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Blood Sugar Stability and the Nervous System

Episode 95 — Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP — Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: April 15, 2024 | Duration: 48 min Guest: Dr. David Jockers, DNM — Functional Nutrition Expert & Founder of drjockers.com | Host of the Dr. Jockers Functional Nutrition Podcast

Key Takeaways

• Blood sugar stability is one of the most powerful “needle movers” for children’s brain function, behavior, and nervous system health — yet it’s one of the most overlooked factors in pediatric healing protocols.
• Reactive hypoglycemia — blood sugar that spikes then crashes — is more common in children than obesity-driven insulin resistance, and a single severe hypoglycemic episode that causes passing out increases the risk of neurodegenerative disease later in life by 40%.
• Eating 20–25 grams of protein per meal for children (30+ grams for adults), and consuming that protein first before carbohydrates, lowers both the glycemic and insulin impact of the entire meal.
• Blood sugar instability and nervous system instability are directly linked — Dr. Ebel describes them as “living on the same street.” Children receiving chiropractic care, therapies, or other healing interventions won’t hold their progress without nutritional stability as the foundation.
• BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) — the brain’s primary growth and repair signal — is produced in greater quantities when blood sugar is stable. It drives synaptogenesis, creativity, emotional regulation, and learning capacity in children.

How Does Blood Sugar Affect a Child’s Nervous System and Brain?

Blood sugar stability is the single most impactful nutritional factor for children’s nervous system health, brain function, and behavioral regulation. When blood glucose swings too high or too low, it directly disrupts the neurological environment that everything else — chiropractic care, therapy, supplements — depends on to work.

When blood sugar rises too high (hyperglycemia), glucose molecules bind to proteins in the bloodstream and form Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) — compounds that Dr. Jockers describes as “shrapnel going through your bloodstream.” AGEs damage blood vessel walls, drive systemic inflammation, and impair nerve endings. In children, this shows up as cognitive dullness, irritability, and fatigue.

Far more common in kids, however, is reactive hypoglycemia — a pattern where blood sugar spikes after a high-carbohydrate, low-protein meal and then crashes. That crash starves neurons of the continuous glucose supply they need to function. In severe cases, it triggers cascading neuronal death through a domino effect where oxygen-deprived neurons release calcium and metabolites that over-excite and damage neighboring neurons. Even at milder levels, it produces the brain fog, mood swings, fatigue, and inattention that parents often attribute to the child’s diagnosis rather than their breakfast. Stable blood sugar, by contrast, supports the production of BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) — which Dr. Jockers calls “miracle growth for the brain” — driving the development of neural connections (synaptogenesis), boosting cognitive flexibility, creativity, and self-confidence.

For families working through The Perfect Storm — children dealing with nervous system dysregulation, autism, ADHD, sensory challenges, anxiety, or POTS — blood sugar stability is not optional background work. It’s core to whether the child’s nervous system is in a state where healing can actually take hold.

Opening: What Moves the Needle for Kids’ Brains and Nervous Systems [00:00 – 06:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: The Experience Miracles community spends a lot of time working through some seriously tough health challenges. Parents are often drowning in long lists of supplements, therapies, and protocols — all while the nervous system stays stuck. The question I brought Dr. Jockers on to answer was simple: when you line up everything that impacts the nervous system, the brain, and inflammation in children, what actually moves the needle most?

Dr. David Jockers is a Doctor of Natural Medicine specializing in functional nutrition, the founder of drjockers.com — one of the most well-researched and widely read health websites in the world with over one million monthly page views — and the host of the Dr. Jockers Functional Nutrition Podcast, the number one ranked nutrition podcast in the world. He’s also a dad of four kids under ten, which makes everything he teaches immediately applicable.

His answer was immediate: blood sugar stability.

Blood Sugar Stability: The Foundation of Everything [00:06:00 – 00:11:00]

Dr. David Jockers: From a functional nutrition perspective, blood sugar stability is the biggest needle mover I see when it comes to energy, mental clarity, and nervous system health. I speak from personal experience — growing up, my mom followed a macrobiotic diet, and despite eating “healthy,” my meals were loaded with low-protein, high-carbohydrate foods like cereal with soy milk and orange juice. Two hours after eating, I was falling asleep in class. I had a constant mental cloud. I was living what appeared to be a healthier lifestyle than my classmates, and I felt terrible.

