<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd">
  <channel>
    <title>Haidut-Blog (Audio)</title>
    <link>https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog</link>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <description>Unofficial audio narration of new posts from haidut.me, generated automatically with local text-to-speech. Not affiliated with the site.</description>
    <itunes:author>haidut.me (unofficial audio mirror)</itunes:author>
    <itunes:owner><itunes:email>carver.upton@gmail.com</itunes:email></itunes:owner>
    <itunes:category text="Health &amp; Fitness" />
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    <itunes:image href="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/cover.jpg?v=1791318861" />
    <image>
      <url>https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/cover.jpg?v=1791318861</url>
      <title>Haidut-Blog (Audio)</title>
      <link>https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog</link>
    </image>
    <lastBuildDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:29:09 +0000</lastBuildDate>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA peroxidation byproduct and endotoxin/LPS drive ALS and are reliable predictors of its lethality</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3141</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3141</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 07 Oct 2026 18:13:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3141

Yet another lethal condition, for which no known treatment exists or is even in the pharma drug pipelines, turns out to be little more than chronic neurodegeneration driven by endotoxin (LPS) and peroxidation byproducts of PUFA such as 4-hydroxy-nonenal (4-HNE). For the record, 4-HNE is well-known to medicine and is already a known biomarker for a wide spectrum of chronic conditions, not just neurodegeneration. In contrast, medicine views (so far) LPS as more of an “innocent” bystander, and refuses to acknowledge that something so simple, yet so pervasive in patients, can explain a host of lethal and untreatable conditions. That may be changing as a few recent studies demonstrated that LPS is a reliable predictive biomarker of AIDS disease course, as well as future mortality from the condition. The study below, now adds ALS to the list of conditions that are likely of inflammatory origin, with systemic inflammation driven predominantly by 4-HNE, LPS and the endotoxin/LPS receptor TLR4.

 

“…The three biomarkers were chosen for their biological coherence with what is known about ALS pathophysiology. 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal, or 4-HNE, is a toxic product of lipid peroxidation, the chemical assault on cell membranes that follows when dysfunctional mitochondria churn out reactive oxygen species. Lipopolysaccharide binding protein, or LBP, is synthesized and secreted by hepatocytes in the liver as part of the acute phase response, the innate, nonspecific first reaction of the body to immunological stress; it binds bacterial lipopolysaccharide and presents it to immune receptors such as CD14 and Toll-like receptor 4, amplifying inflammatory signaling. Neurofilament light chain, or NfL, is a structural protein released when axons degenerate, and it has already emerged as one of the most scrutinized fluid markers in neurodegeneration. All three were quantified by standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, the kind of procedure routinely available in clinical diagnostic laboratories.”

“…The cross-sectional findings immediately set ALS apart from other neurodegenerative diseases. Rapidly progressing patients, defined as those losing one or more points per month on the revised ALS Functional Rating Scale, showed significantly higher 4-HNE than both healthy controls and slowly progressing patients. LBP was elevated in rapid progressors compared with slow progressors and controls, and even slow progressors had higher LBP than controls. NfL followed a similar pattern, higher in rapid progressors than in slow ones and controls. Crucially, 4-HNE and LBP showed no such elevations in patients with Parkinson’s disease or mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, whereas NfL rose in those conditions as expected. This dissociation suggests that oxidative stress and systemic inflammation are not generic accompaniments of neurodegeneration but are specifically intensified in ALS.”

“…The longitudinal data revealed a compelling divergence in how the three markers behave over time. At diagnosis, NfL showed the largest elevation relative to controls, roughly 3.3-fold, with LBP at about 1.6-fold and 4-HNE at a modest 1.3-fold. Yet from diagnosis to the last available sample, the picture inverted: 4-HNE climbed 177 percent and LBP rose 80 percent, while NfL increased only 27 percent, effectively plateauing. In other words, axonal injury as reflected by NfL is largely front-loaded into the early disease course, whereas lipid peroxidation and systemic inflammation escalate continuously as the disease advances. This temporal architecture helps explain why NfL did not correlate with ALSFRS-R scores in this cohort, since the functional scale kept declining steadily while NfL had already peaked.”

“…The correlation analyses underscored the primacy of the inflammatory and oxidative markers. LBP at diagnosis showed the strongest negative correlation with ALSFRS-R score at diagnosis (r = −0.688) and the strongest correlation with survival from diagnosis to death (r = −0.773), along with the strongest link to progression rate (r = 0.668). 4-HNE tracked closely behind, correlating with survival at r = −0.661 and with progression rate at r = 0.589. NfL, by contrast, correlated only weakly with survival (r = −0.325) and progression rate (r = 0.274). The biomarkers also correlated with one another, moderately so between LBP and 4-HNE and between NfL and 4-HNE, painting a picture of interacting pathways in which oxidative damage, inflammation, and axonal breakdown feed one another. As expected clinically, older age at diagnosis and faster progression each correlated with shorter survival.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3141.mp3" length="561908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>An estrogen-family receptor (ERRy) drives cancerization, age-related strength decline; blocking ERRy reverses at least the latter</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3139</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3139</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 07 Oct 2026 17:36:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3139

The reintroduction of estrogen hormonal therapy (HRT) may go down in history as one of the biggest blunders medicine has ever made. Not only have breast cancer (and other cancer) deaths reversed their decline since doctors started recommending estrogen again as HRT for aging women (and even men), but aging-related functional decline has also accelerated over the same time period. One of the lesser known members of the estroge family is the so called estrogen-related receptor gamma (ERRy). It is a nuclear receptor and and part of the ERa/ERb group, but medicine claims that ERRy has no known endogenous ligand and that major estrogens such as estradiol or estrone do not activate it. However,  ERRy expression is increased whenever another one of the estrogen receptors is activated. So, if/when estradiol activates ERa, for example, that results in downstream transcription cascade that increases the expression of ERRy as well.  Conversely, estrogen antagonists such as fulvestrant and SERM drugs such as tamoxifen are known antagonists of ERRy, confirming that ERRy behaves very much like the rest of the estrogen receptors. Interestingly enough, the bisphenol family of high estrogenic endocrine distuptors from plastic, also potently activate ERRy. A number of studies have also found that ERRy is overexpressed in many cancers and that activating ERRy is a major driver of the cancerization of normal tissue, characterized by the well-known metabolic shifts (e.g. Warburg Effect) seen in cancer. Conversely, blocking ERRy has shown great promise as a treatment even for cancers medicine claims are hormone-independent.

link here

“…Several independent studies have implicated ERR isoforms like ERRα, ERRβ, and ERRγ in the pathways of cancer development and progression. The construction of tissue-specific ERR transgenic or knockout mice and the application of synthetic ligands have precisely indicated the critical and diverse role of ERRγ than other isoforms. ERRγ, plays a critical and diverse role, enabling switching metabolism to oncometabolism in favor of cancer cells, making it a “hot target” in cancer therapy. ERRγ expression is correlated with the clinical status of diverse cancer types and various cancer tissue treatments.”

Now, a new study has shown that ERRy is solely responsible for the well-known muscle remodeling effect seen in aging. Namely, the switch of muscles fibers from the fast-twitch type II to the slow-twitch type I. The former type is predominant in young people and allows quick bursts of explosive power, and relies primarily on glucose metabolism for its function. The latter type is seen primarily in old people an endurance athletes and produces much lower levels of power but over extended periods of time, and oxidizes primarily fat as fuel. The evidence available so far suggests that the loss of the fast-twitch fibers seen in aging is largely responsible for the frailty and sarcopenia seen in advanced age and various chronic conditions. Just as in cancer, the role of ERRy is crucial for this muscle process as well, and blocking ERRy fully prevented this undesirable muscle remodeling. Interestingly enough, the effects of ERRy were mediated through decline in the levels of cardiolipin – the crucial respiratory complex lipid that Ray mentioned in several of his articles. Thus, once again, decline in oxidative metabolism is found to play a central role in a completely “structural” issue, which is something medicine to this day denies could be the case. While there is currently no evidence that progesterone or the androgens act directly as antagonists at ERRy, they do antagonize the rest of the estrogen receptor family and as such lead to decreased expression of ERRy. This effects would also explain, at least partially, the ability of those steroids to preserve the fast-twitch fiber morphology even in advanced age. Finally, several studies have demonstrated that supplementing with lipids devoid of PUFA restored cardiolipin levels back to youthful levels, so this could be another method for inhibiting the muscle decline seen in aging.

2 links here

“…The scientists found that cardiolipin levels decline in mouse and human muscle mitochondria with age and disease, leaving the mitochondria distorted and unable to operate properly. To test whether falling cardiolipin was a cause rather than a consequence, the scientists lowered cardiolipin levels in young mice to mimic the drop seen in aging. They saw the same shift from fast-twitch to slow-twitch muscle fibers that occurs naturally in aged mice and humans. When cardiolipin levels were partially restored to roughly two-thirds of normal, the muscle wasting began to reverse, and the animals’ early deaths were prevented entirely.”

“…As cardiolipin levels decline, strained mitochondria generate far more reactive oxygen species (ROS), which damage cells. But ROS also serves as a signal: When the researchers used an antioxidant to mop up ROS in cardiolipin-depleted muscle cells, the shift toward slow-twitch fibers was blunted. The switch itself runs through a protein called ERRγ, which triggers the cells to remodel their mitochondria and change fiber type from fast-twitch to slow-twitch. When the scientists blocked ERRγ in cultured muscle cells, the fiber switch was completely shut down.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3139.mp3" length="1613828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cholesterol is a cellular “lifesaver”; inhibiting its synthesis (e.g. statins) poisons cells through mitochondrial debris and fatty acids</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3137</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3137</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:44:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3137

Despite the mountain of evidence that messing with cholesterol is a bad idea, especially when it comes to muscle and mitochondrial health, statins remain one of the most widely prescribed drugs. Even toddlers are now on the list of potential patients eligible to receive a statin prescription and the list of conditions compatible with statin medication keeps growing. Unbeknownst to even most doctors, in 2018 the US FDA quietly removed its warnings about dietary cholesterol and its link to cardiovascular disease (CVD). Namely, FDA no longer claims that there is a risk of eating high-cholesterol food and developing CVD. The same group of studies that led to the FDA revoking its dietary cholesterol warning also vindicated saturated fats (SFA), but the FDA did not dare revoke its dietary warning on SFA, at least for now.

The study below once again demonstrates the absolutely crucial role cholesterol availability plays in cellular health. Not only is cholesterol the precursor of all steroids and is also a crucial component of cellular structure, it now seems that cholesterol has a functional (bioenergetic) role too. Namely, inhibiting cholesterol synthesis (which is what statins do) or its transport into the cell (which is partially what dietary cholesterol restriction does) literally poisons the cell through the accumulation of mitochondrial debris and free fatty acids. Both of those entities have indisputable toxicity, with the former robustly activating systemic inflammatory pathways through the endotoxin receptor TLR4, while the latter is toxic simply by its presence in large amounts (hence the medical term lipotoxicity) and also through the inflammatory mediators it serves as the precursor for (if the fatty acids are PUFA). In addition, the study may provide part of the answer to the question why cholesterol levels increase with age. Ray said this increase is adaptive, to compensate for decrease in steroid synthesis due to declining thyroid function with age. However, the study provide an additional explanation. Namely, the cells need more cholesterol in order to handle the increasing rate of mitochondrial breakdown and increase in lipid accumulation that also increase with advancing age. So, it seems that one of the most reliable methods of ensuring premature cell aging and death is simply to follow the official recommendations of mainstream medicine – i.e. restruct dietary cholesterol as much as possible and take a statin daily.

2 links here

“…Mention cholesterol, and most people will think of clogged arteries or health warnings. But inside the microscopic universe of the human cell, cholesterol has a drastically different job description as an indispensable cellular lifesaver. A study led by the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), shows how cells rapidly dispatch cholesterol to reinforce their “recycling centers” called lysosomes, preventing them from bursting while breaking down worn-out cellular machinery.”

“…Every second inside our cells, mitochondria generate the energy that fuels life. However, mitochondria eventually wear down. Left unchecked, toxic fragments from these broken power stations can trigger cell death. To prevent that, cells execute a precision cleanup operation known as mitophagy, link here, engulfing worn-out mitochondria and sending them to the cell’s highly acidic recycling centers, called lysosomes. Here, lysosomal enzymes break them down into reusable materials. While scientists have long understood this process, a critical mystery remained: How do lysosomes maintain the harsh acidic environment and withstand the stress required to digest such massive cargo without bursting? Now, the study has uncovered the unlikely answer—cholesterol.”

“…When damaged mitochondria land inside a lysosome, an enzyme called PI4KIIα flags the lysosomal surface with a specialized signaling lipid called PI4P. This flag attracts a transport protein named OSBP, which acts as a cellular bridge, rapidly shuttling cholesterol from another cellular network, known as the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), straight into the lysosomal membrane. As cholesterol leaves the ER, the cell senses a temporary shortage and activates a master genetic switch, ramping up cholesterol production to keep the supply chain flowing. Corresponding author and associate professor Yasunori Saheki, Irene Tan Liang Kheng chair professor in neuroscience at LKCMedicine, said, “Lysosomes need to maintain an extremely acidic interior to digest cellular waste effectively. We discovered that as lysosomes take in damaged mitochondria, they reinforce their membranes with cholesterol. This process helps keep the lysosome resilient and ensures that its digestive functions remain fully active.”

“…The research team’s analysis also revealed another intriguing finding. Once the lysosome successfully digests the mitochondrial membranes, it releases a surge of lipids known as free fatty acids. If left free in the cell, these fatty acids can become toxic. To solve this, the cell uses a series of enzymes to package these fatty acids into safe storage units called lipid droplets. This process effectively converts toxic waste into stored energy reserves for future use. When the research team experimentally blocked cholesterol transport or synthesis, the consequences were significant. The lysosomes lost their acidity, became fragile and prone to rupture and failed to break down damaged mitochondria. The cells were also unable to form protective lipid droplets.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3137.mp3" length="1177124" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Omega-3 (fish oil) is toxic to the brain and inhibits recovery after traumatic injury (TBI), may cause Alzheimer’s</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3134</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3134</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:07:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3134

One of the few studies that is willing to call a spade a spade. Despite the lack of benefits (and in some cases proven harm) of omega-3 supplementation in human clinical trials, doctors continue to recommend omega-3, either as isolated supplement or in the form of oil from fatty fish, especially for its purported “brain benefits”. The fact that both EPA and DHA are highly susceptible to peroxidation somehow escapes the discussion, even though omega-3 supplementation is among the most reliable dietary methods for raising endogenous levels of the toxic and carcinogenic peroxidation byproducts malondialdehyde and 4-hydroxy-nonenal (4-HNE). Be that as it may, the study below found that adding fish oil (FO) to the diet of animals resulted in delayed recovery from TBI, as well as worse (compared to the control group) biomarkers of vascular recovery and cognitive performance. The authors call for urgent re-evaluation of the public health recommendations concerning FO/omega-3 as “brain protective” food additive. It is worth pointing out that the FO addition to the diet was at “…under physiologically relevant dietary conditions”, which means that eating cold-water fatty fish just 2-3 times weekly, as often recommended for brain health, would be enough to reproduce the study design. It is also worth noting, that the study found only the EPA omega-3 to have the harmful effects. However, this was largely due to the fact that DHA simply did not accumulate in measurable amounts in brain tissue. In all likelihood, and as per Ray’s comment as well, DHA peroxidized so rapidly post-digestion that it did not even reach the bloodstream in intact form. As such, post-TBI, EPA got robustly mobilized from brain fat stores and into the brain circulation, while the other major omega-3 – DHA – was simply missing. Had it been present in the brain as easily as EPA, the biochemical effects and pathways of DHA overlap almost perfectly with those of EPA, and as such it is reasonable to expect the same negative effects on the brain. Also, the study only looked at fatty acid mobilization from brain cells after TBI. It did not look at damage that “safely” stored EPA may do even without injury and mobilization. The fact that EPA (and DHA) is so easily oxidized and turned into toxic aldehydes regardless of where that omega-3 located, should not be overlooked, as over time EPA peroxidation even while stored inside brain cells would still make it toxic to the brain. As an initial corroboration of that hypothesis, the study found that the brains of mice fed FO has much higher levels of the toxic tau protein, which is one of the core symptoms of Alzheimer Disease (AD).

link here

“…Long-chain n-3 PUFAs, particularly EPA and DHA, are widely regarded as neuroprotective dietary components. While DHA plays a well-established role in promoting membrane fluidity, synaptic resilience, and neurodevelopmental resilience,79, link here the role of EPA in the injured brain remains less defined. Unlike DHA, EPA is minimally incorporated into neuronal membranes and has been associated with adverse cognitive and synaptic outcomes in preclinical models.40, link here,80, link here In this study, we directly challenge the prevailing assumption that all n-3 PUFAs confer uniform benefit across physiological states. Instead, our data reveal that sustained cerebral accumulation of EPA, under physiologically relevant dietary conditions, constitutes a latent metabolic liability that becomes unmasked in the context of repetitive mild TBI. This vulnerability appears to manifest through impaired vascular repair, endothelial stress, and maladaptive remodeling within the NVU, processes that may fundamentally redefine the cerebrovascular impact of dietary PUFAs and underscore the need for precision-guided strategies that account for context-dependent lipid metabolism in brain injury and disease.”

link here

“…Fish oil supplements have long been linked to a variety of brain benefits, link here, but 2026 research suggests that one of the omega-3 fatty acids these supplements contain could interfere with the brain’s repair processes. A study in mice affected by mild traumatic head injuries, link here showed that animals fed diets containing the omega-3 fatty acid EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid, link here) performed worse on spatial memory and learning tasks after the injuries. Rather than omega-3s aiding recovery as previous research, link here has suggested, it seems EPA might actually get in the way of blood vessel repair, as it reprograms their metabolic activity.”

“…One of the most significant findings from the study is that EPA, and not DHA, accumulated in the brains of mice fed these supplements. This fits with what we know about DHA being more readily built into brain cell membranes than EPA. What’s more, the researchers found that in mice, the destabilizing effects of EPA on blood vessels led to the build-up of toxic tau proteins linked to brain degeneration, link here. A further analysis of human brain tissue from individuals affected by chronic traumatic encephalopathy, link here (CTE), associated with repeated head injuries like those tested in the mice, showed a similar kind of metabolic disruption and blood vessel damage. The researchers speculate, link here that fish oil supplements containing EPA may increase the risk of CTE if, by impairing cellular recovery, they exacerbate the effects of mild concussions, link here that can easily go unchecked.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3134.mp3" length="1342580" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B6 (monotherapy) may treat depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3131</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3131</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 25 Sep 2026 01:46:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3131

The study below is a perfect follow-up to the study I just posted about. Namely, in the immediately preceding blog post I listed a study, which found that one of the most widely-prescribe “antidepressants” of the SSRI class actually worsens depression. Of course, like most pharma drugs, the SSRI class has a number of severe side effects including suicidal and homicidal ideations and attempt, dementia, heart valve disease, diabetes, neurological conditions, etc. In contrast, the B group of vitamins is virtually devoid of serious side effects, even in pharmacological doses, but so far have been lacking evidence of effectiveness for health conditions when used as a monotherapy (i.e. by itself, with no other active drug/substance administered). The study below changes that, and is the first double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial with vitamin B6 and B12 as treatments for depression and anxiety. While both vitamins were found to be ineffective for anxiety, vitamin B6 at daily doses of 88mg-100mg for just a month, produced “large improvements” in depression symptoms. Based on other studies utilizing the same checklists for diagnosing and quantifying depression symptoms, it looks like vitamin B6 was more effective than many of the most widely-prescribe antidepressant drugs, while having no serious side effects. While ~100mg vitamin B6 daily is certainly high, multiple studies have demonstrated that taking the “active” form of B6 known as P5P achieve similar effects at doses 5-10 times lower than pyridoxine Hcl (the cheap and widely available B6 form the study used). In other words, 10mg-20mg P5P daily may be able to replicate the study findings while also further reducing the risk of side effects of high-dose B6 (e.g. neuropathy). As far as mechanism of action – I agree with all of the ones proposed by the study (GABA, dopamine, glutamate, etc), but I will also add to that list the virtually unknown role of B6 as the main endogenous non-steroidal antagonist to cortisol, with the latter being a known cause of depression.

link here

“….Given existing evidence that high-dose vitamin B6 influences neurotransmitter levels and that this has behavioural and psychological effects in animals and humans, we explored its effect on three common negative emotional states—depression, anxiety and stress, in an opportunity sample drawn from the general population. Compared to either placebo or high-dose vitamin B12 tablets, we found that vitamin B6 produced a large improvement in depression symptoms but had no significant effect on anxiety or stress. The largest improvement was evident in participants whose baseline depression scores were classified as indicating mild or more severe depression, but individuals whose baseline depression scores fell just below that cutoff also improved substantially. These effects were confirmed when we adjusted the analysis for baseline differences. This is the first randomised double-blind study to demonstrate the potential of vitamin B6 as a standalone or adjunctive treatment for depression; it builds on a large body of epidemiological evidence indicating a relationship between vitamin B6 status and depression risk, as well as the previous trials showing benefits of vitamin B6 for the mood/depression symptoms experienced in premenstrual syndrome, and the animal work revealing the potential antidepressant mechanism via increasing serotonin and GABA, and reducing glutamate, in the brain.”

link here

“…A daily high-dose Vitamin B6 supplement could significantly reduce symptoms of depression in people who already experience them, new research from the University of Reading has found. The double-blind randomised trial, published this month in the journal Depression and Anxiety, link here, asked participants to take a 100mg Vitamin B6 tablet every day for a month. Those who reported mild or more severe depression at the start showed a reduction in symptoms compared to those given a placebo or Vitamin B12. The findings are the first from a randomised controlled trial to demonstrate the potential of Vitamin B6 as a treatment for depression, and build on a substantial body of epidemiological evidence linking Vitamin B6 status with depression risk.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3131.mp3" length="1040876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A flagship “antidepressant” (SSRI) drug worsens depression and is ineffective for anxiety</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3128</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3128</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 25 Sep 2026 01:19:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3128

It is hard to get more damning verdict than the study below. Namely, one of the most widely-prescribed drugs of the SSRI class – prescribed for both depression and anxiety – worsened depression and seems to have had a null effect on anxiety. The drug in question is escitalopram (trade name Lexapro), but since it is considered pharmacologically equivalent to other drugs of the same class, I don’t see a reason why the findings of the study below would not extend to the entire class of SSRI drugs (provided the primary mechanism of action is SSRI). I think at this point, the evidence against SSRI drugs is damning enough and they should promptly withdrawn from the market.

link here

“…Table 1: At time two (controlling for baseline) there was no group*drug interaction in any symptom measures, but ANX participants had greater GAD-7 scores across the drug arms (F = 7.7, p = 0.006), and PHQ-9 scores were greater post-escitalopram compared to post-placebo across both groups (F = 4.1, p = 0.046; for more detail, see Supplementary Results).”

 

Short-term SSRI use alters brain connectivity in anxious individuals in unexpected ways, link here

“…Unexpectedly, the results showed that anxiety symptoms did not improve for participants receiving escitalopram; instead, anxiety levels remained consistently higher in the anxious group compared to healthy controls regardless of the treatment they received. Furthermore, depression symptoms were higher across all participants (both with and without anxiety) who received escitalopram compared to those who received the placebo. As the study authors expected, after escitalopram treatment, participants with anxiety disorders showed changes in the connectivity between the amygdala region and the dorsomedial cortex in both brain hemispheres compared to healthy controls. However, the change was in the opposite direction compared to what the study authors expected—the connectivity increased, while the study authors expected a decrease. “These findings suggest that our simple hypothesis of SSRIs inducing a reduction in amygdala-dorsomedial cortex connectivity is incorrect, and the associated brain connectivity may instead increase in the initial weeks of drug administration,” the study authors concluded.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3128.mp3" length="418052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Age-related inflammation driven by declining OXPHOS, even in the absence of inflammatory mediators/triggers</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3126</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3126</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:46:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3126

While not widely-known, mainstream science now recognizes the role of cellular fragments in triggering chronic inflammation. Namely, due to the structural similarity between mitochondrial DNA/RNA and various species of bacteria and virii, the presence of mitochondrial fragments in the bloodstream triggers a low-grade immune reaction, which has been recognized by medicine in the form of chronic, low-grade inflammation. Said inflammation is present in virtually all people over the age of 50, and is more intense in people with various age-related chronic conditions. That is not surprising, considering that with aging the ratio of catabolic/anticatabolic steroids rises steadily, which leads to increased tissue breakdown and thus increased amounts of mitochondrial (and other cellular) fragments into the blood.  However, this mechanistic explanation seems to not capture the entire story. Administration of anticatabolic steroids in doses that restore the catabolic/anticatabolic ratio to youthful levels significantly dampens inflammation, but do not lower it to youthful (low) levels. The study below demonstrates that the missing piece of the puzzle seems to be, once again, oxidative metabolism. Namely, due to declining metabolism, aging cells accumulate the Krebs cycle intermediate (and direct metabolite of pyruvate) known as acetyl-CoA. That acetyl-CoA/CoA ratio, just like the mitochondrial NAD+/NADH ratio, is not just a biomarker of well-functioning oxidative metabolism, but one of the key drivers of the so-called Krebs Cycle. Namely, when a person oxidizes primarily fat (FAO), both of those ratios drop and inhibit the activity of the the rate-limiting enzyme for glucose metabolism – pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH). In addition, the accumulation of acetyl-CoA and thus higher acetyl-CoA/CoA ratio, combined with a block of Complex II of the electron transport chain (ETC) due to FAD depletion driven by excessive FAO, leads to so-called “reverse electron flow”, which is responsible for 98%-99% of the ROS generation seen in OXPHOS. Thus accumulation of acetyl-CoA and thus higher acetyl-CoA/CoA ratio is both a sign and a cause of inhibited OXPHOS. The study below found that without this acetyl-CoA accumulation, cellular debris alone did not cause an inflammatory reaction. Now, the study itself reduced acetyl-CoA by blocking the transport of citrate into the mitochondria. However, acetyl-CoA accumulation can occur even without a citrate overload. As described above, simply shifting the Randle cycle in favor of FAO can produce sufficiently elevated levels of acetyl-CoA capable of triggering inflammatory reaction. So, to me at least, it seems that the proper way to handle the excess acetyl-CoA is to increase its utilization inside the Krebs cycle, instead of simply blocking its formation. What could lower acetyl-CoA by increasing its utilization? Well, thyroid (T3) is one such substance and niacinamide is another one. The amino acid taurine, in a single dose of 4g, has also been shown in humans to normalize the elevated acetyl-CoA levels, by speeding up its utilization and did so under conditions of metabolic stress, which reliably mimic the conditions seen in aging cells. Simply taking vitamin B5, which is a precursor to CoA, may also lower the acetyl-CoA/CoA ratio and thus dampen inflammation. Once again, we see that something as “simple” as unimpeded electron flow through OXPHOS is not just an issue of generating more “power”, but carries fundamental importance for the systemic health of the organism, and even the aging process itself.

2 links here

“…Researchers have now identified a previously unknown mechanism that helps explain how these aging cells switch inflammatory genes into a highly active state. The findings connect dysfunctional mitochondria — the structures that produce cellular energy — with epigenetic machinery that controls gene activity, revealing a potential new way to reduce harmful inflammation without eliminating the senescent cells themselves. The study, published in Nature, builds on years of research into the senescence-associated secretory phenotype, or SASP, the mixture of inflammatory molecules released by senescent cells. The work was conducted by Mayo Clinic researchers in collaboration with Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute.”

“…We found that inflammatory signaling alone isn’t enough,” says Helene Martini, Pharm.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic researcher and first author of the study. “The cells also need a metabolic signal from mitochondria that changes how inflammatory genes are turned on.” That second signal involves acetyl-CoA, a molecule produced through mitochondrial metabolism. The researchers found that senescent cells make more acetyl-CoA, which supports epigenetic modifications — chemical changes that influence whether genes are active without changing the underlying DNA sequence. Those modifications make inflammatory genes more accessible to the cellular machinery that reads them, allowing the genes to be expressed more strongly. In this two-part process, leaked mitochondrial DNA and RNA trigger the inflammatory signal, while mitochondrial metabolism supplies the molecular “permission” needed for inflammatory genes to become fully active. “This is a completely new pathway,” says Dr. Martini. “We found that dysfunctional mitochondria can promote inflammation by controlling epigenetic switches that turn inflammatory genes on.””

“…Blocking SLC25A1 reduced the available acetyl-CoA and limited activation of inflammatory genes, even though the original immune signals were still present. The finding identifies a previously unrecognized control point in the inflammatory process and suggests that targeting this pathway could potentially promote healthier aging without requiring senescent cells to be destroyed.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3126.mp3" length="1789628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lactate accumulation inside cells inhibits OXPHOS and is sufficient to block (kidney) recovery after injury</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3124</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3124</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:01:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3124

So much for the “beneficial” lactate – an argument I have had with numerous doctors and biochemists. The issue at hand goes well beyond academic arguments. Namely, the so-called “Ringer lactate” solution is commonly given in hospitals to critically ill patients (many of them with acute kidney injury) in order to “speed up” their recovery. The study below shows that injury leads to accumulation of lactate due to increase in anaerobic glycolysis, which is upregulated in states of acute stress/injury. Far from being a passive biomarker of said injury, the accumulation of lactate was sufficient to inhibit OXPHOS (and more specifically, the Krebs cycle), and the reduction in OXPHOS is what prevented the cells from recovering. Arguably, this is what leads to the conversion of acute kidney injury (reversible, according to medicine) to the chronic version of the condition (irreversible, according to medicine). Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is one of the most common co-morbidity, especially in patients with diabetes type II and is a leading cause of death in such patients. The good news is that a simple intervention that inhibited lactate synthesis by lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), was able to effectively block the pathological process and largely reverse the (kidney) injury. The totality of evidence available so far strongly suggests that the same process is at play in many other conditions, both acute and chronic, and thus simple anti-lactate interventions such as vitamins B1 and B3 may be highly therapeutic, especially in conditions with acknowledged lactate overload such as cancer.

2 links here

 

“…Acute kidney injury, or AKI, affects a substantial share of hospitalized patients and carries significant short-term mortality and long-term risk of chronic kidney disease. At the cellular level, the damage concentrates in the proximal tubular epithelial cells, the workhorse cells of the nephron that normally rely overwhelmingly on mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation to power massive reabsorption of solutes. When ischemia cuts off oxygen, these cells suffer a bioenergetic collapse: ATP production plummets, mitochondrial homeostasis is disrupted, and the tricarboxylic acid cycle, the central hub of oxidative metabolism, grinds toward inactivity. In a desperate bid to survive, the cells pivot to glycolysis, generating ATP from glucose without oxygen. That metabolic switch produces lactate as its signature byproduct, and lactate accumulation has long been regarded as a passive marker of the injury. The new study asks a sharper question: is lactate merely a bystander, or is it an active driver of the mitochondrial failure that follows?”

“…To answer it, the researchers assembled evidence from three complementary systems: human renal biopsy specimens from patients with AKI, a murine model of ischemia/reperfusion-induced AKI, and proximal tubular epithelial cells challenged in vitro with hypoxia followed by reoxygenation. Across all three, they documented the same sequence. Ischemia/reperfusion inflicted a pronounced bioenergetic deficit in the proximal tubules, characterized by disrupted mitochondrial homeostasis, suppressed activity of TCA cycle genes, and enhanced aerobic glycolysis. Crucially, the lactate that accumulated during reperfusion was not inert. When the team blocked lactate production with sodium oxamate, a well-established inhibitor of lactate dehydrogenase, tubular injury was attenuated and oxidative metabolism was partially restored, indicating that lactate actively impairs mitochondrial oxidative metabolism rather than simply reflecting it.”

“…That overload, the study found, inhibits citrate synthase, the enzyme that catalyzes the first committed step of the TCA cycle. The consequence is a vicious loop: glycolysis generates lactate, lactate triggers MRS2-mediated magnesium influx, magnesium excess throttles the TCA cycle, and the crippled oxidative machinery forces the cell to lean even harder on glycolysis, producing more lactate. Technical measurements anchored the claim. The team assessed mitochondrial function and oxidative metabolism using oxygen consumption rate assays, which quantify how efficiently mitochondria consume oxygen to generate ATP, alongside direct measurements of ATP production, mitochondrial membrane potential, and expression of TCA cycle genes. In the injured tubules, these readouts collapsed in parallel with rising lactate and rising MRS2 activity. When MRS2 was suppressed, either pharmacologically with the inhibitor CPACC or genetically with siRNA, mitochondrial oxidative metabolism rebounded, lactate accumulation fell, and renal injury following ischemia/reperfusion was attenuated.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3124.mp3" length="813140" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E ameliorates deep vein thrombosis (DVT) by reducing ferroptosis (cell death due to iron overload)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3122</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3122</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2026 23:36:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3122

As many of my readers know, DVT is a rather serious condition that can be lethal by causing pulmonary or brain embolism. Any patient diagnosed with such a condition is typically put on blood thinners for life. Not only do those blood thinners have variety of nasty side effects, they often cause death by the opposite mechanism – excessive bleeding in GI tract or brain. Aspirin has been shown to be superior to pharma drugs for managing DVT, but mainstream medicine seems to have “ganged up” on aspirin and is now recommending against its use in any but the most limited of circumstances. The study below may present an alternative to aspirin (and especially the pharma drugs for DVT), while also explaining the mechanism behind DVT formation/progression. Namely, vitamin E seems to act similarly to aspirin in ameliorating DVT and its complications, and the mechanism of action seems to be related to iron, or more specifically iron overload. Just like aspirin, the study below found that vitamin E inhibits iron overload in the cell and thus prevents something called ferroptosis – i.e. a type of cell death caused by said iron overload. Just a few minutes ago, I did a post showing that the toxicity of the amino acid cysteine can be eliminated by blocking the cellular uptake of iron (and thus ferroptosis). So, it seems that aspirin and vitamin E can also block the toxic effects of cysteine, which may explain their life-extending effects, mimicking dietary cysteine restriction. The human equivalent dosage (HED) of vitamin E was 15mg/kg daily, orally and the type of vitamin E used was alpha-tocopherol. The protective effects of vitamin E on DVT were already visible on day 7 after administration started. Now, at such HED, doctors will scream that vitamin E would also massively increase bleeding risk, just like aspirin. However, the study found no such effects.

link here

“…Vitamin E treatment significantly reduced thrombus size, decreased neutrophil count, neutrophil percentage, platelet count, interleukin-6, and interferon-γ levels, and increased the number of live births and placental efficiency, with no effect on coagulation. It promoted thrombus dissolution and recanalization. Furthermore, vitamin E significantly decreased ferroptosis levels. In vitro, Erastin successfully induced endothelial cell ferroptosis. Vitamin E treatment significantly promoted the proliferation, migration, invasion, and tube formation of injured endothelial cells. It also markedly reduced the levels of reactive oxygen species and malondialdehyde, decreased the number of damaged mitochondria, and substantially alleviated ferroptosis in the injured endothelial cells.

Conclusion: Vitamin E significantly promoted the dissolution and recanalization of DVT during pregnancy, potentially by reducing endothelial cell ferroptosis. This study provides a new therapeutic strategy and insights into the mechanism for managing pregnancy-associated DVT.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3122.mp3" length="951380" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may alleviate systemic sclerosis (scleroderma) and Raynaud syndrome</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3119</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3119</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2026 23:15:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3119

This is a very important study, at least to me, for two main reasons. First, it once again demonstrates that two “mysterious” and serious conditions of “idiopathic” origin are little more than mitochondrial function in disguise. Second, it may have implications way beyond those two conditions since the latter one (Raynaud’s) is a very often a symptoms of undiagnosed cancer. If humble niacinamide can ameliorate those two conditions, it may very well be helpful for cancer too. The dosage of niacinamide was on the high end but way below the 3g daily dose beyond which liver problems may occur in humans. The trial used 500mg of niacinamide taken twice daily (1g total faily), for a period of just 2 weeks! It is very hard to imagine that the benefits would not have been much more pronounced had the trial lasted longer.

link here

Vitamin B3 may improve blood vessels in scleroderma-related Raynaud’s, link here

“…Oral treatment with vitamin B3 for a couple of weeks may reduce abnormalities in tiny blood vessels of people with scleroderma, link here who have Raynaud’s phenomenon, link here, a small study suggests. After two weeks of supplementation, participants showed more normal and fewer giant blood vessels under the fingernails, although these changes did not translate into meaningful symptom reduction or improved quality of life. According to researchers, “the more limited subjective response in scleroderma-related [Raynaud’s] may reflect reduced vasodilatory [blood vessel widening] responsiveness in the context of established structural vascular disease.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3119.mp3" length="490388" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The toxicity of cysteine revealed – it causes iron overload in mitochondria and cell death</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3117</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3117</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2026 22:39:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3117

Cysteine, despite its importance for the synthesis of glutathione (GSH), is one of the few amino acids with direct toxicity even at physiological concentrations. Conversely, cysteine dietary restriction has been reliably shown to increase both average and maximum lifespan. Ray mentioned cysteine in quite a few of his articles and interviews, and his explanation of cysteine;s toxicity revolved mostly around its role as a reductant and goitrogen. However, there seems to be another toxicity mechanism and the study below finally shines light on it. Namely, iron overload, which Ray also warned against, and believed that iron overload is one of the key drivers of aging and diseases. The study below demonstrates that cysteine sequesters iron from ferritin and this allows iron to accumulate in very high concentrations inside the mitochondria, where it not only leads to lipid peroxidation and formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), but also directly causes cell death. When either the release of iron from ferritin or its cellular uptake is blocked, cysteine is no longer toxic.

2 links here

“…Cysteine is one of the main building blocks that cells use to make proteins. But this amino acid is a double-edged sword—too much cysteine is toxic to the cell. Cells therefore keep free cysteine levels to a minimum, converting most of the amino acid into the antioxidant glutathione. Now, a new paper explains why cysteine is so toxic at high concentrations. The findings, published in Nature Metabolism, link here, show that cysteine can pry iron from ferritin, the protein complex that normally keeps the metal safely locked away, flooding the cell with iron that accumulates in the mitochondria, leading to cell death. These results resolve a longstanding question in basic biology, and offer the first comprehensive explanation for why cells may have evolved to expend significant energy packaging cysteine into glutathione.”

“…On the other hand, too much cysteine is just as toxic. In fact, cysteine is the only one of the 20 protein-building amino acids that becomes acutely toxic when present in excess. “There are some studies suggesting cysteine supplementation might be beneficial,” Birsoy says. “This should be taken with a grain of salt precisely because of how toxic high cysteine is to cells.”

“…Ferritin normally keeps iron safely locked away, while SLC25A28 transports available iron into mitochondria. Finding SLC25A28 at the center of their genetic screen led the researchers to ask whether excess cysteine was somehow freeing iron from ferritin and sending it into mitochondria. A series of experiments confirmed that cysteine can react directly with iron stored in ferritin, changing it into a form that can escape. Glutathione, despite sharing cysteine’s reactive sulfur-containing group, could not. And when the researchers blocked either the release of iron from ferritin or its transport into mitochondria, high levels of cysteine were no longer toxic—a deft demonstration that its impact on iron’s movement is what explains its toxicity.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3117.mp3" length="548276" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The anti-acid drug famotidine has very similar effects to Meldonium/Mildronate – i.e. inhibits fatty acid oxidation (FAO)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3114</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3114</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2026 22:17:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3114

Years ago, I did quite a few posts on famotidine as I personally experienced great relief from this chemical, which could not possibly be explained by its anti-acid mechanism. Much to my surprise, it turned out that famotidine was capable of lowering PTH, prolactin and, above all, serotonin. Then, during the pandemic, a number of studies came out suggesting that famotidine has an anti-COVID effect and also lowered risk of both severe disease and death from COVID. The anti-serotonin effects undoubtedly played a big role in those benefits. However, famotidine also seemed to increase my endurance when climbing stairs or biking, which I suspected was due to another, yet unknown, mechanism of famotidine.

The study below shows that in humans, famotidine is an inhibitor of the so-called organic cation transported type II (OCTN2), which is a major mechanism of action of the drug Meldonium / Mildronate. The latter drug is mostly known as an inhibitor of the synthesis of the amino acid L-carnitine, and this inhibition leads to reduced oxidation of long-chain fatty acids in the mitochondria. This inhibition of fatty acid oxidation (FAO) is perhaps the main reason Meldonium has an ergogenic effect, which led to WADA labeling the drug as a doping agent and banning it from competitive sports. Since the ban, several high -profile athletes were caught using it and received various penalties. The most famous such case was probably the one with the tennis player Maria Sharapova. The main mechanism through which Meldonium depletes L-carnitine was thought to be through inhibition of the carnitine-synthesizing enzyme gama-butyrobetaine oxygenase (BBOX). However, we also ingest carnitine from food sources and that circumvents the BBOX inhibition pathway, but Meldnoium still maintains its FAO inhbition potency even in the presence of sufficient carnitine intake from food. Meldodium was synthesized back in the 1970s by a team of medical professionals from the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR), presently the independent country of Latvia. A number of former students of the original inventors of Meldonium banded together and formed an institute dedicated to the study of Meldonium and the synthesis of new and improved versions of the drug. I mentioned in a few interviews that my research group synthesized several new and improved versions of Meldonium and our work was informed/inspired by the work of those Latvian researchers. In any event, the Lavian group demonstrated that the cellular concentrations of carnitine are much more sensitive to OCTN2 inhibition than BBOX inhibition, link here, by at least an order of magnitude. Namely, most of the carnitine inside the cell is transported into the cell by OCTN2 rather than synthesized de-novo. As such, OCTN2 inhbition by Meldonium explain most of its effects on FAO. Furthermore, other OCTN2 inhibitors (valproic acid, aspirin, progesterone, etc) have also been shown to have effects similar to Meldonium when it comes to FAO inhibition. Well, the study below now adds famotidine to the list of OCTN2 inhibitors and it seems that it is a rather potent one at that. If this finding is confirmed in other studies, it would make famotidine not only an ergogenic substance, but may explain a good deal of its beneficial effects in studies on lipid-driven conditions such as diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer, etc. Interestingly enough, the study demonstrates OCTN2 inhibition effectiveness of famotidine within regularly used pharmacological doses (20mg, twice daily), despite in-vitro studies suggesting that famotidine doses on the order of several grams daily would be needed to achieve those effects.

link here

“…The results of this study indicate that subjects taking famotidine require significantly greater amounts of supplemental L-carnitine than those not taking famotidine in order to maintain a free carnitine level within the normal range. The molecular weight of free carnitine is 161.2, and it is not protein-bound. Free carnitine is primarily filtered through the renal glomeruli, and >90% of filtered free carnitine is reabsorbed in the renal tubules via OCTN2 (Evans and Fornasini 2003; Stanley 2004). The reported IC50 value for famotidine as an OCTN2 inhibitor is 1,920 μM (Glube et al. 2007), suggesting that it exerts only a relatively minor inhibitory effect. However, the findings of this study indicate that famotidine administration can affect L-carnitine supplementation in replacement therapy, thereby consequently having a significant impact on free carnitine concentrations. The urinary excretion rate of unchanged famotidine is reportedly in the range 21.0 to 44.0% (Inotsume et al. 1989; Gao et al. 1991). Despite its high IC50 value, the relatively high urinary excretion rate suggests that a possible effect of famotidine on OCTN2-mediated reabsorption cannot be ruled out.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3114.mp3" length="1746020" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mitochondria produce energy through a quantum effect dependent on infrared light and the “metabolic waste” CO2</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3111</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3111</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2026 21:19:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3111

A fascinating study uniting the well-known beneficial effects of red/infrared light with the controversial effects of CO2. I say controversial, because CO2 is, to this day, considered little more than “metabolic waste” by mainstream medicine. Ray has written extensively on the topic of CO2, though mostly in regards to its chemical properties – i.e. being a Lewis acid, CO2 has an electron-withdrawing effect and thus helps increase the speed of electron movement through the OXPHOS portion of the metabolic cycle. Similarly, the benefits of red/infrared light have so far been explained through its effects on mitochondrial biogenesis and it ability to increase the activity of cytochrome C oxidase (Complex IV).

As the study below demonstrates, both red/infrared light and CO2 may have a more fundamental effect on metabolism than can be explained strictly through their chemical properties. Namely, red/infrared light forms a quantum system with the lipids present inside the mitochondria and CO2, which results in boosting ATP synthesis when cells are exposed to red/infrared light and enough CO2 is present. While the study did not look at specific lipids inside the mitochondria and their role in this quantum system, I suspect most of the effect are driven by the lipids composing cardiolipin, and the effect can probably be modulated (up or down) based on the nature of those lipids – i.e. PUFA, MUFA or SFA. In any event, we now have direct physical evidence that CO2 is anything by “waste” and is in fact crucial for the normal functioning of mitochondria. In fact, as the study implies, the very nature of the “being alive” state may depend on the presence of red/infrared light and CO2.

2 links here

“…Every cell in your body is running on tiny power stations. Mitochondria, link here turn energy from food into ATP, the molecule that powers almost everything cells do. How they achieve such efficiency remains unclear. Now, researchers in China think part of the answer may involve quantum physics, link here. In experiments involving living cells, mouse tissues, and isolated mitochondria, the team detected an unusual vibration that appeared only while mitochondrial structures remained intact. A model linked the vibration to a possible quantum interaction. When researchers illuminated cells with selected infrared frequencies, the cells produced 10 percent more ATP.”

“…Molecules and structures vibrate at characteristic frequencies, like radio stations on separate channels. Those frequencies offer clues about what is happening inside a sample. The researchers found an unusual signal at 71 terahertz, meaning it oscillated 71 trillion times per second. This signal appeared in living cells, mouse tissues, and isolated mitochondria. But it disappeared after the samples were dried and ground, destroying their organized structures.”

“…The team then focused on cristae, the tightly folded inner membranes of mitochondria. These folds are packed with lipids containing carbon-hydrogen, or CH2, bonds, which naturally vibrate at around 87 terahertz. So what exactly is “quantum” here? The researchers are not proposing a mysterious form of energy. Their model suggests that light particles inside a mitochondrion couple with the collective vibrations of its CH2 bonds. They form a shared hybrid state called a polariton, combining properties of light and matter. This is a quantum effect because the coupled system is described as a superposition of light and molecular vibration with distinct, quantized energy levels.”

“…But was this proposed state doing anything useful? Song proposes a link. Its frequency overlaps with carbon dioxide vibrations. CO2 is produced during the tricarboxylic acid, or TCA, cycle, link here, a process supplying energy for ATP production. In an earlier theoretical study, link here, Song and colleagues proposed that NAD+ reduction during this cycle could release 87-terahertz photons. “The mitochondrial quantum state might increase the efficiency of TCA cycles, influencing the ATP production,” he said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3111.mp3" length="882572" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Statins damage muscles by increasing endotoxin/LPS absorption and inhibiting glucose metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3107</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3107</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2026 06:05:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3107

Statin drugs that lower cholesterol are perhaps the most widely prescribed medications globally. Despite their effectiveness at lowering cholesterol, the evidence that they actually decrease rusk of future heart disease (CVD) or ameliorate already existing one is very slim. In addition, evidence has emerged over the years that statins have severe side effects, including increased risk of muscle damage, and even some evidence of them causing the lethal Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) condition. While all of those risks have been vehemently disputes by Big Pharma, the evidence of statin risks is stubborn and continues to accumulate. One of the plausible mechanisms through which statins may be causing muscle issues is the fact that statin inhibit the synthesis of the crucial mitochondrial electorn carries Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10). Animals depleted of CoQ10 reliably develop severe mayopathies, including cardiomyopathy, and usually die if the CoQ10 depletion is severe enough. However, statins have also been implicated in increasing chronic inflammation and so far there has been no plausible mechanism of action proposed for this side effect of statins. The study below offers one plausible explanation. Namely, it found that statins increased endotoxin absorption into the bloodstream, and that (aside from PUFA and its metabolites) is probably the main endogenous pathway for creating systemic inflammation. In addition, statins were found to inhibit glucose metabolism, which is known to both cause inflammation de-novo and also synergize with endotoxin to further increase the inflammatory burden posed by endotoxni alone. If the study findings below are confirmed by other studies, it would mean that statins may be one of the most dangerous classes of drugs, considering the vital systemic effects of endotoxn and glucose oxidation, affecting every tissue/organ and not just muscles. But even if we limit ourselves to muscle damage, it is mighty ironic that statins are prescribed to protect the heart, which is a muscle itself, when in reality statins can severely damage muscles.

2 links here

“…Healthcare providers prescribe statins to manage cholesterol levels. However, muscle pain and weakness can be side effects.1 In a 2026 study, researchers may have revealed the biological mechanism underlying this drug’s effects on muscles.2”

“…To investigate why statins might cause side effects, link here, researchers used a clinical model of the low-level damage they cause. They found that statins can introduce lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a component of bacteria, which can trigger an immune response in some people, making them more susceptible to statin-related myopathy (muscle damage). “We discovered that statins cause a type of metabolic danger, which lowers the ability to use sugar in muscle cells,” Jonathan Schertzer, PhD, link here, one of the study’s authors and professor of biochemistry and biochemical sciences at McMaster University, told Verywell. “This activates a very specific immune response that promotes muscle damage directly within muscle cells.” The study also showed that the muscle side effects might be separate from statins’ cholesterol-lowering effects. “Importantly, we found that the pathway to muscle side effects was completely separate from the cholesterol-lowering benefits, link here of statins,” said Schertzer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3107.mp3" length="987788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Intact thymus (a sign of lower cortisol/estrogen exposure) is a very good predictor of health/longevity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3104</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3104</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2026 01:19:45 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3104

Ray has written by the thymus gland in several of his articles. He mentioned that cortisol and estrogen atrophy the thymus the most, together with serotonin. Thymus size correlates negatively with cortisol/estrogen levels and positively with progesterone, DHEA and pregnenolone levels, confirming its association with youth (which the article below also recognizes). The thymus is one of the most important component of the immune system and is the site where so-called T-cells are translocated in order to mature and learn to recognize threats to the host organism. Aside from fighting infections, those cells are the main mechanism through which already existing tumors are kept in check. Considering every person over 35 already has at least one diagnosable tumor in their body somewhere (as Ray mentioned in another article about autopsy findings in Austria) the reason most people do (or at least used to) not develop aggressive cancer until late in life is probably due to having a functioning thymus gland. Yet another confirmation that there is no such thing as “unimportant” organ and that the body works as a system, where dysfunction in a single organ/tissue often impacts systemic health and lifespan.

3 links here

“…Researchers at Mass General Brigham have uncovered evidence that the thymus, a small immune system organ long thought to lose its importance after childhood, may play a major role in adult health. Two new studies found that adults with healthier thymuses were more likely to live longer and less likely to develop serious diseases. The research also suggests that thymic health may influence how well cancer patients respond to immunotherapy.”

“…Located in the chest, the thymus helps train T cells, a type of immune cell that helps defend the body against infections and disease. Because the organ gradually shrinks after puberty and produces fewer new T cells over time, many scientists assumed it played only a limited role in adult health.”

“…People with higher thymic health scores experienced significantly better outcomes. Compared with individuals who had poorer thymic health, they had about a 50% lower risk of death from any cause, a 63% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, and a 36% lower risk of developing lung cancer. These relationships remained strong even after accounting for age and other health factors. The researchers believe that declines in thymic health may reduce T cell diversity, making it harder for the immune system to recognize and respond to new threats such as cancer and other diseases.”

“…In a separate study, the team examined CT scans and clinical outcomes from more than 1,200 cancer patients treated with immunotherapy. The results showed that patients with healthier thymuses tended to respond better to treatment. They faced about a 37% lower risk of cancer progression and a 44% lower risk of death, even after researchers adjusted for differences in patients, tumors, and treatment approaches. According to the researchers, these findings highlight a potentially important but previously underrecognized role for the thymus in determining how effectively modern cancer immunotherapies work.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3104.mp3" length="610484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Interfering with mitochondrial dynamics causes cancer (by driving inflammation); no carcinogen/mutation required!</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3102</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3102</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 22:46:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3102

One of the rare studies that quietly lets the truth out in the open. Namely, that cancer is a metabolic/inflammatory disease that does not need any oncogenic mutations to occur first. All that is needed is a process that interferes with mitochondrial dynamics (fission/fusion), which then drives chronic inflammation in the cell, and finally cancer forms spontaneously! Unsurpisingly, the process that interfered with the mitochondrial dynamic was linked to elevated fatty acid oxidation (FAO). Conversely, blocking the inflammatory pathway resulting from suboptimal mitochondrial dynamics virtually arrests further cancer development. I wonder how long before that study gets retracted for “unspecified” reasons…

link here

Why Some Heavy Drinkers Grow Giant Mitochondria That Guard the Liver, for a While, link here

“…And the surprise was what those giants could do. Using bench techniques that measure how hard a cell is breathing, plus a sweep of the liver’s metabolites, the researchers saw alcohol-fed mice ramp up oxygen consumption, push out more NAD+ (the molecule alcohol notoriously drains), and burn fat more efficiently. Not the picture of a poisoned cell at all. ”

“…The trouble is that the defence has a shelf life. New megamitochondria help; old ones turn on their host. As the giants persist, they take on damage, mutated mtDNA, broken proteins, and they can’t be cleared away. Mitophagy, the cell’s housekeeping system for junking spent mitochondria, needs them chopped small first, and these are far too big to swallow. So the damaged hulks pile up. Worse, they start leaking their own DNA into the cell’s interior, where it trips an ancient alarm system called cGAS-STING that’s meant to detect invading viruses. The liver, in effect, mistakes its own broken machinery for an infection and lights a slow inflammatory fire, the kind that scars tissue into fibrosis over years. To see what losing fission really does, the team engineered mice whose liver cells lack DRP1 entirely. These animals developed elevated liver enzymes, fibrosis, and, by 12 to 18 months, spontaneous liver tumours. No carcinogen required; jamming the [mitochondrial] dynamics was enough on its own.”

“…Then came the genuinely counterintuitive bit. You might assume the fix would be to restore fission, get the scissors working again. Instead the researchers knocked out the fusion machinery too, both mitofusins, MFN1 and MFN2, on top of DRP1. With neither side of the cycle running, the mitochondria settled into a kind of frozen equilibrium the team calls mitochondrial stasis. And these triple-knockout mice fared markedly better: less injury, less fibrosis, fewer tumours, whether the cancer arose spontaneously or was provoked by oncogenes. The cGAS-STING alarm, blaring in the DRP1-only mice, fell almost silent. Delete the cGAS sensor directly and the tumours dwindled too, which nails the inflammatory pathway to the cancer rather than leaving it a bystander. There was a metabolic tell, as well. The DRP1-deficient livers showed a buildup of dihydroorotate and orotate, intermediates in the manufacture of pyrimidines, the raw nucleotides a cell needs to copy its DNA and keep dividing. Exactly the sort of supply line a growing tumour wants. In the stasis mice, that signal was blunted.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3102.mp3" length="963932" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Excessive fatty acid oxidation (FAO) drives heart failure by depleting cardiolipin</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3099</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3099</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 17:46:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3099

Yet another study identifying that relying predominantly on fat as fuel is highly detrimental to cells/tissues, especially the heart. While at rest, skeletal muscles and the heart oxidize primarily lipids that preference quickly switches to glucose when the muscles/heart are under load. The cellular “fatigue” in the ailing/aging heart has been known for a long time and has been linked to excessive FAO as far back as the 1960s. As a result, drugs such as Meldonium were developed and they work by limiting the excessive FAO. However, the elevated FAO in ailing hearts has so far been thought to be just a symptom of the condition and not a cause. As such, Meldonium continues to be marketed as a symptomatic treatment for angina, CVD, and heart failure. The study below now shows that excessive FAO is perhaps the main driver of the actual heart condition (in this case heart failure) and the mechanism of action through which FAO damages the heart is by depleting the essential mitochondrial lipid cardiolipin. This finding matches the other recent post I did on supplementing phosphatidylcholilne as anti-aging therapy, given that such supplementation has been shown to restore cardiolipin levels. So, the study below effectively shows that restricting FAO is likely a “disease-modifying” (read: curative) treatment. In addition to Meldonium, aspirin and niacinamide are two other effective inhibitors of FAO and it just so happens that both have shown promise in animal models of virtually all heart conditions they have been tested on.

2 links here

“…When heart cells burn fat without normal metabolic controls, they can deplete a lipid needed to keep mitochondria functioning properly, according to a study by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers. The findings, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, link here, identify a mechanism linking disrupted energy metabolism to heart failure and point to potential strategies for earlier intervention. “This study challenges a long-held assumption that maximizing fat burning is beneficial for the heart,” said senior author Jay Horton, M.D., link here, Director of the Center for Human Nutrition, link here and Professor of Internal Medicine, link here and Molecular Genetics, link here at UT Southwestern. “It demonstrates that unrestrained fatty acid oxidation (FAO) paradoxically destroys the heart’s own mitochondrial architecture through depletion of cardiolipin, an essential structural lipid.” To examine what happens when the heart cannot properly regulate its fuel use, two related enzymes, acetyl-CoA carboxylase 1 and 2, were genetically removed from mouse heart muscle cells. These enzymes normally help control how many fatty acids enter mitochondria, the structures inside cells that generate energy. Without that control, the mice developed enlarged hearts and impaired blood-pumping function.”

“…The researchers also found that drugs that inhibit CPT1, a protein that helps move fatty acids into mitochondria, prevented heart failure when given early, before cardiac dysfunction developed. However, the same approach did not improve heart function once cardiomyopathy was established.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3099.mp3" length="886508" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking the endotoxin/LPS receptor (TLR4) prevents brain damage from concussion</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3097</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3097</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 17:28:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3097

Yet another incurable and deadly condition tied to inflammation and endotoxin, and apparently easily preventable by blocking the endotoxin receptor TLR4. If that is the case, then neutralizing endotoxin with charcoal or molecules that can bind endotoxin and deactivate it should have similar effects. There is already evidence that pregnane steroids such as progesterone (and pregnenolone) can ameliorate brain damage from trauma, and it just so happens that progesterone binds and deactivated endotoxin as I posted on my blog in the recent past. In addition, antibiotics in the tetracycline class can block both TLR4 and MMP-9 (another pathway the study implicated in traumatic brain damage)

link here

Concussions Convert Brain Stabilizers Into Disruptive Forces, link here

“…“Brain injury activates TLR4 in neurons,” he said. “TLR4 signaling causes MMP-9 levels to increase. Increased MMP-9 alters how neurons talk to each other, resulting in heightened network excitability associated with seizures and impaired cognition. This direct connection between neuronal TLR4 and MMP-9 in the injured brain is the crucial link.” The research used both rat and mouse models of mild-to-moderate concussive brain injury. The scientists observed that levels of both TLR4 and MMP-9 were upregulated rapidly after injury. But when researchers blocked TLR4 signaling — either pharmacologically in rats or genetically in mice — MMP-9 levels remained unchanged.”

“…“When inhibition drops or excitation becomes excessive, the network activity patterns lose precision,” Subramanian said. “Instead of meaningful communication, you get excessive noise across the network, which interferes with learning, memory formation, and recall.” The researchers found the animals with TBI showed reduced synaptic plasticity — the brain’s ability to strengthen or reorganize neural connections during learning. Consequently, injured animals showed deficits in spatial memory in behavioral tests conducted one month later. To the researchers’ surprise, animals treated with TLR4 or MMP-9 inhibitors early after brain injury performed significantly better.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3097.mp3" length="425228" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Eliminating sugar (sucrose) from the diet leads to diabetes, as well as gut and liver inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3095</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3095</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 07:17:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3095

This study will probably rile up the low-carb legions, who seem to have completely taken over the blogosphere and a good portion of allopathic medicine too. Not a day goes by that I don’t see an article or an interview by a prominent MD claiming that sugar, and especially sucrose, is the origin of all health problems. Somehow, it has been completely forgotten that consuming hefty amounts of sucrose was considered quite normal up until the 1960s and even children consumed a good amount of added sucrose from Coke, ice-cream, pastries, candy, etc. The study below found that eliminating completely sugar (sucrose) from the diet not only did not lead to weight loss, but also dramatically exacerbated a number of key metabolic biomarkers including serum glucose, insulin, blood lipids, etc. Perhaps even more worryingly, the sucrose-free diet led to liver and gut inflammation. In other words, a sugar-free diet was sufficient to cause the main conditions seen in adults from developed countries there days – i.e. metabolic syndrome, diabetes, fatty liver, and gut inflammation/dysbiosis.

2 links here

“…Sugar can be found in many foods and may be present naturally, link here, such as in fruits, or it may be added, such as in soda or candy. Excess added sugar consumption has been linked, link here to obesity, type 2 diabetes, link here, and cardiovascular disease, leading many people who want to improve their health to try low-sugar or sugar-free diets. In the new study, researchers looked into the effects of a sugar-free, low-fat diet in mice.”

“…At the end of the study, body and liver weights remained similar between the two groups. Despite no differences in weight gain or calorie intake, mice on the sugar-free diet showed signs of worsening metabolic health. This group of mice showed evidence of impaired glucose tolerance, link here and reduced insulin sensitivity, both of which are linked, link here to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. The researchers also observed significant changes in hormones involved in metabolism and appetite regulation, as well as lower fasting insulin levels. One notable finding of the study involved changes in the gut microbiome and inflammation in the sugar-free mice. The researchers found lower levels of several beneficial bacteria that help support gut health and regulate inflammation, including Lactobacillus murinus. Additionally, they noted an increase in bacteria linked to inflammatory conditions which was accompanied by signs of inflammation in the colon. Another concerning change the researchers noticed in the sugar-free mouse group was that they developed signs of fatty liver disease and liver inflammation. While more research is needed to determine whether these findings apply to humans, the results suggest that eliminating sucrose from a low-fat diet may alter the gut microbiome and affect metabolic health, highlighting the importance of overall dietary balance.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3095.mp3" length="549404" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen drives thyroid cancer in women</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3093</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3093</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 06:40:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3093

The recent push to bring back estrogenic HRT for menopausal women may go down as one of the biggest medical mistakes ever made. Over the last 10+ years there has been a consistent push from Big Pharma to denigrate the findings of the extensive and very well-designed WHI studies. Those studies unequivocally found that estrogen is a causal factor in many serious conditions in women, including heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. However, those findings have been relentlessly attacked ever since the WHI findings came out and recently the FDA removed the warnings about estrogen causing cancer and encouraged doctors to consider restarting estrogenic HRT for their female patients. The study below discovered that women on HRT have a much higher incidence of thyroid cancer and that it is specifically estrogen that is the likely causal factor.

Study Finds Women’s Thyroid Cancer Risk May Be Tied to Reproductive Lifespan and Hormone Therapy, link here

“…Moreover, exogenous hormone exposure through hormone replacement therapy (HRT) further amplified thyroid cancer risk, with a pronounced effect observed among women who underwent HRT for five years or longer. These findings illuminate the potentially carcinogenic role of prolonged estrogenic stimulation in thyroid cells, lending biological plausibility to the epidemiological associations documented.”

“…Estrogens have been shown in preclinical models to modulate thyroid follicular cell proliferation and influence signaling pathways implicated in cell growth and apoptotic resistance. The interplay between estrogen receptors and oncogenic signaling cascades in thyroid tissue might be pivotal in fostering neoplastic transformation, especially under conditions of sustained hormonal exposure.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3093.mp3" length="458036" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Increased lactate production is what drives the decline of NAD+ seen in aging and disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3091</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3091</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 06:29:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3091

A great synopsis in regards to not only the importance of NAD+ for systemic health, but also about what drives the well-known depletion of NAD+ (thus lowering the mitochondrial NAD+/NADH ratio) seen in virtually all diseases, both acute and chronic. There is an enzyme known as PARP-1 and it is involved in DNA repair. It is the primary consumer of NAD+ and upregulation of PARP-1 is one of the hallmarks of cancer. There are several drugs on the market that inhibit PARP-1 and they have shown great promise in treating cancer. Recent studies have demonstrated that PARP-1 is also elevated in many chronic conditions aside from cancer, but the reason for this elevation was unknown until now. The article below suggests that any metabolic disturbance (by diet, environment, stress, drugs, etc) is sufficient to activate PARP-1 by raising lactate (increased acidity) and thus deplete NAD+, which then becomes a vicious circle since lower NAD+ means lower oxidative metabolism, higher glycolysis and thus more lactate generation. Conversely, raising NAD+ levels lowers lactate (by stimulating the reverse LDH reaction to create pyruvate from lactate) and activates pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), thus increase oxidative metabolism rate, which regenerates even more NAD+. Exactly as Ray said it – i.e. disease promotes disease and health promotes health, with oxidative metabolism (and is surrogate NAD+) sitting at the center of the whole process and thus health/disease.

link here

“…To understand our findings, it is important to define the issue we were initially intending to explore: acidic stress. Acidic stress is a condition in which cells are exposed to a low pH environment. It commonly occurs in inflamed tissues, aging organs, and tumors. This acidity disrupts cellular function and metabolism, potentially further acidifying the local cellular environment. Having said this, the reason acidic stress is so disruptive is that cells require strict pH levels to function properly. Healthy cells require constant and efficient energy production. When that balance shifts, the consequences move quickly through the entire cellular system.”

“…The mechanism behind the metabolomics finding is specific. Acidity activates an enzyme called PARP1, which rapidly consumes NAD+ as part of the cell’s own stress response. At the same time, mitochondria are forced into a backup mode, and cells rely more heavily on glycolysis (splitting glucose for energy), a less efficient way to generate ATP. This metabolic shift can increase lactate production, which further acidifies the environment. The stress accelerates itself. Together, these three datasets do not describe separate problems. They describe one cascade: acidity triggers a NAD+ drain, energy production fails, the immune alarm activates, and the mitochondrial genome destabilizes. Each step follows the last. Surprisingly, supplementation with the NAD⁺ precursor nicotinamide mononucleotide, a molecule widely studied for its potential longevity-promoting effects, restored intracellular NAD⁺ levels and markedly increased cellular resilience to acidic stress.”

“…I believe this research has broader significance than a single study on pH. If acidity is actively driving NAD+ depletion as our research describes, then the implications reach into how we understand the progression of some of the most prevalent and complex health conditions we face today.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3091.mp3" length="814292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Higher progesterone/estrogen ratio may help extinguish traumatic memories (e.g. PTSD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3089</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3089</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 03:26:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3089

Mental health conditions have long been suspected of having an endocrine basis, and some doctors prescribe HRT as a way to either help increase the effects of a psychotropic drug prescribed to people or even as monotherapy. One of the most common mental health condition is chronic anxiety, often as a result of a traumatic event/memory. In the most extreme cases, this chronic anxiety has been deemed to be a separate condition, known as PTSD. One of the most common symptoms of both chronic anxiety and PTSD is recurring traumatic memories, which causes a great deal of anguish to the patients with such conditions. Psychiatrists have been trying for years to treat this issue with “talk therapy”, but the results have been very disappointing so far. In animal studies, the administration of either androgens to males or progesterone to females has been shown to ameliorate such conditions, and the study below suggests the same approach may work in humans. Namely, then the progesterone/estrogen ratio is elevated (naturally or through the administration of progesterone) the female patients were much more able to forget their traumatic experience. The findings of this study also corroborate Ray’s ideas that estrogen is not at all a “female” hormone, but a “shock” hormones, and as such it makes perfect sense that its elevation would result in worse outcomes for mental health conditions such as anxiety/PTSD.

3 links here

“…The researchers collected the saliva samples from each participant before they completed either session—once on Day 1 before the fear learning and then again on Day 2 before the fear extinction. By looking at the saliva sample before the experiment began, the scientists were able to examine each participant’s baseline levels of estradiol and progesterone without stress interference. Additionally, women provided a vaginal swab to help researchers see where they were in their menstrual cycle. (The study included women who were and were not on hormonal birth control.) The scientists then put the saliva through a process that separates and identifies individual molecules to see the levels of hormones present in a sample. They found that when there was a higher ratio of progesterone to estradiol, the participants had an easier time forgetting their fear on Day 2. ”

“…The next step, researchers say, is to validate these findings in larger and more diverse groups and to see whether timing treatments around a patient’s hormonal state could one eventually change how conditions, like PTSD and certain phobias, are treated.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3089.mp3" length="700652" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Popular weight loss drugs (GLP-1 agonists) kill libido by activating a serotonin receptor (5-HT2C)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3087</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3087</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 03:12:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3087

So much for “morning glory”…or was it the “glory of Rome”? Yet another study demonstrating that the blockbuster GLP-1 drugs are far from benign and bound to wreak havoc on society if their widespread use is not promptly curbed. One of the main reasons people consider using GLP-1 agonists is to improve physical appearance, which improves social confidence and interactions, thus leading to improved sexual function and life. Well, as it seems, those drugs come with a hefty price tag. While they may reduce weight (through essentially chemically induced fasting), this comes at the cost of ruined sexual function. Something very similar happened with the SSRI drugs for depression when they entered clinical practice 3+ decades ago. It is well-known that depressed people have very poor sexual function and desire, and the hope was that by relieving depression the SSRI drugs will address that issue as well. However, the exact opposite outcome happened and these days there is even a medical term to describe this fiasco. Namely, the so-called “SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction”. If serotonergic drugs kill sexual desire, and GLP-1 agonist drugs do the same, it would be natural to expect that a common mechanism is at play. As the study below shows, GLP-1 agonist drugs activate one of the serotonin receptors. Namely, the serotonin 5-HT2C receptor, which also happens to be the main controller of cortisol synthesis. So, by activating 5-HT2C, the anti-obesity drugs may also be putting people in a state of cortisol excess, which may have terrible consequences for health down the line, including for weight. Cortisol is well-known to induce the so-called “central obesity”, so these drugs may not only kill the party “down there”, but may also compromise the very goal – obesity – they were developed to achieve. The good news is that 5-HT2C antagonists (e.g. cyproheptadine) have been shown to ameliorate the SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction, so they may he helpful for the same issue caused by GLP-1 drugs, when the bill comes due years down the road after their widespread use.

2 links here

“…We established a theoretical model for how GLP-1 agonist modulation via increased serotonergic activity at the 5-HT2C receptor may result in diminished sexual desire. We then applied a biopsychosocial framework to highlight why this effect may be overlooked by GLP-1-treated patients and clinicians. ”

Are GLP-1 Medications Impacting Your Sex Life? Here’s What the Research Says, link here

“…Noticing changes in your sex drive while on a GLP-1 medication? You’re not imagining it, and you’re definitely not alone. GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and tirzepatide, commonly prescribed for weight loss and type 2 diabetes, are transforming how we think about metabolic health. But as their use becomes more widespread, experts are beginning to explore another, more personal question: how might these medications affect sexual desire and function? According to Dr. James Simon, a leading voice in this emerging research, the answer is complex. GLP-1 medications work by targeting brain pathways involved in appetite and reward. Because these same pathways also influence libido, some individuals may notice a decrease in sexual desire, similar to the effects seen with certain antidepressants that act on serotonin.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3087.mp3" length="1192916" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Restoring phosphatidylcholine levels through supplementation reverses (mitochondrial) aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3084</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3084</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 02:47:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3084

Phosphatidylcholine (PC) is a vital lipid for proper cellular “membrane” integrity/structure and it has been known for many years that its levels robustly decline with aging. However, that findings has been described as an effect, rather than a cause, of aging. As it often happens with such observations (other examples being high lactate in cancer, decline of the “youth” hormones, decline of metabolic rate, etc) the effects is also a cause, thus forming a cycle. As such, correcting the deficiency or excess of specific biomarker of aging often has beneficial effects on the entire aging process. The study below confirms once again that PC levels are very low in aged cells, but also “surprisingly” finds that restoring those levels back to youthful levels reverses many of the biochemical hallmarks of aging. In a few interviews, Ray discussed supplementing PC as an anti-aging strategy, but emphasized that the PC must be of the saturated kind. Virtually all PC supplements on the market use the PUFA-linked choline variety, and as such are probably not only ineffective for reversing aging but may contribute to it but increasing the rates of lipid peroxidation a cell’s “membrane”.

3 links here

“…A new study published in the prestigious scientific, link here journal Nature Communications , led by scientists at the Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) ( Germany, link here ), has clarified the mechanism by which mitochondria – the organelles often referred to as the “power plants” of cells – slow down over time. By analyzing human worm, tissue, and cell models, the research team discovered that the concentration of a particular lipid molecule called phosphatidylcholine gradually decreases with age. Notably, their experiments also indicated that restoring these fat levels through diet could “revive” weakened mitochondria. “Our research shows that the decrease in phosphatidylcholine synthesis is a conservative evolutionary factor contributing to the natural aging of mitochondria—a factor that has been undervalued before,” the authors said. “However, this condition is entirely reversible with dietary supplements.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3084.mp3" length="602444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ray’s ideas are now being adopted by academia without a single quote/reference to his work</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3082</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3082</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 02:35:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3082

I mean no disrespect to Mr. Picard below, as driving Ray’s ideas mainstream is a big net positive for humanity and science/medicine. However, it seems that Ray’s ideas and even writings are being directly copied and presented as a great and original breakthrough in understanding human health and even life/consciousness, without even a single honorable mention, let alone an actual citation or reference to Ray’s work. The article below presents ideas, which Ray formulated and described in fine detail decades ago. Some of the quotes below appear to have been taken verbatim from several of Ray’s articles and interviews, so it would be nice to at least mention Ray as somebody who influenced this “paradigm shift” (as Ray himself predicted the term under which bioenergetics will be sold to the people after decades of medical failures in public health).

Martin Picard’s Mitochondrial Theory of Mind, link here

“…More broadly, in what he calls his “energetic view of life,” Picard posits that distinct energetic states exist for health and disease, and that mitochondria are the tiny transformers responsible for them. According to this view, the flow of electrons from food to oxygen in metabolism, as processed by mitochondria, is the most basic level of the experience of being alive.”

“..“If the energy stops flowing, there’s no more you,” Picard said. The genome may encode the proteins that support life, but if the energy flow required for their respective regulation and production is disrupted or absent, he said, “there’s no more consciousness, there’s no more emotion, there’s no more life.” Picard’s ideas connecting mitochondrial biology and energy to health and even consciousness are gaining momentum. But they are so new that they do not yet have a formal field of study. Picard aims to change that, and others are getting on board.”

“…Far from being just passive channels, then, the organelles are “pattern-generating units in the circuit,” Picard said, that convert raw current into meaningful signals. He hypothesizes that differences in these patterns may help to explain why some people are prone to certain mental states and conditions, or chronic disease. “It’s a very exciting hypothesis that [Picard is] promoting,” West said. “He’s trying to widen the lens and help us all to understand overarching principles of energy flow.” In doing so, he is also challenging long-held assumptions in medicine and biology that genes and proteins are the main drivers of health and disease. What if, Picard asks, the amount and nature of energy transformed by mitochondria is in fact at the center of the human experience?

“…As new findings accrued, Picard came to see brain function as shaped not only by molecules, neurons, and circuits, but also by how energy is transformed and patterned. In his view, our cognition, mood, and conscious experience reflect deeper energetic processes — down to the subcellular level. He even ventures that mitochondria could turn out to be a missing piece of the mind-body puzzle — the microscopic alchemists that coax thought out of matter, responsible for nothing less than “the materialization of consciousness into life.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3082.mp3" length="456140" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Intranasal niacinamide may reverse lost sense of smell (anosmia) by raising NAD+ levels</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3080</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3080</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 02:00:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3080

A few years ago I posted on the old RPF about a study showing niacinamide eeye drops can treat glaucoma and other eye conditions, by raising NAD+ levels. The study below used the same rationale and demonstrated that intranasal administration of NAD reversed anosmia (loss of sense of smell) in the experimental animals. The study used pre-formed NAD+ but given that it is unstable and that the prior study noted niacnamide as eye drops also worked, I think the same statement can be made about anosmia as well. Niacinamide dissolves very well in water (much better then NAD) and is stable (unlike NAD), in both solution and in solid form.

link here

“…In this study, we explored the therapeutic efficacy of NAD in olfactory dysfunction. Our results demonstrated that i.n. administration of NAD significantly improved olfactory function. This improvement was accompanied by enhanced neurogenesis and maturation of OSNs, as evidenced by behavioral tests and histological analyses. These findings are consistent with previous studies that highlighted the neuroprotective and neuroregenerative properties of NAD in various neurodegenerative disease models15, link here,36, link here.”

“…In conclusion, this study provides promising results for the potential use of NAD as a therapeutic agent to treat olfactory dysfunction by comprehensively analyzing its remarkable effects on in vitro neuronal differentiation in hOSCs and olfactory function, histology, and gene expression, using an anosmia mouse model. NAD may promote neurogenesis and maturation of OSNs and restore olfactory function by activating genes involved in synaptic transmission and neuronal survival, such as DLGAP2 and PCDH17. These results will be an important basis for exploring clinical applications of NAD.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3080.mp3" length="376388" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Almost 80% of US adults (and ~60% of youth) have at least one chronic condition</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3078</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3078</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 01:50:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3078

This is as per CDC’s own study/data. Not only is the 75% truly shocking, but even more worrisome is the almost 60% rate in young adults, and the fact that the trend in young adults is worsening! It is hard to argue that medicine and science are on the right track when more than half of young adults have at least one chronic health condition. To make matters worse, I think the study did not include mental disease in its screening, and the rates there are staggering, especially in young adults. With such rates of chronic disease, it is little wonder that everything else is collapsing under its own weight, especially the medical and welfare systems, which all operate under the assumption that the young will be relatively healthy and pay into those system, but not use them until they get older.

link here

“…Results: In 2023, 76.4% (representing 194 million) of US adults reported 1 or more chronic conditions, including 59.5%, 78.4%, and 93.0% of young, midlife, and older adults, respectively. Moreover, 51.4% (representing 130 million) of US adults reported MCC, including 27.1%, 52.7%, and 78.8% of young, midlife, and older adults, respectively. Among young adults, from 2013 to 2023, prevalence increased significantly from 52.5% to 59.5% for 1 or more conditions and from 21.8% to 27.1% for MCC.”

“…Conclusion: Approximately 6 in 10 young, 8 in 10 midlife, and 9 in 10 older US adults report 1 or more chronic conditions. Trends in conditions worsened among young adults during 2013–2023. Recognizing the burden of chronic disease throughout life stages, especially earlier in life, practitioners and partners may consider prevention and management approaches critical for addressing costs, care, and health outcomes. Practitioners may also consider tailoring these approaches to unique roles, transitions, and challenges in different life stages.”

“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3078.mp3" length="395684" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>More than 90% of the aging process is driven by environment, can be reversed; hair graying is a good biomarker of aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3076</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3076</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2026 21:32:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3076

Perfect corroboration of the other post I just did – i.e. low calcium and vitamin D being linked to hair graying. Low calcium and vitamin D also mean low oxidative metabolism. If aging is 93% controlled by the environment and only 7% controlled by genes, it can be reversed, just as studies have already shown hair graying to be reversible. As the study below note, it is chronic stress that probably drives those 93% of the aging process, through cortisol depleting ATP and inhibiting oxidative metabolism. Ray mentioned in one of his articles that injecting cortisol into animals can produce every phenotype of aging even in young animals, and it seems that he was right once again. Actually, the truth is even scarier as one does not need to achieve pharmacological levels of serum cortisol in order to age prematurely. Just slightly, but chronically, elevated cortisol can also have the same effects. This has been recognized in basic science research for decades under the so-called “chronic unpredictable mild stress” (CUMS) protocol, which is used in animal research to induce not only mental disease, but virtually all other chronic diseases known to medicine including heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer, cancer, etc.

Martin Picard’s Mitochondrial Theory of Mind, link here

Stress Hormones Spike Your Cells’ Energy Bill by 60%. Columbia Professor Reveals Why You’re Tired Even After Sleeping 8 Hours, link here

“…Picard’s lab at Columbia University conducted experiments exposing human cells to stress hormones in controlled environments. What they discovered was striking: the basic energy cost of cellular survival jumped by roughly 60% under stress conditions. That means cells operating under chronic psychological stress burn significantly more ATP—the molecular currency your body uses for everything from thinking to healing—just to maintain baseline function.”

“…Picard’s work challenges conventional thinking about aging. Genetics, he notes, accounts for only about 7% of longevity, link here. The remaining 93% comes down to behavior, environment, and lived experience. That means how you manage stress, connect with others, find purpose, and care for your body directly shapes your cellular energy economy—and ultimately, how fast you age. One surprising finding: grey hair may be partially reversible. Picard’s research suggests hair greying is linked to cellular energetic stress, and when that stress resolves, pigmentation can sometimes return.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3076.mp3" length="738572" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low calcium and vitamin D levels linked to premature hair graying</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3074</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3074</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2026 21:17:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3074

Give the role of both of these nutrients in cellular energy production, this finding is not at all surprising. Also, vitamin D is a known inhibitor of the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH), which synthesizes serotonin (5-HT). Thus, low vitamin D levels mean higher activity of TPH and thus more serotonin production. Elevated tryptophan and serotonin have already been linked to premature graying and anti-serotonin drugs of the ergot class (e.g. bromocriptine) have been shown to reverse hair graying in humans.

2 links here

“…Researchers have also flagged low vitamin D and calcium as common in people with premature graying. A 2013 case-control study our of a semi-urban Indian population found deficiencies in serum calcium and vitamin D3 among the group with premature graying.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3074.mp3" length="299876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High-fat diet causes depression by increasing inflammation; low-dose aspirin reverses both</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3072</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3072</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2026 20:37:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3072

The evidence for depression as an inflammatory disease is pretty strong at this point, and several pharma companies are working on clinical trials trying to repurpose anti-inflammatory drugs as antidepressants. As such, there have been studies with aspirin – one of the well-known members of the NSAID group – to prevent/treat depression and the results from those animal trials have been very positive across the board. However, mainstream medicine has managed to scare the population and their doctors by labeling aspirin a very “dangerous” drug has potentially lethal risks of bleeding, despite human studies showing aspirin actually decreases the risk of dying from brain or GI bleeding.

Be that as it may, the study below is yet another one that shows even low-dose (HED 1.5mg/kg daily) aspirin can reverse the depression caused by chronic inflammation. More importantly, the study confirms that a high-fat (low-carb) diet, containing a significant percentage of PUFA, reliably caused systemic inflammation and depression largely through the metabolism of PUFA into the inflammatory prostaglandins, whose synthesis aspirin is known to block. The study replicated the effects of the high-fat diet by injecting much smaller amounts of the direct prostaglandin precursor known as arachidonic acid (also a PUFA). So, there we have it – i.e. high-fat (l0w-carb) diet containing a significant percentage of PUFA can directly causes depression through inducing systemic inflammation, and aspirin can reverse both states. Given that systemic inflammation is at the core of every chronic disease, I suspect the effects of aspirin in this study are not limited to depression alone.

link here

“…While Western dietary patterns are increasingly linked to neuropsychiatric disorders, the causal mechanisms by which chronic high-fat diet (HFD) contributes to depression remain elusive. Here, we demonstrate that prolonged ( ≥ 10 weeks) HFD exposure in mice robustly induces depressive-like behaviors, phenocopying chronic stress models. Integrating multi-omics and targeted lipidomics, we reveal that HFD-induced behavioral deficits are underpinned by gut microbiota dysbiosis and a profound disruption of polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) homeostasis. This disruption is characterized by a surge in pro-inflammatory ω-6 metabolites, particularly arachidonic acid (AA), alongside a concomitant reduction in anti-inflammatory ω-3 metabolites. These lipid perturbations strongly correlate with marked microglial activation and elevated pro-inflammatory cytokine levels (IL-6, TNF-α, CCL2) in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Functionally, AA supplementation alone was sufficient to recapitulate depressive-like behaviors in vivo and, through neuron-microglia co-culture assays, directly induce pro-inflammatory microglial activation, NF-κB pathway upregulation, and subsequent synaptic impairment in vitro. Critically, therapeutic intervention with aspirin, a dual COX-1/COX-2 inhibitor, effectively reversed HFD-induced behavioral deficits. This protection was mediated by a dual mechanism: directly inhibiting microglial hyperactivation and normalizing the neuroinflammatory milieu by suppressing the biosynthesis of pro-inflammatory ω-6-derived prostanoids, including AA and 12-HETE. Collectively, our findings identify AA as a critical etiological link between HFD and neuroinflammation, establishing a mechanistic framework for “metabolic depression.” The profound therapeutic efficacy of aspirin validates the AA metabolic pathway, specifically COX-1/COX-2, as a promising and targetable node for intervention, offering translational insights for the burgeoning field of nutritional psychiatry.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3072.mp3" length="816524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>An inflammatory PUFA metabolite drives liver fibrosis (cirrhosis) by poisoning mitochondria</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3070</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3070</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 19:48:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3070

Ray wrote extensively about the toxicity of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) , particularly their propensity to undergo lipid peroxidation and generate toxic breakdown products. He emphasized that PUFAs suppress oxidative metabolism, interfere with mitochondrial function, and promote inflammation and fibrosis. I have discussed specific arachidonic acid metabolites — particularly 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) and 20-HETE (20-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid) — showing how they directly impair mitochondrial electron transport, increase oxidative stress, and inhibit ATP synthesis. The study below, published in Nature Communications, uses multiomics analysis of 766 patients with advanced cirrhosis to reveal that 20-HETE is a key driver of disease progression and mortality. The researchers found that 20-HETE induces mitochondrial oxidative stress and impairs mitochondrial respiration via a GPR75-Akt signaling pathway. This is a direct experimental validation of the bioenergetic view that Ray and I have separately articulated for decades.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers integrated multiomics data from 766 patients with acutely decompensated cirrhosis and identified a network connecting mitochondrial dysfunction with the accumulation of the lipid mediator 20-HETE (20-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid) , a metabolite of arachidonic acid (a PUFA). Among 291 features analyzed, 22 were linked to ACLF (acute-on-chronic liver failure) development and 16 to mortality. In vitro validation on human peripheral leukocytes showed that 20-HETE induces mitochondrial oxidative stress and impairs mitochondrial respiration via a GPR75-Akt signaling pathway. The network features acted as early predictors of outcomes, validated in an independent cohort of 580 patients.

This finding directly validates the bioenergetic view of liver disease:

Arachidonic acid metabolite 20-HETE is directly toxic to mitochondria. I have written extensively about how arachidonic acid-derived eicosanoids and their downstream products inhibit complex I and complex III of the electron transport chain, leading to decreased ATP and increased ROS. This study confirms that 20-HETE impairs mitochondrial respiration and induces oxidative stress.

Ray correctly identified PUFA as metabolic poisons. He wrote that PUFAs suppress metabolic rate, increase estrogen, and promote fibrosis. This study shows that a specific metabolite of arachidonic acid (20-HETE) drives mitochondrial dysfunction and organ failure.

The liver is the primary metabolic organ. Cirrhosis is not just “scarring”; it is a collapse of metabolic function driven by mitochondrial failure. By inhibiting ATP synthesis, 20-HETE prevents hepatocytes from performing basic functions.

The study does not provide specific human-equivalent doses, as it was an observational multiomics study. However, the practical implications are clear: reduce PUFA intake to near-zero to lower the production of arachidonic acid and its toxic metabolite 20-HETE. This means eliminating seed oils (soybean, corn, canola, sunflower, safflower), nuts, seeds, fatty fish, and grain-fed animal fats. Replace them with stable saturated fats (coconut oil, butter, tallow) that do not undergo peroxidation. Additionally, vitamin E (mixed tocopherols) is the primary chain-breaking antioxidant that stops lipid peroxidation — a point Ray emphasized repeatedly.

link here

Blood Multiomics Uncover Lipid-Mitochondria Link in Cirrhosis, link here

“…Among 291 features, 22 are linked to ACLF development and 16 to mortality. These features constitute a network connecting mitochondrial dysfunction with the accumulation of the lipid mediator 20-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (20-HETE) .”

“…In vitro validation of this network in human peripheral leukocytes shows that 20-HETE induces mitochondrial oxidative stress and impairs mitochondrial respiration via a GPR75-Akt signaling pathway.”

“…Network features also act as early predictors of AD outcomes, a finding validated in an independent cohort of 580 patients.”

“…Here, we show a strong link between dysregulated immunomodulatory lipid mediators and mitochondrial dysfunction driving ACLF development and mortality risk in advanced cirrhosis.”

“…Exposure to dysregulated lipid mediators [20-HETE] prompted mitochondrial membrane depolarization, increased reactive oxygen species production, and impaired ATP synthesis .”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3070.mp3" length="1858412" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cysteine/methionine restriction may treat obesity, without any increase in physical activity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3068</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3068</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 08:19:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3068

For decades, mainstream medicine has promoted two primary strategies for weight loss: caloric restriction and endurance exercise. Ray has always argued that both are fundamentally flawed. Caloric restriction lowers resting metabolic rate (RMR), guaranteeing rebound weight gain. Endurance exercise, as the previous post I just did minutes ago confirmed, damages red blood cells and accelerates aging. The only healthy way to lose excess weight is to raise metabolic rate — to make the body burn more energy at rest, without stress, without starvation, and without exhaustive exercise. The study below, published in eLife, demonstrates exactly that. Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark found that restricting two amino acids — methionine and cysteine — increased thermogenesis by 20% in mice, causing significant weight loss without any change in food intake or physical activity. This is a direct validation of the bioenergetic view that targeted dietary interventions can raise resting metabolic rate and that the restriction of specific amino acids (methionine, cysteine, tryptophan) has profound health benefits.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers fed mice a diet low in methionine and cysteine. Over seven days, mice on the low-amino-acid diet burned 20% more calories than controls, despite eating the same amount of food and moving no more or less. The increased energy expenditure occurred in beige fat — the same tissue activated by cold exposure. The diet-induced thermogenesis produced almost the same weight loss as constant exposure to 5°C (freezing) temperatures.

This finding is revolutionary for three reasons, all of which align perfectly with what Ray has been saying for years:

Methionine and cysteine restriction raises resting metabolic rate. This is the opposite of caloric restriction, which lowers metabolic rate. Raising RMR means the body naturally burns more energy at rest — the only sustainable way to lose weight without stress or deprivation.

The mechanism is metabolic, not behavioral. The mice did not eat less. They did not exercise more. They simply generated more heat — a sign of increased oxidative metabolism and mitochondrial efficiency. This is exactly what bioenergetics predicts: when you remove metabolic inhibitors (excess methionine and cysteine), the body functions better.

This is not about “plant-based” vs “animal-based” per se. The researchers note that vegetarians and vegans naturally consume less methionine and cysteine. However, the key is restriction of these specific amino acids, not avoidance of animal products entirely. Excess methionine and cysteine generate hydrogen sulfide and oxidative stress, which impair mitochondrial function. Restricting them improves redox balance and allows efficient energy production.

The study did not provide human-equivalent doses, as it was a dietary manipulation study in mice. However, the practical implications are clear: reduce intake of methionine and cysteine by limiting animal protein (especially eggs, dairy, and muscle meat) and increasing plant-based protein sources (vegetables, nuts, legumes) that are naturally lower in these amino acids. Importantly, tryptophan restriction (which lowers serotonin) is another intervention that extends lifespan and raises metabolic rate — something I have written about extensively. The combination of restricting these three amino acids (methionine, cysteine, tryptophan) may be even more powerful.

The researchers explicitly note that they “haven’t tested a methionine/cysteine-restricted diet in humans” but that it is “absolutely a possibility” that the same effect would occur. They also suggest studying whether patients on GLP-1 drugs (Wegovy/Ozempic) experience additional weight loss when switching to a diet free of animal proteins. This underscores a critical point: dietary interventions that raise metabolic rate could complement or even replace pharmaceutical approaches that force weight loss through appetite suppression (often with significant side effects).

This study also provides the mechanistic explanation for why methionine restriction extends maximum lifespan in animals — often by double digits and exceeding the extension provided by caloric restriction. Raising metabolic rate (in the context of improved redox balance) is not harmful; it is protective. A higher resting metabolic rate indicates a more efficient, more resilient organism. This is the opposite of the caloric restriction paradigm, which lowers metabolic rate in the name of “longevity.”

2 links here

“…Researchers found that cutting two amino acids common in animal protein—methionine and cysteine—made mice burn significantly more energy. The boost in heat production was nearly as powerful as constant exposure to cold temperatures. The mice didn’t eat less or exercise more ; they simply generated more heat in their beige fat.”

“…’The mice that burned the most energy ate the same amount of food as the others, and they didn’t move more or less. We saw a 20% increase in their thermogenesis. They lost more weight, and it was not because they ate less or exercised more — they simply generated more heat,’ explains Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld.”

“…Methionine and cysteine are found in high amounts in animal-based proteins such as meat, eggs, and dairy. They are present in much lower amounts in plant foods like vegetables, nuts, and legumes that are associated with healthy aging.”

“…The researchers also wanted to know where the extra calorie burning occurred. They found that it took place in beige fat , a type of fat stored just under the skin… This same fat tissue is activated during cold exposure .”

“…’This tells us that beige fat doesn’t care whether the burning is triggered by cold or by diet ,’ says Philip Ruppert.”

“…’We know from other studies that vegetarians and vegans are, in several respects, healthier than meat-eaters. We haven’t tested a methionine/cysteine-restricted diet in humans, only in mice, so we can’t say for certain that the same effect would occur in people — but it’s absolutely a possibility ,’ he says.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3068.mp3" length="2193044" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Strenuous “endurance” activities, such as marathons, damage red blood cells and accelerate aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3066</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3066</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 08:01:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3066

Mainstream medicine has spent decades promoting the idea that “more exercise is always better.” Endurance events like marathons and ultramarathons are held up as the pinnacle of human health and achievement. Ray has always emphasized a very different view: moderate, concentric, glycogen-bound exercise is beneficial, but strenuous endurance exercise is harmful. The latter dramatically raises stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline), increases lipid peroxidation, and leads to muscle and organ damage. The study below, published in Blood Red Cells & Iron by the American Society of Hematology, directly confirms this position. Researchers found that ultramarathons damage red blood cells, making them less flexible and more prone to breakdown , with evidence of accelerated aging that worsens with longer distances. This is exactly what bioenergetics predicts: prolonged reliance on fatty acid oxidation generates excessive oxidative stress, damages cellular components, and accelerates aging rather than retarding it.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers analyzed blood samples from runners before and after two demanding races: a 40 km (25 mile) race and a 171 km (106 mile) ultramarathon. They found clear evidence of red blood cell injury driven by both mechanical stress (from intense blood flow) and molecular damage linked to inflammation and oxidative stress. After the races, red blood cells became less flexible — a critical problem because these cells must bend to pass through tiny blood vessels to deliver oxygen. Evidence of accelerated aging and increased breakdown of red blood cells was visible after the 40 km race and was even more pronounced among athletes who completed the 171 km event.

This finding directly validates the bioenergetic distinction between beneficial and harmful exercise:

Concentric, glycogen-bound exercise (short, intense, glucose-fueled) is protective. This type of exercise relies on glucose oxidation, which is clean, efficient, and generates far fewer reactive oxygen species. It supports mitochondrial function and metabolic rate without causing excessive stress.

Strenuous endurance exercise (marathons, ultramarathons) forces reliance on fatty acid oxidation. Fat oxidation generates more ROS per ATP than glucose oxidation, increases catecholamines and cortisol, and leads to lipid peroxidation, muscle protein breakdown, and immunosuppression. The study confirms that this type of exercise damages red blood cells — the very cells responsible for delivering oxygen to tissues.

The “more is better” exercise dogma is false. The researchers explicitly note that “at some point between marathon and ultra-marathon distances, the damage really starts to take hold.” This is a rare admission from mainstream science that exercise is not beneficial or even benign at any level — there is a threshold beyond which it becomes harmful.

The study did not provide specific dosing or human-equivalent calculations, as it was an observational study of athletes. However, the practical implications are clear: avoid strenuous endurance events that last for hours and rely on fat oxidation. Instead, focus on short, intense, concentric exercise that depletes glycogen and promotes glucose oxidation — such as weight training, sprints, or brief high-intensity intervals. Ray has long recommended walking (which is low-stress and pro-metabolic) and avoiding the “exhaustion” model of exercise that dominates mainstream fitness culture.

The researchers note that they “don’t know how long it takes for the body to repair that damage, if that damage has a long-term impact, and whether that impact is good or bad.” From a bioenergetic perspective, the answer is clear: chronic oxidative damage accelerates aging , and there is nothing “good” about damaging the most abundant cells in your body. The study also found that “longer races may lead to greater loss of red blood cells and more damage to those that remain in circulation” — a dose-dependent effect where more exercise produces worse outcomes.

2 links here

“…New research suggests ultramarathons can alter red blood cells in ways that make them less flexible and more prone to breakdown , potentially interfering with how they deliver oxygen throughout the body.”

“…Scientists found signs of both mechanical stress from intense blood flow and molecular damage linked to inflammation and oxidative stress .”

“…’Participating in events like these can cause general inflammation in the body and damage red blood cells ,’ said the study’s lead author, Travis Nemkov, PhD.”

“…Evidence of accelerated aging and increased breakdown of red blood cells was visible after the 40 kilometer race and was even more pronounced among athletes who completed the 171 kilometer event.”

“…’At some point between marathon and ultra-marathon distances, the damage really starts to take hold ,’ said Dr. Nemkov. ‘We’ve observed this damage happening, but we don’t know how long it takes for the body to repair that damage, if that damage has a long-term impact, and whether that impact is good or bad.'”

“…’This study shows that extreme endurance exercise pushes red blood cells toward accelerated aging through mechanisms that mirror what we observe during blood storage.'”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3066.mp3" length="1984148" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Prolactin receptor antagonist cures baldness and reverses hair graying</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3063</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3063</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 07:35:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3063

For decades, mainstream medicine has promoted the absurd idea that dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is the primary driver of male pattern baldness. This has led to a multi-billion dollar industry of anti-androgenic drugs (finasteride, dutasteride) that come with devastating side effects: sexual dysfunction, depression, and even persistent post-finasteride syndrome. Ray has long pointed out the glaring logical flaw in this hypothesis: if DHT caused baldness, then young males — whose testosterone and DHT levels are highest — would have the highest rates of baldness. Instead, balding increases with age as androgen levels decline. Ray framed the issue in bioenergetic terms: prolactin — a stress hormone that rises with age, estrogen dominance, and endotoxin — is a potent metabolic inhibitor that drives hair loss and graying. Ray even pointed out that prolactin is a “molting” hormone in insects and that this process is analogous to balding in humans. This view by Ray has already been corroborated several times at the level of greying. Anti-prolactin drugs of the ergot class (e.g. bromoctiptine) have been shown to reverse even advanced staged of hair graying. The article below describes a new AI-designed drug, ABS-201, which targets the prolactin receptor. In preclinical trials, it completely reversed balding and even reversed graying in macaques. This is a direct validation of the bioenergetic view.

As the article below demonstrates, Absci has developed ABS-201, a prolactin receptor antagonist that shunts dormant hair follicles back into the anagen (growth) phase. In preclinical trials on macaques (primates that experience balding like humans), six months after treatment, the macaques had their full heads of hair again. In mice, ABS-201 resulted in full hair regrowth after 22 days, whereas minoxidil only produced hair growth in one-third of the mice. Remarkably, the drug also reversed premature graying — the monkeys’ hair changed back from gray to black.

This finding directly corroborates what Ray (and to a much lesser degree) I have said for years:

Prolactin is a potent metabolic inhibitor. It suppresses mitochondrial function, increases oxidative stress, promotes fibrosis, and interferes with thyroid hormone action — all of which damage hair follicles. Lowering prolactin restores energy production and allows hair to regrow.

The DHT hypothesis is biologically absurd. Young males have the highest DHT levels, yet baldness is rare in young men and increases with age as DHT declines. The real culprit is the age-related rise in prolactin, driven by estrogen dominance, endotoxin, and chronic stress. In fact, about a year ago I did a post on a study that showed DHT administration to actually accelerate hair growth in balding animals.

Practical interventions to lower prolactin include: vitamin B6 (as pyridoxine or P5P), dopamine agonists (lisuride, bromocriptine — Ray Peat wrote extensively about lisuride), aspirin , and reducing endotoxin (carrot salad, activated charcoal) and serotonin (which stimulates prolactin release).

The human-equivalent dose is not yet available as this drug is in preclinical/early clinical trials. However, the principle is clear: blocking the prolactin receptor reverses hair loss and graying — something no DHT-blocking drug has ever achieved. The article notes that ABS-201 “bypasses the shedding phase minoxidil initially causes” and offers convenient dosing (injections every few months). This represents a paradigm shift away from the failed anti-androgen approach and toward the bioenergetic, prolactin-centered model that Ray Peat articulated decades ago. Now, the drug used in the study is exotic as there are not many prolactin receptor antagonists out there, even in purely research circles. However, anti-prolactin drugs such as bromocriptine are available and have been in clinical use for years. Since many doctors would refuse to prescribe bromocriptine as an experimental baldness treatment, a patient could bypass this hurdle by pointing out to the doctor that bromocriptine was approved a few years ago for the prevention and treatment of diabetes type II. So, if the patient has some extra weight or (God forbid) diabetes, convincing the doctor to prescribe one of the available anti-prolactin (i.e. dopamine agonist) drugs should be much easier.

link here

“…ABS-201 targets the prolactin receptor , a protein that typically plays a role in mammary development. Unlike other hair loss treatments like minoxidil and hair transplants, ABS-201 doesn’t just prevent further hair loss, it encourages hair regrowth .”

“…Hair loss occurs when follicles enter the telogen phase… ABS-201 works by shunting the dormant hair follicles back into a different phase of the hair cycle called the anagen phase. No other drugs target the prolactin receptor in the same way .”

“…In a preclinical trial, the research team tested ABS-201 on macaques, a primate species that experiences balding like humans do. Incredibly, six months after treatment, the macaques had their full heads of hair again .”

“…In that experiment, ABS-201 resulted in full hair regrowth after 22 days , whereas minoxidil only produced hair growth in one-third of the mice.”

“…ABS-201’s anti-aging possibilities don’t stop with just balding patients; the research team believes the drug could cure premature graying by repigmenting the hair. This finding appeared in the earlier study on macaques, where the monkeys’ hair changed back from gray to black .”

“…ABS-201 bypasses the shedding phase minoxidil initially causes, so patients are less likely to quit before they see results.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3063.mp3" length="2089628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hyperlipidemia (induced by ketogenic diet) drives tumor growth, even in the absence of obesity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3053</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3053</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 06:20:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3053

For years, mainstream medicine and popular diet gurus have promoted the ketogenic diet as a “cancer-fighting” strategy. The logic seems simple: cancer cells consume glucose, so if you eliminate carbohydrates and force the body to burn fat, you will starve the tumor. For years, Ray argued the opposite: prolonged reliance on fatty acid oxidation is tumorigenic, and high-fat diets promote cancer even in the absence of obesity. The study below, published in Cancer & Metabolism, directly validates our position. The researchers show that hyperlipidemia (elevated blood lipids) is sufficient to accelerate breast cancer growth irrespective of adiposity, blood glucose, or insulin levels. A ketogenic diet promoted tumor growth even in lean animals, and weight loss alone — without lowering blood lipids — failed to protect against cancer. This study corroborates several key points of the bioenergetic theory: (1) it is healthier to oxidize primarily carbohydrates, not fat; (2) hyperlipidemia, not obesity per se, is the driver of cancer; and (3) high-fat diets are detrimental even for lean individuals whom doctors consider “healthy.”

As the study below demonstrates, researchers using orthotopic mouse models of breast cancer found that elevated circulating lipids are sufficient to accelerate tumor growth even in the absence of obesity or alterations in blood glucose and/or insulin levels. In genetic models of hyperlipidemia (ApoE KO and LDLR KO mice), tumors grew two to three times larger than in wild-type controls, despite the hyperlipidemic mice being leaner and having normal glucose and insulin. In a ketogenic diet (90% fat) model, mice developed significant hyperlipidemia (triglycerides 3.5 times higher, cholesterol 2.5 times higher) with no difference in insulin or glucose. E0771 tumors were twice as large in KD-fed mice compared to low-fat diet controls.

Critically, when the researchers used a pharmacological lipid-lowering agent (antisense oligonucleotide targeting Angptl3), they reversed the tumor-promoting effect without changing adiposity. Obese mice treated with the lipid-lowering drug had tumors 1.6 times smaller than untreated obese controls, despite identical body weight and fat mass. Even more striking: weight loss alone did not protect against cancer if hyperlipidemia persisted. Obese mice switched to a ketogenic diet lost weight and normalized glucose and insulin, but maintained elevated lipids — and their tumor growth was not significantly different from obese mice that remained on the high-fat diet.

This study directly validates four core principles of the bioenergetic view:

It is preferable to oxidize carbohydrates, not fat. The ketogenic diet promoted tumor growth despite weight loss and normalized glucose. Forcing the body to rely on fatty acid oxidation is tumorigenic.

Hyperlipidemia, not obesity or high glucose diets, is the main driver of cancer. A lean person on a high-fat diet can have low body fat but high circulating lipids — and thus higher cancer risk — than an obese person using lipolysis-lowering agents.

Weight loss without lipid lowering is insufficient. This explains why many people who lose weight on ketogenic diets do not see cancer protection; the persistent hyperlipidemia continues to fuel tumor growth.

The interventions we recommend — niacinamide (lowers free fatty acids via adiponectin), aspirin (lowers FFA via inhibition of lipolysis), and vitamin E (prevents lipid peroxidation) — directly target the pathological hyperlipidemia identified in this study. These agents lower blood lipids without requiring weight loss.

The human-equivalent doses are not directly applicable from this mouse study, but the principles are clear: monitor blood lipids (triglycerides, cholesterol, NEFA), keep them low, and avoid high-fat diets even if they cause weight loss. The study’s ketogenic diet was 90% fat by calories — similar to many popular “keto” diets. The authors explicitly state that “health nutrition plans as adjuvant therapies for cancer need to account for the lipid dependencies of cancer cells.”

link here

“…Using both dietary and genetic mouse models, we show that elevated circulating lipids are sufficient to accelerate BC tumor growth even in the absence of obesity or alterations in blood glucose and/or insulin levels.”

“…Pharmacological lowering of systemic lipid levels attenuates BC growth in obese mice, suggesting a direct role for lipids in fueling tumor expansion.”

“…Weight loss alone, without a corresponding reduction in lipid levels such as that induced by a ketogenic diet, fails to protect against BC , highlighting the necessity of targeting lipid metabolism in obesity-associated BC.”

“…Our findings establish hyperlipidemia as a critical driver of BC progression and suggest that lipid-lowering interventions may be a promising strategy to mitigate BC risk in individuals with obesity.”

“…E0771 tumors were twice as large in KD mice (90% fat ketogenic diet) compared to LFD-fed controls, despite normal insulin and glucose levels.”

“…In ApoE KO and LDLR KO mice (genetic hyperlipidemia), E0771 tumors were two to three times larger than in wild-type controls, despite the hyperlipidemic mice being significantly leaner.”

“…Angptl3-ASO treatment (lipid-lowering) reduced tumor mass by 1.6-fold in obese mice without affecting body weight or adiposity.”

“…Mice switched to a ketogenic diet for weight loss maintained elevated triglycerides, cholesterol, and NEFA levels… E0771 tumor growth was not significantly different than in obese mice maintained on high-fat diet, despite being significantly leaner.”

“…We propose that health nutrition plans as adjuvant therapies for cancer need to account for the lipid dependencies of cancer cells in the context of an individual’s metabolic health.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3053.mp3" length="1992284" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aging driven by PUFA and its peroxidation; vitamin E, PUFA avoidance, eating SFA may delay/reverse aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3050</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3050</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 05:53:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3050

For decades, mainstream medicine has promoted the idea that reactive oxygen species (ROS) are uniformly harmful and that antioxidants are the key to longevity. Ray argued the opposite: context is everything. Mitochondrial superoxide, when produced in a controlled manner, is a signaling molecule, not merely a toxic byproduct. The study below, published in Nature Metabolism, demonstrates precisely this: mitochondrial superoxide produced during development triggers a protective pathway that downregulates unsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) synthesis, reducing lipid peroxidation and preserving nuclear envelope integrity throughout life. This is a direct validation of what we have said for years: accumulation of easily peroxidizable unsaturated fats is a primary driver of aging, and interventions that limit either their ingestion (dietary avoidance) or their peroxidation (e.g., vitamin E) can retard or even reverse age-related decline.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers using the model organism C. elegans found that suppressed electron transport chain (ETC) activity during development preserves nuclear envelope morphology well into adulthood. The protective effect is mediated by mitochondrial superoxide, which acts as a signaling molecule — not a damaging oxidant. This superoxide triggers downregulation of SBP-1 (the orthologue of mammalian SREBP, a master regulator of lipid synthesis), leading to a marked reduction in the biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) . By limiting the pool of UFAs, the pathway curtails lipid peroxidation within the nuclear envelope, preserving its structural integrity.

This is exactly the mechanism I have described for years. Unsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are uniquely susceptible to peroxidation due to their double bonds. This generates toxic aldehydes such as 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) , which damage proteins, DNA, and mitochondria. The accumulation of PUFAs in tissues over a lifetime is a primary driver of aging — not merely a correlation, but a causal mechanism. The study confirms that downregulating PUFA synthesis protects against age-related nuclear envelope deterioration.

Importantly, the researchers extended their findings to mammalian systems. Therapeutic interventions that modulate lipid peroxidation produced strikingly similar benefits in human fibroblasts and primate cells, particularly in models of Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) , a fatal premature aging disorder marked by severe nuclear envelope abnormalities. By controlling lipid peroxidation chemically or genetically, they restored nuclear envelope integrity, reduced senescent phenotypes, and extended cellular healthspan.

The implications for human health are direct and actionable:

Dietary avoidance of PUFAs is the most straightforward intervention. Eliminate seed oils (soybean, corn, canola, sunflower, safflower), nuts, seeds, fatty fish, and grain-fed animal fats. Replace them with stable saturated fats (coconut oil, butter, tallow, palm oil) that do not undergo peroxidation.

Vitamin E (tocopherols and tocotrienols) is the primary chain-breaking antioxidant that stops lipid peroxidation in cell membranes. This is why Peat has always emphasized vitamin E as a protective agent against PUFA damage. The study explicitly notes that “targeting lipid peroxidation through pharmacological agents or dietary modulation” could mitigate age-related nuclear envelope decline.

The study overturns the broad-brush use of antioxidants. Indiscriminately scavenging ROS is not the answer. Instead, precision modulation of redox signaling — specifically, reducing PUFA burden and limiting peroxidation — is the correct approach.

The human-equivalent dose is not applicable here as this was a mechanistic study in C. elegans and cell culture. However, the dietary and supplement interventions are clear: reduce PUFA intake to near-zero, supplement with vitamin E (400–800 IU daily of mixed tocopherols), and consider other lipid peroxidation inhibitors such as vitamin C, selenium, and structural anti-oxidants such as vitamin D, quinones, methylene blue, and of course saturated fats.

This study is a landmark confirmation of the bioenergetic view. The authors state that “the downregulation of unsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis pinpoints lipid metabolism as a vulnerable yet modifiable axis” and that “manipulating membrane lipid profiles could rejuvenate cellular functions impaired during ageing.” I have been saying this for years. The difference is that now mainstream research is finally catching up.

link here

Mitochondrial Superoxide Controls Aging Through Lipids, link here

“…Contrary to the prevailing dogma that ROS invariably promote cellular damage and senescence, the researchers reveal a nuanced role for mitochondrial superoxide produced during developmental stages. This superoxide serves as a signaling molecule that triggers downstream pathways modulating lipid metabolism, rather than engendering oxidative damage.”

“…SBP-1 suppression leads to a marked reduction in the biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) , crucial components of cell membranes but also prone to lipid peroxidation , a damaging oxidative modification. By limiting the pool of UFAs, the mitochondria-to-NE axis effectively curtails lipid peroxidation within the nuclear envelope, thereby preserving its structural integrity.”

“…Therapeutic interventions engineered to modulate lipid peroxidation produced strikingly similar benefits in human fibroblasts and primate cells , particularly in models mimicking Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS), a fatal premature ageing disorder marked by severe nuclear envelope abnormalities.”

“…This research overturns conventional perceptions of mitochondrial superoxide as a byproduct solely detrimental to cell longevity. Instead, it assumes the role of a critical developmental signal that ‘programs’ long-term nuclear envelope maintenance and cellular resilience.”

“…Unsaturated fatty acids, though essential for membrane fluidity and function, are highly susceptible to oxidative damage ; hence, their metabolic regulation emerges as a double-edged sword balancing membrane integrity against oxidative vulnerability.”

“…Targeting lipid peroxidation through pharmacological agents or dietary modulation could mitigate age-related nuclear envelope decline and potentially delay the progression of degenerative disorders characterized by nuclear dysmorphia.”

“…This study challenges the broad-brush use of antioxidants in ageing medicine. Instead, it advocates for precision modulation of redox signaling pathways to harness the beneficial signaling roles of ROS like mitochondrial superoxide while minimizing their pathological effects.”

“…The identification of lipid peroxidation control as a conserved ageing regulator suggests that manipulating membrane lipid profiles could rejuvenate cellular functions impaired during ageing.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3050.mp3" length="2289908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B1 (thiamine) may improve gut motility and relieve constipation/IBS</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3048</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3048</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 05:29:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3048

Gut motility is perhaps the single most important factor controlling endotoxin absorption from the gut into the bloodstream. Constipation increases gut transit time, allowing Gram-negative bacteria to proliferate and release large quantities of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) . Endotoxin then triggers systemic inflammation, serotonin release (90% of serotonin is in the gut), and a host of chronic diseases. Ray Peat has long recommended raw carrot salad (with coconut oil and vinegar) as a gentle, fiber-based way to bind endotoxin and improve motility. I have written extensively about antibiotics (such as penicillin or doxycycline) for more severe cases. Now, a large genetic study published in Gut has identified that vitamin B1 (thiamine) metabolism is a key determinant of gut motility and IBS risk. While the article focuses on the genetic associations, the real mechanism — which the authors do not discuss — is the bioenergetic role of B1 in supporting oxidative metabolism and raising CO₂ levels.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers analyzed data from more than 268,000 people across six biobanks (European and East Asian) and identified 21 genetic locations associated with stool frequency (SF) — a proxy for gut motility. The top variant affects SLC35F3, a gene that transports vitamin B1 (thiamine) into cells. Another variant affects XPR1, a phosphate exporter that is essential for converting thiamine into its biologically active form, thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) . Observational dietary data confirmed that higher thiamine intake was associated with higher stool frequency (i.e., less constipation), and the effect depended on which gene variants a person carried.

The study concludes that vitamin B1 metabolism plays a “surprising role” in gut motility and opens possibilities for dietary or drug interventions targeting thiamine pathways. But the mechanism is not surprising at all to anyone familiar with bioenergetics. Vitamin B1 (thiamine) is the essential cofactor for three critical enzymes:

Pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) — the rate-limiting enzyme for carbohydrate oxidation. PDH converts pyruvate to acetyl-CoA, allowing glucose to enter the TCA cycle and be oxidized to CO₂. Without sufficient B1, pyruvate is instead converted to lactate (the Warburg effect), producing far less ATP and creating a reductive, inflammatory state.

Alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase (KGDH) — another key enzyme in the TCA cycle, also dependent on B1.

Carbonic anhydrase — B1 is a known carbonic anhydrase inhibitor. By inhibiting carbonic anhydrase, B1 raises CO₂ levels in the body. Ray has written extensively about CO₂ as a metabolic signaling molecule with anti-inflammatory, vasodilatory, antioxidant, anti-serotonin, and anti-estrogen effects. Mainstream medicine still ridicules CO₂ as a mere “waste product” — yet elevated CO₂ relaxes smooth muscle, improves blood flow, and reduces inflammation, all of which would directly improve gut motility.

Thus, the benefits of B1 for gut motility are likely mediated by two synergistic bioenergetic mechanisms: (1) improved oxidative metabolism (via PDH and KGDH), which increases ATP production and powers the smooth muscle contractions of peristalsis; and (2) elevated CO₂ (via carbonic anhydrase inhibition), which relaxes the gut, reduces inflammation, and counteracts serotonin’s constipating effects.

The human-equivalent dose is not explicitly stated in the article, as this was a genetic study, not an intervention trial. However, based on the literature and my previous writings, therapeutic doses of thiamine for gut motility are typically in the range of 300–1,500 mg per day of thiamine HCl or allithiamine (a fat-soluble form) . For those with genetic variants in SLC35F3 or XPR1, higher doses may be required to overcome reduced transport or activation efficiency.

