Our healthcare system offers top-notch critical and emergency care. However, something needs to be fixed with how we manage most primary care and mental health conditions. For the most part, I don’t blame the doctors. They are working within the constraints of what they have been taught alongside guidelines many believe are broken due to conflicts of interest.
Most of our healthcare dollars are spent caring for conditions that either didn’t or barely existed 100 – 120 years ago, so something must have changed.
It is a multifactorial situation, and I can talk for hours about the many influences that have brought us to this point. But more importantly, a few simple solutions solve this dilemma and reduce the largest factors contributing to this decline in life and health span.
The Stats
(found at Levels)
Let's briefly look at a few stats that drive this home.
93% of Americans are not Metabolically healthy More than a third of US Adults have prediabetes Of those with prediabetes, 84% don’t know that they have it Over 10% of people have diabetes, of which 21% are undiagnosed Insulin Resistance affects more than 129 million Americans, including 34.2 million with diabetes and 88 million with prediabetes 73% of US adults are overweight or obese. Tripling levels from the 1970s About 25% of the US suffers from preventable non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) High blood sugar is linked to eight of the top 10 leading causes of death in the US Individuals meeting at least three criteria for metabolic syndrome have 60% higher annual healthcare costs; diabetes alone contributes to $327 billion in medical costs and lost productivity, a number expected to exceed $600 billion by 2030. The prevalence of NAFLD in the US contributes to an estimated $100 billion in healthcare costs. If the obesity rate continues on its current trajectory, the NAFLD burden could increase to $1 trillion by the end of the decade. 20% of children aged 2-19 meet the criteria for obesity, up from 6% in the 1970s
I don’t think a sane person can argue with the statement that many parts of our healthcare system are broken, considering something didn't magically change our genetic code in 50 years.
One topic missing from most medical training curricula is a clear understanding of insulin resistance and its manifestations if left unchecked. If we keep using medications to mask symptoms of lifestyle-driven conditions, we will never solve the root problem.
Cardiologist Dr. Ryan Cooley and I cover this topic in the second episode of our podcast. You can also read his testimonial regarding his health, knowledge, and clinical practice transformations.
As I have spent most of my last six years trying to piece together all the moving pieces that have brought us here, I have great news for the doctors reading and possibly watching this.
Instead of the current world where doctors and all medical staff are burnt out from watching their patients become sicker and more obese year after year, instead of dreading writing more scripts that never solve the real problem, what if:
Imagine if all office visits looked like this
Your patients are thrilled to see you at each visit, waiting to share their:
Loss of pain Improved mobility Fitting back in clothes from high school or college Once again, need to have medications titrated down or even removed Chronic conditions are now a thing of the past for more and more patients each day Shaking your hand and praising you for the excellent care that has radically improved their life
This isn’t a mirage or dream. This is a current reality for more and more doctors every day.
Dr.Tro is one example of many doctors practicing in this new reality. He first applied metabolic therapy to himself and re-engineered his practice to leverage metabolic therapy. Listen to Dr. Tro on the Low Carb Life discuss the flaws in both the Nutritional and Medical Guidelines.
What miracle drug or cure creates this reality?
Metabolic Therapy
Metabolic Therapy is a newer term for a treatment that goes to the root cause of most conditions. Even for conditions like Cancer, which have hundreds of potential causes, it has been shown to work in adjunct to current standards of care and even free-standing in many case studies.
Metabolic Therapy is as old as recorded time. Fasting is a metabolic therapy and has been part of healing and observed by religions throughout history. Fasting is also the quickest way to achieve Ketosis.
The Ketogenic diet mimics the effects of fasting. It involves consuming foods rich in fats, adequate protein, and low in carbohydrates. Sustaining this way of eating restores our metabolism to a fat-adapted state, which all babies are born with.
Maintaining this state of Ketosis results in many benefits from treating chronic illnesses while optimizing both mental and physical performance.
