Freezing Your Butt Off - An alternative way to lose weight

Cultivating your good fat

In an effort to stay slim, burn calories and generally avoid weight gain, we’re all familiar with the basics. Eat right, exercise, sleep 7-8 hour/night, handle your stress, etc. I would like to add to this list an option that is not widely known or yet fully researched. This new method is a bio-hack (a short-cut to improve one’s biology) that can make a considerable difference for those brave enough to try it. You can consider yourself way ahead of the health and wellness curve on this one.

We all carry two types of fat, white and brown. White fat is the fat that is responsible for the obesity epidemic we currently face worldwide (beer bellies, muffin tops, bagel butts etc.). Brown fat is a metabolically active fat that basically tells our body to burn fat for energy and to generate body heat. Brown fat is found primarily in infants and hibernating animals. It is present in adults, mostly in the neck and shoulder regions, but questions of its function and activity are still under investigation. Recent research clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of optimally functioning brown fat and its role in thermogenesis and weight loss/maintenance.

You better believe the drug companies are looking into ways to take advantage of mimicking brown fat and attempting to create a drug that will provide similar effects as a magic weight loss pill. One need not wait until if and when this is discovered, there are actions you can implement now to increase the presence and function of brown fat in your body. The question is, will you want to make the effort to harness the power of brown fat?

The best way to increase and optimize the function of brown fat is COLD exposure. Cold exposure has many mechanisms by which it increases metabolism, many of which are extremely beneficial to the system (improved thyroid function, lowered cortisol levels, endorphin production and many others). Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories/day while training. It doesn’t seem possible to eat that much and not gain weight, except when you consider the fact that he trains 3-4 hours/day in cold water that is 24X more thermally conductive than air. In other words, not only is Phelps exercising, he is optimizing his heat loss and brown fat production by exposing himself to cold temperatures in a thermally conductive medium. Another great example of this is how ripped Rocky was in Rocky IV because he did all of his training in the Siberian snow (oh wait, that was just a movie wasn’t it?).

Options to consider for cold exposure are many but the best and most effective (and most painful) seems to be bodily immersion in ice water (temperature 50-55 degrees) for a period of 20-30 minutes. Another option is cold showers, which definitely will wake one up in the morning. It has been reported the using ice packs on the back of the neck and shoulders can stimulate the formation of brown fat, though not as well as immersion therapy.  As a matter of convenience, one may even purchase an ice vest and neck wrap to utilize daily to lower core body temperature and stimulate brown fat production. There are many other ways to expose oneself to the cold but due to the thermal conduction issues, immersion is the best. These modalities make the body more metabolically active in trying to warm itself, thus increasing metabolic rate and burning more calories.

The science behind the above is relatively new and more information will be available as time passes. I recommend looking over the links below for more education. I would not recommend engaging in a program such as this if you have heart disease or other medical problems. The rewards beyond weight loss can be significant, if you’re up to the challenge and cold exposure that this requires. Since 2/3 of the country is overweight, maybe if we get this message out there, it will convince everyone to turn their thermostat down to 65 degrees? Enjoy the info below and if you ever thought of joining the polar bear club, now you have a legitimate reason.

Shiveringly Yours,

Chris

Brown Fat Burns Ordinary Fat

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1890175,00.html

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/genetics/brown-fat-revelations-may-lead-to-new-weight-loss-drugs-670440?click=pm_latest

http://www.livestrong.com/article/464218-brown-fat-weight-loss/

http://gettingstronger.org/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-toolbar/toolbar.php?wptbto=http%3A%2F%2Fgettingstronger.org%2F2010%2F03%2Fcold-showers%2F%23more-20&wptbhash=aHR0cDovL2dldHRpbmdzdHJvbmdlci5vcmcvMjAxMC8wMy9jb2xkLXNob3dlcnMvPHdwdGI%2BQ29sZCBzaG93ZXJzPHdwdGI%2BaHR0cDovL2dldHRpbmdzdHJvbmdlci5vcmc8d3B0Yj5HZXR0aW5nIFN0cm9uZ2Vy

http://gettingstronger.org/2012/01/the-iceman/#more-3678

Choose Health: The Power of One

Each day, as we go about our busy lives, we spend more time paying less attention to some of the things that should matter to us the most. Over the past 50 years, our personal and national health has deteriorated at what seems to be an ever increasing rate. The Lancet, a medical journal, recently reported that half of the U.S. adult population will be obese by the year 2030.