This study is a perfect example of how mainstream genetics is finally catching up to what bioenergetic researchers have known for decades: vitamins are not just for preventing deficiency diseases. They are powerful metabolic therapies that can treat a wide range of conditions, including common digestive disorders like constipation and IBS. The researchers mention “repurposing” existing drugs, but the simplest repurposing is already available over the counter: vitamin B1 supplements.

2 links here

“…By analyzing bowel movement frequency in more than 268,000 people , researchers uncover how thiamine-processing genes shape gut motility , link constipation and diarrhea to shared biology, and point to new therapeutic possibilities for IBS and related disorders.

“…The top variant affects SLC35F3 , a gene that transports vitamin B1 into cells , influencing expression in the brain and digestive tract and potentially integrating central and enteric nervous system control of motility.

“…The second variant affects XPR1 , a phosphate exporter… Phosphate export by XPR1 is essential for converting thiamine into its biologically active form, thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) .

“…Analysis of 98,449 participants confirmed that higher thiamine intake was associated with higher stool frequency in observational dietary data, with the effect depending on which gene variants a person carried. This suggests these genes regulate how the body uses vitamin B1 to control gut motility rather than acting through a single organ or pathway.

“…The study uncovered a surprising role for vitamin B1 metabolism in gut motility. This discovery opens possibilities for dietary or drug interventions targeting thiamine pathways.

“…Many existing medications, particularly cardiovascular drugs, could be repurposed to treat IBS and other gut motility disorders , but further experimental and clinical investigation is required.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3048.mp3" length="2928260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:06:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) and B3 (niacinamide) can treat many (all?) “incurable” genetic diseases</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3046</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3046</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 05:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3046

For decades, patients with inborn genetic diseases have been told a devastating message: your gene is broken, and there is nothing we can do to fix it. This view of “genetic determinism” — that genes are destiny — is one of the most destructive ideas in modern medicine. Ray Peat has always emphasized the opposite: metabolism is primary, and genes are secondary. A “genetic defect” only manifests as disease when the metabolic environment allows it to. The study below, published in Cell, proves this point dramatically. Researchers screened for genetic diseases that could be treated with vitamin B2 (riboflavin) and vitamin B3 (niacinamide/nicotinamide) . They found that dozens of genetic diseases — considered incurable — may be treatable with these simple, inexpensive vitamins. The mechanism is purely bioenergetic: B2 is a precursor to FAD , and B3 is a precursor to NAD+ . By supporting mitochondrial electron flow, these vitamins bypass or compensate for the underlying genetic defect.

When the researchers treated the knockout mice with daily injections of nicotinamide riboside (a form of vitamin B3) starting at birth, the rescue was dramatic. Eight of nine treated animals survived beyond day 50 — more than a 40-fold improvement in lifespan. Every aspect of the disease was rescued: body weight, brain pathology, cell death. When treatment was delayed by just two days, there was no benefit — highlighting the importance of early intervention.

The implications are staggering. The screen nominated dozens of additional genetic diseases that may respond to B2 or B3 therapy, and the researchers have only tested two out of more than 50 known micronutrients. This means that many “incurable” genetic diseases are not fundamentally incurable — they are metabolic bottlenecks that can be bypassed by supplying the right cofactors in sufficient quantity.

The human-equivalent dose is not explicitly stated in the article, but based on the mouse studies and previous clinical reports, the effective dose for NAXD disease is likely high-dose nicotinamide riboside or niacinamide — possibly in the range of 500–2,000 mg per day for an adult, with dose adjustment for body weight. For other genetic diseases identified in the screen, the optimal dose may vary, but the principle is the same: high-dose B vitamins can compensate for genetic defects in metabolism.

This study is a direct validation of the bioenergetic view. B2 (as FAD) and B3 (as NAD+) are essential cofactors for the electron transport chain. By supporting mitochondrial electron flow, these vitamins increase cellular energy production, which in turn allows cells to tolerate or compensate for genetic defects that would otherwise be fatal. The researchers explicitly state that their framework “picks up where the original vitamin hunters left off” — using modern tools to ask which vitamins can treat which diseases. I have been asking this question for years, and the answer is increasingly clear: vitamins are not just for preventing deficiency diseases. They are powerful metabolic therapies for a wide range of conditions, including those considered “genetic” and “incurable.”

2 links here

“…In our new paper in Cell, we flip the traditional approach to finding cures. Instead of starting with one disease and spending a decade searching for a treatment, we start with a treatment that’s already safe and accessible and ask: what are all the genetic diseases it can treat?

“…We started with vitamins B2 and B3 because they’re common components of cell culture media… This yielded a list of dozens of disease genes that could be rescued by high vitamin B2 or B3 levels.

“…From the vitamin B3 screen, the top hit was the NAXD gene. Mutations in it cause a very rare disease… NAXD’s job is to convert NADHX back to usable NADH, correcting the errors before they cause damage. If people lack NAXD function, they develop severe neurodevelopmental disease that is often fatal in early childhood.

“…In the knockout mice, we saw massive accumulation of every form of NADHX across all tissues… NAD was specifically depleted in the brain and skin, which is where the disease shows up in human patients.

“…When we got it right, with daily intraperitoneal injections of nicotinamide riboside (one form of vitamin B3) starting at birth, the rescue was dramatic. Knockout mice were indistinguishable from their littermates at day 50 and beyond. Eight of nine treated animals continued to survive , more than a 40-fold improvement in lifespan. Every aspect of disease we measured was rescued.

“…Our screens nominated dozens of additional diseases that may respond to B2 or B3 therapy, and we’ve only tested two out of more than 50 known micronutrients.

“…We see this as picking up where the original vitamin hunters left off , bringing modern tools to the question of which vitamins can treat which diseases, and the mechanisms behind them.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3046.mp3" length="2314244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B3 can prevent/treat fatty liver (MASLD/NAFLD/NASH)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3044</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3044</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 03:42:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3044

Metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MASLD) affects roughly 30% of the global population — billions of people. Mainstream medicine has no effective targeted therapies, offering only lifestyle advice (weight loss, exercise) that most patients cannot sustain. I have written extensively about niacinamide (vitamin B3) as a metabolic therapy, primarily focusing on its role as an NAD+ precursor that supports mitochondrial electron flow, oxidative phosphorylation, and overall energy metabolism. Now, researchers have discovered that niacin (another form of vitamin B3) directly inhibits a specific genetic driver of fatty liver disease — microRNA-93 (miR-93) — which then restores SIRT1 activity. This is a perfect example of the dual mechanism I have always emphasized: B3 works both by boosting NAD+/energy metabolism and by directly inhibiting pathological signaling pathways.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers from UNIST and other institutions identified microRNA-93 (miR-93) as a central regulator of MASLD. Levels of miR-93 are unusually high in both human patients and animal models with fatty liver disease. MiR-93 drives fat buildup, inflammation, and scarring in the liver by suppressing SIRT1 — a gene that plays a key role in fat metabolism. When the researchers used gene editing to stop miR-93 production, mice showed significantly less fat accumulation, improved insulin sensitivity, and better liver function.

The team then screened 150 FDA-approved drugs to see if any could reduce miR-93 levels. Niacin (vitamin B3) stood out as the most effective option. In mice treated with niacin, miR-93 levels dropped sharply, SIRT1 activity increased, and normal fat-processing pathways were restored.

This finding is significant for two reasons that align perfectly with what I have been saying for years:

NAD+ and SIRT1: Niacin (like niacinamide) is converted to NAD+. SIRT1 is a NAD+-dependent deacetylase that regulates metabolism, inflammation, and aging. By increasing NAD+, vitamin B3 directly activates SIRT1. The study shows that B3 also works by lowering miR-93, which then derepresses SIRT1. So B3 attacks the problem from two directions: increasing SIRT1 activity directly (via NAD+) and removing the inhibitor (miR-93) that suppresses SIRT1 expression.

The specific enzyme target: The study identifies miR-93 as the key pathogenic microRNA. This is not an enzyme in the traditional sense, but a non-coding RNA that regulates gene expression. Vitamin B3 inhibits miR-93 levels, which is a novel mechanism that mainstream research has not previously appreciated. I have discussed how B3 inhibits other pathological pathways (e.g., PARP1 overactivation, NF-κB), and this adds miR-93 to the list.

The study used niacin (nicotinic acid), which is one form of vitamin B3. I have generally recommended niacinamide (nicotinamide) because it does not cause the painful “niacin flush” associated with nicotinic acid. However, both forms are converted to NAD+ and likely share the ability to lower miR-93 (though this would need to be confirmed for niacinamide specifically). The human-equivalent dose is not explicitly stated in the press release, but based on the mouse studies and the fact that niacin is already used clinically for hyperlipidemia at doses of 500–2,000 mg per day, the effective human dose for fatty liver disease is likely in the same range. I have consistently recommended 500–1,500 mg of niacinamide daily for metabolic support.

The researchers explicitly note that niacin is a “well-established and safe medication” and that repurposing it for MASLD has “high translational clinical relevance.” This is exactly the kind of cheap, safe, off-patent intervention that the pharmaceutical industry ignores because it cannot be patented. Once again, vitamin B3 proves to be one of the most powerful metabolic therapies available.

2 links here

“…Researchers have identified microRNA-93 (miR-93) as a key genetic driver of fatty liver disease and discovered that vitamin B3 can effectively shut it down. This finding suggests a safe, widely available vitamin could become a powerful new treatment.

“…The researchers discovered that levels of miR-93 are unusually high in both people with fatty liver disease and in animal models. Their analysis showed that miR-93 drives fat buildup, inflammation, and scarring in the liver by suppressing SIRT1, a gene that plays a key role in managing fat metabolism inside liver cells.

“…To better understand its role, the team used gene editing to stop the production of miR-93 in mice. These animals showed significantly less fat accumulation in the liver, along with improved insulin sensitivity and better overall liver function.

“…The researchers then screened 150 FDA-approved drugs to see if any could reduce miR-93 levels. Niacin (vitamin B3) stood out as the most effective option. In mice treated with niacin, miR-93 levels dropped sharply, while SIRT1 activity increased. This helped restore normal fat-processing pathways in the liver and improved overall lipid balance.

“…The research team explained, ‘This study precisely elucidates the molecular origin of MASLD and demonstrates the potential for repurposing an already approved vitamin compound to modulate this pathway, which has high translational clinical relevance.’

“…They added, ‘Given that niacin is a well-established and safe medication used to treat hyperlipidemia, it holds promise as a candidate for combination therapies targeting miRNA pathways in MASLD.’]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3044.mp3" length="2947940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:06:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B3 (niacinamide) and B6 help muscle repair/recovery after exercise/trauma</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3041</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3041</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 03:26:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3041

Age-related muscle decline, known as sarcopenia, affects millions worldwide. Mainstream approaches focus almost exclusively on protein intake and resistance exercise, ignoring the cellular and metabolic mechanisms that drive muscle stem cell dysfunction. I have written extensively about two nutrients that address these root causes: niacinamide (vitamin B3) and pyridoxine (vitamin B6) . Nestle, in a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, has now confirmed that these two B vitamins synergistically activate muscle stem cells, helping muscles regenerate faster and recover more strength.

The mechanisms are exactly what I have described for years. Niacinamide boosts NAD+, supporting mitochondrial energy metabolism and reversing the age-related decline in oxidative capacity. Pyridoxine acts as an endogenous glucocorticoid (cortisol) antagonist — a point I have made repeatedly on the forum. By blocking cortisol’s catabolic effects, B6 prevents muscle breakdown and supports repair. Nestle has already commercialized this finding into a product, with human doses of approximately 700 mg niacinamide and 20 mg pyridoxine daily.

As the Nestle press release below demonstrates, researchers screened over 50,000 natural molecules and identified that nicotinamide (niacinamide/B3) and pyridoxine (vitamin B6) synergistically activate muscle stem cells, helping muscles regenerate faster and recover more strength. The study specifically addresses age-related muscle decline at the cellular level — the very problem that mainstream medicine has failed to solve with protein supplements alone.

The bioenergetic explanation is straightforward. Niacinamide is converted to NAD+ via the salvage pathway (NAMPT → NMN → NAD+). Elevated NAD+ supports mitochondrial electron flow, oxidative phosphorylation, and cellular energy production. This is why I have written so extensively about niacinamide for reversing the Warburg effect, supporting metabolic rate, and protecting against age-related decline. Pyridoxine (B6) acts as an endogenous glucocorticoid antagonist — it blocks the catabolic effects of cortisol, which is elevated in aging, stress, and after trauma. By reducing cortisol signaling, B6 shifts the balance from muscle breakdown toward muscle repair and regeneration.

The human-equivalent doses, based on the Nestle product, are approximately 700 mg of niacinamide and 20 mg of pyridoxine per day. This is entirely consistent with what I have recommended on the forum: gram-level doses of niacinamide (typically 500 mg to 1.5 g daily) and modest doses of P5P (the active form of B6, ~10-30 mg). Note that Nestle uses pyridoxine (the less active form), but the principle is the same.

2 links here

…In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation… Nestlé scientists discovered a specific combination of bioactive nutrients that help muscles regenerate faster during recovery and aging.

…Skeletal muscles rely on local stem cells for growth and repair, but these cells become less effective over time. The researchers screened over 50,000 natural molecules and identified that two specific vitamin B-related nutrients, Nicotinamide and Pyridoxine, can synergistically activate these cells and help muscles to regenerate faster and recover more strength.

…’Aging impairs the regenerative capacity of muscles at the cellular level,’ said Dr. Pascal Stuelsatz. ‘Our study identified a novel solution that can target regeneration and mitigate age-related muscle decline with nutrition.’]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3041.mp3" length="1761524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Metabolic (OXPHOS) speed/rate, not ATP levels, determines health (and keeps cancer in check)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3039</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3039</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 03:07:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3039

Mainstream “mitochondrial medicine” is almost exclusively obsessed with ATP levels. The assumption is that mitochondria are important only because they produce energy, and that the only metric that matters is how much ATP a cell can generate. Ray has argued for years that this is a fundamentally reductionist and flawed view. What actually matters is metabolic rate — the speed of electron flow through the electron transport chain (ETC), the rate of oxygen consumption, and the efficiency of oxidative phosphorylation as a process, not the static levels of its end products. A cell can have high ATP but be metabolically stagnant (low electron flow, high reductive stress). Conversely, a cell can have lower ATP but be metabolically active (high electron flow, high oxidative capacity).

The study below, published in Cell Metabolism and led by researchers at CNIC and IRB Barcelona, directly validates this view. They show that dendritic cells (the immune system’s sentinels) remain in a “ready-to-respond” state not because of ATP levels, but because of the flow of electrons through the mitochondrial respiratory chain. When they restored electron flow using an alternative enzyme (AOX) without increasing energy production, they recovered immune function. This is a direct experimental demonstration that metabolic speed, not ATP, determines cellular readiness and anti-cancer immunity.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers found that a specific mitochondrial process — the flow of electrons through the respiratory chain — is essential to keep dendritic cells primed and ready to respond to threats like tumors. Using genetically modified mouse models and human dendritic cells, they showed that immune readiness does not depend primarily on energy production (ATP) , but on maintaining electron flow through the mitochondrial chain.

This electron flow preserves the cell’s internal chemical balance, including redox state and metabolite levels. When they disrupted this balance, dendritic cells showed reduced activation, diminished migration to lymph nodes, and a weakened ability to stimulate T cells. As a result, anti-tumor immune responses were compromised.

The most striking finding came when the researchers restored electron flow using an alternative enzyme (AOX) — without increasing ATP production. This manipulation recovered the cells’ ability to activate T cells and control tumor growth in mice. In other words, the speed of respiration itself, independent of ATP yield, determines immune function.

This is exactly what I and Ray Peat have been saying for years. The very act of respiring intensely — the high metabolic rate, the rapid electron flow, the high oxygen consumption — is what keeps cells healthy. ATP is a necessary byproduct, but it is not the primary mediator. This explains why thyroid hormone (which increases metabolic rate) is so beneficial, and why anything that slows electron flow (PUFA, estrogen, endotoxin, serotonin) is detrimental. The study identifies a previously unrecognized “electron flow checkpoint” that governs immune cell readiness — a concept that mainstream mitochondrial biology has completely missed because of its fixation on ATP.

The human-equivalent dose is not applicable here as this was a mechanistic study in mice and human cells, not a dosing study. However, the implications for cancer immunotherapy and vaccine development are profound. Targeting electron flow speed — not ATP levels — could enhance dendritic cell function in patients with cancer, where immune activation is often impaired.

2 links here

…Researchers at the CNIC show that active mitochondria maintain dendritic cells, the immune system’s sentinels, in a “ready-to-respond” state, linking cellular metabolism to gene regulation and T-cell activation.

…The study reveals that a specific mitochondrial process, the flow of electrons through the respiratory chain, is essential to keep these cells primed. This challenges the long-standing view that mitochondria play only a minor role during dendritic cell activation.

…’Our findings show that mitochondria do much more than produce energy, they keep dendritic cells in a ‘ready’ state, allowing them to respond rapidly to threats such as tumors,’ explains David Sancho.

…Surprisingly, they found that immune readiness does not depend primarily on energy production (ATP) , but on maintaining electron flow through the mitochondrial chain.

…’What is remarkable is that this process is not about energy production, but about preserving the cell’s internal balance, which directly shapes how genes respond to danger signals,’ says Ignacio Heras Murillo.

…This electron flow preserves the cell’s internal chemical balance, including redox state and metabolite levels… disrupting this balance alters DNA methylation patterns at key regulatory regions.

…By introducing an alternative enzyme (AOX), they reinstated mitochondrial function without increasing energy production, recovering the cells’ ability to activate T cells and control tumor growth in mice.

…These findings identify a previously unrecognized ‘electron flow checkpoint’ that governs immune cell readiness. Targeting this metabolic pathway could enhance dendritic cell-based therapies, particularly in cancers where immune activation is impaired.

…The study highlights metabolism as a powerful lever to fine-tune immune responses and paves the way for new strategies in immunotherapy and vaccine development.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3039.mp3" length="2541956" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>MEDICINE: Serotonin/SSRI can help OCD issues; STUDY: Acetylcholine promotes serotonin, both can cause OCD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3037</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3037</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 02:50:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3037

For decades, mainstream medicine has portrayed acetylcholine as the “learning neurotransmitter” and serotonin as the “happy hormone.” Drugs that raise acetylcholine (Alzheimer’s treatments like Aricept) and drugs that raise serotonin (SSRIs for depression and OCD) have been prescribed to millions, despite marginal efficacy and significant side effects. Ray has written extensively about the dark side of both molecules: acetylcholine is a stress signal linked to estrogen dominance and neurological dysfunction, while serotonin is a pro-fibrotic, anti-metabolic agent.

The study below, published in Nature Communications, now reveals that acetylcholine directly controls serotonin release in the dorsal striatum — meaning raising acetylcholine inevitably raises serotonin, compounding the damage. The researchers identified specialized cells called cholinergic interneurons (CINs) that act like “conductors” in an orchestra, and they found that this coupling is region-specific (present in dorsal striatum but not ventral striatum). In OCD models, this system runs in “overdrive,” and the nAChR-dependent component of serotonin release is selectively amplified.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers from Hebrew University and Stony Brook University used optogenetics to show that acetylcholine can directly trigger serotonin release in the dorsal striatum. Cholinergic interneurons (CINs) — which were already known to control dopamine — can also directly trigger serotonin release via nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) on serotonergic axons. In pre-clinical models of OCD (Sapap3-/- mice), acetylcholine levels are hyperactive, driving a massive surge of serotonin release. The study also found that this acetylcholine–serotonin coupling is not detectable in the ventral striatum, despite its denser serotonergic innervation — meaning the brain has region-specific wiring that allows one system to “take the wheel” only in certain areas.

This finding completely upends the mainstream narrative. Consider the implications:

Alzheimer’s disease: The standard of care has been acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (Aricept, etc.) that raise acetylcholine. These drugs have universally failed to cure or even meaningfully ameliorate Alzheimer’s. Now we know why: raising acetylcholine triggers serotonin release, and high serotonin is known to negatively impact brain health (inflammation, fibrosis, mitochondrial dysfunction). The failure of these drugs is not mysterious — they were targeting the wrong direction.

OCD: Mainstream medicine treats OCD with SSRIs — drugs that raise serotonin. Yet this study shows that in OCD models, acetylcholine is already elevated, driving excessive serotonin release. As the researchers note in the Q&A section: “It’s like blaming a loud orchestra on the violins (serotonin) when the conductor (acetylcholine) is actually the one waving the baton too fast.” SSRIs are “managing the symptoms” of the chemical surge, but the true source is the overactive acetylcholine system. This explains why SSRIs benefit only a fraction of OCD patients and cure even fewer. The truth is exactly backwards: OCD is a state of excess acetylcholine and excess serotonin, and the treatment should aim to lower both, not raise them.

The acetylcholine-serotonin axis: I have written previously about the direct link between acetylcholine and estrogen signaling. Estrogen upregulates cholinergic activity, which then drives serotonin release. This is why women with estrogen dominance often present with anxiety, OCD-like symptoms, and depression — all of which are then “treated” with SSRIs that make the underlying problem worse.

The study did not provide animal doses or human-equivalent doses, as it was a mechanistic optogenetic study. However, the therapeutic implications are clear: blocking the acetylcholine→serotonin interaction (via anticholinergic agents or nicotinic receptor antagonists) is a more logical approach than raising serotonin with SSRIs or raising acetylcholine with Alzheimer’s drugs. The researchers explicitly state that “this research opens the door for a new generation of treatments that target the ‘conductor’ cells instead.”

link here

Acetylcholine Seizes Control of Serotonin Signaling, link here

…Researchers have discovered a master coordination strategy in the brain… In a new study, scientists found that in the striatum—the brain’s movement and learning hub—acetylcholine doesn’t just work alongside serotonin; it can actually ‘take the wheel. ‘”

…Specialized cells called cholinergic interneurons act like conductors, directly triggering the release of serotonin. This powerful link means that when acetylcholine goes into overdrive, it drags serotonin levels up with it, potentially explaining the pathological ‘loop’ seen in conditions like Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

…When the researchers examined brain states linked to Obsessive-Compulsive–like behaviors, they found the system running in overdrive. The cholinergic cells were overactive, driving a surge of serotonin release.

…’It’s like blaming a loud orchestra on the violins (serotonin) when the conductor (acetylcholine) is actually the one waving the baton too fast. This study shows that the serotonin surge in OCD might be a reaction to an overactive acetylcholine system. ‘

…’Current drugs (like SSRIs) help by managing the ‘symptoms’ of the chemical surge. However, this research opens the door for a new generation of treatments that target the ‘conductor’ cells instead. If we can calm the acetylcholine ‘conductors,’ we might be able to prevent the serotonin imbalance from happening in the first place. ‘

…In Sapap3-/- mice, a model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)-like behavior, this mechanism is exaggerated due to a hypercholinergic state, selectively amplifying the nAChR-dependent component of monoamine release. These findings demonstrate a regionally confined form of acetylcholine–5-HT crosstalk in the striatum and identify CINs as regulators of 5-HT dynamics in both healthy and pathological states.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3037.mp3" length="2948276" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:06:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) implicated as a cause of tinnitus</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3035</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3035</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 01:33:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3035

For years, mainstream medicine has treated serotonin as the “happy hormone” and prescribed SSRIs (Prozac, Zoloft, etc.) to millions of patients for depression and anxiety. I have posted repeatedly about the dark side of serotonin: it is a stress hormone that promotes fibrosis, vasoconstriction, inflammation, and — as I highlighted in a previous post — a serotonin antagonist can treat tinnitus. At that time, the direct implication of serotonin in tinnitus was still lacking. Now, this study from OHSU provides exactly that missing link.

Furthermore, I have written extensively about the connection between endotoxin and tinnitus. Since 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut (in enterochromaffin cells), and endotoxin (LPS) from Gram-negative bacteria is a powerful trigger of serotonin release, the endotoxin-serotonin-tinnitus axis is now clear. Reduce endotoxin (via carrot salad, activated charcoal, low-PUFA diet, etc.), reduce serotonin, reduce tinnitus.

For years, mainstream medicine has treated serotonin as the “happy hormone” and prescribed SSRIs (Prozac, Zoloft, etc.) to millions of patients for depression and anxiety. I have posted repeatedly about the dark side of serotonin: it is a stress hormone that promotes fibrosis, vasoconstriction, inflammation, and — as I highlighted in a previous post — a serotonin antagonist can treat tinnitus. At that time, the direct implication of serotonin in tinnitus was still lacking. Now, this study from OHSU provides exactly that missing link.

Furthermore, I have written extensively about the connection between endotoxin and tinnitus. Since 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut (in enterochromaffin cells), and endotoxin (LPS) from Gram-negative bacteria is a powerful trigger of serotonin release, the endotoxin-serotonin-tinnitus axis is now clear. Reduce endotoxin (via carrot salad, activated charcoal, low-PUFA diet, etc.), reduce serotonin, reduce tinnitus.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers at OHSU examined the dorsal cochlear nucleus — the brain region where tinnitus occurs — and found that exposure to serotonin makes the fusiform neurons “hyperactive and hypersensitive to stimuli.” In the words of the senior author, “the activity of those neurons went through the roof.” The study also notes that a review of existing literature revealed many patients reported an increase in tinnitus soon after they began taking SSRIs, which increase serotonin levels.

This directly corroborates my previous post showing that a serotonin antagonist can treat tinnitus. If blocking serotonin receptors alleviates tinnitus, then the logical conclusion is that excess serotonin causes or worsens tinnitus. Now this study confirms that mechanism: serotonin hyperactivates the very neurons responsible for the phantom sound perception.

The endotoxin connection is the missing piece that mainstream researchers have not yet connected. Endotoxin from a constipated, dysbiotic gut triggers massive serotonin release from enterochromaffin cells. This serotonin circulates systemically and enters the brain, where it hyperactivates the dorsal cochlear nucleus. This is why Ray Peat has long recommended carrot salad — the fiber binds endotoxin, reducing its absorption and thereby reducing serotonin release. It is also why interventions that lower endotoxin (activated charcoal, low-PUFA diet to reduce gut irritation, antibiotics in select cases) often improve tinnitus in my experience and in reports from the Ray Peat Forum.

The study does not provide HED calculations as it was an animal mechanistic study (mice) and a human observational study (SSRI users). However, the clinical implication is clear: SSRIs can worsen tinnitus, and patients with tinnitus or hearing loss should be cautious about taking these drugs. The quotes below support this conclusion.

2 links here

“…Researchers discovered that neurons known as fusiform cells within this portion of the brain become hyperactive and hypersensitive to stimuli when exposed to serotonin.”

“…’We saw that the activity of those neurons went through the roof,’ said senior author Laurence Trussell, Ph.D.”

“…If the findings bear up to additional research, the study could have implications for a common class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) . SSRIs can alleviate symptoms of moderate to severe depression and anxiety by increasing the level of serotonin in the brain… However, the research suggests that SSRIs prescribed to treat anxiety or depression may sometimes worsen patients’ tinnitus.”

“…’If you’re a physician treating a patient for depression who also has hearing loss or tinnitus, you may want to be careful about prescribing a drug that compounds their feelings of anxiety,’ said Trussell. ‘The SSRI may be enhancing the thing you’re trying to fix. ‘”

“…Lead author Zheng-Quan Tang, Ph.D., noted that a review of existing scientific literature indicated that many patients reported an increase in tinnitus soon after they began taking SSRIs.”

“…’Estimates vary, but at least 10 percent of the U.S. population is affected by tinnitus,’ Tang said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3035.mp3" length="1923380" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) may be a major cause of heart valve disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3033</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3033</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 01:23:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3033

Serotonin is almost universally portrayed in the media and by conventional psychiatry as the “happy hormone” — a molecule that lifts mood and is worth boosting with SSRIs (Prozac, Zoloft, etc.). Ray has pointed out for many years that this is a dangerous oversimplification. In reality, 90% of serotonin is produced outside the brain (mostly in the gut), and it acts as a stress hormone, promoting vasoconstriction, platelet aggregation, inflammation, and most importantly — fibrosis. Elevated serotonin has long been known to cause heart valve disease in carcinoid syndrome and in patients taking fenfluramine-phentermine (“Fen-Phen”). The study below now confirms that SSRIs (serotonin reuptake inhibitors) accelerate degenerative mitral regurgitation by increasing serotonin availability.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers analyzed over 9,000 patients who had surgery for degenerative mitral regurgitation (DMR) and found a clear pattern: patients taking SSRIs needed surgery at a significantly younger age than those not on these drugs. The mechanism is straightforward: SSRIs block the serotonin transporter (SERT), leaving more serotonin in circulation and in tissues. In the mitral valve, this excess serotonin stimulates valve cells to produce excess collagen, leading to thickening, stiffening, and eventual failure.

The study also identified a genetic variant (5-HTTLPR “long-long” variant) that reduces SERT activity — essentially mimicking the effect of SSRIs. Patients with this variant were more likely to require surgery, and their valve cells were hyper-responsive to serotonin. Animal models confirmed the causal link: mice lacking the SERT gene developed thickened mitral valves, and normal mice given high-dose SSRIs showed similar changes.

This completely contradicts the mainstream narrative that serotonin is a benign “mood regulator.” Serotonin is a potent pro-fibrotic agent. The heart valve findings are not isolated: follow-up studies showed that low SERT activity also contributes to aortic stenosis (calcification and stiffening of the aortic valve) and myocardial fibrosis. Blocking the serotonin receptor HTR2B reduced these harmful changes, pointing toward a potential therapeutic target.

The human-equivalent dose is not applicable here as this was an observational human study and animal dosing study (SSRI doses in mice are not directly translatable to human depression treatment doses). However, the takeaway is clear: long-term SSRI use accelerates existing valve disease. The researchers downplay the risk by stating SSRIs are “generally safe for most patients,” but they admit that once a valve has started to degenerate, serotonin and low SERT activity accelerate progression. Given that millions of people take SSRIs for years or decades, this represents a significant, underappreciated public health risk.

2 links here

“…A large multicenter study has found that this common brain chemical could contribute to faster worsening of degenerative mitral regurgitation, a widespread and potentially serious heart condition.”

“…The research team analyzed records from more than 9,000 patients who had surgery for DMR… They found a clear pattern: patients taking SSRIs tended to need surgery at a younger age than those who were not on these medications.”

“…Mice engineered without the SERT gene developed thicker mitral valves. Normal mice given high doses of SSRIs showed similar changes, suggesting that reduced serotonin reuptake may directly affect valve structure.”

“…People with two copies of the so-called ‘long’ variant have lower SERT activity… Among patients with DMR, those with this ‘long-long’ pattern were more likely to require surgery… At the cellular level, this variant made valve cells more responsive to serotonin, leading them to produce extra collagen. This buildup can stiffen and distort the valve over time.”

“…Mice lacking the serotonin transporter developed not only thickened mitral valves but also myocardial fibrosis, reduced cardiac function, and age-related remodeling changes… The work also found that mitral valve cells were especially sensitive to serotonin-driven, pro-fibrotic signaling.”

“…In aortic stenosis, when SERT activity was low and HTR2B signaling was higher, the aortic valve showed more early scarring and calcium buildup. In mice, blocking HTR2B reduced many of these harmful changes, suggesting it could be a possible target for future treatments.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3033.mp3" length="1458428" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K improves lung function and may prevent COPD, asthma, etc.</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3031</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3031</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 01:05:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3031

Vitamin K is almost always discussed only in the context of blood clotting. Ray has pointed out for years that vitamin K has far broader metabolic roles, including supporting mitochondrial electron transport (as a cofactor for Complex III) and regulating calcium homeostasis. Low vitamin K status is linked to arterial calcification, insulin resistance, and now — as this study shows — poor lung function. The mainstream still frames this as a “dietary association,” but the mechanism is clear: vitamin K supports the energy-producing machinery that every cell, including lung tissue, depends on.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers in Denmark examined over 4,000 people and found that those with low vitamin K levels had significantly worse lung function (spirometry measures) and were twice as likely to have COPD, 81% more likely to have wheeze, and 44% more likely to have asthma. This is the first large population study linking vitamin K to lung health.

The bioenergetic explanation is straightforward. Vitamin K is essential for the proper functioning of the electron transport chain (ETC) in mitochondria, particularly as a cofactor for Complex III (bc1 complex) and as a regenerator of other antioxidants. Without adequate vitamin K, mitochondrial energy production is impaired, leading to increased oxidative stress and inflammation — both of which directly damage lung tissue. Additionally, vitamin K activates Matrix Gla Protein (MGP) , which prevents calcification of soft tissues. Lung tissue requires proper elasticity and calcium balance for normal function, and vitamin K deficiency leads to dysregulated calcium deposition and fibrosis.

The study did not use supplementation, only measured blood levels, so no HED calculation is needed from animal data. However, based on my previous writings and the literature, therapeutically effective doses of vitamin K2 (MK-4 or MK-7) are typically in the range of 45–200 mcg per day for maintenance, and up to 1–5 mg per day for therapeutic effects (e.g., reversing arterial calcification). For lung health specifically, ensuring adequate vitamin K intake through diet (leafy greens, natto, or supplementation) is a simple, inexpensive intervention that mainstream medicine is only now beginning to explore.

The human-equivalent dose is not applicable here as this was an observational human study, not an animal dosing study. However, the takeaway is clear: vitamin K deficiency is common, especially in people with poor diet or malabsorption, and correcting it may protect lung function. I have said for years that vitamin K is not just a “clotting vitamin” — it is a fundamental metabolic support agent.

2 links here

“…People with higher levels of vitamin K – found in broccoli and spinach among other foods – could have better lung function compared with those with lower levels, a preliminary study suggests.”

“…Researchers found that people with higher levels of vitamin K were less likely to have asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or have a wheeze. They were also more likely to perform better on lung health checks.”

“…Researchers found that people with low levels of vitamin K performed worse on these tests. Meanwhile people with low levels of vitamin K were twice as likely to report that they had COPD, 81 per cent more likely to report that they have a wheeze and 44 per cent more likely to report having asthma.”

“…’We already know that vitamin K has an important role in the blood and research is beginning to show that it’s also important in heart and bone health, but there’s been very little research looking at vitamin K and the lungs. To our knowledge, this is the first study on vitamin K and lung function in a large general population. Our results suggest that vitamin K could play a part in keeping our lungs healthy.'”

“…’This interesting research looks at the link between vitamin K and having a lung condition, such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We’d be interested to see further research in this area so we can better understand if levels of vitamin K are directly associated with lung function, which could help us better understand the impact of diet on people with lung conditions.'”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3031.mp3" length="1343468" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide reverses aerobic glycolysis (Warburg Effect)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3029</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3029</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 00:31:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3029

The Warburg effect — the conversion of glucose to lactate even in the presence of oxygen — is not just a feature of cancer cells. It is also characteristic of rapidly proliferating cells like CHO cells used in biopharmaceutical production. I have written extensively about how niacinamide (vitamin B3, also called nicotinamide) can shift metabolism away from glycolysis and toward oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) by increasing NAD+ levels. Mainstream oncology, however, continues to push “cancer starvation” therapies that deprive tumors of glucose — an approach that, as I have shown repeatedly, backfires spectacularly by forcing cancer cells into a dormant, therapy-resistant state. The study below, using CHO cells, provides direct experimental evidence that niacinamide reverses the Warburg effect and forces cells to consume lactate instead of secreting it — exactly the metabolic shift that cancer cells need to become vulnerable, not resistant.

As the study below demonstrates, niacinamide (NAM) supplementation in fed-batch CHO cell cultures reduced peak lactate by 40% and induced the lactate switch 3 days earlier than control conditions. The mechanism is clear: NAM is converted to NAD+ via the salvage pathway (NAMPT → NMN → NAD+), raising intracellular NAD+ levels. This shifts the NAD+/NADH ratio to favor lactate consumption (lactate → pyruvate via LDH, generating NADH) rather than lactate production. Transcriptomic analysis confirmed upregulation of mitochondrial ETC genes (Nd1, Nd2, Nd3, Nd4, Nd4l, Nd5, Cytb, Apt6) and downregulation of glycolytic genes — a complete reversal of the Warburg effect.

The human-equivalent dose (HED) for niacinamide: The study used nominal bioreactor concentrations of 2–5 mM niacinamide. Based on the benchmark that a 3g bolus dose of niacinamide produces approximately 1 mmol/L serum concentration in humans, achieving the 2–5 mM range would require 6–15 grams. However, the study notes that growth attenuation occurred at higher concentrations (5 mM), suggesting the optimal human dose for Warburg reversal without excessive growth suppression is likely in the 3–6 gram range — ideally divided into multiple doses throughout the day to maintain elevated NAD+ without peaking too high. This is consistent with what I have said for years: niacinamide at gram-level doses is a safe, inexpensive metabolic therapy that shifts cellular energy production toward oxidative metabolism.

The implications for cancer are profound. If niacinamide can force CHO cells (which share core metabolic machinery with human cells) to stop secreting lactate and start consuming it, then the same logic applies to cancer cells. Instead of starving them of glucose (which triggers dormancy and resistance), we should be reversing their Warburg metabolism with niacinamide, making them reliant on OXPHOS — and thus reverting them back to their normal metabolic state. The quotes below support that conclusion, as does the previous work I have posted on the forum and on my blog.

link here

“…A key challenge still faced by the biopharmaceutical industry is the accumulation of lactate in cell culture. Lactate accumulation is a result of aerobic glycolysis, also known as the Warburg effect, which is the conversion of glucose to lactate despite the presence of oxygen. The Warburg effect is characteristic of CHO cells.”

“…Figure 1a demonstrates that NAM feed supplementation significantly reduced the average peak lactate concentration, lowering it from an average of 4.0 g/L in the control triplicates to 2.4 g/L in the 2 mM and 5 mM NAM-fed cultures (p = 1.5×10-4), a 40% decrease in peak lactate concentration. As well as decreasing peak lactate, NAM feeding induced a shift to lactate consumption, with the lactate shift occurring on day 5 for both the 2 mM and 5 mM fed cultures, compared to day 8 in the control cultures.”

“…This early switch to lactate consumption is attributed to the conversion of NAM to NAD+ via the salvage pathway, mediated by NAMPT through NMN, leading to increased NAD+ concentrations. The resulting elevated NAD+/NADH ratio strongly favours NAD+ consumption, converting lactate to pyruvate via LDH while generating NADH.”

“…Transcriptomic analysis reveals a shift from glycolytic to oxidative metabolism… DGE analysis between control and NAM-fed revealed 113 upregulated genes and 186 downregulated genes… A key observation is the upregulation of multiple genes in the mitochondrial ETC, particularly Nd1, Nd2, Nd3, Nd4, Nd4l, Nd5, Cytb, and Apt6, which encode subunits of mitochondrial Complexes I, III, and V. This strongly suggests an increase in OXPHOS activity in NAM-fed cultures.”

“…Functional gene enrichment analysis using GSEA… of the four altered pathways, three positively enriched pathways were related to oxidative phosphorylation and mitochondrial ETC activity, while the negatively enriched pathway was linked to PI3K/AKT/mTOR signalling. These findings reinforce the metabolic shift towards OXPHOS and the suppression of growth-associated signalling pathways in NAM-fed cultures.”

“…In this study, NAD+ precursor NAM was supplemented in a fed-batch CHO cell culture. NAM supplementation reduces peak lactate by 40% and reverses the Warburg effect to induce the lactate shift 3 days earlier than control conditions. Transcriptomic data reveal NAM promotes a shift from glycolytic to oxidative metabolism, with an upregulation of key mitochondrial ETC genes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3029.mp3" length="1576628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Starving cancer of glucose is a BAD idea</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3026</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3026</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 23 May 2026 23:57:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3026

For years, mainstream oncology has been pushing the idea of “starving cancer” by depriving tumors of glucose. The logic seems simple: cancer cells consume a lot of glucose (the Warburg effect), so cut the glucose and the cancer dies. I have written extensively about why this is dangerously naive. What actually happens when you starve a cancer cell of glucose? It doesn’t necessarily die. It often enters a dormant, protected state that is highly resistant to therapy. The study below, using starved yeast cells, provides a stunning visual demonstration of this principle — and the implications for cancer treatment are profound.

As the study below demonstrates, starved yeast cells (deprived of glucose) respond by coating their mitochondria with inactive ribosomes. This “shield” forms after protein synthesis halts, and it appears to protect the mitochondria from degradation while keeping essential machinery stored for rapid reactivation when glucose returns. The attachment is mediated by a specific protein tether, and the coating can occur even without mitochondrial fragmentation.

This directly exposes the fatal flaw in “cancer starvation” therapies. When you deprive cancer cells of glucose, you are not necessarily killing them. You are forcing them into a dormant, therapy-resistant state — covered with protective structures, their metabolism downregulated, waiting for the glucose to return. This is why tumors often relapse aggressively after glucose-deprivation strategies (like ketogenic diets or glycolysis inhibitors). The dormant cells survive, and when nutrients become available again, they restart growth with a vengeance. I have said this for years: glucose is not the enemy. Supporting oxidative metabolism and reducing reductive stress is what actually kills cancer cells.

The human-equivalent doses are not applicable here, as this was a mechanistic study in yeast. However, the lesson is clear for anyone considering glucose restriction as a cancer therapy: you may be creating dormant, shielded, therapy-resistant cells instead of killing them.

2 links here

“…Here, we demonstrate that upon glucose depletion protein synthesis is halted.”

“…Over several days without enough sugar, the same machinery locked onto mitochondria, the energy-producing structures inside living cells.”

“…After several days without enough sugar, mitochondria broke into smaller pieces as starvation deepened and drew ribosomes across their outer surfaces… Those ribosomes sat in small groups of two to five, not as loose debris floating through the cell by chance. Their pattern suggested storage with a purpose.”

“…Closer inspection showed that each attached ribosome held on through its small half, an unexpected contact point… Here, the reversed grip hints that starved cells were storing ribosomes, not using them for active protein production.”

“…Cancer researchers care because some tumor cells survive treatment by entering dormancy, a reversible pause in growth… Dormant cells divide slowly or not at all, so treatments aimed at fast-growing cells can miss them… Low oxygen, scarce nutrients, and immune pressure can all push tumor cells toward this hard-to-treat state inside solid tumors.”

“…The starved yeast experiment connects stalled protein building, mitochondria coverage, and cell dormancy into one survival sequence under prolonged hunger. If cancer cells use a related sequence, disrupting the ribosome shield during treatment could make stressed cells easier to expose.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3026.mp3" length="990092" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A high GSSG/GSH ratio (oxidized state) is required for proper protein folding; the opposite favors disease (cancer)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3024</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3024</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 23 May 2026 23:38:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3024

Glutathione is almost always discussed in mainstream medicine as a pure “antioxidant” — with the implicit assumption that more reduced glutathione (GSH) is always better and that any increase in oxidized glutathione (GSSG) represents “oxidative stress” or “damage.” I have pointed out repeatedly that this view is simplistic and often backwards. In reality, the GSSG/GSH ratio is a critical redox signal that must be maintained within a specific range for numerous cellular processes — including protein folding in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Too reductive an environment (too low GSSG/GSH) is just as pathological as too oxidative an environment, if not more so. In corroboration, just a few weeks ago I did a post showing that high GSH (reduced state) is crucial for both cancer initiation and progression, and that pharma companies are now chasing GSH synthesis inhibitor drugs as the “next big thing” in cancer treatments.

As the study below demonstrates, researchers at Rockefeller University have now discovered that the ER requires a high ratio of GSSG to GSH to properly fold proteins. They identified SLC33A1 as the transporter that imports oxidized glutathione (GSSG) into the ER while exporting the reduced form (GSH). When this balance is disrupted, proteins misfold, accumulate, and trigger cell death — linking directly to neurodegenerative diseases (Huppke-Brindle Syndrome) and cancer.

This directly contradicts decades of mainstream antioxidant propaganda. The mainstream has always claimed that elevated GSH (reductive state) is beneficial and that GSSG (oxidative state) is merely a marker of damage. Here, we see that proper protein folding requires an oxidized environment — specifically a high GSSG/GSH ratio. I have discussed this redox principle extensively: the body requires controlled oxidation for essential functions, and the relentless push to “boost GSH” or “scavenge all free radicals” ignores basic cell biology.

2 links here

“…The team determined that this regulator acts as a proofreader, helping ensure that proteins formed in the ER are folded correctly.”

“…Unlike mitochondria, which favor a reduced form of glutathione, the ER requires a more oxidized environment… She found that the ER maintains its oxidized state by importing oxidized glutathione (GSSG) from the cytosol while exporting the reduced form (GSH). Keeping a high ratio of GSSG to GSH is critical. “

“…We discovered that the correct glutathione ratio is essential to a proofreading step in protein folding. It may even be its primary job. So if something goes wrong and the GSSG accumulates, it inhibits an enzyme that relies on the correct oxidation of the ER environment to operate a protein quality control system.”

“…When proteins are misfolded and fail quality control, they are not exported and instead accumulate inside the ER. Over time, this buildup can trigger cell death… ‘Identifying SLC33A1 as the key exporter — and being able to visualize exactly how it binds its cargo — gives us a handle on a process that, when it goes wrong, is linked to neurodegeneration and cancer.'”

“‘…Our findings raise the possibility that the dysfunction of this gene alters the delicate glutathione balance in the ER and leads to protein misfolding during brain development… These cancer cells rely on a high level of glutathione synthesis. So if we were to inhibit the SLC33A1 transporter, the GSSG would accumulate, and the cancer cells would die.'”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3024.mp3" length="1108148" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:34</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A constipation drug can treat kidney disease, likely by lowering endotoxin/LPS</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3022</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3022</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 23 May 2026 22:42:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3022

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is conventionally managed with blood pressure control, protein restriction, and phosphate binders. Constipation — which affects the majority of CKD patients — is rarely treated as a primary intervention. Ray Peat has repeatedly stated that endotoxin (LPS) from intestinal bacteria is a major driver of systemic inflammation, fibrosis, and organ damage, including kidney disease. He has long recommended simple interventions like carrot salad to reduce constipation and lower endotoxin absorption. Now, a randomized clinical trial has confirmed that treating constipation directly slows kidney decline — but the researchers misinterpreted the mechanism.

As the study below demonstrates, the constipation drug lubiprostone significantly slowed the decline of kidney function (eGFR) in patients with moderate CKD over 24 weeks. The higher dose (16 mcg) outperformed the lower dose (8 mcg), which outperformed placebo. The researchers observed changes in gut bacteria and increased levels of spermidine, which they attribute to mitochondrial protection.

However, from the bioenergetic perspective, the primary mechanism is almost certainly endotoxin reduction. Constipation increases gut transit time, which allows Gram-negative bacteria to proliferate and release large quantities of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). LPS absorbed from the gut circulates to the kidneys, where it triggers inflammation, oxidative stress, fibrosis, and mitochondrial dysfunction. By relieving constipation, lubiprostone reduces LPS load, thereby lowering the inflammatory burden on the kidneys. The observed increase in spermidine may be a secondary or parallel effect — but the core intervention is simply keeping the gut moving.

This explains why Ray Peat recommended carrot salad (fiber that binds endotoxin) and other pro-motility agents for kidney protection. The drug industry has now accidentally validated what Peat has said for decades: treat constipation, lower endotoxin, protect the kidneys. The human-equivalent doses are already provided in the article as the clinical doses used (8 mcg and 16 mcg daily), since this was a human trial — no animal-to-human conversion is needed.

Once again, a simple intervention targeting gut motility outperforms complex pharmaceutical approaches by addressing the root issue: endotoxin-driven inflammation.

2 links here

“Some received a placebo. Others took 8 micrograms or 16 micrograms of lubiprostone daily for 24 weeks… The primary measure was estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). In moderate kidney disease, that number falls year over year.”

“Patients on placebo did what the research predicted. Their eGFR drifted downward over the six-month window. The lubiprostone groups did not – or did so more slowly. Higher doses held kidney function steadier. The 16 microgram group outperformed the 8 microgram group, which in turn outperformed placebo.”

“When the gut microbiome falls out of balance, inflammation tends to rise and bacterial byproducts that should leave the body start to build up instead.”

“The mechanism is where the work gets strange… the drug had reshaped which bacteria were thriving in patients’ guts… Spermidine has drawn attention in aging research for its effects on mitochondria – the tiny structures inside cells that turn nutrients into usable energy. Kidney cells… are particularly sensitive to mitochondrial decline.”

“Going in, the researchers had a different prediction. They expected lubiprostone to lower uremic toxins… That is not what happened. Uremic toxin levels held roughly steady throughout. The kidney benefit traveled through a different route entirely: gut bacteria changes and mitochondrial support, not detoxification.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3022.mp3" length="1177172" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Thymoquinone and LOW-DOSE glycine, fully reverses diabetes type II</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3020</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3020</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 23 May 2026 21:58:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3020

Diabetes is conventionally managed with insulin or oral hypoglycemics, yet the global burden continues to rise, and side effects remain significant. Ray has discussed at length the metabolic and anti-inflammatory roles of simple amino acids (like glycine) and natural quinones (like thymoquinone from Nigella sativa, black seed oil). Glycine supports collagen synthesis, anti-oxidation, and immune regulation, while thymoquinone has been shown to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation. However, their combination had not been formally investigated in a controlled diabetic model until now.

As the study below demonstrates, combining glycine with thymoquinone produces effects far superior to either compound alone — effectively normalizing fasting blood glucose, reversing insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), restoring beta-cell function (HOMA-%B), and completely protecting pancreatic histology in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. The synergistic antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects were so pronounced that the combination group surpassed even healthy controls on several metrics, including body weight, GSH (glutathione), and insulin sensitivity.

The human-equivalent doses (HED) of the substances used in the study are 4.86 mg/kg for thymoquinone and 16.2 mg/kg for glycine. For a 70 kg adult, this translates to approximately 340 mg of thymoquinone and just 1.13 grams of glycine per day.

Once again, a simple amino acid (glycine) and a plant-derived quinone (thymoquinone) outperform standard monotherapies by addressing the root metabolic issues: oxidative stress, inflammation, and insulin resistance. The fact that the combination restored HOMA-%B (beta-cell function) to 101.9 — essentially normal — in a model of streptozotocin-induced beta-cell destruction is remarkable. This is what happens when you support cellular energy production and reduce reductive stress simultaneously. As always, these are animal data, but the magnitude of effect suggests human trials would be warranted. The quotes below support that conclusion, as does the previous work cited in the intro.

link here

“…Effects of thymoquinone and glycine treatments were appreciated, however effects of thymoquinone combined with glycine were much better. In conclusion, thymoquinone and glycine combination can effectively reduce both blood sugar and diabetic-associated complications through their synergistic, strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which support the body’s natural cytoprotective ability.”

“…The most impressive outcome was seen with the combination, which brought levels down to nearly normal, around 73 mg/dL (vs. 410 in diabetics) and 4.07% HbA1C (vs. 9.38% in diabetics) (P < 0.05 vs. diabetes, Q, and G).”

“…Importantly, the combination (Q+G) yielded the most substantial improvements across all measured parameters. Insulin levels normalized to 2.85 µg/L, HOMA-IR decreased to 0.515, and both insulin sensitivity and β-cell function were markedly restored (HOMA-%S: 194.5; HOMA-%B: 101.9) with a QUICKI of 0.428 (P < 0.05 vs. diabetic, Q, and G).”

“…The Q+G combination produced the most intense enhancement, restoring GSH to 15.54 nmol/g tissue (vs. 2.15 in diabetics, P < 0.05 vs. all other groups)… MDA levels were significantly elevated in the diabetes group (7.72), with Q+G demonstrating the most significant decrease to 1.00 (P < 0.05 vs. diabetic, Q, and G).”

“…The combination of thymoquinone and glycine showed better efficient attenuation than the individual treatments… nearly normal acini, decreased inflammatory infiltration, and reduced hemorrhage.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3020.mp3" length="1095860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Tuinone – Liquid Product with Thymoquinone</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3013</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3013</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:02:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3013

The topic of quinones probably does not need an extensive introduction in light of Ray’s extensive writings and interviews on the topic. Quinones are a cornerstone of the bioenergetic theory given their pro-metabolic nature as a result of their effects on improving mitochondrial biogenesis/function, promoting thyroid/gonadal function while restraining the stress/adrenal axis, reducing reactive oxygen species (ROS), mitigating cellular damage from a variety of exogenous (both chemical and physical) and endogenous (e.g. endotoxin/LPS, nitric oxide, PUFA  metabolites and peroxdation byproducts), reducing inflammation, reducing muscle/bone/tissue catabolism, ameliorating the various biomarkers of aging, extending lifespan, etc. Ray’s articles mention numerous examples of quinones such as CoQ10, emodin, the tetracycline class of antibiotics, vitamin K, methylene blue, etc. In a few interviews he gave, Ray also mentioned another quinone naturally occurring in the seeds of Nigella sativa, or more commonly known as black cumin. The seeds of that plant contain the benzoquinone known as thymoquinone (TQ), and it is a simple molecule based on the 1,4-benzoquinone skeleton, but with two additional isopropyl groups attached to it, which makes TQ both more lipophilic and more stable.

link here

As Ray mentioned in the interviews below, TQ exhibits a similar broad spectrum of beneficial effects as other quinones mentioned above, including potentially acting as a thyroid mimetic, which is a very rare property for a naturally occurring molecule as agonists of the thyroid receptor in nature (outside the mammalian body) are very rare.

link here

“…RP: Recently people are talking about an Asian herb, I think one of the names is Black cumin, but it contains thymol quinone. And the quinones are, I think, the essential; model of the protective pro-oxidant stabilising chemical, and thymol quinone is considered to be a very powerful anti-inflammatory. And I suspect that it will turn out to be acting against excess nitric oxide.”

Below are several more studies and individual reports discussing specifically the pro-thyroid effects of TQ, in both humans and animals. It is worth noting that most of these studies used powder made from grinding the black cumin seeds, which results in a powder that likely contains strong metabolic and digestive inhibitors in addition to TQ. As Ray has repeatedly mentioned, seeds of plants are likely to contain the most potent toxins because the plant is trying to protect the seed from being consumed/digested by animals or destroyed by pathogens. As such, using black cumin powder (or even oil extracted from the seeds) may have a less-pronounced pro-thyroid effects compared to pure TQ, since the pro-thyroid effects of TQ would be competing against the anti-thyroid and/or toxic effects of the other chemicals in the seed the plant deposited there as natural seed defenses.

10 links here

The studies on pro-thyroid effects are, of course, a small portion of all the studies conducted with TQ. Currently, PubMed lists 2,300+ published studies on TQ going all the way back to the early 1960s. Those studies cover a number of different health areas such as cancer, metabolic (in the allopathic medical sense) conditions, cardiovascular/pulmonary conditions, acute/chronic inflammation and allergy-related conditions, bone/dental conditions, neurological/mental conditions, gastrointestinal tract (GI) / hepatic / renal conditions, infection diseases, etc.

In light of the extensive peer-reviewed scientific evidence, spanning multiple decades, examining the numerous health effects ot TQ, we decided to release it as a liquid product, which contains only the pure TQ molecule, without any other residues such as toxins and/or metabolic inhibitors, as well as PUFA and its peroxidation byproducts found in black cumin seed powder or oils.

The units listed on the label are just for measurement purposes. They do not indicate suggested or optimal dose.

NOTE: The liquid in the product has an intense odor reminiscent of oregano or (black) cumin.

****************************************************************************

Tuinone is a liquid product containing pure thymoquinone (TQ). The TQ molecule has been the subject of extensive research going back to at least the 1960s. Black cumin seeds/oils are also used in folk medicine for a very wide spectrum of conditions in many Middle Eastern and South Asian countries, including conditions related to underactive (hypo) thyroid gland states caused by a variety of physical and chemical assaults or “autoimmune” states such as Hashimoto thyroiditis.

It can be bought from the link here link.

Drops per container: about 360

Each drop contains the following ingredients:

Thymoquinone (CAS 490-91-5)           4mg

Other ingredients: add product to shopping cart to see info

****************************************************************************

References:

1. Cancer

190 links here

2. Metabolic

11 links here

3. Cardiovascular/Pulmonary

17 links here

4. Inflammation/Allergy

14 links here

5. Osteo/Dental

7 links here

6. Neurological/Mental

195 links here

7. Gastrointestinal/Hepatic/Renal

218 links here

8. Infections (first 200 URLs)

185 links here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3013.mp3" length="2369972" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide and/or methionine depletion is therapeutic for brain cancer (glioblastoma)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3010</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3010</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 23:56:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3010

I just did a post on how depletion of cysteine (a reductant and glutathione precursor) is therapeutic for an aggressive form of breast cancer. Another post, just a few hours ago, showed that niacin treatment may be therapeutic precisely for brain cancer (glioblastoma) and as such the treatment is in Phase II human clinical trials. While the studies with niacin claim that its benefit was based on niacin sensitizing cancer cells to chemotherapy and radiation, while also increasing immune cell activity (T-cells). However, I think this explanation is deliberately misleading in order to conceal the fact that vitamin B3 (in that case, niacin) has pro-metabolic effects that are known to be therapeutic for cancer, even when vitamin B3 is used as the main therapy and not as an adjuvant. While most of the studies that used vitamin B3 for cancer have so far focused on the role of this vitamin as an NAD+ precursor thus restoring mitochondrial NAD+ levels known to be depleted in cancer, the study below describes another beneficial mechanism of vitamin B3, in this case niacinamide. Namely, higher niacinamide levels are known to saturated the NAD+ synthesizing enzyme NAMPT and the excess niacinamide is converted into N1-methylnicotinamide by gaining a methyl group from the amino acid methionine. Thus, excess niacinamide serves as a methyl sink and consumes methionine, thus mimicking methionine restriction/deficiency. Methionine has a known role as a potent metabolic inhibitor and studies with methionine restriction have demonstrated multiple health benefits such as reversal of obesity (including in humans), amelioration of diabetes, aging, and even extension of (maximum) lifespan. Thus, the findings of the study below that methionine depletion through dietary restriction and/or excess niacinamide once again underscores the nature of cancer as metabolic disease.

2 links here

“…In tumors of patients with glioblastoma, NNMT outcompetes NAMPT, the enzyme responsible for NAD+ production, for nicotinamide (Fig. 3S, link here). This form of vitamin B3 efficiently permeates the brain (Figs. 3, R and S, link here, and 4, O and P, link here) where the tumor-specific methyltransferase activity of NNMT introduces a positive charge on its pyridine ring. These findings provided a clear mechanistic rationale to design a nicotinamide-based PET tracer for the metabolic imaging of glioblastoma, which can be enhanced by the administration of dexamethasone (Fig. 5E, link here). Our approach shows the feasibility of radiochemical synthesis of 11C-nicotinamide, and the imaging results demonstrate its suitability to visualize tumors in orthotopic models of glioblastoma (Fig. 5D, link here), strengthening the case for clinical development of novel PET tracers based on vitamin B3 analogs. Last, we show that dexamethasone promotes the diversion of methionine-derived methyl groups toward N1-methylnicotinamide, sensitizing glioblastoma tumors to methionine restriction. Our results align with a recent report showing that methionine restriction diet as single treatment did not significantly decrease the levels of methionine and growth of another intracranial glioblastoma tumor model (39, link here). Our working model, supported by evidence obtained in culture (Fig. 3, O to Q, link here) and in vivo (Fig. 5, I to L, link here), suggests that a methionine-restricted diet would synergize with the systemic rewiring of methionine metabolism imposed by dexamethasone, resulting in a brain-specific metabolic state with antitumor effects for glioblastoma (Fig. 5M, link here). Given the scarcity of effective therapies for glioblastoma, we believe that these results achieved by combining dexamethasone, already a de facto standard of care for many patients with glioblastoma, with methionine restriction diet in a clinically relevant model represent a meaningful advance that warrants further exploration.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3010.mp3" length="935540" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Rapid fat loss can cause diabetes and liver disease, likely due to systemic exposure to free fatty acids</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3007</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3007</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 22:24:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3007

When people asked Ray during interviews and in emails about weight loss, he always cautioned that rapid weight loss through fasting and/or exhaustive exercise is likely to be harmful due to increased lipolysis and thus PUFA flooding the bloodstream and literally poisoning the rest of the body. It seems that one of the main roles of adipose tissue is not only to store energy (in the form of fat) for use during emergencies (e.g. prolonged lack of food), but also to keep the evil PUFA away from other organs. Multiple studies have demonstrated that when a meal is consumed, the saturated fats are preferentially oxidized as fuel, while PUFA (and to a lesser degree, MUFA) are preferentially stored in adipose tissue in an inert (triglyceride) form. While in “storage”, PUFA is a lot less dangerous than when floating around the blood and while still subject to peroxidation the negative effects are largely contained to the adipose tissue. Said peroxidation can also be safely inhibited by taking antioxidants such as vitamin E, but that approach only works while PUFA is stored. When PUFA is released into the blood, it is released in the form of free fatty acids (NEFA), and the elevation of NEFA has been shown by countless studies to cause damage to virtually any organ exposed to NEFA. It is now known that the kidney damage seen in virtually all patients with diabetes II is due to chronic exposure to NEFA, and the same has been shown to be true for liver disease, and even neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s. As such, keeping PUFA stored rather than floating around is perhaps the best approach while a person works on thyroid and eliminating PUFA from diet so that total PUFA stores are replaced slowly and with as little NEFA elevation as possible. So, it seems that carrying extra weight and working to slowly get rid of it while also changing its composition is preferable to the “shock and awe” approach we keep heating about from every doctor and fitness/exercise commercial on TV and social media.

2 links here

“…Many people may have a dim view of their fat tissue, yet scientists have come to recognize adipose as a necessary and metabolically active organ, carrying out many vital functions within the body. In the case of obesity, too much fat can contribute to conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. Intriguingly, for people with certain rare genetic and autoimmune disorders, such as familial partial lipodystrophy type 2 (FPLD2), the abnormal loss and distribution of adipose tissue can also lead to diabetes and metabolic disease.”

“…A simple explanation is that all of the fat cells (adipocytes) have really catastrophic things happening in them,” said Maung. The team created a mouse model in which they inducibly knocked out the lamin A/C gene in adipocytes, which is mutated in patients with FPLD2…The team observed in both animal models and in patient donor tissue that dramatic gene expression changes lead to the fat cells being unable to carry out their normal lipid handling and storage functions. In addition, the fat cells themselves and the immune cells within adipose tissue became pro-inflammatory. Finally, mitochondria inside the fat cells became dysfunctional. Said Maung, “All of these effects come together to create this perfect environment for the tissue to be really unhealthy and eventually disappear.” In the absence of healthy adipose tissue, the normal maintenance of lipids and release of metabolic hormones goes awry, leading to metabolic diseases like diabetes and fatty liver disease. “This is really underscoring the importance of healthy fats in keeping metabolism intact and functional,” said Oral. People think of Type 2 diabetes as a disease of beta cells, but it’s actually a disease of fat cells, too.” The team hopes that these insights will help identify future therapeutic targets, enable targeting of adipose tissue to prevent it from disappearing, and correct metabolic dysfunction in this disease.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3007.mp3" length="951068" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Depleting/blocking cysteine (a reductant and glutathione precursor) found to be therapeutic in cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3005</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3005</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 22:07:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3005

Ray wrote many articles about the redox state of cancer cells and their overall reductive state. In addition, he mentioned he crucial role reduced glutathione (GSH) plays in protecting cancer cells from the immune system (T-cells) and the toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) cancer cells produce due to their excessive oxidation of fatty acids. Studies as far back as the 1950s demonstrated that GSH depletion strongly inhibits tumor growth and/or makes the cancer cells much more responsive to traditional therapy, especially chemo and radiation. One of the main mechanism’s of action for aspirin, acetoacetate, and various quinones (e.g. emodin, vitamin K, CoQ10, tetracyclines, methylene blue, etc) is depletion of GSH and conversion into the oxidized version GSSG. Medicine views GSH depletion as bad, but this dogma does not stand up to scrutiny. While depletion of the so-called “total glutathione pool” is arguably not healthy, the substances mentioned above do not deplete it, but rather convert GSH into GSSG. Thus, the total glutathione pool remains largely unchanged, but the GSH/GSSG ratio drops and that changes the redox state of the cell away from reduction towards oxidation.

One of the required precursors for glutathione synthesis is cysteine. Ray wrote about the role of cysteine as a reductant and thyroid inhibitor (as well as the similar role of methionine, tryptophan, ammonia, histamine, serotonin, etc), so cysteine seems to have a direct negative effect of its own, but its role in cancer is probably more related to its role as glutathione precursor. Depletion of cysteine has been shown to inhibit GSH synthesis and would thus also be expected to be therapeutic for cancer. Since cysteine is a non-essential amino acid, dietary restriction may not have a significant enough impact on cancer (though, it would still be beneficial for metabolism). A direct interference with endogenous cysteine availability is needed for cancer therapy. Rather than target L-cysteine directly, the study below simply gave the animals with cancer a supplement of the mirror (chiral) image of L-cysteine known as D-cysteine. The latter has the same molecular mass and structure as L-cysteine, but cannot be used by the body for GSH synthesis. In effect, this amounts of (L)cysteine depletion, and this approach was also found to inhibit tumor growth. Finally, this approach seems to target exclusively cancer cells and leaves normal cells unharmed, demonstrating that neither cysteine nor glutathione are as crucial for good health as many medical articles would have us believe.

2 links here

“…Many cancer treatments harm healthy tissue along with tumors, often leading to serious side effects. To reduce this collateral damage, researchers are searching for therapies that act only on cancer cells. An international research team led by the Universities of Geneva (UNIGE), link here and Marburg has identified an unusual approach involving a “mirror” version of the amino acid cysteine. This sulfur-containing molecule sharply slows the growth of certain cancers while leaving healthy cells unaffected. Because it is taken up mainly by specific cancer cells, the compound disrupts essential functions such as cellular respiration and DNA production. In experiments with mice, this strategy significantly reduced the growth of aggressive breast tumors, suggesting a promising and highly targeted treatment avenue. The results are reported in Nature Metabolism.”

“…Amino acids are the basic building blocks of proteins and are essential for life. All organisms rely on the same set of 20 amino acids, which exist in two structural forms known as L (levorotatory) and D (dextrorotatory). These forms are mirror images of each other, comparable to left and right hands. Although they share the same chemical makeup, their three-dimensional arrangement differs. Human cells almost exclusively use the L forms to build proteins, while D forms play little role in normal biology. The research team, led by Jean-Claude Martinou, Honorary Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the UNIGE Faculty of Science, examined how different amino acids influence cancer cell behavior. Their experiments revealed that the D form of cysteine (D-Cys), which contains a sulfur atom, strongly suppresses the growth of certain cancer cells in laboratory conditions. Notably, healthy cells were unaffected, highlighting a striking level of selectivity.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3005.mp3" length="1269380" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Phase II human study with vitamin B3 for brain cancer (glioblastoma)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3003</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3003</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 21:46:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3003

This type of cancer is one of the deadliest and even with treatment the prognosis is very poor. Low double digits survival rate after 5 years. This is the same type of cancer that killed Senators Kennedy and McCain. A few years ago, there was an animal study showing vitamin B3 greatly inhibits the growth of this cancer. It appears, Big Pharma took notes and is quietly switching to pro-metabolic therapies for cancer. At first, they will call it “adjuvant” therapy so that they don’t kill their blockbuster chemotherapy drugs. In a few years, we will probably see this patented vitamin B3 formulation promoted as a “paradigm shift” in cancer therapy and being promoted as the main/only treatment while cytotoxic therapy is quietly phased out. It looks like the daily dose will be around 2g daily, which is high but still below the dose of 3g shown to be the limit for no side effects in humans.

2 links here

“…Survival of patients with glioblastoma (GB) treated with standard of care (SOC) surgery, radiotherapy, and temozolomide is 15 months with progression free survival at 6 months (PFS-6 M) of 53.9%. In vivo studies showed increased survival in mice with GB treated with niacin. This is a first in human Phase I-II study aiming to evaluate safety and efficacy of controlled-release niacin (NiacinCRT ™) added to SOC.

Methods

Patients 18–75 years old with newly diagnosed glioblastoma eligible for SOC treatment were included. Phase I evaluated intra-patient dose escalation of niacin (500–3000 mg/d) to determine dose limiting toxicity (DLT), maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and recommended phase II dose (RP2D). Phase II aims to determine if niacin adds ≥ 20% absolute increase in PFS-6 M over historical controls. Interim/futility analysis was planned when 24 patients become evaluable for PFS-6 M. The study would stop if the conditional power (one-sided Z test) < 20% or futility index > 80%.

Results

Phase I included 15 patients; median age: 57 years (37–68), 40% women, and 47% with MGMT promoter methylated. The most common side effect was flushing (10/15; 9 grade 1). Two DLTs occurred at 2,500 mg/d niacin (grade 3 thrombocytopenia and hyperbilirubinemia). Niacin dose escalated up to 2000 mg/d is the ongoing RP2D. Interim analysis by central radiology review reported PFS-6 M of 82.3% (CI95% 82.14–82.46%).

Conclusion

The MTD dose of niacin added to first line treatment in patients with GB is 2000 mg/d. The interim analysis already showed an absolute increase in PFS-6 M of 28%.

…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3003.mp3" length="477020" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin A and thyroid are crucial for good eyesight in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=3000</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=3000</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 21:26:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=3000

I know I will get hatemail again due to mentioning again the benefits of vitamin A, but the results of the study below are hard to argue with. It appears, vitamin A (retinoic acid) is required for the first step of retinal cell differentiation during fetal development, and thyroid hormone is required for the second one. The role of vitamin A in eyesight has been known for quite some time, to the point that the US Navy ran human experiments during the Cold War with a vitamin A analog trying to get humans to be able to see in the dark like nocturnal animals. Thyroid hormone’s role is less known, but considering the retina is part of the central nervous system and the latter is extremely sensitive to metabolic disturbances, the fact that good thyroid function is required for good vision is not really all that surprising. Ray did recommend thyroid and vitamin A to people with poor eyesight, especially the elderly, as well as serotonin antagonists. Since serotonin is the primary “brake” on oxidative metabolism in the central nervous system, his recommendations make perfect sense, and match the findings of the study below.

2 links here

“…The Johns Hopkins team concluded the distribution of cones in the foveola results from a coordinated process of cell fate specification and conversion during early development. Initially, a sparse number of blue cones are present in the foveola at weeks 10 through 12. But, by week 14, they transform into red and green cones. The patterning occurs by way of two processes, the new study shows. First, a molecule derived from vitamin A called retinoic acid is broken down to limit the creation of blue cones. Second, thyroid hormones encourage blue cones to convert into red and green cones. “First, retinoic acid helps set the pattern. Then, thyroid hormone plays a role in converting the leftover cells,” Johnston said. “That’s very important because if you have those blue cones in there, you don’t see as well.” The findings offer a different perspective to the prevailing theory that blue cones migrate to other parts of the retina during development. Instead, the data suggest that these cells convert to achieve optimal cone distribution in the foveola. “The main model in the field from about 30 years ago was that somehow the few blue cones you get in that region just move out of the way, that these cells decide what they’re going to be, and they remain this type of cell forever,” Johnston said. “We can’t really rule that out yet, but our data supports a different model. These cells actually convert over time, which is really surprising.” The insights could pave the way for new therapies for vision loss.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-3000.mp3" length="531284" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:12</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin/LPS can cause spontaneous abortion by raising nitric oxide (NO)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2996</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2996</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 04:43:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2996

I am posting this study as a kind of a follow-up on the one I posted just minutes ago about nitrates (NO precursors) in tap water causing dementia. Well, it sure seems like endotoxin rears its ugly head in pretty much any health condition medicine knows of. Now, we can add spontaneous abortion (SA) to the list of those conditions. SA is considered “idiopathic”, yet somehow linked to inflammation, hormones, age and metabolic status. Mainstream medicine says there are no known preventive of therapeutic for this condition, despite many animal studies demonstrating aspirin, progesterone, thyroid, vitamin E, etc to be able to prevent it and often stop it even after it is already underway. The study below shows that endotoxin, which is something every person is exposed to multiple times on a daily basis simply due to eating is perfectly capable of causing SA by itself. Interestingly, the known pro-inflammatory effects of endotoxin did not seem to be at play this time. Rather, it was the increase in NO (also a known effect of elevated endotoxin) that correlated well with the rates of SA in the animals subjected to endotoxin exposure. Considering how common chronic, low-grade endotoxemia is, it is not a too much of a leap of faith to conjecture that a good number of SA cases are of dietary/digestive origin. This study is even more relevant in the context of the ubiquity of  nitrates (NO precursors) in tap water as per the post I mentioned above. In terms of interventions, substances with known anti-NO effects include methylene blue, niacinamide, progesterone, and the amino acid lysine.

link here

“…In this report, we examined the involvement of the cytokines tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, interferon (IFN)-gamma, interleukin (IL)-4, and IL-10 as well as nitric oxide (NO) in the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced experimental abortion model in BALB/c mice. Although in vivo administration of LPS in pregnant mice showed a 72% decrease of serum IL-10, no significant difference in serum TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma, and IL-4 levels, compared to controls, could be detected. At the same time, a correlation of fetal abortion and maternal splenomegaly with an important increase of NO synthesis in the serum was obtained. Simultaneous administration of LPS and aminoguanidine (AG; an inhibitor to NO synthase) rescued the LPS-induced fetal abortion, reduced maternal spleen weight to physiological levels, and decreased serum NO concentration to control levels. In vitro experiments showed that LPS directly induced NO production in primary placental cells and the TPOPHO-1 trophoblast cell line by stimulating the inducible isoform of NO synthase, which ultimately could be blocked by the NO synthase inhibitors AG and L-NAME. The results indicate that LPS, despite its beneficial involvement in intracellular infections, participates in inflammatory/autoimmune damage during pregnancy, leading to embryotoxicity, which is closely linked to the NO pathway.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2996.mp3" length="803924" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Nitrate exposure from drinking water, even below regulatory limits, increases dementia risk</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2994</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2994</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 04:13:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2994

Years ago, I did a post on a study showing that exposure to nitrates from processed foods (mostly meats such as sausages, salami, bacon, etc) increased risk of developing mania and bipolar disorder. The study below now suggests that such exposure can also increase dementia risk. Since Alzheimer Disease (AD) is a type of dementia, the importance of this study cannot be overstated. Notably, unlike the dietary nitrate exposure study, which dealt with people exposed to nitrate levels within the established regulatory limit of nitrates used as a preservatives and color-protectors in foods, the current study showed that exposure to nitrates at levels much lower than the allowable regulatory limit increases risk of dementia. While the study tries to argue that the increased risk is from nitrosamines that form when nitrates interact with proteins, I think the evidence points to nitric oxide (NO) as the more likely culprit. The reason is that nitrosamines usually form only under very high temperatures (e.g. cooking), while NO readily forms at body temperature as soon as a person ingests a food or drink that contains nitrates. As such, drinking nitrate-laced water is not likely to lead to formation of nitrosamines, while it will most certainly lead to increased formation of NO.

2 links here

“…This is the first time that nitrate from drinking water has been linked to higher risks of dementia. The study found that participants exposed to drinking-water nitrate at levels below the current regulatory limits, had a higher rate of dementia, however, Dr. Bondonno stressed that this was only one study, and more research was required. “Water doesn’t contain antioxidants that can block the formation of N-nitrosamines. Without these protective compounds, nitrate in drinking water may form N-nitrosamines in the body,” she said. In Denmark and the EU, the limit for nitrate in groundwater and drinking water is set at 50 mg/L, but the researchers observed a higher risk for drinking water containing as low as 5 mg of nitrate per liter.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2994.mp3" length="642284" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Intermittent fasting may worsen diabetes type II</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2992</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2992</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 03:40:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2992

The topic of intermittent fasting is a very controversial one and something that generates heated debates in medical circles, given that it mimics the metabolic effects of low-carb diets. The study below, which tracked the blood profile of people during Ramadan fasting (fasting for 10-12 hours – from sunrise to sundown), found that the end of the fasting period, the patients has significantly higher blood glucose, triglycerides and cholesterol levels in the group of patients already diagnosed with diabetes type II (DM). All three of those are key biomarkers are also used as reliable risk factors for future DM exacerbation, as well as development of other conditions such as cardiovascular disease (CVD). While the parameters returned to baseline after the fasting period concluded, the rise in those biomarkers is still concerning and point to intermittent fasting being not safe for people with already established metabolic conditions. Also, given that those biomarkers are used to also diagnose DM, it is not known whether repeated periods of month-long intermittent fasting (in this case Ramadan fasting) won’t eventually lead to health exacerbation even in healthy people and development of DM.

link here

“…In the overall population, there was no significant change in absolute aspirin reaction unit (ARU) values and in metabolic parameters. In DM patients (n = 127), ARU change from Pre-R values was+19.7 (p = 0.01) and +14.4 (p = 0.02) respectively at R and Post-R. During Ramadan, glycaemia, triglycerides, and cholesterol levels increased significantly and returned to Pre-R values thereafter. These changes were not observed in non-DM patients.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2992.mp3" length="556124" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Global warming increases the degradation of a gas that…causes global warming</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2990</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2990</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 03:26:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2990

No, this is not the Onion, though it might as well be. I am only posting this to show the absurdity in some of the reasoning the “global warming”  industry and the evidence it uses to justify its claims. In this case, the study below demonstrated that increased levels of CO2  – the prime suspect in “global warming” – increases the degradation of another “greenhouse” gas accumulating in the atmosphere. The latter has is nitrous oxide, known as “laughing gas” and often used as a general anesthetic in medicine, as well a recreational drug users. The study claims that it is the changes in the levels of N2O that track more closely the observed temperature changes over the last few decades, and as such the projected climate changes for the rest of the 21st century may need to be significantly revised. Oh, and according to the study below, the “evil” greenhouse gas CO2 apparently cools the stratosphere, while warming up air near the Earth’s surface, thus making its net temperature effect on the global ecosystem unclear. It looks like climate science it not dissimilar to mainstream medicine, where the truth if often 180 degrees away from what is officially being served to the general public.

2 links here

“…Scientists at the University of California, Irvine have discovered that climate change is causing nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting substance, to break down in the atmosphere more quickly than previously thought, introducing significant uncertainty into climate projections for the rest of the 21st century. Using extended satellite observations from NASA’s Microwave Limb Sounder spanning two decades (2004–2024), researchers from UC Irvine’s Department of Earth System Science found that N2O’s atmospheric lifetime is decreasing at a rate of 1.4% per decade…”The change in the life cycle of atmospheric nitrous oxide is a critical piece of the puzzle that has been largely overlooked,” said co-author Michael Prather, UC Irvine professor of Earth system science. “While most research has focused on projecting changing N2O emissions from human activities, we’ve shown that climate change itself is altering how quickly this gas is destroyed in the stratosphere—and this effect cannot be ignored in future climate assessments.””

“…Key findings outlined in the paper include the revelation that the current mean lifetime of N2O is 117 years, but that is decreasing at approximately a year and a half per decade. The decrease in N2O lifespan is consistent with observed changes in stratospheric circulation and temperature patterns. When extrapolated to the year 2100, the lifetime change produces shifts in atmospheric nitrous oxide equivalent to significant shifts in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. The study’s authors note that while a buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide results in warmer temperatures near Earth’s surface, CO2 cools the stratosphere, which affects the chemical reactions that destroy N2O and produce nitrogen oxides that deplete ozone. “This cooling, combined with changes in atmospheric circulation patterns, is speeding up the transport of N2O to the regions where it’s destroyed. It’s a feedback loop that adds another layer of complexity to climate projections,” explained co-author Calum Wilson, a UC Irvine graduate student researcher in Earth system science.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2990.mp3" length="604556" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Even mild inhibition of oxidative metabolism may cause szhizophrenia, naicinamide reverses it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2988</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2988</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 03:04:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2988

An excellent set of studies, demonstrating that another “mysterious” and “genetically-predisposed” condition can be caused entirely by impaired metabolism. It has been known for a long time that people with low thyroid function have a much rate of mental health conditions, especially depression and psychotic states. Schizophrenia, being a type of psychosis is also observed much more often in hypo thyroid people than in the general population. Ray published a newsletter dedicated to schizophrenia more than decade ago and in that newsletter he made a strong case for this condition being driven by low oxidative metabolism in the brain, and especially with inability to properly metabolize glucose. The first study below corroborates Ray’s arguments with human data. One interesting finding in this new study is that even mild inhibition (18%) of the electron transport chain (ETC) is sufficient to cause the functional and structural phenotype of schizophrenia in cells. Thus, one does not need to be in full-blown clinical hypothyroidism in order to develop this psychotic condition. As such, the notorious chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) method comes to mind, both due to ts established efficacy at inducing virtually any mental health condition in animal models, as well as its wide applicability to humans, considering virtually all people living in “developed” countries are exposed to CUMS throughout most of their lifetimes. The good news is that a relative low concentration of niacinamide (10uM/L) was able to reverse most of the issues caused by ETC inhibition (ETC I, to be precise). The benefit of niacinamide were, predictably, due to its role as a precursor to NAD+. That concentration of niacinamide in humans can be achieved with 50mg-100mg taken 2-3 times daily, which happens to be precisely the dose Ray has been recommending to people throughout the years.

5 links here

“…Mitochondrial function is essential for key neurodevelopmental processes, including cellular proliferation, differentiation, migration, synaptogenesis, and synaptic pruning. Previous research from our group demonstrated that neonatal administration of Rotenone (Rot), a mitochondrial complex I inhibitor, led to mitochondrial dysfunction and schizophrenia-like behavioral phenotypes. In this study, we aimed to identify possible cellular pathways disrupted by Rot exposure that may underlie these behavioral alterations. Thus, primary cortical neurons were treated with 1.325 nM Rot for 24 h, a concentration extrapolated from cortical levels observed in the neonatal Rot model. This treatment impaired mitochondrial complex I activity, decreased superoxide production, disrupted mitochondrial respiration and dynamics, reduced dendritic branching, and decreased synapse formation. Notably, pretreatment with Nicotinamide (NAM), a NAD precursor, improved mitochondrial function, reversing these effects. Altogether, our findings underscore the critical role of mitochondrial integrity in neurodevelopment and its potential contribution to neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia.”

“…Significantly, despite not inducing cytotoxicity, treatment with 1.325nM Rot for 24 hours reduced mitochondrial complex I (CI) activity by approximately 18% compared to the control group (Vehicle: 100±2.34%; Rot: 81.98±8.38%; p=0.03; Figure SS3).”

“…As conclusion (Figure 6), we propose that treatment with 1.325nM of Rot in primary cortical neurons induces CI inhibition, leading to reduced ETC activity, diminished mitochondrial respiration, and consequent decreases in ATP levels and superoxide production. This mitochondrial dysfunction triggers an adaptive response characterized by increased SIRT3 levels and enhanced mitochondrial fission; however, this response appears insufficient to fully restore mitochondrial function, as both autophagy and mitophagy appear to be impaired. As a result, dysfunctional mitochondria accumulate, compromising synaptic processes. In parallel, reductions in superoxide production and mitochondrial activity affect neuronal morphology, leading to shorter dendrites and fewer dendritic branches. Moreover, NAM 10uM pretreatment likely supports ETC activity, presumably through increased NAD⁺ availability, resulting in a partial recovery of mitochondrial respiration, yet sufficient to restore ATP and superoxide levels. NAM pretreatment also promotes SIRT3 activation, maintaining the reduction in mitochondrial fission while restoring mitochondrial mass through improved autophagic flux. Consequently, we observed an increase in dendritic number and length, along with the reestablishment of synaptic processes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2988.mp3" length="944852" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The lethal condition ALS may be simply a symptom of severe stress (high cortisol, low androgens), and likely curable</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2983</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2983</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2026 08:08:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2983

Yet another mysterious and lethal condition  – amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – for which no treatment currently exists, may turn out to be nothing more than a symptom of hyper-active HPA axis, resulting in low gonadal androgen production, leading to muscle atrophy and eventually death. The findings of the study below corroborate the findings of prior animal studies showing that the administration of the strong androgen DHT may ameliorate the condition. If this is true, then a disease-modifying pharmacological treatment of ALS may be as simple as the administration of a combination of a cortisol blocker such as RU486 plus an androgens such as testosterone or (even better) a stronger and non-aromatizable androgen such as DHT. A side note to people reading the study – in rodents the dominant glucocorticoid is corticosterone, while in humans it is cortisol. So, elevated corticosterone in rodents is equivalent to elevated cortisol in humans.

link here

“…The Wobbler mouse is an animal model for human motoneuron diseases, especially amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), used in the investigation of both pathology and therapeutic treatment. ALS is a fatal neurodegenerative disease, characterized by the selective and progressive death of motoneurons, leading to progressive paralysis. Previous limited studies have reported steroidal hormone dysregulation in Wobbler mouse and in ALS patients, suggesting endocrine dysfunctions which may be involved in the pathogenesis of the disease. In this study, we established a steroid profiling in brain, spinal cord, plasma, adrenal glands, and testes in 2-month-old male Wobbler mice and their littermates by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Our results show in Wobbler mice the following: 1) a marked up-regulation of corticosterone levels in adrenal glands, plasma, spinal cord regions (cervical, thoracic, lumbar) and brain; 2) a strong decrease in T levels in the testis, plasma, spinal cord, and brain; and 3) increased levels of progesterone and especially of its reduced metabolites 5α-dihydroprogesterone, allopregnanolone, and 20α-dihydroprogesterone in the brain, spinal cord, and adrenal glands. Furthermore, Wobbler mice showed a hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal hypoactivity. Interestingly, plasma concentrations of corticosterone and T correlate well with their respective levels in cervical spinal cord in both control and Wobbler mice. T down-regulation is probably the consequence of adrenal hyperactivity, and the up-regulation of progesterone and its reduced metabolites may correspond to an endogenous protective mechanism in response to motoneuron degeneration. Our findings suggest that increased levels of corticosterone and decreased levels of T in plasma could be a signature of motoneuron degeneration.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2983.mp3" length="509732" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High-fat diet ups cortisol/serotonin (5-HT), hinders 5-HT deactivation, causes leaky gut and systemic inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2981</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2981</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2026 07:38:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2981

I am sure I will get a lot of hate-mail about this, but frankly this is not really news. What is novel about this study is its finding that high-fat diet not only increased cortisol and 5-HT production, but also strongly decreased the ability of the organism to deactivate 5-HT through the so-called serotonin transporter (SERT, link here). Namely, the high-fat diet decreased the expression of SERT, this further exacerbating the hyper-serotonin state – i.e. a double-whammy, which results in leaky gut and systemic inflammation (affecting even the brain).

link here

A high-fat diet severs the chemical link between gut and brain, link here

“…The investigation begins in the digestive tract, where specialized cells called enterochromaffin cells manufacture the vast majority of the body’s serotonin. The researchers report that a high-fat diet forces these cells to overproduce the chemical. This occurs because the diet stimulates the enzymes responsible for initiating synthesis. Simultaneously, the cellular machinery designed to recycle serotonin malfunctions. Under normal circumstances, a transporter protein acts like a vacuum to clear used serotonin from the system. The study indicates that fatty foods suppress the production of this transporter. This double blow of increased production and decreased cleanup causes serotonin to accumulate rapidly in the gut. This local surplus creates a toxic environment in the digestive system. The review explains that excess serotonin stimulates immune cells to release inflammatory signals. It also compromises the lining of the intestines. This loss of integrity leads to permeability issues often described as a “leaky gut,” allowing harmful substances to enter the bloodstream.”

“…Cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone, also plays a significant role in this cascade. The researchers note that high-fat diets elevate circulating cortisol levels….”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2981.mp3" length="388820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Plasma endotoxin/LPS is a reliable predictor of mortality in hospitalized children</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2979</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2979</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2026 06:33:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2979

A great study, whose findings (I believe) can be plausibly extended to all hospitalized patients given the corroborating evidence from myriad of studies with adult during the COVID-19 pandemic. On a bit of a tangential note, a study I read more than a decade ago and posted on various forums found that serum estradiol is also a reliable predictive biomarker of mortality in patients of all age groups. Thus, once again we have a confirmation that estrogen is truly a stress (even death) hormone/biomarker and so is endotoxin/LPS.

link here

“…Childhood mortality remains high in low-resource settings, where environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is prevalent. Peripheral blood bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS) are potential biomarkers of intestinal microbial translocation and inflammation; however, the effects of LPS translocation on mortality in this context remains unexplored. We investigate the association between plasma LPS and mortality among 638 acutely ill hospitalised children and compare them to 251 well community peers in a nested case-cohort (NCC) conducted between November 2016 and January 2019 across 9 sites in 6 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Higher levels of plasma LPS and inflammatory biomarkers (fecal calprotectin, plasma myeloperoxidase, and CD14) are associated with elevated 90-day mortality, and those associations are independent of wasting status. Non-survivors with high plasma LPS exhibit elevated gram-negative enteric microbiota, increased fecal biomarkers of EED, systemic inflammatory proteins, and differentially expressed proteins linked to the Insulin-like growth factor (IGF) nutritional axis, Interleukin-1 and collagen regeneration. Cellular interaction network models deconvoluted from a single-cell transcriptomic dataset enable an exploratory investigation of systemic immune responses and epithelial-immune cells crosstalk active in pathways leading to mortality. This knowledge can guide the identification of potential therapeutic signaling pathways in settings with high EED and malnutrition.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2979.mp3" length="323828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) is both a biomarker and driver of osteoporosis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2977</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2977</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2026 06:19:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2977

More than decade ago I was reading one of the article’s on Ray’s website, in which he described the potent catabolic effects 5-HT has on bones. In other articles and interviews, Ray also discussed the catabolic effect of 5-HT on muscles. However, whenever people asked him about bone health, especially in the context of aging, Ray seemed to almost always bring up 5-HT and the fact that anti-serotonin drugs are anabolic for bones. While 5-HT may have direct catabolic effects of its own, it seems plausible that the main mechanism of action for the catabolic effects of 5-HT on bones (and muscles) stem from the ability of 5-HT to activate the HPA axis and thus raise cortisol levels. Cortisol’s role as a catabolic hormone for both bones and muscles is undisputed even by mainstream medicine. 5-HT activates the HPA axis through the 5-HT2C receptor and antagonists of that receptor have not only been shown to stop/reverse conditions of glucocorticoid excess (Cushing disease/syndrome), but also reverse osteopenia/osteoporosis in animal models, as well as ameliorate/stop cachexia (soft-tissue wasting). To my knowledge, the study below is perhaps the first to formally recognize the role of 5-HT (as well as its precursor and breakdown products) in human osteoporosis, both as a biomarker and a potential cause of the condition. The study findings are very impactful due to their potential of providing a simple, safely-tested biomarker for osteoporosis (e.g. whole blood 5-HT), Namely, the prophylactic, diagnostic and follow-up “standard of care” for osteoporosis currently is the so-called DEXA scan, which exposes the patient to large amounts of ionizing radiation – a known human carcinogen. If 5-HT is confirmed as a reliable biomarker of osteoporosis then it could potentially entirely replace the DEXA scan and thus prevent a large number of secondary cancers diagnosed each year as a result of iatrogenic ionizing radiation exposure. The findings of the study also suggest a simple therapeutic option in the form of 5-HT antagonists. Some of the widely used 5-HT antagonists such as cyproheptadine, diphenhydramine, ondansetron, etc have bee on the marker for decades and have a very well-known and low-risk pharmacological profile. Such drugs are certainly preferable to the current ostoporosis treatments, especially the carcinogenic estrogen HRT or the highly inflammatory synthetic PTH peptide injections.

2 links here

“…The study found that key serotonin pathway markers—specifically 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), serotonin (5-HT), and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA)—were significantly higher in women with osteoporosis compared to those with normal bone density or osteopenia (a precursor to osteoporosis). These markers rose progressively as bone mineral density decreased. The research revealed that measuring these serotonin-related compounds could improve diagnostic accuracy for osteoporosis. A combined blood panel of 5-HTP, 5-HT, and 5-HIAA showed a diagnostic accuracy of nearly 90%, outperforming traditional bone density measurements in some cases. Higher levels of these serotonin markers were also linked to a longer time since menopause, suggesting that the serotonin pathway plays a role in the progression of bone loss over time. The findings point to the potential for using these biomarkers not only in diagnosis but also as part of strategies to delay the onset of osteoporosis, especially in women experiencing prolonged menopause.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2977.mp3" length="1280876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Constipation drug improves mitochondrial function, and ameliorates kidney disease, likely by lowering endotoxin/LPS</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2975</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2975</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2026 05:53:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2975

In the archive threads of emails Ray answered from numerous people with chronic kidney disease, one consistent theme can be observed. In virtually every answer Ray provided, he stressed the importance of gut motility and the detrimental effects reduced motility (constipation) has on kidney function, due to increased endotoxin/LPS absorption into the bloodstream. Ray quoted numerous cases where doctors have managed to reverse even end-stage chronic kidney disease (CKD) (as well as periodontitis) by administering laxatives to those patients. In corroboration, there is a prescription drug for CKD approved in several countries that consists entirely of activated charcoal, and the latter is well-known for its anti-endotoxin effects, which Ray repeatedly discussed as well. The study below seems to corroborate Ray’s take on CKD origins and treatment, and demonstrated that administering a drug, which ameliorates constipation, had robust therapeutic effects in CKD. The direct mechanism for the drug’s benefit was improved kidney cells mitochondrial function and the study claims that improvement is due to the drug’s ability to increase levels of a protective amine known as spermidine. However, I think the more likely systemic mechanism of action is the reduction of endotoxin/LPS absorption due to the amelioration of constipation. Either way, the finding that improving gut motility improved mitochondrial function can likely be extended to all organs/tissues and not just kidneys, while also underscoring again the systemic harmful effects of endotoxin/LPS. The drug that the study used was lubiprostone, link here, which is a type of synthetic prostaglandin and is thus likely rife with the potential of serious side effects. As such, remedies more in line with the bioenergetic theory such as thyroid, charcoal, carrot salad, etc would likely be better options.

2 links here

“…”We noticed that constipation is a symptom that often accompanies CKD, and decided to investigate this link further,” explains Abe. “Essentially, constipation disrupts the intestinal microbiota, which worsens kidney function. Working backwards, we hypothesized that we could improve kidney function by treating constipation.””

“…To test this idea, the research team organized a multicenter Phase II clinical study (LUBI-CKD TRIAL) across nine medical facilities in Japan. The trial enrolled 150 individuals with moderate CKD and examined how lubiprostone affected kidney health. When compared with participants who received a placebo, those given 8 µg or 16 µg of lubiprostone experienced a slower decline in kidney function. This finding was based on changes in the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), a standard measure used to evaluate kidney performance. The scientists also explored why the drug had this protective effect. They determined that lubiprostone boosts the production of spermidine, a compound that enhances mitochondrial activity by encouraging the growth of beneficial gut bacteria. Improved mitochondrial function was linked to a renoprotective effect that helped limit additional kidney damage.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2975.mp3" length="928412" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Osteoarthritis (OA) may be caused by hypometabolism-driven cholesterol accumulation; vitamin B5 mat treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2972</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2972</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 07:47:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2972

The role of mitochondria and oxidative metabolism in “structural” conditions such as OA is becoming more widely recognized every day. One of the reasons medicine has been reluctant to acknowledge the role of metabolism in such “structural” conditions is the fact that cartilage has a very poor blood supply, which (in theory) limits the effects of metabolism in such tissues. The study below demonstrates that mitochondria and its debris can accumulate even in such tissues with poor-blood flow resulting in local inflammatory reactions and tissue degradation over time. Interestingly, the study below demonstrates that one of the key causes of such mitochondrial dysfunction is accumulation of cholesterol in chondrocytes. Normally, cholesterol is metabolized into the mitochondria to produce steroids and seco-steroids (e.g. vitamin D). However, when mitochondrial function is low, cholesterol accumulates and causes mitochondrial damage and inflammation. One of the key factors in maintaining normal oxidative metabolism is the acetyl-CoA/CoA ratio. When that ratio is elevated, the NADH/NAD+ ratio also rises, Krebs Cycle activity declines and also inhibits the activity of the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH). This phenomenon of high acetyl-CoA/CoA and (mitochondrial) NADH/NAD+ ratio is the main mechanism behind the (in)famous Randle Cycle, that is now known to be involved in virtually all chronic conditions. Namely, excessive fatty acid oxidation (FAO) raises both of said ratios above, with subsequent decline in glucose oxidation, but also of Krebs Cycle activity and ultimately declining electron transport chain (ETC) activity as well, with the last portion responsible for more than 98% of the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Thus, a simple change in those ratios can wreak havoc on the entire metabolic cascade, which eventually translates into structural changes as well. While excessive FAO is one of the well-known causes of elevated acetyl-CoA/CoA ratio, another less-known reason is decline in the synthesis of CoA. This co-factor is synthesized from the precursor known as vitamin B5. While the most widely-used form of B5 is D-panthenol, a more direct CoA precursor is the closely-related substance known as pantethine. Interestingly, panthethine administration has been shown to normalize cholesterol levels in humans, with the main proposed mechanism being that increased CoA lowers the acetyl-CoA/CoA ratio, thus speeding up oxidative metabolism and thus cholesterol metabolism into downstream steroids and seco-steroids.

The study below is one of the first to demonstrate that OA may be entirely metabolic in origin, being driven by inflammation caused by cholesterol accumulation in the mitochondria due to low CoA levels. Conversely, the study demonstrated that simply supplementing with pantethine elevated CoA, reversed cholesterol accumulation into the mitochondria and largely reversed the symptoms of OA. The human-equivalent dose (HED) of pantethine was 10mg/kg orally daily for a period of 4-8 weeks. This dose is quite in line with the dose commonly administered in human studies, which is typically 600mg twice daily. In summary, simply administering a vitamin precursor of a crucial co-factor in oxidative metabolism was sufficient to reverse cholesterol accumulation, and reverse established OA pathology. Considering that cholesterol accumulation has been linked to a number of chronic conditions with an inflammatory component, the study below suggests that pantethine supplementation may be a viable intervention for those conditions as well. In corroboration, human studies with 600mg x 2 daily has been demonstrated to not only lower cholesterol, but also decrease multiple biomarkers of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes, including cholesterol, triglycerides, free fatty acids (NEFA), atheroma size, insulin levels, creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, etc.

link here

“…In fact, the pathogenesis of OA and many other diseases, such as cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, is closely related to inflammation and metabolism, in which mitochondria play an important role57, link here. Due to the dual regulatory role of mitochondria, understanding the mechanisms that regulate “metabolic-inflammatory” shift of mitochondria and its impact on disease progression is of great importance. To address this, we demonstrated that osteocyte mitochondria disrupt cholesterol metabolism in chondrocytes, with excessive cholesterol inducing osteocyte mitochondrial mPTP activation and mtDNA leakage, which shifts them toward an inflammatory phenotype. To further address the underlying mechanism, we identified pantetheine, an intermediate in the production of coenzyme A and closely related to cholesterol metabolism42, link here,43, link here, as being significantly decreased by osteocyte mitochondria. This depletion occurs because mitochondria directly degrade CoA, leading to pantetheine depletion. We also identified Nudt8, which is expressed in osteocyte mitochondria and degrades CoA, further regulating cholesterol homeostasis. The expression of Nudt8 drives osteocyte mitochondria toward an inflammatory phenotype during intercellular transfer. These characteristics of Nudt8 suggest it as a potential regulator of the “metabolic-inflammatory” balance in osteocyte mitochondria. However, we currently lack tools to specifically track mitochondrial-Nudt8-dependent regulation within chondrocytes in vivo. Further studies are required to validate Nudt8 as the phenotypic switch point of osteocyte mitochondria in vivo. Additionally, exploring other potential switch targets within mitochondria warrants further investigation. By targeting mitochondrial Nudt8 and its related metabolism, we treated chondrocytes with pantethine. Pantethine has been used for the treatment of hyperlipidemia, cardiovascular prevention, and in children with pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration42, link here,58, link here. We performed oral treatment in different OA models and showed promising results. As it is one of the metabolites present in the human body, the safety and efficacy is reliable, though the delivery strategy of pantethine requires further study.”

Mitochondria-Cholesterol Link Worsens Osteoarthritis in Mice, link here

“…In a groundbreaking study published in Nature Communications, researchers have unveiled a novel cellular mechanism by which mitochondria act as pivotal relay stations for cholesterol signals that exacerbate osteoarthritis in mice. This discovery sheds new light on the intricate molecular pathways that drive the progression of osteoarthritis, a debilitating joint disease characterized by cartilage degradation and chronic pain. The findings not only deepen our understanding of osteoarthritis pathophysiology but also open promising avenues for targeted therapeutic interventions aimed at mitigating disease advancement through modulating mitochondrial cholesterol signaling.”

“…At the core of this discovery lies the observation that cholesterol, traditionally viewed as a structural lipid and precursor of steroid hormones, can serve as a potent signaling molecule within mitochondria. These dynamic organelles integrate cholesterol signals to induce alterations in mitochondrial function and metabolic homeostasis. The researchers demonstrated that cholesterol accumulation in mitochondria triggers robust activation of pro-inflammatory and catabolic pathways, accelerating extracellular matrix breakdown and chondrocyte apoptosis—the death of cartilage cells essential for joint integrity.”

“…To dissect this mechanism, the research team employed a sophisticated array of molecular biology techniques, including mitochondrial isolation, lipidomic profiling, and gene expression analyses. They established that mitochondrial cholesterol levels directly correlate with the expression of enzymes and signaling molecules implicated in matrix degradation. Intriguingly, the study identified a previously unrecognized mitochondrial cholesterol sensor that modulates downstream inflammatory cascades. This sensor effectively translates lipid signals into biochemical actions that exacerbate osteoarthritic pathology.”

“…The animal model utilized in this study involved genetically engineered mice predisposed to osteoarthritis development, allowing precise manipulation of mitochondrial cholesterol content. By employing pharmacological agents and genetic knockdown approaches to attenuate mitochondrial cholesterol accumulation, the investigators successfully reduced joint inflammation and cartilage erosion. This experimental strategy provided compelling evidence that mitochondria serve as critical intermediaries linking cholesterol metabolism to osteoarthritis progression.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2972.mp3" length="1972508" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin/LPS-driven inflammation can cause “Mad Cow” disease by itself, no prions needed</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2970</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2970</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 06:26:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2970

Yet another mysterious and deadly condition may turn out to be nothing more than endotoxin/LPS overload in disguise. For decades, we have been told that the dreaded so-called “Mad Cow” disease (also known as BSE) can only be caused by a misfolded, infections proteins that accumulate in the brain and cause irreversible damage that is invariably lethal. The study below pours cold water on those claims and calls for a complete revamping of the hypothesis behind the BSE condition. The study demonstrated that the administration of endotoxin/LPS by itself was enough to reproduce all features of the disease (except the infectious aspects), with the same lethality as the one seen in the experimental groups that received injections with the actual infectious, misfolded, BSE-causing prions. When endotoxin/LPS as administered together with the prion injections, the effects were synergistic. As the authors state, inflammation may be the original driver of BSE pathology, with the prions being a late effect of the already established systemic inflammatory state caused by endotoxin/LPS. And last but not least, the fact that endotoxin/LPS injections caused beta-amyloid accumulation and cognitive deficits strongly suggests that another incurable, progressive and lethal brain condition – Alzheimer’s Disease – is also endotoxin/LPS/inflammation-driven.

3 links here

“…We may have been overestimating the role of a pathological class of misfolded protein in neurodegenerative disease. Called prions, these molecules are responsible for conditions such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, link here or ‘mad cow disease’, chronic wasting disease, link here in deer, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, link here in humans. A new study in mice has found that some of the hallmarks of prion disease in brain tissue – such as the appearance of sponge-like holes, scarring, and accumulation of amyloid plaques, link here – can develop even in the complete absence of prions in their infectious configuration….This finding suggests we have overlooked some of the mechanisms that contribute to prion diseases, and in some cases, even mistaken the underlying cause. It also has implications for prion-like conditions such as Alzheimer’s, link here, Parkinson’s, link here, and ALS, in which misfolded proteins are central to irreversible brain damage.”

“…Other emerging evidence suggests that a bacterial endotoxin called lipopolysaccharide (LPS, link here), found on the outer membranes of some bacteria, can accelerate prion disease by inducing protease resistance in prion proteins. It also activates the host immune system’s inflammatory response, further contributing to neurodegeneration.”

“…The group that was given just the misfolded, non-infectious PrP alone developed the spongiform brain damage and scarring, but not the protease-resistant PrP that defines infectious prions. Meanwhile, the LPS-only group developed amyloid plaques, spongiform damage, and a high 40 percent mortality rate – but again, no protease resistance. Combining LPS with the non-infectious PrP misfold did not increase lethality, but holes in the brains of mice in this group did grow larger. Finally, combining the prion with LPS dramatically accelerated the course of the disease. All of the mice in this group died within 200 days.”

“…This fundamentally challenges the prevailing theory that these types of brain diseases are only about prions or similar misfolded proteins,” Ametaj says, link here. The results suggest that, in at least some prion diseases, the host may first be weakened by inflammation before the protein misfolding that leads to prion formation – that prion disease may not actually start with prions, but with inflammation, or the non-infectious, misfolded PrP.

“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2970.mp3" length="727772" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) promotes blood vessel thickening, may cause cardiovascular disease (CVD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2968</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2968</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 06:06:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2968

Yet another study that exposes the “happiness hormone” 5-HT as anything but. In addition, the study also raises serious questions in regards to how much of the current CVD epidemic is iatrogenic in origin, considering the widespread use of the serotonergic SSRI drugs in virtually all age groups of the general population. In corroboration of the findings of the study below that 5-HT may be a causative factor in CVD, studies done decades ago with the serotonin antagonist ketanserin, link here (a drug developed to treat hypertension, which by itself is pretty telling about the role of 5-HT in CVD) demonstrated robust decrease in CVD rates and progression in animal models, as well as reduction in ischemic events (heart attacks and strokes) in the animals receiving ketanserin.

link here

Smooth Muscle Cuts Arterial Injury-Induced Hyperplasia, link here

“…In recent years, the role of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in arterial health and disease has garnered significant attention. Understanding the molecular mechanisms by which these cells contribute to vascular conditions, particularly intimal hyperplasia following arterial injury, is critical in developing effective therapeutic strategies. A compelling study published in the Journal of Biomedical Science explores this phenomenon, shedding light on the impact of hydroxyindole O-methyltransferase (HIOMT) expression specifically within smooth muscle cells. The study highlights a transformative discovery: the expression of HIOMT in smooth muscle can markedly reduce arterial injury-induced intimal hyperplasia. This pathophysiological condition arises when there is injury to the arterial wall, leading to an excessive proliferation of smooth muscle cells, contributing to the thickening of the vessel wall and narrowing of the lumen. Such events can predispose individuals to severe cardiovascular complications, including ischemia and thrombosis.”

“…HIOMT is an enzyme critical for the metabolism of serotonin and other indoleamine substances. By influencing serotonin levels, the expression of HIOMT in vascular smooth muscle cells appears to have a cascading effect on SMC behavior. Serotonin is known for its role not only in neurotransmission but also in various vascular processes, including vasoconstriction and modulation of vascular smooth muscle proliferation. Consequently, increasing HIOMT activity may lead to reduced levels of bioactive serotonin in the vicinity of the arterial wall, blunting the pathological cellular responses associated with arterial injury.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2968.mp3" length="486740" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E may be therapeutic in osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, fractures and other bone pathologies</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2966</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2966</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 05:50:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2966

This was a meta-study, so a single optimal dose for all mentioned conditions is probably not known at this time. However, this is one of the few studies that suggests a “simple” vitamin known as nothing more than an “antioxidant” to modern medicine can provide benefit in such a diverse set of bone conditions. Considering the known anti-estrogenic effects of vitamin E, the study does raise serious questions in regards to the mainstream medicine claims that estrogen is bone-protective and that that estrogenic HRT can treat all of the conditions mentioned below.

2 links here

“…The key findings of the study were:

• 19 manuscripts were selected for the review. Vitamin E is utilised in diverse forms in orthopaedic patients: administered systemically, intraarticularly or locally.

• Systemically-administered vitamin E can mitigate osteoarthritis progression through strengthening of adjoining musculature, gene regulation, protection of subchondral vasculature, and anti-inflammatory properties.

• Vitamin E incorporation has been demonstrated to improve the wear characteristics of highly crosslinked polyethylene and metal alloys in arthroplasty through its antioxidant and osteointegrative abilities.

• Antioxidant vitamin E has been shown to mitigate postoperative arthrofibrosis and septic loosening. Vitamin E can positively influence late callus formation during secondary fracture healing.

• Through its effects on osteoblastic cells, proinflammatory cytokines, growth factors, antioxidant mechanism, hormones and micro-RNA, systemic vitamin E administration can meliorate osteoporosis and mitigate fractures.

The authors concluded – “There is emerging evidence regarding the promising roles of vitamin E in diverse orthopaedic conditions such as osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, fracture healing, osteomyelitis and arthroplasty. These actions of vitamin E are attributed to its antioxidant, anti-infl ammatory and immunomodulatory functions. Large-scale clinical trials are needed to ascertain its safety, effective administrative dosage and future prospects in the realm of orthopaedic surgery.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2966.mp3" length="313628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B6 crucial for ovarian function, may have a role in preventing/delaying/reversing menopause</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2964</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2964</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 05:42:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2964

The earliest studies with vitamin B6 demonstrated that aside from its role as a co-factor in many bioenergetic processes, this vitamin also seemed to have a role as a dopamine agonist, with resulting lowering of prolactin levels. Elevated prolactin is now known to play a crucial role in both male and female infertility, but especially the latter. Anti-prolactin interventions with drugs such as bromocriptine have shown great promise in treating female infertility in conditions such as the the “Female Athlete Triad” (FAT), which is a reversible form of early-onset menopause often seen in competitive female athletes and linked to the hyperactivation of the HPA axis in such athletes. For the record, the male version of FAT also exists, yet it is less studied and when encountered, it is often treated with testosterone injections and/or aromatase inhibitors. In addition, studies have shown that vitamin B6 may be one of the main endogenous (functional) glucocorticoid antagonists and this effect has been used to explain the effectiveness of vitamin B6 in treating cleft palate in children – a condition known to be triggered by maternal stress during pregnancy. In other words, vitamin B6 has anti-estrogenic/anti-prolactin, pro-dopamine, and anti-cortisol effects. The combination of these effects suggest that vitamin B6 may be “non-steroidal hormone”, and a possible treatment for female infertility whether triggered by menopause, stress, diet or of iatrogenic origin. The study below found that vitamin B6 plays a key role in activating so-called primordial follicles, which is the first step in producing mature eggs (ova), capable of fertilization and implantation. A decline in the number of active primordial follicles is well-known feature of menopause, which suggests that vitamin B6 therapy may be a viable option for either delaying or preventing menopause, or reversing already established menopause, with the last currently thought by mainstream medicine to not be possible.

link here

Vitamin B6 Boosts Primordial Follicle Activation via PI3K/Akt, link here

“…In recent years, the scientific community has been captivated by the intricate dance of hormones and biological signaling pathways that regulate female reproductive health. Among the various vitamins that play crucial roles, Vitamin B6 has emerged as a key player that could potentially stimulate the development of primordial follicles in the ovaries. A recent study led by Wen et al. highlights the remarkable bioactive roles of Vitamin B6, revealing not just its significance in metabolic processes but also its interaction with critical signaling pathways, notably the PI3K/Akt pathway. This research provides fresh insights that could reshape our understanding of female fertility and ovarian function. The study, published in the Journal of Ovarian Research, systematically investigates how Vitamin B6 contributes to the activation of primordial follicles, which are the earliest stage of ovarian follicles responsible for female fertility. Much like a seed that requires the right conditions to germinate, primordial follicles lie dormant in the ovaries until hormonal signals trigger their development into mature ova. The findings suggest that Vitamin B6 serves as one of those key signals that can boost this critical developmental phase.”

“…Moreover, the role of the PI3K/Akt pathway in follicle activation cannot be overstated. This signaling cascade is intricately involved in cellular processes such as growth, proliferation, and apoptosis, making it a pivotal focus in understanding ovarian biology. Vitamin B6 is shown to initiate this signaling pathway, thereby orchestrating a series of cellular events that lead to the resumption of follicular growth. Given that a decline in ovarian reserve and functionality poses a challenge for many women seeking to conceive, this finding holds profound implications for reproductive endocrinology. Further analysis presented in the study amplifies the relevance of Vitamin B6 beyond mere activation; it suggests that this vitamin might influence the overall health of the ovarian microenvironment. The authors postulate that adequate levels of Vitamin B6 could promote the nutritional status of oocytes, improve overall folliculogenesis, and potentially enhance oocyte quality. This intricate relationship between nutrition and reproductive biology underscores the need for integrated approaches to fertility treatment, merging dietary support with conventional medical strategies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2964.mp3" length="1039364" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>It’s official – high serotonin (5-HT), not high dopamine (DA), drives schizophrenia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2960</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2960</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 01:48:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2960

This is perhaps the first human study to directly point the finger at 5-HT as a cause of schizophrenia and, by extension, all other mental conditions with a psychotic component such as bipolar disorder, mania, etc. As the study states, the role of 5-HT in schizophrenia was first proposed more than 60 years ago. However, at the time 5-HT was quickly becoming the darling of medicine and Big Pharma and many drugs were in the pipeline that aimed at increasing 5-HT levels and/or signalling. The (in)famous SSRI drugs are perhaps the most notable example, in widespread use to this day. Whether by idiocy or malice, medicine adopted the view back then that high DA levels/signalling is behind schizophrenia and drugs that antagonized DA were developed as treatments for this conditions. The fact that those drugs did reduce symptoms (at the cost of terrible side effects) was hailed at the time as undeniable proof that it is indeed DA that is the cause of psychotic conditions. However, what medicine and mainstream media failed to mention to the general public is that recent studies demonstrated that the flagship DA antagonist drugs for schizophrenia – haloperidol, link here – was found to also be potent a 5-HT antagonist. Thus, the initial claim that DA is the cause of schizophrenia immediately become suspect in light of this new evidence. The study below is probably the first human one that debunks the DA hypothesis in schizophrenia directly. It found that it is increased 5-HT release, not DA release, that drives most of the symptoms associated with schizophrenia, and as such proposed that anti-serotonin treatments can be a viable treatment for the disease. In corroboration, an older smaller study found that the anti-acid drug famotidine, which also happens to powerfully lower 5-HT (to the point that it can treat a full-blown serotonin syndrome) was also able to control schizophrenia symptoms and, unlike haloperidol, famotidine does not have any known effects on the DA system, thus strongly suggesting 5-HT is the real culprit. Furthermore, every single one of the newer schizophrenia drugs known as “atypical antipsychotics” are also potent 5-HT antagonists (though not as selective as famotidine). If 5-HT ends up being proved as THE core cause of schizophrenia, it won’t be a stretch to suggest that perhaps most cases of schizophrenia are iatrogenic in origin given the widespread use of the serotonergic SSRI drugs, even among children and toddlers.

3 links here

“…An analysis of the data found that the introduction of d-amphetamine led to substantial reductions in binding of the radiotracer in both those with schizophrenia and healthy volunteers. The main finding of the study was that this release of serotonin was significantly greater in parts of the brain that are key to motivation and planning, link here (the frontal cortex) in people with schizophrenia compared to controls. Further analysis established a close relationship between greater serotonin release and both the severity of negative symptoms and the degree of functional disability in the schizophrenia group. Dr. Martin Osugo, the study’s first author from King’s IoPPN said, “Schizophrenia is a life-altering condition that can have a dramatic impact on a person’s well-being. The negative symptoms that typify the illness can be extremely isolating and are a huge barrier to people getting back to the activities which are important to them, like hobbies, work and family life. “Our study, which provides the first evidence that serotonin release is associated with the severity of negative symptoms, is an important step forward in this field. If we can successfully regulate serotonin, link here, then it’s possible we might be able to successfully treat negative symptoms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2960.mp3" length="1238444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Maternal thyroid function during pregnancy may determine offspring obesity/diabetes risk</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2958</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2958</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 01:27:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2958

Yet another study demonstrating that the genetic explanation we have been given for most chronic diseases is likely bunk, and that the risk of such diseases can be explained through environmental factors, even though said risk if heritable. I just did a post on the fact that male exposure to microplastics damages male sperm and can cause obesity/diabetes in the offspring. Well, now the study below demonstrates that maternal thyroid function during pregnancy may determine the risk that the child develops obesity/diabetes after being born. Not only this demonstrates the environmental origin of the most prevalent chronic conditions in “developed” countries, but it also highlight the fact that obesity/diabetes are little more than symptoms of low metabolism, and as such likely treatable with pro-metabolic substances such as thyroid, aspirin, calcium, vitamin D/K, emodin, progesterone, pregnenolone, DHEA, androgens, etc.

