Blood Sugar | Podcast #194

Welcome to another functional medicine podcast with Dr. J and Evan Brand! This video talks about blood sugar, and other relevant things revolving around it, such as symptoms, Insulin resistance, Cortisol response, and nutrition. Stay watching for additional information about the benefits of fasting and the influence of the gut to the body's blood sugar.

To effectively listen to what the body needs, knowledge is essential for knowing why it's doing what it's doing, so keep subscribing for more videos. Don't forget to share!

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

In this episode, we cover:

01:12  Mood, Blood Sugar, Insulin Resistance and Fasting

06:43  Total Fasting Benefits

11:00  Gut Influences Blood Sugar

18:50  Precautions in Taking Antibiotics

22:00  A1C Test

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey, guys. It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. Welcome back to the podcast. Evan. Evan Brand, my friend, how are we doing today?

Evan Brand: I’m doing great, man. I’m excited to chat with you. We came up with the idea of chatting about blood sugar. It’s a low hanging fruit that people still don’t dial in, but yet they want a Silver bullet to fix their problems but their blood sugar is still not addressed. It’s like, you can’t skip that and go to this magic supplement if you want to be truly happy and healthy.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean, the whole goal of blood sugar stability is not relying on your hormonal system to buffer the high’s and low’s, right? Blood sugar goes too high, right— the pancreas has to come out and drop it down. Blood sugar gets too low, the adrenals have to come out and punch in some adrenaline or cortisol to bring it back up. Maybe even a tiny bit of Glucagon, right? So, you get these hormonal roller coasters where your hormones— like, imagine— Let me just— Let’s say this. Like you’re driving a bumper cart, right? But you’re driving it so smooth that you’re not bouncing off the ends, right? So, most people, they basically pinball or bumper cart their blood sugar through the day, and they’re chronically relying on their hormones for either side. The problem is, there’s implications, and in your mood and how you feel, and in your body when you do that. When you bump on the Left Rail— Let’s call that Left Rail Insulin, that’s gonna increase Insulin, which can then drive and grow your fat cells. And they can also, for females, increase risk of PCOS. It can also cause cells to grow at an abnormal rate ‘cause Insulin’s a growth hormone, i.e. cancer cells. There’s an inflammatory nature to higher or Hyperinsulinemia type of uh— environments because of cells growing, and because of inflammation, and because of the fact that high Insulin tends to shut down the lipolytic enzymes. Lipolytic means the enzymes that break down fat and utilize it for fuel. So then now you become basically relying on sugar for fuel. So this is the analogy of going camping and starting a fire with twigs and paper, and you’re literally feeding the p— twigs and paper in all night long. You can’t even go to sleep because the fire keeps on going out and then you freeze. So we want to rely on foods that allow us to drive down the center of this bumper cart aisle and not have to crash on each side, and then deal with the hormonal issues that may happen because of it.

Evan Brand: Yup. So, tell people what that would be like. These are like the banana and cereal breakfast people.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. So, number one is starting your day with a whole bunch of refined carbohydrates. My— My belief, based on physiology, is we have the our higher levels of Cortisol in the morning. So, we naturally have more mobilization of carbohydrate in our liver from our liver from a Gluconeogenesis or from just mobilizing glycogen in the liver or glycogen in the muscle. So we have more internal sugar in our bloodstream just because of our cortisol levels. So my philosophy is to consume less carbohydrate in the morning at higher quality protein and fat that keep that fat from the nighttime moving, and instead of having fasting, it’s kind of like a nutritional Ketosis where we’re putting nutrition in our body but our body’s still tapping in to our fat reserves, kind of like a starvation state. The difference is, with adequate nutrition our body’s more likely to tap in to the food in our bloodstream versus our muscle tissue in our lean structural mass.

