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Are these two categories of foods currently in your diet? If they are, depending on how often you’re including them, they could be worsening your type two diabetes and blood sugar metabolism. In this video, we’ll review what those foods are, how they impact blood sugar metabolism, and what to replace them with. I hope you enjoy.

Hey everyone, my name is Jeremiah Farias. I’m a registered dietitian and I’ve been researching health and wellness for over a decade now. I help adults suffering from blood sugar dysregulation issues, things like type two diabetes, pre -diabetes and low energy levels. I hope you enjoy today’s video. I argue that the two most problematic categories of foods for type two diabetes and overall health are refined and fortified grains and excessive amounts of polyunsaturated fats. I’ll dive into why I believe these foods are problematic.

and where they’re commonly found in our diet. Let’s start by looking at refined and fortified grains. I have three primary concerns, and I think there’s just three primary things to consider when thinking about refined and fortified grains. First has to do with their glucose carbohydrate content. Second has to do with the fortification of iron, the addition of iron within some of these products. And third,

the exposure to a compound called glyphosate. And again, I’ll go through each of these three primary concerns in depth. Let’s start with the glucose content. So in a previous video, I had reviewed why I recommend fruits, tubers, and squashes as primary carbohydrate sources. And one of the reasons I recommended these carbohydrates is their carbohydrate content includes both fructose and glucose, or the sugar content is glucose and fructose versus just glucose.

Grains are like refined grains and fortified grains are exclusively glucose. This means they can result in more of a spike in blood sugar relative to the other carbohydrates which contain a combination of glucose and fructose. This means more spike in glucose, more of an increased spike in insulin and a reliance on insulin to help store away the carbohydrate sources. And so,

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where fructose, because it doesn’t require insulin to be stored, instead it goes to the liver to be utilized by the liver, to be stored in the liver or sent out to circulation. And at the very last, it’s stored as fat, which those rates of the novel ligagenesis are very low in metabolically healthy humans. This is a concern around grains because of their exclusively glucose content. It can make it challenging for some to control

maintain good stable blood sugars while making grains a staple in their diet. The next concern that I have with the refined and fortified grains has to do with the addition of iron in a lot of these products. So iron is an essential trace mineral, and it’s very well known for its role in being a part of the hemoglobin molecule.

Hemoglobin is responsible for oxygenating the body via the blood. Iron is a mineral, a nutrient that we want the right amount of. Not too much, not too little. Too little, you have anemia, too much, and it increases oxidative stress within the body. And iron can accumulate in a variety of tissues, but we’ll go over three tissues as it relates to blood sugar metabolism,

and type two diabetes. The first tissue we wanna look at and more specifically an organ is the pancreas. Now the pancreas releases digestive enzymes and it releases hormones. One of the primary hormones is insulin, the other is glucagon. But interestingly enough, the beta cells of the pancreas which release insulin,

are more susceptible to iron accumulation. This has to do with the fact that they have something called divalent metal transporters on their surface, which allow iron to freely come in. And so there’s no sort of break or stop gap. And when you have a high amount of iron within the body that could be coming from refined and fortified grains,

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This can allow iron to accumulate in the beta cell, cause oxidative stress within the beta cell and lead to dysfunction, cell death. And this means if you have dysfunctional beta cells, you’re not sufficiently releasing insulin, not only producing, but also releasing. And this can result in poor glucose control, glucose metabolism. The next tissue organ that we’re gonna look at is the liver. So,

High iron levels in the liver can result in cirrhosis or scarring. Scarring is going to negatively impact how the liver functions. And iron overload within the liver can aggravate insulin resistance and increase glucose production by the liver. And if you recall in previous videos, a key feature of type two diabetes is this hepatic glucose production and release.

an increase in gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis is when we take proteins and fats and convert them to glucose. And so high iron can further exacerbate blood glucose levels in type two diabetes.

Hey everyone, I wanted to take a quick break from the content and share with you a free guide that I created. It’s titled, Five Steps to Improving Your Blood Sugar Metabolism. In it, you’re gonna find a lot of practical information that you can begin implementing today to start changing the way that your body uses glucose in the cell. And if you’ve checked out any of my previous videos, this is what I believe is the primary culprit that’s driving blood sugar metabolism issues like type 2 diabetes and pre -diabetes. You’re gonna get specific information going over,

the importance of protein, the types of protein to consume and how to even calculate how much protein should you be having on a regular basis? The quality of carbohydrates you should be including in your diet. Again, previous videos I’ve gone over highlight carbohydrates aren’t the problem. It’s your body’s ability to utilize them. However, quality of carbohydrates, quality of food do matter. And so in this guide, you’ll find information on the carbohydrates, certain fats that we want to avoid or limit.

