Providing independent clinical excellence since 2005
Join us in our ambition to help patients with, or who are at risk of, heart disease. Learn more about your metabolism, DNA, muscle and visceral fat, leveraging our medical expertise to find lifestyle and food choices that offer the best chance of a long and healthy life, with less dependence on medication.
With our metabolic toolkit, guidance and educational material, you can manage a great deal of prevention for yourself.
Gut hormone and metabolic processes that once gave a survival edge to our ancestors during famine and ice ages, can be counterproductive in modern times, where there is an abundance of carbohydrate-rich food sources. Many families have inherited gain of function mutations that preserve glucose but subsequently contribute to gut and pancreatic overload leading to insulin resistance and build up of visceral fat stores, which further contribute to a metabolic syndrome. This is a major risk factor for medical conditions such as fatty liver, ischaemic heart disease, heart failure, diabetes, obesity, dementia and even some cancers.
With our Carbohydrate resilience (CarbR) test and metabolic health assessments, we can detect non diabetic hyperglycaemia years before a diabetes diagnosis, and advise on what can be done to prevent a gradual slide towards the full diabetic state.
Using Dr Shape, many patients will discover food macro nutrient deficiency and surplus, which leads to a switch to healthier food choices.
While excessive visceral and subcutaneous fat stores are major contributors to insulin resistance and poor metabolic health, maintaining or enhancing skeletal muscle also plays a major role in battling glucose and insulin dysregulation.
At SCVC’s cardiometabolic clinic, we offer very low dose x-ray DEXA scan, one of the most accurate ways of tracking your bone, fat and muscle mass.
To order a DEXA scan with specialist guidance, use our contact form.
Much has been written about how modern food processing and agriculture reduces micronutrient intake and create dietary insufficiencies. Add in weight loss diets and modern drug treatments to set the stage for macro and micro nutrient deficiencies.
Nutrigenetics is the study of how an individual’s genetic makeup influences their response to nutrients and dietary components. It explores how variations in genes affect how the body absorbs, metabolizes, and utilizes nutrients, potentially impacting health and disease susceptibility. Essentially, it examines how your DNA affects how your body reacts to what you eat.
With our major interest in diet and lifestyle we have partnered with a global leader in nutrient DNA testing nutrigenomix.com to offer a comprehensive DNA test as part of our metabolic toolkit. A sample report can be accessed from our website.
To order a nutrigenomix DNA test with specialist oversight, enquire at https://www.scvc.co.uk/enquire-now/
Visceral or ‘hidden’ adipose tissue (VAT), unlike subcutaneous fat, causes metabolic disarray. When present in unhealthy amounts, visceral fat is strongly associated with diabetes, insulin resistance , heart disease and many cancers. Interventions such as GLP-1 mimetics, and bariatric surgery targeted at reducing VAT have measurable clinical benefits. Although it can be measured using very low dose DEXA scans, this requires some extrapolation which reduces accuracy, especially in those with high BMI. A more accurate method for measuring visceral fat uses a single slice of a CT at lumbar spine level, where modern x-ray techniques can be used bring the radiation dose involved in a single 1mm slice of a non contrast abdominal CT to an acceptable level to balance against the health gain that can potentially be obtained in our higher risk patients.
This brings CT assessment of VAT from being a purely research tool into the realms of clinical practice, where a low dose visceral fat survey can be a useful way of assessing and tracking interventions in higher risk patients.
The metabolic toolkit is offered to all patients attending our Specialist Nurse Practitioner (SNP) led GLP-1 mimetic clinic and Dr Shape subscription is included in our 8 month GLP-1M care package. This has been created at SCVC in order to offer team-based care, overseen by specialist consultants, which provides our patients with cutting edge, cost effective treatment that also promotes wellness and healthspan.
To find our more, please complete our SCVC enquiry form at the top of this page and one of our patient care coordinators will be in touch to guide next steps or alternatively, take a look at our home test pages