How to Reverse Insulin Resistance Naturally in 30 Days

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1:29Now today I'll be talking about insulin resistance, why it's skyrocketing in the United States, in the Western world, in the exact diet, lifestyle, supplements and herbs that have been proven with science to help you reverse insulin resistance, help balance your blood sugar and heal your body at the cellular level. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Yack Show.

2:07Now, this is an incredibly important episode because so many people are struggling with insulin resistance. And first off, I want to let you know what insulin is. Insulin is a hormone. It's actually a peptide, tripeptide hormone, that is critical for bringing sugar into your cell. And once that sugar is into your cell, your body can use it, your mitochondria can use it, your mitochondria and your cells can use that to create cellular energy. That energy then runs your organs, your cells gives you the energy you need to be healthy, to function properly, for your thyroid to produce the right amount of hormones, for your stomach to digest food, your body has to have cellular energy.

2:52and insulin is a critical hormone in that. Now, here's what happens. If you have insulin resistance, okay, and this is basically what happens is, this is where like if you would stand next to a really loud speaker and over time your hearing would go deaf, somebody would start talking to you and say, what'd you say? I can't hear you. If that happens over and over and over again, which is what happens to your cells, you have these things called insulin receptors. So they receive the hormone insulin. those can stop working. They basically break, okay, stop working. And then insulin can't go to the receptor site.

3:28So then now sugar can't be let inside your cell. It's like insulin is like the key, right? Insulin is a key to the door, unlocks the door, opens the door. Now sugar can get inside your cell. Well, if sugar can't get inside of your cell, it causes inflammation in your bloodstream. That inflammation then will set off an immune response, which will then lead to chronic pain can lead to autoimmune disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and then hormone disruption throughout your body because insulin also acts as a key to other things in your body, allowing other hormones to do their job like cortisol, estrogen, testosterone, and thyroid hormones.

4:07So it is critically important that you have proper levels of insulin. But here's the reality. Nearly 100 million American adults, more than one in three, the exact numbers, 38 % have prediabetes and over 80 % are unaware they have it. A global analysis estimates that 27 % of adults worldwide have insulin resistance or just under one in three. But again, in America, it's nearly 40%. I want you to sit back and really think about that. Okay. Just sit back thing about this. 40 % of American adults have prediabetes and insulin resistance. Okay. And this is going to increase your risk of every single health disease you can think of.

4:51And here's the other scary reality is that these numbers are also growing in children. In fact, we're going to have that number that's 40 % now, or 38 % exactly, will be at 50 % in the near future. So half of Americans, 50%, will have pre-diabetes and insulin resistance if we continue with the current trend here in the next 20 years. The International Diabetes Federation says rising rates of insulin resistance and diabetes is alarming, and really, it's an emergency. I know that we tend to worry about COVID-19, these sort of viruses or infections that are a threat to us. Pre-diabetes and insulin resistance, which is really tied to obesity and a number of other health issues, that is a much bigger risk.

5:41It kills way more people, way more people than something like COVID did or other types of viral threats. And the main cause of prediabetes in the United States and insulin resistance is the widespread consumption of ultra processed foods, which are highly palatable. They taste great. They're very calorie dense, but they are void of nutrition. Now let's compare the United States to other countries. Countries with a whole food traditional diets like Japan and certain blue zones, areas like parts of Greece and Italy, they have significantly lower rates of insulin resistance, often under 8%. We're at 38%.

6:23They're at 8%. This means that these countries have about one-fourth the rates that we do in the United States. And as I mentioned earlier, insulin resistance is a hormonal issue where your pancreas overproduces insulin in an attempt to lower your blood sugar. But, again, over time, they get burned out, they get broken, the receptor sites. Now, the good news, by the way, is you can repair these receptor sites. But what happens is they get broken, and so now the sugar stays in your bloodstream, And so your body produces more and more insulin to try and fix the problem. And then when you produce all this insulin, it's a hormone.

