Category Archives: testosterone

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It’s not blue light per se, but rather underexposure to natural sunlight during the day and overexposure to artificial light at night (ALAN). Step 1: Do the opposite of that.

“Bright light occurs naturally as part of sunlight and moonlight and, like all living things on Earth, we have evolved to respond to the daily cycle of light and dark. There is growing concern that the increased exposure to artificial light at nigh is having an effect on our health, wildlife, and the night sky.”

Your eyeballs are pretty awesome. Rods and cones and these crazy cells that respond specifically to daylight. The crazy cells, ipRGCs, respond to light, particularly in the green/blue range of visible and serve, in part, to entrain the central component of your circadian clock in the SCN. This is important and influences many body functions such as sleep, metabolism, immune system, mood, and even certain disease processes.

If you’re more interested in the environmental impact of artificial light (eg, street lamps), book recommendation: The End of Night: Searching for Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light. If you’re more interested in the human effects: Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival.

ALAN-induced clock disruption is said to have “flow-on” negative health effect — there’s no “good news / bad news” to this story (it’s all bad news).

Rock hot blue blockers at night. Use blue light filters on your devices like f.lux and Iris. Sunlight during the day; darkness, moonlight, or firelight at night.

Note those spectral sensitivities – we can see more green/blue than any other colors. Maybe there’s a reason for that?

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Affiliate links: Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE.

If you want the benefits of ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, cancer, chronopharmacology, circadian, depression, diabetes, Dopamine, melatonin, mortality, nicotine, sex, sleep, Sugar, Sun, testosterone, vasopressin, Vitamin D

Tagged circadian rhythm, dopamine, melatonin, mortality

Entrain all of your circadian clocks. Full stop.

Posted on October 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

Skipping breakfast shifts skin circadian clock and enhances UVB-induced skin aging and cancer (Wang et al., 2017)… ok, that’s not the real title of the paper, but it’s what the research showed. And it’s kind of amazing.

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Regarding skin cancer and wrinkles, there are two basic processes to focus on: proliferation and protection.

These processes don’t really overlap: you want endogenous protective mechanisms during the day, to protect against UV rays, and you don’t want to be proliferating at this time because that would increase the chances of a malignant mutation being passed on.

Conversely, at night when the risk of UV-induced DNA damage is considerably less, it’s a green light for proliferation of skin cells. This is healthy, anti-aging-like turnover of skin cells.

We’ve discussed the importance of co-entrainment of your circadian clocks in the path: sunlight in the morning to start up the central pacemaker, breakfast in the morning to co-entrain many of the peripheral clocks with the master clock, exercise to get the skeletal muscle clock on board… but now we have another reason for breakfast: to co-entrain the circadian rhythms in your skin!

Consequences of skipping breakfast, going to the gym at night, staying up late, and having a big dinner: increased risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc., etc…

In this study: skin aging and cancer.

For the rest of this article and more, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

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Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

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Posted in angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, cancer, chronopharmacology, circadian, depression, diabetes, Dopamine, Exercise, melatonin, muscle, Protein, sex, sleep, Sun, testosterone, vasopressin, Vitamin D

Tagged circadian rhythm

Artificial light at night: effects on breast & prostate cancer

Posted on September 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

There is now substantial evidence that exposure to artificial light at night (ALAN) increases the risk of breast and prostate cancer (Moore-Ede, 2018).

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MOA of ALAN: circadian disruption & phase shifting, melatonin-suppression, and accelerated unsuppressed tumor growth.

Sunlight during the day is protective. Artificial light at night is harmful.

ALAN-induced melatonin-suppression and circadian disruption increases the risk for certain endocrine-sensitive cancers. While this is most blatantly manifested in shift-workers, it also holds for people who sleep with the lights on and those exposed to, for example, street lamps shining light through bedroom windows at night.

50% increased risk of breast cancer in female shift workers. Up to 200% increased risk prostate cancer in male shift workers.

This is a good one, so if you’re not a Patron yet you’re not gonna want to miss it! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

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[FULL ARTICLE ON PATREON]

Posted in angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, cancer, chronopharmacology, Dopamine, melatonin, mortality, sex, sleep, Sun, testosterone, vasopressin, Vitamin D

Tagged circadian rhythm, melatonin

Dopamine regulates systemic glucose metabolism in humans

Posted on June 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

In Four. EPIC. Experiments (ter Horst et al., 2018)

Tl;dr: sunlight & breakfast in the morning.

Dopamine receptors are downregulated in obese patients and are restored in long-term weight loss patients after bariatric surgery. It’s better to get your dopamine hit via sunlight than sugar duh.

This is some amazing science.

Experiment 1. 50-year old dude with severe OCD gets diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and is only able to get his glucose under control with metformin and 226 IU insulin. At 53, his OCD is treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS). His insulin requirements declined to 180 IU. He didn’t lose weight but went off quetiapine, so maybe coincidence because: 1. quetiapine is diabetogenic; and 2. DBS induces dopamine release.

Two-step hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp when DBS is turned off and turned on. BOOM! When it’s on, lower fasting insulin, and better insulin-induced suppression of liver glucose output, free fatty acids, & muscle glucose disposal! DBS improved insulin sensitivity in liver, adipose, and skeletal muscle.

For the rest of the discussion on these super-interesting experiments, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

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Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE.

If you want the benefits of ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else.

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Cycloset (bromocriptine)

Go for a walk.

And #eTRF.

Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, clamp, depression, diabetes, Dopamine, melatonin, muscle, nicotine, sex, sleep, Sun, testosterone, vasopressin

Tagged diet, energy balance, insulin, melatonin, muscle

Mutual influence of sleep and circadian clocks on physiology and cognition

Posted on May 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

“The 24-hour sleep-wake cycle is one of the most prominent outputs of the circadian clock systems (Heyde et al., 2018)”

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Sleep disruption and circadian arrhythmia induce metabolic, cognitive, and immunological impairments. Is it causal? YES.

