Metabolic Therapy Reversing Chronic Disease & Mental Health

We are in the midst of a global health and mental health crisis. 

Before embracing Metabolic Therapy (a.k.a. Mitochondrial Metabolic Medicine), it helps to gain some perspective on our metabolic health crisis.

In 2018, we learned that only 1 in 8 Americans achieved optimal metabolic health. 

Also, Tufts University published a study analyzing the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database from 1999 to 2018, which revealed that less than 7% of our population has optimal cardiometabolic health. 

According to the CDC, 73.6% of adults in the US were overweight or obese in 2018. Considering that most people gained considerable weight during COVID-19, it is safe to assume these numbers have increased recently but have not yet been reported. 

93% of our population doesn't meet the definition of metabolic health. This becomes very apparent when filtered through the lens of Metabolic Syndrome as well. 

Since the 1920's, the literature has recognized certain risk factors associated with diabetes, but the term "Metabolic Syndrome" was coined in the 1950s and not commonly used until the 1970s. 

Physicians and researchers, including French physician Jean Vague in 1947, noticed that upper obesity seemed to be associated with increased risk for the conditions of atherosclerosis, diabetes, kidney stones, and gout. 

Also, Avogaro, Crepeldi, and colleagues reported improvements in patients with diabetes, high cholesterol, and high triglyceride levels when following a low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet. 

Today, the term "metabolic syndrome" is used to identify a cluster of risk factors that contribute to various conditions and to link them together. 

Much of the credit goes to Gerald Reaven in 1988 and Gerald Phillips and Herman Haller before him.  We now recognize that insulin resistance greatly impacts a constellation of abnormalities we consider Metabolic Syndrome, including: 

• high glucose
• high triglycerides
• high blood pressure
• low HDL cholesterol
• high waist circumferences ( 35 inches or more for females and 40 inches or more for males)

If you exhibit three or more of these five markers, you are considered to have Metabolic Syndrome. This diagnosis greatly increases your likelihood of developing Diabetes, Heart Disease, Alzheimer's, Cancer, and many additional conditions. If you exhibit any of them, you are not considered to be in optimal metabolic health in its simplest form. 

After a 32-year career spent in Risk Management (health, life and disability insurance), Population Health Management (corporate wellness and disease management), and pharma worlds I was confronted with the following epiphany, which was: 

That chronic conditions resulting in most of our visits to the doctor are not incurable progressive diseases as we have been taught, but in fact are a result of our lifestyles and easily reversed. 

I learned that insulin resistance is the root cause of these chronic conditions. Our diet and terrain (living environment) both play significant roles in the development of insulin resistance.  

Unchecked insulin resistance manifests in the vast majority of the conditions we suffer from. It wreaks havoc in the body for years if left unchecked. It can take 5-15 years for insulin resistance to start impacting your glucose levels, A1C, or blood pressure. 

If you have high blood pressure or are overweight or obese, most likely you have insulin resistance. 

Many call it pre-prediabetes. If left unchecked, you become prediabetic and eventually are diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes once your A1C hits 6.5. 

But there is great news. Insulin resistance can be resolved quickly and efficiently. 

Once diagnosed, most of these conditions can be reversed in a matter of weeks or months. One of my more recent clients dropped her fasting glucose from 120 to 95 in 5 weeks and then to 81 within 7 weeks.  She flipped her metabolism back to being fat-adapted and suddenly 20 years of rheumatoid arthritis disappeared. She now wakes up each morning pain-free and has newfound energy to attack her day. All at the age of 70. 

Beyond helping my clients radically improve their health in a matter of weeks, my greatest joy comes from breaking doctors' brains. 

Once they see how much was missing from their education and how flawed the guidelines they practice are, they almost feel reborn. They start getting excited to practice medicine again, instead of feeling like a pill pusher who is not generating results. The new goal becomes how many medications can I get my patient off of? 

Thousands of doctors around the world have awakened and are, for the first time in their practices, radically improving their patients' health. Once someone sees this, you can't unsee it.

