The Metabolically Healthy Test

What gets measured, gets managed. — Peter Drucker

88% of Americans have markers of insulin resistance, the root cause of the so-called “metabolic diseases,” that include obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

This means only 12% of our population is metabolically healthy.

The nation’s diet — rich in refined carbohydrates, sugar, and vegetable oils and low in real food and healthy fats — combined with a sedentary lifestyle are at the root of the problem.

What are the markers of a metabolically healthy individual?

• Waist: Waist measured at the belly button should be less than half your height

• Blood Pressure: < 120 over 80
• Fasting Glucose: < 100 mg/dL
• HbA1c: < 5.7%
• Triglycerides*: < 150 mg/dL
• HDL*: ≥40 in men & ≥ 50 in women

*An ideal target is for Triglycerides to be less than HDL. Elevation of this ratio is one of the single most powerful predictors of coronary heart disease.

The good news is that with changes to diet and exercise, you can prevent, control, and even reverse metabolic disease.

Companies like Virta Health have seen tremendous success helping people reverse Type 2 diabetes — something many patients have been told was impossible — yet 60% see a reversal in one year.

And research on smarter approaches to exercise like the CAR.O.L HIIT bike show it’s possible to reduce your metabolic disease risk dramatically with only minutes of exercise a week — actually a 62% lower risk in a recent study funded by the American Council on Exercise (ACE).

Your genetics loads the gun but the environment pulls the trigger. — Dr. Judith Stern, Professor of Nutrition and Internal Medicine at UC Davis