More Thoughts on Cold Training: Biology Chimes In

Now that the concept of cold training for cold adaptation and fat loss has received scientific support, I've been thinking more about how to apply it.  A number of people have been practicing cold training for a long time, using various methods, most of which haven't been scientifically validated.  That doesn't mean the methods don't work (some of them probably do), but I don't know how far we can generalize individual results prior to seeing controlled studies.

The studies that were published two weeks ago used prolonged, mild cold exposure (60-63 F air) to achieve cold adaptation and fat loss (1, 2).  We still don't know whether or not we would see the same outcome from short, intense cold exposure such as a cold shower or brief cold water plunge.  Also, the fat loss that occurred was modest (5%), and the subjects started off lean rather than overweight.  Normally, overweight people lose more fat than lean people given the same fat loss intervention, but this possibility remains untested.  So the current research leaves a lot of stones unturned, some of which are directly relevant to popular cold training concepts.

In my last post on brown fat, I mentioned that we already know a lot about how brown fat activity is regulated, and I touched briefly on a few key points.  As is often the case, understanding the underlying biology provides clues that may help us train more effectively.  Let's see what the biology has to say.

Biology of Temperature Regulation

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Foods to Increase Platelets

Platelet function in our body part is essential for the process of blood coagulation. A normal platelet count is 150,000 to 450,000 but different diseases can cause levels fall can cause internal bleeding. A low platelet count is a serious matter that requires medical supervision, but in your diet you could find extra help. In here we give you a list of foods to increase plateletsand improve your health.

Low platelets can be caused by severe infections, diseases such as dengue, diseases of the spleen, hemolytic anemia, vitamin K, and most serious diseases like leukemia or the result of chemotherapy treatment, the important thing is to keep the situation under control and try as far as possible to upload more platelets in your body.

Depending on the disease that has caused the decline in platelets a change in diet may be beneficial. It is important to know that in more serious cases such as leukemia these foods do not provide a significant change, however in cases of dengue, anemia or other infections and diseases will markedly.

Faced with a decline of platelets is necessary to eat foods with a high content of vitamins and minerals that help our body to produce more plateletsand thus to recover our health.

In cases of anemia is necessary to increase the consumption of iron quickly, because low platelets cause fatigue and drowsiness. You should be included in the diet foods like spinach, the canons, lentils, red pepper, liver and guava, which in Europe can be found in juice.

The carrot, beet and celery are known for its properties to raise plateletsin our blood. The best way that you can consume it raw in a salad, as well get maximum of vitamins, however in cases of diseases such as dengue or severe infections where patients are too weak, the best way to eat them is in broth or vegetable cream.

Garlic is also an ideal food to increase platelets, prepare garlic soup or add it to the cream you suggest vegetable (celery and carrots for example).

The vitamin C is a great ally to increase the platelets you can get it from fruits like kiwi, strawberries, orange, and lemon. A good suggestion for patients who are weaker is administered in a refreshing juice.

In addition to your diet there are other steps you can take to improve your knowledge about blood platelets and if after a blood test your plateletscount has gone altered should consult a specialist immediately to determine the source of the decline.

Reflections on the 2013 Ancestral Health Symposium

I just returned from the 2013 Ancestral Health Symposium in Atlanta.  Despite a few challenges with the audio/visual setup, I think it went well.

I arrived on Thursday evening, and so I missed a few talks that would have been interesting to attend, by Mel Konner, Nassim Taleb, Gad Saad, and Hamilton Stapell.  Dr. Konner is one of the progenitors of the modern Paleo movement.  Dr. Saad does interesting work on consummatory behavior, reward, and its possible evolutionary basis.  Dr. Stapell is a historian with an interest in the modern Paleo movement.  He got some heat for suggesting that the movement is unlikely to go truly mainstream, which I agree with.  I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with him and found him to be an interesting person.

On Friday, Chris Kresser gave a nice talk about the potential hidden costs of eradicating our intestinal parasites and inadvertently altering our gut flora.  Unfortunately it was concurrent with Chris Masterjohn so I'll have to watch his talk on fat-soluble vitamins when it's posted.  I spent most of the rest of the day practicing my talk.

On Saturday morning, I gave my talk "Insulin and Obesity: Reconciling Conflicting Evidence".  I think it went well, and the feedback overall was very positive, both on the content and the delivery.  The conference is fairly low-carb-centric and I know some people disagree with my perspective on insulin, and that's OK.   The-question-and-answer session after the talk was also productive, with some comments/questions from Andreas Eenfeldt and others.  With the completion of this talk, I've addressed the topic to my satisfaction and I don't expect to spend much more time on it unless important new data emerge.  The talk will be freely available online at some point, and I expect it to become a valuable resource for people who want to learn more about the relationship between insulin and obesity.  It should be accessible to anyone with a little bit of background in the subject, but it will also be informative to most researchers.

After my talk, I attended several other good presentations.  Dan Pardi gave a nice talk on the importance of sleep and the circadian rhythm, how it works, how the modern world disrupts it, and how to fix it.  The relationship between sleep and health is a very hot area of research right now, it fits seamlessly with the evolutionary perspective, and Pardi showed off his high level of expertise in the subject.  He included the results of an interesting sleep study he conducted as part of his doctoral work at Stanford, showing that sleep restriction makes us more likely to choose foods we perceive as unhealthy.

