June 19, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode of The Eye-Q Podcast™, Dr. Rani Banik discusses the critical connection between diabetes and vision loss with expert Jacinda Shapiro, RD. They explore the impact of diabetes on health, the importance of nutrition and lifestyle changes, and the role of a plant-based diet in managing diabetes. The conversation delves into the different types of diabetes, the complications arising from poorly controlled diabetes, and practical strategies for prevention and management through dietary choices and healthy habits.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN
00:00 – How does diabetes affect vision health?
07:05 – What led to the shift toward plant-based nutrition?
13:54 – What are the different types of diabetes?
17:47 – What complications arise from poorly controlled diabetes?
25:00 – How can a plant-based diet help manage diabetes?
32:01 – What lifestyle habits help prevent diabetes?
Connect with Jacinda Shapiro, RD
Website: https://www.empowermediabetes.com/
LinkedIn: Jacinda Shapiro RN BSN CDCES DipACLM
Phone Number: 727 758 3800
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Dr. Rani’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.ranibanik/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Diabetes, it's one of the leading causes of vision loss in
the world, and it's estimated that over 1 billion people in
the world, yes, 1 billion peoplein the world have diabetes in
some shape or form, and it can cause vision loss.
So what can you do about it? Well, yes, there are
medications, but on the other side, there are nutritional
strategies and lifestyle strategies that can be used to
(00:22):
help manage diabetes and hopefully reduce one's
dependence on medications. Learn about nutrition and
lifestyle for diabetes in this week's episode of the IQ
Podcast. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the IQ podcast, hosted by Doctor Ronnie Bannock,
America's integrative neuro ophthalmologist.
Get ready to explore the intricate connections between
(00:44):
the brain and the eye through neuro ophthalmology.
Journey with Doctor Ronnie into the world of integrative
ophthalmology, where cutting edge science meets holistic
Wellness. Discover how to protect and
preserve vision through powerfulpreventive strategies based on
ice, smart nutrition, and lifestyle modifications.
Whether you're an eye care provider or just curious about
(01:04):
how to maintain healthy vision so you can see the world more
clearly, join Doctor Ronnie for exciting and eye opening
discussions which will no doubt raise your IQ.
Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone.
Welcome to another episode of the IQ Podcast where you can
gain insights into your vision, health and brain health and
raise your IQ. I'm your host, Doctor Ronnie
(01:25):
Bannock, and today we're going to be talking about a condition
that can really cause a lot of various different vision
problems. And this condition is diabetes.
And we're going to be approaching diabetes from a
nutritional aspect. And we're going to have a very
special guest on today who's really an expert.
She's a diabetes coach. Also, she's certified in
(01:46):
lifestyle medicine. So I'm really, really excited to
learn from her. So our guest for this week is
Jacinda Shapiro. Jacinda Shapiro, RN is a
dedicated lifestyle coach specializing in empowering
individuals to take control of their health through simple,
sustainable lifestyle practices.With expertise in managing all
(02:07):
forms of diabetes, Jacinda advocates for a plant based
approach, emphasizing the power of nutrition in reducing
medication dependency and improving overall well-being.
Jacinda works with a diverse range of clients, including
those living with heart disease,cancer, and other chronic
conditions. Her mission is to help people
(02:28):
achieve better health outcomes by addressing the root causes of
illness and embracing whole foodplant based solutions.
Thank you so much for joining us, Jacinda, and welcome to the
IQ Podcast. Oh, thank you.
It's great to be here. I really appreciate Doctor Manic
the invite. This is an honor.
Absolutely. So Jacinda and I recently met at
(02:51):
a conference that plant based healthcare nutrition conference
that takes place annually in California.
And she was on a panel and she was talking about her approach.
And you know, some of the thingsyou you said really just blew me
away. And I, I was like, wow, I never
even thought about it from that perspective.
So I decided I had to have you on podcast as a guest to share
your experiences. But before we get into that, I
(03:15):
always ask my guests kind of howdid they get interested in what
they do? So you, I'm assuming you started
off as a registered nurse. How did you become so interested
in nutrition? Well, the journey was actually a
long journey. I've been a nurse for almost 30
years. I started out in oncology in
Seattle. I used to work at Fred Hutch
(03:36):
Cancer Research Center and my late husband was an orthopedic
surgeon. Our second child came into the
world with health problems. Immediately he developed issues
growing. He was diagnosed with failure to
thrive and he developed asthma. It was uncontrollable.
(03:58):
He would have asthmatic episodesas he slept at night, he was
covered with eczema. And here we have two healthcare
providers inside the household. And everything we did made him
worse. Every time we took him to see
another doctor he got worse. So a friend of ours told us we
should read the China study. And at this point we were
(04:21):
actually doing a ketogenic diet and it it was not helping.
And I had a high blood pressure,high cholesterol.
I had been diagnosed with lupus in the early 90s.
And and so I didn't think changing my diet, though, would
do anything for my health. The only thing I was concerned
(04:42):
about was my son. So we read the China study and
as soon as we were done, my husband was an orthopedist and
he was furious. He was furious.
He had never learned any of thisinformation in medical school,
and we decided we were going to jump in with both feet.
Overnight we went from keto to all meat to all plants and
(05:06):
within three months our son, hisasthma stopped.
He was on, I think at the time he was on 8 different
medications. He had asthma episodes as he
slept at night, so he used his rescue inhaler every day.
The nebulizer was used so much we couldn't put it away.
It just stayed out on the counter.
In three months, his asthma stopped.
(05:27):
And Doctor Will Bolsowicz actually talks about this.
He talks about taking poop samples of babies by the time
they're four months old and you can identify which baby's going
to develop asthma where. Myself, I normalized my
cholesterol. What I mean by normalize, I've
never had a total cholesterol over 160 and I've never had an
LDL above 60 after going plant based.
(05:51):
But my lupus titers normalized after 12 months.
And this I thought was my genes.I mean, I was always taught it
was genes. There was really much I could do
about it, but it really changed the life of my son.
In his senior year of high school, he was the fastest kid
on the cross country team. He is an active scuba diver.
(06:12):
He's actually a dive master now.These are things that wouldn't
have happened if we had not beenplant based.
So we just ended up learning more and more and everything
that I do. After my husband died in 2018, I
realized there was nothing I could do for work that would
harm someone or harm our planet.And I realized that I needed to
(06:36):
dedicate my life around this. And one of the biggest drivers
of disease in our world is diabetes.
We have over a half a billion people who are living with
diabetes. It's estimated.
I think who estimates that by I think 2050, we're going to have
like 1.3 trillion people living with diabetes.
(06:59):
And in the US we diagnose 1.3 million every year.
And for the most part those living with type 2 diabetes or
pre diabetes, this is a preventable condition.
Yeah, Well, thank you for sharing your story.
It really is such a miraculous, incredible journey that you and
your family went through. And oftentimes, it's not
(07:22):
necessarily our own reasons for why we choose a certain diet or
make a lifestyle change. It's because of someone we love,
right? We see someone going through
that, whether it be a child, a parent, a spouse, and we want to
do better for them. And we, you know, make some
changes that ultimately affect everyone, so in a positive way.
So this is really a testament tohow how life changing these
(07:47):
dietary changes can be for some people with chronic illness.
Now, you mentioned diabetes. I know it's one of your true
specialties when it comes to taking care of patients.
There are various types of diabetes.
Could you explain, you know, what is exactly type 1 diabetes,
what what is type 2? And I know now that there's a
(08:07):
newly kind of identified or categorized form of diabetes
called Lada. I hope I'm pronouncing that
correctly, but could you just explain the different types so
we can talk about that a little bit?
