Diabetes - 001

SPEAKER A The following program presents principles designed to promote good health and is not intended to take the place of personalized, professional care. The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speakers. Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about the information presented. SPEAKER B Welcome to healthy living. I'm your host, Margot Marshall. Diabetes is one of the ten leading causes of death in the world, and it's emerging as a global epidemic. Are you at risk, and is there anything you can do about it? Stay tuned for the good news. SPEAKER C Healthy Living is a 13 part production of three ABN, Australia television focusing on the health of the whole person, body, mind, and spirit. You'll learn natural lifestyle principles with practical health solutions for overall good health. SPEAKER B With me in the studio today, I have Dr. John Clark and Jenifer Skues, who is a health psychologist. So welcome, John. Welcome, Jenifer. SPEAKER A Thank you. SPEAKER B Thank you to the program. John, you have an amazing story of someone recovering from type two diabetes, and I'd love you to lead out with that story. SPEAKER C Yes, indeed. And type two diabetes affects so many people. This is a story about somebody who had it for 30 years oh, my goodness. And actually overcame it. But in case a few of our viewers don't know what the diabetes is all about, comes in two types. Type one is when your pancreas quits working, and type two is when you become insulin resistance. Your body won't respond to the insulin. SPEAKER B Sure. SPEAKER C So we'll be talking about a type two diabetic. I came into contact with him when he'd been in the hospital for three months. SPEAKER A Wow. SPEAKER C He was in and out of the ICU. He had foot ulcers. SPEAKER B ICU? Intensive Care Unit. SPEAKER C Intensive care unit? SPEAKER B That sounds pretty bad. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER B Understatement. Yes. SPEAKER C On different drugs. And so then when they wanted to take him to surgery, he was too sick, but he had foot ulcers, for which he needed surgery, and the whole department in the hospital was worried about him. They finally gave up on doing surgery, got him well enough to send home, and he had to come back to the hospital or to the dialysis unit three times a week for dialysis. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER C So here's a man with a 30 year history of diabetes. He's got kidney failure, and he's got foot ulcers for which they want to amputate part of his feet. SPEAKER B So they're complications of diabetes, aren't they, the kidney failure and the foot ulcers? SPEAKER C Very common complications. Foot ulcers are the number one cause of amputations, at least in America. And so I went to visit this gentleman in his home, and I sat down with him, and I asked him all kinds of questions that I knew could be related to his disease about what he ate, like, for breakfast, lunch, and supper, how much water he drank, what's his supper? SPEAKER B We call it tea. Okay. Here in Australia, if we say supper, that's what you have after. So anyway, just clear that one up. SPEAKER C Yes, there's tea. And he was definitely doing some things that could be contributing to his disease. Well, then I sat down and gave him a program based on the original diet from the Genesis account about good fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds. We had him drinking more water, had him doing exercise. You might wonder, how can a guy with foot ulcers exercise? SPEAKER B I was wondering that. SPEAKER A How did he do that? SPEAKER C He had special shoes made for his feet, and he also had some walking AIDS. Like a walker. Well, he took the program seriously. He realized he could die. I mean, there were people in his church that were praying for him, thinking the next thing they're going to be doing is attending his funeral. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER C And in fact, when they went to visit him in the hospital, they said he was like he had Alzheimer's. He didn't recognize him. SPEAKER B Truly. SPEAKER C He was just really in bad shape. SPEAKER B That's really it took him to get. SPEAKER A To the point of death before he would do anything about it. Prior to that, his lifestyle was not conducive to treating diabetes. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER B So did he know some of this advice that you gave him? Was he aware of that before you saw him and just not doing it? SPEAKER C You know, he knew a lot more than he was practicing. SPEAKER B Okay, but look, isn't that true of us all? We know better than we do. I think that's a pretty fair comment. SPEAKER C It is. It's like a balance between what I'd really want to do if I just went all abandoned out and did it, and what I know is really healthy for me. SPEAKER B I remember a comment once. Some people change their ways when they see the light, and others only when they feel the heat. SPEAKER A A lot of people wait for the. SPEAKER B Heat, and I guess that's what happened in his case. But go on, tell us what happened there. SPEAKER C And so the heat was on. I mean, he's on dialysis and they told him he would never get off of dialysis. SPEAKER B Tell us what dialysis is, John. SPEAKER C When your kidneys fail, your kidneys are sort of like built in dialysis machines. And so they make a machine outside your body to take your blood out. They literally stick needles in your arm, take the blood out, run it through a machine that purifies