Participants:
Series Code: HL
Program Code: HL000059A
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00:14 Welcome to Healthy Living, I'm your host Margot Marshall.
00:18 According to the Royal Australian College of 00:21 General Practitioners, there are two factors that determine 00:25 how long men live. 00:27 They say that genes account for 25%, but the other 75% 00:32 has to do with modifiable "risk factors", the things that 00:37 each man can do something about. 00:38 And today I'll be talking to a man who did do something 00:42 about his modifiable risk factors and reversed 00:46 his diabetes. Stay tuned. 01:18 Diabetes is recognized as the world's fastest growing 01:22 chronic condition. It caused 1.5 million deaths globally 01:27 in 2013. Half of the people who have diabetes don't realize 01:32 that they have it. And did you know the risk of a 01:36 heart attack for people with diabetes is the same as 01:40 someone who's already had a heart attack. 01:42 Accompanying our guest today who has reversed his diabetes 01:46 is his General Practitioner, Dr. Coralia Jigau. 01:50 Welcome to both of you, Dr. Jigau lovely to have you 01:53 with us. Thank you! And Alain, thank you for coming 01:55 and sharing your story and how it is that you've been able 01:59 to reverse your diabetes with those "modifiable risk factors." 02:03 You will have to tell us what they are and how well 02:06 that they worked for you. 02:08 Well it's a work in progress. Okay. 02:09 I don't know whether I am fully yet reversed completely 02:14 but it's an ongoing work in progress. 02:16 But certainly, I was diagnosed with diabetes nineteen years 02:21 ago. Wow. And as a nurse, a registered nurse, at that point 02:27 I felt my whole world was closing in. 02:30 Suddenly I was anticipation the worse and I was looking at 02:36 amputations and I was thinking of heart problems, 02:39 I was thinking of visions and all kind of the complications 02:43 that can come up with diabetes. I was thinking of the worst. 02:47 I was very very worried about it and very concerned 02:53 and I thought that is the end of me, for those of my life 02:57 now. I'm going to be on medications and eventually 03:00 insulin and that will be it. 03:02 Because my understanding and our general understanding 03:05 at that time, diabetes is a disease for life, you've got it 03:09 and that's it, there's nothing we can do about it. 03:11 But today we know better. Fortunately we know that it 03:16 is reversible, it is manageable and can be controlled very well 03:20 with a good lifestyle. As you mentioned the gene factor, 03:28 my dad had diabetes and I thought there's nothing 03:33 I can do about it, it's my gene, so I narrowed it and that's it, 03:37 I have to live with it. I will be on medication and eventually 03:40 will be on insulin. But fortunately with our 03:46 health message and we know that we can do something 03:49 about it. Tell us this health message...you refer to 03:52 a health message, what does that entail? 03:54 At first I started...I was first introduced with the CHIP program. 04:00 And what does that stand for? CHIP is not the Potato Chip, 04:05 [Laughter] The Complete Health Improvement Program was... 04:10 I was introduced to and that gave me a lot of information 04:13 and knowledge and powered to do something about it. 04:16 But unfortunately it was quite a few years down the track after 04:20 I had been on medication for quite a while. 04:24 Two years after my diagnosis of diabetes, 04:27 I had my first stent put in. So the damage is done 04:32 even now what we call pre- diabetic syndrome. 04:35 The pre-clinical syndrome there where no test will identify 04:41 you've got diabetes or confirm diabetes yet. 04:43 But it's there and the damage has been done in your body 04:46 and it's happening. We know not before the people are diagnosed 04:51 with diabetes its taking up to five years to progress to that 04:55 diabetes. So when they have glucose intolerance, 04:59 they already have 10%, they already have damage to their 05:04 retina and 50% damage to their kidneys. 05:09 Diabetes is a long progressing disease so before you diagnose 05:13 there is a lot of damage done. That's right. That's right. 