Digital Scryer

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute released this article today:

http://www.hhmi.org/news/evans20080731.html

It’s about two different drugs they’ve isolated that have the potential not only for vast medical breakthroughs, but as heavy performance enhancers. The first drug, GW1516, didn’t have any effect until the mice in the study actually had to exercise, once they did however, their energy metabolisms switched from burning sugar for fuel to burning straight fat. The side effects of this? How about becoming virtually tireless as well as gaining an inability to pack on flab onto your saddle bags.

In humans, this would mean an exercise program that gave you results very quickly, and in athletes a major boost in performance.

The second drug, AICAR, is believed to help increase Mitochondria and ATP production by mimicking an exercise byproduct called AMP and tricking the muscles into thinking they’re burning fat. It’s a good thing the Olympic Committee got a hold of a test for these drugs already.

Even though no human trials have been conducted, that wouldn’t stop many aspiring Olympians from trying them anyway in their attempt for the gold. It really says something about the fanaticism of winning when people are willing to potentially sacrifice their health on something that’ll probably work, while having no idea what the side effects, if any, will be.

I find it interesting how they never mentioned if they mixed the drugs. I’m no biochemist, but it seems to me the second drug would allow for the benefits of the first without the need to exercise. Interesting.

All in all, I’m in favour of this. I’d use it regularly as I don’t plan on being a competitive athlete any time soon, I’m just down with human enhancement and freeing up more time by not having to exercise. I think I’ll wait though until they find out what the side effects are before I shop at Paco’s Street Pharmacy south of the American boarder or hire the chemist from my local Shadow-Clinic.

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Technorati Tags: Drugs, Exercise, Fat Burning, Genetics, Mice, PPARdelta, Weightloss

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To the Editor: Indirect evidence suggests that gum chewing may have greater metabolic effects than has been appreciated. The thermic effect of food is reduced when nutrition bypasses the mouth.¹ In cows, chewing increases energy expenditure by approximately 20 percent.^2,3 We measured how energy expenditure changes with gum chewing in humans.

Energy expenditure was measured in a temperature-controlled, darkened, silent laboratory with an indirect calorimeter (model 229, SensorMedics, Yorba Linda, Calif.) that was calibrated before each measurement with two primary-standard gases (a combination of 4 percent carbon dioxide and 16 percent oxygen and a combination of 26 percent oxygen and . . .

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The New England Journal of Medicine released this info a few years back about how chewing gum drastically boosts your metabolic rate. According to their info, you could lose eleven pounds a year just from chewing gum. I have two problems with this:

According to their math, in order to lose the eleven pounds, you’d have to chew 24/7. Secondly, chewing causes your pancreas to go into overdrive in producing digestive enzymes. In someone with no gallbladder, like me for example, this is a bad thing.

When I don’t eat or drink a bunch of water immediately after feeling the pangs of hunger then I feel like I’m having a gallstone attack, my Doc told me this is because my stomach is essentially trying to digest itself. A bad thing.

In addition, over producing pancreas enzymes can lead to acid reflux and other stomach maladies. Gum isn’t good to chew either, the sugar in it can be hard on your teeth and the sugar substitutes it contains as “healthy” sugar alternatives (splenda, aspartame) can wreck your endocrine system.

All in all, I’d say leave well enough alone and stick to only chewing your food, or if you’re gossipy, someone’s ear.

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Technorati Tags: Acid Reflux, Aspartame, Enzymes, Gallbladder, Gallstones, Gum, New Englad Journal of Medicine, Pancreas, Splenda, Sugar, Weightloss

The following abstract excerpt basically says that taking a green tea extract and caffeine is more effective than caffeine alone or a placebo for increasing energy. The latter two pretty much do nothing, whereas the green tea, caffeine combo boosts energy output by 4% and helps promote thermogenesis and fat oxidation.

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Results: Relative to placebo, treatment with the green tea extract resulted in a significant increase in 24-h EE (4%; P < 0.01) and a significant decrease in 24-h RQ (from 0.88 to 0.85; P < 0.001) without any change in urinary nitrogen. Twenty-four–hour urinary norepinephrine excretion was higher during treatment with the green tea extract than with the placebo (40%, P < 0.05). Treatment with caffeine in amounts equivalent to those found in the green tea extract had no effect on EE and RQ nor on urinary nitrogen or catecholamines.

