Why Are These Carnivores Becoming Diabetic?

Recently, the carnivore diet has stirred up some controversy online with a number of people claiming the carnivore diet has caused some people to become diabetic. In fact, this video making this exact claim has been viewed more than 1.5 million times. All of your favorite carnivore influencers are running into the same health issues. And here's the proof. First, let's have a look at carnivore Cam. He's now borderline diabetic. But Cam's not the only one. Carnivore Ray is at a similar point. >> There have even been very high-profile doctors who have made this claim. Yes, they've shown their blood work and it's uh suboptimal. And this reminds me of when I debated Sean Baker back in 2018, his blood work showed his blood glucose was over 120. Like his fasting blood glucose was over 120 if I recall correctly. That is like type 2 diabetic. >> So, is it true that the carnivore diet actually gave these carnivores type 2 diabetes? To break this down properly, I'm talking with my friend Max German, who has a background in biology and really is a leading young expert regarding all things carnivore. So, Max, what do you think is going on here? And firstly, can you explain to those who don't know exactly what type 2 diabetes is? >> So, type 2 diabetes has one single definition, which is prolonged elevated blood sugar levels. Prolonged meaning continuing for a long time. So, type 2 diabetes is simply having constantly high blood sugar levels. When someone becomes a type 2 diabetic, what happens and what metrics are used to determine if someone is diabetic? >> When someone has high amounts of sugar circulating in their blood, it is very damaging. One way it's damaging is it results in something called glycation, which is where sugar fuses to your cells and causes inflammation. So, when someone becomes type 2 diabetic, what happens is their cells are no longer taking in sugar properly. So, this sugar just stays in their blood and causes inflammation. So there are multiple ways to test for type 2 diabetes, but there are two main tests that are most commonly used. First is fasting glucose. Glucose is sugar. So fasting glucose simply measures how much sugar is in the blood of someone in a fasted state where they have not eaten that day. The typical reference ranges for this are 100 millig per deciliter and below is considered normal. Between 100 and 125 means you're pre-diabetic and over 126 on two separate tests means you are diabetic. Dr. Shan Baker's fasting glucose is 82 mg per diliter. Carnival Ray's fasting glucose is 96 milligs per diliter and coach carnivore cams is 93.6 milligs per diliter. This is all according to their latest blood work. So when we look at the fasting glucose of all three of these carnivals, we see there's no issue. But where things get interesting is the results on the other main test used for type 2 diabetes, which is called an HBA1C test. This is the metric the person in that video we watched earlier was referring to when he was saying that these guys have become pre-diabetic. Now, there's a bit of variability between the HBA1C reference ranges in different countries, but typically below 5.6 is considered normal, 5 to 7 to 6.4% means you're considered pre-diabetic, and 6.5 or higher is considered diabetic. According to the latest blood work, Dr. Sha Bakers is 5.2%, carnivore rays is 5.5%, but coach carnivore cams is 5.7%. Also, what a lot of the carnivore diet haters, I guess you could call them, like to bring up is Dr. Shan Baker's blood test from about 8 years ago where he had a very high fasting glucose of 126 mg per deciliter and HBA1C of 6.3. However, this one result from Dr. Baker was due to extreme circumstances which he was going through at the time. It's an entirely separate topic. So maybe we should just look at whether Coach Carnivore Cam is actually pre-diabetic first and then we can touch on that after. >> Yep, let's do that. Based on HBA1C alone, Coach Carnivore Cam is technically pre-diabetic. Can you break down whether or not this is truly accurate? >> Yeah. And while with this result, there's a lot of context that's missing. It's very important to look at what HBA1C is actually measuring. The definition most people give for HBA1C is that it reflects the average blood glucose levels over the last 60 to 90 days or so. However, what HBA1C actually measures is what percentage of your hemoglobin is glycated. Now, to put that in some non-nerd terms, glycation is where sugar molecules attach to your cells and cause them damage. And hemoglobin is a protein in your red blood cells. So HBA1C is essentially measuring how much sugar damage is done to a very specific protein in your red blood cells called hemoglobin. In many countries, this gets measured as a percentage. So a HBA1C of 5.5 means 5.5% of your hemoglobin is glycated. In theory, if