The Best Way To Reverse Pre-diabetes Naturally | Dr. William Li
8TKnsel0bB0 • 2024-10-08
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today I'm going to talk about the five
ways to reverse pre-diabetes
naturally these are number one getting
physically active number two cutting out
all ultr processed foods and sodas
number three switching to a
predominantly plant-based diet number
four decreasing your calorie consumption
substantially and number five increasing
your natural fasting period okay first
let's talk a little bit about what is
exactly pre-diabetes well it's not
actually a specific diagnosis with a
medical treatment per se rather I would
encourage you to look at it as a zone of
risk in your life where you go from
having a normal metabolism to being at a
higher and higher and higher risk for
developing fullon diabetes and this
means that you're heading to trouble but
not yet at the point of no return which
is why we're talking about reversing it
so what is pre-diabetes
well you can think that it's practically
the same thing as metabolic syndrome now
metabolic syndrome is when somebody has
a constellation of these health issues
number one high blood cholesterol high
blood lipids number two high blood
pressure number three high blood sugars
and by the way you measure blood sugars
with a specific blood test uh that looks
for something called hemoglobin a 1 C
which your doctor can order all right
metabolic syndrome also expanding
waistline so if you think about your
body as being having a tube right so if
you cut yourself sideways and and turn
it on the side you get a tube and when
you're actually getting extra body fat
it's swelling the tube stretching the
tube and the waist line around here it's
going to stretch up all right expanding
waistline means you're growing more and
more visceral fat inside the tube of
your body and this is the kind of fat
that when you have too much of it is
dangerous because it's inflammatory and
harmful pretty much interferes with
everything from your appetite control to
your abilities of your body to control
blood sugar and many other hormonal
aspects related to health and well-being
all right so you don't want too much
visceral fat and by the way metabolic
syndrome doesn't just s suddenly develop
in fact it sneak up on you over the
course of months or years if you have a
family history of type 2 diabetes you're
more likely to be at risk for developing
metabolic syndrome or pre-diabetes but
that's not a given many people who have
parents or other relatives who have
diabetes have dodged getting it and
we're going to talk about what you can
actually do to avoid it but if you do
develop pre-diabetes the good news is
that it can be reversed that's right
pre-diabetes is just one of those health
condition conditions that if you let it
go and watch it get worse it will
develop into full-blown diabetes one of
those chronic diseases that nobody wants
to get and even if you develop type 2
diabetes it is still possible to reverse
it but you need to understand how to do
this okay so let's talk about disease
reversal and how it used to be thought
to be impossible but we're discovering
more and more that we can actually
reverse diseases let me give you a
couple of examples cancer being to me
one of the most dramatic examples when I
went to medical school I was taught that
you know if you diagnose cancer late in
the game where it's already spread
pretty much it's going to be game over
for the most part and the treatments
that are given might work for a little
while but unlikely to work for a long
time and that's chemotherapy which has
terrible side effects very severe side
effects for the benefit that it actually
can uh generate But ultimately the
cancer is going to spread and and it's
going to win the battle well we are now
discovering that you can reverse cancer
by arming the body's immune system using
a cancer treatment called immunotherapy
now immunotherapy is one of the most
natural treatments in the world because
it's not chemo it doesn't kill the
cancer cells directly what it does is it
prompts your body it jacks up your
body's own immune system so that your
own immune system can go after the
cancer and in fact there are many
patients who have advanced cancers who
get onto immunotherapy and if they are a
responder and that's an area of research
I'm working on how do you make people
more better responders if they respond
to immunotherapy literally the
immunotherapy can arm the immune system
to wipe out scrub out all cancer so my
own mother actually had endometrial
cancer um became stage four and she had
immunotherapy and she went from stage 4
to Stage zero and 10 years later she um
is perfectly healthy without any sign of
Cancer never had chemotherapy so the
impossible is becoming possible and
we're able to do things that we never
thought uh we could do so that's an
example of disease reversal here's
another IDE example of disease reversal
which is heart disease right we used to
think and I was taught this in medical
school that if you had coronary art Ary
disease atherosclerosis narrowing of the
blood uh vessels feeding everywhere but
feeding your heart and your brain that
eventually you're actually going to wind
up continuing to build up that clogging
of the arteries until the blood flow is
so poor that you're going to wind up
actually having a heart attack or a
stroke or some other catastrophic event
right and so that's when you have to
break out the rotor rooters and open up
and put a stent in or maybe do bypass
surgery Etc Etc well now we know that
it's possible to reverse heart disease
using diet and lifestyle and this was
