Break The Stress Cycle: Slim Down & Beat Diabetes

Joseph Kametz, DC

Hi, Dr. Yates. Thank you for having me here today.

Beverly Yates, ND

We are thrilled to be able to talk to you. Thank you so much for being a sponsor of the summit. Please summarize the main points of what you will talk to us about today.

Joseph Kametz, DC

Sure. Today, I’m going to talk about how Type 2 diabetes is the natural long-term adaptation to chronic stress and any form of stress, whether it’s physical, chemical, emotional, or electromagnetic, and how losing weight quickly can get you back on track. If your listeners can understand that most chronic conditions that they’re experiencing are the body’s intelligent way of adapting to chronic forms of stress over the long term, then they can, to a great extent, control their outcomes. One of the easiest ways to do this is by losing weight. 

I’d like the listeners to be able to completely understand the stress cycle and how it creates these conditions, because if they can reset the stress cycle, then they have a good chance of not only reversing type 2 diabetes but virtually any of the diseases of civilization. One thing that I would like them to understand is that the body has incredible innate wisdom, and they have a better appreciation for that. Just to start, when I mentioned stress before, I was talking about all the different forms of stress. Most people think stress is just something mental. 

But I’m talking about obviously mental stresses from whatever social media, politics, physical stresses in the form of maybe too strenuous of a workout or not doing anything at all, or poor sleep habits, chemical stresses, which is a huge one for this one, which is mostly the toxins in the food, the air, the water, and the medication. and it doesn’t matter, even EMFs from my phone and it doesn’t matter what the form of stress is; the body is going to adapt the same way

Beverly Yates, ND

That is one important thing. Go ahead.

Joseph Kametz, DC

One more thing here. This red eye here is when the body breaks down into chronic forms of stress or even acute forms of stress. Very fortuitous for this to be happening today.

Beverly Yates, ND

Yes, our day-to-day moments do make a difference, don’t they?

Joseph Kametz, DC

Yes.

Beverly Yates, ND

Why do you feel that your philosophy of help is so important when it comes to understanding diseases like type 2 diabetes?

Joseph Kametz, DC

Sure. I think this is probably the most important thing: understanding the philosophy of health that you have. As you can imagine, for instance, a creationist and an evolutionist are staring at the Grand Canyon, with the evolutionists as the creationists. You can see the Grand Canyon there. It took one river—a tiny little river—a billion years to create the Grand Canyon, and the creators looked at the Grand Canyon and said, See that Grand Canyon there? It took one gigantic flood and 40 days to create the Grand Canyon. Now, here are both people looking at the same condition from completely different viewpoints. Because of how they went in, what their worldview was going in or their philosophy going in is going to determine how they came up with that conclusion. 

Medical philosophy looks mostly at diseases as being something that’s genetically determined or luck, both of which you have no control over. Because of that, if you can’t control your genes or your luck, the logical outcome of that is, of course, going to be drugs and surgery. A relatively recent example of this was in 2013. Angelina Jolie had this BRCA-one gene mutation. You remember, maybe, this. She believed that she had it because she believed she had an 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% increase in ovarian cancer just because she had this gene, and she believed that those genes were going to determine her health. If you can’t change your genes and you don’t want to get breast cancer, the logical conclusion of this is a double mastectomy. That’s what she did in 2013. 

There’s no judgment here. It’s just that’s what her philosophy showed. Her actions were shown. That’s what her philosophy was. What she was saying is that it’s her, regardless of her lifestyle choices—whether she took care of herself, ate better, went to the chiropractor, or got exercise—that didn’t matter. Her lifestyle choices didn’t matter because those genes were determinants of her health. Of course, that’s the logical conclusion. As a doctor of chiropractic, I think we have an unfair advantage because we don’t see diseases as a medical philosophy. We see the diseases of civilization today as the body adapting to long-term forms of chronic environmental stress. But if you believe that, then since patients and clients can largely determine the stresses that they have in their lives, they have some degree of control over what the outcome is going to be, whether they get these conditions or the diseases of civilization. 

