Now, we're not measuring insulin. We're just measuring glucose. So the whole time, your glucose is normal. But in the background, your body's releasing more and more insulin to keep this glucose normal.

But we never see this. Okay. So 10 to 15 years, the body will, you would notice if we measured insulin, the insulin was going up while glucose was remaining normal.  Now, if we check the fasting insulin, we could catch pre diabetes slash diabetes 10 to 15 years before it's diagnosed. Absolutely. So that's what I would advocate for all of your clients, all of your listeners.

fasting insulin and your doctor will be like, Oh no, you don't need to check that. We've got a one c and glucose is adamant. It's cheap, it's inexpensive and it's not an extra blood test. They can take the same vial of blood Request a fasting, so you must be fasting, insulin, and you want that number in the single digits.

Ideally, six or below, but if it's ten or less, you're pretty average. And even if it comes back, per LabCorp or Quest, it might say up to 25 is normal. B. S. It's not normal. Those parameters come from the average population.  83 percent of our country is not sick. That is not normal. It's average. And that goes for other lab values too.

The vitamin D, B12, ferritin. Don't trust the normal range. You want the functional optimal range, right? You want to be optimal. You want to have energy. You don't want to be Normal, suboptimal, like Shannon said, they take an average of those values and determine the normal range.  So, thank you, lady. This is so important.

So everybody listening and myself included, we want to get fasting insulin, not just as A1c. to test for pre diabetes and diabetes. And the other thing is that we want it to be six or less. 10 or less is average, not 25. Don't listen to the doctor's results because we know there's more to it. I know from other disorders there's going to be more to it.

So that is a huge nugget that To take away right now. Thank you so much for that. Um, just one more thing to carry If the doctor refuses to order that you can order that yourself there reach out to us. We can provide those links for you so that you can order them yourself. Listen to that too guys Don't let your doctors tell you can't do this  Get your fasting list.

I know I am next time I go to the doctor And fasting because we learned on before so fasting that's excellent. And  Great. Yeah. So the thing that I was going to mention is that I know, okay. Yeah. We talked about the diet. Yes. And spot on about what's killing us is a lot of times our diet. But what, when we start to make changes, which, you know, I advocate and even myself, no processed food, the sugar, all the whole foods.

The other piece that I found that we don't always talk about is this intermittent fasting. That was new to me and I want to just speak briefly on that because that can be a scary term. I know it was for me and rest assured that what that can mean in the beginning is just eating breakfast, lunch and dinner and not snacking.

And that may be where a lot of people listening here today need to start. And myself included, I've graduated a little bit more now. My body's adapted and  I got to share in, in doing, doing the work I'm doing and also supplementing appropriately to sustain me. I have had three normal, bowel movements.  Yeah. 

Too much information. And that was like one, one, the first month you're doing what I'm doing to the second and, and now the third. And I'm really working hard. This is a separate topic, but I am pre diabetic. So that is all tied in, but it is just restoring my system. So I just wanted to share on that and then just go in a little bit.

more and how that helps with pre diabetes, like how that mindset of just the three meals a day or intermittent fasting, just touch on that as a natural solution for people listening today, how they could get started. All right. You want me to go, Amanda, or you want to go? Yeah, no, go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. So fasting, there are many different types of fast, but for the purposes of this, we're going to talk about an insulin fast.

And really it just takes 12 to 16 hours. Of not eating. So when I say that, we, another term is time restricted eating. Really, Kerry? All we're doing is we're saying, we are going to shrink your eating window. We're not necessarily saying that you need to eat less. Just eat less often, right? To make it easy, just don't eat after dinner. 

And  ideally you're going to skip breakfast and you're going to just eat lunch and dinner. And during that time, the reason that's so beneficial is Amanda talked about insulin being high when we don't eat insulin can come down, but it takes about four hours to come down. So if we stop eating dinner, and go to bed, insulin can come down.

And then if we can let it start to stay down for longer, right? Then magic happens. Number one, our cells become sensitized to insulin again,  but number two, we all carry quite a bit of energy around in storage known as body fat love handles, but We don't ever get to use that because we're eating constantly.

We're providing external fuel. So if we want to use that internal fuel, we can't use that unless insulin is low. And so once insulin comes down and our body can flip into burning that energy for fuel, that's why Carrie, you notice you're not hungry. In the beginning, you're hungry. Because insulin levels are still extremely high and your body's fat does not adapt.

Your body doesn't know how to pull that fat for energy. Okay. Once your body can go there, you can keep going because your body's getting the energy it needs to function from itself.  That's awesome. And I think that what you said, I like the time restricted eating. And I think for people listening today, if you think, Oh my gosh, I can't skip breakfast.

