The Leptin Prescription

Cold Thermogensis 2

Now that you understand that I believe cold environments were how life first evolved, what implications does this hold for all life and humans today? I think with this thought experiment we need to begin to talk about another aspect of evolution to fully conceptualize how cold works for biology. Let’s talk about sleep for 4 short minutes. First, I want you to watch this video before you proceed. Recently, one of my readers pointed out he was confused by Dr. Gamble when she said the normal pattern of sleep in a natural environment had two cycles. He wanted to know why her version and my version for sleep as written in my post “Rx for the Leptin Rx” were not congruent. It was a great question that really opens the discussion to the idea of evolutionary mismatches. These mismatches occur in many modern systems of biology, and they are actually increasing in frequency and severity as time elapses. The reason is quite simple. Evolution is constantly getting faster as time goes on, relative to the current state of our genome. This is really how the “cellular theory of relativity” is currently affecting our own genome today. The speed of evolutionary change has far out stripped the ability of our paleolithic genes to catch up. This mismatch causes major problems for modern humans. When they further exacerbate the system with choices not congruent with our biology, the results are magnified in disease incidence and prevalence. She also mentioned in passing, early in her talk, that people who went deep into the ground have been found to be “very productive” while in a cold dark environment. She did not expand on this concept at all, but I would strongly suggest you remember this as the cold thermogenesis series progresses on. There is a deep biologic reason this occurs. As we use this pathway, lots of things improve that we do not expect.

By Jack Kruse|February 22nd, 2012|Alzheimer’s, Circadian Cycle, Cold Thermogenesis, Diabetes, Epi Paleo, Epigenetics, Heart Disease, Inflammation, Leaky Gut / Grain Brain, Optimal Pillar 1, Optimal Pillar 4, Series: Cold Thermogenesis, The Importance of Sleep, The Leptin Prescription, The Optimal Paleo Diet|Comments Off

The Paleo Summit: Is The Paleo Diet The Answer?

So what is the Paleo Summit to me? For me, it is where unconventional thoughts lead to stunning results! Come and listen to what we put together for free! Sean Croxton, of Underground Wellness, called upon me to talk about some stunning results. When Sean and I spoke, I was putting the finishing touches on a pretty [...]

By Jack Kruse|February 14th, 2012|Epi Paleo, Leaky Gut / Grain Brain, Longevity Principles, Optimal Pillar 4, Paleo News, Series: Miscellaneous, The Leptin Prescription, The Optimal Paleo Diet|88 Comments

The Cold Thermogenesis Protocol

The Cold Thermogenesis Protocol should be added gradually to the Leptin Rx rest protocol. This blog post is additive to the Leptin Rx, and is an evolution extension of it for those who need it. I hope you all realize that not everyone will need it. Some will need it because they have special needs that they face. This blog is designed for those who have been previously left out of the reset protocol. Those people are gastric bypass patients, HCG users, those on exogenous steroids, chronic pain patients, and those with T2D and metabolic syndrome, as a few examples. Prolonged and controlled local peripheral skin cooling can induce selective “damage,” and increased hypothalamic signaling by forcing adipocyte apoptosis and subsequent loss of subcutaneous fat without damaging the overlying skin or the underlying muscle layers. This means that acute cold cause rapid leptin sensitivity! It means that fat is forced to liberate leptin from fat cells to slowly lower its serum levels as long as the cold stimulus is applied safely. This is new scientific information that was first carried out in pigs in 2008, and subsequently tested in humans and found to be quite effective for fat removal in certain selected areas of the body.