I mean, you can control the food you eat; you can control whether you work out or not. You can’t control the pollution in your water and your air, but you certainly can have an air filter and a water filter in your house. I’m not saying genetics don’t play a role in anything, but if genetics were the only determining factor, nobody would have ever in history recovered from cancer, type 2 diabetes, or anything because you can’t change your genes. What we’re getting at is this concept of epigenetics. If medical philosophy ever embraced epigenetics, it would completely change the industry because they would have to admit that your actions largely control what type of disease conditions you’ll have, and they’d have to start selling drugs that make you want to work out. Your philosophy of health matters, and it’s going to determine whether you put your health and the fate of your health in the hands of drugs and surgery or make better, wiser lifestyle decisions.

Beverly Yates, ND

Definitely. You need to be well informed about what your options are so you can go through the menu of possibilities to find out what’s going to work for you. I think I feel that in today’s world, it’s gotten surprisingly complex. The old 1950s advice of eating less and moving more is not sufficient in today’s world, which is part of the reason why. Why did we put together the summit so that people have clear options, ideas, and inputs? Hey, here are some more avenues to investigate.

Joseph Kametz, DC

There are many other factors these days. 

Beverly Yates, ND

Yes, there are too many other factors you’re referring to. Things—what’s in our air and water, etc.—are things that we’re trying to be healthy with. Then we later find out that it contains something that is completely unhelpful for us. That conversation around weight, I think, has its nuance and its issues. In this case, how is your weight related to type 2 diabetes?

Joseph Kametz, DC

Well, it’s not only that weight is related to virtually all diseases of civilization. When you get into the stress cycle, we’ll talk more about that. But all these, whether it’s the weight, the heart disease, the type 2 diabetes, whatever, it’s all the body breaking down, the chronic forms of stress. Now, when we deal with weight or body mass index, BMI is kind of the way they classify your weight. It’s based on a ratio between your height and your weight. It puts you in a classification from underweight to normal to overweight or obese in classes one, two, and three. It’s not 100% accurate in the case of obviously very well-muscled, very strong athletes. It’s going to break that down. 

But for the vast majority of people, there is a very, very clear correlation between what category you’re in, whether you’re overweight or obese, Type 1, Type 2, or Type 3, and what type of metabolic health you have and how likely you are to suffer from the diseases of civilization. It’s very important. The data on weight and chronic disease is pretty overwhelming. There was a 2003 journal article in Biosocial Science that found that BMI was used to predict cardiovascular disease, specifically type 2 diabetes mortality. They found that obese class two individuals had a 34% increased risk of mortality in an obese class, and obese class three individuals had a 77% increased risk of mortality, and that’s adjusting for age and sex. 

But notice that in that study, they were lumping both heart disease and diabetes together. We’ll talk about this in the stress cycle very shortly. But you notice that having a high BMI is a deadly consequence of that. In 2007, there was a study in diabetes care that said if you were underweight at age 18 versus being obese at age 18, your lifetime risk of diabetes goes from 8 to 70%. That’s for men. It’s even higher for women. Very clear correlation here. Then, even in 2020, you remember all the hospitalizations in 2020, the CDC said that obesity combined with other metabolic comorbidities, specifically type 2 diabetes, accounted for 60% of hospitalizations. If you weren’t in that category, you would greatly reduce your risk of being hospitalized. There’s a very clear indicator of how it’s undeniable.

Beverly Yates, ND

These things are related. We know that the things that they have in common around metabolic disorders and dysregulation, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, unfortunately, invoke certain pathways in the body that lead to illness and poor health. But you also shared an idea with us, Dr. Joseph, early, that I want to go back to, which is: would you please explain how the stress cycle that you mentioned can eventually lead to type 2 diabetes?

Joseph Kametz, DC

Sure. Again, when I say stress, I mean all different forms of stress, whether it’s physical stress from your lack of exercise or too much exercise, chemicals in the food, or emotional stress from just scrolling through social media all day, EMFs, 5G, it doesn’t matter. The body is going to react the same way. Here’s the big idea. The body uses sympathetic nervous system dominance, which most people would refer to as fighting or flight, to overcome short-term stressors. But if these adaptations to those stresses last for extended periods, eventually you’re going to end up with all the diseases of civilization, whether it’s obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or even cancer. 

