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August 15, 2025 35 mins

In this episode of The Eye-Q Podcast, I’m joined by Dr. Beverly Yates, a naturopathic doctor specializing in type 2 diabetes. We explore how high blood sugar damages the eyes, the organs most affected, and why vision loss is preventable. Dr. Yates shares her five-step Yates Protocol, including nutrition, strength training, stress management, and continuous glucose monitoring to reverse diabetes and protect your sight.


Dr. Beverly Yates is a naturopathic doctor and nationally recognized expert on type 2 diabetes management. With decades of clinical experience, she developed the Yates Protocol, a five-step lifestyle program to reverse diabetes and improve overall health. She has helped thousands of patients regain control over their blood sugar and protect their vision through personalized, evidence-based strategies.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you have type 2 diabetes or if you're susceptible to it,
this is a lifetime condition. The levels of your blood sugar
though, can return to the healthy range.
If you could put together the five things that are essential
for having good blood sugar control that thankfully are all
in the realm of lifestyle. Things you have some hope of
having some control over. Now having said that, type 2

(00:21):
diabetes is reversible and let me talk about the numbers again
because I want to be clear what we're talking about.
Type 2 diabetes defines an A1C of 6.5 or higher.
If you have started out let's say with an A1C of 8.3 and
you're able to get it down let'ssay to AA1C of 6.1 in that
range. Now that is considered the pre
diabetes range. If you were already diagnosed

(00:42):
with type 2 and you get your A1Cunder 6.5 but it still isn't
under 5.7, then that's considered remission.
Welcome to the IQ podcast. I'm Doctor Ronnie Banik, here to
help you boost your IQ with powerful insights that connect
your eyes, your brain, and your whole body Wellness.

(01:04):
This episode was recorded duringthe Eye Health Summit, where the
world's leading experts shared breakthrough insights in vision
and holistic eye care. Today, I am delighted to host
Doctor Beverly Yates, a naturopathic Dr. and a leading
expert in natural strategies formanaging type 2 diabetes.

(01:25):
Doctor Yates is known for her unique approach to empowering
patients with lifestyle and dietary solutions.
Doctor Yates has helped thousands of people regain
control over their blood sugar levels through her programs, and
she's also been featured in summits and conferences
worldwide. So we are so honored to have you
with us today, Doctor Yates. Hi Doctor Bannock, thank you so

(01:47):
much for this invitation. I'm delighted to be here with
you and eager to speak to the audience about this topic
because it is so central to enjoying vision throughout your
life. Absolutely.
We know that so many systemic conditions can affect our
vision, but I would say diabetesis perhaps the leading systemic
condition that can have a unfortunately a very negative

(02:07):
impact on someone's vision and their quality of life.
So let's just dive right into this.
For some of our listeners who may not be familiar with
diabetes and it's different types, can you just very quickly
go through what are what is first of all, what is diabetes
and what are the different typesor categories of diabetes?
Sure, I'm happy to give people an overview of this.
So diabetes in general is talking about blood sugar

(02:29):
regulation and the ability to have healthy levels of blood
sugar or unhealthy levels. Technically type 2 diabetes is
defined and distinct from pre diabetes and I will talk about
type 1. So let's start with type 1 which
used to be the most common kind of diabetes, frankly by a lot.
Type 1 diabetes is where your pancreas no longer makes a

(02:50):
hormone called insulin. Now, the pancreas has very
special cells in the islands of Lankerhans that make insulin.
But for reasons that are still not always clear, for an onset,
the system, the body's immune system, can go on the attack and
destroy the pancreas's ability to make insulin, and as such, it
is an autoimmune disease. In other words, the body attacks
itself. It's unfortunate, and type 1

(03:11):
diabetes has been around for a very long time, literally for
thousands of years. Many of the old medical texts of
various traditions talk about this.
The thing that's interesting about Type 1 is in today's
world, there's so much more support and help available,
whether it's various kinds of insulin medications, insulin
pumps, continuous glucose monitors, all the tech gizmos

