Power Up Your Energy!

Stanford M.D.: Fat trapped in non-fat cells stalls slimming. Her plan to stoke metabolism, drop weight and treat 'the biggest blind spot in healthcare'

- LISA MAXBAUER

When we have a problem with our foot, we see a foot doctor... our eye, an eye doctor... "We play very reactive 'Whac-a-Mole' medicine," says Stanford-trained surgeon Casey Means, M.D., who believes this approach has led us (and our waistlines) astray. "The more specialized healthcare becomes, the more chronic illness we're getting." Plus, there's no specialty for metabolism, even though it connects to every aspect of our life and health.

That's why Dr. Means, who graduated with honors from Stanford, is proposing a radical shift: Instead of treating individual body parts, let's focus on improving the health of the most fundamental and universal element of our body: our mitochondria. It's the part of every cell that makes energy so all our cells can function optimally.

Dr. Means calls this state "Good Energy," but you may have heard it referred to as being "metabolically healthy." And we're desperate to get there. Currently, 93.2% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Dr. Means says, "The ability to make 'good energy' is the most important and least understood factor in our overall health. Metabolic health is the biggest blind spot in healthcare."

This blind spot is painfully personal to Dr. Means. She witnessed her mother struggle for decades with seemingly unrelated metabolic issues: an inability to lose the baby weight, severe menopausal symptoms, high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar and then pancreatic cancer. "My mom did not know-nor did her doctors help her understand-that the extra fat on her body was a sign of cells that were overwhelmed and under-supported."

Dr. Means reveals, "What's particularly devastating to me is she was working so hard to try to be healthy, but she was putting her arrow in sort of a scattershot way. If she had focused directly on the mitochondria, she would have had so much more improvement."