I have been active as a doctor for more than 36 years. My subspecialty is endocrinology which includes studying hormone-producing glands and organs, hypertension, obesity, and diabetes. During the past three decades as a doctor and scientist, I have learned that adipose tissue produces many hormones that regulate appetite and inflammation. I sometimes find it a bit ironic that as being overweight has become more common in the Western world during these last decades, adipose tissue has become the largest hormone-producing tissue, or gland, in most of us. This was not known when I studied medicine in the 1980s, nor when I started working at the endocrine department at Linköping University Hospital in 1992.
Many of my patients have tried to follow lifestyle advice that has often had completely improper effects on their health or sense of well-being. For example, I have had several patients who tried to “run away” from their high blood pressures and obesity by listening to peers prescribing “extra hard exercise.” I have tried to explain that increased exercise has extremely small effects on reducing blood pressure– actually more or less none at all if you also consider that blood pressure increases to about 200 mmHg during the actual running.
I have published papers on hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes, obesity, kidney failure, ambulatory and home blood pressure, exercise, red wine, liver steatosis, brown adipose tissue and regulation of metabolic rate. Recently I have become interested in the acute and long-term effects of nicotine. Indeed, in a cross-over trial I was PI of a trial that showed very small effects from the nicotine in strong snus on blood pressure (similar as coffee) and no effects on glucose or insulin levels. Hence, I salute my many patients that manage to quit smoking by using snus.
If you want to learn more about my trials, clinical experience and thoughts about health in general, I recommend my new book: “Lighten the Load on Your Shoulders!”. It contains scientific references to relevant published papers by me and others scientist. I strongly believe that it will help you live a lighter life as I will scientifically disprove many boring traditional health commands.
