Over the course of human evolution, diets varied widely over time, seasons, geography, etc., ie, we can obviously thrive on many different dietary patterns… but the light/dark cycle was there the entire time. Why is this not the most important talking/debating point? Why do people think humans need one particular diet but can ignore circadian rhythms?
Because everyone’s still fussing about carbz and what we are “designed to eat”
*smh*
see also: “Lights Out!” by T.S. Wiley
Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, diet, Dopamine, Ketosis, melatonin, sleep, Sun, vasopressin
Tagged calories proper, carbs, circadian rhythm, diet, insulin, ketosis, nutrition, Paleo
The circadian proteins Bmal and casein kinase (CK) enhance and degrade Period (PER), respectively, by completely different mechanisms. Both are necessary, but at different times of day… #context
Gross oversimplification: the Bmal party is kicked off in the morning by LIGHT, and acts to increase PER by night (among many, many other things). As the day progresses, REV-ERB the Repressor slowly shuts down Bmal, so that peak PER occurs in the evening and doesn’t carry over until the next morning. GSK3b activates REV-ERB the Repressor. Lithium puts the system in fast forward, leading to phase advance* and ZZZ’s when timed right, at night… I think
Posted in angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, diabetes, Dopamine, insulin, melatonin, mortality, Sun, vasopressin, Vitamin D
Tagged carbs, circadian rhythm, insulin, ketosis, melatonin, nutrition
Basically, this much is pretty obvious now: LIGHT and food in the morning + darkness after sunset = proper circadian entrainment. But the how is pretty cool; LIGHT affects different biochemical pathways at different times of the day, which is how it can either advance or delay your circadian phase.
LIGHT entering the eyes is perceived by ipRGCs which then dish out glutamate and PACAP. These mediators go on to activate receptors in the SCN (the “Master Clock”).
Depending on the time of day, glutamate and PACAP affect different pathways.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, Ketosis, Leptin, melatonin, nicotine, Sun, vasopressin, Vitamin D
Tagged circadian rhythm, melatonin
T.S. Wiley wrote a lot about the protein-rich breakfast; here’s my understanding of her take on it.
N.B. I highly recommend her book, Lights out: sleep, sugar, and survival.
Quotes are mainly taken from the text. I’ve tracked down some of the cites; the rest are in the back of the book, albeit somewhat unorganized :/
Part 1. We naturally have a cortisol spike first thing in the morning, known as the Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR). This peak, which can be screwed up by artificial light at night or a big evening dinner, helps support morning light-induced dopamine.
Dopamine is great, but may induce impulsivity if it’s unfettered.
Enter: the protein-rich breakfast. It provides tryptophan and a bit of insulin to promote serotonin synthesis (eg, Manjarrez-Gutierrez et al., 1999).
Not enough serotonin to make you crazy, just enough to balance the dopamine = impulse control.
~ circadian balance achieved ~
Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, diet, Dopamine, fat, Fish, insulin, Leptin, melatonin, Protein, sex, sleep, Sun, TPMC, Vitamin D
Tagged carbs, circadian rhythm, diabetes, energy balance, fat, insulin, ketosis, leptin, melatonin, muscle, nutrition, Paleo, protein
I’ve been following the links between blood pressure modulatory hormones and circadian rhythms for a while now — and while it’s a fascinating overall picture, this nut hasn’t been cracked [yet]. A paper published in Science may have brought us one step closer. (And some potential biohacks.)
Background reading (probably important, because my thoughts on this aren’t very coherent [yet]):
LIGHT, Leptin, and Environmental Mismatch (skip down to Part 2)
Circadian phase delays and metabolism
Circadian biology: jet lag, mood, & potential role of BP regulatory peptides
The new study: Changes in the composition of brain interstitial ions control the sleep-wake cycle (Ding et al., 2016)
It was a study on mouse brain, but the #context is very relevant here.
Tl;dr: they showed that changes in extracellular ions, independent from neuronal activity, can induce sleep or wakefulness. “Independent from neuronal activity” was accomplished by silencing the neurons with tetrodotoxin.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, Leptin, melatonin, Sun
Tagged circadian rhythm, melatonin
…but it isn’t dead, imo, because that would be really hard to do. Like, seriously.