Yeah, First, I want to make sureeveryone understands there are a
lot of people out there that claim to be diabetes coaches.
I'm a diabetes educator. I'm a certified diabetes
(08:28):
educator. And so with that, I bring to the
table, I I practice as a coach so I can reach more people
because my approach to healthcare differs so much with
the rest of the medical community.
But yeah, so we have and I specialize with everyone.
I I do insulin pump starts I actually specialize with those
(08:52):
living with type 1 Lada Modi andthen we have pre diabetes and
type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes.
So when it comes to type one, this is an autoimmune condition
where the body ends up attackingin the beta cells inside the
pancreas that produce insulin. This is a really important
(09:14):
hormone that most people think of it as the enemy, but it is
not. It is essential for life.
We would die without without insulin and so would all of our
animals as well. Ironically, even though we
relate it to possibly a virus, we are really not sure what
(09:40):
exactly causes type 1 diabetes. But in the last four years type
1 diabetes has doubled. Lada is a slower progressing
form of type 1 diabetes. It typically happens after the
age of 30 and the onset. It's just a little slower
progressing until that person isno longer able to produce any
(10:01):
more insulin as well. There is a form called Modi
which is it's related to a specific gene.
It is not an autoimmune form of diabetes.
And then we have pre diabetes which impacts almost 40% of the
adult population. I think this is really important
(10:21):
that we don't miss this because it is often missed at doctor's
appointments when we can actually take action and
preserve beta cell function. Type 2 diabetes for most people
is driven by lifestyle choices and most of that is our diet and
other practices, how we move andhow we sleep at night, how we
(10:43):
manage stress, but most of it's actually driven by what we eat.
Insulin resistance is the root cause of type 2 diabetes and
insulin resistance is actually caused from excess dietary fat,
even though most people think it's a problem with sugar.
And all the diabetic complications 'cause whether you
(11:03):
live with type one or you live with Lada or you live with Modi
or you have gestational diabetesthat happens in pregnancy or pre
diabetes or type 2 diabetes, allcomplications are rooted in
insulin resistance. Could I just backtrack a little
bit? You mentioned Lada and Modi.
What do those stand for? For those who are not familiar,
(11:24):
what do those letters stand for?LADA is a latent autoimmune
diabetes in adults. Modi is a mature onset of
diabetes and in childhood. But that is not really true.
I see lots of people who get diagnosed with Modi later in
life as well. But that is specific to 1 gene
(11:48):
and it's an autosomal dominant trait, meaning it will only take
one parent to develop the disease.
And if you do have a parent thatdoes have this gene, you have a
50% chance of also Modi yourself.
In those patients with LADA, so are they not producing any
(12:12):
insulin at all or they producingsome insulin?
Is it worthwhile, you know, if you suspect that you may have
LADA, you if you have, if you'rea provider and you you're seeing
a patient who you suspect may have it, is it worthwhile
checking insulin levels in thosepatients or is it, is there a
separate test that you would do?Well, just like type 1 diabetes,
often you still have some insulin being produced in the
(12:34):
beginning stages. Type 1 can progress a little
quicker with lotta. Sometimes we've had patients
that have had lotta and have gone years before they actually
need insulin when they've adopted a plant based diet.
So some people can transition quickly within a couple of years
(12:55):
and need insulin. So it is, I think there's some
changes going on with checking auto antibodies.
See peptide levels and fasting insulin levels.
I think it's important that mostproviders including primary care
and pediatricians understand theimportance of checking islet
(13:16):
auto antibodies. If someone is positive for two
auto antibodies, they will develop type 1 diabetes.
And so there's some new guidelines changing with
checking auto antibodies, especially in children to
prevent diabetic ketoacidosis. In our regular patient
(13:37):
population, it is important whenwe check an A1C that we check a
fasting insulin level at the same time.
And I do recommend if someone has a higher A1C or higher
fasting insulin levels that we also check AC peptide level as
well to determine how much insulin the beta cells are
(13:58):
producing. We can see changes with people
living with type 2 diabetes. If you've had type 2 diabetes
for a very long time, you can have very low C peptide levels
because at the time of diagnosis, 50% of beta cells are
dead. But you don't need a lot of beta
cells to produce enough insulin.So if you can catch it early
(14:20):
enough, also some medications, statins, Repatha, a lot of
medications that people are taking for heart disease impair
their blood sugars. And and when it comes to the
statins, someone who's been on them for a long period of time,
we can see elevated blood sugarsthat even with a plant based
(14:40):
diet, their beta cells just don't seem to be producing
enough insulin. But a lot of just progresses
slower and in time they will no longer produce insulin and they
won't take insulin just like someone living with type 1.
I wanted to share this, this, this patient I saw recently.
(15:01):
So last fall, about a year ago, this young girl, she, she was 4
at the time. She had a viral infection, an
upper respiratory infection. And she, you know, took
antibiotics for it. And then she had a second
infection. And then she developed various
unusual symptoms, visual symptoms, but also systemic
symptoms, polyuria, polydipsia. She was hungry all the time.
(15:26):
And you know, she was a little bit overweight for her age when
she first kind of came in. She also developed systemic
autoimmune symptoms like a droopy eyelid and also double
vision. So what ended up happening, to
make a very Long story short, isthat this young child was
diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. So autoimmune and also
(15:48):
myasthenia gravis autoimmune at the same time.
And you know, whether this was aviral infection that kind of
triggered this, we don't know. But are there also potentially
genetic risk for for type 1 diabetes?
Well, it turns out that it's something like 80% of those who
(16:08):
developed type 1 diabetes have no family history.
So evolution takes thousands of years.
We have doubled, doubled type 1 diagnosis in the last four
years. So even though genetics
potentially could predispose us to type 1 diabetes, there is too
(16:31):
much information about lifestyle, including for, you
know, children who developed type 1 diabetes.
We have, you know, we have data.It's just not enough to be able
to say that, yes, like dairy, but we have data that shows
that, you know, dairy consumption can trigger the
response as well. So, you know, for Modi, yes,
(16:56):
it's that one is genetic for fortype one, for Lada, it involves
over 50 genes over 50. And we're we're identifying more
and more as more research moves forward, but it's what triggers
this response. So you had mentioned that she
was on antibiotics as well. You know, so these two and a
(17:19):
half thousand years ago said alldisease begins in the gut and it
took us almost that long to prove him right.
But when we take antibiotics, you know, they're not selective.
They're not going to go in thereand just wipe out.
You know, healthy microbes are wiped out when we take
antibiotics. And maybe this could be a
(17:42):
precursor to her development of type 1 diabetes as well.
Yeah. I, I hadn't actually considered
that aspect of it for diabetes. I know that there are certain
antibiotics that are linked to myasthenia gravis, but that's
really an interesting thought. So I will, I will look into some
of the research on that. So shifting gears a little bit,
(18:03):
but still talking about diabetes, you know, we know that
diabetes can cause many complications, especially when
you have chronically elevated blood sugar, elevated hemoglobin
A1C. What are some of the most common
side effects of poorly controlled diabetes that you've
seen in your practice? Well, the the most important
(18:24):
side effect to actually talk about with poorly controlled
diabetes is heart disease. Heart disease is our number one
killer. 2 out of every three people living with diabetes will
die from heart disease. Most of it's heart failure.
Then secondary is kidney, chronic kidney disease.
