Preventing and Reversing Type 2 Diabetes with Dr. Beverly Yates

Today on Midlife conversations, I've got Dr. Beverly Yates. And I can't wait for this conversation because we're going to be talking about something that affects so many of us in midlife. If it's not affecting you, it's affecting your family members, friends that you have. We're talking about diabetes type 2 specifically. That is generally created and can be reversed. And we're going to be talking a lot about that today. Now, what's so interesting about Dr. Yates is she actually started in technology. That's what she was doing originally. But because of her own health journey and what she learned and was able to fix there and create, she was felt very called to get into naturopathic healthcare, be a doctor. And she is really, really intrigued about and everything metabolic, especially diabetes. So thank you so much for being here today, Dr. Yates.

Hey, Natalie, thank you so much for having me on. I'm eager to have this conversation. Very much looking forward to it. I appreciate your work and your collaborative style, the impact you've made and continue to make Right. In this world to lift it up, have everybody be in a better place and really centering women and their journeys. Yeah. Because we just don't talk about that enough. So let's get into it.

Yeah. So. So, first and foremost, I met Dr. Beverly Yates through a friend of ours, mutual friend of ours, J.J. virgin. Because I was having my own, which I'll talk about on another episode later, I was having my own blood sugar challenges. And the first thing that came to mind, which it was not with me, but the first thing that came to mind was, is this type 2 diabetes, being in my family, being a genetic marker. And JJ said, you've got to talk to Dr. Yates. I did a consult with her. I was so impressed with her. She was so knowledgeable. And I thought, I've got to have you on this, on this episode to share with everybody. So let's back up a little bit. You had stuff going on with your health. Was it diabetes with you?

No, interestingly enough, it was not. I was early stage in my career as electrical engineer here in Silicon Valley and minded my own business, so to speak. And we moved from Silicon Valley, California to the Pacific Northwest, specifically to Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. And what I didn't know is how moldy it is up there. The rain, the water. I mean, mold grows on cement in the Pacific. Wow. And coming originally from Philadelphia, then going to school at mit, you know, snowy Boston, Cambridge, Massachusetts area, then come out to Silicon Valley, you know, Fremont, Santa Clara, San Jose, Palo Alto, right. Then from there to Portland. Oh, that weather change, it turns out, is like my, my nemesis. I didn't know that. And we had. We were renting a home at the time, my fiance and I, and discovered by accident there was black mold in the house. We couldn't smell it. It did not smell musty at all. By accident, we found out there was black mold. And I was an engineer at the time. I was not in naturopathic medicine. I had no idea how much mold can destroy health. I was so tired, Sneezy. I mean, these deep belly sneezes, like, what is happening to me? I couldn't think straight. You know, brain fog, all the classic mold symptoms looking back. But I didn't have the background to appreciate how much moral threat I was under. That's what got me into naturopathic medicine. I saw a naturopathic doctor after about a year of seeing a conventional western medicine medical doctor for getting allergy shots to mold. And I was doing nothing but getting worse. I was even more tired. And at that time, I think I was like 23, 24 years old. I should have been just full of life and energy, right?

Yeah.

I felt like I was 90. It just wasn't good.

Mold destroys people. It's crazy how much anything, how many symptoms it presents as to.

It's sneaky because it's not obvious, but because I'm a result oriented person. And after a year of the allergy scene, conventional allergy, you know, you did a skin scratch test and I was like, how is this quantitative? You sketch my skin, of course it's going to raise up. What, what are you basing your therapy on? Like that whole. God. Anyway, that's a different podcast, but you get where I'm going with this.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

And actually, interestingly enough, we're going to be. And we're going to be talking about blood sugar too. Interestingly, I learned that mold can actually affect blood sugar too.

Interesting, right? And at the time, I wasn't looking at that. I hadn't yet gotten connected to my biological father's side of my family, so I didn't know. My father's family has a crazy incidence of type 2 diabetes. Every one of his siblings, he was one of 13 children. Every one of them had some kind of diabetes. But this was before I knew that.

