Balancing Hormones and Sugar Is It Bad?

Welcome to the Balanced Body Podcast, where Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness in Omaha, talks to us about health, wellness, and balancing hormones.

Welcome, Sherri, to your podcast, Balanced Body Health and Wellness Podcast with Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Medical here in Omaha. How are you doing today, Sherri?

I'm doing really well, John. I This is going to be the third podcast, but this time I'm not going to say I'm tired. I feel really good today.

Oh, hooray!

Yes, that's wonderful to hear.

That's what happens when you eat good.

If you put the right kind of fuel in, then you feel good through the day.

That's correct. That's correct.

And that's, that's totally true. Like, I, I recently went on vacation And I was putting in a whole lot of not so good fuel in my tank and I could feel it.

Yeah, isn't that something? And to think that you probably ate that way a lot prior to going through your Program and making the changes you have made. You just, you don't know how bad you feel until you feel good.

It is true.

And then go back to it and you are like, I don't, I don't remember this making me feel like this before. What is wrong?

Yeah, no, it's, it's absolutely— you are so right on the money that I, I, I mean, in other ways too, like, you're helping me with my hormone balance and like, you know, I feel more tired when things start dropping off.

Yeah.

Just like, oh, what is it? What's going on? And, and then sure enough, you're just like, well, you're, you're starting to, you're starting to go down on some, you know, some things. We gotta We gotta boost it up.

That's right. We're a little bit behind schedule and things have started, right, to levels starting to go down and, you know, reminding you like, oh, I remember when I felt like this. I don't wanna feel like this again. Fix it, right?

It's true. Yeah, it's true.

Remind me, I have a boost for you when you come in next week. So just remind me about that.

Hooray. Well, and, and I tell you what, like one of the things that I, I want to bring up, just because we're talking about this one thing, and then we'll get into the actual podcast topic. But, um, I always— before I saw— before you and I started working together and you were helping me start balancing out everything, I heard you talk about things like this. And I'd also heard other people talk about how, you know, oh, I might be slipping because of this, this, this, or, you know, whatever. And I never understood that. Like, I didn't know I was so out of tune with how my body was just because I was dealing with so many overwhelming things.

Right.

I wonder how many people are just living life like that, just kind of feeling a bit run down, or, you know, maybe just always tired, or whatever it is that you're dealing with, you're trying to overcompensate. Um, it's worth it to try to balance out your hormones and your levels and get things in line. Because when you start feeling that way and you're a little bit more in tune and something just is slipping just slightly and you're like, huh, I feel this and I don't really know what it is, like you start having a name for it and you're able to then go on the other side and fix it.

Because you know what it is, right? Where before maybe you didn't. I see people all the time that'll come in and, and I hear people all the time. I just don't feel good. I just don't feel like myself. But, you know, I've been to the doctor. All my numbers are good. There's nothing wrong with me. But there is.

Right.

And many times it can be just some of the things that you went through that, you know, traditional medicine is not going to do a stool test or a DNA test or even a lot of the lab work that I run. Traditional medicine, because sadly they don't have a choice, the insurance company dictates to them what they can and cannot do. It's not the doctor's fault, but that's one of the reasons that many of us are starting and it's really becoming a Um, becoming a big movement, uh, because we want to be able to treat people the way they should be treated and, and give them the care they deserve. So we stopped taking insurance because now we can do that.

Totally.

Spend the time and do the extra care that's needed without fear of being penalized in our reimbursements because we're doing something that the insurance company doesn't think is needed. Because they're the medical expert and they know more than we do, which is so bonkers when you really say that out loud. I know, right?

One, one of the things that we had talked about before in a previous, uh, podcast that I think of all the time when it comes to things that I didn't know that I had but I was dealing with was adrenal fatigue. Once I had a name for it, I was like, it It was like a light just popping in my head. I was like, holy cow, this is how I run my entire life is this way.

Right? So it is crazy. And, you know, part of what was going on with you now, I think we had— we did say we were going to talk about the different diets this week, but we're going to put that off just a little bit because we'll put that off till next week because I do feel that we You know, we've talked about sugar and we've talked about, quote, it being evil and addictive and all these things. But, you know, we never said exactly what it can do to your body, right? How it can damage your body.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and, you know, I know there are lots of studies out there and I feel at this point it should almost be common knowledge is that sugar feeds cancer.

Wow.

Um, friend of mine's dad has cancer, and, and like, we're having him eat a lot of grapes because we read a resveratrol, you know. And I said, oh, so you're stuffing him full of sugar every day, so you're feeding the cancer. He's like, what? I'm like, there are resveratrol supplements without all the sugar, right? There are other ways and other foods you can get that from without all the sugar. But that's a big one. I mean, they, they have studies and they have connected sugar with breast cancer, ovarian, prostate, rectum, pancreas, the biliary tract, lung, gallbladder, and stomach.