In 1921, Dr. Russell M. Wilder of the Mayo Clinic introduced the ketogenic diet, a strict version of a carbohydrate-restricted diet, for the treatment of epilepsy. Reports from the time indicated a 50% success rate in treating epilepsy without drugs. However, as with diabetes, the dietary intervention fell out of favor with the advent of pharmacological treatments. (Freeman, 2013) * reference *
Beyond the results discussed regarding epilepsy reported by the Charlie Foundation, therapeutic benefits of a Ketogenic Diet have been demonstrated for many disease states in hundreds of studies, including:
Epilepsy Brain Tumor/Cancer Alzheimer’s Disease Parkinson’s Disease Traumatic Brain Injury Mitochondrial Disease Autism ALS Brain Health Diabetes: Type-I and Type-II And many, many more
Most children that receive Metabolic Therapy for 5 years can continue life cured eating as they wish.
Missing from your curriculum
You were taught only one side of the Ketosis equation, Ketoacidosis. We all acknowledge it is a life-threatening condition for uncontrolled Type 1 Diabetics.
You weren’t taught that:
All babies, while in their mother's womb and at birth, are in the state of nutritional ketosis. Over 50% of mothers' breast milk is saturated fat, which allows the brain and body to grow properly. While on the mother's milk, the baby retains nutritional ketosis Most previous generations before the 1920s rarely flipped out of nutritional ketosis. After certain meals or infrequent episodes of time, they may leave a ketogenic metabolism, but being metabolically flexible, it rapidly returns typically in hours or a day. Almost all our chronic conditions, which make up most healthcare spending, didn’t exist until much of Westernized humanity started spending most of their lives in a new Metabolism, Sugar Burner. Now, over 90% of the population lives almost exclusively in this new Metabolism, making the onset of insulin resistance more likely. You can trace most of our now common conditions to us flipping out of our native metabolism (Fat Adapted) and through the onset of processed foods moving into our new sugar-burning metabolism. You can learn more about these two metabolisms on my site's home page.
We have all been taught that these chronic conditions can’t be reversed and will require management. I was astonished to realize that most of them are quickly reversed when we revert to how the world ate in the 1800s. Before the radical change in our diet over the last 125 years, our biggest problems were related to malnutrition.
People weren’t getting enough of the meat, fish, and eggs that had been the cornerstones of our diets for millennia. Traditionally, we ate some seasonal fruit and vegetables, but the primary source of nutrition came from meat, fish, and eggs.
Millions are reversing these conditions by returning to our ancestors' foods. In 2018, I first came across Virta Health, a disease reversal company that utilizes a ketogenic diet to reverse Type two diabetes in large employer populations. They have had so much success that United Healthcare has created Level 2 to compete with them in this space.
One of the most significant factors in my awakening was Dr. Sarah Hallberg from the University of Indiana at Purdue presenting a Ted Talk: “Reversing Type 2 diabetes starts with ignoring the guidelines.” I shared this with a doctor friend who played it during a patient visit. The patient began to cry when he realized that he could have control of reversing his diabetes and didn’t need to be on a lifetime of drugs. How many of your patients do you believe genuinely want to be on pills and insulin or might be willing to change how they eat if provided this information?
The documented evidence of reversal of almost every condition is astounding—so much so that when I first started learning about this in 2018, I rejected it as snake oil. But as I followed up to ensure this was documented, I began to change my tune. After about a 60-hour deep dive over two months, I jumped in personally and reversed metabolic syndrome, newly identified atherosclerosis, and arthritis, all while dropping 115 lbs. in nine months.
You were taught to use diagnosis codes, including "idiopathic," such as idiopathic hypertension. For those wondering, the definition of idiopathic is "arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause." The vast majority of things that get coded for as idiopathic are simply untreated insulin resistance and excessive inflammation. The processed foods we eat cause both of these things.
Once you get your brain around insulin resistance, you see the world in a new light.
