Celebrities, Nibbly’s, The Pope and a Bear

Just had a flick through the Health section of the Xmas edition of a very popular celebrity news magazine. I don’t do this very often, as I can’t usually bear the very low level of information included in the pieces. I sometimes flick through the pages in hope that this issue they may have actually brought something of value to their readership. I’ve as yet failed to have my hope rewarded.

To give you an example of what I mean, here was a tip (there were many to choose from) given to ‘Keep it healthy this Christmas’-

‘If only a salty snack is good enough, avoid peanuts and opt for pretzels instead, which are much lower in fat’.

I’ll only touch lightly on the salt issue as it can get quite complicated, not only due to the biochemistry, but as I’ll briefly explain, why food manufacturers include it in their products (believe me it has nothing to do with food preservation), lets look at the simple message being given.

Replace a fairly nutritious, natural, unaltered food with a highly processed, specially designed frankenfood devoid of any real nutritional content.

The rationale? Because it’s lower in fat. Seriously? Are we still in the 80’s?

As I’ve begun to show you, whether you are looking to slim down or just feel and perform better, you had better get your fats right. And I’m not talking about lowering them either. If you really want to excel you should learn which fats to actually increase in your diet.

But this seemingly innocuous substitution is even more devastating than you would believe.

Here’s the ingrediants list for salted peanuts:

Peanuts and ……ummm….salt

If you look at the nutritional content of a peanut (not actually a nut, but a legume (a type of bean)), they actually stack up pretty well. They are high in fiber, low glycemic, high in mono and polyunsaturated fats, a source of protein, and have a fairly complete array of minerals and vitamins.

Now let’s look at the most basic version of a salted pretzel:

Wheat Flour, Vegetable Oil, Sea Salt, Dextrose, Dried Yeast

Let’s dissect this little beauty. First ingredient; Wheat Flour. Phew, where do I start? Most of us in the UK are probably from European decent, that causes us trouble where wheat is concerned. Europeans were part of the first wave of humans that spread out of Africa, at that time our diet was primarily carnivore and didn’t contain much wheat. Why is this an issue? Well, wheat contains a protein called gliadin (a component of gluten), to which we (Europeans) were not exposed, as we had left before it became a staple in the diet. Therefore our DNA was not given a chance to adapt. The Humans left in Africa (and subsequently their descendents today) were exposed for millennia to this food and gradually their DNA evolved to be able to tolerate the gliadin. Us Europeans might adapt in the next 40,000 years, but I doubt it, as we are now influencing evolution in a funny way, but I digress.

A gluten intolerance is part of Celiacs disease and causes all sorts of issues which would take a book to describe. Short and simple version, Celiacs and health are incompatible.

Next problem with wheat, it’s processed. Again, the why’s and how’s and the eventual effects of processing would require an encyclopedic length explanation. Simply put, processing strips the food of nearly all of the nutrients required for their metabolism in the human body. Not only does it not provide you with the nutrient, it actually depletes you of nutrients as they are scavenged from other areas of the body to compensate for the shortfall. Don’t think this is serious? In an upcoming piece I’ll describe a new theory that places this directly at the heart of pretty much all Human disease and ageing.

I’ll provide just one of the effects of processing, that is to alter the glycemic index. The glycemic idex is a measure of a foods ability to raise blood glucose (sugar). Pretzels have a glycemic index of 84. To put that in perspective table sugar (sucrose) has a glycemic index of 65, peanuts are around the 20 mark. Might as well eat spoonfuls of sugar as opposed to pretzels. And guess what? Pretzels are promoted towards diabetics as a healthy snack. Erm…a little bit sick, I might suggest.

Crack/ Snack Addict

Next ingredient: vegetable oil. I won’t go into the whole hydrogenated (or partially) and trans- fat route as this can be dependent on many factors. What I do want to briefly share with you is why the food manufacturers include oil, sugar and salt in almost all processed food. If you look back at the ingredients of the pretzels you can confirm this for yourself:

Wheat Flour, Vegetable Oil, Sea Salt, Dextrose, Dried Yeast.

The manufactures use vegetable oil as it is promoted as being a healthier fat….ummm…not quite. The same goes for sea salt, as though sea salt is somehow completely different to regular table salt. And finally dextrose….isn’t that glucose? Have a look on the labels of some processed foods, if you know what to look for, sugar usually appears more than once, but just labelled with different names.

But why the inclusion of those three items? Sugar, fat and salt. Hmmmm…

Before I get into that, I’d like you to be aware of one fact, most food manufacturers are now owned by tobacco companies. Do you think tobacco companies most important product is tobacco, or now even food? Not a chance, the companies trade in addiction. Bear that in mind, as you read on.

Former FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration (funny bedfellows?)) commissioner David Kessler, MD, goes into detail about exactly how this works in his book, The End of Overeating. Definitely worth reading, but once you open Pandora’s Box, you’ll have a hard time keeping the last bit of hope left inside.

Kessler quotes research by Adam Drewnowski that shows it's the combination of sugar with fat and/or salt that makes people go crazy. Give someone a packet of sugar and tell them to go to town and you won't get much enthusiasm. Same thing for a stick of butter. But combine the ingredients (cake frosting anyone?) and watch out.

Drewnowski conducted a study where he added various amounts of sugar to five different dairy products ranging from skimmed milk to heavy cream. People gave low marks to sweetened non-fat products like sweetened skimmed milk and low marks to unsweetened high-fat products like a heavy cream/vegetable oil blend. But any high-fat product that had sugar added, or any high-sugar product that had fat added, scored higher than any other nation other than the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest.

This combo (sugar, fat, and/or salt) creates what Kessler calls "hyperpalatibility." Rats given a chance to eat these combinations will literally gorge themselves. Apparently, so do humans.

Sugar, fat, and salt is what makes food "compelling" according to the food executives that Kessler interviewed. Take potato skins, for example. Typically, the potato is hollowed out and the skin is fried which provides a substantial surface area for "fat pick-up." Then some combination of bacon bits (usually contains sugar) and cheese is added. The result is fat on fat on fat on fat, much of it loaded with sugar and salt.
Is this stuff addictive? Does the Pope sh*t in the woods? Ummm…might have confused my sayings there…anyway…

Sara Ward of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studied the willingness of animals to work for a food reward even when they're not hungry. She used Ensure, a pretty poor meal replacement drink (which has the magic combo’) that doctors give to older patients who aren't eating enough. The tipping point at which the animals would no longer work for the "reward" was just slightly lower than that for cocaine.

Manufacturers use these combo’s of ingredients to make them irresistible and to make us overeat them.
Then they also cleverly pair those foods with an actual emotional or visual experience, which become stored as pleasant associations to the food – you know; the happy group of friends partying with a tube of ‘crisps’ on a TV commercial or the use of the ‘flavour of the month’ Hollywood actress in their advertising. Pretty soon, you've got a customer for life.

Now you know how they can be so confident with the slogan ‘Once you pop, you can’t stop’.