2 links here

“…A recent study has identified a potential link between maternal thyroid function and childhood obesity, utilizing machine learning to predict obesity risk in children. Researchers examined data on iodine deficiency and thyroid hormone levels during pregnancy, analyzing their impact on the likelihood of childhood obesity. The findings suggest that maternal thyroid health may play a role in determining long-term weight outcomes for offspring. The study highlights the growing concern over the global rise in childhood obesity, which has been associated with serious health risks such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and metabolic disorders later in life. Researchers employed advanced machine learning techniques to analyze complex datasets, aiming to uncover patterns between maternal thyroid activity and childhood weight trends. The research underscores the importance of understanding prenatal factors that could influence obesity rates among children.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2958.mp3" length="477692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin is a true drug for COVID-19 – it inhibits binding of the spike protein to the angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2956</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2956</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 01:18:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2956

Most of my readers probably still vividly remember the brutal censorship levied upon the public during the COVID-19 pandemic in regards to treatments that did not conform to the official narrative that vaccines, and only vaccines, are the way to stop the pandemic and protect everybody. One of the most censored and maligned such “alternative” treatments for COVID-19 was aspirin (as well as vitamin D). As early as April 2020, studies had already come out showing that people taking aspirin regular were at a much lower risk of getting COVID-19, experiencing severe disease course, or dying from the disease. At the time, the arguments presented by the “experts” against aspirin were that the findings did not make medical sense since aspirin is “just an NSAID” and  as such could not possibly provide protection against COVID-19. Well, as my readers know quite well, aspirin has a multitude of direct enzymatic and receptor-level effects that go way beyond inflammation and Ray has done a fantastic job of describing them in his articles. He went as far as stating (multiple times) that taking aspirin even just 2-3 times weekly is a good prevention practice against not just COVID-19, but all viral conditions. Now, the study below provides perhaps the most direct and specific evidence as to why aspirin may help with COVID-19. Namely, it is well-known that the SARS-CoV-2 virus infects cells by binding to the ACE2 enzyme. This binding not only allows the virus to enter and hijack the cell, but also triggers a systemic inflammatory state due to the fact that the binding prevents the ACE2 enzyme from converting the highly inflammatory angiotensin II protein back into the much less inflammatory angiotensin I protein. It was precisely this accumulation of angiotensin II protein that triggered the systemic inflammatory reaction, which often results in a severe cytokine storm that killed so many COVID-19 patients. As such, drugs that either block the effects of the angiotensin II protein at the receptor level (losartan, telmisartan, etc), block the enzyme ACE1 (converting the less inflammatory angiotensin I into the highly inflammatory angiotensin II), or enhance the activity of ACE2 were also found to be highly therapeutic for COVID-19. It looks like aspirin falls into the last category and now there is direct evidence for its effects. Unfortunately, even the pharma drugs found to be beneficial for COVID-19 were mocked and the study authors intimidated into silence or retracting their studies, since such findings interfered with the massive PR campaign to ensure maximum vaccine uptake among the general public. Well, it is all too late now to help COVID-19 patients, but perhaps if (God forbid!) another virus targeting the same (or even distinct) pathway creates a worldwide pandemic, the study on aspirin below will be remembered and put to good use.

2 links here

“…During the critical phases of the Covid-19 pandemic, studies conducted by the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research (published in eClinicalMedicine, 2021; Frontiers in Medicine, 2022; The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2023) suggested that the timely use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including aspirin, could reduce the development of severe disease and the need for hospitalization. The importance of NSAIDs in the early stages of respiratory diseases was reaffirmed by an independent study published in 2024. In a new study by the Mario Negri Institute, recently published in Frontiers in Immunology, researchers investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying aspirin’s effects on the structure of the “spike” protein, which enables the virus to bind to host cells. “Our work,” comments Luca Perico, first author of the study, “has shown that aspirin concentrations comparable to those achieved in humans induce structural modifications in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that limit its ability to bind to the ACE2 receptor on epithelial cells.” “These observations,” says Ariela Benigni, Head of Research at the Bergamo and Ranica (BG) sites, “were made in cultured cells and in experimental models, in which it was possible to document that aspirin reduces lung damage, fibrosis, and inflammation induced by the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.” “Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs should be taken in the early stages of SARS-CoV-2 infection, always following medical advice and never through self-prescription,” comments Giuseppe Remuzzi, Director of the Mario Negri Institute.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2956.mp3" length="1450196" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Microplastics damage sperm, resulting in diabetes in the exposed males’ offspring</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2954</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2954</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:54:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2954

A wonderful example debunking the favorite line of all allopathic doctors – i.e. that our risk of chronic diseases is largely written in our genes, confirmed by the strong hereditary link in said diseases. Well, as has been known for at least a decade, traits of the parents (including personality, habits, body composition, and even memories) can be passed onto the next generation in non-genetic manner. Perhaps the most (in)famous study to question the genetic dogma recently was the rodent study demonstrating that adults males and females taught to fear a predator they are never exposed to in nature do pass onto their offspring an inborn fear of said predator. The study below now extends this epigenetic heritability to the most prevalent chronic diseases. Namely, metabolic syndrome, obesity, and type II diabetes. The study found that accumulation of microplastics (ubiquitous in our environment) in the male’s body damages his sperm and as a result a significant portion of his offspring go on to develop diabetes II in their adulthood. It just so happens that most plastic residues/particles are highly estrogenic, so another way to capture the study findings is to say that chronic estrogen exposure damages a male’s sperm and causes a heritable disease phenotype that only manifests in offspring, so that it would be very hard to legally link to the poor environmental quality the father experienced. Since there are many other estrogenic endocrine disruptors (e.g. bisphenols, heavy metals, etc) we are routinely exposed do, I think the study findings can be safely extended to those as well.

2 links here

“…Microplastics (MPs) are extremely small plastic fragments, measuring less than 5 millimeters, that form as consumer products and industrial materials break down. Metabolic disorders describe a group of conditions that include elevated blood pressure, high blood sugar, and excess body fat, all of which raise the risk of heart disease and diabetes. To uncover metabolic effects in F1 offspring, the researchers placed them on a high-fat diet. This strategy helps expose the impacts of paternal MP exposure that might otherwise be subtle under standard dietary conditions. The high-fat diet reflects common unhealthy eating patterns, such as the Western diet, and increases metabolic stress. Because the fathers consumed a normal diet, the obesity observed in the offspring was driven by diet rather than inherited eating behavior. The team found that female offspring of male mice exposed to MPs were far more prone to metabolic disorders than offspring of unexposed fathers, even though all offspring received the same high fat diet.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2954.mp3" length="757700" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Chronic stress can cause/drive liver cancer (HCC) by affecting tryptophan metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2952</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2952</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 20:01:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2952

Little by little, we are seeing new studies call (timidly) for a “paradigm shift” (read: euphemism for massive failure) in medicine when it comes to cancer prevention and treatment. While the focus for the last 100+ years has been on genetics and (less so) to carcinogen exposure of carcinogenic infections (e.g. hepatitis), the fact that virtually no progress has been made in the cancer field over the last 50+ years calls for a dramatic shift in approach. Chronic stress is viewed by oncology as little more than nuisance, important only to the degree to which it can influence a cancer patient’s mental health, and even then psychiatry claims that a person’s vulnerability to stress is largely genetic. Medicine is still likely decades away from viewing stress as a true carcinogen, but the study below directly makes that claim. More specifically, it found that chronic stress (to which virtually all modern societies are exposed) directly drives HCC by shifting the metabolism of the amino acid L-tryptophan towards a pathway that produced immunosuppressive and inflammatory metabolites, which allows HCC to form, or to grow more aggressively if already present.

link here

Chronic Stress Drives Liver Cancer via Tryptophan Metabolism, link here

“…The researchers employed a multidisciplinary approach combining metabolomics, transcriptomics, and in vivo liver cancer models to delineate this complex relationship. Their data demonstrated that chronic stress induces significant upregulation of hepatic enzymes responsible for tryptophan catabolism via the kynurenine pathway. Unlike the serotonin pathway, which modulates neural function, the kynurenine pathway’s metabolites are potent bioactive molecules that can influence immune responses, oxidative stress, and cellular proliferation within the liver microenvironment.”

“…Crucially, elevated kynurenine levels were found to suppress local immune surveillance mechanisms by activating aryl hydrocarbon receptors (AhR) in hepatic immune cells. This immunosuppressive milieu enables early neoplastic cells to evade destruction and promotes an environment conducive to malignant transformation. The study uncovered that this stress-induced metabolic switch does not occur in isolation but is tightly intertwined with systemic neuroendocrine signals, including corticosteroid release from the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, further exacerbating hepatic tryptophan dysregulation. Furthermore, the authors provide compelling evidence showing that inhibition of key enzymes in the kynurenine pathway, such as indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO1) and tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO2), significantly reduces tumor burden in murine models subjected to chronic stress. These findings not only confirm causality but also illuminate novel therapeutic targets that could disrupt the pathological sequence linking malaise and malignancy.”

“…The clinical implications of these findings are profound. Chronic stress, prevalent in modern society due to socioeconomic pressures, mental health disorders, and lifestyle factors, could be an underestimated driver of liver cancer incidence. Traditionally, liver cancer risk assessments have focused primarily on viral hepatitis, alcohol abuse, and metabolic syndromes. This study advocates for incorporating stress management and metabolic biomarkers into early diagnostic paradigms, potentially heralding an era where psychological health is considered integral to oncology prevention strategies.”

“…In concluding, Clarke, Keane, and Cryan’s work represents a paradigm shift that bridges psychiatry, metabolism, and oncology. It underscores the importance of viewing chronic stress as a multifaceted biological stressor with tangible consequences beyond the nervous system, extending deep into hepatic cellular metabolism and cancer biology. This integrative perspective paves the way for holistic strategies that encompass psychological health, metabolic regulation, and targeted cancer therapies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2952.mp3" length="636740" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endometriosis linked to high estrogen (and/or low androgens) exposure of female offspring during pregnancy</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2950</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2950</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 19:43:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2950

Yet another study pouring cold water on the recent attempts of Big Pharma to tarnish the findings of the WHI and con women back into estrogenic HRT. This time, the study is about endometriosis and it looks like this condition may have its beginnings during pregnancy when the female fetus is exposed to higher levels of estrogen in-utero. This exposure apparently imprints the female offspring for higher risk of endometrial cells proliferation and as such not only increases the risk of endometriosis, but also of endometrial cancer. In addition to exposing estrogen is a clear culprit in yet another conditions that Big Pharma claims would be “helped” by estrogenic HRT, the study also pours cold water on the claims that endometriosis is largely genetic in origin. In addition, the study busts yet another myth in regards to female reproductive health. Namely, that androgens, being strictly “male” hormones, are detrimental to female health. The study found that exposure to high estrogen and/or low androgens (e.g. testosterone, DHEA, DHEA-S, androstenedione) was linked to endometriosis later in the female offspring’s life. It is well-known in research (but not medical) circles that most androgens are an antagonist of the estrogen receptor. This fact was the reason testosterone was used as a therapy with high success rate for even terminal breast cancer in women up until the late 1960s, before more “advanced” (read: cytotoxic) therapies emerged. The beneficial effects of androgens in breast cancer led to the synthesis and FDA approval of the DHT-derived androgenic and non-aromatizable steroid known as Drostanolone/Masteron, which remains approved by FDA for breast cancer to this day, yet this fact is unknown to the vast majority of OBGYN doctors and breast oncologists. As corollary, this finding highlights an important, but obscure, physiological fact. Namely, it is not the absolute estrogen levels that the female fetus is exposed to that matter the most, but rather the estrogens/androgens  ratio. When that ratio is high due to either high estrogen and/or low androgens, estrogen runs unopposed due to deficiency of endogenous antagonists (e.g. androgens) to mitigate estrogen’s effects. As such, the fetus develops in a state of relative estrogen excess even if blood tests show that the mother’s estrogen levels are normal. Since virtually no doctor cares to test a woman’s androgen levels, especially during pregnancy, the pre-conditions for offspring endometriosis would likely go unnoticed even in women with severe, relative estrogen dominance characterized by normal estrogen levels, but low androgen levels. Finally, this study once again underscores the importance of progesterone and progesterone therapy in pregnancy, as progesterone is the main endogenous estrogen antagonist in women, while androgens are the dominant one in males.

link here

Endometriosis Linked to Higher In Utero Estradiol Exposure in Female Offspring, link here

“…To assess differences in umbilical cord estradiol (E2) and androgen levels among female offspring from women with and without endometriosis, investigators conducted a case-control study. Participants included women with no pre-existing health conditions delivering a female singleton at gestational age of more than 32 weeks. Endometriosis was confirmed before pregnancy, link here by surgery or imaging; women in the control group had no previous endometriosis diagnosis, as well as a history of regular menstrual cycles. Among the total cohort of 160 women, 10.6% had endometriosis; propensity score matching (PSM) was 1:3 with 51 women in the control group without endometriosis. After PSM, factors known to influence the outcome measure were well-balanced between those with vs without endometriosis, including maternal age (35.8 vs 35.7 years) and gestational age at delivery (275.2 vs 277.7 days). Women with vs without endometriosis had higher median (IQR) levels of E2 before (6.8 [4.3-9.1] µg/L vs 3.6 [1.4-8.6] µg/L; P =.03) and after (6.8 [4.3-9.1] µg/L vs 2.4 [1.1-6.6] µg/L; P =.002) PSM, respectively. Compared with control individuals, women with endometriosis had a higher-estrogen, lower-androgen hormonal status, indicated by elevated ratios of:

E2-to-testosterone (P <.001);

E2-to-dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA; P <.001);

E2-to-DHEA sulfate (DHEAS; P <.001); and,

E2-to-androstenedione (P =0.001).

Following PSM, the ratios were higher by factors of:

4.38 (95% CI, 2.28-6.49; E2-to-testosterone);

2.52 (95% CI, 1.32-3.72; E2-to-DHEA);

4.57 (95% CI, 1.86-7.27; E2-to-DHEAS); and,

3.28 (95% CI, 1.29-5.28; E2-to-androstenedione).

…”

“…“Our findings provide biological evidence supporting the hypothesis that endometriosis susceptibility originates from an imbalance of high estrogen and low testosterone during fetal development — a hormonal environment that ‘programs’ female reproductive traits and may drive in utero susceptibility to endometriosis, link here,” the study authors concluded.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2950.mp3" length="1436372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen use dramatically increases clotting risk in women, especially ones with obesity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2948</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2948</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 19:07:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2948

About two decades ago, when the extensive and well-designed WHI studies completed, the verdict on estrogen was clear. Namely, it directly leads to clotting events and thus heart attacks and strokes, while also increasing risk of neurological (e.g. Alzheimer’s) and mental health conditions. The WHI study findings poured cold water on estrogen prescriptions, and over the next 2+ decades rates of estrogen-dependent cancer such as breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers in women dropped significantly. Ray mentioned this repeatedly in his articles and interviews. However, towards the end of the second decade of the 21st century, Big Pharma began to publish “expert” opinions in medical journals questioning the WHI findings and promoting the return of estrogenic HRT in women. You see, when you can’t afford (or don’t want) to run extensive multi-year studies with estrogen that could challenge the WHI findings, the only option is to manipulate the existing data by excluding cohorts and findings you do not like, and claim that the WHI were “misinterpreted”, so that now they can be properly “interpreted” by pharma experts and twisted to show that estrogen is at worst benign and at best a panacea for all the ills that plague modern women. As a result, estrogenic HRT has been making a steady comeback in allopathic medicine and women of all ages are being put on “the pill”, both as a form of contraception and as a tool to “improve” general health. The study below, again, pours cold water on the creative interpretations in regards to estrogen and shows once again that estrogen use, especially when obesity is present, is a potent inducer of clotting and thus puts all estrogen users at increased risk of ischemic events (heart attacks and strokes). It remains to be seen whether Big Pharma will take the new studies seriously or will, again, claim that the findings are not what they seem.

2 links here

“…A research team led by Dr. Rinku Majumder from LSU Health New Orleans has published a groundbreaking study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, link here showing how obesity and estrogen-based medications (including hormonal therapies and oral contraceptives) act together to dramatically increase the thrombotic risk in premenopausal women. The study helps explain how obesity and estrogen collaborate and amplify thrombotic risk and offers new insight that could improve care for people who already face higher thrombotic risk, including patients with cancer. Researchers discovered that the risk of thrombosis increases dramatically in premenopausal women with obesity who are taking estrogen-based medications, due to a substantial reduction in Protein S, a natural anticoagulant that helps prevent harmful blood clots. When Protein S levels fall, thrombotic risk rises.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2948.mp3" length="921860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K deficiency or antagonism (e.g. warfarin) can cause/promote liver cancer (HCC)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2946</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2946</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 18:42:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2946

It is rate that we get medicine to admit that a “primitive” vitamin deficiency can directly cause cancer, but the study below is one such example. Namely, the study found that a protein over-produced in the absence of dietary vitamin K or pharmacological antagonism of vitamin K has direct oncogenic effects and can cause HCC de-novo, even in the absence of a pre-condition such as a hepatitis B infection or exposure to carcinogens. Now, the fact that vitamin K deficiency is wide-spread is well-known to medicine and public health authorities such as the FDA have already mandated that processed foods be fortified with vitamin K. However, another more sinister finding of the study is that vitamin K antagonism, usually by pharmacological agents, can also trigger the cancer process in the liver. One would think that pharmacological antagonism to vitamin K would be something rare and only apply to a very small number of people. To the contrary, it actually concerns a very large segment of the population who take so-called “blood thinners” as prevention therapy for ischemic events (strokes and heart attacks). The most widely used vitamin K antagonist therapy for ischemic events is the drug warfarin, link here, based on the naturally-occurring molecule coumarin. As of today, more than 3 million people in the US take warfarin on a regular basis, and another 10-20 million take it sporadically due to newly discovered blood clots or deep-vein thrombosis. The study below suggests that all those people may be at direct risk of iatrogenic liver cancer. Coincidentally (not!), multiple pharma companies are running late-stage clinical trials with vitamin K (MK-4) as both prevention and treatment of HCC. Once again, it seems Big Pharma is getting ready to sell us both the poison and the remedy.

2 links here

“…Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, particularly in regions with high hepatitis B virus prevalence. Early detection is challenging due to the limited sensitivity of conventional biomarkers such as alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). Protein induced by vitamin K absence or antagonist-II (PIVKA-II), an abnormal prothrombin variant, has emerged as a promising serological biomarker with significant diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic relevance in HCC. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the molecular basis, clinical utility, and future directions of PIVKA-II in HCC management.”

“…PIVKA-II, also known as des-γ-carboxy prothrombin (DCP), is generated under conditions of vitamin K deficiency or antagonism. In HCC, its production is linked to hypoxia, reduced vitamin K levels, and impaired γ-glutamyl carboxylase activity. Structurally, PIVKA-II lacks normal coagulation function due to incomplete carboxylation of glutamic acid residues in its Gla domain. Beyond being a metabolic byproduct, PIVKA-II actively promotes HCC progression by activating oncogenic pathways such as c-Met/JAK1/STAT3 and Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK, and by stimulating angiogenesis through the KDR/PLCγ/MAPK axis. A specialized variant, next-generation DCP (NX-DCP), exhibits higher specificity for HCC and correlates with microvascular invasion and tumor burden.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2946.mp3" length="881948" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>People who eat meat more likely to become centenarians than vegans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2944</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2944</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 18:00:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2944

As the push to get the population to embrace veganism continues unabated, evidence quietly accumulates that eating animal protein is beneficial and veganism is not all that it is cracked up to be. One of the best indicators of the healthiness of a particular diet is its effects on lifespan. Diet that is good for us should extend lifespan (ideally, both average and maximum), while diet that is not so good for us should result in shorter lifespan. Based on that criteria, it looks like meat-eaters have another reason to celebrate. As the study below demonstrates, meat-eaters are much more likely to reach the ripe old age of 100 than vegans. Now, it used to be the case that vegan diets were significantly cheaper for the end-user, and one solid reason to consider vegan diets was the much lower impact they would have on a family’s budget. However, that is no longer the case as vegan diets became all the rage in recent years and now the price of a high-quality beef steak is actually lower than the price for the same amount of protein coming from “trendy” products such as, say, “BeyondMeat” or “Soylent Green”. I think the high amounts of phytoestrogens and PUFA in vegan diets are probably the main culprit behind the shorter expected lifespan in people consuming predominantly plant-based diets (excluding potatoes).

3 links here

“…People who don’t eat meat may be less likely than meat eaters to reach the age of 100, according to a recent study. But before you reconsider your plant-based diet, there’s more to these findings than meets the eye. The research, link here tracked over 5,000 Chinese adults aged 80 and older who participated in the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, a nationally representative study that began in 1998. By 2018, those following diets that don’t contain meat were less likely to become centenarians compared with meat eaters.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2944.mp3" length="622004" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Boosting NAD+ levels fully reverses Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2942</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2942</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:37:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2942

This is the latest saga in AD, which I have been following since at least 2012 when the first study with niacinamide reversing AD in mice was published. After that study, a human study was apparently initiated at UCLA, using 3g niacinamide daily, which was the human-equivalent dose of the mouse study. The human study appears to be still ongoing, with some of the study arms completed. However, so far no results have been published. I suspect the reason for the radio silence is that if news broke that niacinamide cured AD would probably be the end of Big Pharma for good. Not only is niacinamide dirt cheap, over-the-counter (OTC), and virtually risk-free (up to 3g daily), but the fact that AD is a metabolic disease would reverberate and permeate across the entire “disease space” that keeps Big Pharma in business. Namely, since the original 2012 study with AD, there has been a ton of publications linking low NAD+ levels to virtually every chronic condition we know of, thus not only implicating all of them as metabolic in origin, but also suggesting dirt cheap, OTC remedies can cure them. A nightmare for Big Pharma indeed! Perhaps due to those implications, the study below took a slightly different approach. Instead of boosting NAD+ levels using precursors such as niacinamide, the study used a patented drug (P7C3-A20, link here) that boosts the activity of the enzyme NAMPT, which is the rate-limiting enzyme in synthesizing NAD+ from precursors such as niacinamide. So, basically the same effect as giving niacinamide, but using a patented drug that gives Big Pharma the opportunity to monetize the now-inevitable conversion of (fully failed) AD treatments from structural (removing amyloid plaque) to functional/metabolic. Finally, it is worth pointing out that the study did not simply “ameliorate” the symptoms of AD in mice, as many other studies have done. It actually fully reversed advanced AD structural pathology and symptoms by boosting NAD+ levels.

link here

Alzheimer’s Reversed in Mice by Boosting NAD+ Levels, Study Shows, link here

“…Now, a groundbreaking study from researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is challenging this paradigm, demonstrating in animal models that Alzheimer’s can not only be halted but fully reversed, restoring neurological function to pre-disease levels. By targeting the brain’s energy metabolism—specifically, the molecule nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)—scientists have achieved what was once thought impossible: complete recovery from advanced stages of the disease in mice. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, builds on years of investigation into metabolic failures in the brain. Led by Jonathan Haines, chair of the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at Case Western Reserve, and co-authored by researchers from University Hospitals and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, the work reveals that Alzheimer’s is driven in part by a catastrophic drop in NAD+ levels. This coenzyme is crucial for cellular energy production, DNA repair, and overall brain health. When NAD+ depletes, neurons suffer oxidative stress, inflammation, and the accumulation of toxic proteins like amyloid-beta and tau, hallmarks of Alzheimer’s pathology. In experiments with multiple mouse models engineered to mimic human Alzheimer’s, the team administered compounds to boost NAD+ levels. The results were striking: not only did the treatment prevent further decline, but it also repaired existing damage. Mice with severe cognitive impairments regained memory function, normalized biomarkers, and showed reversal of brain pathology, including reduced plaques and tangles. As Haines explained in the university’s announcement, “This is the first time we’ve shown that restoring NAD+ can lead to full neurological recovery, even in late-stage disease.”

“…Delving deeper into the mechanism, the researchers analyzed both mouse brains and postmortem human Alzheimer’s tissue. They found consistent evidence of NAD+ dysregulation, where the brain’s inability to maintain energy balance exacerbates neuronal death. NAD+ acts as a linchpin in mitochondrial function, and its decline creates a vicious cycle: impaired energy production leads to more protein misfolding, which further depletes NAD+. By intervening with NAD+ precursors like nicotinamide riboside or other boosters, the study interrupted this cycle, allowing the brain to self-repair. This approach differs markedly from current therapies, which primarily target amyloid plaques. Drugs like those approved by the FDA focus on clearing these proteins but often come with side effects such as brain swelling and bleeding, and they don’t restore lost function. In contrast, the NAD+ strategy addresses a root cause—energy failure—potentially offering a safer, more comprehensive solution. The study’s co-author, Dr. Andrew Pieper from the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals, noted that “restoring metabolic balance could be key to treating not just Alzheimer’s but other neurodegenerative diseases.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2942.mp3" length="1034420" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The GLP-1 weight loss drugs may trigger a life-threatening brain condition by depleting vitamin B1</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2940</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2940</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 15 Jan 2026 17:36:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2940

Deficiency of vitamin B1 is rare in the modern world, but still occurs in regions where malnutrition is endemic or where the population consumes foods lacking vitamin B1. Most of those regions are in Africa or South-East Asia. Chronic deficiency of vitamin B1 is actually very dangerous as it can trigger a potentially fatal brain condition known as Wernicke’s encephalopathy. That condition is also known to occur in chronic alcoholics, since excessive alcohol consumption depletes vitamin B1 (as well as other B vitamins), and if usually fatal unless treated promptly by IV infusions of B vitamins, commonly known as the “banana bag” (due to its yellow color stemming from vitamin B2 inside). The study below found that usage of the blockbuster GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, etc can trigger severe vitamin B1 deficiency and trigger the dreaded neurological condition. Even if the drug dose is lowered so that it causes a less severe form of B1 deficiency, that it still a cause of concern. Vitamin B1 is one of the crucial factors in the rate-limiting step/enzyme of glucose oxidation known as pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH). Lower PDH function has been causally linked to all sorts of mental and physiological conditions including depression, psychosis, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. This is not surprising, considering that low PDH function results in the accumulation of pyruvate with its subsequent conversion into lactate, and lactate is now known to be a direct cause (or exacerbator) of all above mentioned conditions. Not to mention that lactic acidemia, which can also occur in cases of severe B1 deficiency,  is even more lethal than Wernicke’s encephalopathy and has 30%-40% mortality rate even with treatment in hospital ER. Now, we can add all those conditions as risk factors related to GLP-1 drug sage, and that is on top of the already known risks of blindness and gastroparesis.

2 links here

“…Weight loss and diabetes drugs from the GLP-1 family, including Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, have emerged as a breakthrough in the effective and safe treatment of obesity, which is defined globally as an epidemic. The drugs promote significant weight loss and improve diabetes control, and their use is expanding in Israel and worldwide. A new study, however, originating at Sheba Medical Center following the hospitalization of a patient with unusual findings, now raises an important question: In rare cases, could these medications be associated with a severe neurological complication, and is it preventable?”

“…The study began after a young woman was admitted to an Internal Medicine department at Sheba with alarming symptoms, including confusion, unsteady walking and visual impairment. The department’s medical team identified a suspicious clinical picture consistent with Wernicke’s encephalopathy, a rare, life-threatening neurological condition caused by severe vitamin B1 deficiency.”

“…Following the case, Dr. Adam Goldman, an internal medicine specialist and Gastroenterology Fellow at Sheba Medical Center, led a large-scale study in collaboration with physicians from Sheba’s Internal Medicine department and Dr. Dana Lev to examine a possible association between GLP-1 medications and Wernicke’s encephalopathy. The researchers analyzed the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), which includes drug safety data, alongside a systematic review of medical literature. In total, 15 documented cases of Wernicke’s encephalopathy following GLP-1 use were identified: 8 occurred after treatment with semaglutide, marketed as Ozempic or Wegovy; 6 followed treatment with tirzepatide, marketed as Mounjaro; and 1 after treatment with liraglutide, marketed as Victoza. In most cases, patients experienced vomiting, rapid weight loss or malnutrition following treatment. Another challenge was that many did not present with all the classic symptoms of Wernicke’s encephalopathy, complicating early diagnosis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2940.mp3" length="969668" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A shift from oxidative toward anaerobic metabolism increases nitric oxide (NO) and lactate and drives migraines</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2938</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2938</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 15 Jan 2026 15:49:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2938

Ray mentioned the topic of migraines many times in his articles. He implicated estrogen, serotonin, NO and mitochondrial dysfunction as the main drivers behind it. The study below corroborates that view and demonstrated that all that is required for a migraine to occur is a drop in oxidative metabolism, which means a shift towards a reduced state and anaerobic metabolism. It goes without saying that in such a state, lactate production increases, which leads to increased synthesis of serotonin (5-HT), which then increases synthesis and release of NO. The vasodilatory effects of NO, as well as pain-sensitizing effects of 5-HT and lactate, are the direct causes of migraine, but once again metabolism is exposed as the top-level regulator of the entire process. In other words, migraines are nothing more than a symptom of low metabolic rate in the central/peripheral nervous system. As such, pro-metabolic substances may be therapeutic and ones with a direct anti-NO effects such as methylene blue (MB) may be ideally suited for this issue. However, one has to be careful with MB since in higher doses it is a potent inhibitor of monoamine oxidase type A (MAO-A), which can result in increased 5-HT and thus negate the pro-metabolic benefits of MB for migraine patients. Most of the clinical studies with mental and neurological conditions found that the benefits of MB peak at about 15mg daily, and in my own experience even lower doses in the 1mg-5mg range work just as well, while keeping MAO-A risks even lower.

link here

Mitochondrial Dysfunction Drives Peripheral Hypersensitivity in Migraine, link here

“…In recent years, the field of migraine research has witnessed a surge of interest, particularly regarding the underlying mechanisms that contribute to this debilitating neurological condition. A groundbreaking study has shed light on the multifaceted relationship between mitochondrial dysfunction in the spinal cord and peripheral hypersensitivity in a nitroglycerin-induced migraine model. This research, conducted by Awad-Igbaria and colleagues, illuminates the crucial role that the spinal cord and its mitochondria play in modulating pain pathways associated with migraines.”

“…”The nitroglycerin-induced migraine model has been extensively used in experimental studies to emulate the clinical characteristics of migraine attacks in humans. By administering nitroglycerin (a precursor to nitric oxide), researchers can trigger a cascade of biochemical reactions that mimic the neurovascular changes seen during a typical migraine episode. In this study, the authors utilized this model to explore how mitochondrial integrity influences nociceptive signaling pathways during migraine attacks.”

“…One of the most striking revelations from this study is the correlation between mitochondrial function and the exacerbation of pain signals in the spinal cord. The researchers observed that impaired mitochondrial dynamics led to an increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species, both of which are exacerbated in migraine sufferers. This inflammatory response is critical, as it heightens sensitivity in the nervous system, resulting in allodynia—a condition where non-painful stimuli are perceived as painful. Furthermore, the study delves into the role of metabolic alterations that occur alongside mitochondrial dysfunction. As energy production falters, cells in the spinal cord shift to rely on anaerobic pathways, leading to metabolic byproducts that may further sensitize pain pathways. This metabolic imbalance is believed to create a feedback loop, aggravating the hypersensitivity experienced by individuals with migraines.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2938.mp3" length="848348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen and serotonin (5-HT) increase sensitivity to toxic stimuli, drive GI pain and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2936</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2936</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 15 Jan 2026 15:31:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2936

There has been a recent push by mainstream medicine and Big Pharma to legitimize estrogenic HRT again, despite the damning findings of the WHI studies. However, the bad news for estrogen keep piling on in the scientific literature. Of course, whenever one sees estrogen rear its ugly head it is reasonable to expect that others of its ilk will also be implicated as “co-conspirators” (e.g. 5-HT, the synthesis of which is promoted by estrogen). For decades, medicine has recognized the fact that women have higher rates of GI conditions, especially the “mysterious” syndrome known as IBS. About two decades ago, the 5-HT agonist (5-HT4 receptor agonist, to be precise) drug Zelnorm was demonstrated to reliably cause all symptoms of IBS and in fact caused much more severe GI issues, which led to a few deaths in the group of people prescribed the drug, and the drug was eventually withdrawn from the market. However, there has been a recent push to re-introduce the drug into the market, as well as a push to develop other 5-HT(4) agonists as a “treatment” for IBS. Given the results of the study below, I think it would be a disaster if that is allowed to happen. Btw, the study below highlights another important dietary issue. Namely, that of soluble fiber. That type of fiber is still routinely prescribed by doctors as a way to both lower cholesterol as well as “boost” gut health by increasing the production of short-chain fatty acids by gut bacteria. While the short-chain fatty acids to have a role in health, especially considering their effects as HDAC inhibitors (which protects against cancer), the study below states that boosting the production of said fatty acids by eating more soluble fiber may be problematic in people with high estrogen, as it would further exacerbate the estrogen-driven 5-HT overload and thus worsen IBS symptoms. Just as importantly, the study states that estrogen and 5-HT increase the gut sensitivity to ALL toxic stimuli, not just soluble fiber. As such, focusing more on insoluble fiber and anti-estrogenic remedies such as aspirin, vitamin E and progesterone may be a better option, especially considering the fact that aspirin and progesterone have a direct anti-serotonin effects as well.

link here

This newfound cascade of events may explain some female gut pain, link here

“…Ingraham and Julius knew that the hormone estrogen played a role in this type of pain, which can fluctuate with the menstrual cycle and pregnancy. In a 2023 paper, they showed that female mice are more sensitive, link here to this visceral pain than males. Without estrogen, that extra sensitivity disappeared.”

link here

“…A new study into why women experience more severe gut pain suggests that oestrogen, the female sexual hormone, increases the release of a gut hormone that promotes satiety, boosting serotonin production, and sensitising nerves in the gut that trigger pain response. A comparative study of male and female mouse models conducted by researchers from South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute and University of California, San Francisco, revealed an oestrogen-dependent pathway that promotes gut sensitivity to toxic stimuli, according to the findings published in the ‘Science’ journal. “Oestrogen activates a pathway in the colon that increases the release of the gut hormone PYY. PYY then stimulates neighbouring serotonin-producing enterochromaffin cells, boosting serotonin output and sensitising the nerves that send pain messages to the brain,” Stuart Brierley, director of the visceral pain research group at South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, said. Gastrointestinal and visceral pain disorders are more common among women, but its reasons remain poorly understood, the researchers said. The study has also revealed that oestrogen increases the gut’s response to short-chain fatty acids — produced when bacteria break down food — possibly explaining why dietary interventions like low FODMAP diets can reduce symptoms of gastrointestinal distress in some people. A FODMAP diet restricts the intake of short-chain carbohydrates, common in foods such as garlic, apples, wheat and dairy. “We now understand that certain foods can feed into this oestrogen-sensitive pathway through the metabolites they produce. This gives us a clearer biological rationale for why dietary changes may help and how they could be refined,” Brierley said. The researchers said the study links hormonal activity, digestive processes and nerve response, with significant implications for conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). “If we can interrupt this (oestrogen-dependent) pathway at the right point, we may be able to reduce chronic gut pain without affecting the normal digestive functions of these hormones,” Brierley said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2936.mp3" length="1204556" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>“Gulf War Syndrome” likely curable; it is driven by metabolic dysfunction and inflammation, not neuron damage</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2934</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2934</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2025 21:59:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2934

Some good news just in for the holidays. For decades, military veterans with this conditions have been told that they have “organic brain damage”, for which not much can be done other than managing symptoms. The study below finally provides evidence that, yet again, a mysterious, chronic, debilitating and “incurable” conditions is nothing but a mitochondrial hypofunction in disguise. As such, it should be readily treatable with pro-metabolic interventions. The study even mentions a limited human trial with CoQ10 producing modest improvements for patients with this conditions. I suspect that the CoQ10 dose used in the study was grossly inadequate as several human studies demonstrated that in another brain condition (Parkinson Disease) the CoQ10 doses considered clinically relevant (200mg-400mg daily) are woefully inadequate and for established severe mitochondrial dysfunction doses in the range of 1g-2g daily may be needed. In addition, CoQ10 may not be the best option here as it only targets a single complex of the electron transport chain (ETC). Quinones targeting more steps of OXPHOS would likely be more beneficial, and so should be co-factors such as NAD+ that boost mitochondrial function and glucose oxidation. As such, I would suggest trying a combination of vitamin B1, B3, and a more broad-spectrum quinone such as methylene blue, emodin, vitamin K, thymoquinone, etc. Neurosteroids such as pregnenolone and progesterone would also likely come in handy as they play a role in both mitochondrial function as well as dampening neuro-inflammation. Finally, good ol’ aspirin would also likely be beneficial and it has already been shown to reverse symptoms and structural changes in another severe neurological condition (Alzheimer Disease).

2 links here

“…“Our research shows that these veterans don’t have damaged neurons, which would be incurable, but an energy imbalance, which suggests that their disabling symptoms might respond to novel treatments,” said study leader Robert Haley, M.D., link here, Professor of Internal Medicine, link here in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, link here and in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health, link here at UT Southwestern. He co-led the study with Sergey Cheshkov, Ph.D., former Assistant Professor of Radiology, link here at UT Southwestern and now Research Scientist/Physicist in the Sammons BrainHealth Imaging Center at The University of Texas at Dallas, and Richard W. Briggs, Ph.D., retired Professor of Radiology at UT Southwestern.”

“…Their initial study showed that veterans with GWI had a lower NAA/tCr ratio than those who had also served in the war but didn’t have GWI. However, MRS technology available at the time couldn’t distinguish whether this ratio was due to relatively lower NAA or higher tCr, which have opposing implications: Decreased NAA suggests a process that stems from nerve damage, while increased tCr suggests a process that stems from mitochondrial dysfunction. In the new study, researchers used state-of-the-art MRS equipment and techniques to measure the NAA/tCr ratio in 39 Persian Gulf War veterans with GWI and 16 without. They found that the lower NAA/tCr ratio in veterans with GWI is due to increased tCr. Because mitochondrial dysfunction in the brain causes chronic neuroinflammation, this finding explains nearly all the symptoms of GWI, Dr. Haley said. He and his colleagues are currently studying how low-level sarin gas exposure causes mitochondrial dysfunction. This research may eventually lead to treatments that calm this chronic neuroinflammation, bringing relief to those with GWI.”

link here

“…The chemistry fits with other clues. Animal studies using sarin-like compounds have documented behavioral changes, calcium overload, and mitochondrial injury lasting well beyond initial exposure. Studies in Gulf War veterans using phosphorus MRS have shown that muscle phosphocreatine recovers slowly after exercise—a direct measure of impaired mitochondrial ATP production. Small trials with coenzyme Q10, which supports mitochondrial function, have produced modest symptom improvements….Haley’s group argues that these pieces form a coherent picture. Mitochondria fail to sustain normal energy output. Cells lean harder on the creatine kinase buffer system, depleting phosphocreatine and raising free creatine. ATP shortages and mitochondrial stress trigger release of danger signals that activate microglia and drive chronic inflammation. The elevated myo-inositol in Gulf War illness fits that scenario of ongoing glial activation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2934.mp3" length="897764" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Increasing glucose oxidation may treat obesity and leads to mostly fat, not muscle, loss</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2931</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2931</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2025 21:25:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2931

If only the contestants in the show “The Biggest Loser” had this information before they destroyed their health with gruesome regimens of fasting, low-carb diets and exhaustive exercise. As it stands, those poor souls ended up not only regaining all of the weight they lost, even on reduced calorie diets after the show ended, but lost a major part of their muscle mass during the contest, and then regained most of that weight back in the form of fat. Truly a tragedy. As has become common for mainstream medicine, the official claims that “one has to burn fat in order lose fat” have very little evidence behind them. Often, the truth is 180 degrees away from what is officially pushed as “healthy”. In this specific case, the study found that administering the drug dichloroacetate (DCA), link here, restored activity of the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH, link here) and led losing a good portion of fat in the already obese subjects. As my readers know, PDH is the rate-limiting step for glucose oxidation and is known to be down regulated not only in obesity, but also diabetes, heart disease, and especially cancer. Speaking of cancer, the drug DCA is mostly known from its highly “controversial” (read: inconvenient) results in limited human cancer trials, link here about a decade ago. In those trials it was found to induce complete regression in the tumors of some people with very advanced (even terminal) disease. Of course, those promising results went nowhere, as they directly challenged the dogma that cancer is a mutation-driven, instead of metabolic, disease. The fact that DCA is toxic when used in high-doses also served as good deterrent for the general public to try it for their chronic conditions. However, one does not need to gamble with DCA in order to get the same effects. The main co-factors for PDH are vitamin B1 and magnesium. In addition, PDH activity is also modulated by the mitochondrial NAD+/NADH ratio, with higher ratio leading to higher PDH activity. Thus a combination of B1, niacinamide (NAD+ precursor) and magnesium would probably have achieved the same effects as DCA in the current study, with few known risks even at very high doses. Since the NAD+/NADH ratio is also known to be modulated by the Randle Cycle, restricting dietary fat (which lower NAD+/NADH ratio) and increasing carb intake would also likely have a positive effect, and it would be synergistic with the supplementation mentioned above.

link here

“…The research, Targeting Metabolic Dysregulation in Obesity: The Interplay Between Pyruvate Dehydrogenase and Weight Loss, part of a master’s thesis by Indiresh A. Mangra-Bala, focused on a small molecule called dichloroacetate, or DCA. For decades, scientists have known that DCA can push cells to burn sugar, link here more completely in their “power stations,” the mitochondria. In this study, the question was simple but ambitious: if you force the body to use sugar differently after obesity has already developed, can you actually reduce fat and improve health? At the heart of the work is an enzyme system called the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex, or PDH. In simple terms, PDH is like a gate that decides what happens to sugar once it enters the cell. When the gate is open, sugar, link here is sent into the mitochondria and burned for energy. When the gate is closed, much of that sugar is diverted into other pathways that can end up as fat or as lactate in the blood. In obesity and diabetes, that metabolic gate tends to be “closed” more often than it should be, because a family of enzymes called pyruvate dehydrogenase kinases, or PDHKs, act like brakes on PDH.”

“…DCA works by blocking PDHKs, which in theory removes some of those brakes and keeps the PDH gate more open. The new study investigated the effects of applying this concept to obese animals. Researchers first fed male and female mice a high-fat diet for ten weeks until they became obese. Only then did they begin treating the animals with DCA to mimic a real-world situation in which patients are already overweight before a drug is started.

The mice were then followed for four weeks on different DCA regimens. In one group, the animals received a relatively high dose of DCA in their drinking water. Under this treatment, the obese mice lost a meaningful amount of weight, and careful measurements showed that most of that loss came from fat rather than from muscle. When the mice were given a standard sugar challenge, their blood sugar spiked less and returned to normal more quickly, a sign of better glucose tolerance. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2931.mp3" length="1236884" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mictochondrial NAD+ levels drive liver regeneration</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2929</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2929</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2025 20:52:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2929

Given the prevalence of liver disease – NAFLD, NASH, cirrhosis and even liver cancer – in the general population, I think the study findings below would be well-received. Especially, considering the implications of being able to treat most kinds of liver disease with something as simple as niacinamide (an NAD+ precursor), with likely synergistic effects when combined with an oxidizing agent (which increases oxidation of NADH back into NAD+) such as emodin, vitamin K, thymoquinone, methylene blue, tetracycline antibiotics, etc. I can’t get the full text of the study yet, as the study was just published, but once it becomes available I will modify the post to contain the oral supplementation protocol with NAD+ precursor(s) that the study mentions.

link here

“…We show that the size of the mitochondrial NAD+ pool in hepatocytes is regulated by SLC25A51 expression in vivo. We further find that selectively increasing mitochondrial NAD+ is sufficient to improve liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy, equivalent to the effect of systemic high-dose NAD+ precursor supplementation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2929.mp3" length="398204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mitral valve disease likely caused by endotoxin/LPS-driven inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2927</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2927</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2025 20:43:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2927

This is something Ray has told people numerous time over email, but the studies are now solidifying as the main hypothesis. Namely, that many chronic heart conditions are inflammation-driven and that the main cause of said systemic inflammation is increased serum endotoxin/LPS due to gut barrier dysfunction. Since it is well-known by now that chronic leaky gut is itself driven by low NAD+ levels as a result of lower OXPHOS, one could also say that low metabolism is the ultimate cause of mitral valve disease. That disease used to be rare and manifesting mostly in people over 40, but now impacts even people in their 20s about as often as people twice that age or older.

link here

“…Twenty percent of dogs in Group 1 had gastrointestinal clinical signs compared to 66.7% in Group 2 (P < 0.0001). Serum IL-6 (P = 0.037) and LPS (P = 0.024) concentrations were significantly associated with MMVD stage severity. Serum LPS and IL-6 were positively correlated (rs = 0.81; P < 0.0001). This study indicates that dogs with MMVD have evidence of loss of gastrointestinal barrier function as evidenced by bacterial translocation as the disease progresses in severity, which may be associated with systemic inflammation. These findings warrant further evaluation of gastrointestinal barrier function and maybe even the gastrointestinal microbiome as therapeutic targets in dogs with MMVD.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2927.mp3" length="370124" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Human ovarian/egg cells (oocytes) do NOT age, suggesting menopause is reversible</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2923</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2923</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2025 23:35:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2923

Ray wrote in many of is articles that menopause is not what mainstream medicine describes it to be. There is no “fixed” number of eggs predetermined in-utero before the female baby is even born. Eggs can be produced at any point of time in a female organism’s life, provided the metabolic state of the organism is optimal. In addition, there is also no structural ovarian failure in menopause, despite medicine claims to the contrary. The study below now officially confirms Ray’s writings, and suggests that “menopause” is simply the female version of the so-called age-related male hypogonadism, which is known to be entirely of secondary (hormonal) origin in most men and reversible by administration of estrogen “antagonists” (risky and more accurately called SERM) such as clomiphene/clomid or chemicals that increase mitochondrial cholesterol transport for steroid synthesis by activating the StAR protein, or simply by administering testosterone therapy. Btw, aside from the testosterone therapy, the same approach has already been shown to work in female too, but I don’t think SERMs are safe in either sex. In any event, it seems that just as there is no sign of structural damage in aging male gonads, there seems to be no such damage in female gonads (ovaries) either. In addition, human oocytes appear to also preserve their energy production, despite advancing age. The study does actually make the claim that female child-bearing age can be extended and perhaps maintained throughout the entire lifespan. Ray suggested progesterone, thyroid, aspirin and vitamin A for menopause. More recent studies have demonstrated that DHEA, vitamin D, and vitamin E may also help with restoring proper ovarian function to youthful levels.

link here

Women’s Eggs Resist Aging at the Mitochondrial Level, link here

“…A NEW study has found that human egg cells, link here remain genetically stable as women age, resisting the accumulation of mutations in their mitochondrial DNA. The findings suggest that oocytes possess unique protective mechanisms that preserve mitochondrial integrity, helping maintain reproductive potential even later in life. Researchers led by Barbara Arbeithuber and Kateryna Makova used high-precision duplex sequencing to analyse mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations in single oocytes, blood, and saliva samples from women aged 20 to 42. They discovered that while mutations increased with age in blood and saliva, no such rise occurred in oocytes. This indicates that human eggs, unlike most body cells, are shielded from age-related mitochondrial mutations—a finding that could reshape understanding of reproductive aging. Further analysis showed that high-frequency mutations were less common in coding regions of mtDNA, suggesting that purifying selection removes potentially harmful variants, while lower-frequency mutations appeared evenly distributed. “These results highlight the resilience of human oocytes,” said the authors. “Their mitochondria appear protected from the accumulation of age-related mutations, preserving energy production and genetic integrity.” The study offers reassuring news as more women choose to conceive later in life. By showing that oocyte mitochondria remain robust over time, it deepens scientific insight into fertility longevity and may inform future advances in reproductive medicine.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2923.mp3" length="887084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low-fat protein meal after workout boosts muscle growth, high-fat protein meal is neutral or has negative effects</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2921</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2921</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2025 23:12:48 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2921

Another study that would probably generate a lot of controversy and hate-mail for me. Meh, such is life, better to embrace it than hide:-) The study below demonstrated that eating low-fat pork after weight lifting led to robust increase in muscle protein synthesis (MPS) on top of the boost triggered by the weight training itself. In contrast, eating high-fat pork either produced no MPS increase or in some people actually decreased MPS below the level produced by weight training.

2 links here

“…At the gym, participants performed leg presses and leg extensions, then returned to the lab to eat one of three test meals: a high-fat pork burger, a lean pork burger, or a carbohydrate drink. Five hours later, the researchers took another muscle biopsy to measure how the meal and exercise together affected protein synthesis. After several days of recovery, 14 of the 16 volunteers repeated the process but switched meal types to ensure that individual differences did not skew the results. As expected, amino acid levels in the blood rose sharply after eating pork compared with the carbohydrate drink. However, those who consumed the lean pork burger showed the largest increases in amino acids — both total and essential. “When you see an increased concentration of amino acids in the blood after you eat, you get a pretty good idea that that is coming from the food that you just ate,” Burd said. Those who consumed the lean pork burger after a bout of weight training also had a greater rate of muscle-protein synthesis than those who ate the high-fat pork burger. This was a surprise to Burd, as “the previous studies using fattier foods, such as whole eggs or salmon, generally showed enhanced post-exercise muscle-protein synthesis compared with lower fat food such as egg whites or nutritional supplements,” he said. Although weight training boosted muscle-protein synthesis in the groups eating pork, the protein in the high-fat burger seemed to have no added benefit in the hours after participants consumed it, while the protein in the lean pork gave muscle-protein synthesis a boost. “For some reason, the high-fat pork truly blunted the response,” Burd said. “In fact, the people who ate the high-fat pork only had slightly better muscle-building potential than those who drank a carbohydrate sports beverage after exercise.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2921.mp3" length="284132" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A daily dose of 5,000 IU vitamin D3 “drastically” reduces risk of a second heart attack</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2919</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2919</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2025 22:56:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2919

While the onslaught against vitamin D in mainstream medicine and the blogosphere continues unabated, every once in a while we get studies like the one below that give some hope that not everything is lost. A meager daily dose of 5,000 IU vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) reduced second heart attack risk by 50%+. This is something no prescription pharma drug is known to be able to do, and is on par with aspirin’s effectiveness in preventing said secondary heart attacks. Hhhm, I wonder what would happen is one combined aspirin and vitamin D3? Nah, not really, I am not wondering as it is pretty obvious it would be beneficial and other studies have already explored the synergistic effects of combining aspirin with vitamin D. Btw, I recently became aware that the vitamin D receptor (VDR) is part of the thyroid hormone receptor subfamily. As such, T3 and vitamin D can activate each others’ receptors, which means vitamin D is a true thyromimetic. That fact that heart disease is known to be reliably inducible in animals by removing the thyroid gland, and that people taking thyroid have lower risk of heart disease than the general population strongly suggests that the protective effects of vitamin D3 seen in this study are metabolic in origin, by mimicking the effects of T3.

link here

“…A new study from researchers with Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City examined the effect of vitamin D3 supplementation on people who previously had heart attacks. The researchers did not give everyone the same vitamin D3 dosage but instead adjusted the amount based on the needs of each participant. The researchers found that vitamin D3 may drastically reduced the risk of having a second heart attack.”

“…The researchers randomly selected the control group and who would receive the targeted vitamin D3 treatment. At the time of enrollment, 87% of participants had low vitamin D levels. The target level was 40 nanograms/milliliter (ng/ml), and the average vitamin D level was 27 ng/ml. The researchers administered a high vitamin D3 starting dose of 5,000 UI to nearly 60% of participants. The researchers monitored vitamin D3 levels, link here throughout the trial to make sure they remained at the target level. If someone’s vitamin D level dropped below that, they received vitamin D supplementation to get back on track.”

“…The rate of follow-up heart attacks was 3.8% in the test group compared to 7.9% in the control group. Overall, while the results suggest that targeted vitamin D3 supplementation may not reduce all major cardiac outcomes, it did cut the risk of repeat heart attacks by more than half. The research team plans to conduct a larger clinical trial to confirm these findings.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2919.mp3" length="650996" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Alcohol is a reductant and as such it raises (not lowers) GSH and the GSH/GSSG ratio</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2915</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2915</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2025 21:39:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2915

One of the established emergency room protocols for alcohol poisoning is the intravenous administration of GSH, often combined with B vitamins (so-called “banana bag). Medical school teaching and clinical practice have for decades claimed that alcohol lowers GSH and the drop in GSH is what causes a lot of the damage to internal organs such as the liver as a result of alcohol abuse. I have always wondered what the rationale for this “treatment” was considering the simple biochemical fact that alcohol is a reductant and as such it is expected to shift the redox ratio towards reduction and as such increase relevant redox biomarkers such as the NADH/NAD+, beta-hydroxybutyrate/acetoacetate, lactate/pyruvate and GSH/GSSG ratios, thus making additional supplementation with GSH at best unnecessary and at worst harmful. Yet, the doctors I have been discussing this with as well as many of the already published studies continue to push the narrative that more (not less) GSH is needed, not only for alcohol abuse treatment but for various chronic conditions and aging itself. The study below is one of the few (that I am aware of) that directly shows alcohol raising GSH, depleting GSSG and thus robustly raising the GSH/GSSG ratio. Since a shift in the redox ratio towards reduction has an inhibitory effect on OXPHOS, the regeneration of NAD+ from NADH would also be inhibited, thus directly inhibiting alcohol (and overall) metabolism since alcohol metabolism depends on two enzymes dependent on NAD+ – namely, alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase). Thus, it seems prudent to treat alcohol abuse with NAD+ precursors such as niacinamie and/or oxidizing agents such as quinones, as those shift the redox ratio towards oxidation. On a related note, since now elevated GSH is known to be a driving factor in cancer, this findings suggests that alcohol’s promoting effects on cancer (when consumed in excess) are largely metabolic in origin.

link here

“…Activities of SOD and CAT were subsequently measured after ethanol treatment, revealing that ethanol stress significantly enhanced their activities (Fig. 2, link hereA and B). We also measured the contents of GSH and GSSG, and the GSH/GSSG ratio under ethanol stress. As demonstrated in Fig. 2, link hereC and E, the GSH content and GSH/GSSG ratio increased significantly, while the GSSG content decreased significantly…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2915.mp3" length="1029188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) may drive brain/liver/pancreatic and many other cancers, at the genomic level</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2913</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2913</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2025 21:18:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2913

Hardly the “happiness hormone”, right? I am posting this just as a placeholder since the article is from the popular press, but it does have an interesting reference to a study that 5-HT has a direct genomic effect by silencing/activating genes. Some of the genes 5-HT activates are already well-known “oncogenes” – i.e. they help drive certain cancers, such as brain, liver and pancreatic ones. I would go a step further and state that given 5-HT’s effects as a potent metabolic inhibitor and reductant, that amine probably plays a direct causal role in all cancers.

2 links here

“…In 2019, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York discovered, link here that serotonin can enter cells and interact directly with DNA. They found that it binds to molecular “switches” that control whether genes are active or inactive – and this binding can turn specific genes on. Studies since then have shown that serotonin can switch on genes involved in cancer growth. This mechanism has been seen in brain, liver, and pancreatic cancers – and it may play a role in many other types of cancer. My colleagues and I at the University of Limerick in Ireland are currently investigating, link here the interaction between serotonin and DNA to better understand how it influences cancer. Identifying the specific sites where serotonin binds to cancer-related genes could support the development of targeted “epigenetic” therapies – treatments that control which genes are switched on or off.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2913.mp3" length="364364" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PRESS: The estrogen/progesterone ratio in menopause is LOW and it causes Alzheimer; STUDY: That ratio in menopause is HIGH, it causes AD by lowering OXPHOS, P4 may cure AD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2911</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2911</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2025 18:08:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2911

I think at this point the verdict is clear – mainstream scientific press is beyond redemption. I am not even sure how such abysmal reporting on study findings is not considered “reckless endangerment” by reporting to the public the exact opposite of what the actual scientific study found. The fiasco is further amplified due to the press article also directly promoting another lie – that estrogen is low in (peri)menopause – when in reality its levels (and especially the estrogen/progesterone (P4) ratio) are higher in menopause, and the latter is exactly what the study reported as well. In fact, the study directly induced Alzheimer Disease (AD) by modulating the levels of estrogen (E) – estradiol (E2), to be precise – and P4 so that they mimic the levels found in perimenopause, and the resulting high E2/P4 ratio produced the symptoms of AD in the animal model. Further corroborating Ray’s ideas and the bioenergetic theory as well, the study also found that the causal effects of elevated perimenopausal E2/P4 ratio on AD are driven by said ratio suppressing oxidative metabolism (OXPHOS) and thus severely depleting ATP levels in the brain. In other words, estrogen is a metabolic inhibitor/poison when its effects are left unopposed due to low levels of estrogen antagonist steroids (e.g. P4 and/or androgens, in both women and men). It gets better – the study reversed AD symptoms and neurological changes by supplementing P4 at a human-equivalent dose of 0.3mg/kg-0.6mg/kg for 50 days. The P4 treatment lowered the E/P4 ratio, boosted P4 levels in the brain, and restored OXPHOS and ATP levels. Furthermore, the study also found that an elevated E/P4 ratio activates the same genes that are involved in not only AD, but also in Parkinson Disease (PD), Huntington Disease (HD), prion disease (mad cow disease), and even amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Thus, one could extend the study conclusion to state that an elevated E/P4 ratio drives virtually all chronic, degenerative neurological diseases and that P4 supplementation could be a viable treatment for all those conditions we have been told are “incurable”.

While does not mention it, there is a solid mechanism of action behind P4’s benefit observed in the study. P4 is an aromatase inhibitor and lowers estrogen synthesis, thus both lowering E and raising P4 levels (dual effect). P4 is also an estrogen receptor antagonist, so not only will it lower estrogen synthesis/levels, but will also block estrogen’s effects in the cell. It rarely gets better than that in terms of therapeutic effects for a specific substance. Other anti-estrogenic substances such as the vitamins E/K/A/D, aspirin, pregnenolone, DHT, etc would also likely be good options for keeping estrogen levels/signalling under control, and would probably be synergistic if combined with progesterone. A certain product featuring progesterone dissolved in vitamin E (by Ray himself) comes to mind here:-)

Hormone Imbalance in Perimenopause Fuels Alzheimer’s Risk, link here

“…Alzheimer’s disease, a devastating neurodegenerative disorder, disproportionately affects women, particularly as they transition through midlife hormonal shifts. Although decades of research have associated estrogen decline during menopause with cognitive decline, the exact molecular underpinnings have remained elusive. The new findings from Sun, Peng, Hart et al. provide a detailed mechanistic insight, demonstrating how the ratio of oestradiol to progesterone rather than absolute levels critically governs neural metabolic balance through ERRα signaling.”

“…ERRα is a nuclear receptor overseeing the regulation of genes responsible for mitochondrial biogenesis and energy production in cells, especially in neurons with high metabolic demands. The research team discovered that during the perimenopausal window, an aberrant hormonal milieu—caused by disproportionate decreases in oestradiol relative to progesterone—triggers maladaptive changes in ERRα expression and activity. This disturbance significantly impairs mitochondrial function and disrupts ATP generation, leading to neuronal energy deficiency, a hallmark observed in Alzheimer’s pathology.”

link here

“…The perimenopausal transition in women is marked by elevated, erratic, and unpredictable E2 levels and a sharp reduction in P4 levels20,21,53. To investigate how these endocrine changes impact brain function, a perimenopausal state was artificially induced in laboratory mice using 4-vinylcyclohexene diepoxide (VCD), a chemical that selectively destroys small preantral ovarian follicles by accelerating follicular atresia while preserving the overall ovarian anatomy54,55. Young adult mice (postnatal day 70–75, P70–75) were utilized to minimize the confounding effects of chronological ageing (Fig. 2a). Following VCD treatment, elongation of the oestrous cycle duration became apparent by the 6th–7th cycle after completion of the treatment (Fig. 2a). This phenomenon was accompanied by persistent elevations in circulating levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) (Fig. 2b). While consistent reductions in circulating E2 and P4 levels were observed by Cycle 14 in all VCD-treated animals, a subset of animals at Cycle 7 exhibited marked increases in E2 (Fig. 2c) or decreases in P4 levels (Fig. 2d), resulting in aberrantly high E2:P4 ratios (≥ 2.5 pg/ng) (Fig. 2e). This condition, termed “higher oestradiol–lower progesterone imbalance,” characterized the onset of the perimenopausal state transition, which generally began at Cycle 6–7, while the full menopausal state (characterized by general reductions in both E2 and P4 levels) was successfully induced by Cycle 14.”

“…Furthermore, the animals displayed mild anxiety-like behaviour, as indicated by the significantly reduced time spent in the centre zone during the open-field test (Fig. 2i, Supplementary Fig. 3g). Importantly, the decline in behavioural performance at the onset of the perimenopausal state transition (Cycle 7) was most strongly correlated with the E2:P4 ratio (Fig. 2f–g, 2i) rather than with the circulating levels of E2 or P4 alone (Supplementary Fig. 3b–d, 3g). Immunohistochemical analysis further supported the negative impact of elevated E2:P4 ratios (≥ 2.5 pg/ng) on brain cellular integrity, revealing significant neurite loss in the Cornu Ammonis area 1 (CA1) of the hippocampus (Fig. 2j, Supplementary Fig. 3h–j). These anatomical changes were accompanied by impairments in neurophysiological function. Field excitatory postsynaptic potentials (fEPSPs) recorded from the Schaffer collateral pathway showed significant deficits in VCD-treated animals (Fig. 2k, left 246 panel), along with diminished long-term potentiation (LTP) (Fig. 2k, right panel). Together, these findings demonstrated that aberrantly elevated E2:P4 ratios during the perimenopausal state transition were associated with cognitive and memory impairments, mild anxiety-like behaviour, neurite loss in the hippocampus, and reduced synaptic plasticity, underscoring the detrimental effects of hormonal imbalances on brain function.”

“…To further investigate the underlying molecular mechanism, we conducted a bulk transcriptomic analysis of the cerebral cortex from VCD-treated animals, which exhibited a greater oestradiol–lower progesterone imbalance during the perimenopausal state transition (E2:P4 ≥ 2.5 pg/ng in oestrous Cycle 7; Fig. 259 2e). Principal component analysis (PCA) effectively distinguished the transcriptomic profiles of VCD-treated animals from those of vehicle-treated controls (Fig. 3a). This analysis revealed 346 upregulated and 544 downregulated transcripts in the VCD-treated group (Fig. 3b). While the upregulated DEGs did not cluster into any meaningful pathways, the downregulated DEGs were strongly enriched in pathways associated with mitochondrial energetics, including OXPHOS and the citrate cycle (TCA cycle). Furthermore, these genes were also involved in pathways related to neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, prion disease, Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Fig. 3c-d). These findings highlighted the central role of defective OXPHOS in the pathogenesis of age-related neurodegenerative diseases.”

“…As previously observed (Fig. 4), activated PR signalling plays a coregulatory role in guiding ERα signalling to regulate the ERRα-PGC1α axis via cholesterol homeostasis. The 3xTg mice exhibited a high E2:P4 ratio, and a decreased ERα–PR interaction was accompanied by increased levels of Aβ monomers, dimers, and oligomers, as well as phosphorylated tau (S202/T205), in cortical tissues (Fig. 7i, Supplementary Fig. 17c). These findings suggested that reversing the high E2:P4 ratio during the early perimenopausal state (Cycles 7–8) by elevating P4 levels could mitigate the adverse effects of hormonal imbalance on subcellular signalling, AD-related pathology, and cognitive decline. Pharmacokinetic profiling after P4 administration revealed a short plasma half-life following intraperitoneal injection (4–8 mg/kg), with peak levels occurring at 15 minutes and a rapid decline thereafter83 [Supplementary Fig. 18a(2)-b(2)]. Although P4 injections had no effect on endogenous E2 levels [Supplementary Fig. 18a(3)-b(3)], they effectively reduced the E2:P4 ratio below the defined imbalance threshold (≥2.5 pg/ng) for approximately 8 hours [Supplementary Fig. 18a-b(4)]. This time window allowed for the implantation of subcutaneous minipumps, which maintained effective P4 concentrations over an extended period. Using a protocol combining intraperitoneal injection (4 mg/kg) followed by subcutaneous infusion (11.7 ± 0.7 mg/kg over 48 hours), we found that P4 treatment normalized plasma E2:P4 ratios (Fig. 7k, Supplementary Fig. 18c) and restored P4 levels in brain tissues (Fig. 7k, Supplementary Fig. 18d). Subsequent extended P4 supplementation over 60 days, which coincided with Cycles 14–15, improved memory and cognitive functions in 3xTg mice with an initial high E2:P4 ratio, whereas no significant effects were observed in vehicle-treated mice with balanced E2:P4 ratios (Fig. 7l, Supplementary Fig. 19a–b). Brain tissues harvested from P4-treated 3xTg mice showed significant improvements in neurite length (Fig. 7m), reduced levels of phosphorylated tau (Fig. 7m-n, Supplementary Fig. 19c), and decreased Aβ immunoreactivity, accompanied by enhanced ERα–PR interactions (Fig. 7n, Supplementary Fig. 19d). Transcriptomic and metabolomic profiling revealed that P4 supplementation restored cholesterol and NAAG biosynthetic networks (Fig. 7o, Supplementary Fig. 20a–g). P4 treatment upregulated the expression of cholesterol biosynthetic genes (Dhcr7, Dhcr24) and pyruvate decarboxylation genes (Pdha1), which are key targets of P4-regulated ERα signalling 551 (Fig. 7o). This phenomenon re-established the relative abundance of cholesterol-bound ERRα (Fig. 7p, left panel) and preserved the expression of SDH, a critical metabolic enzyme involved in TCA cycle activity (Fig. 7p, right panel). Neurophysiological analyses further demonstrated that P4 supplementation improved the maximal respiratory capacity and ATP-linked respiration in the brain (Supplementary Fig. 20h). Additionally, fEPSPs in the Schaffer collateral pathway were significantly enhanced (Fig. 7q), indicating restored synaptic function.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2911.mp3" length="1618532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Chronic stress reliably causes depression, (bioidentical) progesterone may treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2908</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2908</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 28 Oct 2025 23:18:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2908

It looks like there is a chasm between animal and human research. In animal research, chronic stress is well-known to cause a variety of mood disorders, covering virtually entire spectrum of the human-equivalents described in DSM IV/V. Specifically, animal research has even established a reliable behavior protocol for causing severe depression by subjecting the animals to a few weeks of so-called chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS). In other words, not only is there no role of “depression genes” in the induction of severe depression, said depression can be reliably induced at will simply by subjecting the animals to chronic stress that is several magnitudes lower than what most people experience on a daily basis. No wonder depression and suicide rates are through the roof and keep rising! In addition, the study not only offers a relatively harmless solution in the form of (bioidentical) progesterone administration, but also vindicates progesterone when it comes to mental health. Many OBGYN doctors and psychiatrists contend that progesterone may be a causative factor in depression, especially the postpartum kind, despite irrefutable evidence that progesterone levels sharply drop after pregnancy. One of the reasons give for progesterone’s “depressive” effects is its known opposition/antagonism to estrogen, and over the last decade or so medicine has everything possible to vilify the so-called WHI studies, which proved beyond doubt that estrogen therapy is really terrible for women’s neurological and mental health. Well, hopefully people will take the findings of the study below seriously and consider progesterone as an option before agreeing to use the abominations known as SSRI drugs.

The human-equivalent dose of progesterone was about 1mg/kg daily and the treatment was administered for 2 weeks, about 4 weeks after the chronic stress protocol was started the animals were already clinically depressed. The higher human-equivalent dose (2mg/kg daily) did not produce further benefit, while lower doses (<1mg/kg) were less effective, thus suggesting partially dose-dependent effects. Importantly, progesterone reversed not only various behavior and cognitive features of depression, but also the anhedonia. The latter is a notoriously difficult-to-treat symptom of depression and most SSRI are ineffective in that respect. Speaking of SSRI, the study suggests that whatever antidepressant effect SSRI drugs may have, it is due to reductions in inflammatory biomarkers such as TNF-a, and not due to increasing extracellular serotonin levels. In corroboration, chronic stress (as used in this study or otherwise) also strongly increases inflammation in the nervous system and it is this inflammation that apparently causes depression. Progesterone’s proposed anti-depressant effect was due to the reduction of said inflammation in the nervous system, but also systemically! While I do agree with those hypotheses, my opinion is that progesterone has a few other mechanisms of action resulting in a robust antidepressant effects. Namely, progesterone is a glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonist, link here and blocks the effects of excess cortisol. The latter is a known causal factor in depression. Furthermore, progesterone inhibits the enzyme 11b-HSD1 and activates 11b-HSD2, link here, which means that it also directly reduces the synthesis of cortisol while also promoting cortisol deactivation. In addition, progesterone is a strong GABA agonist and such agonists have already been demonstrated to have therapeutic effects in depression. Finally, progesterone promotes thyroid function and thus systemic metabolism, and pro-thyroid substances (especially T3) have also been demonstrated to be therapeutic in depression.

link here

“…The rising global prevalence of depression, exacerbated by modern psychosocial stressors, underscores the imperative to elucidate pathophysiology and develop mechanistically novel therapeutics. Our study demonstrates that progesterone alleviates chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS)-induced depressive phenotypes through NLRP3 inflammasome inhibition, providing critical insights into neurosteroid mediated neuroprotection. The CUMS paradigm employed in this study effectively recapitulates core features of human depression. Progressive behavioral adaptations from initial hyperarousal to eventual psychomotor retardation and anhedonia-mirror clinical trajectories of chronic stress-induced emotional dysregulation. Notably, the sustained weight loss, fur deterioration, and diminished stress resilience observed in CUMS-exposed rats align with established biomarkers of rodent despair states [2,23].”

“…Our use of male SD rats circumvented potential confounders from estrogen-mediated neuroprotection [3], while the CUMS protocol prevented stressor habituation through variable stimulation-a methodological advance over single-stressor paradigms [19]. Post-CUMS behavioral deficits, including reduced sucrose preference and increased immobility in the forced swim test, were reversed by progesterone in a dose-dependent manner consistent with its previously documented neurostimulatory effects in depression models [18], thereby confirming its therapeutic efficacy against depression-relevant endophenotypes. Mechanistically, progesterone’s antidepressant effects correlate with NLRP3 inflammasome suppression. The reversal of anhedonia (SPT) and despair (FST immobility) by progesterone correlates with reduced NLRP3 activation, suggesting that neuroinflammatory mitigation underlies behavioral recovery. The CUMS-induced upregulation of NLRP3, pro-caspase-1, and cleaved caspase-1 in prefrontal and hippocampal tissues—key regions governing emotional regulation—confirms stressinduced inflammasome activation as a neuropathological hub [24,32]. Progesterone administration normalized these molecular changes and reduced serum IL-1β and TNF-α levels, indicating systemic anti-inflammatory effects. This dual central-peripheral modulation aligns with progesterone’s established capacity to: (1) suppress glial activation by inhibiting NF-κB/NLRP3 signaling in astrocytes [12,13]; (2) enhance GABAergic tone via allopregnanolone-mediated GABAA receptor potentiation [8], which counterbalances stress-induced neuroexcitation; (3) preserve neuroplasticity through dendritic spine stabilization and oxidative stress mitigation [7,27]. Notably, progesterone’s inhibition of caspase-1 activation impedes IL-1β/IL-18 maturation-a critical nexus linking neuroinflammation to depressive symptomatology [17,25]. The observed prefrontal-hippocampal specificity of pro-caspase-1 reduction may reflect regional variations in microglial reactivity, warranting future single-cell transcriptomic characterization. Our findings extend prior evidence of progesterone’s neuroprotection in ischemia and neurodegeneration [4] to stress-related mood disorders. The dose-dependent effects mirror clinical observations wherein progesterone derivatives correlate with improved neurocognitive outcomes [16]. Furthermore, the shared anti-inflammatory mechanisms between progesterone and SSRIs-notably TNF-α suppression [29]-suggest potential synergies for treatment-resistant depression.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2908.mp3" length="1795868" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K+A may treat Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2906</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2906</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 28 Oct 2025 21:16:48 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2906

Another very interesting study below, though I disagreed with some of its findings. Namely, the study discovered that by fusing the vitamin K2 (MK-4, also known as menaquinone-4 / menatetrenone) molecule with vitamin A (retinoic acid) they could reverse the AD pathology in a rodent model. The study spends a lot of time describing the already known role in K2 (M-4) in brain health and especially preventing (even treating?) dementias such as AD. However, it claims that K2 by itself has limited uptake into the brain and thus is not strong enough to exert a sufficient therapeutic effect needed to reverse AD. That is why the study fused the K2 molecule with retinoic acid and found that this conjugate has higher brain uptake and stronger effects on reversing both plaque accumulation and the mental deficits seen in AD. In other words, the study admits that it is K2 (MK-4) that is the main beneficial agent here, and that their newly synthesized compounds NovelK are simply acting as pro-dugs for K2 (MK-4), which suggests that using just K2 (MK-4) simply needs to reach higher concentrations to do its magic. My disagreement is that K2 (MK-4) has been found to have a dose-dependent accumulation in the brain, and the desired brain concentrations of the vitamin  can be achieved with higher oral doses, or lower doses but administered topically. Given the laughable RDA for vitamin K, which is on the order of micrograms (mcg) it is little wonder that studies consider pharmacological doses to be on the order of a few milligrams (mg). As such, most in-vivo studies with vitamin K2 (MK-4) are handicapped by design and it is little surprise that they do not produce the amount of benefit desired by medicine in order to declare K2 to be a viable treatment for AD. In comparison, the human doses for reversing osteoporosis in Asian countries (especially Japan) are either 45mg daily, or even as high as 1mg/kg daily. To my knowledge, no such high doses (their animal equivalent) have been tried in AD models, and if they were tried we would have seen the same benefits as the one seen in this study. So, no need to wait for an expensive and patented K2+A conjugate to be patented and sold to the public as an AD drugs. Good ol’ vitamin K2 (MK-4) widely available from many vendors may be just as good and only at a fraction of the cost.

2 links here

“…Neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease occur when neurons in the brain gradually deteriorate and die. This progressive loss of nerve cells leads to symptoms like memory loss, cognitive decline, and difficulty with movement. Over time, these conditions severely impact quality of life and often leave patients dependent on constant care. While current medications can ease symptoms, they do not stop or reverse the disease, highlighting the urgent need for new treatment strategies. One promising direction focuses on encouraging the brain to generate new neurons through a process known as neuronal differentiation, which could replace damaged cells and potentially slow or reverse degeneration. Vitamin K, a fat-soluble nutrient best known for its role in blood clotting and bone health, has recently been linked to brain protection and neuron formation. However, naturally occurring vitamin K compounds such as menaquinone 4 (MK-4) may not be strong enough to serve as effective therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.”

“…Explaining the findings, Dr. Hirota stated, “The newly synthesized vitamin K analogues demonstrated approximately threefold greater potency in inducing the differentiation of neural progenitor cells into neurons compared to natural vitamin K. Since neuronal loss is a hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, these analogues may serve as regenerative agents that help replenish lost neurons and restore brain function.””

“…To improve the potency of vitamin K, the researchers synthesized 12 vitamin K hybrid homologs conjugated with retinoic acid—an active metabolite of vitamin A known to promote neuronal differentiation, a carboxylic acid moiety, or a methyl ester side chain and compared the neuronal differentiation-inducing activity of the hybrid homologs.”

“…The team then performed computer-based structural modeling and molecular docking experiments to determine whether vitamin K analogs interact directly with mGluR1. The results confirmed a strong binding relationship between the Novel VK compound and mGluR1, suggesting an enhanced biological effect. The researchers next examined how well Novel VK was absorbed by cells and converted into its active form, MK-4, both in cell cultures and in mice. They observed that MK-4 levels inside cells rose in proportion to the concentration of Novel VK, and that the new compound converted into MK-4 more efficiently than natural vitamin K. Animal testing further demonstrated that Novel VK maintained a stable pharmacokinetic profile, successfully crossed the blood-brain barrier, and produced higher levels of MK-4 in the brain than the standard form of vitamin K.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2906.mp3" length="1169012" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Combination of vitamins E+D about as effective as antibiotic for treating bacterial sepsis/infection</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2904</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2904</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 28 Oct 2025 20:58:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2904

A very interesting study, which not only provides a viable alternative to people with severe bacterial infections and the resulting sepsis (COVID-19 anyone?), but also demonstrated a direct antibacterial effect of the vitamin combo that was comparable to the effects of the antibiotic (doxycycline). Vitamin D has been getting pretty bad press recently, just like aspirin, and it all started during the pandemic, when medicine realized that vitamin D may become a viable treatment for such conditions and thus threaten the sales of the expensive (and highly toxic) antiviral therapies such as Remdesivir. Despite the study claiming that the vitamin D doses were high, that was not at all the case. The human equivalent doses for vitamin D that works best in the study were about 1,000 IU and 2,000 IU daily, combined with a human-equivalent dose of 35mg/kg vitamin E daily. That vitamin E dose is indeed hefty, but even higher doses have been used in humans without serious side effects. In addition, most studies use vitamin E in the form of the cheap synthetic and racemic ester dl-alpha-tocopheryl acetate, which has only about 25% of the activity of d-alpha-tocopherol or mixed unesterified d-isomers of all 4 tocopherols. That means the effective dose if using the natural vitamin E could be as low as 8.75mg/kg, which translates to about 700mg-800mg vitamin E daily. That dose happens to be the most the human organism can absorb in a 24-hour period and is often used by people even when supplementing (instead of being clinically treated).

2 links here

“…Remarkably, no bacterial growth was observed in any of the treatment groups, including the positive control (C, doxycycline 9 mg/kg BW), the combination therapy group (D, doxycycline + vitamin D3 36 IU/kg BW + vitamin E 250 mg/kg BW), and all groups treated with vitamins D3 and E alone at varying doses (E–G). This indicates that both standard antibiotic therapy and vitamin-based interventions were effective in eliminating bacterial presence from the bloodstream. The absence of bacterial colonies in vitamin D3- and E-treated groups suggests a significant antimicrobial effect, particularly at higher vitamin D3 doses. Vitamin D3 is known to upregulate antimicrobial peptides such as cathelicidin and defensins, which disrupt bacterial membranes and enhance immune clearance (White 2022). Additionally, vitamin E’s antioxidant properties support immune function by protecting leukocytes from oxidative damage, thereby facilitating a more effective immune response (Hashem et al. 2021; Rusip et al. 2022). These findings are in agreement with previous studies reporting that vitamin D supplementation improves infection outcomes in sepsis (Quraishi et al. 2015), while Hartmann et al. (2020) highlighted the antibacterial and immunoprotective role of vitamin E. The comparable results between vitamin-only and doxycycline-treated groups suggest that vitamins D3 and E, especially in combination, could serve as potential adjunct therapies in bacterial sepsis management.”

“…The combination of vitamin D3 and vitamin E, particularly at higher doses (72 and 144 IU/kg BW of vitamin D3 with 250 mg/kg BW of vitamin E), demonstrated statistically significant improvements (p < 0.05) in reducing leukocyte counts, pro-inflammatory biomarkers (TNF-α, IL-6, procalcitonin, and CRP), and liver and kidney function markers (SGOT, SGPT, creatinine, and urea) in Staphylococcus aureus-induced sepsis in rats. These effects were comparable to the doxycycline-treated group, indicating strong immunomodulatory, hepatoprotective, and nephroprotective properties. These preliminary findings suggest that vitamin D3 and vitamin E (α-tocopherol), particularly at higher doses, may hold potential as supplementary agents in the management of Staphylococcus aureus-induced sepsis. However, further well-powered studies are required to confirm these effects before clinical application can be recommended.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2904.mp3" length="811220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low progesterone and DHEA may drive psoriasis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2902</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2902</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 28 Oct 2025 20:35:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2902

Like most autoimmune conditions, psoriasis is considered to be of unknown etiology and is labelled currently “incurable” by mainstream medicine. The fact that it is several times more prevalent in females (as are all other autoimmune conditions) has been known for decades and despite multiple hormone assessments no clear hormonal connection has been established. Estrogen was proposed as a possible cause decades ago, but that link was conveniently forgotten after medicine got into the habit of prescribing estrogenic HRT to women, as well as estrogenic birth control (BC) pills/patches/IUDs. The study below is one of the few to demonstrate a clear connection between low levels of progesterone and DHEA, and psoriasis. While the study did not find a clear connection between levels of estradiol and testosterone with psoriasis, it is worth noting that blood tests for estrogen are notoriously unreliable given that it correlated very poorly with intracellular estrogen levels. In addition, even if estradiol levels remain largely the same in both psoriasis and healthy cohorts, the fact that progesterone levels drop in patients results in a drop of the progesterone/estrogen ratio, which is not recognized by medicine as a much more reliable biomarker of estrogenic signalling. In other words, the study below demonstrated a drop in progesterone/estrogen ratio in psoriasis, which means psoriasis is characterized by relative estrogen dominance. Low DHEA has been observed in many autoimmune conditions and DHEA administration has been successfully tested in several small human trials for other autoimmune conditions such as Lupus. Low DHEA levels are seen in advancing age, and also when the person is under chronic stress and/or hypothyroid. Same with progesterone levels. Thus, one could rephrase the findings of the study to say that psoriasis may be driven by estrogen dominance caused by stress and/or low metabolism.

2 links here

“…Researchers did not observe differences between women with and without psoriasis when comparing mean levels of estradiol (119.6 vs. 143.8 pg/mL; P = .205) or testosterone (45.6 vs. 45.9; P = .943). In contrast, compared with controls, women with psoriasis had lower levels of progesterone (7.59 vs. 9.4 ng/mL; P < .0001) and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA; 144.9 vs. 150.7 ug/dL; P = .019). “We found that women with psoriasis had significantly lower progesterone and DHEA levels compared with matched controls, whereas estradiol and testosterone levels were similar between groups,” Lipner told Healio. The results suggest progesterone and DHEA play a role in psoriasis pathogenesis, whereas estrogen and testosterone do not, according to Lipner. “Physicians might advise female patients that fluctuations in sex hormone levels could influence psoriasis risk, severity or symptoms,” Lipner told Healio. “However, we do not have enough data yet to guide treatment.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2902.mp3" length="928292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Inosine directly binds and blocks the endotoxin/LPS receptor (TLR4)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2899</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2899</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2025 05:02:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2899

Inosine is an endogenous purine and a breakdown product of ATP. Elevated inosine levels are observed in stress and many chronic conditions, and medicine has so far viewed those changes in inosine levels as simply a natural metabolic cascade, with few direct effects of its own. Inosine can also serve as a precursor to ATP through the inosine->IMP->AMP->ADP->ATP salvage pathway and older studies in the former Soviet block counties demonstrated that inosine supplementation has a number of beneficial effects on tissues, immunity, mood, etc. In fact, inosine was used back in the day as kind of over-the-counter (OTC) doping drug by many athletes from those countries as it was believed it would lower inflammation and boost muscle mass/strength. However, subsequent studies in the West apparently failed to replicate the ergogenic effects of inosine and the substance has thus been declared as being little more than a metabolic “waste”, especially given its ability to further metabolize into uric acid and thus contribute to gout. I will soon do a separate post on inosine and its ergogenic effects, but it appears that the study below validates at least the claims for anti-inflammatory effects of inosine. Namely, the study found that in physiological concentrations inosine directly binds to and deactivates the TLR4 receptor, through which endotoxin exerts most of its systemic inflammatory effects. This suggests that the elevations of inosine during stress/disease conditions is likely not just pathological but adaptve as a way to lower systemic inflammation. This makes inosine a true TLR 4 antagonist, and a substance of particular interest given how few such OTC substances are known to medicine and the role of endotoxin/LPS/TLR4 in virtually all chronic conditions. And last but not least, the study below provides a plausible mechanism of action for the known protective effects of inosine in many viral conditions, which appear to exert their damage mostly through systemic inflammation, usually driven by endotoxin/LPS.

link here

“…Treatment with inosine led to significantly attenuated lung injury, improved pulmonary function, and reduced levels of IL-1β, IL-6, IL-18 and TNF-α. Specifically, inosine promoted M1-to-M2 macrophage polarization, thereby enhancing anti-inflammatory responses. Clodronate liposome depletion led to degradation of protective effects of inosine, indicating a key role of macrophages. Metabolomics analysis revealed that treatment with inosine restored glycolysis, lipid metabolism, and amino acid, link here homeostasis, link here, while transcriptomics analysis, link here showed downregulation, link here of TLR4/NF-κB, PI3K-Akt, and NOD-like receptor pathways, with upregulation of anti-inflammatory genes. In vitro tests indicated that treatment with inosine led to decreased apoptosis rate, link here of LPS-induced 16HBE cells, decreased levels of inflammatory cytokines, and inhibited TLR4, link here activation, and such effects were enhanced by TLR4 inhibitor TAK-242. SPR, link here analysis confirmed that inosine can inhibit signaling of TLR4 via direct binding. Inosine, link here shows protective effects against ALI as it may regulate TLR4 signaling to modulate macrophage polarization, metabolic homeostasis, and inflammatory responses. This study comprehensively integrate multi-omics analysis and functional assays to reveal the direct interaction between inosine and TLR4 for the first time, and provides insights into its anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory mechanisms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2899.mp3" length="999620" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Elevated cortisol/DHEA-S ratio (a sign of chronic stress or low metabolism) may drive Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2897</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2897</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2025 04:38:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2897

As my readers know, from both Ray work and mine, cortisol has a proven detrimental role in virtually all organs/tissues when chronically elevated. As misguided as mainstream medicine is, it has already admitted the role of cortisol in a variety of mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc. However, arguments are still being made that cortisol’s role is not completely “clear” since many studies have failed to find consistently elevated cortisol levels in mental disorder patients. As I have stated numerous times on various podcasts and blog posts, this “discrepancy” is likely due to fact that serum cortisol levels vary significantly throughout the day and can change in a matter of seconds. As such, single or infrequent measurements often fail to capture the chronic trends for cortisol levels, and most studies rely on just a single such measurement in serum. In addition, as many studies (and my research group’s own experiments) have shown, it is the absolute levels of cortisol that matter, but rather the ratio of cortisol to one or more of the anti-glucocorticoid steroids our bodies produce. Namely, multiple studies have demonstrated that the ratio of cortisol/DHEA-S, cortisol/DHEA, cortisol/testosterone, cortisol/progesterone, etc are much more predictive of existing or future pathologies since those ratios demonstrate whether cortisol’s known negative systemic effects are counterbalance (or not) by at least one of those cortisol antagonist steroids. Case in point, multiple studies have demonstrated that the cortisol/DHEA-S or the cortisol/DHEA ratio is the single most reliable predictor of all-cause mortality as well as any future morbidity, even when measured in serum where cortisol levels fluctuate greatly and are often unreliable as single-point measurements. If cortisol and one or more of the anti-cortisol steroids are instead measured in hair or nails, the predictive power of the ratio increases dramatically as it truly represents long term trends in both cortisol levels as well as one or more of its antagonists.

In any event, the study below demonstrates (I think, for the first time) that the cortisol/DHEA-S ratio is elevated in patients with AD and this elevation likely plays a causal role in the pathology of AD. As such, lowering that ratio by lowering cortisol levels, increasing DHEA(S) levels, or both should be highly therapeutic. Aspirin, pregnenolone, progesterone, emodin, thyroid, niacinamide, glycine/gelatin, etc are some of the well-known remedies for elevated cortisol, and taking DHEA can itself both lower cortisol (DHEA is an inhibitor of 11b-HSD1 and activator of 11b-HSD2) and raise DHEA(S) levels. A combination of two or more of these remedies will likely have a synergistic effects on the cortisol/DHEA-S ratio and this may alleviate AD. Finally, the study undescores the dangers of chronic stress and/or hypothyroidism as those are the primary factors in raising cortisol, lowering DHEA(S), and thus raising the cortisol/DHEA-S ratio.

link here

“…No statistically significant difference in serum DHEA-S concentrations was found between patients with AD and controls. However, patients with AD had significantly higher cortisol levels (398.85 vs. 337.40 nmol/L; p = 0.026) and a higher cortisol/DHEA-S ratio, showing a trend toward statistical significance (p = 0.078). Among participants aged 65-75 years, the cortisol/DHEA-S ratio was significantly higher in patients with AD than in controls (p = 0.031). In the control group, males had significantly higher DHEA-S levels than females (p = 0.020), whereas no sex difference was observed in the AD group. The findings of this pilot study suggest that elevated cortisol levels and an imbalance in the cortisol/DHEA-S ratio may contribute to AD pathophysiology. DHEA-S alone did not show a significant association with disease presence, but the observed age- and sex-related differences indicate that this neurosteroid may play a differential role in the development and progression of AD.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2897.mp3" length="1543100" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Elevated extracellular serotonin (5-HT), not dopamine, drives compulsive sexual behavior (CSBD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2895</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2895</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2025 03:25:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2895

Yet another study showing that mainstream medicine’s claims about the origins of a mental health condition are just about the opposite of the true underlying cause(s). Namely, compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD), which medicine has claimed for decades to be driven by excessive dopamine levels/signalling. The study below demonstrated that patients with CSBD have reduced expression of the so-called serotonin transporter (SERT) – a protein responsible for the uptake and deactivation of 5-HT – thus leading to elevated extracellular levels of 5-HT. It just so happens that SERT inhibition is the main target of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs – the “standard of care” therapy for a plethora of mental health conditions, especially clinical depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. In contrast, the study found no difference in dopamine signalling between healthy people and CSBD patients. Since SSRI drugs are so widely used globally, it would not be too far-fetched for a reasonable person to conclude that the epidemic of CSBD (as well as most other mental health disorders) is iatrogenic in nature and largely driven by the indiscriminate prescription and use of said SSRI drugs, as well as chronic stress (which also inhibits SERT while also increasing 5-HT synthesis, especially in the gut).

link here

“…Analysis revealed significantly higher methylation of the 5HTT/SLC6A4 (serotonin transporter gene), suggesting reduced central expression of the serotonin transporter in the CSBD individuals. Group differences in 5HT3A receptor gene methylation were non-significant; however, the threshold of significance reached was suggestive of a potential effect. Larger sample size and increased statistical power would be needed to provide stronger statistical evidence. These findings were further supported by correlations between the methylation status of these two serotonergic genes and sexual outlet indicators in the control group. Importantly, no such association was observed in CSBD patients, which may suggest a lack of epigenetic regulatory feedback, potentially leading to suboptimal signalling of sexual drive and satiety. Notably, no epigenetic differences were observed for dopaminergic targets (DRD2 receptor gene and DAT/SLC6A3 transporter gene).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2895.mp3" length="711068" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Keto diets may drop some weight, but cause hyperlipidemia, liver/heart disease, and even diabetes type I</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2891</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2891</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2025 21:08:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2891

This is probably one of the most controversial posts I have made in a long time. It pretty much disproves keto diets as interventions that can improve long-term health, despite the initial (and transitory) weight loss such diets may induce. Keto diets, which I first tried more than a decade ago (and deeply regretted doing so) are all the rage now and it seems every public health agency out there (globally) is recommending them not only for weight loss but for improving systemic health and reducing risks of future chronic disease such as diabetes, liver and heart disease (CVD). Well, there is indeed some weight loss over the first 2-3 months on keto diets. However, most of that weight loss seems to be in the form of intracellular water, since cutting carbs works similarly to diuretics. There is also some fat loss, but multiple studies have shown that muscle loss is also increased and over time dwarfs the fat loss aspect of the diet, thus making the initial problem much worse. Why? Well, the resting metabolic rate (RMR) is determined primarily by the ratio of lean mass to fat mass. Thus, as the amount of muscle loss overtakes the amount of fat loss with chronic ingestion of keto diets, the RMR drops significantly. As such, after the person stops the keto diet and goes back to even low-to-moderate carb diets, the formerly keto diet patient rapidly regains the weight lost as a result of the keto diet, and regains it mostly in the form of fat. Since fat is not nearly as metabolically active as muscle tissue, the newly re-obesified person not only regains all of the lost weight, but almost always exceed the initial weight before the keto diet was started and finds that they keep gaining weight even if they restrict the calories way below what they used to consume prior to the keto diet. That is due to the fact that the RMR dropped as a result of the keto diet (and muscle loss) and the regular diet, which the former keto patient used to consume and maintain a stable (though high) weight on, becomes directly obesogenic due to the much lower RMR. Please note, that this is not a theory but has actually been confirmed by numerous animal and humans studies, and perhaps exemplified best by the so-called “Biggest Loser” contest and studies on those participants. Those poor souls who lost weight as a result of exercise, low-carbing, fasting, etc all regained and then exceeded their original weights before the contest began. The study based on them also concluded that the diet and exercise regimen tanked the contestants’ RMR and resulted in something called “sarcopenic obesity, link here” – colloquially known as “skinny-fat” – a condition of obesity combined with and low muscle mass. This outcome is, without a doubt, a much worse condition to be in compared to being obese but with significant muscle mass, and the latter is what most obese people are prior to commencing keto diets. In the study’s own words – keto diets can provide some weight loss, but cannot reverse the metabolic dysfunction that led to the obesity in the first place, and in fact worsen said dysfunction. In addition, they can cause de-novo liver disease or worsen already present liver disease. In contrast, study subjects who were fed low-fat-low-protein or low-fat-medium-protein diets, lost much more weight than the subjects on the keto diet and actually saw reversal of the metabolic dysfunction that caused the obesity in the first place. Perhaps most worryingly, the mice on the keto diet seemed to have damaged pancreas glands, since they released very little insulin when challenged with a glucose load. That is effectively a precursor state of diabetes I, where the organism cannot produce enough of its own insulin, and the study agrees that keto diets seem to directly induce such a state of pancreatic insufficiency in regards to insulin production. As such, the low insulin touted by keto diet proponents turns out to be a very bad sign – i.e. a “bug” instead of a “feature” of the diet. This should not come as a surprise considering that multiple studies have shown it is precisely elevated fatty acids in the blood (as seen in keto diets and diabetes I/II) that damage not only the pancreas, but other organs such as the kidneys, liver, heart, brain, etc.

Staying on the keto diet long term could carry health risks, link here

“…In the ketogenic diet, fat is king, and carbs are public enemy number one. Going keto means restricting carbs to the bare minimum and replacing those lost calories with fat. It’s the antithesis of the low-fat diet craze of the 1990s. Losing fat on keto diets typically means eating fat — and lots of it. The idea may sound paradoxical. But without our typical go-to energy source (sugar), our bodies learn to rely on a different type of fuel. In keto dieters, the liver converts fat into molecules called ketone bodies, which the body can burn instead of sugar. That can lead to weight loss, despite an unusually high intake of fat. Such results may explain why so many Americans have tried the keto diet on for size. “I think a lot of people look at a ketogenic diet and think, ‘I’ll lose weight, I’ll be healthier,’” says Molly Gallop, a physiologist at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. On the surface, they may be right. But staying on the diet long-term could carry some risks, a new study in mice suggests. Mice fed a ketogenic diet for up to about a year — decades in human time — experienced health problems, link here including glucose intolerance and signs of liver and cardiovascular disease, Gallop and her colleagues report September 19 in Science Advances. The work uncovers some potential hidden costs to going keto, says physiologist Amandine Chaix, at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. “It’s a cautionary tale,” she says. People sticking to this high-fat plan need to be careful, she says, “because this is not a magical dietary approach.”

link here

“…The ketogenic diet has grown in popularity over the past several decades as a tool for improving weight and metabolic health. While a KD benefits in treating epilepsy are concrete, its effects on metabolic health have been largely understudied. In particular, changes in glucose metabolism upon KD are not fully understood. As most people who go on a KD will likely consume glucose eventually due to the difficulty to strictly adhere to a KD long term (3, link here), this is of critical importance for patients using a KD to treat obesity and related metabolic conditions such as type 2 diabetes. In addition, the very high-fat content of the diet can challenge whole body regulation of lipid homeostasis and may increase the risk of cardiovascular events (15, link here).”

“…Our study is one of few long-term KD interventions (almost 1 year) in which mice had ad libitum access to KD without calorie restriction. We incorporated two low fat diets, a standard LFD with 20% kcal from proteins and a LFMP with a lower 10% kcals from proteins that matches KD protein content to control for the potential confounding effects of reduced proteins. Throughout our investigations, we found that the LFD and LFMP produced virtually identical phenotypes, suggesting that the effects of KD are independent of the more moderate protein content and consistent with studies showing that 10% protein is enough to support normal physiology in B6 mice (42, link here, 43, link here). We also included a comparison group on 60% HFD, the gold standard model of diet-induced obesity for which metabolic disturbances are well described and a group on 60% HFD with very low 0.1% carbohydrate. Our study was powered to detect significant differences, and our results were replicated in two to three independent cohorts. We performed extensive characterization of whole-body metabolic parameters, including state of the art, hyperglycemic clamp, dynamic GSIS, and electron microscopy (EM) experiments. Last, we included both sexes and carefully profiled the diet:sex interaction known to affect metabolic outcomes (44, link here, 45, link here). For the most part, the phenotypic effects of KD followed the same patterns in male and female mice, yet interesting differences were observed as discussed below. Our results set the ground for future investigations into the molecular determinants of KD-mediated insulin secretion defects.”

“…Prior research has led to conflicting findings on weight regulation on KDs. In our study, both male and female B6 mice fed a KD ad libitum gained less weight than mice on an obesogenic 60% HFD but more than mice on a LFD. Several rodent studies reported similar prevention of excessive weight gain on a KD as compared to an HFD (9, link here, 18, link here, 20, link here, 27, link here). Weight gain between KD and chow fed rodents has led to more discordant results, with several studies describing lower BW under KD (19, link here, 22, link here, 29, link here, 46, link here). Two lifelong studies of mice on KD, noted the necessity of restricting caloric intake (23, link here) or cycling the KD with a LFD (9, link here) to prevent obesity (9, link here, 23, link here), and another 8-week study in middle-aged females also reported using pair feeding to prevent weight obesity (47, link here). The long-term duration of our study and differences in diet compositions across studies, for all diets, can all also affect the phenotypic outcomes (7, link here, 48, link here–50, link here). Future studies could directly investigate these parameters that were not explored here.”

“…In our study, reduced caloric intake of KD and LFD/LFMP groups compared to HFD can at least partially explain the lower weight, although concomitant changes in energy expenditure were not assessed systematically. During our WL intervention, we observed a marked decrease in food intake during the first couple of weeks that matches the initial drop in weight. However, weight stabilized after mice increased their ad libitum caloric intake to levels that were slightly below mice maintained on HFD, suggesting that food intake was the main driver of weight changes. KD was less effective than chow diets at inducing WL as mice on LFD/ LFMP lost more than double the weight that mice on KD lost. Moreover, KD did not cure obesity but merely cause a transient WL that was reversed upon resumption of an HFD.”

“…Despite being lighter than mice fed a 60% HFD, males and females on KD had significant increases in plasma TGs and NEFA. KD-fed males also show hepatic steatosis and increased plasmatic ALT activity, suggestive of liver dysfunction. Those findings are in agreement with most other studies of KD (18, link here, 20, link here, 22, link here). With the increasing prevalence of metabolic dysfunction–associated steatohepatitis and especially in people with obesity, the potential of KD to cause or worsen pre-existing hepatic dysfunction is of utmost concern.”

“…In our study, in vivo GSIS revealed a lack of insulin secretion in KD-fed mice in contrast to LFD and HFD groups. Reviewing the literature highlighted that regardless of the positive or negative effects of KD on GTT, insulin levels in KD mice were low across the board, irrespective of diet composition, age, or study duration (18, link here, 19, link here, 46, link here, 51, link here). While this is often pointed to as a positive effect (i.e., prevention or reversal of hyperinsulinemia), we posit that low-insulin levels on a KD are a hallmark of β cell dysfunction and can lead to other detrimental metabolic effects. Accordingly, two prior studies described reduced β cell mass as a cause of low insulin levels (30, link here, 31, link here). In our study, however, extensive characterization of islets mass did not point at differences in islets mass as the underlying determinants of KD-linked insulin secretion defect.”

“…Hyperglycemic clamp further uncovered inefficient rapid insulin secretion in KD-fed mice, a phenomenon that has not been described to the best of our knowledge. In mice on KD, insulin levels did not rise significantly until 90 min into the 120-min clamp study while mice on HFD and KD had an immediate rise in plasma insulin that peaked at 15 min. The exocytosis of insulin containing secretory granules docked at the plasma membrane (40, link here, 52, link here) is incriminated in the early insulin response to glucose, suggesting that this population of insulin granules may be specifically affected by a KD. To assess cell autonomous defects in insulin secretion, β cells were isolated and tested in an ex vivo dynamic GSIS assay. Both HFD and KD islets had reduced insulin secretion under high glucose compared to LFD islets. Upon KCl-induced depolarization, HFD islets secreted significantly more insulin suggestive of impaired glucose sensing. In contrast, islets from KD-fed mice released similarly low levels of insulin whether stimulated by glucose or KCl, indicating defective insulin secretory machinery.”

“…Transcriptomics analysis highlighted alterations in translation, protein transport, Golgi function, and ER/Golgi stress specific to KD islets. Pathways and genes associated with ER transport, COPI and II transport, and secretion from the Golgi were all elevated suggesting increased protein transport pre-Golgi. The transcriptional repression of Rab30 and Rab39, which are important for Golgi organization (38, link here, 39, link here, 56, link here), suggested Golgi disorganization, and repression of Rab8b impaired Golgi vesicle secretion. From these data, we suggest a model in which Golgi-related defects lead to a traffic jam of proteins in the Golgi and a compensatory upregulation of pre-Golgi transport. ER/Golgi stress markers were also up-regulated under KD. For instance, Creb3l3, an ER/Golgi stress marker (57, link here), was the most up-regulated gene in KD islets. CREB3 (of the same family as Creb3l3) is up-regulated by palmitate in human β cells where it attenuates palmitate toxicity and is hypothesized to act as a mediator of the Golgi stress response (58, link here). Overall, we speculate that high lipids on KD lead to the development of a lipotoxicity stress, which has previously been shown to cause ER stress and disrupt ER to Golgi protein transport in islets (59, link here, 60, link here). Electron microscopy images further confirmed aberrations in the Golgi that appeared dilated and vesiculating in mice on a KD. A recent study characterized the disrupted protein trafficking observed in islets of diabetic leptin receptor KO db/db mice and uncovered distended and vesiculated Golgi very similar to what we see in our KD mice (61, link here). Misfolded proinsulin released from the ER is put forth as cause of Golgi dilation and altered morphology (61, link here). Incidentally, misfolded proinsulin has been suggested to occur in early stages of type 2 diabetes (T2D) (62, link here), so it is possible that increases in misfolded proinsulin cause Golgi swelling and further impair insulin trafficking and secretion. Overall, we propose that extremely high-lipid levels under KD lead to ER/Golgi stress in islets, thereby disrupting protein trafficking and causing a traffic jam of vesicles in the Golgi. With impaired protein transport and ER stress, the pool of readily releasable insulin available may be insufficient for the islets to rapidly secrete insulin in response to glucose, thus leading to the observed glucose intolerance. It has been postulated that, early on, lipotoxicity induces an expansion of β cell that precedes β cell failure (63, link here). We hypothesize that the extra high fat of a KD as compared to an HFD causes mice on KD to bypasses the islet proliferative phase as observed in HFD-fed mice and go straight to early β cell failure. Future experiments will be conducted to test this hypothesis.”

“…Many studies have shown that a KD can lower insulin levels in humans (64, link here–68, link here) and mice (19, link here, 46, link here), and while this is generally taken as a sign of improved glycemic control and remission of diabetes, our results led us to question whether low-insulin levels are safe and whether they actually indicate improved glycemic control. Insulin is crucial not only for glucose regulation but also for lipid homeostasis through stimulation of plasma lipid clearance and inhibition of lipolysis (69, link here–71, link here). Insulin resistance is accompanied by elevated blood lipids and ectopic lipid deposition (72, link here, 73, link here), as observed in HFD-fed mice. These metabolic alterations were also observed in KD-fed mice, suggesting that their very low levels of insulin might be insufficient to suppress lipolysis and promote the uptake and benign storage of the excess dietary fat in adipose tissues. Thus, while the lack of insulin on a KD may lead to a lower BW and less fat storage, it may worsens metabolic health by destabilizing lipid homeostasis.”

“…While our findings show that a KD both prevents and causes WL, a KD does not lead to permanent reductions in BW and, thus, should not be treated as a “cure” for obesity or diabetes. Moreover, we observed worsening glucose intolerance and impaired insulin secretion the longer the animals had been on KD, so the vision of KD as a treatment for metabolic disease should be questioned even if initial improvements in health are observed. Although we found that glucose intolerance caused by a KD is reversible, it is possible that other effects may persist. Moreover, in mice with diet-induced obesity, a traditional high-carbohydrate LFD caused greater WL than a KD while improving glucose intolerance.”

“…KD is used to manage refractory epilepsy in children. It is rarely a lifelong intervention as confirmed by a metanalysis of 45 studies reporting that, of children put on a KD, only 45% remain on the diet after 1 year and 29% after 2 years (74, link here). Moreover, an international consensus group statement recommends discontinuing KD by 2 years with some experts recommending discontinuation by 6 months (2, link here). Because KD is predominantly used in children and discontinued after a short time, long-term studies of metabolic effects are generally lacking. Nevertheless, high-plasma lipids, pancreatitis, and cardiac complications have been reported in patients on KD (2, link here, 13, link here, 15, link here, 75, link here–78, link here). Studies around the world have also reported higher than average prevalence of diabetes in people with epilepsy (79, link here–81, link here). The reasons for this co-occurrence are unclear (82, link here, 83, link here), but one hypothesis is that epilepsy treatments increase the likelihood of diabetes (84, link here).

In summary, while a KD can prevent and treat obesity, it causes hyperlipidemia, hepatic steatosis, and glucose intolerance. Unlike mice on HFD, the mice on KD do not have detectable insulin resistance or hyperinsulinemia. Instead, they have impairments in insulin secretion due to a blockade in protein trafficking resulting from dilation of the Golgi apparatus, which also causes ER/Golgi stress.”

“…Our study shows that while C57BL/6J male and female mice on a KD are protected from weight gain as compared to mice on a traditional 60% HFD, the mice experience severe glucose intolerance, high plasma lipids, and impaired insulin secretion with males also developing hepatic steatosis. Further studies in other strains of mice, other animal models, and in humans are necessary to determine whether KD-linked metabolic derangements are universal. Because the KD is not a standardized diet, it has been suggested that saturated versus unsaturated fats and different macronutrient compositions can lead to different metabolic outcomes. While we were able to replicate our results in a group of mice on another type of low-carbohydrate, HFD, future studies to elucidate whether the type of fat and macronutrient composition of the KD influences the metabolic outcomes will be important for making KD safer for all including those who require a KD to treat their epilepsy. Despite these limitations, our findings have relevant translational ramifications. They suggest that a KD used as a long-term dietary intervention may have harmful effects on metabolic health—especially in terms of β cell function, plasma lipid levels, and liver health—and caution against the systematic use of a KD as a health promoting dietary intervention.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2891.mp3" length="2008196" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Wasting syndrome (cachexia) driven by low metabolism/NAD+; can be blocked/reversed</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2888</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2888</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2025 20:08:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2888

One of those articles that fully corroborates Ray’s views that metabolism is central not only to “function”, but to structure as well, and also provides direct support that pro-metabolic measures can be life-saving. The wasting phenotype, most commonly seen in cancer, untreated diabetes I, and various mitochondrial pathologies has baffled medicine for a long time. Many remedies have been tried, with limited success. Anabolic steroids have so been the only somewhat reliable clinical intervention. Also, inflammation certainly plays a role and it has been shown that anti-inflammatory drugs are directly anabolic for critically ill or very old people, who all exhibit various forms of cachexia. However, the benefit is limited, showing that either inflammation is not the sole cause or that it is a downstream effect of a more general/systemic process. The study below demonstrates that cancer induces a dramatic drop in oxidative metabolism (OXPHOS), with concomitant depletion of mitochondrial NAD+. The drop in OXPHOS and NAD+ are likely driven by chronic inflammation, which again implicates PUFA and various other environmental factors. The drop in mitochondrial NAD+ is directly caused by the fact that NAD+ is regenerated from the reduced form NADH through the Krebs Cycle and electron transport chain (ETC), which combined constitute what is commonly known as OXPHOS. Cancer cells produce a lot of NAD+, but it is only in the cytosol and comes at the expense of producing a lot of lactate (by using pyruvate as emergency oxidizing agent). Without OXPHOS, which happens only in the mitochondria, cancer cells cannot regenerate NAD+ oxidatively. The study below demonstrates that the inhibition of OXPHOS and the drop in mitochondrial NAD+ are not only core symptoms of cancer, but are also the main causes of cachexia (which is the dominant cause of death in such patients). Conversely, blocking pathways that result in NAD+ consumption, it is possible to elevate mitochondrial NAD+ and block the cachexia phenotype. That means something as simple as a combination of niacinamide and an oxidizing agent such as methylene blue, CoQ10, vitamin K, emodin, etc may be sufficient to not only block the cachexia, but also reverse the cancer process altogether.

link here

“…Cancer cachexia, link here and muscle loss are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. In preclinical animal models, link here, blocking activin receptor, link here (ACVR) ligands has improved survival and prevented muscle wasting, link here in cancer cachexia without an effect on tumour growth. However, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. This study aimed to identify cancer cachexia and soluble ACVR (sACVR) administration-evoked changes in muscle proteome, link here.

Healthy and C26, link here tumour-bearing (TB) mice, link here were treated with recombinant sACVR. The sACVR or PBS control were administered either prior to the tumour formation or by continued administration before and after tumour formation. Muscles were analysed by quantitative proteomics, link here with further examination of mitochondria and nicotinamide, link here adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) metabolism. To complement the first prophylactic experiment, sACVR (or PBS) was injected as a treatment after tumour cell inoculation, link here.

Muscle proteomics, link here in TB cachectic mice revealed downregulated signatures for mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, link here (OXPHOS) and increased acute phase response, link here (APR). These were accompanied by muscle NAD+ deficiency, alterations in NAD+ biosynthesis, link here including downregulation, link here of nicotinamide riboside, link here kinase 2 (Nrk2), and decreased muscle protein synthesis, link here. The disturbances in NAD+ metabolism and protein synthesis, link here were rescued by treatment with sACVR. Across the whole proteome, link here and APR, in particular, Serpina3n represented the most upregulated protein and the strongest predictor of cachexia. However, the increase in Serpina3n expression was associated with increased inflammation rather than decreased muscle mass and/or protein synthesis, link here.

We present evidence implicating disturbed muscle mitochondrial OXPHOS proteome and NAD+ homeostasis, link here in experimental cancer, link here cachexia. Treatment of TB mice with a blocker of activin receptor, link here ligands restores depleted muscle NAD+ and Nrk2, as well as decreased muscle protein synthesis. These results indicate putative new treatment therapies for cachexia and that although acute phase protein, link here Serpina3n may serve as a predictor of cachexia, it more likely reflects a condition of elevated inflammation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2888.mp3" length="1160084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:37</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Age-related inflammation driven by declining mitochondrial function; menopause likely reversible</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2886</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2886</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2025 18:06:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2886

Yet another study demonstrating the key role metabolism plays in aspects of health firmly considered by medicine to be completely non-metabolic in nature. It has been conclusively shown that as humans age, not only do they experience chronically elevated inflammatory states, but those states exacerbate with advancing age. In others words, not only do we break down with aging, but the rate of the breakdown accelerates as we age. Chronic inflammation is now recognized as perhaps THE main causal factor in virtually all chronic diseases known to medicine, and especially the top “killers” such as heart disease (CVD), cancer, diabetes, neurological disorders, liver disease, and bone degradation. Despite this knowledge, medicine still shies away from recommending that people take anti-inflammatory remedies (such as aspirin) on a regular basis. If anything, medicine has been engaged in a relentless smearing and fear-mongering campaign against aspirin, trying to convince the public that aspirin is so “dangerous” that even people with established CVD should only consider aspirin after all other options have been exhausted. Btw, multiple studies have demonstrated that aspirin’s benefits against chronic diseases (not just CVD) cannot be explained solely by its anti-inflammatory effects since other so-called NSAID do not have the same benefits as aspirin, and some of them even increase risk of CVD and other conditions. The study below may offer a clue in regards to the “mysterious” benefits of aspirin. Namely, the study demonstrates that the majority of chronic inflammation seen with aging is driven by declining mitochondrial function, and and that restoring said function ameliorates (or even stops) the inflammatory process. It just so happens that aspirin is unique among the widely used NSAID in that it is very pro-metabolic, increasing the entire metabolic cascade, from glycolysis to the electron transport chain (ETC). In addition, aspirin has also been shown to increase the number and size of mitochondria inside cells. Other pro-metabolic substances such as progesterone, thyroid, DHEA, etc would probably have similar effects in mitochondria and inflammation, and this has already been confirmed in multiple studies, including human ones. So, once again, we discover that something as pervasive, important and “incurable” is nothing but a symptom of metabolic dysfunction, that may be easily addressable with cheap and widely available remedies.

Oh, and last but not least, the study below focused mostly on ovarian failure seen in menopause and beyond. In other words, menopause itself is likely nothing but a symptom of the chronic inflammation, driven by mitochondrial dysfunction. As such, menopause may be reversible by the same simple pro-metabolic measures mentioned above. Ray mentioned quite a few cases of women in their 50s and eve 60s conceiving children after using progesterone for a few months. I would go out on a limb here and suggest that progesterone is even more effective when combined with DHEA and this fact has already been confirmed in human studies. Adding aspirin and/or thyroid may lead to a state of society where some of a women’s grandchildren may be older than their children:-)

link here

Mitochondria: Key Players in Ovarian Ageing Inflammation, link here

“…As women age, the decline of ovarian function is both natural and inevitable. However, the mechanisms underpinning this aging process have remained somewhat enigmatic. Ju and colleagues propose that inflammation initiated by mitochondrial dysfunction is a significant catalyst for this decline. They argue that mitochondrial health is not merely a bystander in the aging process but rather a critical determinant that can either exacerbate or mitigate ovarian aging.”

“…The researchers conducted a series of experiments that illuminated the nexus between mitochondrial dysfunction and inflammation in ovarian tissues. Their findings suggest that as mitochondrial activity declines, there is a concomitant increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are signaling molecules that can amplify the inflammatory response. This inflammatory milieu can induce a cascade of detrimental effects on ovarian cells, thereby accelerating their aging process. In their study, the authors meticulously present data showing elevated levels of inflammatory markers in aged ovarian tissues. These findings were complemented by analyses of mitochondrial morphology and function, which demonstrated a striking loss of mitochondrial integrity in tissues from older subjects. The correlation between compromised mitochondrial function and heightened inflammatory responses was compelling, suggesting that targeting mitochondrial health could offer new avenues for therapeutic intervention.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2886.mp3" length="1533404" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin/LPS, even in tiny amounts, is the most inflammatory component of air pollution</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2884</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2884</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2025 17:31:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2884

Several years ago, I did a post on a study that looked at the COVID pandemic measures taken to reduce the risk of viral spread. One of the biggest social projects during the pandemic was the replacement of air-conditioning filters in most urban buildings (especially hospitals, schools and government) with filters that have a much finer mesh and were thought to be able to stop viral particles from coming into the internal air circulation system. Well, as usual, rash and thoughtless decision carry many unintended consequences and the situation in all those building was arguably made much worse since the finer mesh in the new filters disintegrated Gram-negative bacteria in ambient air, which allowed the endotoxin present in said bacteria to freely float in the air. Given that endotoxin is highly inflammatory, several studies from the pandemic era discovered that these new filters dramatically worsened asthma symptoms in people diagnosed with that condition. I just posted about another study showing that even tiny elevations in blood endotoxin have powerful blood clotting effects that likely drive the high mortality rates seen in sepsis as well as the clotting events seen in people with cardiovascular disease (CVD), ultimately leading to heart attacks and strokes.