(03:32):
are so helpful so that people are much more aware of what the
heck is happening with their blood sugar so they can stay out
of danger. Type 1 diabetes can be
immediately life threatening andabsolutely has all the other
things that are in common with blood sugar issues.
So you really want to be supportive if someone has type 1
diabetes. Now type 2 diabetes is it used

(03:54):
to be classically and what we learned in medical school right
back in the day was that for type 2, it was usually something
that happened later in people's lives, maybe in their sixties,
70s and 80s. A lot of us as we age, we lose
good blood sugar control. In today's world, it is by far
and away the more common kind ofdiabetes.
Type 2 is completely swamped, Type 1.
Type 1 used to be only juvenile onset with an autoimmune disease

(04:17):
that attacks the ability of the body to make insulin.
And now type one shows up in adults sometimes in their 40s
and 50s, which I find shocking. And type 2 now can be in kids as
young as eight years old. This is absolutely available.
So that's part of it now does give people a little bit of
numbers so they know what we're talking about.
A lot of us, if we see any kind of advertising and you see a lot

(04:39):
of people yapping about an A1C, that is 1, not the only one
measure of blood sugar. That is an average measure,
particularly over a 90 day window, so say 1/4 of the year
of the average level of blood sugar that a person's body,
specifically their red blood cells have been exposed to.
This level matters. So pre diabetes is going to be

(05:00):
an A1C of 5.7 to 6.4. As soon as A1C number is 6.5 or
higher, goes to 789, heaven forbid 10/11/12.
That's a much higher level of blood sugar on average and that
is the definition of type 2 diabetes along with fasting
blood sugar numbers. If your fasting blood sugar
number is 125 or higher, that also could put you in a type 2

(05:24):
diabetes category. Pre diabetes would be a fasting
blood sugar number of around 100, 200 and 23124.
So those two numbers together give you a really good picture
as long as you aren't a really well conditioned, well muscled
athlete. We'll talk about them later.
They have a different situation.Thank you for that incredible
insight and overview of diabeteswas it's so helpful for people

(05:45):
to understand. There are different types and it
depends on whether your pancreasis working properly and
producing enough insulin. And the second type 2 is more so
that the body's not responding to insulin correctly.
Now, is that fair to say that Doctor Yates, the body, it's
good? To say that.
This is producing insulin resistance.
Yes, insulin resistance is sometimes synonymously used with

(06:08):
type 2 diabetes. Now we oftentimes think of in
the medical field, we think of diabetes type 2 as a lifestyle
driven disease that there are factors within our choices that
may be contributing to type 2 diabetes.
So what are some of the most common factors that you've seen
contribute to type 2 diabetes? Or I guess a different way to
say it would be what are some ofthe root causes of type 2

(06:29):
diabetes? Doctor Panic, I'm so glad you
asked me that question. That's one of the reasons why
I've written my book and it's one of the reasons why I do the
work I do. The things I observed from say
the early days of my career in the 1990s to now.
I've seen a huge shift in who itis has type 2 diabetes or for
that matter pre diabetes. I've seen a big expansion of

(06:50):
people struggling with their blood sugar.
Historically, classically, many of us in our training, what we
learned was a type 2 diabetes isbasically the patient's fault
that it is 100% in the wheelhouse of their own choices.
And if they just made better choices, if they exercised more
and moved, excuse me, if they exercised more and ate less than
they'd be fine. If they took better care of

(07:11):
themselves. That's part of the mindset or
chatter and it's old school old style and doesn't serve people
in today's busy stressed out world.
Many of us live in Cortisol Nation.
A lot of people are working 2-3 jobs.
Some people are bookended in thesense that they are caring for
perhaps their themselves, their children, if they have children,
they might be caring for ailing parents, ailing siblings,

(07:31):
whatever their household situation may be, and there's
just not enough of them to go around.
I want people to understand thatsometimes type 2 diabetes
happens independent of healthy lifestyle choices.
I have plenty of diabetic patients who eat well, who
exercise regularly, and they still have the problem.
So I would love people to get rid of, let go of the need to

(07:52):
blame Jame and to blame shame and judge, and to understand
that it's more complex than that.
Type 2 diabetes can come on in terms of root causes from viral
illness, from way too much unmitigated stress, from really
bad sleep. There's a big overlap between
type 2 diabetes, for instance, and sleep apnea and other kinds

(08:12):
of breathing and sleeping disorders.
People who've been in traumatic situations now and had the
opportunity to heal, ETC. And plus there's the
environmental component, right, toxic air and water, which
contributes directly, and we know this in the scientific
literature as well as our clinical experience to insulin
resistance. So there's a lot of different
ways to get into the diving poolthese days of type 2 diabetes.