Don't worry about skipping breakfast, just eat your breakfast and then don't eat after dinner. Don't snack in between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then in my case, I want to share that I do not eat breakfast anymore. And I never thought that would be possible. So yeah, so I'm experiencing that my body is adjusting and I'm still new at it.

I'm not an expert, but being able to make that shift is going to help me with my insulin issue with insulin production. That's really, so the good I'm doing my body in that is just really nice to hear that I'm doing better things for my body than I even can think of or conceptualize. And I'm also using the, the feel great system.

product you guys know more about than I do, we can talk about, and that is helping sustain me. And that can help. I think so too. I drink it. I love the taste. It's awesome. I drink it.  and it is something that helps me get started in my morning. I'm very productive. I like to be productive, so I'm not affected in that manner.

When I drink it twice a day, I look forward to the taste of it and I love it. This, yeah, that the yerba mate talked about, and then. I do something before my meals that helps with the insulin resistance. And typically I do a half a packet of some fiber that you guys can explain more about that helps with the carbohydrate absorption.

So for example, if I do eat carbohydrates or our meal that they have, have some that helps with the absorption of it. And so I know that I'm doing good for my body. And I believe that to be true, so I don't know as much about the Yerba Mate and the fiber, but Talk a little bit about that in addition to the intermittent fasting and how that can also help people.

I'll let Amanda because I've talked to her. She's the gut specialist, but because we didn't talk about what intermittent fasting or the feel great does for gut health. And I know you're a big fan of that theory. Yeah, me too. I too had a leaky gut six years ago, so now it's completely resolved, but. Just the two products.

Again, this is a tea, it's a concentrated yerba mate tea. And this has been around for thousands of years. And the benefit of this, the beneficial compound of this is the chlorogenic acid. And that is the compound that helps to suppress your appetite. Um, It also helps to regulate your glucose and your insulin levels, decrease inflammation, supports the kidney, is neuroprotective, and also helps to increase muscle efficiency and decrease fat efficiency, meaning that if you're an athlete, you can use this too.

So Shannon and I, we are, we are an advocate, we are an advent, not athletes, but we love to exercise and, um, we like to create more lean muscles. I'm 55 years old and I'm still able to maintain my lean muscles, which is great. Other things about the chlorogenic acid, Oh, the Yopamate tea, the other compound is theobromine.

Theobromine exists in dark chocolate and that helps to boost your energy, your mood. And some people might think that they can't, they're sensitive to caffeine. So this does have natural caffeine, but it does not elicit the same epinephrine response as the  caffeine in coffee. So you don't get that jittery feeling and that crash.

You get this sustained energy, the feel good energy. People notice this right away when they drink the tea. Oh, what's in that tea? I feel good. I have more energy. I don't need my coffee anymore. And then I know it's a natural G. It creates Amanda about the G. L. P. One. Yeah, it's a natural GLP 1 stimulator.

So it's like a natural ozempic. So as you mentioned before, your doctor friend went on ozempic, and ended up in the hospital. This actually stimulates your own body's production of GLP 1 without the side effects, suppressing your appetites. And since I started this, I was a snacker prior to The feel great system, I cannot fast for a long period of time without feeling really fatigued, weak, and also have these cravings when I come off of my intermittent fasting.

I'll be just eating everything and craving carbs and sugars and that wasn't doing the service for the intermittent fasting. The second compound is the fiber matrix. So this has been around for 30 years. It's been around since 1990 before I became a pharmacist. And this one has been studied by the Cleveland Clinic.

It has more than seven different soluble and insoluble fibers and it forms this matrix in your gut when you take this right before your meal and  you mix it and drink it and it forms a gelatinous matrix in your gut to  Slower, lower, decreased absorption of carbohydrates, of cholesterol, and prevent postprandial glucose spike, your post meal glucose.

So it helps to keep your insulin level low, regulate your glucose levels, so just to stabilize your glucose and insulin levels so that you don't get these spikes and crests, spikes and crests,  which eventually leads to insulin resistance. This has been studied by the Cleveland Clinic, the results as Such a product if taken regularly on a population basis can reduce the need for the, um, dose of lipid lowering, uh, medications.

So this is like a metformin, a statin, what else, ozempic.  And the two together provide synergistic effects. So you use this to help you extend your intermittent fasting because it helps you to shut off the food noise and, um, suppress your appetites and, but provides you the energy to do everything that you need in the morning.

And this one you take it right before a meal to help prevent that glucose insulin spike. So the two together, it's life changing for my family. For myself, I was able to lower my triglyceride by 40%.  Same with my husband, helped my mother in law get off of, um, statin, um, diabetes medications and prevent her foot from being amputated, as recommended by her doctor because her wound was not healing.

