Note: this article is a continuation of a series but has also been written to stand on its own. In my opinion, this is the big one – the one where I take everything we have learned about the progression of poor health and modern disease (e.g. internal signaling, internal pathways, the progression of metabolic dysfunction and modern disease, etc.) and put it together in one package of information that you can use in your own life.
In the name of simplification and understandability, some concepts may be overly simplified or glossed over. To address this issue, I have given you options (via links) to pursue more detail and technical explanations elsewhere.
I encourage you to take some time as you go through this one. I strongly believe that the information contained in this article is information that, if each individual understood, would greatly improve the health of each individual, making large strides towards diminishing modern disease in today’s society.
Take this one seriously. You will thank yourself for it later.
Humans are biological organisms, designed over millions of years by natural pressures, resulting in adaptations to diverse natural environments. Unfortunately, as we have moved out of nature and into an industrial society, that human body has shifted away from the environmental factors that align with its design, while being forced into a world with a full range of novel inputs (e.g. the food consumed, the changes in lighting, the load of toxins, etc.).
Because modern disease is, well, modern, it must be that there are novel environmental inputs – signals and resources that the body has been unaccustomed to receiving and processing – that impact the body on a significant level, impacting the core of its functioning and driving the body down a path of dysregulation and dysfunction and further on towards breakdown and the arising of clinically relevant symptoms (what we then label as a disease).
Figure 1: When thinking about how the human body is impacted by its environment, we can think about anything that impacts the human body as an input with a resulting output being the change in the body. Inputs may be physical resources or other “stuff” that enters into the body, or inputs may be signals received by the body that cause internal changes. In this way, we can begin to model the interaction of the human body with its environment.Moving forward with this understanding that modern disease is largely driven by the disconnect between biological beings living in an industrialized world, we can work to address the problem by reconnecting to a lifestyle that better aligns with the body’s natural design.
This, however, is a challenge, as living in the modern world does not readily lend itself to living the life of our ancient ancestors. Still, as many have found out for themselves, it can be accomplished by learning some basic principles about the human body.
Addressing the human body and its interaction with the modern environment
To effectively address the complex inner workings of the human body, along with their relationship to environmental inputs and health outcomes, I have proposed we use a particularly helpful systems engineering approach – an approach in which we treat our body as a “black box.” A black box represents a system of which we do not know all of the inner workings. Yet, simply by testing the inputs into the system and measuring the resulting changes (outputs), we can gain a great deal of understanding about the inner workings of the system.
Importantly, this allows us to ensure that the methods we use to address the problem result in beneficial outcomes to the entire body. Note that this is in contrast to traditional dietary or medical approaches that tend to focus on individual pieces of the problem while ignoring the bigger picture that is dysregulation and dysfunction of the entire system.
To put this black box approach to use for our specific problem (that of addressing the progression of poor health and modern disease), in the past articles (which you can begin reading here), I have worked to build a model that explains the most significant internal pathways involved in the progression of modern disease. By understanding these internal pathways (the pathways inside the black box that is the human body) we can understand how disease tends to emerge, and thus make educated decisions on the environmental inputs that we can control to send to the system.
Now, as we continue on diving deep into this model, let’s keep in mind the big idea: by understanding the environmental inputs into the system (i.e. the signals and resources we send to our bodies), we can take charge of these signals, ensuring that we avoid the dangerous signals while aiming for healthy signals in alignment with the design of the human body. In this way we can send strong, healthy signals to our own bodies, making changes to these signals as our bodies show us they are needed.
To get started, let me remind you of the three primary internal pathways driving the body towards modern disease. Remember, these pathways are each driven by energy dysregulation and result in metabolic dysfunction:
- Excessive fat accumulation: Fat is safely stored away in subcutaneous adipose tissue under normal (healthy) conditions. However, when fat accumulation exceeds storage capacity, fat leaks into the bloodstream along with pro-inflammatory signals. This resulting hyperlipidemia (excess fat in bloodstream), along with pro-inflammatory signals, go on to signal to cells throughout the body to create an insulin-resistant state.
- Improper fat storage: Fat is not safely stored when it is stored in visceral fat depots. From here it is prone to leak into the bloodstream, along with inflammatory cytokines, leading down a similar path to insulin resistance.
- Fatty Liver: The liver plays a central role in the overall functioning of the body’s metabolic systems. When fat accumulates in the liver (in elevated amounts), this organ loses its ability to respond to signals dictating the energetic state of the body, and additionally loses its ability to properly convert, package, and circulate energy.