You will start ordering HOMA-IRs and fasting insulin for every client. You will even begin ordering Kraft Insulin tests because you will learn more about your patient's metabolic state. You will suddenly read an NMR test with greater clarity and understand how to change it. You will realize that the last two or three meals before a blood draw will dictate the LDL level.
Suddenly, interpreting data you have never been taught to utilize becomes the backbone of healing your patients.
Before you know it, you will tell patients, "If it comes in a bag or a box from the aisles in a store, don't eat it."
Current guidelines are designed to keep the disease alive, not reverse it. This has created the most profitable money-making scheme in human history. I have yet to meet a doctor who reversed hypertension with a pill or reversed diabetes with a medication. Other guidelines foster healing. Everybody deserves to be healthy. Nobody should be sentenced to a lifetime of accelerated aging and the pain that comes with it. Let's look at them now.
Clinical Guidelines When Implementing Metabolic Therapy
The Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners created Clinical Guidelines for Therapeutic Carbohydrate Restriction.
These guidelines also provide education regarding the history of Therapeutic Carbohydrate Restriction and how to implement it with your patients.
Let's look at some health conditions destroying our population and see what Metabolic Therapy can do.
Did you Mention Mental Health Conditions?
Yes, beyond heart disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, PCOS, and many more common conditions, there is remarkable success in both the Mental Health and neurological worlds.
Many mental health practitioners are leveraging Metabolic Therapy to reverse:
Bi-Polar Schizophrenia Depression Anxiety OCD PTSD And more
You can find many presentations by these professionals at www.metabolicmind.com and their YouTube Channel.
In an episode of The Metabolic Link, they sit down with Harvard Psychiatrist Dr. Chris Palmer to explore the common thread between brain energy metabolism and mental health. In this intimate interview, we dive into how Dr. Palmer became a pioneer in the field of metabolic psychiatry, the role of metabolic therapy in mental health, how it impacted the lives of his patients and much more. Dr. Palmer is a psychiatrist and researcher working at the interface of metabolism and mental health who has been advocating the use of the medical ketogenic diet in the treatment of psychiatric disorders.
Christopher Palmer, MD | Brain Energy Metabolism & Mental Health
A convincing argument that metabolic therapy must have mental health and neurological impacts on the brain is when you consider that it is now a cutting-edge therapy in Anorexia. The calming effects of ketones on the brain allow people suffering from anorexia to gain control back without further relapse. But you must be asking yourself, "Isn't this a diet? How can it be used with eating disorders?".
You must first understand that entering the physiologic state of nutritional ketosis is our native state, where the body heals best. While many use it to lose unwanted weight, it can also be used to put on weight. In fact, many bodybuilders are using this as a strategy to add muscle.
To dive deeper, read Registered Dietitian, Michelle Hurn's book "The Dietitian's Dilemma" and listen to her episode "Dietitian Cures her Anorexia with Keto".
What about Neurological Conditions?
There have also been excellent results in many neurological conditions, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease.
Dr. Matthew Phillips is the first self-described Metabolic Neurologist I have found. He has published many papers and run clinical trials regarding Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Brian Cancer.
One of his areas of expertise is Mitochondria Dysfunction. He makes a great case that Mitochondria Dysfunction not only links Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Cancer and many mental health conditions but also Metabolic Syndrome. I wish I had found him 4.5 years ago at the beginning of my journey.
Here is a recent paper that Dr. Phillips wrote regarding mitochondria dysfunction. It is worth reading, as is the following video. He is having great response in all these conditions with Metabolic Therapies. I recently wrote a Cancer treatment document that also covers much of this. Let me know if you want to see it.
Metabolic Strategies in Healthcare: A New Era
Here is a 27-minute conference presentation; he does a great job framing his theory that lifestyle-generated diseases tend to be rooted in Mitochondrial Dysfunction. He offers an excellent discussion of the Terrain Theory. He sees Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, many cancers, and others as metabolic and hormonal responses to Mitochondrial Dysfunction.