(18:45):
Half of everyone diagnosed with kidney disease is due to
diabetes. And the thing with kidney
disease, it's a silent killer. Most people don't know they have
it until they need dialysis. Then we have fatty liver
disease. Fatty liver disease.
The number one cause is is non alcoholic fatty liver disease.
(19:08):
And that term is actually recently changed, but to to
maffle. But what's important about that
is that this is a response to our lifestyle habits to to diet.
Increase in dietary fat leads tocomplications with our liver.
(19:30):
In fact, to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, you need to
have fatty liver disease. It the fat begins to deposit in
the liver and then the muscle and then the beta cells before
you can develop insulin resistance.
I have patients who have lost vision.
(19:50):
So the leading cause of blindness is is diabetes.
I'll share, I'll share some numbers with you.
So you were talking about how many people in the world have
diabetes. It's estimated that at least 100
million people in the world havediabetic retinopathy.
So not just actually mild disease, but disease that
(20:12):
actually impacts vision. And that number is expected by
the year 2050 to go up to over 160 million.
And I. I think that's really an
underestimate. I really do, because there are
so many people in underserved areas of the world that are not
getting diagnosed. They're not getting diagnosed
for diabetes, but they're also not getting their eye exams.
I think that's a very conservative number.
(20:35):
It's it's a major problem. And, you know, patients come in
with, you know, blood sugars, often times very uncontrolled
hemoglobin A1, CS 891213. I've even seen 1415 and they
have an just horrible diabetic retinopathy.
And you know, the saddest thing is that all of this could be
(20:57):
prevented. And if you catch it early
enough. So I worked with someone who had
an A1C of 17. When I started working with him,
he was already losing eyesight in his right eye.
But he was young, early 30s, he gained his eyesight back.
He he was almost 500 lbs. Within 18 months, he dropped to
(21:20):
180. He had neuropathy, he had
trouble walking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and
he had had vision loss in his right eye.
So if you can catch things earlyenough.
But the key to all of this is prevention, prevention and
beginning with our children. You know the percentage of
(21:42):
children between the ages of like 14 and 17.
Doctor Koushik Reddy, who is an interventional cardiologist out
of the VA of Tampa, he actually is a Ted talk.
If you Google carrot and stent, you can find him.
He presented locally for me to speak to diabetes educators in
my area. And he said the percentage of
(22:04):
children who through the American Heart Association,
through their guidelines, not myguidelines of fiber and fruit
and vegetable intake that I recommend people consume, but
through their guidelines, the amount of children who have a
healthy diet in that age group is 0 point.
I think it's 001 percent. So children born from 2000 on
(22:29):
are not expected to live a longer life than their parents.
The average adult only consumes about 14 grams of fiber a day.
And children, it's less. And as we went at the last
medical conference, I've always told my patients, you need 50
grams of fiber a day. But our ancestors consumed over
100. And Doctor Scott Stoll at our
(22:51):
conference said, hey, we have more data coming out.
It really needs to be like 60 grams of fiber.
And this is what helps diversify.
And so if we can get to our kids, you look at the school
lunches I took in a homeless kida couple of years ago and you
look at the school lunches and and what they're fed and look at
what we pack our kids, you know,so you know, most parents put a
(23:14):
seat belt on their kid or put a helmet on their kid.
But what they are most likely todie from is heart disease or
cancer. And it is driven by our dietary
choices that began can begin in utero and it begins when
children choices that they're making.
Absolutely. Well, that was so beautifully
said. You know, the importance of
(23:35):
teaching our kids how to eat healthy and to support their
their bodies, their minds. I mean, it's food supports not
just our physical being, right? And it supports our mental
health, our emotional health, our spiritual health, our
community health. So it's so important to teach
our kids at an early age. Well, we were.
We've been talking with Jacinda Shapiro, a registered nurse and
(23:59):
diabetes coach, and we're going to be right back with more on
the IQ Podcast. So stay tuned.
You've been listening to the IQ Podcast with me, Doctor Ronnie
Bannock. We're going to take a short
break and then we'll be right back with more insights to help
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Nourish. Elevate your life with eyes that
see the world anew. Well, we are back with the IQ
Podcast. I'm speaking with Jacinda
Shapiro. And Jacinda, I wanted to ask you
now, you mentioned earlier aboutthe importance of instituting a
(25:25):
plant based diet or plant predominant diet in the
management of chronic health conditions.
Can you explain a little bit more about what you're referring
to when you say plant based diet?
Yes. So a plant based diet does not
necessarily mean a vegan diet. So a vegan diet tells us what
someone doesn't eat, but it doesn't tell us what they eat.
(25:46):
And what you eat by far is much more important than what you're
not eating. When you eat enough of the right
food, you will just naturally displace the food that you
shouldn't be eating. But it is for the most part, a
unprocessed whole plant food diet which includes fruit.
(26:07):
Yes, all fruit. There is no limitation on fruit,
including bananas, which so manypeople believe give them
diabetes. Vegetables, intact grains and
intact grains. As a matter of fact, the lack of
intake is actually a risk factorfor developing type 2 diabetes.
And legumes. There is no food on the planet
(26:28):
that extends healthy years livedthen beans and lentils and peas.
So my approach is making sure that people keep their dietary
fat down and I'll discuss why ina moment and their dietary fiber
up. It's always my recommendation
that we get to, we need to figure out where you are
(26:51):
tracking and begin to increase your dietary fiber.
You don't want to do this overnight.
If you're someone who's only consuming 15 grams of fiber and
then all overnight you start consuming 50g or more, you're
really not going to feel well. So think about it like going to
the gym. You wouldn't begin doing bench
presses, never lifting weights with a 45 LB bar and 45 LB
(27:14):
weights on each side. You would go get two 5 LB
weights and lay on the bench andgradually work up.
You want to do the same thing with fiber.
Dietary fat is the driver of insulin resistance, so most
people think it's sugar that causes insulin resistance.
Sugar is only the symptom. Most of our diets are very high
(27:36):
in fat, including vegan diets, especially with all the package
or alternative meats that are out on the market.
But dietary fat is a driver of insulin resistance and we know
this due to MRI. When we infuse healthy subjects,
even with dietary fat, within about 150 a 160 minutes, we
(27:59):
induce insulin resistance. So insulin resistance first
begins in the liver. This is where the fat begins to
store in tissue and then it stores in muscle and then it
stores in the pancreas. And all of these tissues are not
designed to store a lot of fat. Our adipose tissue is and we
have an unlimited amount of storage for fat as well.
(28:22):
Usually takes years if not decades for some people to
develop. So I try to keep dietary fat
under 15%, especially when we'redoing disease reversal.
Especially for those living withtype one or lotta who are trying
to match how much, how much insulin they take to someone who
(28:45):
is living healthy with a normal functioning pancreas and to
prevent postprandial highs. But I also want people to think
of it this way. So especially for healthcare
providers who may be listening, if a patient is admitted to a
hospital, let's say for a lung infection, and they present with
(29:07):
a fever and the doctor admits the patient but only writes for
Tylenol. So the nurse more and more
Tylenol and for a moment that patient looks better, but that
patient never gets better because there were never any
antibiotics written to treat thelung infection.
This is how we treat diabetes inthe United States.
(29:30):
Every drug on the market treats the symptom.
And as we have more and more drugs on the market and we are
using more in combination, we are not doing very well.
I believe the average A1C, even with all the medications people
are on is 8.5, less than 50% of the population.
(29:53):
Their time and range between 70 and 180 is 50% or less.