05:16 And now this set of light, this knowledge there which we 05:23 twenty, thirty years ago we didn't know and I personally 05:28 thought there was nothing I could do about it. 05:30 Did you tell me about your lifestyle, about how you 05:35 used to have your tea because lifestyle is one contributed 05:39 diabetes is, most of diabetes is due to the lifestyle... 05:42 Type 2 diabetes I'm talking about and lifestyle will do it 05:47 and lifestyle will reverse it. Exactly. 05:49 Well you told me about your type of...Yeah, I'm originally 05:54 from Mauritius and we... That's a beautiful place, 05:57 I stayed at Mauritius briefly. Thank you, I think so. 05:59 And I love those beautiful... Oh what are those lilies? Oh my. 06:03 Beautiful flowers, anyway. Acres of them. 06:07 Acres and my dad actually brought some back home 06:10 and one of them was the size of a dinner plate. Oh yeah, yeah. 06:14 One of us for a long time was sugar, sugar cane was main 06:23 production and so we Mauritian love our sugar and my mom 06:32 used to make the tea for everybody in a big pot and 06:36 the sugar, the milk and every- thing is put in for everyone 06:40 so there's no such thing as how many sugars do you want or 06:42 you have one or two sugars for your...So when I left 06:45 and went to do my studies in England, I had no idea how 06:50 much sugar I needed in a cup of tea to make it to my liking. 06:53 And I discovered to make it to my taste, I needed to put 06:59 six teaspoonful of sugar...Ohh! My sister had a saying 07:04 when we were young, she said sugar is to sweeten... 07:07 I heard the story with your colleague...Well my first... 07:09 I didn't tell...Well she said sugar is to sweeten not to 07:12 thicken. My first time I was in the ward and that morning 07:18 on duty, I remember the night staff has made the tray of tea 07:24 for everyone and was going around saying, tea for you, yes 07:28 sugar, yes, white, whatever. It come my turn and she asked 07:33 me, how do you like your tea? And I say six please 07:37 and the whole choir of the staff is there in unison SIX? 07:42 and I was so embarrassed I didn't know where to hide. 07:47 So that peer pressure immediately reduced my intake 07:51 of sugar. I dropped from six to three. Three was the sort of... 07:55 It wouldn't raise too much of an eyebrow, 07:57 so people would accept that, tolerate that. So I was okay 08:02 with three, so I adapted to three. Until you met your... 08:06 Until I met my wife. My wife said not three's too much 08:09 and she dropped me down to two or one. 08:12 When she makes my cup of tea, it was one teaspoonful. 08:16 But later when I make it, I put two, but the moment 08:23 I was diagnosed, immediately the very same day 08:26 I cut out sugar. Okay. To 0. Isn't it interesting that it has 08:32 to take a wakeup call for us to do something and it's a shame. 08:36 It is unfortunate...It is a shame, just like doctor 08:37 was saying, the damage is taking place over years 08:41 and the damage is done by the time we get that diagnosis. 08:44 So I'm just hoping that people tuning in don't find it too 08:48 challenging or too hard to make some of the changes 08:51 that you are hearing about on these programs 08:53 because the silent damage is happening and I find the food 08:57 beautiful. I'm very much loving the beautiful fruits 09:01 and vege's and whole grains. That's right and we don't need 09:04 to have that amount sugar in our diet. 09:07 But the sugar in fruit is completely different. 09:10 That's right. You can have as much sugar because that sugar 09:14 is bound with fiber and do amazingly. 09:17 Plants...which keep it in control, it's not just 09:20 rising up straight when you eat it, comparing with the 09:24 sugar cane...Sugar Cane, its it's not supposed to be consumed. 09:29 Well it wouldn't matter if you did because you'd have to eat 09:32 a meter of it to get two teaspoons, you'd have a lot of 09:36 chewing. It would have to be refined, processed sugar. 09:39 So many years since his child hood, he was having challenges, 09:45 his blood sugar level was high and it was high... 09:47 Have you noticed something special about Alain? 