Podcast: Metabolic Syndrome Explained

Metabolic syndrome is a collection of risk factors that can ultimately increase the risk of developing a variety of health issues, including heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, among other problems. Central obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglycerides, and low HDL are the 5 risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome. Having at least three of the five risk factors may suggest the presence of metabolic syndrome. Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Mario Ruja explain the 5 risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome, in further detail, as they recommend diet and lifestyle modification advice and guidelines to help people with metabolic syndrome improve their overall health and wellness. From eating fiber and staying hydrated to exercise and better sleep, Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Mario Ruja discuss how diet and lifestyle modifications can help improve the 5 risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome to ultimately prevent the risk of developing a variety of other health issues, including heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. - Podcast Insight

[00:00:07] And we are live. Yes, we are. Hi, this is Dr. Alex Jimenez. Today we're gonna be talking with Dr. Mario Ruja. We're here together today. We're testing out a new technology of head to head conversations regarding the whole process. Mario, how you feeling, baby?

[00:00:24] Feeling incredibly metabolic, Alex.

[00:00:29] Yes, really metabolic. I'm about to go through this mic right now. That's what I'm talking about. Hey, we're here.

[00:00:37] Mario and I are, you know, we're gonna be hitting you every day. Every week. Every time we can. As much as we can. We're gonna be going through the airways. Yeah. And we're gonna be using the new technology to discuss exactly what we're up to. Today, we're focusing on an interesting disorder called metabolic syndrome. Many of you have heard the word. But really, you know, tying in exactly what it is that we're talking about requires kind of elaborate conversation. You've seen it in many pictures. Mario, you can pop up the picture there PIP and you can see that a lot of times people see this gut thing going on. And that's one of the components of it. Metabolic syndrome, when you break it down is ultimately and people notice it when they go to their doctors. Doctors are very good at assessing clinical assessments at the point where they show up in the lab work. Now, metabolic syndrome is one of these issues that many people have. And when they're diabetic, well, they are pretty much in that range already.

[00:01:39] But before it happens, the body can stray into a metabolic area where a lot of times, for example, if your blood sugar is over 100 and you're starting to feel like really bad, your bellies are really large. We need to have some parameters to determine it. But most people end up having metabolic syndrome and just feeling like crap. So the idea behind this process and understanding what metabolic syndrome is, understanding that there are some underlying pathologies with it. So what we're going to talk about today is we're going to talk about issues that are related to it. Now, in the areas of diabetes, we have, you know, complicating issues such as sleep apnea, large waistline, people who take metformin, liver disorders, nonalcoholic delivered diseases that we have heard of all fall under the realm of metabolic. But we have certain criteria that we can do that actually determines what metabolic syndrome is. Now, Mario, you've noticed some things regarding blood pressure. Yeah. Now, if you can show the PIP and when we see this, we can actually determine if you can kind of explain that a little bit.

[00:02:44] Yeah, it's very simple, when you're looking at blood pressure, your whole system. When you are out of balance in terms of your sugar, Alex, and your gut is overflowing your belt and you have issues tucking in your shirt. Now that blood has to pump hard. It has to work as a turbo. So what happens is this, at that point, this is what we call the breaking point. Anything over 140. OK, and over 90.

[00:03:27] Systolic, diastolic. Now you're running into problems that that engine has so much pressure to make up for the resistance.

[00:03:38] Yeah, OK. Yes. The overweight, the diabetic factor, the inflammatory factor. You're talking about triglycerides over 150. You're talking about type 2 diabetes. OK, again, type 2 diabetes, basically, you know, you're not born with it. It's something that you create. You create that diabetes. Where that insulin is out of balance. And now you're talking about, again, a very large waistline, abdominal obesity. So a lot of times if you look at people, Alex, they look great.

[00:04:16] From the chest up. Yeah. And that mid-abdomen. That torso is scary. Yeah. Yeah. It's a showstopper, as they say. OK. So this is where the high blood pressure comes in because again, that abdominal aorta, that pressure on it puts so much pressure that it goes above 140 and sometimes it goes over 180, which is like critical, critical. And again, with these characteristics, again, it creates abdominal cholesterol. It creates blood glucose over. We mentioned that over a plus 100 and again, high blood pressure connected with what stroke? So you have triglycerides.