Sooooo…..back to the health experts suggestion of substituting a peanut for a pretzel…uhhh…I’m assuming in the next issue they’ll be suggesting  swapping out your sweetener for speed as it has a much more favourable effect on your metabolism and it’ll also help curb your appetite.

Be wary of who you give your mind and body to. Remember it’s the most precious thing you do or will ever own, treat yourself with the respect you deserve.

Finally in respect to the initial tip, here’s my revised version

‘Out at a party and want to indulge in the nibbly’s? Leave those nasty pretzels alone, why not try a peanut instead, hell, it’s a celebration, throw the boat out and have a chocolate covered one instead’.

Festive Fattening Fear

If you're concerned about plumping up more than the xmas Turkey, then why not do yourself and many others a good deed and buy yourself a little treat. 

Liftstrong is a resource put together by Alwyn Cosgrove, that contains over 800 pages of training and nutrition information written by the industry's biggest names that'll help you to achieve your dream body in 2012. 

All of the proceeds go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

http://www.liftstrong.com/

Revvin’ the Engine

‘Okay. First of all, it's cretin. If you're gonna threaten me, do it properly.’ ~ Mike - Monsters Inc

People who take programs with HPC-UK are often surprised at the lack of emphasis placed on Calories in vs Calories out, or, as it’s otherwise called, energy balance. Now, while energy balance is important in the overall scheme, it is dependent, and this is key, on how your mind and body react to food.

If you’ve read my previous work you’ll notice that as much as possible I like to modulate bodily function by focusing upstream, rather than directly affecting end stream processes. This method is used so that the body can put all the checks and balances in place to control the end process. If you would like an example of this top-down protocol read my article on how to increase Testosterone. The article is called ‘The Brain Game’, and can be found here http://hpc-uk.net/2.html

A new study (1) has just added support to the way I design protocols from a number of perspectives, let’s have a brief look at what the study found.

The recent study (a summary can be found here http://tinyurl.com/c3nnjr5) was focused on a group of cells located in a part of your brain called the hypothalamus. Your hypothalamus is responsible for regulation of hunger, thirst, and temperature, as well as feelings of excitement, pleasure, anger, anxiety and fear. It is a very important structure that an optimally functioning body is intimately dependent upon. The specific cells the study looked at are called Orexin neurons.

Orexin neurons are responsible for your state of wakefulness and partially your reward circuitry. Also, until this study came along Orexin cells were only thought to influence metabolism via signals that promote hunger. Well this new study shows that they do more than that, they actually alter your metabolic rate and the way your body partitions and metabolises nutrients.

The activity of Orexin cells can be turned up, which stimulates metabolism, or turned down, which does the opposite and reduces the metabolic rate. Glucose (sugar) has been shown to cause a reduction in the activity of the Orexin cells, which will cause a drop in the metabolic rate, and also cause your state of wakefulness to become subdued. Essentially glucose causes you to be and feel sluggish.

A class of amino acids (non-essential), were shown in this study to strongly increase the activity of the Orexin cells, which stimulated the metabolic rate to increase and promote a state of wakefulness and reward seeking behaviour. Fundamentally, this is the opposite state to that which is induced by glucose.

So carbohydrate alone tends to cause reduced activity in Orexin cells, and protein alone causes an increase in their activity. However, we generally do not eat our meals as separate nutrients, most meals are mixed. The study also commented on this too.

Although the presence of glucose reduced the activity of the Orexin cells, the concurrent presence of non-essential amino acids actually restricted the effect of the glucose. Therefore, consuming sufficient protein (to provide the amino acids) at each meal will not only stimulate your metabolism in its own right, but will attenuate the negative effect of carbohydrate on your metabolic rate.

The study also provides another huge implication. One way the body alters metabolism is through sensing total energy balance. However this study demonstrated that the body also alters metabolism via other key measurements in this case the glucose/ (non essential) amino acid ratio. I won’t go into too much detail here, but in evolutionary terms this makes perfect sense. High glucose levels equate to a fed state, therefore your body reads into this situation as ‘Okay, we have sufficient food, let’s rest and recuperate’. Hence the action of glucose to reduce wakefulness and reward seeking behaviour.

High ratio’s of non-essential amino acids generally occurs under fasting and starvation conditions, not really a time to be kickin’ back. In this situation the body is reading ‘Okay, we are starving, let’s go hunt and forage for food’. This situation requires you to be on high alert (for both predators and prey) and also to be physically capable of chasing down your meals, or if foraging, up to the task of sustaining long periods of physical activity in order to collect sufficient edibles.

I have a feeling this area of study is going to be ‘big’. What I’m going to do is curtail this quick little article here, then, I’ll expand in later articles on how Orexin cells can alter the way your body metabolises nutrients, and how we can manipulate this pathway to our advantage.

References

1. Mahesh M. Karnani, John Apergis-Schoute, Antoine Adamantidis, Lise T. Jensen, Luis de Lecea, Lars Fugger, Denis Burdakov. Activation of Central Orexin/Hypocretin Neurons by Dietary Amino Acids. Neuron, 2011; 72 (4): 616 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.08.027

HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss. Tip No.10– Go In For The Long Haul

Fat loss and a body that can remain lean for life are not achieved overnight. Despite living in a culture where instant gratification is rife, physiological dynamics have to wait on nature.

Bodyfat tends to be accumulated very slowly, usually at a rate of about 30g per day, almost imperceptible. 30g a day is only 2lbs per month, but over a year that’s 24lb, two years down the line that tiny daily amount can put on an additional 4 stone of fat.

Because the change is small, it doesn’t stimulate an aggressive response by your body, and because it’s almost impossible to perceive, your brain doesn’t register the change, so you do nothing about it. Then you wake up one morning thinking ‘How did this happen?’

To effectively lose bodyfat and remain that way permanently you need to ‘play the game’. Don’t think you can bend the rules and expect the body not to counter your action. Your body will beat you every time, it has many more tricks up its sleeve than you can imagine. So to permanently change your level of bodyfat you need to lose bodyfat slowly, about ½ lb per week, if you are severely overweight you can get away with a bit more.

Again, like fat gain, you may think that nothing is happening to your body, but if you follow the tips given, your body will gradually change to a permanently leaner condition, all without the deprivation of usual weight loss practices.

Done properly, fat loss and remaining lean is easy. It doesn’t require strenuous dieting, avoidance of chocolate or the occasional cake. It certainly doesn’t require weird dietary or lifestyle practices. You possess a body that is able to stay lean while enjoying delectable foods, one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Using the previous tips will be the best step you can take on achieving this supposed, but very attainable, physical utopia. You have it within you to accomplish this goal, but if you feel like you need a steady hand to help you through the initial wobbly steps, get in touch, we’ll be glad to provide the necessary support.  