Conclusions: Green tea has thermogenic properties and promotes fat oxidation beyond that explained by its caffeine content per se. The green tea extract may play a role in the control of body composition via sympathetic activation of thermogenesis, fat oxidation, or both.

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This is interesting; Green Tea has hundreds of years of testing in traditional Chinese medicines for its myriad of health benefits. In addition to it’s thermogenic properties, it’s got powerful antioxidants, and has been proven to help against various forms of cancers and other syndromes such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Green Teas can also help to control bad (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides while promoting the production of good (HDL) cholesterol. Not to mention that it can remove cellular garbage and combined with its antioxidant nature helps retard the aging process slightly.

There is a potential dark side to it however, some studies link green tea to promoting bladder cancer. Plus it’s not a magic solution to weight problems, maybe in some kind of a formula it could help, and it’s better than truckloads of caffeine or guarana, let alone ephedra, but it’s not something to rely solely on. Proper diet and exercise is the way to go if you wanna shed inches and build muscle and health, this could just give you a little nudge in the right direction.

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Technorati Tags: Caffeine, Energy Booster, Fat Oxidation, Green Tea, Health, Thermogensis, Weightloss

OBJECTIVES: This study determined whether the incidence of diabetes is reduced among physically active older women. METHODS: We assessed physical activity by mailed questionnaire and 12-year incidence of diabetes (ostensibly type 2 diabetes) in a cohort of 34257 women aged 55 to 69 years. RESULTS: After adjustment for age, education, smoking, alcohol intake, estrogen use, dietary variables, and family history of diabetes, women who reported any physical activity had a relative risk of diabetes of 0.69 (95% confidence interval = 0.63, 0.77) compared with sedentary women. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that physical activity is important for type 2 diabetes prevention among older women.

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/90/1/134

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Time for some older news, the above abstract comes from The American Journal of Public Health in January of ‘00. I found it and decided to post it because Diabetes (especially the type 2 variety) runs rampant in both sides of my family, who admittedly is full of members (mostly women) who run the gamut from overweight to obese.

My kid sister, who really isn’t a kid anymore, recently started a light weight loss program to ease herself into it. She was starting to get severely worried about her weight, appearance, propensity for diabetes and heart disease, and her cholesterol after a recent trip to the doctor.

Back on track, this study basically scientifically confirms common sense advice. Exercise is good for you and great for helping to prevent and even reverse diabetes. Remember the huge dude from the movie Super Size Me? His gastric bypass cured his diabetes and hypertension as shown in the ending credits, with photos in which he looked quite strapping. While I wouldn’t recommend gastric bypass for everyone, or anyone really, it goes to show what dropping significant weight can do for you.

Many studies over the years say to do a half hour of exercise 3 times a week. That’s an hour and a half of not being a couch potato. The problem most people have is that they stop pushing themselves. You ALWAYS have to feel the burn or be out of breath, otherwise it’s not exercise. When a physical routine stops making you feel the burn (or at least feeling the burn intensely) then it’s time to make it harder or longer or both.

A Japanese scientist by the name of Dr. Izumi Tabata recently discovered that going all out for a couple minutes and then slowing down for a third the time for a breath, then hitting it hard again rapidly puts your body into top physical shape. This is accomplished by reaching, and maintaining, a balance in your aerobic and anaerobic metabolisms. Speed skaters train this way, and while it’s not as effective as power lifting training for putting on strength and muscle mass, it’s best for general physical shape.

An example of doing this would be to hit the bike or sprint all out for twenty seconds, then slow down to a crawl for cool down, then hit it again for another twenty seconds. Tabata’s studies showed this to be super effective at even four minutes a day with a four minute cool down at the end. This pretty much completely defeats the “I don’t have time to exercise” excuse favored by so many.

While there are many factors contributing to diabetes, especially dietary components, keeping fit is one of the best ways to help tackle this epidemic, especially if you just can’t keep from having another bite.

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Technorati Tags: American Journal of Public Health, cholesterol, Diabetes, Exercise, Gastric Bypass, heart disease, hypertension, Izumi Tabata, Super Size Me, Weightloss, Women