[00:05:15] Clogging up. Triglycerides and yes, this is huge when the arteries clog up.

[00:05:21] Yeah. We have an issue with ultimately all the roads metabolically lead to the liver. Right. So one of the things that we've noticed is that when we assess the liver, sometimes they look pretty good and the symptoms may be highly elevated. There's a huge range of liver enzymes. But what we're noticing is that if we start having a blood sugar that is elevated. If we start having enzymes, if we start having disorders like what we call nonalcohol, this was a new disease that actually just came aboard. We always knew about alcoholic liver disease or cirrhosis. Now we have nonalcoholic liver cirrhosis and liver disease. Now, how did that happen? Because our sugar was too high and the triglycerides add these fats into the fat level of the liver and start actually destroying the liver. So we started having this disorder and it's a huge issue, as you indicated, when we start having HDL levels and that which we measure, we start noticing greater levels in 40, lower levels than 40 for men and 50 for women. We start noticing little trends. We also start noticing abdominal obesity, high blood pressure. There are other areas like ovarian cysts.

[00:06:35] Mario, you've noticed that there are other areas that are indicated that are collaborative or even equal or what we use to determine metabolic syndrome.

[00:06:44] What are the ones you have noticed? The two major ones where we're looking at the studies that you see. I'm going to pull this up for you. So we can kind of get a grasp on that. We're looking at two just very simple.

[00:07:04] Let's make things simple for the listeners and viewers. Number one.

[00:07:11] Right away. You're talking about.

[00:07:15] Abdominal obesity. OK, that's number one. Number two, insulin resistance. So what happens is that your whole sugar balance within your system is not tolerating, the insulin is not effective in your body. So this is where people, Alex, are always hungry and are always eating. And so what I call it. It's almost like you're overeating and you're starving at the same time. Yeah. Because that sugar is in your blood vessels. Okay. And it's not being taken into the cells. So the cells are starving. But your whole body is overeating. Does that make sense?

[00:08:01] Mario, you know, in your practice. Like, how many people? What percentage of people? Do you notice that even have metabolic syndrome?

[00:08:10] Just a scan and again, the literature says 23 percent of the population now, I would say and in our past community here, I would say at least double that to 40 to 45. And it's really, really a point. This is why we're here today. You know, we're here to educate, inspire and most of all, give people simple understanding and solutions on what to do. And one thing that I can tell you with a lot of my patients, number one, increase your fiber intake. Like, eat more vegetables. You know, I tell them that. So what do you eat? Yeah. OK. You know, so, I mean, you come in and people want to get on treadmills and they want to climb mountains. They want to do burpees. It's like, yeah, you know what? You're 100 pounds overweight. Those burpees are going to kill you. Okay. You're going to wake up tomorrow morning. You can't get out of bed. So the major factor to really start to address this is not getting in and starting a workout in gyms. First, we've gotta handle and we need to really educate the public on, the food intake is the solution. That is the primary solution. Medicine of the body. The food is primary medicine. And this is what we're talking about, becoming more vegetarian, increasing fiber, reducing alcohol intake. I know I'm hurting some folks right now. Yeah. Yeah. And the point is, you know, again, reducing. It doesn't say, you know, if you want to have a beer or something, that's great. But again, let's be mindful. This metabolic syndrome is a beast. OK.

[00:10:07] It's a beast that's affecting our parents, our grandparents. And now, Alex, I can see these patterns in elementary school kids, OK? And what they're eating, they're eating a lot of sugars, right? They're eating a lot of fast foods, processed foods. This is one thing like right now I'm looking at you and you're drinking this green. Green, you know?

[00:10:32] Yeah. There you go. Yeah.

[00:10:35] It's like a jolly green giant drink. OK. That is a live food. It's uncooked. It's raw. The vitamins are there. The nutrition is there. It's not denatured. OK. Anytime we cook food, you kill it. Right. Anytime you bottle it up and you preserve it for a month and two months.