The study below sort of combined these prior findings and discovered that endotoxin in ambient air, despite being present in exceedingly tiny amounts, is by the far the most inflammatory component of so-called fine particulate matter (PM), which is the dominant factor in air pollution. It was long-thought that other components of PM (metals, petrol byproducts, ash/smoke, etc) are bigger culprits in the known pulmonary, vascular and systemic negative effects of air pollution, but now it looks like the old adage that “big things come in small packages” is very, very true. The bad news here is that the findings of the study make it very hard to implement protective countermeasures. Namely, if one sits in a building somewhere in a Western country, the ambient air inside would probably be loaded with endotoxin due to the new air filters installed, as described above. If one decides to limit indoor time and spend more time outdoors, then one would be exposed to the endotoxin in PM, at least in most Western countries. So, short of moving to a remote place in the wilderness (and even there, air pollution may be present), the only tools available for us to address the risk from the (apparently) ubiquitous endotoxin are substances that limit as much as possible the downstream inflammatory cascade triggered by endotoxin, as well as substances that may be able to bind and neutralize said endotoxin before it can do much damage. Aspirin, niacinamide, fat-soluble vitamins, and flavanoids are probably the most widely available examples of the former, and pregnane steroids (especially progesterone) are good examples of the latter due to the ability of said pregnane steroids to directly bind and deactivate endotoxin.

2 links here

“…Endotoxin, a toxic chemical found in bacteria, makes up only 0.0001% of PM2.5 fine particles but packs a serious punch when it comes to its bioactivity. According to a study, link here by researchers from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, endotoxin drives 0.1–17% of the inflammatory responses triggered by these airborne particles, with its toxicity contribution being three to five orders of magnitude higher than its mass contribution. The findings are published in Environmental Science & Technology. Air pollution is now the world’s leading environmental health threat, linked to more than three million premature deaths every year. One of the key culprits is PM2.5, which refers to airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers, small enough to slip deep into the lungs and even seep into the bloodstream. Scientists have long been focusing on PM2.5 because evidence consistently links it to respiratory illnesses, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, link here, and airway inflammation. Studies suggest that the damage caused by PM2.5 could be due to oxidative stress, link here and the triggering of immune responses in the lungs following exposure. PM2.5 is a complex atmospheric cocktail of natural and anthropogenic particles containing biological, inorganic, and organic constituents. For decades, researchers have extensively studied the impact of chemicals—including transition metals, link here, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, link here, and industrial smoke—produced by human activities. These components, however, contribute to less than half of the respiratory damage inflicted by PM2.5, leaving roughly 60% of its impact still unexplained.”

“…Endotoxin concentrations were measured using the Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) assay, then researchers used DNA sequencing and source tracking to identify the Gram-negative bacteria they came from. Finally, they applied mixture-toxicity modeling to estimate how much these endotoxins contributed to the overall harmful effects of PM2.5 exposure. They found that despite making up only a minuscule fraction of the total PM2.5 mixture, it drove about 0.1 to 17% of the IL-8 release triggered by PM2.5. Among all reported PM2.5 components, endotoxin, link here demonstrated the highest toxicity-to-mass contribution ratio, 10,000:1 to 100,000:1, establishing its extreme biological potency. These findings show that less is indeed more.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2884.mp3" length="1361900" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin/LPS is a major driver of blood clotting, sepsis, heart attacks and strokes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2882</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2882</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2025 16:58:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2882

The issue of blood clotting and what exactly triggers it (even in healthy people) remains a “mystery” for medicine. There are many factors that have been discovered in past studies, and many of them are inconvenient truths. For example, clotting events in young people without coronary disease (CVD) has been blamed on everything from lack of exercise to recreational drug use. However, the fact that it is much more prevalent in young women, suggesting an endocrine cause, is a topic that pharma companies do not ever want to seriously investigate as it would directly implicate their multi-billion hormonal contraceptive market, consisting mostly of synthetic estrogens and synthetic progestins (most of which are estrogenic and with pro-cortisol effects). Be that as it may, it is clear that estrogen is not the only cause given that women taking high-dose aromatase inhibitors (AI) for conditions such as breast cancer only reduce their blood clotting risk by 30%-40%. So, that means a major non-hormonal clotting factor is present in both males and females and likely explains the majority of the clotting events. Oh, and there is also the “minor” issue of endotoxin boosting the production of serotonin (5-HT) and nitric oxide (NO), with both of the latter being also known clotting promoters.

The study below demonstrated that endotoxin/LPS from the gut is perhaps that major factor. Even minor increases in endotoxin/LPS in the bloodstream led to activation of all four (4) plasma clottign factors within minutes of endotoxin exposure and the effect persisted for hours. According to the study, the higher clotting driven by endotoxin may explain the high mortality in sepsis, which is the most common cause of death in hospitalized people. It may also explain why current remedies for sepsis, consisting mostly of glucocorticodi therapy, is largely ineffective resulting in a mortality rate of up to 40% in such patients. Glucocorticoids not only do not address the endotoxin angle, some of them further promote clotting. Putting sepsis aside, which is usually a concern mostly for critically ill people already in the hospital, the study also has great relevance for chronic conditions such as heart diasease (CVD), which also ultimately manifests in a deadly clotting event such as a heart attack or ischemic stroke. Given that most people have at least partially compromised gut barrier and significant increases in blood endotoxin after each meal, the study suggests that our risk of an ischemic event is higher after each meal, which has already been confirmed by multiple human studies. The good news is that there are some easy remedies. Rather than taking aspirin (which is still a good method for general health maintenance), which acts downstream of the endotoxin/LPS cascade, it would likely be more prudent to limit the amount of endotoxin/LPS produced and entering the blood. That can be achieved by eating easily digestible food, and especially by avoiding the so-called “resistant” starches as the letter make it to the gut relatively intact and boost endotoxin production. The carrot salad or some charcoal (just 2-3 times weekly, but not daily) can absorb a great deal of the generated endotoxin even if the diet is suboptimal and promotes endotoxin synthesis. Substances such as niacinamide and vitamin E have been shown by multiple studies to help restore the gut barrier, which would limit endotoxin absorption into the bloodstream. Finally, pregnane steroids (and especially bioidentical progesterone) have been shown to directly bind endotoxin in the bloodstream and render it inactive. Finally, increasing the metabolic rate has been shown to reduce or even eliminate bacteria presence in the small intestine (a condition now known as SIBO) by increasing the production of stomach acid. Elimination of SIBO should help keep the upper/middle portion of the GI tract mostly sterile and thus allow more food to be absorbed into the blood instead of serving as food for our endotoxin-producing microbiome.

2 links here

“…A team of US scientists has uncovered how a molecule found on certain bacteria may drive blood clotting in sepsis — a life-threatening condition that causes about eight million deaths per year. The findings may pave the way for enhancing treatments for critically ill patients. They found that lipopolysaccharide, or LPS — a molecule found on the surface of certain bacteria like E. coli — can directly activate proteins in the blood that trigger clotting.”

“…This process can both block blood flow and damage vital organs in a chain reaction where proteins in the blood work together to form clots. The researchers found a specific type of LPS, called O26:B6, that is particularly good at setting off this reaction, making it more likely to cause clotting problems. The research, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, is based on a study conducted in nonhuman primates. The team found that when bacteria containing LPS entered the bloodstream, it quickly activated the clotting system.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2882.mp3" length="1858844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low-carb diet and chronic (even mild) stress sufficient to cause heart disease (CVD) and depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2880</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2880</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 27 Sep 2025 18:13:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2880

I first tried low-carbing, circa 2008, and quickly realized just how detrimental it is to health, especially when combined with stress (e.g. “endurance” exercise). At the time, I thought that this dietary fad won’t last long and that mainstream medicine, despite its utter corruption, would eventually rally against the low-carb diets/lifestyle. Fat forward to today, and low-carbing is not only still with us, but it seems to be spreading across the world and is being hailed as one of the greatest breakthroughs in nutrition ever discovered. To be fair, there are some established medical groups that are now actively advising against low-carb diets, including the esteemed medical school at the University of San Francisco, which is one of the top low-carb research centers in the world. However, such contrarian voices remain very rare and they are drowned by a flood of “news” on social media and the blogosphere from famous “influencers” and doctors, who continue to tout the “benefits” of chronic fasting (which mimic low-carb diets physiologically) or low-carb/high-fat/ketogenic diets. Ironically, one of the main reasons given in support of such diets is the fact they increase the production of serotonin (5-HT) in the gut, and since 5-HT is universally accepted as the “happiness hormone”, we are being told that this effect of said diets truly proves that they are indeed “beneficial” for us. Of course, the fact that 5-HT is perhaps the main causal factor of fibrosis (in any organ) is conveniently avoided, or perhaps even medicine has forgotten about 5-HT’s systemic effects, which were well-known as far back as the 1950s. In addition, 5-HT is now known (in some medical circles) to be a cause of depression rather than a cure. I think something worse than incompetence is at play here, since several large pharma companies are quietly running clinical trials with 5-HT antagonists for treating conditions such as lung/heart/kidney disease, and most of the new drugs for depression are at least partially 5-HT receptor antagonists, despite retaining SSRI effects.

Now, if one knows that 5-HT is perhaps the main cause of organ disease/fibrosis and depression, it would be reasonable to expect that anything that promotes 5-HT synthesis in the gut would probably be linked causally to those conditions. Well, since more than 90% of 5-HT is produced in the gut, the main trigger for the bulk of 5-HT production is likely something that activates the enterochromaffin cells in the gut lining, which are the main site of 5-HT synthesis in the gut. That something is, of course, our old friend endotoxin/LPS. It just so happens that the main triggers for endotoxin/LPS elevation (and thus increased 5-HT synthesis) are low-carb/high-fat diets and/or stress (both acute and chronic), with the effects being “synergistic” if both the diet and stress are at play. In other words, given the pathways described so far, one would expect that low-carb/high-fat diets and/or stress to drive both heart disease/fibrosis and mood disorders such as depression, by promoting endotoxin/LPS release and absorption into the bloodstream. Well, that is exactly what the study below demonstrated. In fact, the stress component was not even that severe and is on par with what the vast majority of people living in the Western world experience on daily basis. Namely, the so-called chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS), which is widely recognized as the gold standard for causing depression in animal models, yet the role of stress in human mental illness continues to be denied to this day. Well, it looks like the rates of heart disease/failure and depression are not likely to come down any time soon, but would probably continue to rise as millions of people around the world continue to adopt the low-carb/high-fat diets on top of the pervasive CUMS everybody has been subjected to for decades.

link here

“…A rat model of CHD and depression was established using a high-fat diet and chronic unpredictable mild stress and verified by electrocardiogram, behavioral assessments, and cardiac marker analysis. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) was performed by transferring microbiota from diseased rats to healthy rats (FMT-Disease group); the fecal microbiota of the rats from the FMT-Disease and FMT-Normal groups were compared. The TLR4 inhibitor TAK-242 was administered, creating the Disease + TAK-242 and FMT-Disease-TAK-242 groups. Gut microbiota composition was analyzed using 16 S rRNA high-throughput sequencing; LPS levels were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Polymerase chain reaction and western blotting were used to detect the expression of genes and proteins related to the TLR4/MYD88/NF-κB pathway in the heart and hippocampus, respectively. ”

“…We confirmed that in the FMT-Disease group, the gut microbiota of diseased rats altered the gut microbial composition of healthy rats in terms of β-diversity, α-diversity, and community structure. Notably, LPS levels in the serum of FMT-Disease rats were elevated, thereby activating the TLR4/MYD88/NF-κB inflammatory pathway and increasing susceptibility to CHD comorbid with depression. Additionally, after receiving fecal microbiota from healthy rats, the Disease group showed a restoration of gut microbiota balance, improvement in general condition, and normalization of pathological, biochemical, and inflammatory indicators, indicating a suppressive effect on the progression of CHD with depression. Our findings further clarify the interrelationship between gut microbiota and CHD comorbid with depression, enhancing our understanding of its pathogenesis. Moreover, we propose a potential novel therapeutic strategy that focuses on modulating gut microbiota composition to block the TLR4/MYD88/NF-κB inflammatory pathway.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2880.mp3" length="1904900" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A reductive state (high GSH, NAC, NADH/NAD+ ratio, etc), activates the cortisol/estrogen pathways; oxidizing/ pro-metabolic agents block them</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2876</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2876</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2025 02:27:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2876

Ray mentioned in a few of his articles that a reductive state, characterized by a buildup of sulfhydryl (SH) groups, is a key characteristic hypothyroidism and of many chronic diseases, especially chronic inflammatory states, diabetes, cancer, neurodegenerative conditions, heart disease (CVD), etc.

link here

“…One of the basic reactions to injury is to shift the cell away from oxidative metabolism to glycolytic metabolism, which is inefficient, but can support cell division. Chemical stains show that during cell division cells are in a reduced state, with abundant sulfhydryl groups including reduced glutathione and protein sulfhydryls. This shift in itself increases the formation of active estradiol from estrone.”

link here

“…Thyroid stimulation of oxygen consumption tends to prevent lactic acid production, because it keeps the cytoplasm in a state of relative oxidation, i.e., it keeps the concentration of NAD+ hundreds of times higher than that of NADH. NADH is required for the conversion of pyruvate to lactate. It is also the source of reducing potential in many kinds of toxic redox cycling, that generate lipid peroxides, and it maintains the sulfhydryl system, involving the balance of reduced glutathione (GSH) with the sulfhydryl-disulfide system of protein bonds, which governs the cell’s electronic state and affects its balance of hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity.”

Conversely, shifting the state away from reduction and towards oxidation has many beneficial effects that are not explainable by a single pathway or mechanism. The study below demonstrates that an intact SH group on the GR receptor is essential for the activation of the GR and thus the stress response/cascade. Conversely, blocking access to the SH group of the GR by either binding it or oxidizing it into a disulfide group blocks the activation of the GR by known glucocorticoid ligands such as the endogenous cortisol, or synthetic glucocorticoids. Thus, SH binding or oxidizing agents act as “silent” GR antagonists and as such are expected to have a variety of beneficial effects considering that cortisol is (relatively) elevated in virtually all chronic diseases and also in general aging. This is due to the fact that the relative “stress” signalling characterized by ratios such as cortisol/DHEA, cortisol/androgens, cortisol/progesterone increases with disease/age due to decline of anti-cortisol factors such as DHEA, androgens, progesterone, etc. The study looked specifically at beta-lapachone, a powerful ortho-naphthoquinone, and found it to be such a silent GR antagonist, which probably explains a good deal of the benefits seen from usage of this quinone. However, the mechanism of action is general in nature and suggests that all oxidizing agents capable of oxidizing the SH group of the GR would also have similar anti-cortisol effects. In addition to the role of intact SH group in GR activation, the study also cites other studies demonstrating that intact SH group is crucial for the activation of the estrogen receptor (ER) as well. As such, oxidizing agents are likely to also act as ER antagonists. There is already published evidence demonstrating that vitamin K (a para-naphthoquinone) has anti-estrogenic effects, and the findings of the study below probably explain why. Under the same logic, it is expected that other powerful quinones such as COQ10, idebenone, thymoquinone, emodin, aloe, emodin, methylene blue (MB), etc. would also have anti-cortisol and anti-estrogenic effects. In addition, non-oxidizing but pro-metabolic agents such as aspirin, thyroid and progesterone would also function as indirect cortisol/estrogen antagonists because they all result in increased metabolism, which results in a more oxidized state (lower NADH/NAD+ ratio) and a decrease in the amount of SH groups. There is already plenty of evidence for the anti-cortisol and anti-estrogenic effects of progesterone directly at the receptor level, while the evidence for aspirin is also strong, but medicine has so far failed to explain the mechanism behind aspirin’s endocrine effects. Conversely, accumulation of intact SH groups such as seen in virtually all chronic conditions or as a result of supplementation with SH donors such as GSH, N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), methionine, cysteine, etc would be expected to promote both cortisol and estrogen signalling. This strongly suggests that supplementing with reducing agents such as GSH, NAC, cysteine, methionine, etc would not be beneficial in healthy people and can be quite dangerous in people with compromised health. I did a post just a few days ago on a study that found GSH to be a key driver of cancer growth, link here, by enabling the survival and growth of cells under a state of hypoxia (a key characteristic of cancer and other chronic diseases). Estrogen excess is both a key driver of hypoxia and a result of it, which once again confirms the key role metabolism plays in endocrine disturbances that have mystified medicine for decades and are thought to this day to not be related to metabolism.

4 links here

“…The data presented demonstrate that beta-lapachone can be utilized as a specific probe for the ligand-binding site of the glucocorticoid receptor. The effects of beta-lapachone on the ligand-binding site are rapid (Fig. 4) and competitive in nature (Fig. 5 and Tables I1 and 111). Despite the fact that the structure of this 1,2-naphthoquinone derivative (Fig. 1) is unlike that of a glucocorticoid, this compound appears to specifically interact with the ligand-binding site of unpurified and highly purified glucocorticoid receptor (Table VI) and not with the ligand-binding sites of estrogen, progesterone, androgen, and mineralocorticoid receptors or serum transcortin (Table V). Thus, when compared with other known inhibitors of steroid binding such as sulfhydryl oxidizing agents (6, 18-20), serine protease inhibitors (21,22), and alkaline phosphatase (23, 24), beta-lapachone is uniquely specific. Although beta-lapachone is a competitive inhibitor of [6,7-3H]TA binding (Fig. 5), the precise mechanism by which this compound interacts with the ligand-binding site is unclear. The ability of DTT and mercaptoethanol (reducing agents) to block (Fig. 2B) and reverse (Table I) the betalapachone-mediated inhibition suggests that this compound may interact in some unspecified way with sulfhydryl groups at the ligand-binding site.”

“…Kalimi and Love (25) have recently reported that two oxidizing agents, N-ethylmaleimide and iodoacetamide, block the activation of hepatic glucocorticoid receptor complexes. These authors speculated that sulfhydryl groups, in addition to being required at the ligandbinding site, also may be required for the conformational change which occurs during activation. Also, the glucocorticoid receptor appears to be several orders of magnitude more sensitive to beta-lapachone, which is effective in the micromolar range, than to most oxidizing agents, which are effective in the millimolar range.”

“…Leach et al. (4) have presented data which suggest that molybdate may actually bind to sulfhydryl or phosphate moieties on the receptor protein. Housley et al. (28) have also reported that rat liver glucocorticoid receptors which have been inactivated (rendered unable to bind steroid) by phosphatases in the presence of molybdate can be reactivated to the steroid-binding state by addition of dithiothreitol (a reducing agent).”

“…Likewise diphenylhydantoin has been reported to bind to the unpurified glucocorticoid receptor and, like glucocorticoids themselves, it has been shown to inhibit the production of prostaglandins in thymocytes (30). In contrast, beta-lapachone competes for the steroid-binding site but the compound does not appear to facilitate the conformational change associated with activation of the receptor complex (Fig. 6) and hence would theoretically be incapable of eliciting a glucocorticoid-like response. In light of these observations, it would be tempting to classify this compound as a glucocorticoid antagonist.”

“…Although the common sensitivities of DNA polymerase (Y and the glucocorticoid receptor to beta-lapachone may be fortuitous, this compound is a highly specific competitive inhibitor of the glucocorticoid receptor which should be useful as a probe of the steroid-binding site. A complete understanding of the biochemical mechanism underlying (beta-lapachone’s inhibitory effect depends on the further characterization of the structure and environment of the steroid-binding site. Such studies are now feasible in light of recent advances in the purification of unactivated glucocorticoid receptors. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2876.mp3" length="1971092" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Magnesium has anti-cancer effects by increasing vitamin D synthesis (in the gut)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2874</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2874</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 24 Sep 2025 21:08:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2874

A very interesting study, which may shed some light on the known anti-cancer properties of magnesium, which medicine has struggled to explain. The  cliche story told by mainstream medicine is that magnesium is a co-factor in more than 400 enzymatic reactions in the body and as such probably limits the risk of “cancerous” mutations occurring. While that story may contain a grain of truth due to magnesium being one of the co-factors for the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), which is known to be blocked in cancer, it has nothing to do with cancerous mutations but rather once again point to cancer as being metabolic in origin. The study below now adds another plausible explanation in regards to magnesium’s benefits. Namely, the mineral increases vitamin D synthesis. However, it does predominantly in the gut and not in skin where most of our vitamin D is thought to be synthesized. Thus, the study not only identified another endogenous source of vitamin D (gut) that was not know until now, but also once again corroborates the metabolic nature of cancer and the anti-cancer effects of vitamin D.

2 links here

“…Researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center have demonstrated in a precision-based clinical trial that a magnesium supplement increases gut bacteria in humans that have been shown to synthesize vitamin D and inhibit colorectal cancer carcinogenesis.”

“…Intestinal microbiome data and colonoscopy results were analyzed from participants who were randomized by whether they had the TRPM7 genotype, which plays a crucial role in regulating magnesium and calcium uptake. Previously, the investigators showed in the same randomized trial that magnesium enhances the synthesis of vitamin D and increases the blood levels of vitamin D. The findings from the current study suggest that magnesium also increases the gut synthesis of vitamin D, which does not go to the blood and takes effect locally. These results from the Personalized Prevention of Colorectal Cancer Trial were published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, link here. “Our previous study showed magnesium supplementation increased blood levels of vitamin D when vitamin D levels were low,” said Qi Dai, MD, Ph.D., professor of Medicine. “The current study reveals that magnesium supplementation also increases the gut microbes, link here which have been shown to synthesize vitamin D in the gut without sunlight and locally inhibit colorectal cancer development.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2874.mp3" length="556220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D is thyromimetic, it increases endogenous thyroid output/function</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2872</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2872</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 24 Sep 2025 20:58:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2872

The findings of the study provide one possible explanation for the systemic benefits seen with vitamin D supplementation. Medicine claims that vitamin D has no effects other than through the direct activation of the so-called vitamin D receptor (VDR), but the evidence says otherwise. Namely, the study below demonstrates significant increases in T4 and free T4 (fT4) levels after vitamin D supplementation, with concomitant drop in levels of TSH, which confirms that vitamin D has effects very similar to supplementing with T4 (or T3) as such supplementation would increase thyroid hormone levels and drop TSH levels through the built-in negative feedback mechanism. In other words, vitamin D is a “thyromimetic” – i.e. has effects similar to thyroid supplementation. The human equivalent dose used int he study was actually much lower than what doctors normally prescribe (50,000 IU weekly), and was roughly 25 IU / kg bodyweight daily for an adult human, over period of just 6 weeks. That means 2,000 IU – 2,500 IU daily for a human should be able to replicate the study design. A key feature of the study was that it used healthy, euthyroid animals. That means vitamin D supplementation may increase thyroid output/function even in people who are not hypothyroid.

link here

“…Vitamin D has diverse effects on different organ functions. This study evaluates evaluated the effect of vitamin D3 supplementation on thyroid function of healthy dogs by repeated assays of thyroid hormones (including total and free T4 and T3) as well as TSH levels during a 6 week-period. Eight healthy adult male dogs received vitamin D3 supplements at the dose of 50 IU/kg BW per day. Venous blood samples were collected on days 0, 14, 28 and 42 of the experiment. Six-week vitamin D3 supplementation statistically increased serum T4 levels [F (1.89, 13.2) =8.39 and p=0.004]. Serum T4 levels on days 28 and 42 were significantly higher than the baseline (day 0) (p<0.05). There was also a statistically significant effect of duration of supplementation on serum fT4 levels, [F (1.63, 11.4) = 12.53, p = 0.014], although the difference was only significant between days 0 and 42. Changes in serum levels of T3 and fT3 were non-significant. TSH levels showed a significant decrease during the whole time of the study [F (1.17, 7.02) = 26.4 and p=0.001]. On days 14, 28 and 42 this parameter was statistically lower than day 0. Changes in serum T3/T4 during time were not statistically significant, . howeverHowever; the fT3/fT4 ratio showed a downward change during study [F (1.77, 8.87) = 5.18 and p=0.035]. The fT3/fT4 ratio on day 42 of the experiment was significantly lower than day 0. In conclusion, vitamin D3 supplementation to healthy dogs is associated with a time-dependent change in thyroid hormone profile (increased serum T4 and fT4) which are probably mediated at the thyroid gland level as shown by the negative feedback on serum TSH concentrations. These findings pave the road for future studies on the plausible effects of this vitamin on thyroid function of hypothyroid dogs.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2872.mp3" length="680828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D2 (widely prescribed by doctors) actually depletes D3, thus compromising immune function</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2870</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2870</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2025 23:28:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2870

Yet another medical myth gets busted. The findings of the study below are a perfect analogy of the progesterone-progestin fiasco that developed over the last few decades. Namely, doctors have been lying to the public that synthetic progestins are “just like bioidentical progesterone, but better” and have all but stopped prescribing bioidentical progesterone for that reason. Over time, many studies demonstrated that synthetic progestins have very little in common with bioidentical progesterone, and in fact have a number of very harmful effects. One of those negative effects is that many/most of the synthetic progestins are actually estrogenic. Since progesterone is typically prescribed to women with estrogen dominance, giving those women such synthetic progestins likely further exacerbate the estrogen dominance thus leading to increased risks of estrogen-related diseases, especially heart disease and estrogen-driven cancers (breast, uterine, cervical, etc). There is already plenty of evidence implicating the synthetic progestins in increased incidence and deaths from various cancers. Cancers of the nervous system, usually thought not to be related to estrogen, are also found more commonly in women using synthetic progestins. Meningioma and glioblastoma are two such cancers, with the latter one being almost universally deadly. Instead of admitting their error, medicine doubled-down on the fraud and declared that “progesterone is dangerous”, lumping bioidentical progesterone together with all the synthetic progestins, despite the studies clearly showing it is only the synthetic progestins that are harmful.

The study below now exposes a similar situation with vitamin D. In most countries, the only vitamin D available by prescription is D2 (ergocalciferol), and doctors usually prescribe it in doses of 50,000 IU once weekly. On the other hand, our bodies synthesize another form known as vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) from cholesterol under the influence of UV light from the sun. For decades, medicine has claimed that D2 and D3 are “functionally equivalent”. Namely, there is no difference in the physiological end effects between D2 and D3, and since doctors like to prescribe chemicals that are officially approved as “drugs”, D2 became the dominant form of vitamin D prescribed to patients. The study below shows that taking the D2 form depletes levels of D3, and that this depletion is of high importance since apparently the immunological (and probably others) effects of D2 and D3 differ quite a bit. Namely, only the D3 form helps the immune system fight off bacterial and viral infections. In other words, taking vitamin D2 likely leads to (at least partial) immunosuppression. Does anybody remember the COVID-19 pandemic and how several observational studies (usually done with D3) found that vitamin D is highly beneficial for preventing COVID-19 and reducing its severity/lethality, but then Big Pharma conveniently did follow-up intervention studies (usually done with D2) and quickly declared that vitamin D is “useless”? So, once again, we have a situation here where the medical establishment may have handicapped research (as it did with bioidentical progesterone) in order to steer the public towards a toxic, prescription “solution”, and when that “solution” failed the industry declared all vitamin D (including D3) to be useless. Given how important vitamin D is for systemic health, how prevalent vitamin D deficiency is in the general population, and how pervasive is D2 usage by prescription, it may very well turn out that most of the health epidemic of virtually every chronic disease may be iatrogenic in nature. Since most research is focused on side effects of prescription drugs and not on “insignificant” factors such as vitamin D, this false equivalence between D2 and D3 may actually be highly impactful (in a negative way) and durable since it would take years/decades before medicine even admits that vitamin (a type of (seco)steroid actually) D has systemic effects rivaled in importance probably only by thyroid, and only then medicine may be willing to begin discussing whether D2 is the optimal form for human usage or not. Sometimes, it is the little things that nobody pays attention to that cause the most damage.

3 links here

“…Taking one type of vitamin D supplement seems to cut the levels of another type that is more easily used by the body, which could affect our immune system, link here. Our bodies create vitamin D when ultraviolet rays in sunlight convert a protein called 7-dehydrocholesterol in the skin into a type of vitamin D known as vitamin D3. When sunlight is sparse during autumn and winter, countries like the UK recommend people take supplements, link here…Two forms of these supplements are available: vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol – which normally comes from lanolin, a waxy substance on sheep’s wool – and vitamin D2, or ergocalciferol, which mainly comes from mushrooms. It was thought that it didn’t really matter which one you took. But now, Emily Brown, link here at the University of Surrey, UK, and her colleagues have performed a meta-analysis of 11 previously published randomised-controlled trials on vitamin D supplements, with a total of 655 participants. They found taking vitamin D2 supplements can lead to a drop in the body’s concentration of vitamin D3. Why this happens, or if vitamin D3 supplements reduce vitamin D2 levels, isn’t entirely clear. Furthermore, in many of the studies, the vitamin D3 levels were lower in people taking vitamin D2 than they were in control groups not taking any vitamin D supplements. “This is a previously unknown effect,” says Brown. A 2022 study suggests vitamin D2 and D3 have overlapping but different roles in supporting immune function, link here. Only vitamin D3 seems to stimulate the type-I interferon signalling system, for instance, which provides a first line of defence against bacteria and viruses. Brown says the findings suggest vitamin D3 supplements may be more beneficial for most individuals than vitamin D2, but adds personal considerations need to be taken into account, such as wanting to avoid animal products.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2870.mp3" length="2059820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Psoriasis as a metabolic conditions, vitamin B2 (riboflavin) may prevent/treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2865</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2865</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2025 20:45:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2865

Yet another condition of “mysterious” origin turns out to be nothing but energetic deficiency in disguise. Namely, psoriasis – a common “autoimmune” condition – seems to be exacerbated by vitamin B2 deficiency and ameliorated by sufficient levels of that vitamin. Since the sole known role of vitamin B2 is metabolic/bioenergetic, this leaves little doubt that psoriasis, and perhaps all other “autoimmune” conditions, are amenable to bioenergetic therapy. Vitamin B2 is a precursor to the crucial metabolic co-factor flavine adenine dinucletodie (FAD), without which electron transport chain (ETC) Complex II cannot work properly. In an event of FAD deficiency (due to vitamin B2 deficiency) the functional block at ETC Complex II results in a buildup of free electrons, which then proceed to form a so-called “reverse electron flow” (REF), which is responsible for the generation of 95%+ of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The latter have a known role in virtually all chronic conditions, and have already been implicated specifically in “autoimmune” diseases. Another very important co-factor precursor is niacinamide (vitamin B3), which is used by the body to form the co-factor NAD+. The latter is responsible for about 80% of the ATP generated through the OXPHOS pathway, with the other 20% being due to the work of FAD. This fact suggests that a combination of niacinamide and riboflavin may be a viable treatment of all “autoimmune” conditions and there are already multiple studies demonstrating benefit from niacinamide supplementation in multiple sclerosis (MS), Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), etc.

3 links here

“…The study, published, link here in Experimental Dermatology, points to vitamin B2 as a potential ally in calming inflammation, link here and reducing flare-ups. Scientists at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing, China, came to that conclusion after reviewing the diets of more than 13,000 adults with and without psoriasis. They noticed people who consumed more riboflavin were less likely to have the condition—especially when they looked at individuals over the age of 40. Then they zoomed in. Using transcriptome analysis, which looks at gene expression, the researchers examined skin cells and observed that low riboflavin levels triggered inflammation. When the vitamin was reintroduced, the stress response lessened, and the inflammation calmed down. Skin cells with psoriasis appeared to absorb even more riboflavin, leading researchers to believe the body uses the B vitamin to heal PsO-damaged skin and protect against more damage.”

“…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2865.mp3" length="892676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Children inherit (bad) memories from their parents</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2863</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2863</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2025 20:31:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2863

Studies like this are an anathema to genetics, because they show a clear and meaningful connection between the generations that is the very opposite to the “random” mutations theory that effectively posits that each life is essentially meaningless and leaves no footprint on the world upon its end, unless there was a mutation that occurred during that lifespan. Even then, the mutation is only considered important if it confers a change to the organism that increases survival and/or reproductive fitness. Since such changes/mutations happen on evolutionary time scales – tens of thousands of years.In other words, the experience that our ancestors had are meaningless and so are ours, and what we learn in life is irretrievably lost to future generations. Recently, several studies have conclusively disproved that bizarre and nihilistic position. Namely, experiments with flies, worms, rodents and even monkeys have shown without a doubt that memories are passed down to future generations, and affect the physiology and behavior of future generations in profound ways. The study below now extends this “memory inheritance” to plants as well, further corroborating the idea that memories/knowledge acquired throughout a lifespan are far from useless, and each generation possesses effectively the composite knowledge of all prior generations. This idea is very much in line with Rupert Sheldrake’s idea of morphogenetic fields, and knowledge “pooling” available to all future generations. In any event, one of the most important takeaways from the studies below is that memories of parental adversity are subject to a very clear trade-off. The offspring of organisms that endured adversity throughout their life apparently have increased survival fitness and robustness, but at the expense of stunted growth and reduced reproductive capacity. The opposite also seems to be true. Namely, children of parents that never experienced adversity inherit that those “memories” of optimal psysiological state and are optimal themselves. The resilient offspring are also much less attractive to agents of adversity, while the offspring of parents that never experience adversity enjoy increased growth and reproduction, but are much more attractive to the agents of adversity (e.g. “predators”, in the most general sense). It reminds me of a poem I read long ago as a child, which stated that demons are afraid of their own, but love to mess with angels:-)

5 links here

“…When soybean plants survive attacks frots and periods of drought, they remember. While plants don’t remember in the way animals do, research out of the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station shows that soybean plants can pass on adaptive responses to stress — like those hungry insects — across generations without changing their DNA. Scientists call this kind of adaptation across generations “transgenerational plasticity,” and the consensus has been the independent stressors of drought and herbivory, or animals feeding on plants, can induce gene expression — possibly through epigenetics. Unlike genetic changes, or mutations, epigenetic changes are reversible and don’t change the DNA sequence, but rather how an organism reads its DNA sequence.”

“…Kariyat and his doctoral candidates conducted multi-layered experiments to test if soybean plants under drought stress are more vulnerable to insects and how much of the parental plant’s memory — its response to stress — is passed on to its progeny to cope with specific kinds of herbivory. Progeny of stressed plants had seeds with higher nitrogen and protein content, key markers of plant fitness. Offspring also produced more flowers and had a greater density of trichomes, the tiny hair-like structures that defend against pests. Kariyat noted that these positive effects were strongest when parent plants experience both drought and herbivory pressure. Despite these advantages, the stress memory came at a cost — strong defenses but weaker growth. Stressed progeny showed reduced yield, including a higher rate of empty pods. Defensive trichomes also declined with maturity, suggesting that the enhanced defenses may be short-lived or age-dependent. The research suggests that there is a costly trade-off between survival and productivity, Kariyat said. Kariyat concluded that their research so far points to stress memory in soybeans being a double-edged sword. While it can improve defense and early vigor, it also leads physiological trade-offs that ultimately reduce fitness and yield.”

“…To see whether insects could detect past drought stress in soybeans, the researchers built tiny bridges between previously drought-stressed plants and plants that had consistently received enough water. They observed soybean looper caterpillars pausing, rotating their heads and often reversing course back to the healthier plants, the study noted. The scale of damage by the caterpillars on consistently watered plants was significantly higher than the plants that had recovered from drought stress, supporting the “plant vigor hypothesis” that pests prefer robust hosts.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2863.mp3" length="1098260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Antidepressants (SSRI) can trigger hyponatremia, which causes severe anxiety</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2861</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2861</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2025 18:44:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2861

Just a few days ago I did a post on how avoiding dietary salt can cause hyponatremia and how the resulting hyponatremia directly causes severe anxiety. It just so happens that SSRI drugs are commonly prescribed for anxiety. So, once again, we have a situation in mainstream medicine where the prescribed drug not only does not ameliorate but causes de-novo the very condition for which the drug was prescribed in the first place. To make matters worse, the study below states that the risk of severe hyponatremia from SSRI usage has apparently been known for decades, yet nothing has been done so far to address those risks. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would probably jump to the conclusion that this is deliberate negligence so that more and more patients develop anxiety, which then gets treated with SSRI, to generate even more anxiety patients. Big Pharma must be laughing at us for how gullible and incapable of critical thought we have all become, while making pharma companies obscenely rich.

2 links here

“…Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and certain other antidepressants have long been connected with hyponatremia, but we have had only small observational studies to support this association. In this Swedish study, researchers analyzed data from 234,000 first-time users of SSRIs or venlafaxine. Each patient served as his or her own temporal control in a comparison of hyponatremia incidence before and after drug initiation. Profound hyponatremia, defined as serum sodium level <125 mEq/L, was most likely to occur in the first 3 months after drug initiation (adjusted odds ratio, 4.3, compared with 1 year prior).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2861.mp3" length="502436" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The benefits of sunlight outweigh the risks of skin cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2859</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2859</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2025 18:36:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2859

Several years ago I did a post on a study showing that, when it comes to overall health, avoiding sunlight was a bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes. Yes, there is a slightly higher risk of skin cancer with sun exposure but that risk is mostly limited to the relatively harmless basal cell carcinoma. That type of cancer almost always stays local, does not cause much visible damage and can easily be treated with excision or simply rubbing aspirin on the skin in the vicinity of the lesion. The deadly cancer, melanoma, almost always appears in places that never see sunlight and that type of cancer has not been linked to sunlight exposure. Now, it looks like mainstream media is starting to sing the same song, with the “esteemed” Economist magazine joining the chorus. It gives a little hope that not everything is a lost cause in medicine, since it was Economist that was one of the most vocal proponents over the last 20-30 years of wearing sunscreen and avoiding sunlight like the devil.

link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2859.mp3" length="458540" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin – a new drug for blood pressure, reversing heart disease (CVD) and aging?</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2856</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2856</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:46:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2856

During the COVID hysteria, several studies came out showing that the morbidity and mortality of this conditions stems mostly from the ability of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to block the enzyme angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) II. That enzyme converts the highly inflammatory protein angiotensin II back into the less inflammatory angiotensin I. Drugs that block the effects of angiotensin II at the receptor level or increase the activity of ACE II were found to be highly beneficial for COVID and it just so happens that they are also blockbuster blood pressure drugs. The most well-known such drug, used during COVID-19, was the drug losartan, link here. It blocks the angiotensin II receptor type I (AT1R) and thus prevents angiotensin II from exerting its pro-inflammatory and blood pressure promoting effects. Losartan has been in clinical use for decades and recently has also been found to reverse aging of human cells, link here by stimulating mitochondrial function. Thus, At1R drugs are the subject of many ongoing studies not only as potential treatments for COVID-type conditions, but also as disease-modifying therapies for CVD and aging in general. The study below demonstrates that humble aspirin has AT1R effects surprisingly similar to losartan and ameliorates various biomarkers of endothelial dysfunction, inflammation and degeneration. The mechanism of action of aspirin differs slightly from losartan. The former decreases the expression of AT1R, thus making the body less sensitive to the effect of angiotensin II, while the latter simply blocks the binding of angiotensin II with AT1R. However, the end effects are largely the same.

The concentration of aspirin used in the study was on the high end, achievable in humans with single bolus doses in the 1g-1.5g range. This dose range has also been shown in animal studies to retard and even reverse the progression of CVD, and those effects are not present at lower aspirin doses. So, it looks like aspirin’s benefits are dose-dependent and despite medicine telling us that there is no cure for CVD and that aspirin’s only benefits are related to blood clotting and requiring very tiny doses, the available evidence suggest that in higher doses aspirin may not only prevent heart attacks in people with already present CVD, but reverse said CVD altogether.

Finally, the study found that salicylic acid – the main metabolite of aspirin – also had the same effects, but required two-fold higher concentrations to produce the same benefit. That means a single dose of 2g-3g would be required if one were to use salicylic acid instead of aspirin.

link here

“…Previous studies have documented that Ang II, in low concentrations, stimulates formation of new capillaries from endothelium.[17] Atherosclerotic lesions express all components of

renin–angiotensin system, particularly AT1R.[24] The advancing atherosclerotic lesion contains large number of capillary channels (vasa vasorum), which are believed to contribute to the rupture of the plaque and result in acute ischemic syndromes.[25,26] AT1R activation, besides being a proangiogenic signal, is also a proinflammatory stimulus.[27] Accumulation of foam cells and immune cells and thin cap, probably as a result of release of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), are other key features of “vulnerable” plaque.[28–30] AT1R blocker therapy, with agents like losartan, reduces neovascularization and the atherosclerotic burden and modifies the molecular characteristics of advancing plaque.[31,32] Profibrotic effects of Ang II translate into fibrosis and reduction in compliance after tissue injury in animal models and in humans.[33–36] Upregulation of AT1R expression has been identified in aging arteries.37 It is interesting that ASA replicates many manifestations of AT1R blockade, such as stabilization of atherosclerotic plaque,[38] decrease in VEGF expression and subsequent angiogenesis,[6,39] and tissue fibrosis.[8] This study clearly demonstrates that treatment of endothelial cells with ASA in therapeutically achieved concentration is associated with reduction in NADPH oxidase–MAPK pathways and AT1R transcription. At the same time, there is inhibition of angiogenic effects of Ang II on endothelial biology, that is, formation of capillaries. It is conceivable that the effects of ASA on angiogenesis are related, at least in part to the reduction in NADP oxidase–MAPK pathways and AT1R transcription.”

“…In essence, this study provides evidence that ASA treatment of endothelial cells results in a decrease in AT1R expression and capillary formation from endothelial cells. Reduction in capillary formation may be the basis for a antiatherosclerotic[40,41] and antiaging[42] effect of ASA. Because the effects of ASA were seen in therapeutically achieved concentrations, these data may be clinically relevant. Last, because the effects of SA were similar to those of ASA, it seems that it is the SA moiety that is responsible for the inhibitory effects of ASA on AT1R transcription.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2856.mp3" length="1263524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide – a new drug for osteoarthritis?</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2854</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2854</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:16:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2854

Osteoarthritis is a debilitating condition, affecting mostly the elderly and it significantly worsens quality of life, as well as increasing risks of bone fractures, which in the elderly is a very serious problem due to reduced healing ability. However, rates of osteoarthritis have also been rising lately even in the young cohorts of the population, which is very troubling to say the least. There are no effective drugs on the market for this condition and “treatment” is reduced to just managing symptoms. In other words, the condition is degenerative and has no known curative or ameliorating treatments. The study below suggests that niacinamide may be a promising candidate for a drug that treats this conditions. The study was with humans and used a dosage of 3g niacinamide daily. This resulted in ~30% improvement of symptoms and notable improvement in various biomarkers of inflammation and bone degeneration. While the dose is high, it is still within the dose known to be safe. Medicine claims that niacinamide up to 3g has no known serious adverse effects, aside from minor GI upset, and this is what the study observed as well. I posted about studies showing that even a low dose of aspirin also has a robust anti-arthritic effects, and there is a known synergy between the effects of aspirin and niacinamide. That may allow a combination of aspirin and niacinamide to produce even stronger benefit at lower doses for each compound.

link here

“…Seventy two patients with osteoarthritis were randomized for treatment with niacinamide or an identical placebo for 12 weeks. Outcome measures included global arthritis impact and pain, joint range of motion and flexibility, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, complete blood count, liver function tests, cholesterol, uric acid, and fasting blood sugar. Compliance was monitored with a pill record sheet and interview. Global arthritis impact improved by 29% (95% confidence interval [CI] 6, 46) in subjects on niacinamide and worsened by 10% in placebo subjects (p = 0.04). Pain levels did not change but those on niacinamide reduced their anti-inflammatory medications by 13% (95% CI 9, 94; p = 0.01). Niacinamide reduced erythrocyte sedimentation rate by 22% (95% CI 6, 51; p < 0.005) and increased joint mobility by 4.5 degrees over controls (8 degrees vs 3.5 degrees; p = 0.04). Side effects were mild but higher in the niacinamide group (40% vs 27%, p = 0.003). This study indicates that niacinamide may have a role in the treatment of osteoarthritis. Niacinamide improved the global impact of osteoarthritis, improved joint flexibility, reduced inflammation, and allowed for reduction in standard anti-inflammatory medications when compared to placebo. More extensive evaluation of niacinamide in arthritis is warranted.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2854.mp3" length="681956" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Omega-6 and omega-3 PUFA promote inflammatory pathways at the genomic level; SFA do not</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2852</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2852</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2025 06:03:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2852

As my readers know, one of the main inflammatory effects of PUFA is due to their conversion into downstream metabolites by enzymes such as COX and LOX. The study below demonstrates that both omega-6 and omega-3 PUFA actually promote the expression of COX, thus increasing the their own downstream conversion into inflammatory mediators. In other words, not only are omega-6 and omega-3 PUFA precursors to inflammatory mediators, PUFA promotes that process directly, thus ensuring that any dietary PUFA consumed will certainly generate an inflammatory reaction. Finally, as in the case of the recently posted studies on PUFA promoting platelet aggregation, serotonin release and inhibiting protein synthesis (all negative effects) saturated fatty acids (SFA) were without effects – i.e. SFA did not increase the expression of inflammatory pathways.

link here

“…We examined in HaCaT keratinocyte cell line whether eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) a n-3 PUFA, gamma-linoleic acid (GLA) a n-6 PUFA, and arachidic acid a saturated fatty acid, modulate expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), an enzyme pivotal to skin inflammation and reparation. We demonstrate that only treatment of HaCaT with GLA and EPA or a PPARgamma ligand (roziglitazone), induced COX-2 expression (protein and mRNA). Moreover stimulation of COX-2 promoter activity was increased by those PUFAs or rosiglitazone. The inhibitory effects of GW9662 and T0070907 (PPARgamma antagonists), on COX-2 expression and on stimulation of COX-2 promoter activity by EPA and GLA suggest that PPARgamma is implicated in COX-2 induction. Finally, PLA2 inhibitor methyl arachidonyl fluorophosphonate blocked the PUFA effects on COX-2 induction, promoter activity and arachidonic acid mobilization suggesting involvement of AA metabolites in PPAR activation. These findings demonstrate that n-3 and n-6 PUFA increased PPARgamma activity is necessary for the COX-2 induction in HaCaT human keratinocyte cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2852.mp3" length="453956" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA almost fully blocks protein synthesis and the effect is correlated with unsaturation; SFA do not</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2850</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2850</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2025 05:53:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2850

Another study demonstrating direct negative effect of PUFA on human health. Namely, inhibition by PUFA of protein synthesis, which is vital for tissue/organ growth/repair. Moreover, the degree of protein synthesis inhibition apparently depends on the degree of PUFA unsaturation. As was the case with the recent post about PUFA increasing platelet aggregation and serotonin release, saturated fatty acids (SFA) did not inhibit protein synthesis. Also, just as in the platelet/serotonin study, the inhibition of protein synthesis by PUFA was a direct effect of the unmodified lipids and did not depend on their downstream conversion into the well-known inflammatory metabolites derived from PUFA.

link here

“…Optimal translation initiation in intact mammalian cells requires sequestered intracellular Ca2+. Arachidonic acid, which releases sequestered Ca2+ from cells and isolated organelles, was studied to assess its potential role in the regulation of protein synthesis via Ca2+ mobilization. Unsaturated fatty acids at microM concentrations inhibited protein synthesis in intact GH2 pituitary, C6 glial tumour and HeLa cells in a manner dependent on degree of unsaturation and cell number. Arachidonate was generally the most, and the fully saturated arachidic acid the least, potent of the fatty acids tested. At 2 x 10(6) GH3 cells/ml, amino incorporation into a broad spectrum of polypeptides was inhibited by 80-90% by 10-20 microM fatty acid. Inhibition was maximal at 4-8 min and was attenuated by 1-2 h and more pronounced at lower pH. Protein synthesis was maximally inhibited when arachidonate mobilized approx. 40% of cell-associated Ca2+. At lower concentrations (10 microM) arachidonate suppressed translational initiation, with the inhibition being reversed as extracellular Ca2+ concentrations were increased to supraphysiological values. At higher concentrations (20 microM) arachidonate inhibited peptide-chain elongation in a Ca(2+)-independent manner. Arachidonate also blocked elongation in reticulocyte lysates. The effects of arachidonate in intact cells were reversible with time via its metabolism or by washes containing BSA. Sufficient arachidonate appears to be synthesized during ischaemic stress to inhibit translation by either mechanism.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2850.mp3" length="387452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA/MUFA trigger serotonin release, platelet aggregation independently of downstream metabolites; SFA do not</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2848</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2848</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2025 05:29:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2848

One of the sneaky arguments that mainstream makes in favor of PUFA is that while they have a known pro-inflammatory effect when consumed regularly, that effect only manifests when those lipids are metabolized downstream into pro-inflammatory metabolites such as prostaglandins, leukotrienes, tromboxanes, etc. In other words, medicine claims that PUFA is harmless unless it enters one of those inflammatory pathways driven by enzymes such as COX, LOX, and thromboxane synthase (TBXS). Even then, medicine claims that there are options for mitigating the pro-inflammatory effects by taking drugs that inhibit COX, LOX, TBXS, etc. Aspirin and other NSAIDs are one of the better known option for inhibiting those pathways. The study below begs to disagree. Namely, it demonstrates that arachidonic, linoleic, and linoleic acids trigger platelet aggregation and serotonin release independently of conversion into downstream inflammatory mediators. Platelet aggregation and increased serotonin release are a known trigger for ischemic events such as heart attacks and strokes, and also contributes to the development/progression of CVD. In fact, in sufficiently “high” concentrations (easily achievable through “normal” Western diets) that direct effect of PUFA on platelet aggregation and serotonin release is irreversible and cannot be mitigated by drugs such as aspirin. Furthermore, the main dietary MUFA oleic acid had virtually the same effects as the PUFA members tested in the study. Saturated fatty acids (SFA) such as palmitic, stearic, arachidic, did not have such pro-CVD effects. Finally, to make matters much worse for the poor humans who eat Western diets laced with PUFA/MUFA, the study found that a combination of two or more of the PUFA/MUFA lipids induced the same platelet aggregation and serotonin release as several-fold higher concentrations of a single PUFA/MUFA. Considering that modern diets almost always contain a mixture of multiple PUFA/MUFA, this is truly a worst-case scenario. So, the moral of the story is that PUFA (and even MUFA) are directly harmful even in their unmodified forms, and should be avoided whenever possible.

link here

“…We examined platelet aggregation and serotonin release, induced by less than 60 micro M arachidonic acid, using washed platelet suspensions in the absence of albumin. The concentration of arachidonic acid used did not cause platelet lysis. Platelet responses induced by less than 20 micro M arachidonic acid were inhibited by aspirin, whereas those induced by above 30 micro M arachidonic acid were not inhibited, even by both aspirin and 5,8,11,14-eicosatetraynoic acid. Although phosphatidic acid and 1,2-diacylglycerol increased after the addition of arachidonic acid in aspirin-treated platelets, the amounts were not parallel to platelet aggregation. Oleic, linoleic and linolenic acids also induced platelet responses, while palmitic, stearic and arachidic acids did not. EDTA, dibutyryl cyclic AMP, apyrase and creatine phosphate/creatine phosphokinase brought about almost the same effects in platelet responses induced by the unsaturated fatty acids, other than arachidonic acid, as those induced by 40 micro M arachidonic acid. These results suggest that the mechanism of the actions of more than 30 micro M arachidonic acid on platelets is the same as that of the other unsaturated fatty acids and is independent of prostaglandin endoperoxides, thromboxane A2 and, perhaps, phosphatidic acid and 1,2-diacylglycerol.”

“…We used oleic, linoleic and linolenic acids as unsaturated fatty acids, and palmitic, stearic and arachidonic acids as saturated ones. The unsaturated fatty acids tested induced an irreversible platelet aggregation and serotonin release dose-dependently at concentrations of more than 30uM. On the other hand, the saturated fatty acids tested did not induce platelet aggregation and serotonin release at concentrations of below 100uM.”

“…The combination of two kinds of unsaturated fatty acid increased the effects on platelets. Fig. 8 shows combined effects of arachidonic acid and oleic acid on platelets treated with aspirin (500uM) and 5,8,11,14-eicosatetraynoic acid (2uM). Platelet aggregation and serotonin release were notinduced by below 15uM arachidonic acid or below 30uM oleic acid, whereas these were induced by the simultaneous addition of 10uM arachidonic acid and 10uM oleic acid. Moreover, platelet responses increased as a function of the concentration of the oleic acid added to a platelet suspension if the concentration of arachidonic acid was held constant at 10uM…Because unsaturated fatty acids work additively on platelets to induce responses, the amounts of unsaturated fatty acids in phospholipids of platelets [1,23] may be enough, as a whole, to induce

platelet responses independent of prostaglandin endoperoxidases and thromboxane A2.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2848.mp3" length="1090916" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Sodium restriction may cause anxiety</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2846</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2846</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 20:52:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2846

One of the most pernicious dietary myths imposed by the nutrition and medical industries is that dietary sodium is literally death and needs to be restricted in order to achieve optimal health. The rationale is based on the claim that higher sodium intake increases blood pressure, despite the fact that multiple studies have shown sodium restriction to increase aldosterone, which reliably leads to hypertension and heart conditions. In corroboration, some of the oldest drugs for treating edema, hypertension and heart conditions are aldosterone antagonists. However, those drugs are not needed since simply increasing sodium intake lowers excessive aldosterone release. The study below now adds another possible issue stemming from sodium restriction. Namely, chronic anxiety. Chronic hyponatremia, which can reliably be induced in health people with dietary sodium restriction, led to the development of something psychiatrists call “generalized anxiety disorder” (GAD) in humans. Conversely, correcting the hyponatremia reversed the anxiety disorder.

link here

Low Sodium Linked to Anxiety Through Brain Chemistry Disruption, link here

“…Chronic hyponatremia—long viewed as symptomless—is now shown to disrupt brain chemistry and cause anxiety-like behaviors, according to a new study in mice. Researchers found that prolonged low sodium levels reduced serotonin and dopamine in the amygdala, a brain region vital for emotional regulation. These imbalances were linked to increased anxiety, which reversed once sodium levels were corrected. The findings suggest chronic sodium deficiency may have broader mental health implications, especially for vulnerable populations like the elderly or chronically ill.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2846.mp3" length="536828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Daily low-dose aspirin halves diabetes incidence</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2844</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2844</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 20:34:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2844

The commercials on TV are filled with all kinds of drugs targeting (pre)diabetes, obesity and insulin resistance. All such drugs invariably come with a long list of very serious, even deadly, side effects and mainstream medicine is not a step closer to preventing or curing diabetes than it was 50 years ago. Sugar continues to be demonized, while low-carb diets and fasting are all the rage now and have been for the last 10-15 years. None of the drugs on the market for preventing diabetes can boast more than single-digit risk reduction of diabetes, and pharma companies still consider such results a monumental “success”. Well, it looks like humble aspirin, even at the low-dose (100mg daily) commonly prescribed for cardiovascular issues, can reduce the incidence of diabetes by about 50%. It is a shame the study did not examine the effects of higher aspirin doses, as aspirin’s pro-metabolic effects are known to be dose-dependent. We can thank Big Pharma and the public health authorities for that study handicap given their relentless fearmongering about aspirin “risks” and how it should be used only if a doctor prescribes it and only if other options are not available. Now, the study did find a small increase in bleeding risk with aspirin, but paradoxically this rusk is actually more pronounced at lower aspirin doses than at higher ones. Thus, a higher dose in the range of, say, 300mg-500mg would probably have an even stronger anti-diabetic effect while reducing bleeding risks.

link here

“…The primary outcome was the onset of T2DM, defined as a new diagnosis accompanied by antidiabetic prescriptions lasting more than 30 days. Gastrointestinal bleeding was assessed as the safety endpoint. Over the follow-up period, 488 new cases of T2DM were documented (15.6% of the total population), with 174 cases occurring in the aspirin group (22.3 per 1000 person-years) and 314 in the non-aspirin group (40.2 per 1000 person-years), indicating a significantly lower incidence of diabetes among aspirin-treated individuals. Given the difference in comorbidity rates between groups, a Cox regression analysis was conducted across the entire follow-up period, showing that aspirin use was associated with a 47% reduction in the risk of developing T2DM (HR 0.53, 95% CI 0.44–0.64, p < 0.001). However, aspirin use was also linked to an increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding (4.9% vs 3.1%, p < 0.05). Kaplan–Meier survival curves confirmed a significantly lower cumulative incidence of T2DM in the aspirin-treated group (log-rank test p < 0.0001)….Daily treatment with 100 mg aspirin was associated with approximately a 50% reduction in the incidence of new-onset T2DM, but also with an increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding, in elderly individuals with prediabetes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2844.mp3" length="721484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic/Wegovy/Mounjaro) may cause diabetic retinopathy, a condition they are supposed to prevent</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2842</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2842</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 20:22:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2842

It was obvious from the very beginning that GLP-1 agonist drugs are not a panacea but a well-disguised time bomb that would be a blockbuster for sale, but a disaster for long-term health. Namely, the weight loss those drugs induce is largely driven by them curbing appetite, which effectively forces a person to fast. Prolonged fasting alone has a variety of negative effects, now reluctantly being recognized by mainstream medicine. However, GLP-1 agonism has known pancreatotoxic effects, link here and has been linked to the deadly pancreatic cancer as well as neurodegenerative conditions long before those drugs hit the market. If something is neurotoxic, it is expected to have a negative effect on all portions of the nervous system, including the retina (which is part of the central nervous system). In corroboration, the study below suggests that GLP-1 agonist drugs may increase risk for a condition known as diabetic retinopathy (DR). That condition is a morbidity secondary to diabetes, and GLP-1 agonist drugs are supposed to prevent and ameliorate the latter. Given the increased risk of DR as a result of GLP-1 agonists, one may conjecture that those drugs do not really have a beneficial effects on the course of diabetes, but somehow simply mask its symptoms while the pathology continues to accelerate. When we add the now known increased risks of gastroparesis, and general vision loss not-related to diabetic retinopathy, it quickly becomes clear that it is best to stay away from these drugs until the safety profile is better known.

link here

“…A recent study has identified a potential link between GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs, commonly prescribed for diabetes and weight management, and an increased risk of serious eye diseases. Researchers found that patients using these medications may face a heightened likelihood of developing conditions such as diabetic retinopathy, which can lead to vision loss if untreated. The findings raise concerns about the long-term safety profile of these widely used drugs. The study analyzed data from multiple patient groups over an extended period to assess the impact of GLP-1 drugs on ocular health. Diabetic retinopathy emerged as a key concern, with researchers noting that the progression of this condition appeared more pronounced in individuals taking GLP-1 receptor agonists compared to those on alternative treatments. While the exact mechanism behind this association remains unclear, experts suggest further investigation is necessary to determine whether the drugs directly contribute to retinal damage or exacerbate pre-existing conditions. The findings underscore the importance of monitoring eye health in patients prescribed these medications and may prompt additional scrutiny from regulatory agencies moving forward.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2842.mp3" length="790700" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) may cause multiple sclerosis (MS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2839</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2839</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 20:05:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2839

Peat wrote in several of his articles about the possible microbiome origin of a variety of “autoimmune” conditions, especially Lupus. While other similar conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have been linked to endotoxin/LPS, estrogen and thyroid dysfunction, others such as Lupus and MS remain with elusive causes, though the estrogen link remains strong given the much higher prevalence of these conditions in females. The study below shows that two species of bacteria commonly found in people with SIBO may trigger the development/symptoms of MS. While it is not yet clear if the bacteria translocates from the small intestine to the brain and spinal cord, the study did demonstrate that the bacteria in question triggered robust inflammatory reaction in the GI tract, and the inflammatory mediators reached the nervous system. If this result is confirmed in subsequent studies, it only only suggest an easy curative treatment for MS in the form of non-absorbable antibiotics used for SIBO such as RIfaximin, but also strongly suggests that current immunosuppressive therapies for MS are just about the worse possible approach given the bacterial overgrowth/infection.

3 links here

“…Researchers have been searching the gut for bacteria in the microbiome that cause multiple sclerosis (MS) for decades. Two types of bacteria that hide in the small intestine are now clearly implicated by new evidence from a rare twin study. Eisenbergiella tayi and Lachnoclostridium were identified as the most probable causes of the nerve-damaging condition in the study, which evaluated 81 pairs of genetically identical siblings. The multinational research led by Dr. Anna Peters of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich discovered a connection between these bacteria and human and mouse disease.”

“…51 microbial possibilities were identified by in-depth DNA tracking of gut samples; the numbers of these varied between siblings who were afflicted and those who were not. At the top of the watch list were two bacterial species that repeatedly surfaced with the greatest odds ratios. The ileum, the final segment of the small intestine that houses a bustling immunological garrison, is where those samples originated. Because pro-inflammatory T cells congregate here before travelling to the brain and spinal cord, the decision was significant. The same two bacterial species were found in a subsequent comparison with the 1,152-person International MS Microbiome Study. The Munich team was reassured by the overlap that their twin cohort was not a statistical anomaly.”

“…The researchers went beyond sequencing to test causality instead of correlation. In germ-free mice designed to develop inflammation similar to multiple sclerosis, they implanted ileal bacteria from selected twins. Within twelve weeks, paralysis developed in rats that were exposed to microorganisms from the sibling who had multiple sclerosis. Throughout the whole investigation, mice that were given the healthy twin’s microorganisms remained mobile. In one experiment, E. Tayi bloomed dramatically in three female mice shortly before the onset of MS symptoms. Other frequent bacterial genera were absent from their faeces, suggesting that the bloom pushed out possible rivals. Lachnoclostridium dominated late in the trial, and the results were replicated in a follow-up transfer from another twin pair. The signal was skewed towards female animals once more, which is consistent with women’s increased risk of MS. Overall, mice with “MS” bacteria experienced spinal lesions in over 60% of cases, while control groups experienced spinal lesions in less than 10% of cases. In every trial, no other single species increased in tandem with the sickness….Some Lachnospiraceae induced macrophages to adopt an aggressive posture in a model of controlled ulcerative colitis. The spinal cords of the colonised animals showed similar patterns of macrophages.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2839.mp3" length="588188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Oral progesterone (P4) may be more ergogenic than topical or injected route</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2837</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2837</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 18:40:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2837

A very interesting study, which demonstrates that the route of hormonal administration matters quite a bit, at least when it comes to muscle strength and endurance. Namely, when P4 was administered orally during pregnancy in this study, it resulted in increased muscle strength and physical endurance, while topical (vaginal) and injected (intramuscular) routes did not. Interestingly, oral P4 seems to raised plasma pregnenolone (P5), and P5 has already been demonstrated in humans to improve recovery from strenuous physical activity, link here. The human equivalent doses used in the study were 180mg, 800, and 200mg daily for an adult human, as per the study. Now, the study used P4 dissolved in a peanut oil (trade name Urogestan/Utrogestan) and carboxymethylcellulose, which ensures that P4 will undergo heavy first-pass metabolism through the liver. Systemic bioavailability of Urogestan/Utrogestan is in the 12%-14% range and the half-life is less than one hour. However, if P4 is dissolved in vitamin E and some kind of oil (olive oil or MCT), it will largely avoid first pass metabolism, and achieve bioavailability of 65%+, with its half-life being the same as the one for vitamin E (~48 hours). This means that with vitamin E as the main solvent, oral progesterone dosage can probably be cut from 800mg down to less than 175mg daily, while also significantly increasing its half-life, and allow one to achieve the same (or better) ergogenic effects.

link here

“…The dosages for P4 administration via the different routes were determined with reference to the maximum clinical doses for each route, as summarized by Labarta and Rodriguez[19, link here] and the doses used in clinical trials by Costabile et al.[20, link here], which were converted into animal doses. The human doses for vaginal P4 gel, oral P4, and intramuscular P4 injection are 180[19, link here], 800[19, link here], and 200 mg/day[20, link here], respectively. The doses for rats were calculated using a conversion factor of six. The IG group was administered urogestan capsules prepared as a 20 mg/mL solution of sodium carboxymethylcellulose at a dose of 4 mL/kg, equivalent to 80 mg/kg. The IM group received P4 injections at a concentration of 20 mg/mL, administered at a volume of 1 mL/kg, equivalent to a dose of 20 mg/kg. The VAGIN group received 80 mg/mL of P4 sustained-release vaginal gel at a volume of 0.225 mL/kg, equivalent to 18 mg/kg. Each group was administered the respective dose once daily in the morning for 13 days.”

link here

“…Researchers from Shanghai Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Technologies randomly classify female rats into four groups based on different administration methods: oral administration, intramuscular injection, vaginal gel application, and a control group with no treatment. P4 was administered daily for 13 consecutive days during the teratogenesis-sensitive period, a vulnerable stage for birth defects. The results showed that offspring from the orally administered P4 group exhibited significantly prolonged swimming times compared to controls, suggesting enhanced physical stamina. In contrast, intramuscular and vaginal routes showed no such effect. Beyond endurance performance, oral administration of P4 also correlated with elevated plasma pregnenolone levels, a neurosteroid tied to exercise adaptation, and reduced non-social behaviors. The gut microbiota analysis also showed differences across groups. Oral and intramuscular methods altered microbial composition, with oral administration uniquely reducing Oligella—a bacterium linked to poorer exercise performance in prior studies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2837.mp3" length="793460" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mitochondria are alive and interchangeable across species, may explain differences in intelligence across latter</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2835</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2835</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 18:18:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2835

Just a quick post that suggests once again that metabolism is the key determinant of intelligence and brain size, not genetics. The study below demonstrated that mitochondria from different species can be cross-transplanted into cells from different species, and despite the vast differences in the genetic code of the nucleus of each species’ cells, the cells with the transplanted mitochondria were functioning normally. However, mitochondria from different species triggered different expression of genes in the cell nucleus and those gene expressions were mostly related to brain development. Thus, it may very well be possible to take a “lower” organism and endow it with superior intelligence simply by transplanting mitochondria from more intelligent species, including humans. Furthermore, it suggests that increasing intelligence in humans depends on increasing mitochondrial function (as well as number and size), and not by messing with the genetic code. Ray did mention this in several articles in regards to thyroid (T3) supplementation. Namely, even people with severe mental retardation were able to regain normal intelligence after chronic administration of T3. Conversely, people normally considered highly intelligent and even savants, behaved as if having mental retardation when their metabolic rate was lowered as a result of fasting, PUFA ingestion, infectious disease, etc.

3 links here

“…Next, using enforced mitophagy, the scientists created hPSCs devoid of human mitochondria and fused them to non-human primate PSCs, again creating cells carrying nuclear genomes from both species, but this time only non-human mitochondria. An analysis of composite cells containing either human or non-human mitochondria showed that the mitochondria were largely interchangeable despite millions of years of evolutionary separation, causing only subtle differences in gene expression within the composite nucleus. Interestingly, the genes that differed in activity among cells harboring human and non-human mitochondria were mostly linked to brain development or neurological diseases. This raises the possibility that mitochondria may play a role in the brain differences between humans and our closest primate relatives. However, Dr. Wu said, more research – especially studies comparing neurons made from these composite PSCs – will be needed to better understand these differences. Finally, the researchers studied how depleting mitochondria might affect development in whole organisms. They used a genetically encoded version of enforced mitophagy to reduce the amount of mitochondria in mouse embryos, then implanted them into surrogate mothers to develop. Embryos missing more than 65% of their mitochondria failed to implant in their surrogate’s uterus. However, those missing about a third of their mitochondria experienced delayed development, catching up to normal mitochondrial numbers and a typical developmental timeline by 12.5 days after fertilization.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2835.mp3" length="677564" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Alcohol harms the liver through glutamate, not only endotoxin (LPS); taurine/niacinamide may help</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2833</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2833</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 18:05:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2833

The rates of binge drinking keep rising in the West and such activities are strongly and inversely correlated with overall quality of life. Thus, it seems that life continues to deteriorate in the West, despite what the media and doctors are telling us. Peat wrote that the negative effects of alcohol on the liver are not due to the alcohol (ethanol) per se, but due to alcohol increasing intestinal permeability, which increases endotoxin/LPS absorption into the bloodstream, which in turns harms the liver when endotoxin is transported there for detoxification. Substances that increase NAD+ and the metabolic rate have been shown to restore the gut barrier function and largely prevent the negative effects of alcohol on the liver. However, the prevention is not complete, which suggests that there are other mechanism involved in alcohol-induced liver damage. The study below demonstrated that alcohol itself increases the release of glutamic acid. The latter has known excitotoxic effects and has already been confirmed as a potent neurotoxin involved in many psychiatric and neurological conditions. It looks like the toxicity is not limited to the brain, but manifests in the liver as well, leading the researchers to label glutamic acid as a “hepatotransmitter” (a word play on its already known as a neurotransmitter). Interestingly, one of the main toxicity pathways induced by glutamate was increased nitric oxide (NO) production – a signalling molecule Ray also wrote about extensively. As such, glutamate antagonists may be able to blunt/negate this pathway and thus further limit the damage from drinking alcohol. Magnesium and taurine are some of the better known NMDA (glutamate) antagonists and unsurprisingly, both of them have shown protective effects in studies with binge drinking. Since magnesium can often cause GI irritation when used orally, that leaves taurine as the more appropriate supplement to try, and it is already known to synergize with niacinamide (which raises NAD+ and seals the gut barrier). (Non)coincidentally, both taurine and niacinamide reduce NO production, which undoubtedly contributes to their benefit seen in liver conditions.

2 links here

“…Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced on Thursday that its research team, led by Professor Jeong Won-il of the KAIST Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering in collaboration with Professor Kim Won of SMG-SNU Boramae Medical Center, has identified the process of liver damage and inflammation caused by drinking alcohol at the molecular level. The team identified a new pathway in which a signaling substance called “glutamic acid” is secreted by hepatocytes when drinking alcohol, and this substance stimulates Kupffer cells, immune cells in the liver, leading to reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, inflammation, and hepatocyte death.”

“…Previously, an indirect pathway was thought to be the main culprit, with Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from the gut stimulating Kupffer cells to induce inflammation. However, this study overturns that theory by demonstrating that hepatocytes themselves can actively stimulate immune cells. In an animal model, the team found that chronic drinking increases the expression of a glutamate transporter (VGLUT3) in hepatocytes, leading to the accumulation of glutamate, which is then released in response to changes in calcium concentration during binge drinking. This glutamic acid stimulates the mGluR5 receptor on Kupffer cells, which activates nitric oxide synthase (NOS2), leading to an inflammatory response and liver cell damage. The discovery shows that glutamic acid can also act as a hepatotransmitter in the liver. The researchers confirmed that the relevant pathways for glutamic acid synthesis (ALDH4A1), storage (VGLUT3), secretion (SNARE complex), uptake (mGluR5), and reuptake (EAAT2) are indeed operational in liver tissue. They also demonstrated that genetic or pharmacological inhibition of VGLUT3, mGluR5, and NOX2 significantly reduced liver damage and inflammation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2833.mp3" length="1030004" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dopamine agonists may treat “untreatable” depression, by lowering serotonin</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2830</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2830</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 03:17:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2830

The list of studies undermining the “serotonin hypothesis” in depression keeps growing. Actually, those studies do not undermine the hypothesis bur rather turn it on its head. Namely, while mainstream medicine claims that low serotonin causes depression, the available evidence from non-sponsored (read: fraudulent) studies suggests the exact opposite is the case – i.e. elevated serotonin is a cause of depression and lowering serotonin is therapeutic. It just so happens that dopamine and serotonin have an inverse relationship. Each one suppressed the levels of the other. Thus, when serotonin is high dopamine is low and vice versa. That relationship extends to synthetic molecules that mimic the effects of serotonin or dopamine at the receptor level. For example serotonin agonists suppress dopamine synthesis and vice versa. The study below demonstrated that using a dopamine agonist drug approved for the treatment of Parkinson disease (PD) may be able to treat so-called “treatment resistant” depression, sometimes also called “permanent dysphoria”. Of course, like all other dopamine agonists, the drug in question (pramipexole) inhibits serotonin synthesis by blocking tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH), thus lowering serotonin levels systemically and locally in the brain. Ergo, another appropriate post title could be “Lowering serotonin treats untreatable depression”. Another appropriate title would be “SSRI drugs cause depression, serotonin blockers cure it”. Double embarrassment for medicine here. Not only is there no such thing as “untreatable” depression, but the cure is (again) the exact opposite of what medicine claims.

2 links here

“…A drug used for Parkinson’s disease has been shown to be effective in reducing the symptoms of difficult to treat depression, in a study led by the University of Oxford, link here. The drug pramipexole was found to be substantially more effective than a placebo at reducing the symptoms of treatment resistant depression (TRD) over the course of nearly a year, when added to ongoing antidepressant medication. The trial, supported by National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and published in The Lancet Psychiatry, included 150 patients with treatment resistant depression, with equal numbers receiving 48 weeks of pramipexole or a placebo, alongside ongoing antidepressant medication.”

“…In terms of the significance, Browning finds: “These findings on pramipexole are a significant breakthrough for patients for whom antidepressants and other treatments and therapies have not worked.” With the drug interactions, Browning elucidates: “Pramipexole is a medicine licensed for Parkinson’s disease and works by boosting the brain chemical dopamine. This differs from the majority of other antidepressant medications which act on brain serotonin and may explain why pramipexole was so helpful in this study.“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2830.mp3" length="855236" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Glaucoma may be a metabolic condition, vitamin B1 (thiamine) may treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2828</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2828</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 03:02:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2828

Just a few hours ago I did a post about myopia being metabolic in origin and, as such, pro-metabolic substances such as DHEA may treat it. I also did posts a few years ago showing that other pro-metabolic substances such as niacinamide (vitamin B3) and progesterone may also treat glaucoma, as well as cataracts, dry-eye syndrome, etc. The study below adds more evidence to the claim that glaucoma is a metabolic condition, by showing that vitamin B1 levels are low in glaucoma patients that supplementation with vitamin B1 (and/or agmatine, another pro-metabolic substance) may treat the condition. This suggests that vitamin B1 and B3, being highly water-soluble, may make a good eye-drop product for treating a number of eye conditions, by improving (glucose) metabolism (which is their primary role) both locally in the eye and systemically.

link here

Mizzou researcher discovers natural molecules that may help glaucoma patients, link here

Mizzou researcher discovers natural molecules that may help glaucoma patients, link here

“…In a recent study, his team discovered that glaucoma patients have less of two tiny molecules — agmatine and thiamine — in the clear fluid at the front of the eye, compared to those without glaucoma. Singh has identified that these molecules, known as metabolites, could be potential biomarkers that could be spotted to detect the disease early. “In several cases, people do not find out they have glaucoma until they are older and their eye pressure is elevated,” Singh, an assistant professor in the School of Medicine, link here, said. “Our long-term goal is to see if doctors could one day do a simple blood test to check for these biomarkers. If they can, hopefully they will be able to catch the disease much earlier, before vision loss occurs, so patients can receive treatment sooner.” These two metabolites, agmatine and thiamine, could also make for potential glaucoma treatments. In one of his recent pre-clinical studies, Singh found that agmatine and thiamine have neuroprotective potential and can help protect RGCs from damage and loss of visual function. This means these molecules might help stop or slow down the progression of vision loss, making them possible candidates for future neuroprotective treatment for glaucoma as eye drops or supplements.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2828.mp3" length="531068" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin just as effective and safer compared to dual-antiplatelet therapy (DATP)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2824</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2824</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 02:40:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2824

I decided to post this study given the avalanche of anti-aspirin articles lately in media, including in regards to aspirin’s use for prevention of cardiovascular events. This is far from the first study that find aspirin to be just as effective and with fewer serious die effects compared to DATP, which usually includes at least one patented anticoagulant. Hopefully, mainstream media won’t ignore this study as they ignored all the other ones showing aspirin is truly a wonder drug when it comes to cardiovascular disease, and that the bleeding risks doctors scare patients with are nothing but paid, coordinated campaign of F.U.D by Big Pharma companies peddling DATP drugs.

link here

“…The 2,201 patients included had a mean age of 66 years and 14.4% were women. The primary endpoint of MACE occurred in a similar proportion of patients in each group: 4.8% of patients in the DAPT group and 4.6% in the aspirin only group (hazard ratio [HR] 1.09; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.74 to 1.60; log rank p=0.77). Major bleeding was more frequent in the DAPT group (4.9% vs. 2.0%; HR 2.50; 95% CI 1.52 to 4.11). A key secondary endpoint of net adverse clinical events (the primary endpoint plus major bleeding) was higher in the DAPT group than in the aspirin group (9.1% vs. 6.4%; HR 1.45; 95% CI 1.07 to 1.97). A total of 0.7% of patients with DAPT and 0.2% with aspirin only died during the first year after randomisation (HR 4.01; 95% CI 0.85 to 18.9). Concluding, Professor Jeppsson said: “Our 12-month data do not support the use of DAPT over aspirin alone in ACS patients after CABG, given the lack of improvement in MACE and the increased risk of major bleeding. However, further long-term follow-up is needed.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2824.mp3" length="352604" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The origins of sleep may be metabolic – to reduce reactive oxygen species (ROS), driven by fat oxidation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2822</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2822</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 02:23:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2822

A fascinating study that again highlights the central role metabolism plays in activities medicine considers weakly linked or unrelated to metabolism. Namely, the study suggests that the primary trigger of sleep is the accumulation of ROS, which under normal conditions form mostly as a result of excessive fat oxidation, which itself happens mostly under stress. Virtually all ROS is formed as a result of so-called reverse electron flow (REF), which excessive fat oxidation triggers by forming a functional block at electron transport chain (ETC) complex II. ETC II is crucially dependent on the cofactor FAD (synthesized from vitamin B2), and excessive fat oxidation consumes a lot of FAD through the beta-oxidation pathway that precedes entry of fatty acid metabolites into the Krebs cycle. Since high levels of ROS are toxic to cells, it makes perfect sense for organisms to develop an evolutionary conserved (across species and time) mechanism such as sleep that forces the organism to drastically reduced physical/mental activity, which in turn reduces excessive fat oxidation and thus ROS production. The findings of the study are anecdotally corroborated by multiple reports from people who practice long-distance endurance exercise (which yours truly also used to (ab)use years ago and thus caused severe health disturbances). Namely, they all feel extremely sleepy after a bout of such exercise and often usually sleep for much longer periods of time at night compared to days without such exercise (or less acute stress). Babies are also good example, as they invariably get very sleepy after a stressful or exhausting event, especially if not well-fed prior to the event, thus increasing fatty acid oxidation further. Finally, chemicals that increase electron leakage into the mitochondrial matrix such as 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP), are also known to cause sleepiness. There is also the co-called “central fatigue” hypothesis, which postulates that fatigue and sleepiness are caused by elevation of brain serotonin and such elevations are known to happen when blood levels of fatty acids are elevated, which results in displacement of tryptophan from albumin and thus increased entry into the brain, leading to increased serotonin synthesis. Interventions that lower fat oxidation and/or brain serotonin are known to largely prevent the feelings of fatigue and sleepiness, thus corroborating the study findings. Aspirin, which lowers both blood levels of fatty acids as well as plasma serotonin has a known anti-fatigue effect, confirmed in multiple human studies with patients suffering from conditions characterized by debilitating fatigue and daytime sleepiness (e.g. multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, diabetes, cancer, etc).

3 links here

“…Recently, researchers discovered that buildup of toxic molecules in the mitochondria could be the answer they’ve been looking for.1 Gero Miesenböck, link here, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, and his colleagues showed that the extent of electron leakage from the electron transport chain in the mitochondria determined how much fruit flies slept. Their findings, published in Nature, suggest a mechanistic reason for why different animals, including humans, need sleep.”

“…To generate energy, cells transport electrons from the Krebs cycle across four protein complexes within the inner mitochondrial membrane in a process known as cellular respiration. This electron flow establishes a proton gradient across the mitochondrial membrane, which ATP synthase can harness to make ATP. Once electrons finally reach cytochrome c oxidase (Complex IV), they combine with hydrogen protons and oxygen to form water. But sometimes, electrons can leak into the mitochondrial matrix before getting to the end of the transport chain. When this happens, electrons can reduce free oxygen to form reactive oxygen species, which are toxic to cells. Metabolically active cells, such as neurons, are especially prone to such leakage. “The respiratory chain handles single, unpaired electrons, and if you do that in the presence of oxygen, you’re almost asking for an electron leak,” Miesenböck said. “Life wants to use respiration because the energy gains are so large, but it has to somehow deal with the electron leak, and one way to deal with it is sleep. We think that’s the big trade-off that’s at the heart of all of it.”

“…Next, to understand how cellular respiration regulates sleep, Miesenböck and his colleagues manipulated electron transport in opposite directions. First, the researchers overexpressed proteins that could dissipate the ATP-generating proton gradient in fly dFBNs. By increasing the demand for metabolically generated electrons, this reduced electron leakage. As a result, the flies slept less. Conversely, the researchers mimicked the increase in mitochondrial electron leakage by outsourcing ATP synthesis via the expression of an archaeal proton pump. This manipulation made electrons from the Krebs cycle redundant, and it increased the time that flies spent asleep. “One obvious question to ask is whether the same thing is also happening in the mammalian brain,” Miesenböck said. “I would think so, but formally, it needs to be proven.” Savage said, “This study gives strong evidence that the primary driving force of sleep is to counteract [fat] metabolism, but it doesn’t mean that some other functions, like memory consolidation or immune system boosting, haven’t piggybacked on top.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2822.mp3" length="1331276" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>LSD, banned by the FDA/DEA as mentally damaging, may cure anxiety/depression with even a single dose</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2820</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2820</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 01:45:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2820

Once again, we see that the truth is often 180 degrees from what public health authorities keep telling us. LSD was banned decades ago due to being both highly “addictive” as well as apparently triggering lasting episodes of psychosis and/or anxiety. Yet, the study below demonstrates that in doses often used recreationally (100mcg), LSD is actually a potent anxiolytic and can almost completely eliminate anxiety for several months, with just a single dose. Just as importantly, the effects were immediate. Currently, medicine prescribes SSRI and benzodiazepines for anxiety disorders. The SSRI drugs do not really treat anxiety, but simply chemically lobotomized the patient so as to prevent the feeling of anything (including anxiety), which can hardly be considered a “treatment”. The latter, while relieving anxiety, requires daily dosing (sometimes multiple daily doses) and is highly habit-forming, with withdrawal effects so terrible that the flagship benzo Klonopin is virtually impossible to wean oneself off of. For those that do not believe me, simply search Youtube for “Klonopin withdrawal” (no quotes when you search) and see the horror stories, in high definition, for yourself. Even if there are cases where SSRI/benzos work, it often takes weeks to produce a noticeable effect, while in the LSD study, the effects were immediate. It is no wonder that LSD is banned. If it can cure most psychiatric conditions while making people intolerant to authoritarianism and hierarchical social structures, then such a drug will never see the light of day in mainstream psychiatry. We just have to wait for the company below (MindMend) to get approval for LSD as a psychiatric drug and then we can get it…at 100x the price of what it costs on the street. Oh, and last but not least, the primary mechanism of LSD is as a (partial) serotonin antagonist and full agonist of several dopamine receptors. So, yet another indictment of the “serotonin hypothesis” of anxiety and depression, and with it, the entire SSRI industry.

6 links here

“…

HAMILTON: The drug, known as MM120, comes from MindMed, which funded the study. Participants were randomly assigned to get a placebo or one of four dosage levels of MM120. Lower doses had no significant effect, but Feifel says the two higher doses, which pretty much guaranteed a psychedelic experience, made a big difference.

FEIFEL: By the next day, the drug, for all intents and purposes, was out of their system, and yet the patient’s average anxiety was greatly reduced.

HAMILTON: Feifel says seeing a drug work so quickly was remarkable.

FEIFEL: The other remarkable thing about it was those improvements held out all the way to the end of the study, which was 12 weeks.

HAMILTON: Higher doses also relieved depression. The results appear in the journal of the American Medical Association, and Feifel says high-quality studies like this one are giving legitimacy to research on a range of psychedelics, like psilocybin and MDMA.

…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2820.mp3" length="1037804" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder may be metabolic diseases, driven by insulin resistance</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2818</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2818</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 01:11:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2818

A fascinating study that not only proves again that metabolism is at the core of conditions that medicine denies are metabolic, but suggests a simple and potentially curative approach. Namely, ameliorating insulin resistance and thus restoring glucose metabolism. Now, since it well-known in the bioenergetic community that insulin resistance is driven by excessive fat accumulation and oxidation, the findings of the study below suggest that something as simple as lowering fat intake, increasing sugar intake, and/or taking substances such as aspirin and niacinamide (both of which ameliorate insulin resistance) may be enough to treat (cure?) conditions considered by medicine lifelong and only manageable (but not curable) by therapy with potent psychotropic drugs. In corroboration of the new study findings, a prior study found that one of the main effects of lithium – the gold standard for treating bipolar disorder – is to improve insulin sensitivity.

link here

Bipolar Mood Shifts Linked to Insulin Signaling in the Pancreas, link here

Restoring Insulin Sensitivity Can Help With Chronic Bipolar Disorder, Study Suggests, link here

“…

The medical community is becoming increasingly more aware that patients with bipolar disorder are predisposed to diabetes, and that diabetes can, in turn, make patients’ bipolar episodes worse. Those individuals are particularly vulnerable to Type II diabetes, an impairment in the way that the body regulates blood glucose levels, either as a result of insufficient production of the glucose-lowering hormone insulin or because of decreased sensitivity to insulin. Rates of Type II diabetes in patients with bipolar disorder are three times higher than those in the general population, and a large portion of patients with diagnosed bipolar disorder are prediabetic and have reduced insulin sensitivity while their blood glucose level remains normal. Insulin resistance, or reduced insulin sensitivity, is a serious risk factor for worse mental health outcomes in bipolar disorder patients and can make patients less responsive to conventional medications. But despite these grim statistics, psychiatric clinics seldom order tests for insulin resistance – which are relatively straightforward and cheap – and treating established diabetes does not appear to be enough to improve patients’ psychiatric outcomes.”

“…To see if treating insulin resistance would improve treatment-resistant bipolar depression, researchers designed a proof-of-concept clinical trial. The trial included 45 middle-aged participants who failed eight or nine psychiatric drug treatment trials. The vast majority of patients had a chronic course of illness with no periods of remission for over 25 years. By trial design, approximately half of the patients received regular doses of metformin – a cheap and readily available insulin sensitizing drug – while remaining on their regular medication regime, and the other half received placebo. As early as six weeks after metformin treatment was initiated, the researchers saw promising changes. By 14 weeks, half of the patients in the metformin group became insulin-sensitive and their depression and anxiety subsided drastically. Better yet, the improvements in depression, anxiety and general functioning were sustained up to 26 weeks. “Given that the only other therapy that works comparably well is electroconvulsive therapy – a procedure that involves applying electrical current to the patient’s brain, causing a controlled seizure — achieving the same result just by restoring insulin sensitivity seems astounding,” said coauthor Dr. Jessica Gannon, associate professor of psychiatry at Pitt.“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2818.mp3" length="556484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Glutathione (GSH) drives cancer metastasis by promoting cell survival under hypoxia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2816</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2816</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:55:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2816

In many of the podcasts I have done over the years, as well as many of my posts, I have highlighted the role of the GSH (the reduced form of glutathione) not only as a master antioxidant, but also as a redox indicator when used in conjunction with its oxidized version known as glutathione disulfide (GSSG). Namely, the GSH/GSSG ratio is a very useful biomarker of mitochondrial redox status, together with (mitochondrial) NAD+/NADH, acetoacetate/hydroxybutyrate and pyruvate/lactate ratios. Medicine does not seem to think much of GSSG except as a biomarker of “oxidative” stress, and it is almost universally viewed as a biomarker of poor health. There are a multitude of studies focusing on GSH levels and trying to demonstrate that elevating GSH levels is beneficial. Now, in conditions of true oxidative stress, GSH may indeed be helpful. However, as discussed on several recent interviews, what most doctors consider “oxidative” stress is actually “reductive” stress, and as a reductant GSH can make thing much worse in such conditions. It is well known that the mitochondrial redox status of patients with virtually any chronic disease is heavily shifted towards reduction. This seems to be true especially in cancer, and it has already been shown convincingly that intracellular GSH levels (and especially the GSH/GSSG ratio) are elevated in virtually all cancer types. It has been proposed that “cancer” cells simply accumulate this antioxidant to protect themselves from reactive oxygen species (ROS) and that GSH does not really play a role in the cancerization and metastatic process itself. However, this view has been challenged by multiple other studies showing that lowering GSH, increasing GSSG, or both can have dramatic effects on even advanced cancers, often leading to cancer remission or even complete tumor regression. Oxidizing agents such as the quinone molecules, we all as pro-metabolic substances such as aspirin, thyroid, dinitrophenol (DNP), etc are all known to powerfully lower the GSH/GSSG ratio and (non)coincidentally they have all shown promise as possible treatments for cancer.

The study below demonstrates that GSH is actually a primary driver of cancer metastasis, due to its role as an activator of signalling pathways associated with hypoxia. Virtually all such pathways are “anabolic” and are used by cancer cells not only to enhance their survival, but also to synthesize various metabolites necessary for cell growth and division (a hallmark of all cancers). Since GSH is transported inside the mitochondria via an active transport mechanism known as SLC25A39, link here, the study examined the role of that transporter in cancer growth and metastasis and found that blocking the transporter (and thus lowering GSH levels and GSH/GSSG ratio) was therapeutic and stopped the metastasis process. However, blocking of that transport mechanism could potentially lead to lowering of the total glutathione pool (GSH+GSSG) inside the mitochondria, which may have negative effects on metabolically normal cells of people diagnosed with cancer. As such, I still believe that a preferable approach is not to block GSH transport, but to increase its conversion into the oxidized version GSSG, which does not activate the hypoxic pathways and can also be converted into GSH by normal cells if needed. In addition, lowering the GSH/GSSG ratio by increasing GSH oxidation has metabolic benefits of its own such as the lowering of lactate (which is a known cancer promoted and the study below again confirmed lactate’s oncogenic role). In other words, quinones, aspirin, thyroid, niacinamide and other pro-metabolic substances are probably a safer approach to treating cancer than messing with the active transport mechanisms of one of the most important molecules in the human organism, whose physiological role (aside from being an antioxidant) is still largely unknown.

2 links here

“…Among thousands of mitochondrial compounds, one stood out: glutathione. A major antioxidant involved in reducing oxidative stress, enhancing metabolic detoxification, and regulating the immune system, glutathione levels were found to have skyrocketed in metastatic cancer cells that invaded the lung. To further confirm the findings, the team used a spatial metabolomics technique that allowed them to visualize the distribution of glutathione directly within lung tissues. They then shifted their focus toward mitochondrial membrane proteins, screening for transporters that stood out as essential for metastatic cells growing in the lung. Once again, a clear frontrunner emerged: SLC25A39, the mitochondrial glutathione transporter. The findings closed the loop, linking a metabolite and its transporter to metastasis by demonstrating that mitochondrial glutathione import via the SLC25A39 transporter is essential for cancer spread. Birsoy and colleagues also found how mitochondrial glutathione drives cancer spread: not by acting as an antioxidant—an effect ruled out through multiple experiments—but by signaling to activate ATF4, a transcription factor that helps cancer cells survive in low-oxygen conditions. This also pinpointed when glutathione is specifically required: during the early steps of metastatic colonization, when cancer cells adapt rapidly to the stressful environment of a new tissue. This work builds on recent significant work, link here from the Birsoy lab. In 2021, his team was the first to demonstrate that SLC25A39 is the transporter that brings glutathione into the mitochondria; in 2023, they showed that SLC25A39 is not only a transporter but a dynamic sensor that regulates the amount of glutathione in the mitochondria and adjusts those levels accordingly. So when this metabolite and its mitochondrial transporter showed up in cancer screenings, Birsoy knew where to take his experiments next. “Because we found this transporter earlier and knew how to block the entry of glutathione, we already had the tools necessary to investigate its role in cancer metastasis,” he says. The findings may have clinical implications—especially since the team also found that breast cancer samples from patients whose disease had spread to the lung showed elevated SLC25A39, and that higher SLC25A39 expression was strongly correlated with poorer overall survival in breast cancer patients. One day, a small molecule that targets this metabolite by blocking its transporter could potentially forestall breast cancer metastasis, with fewer side-effects than sweeping therapies that target more general cellular processes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2816.mp3" length="1963868" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Accutane, the notorious vitamin A analog for acne, can treat even severe male infertility</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2814</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2814</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 23:37:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2814

Yet another study that would likely aggravate the vitamin A opponents. Especially considering that it is about the infamous Accutane, link here – a drug they claim is pure “poison” and a much more potent one than the natural active vitamin A known as retinoic acid. Accutane has numerous reports of side effects, mostly related to teratogenesis, but also mood disorders, headaches, bone pain, etc. Well, the role of vitamin A in male fertility is already established and multiple studies have demonstrated that vitamin A deficiency in human males reliably leads to infertility with virtually no sperm production. The study below demonstrates that Accutane may help even completely azoospermic males become fertile again and beget a child. Since Accutane’s sole known mechanism of action is as an agonist of the retinoic acid receptor (RAR) and retinoic X receptor (RXR), there is little doubt that vitamin A is anything but poison and is indispensable for male fertility.

2 links here

“…For men with infertility caused by extremely low sperm counts or a complete lack of sperm, the only medical option is to undergo surgery to collect sperm directly from the testicles to then use for in vitro fertilization (IVF). But this is a significant surgery that involves discomfort; potential risks, such as infection, link here; and a prolonged recovery period. Moreover, the surgery only yields sperm about half the time. Now, researchers are exploring an alternative: isotretinoin, better known as Accutane, a drug that has been used for decades to treat severe acne. In a small study published in July in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics, link here, the drug stimulated sperm production in some men who at baseline had no or very few sperm in their ejaculate.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2814.mp3" length="495620" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Myopia is a metabolic condition, DHEA may treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2812</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2812</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 23:22:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2812

If you ask an ophthalmologist about age-related myopia, you will probably get the answer that the condition is “incurable” and largely of unknown origin. The study below links the steady decline of one of the “youth” hormones – DHEA – as a primary cause of developing age-related myopia. Conversely, restoring DHEA to physiological levels reverses the pathological changes and factors leading to myopia such as increased hypoxia inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) as well as inflammation and decreased collagen production. Now, increased hypoxia is known to be driven by elevated estrogen and PUFA, but is also a general consequence of declining metabolism due to lower CO2 production and thus decreased tissue oxygenation. Thus, one may say that myopia is yet another metabolic conditions amenable to pro-metabolic approaches. I posted a few other similar studies recently demonstrating that ocular administration of niacinamide or progesterone also has therapeutic effects for conditions such as cataracts, glaucoma and “dry eye” syndrome, thus further corroborating the role of declining metabolism in chronic eye conditions.

link here

“…The previous metabonomic analysis of intraocular fluids suggested intraocular hormones may play a role in high myopia pathogenesis. In this study, significantly reduced concentrations of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) were discovered in the vitreous humor (VH) of high myopia eyes. Additionally, DHEA levels in retina tissues of myopic guinea pigs were significantly decreased, further linking intraocular DHEA depletion to myopia-related tissue changes. Recent research has established scleral hypoxia as a fundamental mechanism underlying myopia development, with scleral fibroblasts serving as key functional cells in this process. Thus, this study investigated the effects of DHEA on human scleral fibroblasts (HSFs) under hypoxic conditions to generate novel insights for myopia prevention and treatment. The findings demonstrated that DHEA downregulates Hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) expression and reduces collagen loss under hypoxic conditions. Additionally, DHEA reversed the decreased cell proliferation observed in HSFs in vitro. These effects appear to be mediated through changes in mitochondrial dynamics and regulation of BNIP3L-mediated mitophagy induced by DHEA under hypoxia. The results suggest DHEA represents a promising novel therapeutic strategy for preventing myopia development.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2812.mp3" length="580388" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:20</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Highly selective serotonin (5-HT) antagonist treats both anxiety and depression, proving 5-HT is a cause of both</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2809</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2809</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 23:10:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2809

It never ceases to amaze me just how paradoxical the pharma industry is. On one hand, they still claim that low 5-HT causes depression and/or anxiety. On the other hand, pharma companies have various drugs on the market already approved for anxiety and depression, and the mechanism of action of those drugs is exactly 180 degrees from the “serotonin dogma” of mental illness, and nobody bats an eyelash and simply ignore the implications that SSRI drugs are thus a proven fraud. In this case, agomelatine, link here – a highly selective 5-HT receptor antagonist (5-HT2C receptor) has been sold in countries outside the US for years as a treatment for both anxiety and depression, but is not approved for use in the US. The drug seems to so far have produced remarkable results – i.e. proving effective in four out of 4 large randomized placebo-controlled trials, which is a feat no SSRI drug has ever come even close to. This is probably enough for most doctors to never mention the drug to their patients who struggle or deteriorate while on SSRI , and also allows the FDA and Big Pharma to avoid commenting on such “paradoxical” drugs by saying they are not approved for use in the US and as such no comment is needed/warranted. In any event, 5-HT2C receptors are known to be the master “control switch” for the production of ACTH and thus activation of the HPA axis. Antagonists of 5-HT2C are clinically used to control cortisol synthesis and even treat hyper-cortisol conditions on the Cushing spectrum. Conversely, 5-HT is one of the main activators of HPA (and thus the stress response), which again makes its role (as well as the role of cortisol) virtually undeniable in depression. I think we are at the cusp of some major changes in Big Pharma, as the serotonin fraud can no longer be maintained or hidden from the masses. Especially now, when the public is wisening up to the fact that the perp(s) in every major mass shooting in the US have been on at least one psychotropic drugs, with SSRI almost always being one of drugs in the “cocktail”.

link here

“…Agomelatine, a clinically validated…serotonin 2C receptor antagonist, is an effective anxiolytic and antidepressant approved for the treatment of GAD in Australia and major depressive disorder in Australia and the European Union. In generalized anxiety disorder, agomelatine has demonstrated statistically significant separation from placebo in four out of four third-party placebo-controlled studies and has better efficacy and tolerability – including reduced risk of abuse potential, sexual dysfunction, and weight gain – than standard of care drugs, like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or benzodiazepines. However, over 90 per cent of unmodified agomelatine is lost to first-pass liver metabolism and its use has been limited by dose-dependent liver enzyme elevations and the need for frequent liver monitoring.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2809.mp3" length="1089116" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:30</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K (MK-4), A, pregnenolone, progesterone as novel treatments for neurodegenerative conditions</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2807</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2807</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 22:53:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2807

Surely a post that may aggravate the vitamin A opponents, but the results speak for themselves. The study found that vitamin K (MK-4) increased the expression of so-called microtubule associated protein 2 (MAP2, link here), which is also a major target of the neurosteroids such as pregnenolone, link here and (to a lesser degree) progesterone, link here. Vitamin K activates the xenobiotic receptor (SXR) and vitamin A activates the retinoic acid receptor (RAR), and activation of both receptors is a prerequisite for inducing the MAP2 expression. That means a combination of vitamin K and A would be a viable option for people with neurological conditions who do not want to take steroids such as pregnenolone. For people who do not have an issue with pregnenolone, the combination of vitamin K/A plus pregnenolone or progesterone would probably be even more synergistic. The study claims that such treatments may be viable approaches to conditions such as Alzheimer Disease (AD), Parkinson Disease (PD), Huntington Disease (HD), and maybe even conditions such as ALS, MS, etc.

link here

Novel Vitamin K Analogues Linked to Retinoic Acid Show Promise in Inducing Neuronal Differentiation for Neurodegenerative Disease Treatment, link here

link here

“…Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease are characterized by the progressive loss of neurons. The resulting debilitating symptoms, such as loss of memory and cognition, and motor impairment, can significantly degrade patients’ quality of life, confining them to round-the-clock care. ”

“…While currently used drugs help alleviate symptoms, curative treatments are lacking, thus underscoring the need for novel therapeutic strategies. One such strategy involves the induction of neuronal differentiation, which can replenish lost neurons and potentially stall or reverse neurodegeneration. Vitamin K, a fat-soluble vitamin with established roles in blood coagulation and bone metabolism, has recently been implicated in neuronal differentiation and neuroprotection. However, the therapeutic activity of naturally active vitamin K compounds like menaquinone 4 (MK-4) may be insufficient for their application in regenerative medicine against neurodegenerative diseases, link here.”

“…”Since neuronal loss is a hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, these analogs may serve as regenerative agents that help replenish lost neurons and restore brain function.” To improve the potency of vitamin K, the researchers synthesized 12 vitamin K hybrid homologs conjugated with retinoic acid—an active metabolite of vitamin A known to promote neuronal differentiation, a carboxylic acid moiety, or a methyl ester side chain and compared the neuronal differentiation-inducing activity of the hybrid homologs. Vitamin K and retinoic acid regulate transcriptional activity via the steroid and xenobiotic receptor (SXR) and retinoic acid receptor (RAR), respectively. The researchers assessed SXR and RAR transcriptional activity in mouse neural progenitor cells treated with the newly synthesized compounds. Notably, the biological activity of vitamin K and retinoic acid was preserved in the hybrid homologs.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2807.mp3" length="666692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High serotonin (5-HT), not low dopamine (DA) per se, as the main driver of Parkinson Disease (PD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2805</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2805</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 21:07:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2805

I have several posts on my blog of studies demonstrating that 5-HT antagonists have demonstrated pr-eclinical activity in treating PD, which strongly implicates 5-HT as a key driver of this pathology. This experimental observation is further strengthened by the known signs of PD, which include tremors (a known sign of excess 5-HT) as well as mood and cognitive disturbances. Several doctors emailed me to say that this hypothesis is premature since there are other conditions such as essential tremor (ET) that has overlapping symptoms with PD and there is no evidence that excess 5-HT drives that condition. Well, the study below may finally provide some clarity to this issue. Namely, while dopamine rises and 5-HT falls in people with ET under various daily situations, in people with PD dopamine levels largely stay the same, while 5-HT levels either also stay the same or rise. In other words, in non-PD people, the DA/5-HT ratio varies – i.e. it rises in most positive situations while falling in negative ones. In PD patients the DA/5-HT ratio is virtually constant and low most of the time (due to the low baseline DA). Be that as it may, the study corroborates the use of serotonin antagonists as treatment for PD and suggests that combining them with a DA agonist may have synergistic (curative?) effects. About a decade ago, I suggested to several PD patients who emailed me that they ask their doctors about such a combo treatment, and the ones that emailed me back after having tried the combo all said that their disease progression has been arrested. My suggestion at the time was based purely on intuition, given the known negative effects of 5-HT on the entire brain due to its role as a master “negative” metabolic regulator. In other words, PD is yet another condition driven by low metabolism. The study below and the others I discovered in recent years suggest that my intuition was on the right track. Ray was right about this – truth always comes first through intuition, which is based on experience, and not through analytical/abstract thinking.

Oh, one last thing that I found interesting. Apparently, 5-HT rises robustly when there is an expectation of punishment/adversity. No wonder depression and PD rates are skyrocketing. Most of the Western population lives in chronic anxiety and fear of punishment from just about anybody around them.

link here

“…In looking at the response of DA, we found there was a difference between positive and negative NPE trials, with DA release on average being higher on positive NPE trials (N-M4: main effect of NPE F(1, 558.31) = 4.01, p = 0.046), and while DA patterns were not present in PD patients (e.g., Fig. 2f, link here), patient group differences in DA were not statistically robust (p > 0.05). Notably, the differences in 5HT responses appeared more robust, and the overall reduction in 5HT on positive NPEs observed in ETs was absent in PDs (N-M5: NPE × Patient Group interaction for 5HT; F(1, 545.01) = 4.46, p = 0.035; 5HT response on positive NPE, ET vs. PD t(81.3) = −2.281, Bonferroni corrected p = 0.025).”

“…The importance of DA-5HT opponency during reward-related processing has previously been proposed62, link here,63, link here; with fast changes in DA release generally linked to the prediction of rewards and increases in 5HT release associated with an expectation of punishment64, link here,65, link here. ”

Key signature sets Parkinson’s and essential tremor apart, link here

“…But when they looked closely—using refined tools and a model of how people formed expectations—it was not dopamine that best distinguished Parkinson’s from essential tremor. Instead, it was serotonin, a different neurotransmitter that has not been as prominent in theories of Parkinson’s disease, opening a new view and potentially powerful scientific and clinical insight into this disease. “What surprised us was how much serotonin stood out,” Howe says. “It wasn’t just that dopamine was disrupted, which was expected. It was that the normal back-and-forth between dopamine and serotonin was gone. There’s neither the serotonin dip nor the dopamine rise. It’s not just one system being disrupted—it’s the lack of that dynamic interaction that turned out to be the clearest difference between Parkinson’s and essential tremor.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2805.mp3" length="1242812" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fatty liver breakthrough: vitamin B3 may cure/prevent it, even at the genomic level</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2803</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2803</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 20:39:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2803

Relatively new study, of which I can’t yet get the full text. However, its findings are truly striking. Namely, the humble vitamin B3 may treat the highly prevalent condition NAFLD/MAFLD. This condition, which is a precursor to the more serious NASH, cirrhosis and liver cancer, affects 35% of US adults and prevention/treatment options are desperately needed. The study below demonstrates that vitamin B3 (niacinamide anyone?) may stop the condition in its tracks and also reverse already established liver damage by suppressing a protein known as microRNA-93, link here. That protein has recently been shown to drive NAFLD/MAFLD and chemicals suppressing that protein have been repeatedly shown to be beneficial for NAFLD/MAFLD. While I can’t get the full text of the study yet, other studies by the same authors as well as some Google previews of the current study suggest that the administered daily oral dose of vitamin B3 was the human equivalent of 15mg/kg, for 60 days. That means an adult human would need to take 1g-1.5g daily to match the design of the study. While the study did not mention other possible pathways, I would like to point out that vitamin B3 is a precursor to NAD+ and artificially lowering NAD+ (and thus ATP) levels by inhibiting its synthesis has been shown to reliably lead to NAFLD/MAFLD. Thus, it may very well be that the microRNA-93 is secondary to the energetic pathway, in regards to liver benefits.

2 links here

“…Approximately 30% of the global population is affected by metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MASLD), a condition that previously lacked targeted treatments. In a groundbreaking discovery, researchers have identified a genetic factor that exacerbates the disease, and remarkably, the FDA-approved drug that most effectively targets this factor is vitamin B3.”

“…MiR-93 is a specialized RNA molecule expressed in hepatocytes that functions to suppress the expression of specific target genes. The team observed abnormally elevated levels of miR-93 in both patients with fatty liver disease and animal models. Through molecular analysis, they demonstrated that miR-93 promotes lipid accumulation, inflammation, and fibrosis by inhibiting the expression of SIRT1, a gene involved in lipid metabolism within liver cells. In experiments utilizing gene editing techniques to eliminate miR-93 production in mice, researchers observed a marked reduction in hepatic fat accumulation, along with significant improvements in insulin sensitivity and liver function indicators. Conversely, mice with overexpressed miR-93 exhibited worsened hepatic metabolic function. Furthermore, screening 150 FDA-approved drugs revealed that niacin (vitamin B3) most effectively suppresses miR-93. Mice treated with niacin showed a significant decrease in hepatic miR-93 levels and a notable increase in SIRT1 activity. The activated SIRT1 restored disrupted lipid metabolism pathways, thereby normalizing liver lipid homeostasis. The research team explained, “This study precisely elucidates the molecular origin of MASLD and demonstrates the potential for repurposing an already approved vitamin compound to modulate this pathway, which has high translational clinical relevance.” They added, “Given that niacin is a well-established and safe medication used to treat hyperlipidemia, it holds promise as a candidate for combination therapies targeting miRNA pathways in MASLD.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2803.mp3" length="782396" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>ROS (elevated by fat oxidation) drive immune dysfunction in cancer; vitamin E may help</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2801</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2801</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 20:26:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2801

Yet another study demonstrating that metabolism controls an aspect of physiology so far considered largely independent of environmental influences. Namely, the study demonstrated that reactive oxygen species (ROS) damages the telomeres of the so-called T-cells and that leads to impaired recognition by the organism of “cancer” cells. Increased acidity (e.g. lactate, already implicated as oncotarget) also contribute to ROS and T-cell damage. That impaired T-cell activity is what apparently is responsible to a large degree for the growth of both the primary tumor and the formation of metastases in later stages of the cancer. It just so happens that under normal conditions (i.e. without the presence of metabolic toxins) more than 95% of ROS are produced in the mitochondria under the so-called “reverse electron flow” (REF). Such REF occurs almost exclusively due to the excessive oxidation of fat, but not glucose. Thus, oxidizing primarily fat for fuel directly results in compromised immune function, which has implications not only for cancer, but for a host other diseases, including respiratory conditions such as the flu, COVID-19, bacterial infections. I mentioned the word “toxin” above and it was not by accident. In addition to excessive fat oxidation, the other known major source of ROS is as a result of cancer “treatment”. All three major types of it – surgery, ionizing radiation, chemotherapy – are actually employed primarily for this reason. Namely, they all (and especially radiation and chemo) generate massive amounts of ROS with the goal of killing the “cancer”. As we well know by now, this approach is very rarely curative and this study shows that it may actually spectacularly backfire since it leaves the patient in a compromised immune state, which allows the cancer to return and with the immune system suppressed the returning cancer is also much more aggressive than the original one. In other words, it is not that the returning cancer is somehow “angry” and deliberately acting aggressively to hurt the patient, but rather the strong suppression of the immune system due to the ROS generated by the cancer “treatments” allows the tumor to grow unopposed, which to doctors looks like a much more aggressive type of tumor. The study also demonstrated that administering anti-oxidants largely prevented (and reversed) the immunosuppressive effects of ROS, which suggests that something as simple as vitamin E or one of the quinone-like molecules would be able to greatly reduce the growth rate of already existing tumors, as well as the aggressiveness of returning tumor after cancer “treatments”. Other remedies such as niacinamide and aspirin, both of which limit the excessive fat oxidation, should also be beneficial and would probably synergize with the (structural) antioxidants.

2 links here

“…Tumor environments place heavy stress on immune cells that fight cancer. Limited oxygen, elevated acidity, and other harsh conditions overload mitochondria, the cell’s energy producers, which contributes to T cell fatigue and worsens cancer outcomes. A new study in Immunity, led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, link here, showed in mice that these conditions prompt mitochondria to release reactive oxygen species (ROS). These molecules travel to the nucleus and damage telomeres, ultimately pushing T cells into a dysfunctional state. “The really exciting part about this research is that by preventing damage to telomeres via a targeted antioxidant, we can rescue T cell function,” said lead author Dayana Rivadeneira, assistant professor in the Pitt Department of Immunology and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. “This opens the door to novel therapies to improve the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2801.mp3" length="1333580" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High-fat/low-carb diet causes systemic inflammation, impairs gut barrier, aggravates inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2799</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2799</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 22 May 2025 20:32:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2799

Another “controversial” study, which adds even more evidence to the hypothesis that low-carb diets (and by extension, probably fasting as well) are not that good for our health. Unfortunately, I cannot get access to the full study, but even just the abstract is pretty damning. Namely, ketogenic diet created systemic inflammation, which resulted in impaired gut barrier. It is likely the combination of both those effects that aggravated colitis in the animal model used. Interestingly enough, ketogenic diet decreased levels of saturated fats (SFA), which was probably due to the fact that most commercial high-fat diets available for rodent studies contain predominantly PUFA as lipids. Even though the study does not mention it, the impaired gut barrier is probably the worst effect, since it increases endotoxin/LPS absorption into the blood, which likely created the systemic inflammatory state. Thus, while the study focused only on colitis, this systemic endotoxemia likely resulted in negative effects on many other organs/tissues, with long-term effects far surpassing the relatively localized issue of colitis. In other words, if low-carb diets create systemic endotoxemia and inflammation, one could reasonably say that such diets are probably a causative factor in virtually all chronic conditions known to medicine, since medicine has started to recognize the role of the gut barrier and endotoxin in cardiovascular disease (CVD), obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes (both type I & II), cancer, Alzheimer Disease (AD), Parkinson Disease (PD), depression, psychosis, dementia, etc, etc. Unfortunately, the study findings suggest that the recent push by public health officials to reduce the presence of carbohydrates in the food supply, at the expense of fats, will likely exacerbate public health, instead of improving it.

link here

“…Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an idiopathic inflammatory disease with a high incidence. Multiple factors including dietary composition contribute to its occurrence. Recently, ketogenic diet which consists of a high proportion of fat and low carbohydrates has gained great popularity. Our study is aimed to explore the effect of ketogenic diet on IBD and its potential mechanisms. C57BL/6 mice were given a ketogenic diet or a control diet for a month and IBD was induced by 2% DSS in drinking water in the last week. Gut histology, inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, gut microbiota and metabolism were assessed. Ketogenic diet substantially worsened colitis, in terms of higher body weight loss, DAI scores and histological scores as well as colon length shortening. Levels of serum and colon inflammatory cytokines and chemokines (IL-1α, IL-6, TNF-α, IL-17, GM-CSF and IL-10) were significantly up-regulated in mice treated with ketogenic diet and DSS. Increased intestinal permeability and decreased expressions of intestinal epithelial barrier associated genes were observed due to ketogenic diet administration. Pretreatment with ketogenic diet alters the bacterial abundance, increasing pathogenic taxa such as Proteobacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, Helicobactor and Escherichia-Shigella and decreasing potential beneficial taxa such as Erysipelotrichaceae. Ketogenic diet also modified gut metabolism, increasing metabolites in the bile secretion such as ouabain, taurochenodeoxycholic acid, quinine, cholic acid and glycocholic acid, and decreasing metabolites associated with the biosynthesis of saturated fatty acids including stearic acid, arachidic acid, erucic acid, and docosanoic acid. These results suggest that ketogenic diet aggravates DSS-induced colitis in mice by increasing intestinal and systemic inflammation, and disrupting the intestinal barrier, which results from modulated gut microbiota and metabolism.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2799.mp3" length="909716" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA is incompatible with and directly toxic to mammalian mitochondria</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2797</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2797</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 18 May 2025 02:10:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2797

This is one of the few studies that presents direct and largely indisputable biochemical evidence for the negative effects of PUFA on human (and mammalian) health. Namely, it demonstrates that PUFA is truly an “alien” lipid species for mammalian mitochondria, largely due to the negative effects PUFA administration has on the lipid structure/function of mammalian cells such as the cell membrane and the crucial mitochondrial protein known as cardiolipin (CL). CL structure largely determines the speed of oxidative metabolism, and any perturbations in the lipid composition of CL has been shown to not only have detrimental effects on the metabolic rate, but has already been implicated in a diverse set of pathologies including cancer, heart disease, Parkinson Disease and various motor neuron diseases such as ALS. As the study states, PUFA are primarily plant lipids and are incompatible with CL stability and function. Namely, when human CL was exposed to linoleic or linoleinic acids, it results in both remodeling of CL structure associated with reduction in MUFA and SFA lipids, combined with increase mitochondrial fragmentation. Moreover, the degree of mitochondrial fragmentation and CL instability and dysfunction correlated with the degree of lipid unsaturation to which human CL was exposed. In other words, omega-3 PUFA, which are much more unsaturated than the omega-6 PUFA used in this study, are expected to have a much bigger detrimental effect on human CL On the same line of thought, several studies have already demonstrated that CL unsaturation increases progressively with aging (or severity of a chronic disease), resulting in greatly reduced metabolic rate. Conversely, administration of either fully hydrogenated/saturated lipids, link here or an anti-oxidant targeting CL, link here restored metabolism back to youthful rates. As the study itself states, plants and mammals have evolved to have preferences for different lipids, and exposure of one kindgom (e.g. animals) to the very different lipids (e.g. PUFA) predominantly used by another kingdom (e.g. plants) is unlikely to lead to good health outcomes.

link here

“…Finally, we tested if human CI could withstand engineered changes in unsaturation of fatty acyl chains in IMM-lipids. Recently, Oemer et al. demonstrated modulation of molar composition and unsaturation of various lipids including CL in mammalian cells treated with different fatty acids57, link here,58, link here. Increased incorporation of 18:2 fatty acyl chains in CL has also been linked to efficient OxPhos58, link here while increase in 18:3 fatty acid perturbs mitochondrial respiration59, link here,60, link here. We treated Hs-A1 cells with BSA conjugated 18:2 linoleic acid and 18:3 alpha-linolenic acid and performed mass spectrometry of the mitochondrial CLs (Fig. 6a, link here). CL species 64:4, 66:1, 72:4, 66:5, 70:5 with 16:1, 18:1 and 18:2 fatty acids were rich in BSA-treated cells (Fig. 6a, link here) suggesting their natural abundance in HEK293T mitochondria. Treatment with linoleic acid resulted in replacement of at least one of the fatty acyl chains with 18:2 resulting in CL 70:6, 70:7, 72:7, 72:8 etc. CL 72:8 with all four 18:2 fatty acyl chains were highly abundant in these cells (Fig. 6a, link here). Alpha-linolenic acid treatment resulted in multiple unique CLs with 18:3 fatty acyl chains that were absent in both BSA and linoleic acid treated cells while CLs with 16:1, 18:1 and 18:2 fatty acyl chains were prominently reduced (Fig. 6a, link here). Microscopy indicated fragmented mitochondria correlating with the degree of unsaturation of CLs (Supplementary Fig. 7a, link here). Simultaneously, in-gel EGFP fluorescence assays revealed efficient entry of Hs-A1 in CI-HC and SCs in BSA-treated and 18:2 treated cells but only partial entry was observed in 18:3 treated cells (Fig. 6b, link here). Interestingly, the cleaved product of Ch-A1 was reduced when cells were treated with 18:2 and 18:3 fatty acids suggesting slightly better stability of the trans-IMM helix in presence of unsaturated lipids (Fig. 6c, link here). However, Ch-A1 was never integrated with CI-assemblies as probed by in-gel EGFP fluorescence assay (Supplementary Fig. 7c, link here) correlating with perturbation of endogenous assemblies of CI in 18:3 fatty acid treated cells as probed by Ndufs1 western blots and in-gel CI-activity assay (Figs. 6d–e, link here and Supplementary Fig. 7c, link here). Together, these results suggested that the chemistry of the exposed amino acids in the trans-IMM helix of Ndufa1 with the surrounding saturated or unsaturated lipids determined the integration of the subunit in CI assemblies in different forms of eukaryotic life (Fig. 7, link here).”

