The 7 Warning Signs Of Prediabetes To Spot Early On | Dr. William Li
ipLZaSpqqC8 • 2024-10-10
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today I'm going to talk about seven
warning signs that you might have
pre-diabetes and here they are up front
number one increased thirst you're
really thirsty number two increased
hunger got to find something to eat
number three increased urination got to
go to the bathroom number four blurred
vision number five serious fatigue
number six numbness in the feet and
number seven slowly healing wounds
especially on your feet all right let's
go into each one in detail are you ready
ready to dive in let's go all right
first we need to talk about what is
pre-diabetes
pre-diabetes is a metabolic state where
your body's metabolism is derailed in
other words it doesn't process energy
the right way now your energy is glucose
which you actually get from the food
that you eat and that's your body's Fuel
and because it your metabolism is
derailed and you don't use glucose
properly this puts you on a collision
course for developing type 2 diabetes
okay so that's where your body is unable
to regulate blood sugar uh in a proper
way so your blood sugar actually
continuously is elevated it's rising to
a high and dangerous level and this
occurs because your body has insulin
resistance now insulin is a hormone in
your body body made by an organ called
the pancreas it's made basically every
time you actually sit down to eat
something because the role of insulin is
actually to bring that glucose that
comes from the food that you eat into
your muscles into your uh body fat which
is a fuel tank and into your liver all
right and when your body isn't sensitive
to insulin your pancreas just makes more
and more insulin thinking that the
problem is you don't have enough insulin
and the body just doesn't respond so
think about it like uh if you drive a
car think about it like the brake pedal
in your car right so you want to slow
down when you're driving really fast and
you stamp on the brake it's not
responding all right so you just stamp
on harder and harder and it becomes a
dangerous situation because you're not
actually getting the response that you
are expecting which is actually
something that put put you in a safe
place same thing with pre-diabetes your
body is not responding to insulin
because you've got insulin resistance
and and your pancreas makes more and
more insulin it's like stamping on The
Brak harder and harder and yet it's not
actually getting the result that it
needs which is to bring that blood
glucose into your muscles into your body
fat your fuel storage tanks and into
your liver all right so this
pre-diabetes it basically you're on the
road to a dangerous situation just like
if a car's breake pedal wears out now
sometimes pre-diabetes is called
metabolic syndrome and and they're
pretty much used interchangeably but
this is actually it describes what is
actually going on which is that you got
a problem uh of your metabolism that
leads to high blood sugars for the
reasons that we talked about your you
have insulin resistance and your
metabolism off kilter so blood sugar
goes High you also have high blood
pressure all right also high blood
cholesterol your blood lipids are
actually high and you have an expanding
waistline right so think about your
waistline whether it's you know the
waistline of a dress or a pair of pants
you can put a belt onto it all right um
and when your waistline expands H you
know you got to loosen up a hole in your
belt because your waistline so think
about the circumference here all right
that's actually your uh your body's tube
and when your waistline expands right so
here's the regular waistline it's
expanding now all right and it's because
the stuff inside is actually building up
which is extra harmful body fat all
right so when your body fat expands your
waist circumference is also going to
increase because the fat inside the tube
of your body stretches out the side um
of the of the the tube so these are the
Hallmarks of metabolic syndrome high
blood sugar high blood pressure high
blood cholesterol high blood lipids and
um a expanding waistline now if this is
the definition of uh pre-diabetes
then what are some of the things that
you can do to be on lookout for all
right so what are the warning signs that
you might be headed into this dangerous
State okay again the brake on the car is
not working you're stamping harder and
harder and you're sort of on on a path
uh to disaster what are those signs
warning signs all right so first warning
sign we're going to talk about is
increased thirst now uh our body gets
thirsty uh when we have relatively less
volume of fluid in our overall uh
circulation uh Less in our body so we
actually have these osmo receptors this
is a special kind of receptor that
senses how concentrated the fluid is in
the blood is in your body and when you
actually are relatively
dehydrated you don't have enough liquid
in your body the water is really
concentrated right so think about like a
pot of coffee uh you put it on the boil
and you keep it on the boil uh where you
