Taking Control of Diabetes

The diabetes epidemic sweeping across America affects nearly 40 million people, with numbers steadily rising. What lies behind this troubling trend? In this eye-opening conversation with David Delrahim, founder of Cocoon, we dive deep into a revolutionary approach to diabetes management that goes far beyond conventional advice.

Delrahim shares his transformative perspective on Type 2 diabetes—which accounts for 90% of all cases—emphasizing that while we aren't born with it, something happens between birth and diagnosis that disrupts our body's natural balance. This discussion challenges the traditional medical model by introducing Cocoon's five pillars of wellness: emotional, mental, energetic, spiritual, and physical balance. Through these interconnected elements, Delrahim demonstrates how diabetes management requires a holistic approach rather than merely medicating symptoms.

The conversation takes a particularly powerful turn when we share a personal revelation: a simple dietary change that lowered blood sugar by 75 points in just 11 days. This dramatic result underscores a central theme—taking responsibility for our health is transformative yet remains the hardest step for many. As Delrahim eloquently puts it, "Knowledge is different than awareness." Many people, even healthcare professionals, understand diabetes intellectually but fail to develop the awareness that drives meaningful lifestyle changes. By recognizing our body as "an amazing Swiss watch" that signals imbalance through symptoms, we can begin to address the root causes rather than merely treating effects. Ready to transform your relationship with diabetes? This episode provides practical wisdom for anyone looking to reclaim control of their health through conscious choices and balanced living.

From the producers of PBS's American Health Journal and Innovations in Medicine. Thank you for listening to Better Wellness.

Chapters

• 0:00 Diabetes epidemic in America
• 0:47 Understanding Type 2 diabetes development
• 2:14 Diet's critical role in blood sugar
• 5:53 Beyond food: Mental and emotional factors
• 8:11 Taking responsibility for your health
• 16:29 Finding balance through awareness
• 19:29 Episode closing and podcast information

Transcript

Roland Perez: 0:05

Diabetes has become common in the United States. Sadly, Almost 40 million Americans have diabetes and the incidence rate is climbing. What can be done to slow down this health epidemic? Welcome to Better Wellness, a podcast that explores the newest innovations in true wellness. I'm your host, Roland Perez. I'm here with David Delrahim, the founder of Cocoon, whose mission it is to empower people on their wellness journey. Welcome, David. David, let's talk about diabetes. What's your angle with diabetes? It's obviously there's millions of people in the United States that have it. How does wellness and Cocon work with?

David Delraheim: 0:47

diabetes. There are two types of diabetes type 1 and type 2. Type 2, which really about 90% of the whole diabetic population has, that's my focus for today's conversation. The type 1, unfortunately, is an autoimmune system challenge For most of the type 2s. They're not born with it. They eventually develop. So something happens between the time that we are born. They're not born with it. They eventually develop. So something happens between the time that we are born and the time that we are officially diagnosed as diabetic. Something has happened.

David Delraheim: 1:38

Now, if we start reverse engineering back and we keep the body constant, the body is here to do its job and it does a great job. All right, pancreas does what it's supposed to do, producing insulin, and the cells are supposed to receive it. There's a communication and everything is fine. But we, being human, we have options and we try and try and at some point of time this whole balance becomes imbalance. Now, at Cocoon, we understand there are five pillars there's an emotional, mental, energetic, spiritual and physical. So the imbalances could be in all five of them or it could be in some of them, and that's how the whole thing happens.

Roland Perez: 2:46

So you're saying it's more than just food. It could be. You're not reading your body correctly. Your body's not reading you correctly. There's a difficulty in there, because I just had a diet that I was put on for another condition and my sugar levels dropped 75 points in less than 11 days. And I figured it out. I'm not a genius, but I figured out. It's the food I'm eating, it's the nutrition Process foods, and I've gone down to some very natural things that I can digest easily and my diabetic numbers just dropped completely. So your diet has a lot to do with diabetes.

