*if you’re going to carb, that is
The Sofer study was uniquely insightful in that they compared 3 carb-rich meals per day with the same amount of carbs but restricted to 1 meal. Both groups ate 3 times per day. Tl;dr: one carb meal is modestly better than three even when total carbs are controlled. Since the carb-meal happened to be dinner, #fakenews reported that “carbs at night” are superior… but we saw right through that – the real conclusion was carb frequency not carb timing.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, diet, Dietary fat, Dopamine, fertility, melatonin, Protein, sex, sleep, Sun, Vitamin D
Tagged calories proper, carbs, circadian rhythm, diet, melatonin, Paleo
Artificial light at night, crappy sleep, and skipping breakfast are major contributors to poor circadian rhythms. Some bro’s insist WHAT you eat is infinitely more important than WHEN you eat. I beg to differ, at least in part – nix the refined & processed foods and it doesn’t really matter if you prefer low fat or low carb (P<0.05). Evidence: Hunger-free diet(s).
Exhibit A. On the other hand, feed two people identical diets but induce circadian disruption in one and whammo – big difference in outcome.
Significantly less fat loss and more muscle loss in the circadian disrupted group.
Interindividual variability? Yes. Statistical significance? YES.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, diet, Dopamine, Energy balance, fertility, insulin, Ketosis, Leptin, melatonin, sleep, Sun, vasopressin, Vitamin D
Tagged body composition, calories proper, carbs, circadian rhythm, diet, energy balance, insulin, ketogenic, melatonin, processed food, protein
In the original Incredible camping experiment, a week-long camping trip was shown to cause people to fall sleep & wake earlier, feel better, and advanced their melatonin secretion. In the new Camping Experiment, they showed that 70% of this is accomplished within the first 2 days!
Some of the #FakeNews headlines attributed the improved sleep quality to sleeping in a tent. “Cute.” More likely, this was driven by absence of artificial light.
Proposal: How about fasting from artificial light one day per week? Or maybe just one night per week?
Posted in angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, melatonin, sleep, Sun
Tagged circadian rhythm, melatonin
From circadian entrainment to blood glucose management to appetite control to sleep quality:
We’re really not made to skip breakfast and eat late at night. Nearly every line of evidence points to this. And now:
Is the timing of caloric intake associated with variation in diet-induced thermogenesis and in the metabolic pattern? A randomized cross-over study (Bo et al., 2015)
Posted in angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, muscle, Sun, Uncategorized, Vitamin D
Tagged circadian rhythm, melatonin
Polish Mayor @jmmajchrowski takes steps to protect citizens from rising electromagnetic radiation; wifi, smartmeters https://t.co/Ywg0Jr7Xqw
— Dr Maryanne Demasi (@MaryanneDemasi) January 12, 2017
I was bored and had a stronger-than-usual espresso, saw the above Tweet, so obviously I decided to read the Health & Safety Guide that came with my cell phone.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set specific limits to Radio Frequency (RF) that any given electronic device can emit. Theoretically, at or below this level is “safe.” The actual number comes from the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement (NCRP) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The overall tone of this document is grave, ie, they take this RF limit very seriously.
The limit: 1.6 W/kg (Specific Absorption Rate [SAR]) or 0.0016 W/g.
I checked online at www.fcc.gov/oet/ea, and my phone is rated 0.3 Watts (W) at around 1.5 cm – distance is important: in this case, it’s the difference between squashing the phone between your face and your hand vs. holding it a finger tip’s distance away.
So, is my brain safe? Hard to say; how many grams of brain are within 1.5 cm from my brain? If we’re talking whole head exposure, ~4 kg, that’d be ~6 W. But I’m more concerned about the 4 grams of brain closest to my ear, within that 1.5 cm range, because brain cancer is pretty scary at any level of brain cancer (ie, whether it affects whole brain or just the 4 grams closest to my ear).
I can’t figure out these maths so I’m sticking with earbuds until I can.
Posted in chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, melatonin, sex, Sun
Tagged circadian rhythm, melatonin
There are a lot of mysteries involving melatonin, eg, relative importance of gut vs. pineal-derived melatonin. Does brain melatonin talk to peripheral MT receptors? Does gut melatonin talk to brain MT receptors?
What we do know: oral melatonin works in people with circadian-related sleep disorders. This may suggest that oral/gut melatonin talks to brain MT receptors OR that oral/gut melatonin corrects circadian sleep problems by acting in the periphery. OR a major target of brain melatonin is peripheral MT receptors. I don’t know.