the um pioneering work of my friend and
colleague Dr Dean ornish who actually
showed that even if people have very
very narrowed blood vessels that if they
embark on a intensive lifestyle regimen
with good diet and exercise and stress
modification that you can actually
reverse you can actually improve the
blood flow without the need for a
Cardiology intervention right by an
Interventional Cardiology by putting in
stent or uh or a balloon uh that's quite
amazing we're also realizing that you
can reverse Alzheimer's disease a recent
clinical study that Al that that dorish
also uh performed uh at the preventative
Medical Research Institute involved 51
patients uh with cognitive disorder and
Alzheimer's and it showed that you can
actually reverse the degree of cognitive
deficit and slow the progress of
progression of it using intensive diet
and lifestyle change in fact the same
diet and lifestyle changes pretty much
that are beneficial for heart disease as
well now more researches need to be done
for all of these conditions but we know
for sure that it's possible to prevent
type 2 diabetes by reversing
pre-diabetes all right so let's get into
it here are five ways to reverse
pre-diabetes
again step one get Physically Active
step two cut out your all your Ultra
processed foods and sodas step three
switch to a predominantly plant-based
diet step four decrease your caloric
consumption substantially number five
increase your nral fasting period so I
want to explain all of these and let's
dive in are you ready okay so the goal
is to reverse the problems of metabolic
syndrome and it tip your metabolism back
into its normal zone now in pre-diabetes
you have insulin resistance which means
that your body is unable to process
blood glucose which is what insulin's
role is so if you're resistant to
insulin your blood glucose is going to
go up and your blood glucose is going to
run High all right and high blood sugar
high blood glucose is dangerous for a
number of reasons one of the reasons is
that your body is going to try to
produce more insulin to make it draw
that sugar in
but again because your body's
insensitive to it uh it's time to create
more insulin so this is actually a a
vicious circle of actually more and more
insulin but less and less Effectiveness
in drawing blood sugar so what can you
do to regain insulin sensitivity all
right that's a very very important thing
now obviously eating less
sugar less candies cakes sweets pastas
carbs less eating less of that stuff is
going to be helpful but that's only one
thing you have to to reboot your body's
sensitivity to insulin and type 2
diabetes is basically a state where your
body can make insulin but it doesn't
respond to it so your blood sugar goes
up up up up up and you're not storing
that energy even though it's in your
body it's in your bloodstream you can't
store it into your muscles and you can't
store it into your fat now remember high
blood sugar is dangerous and it sets you
up uh for everything from cataracts to
heart disease to kidney failure even to
dementia we think so you have to reverse
this if you want your health back this
is one of the reasons to actually try to
reverse pre-diabetes all right the first
thing you to do is to get Physically
Active this is one of the most important
steps now many of us actually do
regularly exercise but a lot of us don't
get enough exercise and let me tell you
why this works to reverse pre-diabetes
number one exercising been shown to help
your body regain insulin sensitivity all
right now your insulin is working now
your glucose is being drawn into your
muscles all right not only is your
metabolism actually right sizing um uh
but your needing to make less and less
insulin all right and what that does
puts less burden on your pancreas it
actually uses creates less insulin like
growth factor which can actually trigger
dangerous processes including cancer and
the specific kind of exercise you want
to do to reverse pre-diabetes is aerobic
exercise where you get your heart rate
up you want to increase your body's use
of oxygen and work your muscle major
muscle groups and you could do this with
walking brisk walking dancing running
using a treadmill getting on an exercise
bike or even better yet go outside and
get on a real uh bike trail and this has
been shown uh an analysis by researchers
at Harvard Medical School and two
Universities at China looked at 10
randomized control trials involving a
total of 8815 people and these are all
the people with pre-diabetes and what
this analysis showed is that aerobic
exercise three to four times a week
clearly and significantly improved
insulin uh uh sensitivity meaning it
lowered insulin resistance it improved
blood glucose which is reflective of
insulin sensitivity it improv body mass
index or BMI BMI is just one measure of
your overall metabolic Health it's still
useful now there's about BR body rounded
syntax but this study actually looked at
improv body mass index for metabolic
health and actually exercise had a
benefit all right now the second thing
you can do to reverse pre-diabetes is
cut out all of your Ultra processed
foods sodas now this really refers to
junk food and soft drinks which a lot of
people consume all right U and and not
only they consume they consume a lot of
it so my guess is that regardless of
your health you might have consumed one
of these uh uh Foods ultrapress Foods or
a soda every now and then maybe more
often and maybe recently but if you want
to reverse pre-diabetes it's time to cut
them out completely now let me explain
to you how all this
works in addition to all the empty
calories that junk food Ultra processed