“…The balance of saturated and unsaturated phospholipids regulates curvature, fluidity, protein stability, and crowding in all cellular membranes6, link here,70, link here. Plant lipid metabolism has been evolved to favor polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) which provide membrane plasticity to cope up with diverse habitats71, link here. PUFA is also prevalent in aqueous metazoans to maintain membrane fluidity72, link here. Accordingly, investigating evolution of lipid unsaturation in non-mitochondrial membranes and correlated sequence divergence in membrane-embedded proteins would be interesting.”

link here

“…Proteins interact with proteins to form stable complexes. But little is known about lipid-protein interactions. The scientists, led by Swasti Raychaudhuri, studied Complex I, the largest of the five respiratory complexes in mitochondria in plants, fungi and animals. They noticed a surprising number of mutations on the lipid-facing surfaces of Complex I proteins — parts not involved in protein-protein interactions. Next, the researchers probed cardiolipin, a key lipid in the inner mitochondrial membrane. In plants, cardiolipin has more unsaturated fatty acid chains than in animals. This difference affects how lipids pack and interact with proteins. Using various tools, including molecular dynamics simulations, they showed that protein helices from humans and plants function optimally in their own lipid environments. Exposure to plant-type lipids destabilised the human respiratory Complex I, the researchers found.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2797.mp3" length="1023188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Reactive oxygen species, derived mostly from fat oxidation, drive cancer growth/metastases</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2795</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2795</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 18 May 2025 01:12:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2795

In several of the interviews with Dr. Mercola, we touched upon the role of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in health and diseases in the context of the metabolic theory. Most doctors hold the opinion that generating massive amounts of ROS is a normal “price” to pay for high oxidative metabolism, and the higher the metabolic rate the more ROS are generated. This is one of the core arguments in favor of the so-called “rate of living theory”, which says simply that the higher the metabolism, the shorter the lifespan of an organism will be. However, unbeknownst even to most doctors, 98%-99% of ROS are generated not during normal oxidative metabolism (forward electron flow), but during so-called reverse electron flow. The latter happens whenever there is a functional or physical block at one or more of the electron transport chain (ETC) complexes, which leads to build up of electrons and thus reverse flow, which results in ROS being formed when the unpaired electrons react with molecular oxygen. Not only does reverse flow result in a dramatic shift of the redox status towards reduction, but the build-up of ROS leads to direct structural damage to various cell proteins, as well as any intracellular structure containing polyunsaturated lipids. As such, the role of ROS in many chronic conditions has already been recognized and strategies for ROS mitigation have been proposed as prevention/treatment of many diseases. What has not been widely acknowledged is that in the absence of exogenous agents capable of blocking or more of the ETC complexes (e.g rotenone, metformin, etc), reverse electron flow happens quite easily and is in fact responsible for the majority of ROS production simply as a result of shifting the metabolic substrate from glucose to fat (Randle Cycle). Namely, if the Randle Cycle (RC) shifts sufficiently in favor of fat oxidation, that results in depletion of the FAD co-factor, and thus a block at ETC Complex II. In other words, all that is needed for massive generation of ROS is to switch from oxidizing primarily glucose to oxidizing primarily fat. That sounds shocking and counter-intuitive, considering the world (and medicine) has gone crazy over low-carb diets lately, but it is well-known and undisputed biochemical fact. And since the pathological role of ROS is undisputed even by mainstream medicine, one could reasonably says that high-fat / low-carb diets are expected to cause serious health problems even in the absence of exogenous pathological agents (e.g. pharma drugs, endocrine disruptors, stress, etc). It looks like one of those health problems driven by ROS is cancer aggressiveness and metastases. The study below demonstrated that mitochondrial ROS strongly promotes cancer metastases by increasing inflammation, and that dampening said ROS almost completely prevented metastases of a human breast cancer model. In other words, high -fat / low-carb diets may cause something much more serious than obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes, even in the absence of additional pathological factors that are ubiquitous in modern life.

link here

“…Although recent research has established that gasdermin D (GSDMD), a factor that drives pyroptosis, is essential for cell death and inflammation, its involvement in cancer metastasis has yet to be elucidated. In this study, GSDMD was significantly increased in lung neutrophils at the metastatic stage from a murine orthotropic 4T1 breast cancer model. Moreover, the N terminal domain from cleaved GSDMD exhibited a positive correlation with increased mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mROS) and serum high mobility group box 1 (HMGB-1) levels. Mechanistically, mROS inhibition significantly suppressed GSDMD-N oligomerization and pore formation. In addition, the activation of GSDMD significantly enhanced the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) following treatment with Cathepsin C. Within a murine orthotopic breast cancer model using 4T1 cell line, the inhibition of GSDMD through the application of LDC7559 significantly attenuated the metastatic spread of breast cancer to the lung. In addition, knockout of GSDMD reduced lung metastasis in E0771 intravenous injection murine model. Furthermore, inhibition of GSDMD reduced the number of myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSC) in the metastatic lung of breast cancer mouse model, while concurrently increasing both the percentage and total cell count of CD8+ T cells, suggesting that mitochondrial dysfunction-dependent GSDMD activation promotes tumor microenvironment immunosuppression and NETs. GSDMD represents a promising therapeutic target for mitigating the metastatic progression of breast cancer to the lung.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2795.mp3" length="1487372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B1 enhances physical activity and wakefulness by raising dopamine</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2793</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2793</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 18 May 2025 00:21:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2793

Several decades ago, researchers in Japan did a lot of research with vitamin B1 (thiamine), as well as its more lipophilic natural and synthetic analogs such as allithiamine, sulbitiamine, fursultiamine, benfotiamine, etc. The studies found that all forms of B1, but especially the more lipophilic ones, enhances both physical and cognitive function, likely by improving glucose metabolism. Namely, B1 is a co-factor for the rate-limiting enzyme in glucose metabolism known as pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), and when organisms receive extra B1 they metabolize glucose better, resulting in more CO2 and less lactate produced. Both lower lactate and higher CO2 are known to enhance muscle function, especially during longer term physical exertion. However, the mechanism of action for B1 improving cognitive function is murkier, though lower lactate and higher CO2 contribute to better cognitive function just like they do for muscle function. Since B1 administration was shown to significantly delay fatigue onset during exercise, the researchers in Japan suspected that neurotransmitters are involved in the effects of B1, yet were unable to conclusively prove such a link back then. Nowadays, we have the so-called “central fatigue” hypothesis, which states that fatigue is driven primarily by elevated brain levels of serotonin, combined with low levels of dopamine. The new study below, also done in Japan (and likely by a team that is an extension of same groups that started the work on B1 in the 1950s), demonstrates that B1, in the form of the more lipophilic version thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD), robustly increased dopamine release in the brain, which then led to increased wakefulness and physical activity. Personally, I would take this results as an experimental confirmation of the “central fatigue” hypothesis. Byw, TTFD is better known as allithiamine and together with its close relative prosultiamine are the only naturally occurring lipophilic B1 analogs, found predominantly in the bulbs of plants from the garlic family. In fact, the unique odor/taste of the garlic-family plants is due to a large degree to the presence of those two lipophilic B1 analogs. In any event, the dose administered in the study was high, but that was likely because it was done as a bolus single dose. The older Japanese studies demonstrated that one can achieve the same levels in the brain as a large bolus dose by administering lower doses over several days. The current study used a single human-equivalent dose of 7.5mg/kg, which means that one should be able to replicate the study by taking 100mg TTFD/allithiamine daily over a period of 7-8 days.

2 links here

“…Researchers at the University of Tsukuba have found that thiamine (vitamin B1) tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD), a common thiamine derivative, can induce arousal. TTFD is chemically modified to improve tissue penetration and absorption and is recognized for enhancing motivation for physical activity. Thiamine deficiency has long been a significant health concern, contributing to conditions such as beriberi, which was widespread from the Edo to Meiji periods (1868–1912). The development of thiamine derivatives in the 1950s marked a key advance in treating these deficiencies. Today, such derivatives are commonly used as nutritional supplements, link here to support daily energy, even in modern societies where thiamine deficiency, link here is uncommon. Recent studies have also examined the potential effects of thiamine derivatives on brain function, link here. The research team previously discovered that TTFD increases dopamine levels, link here in the medial prefrontal cortex of rats, thereby boosting physical activity. This rise in dopamine is linked to the activation of brain regions involved in arousal, such as the ventral tegmental area and the locus coeruleus. Based on these findings, the team hypothesized that TTFD administration would promote arousal. To test this hypothesis, the team intraperitoneally administered TTFD to rats and assessed changes in their sleep-wake states and physical activity levels using EEG and electromyography. The results indicate that TTFD administration enhanced physical activity, link here and wakefulness. Future studies will aim to uncover the neural mechanisms behind this effect, potentially demonstrating TTFD’s potential in boosting daily vitality.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2793.mp3" length="1310084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Oxidative metabolism reflects our biological age, metabolic dysfunction drives frailty/aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2791</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2791</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 17 May 2025 23:35:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2791

In several of his articles, Ray discussed the non-specific “syndrome of being sick” -i.e. looking and feeling frail, while also being at high risk for virtually any condition, but without any of the specific symptoms/signs or diagnostic biomarkers of any specific condition. Ray said that Hans Selye linked this syndrome to chronic stress exposure, which Ray said ultimately leads to severe mitochondrial dysfunction and low oxidative metabolism. The study below now presents evidence that Ray was right (again!) and that declilne in mitochondrial number and activity can be used as a reliable prognostic biomarker for future frailty and chronic diseases. In addition, the degree of mitochondrial dysfunction apparently correlates with the severity of the “sick syndrome”, so it can also be used as a diagnostic tool for how severe an already established condition is. Aside from the well-known blood tests for pyruvate/lactate ratio, acetoacetate/hydroxybutyrate ratio, GSSG/GSH ratio, etc a simple tests for exhaled CO2 using a portable capnometer could probably be a very cheap and widely available, non-invasive method for diagnosing metabolic issues and thus future disease risk. In other words, as the study itself states, mitochondrial function reflects our “biological age” and it is biological age, and not chronological age, that drives frailty, diseases and aging itself. The good news here is that, unlike chronological age, biological age can be modulated so that we experience very little to none actual aging and disease.

2 links here

“…A recent study published in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, titled “Decreased mitochondrial respiration associates with frailty in community-dwelling older adults” (DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2024.1301433, link here), presents a new perspective on how to diagnose and understand frailty in older adults, based on a cellular indicator: mitochondrial respiration in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). This work opens a promising pathway for the early detection of this geriatric syndrome, which affects a growing proportion of the aging population. The lead author is Gianella Liabeuf, then a student in the Doctorate in Nutrition and Food (DOCNUTAL) program, and it was developed by researchers from the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology (INTA) at the University of Chile, in collaboration with the Faculty of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Chile, the University of the Americas, the Bernardo O’Higgins University, and the Interuniversity Center for Healthy Aging. “Frailty corresponds to a greater susceptibility to negative health outcomes: for example, if a frail person becomes ill, it is more likely that the illness will be severe, unlike a robust person who is more likely to experience a milder illness,” explains Roberto Bravo-Sagua, a professor at INTA, PhD in Biochemistry, and one of the study’s authors. According to the researcher, cellular metabolism can act as a reflection of that robustness or frailty. “Cellular metabolism reflects our biological age. This means that we may have a certain chronological age (years of life), but our body may have a younger or older biological age. That is, our cells may be younger if we have experienced ‘successful’ aging, or more aged if we have been affected by negative factors.” The study was conducted in 58 older adults aged 70 and above, part of the ALEXANDROS cohort (a cohort under study for over 20 years at INTA, University of Chile), and revealed that frail individuals showed significantly lower mitochondrial oxygen consumption rates (OCR), particularly in men and in those over 80 years of age. “It’s true that frailty is traditionally easy to assess and does not require complex tests. However, this study opens the possibility of obtaining a new diagnostic parameter for frailty, with the potential of gaining predictive value. That is, to detect the early stages of frailty development before it manifests clinically.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2791.mp3" length="812732" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>HUMAN STUDY: Niacinamide can help recover from (long) COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2789</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2789</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2025 20:34:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2789

It looks like medicine is starting to look more and more into metabolic therapies for a variety of conditions, including ones of viral origin. The good news is that this will probably help a lot of people, but the bad news is that it may soon result in niacinamide also being labelled as a “novel drug” and no longer being available over-the-counter (OTC). The the people who accuse of fearmongering, I will just point out that nicotinamide riboside (NR) and nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) have already been labelled as such, and are thus soon to disappear from the open market. NMN has already been pulled from most online vendors and NR is soon to follow. That leaves only niacinamide and niacin as the remaining OTC precurosr to NAD+, with niacin being an inferior choice due to its ability to raise histamine and serotonin (which is what causes the infamous “flush”). In any event, the study below demonstrated that taking 2 x 500mg niacinamide daily for 4 weeks results in quicker recovery from COVID-19 and the effects were still present at the 6 months follow-up. The letter result is what gives the authors a reason to believe that therapy with niacinamide would be helpful for long-COVID too. The proposed mechanism of action is that niacinamide improved the metabolism of the microbiome, but I think a much more likely explanation is that niacinamide, by raising NAD+ levels, helped restore the gut barrier, with the latter known to be severely disrupted as a result of COVID-19. Leaky gut increases endotoxin in the blood, which can explain the debilitating fatigue patients with long-COVID experience. Sealing the gut reduces endotoxin and thus the fatigue. In addition, the elevated NAD+ results in improved systemic oxidative metabolism and that also contributes to improved feelings of well-being, lower inflammation, and resilience to subsequent viral attacks/infections.

link here

“…In the COVit-2 trial, the team examined 900 freshly diagnosed COVID-19 patients throughout Germany, half of whom were randomised to take two nicotinamide tablets (500 mg each of CICR-NAM and conventional nicotinamide) or identical-looking placebo tablets for four weeks. The study was double-blind, i.e. neither the patients nor the members of the study team knew who was in which group. The patients underwent repeated telephone interviews regarding the course of their disease. Many also sent in stool samples regularly so that the composition of their gut microbiome could be analysed together with their disease course. The results of the COVit-2 trial show that patients with a risk factor for severe COVID-19 courses, e.g. smokers or people with previous lung diseases, who received nicotinamide were significantly more likely to have regained their normal physical performance after two weeks than patients in the placebo group. The ability to cope with normal everyday life was also significantly better in the nicotinamide group after two weeks. Even though the study did not focus on more long-term consequences of the disease such as long COVID and post COVID, the researchers still observed a promising trend at the six-month follow-up: patients who had a higher risk of post COVID and responded to nicotinamide showed fewer post-COVID symptoms.”

“…In the study, the researchers also took a closer look at the microbial community living in the gut. “The microbiome of COVID-19 patients still shows a kind of emergency metabolism around two weeks after the onset of the disease, in which the body obviously tries to compensate for the known deficits in important metabolic factors by upregulating other metabolic processes. We did not observe these changes in the nicotinamide study group – probably because the deficiency could be compensated by administering nicotinamide. At the same time, we observed a faster physical recovery in these cases. The positive influence on the microbiome is apparently related to the faster recovery,” explains Professor Philip Rosenstiel, Director of the IKMB, who led the microbiome studies. “This is the first time we have shown that influencing the microbiome, in this case through supplementation of a nutrient, can have a positive effect on a viral infection. This is an important milestone in clinical research,” says Rosenstiel.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2789.mp3" length="925292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Anti-depressant drugs (SSRI) cause heart defects/disease by inhibiting oxidative metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2787</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2787</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2025 20:02:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2787

I am amazed by the number of already published studies that openly admit that SSRI drugs have a well-known and wide range of organ-specific toxicities, especially when prescribed to pregnant women. Yet, despite this abundance of evidence, psychiatry still continues to claim that the “benefits” of those drugs outweigh the risks, even in the face to skyrocketing rates of childhood disease thought to begin in-utero, including autism, cardiac defects, muscular dystrophies, bone deformities, neurological conditions, etc. Be that as it may, the study below suggests a common mechanism behind the wide range of SSRI toxicities, and apparently it (again!) comes down to metabolism. Serotonin (5-HT) is one of the master (negative) regulators of oxidative phosphorylation, so it is quite logical to observe the negative metabolic effects on the heart that the study discovered. Now, if SSRI/serotonin can have such profound negative effects on the heart  – an organ that is quite resilient to damage due to the high concentrations of protective steroids (e.g. testosterone, DHT and pregnenolone, etc) in it – imagine what SSRI/serotonin can do to the organ that is the most sensitive to energetic disturbances – the brain.

link here

“…The administration of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) during pregnancy can increase the odds of congenital heart defects in babies. The present study aims to explore the toxic effects of SSRIs on the cardiac systems and the underlying mechanism. We apply human pluripotent stem cells to establish 2D-monolayer cardiomyocyte and 3D-cardiac organoid models to evaluate the effects of three SSRIs (fluoxetine, paroxetine, and sertraline) on cardiac development. We observe that SSRIs exposure inhibited ATP production and mitochondrial respiration and disrupted mitochondrial homeostasis and sarcomere structure in the differentiating cardiomyocytes, presenting high risks of dysfunction and abnormality of cardiomyocytes. Further analyses in the cardiac organoid model show that SSRIs not only reduce mitochondrial respiration and ATP production, but may also affect cardiac development and angiogenesis. Altogether, our study reveals that SSRIs induce mitochondrial dysfunction and sarcomeric disorganization in cardiomyocytes, implying their potential risk to the cardiac system.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2787.mp3" length="639092" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Reduced progesterone (P4) signalling causes inflammation and (female) infertility, aspirin or P4 may help</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2785</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2785</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2025 19:33:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2785

Over the years a number of couples who struggled to conceive a child (or carry it to term) have emailed me and invariably, upon testing, the females had low progesterone levels while the males had high estrogen/prolactin. The high estrogen/prolactin was also often present in females, which is not surprising in light of their low progesterone. Most of these couples managed to conceive after supplementing with progesterone+DHEA, and in some cases by taking just an aromatase inhibitor (AI) or aspirin (also a decent AI). The study below now reveals a possible mechanism behind all such cases – i.e. low progesterone (or high estrogen) signalling results in a state of chronic inflammation, which results in non-viable embryos, which either could not properly implant or were spontaneously aborted. Treatment with P4 at a human-equivalent dose of 3.5mg/kg daily for just a day reversed the inflammatory state, as did treatment with the COX inhibitor carprofen. Carprofen is a drug that is fully exchangeable with aspirin, though with ~2-fold conversion factor, so taking that conversion factor into account and the carprofen dosage used in the study, the human-equivalent daily dose of aspirin would be about 6.5mg/kg, or literally just 2 tablets ( 2 x 325mg) each for a person weighing 100kg. Since most females weigh way less than that, taking 2 tablets of aspirin daily should be more than enough to replicate the design of the study.

2 links here

“…Inflammation in the female reproductive tract may make it difficult to conceive a child, but replenishing a key hormone could keep inflammation in check, according to researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine. Progesterone, nicknamed the “pregnancy hormone,” is crucial for embryo growth, the first stage of fetal development. Using a mouse model, link here, researchers found that if the body does not have enough proteins to respond to progesterone, there is also increased inflammation, link here. It’s still unclear if these low protein levels cause inflammation to occur. “What we do know is that inflammation is bad for embryo development, link here,” study author Joy Winuthayanon said. “Embryos are highly sensitive to any stressors in their environment. When we treated the inflammation, more embryos survived long enough to implant themselves in the uterus.” These findings could help improve women’s chances of becoming pregnant. More than 60% of pregnancy losses occur in the first 4–6 weeks, which is often before most patients are aware they are pregnant. Understanding the early stages of the embryo’s development could help save more pregnancies, especially for women with certain conditions like pelvic inflammatory disease, link here. “Women with low progesterone, link here or inflammation in the reproductive system typically have more difficulty conceiving and becoming pregnant,” co-author Dr. Mark Hunter said. “This research presents a potential explanation and opens the door to possible treatments.” Winuthayanon says future research will focus on developing effective, convenient and noninvasive anti-inflammatory treatments, which could include a new medication or an injection.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2785.mp3" length="765356" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Just like SSRI “antidepressants”, talk therapy likely no better than placebo</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2783</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2783</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2025 20:27:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2783

I know I am going to receive criticism for this post, but I felt that I had to be done. There is extensive evidence that the “standard of care” treatment for depression – the so-called SSRI drugs – is no better than placebo while carrying a variety of very bad physiological side effects, not to mention the increase in violent and suicidal behavior those drugs are known to cause. The study below demonstrates that another pillar of mental disease treatment – talk therapy – likely works in more than 20% of the cases, and even then the magnitude of effects of probably small. This conclusion could easily be surmised by simply observing that despite ever-increasing rates of talk therapy for all age groups, the rates of mental disorders continue to skyrocket. All in all, it looks like talk therapy is little more than another cash-cow for the medical industry, and in the few cases where it truly works its effects can probably be easily and much more cheaply replicated by the patient simply having an honest conversation with a trusted and loved person. If one thing is certain, very few psychiatrists/psychologists are rated as trusted by their patients, and virtually none are loved. It never ceases to amaze me how conditioning of the public through manipulative mainstream media has managed to normalize not only sharing (and thus making available for profit-making) extremely private information with untrustworthy third parties, but that any attempt to question the effectiveness of professional psychological diabtribe are vehemently condemned by both practitioners and public health officials. Since it is now known that SSRI drugs were deliberately designed to keep the populace docile, servile and hierarchical, it is hard to believe that therapy (developed by the same commercial/medical/political interests that invented SSRI drugs) would have an effect any better than chemical “antidepressants”. The only question that remains, at least to me, is what side effects (if any) does talk therapy induce in the patient. In what percentage of patients does it make things worse?

2 links here

“…Around 20 per cent of ESTs performed well across a majority of our metrics (eg, problem-solving therapy for depression, interpersonal psychotherapy for bulimia nervosa, the aforementioned exposure therapy for specific phobias). This means not only that the therapies have been subjected to clinical trials, but that the evidence produced from these clinical trials seems credible and supports the claim that the EST will help people. We also found a ‘murky middle’: 30 per cent of ESTs had mixed results across metrics, performing neither consistently well nor poorly (eg, cognitive therapy for depression, interpersonal psychotherapy for binge-eating disorder). That leaves 50 per cent of ESTs with subpar outcomes across most of our metrics (eg, eye-movement desensitisation and reprocessing for PTSD, interpersonal psychotherapy for depression). In other words, although these ESTs seemed to work based on the claims of the clinical trials cited by the Society of Clinical Psychology, we found the evidence from these trials lacked statistical credibility. For these ESTs, the relevant research results are sufficiently ambiguous that we cannot be sure that they really do work better than other forms of therapy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2783.mp3" length="944108" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin/LPS causes Alzheimer’s, insoluble fiber (carrot salad?) may prevent/treat</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2781</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2781</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2025 19:18:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2781

This is one of the few studies that I have seen pointing directly at elevated endotoxin/LPS as a direct cause of Alzheimer Disease (AD). Just as importantly, the study suggests that eating sufficient amounts of insoluble fiber may be a viable approach to preventing/treating AD due to the known effect of said fiber in reducing both endotoxin/LPS production as well as its absorption into the blood from the gut. While the study did not mention it directly, other approaches to lowering the endotoxin/LPS burden such as activated charcoal or antibiotics, may also be viable approached to AD, with the added convenience of increased portability and very long shelf-life. Still, the naturalness of eating foods high in insoluble fiber such as a carrot salad (which Ray himself recommended widely, and recently even became viral on social media), as well as the added health benefits of foods such as carrots, probably make that a primary option/approach for most people.

2 links here

“…At the heart of the discovery is a molecule teeming with a virulent microbial-generated neurotoxin. Named lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and sourced from the Gram-negative bacteria Bacteroides fragilis found in our gastrointestinal (GI) tract, link here, the specific neurotoxin in question is identified as BF-LPS. Dr. Lukiw expounds, “LPSs, in a broader sense, rank amongst the most potent microbial-derived pro-inflammatory neurotoxic glycolipids we know of.” He continues, “Various laboratories around the globe, ours included, have pinpointed diverse LPS variants within neurons in the brains affected by Alzheimer’s, link here.” To elucidate, the research meticulously maps out the journey of BF-LPS from the gut to the brain and its subsequent effects. The pathway is as follows: BF-LPS seeps out of the GI tract, bypasses the blood-brain barrier, link here using the circulatory system, and then infiltrates various brain compartments.”

“…Its presence there induces inflammation within the brain cells and hinders the neurofilament light (NF-L) — a crucial protein that maintains cell stability. A depletion in NF-L can cause severe neuronal cell atrophy, resulting in eventual cell death, link here, a phenomenon prominently seen in AD-affected neurons. However, all is not lost. The research also uncovers a glimmer of hope — the entire process can be potentially thwarted with sufficient dietary fiber intake. What sets this discovery apart are its three innovative aspects. Firstly, the AD-triggering pathway originates within our own bodies, specifically in our GI-tract microbiome, link here, making it active and inherent throughout our existence. Secondly, the perilous neurotoxin, BF-LPS, is an organic outcome of our GI-tract’s microbial metabolic processes. Lastly, controlling the abundance of Bacteroides fragilis in our microbiome, the neurotoxin’s primary source, is achievable through our fiber intake. Lukiw simplifies this: “From a dietary standpoint, balancing the microbial inhabitants of our microbiome, link here can effectively regulate AD-related microbes and their potential to release neurotoxins like BF-LPS.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2781.mp3" length="510596" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Intermittent fasting causes hair loss by increasing lipolysis and fatty acid oxidation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2779</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2779</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2025 18:43:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2779

Despite being all the rage these days on social media, intermittent fasting (IF) has now started to attract powerful opponents in the medical community. Several of the largest medical centers doing human research with IF, have published studies showing IF leads to loss of muscle mass (exceeding greatly the lost fat mass), sleep disturbances, mental illness, fertility issues, etc. As a result, several prominent medical doctors have come out with statements against doing IF unless all other options have been exhausted. One of the doctors who made such a statement also said he himself stopped practicing IF and stopped recommending it to his patients. Like all caloric restriction methods, IF is expected to deplete glycogen stores and when that happens the HPA axis activates and the body starts to consume nutrients (fatty acids and glucose) derived from catabolizing living tissue. Catabolizing fat tissue is what the proponents of IF are mostly after, despite virtually all studies to date demonstrating that muscle tissue is also lost during IF, usually in a ratio of 2:1 in “favor” of muscle tissue, which is a horrible outcome. Be that as it may, it looks like the catabolizing of fat tissue, through a process called lipolysis triggered by fasting, thus increasing fatty acid availability to tissues to use as energy through fatty acid oxidation (FAO), is also not a good idea. Virtually all of Ray’s articles have mentioned the detrimental effects of lipolysis/FAO in one context or another, and even medicine recognizes the negative role lipolysis/FAO plays in metabolic conditions such as diabetes. Elevated free fatty acids (whether from lipolysis or high-fat/low-carb diets) are known to be directly toxic to cells and have already been implicated in the damage of organs such as kidneys and liver even in people without chronic conditions such as diabetes. The study below now extends that toxicity/danger to hair follicles as well, demonstrating that the stress of fasting and subsequent cellular fatty acid abundance it triggers harms hair follicles and greatly inhibits the growth of hair. Logically, the study findings would imply that inhibiting lipolysis/FAO may be beneficial for hair growth. Or maybe, just maybe, don’t fast (or otherwise stress yourself) to start with.

2 links here

“…Intermittent fasting has gained global popularity for its potential health benefits, although its impact on somatic stem cells and tissue biology remains elusive. Here, we report that commonly used intermittent fasting regimens inhibit hair follicle regeneration by selectively inducing apoptosis in activated hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs). This effect is independent of calorie reduction, circadian rhythm alterations, or the mTORC1 cellular nutrient-sensing mechanism. Instead, fasting activates crosstalk between adrenal glands and dermal adipocytes in the skin, triggering the rapid release of free fatty acids into the niche, which in turn disrupts the normal metabolism of HFSCs and elevates their cellular reactive oxygen species levels, causing oxidative damage and apoptosis. A randomized clinical trial (NCT05800730) indicates that intermittent fasting inhibits human hair growth. Our study uncovers an inhibitory effect of intermittent fasting on tissue regeneration and identifies interorgan communication that eliminates activated HFSCs and halts tissue regeneration during periods of unstable nutrient supply.”

link here

“…About 13% of Americans, link here follow intermittent fasting, link here, a dietary pattern featuring time-restricted eating in which one eats for a certain amount of time each day and fasts for the rest of the day. Over the last few years, researchers have found that intermittent fasting may offer health benefits such as lowered risk for type 2 diabetes, link here, cardiovascular disease, link here, and Alzheimer’s disease, link here. However, past studies also show potential downsides to following this type of diet, such as a higher risk for gallstones, link here, cardiovascular death, link here, and colon cancerTrusted Source, link here. Now, a new study recently published in the journal CellTrusted Source, link here reports that intermittent fasting may slow hair growth, link here via both human and animal models.”

“…For this study, researchers began with a mouse model. The mice were shaved and then fed either one of two intermittent fasting patterns — 16:8, link here (eight hours eating, 16 hours fasting) or alternate-day fasting, link here — or the control group that had unlimited access to food. Upon analysis, scientists found the mice following intermittent fasting only had partial hair regrowth after 90 days, compared to the control group that had regrown most of its hair after 30 days. Researchers believe this is happening because hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs), link here required for hair growth cannot handle the oxidative stress caused by the body switching from using glucose to fat during intermittent fasting. Researchers had similar results when conducting a small clinical trial of 49 healthy young adults — following an intermittent fasting diet with 18 hours of fasting each day resulted in a hair growth speed reduction of 18% compared to controls who were eating a regular diet.”

“…MNT also spoke with Hans J. Schmidt, MD, link here, chief of bariatric surgery and director of the Center for Weight Loss and Metabolic Health at Hackensack University Medical Center, about this research. “We frequently see some degree of hair loss in patients during a period of rapid weight loss, regardless of which method they use,” Schmidt explained. “These studies emphasize that the effects of intermittent fasting on hair follicle stem cells are independent of caloric reduction and circadian rhythm, link here changes and other mechanisms may explain the hair loss in intermittent fasting regardless of weight loss,” Schmidt continued.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2779.mp3" length="1090100" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), even at very low doses, improves fertility in both women and men</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2777</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2777</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2025 18:11:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2777

Once again, the role of metabolism in aspects of health considered completely non-metabolic in nature is being highlighted. Namely, human fertility. Most of the fertility clinics focus on structural issues in infertile couples, and if none are found but infertility still persists, the clinic would attempt IVF or suggest sperm/egg donors. Some clinics administer hormone-like treatments, but those are also quite misguided, usually in the forum of SERM drugs such as clomiphene, which often do more harm than good. I know several people where the female had undetectable AMH levels or the male had total testosterone levels below 400, both of which are known to preclude successful pregnancy, yet none of those cases caught the attention of the fertility doctors. They simply kept pumping the females full of clomiphene and proceeded to do several rounds of IVF, all of them unsuccessful. When those couples took some aspirin and progesterone/DHEA in combination, all of them were able to beget a child within a few weeks, much to the dismay of the doctors. While the pro-fertility role of steroids such as progesterone and DHEA is well-known, the fact that aspirin was also able to help with pregnancy was a complete mystery to both the doctors and the couples (some of who were also medical doctors). The study below may offer some explanation as to why aspirin worked. Aside from being an anti-inflammatory substance, aspirin is also highly pro-metabolic. The study below reports that another molecule with purely pro-metabolic effect may be able to improve fertility in both sexes, even when taken at very low doses. Namely, the study reports that CoQ10 was able to improve fertility when taken at doses as low as 30mg daily. For the record, the vast majority of studies with humans do not use CoQ10 doss below 50mg daily and, in fact, often uses hundreds of milligrams (mg) daily. The sole known role of CoQ10 in human physiology is as an electron carrier in the electron transport chain (ETC), helping carry electrons (derived from food) from Complex I & II to Complex III or said ETC. As such, administration of CoQ10 increases OXPHOS and thus the overall metabolic rate. Now, since CoQ10 is a quinone, it is plausible that other quinone molecules such as methylene blue, emodin, vitamin K, tetracycline antibiotics, etc would also be able to improve fertility. Indeed, there are multiple studies with each of those other quinones demonstrating pro-fertility effects. And if taking those quinones, or even CoQ10, seems risky to people then just a couple of tablets of humble aspirin daily may also be able to do the trick, and that has already been corroborated by other studies and my own experience with infertile couples.

2 links here

“…Enzyme Q10, also known as CoQ10, could improve female egg quality, fertilisation, markers of sperm quality as well as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) symptoms and hormone levels which can impact fertility…It found women undergoing IVF treatment that took 30mg capsules for eight weeks before treatment had a “significantly higher number of eggs retrieved” compared to women taking no supplements. One of the studies following 169 women with poor ovarian reserves revealed 200mg of CoQ10 three times a day for 60 days before IVF increased the number of eggs retrieved and had a higher fertilisation rate too.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2777.mp3" length="1321220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Eating fake/vegan “meat” ups depression risk, inflammation, and blood pressure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2775</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2775</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2025 17:45:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2775

Hardly a surprise to anybody, but that study finding probably won’t stop the likes of WEF and WHO to keep recommending a plant-based diet with almost complete avoidance of animal protein. You know, to help with climate changes. Yet, at the same time, numerous billionaires that do the WEF/WHO bidding for public health (including dietary) programs targeting us, have been buying farmland and establishing massive cattle ranching operations. Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos, etc have all been quite open on social media about their cattle projects and the wonderful beef steaks those produce. For us, plebs, the plan is to eat plants, bugs, and ersatz such as Beyond Meat, link here (BM). Now, the BM product is a highly processed “food” and critics would probably argue that the finding that BM raises depression risk does not extend to all other plant foods. However, multiple other studies have demonstrated that a vegan diet, regardless of its composition, raises the risk of bone fractures, anemia, dementia, infertility, and even infectious disease. In corroboration, the study below found that not only does eating fake meat raise risk of depression, but also increases systemic inflammation and blood pressure, which is quite ironic as lower blood pressure and inflammation are some of the main effects from plant-based diets that are touted by mainstream medicine. To the people who would point out that mushroom-based diets are a notable exception, I would say that I agree, but with the caveat that mushrooms are not plants – they are their own separate kingdom (fungi).

2 links here

“…In the first study of its kind, published in Food Frontiers, researchers from the University of Surrey found that vegetarians who consumed PBMAs had a 42% increased risk of depression compared to vegetarians who refrained from PBMAs. The study, which was led by Hana Navratilova, analysed data from the UK Biobank and found no notable differences in intake of sodium, free sugar, total sugar, or saturated fatty acids between those vegetarians who ate PBMAs and those who did not. The researchers did find, however, that those who eat PBMAs had higher blood pressure and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, a marker of inflammation, and lower levels of apolipoprotein A, a protein associated with HDL, a “good” cholesterol; PBMA consumption was, however, also linked to a reduced risk of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) by 40%.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2775.mp3" length="742556" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Females (birds) cannot reproduce without androgens</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2773</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2773</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2025 16:43:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2773

One of Ray’s most memorable quotes is that medicine’s insistence in dividing hormones into “male” and “female” has poisoned the collective scientific mind and negatively affects future studies by precluding a more open-minded view in regards to steroids’ real physiological role – i.e. that of metabolic modulators. While his comments were frequently in regards to the erroneous view of estrogen as a “female” hormone (it is in fact a stress hormone, not unlike cortisol) he also commented in the role of androgens in female health. The study below corroborates Ray’s writings by showing that female birds that lack the androgen receptor (and are thus unable to respond to androgens) are actually infertile (actually, sterile may be a more appropriate label) and cannot reproduce, just like male birds who are also infertile/sterile without androgens. In further support of the crucial role of androgens in female health, several recent humans studies have demonstrated that the infertility associated with menopause may be due to declining levels of the adrenal androgen DHEA, which in women gets metabolized predominantly into the classic “male” hormones testosterone (T) and dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Conversely, supplementation with DHEA increased conception rates in older women by about 40% largely as a result of increasing the levels of the crucial ovarian factor known as Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH), link here, which is the main biomarker in females for ovarian reserves. AMH levels decline with age and are undetectable in menopause. The human studies mentioned above showed that adminstration of DHEA raises AMH levels to the point where viable eggs are released and pregnancy can occur in about half of the treated women. Similar results have also been demonstrated with the administration of T in women, thus strongly suggesting that the pro-fertility effects of DHEA are through its conversion in women into classic male hormones such as T. Hopefully, as new studies on androgens continue to be published, medicine will change its ossified view on steroids into something more flexible and beneficial to humans.

2 links here

“…Although testosterone, link here is also present in females and has important functions there, it is classically referred to as the “male hormone”: it significantly contributes to the sexual development, appearance and aggression behavior of males. To exert its function, testosterone binds to the so-called androgen receptor. This is then activated and triggers the production of certain proteins in the cell. However, testosterone can also be metabolized into estrogen—the “female hormone”—which binds to a different receptor. This is where things get complicated: when we talk about testosterone and its effects, what is the role of the androgen signaling pathway? A team of scientists around Benjamin Schusser (TUM) and Manfred Gahr (MPI for Biological Intelligence) has taken a closer look at this question in birds. In a complex undertaking, the researchers used the CRISPR-Cas method to create genetically modified chickens that lack the androgen receptor.”

“…As expected, the examination of the young roosters showed that they were infertile. In addition, some of the typical external sexual characteristics were underdeveloped. These included the comb, wattle and earlaps. Interestingly, other traits remained unaffected by the genetic modification, link here: the tail feathers, link here and the spurs were comparable to normal roosters. “We were surprised to find that the male traits were only partially lost. The outer appearance of roosters is therefore not solely determined by the androgen signaling pathway,” explains Mekhla Rudra, one of the two lead authors of the study. Interestingly, young hens without the androgen receptor showed a very similar picture. They were also infertile and the typical head ornaments were much smaller than normal. As a result, young roosters and hens were almost indistinguishable in appearance—quite unlike chickens that carry the androgen receptor, link here. Surprisingly, although adult females continued to produce testosterone, without the androgen receptors they never lay eggs nor ovulate, showing that egg formation and laying are androgen-dependent. The results show that testosterone plays an important role in both sexes. It is therefore too simplistic to describe it as a pure male hormone. The way the hormone works is complex and not yet fully understood. Additionally, the study provides general insights into the sexual development, link here of birds, which appears to involve a complex interplay of hormone-dependent and hormone-independent mechanisms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2773.mp3" length="977876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Linoleic acid (an omega-6 PUFA) confirmed as direct driver of many (all?) cancers</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2768</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2768</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2025 15:59:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2768

It looks like medicine is finally starting to wake up to the fact that PUFA is anything but benign, let alone beneficial. For decades. the main rationale for recommending PUFA intake has been their ability lower serum cholesterol. However, multiple studies have shown that lower cholesterol is NOT a good predictor of whether somebody develops and/or dies from heart disease (CVD). In addition, multiple studies have shown that lower cholesterol is a very good predictor, often decades in advance, of developing cancer. More specifically, the studies found that a deliberately lowered cholesterol through the intake of statins is linked to higher cancer risk in the future. It seems plausible to extend the same connection to PUFA intake as well, as it is often marketed by the food and medical industry as a “dietary” or “natural” statin.

link here

Now, the study below has identified at least one mechanism through which the dominant dietary member of the PUFA family known as linoleic acid (LA) directly promotes growth and metastasis of the dreaded triple-negative breast cancer – a type of tumor that is highly aggressive, resistant to most types of treatment, and with a very poor prognosis. Apparently, LA promotes tumor growth by binding to and activating an enzyme called FABP5, link here, which helps cells uptake PUFA from the bloodstream. While that enzyme can bind several fatty acids, its highest affinity is apparently for PUFA, and especially LA. In addition, expression of FABP5 has been found to be elevated in many other cancers, and its levels are highly correlated with poor prognosis. As such, PUFA is now directly implicated in driving the progression of many cancers. As the study itself states, LA consumption has skyrocketed since the 1950s, closely matching the increase in CVD and cancer rates, thus further corroborating its role as a dietary “pathogen”. While the study is, unsurprisingly, shying away from claiming that PUFA/LA can also cause cancer de-novo, the officially acknowledge role of PUFA (and LA specifically) as the main driver of inflammation (being a precursor of the prostaglandins and leukotrienes) leaves little doubt that LA is a true carcinogen, as chronic inflammation is now recognized as the main causal factor for developing any cancer (as well as virtually all chronic diseases). So, IMO it would not be unreasonable to change the title of the article to say that “PUFA is a major cause and driver of virtually all cancers”.

link here

“…Fatty acid binding protein 5 (FABP5, or epidermal FABP) is an intracellular chaperone of fatty acid molecules that regulates lipid metabolism and cell growth. In patient-derived tumours, FABP5 expression is increased up to tenfold, often co-expressed with other cancer-related proteins. High tumoral FABP5 expression is associated with poor prognosis. FABP5 activates transcription factors (TFs) leading to increased expression of proteins involved in tumorigenesis. Genetic and pharmacological preclinical studies show that inhibiting FABP5 reduces protumoral markers, whereas elevation of FABP5 promotes tumour growth and spread. Thus, FABP5 might be a valid target for novel therapeutics. The evidence base is currently strongest for liver, prostate, breast, and brain cancers, and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), which could represent relevant patient populations for any drug discovery programme.”

2 links here

“…An ingredient found in common cooking oils may be linked to an aggressive form of breast cancer according to a new study, link here from Weill Cornell Medicine, link here. The study, published in Science, link here in March, shows that linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid most prevalent in vegetable and seed oils, may promote the growth of an aggressive subtype of breast cancer called triple-negative breast cancer. TNBC is more invasive and has a higher risk of recurrence than other breast cancer subtypes.”

“…Generally speaking, linoleic acid is an essential nutrient needed to build cell membranes, protect skin, and support heart health. However, the study notes that since the 1950s, linoleic acid consumption has increased significantly as cooking oils have become commonplace in fried and ultra-processed foods. These findings are believed to be the first to raise concerns about the fatty acid’s potential link to disease.”

“…We now know that linoleic acid feeds cancer cell growth in a very specific way,” said Dr. John Blenis, the study’s senior author and a cancer researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine, to the New York Post, link here. He explained this study was significant as it “sheds light on how to define which patients might benefit from specific nutritional recommendations….As for what vegetable and seed oils are high in linoleic acid, sunflower oil, corn oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, and cottonseed oil all make the list. Linoleic acid is also found in nuts, seeds, meats and eggs but in much smaller amounts.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2768.mp3" length="1181444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Marathon running causes demyelination, a known cause of conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2766</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2766</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2025 23:34:56 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2766

I am sure this study will earn me quite a bit of hate-mail, but the evidence against “endurance” exercise has been accumulating for years and is becoming very hard to ignore or dispute. Medicine even has a name for this controversy. They call it the “exercise-cortisol paradox, link here“. Namely, they admit that exhaustive exercise raises cortisol and as such should be causing many health problems associated with elevated cortisol. However, medicine argues that the benefits of such exercise outweigh the risks so much that the elevation of cortisol is apparently not something to worry about, hence the “paradox” benefits of cortisol-inducing activities such as running long-distance. Of course, there is no actual “paradox” and, as has become customary for medicine, the word is simply a euphemism for lies/fraud, similarly to the word “controversial” (aka inconvenient truth). One of the most well-known effects of cortisol is its opposition to the effects of myelinating steroids such as pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, DHT, etc as this catabolic hormone is just as good at shredding muscle and connective tissue, as well as directly killing neurons, as it is shredding lipid-based structures in the nervous system such as myelin. In view of cortisol’s de-myelinating effects, it is mighty ironic (and utterly stupid) to “treat” de-myelination conditions such as MS with this steroid. Yet this is exactly what medicine does to this day, as cortisol is a routine add-on treatment for MS, especially the more severe types such as PPMS and SPMS. As such, it is little wonder that MS cases are not only rising, but the severity of newly diagnosed cases is also increasing together with disability and death from the condition. Marathon running, which is what the study looked at, can trigger cortisol levels rivaling the increases seen after glucocorticoid administration for MS and other “autoimmune” conditions. Thus, the findings of the study are not at all surprising. What is somewhat surprising is that the study found that the de-myelination triggered by exhaustive running was reversible after the exercise ended. However, that recovery occurred only after two (2) full months had passed since the running event, and no other strenuous physical activity occurred. As such,  it is not clear whether such recovery would occur in people who run regularly (e.g. 3-4 times a week), though for shorter distances/duration. In addition, the study did not look at changed in brain volume/mass as a result of marathon running, and there is plenty of evidence that exhaustive exercise can shrink the brain and directly destroy brain cells (likely through the elevated cortisol). The fact that the study admits regular exercise is a risk factor for developing the deadly neurological condition ALS, as well as kidney/GI/heart damage, should be enough of a warning sign for everybody that undergoing self-induced periods of extreme stress is highly unlikely to positively impact health, especially the nervous system.

link here

“…By contrast, strenuous physical activity is a risk factor for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in individuals with a genetic predisposition to the disease51, link here,52, link here. Therefore, endurance exercise may pose an additional danger to heavily myelinated disease-vulnerable motor areas (for example, corticospinal tract) in individuals with ALS genetic risk, as myelin itself and myelin-producing oligodendrocytes are also vulnerable to glutamate excitotoxicity53, link here.”

link here

“…Marathon running may seem like the ultimate sport for staying in shape. That said, it can take a heavy toll on the body, link here, potentially damaging the kidneys, upsetting the stomach, increasing the risk of heart failure, and triggering musculoskeletal injuries. Let’s not forget that the original marathon runner, the ancient Greek soldier Pheidippides, is said to have dropped dead, link here immediately after reaching his destination. Now, a new study suggests that marathons also affect the brain — causing the organ to eat itself to make up for fuel lost during the run. In the research, published March 24 in the journal Nature Metabolism, link here, scientists observed declines in a key biomarker of myelin, a fatty tissue that insulates the connections between brain cells, in marathon runners just after a race. The study authors say this suggests the brain consumes myelin as an energy source under these extreme conditions.”

“…The team scanned 10 runners’ brains 48 hours before they ran a marathon and then again two days, two weeks and two months afterward. They used MRI, which can reveal the presence of water molecules trapped between myelin layers. The brain scans showed that, two days post-run, the MRI signals in 12 brain areas were depleted compared with before the race — in some cases, by up to 28%. Changes to the brain’s overall myelin levels were not statistically significant, however, suggesting that any changes were very isolated to specific regions. “The areas that we saw have more significant changes were those related to motor circuits and the center of emotional control of the brain,” Cabrer said. He suggested that this reflects the mental and physical effort the brain must maintain to get through a marathon. For any runners concerned about this cerebral cannibalism, there’s good news: After two months, all of the runners’ myelin measures had recovered to their baseline levels.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2766.mp3" length="1418276" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The radiation FRAUD exposed (again) – common CT scans may cause 5%+ of cancer diagnoses every year</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2764</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2764</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2025 22:42:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2764

The topic of the role of ionizing radiation in the every-worsening cancer epidemic in “developed” countries is very controversial. Most physicians subscribe to the so-called “threshold” theory – i.e. as long as the radiation dose of each scan (X-ray, CT, PET, etc) is below a certain (and completely arbitrary) level, the risk of developing a cancer as a result of said radiation exposure is virtually nil. However, that is not what the evidence shows. Years ago, I posted about a study that claims the National Academy of Science (NAS) in the US engaged in conspiracy and fraud to convince the public that the risk of ionizing radiation is “low” in order to help the company General Electric (GE) sell more scanning equipment around the world. GE was at the time the dominant manufacturer of such equipment and the FRAUD perpetrated by the nation’s highest scientific “priests” likely resulted in millions of iatrogenic cancers globally.

2 links here

“…These omissions and misrepresentations not only belie the notion of an impartial and independent appraisal by the NAS Panel, but also amount to falsification and fabrication of the research record at the highest possible level, leading ultimately to the adoption of LNT by governments worldwide. Based on previously unexamined correspondence among panel members and Genetics Panel meeting transcripts, this paper provides the first documentation of these historical developments.”

Since then, evidence has been steadily accumulating that the risks of radiation exposure are cumulative – i.e. every new ionizing radiation scan increases the lifetime risk of a cancer diagnosis even if individual scans are years (even decades) apart. The study below confirms that ionizing radiation scans are anything but benign and (under)estimates that just CT scans alone are responsible for at least 5% of all new cancer diagnoses, being as risky for a future cancer as chronic alcoholism or obesity. Now, please keep in mind that the study only looked at CT scans, and not the rest of scanning exposure such as PET scans or the much more common X-rays. If all exposure to ionizing radiation is taken in account, it may turn out that such scans are responsible for 30%-40% of new cancer diagnoses, which corroborates the recent finding by John Hopkins University that iatrogenic causes are the third-leading cause of death in the US.

2 links here

“…Your next computed tomography, or CT, scan might be riskier than commonly assumed. A study out today calculates that CT scans are contributing to a substantially greater share of cancer cases than past research has suggested. Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, led the research, published, link here in JAMA Internal Medicine. They estimated that out of the millions of people who received CT scans in 2023, over 100,000 would eventually develop cancer in their lifetime. The scientists argue that CT scans should be seen as a cancer risk factor on par with excessive alcohol drinking, but at least some outside experts aren’t convinced.”

“…But several large, link here recent, link here studies have found a link between the radiation exposure from CT scans and increased cancer cases among children and young adults. The study authors wanted to conduct an updated analysis of people’s lifetime risk of cancer associated with CT scans across all ages, especially since CT scanning has become more common, link here over the years.”

“…Based on survey data from hospitals and imaging labs across the country, they estimated that there were 93 million CT scans performed on 61.5 million people in 2023. They then calculated that about 100,000 radiation-induced cancers would arise from these exams, based on the expected doses of radiation received and where on the body the test was performed. The risk estimates are about three to four times higher than what past studies have found, the authors say. About two million new cancers are diagnosed in the U.S annually. So if Americans’ level of CT use and radiation dose from these tests remain constant, CT scans could eventually account for roughly 5% of all new cancer cases every year—a projected level of risk similar, link here to obesity (7.6%) and alcohol consumption (5.4%), according to the study. “CT is frequently lifesaving, yet its potential harms are often overlooked, and even very small cancer risks will lead to a significant number of future cancers given the tremendous volume of CT use in the United States,” the authors wrote.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2764.mp3" length="962876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Chronic use of anti-anxiety drugs (benzodiazepines) leads to “oxidative” stress and inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2762</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2762</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2025 20:45:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2762

A few studies that came out recently suggested that chronic use of benzodiazepine drugs (benzos) such as Valium, Xanax, Klonopin, etc is linked to high unemployment, brain damage and suicide, even after their usage has been discontinued years ago. The study below may provide a plausible mechanism for the negative effects induced by those drugs. Namely, the study found that benzo drugs blind to and block the activity of a protein that is vital for keeping levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) under control. Ergo, with chronic benzo usage ROS levels rise leading to chronic inflammation and cellular damage/death, which can manifest in wide variety of disease such as (as the study points out below) cancer, arthritis, dementia, autoimmune conditions, etc.

2 links here

“…Now, a research team led by Virginia Commonwealth University and Columbia University has gained novel insights into a protein suspected to be involved in benzodiazepine-related inflammation. Their findings, published March 27 in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could inform strategies to improve benzodiazepine drug design as well as open new opportunities for treating inflammation-related conditions, including certain cancers, arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.”

“…Benzodiazepines produce their therapeutic effect by binding with GABAA receptors in the brain; however, the drug has an equally strong affinity to human mitochondrial tryptophan-rich sensory proteins (HsTSPO1), located on the outer membrane of mitochondria in cells. This type of protein is linked to several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, and researchers have suspected that HsTSPO1 may be involved in certain side effects of benzodiazepine drugs.”

“…Through this method, the research team found evidence to suggest that HsTSPO1 functions as an enzyme. They discovered that HsTSPO1 breaks down protoporphyrin IX, a compound found in oxygen-rich red blood cells, to create a novel product that the scientists have named bilindigin. This product helps control the level of “reactive oxygen species” (ROS) in our bodies, a type of compound that can lead to inflammation and kill cells if left unregulated. This finding suggests that, when valium and other benzodiazepines bind to HsTSPO1, they inhibit the protein’s ability to manage ROS levels in our cells. This may help explain why such medications cause side effects over time, though more research is needed to fully understand whether these molecular mechanisms play a part in driving adverse side effects.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2762.mp3" length="433460" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Just 2-3 tablets (same dose as used in IdeaLabs cancer studies) of aspirin daily has a strong anti-aging effect</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2760</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2760</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2025 20:32:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2760

There has been a consistent and well-funded effort by Big Pharma to convince the public that aspirin is a “dangerous” drug, with “unproven”/”exaggerated” benefits and serious risks. That effort to drive down aspirin usage has been going on for decades, but it really picked up steam after 2020, when study after study showed that taking aspirin can greatly reduce the risks of both getting and dying fro COVID-19, as well as largely prevent the risk of developing the dreaded “long COVID” syndrome. Despite the concerted effort to drive down aspirin usage, recent studies have shown that about 2/3 of the US population uses aspirin at least weekly for general disease prevention. The study below provides evidence that aspirin may not only be a panacea for many (all?) chronic diseases, but may also be a great anti-aging tool. The evidence for life-extension effects of aspirin is sparse, but almost a decade ago I posted about an aspirin analog being able to increase maximum (as opposed to average) lifespan by ~400%! The doses used in that study was equivalent to using less than 1g daily for a human.

3 links here

Interestingly, the new study below demonstrates a robust anti-aging effect of aspirin in a higher organism (rats) using virtually the same dosage as the study published more than a decade ago. The new study also used aspirin, which is much more widely available and in more reliable formulations than willow bark (which is what the 2016 study above used). The human equivalent dose of aspirin in the new study was ~8.5mg/kg daily, and it was administered orally. While such doses are considered “high” by most doctors, much higher doses (8g-10g daily) have been used in the past to treat inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and even those massive doses had few side effects except tinnitus. At a daily dose of 8.5mg/kg even tinnitus is not likely to manifest as a side effect and for people concerned about bleeding risks, just a few milligrams (mg) of vitamin K daily may suffice to negate that risk. Interestingly, the study demonstrates that aspirin robustly decreases iNOS expression – the enzyme mainly responsible for the bulk of endogenous nitric oxide (NO) – and that elevated iNOS expression occurs with aging. This finding directly challenges the mainstream theory that NO is beneficial and that agents that increase its levels such as nitroglycerin, arginine, citrulline, etc are good for us. No wonder Big Pharma has made aspirin a target for a massive negative social campaign. A drug that may prevent and cure most chronic diseases, while challenging established medical dogma (e.g. iNOS/NO) and also potentially extending lifespan, can make most pharma drugs obsolete.

link here

“…This study demonstrates that aspirin exhibits significant antiaging potential in aged rat models, as evidenced by its ability to attenuate oxidative stress through marked reductions in MDA levels, suppression of iNOS gene expression, and mitigation of DNA damage. Furthermore, histological and ultrastructural analyses revealed substantial improvements in buccal mucosal integrity, underscoring aspirin’s protective role at the tissue and cellular levels. These results lay a critical foundation for future investigations into aspirin’s mechanistic pathways and its broader role in promoting healthy aging.”

“…There are numerous antiaging strategies, including diet and physical activity, but the most appealing one is reusing already approved drugs by the FDA, such as aspirin, statins, metformin, and rapalogs4, link here. Aspirin is an already long studied and effective drug12, link here. However, its antiaging mechanism remains ambiguous. Thus, in this study, the antiaging impact of aspirin was studied. To develop an aging model in the current work, systemic administration of D-galactose was applied6, link here,13, link here. Accelerated aging using D-galactose mimics the natural aging process by increasing the production of advanced glycated end products, leading to activation of nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB), increasing reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, mitochondrial breakdown, and apoptosis14, link here,15, link here.

In the herein study, MDA was selected as a marker for oxidative stress. It was proved by Gil et al. that plasma MDA level increased with aging16, link here. This happens as it is produced by ROS reaction with polyunsaturated fatty acids leading to peroxidation of lipids17, link here. Lipid peroxidation has significant consequences like loss of proliferation potential of cells, change of gene expression, and suppression of antioxidant enzymes. Consequently, oxidative stress accumulates, and aging occurs18, link here. In the current work, the aging model group’s MDA level was higher than the control group. This was in total harmony with prior work performed by Fan et al. and Zhou et al., who showed increased MDA levels in kidneys and brains of mice, respectively, upon D-galactose administration19, link here,20, link here.

On the other hand, it was found that aspirin decreased MDA levels compared to the aging model group. This came in harmony with Deng et al., who showed that aspirin provided a shielding effect against endothelial damage caused by low-density lipoprotein (LDL) injection21, link here. They found that aspirin inhibited the increase in MDA blood levels caused by LDL. Moreover, in vitro work on endothelial cells cultured in high D-glucose levels showed that aspirin decreased ROS levels significantly22, link here. Additionally, aspirin reduced hydrogen peroxide-induced oxidative stress in melanocytes in vitro23, link here. This decrease in MDA levels in the aspirin group might be credited to the ability of aspirin to block the metabolism of arachidonic acid into prostaglandins, leading to a decrease in ROS generation that accompanies this process24, link here. Moreover, aspirin can induce ferritin synthesis, which has antioxidant properties, thus reducing ROS formation25, link here.

In the current work, the iNOS gene was chosen as an oxidative stress and aging marker. This is because iNOS upregulation leads to increased production of nitric oxide, leading to peroxynitrite (ONOO) formation26, link here. Increased ONOO formation has severe consequences like suppressing adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase, superoxide dismutase, and complexes I and II in the respiratory complex. Additionally, ONOO damages the membranes and DNA of the mitochondria. All this finally leads to oxidative phosphorylation, oxidative stress, and age-dependent reduction in ATP production27, link here. In the current work, the aging model group’s iNOS gene expression was greater than the control group. This was concomitant with prior studies in which D-galactose administration in mice caused increased iNOS expression20, link here,28, link here.

On the contrary, the aspirin group expressed lower levels of iNOS mRNA expression compared to the aging model group. This result was concomitant with prior work that proved that aspirin suppressed the expression of iNOS in lipopolysaccharide-induced macrophage activation29, link here. Moreover, aspirin ameliorated intervertebral disc degeneration induced via percutaneous disc puncture in Sprague-Dawley rats by inhibiting iNOS expression30, link here. Aspirin may have decreased iNOS mRNA expression via suppression of NF-κB, which in turn inhibits M1 macrophage polarization. Decreased M1 macrophages ultimately decreases iNOS production29, link here. Additionally, aspirin can activate adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase, resulting in diminished levels of iNOS, nitric oxide, and matrix metalloproteinases, which finally decrease oxidative damage30, link here.

The histological and ultrastructural examination of the buccal mucosa supported all the results mentioned above. The aging model group showed marked degeneration in epithelium and lamina propria of buccal mucosa as compared to the control group. These histological outcomes showed that D-galactose caused marked degeneration in rats’ buccal mucosa. This was similar to Youssef’s results, where aging led to the same degenerative changes in rats’ buccal mucosa31, link here. Moreover, Meng et al. demonstrated that gastric mucosa showed marked atrophy after D-galactose injection32, link here. Moving to the ultrastructural analysis, this study showed that D-galactose caused keratinocyte degeneration and atypical nuclear morphology. Similar results were observed ultrastructurally upon normal aging in tongue epithelium of rats33, link here. Moreover, Lopes et al. showed concomitant results34, link here.

However, in the aspirin-treated group, both histopathological and ultrastructural examinations were appealing, where aspirin protected the buccal mucosa against the deleterious effects of D-galactose. This agreed with Rahman et al.’s study which showed that the skin of C57BL/6 mice exposed to ultraviolet radiation showed decreased inflammatory cell infiltration upon daily oral administration of aspirin35, link here. In the herein context, the prophylactic antiaging effect of aspirin on tissues may be accredited to the aspirin’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Aspirin can increase antioxidant genes expression like catalase and superoxide dismutase and inhibit NF-κB. Inhibiting NF-κB can decrease iNOS expression and ROS production, causing antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects and thus preserving the tissues26, link here,36, link here.

The comet assay was performed in the current work as it can quantitatively detect DNA breakage and mutations37, link here. In the current study, compared to the control group, the aging model group had a higher percentage of DNA breakage (% tail DNA). This was also shown in previous studies, which showed increased DNA breakage in the aging model group in cerebellum cells and immune cells in mice38, link here,39, link here.

In the present study, %DNA breakage (% tail DNA) was reduced in the aspirin group as compared to the aging model group. This coincided with a study performed by Dandah, who evaluated how aspirin affected lymphocytes taken from individuals with breast cancer. Using comet assay, they demonstrated that aspirin decreased DNA damage in lymphocytes in vitro40, link here. Moreover, another study by Rahman et al. revealed that aspirin protected keratinocytes from ultraviolet radiation-dependent DNA damage by reducing 8-oxoguanine and cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers, markers of oxidative DNA damage, in keratinocytes and melanocytes in skin lesions35, link here. Many mechanisms were introduced to explain the aspirin protective effect on DNA, including inhibition of cyclooxygenase enzyme and scavenging of ROS41, link here. Furthermore, aspirin could directly inhibit tumor suppressor gene p53, which directly decreases DNA damage and increases cell survival40, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2760.mp3" length="1393676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low OXPHOS is a biomarker and likely cause of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2758</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2758</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2025 19:47:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2758

The evidence that IBD conditions such as Crohn’s Disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are of mitochondrial origin has been accumulating for several decades. As such, the findings of the study below are not necessarily novel per se. However, this is one of the few studies that found evidence for systemic mitochondrial dysfunction (as opposed to just local, in the GI tract) of patients with IBD. Thus, the study indirectly argues (in support of Ray’s writings) that IBD, just like all other chronic diseases, is a systemic and not localized condition. In addition, the study argues that the biomarkers of low OXPHOS in blood (and not just in GI tract) are a reliable predictor of future IBD onset, as well as a biomarker of disease progression. More specifically, despite IBD being inflammatory in origin, the study argues that mitochondrial dysfunction precedes the development of an inflammatory state, and thus is the true cause of IBD. Btw, coincidentally (not!), several recent studies have demonstrated that the same is true for cancer as well. This finding not only suggests that pro-metabolic therapies should be beneficial for IBD, but that also virtually all current “treatments” of IBD are at best masking symptoms and at worse worsening the disease progression in the long run. Namely, virtually all drugs currently used for IBD are immunosuppressve and many of them are also metabolic inhibitors, which is the exact opposite of what a patient needs when diagnosed with a systemic mitochondrial disease, which IBD is now becoming known to be. The study also throws cold water on the usage of glucocorticoids and surgery as established treatments of severe IBD. On one hand, the study argues that long-term glucocorticoid therapy can be pro-inflammatory (something that I have posted about in the past), which obviously exacerbates IBD, while the chronic stress and inflammation induced by major abdominal surgery also have largely the same negative effects.

Speaking of therapies – the study itself states that a combination treatment of B vitamins + vitamin D is a very reasonable approach for actual so-called “disease-modifying treatment” for IBD given the crucial role of the B vitamins in OXPHOS and the systemic anti-inflammatory effects of vitamin D.

link here

“…Here, we show an imbalance in mitochondrial homeostasis and bioenergetics, demonstrated by reduced activity of respiratory complexes and reduced production of TCA intermediates in the plasma of patients with CD and UC. Upon intestinal inflammation, the architecture of mitochondria in intestinal epithelial cells is dysmorphic, with the destruction of the cristae, which leads to increased apoptosis. Changes in mitochondrial morphology and bioenergetics promote metabolic changes in the glycolytic pathway and decrease antioxidant signaling.17, link here In line with this, in this study, compared to controls, reduced levels of molecules associated with the TCA cycle were observed in the plasma of patients with UC and CD, suggesting that TCA-related molecules are closely linked to the pathogenesis of UC and CD.

Research confirms that the mucosa of the large intestine in the group of patients with UC is in a state of energy deficit and is characterized by a low level of adenosine triphosphate (ATP).9, link here The results of the study by Hsieh et al show that ultrastructural abnormalities of mitochondria occur even before global changes in colonocytes in the colonic mucosa of patients with UC and long before the onset of mucosal inflammation. Among others, the expression of mitochondrial ATP synthase (ATP5B), a protein responsible for the production of ATP from ADP, is reduced.18, link here Our study also observed a significant reduction in ATP in the group of IBD patients.

Furthermore, it was shown that damage to mitochondria is an event preceding the development of inflammation in patients with UC. The reason may be increased ROS production in epithelial cell mitochondria in UC patients.19, link here,20, link here Therefore, preventive measures using antioxidant agents in the group of people genetically predisposed to autoimmune diseases seem reasonable to prevent the development of IBD. For example, Batjargal et al showed that herbal mixtures used in Mongolian traditional medicine activate cell defense mechanisms through anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. The action mentioned above was mainly attributed to phenolic components in the mixtures21, link here and may be relevant for IBD management.

A study by Scoville et al found significant reductions in TCA intermediates, including citrate, aconitate, α-ketoglutarate, succinate, fumarate, and malate in plasma samples of CD patients compared to control and UC patients. Additionally, β-hydroxybutyrate, synthesized from excess acetyl-CoA, was significantly reduced in CD patients compared to healthy controls and UC patients.22, link here Besides, in mitochondria isolated from the colonic mucosa of patients with UC, it was shown that the respiratory chain II, III, and IV mitochondrial complexes were significantly reduced by approximately 50 to 60% compared to mitochondria isolated from the control mucosa of healthy people, suggesting the involvement of mitochondrial dysfunction in the pathogenesis of UC.7, link here,19, link here Our studies also confirmed this, as the data shows a reduction in Krebs cycle intermediates in the plasma of IBD patients. Significantly lower concentrations of Cytochrome C Oxidase and Cytochrome C Reductase levels were observed among the patients with CD and UC.

Furthermore, studies confirm that acetyl-CoA concentration in various cellular or pericellular compartments correlates with the severity of pathological conditions. For example, low acetyl-CoA levels play a key role in the pantothenate kinase-related neurodegenerative disease (PKAN). Thus, measuring acetyl-CoA concentration in biological fluids can help monitor the progression of diseases related to acetyl-CoA metabolism and assess the effectiveness of possible new therapies. Although acetyl-CoA concentration in different organs can vary greatly, whole blood levels can represent the accumulated acetyl-CoA in the body. Moreover, blood can be easily collected for clinical trials or therapy monitoring.23, link here

These observations linking Pantothenate regeneration to increased CoA-dependent cell function might also explain the importance of a local Pantothenate supply for colonic homeostasis. Indeed, dietary Pantothenate deficiency alters the intestinal barrier function in the carp. Furthermore, combined supplementation of vitamins B and D in humans mitigates the symptoms associated with IBD. These results suggest that colonocytes might be particularly sensitive to CoA depletion. Indeed, these cells use the butyrate produced by microbiota for energy production through fatty acid β-oxidation and regulation of stem cell renewal.24, link here In our study, significantly lower Acetyl CoA levels were found in the plasma of IBD patients.

Besides, it has been shown that (IDH2), a mitochondrial NADP+-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase, is involved in catalyzing the conversion of isocitrate to α-ketoglutarate while producing NADPH from NADP+ in mitochondria. NADPH is an essential factor involved in detoxification, similar to the thioredoxin and glutathione systems. Therefore, IDH2 is a critical antioxidant enzyme in regulating redox status and reducing oxidative stress damage.25, link here Our results show that patients with IBD had significantly lower NADH2 and IDH2 levels. In the group of patients with CD, treatment with corticosteroids had a significant positive effect, as significantly higher IDH2 and succinate levels were found in patients taking corticosteroids compared to those not.

Glucocorticoids are strong anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory agents used in moderate to severe IBD, but their use is limited by several important adverse drug effects.26, link here Additionally, corticosteroids have not been proven effective in maintaining remission in IBD and thus should not be used for this purpose.27, link here Corticosteroids inhibit the synthesis of pro-inflammatory proteins. In IBD patients treated with corticosteroids, mononuclear cells, and colon epithelium cells down-regulate the production of nuclear factor kappa-B and many pro-inflammatory cytokines compared to untreated patients.28, link here However, Ding et al showed that glucocorticoids do not have a uniform immunosuppressive effect. Their impact on inflammatory reactions depends partly on the dose and the length of administration. Excess endogenous and exogenous glucocorticoids can even potentially induce inflammatory reactions in the organism.29, link here Therefore, to avoid potential adverse effects, it is necessary to administer corticosteroids reasonably in IBD patients.27, link here The results of our research can be explained by the short-term use of corticosteroids, which led to the inhibition of the inflammatory process in patients with CD and, thus, an increase in the level of IDH2 and the level of succinate. In line with this, We have also detected a positive correlation between blood inflammation markers and the TCA cycle. In the group of patients with CD, we observed a correlation with CRP: the higher the CRP, the lower the ATP, and there was a similar trend for succinate levels. Acute inflammation mainly affects cells with mitochondrial impairments, as during inflammation, the intestinal mucosa cells require large amounts of energy to repair the damaged mucosa. Previous reports have shown that active inflammation in cells leads to significantly increased energy expenditure, leading to significant losses of energy and protein.30, link here

In addition, studies of the transcriptional profiles of the colonic mucosa of patients with a first diagnosis of IBD without treatment showed that the inflamed tissue shows an overrepresentation of genes involved in inflammation and an underrepresentation of genes involved in mitochondrial respiration, both in CD and UC. This confirms the vital role of mitochondria in IBD development,31, link here which can also be confirmed by our research in which we showed the correlation of several mitochondrial function biomarkers with the disease activity scale in CD patients. For example, IDH2, α-ketoglutarate, and succinate levels are significantly lower in patients with higher disease activity.

Our results also show a significant correlation between UC patients’ albumin levels and IDH2, α-ketoglutarate, succinate, and NADH2 levels. The results of our analysis may indicate the effects of albumin as an antioxidant and protein protecting against chronic inflammation. Albumin is the main component of plasma proteins responsible for approximately 80% of the antioxidant effect of thiol in the body.32, link here In an experimental study of liver inflammation, the protective effect of albumin on mitochondria against TNFα damage was demonstrated. In the presence of albumin, liver cells showed decreased production of mitochondrial ROS and fatty acid β-oxidation, which was explained by restoring the breakpoint between isocitrate and α-ketoglutarate in the TCA. These findings demonstrate that albumin is necessary to protect hepatocyte cells from mitochondrial oxidative stress.33, link here

The role of oxidative stress in IBD is unquestionable, and the implementation of antioxidant therapies seems rational. However, IBD patients show significant heterogeneity in response to treatment, inhibiting the formation of reactive oxygen species. In the case of 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA), commonly used in the treatment of IBD, which exerts its therapeutic effects mainly through antioxidant mechanisms, it has been shown that the effects of the drug are not the same in all patients. Therefore, it should not be assumed that all patients’ treatment with antioxidants will provide clear health benefits. Antioxidant therapies in IBD should be selected individually for each patient, considering the pathological overproduction of selected reactive species and careful monitoring of redox signaling.34, link here

Importantly, cell biosynthesis of thiol compounds (eg, glutathione, lipoic acid, albumin, coenzyme A) decreases with age.35, link here CD patients showed a correlation between the length of illness and mitochondrial function biomarkers: the length of the illness significantly affected the levels of NADH2, with levels lower in patients with longer durations. A similar but insignificant trend can be seen for Acetyl CoA and IDH2 levels. No correlation was found between the length of illness and other biomarker levels (Supplementary figure S1B, link here). For patients with UC, we detected an effect of age on the levels of IDH2 as a trend and a significant effect on NADH2 levels. Thus, energy metabolism, age, and length of illness are closely related. Studies of animal models and people confirm that ATP levels fall linearly with age and, thus, length of illness. A critical relationship was also observed, where the bioenergetic failure of the cell is often associated with such variables as cumulative DNA damage, stem cell exhaustion, oxidative stress, and inflammation. Understanding these mechanisms can help prevent many diseases associated with lowering ATP in cells, for example, by using adequately adapted preventive measures.36, link here

The correlation between CD patients and RBC is also interesting: the higher the RBC, the higher the fumarate levels. Carboxylic acid intermediates of the Krebs cycle, such as succinyl-CoA, are involved in erythropoiesis by driving heme synthesis. Additionally, small molecule dicarboxylates in this pathway (eg, fumarate) maintain erythropoiesis through the mechanism of stabilizing hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF1α) after exposure to hypoxia, which is otherwise degraded by hydroxylation by alpha-ketoglutarate-dependent prolyl hydroxylases.37, link here,38, link here Therefore, our results suggest a coordinated regulation that occurs in mitochondria: We demonstrate that mitochondrial metabolites influence erythropoiesis and may regulate specific aspects of the systemic inflammatory response in the intestinal epithelium. Therefore, the development of effective drugs affecting the interactions of Krebs cycle intermediates is a promising area of new therapeutic opportunities in IBD.

Finally, our data shows the effect of surgical treatment on CD patients: patients with surgical treatment have significantly lower NADH2 levels. A similar situation occurred in UC patients taking biological treatments with significantly lower plasma NADH2 levels. The indication of surgical treatment and biological treatments is usually the final solution when conservative treatment is ineffective. Surgical treatment is necessary when there is an urgent situation that threatens the patient’s life or the development of cancer.39, link here Exacerbating the disease process (biological treatments), the condition after major surgery, which involves a lengthy recovery process, and the presence of severe forms of IBD in those undergoing surgery and requiring biological treatments may be reflected by the particularly low NADH2 levels in that group of patients.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2758.mp3" length="1127588" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen is NOT low in menopause, in fact there is estrogen dominance in blood and tissues</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2752</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://haidut.me/?p=2752</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 Feb 2025 03:09:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2752

It looks like medicine is quietly starting to introduce the general public to the idea that menopause is NOT a condition of “estrogen deficiency”. What makes this study unique is that it measured the steroid levels in both serum/blood and tissues (adipose tissue in this case), which allows one to immediately see the discrepancy between serum and tissues, corroborating once again the claim Ray has made many times that serum steroid levels are NOT a good surrogate for tissue steroid levels. More specifically, the study clearly shows that tissue levels of estradiol are an order of magnitude higher in tissues than in serum, while tissue levels of of progesterone and estrone are several orders of magnitude higher in tissues than in serum. Despite the study being focused on the changes of steroid levels as a result of estrogenic HRT, as a control group it also included a group of women who did not receive such HRT. The results are quite clear. Namely, the absolute levels of the major estrogens estrone (E1), estrone sulfate (E1S) and estradiol (E2) are NOT low in either the serum or (adipose) tissues of those women. In fact, if you check Table 3 below from the study (screenshot included, with relevant data circled in red by me) it is clearly visible that all those major estrogen levels are within the normal range, not below the lower limit of normal or even undetectable (as we are often told by doctors is the case for menopausal women). Progesterone is also within the normal range, however it is very close to the lower limit of the normal range when measured in serum. However, as has been shown by many studies, it is not the absolute levels of estrogens and progesterone that matter in regards to systemic endocrine balance but their ratios. In other words, the well-known progesterone/estrogens ratio.

2 links here

It has been widely publicized and observed experimentally, that for optimal female health the ratio should be in the 200-500 range. Anything below 100, is considered a state of relative estrogen dominance and such low ratio has already been observed in virtually all cases of ER+ breast cancer patients. Well, one can easily see that in these “healthy” menopausal women (without cancer), the progesterone/estrogens ratio is well below 100 in both serum and tissues. More specifically, the progesterone/estrogens ratio in serum is ~16 (120 / (6 + 39*0.04)), in subcutaneous adipose tissue the ratio is ~20 (1910 / 63 + (814 * 0.04)), and in visceral adipose tissue the ratio is ~38 (4482 / (51 + (1629 * 0.04)). In other words, both serum and tissues of “healthy” menopausal women display severe estrogen dominance! The reason I am putting “healthy” in quotes is that such severe estrogen dominance makes them most certainly not healthy and had they not been menopausal, the discovery by their doctor of such state of severe estrogen dominance would have triggered a referral to an endocrine specialist and likely a prescription for a synthetic progestin (instead of bioidentical progesterone) in order to increase progesterone signalling and thus offset their severe estrogen dominance. In light of the study findings, the fact that estrogenic HRT is making a serious comeback as a result of pharma-sponsored doctors ignoring the findings of the WHI studies, is nothing short of a tragedy and likely to further exacerbate the already compromised endocrine health of menopausal (and non-menopausal) women around the world.

link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2752.mp3" length="1722452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>IDEALABS STUDY: Estrogen causes prostate cancer (PC), DHT and/or aromatase inhibitor may stop/treat PC</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2747</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2747</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 24 Dec 2024 20:16:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2747

Just a quick note with some preliminary results, to be updated soon. I wanted to get the word our on Christmas Eve, which the legend says shows how the rest of the year would unfold. So, let’s hope 2025 will be a year of truth and that one of the greatest falsehoods in medicine may begin to unravel soon. That is, the claims by mainstream medicine that androgens, and especially dihydrotestosterone (DHT), are dangerous and are the primary cause of pathologies such as male-pattern baldness and prostate cancer (PC). Consequently, the treatments devised by medicine for those conditions are effectively a form of chemical castration, with physical castration still practiced in some PC cases. Along the same line of thought, mainstream medicine claims that estrogen, being a known antagonist to androgens in the male organism, would be therapeutic for such conditions. Thus, estrogen is also often administered as part of the chemical castration regimens for PC.

Well, according to the preliminary results below, DHT may actually treat the very condition it is claimed to cause. In addition, its effects seem to be synergistic when DHT is administered together with an aromatase inhibitor (in this case Exemestane/Aromasin). As can clearly be seen from the pic below, one animal from the DHT-only group (blue line) and one animal from the DHT+exemestane group (green line) experienced complete tumor growth arrest to the point that the transplanted tumor did not grow at all and is now even showing signs of regression. In summary, it would be reasonable to conclude that estrogen, not androgens, is the cause of PC and that the current therapies amounting to chemical/physical castration, especially when combined with estrogen administration, are likely promoting the PC process and possibly contributing to the ultimate death of a PC patient subjected to such “treatments”. I am also attaching the spreadsheet with the raw data from the study. As can be seen from it, two animals died during the study and it is not clear if the deaths were from the cancer or the treatment. There was also weight loss in some animals, which also occurred in the jeko-1 experiments and is likely due to the higher metabolic rate of the animals receiving the DHT/exemestane treatment. So, I will be repeating the study with lower doses DHT and exemestane to see if we can get a complete cure without deaths and/or weight loss.

PL24-0935_24DEC24, link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2747.mp3" length="1191788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, etc) are nothing but “depression in a syringe”</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2744</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2744</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 12 Dec 2024 15:02:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2744

So, this is what medicine’s final destination looks like. When life sucks so bad that the majority of the population descends into binges of junk food, alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc the “solution” medicine has is not to encourage people to identify the real problems in their life and work towards meaningful change, but just give them drugs that make people lose interest in their problems such as eating…and in life in general. But that last part is probably considered just an “acceptable” side effect. Yes, as it turns out, the blockbuster GLP-1 drugs are powerful inducers of anhedonia, link here – lack of interest, pleasure or general enjoyment of life. This is not only a core symptom of clinical depression, but is also notoriously hard to treat. Btw, the SSRI drugs are known to exacerbate rather than treat anhedonia, so this little fact right there should be enough to show everybody just how “antidepressant” those drugs really are. But getting back to anhedonia, not only is it very difficult to treat with existing drugs, losing pleasure/joy from life is just one step away from giving up on life and many people attempt suicide after reaching that stage. Now, of course the fact that something causes anhedonia does not directly mean that it causes depression. However, after digging a little deeper, evidence quickly emerges that GLP-1 agonist drugs do, in fact, drastically increase the risk of ANY major psychiatric disorder, including clinical depression, and, of course, suicide. So, this is how medicine “treats” obesity – by causing people to lose interest in eating, and eventually in living. That means so many more psychiatric patients and fewer people overall (due to suicide). Yay, we both met our carbon reduction (i.e. depopulation) goals and GDP is going to the moon! /s

Oh, and for those unfortunate enough to have used or planning to use such drugs. If anhedonia ends up developing, it may be treatable by raising dopamine or using dopaminergic drugs, which once again suggests that anhedonia is nothing but a symptom of serotonin excess, as serotonin is the master inducer of anhedonia.

link here

“…Eli Lilly, the company that makes the blockbuster weight loss treatment Zepbound, will start studying its obesity products as treatments for alcohol and drug abuse, making it the first major drugmaker to do so, CEO David Ricks said Tuesday. Emerging research suggests that GLP-1 drugs — Zepbound is one such treatment — not only reduce food cravings but may also suppress desires for other substances. Yet, so far, no pharma companies have tested the therapies specifically in addiction. “These medicines, we think and we’ve aimed to prove, can be useful for other things we don’t think about connected to weight. These are often called anti-hedonics*, so they are reducing that desire cycle, said Ricks.”

link here

“…This large community-based cohort study investigates the impact of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs), specifically Liraglutide and Semaglutide, on the risk of developing psychiatric conditions such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal behaviors in patients with obesity. Utilizing post-marketing data, this research compares patients prescribed GLP-1 RAs (cases) with those not taking these medications (controls). The analysis spanned data from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2023. To minimize selection bias, we employed 1:1 propensity score matching to account for demographic factors such as age, sex, race, and comorbidities. After matching, the study included 162,253 case and control patients. This study showed a significant association between GLP-1 RA treatment and an 98% increased risk of any psychiatric disorders. Notably, patients on GLP-1 RAs exhibited a 195% higher risk of major depression, a 108% increased risk for anxiety, and a 106% elevated risk for suicidal behavior. These findings underscore the critical need for physicians to thoroughly assess patient history before prescribing GLP-1 RAs and highlight the urgent requirement for further prospective clinical trials to fully understand the implications of GLP-1 RA use on mental health in the obese patient population.”

Rapid Treatment of Anhedonia With Pramipexole as Adjunct to Buprenorphine in Opioid Use Disorder, link here

 

“…Depression with significant anhedonia can contribute to the development and complicate the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD).1–3 Pramipexole, a dopamine receptor agonist with high affinity for D3 receptors and with possible additional anti-inflammatory properties, has been shown to be effective in treating anhedonic depression.4–7 We report a case in which pramipexole rapidly improved depression and anhedonia symptoms in a patient on buprenorphine and an antidepressant.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2744.mp3" length="1088444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin A is a powerful immunostimulant, yet may treat “autoimmune” conditions</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2742</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2742</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 10 Dec 2024 20:39:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2742

Another study that will probably rile up the anti-retinol crowd, but I would rather post it and have an open discussion then ignore it. It seems that not only is vitamin A crucial for increasing the number and functioning of so-called T-cells, link here (and thus boosting immune function), but the humble vitamin is also a “space modulator” for immune cells – i.e. guiding the T-cells to the organs/tissues that most need such cells. This has implications not only for infectious diseases, but also for diseases such as cancer and even “autoimmune” conditions. It is now widely acknowledged even by mainstream medicine that immunodeficiency precedes cancer diagnosis and the degree of immunodeficiency can also predict whether a patient will survive the cancer. On a side, but related note, I posted several years ago about studies, which found that the age-related decline in immune function is the main driver of cancer, link here, and that the decline is driven mainly by cortisol and estrogen (both of which reign largely unopposed in old age). Interestingly, another study found that inhibiting aromatase can reverse the decline of immune function even in old age, link here. Conversely, immunostimulant drugs such as Opdivo/Nivolumab, link here are now rapidly being repurposed for treating not only melanoma (for which it was originally developed) but for all other cancers as well.

2 links here

Furthermore, virtually all “autoimmune” conditions are known to lead over time to something called “T-cell exhaustion” and that phase is believed to directly lead to cancer as a final stage of some such conditions. For example, while the inflammatory phase of something like ulcerative colitis (UC) or Crohn’s Disease (CD) is rather painful and debilitating, it is not the most dangerous aspect of the disease since the immune system is still doing its job. That is, mopping up cellular debris from damaged cells and mitochondria in the affected organ/tissue, with the debris being produced largely as a result of mitochondrial dysfunction. In other words, the idea that the immune system is “attacking” the organ/tissue is simply idiotic. However, over time the mitochondrial dysfunction causing the chronic inflammation and the immune response, probably envelops most organs/tissues and this leads to a deficiency of both number and function of T-cells as well. Once that happens, the metabolic phenotype of the damaged organ/tissue, which is indistinguishable from the one of “cancer” cells even during the “autoimmune” phase, can spread unopposed to neighboring cells/tissues and this is probably the moment when an official “cancer” diagnosis can be established. Interestingly enough, vitamin A deficiency is widespread in people with the autoimmune type of inflammatory bowel diseases, link here mentioned above and supplementation with vitamin A has been found to be therapeutic, link here in some studies. If those diseases were caused by an overactive immune system, an immunostimulant such as vitamin A should have made the conditions worse, yet the opposite was discovered. Once again, it seems the truth in medicine is about 180 degrees from what is being publicly preached.

Oh, and last but not least, vitamin A is a known anti-estrogen and glucocorticoid antagonist (may even be able to treat Cushing Disease). That ties in perfectly with its role as an immunostimulant, since if estrogen/cortisol are the primary causes of immunodeficiency (as mentioned above), then it makes perfect sense that a substance capable of opposing both estrogen and cortisol would improve immune function and have a broad protective effect against many conditions, especially cancer.

2 links here

“…In a groundbreaking study led by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), researchers have revealed that retinoic acid – a compound derived from vitamin A – plays a crucial role in guiding disease-fighting T cells to key organs such as the gut and liver, with exciting possibilities for future therapies. Most infections enter the body through barrier organs such as the skin, lungs and gut. A group of immune cells termed tissue-resident memory T (TRM) cells permanently live in these organs where they act as rapid first-responders to danger, such as infections and cancer. However, scientists are yet to elucidate how to make more TRM cells in a specific organ and what keeps them there. Led by the University of Melbourne’s Professor Laura Mackay, link here, a Laboratory Head and Immunology Theme Lead at the Doherty Institute, the research team uncovered how retinoic acid, a molecule made from vitamin A that is commonly found in foods such as oily fish and eggs, alters the location and function of TRM cells. Notably, the researchers found that retinoic acid boosted TRM cells in the gut and helped them stay and survive there, suggesting that it could be used to improve long-term immunity within this tissue. First author of the study published recently in Immunity, link here and PhD Candidate in the University of Melbourne’s Mackay lab at the Doherty Institute, Andreas Obers, explained how changes in retinoic acid levels affect TRM cell behaviour. “We found that retinoic acid was like a ‘molecular thermostat’ controlling the location of TRM cells in different organs. In our experiments, we observed that higher levels of retinoic acid would result in more TRM cells in the gut and liver. Conversely, we found that retinoic acid prevented the formation of TRM cells in the skin,” Mr Obers said. Dr Maximilien Evrard, link here,, link here an Australian Research Council DECRA Research Fellow at the Doherty Institute and co-senior author of the study, highlighted the role of retinoic acid, and vitamin A, in our immune system. “Interestingly, retinoic acid not only anchors TRM cells within tissues, but also limits their tendency to migrate away, particularly in the intestines. This may partly explain the weakened local immune defences in patients with vitamin A deficiency, a condition often associated with malnutrition in developing countries,” Dr Evrard said. “This exciting finding means we could ‘fine-tune’ where immune cells need to be in order to combat specific disease,” he added.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2742.mp3" length="1689812" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Memories are not only in the brain, learning/memory is a fundamental property of all cells</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2739</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2739</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 10 Dec 2024 18:45:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2739

While the findings of the study are probably going to shock most of my readers, the idea that a human’s entire orchestra of cells are the source of our self/memories/knowledge, with the actual brain being more akin to a conductor, is not new and has been proposed centuries ago. Years ago, I did a few posts about research corroborating this idea and it has only been gaining traction ever since, much to the chagrin of medicine and especially neurologists.

2 links here

RNA injected from one sea slug into another may transfer memories, link here

3 links here

One reason the idea of the “organism as the brain” is so maligned in medical circles is that is calls into serious question the idea that “mental” or “neurological” conditions are localized strictly to the brain and as such can only be treated by a brain-specific approach. The fact that 99% of all clinical trials for Alzheimer’s have failed so far and treatment of other conditions such as Parkinson, Huntington Disease, ALS, etc as well as depression, bipolar disorder, mania, psychosis/schizophrenia, etc is not in any better shape, strongly supports the idea that the “self” and its maladies is not localized to the brain so all brain-specific approaches are probably doomed. That means hundreds of billions of money spent on medical research is not only wasted currently, but will probably continue to be wasted since medicine has doubled-down on its “compartmentalized” approach to treating any specific disease. In addition, the idea of the entire organism being the “brain” combined with the fact that memories can be transferred chemically across not only individuals, but also species (see above articles) creates serious problems for the current nihilistic dogma on which medicine is based. Not only are “we” not localized to our brains, but “we” are not prisoners of our bodies either. Namely, “we” are being spread around and incorporated into other organisms (and possibly “non-living” matter as well) continuously, and long after the body with which we are identified is gone. There is already plenty of evidence for these claims, even from mammals/humans. The phenomena of telegony and microchimerism can be found in any species one cares to look at.

2 links here

What does all this mean in practical terms. Well, if even memories and learning are not specific to the brain and neither are “brain” diseases, then all other diseases should probably not be considered organ/tissue specific either. Ray himself said this repeatedly and in one of his articles he concluded with something along the following lines: “In the absence of serious evidence to the contrary, all diseases should be considered systemic in nature”. I would extend this further and would say that not only diseases should be considered systemic, but that the phenomena of “self”, memory, consciousness, etc extend outside the body and what we consider “us” constantly imprints itself on reality outside of us while also accepting imprints from other entities as well. As hard it is to believe, this idea is already the subject of serious research, with the most notable proponent being Rupert Sheldrake, link here from Cambridge University. This idea is more commonly known as morphogenetic fields and morphic resonanse, link here. So, once again we have evidence that the current picture of the organism, on which the entire medical science and industry are built is not just woefully inadequate, but just plain wrong and thus iatrogenic.

2 links here

“…It’s common knowledge that our brains—and, specifically, our brain cells—store memories. But a team of scientists has discovered that cells from other parts of the body also perform a memory function, opening new pathways for understanding how memory works and creating the potential to enhance learning and to treat memory-related afflictions. Learning and memory, link here are generally associated with brains and brain cells alone, but our study shows that other cells in the body can learn and form memories, too,” explains New York University’s Nikolay V. Kukushkin, the lead author of the study, link here, which appears in the journal Nature Communications. The research sought to better understand if non-brain cells help with memory by borrowing from a long-established neurological property—the massed-spaced effect—which shows that we tend to retain information better when studied in spaced intervals rather than in a single, intensive session—better known as cramming for a test. In the research, the scientists replicated learning over time by studying two types of non-brain human cells in a laboratory (one from nerve tissue and one from kidney tissue) and exposing them to different patterns of chemical signals—just like brain cells are exposed to patterns of neurotransmitters when we learn new information. In response, the non-brain cells turned on a “memory gene”—the same gene that brain cells turn on when they detect a pattern in the information and restructure their connections in order to form memories. To monitor the memory and learning process, the scientists engineered these non-brain cells to make a glowing protein, which indicated when the memory gene was on and when it was off. The results showed that these cells could determine when the chemical pulses, which imitated bursts of neurotransmitter in the brain, were repeated rather than simply prolonged—just as neurons in our brain can register when we learn with breaks rather than cramming all the material in one sitting. Specifically, when the pulses were delivered in spaced-out intervals, they turned on the “memory gene” more strongly, and for a longer time, than when the same treatment was delivered all at once. “This reflects the massed-space effect in action,” says Kukushkin, a clinical associate professor of life science at NYU Liberal Studies and a research fellow at NYU’s Center for Neural Science. “It shows that the ability to learn from spaced repetition isn’t unique to brain cells, link here, but, in fact, might be a fundamental property of all cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2739.mp3" length="1625708" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D mimics anabolic steroids –  ups height, lowers myostatin, redirects excess calories to muscle instead of fat</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2737</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2737</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 08 Dec 2024 16:39:45 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2737

It looks like the humble vitamins may pack way more punch than medicine is willing to admit. Just minutes ago, I posted about vitamin B6 having anabolic effects on muscles. The study below demonstrates that vitamin D taken daily in doses that on a weekly basis are roughly equivalent to the commonly-prescribed 50,000 IU weekly dose by doctors, has some very interesting effects on muscles and bones. While medicine has reluctantly admitted to vitamin D being important for muscle function and having trophic effects, the findings of the study go way beyond those effects. Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) are known to increase muscle mass and also reduce fat mass largely through their effects as glucocorticoid antagonists, muscle synthesis enhancers, and myostatin inhibitors. In other words, AAS have a “re-partinioning” effect – directing excess calories towards muscle building instead of fat, while also decreasing fat synthesis and enhancing its disposal. The study below found that vitamin D, in human-equivalent daily doses of about 100 IU / kg of bodyweight has largely the same effects as AAS. Crucially, the group of animals on the normal daily dose vitamin D (HED 20 IU / kg of bodyweight) did not experience the same anabolic/anticatabolic effects. This findings corroborates the several recent studies, which have argued that the RDA of vitamin D is woefully inadequate and the designation of 2,000+ IU daily by the FDA as a “pharmacological dose” is likely an underestimate by a factor of at least five (5). That implies the effective dose for vitamin D (for anything but simply preventing deficiency) may be around 10,000 IU daily, which almost perfectly matches the optimal dose of vitamin D discussed by the study below. Another interesting tidbit from the study is the admission that during weight loss regimens, once a person reaches 10% loss of their initial weight, muscle loss drastically increases and likely exceeds fat loss, thus turning negative the overall benefit from the weight loss regimen. This closely mirrors the findings of the “Biggest Loser” contestant studies, as well as my recent posts about the popular diabetes drug metformin and the “blockbuster” weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, etc. Based on this information,  a logical conclusion is that (paradoxically) the key to weight loss is muscle gain, which will then lead to fat loss over time. In other words, the goal should be body repartitioning – exchanging fat for muscle – and not simply blind weight loss, which decimates muscle mass. As I have mentioned in many of my posts – lean muscle mass is the primary controller of resting metabolic rate (RMR). High muscle mass = high RMR = leanness and health. Low muscle mass = low RMR = eventual sarcopenic obesity (the worst possible outcome). The evidence available so far suggests that the widely recommended weight loss regimens of fasting, exhaustive exercise and drugs such as metformin, Ozempic, Wegovy, etc deliver the worst possible outcome over time – i.e. sarcopenic obesity. And last, but not least, the study found that using the high-ish dose vitamin D on other organisms increased total length, which strongly suggests that vitamin D can increase height in humans. That last part is probably less surprising than the effects of vitamin D on muscle mass, since even mainstream medicine admits that the main effects of vitamin D target the skeleton/bones, and deficiencies in this vitamin result in stunted growth and deformities.

link here

“…Scientists have largely examined these functions of vitamin D, regulation of fat metabolism and regulation of muscle mass and function, separately. However, fat mass and muscle mass are closely linked. Interventions that increase muscle mass increase both weight and fat mass. Conversely, when weight loss exceeds 10% of baseline weight, muscle mass loss increases proportionally to fat mass loss suggesting a complex relationship between fat and muscle mass. The mechanisms linking fat mass and muscle mass are poorly understood. The loss of muscle mass once weight loss exceeds 10% suggests that another checkpoint in energy balance may be energy needs. Myostatin has been conceptualized as having homeostatic effects on muscle mass. Our data suggests that myostatin may also work to convey energy needs.”

“…Thus, here we report for the first time that high dose dietary vitamin D preferentially allocates excess calories to build muscle instead of be stored as fat by increasing leptin production and sensitivity and decreasing myostatin signaling. In addition, we find that the effect of high-dose vitamin D to increases linear growth (Fig. 6, link here). Using mendelian randomzation we found that the genes that predispose to incrased serum vitamin D (25D) also increase final height. This result confirms the clinical significiance of our work in humans, supporting the model that vitamin D conveys nutrient availability. We also found that high dose vitamin D increases growth in early zebrafish. This effect confirms the evolutionary importance of our work and lends further backing to the model vitamin D conveys nutrient availability. Strengths of this work include 1) a multidimensional assessment of strength and muscle function simultaneous with metabolism and fat mass, 2) an examination of the effects of low, normal and high-normal vitamin D muscle function and body composition in the context of healthy (e.g. lean) mice, 3) confirmation of the clinical significance of our findings using mendelian randomization and finally, 4) confirmation of the evolutionary significance of our findings using zebrafish. A weakness of this work is that we have not identified each of the mechanistic steps in how vitamin D decreases myostatin signaling and increases leptin production and sensitivity. Our results summarized in Table 2 at left give rise to our proposed new models for vitamin D action (Fig. 1b, link here) and for energy balance sensing (Fig. 8, link here, as opposed to energy stores sensing (Fig. 1a, link here)). In our proposed model raising vitamin D from low to normal increases leptin production by fat, and further raising serum vitamin D levels from normal to high-normal concentrations increases leptin sensitivity (Fig. 1b, link here.i, link here.). Concurrent with these effects, raising vitamin D decreases myostatin signaling (Fig. 1b, link here.ii, link here.). Overall, these changes increase allocation of excess calories to muscle mass (Fig. 1b, link here.iv, link here.) and to linear growth (Fig. 1b, link here.iii, link here.) rather the storage of excess calories as fat.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2737.mp3" length="1735412" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B6 has anabolic effects on muscle</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2734</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2734</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 08 Dec 2024 15:42:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2734

Right after my posts about the sarcopenic/catabolic effects of anti-obesity/antidiabetic medications such as metformin and the widely popular GLP-1 agonist drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, etc), the study below (sent to me by one of my readers) may provide a cheap and widely available method for counteracting the muscle wasting effects of those drugs. Years ago, I did a post about vitamin B6 being the most potent endogenous, non-steroidal, glucocorticoid antagonist. which may explain to a great degree the anticatabolic effects seen in the study below. Most of the so-called androgenic anabolic steroids (AAS) are also potent glucocorticoid antagonists and many of them also inhibit the major “brake” on muscle growth known as myostatin, while also increasing muscle synthesis. The last effect – inhibiting myostatin – is a very hot topic currently in pharma research (as well as in competitive sports) and many companies are racing to develop myostatin inhibitors as agents for treating sarcopenia/cachexia, as well as increasing athletic performance. The study below shows that vitamin B6 has effects similar to an AAS – i.e. increasing expression of proteins responsible for muscle growth and differentiation, while also inhibiting myostatin expression by about 25%-30%. The type of vitamin B6 used was the widely available and cheap pyridoxine hydrochloride and the optimal human-equivalent dose was about 1mg/kg daily, for 60 days. Now, that may seem like a hefty dose, but most people routinely ingest 50mg+ B6 daily from sports/energy drinks or vitamin B complex supplementation. However, studies have also shown that the active form of B6 known as P5P has the same effects as a dose 10-times higher when using regular B6. That means for most people, the effects of the study should be possible to replicate by using just 5mg-10mg P5P daily. Thus, it may not be a bad idea to take some vitamin B6 when using any diabetic drugs in order to reduce the muscle loss they induce, especially considering that vitamin B6 has been shown to help with glucose control (which probably also stems from its role as an anti-glucocorticoid agent).

2 links here

“…This research aimed to evaluate the effects of dietary vitamin B6 on skeletal muscle protein metabolism of growing rabbits. Two hundred health rabbits with similar body weight were randomly

assigned to one of five dietary groups, with 40 animals per group. The dietary groups consisted of different vitamin B6 supplementation levels: 0(control), 5, 10, 20 and 40 mg/kg. The feeding trial lasted 60 d. The results showed that dietary vitamin B6 had significant effects on fore legs and hind legs muscle ratio (P＜0.05), and on serum total amino acid (T-AA), blood urea(UR) and insulin-like growth factor-1(IGF1) content (P＜0.05). Additionally, vitamin B6 had significant effects on muscle insulin-like growth factor 1(IGF1), myogenic determination factor(MYOD) and myogenin(MYOG), myocyte regulation factor 5 (MYF5), myostatin(MSTN) and WW contains E3 proteasome ubiquitin ligase 1 (WWP1) mRNA expression(P＜0.05). The results of western blot also showed that IGF1 (MW = 15 KD), WWP1 (MW = 36 KD) and MYOG (MW = 38 KD) significantly expression with the dietary vitamin B6(P＜0.05). This study indicated that addition of vitamin B6 could obviously modify protein metabolism of growing rabbits, and the appropriate vitamin B6 supplementation level was 20 mg/kg for growing rabbits.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2734.mp3" length="1092260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mitochondrial dysfunction prevents apoptosis and drives inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2728</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2728</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 08 Dec 2024 02:17:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2728

Yet another study, which demonstrates the inseparable link between metabolism and “structural” problems such as cellular integrity and lifecycle (e.g. apoptosis), as well as mysterious processes of systemic inflammation, often occurring without any cause that medicine can identify. Both of these processes are highly visible in cancer – i.e. lack of apoptosis in “cancer” cells despite their wrecked genome and metabolic dysfunction, as well as their highly inflamed nature that “recruits” nearby cells to the “cancer” process through the cytokines the “cancer” cells produce and releases in the blood. In other words, all that takes for systemic inflammation and even cancer (i.e. lack of apoptosis in damaged cells) to form is reduced mitochondrial function, resulting in a prolonged drop of ATP levels. Thus, chronic stress, inflammatory diet (PUFA anyone?), endocrine disruptors, and the “modern” life characterized by never-ending soul-crushing routines are all direct causes of all our ailments as the one thing all those pathological processes have in common is their profoundly suppressive effects on mitochondria/OXPHOS. Conversely, simply restoring/improving mitochondrial function may be enough to ameliorate/cure virtually all chronic diseases known to medicine. It is also worth noting that reduction of the ATP/AMP ratio (by lowering ATP) and thus activation of AMPK is currently all the rage in medicine and longevity research, with methods such as fasting, low-carb diets, exhaustive exercise, taking AMPK-mimetics such as metformin, etc being hailed as the key to a very long and healthy life. Yet, behind the scenes, all those interventions may be working to destabilize the organism by increasing baseline inflammation and risk of cancer by lowering mitochondrial production of ATP.

2 links here

“…”We found that mitochondria provide a kind of decision-making aid: they regulate whether a cell undergoes clean, silent apoptosis or releases pro-inflammatory messenger substances,” explains Prof. Dr Olaf Groß, head of the study, a scientist at the Institute of Neuropathology at the Medical Center — University of Freiburg and a member of the Cluster of Excellence CIBSS — Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies at the University of Freiburg.”

“…The universal “fuel source” for cellular activity is ATP (adenosine triphosphate). If the ATP in the mitochondria drops sharply, a protein important for apoptosis, known as cytochrome c, remains trapped in the mitochondria and the cell does not die, even if it receives the signal to do so from outside. Instead, the mitochondria activate mechanisms that trigger an inflammatory response, which puts the tissue on alert and prepares it for a possible threat. The researchers have now discovered that a special “sensor” in the cells, known as NLRP3, is activated when the mitochondria cease energy production. However, a second signal from other areas of the cell is needed to activate the NLRP3 sensor. This so-called “two-signal mechanism” ensures that inflammation is only triggered in the event of serious danger, thus protecting healthy cells. This enables the body to react to threats in a targeted manner while at the same time preventing unnecessary inflammation that could damage the tissue. This discovery could be helpful for the treatment of diseases in which inflammatory processes play a role — such as gout, type 2 diabetes or severe cases of COVID-19. “In the future, drugs could be specifically designed to mitochondria or the activation of NLRP3 in order to better control inflammation and, on the one hand, to prevent damage to healthy tissue and, on the other, to promote the immune response to infection or the rejection of cancer by the immune system,” says Groß.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2728.mp3" length="912284" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Almost half of weight loss from GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, etc) is muscle mass</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2730</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2730</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 08 Dec 2024 02:15:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2730

Just minutes after posting about the terrible effects of metformin on muscle mass, the study below pops up into my news feed (synchronicity again?) corroborating that blood glucose is not to be messed with on a whim. At least not if one cares about keeping their muscles – the primary factor determining one’s resting metabolic rate (RMR) and future risk of mortality/morbidity. Yet another “success” story from Big Pharma turns out to be nothing, but potentially another global health disaster in the making. Those companies just can’t help but create the perfect “Trojan Horse” drug every time, Namely, a drug that seems to have a striking effect initially in ameliorating symptom(s) of a given disease – obesity/diabetes in the case of metformin and GLP-1 agonists – yet in the background exacerbates systemic health so that the overall effects are profoundly negative, thus creating multiple secondary “opportunities” for the drugs that treat the side effects of the primary drug. Worse, in many cases the side effects of the primary drug are so terrible, it is arguably better to never take it in the first place. Some notable examples of such “blockbuster” stories from Big Pharma are the SSRI class of antidepressants, anxiolytic  drugs (Klonopin anyone?), antipsychotics, proton pump inhibitors (PPI), statins, diabetes drugs such as metformin/phenformin, estrogenic HRT, 5-alpha reductase (5-AR) inhibitors such as finasteride/dutasteride, glucocorticoid therapy for inflammation, etc. This time, the new “blockbuster” disaster in the making seems to be the GLP-1 agonist class of drugs represented by flagship brand names such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, ZepBound, etc. Some of their side effects are already known and include apparently “acceptable” (according to whom?) increase in risk for conditions such as gastroparesis, blindness, and thyroid cancer. In addition, a recent study argues convincingly that GLP-1 agonists may cause pancreatic cancer, link here when used long-term, and that cancer is lethal for the vast majority of people who get it. Yet, pharma companies can always fudge the stats to present the risk of such side effects as very low, thus convincing patients that the drug is worth it. However, what if the primary effect for which the drug is prescribed/marketed – weight loss – is another disaster in disguise? Wouldn’t that directly largely invalidate the very use case for such drugs? Worst of all, not only is this sacropenic side effect of GLP-1 drugs apparently known to medicine, the study below now confirms that the sarcopenic effects are very pronounced even in the heart muscle, which one of the most resilient to muscle tissue loss due to its high concentrations of anti-catabolic steroids such as testosterone, pregnenolone, DHEA and (in children and women) progesterone. And the cherry in the cake about this study is the recognition by study authors that muscle mass is one of the primary factors in controlling blood glucose and preventing development of diabetes (see my comment above about RMR). So, the current “blockbuster” drugs for preventing and treating obesity/diabetes actually excel at destroying the primary protective factor we have against obesity/diabetes (and CVD and mortality, and so on)!?!? Peak insanity, this can’t go on for much longer…

link here

“…The significant reduction in body weight (BW) induced by glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), such as semaglutide, has led to recent clinical trials demonstrating benefit in certain forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD).1, link here While these findings are promising for CV patients, a side-effect of GLP-1RAs use is the loss of skeletal muscle (lean BW) mass.2, link here Although it is likely that the metabolic benefits from weight loss may outweigh modest sarcopenia, this loss of lean BW could potentially lead to exercise intolerance that may reduce the quality of life in individuals at risk for or with heart failure.3, link here Given this, intense research efforts are ongoing to try to understand how GLP-1RAs induce loss of skeletal muscle mass.4, link here However, little attention has been given to the potential that other types of muscle, such as cardiac muscle, may also be lost in response to GLP-1RAs.”

2 links here

“…Trendy weight-loss drugs making headlines for shrinking waistlines may also be shrinking the human heart and other muscles, according to a new University of Alberta study, link here whose authors say should serve as a “cautionary tale” about possible long-term health effects of these drugs…Dyck and his team set out to study why a reported side-effect of the leading weight-loss drug Ozempic is the loss of skeletal muscle. Ozempic, known medically as semaglutide, was originally designed to help adult patients with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar. However, this drug — and a host of others in this class of medication — are also being touted for their effectiveness as an anti-obesity medication. Using mice for the study, the researchers found that heart muscle also decreased in both obese and lean mice. The systemic effect observed in mice was then confirmed in cultured human heart cells.”

“…Dyck’s study comes on the heels of a commentary published in the November issue of The Lancet, link here by an international team of researchers from the U of A, McMaster and Louisiana State University who examined emerging research showing that up to 40 per cent of the weight lost by people using weight-loss drugs is actually muscle. Carla Prado, link here, a nutrition researcher in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences, link here and lead author on the commentary, explains this rate of muscle decline is significantly higher than what is typically observed with calorie-reduced diets or normal aging and could lead to a host of long-term health issues — including decreased immunity, increased risk of infections and poor wound healing. “Muscle does much more than just help us move or lift things. It is a powerful organ that keeps us healthy in a number of ways,” she says. For example, muscle stores important building blocks — amino acids — that the body uses when we’re sick, stressed or injured to repair itself and stay strong. It also plays a huge role in managing blood sugar, which helps prevent diabetes. As well, Prado notes muscle releases special molecules called myokines that signal other parts of the body to help fight infections and support our immune system. “That’s why preserving muscle is so important, especially during weight-loss treatments — it’s not just about staying strong, but about keeping our whole body resilient and healthy.” In the commentary, the authors suggest that muscle loss due to weight reduction may also exacerbate conditions like sarcopenic obesity — characterized by a combination of high body fat and low skeletal muscle mass — which contributes to poorer health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease and higher mortality rates.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2730.mp3" length="1625252" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Study: CO2 may be “bad” for the climate, but is beneficial for humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2726</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2726</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 08 Dec 2024 00:14:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2726

One of my readers sent this article via email. In all honesty, I did not expect that I would see a mainstream publication touting the benefits of CO2 for human health. Not only does medicine consider CO2 as little more than  metabolic waste (and “terrible” for the climate!), but there is a plethora of publications and warnings about the “harm” caused by elevated ambient CO2 levels to things like cognitive function, mood, energy levels, sleep, and even digestion. In fact, many carbon monoxide (CO) meters are now also equipped with CO2 modules as well, so that the devices can detect elevation in both types of gases in a person’s immediate environment. The rationale is roughly that CO is bad and can kill you almost instantly, while CO2 is just as bad but kills you more slowly and surreptitiously. Thus, both gases are treated as environmental hazards to be closely monitored.

The study below demonstrates that CO2 is in fact highly beneficial in a cellular environment as it prevents the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as the hydroxyl radical (OH), and thus greatly limiting the threat such ROS pose to genomic stability, and affecting risks for cancer development (if one believes in the genomic theory of cancer). Of course, since CO2 can only form in the Krebs Cycle portion of oxidative metabolism, and its formation is proportional both to the metabolic rate and amount of glucose oxidized (fat oxidation produces less CO2 per molecule, compared to glucose), the study below indirectly says that high metabolic rate and oxidation of primarily glucose is what keeps our cells health and our genome stable. Along the same lines of thought, since the damage of ionizing radiation is manifested primarily through the formation of ROS in living organisms exposed to such radiation, CO2 is likely to be protective in such settings as well. Thus, the researchers propose the study of elevated ambient CO2 as a therapeutic intervention for astronauts in space. On a bit of side, but very important, note the scientists raise a point that most in-vitro studies may be flawed due to their laboratory setup leading to the loss of CO2 from cell cultures before the experiments are conducted. In other words, in-vitro experiments currently likely do not adequately represent the CO2 (and other gases) balance present in living organisms (in-vivo), and unless the in-vitro setup is changed those studies are at best “suspect”, as the study authors themselves state.

2 links here

“…The cells in our bodies are like bustling cities, running on an iron-powered system that uses hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) not just for cleaning up messes but also for sending critical signals. Normally, this works fine, but under stress, such as inflammation or a burst of energy use, oxidative stress damages cells at the genetic level. This is because iron and H₂O₂ react in what’s known as the Fenton reaction, producing hydroxyl radicals, destructive molecules that attack DNA and RNA indiscriminately. But there’s a catch. In the presence of carbon dioxide — that pesky gas disrupting global climate systems — our cells gain a secret weapon in the form of bicarbonate which helps keep pH levels balanced.”

“…A team of University of Utah chemists has discovered that bicarbonate doesn’t just act as a pH buffer but also alters the Fenton reaction itself in cells. Instead of producing chaotic hydroxyl radicals, the reaction instead makes carbonate radicals, which affect DNA in a far less harmful way, according to Cynthia Burrows, a distinguished professor of chemistry and senior author of a study published this week in PNAS. “So many diseases, so many conditions have oxidative stress as a component of disease. That would include many cancers, effectively all age-related diseases, a lot of neurological diseases,” Burrows said. “We’re trying to understand cells’ fundamental chemistry under oxidative stress. We have learned something about the protective effect of CO₂ that I think is really profound.” Co-authors include Aaron Fleming, a research associate professor, and doctoral candidate Justin Dingman, both members of the Burrows Laboratory. Without bicarbonate or CO₂ present in experimental DNA oxidation reactions, the chemistry is also different. The free radical species generated, hydroxyl radical, is extremely reactive and hits DNA like a shotgun blast, causing damage everywhere, Burrows said. In contrast, her team’s findings show that the presence of bicarbonate from dissolved CO₂ changes the reaction to make a milder radical striking only guanine, the G in our four-letter genetic code.”

“…But it also raises the possibility that many scientists studying cell damage have been conducting laboratory experiments in ways that don’t reflect the real world, rendering their results suspect, Burrows said. Chemists and biologists everywhere grow cells in a tissue culture in an incubator set to 37 degrees Centigrade, or body temperature. In these cultures, carbon dioxide levels are raised to 5%, or about 100 times more concentrated than what’s found in the atmosphere. The elevated CO₂ recreates the environment the cells normally inhabit as they metabolize nutrients, however, it is lost when researchers start their experiments outside the incubator. “Just like opening up a can of beer. You release the CO₂ when you take your cells out of the incubator. It’s like doing experiments with a day-old glass of beer. It’s pretty flat. It has lost the CO₂, its bicarbonate buffer,” Burrows said. “You no longer have the protection of CO₂ to modulate the iron-hydrogen peroxide reaction.” She believes bicarbonate needs to be added to ensure reliable results from such experiments. “Most people leave out bicarbonate/CO₂ when studying DNA oxidation because it is difficult to deal with the constant outgassing of CO₂,” Burrows said. “These studies suggest that to get an accurate picture of DNA damage that occurs from normal cellular processes like metabolism, researchers need to be careful to mimic the proper conditions of the cell and add bicarbonate, i.e. baking powder!”