drink a cup and you keep the rest of it
on the boil water evaporates off what's
left okay you got a A little bit of
water or liquid left in the uh the
coffee pot but man is it's strong super
concentrated so that high concentration
is sensed by your osmo receptors and it
tells your brain hey uh we need a little
more water here we need to dilute out uh
uh the blood all right so then you get
thirsty so uh the natural hormonal
signal at comes from concentrated blood
because you've lost water uh is to drink
more water so that's the that's the
signal now when you uh actually have
type 2 uh diabetes you get thirsty uh
because of the second reason uh which is
that you know you're peeing out a lot of
water we're going to talk about that in
a second but when you're actually losing
water your blood gets more concentrated
and you get more thirsty so if you find
yourself you know more than more than
usual uh needing to slug down some water
but not just one cup not just two cups
you're eating three cups or maybe you're
getting up at night uh because you're
really really you feel parched and you
go drink two or three maybe four cups of
water that is a warning sign something's
going on with the concentration of your
blood where for some reason your brain
is thinking telling you that you need to
actually drink more water so that is one
warning sign that you're heading towards
pre diabetes because of the second
reason and that second reason is that uh
and this is the sign the second sign is
that you're peeing a lot you have
frequent urination all right the medical
term for urination is micturation by the
way uh and one of the things that
actually happens is that uh uh as you uh
uh head towards this metabolic state
right uh one of the things that happens
with the kidney is a kidney starts
function malfunctioning a little bit as
well and you lose a lot of water all
right so you pee out a lot of water so
you're drinking a lot of water and
you're peeing out a lot of water all
right and part of the other reason that
you might want to be drinking a lot of
water is that there's a lot of glucose
in your blood as well so it's pretty
concentrated so you need to actually
drink more water which is going to cause
you to pee more and your kidney is also
not working that great okay so I want to
talk to you a little bit more about this
uh frequency of urination because it can
happen at night right I mean normally
most people sleep pretty decently
through the night all right we should
always try to sleep better but if you
find yourself like getting up you know
every couple of hours to go to the
bathroom all right if it happens once in
a while not a big deal but if you find
yourself regularly getting up and peeing
all right and maybe feeling thirsty at
the same time that's a sign there's
something going on in your body and it
is a warning sign of pre-diabetes all
right now there are other reasons that
you could actually have frequent UR too
so if this winds up being a problem you
definitely want to talk about it with
your doctor and let your doctor know
okay now the third sign that you uh
might be have pre-diabetes is increased
hunger all right increased hunger why
well remember I told you the food that
we eat is the fuel that we store in our
body and we run the engine of our body
off the fuel right so uh that fuel being
glucose and Insulin being the way that
your body your metabolism takes that
fuel uh and puts it into the engine of
your body so think about it if you are
driving a car and you put gasoline into
the gas tank or petrol you fill it all
up now when you're driving guess what
your uh your car has to be able to take
the gasoline and move it through the
engine in order to be able to run the
engine if the car can't take the Fuel
and move it into the engine guess what
the engine's going to feel like there's
not enough gas in the car and it's not
going to run very well same thing as in
pre-diabetes when you have insulin
resistance you might have you might have
a full tank I mean you have you've eaten
a meal blood sugar is there there's
plenty of fuel but it can't get it to
the engine of your body can't store in
your muscles can't put it uh in your
body fat and can't get into your liver
and so what winds up happening is that
you feel hungry all right so this is one
of the Natural Instincts of our body
when we don't have enough fuel uh that
there are signals and that are go to the
brain that say Hey you know we our tank
looks feels like it's empty better go
fill it back up so you're hungry all the
time even if you have been eating
regularly already even if you're eating
healthy you're still your body is still
unable to actually get uh the the blood
sugar into your cells and so you're
going to feel more hungry so the three
things that I talked about uh increased
thirst all right uh increased uh going
to the bathroom urination micturation
and increased hunger these are three
things that we have medical terms for
and I want to share those with you
because you might not know this is what
it's called but uh increased thirst