foods deliver to your body empty
calories means you get the sugar you get
the calories but you don't get any of
the polyphenols you don't get any
dietary fiber you don't get um any of
this other good stuff that's in whole
plant-based Foods what ultr processed
foods deliver are chemical preservatives
and artificial coloring artificial
flavoring and sometimes artificial
sweeteners that damage your gut
microbiome that's your Healthy gut
bacteria and your Healthy gut bacteria
is really important for insulin
sensitivity in fact it streamlines your
glucose efficiency how well your body is
able to your metabolism is able to bring
blood glucose from your bloodstream into
your body through through insulin Ultra
processed foods can damage your gut
microbiome and if that function is
damaged then you're not going to be as
insulin sensitive you're going to become
insulin resistant all right your blood
glucose is going to rise and then your
body's going to make more insulin to try
to chase it down it's still not going to
work all right so harming your gut
microbiome is bad Ultra processed foods
and sodas and Ultra and and diet sodas
can also damage your uh gut microbiome
so you don't want to do this if you want
to reverse this problem stop eating
Ultra processed foods and stop drinking
soda and other sugar sweetened Beverages
and stop artificially sweetened
Beverages and Foods as well all right so
what's an ultra processed food you know
this has been talked about so often now
but I can tell you from my perspective
it's basically food made in a factory
with a huge number of ingredients and
lots of chemicals at it that you can't
pronounce and probably don't know what
they do um the easier explanation is if
your grandmother wouldn't recognize the
ingredients as food it's probably Ultra
processed all right so just avoid those
cut those down cut those out very
important if you want to reverse
pre-diabetes here's the third thing you
can do switch to a predominantly
plant-based diet now how does this work
plant-based diets which include fruits
and vegetables and nuts and legums and
seeds healthy oils that come from plants
and herbs and spices these are the
element of what we know for sure are the
healthiest dietary patterns in the world
that's a traditional Mediterranean diet
and a traditional Asian diets and part
of the reason their diet is so healthy
and the traditional risk the traditional
diets actually lower the risk of of
pre-diabetes is that plant-based foods
are very rich in polyphenols and dietary
fiber all right and the bioactives for
example that are in many of these
plant-based Foods chlorogenic acid
lycopene elic acid suanes there's many
many more all of these bioactives from
plant-based foods can lower
inflammation they can burn down excess
harmful body fat which then improves
your insulin sensitivity it shrinks your
waist cons circumference all right you
can tighten your belt another notch or
two all right and it actually gets rid
of excess harmful body fat and improves
overall metabolism right so what's not
the like well look if you actually think
about traditional Asian and traditional
Mediterranean uh recipes they're all
delicious right go I dare you to go to a
Mediterranean restaurant open up the
menu and not find something that you
think is going to taste good same thing
in a in an asan restaurant that serves
traditional food you're going to find a
lot of veggies you're going to AOW to
find a plant-based foods that are there
that are good for health so eating these
foods that contain these bioactives are
not only delicious but they should be
part of a program to reverse
pre-diabetes naturally all right what's
the fourth thing you can actually do uh
to reverse pre-diabetes well you want to
decrease your calorie consumption
substantially let me tell you how this
works when you actually eat food you are
actually eating the substances that give
your body fuel all right and your
metabolism has to burn that fuel
to do everything just to be able to
breathe to be able to stay alive and
certainly if you're going for a walk if
you're running through an airport to try
to catch your plane if you are
exercising you need even more fuel so
fuel is really important now our food
gives us the calories that is our fuel
that our body our metabolism stores in
our muscles and anything else gets
stored in our fuel tanks so we can draw
down on it like a car with a fuel tank
for energy all right gasoline for a car
carbohydrates and food uh really for our
our blood sugar actually for our body's
fuel tanks and when you actually uh keep
on filling up your fuel tank that's over
consumption of food all right which is
very common don't only pile up your
plate for first but then you go back for
seconds maybe even thirds now you're
really talking about over consumption
right when you're consuming Foods you're
actually loading your body your
metabolism loading some of energy into
fat cells your fat cell can expand three
times in its size you keep on eating you
got to keep on storing that extra energy
into the fuel tank it's like going to a
gas station and keeping the pump going
all right well your car only has one
fuel tank and it's rigid our body when
it stores fuel through our food it
stores in our fat and our fat cells can
stretch pretty big three times so if you
keep on eating it'll let you fill up
another Fat cell three times and you
keep on eating uh fill up another
another three times oh you're still
eating and we're ringing out of fat
cells let's go ahead using stem cells
and make a new fat cell and fill that
one up too and so on and so on and so
forth so you can see by over consuming