[00:11:02] I can tell you right now, you are not eating live. So the rule that I share with my patients and when I do seminars all over the nation and people invite me over, I say, look, if you want to be alive, why are you eating dead? Simply, why are you eating dead? Right. And like right now, you know, let's make it simple. Number one, increase hydration. Right. OK. Have a gallon of water or more is a must. Excellent. That's number one. Number two, increase live foods. Live foods are what? Vegetables. Fruits, right? Juice them. Eat them.

[00:11:38] I mean, from what I understand and what I do is that everything leads to, any sort of nutritional component, whether it's a treatment for diabetes or a treatment for, let's say, rheumatoid issues when there is a nutritional component, many times it's hard getting the foods that you need. So the world has turned on smoothies. Smoothies can date different formats. And these smoothies, as we work them, ultimately have the solution. Now, what kind of smoothies? What's the best type of approach with them? Well, we have that stuff in terms of awareness in our offices and gladly we'll share that stuff whenever it's necessary. However, the reason is that those inner parts of the cells, those living enzymes, those DNA molecules, those proteins, those...

[00:12:37] Actually, probiotics, even in the fiber, prebiotics, because when you do these smoothies or even do juicing that fiber you eat, that fiber that sometimes is lost while you do it juicy, juicing. This is important for the bacteria. So that helps even with disorders, such as leaky gut or intestinal dysbiosis, because they all come together. Someone who has metabolic syndrome most likely has leaky gut and vise versa. And not every single time, we can assess that, but what we want to do is we want to assess a person completely in terms of the drugs. You pretty much know that your doctor is trying to get you away from diabetes because you're in that losing control place when you're taking metformin.

[00:13:20] Metformin is very powerful, it's a special medication that ultimately guides to restores the blood sugar back to where or it makes it more effective or makes you less insulin tolerant and more sensitive. So there's a lot of things that we're looking at that are useful for us. But one of the things is, well, what am I going to do with this?

[00:13:41] How am I going to get better? Well, diet? Diet has everything to start with. You start with your diet. You start with being vegetarian. You start with Mediterranean style foods. What kind of techniques do you use in terms of diets? Because I can go off and explain those things. But I want you to kind of get. Simple.

[00:13:56] You know, simplicity is golden. Complexity is chaos, Alex. The more complex we make it for ourselves, the more likely it is that we're going to quit. OK. You can't sustain complex things. We need to make them simple. So number one, as much as possible, eat raw, eat live foods. That's number one. Number two. Number two, stop eating processed things like you're talking about like high corn sirup, like simple, stop drinking Cokes and all of these fruity drinks and everything else, you know. And it tells you right there on the bottle, right there on a can. It's 10 percent fruit. Do you know what 10 percent means? It's not 100 percent. There's a missing zero, baby. OK. It's missing. So you know what? After a while, you're gonna be missing off the planet. OK. You're going to be extinct. Yeah. So, yeah. We need to get real, you know, this is real stuff. Like I can tell you, you know, I visit, I do home visits sometimes because I give back to the community and I go to families and I sit there and, you know, people are losing legs. People are losing limbs. They have wound care, you know. They have, you know, they have issues in terms of that. And that's painful, not only for the person but for the whole family. So you know what? I take this very seriously. We take this very seriously at the show. You know, we want to make it live. We want to make it interesting. But I want to tell you right now, I'm not playing games. This is not game time. This is showtime. And so in terms of that, get off the Cokes, get off the fruity drinks, get off the candy bars. OK. You know, I think that commercial with Snickers, they need to change that. You know, instead of the Snickers satisfy, how about the Snickers gonna kick your ass? How about that one? Yeah, yeah. I said it. Thank you. I think we are physicians so we can say that word. Right. So that's what's happening. And then again, the lifestyle. If you're drinking, the two things I can tell you right now. Yeah. Two things that are going to kick you in your gut, no pun intended. Metabolic boys and girls. OK. Number one is going to be smoking. And number two is going to be alcohol. You do those two.