‘Failure is the path of least persistence.’ - Unknown

HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss. Tip No.9– Turn Up The Heat

You can induce the body to use fat directly for heat. This important mechanism involves special structures known as uncoupling proteins. As I have briefly explained in previous articles most of your energy is processed and packaged into a temporary chemical cage called ATP. For most of your body’s energy needs ATP is used, and a by-product of this is heat generation. This also includes heat generation by what is known as shivering thermogenesis. Basically, powered by ATP, opposing muscles contract rapidly resulting in very little actual movement. In extreme cases of cold exposure it’s a vital mechanism to stay alive, but for everyday needs it’s an inefficient means of heat production.

First discovered in 1979 Thermogenin (UCP 1), is an uncoupling protein found mostly in brown adipose tissue. It can produce heat from nutrients without first being converted to ATP, hence the name uncoupling, as the process is independent of the usual energy cycle. This production of heat is termed thermogenesis.

Since 1997 scientists have discovered an additional 4 uncoupling proteins which unlike UCP 1 are found in common tissues in the body. However without turning this into a thesis on uncoupling, I’ll leave the explanation there. If there is call, I will write a larger piece on this subject.

However, the upshot of this is that influencing uncoupling and the resultant thermogenesis is an extremely potent method of fat loss. There are many chemicals that will greatly increase the gene expression of the UCP’s, resulting in the use of 1000’s of Calories worth of fat per day. Stating the obvious, generating this much heat is very dangerous and there have been numerous deaths associated with both intentional and unintentional exposure to these chemicals. Therefore I wouldn’t advise using them, nor will I name the compounds that are used.

Luckily there are many milder compounds that can stimulate uncoupling, that are found in everyday food with very low potential for toxicity. Stimulating uncoupling in this way, you can safely induce thermogenesis to use 10-15% of your total energy. An average 35 year old woman could use an additional 330 Kcal per day, all coming from fat. This would result in a loss of 2/3 lb of fat per week, without having to lift a finger. Over a year you are looking at a loss of 35lbs of fat.

For optimal fat loss, reset your thermostat.

‘The heat is on, on the street
Inside your head, on every beat
And the beat's so loud, deep inside
The pressure's high, just to stay alive
'Cause the heat is on’

~ Glenn Frey – The Heat Is On

HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss. Tip No.8– Exercise; Part 3

The number of exercise sessions you perform per week is essential. It’s been shown time and time again that the frequency of your exercise is a major factor in fat loss. One representative study observed that exercising five times per week stimulated three times the fat loss than a three times per week protocol, even though the total time was more in the three times per week group. The group that exercised only once per week lost no fat at all.

For fat loss, five weekly workouts of 30 minutes per day is superior to three sessions of 60 minutes, even though the three session protocol in total is half an hour longer.

One of the reasons it works is this. Exercise alters your physiological state hugely, so that food taken in after exercise is processed and partitioned more advantageously, than if exercise had not been performed.

A simple way to think of it is as follows. When you wake up your metabolism is going at a snails pace. If you do no exercise, your metabolism will stay low throughout the day and you’ll essentially be on maximum calorie retention for anything you eat. If however, upon waking, you perform a basic exercise session, your metabolism is elevated almost immediately, and will stay this way for most of the day. You will then be on minimal calorie retention from the food you eat.

Frequent exercise is key.

‘Get your motor running, head out on the highway. Looking for adventure in whatever comes our way.’ ~ Steppenwolf - Born to be Wild (1969)

HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss Tip No.7– Exercise; Part 2

Despite all the elaborate charts that show that one particular exercise or class uses more calories than another, it’s all an overly simplified and irrelevant nonsense, fat loss has little to do with the calories used during the exercise session. The right exercise (see the previous tip) raises your metabolic rate not only while you are doing it, but also at a highly elevated rate up to 18 hours afterwards, and at a slightly lower, but still elevated rate for 48 hours. This is known as Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC).

Aerobic exercise stimulates only a transient and small rise in EPOC, whereas resistance training stimulates an enduring and substantial rise.

However, even if you do the right exercise, if it’s done in the evenings close to bedtime, the effect is dramatically reduced. Sleep causes your metabolic rate to drop like a sack of potatoes. If you do the wrong exercise, at the wrong time, as most people do, in respect to fat loss, it’s as much use as a chocolate teapot or a Toblerone toast rack.

To get the biggest fat loss effect from exercise, perform it in the mornings and the earlier the better.

‘Morning is when the wick is lit.  A flame ignited, the day delighted with heat and light, we start the fight for something more than before.’  ~Jeb Dickerson

Tame the Flame

In the previous articles in this series we have glanced at the main cause of aging, that being excessive oxidation. We discovered that it isn’t the demonised process that it is made out to be. I even hinted that recent discoveries in science have shown that it is an essential signal in the body for optimal functioning. But it does need to be precisely controlled, so that it doesn’t end up causing more damage than is required to keep house.

I also briefly described how processes aren’t separate, as there is constant overlapping interplay in your physiology. If you stub your toe, it isn’t limited to that specific area. A message will be sent to your brain, which will then relay the message to your mouth to usually shout an obscenity as an expression of your resultant change in emotions of increased pain and anger. Your hands will also be informed to reach down and grab the offended digit. You may, if you’re anything like me, shed a tear. This is a gross oversimplification of what actually occurs, but hopefully it’s sufficient to imply the general idea.

The next major cause of aging, and an underlying factor in many of the conditions that plague the majority of the population, is what is known as inflammation. You would have experienced this process any time you have suffered from an injury. If the injury is minor such as a simple scratch, you probably would have noticed some redness and a little pain. As the injury becomes more serious so does the inflammatory response. A bee sting for instance not only damages the skin by the barbed stinger that pierces the skin, but also the injected toxin from the venom sac causes a huge toxic reaction, which depending on the person can range from redness, swelling, heat, pain and disturbance in function sometimes even to the point of death in certain susceptible people. This response is inflammation.

Inflammation is an essential process by which the body deals with all sorts of injuries, infections, and toxins. It achieves this by increased circulation and delivery of nutrients, and also by immune defense. In most instances, once the repair and maintenance work is done, the tissues return to normal.
With usual aging, and the average lifestyle, however, the inflammation doesn’t go away, but builds progressively until it hampers normal function. This has been termed ‘silent inflammation’ as it is below our consciously perceptible level, so it continues unopposed damaging our body until it results in a debilitating and often terminal disease.

Low-grade chronic inflammation gradually builds throughout our bodies and is treated as the inevitable crepitis and aches of age and simply put up with. This is the worst mistake, as recent findings show that this unchecked inflammation gradually destroys your joints, your organs and your brain.

So much so, that the new evidence shows clearly that inflammation is a major cause of the leading degenerative diseases. Current information puts chronic inflammation as the key factor in over 95% of all disease states such as cerebro-vascular disease, hypertension, adult-onset diabetes, osteoporosis, stroke, some forms of cancer (especially colon cancer) and Alzheimer’s and the list is growing.

Inflammation is caused by three main stimuli; Physical, Chemical and Emotional.

