 Hello everyone, this is Dr. Ahmed Ergin, and this is the SugarMD channel, the ultimate diabetes channel. Today, we are talking about psyllium, psyllium husk. So, one of our watchers, followers, asked a question and his name is James B. And he says, thanks for the information. Since watching your channel and following your tips, my A1C levels have gone down. I have a co-worker that is trying to suggest I take psyllium husk with my meals. She says it will help with blood sugar. Is it true and any recommendation on the amount one should take daily? How little is too little to be beneficial and how much is too much to be harmful? Not looking for a prescription, but a ballpark. What can I find on Google is pretty vague. Thanks. All right, I think that's a very good question. So, James, here's your answer. Psyllium husk actually is very good for diabetes, number one. And I'll tell you the evidence behind it and how strong is the evidence we'll get to that. But I'm gonna summarize a few things and I don't I don't want you to jump to the conclusion. So, be patient. The video is not gonna be too long, I promise. But sometimes knowing a little is worse than knowing nothing. So, try to understand the whole thing. It's not gonna take too much, believe me. So, there's some data that says that it helps with the diabetes, data that it can help with cholesterol. And then I explain to you how it does. And also, there is data that says that it helps primarily the constipation, right? Constipation and diarrhea. Well, which one do you hate most? Everybody is different. I hate diarrhea more than the constipation. And I tend to have occasional diarrhea, especially when I don't eat right. So, I'm gonna tell you buddy. When you eat sweets and some bad food, especially when you eat outside, that can cause some diarrhea. My body rejects it, I'm telling you. So, but if you are having constipation, psyllium definitely helps. Interestingly, it helps with diarrhea too. And here's why. Now, psyllium is basically a fiber, right? It's a 70% soluble fiber and 30% is insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber basically attracts the water in your intestinal system. It starts collecting water in the small intestine and then it carries that to your colon. And then it creates this bulk reaction because it attracts the water. And the bulk stimulates the perstalsis in your colon. So, as a result, it makes you just push whatever's in there, all the junk that is in there. So, there is some chelation feature because it's it's basically like a glue, you know, it will just also pick up stuff that's not good for you, not just water. It also actually picks up the sugar as well. So, sugar gets attached to it or gets sucked into it and then it's not absorbed as quickly, okay? So, as a result, your blood sugar is not gonna spike as fast. So, that's the basic problems of any fiber. That's why we always emphasize the plant-based diets because plants have a lot of fiber. Like we have eggplant video, for example, one of my favorite fruit, not a vegetable, but a lot of fruits and vegetables guys have a lot of fibers. So, that's why we emphasize eating those a lot because those will reduce or dampen the spike of the blood sugars that comes in the diet. And of course, the more fiber you eat, the longer you will feel fuller. And you're not going to feel like you need to snack. Again, what drives the hunger a lot of times is you're eating carbs, especially simple carbs and pastry and all this junk. And it spikes your insulin and your blood sugar. Your blood sugar starts dropping because your insulin spikes or you end up taking insulin if you're on insulin. And then you're about to realize the blood sugar is dropping fast. And then you feel the hunger. But if your blood sugar is going up slowly and coming down slowly, you don't get that hunger reaction. So as a result, fiber, wherever it comes from, is extremely helpful. Now, soluble fibers are also very helpful, especially the one in lentil. We have a video about the lentils as well. You can check that out. But the soluble fiber is also good for your cholesterol as well. So what soluble fiber part of does, actually, it binds the bile acid. So if you know a little bit about bile acids, they're actually made from cholesterol. And there is what we call enterohepatic circulation of cholesterol. So basically your cholesterol is made in the liver. It is sent to the bile in your gallbladder. When you eat food, it is sent in for digestion of the fat, especially. And it had to help absorb the vitamins, fat soluble vitamins, and that that bile is reabsorbed to the liver and so that your liver can use it again. You know, our body is very efficient. We don't want to waste things. Of course, some of the bile is wasted and then bacteria changes the color of the bile, and that's what gives you the color of the poop. OK, so if you don't know, just in case. So but bile acids are reabsorbed. Now, fiber, soluble fiber and and saline husk also basically binds that bile as a result. It's not reabsorbed. So if there is not bile coming back to liver, liver will be like, well, the ball didn't come back. Anybody? Where's the where's the bile? I need bile. Well, your liver is not going to scream it like people do to each other. OK, so liver will say, OK, you know, I'll just pick up some cholesterol from the blood and then your LDL will be picked up from your blood to make the bile. And everybody is at peace. Your cholesterol goes down. Your liver is happy. Your body is happy. Everybody is happy. So fiber as a result is very good, especially soluble fiber. So psyllium husk has soluble fiber and insoluble fiber that helps both the gastrointestinal movement, but also cholesterol. And as we discussed, preventing the blood sugar spikes as well. Now, the next question is how much to take? Well, that depends on how much fiber you eat. So if you are eating salad every day and you're trying to have all those, you know, plant based foods in your diet, you probably will not need as much psyllium husk. But if you are a steak and potato kind of person and you don't think that even Jesus comes back is not going to change your mind. Well, then in this case, you probably need some psyllium husk because you need fiber, dude. So if you cannot eat fiber, if you have this aversion against good food, then you will need some sort of supplement. And I think in that case, psyllium husk will be really helpful. And if you are having, as I said, diarrhea or constipation, although you're eating well, maybe you need more fiber. So everybody's needs are a little different. So the typical recommendation for psyllium is like five grams, you know, per meal. Now, why five grams? Because it's typically recommended to have 25 to 30 grams of fiber in your diet, at least every day. And in America, I don't know other countries as much, but in America, people don't even get near that half the time. Well, most of the time. So in that case, you know, if you're a passport eater and you're not big into salads and vegetables, you probably need to take that thing pretty much every meal, five to 10 grams every meal to kind of get your get your soluble fiber going. Now, another problem with going such a high dose is if your body is not used to fiber, you are going to get bloated body. That's a side effect. So if you start, you know, like anything, OK, so any supplement, any new food, group, whatever, even lentils, like if you're not used to lentils, you start eating lentils. You're going to be farting all day. I'm telling you, just get used to it. Tell your family that you are getting into a new venture and they need to put up with you or just start small, slow and, you know, build up like anything else in life, right? Start slow and gradually go up. I mean, right now, thank God, we have like around 80,000 subscribers. We didn't start with that. We start with one subscriber. That was me. So but then, you know, you start slow, you increase your pace, you try, you become dedicated, you kind of, you know, spend time and then you get to where you want to get to, you know, and I'm glad that more than a million people are clicking on our videos today. And that's amazing. I'm so happy that I'm helping so many people. I hope this video is helpful for you as well. So but the bottom line is you start slow and gradually build. So you can start with once a day and see how your bowel takes it. You know, if you feel like, oh, it's kind of helping or or at least there's no side effects like too much bloating or gas, then you can try to increase that after maybe a few days and try to take twice a day. And then maybe try to increase it to three times a day, depending on the benefit you're getting and the lack of side effects is going to help you to increase your intake. Now, what are the serious side effects? Sometimes people get allergies to that. You know, some people who are sensitive to this kind of stuff will probably have some runny nose or some teary eyes, whatever that has been reported. And then, like I said, the bloating is going to be your major problem. But otherwise, psyllium is pretty much a very natural fiber that comes from a plant that is produced in India and Mediterranean region. So overall, a very healthy addition to your diet if you have to. So I hope that video helps you guys. And if it does, remember to subscribe to leave a comment and like and share. Thank you guys. We'll talk to you later. All right. Thank you for watching. And I want you to be more informed and more educated. So to do that, go ahead and watch this next video right here.