“…Burrows anticipates her study could result in unintended outcomes that may someday benefit research in other areas. Her lab is seeking new funding from NASA, for example, to study the effect of CO₂ on people confined to enclosed spaces, such as inside of space capsules and submarines. “You’ve got astronauts in a capsule living and breathing, and they are exhaling CO₂. The problem is how much CO₂ can they safely handle in their atmosphere? One of the things we found is that, at least in terms of tissue culture, CO₂ does have a protective effect from some of the radiation damage these astronauts might experience. So what you might want to do is push up that CO₂ level. You certainly don’t want to go very high, but having it slightly higher might actually have a protective effect against radiation, which generates hydroxyl radicals.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2726.mp3" length="1176908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Top diabetes drug Metformin causes muscle atrophy by activating AMPK/myostatin</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2724</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2724</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 07 Dec 2024 23:38:45 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2724

The drug metformin probably needs no introduction here. It is one of the oldest and most widely used drugs for diabetes II worldwide. It is often a so-called first line of therapy for many/most diabetes patients and its mechanism of actions and side effects are fairly well-known. As one of the study quotes below states, up 90% of diabetes II patients are taking metformin. While medicine prefers to ignore/downplay the serious side effects of metformin – lactic acidosis due to metformin being an inhibitor of Complex I of the electron transport chain (ETC) – the “beneficial” effects of metformin are touted non-stop and the general consensus is that metformin works mostly by activating the enzyme AMPK, link here. That enzyme also happens to be activated by “endurance” exercise, fasting / caloric restriction (CR), and/or low-carb diets. The pro-AMPK effects of metformin are the main reason the drug is being promoted as an exercise- or CR-mimetic, which is why metformin is currently a very hot topic in anti-aging and obesity research. It is worth noting that one of the main effects of AMPK activation is increased fatty acid oxidation (FAO), which is another reason metformin is being promoted for diabetes II – i.e. the idea is that burning a lot of fat will lead to leanness and thus reversal of diabetes. Yet, if one looks at metformin from the bioenergetic point of view the drug looks like pure poison. Aside from being able to kill a person through lactic acidosis (30%+ lethal even with emergency medical treatment), massively increasing FAO hardly sounds like something a person would want to induce on a regular basis. Unsurprisingly, several studies have come out in recent years demonstrating that metformin promotes cancer growth by increasing lactate and FAO, while anti-lactate measures such as baking soda are therapeutic. Since AMPK is what drives most of these negative effects of metformin, one would expect that inhibiting AMPK would be therapeutic. Well, see the study below:-)

link here

In further corroboration, using metformin in diabetic patients does not improve the course of the disease. It does lower blood sugar, but that was recently discovered to be due to its inhibitory effects on gluconeogenesis and not due to AMPK activation or increased FAO. Worse, the increased FAO due to metformin would be expected to worsen insulin sensitivity, and multiple studies have confirmed that stopping metformin after taking it for a while results in exacerbation of the diabetes pathology compared to other diabetic patients who did not take metformin at all. So, it is definitely starting to look like metformin is not only not the miracle drug we are being told it is, but is a very dangerous “Trojan Horse”- i.e. masking the symptoms of diabetes, while ruining systemic health and all but ensuring not only worsening diabetes in the future, but possibly even getting cancer in the process. If all that was not enough to change people’s mind on metformin, the study below may add more fuel to the fire. It looks like that not only is metformin potentially detrimental to metabolic health, but its primary target – AMPK activation – seems to lead to muscle atrophy by increasing the expression of myostatin, link here (the primary negative regulator of muscle growth). As most of my readers know, lean muscle mass is the primary regulator of the resting metabolic rate (RMR) and losing muscle mass is just about the worse outcome a person can hope for from a drug, diet or exercise regimen as it would tank their RMR. This has already been corroborated by the (in)famous studies that looked at participants in the “Biggest Loser” (what an apt name) contests. All those people lost a lot of weight through fasting and “endurance” exercise (i.e. AMPK activation), but it turned out that most of their weight loss was from muscle, which resulted in those people’s metabolic rate essentially halving (due to the grueling weight loss regimen) and thus regaining ALL of the weight they lost even while maintaining a reduced calorie diet. Well, it looks like metformin is a great mimetic of the “Biggest Loser” regimen and the muscle loss it induces probably explains a good deal of the lack of long-term benefit from using the drug. Wait, what about fat loss, considering metformin increases drastically FAO by increasing AMPK? Well, it turns our increasing FAO does not result in leanness, so in effect all the mechanisms of action of metformin (except potentially inhibition of gluconeogenesis) are directly disease- and disability-promoting.

link here

“…One mechanism by which AMPK regulates lipid metabolism is phosphorylation and inactivation of acetyl CoA carboxylase (ACC), an important rate-controlling enzyme for the synthesis of malonyl-CoA. ACC is both a critical precursor for biosynthesis of fatty acids and a potent inhibitor of long-chain fatty acyl-CoA transport to mitochondria for β-oxidation. Knockdown/knockout of ACC1 and ACC2 (predominantly expressed in liver and skeletal muscle, respectively), has been reported to cause continuous fatty acid oxidation, increased energy expenditure and reduced fat mass (Abu-Elheiga et al., 2001, link here; Choi et al., 2007, link here; Savage et al., 2006, link here). But recent studies have reported limited effects of ACC2 deletion on fatty acid oxidation in skeletal muscle and overall energy expenditure or adiposity (Hoehn et al., 2010, link here; Olson et al., 2010, link here). These recent reports indicate that increased fatty acid oxidation in skeletal muscle does not cause leanness and raises questions regarding the use of ACC2 inhibitors in the treatment of obesity.”

link here

“…Our findings reveal the role of metformin in the regulation of muscle wasting at the transcriptional level. Although first‐line biguanide metformin is often administered to patients with T2DM, its long‐term administration can cause several side effects, including those that affect muscle function. Currently, the effect of metformin on the muscles is controversial. Blood glucose levels and other conditions can also induce muscle atrophy. Metformin is known to produce a glucose‐lowering effect that is accompanied by improvements in insulin sensitivity; however, it is also known to increase the levels of p‐AMPK and myostatin, a muscle atrophy‐related molecule. Thus, three different arguments arise. A recent study revealed that metformin negatively affects the hypertrophic response to resistance training in healthy older individuals. Because metformin reduces inflammation, the researcher of the study hypothesized that metformin would augment the muscle response; however, the placebo group had more gains in lean body and thigh muscle mass than the metformin‐treated group.33, link hereAnother study suggested that leg lean mass and appendicular skeletal muscle mass were significantly lower in older men with T2DM than in controls. Notably, 87% of patients in the T2DM group received metformin.30 …”, link here

“…On the other hand, our results support the negative effects of metformin on muscle hypertrophy. Furthermore, our in vivo findings from GC muscles after metformin treatment correlated with our in vitro findings….First, db/db mice administered metformin did not differ significantly from the control group in the grip strength test, but the wild‐type mice administered metformin had a significant decrease in muscle grip strength. Second, the myoglobin level of metformin‐treated wild‐type mice decreased in the serum analysis. Therefore, metformin has a complicated effect on the muscle regulation mechanisms. In db/db mice, the glucose‐lowering effect of metformin may partially offset its muscle‐wasting effect.”

“…Based on our in vitro results, the up‐regulation of myostatin in response to metformin is controlled by activated p‐AMPK, which regulates subcellular localization and ultimately enables binding between FoxO3a and myostatin. In the myostatin promoter region, FoxO3a binds to the putative binding site of myostatin by directly activating its expression. Therefore, it can cause muscle wasting. Because HDAC6 also binds to FoxO3a in this molecular process, we hypothesized that HDAC6‐mediated myostatin up‐regulation might be related to its deacetylation activity. In other words, HDAC6 might regulate acetylated FoxO3a and increase FoxO3a expression. HDAC6 may also regulate muscle atrophy. This study is the first to provide a clear molecular mechanism for the effect of metformin on muscle function. Moreover, we identified the novel muscle atrophy effects of the AMPK‐ and HDAC6‐FoxO3a‐myostatin axis at the transcriptional level. We also identified that the transcriptional and epigenetic pathways induced by metformin could cause muscle wasting and induce negative effects in T2DM patients treated with metformin. To date, a broad range of metformin has been used in experiments.35 …, link hereIn the present study, we used 2 mM in vitro and 250 mg/kg in vivo. These doses are slightly higher than the therapeutic concentrations of metformin in patients, but within the ranges of other studies used metformin. In the future, more studies are necessary to define the relationship between dose‐dependent efficacy and the corresponding plasma concentration of metformin.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2724.mp3" length="2129276" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking serotonin (5-HT) may treat alcoholism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2722</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2722</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2024 21:36:45 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2722

After decades of animal research implicating the serotonin system in the development of all sorts of “addictions”, it looks like a human trial is finally under way. More specifically, a trial with the serotonin receptor 5-HT3 antagonist called ondansetron (named AD04 in the trial), taken orally. Ondansetron is not a new drug and I have been posting about it for years and Ray has been mentioning for even longer. Its typical dosing regimen (for nausea) is 4mg-8mg every 6-12 hours. However, at such doses it can cause severe constipation and even bowel obstruction, and even a serious side effects known as “QT-interval prolongation”, which can increase the risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Curiously, most of the animal studies demonstrating anti-depressant, anxiolytic, anti-Parkinson, anti-cancer and anti-addiction effects used much lower doses, in the human-equivalent dose range of 0.5mg-1mg, which most doctors consider too low to be of any effectiveness. It just so happens that the clinical trial below uses precisely such low-doses – i.e. 0.33mg twice daily. So, it looks like somebody is reading the scientific literature…or Ray’s articles:-)

While this trial is certainly good news, it of course immediately draw attention to the flip side of that coin. Namely, if serotonin is a cause of alcoholism (considered currently incurable) and likely other addictions as well, how can serotonin still be officially promoted by medicine as the “happiness hormone”? Just as importantly, how can SSRI drugs be prescribed like candy, even to toddlers, if their effects are very likely addiction-forming? Considering the ever-growing epidemic of substance abuse (including alcohol) in Western countries, how much of that epidemic is iatrogenic (caused by SSRI drugs) and/or from stress (which raises serotonin)? There is a serious disconnect here and I hope the reformed FDA (that we hear about is in the works) will address this obvious paradox, and not in favor of serotonin/SSRI.

link here

“…Adial Pharmaceuticals today announced that it has completed a pharmacokinetics (PK) study of AD04, an investigational genetically targeted, serotonin-3 receptor antagonist, and therapeutic agent for the treatment of alcohol use disorder (AUD) in patients with heavy drinking. This data will help guide the study design for the upcoming phase 3 clinical trial of AD04.1 “Completion of this study achieves our goal to obtain the data we needed to design a more precise and informed phase 3 trial protocol, including evaluating the optimal dosing regimen to maximize the efficacy and safety of AD04 in patients with AUD. Its completion is in accord with previous guidance provided by the FDA and is intended to enhance the likelihood of success in our upcoming phase 3 trial,” said Cary Claiborne, president and chief executive officer of Adial. In this single-center, relative bioavailability, open label study, investigators enrolled a total of 30 healthy adult volunteers in 2 cohorts. Heavy drinking was defined as less than 10 drinks/drinking day. Cohort 1 (n=6) was a randomized, open-label, 2-sequence, 2-period crossover study to evaluate the PK variability of ondansetron from AD04 0.33 and 0.99 mg. Cohort 2 (n=24) was a randomized, open-label, 6-sequence, 4-period crossover study to evaluate the relative bioavailability of the AD04 0.33 mg tablet to a marketed ondansetron 4 mg tablet, dose proportionality of ondansetron PK between AD04 0.33 and 0.99 mg, and the effect of food on the bioavailability of ondansetron administered as the AD04 0.33 mg tablet. Results showed that, because of the lower dose, AD04 0.33 mg delivered lower ondansetron PK exposure than the marketed reference standard ondansetron 4 mg tablet. Furthermore, ondansetron PK exposure increased in proportion to dose across a 3-fold AD04 dose range. Lastly, AD04 can be taken in fed or fasted states.”

link here

“…AD04 (0.33mg ondansetron taken orally twice daily) acts upon the 5HT3 pathway and is thought to reduce alcohol craving. This mode of action is distinct from, but complimentary to, the currently approved therapies for AUD.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2722.mp3" length="1031660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D lowers blood pressure in older people with obesity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2720</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2720</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2024 20:30:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2720

Years ago, I posted about a study which concluded that vitamin D is as effective as pharma drugs for lowering blood pressure. The doses used in that study were considered pharmacological, but amounted to no more than 4,000 IU daily. The study below corroborates those findings, even in people with obesity, and even with much lower doses of vitamin D. Namely, as low as 600 IU daily may be sufficient to reduce blood pressure, especially in obese people, but I think the optimal dose may be highly dependent on the specific person based on factors such as age, weight, diet, physical activity, medication, etc. Some studies concluded that for certain groups of people doses up to 8,000 IU may be needed to produce the desired benefits, and that the current RDA  for vitamin D established by the FDA were based on several studies that grossly underestimated daily needs by a factor of at least ten (10). So, the 400 IU daily that FDA recommends for adults, may in fact be close to 4,000 IU daily, and that is just to prevent deficiency. Thus, while the study below did not find increased benefit from doses close to 4,000 IU daily, I’d say the jury is still out on that one.

2 links here

“…New research published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society suggests that vitamin D supplements may help lower blood pressure in older adults with obesity. However, taking doses higher than the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) recommended 600 International Units (IU) per day does not appear to provide additional health benefits. Vitamin D deficiency is widespread globally and has been linked to increased risks of heart disease, immune disorders, infections, and some cancers. While prior studies have associated vitamin D deficiency with a higher likelihood of hypertension, the overall effect of vitamin D supplementation on blood pressure remains unclear. “Our study found vitamin D supplementation may decrease blood pressure in specific subgroups such older people, people with obesity, and possibly those with low vitamin D levels,” said Ghada El-Hajj Fuleihan, M.D., M.P.H., F.R.C.P., of the American University of Beirut Medical Center in Beirut, Lebanon. “High vitamin D doses compared to the IOM’s recommended daily dose did not provide additional health benefits.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2720.mp3" length="606404" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hypothyroidism causes heart/kidney fibrosis, vitamin D prevents it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2718</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2718</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2024 20:21:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2718

If there is any doubt just how dangerous low metabolic rate can be, the study below should help dissipate such doubts. The study found that (sub)clinical hypothyroidism resulted in severe heart and kidney fibrosis, as well as muscle breakdown, in just 6 weeks after induction. The study induced the hypothyroidism pharmacologically, but the drug used to induce it is not known to cause such negative effects directly, so it was certainly the low metabolic rate that caused the organ dysfunction and whole-body degeneration. Remarkably, the oral administration of vitamin D managed to ameliorate and prevent most such dysfunction/degeneration, when administered over the same 6-week period. The human-equivalent doses were 15 IU / kg and 75 IU / kg body-weight daily, with the higher dose being more effective. The study is very new so I don’t yet have access to the full text, but when I managed to read it in full I will post the specific metrics of how effective vitamin D was.

link here

“…There are several interactions between thyroid hormones (THs) and kidney and heart function. Consequently, THs deficit results in profound changes in renal and cardiac function regulation. Interestingly, emerging evidence suggests that vitamin D (Vit D) may benefit to fibrotic lesions in various tissues. Herein, this study was designed to investigate the potential impact of Vit D on renal and cardiac fibrosis in hypothyroid rats. Forty male Wistar rats were divided into four groups as follow: control, hypothyroid (0.05% PTU in drinking water), and hypothyroid + Vit D (PTU and doses of 100 or 500 IU/kg/day, by gavage) groups. After 6 weeks, biochemical parameters such as creatinine and urea in serum samples, and oxidative stress markers including malondialdehyde (MDA), total thiol groups, and superoxide dismutase (SOD) in renal and cardiac tissues homogenate were measured. Also, renal and cardiac fibrosis was evaluated histologically using Masson’s trichrome staining. Hypothyroidism significantly increased creatinine and urea. Also, in hypothyroid group renal and cardiac fibrosis as well as MDA were increased, while anti-oxidative markers including total thiol group and SOD were decreased. Administration of Vit D significantly improved these alterations in oxidative stress markers and fibrosis in renal and cardiac tissues. In conclusion, this study highlighted that Vit D supplementation reduced renal and cardiac fibrosis and improved oxidative stress. These results support the emerging experimental findings linking Vit D being introduced as a potential therapeutic agent.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2718.mp3" length="513020" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin C (IV route) doubles survival time in advanced pancreatic cancer patients</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2716</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2716</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2024 19:52:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2716

Linus Pauling is probably smiling while he is looking down upon us from above. High-dose vitamin C as treatment for cancer was one of the most controversial suggestions he was known for, and not only made him many enemies in the medical world, it also partially tarnished his reputation as a Nobel Prize laureate. He is also considered the father of so-called orthomolecular medicine, link here, which is still derided by mainstream medicine as pseudo-scientific and false. Of course, as most of my readers know by now, whatever is labelled “controversial” by mainstream medicine often turns out to be true/right. Despite mocking vitamin C treatment for cancer, without much fanfare certain pharma companies have developed drugs based on vitamin C, with perhaps the most successful to date being the drug Apatone, link here (a combination of vitamin C and vitamin K). Apatone has already been allowed by the FDA to be used on cancer patients including on people with advanced/terminal prostate cancer, link here. So, it is becoming more and more obvious Dr. Linus was right, and just as importantly, the bioenergetic theory of cancer is also right. The study below on pancreatic cancer proposes that vitamin C works by generations hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which works through the same cytotoxic mechanism as traditional chemotherapy. In other words, medicine reluctantly admits that vitamin C works, but counters any attacks against its approach by claiming that vitamin C is simply another form of cytotoxic chemotherapy. As such, it is used not as a primary treatment, but as an add-on therapy which just increases the potency of traditional chemotherapy. However, if one looks at the published studies on Apatone, a completely different mechanism is proposed – a bioenergetic one. Namely, when vitamin C is combined with an oxidizing agent – vitamin K (as in the drug formulation) or any other quinone-like molecule such as methylene blue, CoQ10, emodin, the tetracycline antibiotics, etc – it gets oxidized to something known as dehydroascorbic acid (DHAA), which itself is a powerful oxidizing agent. Since the vitamin C molecule is structurally very similar to sugar/glucose, it is preferentially uptaken by cancer cells through the same pathways as glucose (e.g. the GLUT proteins), as cancer cells are known to have much higher glucose affinity compared to non-cancer cells. In fact, it is this preferential uptake of glucose by cancer cells that is used both for cancer diagnosis (imaging with radioactive glucose) and has led medicine to keep claiming that cancer is “addicted” to sugar and that carbohydrate restriction, keto diets, fasting, etc should treat cancer. All such approaches have been tried, with disastrous results, as after a brief pause in growth, the cancer becomes highly aggressive and invariably lethal. The bioenergetic theory states that cancer cells uptake more glucose from the blood because they are functionally deficient in glucose. Namely, the glucose that enters cancer cells gets “wasted” by conversion into lactate, due to the cancer cells’ highly reductive state (e.g. low mitochondrial NAD+/NADH ratio) instead of being combusted through OXPHOS. So, the solution would be to provide more glucose, not less. Be that as it may, the Apatone approach is to use a molecule (vitamin C) that uses the same uptake/transport mechanisms as glucose, which results in its preferential accumulation inside cancer cells, and once inside the cancer cell this oxidized form of vitamin C (DHAA) corrects the reductive excess of cancer cells, and after some time they start to respire normally. In other words, Apatone works by converting “cancer” cells back into “normal” cells by gradually changing the redox state of such cells from high reduced to highly oxidized. Why the quotes? Well, it should be clear by now that there is no such thing as a “cancer” cell and a “normal” cells. There is only a continuous spectrum of metabolic health with “cancer” at one end and “health” at the other, with the cell moving back and forth along that spectrum, entirely based on its environmental influences (no mutations needed). However, in order for that process to work the reduced form of vitamin C, which is the one most commonly sold as a supplement, needs to be co-administered with an oxidizing agent (vitamin K, in the case of Apatone) so that DHAA is formed, as DHAA is the true therapeutic agent. Another option is to administer pre-formed DHAA, but that molecule is not very stable and quickly degrades or converts back into the reduced form. Unfortunately, the study below used high amounts of the reduced form of vitamin C (ascorbate) and as such drastically limited its therapeutic potential. While high doses of ascorbate will still raise DHAA formed inside the body, the effects are rather minute compared to administering either preformed DHAA or a combination of vitamin C and a quinone. One can see the vast difference that by comparing the effects of Apatone with the effects seen in the study below. Namely, Apatone as a daily oral dose of just 5g vitamin C (plus 50mg vitamin K) almost completely prevented mortality in patients with end-stage prostate cancer, while a massive 32g daily dose of vitamin C (and by IV route too) merely doubled survival time in patients with pancreatic cancer.  Oh well, I guess it is a step in the right direction and it may be just Big Pharma’s nefarious way to slowly switch over to the metabolic treatment of cancer without admitting culpability along the way. Something similar is already happening with the SSRI industry. Now that is becoming painfully obvious that low serotonin is not the cause of depression and, in fact, high serotonin may be the cause, Big Pharma has started to release SSRI drugs that have substantial anti-serotonin effect at the receptor level. So, such drugs may very well work, but Big Pharma gets to publicly save its theory that SSRI drugs are good and so is serotonin, while implementing the exact opposite hypothesis pharmacologically. In 5-10 years, SSRI drugs will quietly get dropped as “obsolete” and nobody will even think of asking the question of why they were even used in the first place, and how many people were harmed/killed by them. It will be a “paradigm shift” as the good ol’ science philosopher Mr. Kuhn said, which is really just a euphemism for “the jig is up, time to find a new one”.

2 links here

“…Results from a randomized, phase 2 clinical trial show that adding high-dose, intravenous (IV) vitamin C to chemotherapy doubles the overall survival of patients with late-stage metastatic pancreatic cancer from eight months to 16 months….The findings, published, link here in Redox Biology, mark another success for high-dose, intravenous vitamin C, which has overcome many hurdles in the almost 20 years UI researchers have persevered to demonstrate its benefit for cancer patients. “We’ve had ups and downs, of course, but this is a culmination of a lot of people’s hard work,” says Cullen, who is also a member of UI Health Care Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center. “It’s really a positive thing for patients and for the University of Iowa….”Not only does it increase overall survival, but the patients seem to feel better with the treatment,” Cullen says. “They have fewer side effects, and appear to be able to tolerate more treatment, and we’ve seen that in other trials, too.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2716.mp3" length="3050228" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:07:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Humans absorb nutrients/chemicals from air, just like they absorb them from food</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2714</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2714</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2024 18:59:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2714

Well, duh! This is probably quite obvious to most of my readers, but I am posting it here since most people rarely think of the type of air they are breathing, or consciously select geographical areas based on specific “aeronutrients” (as opposed to gastronutrients) likely to be absorbed there. The study below claims that we absorb a significant amount of essential nutrients, and especially trace minerals, from air and not just food. This may explain the “paradoxes” or why people living in specific areas (e.g. high altitude) and eating a very restrictive diet (e.g. bread and dairy) can not only maintain good health, but thrive and often enjoy strikingly long lifespans (like this youngster, link here, who lived to 168 and died not of old age, but injury/infection). The higher CO2 retention at altitude probably explains a good deal of the health and longevity, but does not explain the lack of nutrient deficiencies that must invariably develop on a restrictive diet. The only possible explanation is that the environment somehow provides those nutrients through a non-gastric pathway, and apparently breathing is a major such pathway. It has been known for millennia that the air in certain locales is unique and therapeutic, even when not at high altitude, and I think the study below provides some ideas why. I have personally noticed that coniferous forests have a profoundly calming and antidepressant effect on me and people around me, and this may be due to the various aromatic terpenes such trees emit in the air. Many of those terpenes raise GABA and/or dopamine, which would explain their anxiolytic and antidepressant effects, link here.

There is also a flip side to that coin – i.e. inhaling air with nefarious ingredients. The dangers of polluted air are well-known, but what I have in mind is something more obscure and ignored even by doctors. Namely, breathing next to or close by people taking various pharmaceutical drugs with known negative effects on health, especially psychotropic drugs such as SSRI, antipsychotics, estrogens, synthetic progestins, etc. Many studies have demonstrated that people taking such drugs exhale measurable quantities, link here of them, and of course people in the physical proximity of the exhaler then inhale those drugs. This could explain many uncomfortable situations where a person in a social setting can cause a profound negative reaction in people around him/her often without any visible behavioral reason. Even without taking any pharmaceutical drugs, sick people are likely to affect people around them through their exhaled breath, which would probably contain high amounts of (of endogenous origin) serotonin, cortisol, estrogen, histamine, nitric oxide (NO), lipid peroxides, etc. This phenomenon can also explain why medical personnel working in specific wards get sicker at much higher rates than the general population and often come down with the same conditions as the patients they take care of (e.g. kidney disease in nephrology wards, liver disease in hepatology wards, cancer in oncology wards, etc). In other words, it is important to be mindful not only of the geographical area and its air composition (and I don’t mean just pollution), but also of the people we associate with and the drugs they take. If you find that somebody you often associate with tends to sour up your mood/digestion/wellness without any obvious effort on their part, it may be the air that they are exhaling (and the pheromones their skin emits), so precautionary measures may need to be taken or contact with the person kept short(er).

2 links here

“…When we think of nutrients, we think of things we obtain from our diet. But a careful look at the scientific literature shows there is strong evidence humans can also absorb some nutrients from the air. In a new perspective article published in Advances in Nutrition, link here, we call these inhaled nutrients “aeronutrients” – to differentiate them from the “gastronutrients” that are absorbed by the gut. We propose that breathing supplements our diet with essential nutrients such as iodine, zinc, manganese, and some vitamins, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2714.mp3" length="1614908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Increased fat oxidation (FAO) sufficient to cause senescence/aging/disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2710</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2710</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 01 Nov 2024 19:28:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2710

A very interesting study, and one of the few that I have seen openly acknowledge the existence of the Randle Cycle, link here and its importance to human health. Namely, the study demonstrated that increased FAO is sufficient to cause cellular dysfunction, senescence and ultimately diseases and the process known as “aging”. It is starting to look more and more plausible that aging/disease are nothing but symptoms of increasingly reduced glucose oxidation and increased FAO. As the study says, increased FAO “muscles out” glucose in competition for access to the Krebs/TCA Cycle. This increase in FAO leads to overabundance of acetyl-CoA and the abudance of acetyl group is what the study claims increases the activity of a gene called “p16”, implicated in many chronic conditions associated with aging. However, the study mentioned another mechanism that is mostly ignored by medicine and that mechanisms is the increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by FAO compared to glucose. As discussed on many podcasts, ROS is actually a misnomer and is a symptom of “reductive” rather than “oxidative” stress. In addition, more than 98% of the ROS are generated when there is blockage at one (or more) of steps of the electron transport chain (ETC), link here and the accumulated electrons start flowing backwards through the chain – i.e. reverse electron flow, link here (REF). REF itself further contributes to the already present reductive stress (low mitochondrial NAD+/NADH ratio) since the actual process of REF further lowers the mitochondrial NAD+/NADH ratio, this lower NAD+/NADH ratio further limits oxidation of glucose and promotes FAO, thus creating a vicious cycle. The buildup of electrons as a result of increased FAO is handled by the cell through an emergency mechanism by converting some of the superfluous acetyl-CoA into citrate and using that citrate to synthesize fat, which is then fed into the beta-oxidation cycle and ends up again as acetyl-CoA – again, a vicious cycle and it just so happens that this metabolic phenotype is the very hallmark of cancer. Medicine now recognizes such metabolic derangement in cancer, but claims that the ETC blocks are due to external agents, cancerous mutations, or just aging in general. But the study below makes it quite clear that the truth is actually backwards and that all that it takes for the “cancer” metabolism to occur is simply a sufficient shift from oxidation of glucose towards FAO, as per the Rande Cycle. This increased FAO results in lowering of the FAD/FADH ratio and thus a functional (co-factor deficiency) block at complex II of the ETC, which ultimately leads to the electron buildup, REF and thus drop in NAD+/NADH ratio as well. In contrast, oxidizing mostly glucose does not generate REF (since it does not lower the FAD/FADH ratio) and when the electrons flow forward it accounts for less than 2% of the total generated ROS during OXPHOS (the other 98% being generated as a result of REF). In other words, all that it takes for both function and structural pathological changes to occur, as well as senescence/aging, is increased FAO at the expense of glucose, which results in a shift of the redox balance in favor of reduction, forming a vicious metabolic cycle.

An interesting finding of the study is that saturated fats (SFA), despite being much preferable than PUFA for oxidation, are also capable of affecting the Randle Cycle and shifting the redox balance in favor of reduction. The specific lipid used in the study to increase FAO at the expense of glucose was octanoate (caprylic acid, link here), and providing sufficiently high concentrations of that SFA was sufficient to trigger the increased FAO and cause senescence. Ray mentioned this on a few podcasts when people asked him if keto diets would be OK if one ate 100% saturated fat. His answer was that a diet which contains only saturated fats in its lipid fraction is preferable to a “standard” Western diet (i.e. 30%+ PUFA on average), however long term consumption of a keto diet with 100% SFA in its lipid fraction is also not optimal since it would generate less CO2, more ROS and ultimately cause the same metabolic derangements as a standard Western diet. Thus, he said, oxidizing primarily glucose is of paramount importance when it comes to systemic health.

In addition, the study contains an interesting finding that a widely used cancer drug known as doxorubicin, link here can produce the exact same metabolic derangements and senescence as the increased FAO, which is another way of saying that the drug is harmful and ultimately (oh, the irony!) carcinogenic. One of the hallmark side effects of standard chemotherapy is that it visibly ages the patient, and the study below provides an explanation why – i.e. most chemotherapy drugs are likely metabolic blockers like doxorubicin and as such not only lead to accelerated aging, but are direct causes of secondary diseases (including cancer), further ruining the patient’s health already compromised by the cancer and its diagnosis. The study exposed another widely used drug – the lipid lowering agent fenofibrate, link here – as also being a pro-senescent agent, and this should not be surprising considering fenofibrate increases FAO. To make matetrs worse, unlike doxorubicin, fenofibrate is used by a much larger group of people as prevention for heart disease (CVD) with (again) the irony being that the drug likely promotes the very disease it is supposed to prevent.

The good news is that this vicious metabolic cycle caused by increased FAO can be broken through various methods that aim at either increasing glucose oxidation, reducing FAO or both. Aside from the increased supply of glucose, substances such as thiamine (vitamin B1), niacinamide (vitamin B3), biotin (vitamin B7), aspirin, oxidizing agents / quinones, thyroid, progesterone, DHEA, pregnenolone, testosterone, DHT, etc all work to increase glucose oxidation, while inhibiting FAO. It just so happens that the first four of the above mentioned substances are the cancer protocol I am using for the xenograft experiments that I have been running for the past 2+ years, and the results so far corroborate both the bioenergetic theory and the findings of the study below. Namely, everything in the body is controlled by metabolism/bioenergetics and oxidizing anything other than (primarily) glucose for an extended period of time ultimately leads to degeneration/disease, and is the primary driver of what we, perhaps mistakenly, call “aging”.

link here

“…Recent studies have indicated that senescence contributes to aging and age-related diseases (1, link here, 3, link here). p16 expression increases in various tissues with age (7, link here, 8, link here). Increased p16 expression decreases the tissue-regenerative potential of pancreatic β cells and neuronal progenitor cells (2, link here). Moreover, p16-expressing senescent cells that accumulate in the body impair heart and kidney function and shorten healthy lifespan (9, link here). This impaired organ function may be due to the secretion of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines by senescent cells, a phenomenon termed the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) (10, link here). The link between p16 and aging is further supported by the finding that the INK4/ARF locus, which encodes the senescence effectors p16, alternative reading frame (ARF), and p15, is a hotspot for susceptibility single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with age-related diseases, such as atherosclerosis and diabetes (1, link here). Therefore, elucidating the regulatory mechanisms of p16 expression may provide clues to understanding the mechanisms of aging. Numerous transcription factors and histone-modifying enzymes have been implicated in p16 expression (6, link here).”

“…We found that upon DNA damage, BNIP3 is phosphorylated by ATM and contributes to an increase in the number of mitochondrial cristae. This increase in cristae enhances the oxidation of fatty acids to acetyl-CoA, an acetyl group donor, thereby promoting histone acetylation around the p16 transcription start site (TSS). Notably, pharmacological activation of FAO alone can induce senescence in fibroblasts, endothelial cells, and mouse liver.”

“…FAO activation decreases acetyl-CoA production from glucose (38, link here). This effect, known as the Randle cycle, is primarily due to inhibitory phosphorylation of pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), the mitochondrial enzyme that converts pyruvate to acetyl-CoA (Fig. 4A, link here). Isotope labeling with [U-13C]glucose indicated that the conversion of pyruvate to acetyl-CoA and then to citrate and acetylated amino acids decreased during doxorubicin-induced senescence (fig. S9A). In addition, doxorubicin treatment increased PDH phosphorylation (Fig. 4G, link here and fig. S9, B to D). This increase was attenuated by the knockdown of CPT2, BNIP3, or ATM but not by knockdown of p16. In contrast to doxorubicin treatment, oncogenic RAS expression did not increase PDH phosphorylation (Fig. 4H, link here), perhaps reflecting that PDH phosphorylation is not solely regulated by FAO (39, link here). These results are consistent with FAO activation during DNA damage–induced senescence.”

“…To further investigate the importance of FAO in senescence induction, we used the medium-chain fatty acid octanoate. Unlike the more abundant long-chain fatty acids, octanoate freely crosses mitochondrial membranes (40, link here). When added to cells, octanoate is readily oxidized to acetyl-CoA, an acetyl group donor, and promotes histone acetylation and the associated expression of lipid metabolism–related genes. Treatment of IMR-90 cells with octanoate increased p16, CPT2, and phosphorylated PDH levels and decreased lamin B1 levels (Fig. 5A, link here). In contrast, the ATM-p53-p21 pathway and γH2AX foci were largely unaffected (Fig. 5, A and B, link here). Octanoate treatment increased the percentage of SA-β-gal–positive cells (Fig. 5C, link here). In addition, octanoate treatment decreased the percentage of EdU-positive proliferating cells and increased nuclear size (Fig. 5D, link here and fig. S10A). These changes in cell proliferation and nuclear size were suppressed by p16 knockdown (Fig. 5D, link here). Octanoate treatment increased the expression of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines (fig. S10B). Similar results were obtained with fenofibrate, a lipid-lowering drug that activates FAO through the transcription factor peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor α (PPARα) (Fig. 6, A to E, link here, and fig. S10, C and D) (41, link here). We confirmed that fenofibrate-induced p16 expression was attenuated by CPT2 knockdown (Fig. 6B, link here). Treatment with octanoate or fenofibrate increased mitochondrial ROS levels, decreased mitochondrial membrane potential, and increased the number of cristae and mitochondrial length (fig. S10, E to I).”

“…In this study, we have shown that nuclear DNA damage signaling to mitochondria via BNIP3 induces senescence by activating FAO (Fig. 7L, link here). Our results suggest that DNA damage–activated ATM translocates to mitochondria, where it phosphorylates BNIP3. BNIP3 increases the number of cristae and activates FAO. This activation may reflect an attempt to repair DNA damage through histone acetylation (44, link here). If DNA damage persists, the resulting prolonged FAO activation appears to promote histone acetylation for p16 expression. However, histones are not the only proteins whose acetylation state is regulated by acetyl-CoA levels (45, link here). In addition, FAO activation has effects other than increased acetyl-CoA levels (15, link here, 38, link here, 41, link here). In particular, increased mitochondrial ROS production may contribute to the induction of senescence (12, link here, 46, link here). Further studies are needed to elucidate the mechanisms by which BNIP3 regulates cristae and by which FAO drives senescence. We used doxorubicin and oncogenic RAS, which cause DNA damage (1, link here), to conclude that DNA damage–activated FAO drives senescence. However, we cannot completely exclude the possibility that doxorubicin activates FAO independently of DNA damage.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2710.mp3" length="3141524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:07:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K significantly reduces leg/muscle cramps in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2708</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2708</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Oct 2024 18:45:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2708

As many of my readers know, muscle spasticity is one of the main symptoms of low thyroid function and is present in many people with chronic conditions, especially neurological (e.g. multiple sclerosis). A number of remedies have been tried clinically, but there has been no breakthrough, except with quinine. However, for some reason, medicine has decided that quinine is “dangerous” and its use is discouraged clinically while also being regulated in the food supply. Tonic water, which traditionally has 300mg-500mg quinine per quart/liter, has been regulated in most Western countries to contain no more than 100mg per quart/liter. Be that as it may, I think the focus should stay on the fact that impaired muscle relaxation is core symptom of energetic deficiency. As an extreme example, Ray cited experiments from the early 20th century demonstrating that even “rigor mortis” can be prevented with injections of ATP directly into the muscle tissue. The study below found that just 180mcg vitamin K2 (MK-7) daily, for 8 weeks strongly decreased frequency and severity of nocturnal leg/muscle cramps (NLC), while also producing no notable side effects. In addition, the study cites a previous one where vitamin K was able to reduce muscle cramps in hemodialysis patients. The study attributes these effects of vitamin K to its ability to inhibit calcium uptake into the cell from the extracellular medium. I would take this a step further and point out that vitamin K can even reverse already established soft-tissue calcification, which is the reverse process – i.e. pushing calcium out of the cell after it had already accumulated in pathological amounts. However, I think the main mechanism of vitamin K has to be related to its ability to act as a quinone/oxidizer and speed up the flow of electrons through the OXPHOS pathway. In corroboration, T3 administered orally or by injection also has potent muscle-relaxing effects and T3 can also decalcify tissues by raising ATP production (and thus magnesium retention) and accelerating calcium efflux by raising CO2 production (which draws calcium out of the cell as CO2 is leaving the cell) thus achieving higher magnesium/calcium ratio inside the cell. Vitamin K also has this effect and this is probably how it also manages to decalcify cells (an effect already demonstrated in several human trials).

2 links here

“…Half of the confirmed participants were randomly assigned to receive a daily dose of 180 μg vitamin K2, while the others received a placebo for eight weeks. The placebo and vitamin K2 capsules were identical in appearance and packaging, and both the research staff and participants were blinded to the assignment of groups. Participants consumed one capsule per night and tracked NLC events, pain level, and duration. Research staff contacted them weekly to ensure adherence, collect reports, and enquire about any side effects. The main outcome was the average number of NLCs experienced each week during the eight weeks of the study, with the severity (scored between 1 and 10) and the duration in minutes of the cramps as secondary outcomes.”

“…However, the group receiving vitamin K2 reported that their mean cramp frequency reduced to 0.96 events per week over the eight weeks, while the placebo group’s average number of events increased to 3.63. Statistical tests established that this difference was significant. Those receiving the vitamin capsule also reported greater reductions in the severity of pain and duration of NLC events. No adverse events were reported by the participants related to the consumption of vitamin K2. Following previous findings that vitamin K2 relieves hemodialysis-related cramps, researchers explored whether they can alleviate discomfort from NLCs. They found that from the first week of the trial, vitamin K2 reduced the intensity, duration, and frequency of NLC events. The mechanism could be the lowering of calcium levels, leading to muscle relaxation. Encouragingly, the therapy appeared safe for older adults, with no observed adverse effects during the study. However, it is not recommended for people on certain blood thinners, as it may interfere with its effects.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2708.mp3" length="1191836" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking cortisol extends lifespan more than rapamycin, by improving mitochondrial function</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2706</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2706</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Oct 2024 20:32:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2706

Yet another confirmation that cortisol, while being life-saving in acute stress situations, can shorten lifespan if chronically elevated. In fact, according to the study below, antagonizing the effects of even normal cortisol levels may extend lifespan. This corroborates Ray’s statement that all the symptoms of aging (and thus every chronic disease) can be reliably reproduced in even youthful organisms by the administration of sufficiently high doses of cortisol. An interesting finding of the study was that the anti-aging effects was due to improved mitochondrial function, so this suggests (again) that any benefit or risk from a specific substance is likely ultimately due to its effects on metabolism/mitochondria. And it just so happens that cortisol does suppress mitochondrial function, while simultaneously enhancing both fatty acid synthesis and fatty acid oxidation, as well as lipolysis. Finally, the study compared the effects of cortisol blocking to the effects of the well-known life-extension drug rapamycin, which works by blocking the mTOR protein. In fact, blocking cortisol extended lifespan by 40%+ more, compared to rapamycin and without the known (and very dangerous) side effects of rapamycin (immunosuppression). The two drugs were not synergistic when used together, suggesting they work through the same pathway.

The anti-cortisol drug the study used was the well-known Mifepristone/RU486. However, there is plenty of evidence that progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, DHT, etc are also capable of antagonizing the effects of cortisol. As a curious example, I would point to both Elon Musk and (especially) Jeff Bezos, who are some of the most well-known users of testosterone (TRT). Both have had doctors and the general public commenting that since starting TRT they have able to “age in reverse” and that is readily visible by comparing pictures from their younger years (20s and 30s) to recent ones. While medicine will probably attribute those beneficial effects on testosterone (T) being an “anabolic” steroid, in reality most of the “anabolism” stems from the anti-catabolic effects of T (it is a cortisol blocker at the receptor level, just like RU486). As such, OTC alternatives with known anti-cortisol effects such as progesterone/DHEA or pregnenolone may also be able to achieve the same effect.

2 links here

“…The University of Southern California scientists directly compared the effects of mifepristone on female fruit flies with another drug that has shown anti-aging potential, the immunosuppressant rapamycin. They found that both drugs taken separately improved the flies’ longevity, though mifepristone performed a bit better, extending the flies’ lifespan by a median 114% compared to 81% for rapamycin. However, when both drugs were used together on the flies, the flies actually went on to have a slightly lower lifespan than normal—indicating that the drugs work in a very similar way to boost longevity, the researchers said. The team’s other experiments suggest that both drugs do this by improving the cells’ ability to clean up their damaged or dysfunctional mitochondria…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2706.mp3" length="1164860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The benefits of smoking, if any, may be due to lowering endotoxin/estrogen, raising dopamine</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2702</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2702</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 28 Oct 2024 15:51:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2702

I know the topic of smoking and drinking is controversial, and I hope that this post is not taken as an invitation to start puffing packs a day and downing pints of beer like water. Yet, there is something in the habits of extremely long-lived and healthy people that flies in the face of mainstream medicine and piques my curiosity. On one hand, there is strong evidence that chronic exposure to the aromatic hydrocarbons present in any smoke is carcinogenic, confirmed in many thousands of people who have worked in forest management (controlled fires), furnace/metallurgy workers, chimney sweepers, etc. On the other hand, the evidence for natural tobacco (no additives) smoking is a lot less convincing, even if we factor in the obvious ghostwriting and sponsored studies by the Big Tobacco companies questioning the dangers of smoking. There is also the curious fact that the World Health Organization (WHO) deliberately excludes countries with high tobacco consumption from its reports on cancers and longevity. For instance, not many people know that Caribbean countries, on average, have some of the highest tobacco (and alcohol) consumption per-capita in the world, yet have much lower rates of lung and other cancers, and also have some of the highest numbers of centenarians per-capita in the world. Other countries with a high number of centenarians also seem to have higher rates of smoking (and drinking). In addition, many of the world’s so-called super-centenarians were heavy smokers (and drinkers) throughout their lifetimes. Perhaps the most famous example is former UK Primer Minister Winston Churchill who was a heavy cigar smoker all his life, detested exercise, and was a heavy drinker as well, yet lived well into his nineties despite many of his relatives dying much younger (so genes were probably not a factor).

4 links here

“…The supposed enrichment for extreme-age survival in BZs is then subject to a host of secondary claims, each aimed at explaining the primary pattern of extraordinary longevity. Old-age survival in the BZs is supposed to result from diverse causes such as ‘moderate’ drinking at twice the NHS heavy-drinking guidelines[28], plant-based diets[25–27] and inbreeding[12,13].”

“…However, according to the national statistics bureau of Japan, only 3.9% of Japanese women and 19.3% of men over the age of 80 are smokers[56]. Tokyo centenarians therefore smoke at around twice the rate that could be expected in a younger, 80+year old cohort with an identical sex ratio. Likewise, 80% of the ‘exceptional’ health-status centenarian population were daily drinkers, followed by 49% of the ‘normal’ and less than 40% of the ‘frail or fragile’ centenarians, resulting in “a [significant] positive relationship between drinking habits and functional status”[55]. In contrast with these figures, Japanese government surveys estimate only 2.8% of women and 23% of men aged 80+ drink every day[56]. Daily drinking peaks at 36.7% in men aged 60-69, the heaviest-drinking cohort in Japan[56]. As such, Tokyo centenarians drink at higher rates than any other age group, and smoke at rates equal to a 45-year younger population[56].”

I think there is a play by Woody Allen about a man who falls in coma for decades only to wake up in a hospital at some point in the future and be presented with lit cigar/cigarette by a nurse and upon seeing his shocked face, the nurse exclaims something along the lines of “Please go ahead, it just tobacco. The healthiest remedy known to man.” On a more recent, and grim, note – we do have the extensive data from the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrating convincingly that smokers has a much lower chance of both falling ill with COVID-19, as well as deteriorating and dying from it.

link here

“…A case-control study from Mexico included 32,583 patients (12,304 COVID-19 positive cases and 20,279 COVID-19 negative controls) of which 2.3% of cases were smokers and 4.3% of controls had a history of smoking [65, link here]. This study not only concluded that active smokers had a decreased likelihood of developing COVID-19 (females, adjusted OR = 0.49, 95% CI: 0.31–0.78; males, adjusted OR = 0.64, 95% CI 0.51–0.81) but also suggested that nicotine in tobacco might have a therapeutic effect.”

And finally, there is the curious example of a medical student from the UK, who had debilitating ulcerative colitis (UC) – a disease considered “incurable” by medicine – that went away for good when he started smoking a few cigarettes a day.

link here

“…Stephen Pendry, 23, struggled with crippling pain, tiredness, shortness of breath and dehydration since he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis four years ago. But he is now completely symptom-free, thanks to a new four-a-day cigarette habit. Doctors are divided over benefits of patients smoking to combat symptoms – some believe nicotine is the healer so patches, and not cigarettes, are way forward”.

So, how can the bioenergetic theory attempt to explain any potential benefits of smoking? Well, for a start, many of the main psychoactive tobacco ingredients (e.g. nicotine, cotinine, anabasine) are aromatase inhibitors.

link here

In addition, it seems that most of the studies that demonstrated detrimental effects from tobacco or nicotine were in-vitro, yet the effects of nicotine/tobacco seem to be the opposite in-vivo, at least in amounts that would constitute smoking a few cigarettes a day. Perhaps most importantly, nicotine seems to be able to strongly blunt the systemic inflammatory effects of endotoxin/LPS, including in humans. Assuming endotoxin/LPS is the main driver of many/most chronic diseases, the anti-estrogenic and anti-endotoxin effects of nicotine (and some other tobacco ingredients) may explain its cumulative effects on promoting longevity, despite the known and undisputed carcinogenic effects of the actual smoke from the burning tobacco.

3 links here

“…Because a prototypical ligand for this receptor is nicotine, we studied the in vivo human response to bacterial endotoxin or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in the context of nicotine or placebo pretreatment. Twelve adult male normal subjects were studied prospectively. Six received overnight transcutaneous nicotine administration by application of a standard patch (7 mg). Six hours later, all subjects were given an intravenous dose of endotoxin (2 ng/kg) and were evaluated for an additional 24 h for circulating levels of inflammatory biomarkers, vital signs and symptoms. The nicotine subjects had elevated blood levels of the nicotine metabolite, continine, prior to and throughout the 24-h post-endotoxin exposure phase. Subjects receiving nicotine exhibited a significantly lower temperature response as well as attenuated cardiovascular responses for 2.5-6 h after LPS exposure. In addition, increased circulating interkeukin (IL)-10 and cortisol levels were also noted in nicotine subjects. These data indicate an alteration in LPS-induced systemic inflammatory responses in normal subjects exposed to transcutaneous nicotine. In this model of abbreviated inflammation, nicotine exposure attenuates the febrile response to LPS and promotes a more prominent anti-inflammatory phenotype.”

Interestingly enough, one of most renowned healers in the Amazonian region – the birthplace of tobacco – used tobacco almost exclusively to heal almost any disease known to man. A key fact to note in his work was that all the tobacco-based remedies he used were used orally and/or topically, but never through smoking.

link here

“…Harmful usage of tobacco is a public health problem of global concern and, in many countries, the main risk factor for non-communicable diseases. Yet, in the Peruvian Amazon, the geographical region believed to be tobacco’s historical birthplace, this plant is associated with a strikingly different usage and repute: Tobacco (especially Nicotiana rustica L.) in this area is described as a potent medicinal plant, used topically or via ingestion to treat a variety of health conditions. The goal of this transdisciplinary field study was to investigate clinical applications of the tobacco plant as per Amazonian medicine exemplified in the practice of a reputed Maestro Tabaquero, an Amazonian traditional healer whose medical specialization focuses on tobacco-based treatments…The current study described Amazonian therapeutic uses of tobacco (N. rustica L.) in the practice of a Maestro Tabaquero, an accomplished Amazonian healer specializing in tobacco-based treatments. The informant’s descriptions revealed refined knowledge on the plant’s therapeutic scope and properties, safety profile, and application techniques. A liquid remedy taken orally was his most commonly used preparation, with reported acute/sub-acute effects involving a pronounced psychoactive component (altered state of consciousness) and physiological response (emesis, intoxication, Spanish: “mareación”). A skilled tabaquero that knows how to diagnose, dose, administer, and intervene in case of adverse effects was described as imperative for safe treatment delivery; tobacco ingestion otherwise may be dangerous. The main indications mentioned by the informant included problems of the mind, of the respiratory system, parasitic illnesses (intestinal/skin), gout, and Amazonian epistemic conditions described as spiritual-energetic in nature.”

And last, but not least, smoking has been shown to inhibit (mostly) MAO-B, which of course results in higher dopamine levels. This pro-dopamine effect of smoking may be the reason for the known lower risk of Parkinson Disease (PD) in smokers and other users of tobacco products. Furthermore, the MAO-B inhibitor selegiline (Deprenyl), link here is one of the few proven anti-aging agents in humans, and is known to be used by various celebrities, politicians and other social elites for lifespan extension and retarding aging. This effect of smoking/tobacco may be a major reason behind any potential life-extending effects seen in smoking super-centenarians.

3 links here

So, maybe that’s the main message here – unmodified tobacco may be indeed a highly beneficial natural remedy, with the benefits present mostly in using the plant through means that do not produce carcinogenic byproducts (e.g. smoking). However, even when smoked it seems that tobacco may still be a good “doctor” (see medical student with UC story above), despite doctors uniformly condemning tobacco/smoking as one of the biggest evils of the modern lifestyle. I wonder how many of the harms of even smoking are due not so much to the undeniably carcinogenic smoke, but to the toxic additives present in the vast majority of commercially sold cigarettes/cigars. The toxic ammonia and the carcinogenic flame retardants that are now mandated in commercial tobacco products by law may very well turn out to be a much bigger villain than the humble leaf from Amazonia.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2702.mp3" length="2068892" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Our microbiome produces serotonin (5-HT), independently of the GI tract</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2700</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2700</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 25 Oct 2024 17:59:48 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2700

The topic of endotoxin/LPS, 5-HT and gut dysbiosis is a recurring one in the bioenergetic sphere and there is hardly a chronic (and acute – i.e. flu, COVID-19) disease that has not been at least partially linked to our gut bacteria overproducing endotoxin, which then acts on the gut lining – enterochromaffin cells (EC) – to trigger 5-HT, histamine and nitric oxide (NO) production, leading to GI and subsequently systemic inflammation and diseases. As such, keeping the gut bacteria (microbiome) under control with antibiotics, insoluble fiber, charcoal, etc is one of the main mechanisms for improving health in the bioenergetic sphere. Another important aspect in the bionergetic view is that one should consume foods that are easily digestible so that they are absorbs easily and early in the GI tract (stomach and upper small intestine) and do not reach the colon where they would feed the microbiome. There is also a focus on not consuming substances that physically or chemically irritate the intestine (e.g. silica, talc, titanium dioxide, gums, vegetable rennet, etc) since irritation (even without presence of food) would also trigger the same serotonin-histamine-NO-inflammation cascade.

Well, the study below demonstrates why keeping the microbiome in check may be a top priority. It shows that human gut bacteria, at least in babies, produces very high amounts of 5-HT independently of the EC in the gut. In fact, about half of the bacterial species contained in the microbiome (both animal and human) apparently produce 5-HT on their own. That bacterial-derived 5-HT has the role of an immunosuppressant for the baby to dampen allergic reactions. Aside from elucidating an additional major source of 5-HT int the human organism, the study also suggests that “exogenous” serotonin is also bioactive, which is something most doctors still refuse to believe. Namely, medicine has focused mostly on the 5-HT produced by the EC in the gut since they claim that mostly such 5-HT enters the circulation and is of systemic importance. Since the externally (bacterially) produced 5-HT in this study most certainly produced systemic (immune) effects, I think it is pretty clear that exogenous 5-HT matters. That corroborates Ray’s views that one should be careful when consuming foods naturally high in 5-HT such as kiwis, dates, and (unripe) bananas.

2 links here

“…The infant gut is packed with a medley of molecules that dictate development during a critical time in a newborns’ life. But how these molecules interact with and influence immune cells early in life isn’t fully understood. Now, in a study published in Science Signaling, a team of scientists revealed how one molecule produced in the gut, the neurotransmitter serotonin, activates a subset of T cells, link here and dampens the immune system.1 The authors linked gut-derived serotonin to the creation of tolerance against allergens, suggesting that the pathway may play a role in the development of conditions such as asthma and food allergies.”

“…However, when Zeng and her team profiled the metabolites in the gut of neonatal mice, they found that the neonatal intestine had an unexpectedly high amount of the neurotransmitter serotonin. But the serotonin was not coming from the enterochromaffin cells, the cells that produce serotonin in adults, but rather from the gut’s resident bacteria. When they isolated bacteria from both neonatal mice and healthy human infants they found that around half of the microbes in their samples produced serotonin.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2700.mp3" length="1236764" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pro-oxidant therapy (w/ vitamin K) may treat cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2698</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2698</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 25 Oct 2024 17:27:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2698

The study is very new so I can’t get access to its full contents yet, but I wanted to post about it ASAP as it is one of the first studies in a major journal that specifically targets cancer’s redox nature – i.e. “cancer” cells are in a highly reduced state and administering pro-oxidant therapy (i.e. oxidizing agents or NAD+ precursors) is likely to be therapeutic. As my readers know quite well, quinone molecules are some of the most widely used for basic research and redox modulation, and the naphthoquinone family has been studied extensively specifically for cancer. Vitamin K and its analogs are napththoquinones that have been getting a lot of attention lately, culminating in the FDA approval of a cancer drug called Apatone (combination of vitamin K3 and vitamin C), which works exclusively through redox/metabolic mechanisms. Well, the study below used just vitamin K3 specifically for its pro-oxidant effects and found that it greatly diminished prostate cancer growth. The mechanism of action was generic (i.e. redox state) and applicable to every cell, healthy or “cancerous” alike. The study had an in-vivo component, and since most prostate cancer mouse models are done with xenograft models (human tumor hosted by another organism), the findings of study suggests that the effects of vitamin K(3) are relevant for human cancer. Since I cannot get access to the full study, I don’t know what dose they used and for how long the administration lasted. However, most human studies with the closely-related vitamin K2 (MK-4) typically use 30mg-45mg for cancer, and there are already highly promising human cancer trials with vitamin K2 (MK-4). In fact, the rumor is that vitamin K2 (MK-4) may soon be approved as a prescription drug for preventing/treating liver cancer, as well as various blood cancers (leukemias, lymphomas, etc). So, it looks like medicine is finally waking up from its “slumber” and recognizing that metabolism and redox state sit at the very core of “cancer” and should be primary targets for its treatment.

link here

“…In this work, we show that a pro-oxidant vitamin K precursor [menadione sodium bisulfite (MSB)] suppresses PC progression in mice, killing cells through an oxidative cell death: MSB antagonizes the essential class III phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinase VPS34-the regulator of endosome identity and sorting-through oxidation of key cysteines, pointing to a redox checkpoint in sorting. Testing MSB in a myotubular myopathy model that is driven by loss of MTM1-the phosphatase antagonist of VPS34-we show that dietary MSB improved muscle histology and function and extended life span. These findings enhance our understanding of pro-oxidant selectivity and show how definition of the pathways they impinge on can give rise to unexpected therapeutic opportunities.”

link here

“…Prostate cancer is a quiet killer. In most men, it’s treatable. However, in some cases, it resists all known therapies and turns extremely deadly. Published in the journal Science, a new discovery at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) points to a potentially groundbreaking solution. CSHL Professor Lloyd Trotman’s lab has found that the pro-oxidant supplement menadione (vitamin K3) slows prostate cancer progression in mice. The supplement is a precursor to vitamin K, commonly found in leafy greens. The story begins more than two decades ago.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2698.mp3" length="1031996" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>New IdeaLabs Product – 3α-Dihydroprogesterone (3α-DHP)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2691</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2691</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 01 Oct 2024 18:36:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2691

As many of my readers know, the medical industry has been quietly increasing its interest in and clinical trials with so-called “neurosteroids”, most of them members of the pregnane family. I think the term “neurosteroid” as used by mainstream medicine is a misnomer as it is used selectively for only a few of all the known steroids, despite the fact that virtually all of them have been demonstrated to have a central (brain) effect. For example, currently the label “neurosteroid” is applied almost exclusively to steroids such as pregnenolone, progesterone, allopregnanolone and various of their synthetic derivatives, though steroid families such as estrogens, androgens, mineralo/gluco-corticoids, and even thyroid hormones have all been demonstrated to have potent and rapid central effects as well, with indisputable influence on mood, cognition, various neurological conditions, traumas (e.g. TBI) and even cancer.

Recently, the FDA approved the progesterone derivative allopregnanolone, link here (3α, 5α-tetrahydroprogesterone), commonly known as Allo or AlloP, as a treatment for post-partum depression. In addition, multiple companies are running clinical trials with that steroid for wide range of other conditions including dementia (e.g. Alzheimer Disease), anxiety disorders, autism, psychotic states (e.g. schizophrenia), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and even direct brain damage states such as traumatic brain injury (TBI) as well as its chronic form known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). As of now, the only condition for which AlloP has been approved is postpartum depression with expectations that the steroid will soon be also approved for depression of any origin. The currently approved formulation is through IV infusion, but some of the new formulations currently being tested are meant for oral use, and use a preparation very close to the ideas of Dr. Peat for using long-chain fats and vitamin E to circumvent first-pass metabolism of any steroid and ensure most of the steroid gets absorbed through the lymphatic system. As such, selling AlloP has become very legally risky.

Interestingly enough, the first commercial antidepressant of the SSRI class known as fluoxetine (Prozac) was found to increase the activity and expression of an enzyme called 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3α-HSD), link here, which is one of the major steps in synthesizing allopregnanolone from progesterone.

2 links here

Since levels of allopregnanolone have been consistently found to increase after fluoxetine administration, and allopregnanolone levels were found to be universally low in people with depression (as well as many other brain/mood conditions) the hypothesis was that it was allopregnanolone that was the true antidepressant, with fluoxetine functioning only as a trigger for the synthesis of that “neurosteroid”.

link here

However, this hypothesis is incomplete since fluoxetine was found to increase activity and expression of mostly 3α-HSD, and while this MAY results in higher allopregnanolone levels it does not guarantee it, since the cascade has to also pass through the enzyme 5α-reductase (5-AR) in order to synthesize allopregnanolone. In fact, the steps of allopregnanolone synthesis are as follows: progesterone -> 5α-dihydroprogesterone (5-AR activity) -> allopregnanolone (3α-reductase activity). If fluoxetine selectively increases the activity of only 3α-HSD, then the only thing that can be said for sure is that fluoxetine would increase the levels of a steroid that takes progesterone as input and produces a 3α-reduced steroid, which is a steroid with a hydroxyl group (OH) on position C-3, in the alpha configuration. Once progesterone goes through 3α-HSD, and produces a C-3-ol steroid, the reaction terminates there, since that output steroid cannot undergo processing by 5-AR, as the latter can only accept as input steroids with a keto group on C-3 (progesterone, testosterone, cortisol, etc). However, since the enzyme 3α-HSD is bi-directional (oxido-reductase), the end steroid output may get converted back to progesterone. The output of the progesterone being processed by 3α-HSD is the steroid 3α-Dihydroprogesterone (3α-DHP), link here, and if fluoxetine works primarily by increasing 3α-HSD activity and levels, then a more appropriate hypothesis would be that the anti-depressant and anti-anxiety effects of fluoxetine may be due more to the increased levels of 3α-DHP, and not so much on the increased levels of allopregnanolone.

link here

Interestingly enough, 3α-DHP has been found to have the same affinity and strength as a GABA agonist as allopregnanolone, and the latter is known as the most potent endogenous GABA agonist agent. As such, multiple studies have demonstrated that 3α-DHP has similar anxiolytic, sedative and analgesic effects as allopregnanolone. In addition, levels of 3α-DHP have been found to be low in many conditions where allopregnanolone levels have also been found to be low.

“…3α-Dihydroprogesterone (3α-DHP), also known as 3α-hydroxyprogesterone, as well as pregn-4-en-3α-ol-20-one, is an endogenous, link here neurosteroid, link here.[1], link here It is biosynthesized, link here by 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase, link here from progesterone, link here.[1], link here 3α-DHP has been found to act as a positive allosteric modulator, link here of the GABAA receptor, link here and is described as being as active as allopregnanolone, link here in regard to this action.[1], link here In accordance, it has anxiolytic, link here effects in animals.[2], link here 3α-DHP has also been found to inhibit the secretion of follicle-stimulating hormone, link here (FSH) from the rat pituitary gland, link here, demonstrating possible antigonadotropic, link here properties.[1], link here Unlike the case of most other inhibitory neurosteroids, 3α-DHP production is not blocked by 5α-reductase inhibitors, link here like finasteride, link here.[1], link here No data were available on the progestogenic activity of 3α-DHP as of 1977.[3], link here Levels of 5α-DHP have been quantified.[4], link here”

Strong GABA agonists are known to have a cortisol-lowering effects and there are several published case reports showing successful treatment of Cushing disease/syndrome in some people using the anti-anxiety benzodiazepine drugs (also GABA agonists, but more selective). Being the strongest endogenous GABA agonist, allopregnanolone has also been demonstrated to have cortisol-lowering effects in humans.

3 links here

Cortisol is a proven causal factor in depression, confirmed by multiple studies demonstrating rapid antidepressant effects of glucocorticoid antagonists (e.g. Mifepristone/RU486) in both animals and humans, as well as by rapid depressive effects caused by synthetic (e.g. dexamethasone) and natural (e.g. cortisol) glucocorticoid agonists. Since allopregnanolone has been shown to lower cortisol in humans that may explain most of its anti-depressant effects, as well as its anxiolytic effects.

link here

 

4 links here

As the Wiki article above states, 3α-DHP is as effective as allopregnanolone in terms of GABA activity, and likely has the same mental/physiological effects. Also, unlike allopregnanolone, 3α-DHP is not affected by administration of 5-AR inhibitor drugs such as finasteride, and is not currently regulated by medical authorities (e.g. FDA) in the US or other any other of the 30+ countries I was able to check.

link here

“…The effects of the centrally produced allylic neurosteroid, 3 alpha-hydroxy-4-pregnen-20-one (3 alpha HP), on the responses of male mice to an aversive, anxiety-inducing, predator (cat) odor were examined in an odor preference test. Control untreated mice displayed an anxiogenic response to the cat odor, spending a minimal amount of time in a Y-maze in the vicinity of the cat odor. Intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) administrations of 3 alpha HP had an anxiolytic action, resulting in significant dose-related (0.01-1.0 micrograms) increases in the amount of time spent in the proximity of the cat odor. These anxiolytic effects of 3 alpha HP were stereospecific, with the stereoisomer, 3 beta-hydroxy-4-pregnen-20-one (3 beta HP) having no significant effects on odor preferences. The analgesic, morphine, also had no significant effects on the response to cat odor indicating that the anxiolytic actions of 3 alpha HP were unlikely to be related to any analgesic effects. The effects of 3 alpha HP were significantly reduced by peripheral administrations of the GABAA antagonists, bicuculline and picrotoxin, but were unaffected by either the benzodiazepine antagonist, Ro 15-1788, or the opiate antagonist, naloxone. These results indicate that the allylic neurosteroid 3 alpha HP has anxiolytic actions involving interactions with the GABAA receptor.”

link here

“…Here we show that brief exposure of male mice to an ELF magnetic field (30 min, 60 Hz, 141 microT peak) significantly reduces the analgesic effects arising from intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) administration of the centrally produced allylic neuroactive steroid, 3alpha-hydroxy-4-pregnen-20-one (3alphaHP) and that the dihydropyridine (DHP) calcium channel antagonists, diltiazem and nifedipine, block the inhibitory effects of the 60 Hz ELF on 3alphaHP-induced analgesia. These results indicate that exposure to 60 Hz ELF affects the analgesic effects of neuroactive steroids such as 3alphaHP through alterations in calcium channel function. These findings raise the possibility that ELF magnetic fields may, in part, exert their actions through effects on diverse neuroactive steroid modulated processes.”

link here

“…This allylic steroid elicited significant, dose-dependent (0.001-1.0 micrograms) analgesic responses for 90-150 min after injection. These analgesic effects of 3A4P were stereospecific, the stereoisomer, 3 beta-hydroxy-4-pregnen-20-one (3B4P) failing to affect the nociceptive responses. The analgesic effects of 3A4P were blocked by peripheral administrations of the GABA antagonists, bicuculline and picrotoxin, and reduced by the benzodiazepine antagonist, Ro 15-1788. The exogenous opiate antagonist, naloxone, and the putative endogenous opioid antagonist, Tyr-MIF-1 (Pro-Leu-Gly-amide), also reduced 3A4P-induced analgesia, while i.c.v. administration of 3A4P (0.001 and 0.01 micrograms) itself attenuated the analgesic effects arising from peripheral administrations of opiate receptor agonist, morphine. In addition, the calcium channel antagonists, nifedipine and verapamil, enhanced 3A4P-induced analgesia but had no evident effects on the actions of 3B4P. These results suggest that the central analgesic effects of the FSH-suppressing steroid, 3A4P, arise via benzodiazepine–GABA–opiate mechanisms and calcium channels.”

The interesting properties of 3α-DHP are not exhausted by its close mimicry/overlap with allopregnanolone. The studies below suggest that it has a number of other interesting effects, at least in animals, include unique anti-cancer effects NOT shared by allopregnanolone. Since one of the tumor cell lines used in many of those cancer studies was the estrogen-sensitive (ER+) line known as MCF-7, a reasonable conclusion may be that 3α-DHP has anti-estrogenic effects, not shared by its cousin allopregnanolone, as other estrogen antagonists have also showed anti-cancer effects in MCF-7 models. For the record, 3α-DHP also demonstrated inhibitory effects on tumor growth from estrogen- and progesterone-negative cell likes, which suggests its effects are generic/systemic and not only focused on a specific steroid pathway.

link here

“…Onset and growth of ER/PR-negative human breast cell tumors were significantly stimulated by 5αP and inhibited by 3αHP. When both hormones were applied simultaneously, the stimulatory effects of 5αP were abrogated by the inhibitory effects of 3αHP and vice versa. Treatment with 3αHP subsequent to 5αP-induced tumor initiation resulted in suppression of further tumorigenesis and regression of existing tumors. The levels of 5αP in tumors, regardless of treatment, were about 10-fold higher than the levels of 3αHP, and the 5αP:3αHP ratios were about fivefold higher than in serum, indicating significant changes in endogenous synthesis of these hormones in tumorous breast tissues.”

link here

“…The studies were conducted on tumorigenic (MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, T47D) and non-tumorigenic (MCF-10A) human breast cell lines, employing several methods to assess the effects of the hormones on cell proliferation, mitosis, apoptosis and expression of Bcl-2, Bax and p21. In all four cell lines, 5alphaP increased, whereas 3alphaHP decreased cell numbers, [(3)H]thymidine uptake and mitotic index. Apoptosis was stimulated by 3alphaHP and suppressed by 5alphaP. 5alphaP resulted in increases in Bcl-2/Bax ratio, indicating decreased apoptosis; 3alphaHP resulted in decreases in Bcl-2/Bax ratio, indicating increased apoptosis. The effects of either 3alphaHP or 5alphaP on cell numbers, [(3)H]thymidine uptake, mitosis, apoptosis, and Bcl-2/Bax ratio, were abrogated when cells were treated simultaneously with both hormones. The expression of p21 was increased by 3alphaHP, and was unaffected by 5alphaP. The results provide the first evidence that 5alphaP stimulates mitosis and suppresses apoptosis, whereas 3alphaHP inhibits mitosis and stimulates apoptosis. The opposing effects of 5alphaP and 3alphaHP were observed in all four breast cell lines examined and the data suggest that all breast cancers (estrogen-responsive and unresponsive) might be suppressed by blocking 5alphaP formation and/or increasing 3alphaHP. ”

link here

“…Recent evidence suggests that progesterone metabolites play important roles in regulating breast cancer. Previous studies have shown that tumorous tissues have higher 5α-reductase (5αR) and lower 3α-hydroxysteroid oxidoreductase (3α-HSO) and 20α-HSO activities. The resulting higher levels of 5α-reduced progesterone metabolites such as 5α-pregnane-3,20-dione (5αP) in tumorous tissue promote cell proliferation and detachment, whereas the 4-pregnene metabolites, 4-pregnen-3α-ol-20-one (3αHP) and 4-pregnen-20α-ol-3-one (20αDHP), more prominent in normal tissue, have the opposite (anti-cancer-like) effects. The aim of this study was to determine if the differences in enzyme activities between tumorous and nontumorous breast tissues are associated with differences in progesterone metabolizing enzyme gene expression.”

“…The study shows changes in progesterone metabolizing enzyme gene expression in human breast carcinoma. Expression of SRD5A1 (5αR1) and SRD5A2 (5αR2) is elevated, and expression of AKR1C1 (20α-HSO), AKR1C2 (3α-HSO3) and AKR1C3 (3α-HSO2) is reduced in tumorous as compared to normal breast tissue. The changes in progesterone metabolizing enzyme expression levels help to explain the increases in mitogen/metastasis inducing 5αP and decreases in mitogen/metastasis inhibiting 3αHP progesterone metabolites found in breast tumor tissues. Understanding what causes these changes in expression could help in designing protocols to prevent or reverse the changes in progesterone metabolism associated with breast cancer.”

Furthermore, another study demonstrated striking spermatogenic effects of 3α-DHP, which were much stronger than the spermatogenic effects of testosterone. However, unlike testosterone, DHT and other related steroids, 3α-DHP did not display androgenic effects. Assuming allopregnanolone has similar effects, I would not be surprised if we soon see clinical trials for allopregnanolone (and/or, God forbid, 3α-DHP) as treatments for infertility, especially considering the skyrocketing rates of this issue in most Western/developed countries.

link here

“…The effect of 3 alpha-hydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one (3HP), a Sertoli cell steroid, on spermatogenesis was examined in normal and gonadotropin-suppressed rats, through s.c. as well as direct intratesticular injections. Early experiments employing normal prepubertal male rats indicated that 3HP, when administered at 65 micrograms/100 g BW daily for 15 days, was capable of stimulating pachytene spermatocyte number to 149% of untreated control numbers. It was of interest to determine if this effect could be amplified in gonadotropin-suppressed animals. Neonatally estrogenized rats (500 micrograms estradiol benzoate in 0.1 ml oil at 2 days) were treated on alternate days with 3HP (100 micrograms/100 g BW) for 3 wk, starting at 7 days of age. This treatment significantly increased the number of spermatocytes per tubule cross section from 17.3 +/- 1.9 (in estradiol benzoate-only animals) to 47.1 +/- 7.9 (p less than 0.01). In a similar study, 100 micrograms/100 g BW of testosterone propionate could stimulate spermatocyte number to only 15.1 +/- 2.2 cells per tubule cross section versus estradiol benzoate-only numbers. A single intratesticular injection of 3HP (2 ng in 2.0 microliters oil) in Methallibure-treated rats resulted in a significant increase in late pachytene spermatocyte numbers from 0.77 +/- 0.12 in Methallibure-only-treated rats to 1.70 +/- 0.10 (p less than 0.001) cells per tubule cross section in 28-day-old rats. However, in this study, no other progesterone metabolite or androgenic steroid (testosterone, 5 alpha-dihydrotestosterone, or 5 alpha-androstan-3 alpha, 17 beta-diol) tested was capable of this level of germ cell stimulation. In conclusion, 3HP appears to have a direct effect on germ cell development within the testis at levels much lower than those shown to be effective for androgens. It does not appear that this effect is mediated through the conversion of 3HP to any C21 or C19 steroids, and appears to be the first report of a Sertoli cell steroid with a possible role in the process of mammalian spermatogenesis.”

link here

“…Treatment of young (15-day-old) intact males with either 3-HP or 17 beta-hydroxy-5 alpha-androstan-3-one (DHT) for 14 days showed that DHT resulted in significant increases in prostate and seminal vesicle weights, while 3-HP showed no apparent androgenic activity. ”

Finally, 3α-DHP seems to have pro-sexual effects (at least in males) as it increased the preference of treated males for the odor of estrous females. While the study discusses GABA agonism by 3α-DHP as the main mechanism in achieving this pro-sexual effects, I suspect there is more at play since the administered GABA abtagonists did not completely block the effect. In my opinion, given the similar structure between 3α-DHP and allopregnanolone, the pro-dopamine and anti-serotonin (5-HT3 blocker) effects of the latter are likely to both be present in the former, and both of those pathways have a known pro-libido and performance enhancing effects.

link here

“…The effects of the centrally produced allylic neurosteroid, 3 alpha-hydroxy-4-pregnen-20-one (3 alpha HP), on the responses of male mice to the odors of estrous female mice were examined in an odor preference test. Control untreated mice displayed a significant preference for the odors of an estrous female, spending more time in a Y-maze in the vicinity of the odors of an estrous than a non-estrous female. Intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) administrations of 3 alpha HP enhanced male preference for the odors of estrous females, causing a significant dose-related (0.01-1.0 microgram) increase in the amount of time spent in the proximity of the odors of the estrous female, while having no significant effect on the responses to the non-estrous female odors. These effects of 3 alpha HP were stereospecific, with the stereoisomer, 3 beta-hydroxy-4-pregnen-20-one (3 beta HP), having no significant effects on odor preferences. The analgesic, morphine, also had no significant effects on the responses to female odors suggesting that the enhanced preference for estrous female odors were unlikely to be directly due to any analgesic effects of 3 alpha HP. The effects of 3 alpha HP were significantly reduced by peripheral administrations of the GABAA antagonists, bicuculline and picrotoxin, but were unaffected by either the benzodiazepine antagonist, Ro 15-1788, or the opiate antagonist, naloxone. These results suggest that the neurosteroid 3 alpha HP has facilitatory effects on olfactory mediated male sexual interest or motivation that involve interactions with the GABAA receptor.”

All in all, quite an interesting substance, and given its non-regulated nature we decided to release it as a product to the general public. It can be bought from the links below.

2 links here

The units listed on the label are just for measurement purposes. They do not indicate or suggest optimal dose. Please note that similar to the liquid products sold by companies like Sigma Aldrich, Spectrum Chemical, Alfa Aesar, etc, this product if for lab/research use only.

*******************************************************************************

3α-DHP is a liquid (very viscous) product containing a bioidentical endogenous neurosteroid known as 3α-dihydroprogesterone (3α-DHP). While that steroid has not been as extensively studied as the closely-related neurosteroid allopregnanolone, 3α-DHP can perhaps be best described as an allopregnanolone mimetic, with similar (though not identical) pharmacological profile and strength (especially on the GABA system). Some of the more unique and interesting properties of 3α-DHP include its anti-cancer effects demonstrated in animal studies, with the notable finding that those anti-cancer effects are NOT shared by neither allopregnanolone nor its precursor neurosteroid 5α-dihydroprogesterone (5α-DHP). In addition, 3α-DHP has demonstrated potent spermatogenic and pro-sexual effects in some animal studies, with the former fax exceeding the effects of any other known and tested steroid (e.g. androgens).

Drops per container: about 250

Each drop contains the following ingredients:

3α-dihydroprogesterone (CAS 25680-68-6): 1mg

Other ingredients: add product to shopping cart to see info

*******************************************************************************

REFERENCES:

7 links here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2691.mp3" length="5039516" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:11:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin A may prevent/treat motor neuron diseases, including the lethal ALS</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2689</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2689</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 24 Sep 2024 19:02:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2689

Yet another study that will surely earn me even more hate from the vitamin A antagonist crowd:-) Yet, the findings of the study below are quite clear. Namely, retinoic acid receptor (RAR) agonists, of which retinoic acid is the primary endogenous one, may both prevent and treat a number of progressive and often lethal neurological conditions against which there is currently not only no cure, but there is also no effective “symptom management therapy” either. Perhaps the most dreaded example is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is not only invariably lethal within 3-5 years of diagnosis but has seen its rates climb sharply in the last several decades. The study used the so-called “superagonist” of RAR known as ellorarxine, link here, but as the study states all the findings apply equally well to vitamin A, but probably at higher than physiological doses. The mechanism of action of the drug was opined to be related to its ability to decrease systemic inflammation, as ascertained by biomarkers such as interleukins, TNF-a, NF-kB, etc. Interestingly, the patent on the drug (link above) also states that the pharma company developing the drug thinks it would be effective for psychiatric conditions as well, including schizophrenia. Btw, one notable study finding was that despite using a “superagonist” of RAR on mice and rats, the study did not observe any toxicity. So, if a super-potent vitamin A analog did not cause toxicity, maybe vitamin A is not quite the villain some people have presented it to be.

2 links here

“…New research from the University of Aberdeen published, link here today in Frontiers in Neuroscience, found, for the first time, that drugs that target the specific receptors necessary to activate vitamin A may be therapeutic for diseases that lead to deterioration of the brain. Specifically, when disease conditions were simulated in the laboratory, the team found that super-activation of the vitamin A signaling system helped protect against the type of damage that can occur in diseases such as MND. Professor Peter McCaffery, Chair in Medical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, who led the study, explains, “We discovered that these drugs bind and turn on the ‘retinoic acid receptor,’ a key protein involved in activation of vitamin A in the body.” Azita Kouchmeshky, neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, and first author, said, “We tested these drugs in a series of studies on neurons grown in a dish. Chemicals were added to the neurons that caused harm similar to the changes that occur in diseases such as MND or ALS. “Usually, these chemicals will cause the neurons to die. However, the application of the drugs that bind to the retinoic acid receptor significantly reduced the number of cells that died off. “The same drugs were also tested in mice and were found to induce changes that suggest they may also be effective in the body.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2689.mp3" length="773300" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Another “Paradox”: Aspirin lowers risk of intracranial bleeding, mortality</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2687</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2687</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 16 Sep 2024 19:51:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2687

As my readers know from prior posts, Big Pharma has spared no resource in its quest to convince the public that taking aspirin is at least as dangerous as playing a Russian roulette. One of the most commonly cited (and fear-inducing) reasons doctors give to patients against using aspirin regular is the bleeding risk that allegedly aspirin increases. Multiple studies have come out in the last 10-15 years showing that the alleged risk has been dramatically overblown and does not correspond to the available data. In addition, several studied demonstrates that aspirin can reduce the risk of dying from a major bleeding event in the GI tract or brain. Those bleeding risks in GI tract and brain are even listed on aspirin products as official warnings by the FDA. The study below is perhaps the first to show that aspirin not only reduces risk of dying from a bleeding event, but actually reduces the risk of bleeding itself. At least when it comes to the brain, that is, which also happens to be the more feared bleeding risk type given the difficulty of controlling a bleeding event in the brain (as opposed to the GI tract). In addition, the hospitalized (cancer) patients taking aspirin had (juts like in the prior aspirin studies mentioned above) lower mortality, lower rate of strokes, shorter hospital stays and were easier to stabilize/treat. It looks like the study came dangerously close to showing that aspirin may cure the cancer of those patients as well, but given the low dosage such an outcome was not expected.

I would not be surprised if soon we see studies, which found that aspirin reduces risk of GI bleeding as well, and does not cause GI ulcerations, as currently claimed. But it looks like such studies may not be needed, as another recent study found that a majority of people over 50 take aspirin regularly despite their doctor’s advice (actually, orders would be a more appropriate word). As the former editor of the esteemed BMJ said – until serious evidence to the contrary is available, one should assume every public health warning/policy is fraudulent, as it is likely based on openly fraudulent research. The story of aspirin’s fear-porn  is perhaps one of the best examples of that.

link here

“…A new analysis hints that there may be a benefit from aspirin for hospitalized patients with leukemia. In a preliminary study, researchers found that aspirin users had much lower odds of intracranial bleeding, deep vein thrombosis, in-hospital mortality, and septic stroke. Aspirin users also spent less time in the hospital and had less costly care.  No one is suggesting that clinicians give aspirin to hospitalized patients with leukemia when the drug is not otherwise indicated. However, the findings, link here, released at the Society of Hematologic Oncology, link here (SOHO 2024) meeting in Houston, do indicate that more research is warranted, study lead author Jayalekshmi Jayakumar, MD, of the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City, said in a presentation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2687.mp3" length="997052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone (P5) may treat for COVID-19, by increasing dopamine</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2685</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2685</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2024 16:51:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2685

A very interesting study, which is bound to be labelled as “controversial” and my post about it will probably get censored on Twitter/X and other social media if/when it gets shared there. Given that the mechanism of action reported by the study (dopamine enhancement) is so generic, the findings of the study possibly apply to other respiratory viral infections (URTI) too, which should not only make P5 a candidate for treating influenza, cold, and the rest of the viruses responsible for URTI, but may obviate the need for vaccines against those viruses if P5 intake is regular (as it is for most people who use it). Years ago, I posted about studies showing that cholesterol and progesterone also have protective effects in severe influenza infections, which suggests that one of the reasons for ever-increasing magnitude and severity of viral pandemics may be due to the widespread use of statins, as well as hormonal birth control in women. The reason I mention birth control is that despite most hormonal contraceptives containing synthetic progestins , most of those progestins have been found to behave nothing like bioidentical progesterone (which is very rarely used clinically) and (many/most) are in fact potent agonists of the estrogen receptor(s).

link here

“…n the post-COVID-19 era, treatment options for potential SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks remain limited. An increased incidence of central nervous system (CNS) disorders has been observed in long-term COVID-19 patients. Understanding the shared molecular mechanisms between these conditions may provide new insights for developing effective therapies. This study developed an integrative drug-repurposing framework for COVID-19, leveraging comorbidity data with CNS disorders, network-based modular analysis, and dynamic perturbation analysis to identify potential drug targets and candidates against SARS-CoV-2. We constructed a comorbidity network based on the literature and data collection, including COVID-19-related proteins and genes associated with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and autism spectrum disorder. Functional module detection and annotation identified a module primarily involved in protein synthesis as a key target module, utilizing connectivity map drug perturbation data. Through the construction of a weighted drug–target network and dynamic network-based drug-repurposing analysis, ubiquitin–carboxy-terminal hydrolase L1 emerged as a potential drug target. Molecular dynamics simulations suggested pregnenolone and BRD-K87426499 as two drug candidates for COVID-19. This study introduces a dynamic-perturbation-network-based drug-repurposing approach to identify COVID-19 drug targets and candidates by incorporating the comorbidity conditions of CNS disorders.”

“…Many candidate drugs have been proposed as repurposable drugs against SARS-CoV-2 infection, such as a group of kinase inhibitors [26, link here,52, link here], estrogen receptor modulators [53, link here], microtubule-regulating agents [54, link here], HCV inhibitors [55, link here], and H1 antihistamines [27, link here]. Notably, several drugs active in the CNS have been identified as repurposable for COVID-19, following SAveRUNNER analysis, such as dopaminergics and dopamine antagonists [56, link here]. Herein, we proposed a series of dopamine-related drugs as potential drugs for COVID-19 treatment, especially pregnenolone and BRD-K87426499. Pregnenolone, as a dopamine release enhancer, is closely linked to the role of UCHL1 in regulating the dopamine system. UCHL1 may affect the function of dopaminergic neurons by participating in the processing of alpha-synuclein and reducing its accumulation, thereby inhibiting the production of alpha-synuclein aggregates in PD. Concurrently, it promotes dopamine release in the SCNS, which can alleviate local and systemic damage to the dopamine system and slow the progression of AD. This drug’s MOA in AD and PD suggests that pregnenolone and BRD-K87426499 may have a similar therapeutic effect in treating COVID-19.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2685.mp3" length="620900" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA/endotoxin cause Alzheimer Disease (AD), the plaques beta-amyloid/tau are protective</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2683</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2683</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 19:17:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2683

One of the biggest failures of medicine to date is prevention and treatment of AD. As I posted a decade ago, 99%+ of all AD clinical trials over the last 20+ years have miserably failed. All those failed drugs have targeted one or both of the purported main causes of AD – the beta-amyloid and tau proteins, accumulating in the brains of AD patients.

link here

Worse, the situation with preventing/treating AD has deteriorated so much more over those last 10 years that the latest AD drug (also targeting beta-amyloid/tau accumulation) approved by the FDA triggered the resignation of three (3) members of the drug approval board who thought that the drug is utterly ineffective and only getting approved as a “cash cow” for the pharma company running the trials with it.

link here

In other words, ALL attempts to prevent or treat AD by targeting the beta-amyloid and/or tau plaques in the brains of AD patients have completely failed. As a result, a reasonable person would/should conclude that those plaques may not the main driver of AD, and may even be a protective mechanism the brain develops against another factor that actually causes the disease. Also a decade ago, I stumbled across the apparently well-known effects of the beta-amyloid protein (one of the two major proteins in AD plaques) as a powerful, brain-specific anti-oxidant, and an anti-microbial. Considering that the main role of anti-oxidants is protection against lipid peroxidation and reactive oxygen species (ROS), both of which promote each other, as well as the known compromised gut barrier in AD patients (i.e. increased systemic endotoxin) I made the (perhaps simplistic) suggestion in a podcast that the plaques seen in AD are nothing but a (possibly suboptimal) attempt of the brain to protect itself from PUFA and endotoxin/LPS.

4 links here

“…The normal function of Aβ is not yet known.[9], link here Though some animal studies have shown that the absence of Aβ does not lead to any obvious loss of physiological function,[10], link here[11], link here several potential activities have been discovered for Aβ, including activation of kinase, link here enzymes, link here,[12], link here[13], link here protection against oxidative stress, link here,[14], link here[15], link here regulation of cholesterol, link here transport,[16], link here[17], link here functioning as a transcription factor, link here,[18], link here[19], link here and anti-microbial activity.”

Now, in a healthy person eating diverse foods, including organ meats, this protective role would be performed by vitamin E. However, vitamin E intake has significantly dropped in “developed” countries and nowadays medicine even warns against taking vitamin E supplements due to this vitamin being linked to several cancers. Of course, those are just shameless lies, and autopsies on humans who died from AD demonstrate drastically reduced levels of vitamin E in the brains of such people. Furthermore, there are multiple animal studies demonstrating preventative and therapeutic effects of vitamin E in AD. So, preventing/treating AD may be as simple as taking vitamin E as a supplement or eating foods rich in that vitamin. Coincidentally, excessive fatty acid oxidation (FAO), lipid peroxidation, and high ROS are hallmarks of other conditions, especially diabetes (as well as cancer). In that context, one could consider AD as a brain-specific form of diabetes type II, and amenable to the same metabolic treatments. Several recent studies have made the same connection and have called on the FDA to reclassify AD as “diabetes of the brain” and allow drugs for diabetes II to be used for AD.

2 links here

While that is a great step in the right direction, the main first-line of therapy for diabetes II is the drug metformin, which happens to be a potent inhibitor of complex I of the electron transport chain (ETC) and as such is likely to drastically increase ROS levels as well as lipid (PUFA) peroxidation. Luckily, the pro-dopamine and anti-serotonin drug bromocriptine has also been approved by the FDA for diabetes II treatment and is a much better choice for both diabetes and AD.

link here

Despite FDA claiming that the mechanism of action for bromocriptine’s benefit in diabetes is unknown, multiple human and animal studies have demonstrated that bromocriptine lowers the levels of free fatty acids in the blood (anti-lipolysis), as well as FAO. With that in mind, niacinamide, thiamine, biotin, aspirin, progesterone, testosterone, DHT, etc all become possible candidates for AD drugs given their effects of inhibiting excessive lipolysis and FAO, promoting the oxidation of glucose, lowering PUFA peroxidation, and opposing both the effects of endotoxin/LPS, as well as its absorption from the gut.

Well, I digressed quite a bit, but I think it is worth it since the digression not only builds the case for AD being a metabolic, lipid/PUFA-driven disease, but also demonstrates that medicine has once again gotten things exactly backwards. The study below not only demonstrated protective effects of the tau protein against ROS, but also demonstrated that its lack can cause serious neurodegenerative changes. Administering a simple anti-oxidant (in this case NAC, which is risky and quite inferior to vitamin E) was able to protect against the ROS in a manner very similar to the tau protein, confirming the role of tau is indeed protective and related to lipid peroxidation, Speaking of lipids, the study opined that the ROS seen in AD can be caused by excessive lipid accumulation (like diabetes), and such accumulation (even when localized by the brain) can itself easily be caused by a low-carb/high-fat diet. Yet another reason to keep the fat intake at bay.

2 links here

“…Excess reactive oxygen species or free radicals (ROS) are a common feature of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease. A recent study by postdoctoral associate Dr. Lindsey Goodman and Dr. Hugo Bellen, link here, a distinguished service professor in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, who also holds a Chair in Neurogenetics at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, link here (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital, have discovered an important role for the disease-associated protein, Tau, in mitigating damage to the brain caused by excessive ROS and in promoting healthy aging. The study, link here was recently published in Nature Neuroscience.”

“…There is mounting evidence supporting the notion that our brains have developed multiple neuroprotective strategies to combat ROS-induced oxidative damage. Studies in the past decade by the Bellen Lab and others have found a new neuroprotective mechanism by which glia (non-neuron brain cells) help to protect neurons from these toxic peroxidated lipids. In 2015, the Bellen team discovered that these toxic lipids are exported to neighboring glial cells and sequestered into lipid droplets (LDs) for storage and future energy production. Lipid droplets are evolutionarily conserved organelles employed by many cell types including glia to stockpile lipids and this can be triggered under conditions of cellular stress such as a high-fat diet, inflammation, altered oxygen levels, etc…Lipid droplets play important roles during development, aging, and in neuropathologies. Recent studies have found a growing number of Alzheimer’s disease-risk-associated genes are associated with the formation and function of lipid droplets in the glia, suggesting that defects in this pathway contribute to disease progression.”

“…While previous research has highlighted Tau’s critical functions in neurons, the Bellen team found that endogenous Tau protein is also important in glia. Flies lacking Tau in glia showed signs of degeneration such as progressive motor defects and decreased lifespans. Interestingly, these flies build up peroxidated lipids in their brains and treating them with an antioxidant, N-acetylcysteine amide, can prevent the motor defects caused by Tau loss in glia. “We also found that endogenous Tau in flies is required for glial lipid droplet formation and for protecting against neuronal ROS. Similarly, Tau was required in glial cells obtained from rats and humans to form lipid droplets,” said Dr. Goodman.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2683.mp3" length="2420420" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E may resolve the “irreversible” side effects of anti-psychotic drugs</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2681</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2681</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 18:06:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2681

As many of my readers know, the current “standard of care” for treating conditions such as schizophrenia are anti-psychotic drugs, most of which are potent dopamine antagonists. One of the main side effects of taking such drugs is elevated prolactin (dopamine and prolactin oppose each other), which is another way of saying that dopamine antagonists are estrogenic. One of the symptoms of excess estrogen is repetitive, uncontrollable movements clinically known as chorea, as well as parkinsonism (due to the dopamine antagonism of the drugs). The family of chorea-like symptoms are ubiquitous in people taking anti-psychotic drugs. Mainstream medicine claims that such side effects not only cannot be addressed effectively, but are often permanent and irreversible. The study below demonstrates striking reductions (80%+) of those chorea-like symptoms in a patient using anti-psychotic drugs after 3 weeks of taking 400 IU vitamin E daily, and after that patient failed to respond to all other therapies. This is yet another confirmation of the anti-estrogenic effects of vitamin E, which were well-known and publicized up until the 1950s when mass estrogenic therapy was embraced by medicine and all natural anti-estrogenic substances were quickly “cancelled” from both the medical literature and clinical practice. Nowadays, if vitamin E is mentioned at all, it is always as an anti-oxidant and never as an endocrine modulator (e.g. progestogenic and anti-estrogenic).

link here

“…Antipsychotic medications, while crucial in managing severe psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are frequently associated with extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS) and tardive dyskinesia (TD). TD, characterized by repetitive, involuntary movements, especially of the face and limbs, poses a substantial clinical challenge due to its often irreversible nature. Conventional management strategies, including dose reduction and switching to atypical antipsychotics, frequently offer limited success, prompting exploration of alternative therapies. This case report highlights the effectiveness of vitamin E, a potent antioxidant, in treating a 28-year-old male with severe antipsychotic-induced EPS and TD, unresponsive to traditional therapies. The patient, who had been receiving paliperidone injections as part of his psychotic disorder treatment regimen, developed marked EPS, including muscle rigidity, a parkinsonian gait, significant motor disturbances as well as tardive dyskinesia. Despite discontinuation of paliperidone and initiation of procyclidine, propranolol, clonazepam, and omega-3 supplements, his symptoms persisted. Introduction of oral vitamin E at 400 IU daily led to a dramatic improvement, with an 80% reduction in EPS and TD symptoms within weeks.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2681.mp3" length="719708" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dopamine may treat all types of breast cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2679</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2679</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 17:29:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2679

A few years ago, I did a post on the strikingly positive effects in-vivo of the dopamine agonist and (partial) serotonin antagonist bromocriptine (a member of the ergot class) in breast cancer. Using both native tumors and human tumors transplanted into rodents, bromocriptine achieved ~50%+ cure rates – i.e. primary tumor and metastases completely regressed and did not recur. My though at the time was that this was solid evidence that breast cancer is caused (and promoted) by estrogen, and since anti-prolactin drugs are de-facto anti-estrogenic, the effects of bromocriptine are hardly surprising.

2 links here

At the time I had a few exchanges with doctors about that post, some of whom were oncologists. Their take was that since bromocriptine is a “dirty drug” (has multiple mechanisms of action) one cannot claim that it was bromocriptine’s anti-estrogenic effects that are solely responsible. And guess what? They were right…but for the wrong reasons! Since then, I discovered a multitude of studies demonstrating serotonin (5-HT) is both a cause and promoter of cancer, and that dopamine can activate the progesterone receptors. In other words, bromocriptine works by antagonizing estrogen and serotonin and promoting progesterone signalling, with the final conclusion being that estrogen/serotonin cause and promote cancer, while progesterone/dopamine are therapeutic. The study below corroborates this hypothesis by demonstrating that another drug, with much more selective pro-dopamine effects, is also therapeutic for breast cancer. And unlike the studies above, which used only estrogen-sensitive cancers, the study below found that the dopaminergic drug was effective against all types of breast cancer, including the dreaded triple-negative type (TNBC). The drug of note is our old friend selegiline (Deprenyl), link here, which has acquired notoriety worldwide as being the anti-aging drug of choice of the elite for decades…and the only one so far proven to work in humans for anti-aging purposes. Selegiline’s sole known mechanism of action is being a monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) inhibitor. Considering getting access to this drug is hard (and bound to become even harder considering its therapeutic potential), it would be helpful if one could use another MAO-B inhibitor not subject to the same notoriety/restrictions. Luckily, naphthoquinones such as vitamin K and the the main constituent of clove oil known as eugenol, link here are also potent and selective MAO-B inhibitors.

link here

“…Herein we show that MAO-B was inhibited competitively by 1,4-NQ (K(i)=1.4 μM) whereas MAO-A was inhibited by non-competitive mechanism (K(i)=7.7 μM). Contrasting with TMN and 1,4-NQ, menadione (vitamin K3) exhibited a 60-fold selectivity for MAO-B (K(i)=0.4 μM) in comparison with MAO-A (K(i)=26 μM), which makes it as selective as rasagiline.”

link here

“…The phytoconstituents were investigated for their MAO-B inhibitory activity by an in vitro fluorimetric assay. The phytoconstituents were tested to inhibit the MAO-B enzyme at two different concentrations, 10μM and 40μM. It was observed that eugenol showed the maximum inhibition of 21.48± 0.059% and 63.11± 2.95% at 10μM and 40μM concentration, respectively. Whereas piperine showed inhibition of 13.32± 3.91% and 37.19± 12.21% at 10μM and 40μM concentration, respectively. The reference drug selegiline, which is a known inhibitor of MAO-B, showed 84.63± 4.32% and 85.30± 2.92% inhibition at 10μM and 40 μM concentration, respectively (Figure 3a).”

All in all, the evidence continues to accumulate that pro-metabolic, anti-estrogenic, anti-serotonin, progestogenic and dopaminergic pathways are highly beneficial not only for a large number of very serious degenerative conditions, but they make one slim, happy, frisky (due to the antiprolactin effects) and long-living. And since estrogenic (PUFA, birth control, endocrine disruptors, etc) and serotonergic (SSRI) substances functionally approximately opposite to selegiline, you can imagine what their effects are.

link here

“…This research group has shown that Selegiline (L-deprenyl), an antidepressant drug from a class of drugs called monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors, might be applied as anticancer therapeutics for breast cancer. The integrated network pharmacological studies found that selegiline interacts with ten genes intricately linked to various types of cancer, with a significant number of nodes. The study conducted a preliminary comparative evaluation of the efficacy of selegiline on six cancer cell lines. Selegiline was found effective in killing estrogen and progesterone-positive (ER+ & PR+) as well as triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2679.mp3" length="1443860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA causes autism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2677</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2677</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Aug 2024 16:22:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2677

Another study causally linking PUFA with a chronic, debilitating disease. Namely, it appears that PUFA is capable of causing autism in both humans and animals, which suggests that the detrimental effects of PUFA is generic and likely applies not only to other species, but to other diseases as well. More specifically, the study below demonstrated that a dihydroxy-metabolite of the PUFA arachidonic acid (itself highly inflammatory even when intact) can reliably cause autism symptoms in animals and is causally linked to autism development and severity in humans. While the study implicated only one PUFA metabolite so far, there are other studies demonstrating that arachidonic acid, and even its precursor linoleic acid, are also linked to autism development. As such, the best option is to avoid dietary PUFA altogether instead of trying to modulate/block its downstream metabolites (which is what the study below is suggesting as therapy), of which undoubtedly there are many yet to be discovered. Finally, considering that inflammation has already been confirmed to be a major component in both autism and virtually all other chronic disease, I think it would not be far-fetched to conclude that PUFA is a major causal factor for all chronic diseases known to medicine so far, so its avoidance becomes that much more important.

4 links here

“…Although the exact causes of ASD are unclear, currently available evidence points to neuroinflammation as a major factor. Several studies in mouse models of ASD have hinted at the importance of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and their metabolites during pregnancy in playing a key role in ASD development. PUFA metabolites regulated by the cytochrome P450 (CYP) affect fetal development in mice causing impairments closely linked to ASD symptoms. However, it is still unclear if the same is true for humans and needs further investigation.”

“…After careful statistical analyses of the results, the researchers identified one compound in cord blood that may have strong implications for ASD severity, namely 11,12- dihydroxyeicosatrienoic acids (diHETrE), a dihydroxy fatty acid derived from arachidonic acid. “The levels of diHETrE, an arachidonic acid-derived diol, in cord blood at birth significantly impacted subsequent ASD symptoms in children and were also associated with impaired adaptive functioning. These findings suggest that the dynamics of diHETrE during the fetal period is important in the developmental trajectory of children after birth,” highlights Prof. Matsuzaki.”

“…”The effectiveness of early intervention for children with ASD is well established and detecting it at birth could enhance intervention and support for children with ASD,” muses Prof. Matsuzaki. He also adds that inhibiting diHETrE metabolism during pregnancy might be a promising avenue for preventing ASD traits in children, although more research will be needed in this regard.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2677.mp3" length="606116" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin promotes own synthesis, activates Warburg Effect, drives breast/colon/pancreatic cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2675</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2675</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Aug 2024 17:54:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2675

Just a few days ago I posted about a study showing that serotonin (5-HT) plays a role in driving the growth of a rare but lethal pediatric cancer. The authors of that study opined that the growth-promoting effects of 5-HT are generic enough that they may apply to all cancers. The studies below corroborate that view with evidence that 5-HT forms a positive feedback cycle for its production (just like cortisol, which also drives cancer growth) by increasing both the expression and activity of the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH) – i.e. the 5-HT producing enzyme. Apparently, 5-HT also activates aerobic glycolysis, known as the Warburg Effect (WE). The WE was considered up until very recently a benign symptom of cancer, but not oncogenic. Recent studies have completely disproved that view and it is now known that the WE is a required factor for growth of ALL cancer types studied so far. In light of these effects, it is little wonder that the studies below found 5-HT to be a robust promoter of the growth of breast, colon and pancreatic cancers, the first two of which combined are responsible for the majority of cancer cases and cancer-related deaths. In further corroboration, one of the studies identified 5-HT as a diagnostic biomarker in breast cancer that not only reliably predicts whether a specific tissue/organ is cancerous, but also predicts the severity/aggressiveness of the tumor. Namely, serotonin levels were found to be highest in the most aggressive and difficult to treat triple-negative breast cancer. Conversely, the studies describe therapeutic effects of 5-HT antagonists in the studied cancers, which has already been corroborated by a recent peer-reviewed human case study demonstrating complete disappearance of terminal, metastatic liver cancer by monotherapy with the non-selective 5-HT antagonist cyproheptadine.

The evidence for the oncogenic role of 5-HT is, in fact, so strong that one of the studies stated that 5-HT is required for (breast) cancer survival, meaning without 5-HT the tumor disappears or, better, does not even form in the first place. So, now we can add cancer to the CVD that 5-HT is also implicated in causing, and those two maladies just happen to be the top two causes of death in all developed countries. In light of this evidence, one would be forgiven to conclude that SSRI drugs (widely prescribed to cancer patients to “prevent” or “treat” their depression/PTSD from the cancer diagnosis) are likely a major causative factor for the skyrocketing rates of those conditions, as well as the deaths they cause. In corroboration, one of the studies below mentions extensive evidence for SSRI both promoting cancer formation, as well as increasing the mortality rates of already diagnosed cancer patients.

link here

“…Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) is synthesized from the essential amino acid tryptophan and mediates motility in the gastrointestinal tract and is a vasoactive agent in the blood. As a monoamine neurotransmitter, it also acts in the central nervous system. It regulates epithelial homeostasis in the breast. Serotonin is believed to impact immune signaling and stimulate growth of breast cancer cells [57, link here,58, link here,59, link here,60, link here,61, link here]. Olfati et al. showed that in samples from breast cancer patients, 5HTR2A and 5HTR3A genes are more expressed in tumoral tissues than marginal tissues [62, link here]. Serotonin also initiates angiogenesis by the proliferation, invasion, and migration of endothelial cells [63, link here]. Sonier et al. found that serotonin promotes the growth and division of breast cancer cells, specifically MCF-7 cells, in part through the 5-HT2A receptor. Proliferation and invasion is also facilitated by the 5-HT7 receptor in MDA-MB-231 cells. In these cells, 5-HT is essential to enhance the expression of TPH1 (tryptophan hydroxylase 1) and VEGF, supporting the mitogenic and oncogenic impact of 5-HT on breast cancer.”

“…If lowering serotonin activity reduces breast cancer recurrence, then a logical question is the impact of medications that raise serotonin levels. Evidence has been conflicting on this long-standing question. Two decades ago, researchers reported that use of tricyclic medications was associated with significantly increased breast cancer risk [66, link here, 67, link here] and that use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs may also pose a breast cancer risk [68, link here, 69, link here]. The SSRI fluoxetine may increase the number of breast cancer brain metastases at least in part due to inflammatory changes in the brain [70, link here]. Supporting these contentions, this year researchers in Israel reported based on an analysis of 7000 patients that use of SSRIs in the years prior to breast cancer diagnosis, or in the years following diagnosis, was associated with substantially increased mortality [71, link here].”

link here

“…The data presented herein strongly suggests that structurally unrelated selective 5-HT5A antagonists reduce the frequency of tumorsphere initiating cells by affecting the activity of 5-HT5A. The latter is supported by our pharmacological data demonstrating that the IC50 of the guanidine-type 5-HT5A antagonists in sphere forming assays directly correlated with their binding affinity for 5-HT5A [24, link here, 36, link here]. Moreover, CRISPR-Cas9 mediated mutagenesis of HTR5A reduced the frequency of tumorsphere initiating cells and that of BTIC using in vitro and ex vivo assays, thus mimicking the effect of SB-699551. Hence both pharmacological and genetic means of reducing 5-HT5A activity resulted in the same phenotypic consequences in breast tumor cell lines, suggesting that 5-HT5A is indeed required for BITC survival. We also found that SB-699551 reduces the growth rate of human breast tumor xenografts in NOD/SCID mice when administered alone and shrinks the xenografts in combination with docetaxel. Histological examination and TUNEL assays revealed an increase in the frequency of apoptotic tumor cells in the xenografts of mice treated with a combination of both agents. ”

link here

“…A number of neurotransmitters have been detected in tumor microenvironment and proved to modulate cancer oncogenesis and progression. We previously found that biosynthesis and secretion of neurotransmitter 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) was elevated in colorectal cancer cells. In this study, we discovered that the HTR2B receptor of 5-HT was highly expressed in colorectal cancer tumor tissues, which was further identified as a strong risk factor for colorectal cancer prognostic outcomes. Both pharmacological blocking and genetic knocking down HTR2B impaired migration of colorectal cancer cell, as well as the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) process. Mechanistically, HTR2B signaling induced ribosomal protein S6 kinase B1 (S6K1) activation via the Akt/mTOR pathway, which triggered cAMP-responsive element-binding protein 1 (CREB1) phosphorylation (Ser 133) and translocation into the nucleus, then the phosphorylated CREB1 acts as an activator for ZEB1 transcription after binding to CREB1 half-site (GTCA) at ZEB1 promoter. As a key regulator of EMT, ZEB1, therefore, enhances migration and EMT process in colorectal cancer cells. We also found that HTR2B-specific antagonist (RS127445) treatment significantly ameliorated metastasis and reversed EMT process in both HCT116 cell tail-vein–injected pulmonary metastasis and CT26 cell intrasplenic-injected hepatic metastasis mouse models.”

link here

“…Our results suggested that both human breast cancer cells and human breast epithelial cell line could synthesize serotonin and melatonin. Unlike melatonin, serotonin levels varied significantly between human breast cancer and breast epithelial cell line (p< 0.01). In addition, serotonin N-acetyltransferase (NAT) and acetylserotonin methyltransferase (ASMT), the key enzymes in the pathway of melatonin synthesis from serotonin, were also detectable. In agreement with these findings of human breast cancer cell and human breast epithelial cell line, serotonin expression was also much higher in triple-negative (PR−, ER−, HER-2−) breast cancer (TNBC) and triple-positive breast cancer (TPBC) compared to para-carcinoma tissues (PCTs). Here, we provided evidence that the human breast cancer cell (MCF-7, Bcap-37) and human breast epithelial cell (MCF-10A) could synthesize intrinsic serotonin and melatonin, and serotonin expression was higher in the breast cancer tissue compared with PCT. The findings suggested that serotonin might be used as a predictive marker for breast cancer patients.”

link here

“…In immunohistochemical analysis of a tissue microarray of PDAC specimens, increased levels of TPH1 and decreased level of MAOA, which regulate 5-HT synthesis and degradation, correlated with stage and size of PDACs and shorter patient survival time. We found levels of 5-HT to be increased in human PDAC tissues compared with non-tumor pancreatic tissues, and PDAC cell lines compared with non-transformed pancreatic cells. Incubation of PDAC cell lines with 5-HT increased proliferation and prevented apoptosis. Agonists of HTR2B, but not other 5-HT receptors, promoted proliferation and prevented apoptosis of PDAC cells. Knockdown of HTR2B in PDAC cells, or incubation of cells with HTR2B inhibitors, reduced their growth as xenograft tumors in mice. We observed a correlation between 5-HT and glycolytic flux in PDAC cells; levels of metabolic enzymes involved in glycolysis, the phosphate pentose pathway, and hexosamine biosynthesis pathway increased significantly in PDAC cells following 5-HT stimulation. 5-HT stimulation led to formation of the HTR2B–LYN–p85 complex, which increased PI3K–Akt–mTOR signaling and the Warburg effect by increasing protein levels of MYC and HIF1A. Administration of SB204741 to KPC mice slowed growth and metabolism of established pancreatic tumors and prolonged survival of the mice. Human PDACs have increased levels of 5-HT, and PDAC cells increase expression of its receptor, HTR2B. These increases allow for tumor glycolysis under metabolic stress and promote growth of pancreatic tumors and PDAC xenograft tumors in mice.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2675.mp3" length="1404068" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) increases inflammatory mediators (IL-6, NF-kB), may cause atherosclerosis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2673</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2673</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Aug 2024 17:08:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2673

The inflammatory interleukins IL-1 and IL-6 are among the most studied biomarkers/pathways. Their role in “autoimmune” conditions is undisputed and some of the top-selling drugs for such conditions are IL-1 and/or IL-6 blockers. There is also plenty of evidence that those interleukins play a role in other serious conditions, including cancer and various neurological disorders. Another mediator with systemically inflammatory effects is NF-kB, and its role in autoimmune conditions and atherosclerosis is also undisputed. Drugs that block NF-kB are currently being tested for virtually all chronic conditions, including ones where inflammation is not thought to play a direct role (diabetes, Parkinson’s, infertility, etc). The study below demonstrated that 5-HT robustly increased levels (and mRNA expression) of IL-6 and NF-kB, and as such likely plays a key role in cardiovascular disease (CVD)  – the current top cause of death in developed countries (soon to be overtaken by cancer, where IL-6 and NF-kB also play a key role). Needless to say, the administration of SSRI has the same effects as 5-HT, and their widespread use may explain the ever-rising CVD/cancer rates even in children (for who SSRI drugs are approved for use). Conversely, the study demonstrated that serotonin antagonists were able to block the inflammatory effects of serotonin, which would make them desirable candidates for preventing and treating CVD, cancer, autoimmune conditions, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, etc.

link here

“…IL-6 levels in the culture medium of VSMCs were determined by ELISA. IL-6 mRNA accumulation was determined by use of a Quantikine mRNA colorimetric quantification kit. NF-κB activation was tested by gel retardation assay. 5-HT induced IL-6 production by VSMCs in a time- and dose-dependent manner, with increased IL-6 mRNA accumulation and nuclear factor-κB activation. The effect of 5-HT on IL-6 production was significantly inhibited by the 5-HT2 receptor antagonist ketanserin and the selective 5-HT2A receptor antagonist sarpogrelate. Conversely, the 5-HT2 receptor agonist α-methyl-5-HT increased IL-6 production. The protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor calphostin C, but not the protein kinase A inhibitor KT5720, suppressed 5-HT–induced IL-6 production. The effect of 5-HT was also abolished in PKC-depleted VSMCs after pretreatment with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate for 24 hours. 5-HT acts on 5-HT2A receptors and increases IL-6 synthesis in human VSMCs at least partially through a PKC-dependent pathway. These results suggested that 5-HT may contribute to inflammatory activation of the vessels during atherogenesis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2673.mp3" length="842348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may treat post-orgasmic illness syndrome (POIS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2671</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2671</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 22:43:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2671

Over the last several years I have received hundreds of emails from males in regards to POIS. The number of publications about POIS in the scientific literature, as well as articles in the popular press have been steadily rising. While some medications such as finasteride and SSRI are known to cause POIS symptoms, the fact that the reports/rates of POIS have been steadily increasing suggest something else is also at play in this condition. Some people report relief after thyroid or testosterone therapy, suggesting the conditions is energetic in origin. The case study below is perhaps the most direct evidence that POIS is energetic in origin, considering its successful and sustained resolution with niacinamide therapy, at a daily dose of 500mg, taken for 5 months.

link here

“…Post-orgasmic illness syndrome (POIS) is a rare condition characterized by debilitating symptoms following ejaculation. We present a case of a 25-year-old male with flu-like symptoms post-ejaculation since age 17. Despite minimal relief from conventional treatments, a comprehensive evaluation led to the diagnosis of POIS and successful management with niacinamide therapy. The presentation of flu-like symptoms following ejaculation in this case raises several questions regarding the underlying pathophysiology. While the exact cause of his symptoms remains elusive, the resolution achieved with niacinamide therapy underscores the importance of considering alternative treatment modalities in complex cases. The role of varicocele in symptom manifestation, if any, also warrants consideration, as varicocele has been associated with male infertility and testicular dysfunction.”

“…Following the comprehensive evaluation, the patient was initiated on niacinamide therapy (500 mg per day, taken orally in the form of a tablet) for five months. Niacinamide, a form of vitamin B3, is known for its role in cellular energy production and overall metabolic function. Its mechanism of action in alleviating the post-ejaculation symptoms in this case remains an area of interest and warrants further exploration.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2671.mp3" length="412796" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E reverses atherogenesis/CVD, independently of its antioxidant effects</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2669</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2669</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 22:27:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2669

Mainstream medicine claims that once cardiovascular disease (CVD) is established, there is no way to reverse it. All one can do is try to inhibit further plaque formation in the hope of delaying the inevitable (vessel blockage/rupture, followed by heart attack and/or stroke). I have already found studies demonstrating that aspirin, in doses of 800mg+ daily can reduce already established atheroma (plaque) and prevent future CVD event. The study below found that vitamin E, in a human-equivalent dose of  about 5mg/kg daily, also reduces atherogenesis and improves cardiac function, without displaying antioxidant effects. The role of vitamin E as PUFA antagonist is probably the main mechanism of action, together with its role as an inhibitor of the inflammation producing enzyme COX/LOX, and its inhibitory effects on the release of other inflammatory mediators such as TNF-a, IL-1 and IL-6.

2 links here

“…The impact of α-tocopherol on atherosclerosis is unclear and controversial. While some studies suggest potential benefits, such as antioxidant properties that may reduce oxidative stress, other studies indicate no significant preventive effects. The intricate interplay of various factors, including dosage, individual differences, and study methodologies, contributes to the ongoing uncertainty surrounding α-tocopherol’s role in atherosclerosis. Further research is needed to clarify its impact and establish clearer guidelines. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the impact of α-tocopherol on atherogenesis in ApoE−/− fibrillin (Fbn)1C1039G/+ mice, which is a unique mouse model of advanced atherosclerosis with typical features, such as large necrotic cores, high levels of inflammation, and intraplaque neovascularization, that resemble the unstable phenotype of human plaques. ApoE−/− Fbn1C1039G+/− mice were fed a western-type diet (WD) supplemented with a high dose of α-tocopherol (500 mg/kg diet), while control mice were fed a WD containing a low dose of α-tocopherol (50 mg/kg diet). The high dose of α-tocopherol reduced plaque thickness and necrotic core area in the right common carotid artery (RCCA) after 24 weeks WD. Moreover, α-tocopherol decreased plaque formation and intraplaque neovascularization in the RCCA. In addition to its antiatherogenic effect, chronic supplementation of α-tocopherol improved cardiac function in ApoE−/− Fbn1C1039G/+ mice. However, chronic supplementation of α-tocopherol did not decrease lipid peroxidation. On the contrary, α-tocopherol acted as a prooxidant by increasing plasma levels of oxidized LDL and plaque malondialdehyde, an end product of lipid peroxidation. Our data indicate that α-tocopherol inhibits atherogenesis and improves cardiac function independent of its antioxidant properties.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2669.mp3" length="502868" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin/LPS causes muscle weakness/damage (myopathy), vitamin E is protective</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2667</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2667</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 22:17:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2667

It looks like we can add vitamin E to the list of remedies against endotoxin/LPS, at least when it comes to muscle health/strength. Endotoxin/LPS is well-known to induce systemic inflammation and one of the core symptoms of systemic inflammation is muscle weakness, which eventually progresses into muscle loss (sarcopenia) if the endotoxin assault continues sufficiently long. There are virtually no known remedies for inflammation induced weakness, aside from aspirin and anabolic steroids, the latter of which has significant side effects. The study below demonstrates that vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol specifically) may be one of the main endogenous protective factors against systemic inflammation induced by endotoxin and the resulting myopathies. The benefits of vitamin E in this case cannot be explained with its antioxidant effects, which suggests that its role as a COX/LOX inhibitor is probably the main mechanism of action.

link here

“…αT concentrations in the liver, heart, and adipose tissue of WT mice were higher than Ttpa-/- mice. Although αT was detected in the brain, muscle, and serum of WT mice, it was undetectable in these tissues of Ttpa-/- mice. Cerebellar and serum concentrations of IL-6 were increased in LPS-treated groups but were not significantly affected by genotype. Grip strength was reduced in LPS-treated groups, an effect that was more pronounced in Ttpa-/- mice. Systemic LPS administration caused an acute inflammatory response with a concomitant decline in grip strength, especially in Ttpa-/- mice. αT depletion appears to exacerbate reductions in grip strength brought on by systemic inflammation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2667.mp3" length="504068" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) promotes tumor growth, likely in all cancer types</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2664</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2664</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 21:59:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2664

Evil serotonin (5-HT) strikes again. This time by being exposed as a potent tumor growth promoter. Cortisol is another one, contrary to what medicine says and practices in regards to cortisol, and considering cortisol and serotonin promote each other’s synthesis it is little surprise to see evidence of serotonin promoting tumor growth. While the study focused on only one tumor type, the authors explain that the mechanism of serotonylation is very generic and seen in most other tumor types, so the findings likely apply to all  cancers. In corroboration, there have been quite a few recent publications demonstrating beneficial effects of the serotonin antagonist cyproheptadine in a wide variety of both solid and hematological malignancies. There is even a case study of terminal metastatic liver cancer in a human patient being completely cured by cyproheptadine in just 2 weeks. All in all, a damning verdict for serotonin and its promoters in Big Pharma, medical organizations, and public health agencies.