To simplify this information as we apply it to the model, I am going to combine these three pathways into two:
- Excess fat storage – energy that is originally stored in a safe manner in subcutaneous adipose tissue, but has built up in an excessive, abnormal fashion.
- Irregular fat storage – energy that is, from the beginning, stored away in abnormal, unhealthy locations, primarily in the abdomen, in or around organs.
Again, note that these are two pathways that result in the same systemic issues: hyperlipidemia and systemic inflammation, two components of metabolic dysfunction.
Moving forward, let us draw our attention away from a focus on the internal pathways and back out to the entire model. Remember, these internal pathways are driven by environmental inputs we send into the body.
Now, let us shift our attention towards those environmental inputs – or more specifically, to the drivers of the pathophysiologic progression. By understanding the environmental inputs that drive excess and irregular fat storage, we can make educated decisions on what actions to take (e.g. what foods to consume) so that we can work towards avoiding modern disease.
To do this I will discuss three particular types of environmental inputs that tie into these two internal pathways. These are the environmental inputs that I recognize as the primary drivers of modern disease due to their strong influence on the functioning of the human body, along with the sheer magnitude of their presence in the modern world.
A word of caution with the format of the model
As we move forward, please remember that while these pathways are a useful framework to help us understand disease progression, these pathways are, in reality, not straightforward as they appear. In reality, these pathways are not linear. Rather, they are part of a complex, dynamic system – a system in which mechanisms are tightly integrated, feeding off one another to drive each pathway forward.
I bring this up because what I don’t want is for us to get hyper-focused on one particular input or one particular internal mechanism. Instead, it is important to keep the big picture in mind: that poor health and modern disease is driven by a lifestyle in which three primary environmental inputs make up a significant portion of an individual’s daily routines.
If, instead, an individual were to shift towards a lifestyle in which these three inputs play a minor role in his or her day, then the entire model would shift towards that of a healthy body (see Figure 4).
Pathways of poor health and modern disease
Pathway 1: Excessive insulin secretion drives excess fat accumulation
A primary pathway by which energy dysregulation leads to metabolic dysfunction and modern disease is through the accumulation of excess fat in adipose tissue.
Under normal physiologic conditions, excess energy is stored as fat in subcutaneous adipose tissue. This is an important and healthy function because the body needs this stored energy during times of fasting (e.g. during sleep).
When fat accumulates in the subcutaneous adipose tissue in excess amounts, the result is fat leakage and inflammatory signals sent into circulation. This resulting hyperlipidemia and pro-inflammatory state is the beginning of downstream pathophysiologic conditions including metabolic dysfunction and modern disease.
The first question for us, now, is what drives this excess build-up of fat?
As always, the answer to this question can get complicated. The forces driving excess fat accumulation are numerous, such that it would be easy to get lost amidst a complex discussion. However, there is one force that appears to shine brighter than the rest, so for now I will turn our attention towards the most significant factor at work driving excess fat accumulation: insulin.
Insulin is released in response to consuming glucose (or foods that can be easily converted to glucose). Thus, certain foods have different effects on insulin depending on their glucose content (along with other factors that I will discuss soon). A simplified way to think about insulin is that carbohydrate and refined protein have a greater effect on its release, while fats have a minimal impact.
As we’ve seen throughout the past articles, insulin is the primary signaling molecule involved in driving energy flow throughout the body. When insulin is elevated, energy is sent into storage. When insulin levels are low, energy is free to be released from storage and used to synthesize ATP, the body’s useable form of energy.
While the release of insulin is a normal, healthy process, when insulin is secreted in excess, fat can build up, driving our first pathway.
The dynamics of insulin are complex, but if you understand two key components of insulin dynamics then you are well-prepared:
First is the concept of total insulin release. Because insulin is a driving force of energy storage, you can think about insulin in terms of aiming for overall minimization. If you aim to consume foods that have a minimal impact on insulin, then the body is free to spend more time burning energy instead of storing it.
Second is the concept of the insulin spike. This one can get a bit confusing, which is why I took the time to walk you through it here. The basic concept is that when glucose enters the bloodstream in surges (e.g. in response to consuming a high carbohydrate meal) the body doesn’t have the ability to properly respond. The body sees a large load of glucose in the bloodstream and it responds by releasing a large load of insulin.