Within 10 years after someone isdiagnosed with type 2 diabetes,
50% of them will go on insulin. So, and the reason is, is we
don't get to the root cause. The root cause is dietary fat
(30:14):
and our recommendations for low carbohydrate diets.
And by default, if you're not eating carbohydrates, you are
eating fat. And fat is the driver of heart
disease, it is the driver of cancer, it is a driver of
dementia, and it is the driver of type 2 diabetes.
And when we don't eat enough complex carbohydrates, we spoke
(30:38):
a little bit earlier about the gut microbiome.
Our healthy invisible allies that live inside of our gut are
fiber loving microbes. Their only food source comes
from fiber and when they are fedproperly, and that's not at 15
grams a day early at 15g or morea day.
(30:58):
When they're fed properly, they do amazing things.
They modulate expression, they regulate blood pressure, they
regulate blood sugars by 4 different pathways.
And when we were talking about mental health, the gut brain
connection is a real thing. They make almost all of them
neurotransmitters, including serotonin.
They make 95% of serotonin. So it is very clear why anxiety
(31:25):
and depression continues to increase because our consumption
of the food that feeds these life promoting microbes, they're
being starved to death. So the second we heal the gut,
we heal the body. And we can prevent diabetic
complications by doing this. People, people don't die from
(31:46):
diabetes, you know, even though it's ranked as one of our, you
know, biggest top killers, We die from complications.
We die from disease and liver failure and kidney failure, but
we don't actually die from diabetes.
We die from the complications ofit.
You brought up so many importantpoints there.
(32:07):
I don't know if I'll be able to get all of them.
But one thing I wanted to ask you, you mentioned about dietary
fat intake. Now could you clarify that?
Because you know, I've, I've always been taught in my
training that there are healthy fats and there are unhealthy
fats. And so it is good to have
healthy fats in the diet. For example, Omega threes that
(32:28):
come from various different foods, including nuts and seeds.
So is it still OK to have enoughof that type of fat in one's
diet or should one, if you're diabetic or pre diabetic should
just try to really reduce, reduce down to like that 15%
that you said or less? So this is a great question.
I'm actually glad you brought this up because even many plant
(32:53):
based doctors still may have their patients eating too much
dietary fat, including healthy fats.
So first let's talk about the unhealthy fats.
Unhealthy fats are saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol in
our diet, and these are predominantly in animal
products. So whether it's chicken, pork,
(33:14):
fish, beef, all of these are high in saturated fat and
they're the only food that contains cholesterol.
Plants do not contain cholesterol, but healthy fats
eaten in excess can and do create problems for people,
whether it drives autoimmune disease or heart disease or
(33:38):
diabetes. I see it all the time,
especially for those who are living with type 1.
We see what even healthy fats eaten in excess does to insulin
needs and it becomes a factor ifsomeone is trying to reverse and
yes, reverse type 2 diabetes. Excess fat is not good.
(34:00):
Fat is in everything. And when we look at the Omega
threes, a food that you and I agree on that people should
consume every day is leafy greens.
Leafy greens are a great source of our omegas.
They have Ala and it goes through all six conversions
promoting health. I think most of the time we are
(34:23):
overthinking health and overthinking what we should be
eating. People in blue zones who long
living people who predominantly eat plant based are not really
overthinking about what they're eating.
They're just eating lovely plants, so I think it's
important that we stay focused on just adding more, you know,
(34:48):
plants to our diet. Absolutely.
I second that. And you know, I think you also
brought up a good point here, which is that the traditional
fats, you don't have to get yourfats only from those types of
foods. There are other foods that also
may provide you fats in additionto many other nutrients.
So really think about that when you're trying to build your diet
(35:11):
in in in a way that will supportyour overall health, your eyes,
your brain, your heart, your skin, and your immune system as
well. Yeah, all food has fat.
And so most of us are not missing out in fat.
And and I know people will continue to add it into their
(35:32):
their diet, but it does, it doeselevate blood sugars if we
consume too much of it. But this is dependent on person
to person. This is where genes do come into
play. Some people can excrete fat a
little bit better than others. But during disease reversal it
is really important to keep it low and then someone can always
(35:54):
test it. I, I have patients who if they
consume more than three servingsof nuts a week, their LDL is up,
their blood sugars are up. And then I have patients who can
consume 2 servings of nuts a dayand still keep it really low
when they're, when they're healthy.
So this is where we need to individualize care as well.
(36:16):
Absolutely. Well, Jacinda, I have learned so
much from you just in the short time and I'm sure our listeners
have as well. I wish we had another half an
hour to chat, but I know you youhave patients who are going to
be waiting soon. So I really appreciate the time
you spent with us today on the IQ podcast.
Do you have any last comments oror thoughts that you'd like to
(36:37):
leave the audience with about diet and and plant based
nutrition and diabetes? So I, I think, I think the final
piece of the device is just to remember that healthy lifestyle
practices, especially those rooted in plant based nutrition,
we can't for we didn't have timeto talk about exercise, but
(36:59):
exercise is really important. Movement is meant for life can
have profound effects on our overall health, especially when
we are eating a diet that is abundant in fruits and
vegetables. And in fact, lifestyle Trump's
(37:19):
any medical intervention known to man.
And I think some of the listeners may be thinking that
this sounds a little too simplistic, but the research
does tell us that lifestyle is our best way to stay healthy and
get healthy. I think the bigger thing is
implementing healthy habits because they can be challenging
(37:43):
for healthcare providers who arelistening.
I think it's important to understand that we need to model
it. The habits need to begin with us
first. So start implementing healthy
habits into your lifestyle and then you're going to be able to
support and guide your patients to do the same.
(38:04):
For everybody else listening, itis it is important to keep it
simple. Remember two things, fiber up
and fat down, and stay consistent with your habits.
It is really important to be kind to yourself.
This is not about perfection. I don't know anyone who's
(38:24):
perfect. This is just about progress and
the things we say to ourself matters.
So about mental health, I want you to think about how you speak
to yourself and I want you to speak to yourself the same way
you would speak to a child learning how to walk.
You would not tell a baby what ahorrible job they were doing and
(38:46):
that they should stop walking because they can't get up and
start running the first time. And I want you to be kind to
yourself that way. And any movement in in the
direction of eating more plants is positive movement and we
should celebrate that and we should always be kind to
yourself and and keep it simple.Try not to complicate it.
(39:09):
Yeah, again, so eloquently said,you talked about the importance
of movement, the importance of increasing fiber, decreasing
fats, and also being kind to yourself about this.
It's not easy to make these changes, but you know, for
example, in your family there was a definitive reason for
wanting to do this. For others, it may not be such a
(39:31):
definitive reason. It may just be like, oh, they
want to get their sugars under better control or they want to
have better cholesterol levels. If that's your goal, then make
some slow changes and work towards that because every
little step counts. Well, thank you so much again
Jacinda for for sharing with allthis amazing information with
us. If anyone wanted to reach out to
(39:52):
you, perhaps become a patient oryou know and and learn more from
you. How can they reach you?
So first, thank you again for having me.
It was great to meet you at the conference.
Hopefully I will meet you again at another future conference.
So for me, most of my work does come by referral or through the
(40:13):
plantrition directory, but people can reach out to
medirectdirectedjacintashapirorn@gmail.com.You can call me at 727-758-3800.
We can always set up time to determine if you know this
approach is right for you as well.
(40:34):
Well, thank you for that, and we'll include all of your links
and your website in the show notes as well so people can
reach out. Well, again, thank you so much
for sharing with us, and I will see the rest of you for the next
episode of the IQ Podcast. Take care.