someone is a type 2 diabetic and has lots of sugar in their blood, they will have a very high HBA1C, indicating sugar is causing lots of damage to their hemoglobin. So, you'd expect at first glance on a carnivore diet, HBA1C would be very low. Since all carbohydrates break down to sugar, and on carnivore, you're consuming almost no carbohydrates. The only glucose that is in your body is what your liver produces to maintain blood sugar, and then potentially a small amount derived from protein if you're eating lots of it. So, due to this low level of sugar you have in your blood, you would expect HBA1C to reflect this, and all of us carnivores would have very low HBA1C. However, what most people don't consider is that there are two major factors that affect HBA1C. It's not just as simple as how much sugar you had in your blood for the last 60 or 90 days. Like many people online like to say, the first factor is very obvious. High blood glucose levels. More glucose in your blood means more possible glycation. So, this gives more of a chance for that hemoglobin to become glycated. But there's another major factor that most people never consider, and that is the lifespan of a red blood cell. HBA1C strictly measures damage done through glycation to the hemoglobin, which is that protein in the red blood cell. But this glycation doesn't just occur in the red blood cell. It occurs throughout the body. The problem is it's very hard to measure this bodywide glycation. So it's very important to remember this because if a red blood cell lives a long time, it has more chance to become glycated and therefore HBA1C will appear artificially higher. So there are lots of people who have low blood sugar levels but they essentially get this false positive with their HBA1C due to their red blood cells living a very long time. And we see this demonstrated in the literature. In a study done on people with diabetes, they found that 30% of subjects had a red blood cell lifespan below 93 days. 69% had a lifespan ranging from 93 to 123 days. And there were even a couple people who had red blood cell lifespans of over 123 days. So, as you can see, the lifespan of a red blood cell has great variability amongst the population. Now, the obvious question I'm sure many people have listening to this right now is what would cause someone to have a long- red blood cell, which then triggers this artificially high HBO C. The first major factor is low oxidative stress. Now, oxidative stress is caused by inflammation. So, if you're on a carnivore diet, the least inflammatory diet on the planet, there's a good chance that this is going to cause your red blood cells to live longer. Another thing that has a major effect is blood sugar levels. If you're on a high carbohydrate diet and you're having all these blood sugar fluctuations, your blood sugar is going up and down all day. This right here, it causes damage to these cells and as a result, they're going to die a lot sooner. Another major factor is the strength of the cell itself. In particular, the cell membrane, which is the outer protective layer of the cell, which controls what enters and exits the cell. And with red blood cells, they have a very specialized cell membrane. So, if this is strong or weak, it's going to have a major effect on how long it lives for. Interestingly, cholesterol, which we know carnivore foods are very high in, actually makes up roughly 50% of the cell membrane by weight and volume. Then, there's also other nutrients like omega-3s and saturated fats that play a massive part in this membrane stability. When your diet is high in these nutrients, they will become a lot stronger and a lot more selectively permeable, which means they are much better at preventing unwanted molecular leakage. So, they become a lot more effective at keeping the harmful things out and the good things in which, which further increases the strength of these membranes. A carnivore diet, as we know, is the most nutrient-dense diet on the planet. Animal foods have the most nutrients, and these nutrients are actually in bioavailable forms. So, the human body can actually absorb them. There are many plant foods that on paper have lots of nutrients, but we can't absorb these due to anti-nutrient compounds they also contain. So, if someone's on carnivore, they have the least inflammatory diet on the planet. They're going to have low oxidative stress. They're also not consuming carbohydrates, so they're not going to have these blood sugar spikes. And they're providing their bodies with exactly what they need to have strong cells. Because carnivores only become popular in the last what, like 5 years or so, there hasn't been any studies done actually looking at the red blood cell lifespan of people on a carnivore diet. But based on all these factors, I think it's very fair to assume that people on carnivore