Once I understood how to stabilize blood sugar — leading with protein, reducing insulinogenic foods — my brain came alive. I went from struggling through school to finishing at the top of my class in undergrad and graduate school.

The foundation of a good nutrition approach comes down to two principles: maximal nutrients and minimal toxins. We want food that supplies key nutrients the body needs, while eliminating inputs that spike blood sugar, spike insulin, and damage cellular function. That means avoiding sugars and highly insulinogenic carbohydrates, and cutting out seed oils — corn, soy, safflower, cottonseed, peanut, and canola oils.

“Those seed oils damage the mitochondria in the cells of our body — they pack a punch and create oxidative stress. A little goes a long way in a negative direction.”

Dr. Tony Ebel: The seed oil piece hits differently when you grow up on a corn farm like I did. I watched corn fatten cattle at an alarming rate — that’s literally how farming makes money, fatter cattle faster. Cattle take half the antibiotics in the world because of how inflamed that diet makes them. Now we take that same corn, concentrate it into oil, and market it to children as a cooking ingredient or “healthy salad dressing.” Combine that with the concentrated sugars marketed to kids, and you’ve got a recipe for neurological instability on repeat.

Protein First: Why Sequence Matters at Every Meal [00:12:00 – 00:16:00]

Dr. David Jockers: After removing the inputs that create instability, the next priority is building meals around adequate protein — and consuming that protein first. Research shows that eating protein and fiber before any high-carbohydrate food lowers the glycemic and insulin impact of the entire meal. That’s the difference between a blood sugar spike-and-crash cycle and a stable, sustained energy window.

For children, aim for 20–25 grams of protein per meal. For a very young child (three or four years old), 15 grams may be sufficient. For adults, the target is 30 or more grams per meal. The more active the child, the more protein they’ll need.

My kids know their macronutrients. They could explain protein food to another adult. They understand they eat their protein before anything else — before the treats my wife makes, before the fruit, before anything. That’s the non-negotiable.

Dr. Tony Ebel: Protein first is something I’ve drilled into my kids so hard that they joke I should get custom license plates about it. But it’s not a gimmick — it’s the foundation. What we talk about constantly on this podcast is nervous system stability. Parents in the autism community are spending enormous amounts of time and money on therapies and healing services. But if the nervous system is subluxated and dysregulated, nothing sticks on an unstable surface. Blood sugar stability and nervous system stability live on the same street. You need one to have the other.

The Neuroscience of Blood Sugar Crashes in Children [00:16:00 – 00:21:00]

Dr. David Jockers: When blood sugar becomes elevated, we call that hyperglycemia. The glucose molecules bind to proteins in the bloodstream to form Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) — like shrapnel going through the bloodstream. They damage the endothelial lining of blood vessels, increase inflammation, and over time lead to the kind of vascular and neurological damage we associate with uncontrolled diabetes: kidney failure, peripheral neuropathy, optic neuritis, and more.

In children, the more relevant pattern is usually reactive hypoglycemia — not obesity-driven insulin resistance, but the blood sugar spike and crash that results from low-protein, high-carbohydrate meals. That crash shocks the nervous system. It produces hunger, irritability, fatigue, and brain fog. In severe cases, it causes people to pass out.

“One medical episode of hypoglycemia — where you actually pass out — increases your risk of developing neurodegenerative disease later in life by 40%.”

Here’s why: neurons require a continuous supply of glucose. When that supply is cut off severely enough to cause a medical episode, there is significant neuronal death. Starving neurons release calcium and metabolites that over-excite neighboring neurons — a domino effect of cascading damage. When blood sugar is stable, those neurons fire at a high level, and the brain produces more BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor), which supports the growth of new neural connections (synaptogenesis) and elevates creativity, cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, and self-confidence.

