Jan
04
2020

Preserving Youthful Power

By | exercise, fasting mimicking diet, Fitness, Health

Dr. Christopher W. Shade (PH.D.) presented a lecture in Las Vegas on Dec.13, 2019 talking about preserving youthful power. The presentation was at the 27th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine and his title was “Building Youthful NAD+ Power with Precursors, Sirtuin-Activating Compounds, and Methylation support”.

In the first place, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is a signalling molecule between the DNA of the nucleus of cells and the energy producing mitochondria that reside in the cells. The exact nature of the interaction is described in this review article. It describes how stress leads to a depletion of NAD+ and sirtuins, and causes accelerated aging. On the other hand, calorie restriction and exercise lead to increased production of NAD+, activation of sirtuins and longevity.

Details about low NAD+ activity

It is important to realize that when NAD+ is below a critical level the following disease states can develop. First, in the brain it is Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegenerative disease. Second, in the eyes macular degeneration and keratoconjunctivitis sicca can develop. Third, severe plaque-type psoriasis can occur in the skin. Fourth, the pancreas develops hyperinsulinemia and metabolic syndrome. Fifth, type 2 diabetes can make your muscles weak. Sixth, sarcopenia with loss of muscle mass and cardiovascular disease in the heart can also develop. Seventh, the liver reacts to the metabolic syndrome by causing hepatic steatosis. Metabolic syndrome causes inflammatory cytokines in the fatty tissue. Eighth, the lungs react by developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Ninth, your blood can get endotoxin-induced inflammation and sepsis from bacteria. A lack of NAD+ causes all of these negative changes simultaneously in the body.

In fact, when a person exercises regularly, uses intermittent fasting as a tool of calorie restriction and takes supplements of NAD+ all of these negative processes stop and sirtuins are activated restoring the body to a more youthful condition.

Summary about the effects of NAD+

In other words, NAD+ is important for cardiometabolic health, energy balance, liver health, immune health and cognitive health. NAD+ is also involved in maintaining the membrane polarity of cell walls. The blood /brain barrier and the gut/blood barrier are also kept intact by NAD+. In addition, NAD+ is involved in detoxification and control of the action of free radicals. It also is important to control Inflammation. For these reasons, it is not a surprise that people with normal NAD+ function will be healthier than those who have a problem with this.

Sugar reduces NAD+ to NADH

It is important to note that scientists could show in animal models and in humans that sugar overconsumption leads to the reduction of NAD+ to NADH. All of the negative effects described above for low NAD+ are then coming true. NADH is a reduced and disabled form of the oxidized NAD+. In essence, this substance has no biological action.

Energy metabolism

Biochemists have determined with regard to the energy metabolism of mitochondria that there are three occasions where enzymes are dependent on NAD+. Without NAD+ the energy-providing oxidative metabolism in mitochondria would not take place. As NAD+ is lower in older age, this explains why an aging population has less energy. In addition, as we age, the number of mitochondria per cell is decreasing. That is to say that an aging population has less energy than youthful people.

Other factors that are important in preserving youthful power

The AMPK signalling pathway

AMPK stands for 5′ AMP-activated protein kinase. This is an enzyme that consists of three protein portions. In humans it is expressed in liver, brain and muscle tissue. It provides energy in the liver by fatty acid oxidation. In muscles it stimulates glucose uptake and fatty acid oxidation. AMPK also inhibits cholesterol synthesis, lipogenesis and triglyceride synthesis. Fasting and exercise can stimulate AMPK production, which in turn will stimulate SIR1 genes and NAD+ production. This is especially happening in muscle tissue. To put it another way, there are a close-linked metabolic reactions between NAD+, AMPK and sirtuins.

Balance between AMPK, NAD+ and methylation

Given the right circumstances this can lead to detoxification, longevity and energy. This is what intermittent fasting and exercise can do for you. AMPK needs high NAD+ levels to give you all of the benefits. But NAD+ must be balanced with methylation. This is a somewhat difficult subject to explain, but the link explains it in somewhat technical terms. In other words, with a balance of the body’s biochemistry the person is healthy. When there is a disbalance, you get sick.

Practical application how to supplement for preserving youthful power

Dr. Shade asked the rhetorical question: how can we achieve a balance between NAD+ and methylation?

His answer is to supplement with the following supplements.