(08:34):
Then there's the crap on what other words use that's in the
foods with these bizarre additives, things that are meant
to stimulate appetite that lightup our brains with our reward
centers. We're at a casino in Las Vegas,
and people feel compelled to overeat often or their portions
don't make sense. Sometimes they've got cravings
from the chronic poor sleep or the chronic high levels of

(08:54):
stress, all of which messes up blood sugar.
There's so many ways to get to the type 2 diabetes diagnosis.
There's also the genetic component.
This can actually burn in families.
I've seen that my father's side of my family, my dad was one of
13 siblings, all of whom had some kind of diabetes.

(09:15):
You know, to ask you when do youhear of 100% prevalence of a
disease in a family? That's pretty rare, right?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
There's a few of us who are not in that bin yet, myself
included, and we're working hardto avoid it because now we know
more than they did back in the day.
But I just want people to understand it's not a
one-size-fits-all phenomenon. If it were, the numbers for

(09:37):
diabetes would be going down. If judging claim were effective
healing tools, nobody'd have theproblem.
No, thank you so much for putting it in that way because I
know a lot of people, they feel like it's their fault, right,
that they develop diabetes because of something they did.
But what I'm hearing from you isthat there are so many
contribute contributing factors from genetics to environment to

(10:00):
yes, there's diet and there's the other things and stress,
which is a big topic that a lot of people or a lot of providers
don't necessarily focus on when it comes to diabetes and
managing it. I wanted to ask you, Doctor
Yates. So when it comes to diabetes
affecting the eye, we've coveredthis on previous episodes, There
are so many ways it can affect the eyes.
It can cause diabetic retinopathy.

(10:21):
It can cause diabetic papillitis, diabetic cranial
nerve policies that can lead to double vision.
But in terms of organ damage from diabetes, other organs can
be involved as well. So what are some of the other
organ systems you've seen most commonly involved in your AND
patients? And why is it that these organs
get involved from diabetes? Give us an overview.

(10:42):
Sure, this is a great question. So as you've already covered,
I'm sure when it comes to high levels of blood sugar, the
vasculature, the blood flow in the eye is compromised just like
it is everywhere in the body. And diabetes is the number one
reason, all kinds of diabetes, it's the number one reason why
people experience vision loss and go blind.
So with that, in terms of root causes, we think where else

(11:03):
might high blood sugar mess up the function of the body from a
physiological point of view and in turn into something abnormal
called a pathology. So when we think about that,
other organs that are severely affected by this directly are
your kidneys. Diabetes is now the number one
reason why people need dialysis and are under the care of
constantly needing to filter their blood via machine,

(11:25):
dialysis machine. The brain is affected and we
often call cognitive decline andAlzheimer's and dementia.
Dementia is the bigger category.Alzheimer's is a kind of
dementia as type 3 diabetes. That conversation is becoming
more common here in the US and internationally.
It's more commonly called type 3diabetes, not Alzheimer's,
etcetera. The heart is affected as well.

(11:46):
So I'd like to have our audiencethink about this way.
Your blood flow is supposed to get your nutrients to your cells
and take the waste products out,right?
So in that exchange, if you havehigh levels of blood sugar,
think of it as things that are gumming up the blood, if you
will, and making it not flow as easily, just to keep this

(12:06):
simple. And so as such, I'm liking it to
being little balls of Velcro in the bloodstream.
And as such, when you get into the smallest blood vessels, like
in the eye and the kidneys, where the most amazing exchanges
are going on, this is where the compromise might be more obvious
than in other parts of the body.And it'll show up there first.
It doesn't mean that the whole body isn't being affected.

