[00:00] You've probably noticed that on social media,&nbsp; everyone's got a different diet that they all&nbsp;&nbsp; swear is the one to control your blood sugar. And&nbsp; if you're not doing their diet, you're doing it&nbsp;&nbsp; wrong. And I always hear from you guys, from my&nbsp; viewers, on how frustrating and how confusing&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:16] this all is. And a lot of you guys have been on&nbsp; many of these diets. You've tried the low fat&nbsp;&nbsp; and the low carb and the vegan and the keto. And&nbsp; the truth is, most people, not everyone, but most&nbsp;&nbsp; people struggle to stay on these diets long term.&nbsp; That is why in this video, I'm not going to sell&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:32] you some diet that I like and I want everybody to&nbsp; eat the same. Instead, we're going to talk about&nbsp;&nbsp; foods that have the most consistent scientific&nbsp; evidence behind them when it comes to diabetes,&nbsp;&nbsp; blood sugar, and hemoglobin A1C. And then you can&nbsp; integrate those foods into whatever diet works for&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:49] you. We'll also cover some foods that people often&nbsp; think are diabetes friendly but can actually cause&nbsp;&nbsp; harm. And at the end of the video, I want to share&nbsp; a supplement that has really impressive evidence&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:01] behind it and a cooking trick that most people are&nbsp; not using but can help you push that hemoglobin&nbsp;&nbsp; A1C even lower. So, when we look at all of these&nbsp; studies on lowering hemoglobin A1C, one thing that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:14] keeps popping up over and over are foods rich in&nbsp; magnesium. Hemoglobin A1C is a readout of average&nbsp;&nbsp; glucose levels over three months and magnesium&nbsp; has a powerful impact on glucose metabolism.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:28] When insulin binds to cells and regulates their&nbsp; function, magnesium is required for that process.&nbsp;&nbsp; Magnesium also promotes glucose transport into&nbsp; cells and out of circulation. So if we don't&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:42] have enough magnesium around, insulin doesn't&nbsp; work normally and we become insulin resistant.&nbsp;&nbsp; and glucose can't be transported into cells and&nbsp; out of circulation efficiently and we get higher&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:55] blood sugar levels. A great source of magnesium&nbsp; are tree nuts like almonds, walnuts, cashews and&nbsp;&nbsp; pecans. One meta analysis of randomized control&nbsp; trials showed that a diet emphasizing tree nuts&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:10] significantly lowered hemoglobin A1C and fasting&nbsp; blood sugar. As we go through all these tips and&nbsp;&nbsp; different foods, bear in mind the effects are&nbsp; usually stronger in diabetics because they have&nbsp;&nbsp; the highest hemoglobin A1C to begin with. Some of&nbsp; these strategies show some effect in pre-diabetes&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:27] as well, but more modest. And then the healthier&nbsp; the person, the less likely that you're going to&nbsp;&nbsp; see much of an effect. That all makes sense,&nbsp; right? Another food rich in magnesium are flax&nbsp;&nbsp; seeds, which have also been shown to help lower&nbsp; hemoglobin A1C. Okay. Another pattern that emerges&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:43] from all of these studies on hemoglobin A1C&nbsp; reduction are polyphenols. Polyphenols are natural&nbsp;&nbsp; compounds present in low glycemic index fruits&nbsp; like berries. Strawberries are great sources&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:57] of polyphenols, and citrus fruits. Pomegranates&nbsp; have polyphenols as well. Onions and some green&nbsp;&nbsp; vegetables like spinach, broccoli or asparagus.&nbsp; The reason polyphenols are so helpful is they have&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:10] an anti-inflammatory and also antioxidant effect&nbsp; and they also promote insulin sensitivity and&nbsp;&nbsp; all of these processes have a positive impact on&nbsp; your glucose metabolism. Now one polyphenol that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:22] is particularly powerful is curcumin. Curcumin&nbsp; is a bright yellow chemical present in turmeric&nbsp;&nbsp; which is a spice popular in Indian cuisine. A&nbsp; large meta analysis showed that curcumin helps&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:35] lower fasting blood sugar, HOMA-IR, which is a&nbsp; measure of insulin resistance, hemoglobin A1C,&nbsp;&nbsp; and fasting insulin. Here's how it works. Curcumin&nbsp; activates membrane transporters that allow glucose&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:48] to enter fat and muscle cells, and that helps&nbsp; reduce blood sugar levels. Curcumin also reduces&nbsp;&nbsp; the amount of glucose that is produced by your&nbsp; own liver and pumped into the bloodstream and it&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:00] also supports the function of the beta cells&nbsp; of your pancreas that produce insulin. So it&nbsp;&nbsp; improves insulin secretion and blood sugar&nbsp; control. Normally curcumin is not very well&nbsp;&nbsp; absorbed but there's a way to boost it, if you&nbsp; also include some black pepper in your recipe.