Rewiring The Leptin Rx Reset

Evolutionary strategy is based upon finding an environmental niche and exploiting it. Evolution is based upon change and the natural adaptations to it. Today, we are going to explore how some environmental triggers might open a “biochemical trap door” that will allow me to add a new recommendation for you to consider adding to the Leptin Rx reset protocol for those who are LR. I am beginning a series on circadian biology to show you how this all ties in together. Today, I will give you a very cursory review of why circadian biology, leptin, and environment are critical to using the Quilt to obtain your Optimal life. Why is circadian biology critical to humans? For evolution to work Optimally, a cell first must adapt to its environment. The first situation any living cell would be subjected to in an earth day is a period of day and night. Over time it would also be subject to the seasons in our environment because of the earth’s revolution, tilt, and angulations of the sun. As time continued on, further life would have been subjected to solar variations and would have had to account for it. It also has to find food to make energy (ATP) to survive, and it also has to control its own cellular division. The epic battle for the cell is to have the regularly expected circadian cycles found in our environment and ”yoke” those signals to its metabolic cycle and to its growth cycle. Most people know that the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the brain is where the circadian pacemaker lies in humans. It monitors this dance between darkness and light, and the seasonal cold and hot temperatures in our environment to help control and monitor our own growth and development. Evolution apparently agreed to use these signals in all living things because this is what it uses for all life on earth today. What most people do not know is how leptin plays a massive role in regulating it. Many people and physicians think it plays a small role. Recent research has revealed that leptin can induce expression of a neuropeptide called vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) through the VIP cytokine response element. This is an epigenetic modification from our environment directly signaling the master hormone in our body. So what does VIP actually do?

PRIMAL CPC 1: TOURETTE SYNDROME MEETS EVOLUTIONARY MEDICINE

READERS SUMMARY: 1. WHAT IS TOURETTE'S SYNDROME? 2. HOW MIGHT IT BE LINKED TO A LEAKY GUT, GRAINS, AND TIE TO OTHER DISEASE'S WE KNOW NADA ABOUT? 3. HOW DOES OUR HARDWIRING GIVE US NEW INSIGHTS? 4. HOW MIGHT NEUROSURGERY HELP CHRIS JOHNSON? 5. HOW MIGHT SOME PIONEERING DENTISTS TIED A NICE BOW ON THERAPY FOR CHRONIC TS PATIENTS? Tourette's [...]

By Jack Kruse|January 28th, 2012|ADD / ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, Cancer, Colon Cancer, Epi Paleo, Guillian Barre Syndrome, Inflammation, Leaky Gut / Grain Brain, Optimal Pillar 5, Pancreatic Cancer, Series: CPC, The Digestion Connection, The Importance of Sleep, The Leptin Prescription, Tourette Syndrome|60 Comments

Finding Your Primal Sense

I recently did a video interview with a former patient and friend of mine, Mrs. Jodi Wibel, from New Orleans, who sustained a massive change to her life recently. This will be chronicled in an informal video testimonial on my site shortly. Her story inspired me on many levels to write this blog. Much of what she said to me that day really resonated with me. She told me after the interview that I needed to write more about how I think, and how I motivate and seek to help people change themselves when they are at a crossroads. Too often, we and the people around us, become creatures to how we think chronically, without ever realizing it. This thinking is what creates ruts and plateaus in our life. Change is best carried out, not when we are in a rut, but when we are at the edge of our comfort zone. Even our friends and family can be enablers to our bad habitual thinking about change. People who lack the clarity, courage, or determination to follow their own dreams will often find ways to discourage yours. When you change for the better, the people around you will be inspired to change also. But only after doing their best to make you stop. Live your truth and don’t ever stop! I tell you this now so you read it and understand it consciously, because this unconscious thought is behind why you do not appear to want change. Once you perceive that this might be a correct statement, you will then begin to look at your circumstances from a new perspective. That new perspective is critical in seeing your life in a new way. Jodi believed it was the key to how the science became part of her “skeptics life” without a fight from her old habitual thinking. You must break free of the shackles of your old mind and embrace all your fears. On the other side of all your fears is the freedom in your life to make choices to give you an Optimal Life. For this entire week, her single thought has filled my mind with how to write this post. I decided to stop trying to feel it and to just write what my thoughts were about how I view change now after my own leptin Rx reset 5 years ago.