09:51 He's not obese, most of the people who have diabetes 09:56 they're overweight or obese, he is not, but do you know 10:00 he has his family history... Father with the diabetes, 10:04 and this epigenetic change is with constant blood sugar 10:08 high blood sugar level. High blood sugar level is toxic, 10:12 it's toxic to the pancreas. We know it's one of the causes 10:17 why the pancreas cells are dying as well as high saturated 10:22 fat level. It's another cause of dying. So as you reverse this, 10:26 your body stopped for awhile and it starts repairing your 10:30 pancreas.That's fantastic. Isn't that an amazing thing, 10:34 this disease reversal starts with the organs and the cells 10:37 of the body are being renewed and they are being renewed 10:40 by the food that we eat. You hear the saying, 10:42 we are what we eat. We are, we literally are because 10:45 as we sit here, our body cells are being replaced 10:49 by what we had for our last meal and the ones before. 10:52 So think about that, what was it...Let that food be thy 10:56 medicine and medicine be thy food. We are what we eat 11:01 and our health and our life style will determine our health. 11:05 Usually they've done a study where they've taken a biopsy 11:09 from your fat and they tell you what type of fat you have eaten. 11:15 It is the official if it is there, yeah, it's fascinating. 11:19 Whatever animal or whatever it came from they can find. 11:22 Okay. It is interesting what the Bible says, leave the fat out. 11:27 Don't eat the fat. Fascinating, we do have a Bible text 11:30 which is telling us clearly, we should not eat fat, Leviticus 7 11:36 I think. That's right, leave fat alone. It says "Do not eat fat" 11:38 of hogs and do not eat blood... All meat has blood in it. 11:44 And we do not consider eating fat, when you eat meat, 11:48 you have fat as well as blood. Because it's all through it, 11:50 it's not just the external. But that advice that the good 11:55 Lord gave to our first parents is standing a very very good 11:58 stand, you basically write that right at the beginning. 12:02 He told us what to eat and it was all those beautiful 12:05 plant foods that He created in abundance. 12:07 And now the World Health Organization is seeing the light 12:12 on that and I was looking on their website and came across 12:15 the Healthy Diet Fact Sheet number 394 if anyone wants to 12:20 look that up an it lists them there. There we go 12:29 and there it is from the World Health Organization. 12:31 So it's very up to date, but its ancient, it was there from 12:37 the beginning and when people eat like that, they get all the 12:41 beautiful benefits and when they don't eat like that, 12:43 and when they begin too, they can get some recovery. 12:46 I'm glad that you've been able to do that. 12:48 It looks like we are going full circle and come back to 12:52 where we started from Eden. We thought development, 12:55 and everything, we had all this processed food and 12:58 we make life easier, and it would make life more comfortable 13:01 for us and we find that they are not, they are making 13:04 our life more complicated and bring us more complication 13:07 disease and all kind of things. And now we are going back to 13:10 full circle back to Eden like diet, that plant based diet is 13:16 the way to go. The plant based diet is the healthy one. 13:19 Most of the foods in the super market weren't there 13:22 a few decades ago. They made more and more and more 13:26 and they are not brand new kinds of fruit and vegetables, 13:28 they're just things that they have done more and more to. 13:31 They have taken out a lot of the good stuff 13:33 and a lot of things with numbers on that we don't know too 13:36 much about usually and it's not at all helpful. 13:40 And actually the foods that have been interfered with 13:44 this way and I'm not just talking genetically engineered, 13:46 I'm talking about the highly processed where they are 13:49 stripped of their goodness and added things in that are not 13:52 so good. Usually fat, sugar and salt, plus others. 13:55 That's what is really doing most of the damage and 13:59 certainly the animal products are not good either. 