Podcast: Metabolism Part 2

Metabolic Dysfunction

In Metabolism Part 1 I discussed the analogical way in which ancient Chinese medical science describes your metabolism. Here in Part 2 I describe things that can disrupt metabolism and lead to what modern science calls metabolic syndrome. This is the simultaneous occurrence of abdominal fat accumulation, cholesterol and triglyceride issues, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes. These conditions affect around 50% of the US population today.

It is important to repeat here what I mentioned in Part 1. When considering metabolism it is essential to distinguish between form and function, yin and yang. For example, your liver has a physical form shaped like a fat banana. This is the tissue and structure of the organ. Placed into the living system of your human body this inert tissue becomes an animated mass that performs a staggering number of functions, each contributing to the total metabolic function of the body. Liver function can be other than normal without liver organ tissue disease. This is precisely the issue when contemplating problems of metabolism—what is causing dysfunction when there is no disease of an organ?

Function can have four different states:

1. no function
2. normal function
3. fast/hot function
4. slow/cold function.

Normal function is the ideal. No function is death. Slow and fast function is dysfunction.

In the face of rampant metabolic dysfunction in our society, our inquiry has to focus on what influences cause slow and fast function. The central issue in metabolic syndrome is fast/hot function of the liver and pancreas.

In the analogical language of ancient Chinese medical science, slow is caused by cold, and fast is caused by heat. We see and feel this everywhere in nature—on cold days we are stiff and move more slowly; we experience the flow of water as fast at room temperature and slow, like a glacier, when frozen. We all know, and modern science states, that cold slows things down and heat speeds things up.

In normal human function the temperature and speed of our organs and tissue is just right. When in dysfunction, the speed and temperature is either too slow/cold or too fast/hot. Both cold and heat can damage our delicate tissues and organs therefore the body has an array of protective responses to prevent damage for as long as possible. These include warming up cold, cooling off heat by venting to the exterior, or containing either with dampness. These are all immune system/protective tactics.

Our livers provide a great example of these concepts. It is called the General in ancient Chinese medical science, and 2,000 years later modern science has logically observed that the liver has over 500 individual functions. Four of these are directly linked to the issues of metabolic syndrome:

1. conversion, storage, and regulation of blood sugar
2. production of cholesterol
3. production of chemicals involved in blood pressure regulation
4. production of fat

Since your liver is an organ of digestion, food influences its function. With the first bite of a meal your liver begins functioning to produce bile and enzymes. These are delivered to the small intestine to assist in food break down. Most types of sugar must be converted by the liver into glucose, our blood level sugar. The excess sugar in the SAD Standard American Diet, a per capita average of 180 lb per year now, keeps your liver in metabolic overdrive, meaning fast/hot function. This makes it too hot. Then to cool itself your liver takes some of the sugar and produces fat which is a cooling substance. This fat accumulates in the liver creating non-alcoholic fatty liver syndrome, and it enters the blood as excess cholesterol and triglycerides. Fat then accumulates around the organs and around your waist. The fast/hot functioning liver overproduces the chemicals influential in blood pressure regulation. And finally all the glucose being produced saturates your body and demands that insulin is constantly released from your pancreas. These excesses are all fast/hot and require a cooling response, so dampness is produced to keep sugar out of cells by impeding insulin’s function to let sugar into them. This is type 2 diabetes.

Sugar in large volumes creates heat not only by speeding up liver function, but is itself toxic. In excess, sugar is a heat toxin, pure yang energy. It overheats our delicate internal balance and directly damages tissue. Western science has shown that in fact fructose is toxic to liver cells. Fructose is the molecule that we perceive as sweet.
The SAD Standard American Diet is composed of high amounts of sugar, high amounts of refined salt, high amounts of unsaturated omega-6 plant fats, low amounts of saturated omega-3 animal fats, low amounts of water, high amounts of industrially processed food-like substances, low amounts of whole foods in their original/natural state, and high amounts of pharmaceuticals. All of these ingredients negatively affect liver function.

In ancient Chinese medical science, in addition to metabolic dysregulation, the cause of high blood pressure, insomnia, headache, and stroke is very often liver fire. This fire is heat coming from the liver described above, one in a state of fast/hot function. Fat accumulates around the waist and organs and in blood vessels to contain heat. Thus fatty liver syndrome and heart disease often accompany metabolic syndrome.

Another common dietary input that creates metabolic dysfunction is cold drinks and food. Our digestion is a warm metabolic process. We have seen that sugar makes your liver too hot. Ice cold on the other hand makes stomach/spleen/pancreas too slow/cold. With simultaneous hot and cold challenges there is a chaotic digestive environment. There are hot parts, cold parts, and an immune system reacting to prevent damage to tissues and organs from both. Your pancreas in particular has the dual challenge of cold slowing down its function but the demand of excess sugar forcing it to function faster and continuously in its cold state. This sounds exhausting doesn’t it?

There are also many emotional exposures that contribute to metabolic dysfunction. We are not separate emotional and physical beings. It makes logical sense that emotions, especially in the current cultural environment of fear and loathing, challenge our physical metabolic function. Emotions, like food, are taken into the mouth, chewed on, digested in the stomach; fact and fiction are separated in the small intestine, then assimilated or eliminated in the large intestine. Anger and frustration impact liver gallbladder function. Fear disrupts kidney function. All emotional struggles create hot and cold in our bodies, just as we saw with food. And again, our bodies have fantastic protective mechanisms to keep us from being overwhelmed by life. All of our protective functions act to help us survive.

So now you see, metabolic syndrome is caused not by diseased organs or random chance, but by external input, food and emotions, demanding that the organs work in hyper-drive to keep up with excesses and toxins. Your body is then forced to respond to the heat of overactivity with protective responses, namely more heat and dampness to buffer heat. When the excesses and challenges are eliminated your body can slowly undo the protective responses, especially with the help of acupuncture.