By Jack Kruse|December 14th, 2011|Epi Paleo, Leaky Gut / Grain Brain, Optimal Pillar 2, Optimal Pillar 4, Series: Miscellaneous, Success Journal, The Leptin Prescription, The Optimal Paleo Diet|76 Comments

Cortisol Response

Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone. It is the most important one in humans, produced by the adrenal cortex and participates in the body's homeostasis and stress responses. Cortisol concentrations also follow a circadian rhythm. It is a more complex rhythm than the human melatonin rhythm. Unlike the melatonin rhythm, human cortisol rhythms do not seem to be totally associated with day and night per se, but seem to be more closely tied to the "transition periods" from dark to light and to a lesser extent, from light to dark. Transitioning light levels play a tremendous role in cortisol rhythms in humans. In addition to its circadian rhythm exhibiting a predictable peak in the morning, cortisol levels typically elevate sharply in the morning, 30 minutes to an hour after awakening. The glucocorticoid levels synthesized by the adrenal gland across the 24 hour day appear to be under the control of two distinct systems, one governed by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and one controlled by the autonomic nervous system through the adrenal medulla. Evidence supports that cortisol production can be uncoupled from the HPA axis controller of its release (ACTH). Night time light stimulates the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and this sends a neural signal to the autonomic systems to increase cortisol production from the adrenal gland, but not the brain. This is not coupled to pulsatile ACTH release in the pituitary, and has separate neural pathways. Studies have shown that exposure to high levels of polychromatic (white) light (80lux at the cornea) in the morning, but not in the evening, could increase cortisol levels in humans. It appears the intensity of light is critical to the real effect on cortisol levels. Studies have also shown that morning light can increase heart rate, suggesting an impact of light on the autonomic nervous system that modulates cortisol release from the adrenal gland. More recent studies have shown bright light to dramatically reduces cortisol levels in humans.

So You Completed The Leptin Rx? What’s Next?

Once you have added the Leptin Rx to your paleo/primal template and you have successfully experienced all the "small wins" that I mentioned in the Leptin FAQ's blog, what should you do next? If you recall reading the blog on how the leptin Rx works, it basically is a plan to make your gastrointestinal tract perform visceral exercises that it is not accustomed to performing, in order to cause neuroplastic changes in your hypothalamus' arcuate nucleus. It uses the vagus nerve as the "stimulator" to send these new messages to the brain. After a period of time, the inflammation will slowly dissipate at the median eminence, and these afferent signals will force expression of certain genes that have been repressed since we were in utero. These genes and pathways are hardwired into our DNA at conception, and used until the child is 12-24 months old. After this time, they are not expressed any longer, because transgenerational epigenetics favors instead the use of the leptin receptor from an evolutionary perspective. This occurs because the leptin receptor in the arcuate nucleus is far more sensitive and accurate in accounting for electrons from food than was using older circadian and ultradian cycles that we used in uteri during morphogenesis. The human brain learns "what neural circuits" to use by repetitive firing. We have a saying in brain surgery, nerves that fire together wire together. This is the basis of the theory of Hebbian learning. These exercises I told you about in the Leptin Rx signal hypothalamic neurons to adapt to these visceral responses to food in a new way, to sensitize the leptin receptor in order to account for electrons from food in precisely how it was designed to do by evolution. In essence, we are altering the genetic expression of the genes in our arcuate nucleus. I describe it to my patients as "performing brain surgery on them without using a blade." The visceral responses to the Leptin Rx are transcribed by the vagus nerve, and this information is sent to the brain. This message is dramatically different than the one the patient is used to giving the leptin receptor, and the new message induces changes to the neuropeptides in the brainstem. After some time, (6-8 weeks for most) changes will be induced. These can be followed by the clinician or the patient. Those clinical signs are outlined in the Leptin FAQ blog post. In doing this, we force the neurons to see neurochemical signals that radically confuse the leptin receptor and the brain. The brain's response to a signal it does not understand is to revert to an older known pathway or to learn a new way to tackle on old problem. I would suggest you watch How your brain re-learns from 2007 by Dr. VS Ramachandran in a TED talk. He exquisitely explains how this type of learning is stimulated in the brain for phantom limb pain and its treatment. One need not use expensive technology to induce gene expression. It is possible to do without an NIH grant too. It requires some synthesis of thought and experience. When you understand the essence of how the brain works, you just need to design a program and force it upon the brain to decipher what to do. That is the essence of the Leptin Rx reset.