The prognosis for our future health does not look good. In an effort to combat this situation and to provide tools that can help you face the future, I will be writing a column to guide you on the path to better health. We are where we are now for numerous reasons and the problems we face are multi-factorial. The current health crisis in America has not been caused solely by gluttony and sloth. It goes much deeper than that. I hope to explore some of these issues and outline practical solutions for you in the months ahead.

A significant contributor to the many chronic diseases we face today has a great deal to do with the standard American diet (SAD diet!). If a terrorist desired to slowly, internally destroy the fabric of America, he simply need open another fast food restaurant, serving toxic, nutrient-depleted food.  

Nutrient depletion in the American diet is a source of the health decline we are experiencing. The USDA recently published a statement confirming the progressive nutrient depletion in the foods available in our diet. Our bodies hunger for the micronutrient vitamins, minerals and cofactors that allow us to operate at maximal efficiency. As these become less available, we eat more to try to satisfy these requirements. Unfortunately, many of us go through the day consuming edible “food-like” substances, never eating any “real, whole” food over the course of the day. This has to stop.

I am frequently asked, ‘What should I do for this?’ and ‘How do I cure that?’  The foundation of great health is our diet. The statement, “you are what you eat,” has never been more true.  There is no magic bullet, pill or supplement that will make us healthy and well. Supplements are just that, supplements. The answer to the question about what to do often boils down to, you have to change nearly everything about the way you eat and live.

 Establishing a lifestyle of health and wellness requires a critical examination of where you are now, how you got there and what you can do starting today to change the future outcome. You have the opportunity to shape your future three times a day, with each meal you consume.  A lifestyle of optimal health is not always easy and does require responsibility and effort. If we do not embrace this challenge, our lives will never improve and we will continue to experience the health decline we now face.

Each of us has the power within us to make the changes necessary to achieve optimal wellness. No one is more interested in your health than you and for that reason, you are in charge of ensuring that you maintain and preserve the temple that is your body. Our government, your “friends” and the companies putting the food on your table are not always acting with your best interest at heart. Your best interests will only be served by you. You are the CEO of your own health and it is up to you to ensure that your entire system runs optimally and as it was meant to.

The more educated and enlightened you become in regard to your health, the more you will be able to control and prevent the diseases of aging that we have come to accept as a part of “getting old.” It is not part of the “normal” aging process to develop cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s; we’re just used to it. These afflictions are very much associated with diet and lifestyle. Many of these diseases are not nearly as common in countries that do not follow the SAD diet that we do in America. If our goal were to discover a diet that causes the most chronic, disabling, degenerative diseases, we have been wildly successful.

Our current healthcare system is not set up to promote wellness and prevention. We pay lip service to preventive measures because we have a sick-care system. It would be nice to have a healthcare system whereby people were more educated and less medicated. Good health makes a lot of sense but it doesn’t make a lot of money and staying well requires effort, responsibility and accountability. Our current system waits until we are ill and then reacts, often when it may be too late to achieve a favorable outcome. Prevention is the cure for those who choose to adopt a healthy lifestyle and we all have the power and ability to be a part of our own cure. The long term answer won’t be found in another blockbuster drug, treatment or diagnostic tool.  The answer lies in preventing disease in the first place!

The Shawshank Redemption, one of my favorite movies, provides this insight, “I guess it comes down to a simple choice really, get busy living or get busy dying.” When confronted with matters of your own health, the choice is not any different.  Choose living, Choose Health!

Cholesterol and Statins – The Good, the Bad, The TRUTH

-It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows
                                                                             -    Epictetus


Cholesterol - a substance that we are all familiar with as a major risk factor for heart disease, or not? The allegation of cholesterol as an evil villain has been preached to us on numerous occasions over the past 50 years. The evidence directly implicating cholesterol as a major cause of heart disease, when critically examined, does not stand up to scrutiny. This Lipid/Cholesterol hypothesis is a faulty dictum brought to us primarily by Ancel Keys, PhD., in the early 1950’s and has been propagated ever since. Many studies   have demonstrated no statistically significant correlation between fat and cholesterol intake and heart disease, yet we continue to use the Cholesterol/Heart Disease hypothesis as a basis for recommending medical treatment to lower cholesterol levels and prevent heart disease. Did you know that 50-75% of people who have a heart attack have “normal” cholesterol levels?


Cholesterol is an important and ubiquitous substance in the human body and is responsible for many vital functions. Cholesterol is a major component of every cell in the body and is a critical substance in the brain, as 50-60% of the dry weight of the brain is composed of cholesterol.  Cholesterol is utilized by the body to produce important hormones, such as testosterone, estrogen, cortisone, vitamin D and others – all critical to optimal function. Cholesterol is required by the liver to produce bile, which digests fat. Adequate cholesterol levels support the immune system in the fight against both infection and cancer. Of particular importance, cholesterol is the key substance found in the insulating/myelin sheaths of our nerves and brain.


These many functions demonstrate why cholesterol is a vital component to an optimally functioning body. When we artificially lower our cholesterol levels, particularly with statin medications, we risk damage to all of the above systems. The focus on cholesterol as a major cause of heart disease has, in many ways, distracted us from fully focusing on some of the more important causes of heart disease, our lifestyle and dietary choices. Inflammation plays a significant role in heart disease, and things that increase systemic inflammation, such as poor food choices, smoking, diabetes/insulin resistance, inactivity, elevated homocysteine levels, high blood pressure and stress, may be bigger factors in heart disease than high cholesterol.


We live in what could be categorized as a “one disease, one drug” culture. Many of us accept the false dogma that health comes in the form of a pill that we take each day. Forget lifestyle modification; there’s a pill we can take to make up for our wrong choices. Thoughts like these are in many ways responsible for a number of illnesses we’re currently dealing with.


Statin medications, successful at lowering cholesterol levels, are one of the accepted current treatments of choice for prevention of heart disease.  However, many of the studies “proving” the benefit of statins rely on statistical manipulation to prove value in the treatment or prevention of heart disease. Even the package insert for the very medicine being used to “prevent” heart disease states that statins do not reduce all cause mortality. This means that statins do not increase lifespan when compared to placebo. Statins may slightly decrease the risk of heart disease, but if, as research shows, their use contributes to the development of another disease, it becomes a zero sum game. Why replace one disease for another when the ultimate final outcome is no different?


If  told that patients taking a statin drug resulted in 2 people in 100 having a heart attack over a 3.4-year period and patients not taking a statin drug resulted in 3 people in 100 having a heart attack over the same 3.4-year period, those odds wouldn’t impress anyone as very favorable. Yet, according to the way the statistics are reported, this represents a 33% reduction in cardiac risk (1 divided by 3) according to the researchers. A 33% risk reduction sounds significant, but what this really means is that 1 person out of 100 taking a statin over a 3.4 year period was spared a heart attack compared to those not taking a statin over that same time period. Not as impressive or convincing as stating a 33% reduction in cardiac risk.


The number needed to treat (NNT) is what should be considered when looking at the usefulness of statins or any drugs. The NNT tells us how many people need to be treated with a drug to help just one person. As in the case above, the NNT for heart disease prevention is 100 people being treated for 3.4 years to prevent one heart attack as compared to doing nothing. In essence, 99 other people are taking the same drug and facing the health risks and expense from taking the drug, with no benefit for themselves. The risk/benefit ratio needs to be considered in the use of these drugs. In other studies, it has been shown that it would take 250 people that are low-risk for heart disease, taking a statin for 5 years to prevent 1 heart attack, according to the NNT.


The true, primary treatment indication for the use of statin medications is for the treatment of middle-aged men under the age of 65 who have cardiac disease or have had a heart attack. Statins have not been found to be useful for primary prevention of cardiac disease and have demonstrated no benefit in reducing all cause mortality in those without a previous history of heart disease. The benefit of statin use in women is even more questionable. Extrapolations are made as to the benefit of statin use for primary prevention of heart disease, but a recent thorough review by the highly regarded Cochrane Collaboration concluded that statin drugs show no benefit for heart disease prevention among those without diagnosed heart disease, a serious statement considering their many noted side effects.