Thank you for tuning into the IQPodcast.
We hope you enjoyed today's episode and learn something new
(40:56):
to help elevate your IQ. If you loved what you heard,
don't forget to subscribe, leavea review and share the podcast
with your friends. They connected with Doctor
Ronnie Bannick for more eye opening insights on eye health,
nutrition and lifestyle. Until next time, keep your
vision clear and your IQ sharp.
Diabetes, it's one of the leading causes of vision loss in
the world, and it's estimated that over 1 billion people in
the world, yes, 1 billion peoplein the world have diabetes in
some shape or form, and it can cause vision loss.
So what can you do about it? Well, yes, there are
medications, but on the other side, there are nutritional
strategies and lifestyle strategies that can be used to
(00:22):
help manage diabetes and hopefully reduce one's
dependence on medications. Learn about nutrition and
lifestyle for diabetes in this week's episode of the IQ
Podcast. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the IQ podcast, hosted by Doctor Ronnie Bannock,
America's integrative neuro ophthalmologist.
Get ready to explore the intricate connections between
(00:44):
the brain and the eye through neuro ophthalmology.
Journey with Doctor Ronnie into the world of integrative
ophthalmology, where cutting edge science meets holistic
Wellness. Discover how to protect and
preserve vision through powerfulpreventive strategies based on
ice, smart nutrition, and lifestyle modifications.
Whether you're an eye care provider or just curious about
(01:04):
how to maintain healthy vision so you can see the world more
clearly, join Doctor Ronnie for exciting and eye opening
discussions which will no doubt raise your IQ.
Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone.
Welcome to another episode of the IQ Podcast where you can
gain insights into your vision, health and brain health and
raise your IQ. I'm your host, Doctor Ronnie
(01:25):
Bannock, and today we're going to be talking about a condition
that can really cause a lot of various different vision
problems. And this condition is diabetes.
And we're going to be approaching diabetes from a
nutritional aspect. And we're going to have a very
special guest on today who's really an expert.
She's a diabetes coach. Also, she's certified in
(01:46):
lifestyle medicine. So I'm really, really excited to
learn from her. So our guest for this week is
Jacinda Shapiro. Jacinda Shapiro, RN is a
dedicated lifestyle coach specializing in empowering
individuals to take control of their health through simple,
sustainable lifestyle practices.With expertise in managing all
(02:07):
forms of diabetes, Jacinda advocates for a plant based
approach, emphasizing the power of nutrition in reducing
medication dependency and improving overall well-being.
Jacinda works with a diverse range of clients, including
those living with heart disease,cancer, and other chronic
conditions. Her mission is to help people
(02:28):
achieve better health outcomes by addressing the root causes of
illness and embracing whole foodplant based solutions.
Thank you so much for joining us, Jacinda, and welcome to the
IQ Podcast. Oh, thank you.
It's great to be here. I really appreciate Doctor Manic
the invite. This is an honor.
Absolutely. So Jacinda and I recently met at
(02:51):
a conference that plant based healthcare nutrition conference
that takes place annually in California.
And she was on a panel and she was talking about her approach.
And you know, some of the thingsyou you said really just blew me
away. And I, I was like, wow, I never
even thought about it from that perspective.
So I decided I had to have you on podcast as a guest to share
your experiences. But before we get into that, I
(03:15):
always ask my guests kind of howdid they get interested in what
they do? So you, I'm assuming you started
off as a registered nurse. How did you become so interested
in nutrition? Well, the journey was actually a
long journey. I've been a nurse for almost 30
years. I started out in oncology in
Seattle. I used to work at Fred Hutch
(03:36):
Cancer Research Center and my late husband was an orthopedic
surgeon. Our second child came into the
world with health problems. Immediately he developed issues
growing. He was diagnosed with failure to
thrive and he developed asthma. It was uncontrollable.
(03:58):
He would have asthmatic episodesas he slept at night, he was
covered with eczema. And here we have two healthcare
providers inside the household. And everything we did made him
worse. Every time we took him to see
another doctor he got worse. So a friend of ours told us we
should read the China study. And at this point we were
(04:21):
actually doing a ketogenic diet and it it was not helping.
And I had a high blood pressure,high cholesterol.
I had been diagnosed with lupus in the early 90s.
And and so I didn't think changing my diet, though, would
do anything for my health. The only thing I was concerned
(04:42):
about was my son. So we read the China study and
as soon as we were done, my husband was an orthopedist and
he was furious. He was furious.
He had never learned any of thisinformation in medical school,
and we decided we were going to jump in with both feet.
Overnight we went from keto to all meat to all plants and
(05:06):
within three months our son, hisasthma stopped.
He was on, I think at the time he was on 8 different
medications. He had asthma episodes as he
slept at night, so he used his rescue inhaler every day.
The nebulizer was used so much we couldn't put it away.
It just stayed out on the counter.
In three months, his asthma stopped.
(05:27):
And Doctor Will Bolsowicz actually talks about this.
He talks about taking poop samples of babies by the time
they're four months old and you can identify which baby's going
to develop asthma where. Myself, I normalized my
cholesterol. What I mean by normalize, I've
never had a total cholesterol over 160 and I've never had an
LDL above 60 after going plant based.
(05:51):
But my lupus titers normalized after 12 months.
And this I thought was my genes.I mean, I was always taught it
was genes. There was really much I could do
about it, but it really changed the life of my son.
In his senior year of high school, he was the fastest kid
on the cross country team. He is an active scuba diver.
(06:12):
He's actually a dive master now.These are things that wouldn't
have happened if we had not beenplant based.
So we just ended up learning more and more and everything
that I do. After my husband died in 2018, I
realized there was nothing I could do for work that would
harm someone or harm our planet.And I realized that I needed to
(06:36):
dedicate my life around this. And one of the biggest drivers
of disease in our world is diabetes.
We have over a half a billion people who are living with
diabetes. It's estimated.
I think who estimates that by I think 2050, we're going to have
like 1.3 trillion people living with diabetes.
(06:59):
And in the US we diagnose 1.3 million every year.
And for the most part those living with type 2 diabetes or
pre diabetes, this is a preventable condition.
Yeah, Well, thank you for sharing your story.
It really is such a miraculous, incredible journey that you and
your family went through. And oftentimes, it's not
(07:22):
necessarily our own reasons for why we choose a certain diet or
make a lifestyle change. It's because of someone we love,
right? We see someone going through
that, whether it be a child, a parent, a spouse, and we want to
do better for them. And we, you know, make some
changes that ultimately affect everyone, so in a positive way.
So this is really a testament tohow how life changing these
(07:47):
dietary changes can be for some people with chronic illness.
Now, you mentioned diabetes. I know it's one of your true
specialties when it comes to taking care of patients.
There are various types of diabetes.
Could you explain, you know, what is exactly type 1 diabetes,
what what is type 2? And I know now that there's a
(08:07):
newly kind of identified or categorized form of diabetes
called Lada. I hope I'm pronouncing that
correctly, but could you just explain the different types so
we can talk about that a little bit?
Yeah, First, I want to make sureeveryone understands there are a
lot of people out there that claim to be diabetes coaches.
I'm a diabetes educator. I'm a certified diabetes
(08:28):
educator. And so with that, I bring to the
table, I I practice as a coach so I can reach more people
because my approach to healthcare differs so much with
the rest of the medical community.
But yeah, so we have and I specialize with everyone.
I I do insulin pump starts I actually specialize with those
(08:52):
living with type 1 Lada Modi andthen we have pre diabetes and
type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes.