have very healthy red blood cells. And as a result, they're living a lot longer. So they have more chance at becoming glycated. And therefore, it results in this artificially high HBA1C, which in some cases, like we're seeing with Coach Carnivore Camp, results in them being quote pre-diabetic, even though their fasting glucose is in perfect range. And actually, in that study we looked at on diabetics earlier, there was great variability between people who had a similar health status. So of all these people, they're metabolically unhealthy. And even despite this, there's great variability. It really makes me think, you know, just how much longer is someone on a carnivore diet's red blood cells living for than say someone on a standard diet. On carnivore, because you're consuming very few carbohydrates, you're going to have a lot less total sugar in your body. But because HBA1C only measures glycative damage done to your hemoglobin, that specific protein in your red blood cell, you can't actually see how much glycation is going on throughout your entire body from HBA1C alone. Yeah. No, it's definitely becoming more wellknown this limitation HBA1C. There are peer-reviewed studies which are acknowledging this and there's actually many scientists and doctors online, you know, the ones who actually stay up to date with the nutrition research who are no longer considering HBA1C as the gold standard for assessing someone's blood sugar control. It's certainly not a useless marker. It can be very helpful, you know, with people that have extreme levels of blood sugar. If your HBA1C is very high, that's certainly not something that's ideal, but because there are people that just have red blood cells that live for so long, it is certainly by no means a perfect marker. So, I was watching your video on this topic the other day and you gave a very interesting example of something called an adjusted HBA1C. Can you explain what this is? >> So, if you imagine two people, they both have the same HBA1C of 5.7%. Person one is an unhealthy individual and has an average red blood cell lifespan of only 80 days. Whereas, person two is a very healthy individual with an average red blood cell lifespan of 125 days. There is something called an adjusted HBA1C score based on the actual red blood cell lifespan of an individual. Now to calculate this all you need to do is input the standard average red blood cell lifespan which for this formula is considered to be 100 days. The population average is between 90 to 120 days but 100 is used as it makes simpler calculations. I didn't come up with the formula but you know thanks to whoever did it definitely does make things easier. But anyways we take that number 100 days then we divide it by the actual red blood cell lifespan of an individual. 100 divided by 80 is 1.25. 100 divided by 125 is 0.8. And then finally, we multiply this number by their measured HBA1C. Person one, the unhealthy individual, has an adjusted HBA1C of 7.125%. Which using this formula would mean they're actually diabetic. Whereas person two, the healthy individual, who just has a long- red blood cell, has an adjusted HBA1C using this formula of only 4.56%. Suddenly, their HBA1C, it looks incredible. So, if you're someone on carnivore and your HBO C is slightly elevated, but all your other metrics look good, your fasting glucose, your fasting insulin, all these metrics are where you want them to be, there's a very strong probability that you just have long red blood cells, and as a result, you're getting this artificially high score. Essentially, you're being punished for being too healthy. I I guess you could put it that way. Yeah, of course not. Shawn Baker, Carnivore Ray, they're not pre-diabetic under any metric. And Cam, I would suspect he just has this long-living red blood cell. His fasting glucose is very good. It's well below 100. So therefore, he cannot have prolonged elevated blood sugar levels, which again, like I said earlier, that is the only definition of type 2 diabetes. So yeah, they're all off the hook. The thing is, at all times, there's sugar in your blood. If you didn't have sugar in your blood, you'd be dead. So there's always going to be some glycation happening. And if your red blood cells are living a long time, this glycation, it's going to build up, not because there's lots of glycation going on in your body, but just because it's living a long time, and therefore has more chance for this glycation to occur. So technically speaking, has the carnivore diet actually made these carnivores diabetic like these people online are claiming? >> So yeah, in my opinion, this quote pre-diabetic uh HBA1C from Coach Carnivore Cam, it it's meaningless really. If someone's worried about the HBA1C, the best thing they can do is to get a continuous glucose monitor. This measures your blood sugar levels 24/7. And