Evan Brand: Yup. And with mood— I want to bring that up. You may be hungry by 10:00 AM and you’re not able to go in between meals. Like, if you’re— if you’re listening, if you’re unable to go from breakfast to lunch and you have to snack in between, that’s a sign that your blood sugar is off. Other signs, we could say, irritable, if you’re shaky, if you get stressed out, you get hangry if your meals are delayed. That’s a sign that blood sugar is off. You mentioned the Insulin pee. So that could be excess body fat if you’re Insulin resistant. What else would you like to add to the list of symptoms? Anxiety, I know, is a big one that which—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anxiety and mood issues. Because of that those bumper cart rails— It’s like the third rail on the sub— on the subway, right, where it’s— there’s like, you get shocked, instead you get depression, you get mood issues. If you’re a female on the high Insulin side, you could get PCOS. As a guy, you’re gonna increase Aromati— uh— Aromatization, which is more Estrogen. And you could get, kind of Comastia, man boobs, just you know, moody or more emotional because guys shouldn’t have that amount of Estrogen in, so it really screws up their hormonal physiology, and that can cause all kinds of different issues. And, you know, just to kind of like outline it, like we want to eat foods that are nutritionally dense but we want to continue to keep our body in more of a fat burning state as a— as a overall percentage, right? And there’s a lot of people out there pushing a lot of fasting or Intermittent fasting or just fasting in general, and it’s like, there’s no magic in eating nothing. There’s no magic in it. Now, there’s some therapeutic benefit. The problem is, most people that are significant Insulin resistant, you’re typically not Insulin resistant from eating a whole bunch of nutrient dense foods. You’re typically Insulin resistant because there’s too much— you know, too much carbohydrate, and especially from refined, processed types of foods. So there’s not gonna be a magic in “Okay. Let’s cut the carbs down by giving you nothing” because you’re still also not providing the nutrients to run those pathways at the same time. So you have one side of the fence where you’re eating a whole bunch of calories that are driving— that are processed and that are driving Insulin resistance. Those calories have also high calories, low nutrition. And now the  magic is, “Let’s eat nothing,” which also has no nutrition. Now, the benefit is, there’s also a lot of inflammatory compounds in these foods.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So people do get benefit because the inflammation does go down, because no— nothing has no nutritions but it also has no inflammation. It also doesn’t have anti-inflammatory foods on the other side. So, we’re missing the nutritional density. We’re missing the anti-inflammatory nutrients and the anti-inflammatory fats, the Omega-3’s, the antioxidants— those kind of things as well. So, my thing is, let’s get the— let’s get the nutrition in there. Get the blood sugar stabilized so we’re snot bouncing off these third rails that are causing all these hormonal swings and emotional mood issues.

Evan Brand: So, it sounds like you’re saying you want to graduate someone up to maybe an Intermittent fasting plan. You might not just take somebody that went from eating garbage to straight Intermittent fasting. But they hear about Intermittent fasting ‘cause it’s trendy, so they don’t go and dial in blood sugar first. They’re just like, “I’m gonna go fast. I’m gonna get off McDonald’s or whatever garbage and go fast,” and they wonder why it doesn’t work. Is that what you’re saying?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes, a hundred percent, as we need nutrition around our system. And there’s lots of people out there that are promoting just total fasting, and there’s a lot of people out there that I respect and I like, and I get where they’re coming from. Let— Let’s go over the total fasting benefits.

Evan Brand: Yeah

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One, if you’re massively Insulin resistant, yes it can help. The difference is, well, you’re still not putting the nutrition in your body to run those systems. If we look at glycolysis and our Krebs cycle and Electron Transport Chain, it requires nutrients to run. So, my— my philosophy is, let’s get those nutrients in there. Number two, there’s a benefit because you’re not eating a whole bunch of inflammatory glutinous foods that may have a lot of in— inflammatory reactions ‘cause those foods aren’t good themselves. My thing is though, “Let’s try to get the nutrition in, and let’s also cut the inflammation out as well.” The third thing is that someone’s gut’s really, really, really messed up, that’s— it could be helpful ‘cause then you just dope anything in which can let the gut heal a bit.

