#917 Diabetes Myths: Reversing Your Diabetes

May 23, 2023Scott Benner

A brand new series examining the myths surrounding diabetes.

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Scott Benner 00:00 Hello friends and welcome to episode 917 of the Juicebox Podcast. Well welcome back everybody, this is the third in the diabetes myth series. Today Jenny Smith and I are going to be talking about that old chestnut reversing your diabetes. While you're listening today. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. Speaking of being bold, take care of your health better. health.com forward slash juicebox when you get therapy at my link, you'll save 10% off your first month of therapy betterhelp.com forward slash juicebox speaking of saving money, how about 35% off your entire order at cozy earth.com incredibly comfortable sheets, towels and clothing. I love it all. I'm not kidding. It's incredibly, incredibly soft and luxurious. I can't believe I'm using the word luxurious but save 35% off your order at cozy earth.com And of course athletic greens.com forward slash juice box, a free five travel packs and a year supply of vitamin D with your first order. I asked Chet GPT to write me an ad for the Omni pod five. And it tells me even puts in where I'm supposed to put music this is interesting. Here's what I'm supposed to say. This episode is brought to you by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod five insulin pump. If you're living with diabetes, managing your insulin levels is a crucial part of your daily routine. That's why Omni pod has designed the Omni pod five, a device that's transforming the way people with diabetes live their lives. But this isn't bad. I'm sorry. Back to the deep voice. The AMI pod five is a tubeless wearable insulin pump that adapts to your lifestyle. Its discreet, waterproof, and designed for ultimate comfort. The state of the art pump automatically adjusts insulin delivery based on your glucose levels and trends. taking the guesswork out of diabetes management once it's good, it should say we used with a Dexcom G six. We've oh my gosh, safety is always a priority. But it's time to experience the freedom and flexibility that comes with the Omni pod five insulin pump, visit Omni pod.com forward slash juice box to learn more and take the first step towards a better life with diabetes. That's Omni pod.com forward slash juice box make the switch Dami pod Vive and discover the difference for yourself. That's amazing. The machines are taking over people. That's pretty cool, huh? Anyway, Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox, check out the Omni pod five, if you want that algorithm with the Dexcom G six. Or if you want the Omni pod dash and you're not looking for the algorithm, you can get started with that as well. At my link, we use the links here supporting the show. Those links are available at juicebox podcast.com by typing them into a browser or in the show notes of the podcast player you're listening to now. Now let me say just write me an ad for athletic greens. Hold on a second. I might be onto something here. Alright, everybody, we are back for the third installment of the diabetes myth series. I am now artfully talking around vs at the end of the word. And Jenny has a head cold. So Jenny sounds like a waitress in a diner on the road. Nobody drives on so hi.

Unknown Speaker 03:51 I do. Yes.

Scott Benner 03:53 But she she promises me that her voice doesn't hurt. So we we press on for you, the good people who are waiting for the diabetes myth series. Today, Jenny, we are going to tackle the myth that diabetes can be reversed. So if you have type one, and you hear this to two possible things happen, either you get very angry because that's not true. Or you're newer diagnosed and you think oh maybe that is true. And then you see the people who are like, what if I just What if we just could I just eat like and then that conversation starts up. The first thing I have from from the listener here says they were told to quote just lose weight, eat healthy and exercise and that's it, their diabetes will be reversed. Where do you think that comes from?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 04:54 I think it's kind of relative to the sugar one right? If you just stop eating sugar or You got diabetes because you ate too much sugar or whatever. I think it starts with type two diabetes knowledge. Because while no diabetes is reversible, type two, if you start out managing with certain lifestyle changes, you can reverse is not the right word, you can bring your Sure, yes, you can bring your numbers down to that target range that is in the range we are all aiming for, right? The range for people without diabetes. And you can successfully keep it there for a certain amount of time potentially without any medications. That's not reversal. That's not curing your diabetes, that just really means that you're doing something to keep your numbers in a range of normal in a range where they would be without diabetes. But if you go back to your lifestyle habits, your blood sugars will go back up. And they will now be out of range. Again, we know that that's not the case with type one, obviously, is there a potentially a time period where it looks like? Well, goodness, my blood sugar's all nice and stable. Now it's soon after diagnosis. It's that what we've talked about before called the honeymoon, right? Where your needs could drastically be reduced. For some people, they may not use any Basal insulin, and they might use small doses of Bolus, it might be the opposite, where they just use a Basal insulin, and they don't have to take boluses for a while. That's not your diabetes reversing itself. Yeah,