  • Trimethylglycine (Betaine) 2‐5g/day
  • Vitamin B2: 10‐30mg/day
  • SAMe or methylcobalamin 1000‐3000mcg/day
  • Measure Homocysteine as marker of methylation; if it is low, the methylation pathway is normal and there is balance.

Next: how to we raise NAD+? The answer is by cardio-metabolic blending.

  • Berberine and quercetin (they are respiratory chain modulators)
  • Resveratrol, silymarin and lipoic acid (they are liver kinase B1 activators)
  • Resveratrol or pterostilbene and quercetin (they are sirtuin activators)
  • Nicotinamide riboside (NR) and nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) 200- 400 mg per day
  • Trimethylglycine (Betaine) 2-5 grams per day and methylcobalamin, B2, and others (methylation support)
Preserving Youthful Power

Preserving Youthful Power

Conclusion

It is difficult to describe energy flow in biochemical terms. Dr. Christopher W. Shade did exactly that in a lecture he gave at the 27th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine in Las Vegas on Dec.13, 2019. The key for preserving youthful power is to balance the metabolism that occurs in the nucleus of the body cells with the metabolism taking place in the mitochondria. The mitochondria are the energy producers, but the steering of this occurs through the metabolic products from the cell nucleus. NAD+ plays a key role in our energy metabolism. But there is an interplay with AMPK, which stands for 5′ AMP-activated protein kinase. Sirtuin genes interact with these messenger molecules as well and this is where longevity comes in.

Longevity through sirtuin stimulation

Sirtuins are longevity genes that help us get more energy for a longer period of time. Regular exercise stimulates this complex biochemistry giving us extra NAD+ for energy. Intermittent fasting also stimulates sirtuins, which adds to the extra energy and gives us longevity. This is not a bad deal when you look at it from a distance. We can achieve a lot preserving our energy through an active life style. Supplements can be an auxiliary measure, but they are not effective enough without positive lifestyle choices.

Nov
24
2018

Intermittent Fasting May Benefit Health

By | Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, cholesterol, diet, food, heart attack, stem cells, telomeres, Weight loss

There is a lot of discussion about the fact that intermittent fasting may benefit health. But there are a confusing variety of intermittent fasting schedules. This makes it difficult to compare notes regarding the specific effect of an intermittent fasting diet. Generally speaking when there is some form of calorie restriction, our body goes into a survival mode of operating. These types of diets provide enough nutrients to not get into malnutrition, but at the same time they may stimulate sirtuins, particularly SIR2. This is thought to be associated with longevity.

Various forms of fasting

Eating after 5 PM

The Taylors in the CNN article eat the same amount of calories, but they only eat after 5PM. They claim to have more energy and be less vulnerable to infections. They also think that they feel younger than in the past.

Fasting every other day

This was an observation in the 1980’s to help rats live longer compared to rats that have food available every day. Recent experiments on mice showed similar results: calorie restriction in whatever form leads to prolonged life and health.

Human fasting mimicking diet

A 2017 study on 100 humans divided this group into half. One half ate any food as they wished. The other half consumed only 800 to 1100 calories for 5 days of each month as a fasting mimicking diet. The experimental group had lower fasting blood sugars; cholesterol, triglycerides and other heart disease markers went down. The IGF-1 markers for various cancers also went down. The experimental group lost abdominal fat, but preserved lean body mass. Valter Longo, who co-authored the clinical study said that a human trial on longevity would almost be impossible to design, and would cost “a hundred million dollars or more. But if you look at the data from our trial … it would be hard to see how they would not live longer.”

5:2 diet

Patients are allowed to eat what they want for 5 days of the week, but then they restrict their diet for 2 consecutive days. The control group had no restriction of calories. The 5:2 experimental group had better glucose control and loss of abdominal fat than the control group.

Fasting can help you live-longer

Experts on calorie-restricted diets tell us that there is a switch in metabolism from burning glucose as fuel to using ketones as fuel. Extended periods of exercise will also cause a switch to using ketones as fuel. Repeated cycling from fasting to eating may also benefit our brain function. Intermittent fasting will help us cope better with stress and disease. But Dr. Longo says that this is only one aspect. He found in his research that with intermittent calorie restriction there is a multi-system regeneration going on. For instance, damaged white blood cells are depleted, stem cells are activated, blood sugar control is improved and heart risk factors are being controlled. Dr. Longo mentioned that when tissues are healthy and functional, risk factors for disease decrease.