[00:16:16] OK. And here it is. I'm going to tell you what it's, you know, can you find that on the slide. OK. It's gonna be the statistic. Oh, here it is. There. Bam, right there. Pull that up. Yeah, ok. Bam. OK. So if you're looking at that, I'm going to tell you this is scary. Lifestyle factors, the two factors right there. Can you enlarge that? So we can see that. We can do that. OK. Excellent. I appreciate that. That's all big. There it is. So now watch this. Do you see this? OK. Here it is. The number one life factor right here. Number one, is that? Yes. The one right here? OK. Now watch. I want to circle this. OK, where is it? It's right there. Tools. I'll get it for you. OK. Go ahead. Circle that, smoking and heavy drinking. Okay. I just want everyone to kind of take note, smoking and heavy drinking. That is one of the most destructive things that you can do right now. And guess what? Most people do them together, don't they? Yes, sir. That's it. So now watch, the ratio that metabolic syndrome affecting the man. OK. This is, again, something new. Mm-hmm. It's affecting the man less than the women. Do you see that, guys? Yes, I do. Look at that. The women is 4.45. The women are affected most out of everyone. Out of everyone. And the men are at1.85. Now, the lesser evil is heavy drinking and poor diet, and the less one is smoking and physical activity. But if you really look at it, that's what's scary, smoking and heavy drinking. And this has really come down to a shift.

[00:18:04] You know, you used to be that men smoked and men drink. Now it's changed, Alex. This is scary because it's affecting, you know, momma is the boss. And to me, you know, mom is the doctor in the house. OK. And no, I don't want to take responsibility for the man because you know what? We need to be the head, not the tail, but at the same time, who is going to take care of the kids?

[00:18:28] It's got to be mama. You know, most of the time. Who's going to take the kids to the doctor? Who's gonna be wrong? So we need moms healthy. We need moms healthy. OK. We can, you know, because there's a saying that says this, Alex. When mom ain't happy. Dad ain't happy.

[00:18:44] Nobody's happy. No, thank you. Here, even the dog ain't happy, Alex. He's leaving now. He's gone. He's gone.

[00:18:52] I happen to know a lot of, I think after about 40, I think that in general there's a tendency for the love of wine and it gets a little crazy for a wine to three a night. Yeah. This leads to metabolic syndrome. So we need to. Moderation is key. Right. Yeah. So we're going to you know, if you're if one of the biggest treatments is cardio, well why give yourself those extra calories and doing their process?

[00:19:19] Now one glass is fine. I understand that. But we don't have to go crazy with the wine in the evening because it's a more relaxing thing. You know, there's always women's night out, right? You know, I mean, it's shot here, but women's night out. You know, and when there's women's night out. And for many women, it's a little bit of vino. So we need to kind of cater to those things, shall I say.

[00:19:39] And it's woman's night out. But it's not all night, baby, you know?

[00:19:42] Yeah, OK. I mean, you know, there is.

[00:19:45] Exactly. I mean, you know, let's have a glass but not the bottle, baby. Come on. Well, you know. Right. If you have 4 people a bottle is OK. OK. I said wine. Okay. I'm sorry. I lost. I lost the meaning of that. Go ahead Alex. Yeah.

[00:19:57] So the bottom line is, that we're here to bring in awareness of this disorder, which is metabolic syndrome.

[00:20:05] Honestly, I've been going to school for a long time. And this is a new revelation of the last decade.

[00:20:12] The gastroenterologist is really focusing on. They're the first to see it, the dimensions of. And here's the thing. Crazy metabolic syndrome leads to nonalcoholic, fatty liver disease. And you were seeing this in rampant levels, literally. Gallstones. Exactly. Because the liver, the cholesterol issues, all these dynamic changes are affecting even our children. We're having kids with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Why? Too much sugar? Too much sugar? We have to control the sugars. And there are things that we can do in our diets. Plan on bringing all those concepts.

[00:20:46] But we want to bring awareness as to what happens. Lack of sleep, cortisol raising, you know, all this kind of stuff alters the blood sugar in our system. So it's very important to do the best we can. Exercising is awesome for this stuff in terms of cardiogenic exercises, cardiometabolic dynamics, though. That's where we want to still focus on. We have to do a little bit of cardio. We got to, you know, eat more of vegetables, greens, juicing, those kinds of things sleep better. It's important to sleep.

[00:21:15] Alex. Oh, OK. I want to jump in because I know we're jumping here, you know, and people and I like the fact what you mentioned earlier, you know, we want to, you know, get some wine and some things to relax. Why don't we do this? I encourage people to meditate. OK. And to try to create some stress management strategies. OK. Right.