So when it comes to type one, this is an autoimmune condition
where the body ends up attackingin the beta cells inside the
pancreas that produce insulin. This is a really important
(09:14):
hormone that most people think of it as the enemy, but it is
not. It is essential for life.
We would die without without insulin and so would all of our
animals as well. Ironically, even though we
relate it to possibly a virus, we are really not sure what
(09:40):
exactly causes type 1 diabetes. But in the last four years type
1 diabetes has doubled. Lada is a slower progressing
form of type 1 diabetes. It typically happens after the
age of 30 and the onset. It's just a little slower
progressing until that person isno longer able to produce any
(10:01):
more insulin as well. There is a form called Modi
which is it's related to a specific gene.
It is not an autoimmune form of diabetes.
And then we have pre diabetes which impacts almost 40% of the
adult population. I think this is really important
(10:21):
that we don't miss this because it is often missed at doctor's
appointments when we can actually take action and
preserve beta cell function. Type 2 diabetes for most people
is driven by lifestyle choices and most of that is our diet and
other practices, how we move andhow we sleep at night, how we
(10:43):
manage stress, but most of it's actually driven by what we eat.
Insulin resistance is the root cause of type 2 diabetes and
insulin resistance is actually caused from excess dietary fat,
even though most people think it's a problem with sugar.
And all the diabetic complications 'cause whether you
(11:03):
live with type one or you live with Lada or you live with Modi
or you have gestational diabetesthat happens in pregnancy or pre
diabetes or type 2 diabetes, allcomplications are rooted in
insulin resistance. Could I just backtrack a little
bit? You mentioned Lada and Modi.
What do those stand for? For those who are not familiar,
(11:24):
what do those letters stand for?LADA is a latent autoimmune
diabetes in adults. Modi is a mature onset of
diabetes and in childhood. But that is not really true.
I see lots of people who get diagnosed with Modi later in
life as well. But that is specific to 1 gene
(11:48):
and it's an autosomal dominant trait, meaning it will only take
one parent to develop the disease.
And if you do have a parent thatdoes have this gene, you have a
50% chance of also Modi yourself.
In those patients with LADA, so are they not producing any
(12:12):
insulin at all or they producingsome insulin?
Is it worthwhile, you know, if you suspect that you may have
LADA, you if you have, if you'rea provider and you you're seeing
a patient who you suspect may have it, is it worthwhile
checking insulin levels in thosepatients or is it, is there a
separate test that you would do?Well, just like type 1 diabetes,
often you still have some insulin being produced in the
(12:34):
beginning stages. Type 1 can progress a little
quicker with lotta. Sometimes we've had patients
that have had lotta and have gone years before they actually
need insulin when they've adopted a plant based diet.
So some people can transition quickly within a couple of years
(12:55):
and need insulin. So it is, I think there's some
changes going on with checking auto antibodies.
See peptide levels and fasting insulin levels.
I think it's important that mostproviders including primary care
and pediatricians understand theimportance of checking islet
(13:16):
auto antibodies. If someone is positive for two
auto antibodies, they will develop type 1 diabetes.
And so there's some new guidelines changing with
checking auto antibodies, especially in children to
prevent diabetic ketoacidosis. In our regular patient
(13:37):
population, it is important whenwe check an A1C that we check a
fasting insulin level at the same time.
And I do recommend if someone has a higher A1C or higher
fasting insulin levels that we also check AC peptide level as
well to determine how much insulin the beta cells are
(13:58):
producing. We can see changes with people
living with type 2 diabetes. If you've had type 2 diabetes
for a very long time, you can have very low C peptide levels
because at the time of diagnosis, 50% of beta cells are
dead. But you don't need a lot of beta
cells to produce enough insulin.So if you can catch it early
(14:20):
enough, also some medications, statins, Repatha, a lot of
medications that people are taking for heart disease impair
their blood sugars. And and when it comes to the
statins, someone who's been on them for a long period of time,
we can see elevated blood sugarsthat even with a plant based
(14:40):
diet, their beta cells just don't seem to be producing
enough insulin. But a lot of just progresses
slower and in time they will no longer produce insulin and they
won't take insulin just like someone living with type 1.
I wanted to share this, this, this patient I saw recently.
(15:01):
So last fall, about a year ago, this young girl, she, she was 4
at the time. She had a viral infection, an
upper respiratory infection. And she, you know, took
antibiotics for it. And then she had a second
infection. And then she developed various
unusual symptoms, visual symptoms, but also systemic
symptoms, polyuria, polydipsia. She was hungry all the time.
(15:26):
And you know, she was a little bit overweight for her age when
she first kind of came in. She also developed systemic
autoimmune symptoms like a droopy eyelid and also double
vision. So what ended up happening, to
make a very Long story short, isthat this young child was
diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. So autoimmune and also
(15:48):
myasthenia gravis autoimmune at the same time.
And you know, whether this was aviral infection that kind of
triggered this, we don't know. But are there also potentially
genetic risk for for type 1 diabetes?
Well, it turns out that it's something like 80% of those who
(16:08):
developed type 1 diabetes have no family history.
So evolution takes thousands of years.
We have doubled, doubled type 1 diagnosis in the last four
years. So even though genetics
potentially could predispose us to type 1 diabetes, there is too
(16:31):
much information about lifestyle, including for, you
know, children who developed type 1 diabetes.
We have, you know, we have data.It's just not enough to be able
to say that, yes, like dairy, but we have data that shows
that, you know, dairy consumption can trigger the
response as well. So, you know, for Modi, yes,
(16:56):
it's that one is genetic for fortype one, for Lada, it involves
over 50 genes over 50. And we're we're identifying more
and more as more research moves forward, but it's what triggers
this response. So you had mentioned that she
was on antibiotics as well. You know, so these two and a
(17:19):
half thousand years ago said alldisease begins in the gut and it
took us almost that long to prove him right.
But when we take antibiotics, you know, they're not selective.
They're not going to go in thereand just wipe out.
You know, healthy microbes are wiped out when we take
antibiotics. And maybe this could be a
(17:42):
precursor to her development of type 1 diabetes as well.
Yeah. I, I hadn't actually considered
that aspect of it for diabetes. I know that there are certain
antibiotics that are linked to myasthenia gravis, but that's
really an interesting thought. So I will, I will look into some
of the research on that. So shifting gears a little bit,
(18:03):
but still talking about diabetes, you know, we know that
diabetes can cause many complications, especially when
you have chronically elevated blood sugar, elevated hemoglobin
A1C. What are some of the most common
side effects of poorly controlled diabetes that you've
seen in your practice? Well, the the most important
(18:24):
side effect to actually talk about with poorly controlled
diabetes is heart disease. Heart disease is our number one
killer. 2 out of every three people living with diabetes will
die from heart disease. Most of it's heart failure.
Then secondary is kidney, chronic kidney disease.
(18:45):
Half of everyone diagnosed with kidney disease is due to
diabetes. And the thing with kidney
disease, it's a silent killer. Most people don't know they have
it until they need dialysis. Then we have fatty liver
disease. Fatty liver disease.
The number one cause is is non alcoholic fatty liver disease.
(19:08):
And that term is actually recently changed, but to to
maffle. But what's important about that
is that this is a response to our lifestyle habits to to diet.
Increase in dietary fat leads tocomplications with our liver.
(19:30):
In fact, to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, you need to
have fatty liver disease. It the fat begins to deposit in
the liver and then the muscle and then the beta cells before
you can develop insulin resistance.
I have patients who have lost vision.
(19:50):
So the leading cause of blindness is is diabetes.