Physical stress is fairly easy to identify, it can range from a simple knock such as bumping into the corner of a table, to being subjected to a horrific motor vehicle accident.

Chemical stressors are a bit more ambiguous, from easily perceptible sources such as cleaning products like bleach coming into contact with the body to the very imperceptible sources such as man-made chemicals in processed materials or the invisible but omnipresent air-pollution. Then there are the chemical’s that you purposely put into your body, otherwise known as food. Food can either be an extremely pro-inflammatory signal, or the polar opposite and actually extinguish the flames.

Finally, there’s emotional stimuli. Your emotional state has a major impact on the inflammatory pathway in your body. In fact it is the main variable, other than food, that you have control over. Whilst we can be more careful not to bang our bodies up too much physically, life is unpredictable and accidents not only do, but occur more regularly than we’d like. The same goes for chemical stressors, as much as we try to avoid over exposing our body to toxins, in our current society, it’s a built in flaw to the system. However, your emotions, especially the most damaging negative ones, are entirely under your control.

I’ll explain how this occurs in the proceeding parts of this series. But if you want to slow down, or as has recently been proven, reverse the negative effect of the stress response on the aging process and telomere functioning, then you can begin right away.

I began to show in previous articles how you can use meditation to dampen down and even eliminate the majority of your negative emotions. You can read about it here http://tinyurl.com/5t864vn and in the preceding articles.

However some people do not like the fact that they are spending time seemingly doing nothing, although they don’t object so voraciously when they spend hours every day watching tut on the tube, but I digress. The external craving for stimulation has become so engrained that a compromise had to be sought. However just because it’s a compromise doesn’t mean it has to be a zero-sum game.
Meditation is a state of mind, not necessarily requiring a motionless body, so we can practice silencing our mind whilst in action.

You can meditate while doing repetitive daily chores that really require little thought. Or while practicing a movement pattern such as Tai Chi or a sequence of form from other martial arts, the more flowing arts such as Aikido lend themselves better to the purpose of the exercise.

The easiest way to do this, as the physical act aids in the calming process, is to practice stretching in the evening. It doesn’t take long, 20 minutes or so, is more than sufficient. If you are so inclined you can extend this time period. If you are unsure of how to stretch, then consider attending a few yoga classes to learn a basic routine to follow. Once you have a rudimentary routine, simply focus on your breathing as you move through the routine, this will aid in centering your mind. As you move into stretches or allow yourself to move further into stretches, try to time this to coincide with a gentle and extended exhalation.

It’s well worth your time to practice learning how to enter this state of mind and reduce the burden of distress on your life. Remember your thoughts cultivate your personality. If you tend towards being distressed, the residual effects of these thoughts propagate a fearful, anxious and often hostile personality. These people generally suffer from worse physical and mental health, and are chronically poorly.

Once you have learned how to achieve Mushin in your stretching routine, you can then gradually extend this practice to other areas of your life. Eventually more and more of your life is spent in this state, which enables you to experience existence without suffering the damaging effects of anxiety, pain, anger, bitterness and melancholy.  

I realise it sounds a bit airy-fairy, but you have the power within you to transform your life, and it all begins with a simple choice in your head.

HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss; Tip No.6– Exercise; Part 1

To gain the biggest advantage from exercise, you should use resistance training to acquire muscle. Muscle is the main motor that uses fat for fuel. Even just sitting there, a pound of muscle uses 6 Kcal per day. Compare this to a pound of fat, which will only use 2 Kcal to fuel itself. If you exercise that muscle with resistance training, it will ramp up its usage to about 20 Kcal per day. No matter how hard or long you exercise, fat cells will trundle along at the same rate of fuel usage. Muscle is the main variable you have within your control to modulate your metabolic rate.  

Having said that, 6 Kcal at rest and 20 Kcal, if exercised, per day doesn’t sound a lot, but let’s apply to a real life case. One of my clients has (minus their bodyfat) 170lbs of lean tissue. On average 50% of a males lean body mass is muscle, so he is carrying about 85lbs on his frame.  If we confined him to bed-rest for a day his level of muscle mass would use about 510 Kcal to fuel functions such as maintenance of muscle tone and other housekeeping duties. If we exercised him for about an hour with a resistance training routine his muscles would ramp up their usage to 1,700 Kcal; a difference of 1,200 Kcal. Only 50% of this would come via fat so we’re talking about 66g of additional fat used throughout the day.

Let’s up the ante, say we gain 10lbs of muscle and exercise that muscle daily, we have now caused an additional 200 Kcal hike in our metabolism per day. Over the course of a year, without doing anything else this would be enough to drop anywhere between 10-20lbs of fat.

And, before you throw up the old cliché about not wanting to turn into a bodybuilder, let’s clear that up, it doesn’t happen. Even on an optimum plan of training and nutrition, and if you were under 30, and a beginner, would you stand to put on 10 lbs of muscle in a year. The rest of us, where sometimes life gets in the way of all of the above requirements, would at best be anywhere close to putting on up to 5lbs in a year, and that’s if we have everything dialed in.

Don’t be like Starsky pondering whether you can handle the V8, take Hutch’s advice ‘I’m not your mother’, ’Now Go…….Go’.

HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss; Tip No.5 – Fiber Up

Fiber is an indigestible component of some foods. Although it resists digestion, it has numerous benefits on our health, both gastrointestinal and overall. One benefit especially in regards to the previous tips, is that it slows the entry of sugar into the blood, so it helps stabilise insulin. This simple fact alone enables your body to make better use of your food rather than for storage as bodyfat.

Fiber also contributes to a higher satiety index of a meal, in other words, it fills you up.

In addition, your body uses your bodyfat as a container for toxins, which serves to keep the rest of the body safe from these essentially bio-hazardous chemicals. Your liver can eliminate some of these toxins via bile acid, however a lot ends up being reabsorbed as it needs a medium to assist the removal. This is where fiber steps in. Dietary fiber binds to the bile acid and escorts it out of the body.

Any time you break down your fat stores, you release these toxins back into the system. In this situation fiber is essential to prevent the body from poisoning itself. The body will also limit the amount of fat allowed to be broken down to avoid this situation. Viewed from this perspective, an increased intake of fibre essentially opens the floodgates, which will accelerate the rate at which your body can reduce bodyfat levels.

‘Help make the World a better place by eating your fiber, because constipated people don’t give a cr*p.’

HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss; Tip No.4 - Eat Low Glycemic Carbohydrates.

I have shown in previous articles how carbohydrates are classified in terms of their capacity to raise blood sugar. 

For a lean body for life, stick to those with a low glycemic index. 

The most misguided mistake seen with the average dieter is the use of foods such as rice cakes or low fat cereals and cereal bars, akin to cardboard in my mind. Foods such as these generally have a glycemic index about the same as, or higher than, table sugar. They are all rapidly converted to sugar in the blood which usually causes insulin to go wild. 