Wait, which “insulin hypothesis” was falsified? pic.twitter.com/31pOP9B6Ff
— Bill Lagakos (@CaloriesProper) May 11, 2016
side note: please consider the modern views of Taubes, Lustig, Gardner, Attia, and others on Carbs™. They’re less “Carbs-cause-obesity, keto-for-all, etc.,” and more thinking it might not be Carbs™ per se, but rather processed and refined foods. And #context… And I tend to agree at the moment (nuances and caveats are subject to change, as more evidence accumulates).
disclaimer: I haven’t seen the full text of Hall’s recent study, but that’s not really relevant to what I want to discuss. In other words, I don’t think the full text will provide any additional details on this particular point.
Tl;dr: this study was not designed to prove or disprove metabolic advantage or the insulin-obesity hypothesis.
It’s in the study design: four weeks of low fat followed by four weeks of low carb. We KNOW that weight loss slows over time (especially if calories are controlled, as they were in this study). It has to do with the order of treatments.
Weight loss-slowing over time in the Minnesota Experiment:
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diabetes, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Grains, insulin, Ketosis, Leptin, Protein, sleep, Sun, TPMC
Tagged calories, carbs, diet, empty calories, energy balance, fiber, grains, insulin, ketogenic, ketones, ketosis, leptin, nutrition, obesity, Paleo, processed food, protein, sugar, trans fat
Social jet lag is basically a general term that refers to circadian arrhythmia. Sort of like insulin resistance, it’s rampantly abundant — some have estimated a prevalence of up to 75%! Social jet lag can be induced by shift work, East/West travel, late meal timing, artificial light at night, sleeping late, not enough sunlight in the morning, etc., etc. And while any of the above insults, by themselves, may not really screw up your circadian rhythms, you can see how easy it is for one person to fall prey to nearly of them:
Eat a late dinner, stay up late using artificial light (eg, computer, smart phone, etc.), sleep late the following day so you skip breakfast and don’t get any sunlight in the morning.
CIRCADIAN MISMATCH ACCOMPLISHED
This increases your risk for a wide variety of ailments, ranging from cancer to diabetes to bipolar disorder: no bueno.
One key mediator of the effects of LIGHT is melatonin. Artificial light at night suppresses melatonin. Sunlight in the morning can blunt the impact of this! It all ties in together. Gravitas.
Great review article here.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, diabetes, diet, Dopamine, Energy balance, Ketosis, Leptin, melatonin, resveratrol, Sun
Tagged calories proper, carbs, circadian rhythm, energy balance, ketosis, melatonin, sleep
Intermittent fasting (IF) is not a universal panacea, regardless of whether you’re not eating anything at all for a few days each week/month or just restricting your feeding window to a few hours per day.
Some protocols, eg, 20h fasting every second day, significantly improve insulin sensitivity in adipose tissue (Halberg et al., 2005). This is expected to make fat gain easier, and while this wasn’t meant to be a study on body composition per se…
After just a few weeks, things weren’t changing in a good way (NS).
Posted in Advanced nutrition, chronopharmacology, circadian, diabetes, Energy balance, fat, insulin, melatonin, muscle, sleep, Sun
Tagged body composition, circadian rhythm, diet, insulin, muscle, nutrition
There are multiple distinct flavors of diabetes/obesity, as evidenced by the fact that some people have: 1) impaired glucose tolerance (but normal fasting glucose); 2) others have impaired fasting glucose (but normal glucose tolerance); and 3) others have both. This means there isn’t a linear relationship between these phenomena*. There are also: 4) obese patients with normal glucose metabolism; and 5) lean patients with type 2 diabetes.
*I think the great Dr. Kraft
There is not 100% overlap among these, suggesting [confirming] distinct diabetes/obesity phenotypes (and probably causes & best treatments).
Posted in chronopharmacology, circadian, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, insulin, Ketosis, Leptin, microbiome, Protein, Sun, TPMC
Tagged circadian rhythm, diet, energy balance, fat, fiber, insulin, ketogenic, ketones, ketosis, leptin, nutrition, obesity, Paleo, protein
“despite not eating more or moving less”
We’ve seen this time and time again: LIGHT IS A DRUG.
above quote is extrapolated from this rodent study: “Prolonged daily light exposure increases body fat mass through attenuation of brown adipose tissue activity.”
Artificial light impacts nearly every biological system, and it doesn’t even take very much to have an appreciable effect (think: checking your smart phone or watching a television show on your iPad in bed at night). In this study, adding 4 hours to the usual 12 hours of light slammed the autonomic nervous system, disrupting sympathetic input into brown adipose leading to a significant increase in body fat “despite not eating more or moving less.”
Posted in Bromocriptine, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, Energy balance, Exercise, melatonin, muscle, sleep, Sun
Tagged body composition, calories proper, carbs, circadian rhythm, energy balance, obesity, Paleo