Mechanisms behind longevity

Dr. Longo explained in detail the complex aging pathways that involve three components, IGF-1, mTOR and PKA. When lifestyle choices stimulate these genetic markers, accelerated aging is the consequence. But with the inhibition of those markers longevity will happen. Here are some of the effects on the body of a fasting mimicking diet.

  • Obesity diminishes, because of the weight loss effect due to missing calories.
  • Diabetes: insulin resistance becomes lower and blood sugar levels drop.
  • High blood pressure reduced: many patients were able to reduce their medications or discontinue them
  • Pain conditions improve as all kinds of pain disappears, an effect for which there is no explanation at this point
  • Autoimmune diseases like MS and rheumatoid arthritis improve, likely because of the effect of increased stem cell circulation
  • Prevention of heart attacks and strokes because of reduction of LDL, triglycerides and CRP
  • Cancer cure rates improve by protecting normal cells and the bone marrow
  • Longevity improved in mice with a 3-fold increase of their life span. Telomere length in humans was increased. Increased stem cells will find defective areas that need repair. This effect will open up a new chapter in medicine.
Intermittent Fasting May Benefit Health

Intermittent Fasting May Benefit Health

Conclusion

Calorie restriction is a powerful method to rejuvenate the body. Surprisingly 5 days out of one month of a calorie restricted fasting mimicking diet is all that is necessary to improve the body’s metabolism. Telomeres get increased, damaged white blood cells are removed and stem cells get stimulated. But weight loss, improvement of pain perception and cardiovascular risk reduction take place as well. In mice longevity was significantly prolonged, but this needs to still be shown in humans.

One can think of an intermittent fasting mimicking diet as a kind of internal cleansing. Following this it is easier to restart the metabolism with clean ingredients.

So far I have followed 11 courses of the fasting mimicking diet. But I don’t buy boxes of 300.00 USD every month. Instead I count calories myself, keep the diet balanced and buy the ingredients in the health food store. I agree that the fasting mimicking diet seems to be effective and it helps to keep my body mass index under control.

May
31
2014

Industry Sponsored Diet Soda Study Deceptive

By | Health, Hormones, Nutrition, Prevention, Vitamins and supplements, Weight loss

Recently an industry sponsored study was reviewed by the media with this headline: “Diet soda helps weight loss, industry-funded study finds”. Before you get too excited about this study, let me tell you that you are being deceived. Essentially the study compared 150 overweight or obese people on water and a similar group of people on diet sodas. Both groups were counselled on the benefits of exercise and a healthier diet. At the end of 12 weeks the water group that did not drink diet sodas had lost 9 pounds, while the diet soda group that continued their former habit lost 13 pounds. The question now is why this 4 pound difference? The sponsor of the study would like you to think that the soda diet drink is healthier, because it helps you to lose weight. Let me explain to you that there are a few flaws in the study as follows.

1. Most often there are confounding errors in industry-sponsored studies. Even though it looks on the surface that the two groups were comparable, researchers should have checked out various parameters like sex distribution, other underlying illnesses, mental state (depressed or not etc.), diabetes and other factors to make sure that there is no metabolic bias between the two groups from the start of the study.

2. Deception built into study: we know from other studies that on the long-term diet sodas lead to weight gain by stimulating your appetite for sweets and their subsequent consumption. Often short-term studies show the opposite effect, so it would be false to assume that long-term results would be similar. But most readers who read this quickly would be tempted to think “so it must be OK to continue to consume diet soda drinks!” Off you go to the grocery store and buy another 6 or 12 pack. That’s exactly what the industry-sponsored study set out to do. Somewhere in the back-room of a big soft drink corporation the executives discussed among themselves that their statistics were bad; the sales of diet soft drinks were down; there was too much negative press fuelled by the health food industry. They had to do something about this, so they designed a study where the good guy was the diet soft drink. If the consumer is not buying the results, at least the study helped to confuse people and whenever there is confusion, at least part of the confused population will return to their old habits. After all the study showed “ it is OK”.