Okay, so let's get into type 2 diabetes specifically now. Now we're talking type 2 because type 1 means insulin dependent. That is totally different. That is not brought on from lifestyle. That can happen to you genetically it can happen from a virus, it can happen from serious infection. You can type 1 diabetes. That is not what we're addressing today. If you are type 1 diabetic, I want to be clear, we're not teaching you how to reverse that or prevent that. Today we're talking specifically about type 2 which is becoming a huge epidemic. Huge epidemic. What is going on? Why is this becoming such a huge epidemic?

This is a great question. So let's break it down, right? Type 2 has become the runaway epidemic. In the 80s and 90s it was heart disease. Right now it is diabetes. This is an international phenomenon. I think there are several factors at play. One is we generally have a food supply where we have a lot more processed foods. And people have been taught to go for convenience and quick and often have very stressful lifestyles. Not always self induced either. Sometimes stress happens to people. I'm always amazed at some of my patients backstories. The stereotype we get into the stigma around type 2 diabetes. People assume that if you have a type 2 diabetes or pre diabetes diagnosis that you are lazy, you are slothful, you don't care about yourself and you are trying to screw up your health. Now let's be honest. Does anybody get out of bed in the morning, say let me see, what can I do today to screw up my health? Like nobody does that. Nobody. But there's this background, right, of blaming, shaming and making an assumption about someone. Frankly, consistently poor sleep will get you there. Sleep apnea, God forbid, will absolutely get you to type 2 diabetes. Chronic unrelieved stress, really difficult situations can absolutely lead to stress. Trauma lead to type 2 diabetes. Trauma can lead to type 2 diabetes. Not eating healthy foods, whether on purpose or by accident, can also lead to type 2 diabetes. A lack of exercise that is useful for your body and I'm going to explain that in a moment, will lead to type 2 diabetes. But let me be clear, you cannot out exercise a bad diet. So the bullseye of the target has to be healthy, nutrient dense foods that also agree with you and give you a balanced blood sugar. I'm going to tell everybody right now, and I know some people aren't going to like what I'm getting ready to say, but I'm going to say it anyway. There is no such thing in my clinical opinion after 30 years of this, that there is a one size fits all nutrition plan that works for everyone around blood sugar management. I've seen too many outliers. So I've seen people for whom a vegetarian or a vegan regime has been helpful for their health. I've seen people for whom, where they eat meat, they eat seafood, fish, they do much better with that. I've seen people for whom, you know, high fiber works great. I've seen people for whom a high amount of healthy fats also works great. For most people, it's going to be a combination of the macronutrients. I don't demonize macronutrients or foods to be.

I love that you said that because when I first had a consult with you and, and I was having some, by the way, y', all, I was having some serious blood sugar issues. It's not type 2, but I was having, I called her in a panic because I'm, I eat so healthy. What's going on? I'm eating, I'm eating protein, I'm eating vegetables. I'm having a quarter of a sweet potato. My blood sugar is going over 200. What's happening? And the first thing you said to me is, first of all, drop the shame and the, and the blame because you're not doing anything. She said that. Which made me feel so at ease. So thank you for that. And, and I love that you said, hey, text, you might know a lot about nutrition. You told me this. You said you might know a lot about nutrition, but it's not a one size fits all when it comes to this. So it's what works for you. And I, I, I so appreciated you saying that and I want everyone to hear that because there's a lot of people in self beat up around this thinking, I think I'm doing everything right. What am I doing wrong? I don't get it. And I love that you shared that.

Yeah, thank you for that acknowledgement. I appreciate it. It's sincere. I tell all of my patients and clients this. It's just so important to really have an understanding of how individual we are. We could be twins, we could be triplets. Everyone has their own microbiome in their gut, their own health journey and how their body responds to their foods. This includes carbohydrates, whether it's simple carbs or complex slow burning carbs, proteins, fats, foods that we never think of as being something that can hijack blood sugar, like, say, quinoa or broccoli or cauliflower. Right. Blueberries. And I have seen some people have some unusual, I mean, really unusual reactions to certain foods that we would otherwise generically.

Like a sweet potato.

