Ten Common Root Causes

You might be surprised to learn that weight gain is not just about food! Stress, lack of sleep, and exposure to toxins (among other things) can all increase our waistlines because chronic, low-grade inflammation causes an increase in the visceral fat that sits around the liver. Visceral fat is simply the body's response to a challenge. This is the same inflammation that eventually manifests as disease.

The number of different root causes might explain why, when trying to lose weight, our progress is not linear. When we encounter a plateau, perhaps this might simply mean that we have encountered another limiting factor. Another one of these key drivers of inflammation.

For example, decreasing stress, improving sleep and reducing our toxin load can have a measurable positive effect on both our health and our waistlines within a matter of weeks. And if we address one root cause, then another and another, they will leverage off each other. 1+1+1+1 can quickly become 10.

This explains how the one per cent principle can leverage your "up-spiral" to better health.

I invite you to imagine the progression of metabolic decline, from root causes to chronic disease, as a tree. The leaves represent the multitude of diseases. The trunk represents gradual metabolic decline, from the roots to its manifestation as disease.

I will be posting a series of ten articles about the ten root causes (key drivers) of inflammation and therefore metabolic decline. At the end of each article, there is a self-test question so you can give yourself a score between one and ten. Ten being the greatest opportunity for improving your health. And if you take the time to answer the 10 self-test questions, you can discover which are your most powerful levers. Your own unique health pattern. This will lead you to discovering which of the "ten ways forward" are most likely to give you the most immediate results.

Here are the 10 main key drivers of the inflammation that causes metabolic decline, in no particular order.

1. An unhealthy gut microbiome. Its health is critical to our cardiovascular, metabolic and mental health, immune system, and hormones, including insulin (which is a major contributor to chronic disease).

2. Eating ultra-processed foods. This is not just about food additives; it’s about the ratio of high carbs to low fibre that really does the damage over time by hammering our insulin system. Combined with their habit-forming, addictive nature and their empty calories.

3. Nutrient deficiencies. These may result from either of the above and may cause cravings that impact our eating choices.

4. Insulin resistance. Many years of spiking blood glucose, which may also result from the above, will cause us to lose the ability to burn our stored fat as fuel.

5. Inactivity. Muscle is a metabolic organ in its own right. Muscle gives us resilience to spikes in our blood glucose, protecting our insulin system and lowering risk of ill-health.

6. Sleep disturbances. One poor night's sleep can increase insulin resistance. And the low mood that might follow can result in emotional eating.

7. Toxins. Every minute of every day, our bodies are bombarded with a multitude of different types of toxins. They all cause inflammation and visceral fat.

8. Side effects. No medication is perfect; there is often a trade-off. Some medications may change our gut microbiome, others may reduce physical activity, and others may change our glucose metabolism. Always work together with your doctor when reducing medications.

9. Circadian dysregulation. Shift work can cause insulin resistance over time. And changing the timing of our meal patterns to match our body's natural rhythm can be an easy win.

10. Stress. Chronically high cortisol switches off our ability to burn fat as fuel and can result in emotional eating and food addictions.

I’ll be writing ten articles about the ten root causes of metabolic decline, each with a self-test question at the end. Keep following to receive those ten articles.

I will also be creating another series of five articles about how you can measure your current state of health. And another series of ten articles about the Ten Ways Forward, and five articles about how to create lasting change. That will be thirty short articles in total, drip-fed several times per week, or as a Weekly Digest.