Why Tablets Aren’t Enough: Understanding the Real Root Cause of High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, and Cholesterol

Have you ever sat in your GP’s surgery, feeling anxious but quietly hopeful, only to walk out with a prescription, a pamphlet, and more questions than answers? Perhaps you’ve been told your blood sugar is creeping up, your blood pressure is a bit high, or your cholesterol isn’t where it should be. The advice is well-meaning but often feels rushed: “Take this tablet, watch your diet, and we’ll check in again in six months.”

I’ve worked in the NHS for years, alongside my passion for lifestyle medicine. Today, I want to share why I started The Lifestyle Clinic, how I see these common health issues differently, and why this shift in perspective could change your health journey.

The Limits of Modern Medicine

Let me be clear: modern medicine is incredible at what it does best. If you break a bone, get an infection, or need urgent care, our healthcare system is second to none. But when it comes to long-term conditions — high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol — things look very different.

As a GP, I spend up to 80% of my time helping patients manage these conditions. Yet they’re often treated as isolated problems:

• A tablet for high blood pressure.
  

• A different one for cholesterol.
  

• Another for blood sugar.

We treat each number, each “reading”, as a separate issue. But they’re not separate at all.

Warning Lights, Not Standalone Conditions

Imagine driving your car and seeing the engine warning light flash up on the dashboard. Would you just cover it with a sticker and carry on? Of course not. You’d investigate what’s going on under the bonnet.

That’s how I see high blood pressure, blood sugar spikes, and cholesterol imbalances: not as standalone diagnoses, but as warning lights. They signal that something deeper is happening in your body — and that’s where lifestyle medicine changes the game.

The Common Thread: Metabolic Syndrome

We’ve known for years that these issues are linked. People often have several of them at once: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, even fatty liver. The common denominator?

Insulin Resistance

Insulin resistance is when your body becomes less sensitive to insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar. When this happens:

• Blood sugar rises.
  

• Blood pressure increases.
  

• Cholesterol levels shift unfavourably.
  

• Fatty liver, heart disease, and other problems often follow.

It’s a domino effect — one imbalance triggering another — yet our healthcare system prescribes a separate pill for each warning light.

Why Tablets Aren’t Enough

Let me be clear: medication saves lives. I prescribe tablets every single day, and they’re vital for many people. But here’s the truth:

• Tablets manage chronic disease; they rarely cure it.
  

• They’re designed to control symptoms, not fix the root cause.
  

• You’re often expected to take them for life, adding more as the years go by.

What’s missing is a plan to address what’s happening underneath the bonnet — the reason the warning lights are flashing in the first place.

A Different Approach: Looking at the Whole Person

At The Lifestyle Clinic, we take a step back and look at you as a whole person, not a collection of separate numbers. We ask questions like:

• How are you sleeping?
  

• How do you handle stress?
  

• How does your body respond to different foods?
  

• What small habits have built up over the years to create these changes?

Because here’s the exciting part: when you tackle insulin resistance and inflammation — the real root causes — you can start turning those warning lights off.

Real Results Are Possible

I’ve been running programmes to help people improve insulin sensitivity since 2018, and the results are powerful:

• 1 in 3 of my patients reverse type 2 diabetes.
  

• Blood pressure comes down naturally.
  

• People reduce or even stop medication (with medical supervision).
  

• Weight drops, energy improves, and brain fog lifts.

And these changes don’t take years — many people see measurable progress within weeks.

It’s Not About Blame

If you’ve tried diets, slimming clubs, calorie counting, or cutting out sugar, only to end up back where you started, you are not a failure. The advice you were given was too generic and often focused on surface-level fixes.

This isn’t about willpower; it’s about biology. Your body is not broken — it’s trying to heal. When you give it the right tools, incredible things can happen.

Take Back Control of Your Health

You don’t have to feel powerless or at the mercy of a never-ending list of prescriptions. Lifestyle medicine isn’t about quick fixes, fad diets, or punishing exercise plans. It’s about understanding your body’s signals and making targeted changes that address the root cause.

If this resonates with you, I’d love to help you start your journey. I’ve created a free Health Breakthrough Video Series designed to show you:

• How to read your body’s “warning lights”
  

• How to improve insulin resistance
  

• How to regain control of your health

Click here to access the free Health Breakthrough Video Series
Also, watch the blog’s full video on YouTube: Modern Medicine vs Lifestyle Medicine 

You are not stuck. You are not broken. Your body is capable of healing — and you don’t have to figure it out alone.