drinking a lot of water it's called poly
dipsia D PS I a
polydipsia uh urinating frequently is
called
polyurea for the obvious reasons and uh
uh eating a lot feeling hungry and
eating a lot all the time is called
polyphasia fasia fagos means eating all
right so polydipsia polyurea
polyphasia are all signs that you might
have pre-diabetes moving into frankly uh
type two diabetes all right so these are
three of the signs that you might have
pre uh diabetes Now the here's the thing
right so you might be eating you might
be drinking uh but you're keeping on
losing water so you got to keep on
drinking more water to dilute your blood
uh and and you're peeing so you're you
know you're losing a lot of water liquid
from your blood volume and then because
you're not actually getting energy into
your cells you're feeling hungry but
you're not getting that you're not
getting the fuel where the engine that
you that needs the fuel is that you
running so this then leads to the third
sign that you might actually have
pre-diabetes or you're headed towards
type two Di diabetes and that's serious
fatigue now fatigue is actually a tricky
concept I'm actually doing some research
on it right now um we don't really
understand the biology of fatigue very
well a lot of things can make you tired
right your muscles could be weak you
could have just run a marathon um you
might have an illness uh there might be
medication on board in your body there's
a lot of reasons that um you can feel
fatigue but when you're metapath when
you're metabolism is off-kilter and your
body is insulin resistant remember what
I told you the blood sugar is there in
your bloodstream glucose is there in
fact it's at high levels but your body
is insulin resistant so the insulin
can't draw it into your cells to give
you the energy that you need right so
you're not able to use the energy that
you have what does that mean when you
can't use fuel that you need to power up
the engine of your body you're going to
feel tired okay so serious fatigue over
a long period of time all right despite
the fact you're eating is a warning sign
of pre-diabetes maybe even going towards
type 2 diabetes now as I mentioned to
you these warning signs are all
connected together right and it makes
sense why they actually happens once
your metabolism gets derailed once you
get insulin resistant once your uh blood
vessels start breaking down in your
kidney um you're going to be drinking a
lot you're going to be thirsty because
you're going to be peeing a lot um
you're going to be hungry a lot because
you're not even if you eat you're not
actually getting that energy into your
muscles and you're going to be tired
those are the four warning signs all
right now here's another warning sign
and that's that you might have blurred
vision okay now I got to explain Vision
to you a little bit to understand how
this happens in diabetes or metabolic
syndrome headed towards type two
diabetes okay first of all first thing
to know is that uh your eye is a ball
that is more or less crystal clear right
so it's like the face of a watch you
know the clear face of a watch you got
the cornea that's the outermost layer
and light anything that you're looking
at is going to go right through that um
outer cornea the outer lens I mean it's
going to go through the outer Shield of
the the cornea that's the covering and
it's going to go right through the lens
okay also Crystal Clear like goes
straight right through like a laser beam
all right goes through the lens uh and
then it passes through another clear
chamber called the posterior chamber of
the eye which has a liquid in it it's
called Vitus humor which is also crystal
clear and then that laser beam of light
hits your retina and the retina is a
carpet of special nerves that receives
light signals all right and can
basically replay and Pro project those
uh uh light signals exactly in how
you're looking at it from the outside
and projects it through your optic nerve
into your brain and specifically it's
the sort of the oipal area of your brain
that actually processes the light all
right so our eyes are really an
extension of our brain all right okay so
how does all this play with uh
pre-diabetes
well when your blood sugar runs high as
it does in Pre diabetes because you have
insulin resistance so that you're not
able to draw that blood sugar into your
cells guess what the sugar levels rise
in your blood right that's
hyperglycemia high blood sugar part of
metabolic syndrome and that high blood
sugar can be deposited accumulates gets
stuck in the lens of your eye all right
and when you actually have sugar high
sugar um that actually gets into the
lens now remember light goes from the
cor light goes this way into the cornea
goes through a crystal clear chamber
goes into the lens and then goes all the
way into the retina now that lens if
it's actually got a lot of sugar in it
becomes glycosilated it means that Sugar
kind of hangs on into the crystals of
the lens it's a crystal because that's
why it's so Crystal Clear crystallin but
when sugar gets in there it actually
makes it blurry so your lens actually