Scott Benner 06:50 I don't I just opened up Amazon. And I typed reverse your that's all I typed in. Apparently, you can reverse your fatty liver, your diabetes, your type two diabetes, or your PCOS with Coach Nikki? So I think it's a marketing word. Yes. Yeah. And I think that it's very steeped in type two. And exactly what you just said that, and but how to, like, how do you put context to it? You know, I just recently this will seem disconnected for a second. But I have become very focused on people saying, like, Omnipod, five learns, or this causes diabetes, or blah, blah, blah, can reverse there. It's like, right church, wrong pew, kind of thinking, you know, like, you almost have it right. But you've chosen a specific word, and it makes what you're saying. Incorrect. I understand that. Yeah. I understand what you're getting at. And, and I just think that that's, I mean, obviously, again, people don't understand, but where it becomes, I mean, potentially dangerous, is when you get it into the head of somebody who has type one diabetes, specifically. Correct. Because here's from another listener, I almost died in decay. My expert Father said something clearly went wrong on your end, and then sent her a ton of videos about reversing diabetes. Yes, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 08:22 well, there are you know, in this it's a, it's a painful thing to see. But it not too long ago. I mean, in the past, probably 15 years, I've seen several kids who were diagnosed and their parents went about it in terms of prayer. Right? If I pray enough, if I do this, it will go away. And clearly that did not end well.

Scott Benner 08:47 I've been around this space long enough that I can tell you that about every four years, some poor kid dies because somebody tries to cure their diabetes with religion. I've seen it over and over again. Well, well, here's a great example of what I was talking about about marketing. This person says, I was told that type one diabetes might be reversible through chiropractic care. Not surprisingly, she was told this by the spouse of anybody want to guess? Chiropractor? Yeah, it was a chiropractors wife who said, You know what, what might get this for you? And there's a lady who's got a car payment. I respect her. She's like, Let's go let him yank on your head a little bit. See if your pancreas starts working again. Nice idea, but you know, not gonna work. But, again, I think it's the it's the reverse thing. Like yes, you can, you can your body, you know, speaking specifically about type two diabetes. If you start becoming pre diabetic, your body can't keep up with the need and your your blood sugars are rising. And if you can about certain foods, you very well may see a decrease in that, like you're taking the the fight away. Like you know it's you know right now your body is one person and pre diabetes is 100 army men come on over the hill, and then suddenly you tell 90 of those army men not to attack you and you're like, Oh, well, it turns out I can fight off 10 of them. I just can't fight off. 100 Awesome, right. So when they say reverse, they mean, you know, stop doing the things that make your body that make your body

Unknown Speaker 10:36 able to keep up on its own?

Scott Benner 10:37 Yeah, yeah, that I almost wanted to say that reveal the fact that your body's gonna have a tough time fighting off the way you've been eating prior to this. And right. Yeah, so I mean, and then it just gets, it just gets translated over to type one because they don't hear type one, they hear diabetes. And yes, we're off to the races. I'm only I think

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:59 that's where a lot of I think that's honestly where a lot of the myths that we'll go through. kind of come from Yeah, it's what somebody knows about one side of diabetes are what they know, because they knew a friend whose mother's uncle's brother, whatever, right? And they're in it all goes back in terms of what I think is that people should just pay attention to what they're going to say before they say,

Scott Benner 11:27 Jennifer, I got a note. I got a note today that said that I walked around all day yesterday saying Zipit lock it, put it in your pocket. So you impacted somebody with the last episode. Shut up if you don't know what you're talking about. Let me see this one here. years ago, a female coworker of my husband told him that maybe her type one though, meaning the person writing this, my type one would be reversed when I got pregnant. Because pregnancy. This is a quote pregnancy causes crazy changes in your body.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:07 They should go read my book, make sure that they learn correctly. Yeah, that's Oh, that's so sad.