Here’s a simple example. Imagine it in today’s context. Imagine that you’re driving on a highway and somebody cuts you off, and immediately your body recognizes that this is a major threat to its life. The hypothalamic pituitary adrenal as it kicks off in your body and releases adrenaline and cortisol, and everybody’s felt that adrenaline and cortisol rush. You feel like you’re getting amped up, you want to play a football game, or you want to run away. But there are a few things that happen here that are very important. The first thing is that your heart rate is going to increase and your blood pressure is going to rise. The reason that would happen, of course, is because your body needs to send hormones, energy, and other chemicals through the blood to the cells very quickly. It does that by raising the heart rate and the blood pressure. 

Another thing that happens here is that your LDL cholesterol is going to increase. Why would the bad sticky cholesterol increase in this situation? Well, if you get in a car accident, you want your blood clot. These are very, very intelligent adaptations to prepare for danger. These adaptations can keep you alive in the short term. It’s very intelligent, but over the long term, there’s a lot of damage. These are not healthy things at all. Imagine just to explain how intelligent the body is. Imagine climbing Mount Everest and getting stuck in a storm. It’s cooler than you thought, and all of a sudden, your fingers and toes are starting to develop frostbite. Well, that’s an intelligent adaptation. The body is pulling the blood from the extremities to the core, so the temperature of the blood doesn’t get too low or overall lower. The blood temperature of the body, because if that happens, you’re going to die of hypothermia. 

Now, if you’re stuck in a cold for too long and you don’t get down the mountain in enough time, you’re going to have to sacrifice your body’s extremities. It will sacrifice your toes. It will sacrifice your fingers to buy you time to get you down the mountain. That’s very intelligent, but it’s not healthy. You can lose your limbs at the end of the day. If you go back to the beginning of humankind, the stresses of today, as you alluded to earlier, Doc, are there. They’re very different. I imagine back then it was warring tribes running away from wild animals. The body’s physiology needs to change to survive. I mean, imagine running Wooly Mammoth, running off year after year. You need to do everything you can to get away. The body uses sympathetic nervous system dominance to prepare you for fight or flight. But there are consequences to that. 

Now. That’s how it was originally supposed to happen: once the warring was over or the running away from the animals was over, you could get back to more parasympathetic dominance, feed and breed, rest and digest, the healing part of the nervous system. That’s the way it was meant to work out. But today, the stress never stops. You avoid the accident on the highway, and now you get home and find an unexpected tax bill in the mail, and then you realize you have 10 minutes to get to pick up your kids at school. You’ve already been late there a couple of times this week. The staff is upset about that. But then you pop a tire on the way over, and you’re at the gas station. Of course, you start stressing that they’re eating your Twinkies. 

These little microstresses keep you in a constant state of low-grade fight or flight. You will never get out of this sympathetic dominance. and notice the examples that we showed you there; that was physical stress. There was a near-accident. There was emotional stress from a bill and being late, and now you’ve got chemical stress. By adding in these foods, your heart rate is going to stay a little bit higher. Your blood pressure is going to be a little bit higher. Your LDL cholesterol will be a little bit higher. If you multiply that by 40 years now, it’s very easy to see how you’re suffering from cardiovascular disease. Again, any form of stress can do this. Now, is that a disease, or is it an intelligent way for the body to adapt to these stresses? The body makes wise decisions to keep you alive, but if you stay in that environment for extended periods, of course, there are going to be consequences for the diseases of civilization. I know this isn’t about heart disease, but these are all the same. They’re all part of the same cycle here. Get back into that cycle when your body, when the sympathetic nervous system is preparing you for fight or flight, needs a lot of energy. It’s very energy-intensive to run this cycle. 

You’ve seen it in your clients. When people are stressed out, they don’t want broccoli, meat, fruits, or vegetables. They want Twinkies. I want Twinkies high, highly processed, high-calorie, high-fat junk food. Because of this stress cycle, you’re now craving more sugar, so you start to overeat. This is where the way the weight gain begins: when the body releases this adrenaline and cortisol for the sympathetic nervous system, dominant dominance, it’s going to start downregulating the thyroid gland because the body is going to conserve energy, which seems ridiculous. Why would the body conserve energy in a case where you need it? Well, because your body has no idea how long this stressor is going to go on, how long you’re going to need to fight this wooly mammoth, or more appropriately, how long this fight with your spouse is going to last. 

