Why the Rise in Diabetes and Weight Gain?
Question: Why the Rise in Diabetes and Weight Gain? Answer: Insulin Resistance
My health coaching mission is to correct the misinformation that we were taught about calorie-deficit dieting and cutting dietary fat as an avenue to health. Humans thrive on being fed balanced meals comprised of whole foods that include adequate amounts of fat, protein and carbohydrates. We used to eat more and weigh less and have WAY less diabetes. What changed? What we eat and when we eat it. (For more info, Listen to a 30-minute podcast with Dr. David Ludwig.)
We have arrived at a strange place in societal evolution. We humans are engaged in practices that do not serve us well. The Food Industry produces and aggressively markets products to us that are detrimental to our health. We get hooked on sugar and we want more. USDA crop subsidy money makes processed grain products the cheapest food. Economics and convenience drive lifestyle. It is estimated that 1 in 3 adults in the USA are pre-diabetic and that most do not yet know it.
We have the treatment of Type 2 diabetes all backwards! While it was a miracle to discover that injections of insulin could save the lives of Type 1 diabetics who had stopped producing their own insulin, most Type 2 diabetes arises from the over production of insulin in response to lifestyle factors, and subsequent onset of insulin resistance. When treatment is focused solely on blood sugar management, the disease itself is allowed to progress. It is possible for many individuals to prevent or manage Type 2 diabetes through diet and lifestyle measures before any consideration of blood sugar management drugs comes into the picture. (Listen to a 2-minute video with Dr. Jason Fung)
Insulin Resistance is also the defining factor for Metabolic Syndrome (MetS). Metabolic Syndrome is indicated if a patient has 3 out of 5 of the conditions listed in this diagram. But the bottom line is presence of Insulin Resistance. One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, we had the data to show that “Metabolic Syndrome was a prognostic indicator for severe COVID-19 outcomes.” Patients with MetS had a 90% increase in the need for mechanical ventilation, a 68% increase in the need for critical care services, and a 40% increase in all-cause mortality, compared to patients without MetS. (Source: Healio.com reporting on article from the Journal of Diabetes.) The pandemic has evidenced that it would behoove us to pay more attention to the consequences of our daily choices.
Asking people to change their habits is a tall order. Humans have highly evolved and complex brain functions that make behavior change complicated. Our modern lives have us so busy that we live with a constant underlying anxiety that activates a stress response, disturbs our sleep, and wears at our mental wellbeing. Increasingly, we are a society of trauma survivors with little bandwidth to be proactive about our health. We tend to blame the individual rather than recognize this broader context that sets us up for health challenges. We have a cultural obsession on body weight as an indicator of health and worth, but weight is not the underlying problem! The problems include the ways we eat, constant stress, endocrine disrupting chemicals, and cultural norms that are detrimental to human health, especially when they are combined together.
The Solution? With just a bit of conscious investment, we can feed ourselves regular whole-food meals at regular times, enjoy some movement every day, learn to release our muscles tension and holding patterns, get a good night’s sleep and model this for others to promote a cultural shift. My website has many valuable links to resources that can spark change in your life. And if you'd like for me to join you on your path, let's talk about making that happen. In my health coach role, I am focused on the power of the individual to step outside the norms and create a life from which you never need to detox.