3 links here

“…Do neurons play a role in brain tumor growth and development? Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine have evidence showing that, for childhood ependymomas, they do. There are no targeted therapies available to treat ependymoma due in large part to a lack of understanding of the tumor microenvironment. By leveraging a recently developed murine model, scientists explored the interaction between ependymoma cells and surrounding neurons. They found that hyperactivation of a specific subset of neurons has different effects on tumor cell proliferation. Increased serotonin production in the tumor microenvironment drives tumor growth. The findings were published today in Nature.”

“…This is notably relevant for difficult to treat cancers, such as ependymoma, the third most common type of brain tumor in children. The present study offers fundamental insights into how ependymoma regulation is impacted by the surrounding neuronal environment. Ependymoma is associated with poor survival and neurocognitive outcomes due to a lack of available targeted therapies. A newly developed mouse model successfully mimics an aggressive form of the cancer caused by a gene fusion between ZFTA and RELA, which creates a rogue transcription factor that drives tumor growth. The model has allowed researchers, including Mack, to finally gain insight into the biology of the disease, the lack of which has stymied drug discovery efforts from the outset.”

“…The researchers found that in ependymoma, pathways involved in neuronal function and neurotransmission were enriched, implying not just a tumor neuronal interaction but a dependency. Further analysis of this link steered them towards serotonergic neurons, those responsible for producing the neurotransmitter serotonin. Enrichment of serotonin transporters within tumor cells implied that the tumor cells were foraging serotonin from their environment, but it was not clear why. “We found that serotonin added to histone proteins is a modification critical for ependymoma tumor growth,” added first author Hsiao-Chi Chen, Baylor College of Medicine.”

“…The researchers also demonstrated that the tumor cells can “talk back” to the neurons. “We’ve dissected some of the gene regulatory mechanisms in these tumors and seen how tumor cells secrete factors that modulate normal activity,” Mack said. “You lose control of factors you would normally release to inhibit hyperactivity. It’s a vicious loop where these cells are communicating with each other to drive tumor cell proliferation.” Identifying such a fundamental link between tumor neuronal communication and tumor proliferation may impact cancers beyond ependymoma. “Finding that histone serotonylation regulates tumorigenesis and that it’s being driven by neurons in the microenvironment is remarkable,” said Mack. “It could apply to other tumor types too.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2664.mp3" length="516260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may treat dry-eye disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2662</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2662</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 21:38:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2662

I posted about a study a few months ago demonstrating that reduced steroidogenesis, and especially androgen synthesis, is a major cause behind so-called dry-eye disease, and restoring steroidogenesis by administering niacinamide (thus raising NAD+) reversed most of the pathology. The study below suggests that vitamin D may be able to achieve the same, and the mechanism of action is probably largely the same considering that vitamin D is crucial for steroidogenesis, and especially progesterone and androgen synthesis. It gets even better – vitamin D, being a (seco)steroid itself is known to be able to bind and activate several steroid receptors directly and thus may work even in the context of severe/irreversible steroid deficiency. More specifically, vitamin D has been shown to bind and activate the progesterone, androgen and thyroid receptors, all of which have demonstrated benefit for ocular health and dry-eye disease in particular.

2 links here

“…A new study published in the recent issue of Contact Lens and Anterior Eye journal found that supplementing with vitamin D (VD) may be a useful adjuvant therapy to reduce the symptoms and indicators of dry eye. DED is a prevalent ocular illness that affects 5 to 50% of people globally, according to estimates. Common ocular discomfort symptoms in DED include dryness, redness, a feeling of a foreign body, heaviness, light sensitivity, pain, discharge, itching, and eye strain. Also, the vitamin that has immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory properties is vitamin D which was demonstrated by numerous studies to have a correlation between VD insufficiency and both the incidence and severity of dry eye disease (DED). In this meta-analysis, Zeying Chen and colleagues examined the symptoms and indicators of DED patients both before and after using VD supplements. The effectiveness of VD supplement in patients with DED published up to January 2023 was searched using four clinical trials registry websites (ISRCTN, ICTRP, CT, GCP, ICH) and ten databases (Cochrane, PubMed, Web of science, Embase, Ovid, CNKI, Scopus, CSTJ, SinomedWanfang). There were 8 investigations in all, comprising a total of 439 patients. In order to determine standard mean differences (SMD) for the Schirmer’s test (SH test), corneal fluorescein staining scores (CFSS, Oxford Scale, 0–5), tear film break-up time (TBUT), ocular surface disease index (OSDI), lid hyperemia, and visual analogue pain scale (VAS), two reviewers independently evaluated the quality of the literature and extracted data. The key finding of this study was that VD supplementation was found to be effective in reducing lid hyperemia (SMD −0.71, 95% CI −1.09, −0.32, p = 0.000), OSDI (SMD −1.10, 95% CI −1.45, −0.74, p = 0.000), and tear production (SMD 1.43, 95% CI 0.81, 2.05, p = 0.000) as well as tear film stability (SMD 1.19, 95% CI 0.83, 1.55, p = 0.000). Overall, this meta-analysis suggests that VD supplementation is an effective way to reduce several of the symptoms of DED, including lid hyperemia, TBUT, and SH test. Additionally, the subjective DED symptom score, OSDI, also improved. The subgroup analysis revealed that the oral version significantly improved when compared to the buccal spray and intramuscular injection”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2662.mp3" length="475604" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dopamine may treat Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2660</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2660</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 21:24:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2660

A stunning discovery, which flies in the face of everything that medicine claims to know about dopamine. Official medical dogma views dopamine as largely a nuisance, and even danger to human health. High dopamine levels are thought to be responsible for serious conditions such as schizophrenia, as well as virtually all types of addiction (substance, gambling, sexual, etc). As such, there is a large number of dopamine antagonist drugs and a much smaller set of dopamine agonists. Now, dopamine is known to have a pro-cognitive effect and this has resulted in the development of amphetamine-based chemicals such as Adderall, Ritalin, Provigil, etc that are now abused on a mass scale by virtually every white-collar profession in a quest to enhance cognitive function and outcompete peers intellectually in a corporate setting. Unbeknownst to most, serotonin has also been (very, very quietly) suspected as a cause of AD and there have even been several clinical trials with suboptimal serotonin antagonists as treatment for AD. The study below demonstrates that dopamine has a plaque-dissolving effect and suggests that this is the main mechanism of action through which dopamine may treat AD. However, 99% of all AD trials based on drugs targeting the beta or tau amyloid plaques have been utter failures, which suggests that the plaque-busting effects of dopamine are not the real explanation. Also unbeknownst to most, dopamine (and dopamine agonists) are potent inhibitors of the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH), which is the rate-limiting step for producing serotonin inside the body. If serotonin is indeed a major cause of AD, then the serotonin-reducing properties of dopamine (and dopamine agonists) are probably the true mechanism of action behind the beneficial effects seen in the study below.

link here

Melting Away Alzheimer’s: How Dopamine Dissolves Harmful Brain Plaques, link here

“…A new way to combat Alzheimer’s disease has been discovered by Takaomi Saido and his team at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan. Using mice with the disease, the researchers found that treatment with dopamine could alleviate physical symptoms in the brain as well as improve memory. Published today (August 6) in the scientific journal Science Signaling, the study examines dopamine’s role in promoting the production of neprilysin, an enzyme that can break down the harmful plaques in the brain that are the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. If similar results are found in human clinical trials, it could lead to a fundamentally new way to treat the disease.”

“…Now the serious experiments began. Using a DREADD system, they inserted tiny designer receptors into the dopamine-producing neurons of the mouse ventral tegmental area. By adding a matching designer drug to the mice’s food, the researchers were able to continuously activate those neurons, and only those neurons, in the mouse brains. As in the dish, activation led to increased neprilysin and decreased levels of free-floating beta-amyloid, but only in the front part of the mouse brain. But could the treatment remove plaques? Yes. The researchers repeated the experiment using a special mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease in which the mice develop beta-amyloid plaques. Eight weeks of chronic treatment resulted in significantly fewer plaques in the prefrontal cortex of these mice.”

“…The DREADD system is an incredible system for precise manipulation of specific neurons. However, it is not very useful for human clinical settings. The final experiments tested the effects of L-DOPA treatment. L-DOPA is a dopamine precursor molecule often used to treat Parkinson’s disease because it can enter the brain from the blood, where it is then converted into dopamine. Treating the model mice with L-DOPA led to increased neprilysin and decreased beta-amyloid plaques in both frontal and posterior parts of the brain. Model mice treated with L-DOPA for 3 months also performed better on memory tests than untreated model mice. Tests showed that neprilysin levels naturally decreased with age in normal mice, particularly in the frontal part of the brain, perhaps making it a good biomarker for preclinical or at-risk Alzheimer’s disease diagnoses. How dopamine causes neprilysin levels to increase remains unknown, and is the next research topic for Saido’s group.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2660.mp3" length="872372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin C may be, after all, effective against viral, bacterial and fungal infections</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2658</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2658</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 21:08:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2658

The topic of vitamin C and enhanced resistance against (as well as accelerated recovery from) infections (especially viral) is highly controversial. Modern medicine dismisses vitamin C as being good for only preventing/treating scurvy. However, a number of high-profile scientists, including Nobel laureate Linus Pauling believed (and repeatedly demonstrated in studies) that vitamin C has a broad immunostimulating effect and may be effective at both preventing and treating variety of infections, especially viral ones such as influenza and cold (COVID-19 anyone?), and even cancer! The study below seems to vindicate Mr. Pauling and demonstrates that the beneficial effects of vitamin C are not limited to just viral infections, but also extend to bacterial, fungal and even multi-cellular (parasitic) infections. The exact mechanism of action of vitamin C is not known, however given its structural similarity to sugar and usage of the same pathways of active transport into the cell (the GLUT channels/receptors), I suspect that vitamin C may serve as a glucose mimetic in situations when the cell is under stress and glucose availability is limited. Glucose availability has already been demonstrated to be crucial for resistance to all types of infection, and lowering serum glucose is known to increase lethality from both pathogens and allergens.

link here

The Surprising Link Between Vitamin C and Fighting Off Infections, According to Science, link here

“…The notion that vitamin C could help ward off infections is not new. As early as the 1930s, physicians like Dr. Casimir Funk pioneered the use of vitamin C to combat infectious diseases. However, the advent of antibiotics in the mid-20th century largely overshadowed research into vitamin C’s antimicrobial potential [1]. “Our review aimed to dust off a century’s worth of accumulated evidence on vitamin C and infections,” explained Dr. Samantha Patel, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Helsinki. “What we found was a wealth of data suggesting that this humble vitamin could be a valuable addition to our anti-infection toolkit.”

“…Dr. Patel’s team began by analyzing over 148 animal studies that investigated vitamin C’s impact on infectious conditions. Remarkably, they found that vitamin C demonstrated protective effects against a variety of pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, fungi like Candida albicans, and even parasitic protozoa [1]. “Across diverse animal models, vitamin C consistently helped prevent, shorten, and alleviate infectious diseases,” noted Dr. Patel. “While the human implications remain to be fully elucidated, these findings strongly suggest that vitamin C has untapped potential as a broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2658.mp3" length="728204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin may treat radiation-induced wounds</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2655</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2655</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 20:54:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2655

Yet another win for aspirin, and this time in regards to something medicine considers next to impossible to treat – i.e. ionizing radiation-induced skin wounds. Aside from the known genotoxic effects of radiation, the latter can also cause severe skin burns that are very slow to heal and often become chronic, unhealing wounds subject to infection that can easily become life-threatening. The study below demonstrates that a simple mix of aspirin and glycopeptides (which can probably be closely approximated with a water solution of gelatin and sugar) significantly accelerated the healing of radiation-induced wounds. The same mix/solution would probably be a great remedy for preventing/treating sunburns, which are mostly triggered by the UV radiaion in sunlight, so they are a milder version of the radiation-induced wounds used in the study.

2 links here

“…Glycopeptide-based hydrogels are especially promising: In laboratory and animal studies, the nanofiber structures have promoted cellular growth and regulated cell adhesion and migration. A research team led by Jiamin Zhang, Wei Wang, Yumin Zhang and Jianfeng Liu proposed loading aspirin, a common anti-inflammatory drug, into a glycopeptide-based hydrogel to create a multifunctional wound dressing for radiation-induced skin injuries. In lab tests with cultured cells, the researchers found that the aspirin-contained hydrogel scavenged reactive oxygen species, repaired DNA double-strand breaks and inhibited inflammation caused by radiation exposure without affecting cellular growth. In mouse models of radiation-induced skin injury, the researchers found that dressing wounds for three weeks with the salve reduced acute injuries and accelerated healing — results that the team says point to its potential as an easy-to-administer, on-demand treatment option for reducing radiation damage and promoting healing in humans.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2655.mp3" length="409028" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide increases lifespan and healthspan</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2653</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2653</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 20:44:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2653

An animal study with nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN). Unfortunately, NMN has been declared as a “novel drug” by the FDA and pulled from the OTC market. Luckily, several human studies have demonstrated that NMN is non-superior to plain niacinamide in terms of raising NAD+ levels, and it is precisely this elevation of NAD+ that the study thinks is behind the lifespan and healthspan extending effects. The dosage was on the high side, with the human-equivalent dose being 2g-3g daily. However, multiple human studies with up to 3g daily have shown that there are no side effects with such treatment, so it should not be too risky to try and replicate the study, especially in elderly individuals whose NAD+ levels are greatly decreased and they can use the extra “juice” found in higher niacinamide doses. In corroboration to the higher NAD+ levels being responsible for the lifespan/healthspan increase, NMN was found to increase metabolism and higher metabolic rate is now starting to become recognized as a booster of longevity, not an impediment.

2 links here

“…This is the first study to explore the effect of long-term NMN treatment on frailty and lifespan in mice. NMN treatment delayed frailty and increased both median and maximum lifespan in female but not male mice. Although we did not observe a lifespan extension in male mice, NMN was well tolerated, and the male mice showed delayed frailty and improved metabolic health. Additionally, in both sexes NMN-treatment led to a sustained increase in the gut microbiome of A. colihominis, a possible contributor to the beneficial health effects of NMN. Our detailed exploration of NMN metabolism in both sexes, suggests possible sex differences in the Preiss-Handler metabolic pathway, which may contribute to the sex differences in health outcomes. The mechanism of lifespan extension in female mice with NMN remains unclear and future studies will explore the effect of NMN on other tissues, especially brain and kidney to uncover potential mechanisms of sex-specific effects. Overall, this work adds to the promising preclinical evidence for NMN as a therapeutic to increase health in aging, and highlights the importance of exploring sex differences in aging studies.”

NMN Increases Lifespan in Female Mice, link here

“…“The beneficial effects of NMN on metabolism and its ability to delay frailty in mice were expected,” David Sinclair said to Lifespan.io, “but we didn’t expect to see apparently positive changes to the microbiome or sex differences in lifespan. We hope the work is useful in guiding the design of future clinical trials testing the effects of NMN and other NAD boosters in humans.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2653.mp3" length="569540" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K linked to higher muscle mass/strength in males</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2651</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2651</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 20:31:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2651

The role of vitamin K in bone health is well-established, as is its role as a “coagulation” vitamin (hence its name “K”). However, the role of vitamin K in muscle homeostasis is not well-studied. It is known that vitamin K both stimulates the synthesis of osteocalcin as well as its carboxylation/activation. It is also well-known that osteocalcin has beneficial effects on muscle mass, likely through the stimulation of androgen synthesis in both male and female gonads. However, a direct link between vitamin K and muscle mass/strength has not yet been established. The study below is perhaps the first to establish such link, at least in males. Btw, vitamin K has a known synergistic effect with vitamin D for bone mass/strength, as well as improving insulin sensitivity, and even treating cancer. As such, I would expect the effects of combining vitamin K with vitamin D to be synergistic for muscle mass/strength as well. And last but not least, handgrip strength is one of the most reliable kinetic biomarkers of overall health, as well as a great predictor of longevity and healthspan. This suggests that vitamin K, especially when combined with vitamin D (already proven lifespan and healthspan booster) may be a great supplement to take for warding off the effects of aging and preventing future chronic disease.

link here

“…Results: Dietary vitamin K intake was positively associated with skeletal muscle mass in males (β=0.05747, P=0.0204) but not in females. We also revealed a positive association between dietary vitamin K intake and handgrip strength within the range of 0-59.871 µg/d (Pnonlinear=0.049). However, beyond this threshold, increasing vitamin K intake did not cause additional handgrip strength improvements. Conclusions: We provided evidence for a positive relationship between dietary vitamin K intake and skeletal muscle mass in males. Moreover, our study revealed a nonlinear relationship between dietary vitamin K intake and handgrip strength, highlighting an optimal intake range.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2651.mp3" length="656732" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Almost half of the global population has some form of neurological disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2649</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2649</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 19:10:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2649

Only posting this as a good indicator of the steadily deteriorating environmental conditions we are all facing. It is already well-established that rates of cancer, CVD, diabetes and neurodegenerative conditions is rising quickly in the youngest segment of the global population, but the article below gives a good idea into just how widespread and impactful the deterioration of health has been over the last few decades. I hope more people see this article and realize that the global population is under attack and fighting for its very survival, regardless of what mainstream media would have us believe. Whether this attack is due to idiocy or malign intent on behalf of the powers that be, I leave it to my readers to decide for themselves.

2 links here

“…A damning new study reveals that nearly half of the global population suffers from neurological disorders. A team of international researchers have unveiled a significant increase in both the prevalence and the health impact of neurological conditions, including incidents of stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and meningitis, over the past 30 years. This research supports the World Health Organization’s Intersectoral Global Action Plan on epilepsy and other neurological disorders, aiming to reduce the impact and improve the quality of life for affected individuals and their families.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2649.mp3" length="364004" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may be an effective anti-aging intervention</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2647</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2647</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 18:58:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2647

A good summary article on the multitude of mechanisms through which vitamin D acts to target virtually all pathways known to be involved in aging. One mechanisms I did not see mentioned is that vitamin D is a known inducer/activator of the anti-aging Klotho, link here gene, so I am adding a reference on that too (first link below). Considering that vitamin D is a potent metabolic enhancer, as well as stimulant of mitochondrial biogenesis, the lifespan extending effects are not really surprising, but it is nice to see a high-level breakdown of all the pathways through which vitamin D may work in the human body.

3 links here

“…VitD regulates protein homeostasis, impacting longevity and muscle health. In C. elegans, VitD reduces protein insolubility and toxicity, promoting longevity. In rats, VitD deficiency increases muscle protein breakdown and contributes to muscle atrophy. VitD also influences cellular signaling involved in myogenesis and activates adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) during metabolic stress. VitD impacts cellular and mitochondrial function across various systems. It reduces oxidative stress, improves muscle and lung function, and attenuates oxidative damage in neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases. VitD also shows potential in mitigating mitochondrial dysfunction in conditions like sarcopenia and Crohn’s disease. VitD also plays a crucial role in regulating immune responses by its widespread distribution among immune cells and autonomic control of active VitD concentration at inflamed sites. While some studies link VitD supplementation to reduced inflammation markers in various conditions, overall evidence is inconclusive despite potential benefits in certain diseases. Chronic inflammation can disrupt gut microbiota balance, as seen in conditions like human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and osteoarthritis (OA). VitD supplementation shows promise in restoring microbial balance and reducing inflammation. Studies indicate VitD’s role in enhancing antimicrobial peptides, stabilizing gut barriers, and regulating microbiota composition. VitD shows potential in bone regeneration and neural stem cell modulation, crucial for nervous system development and repair. It influences signaling in brain neurogenesis and may have therapeutic implications in conditions like acute myeloid leukemia. However, further research is needed to explore its full potential in stem cell therapy…Understanding aging involves complex interactions among various biological mechanisms. VitD shows promise in influencing the hallmarks of aging, including genomic stability and senescence.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2647.mp3" length="308396" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Synthetic progestins, but not progesterone, increase risk of a brain tumor (meningioma)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2645</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2645</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 18:41:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2645

Once again, the false equivalence between bioidentical progesterone and synthetic progestins (which medicine has been promoting for decades) is on full display. The study below found that chronic use of several of the most commonly prescribed synthetic progestins increases risk of developing intracranial meningioma. That tumor is rare and usually does not cause serious issues when forming in the spinal column/cord area. However it can become dangerous and even life threatening when forming inside the head, and that type is exactly what the study found elevated risk for from the use of the synthetic progestins. On the flip side, several studies have demonstrated reduced risk of meningioma when using biodentical progesterone. The findings of the study are likely explainable by the fact that estrogen is a known cause/promoter of meningiomas and many/most synthetic progestins are actually estrogenic (as I posted about years ago). In contrast, bioidentical progesterone has purely anti-estrogenic effects by being both an estrogen receptor antagonist as well as an aromatase inhibitor.

2 links here

“…Noémie Roland, M.D., M.P.H., from the EPI-PHARE Scientific Interest Group in Saint-Denis, France, and colleagues conducted a national case-control study involving 108,366 women overall to examine the risk for intracranial meningioma associated with use of selected progestogens. Cases included 18,061 women living in France who had intracranial surgery for meningioma between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2018; each case was matched to five controls (90,305 controls). The researchers found that the risk for meningioma was increased with use of medrogestone (0.2 percent among cases versus 0.1 percent among controls; odds ratio, 3.49), medroxyprogesterone acetate (injectable; 0.05 versus 0.01 percent; odds ratio 5.55), and promegestone (0.5 versus 0.2 percent; odds ratio, 2.39). The excess risk was driven by use for one year or longer. No excess risk for intracranial meningioma was seen for progesterone, dydrogesterone, or levonorgestrel intrauterine systems. Due to the small number of people receiving dienogest or hydroxyprogesterone, no conclusions could be drawn.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2645.mp3" length="546980" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin A deficiency causes leaky gut and inflammation, may cause Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2643</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2643</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 18:28:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2643

Another study that will probably make me plenty of new enemies among the anti-retinol crowd. I am posting it here because one of the main claims of the anti-retinol groups is that dietary restriction of vitamin A not only has no negative effects on health, but is actually highly beneficial. Well, it seems that when it comes to brain health at least, the opposite is true. It took only 12 weeks of vitamin A restriction to establish AD pathology, while the same amount of time supplementing vitamin A was sufficient to produce strong beneficial effects. Crucially, vitamin A restriction elevated biomarkers of gut permeability (D-lactate and DAO), which matches with the post I just did on endotoxin/LPS being a major causative factor in AD. Conversely, vitamin  A supplementation was effective at restoring the gut barrier, and subsequently preserving cognition even in animals with already established AD.

2 links here

“…In the present study, researchers investigated the effects of dietary vitamin A on the intestinal transcriptome, inflammation, gut microbiota, and amyloid-β (Aβ) pathology. Thirty APP/PS1 mice (AD mouse model) were randomly assigned to three groups based on body weight. Mice received a diet with deficient (VAD), normal (VAN), or enriched (VAS) levels of vitamin A. Body weight and food intake were recorded every week.”

“…Mice in the VAN group could directly locate the platform and move to its position even when removed. These mice took less time to find the platform than other groups. Moreover, the VAS group took less time than the VAD group. There were no significant differences in the time spent finding the platform between VAS and VAN groups. When the platform was removed, the VAN group repeatedly crossed the platform area. Mice in the VAD group showed significantly greater Aβ deposition in the brain than in other groups. The VAS group also had higher Aβ deposition than the VAN group, albeit not statistically significant. The Shannon index was higher in the VAS and VAN groups than in the VAD group; however, it was similar between the VAS and VAN groups. VAN and VAS groups had greater microbial diversity than the VAD group. Overall, 571 genes with differential expression were identified between the VAS and VAD groups. Between VAN and VAD groups, 313 differentially expressed genes were identified. Further, there were 243 genes with differential expression between VAN and VAS groups. DAO and D-lactate levels were significantly elevated in the VAD group compared to the VAS and VAN groups. Mice in the VAD group exhibited more significant levels of inflammatory cytokines than other groups.

“…In sum, the study showed that a 12-week VAD diet reduced serum levels of retinol, impaired cognition, and increased Aβ pathology in mice. On the contrary, a diet enriched with vitamin A increased retinol, reduced Aβ, and preserved cognition. Overall, the findings highlight the significance of vitamin A in AD pathology and behavior.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2643.mp3" length="463340" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The endoxotin/LPS hypothesis of Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2641</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2641</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 18:12:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2641

Nothing surprising here to my readers, but I try to post about such studies since they are usually a marker of an upcoming major shift in medical dogmas. Considering 99%+ of all AD clinical trials over the last 2+ decades have abysmally failed, new ideas about this conditions are urgently needed. The study below is a good summary of the ideas and findings of many other studies, most of which I have posted about on this blog. Namely, endotoxin/LPS is perhaps the major cause of AD, as well as virtually all other neurodegenerative conditions.

link here

“…Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) constitutes much of the surface of Gram-negative bacteria, and if LPS enters the human body or brain can induce inflammation and act as an endotoxin. We outline the hypothesis here that LPS may contribute to the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) via peripheral infections or gut dysfunction elevating LPS levels in blood and brain, which promotes: amyloid pathology, tau pathology and microglial activation, contributing to the neurodegeneration of AD. The evidence supporting this hypothesis includes: i) blood and brain levels of LPS are elevated in AD patients, ii) AD risk factors increase LPS levels or response, iii) LPS induces Aβ expression, aggregation, inflammation and neurotoxicity, iv) LPS induces TAU phosphorylation, aggregation and spreading, v) LPS induces microglial priming, activation and neurotoxicity, and vi) blood LPS induces loss of synapses, neurons and memory in AD mouse models, and cognitive dysfunction in humans. However, to test the hypothesis, it is necessary to test whether reducing blood LPS reduces AD risk or progression. If the LPS endotoxin hypothesis is correct, then treatments might include: reducing infections, changing gut microbiome, reducing leaky gut, decreasing blood LPS, or blocking LPS response.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2641.mp3" length="307052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D ameliorates late-stage multiple sclerosis (MS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2639</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2639</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 18:07:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2639

The role of vitamin D in auto-immune conditions and especially MS has been studied for decades. It is a proven epidemiological fact that MS rates steadily increase with latitude (low sunlight exposure) and are virtually nil in people living in tropical or equatorial areas of the globe. Despite this proven relationship, medicine refuses to consider vitamin D as a prophylactic or treatment intervention for MS. The study below demonstrated that a relatively low, human-equivalent dose of 20,000 IU – 25,000 IU of vitamin D3 once weekly for just 6-7 weeks was able to not only ameliorate the symptoms of advanced MS, but it actually showed a trend towards a reversal of the condition.

2 links here

“…Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that affects around 13,500 people in Austria. Due to the different ways it progresses and its variety of symptoms, the “disease with a thousand faces” is difficult to research and treat. In a study conducted by the neuroimmunology research team at the Department of Neurology, Michaela Tanja Haindl has investigated in a laboratory model how vitamin D has an effect in late-stage multiple sclerosis and what consequences this may have for MS research in general.”

“…It was demonstrated that significantly more cellular structures were preserved in this part of the brain in rats given vitamin D in addition to their normal diet. Not only were myelin and nerve cells better preserved, but there was also a reduction in apoptotic cells and microglial activation. Animals given vitamin D had significantly fewer serum neurofilament light chains (sNfL). These filaments are currently regarded as a predictor of nerve cell damage and thus a biomarker for the progression/severity of multiple sclerosis. In addition, the vitamin displayed an antioxidant effect in test animals, which was also detected in the blood serum. Rats treated with vitamin D had not only significantly more protective polyphenols in their blood, but a higher total antioxidative capacity (TAC) as well. Since oxidative stress is considered to possibly trigger and intensify MS, this positive effect of the “sunshine vitamin” might be substantiated by further research.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2639.mp3" length="377804" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Depression Is “A Normal Brain Responding to Stress or Adversity”</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2637</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2637</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 17:51:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2637

Actual title of the article, quoting the main author of the Nature op-ed. There has been a steady stream of recent studies challenging that depression is due to “faulty genes”, and even less so due to low serotonin in the brain. If anything, the available evidence so far strongly implicates high serotonin as the cause and not the cure for depression. More importantly, this most recent publication shines the light directly on environmental/social causes (e.g. chronic stress, financial insecurity/poverty, meaningless lives, etc) of depression and makes a strong case that it is those causes that need to be “treated”, not the brain itself as the brain seems to be functioning perfectly well in depressed people. Such position/opinion is anathema to both Big Pharma and public health policy, which have spent billions to shift the blame away from the crushing environment we all live in, caused by deliberate political decisions spanning decades. In other words – there is no depression as an organic disease, it is just a normal response to the drastically low quality of life we all have been experiencing for decades, and which continue to deteriorate daily. So, the solution is (and has always been) political, not pharmacological. I sense that a revolution is brewing and we may witness it play out globally in the coming months/years.

link here

Researchers: Depression Is “A Normal Brain Responding to Stress or Adversity”, link here

“…“Difficult lives explain depression better than broken brains,” according to researchers in a recent letter to the editor in Molecular Psychiatry, link here. The authors, led by Joanna Moncrieff, argue that there is no real evidence for brain differences in depression but that there is convincing evidence of the role of social and environmental factors as a cause. “We suggest that in the absence of convincing proof of a pathological process, it is more likely that depression is part of the range of emotional reactions to the circumstances of life that are typical of humans,” write Moncrieff et al. “We agree that mental activity arises from brain activity, but it seems more likely that depression is the result not of a faulty brain but rather a normal brain responding to stress or adversity: in other words, a behavioral state best understood at the level of the mind (that is, the thoughts, feelings, and actions of human beings in their social context) and not of the brain,” they add.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2637.mp3" length="695396" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Activated charcoal may treat liver cirrhosis by lowering endotoxin/LPS</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2632</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2632</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 16:40:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2632

The role of endotoxin/LPS in chronic liver disease and failure is well-known in animal research. LPS is one of the most commonly used methods for quickly inducing liver inflammation, fattening, scarring/cirrhosis, and ultimately failure. However, the role of LPS in human liver disease continues to be denied by medicine with the claim that in healthy people LPS is so quickly neutralized by the liver that it does not have much chance to cause damage. Yet, multiple human studies have demonstrated that alcohol – a universally recognized factor in liver disease – can only cause damage in animals/humans with intact microbiome. It does not cause liver disease in organisms with sterile guts, or organisms where the gut barrier (which alcohol readily compromises) has been restored with things such as dietary saturated fat, serotonin (especially 5-HT3) antagonists, NAD+ precursors such as niacinamide, TLR4 (endotoxin receptor) blockers, etc. Thus, the evidence that endotoxin/LPS is perhaps the main cause of liver disease is overwhelming. As such, measures to reduce endotoxin levels directly should be prophylactic and therapeutic for liver disease. And that is exactly what the study below states. It found that the oral administration of “…tiny…carbon beads” (a fancy, expensive and non-superior analog of activated charcoal) reduced LPS levels and blocked liver scarring (cirrhosis), with no side effects (already confirmed in humans).

link here

Carbon Beads Aid in Restoring Healthy Gut Microbiome and Reducing Liver Disease Progression, link here

“…The study, published in Gut, link here, found that the carbon beads, licensed to UCL-spinout Yaqrit, were effective in restoring gut health and had a positive impact on liver, kidney and brain function in rats and mice. They were also found to be safe for human use. The next step will be to see if the same benefits can be realised in humans, which would pave the way for them to be used to treat diseases linked to poor gut health.”

“…Explaining the current clinical challenges, senior author Professor Rajiv Jalan from the UCL Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, said: “The influence of the gut microbiome on health is only just beginning to be fully appreciated. When the balance of the microbiome is upset, ‘bad’ bacteria can proliferate and out-compete the ‘good’ bacteria that keeps the gut healthy. “One of the ways they do this is by excreting endotoxin, toxic metabolites and cytokines that transform the gut environment to make it more favourable to them and hostile to good bacteria. These substances, particularly endotoxin, can trigger gut inflammation and increase the leakiness of the gut wall, resulting in damage to other organs such as the liver, kidneys and brain. “In cirrhosis, a condition characterised by scarring of the liver, it is known that inflammation caused by endotoxins can exacerbate liver damage. Part of the standard treatment for cirrhosis is antibiotics aimed at controlling bad bacteria, but this comes with the risk of antibiotic resistance and is only used in late-stage disease.” To overcome this, scientists at UCL, in collaboration with Yaqrit, developed tiny oral carbon beads, that have a special microscopic physical structure designed to adsorb both large and small molecules in the gut.”

“…They found that when ingested every day for several weeks, the beads were effective in preventing the progress of liver scarring and injury in animals with cirrhosis, and reduced mortality in animals with acute-on-chronic-liver-failure (ACLF). The beads were also tested on 28 cirrhosis patients and proved to be safe with negligible side effects. If the same benefits observed in animal models occur in humans, the beads could be an important new tool to help tackle liver disease. Michal Kowalski, a Vice President and the CARBALIVE product lead at Yaqrit, said: “These novel, engineered carbon beads, which are swallowed and pass through the body unaltered, are smaller than a grain of salt. They work by absorbing the endotoxins and other metabolites produced by ‘bad’ bacteria in the gut, creating a better environment for the good bacteria to flourish and helping to restore microbiome health. This prevents these toxins from leaching into other areas of the body and causing damage, as they do in cirrhosis. “The results in animal models are very positive, with reduction in gut permeability, liver injury, as well as brain and kidney dysfunction.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2632.mp3" length="814964" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin/LPS makes humans callous and unempathetic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2629</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2629</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 16:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2629

It is hard to accept that something as ubiquitous as LPS may have such profound effects on our social behavior, but the findings are the latest in a very long line of research demonstrating that chronic inflammation (which LPS is “great” at inducing) result in social withdrawal and lack of empathy on behalf of the individual experiencing chronic inflammation. Since LPS is derived almost entirely from bacteria in the gut, and this process is controlled almost entirely by diet, the findings of the study suggest once again that “we are what we eat”, at least when it comes to personality and (social) behavior. Thus, one should take great care to avoid consumption of LPS-inducing diets, such as the ones containing high-fat/low-carb, resistant starch, PUFA, food additives that cause gut irritation, excessive alcohol consumption, etc. Even in the presence of such LPS-inducing diets, it may be feasible to mitigate the negative effects of such diets by simply administering OTC anti-inflammatory/anti-endotoxin substances such as charcoal, niacinamide, aspirin, vitamin D, glycine/gelatin, and insoluble-fiber-rich foods such as carrots, turnips, parsnip, rutabagas, etc.

2 links here

“…Experimentally, the various facets of sickness behavior can be induced by the administration of bacterial endotoxin, in short LPS for lipopolysaccharide. The researchers from Bochum and Essen made use of this mechanism. They administered a low dose of LPS or—as a placebo—an injection with physiological saline to 52 voluntary female participants. The women were then asked to rate various social interactions. They were shown pictures of women who were either in somatic or psychological pain or in an emotionally neutral interaction with a male counterpart. “The results surprised us,” explains first author Vera Flasbeck from the LWL-University Hospital Bochum. “While the empathy for somatic pain was largely the same in the LPS and placebo group, link here, there was a significant reduction in empathy for psychological pain in the test subjects exposed to LPS.” In the study, acute inflammation thus led to a reduction in people’s empathy for the psychological pain of others.”

“…”We assume that the reduced empathy serves to save energy in terms of social engagement in periods of illness,” explains Prof. Dr. Martin Brüne from the LWL-University Hospital Bochum, who supervised the study together with Professors Manfred Schedlowski and Harald Engler from the Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Immunobiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Duisburg-Essen. “The results of the study indicate that inflammation—as in the case of physical infections, for instance—affects both our physical health and our interpersonal relationships, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2629.mp3" length="620444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High cortisol, cortisol/DHEA, cortisol/testosterone ratios may drive schizophrenia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2627</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2627</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 15:46:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2627

The connection between chronic stress and schizophrenia is well-established but medicine continues to vehemently deny that stress on its own can cause psychotic states such as schizophrenia. To this day, the most commonly used drugs for schizophrenia are so-called dopamine antagonists, yet recent studies have demonstrated that they all have anti-serotonin effects as well. Serotonin is the primary central control mechanism behind cortisol production and anti-serotonin drugs have been successfully used to treat hyper-cortisol states such as Cushing disease/syndrome. Thus, it would be plausible to conclude that elevated cortisol is a causative factor in schizophrenia, likely downstream from elevated serotonin. On a side, but related note, this suggests that SSRI drugs at the very least exacerbate psychotic states such as schizophrenia, if not outright cause it. Yet, SSRI drugs are widely prescribed to patients with schizophrenia to “prevent” them from developing depression or “treat” already established one. Now, measuring cortisol levels in blood is tricky and more often than not patients with mental health conditions do not present with consistently elevated cortisol levels. However, even if cortisol levels are normal in serum, one can still be in a state of relative cortisol dominance. How so? Well, multiple human and animal studies have demonstrated that it is not absolute cortisol levels that matter most for health, but the ratio of cortisol to anti-cortisol steroids such as DHEA and testosterone. In fact, the serum cortisol/DHEA ratio has been consistently shown to be one of the most reliable biomarkers of all-cause mortality and morbidity, regardless of sex, age, health history, diet, genetics, etc. Thus, ideally one would want to not only measure cortisol, the cortisol/DHEA and the cortisol/testsoterone ratio, but do the measurement in a way that presents a long-term picture that can smooth out any outliers that often occur on single blood tests. Hair/nail steroid analysis is perfectly suited for such tasks, and the study below demonstrated that hair cortisol, cortisol/DHEA and cortisol/testosterone ratios are all strongly associated with schizophrenia severity, likely being causative factors for this condition.

link here

“…Hair samples were taken from 137 SCZ patients and 73 controls. The SCZ patients were diagnosed by their attending physician according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, link here IV and were clinically stable after treatment. Gender, age, BMI, link here, frequency of hair washing, marital status, education level, family history of mental illness and clozapine, link here dosage were concurrently collected as covariates. The 10-item perceived stress scale (PSS-10) and the social readjustment rating scale were used to assess chronic stress status in SCZ patients. Eight hair biomarkers, cortisol, link here, cortisone, link here, dehydroepiandrosterone, link here (DHEA), testosterone, progesterone, link here, cortisol/cortisone, cortisol/DHEA and cortisol/testosterone, were measured by high performance liquid chromatography, link here tandem mass spectrometer. Among them, cortisol, link here, cortisone, link here, DHEA and cortisol/DHEA reflected the functional activity of the HPA axis, and testosterone and progesterone, link here reflected the functional activity of the HPG axis, and cortisol/cortisone reflected the activity of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase types 2 (11β-HSD 2), and cortisol/testosterone reflected the HPA-HPG interaction. SCZ patients showed significantly higher cortisone, link here and cortisol/testosterone than controls (p<0.001, η²p=0.180 and p=0.015, η²p=0.031), lower testosterone (p=0.009, η²p=0.034), progesterone, link here (p<0.001, η²p=0.069) and cortisol/cortisone (p=0.001, η²p=0.054). There were significant intergroup differences in male and female progesterone, link here (p=0.003, η²p=0.088 and p=0.030, η²p=0.049) and female testosterone (p=0.028, η²p=0.051). In SCZ patients, cortisol, cortisol/cortisone, cortisol/DHEA and cortisol/testosterone were positively associated with PSS-10 score (ps<0.05, 0.212<rs< 0.265).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2627.mp3" length="1097132" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K is anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective, may help Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2625</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2625</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 15:27:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2625

Another win for vitamin K – one of the least studied, yet most versatile vitamins. While vitamin K is officially considered to have impact mostly on coagulation and bone health, its quinone-like structure/function suggests it may have benefits for every organ, especially high-energy-consuming ones like our brain (which consumed 20% of daily energy production). The study below demonstrated that vitamin K downregulates the expression of inflammatory mediators while also upregulating the activity of enzymes involved in preventing the accumulation of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain. Both of these pathways are thought to be the primary driving mechanisms in progressive, neurodegenerative and “incurable” conditions such as AD. Maybe all that is needed for brain health is a weekly serving of liver (a rich source of vitamin K) or a little supplementation with this gem of a vitamin.

2 links here

“…A recent study1 conducted by researchers at Sapienza University of Rome found that vitamin K2 as menaquinone-7 (MK-7) may have neuroprotective properties. In the study, researchers examined the effects of MK-7 and menaquinone-4 (MK-4) on neuroblastoma cells to understand how different forms of vitamin K2 impact the expression of genes involved in neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation. Results showed that MK-7 was associated with the “downregulation of neurodegeneration– (PSEN1 and BACE1) and neuroinflammation– (IL-1β and IL-6) associated genes.” Additionally, genes related to protective rolls toward amyloidogenesis, link here – involved in the formation and growth of amyloid structures – were upregulated (ADAM10 and ADAM17). After profiling DNA methylation patterns of genes known to be epigenetically regulated, the researchers found that there was a correlation between hypermethylation and the downregulation of PSEN1, IL-1β and IL-6. According to the researchers, this suggests that Vitamin K may have neuroprotective qualities by mitigating neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory pathways, which is mediated by the hypermethylation of the regulatory regions of PSEN1, IL-1β and IL-6.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2625.mp3" length="441380" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High-fat, low-carb diet may cause obesity, inflammation, anxiety (by raising serotonin), even suicide</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2623</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2623</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 15:16:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2623

Double whammy for two popular medical dogmas. One of them is that serotonin is the “happy hormone” and raising its levels has a variety of benefits, one of which is reducing anxiety. After all, it is hard to be happy if anxiety is through the roof, right? The second one is that low-carb/high-fat diets (also known as keto diets) are the best thing for health since the advent of antibiotics. Well, wrong on both counts, according to the study below. It found that a high-fat (45% of calories) diet caused anxiety by increasing serotonin production in the gut. It actually increased the expression of the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH), which is even worse than simply increasing serotonin production directly since increased expression levels can persist for a long time and often do not decline back to baseline even if the offending (TPH-increasing) factor has been removed from the organism. The study actually refutes yet another medical dogma, which claims that gut-derived serotonin does not have central effects since it is unable to cross the blood-brain barrier. Considering the ubiquity of SSRI drugs, low-carb diets, and exhaustive exercise (which also boosts serotonin production) it is little wonder that anxiety rates are skyrocketing and it is now the most common mental health disorder.

3 links here

“…When we’re stressed out, many of us turn to junk food for solace. But new CU Boulder research suggests this strategy may backfire. The study found that in animals, a high-fat diet disrupts resident gut bacteria, alters behavior and, through a complex pathway connecting the gut to the brain, influences brain chemicals in ways that fuel anxiety.”

“…When compared to the control group, the group eating a high-fat diet, not surprisingly, gained weight. But the animals also showed significantly less diversity of gut bacteria. Generally speaking, more bacterial diversity is associated with better health, Lowry explained. They also hosted far more of a category of bacteria called Firmicutes and less of a category called Bacteroidetes. A higher Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes ratio has been associated with the typical industrialized diet and with obesity. The high-fat diet group also showed higher expression of three genes (tph2, htr1a, and slc6a4) involved in production and signaling of the neurotransmitter serotonin—particularly in a region of the brainstem known as the dorsal raphe nucleus cDRD, which is associated with stress and anxiety. While serotonin is often billed as a “feel-good brain chemical,” Lowry notes that certain subsets of serotonin neurons can, when activated, prompt anxiety-like responses in animals. Notably, heightened expression of tph2, or tryptophan hydroxylase, in the cDRD has been associated with mood disorders and suicide risk in humans. “To think that just a high-fat diet could alter expression of these genes in the brain is extraordinary,” said Lowry. “The high-fat group essentially had the molecular signature of a high anxiety state in their brain.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2623.mp3" length="676700" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K is crucial for lung function and may prevent/treat COPD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2621</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2621</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 15:01:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2621

Vitamin K is one of the least-studied vitamins, though that has been changing lately, largely due to the studies showing vitamin K is crucial for bone and cardiovascular health, leading to its approval in Asian countries as a pharma drug for treating osteoporosis. In addition, recent studies in Western countries have led to the FDA considering approving vitamin K as treatment for liver cancer as well as several other malignancies (especially hematological ones). Despite all those studies, the role of vitamin K in pulmonary health is virtually completely unexplored, probably due to the fact that the scientific establishment does not expect that a coagulation and bone controlling vitamin has anything to do with lung function. The study below demonstrates that vitamin K is indeed very important for lung health and low dietary levels can drive conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), while raising dietary levels may wards off such diseases and maybe even treat them. One need only look at the vitamin K molecule to realize that is is a quinone, and as such is crucial for redox balance, OXPHOS, and systemic energy production. In addition, vitamin K has known anti-estrogenic effects and estrogen has a known causative and promoting role in pulmonary conditions such as COPD.

2 links here

“…It may not get the publicity of some better-known vitamins like D, but vitamin K — found in leafy green vegetables — may boost lung health. A new, large study — published Thursday in ERJ Open Research — suggests that people who have low levels of this vitamin also have less healthy lungs. They are more likely to report having asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and wheezing. “Our results suggest that vitamin K could play a part in keeping our lungs healthy,” said researcher Dr. Torkil Jespersen of Copenhagen University Hospital and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2621.mp3" length="628460" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Auto-immunity and inflammation driven by low NAD+, niacinamide is therapeutic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2619</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2619</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 14:51:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2619

Not really surprising findings, considering the extensive published evidence showing NAD+ is crucial for immune system function, and that depletion of NAD+ can cause both immunodeficiency, as well as inflammatory “auto-immune” conditions, the latter of which are thought to  involved overactive immune system function targeting a specific organ or tissue.

2 links here

“…Nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptors (NLRs) are a large family of important molecules involved in inflammatory signaling. They are generally thought to function as innate immune sensors that detect threats. However, the specific roles of several NLRs in sensing are not yet understood. Scientists at St. Jude conducted a large screen, testing a specific NLR, NLRC5, to see what threats activate it. Through their efforts, they discovered that depletion of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), a molecule essential in energy production, triggers NLRC5-mediated cell death through PANoptosis.”

“…Upon identifying the heme-containing PAMP, DAMP and cytokine combinations that trigger NLRC5-dependent inflammatory cell death, the researchers further investigated how NLRC5 is regulated. They found that NAD levels drive NLRC5 protein expression. If NAD is depleted, that sounds an alarm that there is a threat the immune system should recognize. The researchers found that depletion of NAD is sensed by NLRC5, triggering PANoptosis. “By supplementing with the NAD precursor, nicotinamide, we reduced NLRC5 protein expression and PANoptosis,” said co-first author Nagakannan Pandian, PhD, St. Jude Department of Immunology. “Therapeutically, nicotinamide has been widely studied as a nutrient supplement, and our findings suggest it could be helpful in treating inflammatory diseases.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2619.mp3" length="227372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Adding progesterone to anti-estrogen therapy stops breast cancer growth</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2616</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2616</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 14:09:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2616

Estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer is the most common type of cancer affecting women worldwide and accounts for more than 80% of all breast cancer diagnoses worldwide. It is also the most common breast cancer type in males, though males rarely get breast cancer. The standard of care therapy for such types of cancer is the administration of a an estrogen blocker such as tamoxifen or clomiphene, often in combination with an aromatase inhibitor (AI). However, the estrogen blockers are not true anti-estrogens and are in fact officially known as selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERM), since they have potent estrogenic effects in many tissues despite having (partially) anti-estrogenic effects in breast tissue. These SERM drugs are actually synthetic non-steroidal estrogens, which have been modified slightly to achieve their selective (and partial) estrogen blocking effects in some tissues. As a result of this cunning partial estrogenicity, the response to SERM therapy is an abysmally low ~30%, which can be raised to 50%-60% when combined with an AI drug. Interestingly enough, therapy by AI drug alone, especially with steroidal AI drugs such as exemestane, can be as high as 80%, which further corroborates the dangers of SERM drugs. However, SERMs remain first line of therapy for most women with ER+ breast cancer and are unlikely to be replaced any time soon. The study below reports the stunning findings that adding progesterone to tamoxifen therapy not only completely blocked tumor growth after just 4-5 weeks of treatment, but actually started to induce tumor regression in subsequent weeks. This finding is the exact opposite of current medical recommendations, which state that progesterone therapy should be avoided since it can both cause breast cancer de-novo and promote the growth of already established tumors. In fact, states such as California have mandatory warning label requirements on any product sold in California that contains progesterone. The real kicker to the study below is that progesterone was found to be therapeutic even in progesterone receptor positive (PR+) breast tumors – the very tumor type progesterone is supposed to cause/stimulate!

In terms of practical takeaways, the progesterone dose was not even that high. The human-equivalent doses was 0.6mg/kg daily, which means for most people 50mg-60mg progesterone daily should do the trick. When progesterone is dissolved in tocopherols and taken orally it has systemic bioavailability of about 60%-70%, which means a daily dose of about 100mg should be enough to replicate the study. While the study is politically correct and says that progesterone worked by enhancing the anti-estrogenic effects of tamoxifen, the real story is that progesterone simply blocked the partial estrogenic effects of tamoxifen. As such, an possibly optimal hormonal treatment of ER+ breast cancer may be a combination of a true anti-estrogen such as progesterone and a steroidal AI such as exemestane.

3 links here

“…In a landmark study, Cambridge University researchers have shown that progesterone – an inexpensive drug used in contraceptives – slows the growth of tumours. In lab tests, it made tamoxifen, the gold standard breast cancer medicine, work twice as well as usual. As a result, experts believe it could be a life-saver. The journal Nature said it was ‘time to rethink breast cancer’. Researcher Jason Carroll said: ‘The results are pretty clear and potentially have direct benefits for many women with breast cancer.’ Dr Carroll’s research centres on tumours that are fuelled by the hormone oestrogen. Some of these are also sensitive to progesterone, a hormone used in contraception. Dr Carroll, who is funded by Cancer Research UK, showed that…progesterone ‘talks’ to the oestrogen that is trying to feed the tumour. This stops the cancer from growing as quickly. In tests on mice with tumours, giving progesterone at the same time as tamoxifen, a drug widely used to stop breast cancer coming back after surgery, had a dramatic effect.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2616.mp3" length="1471388" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide increases endurance in people with vascular disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2614</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2614</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 13:22:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2614

An actual human, randomized placebo-controlled trial. Daily in take of 1,000 nicotinamide riboside (NR) – which has been shown to be non-superior to niacinamide in terms of raising NAD+ levels – for 6 months improved endurance in people with peripheral vascular disease. While the study only looked at patients with this specific conditions, this condition is often a subset of the much more common and dangerous cardiovascular disease (CVD), so I think it would not be too much of a stretch to say that taking 1g niacinamide daily would have the same effect in CVD as well, while also potentially being a so-called “disease-modifying therapy” – i.e. having beneficial effects on the underlying pathology causing the fatigue and lack of endurance. Interestingly enough, the study also tested the effects of resveratrol and found it to be not beneficial. So much for the multi-million dollar research performs by Dr. Sinclair in Harvard and the resveratrol company he sold to GSK for more than $700mil.

2 links here

“…The over-the-counter supplement nicotinamide riboside, a form of vitamin B3, increased the walking endurance of patients with peripheral artery disease, a chronic leg condition for which there are few effective treatments. In a preliminary, randomized, double-blind clinical trial led by Northwestern University and University of Florida scientists, patients who took nicotinamide riboside daily for six months increased their timed walking distance by more than 57 feet, compared to participants who took a placebo. As expected, walking speed declined in those who took a placebo, because peripheral artery disease causes progressive declines in walking performance…(The researchers also tested if resveratrol, a compound best known for being in red wine, could boost the effects of nicotinamide riboside; they found no additional benefits.)”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2614.mp3" length="518780" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Increasing the metabolic rate increases lifespan and improves health</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2612</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2612</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 13:03:45 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2612

The study below is one of the few to directly challenge the so-called Rate of Living Theory, link here (ROL) that has dominated (and continues to dominate) medical research in aging/longevity. The study demonstrates that administering an OXPHOS uncoupler (which compensatorily increases the metabolic rate and heat production) extended maximum lifespan of the studied organism by up to 25%, while simultaneously also increasing healthspan (the period of time in an organism’s lifespan that is free of major disease). The study used the uncoupler BAM15, link here to achieve those effects, however this is a very suboptimal choice due to the known toxicity of the chemical resulting mostly likely from the presence of fluorine in the molecule. Had the study used a more benign uncoupler such as 2,4-dinitropheol (DNP), aspirin/salicylates, the active thyroid hormone T3, progesterone, DHEA, salt, etc it is likely that the results would have been much more impressive. Be that as it may, we now have evidence that  the ROL is wrong and the truth about longevity and aging is exactly backwards. Namely, the higher the basal metabolic rate the longer one lives and the healthier one is. Just as importantly, the findings of the study directly question the current established recommendations to exercise rigorously as exhaustive exercise (especially the “endurane” type) is one of the most well-known metabolic suppressors. If an exercise regimen is desired it should consist of mostly concentric exercise, and done only for periods that are so-called glycogen-bound – i.e. exercise should be performed only until the fuel used is primarily glucose, from food of from internal glycogen storage. As soon as glucose is depleted and fat burning (precedes by elevated lipolysis) starts the exercise quickly starts to become detrimental. Not just to the metabolic rate but to the entire organism due to switching over to fat-burning, with the added “bonus” that for most people the fat being released from stores and oxidized will be PUFA as that type of fat is preferentially stored into adipose tissue. And last but not least, the popular press article is one again exposing the cunning nature of scientific “journalism”. Instead of reporting the actual findings of the study, which directly state that metabolic uncoupling and increased metabolic rate/thermogenesis extends lifespan, the article states that “making the cells less efficient at producing energy” is what extends lifespan. While technically correct, the message most people would internalize from the article is that the ROL is correct since for most people reduced energy production implies reduced metabolism.

2 links here

“…A new study, link here has shown that BAM15, a compound that makes mitochondria less efficient at producing energy, extended life span in fruit flies and was associated with less body fat and increased muscle function. The paper is titled “Restricting bioenergetic efficiency enhances longevity and mitochondrial redox capacity in Drosophila melanogaster” and is published in the journal Aging Cell.”

“…This current study is the first to show that adding BAM15 to the diet can uncouple mitochondria, extend life span, improve body composition, and protect against age-related decline in motor activity in a fruit fly model of aging. The authors state, “In summary, our findings indicate that mitochondrial uncoupling by BAM15 confers life span extension, improves body composition, and protects against age-related decline in locomotor activity in Drosophila (fruit flies). Collectively, these data support an emerging role for restricting bioenergetic efficiency to maintain mitochondrial redox fitness across the life span.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2612.mp3" length="1261604" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>US Government: Fluoridated water damages brain and lowers intelligence in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2610</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2610</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 04:13:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2610

Honestly, I did not think that an official government admission of the dangers of fluoride would occur in my lifetime. The topic of fluoridated water and its purported myriad of benefits is so  firmly entrenched in both medical and public health dogma that the mere mentioning of water fluoridation in a negative context usually triggers immediate censorship on major social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and sometimes even Twitter/X (despite its claims of supporting free speech). Yet, if one were to look at the peer-reviewed literature, it quickly becomes clear that fluoride has multiple negative effects on the human organism, likely stemming from its role as a known thyroid suppressor. Considering that intelligence and behavior largely depend on the metabolic rate, one would expect chronic fluoride exposure through tap water to have strong and lasting negative effects on intelligence and brain health in general. That is exactly what the official Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report below concludes, and I hope that this report finally leads to local water authorities within the US (and possibly globally as well) changing their position on fluoride and stopping tap water fluoridation.

2 links here

“…High levels of fluoride in drinking water may dim the intelligence of children, a new U.S. government report shows. Based on an analysis of published research, the potentially controversial report, link here marks the first time a federal agency has determined there is a link between drinking twice the recommended amount of fluoride and lower IQs in kids. “Since 1945, the use of fluoride has been a successful public health initiative for reducing dental cavities and improving general oral health of adults and children, link here,” the report, link here stated.”

“…But more recent research has pointed to a different problem, suggesting a link between higher levels of fluoride and brain development. Studies in animals showed fluoride could impact cell function in brain regions responsible for learning, memory, executive function and behavior, the AP reported. After more research continued to raise questions, the National Toxicology Program started working on a review of the available studies in 2016. The hope was that it could provide guidance on whether new fluoride-limiting measures were needed.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2610.mp3" length="569660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Thyroid hormone (T3) promotes curiosity, exploration, novelty-seeking</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2608</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2608</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 03:58:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2608

Curiosity is one of the most common observations in healthy children and is even an established biomarker in diagnosing conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, depression, dementia, etc. Curiosity is known to be very low or even non-existent in older and/or chronically ill people, who are very novelty/curiosity averse and can even become violent when faced with a continuous stream of novel experiences. In other words, healthy people naturally prefer and seek novelty while older/sick people prefer routine and lack of change, and are averse to open-mindedness. Ray mentioned this in several of his articles in the context of energy production, since curiosity/learning is a very energy-intensive process and can be used as a reliable biomarker of overall health in people of all ages. The study below now confirms officially that the active thyroid hormone T3 is the direct driver of curiosity and novelty-seeking behavior, and the steady decline of T3 in aging and chronic diseases would explain the lack of curiosity and open-mindedness in such people. Once again, something even as abstract and seemingly brain-specific as curiosity turns out to be directly controlled by metabolism.

2 links here

“…Thyroid hormone plays a key role in regulating a range of physiologic functions, including metabolism, temperature, heart rate, and growth. It accomplishes this impressive array of activities by interacting with almost every organ system in the body. Yet despite a long history of research on how thyroid hormone influences different organs, its effects on arguably the most crucial organ — the brain — have remained shrouded in mystery. Now, scientists at Harvard Medical School have gained new insights into thyroid hormone’s effects on the brain. The work, conducted in mice and published Aug. 22 in Cell, shows that thyroid hormone changes the wiring of brain circuits in a manner that drives animals to engage in exploratory behavior. By simultaneously changing brain wiring and altering metabolic rate, the researchers concluded that thyroid hormone coordinates the brain and body to produce exploratory behavior when it is most needed — for example, during seasons when animals need to find mates or stockpile resources. “It’s well known that thyroid hormone modulates metabolism, and now we’ve shown that it also modulates exploratory behaviors through direct action on the brain,” said lead author Daniel Hochbaum, research fellow in neurobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS. The findings also help elucidate how low levels of the hormone could lead to depressive states marked by a low desire to explore, while too much could precipitate manic states characterized by an extreme desire for exploration. Thus, the researchers see their work as an important step toward understanding how aberrant levels of thyroid hormone could contribute to certain psychiatric conditions.”

“…Moreover, when researchers induced higher levels of thyroid hormone in the cortex, mice became more willing to explore the environment and take risks. Conversely, when researchers blocked the hormone’s action in only the cortex, the animals no longer changed how much they explored based on thyroid hormone levels. “This told us that thyroid hormone is doing important things directly in the cortex,” Hochbaum said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2608.mp3" length="585716" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin A may alleviate depression in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2606</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2606</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 03:38:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2606

I know this post will make me a lot of new enemies among the anti-retinol crowd, but the findings are too important not to share with my readers since the study was not only with humans, but humans in a very compromised state of health (heart failure). This suggests that in healthier humans the anti-depressant effects may be even more pronounced. While the study did not opine on the main mechanism of action, it does mention the crucial role of vitamin A in dampening inflammation, as well as its crucial role in steroidogenesis (including thyroid). Both of those pathways are very important in depressed patients, who are almost always found to have chronic inflammation and reduced levels of thyroid hormones as well as “neurosteroids” such as pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, etc while also both reducing cortisol (a known causative steroid in depression) synthesis and blocking its effects at the receptor level.

3 links here

“…The researchers observed that approximately 85% of participants with depression reported daily vitamin A intake of less than 731.38 µg. Wang and colleagues found that compared with patients with low daily vitamin A intake, depression was less likely in patients at increasing daily intake levels of vitamin A, which became significant above 731.38 µg daily. Moreover, daily vitamin A intake of 731.38 µg or more compared with low intake was significantly associated with lower odds for depression among participants with HF aged 65 years or older, men and participants with hyperlipidemia or chronic kidney disease. “Vitamin A acts as an antioxidant, protecting against oxidative damage and reducing inflammation by inhibiting the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. By mitigating these processes, vitamin A may contribute to reduce the incidence of depression in HF patients,” the researchers wrote. “Vitamin A is involved in the regulation of various hormones, including cortisol and thyroid hormones, which have been implicated in depression. Chronic stress, commonly experienced by patients with HF, can dysregulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, leading to elevated cortisol levels,” they wrote. “Adequate vitamin A intake may contribute to optimal thyroid function and reduce the risk of depression in patients with HF.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2606.mp3" length="442412" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide improves bone health and reduces fat synthesis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2604</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2604</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 03:26:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2604

Two of the features of aging thought to be unavoidable are brittle bones and increased visceral fat, both of which (alone or in combination) are a major contributing factor for the increased mortality seen with aging. As it turns out, both these features are apparently driven by decline in metabolism/OXPHOS, which is driven primarily by a relative NAD+ deficiency (i.e. low NAD+/NADH ratio), and supplementation with NAD+ precursors such as niacinamide may be able to stop/reverse them.

2 links here

“…Recent studies indicate that oxidative phosphorylation plays a critical role in osteogenesis, the process by which new bone is formed. During osteogenic induction, cells shift their energy metabolism from glycolysis to mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, increasing respiratory enzymes, mitochondrial DNA copy number, oxygen consumption, and intracellular ATP content​. Bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) has been shown to trigger metabolic adaptations in mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), characterized by successive activation of glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation​. NAD+ levels and the NAD+/NADH ratio are crucial for mitochondrial function, linking cellular metabolism to transcriptional events and signaling pathways. Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), a key NAD+ intermediate, promotes osteogenesis and reduces adipogenesis in MSCs, protecting bone from aging and damage.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2604.mp3" length="294836" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vinegar (acetic acid) alleviates depression in humans by increasing niacinamide</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2602</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2602</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 03:17:56 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2602

A very interesting study, which suggests niacinamide may be a treatment for depression. Strikingly, the almost 50% reduction in depressive symptoms occurred after just 4 weeks of consuming vinegar – a feat that almost no pharma antidepressant drug can currently match. I just hope the takeway from the blog post -is to use niacinamide for depression, instead of vinegar, since high levels of acetic acid promote fat synthesis and tumor growth and as such chronically elevated vinegar intake is probably not safe. The mechanism of action is mostly likely linked to the role of niacinamide as an NAD+ precursor, resulting in improved metabolism/OXPHOS. Of course, that strongly suggests (yet again) that depression is a metabolic disease:-)

2 links here

“…A few tablespoons of vinegar a day may help keep depression away, research shows. Consuming two tablespoons of red wine vinegar twice a day for four weeks significantly improved self-reported depression scores in a group of 28 overweight adults who were otherwise healthy, a new study, link here found. Enhancements in niacin metabolism may contribute to the improvement in mood, the researchers concluded.”

“…Vinegar, a combination of acetic acid and water made through fermentation, previously has been linked to positive outcomes for heart disease, link here and weight loss, link here. For the latest study, published in the journal Nutrients, researchers from the University of Arizona looked at how daily vinegar consumption affected mood and metabolism. They compared one group of people who took diluted vinegar daily to a second group that ingested a pill containing very little vinegar. By the fourth week, the group taking the diluted vinegar showed a 42% reduction in depression scores compared to an 18% reduction in the group taking pills. The group that drank the vinegar daily also experienced an 86% increase in levels of nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B that has been linked to anti-inflammatory effects.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2602.mp3" length="411644" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E may lower mortality in COPD patients</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2600</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2600</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 03:01:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2600

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) rates have been steadily rising over the last 2-3 decades despite steadily decreasing rates of smoking in the general population. COPD rates have further increased after the COVID-19 pandemic, and drastically increase all-cause mortality not only from lung failure buy from cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, cancer, etc. As such new treatments are urgently needed. The study below demonstrates that higher vitamin E intake may protect from the increased all-cause mortality seen in COPD patients. While the proposed mechanism of action is, again, the known antioxidant effects of vitamin E the real mechanism of action probably has more to do with the ability of vitamin E to decrease the synthesis of the highly inflammatory PUFA metabolites known as prostaglandins and leukotrienes. The anti-estrogenic effects of vitamin E probably also play a role, as estrogen is known to exacerbate COPD and some studies have even demonstrates a causative effects of COPD by estrogen de-novo. The effect was dose-dependent, which suggests doses higher than the puny RDA would be needed for optimal effects. While the study did not state this directly, the authors discuss the protective effects of other anti-oxidants such as vitamin C in respiratory conditions such as COVID-19, which suggests that vitamin E may be protective in COVID-19 as well, which has already been confirmed by human studies.

link here

“…For this study, we utilized the NHANES database, which is rich in content, scientific, and reliable. Previous studies have found that VE intake is positively associated with lung function25, link here and negatively associated with the risk of COPD.23, link here Our study confirmed that dietary VE intake was also inversely associated with all-cause and CLRD deaths in COPD, with a significant dose-response relationship through a generalized additive model. There was no significant correlation with CVD death in COPD patients. COPD is a leading cause of morbidity, mortality and healthcare consumption worldwide,29, link here which is caused by exposure to inhaled toxic particles, especially tobacco smoke and pollutants.30, link here In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to a wide range of factors that increase the risk of COPD development and progression throughout the life course, including early lung development and infection.1, link here Dietary factors might modulate the effects of adverse environmental exposures or genetic predisposition on the lungs, but may also have direct (protective or harmful) effects on biological processes involved in lung function, disease development and outcome.31–33, link hereVitamins are a group of organic compounds that are essential to the physiological functioning of the body. Vitamin content has a positive significance in the development of the lungs and already plays a role in the development of the foetal lungs during pregnancy.34, link here,35, link here At the same time, vitamins, as the main dietary nutrients, are the regulatory factors of immune response, and their influence on human immunity is crucial.36, link here Pulmonary respiratory infection in childhood has an important influence on the trajectory of pulmonary function changes in adults and can increase the prevalence of COPD.37, link here Dietary interventions early in life may help lung function remain stable throughout life. What’s more, in a randomised trial, the role of vitamin C in preventing acute respiratory infections (ARI) was stronger in men and middle-income countries compared with adult women and high-income countries, respectively.38, link here During COVID-19, a controlled study confirmed that supplementation with 1 g/d vitamin C reduced symptoms and shortened disease duration, thereby improving recovery rates.39, link here“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2600.mp3" length="717260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) promotes (chronic) pain and, likely, depression as well</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2598</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2598</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 02:37:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2598

Evil serotonin rears its ugly head again. This time, the findings of the study below are that serotonin may be the primary driver of post-surgical pain, which often becomes chronic and may lead to depression, opioid/alcohol addiction, anti-social behavior, etc. So much for serotonin being the “cure” of depression. Now, while the study below looked only at post-surgical pain, in my opinion the findings are not specific to that situation only. Namely, the inflammatory state (driven by mast cell activation), which most patients find themselves in after surgery is characterized by inflammatory mediators found systemically and not just in the organ/tissue operated on. This means that serotonin may be responsible for many/most cases of “idiopathic” chronic pain seen in people without physical trauma or surgery. Interestingly, systemic inflammation and chronic pain are a common observation in depression, which may explain why anti-inflammatory drugs (many of which are also analgesics) are often therapeutic in depression.  Furthermore, many studies have observed a very strong correlation between levels of inflammation and chronic pain and severity of depressive symptoms. As such, one can plausibly conclude that the administration of SSRI drugs directly promotes at the very least chronic inflammation and pain, and likely depression as well. Unfortunately, I suspect it will be decades before we see such a direct conclusion in a study like the one below, published in a highly reputable journal.

The study used genetic deletion of the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH), which produced serotonin, in order to block the post-surgical pain. This method is obviously not practical to implement in humans, so instead one could probably achieve the same effects using serotonin antagonists such as cyproheptadine and metergoline, or the (even better) the over-the-counter anti-acid drug famotidine, which was found to be a powerful anti-serotonin agent capable of stopping already established serotonin syndrome (which is often lethal).

link here

“…Inflammation caused by surgical tissue injury can evolve into chronic pain. Starkl et al. used a mouse model of surgical tissue injury to decipher a role for mast cell–derived metabolites in postoperative pain. Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) has been previously detected in injured nerves and correlates with pain intensity and is required for serotonin production by tryptophan hydroxylase (Tph1). Nerve-proximal mast cells were identified as a source of GTP cyclohydrolase 1 (Gch1), a rate-limiting enzyme for BH4 synthesis. Deletion of Gch1 or Tph1 from mast cells or mast cell depletion reduced tissue injury pain. The nociceptive neuropeptide substance P was detected at tissue injury sites and triggered BH4-dependent serotonin release from mast cells, thus defining how neuropeptides can act on mast cells and propagate pain responses.”

“…Postoperative pain affects most patients after major surgery and can transition to chronic pain. The considerable side effects and limited efficacy of current treatments underline the need for new therapeutic options. We observed increased amounts of the metabolites BH4 and serotonin after skin injury. Mast cells were primary postoperative sources of Gch1, the rate-limiting enzyme in BH4 synthesis, itself an obligate cofactor in serotonin production by tryptophan hydroxylase (Tph1). Mice deficient in mast cells or in mast cell–specific Gch1 or Tph1 showed drastically decreased postoperative pain. We found that injury induced the nociceptive neuropeptide substance P, mast cell degranulation, and granule nerve colocalization. Substance P triggered serotonin release in mouse and human mast cells, and substance P receptor blockade substantially ameliorated pain hypersensitivity. Our findings highlight the importance of mast cells at the neuroimmune interface and substance P–driven mast cell BH4 and serotonin production as a therapeutic target for postoperative pain treatment.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2598.mp3" length="978620" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Reduced folate intake may extend lifespan, by restoring metabolic flexibility</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2596</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2596</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 01:57:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2596

Ever since we launched our B-complex product Energin almost 10 years ago, we have been getting emails about why the product does not contain folic acid and vitamin B12. I keep answering by saying that both of those vitamins have been linked to higher risk of cancer, and as such have stubbornly resisted demands to add those 2 vitamins to the product. Now, the study below adds another good reason to not take folate supplement in adulthood – reduced folate intake may increase lifespan. Interestingly, the mechanism of action for lifespan extension by folate restriction is that dietary folate deficiency seems to restore metabolic flexibility – a hallmark of youth. While we easily switch between burning carbs and fat in our childhood and early adulthood, that flexibility declines as we age. Very old (or sick) people burn predominantly fat, even in the presence of sufficient glucose intake. This lack of metabolic flexibility is likely driven by a steady decline in thyroid function as we age, which results in compensatory increase in adrenal activity, with the end result being that older people are in a state of chronic stress even when undisturbed, which results in excessive lipolysis and thus dominance of fat oxidation as per the Randle Cycle. Whether restricting dietary folate results in increased thyroid function, reduced adrenal hyperactivity, or both remains to be discovered. Be that as it may, the main (indirect) finding of the study seems to be that lifespan is metabolically controlled, and restoring youthful metabolic profile can extend lifespan.

link here

“…Folate is a vitamin required for cell growth and is present in fortified foods in the form of folic acid to prevent congenital abnormalities. The impact of low folate status on life-long health is poorly understood. We found that limiting folate levels with the folate antagonist methotrexate increased the lifespan of yeast and worms. We then restricted folate intake in aged mice and measured various health metrics, metabolites, and gene expression signatures. Limiting folate intake decreased anabolic biosynthetic processes in mice and enhanced metabolic plasticity. Despite reduced serum folate levels in mice with limited folic acid intake, these animals maintained their weight and adiposity late in life, and we did not observe adverse health outcomes. These results argue that the effectiveness of folate dietary interventions may vary depending on an individual’s age and sex. A higher folate intake is advantageous during the early stages of life to support cell divisions needed for proper development. However, a lower folate intake later in life may result in healthier aging.”

link here

“…A new study suggests that while consuming folates, link here is considered healthy for everyone — and it clearly benefits the young — it may result in metabolic issues for older individuals. The study of mice from Texas A&M University’s AgriLife Research found that lower levels of folates, the naturally occurring form of vitamin B9, facilitated the transition from sleep metabolism to waking metabolism…The study’s senior author, Michael Polymenis, PharmD, PhD, link here, who teaches biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&M, told Medical News Today, “As we age, we cannot switch quickly from one mode of metabolism (e.g., burning fat while we sleep) to another (e.g., burning carbs when we wake up). Quick transitions are necessary to meet our body’s on-demand needs.” Michelle Routhenstein, MS, RD, CDCES, link here, preventive cardiology dietitian at EntirelyNourished.com, who was not involved in the study, explained, “During the day when active, the body primarily uses carbohydrates for energy, with higher insulin levels facilitating glucose uptake. At night, insulin sensitivity decreases, shifting metabolism toward using stored fat, as the body’s energy needs are lower, and growth hormone levels increase.” “As we age,” said Polymenis, “our bodies become less adept at adjusting their fuel source in response to changing needs, which can affect overall health and energy levels.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2596.mp3" length="739076" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lactate drives cancer resistance to chemotherapy, reducing lactate is therapeutic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2594</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2594</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 25 Aug 2024 01:34:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2594

Over the last 5-6 years, a number of high profile articles (many of them, including the new one below, published in the top journal Nature) confirmed lactate as not only an “oncometabolite”, but as a direct driver of cancer growth, aggressiveness, metastases, and ultimately death of the patient. Lactic acidosis type B, which is often seen in patients with advanced cancer, has about 40% lethality even if the patient is in the hospital and receiving the most advanced treatments available for metabolic acidosis. So, nothing benign or insignificant about lactate, as medicine would have us believe. The new study below now demonstrates that lactate has another “trick” up its sleeve – i.e. increasing resistance of the “cancer” cells to chemotherapy. I shudder at the thought of how many cancer (and other) patients deteriorate (or even die) iatrogenically due to the administration of the so-called “Ringer Lactate” solution – a common “hydration” therapy given by IV in hospitals to critically ill patients, including cancer patients. But I digress.

Interestingly, lactate achieves this enhanced resistance to chemotherapy by increasing the activity of enzymes involved in DNA repair inside “cancer” cells. Since such cells are known to have a high rate of DNA damage/mutation, it makes sense that “cancer” cells have increased DNA repair processes. However, most of the DNA repair processes consume a lot of NAD+, especially the PARP-1 and CD38 enzymes, which further lowers the critically-important mitochondrial NAD+/NADH ratio in the already highly reductive “cancer” cells. Conversely, PARP-1 and CD38 inhibitors have been shown to be therapeutic for cancer, which is undoubtedly due to the ability of such inhibitors to “spare” the NAD+ the sick organism so desperately needs. Thus, the main mechanism of lactate’s pro-cancer effects may very well turn out to be its NAD+ depletion by activating DNA repair in “cancer” cells. To make matters worse, lactate is itself a reductant and consumes NAD+ directly when it is oxidized back to pyruvate by the enzyme lactate dehydrogenase (LDH). Interestingly, the study found that inhibition of lactate generation by the administration of an LDH inhibitor was therapeutic and cancelled the resistance of “cancer” cells to chemotherapy. Now, if only there was a way to attack all of those pathways simultaneously with a simple, cheap and safe molecule…Luckily, niacinamide is just such a substance. Not only is niacinamide the main endogenous precursor to NAD+, but it is also a powerful inhibitor of the NAD+ consuming enzymes PARP-1 and CD38. Thus, niacinamide raises NAD+ by being both a precursor and inhibitor of NAD+ consumption. In corroboration, niacinamide has been shown to reliably lower lactate in humans. Other powerful lactate generation inhibitors include vitamin B1 (thiamine) and vitamin B7 (biotin). Coincidentally, the combination of those vitamins, together with aspirin, was able to induce complete regression in my recent xenograft study with the human jeko-1 (mantle cell lymphoma) cell line. Thus, we can conclude once again that “cancer” is metabolic in origin and likely just a symptom of a highly reduced (both literally and figuratively) metabolic state, and administering substances that shift the metabolic state towards oxidation may very well cure the “cancer”. Oh, and last but not least, the study discloses (perhaps inadvertently) that LDH inhibitors are used clinically for the treatment of epilepsy – a condition medicine considers both mysterious in origin and incurable. Thus, I think we can safely conclude that epilepsy, just like cancer, is also nothing but a symptom of severe (brain) energetic depletion, and also amenable to simple treatment as described above:-)

link here

“…The molecule lactate is a waste product of the metabolism of sugar without oxygen — a metabolic pathway preferentially used by cancer cells to generate their energy. Metabolomics analysis reveals that lactate in tumour cells promotes resistance to chemotherapy, and sheds light on the molecular mechanism that underlies this unexpected role of lactate in cancer.”

link here

“…The Warburg effect is a hallmark of cancer that refers to the preference of cancer cells to metabolize glucose anaerobically rather than aerobically1, link here,2, link here. This results in substantial accumulation of lacate, the end product of anaerobic glycolysis, in cancer cells3, link here. However, how cancer metabolism affects chemotherapy response and DNA repair in general remains incompletely understood. Here we report that lactate-driven lactylation of NBS1 promotes homologous recombination (HR)-mediated DNA repair. Lactylation of NBS1 at lysine 388 (K388) is essential for MRE11–RAD50–NBS1 (MRN) complex formation and the accumulation of HR repair proteins at the sites of DNA double-strand breaks. Furthermore, we identify TIP60 as the NBS1 lysine lactyltransferase and the ‘writer’ of NBS1 K388 lactylation, and HDAC3 as the NBS1 de-lactylase. High levels of NBS1 K388 lactylation predict poor patient outcome of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and lactate reduction using either genetic depletion of lactate dehydrogenase A (LDHA) or stiripentol, a lactate dehydrogenase A inhibitor used clinically for anti-epileptic treatment, inhibited NBS1 K388 lactylation, decreased DNA repair efficacy and overcame resistance to chemotherapy. In summary, our work identifies NBS1 lactylation as a critical mechanism for genome stability that contributes to chemotherapy resistance and identifies inhibition of lactate production as a promising therapeutic cancer strategy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2594.mp3" length="1896428" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin improves cognition, lowers brain inflammation due to sleep deprivation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2592</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2592</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jul 2024 18:32:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2592

The study was with humans, which makes it that much more relevant. As most of my readers know, sleep deprivation is a definitely a “thing” in most Western countries, and it has serious health consequences such as increasing risks of infertility, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, cancer, etc. The response by Big Pharma has been to release a number of different sleeping pills (Ambien, anyone?) the vast majority of which have terrible side effects, and most importantly do not resolve neither the underlying reason for the insomnia, nor its inflammatory effects. The study below demonstrates that humble aspirin may be able to achieve what billions of dollars wasted by Big Pharma on sleeping pills R&D cold not. Namely, prevent/resolve the brain inflammation driven by chronic sleep deprivation, as well as ameliorate the cognitive dysfunction driven by said brain inflammation. It is worth pointing out that for the in-vitro portion of the study, the scientists used endotoxin/LPS to cause the brain cell inflammation. Chronic, low-grade endotoxemia is definitely also a “thing” in most modern societies and apparently aspirin can help with that as well.

2 links here

Aspirin Eases Inflammation from Sleep Loss, link here

“…Results show that compared with placebo, preemptive administration of low-dose aspirin during sleep restriction reduced pro-inflammatory responses. Specifically, aspirin reduced interleukin-6 expression and COX-1/COX-2 double positive cells in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated monocytes, as well as C-reactive protein serum levels.”

“…“The novelty of this study is that it investigated whether we can pharmacologically reduce the inflammatory consequences of sleep restriction,” said lead author Larissa Engert, who has a doctorate in behavioral physiology and is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the division of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “We used a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug because it has been shown to affect specific inflammatory pathways, which were previously shown to be dysregulated by experimental sleep restriction or sleep disturbances.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2592.mp3" length="601484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B1 (thiamine) supplementation prevents/treats osteoarthritis (OA)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2590</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2590</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jul 2024 18:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2590

Actual conclusion of the study itself and a very strong claim, considering medicine considered OA to be incurable and progressive. While the study claims that reduced inflammation is the main mechanism of action of vitamin B1 supplementation, I think the much more likely explanation is the simple fact that B1 is a crucial factor for the oxidative metabolism of glucose and the generation of CO2. In fact, vitamin B1 is often given clinically as a supplementat to lower lactate and raise CO2. While medicine considers CO2 as little more than “metabolic waste”, a well-known fact is that the deposition of calcium into the bones depends on the carboxylation (i.e. using CO2) of various bone building proteins such as osteocalcin. Thus, elevated CO2 levels directly result in denses, bigger, stronger bones while lower CO2 levels (which means higher lactate) result in bone resorption, and elevated serum calcium and excretion. Thus, in the context of elevating CO2 the effects of vitamin B1 make perfect sense, and in fact can be further increased by adding niacinamide and biotin, both of which have also been shown to lower lactate and raise CO2 levels. Btw, this CO2-raising, synergistic effect of B1, B3, and B7 (biotin) is one of the main reasons I chose those vitamins for the cancer studies I am currently running.

link here

“…As the primary cause for chronic pain and disability in elderly individuals, osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the fastest-growing diseases due to the aging world population. To date, the impact of microenvironmental changes on the pathogenesis of OA remains poorly understood, greatly hindering the development of effective therapeutic approaches against OA. In this study, we profiled the differential metabolites in the synovial fluid from OA patients and identified the downregulation of vitamin B1 (VB1) as a metabolic feature in the OA microenvironment. In a murine destabilization of medial meniscus-induced OA model, supplementation of VB1 significantly mitigated the symptoms of OA. Cytokine array analysis revealed that VB1 treatment remarkably reduced the production of a pro-OA factor-C-C Motif Chemokine Ligand 2 (CCL2), in macrophages. Further evidence demonstrated that exogenous CCL2 counteracted the anti-OA function of VB1. Hence, our study unveils a unique biological function of VB1 and provides promising clues for the diet-based treatment of OA.”

“…Additionally, Fursultiamine, a VB1 derivative, was found to improve the therapeutic effect of glucosamine hydrochloride plus chondroitin sulfate in OA (11, link here). In this study, we systemically profiled the metabolic changes in the OA microenvironment and identified VB1 as one of the most dramatically changed metabolites. The anti-OA function of VB1 is at least partially attributed to its capacity to suppress CCL2 expression. Compared to other chemokines, CCL2 plays a particularly crucial role in OA progression. OA patients exhibited increased CCL2 production in the synovial fluid compared to healthy controls (12, link here). Mechanistically, CCL2 may exacerbate OA by mediating the recruitment of peripheral monocytes (13, link here), inducing the expression of MMPs and VCAM-1 (12, link here, 14, link here), increasing the activity of collagenase (15, link here), or promoting cartilage damage (16, link here) or facilitating the production of inflammatory cytokines (17, link here). As a natural and water-soluble vitamin, VB1 has relatively higher safety and lower costs compared to traditional anti-OA drugs, potentially enhancing patient compliance. Thus, increasing the intake of VB1-rich food (such as whole grains, beans, nuts, and fish) is a potentially beneficial dietary approach in OA patients. Taken together, in this study, we identified a safe, natural nutrient (VB1) that prevents the pathological processes of OA, thereby providing unique perspectives on dietary interventions for OA.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2590.mp3" length="701924" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B1 (thiamine) improves digestion and ameliorates constipation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2588</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2588</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jul 2024 17:48:48 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2588

Reduced frequency of bowel movements is one of the most reliable signs of declining metabolic rate, and it just happens to be one of the most common signs of aging. Reduced bowel movements are also the main factor behind chronic, low-grade endotoxemia seen in most adults over 35, and this endotoxemia is now recognized as a culprit behind virtually every chronic disease known to medicine. Conversely, constipation relief is one of the reliable indicators of increased metabolic rate and has been demonstrated to result in reduced inflammation, both in the GI tract and systemically. Medicine has already recognized chronic constipation as a reliable sign of impending ill health, but the “solutions” it offers are at best misguided and at worst may exacerbate the underlying metabolic problems. In other words, the laxatives sold OTC in most stores are probably something to be avoided. Even the relatively benign magnesium hydroxide can cause GI irritation when taken in doses that result in increased motility. The study below may have a simple solution – vitamin B1, also known as thiamine. Vitamin B1 is crucial for the oxidative metabolism of glucose and for the production of CO2. Increasing CO2 levels in the GI tract has already been shown to resolve constipation and possibly even serious conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The study below suggests taking some extra B1 may be a simple and cheap way of resolving constipation, and thus systemic and digestive inflammation.

2 links here

“…”This association suggests that enhanced intake of vitamin B1 through diet may facilitate softer stools and heightened intestinal motility, thereby potentially alleviating constipation symptoms. Consequently, healthcare professionals are advised to prioritize the promotion of a well-balanced diet as an initial therapeutic approach, preceding medical interventions,” the authors wrote.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2588.mp3" length="744980" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E supplementation may prevent lung disease (COPD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2586</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2586</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jul 2024 17:35:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2586

An interesting study, considering vitamin E’s benefits are thought (by medicine) to be mostly related to its anti-oxidant effects, while the condition chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), link here is thought to be related mostly to external factors such as smoking, air pollution, respiratory infections, etc. Despite the study pushing the anti-oxidant angle, my opinion is that the preventive effects of vitamin E were mostly due to its role as COX and LOX inhibitor, which makes it a powerful anti-inflammatory substance, and COPD is at its core an inflammatory disorder. Now, since COX and LOX produce inflammatory mediators (prostaglandins and leukotrienes, respectively) from PUFA, the findings of the study suggest COPD is yet another PUFA-driven disorder. In addition, estrogen is known to exacerbate (or maybe even cause?) COPD and the anti-estrogenic effects of vitamin E probably also play a role in its preventive effects for this condition. The study did not look into therapeutic effects, but given the animal studies showing COPD alleviation/reversal by vitamin E, link here (through its role as COX inhibitor), it would probably be not too far-fetched to say that vitamin E may also treat established COPD if taken in higher doses for sufficiently long time. Avoidance of PUFA will probably also have the same beneficial effects, on both prevention and treatment.

link here

Higher vitamin E intake linked to lower COPD risk: US data, link here

“…Findings indicate that vitamin E supplementation may help in preventing COPD, but more research is needed to confirm this, researchers note. The study “Association of Dietary intake of vitamin E with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease events in US adults: A cross-sectional study of NHANES 2013-2018, link here,” was published in Frontiers in Nutrition. ”

“…Results showed the highest intake group had a significantly reduced risk of COPD, by 43%, relative to the lowest intake group. Those on medium levels of vitamin E intake also tended to have a lower COPD risk than those on the lowest levels, but this difference wasn’t statistically significant, which means it’s mathematically plausible it could be random chance. Further statistical analyses, as well as subgroup analyses, all indicated the higher the vitamin E intake, the lower the risk of developing COPD. “The results showed that vitamin E intake among U.S. adults was well below the recommended levels and that higher vitamin E intake was negatively associated with COPD incidence,” the scientists wrote. Based on these findings, vitamin E supplementation might “have an important role in the prevention of COPD,” the team wrote.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2586.mp3" length="725636" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen causes anxiety</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2584</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2584</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 19 Jul 2024 18:36:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2584

Just a day ago I did a post about estrogens being a cause of dementia, while anti-estrogens being therapeutic. Now, the study below found that estrogen causes anxiety – the most common mental health condition worldwide. Considering estrogen, in the form of ethinyl estradiol, is in virtually all birth control pills, devices, patches, etc prescribed worldwide one would be forgiven for thinking that the most widespread mental health issue (anxiety) is nothing but a symptom of the mass-usage of estrogen, willingly and willingly. Why unwillingly? Well, even people who do not use hormonal birth control are exposed to a myriad of endocrine disruptors that are used in everything from food packaging, to store receipts, to household item production, to cosmetics, to drugs, etc. The vast majority of these endocrine disruptors are potent (xeno)estrogens, and many of them are much more potent than the endogenous estrogen estradiol. The good news is that simply increasing the metabolic rate seems to be sufficient to be able to get rid of those endocrine disruptors, though cessation of estrogen usage (as in birth control) is also something everybody knowingly using estrogen should probably seriously consider. The study opined that the reason for the anxiety was the decline in testosterone levels that estrogen administration caused. However, I suspect that the decline of progesterone levels (which estrogen also caused) is the more likely explanation since progesterone is the primary steroidal GABA agonist and reducing the levels if pro-GABA substances in the body is known to reliably cause anxiety. Testosterone is a weak-to-ineffective GABA agonist compared to progesterone.

2 links here

“…A study shows that synthetic estrogen, link here, the primary ingredient in oral contraceptives, can increase anxiety, link here. The results of a murine study on the relationship between ethinylestradiol, a synthetic estrogen, and anxiety behavior were presented at the annual endocrinology conference ENDO 2024, link here. ”

“…The study revealed that mice given ethinylestradiol struggled with the spatial memory task during the maze test, unlike other mice. This indicates a heightened level of anxiety in the mice. Furthermore, serum sample analysis showed a decrease in the levels of male hormone testosterone and progesterone. The researchers explained that a decrease in testosterone, which typically reduces anxiety behavior and improves spatial memory, may have been due to ethinylestradiol, leading to increased anxiety behavior. Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that synthetic estrogen ingredients can increase anxiety behavior in mice.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2584.mp3" length="776804" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Brain energy production determines our psychosocial experience; stress damages it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2582</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2582</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 19 Jul 2024 18:04:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2582

Well, it does not get any clearer than the findings of the study below. Namely, the old saying is true – we don’t see things the way they are, we see things the way we are. More specifically, the  study claims that the positivity/negativity of our life experience and outlook on the world depend mostly on energy production in the brain, with the effects being bidirectional. Apparently, brain energy production is extremely sensitive to the functioning of electron transport chain (ETC) Complex I, which oxidizes NADH back into NAD+. That process depends on the availability of FAD/FMN and Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), and is easily inhibited by a variety of physical, chemical and social factors. One of the most widely prescribed drugs worldwide – metformin – is a powerful inhibitor of Complex I. Chronic stress (even mild in intensity) not only inhibits Complex I, but also reduces its expression, thus causing structural deficits in the machinery that produces energy. The resulting reductions in energy production in the brain result in negative psychosocial experiences, which are perceived as stress by the brain, which leads to further decline in energy production, and so on. In other words, a perfect vicious cycle. The opposite also seems to be true. Good experiences increase energy production in the brain, resulting in positive world perceptions, leading to further increase in energy production, and so on. The study cites numerous other experiments demonstrating that many mental health issues (anxiety, depression, psychosis, mania, etc) can be reliably caused in animals by interfering with energy production in the brain. Thus, the epidemic of mental illness seen in Western countries is likely nothing more than a symptom of the chronic stress people in those countries are experiencing, despite the claims of their governments that everything is great and things are betting better by the day. Aside from trying to improve out lifestyle and reduce stress, which is very difficult to achieve for most people living a “modern” lifestyle,  another option would be to supplement with things that support brain energy production and especially Complex I. Such substances include vitamin B2 (precursor to FAD/FMN), CoQ10 (the oxidized version – uniquinone – not ubiquinol), niacinamide (precursor to NAD+), aspirin, thyroid, etc.

link here

Study Links Stress to Mitochondrial Dysfunction in the Brain, link here

“…For the first time, scientists have shown that the abundance of proteins needed for mitochondrial energy production in human brains is linked to perceived psychosocial experiences, link here [1]. ”

“…One such factor, OxPhos protein abundance, relates to the amount of protein available for oxidation-phosphorylation reactions, which are at the core of mitochondrial energy production. In the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain area that is involved in executive functions and emotional regulation and is known to be sensitive to psychological stress, this factor showed marked correlation with both positive and negative psychosocial experiences. The positive psychosocial aspects most associated with increased OxPhos protein abundance were well-being and late-life social activity. On the opposite side of the scale, negative mood and negative life events had the biggest effect sizes. “Thus”, the paper notes, “both individual experiences (well-being and mood) and objectifiable factors (social activity and life events) relate to DLPFC brain mitochondrial biology.” The correlation was most notable for complex I, the largest and most upstream mitochondrial OxPhos enzyme. Psychosocial experiences accounted for 18% to 25% of the variance in the abundance of this protein. For reasons not yet fully understood, the brain is exceptionally vulnerable to complex I defects [2].”

“…Moving from proteomics to single-cell RNA sequencing enabled the researchers to take an even closer look and yielded intriguing results. The correlation between psychosocial scores and complex I was undetectable for neurons but strong for glia, the “helper” cells that facilitate proper neuronal functions, such as microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells. “This may be why chronic psychological stress and negative experiences are bad for the brain,” said Caroline Trumpff, assistant professor of medical psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University and a lead author on the paper, “because they damage or impair mitochondrial energy transformation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for high-level cognitive tasks.” These results do not come as a complete surprise. Scientists have already shown that in animal models, stress impairs mitochondrial function [3]. Moreover, this relationship appears to be bidirectional: the same group that authored this new study had found that differences in mitochondrial energy production capacity affect anxiety and social avoidance in rodents [4].”

“…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2582.mp3" length="1158716" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Parkinson’s may be due to B vitamin deficiencies, riboflavin (B2) and biotin (B7) may treat</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2580</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2580</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 19 Jul 2024 17:30:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2580

Yet another study, which not only points to the gut/endotoxin as a major cause of many chronic, degenerative diseases, but also corroborates again the role that energy production plays in pathologies such as Parkinson Disease (PD). Namely, the study below found that “gut dysbiosis” can cause deficiencies of vitamins B2 and B7, which results in the classic symptoms (e.g. muscle weakness, tremors, and poor coordination) seen in PD and that correcting those deficiencies through supplementation can be a viable therapeutic strategy. The study cites a human trial (first link below) done more than 20 years ago, showing that riboflavin supplementation (90mg daily) significantly reduced the symptoms of PD patients. While the new study does not mentioned it, there have already been several human studies with biotin for treating multiple sclerosis (MS) and Huntington disease (HD), and the mechanism of action for the benefit biotin displayed in these trials was improving mitochondrial function and OXPHOS. Riboflavin does not even need an introduction as an “energy remedy” given its main role as a precursor to the crucial energy co-factor FAD, analogous to niacinamide as a precursor to NAD+. Moreover, several studies have suggested that riboflavin is an antagonist of the endotoxin receptor TLR4, which would further validate its role in treating PD, as well as the role of endotoxin/LPS in this condition. Thus, it is quite reasonable to conclude that B2 and B7 work through correcting the energy deficiency in PD caused by the gut dysbiosis and endotoxin/LPS. Now, the new study says that the vitamin supplementation is likely to help only the subset of PD patients who have gut dysbiosis. Well, that’s a rather evasive way to saying that the B vitamin therapy may work for most PD patients since the study itself states that most PD patients experience changes in the microbiome and poor digestion decades before their official diagnosis. Finally, since it does seem that PD is yet another condition driven by energy deficiency, I don’t see why adding niacinamide (a precursor to NAD+) won’t further increase the effectiveness of this vitamin therapy.

2 links here

Mitochondrial DNA damage evident before Parkinson’s: Study, link here

link here

“…Researchers have suspected forsome time, link here that the link between our gut and brain plays a role in the development of Parkinson’s, link here disease. A new study just identified gut microbes likely to be involved and linked them with decreased riboflavin, link here ( vitamin, link here B2) and biotin, link here (vitamin B7), pointing the way to an unexpectedly simple treatment that may help: B vitamins, link here.”

“…”Supplementation of riboflavin and/or biotin is likely to be beneficial in a subset of Parkinson’s disease patients, in which gut dysbiosis plays pivotal roles,” Nagoya University medical researcher Hiroshi Nishiwaki and colleagues write, link here in their published paper. Previous research, link here found people with Parkinson’s disease also experience changes in their microbiome long before other signs appear.”

“…Such toxins lead to the overproduction of α-synuclein fibrils – molecules known to amass, link here in dopamine-producing cells, link here in the substantia nigra, link here part of our brains, and increased nervous system inflammation, eventually leading to the more debilitating motor and dementia symptoms of Parkinson’s. A 2003 study, link here found high doses of riboflavin can assist in recovering some motor functions in patients who also eliminated red meat from their diets. So it’s possible that high doses of vitamin B may prevent some of the damage, Nishiwaki and team propose.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2580.mp3" length="1143332" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen causes dementia/Alzheimer, anti-estrogens are protective</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2578</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2578</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jul 2024 20:02:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2578

This study is one of the most damaging piece of evidence I have seen over the last 5+ years negating the claim of mainstream medicine that estrogen is protective for the brain and the reason post-menopausal women have increased risk of dementia (of which Alzheimer’s is the most common type) is the “deficiency” of estrogen that medicine says is the defining characteristic of menopause. More specifically, the study below found that using pure estrogen receptor antagonists (e.g. Faslodex, also known as Fulvestrant, link here, or its non-steroidal analog Elacestrant, link here) or aromatase inhibitors (e.g. letrozole, link here) was linked to lower risk of developing dementia across the entire expected female lifespan, with the beneficial effects of those substances being more pronounced in patients under 75 years of age. Now, the reason this study is so important and damaging to the “good estrogen” hypothesis is that prior studies with similar conclusions typically used one of the non-steroidal so-called SERM drugs (e.g. clomiphene, tamoxifen, raloxifene, etc), which have anti-estrogenic effects in some tissues but are potent estrogens in others. As such, the studies with the SERM drugs showing protective effects again dementia were always explained away by medicine as actually confirming the “benefit” of estrogen for the brain since the SERM drugs are partially estrogenic, and especially so in the brain. The is no such angle of attack possible for this study since the estrogen blockers it looked at are “pure” – i.e. they are highly selective blockers of estrogen receptors with no other known major effects. And in case medicine would try to still argue that some unknown estrogenic effect explains the benefit of those drugs, the fact that aromatase inhibitors (AI) also had protective effects pretty much seals the verdict for estrogen being a baddy. Of course, the study findings suggest other substances with anti-estrogenic effects would also likely have protective effects against dementia – i.e. all fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), aspirin, progesterone, DHT, flavones/flavanones (apigenin, naringenin, chrysin, quercetin, luteolin), etc. Curious to hear/see how medicine would respond to this study, especially considering it is published in JAMA, so it would be hard to dismiss as a fake…

Oh, one nefarious thing I noticed is that the popular press article still tries to tie progesterone in as a co-culprit. The article says the anti-estrogenic drugs mentioned in the study are used to treat breast cancer caused by “estrogen and progesterone”. So, the public might get an idea that progesterone is bad and may increase risk of dementia (or cancer), when the exact opposite is the case. Namely, the drugs mentioned in the study target exclusively estrogen and estrogen-positive cancers (not progesterone-positive cancers), and progesterone just so happens to be both an estrogen receptor antagonist and an AI. Another nefarious tactic is also seen in the study itself. It calls the clearly anti-estrogenic therapy “hormone modulating therapy” (HMT), which both avoids stating that the therapy is purely estrogen blocking in nature (in contrast to the SERM drugs) while also being targeted solely at estrogen (and not progesterone). Once again, we have science being twisted to serve Big Pharma and to avoid stating the obvious conclusion based on the study findings. Namely, estrogen is a cause of dementia/Alzhemier’s and anti-estrogenic therapy (of which progesterone is perhaps the most well-known example) is protective and possibly even therapeutic for dementias that have already set in.

2 links here

“…[Hormone-modulating therapies] (HMT), such as Faslodex (fulvestrant), Orserdu (elacestrant) and Femara (letrozole) are used to treat cancers that are affected by hormones estrogen and progesterone, according to the American Cancer Society. Prior research has shown mixed results on whether HMTs increase or decrease the risk of dementias.”

link here

“…About two-thirds of breast cancer patients have tumors that are hormone receptor positive, meaning that they grow in response to estrogen or progesterone. For these patients, HMT can impede tumor growth by blocking hormones from attaching to these receptors. While use of HMT is linked with increased survival, there is conflicting evidence about whether it increases or decreases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), debilitating conditions that are characterized by memory loss, changes in mood or behavior, and difficulties with thinking, problem-solving and reasoning.”

“…To calculate the risk of developing ADRD, the researchers accounted for the risk of death associated with increased age and duration of exposure to HMT. They found that while HMT use was associated with an overall decrease in the relative risk of developing ADRD, the protective effect of HMT was most pronounced in patients aged 65 through 69 and diminished with age.”

“…”Our study suggests that younger women may benefit more from HMT in terms of reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia,” said Cai. “The benefits of HMT decreased for women aged 75 and older, particularly in those who identified as white. This suggests that the timing of HMT initiation is crucial and treatment plans should be tailored to a patient’s age.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2578.mp3" length="1728260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Anti-anxiety drugs, high cortisol reduce empathy</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2574</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2574</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jul 2024 19:29:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2574

This is a study that has a lot of relevance for virtually every person living in a “developed” country. Multiple studies have documented the decrease in empathy and increase in psychopathic tendencies in Western populations over the last 2-3 decades. Despite vehement denials by mainstream medicine, there is solid evidence that elevations in extracellular serotonin can cause a drastic reduction in empathetic behavior. This makes the widespread usage of SSRI drugs a prime suspect for the reductions of empathy seen across virtually all Western countries, and virtually absent in countries where SSRI usage is low or lacking. However, the increase in pychopathic behavior/tendencies is also seen in people not taking SSRI drugs, so there is probably more than one culprit. The study below suggests that anti-anxiety drugs (the benzodiazepine class), much more widely prescribed than SSRI drugs, can also reduce empathy. To make matters worse, while SSRI and other “stronger” psychotropic drugs are still not very widely used in people under 18 years of age, that is not the case for anti-anxiety drugs, which are prescribed to even children under the age of two. Certainly not a good omen for any any society if many of its children are pharmacologically conditioned to be psychopaths from a very early age. Perhaps just as importantly, the study demonstrated that cortisol levels determine the levels of empathy. High-cortisol blocked empathetic behavior while low or moderate levels did not. So, chronic stress (resulting in chronically elevated cortisol) not only makes us physiologically sick, but also callous and psychopathic towards others. Now, since people under chronic stress often suffer from anxiety, such people are often put on anti-anxiety drugs. While the study did not explore this topic, it would be truly tragic if it turns out that cortisol/stress has additive (or even worse – synergistic) effects with the anti-anxiety drugs and causes even stronger reductions in empathy! With that mind, there is little mystery as to why “developed” countries are turning into psychopathic cesspools, given that chronic and unavoidable stress (which raises both serotonin and cortisol) is with us 24×7, even if nobody was taking any drugs.

3 links here

“…Rats given midazolam, an anti-anxiety medication, were less likely to free trapped companions because the drug lessened their empathy, according to a new study by University of Chicago neuroscientists. The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, validates studies that show rats are emotionally motivated to help other rats in distress. In the latest study, rats treated with midazolam did not open the door to a restrainer device containing a trapped rat, although control rats routinely freed their trapped companions. Midazolam did not interfere with the rats’ physical ability to open the restrainer door, however. In fact, when the restrainer device contained chocolate instead of a trapped rat, the test rats routinely opened the door. The findings show that the act of helping others depends on emotional reactions, which are dampened by the anti-anxiety medication. “The rats help each other because they care,” said Peggy Mason, PhD, professor of neurobiology at the University of Chicago. “They need to share the affect of the trapped rat in order to help, and that’s a fundamental finding that tells us something about how we operate, because we’re mammals like rats too.”

“…Mason and her team also tested levels of corticosterone, a stress hormone, in the rats when first exposed to the trapped cage mate and compared them to their later behavior. Those with low- to mid-level responses were most likely to free their companions later. They found that those with the highest levels of corticosterone, or those that were under the most stress from the situation, were the least likely to help their cage mates. This fits well with findings in humans suggesting that eventually high stress becomes immobilizing rather than motivating.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2574.mp3" length="1074188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Microplastics – known endocrine disruptors- found in blood, gonadal organs</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2572</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2572</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jul 2024 18:59:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2572

The findings of this study are particularly alarming as they suggest there are now endocrine disruptors, likely present in the majority of people, capable of causing structural changes and physical damage long before the long-term endocrine effects get a chance to accumulate and cause harm on their own. Namely, the study below found microplastics in four (4) out of five (5) male patients diagnosed with erectile dysfunction (ED). Now, as is probably obvious to all readers, these microplastics did not get lodged into the male reproductive organs directly. They got transported there by the vascular system and their origin is likely the various foods and drink we consume that were packaged in plastic containers/bags. As such, all other highly vascular organs (and especially the heart, as a study author noted) are likely to have similar accumulations of microplastics. As suggested above, putting their endocrine disrupting effects aside, those microplastics directly cause endothelial damage by physically injuring the blood vessel walls, which results in a chronic low-grade inflammation response in said vessels. That low-grade vascular inflammation is a known cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD), dementia, mental conditions, and even cancer. In some cases, if the microplastic particles are big enough, they can cause blockage of a specific vessel and lead to an ischemic event, which in the case of an organ such as the heart (e.g. heart attack) or brain (e.g. stroke), can be lethal. Unfortunately, since there is no known way to trigger the removal of those plastic particles, the only “solution” (as the study authors themselves state) is to avoid using plastics as much as possible in our daily lives. Given just this issue alone, it is little wonder there is an infertility epidemic in most “developed” countries, where the usage of plastics is ubiquitous. Those microplastics in our bodies are both chemical (through their endocrine effects) and physical (through the physical damage/blockage they cause) contraceptives, in both men and women.

3 links here

 

“…Male infertility, link here remains a global issue, with its causes often not well understood. Given the growing evidence of microplastics, link here infiltrating various biological systems, such as blood and lungs, researchers are now exploring their potential effects on reproductive systems. Previous research has investigated the presence of microplastics in male reproductive organs. For example, in one study, researchers discovered 12 different types of microplastics in the testicles, link here of dogs and humans. In dogs, they found that higher levels of certain microplastics correlated with lower sperm counts, link here and reduced testis weight. Now, new research published in IJIR: Your Sexual MedicineTrusted Source, link here has revealed that four out of five penis tissue samples from five men contained seven different types of microplastics. These polymer fragments can vary in size from less than 0.2 inches (5 millimeters) to as small as 1 micrometer (1/25,000th of an inch). Smaller fragments, known as nanoplastics, are measured in billionths of a meter. Microplastics form when larger plastic materials degrade chemically or wear down physically into tinier pieces.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2572.mp3" length="962924" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin may prevent flu complications during pregnancy</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2570</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2570</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jul 2024 18:14:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2570

One of the most widespread interventions during pregnancy is flu vaccination. Pregnant mothers are relentlessly pressured by their doctors at every visit to stay up-to-date on their flu vaccinations and it is not uncommon for mothers to receive several such vaccines during pregnancy. There has been a lingering suspicion among many doctors that flu vaccination during pregnancy is at best ineffective and at worst associated with subsequent development of both pregnancy complications for both mother and child, complications during labor, and subsequent development of chronic conditions in the child. The most infamous such hypothesis is the vaccine-autism link, even though it focuses primarily on the role of child vaccination (after birth). That is a topic for which a single blog post won’t suffice, and the point of this post is simply this – wouldn’t it be great if there was a safe, cheap and widely available remedy that the mother can use during pregnancy, instead of a flu vaccine, that can prevent the complications to both mother and child as a result of the mother contracting the flu? According to the study, the answer to that question is yes, and that simple, cheap and widely available remedy is low-dose aspirin. A human-equivalent of a baby aspirin daily fully prevented the vascular inflammation that a flu infection caused in the mother, as well as the flu-induced fetal loss. Considering that low-dose aspirin is already the best available remedy for (pre)eclampsia, it sound like aspirin is truly a “wonder” drug, at least in pregnancy. The even better news is that these findings do not apply only to flu and/or only to pregnancy. COVID-19, as well as most other viral infections, cause similar systemic state of inflammation, which affects primarily the vascular system. As such, the study below suggests that aspirin may be a viable prophylactic and treatment intervention for all other viral conditions as well.

2 links here

“…A world-first study has found low-dose aspirin may treat flu-induced blood vessel inflammation, creating better blood flow to the placenta during pregnancy. Animal studies examined whether the treatment for preeclampsia could be applied to flu infections — and the results, according to the research team, were very promising. Lead researcher and RMIT Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Dr Stella Liong, said flu infections during pregnancy can resemble preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication that causes inflammation to the aorta and blood vessels. Low-dose aspirin is commonly taken to prevent preeclampsia, as it stops the body from creating chemicals that cause inflammation. “When the vascular system is inflamed, it leads to poor blood flow and affects the aorta’s function,” she said. “This is especially a problem during pregnancy where good blood flow to the placenta is crucial to the development of the fetus.” The research, led by RMIT University in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Professor John O’Leary and University of South Australia Professor Doug Brooks, found fetuses and placenta from mice with influenza A were smaller than those from uninfected mice. Markers of low oxygen to the blood and poor blood vessel development were also evident in the fetuses. However, mice treated daily with low-dose aspirin had less inflammation and improved fetal development and offspring survival.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2570.mp3" length="874268" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Some cases of “diabetes” II may be just deficiency of (active) vitamin B6</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2567</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2567</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jul 2024 17:47:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2567

Despite the widespread food fortification with vitamins in many “developed” countries, the fortification mostly revolves around iron, vitamin B1 and niacin 9B3). Even if foods are fortified with other vitamins, such fortification is rare, and even when done it is invariably performed with the inactive precursors of vitamins due the lower cost of using precursors. For some of the vitamins, especially vitamins B6 and B2, multiple studies have demonstrated that administering the precursor has diminished effectiveness in aging/disease due to reduced conversion into the active form. In fact, the lack of conversion of the cheap vitamin B6 precursor (pyridoxine Hcl) is the main cause of the well-known neuropathy side effect from pyridoxine supplementation, while neuropathy does not occur when the active form of B6 is taken instead. Anyways, the study below demonstrates that a simple deficiency of the activated form of vitamin B6 – pyridoxal-5′-phosphate (P5P), link here – is enough to cause full blown diabetes II in animals and that, conversely, restoring the levels of P5P may be able to reverse some cases of diabetes. Now, the point of this post is not to make people immediately start popping vitamins left and right, but rather to point out that in some (many?) cases a chronic serious disease that has spun a massive medical industry around it, may be nothing more than simple nutrient deficiency resulting in suppressed mitochondrial function (as is the case in this study as well). As such, a reasonable approach would be to do some testing for P5P, as well as the activity of several of the enzymes that depend on that vitamin/cofactor. If deficiency is confirmed, then it may be safer to try first P5P supplementation instead of the myriad of pharma drugs a doctor would likely push hard on every patient newly diagnosed with diabetes II. The story Peat often told about his father curing his diabetes I by eating Brewer’s yeast (which is very rich in the B vitamins) now has a study corroborating its legitimacy.

link here

“…Consistent with our results in zebrafish, a pyridoxine-free diet supplemented with 4-DP caused a blunted insulin release in the pancreas of rats (51, link here). In light of the ongoing debate, about whether vitamin B6 reduction is a cause or a consequence of diabetes (52, link here), our data show that the former is likely true.”

Scientists Uncover Brain-Boosting Potential of Vitamin B6, link here

link here

“…To find out what makes the first responder cells unique, the researchers compared the gene expression of highly glucose-sensitive beta cells to those that are less sensitive. They found that first responders are involved in vitamin B6 production. The first responder cells express a key enzyme involved in transforming the inactive form of dietary vitamin B6 into the form that is active in the cells. In close collaboration with Prof. Guy Rutter’s team at the University of Montreal, the researchers turned off the vitamin B6 production in both zebrafish and mouse pancreas. The ability of the beta cells to respond to high blood sugar was dramatically reduced in both species. “This indicates that vitamin B6 plays an evolutionarily conserved role in the response to glucose. It is possible that the first responders produce and supply Vitamin B6 to the rest of the beta cells to regulate their activity. Checking whether this indeed is the case is one of our next steps,” says Prof. Ninov.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2567.mp3" length="1029740" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin, alone or with vitamin C, may treat many/most solid tumors</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2565</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2565</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jul 2024 17:15:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2565

It seems that mainstream medicine is keeping close tabs on the Peatarian community. After denying for decades that “primitive” therapies such as aspirin or the mocked “Linus Pauling Protocol” (high-dose intravenous (IV) vitamin C) have any therapeutic effects on cancer, despite reluctantly acknowledging that aspirin may prevent many/most cancers, there have been several studies published in the last year or so that are now making the bold claim that aspirin can (and should) be considered as primary therapy for cancer, or at least for solid tumors. Well, considering my own experiments showing therapeutic effects of aspirin (and B vitamins) in non-solid tumors, I think it is reasonable to claim now that aspirin can (and should) be tried as primary therapy for all types of cancer. In any event, the study below demonstrated striking reduction of tumor growth in an animal model of the invariably lethal Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC), link here as a result of administering aspirin and/or vitamin C for just 10 days. There were 3 groups – vitamin C, aspirin, and a combination treatment group. The therapeutic effect was the strongest in the combination group, but the monotherapy groups were not far behind. The human equivalent doses were about 550mg/kg vitamin C and 8.5mg/kg daily, with vitamin C administered by injection and aspirin administered orally. There was no toxicity as a result of the administered treatments, which is in direct contradiction to current oncology dogma claiming that any curative treatment for cancer must work, by definition, through a mechanism resulting in the killing of the “mutant” and “alien” cancer cells. Now, a daily dose of 40g-50g vitamin C for a human is a lot and is not feasible to administer orally as most humans cannot absorb more than 2g-3g vitamin C daily via the oral route. That is probably why the study used intraperitoneal route for the vitamin C administration, which mimics well the IV route of the Linus protocol. Not only was this combination treatment highly beneficial for this type of tumor, but (in corroboration) the study cites another one where the same treatment protocol produced better effects for liver cancer than the established “standard of care” treatment. Interestingly, there is already a drug on the market officially approved for cancer treatment in humans, and that drug is just a combination of 5g vitamin C and 50mg vitamin K3 (menadione), administered orally. The drug’s trade name is Apatone, link here, and since vitamin C exhibited a synergistic effects with aspirin in the current study, I suspect augmenting Apatone (maybe call it Apatone+) by adding aspirin to the already approved formulation would further improve its already striking effects on even terminal cancer cases. Also, since Apatone has already demonstrated that 5g of oral vitamin C is enough via oral route, there is no need to go for the massive vitamin C dose administered by injection, as used in this study.

2 links here

“…A recent study by El Sadda et al. [20, link here] discovered that a combination of ASA and AS was a well-tolerated and effective treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) rats, surpassing the effectiveness of doxorubicin treatment; however, testing this combination’s efficacy in treating other types of tumors has still not been investigated. This study investigated the effectiveness of combining ASA and AS compared with treatment with ASA or AS alone in treating Ehrlich solid tumors in mice.”