7:00So when one hormone gets off, all of your hormones get off in your body. And chronic insulin resistance has been linked to, of course, type 2 diabetes, but also heart disease, fatty liver disease, Alzheimer's, PCOS, infertility, and so much more. Low testosterone in men. So major, major health issues. And I want to walk you through the biggest metabolic contributors to insulin resistance. Here's what they are. Number one, of course, is obesity, especially from excess visceral fat. So many people don't know this. Your body fat is an organ, just like your muscles and organ, just like your heart is an organ and your liver is an organ.

7:43Your body fat acts as an organ. And when you have too much body fat, it actually causes your body to have more insulin resistance. It imbalances hormones. Your body will actually release or not release certain levels of leptin and ghrelin and other hormones, which will then cause insulin to be off. Another major contributing factor to insulin resistance is, of course, a poor diet that's high in added sugar, refined carbohydrates, and also ultra-processed foods. But other things also contribute. Lack of nutrient density in your diet, like our depleted soil today. A sedentary lifestyle where you're just not moving much, you're just sitting all day long.

8:25High levels of stress, poor sleep. And yes, there is a mild genetic component that can also contribute. There was a Journal of American Medical Association study. This was done on 45 ,000 participants. And they found that even mild elevations in your fasting blood sugar, especially combined with high body mass index, so if you're overweight, substantially increased the progression of diabetes, which is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. The CDC now estimates that one in every three adults has prediabetes. The signs are there long before a diagnosis, things like constant fatigue, stubborn belly fat, sugar cravings, brain fog, frequent urination, and increased thirst.

9:13And these are all symptoms of insulin resistance, the root cause behind most cases of type 2 diabetes. Now, here's the good news. This condition is completely reversible with the right diet, lifestyle, and healing herbs. And if you or someone you love is struggling with blood sugar issues, head over to DrAxeDiabetesClass.com to watch a free training on how to naturally balance your blood sugar and reverse your symptoms. That's DrAxeDiabetesClass.com to take back control of your health today. Now, as I mentioned earlier, one of the greatest contributing factors to insulin resistance is poor diet.

9:58And again, I just want to be so clear about this. You may think to yourself, well, I don't think I have insulin resistance. 80 % of people that have insulin resistance don't know they have it. Okay. If your energy is fluctuating up and down all the time, if you have PCS, if you're overweight, if you have blood sugar issues, then you have insulin resistance. Okay. 80 % of people that have it don't know they have it. Okay. That's the problem. That's the reality. and the biggest way to fix it, the most effective way to fix it is via your diet. Now, I wanna walk you through some studies and strategies that can help.

10:32Now, the first strategy here is for men, not as much for women due to the difference is in hormonal nature of men versus women. Doing time-restricted eating like intermittent fasting has been shown to balance insulin in men, okay? And so I think that is a good strategy for men. For women, I think you can get your eating window down to about nine hours where you're maybe eating at like 8 a.m. and noon and then again at 5 p.m., okay, within a 10-hour window or so, maybe even nine. I still want you doing three meals a day, though. That's fine. But only eating within a four - to six-hour window for women, it typically imbalances the hormone of most women.

11:14So it's not something you want to do in most cases. Not to say there's not some women in a group that are very, very healthy where their body can handle it, but the most it's going to be too big of a stressor on your hormonal system. The biggest thing, of course, that you want to resist to reverse insulin resistance is ultra-processed food. So it's fast food. It's the sodas. It's the stuff that all of you know you should be staying away from, and you want to eat more real whole foods. The biggest culprit, though, by far is going to be sugar and refined grains. that cause insulin resistance. So if you're doing, again, soft drinks, if you're doing anything with added sugar, added sugar and then refined carbs, white bread, white pasta, potato chips, those sort of things, they're going to contribute and cause the biggest problem.

12:04So again, stay away from processed sugar. And you want to make sure, and listen, highly processed fats and seed oils are not good for you either. And you want to stay away from those. that's probably secondary, but the biggest is refined carbs. You want to increase your content of protein, fiber, and healthy fat. That's the key. All right. That's the key right there. The most effective diets for reversing insulin resistance are whole food-based diets, Mediterranean diets, and diets that are more ancient nature, like a Biblio diet. These are diets that consist of eating real food and real food alone.