I'll share, I'll share some numbers with you.
So you were talking about how many people in the world have
diabetes. It's estimated that at least 100
million people in the world havediabetic retinopathy.
So not just actually mild disease, but disease that
(20:12):
actually impacts vision. And that number is expected by
the year 2050 to go up to over 160 million.
And I. I think that's really an
underestimate. I really do, because there are
so many people in underserved areas of the world that are not
getting diagnosed. They're not getting diagnosed
for diabetes, but they're also not getting their eye exams.
I think that's a very conservative number.
(20:35):
It's it's a major problem. And, you know, patients come in
with, you know, blood sugars, often times very uncontrolled
hemoglobin A1, CS 891213. I've even seen 1415 and they
have an just horrible diabetic retinopathy.
And you know, the saddest thing is that all of this could be
(20:57):
prevented. And if you catch it early
enough. So I worked with someone who had
an A1C of 17. When I started working with him,
he was already losing eyesight in his right eye.
But he was young, early 30s, he gained his eyesight back.
He he was almost 500 lbs. Within 18 months, he dropped to
(21:20):
180. He had neuropathy, he had
trouble walking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and
he had had vision loss in his right eye.
So if you can catch things earlyenough.
But the key to all of this is prevention, prevention and
beginning with our children. You know the percentage of
(21:42):
children between the ages of like 14 and 17.
Doctor Koushik Reddy, who is an interventional cardiologist out
of the VA of Tampa, he actually is a Ted talk.
If you Google carrot and stent, you can find him.
He presented locally for me to speak to diabetes educators in
my area. And he said the percentage of
(22:04):
children who through the American Heart Association,
through their guidelines, not myguidelines of fiber and fruit
and vegetable intake that I recommend people consume, but
through their guidelines, the amount of children who have a
healthy diet in that age group is 0 point.
I think it's 001 percent. So children born from 2000 on
(22:29):
are not expected to live a longer life than their parents.
The average adult only consumes about 14 grams of fiber a day.
And children, it's less. And as we went at the last
medical conference, I've always told my patients, you need 50
grams of fiber a day. But our ancestors consumed over
100. And Doctor Scott Stoll at our
(22:51):
conference said, hey, we have more data coming out.
It really needs to be like 60 grams of fiber.
And this is what helps diversify.
And so if we can get to our kids, you look at the school
lunches I took in a homeless kida couple of years ago and you
look at the school lunches and and what they're fed and look at
what we pack our kids, you know,so you know, most parents put a
(23:14):
seat belt on their kid or put a helmet on their kid.
But what they are most likely todie from is heart disease or
cancer. And it is driven by our dietary
choices that began can begin in utero and it begins when
children choices that they're making.
Absolutely. Well, that was so beautifully
said. You know, the importance of
(23:35):
teaching our kids how to eat healthy and to support their
their bodies, their minds. I mean, it's food supports not
just our physical being, right? And it supports our mental
health, our emotional health, our spiritual health, our
community health. So it's so important to teach
our kids at an early age. Well, we were.
We've been talking with Jacinda Shapiro, a registered nurse and
(23:59):
diabetes coach, and we're going to be right back with more on
the IQ Podcast. So stay tuned.
You've been listening to the IQ Podcast with me, Doctor Ronnie
Bannock. We're going to take a short
break and then we'll be right back with more insights to help
you raise your IQ. Discover Nourish the core of
Ageless by Doctor Ronnie. It's more than a multivitamin.
(24:20):
It's nature's wisdom in a capsule.
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(25:03):
supporting your precious vision.Visit our website to experience
Nourish your essential partner for thriving and Wellness.
Nourish. Elevate your life with eyes that
see the world anew. Well, we are back with the IQ
Podcast. I'm speaking with Jacinda
Shapiro. And Jacinda, I wanted to ask you
now, you mentioned earlier aboutthe importance of instituting a
(25:25):
plant based diet or plant predominant diet in the
management of chronic health conditions.
Can you explain a little bit more about what you're referring
to when you say plant based diet?
Yes. So a plant based diet does not
necessarily mean a vegan diet. So a vegan diet tells us what
someone doesn't eat, but it doesn't tell us what they eat.
(25:46):
And what you eat by far is much more important than what you're
not eating. When you eat enough of the right
food, you will just naturally displace the food that you
shouldn't be eating. But it is for the most part, a
unprocessed whole plant food diet which includes fruit.
(26:07):
Yes, all fruit. There is no limitation on fruit,
including bananas, which so manypeople believe give them
diabetes. Vegetables, intact grains and
intact grains. As a matter of fact, the lack of
intake is actually a risk factorfor developing type 2 diabetes.
And legumes. There is no food on the planet
(26:28):
that extends healthy years livedthen beans and lentils and peas.
So my approach is making sure that people keep their dietary
fat down and I'll discuss why ina moment and their dietary fiber
up. It's always my recommendation
that we get to, we need to figure out where you are
(26:51):
tracking and begin to increase your dietary fiber.
You don't want to do this overnight.
If you're someone who's only consuming 15 grams of fiber and
then all overnight you start consuming 50g or more, you're
really not going to feel well. So think about it like going to
the gym. You wouldn't begin doing bench
presses, never lifting weights with a 45 LB bar and 45 LB
(27:14):
weights on each side. You would go get two 5 LB
weights and lay on the bench andgradually work up.
You want to do the same thing with fiber.
Dietary fat is the driver of insulin resistance, so most
people think it's sugar that causes insulin resistance.
Sugar is only the symptom. Most of our diets are very high
(27:36):
in fat, including vegan diets, especially with all the package
or alternative meats that are out on the market.
But dietary fat is a driver of insulin resistance and we know
this due to MRI. When we infuse healthy subjects,
even with dietary fat, within about 150 a 160 minutes, we
(27:59):
induce insulin resistance. So insulin resistance first
begins in the liver. This is where the fat begins to
store in tissue and then it stores in muscle and then it
stores in the pancreas. And all of these tissues are not
designed to store a lot of fat. Our adipose tissue is and we
have an unlimited amount of storage for fat as well.
(28:22):
Usually takes years if not decades for some people to
develop. So I try to keep dietary fat
under 15%, especially when we'redoing disease reversal.
Especially for those living withtype one or lotta who are trying
to match how much, how much insulin they take to someone who
(28:45):
is living healthy with a normal functioning pancreas and to
prevent postprandial highs. But I also want people to think
of it this way. So especially for healthcare
providers who may be listening, if a patient is admitted to a
hospital, let's say for a lung infection, and they present with
(29:07):
a fever and the doctor admits the patient but only writes for
Tylenol. So the nurse more and more
Tylenol and for a moment that patient looks better, but that
patient never gets better because there were never any
antibiotics written to treat thelung infection.
This is how we treat diabetes inthe United States.
(29:30):
Every drug on the market treats the symptom.
And as we have more and more drugs on the market and we are
using more in combination, we are not doing very well.
I believe the average A1C, even with all the medications people
are on is 8.5, less than 50% of the population.
(29:53):
Their time and range between 70 and 180 is 50% or less.
Within 10 years after someone isdiagnosed with type 2 diabetes,
50% of them will go on insulin. So, and the reason is, is we
don't get to the root cause. The root cause is dietary fat
(30:14):
and our recommendations for low carbohydrate diets.
And by default, if you're not eating carbohydrates, you are
eating fat. And fat is the driver of heart
disease, it is the driver of cancer, it is a driver of
dementia, and it is the driver of type 2 diabetes.
