The Metabolic Health Crisis Nobody's Talking About
My doctor always ran the standard panels: cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure. Over time, they had me on a statin, 3 blood pressure pills, and even a “happy” pill. Yes, this pulled my numbers back in line, and even leveled out my mood, so I guess I was healthy as I could be.
But I was gaining weight, constantly tired, craving sugar, and feeling like my body was betraying me. According to the labs, nothing was wrong and the pills were working. According to my body, everything was wrong.
What I later discovered was that I had metabolic dysfunction that wouldn't show up on standard tests until it had progressed for years.
The Tests We Don't Run
Standard medical checkups test for disease, not for health. Your doctor checks if your fasting blood sugar has crossed into diabetic range, but doesn't evaluate how your body actually handles glucose throughout the day.
They measure cholesterol numbers but don't assess insulin resistance—the underlying metabolic problem that drives most chronic disease.
By the time standard tests show abnormalities, you've often had metabolic dysfunction for a decade or more.
The 90% Statistic That Should Alarm Everyone
Recent research suggests that over 90% of American adults have at least one marker of poor metabolic health. Read that again: 9 out of 10 people.
Yet metabolic health rarely comes up in doctor visits. We test for the downstream consequences (diabetes, heart disease) but ignore the upstream causes (insulin resistance, inflammation, metabolic dysfunction).
What Metabolic Health Actually Means
Metabolic health isn't just about weight or blood sugar. It's about how efficiently your body:
Processes nutrients
Regulates energy
Manages inflammation
Responds to hormones
Maintains cellular function
When these systems work well, you have stable energy, healthy weight maintenance, good sleep, balanced mood, and protection against chronic disease.
When they don't, you get the cascade of problems that plague modern society—even when your labs still look "normal."
The Early Warning Signs
Before blood sugar becomes diabetic or cholesterol becomes "high," your body sends signals that metabolic health is declining:
Energy crashes after meals
Constant hunger or cravings
Difficulty losing weight despite effort
Brain fog
Poor sleep
Mood swings
Skin issues
Gradually increasing waist circumference
These symptoms get dismissed as "normal aging" or "just stress," but they're often early signs of metabolic dysfunction.
Why This Matters More Than Cholesterol
Metabolic health is the foundation. When it's compromised, you become vulnerable to virtually every chronic disease: diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, autoimmune conditions.
Yet we spend more time worrying about cholesterol numbers than about the metabolic dysfunction that actually drives disease risk.
The Root Cause Approach
What if instead of waiting for disease to develop and then medicating it, we addressed metabolic health before problems manifest in lab tests?
This would require a completely different approach to healthcare—one focused on early intervention, root causes, and metabolic optimization rather than reactive disease management.
What I Found When I Dug Deeper
In my upcoming book, I explore:
What metabolic health really means and why it matters more than individual lab values
The early warning signs that standard medicine ignores
Why our healthcare system waits for disease instead of supporting health
How metabolic dysfunction drives most chronic illness
What it takes to restore metabolic health before disease develops
A Different Way Forward
Improving metabolic health often doesn't require medications. It requires understanding how your body processes food, manages stress, regulates sleep, and responds to your environment.
These are factors you can influence, but only if you understand what actually matters for metabolic health.
Guess what. When I started addressing my metabolic health, I lost 65 pounds, dropped 3 pant sizes, have energy, no brain fog, and no longer take any prescriptions.
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