[00:00] If your blood sugar is too high for too long,&nbsp; that can cause massive damage. And the truth is,&nbsp;&nbsp; keeping your blood sugar under control is very&nbsp; doable. You can do it even without giving up&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:12] things like bread or pasta if you know what to&nbsp; do. So, today we're talking about how to control&nbsp;&nbsp; blood sugar spikes, how to reduce them, everything&nbsp; backed by science. And at the end of the video,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:24] I want to share a natural supplement that can&nbsp; help as well. And the best way to sweeten your&nbsp;&nbsp; foods that doesn't cause blood sugar spikes,&nbsp; but actually reduces them. Here's the first&nbsp;&nbsp; hack. What if you could cut your blood sugar&nbsp; spike in half without removing a single carb&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:41] from your plate? Scientists have shown this is&nbsp; actually possible using peanut butter. First,&nbsp;&nbsp; they had people eat a meal that causes&nbsp; blood sugar to go up, orange juice,&nbsp;&nbsp; and a bagel with some butter in it. But when&nbsp; they used peanut butter instead, same bagel,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:57] same orange juice, the blood sugar spike was&nbsp; cut by 55%. More than half, not one gram of&nbsp;&nbsp; carbs was taken out. And yet, the spike was cut&nbsp; in half. How is that possible? Well, the protein&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:12] in peanut butter slows down the digestion in our&nbsp; gut so that the carbohydrates are absorbed more&nbsp;&nbsp; slowly and the blood sugar spike is smoothened.&nbsp; Protein also stimulates the production of insulin&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:26] which pulls sugar from our blood. So it's less&nbsp; about how much carbohydrate I eat and more about&nbsp;&nbsp; having my carbohydrates with the right company.&nbsp; This effect of protein has been shown many times.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:38] You can have an egg or some tofu or chicken breast&nbsp; or even a protein shake with some protein powder&nbsp;&nbsp; together with that carbier food and that reduces&nbsp; the blood sugar response. Protein is so powerful,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:51] some trials even show it working on the next meal.&nbsp; So you add some protein at breakfast, it smoothens&nbsp;&nbsp; that blood sugar response after breakfast and&nbsp; the one after lunch. But protein is not the&nbsp;&nbsp; only thing that works. The same team of scientists&nbsp; found that apple cider vinegar has a very similar&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:09] effect. They had the participants take 1 to two&nbsp; tablespoons of apple cider vinegar mixed in water&nbsp;&nbsp; before the meal and that blunted the sugar spike&nbsp; by 55%. Similar to the peanut butter. They report&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:23] that this blunting effect was stronger for meals&nbsp; that cause a larger spike, which makes sense,&nbsp;&nbsp; right? There's more room for improvement. Now, fat&nbsp; and fiber can also have a blunting effect. Not as&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:36] powerful as protein, to a lesser extent, but they&nbsp; also work. This even works with purified fiber,&nbsp;&nbsp; psyllium husk, which is a supplement. It's just&nbsp; fiber purified. Adding that to a meal lowers blood&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:48] sugar spikes. And the great news is the effect of&nbsp; fiber and fat are independent from the effect of&nbsp;&nbsp; protein. So you can use them all at the same time&nbsp; in the same meal and get the largest effect. Okay,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:00] another trick is to change the order of the foods&nbsp; that we eat. One randomized trial gave people the&nbsp;&nbsp; same foods, some bread, some orange juice, some&nbsp; chicken, and a salad, but in different orders.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:13] When they ate their carbohydrates first, the bread&nbsp; and the orange juice first, and the chicken and&nbsp;&nbsp; the vegetables last, they saw the largest blood&nbsp; sugar spike. But when they had the chicken and the&nbsp;&nbsp; vegetables first and the carbs last, the spike was&nbsp; cut in half. When they ate everything together,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:30] the spike was a little lower than when they&nbsp; ate the carbs first, but larger than when&nbsp;&nbsp; they ate the carbs last. So, same exact foods,&nbsp; nothing added, nothing taken away, completely&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:43] different sugar response. Okay, the next hack&nbsp; is possibly the most important one. But first,&nbsp;&nbsp; is it only diabetics who benefit from these tips?&nbsp; Pre-diabetics can also benefit. Their blood sugar&nbsp;&nbsp; is not quite as bad as a full-blown diabetic, but&nbsp; it's already abnormal, too high for too long. And&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:01] some people have the opposite problem. Some time&nbsp; after eating, their blood sugar gets too low and&nbsp;&nbsp; they can feel light-headed and tired and dizzy.&nbsp; If you have that problem, you might benefit from&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:13] these tips as well because smoothening the blood&nbsp; sugar spike helps prevent the dips. Otherwise, for&nbsp;&nbsp; a healthy individual with no blood sugar issues,&nbsp; your blood sugar going up after a meal and coming&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:25] back down is completely normal, healthy, and not&nbsp; harmful. In fact, some of the healthiest foods on&nbsp;&nbsp; the planet like unprocessed whole fruit do exactly&nbsp; that. And people who eat more fruit have a lower&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:37] risk of developing diabetes and heart disease. So,&nbsp; very important distinction. The danger is not a&nbsp;&nbsp; normal blood sugar rise after a meal in a healthy&nbsp; individual. It's an abnormal spike that is too&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:50] high and too long in the context of disease like&nbsp; diabetes. So, you want to be careful with internet&nbsp;&nbsp; content that fearmongers and tells people they&nbsp; want to keep their glucose flat all day. Being&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:03] scared of an apple because it raises blood sugar&nbsp; is like being scared of exercise because it raises&nbsp;&nbsp; heart rate. It's completely missing the point.