The group of conditions that disrupt the body’s metabolism is known as metabolic diseases. These disorders often affect how the body breaks down nutrients, produces energy, and regulates hormones. Genetic factors or lifestyle choices, or a combination of both, can cause these disorders.
As metabolic disease can have a wide range of impacts, it is vital to make changes to improve your life early. These diseases can eventually lead to increased risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and more. If you want to know how to delay metabolic disease and live a healthier life, you should follow the three methods below.
Prioritize Nutrient-Dense Foods
One of the first areas of your lifestyle to focus on is your diet. Consuming nutrient-dense foods should be prioritized if you want to delay metabolic diseases and improve your overall wellbeing. These foods are rich in minerals, vitamins, and other essential nutrients, which offer a host of health benefits like regulating blood sugar, reducing inflammation, and so on.
Nutrient-dense foods matter as they tend to be lower in calories, but they are much higher in nutrients. This can help you stay fuller and more satisfied for longer, which can assist in weight loss or weight maintenance. If you have excess weight, especially around your abdomen, then this can contribute to metabolic syndrome; your risk of certain cancers, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes will be increased.
You can slow down the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream through foods that are rich in fiber. This includes fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Slow absorption of sugar into the bloodstream can help prevent rapid spikes in crashes that could lead to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Stay Physically Active
The next way to delay metabolic disease and live a healthier life is by increasing your physical activity. This is particularly important if you live a sedentary lifestyle with very little exercise. Regular exercise has been proven to help different aspects of an individual’s life and health, as discussed in this post.
When it comes to delaying metabolic disease, exercise can improve insulin sensitivity. This occurs by increasing glucose uptake into muscle cells, both during and after physical activity. During exercise, muscle contractions will stimulate the translocation of GLUT4, which is a glucose transporter, to the cell membrane. Glucose can then enter muscle cells independently of insulin. Blood sugar levels will be lowered due to this.
The muscles will be more sensitive to insulin’s effects, especially as the effects of increased GLUT4 activity and glucose uptake can last for hours after exercise. Your body’s cells will be more responsive to insulin due to the improved insulin sensitivity, requiring less of the hormone to lower blood glucose levels.
Get Quality Sleep
Finally, ensuring that your sleep is restful and uninterrupted can also be beneficial. Quality sleep is vital to regulate your hormones, like leptin and ghrelin; these hormones are in control of appetite and satiety. The body could produce more ghrelin, the hunger hormone, and less leptin, the satiety hormone, when sleep deprived, which can lead to increased appetite and potential weight gain.
While getting enough sleep can also improve insulin sensitivity, it is also linked to reduced inflammation. If you experience sleep deprivation, then you might have increased levels of inflammation in your body. Chronic inflammation is a key aspect in the development of several chronic diseases, and this includes metabolic diseases. With enough sleep, the body will reduce inflammation and protect itself from chronic inflammation’s damaging effects.
To conclude, dealing with metabolic disease can have a large impact on your life. This is why you should work to delay metabolic disease if you have the opportunity, and this post outlines three of the best ways to do this.
