FASTING
The thymus gland, essential for immunity, shrinks during fasting. Chronic infections such as tuberculosis are more common in malnourished people. However, fasting has been used successfully in treating certain diseases It can be useful in diagnosing food allergies, as in some types of schizophrenia. Its use as a weight reducing technique,: Is probably not generally justified by the facts. A current study (1975) is investigating the possibility that a balanced salt solution will prevent the destruction of muscle and other protein-rich tissues during fasting. I have noticed that such a solution relieves feelings of stress, so I think it will prove to prevent protein-wastage.
In a study of the nature of weight loss in a two week fast, it was found that about 95% of the lost weight was from protein rich tissues (muscles and glands), rather than fat. A low calorie diet produces a slower weight loss, but in this case most of the lost weight is fat. Since fat has a very low rate of metabolism, people who lose muscle by fasting are going to have increasing difficulty in losing weight, since they will have less active tissue to consume fat. Building up muscle and lymph tissue for optimum health — even if it initially causes a slight weight gain — will make reducing easier by increasing the mass of metabolically active tissue. Progesterone is the only steroid hormone I know of which will cause the thymus to regenerate. Vitamin A spares protein, and will protect these tissues even on a fairly low protein diet (Vits & Hormones, 1977).
Chronic dieters can adapt to a low calorie intake (Lancet, April 5. 1975, Miller and Parsonage). This is probably partly from a loss of active "protein tissue." Total nutrition is needed for replacing such tissues.
Fasting and stress suppress the thyroid, and thus can aggravate many symptoms. Thyroid function isn't always restored when the fast ends.

INTERACTIONS
Since all nutrients work together, it's generally best to eat a variety of foods at each meal. Unrefined foods assure a fairly broad range of nutrients. People sometimes forget that meat is a "refined' food in this sense: it doesn't contain all the nutrients needed to make an animal. Nearly all Americans have porous, weakened bones and teeth by the time they are 50, because of the large amount of meat eaten in relation to other foods. When excess phosphate (from meat or wheat germ, for example) is eaten, calcium and magnesium are removed from the teeth and bones to be excreted with the phosphate. Using a large amount of milk improves the ratio of calcium to phosphorus, but doesn’t supply enough magnesium to prevent tooth decay, heart trouble, and cramps. Greens and vegetables should be eaten with the animal proteins.
Eating extra amounts of liquid oil will increase your need for vitamin E, and extra carbohydrate will make you need more vitamin В1. Excess protein increases the amount of B6 needed. Some kinds of protein (cysteine rich, such as muscle and liver) also inhibit the thyroid; carbohydrate can promote the formation of T3, the most active form of thyroid hormone.
Other types of interaction haven’t been very well studied, but they probably are the reason for some peculiar diet systems: allergies to one food can cause digestive problems that interfere with other foods. For example, people who are allergic to onions sometimes have a gall bladder reaction which prevents proper digestion of fats. If we added up all of the special “avoidance" diets, no one could eat anything. Many people are ruining their health by avoiding too many foods.

VINEGAR, HONEY, AND FAT
I have seen people very quickly get fat on a daily drink of cider vinegar and honey and a dose of lecithin. The folk medicine tradition behind it was probably valid — it was a good way to fatten up people who were under-weight. But somehow this got twisted into promoting it as a "reducing formula " Lecithin is a good nutrient and seems to lower the danger of a high cholesterol level in the blood And cider vinegar and honey are both rich in necessary minerals But the acetic acid in vinegar not only is a component of fat molecules, but it also serves to activate the process of converting glucose into fat (Adv. Lipid Res. 9, p. 111. 1971). Thus the formula is good as part of a weight-gaining diet, but not as part of a reducing program.

Basic physiology that no keto person seems to be aware of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFlNlwWMfxM

Does losing all your money stress you out? If so you probably feel like your liver does when it's engaging in gluconeogenesis because it's flooded in cortisol. If that sounds like something you can relate to this video is for you. A ketogenic diet has neurological benefits. Why do we have to eat such an enormous amount of food?
Complex science. Clear explanations. Class is starting now.
Hi. I'm Dr. Chris Masterjohn of chrismasterjohnphd.com. And you're watching Masterclass with Masterjohn. We are now in our 31st, I think, but who can count, lesson on the system of energy metabolism. And today we're talking about how gluconeogenesis is regulated by cortisol.
As you can see on the screen gluconeogenesis is kind of like saving all your money so that you can pay your kids' college tuition and they get a degree in English. Gluconeogenesis consumes 6 ATP to get glucose so that cells will do the reverse reaction, glycolysis, to generate only 2ATP. You spend 6 and the return on your investment is 2. Gluconeogenesis is a very expensive investment with a negative ROI. As we talked about in the previous lesson the day-to-day regulation of gluconeogenesis is primarily by the insulin-to-glucagon ratio and the energy status of the liver cells. Insulin inhibits gluconeogenesis because it's the signal that you have plenty of glucose. Glucagon stimulates gluconeogenesis because it's the signal that you don't have enough glucose. High energy status stimulates gluconeogenesis because gluconeogenesis is expensive and the liver can only afford to engage in it when it has enough energy reserves that it can meet its own needs, its needs for biosynthesis, and enough left over to make glucose. For the same exact reason low energy status inhibits gluconeogenesis. But if gluconeogenesis is something that can be extremely essential because all of the physiologically essential roles of glucose and yet is extremely expensive, that sounds like something stressful; and in fact stress hormones also regulate gluconeogenesis. Glucocorticoids, as their name implies, are powerful regulators of blood glucose. Glucocorticoids are steroid hormones and -oid, kind of like humanoid for example from a science-fiction film, means resembling, like, or taking the form of. And a steroid is something that resembles cholesterol because all the steroids are made from cholesterol. A corticoid is a steroid that's produced by the adrenal cortex, which is the outside layer of the adrenal glands. It's a glucocorticoid because its primary purpose is to increase blood glucose. In humans the predominant and most powerful glucocorticoid is cortisol. Cortisol has a number of actions on blood glucose concentrations that are all geared towards increasing the availability of glucose to the brain. For example cortisol acts on the liver to increase gluconeogenesis and to increase glycogen storage. So remember that the liver is storing glycogen for the purpose of increasing blood glucose at a future time. So the liver is both, under the influence of cortisol, increasing the production of glucose for output into the blood and taking the excess of what is newly produced to store it as glycogen so that after these effects wane the liver is still very well primed to further increase blood glucose with its extra glycogen. In the muscle, cortisol decreases glucose uptake, decreases glucose utilization, and increases protein degradation. That means that the muscle will conserve its use of glucose for the blood so that the increased blood glucose can reach the brain.
Meanwhile the increased proteindegradation in the muscle frees amino acids from those proteins to go to the liver and to become substrates for gluconeogenesis. At adipose tissue, cortisol decreases glucose uptake and utilization and increases lipolysis; that releases free fatty acids. Those free fatty acids can now be used by other tissues such as the muscle in place of glucose so that the glucose can increase in the blood and become available to the brain. That even includes the liver because, if free fatty acids go to the liver and amino acids go to the liver, the free fatty acids can focus on providing the liver with the extra energy it needs to make glucose, meanwhile the amino acids become the building blocks for that glucose. It also acts acutely on the pancreas to decrease insulin and to increase glucagon, although chronic exposure of the pancreas to cortisol can actually, in the future, increase insulin output. Altogether this serves, whether by hormonal reasons, or because of the release of substrates from muscle and adipose tissue for gluconeogenesis, or by conserving glucose utilization in all the tissues except liver and allowing the liver to ramp up its glycogen storage and its glucose output; all of these converge on increasing blood glucose and making it more available to the brain. Because the brain is primarily sucking out glucose using glucose transporters that are simply extracting whatever happens to be floating in the blood in proportion to the concentration that's floating in the blood, so the only way to drive extra glucose into the brain is to increase blood sugar levels.
In order to understand how cortisol operates we should review gene expression from biology, something we actually haven't covered here yet. I should note now that insulin and glucagon and many of the other things that we've been talking about do regulate gene expression and we haven't talked about that yet.

We'll talk more about that in the long-term adaptations to diet once we are able to tie everything together in this course. The reason it's important to talk about with respect to cortisol is that unlike glucagon and insulin, which have acute effects on phosphorylation cascades and such immediate pathways, cortisol has all of its known effects through mechanisms that require protein synthesis. So if we want to take the information in DNA and turn it into a protein this in general is what has to happen. In the nucleus is where the DNA is, we have a process called transcription that makes an RNA template from that information in the DNA. The RNA leaves the nucleus and in a process called translation it feeds into a ribosome, which is made of a different type of RNA that plays structural roles to make the ribosome, and it feeds into the ribosome, the ribosome takes that information and makes a protein with it. The ribosomes are in the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum, the RNA is on the outside, the protein comes out on the inside, if it needs modification that happens in the endoplasmic reticulum, maybe it goes onto another organelle called the Golgi apparatus, but in any case the protein can be made and simply exported from the ER -- the endoplasmic reticulum, not the emergency room -- once it's gone through the process of translation. Some people may point out to help remember these things that transcription means to simply copy something, translation means to go from one language to another; so an analogy that people often use to remember this is that DNA and RNA are both made of nucleic acids. So they're like different variants of the same nucleic acid language, whereas protein is something fundamentally different. So you're taking whatever information is in the DNA and the RNA and you're translating it in to this fundamentally different language of protein. Genes need to respond to signals in the environment. So every gene can be roughly broken down into its coding region, shown on the right, and it's promoter region, shown on the left. The coding region is what contains the information needed to assemble the proper amino acid sequence to make the protein.The promoter region consists of structures called response elements, abbreviated here RE, and these response elements respond to signals in the environment. This is actually a continuous strand of DNA and as far as the gene is concerned there's no difference between one region and the other. We humans look at what happens and we say, "hey everything from here on is coding for amino acids, everything before here contains sequences that respond to the environment." But actually this is just one nucleic acid after another, one nucleic acid after another perfectly continuous down this line. One of the many response elements that are in the promoter regions of genes is the glucocorticoid response element abbreviated here as GRE. If the GRE is in the promoter region of a specific gene then that gene is a glucocorticoid- responsive gene because the GRE in its promoter region allows that gene to respond to glucocorticoids. Unlike insulin, which binds to a cell surface receptor and carries out a cascade of reactions that occur inside the cell, all the while insulin remains outside the cell binding to the receptor, unlike that situation, cortisol has to enter the cell and even get into the nucleus. The glucocorticoid receptor is normally present in the cytosol and it's bound to a chaperone protein called Hsp90, which stands for heat shock protein 90.

