Find out about the underlying cause of edema and the key nutrients that can help.
0:00 Introduction: How to reduce swelling in legs, ankles, and feet
0:30 What is edema?
1:44 Edema explained
3:20 High blood sugar and fluid retention
3:55 How to get rid of edema
5:24 Vitamin B1 and edema
Today, we’re going to talk about edema causes and remedies. Swollen legs are often a symptom of edema and are typically blamed on liver, kidney, or heart problems.
Did you know that edema and pitting edema may be able to be fixed without a blood thinner or diuretic?
Water retention in the lower legs is caused by a problem with the sodium-potassium pumps in your cells. If these pumps aren’t working correctly, water retention outside the cells, known as interstitial fluid retention, will occur.
When you have swollen ankles, it’s usually the result of high blood sugar connected to the hemoglobin protein in your blood. This is called glycation, which inhibits the blood cell’s ability to carry nutrition and oxygen throughout the body. Glycated proteins can also block circulation, leading to swollen legs and swollen ankles.
High blood sugar causes sodium retention, which also contributes to water retention. Over time, this can affect the nerves in the bottom of the feet, causing numbness and tingling, known as peripheral neuropathy. Even if you don’t yet have diabetes, edema can be caused by high blood sugar.
To help eliminate edema, you must ensure you’re getting plenty of potassium, which can be difficult to achieve through diet alone. The average person needs 4700 mg of potassium daily! Avocados, salads, and berries can help you meet this requirement.
You also need plenty of magnesium to help eliminate edema. Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and leafy greens are good sources of magnesium. Aim for 420 mg of magnesium daily. High-quality electrolyte powder without hidden sugars can help increase potassium and magnesium intake.
Vitamin B1 deficiency is likely behind issues with the sodium-potassium pump. For sugar to be turned into usable energy in the body, you need vitamin B1. Consuming too many refined carbohydrates can cause a vitamin B1 deficiency.
Vitamin B1, potassium, and magnesium can help eliminate edema, but you must also eliminate sugar from your diet.
Dr. Eric Berg DC Bio:
Dr. Berg, age 59, is a chiropractor who specializes in Healthy Ketosis & Intermittent Fasting. He is the author of the best-selling book The Healthy Keto Plan, and is the Director of Dr. Berg Nutritionals. He no longer practices, but focuses on health education through social media.
Follow Me On Social Media:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Drberg/
YouTube Shorts: https://www.youtube.com/@UCpWhiwlOPxOmwQu5xyjtLDw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drericberg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drericberg/
Spotify Podcast: 🎧 https://drbrg.co/DrBerg-Spotify
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drbergofficial
X: https://x.com/dr_ericberg
Disclaimer:
Dr. Eric Berg received his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1988. His use of “doctor” or “Dr.” in relation to himself solely refers to that degree. Dr. Berg is a licensed chiropractor in Virginia, California, and Louisiana, but he no longer practices chiropractic in any state and does not see patients, so he can focus on educating people as a full-time activity, yet he maintains an active license. This video is for general informational purposes only. It should not be used to self-diagnose, and it is not a substitute for a medical exam, cure, treatment, diagnosis, prescription, or recommendation. It does not create a doctor-patient relationship between Dr. Berg and you. You should not make any change in your health regimen or diet before first consulting a physician and obtaining a medical exam, diagnosis, and recommendation. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
#keto #ketodiet #weightloss #ketolifestyle
Thanks for watching! I hope this explains the true cause of swelling in the feet, ankles, and legs. I’ll see you in the next video.