Evan Brand: Uhmhm—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now, my thing is, there are other types of diets out there, like the GAPS Diet, or even an extreme kind of elemental kind of GAPS diet where you’re still getting nutrition in but you’re using cooking and processing methods to pre-break down those foods and nutrients so they’re much easier to take in to the body. So there’s— this tends to be a couple of different ways where you can parse this out and try to make it work.

Evan Brand: Yeah. more people think, too, that the fasting is gonna cure everything, but as you mentioned, you’ve got to have these different amino acids. These are creating neurotransmitters that are creating hormones. So, fasting is a stress. It’s a good stress but some people may be too weak for it. So you mentioned the adrenals already but, I know I found, for me, when my adrenals were wrecked, and I try to do Intermittent fasting, I did not feel well. I was sleeping horribly. I had anxiety throughout the day. So for me, I would say, the— the disclaimer amy be, “If you have adrenal stress, you may be unable to adapt to this fasting protocol.”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. So, number one, fasting is a stressor on the body. Right? We know it’s a stressor ‘cause our body will produce hormones to downregulate our metabolism. Just go type in Hypocaloric diet and Reverse T3.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You’ll see Reverse T3 levels go up. You’ll also see even Cortisol levels go up. Why is Cortisol levels going up? Because your body is trying to start breaking down structural tissue, muscle, etc., to get nutrition from it. It’s like, you know, you’re in debt. What’s the first thing you do when you’re in debt? Let’s cut the phone bill. Let’s cut the cable. Let’s, you know, maybe cut down on that, you know, the— the superfluous, extra expenses that aren’t— you know fundamental. What your body sees muscle is kind of that extra IPhone expense. It sees it as maybe the takeout food from the— you know, from the Sushi restaurant down the street. It sees it like that. Now, we know muscle has really great effects in performance and aesthetic and overall health, so we just make sure that income’s coming in so we can sustain it, right?

Evan Brand: Yup. That’s a great analogy. Another thing too is the Cortisol’s probably a motivating factor, ‘cause in ancient times, if you weren’t eating, your body thinks, “eventually you’re gonna starve and die.” So it’s probably gonna motivate you and maybe give you a little bit of the anxiety to push you like, “Hey. You better go hunt because you can’t just be starving like this all the time.” So, uh— There are benefits, but—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. So like— There’s like one camp that’s like— that’s fast their way to health. There’s no magic. It ain’t nothing.

Evan Brand: Right.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right? If that’s the case, you know, every concentration camp victim in World War II would have the secret to health. That’s just not that way, right?

Evan Brand: Yup.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now, there’s therapeutic benefits once you hit optimal health, and this is where most people in the podcast— they won’t get this far to hear it uh— because they’ll just see the title and just run. But once you hit the level of optimal health, that’s where you can play with uh— Intermittent fasting. I prefer Intermittent fasting more because you’re still getting adequate levels of nutrition to run those pathways. You’re just compressing the feeding window. Right? If you need 2,000 calories of whole food nutrition but you’re choosing a six to 8-hour window to get that in, well, great! So then, you get this 18-hour window where there’s very relatively low levels of Insulin, which can then help increase cellular autophagy, which then can help recycle proteins and have maybe some benefits in extending telomere length. I get that. Right? But let’s get to a place where you can do that and still function, and your nutritional density is super, super high.