This is part of a class of proteins that are known to respond to heat stress, but this particularly well characterized binding is primarily a way to allow the glucocorticoid receptor to respond to cortisol. In the absence of cortisol the glucocorticoid receptor stays bound to Hsp90 and it stays in the cytosol. And a gene with a glucocorticoid response element in its promoter region inside the nucleus will not be expressed. By contrast, if the cortisol enters the cell and it binds to the glucocorticoid receptor, that causes the dissociation of the cortisol receptor complex from Hsp90. That allows cortisol in the glucocorticoid receptor to enter into the cell and to bind to the promoter region of genes that are responsive to glucocorticoids. That will allow the information in the DNA to be turned into RNA. Now it should be noted I've simplified this here by showing the DNA getting expressed upon binding to the receptor, but it's not true that the response elements always bind to something in order to express the gene. Sometimes the gene is expressed in the absence of something binding to it, and when that binding occurs it actually suppresses it. What we'll say here in general is that the presence of a GRE in the promoter region of specific genes makes those genes glucocorticoid-responsive genes. The binding of cortisol to the glucocorticoid receptor releases the receptor from Hsp90, allows it to go into the nucleus, bind to the GRE within the promoter region of glucocorticoid-responsive genes and thereby regulate the transcription of those genes. The profile of proteins that are produced under the influence of cortisol have two major impacts on gluconeogenesis. The first is that some of these proteins antagonize insulin's phosphorylation cascade. That means in the presence of insulin more cortisol will stop the activity of that insulin. So it induces a state of relative insulin resistance. Since insulin suppresses gluconeogenesis the insulin resistance caused by cortisol promotes gluconeogenesis. Meanwhile cortisol also directly regulates gluconeogenic enzymes. Among those increased are PEPCK, fructose 1,6-bisphosphatase, which catalyzes one of the final steps in gluconeogenesis, the conversion of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate to fructose 6-phosphate. It stimulates fructose 2,6-bisphosphatase, which catalyzes the degradation of fructose 2,6-bisphosphate, the regulatory molecule that stimulates glycolysis and inhibits gluconeogenesis. It stimulates glucose 6-phosphatase and the glucose 6-phosphate transporter that allows glucose 6-phosphate to get in the endoplasmic reticulum where it has access to glucose 6-phosphatase, which catalyzes the conversion of glucose 6-phosphate to free glucose. That's the truly final step in gluconeogenesis in the liver and its role is to allow that glucose to become free and enable it to leave the liver and go into the blood. So from the beginning through the end cortisol is increasing the expression of the gluconeogenic enzymes. And in doing that it increases the total capacity for gluconeogenesis and it amplifies any other pro-gluconeogenic signaling. In other words, if insulin and glucagon interact to suppress or stimulate gluconeogenic enzymes that are already produced, and cortisol increases the amount of those enzymes, then whatever insulin or glucagon does to gluconeogenisis is amplified by the fact that your total capacity for gluconeogenesis is increased. For example if you increase the total capacity for gluconeogenesis two-fold and if you have a low insulin-to-glucagon ratio, you could potentially get double the impact than you could without cortisol increasing the expression of those genes. In sum cortisol is a molecule that represents the stress response, the need for more glucose, unlike insulin and glucagon, which are primarily responding to the normal level of blood glucose. If you have high cortisol in a fight-or-flight response it may be because you need higher blood glucose than normal in order to meet the demands of that stress response. That would be a glucose-demanding stress. However, hypoglycemia is also a stress in itself. Hypoglycemia could be caused, for example, on the one hand, by poor blood sugar regulation. In some cases if you eat a carbohydrate load that you can't handle because your regulation of that load is messed up and that provokes you into hypoglycemia, then that hypoglycemia could provoke a cortisol response. It shouldn't, because when the regulation is happening naturally insulin and glucagon are fully capable of doing what they need to do to regulate blood sugar. But if you go into hypoglycemic stress, that means there's something wrong with that first layer of regulation and you need to tap into the second layer of the stress response. But it could also simply be glucose deprivation. At least in theory if there's some level of glucose deprivation that goes beyond the ability of insulin dropping and glucagon rising to normalize your blood sugar then that itself could potentially lead to the hypoglycemic stress that elicits the cortisol response. The end result is that cortisol is there as a backup mechanism to acutely promote and also amplify all the other signaling, to stimulate gluconeogenesis out of necessity. Because remember this is an energetically expensive process that only makes sense to do when you have to. So let's look at a handful of studies about whether carbohydrate restriction could provoke a cortisol response. I want to emphasize that I'm just going to show you three studies and this is not an exhaustive review of the literature. But the literature in general is inadequate and to my knowledge we're not skipping over anything that would offer any kind of definitive conclusions about any of this, certainly no conclusions that are contrary to the ones that I'm going to make in this presentation. Here's data from rheumatoid arthritis patients who were given a weight-appropriate ketogenic diet, meaning not designed for any kind of fat loss, and they didn't report the exact percentage calories or exact nutrients in the diet, but we can approximate that it was about 80% calories as fat. They were given this for seven days and then they were re-fed for two weeks on a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet. The authors said that the purpose of the lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet was to act as a kind-of-sort-of placebo in the sense that the patients were told that both of these were experimental diets and that allowed them to essentially trick the patients into thinking that either of them had potential to treat their disease. And what you see here is that after seven days on a ketogenic diet there's a statistically significant increase in blood cortisol. It was about a relative increase of 15% or 14%. After they were re-fed on two weeks of the lacto-ovo- vegetarian diet it went back down to baseline. This was not randomized, it was a before-and-after study, but it supports the idea that carbohydrate restriction at least across seven days is going to increase cortisol levels because insulin and glucagon modulation isn't enough to maintain blood glucose at what they need to be. Here's data from nine children with epilepsy who were put on the traditional four-to-one ketogenic diet, which refers to the amount of fat versus non-fat mass in that diet, and this provides approximately 90% of calories as fat. Again they didn't report those details in the paper, but these diets typically provide about that much. This was for the purpose of seizure control; this is the well-established method of seizure control in children with epilepsy that doesn't respond to drugs. They were on the diet for three to four weeks and you can see there was again a statistically significant increase in cortisol levels. In this case the increase was almost 4 times larger than it was in the previous study. Let's come back to why there might have been differences in the cortisol response to the ketogenic diets after we look at a third study. This data is from a radically different population. These people are not only not sick but they're competitive off-road cyclists. Eight of them underwent a randomized crossover study involving four weeks of a ketogenic or a mixed diet. That means that everyone got both diets, but some got the ketogenic diet first others got the mixed diet first. After they were on each diet for four weeks continuing on that diet they cycled on an ergometer with progressively increasing intensity until they reached maximal effort. In other words, as you see rest, 45 minutes, 90 minutes, max effort, what they're doing is they measure the data that's shown on the screen before they start the trial, then they cycle for 45 minutes. Through that 45 minutes they're progressively increasing the intensity, they keep going for 90 minutes, at 90 minutes they've not only gone twice as long, but they're also going at a much higher intensity, and eventually they get to max effort, which is when they reach, what it sounds like, the absolute maximum that they're able to tolerate. And these diets were, on the ketogenic diet, 70% fat by calories and on the mixed diet 30% fat. If you look at what happened to cortisol... I should note among the things that I don't like about the reporting of the data in this study, they did not look at statistical significance between each of the groups at each of the time points; instead they looked at the significance overall to say that through this data there are differences. That's not statistically rigorous, but it is what it is. So the cortisol was either not different or slightly higher on the mixed diet than the ketogenic diet at rest. That flips around when they start exercising. You can see that during exercise the cortisol levels are lower, but on the ketogenic diet they have higher cortisol levels than the mixed diet. That's also true as you get to minutes. Then as you get to maximum effort that difference pretty much disappears. So it seems like at rest these extremely healthy competitive athletes, who, by the way, as we covered in lesson 17 and 18 are doing exercise that should be largely fat adaptable. These athletes seem to be meeting their needs for carbohydrate on the ketogenic diet at rest, which suggests at least from the cortisol response that they are meeting those needs to maintain their blood glucose at normal because of the natural regulation you'd expect of insulin and glucagon. They didn't measure glucagon in the study, but you can see that at rest insulin levels are 19 on the mixed diet and 10 on the ketogenic diet. So insulin basically drops in half to maintain the same level of blood glucose. That could be partly mediated by glycogen release or partly mediated by gluconeogenesis, probably a little bit of both. When they start exercising the muscles need more glucose. And you can see that the blood glucose starts to rise in each of these cases, insulin levels drop in both of them to the point where the mixed diet has hardly any more insulin than the ketogenic diet does. The changes in insulin and the glucagon that we don't see don't seem to be enough to sustain the increased need of the muscles for glucose during the exercise because upon exercising is when we see this ratio flip around and the cyclists on the ketogenic diet having higher cortisol than they did on the mixed diet. This continues at 90 minutes. The glucose in the blood drops back down to about basal levels, perhaps because the output of glucose isn't quite keeping up with the uptake of glucose to keep it any higher than basal levels as it was at minutes. But presumably you have a lot more glucose utilization in the muscle, a lot more glucose output, but they're balanced and so the blood sugar is staying pretty even. Insulin is maybe a little bit lower, about the same in both groups, about the same as it was at minutes. Cortisol is a little higher in each group and it's again higher on the ketogenic diet. At maximum effort that difference seems to even out, cortisol is the highest as it was across the entire thing, perhaps because at that point needs for blood glucose are maximal and no one on any diet can't exert maximal effort with no spike in cortisol. And you can see that the spike in cortisol is driving blood glucose up to 120 and that is maintained partly by these relatively high levels of cortisol compared to the earlier time points at 45 and 90 minutes. At maximal effort that seems to be the place where the high demand for glucose, because of the exercise, is becoming the dominant factor in cortisol beyond anything about the insulin-to-glucagon ratios and the glycogen levels in the ketogenic diet versus the mixed diet. So if you look at this study it seems like in healthy people who are very well trained you may not see a spike in cortisol on a ketogenic diet except in the cases where the exercise drives up the need for glucose. Now we have to be really careful with interpreting these studies. So, for example, let's look at the carbohydrate and fat contents of the diet. The first study we looked at derived 80% of calories as fat and it showed a moderate increase in cortisol. The second study that we looked at derived 90% of the calories as fat and it showed a much larger, almost four times larger, spike in cortisol. The last study that we looked at showed that cortisol didn't spike except when exercise was increasing the demand for glucose, but it derived only 70% of its calories as fat, the least out of any of these studies. On the other hand the first study involved rheumatoid arthritis patients. These people are sick with an inflammatory disorder. The second study involved children with epilepsy that was resistant to drugs. These children have severely disturbed physiology that puts them into such an energetic crisis that without this treatment they have seizures. The third study involved healthy competitive off-road cyclists. These people don't just not have diseases; they engage in physical performance that puts them in top shape, especially with respect to energy metabolism. So are these studies coming to conflicting results because of the health of the people involved? Do significant health problems raise the need for blood sugar or the need for cortisol in some way that precipitates, or allows, enables the ketogenic diet to provoke that increase in cortisol? Or is this all about the degree of carbohydrate restriction? Do the ketogenic dieters with epilepsy have the strongest increase in cortisol because their situation demands the most intense ketogenic diet out of any of these and the greatest degree of carbohydrate restriction? Do the patients with rheumatoid arthritis have a less pronounced cortisol spike because their glucose restriction was less pronounced? Do the off-road cyclists have the least evident spike in cortisol out of anything that only becomes clear during exercise because they're healthy or because they had the most moderate ketogenic diet that was the least intense in its glucose restriction out of all three? These are questions that we can't answer because we just don't have a lot of data on the cortisol response to glucose restriction. It makes sense to me that if the glucose restriction gets intense enough it's likely to induce an obligate increase in cortisol if the insulin and glucagon modulations just aren't enough to handle the degree of restriction that you're imposing on your system. I can't support that because there's too many studies with different methodologies that don't clearly control those variables. I also believe that if you're less healthy and you have other taxes on your energy supply or other things going on in your body that are contributing to inflammation or obesity or other derangements of normal physiology; other things that are totally normal but are stressors like pregnancy, like work stress, like family stress, anything that goes into your stress bucket; then maybe the addition of all the things into your stress bucket makes glucose restriction going on top of it, if that's the thing that makes it overflow, then maybe that's what would also put you into the cortisol response. In any case we can see from these studies that glucose restriction in and of itself does not always regardless of context increase cortisol. However, there may be a degree of glucose restriction, particularly as you get down to 10 to 20% of calories, where you cross a threshold that does require an obligate increase in cortisol. And it's at least true that in the context of other stressors on the system many people will experience a rise in cortisol, indicating a stress response, in response to carbohydrate restriction. Cortisol is called a glucocorticoid because it is a powerful regulator of gluconeogenesis. And it makes sense that the stress response is a powerful regulator of gluconeogenesis because gluconeogenesis is an energetically expensive investment with a negative ROI that it only makes sense to engage in if there's a real need for it. The audio of this lesson was generously enhanced and post-processed by Bob Davodian of Taurean Mixing, giving you strong sound and dependable quality. You can find more of his work at taureanonlinemixing com. If you want to keep watching these lessons you can find them on my YouTube at youtube.com/chrismasterjohn. Or on my Facebook page at facebook.com/chrismasterjohn. Or you can sign up for MWM Pro to get early access to content, enhanced keyword searching, self-pacing tools, downloadable audio and transcripts, a rich array of hyperlinked further reading suggestions and a forum for each lesson to get a sense of community and ask questions of each other and me. If you really want to own these lessons, study them, and get the most out of them, you can sign up for MWM Pro at chrismasterjohnphd.com/pro. All right, I hope you enjoyed this lesson. Signing off, this is Chris Masterjohn of chrismasterjohnphd.com. You've been watching Masterclass with Masterjohn. And I will see you in the next lesson.