Like a sweet potato with the skin on. You're like, how in the world could that Be a problem. Yeah. Most people it's not. But if it is for you, should you be eating it, then you're going to need to eliminate or at least greatly reduce it. Right. So we have to dial in what's healthy for the individual. So the framework I always use is to teach people to look for how they're feeling as much as they can, to get data, whether it's with a CGM or a glucometer and test strips, but to pay attention. If you eat a food and you find that you're in a food coma half hour to two hours later, clearly that food or the combination of foods didn't agree. It hijacked your blood sugar. You got on a blood sugar roller coaster, probably spiked up.

Yeah.

Tried to catch up, down, you came with a crash.

And that's so wild. I, and I didn't know this. She told me, this is so fascinating because I said, do you have to be overweight to be type 2 diabetic? She said, absolutely not. And what a sign for me about high blood sugar was getting super, super tired about it after an hour, after eating. And I never understood, I thought it was hormones, I thought it was everything else. But when you actually dialed in blood sugar, it made sense. When you've got chronic high blood sugar, which most type 2 diabetics do before they know they have type 2 diabetes, if you've got chron high blood sugar, you are going to feel tired and foggy headed and not good and you're going to think it's hormones and everything else. But it could be as simple as chronic high blood sugar.

Yeah, absolutely. So if you're someone who's normally energetic, full of pep and all of a sudden you're like, you just can't get up off the couch. It's like you get up and go, got up and went, so to speak, you're like, what happened to me? If that's your feeling, you need to check your blood sugar. You're going to check your fasting morning blood sugar numbers and you're going to want to look for Something is called A1C Short term letters acronym for glycosylated hemoglobin, which means that the protein normally found in the blood, in your red blood cells has too much blood sugar called glucose stuck on it. Literally. Think of it like, like a Velcro ball. If you ever go hiking and you see thistles, things that stick, it's that kind of relationship. Instead of it being nice and smooth, your red blood cells are able to go and do their thing. And the normal proteins in the blood, like hemoglobin, get your oxygen, carbon dioxide, all that lovely stuff goes on. Thank God. Automatic. When you have too much blood sugar, the whole works get scummed up. This is what can lead to the heart attacks and strokes. This lead to the blindness, to the loss of limbs, difficulty with sexual pleasure and sexual function, pelvic floor problems, clitoral dysfunction, penile dysfunction, erectile dysfunction, all of those things.

The list goes on.

It's quite a list of horrors. It's not good. And people are often not taught about the sexual implications of blood sugar issues.

So A1C does not become an alarm to most doctors until you're over 5.8. Where do you think people need to be concerned on a 1C?

Because you look at optimal so regionally here around the US and in different parts of the world, some of the numbers are a little different. Generally speaking, for most labs, a diagnosis has occurred for pre diabetes. Range is going to be 5.7 typically to 5.8 on the bottom end to as much as 6.4. Once is someone hits an A1C of 6.5 or higher and some people get up to the tens 11, 12. I mean, that's really high. That's considered a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Just like Natalie said earlier. Reminder to people, type 1 is autoimmune onset. Different root cause, different issue. Similar though problems with the blood sugar pinging. And my work with people has focused around getting blood sugar control relative to what works for you. With nutrition as our central pillar, we will absolutely visit the topics of stress and sleep because those are usually the twin gremlins that really mess people up and they don't understand that exercise is essential. And then meal timing. You know what? Often the number one mistake that many people make who have type 2 diabetes with meal timing is Natalie, what is that? They skip lunch. They often skip it by accident. And so by the time they hit dinner, they will eat anything. They're ravenous.

Wow.

And this is where people make mistakes.

Yeah. Let's talk about A1C and river. And first of all, I want to say I reverse my A1C from 5.8 to 4.3 in four weeks. So it is very possible. So let's talk about. I'm not going to talk about what I did necessarily because mine was a little different situation, but can you talk about what you recommend people do? Because we know it's reversible and you can, you can change that.

Right. I always recommend that people do a few Things. One is make friends with the concept that there are two things that are critical for you to understand that fiber is your friend in all ways. Fiber is a blood sugar sponge. So if you've got too much blood sugar, you want to make fiber your friend.

And cholesterol sponge, right? Yeah.