The Osteoporosis Rx

Osteoporosis is a disease in which the bones become weak and are more likely to break. People with osteoporosis most often break bones in the hip, spine, and wrist. If you think this problem is not common, let me pick up the rock you must have been sleeping under. In the United States, more than 60 million people either already have osteoporosis or are at high risk, due to low bone mass. RULE 1. If one is leptin resistant, Wolff’s law is null and void, and you are at very high risk for a fractured vertebrae or hip/wrist. You should stop here and go read EMF-8 Quantum Bone for the pathophysiology of this disease. The key features are to increase your spring water intake to 1-1.5 gallons of non fluoridated water a day and strict avoidance of artifical light and the use of pulsed EMF technology devices. This means that "normal conventional wisdom osteoporotic treatments" and exercise will not heal or strengthen a bone until the underlyig pathophysiology is repaired first. When a person has high levels of leptin, it eventually drives cortisol higher and this stimulates even more inflammatory cytokines from cells. As this occurs, LR develops all over the body. Cortisol is one of the major hormones involved in the sympathetic nervous system. When cortisol is chronically high, as I told you in the Hormone 101 blog, it’s bad news. When someone is leptin resistant, they block osteocalcin’s main function and this causes osteoporosis. This is one major reason why fat people lose their bone. It also definitely proves that Wolff’s law is null and void when you are LR. Even resistance exercise maybe harmful when this occurs. Bone only strengthens when the underlying hormonal terroir is working properly. In LR, it is seriously broken. RULE 2. Andropause and Menopause are associated with osteoporosis, and not caused by it. In both situations the best treatment to overcome it is to change your diet to a high fat and protein diet. You would be a wise patient to avoid all bisphosphonate drugs until it’s too late. This will be hard to do, because most clinicians will push drug treatments over evolutionary medicine treatments. Remember The Seven Dwarfs of menopause: Itchy, bitchy, sleepy, sweaty, bloated, forgetful, and all dried up…and the bones are real dried up!

Osteoporosis 3: Related Drugs and Diseases

What are some of the medical conditions that are associated with osteopenia or osteoporosis? 1. Excessive alcohol intake- greater than two drinks a day consistently will do it. 2. Tobacco use- This causes a 100 fold increase in bone loss. Oral tobacco is worse than inhaled smoke 3. Stress- any cause be it emotional, physical, mental, psychic all raise cortisol chronically and kill bone 4. Lack of physical activity increases obesity risk, which increases cortisol from leptin resistance 5. Low calcium intake or absorption from gastrectomy or low acid production from any reason 6. Reduced strength and activity due to a chronic illness or a sedentary life (checked with a grip test) 7. Small build or leanness naturally – correlates with BMI below 19 for women and men. 8. Asian women have a particular propensity to osteopenia genetically and from their diet. 9. Drug therapy, for example, long-term use of corticosteroids such as prednisone-used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, celiac disease, autoimmune diseases, Crohn’s disease, IBD, and ulcerative colitis. 10. Low Magnesium, strontium, boron, Vitamin D3, Vitamin K2, elevated PTH levels, low sex steroid levels, high insulin levels, low progesterone levels, any cause of a leaky gut. 11. Menopause 12. Andropause 13. Any cause of chronic inflammation (perimenopause can cause severe acute bone loss) 14. Disuse atrophy from any cause (space travel) 15. Paralysis 16. High carbohydrate diets 17. Veganism or a plant based diet. 18. A diet high in whole grain (carbohydrates) is especially risky due to mineral malabsorption in gut 19. A diet lacking in animal protein and animal fat and cholesterol. 20. Excessive use of statins and thyroid hormone can cause osteoporosis 21. Age and sex: the older one is predisposes to osteopenia. Women lose 1-3{a7b724a0454d92c70890dedf5ec22a026af4df067c7b55aa6009b4d34d5da3c6} of their bone density ever year after their last period. 22. Chronic endurance athletics of any type cause severe bone loss due to chronic cortisol elevations 23. Gastric bypass patients carry enormous osteopenic risks. 24. Severe liver or kidney disease; Renal insufficiency can lead to osteodystrophy. 25. Diabetes 26. People with scoliosis of unknown cause (idiopathic scoliosis) also have a higher risk of osteoporosis. I believe this is because most of these children have severe underlying Vitamin D deficiency and a leaky gut, but this has never been studied in the spine literature. Any time I see a scolisosi patient, I always screen for low sex steroid hormones, low Vitamin D levels, and low Carboxylated osteocalcin levels. Bone loss can be a feature of complex regional pain syndromes.as they develop over time. It is also more frequent in people with Parkinson’s disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well.