Metabolic Roadblocks in Diabetes

Hey wonderful people, Dr Jedha here—welcome and thanks for joining me. 

In today’s episode we’re zeroing in on the hidden engine that drives the progression of diabetes and every complication in diabetes: an altered metabolism and the systemic metabolic disruption that occurs in the body. If you’ve listened to the podcast for a while, you’ve heard me talk about carbs, fats and proteins – these are the main macronutrients our metabolism processes to support our body to function. The interesting story is how the carb-fat-protein pathways collide and throw the whole body out of sync. When glucose, lipids and amino acids all go a bit crazy, they feed each other, fuel inflammation, and set the stage for blood sugar imbalances, complications like neuropathy, retinopathy and eye issues, kidney problems or disease, stubborn weight gain, through to issues like heart disease.

Today we’re going to chat about some of the roadblocks that occur and why focusing on nutrition is such an important component of your treatment, the most important component in fact. So, first, let’s step back for a moment and look at the bigger picture. 

When most people hear “diabetes,” the first thing that jumps to mind is a high blood-sugar number or high glucose number. That’s understandable, glucose is the headline, the metric we all get tested on for a diagnosis, and the main number we’re told to bring down once being diagnosed. For those of you who may be newly diagnosed blood sugar and blood glucose are terms that refer to the same thing. Sugar and glucose are often used interchangeably when talking about diabetes. No doubt, high blood sugar is an important clinical indicator of this systemic metabolic dysfunction that can take place in our bodies. But in terms of nutrient metabolism, the reality inside the body is far more complex. 

Think of your metabolism as a bustling city. Glucose, fats, and proteins, or rather the amino acids that make up proteins, are the three main traffic streams. Glucose, fats and amino acids each have their own highways, toll booths and delivery routes. In a healthy city, the traffic lights are synchronized, the roads are clear, and everything moves smoothly. Insulin, the hormone released from the pancreas when we eat, it’s the traffic controller, telling the liver when to stop producing glucose, directing muscle cells to pull fuel from the bloodstream, and signaling the liver and your fat cells to store excess energy safely.

As we’ve spoken about before, insulin resistance is central to pre and t2diabetes, it’s when your cells stop responding as effectively to the hormone traffic controller insulin. When insulin resistance sets in, the traffic controller starts missing signals. The three streams begin to collide and suddenly we see glucose traffic jams, fat overflow and the potential for protein congestion. 

Now, because these pathways are intertwined, a problem in one lane quickly spreads to the others. Suddenly the bustling city isn’t so healthy, the traffic lights aren’t synchronized, and there’s collisions, jams, overflows and congestion all over the place. For many people, this means the result isn’t just a single elevated lab value; it’s a cascade that manifests as multiple issues occurring, fluctuating blood sugars, high cholesterol, stubborn weight gain, high blood pressure and increased likelihood of more serious complications. 

As we teach our members, yes the blood glucose and HbA1c targets are important, but the real lever for lasting health is to calm the whole metabolic orchestra, not just the glucose solo. When we focus on nutrition and natural treatment strategies, the traffic lights start working together again, the downstream complications lose momentum, all your labs start to normalize, and you regain control over weight, energy, and overall wellbeing. The traffic lights synchronize and the city is in harmony once again. 

Understanding this. Knowing that it’s your entire metabolic system that’s out of sync gives us a clear map of where to intervene. It places nutrition at the heart and soul of treatment, because medications can mask a symptom but they can’t get your metabolism operating normally again, only nutrition and natural treatment strategies can do that. 

But let’s talk a bit more about the three nutrients we can influence. In the first lane of our metabolic highway is carbohydrates.

First off, picture your liver as a power plant. In a healthy body, insulin is the foreman who tells that power plant when to crank down production. Insulin flips two switches: it shuts off gluconeogenesis (that’s the process where your liver makes new glucose) and it tells the liver to stop breaking down glycogen (the stored form of glucose). Simple, right?

Now imagine insulin resistance as a foreman who’s lost his walkie-talkie. Those switches stay stuck in the “on” position, and the liver just keeps churning out glucose, even after you’ve finished a meal or when you’re fasting and haven’t eaten anything. But the liver not only keeps producing new glucose but also breaking down glycogen, continuously flooding the bloodstream with sugar that isn’t supposed to be there.

