The main reason our current approach to treating diabesity fails is because it focuses on treating the symptoms or risk factors of the disease rather than the causes. All of our attention is focused on treatments that:
- Lower blood sugar (diabetes drugs and insulin)
- Lower high blood pressure (anti-hypertensive drugs)
- Lower cholesterol (statins)
- Thin the blood (aspirin)
But we never ever ask the most important question: Why is your blood sugar, blood pressure, or blood cholesterol too high and why is your blood too sticky and likely to clot in the first place? Put another way: What are the root causes of diabesity?
Answering that question must be the focus of our diagnosis and treatment of this disease if we are going to solve this global epidemic.
The Diabesity Solution: Therapeutic Lifestyle Change
The real solution for diabesity is a comprehensive diet and therapeutic lifestyle change.
In truth, diabetes, elevated blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol are simply downstream symptoms that result from problems with our diet, lifestyle, and environmental toxin exposure interacting with our unique genetic susceptibilities. These are the real causes of diabesity. Unfortunately, few doctors are taking the time to address these important health issues with their patients.
Understanding this has a profound impact on the whole way we think about diabesity. It’s not simply a matter of trying one type of medication or another. We need to address the underlying problems in diet and lifestyle that are leading to and perpetuating this metabolic problem. Otherwise, we will only be masking the problem with medications that don’t address the root causes. Using medication or surgery to treat symptoms like imbalanced blood sugar, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and the other complications of diabetes is like mopping up the floor while the sink overflows. It’s too little too late. And you need to stay on the medication the rest of your life, unless you significantly change your diet and lifestyle. And if you were to stop the medication, you would be back to the same place as you were when you started.
In medicine today we have a choice. We can continue to mop up this overflow, or we can deal with the source of the problem and turn off the faucet–that is, treat the root problems that are causing your illness. The real solution for diabesity is a comprehensive diet and lifestyle change program.
We offer a science-based therapeutic lifestyle change program, called FirstLine Therapy®, which is being used by thousands of doctors all over the country with excellent results. This program addresses the root causes of diabesity (insulin resistance) and therefore has long-lasting and permanent results. Our patients not only lose weight, but see improvements in their blood sugar levels and cardiovascular risk factors. There are 3 published studies on the efficacy of this program. For more information, see our FirstLine Therapy® page.