Sleep and the circadian rhythm was a recurrent theme at AHS13.  A lot of interesting research is emerging on sleep, body weight, and health, and the ancestral community has been quick to embrace this research and integrate it into the ancestral health template.  I think it's a big piece of the puzzle.

Jeff Rothschild gave a nice summary of the research on time-restricted feeding, body weight and health in animal models and humans.  Research in this area is expanding and the results are pretty interesting, suggesting that when you restrict a rodent's feeding window to the time of day when it would naturally consume food (rather than giving constant access during both day and night), it becomes more resistant to obesity even when exposed to a fattening diet.  Rothschild tied this concept together with circadian regulation in a compelling way.  Since food is one of the stimuli that sets the circadian clock, Rothschild proposes to eat when the sun is up, and not when it's down, synchronizing eating behavior with the natural seasonal light rhythm.  I think it's a great idea, although it wouldn't be practical for me to implement it currently.  Maybe someday if I have a more flexible schedule.  Rothschild is about to publish a review paper on this topic as part of his master's degree training, so keep your eyes peeled.

Kevin Boyd gave a very compelling talk about malocclusion (underdeveloped jaws and crowded teeth) and breathing problems, particularly those occurring during sleep.  Malocclusion is a modern epidemic with major health implications, as Dr. Boyd showed by his analysis of ancient vs. modern skulls.  The differences in palate development between our recent ancestors (less than 200 years ago) and modern humans are consistent and striking, as Weston Price also noted a century ago.  Dr. Boyd believes that changing infant feeding practices (primarily the replacement of breast feeding with bottle feeding) is the main responsible factor, due to the different mechanical stimulation it provides, and he's proposing to test that hypothesis using the tools of modern research.  He's presented his research at prestigious organizations and in high-impact scientific journals, so I think this idea may really be gaining traction.  Very exciting.

I was honored when Dr. Boyd told me that my 9-part series on malocclusion is what got him interested in this problem (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).  His research has of course taken it further than I did, and as a dentist his understanding of malocclusion is deeper than mine.  He's a middle-aged man who is going back to school to do this research, and his enthusiasm is palpable.  Robert Corruccini, a quality anthropology researcher and notable proponent of the idea that malocclusion is a "disease of civilization" and not purely inherited, is one of his advisers.

There were a number of excellent talks, and others that didn't meet my standards for information quality.  Overall, an interesting conference with seemingly less drama than in previous years.

8-Year Old Doesn't Age Due to Rare Condition

 

Gabby Williams is 8 years old but has the skin of a newborn and only weighs 11 lbs. An ultra-rare genetic condition, for which doctors have no discernible explanation, keeps Williams from physically aging and has her parents caring for her nearly the same as the day she was born.

Williams shares her rare condition with only a handful of people around the world, including a 29-year-old man from Florida who has the body of a 10-year-old and a 31-year-old Brazilian woman who appears no older than two. While the medical community hasn’t yet established a cause for Williams’s or the others' conditions, research into the genetic disorder has promising implications for overcoming the inertia of aging.

"In some people, something happens to them and the development process is slowed," said medical researcher Richard F. Walker. "The rate of change in the body slows and is negligible."
8 Anti-Aging Foods That Help Fight Cancer And Heart Disease

The Science Behind Gabby's Agelessness

Walker has been researching Williams’ condition for the last two years. Retired from the University of Florida Medical School, Walker now performs his research at All Children's Hospital in St.

Petersburg. He reports having spent his entire career studying the causes of aging. The patients he deals with live with other conditions such as deafness and the inability to walk, eat, or even speak. But most notably, they all age at one-fifth the rate of a normal person.

Williams’ case is particularly noteworthy given her feature spot in the 2012 TLC documentary, “My 40-Year-Old Child.” Since the show aired, Williams’ parents told ABC News, their daughter has stayed relatively the same.

"Gabrielle hasn't changed since pretty much forever," said her mother, Mary Margret Williams, 38. "She has gotten a little longer and we have jumped into putting her in size 3-6 month clothes instead of 0-3 months for the footies.”

“Last time we weighed her she was up a pound to 11 pounds and she's gotten a few more haircuts,” she said, but other than that, things have remained the same.

Walker attributes Williams’ lack of aging to what he calls decreased “developmental inertia.” Her body’s normal physiological changes and maturation haven’t occurred because of the genetic condition. Normally when people age, their bodies mature until age 20 or so, and then begin to erode, or succumb to developmental inertia.

"If we could identify the gene and then at young adulthood we could silence the expression of developmental inertia, find an off-switch,” said Walker, adding that “when you do that, there is perfect homeostasis and you are biologically immortal."

Scientists Turn Off Down Syndrome’s Extra Chromosome In New Experiments

What Does 'Aging' Really Mean?

