Living A Healthy Life With Diabetes, Part 3 – Invite Health Podcast, Episode 11

Invite Health Podcast, Hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH

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This is Part 3 of Living A Healthy Life with Diabetes! I left off in Part 2 with talking about specific nutrients like Magnesium, Vitamin D and Benfotiamine. Today we are going to discuss omega-3 fatty acids and herbal extracts and how they provide additional support to enhance insulin sensitivity and regulate blood glucose levels.

The Critical Role of Omega-3 Fatty Acids In Your Body

When people think about omega-3 fatty acids, they may just be thinking about them in the world of cholesterol or overall heart health. Which is correct, but Omega-3s impact every single system in the body.

What we know from testing is that when you look at the average American and their fatty acid profile with a blood test to see how many fatty acids your body has, we know that Americans do extremely poorly when it comes to the Omega-3/Omega-6 ratio. That ratio – in a perfect world – should be two to one. In an ideal world, four to one. Unfortunately most results comes back at 20 to 1 – that’s 20 omega-6 fatty acids to every 1 omega-3! Americans just do not obtain adequate omega-3s from our regular diets. Omega-3s can be found in fatty fish, seed and nuts.

Because most Americans do not consume enough Omega-3s in their diets, many healthcare professionals recommend a Omega-3 supplement. Supplementation of omega-3s are available in many forms – fish oil, krill oil, or plant-based flax seed to name a few. Either way, when you start to increase your omega-3 fatty acid intake,  your body better responds to oxidative stress and inflammation.

When it comes to supporting blood glucose, there is an interesting study published in the Diabetes Care journal that focused on over 2,000 men in Finland and elevated fasting glucose. Researchers concluded, out of the over 2,000 men, the men who had the highest consumption of omega-3 fatty acids had a significant decrease in the overall risk for ischemic heart disease, including more stable blood glucose levels.

Try to incorporate fatty fish, seeds and nuts and following the Mediterranean diet to really increase your omega-3 fatty acids levels.

Missed Parts 1 and 2 of Amanda’s Diabetes series? Click here to read them now!

Benefits of Herbal Extracts Into Your Diet

One impressive herbal extract is cinnamon. This is different than the spice that you sprinkle onto your food and beverages. Using a high potency cinnamon extract itself really can yield benefits to create more stable glucose levels.

The University of California Davis (UC Davis) published a study in 2011, that focused on the impact cinnamon had on lowering fasting blood glucose. A meta-analysis was done, looking at a whole conglomeration of different clinical trials, where cinnamon extract was the primary focus. They were able to determine from the analysis that cinnamon extract significantly lowered fasting blood glucose levels.

Other beneficial herbal extracts include:

• Bitter Melon
• Gymnema Sylvestre
• Alpha Lipoic Acid

Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast.