longevity

Will Eating Too Much Make Me Die Sooner?

September 12, 2015 by James Bogash

The research behind a low calorie, high phytonutrient diet extending lifespan in mammals is quite extensive.

There have been variations on this theme of lowering the calories we take in. These can vary from full-blow calorie restriction to alternate day calorie restriction. There is the Bahadori leanness program that uses “mini-fasts” to reach and maintain optimal body composition.

Then there is research on the “longevity genes” (the SRT family of genes) and research on resveratrol for anti-aging. They all point to the same conclusions:

Too many calories kill us.

The human body is very well designed for starvation and adapting to low caloric intake. There are NO mechanisms in place to cope with the diseases associated with poor lifestyles. Sounds strange, huh?

How can diabetes and Alzheimer’s be “genetic” when our bodies have no mechanism in place to deal with the disease state? It’s the same with high blood pressure. How can high blood pressure be “genetic” when there is no mechanism in our body to control high blood pressure? We have a mechanism to raise blood pressure (aldosterone secretion from the adrenals), but not the reverse.

This particular review looks into the research that supports the idea of cutting back on calories (while maintaining quality) as a way of combating chronic disease.

Short Burst Aerobic from a Cellular Standpoint

February 3, 2014 by James Bogash

Ok, ok. I truly don’t mean to beat you over the head with this concept, but I’m going to anyway. I think we’re approaching exercise all wrong.

The problem is that, if I’m right, this isn’t some little tidbit that doesn’t make a difference. All of our public health recommendations need to be revamped.

Let’s face it, the standard “30 minutes of walking most days of the week” just isn’t cutting it. And yet you probably drive by several people per day who appear to be walking around the block at a leisurely pace, likely carrying that beloved plastic water bottle.

If you go to the gym, the treadmills, exercise bikes, ellipticals, rowing machines and aerobic classes are full of people logging in hours and hours of constant-stream aerobic activity.

Despite the evidence, the American Heart Association and the American Diabetic Association remain silent on the value of short-burst aerobic exercise.

This particular article is written in Medical Hypothesis, a journal containing articles written by forward-thinking scientist. Some may be way off the mark, others are later shown to be right on. Still others merely put together all the pieces from across the world of research and come to conclusions before anyone else even notices that there is a puzzle.

Dr. Cherkas and Dr. Golota begin to put the pieces together by first looking at the short-burst aerobic picture from the context of glycogen.

Glycogen is a molecule made up of multiple pieces of glucose. Most of the glycogen in our bodies is stored in either the liver or in our muscles and is used quickly for fuel when we first begin to burn calories (such as while exercising). After we eat, the hormone insulin tells our liver and muscles to take the glucose (sugar) from the meal out of the blood and store it as glycogen.

Later, the hormone glucagon is released from the pancreas, which results in a slow breakdown of the stored glycogen in the liver so that the rest of the body can have a stable source of glucose until the next meal.

Short burst aerobic activity burns through ATP (the energy currency of the cell), then creatine phosphate, then glycogen is broken down into glucose molecules for fuel. Because this leaves the cell starving for more glycogen, the next exposure to glucose (such as after a meal) is going to lead to increased uptake of sugar from the bloodstream and into these glycogen-depleted cells.

When we start to look at additional pieces of the chronic-disease management puzzle, calorie restricted diets and intermittent fasting have much the same effect on glycogen stores, again leaving your cells hungry to grab the extra glucose from the next meal.

With this in mind, you can begin to see how many of these approaches to disease management and / or longevity end up having similar effects on glycogen storage in the liver and muscles. On the flip side, without this depletion of glycogen before the next meal, if the cell is already full of glycogen, glucose taken up at this point will get stored as fat inside the cells.

More fat inside the cells leads to unhealthy cells (fatty liver, intramyocellular lipid accumulation) and higher risks of chronic diseases. Not a good thing.

Overall, I thought it was interesting to connect calorie restriction, intermittent fasting and short burst aerobic activity via glycogen use and storage.

WANT TO LIVE 15 YEARS LONGER?

September 22, 2011 by James Bogash

Certainly if these years were spent in a nursing home having to be wheeled around in a wheelchair the answer for most of us would be “no.” But what about an extra 15 years of life traveling, spending time with grandkids and playing golf and tennis?

There is absolutely no doubt that the way we take care of ourselves has everything to do with how we age. Anyone who falls back on the old “Uncle Jerry smoked and drank Jim Bean until he died in a brothel at 103” is deluding themselves into thinking that THEY won the genetic lottery and can abuse their genes as much as they like.

This particular study just confirms this further and quantifies the benefits a little more. Basically, participants were given a score based on 4 factors: adherence to a Mediterranean diet, nonsmoking, normal weight [BMI (in kg/m²): 18.5 to <25], and regular physical activity.

Those women with the lowest scores had 4 TIMES the risk of dying in the next decade compared to those with the highest scores. In men the number was 2.6 times higher. This translated into 15 more years of life in women and 8.4 years in men. THAT, readers, is a lot of life to live.

These aren’t difficult guidelines to adhere to. Non smoking is a no brainer and no one today would look you in the eye and tell you they’re improving their health by smoking. Regular physical activity. Adherence to a Mediterranean diet is something most people find very pleasant and compliance is high because of this. And, the Med diet, when combined with calorie restriction, will likely aid in maintaining an ideal body weight.

So if you’re not there, are you willing to make these changes for 15 more years of life??? If you are NOT, then how do you value your own life and happiness when it’s not worth some simple changes?

A FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH IN A PILL?

September 20, 2011 by James Bogash

Subscribe to any internet supplement website or senior oriented publication and you will have your fair share of “articles” and advertisements on supplements that will reportedly turn back the hands of time. There is only surefire approach documented in the medical literature to extend lifespan in mammals.

Calorie restriction without nutrient restriction is, without a doubt, the most powerful tool to slow again. But by what method does this occur? Most of the evidence suggests that this approach increases the efficiency and number of the mitochondria in our cells. Regular readers know that the mitochondria, the little tiny factories inside of cells that generate ATP energy for the cell, are my favorite organelles and that I believe that preservation and support of the mitochondria is the holy grail of longevity.

Short of calorie restriction without nutrient restriction, there are many other ways to support the health and number of our mitochondria. One such method is to increase the body’s production of an antioxidant called glutathione.

Glutathione not only acts as an antioxidant, but also supports the detoxification of many of the heavy metals that enter our system. Taken orally, glutathione is not well absorbed, although in the form of reduced glutathione, it has been shown to increase levels of glutathione in the cells.

Another method is to increase the intake of the precursors that the body uses to make glutathione. The amino acids cysteine and glycine are known to do this. This particular study takes this concept further.

The authors evaluated the levels of glutathione in the red blood cells of elderly and young subjects and found that the elderly subjects had much lower levels of glutathione, lower levels of the precursors cysteine and glycine in addition to higher levels of oxidative stress (as measured by F2-isoprostanes).

After 2 weeks of supplementation with cysteine and glycine, the elderly subjects had almost double the levels of glutathione in their red blood cells and the cells’ production of glutathione increased by 230%, all in the context of lower levels of oxidative stress. Certainly a good thing.

So what does this mean? In our office we recommend a drink mix that is not only high in phytonutrients to protect our cells, but has whey protein. Whey protein is high in cysteine and has been shown to increase intracellular glutathione levels. We feel that the combination of these two aspects into a drink mix is a great combination to offer our patients.