Scott Benner 12:15 But But do you do? Do you? I hear that. I hear it like, right. You have heard pregnant women say, I never felt better than I was pregnant. My allergies went away. Like I bought like you hear them say like stuff like that. And correct.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:29 And there are some autoimmune conditions that do. They don't reverse but they take almost a hibernation, if you will. Many people who have other things like lupus, or arthritis or other conditions that are definitely those autoimmune and there are many of them. They can take a backseat while the body is pregnant, then there are a whole bunch of physiologic reasons for that, obviously. But type one diabetes is not one of those things that gets to take a backseat to

Scott Benner 13:05 the apples to apples comparison there is if I get cancer and I'm a woman, I should just get pregnant, because that fixes that fix. Yeah, yeah. Like that's Isn't that fascinating? I mean, honestly, isn't that fascinating. By the way, the lady said she's had four babies, but she still has type one diabetes? Yes. Clearly, maybe the fifth one will be the church. She said to that I say, I think I think your uterus has had an effect. That's a lot. Keeping track of your kids. I'm always very impressed when people can handle that many children. I don't know how they do that. Okay, so now, Jenny, the real question here is I gotta wait for this kid to leave high school everyday this time, all right past my house. Now the real question is, is this a nice little 15 minute episode about the fact that you can't reverse diabetes? Or do we keep going into the next thing and couple them together? So since it's the next thing, does it fit, diabetes will disappear, stabilize or get better? But this is a longer this is a longer it's got a lot of feedback. So part of me wants to

Unknown Speaker 14:23 snip it and move on. Yeah.

Scott Benner 14:26 I kind of want to make it a second one. So okay, so before we do that, I just want to go over it one more time. I have type two diabetes. I drastically changed my diet. I don't know I start exercising. I'm running up the side of mountains now with a rucksack on. I don't need any medication and my blood sugars are healthy and stable and where my doctor wants them. Do I still have type two diabetes?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:55 You still have type two diabetes. That's what it is being man imaged with the lifestyle changes you have put into action. That is what is your that's what your medication is, if you want to think about it that way, right? You are not picking up a prescription at the pharmacy. What instead, what you're doing is you're making really awesome changes to your life. And that's what's making the difference in terms of blood sugar management, getting things into that non diabetic, let's call it range. And if you reverse that, if you stop running, walking, going to the gym, eating well and choosing healthy, you know, your diabetes is going to be like beer i Oh, my God, I was just wait.

Scott Benner 15:44 You don't make type two diabetes go away. You stop, you stop the impacts of it from having poor health outcomes for yourself. That's it. All right. I think I understand that. Good. Okay. I don't know why. It's. It's interesting, but it's the word right? Again, it's the word you can reverse your diabetes, you can just lazy talking. And I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:07 say, Well, I think they're reverse is. It goes along with that cure. I think people think reverse and they think I'm cured. Like, I'm really That's it? I'm done. I don't ever have to worry about this again. So are you reversing having diabetes? You're bringing yourself back to a state of health where you should have probably been in we're talking about, you know, type two here, obviously. But I think reverse is such a hard word. Because it could be understood multiple different ways.

Scott Benner 16:44 Yeah. Yeah. And I think the implication is that there's not a ton of effort anymore, right? And so that's it. Because if I said, it's funny, if I said to you, you have type two diabetes, but you need insulin, and somehow I don't know, you just perfected your insulin delivery. And you literally were just your blood sugar was 96. All the time. You never got high, you never got low, and it was that way your whole life. You wouldn't say that you reverse your diabetes, you'd say you are treating your diabetes with insulin. Yes, yes. So if you do it with exercise and diet, you're treating your diabetes with exercise and diet. Yes. I'm good. I'm stopping right there. Thank you very much. You're welcome. First and foremost, we always want to thank Jennifer Jenny Smith is a lovely person who's also a CD and she works at integrated diabetes.com. If you want to hire her, that's where you go. Let's also thank the pod makers of the Omni pod five and the Omni pod dash for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast and so many others. They're a great supporter. The podcast is supported by a ton of great sponsors, you can find all of them at juicebox podcast.com, or in the shownotes of the audio app you're listening in right now. When you use those links, when you click on them, or type them into a browser, you are supporting the production of this podcast. I cannot thank you enough for doing that. If you're looking for community around your diabetes, check out Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. On Facebook, it's a private group with about 40,000 people in it. Actually, most of the stuff that's in the diabetes myth series is from the people in that group listeners just like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, please share it with someone else who you think might also enjoy it. And please, if you're listening, but not subscribed, hit the subscribe or follow button in your audio app like Amazon music, Apple podcasts, Spotify, something like that. It really helps the show. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.