It's also a cholesterol sponge. You're going to get multiple effects. It also helps you have regular bowel movements. Right. That's all good. The other thing that's a blood sugar sponge is your active working muscles. You can have your kettlebells by your desk or in the kitchen or whatever makes sense. But get moving. You don't need to make this hard. So if you are stuck at home, if there's poor weather outside, you're not feeling well, maybe you're caring for young kids or grandkids. Whatever your life situation may be, if you can't get to a gym, don't let that keep you from it. Body weight exercises will work, but do something especially with the largest muscles of the body. That's going to be your thighs and your back of your legs. Those are the two most metabolically active muscle groups in the body. Use them. Do wall squats like we used to all try to avoid in middle school and high school. Right. Things like that. It still works, you know, I love that.

I love that. What are your thoughts on a continual glucose monitor versus a finger prick or both?

Yeah. So, you know, it's. I'm glad you bring this up because some people, frankly, have more accurate, better results with using the test strips and glucometer with the finger sticks. Get a little drop of blood. The problem with that is that it hurts. And for a lot of people, because it hurts, they stop doing the testing. So they don't really know what their blood sugar is doing. For some people, the cost of doing all these things, because the test strips don't last very long, it can become more expensive as well. And so people will avoid it both because it hurts and. Or because of financial considerations. The cgm. The thing I like about a continuous glucose monitor is, you know, you put it on the back of your arm, you put on your belly, wherever you're putting it. Right. Put good protection on it so it stays dry in case the original adhesive is not as tight as it ought to be. And then you can just swipe it with an app or a sensor, get your data and know exactly what your real time blood sugar results are, especially when you're asleep, to be sure that things aren't going wonky while you're trying to sleep. Right. The accuracy is different though between the two. Generally speaking, the finger stick, getting a drop of blood, putting it on the test strip and into the glucometer tends to be more accurate than the cgm. The CGM can be a variance of about plus or minus, so up or down 10 to 15%. And depending on what you're doing, that can be a lot. If you have a blood sugar history where you tend to also get lows, not just highs for blood sugar. So maybe your blood sugar say is sitting at a 70, which is okay, that's good. If it's a fasting morning sugar, I'm fine with that. But if the meter is telling you the CGM that you're at a 50 or 45, which is too low, that's an alarm. Right?

Which was my alarm, which could be.

Artificial because it might be your actual sugar is 70 or 75. You see what I'm saying?

Yes.

The details matter. So you should go with the technology that works for you. I have some type 2 patients right now who will have nothing to do with the CGM because they have found that it's not accurate enough for them. Other people have had excellent results with it and their ability to cooperate with their treatment and take care of themselves, their self care now is excellent because they have confidence in the data, they're alert, they have energy, they feel so much better. They're sleeping because we always work on sleep, they're sleeping well, they now have the energy to exercise, their moods are better. So their relationships at work, relationships with loved ones, with family, with their community is better. You know, everybody's winning in that scenario, but it can take some time to figure out what's right.

So you're the expert here. But I do want to share my opinion for people listening to this because this, I feel very called to share this because I was a huge fan of CGMs initially. It helped me figure out what's going on, it helped me modify, it helped me get my A1C down and then it did was not working for me at all. In fact, it ended up me in the emergency room because of saying I had chronic low blood sugar when in actuality the meter was off. So it can be dangerous too. So I'm going to say if you just friend to friend, if you are listening, if you are doing this to fix something that could be a potential health problem with yourself, cross check with the finger prick because this is really, really important. CGM could be a great tool. I'M all for it. Use correctly. But you have to cross check with that finger prick and by all means get the one without the darn alarm that goes off in the middle of the night because that's what sent me to the er.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that the alarm situation for most people's health is probably going to be better suited for people with TYP1.

Yes.

Because the blood sugar regulation system, because of the complete lack of inability to make insulin and being completely dependent on external insulin being injected or pumped in is a different situation to manage. I just.

And it can save their life for sure.

It will say it's life saving.

Right.

Those severe lows. I think the two diseases should have different names.

They really should.

They should just have different names. So I think it confuses people.

So let's talk about. I want to ask you a question because there's two other types of diabetes that we haven't mentioned and I'm not sure how much you, you know about this. I've learned a lot about this in the last months. But 1.5, which is Lotta, which is a newer version. It's kind of like a hybrid of 2 and 1 and then also type 3, which is what they're calling the new dementia or Alzheimer. Can you talk and speak into those at all?