Wow.

There is a direct relationship. Now he has a brain cancer, but it's still sugar, right? Yeah. Um, it's still not worth just because that one isn't listed, because it, it lowers our immune system and those antibodies our immune system is needed to fight the cancer. So, I mean, it's, um, it can, it's been, it can cause emphysema.

Oh my gosh.

Which makes me think now when I see some of these people, because, you know, I do those Medicare exams because I just love my old people, right? And someone will have emphysema, yet they were never a smoker around secondhand smoke. I think I'm going to ask them, did you eat a lot of sugar? Just out of curiosity.

Like, do your own— do your own study.

Yeah, I don't see a lot of people like that, but, you know, it's, um, that is interesting because you do wonder why somebody who's never had any exposures to smoke or chemicals or worked in some sort of factory or, you know, just anything that would go, oh yeah, that's why it happened, why that happens to them. So—

Have you ever seen— there's an amazing Uh, like traveling museum show, and I'll have to— I'll have to remember exactly the name, but it's basically like, um, people have donated their bodies to science, and then they have all sorts of different— not only diseases that you can see based on somebody's body because they've like, you know—

I've heard of it. I haven't seen it.

Oh, you haven't?

If you ever get a chance to see it, it's called like The Body or Our Bodies or something like that. And it's not just a disease-type show. It's, you go in and we can kind of see the wonders of, you know, different— it's gonna— I'm gonna make it sound awful, but like different body parts and things.

Yeah.

Because what they've done is they've mapped Not only mapped the body, but then like cataloged it and done all sorts of different like things to, uh, people who have donated their bodies to science, and then created this like walking, uh, show. And one of the weirdest, craziest bits was they had people's lungs who were smokers' lungs, and then people who weren't smokers' lungs.

Oh yeah.

You know, we're like from a different, a different country and like, like different variations of the theme on that and like how, how like pollution affects your lungs and everything. And it's, it's like little things like that throughout the entire experience just open your eyes to what we put our bodies through. And I, and I only bring that up to say like, it's crazy because you just can't tell what it— like what your body's dealing with. Because you can't really, you know, from our own perspective, we can't look in. But working with somebody like you, you can do the studies and pull data and look at our blood and see what our body's doing and how we can kind of combat those things.

Right. Or even like you said, be more aware.

Yes.

Right. Be more aware that now, you know, you ate differently. Be aware that you felt bad.

Mm-hmm.

By eating not so healthy. So that tells you that obviously that's important for your body to eat whole healthy foods, right? Because your body told you when you didn't.

It's true. And once you have a name for it, or once you realize it, or once you like are able to like make the connection, at least in my mind, It makes it easier to spot the next time around. You just— it's not that you just bad and good. It's like sluggish, or why am I taking so long to fall asleep, or why do I feel so tired all day? Like, right, why are the muscles in my, in my calves bouncing around? Like, did I drink too much caffeine or something? You know what I mean? Like, whatever it is.

Yeah.

Your body's always under assault, but now you have a name for it. You can kind of pinpoint it and say, okay, I just need to turn that down.

Well, and speaking, you know, your body under assault, sugar again, right? Sugar can cause chromium and copper deficiencies. I mean, and it can mess with the absorption of calcium and magnesium, and our body needs these minerals because in the production of antibodies, right? Again, our immune systems, they've linked sugar With arthritis, asthma, and multiple sclerosis.

Oh my gosh.

Right? So if you think about these children that have asthma, what happened if they— what happens if they go off sugar? Maybe they don't have asthma anymore. Maybe they don't need an inhaler anymore. But nobody thinks— who would think to correlate cookies with asthma, right? Or large amounts of sugar. I mean, because what happens is, you know, when the sugar gets high, Then we get the glycogens and they damage— that's what damages the proteins and damages like the small vessels in our body. So it can damage things like kidneys. It can damage circulation. It can actually even do some nerve damage to where we get what's called peripheral neuropathy.

Mm-hmm.

So they have like tingling and numbness. Starts in the toes, then it gets to the foot, and then it starts to go up the legs, and then you're looking at amputations, right? Because—

I know.

You can't feel it. And so, um, somebody with full diabetic, because of blood sugars, peripheral neuropathy, won't have any feeling, and they'll cut their foot, or they'll step on something, or they'll stub a toe, and they won't realize they have an injury because they can't feel anything.

Oh my gosh.