&nbsp; We have a whole video going over what's a normal&nbsp;&nbsp; spike and what's an excessive dangerous spike.&nbsp; I'll link that in the end. But now, let's go on to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:19] the next hack, which is choosing the right carbs.&nbsp; Replacing refined starches like white bread,&nbsp;&nbsp; artificial sugary cereals or soda or candy with&nbsp; unprocessed whole grains like steel cut oats,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:37] whole grain or sourdough bread or wild rice can&nbsp; completely change your blood sugar response.&nbsp;&nbsp; One trial out of Australia found that whole grain&nbsp; bread reduced blood sugar response compared to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:51] white bread by 35 to 40%. And a systematic review&nbsp; and meta-analysis found that unprocessed oats like&nbsp;&nbsp; steel cut oats or old-fashioned rolled oats caused&nbsp; a smaller blood sugar rise than instant oats which&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:08] are chopped and precooked and often have sugar&nbsp; added to them. And with a completely unprocessed&nbsp;&nbsp; oat grain, what we call oat groats, the blood&nbsp; sugar spike was a little smaller still. It was the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:20] smallest of all. So the more intact the food is,&nbsp; the smaller the sugar spike. And that's because&nbsp;&nbsp; digestion takes longer. Your body needs to work&nbsp; harder to get at the nutrients, to separate and to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:33] absorb them. And so the carbohydrates get absorbed&nbsp; more gradually and the sugar spike is smoothed.&nbsp;&nbsp; Okay another way to transform your carbohydrates&nbsp; is to cool them overnight in the fridge. One trial&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:45] found that cooling pasta after cooking it reduced&nbsp; blood sugar response by 15%. This works because&nbsp;&nbsp; cooling foods that contain starch transforms&nbsp; starch. So, it's no longer broken down in our&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:00] small intestine and absorbed. This is what we call&nbsp; resistant starch. But if you want to call it the&nbsp;&nbsp; cool starch or the cool carbs, that's okay with&nbsp; me, too. Resistant starch is also found naturally&nbsp;&nbsp; in foods like lentils. One trial found that having&nbsp; white rice or potatoes with some lentils instead&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:17] of by themselves reduced the blood sugar response&nbsp; by 20 to 35%. With lentils, you have several of&nbsp;&nbsp; these factors we talked about happening at the&nbsp; same time, right? You got resistant starch,&nbsp;&nbsp; you got some protein, and you got fiber. Okay,&nbsp; the next hack is less about the food itself.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:33] It's more about your body moving. Just going&nbsp; for a simple walk, a stroll after a meal, the&nbsp;&nbsp; exact same meal can reduce your blood sugar spike&nbsp; by 20 to 30%. When your muscles are activated,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:47] they take up sugar from the blood, so your blood&nbsp; sugar level comes down. Okay, next we're going&nbsp;&nbsp; to look at a natural supplement that can help a&nbsp; bit more. Just remember, as we're talking about&nbsp;&nbsp; spikes, the spikes are a manifestation. They're&nbsp; a consequence of the problem. And it's okay to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:03] try to control blood sugar spikes if they're&nbsp; excessive, but always bearing in mind the real&nbsp;&nbsp; goal is to fix the underlying metabolic issue&nbsp; so that your blood sugar behaves normally. We&nbsp;&nbsp; have a whole video on reversing diabetes. I'll&nbsp; link that in the description. One big factor&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:20] is maintaining a healthy body weight, low body&nbsp; fat, and eating a healthy diet and exercising,&nbsp;&nbsp; a number of things we've been talking about, are&nbsp; important tips as well. Okay, here's a bonus hack.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:32] If instead of sugar, you sweeten your coffee,&nbsp; for example, with a sweetener called stevia or&nbsp;&nbsp; monk fruit, those don't cause a blood sugar spike,&nbsp; unlike regular sugar. And another sweetener called&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:45] allulose even reduces blood sugar spikes. So, you&nbsp; can have the exact same meal, add allulose to it,&nbsp;&nbsp; and the blood sugar spike is lower than the&nbsp; same meal without the allulose. This is a great&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:58] hack for people with diabetes, pre-diabetes, etc.&nbsp; Okay, let's talk about supplements. Mulberry leaf&nbsp;&nbsp; extract is a natural supplement, widely available,&nbsp; that's been shown in scientific studies to reduce&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:12] blood sugar spikes by up to 40%. And berberine is&nbsp; another one that's been shown in meta analyses to&nbsp;&nbsp; reduce spikes by 18 points, 18 mg per deciliter.&nbsp; Very respectable drop. You want to be careful with&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:27] proprietary supplements sold by influencers on&nbsp; the internet. The vast majority has never been&nbsp;&nbsp; tested. All the supplements we've talked about&nbsp; are generic. You can find them everywhere. They're&nbsp;&nbsp; cheap and I don't sell them. So, I don't&nbsp; have a horse in the race. Also, consider&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:41] third-party tested brands because you never know&nbsp; with supplements how much is actually in the pill&nbsp;&nbsp; because regulation is so lax. And as always,&nbsp; talk to your doctor before you start something&nbsp;&nbsp; new. Okay. What's a normal healthy spike? And&nbsp; what's a spike that's too large and dangerous?&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:56] We covered all of that in this video right here.&nbsp; So, check it out and I'll see you in there.