This is a problem because too much energy ends up being whisked out of the bloodstream, which actually results in a hypoglycemic state (low blood sugar). This means that the insulin spike leads to a blood sugar crash, resulting in an energy-depleted state (because all of the energy was whisked out of the bloodstream and into storage). The result is an individual with low energy and who just had a large load of energy pushed into storage. This individual is going to have low energy availability, causing them to search for quick sources of energy, likely leading to another insulin spike. And the cycle continues from there…
The important follow-up question is what drives excessive insulin secretion?
Insulin is the body’s primary energy storage hormone, so it is secreted in response to received energy (i.e. consuming food). However, different foods have very different effects on insulin, with particular types of foods having a drastically higher impact on insulin. To help you make decisions leading to practical actions, you can think about insulin secretion from two different perspectives:
- The macronutrient perspective:
- Carbohydrate – consuming carbohydrate has the largest effect on insulin.
- Protein – consuming protein has a moderate effect on insulin.
- Fat – consuming fat has a low to negligible effect on insulin.
Note that different types and different combinations of these macronutrients will impact the insulin effect. For example, some types of protein (more precisely – different types of amino acids, the building blocks of protein) have different effects on insulin, with some amino acids having a negligible effect on the release of insulin.
- The real, whole foods perspective:
- The body is designed to receive meals in the form of real, whole foods – foods that have been minimally processed, thus retaining the fiber, polyphenols, and other important biomolecules that allow for the natural digestion and processing of the energy contained within.
- Modern, industrial foods are highly processed, which means this fiber, polyphenols, antioxidants, and other biomolecules have been removed, leaving energy-dense substances. This energy is quickly and abundantly released into the body, resulting in an insulin spike.
In practice, it is most beneficial to consider these two perspectives in combination. For example, refined carbohydrates will have the largest effect on insulin, with refined protein having large effects as well. However, by keeping foods in their whole form, the effect on insulin tends to below. Thinking about the chicken example again, work towards consuming it on the bone with the skin on, and by all means stay away from lean chicken that has been breaded.
Nature tends to package meals in a great balance of both macronutrient and micronutrient combinations, making for a nicely packaged meal that results in a lower, healthier release of insulin. For example, consuming animals or their products in their natural form tend to have a great balance of fat and protein, resulting in minimal release of insulin (e.g. eat the chicken wing or thigh and ditch the chicken breast; avoid egg whites and consume the whole egg). Moreover, consuming plant foods in their minimally processed form tends to send the body a nice balance of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, packaged together with polyphenols, antioxidants, and fiber, all adding up to a low-to-moderate, normal release of insulin.
This is in stark contrast to industrially prepared meals which would seem to have been prepared with the exact opposite thought in mind. Take a stroll through any inner aisle of the grocery store and you will find every single product made from highly refined carbohydrate, devoid of pretty much any polyphenols, antioxidants, and fiber, making for row after row of insulin bombs (Which is why I avoid these aisles entirely).
To avoid the excessive and irregular secretion of insulin, we can work to avoid processed, industrial foods, along with large amounts of carbohydrate or lean protein.
Pathway 2: Stress and sugar drive visceral fat storage
Under normal physiologic conditions, excess energy is sent to storage in subcutaneous adipose tissue. Note that this is a normal, healthy process, one that only becomes problematic when this storage is in excess.
However, today we are seeing an incredible number of people who have fat stored in places other than safely in subcutaneous adipose tissue. Today it is common for fat to get stored directly in the abdominal region – a region where this stored fat has a greater potential to cause damage. This would be the case for “apple-shaped” individuals, along with those who are “skinny-fat” (i.e. they may look skinny, but their bodies actually contain large amounts of fat within the abdomen).
The irregular fat storage pathway is driven by two primary environmental inputs:
1. Chronic Stress: cortisol + insulin –> visceral fat storage
2. Sugar: glucose + fructose –> liver fat storage
Stress in the modern world:
Today we live in a high-stress environment. This can come from many different factors, some more obvious than others.
The obvious culprit is our high-stress jobs and lifestyles. With long hours spent at the office with deadlines and bosses breathing down our necks, our stress response seems to be forever on “go.” Similar to this situation would be any lifestyle factors that result in high pressures each and every day (e.g. getting children to and from school, soccer practice, music lessons, etc. while balancing work, making dinner, and our own hobbies).
On top of these obvious stressful factors, there are a number of less obvious culprits – things that we wouldn’t normally think of as “stressful,” yet result in a stress signal to the body. This would be factors like lights that stay on all day and into the night, television that stays on late into the night, or the constant background noise we get from traffic outside the window.
