You May Never Eat Sugar Again! - Try These Food Hacks To Heal Your Body | Jessie Inchauspé

You conducted a four-week study with about 2,700 people from 110 countries, which is impressive to, I don't even know if I can name 110 countries, to test your method in a pilot experiment. So, what's the glucose goddess method and what were the results from that pilot experiment that you did?

So, as I was writing it, you know, Marc, and the reason I wrote it is because my community and my readers were asking for it. And being a scientist, I couldn't resist the idea of actually getting some survey data from people, some self-reported survey data, to see how the method impacted them. So I put together an early version of the Glucose Goddess Method, which at that point was just a PDF you're blacking out my PDF with some wanky pictures of the recipes from my kitchen. It was not pretty, but it was the method. And I recruited almost 3,000 people from my Instagram. People who wanted to apply the hacks, people who really wanted to see change in their lives, but who had not been able to start before because they were lacking the guidance and the motivation. So I sent them the PDF and we went through the four weeks together. And so week one, we looked at savory breakfasts. So everybody in the experiment started having a savory breakfast instead of a sweet one in most cases. Then in week two, we continued the savory breakfast, and we added in a new hack, which is a vinegar drink before you have something starchy or sweet.

Uh-huh.

Week three, we continued the breakfast, the vinegar drink once a day, and we added a veggie starter to one of our meals a day. So that's just a big plate of veggies at the beginning of your meal. And then finally in week four, we layered in movement. So 10 minutes of movement once a day after a meal, and this could be, you know, just walking, it could be cleaning your home, it could be ice skating or whatever you wanted. And the rest of the time, apart from these four hacks, people could do whatever they wanted. They went about their day normally, they ate what they usually ate, they drank what they usually drank. That's really important. And so at the end, I sent everybody a survey of how they did, how their symptoms improved, and here are the results I got, and I'll read out the numbers because they're really quite remarkable and it was very easy for people to do this, you know, it was not super highly restrictive. It was really, to me, it's like the on a ramp to steady glucose. So after the four weeks, here are the results. 90% of participants were less hungry, 89% reduced their cravings, 77% had more energy, 67% said they were happier, 58%.

Were.

Sleeping better, 58% of people who were struggling with their mental health said they saw improvements, 46% of people with skin problems saw improvements, 41% of people with diabetes improved it, and finally, 35% of people who had hormonal issues, PCOS, etc., improved their hormonal health. And my favorite stat of them all, I think, is that 99% of people said they would continue doing these hacks as part of their daily lives. So it was quite remarkable and to me really encouraging because that means you can start and doesn't have to be super hard.

Yeah, these are just four simple things, right?

Eat a savory breakfast, have a little vinegar, eat veggie and curry meal and walk for 10 minutes after you eat.

I know.

It's pretty powerful.

It's simple.

It's simple, but if you're able to actually do it, then it can change things so much. And it sounds simple. It's like, oh, that's too simple. Like, whatever. No, actually doing that for four weeks consistently can transform how you feel and put you on a new path for your health. And I want to touch on weight loss, you know, because to me, this is not, you know, I'm not, this is not a diet. The glucose-greatness method is not like, it's not a diet. The point is, the number one point is not losing weight. But Throughout this method, 38% of people lost weight without even trying, right? Without counting calories, without doing any of.

That kind of stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. And so that's key because as you mentioned at the beginning of the episode, you know, people with type 2 diabetes, they could be, yeah, sure they could have a lot of fat on their body, but also they could not, right? So weight and health, there's a correlation there, but losing weight is not the number one thing you need to do for health. You need to fix some underlying issues.

That's really the important thing. That's so powerful. You know, when people think it's complicated to fix this, it's really not. I mean, I think people are so overcomplicated. And I've talked about the same principles for years and people follow them and they see amazing results. And the data you share was really staggering. Obviously, it wasn't a double-blind randomized controlled trial. No, it was self-reported data. But it's pretty impressive data, as we call an observational trial. And when you implement these behaviors, it changes your biology very quickly. It doesn't take a long time. It's only four weeks, right? So let's break it down a little bit on each step. So savory breakfast, what does that mean? Why is it so important? What are your favorite savory breakfast recipes? Tell us actually how we do this.

Okay, so the principles for your savory breakfast are very easy. It's number one, base it around protein. And when people think breakfast protein, they're like, oh my god, do I have to eat eggs every day? What a hassle. No, you can eat eggs, I love eggs, but you can have any type of protein. So maybe you have some leftover grilled salmon from your dinner last night, maybe you have some turkey, maybe you have some eggs, maybe you have like a nice yogurt, maybe you have protein powder in a smoothie. Actually, there's a recipe in the bookmark that's inspired by one of your old school smoothie recipes from back in the blood sugar solution days.

Oh, really?

Yeah, because that was one of my favorite ones. Yeah, so that's a really one of my favorite recipes in the book. And there are 30 recipes per week to inspire you to actually get started. But my other favorite breakfast recipe, I think, is called Happy Halloumi. So it's just spinach and grilled halloumi, some chili, super easy. And I'm quite a lazy person when it comes to cooking and I understand that in order to actually make these changes it needs to be really simple. So all the recipes are six ingredients or less. They take 10 to 15 minutes to make maximum. Really it's not like a complicated cookbook where you have to grocery shop for six hours and do a whole feast. These are recipes that you're only gonna have to look at once and then you'll know how to do them. They're so simple. That's the point. I want to teach people really easy, easy, simple steps. So that's week one, that's savory breakfast. What's your favorite savory breakfast, Mark?

I mean, I love shish kebab.

It's one of my favorite breakfasts, which is essentially a kind of Middle Eastern dish with tomatoes and spices and so yummy. And then you put the eggs in, like you poach them and cook them.

In the oven and it comes out.

All hot and steamy. I love that. I also love, you know, I like an avocado tomato, fresh tomatoes, avocados cut up with olive oil on them and, like, a bunch of eggs. Sometimes, you know, I'll do, like, a whole kernel rye bread with, like, tomato, a little mayo, and, like, kind of cooked eggs, like fried eggs on top with salt and pepper, maybe a little spice sauce. Just really, really, yummy, yummy stuff. So I, I typically have that. I also, you know, have a shake often, which is a protein-based shake using goat whey, which I find really effective for getting the amount of protein I need to, to sort of create muscle protein synthesis. As you get older, you get anabolic resistance where it's hard to build muscle. So I make sure I get a good dose there. But that's my favorite stuff. And it's, it's, it changes everything when you, when you on a fasted state, have a savory protein breakfast with fat and veggies. Your whole day is different, your energy is different, your cravings are different, you want different stuff. Your brain is clear. You don't go through these crashes in the morning where around 10-11 o'clock you're looking for something sweet or your energy crashes. You're in this virtuous cycle when you do that. It's such an easy thing to do and it's also biologically so sound. It's actually how to optimize our biological system. That's my favorite.

And to your point about your favorite recipes, I hope that people open the method and they find these recipes that become their staples, because that's the best outcome. That you find three, four recipes that you love, that you can just keep coming back to that are really, really easy. It's about creating those habits and just making sure that becomes part of your life. And so Savory Breakfast is protein, fat, fiber if you can, and then importantly, you can have starches for taste, right? But they shouldn't be the center of your breakfast. And then finally, and probably most importantly, nothing sweet except whole fruit if you want for taste. That is the equation for the savory breakfast that's going to really change how you feel. And that's week one.

And eating the fruit at the end, right? Not at the beginning?

Yep. If you can, yeah, that's great. That's even better. Yeah.

You start with food, you're not going to get in trouble. So tell us about the vinegar, because there's so much talked about vinegar and apple cider vinegar and, you know, why it's great for you. And, and, and I think, you know, what is the science about this? Is there any science? Is it just a kind of a folklore, natural medicine kind of recommendation? When should you consume it? What kind should you have? You know, how do you incorporate vinegar? So talk about vinegar. Because instead of a weird one, it's like, what do we need?

Yeah.

Okay, I get the saving breakfast. I get the veggies.

I get the exercise. But, like, vinegar is kind of a weird one. I know it is kind of a weird one. And when I first came across the studies, I also I was quite surprised because even though vinegar has been, you know, culturally around for a very long time, it was like, does it really have this deep of an impact on our glucose levels? Well, interestingly, there are a good amount of clinical trials on adding just one tablespoon of vinegar once a day, either in the morning or before a meal, and we see significant impact on glucose spike and insulin release. And so scientists were like, how is this happening? Like, why is this just You know, this common food, what is it actually doing? Well, it turns out that vinegar contains acetic acid, and acetic acid does two really cool things. One, it acts on our alpha amylase enzyme, which is the one that's in charge of breaking down starches into glucose, and it slows down the action of alpha amylase, therefore slows down how quickly glucose molecules are arriving in your bloodstream. And second, yes, acetic acid goes to your muscles and tells your muscles to make glycogen faster and more abundantly than usual. So soaking up glucose from the bloodstream and turning it to glycogen. And so those two very simple things mean that if you have a vinegar drink before your meal of the day that's highest in starches and sugars, maybe you're having pasta for dinner, maybe you're having a cookie in the afternoon, if you have this, you're going to be able to still get all the pleasure from the carbs with less of an impact and less creation of that cravings roller coaster. Because the problem when we eat something sweet, we do it because it gives us pleasure, it gives us dopamine in the brain, but then inadvertently we often then kick off that blood sugar roller coaster for the rest of the day. And so vinegar is one small tip that you can add that can help you counteract that. And so in week two of the method, I teach people lots of different ways of having it in water, in tea, in mocktails, as dressings to try to add that ingredient in so you have that tool in your toolbox for when you need it.

So the vinegar basically inhibits the ability of the mouth to digest the sugars and starches.

Alpha amylase is inhibited.

Yes.

Right, so in the mouth you have enzymes as well as your gut and it inhibits that alpha amylase which is very fascinating.

So you kind of have to take.

It Before you eat?

Before, yes, before you eat. Ideally, in the studies, it's about 20 minutes before you eat, but also it seems that acetic acid might actually just slow down gastric emptying, so just slow down how quickly food goes from stomach to intestine. So it has all these different pathways that it activates, and overall in the studies, it shows a reduction in glucose spikes of up to 30%, and a reduction in insulin secretion of up to 20%. so it's pretty powerful for just one tablespoon of this cheap thing most of us have in our kitchen. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be just apple cider.