Sure, sure. So let's go to Type 1.5. As you might guess, it's a hybrid between Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1.5 is typically where there has been some autoimmune attack on the pancreas. The pancreas is still making some insulin, but not enough to meet that person's normal metabolic needs. LADA is another way. Type 1.5 is labeled in LADA. No, it's not. Los Angeles District Attorney it is latent autoimmune disease in adults. Diabetes. Excuse me, in adults a lot of. And in that one, typically that person will be put on some prescription insulin, probably a lower dose than they would if they were a full blown type 1. And for them sometimes what I've seen the struggle can be around is figuring out how much insulin when and often don't really get guidance around nutritional strategies that can help take the need for the prescription insulin down. In the case of type 1.5, provided obviously their pancreas is still making insulin. If it's not making it, then we're done. It's essentially type one. We've moved now to another category. Right. Just to be really clear now for type three, that's another way to think about dementia. And it's subset type neurologic type of Alzheimer's. Some people have noticed and I've noticed this. My dear mother in law, who unfortunately is no longer with us, she had Alzheimer's and before she had Alzheimer's she had pre diabetes, not type 2 diabetes. And my father in law and I were both observing her blood sugar go up. And this was before I became a naturopathic doctor. And then earlier in my career I worked with her a little bit, but we couldn't get full cooperation from the people at the assisted living center around her nutrition or keeping her active. And I watched her just slide and get much worse, much more quickly once she left an environment where she could control her foods or people feed her family members could control her food and keep her active. So she wasn't using those active working muscles, just walking around. I'm not talking about running a marathon, just saying walking, that wasn't happening. Right. A lot of sitting, a lot of sedentary non activity along with processed food in the assisted living center just took her out. It really made a difference. So I want to make this point clear. When it comes to Alzheimer's and dementia that often the cases before the clear cognitive impairment shows, people often have blood sugar dysregulation that is clinically diagnosed but in my opinion, not taken seriously. And they're often in the pre diabetic range. I'm going to say that it's often the pre diabetic range that precedes so that a 1C of a 5.7 to 6.4 that precedes the clear symptoms of dementia and Alzheimer's. They aren't necessarily a type 2 who's been stuck at 7.5 for an A1C.

That makes sense.

I want everybody to hear that clearly. Don't think that you got prediabetes. You're getting a passion.

No, no, that's. I mean when my A1C hit the numbers, when I panicked and called you and did all these things, I was.

Like, I don't know what this is, but I'm messing with this.

And it is, I fixed that part. So there's a lot of reasons that your blood sugar could be off. So I want to be really clear to people. It doesn't mean you're type 2 diabetic. It doesn't mean you're even pre diabetic. So even if the lab work is saying that I, we, I think we both agree you want to obviously check what's going on. Just like if you had high cholesterol you want to know what is causing this? Like, dig deep and figure that out. For people that do know that they've confirmed it's pre diabetes, it's type 2 diabetes. Diabetes. What do you want them. Obviously you said no, shame yourself. Do not that. What do you want them to do right now? Like, what is the critical step? Because I want people to know they can reverse it. And what should they be doing?

What they should be doing is taking action. Make sure your health team is, is going to be completely cooperative and supportive. What you don't want to do is allow your health team to say, oh, let's just watch your numbers. We'll check you in six months. That's a bullshit answer. That's not okay. Because as time goes by, you're doing nothing but getting worse. So just like Natalie's saying, do the due diligence, do the homework, find out, do I actually have type 2 diabetes or is it something else? It could be a momentary change, momentary fluctuation if you've been severely stressed, if you've been assaulted, if you've undergone a trauma that is recent or you're starting to uncover the emotional side and unpack something from a while ago. These can make changes in your blood sugar that will absolutely be reflected by that lab test. But are you truly a type 2 diabetic or not? What if you have a sleep disorder? Have you been told by others that you snore so much? Do you find that the room is cleared anytime you're in a group setting for sleep? What if you have a sleep partner or lover who flees the bed when it's time to actually go to sleep? These are really good clues that your sleep situation is not good. You may well have something called sleep apnea, whether it's obstructive because your airway closes literally, you don't get enough air in, or it's central in the brain and this brain doesn't send the signal for you during sleep to breathe. Right. There's two ways to get sleep apnea, and there are lean people who have sleep apnea. Once again, we need not be so judgmental and assumptive. Everyone in a larger body isn't necessarily ill, and everyone who is lean isn't necessarily healthy.