Unfortunately, the human body was not designed to be on “go” all the time. Rather, it was designed such that stress was an acute signal – something that appeared regularly, yet disappeared rather quickly.
This acute signal is actually a beneficial signal – a signal that there is an environmental stress that needs to be addressed. When stress shows up in a regular, acute pattern, the body actually responds in a positive way, often leading to long term positive changes (e.g. muscle adaptations in response to exercise). However, when that signal turns chronic, the body responds in a different manner.
The body understands stress through a number of hormones. The one I wish to focus our attention on is cortisol.
As with every other hormone, its effects are complex and difficult to summarize here. However, what is clear to see is the following:
When cortisol is released, the body understands that it needs to perform an important task and responds with a release of energy to enable the body to perform whatever functions it needs to do to handle the situation at hand. This is a good thing when there is a task that needs to be addressed (e.g. meeting a deadline or, historically, outrunning a predator).
However, when this signal turns chronic, this response turns dangerous. To understand why, you can think of it like this:
We now know that cortisol signals to the body that energy needs to be released into circulation – it is a signal that a task needs to be taken on, and thus prepares the body with a surge of energy to do the job. Remember, in the modern world this is a signal that is being released in a chronic fashion, which means the “release energy into the bloodstream” signal is often turned on.
Now, remember back to the previous section where I discussed our insulin problem. Remember, in the modern world, insulin is also being released in a chronic fashion.
Well, do you remember the signal that insulin sends?
Insulin is the body’s energy storage signal. When we consume a load of energy, the body needs to get that energy stored away. But now, we also see that the body is regularly put in a chronic state of stress, signaling to the body to release energy.
See the disconnect here? Can you think of any problems that may arise?
When insulin and cortisol are combined, the body ends up sending energy into storage in the abdomen as visceral fat deposits:
Insulin + cortisol –> Visceral fat storage
As we learned in the previous article, fat stored in visceral fat deposits is dangerous. From this site of storage, fat is in a primed position to cause inflammation (the body’s “help!” signal), and to leak into the bloodstream.
Moreover, the particular site of visceral storage puts this leaky, inflamed fat in close proximity to the liver. We’ll see the dangers of excess fat and inflammation in the liver up next when we discuss the final topic for today.
With that, let us shift gears to what very well may be the most significant environmental input: sugar.
Sugar in the modern world
When it comes to discussing sugar, I never really know where to begin. Do I start off with the fact that sugar is in every single food regularly produced and consumed these days? Unless you are prepared to cook your own meal in your own kitchen with raw, basic ingredients (which is, indeed, the end goal of all of this), you can be assured that you will be consuming sugar with each and every meal.
And this isn’t even speaking of dessert, which we feel the need to have in addition to each (already sweetened) meal.
Or, I could begin with the incredible numbers – the fact that the average American consumes over 100 pounds of sugar per year, getting several times the recommended amount in a single beverage.
This is a terrible shame because sugar has the potential to be quite toxic to the human body in high doses.
A quick lesson on how the body handles sugar:
Sugar, as we generally think of it (i.e. the sweet, white grainy stuff or the sweet syrup), is composed of two molecules: glucose and fructose.
I discussed the dangers of refined glucose in detail earlier. Glucose is the primary molecule forming carbohydrates. When we think about all the industrial foods typically consumed – bread, pasta, cereal, crackers, and cookies – all those carbohydrates are primarily made from glucose.
We already know why glucose can be dangerous, particularly when received in high doses in a refined form. The result of this is the insulin spike and its downstream consequences.
Glucose makes up half of sugar (or a little less than half in the high fructose corn syrup case). The other half is fructose and it comes with its own set of problems.
Unless received in small quantities (e.g. the quantity received in a small piece of whole fruit), fructose is likely going to become a burden on the body. The primary reason is that, as opposed to glucose, the body is not designed to be good at breaking it down. The task falls (almost) entirely on the liver, as the only part of the body that has the serious ability to handle fructose.
You can think about it like this – the human body evolved eating a wide range of plant foods, all of which have glucose as a primary component. This means that the human body evolved as it regularly consumed fair quantities of glucose.
Fructose, on the other hand, would only have been consumed in small quantities. Not all humans would have consumed it, and those who did probably only got it for part of the year. Because of this, the human body did not adapt to high amounts of fructose.
