Did you know too much stress can negatively affect your blood sugar levels? One of the ways besides changing your diet radically to help blood sugar levels is to improve adrenal function and mitigate stress in your life.
When we work with diabetic patients we often do adrenal gland hormone testing. This shows us cortisol levels, which is your stress hormone and has direct effects on your insulin levels, which in turn can affect your blood sugar levels. Things like prayer, exercise, attending to spiritual matters, massage therapy and chiropractic adjustments are all great stress resiliency techniques. Adaptogenic herbs area also great tools to balance stress response and the adrenal glands.
Other factors to check in diabetics are inflammation levels and insulin resistance. We do this through a special test called a cardiometabolic profile. If inflammation is too high in the body, it will be nearly impossible to get your blood sugar issues in balance. If the body has insulin resistance, then more insulin needs to be produced by the pancreas to drive down blood glucose levels. The more insulin you need the more weight you will generally put on, which is a vicious cycle.
The bottom line is diabetics need an adrenal profile test, cardiometabolic profile and a nutrient test. These are the keys to understanding what is going wrong in the body and then formulating a specific plan of action to bring the body back into better balance. Functional medicine can be a real game changer for diabetics.