New Year - New You - What’s Your Score? Written by Dr. Elaina Goldsmith
2019 is finally here. It feels like you have been celebrating the holidays for the last three months. In fact, you have. Your favorite jeans are now leaving unsightly red welts in unmentionable places and your previously contained gut is rolling over your waist band in an unholy cascade. Maybe adding eggnog to your cereal every morning wasn’t such a good idea after all.
You’ve seen all the advertisements and have made up your mind; it is time to get serious and get this weight under control.
Fat is ugly, but it is not just globby white blubber. Fat can kill you because it can lead to the development of chronic inflammation and diseases such as diabetes. Grab a carrot stick and read on.
What do ovaries, testes, thyroid glands and fat have in common? All are endocrine organs! Endocrine organs secrete hormones that can drastically affect how we feel. In the case of fat (adipose tissue), over 50 hormones and signaling molecules can be secreted, and all these together are called adipokines. Now if you are like me, this whole obesity thing has always seemed extremely unfair. I should be able to eat huge quantities of potato chips and brownies without gaining an ounce of weight but let me tell you why that is just not possible for many of us.
One of the hormones that is secreted by fat cells is called leptin. Leptin is basically supposed to encourage you to eat more if you are too thin or eat less if you are too fat. Low body fat = low leptin levels in the blood = increased appetite. High body fat = high leptin levels = decreased appetite. That should be enough to keep us all at a perfect weight, but unfortunately, in many people with high leptin and high body fat, the leptin is not working like it is supposed to and we remain hungry, especially for sugars and fats. This is known as leptin resistance. As sad as it sounds, leptin resistance isn’t the worst outcome of obesity. Not only are these fat cells secreting obnoxious hormones, at some point they also start secreting inflammatory cytokines; signaling molecules that can help trigger chronic inflammation throughout your body. The inflammation in turn can lead to the development of diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and even cancer.
By now, it is becoming apparent that buying a new pair of jeans isn’t the best strategy for achieving whole body wellness. We can look in a mirror and know that we are overweight; but how can we easily know that we have inflammation in our heart, kidneys and joints? Take the Test - Know Your Score!
The Chronic Inflammation test is a simple, non-invasive urine test that indirectly measures a key inflammation pathway in your body. After taking the test you will receive a score that will help you to know if you have apparent inflammation. With this score you and your doctor can decide on a course of treatment that will set you firmly on the path of your wellness journey.
Let me share with you a study from the Journal of the American Medical Association. In this study, obese women aged 24-63 years old were put on a weight loss diet. In one part of the study were women with android obesity (apple shaped fat distribution; often associated with increased risk of heart disease). One of the tests that the women took at the beginning of the study was The Chronic Inflammation Test (urine 11-dehydrothromboxane B2). The women ate 1200 calories per day and in this study weight loss was considered successful if they lost 11 pounds over 3 months. At the end of the trial the women took the Chronic Inflammation Test again. The women who had a successful weight loss also decreased their Chronic Inflammation Test score by 54%.
Just think, by losing 11 pounds these women not only changed their figures, they may have saved their own lives by decreasing the chronic inflammation in their body by more than half! Next time we will discuss what your jeans may be telling you about your genes! Happy New Year!
The Chronic Inflammation Test Gang