Is Erythritol a Safe Sweetener?
Background The recent headlines about erythritol and its possible association with cardiovascular disease has led to a heavy stream of questions flooding my inbox. As always, there's so much more to this story than the headlines suggest. I'd like to use this study as another opportunity to…
March 4, 2023
#20 – Glucose Variability: An Essential Metabolic Metric
Glucose variability (GV) is an important metric that expands upon the current limited application of fasting blood glucose and hemoglobin A1C. In this episode we'll discuss: The limitations of A1C and fasting blood glucose What is GV and why it matters? How GV is related to inflammation and…
April 12, 2022
#18 – Multiethnic Metabolism and Heart Disease Risk
There are significant ethnicity-specific differences in metabolism and heart disease risk that are not often discussed. In this episode we cover: A brief overview of insulin resistance (IR) and the renin angiotensin system (aka RAS) How IR and RAS present in major ethnic groups like African…
March 3, 2022
The Dark Side of the Keto Diet
Background I've lived through many cycles of fad dieting and one observation I've made is that the minute a diet becomes mainstream and especially when food companies latch onto it, the diet often transitions into a dark phase. One of the problems with diets is that although initially the…
March 16, 2021
The Fallacy of Fasting Blood Glucose
Background If there is one "abnormal" blood test that I get the most questions on, it has to be the fasting blood glucose. As a result of implementing stringent lifestyle changes, often patients see their waistlines shrink, their lipids improve, but that stubborn fasting blood glucose often…
November 6, 2020
Is Intermittent Fasting Overrated and Harmful to Health?
Background I got a ton of questions from patients and readers about the recent UCSF study on a form of fasting called time-restricted feeding (TRF), being ineffective for weight loss. This is a perfect opportunity for me to dig deeper into how fasting can either be a powerful tool that potentially…
October 4, 2020
VO2 Max and Other Key Markers of Fitness and Longevity
Background There is no doubt that improving diet is a powerful way to shift metabolism and reverse conditions like insulin resistance and chronic inflammation. In fact, in my early days, simply changing the diet in patients led to such significant changes in metrics like body weight, triglycerides…
July 30, 2020
Beware of the Covesity Pandemic
Background Covesity is a slang term found in the Urban dictionary here that references the common weight gain arising from our pandemic lifestyle habits. I'm going to elevate this term from urban slang to a public health crisis that refers to the mechanism by which obesity, particularly abdominal…
April 13, 2020
The Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) Guide
Background A continuous glucose monitor (cgm) is a wearable sensor that tracks you blood glucose 24/7 in real time and transmits it to a receiver which can either be a separate unit or your smartphone. It's time for doctors and practitioners to get comfortable ordering cgms for their patients. We…
March 1, 2020
Burning Body Fat With Cold Exposure
Background I have many patients who get the impression that staying healthy is not a year round responsibility. They tend to focus on physical activity and healthy eating when the weather warms up, but during the fall and winter months, they think they can magically transform into a hibernating…
February 12, 2020