it, and then run it back into your body. And so three times a week for three to 4 hours, he'll sit there and let his blood go through a machine and come back. SPEAKER A That must be incredibly stressful. I mean, the stress of having diabetes being at that point, and his family would have been really stressed then having to go and have all this done. I mean, just to have your blood removed and that so that would have not helped. The diabetes in the sense of stress is a problem. SPEAKER C That's true. SPEAKER B He's gone home now and he's having this dialysis three times a week and taking up about half a day of his life three times a week. And his family? Yeah, gone. SPEAKER C And so we put him on a program with foods good for the kidneys, drinking a lot more water than the dialysis. People said he should be drinking and exercising periodically through the day, not just one big marathon to see how far he could walk, but little walks periodically, little times to use his upper body strength for doing things. And so he took the program seriously. Six weeks later, he came to his church group and he said, I have a testimony. He raised his hand and they were glad to hear from him. He said, I've said goodbye to three things. He said, number one, I've said goodbye to diabetes. SPEAKER B Six weeks. SPEAKER C Six weeks. SPEAKER B He's had it 30 years. 30 years and he was ready to die from complications. And in six weeks he said goodbye to it. SPEAKER C He was no longer on insulin, no. SPEAKER A Longer on drugs, and not on dialysis, I presume. SPEAKER C Well, dialysis was the next thing. Then he said, I've lost 20 kilos. SPEAKER A Wow. SPEAKER C He wasn't so sure about that. He sort of felt like he'd like to weigh more. He wasn't overly thin or anything, but he sort of gave a funny comment on that. Well, I guess I didn't need it. SPEAKER A Most people want to lose more, not weigh more. SPEAKER C And then he said, Number three, they've told me I don't have to come back to dialysis anymore. My kidneys are functioning normally. SPEAKER A Isn't that amazing? SPEAKER B That is just incredible. So those three things were what helped him. We might get a little bit more information from you shortly about exactly what you got him eating and so on. But, Jenny, is there anything else you're a health psychologist, Jennifer, and is there anything else that might have contributed to. SPEAKER A His well, stress is a huge factor. In fact, they're saying about 90% of these types of illnesses are stress related and lifestyle, of course, but when you stress, your body is full of adrenaline and cortisol. It's revving the engine constantly. It means the kidneys are doing overtime, the insulin production is being stressed. So there's a lot that causes the kidneys to be impacted that way. And it wouldn't have been just stress in a short time, this would have been prolonged term stress. And then you combine that with diet and lack of exercise, not enough fluids in the system, and they're physiological stresses as well as your psychological stress. SPEAKER B Yes. And that's interesting, isn't it? Because it's not just I mean, all of those things that you mentioned are very powerful, but there's more to it. And that 90% has me intrigued. Oh, it's huge. Say that again. SPEAKER A 90% of illnesses are lifestyle and stress related. If you have a look at your cancers, your diabetes, all of these illnesses can be prevented by people doing stress management and changing their lifestyle. Well, I do the stress management. John changes the lifestyle. SPEAKER B Well, you're a good combination and we. SPEAKER A Do work well together. SPEAKER B That's really great. And it's wonderful to have both of you here so that we can get the input from both of you because you're both experts in your field. Let's go back to you, John, and just maybe give us a little bit more information about exactly what it was in terms of what you asked Pastor Faz to start eating, or not eating, as the case may be. What were the changes that he made? SPEAKER C We especially asked him to lay off of oils. We're talking fats in the diet, anything that came from a bottle, like corn oil or olive oil or coconut oil. The oils tend to cause the cells to fill up quickly with calories, and then they're resistant to having sugar pushed into them and the person ends up with high blood sugar, diabetes. And so we asked him not to eat any refined foods, including oils, but the other refined foods that we wanted him to avoid was any refined grains. SPEAKER B Now in the plant, such as what would they be? SPEAKER A White flour. SPEAKER B Yeah, the white flour. SPEAKER C Yes, white flour, white pasta, white rice. SPEAKER B Cookies and cakes and bought cereals. SPEAKER C Yeah. SPEAKER B And all that stuff people really like. SPEAKER C And so we have this patient who's wanting to stay off of these things because we want to make sure he gets the fiber. And if you have the fiber, then the fiber has the minerals. And the minerals are what the diabetic needs, like magnesium and chromium to help fight the insulin resistant it takes chromium to get the sugar into the cells. So we can't have him eating food that's depleted of important minerals. SPEAKER B No. Before you go on, I think we've got a photo of Pastor Faz. Might be nice if we would have a look at that. And this is when he's starting to get a bit better, I believe. A new covering. So he's looking pretty good. Oh, there we go. SPEAKER C This is about three months after he was into the program and he was coming to