To conserve energy, your body starts to stop burning sugar. But since sugar is your primary source of energy, if you don’t burn it, it’s going to start accumulating in the blood, and too much sugar in the blood, as we know, is very dangerous. It’s a condition called diabetes. Your body protects you from diabetes by increasing your insulin levels. Insulin is your fat-storage hormone. Insulin pulls the sugar out of the bloodstream, and what it can’t store is glycogen in the liver, the muscles that get stored away as fat. The longer you’re in this sympathetic nervous system dominance, the more calories you’re going to crave, which is going to increase the insulin level. It’s going to increase your sugar levels to the point that all this inflammation you’re creating is starting to severely damage these cells, they become resistant to insulin, and then eventually the pancreas can’t produce enough insulin to keep that blood sugar low. 

Now you’re in the diabetes state, and how do you start packing the pounds by doing nothing different? People wonder why I haven’t changed any habits. I’m not eating any differently from what I did last year. Well, when cortisol starts to downregulate the thyroid hormones, this cuts out nonessential functions in the body to keep you, for instance, immunity, because you don’t need that when you’re running away from, say, a saber tooth tiger. Your body conserves energy by stopping some of its processes. Immunity is one of them. When you’re run down, you’re susceptible to any form of illness or any type of bacteria or virus that’s out there. You’re not using those calories. The body’s restoring them. Let’s say you’ve got your BMR or basal metabolic rate. The baseline for how many calories you need to survive is 2000 calories a day. Well, maybe being in this sympathetic nervous system is a stress cycle for a long period. Now, your body may only need 1900 calories a day to survive or 1800 calories a day to survive. There are 100, 200 extra calories a day that are not going to run the immune system. They’re going for stored energy. 

Now you have this case where you have more sugar, more fat, more insulin resistance, more diabetes, and more obesity. It all makes sense. This is exactly why there’s a direct relationship between type 2 diabetes and obesity. You might as well lump in hypothyroidism here at the same time. All these diseases of civilization that we’re seeing aren’t necessarily diseases of the body, which is adapting to these long-term forms of stress in the most intelligent way possible. Now, if you think that’s a genetic thing, well, then, of course, you’re going to be going for the metformin, the ozempic, and then the insulin. But clearly, they’re not; they’re not a genetic thing. They’re the body’s intelligent way of adapting to long-term stresses.

Beverly Yates, ND

Okay. That’s an interesting point of view. As you are going about presenting this, please share with us your thoughts on how people break out of the stress cycle so that they can potentially start to reverse type 2 diabetes.

Joseph Kametz, DC

It’s the most important thing. Now you understand that. What do we do next? You do have to break out of that stress cycle, and then not only can you potentially reverse your type 2 diabetes, but virtually every other chronic disease of civilization. If you’re using weight as a proxy for health and most chronic disease. The research will show that just a modest 5–10% decrease in weight has been known to improve metabolic outcomes such as glycemic profile, lipid profile, thyroid hormones, and blood pressure. The benefits of just modest weight loss are very significant. Once you can break out of this stress cycle, you can start dealing with the rest of these diseases of civilization. This can start changing.

Beverly Yates, ND

With this in mind, having this background, and knowing you can change one and get benefits in other places, that is the good news. In the same way, one thing can break and take things with it, you can have one area of improvement and multiple areas of good results. How do you feel about exercising specifically for weight loss?

Joseph Kametz, DC

I love exercising. I’ve been doing it since I was 11 years old. When we talk about exercise, what I see is that the major correlation between type 2 diabetes and exercise is not with whether you exercise or not. It’s being overweight. I feel it’s exercise is by far the best way you can get fit. I think it’s the slowest way to lose weight. Exercise will help with insulin sensitivity. It’s going to help with burning calories. But exercise is stressful, and if done improperly, it can get you stuck back in that stress cycle. The most effective way that we’ve seen in a clinic to lose weight is by lowering the caloric intake. because when you extend energy in a gym, you’re going to eventually crave more energy. It’s food—more sugar, more fat. 

