Little White Drops of Tasty... Goodness?

As we age we become more prone to such symptoms and diseases like diabetes and other blood sugar related issues such as increased heart rate, shooting pains (I know this personally), and dry skin. The risk increases for us who approach the age of forty+ according to Diabetes UK. In fact, this has become coomon knowledge for most of us I think, asnd the worrying thing is it’s become generally “accepted”, which is why I (now the “grand” age of 32) have thought about this a lot over the past year or so. I’ll give you an example of what it was like for me at the age of twenty …

My Story …

Twenty years of age and in possession of way too much energy! I was running up the banks passing one of our local pubs to play football for up to 3 hours with my friends, and this was almost five times a week! I was also consuming the following foods:

1. crisp sandwhiches

2. crunchynut cornflakes (x2-3/day…a day!)

3. one - two bags of sweets/day

4. a lot of home-cooked meals

Now that last one may not seem much a concern right now, but I’ll mention that a bit later…. .

I was consuming bowls of cereal like they were going outta style. It wasn’t enough that I had sweets and crisp sandwhiches, no sir-ree, I had to have it all. I thought I could play football and consume those foods forever… … but I was wrong, … I lacked complete awareness, and and an uncanny stubborness because I was unwilling to listen to anyone.

I should have seen the signs, because I definitely felt the symptoms! I remember jogging down the street to our local newspaper shop to purchase some sweets (in fact, sometimes I would go to both, the post office and the local newspaper shop to get sweets, or “bullets” as my dad called them), and on the way to the shop I had shooting pains up both of my arms, but me being the naive and ignorant person that I was, I just worried for a moment, let it pass, and then just keep on going,… and I still bought the sweets! Clearly, I was incredibly aware. Now I cannot remember how long after that moment, but I didn’t know there would be more extreme consequences to my lack of awareness, and an ever increasing stubborness to not listen to my body … …

‘It was between 18:00 and 18:30 in the evening and little did Iknow my body was about to let me know exactly what it “thought” of me…

Triggered by a home-made cheese and onion hotpot, I started to get an incredibly excruciating stabbing pain in my chest!…’arghhhhhhhhhhh!’ I shouted clasping my chest. I couldn’t believe it, this pain, I had never EVER felt before! … Shooting pains up both my arms coupled with a simultaneously excruciating stabbing pain in my chest; it was like this entire experience was on ‘repeat’ because it lasted for a long long time, and I’m talking about two days…two days, I was in this much pain….’this IS IT’ I thought, tossing and turning bed-bound for the foreseeable future, ‘this is how I die, …I’m going to have a heart attack’ I said internally as my mam watched me in tears as I screamed in agony. This experience even made my mam cry as she watched on searching in her own head for answers.

As I made it to the next day, the pain, did not stop, it was relentless, like a swill of fire in my chest, with someone stabbing me with a car key and digging it in. As I gained a little bit of clarity, I thought, ‘no matter what it takes, I have to get better'!’ I decided to “hobble” to the car and drive (with my new friend, pain) to the acupuncture place located in the ‘Yellow Mall’ of the Metro Centre. I explained to the lady there what was wrong, and instantaneously, she knew what was wrong with me, I mean ‘knew’. She explained to my that because of what I was experiencing, the process would involve ‘the firey cup” at the beginning of the procedure - now, those of you whom have watched Jakie Chan’s ‘Karate Kid’ (2010) with Jaden Smith, know what ‘the firey cup is’ - and this would be followed by 30 minutes of acupuncture.

I lay there bare-chested with about two-dozen needles in me for 30 minutes, practicing meditating (all honesty? I thought relaxing my body would further increase the healing that was taking place). Having still felt the effects of the ‘firey cup’ procedure combined with the ‘now’ present effects of the acupuncture, I felt a noticeable amount of pain relief. Now, that I recall it a little better, I do remember her advising me to rest as I left their facility. I’m not sure if I listened at the time, I was just happy to have some for of pain relief. I did rest when I got home, for those of you wondering. As I walked away from their clinic to my car, every two steps I took …’BUDDUM’….two steps… ‘BUDDUM’, I was still in pain, and I sarted to think, ‘I need to do more to change!’ So following my treatment at the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinic, I decided to eliminate gluten and most of the dairy I cinsumed, for two to three weeks to see if that made a difference,…it DID!

After eliminating gluten and dairy for 14-21 days, I begun to re-introduce gluten back into my diet and it did NOT go well! After that experience, coupled with the research and documentaries I had seen, I decided never to eat gluten again!

So what of the sugar?