church with no walking aid, which is amazing. Yes. And he continued to improve dramatically even after this. SPEAKER B Even after that. So he had already said goodbye to diabetes and dialysis and some weight and he continued to improve. That's beautiful. SPEAKER A See, one of the other problems with something like diabetes is to do with the blood sugar levels. And with the diabetes, the blood sugar levels can shoot up, but they can also drop right down. SPEAKER B Yes. SPEAKER A And when psychologically or emotionally, when that happens, it's a roller coaster emotionally. And your stress levels go up and down at the same time, and it actually mimics like a bipolar effect. So that means someone whose blood sugars are going up and down all the time, it's like they experience that heightened mania. They're on a high or that low depression. Right. So it does impact the psychology of the person and how they function. And often what I do with my clients is check with them, they're coming in and their moods all over the place and often a psychiatrist will diagnose them with bipolar disorder when actual fact, it's blood sugar related or stress related. It's amazing. SPEAKER B That's incredible. So you'd be getting treated for the. SPEAKER A Wrong disease and that means you're going to prevent the diabetes. So I work with some of John's principles in that sense of getting them to monitor their diet, get rid of sugars in their diet and refined foods, and the difference is huge. SPEAKER B It often treats the problem about these refined foods. Let me say this in Australia, and I think it's probably pretty true, in other developed countries, more than half of the food budget goes on those kinds. SPEAKER A Of foods or the junk food that. SPEAKER B Don'T form the basis of a healthy diet. More than half. It's not good, is it? And it must have been quite difficult. John, I think we haven't really heard exactly what you told him to do or not to do, or you've started with the refined foods, but it must have been a difficult thing. Did he find it difficult to make? SPEAKER C It pretty hard? It was challenging for him and in fact, this had been his struggle. He knew some of the things he should and shouldn't be doing, but I got several calls from his wife saying, couldn't we just use a little bit of olive oil? Or he wants this and he wants that. And it's a struggle to make changes. SPEAKER B Oh, it is. SPEAKER A And this is what I help people to do, because if I'm asking them to change, like he had to, you really need to help them with it. And I find with change, if you get them not to focus on the whole lot. So don't look at all I have to give up, let's just focus on one thing and work with that. And what we call chunking it. So when the brain has a chunk, it can deal with it, but when it looks at the bigger picture and that's what he would have done for years, he would have been thinking about, oh, I've got all these changes and I can't do it. And it was stressing him, so he never did it. And imagine the family, they would have been highly stressed with all that he was going through. SPEAKER B John, you mentioned his wife ring you up and saying he wants some hot whirl and so on and can we now, that's a very interesting thing, because I'm getting an idea that she must have been very supportive and helping him to stay on track. A bit of accountability there. SPEAKER C Yes, very supportive and asking me questions and looking for recipes and asking about his activity and it was a lot going on there. So here's a guy that's circling the drain looking like he's going to die. We didn't just take him in baby steps, we gave him the whole program at once. SPEAKER A Boatload was life threatening. What he had was this end stage. And that's when you have to do radical, whether what you do or I do, that's when you have to really push them to do that. SPEAKER C Do an intervention. SPEAKER B That's right. And I think it's very important to realize at this point that people who have support like he was obviously getting is huge, huge difference. And they find that a supportive environment is the best predictor of long term success. So he was a very fortunate person. And I guess not everybody's going to have that kind of support. In fact, it might be the opposite. It might be people who just think, not for me, you're on your own. I can't I have a lot of. SPEAKER A Clients who don't have that support. And a lot of their problem is they feel so alone and they don't have motivation because there's no one to support them. So when I work with them closely, I'm part of their support system. And we sort of look at supports because they don't have the social supports at that point. But once they improve a bit, we can look at them getting out and meeting people, because that's part of health, is to have those support systems absolutely huge. SPEAKER B So a little bit more about what. SPEAKER C He about his diet. Especially important for somebody who's had end stage diabetes and it's gone to kidney failure, is that we want to have them eat foods that don't put more stress on the kidneys. Anything that's going to take more time for the kidneys to work with is going to slow them down. So we had him taking away any foods, fried foods, any food created through rotting, spoiling, fermenting, aging, like vinegar, cheese, soy sauce, anything that has any of the taints of rot in it is going to put more work to the kidneys. So we had him on a very strict diet, and then exercise was extremely important. If you just sit and