(12:28):
Are your other organs, like, say, your intestines or your
lungs or your hypothalamus glandor your thyroid gland, are they
being affected? Heck yeah.
The body is all one unit, right?But some places may struggle in
a more obvious way sooner, because the tiny blood vessels,
the microvasculature, the capillaries is where the deed
goes down, so to speak, and where the gumminess of blood as

(12:49):
your A1C goes up, as your fasting blood sugar numbers goes
up. This is where things start to
break down more obviously and more quickly.
And that is really the root of the problem.
Yeah, I love that analogy. I've never heard that before
actually. So I'm going to definitely
borrow that from you, Doctor Yates, about diabetes, elevated
blood sugar causing like a Velcro like effect.

(13:10):
And actually when it comes to the eye, because it affects
those tiny little retinal capillaries, it causes the blood
vessels to start to leak. And so these blood vessels leak
blood and fluid and proteins andlipids into the retina that are
not supposed to these products are not supposed to be there.
So I call diabetic retinopathy Aleaky eye syndrome similar to

(13:30):
many of us have probably heard of leaky gut, leaky brain, leaky
heart, leaky skin. There is this condition or
diabetes is one of the conditions that is like a leaky
eye syndrome secondary to all ofthis almost The blood is very
thick, very viscous, and it justdoesn't allow proper blood flow
and it starts to leak out into areas where it shouldn't be.
So I thought I would just add that little tidbit there.

(13:52):
So Doctor Yates, I wanted to come back to diabetes type 2.
Now, a lot of people have this belief that diabetes type 2 is
once you have it for life, it isirreversible.
Is that true or is that a falsehood?
So let's be clear what we're talking about here, because I
don't want anyone to be misled. If you have type 2 diabetes or

(14:14):
if you're susceptible to it, this is a lifetime condition.
The levels of your blood sugar though, can return to the
healthy range. If you could put together the
five things that are essential for having good blood sugar
control that thankfully are all in the realm of lifestyle.
Things you have some hope of having some control over.
Now having said that, type 2 diabetes is reversible and let

(14:35):
me talk about the numbers again because I want to be clear what
we're talking about. Type 2 diabetes defines an A1C
of 6.5 or higher. If you have started out let's
say with an A1C of 8.3 and you're able to get it down let's
say to AA1C of 6.1 in that range.
Now that is considered the pre diabetes range.
If you were already diagnosed with type 2 and you get your A1C

(14:57):
under 6.5, but it still isn't under 5.7, then that's
considered remission once you get your A1C below 5.7.
So let's say you got an A1C to 5.6.
In fact, I think you have a specific patient right now who's
done it. Great job to her.
A1C of five, A1C of 4.8. That would be considered

(15:18):
reversal. So as soon as your A1C after
being diagnosed at 6.5 or highergets to 5.6 or lower, now you've
achieved reversal of your diabetes, you still are at risk.
So if whatever it was the provocation, whatever the root
cause or causes were for you to become a type 2 diabetic, you
still need to be vigilant and diligent and protect your health

(15:39):
as best you can. So yes, it is reversible.
It is not curable. As far as I understand that word
cure would mean once you've got it reversed, you don't have to
think about it. And life is just awesome.
And what's in the rearview mirror?
Not that simple. But can you reverse it?
Sure. Can you heal from it and improve
your health? Absolutely.
It's never too late. I love that.

(16:00):
I love that positive outlook because I think some patients
once they hear, oh, I have diabetes, it's like a burden
that they're expecting to carry indefinitely.
But what I'm hearing from you isthat it is, it is possible to
lighten that burden and maybe it's never completely gone.
It's always should always be in the back of 1's mind.
Even if one's in remission, You can go ahead and lead a very

(16:22):
healthy life and enjoy life and not have any disability from
diabetes. It is possible to do that.
This has been so far. We're chatting with Doctor
Beverly Yates, the naturopathic leading physician for diabetes
control or sugar blood sugar control.
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Now Doctor Yates, I wanted to now ask you, some of our
listeners may be diabetic or prediabetic or perhaps it runs in

