So what exactly is the Metabolic Approach?
Based on the Metabolic Theory of Health propounded by Raymond Peat, Phd, and including the work and knowledge of Nobel Prize winners Otto Warburg and Albert-Szent Györgyi as well as numerous other world class scientists including Gilbert Ling, Gerald Pollack, Mae Wan Ho, and others.
The Metabolic Approaches sees us as deeply intertwined and interconnected with our environment, including our foods, our jobs, our emotional and relational stressors and communities, and our ways of living.
Metabolic Principles
1
Energy and Structure are Interdependent
Unlike current medical practice, which is predicated on structure impacting function, but not the other way around, Metabolic Theory states that the two are completely intertwined.
A structural function in the liver or the brain will impact our cellular energetic capacity, but conversely a deficiency of energy will eventually impact and lead to structural problems.
Thus the health of the body is dependant on our ability to efficiently produce energy from food, light, heat, and environment.
“Deprive a cell of 35% of its oxygen for 48 hours and it may become cancerous”
— Otto Warburg, MD, PHD
2
Life is Environmental and not Simply Genetic
Metabolic Theory sees that we are deeply and intrinsically connected to our environment - that is why traditional eating and living peoples, generally in superb health, when taken out of their homelands and fed a westernised diet, tend to get our same diseases, often within a single generation, which is not explainable through genetic means.
What we eat and drink, how we live, whether we are surrounded by wifi and pollution, and how much stress we have in our lives deeply affects the energetic capacity of our cells, ultimately leading to disease and depression.
We are responsible for our own health and we have the power to affect how we feel.
3
Response to Stress is Paramount
Even in modern medical circles as well as in the press, news articles, and blogs, it is at this point well established that stress, represented by high levels of cortisol, is implicated in almost every known form of disease, illness, and poor health.
Metabolic Theory delves into what this actually means on a biological level.
What is stress, biologically speaking?
How does stress act in the body?
How does stress affect energy production?
Metabolic theory sees the healthy person as one who is able to muster an appropriate energetic response to stress.
“It is not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it”
“Every stress leaves an indelible scar, and the organism pays for its survival after a stressful situation by becoming a little older”
— Dr. Hans Selye, MD, PHD, CC
The Metabolic Approach To Health
Once we realise that good health is the expression of efficient cellular energy production, alongside the capacity to mount an effective response to stress, as well as building an understanding of exactly what stress means biologically, we can make choices about the way we live, eat, and behave so as to lower biological stress, thus improving our capacities for energetic expression, creativity, wellness, health, playfulness, youthfulness, warmth, and vibrancy.
Perceive. Think. Act.
One of the most key aspects of the Metabolic Approach is to eat for warmth, and though it is thoroughly based on biological science you are also asked to think for yourself, rather than simply accepting the status quo, wherever that may come from.
A huge piece of this work involves building the capacity for learning and curiosity, even in the face of what you think you know
Letting go of what you think you “know” is one first step - The next is realising your own capacity to enact change.
Nutrition in Context
Though many of the ideas and dietary suggestions within the metabolic health sphere come from science and observations around how our ancestors used to live and eat, there is at the same time a deep holding of the fact that we do not live in the same environment as our ancestors, and thus in order to meet the stresses of our current world, more and different foods may be needed.
Nutritional conversations are based around what supports efficient cellular functioning, rather than simply accepting the current dominant viewpoints of nutritional science.
Hormonal and Biological
Our hormonal environment, from thyroid, pregnenolone, DHEA, and progesterone to cortisol, oestrogen, prolactin, and adrenaline, is absolutely key to the understanding of stress, disease states, and health.
Our hormones influence everything that happens in our bodies and minds, and thus the Metabolic Approach takes time to understand what is going on and how to impact our lives in ways which increase the anti-stress hormones and keep the adaptive stress hormones in balance.