14:01 It is just the lack of plants pollination because of being 14:04 designed to eat them and we just discovered now thousands 14:09 of substances in the leaf of spinach, which we don't know 14:13 how they are working. We do not know but they are needed 14:16 for our body and the latest research in gut, it's showing 14:21 we have in our intestine gut...we have receptors of 14:29 plant polyphenols. We discovered until now 28 receptors 14:34 from plants which are there in the gut. 14:37 We have in our gut receptors from bitterness, 26 of them. 14:44 We don't know what they are doing there but we have 26 of 14:47 receptors for bitterness in our gut without knowing what 14:51 they are doing there. So the science is progressing and so 14:54 we starting discovery. It's like opening your eyes, WOW! 14:58 What are these doing there? Definitely the bitter receptors 15:01 they are doing something. We do have receptors from sweets, 15:03 not only in our mouth as we expected it...Yeah, what was 15:08 the most fascinating, we have receptors from smell. 15:13 Of stomach receptors, we have it in our gut. 15:17 So what are they doing there? We don't know the public? 15:21 science will find out. So its fascinating when we eat 15:25 on God's formula, that's what my patient asks, why do you 15:31 change, I said this is God's formula and God's formula 15:34 is the best formula in which you ever had. 15:36 And those phytochemicals, there in every single plant food 15:44 has phytochemicals, every single plant food. 15:47 And there's thousands of them and they work like an orchestra 15:51 and if you want them to play beautiful music, 15:53 we need to have all of the members of the orchestra there, 15:56 and not stripped out and not for the magic bullet. 15:59 Because they just work together in ways that we don't understand. 16:03 I'll just tell you this if I may because it's a good 16:06 illustration. Some years ago I went to hear the Messiah 16:09 at a church in a country town and they had a small choir 16:14 and do you know, they only had four instruments. 16:16 Oh my goodness. I was wishing I wasn't there because it had 16:22 a harpsicord and a violin and a trumpet and I just can't 16:25 remember what the other one was. You cannot play an orchestra 16:29 piece with those few instruments and not only that, 16:33 but sometimes a couple of them weren't needed. 16:35 It was just not a nice experience. 16:38 But this is an illustration of what it's like, the 16:41 phytochemicals, there are thousands of them they have 16:44 discovered. They work together in ways that we don't know 16:46 and probably never will but they do it all by themselves. 16:50 Yeah. So whole foods are really really good... 16:54 I think this is, this is also the problem when we get sick 16:58 we get diabetes, we say, okay it's a blood sugar issue 17:01 and we try to address just the blood issue, blood sugar level, 17:05 but we neglect other areas which is a whole complete issue. 17:12 We're looking so simplistically through these and I remember 17:16 it was about 12 years ago and I went to a medical conference 17:20 and they're talking about the implications of kidney and 17:23 diabetes and I said what? So diabetes has to do with 17:26 with the blood sugar and the liver and with the muscle and 17:29 with the pancreas. No, no, no. 17:31 When you have diabetes actually your kidney instead of excreting 17:37 enough, it is keeping much more glucose inside of your body. 17:43 You don't need this, you need to...you have already too much 17:46 so kidney is damaged, your intestine is damaged, 17:49 some hormones there which are supposed to keep the blood from 17:52 control. Your brain is not working up, in the liver the 17:55 main player in the pancreas is the liver and it affects 18:00 the liver...when you have an affected liver, 18:02 that liver cannot work properly and it is destroying the 18:06 pancreas. So most of the people who have diabetes 18:10 they have fatty liver, liver cirrhosis. As you fix the 18:17 problem, your diabetes will fix and how do you fix a 18:20 fatty liver? With a diet and with exercise. 18:22 But what was interesting with you, it was because you had in 18:26 2004, your first stent, you did not...at that stage 18:31 you were not fully aware of the dangers or fully aware 18:35 you had to do something, you can't control...it's not 18:38 happening again. And it happened a second time in 2008 18:41 when you had your second stent when your eyes were opened. 18:45 After that you came and saw me. That's right, that's correct. 18:48 Yeah, and it shows that even as a health practitioner, 18:54 our knowledge was so limited. I thought I was doing the 18:58 right thing but I cut out the sugar and I thought that would 19:02 do it. Cut out the sugar, but now we understand, 19:05 it's not just the sugar, carbohydrates and fat 19:09 and all kind of exercise. The fiber needed... 