(17:49):
their families so they know thatthey're at risk.
What are some 3/3 of your top actionable strategies that you
would recommend for better bloodsugar control?
Give us some 3 tips that anyone can institute starting today.
Yeah, yeah. Let me frame that in terms of a
story of a patient that I've worked with who is just such a
joy and such an inspiration. I hope she, her story touches

(18:11):
everyone's hearts. This is a person who has had
type 2 diabetes for over 25 years.
When I first started working with Pam, she was deeply
fatigued and tired. Diabetes is one of those
illnesses that has fatigue is a central feature.
People literally don't want to get a box with the couch.
And they're often depressed or anxious, more commonly
depressed. And that lack of energy makes it

(18:31):
really hard to do the basic things of life, whether it's
self-care, whether it's being animated and passionated about
things that are going on, etcetera.
So it's a central issue. And so her journey started with
where we identified some supplements that would support
her mitochondrial recovery to her energy.
I felt in doing the intake with her, the thing that was most

(18:52):
missing was her energy levels. She was already on a strong
diabetic drug and she was getting some of the benefits
from that. Her A1C had gone from being in
the eights to the 7th, but she really wanted to be able to
reverse it. And she was finding that the
rest of the picture just wasn't helping.
She was on the prescription meds.
So 25 years on the journey on the meds for diabetes, not

(19:15):
getting the lifestyle support tobe clear about what would
matter. So here's the three tips.
One is determining whether or not there are specific
supplements that might really help you get that boost.
So that if you are the person who can't get off the couch,
who's just exhausted by just getting to the gym, never mind
actually working out, you're saying no to social invitations
because you don't have the energy to be around other

(19:35):
people. Consider supplements might
really help you in a targeted specific way, boost your energy
levels in a sustainable way. The other things we worked on
with her in her specific case was finding out with her
nutrition what foods really wereslamming her blood sugar and
putting her on the blood sugar roller coaster and which ones
were fine for her that maybe shehad taken out of her diet,

(19:57):
having been told perhaps in a broad brush manner, oh, this
food is bad for diabetics. But she didn't really know.
She was actually quite stubborn initially.
She didn't want to use the CGM. And I'm always a fan of using a
continuous glucose monitor. I love data.
It's not just because I'm an MITtrained engineer.
It's because numbers let us be precise.
About our choices. So in her case, I was able to

(20:18):
eventually eventually get her touse a CGMI.
Planted the seeds. She eventually did that.
That was after we were doing ourprimary work together.
But good on her. But she began to realize that
some foods were slamming her blood sugar and some weren't and
we should focus on eating nourishing amounts.
Good portions of the ones that were life sustaining and not the
ones that were the problem. People have their own bio

(20:40):
individual responses to blood sugar.
So to say to someone, oh you should eat a quinoa salad with
roasted cauliflower. What if quinoa and or
cauliflower are a problem for their blood sugar?
Sometimes people have unhealthy blood sugar reactions to
otherwise healthy foods. This is why I much prefer CGM
over a glucometer. Many people, especially if
they're long on a journey with diabetes, they're used to using

(21:02):
a glucometer. Get that drop of blood, put it
on a test strip. Put the strip inside the
glucometer, you get the number and the reading, and you're good
to go. It's too imprecise and there's
too much variability. Plus, come on, let's be real,
this hurts. It's painful.
And how many? Times.
Can you do it a day? Right.
With the CGM you can get continuous monitoring, but how
many times are you willing to prick yourself to get that

(21:22):
number? That pain, right?
So people go, Oh yeah, I check my blood sugar.
And then very when I ask them, it's like once every day, once a
week, once every four day. It's not enough with a 24/7
readout of what your blood sugaris doing, especially when you're
a sheep asleep. Now you really know with
precision what's working, what'snot working.
The next thing I would say is doall you can to manage what I

(21:47):
call the trend gremlins of leptin and ghrelin.
And let me explain. Stress and sleep are
intertwined. If you have a lot of stress, it
is likely that you're going to be vulnerable, that it will
corrupt your sleep. If you have poor sleep, this
means your body has lost that beautiful healing opportunity
every night when you go to sleepto reset.