12:43When you look at a Mediterranean diet, It's high in wild caught fish. It's high in extra virgin olive oil. It's high in a lot of tropical fruits like citrus, right? It's eating that sort of diet. You look at a Biblio diet, what they ate in the Bible. It's a lot of pomegranates, it's figs, it's avocado, it's lots of olive oil there as well. It's lots of grass fed red meat, raw organic dairy, those sort of foods. But the key is this, high protein, high fiber, moderate fat, low moderate carb. Not low carb, not keto. You don't need to do that. You want to eat carbohydrates that are high fiber, high nutrient.

13:26So if you're choosing fruits or you're choosing carbohydrates, skip the white flour products, skip the, you know, refined pasta, you know, do pomegranate, do an apple, do berries, very high fiber, low glycemic fruits. Those are better options. Even sweet potato and butternut squash. Those are better carbohydrates for you to choose. Even quinoa and whole grain brown rice. Those are better options for you to choose from. And, but again, And those are more on the low to moderate amount. And you want to do high protein and high fiber. Here's one other thing I want to share with you. It's not good typically to do high carb at any meal, but high carb and high fat together will cause you to gain the most weight.

14:12Okay. So typically in the morning, what I recommend for my patients is do high protein, moderate carbohydrate for lunch, do high. And of course, high fiber for lunch, high protein, high fiber. and then you could do either carb or fat. And for dinner, high protein, high fat, no carbs, very low carbs, okay? That's sort of the ideal way to eat is lots of protein, lots of fiber, lots of nutrients in your food. And if you can do that with lots of organic meat, lots of vegetables, some fruits and healthy fats, you will heal, you will balance your insulin and you'll do it fast. Now, there are other things you can add in your diet, which I'll get into in a little bit as well.

14:55some specific herbs and supplements that will take your blood sugar to a whole new level as well and lower it to where it needs to be. And here's the great news is that these betas, they're called beta cells on your pancreas. There are certain types of cells that have these insulin receptors, right? That, that, that allow to help bring sugar inside the cell. You can repair those. You can heal those. You know, I had a patient actually had a couple. They were both professors in Nashville. Uh, we have a lot of great schools here in Nashville, Vanderbilt, Belmont, Lipscomb, Middle Tennessee State.

15:28There's a lot of great schools here. And they were both professors. They were both around 60 years old. And they came into my practice. I want to say he was about 60 pounds overweight. She was about 30 pounds overweight. And they'd been on type 2 diabetes medications for, she'd been on it for 10 years. He'd been on it for 25 years. And they just said, hey, we want to get healthy. We feel like we want to start aging well. And we reversed both of their type 2 diabetes off A1C levels, completely normalized, reversed it. For her, it took 40 days. For him, it was like 60 days. Completely off their medications.

16:04And by the way, I've seen this over and over again. I've been able to help thousands of patients completely reverse their type 2 diabetes, and some of them in as little as two weeks, complete reversal off their medications. You can do it. Your cells can heal and heal quickly. Certain cells heal faster than others, certain organs heal. Those insulin receptor cells heal very quickly. Your bones take a little bit longer to heal. Your brain tissue, your nerve tissue is probably the slowest healing, but those cells heal quickly. If you have insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, you can absolutely reverse it in most cases in 30 days.

16:46At the very max, most people can reverse it in 90 days. Complete reversal if you do the right things. One of the most important things to do, by the way, when you want to reverse insulin resistance is lose weight. A Yale University study revealed that a 10 % weight loss significantly reduced liver fat and reverse insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Weight loss itself is the strongest predictor of improving insulin sensitivity, whereas weight regain significantly predicted reduced insulin sensitivity. So your body weight, if you're storing onto much body fat, that is the single biggest predictor of insulin resistance.