clouds up it's kind of like a cataract
all right and uh when then when light
shines through it's not going to go
straight through um a glycosilated lens
of your eye and for that reason you've
got blurred vision all right um so think
about what happens if you have a clear
glass of water in fact I have one right
here I at this all
right I'm not drinking too frequently
don't worry about me but imagine if you
have this crystal clear glass of water
now what happens if I actually pour a
ton of sugar into this pour a whole ton
of sugar into it the water's going to
turn cloudy right when that actually
happens in the crystal clear portions of
your eye you're going to have blurred
vision right so high blood sugars in
pre-diabetes due to insulin resistance
leads to um sugar accumulating in the
lens of your eye which normally is
crystal clear and when sugar gets iner
it makes the lens Cloudy and the lights
that's shining into your eye trying to
get to your
that carpet of nerves so you can project
it into your brain so you can see
actually runs into a kind of Cloudy lens
because of the high blood sugar and
that's a sign that you're not
metabolically healthy pre-diabetes on
the weighted diabetes okay all right so
what's the next warning sign now this
one uh doesn't have anything to do with
eating or drinking doesn't have to do
with fatigue um doesn't have any do with
vision but it is numbness or tingling
all right okay so let me explain how
this happens as you get towards
pre-diabetes and it all has to do with
the fact that your blood sugars are
really high because your insulin
resistant so your pancreas makes more
insulin but it's still not working to
draw that blood sugar in so you got a
lot of blood sugar floating around blood
glucose floating around so you know the
people that are um the biohackers um
putting in concluding continuous glucose
monitors um when you hear about you know
um blood sugars going up and and down
the so-called Spike and the Crash
actually what's more important is the
average amount of sugar that's actually
in your bloodstream so rather I think
that rather than looking at Big Peaks
and big troughs really sort of like when
the water line is high that if it's high
tide all the time you got a problem all
right and and that's what happens is
that uh uh when there's high blood sugar
around that elevated glucose stuns the
nerves in your body okay so nerves are
basically like the electrical system in
your body they got to conduct signals
and basically electrical signals from
one nerve to the next nerve uh you know
that old game of telephone that's
actually what nerves do but it they do
it in really fast all right so if you
step on something on your foot which is
pretty far away from your brain the
nerves are going to uh um
catapult that signal from your toe from
the bottom of your sole of your foot up
your through the top of your foot into
your calf um up into your thigh uh all
the way up in your spinal cord up to
your brain and go and then you're going
to go ouch all right so you're going to
feel a sensation because the nerves
instantly actually convey that signal
when you're stepping on something
sharp now what happens in your house if
you have an electrical system right you
got an electrical box in place and all
this complicated wire that when they
built the structure you know some
electrician put it all in what happens
if the electrical wiring shorts out
right there might be water in the system
there might be you know a rodent chewed
a hole uh in a in one of the wires all
kinds of things that could actually have
happened right and your then your
electrical electrical signal is not
going to be conveyed properly throughout
the house what that means is that listen
your lights might turn on but they might
also flicker all right and one day when
you try turning it on you don't get any
light at all because now the the power
is out right so you go down to the fuse
box and you check it fuse looks okay so
the fuse didn't burn it didn't trip the
fuse but there's some problem in the
wiring and back to the pre-diabetic
State as your blood sugars rise what
does high levels of blood sugar do and
I'm going to try to explain it in basic
easy to understand terms is it kind of
fries the electrical wiring in your
blood I I could could go into the very
very detailed science of it but I think
it's just as useful for you to know in
this video high blood sugar interferes
with the proper functioning of the
nerves so that the nerves on your feet
for example um even if you step on
something sharp aren't going to be
transmitted normally to your brain now
that's why um and by the way not
transferring normal means that either
you're numb you step on something sharp
you don't feel it all right or you might
not be stepping on anything at all and
those and the electrical signares are
kind of like just sputtering and you
might get some uh signal going so you
might have some tingling going on all
the time all right or of and on so these
are all warning signs either when you
have numbness on your feet or you have
tingling in your nerves basically your