And as a further testament that melatonin supps aren’t sleeping pills is that they’re non-addictive and can at least temporarily “fix” circadian sleep problems: after prolonged treatment, people report no withdrawal symptoms and still sleep better even up to two weeks after discontinuation (Lemoine et al., 2011)!
Posted in angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, melatonin, Sun, vasopressin, Vitamin D
Tagged circadian rhythm, melatonin
Three stories about LIGHT
One
Carbon monoxide (CO): one of the nasty things in car emissions & cigarette smoke. Also, a byproduct of the ever-important heme. Heme, as you may recall, activates Rev-erb:
“Food for thought: an endogenous ligand of Rev-erb is heme (the iron-binding element in red blood cells). Heme is degraded into bilirubin. Elevated levels of bilirubin cause jaundice. A treatment of neonatal jaundice is exposure to blue light. Blue light is a major regulator of circadian rhythms and Rev-erb is an executive-level player in this game. The primary mechanisms of blue light appear unrelated in these two models (melanopsin activation vs. bilirubin photoisomerization), but seem intertwined, because heme activates Rev-erb. Cool.”
News: Disruption of the body’s internal clock causes disruption of metabolic processes
Science: Reciprocal regulation of carbon monoxide and the circadian clock (Klemz et al., 2016)
Tl;dr: heme degradation occurs on a circadian cycle and produces CO. CO prevents Clock/Bmal1 from binding to DNA. Inhibiting this process throws off numerous other circadian rhythms in the liver.
SUNLIGHT and food in the morning, and let endogenously produced CO rhythmically tune the clock in the evening.
Posted in angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, melatonin, Protein, sleep, Sun, vasopressin
Tagged circadian rhythm, melatonin
Disclaimer: I’m meat-cancer agnostic. *IF* meat causes cancer (and I don’t think it does), it happens extremely slowly and only at very high levels of intake: to get statistically significant risk ratios, researchers usually look to top vs. bottom quartiles, which is quite a large difference in intake.
Meat-cancer studies Tl;dr: some studies show positive associations, some neutral, and none are negative (ie, it’s unlikely meat prevents cancer).
That said, if meat does cause cancer, here is how it might happen:
1. The “Maybes:” AGEs, leucine/mTOR, methionine, etc., but only in combination with numbers 2 & 3. Not by themselves.
2. Circadian arrhythmia and cancer: potential mechanisms
3. Most animal foods have a lot of linoleate 18:2n6 or at least a lot more n6 than n3 (grass-fed is usually a little better in this context). More on this below.
Posted in angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, melatonin, mortality, muscle, Protein, sleep, Sun
Tagged circadian rhythm, melatonin, mortality, processed food, protein
Observations:
Incidence of prostate cancer is higher among pilots, flight attendants, and rotating shift workers than the general population (RR as high as 3.0 in some cases!).
Circadian rhythms of androgens is absent & clock genes are disrupted in prostate cancer; the latter of which is reversible with melatonin which also suppresses prostate cancer progression.
Interestingly, radiation treatment is significantly more effective before 5pm than after. I don’t know why this is; could be a spurious correlation. Or not.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, Ketosis, Leptin, melatonin, mortality, Sun
Tagged calories proper, carbs, circadian rhythm, insulin, ketosis, mortality, nutrition
:::begin rant:::
Trigger warning? Maybe.
Disclaimer: I’m pro-LC (P<0.05), but not anti-LF because LF works better than LC for some people. And with the exception of things like keto for neurological issues, I think macros take a back seat to many other factors.
Myths: carbs cause insulin resistance (IR), diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. Carbs are intrinsically pathogenic. If a healthy person eats carbs, eventually they’ll get sick.
And the only prescription is more keto.
And of course all of this could’ve been prevented if they keto’d from the get-go.
Proponents of these myths are referring to regular food carbs, not limited to things like Oreo Coolattas (which would be more acceptable, imo). Taubes, Lustig, Attia, and many others have backed away from their anti-carb positions, yet the new brigade proceeds and has even upped the ante to include starvation. Because “LC = effortless fasting?”
Does this sound sane?
“No carbs ever,
no food often…
otherwise diabetes.”
no one in their right mind would say lentils & beans cause diabetes
Posted in Advanced nutrition, circadian, diabetes, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, Exercise, fat, fiber, Fish, Fructose, gluten, Grains, insulin, Ketosis, melatonin, mortality, muscle, Protein, sleep, smoking, strength, Sugar, Sun, TPMC
Tagged Atkins, calories, calories proper, carbs, circadian rhythm, diabetes, diet, empty calories, energy balance, exercise, fat, fiber, high fructose corn syrup, insulin, ketogenic, nutrition, obesity, protein, soda, sucrose, sugar, trans fat