Evan Brand: Yep. Well said. Is there anything else we should say about blood sugar? The gut influences blood sugar too. We do find it with a lot of people with gut infections, which is something we test everyone for, with parasites, bacterial overgrowth, etc. Kind of like this fasting thing you’ve mentioned. Some of these gut bugs are stealing your amino acids. Lyme and some of the coinfections with that can take amino acids too. So, if you do have gut bugs, that may be part of the reason why your blood sugar is crap. SO if you’re trying to do adrenal stuff, you’re trying to do fasting work and you can’t adjust, you’ve got to get the gut looked at too.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. Right? So a lot of these, let’s just say, uh— microbes or infections, they like processed sugar. Processed sugar is really easy for our body to— to process, right? It’s really easy to take in and to utilize it for energy, and it’s— it’s kind of has its addicting-like effect that can boost up Dopamine. So these critters get that and they produce chemicals inside your body that causes you to crave it. So— That’s why I see a lot of people like, “Oh! Well, just eat what you like and do this, and listen to your body.” O— How do you do that? How do you do that if you have infections or yeast overgrowth or bacterial overgrowth, and these critters are causing you to crave certain things that may not be right for you but may be right for them. That’s where knowledge needs to come in so you understand why your body’s doing what it’s doing. It’s like these uhm— like the metabolic typing questionnaires of like uhm— you know, the 2000’s, where I use that people do these metabolic typing questionnaires, which are great! And you find out if you’re a protein type, a carb type or a fat type. The problem is, the— the pi— the patient’s gut microbes would take the test for them, not necessarily them. [laugh]

Evan Brand: Exactly. I mean, if I ate what I felt like eating when I had a Candida overgrowth, I would ate gluten-free doughnuts all day.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah! So there needs to be an educational component there, and I think a lot of people kind of mess that one up, and they kind of get more kind of intuitive on it. But it’s good to have that. But you’ve got to be in a— in a balanced place to use your intuition if not the chemicals, uh— or the— the microbes in our body will produce things that will cause us to override that.

Evan Brand: Yup. Is there anything else we should mention on— on the blood sugar conversation?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. So [stutters] I’m like the analogy king, right? That’s kind of like, you know, you meet someone for the first time. The first couple months, or maybe six months to a year, you’re in this massive honeymoon phase, right? And you just— Everything is just amazing, right? It’s kind of like that with these kind of infections. They’re just— They’re keeping you on this honeymoon phase with all these carbohydrates and all these excess refined sugar, and you may not be able to listen to what your body really needs.

Evan Brand: Yup. Yup. That’s for sure. So get tested. If you have gut bugs, fix those. If you have adrenal issues, fix those because it’s tough. It’s tough to stabilize blood sugar if you have adrenal stress. Like you said, your adrenals can come in and pinch hit. But if you have weak adrenals, you’re getting shaky, you’re having panic attacks, you go to your psychiatrist and you tell them you’re having anxiety issues. How many times are they gonna mention blood sugar?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s very rarely mentioned. And then also, the— the nutrient density aspect too, right? So, plants are great. Plants aren’t quite as nutrient dense. The only exception for that is if you juice them.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right? Five hundred calories of Kale is 16 cups of Kale. Very hard to do that in a day, let alone a sitting. Five hundred calories of grass-fed beef is eight ounces of meat. When I go to a Steakhouse, I’m putting down a 60-ounce steak, not an 8-ounce…

Evan Brand: [laughs]

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …steak. Alright? That’s not a problem. Try putting down 16 cups of Kale.

Evan Brand: Oh my God. Let me mention this while you’re on that topic. I ha an—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now, [crosstalk] I’ll drink— I’ll drink some green— green veggie juice that’s got six or seven pounds of vegetables juice in there.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But I’m not gonna— I’m not gonna uhm— dilute myself, thinking that I’m gonna have 16 cups of Kale on an actual plate today.

Evan Brand: yeah. Since you mentioned it, let me bring it up. I had a new client…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: …last week. Uh— She’s been a Vegan for two years, and guess what? She just got diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s the problem with Vegan Vegetarian diets. Thay work fo— And again, I’m not an “all or nothing” guy.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I can say who these diets are great for. People that are more Insulin sensitive, they’re more ectomorph. They tend to like— They take in carbohydrates. They get this propensity to want to exercise and do work, and they— and they love the longer distance exercise. They do well with it. They tend to have uhm— you know, this ectomorph kind of longer skinnier type of body type. They burn fuel really well. They do pretty good with the higher carbohydrates as a percentage, right? Sixty-70%, they do well with it, right— which is kind of the percent of carbohydrates in the food pyramid. Kind of interesting. So they do well with that, right? And, you know, a lot of the good ones, like ____[15:25]. A lot of times to— to keep the muscle on, they have to do some kind of supplemental protein. So do— they’ll do like a pea protein or a hemp protein. They’ll do a high quality protein that doesn’t have all the crap on it too, and they won’t rely in a lot of the soy. So that’s kind of how they get away with it. But people that are more Insulin sensitive, it’s hard to get adequate levels— I’m sorry. The people that are more Insulin-resistant, it’s hard to get adequate levels of protein out of Vegan vegetarian diet. If you do the Math, and you put like the rice and the beans and all that stuff in there, it’s hard to get less than 300 grams of carbohydrate a day and get that half a gram to the quarters of a gram per uh— of protein per pound of body weight. So you’re looking at 300 grams of carbs a day.

