Many of us would struggle to define either of these terms! What exactly is chronic disease? What exactly is Metabolic Health? And how are they related?
Chronic Disease is an umbrella term for those (often) reversible health conditions that we associate with lifestyle, the modern world, a sedentary lifestyle, a diet high in processed foods, little or no exercise, stressful work and personal lives, and highly confusing mixed messages we receive on a daily basis from Health Practitioners, Conflicted Authorities and both mainstream and social media. In short it refers to the presence of the below conditions that are responsible for 80% of all deaths over the age of 50!
Vascular Disease. This includes Cardiovascular (heart attacks), Cerebrovascular (strokes) and High Blood Pressure Cancer. Dementia (such as Alzheimers Disease)
Metabolic Conditions. This refers to a spectrum of conditions ranging from Insulin resistance, to obesity, to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, to Pre-Diabetes, to Type 2 Diabetes. This is the foundation layer of chronic disease, the other conditions above emerge from these metabolic conditions
As good as our modern healthcare system is at dealing with issues once they present such as acute trauma, infectious illnesses, Obstetric and Orthopaedic medicine etc, the healthcare system when it comes to chronic disease is a treatment-centric model. We need a prevention-centric model!
Metabolic Health is a complex topic. Metabolism refers to how the body produces and uses energy, something we will dive into on another post. Suffice to say, when these processes go wrong they lead to metabolic ill-health or dysfunction and the metabolic conditions above. So let’s fix metabolic health, lets become better and more efficient producers and users of energy and create enjoyable sustainable lifestyles! That is our goal at CDxP, to show our clients that their health and wellbeing is very much in their hands given the correct understanding and the correct application of simple tools anyone can use.
As well as preventing chronic illness some of the great benefits to optimising our metabolic health include:
The strategies we use at CDxP are geared towards improving metabolic fitness and flexibility, with a bespoke framework designed for you and your desires and capabilities. Preventative Medicine is an ongoing practice unique to you and your life. Whether it is planning your nutrition and fasting strategy, or creating an exercise programme suitable for your abilities and desires, or improved sleep hygiene and appropriate supplementation, everyone can achieve and maintain good overall metabolic health. The journey begins with understanding where we are from a health perspective with our Comprehensive and Metabolic Focused Health Screening programmes.
So what causes poor metabolic health? What are the drivers of these conditions. While the answers may appear obvious to us, overconsumption of processed foods, refined grains, seed oils and sugar, lack of exercise, stress, and environments rich in pro-inflammatory toxins there are some key concepts we need to understand in order to fully grasp how these choices and exposures influence our bodies to create a body primed for chronic disease. We will start with a deep dive on Insulin Resistance….
