Burak

Full paper is here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3738153/ As far as I understand, if you are a high nut eater at the beginning of the study and assigned to MED+Nuts group you get 0.37 risk, which means all time nut eaters have the lowest mortality. On the other hand, if you are a high nut eater and assigned to MED+EVOO group, you cut back on nuts and use more EVOO since it's free. Does that mean replacing EVOO with nuts is not a good idea? Nuts > EVOO? Table 2 is more interesting. If you eat just 3 servings of Walnuts a week, you get almost half the mortality. How is that possible, even after adjusting for tons of things? Walnuts >>> EVOO?

How about excess glycation caused by fructose? Fructose causes glycation as much as 10 times higher than glucose and possibly accelerates aging. Some of this effect could be reduced by polyphenols and vitamin C from fruit though. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/bi00406a016 http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.fr/2009/09/sugar-and-ages-fructose-is-10-times.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9732303 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0168822789901046

I didn't see this old study posted here, which seems very promising: ----- Uric acid and glutathione levels during short-term whole body cold exposure. Siems WG, van Kuijk FJ, Maass R, Brenke R. Abstract Ten healthy subjects who swim regularly in ice-cold water during the winter (winter swimming), were evaluated before and after this short-term whole body exposure. A drastic decrease in plasma uric acid concentration was observed during and following the exposure to the cold stimulus. We hypothesize that the uric acid decrease can be caused by its consumption after formation of oxygen radicals. In addition, the erythrocytic level of oxidized glutathione and the ratio of oxidized glutathione/total glutathione also increased following cold exposure, which supports this hypothesis. Furthermore, the baseline concentration of reduced glutathione was increased and the concentration of oxidized glutathione was decreased in the erythrocytes of winter swimmers as compared to those of nonwinter swimmers. This can be viewed as an adaptation to repeated oxidative stress, and is postulated as mechanism for body hardening. Hardening is the exposure to a natural, e.g., thermal stimulus, resulting in an increased tolerance to stress, e.g., diseases. Exposure to repeated intensive short-term cold stimuli is often applied in hydrotherapy, which is used in physical medicine for hardening. -----http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0891584994900302----- It looks like cold exposure acts as an exercise for defense system against oxidative stress. You lose some of your endogenous anti oxidants, but improve your overall capacity in the long run.

According to study, resveratrol is one of the most promising active ingredients. If red wine counts: Resveratrol is found in the skin of red grapes. Malbec has a thick skin and contains much resveratrol. Vine grapes grown in cooler climates have higher resveratrol levels than those from warmer climes (such as California and Spain). The varieties with most resveratrol in the wine include malbec, petite sirah, st. laurent and pinot noir. <http://www.frenchscout.com/polyphenols> No wonder Bourgogne(100% Pinot noir) is one of my favorite.

Thank you Michael. After your explanations and a careful thought, I agree that some kind of unintended glucose leakage does not seem to be possible in normal conditions. But how about the other side: Doesn't our intestinal track produce more enzymes to overcome this massive load which leads to increased absorption? Nevertheless, I still agree that impaired glucose tolerance in CR should mostly depend on the volume of adipose tissue (especially BAT), muscle and liver where glucose should go and be processed rather than flow around aimlessly in the bloodstream.

Micheal, you are right that I used the expression "dietary toxicities" in a wrong way, but I think you got what I mean. First one should be obvious right? There is a difference between 90kg vs. 55kg man affecting from alcohol or medicine or in my case exogenous hormones. I also remember that there are lots of fat soluble toxins such as PCBs etc., and if you are obese it is logical to think that you get less damage when you eat i.e. fish since some of them will be absorbed by fat cells and you will have less of it in your bloodstream after ingestion. Second one is a speculation at the moment, based on above logic. Humans life span is long, meaning more time to expose to toxins, pollutants etc., and add that to CR people have smaller liver and less detoxifying capacity (right?). I think it is worth investigating as a negative aspect of having a CR body, because maybe having a little bit of more fat (also muscle and liver mass) by doing a little bit of less CR can be more optimal.

