Dr. Hyman’s Blood Sugar Solution

From Dr. Oz to Bill Clinton, people everywhere are listening to what Dr. Mark Hyman’s new book, The Blood Sugar Solution, has to say regarding the rise of obesity and diabetes. The latest research shows that insulin imbalance is the major cause of weight issues and diabetes, as well as heart disease, cancer, dementia and most other diseases.

Diabesity, the continuum of health problems ranging from mild insulin resistance and being overweight to obesity and diabetes, is the single biggest health epidemic of our time. It is almost entirely caused by environmental and lifestyle factors, which means that it is almost 100% preventable and curable.

There are several myths floating around out there about obesity and diabetes that keep us sick:

Myth 1: Diabetes (Type 2) is genetic. How we eat, how much we exercise, how we manage our stress, our exposure to food-based toxins, and the structural violence or “obesogenic environment” that influences these factors are what is truly driving our diabesity epidemic.

Myth 2: Once you start on insulin, there is no going back. The good news is that, with aggressive lifestyle intervention and dietary change, you can reverse diabetes and stop insulin therapy under your doctor’s supervision.

Myth 3: Weight loss is necessary for the reversal of diabetes. Clearly, weight loss is critical for obtaining optimal health. However, findings have indicated that patients who have gastric bypass surgery can still develop dramatic metabolic changes. All the parameters that were thought to be related to obesity, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, inflammation, and clotting, are dramatically reduced even without significant weight loss because of the rapid effects of dietary changes that control which genes get turned on or off. This is called nutrigenomics—the way food talks to your genes.

Moving forward, the book illustrates a plan of action for living your life. It starts simply with creating health. Remove the obstacles (toxins, allergens, microbes, stress, poor diet, and others) and add the ingredients (whole fresh food, nutrients, hormones, sleep, movement, rhythm, relaxation, love, connection, meaning, purpose). When you do this, your symptoms and diseases will take care of themselves.

In just six weeks, you can get your life and your health on track. The six week program should set the stage for a healthy life. It’s a complete overhaul in the way you eat and live, segmented into accessible weekly chunks. After the six weeks are over, you will simply keep doing most of what you learned.

The Blood Sugar Solution is a personal plan for you to get healthy, for us to get healthy together in our communities, and for us to take back our health as a society.

And it starts with each one of us.