do nothing, your kidneys will slow down and almost stop. Some patients, you put them in the hospital, put them in a bed, and their kidneys will just slow way down. And so they give them a certain drug that will pick them back up again. So we had him doing little activities all day long. You see, if you sit in a chair for a number of hours, you can hardly counteract that by any amount of activity. The amount you sat doing nothing is very traumatic to your system. SPEAKER B Say that again. You're saying if you sit for hours doing nothing, it's hard to counteract what happened in that time. SPEAKER C That's right. It's not like you could sit all day at a job on a computer and then go run a marathon and fix the fact that you'd been sitting there all day. SPEAKER B That's serious, isn't it? Because people who do I'm thinking of myself. I tend to do a lot of that kind of work. So it's important to get up and move frequently. How frequently should people just in general, how frequently should they be not sitting? How frequently should they break that sitting? SPEAKER C Well, if you can, it'd be good to get up every 30 minutes. SPEAKER B Okay. SPEAKER C It's good for the brain, too. I mean, after about 30 minutes of sitting there, your brain has gone into sleep waves, practically. SPEAKER A Yes. And it can't focus and can't concentrate easily. So you need to get up and get movement going. Actually makes a difference. SPEAKER B There are businesses who have their board meetings standing up, and they have the higher tables now. What a good idea. No, they're actually doing this. That's awful to think I can't get away from it's awful to think that you can't undo what happened during that time. SPEAKER C When you sit there, your blood slows down, the inflammation builds up, your blood vessels get stiff. You have to counteract that or you're going to end up with an inflammatory disease. SPEAKER B Yes. So I guess the essentially thing you did were you were getting him moving more and moving frequently. How much water were you getting him to drink? SPEAKER C I had him take three liters of water a day. One when he got up, one 2 hours after breakfast and one 2 hours after lunch so it wouldn't interfere with his digestion. SPEAKER B Okay. And so he's having a whole food plant based diet that would probably sum it up what you're getting him to eat. SPEAKER C That would be a very good sum. SPEAKER B And plenty of activity that's going throughout the day. And what was the other thing? SPEAKER C Exercise. And then drinking water. SPEAKER B Food and drinking water. That sounds just almost too simple. But Jenny, you're also talking about the role that stress played. And so I guess his stress levels were improving as he began to feel. SPEAKER A Well, when you're stressed, it's hard to do those things, you see, because the brain is just so focused on the stress that it can't think. It mobilises the ability for the brain to function. But one of the other things in listening to you, John, is his ability to give up. Because I deal a lot with addictions, and food is an addiction on that level. Junk food and refined foods are highly addictive. Sugars are highly addictive, oils are highly addictive. And that would have been a struggle for him because he had to very rapidly overcome that. And this is where I find people relapse, but he couldn't afford to relapse. But one of the things you mentioned as a pastor, one of his big strengths could be his spiritual faith. Because they find that people who do have faith and this is where I'm involved at times with what they call the Twelve Step Program, which is a more spiritually focused program, recovery is much quicker, much better and more long term. So for him, maybe that was part of and his family could have been part of the process. SPEAKER C Very much so. And they were praying all the way through this. They had the church praying for him. SPEAKER B Do you know, it's an interesting thing, but most of the prayers that are offered to God are for health, health recovery make me and that's biblical and it's very appropriate. And it would seem as though God wasn't hearing or answering the prayers of this pastor, but he did because he brought you into his life and you helped him to cooperate with the laws, the natural laws that God has placed in our body. And so the mental aspect, as you talked about Jenny, the physical, the social support that he was getting from his wife and his church family, and then there's also cooperating with the laws because it's almost like a tug of war. You've got one pulling this way, one pulling that way. And if we've got the spiritual pulling us in the right direction and we're tugging hard with the physical aspect, you're not going anywhere. And so he had to come to that point where he thought, lord, I really do want to be well. And yes, I've come to the point where I'm going to not fight against basically what's making me sick. We need to look they all do work together. These things work together. Impact. They're like a beautiful blend. They're not all in separate departments where. SPEAKER A We were a total package that's just an individual brain or a body. And the brain and the body work well together. And we have a huge capacity with the brain that is still unexplored. Science only knows about 40% of brain function. Technology has speeded it up and it gives us some wonderful insights. But it's like the unknown frontier and the brain capacity constantly amazes people because we can go beyond things if we apply our