David Delraheim: 3:44

Of course diet has a lot to do with diabetes and, especially in our country, having a lot of options. I know there was a study done that 80% of items on the typical grocery store shelves are not good for you. Grocery stores shelves are not good for you. Well, that study did not stop anyone or any of these chains not to carry because people want them, you know. So they keep taking them and that is why we are where we are, that 10% of our population in US well, slightly more probably 11 to maybe even 12% of our population are diabetic. And when we go to the obesity it's the same thing. And unfortunately the trajectory is not good either. So by 2050, it is projected that 75% of people in US would be obese, and as that goes up, the rate of the obesity goes up, there goes the rate of the diabetic and other issues.

David Delraheim: 5:07

So food of course matters. What we eat matters. Processed food, of course, is bad, but I believe we live in a society that everything is based on supersizing. We eat too much and our pancreas cannot handle it. We eat too much, and part of the reason we eat too much because our food are depleted from the nutritional values. So you know it just keeps on and on. But why are they like emotional and mental, or important? But they're important because if we are emotionally and mentally imbalanced we cannot have a good night's sleep and sleep is very important for our body to repair itself. So when you look at the whole diabetic, I say Cocoon say. Cocoon says we need to take responsibility.

Roland Perez: 6:29

Here we go, absolutely.

David Delraheim: 6:31

You know, just go back to taking responsibility before you start taking pills for the rest of your life. You know, unfortunately, we know what causes or what really helps with this path to being diabetic, but we hardly ever have this awareness to do something about it. It's a lifestyle issue. Our body is built to be moved, but we like to sit on the couch and just go over the internet Now the cell phones. We cannot move, even at the gym, I see people on the treadmill and they're checking their text messages. So I call that addictions, whether we are addicted to the food, to the junk food, to the sugar. The amount of sugar that we take is astounding. This is the sugar that our body is not built to process, because it's processed sugar. So you want to stay out of this trajectory? Take responsibility, make some adjustments.

Roland Perez: 8:04

And I'd like to know from you, David, what are the common symptoms of diabetes.

David Delraheim: 8:11

Increased thirst, slow healing, cuts and sores, fatigue, blurred vision, frequent urination and unexplained weight loss.

Roland Perez: 8:29

Diabetes is growing and if 10% of the population you know was blind from something, they would be blind. I mean, there would be a hundred universities studying why they go blind. I read the other day and I went to check it out. They said find your yearbook, your high school yearbook. Open it up. And if you're I went to school in high school in the 60s, this was a long time ago Go in the yearbook. Try to find someone fat Pictures. Go to newspapers and magazines that were printed in the 60s and 70s on the beach. Try to find someone who's fat. Now you go to the beach and everybody's fat. Everybody has a problem and it all comes from what you're eating and the lack of exercise, and you don't do anything about it, which just goes back to you with responsibility.

David Delraheim: 9:36

Right, and you know we live in a time and in a society that things are not necessarily getting easier. What we need is awareness. It's not so much about the knowledge. Knowledge is different than awareness. We might be a society that people are educated but they don't have the awareness. Awareness is not something that you learn in the universities. It's not in any textbook and that is why even the people are coming out of the universities, they go into the field. Whatever they do, much later on they become obese. Much later on they're going to have chronic issues. So you see that knowledge did not help them with their awareness?

David Delraheim: 10:44

Nobody likes to take responsibility. People have no problem taking pills for the rest of their life, but I don't want to feel responsible. We don't have to do a lot, we just have to find a way to quality of life, and that is where cocoon is Creating the awareness about quality of life. Everything is within our hands. It's right here, is within our hands. It's right here, but we often dismiss because it requires us to take responsibilities and, my God, that is the hardest thing for us.

Roland Perez: 11:42

Is there a way of getting to that point in your life where you're thinking about taking responsibility for your life, for things that are not good for you?

