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 [...]
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.
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?
READERS SUMMARY: 1. CIRCADIAN BIOLOGY NEEDS TO BE YOUR BIGGEST CONCERN AND NOT YOUR FOOD 2. WHY HAVING AN EVOLUTIONARY ADVANCED BRAIN MAYBE A DETRIMENT AT TIMES 3. THINK ABOUT WHY YOU FEEL AND THINK THE WAY YOU DO BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING 4. THINK ABOUT WHAT IS SAFE BEFORE YOU EAT IT 5. CHANGING YOUR PERSPECTIVE MAY OPEN [...]
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.
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.
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.
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!
In the first blog on osteoporosis, we focused in on how to stimulate bone mass accrual via our diet. This is by far the best way to fight osteoporosis and least used way, but it is not the only way to treat it. Eating a diet that is plentiful in proteins and saturated fats are smart moves to stave off bone loss as one ages. Eating a diet laden in carbohydrates or filled with a lot of fowl like turkey and chicken is not going to help your bone mass in the long run. The last blog demonstrated that vitamin K2 supplementation (for just 4 weeks) will not only increase your insulin sensitivity, but raise your sex steroid hormones as well to support your bone metabolism. Both mechanisms seem to be related to increased amounts of serum carboxylated osteocalcin (cOC), is made rather than just modulating inflammation in our body. The study I mentioned in part one, had too small a sample size to make firm interpretation on β-cell function result for a population, but the implications are huge for T2D with bad bone, bad heart or bad teeth. It is clear that vitamin K2 is biochemically quite helpful to a T2D with bone loss. The results of this study are consistent with previous studies found in the literature that demonstrated improved insulin resistance by treatment with vitamin K1 or vitamin K2, respectively. The preponderance of the research to date, is pointing out to us that cOC rather than uncarboxylated OC, is the endocrine hormone that increases insulin sensitivity in humans and eventually leads to increased bone mass. It appears the underlying mechanism for this uses inflammatory cytokines and involves leptin receptor dysfunction. It appears that cOC and/or vitamin K2 likely modulates several adipokines and inflammatory pathways other than the classic IL-6 pathways to offset bone loss seen in leptin receptor disease states. Since Vitamin K2 is a critical component of arterial, gut, and bone health, we need to spend some time talking about how the human body handles vitamin K2 in part two of this series. Vitamin K2 up regulates testosterone and it helps both sexes remain somewhat hydrated. This will become important when we hit quantum biology in the blog.
In my day job as a neurosurgeon, I operate on a lot of diseased spines. In the last 12 years, I have repaired over 1000 vertebral fractures from osteoporosis. If you remember back to my podcast with Jimmy Moore, I mentioned in the talk that the changes I had seen in osteoporosis incidence and prevalence is what made me look for the underlying cause. This ultimately led me to leptin and our diet. Many people think since bones are hard and used for support that they are not an active tissue. Bone is a very active tissue in the body that is constantly turned over. We constantly lay down new bone to stressors and resorb bone from areas that are not stressed. Since bone is so active, it uses massive amounts of energy. This is where leptin comes in. Any tissue that requires a ton of energy is coupled to leptin biochemistry. The story on bones and osteoporosis, however, is a very complicated one. I am going to give you a flavor of just how complicated. This osteoporosis series will have many twists and turns. Most seasoned spine surgeons wont know much of what you are going to learn here about bone. Most don't know that osteoporosis is caused by leptin resistance. Just ask one and see if I am correct. Most will tell you to take Calcium, Vitamin D, and exercise a bit to treat osteoporosis. They may mention a Rx for a bisphosphonate class of drugs too. I don't use these drugs at all. If you do just that, you can bet you won't cure a thing and you might even make the problem worse. Spine surgeons are taught a law called Wolff's law in reference to bone metabolism. It says the more stressed a bone is, the more bone is laid down and the stronger the bone is. This law is why most spine surgeons don't think that obese folks will have osteoporosis when they come to see us, much less test for it. These are the people who are experiencing a silent epidemic of this condition. Their numbers have exploded over the last thirty years. I mentioned that in my career I have seen a tremendous increase in this disease. In medical school, I think I had a one hour lecture on this disease. Now it is involved in close to 80{a7b724a0454d92c70890dedf5ec22a026af4df067c7b55aa6009b4d34d5da3c6} of the cases I see in my clinic. Few spine surgeons expect to see osteoporosis in our younger patients because most think this is predominantly a disease of old women with low estrogen levels. We are not taught to look for it in its correct biologic context, so it is often missed as a diagnosis, but often found on MRI imaging as loss of mineral content and more fat present in the marrow space. Spine surgeons must be more vigilant about this disease, because if it's tied to the leptin hormone, it points to the fuels we are putting in our Ferrari's! I will show you why diet is a huge factor in the development of metabolic bone disease that you should consider. This is why I treat osteopenia and osteoporosis a lot differently than conventional wisdom you will hear from other sources.