The next step is to begin eating better. Eat to appetite three times per day. Meals should be wholesome and hearty. If you are a long-time caffeine abuse, Day l is not the time to stop cold turkey. Take it easy on yourself Nourish yourself well and keep your physical activity low to moderate (walking, stretching, light yoga) and keep high intensity exercise to short bursts only, if you do any hard exercise at all. Go to bed earlier if you can. Take naps if you are tired. Don't fight yourself. Just listen and obey- more so than you ever have before. Your body knows what it needs. It is not a lazy pile of junk that sabotages itself. No more jogging or extreme exercise. Save that for when you have recovered if that really sounds fun to you. Just chill. Every day is spa day.

The Specifics of the High-Everything Diet
Just as your body became a fat storing machine because of your habits (reduced caloric intake) you can just as easily instruct it to become a fat burning machine. The first and most critical step in losing fat is to prepare your body for the task ahead by raising your metabolism as high as you can. For the majority of us, this is accomplished by (take a deep breath ladies) gradually increasing your caloric intake- in layman's terms, eating more!
-Ric Rooney: Secrets of a Professional Dieter

FROM http://www.functionalps.com/blog/201...-mitochondria/
“The mitochondria, by their ability to use oxygen, are responsible for the normal efficient use of glucose. Beginning at sunset, darkness progressively damages mitochondria structurally and functionally. Mitochondrial damage, and the functional impairment of organs such as the heart muscle, reach a peak at dawn. During the day (in organisms which survive the night), mitochondrial structure is restored, and organ function improves, with the peak being reached at sunset. In winter, there is cumulative damage to mitochondria, because of too few daylight hours to complete the rebuilding of mitochondria. During the summer (in organisms that live long enough) the cumulative damage is mostly repaired. A residue of altered cell and tissue structure, and of impaired enzyme function, remains under natural conditions of day-night cycles.”

“In a variety of cell types, vitamin A functions as an estrogen antagonist, inhibiting cell division and promoting or maintaining the functioning state. It promotes protein synthesis, regulates lysosomes, and protects against lipid peroxidation. Just as stress and estrogen-toxicity resemble aging, so does a vitamin A deficiency. While its known functions are varied, I think the largest use of vitamin A is for the production of pregnenolone, progesterone, and the other youth-associated steroids. One of vitamin E’s important functions is protecting vitamin A from destructive oxidation. Although little attention has been given to the effects of unsaturated fats on vitamin A, their destruction of vitamin E will necessarily lead to the destruction of vitamin A. The increased lipid peroxidation of old age represents a vicious circle, in which the loss of the antioxidants and vitamin A leads to their further destruction.”

Am J Clin Nutr September 1979 vol. 32 no. 9 1889-1892
The effect of raw carrot on serum lipids and colon function
J Robertson, WG Brydon, K Tadesse, P Wenham, A Walls and MA Eastwood
Two hundred grams of raw carrot eaten at breakfast each day for 3 weeks significantly reduced serum cholesterol by 11%, increased fecal bile acid and fat excretion by 50%, and modestly increased stool weight by 25%. This suggests an associated change in bacterial flora or metabolism. The changes in serum cholesterol, fecal bile acids, and fat persisted 3 weeks after stopping treatment.

"One vegetable has a special place in a diet to balance the hormones, and that is the raw carrot. It is so nearly indigestible that, when it is well chewed or grated, it helps to stimulate the intestine and reduce the reabsorption of estrogen and the absorption of bacterial toxins. In these effects on the bowel, which improve hormonal balance, a carrot salad resembles antibiotic therapy, except that the carrot salad can be used every day for years without harmful side-effects. Many people find that daily use of the raw carrot eliminates their PMS, headaches, or allergies. The use of oil and vinegar as dressing intensifies the bowel-cleansing effect of the salad. Coconut oil is more germicidal and thyroid promoting than olive oil, but a mixture of coconut and olive oil improves the flavor. Lime juice. salt, cheese and meats can be used to vary the flavor.”

SARAH JOHANNESSEN MURRAY: Okay. So I want to make sure to cover some things recommend to people to decrease hot flushes, whether you’re a male or female. Doctor Peat you were recommending?
RAY PEAT: Sugar, carbohydrates in general, but especially fruit. Gelatin is the protein that is best because it doesn’t make any serotonin. Salty foods helps to stabilise your blood sugar and lower the stress systems.
SARAH JOHANNESON MURRAY: And there’s also some herbs that can help to work on these systems. Nettle root blocks aromatase enzymes that increase estrogen. Vitex blocks prolactin, which increases estrogen.
RAY PEAT: Aspirin..
ANDREW MURRAY: Aspirin and caffeine.
RAY PEAT: Aspirin blocks aromatase and caffeine stimulates progesterone production.

Celiac disease has been pretty much explained as an overlap between a part of the gluten protein molecule and a natural enzyme that we have in all of our cells and systems, the transglutaminase which sticks proteins together. And this is induced by lots of things to increase its quantity or decrease it. For example, the ACE inhibitors for treating blood pressure have been discovered to block it, to the extent, that people’s skin can fall off. The epidermis separates and forms blisters and comes loose because of inhibiting the transglutaminase. But other things can intensify the action. Estrogen, for example, will cause premature hardening of the epidermis. The cells are flattened and keratinized under the influence of estrogen, which is antagonized by vitamin A. The and the skin and the breast are places that especially involve these interactions of the hardening enzyme. And breast cancer and uterine cancer contain very large amounts of overproduction of the transglutaminase of certain kinds. And the antibody reactions that are involved in celiac disease can inactivate the natural enzyme when it occurs. And, for example, the scleroderma, the hardening and calcification of the skin and other membranes can apparently overlap considerably with Celiac disease involving over-activation of the transglutaminase enzyme.

Lets just clarify first….it is not a vitamin but a hormone. Sun + Cholesterol + Thyroid hormone = Vitamin D production. If you are taking statins, have low cholesterol, don’t get outside much or have thyroid issues…you can take all the vitamin D you want. Unfortunately it will do nothing except raise your lab values until you go off. In order to regulate Vitamin D in the body, you have to regulate thyroid function, which will regulate cholesterol function. You also have to get off your phone, from behind the TV and computer and get outside!
☀️ Whos is at risk?
-Skin cancer:
-People who wear excessive sunscreen (that is loaded with polyunsaturated fats)
-People who live in northern climates in colder months
-Avoiding sun exposure
☀️ The best prescription….
-regulating cholesterol levels through regulating thyroid function. This is all about eating metabolic foods and regulating food frequency. This will reteach the liver how to store glycogen, which will increase thyroid hormone conversion which will thus regulate cholesterol function. As we mentioned last week, high cholesterol is a marker for decreased thyroid function.
-red light therapy stimulates enzymes in your cells that up regulate oxidative energy production
-safer tanning beds in the winter 1-3x per week
-foods such as fish, dairy, orange juice and eggs that contain vitamin D to support conversion and production
-go on vacation to a sunny spot
-lastly supplements, BUT…
"Supplementing with Vitamin D when one is deficient in Vitamin K can have a negative impact on our arteries. Vitamin D supplements liberate calcium from our bodies, and in the case of Vitamin K deficiency, the calcium may go to our arteries instead of our bones. Adequate Vitamin K can prevent arterial calcification and encourage getting more calcium to the bones, which is beneficial in osteoporosis, a common condition seen in people with Hashimoto’s.”
Dr. Izabella Wentz

How to Increase Resistant Starch in Potatoes?
Boiling and cooling potatoes has a similar result as with rice—the resistant starch jumps from 7 – 13 percent! This means that the heated and cooled potato will have a smaller effect on blood sugar, and calorie count is reduced.

Команда экспериментировала с 38 видами риса из Шри-Ланки, разрабатывая новый способ приготовления риса, который увеличил содержание RS. В этом методе они добавили чайную ложку кокосового масла в кипящую воду. Затем они добавили половину чашки риса. Они кипятили это в течение 40 минут, но можно было кипятить его в течение 20-25 минут, отмечают исследователи. Затем они охладили его на 12 часов. Эта процедура увеличила RS в 10 раз для традиционного, не укрепленного риса.

Some of us sleep and some of us hibernate….and they are not the same thing. You see, when bears go into hibernation, their metabolism slows down, fat stores go up, thyroid goes down and how? It is all because of the foods they eat but also serotonin goes up which starts this chain reaction.
* Most, not all, hypo metabolic individuals have higher serotonin. This is why they feel tired, sometimes gain weight, have a slow metabolism, thyroid issues and are not producing energy at the cell level. Serotonin actually suppresses cellular energy production. The problem with this is it will affect how you sleep because it causes an “excitement” of the nervous system, versus an inhibition. The end result is that we CANNOT get into a deep sleep nor have a nice night of restful sleep. Like I said, this is the only way most animals will survive the winter…..they lower metabolism, conserve energy for the long winter so they can survive the cold and they sleep, but not deep so they themselves do not become food.
* Hypothyroidism is known to promote this hibernation like sleep, which prevents us from going into a deep sleep. Most of the time we wake up wired, feel like we are plugged in and feel the adrenaline pumping through our veins. Whether you have hypothyroidism or not, sleep issues are usually caused by low CO2 production at the cell level, low levels of it in the blood and mouth breathing (as we blow off too much CO2). CO2 is essentially causing the body to be in an energy producing state but also is a sedative to the neurons in the brain, as well as the nervous system.
* When CO2 goes up….serotonin falls!

Constant Struggle
- When we eat infrequently or sporadically throughout the day, our body is constantly fighting to keep our blood sugar levels within normal ranges. The constant struggle to keep blood sugar normal, without the aid of food, is extremely stressful on the system. The body literally pulls out all the stops and declares a state of emergency. It calls upon the stress hormones like adrenaline, cortisol, and aldosterone to remedy the situation.
* Emergency - The body's stress hormones are similar to fire fighters and policemen. If a building is on fire, the fire and police department are called in to help and all the operations or functions of that building are put on hold until there is no longer an emergency. This is exactly what happens when the body's stress hormones are released.
* Everything Else is Less Important - Normal operations and functions like digestion, mental focus, hunger, ability to relax, maintaining good energy, and many other processes are put on hold because all resources and energy must be used to address the emergency - low blood sugar levels.

Tips on how to lower cholesterol…..
-Coconut oil, added regularly to a balanced diet, lowers cholesterol to normal by promoting its conversion into pregnenolone.
-A daily raw carrot may lower cortisol and estrogen, support thyroid and accelerate the conversion of cholesterol to steroid hormones.
-Regulating blood sugar to down regulate adrenaline and cortisol
-Increasing cell metabolism and use of cholesterol will increase pregnenolone. Pregnenolone can reduce cholesterol levels and reduce the over production of cortisol.
-Vitamin C is known to reduce blood levels of cholesterol.
-Vitamin E has been shown to help regulate cholesterol levels.
-DHEA has been shown to decrease LDL cholesterol. Use of light therapy
-Eliminate all vegetable oil and increase the consumption of saturated fats from foods such as dairy, eggs, coconut oil and butter.
-Eggs contain cholesterol and lecithin, which helps use cholesterol
-Assess thyroid function and adjust macronutrients accordingly. The more optimal the metabolism, the more optimal cholesterol levels.
Ray Peat PhD: A consistent program to prevent the oxidation of cholesterol would have to include all of the vitamins and minerals that are involved in antioxidant defense, avoidance of nutrients that exacerbate the destructive oxidations, and an effort to normalize the hormones and other factors, such as carbon dioxide, that have protective effects against free radical oxidation. A low level of cholesterol might increase susceptibility to the oxidants.