if you're on a carnivore diet, you're eating a diet with no carbohydrates, I'm very confident in saying that I think you'll find you do not have prolonged elevated blood sugar levels. When insulin drops, your kidney dumps electrolytes like sodium, potassium, and magnesium. And if you don't replace them, you will feel it. Low energy, headaches, muscle cramping, poor workouts, and stress responses that can even temporarily affect blood sugar readings, especially if you're new to the carnivore diet. Max and I both recommend salting your meals much heavier than you're used to with a high quality salt. supplementing with mineral- richch carnivore foods like water-based sardines or bone broth or by relying on a high quality electrolyte supplement. This is the one that I always recommend. It is made by Element and specifically this teal colored box labeled raw unflavored. This teal colored box has no sugar, no stevia, no fillers, just the three electrolytes our body actually needs. You just rip one of these packets open, mix it into any drink, and you're good to go. You all can get a free sample pack with any purchase by going to the URL shown on the screen, drinklement.com/sbg. I've also linked them down below. >> And the thing is, when people go on carnival, we typically see that their type 2 diabetes reverses. And this isn't meant to happen. Mainstream medicine, they don't really have a cure for type 2 diabetes. They inject people with insulin. You know, they they get more of the sugar out of their blood and into their cells, but they never actually reverse the type 2 diabetes. I'm sure you've seen your community thousands of people doing this. I've heard, you know, at this point thousands of stories and there are even a couple of studies that have come out in the last couple of years that showed tremendous improvements to people's blood sugar levels. >> You mentioned earlier that Dr. Baker had a rather high fasting glucose and HBA1C from a blood test he did about 8 years ago. He has been a carnivore for over 9 years now. So why were these so high on that occasion? >> Ah, yes, that one blood result from Dr. Baker, that was about 8 years ago. I think he was 18 months or so into carnivore. I believe he was trying to break some rowing machine record. And I actually think he's done it now. But anyway, he was doing an extreme amount of cardio training. And so what happens to people who are athletes and doing lots of cardio is they have a very large demand for blood sugar. And the muscles are actually fueled by sugar. The muscles are fueled by a stored form of sugar called glycogen. And because of this demand, blood sugar levels and therefore HBA1C, they can creep up. There was actually a great study done on this which probably is about, I don't know, 10 years old now. And what they did is they got endurance athletes and they put continuous glucose monitors on them. And they found about 30% of athletes had fasting blood glucose in the pre-diabetic range. Some of them were even in the diabetic range. And there was a dose response relationship with this. Meaning the more cardio someone did on average, the higher their blood sugar levels were. So when someone's trying to break a world record like Dr. Sha Baker, it makes perfect sense why he on this one occasion had an elevated both fasting glucose and HBOC. If someone's truly diabetic, they'll have a high fasting glucose, a high HBO C, and a very high fasting insulin. This is because insulin is the hormone that helps move sugar from the blood into the cells. When cells stop responding properly to insulin because there's too much sugar in the cell, the body produces more and more insulin just to keep this blood sugar under control. So, if you have high blood sugar plus high insulin, it's showing that you have a lot of sugar in your body. There's just too much. And that is the sign that someone is truly diabetic. And this is actually what we saw in the case of Dr. Baker. He had this high fasting glucose, this high HBA1C, but his fasting insulin was actually very low. I believe it was 2 point something. And just for context for viewers at home who have no idea what that means, if someone is truly diabetic, their fasting insulin levels will be 10, sometimes 20 plus or higher. And since Dr. Baker's tone back is exercise, well, at least to some degree. I still see him all over Instagram putting up insane numbers and all these lifts. I'm in my 20s and this guy's, you know, embarrassing me in every single lift. But that's besides the point. Since he's toned back the exercise, we've seen his fasting glucose and his HBO andc come right down. He's well within the quote normal range. So again, another carnivore who isn't actually diabetic. You know, this whole notion that the carnivore diet causes diabetes is absolutely ridiculous. People like to blame carnivore for basically