The high level of insulin helps to turn the sugar into triglycerides which is stored as fat. The excess insulin is also converted into triglycerides, and also subsequently stored as fat. Add to this the fact that high levels of blood triglycerides cause temporary insulin resistance and promote the development of chronic insulin resistance which eventually leads on to diabetes.

It’s wise to heed the wisdom of Ben Franklin when he said ‘The honey is sweet but the bee has a sting.’

HPC-UK’s Top Tips for Fat Loss; Tip No.3 - Eat The Right Fats

The only fats you need are the essential fats linoleic acid (omega-6) and alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3). Essential fats in amounts that you need will not put on bodyfat, in fact quite the opposite. With the right fats, you’ll get leaner than ever, easier than ever.

Essential fats regulate or play a part in pretty much all of your of bodily processes, a number of which I’ve described in my articles. But suffice to say without essential fats in your diet, your body will never be in an optimal condition to function or stay lean for life.

Other than essential fats, try to limit the fat in your diet, especially hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats and their progeny trans- fats which usually come via processed foods. Don’t become too meticulous here though, just simple things like trimming the excess fat off of cuts of meat. Aim to keep total fats to 15-20% of your daily intake of food, you’ll get more indirectly in your diet, from unseen sources.

To make sure your body is functioning properly don’t forget to ‘Grease the Groove’.

HPC-UK Top Tips for Fat Loss. Tip No.2 - Stabilise Your Insulin

‘Dieting’, skipping meals, low/ no-fat foods, snacking on bars instead of eating, and the sundry other usual methods of the weight loss industry, all trigger a disruption in your insulin metabolism.

Simplified, all of the above methods destabilise your insulin. When you do eat, you get a big insulin burst. Insulin is a storage hormone. It causes your body to store everything. Not only do you store any extra food, but your liver converts all the excess insulin into triglycerides – fat, - and stores that too. So you can cut calories by skipping meals, yet still increase your bodyfat. Keeping a stable balance between the storage action of insulin and the catabolic action of its opposing hormone glucagon is crucial for being lean.

Aim for insulin stability and insulin efficiency. It’s the main way to affect your fat loss ability.

First, eat five to six small meals per day, each containing some low-glycemic carbohydrates, good quality protein and essential fats. HPC-UK clients are advised to eat every three or so hours using a schedule such as 7 am, 10 am, 1 pm, 4 pm, 7 pm, and 10 pm. They never suffer low blood sugar. Nor do they suffer insulin bursts. Their blood shows a stable balance between insulin and its catabolic partner, glucagon.

As the old saying goes ‘The continuous drip polishes the stone.’

HPC-UK Top Tips for Fat Loss; Tip No.1 - Never Put Your Body Into Fat-Defensive Mode

A large majority of people fail to change their bodyfat permanently because, in their impatience to lose fat, they force the body to defend its habitual level of fat. As I’ve shown in previous articles after a few attempts they admit defeat, blame their parents and console themselves with cake. Obviously, people do differ in their inherited tendencies to accumulate fat. But only a very small percentage can blame their level of bodyfat on their genes, in all honesty this isn’t you. We know now that neither the number of fat cells you carry, nor their size, is genetically fixed. For most of us, bodyfat is a reflection of what we eat and what we do.

Once you trigger fat defense with the usual methods, such as skipping meals or reducing calories, eating really odd diets, or special low-calorie packaged meals, you lose the ability to permanently change your bodyfat. There is no way your body can make the required changes because your body is on high alert fat defense all the time. Leave the latest diet fads for the numpties.

If you have been fooled into fad dieting, and have used any of its many different forms for more than six months, you have put your body in terrible shape to lose fat and maintain the loss. Don’t worry though, follow the HPC-UK Tips for Fat Loss, and within one year you will be able to control your bodyfat for life

Remember, ‘Haste Makes Waist’.

Jamie’s Not So Revolutionary, Albeit Infinitely Worthy, Food Revolution

There has been a bit of a brouhaha in the past week regarding the Governments plans to tackle the Obesity bomb that has just begun to explode. I am at a loss for words to begin to explain the stupidity of the planned ‘fat tax’, so I won’t do that here. What I am going to comment on is the equally ‘imbecilic’ advice from Andrew Lansley to ‘Eat Less, Move More’, and the more deserving advice from Jamie Oliver to ‘Eat Differently’.

‘Eat Less, Move More’ has been an oft trotted out phrase by generally good intentioned by woefully ignorant people. This phrase is based on the concept of energy balance, which as I’ve shown has used Calories as a basis for measurement for various reasons, from simplicity to outright fraud. We’ll look at the nutrition side of things here, and possibly return to the physical exercise part in a later piece.

Let’s start with a simple premise:

I can design a program where I can increase your calorific intake by 50% and you will still lose weight (by this I’m referring to bodyfat).

I can also design a diet where I reduce your calorific intake by 50% and cause you to end up fatter.

So in the first case a person can go from eating 2000 Kcal to eating 3000 Kcal per day and actually slim down. In the second case the same person could go from eating 2000 Kcal to eating 1000 Kcal per day and get fatter.

How is this possible when it goes completely against the logic of energy balance? Well it does and it doesn’t. You have to remember that food is not just a container for energy, but is also a chemical signal. These chemical signals can have profound effects on the way the body functions.

Let’s use two isocaloric diets (same amount of Calories in each) of 2000Kcal as an example to explain how this works. This amount of Kcal’s is, according to the authority, the amount required for a 10st 7lb (147lb/ 67Kg) female. Let’s assume she has a fairly reasonable level of bodyfat of 18%.

In the first diet let’s use the Government recommendations for macronutrients (Carbohydrate, Protein and Fat) which are 50:15:35, providing 250g of Carbohydrate, 75g of Protein and 78g of fat.

In the second diet let’s change the ratios to 33:30:37, providing 165g Carbohydrate, 150g of protein and 82g of fat.

According to the Calorie based energy balance argument both diets should maintain weight in the female example. However, what you’ll find is the second diet will cause a reduction in weight, even though the second diet is slightly higher in fat and the total Calories haven’t changed. This is due to the ‘Thermic Effect of Food’ (TEF). Simply put, to digest and metabolise food requires energy, and some foods require more than others.

By increasing Protein and decreasing Carbohydrate, we have to increase metabolism in order to process the nutrient. The TEF can account for 5-15% of your daily energy output depending on what you eat. 15% of a 2000 Kcal diet is 300 Kcal or 2,100 Kcal extra expended per week, without having to raise a pinky.

The above could account for a fat loss of about 1/2lb per week simply by altering your ratios. However, it doesn’t stop there, as Jamie Oliver alluded to; choosing the right food is more important than simply the Calorie content, let’s briefly explore this part.

Food doesn’t just provide energy; it also influences many processes in the body, including hormones. As anyone who has taken the contraceptive pill or a course of corticosteroids will attest, hormones can very quickly affect your level of bodyfat.