With the trumped-up benefits of cholesterol-lowering medication, one would think that there would be substantially more clinical benefit than what the actual numbers show. There have been over 900 studies demonstrating the risk and adverse effects of statin drugs, yet they are frequently handed out like candy, some authorities have even recommended putting them in the water supply or giving them to children!  Statin drugs can lead to diabetes, significant muscle aches and pains, muscle destruction, peripheral neuropathy, increase in liver enzymes, lowered immune response, increased cancer risk, erectile dysfunction, heart failure, depression, and dementia (and many others). Many of the above symptoms are associated with the aging process and we accept them as such. The statement has been put forth that stains accelerate the aging process.


Vitamin D and especially CoQ10 depletion are two of the nutrient deficiencies associated with statin use. CoQ10 is a key nutrient that powers our muscles and keeps them functioning well. The organ with the highest concentration of CoQ10 in the body is the heart. It makes no sense taking a drug to “protect” our heart that depletes the very source of energy that the heart relies upon for function. It should come as no surprise that an increasing number of cases of congestive heart failure are seen in those who have been on long-term statin treatment.


The value and importance of cholesterol in the human body cannot be overlooked. Diet has little to do with cholesterol levels, other than the fact that increased carbohydrate intake is associated with higher small or bad LDL particle production, the form of cholesterol most frequently associated with heart disease. 75-80% of the cholesterol in our bodies is made by our body and only 15-20% is related to dietary intake. Many studies have failed to directly correlate dietary intake with total cholesterol levels. Some studies have even demonstrated a lowering of cholesterol levels with increased cholesterol consumption. I am not recommending that you eat poorly, as there are many mechanisms by which diet creates disease. I am pointing out that cholesterol levels are not linearly correlated to dietary fat consumption.


An elevated cholesterol level is not necessarily a disease state unto itself, but more than likely a symptom of metabolic derangement in the body. Blaming cholesterol for heart disease is like blaming a scab for the wound it is covering or blaming a fireman for the fire he has come to extinguish. Cholesterol is found at the scene of the crime but is not the guilty party. Inflammation, from one source or another, is what must be identified; cholesterol is just cleaning up the mess as a biological bandage.


 The currently recommended cholesterol guidelines are not based on a particular scientific study, but on the consensus opinion of 9 physicians, 8 of whom have ties and have received payment from the drug companies that manufacture statins. Science should not be about consensus but about facts. When presented with “scientific evidence” of the significant benefit of statins, it is always worthwhile to investigate the funding source of the studies cited. It is amazing to note the positive correlation  between statin benefit and industry involvement/financial support of the study and its authors. Bias is rampant in industry funded/coordinated studies (as opposed to independently funded studies) and in my opinion, seriously damages and taints the results of these studies. If you are told you have to get your cholesterol level below 200, you will not be able to find a scientific study supporting this specific recommendation (it’s a consensus statement). Current guidelines make patients out of an estimated 40 million or more people who, prior to the new recommendations, were considered healthy. In essence, a majority of the population now requires “treatment” for a “disease” they didn’t even know they have.


In closing, I realize this information will likely shock and annoy some, but presenting the other side of the story on the data that is available on this topic is important. Are there studies to refute what I have written above? Sure there are. Are there studies to support my line of reasoning? Most certainly there are. I do not ask that you take my word for it, but I also ask that you do not take anyone else’s word either, unless they have done the research and have no vested interest in the current dogma.


Controversy abounds on the topic of cholesterol and heart disease, so please reflect on the above information and investigate with an open mind. There are many paths to cardiovascular disease beyond cholesterol and these too must be considered in the overall picture.  I suggest reading The Cholesterol Delusion, by cardiologist Ernest Curtis, MD, or Ignore the Awkward by Uffe Ravsnkov, MD, PhD. Spacedoc.com is also a great resource for further research.






The comments in this article are my thoughts and opinions based on my reading of the medical literature. They are no substitute for consultation with your own physician and should in no way be construed as medical advice. The decision to start, continue or discontinue any drug regimen is a serious one and should be a decision made after careful discussion with your own physician.




Looking at things through an unfiltered lens,




Chris




http://www.greenmedinfo.com/print/blog/consumer-alert-300-health-problems-linked-statin-drugs?utm_source=www.GreenMedInfo.com&utm_campaign=f5d1625d85-Greenmedinfo&utm_medium=email


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-teitelbaum-md/statins-cholesterol_b_910841.html


http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/statins/statins-and-diabetes/#more-4789

http://www.spacedoc.com/