And they have no feeling and they end up getting infections, which bacteria like sugar too. So if you're diabetic and you don't keep your sugars normal because more sugars in your system, then the infection can happen quicker. I had a friend that had a bug bite and within 2 days he had infection all— it was on his foot, and it was almost all the way up to his knee. The infection was spreading, um, almost being what we call something sepsis, which is infection within the blood. And, uh, I had a 36-year-old nurse that worked for me die from sepsis. Oh my God. She went to the emergency— she went to the doctor the day before thinking she had the flu. Um, they accidentally ordered her an antibiotic, which might have saved her, who knows. She got her flu. The next day she was in a lot of pain, and within 3 hours she was dead.

Wow.

So sugar, blood sugar, diabetes, you know, we think that that can— that these things can happen to just diabetics. But you weren't there last week, but I talked about somebody that's been diagnosed as pre-diabetic for several years saying, I'm not diabetic, I'm pre-diabetic. Doctor said I'm pre-diabetic, we don't need to do anything. is now having some peripheral neuropathy in his toes, but you know, he's still not diabetic. But then how come he has diabetic damage?

Yeah.

So as I told the patient today, um, that's one of the things that I do. It's preventative medicine, not sick medicine. I'm not going to wait until you're diabetic and then say, oh geez, we should probably try to get these blood sugars down, right? We need to get them down before you're diabetic because When traditional medicine calls you pre-diabetic, that you're having high blood sugars, you are having, right, you're having that glycogen, you're getting that damage to your vessels and that inflammation, or glycation, not glycogen, glycation, that damage, inflammation to your vessels, so that now plaque starts to collect on your vessels, you get heart disease, you get—

Yeah.

Again, you can have problems with circulation. You can get nerve damage. Um, it can make you look older because it changes the collagen in your skin because of that glycation, the things that happen. It can be the cause of your migraines because migraines— migraines work with circulation, right? Yeah.

And it's— I mean, it's, it's for— it's for a simple reason. They want to be able to sell it. You know, like these companies, they make all these products that they know people, the majority, majority of people are not going to be looking, you know, right at the label. They're gonna buy it, they're gonna taste it, and if it doesn't have any added sugar, they may not be buying it again. So, mm-hmm, it's kind of a depressing thing to think about, but a lot of these companies are putting sugar in stuff just because They know that it has that particular—

Yeah, yeah, we know it does all this damage. So why is it added? Why is it— it's cheap, right? It's not expensive. Um, you know, it— what they talk about, um, that book I've mentioned before, The Autoimmune Fix, he talks about like, uh, countries where people eat sugarcane, right? They eat sugarcane But they don't have any cavities. And that's because there's the fiber in it. It's got some fiber and nutrients in the whole cane. But what we do as a society is we strip all of that out. We strip all the good stuff out, and the only thing that's left is the toxic sugar. There's— so you don't get any of the healthy benefits. of the actual cane itself. And even thinking, you know, well, this is pure cane sugar, it's still processed because it's not going to have fiber in it. It doesn't have the cane in it. Yes, it's sugar that came from cane, but the whole idea of sugarcane being something healthy in— for these, um, different people, these different societies, it had nothing to do with stripping out The sweetness, it has to do with eating the whole cane.

So it's so very true.

Yeah.

So, so do you recommend— I mean, this might be a conversation for next time, but I mean, do you recommend trying to go that route of just trying to go every added gram of sugar avoid?

That would be very, very difficult to do. I know there are people that can do it, right? And when you say added sugar, that's the difference. There are natural sugars. If you read a label, something might have 10 grams of sugar with 8 added. So that meant that food naturally had 2 grams of sugar, but they added 8. So I recommend avoiding added sugar.

Okay.

Right? You can't avoid sugar completely in a tomato sauce because tomatoes themselves have sugar. Fruits have sugar, but it's the added stuff. It's the it's the added sugar, and you know there are some you know natural sweeteners right now. We we believe, and I want to say believe because we've believed a lot of things that monk fruit, monk fruit is a very good sweetener that does not mess with the glycemic index or your blood sugar. And when I asked my friend in the food industry. Why don't you guys use monk fruit? It's too expensive. So they'll still use sucralose or saccharin, things that we know are chemicals that disrupt the microbiome and cause issues and can actually raise the blood sugar more than real sugar because it's cheap.

Mm-hmm.

And stevia, she said stevia can have a slight bitter taste to it for people that are used to They're sucralose, or they're used to their real sugar. And though, even though stevia can be, can be cost-effective, um, it's got that little bitter finish to it.

Yeah, and I remember you were saying that that one you need to look for not just stevia, but from stevia leaf or something.

Yeah, yeah, so it doesn't have a bunch of other stuff put in there with it. Was just, and and I'll finish that real quick. Going on with other stuff, just talking to that same friend whose dad has that cancer. Supplements, reading the labels of supplements, and why would a supplement need maltodextrin in it? Right? There's no reason. No idea. Of course, they didn't ask him if it was. A tablet or a capsule, right? So we know capsules are more pure because they don't have to have a binder to bind it to make like a tablet. So I didn't ask him that when he was looking at different ones, but we would look at it. I'm like, what's in it? I'm like, why? What does that do? It didn't do anything. It was just in there, just a little bit of everything in there for I don't know what reason.