I’ve shown previously that depending on your selection of carbohydrates, your body will respond in either a favourable manner or go completely in the opposite direction.  In very simply terms, choosing lower Glycemic Index carbohydrates over Higher Glycemic Index will maintain low and stable insulin levels, both which support fat loss and maintenance of muscle. Higher glycemic carbohydrates (except at very specific times) will do the opposite and influence the body to create bodyfat and actually decrease muscle, by taking insulin too high and causing a see-saw effect in levels.

So even if you were using an undesirable macronutrient ratio, you can create an environment for fat gain or fat loss simply by selecting the right carbohydrate.

I won’t go into protein as this can get quite complicated, and I was at risk of boring you 758 words ago, so without tempting fate and hoping you’re still with me, let’s finish up with fats. This section also goes part way to explaining why a ‘Fat Tax’ is ridiculously myopic.

Fats are a perennial target when nutrition is discussed, usually for the wrong reasons. Choosing the right fats will make or break a body. Period.

Current recommendations are to increase monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and to reduce saturated fats. Great advice on the surface, but again it’s not this simple. Leaving out monounsaturated fats as they are, not completely, but relatively benign, we’ll locate our gaze on the other two main classes.

For close to 2-3 decades polyunsaturated fats have been promoted as the hero in the fat world, and for good reason. Both Omega 3 and 6 are essential to the body as we cannot make these fats internally as we can with many others. Being essential they have profound effects on the way the body functions, such as, but in no way limited to, levels of haemoglobin and Insulin metabolism, and this is starting to show in the health of the population.

Omega 6 is fairly easy to get in the diet, and the promotion of grain based foods as a basis for a healthy diet has made this even more the case. Omega 3 is not found so readily and even when it is found it spoils very easily, so getting enough in the diet is a lot harder.

This imbalance and its effect on the physiology of the body is one of the reasons for the continuing levels of, amongst many others, Cardio-vascular disease, Cancer and the alarming levels of obesity we are witnessing. If you’ve been reading my work, you’ll have seen the current theory that chronic inflammation is intrinsically linked not only to the above diseases but very much a central player in the ability to control body fat.

What about saturated fats, the much hated, demonised child of the fat family. Even here, it’s not that simple. There are many saturated fats, which all have different effects on the body. Stearic acid, the major saturated fatty acid found in beef, doesn’t raise LDL cholesterol like other saturated fats, but it does promote creation of bodyfat. Other saturated fats such as Lauric acid found in Coconuts do not raise bodyfat. It also raises HDL cholesterol, but also raises LDL cholesterol. So it’s not as easy as saying all saturated fats are bad, as they can have beneficial effects, of which most people are unaware. So the inclusion of saturated fat in the diet is not only warranted it’s actually desirable.

So where does that leave us? Well, if we took Andrew Lansley’s advice and simply ate less, we’d in all likelihood end up both fatter and in much poorer health. If we take Jamie Oliver’s advice to eat differently and more knowledgably, we’d have a vastly healthier nation, and this would be reflected by our sleek physiques.

Demolition Man

In the previous article we looked very briefly at antioxidants and how uncontrolled oxidation creates excess free radicals. I suggested that in order to maintain a long lived healthy body and mind, we need to balance this process.

Most commentators on health in the general media would have you believe that free radicals are fiendish Gremlins that wreak havoc upon the body that should be entirely eliminated. It’s also been suggested that the fact that the body seems to naturally produce free radicals as a natural component of energy processing is an inherent flaw in the design of the Human body. Pish!!!

Excess free radicals will damage the body there is no doubt, we looked at the process by which this happens. However, far from an undesirable element, the body also uses free radicals in a huge array of processes, one notable function being immunity. Without free radicals, you would be prey to every passing virus, bacteria, microbe or sundry other wee beasties. Much like Special Force Units in the military, the fittest members of a population are recruited to execute specialised manoeuvres that the majority of the population neither have the skills or the necessary partitioned enmity that is demanded to have the required devastating effect. Or more succinctly put by John Spartan in Demolition Man ‘Send a Maniac to catch a Maniac’.

Ever wondered why most infections begin with a sore throat. The throat is one of the most accessible points of entry into the body (it’s actually still outside of the body, but I digress), where the aforementioned viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, microbes, chemicals etc. have the best chance of mounting an invasion. Upon detection of an unwanted invader, the body immediately contacts specialised armed forces called lymphocytes. This response is known as the lymphocyte proliferative response which is part of cell mediated immunity. This initial response and the subsequent battle for ground ‘is’ your sore throat.

The lymphocytes are divided into different components called T-Cells, B-Cells and Natural Killer Cells and much like the Armed Forces divisions of Army, Navy and Air force, each adheres to a specific remit. Within each division are sub-divisions, much like the Marine infantry within the Navy, with an even more specialised role within an already specialised unit.

Generally, foreign elements are tackled by Natural Killer Cells, which act as sentry guards. Natural Killer Cells do not need direction from the immune system as they auto-regulate their activity.  Natural Killers, on a daily basis destroy viruses and tumors before they can take hold and multiply. However, because of their fairly indiscriminate and very potent nature, the body keeps Natural Killers on a pretty short leash.

During this initial stand-off both the invading elements and the Natural Killer Cells create a substantial amount of collateral damage to normal body cells. Damaged cells, in response, raise a red flag (chemical signals such as prostaglandins and leukotrines) to alert the immune system that ‘it’s on’.

The Immune system then deploys another group of lymphocytes that are of a more discerning constitution. Although they are more selective in targeting, the collateral damage is even more severe.

Usually the first team to turn up at the battlefield are class of Phagocytes called Neutrophils. Neutrophils upon identifying an invader, attack by engulfing them. Having ingested the invader the Neutrophil essentially takes a huge breath, taking in 50 times the amount of Oxygen. This results in what is known as an ‘Oxidative burst’ within the Neutrophil, destroying the ingested foreign element by enlisting free radicals. The Neutrophil can perform this action about 20-30 times before the oxidative damage accumulates and damages the Neutrophil itself. At this point of no return, the Neutrophil detonates like a bomb, causing massive fallout from the oxidative contents and the free radicals that have been generated.

This may seem like a flaw in design of the immune system. Not at all, it’s genius, you just need to look at it from the right angle. The shrapnel emitted from the explosion hits, and damages, everything, both normal tissue and invading elements alike. This fallout weakens the invaders, softening them up for the killer blow delivered by your immune cells. To prevent the body from being overly damaged by the friendly fire, your cells require appropriate levels of antioxidants to shield themselves.

This is only the beginning stages of immune response, the later stages recruit various other cells such as Monocytes, T-cells as the battle becomes a lot more targeted via Humoral Immunity. However, even this brief skim over oxidation, free radicals and immunity demonstrates the delicate balance we need to maintain in order to allow oxidation to occur for beneficial reasons and having sufficient antioxidant armour to protect ourselves from rogue soldiers.

in pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello

As I’m sure, dear reader, you would have noticed, my articles are not stand alone pieces, but seem to weave a web of interconnecting strands, each supporting one another. This is not by design, well not mine anyway. This is just the way the Universe is, whether it developed this property via an emergent process or an intelligent hand reached in and laid out the steps for a divine plan, we don’t know for sure. All we can tell from our limited perspective is that we’re here (maybe?) and ‘everything links’.