Drinking coffee correctly for pro metabolic benefits.

So here’s how it works:-

* it should be taken with or after a meal
* or if not with a meal, it should be with real sugar/honey and milk/cream/coconut milk
adding gelatin to it is high beneficial
* ideally it shouldn’t be the first thing you have in the morning as it raises cortisol in the body (stress hormone) which adversely affects many bodily functions including weight loss. So food should be before coffee.

So the reason behind having it with a meal and/or sugar and milk, is that it then provides the fuel required to match the increase in metabolism that coffee generates.

So in the absence of adequate fuel, that’s when it raises cortisol in the body (stress hormones), basically to break down your muscle tissue for glycogen that it needs to fuel the increase in metabolism.

Ever get the jitters after too much coffee? That’s what it’s all about – not enough glycogen fuel and basically your body is highly stressed, desperately working hard to do this conversion thing, just to get enough fuel to survive and not blow up your adrenals!

So all those who drink a great big double shot whatever and then put in stevia or some other artificial non-sugar that your body can’t use, are just asking for trouble.

Then those who do that and go and work out?

Great way to cause thyroid damage, and slow down your metabolism long term.

And how do I know this is true? Because I used to do it myself – if you’ve read my first book, where I describe going for an hour walk on an empty stomach no less, then stopping at the coffee shop to have a great big chai latte without sugar and then walking for another hour after that. It’s no wonder that my body temperature ended up at a low 35.2C (95.4F) waking temp and weight started to come back on – because I was constantly activating my stress hormones, which eventually trashed my thyroid.

Also I couldn’t drink coffee because it would smash me down with a massive migraine every few weeks. However now 6 months back on drinking coffee the right way and guess what? No migraines. No jitters.

Live and learn and coffee’s back baby!

Leafy Green and other Vegetables on the other hand have:-

- indigestible cellulose - which may cause gut issues and bacterial overgrowth

- phytates - blocking mineral absorption

- lignans – cause gastrointestinal distress

- lectins – which damage the gastro intestinal lining and cause inflammation

- oxalates – which cause kidney stones

- pufas - causing thyroid and carbohydrate digestion issues

- goitrogens – disrupting the production of the thyroid hormone eg: cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli

So while veges do have some nutrients, they also have some or all of these anti-nutrients in them which cause all kinds of issues as well as block many of the nutrients anyway. Often the amount of nutrients in the vegetables are small, so you have to eat a lot to get any where near the RDA – like a cow chewing all day, except for the fact that we don’t have the four stomachs to handle all that cellulose. And it just means you are getting lots of the anti-nutrients too.

So veges really should be super well cooked and relegated to a little bit of decoration on the plate, rather than the whole meal or snack being based around vegetables only.

(The exception to this is fruit-like veges such as zucchini, cucumber, tomato and root veges like carrots, pumpkin & potato which have the least anti-nutrients like fruit.)

So how do we care for our mitochondria?
🔹
Provide the mitochondria with the correct environment to thrive in: eat digestible metabolic foods, eat less processed foods, eat less undigestible empty nutrient foods. To learn much 🔹
Movement is the most beneficial mitochondrial booster: Not just any movement but when we speed up and slow down, speed up, etc. This doesn’t have to be intense, but it can be. It all depends on who we are, the healing phase we are in and the state of our nervous system. . This sped up and slow down movement increases the efficiency and function of the mitochondria, which speeds up your metabolism. Strength training increases the amount of muscle and the number of mitochondria so again your metabolism increases.
🔹
Carbs, carbs carbs: Yes I said it! Without them, your mitochondria cannot do what they are designed to do, produce energy. I am not talking about donuts, pasta, candy or even veggies. I am talking about digestible metabolic carbs such as fruits and roots. The sugars in these foods can easily be stored in the liver, where thyroid hormone is converted. These sugars are required for conversion of thyroid hormone in which, your mitochondria use to produce energy.
🔹
Get outside and expose your skin to the sun: The sun or even red light therapy in the dark winter months can stimulate an enzyme in your cells (cytochrome oxidase) which up regulate mitochondrial energy production.
🔹
Take cold showers, use cold exposure or ice baths: Sounds crazy right! Well it isn’t. Of course you might have to ease into this, maybe learn some breathing techniques to be able to control your breath so you don’t hyperventilate. BUT, cold increases mitochondrial biogenesis. It is simple, cold therapy boosts the energy producing part of all the cells in your body, which creates heat. They create heat as a byproduct of energy production. More cold, more energy production. We can use cold showers or immersions as a way to “biohack”the system into producing more mitochondria (energy). This is a great way to support thyroid health!
🔹
Breathing through your nose: Well we are supposed to and breathing through our mouths is actually compensatory. How does oxygen get into the cell? When we breathe in oxygen enters the alveoli in the lungs. Then the oxygen diffuses from the there into the blood where it is carried in RBCs. The main goal of oxygen is to yield energy in the form of ATP and CO2. Oxygen is used in the mitochondria of the cell. Breathe better live better! When we mouth breathe this does not happen because we off load so much carbon dioxide that we lose the ability to access as much oxygen.

Результаты, полученные в Айове, могут помочь объяснить значение еще одного любопытного наблюдения: пациенты с паническим расстройством, как правило, генерируют избыток молочной кислоты в своем мозге. Ученые давно выдвинули гипотезу, что в основе генетической уязвимости к паническому расстройству лежит аномалия, влияющая на основной клеточный метаболизм или рН. Одним из продуктов метаболизма глюкозы является молочная кислота, или лактат. Лактат постоянно вырабатывается и потребляется во время мозговой деятельности, но если он накапливается в мозге, он сделает мозг более кислым. Недавние исследования показали, что пациенты с паническим расстройством постоянно накапливают избыток лактата в своем мозге во время обычной умственной деятельности.

Мозг-самый энергоемкий орган в вашем теле, и именно по этой причине у тела есть много способов производить энергию (т. е. метаболизировать глюкозу).

Решение состоит в том, чтобы восстановить энергетические системы, предоставляя организму правильное питание, чтобы уменьшить избыточный поток гормонов стресса, подавляя правильное преобразование энергии и восстановить баланс.

Q: what kind of things do you test or do?



Q: Deep down, the patient often knows what is going wrong?


Q: so 160 over 100, are you saying that that’s not an issue?



Q: Is 110 over 60 even better, for someone 40/50/60?

RP: Well, sometimes it isn’t, sometimes it is. The drug companies have convinced doctors that 140 over 90 is a serious problem, but it isn’t.

RP: We are a very tough organism compared to rats, for example. We can stand a tremendous stress that other animals could not stand for many reasons. Our high metabolic rate and a big brain, powerful glandular system, give us a great adaptive ability. You can see in areas which have lived for many generations on a certain type of diet, that their health shows that objectively that their diet isn’t good or that their diet is missing something.

A: Some of the nearly vegetarian villages in Africa in South America and Africa, people are very badly and are dying off by the time they are 40 of infectious diseases. The explorer who, about 80 years ago, who was studying the diet of the eskimos, they observed that they could avoid scurvy by eating an entirely meat diet, and he popularized the idea that you don’t need fruits and vegetables, because meat is a good source of Vitamin C. But he himself observed that the people eating that traditional high meat diet, eskimos, looked very prematurely aged, and in the last 2-3 years that is being explained as phosphate poisoning. The ratio of phosphate to calcium, when it’s too high, accelerates degeneration.

RP: A pure grain diet or pure meat diet, either one. Vegetarians or meat eaters, causing the same kind of inflammatory toxic reaction.
Чисто зерновая диета или чисто мясная диета, любая. Вегетарианство или мясоедство вызывающие одинаковую воспалительную токсическую реакцию.

RP: No the grains are just as bad as the meat as a phosphate source.
Нет, зерновые так же вредны как и мясо слишком высоким уровнем фосфатов.
The ruminants who live on leaves by preference, they have an extremely high ratio of magnesium and calcium to phosphorous, and so their milk is pretty safe ratio, about 1 and one-third calcium per phosphate. But vegetarians who either eat a lot of fruit or who cook their greens, there are some diets up in the high altitude areas of Asia and South America, there have been people who eat lots of cooked greens, as well as sheep or goats cheese and milk, that’s a very longevity supporting diet.
Однако вегетарианцы, которые либо едят много фруктов, либо готовят свою зелень, в некоторых высокогорных районах Азии и Южной Америки, которые едят много приготовленной зелени, а также овечий или козий сыр и молоко, живут очень долго на такой диете.

Q: so cooking greens, Kale, cabbage, broccoli is a good thing?

RP: Yes we can’t digest them in the raw form, just because the cellulose encloses the nutrients and makes them inaccessible to our enzymes. There was a study about 1945, there was a study about loss of nutrients in canned vegetables, so they fed one group of rats vegetables out of cans, and another group, fresh vegetables of exactly the same kind, and the ones eating the canned vegetables thrived, and the ones eating the raw vegetables couldn’t digest properly enough to grow

Q: is there anything going on if you have a nice big raw salad?

RP: Some people have a very vigorous peristalsis, and they can get it through, and it sweeps out their intestine, and that can be a very good effect, because the liver puts out some of it’s toxins in the bile and tries to get rid of the toxins by excreting them through the intestine. But if you have a sluggish bowel and not much moving through it, the intestine reabsorbs those toxins so they recycle, and many toxins accumulate, especially Estrogen. The liver should make all of the estrogen experiences into a soluble form and excrete them. If you don’t have bulk or movement in your intestine, you reabsorb those, and that messes up your whole endocrine system. People with good physical function and good Thyroid activity, so the intestines are active, the fibers will take down the toxins, but because the raw or undercooked vegetables, can be attacked by bacteria, if they stay in the intestine too long, and the bacteria produce toxins, many people by the time they are in their 30s, will start to have digestive problems if they are eating salad every day.

And it happens that root vegetables such as carrots have to defend themselves against bacteria and fungus in the soil, so they have powerful antibiotics, and raw carrots will go right through you without being digested and without being attacked significantly by bacteria or fungus. Leaves, if for example you put a wad of lettuce into a bag, and put it in your pocket for a few days, and carrots in another bag, and keep them at body temperature for a few days, the carrots are in pretty good condition despite being sealed and warm, but the lettuce will probably be rotten and foul.

Q: the same thing happens to folks who don’t move it through in quick transit time?

RP: yes, and the great interest in fibre that developed in the USA, partly there was a trend in 1900, but it came back with the oat bran publicity in the 1970s. But the person who had studied the role of fibre in preventing bowel cancer in Africa, came to the US and asked why everyone was eating oat bran? He was talking about cooked potatoes in the diet, which are a great and pretty safe fibre.

Australian studies found in particular that oat bran promoted bowel cancer in rats

Q: Are cooked potatoes good? Sweet potatoes?

RP: Very good. New Guineans live on basically the traditional diet of almost pure potatoes for 51 weeks per year, and one week of pork feasts. They did not have any heart disease, not a high rate of cancer or any degenerative disease.

Q: I have always though of potatoes turning to sugar, would there be issues with the heart?

RP: All the starches do turn to sugar, but the other ingredients in potatoes are very different to cereals. The cereals are a storage form that has to be dormant for several months until the next season. The potato is always moist and metabolizing, and so it’s always in a physiological state, not concentrated and dehydrated. This means that it has a good balance of all of the intracellular minerals associated with the starch, so you have a better balance of phosphorous and calcium than in the seeds. The phosphorous in the seed is in the form of phytic acid, or a similar thing that binds minerals, which means the minerals are concentrated in this Phytic acid, this means when it sprouts, it becomes relatively good nutrition. But a potato is always in that living state, with granules of starch within a function themselves.

