fasting Archives - McGillespie

by Dr. Mercola

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

Insulin is key to health and disease prevention, and controlling your carbohydrate intake is the most effective way to control your insulin level and optimize your insulin sensitivity
An estimated 80 percent of Americans are insulin resistant, even though their glucose levels are normal, and thus undiagnosed, placing them at increased risk for chronic disease
A low-carb ketogenic diet addresses the endocrine aspect of metabolic health, effectively driving your insulin level down, and as your insulin decreases, your metabolic rate increases
The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway controls autophagy and plays an important role in aging and cancer. While protein primarily activates mTOR and therefore needs to be restricted to just what your body needs, insulin, which is increased by sugar and refined carbohydrates, activates mTOR to a far greater degree than protein
Aside from a ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting — where you do not eat for 16 to 18 hours a day; 12 hours being the absolute minimum — is another effective way to regain your insulin sensitivity and control mTOR

In this interview, Benjamin Bikman, Ph.D., an obesity and diabetes scientist and associate professor of physiology and developmental biology at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah,¹ reveals how the ketogenic diet affects your physiology and supports optimal health.

“My main interest early on was looking at how the body adapts to obesity,” he says. “That was my master’s thesis. My master’s degree was exercise science here at BYU … I ended up pursuing a Ph.D. in bioenergetics at East Carolina University, under this wonderful scientist named Lynis Dohm, Ph.D.

His focus had been looking at how lipids cause insulin resistance. That was an interest of mine because I thought this was starting to explain why and how the body becomes insulin-resistant in the midst of obesity … Insulin resistance is that connection.

During my Ph.D., we were looking at inflammation in people who were losing weight following gastric bypass procedures and how improved inflammation is likely part of the improvements in insulin sensitivity that people see post-bypass.

I followed that up with a post-doctoral fellowship at … the Duke National University of Singapore. They had this focus on cardiometabolic disorders. I … looked at inflammation as a particular mediator there … Then in 2011, my alma mater, BYU, came knocking. They wanted to do more diabetes research, and I fit the requirements … That got me, essentially, to where I am now …

If I really am getting this conviction, based on my own research, that insulin is key to not only diabetes but to almost every chronic disease, what is the best way to control insulin? That was when I insisted on only looking at published human clinical data — not rodents, not cells, not epidemiology, just clinical data.

The low-carb diet was just this very effective way to do that. That then got me interested in asking questions about ketones, which is what my lab is doing … how ketones are regulated by insulin.”

Bikman’s conviction that insulin is a key to health and disease prevention, and that controlling carbohydrate intake is the most effective way to control insulin, led him to start practicing what he’d learned. He went on a low-carb diet about eight years ago. “Sure enough, at middle age, it’s helped me stay healthy,” he says.

Most Americans Are Insulin Resistant

Unfortunately, many, including doctors, still do not understand the influence of insulin on health and disease. The late Dr. Joseph Kraft, former chairman of the department of clinical pathology and nuclear medicine at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chicago, wrote the book “Diabetes Epidemic and You: Should Everyone Be Tested?”

In it, he presents data that suggests 80 percent of Americans are in fact insulin resistant, or have “diabetes in situ.” Based on data from 14,000 patients,² Kraft developed a powerful predictive test for diabetes.³ He would have the patient drink 75 grams of glucose, and then measure their insulin response over time, at half-hour intervals for up to five hours.

He noticed five distinctive patterns suggesting that a vast majority of people were already diabetic, even though their fasting glucose was normal. Only 20 percent of patients had healthy post-prandial insulin sensitivity and low diabetes risk. According to Kraft, “Those with cardiovascular disease not identified with diabetes … are simply undiagnosed.”

One of the take-home messages here is that insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia (a condition marked by excess insulin in your blood relative to your level of glucose) are two sides of the same coin, as they drive and promote each other. In other words, if you have hyperinsulinemia, you are essentially insulin resistant and on your way toward developing Type 2 diabetes.

High Insulin Is a Key Disease Promoter

Both insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia promote fatty liver and high blood glucose, and both of those, in turn, promote atherosclerosis. High blood pressure is another side effect of insulin resistance that drives atherosclerosis by placing stress on your arteries.