Glucose loves to stick to other molecules—proteins, fats, even DNA. When it does, it forms what scientists call advanced-glycation end-products, or AGEs. Think of AGEs as microscopic rust building up on the infrastructure of your body. They coat the walls of blood vessels, make the collagen in nerves stiffer, drive inflammation throughout the body, and interfere with the normal healing process of skin and wounds. It’s crazy to think that all this can happen from our carbohydrate metabolism being disrupted. 

So, what are a couple of telltale signs of this traffic jam in the carbohydrate lane?

1. Elevated glucose readings – fasting glucose, post-meal spikes, or a high HbA1c. This applies to almost everyone with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, particularly with new diagnoses.
2. Persistent high numbers despite cutting carbs – if you’ve trimmed carbs and your fasting glucose or HbA1c stays stubbornly elevated, the liver’s glucose-output switch may still be stuck in the “on” position.
3. Slow-healing cuts, painful tingling, or burning sensations in the feet and legs – classic signs that AGEs are damaging nerves and limiting wound repair, and these strange sensations can start in prediabetes.

When you see any of those clues, you know the carbohydrate lane is jammed and it’s time to clear the traffic.

Alright, let’s talk about the second lane of our metabolic highway—fat or lipids. When insulin is working, it sends a memo to the fat cells saying, “keep those fatty acids locked up for later,” so triglycerides stay stored and free fatty acids (FFAs) stay out of the bloodstream.

When insulin resistance kicks in, that memo never arrives, triglycerides continue to build up but also start to break down, and a flood of FFAs pours into circulation. Those extra fatty acids don’t just float around; they can deposit themselves in places they are not meant to be – inside muscle and liver cells and even in the pancreas. This isn’t good because the fat buildup in the organ tissues blocks insulin signaling, making it harder for insulin to tell cells to pull glucose from the blood, creating a vicious loop—increased disruption of glucose metabolism, more FFAs, more fat deposits, worse insulin resistance, oxidative stress, cellular inflammation and increase risk of diabetic complications. 

Of course this disruption in fat metabolism causes the common cholesterol issues in diabetes too – high triglycerides, high LDL and low HDL cholesterol. And all those surplus FFAs can lead to small, dense LDL particles. Those LDL particles are what people call the “bad cholesterol” that slip easily through arterial walls, ignite inflammation, and speed up plaque formation and heart disease. Another component of this disruption in fat metabolism is a tendency for the body to deposit more visceral fat – they type of fat that’s around the organs and deep in the abdominal cavity and it’s the type of fat that contributes to the negative cycle.

So, what are some telltale signs of this overflow in the fat lane?

Look for elevated triglycerides on your lipid panel, a high triglyceride-to-HDL ratio, a predominance of small, dense LDL if you get an advanced lipid test, weight gain, a weight loss plateau, and an increasing waist circumference even when your weight plateaus. Those clues tell you the fatty-acid stream is flooding the system and you need to divert traffic.

Now let’s shift to the third lane—protein. Thankfully, protein metabolism isn’t as compromised as carbohydrate and fat metabolism. That’s because the body prioritizes protein because we need it as the building blocks of cells, hormones and functions throughout the body. But, the research shows that branched-chain amino acids, or BCAAs are important and can become congested in this traffic jam. So in a healthy system, the three BCAAs—leucine, isoleucine and valine—are taken up by muscle, burned in the mitochondria (the tiny “power-houses” inside each cell), and help build new proteins. When insulin resistance is present, the enzymes that break these amino acids down become sluggish, so BCAAs can start to pile up in the blood.

That buildup does a few things. First, excess BCAAs light up oxidative pathways, generating reactive oxygen species that act like tiny sparks of inflammation throughout the body. Second, when BCAA levels stay high, they keep a cellular “growth switch” in the ‘on’ position. Instead of helping build new muscle, that constant “on” signal actually messes up the normal process of making muscle protein and ends up speeding up the breakdown of the muscle you already have. The result can be sarcopenia—loss of lean muscle mass—meaning you have fewer glucose-absorbing cells, which pushes blood sugar higher and makes insulin resistance worse.

Because muscle is the biggest glucose absorber, losing even a modest amount of lean tissue can have a noticeable impact on fasting glucose and post-meal spikes. It also contributes to the feeling of fatigue and the slower metabolism that many people with pre and t2diabetes report. Basically, an increase in these BCAAs’ can play an active aggravating role, but they also reflect underlying metabolic dysfunction. Remember, all of these metabolic roadblocks are connected. 