Sibiriak, I was going to post that study in this topic, but for some reason I forgot. It is very interesting. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26189600 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25500952 Maybe endurance athletes were feeling warm due to all these exercises or the body tries to keep BAT volume as low as possible in order to prevent energy wasting. For me, eating excessive is the primary factor for BAT activation regardless I do CE or eating healthy or not. This provides greater glucose control but can be annoying if you try to gain some weight. Last summer, I was planning to put on some weight while the weather was hot, but ended up losing more probably due to I was not eating enough fat. This time, I will try this with more olive oil without resorting to high GI foods. I am pretty much convinced that having low body fat especially if you are underweight can cause dietary toxicities such as overreaction to chili peppers, headaches from some herbal teas and more importantly hormonal problems from dairy products. I believe this is one of the reasons why CR fail to produce conclusive results on humans(longer life) since we live in a highly polluted planet and if you do not have some fats to absorb these toxins and pollutants and give body more time to detox itself, then you are in big trouble.

Not just spinach, but also all of the green leafy vegetables are considered superfoods because of their high nutrient profile and other supposed health benefits. There is no reason not to eat them a lot, but I would suggest you make some variety among them if you can. Unfortunately, it is hard to find kale, collard etc. in France, but frozen spinach is very affordable so I eat them almost every day (about 1kg a week) to fill that slot.

While doing some search on PubMed to find if there is any side effect of excessive black pepper consumption (since I like and consume it a lot), I stumbled upon this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5259784/ Just wow! I didn't understand some of the technical details, but even just looking at the graphs blew my mind. Is this stuff really that powerful? I was planning to reduce my black pepper consumption speculating that it might damage my liver and metabolism in the long run, but it seems like there are no adverse effects. I want ask if anyone of you know how much black pepper we need to consume to get -10 or 30- μM piperine? They also mention piperine as a curcumin extract or a curcumin derivative, and they also have this passage: --- We previously reported that curcumin stimulated glucose uptake in skeletal muscles. The clinical usefulness of curcumin has been limited due to its low bioavailability caused by poor absorption and faster metabolic alteration. It was reported that piperine enhanced curcumin’s effect not only by reducing curcumin’s metabolic breakdown, but also by increasing the absorption of curcumin in intestine. Piperine is a structural analogue of curcumin, and its molecular weight is smaller than curcumin. In the point of human application, small molecule is more useful. Therefore, piperine is a promising molecule for the development of diabetes by enhancing curcumin’s beneficial metabolic effect. --- Am I missing something? Why do they refer piperine as a curcumin extract or derivative? Edit: Piperine content of black pepper can be as high as 9% (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1541-4337.12246/full). However, I could not find a source to see how much dietary black pepper we should eat to reach these effective levels. I will continue to eat them ad-lib.

