| | JULY 2024 9the best strategy. In addition to this, pre-diabetes itself comes with a host of other immediate health risk increases, such as kidney dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, and coronary heart disease.Solving for Metabolic Health Starts with the Food We EatPeople who are worried about their metabolic health can start with an intermittent fasting window of around 14 hours between their last nighttime meal and their breakfast meal. This can help the body stabilize glucose levels and deal with other spikes that may happen throughout the day. Further, talking to a professional who deals with metabolic health issues can help patients understand where on the road to metabolic collapse they are. Because the symptoms of metabolic unhealthiness only present after a substantial amount of damage has been done, it can be useful to use preventative measures. For instance, a simple cholesterol panel at the patient's next routine check-up can also be a good starting point to help them figure out whether they are on the road toward becoming insulin resistant.Eating fewer refined carbohydrates and sugars is also a great way to minimize the overall risk of developing insulin resistance as you age. And moving from processed foods to eating a mostly unprocessed diet can go a long way toward staving off pre-diabetes.The Role of Technology in Metabolic HealthAll that said, a number of new technologies are coming down the pipeline that will allow medical professionals and patients to track real-time insulin levels and better address their metabolic health. This could be game-changing for detecting pre-diabetes even earlier and give participants even more data to work with.For one thing, we're watching a number of companies that are working on other biomarkers like inflammatory cytokine levels, cortisol levels, and uric acid levels that could help doctors see more of the full metabolic picture. By developing tests for those biomarkers, we could soon unlock even more information about our metabolic health.Certainly, continuous glucose monitoring is a great place to start. Being able to monitor any biomarkers 24/7 illuminates the other dietary choices that affect metabolism and makes it easier for patients to make smart decisions about their diets and activity levels. The challenge here for innovators is in finding ways to monitor these molecule levels in real-time. It's simply more difficult to do that for advanced biomarkers than it is for glucose, mostly because they are larger, requiring different sensors to give real-time data. However, a number of companies are working on convenient ways to do this, and hopefully, these new types of technologies will become widely available soon. People who are worried about their metabolic health can start with an intermittent fasting window of around 14 hours between their last nighttime meal and their breakfast meal
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