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:16] Pepper contains a compound called pepperine. And&nbsp; pepperine powerfully promotes the absorption of&nbsp;&nbsp; curcumin by thousands of times. Okay. Another&nbsp; food that has been shown to help lower A1C is&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:28] garlic. When we crush garlic and we let it rest&nbsp; for a few minutes without cooking it right away,&nbsp;&nbsp; a compound is formed called allicin. And allicin&nbsp; enhances the function of the insulin receptor.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:40] So it helps insulin communicate with cells better&nbsp; and regulate their metabolism. Allicin also helps&nbsp;&nbsp; your body fight inflammation and oxidative stress&nbsp; and it also improves glucose metabolism in your&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:52] liver. All right. Another important nutrient to&nbsp; optimize A1C are healthy fats. When it comes to&nbsp;&nbsp; diabetes and blood sugar, all we hear about is&nbsp; carbs and sugar and sugars and carbs. But there's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:05] a lot of other nutrients that also play important&nbsp; roles. One meta analysis of 102 randomized control&nbsp;&nbsp; trials showed that unsaturated fats, both mono&nbsp; and polyunsaturated fats, lowered hemoglobin&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:17] A1C when eaten in place of refined starch added&nbsp; sugars or saturated fats. Where can we find these&nbsp;&nbsp; healthy mono and polyunsaturated fats? Well, in&nbsp; addition to nuts and seeds, which we've already&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:31] talked about, you can also find them in extra&nbsp; virgin olive oil. Fatty fish like salmon is&nbsp;&nbsp; another good source. Avocados and olives have&nbsp; them as well. One fat in particular, omega-3s,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:43] which are a type of polyunsaturated fatty acids&nbsp; that are found in seafood, fatty fish, seaweed,&nbsp;&nbsp; and walnuts have them as well. And omega-3s have&nbsp; been shown to help reduce fasting blood sugar,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:56] hemoglobin A1C, insulin resistance, triglycerides,&nbsp; and LDL cholesterol. Fish and seafood are also&nbsp;&nbsp; good sources of another important nutrient and&nbsp; that's protein. And protein is another nutrient&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:09] that can help lower hemoglobin A1C because it&nbsp; promotes insulin secretion from the pancreas.&nbsp;&nbsp; Protein is insulinogenic, and so it helps blood&nbsp; sugar control. And protein also promotes satiety,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:22] that feeling of fullness after meals. So that&nbsp; helps us lose some weight, some excess fat mass.&nbsp;&nbsp; And one of the most powerful triggers to lower&nbsp; hemoglobin A1C is to lose excess fat, especially&nbsp;&nbsp; visceral fat. This is why you see everybody on&nbsp; social media claiming their diet is the one that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:39] reverses diabetes. It usually comes down to weight&nbsp; loss. Weight loss consistently improves hemoglobin&nbsp;&nbsp; A1C, even on diets that are not healthy long term.&nbsp; So all of these ideas that are popular on social&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:52] media, if you want to reverse your diabetes, you&nbsp; need to cut all the fat from your diet. Anything&nbsp;&nbsp; fatty has to go. Fat causes diabetes. Or you&nbsp; need to cut any carbohydrate from your diet.&nbsp;&nbsp; Eating carbohydrates causes diabetes. Or you&nbsp; need to cut all animal foods from your diet.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:06] That's the only way to reverse diabetes. It's true&nbsp; that some people do well on these different diets.&nbsp;&nbsp; But none of that is necessary and none of that&nbsp; is the root cause of diabetes. We have plenty&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:19] of randomized trials reversing diabetes that do&nbsp; none of that. So carrying excess fat is bad news&nbsp;&nbsp; when it comes to glucose metabolism. And fat is&nbsp; especially bad when it's located in our visceral&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:32] organs inside the liver and the pancreas because&nbsp; it messes up their function. Our liver produces&nbsp;&nbsp; glucose when we're not eating, when we're fasting&nbsp; to prevent our blood sugar from getting too low,&nbsp;&nbsp; which is dangerous. And when everything's working&nbsp; normally, when we're healthy, the liver produces&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:47] just the right amount. And the pancreas tells the&nbsp; liver, "Hey, we got enough. you can stop" and the&nbsp;&nbsp; liver maintains that level in the healthy range.&nbsp; But excess fat inside these organs scrambles them.