Q: Issues with nightshades?

RP: They are allergenic, nutritionally potatoes are almost a perfect food, but the whole family of potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant are allergenic.

Q: how do we know if we should be eating those?

RP: If you lay off them for a week, you will see if your symptoms subside

Q: If you don’t have any symptoms and you eat a potato, sweet potato, what kind of symptoms would you get to give you a clue of allergy?

RP: Well Sweet potato are a special issue, if they are orange coloured, the carotene interferes with the breakdown of the starches, and they are likely to be more fibrous than a white potato, so a sweet potato can cause a lot of gas, because it’s slow to digest because of the carotene.

Q: a white potato is preferred to a sweet potato?

RP: Yes, for ease of digestion. The protein quality in any potato is higher than the protein quality of an egg, so you can’t look at a chart which shows 2 or 3 parts of protein for 1 of starch, because most of the protein value is present in the form of small molecules that are equivalent to the essential amino acids, so they don’t show up in the analysis of protein, but when you eat it it counts as better than egg protein.

Q: It’s OK to put butter on?

RP: Especially with butter on, because pure starch digests quickly, it turns into pure glucose rather than half fructose, and the pure glucose is a strong stimulant to insulin creation and fat production. Adding butter or cream slows digestion, isn’t such a powerful insulin stimulant, it also reduces the chance of “persorption” of starch granules. A starch granule is a potato happens to be very big, other starch granules are the size of a red blood cell, but even the large potato starch granules bigger than cells can get squeezed right through the wall of the intestine, and enters the lymphatic system, so 30 minutes after ingestion you can see starch grains circulating through the blood and if they are big they will plug up your arterials. Studies in mice showed that a raw starch diet accelerated their aging, demonstrates areas of every organ that were being killed by plugging up the arteries,

Q: so the fat is key to have with starches?

RP: yes, good thorough cooking plus some fat

Q: For a couple of years we have been hearing the negativity of grains, rice, Wheat Belly etc. Should we eat grains? Do we need them?

RP: they are relatively nutritionally deficient food, but if you need their calories that’s they basic value. Traditionally, wheat in Asia and corn in Americas were processed by boiling the seed either in lye made from Ashes, or in active Calcium Hydroxide, to break down the toxic components, you can get somewhat the same effect by sprouting the grains, but the traditional, quick and tasty method was to boil it in the alkali. Most people know hominy, alkali-treated corn, when you grind up hominy, you make the traditional tortilla or Molle, and if people eat their corn or wheat in that form , they aren’t susceptible to pollegra (?) for example, because niacin is created in the treatment, and it lowers the problem of too much leucine in the diet from the corn, so it nutritionally corrects the natural problems of the grain. Separately from those ancient processes, the Europeans for generations processed their flour for generations to let yeast grow to soften it. The process of softening it and letting yeast grow takes about 12 hours, at a moderate room-temperature, and in that process, enzymes break down the storage proteins that are so allergenic, and release the minerals from the storage forms like phytic acid, and the traditional leavened bread was much richer in B vitamins, proteins and if you eat your grains without any of those old processes, you are going to have the lack of those positive nutrients, as well as the excess of phosphate.

Q: IN China and Japan, the 1000s of tons of white rice, is it a pure calorie thing?

RP: Yes, in much of the world, calories are the thing that keeps people alive.

Q: So it’s keeping them alive, not necessarily nurturing them?

RP: no, it’s not an ideal food except when you are really hungry.

Q: if we wanted to use rice to gain weight, how could we prepare rice?

RP: If it hasn’t been either roasted or irradiated, if it’s still alive, you can just soak it for a few hours, it gets softer and less starchy and more nutritious, the enzymes that are breaking down the toxic stuff , are releasing nutrients but also synthetizing new forms of proteins, the storage forms of proteins are almost always irritating, or allergenic, or toxic, but as the enzymes process them, they turn into living enzymes and structural proteins just like the plants.

Q: So soaking does the trick, makes them a better food?

RP: Yes. It’s especially good for promoting fat production. If you are having enough protein with it, the insulin can stimulate muscle-building.

Q: would you eat protein with that meal?

RP: Yes, you should always have some kind of carbohydrate with protein.

Q: Does broccoli count?

RP: yes, but pretty starchy. The trouble with a pure meat diet, is your blood and brain needs sugar, and your body is always going to produce some sugar /glucose, and if you are eating a pure meat or protein diet, your body is going to turn some of that into glucose, and some into fat for energy. But the process of breaking down protein to make sugar is also going to affect your own physiology.
A woman was told to eat more protein because her urine contained a lot of amino acids, her consumption went up to 3 pounds of meat per day. And she was getting weaker as well as fatter, because her cortisol production was extremely high, because that’s involved in turning amino acids into sugar.

Q: so if people have been told they have weak adrenals, bad blood sugar, what are good foods?

RP: The main thing that keeps blood sugar stable is the ability of your liver to store sugar, wherever it got it, it needs Thyroid hormone to store sugar, it also makes you use your sugar more sparingly, producing many more times of ATP molecules per unit of food, you get if you metabolise it into lactic acid which you do when you don’t have enough Thyroid. Thyroid makes you spare your glucose, not waste it, and store it in the liver, so it’s the basic thing for stabilizing your blood sugar. If you have cholesterol, which is only produced if the liver is in good condition, low cholesterol is behind serious adrenal failure, because raw cholesterol is raw material all of Pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, and cortisol. If your cholesterol is low and thyroid is low, you can’t make any of these. If you don’t make enough of these other steroids, then you will turn any trace of cholesterol into Adrenaline or Cortisol and get ecess cortisol, so you can get either adrenal failure or adrenal over activity, as a result of having a sick liver or any underactive thyroid.

Q: Is 220 a good sign of a strong Thyroid?

RP: Yes, anywhere 160-230 is good, but if your Thyroid is very active your cholesterol will probably go down to 200 or 190. There is this mirror-image relationship behind cholesterol and thyroid function.

Q: are you a supporter of using some kind of natural pig thyroid?

RP: Yes, when someone ahs been poisoned by stress and a bad diet, many things interfere with the ability to form and use Thyroid hormone. PUFAs will interfere both with production, transport and ability to respond to it, through poisoning of the mitochondria that use it. When you are under stress, byt the time person is about 30 years old, their tissues have had time to store PUFA, even if they are not eating very much in the diet, the body preferentially oxidises saturated fats and sugar, and puts the PUFA into storage. SO when you are stressed and over 30, your blood will fill with PUFA, which blocks Thyroid function as well as production of protective steroid hormones

Q: what are PUFAS?

RP: Liquid cooking and salad oils are mostly unsaturated. Corn oil, canola, safflower, seed oil, fish oil, all are anti-Thyroid

Q: Even a good fish oil?

RP: Yes, the fish oils happen to be so unstable, they were used as varnish, they were easier to oxidise than soy oil. The same thing happens in the body, in the 1960s they were seeing when feeding too much fish to farmed animals, they got what was called “yellow fat disease” caused by the breakdown of PUFAs.

It came out in the 1970s that the seed oil had been promoted to lower cholesterol, like corn oil etc, it turned out that they were causing heart disease as well as cancer, so that opened up the market for fish oil like EPA and DHA from fish oil. Their good feature is that they break down so fast that they aren’t so easily stored to become a chronic problem like the more stable seed oils.

Q: do we need these DHAs? Or will we make them. Do we need flax, primrose, etc

RP: There is no definite clear evidence that any of these are essential fatty acids. The best thing I can say about the fish oils, or n-3 fatty acids, is that they can protect to some extent against the n-6 seed oils. But in themselves they have been associated with causing increased metastatic cancer, reduced brain size, brain edema, all of the degenerative conditions such as slowed conductions of the nerves. Some of these are turned into virtues like immune suppression, which is normally a bad thing. You can suppress your immune suppression which is a temporary reduction in inflammation. They also slow conduction, so in some conditions you can reduce arhytmia of the heart because you are desensitizing the heart, but it also slows your nerve conduction, and we don’t hear much in the mass media about the bad effects of the long fish oils.

Q: What about Olive, Coconut?

RP: these are safest, along with butter

Q: Male, hypothyroid, have been on T3 an T4 for 18 months. I have increased a lot of body fat last few years. What is a safe way to lower estrogen, prolactin, etc while keeping Free Fatty Acids low? Should I take Vitamin E to protect against prostaglandins?

RP: one thing that often surprises people who want to lose weight is that milk drinkers as a group are the least likely to be fat. I first saw this when travelling. In Russia, tremendous rate of obesity, their diet was heavy on bread and they had a terrible milk supply. I went across the border to Helsinki and all the people there were slim, and their stores were full of cheese and milk, and that started me thinking about the role of calcium and dairy products in preventing obesity and degenerative diseases. It turns out that calcium is a major factor in itself in preventing the inflammation process which is important in turning on the fat storage.

Q: OK with cow dairy milk and cheese?

RP: yes it’s the best practical calcium because of the very high calcium to phosphate ratio

Q: I was recommended by you to drink Orange Juice to increase pregnenolone production.

RP: I always recommend drinking orange juice and milk because of the sugar and the anti-inflammatory ingredients in the orange juice, the high mineral content.

Q: so orange juice is a good food in your opinion?

RP: Yes, these minor ingredients, naringenen for example, are important anti-estrogen and anti-inflammatory foods, they will probably turn out to be major supplements when the orange industry finds a way to concentrate them cheaply out of the peelings.

Q: I heard that orange juice is too much sugar?

RP: It comes with these high potassium which works to dispose of the sugar safely and safe magnesium and calcium which help to stabilise the blood sugar.

Q: I feel hypothryroid unless I take Thryroid regularly, this seems to be my only side effect although I have problems with OJ, If I drink a quart I feel like I drop several degrees. I also feel that the juice collects in my stomach.

RP: this is where milk or cheese is very important to keep the metabolic rate up and watch the Thyroid function. There are several ways without having a blood test that you can make a pretty good guess about what your Thyroid is doing. If your hands and feet are cold, or colder than others, it’s because your adrenaline is holding your temp up for your brain and heart by cutting the circulation to your extremities.

Body temps in general are good, but cold extremities are the first sign of failing thyroid function.

Q: if a benign fatty tumor or lymphoma is inflamed tissue that is gathered to protect the body from improper diet or drugs, what is some way to melt the enclosed fat in order to shrink the lump, which is about 1 cup in size.

RP: I have known quite a few people with sizeable lymphomas, maybe none that big, but I don’t think anything is clearly known. I think that some kind of systemic inflammatory response is involved, making it hard for the body to clear that out, but I don’t know of any reliable way other than a simple surgery have it cut out.

Q: Do you think sugar had a huge effect on hot flashes, it may be worse when I have more sweets.

RP: no, there have been studies where people would eat a huge amount of corn starch at bed time, and that would turn off their hot flashes at night, how it works is pretty well worked out, not well publicized. There have been studies demonstrating the flushing, especially around menopause, this periodic flushing involves the release of nitric oxide in the blood vessels causing vasodilation, causing heat loss, the brain has a temp regulator which activates nitric oxide to create this heat loss, because something is creating this thermostat in the brain to a lower temperature. The brain is telling the body to cool off even though it is already sub-optimal temperature. The stress apparatus, normally the pituitary and adrenals, but above the pituatary, there is the corticotrophin release hormone (CRH)in the hypothalamus, which turns on the whole stress system, this CRH, directly activates the nitric oxide in the blood vessels causing flushing. The things that turn on the stress reaction and primarily related to hypoglygaemia. If the brain senses that it’s not getting enough sugar, then it wants to hibernate, reduce the body temperature, so it doesn’t waste the sugar that it’s short of. If you can tell your brain that it’s not short of sugar, that will suppress the CTH and that will stop turning on the nitric oxide and turning on the flushing.

