Blood Sugar Basics Lesson 5: The Route to Better Health (Video)

So far in this course you’ve learned that understanding how your body manages blood sugar levels can open the door to better health, and even to the reversal of symptoms that you may have thought were inevitable aspects of aging.

You know that your blood sugar level needs to be kept in a certain range, and that that’s primarily accomplished by the action of two hormones, insulin and glucagon, as they respond to what and when you eat.

And you know that, over time, bodies can develop a condition called insulin resistance, which makes it more and more problematic for the body to manage blood sugar on its own.

So what you can actually do with these new understandings to go through that door to better health?

The definition of diabetes offers two important clues.  Remember, diabetes is a disease in which the body’s ability to produce or respond to the hormone insulin is impaired, resulting in abnormal processing of carbohydrates and elevated levels of glucose in the blood and urine.

So, the body’s ability to respond to insulin is impaired and the processing of carbohydrates is impaired.  Elevated levels of glucose in the blood and urine are symptoms of those problems.

If your blood sugar levels are normal and you don’t have those symptoms, then it may well that you don’t need to do anything at this point except continue to monitor them.  But you should know that it’s quite possible for the body to be developing insulin resistance without blood sugar levels going out of range—the body just has to produce more and more insulin to keep blood sugar under control.  That’s a situation you want to avoid.

If your blood sugar levels are not normal and you’ve been diagnosed as diabetic, or pre-diabetic, then you want to restore the body’s ability to respond to insulin and process carbohydrates normally, as much as possible.

In all of these cases the route to better health is to make the body more sensitive to insulin.

For those in the pre-diabetic range, doctors will generally recommend changes in diet and exercise.   Both of these help the body to become more sensitive to insulin.  But it can take time for changes in diet and exercise to achieve that.   If doctors feel that the results aren’t adequate or aren’t fast enough, they routinely turn to medication.

For diabetics, doctors will again usually start with diet and exercise, but will more rapidly add medications to bring the blood glucose levels down.

Medications work in a variety of ways, not all of which make the body more sensitive to insulin. And when diet, exercise and various medications fail to adequately control blood glucose levels, the last resort is to supply more insulin.

This means you not only have elevated blood glucose but also elevated insulin.  This combination can be particularly damaging to the body and is one of the reasons why diabetes is such a debilitating disease.

Here are some important points to remember:

Blood glucose levels and insulin resistance tend to increase with age.

Diet and exercise is the best approach to helping your body manage blood glucose levels.  But it takes time for that to work, and the best time to start is before reaching the stage of pre-diabetes.

Therefore, monitoring blood glucose over time is absolutely vital, because that data can tell you whether or not you need to take action.

It’s a good idea to save your blood glucose test results so you can see changes that take place over time. Testing gives you a window into the blood glucose control system, and you’ll want to pay close attention to ­­any changes.

Using a glucometer to test your own blood glucose levels at various points throughout the day can be very informative. The results can give you insight into the dynamic balance of your system.

To wrap up this last lesson, I want to bring up a question that may be on your mind. Are there optimal blood glucose levels?

The answer is a definite YES.

How can that be when normal levels are…well…normal? Isn’t good, good enough? In truth, there is a situation where normal isn’t good enough.  You can learn more about that  in the Savvy Health course called – “The Carbohydrate Wars.”  I encourage you to take it.

In closing, I hope you have found this course to be informative and helpful. You should now have a very good understanding of what blood glucose is, how it’s managed, how it is measured, and its impact on your health—a strong foundation on which you can build greater understanding of what you can do to become healthier and stay heathier.

Please be sure to complete the final assignment and quiz to receive your certification.