Well, at this time I was highly aware, and become for suspicious of certain foods and looked at all of the packaging. I was in a new phase of trying and testing; and because a lot of the sugary foods I consumed - cereals, white breads, cakes, cookies, etc. - contained gluten, I automatically wiped them from my eating pattern! Bye bye cookies, bye bye white bread, bye bye pastries! I started to feel it really work after about another two-three weeks. But, I did something else as well,…

To fully start to heal my body from the inside-out I supplemented with high-quality supplementation…

Now, some of you may be thinking ‘how do we absorb sugar?’ some of you may not, but I think it’s important to address, because it will, hopefully, give you a bit of understanding of how it works…

The Human Cell

As you can see from the above image, the human cell consists of a lot of different organelles, as they are called, and these organelles are responsible for different functions in the body, however, we are only going to focus on the ones that are relevant to this conversation, the microvili and the mitochondrion.

The Absorption

You have amazing ‘octopus-like-arms’ that make up a large portion of the surface area of your small intestine, and these ‘octopus-like-arms’ are called ‘microvili’ and their job is to absorb fully digested food and nutrients into your bloodstream, including sugar, BUT, there is another factor that comes into play here and that is insulin.

Insulin

Insulin, secreted by the pancreas, is a hormone that helps you regulate blood sugar. When you consume sugar the pancreas secretes the insulin receptor which then binds to the sugar molecule and “carries” it to the cell, but if these two aren’t home, you can ‘ring that door bell’ all you want, nobody is going to answer!

The Role of These Two Essential Trace Minerals

When the insulin receptor rings the door bell, a person who has the two trace minerals, Chromium and Vanadium present in the cells has the ability to absorb sugar effeciently and effectively into the mitochondrion of the cell for energy use, the person who does not? Well, they become insulin resistent over time (type ll diabetes).

The Mitochondrion

The mitochondrion (or mitochondria), ar critical structures within animal cells (and us), that are responsible for energy production: adenosine tri phospate (ATP) (Campbell, Williamson, Heyden, 2006). The mitochondrion is involved in many different energy cycles in the human body, and responsible for, not only producing energy, but replenishing it as well. And why is that important?

Exercise!

Without any of the above processes and systems working in harmony you will not reach your FULL POTENTIAL during training. Will not produce enough enrgy during a workout and more importantly, you will feel TIRED all the time, because your energy has ‘crashed’,… ever feel like that?

The scary thing is blood sugar issues have begun to rise, and has been predicted to increase to nearly 4.5 thousand here in the United Kingdom according to IDF Diabetes Atlas (2021),…yikes!!

What’s today’s ‘take-home?

1. Look after your health through better food choices - animal protein has a much higher satiety rate and is excellent for regulating blood sugar, that’s just nature.

2. Supplementation throuhg whey protein and branch chain amino acids (BCAA’s) can help for those struggling to consume animal protein.

3. Be aware of these stats as they’re ever increasing!

4. Exercise has been shown to reduce blood sugar (e.g. Kirwan, Sacks et al, 2017; Zahalka et al, 2023).

5. FIX your DIGESTIVE TRACT through the use of elimination and rotation diets, with the pulse test as an aid (Wallach, Lan, 1997).

6. If you are deficient, then supplement with liquid chelated chromium and vanadium together.

Thanks for reading guys! I want you to optimize and thrive, and not just “get by”, you deserve more than that!

Brad

Resources:

1. DiabetesUK, ‘Diabetes Risk Factors’. Cited: Type 2 diabetes risk factors | Diabetes UK. Accessed last: Thursday 06/07/2023.

2. ‘Human Biology’ 4.10 ‘Cellular Respiration’. Created by CK-12/Adapted by Christine Miller. Cited: 4.10 Cellular Respiration – Human Biology (tru.ca). Accessed last: Thursday 06/07/2023.

3. IDF Diabetes Atlas 10th Edition (2021). ‘United Kingdom Report: 2000-2045’. Cited: United Kingdom diabetes report 2000 — 2045 (diabetesatlas.org). Accessed last: Thursday 06/07/2023.

4. ‘Microsoft Bing’. 'Typed: journal articles exercise reduces blood sugar issues’. Cited: journal articles exercise reduces blood sugar issues - Search (bing.com). Accessed last: Thursday 06/07/2023.

5. Bioexplorer: Feed Your Mind and Fuel Your Imagination! ‘Explore Mitochondria Functions and Their Importance’. Cited: Top 6 Mitochondria Functions & Roles | Biology Explorer (bioexplorer.net). Accessed last: Thursday 06/07/2023.

References:

Campbell NA, Williamson B, Heyden RJ (2006). Biology: Exploring Life. Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson/Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0132508827.

Kirwan JP, Sacks J, Nieuwoudt S. The essential role of exercise in the management of type 2 diabetes. Cleve Clin J Med. 2017 Jul;84(7 Suppl 1):S15-S21. doi: 10.3949/ccjm.84.s1.03. PMID: 28708479; PMCID: PMC5846677.

Wallach JD, and Lan M (1997). Let’s Play Doctor (Third Ed.).

Zahalka SJ, Abushamat LA, Scalzo RL, et al. The Role of Exercise in Diabetes. [Updated 2023 Jan 6]. In: Feingold KR, Anawalt B, Blackman MR, et al., editors. Endotext [Internet]. South Dartmouth (MA): MDText.com, Inc.; 2000-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK549946/