The effects of insulin resistance are really at the heart of most if not all chronic degenerative diseases. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s are just a few of the most obvious ones. The logical conclusion then would be that addressing insulin resistance is a foundational component of effective health care. Bikman says:

“When I teach this to my students … I put insulin resistance in the core. Around it, I have all these chronic diseases. It’s what I call the ‘wheel of misfortune.’ Really, the most common cancers, prostate and breast cancers, almost always … will heavily express — by six or seven times — the number of insulin receptors. So, insulin is promoting the growth of the tumor.

With dementia, the connection between insulin resistance and Alzheimer’s is so tight that people refer to it as Type 3 diabetes. With sarcopenia, we know that if a muscle becomes insulin-resistant, that actually diminishes insulin’s ability to promote the anabolic production of proteins within the muscle …

We have to have our medical practitioners start appreciating … the utility [of] measuring insulin, because our focus on measuring glucose misses the mark. As someone’s becoming insulin-resistant, their insulin is climbing, but it’s enough to keep their glucose in check.

And because we always look at glucose, we don’t catch the disease until they become so insulin-resistant that no amount of their own insulin is enough to keep the glucose in check. Now, the glucose starts to climb — 10 years later, perhaps — and that’s when we detect the problem. We’re looking at the wrong marker.”

How the Ketogenic Diet Improves Insulin Sensitivity

The question then becomes, how do we treat insulin resistance? As Bikman’s research reveals, the ketogenic diet is part and parcel of the “cure” for this condition.

“For me, the benefit of a low-carb ketogenic diet is that it addresses the endocrine aspect of metabolic health,” _Bikman says. “For too long … the message has been completely focused on calorie number._

It is this idea that if you can simply put a person into caloric deficiency, they will lose weight — problem solved … But we know that has long-term consequences … There’s a lasting metabolic damage …

Nevertheless, the power of the low-carbohydrate diet is that it addresses the endocrine component. As important as calorie number is, and I can appreciate the laws of thermodynamics … we cannot ignore the relevance of hormones, especially insulin.”

As explained by Bikman, it’s important to realize that insulin is what dictates what your body does with the energy it has — the energy you consume and the energy you have stored. “Insulin has its strong, capable hands right on the steering wheel of what the body does with the energy that it has available,” he says.

Importantly, research shows your metabolic rate increases as insulin decreases. “To me, that’s the power of the low-carb diet. You’re controlling insulin, and that can start to address all of those chronic diseases,” Bikman says.

The Importance of Cycling High and Low Carbohydrate Intake

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by Bill Sardi

Sweat, Fast, Donate Blood, Limit Red Meat, Supplement With Iron/Copper Chelators (Fisetin, Quercetin, Resveratrol, IP6 Rice Bran, Nucleotides) To Reduce The Population Of Senescent Cells In Your Body & Live Longer & Healthier Than You Ever Imagined

To Stay Young… Kill “Zombie” Cells — Scientific American

(TG Note: A doctor once told me that, by donating blood, I had unwittingly saved my own life. Now Bill Sardi says that giving blood may be extending that life, as well. And anyone can do it!)

Now you and your loved ones can play the game of life into extra innings and they aren’t going to have to send in a pinch runner for you, and you won’t be forced to retire and you can still hit home runs!

Biologists just figured out how people living in developed countries are going to live 100 healthy years and the masses aren’t going to have to wait for some high-priced drug to achieve it.

Despite precautions from university-based researchers not to forge ahead on their own and wait for anti-senescent (sen-ess-cent) drugs to be approved, longevity seekers have jumped on this newly understood longevity bandwagon, first by adoption of intermittent fasting (Dr. Jason Fung’s book The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting is a best seller).

Then North Americans are eating less iron-rich red meat (not for the sake of reducing cow farts by the way).

And a growing number of Americans are adding a strawberry extract called FISETIN to their dietary supplement regimens.

These and other health measures will add up to fewer “dud” senescent cells in the body, say biologists who study human aging.

370 million “dud” cells

There are an estimated 37 trillion cells in the human body. Over time, senescent cells, that is, cells that no longer divide and replicate (mitosis), so-called “dud” or “zombie” cells, are produced. These zombie senescent cells foment low-grade inflammation that is a hallmark characteristic of aging (inflammaging) in organs throughout the body and induce gene mutations. The accumulation of these senescent cells leads to frailty in the latter years of life and premature death.