So, we lost weight around the midsection. So you can shrink your love handles. So how cool is that? Yeah, that's awesome. And that really helps me make understanding, understand that. So I'm doing this intermittent fasting. And the reason that I'm not  probably starving is that I'm taking this chlorogenic acid and I'm not having to drink coffee first thing in the morning.

I love coffee. So sometimes I will, I'm allowed to do both. If I wanted to, I could have a decaf, but the caffeine from the coffee is different from the caffeine from the yerba mate. So if I like the taste of coffee, then I can have something decaffeinated, but the yerba mate is not giving me this.

Like we talked about before this jittery feeling, it's not affecting me. It's not affecting my sleep. So I love that and that it's. helping me to continue with this, the fasting. And then what you said, I got to share, because I remember I reached out to you at one point with the fiber matrix. So we have carbs and I'm human.

And so I'm going to have carbs. In fact, I even had a pint of dairy free  gluten free ice cream. And I, yeah, guess what? I'm human and I don't beat myself up. And I got right back on after I did that, but I reached out to Amanda and she's still,  you have the Faber matrix. You just take a little bit more.

If you take that, it's going to help you to lower that absorption is what it's doing. So that's not going to affect you as much. And that gave me a piece of mind. Now I'm not saying that I'm, my mindset is now I'm going to have this all the time. I'm going to do this, but. being human because we all are.

When we do have something sweet, I'm never going to not stop eating something that is sweet permanently. Like what, maybe I have to modify it for carbs or whatever. So we have a sense of peace of mind. To me that was priceless. Like a cushion. It's like a cushion. Yes.  You want to enjoy life. Yeah. It's a, it's willpower in a pack and a carb blocker.

Yes.  And if I ask myself, and I think the question that people listening today may want to ask themselves too,  if I had to do this the rest of my life and stay on, on, on the Yerba Mate and doing these things, which it's, it can help obviously not have to take medication. I totally would rather do something like this because it sounds like the products help us, they help sustain in addition to the intermittent fasting restricted eating type lifestyle.

So would I rather do that to prevent it? My pre diabetes is getting worse than I take in addition to lifestyle modifications. Of course, we're not going to forget those. Hey, you guys know I do this for a living. I teach injuries. My focus is pain relief and injury prevention, and I need to keep strong. And that includes strength.

That includes you guys know, therapy, Pilates, all that stuff, right? I'm able to do all that stuff. I wouldn't, I'm not tired. I'm able to do the things I need to do. And that's important because we want to be able to sustain our bodies. We need muscle mass. I'm able to And especially as women over 40, between 40 and 70, we need muscle mass for all kinds of things.

That's key. So yeah, this gives me reinforcement. Just talking to you guys today. This has been extremely helpful. And I, I thank you guys both for coming on here. I just, let me, anything else you guys want to add before we wrap it up? Because this has been awesome.  I just want to mention that I think I briefly mentioned it decreases inflammation.

So if you have neuropathy, you mentioned pain, people with joint pain, chronic pain, this decreases inflammation as well. And as you bring down your insulin levels, that itself will Decrease inflammation and pain. And we have many testimonials on reducing pain. They don't have neuropathy pain anymore. And this has vitamins from A to Z.

This has more vitamins from A to Z. Argentinians call it God's milk because they can sustain life with this tea. And it's been around for thousands of years. So I just want to mention that. No, that's great. And one more thing is we're fixing the problem, Carrie. We're not band-aiding it. Medication band aids it.

We are fixing it. And these supplements, these tools, help fix it.  We're addressing the root cause. So, when you address the root cause. everything else will fall off. That's right. No quick fix. That's it guys. Better than that. Anybody let, there's no quick fix out there. This is a lifestyle and we know that.

So we have to get to the root cause of everything. And so this is one, not another natural tool. So if you're interested in learning more about the feel great system, the link will be in the description of this episode. And some of you today may be struggling with pain. Like we talked about back pain, joint pain, stiffness.

And I'd love to connect. So if you're ready to live pain free, you have natural tools that have been presented today, but you want to enjoy your favorite activities with confidence. That's me. I love it. Over 26 years of experience, helping people improve their health, alleviate back pain, stiffness, other discomforts, and I'm ready to help you.

So schedule your consultation today. You can do this by reaching out to support a movement craft. com. And if you're a listener of the better than a pill podcast, you get a special rate. So if you sign up today, please do that. Remember we release new episodes every other week on Wednesday, and I truly look forward to having you join me then.