brain. SPEAKER B Yes. And you were talking about how our thoughts impact on us and you're talking about plasticity. Just mention a bit about that. SPEAKER A Okay, well, every thought you have impacts every cell of the body. So when I have a thought, if I have a negative thought, every cell of my body responds, but it responds negatively. Right. And then if I have a positive thought, it works in reverse. And every cell of the body and the brain responds positively and therefore it impacts that negativity or positivity impacts your biochemistry, it impacts your hormonal capacity. And that means we don't realize how much power we have over and that's that brain body connection. SPEAKER B Yes. SPEAKER A It gives us vitality and even things like they find that when someone looks upwards, it uplifts the brain chemistry in the body. When we look down, which is what depressed people do. Right. It actually brings the physiology and the brain chemistry. SPEAKER B Isn't that interesting? SPEAKER A So how we walk, I mean, there. SPEAKER B Again, you've got your body connecting to the brain and changing things, and then you got the brain. Very interesting. And I don't think we nearly understand all that goes on in all those interconnections and so on. SPEAKER A Well, the good thing is you don't have to feel it, you just have to do it. Just have to do it. This person had to do the past, just do it. He had to do it. And he was at a point where he would follow your instructions, because it was that or die, basically. He had nothing to lose. But in doing that, he focused out of himself onto what he was doing, and therefore the stress levels would have come down and he would have had a more positive outlook, if that makes sense. SPEAKER B And I find it makes me smile a bit, John, when I think about I think you mentioned when he went back to church and people saw him, they weren't expecting to see him alive, they were planning for his funeral. What was their reaction when he turned up? SPEAKER C First time he came back to church, he hadn't been there in four months. He'd been in this intensive care unit. They stood and clapped. SPEAKER B They gave, they stood. Ovation, isn't that amazing? SPEAKER A They were waiting for the funeral. SPEAKER B Isn't that just incredible that they would do? And I find that I guess I'm thinking of another aspect now. We pray to God and he answers our prayers. I mean, any faint, we just sort of think, oh, well, I did ask you for that, but yeah, right. Shock. Bit hard to believe. And look, it makes me just think of I was running a program once, a very intensive one month program, four nights a week, four nights a week for four weeks, and a gentleman who was an engineer had diabetes and a few other things, too. So one night just before the program, he said, oh, can I talk to you? And I said, sure. He said, well, he said, I took my blood sugar this morning and it was four. That translates to 72 in the other way. And he said, well, that can't be right, because it's never been four. I mean, he came to the program to get well, but he said, well, that can't hire. So he said, I pricked the next finger, and that was four. And he thought, no, it's never been four. This cannot be right. So he did the next finger. How many fingers did he all ten fingers. And they all came up four. And he was shocked. And I said, Would you like to tell the group that there was 100 people in the group? And he said, oh, no, you can if you like, but not me. So I told the group, and they just thought it was hilarious how you ask for these things and they happen and it's like, wow. Because he had a lot of other finger. SPEAKER A Would have a different reading. SPEAKER B Well, I was sort of encouraged because the blood engineer so I thought, well, if he's building a bridge, he'd be very sure. He'd be very sure. So I thought that was probably part of his profession to just not sort of assume anything. Yeah. So it's a beautiful story, John. It's just beautiful. And I just hope that it encourages a lot of people out there who are maybe suffering with diabetes or some of the other diseases that we'll be talking about that it can happen. What about I mean, this is just one story you've told us. I'm sure there are many instances, such instances that you could tell us about, too, and many studies that have been done which confirm the benefits of a plant based diet. SPEAKER C Definitely. And diabetes, it's almost like alcoholism. You quit drinking, then you can quit being the alcoholic. Diabetes is so much a lifestyle based disease that if you have it, it's almost like an indication that you're definitely got some things wrong in your lifestyle. Especially for type two diabetes. SPEAKER B Yes. SPEAKER A This is the amazing part. It is so easily treated if you do the right thing. And this is why, with what you're doing, it's so important, because people can get well very easily. SPEAKER B And quickly. Yes. SPEAKER A And quickly, forever. SPEAKER B That's the astounding thing. It's just so quick. Amazing. I think our bodies are very forgiving, just like the one who created them. Well, I don't know whether we've answered all your questions. I'm sure we probably haven't. But if not, you can contact Dr. John Clark or Jenifer on 3abnaustralia.org.au and they will be able to answer your specific questions. And if you'd like to watch our programs on demand, you can download a fact sheet and just visit 3abnaustralia.org.au and click the Watch button. And remember, today is the first day of the rest of your life.