Yeah.

I mean, what can be?

It can be any type.

Red wine vinegar, white vinegar.

Yep.

I actually am really liking white vinegar these days. I love ACV and apple cider vinegar, but the white vinegar is kind of like. It has a different texture to it, which I am quite enjoying today. But, yeah, any vinegar works.

And you can also have it as a dressing on your food. And white vinegar is great because white vinegar actually, you can use it to get a burnt pot. My mother taught me this. You put white vinegar in the pot and you boil it on the stove and the vinegar just gets all the.

Burnt stuff off the pot.

Oh, cool. That's amazing.

I'll have to try that.

It's great. Yeah, it's great. And it's been for centuries. You know, in the 18th century, in the 18th century mark, they used to give vinegar teas to people with type 1 diabetes. So, we've known culturally that vinegar is something that can be used for, yeah, for diabetes. And, you know, in countries like Iran, apple cider vinegar has been made for just generations and generations. And people know it as a health promoting ingredient. But only now today do we actually understand the mechanism. And that's what I love so much about these hacks too, is that, yes, today we have the modern science evidence explaining how they work, but actually culturally they've been around for a very long time.

Incredible. Yeah, vinegar has been around for a while. And should you take it like a tablespoon before every meal or just to having a carbohydrate meal or?

You do it once a day. Mostly, the most effective time to take it would be before a high carb meal. So that's the best time to take it. But otherwise, you know, even if you take it, for example, first thing in the morning, some studies showed that just taking it in the morning also has a long-term impact. So any time is fine and in the method, as long as you have one tablespoon a day, you do it whenever, but the most effective time is before a high carb meal. So if I want to have my favorite chocolate cake, that's a good time to have it.

So I'm in Italy right now, so if I wanted to have a little.

Pasta, I would just have a teaspoon of vinegar. Absolutely. In some water. You could even have, so in Italy, you know, they have antipasti, which is again, like culturally the veggies first kind of tradition.

Yeah.

And so put some vinegar on there and you're taking off two hacks in one and you're doing the glucose goddess.

Method perfectly from Italy. There you go, your veggie starter is the next fourth one. So it's really the fiber that has.

The biggest impact from the veggie. That's why you use that, right? Yeah, so fiber is remarkable and we don't get nearly as much fiber as we need to get. And so in week three of the method, we do something very simple. We add a plate of vegetables to the beginning of one of our meals. So most people do that before lunch or before dinner instead of before breakfast because that's a lot of veggies in the morning. And so by doing this, you're really harnessing the power of the fiber in the veggies. And fiber is, she's a superwoman. Like she's so wonderful, amazing, and we need more of her in our lives. And she does a few amazing things. First of all, she is going to coat the upper part of your intestine. and as I said, prevent too many glucose molecules from coming through to your bloodstream too quickly. And second, fiber feeds your gut bacteria, which is also very, very important and healthy. And by having it, by having the veggies at the beginning of the meal, that's when you're going to be able to get the most power out of them. And the antipasti is a really good example of that being already culturally something we've been doing for a long time. I'm France, I'm France, I'm French. And in France we have crudité, which is raw veggies at the beginning of a meal. Again, you know, we've been doing this, people have known this for a long time, but we've lost touch with these very key straightforward principles that are really important to helping our health. So week three, a veggie starter once a day. And there are no studies on exactly the right amount to have. From my experience, it seems that if your veggie starter makes up about 30% of your meal, that's a really good thing to aim for. And the veggies can be raw, they can be cooked, they can be dressed, for example, with a vinegar dressing as well, to, you know, take off two hacks in one. I have lots of wonderful recipes in the book, like my favorite French asparagus recipe, my mom's slow-cooked leeks, we have crispy kale, we have tomatoes with yogurt dressing, like lots of simple six ingredient or less kind of thing. And so that's week three. And at that point you're doing the savory breakfast, the vinegar, the veggie starter. This is where most of the participants in the study told me that everything started to change really profoundly. When you get to the end of that second week and you start the veggie starter, you feel like a completely new person. And again, it wasn't hard because you could do whatever you wanted the rest of the time. You just added these principles like gentle giants and your glucose slowly steadied, inflammation goes down, hormones rebalance, you're less hungry, you sleep better. It's really transformative and I'm so excited that it's been so well received. So yeah.

Well, it's great. You make such complicated science into these practical hacks and tips that everybody can use that are not that complicated and people can understand them. and make them as regular habits, which I really love.

Thanks, Mark.

The last bit was moving after you eat. And this is really interesting because.

People.

Often eat dinner and then they go sit in the couch and watch TV, right? It's absolutely the worst thing you could do. And my grandfather was from a family who had lots of heart attacks in their 50s, bypasses, heart attacks, all kinds of stuff. he didn't really get it until he was in his 80s, and he got some angina then. And what was fascinating was that he was deaf, so he was a physical laborer most of his life, you know, throwing newspapers on the New York Times truck. But at night after dinner, he always liked to feed the alley cats. He lived in New York City, and he would go out with scraps of food, and he would, like, find the alley cats. He would just walk the streets of New York after dinner, and he was super thin and healthy and. It was doing handstands at 80 years old.

So.

I think that moving thing is a thing and now we have the science behind it. So can you talk about the science behind why moving after eating is such a critical thing to do?

Yes, and again, I love that story and I love cats. So I was thinking maybe I should do that when I'm 80 and go feed all the alley cats. I'm probably gonna end up that way, to be perfectly honest. So listen, movement We all know we should exercise more. We all know that exercise is good for us, but when is the best time to do it and what is the best way to start? So from the studies, just 10 minutes of walking or of light movement after a meal can help reduce the glucose spike of your meal significantly. And why is that? Because every cell in your body uses glucose for energy, okay? And that also goes for your muscles. your muscles, when they contract, they need energy to do so. And the first place they will look is in your bloodstream for extra glucose they can use and burn and contract. And so we can use this to our advantage. And so here's the hack. 10 minutes of movement after one meal a day within about 90 minutes of the end of your meal. So you don't have to get up and immediately do a bunch of push-ups you can wait a little bit. 90 minutes is when the glucose Spike will reach its maximum. And so you want to move and use your muscles before that so you can capture. some of that extra glucose and lower the spike. Now, what can you do? Okay, so you can walk, feed the alley cats, we love that. You can also do even simpler stuff to get started. For example, if you're in the habit of sitting on your couch after dinner, you can still do that. But as you're sitting on the couch, how about you start doing some calf raises? So you push up onto the balls of your feet up and down. You do that for 10 minutes. that activates a muscle in your calf called the Soleus muscle, which is surprisingly good at soaking up glucose from your bloodstream. And that's a muscle we use for walking. So again, this walking connection. You can also grab like a big bottle of water, do some bicep curls while you're watching Netflix. Of course, you can like clean your apartment, do the dishes, do the laundry. You can also do intense stuff. You can go ice skating, whatever floats your boat. But those 10 minutes are going to be so powerful to help your body use some of that fuel you just ate. And most of us give our body too much fuel and that's where the problems start happening. And so your muscles really become your greatest allies in your journey to steady glucose. So that's the hack. Week four, 10 minutes of movement, whatever you want. And by the end of it all, you have these four very simple yet profoundly transformative new habits in your day to day. And then you're a new person and you can go and go after your dreams and follow your passion and do things you've always wanted to do and be really proud of yourself.

One of the real problems with sugar is screwing up our hormones both for men and women. And can you take us down how that works and what goes wrong and why it's so common to see such hormonal chaos in this country?

Absolutely. I think one of the conditions that is becoming more and more prevalent, especially in my community, I'm noticing that the numbers are increasing so much, is polycystic ovarian syndrome. And this is a condition where women stop getting their period, their ovaries become burdened with cysts, They start displaying masculine traits like hair on the chin, balding, et cetera. And this is something that often we're told to just medicate, oh, just take the pill and it'll fix it. It turns out actually that polycystic ovarian syndrome is a disease of too much insulin.

Yeah.

And we know, yeah, and the way it works is fascinating. So when your body has too much insulin in it, it's not as good as it was before at converting male hormones into female hormones. So you end up with people who have uteruses who have this excess of testosterone in their body. Yeah. So their female hormones are just not working anymore. Yeah.

And you get, they grow beards.

Yes.

And they get acne.

They don't get your period anymore. Yes.

And, and they lose the hair on their head. So the, the women get bald. You ever see this kind of women with a big round middle and their hair's all thin and, like, looks like.

They'Re going bald on top.

They got the little whiskers going.

It's hard to believe- It's really from sugar, Mark. Yeah, because they don't know that the reason this is happening is because of too much insulin. And the reason there's too much insulin is because their glucose levels are out of whack. And so what's really empowering, I think, is when women start applying the principles, the science backed stuff that I share, because they're able to get their period back within months. A few women even got pregnant, even though they had been told they were infertile. And this is so empowering because we have power. We have power. It starts in our plate. And this is really a message of hope. So anybody listening, like this can really benefit you and I hope you'll find a lot of relief in this information.

Yeah, it's not your DNA, it's your dinner.

I love that.

So here's the deal. In men, the opposite sort of thing happens. So what happens to men, right? What happens to men when they eat too much sugar and starch? is they actually produce, because they produce way more fat cells and the fat cells have a compound called aromatase, which converts testosterone into estrogen. And so the men get man boobs and they get soft skin and they lose the hair on their bodies. So they become more like women. So basically men become more like women. Women become more like men. It, it creates this massive chaos in the hormones. And I just wanna reinforce what you're saying because you say glucose. And most people, when they think of glucose, they think of sugar. But you should think of bread or sugar or corn flakes in exactly the same way. In fact, bread is the gold standard for measuring glycemic index. And it's worse than sugar. The score for bread is a hundred. The score for sugar is 80. So actually you're better off having the sugar than the bread. I would disagree, Marc, because in the.

Sugar there's also fructose and all the things we talked about, you know, the aging, the inflammation, fructose does it at an even higher rate than glucose alone.

That's true.

I would argue that if you have a choice between something starchy and something sweet, I would go for the starchy thing. But better even have some vegetables first.

Then some protein and fat, and then have the starchy thing.

And maybe you won't even want to.

Have the sugary thing at the end. Yeah, I think that's fair. But I also say if you're going to have starch, have starch that's in forms that are coming in a good package. So for example, I have a Japanese purple sweet potato at night. I love that. Which is starch, but it's got full of phytochemicals and fiber.

Fiber.

And vitamins and minerals, and I eat the skin. So it's really actually a very healthy food. and it's quite different than eating white bread, which is also a starch. So starch is a starch is a starch. It really depends on where it's coming from and how it's metabolized. Even oatmeal versus steel cut oats, profoundly different.

Absolutely. And this is, so what I've been doing in my work is testing all these things on my own body and using a continuous glucose monitor, showing people the different spikes that happen. So I tested steel cut oats versus regular oatmeal and the steel cut, has a smaller spike. And same for bread. So white bread is far worse than something like sourdough, for example, which is worse than something like very dark pumpernickel bread that's all gooey and feels almost like a cake because it's so rich of fiber. Yeah, from Germany. So it's always a spectrum, right? You have to think within a category. There's different types of bread, different types of potatoes, different types of starch, and you can always make a choice to get better. And you can always add some fiber.

To it and some vinegar and go for a walk after. so basically throw some Metamucil and some vinegar on your food and you're good, right?

Pretty much, yeah.

Sounds delicious.

So tell us some of the surprising things, Jesse, that you learned about your own body and in researching this about what you thought was okay to eat but actually wasn't, or what you thought wasn't okay to eat but actually maybe was okay.

Well, as I mentioned, you know, I used to have donuts for breakfast. So, I really got a cold shower in terms of nothing sweet first thing in the morning. Because first thing in the morning when your body is completely fasted, your glucose levels will respond incredibly fast to anything that you ingest. So I realized that if I wanted to eat something sweet, for example, a donut, I should never, ever, ever eat it on an empty stomach. I should always eat it after a meal.

Yeah.

Then in terms of other surprising things, I mean, oatmeal was a big one. 'Cause they even say oatmeal is for diabetics. I mean, there's all this information that's very confusing.

Yeah. Rice cakes.

Oh my God.

Oatmeal's not a health food.

No, it's not.

Rice cakes. This is crazy.

Brown rice cakes. How could they be bad? I tested brown rice versus white rice.

Literally no difference.

Well, what if you put like nut butter on top? Then it's perfect.

That sounds really gross, but it probably works. I love it.

That's my favorite thing. I get the rice cakes and I.

Put like, on the rice cake. I thought you meant put the nut.

Butter on actual rice, like warm rice.

No, no, no, no, no. You get a rice cake and you put on the nut butter and it's kind of good. I don't know how that works. Then that works. Yeah.

Then that works.

I think so, so, so all the breakfast things are really in this country so geared toward extremely high levels of starch and sugar. And in fact, fruit juice. Yeah, fruit juice is terrible. What, you know, right? And I think people need to realize that the most important thing they need to do when they eat in the morning, eat plenty of protein, fat and fiber. Yes. Because those are the magic tricks to actually keep your blood sugar normal, protein, fat and fiber. And you have to learn what foods have protein, fat and fiber. It's a little bit of an education because, you know, as most people may not know, but it actually, it actually is the key to success. And you're basically saying eat protein, fat.

And fiber before you eat any starch or sugar, and that will mitigate all the results.

Exactly. Something else that was very surprising was oat milk.

Creates a big glucose spike because it's.

No more oatmeal lattes. The oat milk lattes, no way, huh?

People got really sad when I posted that test. I was like, I'm sorry, I know you guys love your oat milk, but it's just a big bowl of glucose. It's dessert.

Have it as dessert.

Don't have it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. And then fruit was actually quite surprising to me, Mark, because I learned that fruit have been bred for centuries to be extra sweet and extra juicy and contain lots of glucose and fructose. especially grapes.

Yeah, grapes are the worst.

You eat 20 grapes, super big glucose spike. So I learned that anytime I have fruit, always put clothes on it. I'm French, so grapes and cheese. I actually just posted that test yesterday on my Instagram, glucose goddess, if anybody wants to see it. If you add cheese to the grapes, the glucose spike is smaller because you're.

Adding, you know, this fat.

But it's still there. It's still there. But it's still there. Yeah. So have it as dessert.

Yeah.

Pineapple, bananas, definitely always put some clothes on those. And I've really completely changed the way I ate Mark. I mean, now for breakfast, I have leftovers. This morning I have leftover green beans and cauliflower and two eggs. I don't have to worry about it anymore. So dinner for breakfast? Dinner for breakfast? Dinner for breakfast? I feel better than I ever have, and I'm older than I ever have.

I feel so good.

I don't have any cravings. I have energy throughout the day. I don't even drink coffee anymore because I have so much energy just naturally. I mean, I sleep amazingly. It's very powerful.

That's amazing. So you basically have learned how to hack. Now, what other foods you thought were bad for you that actually weren't so bad?

Well, there was this whole thing about fat is bad for you. Fat makes you fat, fat's not good. And I learned that actually that's not the case. What drives heart disease the most is fructose in your liver creating low density LDL. and that fat is actually your friend. And so I started putting way more avocado and avocado oils and olive oil and good fats like that eating more fish. And that really helped stabilize my glucose levels. Other foods that I thought were bad that were actually good. I think it was mostly the other way around. It was lots of foods I thought were good that were actually bad. What about yourself? What did you discover?

Fruit, right? yeah. I think fruit. Fruit has, you have to be careful with fruit because it depends on the fruit. It depends on how, you know, sweet it is, how it was bread, the kind of fruit, you know, like when you, when you go kind of get a wild fruit, they're very sweet, but they're very, very small, you know? And I think, you know, oh, dried fruit is another big one.

Oh, dried fruit's terrible. Yeah. Dried fruit's like candy. You know, it is like candy. And now what I do, you know, when I want something fruity, I'll have one of your shakes, the, you know, the berries with nut butter and lots of nuts in them, chia seeds, almond milk, like that kind of stuff. And that makes for a very satisfying fruity little snack, but that contains all this extra protein and fat and fiber to minimize the smell.

Yeah, yeah. That's one of my favorite things. I call it a fat shake. So you basically take nuts of any kind, throw in a bunch of nuts like almonds, walnuts. You can take pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds. hemp seeds and then throw in some berries and frozen berries. I put in cranberries in there, maybe throw some lemon in. Maybe I'll throw a couple of tablespoons of nut butter sometimes to make creamier. And you put in some non-sweetened macadamia milk. I hope macadamia milk is not bad because I use that a lot. I gotta check that out. Because you were telling me that's like oat milk. I'm like, oh boy.

Yeah, it comes from nuts, so it's fine.

That's good. Okay. And you blend it up and you can throw in greens in there. You can throw an avocado in there.

I throw you- Put some cacao nibs on top.

Oh yeah, cacao nibs are good. So you can make a really yummy smoothie that's basically not from processed powders, but actually from whole foods. I have that recipe in my book, Ultra Simple Diet. No, sorry, the 10-Day Detox Diet. which has that recipe in it.

And I think you can add some protein powder too.

You can add some protein powder. And I think, you know, particularly in terms of muscle mass, it's really important. And the science is so clear on this that we need high quality protein in the morning, particularly to load up and build muscle synthesis. We need about 30 grams. And it has to be high quality protein, which it has to include amino acids that are found primarily in meat or animal products. Now, if you're a vegan, you have to figure out how to get those extra amino acids. You have to supply amino acid powders and add them in because if you don't have leucine, which is very low in plant proteins, you can't trigger protein synthesis. In other words, building muscle is critical. And you look at, I mean, not judgmentally here, but if you look at most vegans, they tend to lose a lot of muscle mass. and the longer they've been on a vegan diet, the worse their muscle loss is. And you go, oh, they're thin, they look good, it's, you know, their weight's great, but no, they're actually can be metabolically unhealthy. In fact, they can get what we call a tofi, which is thin on the outside, fat on the inside, or metabolically obese, normal weight, we call it, or otherwise called skinny fat.

Most commonly known as skinny fat.

Yeah, you look skinny, but you're really fat. And, and that actually is, is just as dangerous as, as, as actually being overweight in terms of risk for heart attacks, diabetes, strokes, all the same, same risk factor. So I, I think people need to understand that, that you gotta look under the hood. You gotta look at what's going on. So maybe you're, you're a vegan and you, you're like, okay, well, how am I gonna get protein in the morning? I don't, 28 meter. I have a whey protein shake, but what can I do? Well, you kind of have to look at your own biology and, and I encourage people to look at their Continuous glucose monitoring, I encourage people to measure fasting insulin, even measuring a two hour post meal insulin level, which most doctors will not order, but you can try to get them to order it. And if not, you can just, you know, maybe order it yourself. There are now companies where you can order stuff yourself, but I think it's really important.

You can go to IHOP and have breakfast.

Yeah, you said that in your podcast.

With Casey or your Instagram live. You said, just eat something that has a bunch of glucose in it, eat.

A bunch of rice.

And then two hours later, go get your insulin, your gut tested, and you'll know.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's really important. So the tips you gave are so important, the sequencing of food. I mean, even if you have a glass of wine, I mean, the worst thing in restaurants, right? Because what do they do? You want to drink? Here's a bread basket. It's like the worst possible thing you.

Could actually do for your health. If you think about it, if you're a restaurant owner and you want people.

To order a bunch of stuff at.

Your restaurant, of course, that's what you do because you give them bread. Eat the bread first, big glucose spike. 90 minutes later, they're crashing, so they're super hungry and they want to order dessert.

I mean, it's brilliant. Of course, of course. It's brilliant. Of course, exactly, exactly. And I wonder if they know that or if it's just sort of a habit, but it definitely, it's a sure way to get people to order more food. And I think drinking wine, the timing of the food when you eat what matters. It's not just about time restricted eating, but it's even the sequence of eating in a meal. It's actually the combinations of the food that you eat, like you said, Don't eat naked carbs. That's a really important concept. The vinegar thing is a very cool hack. The walking after eating is really important. Getting your muscles to work and suck up the glucose, super important. Were there any other surprises or things you learned as part of your investigations, your scientific sort of diving into your own biology?

Maybe we can talk a little bit about alcohol because I think this is one of the places where context is very important to think about the fact that glucose is not everything. So if you just have a glucose monitor and you drink two bottles of wine, your glucose levels will stay steady. And they might even decrease actually because the alcohol is interfering with your liver's job to release glucose into the bloodstream. But the issue is you might think, oh, well, my glucose levels are steady. This must mean that this food is good for me. And on the completely opposite end of that spectrum, I discovered that when I exercised, I sometimes saw a glucose spike.

