Sara Bentley
What are we going to cover in the article:
- The best nutrient for diabetes
- Diabetes explained
- Symptoms of high blood sugar
- The most important nutrient for diabetics
- How to test your potassium levels
- What causes a potassium deficiency?
- Potassium-rich foods
The most important nutrient for diabetes, weight loss, and fat burning. A person with diabetes has high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and high or low insulin.
The number one most important nutrient for diabetic symptoms or the number one most important nutrient for losing weight or burning fat is Potassium. Because they’re both directly related now first let me just touch on diabetic symptoms.
A situation where you have high blood glucose, high blood sugar and when you have high sugar you’re also going to have insulin resistance you’re going to have either high or low insulin usually it starts out high and then goes low. Another name for high blood sugar is diabetes.
Insulin is a communication that travels to the body and it follows the principles of communication between humans too. So you need a balance of talking and listening. I remember a while ago my wife and I went to a restaurant and then we’re walking out of the restaurant. I remember as we’re walking out someone started talking to us next thing you know we’re with them at their table for about an hour. Both of us could not get a word in edgewise I mean they were just non-stop talking and the minute that we tried to interject some communication there was no listening it was basically a one-way flow of constant communication towards us. After a while we’re kind of like phasing out and we’re ready to go and so when there’s just talking and no listening we don’t have communication.
Credit:Pixabay Â
Same thing happens in the body when there’s too much communication like too much insulin, the cells are going to phase out. They’re no longer going to be receptive to that communication and that’s what insulin resistance is.
So we have a person on a high carb diet. He is stimulating a lot of insulin. The cells start to phase out and now they don’t work anymore. What does the body do ? Initially it starts making more communication, more insulin to overcompensate to kind of penetrate through and everything gets all messed up from there on out so that’s diabetes in a nutshell.
Now what are the symptoms of high blood sugar. You’re thirsty okay you’re more thirsty than usual you’re drinking all this water you’re peeing more frequently especially at night. For those people who get up several times a night you have fatigue especially after you eat you may get some blurred vision. You are definitely hungrier than you should be and you crave carbohydrates. You have some mood changes, you might feel angry or you might feel sad. Now on the flip side, when someone has low blood sugar they might feel more nervous anxiety and worry. So that’s a really good way to tell what’s happening to someone’s blood sugars, what’s happening to their mood.
Symptoms of high blood sugar:
• Increased thirst
• Increased urination (especially at night)
• Fatigue (especially after you eat)
• Blurred vision
• Hunger
• Cravings (especially for carbs)
• Mood changes (anger or sadness)
• Increased urination (especially at night)
• Fatigue (especially after you eat)
• Blurred vision
• Hunger
• Cravings (especially for carbs)
• Mood changes (anger or sadness)
All right now the nutrient that’s related to this topic. Researchers did experiments in the 60s on certain medications that caused a potassium deficiency. They always noticed that there was a problem with insulin. The person ended up with an insulin deficiency and ended up with insulin resistance and had higher blood sugars. They didn’t know why at first until they did some more research and they found out that there’s this huge relationship between potassium and blood sugars.
Insulin that hormone communication needs potassium to help regulate or lower blood sugars and so if you have a deficiency of insulin or insulin resistance, you’re going to need more potassium to be able to balance out these blood sugars.
If you don’t have that you’re going to have problems with your blood sugar your blood sugars are going to start to go higher and higher. Glucose needs potassium to be able to enter the cells. So if your body doesn’t have enough potassium, if it doesn’t enter the cells then it can start to build up so glucose starts to build up and you start developing a situation where you have high blood glucose and when you have lowered amount of potassium in your body, you’re more at risk for getting diabetes as well as insulin resistance, weight gain higher cholesterol, higher triglycerides a fatty liver.
You can see potassium is really really important in a lot of issues simply because it’s needed by insulin and your blood sugars. On top of that, you have receptors for potassium in pretty much every single cell in your body because it’s also involved in creating the battery effect of your cells. This is why out of all the nutrients in your body, potassium is the number one that you need. The most of you need 4700 milligrams of potassium every single day. I mean no other mineral is needed in that amount.