And when we don't eat enough complex carbohydrates, we spoke
(30:38):
a little bit earlier about the gut microbiome.
Our healthy invisible allies that live inside of our gut are
fiber loving microbes. Their only food source comes
from fiber and when they are fedproperly, and that's not at 15
grams a day early at 15g or morea day.
(30:58):
When they're fed properly, they do amazing things.
They modulate expression, they regulate blood pressure, they
regulate blood sugars by 4 different pathways.
And when we were talking about mental health, the gut brain
connection is a real thing. They make almost all of them
neurotransmitters, including serotonin.
They make 95% of serotonin. So it is very clear why anxiety
(31:25):
and depression continues to increase because our consumption
of the food that feeds these life promoting microbes, they're
being starved to death. So the second we heal the gut,
we heal the body. And we can prevent diabetic
complications by doing this. People, people don't die from
(31:46):
diabetes, you know, even though it's ranked as one of our, you
know, biggest top killers, We die from complications.
We die from disease and liver failure and kidney failure, but
we don't actually die from diabetes.
We die from the complications ofit.
You brought up so many importantpoints there.
(32:07):
I don't know if I'll be able to get all of them.
But one thing I wanted to ask you, you mentioned about dietary
fat intake. Now could you clarify that?
Because you know, I've, I've always been taught in my
training that there are healthy fats and there are unhealthy
fats. And so it is good to have
healthy fats in the diet. For example, Omega threes that
(32:28):
come from various different foods, including nuts and seeds.
So is it still OK to have enoughof that type of fat in one's
diet or should one, if you're diabetic or pre diabetic should
just try to really reduce, reduce down to like that 15%
that you said or less? So this is a great question.
I'm actually glad you brought this up because even many plant
(32:53):
based doctors still may have their patients eating too much
dietary fat, including healthy fats.
So first let's talk about the unhealthy fats.
Unhealthy fats are saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol in
our diet, and these are predominantly in animal
products. So whether it's chicken, pork,
(33:14):
fish, beef, all of these are high in saturated fat and
they're the only food that contains cholesterol.
Plants do not contain cholesterol, but healthy fats
eaten in excess can and do create problems for people,
whether it drives autoimmune disease or heart disease or
(33:38):
diabetes. I see it all the time,
especially for those who are living with type 1.
We see what even healthy fats eaten in excess does to insulin
needs and it becomes a factor ifsomeone is trying to reverse and
yes, reverse type 2 diabetes. Excess fat is not good.
(34:00):
Fat is in everything. And when we look at the Omega
threes, a food that you and I agree on that people should
consume every day is leafy greens.
Leafy greens are a great source of our omegas.
They have Ala and it goes through all six conversions
promoting health. I think most of the time we are
(34:23):
overthinking health and overthinking what we should be
eating. People in blue zones who long
living people who predominantly eat plant based are not really
overthinking about what they're eating.
They're just eating lovely plants, so I think it's
important that we stay focused on just adding more, you know,
(34:48):
plants to our diet. Absolutely.
I second that. And you know, I think you also
brought up a good point here, which is that the traditional
fats, you don't have to get yourfats only from those types of
foods. There are other foods that also
may provide you fats in additionto many other nutrients.
So really think about that when you're trying to build your diet
(35:11):
in in in a way that will supportyour overall health, your eyes,
your brain, your heart, your skin, and your immune system as
well. Yeah, all food has fat.
And so most of us are not missing out in fat.
And and I know people will continue to add it into their
(35:32):
their diet, but it does, it doeselevate blood sugars if we
consume too much of it. But this is dependent on person
to person. This is where genes do come into
play. Some people can excrete fat a
little bit better than others. But during disease reversal it
is really important to keep it low and then someone can always
(35:54):
test it. I, I have patients who if they
consume more than three servingsof nuts a week, their LDL is up,
their blood sugars are up. And then I have patients who can
consume 2 servings of nuts a dayand still keep it really low
when they're, when they're healthy.
So this is where we need to individualize care as well.
(36:16):
Absolutely. Well, Jacinda, I have learned so
much from you just in the short time and I'm sure our listeners
have as well. I wish we had another half an
hour to chat, but I know you youhave patients who are going to
be waiting soon. So I really appreciate the time
you spent with us today on the IQ podcast.
Do you have any last comments oror thoughts that you'd like to
(36:37):
leave the audience with about diet and and plant based
nutrition and diabetes? So I, I think, I think the final
piece of the device is just to remember that healthy lifestyle
practices, especially those rooted in plant based nutrition,
we can't for we didn't have timeto talk about exercise, but
(36:59):
exercise is really important. Movement is meant for life can
have profound effects on our overall health, especially when
we are eating a diet that is abundant in fruits and
vegetables. And in fact, lifestyle Trump's
(37:19):
any medical intervention known to man.
And I think some of the listeners may be thinking that
this sounds a little too simplistic, but the research
does tell us that lifestyle is our best way to stay healthy and
get healthy. I think the bigger thing is
implementing healthy habits because they can be challenging
(37:43):
for healthcare providers who arelistening.
I think it's important to understand that we need to model
it. The habits need to begin with us
first. So start implementing healthy
habits into your lifestyle and then you're going to be able to
support and guide your patients to do the same.
(38:04):
For everybody else listening, itis it is important to keep it
simple. Remember two things, fiber up
and fat down, and stay consistent with your habits.
It is really important to be kind to yourself.
This is not about perfection. I don't know anyone who's
(38:24):
perfect. This is just about progress and
the things we say to ourself matters.
So about mental health, I want you to think about how you speak
to yourself and I want you to speak to yourself the same way
you would speak to a child learning how to walk.
You would not tell a baby what ahorrible job they were doing and
(38:46):
that they should stop walking because they can't get up and
start running the first time. And I want you to be kind to
yourself that way. And any movement in in the
direction of eating more plants is positive movement and we
should celebrate that and we should always be kind to
yourself and and keep it simple.Try not to complicate it.
(39:09):
Yeah, again, so eloquently said,you talked about the importance
of movement, the importance of increasing fiber, decreasing
fats, and also being kind to yourself about this.
It's not easy to make these changes, but you know, for
example, in your family there was a definitive reason for
wanting to do this. For others, it may not be such a
(39:31):
definitive reason. It may just be like, oh, they
want to get their sugars under better control or they want to
have better cholesterol levels. If that's your goal, then make
some slow changes and work towards that because every
little step counts. Well, thank you so much again
Jacinda for for sharing with allthis amazing information with
us. If anyone wanted to reach out to
(39:52):
you, perhaps become a patient oryou know and and learn more from
you. How can they reach you?
So first, thank you again for having me.
It was great to meet you at the conference.
Hopefully I will meet you again at another future conference.
So for me, most of my work does come by referral or through the
(40:13):
plantrition directory, but people can reach out to
medirectdirectedjacintashapirorn@gmail.com.You can call me at 727-758-3800.
We can always set up time to determine if you know this
approach is right for you as well.
(40:34):
Well, thank you for that, and we'll include all of your links
and your website in the show notes as well so people can
reach out. Well, again, thank you so much
for sharing with us, and I will see the rest of you for the next
episode of the IQ Podcast. Take care.
Thank you for tuning into the IQPodcast.
We hope you enjoyed today's episode and learn something new
(40:56):
to help elevate your IQ. If you loved what you heard,
don't forget to subscribe, leavea review and share the podcast
with your friends. They connected with Doctor
Ronnie Bannick for more eye opening insights on eye health,
nutrition and lifestyle. Until next time, keep your
vision clear and your IQ sharp.
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