Medical Weight Loss – Denver’s Diet Doctor

Low Carb High Fat (LCHF), Ancestral and Paleo Diet Resources

Real food is medicine! We have been helping our patients improve their health and optimize their weight with prescribed lifestyle change. We redefine healthy nutrition and teach patients about the relationship between unhealthy refined and processed foods and chronic illness. The science of carbohydrate and fat metabolism, insulin resistance, inflammation and chronic metabolic disease is revealing.

Dietary carbohydrates are the optional fuel and most people consume too much. Natural dietary fats were never unhealthy. Teaching patients how to make better food choices based on the carbohydrate content controls hunger, promotes weight loss and improves health.

Dr. Gerber has years of experience treating patients using carbohydrate restriction with Ketogenic, low-carb high-fat (LCHF), Ancestral, Paleolithic and Primal diets as primary interventions. He maintains a database following patients weight, cardio-metabolic markers, and other health parameters, demonstrating the benefits of carbohydrate restricted diets. The PURE study, Meta-analysis here, here, here and critical reviews here, here and here demonstrate the benefits of carbohydrate restricted diets. Here is a comprehensive list of low-carb studies. We hope to see more research looking at nutrition and the long-term effect on health.

Nutrition and its effects on health have always been areas of interest. Obesity and overweight are truly the resultant symptoms of chronic metabolic disease, ultimately caused by the many inflammatory foods in our diet. Blaming behavior (that we eat too much and exercise too little) for Why We Get Fat is a short-sighted explanation, especially when considering our present day understanding of metabolism.

The federal dietary guidelines (once described as a “vast nutritional experiment”), now decades old, still advise replacing saturated fat with often highly refined and processed carbohydrates, sugars, grains, and polyunsaturated vegetable oils. During those years we saw a steep rise in the occurrence of chronic disease including obesity, exactly the opposite of what was expected. Meta-analyses and re-evaluation of the data here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here looking at decades of research show that replacing saturated fat with the aforementioned foods have no favorable effect. The “nutritional experiment” has been a complete failure as saturated fat alone was never the problem. Read more about food politics, John Yudkin and The Sugar Conspiracy. Read more about food industry’s influence: Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research.

Obesity rates have doubled in adults and tripled in children and adolescents since the official USDA dietary guidelines for Americans were released in 1980. We are one of the heaviest countries in the world. Presently two-thirds of adults are overweight and or obese and one-third of children and adolescents are overweight and or obese. Although Colorado remains the thinnest state in the country overweight and obesity remain significant health issues.

Within our lifetimes we are witnessing these epidemics for which we can only blame a shift in nutrition over the past century. The production and sale of manufactured and industrial food has steered us away from consuming whole, unprocessed and nutrient dense foods. Consumption of sugars, high fructose corn syrup, grains such as corn, wheat and rice, starchy vegetables, legumes and industrial vegetable oils are to blame. Profitable to the food manufactures these refined and processed foods, containing mostly carbohydrates and or manufactured oils, wreak havoc on metabolism, health and make us hungrier.

The science of insulin resistance (a condition now afflicting more than half our population) helps us to understand the epidemics of overweight, obesity and type II diabetes in our country. Fueled by dietary carbohydrates, insulin resistance promotes inflammation and leads to many other chronic diseases, including the metabolic syndrome, lipid and cholesterol disorders, hypertension, atherosclerosis, heart attack, stroke, premature aging, cancer, dementia, depression, liver disease, gastrointestinal disorders, leaky gut, adrenal fatigue, thyroid disease, arthritis, impotence, PCOS and infertility, just to name a few.

We know that early civilizations and primal man were healthy and ate much differently, a diet based on whole and unprocessed foods such as animals including fish, seasonal nuts, roots, vegetables, fruits and natural fats. Ancestral Health teaches us about the relationship between whole foods and wellness throughout the ages.

Dr. Gerber speaks frequently about these important issues to patients, the community and other healthcare professionals.

Office Visits with Dr. Gerber

Patients meet with Dr. Gerber and receive a personalized program encompassing nutrition, prevention, diagnosis and treatment. A physical examination and blood work, including a two-hour glucose tolerance test, will help to detect insulin resistance and other disorders of metabolism. Dr. Gerber will follow your progress along with addressing any other ongoing medical issues.