17:27Now, that's not to say I haven't had patients I've worked with that came in that were the term that is oftentimes used as skinny, but fat and where your body is holding on to this body fat, even though you're fairly, you know, you might look skinny in the upper body, but you're still holding on a fair amount of body fat in your midsection. I still have had plenty of people that have been lean who have had insulin resistance in that way. But again, the single biggest thing to fix this is losing the excess body fat. You know, the most common medication prescribed for type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance is metformin.

18:03I want to say, though, that metformin does not come without major side effects. One of the side effects of metformin is that it depletes your body of vitamin B12 and numerous other nutrients. And so when you're taking this drug, your body is losing more B12 and more B12 and more B12 and a number of other B vitamins and nutrients. You know what's so crazy to me? There are even prominent doctors that you would recognize that are in the medical space who talk about longevity. and they themselves have promoted metformin, taking it like a vitamin, a longevity drug. And the reality is these people are highly unaware of the nutritional deficiencies it's causing.

18:48And so if you ever see a doctor saying, you should take metformin, it's a good longevity drug. Listen, I'm sure they can pull up a research study to show that metformin supports the body in some area. And maybe even with a group of people where they're severely diabetic, It will increase their longevity. I'm absolutely certain that there are research studies because I've seen those research studies myself. But the reality is, if you're comparing taking metformin to instead taking the supplements I'm going to hit on in a minute and changing your diet, that's the cure. Doctors should be sued for malpractice.

19:24If you come into their clinic, they prescribe metformin, and that's all they do. That's malpractice. Okay? It's violating the Hippocratic Oath. If it's first, do no harm, you're harming them and you're not doing the best thing for them. The first thing you should do is put them on a very specific diet, high in protein and fiber. You should give them the nutrients they need. If you're going to give them metformin, at the very least, also give them the nutrients along with the probiotics for absorption so their body doesn't become deficient while taking this medication. But that never happens. You know, there was a study, it's called the Diabetes Prevention Program that found that diet and exercise achieved nearly twice the risk reduction for progressing of type 2 diabetes compared to the medication metformin.

20:07So we have very clear evidence and data that diet recommendations and exercise are double, far, far more effective than the medication metformin. And they also don't have the serious side effects that come along with it. Do you have unexplainable illness, hormone dysfunction, weight loss resistance, brain fog, and you're tired of being dismissed when you know something isn't right? Well, get my at-home testing of targeted biomarkers, including hormones, thyroid, and metabolism, plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to help you understand your results. The truth is your doctor is probably reading your blood work all wrong.

20:48They're missing the cellular issues behind the symptoms. This new testing flips the script. The future of interpreting test results is here. I'm currently offering a simple at-home blood test that actually tests for the right things. And just as importantly, it comes with proper interpretation of your results. If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to mybloodwork.com now. Now, I want to revisit fasting. And I do think being aware of how much we eat and not overeating is important. But I think the biggest thing is more protein and fiber. Remember, protein, fiber, protein, fiber, protein, fiber.

21:25And you're going to get that from organic meat, vegetables, and high fiber fruits like apples, berries, and pomegranate. Okay, those are the absolute best there for you to be eating on a regular basis. And then maybe even some things like walnuts on occasion, right? So that's kind of the ideal there of what you should be consuming. Fasting can have its benefits. I would say if you are a woman and want to fast, then I would recommend fasting one day a week and not every day. Maybe you skip breakfast and lunch one day a week and then you eat dinner, but not overdoing it. Remember this, fasting is a type of stress on the body.

22:01And if you're already very stressed, let's say you have a condition like hypothyroidism or chronic fatigue or PCOS, your body's already stressed. Adding another stressor to it every day is going to be just far too much. This is another reason why for women, I'm a huge fan of infrared sauna. I'm not a fan of cold plunge, okay, if you're sick and ill. Men, I think, can do better with cold plunge long-term. Just remember, women and men, your bodies are different, okay? Women, sauna, sauna, sauna. Amazing for your body doing infrared or a regular sauna. Do that instead. Men, fasting in a little cold plunge, not too much, by the way, but a little bit, maybe a day or two a week.