Yeah.

About 40% of the people with type 2 diabetes have no weight problem per se, but they still have type 2 diabetes.

Do you know, I don't know if it was before I talked to you or after I talked to you, but I went to an endocrinologist because I think it Might have been after I was just obviously crossing all T's, dotting I's, and the endocrinologist saw me for five minutes. The first thing he said to me was, you're not overweight. Why are you here? And I could not believe that an endocrinologist said that. I mean, you know, like, what does that have to do.

Okay, that's a double face, Paul.

Yeah, I mean, like, what does it have to do?

I mean, we're not, we're not psychic, you know, I was so appalled.

I was.

Yeah, like should be appalled. Right. Because you're there for them to be a detective, not be lazy bones and to do their job.

Yeah.

No, it's crazy who have lung cancer, who've never smoked anything. I mean, it's just silly that people in the world of medicine think like this.

But I was also told to go on metformin before fully understanding what was happening. And for me, that would have been extremely dangerous because I also get massive low blood sugar.

So.

So can you. I would. I'm curious about your thoughts on metformin and then I'm going to ask you about the big trendy one right after that.

I knew that was coming. Yeah. So when it comes to metformin, I feel like if someone has the lifestyle side of this where they've got problems with stress, they've got problems with sleep, they're not exercising, they have a sedentary life, they're eating a lot of processed food, they may be undereating or overeating. Both sides of that can cause trouble, especially for women. Our metabolism tends to be a little more fine tuned, I think because we biologically have the potential to bring life into this world. Our metabolic situation is different than males. It just is. And we have to acknowledge that. With that. I feel like metformin buys people time to correct the lifestyle side. Right. For those five factors that make the most difference for blood sugar control, the meal timing, nutrition, exercise, stress, and sleep. Having said that, for some people it's enough of a jolt once they realize they're on this prescription med, that they're like, whoa, I got to take this seriously. And now they get into action and they take charge and they make the differences that they need to make and they go and they seek education and they put it together and they put people on their health team who can help them get the result. Other people just feel like, especially if it's a prediabetes diagnosis, sometimes people are like, eh, no big deal. Everybody I know has it. I'm in the club, too, now, or my family has it, I'm doomed, which is the world's worst thinking. That's not true. You know, I'm living proof it's not true. You don't have to wind up this in this situation, but you need to know what to do. And in that, I feel like Metformin, like any drug, is buying people time. And they can decide, do you want yet more drugs and the side effects, or would you actually like to reverse this and be free of it? And are you willing to do the work? Because I want to be clear, it's not crazy work. It's not like you have to climb the Himalayas every day. It's not like that. But you do need to be strategic. And for most people, it's two or three things that are going to matter. Some of us are much more sensitive to the effect of stress than others, you know, because some people like Teflon, no matter what happens, it just rolls right off. Other people's things stick. We all know that. And sometimes within the course of a day, somebody could insult you. You don't care. You might, you know, insult them back and keep right on rolling. And another moment, oh, it might go in deep, right?

Oh, my gosh.

The same is true with sleep. You know, some of us are more sensitive to the effects of sleep. Some people are more sensitive to the effects of the time of day they eat their meal or the kinds of food that they eat. We all know people who can eat a ridiculous amount of carbs and seemingly be. Well, this assumes, though, that what you see on the outside matches on the inside. Unless you've done lab testing, you don't know if they're.

Well, you don't. You don't. And that's another that risk, again, goes to with Metformin. If we don't really know why your blood sugar's high and you're just automatically going to it. And if you have type 1, 1.5 diabetes, for instance, and you go on that. It's dangerous.

Yeah, I was going to say with 1.5, because you could. You get dragged too low. It's a real risk.

Yeah.

Which is dragged too much.

Which happened to mine. Mine went severely low because of. Because of that for the three days I was on it. Okay, let's talk about the trendy one.

Okay.

One that everyone's talking about. The weight loss line is Omnipack. Am I pronouncing that right? Yeah.