Advanced Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment

In our office, we perform standard and advanced lipid testing including total cholesterol, LDL-C, HDL-C, triglycerides, LDL-P, small-LDL-P, sdLDL, ApoB, particle size, and markers of cardiovascular inflammation and oxidative stress. There are several companies who perform these tests including Liposcience NMR, Berkeley Heart Lab, Atherotech VAP, Health Diagnostics Lab HDL, and Cleveland Heart Lab inflammatory testing. We also perform or order cardiovascular imaging studies including carotid intima media thickness (C-IMT), carotid doppler, and EBCT heart calcium scores. Questioning the predictive role of Carotid Intima-media Thickness. Carotid Intima-media Thickness testing.

We’d enjoy discussing the new ACC, AHA, NHLBI cholesterol guidelines with you in our office and also addressing your personal concerns regarding medication, statins, and the inflammatory and oxidative components of cardiovascular disease.

Watch our Cholesterol OMG presentation and see how saturated fat consumption improves cholesterol and health as is discussed in Time magazine’s cover story, Ending the War on Fat, and by registered dietitian Joy Bauer in her NBC Today show segment. I’m encouraged to see mainstream now discussing advanced lipid testing including cholesterol particle count, size and quality!

“Can We Evaluate the Real Efficacy and Safety of Cholesterol-Lowering with Statins?” Here is a great review paper addressing this important topic.

Here is a link to the Cholesterol OMG PowerPoint in .pdf format.

Our presentation takes an entertaining look at the history of cholesterol and cardiovascular disease, and includes patient examples. We discuss cholesterol, cardiovascular risk assessment and non-standard high-quality nutrient dense diets that are lower in carbohydrate, higher in saturated fat, and higher in food quality. Diets such as Low carb high fat (LCHF), Paleo, Primal and Weston A. Price improve inflammatory markers, cholesterol quality, and health.

Read Dr. Gerber’s letter to the cardiologist and medical staff. Thanks to Gary Taubes for editing and proofing this letter. Also thanks to Larry Istrail who maintains a database of the scientific literature.

Medical Advances and Updates

Although the right foods control appetite, for some, medication addressing appetite suppression, weight loss and insulin resistance have proven useful. Newer and smart hormonal drugs, called GLP1 analog’s and Amylin mimetic’s, restore normal physiology and suppress appetite. Byetta, Bydureon, Victoza and Symlin used in diabetics are now being studied for use in pre-diabetes, insulin resistance and obese patients.

Insulin resistance and metabolic disease are new rapidly evolving areas of medicine. Stay tuned for the latest updates as they become available. See Dr. Gerber’s Fox 31 news interview – The new weight loss drug Qnexa/Qsymia.

Most Health Insurance Plans Accepted

We provide long-term solutions for weight loss and diet, but we are not a traditional medical weight loss clinic. We refer to these traditional programs as pay-per-pound weight loss. Clients are required to pay out-of-pocket with a guarantee of rapid weight loss. If and when the goal is reached, usually the clients runs out of money and most regain the weight. Unfortunately these clinics contribute to the unhealthy yo-yo effect of dieting.

In contrast, our program works with your health insurance, accepting most plans. The goals are long term, treating metabolic and chronic disease, comorbidity and associated illness along with any weight issues.

We are re-defining the delivery of quality healthcare itself by placing nutrition center stage, thus addressing the true cause of chronic disease. Maintaining ideal body weight for life is critical because there is no medication or medical therapy that will treat and prevent disease as well, period!

Physicals, preventive services, counseling and referrals from other doctors are usually covered within our program. Insurance plans will cover nutrition counseling and weight loss in the context of treating associated medical conditions and total health. We also accept self pay if you do not have insurance.

Nutrition and Health Advice

The information provided here is considered general advice as it relates to nutrition and health. This advice is for educational purposes and should not be interpreted as a recommendation for a specific diagnosis, treatment plan, product or course of action. You should always seek the advice from qualified healthcare professionals like Dr. Gerber before starting any new treatments and to answer questions you may have about specific medical conditions.