(22:08):
And if your blood sugar doesn't reset overnight when you are
naturally in a fasted state because you aren't eating, you
aren't drinking, you're asleep, right?
Your blood sugar, whatever number it was at when you went
to bed, it should come back to ahealthy number.
It's not doing it. Yeah, there's something wrong
and you need to know that. Again, having that CGM, the
continuous lithos monitor, and thank goodness they're fine over
the counter here in the US, thismakes a huge difference with the

(22:31):
game changer. Now you're getting direct
feedback about what's working and not working for you.
And so in the case of this particular person, those 3
prongs, nutrition, the stress sleep duo, really along with her
supplements was what made the most difference.
For some, it could be strength training, not necessarily just

(22:53):
aerobic exercise, because frankly, some people work a
little too hard. It's strength training, building
your muscles because those are active blood sugars.
Let me say that correctly, active working muscles are blood
sugar sponges. It just makes a tremendous
difference when you put those together, along with meal
timing, eating your food at consistent times of the day.

(23:13):
And if you're doing intermittentfasting, please follow whatever
protocol is applying to intermittent fasting.
You can absolutely get a hold ofyour blood sugar, but you need
to know which of the lifestyle parameters are the most
sensitive for you. Wow, that is incredible.
Some of these strategies most ofus don't think about related to
our blood sugar. I wanted just to ask you or
highlight a couple of things that you mentioned, Doctor

(23:35):
Yates, the supplements. Now you said that for your
particular patient, Pam, you realized she had some
mitochondrial issues, so you puther on something for her
mitochondria. The supplements you recommend,
are they individualized or should people with diabetes
basically take the same types ofsupplements to manage their
blood sugar? In the case of the work that
I've done with people, it's individualized.

(23:55):
Some people need more support, some people need less.
Some people have other confounding factors like, say,
cardiovascular disease. The cardiac tissue, along with
your brain, requires the most mitochondrial support because
that's where the highest densityis of mitochondrial cells.
It's interesting, right? The mitochondria live inside the
cells. They're an organelle, so they're

(24:15):
a piece inside of a cell, and they're the powerhouse of the
cell. They are the energy factories of
the cell. And if they are corrupted for
whatever reason, we have to fix that.
That's a central issue in healing, particularly with
diabetes, particularly with cardiovascular illnesses,
muscular issues, and I would argue anything where energy is
fundamental underpinning perhapsfatigue, etcetera.

(24:37):
I've seen such tremendous improvement in people's care
when we get that piece straightened out, if it's part
of the puzzle. Yeah, I'll just share a patient
anecdote related to this. So I have a patient with
diabetes who previously was not very well controlled.
I think her hemoglobin A1C was 8.7 or so.
And she had some, she had that fatigue obviously, but she also

(24:57):
had a lot of cramps. She has, she had a lot of muscle
cramps specifically in the lowerextremities.
And when I I was treating her for something else, but I said,
oh, why don't you try some supplements to help with the
cramping etcetera. And when she did take some of
those supplementing and they were personalized to her, she
really realized she had more energy, but also her cramping

(25:17):
went away. So patients may experience other
symptoms. They may not necessarily
directly link to mitochondrial dysfunction or perhaps blood
sugar control, but it's important to speak with your
provider about what may be best for you.
The second thing I wanted to touch upon was the continuous
glucose monitor. So I'll just share another
anecdote with you, a personal anecdote.
Before, these monitors were onlyavailable through a prescription

(25:40):
for people who had the diagnosisof diabetes, but now they are
commercially available. You can order one for yourself.
And I decided to do it just as an experiment because diabetes
runs in my family and my slowly my hemoglobin A1C numbers have
been creeping up a little bit over the years.
So I said let me just see what'sgoing on.
And I had some incredible insights.