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:00] It messes up their function and the liver can keep&nbsp; making glucose and pumping it into circulation and&nbsp;&nbsp; our glucose level gets too high. This is why you&nbsp; can have high blood sugar in the morning. You're&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:13] fasted. You haven't eaten anything in 12 hours&nbsp; and your blood sugar is high. Your body made most&nbsp;&nbsp; of that. It didn't come from food. So, our blood&nbsp; sugar is about a lot more than just the sugar we&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:25] eat. So, it's a good idea to try to have some&nbsp; protein with most meals when you're trying to&nbsp;&nbsp; lower your A1C. Fatty fish, as we said, is a&nbsp; good source. A piece of grilled chicken breast&nbsp;&nbsp; is another good idea. Or legumes like lentils or&nbsp; tofu. Seitan is another good source of protein.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:42] Now, just like we want to favor healthy foods, we&nbsp; want to avoid the bad ones. And some of the worst&nbsp;&nbsp; offenders when it comes to putting on excess fat&nbsp; mass are highly processed carbohydrates and added&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:54] sugars. Sugary soda, pastries, cookies, cakes,&nbsp; sugary cereals like Lucky Charms or Cocoa Puffs.&nbsp;&nbsp; Replacing those foods with a source of healthy&nbsp; protein or a healthy fat or a low glycemic index,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:09] whole unprocessed carbohydrate like a non-starchy&nbsp; vegetable or a piece of fruit or a legume is a&nbsp;&nbsp; great move to improve your A1C. Another source of&nbsp; protein is dairy. And dairy is very heterogeneous.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:22] There's many different types. And we see the&nbsp; best results for probiotic fermented milk,&nbsp;&nbsp; also known as kefir. A meta analysis of randomized&nbsp; trials published recently, just 2024, showed&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:34] that kefir lowered fasting glucose, hemoglobin&nbsp; A1C, cholesterol levels, and the inflammatory&nbsp;&nbsp; marker C reactive protein. Another nutrient that&nbsp; consistently pops up in research with good results&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:46] is soluble fiber. This is a specific type of fiber&nbsp; that feeds your microbiome, the bugs in your gut,&nbsp;&nbsp; and allows them to produce short- chain fatty&nbsp; acids. And short- chain fatty acids reduce insulin&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:59] resistance. They boost the production of hormones&nbsp; by your gut that increase insulin secretion by the&nbsp;&nbsp; pancreas and they also improve glucose uptake into&nbsp; cells. One meta analysis found that adding some&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:11] soluble fiber to a diet was successful in reducing&nbsp; hemoglobin A1C. It also helped lower triglycerides&nbsp;&nbsp; and body weight. Foods rich in soluble fiber&nbsp; include chia seeds, kiwi, oranges, apples, some&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:24] green vegetables like okra or Brussels sprouts&nbsp; are good sources as well. And for people who&nbsp;&nbsp; have trouble tolerating a lot of fiber-containing&nbsp; foods, psyllium husk is one way to go. Psyllium&nbsp;&nbsp; husk is a powder that contains soluble fiber&nbsp; and you can drink it dissolved in water or in&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:40] a smoothie, for example. Okay, there's one last&nbsp; food that's actually more like a condiment that&nbsp;&nbsp; can help, and that's apple cider vinegar. Apple&nbsp; cider vinegar has been shown in randomized trials&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:52] to help lower hemoglobin A1C and fasting glucose,&nbsp; and it does that by slowing down the digestion&nbsp;&nbsp; of carbohydrates. The way most people take apple&nbsp; cider vinegar is they take one or two tablespoons&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:05] and they mix it in water and they drink that&nbsp; right before a meal or during a meal. Now,&nbsp;&nbsp; there are some foods that are sold as healthy, but&nbsp; can actually spell trouble for your blood sugar.&nbsp;&nbsp; Yogurt has a halo of a health food because it's a&nbsp; probiotic, but most flavored yogurts out there are&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:21] basically glorified candy. They have a lot of&nbsp; added sugars. If you want to have some yogurt,&nbsp;&nbsp; I would suggest some Greek yogurt, unsweetened,&nbsp; no sugar added. And if you want, you can add&nbsp;&nbsp; a piece of fruit or a non-sugary sweetener like&nbsp; stevia or allulose. Another treacherous one are&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:38] flavored instant oats. The oats in these products&nbsp; are precooked and chopped and they have a lot of&nbsp;&nbsp; sugar added. If you want to have some oats,&nbsp; you're much better off with steel cut oats,&nbsp;&nbsp; no sugar added, or rolled oats. And if you have&nbsp; glucose issues, you can tone down the glycemic&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:55] index of oats by mixing it with a protein source&nbsp; like