Yeah.

So, if I was just looking at my glucose, everything from the glucose lens, I would think, okay, wine, good for me, exercise bad for me. So, it's totally a great plan.

How do I get on that health plan? Let's see. A bottle of wine and skip the exercise. Okay, no? Perfect.

Well, then you'll have steady glucose levels, but you're going to get severely sick. And I realized, okay, There's some instances in which it's important to look beyond glucose. So in the case of alcohol, yes, it keeps your glucose level steady because it's hurting your liver. That's not a reason to drink alcohol. Similarly, when you exercise, you might see a glucose spike because your liver is releasing all this glucose so that your mitochondria can make energy. But the downsides of the glucose spikes, so the toasting, the inflammation, et cetera, are actually counteracted by all the positive sides of exercise. so in the balance, it's a positive effect on the body. So I learned. I learned about Nuance. You know, it became very important, and it's very interesting when you start diving into it. But you definitely need context. If you wear a glucose monitor for the first time, you need to have some information to make sure you understand these pitfalls. You know, it's interesting.

I I had the same experience. I I had a good protein shake. My blood sugar, I had my continuous glucose monitor on. It was like. Maybe went up to 90 after my protein shake in the morning. I thought, I'm gonna go play tennis. And I really worked out hard. I had a great tennis game. And then I checked my glucose, my blood sugar. It's gonna be really good. I checked it and I was like, holy crap, it's 145. And I texted Casey. Anyway, I was like, what's up with this? She's like, yeah, yeah, well that's normal because when you exercise, you increase cortisol, you increase your blood sugar, increase adrenaline, you actually release glycogen from your muscles. So yes, when you're running from the tiger, you want to release a lot of glucose so you can fuel your muscles. But you know, the body doesn't really know that there's tennis. They just knows that you're running because.

You'Re chasing a tiger or you're being chased by a tiger.

Yeah.

On the topic of being chased by a tiger, I also saw a massive glucose spike after I gave a presentation to the whole company when I was working in Silicon Valley, and I was quite quite stressed out. And after the presentation, I checked my glucose levels and I just huge spike to 200, but very short and rapid spike. And that was because my body was preparing for me to run far away and fast from the tiger. So released all this glucose into my bloodstream. And it was really cool to just be able to see what was happening and to understand inner workings. And of course it got me just incredibly curious. And that's how this whole journey started.

Well, that's an important point you're making, that stress alone causes you to have imbalanced blood sugar. And stress alone will release cortisol, which then causes you to increase your glucose levels and to become diabetic and to become more insulin resistant. So short-term spikes of cortisol are great. You need them to wake up in the morning, go deal with any kind of urgently stressful situation, but it's the chronic low level stress and unmitigated unremitting stress that actually causes us to have these metabolic problems down the road. So stress actually makes you gain weight, believe it or not. Yeah. And poor sleep as well, Mark.

So I discovered, I used to have a cappuccino every morning and I discovered that on the days where I was rested, the cappuccino wouldn't create a big spike. But then on the days where I was tired, the cappuccino would create a much bigger spike in my body. So I did the research and I found out that when you're not rested, your body has a harder time dealing with any influx of glucose into your system. So what I found out is that the days when I'm feeling tired, to put all the chances on my side to not create a big glucose roller coaster, always savory breakfast, like non-negotiable. And then I try to get in 10 minutes of high intensity exercise, you know, very soon after I wake up. So jumping jacks, whatever, put on a YouTube video, like 10 minute HIIT class. and this helps my body become more insulin sensitive and so I don't create this big spike from that cappuccino. Because what's so awful and so vicious is that when you're tired, you really crave sugar even more because you're feeling like it's going to give you energy. But the problem is that same sugar that you're going to eat will create a bigger spike than usual, putting you on the cravings roller coaster and then you're going to crave even more sugar. So anybody tired? Use the hacks even more. It's even more important.

I remember that. You know, I worked in the emergency room when I wouldn't sleep all night. I would, I mean, I literally would like go to the 11 o'clock at night shift. I would have a quadruple espresso, a half a pint of ice cream and a giant chocolate chip cookie. No.

And then I would go to work.

No.

Okay, so you were throwing shade on.

My Nutella crepe, but you were doing some pretty nice stuff too. It was, I was like jacking myself to get through the night so I could actually, stay up all night and see patients. And then I would, and I would kind of crash at three in the morning and, or two or three in the morning, I'd go to the McDonald's and I'd get an apple strudel and a bunch of French fries because, and it was the only thing open in the hospital in the middle of the night. And, and I, you know, I think the data is so clear that when you are sleep deprived, and they've done this with healthy and volunteers, your ghrelin levels or ghrelin levels go up, which makes you hungry. And the hormone that keeps you having a break on your appetite called PYY goes down. And so you end up in this double whammy where the thing that's supposed to make you stop eating is shut off and the thing that makes you want to eat more and more goes.

Up just from lack of sleep. Yeah, and it's vicious because you feel like the sweet stuff is giving you energy, but then as we know, it's actually harming the long-term ability of your mitochondria to make energy. So, you think that the apple strudel is giving you energy, it's giving you.

Pleasure, but long-term it's harming you. Amazing. So, to close here, what is the typical day in the life of a glucose goddess look like?

Okay, so let's see. Morning leftovers for breakfast. So, as I mentioned for this morning, it was leftover cauliflower and green beans and onion, and then I had some eggs. Then what often happens to me, Mark, is that as I'm going for my walk in the morning, I'll see something that looks really tasty. Usually it's chocolate based.

And so what I do now is.

That I buy the tasty thing, but I don't eat it right then. I tell myself I'll have it for dessert after my lunch. So before lunch, tall glass of water with some vinegar in it. Lunch is usually lots of greens, some nice protein, you know, I eat everything, so it's probably gonna be some meat or chicken or fish. And then I have the little sweet.

Thing that I bought for myself.

And then I go for a walk or I work out, I do some exercise, whatever it is, I dance around, do my laundry. And then for the evening, if I have friends over, what I'll do is I'll do a big plate of vegetables that people can munch on while I'm cooking. So, you know, in France we have this thing called crudité, which is raw vegetables, carrots, cucumbers, maybe with some hummus, some avocado. So people munch on that. And then for dinner, I'll serve more vegetables, some protein and fats that people will eat in second. And then some starches. So actually your purple Japanese potato really got me inspired. So I'll do that one next time. And people know to eat that last for sure. And then I get everybody up. We go for a walk around the block. So when people get back, they have a lot of energy and they help me clean up the kitchen.

It's as simple as that. There you go. That's so beautiful. And I think you're a great example. And it's important for people listening to understand that everybody's different. So you're basically a healthy, thin young woman.

Mm-.

But if you are not metabolically resilient, right? You, you've learned how to balance your blood sugar in the context overall metabolic health. But if you're very metabolically unhealthy, which accounts for 88% of Americans and everybody's sort of in that somewhere on the spectrum from mild to really severe to type two diabetes, you might not actually able to be able to eat some of the things that you're talking about yet. So the key is you can become metabolically resilient. But you have to go through that process first of making your muscles smarter, your insulin receptor smarter, lowering inflammation, fixing your microbiome, fixing your liver. And it's a lot of stuff to do, but it's easy to do. All you have to do is follow a very simple low sugar starch diet. And I, I've written a book called the 10 Day Detox Diet, which essentially is that. It's anti-inflammatory, detoxifying. glucose balancing. And we, we, we had a woman who was on insulin for 10 years. And three days she was off for insulin in a, in a month, she lowered or three months, she lowered her A1C, which is average blood sugar from 11, which is stupid high, like it's dangerously high to normal 5.5.

Wow.

And just three months of her eating real food that balanced her blood sugar. So. Do you think everybody should try one of these continuous glucose monitors?

I'm divided, to be honest, because first of all, they're expensive right now. I think they're very, very, very interesting. I think if you can afford it, 100%. If you can't afford it, use my hacks because they'll get you a long way to balancing your glucose levels without necessarily needing one. But if you can, yes, it's life-changing to be able to speak to your body and see what's going on on the inside. It's very motivating. It opens a door of curiosity and excitement, and then you can see the hacks in action. It's very cool. I mean, it changed my life, so of course.

Yeah, I think people can do it. I think some people need to do it long term, but sometimes you can just try for two weeks or four weeks and start to really tune into what's happening on the inside. It's just the beginning of this year of Quantified Self. I think you've been a great example of someone who's really taken the bull by the horns and actually looked at what's going on. change your own health and your own understanding of biology. And you came into this through your own doorway of mental health issues. So take us through your journey. What was going on for you? How did you figure out that it was the blood sugar that was the problem? And what you learned from that?

So I was a happy and naive 19 year old thinking I was invincible.

And then a freak accident happened.

I was in Hawaii on the island of Maui. And I jumped off a waterfall thinking it would be a fantastic idea. Turns out it wasn't. And one of my vertebrae exploded just by hitting the water. Oh, yes, yes, it was intense. So I had, you know, very difficult surgery and then physical symptoms. I mean, I was in a lot of pain. But then what really stayed with me was mental health struggles. I started having this thing called depersonalization, which is kind of a cousin of dissociation. And at the tender age of 19, Mark, I just had one goal. It was to wake up in the morning feeling good because I felt completely broken. I had no idea what was happening. I felt lost. I felt alone. I didn't understand the signals my body was sending me. So I started a journey to try to figure out how to understand and communicate with my body. And that's actually, yeah, and that's actually why I went to grad school and did biochemistry first, because I wanted to understand the inner workings of the body system. And then I moved to Silicon Valley, worked in the field of genetics. Genetics didn't really offer any answers to me because your genetics, you know, they can help you understand what diseases you might have a slightly higher risk of getting, but they don't tell you what to do to wake up tomorrow feeling good.

No.

No.

But while I was there, serendipitously, we had this internal research pilot at the company, and they offered five employees to try out a continuous glucose monitor, which is the device that had been usually reserved for diabetics that you wear on.

The back of your arms.