David Delraheim: 11:52

One hundred percent. You know, a cocoon has five elements. One of them is the spiritual balance, and that is where you will tap into that awareness and a consciousness of taking responsibility. You know, just because we are adults, or we are called adults, that doesn't mean we are responsible, the responsibilities that are being put on us by the society. But beyond that is the personal responsibility that we take. We might take a good responsibility to take care of others, because that is the code in the society, but I'm talking about taking responsibility for us. Remember, it's just like being on a plane and they tell you that in case of a decompression, the oxygen mask, you put it on yourself first before you put it on others. You put it on yourself first before you put it on others. We cannot do that. We are struggling with that, taking that responsibility to create the balance. See, our body runs like an amazing Swiss watch Once it's balanced, once it's not, then the alarm goes off. It's communicating.

Roland Perez: 13:38

Yeah, I realize, and now I'm taking responsibility for diabetes is because I was put on that diet for a few days. I had some gastro issues and they wanted to simplify what I ate. So I went on this very simple, very bland diet and I lost 75% points off my diabetes and I was astounded. I'm going. I knew deep in my heart that that's what it needed to do, but I didn't take the responsibility for it and now, because of that, I'm eating differently Never did that before and it's obviously working and I'm losing weight. I've lost 10 pounds already and I'm losing weight. I've lost 10 pounds already. And so what goes in your mouth is very, very important, because a lot of it is processed foods. But stopping yourself from putting something in your mouth, that's another story.

David Delraheim: 14:44

Very interesting story. Very interesting story. I was sitting with a doctor and we were just talking about the blood sugar and the diabetes and she said well, a lot of it is genetic. I said the gene? I understand, but we need to take responsibility. We cannot just continue on with our lifestyle and blame everything on the genes. Let the gene be, but we need to take responsibility and we have to do our own part. And you know, I asked a very young doctor. She said yeah, I'm a pre-diabetic. I said, but you're too young. She said yeah, but it's genetic. I said you just keep pointing fingers at something else. And it was over food. And there comes the dessert. She said what would you like to have? I said nothing, I'll have a cup of chamomile tea. But she ordered a big dessert and she finished the whole thing. Well, I'm just looking at it. So so see, the awareness is different than the knowledge.

Roland Perez: 16:10

She's a doctor, she has a license, but did not have the awareness, which leads to the responsibility of doing what you have to do. I don't like to get up and go to a gym that's not my personality but I do like to walk and I know that walking helps diabetics because you burn off your sugar. But you will have to walk a mile, two miles, to do this. Just with my simple little diet that they gave me, with no exercise, it dropped 75 points, and that is to me remarkable that I could have done this 10 years ago, but I didn't, because, when it comes to processed foods, I love processed foods. It's basically all you have in the supermarket. There isn't anything in there that doesn't have some type of processed foods.

David Delraheim: 17:03

And unfortunately, our body doesn't know how to process processed foods and that is the problem, all right, and it gets blocked and, simply said, it would put our body at an imbalance. There's a state of balance and there's a state of not being balanced. You're balanced, you're having a greater life, you're not. You've got aches and pains and this and that and the others, and you go back and forth with the doctors and pharmacy. It's just. That is the fact. Who did it? Nobody else. You did it to yourself, granted that you know, but of course you know. But air, quality of air and water and all of these things matters. Well, they do matter, but it's even with everybody else, because you're probably breathing the same air that everybody else, millions of others, are breathing, but the ones that you have control over. You need to take responsibility for that. Processed food, sugar, exercise, some med to bring your balance into your own mind.

Roland Perez: 18:32

So it's not just food, it's a balance in your life.

David Delraheim: 18:36

All of it. Yes, you know, for some people it might sound like or feel like a lot of work, but it is not, and that is why Cocoon is coming to create the awareness and teach everyone how simple it is to stay in balance.

Roland Perez: 19:01

Thank you, David. That was really interesting. I'm definitely going to continue to make better choices in my own life For our listeners. I hope you too, can incorporate some of these lifestyle changes, like dietary modification and regular exercise to take control of your diabetes. And remember, the Better Wellness podcast is available just about anywhere, including Spotify, Amazon Music and iHeart Radio. So once again, thanks for supporting Better Wellness. I'm your host, Roland Perez. Thanks for listening.