(26:00):
I did it for two weeks and they were foods that I never ever
would have thought would spike my blood sugar and they were
causing these huge fluctuations.Foods that I was eating
regularly was were causing thesespikes.
And I also realized something when I didn't sleep well the
next day, my blood sugars were all over the place, all over the

(26:21):
map. So I definitely saw that for
myself with sleep and specific foods.
So it's important to get those metrics and really know how your
body is responding, I thought. Absolutely.
Yeah. I'm so glad you did that.
I feel like that's part of self-care.
And as we get the word out and more and more people are
understanding how to use these tools, if you think you have a

(26:41):
fever, if you're not feeling well, you use a thermometer,
right? What if you're trying to make
sure your metabolic health is ina good place?
But if you have a family historyof diabetes, what if you're just
curious? What if you're a woman who's
going through menopause or a manwho's going through andropause?
It's a good idea to check your blood sugar so you know beyond a
shadow of a doubt what it is responding to.
You might be fine and worrying for no reason, and you might not

(27:04):
be fine and unaware that you have a problem.
Yeah, it's always good to to have data.
As you said, I'm very data-driven as well.
So doctor, yes, we talked about a lot of different things that
may affect blood sugar, whether it's from AB, diet, sleep,
stress, mitochondrial dysfunction.
Now, what are some strategies based in stress reduction that

(27:25):
you typically discuss with your clients and patients?
Have specific things work betterthan others for stress
management for your patients? Yeah, I always encourage people
to look at what is joyful in their life and what's a problem,
what are the things that they embrace and get fun from and
look forward to, and what are the things they avoid, or people

(27:45):
for that matter, in situations and do what they can to mitigate
against problems. Sometimes we can't avoid the
difficult people in our lives. For instance, and you might
notice that maybe your heart rate increases, right?
Your pulse goes up, perhaps yourblood pressure goes up, your
blood sugar goes up. Any number of things might be in
response to the situation we have at home or at work or in

(28:06):
our community in terms of daily practices.
I really encourage people to have quiet time, whatever that
may be. That could be prayer, that could
be meditation, it could be yoga,it could be walks of nature.
There's lots of ways to fulfill that, but something that is of
value to them, and I'll share a simple example from my own life.
Quite a number of years ago, when I realized that my mother

(28:28):
was so very ill, we came to understand that she had a
diagnosis of lung cancer, stage 4.
And that was an awful year in many ways.
The blessing in the year was thefact that we had a heads up that
something was wrong. And so I got to be really
focused in loving my mother and appreciating her before she left
this especially plain. And in that moment, I was also

(28:48):
running a clinic. I'm also married.
I also was raising my children. They were in their younger
years. There was a lot on my shoulders.
This just was a real thing. And there were literally days
where I had no more than 3 minutes, That's right, 180
seconds, 3 minutes to myself. But during that time, I was
intentional. And so I would do deep breathing

(29:08):
exercises or take a walk up and down the street, whatever it
was. But it wasn't intentional.
Just coalesce and bring my own energy in because I was well
aware with the work that I do how much energy was flying out.
And so I would share with anyone, if you find yourself in
overwhelming situations, pick one thing, not 17 things,

(29:29):
please. One thing you're going to do for
yourself. It really grounded me.
It helped me stay anchored and literally put 1 foot in front of
the other when sometimes frankly, it didn't feel
possible. Doctor, yes, that was so
beautiful sharing your story. I'm sure it was a difficult time
for you, but you found ways to manage and mitigate your own
stress, which I think we all have to deal with stress in our

(29:51):
own ways for. I always tell my patients,
whatever it is you really love, whether it's reading, whether
it's listening to music, whetherit's dancing, cooking, whatever
activity that you love, try to incorporate that as a daily
habit and that will help you mitigate periods of high stress.
Is there any fun or surprising tidbit about diabetes or blood
sugar control that you'd like toshare with the audience?

(30:13):
I think one of the most surprising things people find is
that there's usually one thing out of the five elements that
make the difference in the AIDS protocol that they really are
the most sensitive to. For some people, it might well
be nutrition, it could be portions, it could be cravings,
or it could just be the kinds ofthings they're eating.

