Advertorial: Use strategy rather than effort to lose weight

The hormonal/endocrine system is responsible for regulating most biochemical processes that take place within the body. These biochemical processes can all be switched on, turned up or down, or switched off, directly as a result of the particular hormone that is responsible for the regulation of its specific chemical function. Their functions are determined by their design, and they are therefore only able to “touch or tweak” certain “levers and switches”. The medical term for the “levers and switches” that hormones interact with is “receptor” and every cell in the body has a fair number of these. Receptors mimic door locks, allowing only certain keys (hormones) to unlock them. Once “unlocked” or activated, numerous biochemical processes begin within the cell.

It is common for patients with a weight problem, especially those with an excessive energy storing ability, to blame their hormones. I personally agree with them. The only problem is that although many people have inherited a combination of hormonal tendencies that lead to the disproportionate storage of fat or the excessive consumption of food, the knowledge of most of these abnormalities offers little to no practical value for patients or doctors. Treating the endocrine system is in some ways like fixing a computer with a crowbar.

Most people believe that thyroid hormone is the main driver of human metabolism. This is a scientific fallacy. Ask any medical student to show you their physiology textbook - the hormone insulin is by far the most metabolically active substance in the body. Most people with a weight problem have a perfectly normal functioning thyroid gland, producing more than sufficient hormones for their body. Insulin, however, is a hormone worth worrying about. If you don't, there is a good chance that you will find it almost impossible to lose weight one day.

Each cell in the human body needs a continuous supply of glucose to satisfy its energy requirements. Glucose, however, cannot penetrate the outer membrane of a cell without the assistance of insulin, which plays the role of gatekeeper, opening a “door” so that glucose can gain access by penetrating the membrane. Besides this important duty, insulin also has some other functions that become disastrous to anyone with a tendency to gain weight. Instead of preserving life, these functions now reduce life expectancy and increase your chance of developing degenerative diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. But it didn't start out like that…

In the beginning when food was scarce insulin protected caveman from starvation during periods of famine by stockpiling energy during the good times. Insulin did this by stimulating caveman's body to convert glucose into fat and then helping to store this fat inside his fat cells. In addition, insulin also prevented caveman from using his valuable store of winter fat by actively blocking the release of fat from his fat cells via a different biochemical mechanism, thereby preventing caveman from wasting his fat.

Unlike in the days of caveman, modern man does not have to survive long periods of famine and uses significantly less energy to find food and keep warm. Modern man also eats food with a much higher energy content. Insulin, however, still faithfully does the same job, converting all your excess energy into fat and squirreling it off to your fat cells. Once safely tucked away, insulin guards your fat by blocking its release from the fat cells. The bottom line is that the hormone insulin helps you gain weight and then makes it more difficult for you to lose weight.

But, even worse news is that once your fat cells are filled with fat, they start to aggravate the problem. Originally, fat cells were thought to have two functions, namely storing energy and keeping the body warm by insulating it. Recently scientists discovered that fat cells, only once stockpiled with fat, also assume a hormonal function by releasing various chemical substances. For reasons not quite understood, these substances interfere with insulin's gate-keeping role and somehow render insulin less effective. The medical term for this condition is insulin resistance. To get the same task done, the body compensates by producing more insulin and insulin levels rise above the norm. Insulin resistance therefore makes you even more prone to gaining weight as well as making it even more difficult to lose weight. A vicious cycle of weight gain begins that ends in you gaining more and more weight.

Are you finding that you are battling a lot more now than in the past when trying to lose weight? Do the things that used to work for you before, no longer budge your body fat?

If so, there is a good chance that you may be suffering from insulin resistance. To find out all you need to do is check your waist circumference. Males more than 102cm and females more than 88cm will have a ninety percent chance of having insulin resistance according to American Medical guidelines. European guidelines are even more stringent, with 93cm for males and 79cm for females being the cut off.

A logical question you may ask is why doctors don't solve the problem by just shutting your insulin production off? This sounds like an excellent idea in theory, especially if you hear that in the absence of insulin all aspects of fat breakdown and its use in providing energy are significantly increased. This occurs normally between meals when insulin secretion is minimal, but it becomes extreme in type 1 diabetes when the pancreas fails and stops producing insulin. When this happens fat stores are broken down so efficiently that rapid weight loss takes place. (Type 2 diabetes is very different)

But alas, besides causing you to lose large amounts of weight, type I diabetes also makes your blood sugar and cholesterol levels soar, causing many other life threatening medical problems that will significantly decrease your life expectancy if not treated by giving you more insulin.

So, if ‘too much' and ‘too little' insulin are both bad for your body, it is clear that something ‘in-between' becomes crucial, especially if you want to lose weight.

To solve the problem and reduce your body fat, you need to do the following two things:
- A) You must take medication
AntaGolin is a newly developed product that works by helping insulin with its gate-keeping duty. By doing some of insulin's work, less insulin is required and therefore released, resulting in lower blood insulin levels. Less insulin also means that less fat gets produced and stored. Even better, more fat gets burnt for energy purposes because the release of fat from the fat cells is no longer inhibited to the same degree, helping you lose weight. AntaGolin also offers an excellent opportunity to adopt a loophole or damage control strategy for the times that you do overeat on energy rich carbohydrates, including alcohol. This will allow you to maintain your weight over special occasions like a December holiday without unravelling all your hard work.

- B) You must change your diet
Insulin is predominantly released when carbohydrate molecules enter your system. The basic idea is therefore to limit your intake of dense carbohydrates. You can do this by just using common sense, or by obtaining a proper carbohydrate-diminished meal plan from a reputable source.

Dr Smith can be contacted at for assistance with weight loss.

For our Sandton Clinic contact Liane on 082 885 1523.