CASE STUDY & SUCCESS STORIES
Name: Supriya
Age: 63 years
Gender: Female
BMI: 27 (overweight)
Case history: Supriya is a Cancer survivor. While she got free from cancer, many lifestyle diseases such as high blood pressure, uric acid, sugar levels, and thyroid levels showed up. She tried various methods to control and get her parameters in range, like eating an oil-free and salt-free diet but unfortunately some parameters like uric acid, sugar levels worsened, and her blood pressure did not improve, in fact it started to fluctuate. Despite taking 3 bp tablets throughout the day to manage her blood pressure, it was still fluctuating and going up and she couldn’t understand the reason behind it.
Furthermore, she started avoiding protein-rich foods because she believed that it might be the cause of her high uric acid levels. Even with medications her uric acid was still at 8. Despite taking 3 pills to control her blood sugar levels, her fasting sugar level was at 132 mg/dl and post prandial at 180 mg/dl.
As a result, she developed a fear of food and started eliminating certain food groups from diet which caused uncontrollable hunger pangs. Her fear of food and certain beliefs made her weak. As a result, she could not go for her morning walks anymore.
Analysis & Approach by the top clinical nutritionist: We explained to her that most of the content available on the internet related to lifestyle disorders were based on Western research and the approach for Indians must be different as the causes for lifestyle diseases for Indians are different. For e.g., if the uric acid levels are high, the first important food group that we eliminate from our diet is protein and reduce high purine food. It works for western people as they have a lot of protein in their diet, but for Indians, excess grain consumption is the root cause. We also educated her about the negative impact of low sodium on the brain and therefore eliminating salt completely from the diet is not a long-term solution.
Her dietary recall showed that she was largely eating small portions of grain-based meals like ragi malt, jowar roti, atta roti, tur dhals, etc but the other food groups like vegetables, fruits, protein, and good fats were missing. The food she ate was causing her body to produce insulin spikes, resulting in all her problems. This condition is known as insulin resistance. We gave her fat-burning foods in a time-restricted manner to make the body live on its fat and this reduced her insulin sensitivity. We also ensured her vegetable to grain ratio was appropriate for her condition to make her body alkaline which would help her in both reducing sugar levels & promote healthy weight loss.
The first step was to reduce the portion of grains which includes cereals, legumes, and lentils in the diet, and include consistent vegetables and fruit portions. We asked her to eat whole grains like hand-pound rice & quinoa which are gut-friendly & cell wall intact, making them high in fibre & reducing overall glycemic load. Since fruit causes increases in sugar levels, we asked her to combine it with omega 3 rich seeds to reduce the sugar spikes. We introduced adequate portions of lean and anti-inflammatory protein like deep sea fish, tofu, etc.
Her hunger pangs and restlessness reduced in week 1 as she could see her bp reducing and stopped fluctuating. Since she had a fear of including salt in her diet, we let her continue the same for the next couple of weeks. As she saw her sugar levels drop, her bp reduce and stabilise, she got the confidence to introduce little salt into her diet.
We also introduced her favorite foods and taught her how to enjoy them while maintaining an active lifestyle.
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