(30:33):
Most people know that. Stay away from highly processed
foods. Like people aren't stupid.
On the other side of that, though, now what?
You still have a big umbrella inthat I invite people to explore
with tastes and flavors and cuisines that are different than
what they're used to. Sometimes there's so much yummy
food that is healthy for us thatour body has a great response
to, not because a chart somewhere said it was healthy,

(30:55):
but because your body is tellingyou it's healthy.
Your energy is up, your mood is up, your digestive, it's fine.
Those foods aren't the ones thatare saying yes to healthy blood
sugar levels. The ones that leave you feeling
more tired, that leave you feeling achy, that leave you
feeling like your brain has fogged and left the building,
things like that. Those are the ones we really

(31:15):
should look at it. A lot of people find that food
sensitivities have a strong correlation with that whipsaw
effect they might see on a CGMA.Quick excursion of the quick
excursion back down and back to baseline is OK.
It's when you get on the big rolling waves, like you're out
of the ocean on an actual rollercoaster, that area under the
curve to use a math curve, the camel's hump, that's a problem

(31:37):
because that's when your blood sugar levels have been exposed
for a much longer time and a much higher level.
So look for that friends. That's the ones you want to
avoid. So I think for the people that
I've worked with, their fun has been seeing that, Oh, now I know
This is why an hour after I havethat for lunch, I want to take a

(31:57):
nap or two hours after I have that for lunch.
I feel great. And as they start to understand
what their body is telling them,then they can be a better
detective on what will work for them.
And they find a lot of times that they don't have to cut out
all of their favorite things completely.
One of my patients, she discovered smaller amounts of

(32:18):
something she loved was fine. It was the larger amount.
So in her case, he loves rice, all kinds of rice.
Many cultures focus on rice. If she could have now a cup of
rice, that's cool. What you can't have is 3 cups of
rice. It was too much at one meal.
Yeah, so sometimes it requires being a detective and keeping a
really detailed diet diary to see how, what are your

(32:40):
responses? How do you feel after you eat
this? Not immediately, not in the
moment, because it may be something very tasty.
Think about how you feel an houror two or even 4 hours after you
eat that thing and just keep track of it.
Yeah, thank you again, Doctor Yates, so much for this really
eye opening conversation. I learned so much.
We learned about the differencesbetween type 1 and type 2

(33:01):
diabetes and now type 3 diabetesthat's being talked about a lot
more. We learned about different root
causes of type 2 diabetes and some of the some really great
practical tips on how to manage it using the Yates protocols.
Tell us a little bit more about your the Yates Protocol, your
book that's coming out. And also people wanted to reach
out to you and learn more. How can they find you?

(33:22):
Sure. I'm happy to share that.
So the AIDS protocol is a systemthat I've developed over the
years of my clinical practice and it involves the five steps
of the AIDS protocol. That's going to be nutrition,
meal timing, managing stress along with getting great sleep
and then exercise slash strengthtraining with an emphasis on

(33:43):
strength training because as we build up our musculature, then
now we have a way to absorb a blood sugar.
So the second you put the demandon the body, your insulin
sensitivity increases. Insulin resistance is going
down, right? So just put you in a healthier
place. The upcoming book will be
released in January of 2026 and that's called The Gates
Protocol. 5 Simple Steps to Fix Your Blood Sugar and Reverse

(34:06):
type 2 Diabetes. The sub line is make peace with
food and never feel deprived again.
Oh I love it. I'm so looking forward to your
book. I can't wait to read it.
I can't wait to share it with family and friends.
You are a wealth of information.All right friends.
So if you would like to connect,you can find me on social media.
You can go to my YouTube channelat which is at Dr. Beverly

(34:29):
Yates, my name. You can also go to my website,
Dr. Beverly Yates dot com and naturalhealthcare.com where I
have programs and other ways to assist you if this is a part of
your journey. Thank you so much for being
wonderful audience and attentive.
Please watch and listen to everything Doctor Banach is
sharing with you. She's a wonderful expert.
She cares deeply about people's eye health and she's got the

(34:52):
goods. So make sure you tune in to all
the episodes in the cinema. And I also love how you put
complicated, how you make complex ideas, make them simple
and accessible. So thank you so much, Doctor
Gates, for joining us. Thank you for tuning in to the
IQ Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's
episode and learn something new to help you boost your IQ.

(35:13):
Leave us a review and share the podcast with your family and
friends. Stay connected with me for more
eye opening insights on ihealth,nutrition and lifestyle.
Until next time, keep your vision clear and your IQ sharp.
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