Metabolic Strategies as Therapies in Cancer in Neurodegeneration
In this episode, Prof Grant Schofield speaks with clinical and research neurologist Dr Matthew Phillips. The pair discuss Matt's passion for exploring the potential feasibility, safety, and efficacy of 'metabolic' therapies, such as fasting and ketogenic diets, to improve the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Huntington's and a variety of additional neurological disorders.
"Ultimately, I wish to help create a new field of Metabolic Neurology that emphasizes applying metabolic strategies in healthcare to potentially heal many difficult disorders at their core, with the overarching goal being the improved health and enhanced nobility of humanity." – Dr Matt Phillips
Rejuvenating The Brain with Metabolic Neurologist Dr. Matthew Phillips
In 2018, Dr. Phillips was the lead investigator studying the impacts of Metabolic Therapy in Parkinson’s Disease. They demonstrated a 20% reduction in Motor Skill symptoms and a 41% reduction in non-motor skill symptoms. He discusses the study below. You can read it here.
Compared to a low-fat diet, the study results were far greater for the ketogenic diet.
Low-fat versus ketogenic diet in Parkinson's Disease: A pilot randomized control trial
Parkinson's Disease: Intermittent and Fasting & Keto & Diet Strategies
As you can see, there are many ways that Metabolic Therapy assists those suffering from Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's. In a future blog, I will share information on additional treatments for Photobiomodulation (use of red light therapy), greatly improving both conditions, along with other strategies) All therapies that impact the mitochondria should be considered Metabolic Therapy.
Dr. Matthew Phillips's most recently updated presentation:
Parkinson's and Mitohormesis (June 2024)
Didn't you mention Cancer?
The hypothesis that Cancer is a metabolic disease was initially crafted by Dr. Otto Warburg, a German physiologist, M.D., and Nobel Laureate in the 1920s. He stated, “Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes. But, even for cancer, there is only one prime cause. Summarized in a few words, the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar.”
In other words, something happens in cancer cells that allows them to have a different metabolism than healthy cells. We might be able to exploit this.
You can read about Otto and the “Warburg Effect” here and here:
I will share resources to help you understand several ways to attack cancer in this document. These are not unproven. Metabolic Cancer Therapy has aided many suffering from cancer. The biggest problem that this type of therapy suffers from is it doesn’t provide profit for the cancer industry.
Cancer, like all conditions studied in healthcare, is a multibillion-dollar industry. Sadly, cures that don’t generate huge profits are rarely sought. Metabolic Cancer Therapy offers little profit for Pharmaceutical Companies, Healthcare Systems, or the scientific community.
This is an old story about disruptive ideas in healthcare and any industry. Those with a substantial financial stake in the current model tend to do everything possible to prevent new ideas from emerging.
To cut to the chase. What you will learn from the following presentations of studies and the literature ads up to using Metabolic Therapy to fight cancer by:
Starving the cancer cells of its energy source and nutrients Restoring the mitochondria function of your non-cancerous cells Improving your immune system Epigenetically turning on cancer suppressor genes and turning off tumor growth genes
The therapy is intermixing a ketogenic way of eating with fasting. Both trigger the above bullet points. A couple of drugs can also be used during this therapy, which assists in removing the energy sources of the cancer cells and helping in starving the cancer.
Metabolic Therapy uses a Press-and-Pull Technique. The press is the ketogenic diet, which keeps glucose and insulin at their lowest levels. Fasting, sometimes along with certain drugs, knocks out the other energy source for cancer cells, glutamine. You always keep the press on with the ketogenic diet and ramp it up periodically with fasting.
Fasting has been recognized for thousands of years for its therapeutic properties. We now better understand its metabolic pathways. I have found that moving our metabolism back to its native state of nutritional ketosis (fat adaptive) universally works for most of our medical conditions and overall health. We are learning so much so fast that this lifestyle can wipe out most of our healthcare issues in short order.
So, let’s look at what Otto started 100 years ago and the multiple ways that you can implement it.