Industry Sponsored Diet Soda Study Deceptive

Industry Sponsored Diet Soda Study Deceptive

3. Excitotoxins are not OK. Unfortunately all artificial sweeteners are toxic to your brain, they are excitotoxins. MSG is another excitotoxin. The only exception is the natural sweetener stevia, a plant product, which is OK. Splenda is an insecticide, so this is belongs to the xenoestrogens, bad for you as it acts like a foreign estrogen and has cancer-promoting qualities when exposed to it for several decades. The rest of the artificial sweeteners are excitotoxins: they burn your brain cells very slowly and can lead to dementia. Unfortunately they are addicting and your brain will make you feel good when you drink more of it. So, the real reason why the study group on diet sodas did better than the water group is because they did not have to change that habit, there was no withdrawal to deal with and they felt fine. So they could concentrate on dieting and exercising and of course you would lose 13 pounds in 12 weeks doing that. The water group on the other hand had to cope with diet soda withdrawal and on top was challenged by an exercise and weight loss program. As there was no diet restriction, they could compensate a bit for their trouble of withdrawal and eat a few muffins or some extra bread to make up for the lack of their comfort diet drink fix (the satisfaction of consuming the excitotoxin). This slick short-term study design is what should have alarmed the publisher to ask a few hard questions.

4. There needs to be an internal logic in the study: Let’s do a thought experiment where we repeat the study and start with two comparable overweight/obese groups of people and put them on no sugar and no refined carbs for 2 weeks and also on no diet sodas for the same time. After two weeks they are both accustomed to this diet and the no diet soda habit and they have probably lost the same amount of weight from the calorie restriction. Now we start the one group on diet sodas and the other group on water, but strictly controlled for a similar calorie intake in terms of other foods or drinks as much as is humanly possible. I would predict that after 12 weeks the water group will have at least lost the same weight as the diet soda group, if not more. The diet soda group likely will have had some problems with sugar craving and may have had more dietary indiscretions (sneaking in snacks and underreporting them), but this would show up as weight gain.

You may be proud of having completed this well controlled study. The trouble is that your industry sponsor that produces the diet drinks will not like this outcome and would not allow the results to be published. In fact that kind of result would be actively suppressed.

Conclusion:

The diet soda study discussed here is a lesson in biased publishing. We are constantly bombarded by an endless string of meaningless publications that are designed to make the consumer insecure, or bias us for accepting a company’s product in the hope of achieving a certain result (like high sales). Even, if this is not accomplished the company has sold enough of their product just for giving it a try. Beware of the door-to-door sales person. This figure is very much present right in this publication. In this case it is the sales pitch of the diet soda manufacturers! You are looking at a study that was designed to make you buy more of the excitotoxin (aspartame or other artificial sweeteners), which likely contributed to your extra weight or obesity in the first place. It’s up to you to shut the door on this sales pitch. Instead of a diet soda I suggest you make your own drink: squeeze half an organic lemon and top this with mineral water of your choice. Sweeten it with a tiny amount of stevia. This has no calories and does not stimulate you to eat more sugar and starchy foods; but it quenches any thirst and you even get some water-soluble vitamins in the process.

Last edited May 31, 2014

Nov
01
2006

Body Can Fight Weight Loss

By | Nutrition, Obesity, Weight loss

Embarking on a weight loss program needs long-term commitment and persistence. Many dieters have experienced the yo-yo effect of good initial results in losing weight, after which the weight loss stopped, and gradually the weight was gained back. Often dieters blame themselves for their lack of success or are criticized for a lack of self-control.
The “plateau effect” has been discussed and documented before, and now an Australian study has found that “it is not just you”. After initial success and weight loss the human body is designed to strongly resist attempts to lose weight. Dr. Neil King from Queensland University of Technology does research on appetite regulation and energy balance. He conducted studies on groups of people who were overweight and obese people. He found that weight loss from exercise and calorie restriction stops at a certain point, and this plateau remains firmly in place for a prolonged time, despite continuing dieting and exercise.

In the first study 30 obese men and women from Britain took part in a 12-week, laboratory based exercise program in which they exercised five times a week. The second study observed the weight loss in 200 Australian men who were enrolled in a commercial weight loss program, which involved both an exercise program and dietary advice. Although both groups followed different plans, their weight loss still plateaued. The first group averaged a loss of 3 kg during the first 8 weeks, and weight loss in the next 4 weeks was markedly reduced (0.7 kg). The second group had a variable pattern of weight loss, but it, too, showed a plateau.

Body Can Fight Weight Loss

Body Can Fight Weight Loss

Researchers believe that the human body is designed to cope with famine. As a result there is a built-in mechanism responsible for weight loss resistance. It may be a source of frustration to people on a weight loss program in a society where there are no food shortages, but it is meant to be a lifesaver in times when there was a shortage of food.
For the person who wants to lose weight it involves taking a closer look at the caloric output. Longer exercise times, higher intensity or cross training can combat the plateau effect, but patience is also needed along with the determination to carry on with the program.

