On The Mall Washington DC October 13 2024
The first-ever rally for metabolic health took Sunday October 13 in Washington, DC, on the grounds of the Washington Monument. Organized by a new group called the Metabolic Revolution.
This was our message to the nation and policy makers:
-The next President develop policies to address the serious problems of chronic disease including mental disorders.
-The U.S. Dietary Guidelines should heal, not harm, our health.
-The healthcare system be reformed to do more than just provide band-aid solutions for symptoms and instead address the root causes of disease.
Hundreds of people turned out to hear a diverse group of speakers and leaders in human health.
My Message at The Metabolic Revolution October 13 2024-
On The Mall Washington DC
My name is Dr Mark Cucuzzella. I am a primary care medical doctor at the Martinsburg Veterans Administration Hospital, 29 year retired Air Force veteran, Professor at West Virginia University School of Medicine, board certified in Obesity Medicine , and founding member of Nutrition Coalition and Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners
I have seen amazing results in my patients for the last 15 years in my practice, in people of all ages. As a clinician, nothing brings me or my patients more JOY than when they return healthier at the next visit. As a friend recently shared with me, let’s fix broken metabolism in the same way that a bone would repair. Fix it. Don’t manage it as a chronic disease .
43% of Americans are obese and over half have pre-diabetes or diabetes. My state of West Virginia is the number one most obese state in the NATION
When the VA was created over 75 years ago there was no chronic disease. NOW one in four military veterans have type 2 diabetes and 80% are overweight or obese . These were once our warriors, in optimum health. NOW, Veterans have shorter life expectancy compared to the general US population. Medications and treatments for metabolic conditions are driving an unprecedented budget deficit in the Department of Veterans affairs.
The future health of our military and veterans does not look good either. Fully 70% of active duty troops are now overweight or obese. we cannot even keep our active duty troops safe from the modern food environment.
Our military follows the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which continue to recommend a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. This has devastating consequences.
What about recruitment? Over 75 percent of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 cannot qualify for military service, mainly due to obesity and failure to meet fitness standards. And that number is still rising!
The roots of these conditions start in young children [*view my articles on this topic here and here] and are maybe even seeded before they are BORN. I now ask my adult obese patients what their birth weight was and whether their mother was obese or diabetic. This often leads to text messages to mothers from my patients in the room.
It matters because babies are programmed, from the womb, to have metabolic disease. The time to start an intervention is NOW, with children and mothers to be.
We cannot medicate our way out of chronic disease. We have to treat ROOT CAUSES. Which are mostly about DIET.
But what about exercise? Yesterday I organized a community running event for our local citizens of all ages. The most joyful part every year is the kids one mile fun run. This is just play. It’s beautiful, but exercise plays a surprisingly small role in helping people lose weight—despite all that you’ve been told. Exercise is fantastic for feeling good and helping people improve their lives. It’s great for mental health. But alone, exercise cannot reverse chronic diseases. Only changing one’s diet will do that.
The standard of care is to prescribe more medication and see illnesses progress. [*our article on DEPRESCRIBING here] Not only is this distressing to the patient but also to the clinician. It leads to burnout and despair.
I’ve done the opposite. For 15 years, I’ve educated medical students and residents on how to follow a low-carbohydrate diet to treat metabolic diseases. Learning this, my students find a new joy as they see their patients start to get better and come off medications–achieve better health, and a better quality of life. We need to restore joy in medical practice–which comes from restoring health.
Fixing metabolic health in America will take nothing short of a Manhattan Project level of effort. We must get everyone in the room to figure out this problem and we must all work together.
The citizens who have made this change for their own health are the strongest voices. And that is YOU.
I finish with what is known as the Stockdale Paradox. Admiral Stockdale and many others survived years in what was known as the Hanoi Hilton- a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. Stockdale reflects: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
So let’s have faith and work together and solve this problem.
Thank you all so much for the opportunity to share with you all.
| The story of hope was Ajalah Efem, a single-mother from the South Bronx. She described her journey from complete despair to the successful reversal of her type 2 diabetes, with the help of my research partner Dr. Mariela Glandt, CEO of Owna Health and also a speaker of the rally. (Nina wrote about Ajalah’s story for Medscape here.) |
Together, we’re demanding a revolution in nutrition policy! Let’s keep the momentum going. Work at your local level and the first step is in your families home 🙂