Metabolic Syndrome, Hypertension And My Journey To Put Them Into Remission

...and hopefully stay alive!

Disclaimer: I am neither a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor a particle physicist.   This is not medical nor legal nor particle physics advice.

April 21, 2019 The start of my journey

For years, I have struggled to bring my blood pressure down and get healthier.   This was not for a lack of trying.  I had reduced my caloric intake, removed most carbohydrates, eliminated most forms of sugar and significantly reduced the intake of processed foods and started a Ketogenic Diet.   I even started intermittent-intermittent-fasting.  I couldn't do it every day.   Rather, every other day.   I have been taking a myriad of supplements to reduce plaque build-up, reduce fat and mitigate the side effects of a disorder I was entirely unaware I had.   In some ways, I was fighting a fire while someone was pouring fuel on the fire at the same time.

I had gone from size 40 pants being tight, to size 32 pants being comfortable.   I converted a great deal of fat to muscle and lost most of the fat from most of my body... with two major exceptions being my belly and my blood pressure.   What none of the doctors had told me (based on blood-work and other labs) was that I had metabolic syndrome.   Years ago I had built an insulin resistance and was damaging my arteries, muscle tissue, and likely many of my organs.   My gut had become very sensitive to damage from cox-2 inhibitors that in turn allow my own stomach acid to cause harm to the stomach lining.

What is Metabolic Syndrome? There is a good definition and set of criteria on nih.gov.   About 83 million Americans have Metabolic Syndrome which is the stage just prior to becoming Diabetic.

TL;DR

Metabolic syndrome is the name for a group of risk factors that raises your risk for heart disease and other health problems, such as diabetes and stroke.

The term "metabolic" refers to the biochemical processes involved in the body's normal functioning. Risk factors are traits, conditions, or habits that increase your chance of developing a disease.

In this article, "heart disease" refers to ischemic heart disease, a condition in which a waxy substance called plaque builds up inside the arteries that supply blood to the heart.

Plaque hardens and narrows the arteries, reducing blood flow to your heart muscle. This can lead to chest pain, a heart attack, heart damage, or even death.

Metabolic Risk Factors

The five conditions described below are metabolic risk factors. You can have any one of these risk factors by itself, but they tend to occur together. You must have at least three metabolic risk factors to be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome.

A large waistline. This also is called abdominal obesity or "having an apple shape." Excess fat in the stomach area is a greater risk factor for heart disease than excess fat in other parts of the body, such as on the hips.

A high triglyceride level (or you're on medicine to treat high triglycerides). Triglycerides are a type of fat found in the blood.

A low HDL cholesterol level (or you're on medicine to treat low HDL cholesterol). HDL sometimes is called "good" cholesterol. This is because it helps remove cholesterol from your arteries. A low HDL cholesterol level raises your risk for heart disease.

High blood pressure (or you're on medicine to treat high blood pressure). Blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the walls of your arteries as your heart pumps blood. If this pressure rises and stays high over time, it can damage your heart and lead to plaque buildup.

High fasting blood sugar (or you're on medicine to treat high blood sugar). Mildly high blood sugar may be an early sign of diabetes.

... I have all five.

Millions of people may have this condition and not even be aware they have it, nor how to treat it.

Dr. Paul Mason does a great job explaining Metabolic Syndrome and how it is diagnosed.

Dr. Eric Berg does an equally great job explaining how Metabolic Syndrome is caused by high insulin. These doctors do a great job explaining how diet can prevent Metabolic Syndrome, but the stop short of stressing the steps required to reverse it, or put it into remission.

Keto, advanced formula slimfast and IF only brought me so far.   I eventually hit a wall and could not lose the weight around my gut or remove the fat from my liver.

After reading a few hundred articles on nih.gov, I saw a pattern repeating.   People were halting and sometimes even reversing Metabolic Syndrome by tricking the bodies metabolism into using glucose very poorly.   Essentially, they were using either a prescription drug called Metformin, or a natural herb called Berberine to force the body to not store glucose.   The effect was a significant drop in triglycerides; and with time, a small drop in blood pressure.   Metformin has some potential side effects that make me very uncomfortable, so I am going the route Chinese doctors have been using for about 3000 years and use Berberine.

As of today, I will be starting my journey into the next phase of potentially fixing my Metabolic Syndrome and hopefully reducing my blood pressure with time.

I will update this page as my journey progresses.   I am starting a regiment of Berberine today.

Expectations:

Within the first week, I expect my glucose levels to drop quite a bit.   Within a couple of months, I expect my triglyceride count to drop.   Within six to twelve months, I expect to stop taking or reduce at least one of the blood pressure drugs.   ...trying to stay positive and hope I get the results I have seen on nih.gov.

Update: May 2nd, 2019 Progress Report

I have lost six (6) pounds and I can see a difference in the size of my belly fat.   For a week, I was using the suggested 1.5 grams of Berberine, but I had to back it off to 1 gram, due to ... ummm ... critical outages in the restroom.   I don't need to be dealing with soft-serve aftermath at work.   With time, I will ramp it back up. At 1.5 grams, I also noticed a couple glucose level drops, likely due to the fact I already restrict my sugar intake.   At 1 gram, I am not experiencing any side effects at all and I feel a little better.

Update: June 17th, 2019 Progress Report

I have lost more weight and a little belly fat.   I am burning more adipose stored fat and my ketones are higher.

To sum up the stages of weight loss, since I was not clear above:

Prior to Keto+IF: Waist size: 40, Weight: 315 lbs.

After a couple years of Keto+IF: Waist size: 34, Weight: 270 lbs.

After a few months of Keto+IF+Berberine: Waist size: 31, Weight: 240 lbs.

I am back to the waist size from high school.   Now I just need to be patient and let the belly fat continue to burn off.   I was expecting my blood pressure to be lower by now, but it is still about the same.   Maybe I just need to be more patient.   I can forget to take the Clonidine without any pain in the head, so that is a positive change.   I don't spike as high now without it.

More anecdotal data for Berberine

A co-worker also started using Berberine.   Within a few weeks, they were able to cease taking their prescription Janumet 50/500 and their blood glucose is even lower than before.   +1 for Berberine.

Dietary Notes

I should add that a few other things I take throughout the day are: mastic gum (to reduce stomach acid so my ulcers and aspirin lesion can heal), magnesum glycinate lysinate chelate a few times a day, r-lipoic acid, vitamin B1 from benfotamine, Acetyl L-Carnitine, vitamin d3 2000 IU every few hours, vitamin k2 mk4, vitamin k2 mk7 100 mcg a few times a day, decolorized aloe vera juice, sulforaphane 400 mcg several times a day, kale extract 800 mg, dr. bergs raw wheet grass juice powder, zinc, zinc-L-carsonine, L-carsonine, choline, nettle, milk thistle, dandilion and sometimes a multi-vitamin.   For a while, the sulforaphane reactivated some old "eczema" and has been slowly making it go away for good.   My theory is that eczema is really just a group of senescent cells that can't be broken down possibly due to inter-cellular junk and the sulforaphane helps the body up-regulate NRF2 and thus improve the efficiency of cell autophagy.

Once a month I use Oregano oil (anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-parasitic).   It is a little rough on the gut.   I find it best to take at the same time as mastic gum.

For breakfast I eat spinach, eggs, ham, bacon.   For lunch I either have white bean soup, or a salad with Avacados.

Disclaimer: I am neither a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor a particle physicist.   This is not medical nor legal nor particle physics advice.

Note: Links to nih.gov and examine.com intentionally left off to avoid spoon feeding or cherry picking.   This exercise is being left to the readers that are interested.