Why Is High Blood Sugar Bad

Dr. Eric Berg 08/31/2023

I had a question from someone who wanted to know why high blood sugar is actually bad for us. And it’s a good question. After all, we are constantly told that high blood sugar levels are bad, but we’re rarely told exactly why.

Let’s break it down.

In this Article: -

The Basics of High Blood Sugar
The Problems With High Blood Sugar Levels
What To Do About High Blood Sugar

The Basics of High Blood Sugar

Our muscles and liver produce a very small amount of blood sugar, but most of it comes from food and drinks that contain carbohydrates.

Normal blood sugar levels are around 100 mg/dL after not eating for eight hours, or around 140 mg/dL 2 hours after eating. These numbers fluctuate slightly throughout the day, but the body will be able to regulate unless there’s something really wrong.

The Main Cause of High Blood Sugar: Diabetes

Type 1 and type 2 diabetes cause elevated blood sugar

In the case of diabetes, blood glucose levels are usually consistently high for both type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. So what’s the difference between the two?

Well, with type 1 diabetes, your immune system attacks and destroys your Fat Storing Hormone-producing cells in the pancreas. This leaves you with little or no Fat Storing Hormone, which causes sugar to build up in your bloodstream rather than being transported into your cells.

With type 2 diabetes, your cells become resistant to the action of Fat Storing Hormone, and your pancreas is unable to make enough Fat Storing Hormone to overcome this resistance. Instead of moving into your cells where it's needed for energy, sugar builds up in your bloodstream.

There is also gestational diabetes (diabetes during pregnancy) and prediabetes - which, according to the American Diabetes Association, affects around 86 million people - but these are potentially reversible conditions.

Symptoms of type 1 and type 2 diabetes include:

Increased thirst
Frequent urination
Extreme hunger
Unexplained weight loss
Presence of ketones in the urine (ketones are a byproduct of the breakdown of muscle and fat that happens when there's not enough available Fat Storing Hormone)
Fatigue
Irritability
Blurred vision
Slow-healing sores
Erectile disfunction
Frequent infections, such as gums or skin infections and vaginal infections

In both type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes, this chronic high blood sugar can lead to various health concerns and complications, including:

Heart disease
Nerve damage, or neuropathy
Kidney disease, or nephropathy
Eye damage, or retinopathy
Foot damage
Skin conditions
Hearing impairment
Alzheimer’s disease
Depression

This is why diabetes is such a serious disease.

The Problems With High Blood Sugar Levels

Now, looking at a more granular level, there are really two main reasons why elevated blood glucose is bad for you. These problems cause the majority of the big-picture issues above, and they’re the source of many blood sugar-related concerns.

Problem 1: Micro-Hemorrhages of Blood Vessels

One primary issue is micro-hemorrhaging of the blood vessels that occurs when you have high blood sugar levels. These micro-hemorrhages are basically tiny leaks in the blood vessels that actually cause the vessels to leak blood into the surrounding areas.

The problem with these leaks is that, when you get them, your body is going to try to patch them up with a type of protein called fibrogen.

Problem 2: High Fibrogen

This leads to our second reason why high blood sugar is bad for you: high fibrogen.

When your blood glucose is high, you’re going to have high levels of fibrogen. That’s what gives you something called sticky blood. When your blood is sticky, you can get a bunch of problems, including:

Clots in the arteries, which can create a stroke
Hardening of the arteries
High blood pressure because your arteries are losing elasticity
Loss of vision because your retina is destroyed

From there, you can also develop cirrhosis of the liver, fatty liver, and even vision loss.

I had this guy come in one day, and I had him lay on the table so I could check him. He told me that his hands and his legs were completely dead every time he laid flat. In fact, he said that they were so numb he couldn’t even feel them.

But he wasn’t too concerned about this symptom because, when he sat up, he could just tap his extremities and they would come back to life.

So I asked him about his diet. It turns out that he was eating a huge stack of pancakes every morning with an entire glass of syrup. And that was just his breakfast.

The point here is that he was consuming massive amounts of sugar every single day. As a result, his blood glucose levels were elevated and he was prediabetic. The problem, though, is that he wasn’t even interested in changing his diet or addressing this blood sugar issue - he just wanted some relief in his back.

About 6 months later, he showed up at my office with his sister and he had these dark glasses on and a cane. He was completely blind. That’s because he had a build-up of micro-hemorrhages and fibrogen because he didn’t take care of his high blood glucose levels.

What To Do About High Blood Sugar

This was a situation that could have been totally avoided had he just done something about it. That means three things:

Get rid of the sugar
Do intermittent fasting
If you have any of these symptoms, start taking an enzyme called serrapeptase at about 150,000 IUs. That will clean up some of the scar tissue that’s in the arteries.

Let’s go into some more detail here.