Yeah. And that measure your glucose levels continuously. And I had a hunch this would be a fantastic idea, so I volunteered. And I put the device on, and then all of a sudden, I could see the inside of my body on my phone. And it was really light bulb moment for me, like in the cartoons when the light bulb turns on above the head. Mark, it was, I could finally speak to my body. I would do something and get a response. I would drink a cappuccino, sometimes there would be a glucose spike, sometimes there wouldn't be. eat something, spike, eat something else, no spike. And then what changed the game is when I realized that glucose spikes could trigger these episodes of depersonalization in me. So one day I was just going about my business and I felt this sort of wave of stress, anxiety, and sort of leaving my body come over me and I checked my glucose levels and What I saw was the biggest spike I had ever seen because I had just eaten a donut on an empty stomach.

How high did it go?

It went to 185.

What? That's really high, guys, for everybody listening. It should never go over 120.

Yeah, it's really, really high.

And I had, you know, I was just in the throes of understanding what glucose was, what I should be doing, but that cemented it for me. I was like, okay, this is this is the solution, this is the key, this is the root cause that I need to address. And so I learned, Marc, how to flatten my glucose curves. And as a scientist, I delved into all the research, I read all the papers, I had like a million tabs open on my computer, and I discovered all these incredible hacks that I could put in place in my life. Very easy, simple solutions, like eating my food in the right order, incorporating vinegar, having a savory breakfast, etc. that allowed me to stabilize my glucose curves. And as I did this, I healed myself. And not only did I heal the mental health stuff, I also healed things.

That I didn't even know were a problem.

Like all of a sudden, I wasn't tired at 3:00 p.m. Or I didn't even crave donuts anymore, you know? I just, I realized that my body was functioning much, much better this way. So I started sharing it with my friends, my family, They got better, and then they asked me to put it online so they could share it with more people. And I started the Instagram account, and then it grew far beyond anything I had ever imagined because I realized 90% of us are walking around with these glucose spikes happening in our body without knowing it. Yet we're very familiar with the consequences. The cravings, the fatigue, the mood swings, the weight gain, and optimizing our glucose levels allows us to reverse all those symptoms.

90% of people who have prediabetes, which is probably about one out of two Americans, according to the conventional criteria, which I think are not strict enough, have prediabetes, one in two Americans, and 90% don't know they have it. And I would say the real data is probably more around the 93% who have it, both people who are overweight, which is 75% of the population, but also those who are thin, but we call metabolically unhealthy or metabolically obese, normal weight, or skinny fat or toffee, thin on the outside, fat on the inside. So you can be thin but metabolically unhealthy. And all what we're talking about today matters to every single person listening because the biggest killers on the planet, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia, all are regulated by or caused by or worsened by problems with your blood sugar and with your insulin levels. So we're going to get deep into that today. How would you know if your blood sugar is out of balance? If you're having spikes, what are the symptoms? You alluded to that with a person who wanted you to move in with them. But what is actually going on in the body and what are the symptoms people experience that can give them a clue that, oh, maybe this is me and I should pay more attention?

Okay, anybody listening, I'm going to ask you a few questions. Do you ever experience cravings? Throughout the day. Now, most people are going to answer yes in there, yeah. Never. Are you ever more tired than you wish you were? Do you need coffee mid-morning, mid-afternoon? Do you go to sleep but you wake up and you're just lethargic? Those two are, to me, the most obvious symptoms that you might have blood sugar imbalances. And that's just the beginning mark because then, you know, studies are showing us the links between glucose spikes and brain fog. So when your glucose is on a roller coaster, the information between the neurons in your brain goes more slowly, and that can be felt as brain fog. Blood sugar spikes increase inflammation in the body, and that can lead to psoriasis, eczema, rosacea, inflammation in your joints, you know, it can impact your hormones. So maybe you're going through the menopause and your symptoms are quite difficult, Maybe you're, you know, younger than that, but your period is all over the place. Maybe you're trying to have a baby and you can't because you're not ovulating anymore. So, I mean, you know, those symptoms often point to the fact that you should probably figure out if your glucose levels are steady or not. And then long term, you know, as you know, as you said, you know, cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, those are very clear signs that there's something going on in your glucose levels. And to me, Mark, you know, balancing your glucose level is like laying the foundation in your house. It is, without a doubt, the number one place to start. Without steady glucose levels, you can't really do much. And in conclusion, I would say, if you're listening to this and you think you could feel better than you currently do, then 100% figure out if your glucose levels are unbalanced and start there. And then you can start layering on more stuff, you know, for me, I started with glucose, but then I added so many more things. Exercise, sleeping in a dark, cool room, going to therapy, emotional processing, you know, but if I didn't have that baseline of steady glucose, I didn't even have the energy or the brain clarity to.

Go after those next steps.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's very beautiful. I think, you know, people think, oh, well, I don't have diabetes, or I don't have pre-diabetes. Like, why should I pay attention? why does it matter? And why is it important for everybody?

Well, because even if you don't have diabetes or prediabetes, don't you want to prevent it? That argument kind of upsets me because I even hear medical professionals say, well, they don't have prediabetes, they shouldn't care. I'm like, yeah, but how do you think you get prediabetes? So whether you're in the 1 billion people in the world who have type 2 or prediabetes, or if you want to put it into remission, or if you just want to avoid getting it. It's very important to learn these principles. To me, these are things that everybody needs to know because today our food landscape is very difficult to navigate. You know, it's full of starches and sugars everywhere. We're pretty lost as to how to eat and what to do. And so we need these principles to guide us to make sure we don't end up with metabolic syndrome with full-blown type 2 diabetes. so everybody should care, everybody, whether you want to feel better today or tomorrow.

I agree, and I would argue that most people are on the spectrum. It's not just like one day you get diabetes or one day you get prediabetes. There's a whole continuum of changes that happen over decades, starting even when you're a little kid, that actually put you in poor metabolic health. And so catching that earlier than later is really important. because the changes that we see, we see fatty streaks in the arteries of kids from cholesterol deposits that are often related to blood sugar imbalances, right? Because kids are eating all this sugar and processed food. So, it's not something you have to wait till you have a problem. I'm very curious about what happened once you wrote this book and what you discovered and what the reception was and what people found as they started to track their own blood sugars. You did this as self-experiment on yourself where you track your blood sugar, everything you ate, you track what happened. You're not an obese, unhealthy person, but you still learned so much about yourself. What was it you learned so much from writing this book and from getting the feedback that you got for it?

Well, you know, Mark, and the reason I got into this was simply because my mental health was super out of whack and balancing my glucose levels helped me create a baseline of health. in my own body, in my own brain, and then I started realizing all these studies showing, as you said, that this matters for everybody, you know, for cravings, for sleep, for hormonal health, for long-term prevention of Alzheimer's. I mean, like, it's really, really important. And so when I wrote Glucose Revolution last year, I was trying to give everybody everything I had seen in the scientific studies on the topic of glucose levels. And so it contained, you know, these 10 hacks that simple tools you can put in place in your daily food habits to balance your glucose levels and feel better. And so the reception was very good. But I started getting a message from people, Mark, in my Instagram, my DMS. A lot of my readers sent me this very peculiar message asking me to move in with them.

They were like, Jessica.

They were like, I understand the science. I think I'm having glucose spikes. because they were recognizing all the symptoms in themselves and they wanted to do the hacks, you know, but they wanted me to move in with them and actually help them do it. Because a lot of us know, Mark, that we have to eat better, exercise more, but really what's difficult sometimes is just actually getting started. And so, you know, I pondered, can I move in with all these million people? No, I can't. So what can I do to address this issue. And so that's where this new concept for this new book came out. So the glucose goddess method. I took the four most important principles, in my opinion, to start studying your glucose levels. And I turned it into a very simple four-week plan. And again, you know, I really want to help people just start because that is often the big friction point. People had bought my first book and they wanted to do everything, but they didn't know how to start. They didn't have the recipes, they didn't have the step-by-step guide. And so this method really is like me moving in with you and guiding you for four weeks to study blood sugar and to incorporate four fundamental principles to help your body and help your mind.

The other thing we kind of want.

To dive in with you a little bit about is what's normal? Because when you go to the doctor, you get your blood tests, you check your blood sugar, and your A1C may be, you're lucky they usually don't check that. Never check your insulin, which is probably the most important blood test to check on your levels of blood sugar balance. What should the normal level be? What should the optimal level be? Because normal, you know, is up to 126, but that's not, you know, normal. What are optimal? What's the optimal levels of sugar before and after eating?

Well, listen, fasting wise, it appears that you should be under 85 milligrams per deciliter fasting. I don't know what your opinion on that is, but definitely the 100 cutoff is way too high. And if you're at 99, you're not okay. You should be like, okay, I'm one point away from prediabetes. you should be having a look. But the studies point to the fact that after 85, problems start happening and symptoms start worsening. Do you agree with that number, 85?

Absolutely. You know, based on a large Israeli study, they looked at glucose levels and cardiovascular risk and they looked at after about 85, it was a linear progression to increasing risk of heart attacks and death. So it didn't start when you were 100 or 110 or 126. It started like at 85. so that means at a fasting level, you probably should be between 70 and 85. I think that's probably the range that I would agree with. What about after you eat?

Well, so the guidelines say that your normal, if after eating your glucose levels doesn't spike above 140 milligrams per deciliter. But again, that's really, really high. And studies in people without diabetes are showing that actually you should probably be striving for an increase of less than 30 milligrams per deciliter after eating. And that cutoff of the 30 milligrams is what I call a spike. So if you look at my Instagram graphs, you'll see like that's the line at which I say, okay, you're going into the red. Now obviously, you know, the objective is not to just try to flatten your glucose curve at all costs and have a perfectly flat glucose curve because that could be achieved by drinking a lot of wine, eating a lot of butter, you know, there's things that keeps your glucose levels steady that are not necessarily good. So the concept is how do we reduce the variability wherever you are, even if you have type 2 diabetes and you're spiking super, super high after eating, how do you get that down? How do you just reduce the spike height and the drop depth of your glucose roller coaster? That's really the point.

Yeah.

Well, I think, you know, obviously we know in medicine if you're over, you know, 140 after a glucose tolerance test that's considered type two diabetes or 126 after two hours of drinking like Coca-Cola or two Coca-Colas. But, you know, what's really striking as a doctor and I've seen this, and I don't know if you've come up.

With this in your, in your work.