I could not find this study referenced in the forum, so here it is: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26192450 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281821451_Extra_virgin_olive_oil_use_is_associated_with_improved_post-prandial_blood_glucose_and_LDL_cholesterol_in_healthy_subjects ----- Extra virgin olive oil use is associated with improved post-prandial blood glucose and LDL cholesterol in healthy subjects Abstract OBJECTIVES: Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is a key component of the Mediterranean diet and seems to account for the protective effect against cardiovascular disease. However, the underlying mechanism is still elusive. DESIGN: We tested the effect of EVOO, added to Mediterranean-type meal, on post-prandial glycemic and lipid profile. SUBJECTS: Post-prandial glycemic and lipid profile were investigated in 25 healthy subjects who were randomly allocated in a cross-over design to a Mediterranean-type meal added with or without 10 g EVOO (first study), or Mediterranean-type meal with EVOO (10 g) or corn oil (10 g; second study). Glycemic profile, which included glucose, insulin, dipeptidyl-peptidase-4 (DPP-4) protein and activity, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), and lipid profile, which included, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (LDL-C), oxidized LDL (ox-LDL), triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (HDL-C), were analyzed before and 2 h after the meal. RESULTS: In the first study, 2 h after meal, subjects who assumed a meal with EVOO had significantly lower blood glucose (P<0.001), DPP-4 protein (P<0.001) and activity (P<0.001), LDL-C (P<0.001) and ox-LDL (P<0.001) and higher insulin (P<0.05), GLP-1 (P<0.001) and GIP (P<0.05) compared with those without EVOO. The second study showed that compared with corn oil, EVOO improved both glycemic and lipid profile. Thus, a significantly smaller increase of glucose (P<0.05), DPP4 protein (P<0.001) and activity (P<0.05) and higher increase of insulin (P<0.001) and GLP-1 (P<0.001) were observed. Furthermore, compared with corn oil, EVOO showed a significantly less increase of LDL-C (P<0.05) and ox-LDL (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: We report for the first time that EVOO improves post-prandial glucose and LDL-C, an effect that may account for the antiatherosclerotic effect of the Mediterranean diet. ----- The meal they tested is not perfect (chicken breast for inflammation, white bread for glucose spike) but very representative and definitely healthier than a standard diet. There needs to be something bad to be improved to see EVOOs effect though, therefore I cannot blame them. The effects of glucose control and preventing LDL oxidation are phenomenal, but I don't get why EVOO causes more insulin secretion. Has anyone a clue?

Green tea was already on the list, but it is good to see that the evidence is accumulating. As for the alcohol, there is no doubt that the chronic alcohol consumption is bad. The real question is, what is the short and long term effects of 1-2 drinks on a regular basis and especially for red wine? I also want to ask a question about activating BAT: What is the gold standard here? I mean, what do we need to show that a dietary component activates BAT? Because everytime I eat popcorn, in just 10-15 minutes my body turns to a furnace. It is probably because of its high GI content I assume, but can we consider it as a BAT activator, well at least for me? I think the difference can be the net effect, i.e. I just burn glucose from popcorn and there is nothing gained, but with tea I burn what was already in the bloodstream so there is some net gain.

I have realized that Medium Chain Triglycerides are not specifically included in Dean's BAT activator list. My reasoning they might be working is that baby mammals have the greatest BAT activity and milk provides some MCT, maybe to further increase heat production in order to protect them from cold during their early ages. This is probably another reason why atherosclerosis rate increases as we age due to lack of BATs, and as a result saturated fatty acids and triglycerides tend to stay long in the blood stream as mentioned before. MCTs are also very popular nowadays for their ability of increasing calorie burning. By BAT rule, indeed, I obtained these two articles that support this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25716560 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22790949 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3613876

Gordo, I'm not convinced about we cannot burn more while demanding mental workouts as there is not conclusive evidence. It might be personal, but in my university years I often got some hypoglycemic symptoms like feeling lack of energy (and even lack of appetite which can be a sign of increased ketone levels as a result of depleted glycogen stores since I didn't have too much muscle to store it in large quantities), trembling and feeling cold etc. after 3-4 hours of exams which I can assure you is probably the most mentally demanding workouts given specific time.

Michael, why do you think our intestinal track is not inherently loose? There should be an evolutionary advantage to this. Yes, it prevents chewed foods to directly go to the rectum but it also squeezes and juices the foods to increase touching surface and thus the absorption. By the way, your ability to dismiss ideas that do not serve your purpose is extraordinary :)

This topic is a little bit old, but I want to contribute it with a speculation of mine apart from other most likely reasons. Too much stretching of stomach&intestine due to eating too much calorically dilute foods in high quantities may also contribute to this. As a result of increased absorption surface and absorption rate due to increased pressure, you ingest faster than normal glucose your body can handle. Another thing CR practitioners can do is to have 1 or 2 feast days in a month and eat more protein (and food in general) than necessary (preferably animal protein if you are not vegan) to increase growth hormones for pancreatic cell growth. According to V. Longo, CR doesn't have this occasional re-feeding periods, there might be some merit to this.