POTS, Hormonal Instability, and the Downstream Cascade [00:21:00 – 00:25:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: This directly maps to what we’re seeing in clinical practice right now — particularly with POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) in young adults. So many of these patients are teenage girls, super thin, super active on the outside. By conventional medicine’s surface-level analysis, they look perfectly healthy. But they’re running on empty. Their nervous system is depleted, their blood sugar is chronically unstable, and when they push hard — because they do, they’re athletes — they crash completely.

The cascade doesn’t stop there. Without blood sugar stability and nervous system stability, you can’t have endocrine and hormonal stability. These young women are struggling with menstrual cycles and fertility. The storm keeps building, because nutrition and neurology are that foundational. Every condition traces back to them.

Dr. David Jockers: That’s exactly the cascade. Blood sugar instability leads to nervous system instability, which leads to hormonal instability. When the body is in a state of chronic stress — sympathetic overdrive — it can’t allocate resources to regulate hormones, digestion, or immune function. Stability at the nutritional level is what creates the platform for everything else to heal.

The Upside: What a Healthy-Brained Child Is Actually Capable Of [00:25:00 – 00:30:00]

Dr. David Jockers: Think about what high BDNF actually enables. When the brain is healing and rebuilding itself — when it has the glucose stability and the growth factors it needs — the capacity for complex thought, creative connection, emotional risk-taking, and innovative problem-solving is extraordinary. The internet, modern medicine, human innovation — all of this came from brains that were functioning at a high level. That’s what we’re building toward with our kids.

We homeschool our kids, and my philosophy is simple: if they can do everyday math, read, and write — and they’re healthy — they’re going to figure out the rest. A healthy brain that knows the basics will find what it’s passionate about and go all in. That’s the real goal.

Practically speaking, build meals around these principles:

• Protein first: 20–25 grams for kids, 30+ grams for adults, at every meal
• Healthy fats: 15–20 grams minimum — from grass-fed animal products, extra virgin olive oil, avocado, eggs, and grass-fed dairy
• Colorful produce: Every color provides unique phytonutrients and prebiotic fiber that support the gut microbiome. Eat the rainbow — not every color at every meal, but across the week
• Hydrate away from meals: Drinking heavily during meals dilutes stomach acid and digestive enzymes. Hydrate well between meals; drink minimally during them

“If you focus on making sure you’ve got your protein first in the meal, that alone is going to set your blood sugar and keep it stable so you don’t have those spikes and drops.”

Hydration, Electrolytes, and the Morning Routine [00:28:00 – 00:36:00]

Dr. David Jockers: When you wake up in the morning, you are dehydrated. You’ve been breathing out water vapor all night. The first thing your child should do is drink water — 4–6 ounces for a child, 8 ounces for an adult. This suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin, prevents the blood sugar instability that comes from eating immediately upon waking while still dehydrated, and prepares the body for a good meal.

Warm beverages in the morning are especially valuable because they activate the vagus nerve, which stimulates peristalsis and supports healthy bowel function. The colon is most active between 6:00 AM and 9:00 AM. One to two good bowel movements in the morning is the target.

On electrolytes: adding minerals to water — particularly magnesium, sodium, and potassium — is genuinely beneficial, especially for active kids. 90% of our society is deficient in magnesium. When you’re magnesium deficient, your nervous system becomes far more reactive — easier to shock, harder to regulate. Magnesium sufficiency creates resilience. Our family uses LMNT electrolytes.

On supplements versus food: about 90% of health results come from lifestyle — nutrient-dense food, avoiding toxins, circadian rhythm and sleep quality, regular movement, sunlight, relational connection, stress management, and time in nature. Supplements support that foundation — they don’t replace it.

The ones that make the biggest difference: magnesium (especially for high-stress individuals and active kids), Vitamin D (especially for those in northern climates with limited sun exposure), and Vitamin K2 alongside D (critical for bone development, dental health, and proper jaw structure in growing children).

Modeling Health for Your Children [00:36:00 – 00:48:00]

Dr. David Jockers: The most powerful thing you can do as a parent is model the behaviors you want your children to adopt. Our kids know that my wife and I exercise every day. We talk openly about nutrition, about our bowel habits, about why we make the food choices we make. My son wants to learn how to make the protein shakes I make. I involve him in that process — explaining why we use the berry blend over the cherry blend on regular days (10 grams less sugar per serving), why we use avocado instead of peanut butter most of the time (omega-6 content), and why we add creatine (brain health and physical performance).