My favorite thing I do is help someone understand how their health can be radically improved, then assist them in conquering that goal. 

My second-favorite thing to do is break physicians' brains. Walking them through how my eyes were opened typically winds up doing the same thing to them. It can take time. Like me, it doesn't happen in minutes or hours. But once they get it, their world changes, as do their patients' worlds. 

Most doctors haven't had their brains broken yet and continue to follow the established dogma that has created the metabolically unhealthy world mentioned above. 

The saddest reality is that it is very easy to test for insulin resistance. However, those tests don't tend to be included in the standard panel at routine physicals or at corporate wellness screenings. And most physicians don't understand insulin resistance, so they don't like bringing it up. 

Even today, medical schools don't educate doctors in training much about insulin resistance or the ways that it manifests in the body. They also aren't taught that all of these chronic conditions can be easily reversed. In my humble opinion, it is a crime against humanity.

Med students, physicians, and dieticians aren't taught that there are two metabolisms. Or that the state of Ketosis is our native metabolic state. The only reference that they ever are taught is the state of Ketoacidosis. This is dangerous and deadly for an uncontrolled Type 1 Diabetic who isn't creating enough insulin. 

This is why the word  "Keto" has stricken fear in them since they left school.  And unfortunately, all of the monied interests have tried to keep that fear alive, since once a doctor understands this metabolic reality, as mentioned above, their goal becomes creating metabolically healthy patients. Destroying the need for for 90% of medications that they had been prescribing.  Resulting in a 75% decreased need for future office visits.

So their first epiphany is that insulin resistance is the root cause of most of what their patients show up to discuss. 

The second epiphany comes from understanding that consuming all the newly created food-like products (ultra-processed foods) is the root cause of food-based insulin resistance. There are other ways to develop insulin resistance, which we will discuss later. 

Once these two epiphanies set in, many physicians return to private practice and offer direct primary care/concierge practice. Here, the physician receives a flat monthly fee to cover most of your health care needs. It tends to be a win-win proposition. The patient wins by having a partner who is looking out for them. While the physician is not financially destroyed by providing optimal care.  I believe that most primary care will move in this direction. 

There are many facets to attacking physical and mental health conditions with metabolic therapy. 

One major therapy approach is utilizing the state of nutritional ketosis. While ketosis can be achieved in as little as three days, the fastest approach may not be the wisest approach, depending on what condition is being targeted and which medications an individual is currently taking.  

Because of this, it may be wise to consult your physician before beginning this process. Additional guidelines have been created to guide physicians, especially if this is a new frontier for them. This is where utilizing a coach who understands these scenarios and knows how to guide you and your physician becomes vital. 

Since nutritional ketosis is more powerful in its ability to dramatically improve health than all of the known drugs and current therapies together, some medications may need to be cut in half within days of implementing this therapy. 

For many conditions, there may be a two-week transitional change in diet before attempting to achieve full ketosis. 

It can take anywhere from 3 days to 2 months, or longer, for an individual to flip their metabolism back to their fat-adapted default state. Much of it depends on your current metabolic health and your list of current medications. Remember, this is the metabolism we were all born in. 

There are many misconceptions about how an individual can achieve nutritional ketosis. Several wildly different eating patterns can achieve results. At one end of the ketosis spectrum, Carnivore will work, but so can Vegan on the other side of the spectrum. With endless options in the middle. 

Beyond diet, other therapeutic approaches can help improve mitochondrial health, the cornerstone of metabolic health.

These can include: 

• Fasting
• Breath Work
• Red Light Therapy
• Grounding
• Sun exposure protocols
• Specific exercise protocols

If this sounds more complicated than just cutting carbs, that is because it is. However, certain strategies can make it less daunting. We can discuss them during your free one-hour consult. 

Hopefully, you will feel a little better informed about the options available to you. 

Consider your current health challenges and why you would like to conquer them. Fill out the form at the bottom of the coaching page, and I will be happy to help you conquer them as your coach.