let’s talk about how to get rid of swollen legs ankles and feet would you believe that I used to have pitting edema right on my ankles I would remember pressing into my lower ankle and leaving a dent I mean I’m not that old it was some years ago but even in this picture you could see my face was completely round anytime someone has a round face what that means is they have blood sugar issues but the point is I had a lot of health problems and pitting edema was definitely one of them now swollen legs are called edema and you know if you look this up it’ll say that it’s a liver problem a kidney problem a heart problem maybe you’re consuming too much sodium but that’s not always the case there’s something else way more common and I’m going to share that with you today and this is totally easy to fix um when you watch this video if you just apply what I’m going to show you you will fix this very fast without taking like a blood thinner like some type of diuretic to push the fluid out I mean that comes with a package like side effects when you have fluid retention especially in your lower legs and ankles this boils down to a problem with these little tiny pumps that are not working in your cells you have millions and millions of these little tiny pumps that push fluid in and out of the cell and the specific pump that’s not working in this case is called the sodium potassium pump there’s some really interesting things about this pump it uses like 30 to 40% of all the energy that is given to that cell but if that pump goes bad like in our our house in the basement when the pump went bad we had about a foot of water in our basement if the pump goes bad in your body you’re going to have a lot of fluid that is not going to be in the cells it’s going to be outside the cells and that’s called interstitial fluid retention so what’s really going on in your lower ankles is you’re getting a condition where your sugar in the blood is too high and all that sugar is connected to the protein in the blood called hemoglobin so let’s say we have a protein bar right here representing the protein and then we have a marshmallow representing the sugar what happens when this sugar connects to the protein in your blood this is called glycation so this is a term that they use when you hear this test called A1C the A1C test measures how much sugar is stuck to your blood protein and it gives you an average of like 3 months because the red blood cell survives about 3 months and so when this sugar gets stuck to the blood protein prot it doesn’t come off it’s stuck there permanently until that blood cell dies and so when you eat more sugar you get more sugar stuck to this protein more sugar stuck to the protein until this protein can’t work anymore and the name for this is that the protein is glycated but the main takeaway for this is that when you eat sugar you destroy the ability for the blood cell to carry nutrition to the body to carry oxygen and this glycated protein molecule now plugs up your circulation then you get a lack of blood flow and then you get this pooling that goes on in your lower part of your body and this is that swelling because it also destroys the inside of your arteries and it creates a leakiness outside the cell the fluid that was supposed to be inside your vessels can now escape the other thing that this does when you eat a lot of sugar is that it actually creates a sodium retention not to mention the other mineral called potassium gets locked up in the sugar and wherever the sodium goes the water goes now over time this is going to affect the nerves and the bottom of the feet you’re going to get numbness tingling they call that periphal neuropathy and so yes when you look at a diabetic you see a lot of fluid in the ankles and things but even people that are not diabetic and maybe they’re not even pre-diabetic they’re going towards that area they also have fluid retention and that’s what I had there is a very important vitamin to correct this but there are two other things they minerals that you need to also get from the diet of course the obvious one is potassium the problem with potassium is that it’s not easy to get from the diet because we need so so much an average person needs 4700 milligrams now think about what that means if you were to eat one banana that’s like 300 milligrams so how many times does 300 go into 4700 let’s take a look you would have to consume 15.6 bananas every day just to get your potassium but the problem with that is that’s going to be hard and also that’s a lot of sugar so instead of doing that you might be better off doing like avocados more salad and even more fruit like berries you can get a lot of potassium from that now the other mineral magnesium is behind something called ATP which is the energy currency of the body and yes you’re going to get cramps if you have uh magnesium problems but also you’re going to have a lack of energy so to get magnes magesium you probably need to consume more pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds as well as leafy greens but you don’t need 4700 like potassium you need about 420 Mig of magnesium you can also get both of these from a good electrolyte powder but just make sure that the electrolyte powder is high quality it doesn’t have the hidden sugars all right so that will fix the pump but the very reason why the pump went bad is what we want to talk about next and that is a deficiency of vitamin B1 so I want to show you in this little uh very simple chart here I’m being very sarcastic it’s a huge biochemical chart you can see all this chemistry stuff going on right here and this stuff right here when you eat sugar in the body it starts here and then it has to be broken down into a smaller sugar molecule called glucose and then it has to enter the machine to be turned into energy in order for it to go from this step to this step this one little enzyme requires vitamin B1 if you don’t have enough then you will not be able to use that as energy and so the number one cause of a B1 deficiency is consuming too much carbohydrates in the refined form for example if you eat all this refined sugar without B1 now the body has to pull from its reserves right we have to pull it from different tissues and organs and glands and eventually you’re going to be efficient and that B1 is also very important as an antioxidant to protect the nerves this is why when you run out of B1 you get uh what’s called peripheral neuropathy which is tingling and numbness and burning on the bottom of your feet the point is that B1 is so important in carbohydrate metabolism and protecting you against a lot of carbohydrates and when I say protection I’m talking about the protection against this glycation this sugar connect ing to the protein B1 keeps these apart so you don’t destroy your blood cells and you have good circulation because you have to realize as soon as that connects to it it’s permanent okay it’s not coming off so magnesium potassium and B1 is the solution to swollen ankles but you also have to get the sugar out of the diet because as soon as you go back to eating the refined carbohydrates guess what the swelling comes back all right so now the question is if I’m not going to eat carbs what am I going to eat for that information you need to watch this video right here