milk for example or Greek yogurt. Or you can&nbsp;&nbsp; have it with berries. The polyphenols in berries&nbsp; help as well. Another tricky one is dried fruit,&nbsp;&nbsp; which is fine for a healthy person, but if&nbsp; you have a high A1C, you want to avoid large&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:11] portions of dried fruit because it's got a lot&nbsp; of concentrated sugar. All the water's been dried&nbsp;&nbsp; out. And dried fruit is much easier to overeat&nbsp; than the whole unprocessed fruit. Okay, before&nbsp;&nbsp; we talk about supplements, let's go over some food&nbsp; preparation tricks. This is less about what to eat&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:29] and more about how to eat it. One strategy that is&nbsp; fairly well known is to change the order in which&nbsp;&nbsp; you eat foods. One randomized trial asked patients&nbsp; with diabetes to eat vegetables before they ate&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:42] carbier foods. And after 2 years of maintaining&nbsp; this habit, they found that their hemoglobin A1C&nbsp;&nbsp; was significantly lower. So that's a pretty low&nbsp; barrier strategy for people who struggle making&nbsp;&nbsp; large changes to their diet. Can they change the&nbsp; order of the foods that they eat? And that can&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:59] help a bit. Another nifty trick has to do with&nbsp; resistant starch. And resistant starch is a type&nbsp;&nbsp; of carbohydrate that doesn't get broken down,&nbsp; doesn't get digested in the small intestine.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:11] That's where the name comes from, resistant, and&nbsp; it makes it to the large intestine where it then&nbsp;&nbsp; gets fermented by our microbiome. And resistant&nbsp; starch is found naturally in foods like legumes,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:24] whole grains, and also green bananas, unripe&nbsp; bananas. But you can also create your own&nbsp;&nbsp; resistant starch by cooking a starchy food like&nbsp; a potato or some pasta and then cooling it in the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:37] fridge overnight. This cooling process creates&nbsp; resistant starch in the food and the cool thing&nbsp;&nbsp; is (pun intended) that that resistant starch is&nbsp; resistant now to heating. So you can reheat the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:50] food all you want. The resistant starch is not&nbsp; destroyed. One meta analysis found that adding&nbsp;&nbsp; resistant starch to a diet reduced hemoglobin A1C,&nbsp; fasting blood sugar, insulin, cholesterol, and&nbsp;&nbsp; some inflammatory markers. Not bad for eating the&nbsp; exact same food with just one extra preparation&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:06] step. Okay, let's talk about supplements. And&nbsp; one supplement that has impressive results when&nbsp;&nbsp; it comes to A1C is berberine. Berberine is the&nbsp; active component of a herb that is often used in&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:18] Chinese traditional medicine. A meta analysis of&nbsp; 46 randomized control trials found that berberine&nbsp;&nbsp; helped reduce hemoglobin A1C when compared to&nbsp; a placebo. And the impressive part is that this&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:31] effect was similar to what we see with some&nbsp; diabetes medications like metformin. So they&nbsp;&nbsp; saw a similar reduction for metformin or berberine&nbsp; and then they saw an additive effect. When you add&nbsp;&nbsp; both then the reduction was even more impressive.&nbsp; Berberine has even been tested in pre-diabetics&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:48] and average hemoglobin A1C dropped all the way&nbsp; to the normal range. Some side effects have been&nbsp;&nbsp; reported like with any drug or supplement ever.&nbsp; Some people report GI distress. That's the most&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:00] common one. Couple important things. If you decide&nbsp; to take berberine, consider a brand that is third&nbsp;&nbsp; party tested because with supplements, it's&nbsp; always so hard to know what's actually in the&nbsp;&nbsp; pill because there's almost no regulation. So they&nbsp; can actually advertise one dosage on the packet&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:16] and then inside the pill you can have a lot more&nbsp; or a lot less. And as always work with your doctor&nbsp;&nbsp; because berberine can interact with other meds&nbsp; including diabetes meds and you want to keep an&nbsp;&nbsp; eye on your glucose. You don't want that to drop&nbsp; too low too fast. That's dangerous. And finally,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:33] vitamin D supplementation has also been shown&nbsp; in trials to help reduce hemoglobin A1C,&nbsp;&nbsp; especially in people who are vitamin D deficient,&nbsp; who are not getting enough vitamin D. Okay,&nbsp;&nbsp; what about exercise? Is there a workout&nbsp; that's best to lower A1C? We actually&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:49] covered that question in this previous video,&nbsp; so check it out and I'll meet you in there.