The key principle when teaching kids about health: speak to the benefits, not just the risks. Tell them what good nutrition does for them, not just what bad nutrition does to them. “This protein will help you run faster and think sharper” lands differently than “don’t eat that, it’s bad for you.” Children — like adults — are motivated by what’s in it for them.

“You’ve got to speak to the benefits of these different things. What’s in it for them? That’s what they’re thinking in their head — and that’s what most people are thinking.”

Dr. Tony Ebel: This happened in our house just yesterday. I came over to my gym after a full day of work and found all four of my kids in there working out — Oliver fresh from track practice on the treadmill, Addison on the StairMaster, the two younger ones rowing and doing their thing. I literally got kicked out of my own gym. When they finished, they went straight to the kitchen — they knew exactly where the protein was, made their smoothies, took their supplements, and then we made dinner together.

My 17-year-old had a season of rebellion. Her health suffered — blood sugar instability that affected her sleep, her schooling, and her hormones. We talked it through, reminded her what she already knows, and she came back to it on her own. Now she cooks dinner two or three nights a week. Cause and effect. That’s how it lands.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does blood sugar instability affect my child’s behavior and brain function?

When blood sugar spikes and crashes — a pattern called reactive hypoglycemia — neurons are temporarily starved of the glucose they need. This produces irritability, brain fog, fatigue, cravings, and poor focus. In severe cases, it causes cascading neuronal damage. Stable blood sugar, by contrast, increases BDNF production, which drives the growth of neural connections and supports attention, emotional regulation, creativity, and learning.

What is the right amount of protein for kids at each meal?

According to Dr. David Jockers, children should aim for 20–25 grams of protein per meal, with younger children (ages 3–4) doing well at 15 grams. Active and athletic children may need more. Adults should target 30 or more grams per meal. More important than the number: eat the protein first, before carbohydrates or high-sugar foods, which lowers the glycemic and insulin impact of the entire meal.

Can chiropractic care work better if my child’s blood sugar is stable?

Yes, directly. Dr. Tony Ebel explains that blood sugar stability and nervous system stability live on the same street — you can’t have one without the other. A nervous system that is in a chronic state of blood sugar-driven stress cannot hold the adjustments, therapies, and healing interventions parents are investing in. Nutritional stability creates the platform on which all other healing builds.

What role does magnesium play in nervous system health for kids?

Approximately 90% of the population is deficient in magnesium, including children. When a child is magnesium deficient, their nervous system becomes hyperreactive — easier to shock, harder to calm. Adequate magnesium builds neurological resilience. Dr. Jockers recommends electrolyte supplements containing magnesium, sodium, and potassium for active kids, in addition to magnesium-rich whole foods.

What supplements matter most for children?

Dr. Jockers recommends focusing first on lifestyle — nutrient-dense food, movement, sleep, and sunlight — which accounts for 90–95% of health outcomes. If supplementing, prioritize magnesium (especially for high-stress or active children), Vitamin D (essential in low-sun climates like the Midwest or northern US), and Vitamin K2 (critical for bone development, dental health, and jaw structure in growing children).

How do I find a PX Docs chiropractor who works with children?

You can find a Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care provider trained in the PX Docs clinical approach through the PX Docs Directory. These practitioners are trained to assess and address nervous system dysregulation in children using INSiGHT scanning technology and neuro-tonal chiropractic adjustments.

Resources & Related Content

• The Perfect Storm Framework — Dr. Ebel’s core framework explaining how prenatal stress, birth trauma, and early toxin exposure create compounding nervous system dysfunction
• ADHD in Children — How nervous system dysregulation underlies attention and behavioral challenges
• Anxiety in Children — The connection between sympathetic dominance and anxiety in kids
• Vagus Nerve Dysfunction — How vagus nerve function impacts digestion, sleep, immune regulation, and mood
• Dr. Jockers’ Website — Functional nutrition resources, articles, and protocols
• Find a PX Docs Office Near You — PX Docs Practitioner Directory
• Next Episode: Q&A: Is There Ever a Time the Nervous System Isn’t First?