More information about weight loss: http://nethealthbook.com/health-nutrition-and-fitness/weight-loss-and-diet/

Reference: The Medical Post, October 10, 2006, page 19

Last edited November 1, 2014

May
01
2004

Chronic Inflammation Causes Cancer, Heart Attacks And More

By | Anti-aging medicine, Arthritis, Cancer, Heart Disease, Obesity

When the Time Magazine devotes 7 full pages in the March 22, 2004 issue to the topic of inflammation as the source of most of the diseases of the Western World, you know that something important is happening in medicine. Christine Gorman and Alice Park have summarized some of the groundbreaking research of the past few years in this article. I will report about this article here, but also include direct links regarding some of the relevant research the authors have mentioned including some of the key links regarding the metabolic syndrome, which was not mentioned in the article.

Since the beginning of the obesity wave in North America it has become obvious that a cluster of diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, Alzheimer disease, cancer of the colon, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and others have also become more frequent. Dr. Paul Ridker, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, was one of the pioneers of investigating inflammation as a possible cause and the common denominator of these diverse illnesses. He noticed that certain patients got heart attacks although their blood LDL cholesterol levels (the “bad” cholesterol) were normal. The theory at that time was that all patients who would develop heart attacks would come from a high-risk group of patients with elevated LDL cholesterol. The problem was that 50% of patients with heart attacks had normal LDL cholesterol levels. Dr. Ridker suspected that the C-reactive protein (CRP), which is found to be elevated in the blood of rheumatoid patients, would be somehow involved in the disease process of hardening of the arteries before a heart attack would occur. CRP is produced by the liver cells and by the lining cells of arteries in response to a general inflammatory reaction in the body. Examples of this would be rheumatoid arthritis patients and patients with autoimmune diseases, where CRP levels can be readily measured with a blood test. Dr. Ridker found that there was a very good correlation between the CRP level and the degree of inflammation as well as the risk for developing heart attacks and strokes. Further investigation by others confirmed that CRP levels were perhaps more important than LDL levels in predicting impending heart attacks. This is so, because CRP is the body’s substance in the blood stream that would be responsible for breaking up LDL containing deposits (plaques) in the walls of the arteries, which leads to heart attacks in the heart and to strokes in the brain.

Chronic Inflammation Causes Cancer, Heart Attacks And More

Chronic Inflammation Causes Cancer, Heart Attacks And More

Other investigators found that CRP was only one link in a complex chain of events that includes inflammatory substances (cytokines) from the fat cells as well as insulin and insulin-like growth factors from the metabolic syndrome. Leptins are also a factor as has been discussed under this link.
Dr. Steve Shoelsen from the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston has developed a mouse model for the metabolic syndrome. These mice will produce huge amounts of inflammatory substances in their fatty tissue in response to any inflammatory process that is started in them. Anti-inflammatory drugs such as the statins or metformin, it is hoped, will be shown conclusively to dampen the inflammatory process and prevent heart attacks, strokes and diabetes as well as cancer, Alzheimers disease and arthritis. Heart disease has already been shown to be improved by anti-inflammatory drugs. Asthma is an inflammatory disease of the small bronchial tubes, which can be stabilized with the anti-inflammatory drug Avastin.

What can we do as consumers to prevent some of those life-threatening diseases? By reducing our weight through calorie restriction on a low-glycemic diet we can help to reduce the insulin-like hormone substances of the fatty tissue. Regular exercise of at least 30 minutes of a brisk walk daily or the equivalent of other sports activities will half our risk for colon cancer and many other cancers. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables as well as fish and fish oils will reduce the amount of free radicals in our system cutting down on the circulating inflammatory substances. This prolongs life, prevents all of the major diseases of modern civilization and leads to longevity as the study of the Okinawa diet has shown.

Based on an article in the Time Magazine, March 22, 2004 edition, page 54 to 60.

Here is a chapter on arteriosclerosis from the Net Health Book, which explains inflammatory changes of the arterial wall:

http://nethealthbook.com/cardiovascular-disease/heart-disease/atherosclerosis-the-missing-link-between-strokes-and-heart-attacks/

Last edited October 26, 2014