Optimize your blood sugar
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You’ve probably heard a little bit about insulin resistance and the myriad of issues that stem from it by now (if not, start here – link to IR – start here article) and you’ve decided to take some action to improve your insulin sensitivity and blood glucose. Perhaps you’re pre-diabetic, have a diabetic relative or just want to optimise as many aspects of yourself that you know how (I fall into the latter two categories).
Stress! Yet another potential saboteur on your quest to get your blood sugar under control. Now, stress isn’t always ‘bad,’ it’s a great stimulus for the body and mind in the right doses. In this article I’ll outline how stress impacts blood sugar metabolism and what we can do about it. And yes, I say we, because stress management is an area I tend to neglect as well (at least at the time of this article).
When you think of causes of high blood sugar what does your mind turn to?
Is it
A high processed carb, low fibre diet?
Stress?
Hanging on to a bit of extra weight?
All of these things can definitely contribute to high blood sugar. But what if I told you that so could excess iron? Are you shocked? Hopefully it didn’t shock you to the point of stress, because that would raise your blood sugar haha!
Insulin resistance (IR) is hallmark of Type II diabetes. As of 2015 Diabetes affected an estimated 1.2 million Australians (based on self-reported data). Undiagnosed diabetics are expected to increase that number by 25%. If current trends continue, it is predicted that by 2050, 33% of US adults will have diabetes. That’s a lot of people!
Let’s get straight to the point here (I’m keeping it high intensity). Exercise is a great way to improve blood glucose. Pretty much any form of exercise will help. This article is for those who want to get the biggest bang for their buck.
Bitter melon juice improved the glucose tolerance in 73% of diabetics while another study showed diabetic men to have a 54% reduction in blood sugar in just 3 weeks.
Before a high carb meal, bitter melon reduced the blood sugar spike in 50% of the individuals. When compared to cucumber juice (move over medical medium), bitter melon juice was superior in lowering fasting blood sugar for prediabetics. The higher the blood sugar was to begin with, the bigger the drop! This was despite their being no effect on insulin levels.
There are many areas to address when trying to improve your blood sugar. Improving your cell’s sensitivity to insulin, improving the health of the pancreas to improve insulin production, reducing other contributors to insulin resistance such as stress and heavy metal toxicity, maintaining a healthy weight and repairing damage to any affected parts of the body. That’s quite a list and it doesn’t even cover everything!