We generally see a lot of people who have done this coming into the clinic; they’re typically doing boot camps, which they work for weight loss. There’s a quick weight loss. It’s amazing. but how they work is very highly intense exercise over a long duration and generally pretty significant calorie restriction. At that time, if you exercise intensely for that long duration, of course, your body is going to start craving food, but you’re also going to be doing a lot of damage to the body. If you’re not getting enough protein for cellular repair, you’re going to be malnourished, you’re going to be fatigued, and injury is just around the corner. Most of the people that we see with injuries in boot camps usually end up stopping due to injury, and the weight comes back. That being said, for weight loss, everybody needs to do this exercise today, but I don’t think it’s the best way to lose weight. But now remember that the other thing is just losing weight. 10 to 15% of your body weight with exercise, and healthy exercise may take two years to do that. 

For most people who are overweight, what seems to make more sense to us at the clinic is to lose 10 to 15% of your body weight in six to six weeks to three months and then hit the gym. Now you’re going to be lighter. There’s going to be less stress on the joints. You already have your healthy eating habits and your lifestyle habits in place, and then you’re just adding in some exercise. Exercise is something that needs to be done. I just think the better weight option is to lose the weight first and remember, exercise can be and should be for everybody hormetic stress, meaning that it’s good stress when you’re bench pressing and you want to take that muscle to the point of momentary muscular failure and then stop and rest and let that recover. Now, when you come back to the gym, you’re going to be stronger. But what we see is that it’s wearing and tearing down the body—it’s just too much on it. That’s why we would suggest there’s something that needs to be done, just not in that order.

Beverly Yates, ND

Yes, I think it’s helpful that you’re breaking this down into the details because I have seen people pound themselves, grind, and do too much, and because eventually, they’re invoking this stress cycle that is completely counter to what the results are they’re trying to get to. They’re working. hard, but they’re not getting the results. You have to question that. If anyone is resonating with that, continue to listen closely because we are meant to exercise and move around. 

Exercise is awesome. But just like most things in life, there is such a thing as too much. Most people with diabetes do not have type 2 diabetes specifically. I may not be doing enough of the specific kind of exercise for them, but some are doing too much. With that in mind, what types of techniques do you employ at your clinic to support people wanting or needing to lose weight fast?

Joseph Kametz, DC

In our clinic, we consider fast weight loss to be women losing anywhere between 15 and 25 pounds and men losing anywhere between 25 and 35 pounds in a month and a half, minimizing muscle loss during that time. We feel that we’ve developed the best approach to getting our patients to do this in a very encouraging timeframe. Our programs are based on a few things. The first is meal planning for quality, low-glycemic, anti-inflammatory, and low-toxic, you can’t keep feeding toxic foods into the cycle. This is the foundation, and I feel that if you want to kick type 2 diabetes medications, you can’t keep raising your glucose levels with your food intake. The foods are specifically chosen with those goals in mind. 

Another thing that we do is time-restricted eating. This is something I would encourage everybody to start doing today. Even if you just eat the foods you normally eat, just break them down into smaller windows. There’s been plenty of research on improving your glycemic profile and losing weight without making any changes to your diet. This is something everyone can do today. If you’re on insulin, this is something you want to speak to your doctor about. First, lower the caloric intake. Ultimately, you need to burn more calories than you’re taking in. The idea here in the program is to use the stored fat as energy in the belly area. But this is very difficult because if you cut calories too much, your body goes into starvation mode. At that point, your body is going to hold on to the stuff that you packed on there, and it’s going to start taking off the muscle first, or it’ll start using the protective fat first instead of the stored fat. You’ve got to monitor your intake to make sure that you’re within those limits and that you’re not taking any more muscle off. 

Now, fortunately, to help with that, we have some incredible supplementation for assistance with protecting the muscle and the fat. We use a mix of homeopathic homeopathy and natural herbs that support the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis and hypothalamic pituitary thyroid axis. The supplementation helps suppress the appetite. It increases the metabolic rate and also contains a mild detox because toxins are stored away in the fat cells. When you start using that energy and start breaking down those fat cells, those toxins are released into the body. You have to have some type of at least mild detox going on. This isn’t a resort; it is reabsorbed back into the bloodstream. 

I think one of the great things that we offer is that we have a proprietary mobile app that we use that monitors our clients everywhere they go, on their phones, their meals, their fluid intakes, and any other factors that may raise their stress levels—poor sleep, menstrual cycle, eating late, any deviations from the plan? They’re in constant contact with the staff for guidance. It’s having a health partner there. Your accountability coach is as close as your cell phone. 