Evan Brand: That’s crazy. I know I had her run some of her numbers and it was close to that. I asked her like, “What’s your breakfast, lunch, dinner?” It was just vegetables and pretty much beans like every meal. I was like, “Good Lord!”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and if you’re do— if you’re doing 2,000 calories, and you’re doing, you know, 300 grams a day, that’s 60% carbohydrate.

Evan Brand: So her A1C level was a 6.7. So, right there, type-2 diabetes, and she’d been promoted a Vegan diet by some nutritionist, and she tried it. And two years ago, she was eating tons tons of uh— chicken and pastured turkey and blah-blah-blah kind of more Paleo template. She felt great. But this lady says, “I promise you’re gonna feel so much better if you do Vegan.” They just started to feel terrible, hair was falling out. The lady said, “Just keep going. Just keep going.” And then now, just last week or the week before, got the diagnosis type-2 diabetes and reach out to me. And I said, the first thing you could do, let’s add in some animal protein just a little bit, just to see how you feel, like half a palm size portion of chicken. She’s like, “Oh my God! Just the idea of meat again sound so good to me. I already feel more relaxed thinking about it.” So it’s like—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. People tend to lose the craving of meat because they don’t process it and digest it. And then the Vegan Vegetarians, the— they compare the nutrient density. They— they do it uhm— fraudulently because they compare an unrealistic amount of vegetables that someone would eat in a meal…

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …or even in a day, to a realistic amount of meat that someone could eat in a meal. Eight ounces of meat’s pretty realistic. Even my wife will have an eight ounce fillet at a nice Steakho— Steakhouse and she’ll be able to eat it, and she’s relatively small, right? But putting down 16 cups of Kale is quite difficult. The only exception is— is if you do some juicing.

Evan Brand: Yup. Yeah. Powders. There are some like greens powders…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Powder is what?

Evan Brand: …I don’t know.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But still— I mean, that still you’re kind of processing that in too, and you’re not getting some of that fiber, and, God forbid, you had some carrot to that, then you— you’re adding a lot of sugar as well. So you got to be careful with that. That’s a double-edged sword.

Evan Brand: Yeah. We had a question about the type of the gut testing. UH— We do a couple different ones. The ones we use a lot i the GI Map from Diagnostic Solutions. You could check out Justin’s site. You could get testing there. Uh— We run that on everybody and it’s really, really good ‘cause it’s DNA-based, so it’s gonna find infections. You do it at home.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. I love it. Any other questions that we can pull here that are pertinent to today’s talk? So guys, if we’re doing a podcast, we always appreciate keeping the questions uhm— you know, try to tangentially associate  them towards the talk. And I get it. We don’t label our talks. We are like functional medicine improv, right? You see comedy improv actors. We’re functional medicine improv uh— professionals, so we don’t— we don’t typically plan things out too far and ahead. So I— I get it. It’s a little spontaneous.

Evan Brand: Yeah. Tho—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything else, Evan, you can…

Evan Brand: Well…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …see there?

