1 Teaspoon of This Seed May Lower Your Blood Sugar Spike

Have you ever heard people say just take cinnamon or just drink apple cider vinegar every time blood sugar goes up? Let's put those aside for a second. But there is a tiny seed that has been used in cooking for centuries and it may help some people reduce their blood sugar, especially spikes after meals. It's called fenugreek. Now before you run to the kitchen and start eating handfuls of this seed, let me be very clear because fenugreek is not insulin. Well it's not metformin either and it's not a replacement for your diabetes medication. It may be if it works really well for you but you cannot just dump the medication and just start to fenugreek hoping it will work as good as the medication. Now it is definitely not a free pass to eat a giant plate of pasta and expect your glucose to behave with some fenugreek. But if you have pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes, not on insulin, you have insulin resistance maybe and you simply notice that your glucose shoots up after meals. Nowadays everybody wears cgms right so there is this consumable ones right now which don't even require prescriptions so people use those to just see how their blood sugar is doing. So there's a lot more awareness around the blood sugar which is good. But the interesting part is that the amount we are talking about is not a huge supplement protocol. You are talking about starting with like one teaspoon. So what is fenugreek? Fenugreek is a small golden brown seed commonly used in Indian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking. It has a slightly bitter earthy flavor and some people describe the smell as almost like a maple like. I don't know if you're taking our sugar md-gluxion supplement for your blood sugars which there's fenugreek in there and 13 other herbs. I don't know if you're smelling that. If you do let me know in the comments. Now you can find it as whole seeds, ground powder, tea capsules like the supplements and in certain curry blends. But for today I am talking about ground fenugreek, the actual food. So why might this matter? Fenugreek contains soluble fiber and plant compounds that may slow basically how quickly carbohydrates are broken down and absorbed. And in plain English when you eat a meal with carbs the glucose may enter your bloodstream a little less aggressively. Now that doesn't mean no spike, it just means the curve may be less steep. And in diabetes flattening those repeated post-meal spikes matters a lot. The one teaspoon experiment here. Okay simple experiment I would consider. Start with one level tablespoon. Leveled ground greek seed once daily. Preferably with a meal that contains carbohydrates. Do not take it dry. Do not dump it in your mouth and try to chase it with water. It's just this is not the cinnamon challenge and we are not trying to create a medical emergency for social media to see. Now mix it into food okay. You can add it to your greek yogurt especially plain unsweetened greek yogurt, eggs or omelet, lentil soup or a vegetable soup, a salad dressing, ground meat, chicken or fish or any of those seasonings for them. So it could be even a smoothie right if you can't handle the taste. A savory stew or curry. My favorite approach is pretty simple. Add it to a meal where you would normally eat like rice, bread, potatoes, beans, fruit or another carbohydrate source. Then look at what happens. If you use a CGM like Dexcom or Libre, watch your glucose pattern after the meal. If you use a finger sig meter, check before the meal and again around one to two hours afterward as well. Based on the monitoring plan you can use your clinician's directions whatever. The goal is not to obsess over one number. The goal is to look at for a pattern. So let's say you're looking at your blood sugars for 10 days without fenugreek and now you're looking at the averages post meal averages and now you're going to look at the averages post meal in the next 10 days when you are using the fenugreek. Does the meal spike less? Do you stay high for less time? Do you feel more satisfied? So there is an indicator in the CGM. If you download your own CGM you can see and that is there's a percentage there right. So the percentage is the target. How much you are in target and that is important. If you are over 80, 85 percent you are doing good. 90 percent you're doing perfect. I have patients doing 95, 99 percent. You know can't beat that. This is very doable. Now the question also is does it upset your stomach? Okay so if that happens your body gets to vote. Is it gonna go or no go? What does the research actually say about fenugreek right? Because I'm a doctor I gotta talk about research. So fenugreek is not just a random internet trend. Clinical studies and systematic reviews suggest that fenugreek supplementation may improve fasting glucose, post-meal glucose and long-term glucose. Meaning like markers like A1c and some people type 2 diabetes etc etc. But here is the honest physician answer. The research is mixed in quality. Different studies use different forms of fenugreek powder, the extracts or seeds or capsules and at very different doses. So it is hard to say what fenugreek will do. It depends on type of fenugreek you use etc etc. So some trials use several grams per day. Sometimes much more than a single teaspoon. So can I promise that one teaspoon will dramatically lower your glucose? No I cannot. And anyone promising that is definitely selling certainty that they do not have. But one teaspoon is reasonable. It's a food-based place. It starts from somewhere that if you want to task your own response safely and gradually there's nothing wrong with that. The mistake most people make is that thinking a healthy ingredient can rescue an unhealthy meal. Fenugreek on top of a giant cinnamon roll is still a giant cinnamon roll. Fenugreek added to sweet tea, sugary cereal, white toast and fruit juice is not a diabetes plant. The biggest levers remain boring but powerful. Build meals around protein, vegetables and fiber. Reduce highly processed carbohydrate portions. Avoid drinking your carbohydrates and walk for 10 to 15 minutes after meals. Sleep enough because poor sleep can raise insulin resistance and worsen morning glucose. Take prescribed medications correctly. Fenugreek is a small lever but small levers can add up when you use them consistently along with doing the other things right. Who needs to be careful? Well fenugreek can cause bloating, gas, nausea, loose stools and a strong maple-like smell in sweat or urine. Well that's not dangerous by itself but it can definitely surprise you. Now if you take insulin, esophageal urea such as glipizide or glybaride or other medications that can lower glucose, be careful. Adding fenugreek could contribute to lower readings obviously, especially if you are also changing your diet or losing weight. If you take blood thinners or have a bleeding disorder, are pregnant, have significant gastrointestinal disease or have an allergy to legumes such as peanuts or chickpeas, talk with your clinician before using it regularly. And remember if your glucose is repeatedly high, if you are losing weight without trying, extremely thirsty, urinating, constantly vomiting or just feeling unwell, do not try to spice rack your way out of like medical problem. Get evaluated right? The bottom line is this. One teaspoon of ground fenugreek may help some people flatten their blood sugar spike after a meal. Not magically, not overnight, not instead of real diabetes treatment including your lifestyle. But as part of a smarter plan, a glucose aware lifestyle and a plan you can actually sustain. It may be worth a test right? Try it with a consistent meal. Try it for 10 to 14 days. Track your response. Respect your medications and remember your goal is not perfection. That's where everybody fails. Your goal is flatter curve, better energy, fewer surprises from your glucose meter. That's it for today. Remember you have to subscribe. You have to share this video. These are your duties. This is how you say thank you and we appreciate a thumbs up and a little comment. Talk to you later.