So we got Ozempic.

Okay.

And we got Manjaro and Wegovy. And yeah, so these are drugs that are originally designed for people who had type 2 diabetes or obesity. And those are the lanes that those drugs are in now. There's a lot of people who want to use them for generic weight loss, who want to lose like 5, 10, 15 pounds. That is not the purpose of those drugs. These, these are GLP1 drugs and they're meant to have a particular effect as a peptide in the brain and all the rest of the signaling that goes on throughout the body. I always caution people that when you misuse a potent drug, you are setting yourself up for a lot of risks. And let's be real, none of these things have been around for say, 40 years or 70 years or 120 years of human history. We don't know the long term effects. So if you aren't the one who's under mortal threat because of runaway problem with obesity or with out of control type 2 diabetes, it doesn't make sense to take that chance. You're opening up potentially Pandora's box to who knows what. It would be so much better to work on the lifestyle side of it. Because to me, honestly, you know, Natalie, I've always thought of all the chronic illnesses, in my opinion, the one that's the most sensitive to the lifestyle elements of nutrition and meal timing and exercise. Right. Stress and sleep is type 2 diabetes. You have five opportunities any given day for healing. Five of them. You have a potential to control it and to get better and to make your situation so much healthier. And a pill might not save you. You need to save you. And often what I find in that journey is that people's sense of self care and prioritization has usually been hijacked by life circumstances, whether it's overwhelming work, difficult family situation. I have one person I know who has a daughter who has a seizure disorder and it wakes her up every night, just about. She has really bad sleep at night, of course, with this situation. Despite that, though, she has made beautiful strides with her A1C. That's the ones you would think, oh, geez, this is impossible. It's not. Nope. She's done all the other four things because that one sleep thing, that fifth one, the wild card, what could she do, right? Yeah, I mean, I think people can do the best they can with what they know how, but we have to, certainly as health professionals, it's our job to give people that knowledge and to encourage them. That's why I say no blame, no shame, no judgment.

Yeah.

What's your deal? Let's meet you where you're at and help you get to where you need to go. So if we do these peptide therapies and we aren't actually in these categories and we aren't forgotten these categories or otherwise feeling completely out of control and no options, I think it's a mistake. I think you should try everything before you do that. But I also know in the world convention of medicine, the training isn't there around the key aspects of nutrition. How to talk to people about the macronutrients and the balances and proportions, what to do to help people who have food cravings, because that's real. What if somebody has really bad problem with stress and or sleep, both of which will exacerbate cravings because of the relationship of our hormones called leptin and ghrelin. I call leptin and ghrelin the twin gremlins nobody talks about because those two will take away any semblance of willpower. The conversation on willpower is completely misleading and unhelpful. We don't have willpower. Right? In any given day, no matter who you are, whether you've got billions of dollars or you have no money, everyone gets the same 24 hours in a day. And in that 24 hours in a day, your body is designed to do certain things right. It's equal opportunity for people. But to talk about willpower, I think is really disingenuous. It's a lie. Because everybody in the course that 24 hour day gets about 15 minutes of willpower. And if you have to make a lot of decisions that are life essential in a short window, that 15 minutes.

You'Ve used it up makes sense.

It's not enough for other things. You just don't have the capacity. So why do we beat people up for this? Because it's not like that. Like I said, nobody gets out of bed in the morning saying how can I screw up my health today? Nobody does that. Right.

There's a couple important questions I want to make sure I ask you some things that you mentioned. You mentioned earlier that some people go to skipping lunch and that's not a good idea. And I want to talk about that because the what's people think they're supposed to do for blood sugar is go keto and intermittent fast. Go keto and intermittent fast. Like I hear that all the time. Blanket statement. And can you speak into that? Because what is actually happening when you skip a meal and why do you say that they should not do that?