Q: I’m a 60 year old man, often I have a 60 minute panic attack, I feel like I’m going to die. How can I find route cause?

RP: Hyperventilation is often involved in that, and a hormone imbalance, and checking the Thyroid and probably having a blood test for all the steroids (DHEA, Pregnenolone, progesterone, and cortisol).

When progesterone is low or estrogen is high, that causes hyperventilation, and when you start hyperventilating, the loss of CO2 causes your blood cells to release serotonin, and other nerve transmitters, that cause all kinds of nervous and emotional effect.

Q: does breathing into paper bags work?

RP: Yes I’ve seen people lower their blood pressure in 2-3 days and never have another problem of eg 160 over 90, with bag breathing a few times a day for several days. You fully cover your face so no fresh air comes in, and you breathe for up to a minute before it gets oppressive where you have used up the oxygen and you are breathing pure CO2. Only do it until it is uncomfortable. Each time you do this, it teaches your brain to reset things and tolerate a little more CO2 and acidity, and in 2-3 days you can train your brain to hang onto more carbon dioxide, which improves circulation to the brain. The same effect you can get from baking soda in water. I have seen a couple of people have near instantaneous recovery from stroke, which opens up the blood vessels in the brain.

Q: The CO2 that you breathe opens the brain?

RP: Not only the brain, but also the mitochondria throughout your body so it’s making things more efficient

Q: When we breathe through mouth rather than nose at night, this can get rid of too much CO2 and this is a problem.

RP: yes the medical analysis is that people don’t breathe enough at night, but when you look at the blood chemistry the usual thing is that they hyperventilate during the night, because as their blood sugar is pushed down to sleep, their adrenaline comes up periodically and this makes them have in effect higher estrogen, higher inflammatory hormones which drives hyperventilation and blows off too much Carbon Dioxide. Then they don’t breathe for a while so they wake up feeling like they have died or have not been breathing enough . The best chemical for this is Diamox (Acetazolamide ) that causes the body to retain more carbon dioxide, it prevents the body from losing too much carbon dioxide which keeps it in the blood.

It’s well established as a cure for sleep Apnea, also used by skiers to prevent altitude sickness, because altitude sickness is a lack of CO2 not oxygen.

Q: is it more of a treatment than cure?

RP: Sometimes 2-3 days of a thyroid supplement is all a person needs, and their own gland will take over. Same with sleep apnea, sometimes they can get out of the stress, and reset. Usually though you have to work on finding why the hormones are going bad, especially at night, and get your blood sugar stabilized, get a good diet of enough protein and fruit and supplement the Thyroid as long as it’s needed.

Q: speaking of sleep, insomnia is an epidemic. Are there any particular foods that you have seen to help?

RP: Very practical thing is warm milk with 1 or 2 ounces of sugar or honey in it. The milk makes the sugar or honey absorb more slowly. The sugar lowers your adrenaline. The older a person gets, the more problem a person has with sleep hyperglycemia causing increased adrenaline and blood sugar problems. Old people who are told to take a blood pressure drug will often get worse insomnia as their blood sugar falls and their adrenaline goes up and sometimes just by eating enough sugar and salt during the day and a little extra at bedtime, sometime they can not only cure their insomnia but sometimes also their blood sugar is corrected enough that their blood pressure issues clears up. Milk keeps sugar in the blood for longer, or ice cream too.

What does Cloudy Urine indicate? Body wasting Calcium or Yeast Infection?
RP – lots of milk or high meat diet, the phosphate needs to be excreted and shows up in the urine, and precipitates in the presence of either magnesium or calcium.

It only precipitates if the pH is above a certain point. If you have a very high protein diet, most of the time your urine will be acidic, and it will be clear despite having a tremendous amount of phosphate in it. However when something raises the pH of your urine, which can be eating a lot of fruit or vegetables, or hyperventilating (if you blow out too much CO2, the pH of your urine goes up to keep your urine slightly alkaline), and when your urine pH is neutral or higher on the alkaline side, then any phosphate or calcium is going to precipitate and make your urine cloudy

Q: I recently started taking progest-E and it’s helped my cyclical moods. I have been taking it for days 14 and 21 of my cycle. I hate to stop taking it because I have PMS, moodiness , would there be harm in taking it for a while continuously even if I miss a period or two?

RP: ;I have known women who took it every day and kept cycling without any problems, but what they should be aware of is if you take a little extra just before the expected time of ovulation, it will trigger early ovulation, then if you stop taking it or take less, it will bring on an early menstruation. So if you take it every day then you need to take the same amount.

What about someone premenopausal, Every now and then in the cycle , and the period doesn’t want to come, you get bloated, is there anything you can do like safer herbs so you can feel better and have your period

RP: Behind the problem with the balance of Progest and Estrogen, the basic thing is almost always low thyroid. Some women will use a quick acting thyroid, so as soon as they get a symptom of PMS, they take a little quick-acting Thyroid medication, and they can adjust the hormones on a day-to-day basis that way. Other people increase knowing that they don’t want to have PMS, they will take a little extra of their glandular thyroid, starting at ovulation, and the opposite happens when the person if hypothyroid, they may not have any ovulation at all, or may have extreme and prolonged menstruation, and it’s a very reliable treatment for prolonged menstruation to get the right amount of thyroid, you can normally turn off hypothyroid excess menstruation within a couple of days with a supplement

Q: A quick-acting Thyroid is usually a prescription,

RP: yes, usually T3 such as Cytomel is a prescription

Q: this is pig or cow?

RP: No it’s purely synthetic but the same chemical as we make

Q: Why is burning sugar for fuel healthier for the human body than burning Ketones? How can fructose be used by the cells if the cells need glucose

RP: the body can exchange them. The Fructose enters the glycolysis process almost the same place as glucose, and is oxidized almost the same way that glucose is. And a lot of Doctors are saying that the brain and muscle and heart and scuh can’t use Fructose, but there is evidence to say that they do have the transporter so that the brain and heart can use fructose.

Ketones are good if you get them fom fruit and vegetables, but if you have to produce Ketones, they are only produced under stress in the body, so they are good if you can get them but hard to make them yourself.

Q: Why does the Budwig diet against cancer have so much use when they use Omega 3 oils, when RP has concluded the PUFAs are not good for us?

RP IN 1954, a professor from the university of Guadalajara, had an article in Prevention managzine, describing his success for using a purge for his laxative patients to get their intestine clean, this has been known for 3000 years that laxatives are helpful for cancer patients, because of the amont of toxins in the intestine. He used a cup of linseed or flaxseed oil, it would rush right through and clean out the intestine. Until that tine, Johanna Budwig had published as co-author of a couple of articles in a soap and fat journal, and wasn’t doing anything unconventional. Right after that article came out in Prevention Magazine, she started developing her theory of n-3 Fats, my theory was that she had gone insane when she stopped being a resea4ch assocaiate for the soap professor, and shortly after that several little booklets came out, published by a Disney subsid describing her theory in crazy terms. Anyone who is intetested in doing hr program, should get a look at those books, because they were radically changed when presented in English to make it sound way more sane than they were. Her diet consisited of mostly cottage cheese, or the equivalent curds, because of the low iron content and cottage cheese (both milk and cottage cheese are very good protective foods for people with cancer), fruits and milk because o f the low iron content, are good for cancer patients, but I think as far as the flaxseed oil can work as a laxative, it is beneficial, but when it is working as a food then it has the risk of suppressing your metabolism

[blurb]

Q: Ray’s opinions of Hans Niepe’s mineral transporters: why does no one talk about them any more?

RP: For one thing, we don’t really need mineral transporters, people like Gilbert Ling many years ago showed that the doctrine that the cell is enclosed in an impermeable or semi-permeable membrane simply isn’t so. When they got isotopes that they could actually see the type of sodium atom that was being added to a syetem, they could demonstrate that the sodium atoms were freely moving in and out of cells, there was no barrier function. This applies to all the dissolved mineral substances, there is just no barried there to deal with, so that is that basic thing is that we have no need for a mineral transporter

Q: Does Ray Peat know anything about the organic sulfur you have been talking about for last few months. I have been taking the sulfur with iodine lugols, my thyroid hormones have gone down, I need to know if the sulfur will take iodone out too, should they be taken at opposite ends of the day?
Should they be taken


RP: Too much Iodone is probably the problem. I have a lit of 70 articles from around the world looking at the incidence of thyroid cancer and thyroiditis, they say that above 0.5mg of iodine per day, chronically increases the incidence of the disease.

0.5 MG is not a lot.

RP: no, but this is over a period of many years of this amount.

Q: How many MG per drop of lugols?

RP: I think it’s a few milligrams

Q: I’m a follower of Mr Peats, I haven’t seen anything about uterine fibroids, what is his suggestions for getting rid of them. Peptase and other enzymes have not worked for me.

RP: Normalizing Thyroid is the best thing. I had an experience with a woman who was 40 at the time, and wanted to get pregnant, and had a fibroid plugging the uterus by the fallopian tubes, about the size of a tennis ball, and I explained the physiology to her, and got her confident that she knew what was happeneing, and she adjusted taking enough thyroid to keep her estrogen down while keeping her other hormones up, and it happened that he pulse averaged 110 per minute, and her doctor told her that she would die from keeping her pulse at that level, but she had an ultrasound every month ad every month that she kept her thyroid at that level, the Fibroid shrank. She started in march or April I think, and by August she was pregnant

RP: No generally it is not
В основном - нет

Q: What could be wrong? Normally we’re told that it is. “I;ve been exercising a lot, and my pulse gets low around 50, after the rebounder”
Что может быть не так? Обычно нам говорят, что это нормально. "Я много тренировался, и мой пульс стал низким около 50”
RP: Very often it’s hypothyroid, very often long distance runners. [Q: oh low thyroid?]. Yes, if you put a person on a treadmill, and one experiment they had them walk so their pulse stayed 120 BPM. In less than an hour, their blood showed almost no T3. If a person is healthy, as soon as they rest for a day or so, their T3 is right where it should be, but if there is anything wrong with their diet, just that moderate amount of exercise can push your Thyroid lower and lower. One of the ways in which you can see the bad effect of a low pulse, is the difference between the top and bottom blood pressure is more than 50 points (it’s called the “Pulse Pressure”).
Очень часто это гипотиреоз, очень часто бегуны на длинные дистанции. [Q: о низкой щитовидной железы?]. Да, если вы посадите человека на беговую дорожку, и один эксперимент они заставили их ходить, чтобы их пульс оставался 120 ударов в минуту. Менее чем через час в их крови почти не было Т3. Если человек здоров, как только он отдыхает в течение дня или около того, их T3 находится там, где он должен быть, но если есть что-то не так с их диетой, просто это умеренное количество упражнений может подтолкнуть вашу щитовидную железу ниже и ниже. Одним из способов, с помощью которого можно увидеть плохой эффект низкого пульса, является разница между верхним и нижним артериальным давлением более 50(это называется “пульсовое давление”).
The systolic minus diastolic, should be 50 or less.
Систолическое минус диастолическое, должно быть 50 или меньше.

Q: if the pulse is less than 50, a low pulse that OK?
если пульс меньше 50, что нормально?
RP: Sometimes it goes from a big surge of pressure, like from a pressure of diastolic of 60 to 120, which is more than desirable.
Иногда это происходит от большого давления, например от давления диастолического от 60 до 120, что превышает нормальное.

Q: this would represent a low Thyroid?
И это представляет собой гипотериоз?
RP: yes, it could
Да, возможно

Q: so people who exercise a lot, isn’t our heart stronger if it’s beating less per minute?
Итак, люди, которые много тренируются, не развивают сердце, если оно у них бьется реже?
RP: Not necessarily you can give a person an anti Thyroid drug and their heart beat wil just keep getting lower and lower.