nerves are being Fried by the high blood
sugar now as I said the nerves are
usually not completely dead in uh
pre-diabetes but you're on your way to
actually damaging more and more and more
nerves here's another example of uh of
numbness you ever go out in the snow uh
if you I don't know if you live in a a
climate where you get snow or ice uh
have you ever gone skiing all right Mana
your feet get cold right and and don't
forget cold temperatures can also damage
your nerves it's like like electric like
like electrical wire has been frozen
it's not going to trans the signal so
what happens you don't have sensation on
your feet your feet feel numb if you
went skiing you know at the end of a ski
day you know you're taking off your
boots you pull your feet out and your
toes might be kind of numb right so cold
like high blood sugar can actually stun
your nerves now uh in the winter like
eventually you know you're in a warm
room and the warm room is going to warm
up the nerves and then you'll feel some
tingling of okay when the nerves are
starting to function but not fully
recovering right so either numbness at
the very beginning or tingling along the
way right and then what's happening
obviously when you're in the in the uh
Ski Lodge taking off your boot once
you're warm enough eventually the blood
flow is going to kind of help your
nerves recover and then you'll actually
feel normal again but high blood sugar
all right kind of fries your nerves you
don't you can either be numb and not
feel anything or you could actually have
ting L these are also warning signs for
pre-diabetes all right and the last
warning sign I'm going to tell you about
is connected to the nerves and that is
you could actually have a slowly healing
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video now let's get back to the other
video now I'm a wound healing expert I
do research on it uh I'm a clinical
expert on it but so I want to explain to
you what a slowly healing wound is or a
delayed healing wound or a chronic wound
um uh and so let's talk about a wound if
you cut yourself paper cut um cut
yourself with a knife in the kitchen
when you're cutting something uh or
maybe if you're doing some uh work in uh
in your basement like if you're uh
fixing something or you're doing a
renovation you might cut yourself that's
an injury and that injury will heal up
in fact the moment you cut yourself and
start bleeding within seconds basically
your body's healing process is already
started the blood is you're bleeding the
blood's going to plot to prevent you
from hemorrhaging out okay that could
kill you if it didn't do it right so if
you're blood thers you got to watch out
but basically normally cut yourself your
blood clots um so you don't uh lose any
more blood then inflammatory cells go
there it's a healthy normal reaction to
have inflammatory cells they're there to
clean up the wound kill any bacteria
that's there they're First Responders
okay it's kind of like 911 when you have
have an injury the the EMTs the
ambulance that gets there these are your
inflammatory cells they're there for a
little while all right few days then and
you see the swelling and it's painful um
and they're cleaning up the wound and
then they go away the inflammation dies
back down all right um and then other
things happen in the wound to be able to
stimulate new blood vessels to grow
that's angiogenesis a field that I work
in then you actually have um fiber
blasts which are other cells in your
tissue in your skin releasing collagen
all right so you wind up building back
the the the meat the substance The
Matrix um of the wound so you get blood
vessels you got Matrix that's something
we call granulation tissue all right and
then the top of the wound closes like a
hatch right that's called
epithelialization because the uh the the
layer of cells on top of your skin or
epithelial cells and so epithelization
is basically a wound a crater that winds
up closing gets smaller smaller smaller
smaller and then it closes right so it's
think about like a like a hatch it close
close it gets smaller smaller smaller
closes now at the top you've actually
sealed the wound all right and you have
a little scab on top but you sealed it
and underneath got blood vessels and
Matrix growing up that's how normal
wound healing takes place it takes place
mostly that process I just showed you
mostly in 7 to 10 days you you're you're
pretty much good to go if you have have
a scab it'll fall off and the skin will
be closed in the top all right now if
you have pre-diabetes and you're on your
way to type two diabetes that wound that
you have might not heal all right and
why might it not heal well first of all
you might not have even felt that you
got that wound so classic thing that
happens in pre-diabetes going to type
two diabetes is uh a wound or an injury
uh on your feet right well so think
about it you're it's a summertime you're
wearing flipflops or sandals or maybe
you're bare feet and you're walking
around and there's like gravel and dirt
and maybe some glass maybe there's a a
thumbtack or a nail or a really sharp