Why?

Maybe, you know, there's little tricks. Maybe it makes, makes the caps— capsule bigger and fuller so people think they're getting more for their money.

Oh, see, I never think about these little trick things. I just assume somebody making— I, I assume things like, you know, mixes almost like shakes and stuff, or capsules, like whatever's in there is in there for a reason. I don't, you know, but that's from somebody who doesn't make any of those things, you know, who knows, right?

Or you don't know, or, or the name, right? The name of it. He goes, well, this is Doctor's Choice, and that sounds like a really good— this is probably a really good product. And I go, yeah, why? I go, right, none of that is, is policed. You can put any name you want on it, say anything is in it. You have no idea what's in it.

Oh yeah, marketing, marketing has got crazy, has some crazy thought behind it.

Well, and that's why I told him I will only use products from companies that have a good reputation, that are known well within the medical community and the practicing community, that don't push their products retail to the public. So if they were to not have good products with good studies behind them, They would be out of business. Those are the companies I like to use.

Well, and if somebody wants to spend a little time and maybe ask their own questions about sugar and why to avoid it, or on the flip side, how they might go past just avoiding sugar to balance themselves out in a way that they can feel better, Yeah. Best way to do that is online, balancedbodymedical.com.

Yes, go online, schedule a 15-minute discovery call, schedule, if you're not in Omaha, a telehealth visit. We can do your initial consultation telehealth, but the phone call is free. And if you're, you know, again, local, always love to see you. And yeah. That'd be great.

Well, that's so awesome. Thank you, Sherri, for diving into some of the more complex issues that sugar really brings to the table. Just another reason why we gotta cut it.

I know, right? There's the occasional, the occasional, and somebody goes like, maybe only once or twice a week. I go, that's not occasional. That can equal 8 times a month.

Right?

Start doing that math. 52 weeks, 400 and some doses of sugar.

Yeah.

You know, so occasionally is maybe once a month or twice a month.

But what I like about how you handle and work through my own personal journey is it is a step— it's stepping stones. Yeah. It's like, okay, we know the ideal's here. get there. But we're starting here just to get better, because better is better than where you were.

Big rocks first, right? Get the big things first. Because if I tried to get you to fix everything all at once, you'd be overwhelmed and you wouldn't do anything.

Yeah, it's true.

And now I'll meet you where you're at, right? Meet you where you're at. I just told that to a gal today that is on the verge. We are catching her before her autoimmune disease starts. Her markers are screaming. She is on her way to an autoimmune disease. It's probably going to be celiac's. It could be MS, who knows? But she is on her way. Her numbers are telling us that. And I am like, you have to go gluten-free. You go gluten-free, we can help prevent that autoimmune disease. It's going to bring down that blood sugar because you're not eating all those treats and snacks and things. And And it's going to bring the inflammation down, and it's going to help you absorb nutrients better because it's going to cut the inflammation in your gut. That one lifestyle change can turn things around for her. She doesn't want to do it. And I said, "You know what? My job is not to belittle you or hassle you or pressure you, but to educate you so you know." What's next? I'm not going to say what might be next, but something is going to happen. You are going to come down with an autoimmune disease. I can't tell you which one, but if you don't make a change, I already know you're getting one.

Yeah.

I don't know which one for sure, but you're going to have an autoimmune disease.

So that's tough. That's a tough situation for sure.

Yeah. But I said, well, you know, so we're gonna do a few starts, a few things. She's gonna try to clean up her eating, you know, lean meats, vegetables, 5 different color vegetables and fruits a day, and move that direction. But that will help maybe with the blood sugars, but not going to prevent the autoimmune disease.

It's hard because we just are, uh, not to, not to get worn out as far as like You know, creatures of habit or whatever. But I know just with my own journey, it is— it, it was very hard to take the first step. It does get easier once you kind of make it. And I mean, we live in a time right now, especially when it comes to gluten-free, there's so many options. Like, it's, it's something that you can do even when you go out. Um, it may not be the healthiest option. But there's no glue.

All right, well, I'm gonna have to let you go. My patient is waiting.

Yep, yep. We'll catch you next time talking about diet.

All right, sounds good.

This has been the Balanced Body Medical Podcast with Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness. If you're looking to find Sherri Go ahead and look for the website, balancedbodymedical.com. If you're looking for the business and you want to find Sherri at her office, you can find her at 10815 Elm Street in Rockbrook Plaza. Thank you.