Functional Medicine: A New Approach to Reversing Diabesity
“The way modern medicine operates is like trying to diagnose what is wrong with your car by listening to the noises it makes instead of looking under the hood.” Dr. Mark Hyman – Blood Sugar Solution
Many health care providers still think that you do not have a problem until your blood sugar is abnormal. Some are even and telling their patients that “pre-diabetes does not exist” and are waiting until blood sugar reaches that “magic number” before aggressively treating. On top of that, the current diagnostic criteria for type 2 diabetes is arbitrary at best and do not address the consequences of insulin resistance that occur decades before blood sugar rises. I often see patients with “well controlled” blood sugar that do not understand why they are still developing the severe health problems that are typically associated with type 2 diabetes. From a health care practitioner standpoint, even we have been taught that the microvascular disease associated with type 2 diabetes, such as neuropathy (nerve damage), retinopathy (eye) and kidney disease, is a reflection of elevated blood sugar. If this is true, why are we seeing so many people with insulin resistance developing microvascular disease? Why do many people with heart attacks have normal blood sugar AND normal cholesterol? Because we are ignoring the fact that insulin resistance and environmental factors cause inflammation.
The continuum concept
We are completely missing the continuum concept that looks at chronic disease on a continuum from optimal health to full blown chronic disease with complications. So many of us walking around feeling bad but are told that there is nothing wrong with us. This is because our current health care model is not designed to pick up the imbalance that occurs in the early continuum of chronic disease. This is why chronic disease is rising, because we are missing the chance to reverse the disease state as it progressively worsens on the continuum. We are treating “parts” of people rather than the whole person. Would you plant a vegetable garden without tending to the soil? This is what we are doing in traditional medicine.
A new way of thinking
If we are going to get ahead of chronic disease we need to start thinking outside the box. Functional Medicine is a new way of thinking – a patient centered approach rather than a disease centered approach that looks for the underlying cause of the disease rather than applying a bandaid to symptoms. This requires us to “look upstream” for the triggers driving the Diabesity continuum.
So far this month we have identified several triggers for Diabesity such as the American diet, sugar and processed foods, and hidden food sensitivities, but did you know that it can also be triggered by chronic hidden infections, toxins, nutritional deficiencies, chronic stress and sedentary lifestyle?
Are you ready to start your journey to reverse Diabesity? To reduce inflammation & decrease your triggers for chronic disease? Learn more about our new and improved Metabolic Synergy program.