[00:21:38] Like a nice, you know, nice warm cup of tea an hour before we go to sleep. You know, some chamomile tea and I mean, you know, chamomile, you know, and.

[00:21:50] Yeah. Good stuff. Yerba buena. You know, stuff like that. You heard about it? Yeah. Yeah. So.

[00:21:56] So you know, all of these things. Meditation because why? Stress levels, as you mentioned, I'm on one accord with that stress level increase cortisol, which contracts, arterial function and then decreases dopamine.

[00:22:13] OK, and oxytocin, which is like the love thing going on. OK. And so now all of this creates sleep apnea. And how many people do you know, Alex, that suffers from sleep apnea and instead of dealing with the causation? OK. So this is why chiropractic is such a beautiful thing.

[00:22:35] You know, for 25 plus years, a quarter of a century plus, you know, between both of us, we're like, gosh, 60 plus years. Correct? Yes, 60 plus years. All right. Chiropractic and chiropractors have such a beautiful story and beautiful platform because we're all about natural healing and helping our community and our country at very, very cost-effective.

[00:23:09] You know, we do one of the most cost-effective ways of not only treating health but preventing health. And we are ambassadors of health. I mean. And so this is where when we're talking about, again, sleep apnea, meditation, I see so many people in my practice, they're taking a pill to go to sleep.

[00:23:32] Every night.

[00:23:34] They suffer from depression. They suffer from anxiety. Okay. And then I look and I go, you know what? Let's talk about your lifestyle. What are you doing? What are you doing every day to put your body in a high, intense, inflammatory system in high, intense stress? Yeah, you're redlining. I always tell people. Right now you're redlining it's just like a car. You cannot maintain it. You better change gears, otherwise, you're going to blow the engine. And this is what I see, sleep apnea. Sleep is again, all the way from athletics to life function. That is where the neuroreceptors neuroplasticity, Alex. Okay. That's where we heal. We recover. We reset for the next fight, which is early in the morning. And if we don't do that, we go to the next day with that fog. Yeah. You know that mental fog. Alex. Hey, you know, and this is where people say, you know, I can't focus. I'm forgetting, you know, and I don't know what's happening, you know, and I'm going, you know why you're not sleeping?

[00:24:47] Exactly. You know, we've done the studies and the studies specifically about sleep. If you're a person that you need seven hours of sleep and you miss one hour, just one hour of sleep.

[00:24:58] The mind is very just speaking about just the brain fog that happens with this metabolic syndrome because it really starts disrupting everything. One hour of sleep actually diminishes your ability to be creative. Creativity. Yes, the brain is altered. And you may think that you know, 25 percent by one hour, it makes a difference. But literally two hours of sleep, you lose 50 percent of your creativity if you lose four hours of sleep. Well, no one of those when you just push it like four hours. Your creativity is so low that even just trying to figure out how to find where your keys are or creativity, how to solve problems, how to deal with issues, you go to work and someone's got some drama. It stresses you out and metabolically and then what would a lot of people do? You go to work. You jack yourself up with some coffee and then you grab what? Many people grab the donut instantly, send in the blood sugar into chaos. This constant repetitive issue of habits leads to the disorder of metabolic syndrome.

[00:26:02] The body, the body. Alex cannot sustain us. You know, you can't. As I mentioned before, you can't drive that, that your car in first gear going 80 miles an hour. You cannot. And so it's going to rip at the seams. The gasket is going to come off. The oil is going to spray out. OK. And this is what's happening. If you really look at the body, we look at the HDL cholesterol, it's lower than 40. They should be the highest, high density.

[00:26:33] High density should be the highest. Cholesterol, good cholesterol stuff.

[00:26:37] You know, you want, LDL should be low and the HDL should be high. You're looking at insulin. You're looking at strokes. You're looking at again, you know, triglycerides over 150, you know, sleep apnea again, more than ever. Now I'm hearing about it. Polycystic ovaries. I just hear this, you know. You know, I have another surgery. You know, I have cysts.