Former Yale professor Dr. Thomas Seyfried is now at Boston College. He is one of the world's experts on the Metabolic Therapy approach to curing cancer. He has advanced Otto Warburg’s research. He has published over 150 cancer research papers and written many chapters in Medical School textbooks.
He has a blog where you can see presentations that he has given at cancer conferences worldwide over the last ten years. His Twitter feed on the same blog page reflects the last scientific papers published. It is a treasure trove of science.
Metabolic Therapy: The Perfect Treatment for STARVING CANCER – Dr. Thomas Seyfried
You can also hear from other leaders who have applied metabolic therapy to cancer.
Metabolic Strategies as Therapies in Cancer in Neurodegeneration – Dr. Matthew Phillips (Oct 2022)
Dr. Phillips covers many topics, including the Mitochondrial Theory of Cancer. I think you will find it intriguing. He also discusses Glioblastoma (GBM), a deadly treatment-resistant brain cancer with poor survival rates, averaging 12 - 18 months. The results of a GBM study were very preliminary, but he provides additional positive results in the below presentation.
Metabolic Therapy in Glioblastoma - Dr. Matthew Phillips (May 2023)
The updated GBM study results are positive, but the study still needs to be finalized. So far things are looking good.
He concludes this presentation by reminding us that:
Standard treatments in cancer are based on Germ Theory (eliminate cancer cells), whereas Metabolic Therapies are based on Terrain Theory (weaken cancer cells, protect and restore normal cells). These approaches are not exclusive, and the application of standard treatments in conjunction with metabolic therapy may yield better outcomes in cancer patients.
Additional Metabolic Therapy Cancer Videos:
Metabolic Therapies in Practice: Cancer | Dr. Matthew Phillips, Sarona Rameka, Dr. Glen Davies
Exploiting Cancer Metabolism with Ketosis and Hyperbaric Oxygen: Dr. Angela Poff
The link Between Diet and Cancer Therapies - Full Interview with Board Certified Radiation Oncologist Dr. Kesserling
Current Ketone Research with Dr. Dominic D’Agostino and Dr. Angel Poff
Two Truths and a Lie: Nutrition and Cancer
How My Immune System Beat Cancer with Fred Evard
How My Immune System Beat Cancer
L.J. Amaral M.S., R.D., CSO Implementing Metabolic Therapy for Cancer
L.J. Amaral is a Dietitian utilizing Metabolic Therapy at Cedars-Sinai Cancer in Los Angeles. One of about 20 cancer centers across the country improving treatment outcomes with MT.
You can also follow:
The Foundation for Metabolic Cancer Therapies for additional information on studies and relevant topics.
But What About Heart Disease?
The standard narrative in mainstream medicine regarding CAD/CVD is that this is a Cholesterol issue. More specifically, they call it an LDL problem. LDL has been called “bad cholesterol.” Which, on its face, is ridiculous. LDL is a fundamental lipoprotein that we can’t live without.
The cholesterol in an HDL lipoprotein is the same as in an LDL lipoprotein. HDL simply picks up cholesterol from cells of the body and returns it to the liver or to be disposed of, while LDL takes it predominantly from the liver to distribute it and other essential cargo across the body. However, the cholesterol molecules in each lipoprotein are exactly the same.
The LDL has an APOB protein on it that can become oxidized and damaged if we abuse the body with food, such as products that create inflammation and oxidative stress. And yes, damaged LDLs can become a problem. But this is easily fixed with proper lifestyle knowledge.
We would have survived the last 1,000,000 - 200,000 years of being homo sapiens without it. Had LDL Cholesterol been the root cause of heart disease, why has it only been a problem for about 120 years and is now our #1 killer?
More people die from heart attacks each year than we lost to Covid in the first three years.
If LDL is part of the problem, there must be something new to humans acting upon it to be perceived as a bad actor. Thousands of physicians and researchers believe that many things cause heart disease. I have found 30 different factors that can lead to the disease.
