The dietary guidelines first published in 1977, may be the direct cause of some of our faulty ideas about healthy diets. The 2010 guidelines were essentially the same as previous versions, even though in a 2006 report, the Women's Health Initiative, could not demonstrate that this diet was "healthy".

The Problem with "Normal"

What people think of as "normal" controls how active they are in taking an interest in what's happening. People don't notice very small changes over time, until "suddenly I realise I've become fat."

Avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, stopping smoking, and eliminating obesity will add many active years to your life. (My source Prof. David Le Couteur, suggests 10 years.)

Sadly, obesity, loss of mobility, and pain, are too often considered "normal" in our society.

Metabolic Syndrome

There are six or seven "diseases" that together indicate metabolic syndrome. Any three are conclusive. That diagnosis probably applies to more than 60% of all adults. Metabolic syndrome might be common, but it's not necessary, and it's not "normal."

Prof. Scott Fulton (7 minutes)

Published by: WHEALTHSPAN: Functional Healthspan - 9 March, 2026

In studies tracking thousands of adults over decades, researchers discovered this 45-second balance test is the most powerful predictor of falls, mobility loss, and cognitive decline years before symptoms appear. It detects balance deterioration sooner than most medical exams.

What you'll learn:
How the single-leg balance test reveals brain-body integration
Why balance predicts future mobility better than strength tests
The connection between balance and cognitive decline
How proprioception and neuromotor function decline with age
How to interpret your results using age-specific percentile charts

Your balance system integrates input from your eyes, inner ears, and proprioception—your body's ability to sense where it is in space. When this integration declines, it signals that brain-body communication and neuromotor efficiency are declining together.

Our task here is to reorganise our own metabolism by changing our diet, as Dr. Tim Noakes suggested. By diet alone we can convert from using glucose as fuel to using ketones as fuel. After a short time homeostasis will reset, to maintain us in nutritional ketosis, provided we follow the dietary rules. The disabilities of metabolic syndrome will disappear.

Increase Your Health Span

Living a long time is not desirable if your long life is accompanied by disability and pain. We need a longer health span, much more than a longer life span.

Sadly, we deny our poor health. I have a friend, who was clearly in poor health, three years ago, when I began the work that leads to this website. He said, "My health is excellent." His walk was already a shuffle. A year later, a gall bladder operation almost killed him. A year ago a further problem had him in emergency care. Since then he's been "losing weight," and his method is "eating less." I can't help him, because he thinks he already "knows what to do." He's killing himself.

Don't live in denial. It is possible to influence how you age. Too many people over 70 have five or more illnesses. Medical interventions work poorly. But lifestyle interventions work brilliantly if they begin early enough.

Fear of Cardio-vascular Disease

WE now know that saturated fats and high cholesterol don't cause cardio-vascular disease. We still don't know why atherosclerosis begins in the arteries. The best current theory is that it's caused by "inflammation" which might be a lot of things.

So perhaps we can still do a lot to improve our CVD risk by diet alone. The Banting diet takes sugar out of your diet, and that's a major cause of inflammation.

If you take the Banting diet seriously and choose to live in ketosis, you turn on a set of genes that are anti- inflammatory, and that's a superior tactic to the alternative, taking antioxidants.

Obesity

We tend to accept being overweight. All our friends are overweight too. We tell ourselves that it's OK, it's normal. We all get fat together, each giving the other "permission." Our experience of weight loss diets is bad, so we think it's a problem we can't solve.

Poor Energy Levels

How fast do you walk? How eager are you to tackle two or three flights of stairs? Can you run 50 meters? These are simple measures that tell you about your health and fitness. If you shuffle about something is wrong.

Poor Sleep Patterns

Sleep is the opportunity you body takes each day to do extensive repairs and maintenance. You should sleep soundly, sleep long, and you should wake up wide eyed, clear headed, and refreshed.

Lots of Minor Aches and Pains

It's not normal to suffer from pain, although that is a very common experience.

Fear of Cancer

We all have many pre-cancer cells in our bodies. These cells must multiply 40 - 80 times to form a tumour big enough to detect. At each cell-division they are vulnerable to detection and attack. Cancer cells need an energy supply, glucose. They often manage to do without oxygen, so they might also be poisoned by high oxygen concentrations. Your own immune system will eliminate most pre-cancers if you weaken the metabolic pathway of the cancer.

Becoming Frail and Weak

Loss of muscle strength eventually becomes a disability. That disability shows in a shuffling walk, and an increasing number of falls. A serious fall resulting in a broken hip is often a signal of near term mortality.

Fear of Alzheimer's Disease

Like Type 2 Diabetes, Alzheimer's is a metabolic disease. Therefore, a sensible prevention strategy is in your lifestyle and diet. Research is currently being done.

Ketogenic Diet Possibilities

Everything on the list in the main section of this page improves if you are using nutritional ketosis.

For people who need to lose weight, or are suffering from the early stages of metabolic syndrome, it's obvious what you need to do. If you act early in your life, quite likely you need only use ketosis a couple of times a year, to suppress any pre-cancer cells. Act early and give yourself more choices later.

If your carbohydrate intolerance is greater, you may choose to keep in nutritional ketosis most of the time.

It's suggested as a sensible lifestyle experiment that you learn how to use nutritional ketosis for three weeks once every six months. If you are quite strict about it for three weeks, the lack of insulin will make it very hard for the cancer to get enough glucose to thrive. In a weakened state, many pre-cancers will become vulnerable to attack by the immune system.