This is why fructose is not a problem in small doses – the liver can handle the fructose received from natural foods, such as some berries or dark chocolate. However, when that fructose enters into the body in a concentrated form (from a soda or juice, or from your breakfast cereal or yogurt), the liver is going to become overloaded.
This results in the following:
- The liver converts excess fructose into fat, shipping it out to the body to be dealt with. While you may not think you are familiar with the direct repercussions of this process, I can assure you that you have spent your entire life hearing about this particular issue, albeit under another, incredibly misleading name – I’ll give you a clue, it’s the modern world’s number one killer.
- The liver, when overloaded, can end up storing that fat inside itself. Now, understand that the liver is tasked as the master metabolic regulator. However, if it becomes overloaded with fat, it fails to do its job effectively. The result of a fatty liver is an insulin-resistant liver – one that is incapable of properly understanding and responding to the energetic needs of the body.
The downstream result of both: large amounts of fat are shipped out into the body, sending the body down the path of hyperlipidemia and systemic inflammation (also, and here’s your answer, down the path to atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease – or, see reference 1).
On top of this, the resulting fatty liver bypasses the previous two pathways and leads straight to insulin resistance and dysfunction of the primary organ involved in metabolic function.
If this sounds rather striking to you, I would recommend soaking that feeling in. This information should probably scare you, especially when I reveal that an estimated 30-40% of the population now suffers from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is a result of a society continuously sending loads of sugar into their bodies. This is not a rare condition. It is a normal process happening in today’s society due largely to the regular consumption of sugar.
Sugar, consumed in the form and quantity in today’s society, results in an overloaded liver. An overloaded liver results in fatty liver, excess fat accumulation, insulin resistance, metabolic dysfunction, and the resulting modern disease.
One more piece to the system
Now that we understand the three primary environmental inputs driving modern disease progression through signals directly influencing the bulk flow of energy, I wish to finish up with an introduction to some of the ways by which these same inputs can influence this system indirectly by disrupting the functioning of the components supporting the human body.
To distinguish the two, I refer to the first type (signals directly influencing the bulk flow of energy) as macro signals. I refer to the second type (factors that disrupt the functioning of the components supporting the human body) as micro signals (as discussed previously in this series here)
Micro signals arise from environmental inputs coming in many forms, including environmental toxins, food additives, pesticides, and other components of industrial foods.
Now, I understand that their overwhelming presence in our modern world is enough to make us throw our hands up in frustration, saying to hell with the lot as we go on with our hand in a bag of cheetos.
Instead of eliciting this counterproductive response by throwing a whole bunch of information at you, I will take the approach of showing you just one particular input and its effect on signaling. My hope is that, by understanding how one common environmental input can influence the functioning of the body, you can move forward with the ability to incorporate other micro signals into this model.
Vegetable Oil:
Vegetable oil is, essentially, the epitome of industrial food. The ability to take seeds, flowers, and other non-oily plants and to somehow manage to produce oil by the tons is quite the revolution in industrial technology. Unfortunately, the product is a highly refined source of unstable fat, the consumption of which results in toxic fats shipped around the body.
As these highly reactive molecules travel throughout the entire body, the door is open for a number of damaging outcomes related to the body’s ability to signal properly:
- Cellular signaling:
- Fatty acids form structural components – if you take an unstable, reactive building block and use it to build an important structure, you can probably imagine the outcome.
- Most significantly, fatty acids form cellular membranes throughout your body. These membranes or responsible for the effective channeling of molecules, including letting the good guys in and keeping the bad guys out. It is simple to understand how having reactive, defective materials for these membranes could result in faulty signaling processes.
- Systemic inflammation: omega 3 vs. omega 6
- Vegetable oils are high in omega-6 and low in omega-3 fatty acids. Omega 6 fatty acids are naturally pro-inflammatory, so an imbalance between omega 3 and 6 creates a pro-inflammatory state.
- Omega-3’s are constantly marketed to us – you may even take a fish oil supplement so that you get a dose of these important fatty acids. Unfortunately, by consuming vegetable oil you are doing the exact opposite – you are consuming large amounts of omega-6, putting your body in a pro-inflammatory state.
- High Oxidative capacity
- I have yet to discuss this particular micro signal, but as we’ll see soon, oxidation has the potential to be a major disruptor of proper metabolic functioning.
- Vegetable oil has an incredibly high oxidative capacity, as its instability makes it a highly reactive molecule. As we’ll learn, the body often signals based on a delegate balance of oxidative capacities, and throwing in a highly reactive molecule into the mix can throw these systems off balance.