How can you tell if this protein lane is clogged? A few practical clues: you can have a specialty lab that measures BCAAs and if the numbers are elevated, that’s a direct signal. Even without that test, look for unexplained loss of strength, obvious loss of muscle, slower gait, a drop in the number of repetitions you can do with a given weight or a drop in what you’re physically able to do normally. Also, increased fatigue when you haven’t changed anything can be a clue. Combine that with a rising HbA1c despite a stable or reduced carbohydrate intake, and you have a strong suspicion that BCAA accumulation and muscle loss are feeding the metabolic chaos.

So as you can see, it’s not just as simple as someone eating too much sugar, yes, that is certainly a contributor to these metabolic roadblocks, but once metabolism starts changing, so much more is happening inside the body. Understanding that there’s a three-way interaction that affects the way our body processes nutrients, explains why focusing on carbs alone doesn’t always fix the problem. And it certainly explains why medications are only treating symptoms and can’t treat the underlying cause, which is an altered metabolism – that simply means that the way the body metabolises nutrients has changed. Addressing these metabolic roadblocks has everything to do with our nutrition and lifestyle. In order to reset the system, we have to take a whole person approach, a look at aspects of nutrition and lifestyle, treating prediabetes and t2diabetes naturally, which is the most effective long term approach. You only have to listen to previous episodes where our members have shared their stories, or visit our website for the thousands of testimonials people have shared – they are living proof that this approach works. 

Nutrition and natural treatment can remove these metabolic roadblocks and reverse your diabetes, reset your metabolism back to normal, and that’s what you want to be aiming for, not just masking symptoms with medications because eventually that will stop working or you’ll need to continually increase the meds to achieve the same outcome. 

So, before I give you three practical ways to get your system moving smoothly again, let’s hear a testimonial from one of our members.

Alright, let’s bring those three lanes together and give you three practical ways you can start today to clear the traffic and get the system back running smoothly.

First, tighten up the carbohydrate side of the highway. Diabetes management has always focused on carbohydrates and that’s because we know carbs have the biggest impact on blood sugar and insulin, that’s no secret. You want to keep carbs under a hundred grams a day, focus on non-starchy vegetables, lots of them, leafy greens, antioxidant-rich berries and high-fiber foods that slow glucose absorption. When you feed the body a steadier, lower-glycemic, lower carbohydrate load, the liver gets a clear signal to shut off its glucose-making factory, the post-meal blood sugar and insulin spikes shrink, and the downstream ripple effect on fats and BCAAs eases.

Second, rebuild the muscle bridge that pulls glucose out of the bloodstream. What we’re talking about here is resistance training or weight training. Regardless of your age, aim for two to three sessions each week. Focus on progressive overload, adding a little weight or a few extra reps each session. More lean muscle means more glucose-absorbing tissue, a higher resting metabolic rate, and a buffer against the BCAA-driven muscle loss that fuels the insulin-resistance loop. And of course we know that walking after meals, which we covered in episode 89, is a great glucose absorber, so add it daily, especially after your biggest meal. If you can’t get outside, then walk on the spot. Any movement will help with the post-meal glucose spikes. 

Third, give your system a predictable rhythm. Regular meal times, cutting out as much processed food as possible. Finish your main meal at least two hours before bedtime, and avoid carb-heavy snacks or sugary drinks after dinner, and create a wind-down routine that lets you get seven to nine hours of quality sleep. Better sleep helps reduce the inflammatory pathways that amplify those traffic jams.

Of course, I’m sharing the broad strokes here on the podcast today but the point is, when you line up those three levers—controlled carbs, regular strength work, and a steady meal and sleep schedule—you’re essentially re-installing the traffic lights, clearing the bottlenecks, and letting insulin do its job again. Your labs start to move in the right direction, weight stabilizes, energy returns, and the risk of complications drops dramatically.

Inside our membership we help our members align all the nutrition and natural strategies together to address any roadblocks, making it easier to lower blood sugar, lose weight and reduce or stop medications. If you’re tired of trying to work it out on your own and want a clear proven pathway to stabilize your metabolism back to normal and receive real support every step of the way, then please head to our website to join us as a member. 

That’s it for today’s episode. Remember, the goal isn’t just to lower a number on a lab report; it’s to get your whole system back in sync so you feel stronger and more in control of your long term health.

Thanks for tuning in. Stay curious, stay motivated, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

Dr Jedha, over and out.