Metabolic Syndrome

“As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself.” Adelle Davis

Metabolic syndrome is at the core of all of these diseases - diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver, obesity, Alzheimer’s. (which is another term for pre-diabetes), is something that was originally called syndrome X. Syndrome X - or what we now call metabolic syndrome - is collection of conditions or symptoms that when taken together vastly increase the risk of all of the things that we’re talking about.

The reason metabolic syndrome is sometimes called prediabetes is because it almost invariably leads to diabetes. Metabolic syndrome increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes by double digits. Meanwhile, diabetes increases the risk of depression and Alzheimer’s. So you see how all these things are very much related. They are not separate entities. The diseases don’t just attack the pancreas or the brain or the heart. They are systemic and everywhere. When you are insulin resistant, for example - when you’re not metabolizing carbs in an optimal way - it’s going to affect every single system in the body.

Take inflammation, for example. Inflammation doesn’t just happen in the brain or the heart or the bones or the muscles or any of the specific organ systems. It happens systemically in the entire body. When it happens in the vascular system, you wind up with plaque, and when it happens in the brain, you can wind up with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s. When it happens in the gut, you have leaky gut syndrome. And inflammation is a huge co-factor in obesity. All these diseases share common risk factors, and inflammation is at the top of the list. Even more important than inflammation is this hormonal dysregulation, this metabolic disaster area, that will show up ultimately as diabetes. It will also show up as obesity because it comes from the same root - and that’s why diabetes and obesity are so closely linked.

So I think the first place to start is with the question: what is that root cause? What is it that takes these beautifully orchestrated hormones, the hormones that were meant to play together like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and what turns this hormonal symphony into a kazoo band? What makes it misfire, sending the wrong messages? What causes it to send hormonal messages saying, “Store that Fat!” instead of “Burn that Fat!”? What causes it to send out inflammatory signals rather than anti-inflammatory signals?