Finally, what’s the point of losing weight if you can’t keep it off? We go through an off-boarding process to make sure that the patients are maintaining their weight loss. I think one great thing is that we have staff that have already been there. Three of our staff have lost 100 pounds, 90 pounds, and 70 pounds between them, pre-diabetic in their early 20s. Even though I don’t look at the people that are closest to me, they’ve had incredible success. On average, our clients are losing women anywhere between 15 and 35 pounds and men anywhere between 15 and 25 to 35 pounds in a month and a half. Men, obviously, with testosterone and other factors, get a little bit of an advantage here. But still, that’s tremendous speed for anybody. 

I think that the greatest thing about this program is the sheer speed with which people can lose this weight and maintain their muscle mass with all they’re doing in such a short period. I know of nothing outside of chiropractic that can make such a quick change in somebody’s life. I can do this. Besides, esthetically too, I mean, imagine losing four inches off your waist and a month and a half. In a month and a half, our clients have a new homeostatic set point for anything: stable blood, stable blood sugar, a better glycemic profile, a lower BMI, lower H1C, and a better lipid panel. Not only that, the body is now getting much healthier to get back into the gym. If you’re using blood glucose levels as a way of determining whether you have a risk or are already a type 2 diabetic, and you’re using lipid profiles to disarm some of these risks of cardiovascular disease, then just by making one simple change and breaking this cycle, all those other things are going to be changed too, because they’re all within this cycle. 

Ultimately, weight is going to be a proxy for health. I was just talking to a client yesterday, and he sent this over. Brian said he was pre-diabetic for four years. He’s been on our program for 20 days. He’s lost 19 pounds so far. He said that initially before he started the program, his morning glucose fasting glucose was 186; now it’s at 75; this is in 20 days. He said this is coming in from the staff. Quote: Tell him thanks for helping me get back to a healthy range. The program works very well. I understand, and we talked about this before. We’ve focused on weight loss because the vast majority of Americans today are overweight, and losing weight quickly is a great way for them to shift. But there are several pre-diabetics out there who aren’t overweight or who aren’t. Just breaking the stress cycle will help them. It’s the only way to help them also.

Beverly Yates, ND

One of the interesting things that I think is just not explained well to people is the whole idea that stress all by itself can cause someone to become a type 2 diabetic. It happens. I think that’s one of the things that’s different now compared to, say, earlier times. Dr. Joseph Kametz, how can people get in touch with you?

Joseph Kametz, DC

Well, thank you if you’ve listened this long. I hope he’s got something out of it. The whole goal was for you guys to understand the cycle so you could start making better decisions. But DrTalks will be getting an email out, I think, to most people, and there’ll be a promotional offer on that. You can also visit our website. It’s read regenesisbody.com. You can also call the office too. We’d be happy to speak to you there, and there’ll be a no-charge consultation for anybody. 

Also, our programs are not just restricted to the San Diego area with our app and our supplementation. We can help anybody pretty much anywhere in the world, so we can help you wherever you’re at. If you think this is something that would be helpful to you, the other thing I would encourage you to do today is, if you do feel you’re overweight or somewhere in there, go online now and find out your BMI. Just look at the BMI calculator, and we’ll give you an idea of where you stand. Also, start today by doing something different, which would be time-restricted eating. If you’re not insulin-dependent, start trying that. Just start making some lifestyle changes today.

Beverly Yates, ND

Great. Before we sign off, I would love it. Would you spell the website name so that people get it? Because sometimes people are listening. They’re not necessarily always watching.

Joseph Kametz, DC

I will do that. Thank you, it’s Regenesis body dot com, so R-E-G-E-N-E-S-I-S B-O-D-Y dotcom Regenesisbody.com.

Beverly Yates, ND

What’s the phone number? They can call the schedule directly.

Joseph Kametz, DC

The phone number is 760-696-3388.

Beverly Yates, ND

Thank you for such an informative talk. We appreciate the work that you do to help people live healthier lives. Appreciate you.

Joseph Kametz, DC

Thank you. Dr. Yates, nice speaking to you.

Beverly Yates, ND

Take care.