19:12 Yeah, when you took out the carbohydrates, 19:14 you are talking about the refined ones, not the whole 19:17 whole grains and that sort... That's right, that's right. 19:19 The refined carb...the white stuff and the rice and pasta 19:24 and things like that. What did you find recently? 19:29 You told me you have seen some- body regarding micronutrients 19:35 because we know in diabetes there is a big deficiency of 19:38 micronutrients especially Chromium, vanadium and maganese 19:41 what have you done about this? 19:43 The magnesium...You told me... Yeah. Well I found that we eat, 19:51 we eat a lot of stuff that are deficient like Dr. Coralia was 19:58 talking about, she now has the ability to check and 20:02 blood tests and find the deficiencies in different areas 20:05 in our vitamins and micro- nutrients deficiency and able to 20:09 adjust these. Is that what you are talking about, 20:12 is that what you are saying? Yes, I said you start taking 20:14 micronutrients from your son and you find out you are 20:19 getting better. Uh, I started using and when first looking 20:24 at this and I started reading more about micronutrients 20:27 and how it affects blood sugar and I discovered Chromium 20:31 for example was one, very important ingredient was missing 20:35 in our diet and we don't have enough in our diet and that 20:40 interferes with the blood sugar metabolism, or blood sugar. 20:44 Yeah, but God did not design us to take tablets and... 20:49 He designed us to eat our greens, these micronutrients 20:53 are in tiny amounts in our food, in our greens 20:57 so again, we go to the design. If we eat according to the 21:01 design, our body will heal, we'll have the substance to 21:05 be able to healing to help him. 21:08 These micronutrients are available freely to us. 21:12 That's right. They are available freely if only we tap into them 21:17 and absorb them and let our body do the job, 21:20 do the processing of it. Yeah so you've been enjoying 21:24 you whole food plant based diet? Very much so. 21:28 When I was introduced into the CHIP Program years back 21:31 and embraced that more holistically because I was not 21:34 on a plant based as such at all until recently only and then 21:41 I have felt the difference and the difference has been 21:45 enormous in my health, in my blood sugar and my whole health 21:50 approach. It's not just one specific area on me. 21:53 You know when...I think in some our my previous friends 21:58 sharing how we can see a whole changes in many facet of our 22:04 life when our health is addressed properly. 22:08 That's right and we've been noticing as we've talked to the 22:11 different patients that you've brought with you for this 22:12 little series Dr. Jigau. What works for you with your 22:18 diabetes and heart is working for someone else for their 22:20 kidneys and with their liver and it's one size fits all 22:24 basically. That diet that the good Lord gave to our first 22:27 parent works for our whole body, our mind, everything. 22:31 Did you know you said our body is 25 hour genes and 75 the 22:36 environment and what is actually the environment? 22:39 It's the food that you eat, it's the water that you drink, 22:42 it's if you see your sun, if you stay in the sun or not. 22:47 If you exercise or not, the amount of stress which you 22:50 have, so all of these are lifestyle. That's right. 22:55 All of these we have the power to address so we cannot address, 23:00 you have a gene is not which is making your predisposition 23:05 for diseases is not a death sentence because that gene 23:08 can stay there without being activated. But if you'll work 23:12 and you'll have the same life- style like your parents had, 23:15 definitely that gene will be activated and it will cause 23:18 the same problem which we have. While if you change the 23:21 lifestyle properly, that will not be expressed in 23:24 your system. And that's an important thing because... 23:27 you know we talk about the genetics but it's like little 23:30 switches and they can be switched on and off by what 23:33 we ate, so it's just amazing. I think it was Dr. Del... 23:37 who said, the gene is like a loaded gun and somebody has to 23:42 pull the trigger. Lifestyle pulls the trigger. That's right. 