Okay, so if you're skipping a meal, I'm Making the assumption you had breakfast and by accident didn't have lunch. Therefore in late afternoon, early evening, you are ravenous. Right. A lot of us, if we get really hungry, our, our ability to make good food choices often goes right out the window. And we'll just go for whatever's easy. And certainly if we're here in the US Whatever's easy is going to be fast food, plain and simple, full stop. Highly processed, low nutrient density, not much in the way of satiety, and often is filled with chemicals and other additives to make that food wildly palatable for some people. It's very palatable. And also it induces people to overeat. Most folks when they eat real food can eat healthy portions. It's when they eat processed food, they go hog wild. I remember when I was a little kid we would have little packets of. Trying to get it. Yeah. Little packets of like a, like potato chips or something like that. And it would be about the size of this. Right. And it was maybe 8 to 10 chips in there. Sodas were 4 to 6 ounces. If you went out to a restaurant and got orange juice or if you were at home, we had juice glasses, they were 4 ounces.

Wow.

It wasn't these 32 ounce 64 ounce jugs. I mean it's crazy. No wonder we're supersized. It's a real problem, right?

Yeah.

So when you look at it, you just go, oh my gosh, what a setup. Of course people are having a trouble. And then I think we live in a very stressful world. I was talking to a dear friend who was a writer yesterday and one of the things we talked about was Cortisol Nation. I think we are all stressed and we don't even realize how much we're stressed. We're like the story of the pot, of the frog in the pot on the stove. You know, you put the frog in the pot on the stove, a little bit of water and you start turning the heat up just a little bit, a little bit. And poor froggy can't even tell it's getting boiled. And I think that's most of us with the amount of stress we are under, you don't even realize it.

And cortisol affects blood sugar too.

Hugely.

Cortisol, I've noticed I can take my fasting blood sugar, have it be 90, then get up. Not eating yet. Just check emails, whatever and check it again. And it's 125. Like it literally that much of a jump from cortisol?

Absolutely.

And if you Imagine that happening all day long. Now you're eating, you're eating your low glycemic meal, thinking you're doing great, but you have the cortisol. You are continually creating a blood sugar problem, continually.

And you don't even know it. So if you aren't testing this and you're guessing, you know that's why I talk about symptoms, right? So if people are doing the face plan, after they eat a meal, they go into that food coma. Maybe they find that they're having a hard time making decisions. And maybe your person's normally decisive, maybe your energy, your natural energy, your mitochondrial energy, to get up off the couch and go exercise or to wake up in the morning and exercise in a fasted state. If you start to find that your core behaviors are shifting and you don't know why, it could be that it is blood sugar. It may not just be a midlife transition for menopause, for women, it can be more nuanced. Definitely.

Gosh, you have so much good information. I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours, but I'm not going to do that. I'll probably have to have you on for a part two at some point. Where can people find you? Because obviously you've got a new book coming out, you've got you, you, you are up to so many great things. How does someone work with you? How do they learn more? Especially if they're struggling with this.

Sure. They're welcome to go to my website, which is Dr. Like the abbreviation for Dr. Dr. B E V E R L Y Y a t e s dot com. So Dr. Beverlyates dot com. They can also go to natural health to care dot com and we have programs there for people who have prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, you know, supplements to support them. But I really want people to make these journeys personal and take it seriously because you can change your personal history and your family's history. You really have that much power, you.

Know, it's so good. And I'm going to say if you are newly struggling with a lab number, whatever, I mean, she. You're also a psychiatrist. I will say that because I reached out to her in a panic. She was on book writing day and she's like, okay, I can tell you're very panicked and your cortisol is not helping the situation.

We had a real conversation.

Yeah, so we did. And I had. But that 30 minute conversation and consult with you was super helpful because I was in a full panic and sometimes, you know, you all listening, you get a diagnosis or you hear something from a doctor and you're like, you don't know what to do with the information. And you're in your five minute appointment and you need to process. So even if you just need that and this is around your blood sugar and diabetes, I highly suggest you do a consult with her. Because I felt so empowered and calm and, like, had a plan after and I. And she just talked me off the ledge. So I will say that. So you're a therapist, too, so thank you for that.

Thank you, thank you. I know how dedicated you are to your wonderful work, your passion world. You know, you're such a health advocate and you're the great example of the person who should not be having a problem. So when you're having a problem, I know that there's a whole bunch of things that are now left open for to really take that deep dive, because you've already covered the basics. You got it. You know?

Yeah. Thank you so much, Dr. Yates. I appreciate.

You welcome and thank you for listening. You followed up beautifully. Good for you.