Sleep is highly conserved across the animal kingdom, since the dawn of time.

Interesting comparison: unlike hibernation or a coma, sleep is highly reversible. Lots of rebound regulation: lots of wakefulness makes you tired; lots of sleep leads to increased wakefulness.

Studies have shown improved memory performance after naps and extended sleep durations. Imo, you don’t need to go from 6 to 9.5 hours overnight, but keep that “9.5” on your radar.

Diet is easy, just eat like an adult. You can go 10 days without even eating! Try that with sleep. No, don’t try that. Most definitely incompatible with survival. Sleep deprivation impairs cognitive functions.

As a marker of health: cognitive function >>> how many reps you can do at the gym.

For the rest of this article (it doesnt suck, I promise!), head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel any time.

Also, I’m open to suggestions, so please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact me directly at drlagakos@gmail.com.

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20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE.

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It STARTS with Sleep.

Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, cancer, chronopharmacology, circadian, depression, diabetes, Dopamine, Energy balance, insulin, Leptin, melatonin, sex, sleep, Sun, testosterone, vasopressin, Vitamin D

Tagged circadian rhythm, insulin, melatonin, mortality, nutrition, Paleo, sleep

Circadian rhythms, sleep deprivation, and human performance

Posted on April 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Much of the current science on, and mathematical modeling of, dynamic changes in human performance within and between days is dominated by the two-process model of sleep-wake regulation, which posits a neurobiological drive for sleep that varies homeostatically (increasing as a saturating exponential during wakefulness and decreasing in a like manner during sleep), and a circadian process that neurobiologically modulates both the homeostatic drive for sleep and waking alertness and performance (Goel et al., 2013).”

Acute and chronic sleep restriction degrade neurobehavioral functions, attention, cognitive speed, and memory. Strictly according to the studies (not your n=1), < 5.5 hours is bad, < 7 hours is suboptimal, and ~ 9.5 hours may be optimal. Seems like a lot; who has time to sleep 9.5 hours?!

Above image shows cerebral blood flow (orange) in the same person’s brain during a Psychomotor Vigilance Test performed in the morning and afternoon. Interestingly, most participants perform better in the afternoon and this is associated with more blood going to a different part of the brain.

“Sleep is a ubiquitous biological imperative that appears to be evolutionarily conserved across species.” Mandatory for optimal attention and cognitive performance.

To get the rest of this article (it doesn’t suck, I promise) or if you just like what I do and want to support it, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel any time.

Also, I’m open to suggestions, so please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact me directly at drlagakos@gmail.com.

Affiliate links: still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE.

If you want the benefits of ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else.

It STARTS with Sleep.

Social jet lag.

Free full article on Patreon!

Posted in angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, cancer, chronopharmacology, circadian, depression, diabetes, Dopamine, Exercise, fertility, melatonin, mortality, nicotine, sex, sleep, Sun, testosterone, vasopressin

Tagged circadian rhythm, exercise, melatonin, mortality

Sunlight is anti-cancer: get some

Posted on December 2, 2017 | Leave a comment

Some important points: there is a lot of evidence that low melatonin mediates the carcinogenic effects of circadian arrhythmia. One of the classical observations was that melatonin-depleted blood from women exposed to bright light promoted tumor growth in a model of human breast cancer and rat liver cancer (Blask et al., 2005). This is also the study that elucidated one possible mechanism: tumors take-up the n6-fatty acid linoleic acid and convert it to 13-HODE, which drives proliferation. Melatonin inhibits this (and more).

There are also data in both humans and rodents that bright light exposure during the day protects nighttime melatonin secretion against artificial light-induced suppression (eg, Kozaki et al., 2016).

This was confirmed by showing bright daytime light exposure protected sleep quality in people exposed to artificial light at night (Rangtell et al., 2016).

FYI Rodents exposed to light at night are screwed (Blask et al., 2014):

So, daytime light preserves & protects nighttime melatonin secretion. Melatonin-replete blood inhibits tumor growth. And to connect all the dots: daytime light exposure inhibits tumor growth in some pre-clinical models cancer (eg, Dauchy et al., 2015).

And for all you Walburgers, melatonin inhibits aerobic glycolysis in tumors (eg, Hevia et al., 2017 AND Mao et al., 2016)!

This isn’t a free pass for you to use artificial light at night. Ideally, you should use no artificial light at night. Or dim red ones. Or at least rock some hot blue blockers.

Nocturnal light pollution and underexposure to daytime sunlight: complementary mechanisms of circadian disruption and related diseases (Smolensky et al., 2015)

Doxorubicin resistance in breast cancer is driven by light at night-induced disruption of the circadian melatonin signal (Xiang et al., 2015) (same for tamoxifen [Dauchy et al., 2014])

For full access to all articles and much more (or if you just like what I do and want to support it), become a Patron! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

Also, I’m open to suggestions so feel free to leave a comment or email me directly at drlagakos@gmail.com.

Affiliate discounts: if you’re still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers, Carbonshade is offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. TrueDark is running a pretty big sale HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, cancer, chronopharmacology, Dopamine, melatonin, nicotine, sex, sleep, Sun, testosterone, vasopressin, Vitamin D

Tagged circadian rhythm, melatonin, nutrition, sleep

This study on melatonin supps proves everything about LIGHT is true

Posted on October 31, 2017 | Leave a comment

Acute melatonin administration in humans impairs glucose tolerance in both the morning and evening (Rubio-Sastre et al., 2014)

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20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE.

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