Evan Brand: …there was one question that we could hit on uh— just because it— it tied into the gut a bit. “If you must take an antibiotic, what precaution should one take to protect gut health?” I would say, first, if you must take an antibiotic, who says you must take one? Like, I believe I just had Strep Throat over the weekend. My wife looked at the back of my throat. It was yellow and white. It looked nasty. It sure felt like Strep. My throat was hurting, and I’m just doing high-dosed herbs, different types of antimicrobials. If I would have went to a doctor, they would have put me on antibiotics. So I think, first, you have to really evaluate. If you must take an antibiotic, is that for real? Like, are you gonna die if you don’t or are there herbs that you can integrate into it?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Find out the scenario and— and if there’s an option to do like an oil of Oregano, or Silver, great. If for some reason, whatever that scenario is— let’s say, it’s a car accident, right? Or let’s say, you know, someone’s doing a procedure for you and saying, “You have to o antibiotics and if you don’t take it, I’m not gonna treat you.” Right? Then, I would look at doing probiotics during and after. And there’s some benefit in the research, too, actually doing it uh— during as well. So, just kind of keep that in the back of your head.

Evan Brand: Yeah. Justin’s selling different probiotics. I do too. You could just check at our sites, justinhealth.com. He’s got several. Evanbrand.com, I got several. We use professional healthcare companies to make all of our products. So you want to make sure that they’re legit. If you just go to Whole Foods and you buy a probiotic, we can’t guarantee the potency of it. You definitely want to go for practitioner grade for probiotics.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Cool. And then—

Evan Brand: That was—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then I see uh— a question from a patient here. I’ll answer the uh— the question here. Uh— “Heavy eyes, headaches, fatigue, brain fog, currently taking Thyrobalance— two morning, one in the afternoon. PMS, increase in cycle length shortened but the menstruation longer, estrogen problem, so it depends. This patient, I can remember last time we chatted was doing pretty good. So the question is, “Was there a backslide or not?” If there was a backslide, I want to like dig a little bit deeper into stressors or diet stuff. Uhm— But we may want to put like an Adaptogen in there. And I— I don’t have this person’s protocol up in front of us so…

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …maybe some Estrogen-modulating types of herbs like some Maca. I use a product called Femmenessence that I get great results with. And then, of course some adaptogenic adrenal support. Then, make sure all the foundational stuff is dialed in. But I can’t go any deeper without, you know, uhm— doing a one-on-one but I hope that helps.

Evan Brand: Maybe some liver stuff too, like sometimes with the…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—

Evan Brand: …cycle being off. Sometimes it’s just— you could throw a little, simple liver support in, a milk thistle, burdock root, dandelion— something like that— maybe some dandelion tea. It’s in that category— stuff that might help and can’t hurt.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and then this person’s also mentioning that they started some GI Clearing, some gut killing herbs as well. The liver, the immune system, and lymphatic system could be a little bit stressed, so couple things you can do like a 3-7 days supplement holiday. Kind of come off for three to seven and rev back up slowly. Also, make sure binders are in there, like uh— activated charcoal or some bentonite clay. And then we can always put the ginger tea in there, and just kind of gradually in— you know, inch it up slowly, just so you can— if— if there’s uh— a p— basically, a point of no return where these things start. You can at least figure out where that point is and then just err on one side away from it.

Evan Brand: Yep. I think that’s good advise.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Awesome. Great.

Evan Brand: [crosstalk] I think we’re out of time.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …for the great feedback. Excellent and I think we had a great chat today, Evan. Is there anything else you wanted to mention at all or add?

