Metabolic Health: A Crisis Exposed

Quick overview of what we’ll cover in this blog post:

Over 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy and more than 129 million are insulin resistant.
Metabolic syndrome usually takes years to “develop.” Insulin resistance, a condition in which your body requires more and more insulin to keep blood glucose levels in range, is in many cases the first sign of metabolic damage.
Poor metabolic health has also been linked to anxiety and depression, fatigue, brain fog, acne, balding, chronic pain, and infertility
Fortunately, metabolic syndrome is preventable and even reversible with the right interventions.

If you had to choose a common trait that encompassed the largest number of Americans possible, other than being an “American” and “Human,” what would you choose?

Being a sports fan? A BBQ lover?

Unfortunately, one of your best guesses would be “metabolically unhealthy.”

According to a bevy of recent studies, 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy;¹ more than a third have diabetes or prediabetes, and a similar proportion (over 129 million) are insulin resistant.² Equally as scary, more than 200 million Americans are overweight or obese.³

These numbers are so large, they are hard to comprehend; they are the definition of an ongoing metabolic health crisis in America.

Before continuing, let’s explore what exactly is metabolic syndrome?

The commonly used way to diagnose issues with metabolic health is metabolic syndrome. It’s a simple metric, and better than nothing, but seems backwards at first glance, especially considering that metabolic syndrome is clinically defined as having 3 or more of these factors:⁴

A waistline of 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men
Fasting glucose above 100 mg/dL
HDL cholesterol less than 40 mg/dL
Triglycerides above 150 mg/dL
High blood pressure (130/85 or higher)

By the time you have one or more of the above, the damage may have already been accumulating for years. At AgelessRx, we want to prevent the above from happening and thus we prefer to look at the earliest sign of metabolic health that is often forgotten: insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance is essentially the process in which cells stop being as responsive to insulin as they were before. Even with higher levels of insulin present, cells store glucose less efficiently, leading to higher blood glucose levels. This triggers a vicious cycle. In response to the elevated glucose, the body releases more insulin leading to even higher insulin levels, which then continues to make cells less responsive to it, and on and on. Fundamentally, the elevated insulin levels (hyperinsulinemia) and cells not being as responsive to insulin are the hallmarks of insulin resistance.

Globally, the number of people with insulin resistance has nearly doubled in the past 30 years and it is set to continue to rise in the years to come.⁵ The subtle thing about insulin resistance, is that it doesn’t kill you directly, but it sets the stage for so many other chronic diseases and risk factors.

In its most extreme cases, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome look like diabetes, obesity, and/or fatty liver disease. In the case of T2-diabetes, the insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas are so damaged that your body can’t produce enough to maintain healthy blood glucose levels. However, being insulin resistant, having out-of-range trigs and cholesterol, as well as elevated blood pressure, affect many other areas of daily life.

Poor metabolic health has also been linked to anxiety and depression, fatigue, brain fog, acne, balding, chronic pain, and infertility.⁶

Fortunately, despite the widespread epidemic of metabolic syndrome, it is not all lost. Regaining metabolic health is within our control. Metabolic syndrome is reversible with the right interventions and consistent behavioral changes. If you want to learn more and prevent metabolic syndrome, you can do so here.

Note: The above statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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