everything. Heart disease, what else? Gout. You know, the carnivore diet gets put under ridiculous scrutiny. A lot of fious claims being thrown our way. But they claim that a carnivore diet, a low carbohydrate diet, is going to give you diabetes. That that to me is the most ridiculous claim of them all. And the sad part about all of this is is there are thousands, I mean probably tens of thousands of people who have gone on carnival and completely reversed their type 2 diabetes. Like I mentioned earlier, mainstream medicine still does not have a cure for type 2 diabetes. They can't do anything about it. But because people make these videos with these extreme claims, they get millions of views. There are people that watch them. They never try the proper human diet and they continue to suffer. So to me, that is the saddest thing about it. >> Exactly. I honestly cannot believe people actually think a low carbohydrate diet would be the cause of diabetes. But I also understand why this happens. When you're bombarded with fear-based clips, out of context lab values, and zero realworld guidance, it's easy to get confused and even easier to give up before you ever get any results. And that's why having real support really matters. not just information, but people who actually know this way of eating, live it themselves, and can guide you through the noise. Right now, I'm going to show you just a few of our member before and after transformation photos. We have literally thousands of these real people healing, feeling incredible, getting their weight under control, getting the inflammation out of their bodies, and staying consistent because they are supported and held accountable by a team of expert coaches, doctors, and over 20,000 fellow members who cheer them on every single day. And the members are really what makes us special. 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More carnivores are being flagged as “diabetic,” and it’s causing a lot of confusion and fear. Let’s talk about what these labs really mean, what isn’t diabetes, and when there actually is a problem worth addressing. Head over to https://DrinkLMNT.com/SBGAL for a FREE sample pack with any purchase! Work With Carnivore Doctors and Coaches: https://sbg-s-meat-up.mn.co/plans/316276?bundle_token=802104567f230cf6ff692fdb11cc7d45&utm_source=manual Work With Doctors and Coaches Within My Carnivore Community: https://sbg-s-meat-up.mn.co/plans/316276?bundle_token=802104567f230cf6ff692fdb11cc7d45&utm_source=manual Thank you to Max German for joining me: @max.german Where I Get My Raw Dairy (Discount Code: SBG) https://millersbiofarm.com/register?referral_code=EMN8CH6kFSEv All My Carnivore Staples https://sbg.events/sbg-faves/ Subscribe To My Newsletter: https://steak-and-butter-gal.kit.com/03593f5efb Easiest Electrolyte Recipe: https://youtu.be/2Cg-53xb2tY?si=_4GNi-Bvy7Rw4Utj All My BEST Recipes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Llwc8xrYQW_wvRlSLrtPL9ViNu5uSol&si=YWbMclp62VNG82g2 ------------------------------------------------------ ❤︎ FAVORITES & RECOMMENDATIONS ❤︎ ⌲ My Airfryer discounted https://www.tastee.net/steakandbuttergal ⌲ Carnivore Crisps https://carnivorecrisps.com/SBGAL 10% OFF CODE: SBGAL ⌲ ButcherBox Meats https://butcherbox.pxf.io/c/3633851/1366393/16419 ⌲ Carnivore Bar https://the-carnivore-bar.myshopify.com/?sca_ref=1700458.LmCbBRBeNz 10% OFF CODE: SBGAL ⌲ BON CHARGE Blue-blockers https://www.boncharge.com/?rfsn=6528516.81430f 20% OFF Discount Code: SBGAL ⌲ Grassland Nutrition https://www.grasslandnutrition.net/shop-location/ DISCOUNT CODE: SBGAL ⌲ All my Skincare & Essentials https://steakandbuttergal.wixsite.com/website/sbg ................................................................... ☆ CONNECT WITH ME ☆ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steakandbuttergal/ * Facebook:https://fb.me/thesteakandbuttergal * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@steakandbuttergal?lang=en * Email: Steakandbuttergal@gmail.com ❤️ If you'd like to make a contribution to my channel, you may support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/steakandbuttergal or PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/IsabellaMa .................................................................. ABOUT ME: Steak & Butter Gal aka Bella is a classically trained pianist and violinist. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School as a Masters of Music Degree Candidate. Bella is passionate about sharing her vegan to carnivore story of healing autoimmune conditions (eczema & psoriasis), skin, mental health, mood, and energy with animal foods alone. Some links above are affiliate links where I make a small commission when you shop through them at no extra cost to you. I do not collab with brands that I do not 100% recommend and trust. Thanks to LMNT for Sponsoring this video! #carnivorediet