Over the last 18 months, the weight loss industry has been dominated by drugs that replace functions of the gut. With the promise of “keep your old lifestyle and still lose weight,” GLP-1’s and their corollaries have been shifting global markets for both drug and food manufacturers.
When Walmart complains of slow snack consumption, you know the impact is real.
While results look promising, like anything in pharma, the details are in the fine print: Where do patients turn when they’re tired of muscle loss? Where do they go when results reverse after completing the med course? How does a person maintain drug-driven results without the subscription plan?
This article explores the role of natural medicine and the benefits of adopting a clean food, obesogen-free diet and next-gen detoxification strategies.
Enter the next generation of natural medicine:
Toxin-driven metabolic syndrome
In the last decade, toxicology research has exposed a massive disconnect between sugar, calories, the onset of diabetes and obesity. In a “calories in vs. calories out” model of modern medicine, patients are left to outwork their conditions. They are told to “diet, lose weight and exercise.” Increasingly, these instructions are netting piles of patient frustration. The promise of better health if they can just eat fewer calories and somehow chain themselves to the treadmill for long enough periods of time is starting to wear thin.
Reality is setting in for those who have genuinely tried their best: You can’t outwork a chemical problem. You simply can’t do it. Where does that leave millions of Americans? Needing a reset.
Educating patients about natural medicine
Teaching patients to ask better questions is the first step. It’s not about the food; food is good. What really matters is what’s in the food. We’re talking synthetic preservatives, plastics, metals and farming chemicals that allow food to grow bigger, badder and faster. Processed food is this generation’s cigarette crisis.
Processed food is such a modern convenience; no one in history has seen a bag of flour last 15 years without rotting until now. Now the bugs won’t even eat it. You can keep your bag of enriched white flour in the cupboard for years with no penalty—this is the first generation in history where that’s possible—because the food has been replaced with food-like products.
Where enzymes were once found, preservatives and engineered ingredients now reside.
The question that needs to be asked: “What are the implications of these chemicals being integrated into a patient’s physiology?” Answer this and you have the next 10 years of the weight loss industry at hand.
Fortunately, a squad of companies in the diagnostic space have been captivated by this question and brave enough to ask the follow-up, “What’s in this person’s body that’s not supposed to be there?” As it turns out, a lot. Namely: obesogens.
Can natural medicine combat chemical-driven obesity?
In the medical literature, obesogens are chemicals found to drive adipogenesis, the process by which adipocytes, or fat cells, develop and accumulate. Where once you’d spend immature progenitor cells on maintaining healthy muscle mass, joint tissue, ligaments and tendons, now you’re left to live in the differentiation toward adipocytes. And as you’d expect, your cells do a great job of responding to the signals they’re given.
What the medical literature lays out is a compelling case for chemical-driven obesity in a world obsessed with calorie-based therapeutics. The obesogens routinely found on toxicity screens run the spectrum of industries, including farming chemicals, plastics, industrial runoff — you name it and you can find it in the obese population of any city in America. Loaded tox panels are not rare. They are commonplace, and the population suffering from chemical-driven obesity largely has no idea.
They’re busy eating the food-like products and getting their steps in, wondering why they are such a medical mystery. How come they can’t be disciplined? How come they can’t break through? Maybe if they just work harder and do more of what their doctor demands. Hopelessness sets in. Fear. Acceptance. What a mess.
But where does natural medicine come into play?
Here’s the rub. Chemical problems are not character problems. The public health education model is nowhere in sight — either through negligence or worse motives. By default, it’s natural care providers who get delegated the responsibility to fill this void — to test, to educate and to advise.
Final thoughts: The future of natural medicine
The future of the weight loss industry has already been written — it’s going to shift — and when it does, you’ll see natural care providers already neck–deep in strategy and results.
The avoidance of exposure to these substances and the removal of their buildup will make or break the patient experience. Natural medicine, i.e., clean, obesogen-free food, is the way forward. Next-gen detoxification strategies are the way forward. Like most things in natural care, it’s not hard, it’s just specific.
BRAD WATTS, DC, CFMP, CSCS, is director of clinical applications at Biogenetix. Biogenetix.com is home to free functional medicine education on this topic and more for qualified clinicians. For more information, visit biogenetix.com.