food calories you're going to actually
fill up more and more fat cells as your
fuel tanks and now you're actually going
to have pile up the fat the Fat's going
to expand and when it expands it becomes
inflammatory all right especially the
visceral fat um and when visceral fat
which is inside your the the your belly
viscera when visceral fat expands it
actually becomes inflammatory and that
inflammatory State leaks out into your
body but it also disrupts the hormones
produced by your fat naturally to be
able to actually bring down blood
glucose so there's a a fat hormone
called a dionin a dionin actually
collaborates works hand inand with
insulin to be able to actually produce
that insulin sensitivity so your glucose
your blood glucose gets into your cells
if you mess up that a dip enced which
you will do if your fat becomes inflamed
just derails that that hormone all right
now your insulin is not going to work as
well so you're becoming insulin
insensitive that's pre-diabetes all
right so if you want to actually reverse
pre-diabetes what you want to do is uh
burn down some of those extra fuel tanks
all right but you also want to cut down
your caloric consumption substantially
don't keep on filling up those fuel
tanks day after day week after week
month in and month out you keep on
piling up fuel tanks think about what
would happen if you went to the gas
station and you went you did much more
than fill up your car for one trip but
you brought Jerry cans of gasoline and
you kept on filling those up and storing
them in your garage and fill up two more
and store in your garage think about it
you're going to actually have a ton of
fuel in your garage and eventually it's
going to become a dangerous toxic
flammable mess a hazard and that's
exactly what happens when you overc
consume uh and it moves you towards
pre-diabetes insulin insensitivity all
right so you don't want to be doing that
all right the fifth thing you could do
to actually reverse pre-diabetes is to
lengthen your natural fasting state so
many of you have heard about
intermittent fasting what I want to tell
you is that it's the most natural thing
intermittent fasting it's not just a fat
or a trend it's something we all do all
the time throughout entire lives and
here's why fasting is simply the act of
not eating or the state of not eating
when you're fasting your metabolism
switches into gears like uh like a like
a Ferrari like a race car Switching
gears and it it switches gear from fat
storing mode which is what's happening
when you're eating during the day right
your body needs to be prepared to store
that energy but when when you go into a
fasting State you're not eating for a
long enough a period of time your body
goes oh let's switch gears and instead
of storing fat guess what it does it
burns fat down all right so the fat
burning part of fasting is a key part of
intermittent fasting right so when do
you do this when's the most natural time
uh to uh do intermittent fasting well
take advantage of the fact that when
you're sleeping right we all go to sleep
at night um and and if you're sleeping
for eight hours which is a good healthy
amount of sleep guess what you're not
eating for a long enough period of time
where your body switches gears into that
Ferrari mode okay and uh now you go to
fat burning so while you're sleeping
you're actually burning fat you're not
exercising you're burning fat
interesting thing right hey there check
this out I've got a guide for you it's
about three foods to fight diabetes and
it's free in the guide I share simple
easy to ous ingredients that you can add
to your meal starting today these are
the foods that I eat myself and they're
packed with healthy bioactives that
support your metabolism and help prevent
insulin resistance my guide is yours
right now free in the caption below all
you've got to do is click the link below
the
video now let's get back to the other
video okay now if you want to extend
your fat burning time you extend your
fasting time it's a really power
powerful but Light Lift way of actually
doing this all right and let me actually
tell you how to actually extend your
natural fasting time so I'm going to
give you some hypotheticals but just
follow with me here in your own case it
might be a little bit different uh in
terms of the timing so I'm going to say
that most people eat dinner at 7 o'clock
and let's say that you spend an hour for
dinner which I think is pretty typical
in uh many parts of the world I know
there are places that eat three-hour
dinners but I'm saying most people eat
dinner in the course of an hour and then
you might go to bed at 11:00 all right
maybe you go to bed a little later maybe
a little earlier but let's for the sake
of this uh Point let's say you go to bed
at 11 o' now from 11:00 to 7 o'clock in
the morning that is 8 hours of sleeping
time when you're sleeping you're not
eating when you're not eating you're
fasting so when you're sleeping from 11
o'clock to 7 o'clock that 8 Hour window
is fasting the ferari switches into
gears and you're burning that during
that entire time remember this actually
happens when your insulin levels go down
because you're not eating all right
that's the trigger for it so how do you
actually improve that and lengthen that
period Well it's pretty simple um don't
eat after dinner all right so 7 o' you
eat dinner you're done at 8:00 you put
your dishes in the sink and rather than
take some snacks with you or sit down
and Nosh on something all evening while
you're doing something else all right or
wait get a grab a midnight snack or eat
a late dessert don't do that when you
are actually finished eating dinner put
