Diabetes & Prediabetes

Diabetes & prediabetes affect more than 122 million adults in the US alone and contribute to a host of serious health complications – including heart disease, stroke, kidney failure as well as peripheral neuropathy, vision loss, and premature death. While there are hundreds of prescription drugs to manage diabetes, a far cheaper approach is to reverse the root causes of diabetes… blood sugar dysregulation.

Signs & Symptoms Of Diabetes

Overall, diabetes symptoms are triggered by rising blood sugar levels, and the general symptoms of diabetes include:

Increased hunger
Increased thirst
Weight gain
Frequent urination
Blurry vision
Extreme fatigue
Sores that don’t heal

Beyond the general diabetes symptoms, men with diabetes may experience a decreased sex drive, erectile dysfunction (ED), and oftentimes poor muscle strength.

For women with diabetes, urinary tract infections, yeast infections, and dry, itchy skin are common symptoms.

Most women with gestational diabetes (which would occur during pregnancy) don’t show any symptoms. Oftentimes, the condition is detected during a routine blood sugar test performed between the 24th and 28th weeks of gestation. In some cases, a woman with gestational diabetes will experience increased thirst or urination.

The Conventional Approach to Diabetes

Unlike the conventional medicine approach to diabetes, our goal is to restore blood sugar levels naturally and safely through lifestyle changes… rather than relying on expensive or toxic prescription meds.

Yet many people believe that diabetes medications such as Metformin, Avandia, Actos, Januvia, Onglyza, or exogenous insulin will “solve” their issues – despite the fact that these medications don’t deal with the root cause of diabetes.

While people experience great success in the first few months of taking these medications, they provide false hope because they fail to work overtime as the root causes of poor glucose management spin out of control.

So here are the things you need to know about diabetes and why education and lifestyle changes can save your life:

People who have diabetes or pre-diabetes aren’t always overweight.
Just because it “runs in your family” doesn’t mean you are destined to be diabetic, health is in your hands.
Diabetes is a dietary disease and most people who are diabetic are still eating a diet that is very high in sugar
Many “diabetes experts” recommend foods that spike blood sugar because they are following old dietary science
Diabetes management isn’t a “one size fits all” approach as some people have more sensitive blood sugar or different blood sugar patterns throughout the day.

The Functional Medicine Approach To Diabetes

In Functional Medicine, our approach to diabetes (or any chronic illness for that matter), is to restore your body’s innate healing potential rather than merely managing symptoms with expensive prescription drugs. We believe that the best way to address a lifestyle-induced disease is by making sensible lifestyle changes – supported by our capable and caring team. That’s why with diabetes, we have a unique “food protocol” to help you manage your blood sugar, your weight, and decrease your general inflammation while avoiding foods that may cause an allergic reaction. Apart from food, we also examine the interplay between different systems and organs in your body – like your gut, your endocrine system, and your brain. Because for true holistic health, we need to get all your systems to play together. For example, if you are dealing with other hormone imbalances, this can have a huge impact on how well you can manage your diabetes. That’s why at The Real Gut Doctor, we run advanced lab testing beyond your standard blood tests so we can recommend a protocol that brings all your hormones back in balance – from insulin to cortisol, thyroid, and more.

Diagnosing Diabetes

If you suspect your symptoms might be related to diabetes, you should get an FPG and an A1C blood test through your primary care provider.

The fasting plasma glucose (FPG) test measures your blood sugar after you’ve fasted for 8 hours, while the A1C test provides a snapshot of your blood sugar levels over the previous 3 months.

We also recommend gut and hormonal testing to get the full picture of anything else that is impacting your insulin levels and causing symptoms. The earlier you get diagnosed with diabetes, the sooner you can start addressing your diabetes – feel free to schedule a free discovery call to see what the best next steps are for you.

Listen To What Our Patients Have To Say

Testimonials

At our core, we’re here for the 40s, 50s, and beyond crew who are dealing with cardiometabolic, hormonal, and tummy troubles.

Over the years I've visited many medical practices, with varying approaches to getting to the source of the health problem, vs. those that only treat the symptom without addressing the causes (i.e. Hospitals, Kaiser, etc... ) Dr. Jeffrey Mark and Dr. Fran are by far the most knowledgeable, smart, and technologically forward-thinking practicing practitioners in the Bay Area. They use so many state-of-the-art tools. They're constantly going to conferences to learn about all the emerging ways to really help people to be healthy; much more so than most doctors. They really know how to interpret lab values - using cutting-edge, sophisticated lab analytics - to determine all the contributing factors involved- to come up with a very complete and comprehensive way to not only fix my health problems and symptoms but also get to the root of why and all the contributing elements to the problem. I am so pleased and happy with trusting my health with everyone at All Functional Health. Every visit I feel like they truly care about helping me get better.

I'm so incredibly impressed with his Dr. Mark’s attention to detail and efforts to really get to the root cause of what was wrong. He's careful to take time with each patient and really listens to what is going on. Then he carefully decides the action plan, carefully selects the types of tests he needs to run to identify the root of the problem, and utilizes the information to get his patients well from the inside out. You can tell he genuinely cares about his patients and deep down he IS genuinely a good person. So many other GI doctors just want to prescribe their patient's many medications to cover up the problems. Dr. Mark really wants to get you better! And the staff is always friendly and helpful. They go above and beyond for their patients and it makes a world of difference! Thank you!!!

My mother had brain surgery 4 years ago and ever since then, it's been a battle to find her a specialist who can recommend supplements that can help her heal without prescription drugs. We made a functional medicine appointment for her with Dr. Mark and he immediately knew what to recommend for her. This is the first time in 4 years that my mother did not have a bad reaction to the new supplements she tried and she actually says that she feels better when she takes them. For my family, this is great because it's one step closer to helping her body heal without prescription drugs and this has been a 4-year battle. I just stocked up on supplements for her actually. It's the perfect combination. This place has its own supplement line which is awesome!

I needed a new gastroenterologist to help manage my ulcerative colitis. I've seen Dr. Mark twice and he is one of the best M.D.s I've ever seen. He has suggested tests Dr. Lane never imagined to better titrate my meds and manage my disease. He is very smart, and upbeat and seems to take a personal interest in making sure my UC doesn't flare up and that the Side Effects of my medications are managed appropriately. Dr. Mark has taken a more holistic approach to my UC and suggested some dietary restrictions. They have worked miraculously and I am now off prednisone for longer than I have been in the past 8 years. I highly recommend him.