Get Rid of the Sugar

- No sugar for healthy body. Use keto, intermittent fasting, ketones

The common thought is that the brain runs on glucose, so you need blood glucose for proper brain function. But here’s the thing - if you had normal blood sugar levels, that would only be about a teaspoon of sugar in the blood - so we don’t need that much sugar at all. Unfortunately, the average American consumes over 30 times that amount of sugar a day from carbohydrates and sugary dietary sources. This is usually candy, bread, sodas - basically refined carbohydrates, processed sugars, and unhealthy food.

This is the main cause of the chronic high blood sugar that can lead to type 1 and type 2 diabetes (along with Fat Storing Hormone resistance).

And you don’t need this sugar at all. To that end, here are two interesting facts:

Fact #1: The majority of your brain can run on ketones, the byproduct of fat burning.

Fact #2: The part of your brain that does need glucose (which is a very small part) doesn’t need to get it from a dietary source. Instead, it can get that glucose from your own stored fat or from dietary fat.

Let me explain a little more.

You Can Get Blood Glucose From Triglycerides

You have something called triglycerides in your body. Triglycerides are the type of fat found most commonly in humans. They come from natural fat food sources, they’re present in the blood, and they’re stored inside fat cells when you’re not using them.

Each triglyceride is composed of three fatty acids (which the body can run on) and one glycerol. That singular glycerol can be converted to glucose. That’s what the brain can run on.

That means that you don’t need external glucose to have good blood sugar levels. Your body can make it from your triglycerides.

Your Brain Can Run on Ketones

With that in mind, you must also understand that the brain runs very well on ketones, an acid produced by the liver that can be considered an alternative fuel source for energy.

In fact, ketones are very beneficial to the brain. It’s like a clean fuel that protects the nerves.

In order for that to happen, you need to be on the ketogenic diet with intermittent fasting.

The Keto Diet Can Help You Stop Sugar Dependency

On the keto diet, you’re primarily consuming fats.

And fat is the only macronutrient that doesn’t spike Fat Storing Hormone and blood sugar. Both protein and carbohydrates do. Carbohydrates, in particular, are the biggest source of sugar fuel, even if they’re “good carbs” like fruits and whole grains. As a result, when your body starts to run on ketones, the switch will keep your Fat Storing Hormone from spiking, which will allow your body to burn fat and maintain muscle.

Overall, it’s a healthier, more efficient source of fuel for the body and the brain.

In our healthy keto program, we recommend a keto diet that consists of:

70% fat
20% protein
5% carbs
5% vegetables

There are a few reasons for this high-fat diet:

We have a lot more fat than stored sugar in our body, so it’s more regularly available for fuel. In fact, an average thin person has about 77,000 calories of stored fat! That’s a huge number, and it only gets higher for other members of the population.
Fat and ketones provide a better quality of fuel. With better fuel, you're much more likely to achieve your health goals.
High levels of glucose in the body can lead to lots of serious health issues, including Fat Storing Hormone resistance and diabetes.
Ketosis - the state of burning fat for fuel - can improve mitochondrial function.
Many people experience increased energy and less brain fog on ketosis (check out our full video on the benefits of ketosis).

Now, in our version of keto, we also call for a lot of greens. A straight keto diet does not recommend greens - instead, it'll call for 20-50 grams of carbohydrates. This could come from a banana, a piece of bread, etc., and it's a very low-carb approach. I'll never recommend that kind of diet.

Instead, I recommend that you add at least 7-10 cups of salad and non-starchy vegetables to your diet every day. These veggie carbs don't count in the 20-50 grams of carbs, and you can have as much as you want.

There are many reasons for this. First, there are lots of minerals in these greens that will help speed up the process and maintain your overall health. The potassium from the greens, in particular, will actually heal any Fat Storing Hormone resistance and help stabilize the blood sugar at the cellular level.

Also, adding greens will avoid any negative keto side effects like fatty liver and brain fog.

Overall, this diet can help stabilize high blood sugar, fix Fat Storing Hormone resistance, and help your body be healthier and happier.

Do Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting lowers blood sugar healthier body

Intermittent fasting decreases that spike even more.

But first, what is intermittent fasting? Traditionally, intermittent fasting is a pattern of eating that changes when you eat and when you don’t eat. Now, switching to intermittent fasting is usually a gradual process.

See, most people eat 5 times a day - breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks. The goal is to pare this down - first to three meals a day in an eight-hour window (fasting the other 16 hours) then to two or even one meal in a 4-hour window (fasting the other 20 hours). You can find more about how to switch to intermittent fasting here.

This triggers two powerful hormones in your body - growth hormone and Fat Storing Hormone - stimulates weight loss, lowers inflammation, and more.

We recommend that you combine keto with intermittent fasting because spikes in Fat Storing Hormone also come from the quantity of food that you eat. That means that if you’re just doing keto and you’re still consuming multiple meals, you’re going to spike Fat Storing Hormone every time you eat.

That’s why I recommend a combination of keto and intermittent fasting. This will lower your blood sugar and improve your health overall.