23:45 Yes. That was what he said, I remember that and it's true, 23:49 it's true. You know how the food is working now... 23:52 These micronutrients which we need to have, they're acting 23:56 on the nucleus and our nucleus is doing a certain protein 24:01 which is called NLF2 and its going...this is triggering 24:08 a 400 genes of repair or you can do in the same way... 24:13 Another substance which will trigger your nucleus 400 genes 24:19 of causing inflammation in your body. So it is working 24:23 not as a simplistic, it's in one line, its working as a whole. 24:29 Yeah, genes of repair, that's a lovely thing to know about 24:31 isn't it. Food is medicine we now know, exercise is medicine. 24:36 Yeah. Sunlight is definitely medicine. Water is medicine. 24:42 Because water activated genes... If you eat too much salt 24:46 in the case of high blood pressure, there are a lot of 24:50 genes which are activated by excess salt. 24:52 If you stop your excess salt, that genes will be turned off 24:56 again, they will be dormant, so you do not touch. 24:59 So everything in the body is acting on genes. 25:03 And it's influenced by how we live. 25:08 I remember the U.S. Surgeon General, he talked about 25:12 lifestyle as whether we... what we eat and drink, 25:17 whether we smoke and exercise and the last one actually... 25:22 I was surprised actually, the last one was how we love. 25:25 Yeah. Very interesting, our relationships are very important 25:29 too. And if I may say this and I say it genuinely, 25:32 I've heard from one of your patients that your manner 25:37 and your care and concern and your compassion 25:42 has been a big part in helping them on their journey to change 25:47 their lifestyle, which is a big thing to do. 25:49 And so I think that is a beautiful thing to find in any 25:53 medical practioner. Someone who you can tell genuinely cares 25:57 about you and is there to support you through this change 26:01 and cares about your outcome. Love is a healer. Yes. 26:06 And if you go deep, we under- stand exactly how. 26:09 That's right. Because if you don't have love, you're having 26:11 anxiety and fear which is triggering all the cortisone 26:15 and your cortisone problem in the body and its doing 26:18 anxiety and fear and stress and every cell in your body 26:24 will feel when your cortisone level is high. 26:27 The love, when you have it there, it's settling, 26:30 everything is settling in the body, the body's supposed to 26:33 work properly. It's actually stress management. 26:36 Yeah, and God is love, that's His definition, He is love. 26:42 And also I read somewhere, it's beautiful...The creative energy 26:46 brought the worlds into existence as in His Word 26:49 in the Bible. And when we read it, His very life becomes 26:54 part of us, that essence of love. So it's a beautiful thing 26:58 and I would really encourage you if you haven't added this 27:02 to your list of lifestyle things to actually connect 27:06 with the One who created you. It's an incredibly healthy thing 27:10 and it even says, I'm the Lord who heals you. 27:14 So it's a very important element to actually include our Creator 27:18 as part of our lives, as part of our thinking and gratitude 27:23 to Him, because that plays a huge role in the healing. 27:26 Yeah, you have somebody to trust. Yes. You don't have to 27:32 rely on yourself, you have somebody who knows and is in 27:35 absolute control of everything what happens instead of 27:37 stressing what will be tomorrow, you leave your burden 27:40 there. That's right, beautiful things... 27:42 It's a three dimensional is, our health is the physical, 27:46 the emotional and the spiritual, it's all formed 27:51 together. There's been more that 1200 studies in the last 27:54 hundred years on the relation- ship between spirituality and 27:58 health and one person who... Yeah, just an amazing thing... 28:04 We need to actually close here now and I just want to close 28:07 by saying that health is very precious and so I really 28:12 encourage you to think of one thing that you can do today 28:16 to help you to live life to the full. 28:18 Be sure to tune into our future programs to discover how to 28:22 prevent and reverse other diseases. 28:24 You can watch our program on demand at 3abnaustralia.org.au 28:30 just click on the Watch Button and may God bless you 28:33 and bless your efforts. |
Revised 2019-08-07