[00:27:04] I have this with all of these things. If we really look at it, we are seeing that we are pushing ourselves over the cliff. Yeah, OK. And then I'm going to throw this in there with the onset of overuse of cell phones by adults and by youth. Now it is disrupting the cognitive pattern, the focus pattern. And it's throwing people where they don't go to sleep because they have a cell phone in front of them at 11 o'clock at night in bed. You know, and then you're talking about like one hour less than two hours. Well, let me tell you, the worst thing you could do, Alex, is have your cell phone next to your head with the radiation, with the sounds every time that phone beeps. Tweaks a bell, sounds for an email or your Facebook. Guess what your subconscious in your brain does? It wakes up. It wakes up and bam, it blows up.

[00:28:11] That REM sleep you only have. What is it, Alex? What, ten, 10 minutes, less than 15 minutes, of REM sleep? Oh, there's a lot of. What is it?

[00:28:20] What happens is the body goes into a bunch of different stages as it does. What we've learned over the years is that we used to believe that REM was something intermittent. It goes into these deep, deep levels throughout the night.

[00:28:31] Your body temperature, what your blood sugars at, what's your mental state, what's your tired levels is, what your electrolyte balance is. This matters. So sleeping is very important. So in the restoration of your body through to get it back in order. Sleep is one of the greatest ways to be able to restore the body. So it's important to try to you know, if you go to bed at 10, push yourself to start working the process, to go to bed probably about an hour earlier or start working. And the TV is going to be there. They're going to keep on going 24/7. But, you know, we're the ones dealing with the issue later on in the next day where we are brain doesn't work well.

[00:29:10] Our bodies are needing carbohydrates, our foods are. And don't eat, you know, and put yourself on one of the things that I encourage. Again, my children and, you know, Karen and the kids. Is this. Put your cell phone in the kitchen and get a real alarm clock. I don't think they make them anymore, do they? They don't make alarm clocks anymore. Now, forget it. What's an alarm clock? It's kind of like a pager, Alex. You know what? We're gonna get to the point where we're going to say, hey, do you have an alarm clock? And I go, now I've got a pager. All right. Okay. It's ridiculous. We need to have a phone in the kitchen. You remember back in the days with that long cord. About like 80 yards. You used to take it in your room for those private sessions, you know, with your girlfriend and all of that.

[00:29:58] Well, let me tell you, that cell phone needs to be in the kitchen. It needs to be turned off. Okay. And then you need to have an alarm clock next to your bed. You need to honor sleep. You cannot eat foods before you go to sleep. Go to sleep hungry.

[00:30:16] One of the things that I'm reading more and more in terms of research and in terms of data. Go to sleep, hunger, you're not going to die. All right. Calm down. Well, I know what you're talking about. Yes. Intermittent fasting. Absolutely. OK. Yeah. Yeah. You can't. I mean, at the end, you know, let's say 8:00. That's enough. Put the burger down.

[00:30:35] Yeah. Look at that. You know.

[00:30:37] You know, 300 years ago, we would be we many of us were nomadic. You know, people live culturally on the sides of the earth. And the terrain was different. We got the food during the daytime. Nighttime was a time when you kind of just, you know, settled in. All right. If you did, have you had some grains, some nuts, and it was different. So just by using the sunlight in order to kind of like you, as soon as the sun comes up, you can eat and shut off at night if you get really good and you start using what we're learning, that is a great method, which is intermittent fasting. The body has the ability to rectify itself. This is an amazing, metabolic syndrome or not. The body even activity stream has the ability to rectify itself.