Part of the reason humans can’t live forever is that as chromosomes split during cell division, the telomeres capping the chromosomes begin to shorten. Scientists often liken telomeres to the plastic tip on the end of a shoelace, as they keep the frayed ends of the chromosome from fusing together and degrading the cell’s blueprint.

Broken DNA is dangerous, and because of this a typical cell has the ability to repair chromosomal damage. Without telomeres, the cell would mistakenly sense broken DNA in the frayed chromosome. Doing so would cause the chromosome to stop dividing along with the rest of the cell and eventually die.

The result of overcoming developmental inertia isn’t living forever. It simply means old age wouldn’t come with greater risks of cancer, disease, and illness.

“You wouldn't have the later years,” Walker said. “You'd remain physically and functionally able.”
Aging isn’t only a process of telomere-shortening. Scientists include other factors such as oxidative stress, glycation, and chronological age.

Oxidative stress, like glycation, is the compounding pressure put on DNA and lipids from oxidants. Glycation differs in that glucose is the main culprit, binding to and inhibiting DNA, proteins, and lipids. Chronological age refers to the number of years a person has been alive, and it reflects an increased risk for disease and illness.

In Gabby Williams’ case, her chronological age has little bearing on her outcome, although doctors cannot say with confidence how long they think she will live.

Devout Catholics, her parents accept their daughter’s fate however God intends it.
"When He is ready to take her back, it will be sad," her mother told ABC News. "But what a glorious thing it will be for Gabby to go to heaven one day. I know it will happen, but I am not hoping it's any day soon."

AHS Talk This Saturday

For those who are attending the Ancestral Health Symposium this year, my talk will be at 9:00 AM on Saturday.  The title is "Insulin and Obesity: Reconciling Conflicting Evidence", and it will focus on the following two questions:

1. Does elevated insulin cause obesity; does obesity cause elevated insulin; or both?
2. Is there a unifying hypothesis that's able to explain all of the seemingly conflicting evidence cited by each side of the debate?

I'll approach the matter in true scientific fashion: stating hypotheses, making rational predictions based on those hypotheses, and seeing how well the evidence matches the predictions.  I'll explore the evidence in a way that has never been done before (to my knowledge), even on this blog.

Why am I giving this talk?  Two reasons.  First, it's an important question that has implications for the prevention and treatment of obesity, and it has received a lot of interest in the ancestral health community and to some extent among obesity researchers.  Second, I study the mechanisms of obesity professionally, I'm wrapping up a postdoc in a lab that has focused on the role of insulin in body fatness (lab of Dr. Michael W. Schwartz), and I've thought about this question a lot over the years-- so I'm in a good position to speak about it.

The talk will be accessible and informative to almost all knowledge levels, including researchers, physicians, and anyone who knows a little bit about insulin.  I'll cover most of the basics as we go.  I guarantee you'll learn something, whatever your knowledge level.

Throat cancer and your health

Throat cancer is one of the most common, and although detected early healing expectations are 90% in most cases the disease takes to be discovered, so it is important to know a little more about it, your symptoms and risk factors. Here explain what the early signs of throat cancer are and give you all the basic information about this disease.

The throat cancer can start in this area and extend to the vocal cords, larynx, esophagus, the lower part of the neck, etc. Once you leave this area and is spreading to other organs of the body the prognosis becomes more complicated, hence the importance of detecting it early and stop their advance.

A major risk factor in this type of cancer is the habits and environmental factors. Smoking and chewing snuff and excessive alcohol consumption are decisive, but also the Human Papilloma Virus or HPV is a major cause of this cancer. Transmitted through oral sex is a major factor.

Most throat cancer patients are men over 50 years. Eliminate consumption of snuff, regular alcohol intake, eating a healthy diet and using protection during oral sex are the main recommendations to prevent it, however if you are active or passive smoking annually is recommended to go to a doctor for a review of discarding.

The main symptoms of throat cancer are:

• Loss of voice or hoarseness that does not improve after 1 to 2 weeks of treatment 
• Sore throat, even after taking medication does not improve after 1 to 2 weeks 
• Pain and discomfort in the neck that may be accompanied by lumps in the area 
• Cough may become bloody at times 
• Strange sounds and difficulty breathing properly do so can cause fatigue and tiredness 
• In more advanced cases difficulty swallowing and weight loss

A significant number of cases of throat cancer is complicated by not being detected in time, hence the importance of reducing or eliminating risk factors, comprehensive health checkups once a year and visit a doctor at any sign or symptoms.

Food Reward Friday

This week's lucky "winner"... cola!

Thirsty yet?  Visual cues such as these are used to drive food/beverage seeking and consumption behavior, which are used to drive profits.  How does this work?  Once you've consumed a rewarding beverage enough times, particularly as a malleable child, your brain comes to associate everything about that beverage with the primary reward you obtained from it (calories, sugar, and caffeine).  This is simply Pavlovian/classical conditioning*.  Everything associated with that beverage becomes a cue that triggers motivation to obtain it (craving), including the sight of it, the smell of it, the sound of a can popping, and even the physical and social environment it was consumed in-- just like Pavlov's dogs learned to drool at the sound of a bell that was repeatedly paired with food.

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Food Reward Friday

This week's lucky winner... salted nuts!!

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