Despite training 15 hours a week and having low body fat, Sami Inkinen became prediabetic. He attributes this to his diet of six daily high-carbohydrate, low-fat meals (rice, bread, pasta), which constantly spiked his blood sugar, revealing that elite fitness doesn't guarantee metabolic health.

Many chronic illnesses, including high blood pressure, cancer, and cognitive decline, are not separate issues but symptoms of a single underlying problem: chronically elevated insulin levels. This metabolic “trash” accumulates over years, making the body a breeding ground for disease.

The body compensates for high sugar intake by producing excess insulin. This chronic high insulin (hyperinsulinemia) causes metabolic damage like fatty liver and visceral fat accumulation long before blood sugar becomes uncontrollable and diabetes is diagnosed.

A practical, low-cost method to assess metabolic health is the waist-to-height ratio. Cut a piece of string to your height, fold it in half, and see if it fits around the widest part of your belly. If it doesn't, you may have an increased risk.

Focusing on overall body fat percentage is an outdated approach. A more valuable future biomarker for health will be muscle quality, specifically the amount of fat that infiltrates muscle tissue. This fat is a better indicator of metabolic health and may store environmental toxins.

You don't have to be overweight to have dangerous levels of visceral fat surrounding your organs. These individuals, often called "metabolically unhealthy lean," appear healthy but have biomarkers similar to obese people, posing significant health risks they are unaware of.

The common medical focus on excess fat is misguided. Dr. Lyon argues we are "under-muscled," and this is the root cause of metabolic disease. Since muscle is the primary site for glucose disposal, unhealthy muscle cannot absorb glucose effectively, leading to insulin resistance and subsequent fat storage.

Only 7% of US citizens are metabolically healthy, meaning 93% have at least one biomarker of metabolic syndrome (e.g., pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, abdominal obesity). This widespread metabolic ill-health provides a strong biological basis for the escalating mental health crisis.

Counterintuitively, if your blood sugar doesn't spike after consuming sugar, it may not mean you're healthy. It could indicate your body is overproducing insulin to compensate, a sign of advanced insulin resistance which often precedes prediabetes.