Evan Brand: Uh— Just get— get your— get your A1C tested. Like if you are concerned about blood sugar, if you’ve got Type-2 or Type-1 Diabetes in your family and you’re kind of paranoid about blood sugar, you could go to a pharmacy. They have a test kit called A1C now, and you can get a test kit for like 20 bucks and it’s a simple finger prick you can do at home to test your A1C, which is like your average blood sugar over the last couple to several months. And you could check it. I mean, you could have a— a doctor run this— you know, via blood too. But you could just do an at-home finger prick if you’re curious. And I know Justin has a glucose monitor. He tracks his blood sugar, and— Hey! There it is.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right here. So— A nice little 20-dollar glucose monitor. Do a functional glucose tolerance test, not the conventional one where they give you 75 grams of a— a sugary solution. Because if you’re not like a so— a soda drinker, uhm— it doesn’t mimic anything in reality. Right? So, 20-dollar guy, gets some strips. Test your fasting. Uh— Do a fasting, one-hour, two-hour, three-hour. Choose a random breakfast, a random lunch and a random dinner during the week. Sometimes people can, like I mentioned earlier, they can mobilize a lot of carbohydrate ‘cause of the healthy Cortisol response. So, your blood sugar in the morning may not necessarily be high because of your diet. It may be high because of a Cortisol response, which is known as the Dawn Phenomenon or the Somogji effect. Very, very similar. One’s because of a hypoglycemic response. One’s ‘cause of a adrenaline Cortisol response that kind of cause the same thing, just the different— a different domino starts uh— the reaction but the results are pretty similar.

Evan Brand: Yeah. Yeah. So uh— The functional testing, what number are you looking for?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhm— So below a hundred uhm— on the fasting side. You know, 80 to 90 is ideal but below a hundred. And then, within one hour below 140, my preferred is 120. And then two hours uhm— below 120 or my preferred is below a hundred. And then three hours, definitely below a hundred back to around a fasting level. [crosstalk] That kind of gives you a window because most people, you know, during the day, they’re being challenged by the food they’re eating, and that’s what’s driving the Insulin resistance. That’s also the x-factor because Insulin resistance can also be driven by not sleeping enough.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, the sleep aspect is there. Lots of studies on college students. They were, within two weeks of sleep restriction, they were able to make them prediabetic.

Evan Brand: Oh my God.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So sleep resistance, and then why, right? Well, part of it could be because there is research that sleep deprivation can deplete Magnesium. Magnesium’s very helpful for blood sugar as well. So there’s lots of potential. And then also the Cortisol response. Cortisol then mobilizes more blood sugar ‘cause of the stress that’s happening from the mild sleep. So there’s like a hormone response that can cause it, and then there’s the stress that depletes certain nutrients and these nutrients are also important for blood sugar stability. So it happens in a couple of different angles.

Evan Brand: Yep. I’m sure we could chat further but we should probably wrap it up. So check out, if you want a consult with Justin, check out his site, justinhealth.com. If you like to consult with me, evanbrand.com. We look forward to helping you guys, and we’ll be back next week for some more fun.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Give us a thumbs up. Give us a like. YouTube— Subscribe is not enough for YouTube. You got to hit the— the bell button. So smash that bell for us. Hit the thumbs up. Thyroidresetsummit.com— thyroidresetsummit.com. And then, Evan’s got the Candida Summit as well, which is going on now. So make sure you subscribe to that.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: My link is justinhealth.com/candida.

Evan Brand: [crosstalk] Just wrap up. Just wrap up. But if you guys want to go buy the event, I had a guy this morning, a new client who purchased my Upsell Talk, which is where I did an hour case review of reviewing a client’s labs and making a protocol. The guy said that that Upsell video alone was worth the cause. So if you want to buy it, use Justin’s link, justinhealth.com/candida. Go check out that event and you can get that talk, or you can see an hour behind the scene, which we never reveal.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And then, do you have a uhm— a link for my Thyroid Reset Summit?

Evan Brand: I don’t.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: crosstalk] Want me to get you a link so when— when you’re on the podcast here, you can promote it.

Evan Brand: Nah, that’s fine. Use your link. People can have them. Go for it. Thyroidresetsummit.com. Go register for Justin’s event. It’s gonna be awesome.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Awesome, man. Hey! It’s been totally real, Evan. Great chatting. Let’s talk real soon.

Evan Brand: Take care, man. Bye.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You too. Bye.

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REFERENCES:

https://justinhealth.com/

https://www.evanbrand.com/

http://thyroidresetsummit.com/

http://justinhealth.com/candida or https://candidasummit.com/?idev_id=22861&idev_username=justinhealth&utm_source=22861