But, people can have perfect blood sugars and still be wildly metabolically unhealthy. And, and they can have perfect, perfect, even never high, never over 85 fasting, never over 110 after a glucose load, even drinking two Coca-Colas equivalent of glucose, they're gonna perfect, perfect sugar and be like really almost ready for having a heart attack. And, and that's because insulin will keep blood sugar normal until it can't. So by the time you actually see your blood sugar start to go to 90, 100, 110, your insulin has been working overtime to try to keep your sugar normal. And that insulin is not benign. That insulin makes you store fat, it makes you hungry, it causes inflammation, it by secondary mechanisms, it's just got a whole cascade of horrible effects. And this phenomenon of hyperinsulinemia or high insulin levels is an epidemic. It's completely undiagnosed for the most part in America. except for a few doctors like me who are doing functional medicine or looking at insulin levels. It's quite striking. So I wonder what your perspective is on that. Because if you're just measuring continuous glucose measurements for the glucose monitor and we're not measuring insulin, could we be falsely.

Assured that there's no problem when in fact we're in big trouble? 100%. I mean, the day that somebody comes out with an insulin monitor, glucose monitors are dead, right? We're just using glucose because it's a proxy for insulin.

I agree. Yeah.

It's not, you know, again, like, because your glucose levels could be going up. I mean, there's, like, so many confounding variables. What I mean is that your glucose levels could be perfectly fine, but your insulin is going totally crazy. And we know from the science that your insulin levels start to rise 10 years before your glucose levels start to rise. So glucose monitors and you're looking at your glucose spikes is Very imperfect. That being said, that's what I base my work on because that's what we have right now. And I think people really want to be able to see something visually. But yes, it's just a really bad proxy. Exactly.

So when you start seeing already these.

Wild swings or changes in your blood sugar, it goes high after eating or high fasting, you already know you're in trouble. Yeah, because it's been 10 years that.

You'Ve been doing this.

It's not the first stage. Right, it's not the first stage. It's like a later stage. So, how do you know how far you are along the insulin resistance spectrum based on your work?

I mean, listen, really the best test to do is to do fasting insulin, as you said. You know, the HOMA-IR ratio is also really good. But to me, I think people also should strive to check in with themselves and just be like, okay, am I having cravings? Am I chronically fatigued? Do I have brain fog? Am I hungry all the time or two hours after eating? Do I have any sort of symptom that I wish wasn't there? and more often than not, you can link things back to this blood sugar or insulin level imbalance. So really, to me, it even comes down to just how happy you feel. Like, if you think you could feel better than you currently do, if you think you could wake up with a little bit more joy and feeling a bit better in your body, balancing your glucose levels is a non-negotiable and I like using the image mark of like a plane. So imagine your body is a plane. and you're in charge of flying the plane, so keeping it healthy, but you have no idea how the plane works. So you're like in the cockpit and you're clueless. You're like, oh my God, how do I fly this thing? How do I keep my body, my brain healthy? Well, learning to balance your glucose levels is like learning about the most important lever in the cockpit. Like, if you know how to use this lever, you can more or less keep the plane in the air and not crash. Yeah, that's how that's how I see glucose management. Because once you balance your glucose levels, so many things fall into place. Of course, it's not everything, but it's a damn important place to start.

That's great.

So one of the things you talked.

About, and I think is really important, I think there's a lot of research on this. It's not just your experience or what you've gleaned from your study that you did, but what you eat when matters. So food sequencing has a big impact on your blood sugar. So if you eat certain things first or second, even if it's the same food, you swap out, let's say eating red first versus your chicken first, it's going to have a profound difference on your blood sugar. Can you talk about food sequencing, what it is, and how it impacts blood sugar levels?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So the first study that came out on this topic was quite fascinating. The scientists showed that if you eat the elements of a meal in a specific order, you can reduce the glucose spike of that meal by up to 75%, okay? Eating the same meal, which is mind-boggling. And so the correct order is veggies first, then proteins and fats, then starches and sugars. And in my opinion, you know, because I'm here to try to make things as easy as possible for people to start and pick up on on. The most important thing to remember is try to have your veggies first and your carbs last. Like if you mix the proteins and the fats in the middle, like it's not a huge deal. But the veggies first thing is incredibly powerful. It really impacts your hunger levels. It makes you feel so much Fuller for longer, reduces Cravings after a meal. And the reason this works, Mark, is because the veggies contain fiber, and fiber, when it lands first in your stomach, has time to create that protective mesh onto the walls of your intestine and prevent essentially too many glucose molecules from then coming through into your bloodstream. It just makes that gut lining healthier and less porous. So that's a really wonderful hack to start with. It doesn't require you to change where you're eating, which is very, very cool. And you can start seeing the benefits. And so then, you know, the next hack or the next principle is going to be easier to apply because you're going to feel better and it becomes this virtuous cycle.

And so, you know, food sequencing is so important. I think protein, fat, veggies, fiber are all basically antidotes to sugar and starch to remember that. And when you're having any sugar and starch, like for example, you have an apple, have it with a spoon of almond butter or peanut butter, right? That actually slows the glucose surge in your body.

Let's talk about fruit quickly, Mark. I want to say something interesting that I learned about fruit. the fruit that we see today, people often think, oh, you know, I bought this piece of whole fruit at the supermarket, therefore it's natural, therefore it's good for me. Well, it turns out that a lot of the fruit that we eat today is actually, you know, the consequence of thousands of years of human intervention in breeding to make them extra sweet, extra juicy, extra easy to eat, and contain less fiber. So, you know, if you compare like a banana today to an ancestral banana, the ancestral banana is tiny.

It's full of seeds, full of fiber.

Yeah, yeah. It's a tiny little thing, right? Right. So the fruit today, you know, is super extra sweet. So we have to remember that, that it's been bred to be almost like a piece of dessert. But because of the fiber, it's still fine.

The problem happens when you get rid of the fiber and you juice it all. Yeah, that's right. It's like, you know, fruit has its own matrix. Plus, also fruit has a lot of fructose, which doesn't actually raise your blood sugar. So that's another tricky thing. You could be drinking, like, having agave syrup and other kinds of pure fructose and actually your blood sugar won't go up, but you'll be driving fat into your liver, causing fatty liver and some resistance.

And that's another limitation, right, of focusing only on glucose because you forget that piece. But what's cool about fructose is that because it's always hand in hand in food with glucose, because it, you know, it makes sucrose, when you learn to balance your glucose naturally also the fructose reduces, you know, as a consequence because it's always unbalanced the glucose in sweet foods.

Yeah, yeah, very true. So, when you wrote your first book, the Glucose Revolution, what were the things you learned from your readers about how they could impact their blood sugar and keep it in balance?

Well, what people told me the most was that changing their breakfast changed their entire life. So going from a sweet, starchy breakfast, you know, granola, muesli, cereal that they thought was healthy to what I call a savory breakfast, which is essentially just a breakfast that's not dessert, right?

Because that- yeah, dessert for breakfast, basically. We're all on the same page.

Which is a complete fabrication and invention. You know, we didn't used to have dessert for breakfast. We used to have whatever meats and potatoes of whatever we ate the rest of the time. The concept that breakfast should be sweet is an invention of the food industry. And it's very smart because sugary breakfast foods are very cheap and they're very addictive. So switching back to what we used to do, which is a savory breakfast, changed people's experience of themselves and of their lives so deeply. So if you're somebody who's had a sweet breakfast your whole life, you don't even know know what it feels like to feel more like yourself and to not be controlled, you know, by the swings of glucose. So, people really reported to me that the savory breakfast was a cornerstone of them starting to feel better.

Yeah, that's huge. I used to go to this hotel all the time in New York that had a lot of Japanese business folks in there, and they had a Japanese breakfast laid out, and it was amazing. Basically, you go get grilled salmon, miso soup, pickled vegetables, brown rice. It was like the best breakfast. It was a savory breakfast. And many other countries like the Middle East, they have shashuka and all kinds of things which are more savory breakfast. And I think those are way better for us because they don't cause this huge spike in the morning, which is the worst thing we could possibly do for our health. In fact, in terms of longevity on a fasted state, having sugar is the worst thing you can do. Or anything that turns to sugar, like a muffin or a bagel or French toast or pancakes. And having protein and fat, which is often in a savory breakfast, is the opposite. It actually helps you build muscle and actually improve the process of refeeding, which is when you activate all these secondary pathways for muscle protein synthesis and reducing inflammation and for actually increasing stem cell production, all kinds of amazing stuff that happens this is a result of having the right breakfast.

Yes, and on that topic, you know, when you're having breakfast, when you're fasted and your system is really empty, actually, if you have sugar, then you're going to create a very, very big spike because of the emptiness of your system. And so when people ask, you know, is intermittent fasting good for glucose levels? It's like, yes, but how you break your fast is going to be very important. Absolutely. So it's not just about the food.

I think nobody talks about that.

Yeah, because it's all, you know, all this stuff about, oh, just fast a bunch and you'll be fine. It's like, okay, fasting is fine, but if then you break your fast with a fruit smoothie, you're in trouble because your body is gonna be suffering all the consequences of the big spike. So fasting is fine, but breaking your fast is very important to be doing.

It in a savory fashion, protein and fat, as you said. All of us are flooded in a sea of sugar and flour. I mean, the average person in America eats 152 pounds of sugar and 133 pounds of flour a year. That's about a pound a day per person per year of sugar and flour, which is insane. How do we deal with it? What are the hacks that you found that help regulate your blood sugar?

Number one hack that is incredibly easy, that has fantastic evidence supporting it, is eat your food in the right order. So, Yes, so anybody listening, if you're about to have a meal, look in front of you. Let's say you have some chicken, some broccoli, and some potatoes, okay? If you eat the elements of this meal in a particular order, you can reduce the glucose spike of the meal by 75%. This means less aging, less inflammation, less weight gain, fewer cravings, etc. The right order is vegetables first, protein and fats second, and starches and sugars last. And so when we do this, when we eat our vegetables first during a meal, the fiber in the vegetables lands in our stomach, then in our upper intestine, coats the walls of our intestine with this viscous mesh, and then any starch or sugars you eat afterwards will be absorbed to a lesser extent in your bloodstream. Therefore, smaller glucose spike, but you're eating the exact same thing. And this is so cool and so many people sending messages like, I just simply changed the order in which I ate my food. I didn't change what I ate and things started changing for me. Yeah, that's the number one.

Really, I often recommend people take something called PGX or PolyGlycopleX, which is a derivative of cognac root. Cognac is a Japanese tuber, like a root vegetable that is made into noodles. It's actually used a lot in Japanese cooking. and it's very viscous and it absorbs 50 times its weight in water. So if you take some of this powder beforehand or even the capsules, it basically acts like a sponge, absorbs all the water and slows the absorption of.