Around age 20, after full growth is achieved, the human body begins to accumulate senescent cells. Over time senescent cells represent 1-3% of the body’s total cells, which roughly amounts to 370 million to 1.110 billion senescent cells. Over a period of 45 years, from age 20-65, let’s presume these senescent cells accumulate at a steady rate. That would come to ~22,500 cells/day becoming senescent or ~8 million per year. The challenge for longevity seekers is how to non-toxically annihilate these senescent cells.

Senescent cells eradicated in old animals

The good news is that an anti-senescent drug eradicated all of these zombie cells in the animal lab and even prolonged the life of very old mice (24-27 months old, equivalent to 75-90 years in humans) by 36% (up to age 108 human equivalent). So, no one is ever too old to embark on a regimen to eliminate senescent cells.

Iron is the culprit

Cell senescence starts after childhood growth is completed, ~age 18-20 years. Current data “supports the hypothesis that accumulated iron in tissues is a key factor in aging.” The population of senescent cells grows commensurate with iron accumulation and storage. Senescent cells accumulate up to 30-fold more iron.

Therefore, a ferritin blood test serves as a measure of cell senescence. Blood is stored in ferritin. The normal healthy range for ferritin is 20-90 nanograms/milliliter/ blood sample.

The prevalence of adults with high iron storage levels (high ferritin, above 90 nanograms/milliliter of blood) is 10.9%. This iron overloaded segment of the population will age faster than those with ferritin in the normal healthy range (20-90 nanograms/ milliliter). A ferritin blood test can be easily obtained to determine your iron load.

Impaired degradation of ferritin leads to iron overload and cell senescence. Any molecule that promotes ferritin degradation via enzymatic (lysosomal) activity as part of a “self-eating” cell cleansing process called autophagy would reduce the accumulation of iron in ferritin and abolish cell senescence. Polyphenols found in grapes (wine), strawberries, apple peel, have strong iron chelating properties and promote autophagy.

While iron is the predominant metallic mineral in the human body, copper, while less voluminous (~200 mg stored in the body of an adult) also induces premature cell senescence. Resveratrol solely chelates copper.

How to reduce iron load

Excess iron is removed from the body via menstruation in young females, by blood donation (phlebotomy) in full-grown males and postmenopausal females, or by chelation (key-lay-shun).

Adult males have 1000-2500 milligrams of iron stored in their body compared to just 300 milligrams in menstruating females.

Historical misdirection

Historically, in the 1950s-60s the popular Lawrence Welk TV show advertised Geritol, an alcohol-based iron and B-vitamin tonic. Older adults taking Geritol would have predictably experienced an increase in cell senescence as alcohol increases iron absorption. Geritol liquid provides a whopping 18 milligrams of iron is still sold today as a tonic for older adults.

Iron-limited diet

A typical carnivorous diet provides 10-20 milligrams of highly absorbable heme (heem) iron while plant food (vegetarian) diets provide non-heme iron that is only absorbed on an as-needed basis.

Only about 1 to 1.5 milligram of iron is actually absorbed by males to make up for losses from sweat, urine, and feces. Menstruating females absorb 3.0-3.5 mg per day to replace iron lost in menstruation. This is a reason why females generally live longer than males – they don’t begin to accumulate iron till they reach menopause, at age 45-55.

A 3-ounce portion of red meat provides ~2.5 milligrams of iron while chicken provides ~1.4 milligrams. The same portion of beef liver, appropriate for anemia-prone menstruating females, provides ~5.2 milligrams of iron. Iron pills are not recommended for mildly anemic women as they induce constipation and nausea.

Blood donation

Given that more than 70% of iron is stored in hemoglobin, the red pigment in blood cells, blood donation is a direct way of reducing iron load and therefore, cell senescence. According to the Iron Disorders Institute, each 500 cc blood donation reduce the amount of blood in the body by ~250 milligrams and lowers typically lowers ferritin by 30 nanograms/milliliter of blood. Bloodletting is primarily a health strategy for middle-aged males.