The Sodium-Potassium Pump
There are 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 house 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.
Glycation and Blood Sugar
What’s really going on in your lower ankles is you’re getting a condition where your sugar in the blood is too high. All that sugar is connected to the protein in the blood called hemoglobin. What happens when this sugar connects to the protein in your blood is called glycation. This is a term used when you hear of the A1C test, which measures how much sugar is stuck to your blood protein and gives you an average over about three months, as red blood cells survive about three months.
When this sugar gets stuck to the blood protein, it doesn’t come off; it’s stuck there permanently until that blood cell dies. So, when you eat more sugar, you get more sugar stuck to this protein until this protein can’t work anymore. The name for this is that the protein is glycated. The main takeaway is that when you eat sugar, you destroy the ability for the blood cell to carry nutrition to the body and oxygen. This glycated protein molecule now plugs up your circulation, leading to a lack of blood flow and pooling in the lower parts of your body, causing swelling.
The Role of Sodium and Potassium
This also destroys the inside of your arteries and creates a leakiness outside the cell. The fluid that was supposed to be inside your vessels can now escape. Another thing that happens when you eat a lot of sugar is that it creates sodium retention. Not to mention, the other mineral called potassium gets locked up in the sugar. Wherever the sodium goes, the water goes. Over time, this will affect the nerves in the bottom of the feet, leading to numbness and tingling, known as peripheral neuropathy.
So yes, when you look at a diabetic, you see a lot of fluid in the ankles, but even people who are not diabetic or pre-diabetic but are heading in that direction also have fluid retention.
Essential Nutrients to Correct Edema
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