I have known people who had 40 or 50 pulse at rest, who were very miserable, when they got their resting pulse up to 70 or 80 they felt much better.
Не обязательно. Вы можете дать человеку анти тиреоидный препарат, и их сердцебиение будет просто становиться все ниже и ниже.

Я знал людей, у которых был 40 или 50 пульс в покое, которые были очень несчастны, а когда они получили свой пульс покоя до 70 или 80, то чувствовали себя намного лучше.

Q: you shouldn[t do that on your won though, you should get someone who really knonws their stuff?

RP: You can often do it just by diet, avoiding foods which block your thyroid function, mostly in USA it’s PUFAs, I have known people who have been eating a pure soy diet, or a lot of cabbage and broccoli, and stopping this diet for a week or two it popped right back.

Q: What about broccoli or cauliflower, what about these cruciferous vegetables, if cooked are they OK?

RP: They are till slightly anitThyroid , but most people don’t have a problem. If you want to test what low thyroid feels like, you can juice broccoli or cabbage raw, and drink a glass or two per day and you will feel it.

Q; What are some things that boost Thyroid function.

RP: Milk, orange juice.

Q: I love orange juice, but I stay away, I have bought into that idea that too much sugar idea. But it boosts Thyroid function?

RP: Yes

Q: Can you talk about Hashimotos? Is that overactive or autoimmune Thyroid?

RP: It’s Hypothryoid, underactive Thyroid.

Q: But it’s autoimmune?

RP: So-called, most of the autoimmune antibodies are part of the recovery process. Any time you injure a tissue, the immune system will try to eat up the junk, it will treat the tissue like it’s been infected. So that’s why they started calling it Thyroiditis.

Q: So it’s not the immune system attacking your Thyroid, it’s doing what it’s supposed to do?

RP: Yes, if you block the Thyroid for some reason, then you need to stimulate it with some type of Thyroid stimulating hormone, and just that stimulation creates a type if inflammation, and if that goes on for too long, eg blocking it with too much iodine, too much PUFA, too much estrogen, then you immune system will come in and clean up some of the junk.

Q: You’re saying you can definitely OD on Iodone?

RP: Yes

Q: I’m 44 years olf, and the day before my period I start to get a headache, possibly due to lo progresterone, I have been doing Paleo Diet for over 3 years now, it has helped, any suggestions?

RP: Usually, some good tropical fruit and/ or organce juice, or milk and cheese, will get the Thyroid back to normal functioning. In the short run, there have been studies where just giving the synthetic Thyroid for 5-6 months, will correct the antibody problem in Hashimotos

Q: what if someone has a hard time with casein or lactose, can this be corrected?

RP: There is no lactose in cheese, so a lactose problem cheese will take care of it, preferably without additives

Q: The casein?

RP: it’s a good protein, has many good features. An even better protein, is the juice out of the potato. In a few extreme cases where someone had no digestion for any kind of ordinary protein, if they juiced some raw potatoes, and cooked it, they could instantly assimilate it, and got over their sensitivities for other proteins.

Q: Has this been an anti-cancer treatment somewhere?

RP: I haven’t’ heard about it, but it’s an amazing food.

Q: Bioidentical hormone replacement. What procedure would be best?

RP: It depends on what the person needs. That term can apply to test, Progest, DHEA, Thyroid, any of those. But it’s also applied to estrogen, and it happens that the most dangerous of the estrogens, Estradiol, is bio-identical, so it doesn’t make a difference if it’s bio-identical, you have to be very careful.

Q: What does Ray think about the Ketogenic diet? High fat, low carb, low protein. What about bulletproof coffee with oil and butter? And REFINED coconut oil?

RP: Keto diet is a matter of stress. Anything that stresses you can turn on ketones. It’s better to have some sugar, so you don’t make ketones. Ketones from fruit or potatoes are fine.

A lot of people tell me they are doing that, but cream in the coffee is so good and the butter and coconut oil just floats on surface, whereas the cream mixes well.

RP: expeller pressed Coco oil is the only stuff I have used, which was delicious for making coconut ice cream. But it happens to be allergeneic, if you have any stress problems, it’s better to use refined deodorized coconut oil

Q: What should I do to overcome to overcome radiation therapy, I had prostate treatement.

RP: There have been studies of people, 60 years after Hiroshima, in which they could still see inflammatory processes in the blood which could still be linked to the radiation, so it’s really a lingering inflammation which you have to deal with.

With that kind of radiation, nothing is placed in the body which eg Fukashima fallout, you have actual isotopes which stick in the body, and is a different kind of problem. The lingering effect of external radiation puts you into an inflammatory state, and the things we have been talking about, the good, high-energy foods, milk, cheese, helps to heal that. Keeping your Thyroid up, activates the repair system which lowers inflammation. Any time your energy falls, you move toward inflammation. Don’t hyperventilate, do everything to keep your blood sugar steady, the inflammation will gradually subside, the anti-inflammatory hormones, are all protective in their situation, but basically diet and thyroid are.

Q: What do you think about Brian Pescin’s claims that Omega 3s are unnecessary, that the parent oils are better to supplement rather than fish oil?

RP: Well he’s right about the fish oil, there is no evidence that it’s an essential fat, there is no evidence that I have seen that the PEOs (?) are either.

Q: What’s the best way to test for food allergies, regarding heart rate, my heart rate is 85 sitting down, 110 standing up, I was told I have “POTS”, my blood pressure is good but a bit on the low side, including Celtic sea salt in my diet.

RP: The blood tests are often mis interpreted, you can see reactions in the blood, it doesn’t often correlate with allergies. Testing for food allergies, leave that food out of your diet for at least a week, if the sympoms go away then you can guess that you’re allergic to it. There is no real chemical test for the allergic reaction.

RP :High estrogen affected the nervous syetme so that the Sympathetic is weak and the Parasympathetic is overactive, that is why women get varicose veins so much more often than men, especially around pregnancy, high estrogen weakens the wall of the vein, progesterone tones up the walls of the veins, when the into your legs then the heart has to beat faster. Progesterone nad Thyroid are the things needed to tone up your veins, and return the blood to the heart, so that the heart has a good strong beat.

Q: Any recommendations for healing the Vegas (?) nerve, to encourage the more parasympathetic nervous system?

RP: My last few newsletters have been talking about the problems of stress. For example learned helplessness, called “learned despair”, if an animal is restrained, and doesn’t have the experience of being able to escape, if they fall into a tank of water, a rat could drown in 4-5 mins, whereas a trained, exposed rat would swim for 2-3 days. And that is from too much of the parasympathetic system. I have been working out some of the things which happen after middle age, equivalent to learned helplessness, where the body has many problems that it can’t deal with, it starts shifting too strongly to the parasympathetic and when we go to bed at night, normally we don’t need to expend a lot of energy, so the Parasympathetic system lowers the blood sugar. After middle age the blood sugar can be lowered so much that the other side of the nervous system reacts with surges of adrenaline and cortisol, that’s where the degenerative things come in, but they can be triggered by compulsive, overactivivty of the parasympathetic and Vegas, in liver disease they found they can prevent fibrosis of the liver by cutting the Vegas nerve so that it doesn’t recah the liver, so you don’t want to over stimulate the parasympathetic.

Gulf War syndrome, a lot of it had to do with organo phosphate nerve gases, but a lot of people are being exposed to similar chemicals in insecticides, or in the air in the airliners, which comes from the lubricants in yhe air system which put a bit of nerve gases into the air, and all of these exposures are creating an overactive Vegas syndrome, so many people have something similar to the Gulf War syndrome. The drugs that the Army used to treat nerve gas poisoning (atropine) can be used for extreme cases for these learned helplessness situations.

Q: What is the underlying cause for sever allergies, runny nose, sneezing, is it low Thyroid, hgh estrogen or both, and how to correct this?

RP: It’s usually something in the intestine, not always something you ate in this meal, but often something you ate yesterday or day before, which is farther down your intenstine. Eating starts peristalsis, and eating moves the irritant down to a sensitive place in the system, and runny nose and sneezing are the main, most common symptoms, that kind of stimulation, one doctor showed that just pressure in the rectum can trigger migraines, runny noses, coughing, sneezing, even epileptic symptoms, just low blood sugar intensifies the reactions and makes those symptoms worse.

Q: is there such a thung as Thyroid resistance, reverse T3, which doesn’t show up on blood tests?

RP: It’s important to measure reverse T3 if you are going to measure the Thyroid hormones at all, you can’t interpret the T3 itself (the active hormone), unless you know much reverse T3 there is, because that can interfere with the active hormone, so you have to look at the ratio of Active to Reverse T3

Q: After eating peanuts, his mouth cracked, a lab said he has candida, currently using Benadryl

RP: If it lingers for a while, a nutritional deficiency may have been co lingering with the allergy, and a lot of B vitamin deficiencies can make sores around the mouth, and inflammation in the intestine can activate viruses to break out in the mouth and around the lips, so food allergy is often responsible for coated or cracked tongues. The Benadryl lotions are soothing, another ointment you can get at the drug store, benzocaine ointments, and similar local antiseptics, Benzocaine happens to be Antiseptic as well as anaesthetic, and will often clear up a little skin problem, whether it’s virus, germ or fungus

Q: Low Thyroid, on 120mg of Natruoid, but still experiencing many symptoms, where can she find help?

RP: People can email me, but if a particular brand of Thyroid doesn’t work, then it’s good to change brands. Proloid-S is available in many countries, Cynoplus and Cytomel, but lacks some of the potential allergens that some of the natural ones have. Also changing the diet to include more of the metabolic promoters such as Calcium, the anti-inflammatory foods.

Q: What happened to the book store and newsletter?

RP: Yes, when they re reprinted. People can still sign up for the newsletter

Q: What is the ideal diet for Type 2 diabetes? I am taking 100mg of L Tryptophan at night for sleep, shall I discontinue.

RP: There are articles on my site about Diabetes, explaining how the unsaturated fats are an essential problem in causing diabetes, and sugar is NOT a problem and has been used a s a cure, getting the right diet and making sure the Thyroid function is optimized are the basics. Aspirin is well-known to help to regulate blood sugar and help to lower inflammation, and the problems associated with diabetes.

Q: I keep getting Acne, how can I deal with it? I take chlorella, have saunas, make green smoothies, what can I do?

RP: Thyroid and Vitamin A are the basic things, but the skin and intestine are very closely related, so you want to make sure you aren’t eating any foods that aren’t well-digested, or can irritate your intestine, because that can contribute to inflammation or problems with excretions of fats and sweat.

Q: Talk about using the far infra-red sauna and niacin for Rosacea?

RP: Niacin sometimes refers to Nicotinic acid, and this happens to increase your histamine, serotonin and prostaglandins, so I don’t think it’s good for anyone to take Nicotinic Acid. And Niacinimide is a form of that same vitamin which is active in cells and doesn’t re;ease those inflammatory processes.

Q: natural ways to reverse high Prolactin levels

Sometimes Progesterone does, but Thyroid is the basic thing, Tryptophan and Serotonin happen to turn on a trigger that increases Prolactin and TSH, they tend to go together. If your Thyroid doesn’t respond adequately to the Rising TSH, it isn’t able to lower the Prolactin, a supplement of Thyroid is sometimes needed, without that sometimes increasing the salt in your diet or using B6 supplement can sometimes correct the Prolactin, B6 is involved in correcting the Serotonin/Tryptophan metabolism, so it doesn’t cause the inflammation, so it doesn’t cuse the high Prolactin

Q: in his 70s, lower Thyroid, muscle tone, estrogen etc. Eskimos eat 70% fat, so he did this, not cold any more, but often high adrenaline, and cannot gt back to sleep, my Cortisol is highest in the morning, can you explain what is going on here?