The Main Root Causes of Atherosclerosis (plaque in the arteries causing heart attacks):
Diabetic Physiology / Insulin Resistance
- Hyperinsulinemia
- High Blood Glucose
Metabolic Syndrome
- Hypertension
- Central Obesity
A Poor omega 3 to omega 6 fat ratio
Almost all of these create a base level of inflammation in the body.
Here are a few brief videos which address this topic.
Why does Cholesterol only impact some and not others
Low Carb Cholesterol Connection
The Cholesterol Conundrum
There are thousands of videos covering thousands of research papers, which leads us to the same conclusion. Our lifestyle choices damage the endothelial layer of our arteries while also oxidizing our LDL, which allows it to contribute to the problem. But every day non-oxidized LDL is an innocent bystander, which, in context, makes so much sense.
So, if the research exists in the medical research to spell this out, why won’t most mainstream medicine jump on board and start talking about the real elephant in the room, lifestyle, and what we eat? I can give you 14.5 billion reasons. This is the amount of Statin drugs sold in 2021. Should the world understand that 90% of people don’t need to lower their LDL, that market share would dry up. There is an equal amount of Type Two Diabetes drugs sold each year.
Understanding what drives heart disease also answers the question of how to solve T2D. The pharmaceutical world will never let these, and other market shares disappear if they can help it. They learned the Tobacco company playbook. They create enough studies that they know won’t solve the problem; however, it muddies the literature. Then, the message from mainstream medicine becomes, “We can’t figure this out,” so keep buying these drugs to try to manage a completely reversible condition.
Having worked as a pharmaceutical rep, I can relate to this, especially by looking back. I keep in touch with a few coworkers from 20 years ago who shared a territory with me. We discuss how mind-boggling it is that so much of what we were taught and sold was blatantly false. I picked up on this by talking to my doctors over the years.
After I broke my brain deep diving in 2018, I began to break some doctors' brains, including Dr. Ryan Cooley, a cardiologist. We recently launched our first podcast episode, which discussed our conclusions and personal healing of our heart disease scenarios.
You can find it here: The Metabochondriacs
Conclusion:
I apologize for the information overload. However, I wanted to make my case that most of what we see doctors for is a result of a terrible diet and other lifestyle issues. We have strayed far from our native metabolism, and as a species, we have paid dearly. We are the only species on the planet that needs to be told what to eat. How did we make it all the way up to the 1800s without randomized controlled trials telling us what to eat? We are smart enough to re-engineer our food supply and stupid enough to eat it.
Millions of people are frantically searching the internet for solutions because they haven't found them in the healthcare world. We all have a big job in front of us assisting the 93% of the population that isn't considered metabolically healthy. And millions of people are healing and finding their way outside of healthcare. Don't be left behind.
Watch Dr. Sara Hallberg's video mentioned above. As I mentioned, a doctor friend of mine found a rare opening at the end of the day and watched it with their patient. The patient wept because they were overcome with joy when they learned that they could control their future health. I hope you join the community of those of us trying to make fundamental change.
Avoidable pitfalls when starting a ketogenic approach to diet or managing a condition. See my blog.
Time For An Awakening
Metabolic Revolution
Today, August 25th, 2024 The Metabolic Revolution was launched.
The Mission:
We're on a mission to spread awareness about the powerful healing that metabolic therapies can provide. The Metabolic Revolution is a call to action for individuals, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and society as a whole to embrace a new paradigm of health that addresses the root causes of chronic disease.
When you join the Metabolic Revolution, you are:
Saving lives Challenging the status quo Transforming healthcare Empowering yourself and your loved ones to take control of your health Building a healthier, more helpful future for all
Please consider donating and joining us in Washington, D.C., on October 13th. It will be powerful.
Healing Humanity
Please also take a minute to check out the HealingHumanity.movie. Kerry Mann and the team are also trying to raise awareness about the healing power of eating the food we have been eating since the beginning of humanity.
If you can, please support this great movement.