Pebble or a bottle cap a piece of metal
a nail could be anything right now if
you had normal nerve function remember
the last warning sign I told you was at
numbness okay
if you had normal uh nerve function
you'd feel it if you have something in
your shoe you'd go ah I got to get this
out of my shoe it's irritating right if
you step on something sharp you go boom
you pull back right away check out sit
down and check out the bottom of your
feet brush it off to make sure like it's
not in you're not wounded right if you
are like you got pick it out and take
care of it right away right but if you
have had your pre-diabetes and you've
had high blood sugar and your nerves
might not be functioning properly you
might step on something really sharp
could be anything and you're not even
going to feel it so what's going to
happen is that that wound will occur you
won't even know it and because it occurs
on the bottom of your foot which is a
common place ball over your foot so over
your foot your heel then guess what
because you don't feel it and you don't
spend most people don't spend any time
looking at the bottom of their feet
right I mean think about it uh you know
I don't care if you're if you you're a
skinny person or you're an athlete you
probably don't spend a lot of time
staring at the bottom of your foot all
right and then people who are overweight
or obese they might have difficulty
looking at the bottom of their foot
right so if you had an injury there and
you didn't feel it it could be there for
days or even weeks all right now you've
got an injury that uh uh you didn't even
know about and so you didn't clean it up
and so it might have gotten infected and
now it's on it its way to actually
becoming a serious wound it's
contaminated and by the way in
pre-diabetes going into diabetes your
immune system is not functioning
properly all right you've got you know
relatively low immunity okay imuno
compromis is diabetes all right and so
you're not even getting the First
Responders to do the proper thing and
then your immune system to clean up the
wound I they're there it's inflamed but
it's actually not doing the right thing
so this is a pre-diabetes is on the way
to a disaster where none of your
defenses that are supposed to help you
are working in the right uh
way at the right time and doing doing
the right job right so now you've got
this wound on your feet you didn't
notice it for days or maybe weeks now
it's infected all right and on top of
that your own immune system isn't
working very well so you're not
defending the against the infection very
well and then I told you in a normal
healthy wound you got blood vessels
growing to in the in the area that's
injured to be able to heal it up right
what do blood vessels do they bring
oxygen and they bring nutrients that can
help heal and if there's a cut you
actually need new blood vessels to fill
the spot where there were blood vessels
and then they were taken out right so
you want to grow back in there guess
what in pre-diabetes going to type two
diabetes um there's problems with
growing blood vessels your circulation
doesn't grow very well angiogenesis
which is one of your body's self
defenses is compromised that means that
that wound which you might not detect
for
weeks sometimes people for with these
diabe
foot ulcers they don't even know they've
got a wound until they start smelling it
because the wound is contaminated and
infected maybe somebody else smells it
and then points it out to you hey buddy
what's that smell there coming from your
feet maybe you should go take a shower
and then you take a look at it you're
like oh my god I've actually injured
myself and now you've got a chronic
wound a wound that doesn't heal normally
remember I told you a normal wound
within s to 10 days everything is gone
right you you can barely remember you
had an injury there Di diabetes it could
go in for weeks or months or even years
in type two or diabetes especially or
type or type 1 diabetes pre-diabetes is
getting you in that direction so a
chronic wound is actually another
warning sign that you might have
pre-diabetes okay um and you you don't
want to be getting into the the type the
serious stuff with type two diabetes
which is why you need to recognize these
signs so that you can bring it to the
attention of a doctor um see if there's
any medical things that need to be done
for you and then and I have a separate
video about this you can start taking
steps to try to reverse your type 2
diabetes that's the good news is that
all this terrible stuff you can reverse
it once you get your body to be more
insulin sensitive meaning your
metabolism can be rebooted to do what it
supposed to do all right okay I hope you
learned something uh on this video we
actually went into a lot of different
uh complicated things but it's all tied
together all right so um thanks for
watching and I'll see you on the next
video hi there if you enjoyed watching
this video I know you'll love the next
one stay here and check it out and I'll
see you there
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