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COLD THERMOGENESIS 7

March 21, 2012 by 552 Comments
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READER SUMMARY: 1. WHAT SHAPES US, GENES OR ENVIRONMENT? 2. WHAT IS THE NORMAL CIRCADIAN BIOLOGY IN A 24 HOUR DAY? CT-7 is about how we are shaped by our environment by the evolutionary erosion of time that our ancestors faced. All life on this planet is shaped by two major variables in our environment: the sun and the seasonal changes. No matter the place present on earth, there are always alterations in these two factors that are cyclic, and always accounted for by all living organisms at some fashion. In some mammals, like man, it is accounted for centrally in the brain and peripherally in our organ ultradian clocks. This is why we have different patterns of aging in certain organs. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes a tremendous amount of sense because life is using the “knowns” of its environment to construct a reality that will ensure its survival. This is the basis of epigenetic signaling that we now know to be the major genetic modifier of the genome of all animals. The major signal transducer in Epigenetics is found in the cellular signaling in our cell membranes that interact with the environment and our inner hormones thatContinue Reading

Filed Under: The Importance of Sleep, The Leptin Prescription Tagged With: , ,

DO FOOD ELECTRONS IMPART A QUANTUM EFFECT?

August 9, 2011 by 59 Comments

READERS SUMMARY:   1. What could happen when you ask a “dumb” question to The Kracken? 2. Sleeping surely stimulates neurogenesis and learning. 3. What is a ketogenic diet? 4. Does the ketogenic diet show one macronutrient matters more than another for brain metabolism? 5. Are the electrons of coconut oil somehow different than those in fruit or meat?   On the plane home from the AHS at UCLA I was reading a series of physics papers that I had mentioned to “The Kracken” while at the AHS. I asked Matt a rather jumbled question this weekend I had from this paper about a chemistry and electron transport and unusual physical effects in relation to oxidative phosphorylation that occurs at the mitochondrial level when we eat. He looked at me like I was nuts. and he tried to rephrase my question to answer it based upon what he thought I meant. My question was poor because I really had not thought through what and why I wanted to know about this issue fully.  His answer told me what I was looking for.   If our thinking is not clear its tough to specify it in a question. I realized thenContinue Reading

Filed Under: The Importance of Sleep, The Optimal Paleo Diet Tagged With: ,

WHAT IS BIOLOGIC CONCRETE?

July 24, 2011 by 47 Comments

READERS SUMMARY: 1. What is glycation? Why should I care about it? 2. What are the signs I can see if I am doing this to myself without my doctor? 3. What are the steps in glycation and where will it lead me? 4. What are the consequences if I ignore this biologic process? We established in the Quilt what glycation is. Today we are going to talk about the clinical manifestions of glycation so that you can begin to assess yourself for the signs and symptoms. If they are present then we can give a strategy to stop the progressive damage so you can avoid the ravages of neolithic disease progression that Americans currently face. First we have to get you to write some answers down to some questions. Get a pen and paper. Read on and write the answers as you go to see how much biologic concrete you may have collected so far. The first sign to look for are found in the mirror. Take a good look at your skin. Does it look like it did when you were in third grade? If not, you likely have a problem. Do you have acne? Do you haveContinue Reading

Filed Under: Reversing Disease, The Importance of Sleep

SLEEP YA BIG DUMMY

July 17, 2011 by 44 Comments

READER’S SUMMARY: 1. Every wonder why we use blankets to sleep? 2. Quick overview of how the hormones of sleep and metabolism are yoked. 3. See how several levees of the quilt are tied together. 4. Why the brain really needs to be understood for optimal health. Today is a quick hitter post for those who are trying to regain leptin sensitivity. I have gotten many PM’s on Facebookand a ton of requests via twitter (@DigiSurg) and by email to post a synthesis post on how several levees tie together for metabolism and sleep. I would strongly recommend that you re read the first leptin and sleep blog to review some of the material as a nice primer. Ok, so off we go. 1. Body temperature is controlled by the hypothalamus in the brain…and it also controls leptin status and sensitivity centrally via the hypocretin neurons (HCN). The HCN also help modulate our sleep by keeping the stages in order and working optimally. 2. So you ever wonder why we “like” to wear blankets when we sleep? Well, the reason is simple. Melatonin is made from our brain’s pineal gland from stored serotonin after four continuous hours of total darknessContinue Reading

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WHAT MIGHT CASEY ANTHONY AND OJ HAVE IN COMMON?

