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- Fun Fact Friday -
Hi all,
I hope you've had a great week and are glad that it's Friday.
Here's your Fun Fact Friday to end the week with some extra pizazz. Enjoy!
Please leave a review here if you enjoy reading this newsletter.
Fun fact 1
Anti-depressants (paroxetine in this study; and excess serotonin in general) are shown to cause sexual dysfunction and low testosterone by lowering testicular function and testicular cholesterol (R). If testicular cholesterol drops, then less cholesterol can be converted to pregnenolone and on to testosterone. The study shows that Brysocarpus coccineus can help to reverse those testicular changes induced by paroxetine.
Fun fact 2
Lactate can promote fat accumulation. This study showed that lactate injection into the calve muscle promotes triglyceride formation. Chronic low-grade lactate production (due to dysfunctional metabolism) can also contribute to fatty liver. This week's youtube vid is about lowering lactate.
"The glycolytic product of exercise, lactate, has long been recognized to suppress lipolysis and promote lipogenesis in adipocytes through inhibition of the cAMP-PKA pathway by activation of the G protein-coupled receptor (GPR81). ...
Chronic intramuscular injection of lactate elevated lactate receptor, GPR81, and reduced cAMP response element-binding (CREB) and P-CREB abundance in the gastrocnemius. Additionally, there was a significant decline in lipolytic-related proteins (AMPK, P-AMPK, P-HSL, CPT-1B, TGF-β2, SDHA) and a significant increase in fat synthesis proteins (SREBP-1C, PPAR-γ)." (R)
Fun fact 3
In the low carb and fasting community, they often recommend not consuming anything post-workout for extra fat burning, mitochondrial biogenesis, or whatever they might come up with.
This study showed that consuming nothing post-workout doesn't further promote mitochondrial biogenesis or fat burning compared to what the session itself induced.
"CHO restriction after a glycogen-depleting and metabolically-demanding cycling session is not effective for increasing the acute mRNA levels of genes involved in mitochondrial biogenesis and oxidative metabolism in human skeletal muscle" (R).
Fun fact 4
A side effect of prolonged and exhaustive exercise is that it doesn't just significantly lower muscle and liver glycogen, but it can actually lower brain glycogen as well, which is then turned into lactate. As you'll hear in my YT vid, some of the side effects of excess lactate include depression, anxiety, panic attacks, etc.
"Exhaustive endurance exercise activates brain glycogen breakdown and lactate production more than insulin-induced hypoglycemia". (R)
That's why I'm only training 15 min x3 weekly and my energy is great, I'm no longer fatigued after a workout, I have more time for other activities, and best of all, I'm dropping fat faster than when I was doing 45-60 min workouts. If you do the workout correctly, then you can get the same muscle growth and strength gains in 10-15min workouts x3 per week as 60 min workouts.
Fun fact 5
Elevated uric acid is often due to low thyroid hormones and high TSH.
"TSH is negatively correlated with SUA [Serum uric acid], and decreased TSH is an independent risk factor for hyperuricemia in type 2 diabetic patients with early-stage DKD [diabetic kidney disease]. These results indicate that thyroid hormones, TSH in particular, might participate in regulating uric acid metabolism in patients with early-stage DKD" (R).
Using thyroid supplementation has been shown to lower serum uric acid levels.
New theory on PFS
Most people think that PFS is caused by downregulated 5AR, but a lot of people actually have normal DHT levels a few weeks after stopping finasteride or other 5-AR inhibitors. This indicates that their 5AR type 2 is working. So they speculate that their 5AR type 1 is broken. But if they supplement 5a-DHP, thus skipping the 5AR type 1 enzyme, they still don't resolve their issues.
If you look further, 5a-DHP can be converted to allopregnanolone by 3a-HSD. Allopregnanolone is good since it is pro-GABA and GABA-A receptor activation and promotes the release of GnRH (which stimulates steroidogenesis). Most people with PFS also have anxiety, poor sleep, etc., which is actually a sign of low GABA.
The problem comes in with the production of Isopregnanolone through 3b-HSD.
3a HSD uses NADPH as a cofactor and 3b-HSD uses NADH as a cofactor. The enzyme ANT in the mitochondrial membrane converts NADH into NADPH. So if the cell doesn't work very well anymore, then ANT is downregulated and the NADH to NADPH ratio is increased.
So the goal is to decrease NADH (fix complex I of the ETC) and increase NADPH (which enhances mitochondrial function as well as the pentose phosphate pathway).
More on this in the near future.
Healing foot bath
A few days ago I hit my toe really hard into a doorframe. For the next two days is was a little bruised, but not really red, swollen, or sore. 3 days later, we went to the beach and the morning after that I woke up with my toe being red, swollen, and really sore. It could have been due to the repeated irritation induced by the sand granules that caused it to inflame, but it hurt so much that even just standing on my foot was quite sore. When I told my wife that my toe was really sore all of a sudden she quickly made me a foot bath with warm water in a big jolly basin and added 8 tbsp sodium bicarb, 8 tbsp Epsom salt, and 2 tbsp sodium salicylate. She then also rinsed my toe with apple cider vinegar over the basin and I then soaked my foot for about 20 min (I didn't check the time, but we finished our morning coffee together, which usually takes around 20 minutes).
After I removed my foot, I could already see that the redness had subsided a bit and by the end of the day, the redness and swollenness was almost completely gone along with the pain. I was quite amazed at how fast the foot soaking helped, but I just wanted to share this so that if you happen to hurt your toe/s or foot really badly, you can always try this foot bath and see if it works so well for you as well.
A movie we really enjoyed
LEGEND OF THE FIST: The Return of Chen Zhen. The main character is my all-time favorite martial artist, Donnie Yen. The first movie I watched with him as the main actor was IP man (highly recommended). Not only are his skills awesome, but he has a great character in all his movies (those I've watched so far).
A few concepts/thoughts
Live in the now. A thought that came to my mind the other day is that animals only live in the now. For example, dogs don't have a perspective of the past or the future... only of the now. They are not stressed if they're going to get food tomorrow or not. That is tomorrow's problem.
This then reminded me of what Dr. Peat said in an interview 'on the back of the tiger': "Staying away from anything that doesn't seem to be immediately rewarding I think is a good starting point."
How often do we think we can apologize tomorrow, plan a date night with that special someone later this month, talk to someone special later, etc. What if you were unable to think of tomorrow but only of today? Would you stop postponing and prioritize differently?
A quote from a movie that resonated with me:
"The hardest thing about having hope is watching the people who don't. And the only thing harder than that is watching the people who once did."
...This made me think of other similar examples, such as: "The hard part about taking action is watching those that don't." If you know how important it is to take action in your life in order to make things happen, then you know how frustrating or painstaking it is when others can't take action while you know how important it is that they do.
New article & video released this week
If you enjoy reading my articles and find them informative, please don't forget to share this content with others so that they can benefit from the information as well.
Quote I like
"The only impossible journey is the one you never begin."
- Tony Robbins
That's it for today. Hope you all have a great weekend!
- Hansius
P.S. If you would like to give me some feedback e.g. what you found interesting, or give any suggestions, maybe of things that you think I might find interesting; let me know by replying to this email.
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