How to test your potassium levels:
All right, your cells have minerals outside and inside the cell and about 99 of all the potassium in your body is inside the cell only one percent is outside the cell. So if you get a blood test to measure your potassium, it’s not going to tell you anything about what’s going on inside the cell where the real action is happening. I’m going to tell you a little bit on the outside which you’re really going to get correct data.
If you’re going to test your potassium, you want to make sure it’s an intracellular potassium test. One test you could do would be called a red blood cell potassium test. This is why when you go to the doctor and you get a blood test and they say your potassium levels are normal well you’re just checking in the blood you’re not looking inside the cell. So you don’t really know what’s really going on. Now how do you become deficient in potassium ? Well, eat a lot of sugar because the more sugar and more potassium deficient carbs as in refined carbs you consume the more potassium you’re going to lose because potassium is sacrificed when you consume this refined sugar in carbs. Because in order to store a lot of these carbs you need potassium. So the more carbs you eat the less potassium you’re going to have in your body.
Now there’s other things that you might not realize that are creating the deficiencies. Well like going out to restaurants that are loaded with hidden flavor enhancers like msg, monosodium glutamate right because the more sodium you have the less potassium you’re going to have as well. The average person in America, consumes about I think a cup and a half of vegetables per day maybe that will give a person like 1/ 10 of what they really need. Now if they’re on a diuretics because they have high blood pressure. Because they’re potassium deficient, they’re also going to lose their potassium because one of the side effects of diuretics are a potassium deficiency.
Source: Pixabay
The more stress that someone goes through the less potassium they’re going to have in their body. Stress increases cortisol and cortisol creates a potassium deficiency also just by being a diabetic you’re going to require so much more potassium you’re going to be deficient. If you exercise you’re going to be also deficient in potassium so you can see the problem.
So many things can create a deficiency yet we need this to help stabilize our blood sugars. If you are a diabetic, potassium is the most important mineral to start consuming to help regulate your blood sugars. Then decrease the need for medication and hopefully at some point you know make you not a diabetic anymore.
Now what foods are high in potassium I mean one cup of lima beans is over a thousand milligrams of potassium of course that’s not on the keto plants I don’t recommend it. Avocados ? Okay avocados one avocado will give you 800 milligrams of potassium. Great way to get your potassium and keto friendly. Melon has about 1500 milligrams of potassium but I don’t recommend melon if you’re on the ketogenic diet.
Beet tops are loaded with potassium so if you had a cup of beet tops you would get 1300 milligrams but beet tops are also high in oxalates which can lead to kidney stones if you’re susceptible. So what I recommend for your potassium is vegetables leafy green salads. One cup of greens would give you about 500 milligrams of potassium now remember you need 4700 so that means you would need to consume if you’re just relying on greens you would need almost 10 cups.
You could do an electrolyte powder. Electrolyte powder that doesn’t add more sugar into it. So very important mineral for blood sugars diabetes and even weight loss in general is potassium.
In a nutshell, Insulin needs potassium to help regulate or lower blood sugar. If you have insulin resistance, you need more potassium to balance out your blood sugar levels.
If you don’t have enough potassium, your blood sugar levels will go higher and higher. Glucose also needs potassium to be able to enter the cells. If glucose can’t enter the cells, it begins to build up, causing high blood glucose.
A potassium deficiency also puts you at a higher risk for diabetes, insulin resistance, weight gain, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and a fatty liver. The body requires 4700 mg of potassium every day.
Causes of a potassium deficiency:
• Refined carbs and sugar
• MSG
• Diuretics
• Stress
• Diabetes
• Exercise
Potassium is the most important mineral to start consuming to help regulate your blood sugars and decrease the need for medication.
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???????? ???? ????????? ??? ???????????? – This powder contains 13x more potassium than common sports drinks to help you avoid symptoms like weakness, fatigue, constipation, sugar cravings, and restlessness before sleep. Support your potassium levels without eating massive amounts of vegetables every day.
Foods high in potassium:
• Lima beans (not keto-friendly)
• Avocados
• Melon (not keto-friendly)
• Brown sugar (not keto-friendly)
• Beet tops (high in oxalates)
• Leafy greens
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Consuming leafy greens is the best way to get potassium. A quality electrolyte powder is also a great way to get potassium.
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[Source: Dr. Eric Berg]
