All You Need To Know About The Year of the Sardine

Did you know that the biggest driver of modern weight gain and metabolic disease is not fat or calories, but insulin resistance? If you feel tired, carry fat around your abdomen and rely on that daily cup of coffee to function, there is a strong chance you may be insulin resistant. Insulin resistance happens when the body stops responding efficiently to insulin, the hormone that regulates energy use and fat storage. Over time, insulin remains elevated, pushing the body into constant storage mode, slowing fat burning, increasing inflammation and gradually setting the stage for weight gain, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

This growing understanding has led to a shift in the global wellness conversation, reflected in the Medical Wellness Association’s decision to declare 2026 “The Year of the Sardine” and to name Mega Sardines the only global recipient of its Superfood seal. The aim goes beyond promoting another lifestyle trend, and is actually about simplifying what works.

At Gulfood 2026, James Michael Lafferty, Founding Board Member and Faculty at the Medical Wellness Association, and Michelle Tiu Lim-Chan, CEO and President of Mega, speak with L’Officiel Arabia to shed light on this important topic.

Delna Mistry Anand: For years people were told fat and cholesterol were the enemy. You are reframing the conversation around insulin. Can you tell us more?

James Michael Lafferty: People need one clear idea: Insulin is a storage signal. When it runs high for years, it pushes fat storage and inflammation. That is where the risk builds. Many people followed low-fat advice and kept eating refined carbs. They gained weight anyway. They felt tired anyway, and they ended up on more medications anyway! The simple and important shift is this: Control insulin. And you do this by cutting refined carbohydrates and prioritising protein and healthy fats.

How do you actually identify insulin resistance? What are the early signs, how do you test for it, and what numbers should people be looking at before things escalate into diabetes?

Most people miss insulin resistance because it does not show up in the tests they are used to seeing. Doctors usually check fasting blood sugar or HbA1c, which only rise after years of metabolic damage. By the time those numbers are “abnormal”, insulin has often been elevated for decades. The earliest signs are physical and behavioural. Unexplained fatigue, especially in younger people, needing caffeine just to feel functional, fat that accumulates around the abdomen even when the rest of the body is relatively slim, and skin tags are another strong signal; they are almost always linked to insulin resistance because the skin is highly sensitive to metabolic stress.

The most useful test is fasting insulin. Very few people ask for it, but it is widely available and covered by insurance in many countries, including the UAE. Most laboratories will say the normal range is anywhere from 0 to 23 but no, that range is terribly misleading. Anything under 5 indicates excellent metabolic health. Between 5 and 10 is early insulin resistance. Above 10 means insulin is already chronically elevated and the body is in fat-storage mode.

This is why so many people feel stuck. High insulin shuts down fat burning. You can eat less, exercise more, and still not lose weight because the body is biochemically locked into storage. The tragedy is that people do not realise insulin resistance is completely reversible in most cases. It is not an inevitable part of ageing. It is a lifestyle condition driven largely by diet. Reduce refined carbohydrates, increase protein and healthy fats, keep insulin low for long enough and the body resets. But if you wait for blood sugar to rise before acting, you are already very late in the process. So I’d say do not waste time waiting for disease. Catch insulin resistance while it is still silent and change course early.

If insulin resistance is so widespread and largely reversible, why is it still treated as inevitable? And for someone who recognises themselves in what you have just described, what is the first realistic step they should take?

Because the system is built to manage disease, not prevent it. Medical training for decades has focused on treating high blood sugar, high cholesterol and high blood pressure once they appear. Insulin resistance sits upstream of all of that, but it is rarely screened and rarely explained to patients. There is also a powerful economic reality; lifestyle disease is one of the biggest industries in the world. The default solution is medication because it is scalable and profitable. Changing how people eat requires time, education and personal responsibility. That, according to me, is harder to package.

And coming to your question about someone who recognises themselves in this, the first step is not extreme. It is simply to stop feeding the problem. That means cutting refined carbohydrates and liquid sugars. No soft drinks, no fruit juices, no white bread, pasta, rice, or packaged snacks. Replace those calories with protein, healthy fats and nutrient-dense foods.

When insulin stays low for long enough, fat burning switches back on. Energy improves, hunger stabilises, weight starts to move without obsession and that is when people realise their body was not broken. It was responding exactly as it was programmed to respond to constant insulin spikes.

This is exactly why we talk about sardines; it is because they make this transition easy. They are portable, affordable and they deliver protein and healthy fats with no insulin load. You do not need a complicated plan, all you need is a repeatable habit that works in real life.

What is it about sardines, specifically, that makes them so effective for people struggling with insulin resistance and weight?

To put it simply, it works in real kitchens. Sardines deliver protein and healthy fats with virtually no carbohydrates. That means minimal impact on insulin. They also score extremely high for nutrient density. You get a lot of nutrition per calorie.

Michelle, please tell us about Mega’s support of “The Year of the Sardine” beyond commercial reasons?

Michelle Tiu Lim-Chan: Firstly, affordability plus nutrition is not a strategy for us, but an honest and moral responsibility. In the Philippines, sardines feed families. They are familiar, easily accessible and easy to fit into our staple diet. When we saw the opportunity to connect that everyday reality to global wellness education, it felt aligned with our values.