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and the others that we want to include and prioritize along with a lot more information. You’ll be able to find the link to download this guide in the description below. So the next tissue that we’re gonna be looking at is adipose tissue, otherwise known as fat tissue. So when iron accumulates at high levels in body fat, this results in a decrease of a hormone called adiponectin. Now adiponectin,

is responsible for improving insulin sensitivity, meaning the various cells of the body are more sensitive or responsive to insulin, less can do more. It lowers hepatic glucose production. So the amount of glucose that the liver is producing and releasing into the bloodstream adiponectin increases glucose and fatty acid oxidation within the muscle cells.

not only its uptake and also its utilization. So low levels of adiponectin can make it so our body requires more insulin and it can result in blood sugars rising because the liver is continuing to release more and more glucose and glucose levels are also rising because muscle cells are not taking up glucose and are not utilizing the glucose within their own cells.

So as you can see, this results in some problems as it relates to blood sugar regulation because of iron accumulation in the adipose and fat tissue. And one last area that I wanted to mention is the gastrointestinal tract. So iron fortified foods like these grains that we’re discussing and even certain iron supplements, they contain a form of iron.

that feed microbes in the gut and result in oxidative stress within the intestinal tract. When you have this oxidative stress within the intestines, you increase inflammation, you increase something called intestinal permeability, otherwise known as leaky gut. And this can result in a release of a compound called endotoxin, otherwise called LPS, lipopolysaccharine, which can enter circulation and cause a lot of

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damage within the body. Endotoxin will cause insulin resistance in the liver because endotoxin is uniquely toxic to the liver because the liver is responsible for detoxifying endotoxin. So the free iron that is found in these fortified refined grains also causes some oxidative stress within the intestinal tract that’s also related to type two diabetes.

So the last problem that I wanted to discuss when it comes to refined and fortified grains has to do with the presence of something called glyphosate. Glyphosate is the main ingredient in a weed killer called Roundup. And it’s now the most widely used chemical herbicide in history. It’s not only used as an herbicide on GMO crops, but it’s also sprayed on some non -GMO crops and grains as a desiccant, meaning it speeds up the drying process to push harvest up.

by a few weeks. In one paper, the authors mentioned that glyphosate residues on food could cause dysbiosis, given that opportunistic pathogens are more resistant to glyphosate compared to commensal bacteria. This means that the beneficial, otherwise referred to as commensal bacteria, they’re more affected by glyphosate, where the…

more pathogenic bacteria, more harmful bacteria, they’re resistant to the effects of glyphosate. And so this can then result in a situation where you have an imbalance of bacteria, beneficial relative to good bacteria, that’s called dysbiosis. And anything that causes inflammation, irritation, disruption to the digestive tract should be avoided. But,

Additionally, glyphosate causes numerous other issues in the body. Glyphosate is markedly toxic to the liver and it will actually deplete the liver of glutathione, which is a mass for antioxidant. This can further induce increased oxidative stress within the liver and increases the risk of fatty liver disease. As I previously mentioned, the liver is crucial for regulating blood sugar and optimizing blood sugar metabolism. So,

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This is the final reason I recommend avoiding and limiting refined and fortified grains. So where are you going to encounter these refined fortified grains? Any sort of process packaged bread product is likely going to be made up of these refined fortified grains. If you’re eating out, fast food, restaurant food, the bread products again are likely going to use these grains. And so by avoiding those,

you’re going to dramatically reduce your intake of these products and these refined fortified grains. Now, if you’re going to consume grains in general, at a minimum, because of the exposure to glyphosate, I recommend opting for organic grains to further enhance their digestibility, their increasing the tolerance to grains, properly preparing them by soaking, sprouting, fermenting,

really does make a difference for some people who are uniquely sensitive to compounds and grains like gluten. The proper preparation also reduces some anti -nutrients like phytic acids, and this again might be helpful. Now, grains might not be the best choice for carbohydrates because of their glucose content. That’s something that one should experiment with.

And still I recommend making the vast majority of carbohydrates from the fruits, tubers and squashes. But of course you can experiment with some of these high quality grains, see how you uniquely do with them, how you tolerate them from a digestive standpoint. This is the end of part one, where we looked into how refined and fortified grains can negatively impact blood sugar metabolism. Stay tuned for part two next week, where we’ll look into the problems with excessive amounts of polyunsaturated fats.

as they relate to type 2 diabetes. I hope you enjoyed today’s video. If you any questions about the content that I reviewed in today’s video, let me know down in the comments. You can also request topics that you’d like me to cover in the future. If you’re interested in working one -on -one with me, the best place to start is scheduling a free 30 -minute discovery call that I offer. I am credentials with a couple of insurance companies, so there will be a link in the description that allows you to check if I accept your insurance. Don’t forget to download my free guide,

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five steps to improving your blood sugar metabolism, that link will also be in the description. If you enjoyed this video, please don’t forget to give it a thumbs up, share it with someone that you think would benefit and enjoy it. And also don’t forget to subscribe. I’ll be releasing new videos every week and I don’t want you to miss those. Thanks again for taking the time to watch this video. Take care, have a wonderful day.