Reversing Metabolic Syndrome

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Our modern day diets look nothing like that of our ancestors.  Although our basic human physiology has been exactly the same for the last 200,000 years, our dietary intake has changed dramatically, especially within just the last 50 years.

Metabolic Syndrome is a collection of health conditions that increase a person’s risk of chronic diseases including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and dementia.  The conditions that constitute metabolic syndrome include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, and obesity.

Having one of those conditions is bad enough, but the combination of all four of them elevates the risk of debilitating illness and death.  And the popular belief that “I don’t have ___________ because I take medication for it” does not negate the diagnosis.

One of the biggest challenges is belly fat, which is not an aesthetic problem but rather a physiological one.  Belly fat, or visceral fat, contributes to insulin resistance, or the inability of cells to use insulin to break down sugar into energy.  So the extra sugar in the blood stream gets converted into fat, and that fat then starts creating its own inflammatory chaos.  This generally leads to the person feeling slow and sluggish, which leads them to eat more sugars, which perpetuates the whole insulin resistant cycle, and leads to more weight gain.

Here’s the thing.  There actually is a one-size-fits-all solution.  It doesn’t matter if you have metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, high blood pressure, obesity, or high cholesterol… the action items are the same.  Your future is not predetermined, only pre-influenced.

Be a good human:

1. Eat a high fiber, plant-based diet with occasional high quality fish and meats.
2. Move.
3. Sleep.

And be a good patient:

1.  Talk to your doctor about swapping lifestyle choices for meds.
2. Monitor your systems- blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, weight
3. Get educated
4. Be the driver on this journey, and turn this car around.