Rachel's Story

Rachel: Female, 18, Student

It was so hard for me in school: I was always one of the big girls. It felt so unfair when I’d see other girls eat whatever they wanted, without even having to think about it, and I had to be so careful not to eat anything between meals: I'd gain weight straight away. I was always hungry: I’d eat bowls and bowls of cereal, have a healthy dinner with a delicious salad and protein, like steak or chicken or fish, and still feel like I was starving. That’s my biggest memory of being a kid: always feeling hungry.

My parents were worried when my weight kept going up even with all of the sports I was playing. I was doing basketball and tennis, I was on the swim team and eating healthily, so they took me to a doctor. The doctor acted like he blamed me and my mom: he said; “you should make her eat more fruit and vegetables, you should stop giving her snacks and big portions,” the usual. That really hurt. I wasn't just being greedy. My parents had always made sure me and my sister and little brother ate well and had no junk food, or soda, and had always encouraged exercise, so nothing made sense. When my weight just kept on going up, they assumed I’d just been lazy and lied about my diet, eating food outside at my friends’ homes. I was angry and depressed too, and felt it was my fault for so long. My siblings are thin, nothing like me. I was so hungry at night all I would think about was food. I did not consume food: it consumed me.

Now, just 6 months after the Precision Medicine Analysis that uncovered the genetic and metabolic reason that caused my insatiable cravings, the doctor gave me the right medicine, it is a prescription and some supplements, too. I lost over 50 pounds! Fifty pounds, do you believe it? I feel amazing! I am at a perfect weight, my clothes fit amazingly, and I have so much more energy. I feel so much happier now, everyone comments on that too. I really am happy: but the biggest change is not how I look.

It is the ability to stop eating when I am full. I don’t think about food, or feel hungry all the time. I feel in control of my body. I am so proud of myself and I feel like I can take on the world and be a regular teenager and start thinking about college and good stuff in my life.

What’s the science behind this success story?

Florence Comite MD

Rachel’s G-Print showed very clearly that something was going on beneath the surface: and it wasn’t her eating habits or what her parents were feeding her. Certain ethnicities, including Mexican, Hispanic, Sephardic, Italian, and Spanish women and girls have variants in their genome that leads to insatiable cravings, especially for carbohydrates. Many of these young women are simply hungry all the time. We help each of them by placing a “continuous glucose monitor or CGM” which reveals what food triggers a rise in sugar, that helps them adjust how to eat. These young women require certain prescriptions and supplements, and when Rachel got the right medication, we transformed how Rachel’s mind and body thought and responded to hunger, and ultimately, how her she processed food.

Now Rachel is a confident young woman who can take on anything: without worrying about what an insatiable appetite and inability to control her intake.