Why do we care so much about food and diet and its impact on your health? We own and operate chronic care health-related companies. We also own and operate restaurants. We have been fascinated with where health, dietary intake, and lifestyle meet. We view nutrition as a program, or a subroutine, that informs the body and instructs it to take specific action. A corrupted program leads to a corrupted outcome.
Our clinics evaluate and treat several thousand patients per year for chronic and acute pain. We work in an urban setting. Access to high-intensity healthcare is readily available there through several large academic centers as well as government-sponsored outreach clinics.
Unfortunately, the health of people and populations keeps getting worse year over year. This happens despite the availability of cutting-edge medical treatment. Over 90% of our patients have untreated metabolic syndrome. Over 80% have undiagnosed prediabetes or diabetes type 2. The symptom of pain is the final common pathway the human body uses to signal impending tissue damage. Most patients avoid contact with the health delivery system until they develop a symptom they can no longer ignore. Unfortunately, our clinical practice is not unique. Pain is the leading reason patients seek medical care. It is one of the most disabling, burdensome, and costly conditions in the US. Overall, pain care/treatment and lost productivity cost $635 billion per year. What metabolic syndrome and chronic pain have in common is the hyperinflammatory state, or metainflammation.
We have treated this patient population over the last 20-plus years. Along the way, we have discovered some common threads that trouble us. About 80% of the patients have either obesity, prediabetes or diabetes. The vast majority remain undiagnosed. More than half of these patients go on to have significant, expensive complications. About 20% eventually require dialysis. By 2026, the Medicare system will be so overwhelmed with the diseases of metainflammation that it will literally run out of money. We must engage individual patients in better health outcomes in order to change the community. We have fewer than seven years.
We are passionate about returning this patient population to health. We are also passionate about avoiding bariatric surgical procedures. They are costly and carry significant risks of organ injury, death, and long-term disability. We have found that academic institutions avoid this population until extraordinary and expensive complications set in and require hospitalization. It is our opinion that there is a fundamental cultural disconnect. It lies between the ivory tower of the institutions and the actual communities where these patients live. This cultural disconnect prevents patient engagement in lifestyle changes. Also, the Medicaid system does not reimburse for lifestyle and dietary modification for obesity. But it does reimburse for bariatric surgery. The overwhelming marketing from processed food manufacturers targets the urban minority communities. Its disingenuous (misleading) messaging suggests health benefits for obesogenic foods (foods that promote obesity). This combines with supplemental nutrition benefits and game theory. Together they promote the hyper-consumption of farmer-subsidized high fructose corn syrup as well as industrial seed oils. In our opinion, overeating hyperpalatable (so tasty it is hard to stop eating), nutritionally poor food is a major contributor to reduced academic success, reduced employment opportunities, increased incarceration rates, and progression of metabolic dysfunction. It is a root cause of the social and economic disparity.
We point to a category, not a single item: hyperpalatable, nutritionally deficient food. Much of it is built on farm-subsidized high fructose corn syrup and industrial seed oils. Processed food makers market it hardest to urban minority communities, with health claims it does not earn. We treat food as a program that instructs the body, and this program is corrupted.
Not when it goes undiagnosed. About 80% of our pain patients have obesity, prediabetes or diabetes, and most of them are undiagnosed. More than half of those patients go on to significant, expensive complications. About 20% eventually need dialysis. We work to return patients to health through food and lifestyle, without the costs and risks of bariatric surgery.
Medically reviewed by Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP
Interventional pain physician, addiction medicine specialist and obesity medicine diplomate.
Licensed in Missouri and Illinois.
Last reviewed May 29, 2026