Visceral fat aka “pot belly” is common among South Asians. We are fat on the inside but not on the outside. Some clinicians call this “lean diabetes” because the fat is not easily apparent. The fat accumulates around the abdominal organs and on the liver – driving up chronic inflammation and quickly becoming a diabetes risk factor.
Visceral fat constantly produces inflammatory molecules that makes the muscle, fat & liver cells very resistant to the regulatory effects of insulin. High blood sugars accumulate as a result, eventually get stored as fat causing weight gain and obesity. It quickly becomes a vicious cycle! Fat causes inflammation, and inflammation causes fat storage.
South Asians are genetically programmed to store fat differently i.e. deep inside our bellies vs. under the skin like other ethnicities.
We also tend to have leaner muscle mass, so fewer places to burn the stored fat into energy.
Belly fat inflammation constantly releases free fatty acids into our bloodstream, packaged as triglycerides and lipoproteins driving up low density lipoprotein (LDL) aka “bad cholesterol”.
Certain genetic factors like increased Lipoprotein A i.e. Lp(a) predispose us to deposit this LDL in the arteries as “sticky” plaque.
When enough plaque builds, it can block blood flow leading to a heart attack or dislodge and float around leading to a stroke.
Genes are only a blueprint for the body. Like brick & mortar that build the actual home, lifestyle and environment decide whether a healthy or diseased body is built from the genetic blueprint.
The word “diet & lifestyle change” can be unnerving to most. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it definitely doesn’t happen by throwing a cookie-cutter plan at everyone. Working with a coach allows for personalization, around you and your unique life situation.
In the traditional model, we spend far too much time blocking and tackling the disease with a drug or procedure. We compare disease presentation to generalized disease models to quickly establish a diagnosis. This approach offers no time or resources to figure out what might be causing it in the first place. In the process we lose context of the real person experiencing the condition.
It has strong roots in a person’s physical, mental, emotional and social context. Establishing the whole person subjective profile and pairing it with objective biomarker assessments illuminates the multi dimensionality of an individual. This is the precisely very first step to our unique coaching approach.
Sruti Mohandas is a Certified Functional Medicine Health Coach based in the Bay Area, California.
She embarked on her journey as a health coach fueled by her passion for the science of health. After a successful career decade in pharmaceutical and medical device companies, Sruti left her role as Director at Johnson & Johnson to prioritize her own recovery from long-COVID and live into her vision of impact the health of her community.
Having spent many years working on groundbreaking biological therapeutics and cutting edge technologies like robotic surgery, Sruti was struck by how much was invested in treating a disease after it occurred, often too late to completely reverse the harm done to the body. Fueled by her personal health crisis that stemmed from always being “on the go”, she took a pause to intentionally shift her focus from the study of disease management to one of health. Discovering the evidence-based science of Functional Medicine that targets the root cause, and studying the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda and Yoga, was the impetus for the creation of Mindful Metabolism.