Overall, vegetable oil, one common industrial food, drives dysregulated micro signaling by creating a pro-inflammatory state and by disrupting the ability of individual cells to effectively communicate. Moreover, its high oxidative capacity makes it quite capable of reacting with systems throughout the body, making it a strong driver of modern disease. Note, the dangers of vegetable oil and other industrial foods do not stop here. Check out this article for more on the topic.
On the topic of micro signaling, let’s not forget, micro signals, including inflammation, can also be a downstream process of macro signals:
Industrial Food –> Insulin –> excessive fat accumulation –> inflammatory signals
Industrial Food + Stress –> Insulin + Cortisol –> visceral fat storage –> inflammatory signals
Now, remember, the point is not to remember all of these pathways and mechanisms discussed today. Rather, my hope is that you do remember how these three environmental inputs can be strong drivers of these pathophysiologic pathways, and that you move forward making decisions in your own life that lead to the avoidance of these three particular factors.
Altogether, three primary inputs drive energy dyregulation:
Simplifying all of this down into some practical information, remember the following:
- Industrial Foods:
- Spike insulin –> excessive fat storage
- Contain pro-inflammatory, pro-oxidative compounds
- Sugar
- Leads to fatty liver, resulting directly to an insulin-resistant liver and excess fat storage
- Chronic Stress
- Leads to visceral fat storage, which is particularly leaky and pro-inflammatory.
With this knowledge, my hope is that you can make decisions in your own life that will lead to the avoidance of these dangerous pathways. By avoiding industrial foods, stress, and sugar, you are well on your way to programming your body for good health.
By taking steps to avoid industrial foods, stress, and sugar, you are well equipped to make your way towards improved health and the avoidance of modern disease. In my opinion, these three primary environmental inputs are the driving force behind modern disease. If we can get them out of our lives (or more realistically, greatly minimized), then we have made a giant stride towards a longer, healthier life.
Moving Forward down You’re Road to Good Health
Thus far along our journey to understanding how our decisions impact the health of our bodies, I have focused on drawing our attention towards the dysfunctional signaling that drives metabolic dysfunction and modern disease. The industrial world, especially with its industrialized food, sends signals to the body that are unaligned with the signals traditionally received in the natural world. Thus, the body becomes incapable of responding in a healthy manner, sending it along pathways to modern disease.
The understanding of these pathways is a crucial step towards understanding disease. If we can understand how what we put in our bodies directly affects the pathways that energy goes down, then we can take action towards ensuring that what we put in our bodies results in the activation of healthier pathways.
By keeping our focus on the impact of these signals, my hope is that I have shifted your attention away from traditional thought processes and instead towards a perspective that will likely lead to actions that have much greater impacts.
Moving forward now, I need to shift the perspective so that we can gain a greater understanding of the entire model, and as a result, the functioning of our own bodies. As I have discussed in the Reprogrammed Systems Model, a primary driver of modern disease is excess fat accumulation. While an understanding of the signals driving the build-up of this excess energy is important, it doesn’t provide us with the entire picture. To get the full picture we need a second perspective: that of the overall energy content.
Next up, I will continue next with a discussion on energy content, what you most likely understand as the term “calories.” In this discussion we will see how energy balance can be implemented into the Reprogrammed Systems Model, being careful to ensure that we don’t fall into the trap of improperly using calorie balance as an overly simplified weight loss tool.
That being said, at this point you are already equipped with the most important information you need to begin making better decisions regarding your health. By understanding the three primary pathways driving modern disease, you should be well-prepared to start making decisions that will likely result in significant improvements in your overall health. Therefore, if you are itching to get started, feel free to head over to the Reprogram Your Diet page to get some ideas of what the implementation of these pathways may actually look like. This includes explanations of what it really means to avoid insulin disrupting foods, along with particularly dangerous foods like sugar and vegetable oils.
If you choose this option, once you have made some headway implementing dietary changes that result in the avoidance of these dangerous pathways, I encourage you to return to the main road to good health to finish up with the final information.
Whatever route you decide on, I applaud you for sticking with me this far. With all this information you are a step above all of those individuals stuck in a linear, reductionist, overly simplified world of health, medicine, and nutrition.
References
- Adiels, M., Olofsson, S., Taskinen, M., & Bore, J. (2008). Overproduction of Very Low – Density Lipoproteins Is the Hallmark of the Dyslipidemia in the Metabolic Syndrome. 1225–1237. https://doi.org/10.1161/ATVBAHA.107.160192