Luckily this Universal interconnection makes my focus here easier, as I can…ummm…I don’t like the phrase ‘kill two birds with one stone’, so I’ll use ‘feed two birds with one scone’.

The previous few articles have focused on telomeres and their significant role in ageing and disease. In this article I’m going to begin to show you how to limit the oxidative stress that causes Telomere shortening. Bear in mind, that by ‘feeding’ the Telomere ‘bird’, you’ll also be ‘feeding’ a whole flock of ‘birds’. We’ll look at these in individual articles; here we will lay a firm foundation so that our subsequent building of knowledge is robust.

In the last article we discovered that uncontrolled or excessive oxidation was the primary factor in ageing. In order to control oxidation and help reset the balance we need a way to restrain this vital but potentially deleterious process. This is where antioxidants step up to the plate and hit a home run.

As I stated in the last article, left to run wild free radicals would kill you with rabid fervor. The reason this isn’t a commonplace sight is that our body’s produce endogenous antioxidants. The primary endogenous antioxidants are Glutathione, Superoxide Dismutase and Catalase. These antioxidants neutralise the free radicals by donating or receiving an electron. Astute readers remembering the last article would surmise that this would turn the antioxidant into a free radical itself. You would be spot on, however, the free radicals produced from this reaction are of a less damaging form, and they are subsequently neutralised by other antioxidants. This chain continues until the by-products are relatively harmless carbon dioxide and water.

Endogenous antioxidants do a great job in reducing your oxidative burden, and would probably be all we need if we lived in a world specifically designed for Humans. Despite many peoples delusion that this is indeed the case (Sorry ‘Snowflake’, despite what Mummy and Daddy told you, you are neither innately special nor the centre of the Universe), the world is indeed a dangerous environment, and in some ways getting more hazardous due to the arrogant machinations of man.

Many factors affect your oxidative status, such as your level of bodyweight, or the amount of physical activity you perform, and increasingly the amount of environmental pollution to which you are exposed. These factors combine to overburden our inbuilt defences leaving us prey to not only oxidative damage, but due to the interrelationship between oxidation and our immunity, a whole host of pathogens, viruses and bacteria.

In this light, we can see that our endogenous antioxidants are not sufficient to protect us from a myriad of perils. Step up to the plate ‘Star Batter’ number two; Nutrient antioxidants. You may have heard of one or two of these, such as Vitamin C or Zinc, and also probably seen the popular media or commerce pushing singular antioxidants as panacea’s of health. If only it was that simple. Never, ever, take single nutrients, especially in large doses.

First, as we saw above, by neutralising free radicals, antioxidants themselves become free radicals, which also need to be neutralised. Instead of reducing oxidation, single antioxidants increase free radical levels.

Second, free radicals come in all shapes and sizes, each individual type of free radical is best neutralised by a particular antioxidant, which is then disarmed by it’s own particular chain of antioxidant reactions.

These two factors alone demonstrate the need for a wide-spectrum antioxidant mix, so that all bases are covered. Then there’s the wrinkle that certain antioxidants can only work in particular structures in your body. It’s no good taking a particular antioxidant that in a lab has been shown to neutralise a particular free radical strongly, if it can’t access the part of your body where that free radical exists.

It’s a complicated lot, but the research has been accruing for well over half a century now, so we are getting closer to a complete picture. For now the most pertinent advice I can provide to reduce your oxidative burden is the following:

- Don’t smoke or associate with smokers.

- Eat a wide variety of vegetables and fruit.

- Eat high quality protein every meal

- Eat a diet high in Essential Fatty Acids and low in partially hydrogenated- and trans-fats

- Exercise a minimum of 30 minutes per day including resistance exercise

- Eat a low-sugar diet

- Keep bodyfat below 15% for males, 20% for females.

- Eat a low-acid diet.

- Eat a minimum of 30-40 grams of fiber daily.

- Leave high stress situations. Be a proper Brit’ ‘Keep calm and carry on’.

As we continue this series on ageing and disease prevention, we will look at the particular antioxidants that are most beneficial for each individual condition. Bear in mind, as suggested at the beginning of this article, there is considerable overlap. So, it’s not the arduous task it seems to protect yourself against the major degenerative diseases plaguing Humanity at present, it’s merely a case of selecting the right recipe for your scone.

Breath of Fire

‘The free radicals inside me are freakin', man!’ Jip ~ Human Traffic (1999)

In the previous article in this series on ageing, I introduced the emerging science of Telomeres and their integral role in the ageing process. I also stated that there were a few currently known causes of Telomere shortening. In order to achieve healthy longevity, you’re going to need to plan your journey to avoid the major pitfalls. The principle source of jeopardy in this Odyssey of Life is Oxidation.

Oxidation is a double edged sword. This sword in untrained hands can cause much unwanted destruction, even to the holder. But the same sword wielded by a skilful Gladiator can be used with crucial precision.

Oxidation is essential for life, a process we should seek to maximise. Unharnessed, however, it can snuff you out rapidly. Let’s have a brief look at this process, so we have a better vantage point to plan our route.

Oxygen is an essential part of the majority of your energy systems. As I explained in the ‘Lies to Adults’ article, the universal energy currency of your body is adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP), which is one molecule of adenosine attached to three phosphate molecules by a high energy bond. It is in this bond that the captured energy of the sun is stored. When the body requires energy for any process, a signal is sent to instruct a phosphate group to fire off of ATP, releasing the stored energy. We are then left with a chemical called adenosine di-phosphate (ADP). This needs to be ‘recharged’ into ATP, by re-attaching a phosphate, in order for the energy cycle to continue.

We have a few ways of achieving this, but we’ll keep it simple, and just focus on the process most relevant to our discussion. This process is the aerobic system that uses glucose/ glycogen and fat as a fuel source. The process of using glucose and fat to recharge ATP occurs by oxidation. As the name implies this is achieved with the use of oxygen. Approximately 95% of this process is an almost perfect system, producing minimal ‘waste’ products. These ‘waste’ products are either recycled by the body to generate beneficial substances or are fairly easily excreted by the body with minimal fuss.

The remaining 5%, however, is as dirty as a politician. Like the analogous politician this process is less disciplined and generates a lot of waste and collateral damage. When molecules of oxygen become unstable and escape the energy system, they become what are known as a ‘free radical’. These volatile free radicals are like a bull in china shop, although instead of simply breaking fine porcelain, they cause unwanted chemical reactions that damage you.

You will have seen this process occurring every day. Cut open an apple and within minutes it will have begun to brown. This is a result of oxidation. Ever wondered why the Statue of Liberty is green? Oxidation. The Statue of liberty like your central heating pipes is made of copper; the oxidation of the copper skin has formed a green patina that is now the recognisable exterior of this famous monument. It’s a pervasive corrosive process that we have to encounter daily.