Everything so you get the glucose. Doesn't spike. Very cool. I mean, this is really super powerful. Another one that people love is vinegar. I don't know if you know about this, Mark. It's like... Tell us. It's incredible. So the hack is before your meals, Take a tall glass of water, like the one I'm holding now. So this is about twice the size of a regular glass, and pour into it one tablespoon of vinegar. It can be any type of vinegar. My favorite is apple cider vinegar, but white wine vinegar, rice vinegar also work. And drink it up to 30 minutes before your meal. And in the studies, the scientists say that the effect of vinegar is almost.

The same as the effect of medication.

Given to diabetics to reduce glucose spikes. I just doing this because there's a molecule in vinegar called acetic acid. And acetic acid does two really cool things. One, that's actually what vinegar is.

It's acetic acid, right? Absolutely.

Absolutely. There's also water in vinegar, right? So it's, that's one of the molecules in vinegar. It's acetic acid. So it goes into your stomach and it talks to this enzyme called alpha amylase. And alpha amylase's job is to break down starch. into glucose and it tells that enzyme, Hey girly, please slow down your roll, slow your roll, and so that enzyme works slower. So the breakdown of starches into glucose happens slower.

That's number one.

So slower delivery of glucose into your bloodstream later on.

You take the vinegar, you take it like a spoonful before.

You should dilute it in water just to be safe. Yeah, so a spoonful. In the studies, you can do one tablespoon, you to do two tablespoons. Personally, one tablespoon is what I use because it's just two tablespoons starts being a lot of vinegar in your glass of water. So one tablespoon is what I like. And the second thing it does, which is incredible, is that it goes to your muscles and it says, hey muscles, as soon as glucose gets into the bloodstream, soak it up, store it as glycogen in the muscles. Don't let it float around. And so by these two mechanisms, by these two mechanisms, Glucose is broken down at a slower rate in your stomach, and as soon as it arrives in the bloodstream, it gets soaked up. As a result, glucose spike reduced by up to 30%. And this matters because then you don't have the glucose crash, you don't have the cravings, you don't start that cravings roller coaster that so many of us.

Are on, yet you're eating the exact same food as before. Amazing. So I want to help you have me break down. You mentioned a few things, but I really like to have you break down what the symptoms are that most people are unaware of that are related to swings in blood sugar? Because it's not just high or low, it's these excursions up and down that often cause the most havoc. So kind of walk us through, you're the average person, you're kind of walking around not knowing what the hell is going on in your body, and what kind of things might you experience if your blood sugar is out of whack?

Absolutely. So the average person walks around and they feel all these symptoms. So they might feel really hungry even.

Though they just ate 90 minutes ago.

Or it might be four in the afternoon and they walk by a bakery and they're like, oh my God, I need to eat three cookies right now. Or they might feel really tired right now. Or they might feel really tired at 11:00 AM. And these are symptoms that often we tend to attribute to lack of willpower. And then there are the more long-term symptoms like acne starts developing on your face, you might get hormonal imbalances that lead to things like polycystic ovarian syndrome, worsening menopause symptoms, long-term type two diabetes, and all of these things we tend to medicate. We're like, symptom, medication, boom. But actually these symptoms are your body telling you, hey, hello, there's actually glucose spikes happening in here. There's something you can change and heal from within. So, in my community, the most common symptoms, as I mentioned, are fatigue, waking up not feeling rested, feeling like you need to eat every 90 minutes, you need to snack constantly, and feeling this pull towards sweet foods, and then just having very unsteady energy and feeling tired after meals, feeling tired throughout the day, needing coffee to keep going.

Yeah, I mean, those are really the common ones, but there's others. I remember a guy who came to see me who was having incredible panic attacks. And I'd say, well, tell me about your panic attacks and your anxiety. And of course, in medicine, we typically attribute these to psychological causes, you know, and, and we prescribe anxiety medication like Ativan or Valium. And I said, well, tell me what's going on. When do you get it? What happens? And you sort of go into the details of the story. and it turned out, you know, he basically had this big belly and was severely insulin resistant, and he ate a very high starch sugar diet. And, you know, he would have tons of carbs for breakfast, which is basically the American breakfast, the sugar for breakfast. I should, I think we should call it dessert, not breakfast, for what most people are eating. Muffins, bagels, cereal, which is 75 sugar pancakes, waffles, French toast, muffins, you know, it's just, it's kind of a sugar or lollapalooza. And he said, every afternoon, I just, I just get overwhelming panic attacks. I start sweating. My heart's palpitating. I feel like I'm gonna die. I can't breathe. The world's closing in on me. And I said, what do you do? He says, well, I drink a can.

Of Coke and I feel better. So he was on a roller coaster or glucose.

Yeah, it was. Sugars were up and down, and I'm like, you, you are hypoglycemic. So even though your sugars can go high, they can go low. And I think what happens is there's an overshoot.

It was meant to go low.

Yeah, and it creates all these mental health issues, depression, anxiety, palpitations, panic attacks. And then you mentioned a bunch of things that people aren't even aware of, like infertility or acne. I mean, most people don't think about that. Wrinkles.

Wrinkles, right?

Wrinkles. Aging. Aging, dementia.

Yes.

Heart disease, cancer, fatty liver disease, fatty liver, every pretty much age related disease. In fact, aging itself is often related to sugar issues and to lack of insulin sensitivity, which is what happens when you make, you know, a diet that is full of starch and sugar. You get these wild spikes in sugar, but then that causes a spike in insulin and then sugar crosses, then you need more and more insulin just to keep the sugar balance. And ultimately that causes a whole cascade of problems that we now know as the fundamental drivers of aging.

Yes. And on the topic of aging, one thing that really startled me that I discovered is that every time your glucose levels spike, all the glucose that's rushing into your system, it's gonna bump into other molecules and it's gonna do this thing called glycation to the other molecules. And when a molecule is glycated, it's damaged. And glycation leads to us literally cooking from the inside like a piece of toast in the toaster. That's what happens. And then when we're fully cooked, we die.

That's why we die.

And so the more glucose spikes in your diet, the faster you age internally, but also externally because it leads to wrinkles. It's mind-blowing. It really is.

Yeah, it's true. I remember I was at this longevity conference that Menla Institute, which is in the center, which is by Robert Thurman, who's a Buddhist scholar, and he had the Dalai Lama there and all these Tibetan scholars, but also Nobel Prize winners and scientists about longevity. And there was Lenny Guarte there from MIT who discovered sirtuins and the role of life extension by activating sirtuins with resveratrol and other compounds. And I said, you know, these master regulators, like of aging. How do they get regulated? What screws them up? How does it work? He says it's sugar. Sugar is the biggest problem that we have in terms of not allowing these longevity switches to work properly. And so we literally turn off the longevity switch. We should have rapidly accelerate aging when we over consume sugar. And I would say starch as well. I mean, that's just the same as sugar because you can eat a bagel or a sugar is the same thing. Yeah.

And so we end up in this situation where we know it's bad for us and we know we need to avoid glucose spikes, but often people can be a bit lost as to where to begin. Does it mean I should never eat starch and sugar again? That feels very draconian for most people. And so what I've developed are these 10 principles, these food principles that allow you to keep your glucose levels steady without giving up all the foods you love. Because personally, Mark, I need a chocolate cake for my birthday.

I'm not going to have a Brussels.

Sprouts Low carb, no sugar cake, like I need chocolate cake. This is a non-negotiable part. You're a better human than I am, but I love sugar. And so when I first discovered the world of glucose, my fasting glucose levels was 95. I was 23 years old and that was high. And through my hacks, I've lowered it to 79 without giving up all the stuff I love.

And that's two hacks. So we've got the timing of when you eat, what you eat when, right? Vegetables, protein, and starch. And then the vinegar before you eat.

What else? So, if anybody is still having a sweet breakfast, this is a very important hack. Have a sweet breakfast.

Of course, nobody listening to this podcast ever eats a sweet breakfast because they've been listening to this podcast and they know that we should not have dessert for breakfast.

But just in case you haven't heard many of the podcasts. Just in case this is the first podcast you listen to. Have a savory breakfast. So, in the studies, what they've done is they've taken two groups of people and they give them, they've given them two breakfasts. One of two breakfasts, same number of calories. We know calories don't count, but still it's important to mention this. One group had a breakfast that spiked their glucose levels. The other group had a breakfast that kept their glucose levels steady. What happened was, in the group that had the spiky breakfast, they got hungrier again after two hours, whereas the group that had the steady glucose breakfast didn't get hungry for five hours. Of course. Yeah, of course. The curve of your breakfast really determines how you're going to feel for the rest of the day and whether you're going to feel in control and connected to your body or whether walking by that bakery is going to give you an irresistible urge to buy all the cookies like it used to be for me. I used to have a Nutella crepe for breakfast every morning growing up, Marc. And by 10:30, I was starving. I mean, Nutella crepe.

Yeah, that'll do it.

But I'm recovered now.

I'm recovered. And if I really want an Intellitcrape, what I do is I have it after lunch or dinner as a dessert, and I have some vinegar before. So that's another hack. You know, if you want something- Put.

Vinegar on your cookies. Is that the thing?

Yeah, just pour vinegar all over my cookies. My friends love me when I come to parties. No, it's so it's having a, you know, the vinegar in the water before you eat the sweet thing. Having the sweet thing after a meal and also then using your muscles for 10 minutes. So your muscles are really your biggest ally in reducing your glucose spikes. And so what I recommend, it's another hack. After your meals, use your muscles for 10 minutes. Top favorites include dancing to your three favorite songs really loud in your living room, going for a walk with your dog, doing the dishes, the laundry, whatever. Use your muscles. that way you'll curb the spike and you'll feel better.

That's a really important point. I think people don't realize this, but the data is so compelling on what you're saying, which is if you just take a walk after dinner for 15, 20 minutes, half an hour, you will see a dramatic change in your metabolism.

And your blood sugar. Absolutely, absolutely. It's really incredible. And this works particularly well to combat the post meal sleepiness that a lot of us feel. If you just use your muscles afterwards, you have all this energy again because you're not experiencing such a big crash. And if you can't go outside and you're just home and you're watching, for example, a TV show after dinner or a movie, people can get really creative. So you could do like, you could hold a plank in front of your couch while you're watching the movie. You could get some kettlebells and do some bicep curls. Whatever works, whatever floats your boat. That'll really help your body deal with.