It’s normal – the Parasympathetic system at night lowers blood sugar, and that increases adrenaline, and finally it will increase your Cortisol, so normally everyone has highest Cortisol at Dawn, darkness is very stressful, Cortisol protects against the inflammatory processes at night. If you can keep the Cortisol and Adrenaline lower by what you eat at bedtime, or even snack on during the night. Having some fluid in the night helps to keep your blood fluid and circulating, so you are less likely to have a stroke in early morning. The thickened blood and higher cortisol in the morning are dangerous, so it’s good to start with orange juice to get fluid and minerals in your blood in the morning to get the Cortisol down.

RP: better than nothing, but sleep problem, try Orange Juice, Sweetened Milk, chicken Broth with Salt, will lower your adrenaline. There have been studies on people with hypertension and insomnia, who were on a low salt diet, and salt is very often responsible for very serious problems such as this.
лучше не пить, но если есть проблемы со сном - попробуйте апельсиновый сок, подслащенное молоко, куриный бульон с солью, это снизит ваш ночной адреналин (причина пробуждения - NI). Исследования на людях с гипертонией и бессонницей, которые были на диете с низким содержанием соли, и соль очень часто ответственна за очень серьезные проблемы, такие как эта.

Foods that lower adrenaline and Cortisol, are milk and sugar, orange juice, fruit, tropical fruit, gelatinous things like Consomme, not marrow bones, because of high iron content, just the gelatinous joints with tendons and cartilage, or tail bones. Not the hard bone with the marrow in it, you want the joins, too much iron in the marrow.
Продукты, которые снижают уровень адреналина и кортизола - это молоко и сахар, апельсиновый сок, фрукты, тропические фрукты, желатиновые продукты, такие как консоме, но не мозговые кости из-за высокого содержания железа, и только желатиновые суставы с сухожилиями и хрящами или хвосты. И не трубчатая кость с костным мозгом, а сустав, из за того, что слишком много железа в костном мозге.

"I put a recipe up somewhere here, will try to find it.
But roughly it's 1 cup skim milk powder, 1/3rd cup skim milk, 1 egg, a few tablespoons of sugar, blend them up and slowly fry in a pan in some coconut oil
It's 36grams protein per 100grams - so a cup is around 80grams of protein!
You can easily get 40 grams of protein, and a lot of carbs, for breakfast."

Milk Powder Cookies:

Ingredients:
*1 cup milk powder (Bob Mills NonFat)
*1/2 cup sugar
*2 eggs
*1/4 cup butter
*1 tsp vanilla
*1/2 tsp baking soda

Melt butter and sugar together on simmer. Mix all ingredients together. Put cookie size dough spaced one inch apart on parchment paper.

Cook for 8-9 min at 350 F.

Makes 12 Cookies

Scientists at The University of Texas at Dallas have found evidence suggesting that resistance to the "hunger hormone" ghrelin in the brain is linked to the cognitive impairments and memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD).

The findings, based on observations of postmortem brain-tissue samples from Alzheimer's patients and on experiments with a mouse model of AD, also suggest a possible treatment strategy for the incurable neurodegenerative disorder that affects about 5.8 million older adults in the United States.

The research was published Aug. 14 as the cover article in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

"This is a proof-of-concept study, but we are very encouraged by the results," said Dr. Heng Du, associate professor of biological sciences at UT Dallas and corresponding author of the study.

Produced in the stomach, ghrelin sends signals to the brain that regulate energy balance and body weight. Often called the hunger hormone, it plays a role in appetite and meal initiation. But ghrelin also has been implicated in learning and memory.

The hippocampus region of the brain—crucial to learning, memory and emotions—is one of the first to suffer cell death and damage in Alzheimer's disease due to a toxic buildup of protein fragments called amyloid beta.

In a healthy hippocampus, ghrelin binds with proteins called ghrelin receptors, which combine with similarly activated receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine. The two receptors then form a protein complex that helps maintain communication between brain cells and, ultimately, memory.

In the new study, Du and his colleagues found that amyloid beta binds to ghrelin receptors in the hippocampus, blocking their ability to combine with dopamine receptors.

"Our hypothesis is that this dissociation between ghrelin and dopamine receptors may be what is affecting cognition in Alzheimer's patients," Du said. "As the brain loses the function of ghrelin receptors due to amyloid beta, the body tries to compensate by increasing the production of ghrelin and the number of ghrelin receptors. But the amyloid prevents the receptors from functioning."

Du likened the condition to insulin resistance found in individuals with type 2 diabetes. In that disease, insulin receptors malfunction.

"To compensate, patients in the early stages of type 2 diabetes produce more insulin to bind insulin receptors," Du said. "But they become insulin-resistant. No matter how much insulin your body produces, the insulin receptors are unable to activate the downstream biochemical reactions needed to transport glucose from blood into cells.

"Similarly, based on our findings, Alzheimer's might be linked to ghrelin resistance."

Du said the new findings help explain why a recent clinical trial of a compound called MK0677—designed to activate ghrelin receptors in the brain—proved unable to slow the progression of Alzheimer's.

To test a different approach in their mouse model of AD, Du's team gave the mice MK0677 and another compound—SKF81297 to activate dopamine receptors—at the same time.

"When we gave these compounds simultaneously, we saw improved cognition and memory in the AD mice, and lesions in the hippocampus were reduced," Du said. "Activating both receptors at the same time was key; it restored the receptors' ability to form complexes. When this happens, we suspect the ghrelin receptor becomes protected and can no longer bind to amyloid beta.

"More research is needed, but targeting this mechanism might prove therapeutically useful."

Du, who has filed for a patent on the approach, said the team's findings suggest that Alzheimer's might be more than just a brain disease.

"As we age, we tend to experience changes in metabolism. These affect the heart and the gastrointestinal system, but maybe they also are affecting the brain by altering the ghrelin receptor," he said. "We know that even in the absence of dementia, many older people have memory problems, and this could be related to the dissociation between the receptors in the brain, even without the presence of amyloid.

"I'm starting to think of Alzheimer's as a systemic disorder, and that we should pay more attention to the metabolic and hormonal path of the disease."

Организм не только нуждается в определенных питательных веществах для производства гормона щитовидной железы, но и для того, чтобы преобразовать гормон щитовидной железы в полезный гормон щитовидной железы для ваших клеток. Кроме того, гормон щитовидной железы является единственным гормоном в вашем организме, который оказывает гормональное влияние на 50 триллионов клеток в вашем теле. Питание является основой для здоровой щитовидной железы, здоровых клеток и общего благополучия. Ниже приведены 3 примера того, как они действуют.

Селен, пожалуй, является одним из важнейших кофакторов синтеза гормонов щитовидной железы. Селен действует как антиоксидант, образуя ферменты, которые борются со свободными радикалами, вырабатываемыми щитовидной железой. Во-вторых, есть важный фермент, называемый ферментом дейодиназы, который отвечает за преобразование неактивного гормона щитовидной железы Т4 в активный гормона щитовидной железы Т3. Ферменты диодиназы зависят от селена. Источники продовольствия: мясо и морепродукты.

Витамин А является жирорастворимым витамином, который очень важен, когда речь идет о функции щитовидной железы. В головном мозге витамин А и рецепторы щитовидной железы работают вместе, чтобы поддерживать правильную функцию гормонов щитовидной железы на уровне гипофиза. При недостатке витамина А гипофиз становится нечувствительным к ТТГ. Источники пищи: печень, морковь, сладкий картофель и кабачковые - тыква, кабачок, цукини, баклажан.

Глюкоза, безусловно, является одним из наиболее важных питательных веществ для преобразования гормонов щитовидной железы и клеточного энергетического обмена. Количество глюкозы в клетках печени регулирует ферменты, которые превращают неактивный гормон щитовидной железы Т4 в активный гормон щитовидной железы Т3. Источники пищи: тропические фрукты, крахмалы (корневые овощи (картофель, морковь) и кабачковые). "Вооружившись" правильными продуктами в течение дня, вы не только поддержите здоровье щитовидной железы и преобразование гормонов, но и поддержите общее самочувствие всей своей физиологии.

«Косвенно,на протяжении многих лет, доказывалось, что осуждаемый холестерин
является злодеем в сердечных приступах. Наконец, правда появилась, когда было показано,
что действительно высокий уровень холестерина часто встречается при сердечных приступах.
Однако в течение 100 лет накапливаются данные, свидетельствующие о том, что реальным
виновником является дефицит щитовидной железы, а холестерин, который обычно повышен
при гипотиреозе, является лишь невинным свидетелем ».

«Другими словами, щитовидная железа оказывает глубокое влияние на печень. У нас есть другие доказательства того, что недостаток гормонов щитовидной железы сопровождается вялой печенью. Во-первых, в течение столетия было очевидно, что пациенты с микседемой (очень низкой активностью щитовидной железы) имеют желтоватый оттенок на коже. Было установлено, что это связано с наличием слишком большого количества каротина в крови. Печень превращает каротин в витамин А, который бесцветен. При введении гормонов щитовидной железы печень становится более активной, а каротин вскоре исчезает. Во-вторых, уровень холестерина в крови обычно повышен при гипотиреозе. Щитовидная железа регулирует уровень холестерина, и если его активно снижать, то холестерин упадет ниже нормы. Печень превращает холестерин в соли желчи, которые выводятся с желчью; Этот процесс является обычным средством устранения избытка холестерина. Печень вяло выполняет эту функцию среди людей с дефицитом щитовидной железы… Поскольку вялая печень является наиболее частой причиной гипогликемии, следует из этого, что пациент с гипотиреозом очень чувствителен к низкому уровню сахара в крови »

«К середине 1930-х годов было общеизвестно, что гипотиреоз вызывает повышение уровня холестерина в крови; Гиперхолестеринемия была диагностическим признаком гипотиреоза. При введении добавки для щитовидной железы уровень холестерина в крови снизился до нормального уровня, когда скорость основного обмена достигла нормального уровня »

«В здоровом организме холестерин постоянно синтезируется и постоянно превращается в стероидные гормоны, а в печени - в желчные соли, которые выделяются для эмульгирования жиров в кишечнике. Гормон щитовидной железы и витамин А используются в процессе превращения холестерина в прегненолон, непосредственный предшественник прогестерона и DHEA. Все, что мешало этим процессам, было бы губительным для организма. Запас холестерина, щитовидной железы и витамина А всегда должен быть достаточным для производства стероидных гормонов и солей желчных кислот. Когда стресс подавляет активность щитовидной железы, повышенный уровень холестерина, вероятно, в некоторой степени компенсируется за счет синтеза большего количества прогестерона.

У очень молодых людей скорость метаболизма очень высока, и быстрое превращение холестерина в прегненолон, DHEA и прогестерон обычно поддерживает низкий уровень холестерина в крови. В 1930-х годах повышение концентрации холестерина считалось одним из самых надежных способов диагностики гипотиреоза. По мере старения скорость метаболизма снижается, и повышение уровня холестерина при старении, вероятно, является спонтанным регуляторным процессом, поддерживающим синтез защитных стероидов, особенно нейростероидов в мозге и сетчатке ».

«Высокий уровень холестерина компенсирует низкий уровень щитовидной железы, поддерживая уровень прегненолона, прогестерона и DHEA.
Сахар позволяет избавляться от свободных жирных кислот, превращая их в триглицериды для хранения.
Свободные жирные кислоты активируют гормоны стресса, которые, в свою очередь, вызывают синтез жирных кислот даже при расщеплении аминокислот, полученных из белка под действием кортизола.
Когда уровень холестерина настолько высок, что почти всегда бывает из-за низкой активности щитовидной железы, то накопленная ПНЖК, вероятно, является наиболее распространенной причиной этого.
Я думаю, что свободные жирные кислоты и степень их ненасыщенности были бы наиболее значимыми для анализа уровня липидов в крови, но тестировать холестерин и триглицериды легче ».