Some of you may remember that I have been on a journey of incorporating fasting into my lifestyle. I dived into the deep-end starting with the five-day fasting mimicking diet, where research is showing benefits in a variety of clinical settings.

However, with the last fast I didn’t lose any more weight and so I studied other ways I could tackle metabolic syndrome. It was my mother with type two diabetes who first introduced me to the Glucose Goddess, Jessie Inchauspé and her book ‘The Glucose Revolution’ and her work focussing on stabilizing blood sugar levels.

Having worn a continuous glucose monitor for the past 10 days I have been re-reading her book with greater interest. I now realise that my fasting glucose is not in the normal range, even though currently my HBA1C (a reflection of circulating glucose) is normal. Some of my glucose spikes are sharp and accelerated followed by a period of hypoglycaemia. Dr Robert Lustig believes that measuring circulating insulin levels is the only real way to determine if someone has high levels and an indicator to pre-diabetes and diabetes, but obviously this is not always feasible for many.

Using my continuous glucose monitor I have been looking at softening my glucose spikes with all the hacks that the Glucose Goddess offers including a salad and vinaigrette to start a meal and exercising after a meal, but there is so much more that I can make use of to help with metabolic syndrome. As ever with lifestyle and behaviour change, there is also something about letting go of things that you thought were important to create a new embedded ritual in your life. I have also been studying Gin Stephens who wrote ‘Feast Fast Repeat’ and how to introduce 12, 14 and 16 hour fasting periods in my life. The combination of softening glucose spikes, fasting and returning to more prolonged fasts at some point, are how I will be trying to manage my health concerns going forwards.

There has been some controversy over the Glucose Goddess ‘Anti-Spike’ tablet designed to help curb spikes in glucose levels. It is a plant-based supplement, a combination of lemon, mulberry leaf, cinnamon and artichoke not dissimilar to some of the supplements that Professor Robert Thomas has developed, such as Pomi-T containing pomegranate, broccoli, green tea and turmeric.

At NCIM we would always advocate using food and lifestyle medicine over and above supplements. However, we recognise that medicine is individualised and these whole food supplements can be particularly useful both in research and for people who are struggling with multiple lifestyle changes. Perhaps some good quality peer reviewed research into how those combination of ingredients in the Anti-Spike formula play out in the clinical setting would be helpful. In the meantime I stand by how important the diversity of the Integrative Healthcare model remains and how pulling things together to make a personal plan based on the individual, remains paramount.