By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

March 13, 2017

• Thin people get diabetes, too
• What is “skinny-fat” and why is it bad?
• 6 ways to melt off this deadly fat

Every now and then I have a thin patient who ends up with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. They’re usually stunned. “But Doc!” they exclaim. “I’m skinny. I have a perfect BMI. How can I have diabetes?”

I understand their surprise. After all, it’s commonly known that diabetes and excess weight go hand-in-hand. So how does someone with a perfectly healthy body weight end up with the disease?

Well, diabetes isn’t necessarily about body weight. It’s more about the proportion of body fat to lean muscle mass. Neither your BMI nor your weight can reveal what this proportion is.

And here’s the thing. At this very moment, about one out of three slender adults here in the U.S. is pre-diabetic. These days, diabetes and pre-diabetes is even plaguing little kids and teenagers.

This just goes to show you that nobody is safe from this life-threatening disease. And it turns everything you thought you knew about diabetes on its head.

What is “Skinny-Fat” and why is it bad?

Even if you appear to be a healthy weight, you might have a lot of visceral fat. This is a type of fat that’s buried deep in the abdominal area. So you can be fat on the inside while appearing thin on the outside.

The problem with this type of fat is that it’s inflammatory. It causes your body to release proteins called cytokines that interfere with the signaling action of insulin. This, in turn, leads to insulin resistance and glucose intolerance.

One of the simplest ways to determine if you have visceral fat is to measure your waist to hip ratio. It’s not entirely accurate, but it can give you a good idea of where you stand.

Simply measure your waist circumference while your abdomen is relaxed. (This should be located somewhere near the level of your belly button.) Then, measure the circumference of your hips. This is the widest area of your buttocks and hips.

When you have both numbers, divide your waist circumference by your hip circumference.

For example, let’s say that your waist is 36 inches and your hips are 40. Just divide 36 by 40. This would put your WHR at 0.9. The higher your WHR, the higher your risk of serious health consequence.

Here’s how to read your results:

	Low Risk	Moderate Risk	High Risk
Men	.90 or below	.91 to 1.0	1.0+
Women	.80 or below	.81 to .85	.85+

What should you do if you’re carrying around excess visceral fat?

6 Ways to Melt Off this Deadly Fat

Lower your glycemic load. High glycemic foods like sweeteners, breads, cereals and white potatoes add to the development of visceral adiposity. The more of them you eat, the bigger your fat cells get.

So skip these foods altogether. Instead opt for fresh organic fruits, vegetables and beans. These carbohydrate foods are full of fiber that helps them absorb slowly into your system. This helps prevent the buildup of deadly visceral fat.

Choose clean meats. Commercially raised meat, fish and poultry are pumped full of antibiotics and fed pesticide laden feed. This makes the farm animals grow fat more quickly. But when you eat it, it fattens you up, too. Go for grass-fed meats, pasture-raised poultry and wild-caught fish.

Pack in the protein. Protein is not only good for you; it makes you feel full and helps prevent dips and rises in blood sugar. But keep in mind that there’s more to the protein category than just meat. You can get plenty of it from beans, nuts, seeds, coconut milk, kefir and plain organic Greek yogurt.

Ditch inflammatory cooking oils and foods that contain them. Most commercial cooking oils are high in inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids. Worse, the majority of them are made from genetically modified crops… crops that have been liberally sprayed with Round-up.

This is a deadly combination that adds to inflammation and fat mass.

Your best choice for a replacement is cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil. Other good choices of oil include cold-pressed, organic and unrefined coconut, sesame, palm fruit, avocado and sesame seed oil. If you can find “extra virgin” versions, it’s all the better.

Boost your physical activity. Head outdoors regularly for a walk, bike ride or swim. Every five minutes or so throw in a burst of intensity to help tone your muscles and burn extra calories.

Supplement with green coffee extract. It contains something called chlorogenic acid. You’ll find this compound in coffee, too. But you’ll get about 270% higher concentrations from the green coffee extract than you would from regular coffee.

It works to block sugar absorption in your intestines and helps reduce the production of glucose after meals. Better yet, in just 60 days people who consume chlorogenic acid can lose almost twice as much weight as people who drink regular coffee.

SOURCES:

Mainous AG 3rd, et al. Physical Activity and Abnormal Blood Glucose Among Healthy Weight Adults. Am J Prev Med. 2017 Jan;pii: S0749-3797(16)30628-6.

May AL, et al. Prevalence of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Among US Adolescents, 1999-2008. Pediatrics, 2012 129(6):1035-41.

Overview of Diabetes in Children and Adolescents. National Diabetes Education Program. Jul 2014

Chen L, et al. Mechanisms Linking Inflammation to Insulin Resistance. Int J Endocrinol. 2015;2015:508409.

Pereira EV, et al. Effect of glycemic index on obesity control. Arch Endocrinol Metab. 2015 Jun;59(3):245-51.

Simopoulos AP. An Increase in the Omega-6/Omega-3 Fatty Acid Ratio Increases the Risk for Obesity. Nutrients. 2016 Mar; 8(3): 128.

Thom, E. The Effect of Chlorogenic Acid Enriched Coffee on Glucose Absorption in Healthy Volunteers and Its Effect on Body Mass. J Int Med Res. 2007 Nov-Dec;35(6):900-8.