July 8, 2011 by 71 Comments

READERS SUMMARY: 1. What are the symptoms of adrenal fatigue? 2. Is there differences in presentation between the sexes? 3. What to look for in you? 4. What are some of the things you can do to combat this? 5. What is the prognosis and how long can it last? Do you have dark circles under eyes? Are your eyes sunken to some degree? Do you sleep poorly? Have you lost your energy? Sex drive gone? Do you bloat and start getting unusual bowel movements? Do you live in a plateau phase constantly? Has your weight remained the same too long? Tired for no reason? Need to drink a ton of coffee and salty carb snacks to get by? Do you still crave sweets? Do you feel generally rundown? Do you exercise a lot but still have belly fat that is resistant to loss? Are you forgetful often? Hair loss or brittle? Diagnosed with GERD (dysbiosis) and feel nervous often? Often depressed? If this sounds like you welcome to the diagnosis of adrenal fatigue. Many conventional docs don’t buy this diagnosis but that is because they can’t see what they are not looking for. This syndrome is most often seenContinue Reading

Filed Under: Nutrients and Supplements, Reversing Disease, The Importance of Sleep Tagged With:

WHY SLEEP AND LEPTIN ARE YOKED

June 24, 2011 by 38 Comments

READERS SUMMARY: 1. How does sleep begin? 2. Is there a disease that helps us understand how diet and sleep are linked? 3. Neuroanatomical reasons to reject the “set point” theory of obesity. 4. Why are addiction, metabolism and sleep all linked? 5. Did you know that one cause of central leptin resistance maybe autoimmune damage similar to celiac? To begin to understand how sleep interacts with metabolism, we need to understand a bit about neuroanatomy.  In sleep, the cerebral cortex is in a  state of cortical synchronization.  In wakefulness several subcortical regions of the brain stimulate the cortex to remove this synchronization.  When we undergo slow wave Non REM sleep (drowsiness) there are a small group of neurons in the hypothalamus called VLPO neurons that are GABAergic (inhibitory) and they fire on the subcortical areas that are stimulating the cortex.  In doing so, these VLPO neurons bring about cortical synchronization.  After sleep begins, NREM sleep gives way to REM sleep.  During REM sleep there is a coordination of cross talk between the grey matter brainstem nuclei while cortical synchronization is maintained.  This is quite complex coordination of events that occurs in the brain while we sleep.  A common diseaseContinue Reading

Filed Under: The Importance of Sleep, The Leptin Prescription

WHY DO WE SLEEP?

June 22, 2011 by 5 Comments

READERS SUMMARY: 1. Why do we sleep? 2. Does sleep control metabolism and cell growth? 3. Do all living things sleep? How long is too long or too little? 4. What are the stages of sleep? 5. Can sleep help prevent degenerative aging diseases and cancer? 6. Is sleep the primordial condition or did it evolve as we did?   Why do we sleep?  Well, most sleep researchers are losing sleep trying to find that out as well right now!  It appears to be an elusive target.  What we do know , is that when you don’t sleep a lot of bad things happen.  Disease propagation is one and psychosis and eventual death are others.  Most people don’t realize that lack of sleep is deadly for humans, but it clearly is.  Sleep appears to most to be a restorative physiologic process.  That is what they say now;  I am not so sure about this as yet.  If sleep is restorative, as they say, what are its targets?  We have no idea what the targets really are as of now.  What we do know about sleep is that it is incredibly important biologically because every animal has biologic sleep requirements.  It seems evolution has strongly naturally selected sleepContinue Reading

Filed Under: The Importance of Sleep