Wellness is a medical condition, just like diabetes, heart disease, or any other chronic condition. What links wellness with chronic disease is your current state of metabolic efficiency.
There are three stages of wellness.
The first stage is that you are well-defined by clinically recognized markers. If you meet those clinical goals, you can consider yourself well because your metabolism is working at peak efficiency. Athletes talk about being in the Zone, where everything athletic is effortless to do. Wellness is analogous because when you are in the Zone, your metabolism is working at peak efficiency. Your goal is to stay as well as possible for the most extended period of your life.
The second stage of wellness is that you are no longer well, but you have not yet developed any indication of a chronic disease. This phase of declining wellness can last several decades before you actually develop the symptoms of a chronic disease. But the blood markers of metabolic efficiency have been declining significantly during this period. Subjectively, you experience a gain in excess body fat or a decrease in mental or physical performance.
The third stage of wellness is the actual manifestation of a chronic disease. This is not an overnight process. It has taken years of ongoing damage to your metabolism for the symptoms that define a specific chronic disease to become apparent. You had plenty of warning signs in the second stage of declining wellness, but you chose to ignore them. According to the CDC, 60 percent of adult Americans have one chronic disease, and 40 percent have two or more chronic diseases (1). The underlying factor is how diet contributes to decreasing metabolic efficiency.
Why is metabolic efficiency so important? First, it’s metabolism that keeps us alive. So, as your metabolic efficiency decreases, so does your state of wellness.
Now for a bit of science.
Metabolism is complex. What ultimately controls your metabolism is its master regulator, AMPK, found in each of your 30 trillion cells (2-4). More importantly, AMPK is under profound dietary control (5,6). Therefore, by activating AMPK with the appropriate dietary program, you have a defined pathway to return to a more efficient metabolism and, consequently, to a higher state of wellness. There is no magic nutrient to do this, but there is a defined dietary system that can. That system is called Metabolic Engineering®.
Metabolic Engineering® is composed of three separate but interacting dietary interventions.
The first intervention of Metabolic Engineering® is the Zone diet, to activate AMPK activity in each of your 30 trillion cells. The Zone diet is so unique that it is patented (7). The Zone diet is neither a ketogenic diet nor a high-carbohydrate diet. It is between the two. The distinguishing characteristic of the Zone diet is that it suppresses hunger, which in turn reduces calorie intake. This reduction in hunger is exactly how injectable weight loss drugs work. Like weight loss drugs, the Zone diet will reduce stored excess body fat. But unlike weight loss drugs, the Zone diet will increase lean body mass instead of reducing it (8-12). Following the Zone diet accounts for about 60 percent of the overall success of Metabolic Engineering®. The use of ZoneRx® Foods makes it far easier to maintain the Zone diet for a lifetime.
The second intervention is an adequate intake of omega-3 fatty acids to reduce inflammation. Chronic low-level inflammation drives the development of chronic diseases that account for more than 50 percent of mortality (13). To reduce this type of inflammation, you need to consume adequate omega-3 fatty acids on a daily basis. The exact amount you require is determined by the AA/EPA ratio in your blood. For the average American, this translates to approximately 2.5 grams of EPA and DHA daily. The average American consumes less than 100 mg daily (14). This dietary intervention to reduce chronic low-level inflammation will account for about 30 percent of your success in moving back toward wellness. OmegaRx® is the standard product to which all other omega-3 fatty acids products are compared.
The final intervention is adequate intake of polyphenols to reduce oxidative stress (15). Although important, polyphenol supplementation will only account for approximately 10 percent of your ultimate success in regaining wellness. However, of the 8,000 known polyphenols, the isolated polyphenols in MaquiRx® and CacacoRx® have the most significant clinical support.
So, what are the blood markers that make reaching wellness a science, rather than a guessing game?
The first marker is your level of “insulin resistance.” Actually, insulin resistance has little to do with insulin but everything to do with decreased AMPK activity. One marker of decreased AMPK activity is HOMA-IR, a measurement of fasting insulin and glucose levels. Here are the guidelines:
| Marker | Ideal | Moderate | Poor | Severe |
| HOMA-IR | <1 | >2 | >3 | >4 |
Your goal is to have your HOMA-IR to be less than one. The Zone diet will be the most effective way to reach that goal.
The second marker of wellness is your AA/EPA ratio in the blood, which can be determined with a simple fingerstick blood test. Here are the guidelines:
| Marker | Ideal | Moderate | Poor | Severe |
| AA/EPA | 1.5-3 | 4-8 | 9-14 | >15 |
Your goal is to have your AA/EPA ratio between 1.5 and 3. The average American has an AA/EPA ratio of greater than 15. Supplementation with OmegaRx® will be your most effective way to reach that goal.
The final marker is your level of glycosylated hemoglobin, also known as HbA1c. Here are the guidelines:
| Marker | Ideal | Moderate | Poor | Severe |
| HbA1c (%) | 4.9-5.1 | 5.2-5.6 | 5.7-6.4 | >6.5 |
The most effective way to reduce this marker is using the Zone diet supplemented with polyphenols, with MaquiRx being the most powerful polyphenol to achieve this. More than 100 million Americans have an HbA1c level greater than 5.6. The most effective way to reduce HbA1c is through a combination of the Zone diet and polyphenols, such as MaquiRx.
It is only when all three markers are in their appropriate ranges that you can be considered to be well. That is what I term as Evidence-based Wellness®. The blood doesn’t lie.
You have great control over your wellness. Using Metabolic Engineering® as a lifelong dietary intervention can help move yourself back toward a higher level of wellness, regardless of where you start from.
References
1. CDC. Chronic Disease. (2024) https://www.cdc.gov/chronic-disease/about/index.html#:~:text=Chronic%20diseases%20in%20America&text=Six%20in%2010%20Americans%20have,inactivity%2C%20and%20excessive%20alcohol%20use.
2. Long YC, Zierath JR. AMP-activated protein kinase signaling in metabolic regulation. J Clin Invest. 2006 Jul;116(7):1776-83. doi: 10.1172/JCI29044.
3. Herzig S, Shaw RJ. AMPK: guardian of metabolism and mitochondrial homeostasis. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2018 Feb;19(2):121-135. doi: 10.1038/nrm.2017.95.
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6. Sears B, Perry M, Saha AK. Dietary Technologies to Optimize Healing from Injury-Induced Inflammation. Antiinflamm Antiallergy Agents Med Chem. 2021;20(2):123-131. doi: 10.2174/1871523019666200512114210.
7. Sears, B. Method of and nutritional and pharmaceutical compositions for reduction of hyperinsulinemia. U.S. Patent No. 6,140,304 (2000)
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11. Kitabchi AE, McDaniel KA, Wan JY, Tylavsky FA, Jacovino CA, Sands CW, Nyenwe EA, Stentz FB. Effects of high-protein versus high-carbohydrate diets on markers of β-cell function, oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation, proinflammatory cytokines, and adipokines in obese, premenopausal women without diabetes: a randomized controlled trial. Diabetes Care. 2013 Jul;36(7):1919-25. doi: 10.2337/dc12-1912.
12. Stentz FB, Lawson D, Tucker S, Christman J, Sands C. Decreased cardiovascular risk factors and inflammation with remission of type 2 diabetes in adults with obesity using a high protein diet: Randomized control trial. Obes Pillars. 2022 Dec 1;4:100047. doi: 10.1016/j.obpill.2022.100047.
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