your dishes in the sink that's it you're
done for the day you're not going to eat
again until the next day now what's
happened is that if you start dinner at
700 finish dinner at 8:00 put your
dishes away at 8: go to bed at 11: now
when you don't eat for those 3 hours
8:00 to 11:00 you've gained three more
hours hours of fasting time in your
window now remember that's 8:00 to 11:00
is 3 hours okay now you're fasting okay
and you're starting to burn down extra
fuel from 11 o'clock to 7 o'clock
because you should be sleeping 8 hours
that's a good period of time for overall
health so it's 3 hours from 8 to 11 and
then eight hours uh from 11 to 7 now you
get up in the morning during this whole
time your body is burning down body fat
you get up at 7 o'clock in the morning
and do what I do take your time getting
ready you're going to take a shower
you're going to get ready at the sink
you're going to get dressed take your
time you're not in a you're not in a
rush all right um if you if you want to
think about health you don't want to
rush your health you want to be
deliberate be mindful be present all
right and then after you're done don't
do what your mom told you which is a
roll down into the kitchen and eat a
wolf down some breakfast so you can get
on the school bus and don't be late
but what you do what I do is take an
hour after you're ready before you after
you get dressed before you eat anything
all right so that what that means is
that for me I go out for a brief walk I
go read a book I sit down and read a
book uh you could exercise distract
yourself do something else even if you
check your emails before long an hour is
going to be up all right then you can
sit down for breakfast so let's take a
look at this now 8:00 the night before
you put your dishes away now you're not
going to eat again 8:00 to 11:00 that's
3 hours add that from 11:00 to 7 hours
that is8 hours now we're talking about
11 hours okay 11 hours now you've just
added another hour because you're taking
your time before eating breakfast that's
12 hours 12 hours is half the day and if
you extend your fasting in the way I
just told you from the time you put your
dishes away and you're able to fast for
12 hours of the day you are spending 50%
of your existence 50% of your day 12
hours 12 out of 24 actually in fat
burning mode this is one way that you
can actually uh burn down that extra
visceral fat lower the inflammation you
can also then allow your adipine nectin
in your fat for example to collaborate
with insulin and you'll start to regain
insulin sensitivity again all right it's
kind of complicated actually but the
actions you need to take are pretty
simple all right uh that's what I would
actually recommend so let's sum this up
again getting physically active will
actually improve your insulin
sensitivity to help reverse pre-diabetes
cutting down your Ultra processed foods
and sodas including diet sodas will
prevent your metabolism from being
derailed because you're damaging your
gut microbiome eating a predominantly
plant-based diet is going to introduce
all kinds of metabolically active fat
burning polyphenols and dietary fiber
that activat your gut microbiome the
healthy bacteria that then improves your
insulin sensitivity lowers your blood
lipid your cholesterol harmful
cholesterol goes down and activates your
body's Health defenses so you're overall
healthier metabolically and otherwise
and this is actually the start to be
able to get on the right track to
reverse your pre-diabetes um the fourth
thing we talked about is actually
decreasing your caloric take
substantially all right less food less
fuel less overwhelming less your
metabolism less inflammation all right
so how I suggest decreasing your
calories substantially is number one
don't fill up your whole plate all right
take only 2third of what you would
normally take leave a third behind all
right somebody else will eat it don't
worry um and then uh what you want to do
is don't feel like you have to finish
the plate and do not go back for seconds
all right don't go back for seconds
seconds and quit The Clean Plate Club
these are some simple ways to actually
cut down your caloric consumptions
substantially remember calories are what
we call our fuel like in in a car
they're called gallons right or liters
depending on where you live but your
body it's called calories that's just
the name of the currency the value of it
comes all comes from food and it's all
energy and finally we can increase your
natural fasting period And when remember
when you're fasting your body is
shifting into gears to burn down extra
harmful body fat which then makes your
body more normal more insulin sensitive
and fasting also helps your gut
microbiome reboot itself this is
something um that's quite amazing and so
when your gut microbiome uh resets
itself it can actually go to work to
helping to protect and improve your
insulin sensitivity so these are just
some really simple ways that you can
actually take control of pre-diabetes to
reverse it now obvious ly if you got
pre-diabetes you should see your doctor
you need a full physical uh and complete
evaluation of your body and your doctor
should check your blood tests to make
sure there are no other reasons no other
medical conditions could be quite
serious that are going on that could
contribute to your pre-diabetic State
all right I hope you learned something
new from this video thanks for watching
and I will see you on the next video Dr
Lee
out hi there if you enjoyed watching
this video I know you'll love the next
one stay here and check it out and I'll
see you there
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