22:41That's great for you, okay? but you want to really, for women, get in the sauna. Men, you could do cold plunge and you could do sauna. And men, you can do fasting as well. Women, if you're going to fast, do it like the early church did. They took one day a week and fasted. And maybe it's just breakfast or maybe it's breakfast and lunch. You spend that time in prayer. But you wouldn't want to do more than that for most women. Now, one other thing I want to mention, and this is important, is the amount you eat and the time of day matters. There's an ancient Chinese medicine, which of course is, this is a lot of what's inspired Japanese medicine today.

23:16We talked about this earlier. Japan is one of the two healthiest countries in the world, greatest longevity, lowest rates of insulin resistance. So what are they doing over there? Well, they were inspired with Chinese medicine, Kampo. That's part of their medical system over there. And they say this, eat like a king for breakfast, a popper for lunch, and a peasant for dinner. So basically they're saying, having a big breakfast is great. Your body can handle it. That's when your digestive system is the strongest. You just got off a fast. Lunch, eat a moderate meal. Dinner, eat a small meal. Now, whether, you know, I tend to do more of a, you know, I eat my bigger meals at breakfast and lunch and try not to eat a real big dinner.

23:57I eat dinner. I eat until I'm 70 % full. Then I stop. Okay. Studies have shown that if you ate a big meal at 8 a.m. versus a big meal at 8 p.m., it impacts your body very, very differently. Okay. If you eat a big meal at 8 p.m., you are much, much more likely to store that as fat and for it to cause insulin issues than if you had your big meal for breakfast. So just remember that, okay? That the time of day, what you eat at what times matters. Again, remember, more carbs in the morning, less carbs at night, more fat at night, okay? And high protein throughout the day. That's the key to healing.

24:34Now let's talk about exercise, sleep, and stress before we get into the supplements. Both resistance training and aerobic activity significantly enhance insulin sensitivity and glucose disposal. On the other hand, stress and sleep deprivation elevate cortisol, which, listen, here's what happens. When cortisol goes up, insulin-resistant goes up, okay? And so stress, being in a fight-or-flight state all the time, causes that insulin-resistance issue. Cortisol is this master hormone that sort of causes every other hormone in your body to get imbalanced. This is why having a practice of gratitude, spending time in prayer, meditation, having good sleep hygiene, right?

25:18When you're at night, not being on your devices or on TV. Again, maybe you stop that at 7 o 'clock or 8 at the latest, and then it's one to two hours before bed. You're reading a book, connecting with family, spending time in prayer, reading your Bible, personal growth book, or just a novel for fun, that's what you should be doing at night, okay? It's gonna help you get better sleep. That's also gonna help your blood sugar and your hormones. There was a study done on exercise. This was published in the Journal of American Medical Association in 2010. And they found that patients with type 2 diabetes found that a combination of aerobic and resistance training lowered ABA1C levels more than either alone in the control group.

25:59So the reality is you wanna do both weight training and aerobic training. Now, here's the ideal. And I remember reading a medical study years ago on this of what had the biggest difference. The ideal is, let's say if you could work out one hour, three days a week, okay, one hour, three days a week, or even 45 minutes, three days a week, something like that, okay? What you'd want to do is start off with the first two thirds or or so, or three, four should be weight training. And then the last bit should be cardiovascular exercise. Okay. So like, here's what it looks like for me. Like I went in this morning and I'll pick a few body parts and let's say I work out more than this, but if I did three days a week, one day I would do legs, uh, in core.

26:44Another day I might do back and chest. Another day I might do arms and maybe more intense cardio or something like that. And then what I'll do. So if I go in, I'll do 45 minutes of weight training. And then my last 15 minutes, I'll do aerobic cardio or I'll do a five minute warmup and it'll end with 10 minutes of cardio. Okay. Some sort of ratio like that, where you're doing at least a little more weight training than cardio. That's the ideal for you losing the most amount of weight in the most instant resistance. And when you do your cardio, it's best to do some of those intervals where you're going hard one minute, easy for a minute.