To explain how free radicals do their damage, we have to very gently touch on a smidgeon of chemistry, I’ll attempt to keep the touch light. Each stable atom in your body has a field of electrons smeared around its nucleus. It’s easiest to imagine them as opposing pairs that balance each other in a sort of electromagnetic see-saw.

In this balanced scenario, the electrons can enjoy the ride, at the same time as fulfilling very important functions. Free radicals, however, disturb this merry jaunt. When an atom gains or loses an electron, its electromagnetic charge becomes unbalanced. Imagine being on a see-saw (an atom) and your partner (an electron) is suddenly removed or another person joins them. You’re either going to come down to earth with a bump or alternatively be propelled off of the see-saw up into the ether. To stop the see-saw from becoming unbalanced, you have two options, you can ask a partner to join you from another see-saw, or try to throw one of your partners onto another see-saw. This then upsets the balance of that see-saw, who has to go through the same process to avoid being unbalanced. This then sets up a chain reaction of imbalance throughout the entire playground.

This chain reaction causes damage throughout the body, especially structures that are easily oxidised (see-saws that are easily unbalanced). One of these structures is Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA), the blueprint of ‘you’. Especially oxidisable is the Telomere portion of the DNA strand, due to its high proportion of Guanine. Remember that telomeres end in about 300 repeats of the Guanine subunit. This oxidation shortens the Telomere. Shortened Telomeres, as we know, are bad news.

So, we process the majority of our energy using oxygen, but this same process is slowly cooking us from the inside, essentially burning the wick of our Life candle (Telomeres). Why would Nature settle upon this system? Well, without this imbalance nothing would happen. Try walking without unbalancing yourself, it doesn’t happen, you can’t move from the spot. The key is controlling the imbalance. And Nature, ever the gift bearer, has provided us with a means to maintain just the right level of imbalance.

The balancing pole provided for our tightrope walk through life is a group of molecules called ‘Antioxidants’. In the next article we’ll look at the science of these balancing poles and how they enable our candle wick to hold the flame of Life.

Hayflick (un)limit(ed)

Time and tide wait for no man ~ Unknown

In 1961 Dr Leonard Hayflick demonstrated that a population of normal human fetal cells in a cell culture divide between 40 and 60 times. After this it then enters a senescence phase. Cellular senescence is a state where the cell is unable to replicate itself (mitotic division), so it either dies due to un-repairable damage or pre-empting this, because it may negatively affect the organism (You), commits suicide (apotosis) to ensure the organisms survival. Since we are all made of cells, this is fairly pertinent to every single one of us.

How this occurs is that with each mitotic division, a segment on the end of the DNA of the cell called a Telomere shortens. Telomere shortening in humans eventually makes cell division impossible, it is this shortened state that correlates with ageing.

This point of no return was coined the Hayflick limit and suggested a sort of in-built clock of ageing. As always, the devil is in the details, we just have to be smart enough to notice them.

Astute readers would have noticed that the studies used cells in a culture medium. At the time of the study they were using a culture medium that Hayflick and his colleagues thought provided all of the nutrients needed to support a human cell. Not so. They were missing some quite pivotal cast members. I won’t get into which nutrients were missing, we can do that at another time. The point is, by not having the appropriate nutrients present, the functioning of the cell altered so that it was less resilient to the stresses of life, even if that life consisted of living in a petri dish.

However, despite this, Hayflick did show us the mechanism behind ageing. Armed with that information, very smart scientists looked at the routes in which telomeres shorten. It doesn’t just happen in one way, as the saying goes ‘there are many paths to the top of the mountain’. I will show you the main paths in subsequent articles, but if you have being following my recent writing you will notice a trend towards the topic of stress and stress management. I did this for a reason, as current evidence has shown that the two (Stress and Telomere Shortening) are inextricably linked. We will look at this in the next article, but first of all we need to give ourselves a firm grasp of the basic mechanism.

So the question is, what are telomeres, and why is their length so important? Well, the DNA in your body is in the form of a double helix, essentially a two piece plat, like you would do to your hair, or similar to a shoelace. At the end of the plat, to prevent it becoming untangled, a hair-band is usually used. On a shoelace, again to prevent unravelling, we have a cap known as an ‘aiglet’. At the ends of our strands of DNA we have telomeres, whose main function is to prevent chromosome breaks and fusing. This operation helps to promote the genomic stability that we had a cursory glance at in the last article in this series.

Telomeres are non-coding repeating sections of DNA (about 9.000-15,000 repeats of the codons TTAGGG, then finally around 50-300 single repeats of (G)uanine, for those that are interested). As I suggested above, upon each cell division, your telomeres tend to shorten, until they reach a critical length where this informs the cell to cease replication and die off. The shortening occurs because an enzyme called DNA polymerase cannot completely replicate the entire DNA strand, so a little piece is left off each time. Luckily, as mentioned, this part doesn’t code for anything in the body, so you don’t suddenly lose huge chunks of DNA every time a cell divides. There’s method in the seeming madness.

So, since the body is made of systems and systems are a complex array of interplaying tissues, which are made of cells, when too many tissue cells die, organs fail, and generally so do you.  So does this mean that Hayflick was right afterall? Nope. Nature is a savvy mistress, and endowed us, the more fit (in evolutionary terms), to continue to play on this mortal coil, but only if we play by her rules.

Before we look at the rules, let’s look at how Nature helps us avoid the above scenario? Looking at the above situation, it seems that there is an inescapable freefall of bodily function until death. However, even a freefall can be controlled; much like a glider does in the air. Gliding’s good, especially when you’re hurtling, to your death, but we can go one better. What’s better? Let’s add some engines to our glider, so that we can dictate our rate of descent or even ascent. That way, if we hit the right control buttons, we can go as far and wide as we please.      

This engine is called Telomerase. Telomerase is an enzyme that functions in a number of ways, but the one we are most interested in is its effects on Telomere length. Telomerase has the ability to slow the rate of telomere shortening. Even better, it can maintain the length of telomeres. Best of all, it can actually lengthen the telomere. That’s right, you can literally wind back the hands on the clock of aging.

So to prevent ageing, we need to look after our telomeres and attempt to inhibit the processes that cause them to shorten. In addition to this we need to stimulate an increase in the activity and amount of telomerase, to protect and help us re-lengthen already shortened telomeres.

The research into telomeres whilst not new in the sense of our fast paced world, is still embryonic in all actuality. The initial idea was first suggested in the early 1970’s, and it wasn’t until 1978 that actual evidence of their existence was published. It’s only recently with advanced technology that we have been able to start accurately researching this area. But the scientists have been busy and there is a rapidly growing pile of research into this fascinating process.

In the next article, I’ll bring you up to speed about the main known causes of telomere shortening and ways to combat these factors. We’ll also look at the current science in telomerase activation.