The glucose coming through. Amazing. What else? You've said 10 things.

There's a lot more.

I know. I'll give you one more, but then the rest are in my book, Glucose Revolution. One more is Putting clothes on your carbs. So what do I mean? Do not let your clothes on your carbs.

Uhuh.

Don't let your naked carbs.

No naked carbs. No naked carbs.

So I need to- what's a naked carb? Aha. So a naked carb is sugar or starch that you're eating on its own naked. You just eat it naked and it lands naked and it creates a big glucose spike. So to put clothes on your carbs, what you do is anytime you eat something sweet or something starchy, you make sure to put some protein, fat or fiber on it. You put some clothes on that. So example, I'm going to take the chocolate cake example. I put Greek yogurt on it if I ever want it in the middle of the day. If you want a piece of sourdough bread, put some avocado on it, put some butter on it. If you ever want to eat some rice, have some eggs with it, some smoked salmon, some greens that you saute.

As brilliant. I think, I think the, the idea that we need to not be eating any of this stuff in a way that spikes our blood sugar is key. And what we're learning, what you learned through measuring your blood sugar for years and tracking everything is how different foods affect you. But, you know, the interesting thing is that what might affect you might not affect somebody else and what affects somebody else might not affect you. So can you talk about the differences in glucose metabolism from person to person, depending on their genetics and even their microbiome.

Absolutely. So when I started discovering the world of glucose monitoring, I set a few of my friends up with one as well, and we tested the same foods. So for example, you know, we would eat the same cookie and then compare our glucose spikes. Turns out mine were always bigger than other people's.

And I was like, darn it, I really love cookies.

And so I started thinking, you know, what does this mean? Why is my spike so much bigger than my friend Luna's spike? what's going on here? Well, many things could be going on. So, as you mentioned, microbiome could be a factor, hydration level, tiredness, how well we had slept the night before, muscle mass, obviously, because your muscles soak up glucose, insulin sensitivity, so you know how metabolically healthy we are, and just many, many more things, the phase of your menstrual cycle, your stress levels, there's a A lot of stuff going on there. So it was really interesting to notice what choices might be better for my glucose levels compared to other people. But I kept coming back to the fact that the science shows that the hacks work in all of us. So if me and my friend who both ate the cookie had both put some clothes on the cookie, let's say, you know, 10 almonds, both of our spikes would have been proportionately smaller than the naked cookie spike. So, you have to keep that in mind. These principles work for all of us, but then if you have the opportunity to use a glucose monitor, you might discover much more personalized and in-depth, you know, preferences that your body has.

Yeah, you know, Jesse, I remember reading that Israeli study where they looked at the microbiome and how that uniqueness of each of our ecological community that we live in, which is our gut.

That lives in us.

Yeah. How that actually is so determinant of what happens with our metabolism. And we know, we know from animal studies, if you take the poop out of a skinny mouse and you put it in a fat mouse, the fat.

Mouse will get skinny.

Yeah.

Or in a diabetic.

Diabetic to not diabetic. Yeah. If you take a healthy metabolically healthy person, which there's not that many of us around anymore, there's about only 12% of us in America that are metabolically healthy. But if you find a person, good luck, and you transplant their poop into a diabetic, their blood sugar gets better. And I remember, I remember a case, which I had years ago, I think I might have mentioned on the podcast once, of a gentleman who had type 2 diabetes. We really poorly controlled, sugars were well over 200 all the time. And we got 'em down to like 150, but we couldn't just get 'em all the way normal, even on a ketogenic diet. And one day he called me up and he said, Dr. Hyman, I'm having a lot of digestive symptoms. I'm bloated, I'm distended, I'm all these issues. And I said, okay, well, well, let's do some diagnostic workup, let's do all this, but in the meantime, you know, while you're suffering, just try some charcoal to see if that can absorb some of these, these sort of bloating and the gas and the toxins, which, which can cause these symptoms. And he did. And then he called me back and says, Dr. Iman, I don't know what happened, but my blood sugar went to normal. I don't even understand. But, and I did understand because the microbiome plays a huge role in our metabolic health and something called metabolic endotoxin. toxemia, which means that the toxins produced by bad bugs in the gut when we eat the wrong things get absorbed and they cause inflammation. The inflammation causes us to be insulin resistant, and that makes us more diabetic. I mean, it's just a whole Cascade of vicious cycle. And, and so simply by absorbing the metabolic toxins in his gut from bad bugs, we were able to actually correct his blood sugar. So it's quite fascinating. It's not as simple as we think. It's just, oh, just eat this or don't eat that, or. exercise, don't exercise. It's really, it's kind of a personalized story. And, and I think, there are universal principles, like you mentioned. I think, I just wanna loop back on something you said before as well, because you talked about these, these sort of toast that happens when proteins and sugars in your blood and you become toast and you're literally toast. I mean, it's actually, it's actually true. You're toasting your system. And, and there's a, is a phenomenon is called advanced glycation end products. And we, we measure this when we measure our average blood sugar through hemoglobin A1C, which is just measuring the proteins in hemoglobin getting glommed onto by sugar and forming this like crusty creme brulee, like chicken skin. That kind of, that phenomena is called the Maillard reaction. Happens inside your body, not just when you're cooking. And, and that, that is one of the hallmarks of aging is the abnormal proteins that form in the body that gum everything up. And this happens in your brain. It's called type three diabetes. It happens in your heart, your organs. It really is the phenomena that leads to rapid aging and death. And then what's even funnier is that these things are called AGEs, advanced glycation end products, and they bind to receptors on your cell called RAGEs. So the AGEs make you rage, literally, and turn on all the inflammatory downstream phenomena that we see as inflammaging. So it's such an important thing to understand. And regulating your blood sugar is probably the single most important thing you can do I remember being at Canyon Ranch years ago and there was a cardiologist that came from Harvard and he gave a lecture and he said, you know, if you could take a group of hundred year old people and you could find a group with clean arteries, they'd have one thing in common. What would that be? They're insulin sensitive, meaning they're very good at keeping their blood sugar even without a lot of insulin. That's the key to longevity and healthy aging and not just that, but all these other conditions that you mentioned from acne to infertility to depression to panic attacks to fatigue, energy, insomnia. I mean, night sweats are even a common symptom. You know, men get night sweats too, and often it's because they have these hypoglycemic spikes and they can wake up with soaked sheets.

So, really important to get your sugar dialed in.

So, that's one of the things that.

Happens when we have a glucose spike. It's the toasting. And maybe I can mention something else that happens when our glucose levels spike. So, every cell in your body, needs energy to function. You know, your brain cells need energy to think, your eye cells to see, your toe cells to dance all night long. Like, every cell in your body is really hungry for energy. And the most easy place they get this energy is through glucose that we eat. And so as you digest a meal and glucose goes into your bloodstream, it heads to your cells to be converted to energy, and the little organelles that do this work are mitochondria. They take glucose, turn it into ATP, which is energy. And so you might think, okay, well, if I need energy, then the more glucose I eat, the more energy I have, right? There must be a correlation just like that.

Yeah.

It turns out that's not the case. If you overwhelm your mitochondria with too much glucose, which is the case when a glucose spike happens, your mitochondria don't get excited. They actually shut down. They're like, whoa, can't deal with all this stuff. Don't know what to do. I'm stressing out. I can't work. work anymore. Your mitochondria shut down and they get stressed and they release these things called free radicals into your cells. And free radicals, they harm everything that they touch. So if they touch your DNA, they might harm it and create a mutation that could lead to cancer later on. If they touch a cell membrane, they can break the cell membrane and damage the Integrity of the cell. So your body's response, these free radicals, is inflammation. Yeah. And that's one of the ways that glucose spikes increase inflammation. inflammation. The problem is in this case, if it becomes chronic inflammation, it's not good. And that is another thing that creates a terrain for chronic diseases. I mean, three out of five people are going to die of an inflammation based disease.

I mean, so this. I don't know if it's three is probably a hundred percent. You think? Actually, sure. I mean, unless you get hit by a truck or fall off out of a train or something, I think most of the people die from all inflammatory related conditions. Because all, all aging itself leads to more inflammation through a whole series of mechanisms, including your blood sugar, including environmental toxins, including your microbiome, including latent infections, including our processed inflammatory diet, including chronic stress. I mean, all the things that we see around us all the time are all driving this inflammatory process. But sugar is, is sort of the king, queen, and prince of driving inflammation in your body. And so it's, it's, it's such an important thing. It's why I've been talking about this for decades because as a doctor seeing patients and testing this stuff, when no one else was looking at it, it was like, wow, people are messed up. I would do glucose tolerance tests not on diabetics, but on almost everybody who came in as a screening test for their metabolic health because your blood sugar can be perfectly normal and you can still be a mess, right? Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that's an important lesson.

We've had Dr. Casey Means talk about this on the podcast, talking about how you know, there's patients who literally have perfectly normal blood sugars, but their insulins are so high that they're keeping their.

Blood sugar normal, and that causes a whole another Cascade of problems.

Yeah.

Because I think insulin increases for 10.

Years before glucose, fasting glucose levels increase. Yeah. You know, yeah. I mean, the last thing that happens is your, is your fasting glucose going up. Right? Yeah. And then, and then the second thing that, you know, the second to last thing is your fasting. you're fasting glucose goes up, but then your, your insulin, I mean, your glucose after you eat goes up. But that's, again, a late stage phenomena. Earlier stages are high insulin after two hours, then high insulin fasting. And then it's like, so we're, we're.

Getting on the train so late in medicine. We need to think about how to go upstream to get to the cause.

Yeah.

And for a long time, we only thought diabetics should worry about this, you know, only if you have diabetes, should you then think about managing your glucose levels. And by the way, to manage it just Eat better and exercise more. I mean, come on. We need to give people the hacks, Mark. We need everybody to be using this. It's so easy.

Yeah, they eat better if people have no clue what that means. If you love that last video, you're gonna love the next one. Check it out here. When we heat up something on the stove, we know it's gonna be hot. We don't burn ourselves. So we actually avoid certain behaviors. When we go out into the sun, we know to put on sunscreen. It becomes second nature. I think food as medicine is something that can become second nature. You have to be exposed to the basic.