If you want to avoid chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, it starts with good metabolic health.
What is metabolic health?
According to Danhua Xiao, MD, PhD, a metabolic specialist at Atlantic Health System, optimal health is when your body is properly digesting and absorbing nutrients from the food you eat—without unhealthy spikes in blood sugar, blood fat, inflammation, or insulin levels.
She explains that when you improve your metabolism, you improve your health. This means paying attention to five simple biomarkers that are part of your annual physical exam.
“Metabolic syndrome is the underlying disease that leads to weight gain, inflammation, and slowed metabolism, which lead to poor health,” says Dr. Xiao. “We focus on the entire body, looking for deficiencies and excesses, and help people learn how to build a strong metabolic burn rate.”
What biomarkers improve metabolism?
According to the American College of Cardiology, only 6.8% of American adults are metabolically healthy. But Dr. Xiao is working to improve that statistic. She explains that when she helps patients get these five biomarkers into normal ranges, they significantly lower their risk for chronic disease:
- Fasting glucose under 100 mg
- Triglyceride levels under 150
- HDL (good) cholesterol above 50 for women, 40 for men
- Waist circumference of 35 inches max for women, 40 for men
- Blood pressure at 120 over 80
Nutrition is the cornerstone of metabolic health
The foods you eat play a major role in healthy cell production, energy, and metabolism. A balanced diet regulates your blood sugars, fats, and hormones. It also normalizes the five biomarkers.
But when these markers are outside a healthy range, it can lead to insulin resistance and weight gain, high blood pressure, inflammation, and increased fats in the blood—all the beginnings of chronic disease.
A focus on the whole body
Dr. Xiao, and any metabolic specialist, looks at you as a whole person, peeling away the layers to fully understand the underlying reasons for poor health.
She explains that everyone’s metabolism is different, but it’s generally highest at age 20 and drops about 5% every 10 years—with an even bigger drop for women after menopause.
“We dive even deeper than these five markers,” says Dr. Xiao. A full metabolic workup also tests kidney and liver function, cell production, lipids, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, blood sugars, and insulin, as well as hormone imbalances and C-reactive protein to measure inflammation.
Achieving metabolic health
“By helping you achieve metabolic health, we can slow disease progression and even reverse chronic issues like prediabetes, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and weight gain,” says Dr. Xiao.
“We typically start with lifestyle changes and, if needed, medication. Over time, as your metabolic condition improves and you adapt to a new and healthy lifestyle, we slowly taper down the medicine to give you more control. This is a very personalized and successful approach.”
Dr. Xiao encourages people to start the conversation with their primary care doctor. “These five simple biomarkers are part of most annual physical exams. If your numbers are out of line, it will become the foundation for metabolic dysfunction that will ultimately lead to chronic disease.”
Be proactive about health
To stay safe and healthy, it's good to have a primary care provider who knows and understands your health history and wellness goals.
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