Health Hack #3 – All Fat Is Not Created Equally
All Fat Is Not Created Equal
by Dr. Richard Schuyler DC
Science tells us there are Three Kinds of Fat in our body. Some fat is needed to help us stay healthy but ABNORMAL fat causes inflammation and makes us sick. The three kinds of fat are:
- Structural Fat – around muscles, skin and organs. It gives them support and padding.
- Normal Fat – under the skin. It insulates us and fuels our bodies when we don’t eat enough.
- Abnormal Fat – grows under Normal Fat especially in the abdominal and buttocks areas.
How does Abnormal Fat cause inflammation? Young people burn fat in this order: Abnormal >Normal>Structural. This is why abnormal fat doesn’t form in kids (except in certain circumstances, but that’s another article).
How does Abnormal Fat form? Many of us consume toxic food and chemicals. Why? Because the food industry teaches us too. How they do that is another story. We eat high calorie-low nutrition food (like fast food). We consume alcohol, drugs (prescription and otherwise) and chemicals. Toxins build up in our bodies. This causes toxicity especially in the hypothalamus which is the part of our brain that tells us when to eat. Our hypothalamus goes haywire and stops telling us when we are full. We eat more than we should AND we start preferring toxic food (like fast, fatty, sugary, salty food) over low calorie-high nutrition food. Now, we start forming abnormal fat.
Why does Abnormal Fat cause inflammation? Two reasons:
- FREE-RADICALS. Fat is broken down by your body to produce energy. Remember free-radicals from our last article? Well whenever you break down or METABOLIZE food and other substances you produce free-radicals. Fat metabolism creates more of them than almost any other metabolic process.
- Toxin storage. Toxic chemicals cause inflammation. Guess where you store the most toxic chemicals…in FAT. Fat stores WAY more toxic chemicals than any other tissue. So instead of toxins leaving your body like they should when it’s working well, a fatty body KEEPS the toxic chemicals so they make us sick, form free radical and cause inflammation. What does this do to our bodies? It makes us have….
DISEASE and PAIN!!! Cancer, Diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and joint pain are just a few of the products of abnormal fat and toxicity. More diseases are linked to abnormal fat every year.
So what do we do? We’ve become fat, toxic and sick. When we try to lose weight by dieting and exercise we feel pain and hunger. We lose muscle instead of fat because our hormones are depleted by abnormal fat.
Functional Medicine to the RESCUE!!!
Functional Medicine corrects the CAUSES of disease NOT just the symptoms. A good function medicine doctor will First, find out what weaknesses your body has developed from abnormal fat. Then, you can start correcting them starting with the most serious problems first.
Here’s an example of what NOT to do.
A 45 year old man has fatigue, joint pain, high blood pressure, low sex drive, enlarged prostrate, esophageal reflux, hemorrhoids and obesity. He can’t sleep because of pain and having to urinate three times a night. He’s 50 pounds overweight. His marriage is on the rocks, he’s irritable and sick all the time. He sees a psychiatrist for depression and because his marriage is terrible. He takes Zoloft. His family doctor tests him for high triglycerides, high sugar, high PSA. He puts him on blood pressure meds, Celebrex, Lipitor, oral insulin and Ambien.
A month later he comes back with the same problems he had before PLUS has to use the bathroom more from the blood pressure meds (which work mainly by making you lose water which makes your blood pressure drop but also causes dehydration), worse depression and fatigue, a fatty liver from the Lipitor and stomach cramps from the Celebrex. Soo…..the doctor gives him Nexium for his stomach, Flomax for his bladder and takes him off Lipitor before it can destroy his liver completely. He fiddles with the other drugs to lessen their side-effects. He tells him to come back in a month. Again!
Can you see where this is going? Have you been there? Patients treated by doctors like this aren’t getting better. But the drug companies are getting richer. They keep on doing the same stupid things (treating symptoms not causes) until it kills their customers and makes them rich. They aren’t crazy but YOU are if you keep on doing this over and over expecting a different result.
So what does a Functional Medical doctor do?
The same patient would be: tested for hormonal levels, food sensitivities, allergies, nutritional deficiencies and genetic problems.
Results? His good cholesterol is low and his bad one is high. He’s deficient in many vitamins and nutrients and sensitive to several foods. He’s allergic to pollens and grasses. His testosterone and estradiol is low. His Functional Medicine doctor puts him on testosterone. Saw palmetto and ashwa gandha herbs take away his prostate inflammation. He stops needing to urinate so much AND feels sexual desire too. Within a week he begins to sleep great, his mood and energy improves and he gets back his sex drive. The testosterone also helps his joint pain so he can exercise without if hurting. He starts an hCG weight loss program. He takes nutraceutical nutritional supplements and takes two table spoons of olive oil with raw garlic a day. This boosts his good cholesterol and lowers the bad. He starts eating raw aloe daily which heals his reflux AND his hemorrhoids!!
In one month he loses 25 pounds (very doable with hCG). Now his body fat is lower so he doesn’t need as much testosterone. His blood pressure is normal. He gets treated for his allergies which caused a lot of his fatigue. Now he’s got lots of energy because of this PLUS he can sleep again. His glucose returns to normal. He stops taking the Zoloft, Ambien, Celebrex, Nexium, blood pressure meds and insulin. (Aww! The poor drug companies are losing HUNDREDS of dollars…) He starts exercising and keeps losing weight. Is he happy?
Equally important….Is his wife happy?
Seeing people get back their lives is the greatest feeling in the world. Seeing them get back their marriages is even better.
This is functional medicine at its best. It doesn’t happen to EVERY patient but it happens a LOT. This is what we do.
Stay tuned for more adventures in good health. Until then, be happy and be healthy.
Dr. Richard Schuyler