[00:31:23] So if you allow the body to cleanse itself throughout the day, let's say you do an eating cycle of only eight hours on a window, so to speak. Well, you got a good, you know, 16 hours of what period of where your body breaks things down. Well, the metabolic processes of the breakdown of usually the mitochondria, the mitochondria, as it starts working, the process needs to rest. Our bodies need to rest. I mean, if I told you to cut the grass, Mario, you know, cut the grass. And as soon as you walked in the house and you were done and I gave you some lemonade and you were just kinda, that was rough. And I said, go back and cut it again. Right. And then also you go back out and you're like, wow, this is crazy. When what kind of guy? And then right when you're tired and you're shaking because you have no energy and you're about to go to bed. All right. And you go get up because you're gonna go cut the grass again and you never let the body rest. Eventually, your body breaks down. That's what happens with mitochondria. If you're constantly eating, you're constantly going through a process, burn out, burning, burning and burning. It needs time to settle and relax, to recover. And that's what metabolic syndrome recovery process is. Do we try to calm the body through sleep, through lifestyle changes, through blood sugar issue changes? And little by little, we'll start getting back control of your life because otherwise you have increased steroid or what we call a cortisol steroid production, which then makes the body store fat. Right. And then that's where you get the belly issues because one of the first indicators of metabolic syndrome is a big belly. Right. For a woman, it's over a certain amount, over 35 inches. And for men, anywhere over 40, that's a lot of people over 40 inches. You pretty much have a kickoff towards metabolic syndrome.

[00:33:00] And how many times have you heard in your practice, Alex? You know, people come in and go, you know, I just need to lose weight. I just need to lose weight. And, you know, I look at him and I go, you know, forget about the weight.

[00:33:14] What are you doing?

[00:33:15] Are you sleeping well? All right. Right. Exactly. I mean, first. I mean, let's forget about the weight. The body knows how to calibrate, Alex. It knows how to calibrate. It knows the zone, the sweet zone, the target zone. It knows genetically DNA, RNA. We have an innate intelligence. OK. We learned this in school and chiropractic school.

[00:33:38] The body has innate intelligence to know how to heal, to know how to recover, to know how to grow. And to know how to survive when we put undue stress to our system, to that fiber optics, to that circuit, we blow it and then it goes a wall. And that's what happened. So I tell people, you know, no, the answer is not for you to go to a gym for 20 hours a day. No. Why don't you start with letting go of high corn, syrup high fructose corn, syrup drinks?

[00:34:17] Why don't you do that first? That's what I tell them right away. Do that first. Number two, eat more fiber. What does fiber mean? Eat more legumes. Spinach, OK. Like broccoli. And instead of cooking them. And I know most people don't want to eat raw. Why don't you just steam them? OK. Just kind of steam them a little bit. OK. Don't fire. Don't kill them. Steam them. The other thing you want to do is, you know, get up on a Mediterranean diet, you know, fresh seafood, things like that, regular exercise, just get up in the morning. The first thing that I would share with people is just make things simple.

[00:34:53] Wake up when the rest of the animals wake up, OK? Wake up. And just go for a walk.

[00:35:02] At least, you know, let's not get on a treadmill and break a record, OK? Let's not do that because you're gonna do that twice. You're gonna get hurt and you're gonna quit for the next three months to recover. So why don't you just get up and walk? And then next time walk a little more and walk a little faster and next time walk a little faster and jog. So we need to create that patterning, rituals. We need healthy rituals, Alex, in our lives instead of rituals that are killing us slowly. OK. And so in terms of that, I look at eating more fresh vegetables, Mediterranean, sleep better and honor that sleep. Get up earlier, get up before 5 o'clock. OK. Get up. Get into a routine that way when you when you're not sleeping late. OK. Your body's tired. So now you can go to sleep at nine-thirty, at ten o'clock, OK. And then create a new pattern to where you let go of the cell phone. And I would say, you know how people do like fasting or cleansing. I recommend at least two cleanses a year, two cleanses a year. You know, stop eating meats.

[00:36:15] OK. Stop eating meats.

[00:36:17] And just go vegetarian. Okay. Let your body cleanse, I know you have wonderful programs at your clinic. Alex, in terms of detox, I believe in that twice a year. You gotta do it. It's just like flushing your car. Alex Right.

[00:36:31] From detoxing. We start we really begin the process at the intestine. So from the things we start eating. So one of the best ways to do it is to go through a detox program and the detox programs help us cleanse it.

