Our office primarily focuses on chronic neurological and non-neurological pain conditions in general. Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and memory loss, migraines Peripheral Neuropathy, RLS, auto immune disease and more. The treatments are primarily natural meaning non drug. Almost all of the patients who have undergone our current protocols for these specific conditions have lost weight. That’s was not why they were here. Their weight loss was “incidental”, at least to us. Most of the patients also had never been able to lose weight prior to going through our neuro-metabolic programs. The “AHAH” was that most if not all of the patients that had the above chronic conditions (and more) and who were overweight couldn’t lose it because of the same malfunctioning mechanisms that were causing or perpetuating their presenting syndromes.
So here are the most common dysfunctional mechanisms neurologically and metabolically that we have found prohibit patients from achieving their weight loss.
- Thyroid- Duh. Right? But so many of our patients have been told “Your thyroid is normal” or “your medication is controlling your thyroid so it can’t be that”. FACT, You can’t tell from the standard TSH/T4 tests. There’s so much more. Lots of new data says we should be looking harder at the active hormone level exclusively (T3) for weight loss and fatigue. We now know plasma levels of T3 can predict weight loss and if that hormone (T3) is being converted correctly into active form from inactive T4. This happens in the liver and small intestines and can be altered by several drugs. And do you have Hoshimoto’s? (Look it up on POWERHEALTHTALK.COM). If any of these are off- you can’t lose weight.
- Neurologically- STRESS!! We see lots of Fibromyalgia, insomnia, weight loss, IBS and fatigue cases with history of abusive spouses, financial stress, child abuse and physical abuse or some other substantial stress. In these patients when the stress is over their brain continues to stress (can’t go to sleep? Wake up and can’t go back to sleep?) This causes- according to emerging research data, something called hypercortisolism which increases ones blood sugar and which when extreme breaks down into excess triglycerides which when elevated chemically- causes belly fat. As long as the brain stays stressed the belly fat is not going anywhere. Best read on this Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Rob Sapolski from Stanford University.
- Blood Sugar- Metabolic Syndrome, Syndrome X, insulin resistance. These are all synonyms for pre diabetes. Most people don’t think these conditions need to be treated. WRONG!! Lots of people who have this don’t realize that this condition will cause you to not lose weight, largely due to inconsistent opinion and no treatment recommendations among the doctors. Bottom line- more insulin= more fat.
- In addition new data show that diabetic type II may be caused more by small intestinal bacterial over growth (SIBO) than diet!! And these bacteria also affect a persons weight and/or their ability to lose it. This is why some people are now getting “fecal implants” of someone else’s “good bacteria” as a cure for their diabetes and weight loss. The good news is there is a much easier & non-drug/surgical methods than fecal implants to handle this condition.
- Endotoxemia- the “normal” gut bacteria are different in people who can and cannot lose weight. Obese individuals have different bacteria then those who are not. Generally chronic disease causes imbalances in the “micro biotic” (gut bacteria) of that person. Certain of these “bad” bacteria grow, break off, and flow throughout your blood stream, enter your cells and then don’t allow insulin into your cells -> again causing pre diabetic and again more insulin equals more triglycerides and more fat particularly around the belly.
And there’s more. Much much more. So in our next article we’ll talk about Foods, Hormones, Aromatization , PCOS, toxins food allergies birth control and their role in sabotaging your best efforts to achieve weight reductions through the old calorie reduction/exercise model.
