the-psoriasis-treatment

Loss of muscle mass is associated with aging. It is also associated with the metabolic syndrome, together with excessive body fat gain. It is safe to assume that having low muscle and high fat mass, at the same time, is undesirable. The extreme opposite of that, achievable though natural means, would be to have as much muscle as possible and as low body fat as possible. People who achieve that extreme often look a bit like “buff skeletons”. This post assumes that increasing muscle mass through strength training and proper nutrition is healthy. It looks into body fat levels, specifically how low body fat would have to be for health to be maximized. I am happy to acknowledge that quite often I am working on other things and then become interested in a topic that is brought up by Richard Nikoley , and discussed by his readers (I am one of them). This post is a good example of that. Obesity and the diseases of civilization Obesity is strongly associated with the diseases of civilization, o...

I have been doing a lot of reading over the years on isolated hunter-gatherer populations; see three references at the end of this post, all superb sources (Chagnon’s book on the Yanomamo, in particular, is an absolute page turner). I also take every opportunity I have to talk with anthropologists and other researchers who have had field experience with hunter-gatherer groups. Even yesterday I was talking to a researcher who spent many years living among isolated native Brazilian groups in the Amazon. Maybe I have been reading too much into those descriptions, but it seems to me that one distinctive feature of many adults in hunter-gatherer populations, when compared with adults in urban populations, is that the hunter-gatherers are a lot less obsessed with food. Interestingly, this seems to be a common characteristic of physically active children. They want to play, and eating is often an afterthought, an interruption of play. Sedentary children, who play indoors, can and often want t...

Adiponectin is a hormone exclusively secreted by body fat. This hormone has been recently gaining attention from researchers because of some of its functions. Two important ones are the regulation of glucose and fat metabolism. Elevated levels of adiponectin are associated with increased insulin sensitivity, and increased fat catabolism (i.e., fat burning). And these associations appear to be causal. That is, adiponectin levels do not seem to be only markers, but causes of increased insulin sensitivity and fat catabolism. In other words, an increase in circulating adiponectin seems to lead to increased insulin sensitivity and increased fat catabolism. Insulin sensitivity is the opposite of insulin resistance. The latter is a precursor to diabetes type 2, and is associated with elevated fasting and postprandial (i.e., after a meal) glucose levels. Adiponectin also seems to work closely with leptin, another hormone implicated in a number of diseases of civilization. It appears that adipo...

Calcidiol is a pre-hormone that is produced based on vitamin D3 in the liver. Blood concentration of calcidiol is considered to be a reliable indicator of vitamin D status. In the research literature, calcidiol is usually referred to as 25-Hydroxyvitamin or 25(OH)D. Calcidiol is converted in the kidneys into calcitriol, which is the active form of vitamin D. The table below (from: Vieth, 1999; full reference at the end of this post; click on it to enlarge), shows the average blood vitamin D levels of people living or working in sun-rich environments. To convert from nmol/L to ng/mL, divide by 2.496. For example, 100 nmol/L = 100 / 2.496 ng/mL = 40.1 ng/mL. At the time of this writing, Vieth (1999) had 692 citations on Google Scholar, and probably more than that on Web of Science. This article has had, and continues having, a high impact among researchers. The maximum average level of blood (or serum) vitamin D shown in the table is 163 nmol/L (65 ...

George Hamilton admits that he has been addicted to sunbathing for much of his life. The photo below (from: phoenix.fanster.com), shows him at the age of about 70. In spite of possibly too much sun exposure, he looks young for his age, in remarkably good health, and free from skin cancer. How come? Maybe his secret is vitamin D. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble pro-hormone; not actually a vitamin, technically speaking. That is, it is a substance that is a precursor to hormones, which are known as calcipherol hormones (calcidiol and calcitriols). The hormones synthesized by the human body from vitamin D have a number of functions. One of these functions is the regulation of calcium in the bloodstream via the parathyroid glands. The biological design of humans suggests that we are meant to obtain most of our vitamin D from sunlight exposure. Vitamin D is produced from cholesterol as the skin is exposed to sunlight. This is one of the many reasons (see here  for more) why cholesterol is ver...

Some types of cancer have traditionally been higher among the Inuit than in other populations, at least according to data from the 1950s, when a certain degree of westernization had already occurred. The incidence of the following types of cancer among the Inuit has been particularly high: nasopharynx, salivary gland, and oesophageal. The high incidence of these “traditional” types of cancer among the Inuit is hypothesized to have a strong genetic basis. Nevertheless some also believe these cancers to be associated with practices that were arguably not common among the ancestral Inuit, such as preservation of fish and meat with salt. Genetic markers in the present Inuit population show a shared Asian heritage, which is consistent with the higher incidence of similar types of cancer among Asians, particularly those consuming large amounts of salt-preserved foods. (The Inuit are believed to originate from East Asia, having crossed the Bering Strait about 5,000 years ago.) The incidence o...