Exert from Dr. Rangan Chattergee: Dr Gabrielle Lyon is a family medicine and osteopathic doctor who has specialised in geriatric care. What she’s seen and learned as an end-of-life physician has led her to investigate the importance of skeletal muscle as a means for people to live longer, stronger and better lives. She now focuses her practice on what she calls Muscle-centric Medicine. She believes that the single biggest problem with our health these days is not that we carry too much fat but that we don’t carry enough muscle. She believes that if we start to focus and prioritise our largest organ – our muscle – we can burn more fat, improve our body composition, decrease our risk of disease and increase our energy levels. Gabrielle makes the case that the quality of our lives is in direct correlation to the health of our muscles. We might think of increasing muscle mass to tone up and look better. But it’s equally important for reducing sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss), protecting our skeleton, improving mobility and balance, and reducing fall risk with age. Gaining muscle, she explains, can change metabolism, reversing insulin resistance and other risk factors for chronic disease such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. But we start to lose muscle mass from as early as our 30s – so for most of us, it’s time to get to work. Not just that but for women in the perimenopausal years, muscle loss is a very real and escalating problem. We discuss why this is, the hormonal changes involved, and why with a little extra attention to diet and activity, women can offset the decline without ‘bulking up’. Gabrielle believes that we all need to eat the right kinds of protein – and much more of it – at every meal. This will stimulate muscle protein synthesis, allowing the body to build more muscle. But this needs to work in tandem with exercise – a healthy mix of cardiovascular, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and resistance or weight training, at least four days a week. It’s down to us!
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