[00:36:45] You know what? If your garage is full of mud, if you're you know, you just open the garage, you see it's just a mess and your body's metabolically a wreck similar to a garage as an analogy. Well, you can have a couple of things. The first thing we do is we open up the garage and we got to plunge that garage. We've got to get the hose. Or you can take the broom. And you know what? Many times you'll realize that taking the hose is probably the best thing. So when we do detox programs, we begin by helping with the colon cleanse. And we basically clean out the colon and eventually also repurpose the direction where the probiotics go. We actually add probiotics in the diet. We add the fibers, the prebiotics, the post probiotics. And we start working from the intestine out. The body instantly starts recovering. And little things that we can do in the mornings on a regular basis such as increase water, take a lemon, for example. We start with water. We start with let's say you squeeze four or five, three lemons, just three lemons, squeeze the juice, put it in a drink that you're gonna spend all day. Take one whole lemon to squeeze it nice and just take it as a shot. Some people use apple cider vinegar. Exactly. So what we do is we start that well, that goes into the intestines, into the stomach. It is much it just basically showers the liver with a process that begins the process of cleansing as the body starts recovering. You start eating better. You let's say you do a fast and you begin your process of eating at around 12:00 and you stop at six or maybe seven or maybe eight. And it gives you an eight-hour window, six to eight-hour window and that's it. And then you start recovering in that process. So early on, we start doing the changes with the beautiful thing about the body if you give it time, it's all recoverable to do it. And if you teach the body, you don't have to be taken metformin the rest of your life. Now, if your doctor thinks it's appropriate, well, then, you know, you speak to your doctor. And here's the other thing is, is that when you're dealing with metabolic issues and you've got someone that's giving you metformin and as it or other diabetes or different types of medications that help with diabetes, it is appropriate to have it under a doctor's control. Now, the constant taking medications without, having lifestyle changes or not having dietary alterations is inappropriate. It's malpractice, I believe, in my opinion, after being here so long, you just don't give people pills and not change their diet. You got to have a doctor who's willing to sit down and help you out with lifestyle changes, diet or someone that has some staff to support you or a dietician or a registered dietetic dietitian. So that can help you or a nutritionist. Sorry. Or a health coach that can help you. We have to have people that can do that. So to help you with the process, because it's not just saying, hey, take a pill and go off on your own, that confuses a lot of people. We have to have a change and we're here to help you with that. So as we go through this process over the next couple of weeks, Mario, as we discuss each one of these particular topics, we're going to bring it to you. We're going to talk about ways that you can change your diet that simple. Just make it simple and it adapts. So I know you've got some points you want to mention again.

[00:39:50] Absolutely. You know, with metabolic syndrome, the two things that are markers are number one, your belly fat. OK, so let's get going in at home. Yeah. Let's wrap it up. You know, let's button this thing up and make it simple. First of all, it's belly fat. So. So if your belt, when you're buying a belt and you're looking at the little notches and the little holes and they're over 40 inches, OK, 40, you're in trouble. For male. Yeah, for male. And if you're over 35 for a female, you've got issues.

[00:40:24] Metabolic syndrome. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the other point is this. If you have a hard time and you can't even wear a belt, then I don't need to explain any further. It's time to come in and get a coach, get a health coach, get someone to make you accountable because time is ticking. Time is ticking and we need to be proactive instead of reactive. And at the same time, when you are always hungry, you're overeating and you keep being hungry. You cannot lose weight. Now the things are coming to fruition. And on top of that, if you have blood pressure, over 140, over 90. So let's say 145 over 100, let's say 150 over 105. It's time to get real. You can do this. Just go buy a blood pressure cuff, OK? Quit playing games. Get-go. Go to Walgreens. Get a blood pressure cuff and check it tonight. And if it's over. Check it at least. I always tell people, don't do it once. Keep a record and do it for at least three, three to four days. OK. And take it in the morning. In the afternoon at night so you can see a cycle. Bring that over and find yourself a team. Find yourself a team that will that has a program for you to naturally empower you and give you the right tools to get back to your best life ever. It is up to you. It's called self-responsibility. No pill is going to take the responsibility from you. And at the same time, you can enjoy your family more, enjoy your life, and be happier in the process.

[00:42:19] So I really appreciate it, Alex. And I want to thank our listeners and viewers and we look forward to continue the conversation of health and wealth. Because I want to tell you, the message for today is your health is your ultimate wealth. Thank you. And we'll leave it there.

[00:42:38] All right, guys. Thank you.

[00:42:39] And we'll come back tomorrow and we'll add another health nugget, so to speak, for you guys. Two miners.