“…At random, the mice were grouped into eight groups (10 mice each). Four of these groups included healthy mice that were not injected with any solution (Healthy); healthy mice that were treated intraperitoneally with AS (4 g/kg) once daily for 10 consecutive days (AS); healthy mice that were treated by oral gavage with ASA (60 mg/kg) once daily for 10 consecutive days (ASA); and healthy mice that were treated intraperitoneally with AS (4 g/kg) and by oral gavage with ASA (60 mg/kg) once daily for 10 consecutive days (AS+ASA). Four additional groups studied the antitumor effects of AS, ASA, and AS with ASA on tumor-bearing mice. These groups included mice that were injected with EAC cells (subcutaneously with 1×106 tumor cells/mouse into the right thigh of the hind limb) [EAC]; mice bearing solid tumors that were treated intraperitoneally with AS (4 g/kg) once daily for 10 consecutive days, 10 days after solid tumor inoculation (EAC+AS); mice bearing solid tumors that were treated using oral gavage with ASA (60 mg/kg) once daily for 10 consecutive days, 10 days after solid tumor inoculation (EAC+ASA); and mice bearing solid tumors that were treated intraperitoneally with AS (4 g/kg) and by oral gavage with ASA (60 mg/kg) once daily for 10 consecutive days, 10 days after solid tumor inoculation (EAC+AS+ASA).”

“…First, we did not record any toxicity symptoms according to administration of ASA (at a dose of 60 mg/kg) or AS (at a dose of 4 g/kg), or their combination, to healthy mice, and they did not show any significant pathological changes in all the studied parameters. In contrast, they increased antioxidant levels, and decreased MDA and NO levels, suggesting that ASA- and AS-applied doses are well-tolerated for healthy mice. Our results are in unity with Shilpi et al. [18, link here] and Bhattacharyya et al. [27, link here], who reported that AS and ASA are well-tolerated for therapeutic use; however, long-term use or high doses of ASA may cause oxidative stress and result in gastrointestinal erosions and apoptotic lesions [27, link here, 28, link here]. By tumor implantation in the right thigh of a mouse, an increase of 54.58% was recorded in the thigh dimensions in the period from day 11 to day 21 (the day of sacrifice) due to uncontrolled tumor growth. After treatment with ASA, AS, or the combination, we detected a decrease in the thigh dimensions by 2.9%, 20.53%, and 21.8%, and reductions in mean volumes of the separated tumors from mice legs by 40%, 36%, and 46%, respectively, due to tumor shrinking. Undoubtedly, as presented, the regression in solid tumors caused by treatment with the combination was superior. These observations indicate that ASA, AS, or the combination can inhibit tumor growth; however, the combination is more powerful. In 2008, Chen and colleagues found that an intraperitoneal injection of AS (4 g/kg) reduced the size of aggressive glioblastoma, pancreatic, and ovarian tumors in mice by 41–53% [29, link here]. One of the key factors in evaluating a successful compound for fighting cancer and tumors is its ability to prolong lifespan. An increase in lifespan of at least 25% is hypothesized as an effectual antitumor response [30, link here]. Our current research shows that ASA, AS, and their combination may help prolong lifespan and fight cancer. The untreated tumor-bearing mice had an MST of 54 days. By treatment, the MST improved to 81.5, 84, and 93.5 days, with a %ILS of 50.93%, 55.56%, and 73.15%, for ASA, AS, and the combination, respectively.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2565.mp3" length="1454492" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The future is dying: colon cancer rates rapidly rising in teens and CHILDREN</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2559</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2559</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 11 Jun 2024 17:40:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2559

If there was ever any doubt that both medicine and the health of entire nations are not only unraveling, but may have collapsed years ago, this latest study should dispel any such remaining doubt. For a number of reasons. First, at the very least, the findings of the study should immediately make is abundantly clear just how fraudulent the mainstream dogma known as “genetic origins of cancer” is. We have been told for decades that cancer is just bad luck, a result of unfortunate (and random) mutations, the chance of which increases as we age. That dogma implies that mostly old people get cancer, and that was indeed the case for most of the period during which good historical medical records were kept. However, that has not been the case for the last 20+ years. I have done numerous posts over the last couple of years showing that the rates of virtually all cancers have been rapidly rising in the under-40 crowd while stabilizing (though, not declining) in the over-40 crowd. That fact alone immediately debunks the dogma of cancer as primarily a genetic mutation disease, simply because the rates of mutations in young people are much lower than in older people, as well as the fact that increasing cancer rates in the under-40 crowd across all “developed” countries are anything but “random”. In addition, no cancerous mutation could sweep through such a vast number of people (and widely dispersed territories) in just 1-2 decades. Thus, if the genetic origins of cancer hypothesis is quite clearly a scam, the only reasonable conclusion is that something absolutely terrible must have happened over the last 1-2 decades to the quality of the environment “young” people live in. The reason I put “young” in quotation marks is that based on these developments one can safely conclude that there are no more biologically young people any more, since the chronologically young not only have more rapidly rising rates of deadly diseases as the chronologically old(er) people, but are dying from those diseases at higher rates. As I said in another post of mine years ago – the young and the old have switched places.

However, as scary as those prior findings on cancer rates may be, the findings of the study below are truly devastating. Those findings prove beyond any reasonable doubt that not only is the official dogma on cancer dead-wrong, but that society/civilization as a whole has little chance of surviving if its youngest members – the future – are getting decimated by something that just a decade ago was considered a “gizzer disease”. Namely, colon cancer. When teens and even children as young as 10 are not only getting colon cancer at unprecedented rates but those rates continue to rise rapidly, then it makes little sense to even speak of “public health”, as there is clearly no such thing. Considering that colon cancer has 37%+ average mortality rate (across all stages) in adults, and that this mortality rate is now likely higher in the youngest patient groups, the findings mean that probably half of the children and teens diagnosed with colon cancer will simply die, which has absolutely devastating consequences for any country and its future, especially considering the abysmally low birth rates not only in most “developed” countries but the world as a whole. So much for the non-stop propaganda about “overpopulation”…or…maybe something more sinister is at play here.

link here

Now, since cancer is quite obviously an environmentally-driven disease, even the teens and children who do not get colon cancer probably have abysmal health since they live in the same environment that caused the cancer in their peers. As such, “young” people – a country’s future – can no longer be expected to stay healthy enough to even be able to take care of themselves, let alone start families or work productive, meaningful jobs. That is exactly what most “developed” countries have been experiencing over the last 2+ decades. In such a state of society, it is little wonder that suicide and substance abuse rates are through the roof and keep rising (just like cancer rates). In corroboration, a massive epidemic of loneliness, link here or/and “dying from despair, link here” are very much a thing in most “developed” countries, despite being mocked by medicine as being nothing more than hypochondria or cover for substance abuse. If the collection of fraudulent medical dogmas driving such catastrophic results are not soon confronted, exposed and de-funded, not only will the “developed” world quickly revert back to a 3rd world status, but there may not be enough healthy people left to even keep a country/society together.

3 links here

“…For the study, his team analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Wonder database, which offers publicly available data on mortality, cancer incidence, census data, vaccinations, and more.4 They tracked colorectal cancer incidence rates between 1999 and 2020 among people in seven different age cohorts, spanning from ages 10 to 44. Mohamed’s team found that rates rose across the board in all age groups during this time, but that younger demographics saw a sharper uptick in cases. Though the percentage increases were steepest in those between the ages of 10 and 24…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2559.mp3" length="2088260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Males eating a low-carb diet father children with metabolic syndrome and diabesity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2555</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2555</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 06 Jun 2024 18:17:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2555

A really interesting study, which covers two very controversial topics in a single experiment. First, whether environmental experiences by an organism can be passed on to offspring without genetic changes in the parent organism. Second, whether low-carb diets are healthy. I think the study clearly demonstrated that the answer to the first question/topic is a resounding YES (corroborated by prior studies with similar findings), while the answer to the second question/topic is a resounding NO. Namely, feeding (mouse) fathers a low-carb-high-fat (LCHF) diet for just 2 weeks resulted in metabolic syndrome, obesity, and even outright diabetes II in their offspring, despite the mothers being perfectly healthy and young. Feeding the fathers a high-carb-low-fat (HCLF) diet did not result in such negative features pass on to the offspring, and in fact reversed the insulin resistance in the fathers induced by the LCHF diet. Finally, the negative offspring effects of feeding LCHF diets to fathers were confirmed in humans as well. Just as importantly, the LCHF diet did not induce obesity in the fathers despite inducing insulin resistance. So, the health effects of low-carb diets on organisms cannot really be judged by external appearance alone, and even if those organisms appear of normal weight, their health may still be compromised enough by the diet to result in heritable, full-blown diabetes in their offspring.

Btw, for people that doubt the diet composition, please see the links below that describe the exact diets used in the study. The first link is the LCHF, and the second link is the HCLF. The changes in carbohydrate percentage in the diet were compensated for by changed in the fat percentage in the diet, while the protein concentrations were the same in both diets.

4 links here

“…For eHFD treatment, 6-week-old male mice were randomly assigned to two groups fed for 2 weeks with purified HFD (rodent diet with 60 kcal% from fat; Research Diet D12492i) or LFD control diet (rodent diet with 10 kcal% from fat; Research Diet D12450B) and subsequently mated with a single unexposed, virgin female of the same age. For sHFD treatment, 6-week-old male mice were randomly assigned to two groups fed for 2 weeks with purified HFD (rodent diet with 60 kcal% from fat; Research Diet D12492i) or LFD control diet (rodent diet with 10 kcal% from fat; Research Diet D12450B), mated with a single unexposed virgin female (to empty the epididymis) and moved back to a standard chow diet for 4 weeks. These animals were subsequently mated with a single, virgin and aged-matched female to generate the offspring cohort.”

“…A 2-week exposure to HFD is sufficient to induce a small but significant increase in body weight and adiposity (Extended Data Fig. 2a,c, link here) and reduce whole-body glucose tolerance (Extended Data Fig. 2b,d, link here) in exposed mice. Both phenotypes are reversed by 4 weeks of dietary restoration (Extended Data Fig. 2c,d, link here, chow diet).”

As far as the mechanisms of action of the LCHF diet – it induced mitochondrial dysffunction and that dysfunction was passed on to the offspring.

“… Sperm sncRNA sequencing of mice mutant for genes involved in mitochondrial function, and metabolic phenotyping of their wild-type offspring, suggest that the upregulation of mt-tsRNAs is downstream of mitochondrial dysfunction…Our data support a model by which acute HFD exposure induces mitochondrial dysfunction in somatic tissues and spermatozoa, in which it is compensated by an upregulation of mtDNA transcription.”

2 links here

“…Studies have shown that mothers can pass on metabolic traits to their offspring. As for fathers, Qi Chen, a reproductive-biology researcher at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City, and his team showed in 2016 that fertilized mouse eggs injected with sperm RNA from dads on a high-fat diet developed into mice with metabolic disorders2, link here. Research shows that the ripple effects of a parent’s diet are caused by changes not to the offspring’s genome but to their ‘epigenome’, link here — the collection of chemical tags hanging from DNA and its associated proteins.”

“…A dad’s sperm, link here records his diet — and this record affects his sons’ metabolism, according to a study of mice and humans1, link here. Giving male mice a high-fat diet, link here raises levels of some types of RNA in their sperm, the study found. The research also showed that the male offspring of male mice on this unhealthy diet had metabolic problems such as glucose intolerance, a characteristic of diabetes, link here. The sons of human dads with a high body mass index (BMI) exhibited similar problems, according to epidemiological analysis.” “…For the Nature study, male mice ate a high-fat diet for two weeks. The study’s authors found that this regimen led to changes in a type of RNA in the sperm’s mitochondria — the structures inside cells that generate energy. The affected molecules, called transfer RNAs, are intermediate products in the process of transcribing DNA into proteins.”

“…The results make sense: a high-fat diet stresses mitochondria, says Raffaele Teperino, lead author of the study and an environmental-epigenetics researcher at Helmholtz Center Munich in Neuherberg, Germany. When stressed, mitochondria make more RNA to produce more energy.”

“…Chen says the study means that, if you make sperm, “you should eat healthy. It will affect the information carried in your sperm. It will affect your offspring”.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2555.mp3" length="939860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Salt restriction promotes stress by elevating cortisol</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2552</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2552</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 06 Jun 2024 17:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2552

Yet another “controversial” topic is getting some attention. After medicine reluctantly accepted the existence of the “Obesity Paradox, link here“, now attention may be shifting towards the “Salt Paradox, link here“. Speaking of which, how many people even know there was such a think as the “Salt Paradox”? Yeah, I bet not many. Yet, the fact that lowering salt intake is robustly associated with increased all-cause mortality and morbidity, has been known to medicine, link here for decades. How many times have you heard about the amazing benefits of salt from your doctor or public health authorities? Yeah, I bet that number is zero for most people. In any event, while there have been many attempts to explain the “Salt Paradox”, the most plausible explanation to date has been the fact that lowering salt increases aldosterone (the sodium-retaining hormone) and elevated aldosterone has been implicated in quite a few chronic, degenerative conditions such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), kidney disease (CKD), chronic inflammation, neurological diseases, fibrosis, and even cancer. Conversely, some of the most successful drugs on the market are aldosterone antagonists. Maybe I am just weird, but I find it quite perverse to spend billions on aldosterone antagonists every year, when the underlying issue can easily and cheaply be corrected by increasing salt intake (or at least avoiding restricting it).

Be that as it may, there is now evidence that salt restriction may not only be contributing to the stress response (HPA axis) but severe sodium restriction (as advocated by most doctors for people with blood pressure, diabetes, CVD, CKD, etc) may be able to trigger the stress response “de-novo” – i.e. in the absence of any stressful external/internal stimuli. How does salt restriction achieve that “feat”? Simple – by elevating cortisol levels. Now, the study found that restricting salt intake decreased urinary cortisol excretion and this is what led to increase in the blood cortisol concentrations. However, I am not convinced this is the whole story considering the fact that salt restriction is known to increase adrenaline release (a known stimulator of ACTH and thus cortisol), and such it is likely that the elevation of blood cortisol was due to sodium restriction both increasing cortisol synthesis/release from adrenals and decreasing cortisol excretion. Once again, what we are told by medicine is healthy (e.g. salt restriction) turns out to be anything but.

4 links here

“…A study published in Clinical Endocrinology in 2020 showed that an increase in salt consumption leads to a rise in cortisol levels in your urine and lower cortisol levels in your bloodstream. What does this potentially mean? Restricting your sodium intake may lead to higher levels of circulating cortisol.”

“…A study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 2003 stated, “In healthy subjects, dietary salt loading increases and sodium restriction decreases urinary free cortisol excretion” and “​​changes in cortisol metabolite excretion after salt loading were accompanied by a decrease in plasma cortisol concentration.” Prior to that, a 1998 study concluded, “This study supports the notion that sodium restriction decreases urinary cortisol excretion.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2552.mp3" length="1180676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin/LPS drives esophageal cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2550</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2550</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 05 Jun 2024 17:21:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2550

One of the few studies to directly implicate endotoxin (also known as LPS) in cancer progression. While there are other studies showing activation of the LPS receptor known as TLR4 is involved in cancer genesis and progression, there are many endogenous and exogenous substances that can activate TLR4 and as such the LPS connection to cancer was unclear in the past. This study is perhaps the first to demonstrate increased serum LPS in both human and animal patients with esophageal cancer (EC), and direct pro-cancer effects of LPS. This, of course, directly implies increased gut permeability, which has already been shown to be due to low NAD+ levels – i.e. it is driven by low oxidative metabolism. The same studies showing gut permeability to be riven by low NAD+ also demonstrated that the permeability can be reversed by supplementing NAD+ precursors such as niacinamide. If LPS is the main driver of EC (and, very likely, most other cancers) then supplementing with niacinamide could be a simple and cheap option to put the brakes on this (and possibly others) cancers, especially if combined with aspirin. That hypothesis has already been corroborated by my own studies with cancer, demonstrating the curative effects of combining B1, B3, and B7 vitamins with aspirin. And since my cancer studies use a very different type of tumor (human B cell lymphoma), one could reasonably conclude the LPS pro-cancer effects apply to many/most (all?) tumors and as such the remedies against LPS may be applicable to not just esophageal cancer.

link here

“…Here, we investigated the gut flora and metabolites of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and found abundant Bacteroides and increased secretion and entry of the surface antigen lipopolysaccharide (LPS) into the blood, causing inflammatory changes in the body. We confirmed these results in a mouse model of 4NQO-induced esophageal carcinoma in situ and further identified epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) occurrence and TLR4/Myd88/NF-κB pathway activation in mouse esophageal tumors. Additionally, in vitro experiments revealed that LPS from Bacteroides fragile promoted esophageal cancer cell proliferation, migration, and invasion, and induced EMT by activating the TLR4/Myd88/NF-κB pathway. These results reveal that Bacteroides are closely associated with esophageal cancer progression through a higher inflammatory response level and signaling pathway activation that are both common to inflammation and tumors induced by LPS, providing a new biological target for esophageal cancer prevention or treatment.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2550.mp3" length="785132" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Even enormous doses of vitamin D, applied topically, do not produce toxicity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2546</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2546</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 05 Jun 2024 16:54:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2546

I mentioning this study mainly for two reasons. First, there has been quite a bit of bad press over the last couple of years (more precisely, since 2020, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic) in regards to vitamin D, claiming that while the vitamin (actually a (seco)steroid) may be effective for a large number of conditions (including COVID-19 prevention and treatment) the risk of toxicity is too high, and thus vitamin D should not be recommended for widespread, unsupervised supplementation. The toxicity claims refer mainly to the risk of hypercalcemia and subsequent calcification of major blood vessels, as well as kidneys and other soft tissues – a hallmark of cardiovascular disease. However, the published case studies on such toxicity are very few and usually involve absurdly high doses, often as a suicide attempt. Be that as it may, I may still be worthwhile to some people (and doctors) to find ways to limit the risk of vitamin D toxicity as much as possible, as a way to reduce supplementation hesitancy.

The old study below demonstrated that when vitamin D is applied topically it not only prevents rickets, but can also reverse it. AFAIK, the latter effect has not been recognized yet by medicine, as it currently claims that once rickets has set in the bone deformities remain for life. Just as importantly, absolutely massive human-equivalent doses of viosterol (ergocalciferol, vitamin D2) applied topically every other day for more than a month, produced absolutely no toxicity or side effects even though plenty of calcium was also consumed in the form of milk. The reason I am mentioning calcium consumption is that it is officially listed as a risk factor for increasing/enabling the toxicity/hypercalcemia induced by vitamin D. The human-equivalent doses applied every other day were around 1,600 IU / kg of bodyweight. That means 120,000 IU – 160,000 IU every-other-day doses for most people. In comparison, typical oral doses prescribed for treating vitamin D deficiency are in the range of 50,000 IU once weekly. Thus, it seems that the topical route has some unique metabolic pathways that largely prevent the conversion of vitamin D precursors such as D2 and D3 (cholecalciferol) into the “active” form calcitriol, link here (which is the metabolite responsible for the hypercalcemia from vitamin D supplementation). Given that several human studies have demonstrated that even 5,000 IU daily applied topically for 3 months, link here can raise vitamin D levels from insufficiency to almost the middle of the normal range, it appears that topical vitamin D administration may be an effective and safer method for raising vitamin D levels even in people at risk of hypercalcemia or with already established soft-tissue calcification.

link here

“…Vitamin D by inunction not only prevented rickets but produced well advanced healing. Therefore, the experiments cited strongly suggest that the skin is capable of absorbing vitamin D. Since the amount of vitamin D given by inunction is so much larger than that given orally, the question of hypervitaminosis must be considered. Kreitman and Moll [9] produced hypervitaminosis in rats by feeding excessive doses of viosterol (D2). None of the toxic symptoms indicative of hypervitaminosis, such as loss of weight, diarrhea and anorexia, were present in our series; in fact, all of the animals receiving the highest doses gained weight and showed no gastro-intestinal disturbances. Microscopic examination of the aorta and kidneys of these animals showed no calcification. The amount of viosterol used was therefore not excessive.”

“…It has been shown by a number of investigators that large doses of vitamin D are necessary before signs of toxicity become manifest. Even enormous doses cannot produce toxic symptoms in experimental animals kept on a normal diet. As much as 80,000 times the therapeutic dose failed to produce toxic [10] symptoms in rats kept on a diet of milk and bread. Further experiments to determine the minimum dose necessary to produce hypervitaminosis by inunction are under way. The danger of hypervitaminosis is exceedingly slight if preparations of viosterol of a strength of 250 D are used. According to these experiments, rats can tolerate at least 1,620 times the oral therapeutic dose without showing toxic symptoms. On the basis of direct proportional ratios by weight, a man weighing 70 Kg. (154 pounds) may absorb by inunction 700,000 rat units (daily). This is equivalent to 335 cc. of viosterol 250 D, or \}i gallons (66 liters) of viosterol 25 D, plus the internal consumption of a loaf of commercial vitamin D bread and a quart (946 cc.) of vitamin D milk daily. How much more can be tolerated is not yet certain. Experiments are in progress to determine this point. Preliminary reports indicate that enormous doses may be used by inunction without the production of symptoms of hypervitaminosis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2546.mp3" length="1363316" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D deficiency may drive myopia, supplementing may prevent/treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2542</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2542</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 04 Jun 2024 18:32:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2542

Vitamin D has become a bit of a controversial topic lately. While there is a lot of recent promising research demonstrating effectiveness of vitamin D supplementation for many serious conditions, at the same time there has been a significant push by certain groups (both pharma-affiliated and in the general population) to discredit vitamin D by promoting the idea that it is some kind of  a poison, even at physiological/therapeutic doses, based on the fact that extremely high (and toxic) amounts of vitamin D are used as rat poison. If one peruses the literature on PubMed about this topic, it becomes quickly apparent that cases of vitamin D-induced hypercalcemia (the mechanism through which rats are killed with vitamin D overdose) are very, very rare and amount to probably no more than a few hundred annually in a country with the population of US. Even then, the cases invariably describe absurd dosing regimens, often with the intent of suicide, and as such are not relevant to the clinical usage of vitamin D in doses with well-established safety.

Be that as it may, the study below presents some very interesting findings. Namely, that one of the most common ocular conditions – myopia – may not only be directly caused by vitamin D deficiency (widespread in the general population), but may also be treatable by vitamin D supplementation. The study used calcitriol as the active intervention, but the same effects should be achievable with cholecalciferol(vitamin D3), with the latter also running much lower risk of causing hypercalcemia. The treatment lasted 4 weeks and the human-equivalent dose converted from calcitriol into cholecalciferol was 160 IU / kg (bodyweight) daily. That means for most people a daily dose of 10,000 IU – 12,000 IU vitamin D3 should be able to replicate the study design and its findings. That dose is considered high but is on par with what doctors prescribe in cases of vitamin D deficiency (50,000 IU – 75,000 IU once weekly).

link here

“…The annual increase in myopia prevalence poses a significant economic and health challenge. Our study investigated the effect of calcitriol role in myopia by inducing the condition in guinea pigs through form deprivation for four weeks. Untargeted metabolomics methods were used to analyze the differences in metabolites in the vitreous body, and the expression of vitamin D receptor (VDR) in the retina was detected. Following form deprivation, the guinea pigs received intraperitoneal injections of calcitriol at different concentrations. We assessed myopia progression using diopter measurements and biometric analysis after four weeks. Results indicated that form deprivation led to a pronounced shift towards myopia, characterized by reduced choroidal and scleral thickness, disorganized collagen fibers, and decreased scleral collagen fiber diameter. Notably, a reduction in calcitriol expression in vitreous body, diminished vitamin D and calcitriol levels in the blood, and decreased VDR protein expression in retinal tissues were observed in myopic guinea pigs. Calcitriol administration effectively slowed myopia progression, preserved choroidal and scleral thickness, and prevented the reduction of scleral collagen fiber diameter. Our findings highlight a significant decrease in calcitriol and VDR expressions in myopic guinea pigs and demonstrate that exogenous calcitriol supplementation can halt myopia development, enhancing choroidal and scleral thickness and scleral collagen fiber diameter.”

“…Given the rising incidence of myopia, which now stands as a principal contributor to visual impairment globally, the quest for efficacious myopia control methods remains critical19, link here. Although low-dose atropine has shown effectiveness, its application is limited by adverse effects and a rebound effect post-discontinuation20, link here,21, link here. Consequently, identifying new, safer, and more efficacious strategies for myopia management is crucial. Our study confirmed the role of calcitriol and VDR in the onset and progression of myopia. We have established that exogenous calcitriol supplementation notably curbs myopia progression and alleviates reductions in choroidal and scleral thickness as well as scleral diameter, these findings provide new insights into the development of new drugs for myopia.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2542.mp3" length="975812" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High serotonin (5-HT) linked (again) to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2540</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2540</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 04 Jun 2024 17:59:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2540

The rate of SIDS have been steadily increasing over the last 20 years to the point where now some “developed” countries have infant (<2yo) mortality on par with 3rd world countries. SIDS has been baffling doctors, since no structural abnormalities have been found in SIDS victims and on average they appear more or less healthy, except for some of them exhibiting symptoms similar to autism. Another suggestive finding is that infants born to mothers using SSRI drugs during pregnancy have a higher chance of experiencing SIDS. The combination of these findings should have guided doctors towards exploring the 5-HT connection, however not much research has been done in that area yet. The few studies that have looked at the role of 5-HT in SIDS have all shown elevated 5-HT in plasma or platelets. The new study below found both to be the case – elevated 5-HT in plasma and platelets. Elevated 5-HT in plasma and platelets increases chance of blood clots, and it very well may be the case that a good portion of the SIDS victims expire due to occult stroke or another ischemic event. If elevated 5-HT is indeed the main cause of SIDS (and so far there is no evidence to suggest otherwise) then something as simple as cyproheptadine or famotidine (both approved for use in children, under medical supervision) may be able to prevent most SIDS cases. For people whose doctors balk at prescribing serotonin antagonists, aspirin may also be a good option, as it has also been shown to reduce plasma serotonin, link here as well as increase its degradation into inactive metabolites such as 5-HIAA. Speaking of NSAID – it is important that the intervention is with aspirin, and not something like acetaminophen, as the latter has strong serotonergic effects and also decreases serotonin turnover/metabolism, so it can greatly increase the risk of SIDS. Unfortunately, most pediatricians are much more likely to approve Tylenol (acetaminophen) usage than they are to approve aspirin usage in infants.

2 links here

“…Researchers examined whether blood platelets, which have serotonin (5-HT) and 14-3-3 signaling pathways similar to brain neurons, are abnormal in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). About 40% of SIDS cases have abnormalities in serotonin and 14-3-3 pathways in brainstem areas related to hypoxia, gasping, and arousal. Whether platelets, which have similar serotonin and 14-3-3 pathways, are also abnormal in SIDS is unknown. In this study, researchers found platelets in postmortem blood from SIDS cases had significantly higher plasma and intra-platelet serotonin and lower intra-platelet 14-3-3 zeta and platelet surface glycoprotein IX (which is indirectly linked to 14-3-3) than controls. The presence in SIDS of both platelet and brainstem serotonin and 14-3-3 abnormalities suggest global dysregulation of these pathways. Platelet and plasma biomarkers may aid in the forensic determination of SIDS and have the potential to be predictive of SIDS risk in living infants.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2540.mp3" length="1002716" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin/LPS can cause anxiety/depression; COX inhibitors (e.g. aspirin) may treat both</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2538</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2538</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2024 19:17:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2538

Another study demonstrating the potent effects endotoxin/LPS has on systemic inflammation and mental health even after a single exposure (e.g. something easily replicated by even a single night of binge-drinking weekly). The study also demonstrates once again the versatility of “obsolete” drugs such as aspirin. Actually, the anti-depressant effects of aspirin has been known for decades. However, since an aspirin “receptor” has not been discovered, there has not been much interest in using aspirin for mental illnesses because neither the public health authorities nor Big Pharma like drugs with unknown mechanism of action. The study below shows that inhibiting the COX enzyme (and thus the production of inflammatory prostaglandins, which can only be derived from PUFA) is sufficient to induce anti-depressant and/or anti-anxiety effects. The study used two *coxib drugs, which are highly selective for the COX-2 enzyme and also have nasty (and potentially lethal) cardiovascular side effects. Vioxx anyone?? That is why I suggested in the title that good ‘ol aspirin may be the perfect tool for the job. Not only does it lack the side effects of the *coxib drugs, but its “non-selective” nature means it will inhibits COX-1 and possibly even the LOX enzyme, thus enhancing the anti-depressant and anti-anxiety effects compared to the ones of a highly selective COX-2 inhibitor.

link here

“…Depression and anxiety disorders have their pathophysiologies linked to inflammation and oxidative stress. In this context, celecoxib (CLX) and etoricoxib (ETR) inhibit cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2), an enzyme expressed by cells involved in the inflammatory process and found in the brain. Studies have been using CLX as a possible drug in the treatment of depression, although its mechanisms at the central nervous system level are not fully elucidated. In this study, the effects of CLX and ETR on behavioral, oxidative, and inflammatory changes induced by systemic exposure to Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) were evaluated in adult male swiss mice. For ten days, the animals received intraperitoneal injections of LPS at 0.5 mg/kg. From the sixth to the tenth day, one hour after LPS exposure, they were treated orally with CLX (15 mg/kg), ETR (10 mg/kg), or fluoxetine (FLU) (20 mg/kg). Twenty-four hours after the last oral administration, the animals underwent evaluation of locomotor activity (open field test), predictive tests for depressive-like behavior (forced swim and tail suspension tests), and anxiolytic-like effect (elevated plus maze and hole board tests). Subsequently, the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and striatum were dissected for the measurement of oxidative and nitrosative parameters (malondialdehyde, nitrite, and glutathione) and quantification of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β and IL-6). LPS induced depressive and anxious-like behavior, and treatment with CLX or ETR was able to reverse most of the behavioral changes. It was evidenced that nitrosative stress and the degree of lipid peroxidation induced by LPS were reduced in different brain areas after treatment with the drugs, as well as the endogenous defense system against free radicals was strengthened. CLX and ETR also significantly reduced LPS-induced cytokine levels. These data are expected to expand information on the role of inflammation in depression and anxiety and provide insights into possible mechanisms of COX-2 inhibitors in psychiatric disorders with a neurobiological basis in inflammation and oxidative stress.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2538.mp3" length="740084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lactate damages mitochondria and can cause (pulmonary) fibrosis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2535</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2535</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2024 18:54:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2535

In the first half of the 20th century lactate had a largely negative reputation in medical circles and was viewed as something far from being a benign (let alone beneficial) byproduct of cellular metabolism. The people studying cancer knew very well of lactate’s nefarious role in that disease and Nobel Prize winner who have the “Warburg Effect” its name was firmly of the opinion that lactate is intimately connected to not just cancer, but also to most other chronic diseases. After medicine took a decisive turn towards fascism/authoritarianism since the 1950s those original studies and opinions on lactate were largely (and conveniently) forgotten and now lactate is even given to critically ill people in the hospital under the form of the (in)famous Ringer Lactate solution. The rationale is that lactate serves as a fuel for cells and it “beneficial” in critical illness. Somehow, it escapes even emergency medicine that about half of the patients who present to the ER are already in lactic acidosis, so giving them extra lactate is perhaps the worst possible intervention and likely ensures their demise since the organic lactic acidosis alone has a mortality rate of about 40%. One can easily imagine the mortality rate following additional lactate infusions.

Well, the study below adds to the evidence that lactate is directly harmful to cells, and this harm is mediated mostly by lactate causing mitochondrial damage/fragmentation as well as increased generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), with the latter being a likely result of the former. Over time, the combination of these effects led to the development of “idiopathic” pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in the animals used in the study. IPF also exists in humans and is progressive, and invariably lethal. Big Pharma companies such as Pfizer have been running trials quietly with serotonin antagonists such as terguride (an ergot derivative almost identical to lisuride), which suggests that lactate promotes either synthesis/release of serotonin, its action, or both. Yet another reason to keep lactate levels under control. Interestingly, preventing the formation of ROS ameliorated IPF, which suggests something as simple as vitamin E may be able to put the brakes on this progressive and lethal condition, currently considered by medicine to be incurable. Now, I did put the “pulmonary” in the title in parenthesis. Why? Well, because the mechanisms through lactate caused fibrosis in the lungs are general enough to be applicable to all organs, and not just the lungs. Thus, lactate is likely a universal pro-fibrotic agent and it may be turn out that preventing/reversing many fibrotic conditions may be as simple as keeping lactate at bay with substances such as vitamin B1, B2, B3, B7, methylene blue, etc.

link here

“…Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, progressive, fibrotic interstitial lung diseases, which mainly existed in middle-aged and elderly people. The accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is a common characteristic of IPF. Previous research also shown that lactate levels can be abnormally elevated in IPF patients. Emerging evidence suggested a relationship between lactate and ROS in IPF which needs further elucidation. In this article, we utilized a mouse model of BLM-induced pulmonary fibrosis to detect alterations in ROS levels and other indicators associated with fibrosis. Lactate could induce mitochondrial fragmentation by modulating expression and activity of DRP1 and ERK. Moreover, Increased ROS promoted P65 translocation into nucleus, leading to expression of lung fibrotic markers. Finally, Ulixertinib, Mdivi-1 and Mito-TEMPO, which were inhibitor activity of ERK, DRP1 and mtROS, respectively, could effectively prevented mitochondrial damage and production of ROS and eventually alleviate pulmonary fibrosis. Taken together, these findings suggested that lactate could promote lung fibrosis by increasing mitochondrial fission-derived ROS via ERK/DRP1 signaling, which may provide novel therapeutic solutions for IPF.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2535.mp3" length="1302404" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Weight-loss from low-carb/keto diets is mostly water; no lasting health benefits</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2533</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2533</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2024 18:10:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2533

Just a few minutes ago I posted about a study showing that l0w-carb diets increase risk of developing Afib and, thus, cardiovascular disease (CVD). Other studies have already corroborated the negative effects of such diets on the cardiovascular system. Now, the study below debunks one of the most-often cited benefits of the keto diet – i.e. the rapid weight loss one experiences while on it. As I have discussed on many podcasts and in other posts, cutting carbs works just like diuretics, so the weight-loss on low-carb/keto diets is likely mostly water loss (i.e. anti-edematous effects) as well as muscle loss (a terrible outcome), since people who stop the low-carb-keto diet rapidly regain the lost weight despite the fact that their total body fat percentage does not change (and cannot significantly change in a matter of just 1-2 weeks, which is what it takes to regain the lost weight on low-carb/keto after starting carb intake again) and their fat intake does not change either.

2 links here

“…The ketogenic diet, link here rose to popularity in the early 2000s with the mantra “fat is not the enemy.” But a study covered in the March 2024 issue of Current Problems in Cardiology suggests that the diet—which focuses on foods high in fats and deemed very low in carbohydrates—is perhaps something of a Trojan horse. The paper,, link here published by Joanna Popiolek-Kalisz, MD and PhD, found a few issues with the diet’s parameters. The first was weight-loss related: While many people who followed it experienced rapid weight loss (typical of making any significant diet change), it was likely mostly water weight, link here and failed to yield any permanent positive health changes within the body. “The ketogenic diet does not fulfill the criteria of a healthy diet,”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2533.mp3" length="505844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Higher testosterone (T) levels protect against diabetes in males</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2531</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2531</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2024 17:54:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2531

Another study that contradicts the pervasive dogma that higher T levels are a nightmare for aging males, leading to everything from baldness, to prostate cancer, to heart disease, and even diabetes. Speaking of diabetes, the study found the exact opposite – i.e. the higher total T levels were in a male under 65, the lower his risk of developing diabetes was. Unfortunately, our modern lifestyle of bathing in endocrine disruptors 24×7 decimates male T levels, and so do a number of very widely prescribed pharma drugs (statins, PPI inhibitors, blood-thinners, etc). Be that as it may, it would be nice to see a subsequent study examine the role of cortisol as well, since a few studies with longer term measurements (done in hair or nails) of cortisol (F) and testosterone demonstrated positive associations of F, but especially of the F/T ratio with obesity, diabetes, and CVD, thus implicating directly chronic stress in this metabolic/endocrine condition.

2 links here

“…A new study, link here says higher levels of testosterone, link here can lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, link here for men 65 years or younger who are overweight or have obesity, link here. The study, which hasn’t been published yet in a peer-reviewed journal, was presented today at ENDO 2024,, link here the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Boston. Mahesh Umapathysivam, link here, a lead researcher from the University of Adelaide in Australia, said in a statement that the research team wanted to better understand the relationship between testosterone and type 2 diabetes risk across a range of testosterone levels. He said they also wanted to examine interactions between testosterone and different diabetes risk factors in midlife and in older men. “A low blood testosterone concentration is an independent risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes, and high levels of testosterone appear protective against the development of type 2 diabetes,” Umapathysivam said. The team examined data from the MAILES Cohort, link here, a group of men ages 35 to 85 years living in urban Adelaide.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2531.mp3" length="503084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA can cause male infertility by inhibiting oxidative metabolism (OXPHOS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2528</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2528</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2024 17:40:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2528

The study looked at one of the members of the PUFA family that even mainstream medicine is not very fond of. Namely, arachidonic acid (AA), link here. However, the reason medicine is not very fond of that PUFA is due to its role as a precursor to the major inflammatory mediators known as prostaglandins, leukotrienes, and thromboxanes. Medicine does not really have any criticism towards the intact AA or the other members of the PUFA family. Yet, the study below demonstrated that intact AA reliably caused decreased functioning, or even death, of the Sertoli cells (SC) and thus decreased (or even zero) spermatogenesis. The mechanism of action for the those negative effects of AA were purely metabolic – i.e. increased glycolysis and reduced oxygen consumption, paired with lower mitochondrial function. Worse, AA actually reduced the expression of several of the electron chain complexes (ETC), which means its effects were structural (and thus harder to reverse) in additional to functional (lower OXPHOS). Now, while the study was done with SC found in the male gonads, there is nothing SC-specific about the effects of AA. In other words, the same anti-metabolic effects are expected to occur in any type of cell regardless of its origin or maturation state. That automatically makes AA both pro-cancer both for de-novo cancerization and also for growth of already established tumors. It would be great to see a similar study done for other PUFA members, but the available evidence is already pointing in the same direction as the findings about AA below.

link here

“…As a key factor in determining testis size and sperm number, sertoli cells (SCs) play a crucial role in male infertility. Heat stress (HS) reduces SCs counts, negatively impacting nutrient transport and supply to germ cells, and leading to spermatogenesis failure in humans and animals. However, how HS affects the number of SCs remains unclear. We hypothesized that changes in SC metabolism contribute to the adverse effects of HS. In this study, we first observed an upregulation of arachidonic acid (AA), an unsaturated fatty acid after HS exposure by LC-MS/MS metabolome detection. By increasing ROS levels, expression of KEAP1 and NRF2 proteins as well as LC3 and LAMP2, 100 µM AA induced autophagy in SCs by activating oxidative stress (OS). We observed adverse effects of AA on mitochondria under HS with a decrease of mitochondrial number and an increase of mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP). We also found that AA alternated the oxygen transport and absorption function of mitochondria by increasing glycolysis flux and decreasing oxygen consumption rate as well as the expression of mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) proteins Complex I, II, V…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2528.mp3" length="766940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low-carb diets linked to increased risk of atrial fibrillation (Afib)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2526</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2526</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2024 17:20:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2526

Another hit for the low-carb lifestyle/diet. Some recent studies showed that low-carb diets or fasting increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and the study below may explain why. Namely, low-carb diets may increase the risk of developing Afib, with the latter being a major risk factor for both heart attacks and strokes, as well as heart failure in the long run. Even doctors have started to view the low-carb lifestyle with suspicion and are now focusing mostly on caloric restriction or drugs like Ozempic for weight loss. I suspect it won’t be long before medicine gives up on fasting as well, since while it may lead to some weight loss, it favors losing muscle over fat and if practiced chronically can tank the resting metabolic rate (RMR) to the point that the poor person can start (re)gaining weight on even a quarter of the daily calories their “weight-peers” ingest on a daily basis without weight gain.

2 links here

“…Restricting carbohydrates has become a popular weight loss strategy in recent years. While there are many different low-carbohydrate diets including the ketogenic, paleo and Atkins diets, most emphasize proteins while limiting intake of sugars, grains, legumes, fruits and starchy vegetables. “The long-term effect of carbohydrate restriction is still controversial, especially with regard to its influence on cardiovascular disease,” said Xiaodong Zhuang, MD, PhD, a cardiologist at the hospital affiliated with Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China, and the study’s lead author. “Considering the potential influence on arrhythmia, our study suggests this popular weight control method should be recommended cautiously.” The findings complement previous studies, several of which have associated both low-carbohydrate and high-carbohydrate diets with an increased risk of death. However, while previous studies suggested the nature of the non-carbohydrate component of the diet influenced the overall pattern observed, the new study did not. “Low carbohydrate diets were associated with increased risk of incident AFib regardless of the type of protein or fat used to replace the carbohydrate,” Zhuang said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2526.mp3" length="462476" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low thyroid, cholesterol, vitamin D/K linked to depression and suicide</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2524</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2524</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2024 17:09:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2524

One of the few studies out there that dared to touch the “metabolic theory” of depression. Namely, the link between low thyroid and depression has been suspected for decades and, in fact, desiccated thyroid or T3 therapy had been tried with great success on depressive cases before the 1960s. As such, the findings that low T4 levels are associated with depression/suicide is not really novel, but it still good to see studies draw attention to the thyroid connection as that may push medicine to start (re)considering mental health issues as metabolic in origin. Another finding of the study is both “surprising” and worrying at the same time. Namely, low cholesterol was also associated with depression/suicide and that finding contradicts directly the official guidelines on cholesterol, which currently state that the lower (total or “bad”) cholesterol is, the better the health of the patient not only in regards to cardiovascular issues but also mental health. If the finding of the study gets corroborated by other studies, it would mean that the current “pandemic” of prescribing statins to even minors is directly contributing to the mental health crisis that mainstream media keeps screaming about. Finally, the link between low vitamin D/K is also worth mentioning since that connection is relatively new and while medicine has started to admit that low vitamin D is implicated in mental illness, vitamin K is not even on the radar in that regard. However, considering that vitamin K is a quinone and a strong pro-metabolic substance, this connection once again draw attention to the metabolic origins of mental illness, or at least in regards to severe depression. This role of vitamin K as a pro-metabolic substance is further corroborated by the positive association between vitamin K and T4. Now, if only a research group out there would be brave enough to do an intervention trial with thyroid, vitamin D/K or (God forbid!) increased dietary cholesterol, we may get closer to solving a lot of mental health issues while simultaneously exposing both the absurdity of the current theories of mental illness as well as the role of pharma drugs (e.g. statins, PPI inhibitors, etc) in contributing directly to the mental health crisis.

2 links here

“…A recent research published in the Journal of Inflammation Research uncovered a potential link between low levels of vitamin K and increased risk of depression and suicidal behavior. Despite the limited epidemiological studies in this area, this new study highlighted strong evidence which suggests vitamin K deficiency could be a significant biological risk factor for these mental health issues. This retrospective cross-sectional analysis involved a total of 295 participants and divided into two groups, where 146 individuals had a history of suicide attempts and 149 individuals had no history of suicide attempts. This research measured various biological markers, including thyroid hormones, lipid profiles, inflammatory cytokines and vitamins to explore the potential associations with depression and suicidal behavior. The results found that the participants who had attempted suicide expressed markedly lower levels of FT4 (free thyroxine), total cholesterol (TC), vitamin D and vitamin K. Also, these individuals showed increased levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) which indicates inflammation. Among the different variables examined, vitamin K emerged as a strong predictor of suicidal behavior in depressed patients. The research reported a sensitivity of 0.842 and a specificity of 0.715 for vitamin K levels in diagnosing the suicidal attempts among the depressed individuals. This means that vitamin K levels were accurate in identifying the individuals at risk for suicidal behavior in over 80% of cases. Correlation analysis further revealed that vitamin K levels were significantly and positively related to several other biomarkers, including FT4, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and small dense LDL cholesterol. These findings suggest a broader interaction between vitamin K and other physiological processes that may influence mental health. The multivariate analysis illuminated the importance of vitamin K as a predictive factor for suicidal attempts in patients with depression. Also, the study found that (low) serum vitamin K levels significantly predicted suicidal behavior (Odds Ratio = 0.614, P = 0.004, 95% Confidence Interval 0.153–0.904). The outcomes observed a negative correlation between vitamin K levels and suicidal attempts when analyzing the data for FT4, CRP and vitamin D. This indicates that lower levels of vitamin K are associated with a higher risk of suicide attempts in the context of other health markers. The findings of this study suggest that monitoring and managing vitamin K levels could play a crucial role in the prevention and treatment of depression and suicidal behavior. Given the significant diagnostic value of vitamin K, clinicians might consider incorporating vitamin K assessments into routine evaluations for patients at risk of depression and suicidal tendencies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2524.mp3" length="1046204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fish oil (omega-3) causes, not prevents cardiovascular disease (CVD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2520</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2520</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 24 May 2024 19:12:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2520

A rather damning finding, and it was based on one of the largest studies to date examining the effects of omega-3 intake and future health outcomes. It looks like one of the most widely recommended dietary options for preventing (heart) disease is actually causing it. Unfortunately, the study did not look at omega-6 consumption in the same context, but considering the omega-6 is even more inflammatory than omega-3, the findings about omega-6 would have probably been even more damning, especially considering that omega-6 intake dwarfs omega-3 intake in most Western countries. Now, the study did find that in people with already established CVD, omega-3 intake lowered the risk of future cardiac/brain ischemic event or dying from one. However, I suspect that these findings are due to the fact that people with established CVD already have very high omega-6 intake (which is what caused their CVD) and the addition of omega-3 dampened a bit the inflammatory state. However, since the study did not control for omega-6 or SFA intake we do not know what the lowest baseline rate of CVD or ischemic events could have been. In other words, if people with SFA intake had the lowest CVD and ischemic rates, compared to the omega-6 and omega-3 groups, then omega-3 intake lowering the ischemic rates below the omega-6 group but keeping them above the SFA group would still very much mean that omega-3 is a net negative on people with already established CVD. The study does hint that this may be the case (see quote from the study below). In that case, the recommendations should not be to replace omega-6 with omega-3 (which is what medicine currently recommends), but to replace all PUFA with SFA, as much as possible.

link here

“…Higher doses of omega 3 fatty acids used in previous studies might have had an important role in causing an adverse effect on atrial fibrillation.21, link here One study found that high concentrations of fish oil altered cell membrane properties and inhibited Na-K-ATPase pump activity, whereas a low concentration of fish oil minimised peroxidation potential and optimised activity.23, link here In another study, individuals with atrial fibrillation or flutter had higher percentages of total polyunsaturated fatty acids, and n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, on red blood cell membranes than healthy controls.2, link here”

link here

“…Fish oil, link here derived from fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, and trout is often recommended for its anti-inflammatory effects, especially in people with cardiovascular disease (CVD), high blood pressure, link here, abnormal lipids, and rheumatoid arthritis. Fatty fish are a great source of two omega-3 fatty acids, link here that the human body needs but cannot make for itself: docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). However, while it might seem like a good idea for healthy people to also supplement with fish oil to help prevent disease, the results of a large, long-term study, link here published on May 21, 2024, in the journal BMJ Medicine, indicate that this may not be the case. The researchers found that using fish oil on a regular basis might actually increase the risk for healthy people to go on and develop first-time heart disease and stroke.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2520.mp3" length="837500" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Childhood stress causes muscle dysfunction in adulthood by damaging oxidative metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2516</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2516</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:00:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2516

Yet another study demonstrating that many mysterious, and sometimes severe/fatal (e.g. ALS) muscle-related conditions may be not only bioenergetic in origin, but can trace their causes back to stressful childhood. The study below not only suggests that childhood stress can cause muscle dysfunction in adulthood by inhibiting oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and ATP synthesis, but that the effects was “dose-dependent”. Namely, each adverse even during childhood had an additional negative effect on ATP synthesis in adulthood, and thus muscle dysfunction severity. While the study does not speculate on mechanisms of action, my guess is that the lower OXPHOS/ATP was driven by reduced thyroid function due to activation of the HPA axis due to the stressful event(s). Of course, HPA activation results in chronically elevated cortisol, and even mainstream medicine admits the latter has devastating effects on the musculoskeletal system. As such, muscle dysfunction in adulthood should be amenable to simple treatments with thyroid or anti-cortisol substances. If those are not accessible, something as simple as aspirin may be able to do the trick since aspirin is not only a metabolic booster, but its metabolite salicylic acid inhibits the enzyme 11b-HSD1, which is the rate-limiting step in cortisol synthesis. Pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA and various quinones should also be therapeutic. Speaking of quinones, there have been a number of clinical trials with CoQ10 for muscle conditions, but the results have been inconsistent. Aside from the often-insufficient dosages, one of the reasons for the inconsistent results may be that benzoquinones such as CoQ10 are MAO-A inhibitors and that mechanism has a known anti-metabolic effects by decreasing the degradation of serotonin. Using naphthoquinone (e.g. vitamin K) or anthraquinone (e.g. emodin) derivatives may be a better approach as the former are selective inhibitors of MAO-B (which has already been demonstrated to have therapeutic effects in muscle conditions) while the latter are more or less neutral when it comes to neurotransmitters, but happen to inhibit 11b-HSD1 (e.g. emodin), just like salicylic acid. So, something as simple as aspirin + vitamin K may be sufficient to restore proper muscle function.

link here

“…Forty-five percent of the sample reported experiencing one or more adverse childhood events. After adjustment, each additional event was associated with −0.08 SD (95% confidence interval = −0.13, −0.02) lower ATPmax. No association was observed with Max OXPHOS. Adverse childhood events are associated with lower ATP production in later life.”

Childhood trauma may stymie muscle function later, link here

 

“…The study examined the function of skeletal muscle of older adults paired with surveys of adverse events they had experienced in childhood. It found that people who experienced greater childhood adversity, reporting one or more adverse events, had poorer muscle metabolism later in life.”

“…The researchers examined muscle biopsies to determine two key features of muscular function: the production of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, and another measure called oxidative phosphorylation, a process that helps produce ATP. Produced by organelles within cells called mitochondria, ATP provides the chemical energy to fuel cellular function. The researchers also used data from questionnaires that included a set of questions such as: Did a close family member use drugs or alcohol in a way that caused you to worry? Did an adult or parent in your household insult you or put you down? Were you physically abused by a parent or adult in your household? Did you feel loved, important, or special in your family? Were either of your parents absent for a portion of your life? Duchowny found that about 45% of the sample reported experiencing one or more adverse childhood events, link here, and that both men and women who reported adverse childhood events had poorer ATP max production—that is, they weren’t producing as much ATP as people who experienced fewer or no adverse events in childhood.”

“…“You can think about oxygen consumption rate as a way to measure the flow of electrons that’s going through the electron transport train, and it’s these electrons that generate the membrane potential that drives the synthesis of ATP,” Molina says. “It’s a really precise way of assessing mitochondrial bioenergetic capacity.” Previous studies have shown that these measures are closely related to the physical abilities of older adults, Molina says.”

“…“All of my previous studies have been focused on contemporaneous measures: mitochondria and physical function, mitochondria and cognitive function,” Molina says. “These studies have shown that these measures are strongly related to our strength, fitness, and numerous conditions that impact physical ability. “I’ve also shown that these measures are related to cognitive ability and dementia, link here. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2516.mp3" length="1168964" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SSRI drugs, serotonin (5-HT) can cause chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2514</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2514</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 22 Mar 2024 19:57:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2514

Mainstream medicine does not officially recognize the condition commonly known as CFS. Depending on which doctor one asks, the response would be that CFS is either hypochondria, malingering, mental illness, hidden substance abuse disorder, subclinical viral infection, or just sensationalism. As such, the treatment for most patients suspected as having CFS has usually been prescribed (psycho)therapy and SSRI drugs to treat their suspected underlying mental illness. Unfortunately, a new study below demonstrated that SSRI drugs are just about the worst treatment a CFS patient can get due to the fact that it is elevated extracellular 5-HT potentially causing most of the CFS symptoms, especially the debilitating physical/mental fatigue. I am actually surprised it took researchers so long to make that connection, considering the well-tested so-called “central fatigue hypothesis” (CFH), which stipulates that most of the perception of fatigue is brain-derived and often is not peripherally biochemically justified. More specifically, it is the accumulation of serotonin in the brain, which leads one to perceive severe fatigue even if the bioenergetic state of their muscles do not demonstrate signs of fatigue (e.g. lactate buildup, creatine kinase and LDH leakage, ammonia accumulation, etc). Conversely, lowering serotonin levels in the brain usually leads to abolishing the feelings of fatigue. In fact, there are multiple animal studies demonstrating that tryptophan depletion in the brain (which leads to lower 5-HT levels in the brain) is a reliable mechanism to delay or even abolish feelings of fatigue even in animals whose muscles are biochemically fatigued.

Well, the primary symptom of CFS is…fatigue. Also, multiple studies have demonstrated that aside from mitochondrial dysfunction, the cells of CFS sufferers do not exhibit the biochemical signs of  fatigue. In some cases, there is a buildup of pyruvate and lactate, but this finding is not consistent. It is this lack of direct evidence of true biochemical fatigue that is the likely main driver behind medicine’s decision to not recognize CFS as an actual organic condition, and to often accuse CFS patients of malingering or hypochondria. However, when viewed through the CFH lenses the CFS condition makes perfect sense and, of course, involves elevated brain serotonin (5-HT). Another fact implicating 5-HT as a causal agent in CFS is the fact that most CFS patients seem to develop the condition as a result of viral infection. As I have posted in the past, most viral infections require activation of specific 5-HT receptors (by elevated serotonin) in order for the infection to take hold, and blocking these receptors either prevents the infection altogether or can treat an already established one. Case in point, recent studies have implicated serotonin overload in COVID-19, and several studies have demonstrated that anti-serotonin drugs such as famotidine or cinanserin can be therapeutic for COVID-19. I suppose it goes without saying that chronic stress can also cause CFS since the former is a well-known inducer of 5-HT synthesis by reliably raises tryptophan (and thus 5-HT) levels in the brain.

Long story short – just 4 weeks of fluoxetine (Prozac) administration to animals induced all the signs/symptoms of CFS. Conversely, inhibiting serotonin synthesis with the drug Fenclonine, link here reversed the already induced CFS. This finding suggests that 5-HT antagonists such as Benadryl, famotidine, cyproheptadine, and ergot class of drugs may also be reliable treatments for CFS. Aspirin inhibits tryptophan absorption from the GI tract and lowers extracellular 5-HT, so that could be another potential remedy. Finally, ingesting BCAA amino acids, as well as tyrosine/phenylalanine may also lead to 5-HT depletion in the brain. In fact, that amino acid protocol was used suucessfully in a prior animal study to delay/block central fatigue due to exhaustive exercise. Finally, androgens such as testosterone and DHT are also 5-HT synthesis inhibitors, as is progesterone, so those steroids may also be viable tools for treating CFS.

2 links here

“…Now a new study based on mice suggests that some drugs used to treat depression, link here, which commonly accompanies ME/CFS, could also ignite the condition. Based on clinical clues, Jin‑Seok Lee, a ME/CFS researcher at Daejeon University in South Korea, and colleagues hypothesized that a spillover of serotonin could lead to ME/CFS. Known to play a role in governing moods, declining levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, link here have long been thought to cause depression. Although that theory is now disputed, link here, treatments that target serotonin pathways – such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) – are some of the most commonly prescribed antidepressants. By blocking receptors that bind and remove serotonin from the signalling pathway, the medication artificially maintains a higher level of the mood messenger. According to several decades-old studies, some patients with ME/CFS appear to have fewer serotonin transporters, link here than healthy volunteers, and may also have receptors that only weakly bind serotonin, link here. Lee and colleagues thought that if such people had coincidentally been treated with serotonin-based treatments for depression before they developed ME/CFS, they may have had excessive levels of serotonin in their brain. This could have triggered ME/CFS by throwing off a feedback mechanism, link here designed to keep a lid on the immune system and inflammation.”

“…After four weeks, animals treated with fluoxetine had higher levels of serotonin in two parts of the brain, the hypothalamus and dorsal raphe nucleus. They also developed behaviors that resembled the main symptoms of ME/CFS seen in humans, including unrefreshing sleep, PEM and orthostatic intolerance, but not cognitive impairment. These behaviors disappeared six weeks after the drug was stopped…Another experiment showed inhibiting serotonin production could alleviate their symptoms. “Our study provides the first translational [animal] evidence for the involvement of serotonergic hyperactivity in the pathophysiology of ME/CFS,” Lee and colleagues conclude, link here, adding that high levels of serotonin could also be used to distinguish ME/CFS from other similar disorders such as fibromyalgia.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2514.mp3" length="2075972" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress/cortisol/aldosterone cause kidney disease; pregnenolone/progesterone treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2511</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2511</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 22 Mar 2024 15:21:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2511

The condition known as chronic kidney disease (CKD) is one of the most common long-term co-morbidity of diabetes/obesity. It is estimated that the majority of people with diabetes/obesity will develop some stage of CKD throughout their lives. The treatment options for CKD are virtually nill and rely on trying to reverse the underlying cause (diabetes/obesity) and perform dialysis or kidney transplants for the advanced cases. That being said, it looks like over the last couple of years, pharma companies have quietly been developing actual treatments for the condition, and the mechanism of action behind it is surprisingly simple. Namely, blocking the aldosterone (mineralocorticoid) receptors (MR). These recent drug approvals are a great development for several reasons. One, people now have an actual curative treatment available for CKD. Two, it immediately exposes the fraud behind the public health push for salt restriction since restricting salt raises aldosterone, and the latter is know proven to be a major cause of kidney failure. Three, it exposes the dangers of glucocorticoid usage/administration since in the absence of hyperaldosteronism (which is rare, unless one severely restricts salt intake) glucocorticoids (endogenous or given as drugs) are the primary activators of the MR. That’s right, while most people think of glucocorticoids as activators of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) only, they also activate the MR and this is what causes the well-known puffiness/edema in people with Cushing syndrome/disease or in patients treated with glucocorticoids. Of course, that also immediately exposes stress being a major cause of CKD as well, due to its effects on baseline cortisol levels. In any event, the drug below is one of the most recently approved MR antagonists as a treatment of CKD.

2 links here

Now, like any pharma drug, the one above has a long list of undesirable (even serious) side effects. The good news is that there are cheap and widely available OTC remedies that can do the same as the pharma drug, with few known side effects. Namely, pregnenolone and progesterone are potent MR antagonists, and based on their pharmacological profile in regards to MR they likely provide benefit even in physiological doses. Come to think it, their decline with aging may explain to a great degree the positive association of CKD with age. Truly the youthful steroids, as Peat called them many times!

2 links here

“…Highlights ► Steroid receptor profiling of STPs extracts using in vitro steroid receptor bioassays. ► Presence of agonist ER and AR, and antagonist GR, PR and MR activities in samples. ► Analysis of the STPs activities due to human steroids. ► AR, anti-GR and PR activities were not due to known human androgens. ► The steroid precursor pregnenolone is a potent anti-mineralocorticoid.”

“…Interestingly, using LC MS/MS (Liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry), we detected the presence of pregnenolone at high concentrations in the S2 and S4 samples. Using our bioluminescent reporter cells, pregnenolone was identified as a potent MR antagonist with a faint antagonist activity on PR and AR (Fig. 4B and Table 4 for the IC50) and a weak agonist activity on ERa (Fig. S3). Chemical analysis indicated that pregnenolone significantly contributed to the Bio-Spiro-Eqs (54.9 and 7.3% see Table 3). Altogether, these results identify pregnenolone as a novel EDCs acting as an important contributor to the detected antimineralocorticoid activity.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2511.mp3" length="1184060" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Intermittent fasting has no benefits, ups risk of dying from heart disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2509</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2509</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 22 Mar 2024 14:53:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2509

The bad news for the intermittent fasting crowd (and by extension, for the low-carb crowd as well) just never seem to stop. Aside from the studies that came out recently from UCSF showing loss of muscle mass, insomnia, higher blood pressure, etc in people practicing that dietary fat, now we have a study that goes further. Namely, it demonstrated almost doubling the risk of dying (not just getting) from heart disease (CVD), in addition to being no better than simple caloric restriction for weight loss, blood pressure control, etc. As I have said many times in the past, on many podcasts, while “no pain, no gain” does seem to have some basis in reality, the current mantra of “more pain, more gain” (which is what all those torturous dietary fads are) is dangerous and unsustainable, and its popularity can only be explained by the globalist push for drastically lowering food/resource consumption, living standards, and (ultimately) the number of humans on this planet.

3 links here

“…However, a yearlong study published in April 2022, link here that followed 139 Chinese adults ranging from overweight to significantly obese found no benefit over calorie counting for weight loss or improved cardiovascular health. Research presented this week immediately drew doubt and critiques from experts by suggesting that eating within an eight-hour window or less was significantly associated with a 91% increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, when compared with eating over a 12- to 16-hour period. An abstract of the preliminary research, which is not yet peer reviewed or published, was presented Monday, link here in Chicago at a conference of the American Heart Association.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2509.mp3" length="512492" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen and cortisol inhibit mitochondrial oxidation, vitamin E reverses the inhibition</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2507</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2507</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 04 Mar 2024 19:05:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2507

More specifically, those steroids inhibit NADH (also known as DPNH) oxidation in the mitochondria, which shifts the mitochondrial NAD+/NADH ratio in favor of reduction, resulting in reverse electron transport, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, and, ultimately, some serious “named” condition (e.g. diabetes, CVD, cancer, etc) down the road. In addition, estrogen inhibits pyruvate dehydrogenase, which results in further inhibition of OXPHOS and even more accumulation of NADH, and thus a further drop in NAD+/NADH ratio. Finally, estrogen also apparently induces a multi-fold rise in ceruloplasmin – a reliable biomarker of both acute and chronic inflammation, as well as some cancers (e.g. lymphomas).

link here

“…It is known that estrogens act catalytically in low concentrations at critical levels of cell metabolism. For example, diethylstilbestrol strongly inhibits the diphosphopyridine nucleotide oxidation that is normally carried out by enzymes from a variety of mammalian tissues, tumors and micro-organisms. The site of such inhibition has been localized in skeletal muscles to DPNH cytochrome C reductase (54a, b). This inhibitory effect enables small amounts to exert significant metabolic influences, even in tissues devoid of steroid enzymes…It was further noted that the glutamic dehydrogenase reaction was most susceptible to the effect of these hormones in the presence of the oxidized or reduced form of the oxidation-reduction cofactors (DPN, DPNH), and that the effect of steroid hormones could be completely reversed by the addition of adenosinediphosphate. It was also found that diethylstilbestrol has the property of inhibiting the pyruvate kinase which catalyzes the terminal step in glycolysis.”

“…Another example of the role of estrogenic substances in catalytic oxidation is their effect upon plasma copper transport and ceruloplasmin. In both normal volunteers and in certain cancer patients, it has been found that the ceruloplasmin level increases two to eight times ahove normal following stilbestrol administration (55).”

link here

“…From another standpoint, we have recently reported (5) that catalytic concentrations of a number of steroids inhibited reduced diphosphopyridine nucleotide (DPNH) oxidases from many mammalian and microbial sources. a-Tocopherol (and other compounds found by Nason and Lehman (6) to reactivate isooctane-treated preparations of DPNH-cytochrome c reductase) could competitively reverse the steroid inhibition (5). In skeletal muscle, the site of inhibition yas shown to be the DPNH-cytochrome c reductase reaction. Jensen (7) also found that in heart sarcosomes, DPNH-cytochrome c reductase was inhibited by the adrenal cortical hormones. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2507.mp3" length="452636" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA intake during pregnancy is neuro-, cardio, and hepato-toxic to offspring</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2504</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2504</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 29 Feb 2024 18:42:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2504

So much for the recommendation to increase PUFA intake during pregnancy, which is a mantra virtually all OBGYN and pediatricians keep repeating to expectant mothers. It’s good for the baby’s brain, they said. Well, not only is it not good for the baby’s brain, but the study below shows that PUFA also negatively affects motor skills, and indices of liver and cardiovascular health. Thus, even pregnant women who are health-conscious and suspicious of taking pharma drugs during pregnancy are likely to still harm their child given the ubiquity of PUFA in the Western food supply, based on nothing but a single, never-replicated study from the 1930s, link here that purportedly established the dogma that PUFA are “essential” to life.

link here

“…Results: An elevated intake of n-6 PUFA, specifically LA, during pregnancy [negatively] influences children’s motor, cognitive, and verbal development during infancy and early childhood. Similarly, they could harm the placenta and the development of other fetal organs such as the fat tissue, liver, and cardiovascular system. Conclusion: Maternal diet, specifically LA intake, could have significant repercussions on fetal development and long-term consequences in the offspring, including the possibility of future metabolic and mental diseases. It would be necessary to focus on the prevention of these alterations through timely dietary interventions in the target population.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2504.mp3" length="373028" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The pro-metabolic drug DNP, banned by FDA, may treat most diseases</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2502</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2502</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 29 Feb 2024 18:28:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2502

The chemical 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP), link here is one of the oldest (and most successful) weight loss drugs. It works by not only increasing respiration but also by uncoupling the reactions in the electron transport chain from ATP generation, so that a higher proportion of the energy we get from food is released as heat. In other words, DNP drastically increases thermogenesis (and metabolic rate/speed), which allows a significant portion of food to be “wasted” as heat instead of stored in the body (mostly as fat). Thus, DNP can not only prevent the weight gain from an obesogenic diet, but also induce weight loss in an already obese person. These effects made DNP a very popular remedy for weight loss in the first half of the 20th century. However, due to a few deaths as a result of heat strokes caused by overdosing DNP, the FDA stepped in and banned the sales and personal use of DNP in the US. To this day, people get aggressively prosecuted if they attempt to sell DNP online or give it to friends/family. Interestingly, the FDA does not seem to be as strict when it comes to pharma companies toying with such “poison”. Despite the ongoing fearmongering that DNP is “deadly”, behind the scenes multiple pharma companies are running clinical trials with DNP for quite a few serious and truly deadly conditions. In order to limit the fallout with the public due to the double-standard, DNP is no longer called DNP in clinical trials since it has now been patented (naive me thought generic compounds in the public domain are unpatentable), as the pro-mitochondrial drug MP-101 (and its close analog MP-201). A quick look at the list of trials with MP-101 shows that pharma companies are banking on MP-101 treating a wide variety of serious chronic issues including multiple sclerosis (MS), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntington Diasease (HD), Alzheimer Disease (AD), mental illness, obesity, diabetes, immunodeficiency, congenital disorders, etc (see first two links below). In other words, pretty much all major chronic conditions known to medicine. I guess the good news in this entire charade is that if FDA and pharma companies believe DNP….errr..I mean MP-101….can treat all of these conditions then this is an open admission by those entities that all such diseases are metabolic in origin, since DNP…errr…I mean MP-101…has no known mechanism of action other than its uncoupling/pro-metabolic effects. The bad news is that perhaps millions of people worldwide will get poisoned by the newest pharma fad for weight loss known as GLP-1 agonists (Ozempic, anyone?) before the public wisens up to the fact that there are safer, and truly beneficial pharmacological alternative (e.g. uncouplers) for losing weight. Now, since DNP usage does have risks due to its potency as a thermogenic compound, and it is highly illegal to use therapeutically (unless you are a pharma company, rubbing shoulders with the FDA), one could approximate its effects with other uncouplers such as aspirin, caffeine, progesterone, salt, flavones/flavanones, etc.

3 links here

EU agency OKs study of therapy to improve mitochondrial function, link here

“…Mitochon Pharmaceuticals, link here is launching a pilot clinical trial to evaluate MP101, its treatment candidate for improving mitochondrial function, in people with multiple sclerosis, link here (MS) and other neurodegenerative diseases. The announcement follows the trial’s clearance by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which enables Mitochon to begin enrolling patients with neurodegenerative conditions in the biomarker study. The Phase 1/2a trial will enroll people with MS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, link here (ALS), Alzheimer’s disease, link here, and Huntington’s disease, link here, each of whom will receive the experimental therapy for 14 days. The goal is to demonstrate whether the therapy is safe in these populations and induces relevant changes in disease-related biomarkers. “We are delighted for the opportunity to explore [the] provocative idea that most, if not all neurodegenerative diseases are rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction,” John G. Geisler, PhD, Mitochon’s co-founder and chief scientific officer, said in a company press release, link here.”

“…Mitochondria are small cellular structures that produce most of the energy cells need to function — including the energy required for nerve cells to transmit electrical signals to other cells. They’re also involved in other essential cell functions. However, research has shown that these cellular organelles are dysfunctional, link here, or don’t work properly, in most neurodegenerative conditions, including in multiple sclerosis, link here. Thus, impaired mitochondrial function is thought to play an important role in neuronal damage and disease progression. MP101 is an investigational, brain-penetrant oral therapy that works as a mitochondrial stimulator, improving the function of these organelles across cells in the brain and spinal cord. This increases the amount of energy produced by cells and also induces the production of neuroprotective factors, which help protect cells from neurodegenerative disease processes.”

“…In preclinical studies, researchers showed that MP101 was able to protect nerve cells from the demyelination, link here that occurs in people with MS. It also reduced disease severity, link here and improved mobility in animal models of the disease. Similar results were obtained with MP201, a similar candidate molecule. The upcoming trial is expected to confirm the benefits of MP101 in neurodegenerative conditions. If positive, these findings are expected to support Phase 2b studies in people with primary progressive MS, link here and secondary progressive MS, link here, as well as ALS, Huntington’s, and Alzheimer’s. “We predict that chronic treatment with this unique platform, at micro-doses, will resolve mitochondrial issues and change important disease specific biomarkers in all four indications similarly,” Geisler said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2502.mp3" length="1548308" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>An estrogen metabolite may drive pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2499</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2499</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 29 Feb 2024 16:59:48 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2499

Just a few minutes ago I did a post on the causative role of estrogen and its metabolites in both rheumatoid (RA) and osteo arthritis (OA). The study below presents evidence that a C-16 hydroxylated metabolites of estrogen is a causative factor in the progressive and invariably lethal condition known as PAH. Now, there is already strong evidence implicating serotonin (5-HT) as one of the causative factors in PAH and due to the accumulation of such evidence Pfizer is running clinical trials with a 5-HT antagonist known as terguride, link here for treating PAH (and also heart failure). Considering estrogen and serotonin go hand in hand (both promote each other’s synthesis), the study below should not come as a surprise to anybody, and it actually suggests an additional pathway to target for patients with PAH who do not respond to a treatment with a 5-HT blocker – i.e. inhibiting estrogen synthesis and its activity at the receptor level, and improving mitochondrial function. Why the latter? Well, because the study found that the estrogenic metabolite drives PAH pathology by inhibiting mitochondrial function. This anti-mitochondrial finding in regards to estrogen is just (if not more) damning as the findings discussed previously that estrogen is genotoxic, mutagenic carcinogen, link here. Thus, in addition to the obvious anti-estrogenic remedies such as vitamin E, progesterone, androgens, aspirin, and so on one can also add niacinamide, methylene blue, vitamin K, thyroid, and other substances which have a pro-metabolic/pro-mitochondrial effect(s).

link here

“…MicroRNA array profiling of human lung tissue found elevation of microRNAs associated with energy metabolism, including the miR-29 family, among HPAH patients. miR-29 expression was 2-fold higher in Bmpr2 mutant mice lungs at baseline compared with controls and 4 to 8-fold higher in Bmpr2 mice exposed to 16α-hydroxyestrone (16αOHE) 1.25 μg/h for 4 weeks. Blot analyses of Bmpr2 mouse lung protein showed significant reductions in peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor-γ and CD36 in those mice exposed to 16αOHE and protein derived from HPAH lungs compared with controls. Bmpr2 mice treated with anti–miR-29 (20-mg/kg injections for 6 weeks) had improvements in hemodynamic profile, histology, and markers of dysregulated energy metabolism compared with controls. Pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells derived from Bmpr2 murine lungs demonstrated mitochondrial abnormalities, which improved with anti–miR-29 transfection in vitro; endothelial-like cells derived from HPAH patient induced pluripotent stem cell lines were similar and improved with anti–miR-29 treatment.”

“…16αOHE promotes the development of HPAH via upregulation of miR-29, which alters molecular and functional indexes of energy metabolism. Antagonism of miR-29 improves in vivo and in vitro features of HPAH and reveals a possible novel therapeutic target.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2499.mp3" length="782996" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen is a cause of both rheumatoid (RA) and osteo arthritis (OA)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2497</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2497</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 29 Feb 2024 16:22:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2497

Once again, estrogen rears its ugly head. The evidence on a link between estrogen and RA, as well as all “autoimmune” conditions, goes back decades, yet it is still considered “controversial (read: true), and medicine now pushes for reintroduction of estrogen therapy in females. Be that as it may, there is not much information in regards to a link between estrogen and “structural” conditions such as OA. The studies below present evidence that estrogen is a causative agent in both RA and OA, and one reason estrogen has not been officially implicated so far in either condition may be that it is not estrogens such as estrone and estradiol (the major circulating estrogens measured by doctors on blood tests) that are the causative agents, but their metabolites (also highly estrogenic). Namely, hydroxylated metabolites on position C-16 of both estrone and estradiol. To my knowledge, blood tests for these metabolites are not even commercially available through major labs such as LabCorp/Quest, which makes the task of implicating conclusively estrogens in those conditions that much more difficult. However, since multiple studies have demonstrated that blood levels of estrone sulfate (E1S) are highly predictive of total body estrogenic reserves, I suspect a test for E1S can be predictive and diagnostic for these conditions. And since E1S is also not easy to order as a blood test, another good surrogate for “estrogenicity” is prolactin, which is available as a test in virtually all labs. Coincidentally, elevated prolactin has already been linked to most “autoimmune” conditions, which corroborates both the suitability of prolactin for measuring estrogenicity of an organism, as well as the role of estrogens in “autoimmune” conditions. Interestingly enough, some of the studies below suggest that it is the ability of the estrogenic metabolites to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) that drives the immunogenicity in tissues where the ROS are generated, and thus create/drive an “autoimmune” reaction. As such, vitamin E may be the perfect substance for “autoimmune” conditions, because not only is it the major endogenous anti-oxidant, but it is also a direct estrogen receptor antagonist and an aromatase inhibitor. Adding other anti-estrogenic chemicals such as progesterone, androgens, pregnenolone, flavones/flavanones, etc would probably synergize with vitamin E for such conditions and, again “coincidentally”, multiple studies have already demonstrated benefits of progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, DHT, etc in both RA and OA, as well as many other “autoimmune” conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS), psoriasis, inflammatory bowel diseases, etc. Another major pathway through which estrogen may cause “autoimmune” conditions is apparently by activating the synthesis of prostaglandins and leukotrienes (PUFA metabolites) and the study authors suggest synthesis inhibitors of such metabolites as viable treatments for RA/OA. Aspirin, anyone? Oh, and last but not least – the studies below openly discuss the genotoxic and mutagenic properties of estrogen, as a mechanism behind estrogen’s immunogenicity. So, the next time some guru tries to make an argument that estrogen is “beneficial” and has no link to cancer (as it happened after one of my podcasts with Dr. Mercola), please remind that person that in the scientific literature estrogen is an established genotoxic, mutagenic carcinogen, link here.

2 links here

“…Remarkable progress have been made in understanding the role of estrogen in the etiology of RA but the role of catechol-estrogens (CE) in RA is lacking. Catechol metabolites are known to play an important role in RA but the exact patho-aetiology remain elusive. The evidence concerning the possibility of CEs in the development of RA is very limited and preliminary. It has been observed that oxidative reactions, often catalyzed by isoforms of the cytochrome P-450, can result in the formation of CEs from parent estrogen and subsequently, semiquinones and quinones derived from CEs, are capable of forming either stable or depurinating DNA adducts. Oxidation of CEs also leads to high amount of ROS that can generate extensive DNA damage. This would probably alter its immunogenicity leading to the induction and elevated levels of RA autoantibodies (Figure 4), link here. Therefore, it is possible that the CE-modified bases of DNA might be one of the contributing factors towards production of SLE autoantibodies. In addition, estrogen not only induces DNA damage but also modulate immune response and immune mediated disease. Estrogen was found to increase IgG and IgM from PBMC, which let to elevated level of polyclonal IgG including IgG anti-ds DNA by enhancing B cell activity via IL-10. These autoantibodies could be strongly bound to DNA and serve as an immunological marker for the diagnosis of diseases. Estrogen is thought to play both pro- and anti-inflammatory role in chronic inflammatory diseases that were found to be related to low and high concentration. Increased estrogen to androgen ratio have been observed in RA patients SF, perhaps due to increase aromatase expression by inflammatory macrophages infiltrating synovial tissues. The discovery of high concentration in SF from RA patients of both sexes can also be explain by the fact that inflammatory cytokines (i.e. TNFα, IL-1, IL-6) are increased in RA cynovitis and can markedly stimulate aromatase activity in peripheral tissue. But renal excretion studies showed that enhanced estrogen metabolism observed in RA resulted in elevation of pro-inflammatory metabolites derived from estrone and estradiol such as 16-OHE1 (or 4-OHE2, 4-OHE1) which exert mitogenic effect on different synovial fibroblast. In contrast, RA SF have reduced amount of anti-inflammatory estrogen metabolites such as 2-hydroxyestrogen that inhibit the growth-promoting effect of estradiol. An unwanted shift from 2- to 4-hydroxyestrogen might be an additional pro-inflammatory signal because these 4-hydroxylated metabolites can be converted to 3,4-quinone, which lead to depurination and mutation in DNA. In conclusion, an increase in 16-OHE1 relative to the sum of all 2- and 4-hydroxylated estrogens must be considered as pro-inflammatory signal which is particularly evident in RA [60, link here].”

link here

“…Women with an increased urinary 2-hydroxyestrone:16α-hydroxyestrone ratio were more likely to develop incident knee OA, an association that persisted after controlling for confounding variables. Sowers et al. speculate that high concentrations of 2-hydroxyestrone in urine could reflect levels of leukotriene synthesis and modulation of lipoxygenases in the arachidonic acid pathway (which is associated with pain and inflammation), rather than estrogen-receptor-mediated effects. They suggest that the arachidonic acid pathway could provide therapeutic targets for intervention in OA.”

link here

“…Women who developed knee OA were more likely to have a ratio of 16α-hydroxyestrone to 2-hydroxyestrone in the highest tertile (>0.86; OR 1.86, 95% CI 1.01–3.44 compared with women with ratios in the 0.54–0.86 range), after adjustment for other covariates.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2497.mp3" length="1678628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide as effective as minoxidil at treating “androgenic” hair loss</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2493</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2493</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Feb 2024 18:34:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2493

The actual molecule used was nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN). However, not only is NMN very expensive, but the FDA recently classified it as a drug so it can no longer be obtained freely by people interested in experimenting. The good news is that plain niacinamide (NAM) has almost identical physiological effects compared to NMN and prior studies have also shown hair-growth promoting effects of NAM, though mostly in auto-immune conditions such as alopecia areata. Anyways, the study below used a simple solution with 1% concentration of NMN in saline water and applied that solution topically on the hairless skin once daily for 2 weeks. The results were accelerated hair growth comparable to minoxidil in magnitude and speed of regrowth, and there was no toxicity or side effects related to the NMN treatment (both in-vitro and in-vivo). The findings of the study match the reports we get from clients in regards to our product SolBan, link here (contains niacinamide), which they say strongly stimulated regrowth of hair in even advanced cases of androgenic alopecia (hair loss).

link here

“…The double-blind experiment revealed that mice exposed to hair removal exhibited a cessation in hair growth. However, the administration of NMN at a specific concentration in the NMN groups stimulated hair growth during the growth phase, similar to the effects observed in the control and blank groups. The effects of NMN were comparable to those of minoxidil. In the in vitro HDPCs experiment, a concentration of 2.5 mg/mL of NMN significantly increased VEGF secretion from HDPCs by 65.19% in comparison to the control groups. Additionally, the IL-6 content notably decreased with an inhibition rate of 13.60%. NMN was observed to downregulate the expression of DKK-1 and AR genes by 75.16% and 41.78%, respectively. Furthermore, there was a significant upregulation of β-catenin expression at a rate of 125.71%. These findings demonstrate that at this concentration, NMN inhibits IL-6 secretion while promoting the upregulation of VEGF and β-catenin gene expression, and simultaneously downregulating the expression of DKK-1 and AR genes. This mechanism contributes to the anti-hair loss effect of NMN, thereby achieving the desired preventative effect. Moreover, the cytotoxicity MTT test revealed that the administered experimental concentration of NMN did not induce any cellular toxicity.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2493.mp3" length="550076" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen is required for developing cocaine “addiction”</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2491</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2491</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Feb 2024 18:03:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2491

The role of estrogen in developing various addictions is well-known in animal research, with a lot of work already performed to demonstrate the crucial role of estrogen in developing opioid addiction. Estrogen itself is an activator of the mu-opioid receptor, so it has direct opioid-like effects, but it has also been shown to accelerate the development of physical addiction to opioids, increase drug seeking and worsen withdrawal symptoms. The new study below demonstrates that estrogen is required for the development of “addiction” to psychologically-addictive drugs such as cocaine. Non-aromatizable androgens such as DHT did not promote “addiction” development and pure estrogen antagonists completely prevented the “addiction” development. These findings suggest that progesterone and/or aspirin, vitamin E/D/A/K, non-aromatizable androgens, caffeine, etc could be viable options for preventing cocaine “addiction”, and based on other research the study cites those remedies may even reverse already developed “addiction”.

link here

“…It must be emphasized that pharmacokinetics studies are complex, and multiple factors, such as age, dose, individual differences in metabolism among others can affect the results obtained. One factor that has received more attention is the role of gonadal steroids in mediating these different behavioral responses. For example, in females estradiol enhances cocaine-induced sensitization (Segarra et al., 2014, link here; Souza et al., 2014, link here), conditioned place preference (Segarra et al., 2014, link here) cocaine self-administration (Hu and Becker, 2008, link here; Lynch et al., 2002, link here; Perry et al., 2013, link here; Ramôa et al., 2013, link here) and the motivation to seek drugs.”

“…We had previously demonstrated that gonadectomy increased the acute locomotor response to cocaine but prevented the progressive increase in locomotion over time observed after repeated injections, i.e. cocaine-induced behavioral sensitization (Menéndez-Delmestre and Segarra, 2011, link here). We had also reported that testosterone administration to GDX rats restored sensitization in male rats and decreased the acute locomotor response to cocaine (Menéndez-Delmestre and Segarra, 2011, link here). The present study extends these findings and reports that estradiol, but not DHT, enhances the locomotor response to repeated cocaine administration. These results suggest that in male rats, androgen receptors do not participate in mediating neuroadaptations resulting from long-term drug administration. Furthermore, we report that intracellular ERs mediate the enhancement of cocaine-induced locomotor activity over time. This study found that blocking central ERs eliminates cocaine-induced behavioral sensitization. To our knowledge, this is the first study that illustrates the pivotal role of ERs in cocaine sensitization in males, suggesting that estrogen receptors play a key role in cocaine-induced neuroadaptations. Moreover, this study indicates that estrogen signaling participates in mediating drug-related behaviors in males and is also a key signal of cocaine-induced neuroplasticity in the rodent brain.’]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2491.mp3" length="1156532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:37</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Grip strength is a reliable biomarker of biological age</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2489</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2489</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Feb 2024 19:20:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2489

My presence at social gatherings and parties is somewhat dreaded by the hosts (even if friends) due to the “scary stories” I tend to tell. One of the scariest stories I have been telling for the last couple of years is that there are no young people any more. Of course, what I mean by that is in terms of biological age. Over the last 5-8 years numerous studies have demonstrated that people in their 20s and 30s have rates of serious chronic diseases rivaling those of people in their 50s and 60s. Cancer, and especially colon cancer, is perhaps the most striking example since its rates have grown almost exclusively in the under-40 crowd over the last 10 years while the rates have been declining in the over-50 crowd. This is the exact opposite situation of what was experimentally observed up until 10-15 years ago, which is why the official guidelines for conducting a colonoscopy were to do the first one at age 50. Add to that the rising rates of strokes and heart attacks in the under-40 crowd, the close to 50% infertility, close to 50% mental illness in young women, the ~70% decline of male testosterone levels since the 1970s, the highest suicide rate (and rising) ever recorded in the young, diminishing physical strength, etc and it becomes scarily obvious just how much the quality of human life has declined in just 1-2 decades. Speaking of physical strength, frailty has always been associated with poor physical and mental health, however direct studies tying physical condition to biological age are rare partly due to the difficulty of coming up with a measure of general frailty. The study below shows that a simple measurement of hand grip strength is a very reliable biomarker of a person’s biological age, and given its simplicity and ease of measurement, it may become one of the most widely used biomarkers of health in the years to come. So, to ruin the party once again, grip strength in young people (both men and women) has been steadily declining, link here over the last 30-40 years and currently sits at an all-time (since record keeping began) low. This not only corroborates the favorite millennial phrases that “40 is the new 20” and “50 is the new 30”, but…it makes the reverse also true – i.e. twenty is indeed the new forty and thirty is fifty, and not in a good way.

2 links here

“…Chronological age is different from biological age since it encompasses the amount of time that has passed between birth and a given date. Biological age refers to the rate at which your body is actually aging, which may depend on a host of variables, including genetics, behavior, the environment in which you live, and your demographic identity. Rather than focusing on age in terms of how many years have passed since birth, experts are investigating aging biomarkers that can help assess more accurately how an individual is aging. The goal is to gain clearer insights to help people, where possible, proactively manage their current or imminent health issues and predict longevity. A new study from researchers at the University of Michigan’s Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor, MI, provides new evidence that grip strength in a person’s hands is one such biomarker of biological age. The study found an association between low grip strength weakness and accelerated DNA aging.”

“…The researchers analyzed data from 1,275 individuals participating in the longitudinal Health and Retirement Stud, link herey, link here(, link hereH, link hereR, link hereS, link here), link here. Participants were 50 and over in 2006 and 2008 when data collection began, followed for 8–10 years by the HRS. Interview transcripts, grip strength data, and biological measurements were available for all of them. Methylation values were collected from 4,018 of these participants in the 2016 Health and Retirement Venous Blood Study, link here. The analysis revealed that decreasing grip strength aligned strongly with all three of the clocks (PhenoAge, GrimAge, DunedinPoAm), although there were differences between men and women. “The association between muscle strength and epigenetic aging is likely related to the mechanisms regulating general health,” Dr. Sillanpää said. Dr. Peterson noted: “We have recently also demonstrated that muscle weakness and testosterone deficiency were highly correlated and independently associated with multi-morbidity in young and older men.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2489.mp3" length="1090556" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:30</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress is carcinogenic and promotes metastases; blocking cortisol stops this process</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2486</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2486</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Feb 2024 18:38:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2486

Over the last couple of years I posted several times about studies demonstrating that stress from surgery, chemotherapy or radiation (aka “cut, poison, burn” therapy) has a promoting effect on cancer growth. Unfortunately, all those studies have been either completely ignored by mainstream medicine or dismissed as only applicable to certain aggressive types of cancer (e.g. triple negative breast cancer), which grow/spread fast anyways and thus the contribution of the iatrogenic stress is very minor in comparison. Putting iatrogenic stress from medical procedures aside, chronic stress of general environmental origin has long been suspected as playing a role in cancer development, but the connection has always been dismissed by oncology as being, at best, a facilitator after tumor appearance, and definitely not a cause. The study below begs to disagree and demonstrates that chronic stress (even when mild) not only initiates the cancerization process and makes a healthy tissue begin to exhibit the structural and metabolic markers of cancer, but directly enables and drives the metastatic process as well. All of these effects of chronic stress were directly mediated by cortisol. Thus, removing the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) made the animals completely resistant to metastases after primary tumors has already formed in their bodies, and also prevented the cancerization process initiated by cortisol in healthy tissue. So, there we have it in plain view – chronic stress kills by causing cancer and fueling its spread. Also, one of the most widely prescribed classes of drugs worldwide – bioidentical/synthetic glucocorticoids – are non-mutagenic carcinogens! Since glucocorticoids are prescribed in virtually all forms of cancer (to “tame inflammation”, which is ironic considering that cortisol actually promoted inflammation) it is probably not far-fetched to say that most cancer deaths are iatrogenic. In addition, most newly diagnosed cancer cases are not only completely preventable but can probably also be classified as iatrogenic given the mantra espoused by most doctors that regular endurance exercise (which reliably ups baseline cortisol levels, link here) is the best thing for our health ever discovered.

Now, since removing the GR completely is obviously not something feasible (or even desirable) in humans, the main focus on cancer prevention should be limiting chronic stress exposure. In fact, the study authors themselves say in the popular press article below that stress reduction should be practiced for both preventing and treating cancer. And since in this day and age stress avoidance is next to impossible, other remedies with anti-cortisol effects must be considered. The drug RU486 is the drug of choice clinically for blocking the GR. However, it is prescription-only, expensive and largely unavailable due to the politicization of its role as the “abortion pill”. Natural substances with anti-cortisol effects include aspirin, progesterone, DHEA, pregnenolone, emodin, vitamin A/D, gelatin/glycine, moderate doses niacinamide, etc.

link here

“…Chronic stress is associated with increased risk of metastasis and poor survival in cancer patients, yet the reasons are unclear. We show that chronic stress increases lung metastasis from disseminated cancer cells 2- to 4-fold in mice. Chronic stress significantly alters the lung microenvironment, with fibronectin accumulation, reduced T cell infiltration, and increased neutrophil infiltration. Depleting neutrophils abolishes stress-induced metastasis. Chronic stress shifts normal circadian rhythm of neutrophils and causes increased neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation via glucocorticoid release. In mice with neutrophil-specific glucocorticoid receptor deletion, chronic stress fails to increase NETs and metastasis. Furthermore, digesting NETs with DNase I prevents chronic stress-induced metastasis. Together, our data show that glucocorticoids released during chronic stress cause NET formation and establish a metastasis-promoting microenvironment. Therefore, NETs could be targets for preventing metastatic recurrence in cancer patients, many of whom will experience chronic stress due to their disease.”

Chronic stress spreads cancer … here’s how, link here

“…Now, He and Egeblad may have reached a breakthrough in understanding exactly that. Working with CSHL Professor Linda Van Aelst, they discovered that stress causes certain white blood cells called neutrophils to form sticky web-like structures that make body tissues more susceptible to metastasis. The finding could point to new treatment strategies that stop cancer’s spread before it starts. The team arrived at their discovery by mimicking chronic stress in mice with cancer. They first removed tumors that had been growing in mice’s breasts and spreading cancer cells to their lungs. Next, they exposed the mice to stress. What He observed was shocking. Egeblad recalls: “She saw this scary increase in metastatic lesions in these animals. It was up to a fourfold increase in metastasis.” The team found that stress hormones called glucocorticoids acted on the neutrophils. These “stressed” neutrophils formed spider-web-like structures called NETs (neutrophil extracellular traps). NETs form when neutrophils expel DNA. Normally, they can defend us against invading microorganisms. However, in cancer, NETs create a metastasis-friendly environment.”

“…To confirm that stress triggers NET formation, leading to increased metastasis, He performed three tests. First, she removed neutrophils from the mice using antibodies. Next, she injected a NET-destroying drug into the animals. Lastly, she used mice whose neutrophils couldn’t respond to glucocorticoids. Each test achieved similar results. “The stressed mice no longer developed more metastasis,” He says. Notably, the team found that chronic stress caused NET formation, link here to modify lung tissue even in mice without cancer. “It’s almost preparing your tissue for getting cancer,” Egeblad explains. To Van Aelst, the implication, though startling, is clear. “Reducing stress should be a component of cancer treatment and prevention,” she says. The team also speculates that future drugs preventing NET formation could benefit patients whose cancer hasn’t yet metastasized. Such new treatments could slow or stop cancer’s spread, offering much-needed relief.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2486.mp3" length="1515524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D3 may cure H. pylori (HP) infection</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2484</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2484</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Feb 2024 17:40:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2484

It is hard to believe that the humble sunshine “vitamin” is also a powerful antibiotic, but that’s what the study below describes. Some of the effects were due to vitamin D activating the eponymous receptor (VDR), which increases T-cell activity. However, the study also demonstrates that vitamin D stimulates the release of antibacterial peptides by the gastric mucosa, as well as having direct antibiotic effects through some of its metabolites. The article does not mention doses, but other in-vivo studies I have seen on vitamin D for bacterial infections suggest that doses in the 5,000 IU – 10,000 IU range daily for 5-7 days may be sufficient to cure a bacterial infection.

link here

“…In summary, the role of Vit D3 in the eradication of HP is certain and includes its classical pathway of binding to VDR to regulate the body’s immune defense and increase the secretion of AMPs, while the nonclassical pathway is a novel signaling pathway that initiates activation of the PDIA3-STAT3-MCOLN3-Ca2+ axis to reactivate the acidification and degradation of lysosomes and the collapse of the membrane structure of HP cells via degradation products. VitD3 represents a novel approach and a new option for the eradication of HP, but there are still some pathways or mechanisms that remain unclear and need further in-depth research and development.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2484.mp3" length="377564" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endurance exercise causes (peripheral) hyper-cortisol state</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2482</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2482</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Feb 2024 19:59:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2482

A few months ago I did a post on a pair of studies showing that while cortisol has a negative feedback mechanism centrally, the peripheral feedback mechanism is positive. In other words, a person can have normal or even low blood levels of cortisol and very high cortisol levels in tissues, due to the ability of cortisol to increase the expression of the enzyme 11β-HSD1, link here, which is the rate-limiting step in synthesizing cortisol and is expressed in most organs/tissues. So, the more cortisol one produces (due to stress, fasting carb-restriction, etc) the more one increases the ability to produce even more cortisol. This discrepancy between the peripheral and central feedback mechanism of cortisol is probably a major reason why most endocrinologists still do not want to admit the primary causative role cortisol plays in conditions such as diabetes II – i.e. the blood levels of cortisol in such people are often normal, or even low. However, multiple studies have demonstrated that tissue expressions of 11β-HSD1 are not only predictive of developing obesity/diabetes in the future, but are also predictive of the course of already established diabetes. As a result of this tacit admission that elevated cortisol is pathological for health (especially for metabolic conditions), a number of pharma companies are running clinical trials with 11β-HSD1 inhibitors as treatments for obesity, diabetes, dementia, sarcopenia, and even Cushing syndrome/disease. One of the criticisms I have heard from endocrinologists in regards to the positive feedback mechanism of cortisol peripherally is that most of the evidence so far is from in-vitro experiments. The in-vivo study below may be able to address that criticism by demonstrating that running daily for a few weeks doubled 11β-HSD1 expression in tissues, confirming once again that even “beneficial” stress such as “endurance” exercise is sufficient to cause peripheral state of high cortisol, which probably persists even after the stress/exercise stops since the increased expression of 11β-HSD1 is not known to downregulate on its own. In fact, a number of studies have suggested that once such peripheral hyper-cortisol state is established through increased expression of 11β-HSD1 (specifically through fasting and/or exercise), the only way to reset it back to the original (lower) levels is by using pharmacological interventions such as RU486. However, that is a prescription drug, which is currently out of stock in most suppliers due to political infighting in regards to its abortifacient use. It is also an “estrane” steroids, which means potential for causing unforseen estrogenic effects in specific organs/tissues. Thankfully, aspirin, emodin, and progesterone are also known to downregulate the expression of 11β-HSD1 and in the case of emodin and progesterone, they inhibit the actual activity of 11β-HSD1, and also increase activity of the cortisol-deactivating enzyme 11β-HSD2.

link here

“…In summary, we report that 6 wk of treadmill training leads to a significant increase in pulmonary corticosterone levels in ob/ob mice, which is in parallel with the favorable effects of exercise on obesity-associated pulmonary inflammation. We demonstrate for the first time that exercise training increases pulmonary 11β-HSD1 expression but has no significant effect on pulmonary 11β-HSD2 expression in both lean and ob/ob mice.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2482.mp3" length="1459292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Immunodeficiency driven by mitochondrial dysfunction, can be reversed</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2480</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2480</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Feb 2024 19:25:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2480

This is study that has very wide applicability since the immune system plays a role not only in acute issues such as COVID-19, but also in chronic conditions such as HIV/AIDS, and even cancer. So far, the decline in immune function seen in aging had been explain with the simplistic “wear and tear” concept, and when immunodeficiency occurs in younger people it is ascribed either to genetic vulnerability or lifestyle choices such as alcohol/drug consumption. In other words, to this day medicine does not seem to have a good grip on why immune function fails in aging and disease, and what (if anything) can be done to prevent that. The study below demonstrates that the direct cause of immune decline is rather simple – decline in mitochondrial function (OXPHOS). When T-cells (immune cells produced by the thymus) have dysfunctional mitochondria, they have to rely exclusively on glycolysis for energy production. Glycolytic production of energy is insufficient to support proper T-cell differentiation and activity, and in fact can lead to T-cell damage or even death due to the high amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced when glycolysis is the main mode of energy production. The study also demonstrated that such mitochondrial dysfunction is a necessary and sufficient condition for immune decline to occur (aka T-cell “exhaustion”) and that the decline was reversible when mitochondrial function was restored pharmacologically. A corollary of such findings is that anything that suppresses oxidative metabolism directly causes immune decline (and ultimately failure). Chronic stress is one such example of a “metabolic inhibitor” and the well-known, but not-fully-explained, role of cortisol as immunosuppressant is now elucidated considering cortisol is a potent suppressor of mitochondrial biogenesis and function. In terms of remedies, aspirin, niacinamide, vitamin D, thyroid, progesterone, quinones, etc would probably be the most directly accessible and helpful remedies for restoring/improving mitochondrial function.

2 links here

“…In the immune system, link here, chronic infections and the defense against tumors often lead to the phenomenon of T cell exhaustion: In this process, the T lymphocytes gradually lose their function, which impairs their responses against cancer and infections. The molecular mechanisms, link here that control this loss of function have not been fully unraveled. This research has now shown that the exhaustion process is significantly influenced by the “powerhouses of the cells,” the mitochondria. When mitochondrial respiration fails, a cascade of reactions is triggered, culminating in the genetic and metabolic reprogramming of T cells, a process that drives their functional exhaustion. But this “burnout” of the T cells can be counteracted—pharmacological or genetic optimization of cellular metabolism increases the longevity and functionality of T cells. This can be achieved, for example, by overexpressing a mitochondrial phosphate transporter that drives the production of the energy-providing molecule adenosine-triphosphate.”

“…”It was commonly assumed that the observed alterations in the mitochondrial (energy) metabolism were a consequence of T-cell exhaustion,” says Vaeth. To demonstrate that mitochondrial dysfunction, link here is the actual cause of T cell exhaustion, his research group developed a new genetic model. It switches off the mitochondrial phosphate transporter (Slc25A3) and paralyses mitochondrial respiration in T cells. As a result, the T cells are forced to switch to alternative metabolic pathways, mainly aerobic glycolysis, to meet their bioenergetic demand in the form of adenosine triphosphate. However, this metabolic adaptation causes an increased production of reactive oxygen species in the T cells. Elevated levels of oxygen radicals prevent the degradation of the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor 1 alpha (HIF-1α). The accumulation of HIF-1α protein causes a genetic and metabolic reprogramming of the T cells, accelerating their exhaustion. “This HIF-1α-dependent control of T-cell exhaustion was previously unknown. It represents a critical regulatory circuit between mitochondrial respiration and T cell function, serving as a ‘metabolic checkpoint’ in the process of T-cell exhaustion,” explains Vaeth.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2480.mp3" length="1000652" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Chronic pain due to mitochondrial dysfunction, niacinamide can treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2478</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2478</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:34:48 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2478

As many of my readers know, there is an epidemic of chronic pain disorders in Western countries, which has subsequently led to over-prescription and (ab)use of opioid medication, which has then acted as a gateway drug and fueled a massive and deadly opioid epidemic in those countries. In order to keep costs low, most addicts have started using potent opioids such as fentanyl, which can easily kill a person with even a minor dosage miscalculation since it is about 100 times more powerful than morphine/heroin. The study below is one of the first to demonstrate that chronic pain is not an organic disorder of its own, but a symptom of an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction. This not only explain why the intervention with niacinamide worked in alleviating the pain (by improving mitochondrial function), but also why treating chronic pain with opioids is about the worst intervention one could choose. Why? Because opioids are among the most potent suppressors of mitochondria, link here, which means that as soon as one stops taking them the chronic pain will be much worse, leading to more opioid use and so on – a vicious cycle with usually lethal outcome (overdose). The niacinamide dose used in this study was on the high-side (HED ~35mg/kg daily), but considering it was administrated only once and the pain was completely resolved, it is a low-risk intervention in such doses for humans, especially compared to opioids. Also, there are prior animal studies showing that lower doses (HED 3mg/kg daily) taken for a few weeks can also relieve chronic pain, which lowers the risk of such intervention even more.

2 links here

“…So, about a week after inducing inflammation in a separate group of 12 mice, Eijkelkamp and his team gave half of them a high dose of nicotinamide riboside – 500 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. By comparison, the recommended daily amount of vitamin B3 for most adults is between 14 and 16 milligrams, link here. They then assessed the animals’ sensitivity to pain by measuring how quickly they pulled their paw away from heat. Mice that hadn’t received nicotinamide riboside retracted their paw twice as fast, on average, as those that did, suggesting the supplement alleviates pain. Together these findings indicate two things: first, that inflammation can impair mitochondrial function in sensory neurons and that these impairments increase the risk of chronic pain, even after inflammation has resolved. Second, that taking nicotinamide riboside supplements may help treat this chronic pain by restoring mitochondrial function.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2478.mp3" length="784508" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>HUMAN STUDY: Vitamin B3 ups muscle/bone mass/strength, lowers fat, improves glucose control</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2476</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2476</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:07:45 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2476

The study is epidemiological and it did not distinguish between the various forms of vitamin B3 available through the diet or supplements. However, it was well-controlled and its findings match the known biochemical effects of vitamin B3, which the study authors cite themselves as the likely reasons for the observed results. Namely, vitamin B3 increases NAD and NADP levels, which results in improved glucose metabolism as well as higher tissue anabolism (through NADP). Perhaps the most useful finding of the study was the striking dose-dependence of the effects it discovered – i.e. for every extra 1mg/kg of weight of daily vitamin B3 consumed, a person lost 60g of fat and gained 60g of muscle. Oh, and if this was not already a spectacular result, the effects of vitami B3 were the strongest in people with obesity (high BMI), hypertension, or advanced age – precisely the people who need benefits the most. Now, the study did have a cutoff in its vitamin B3 intake range. The maximum intake included in the study was about 238mg daily. We don’t know if the benefits of vitamin B3 hold beyond those daily intake levels, but animal studies seem to suggest at least the metabolic benefits hold until at least a human-equivalent dose (HED) of 5mg/kg daily. Since muscle and fat mass are largely a function of the metabolic rate, the study seems to suggest that an intake of vitamin B3 up to 5mg/kg daily may be even more beneficial. The study does caution that when vitamin B3 is used as a lipid-lowering agent (i.e. in doses of 2g+ daily) negative effects and even reversal of the benefits may occur, so I’d suggest careful experimentation until the optimal daily dose is found, which will probably be different for each person.

link here

“…In all models, niacin intake was significantly positively correlated with appendicular lean mass, total lean mass, and total bone mineral content, and negatively correlated with total fat and trunk fat (Table 2, link here). Assuming linearity, for every 1 mg/ kg weight increase in the daily niacin amount, appendicular lean mass increased by 0.025 kg/kg weight (95% CI 0.018–0.033 kg/kg weight), total lean mass increased by 0.060 kg/kg weight (95% CI 0.045–0.074 kg/kg weight), and total bone mineral content increased by 0.005 kg/kg weight (95% CI 0.004–0.007 kg/kg weight). For every 1 mg/kg weight increase in daily niacin, total fat decreased by 0.061 kg/kg weight (95% CI −0.076 to −0.046 kg/kg weight) and trunk fat reduced by 0.041 kg/kg weight (95% CI −0.050 to −0.032 kg/kg weight). Subgroup analyses showed that age, sex, smoking status, BMI and hypertension were significant factors affecting niacin intake and body mass components. In subgroups of people aged 50–60 years, niacin intake had a stronger association with body mass components. Niacin intake had a stronger positive association with total lean mass and total bone mineral content and a stronger negative association with total fat in the female subgroup. In addition, increases in niacin intake in participants with hypertension resulted in enhanced increases in total lean mass and total bone mineral content and enhanced decreases in total fat and trunk fat. In addition, subgroups with a BMI >25 kg/m2 were more likely to experience an enhanced increase in total lean mass and appendicular lean mass and an enhanced decrease in total fat with dietary niacin supplementation (Fig. Figure 1, link here, Figure 1, link here, Pinteraction<0.05). The remaining subgroup analyses of niacin intake and body mass components is shown in Fig. S2 A–E. The nonlinear relationship between niacin intake and body mass components is shown in Fig. Figure 2, link here, Figure 2, link here.”

“…Our study found that daily dietary niacin intake was positively correlated with total lean mass, appendicular lean mass, total bone mineral content, and grip strength, and negatively correlated with sarcopenia risk, total fat and trunk fat. In addition, dietary niacin was negatively correlated with HOMA-IR and fasting insulin in participants with and without diabetes, and fasting blood glucose in participants without diabetes. To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the relationship between dietary niacin and these outcomes of interest in a representative large cohort, while adjusting for a number of important covariates. Our results suggest that dietary niacin supplementation is an effective strategy for preventing and improving age-related muscle mass and strength loss. Higher dietary niacin intake improved muscle and fat distribution throughout the body, consistent with the findings of a previous randomized controlled trial. In this study involving overweight African-American women, niacin-bound chromium caused a significant loss of fat and sparing of muscle (22, link here). In our study, subgroup analyses also found that dietary niacin was more significantly associated with changes in muscle and fat in participants aged 50–60years, with hypertension and a BMI ≥25 kg/m2. A large prospective cohort study by Han et al. showed that the skeletal muscle mass index measured by bioelectrical impedance was inversely associated with the risk of hypertension in men, which may be related to insulin resistance because of decreased muscle mass, enhanced inflammatory and oxidative pathways, and increased arterial stiffness (23, link here, 24, link here). Moreover, aging and obesity can lead to a decrease in skeletal muscle mass and performance (25, link here, 26, link here). Therefore, in people with increased skeletal muscle damage and fat accumulation, the effect of dietary niacin is more significant. In our study, dietary niacin intake was also significantly positively correlated with grip strength. This finding may be explained by the significant enhancement of skeletal muscle mass that results from dietary niacin because there is a strong positive correlation between skeletal muscle mass and strength (27, link here). In addition, a cross-sectional study by Kim et al. showed that dietary niacin reduced levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor -α (TNF-α), in the elderly, thereby improving diet quality and reducing sarcopenia (28, link here). Similar to the subgroup analysis of dietary niacin and skeletal muscle mass, dietary niacin had a stronger positive correlation with grip strength in subgroups with a BMI >25 kg/m2 or hypertension. This study found that in the range of daily dietary niacin intake in the general United States population (in the glucose homeostasis dataset, the maximum dosage of daily dietary niacin was 238 mg and the average dosage was 25 mg), dietary niacin was negatively correlated with HOMA-IR and fasting insulin, and in participants without diabetes, it was negatively correlated with fasting blood glucose. This means that niacin improves insulin resistance and glucose homeostasis at dietary doses. However, some previous studies have suggested that niacin promotes insulin resistance, which is a significant side effect when niacin is used as a lipid-lowering drug (29, link here, 30, link here). The reason for this inconsistent result lies in the dosage of niacin. When niacin is used as a lipid-lowering drug, its daily dose is 2–6 g, which far exceeds the daily dietary dose (31, link here).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2476.mp3" length="907172" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A single 15min exposure to red light boosts mitochondria and lowers blood glucose</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2474</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2474</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 23 Feb 2024 18:32:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2474

A human study, which makes it that much more important. While the findings are not very surprising, what is important to take from the study is that 1) elevated blood glucose is likely a good biomarker of poor mitochondrial function, 2) exposure to just 15min of red light daily can lower blood glucose by ~30% precisely due its beneficial effects of mitochondria, and 3) there may be such a thing as “too much of a good thing” when it comes to red light exposure since longer exposure periods would likely lead to glycogen depletion and a stress reaction, unless one supplies more carbohydrates through a snack/drink. This last caution is actually coming from Ray, who warned people to not overdo red light and to be wary of the stress reaction it can cause by lowering blood glucose too much, which is why he advised drinking a glass of orange juice before the light session.

2 links here

“…Shining a specific frequency of red light on a person’s back for 15 minutes can reduce blood sugar levels, according to a new study from City, University of London and UCL. The researchers found that 670 nm red light stimulated energy production within mitochondria, the tiny powerhouses within cells, leading to increased consumption of glucose. In particular, it led to a 27.7% reduction in blood glucose levels following glucose intake, and it reduced maximum glucose spiking by 7.5%. While the study was conducted in healthy individuals, the non-invasive, non-pharmacological technique has the potential to have an impact on diabetes control after meals, as it can reduce damaging fluctuations of blood glucose in the body that contribute to ageing. The study also highlights the significant long-term consequences for human health, including the potential dysregulation of blood sugars posed by lengthy exposure to blue light. Given the prominence of LED lighting in modern technology and environments, and the fact that LEDs emit towards the blue end of the spectrum with very little red, the authors suggest that this may be a potential public health issue. The research has been published in the Journal of Biophotonics. Mitochondria provide energy for vital cellular processes, using oxygen and glucose to produce the energy-rich nucleoside adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Previous research has established that long wavelength light between approximately 650-900 nm (spanning the visible through to the near-infrared range) can increase mitochondrial production of ATP which reduces blood glucose and also improves health/lifespan in animals.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2474.mp3" length="453692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Diabetic kidney damage driven by high fat &amp; low glucose oxidation, glycine can treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2472</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2472</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 23 Feb 2024 18:01:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2472

This is yet another study that calls into serious doubt the main dogma of diabetic pathology provided by allopathic medicine. Namely, mainstream medicine claims that the well-known kidney damage occurring in majority of advanced cases of diabetes II is caused by the elevated blood glucose in such patients. However, the study below discovered that inside kidney cells, the picture was quite different. The degree of cellular dysfunction and damage was proportional to the decrease in glucose metabolism and, consequently, increase in fatty acid oxidation (e.g. Randle Cycle). Administering glycine in the diet was able to reverse that metabolic pattern, which not only results in normalization of blood glucose, but also reversal of the advanced kidney damage. Once again, we see that the truth is about 180 degrees from what the official medical version is, and that even advanced and serious chronic conditions can often be easily reversed with simple dietary methods. I cannot get access to the study since it is brand new, so I don’t know the dosage of glycine that achieved such great results, but other studies have shown that eating 6g-8g glycine (achievable with 15g-20g gelatin) daily restores the anabolic response of protein in older people. Since the downregulation of anabolism in older people being driven mostly by insulin resistance and inflammation, which matches the context of diabetes II, this dose can be tried for diabetic kidney damage too. Also, since gelatin is largely non-toxic, higher doses (up to 50%-60% of daily protein intake) can be taken if the person feels higher doses work better.

2 links here

“…Canagliflozin (CANA) regulates metabolic reprogramming in diabetic kidney disease (DKD) by inducing fasting-like and aestivation-like metabolic patterns, a recent study published in Diabetologia has shown.The study found that canagliflozin ameliorates diabetic kidney disease by inducing fasting-like and aestivation-like metabolic patterns. Furthermore, DKD was ameliorated by glycine supplementation, and glycine beneficial effects were probably due to the activation of the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK)/mammalian target of the rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. Sodium–glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are antihyperglycaemic drugs that protect the kidney of patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). However, there is no clear understanding of the underlying mechanisms mediating the renal benefits of SGLT2 inhibitors. Considering the fuel switches that occur during therapeutic SGLT2 inhibition, Yanyan Zhao, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China, and colleagues hypothesized that SGLT2 inhibitors induce fasting-like and aestivation-like metabolic patterns, both of which contribute to the regulation of metabolic reprogramming in diabetic kidney disease. For this purpose, the research team performed untargeted and targeted metabolomics on plasma samples from participants with T2D and kidney disease (n=35, 11 women) receiving 100 mg/day canagliflozin at baseline and 12 weeks follow-up. Next, using db/db mice, the researchers obtained a systematic snapshot of the effect of CANA on the key metabolites and pathways in the kidney. Moreover, they studied the effects of glycine supplementation in db/db mice and human proximal tubular epithelial cells (human kidney-2 [HK-2]) cells. The study led to the following findings:· Treatment of DKD patients with CANA for 12 weeks significantly reduced HbA1c from a median of 49.0 mmol/mol to 42.2 mmol/mol, and reduced urinary albumin/creatinine ratio from 67.8 mg/mmol to 47.0 mg/mmol.· The untargeted metabolomics assay showed downregulated glycolysis and upregulated fatty acid oxidation.· The targeted metabolomics assay revealed significant upregulation of glycine.· The kidneys of db/db mice undergo significant metabolic reprogramming, with changes in sugar, lipid and amino acid metabolism; CANA regulated the metabolic reprogramming in the kidneys of db/db mice.· The pathways for glycine, serine and threonine metabolism, as well as the metabolite of glycine, were significantly upregulated in CANA-treated kidneys.· Glycine supplementation ameliorated renal lesions in db/db mice by inhibiting food intake, improving insulin sensitivity and reducing blood glucose levels.· Glycine supplementation improved apoptosis of human proximal tubule cells via the AMP-activated protein kinase/mammalian target of the rapamycin pathway.\”Our findings showed that CANA ameliorates DKD by inducing fasting-like and aestivation-like metabolic patterns, \” the researchers wrote. \”Furthermore, diabetic kidney disease was ameliorated by glycine supplementation, and the beneficial effects of glycine were probably due to the activation of the AMPK/mTOR pathway.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2472.mp3" length="799460" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA peroxidation can cause heart failure, latter can be reversed</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2469</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2469</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Feb 2024 19:31:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2469

The mainstream view on heart failure is that in most cases (when it is not congenital) it is a secondary morbidity caused by conditions such as diabetes, CVD, obesity, smoking, alcohol intake, etc. However, a direct causative agent and process has not been proposed so far. The study below demonstrates that a toxic byproduct of PUFA peroxidation known as 4-hydrodynonenal (4-HNE), link here is directly responsible for the cascade that results in heart failure. Reducing the levels of 4-HNE was able to actually reverse the already established heart failure. The drug used in the study is a patented chemical that increases the metabolism of 4-HNE into a less harmful substance, but I think it is obvious that a better approach would be to avoid synthesizing 4-HNE altogether. That can be achieved by restricting dietary PUFA while also supplementing with vitamin E, which largely prevents the peroxidation of PUFA into not only 4-HNE but also other toxic byproducts. Now, since 4-HNE is an aldehyde and as such is deactivated by the family of enzymes known as aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDH), the speeding up of the activity of those enzymes can also be achieved by niacinamide or oxidizing agents, since the main co-factor of ALDH is NAD+. In addition, androgens have been shown to increase the expression of ALDH while estrogens lower it, which may explain why men with heart failure invariably present with symptoms of hypogonadism often combined with high estrogen. As such, supplementation with androgens and/or usage of anti-estrogenic substances such as aspirin, progesterone, vitamin E, vitamin K, etc may also be a viable prevention/remedy and in fact most of those substances have already shown good results in animal models of heart failure.

2 links here

“…“When a car engine isn’t running properly, energy conversion is impaired, efficiency drops, and pollution increases,” said Julio Ferreira, co-corresponding author of the study. The ‘pollutant’ Ferreira is referring to is the toxic aldehyde 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE), a byproduct of mitochondrial dysfunction in heart failure. “Every cell has hundreds or sometimes thousands of mitochondria, which produce enough aldehyde to poison the entire cell when they aren’t running properly,” Ferreira said. “We discovered in this latest study that too much of 4-hydroxynonenal switches off a vital event for the cell: processing of microRNAs.””

“…microRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNAs that play an important role in gene regulation. Disruption of miRNA formation is associated with several diseases, including cancer, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular disorders. Using mass spectrometry, the researchers observed that 4-HNE irreversibly binds to and inactivates Dicer, an enzyme encoded by the DICER1 gene essential to miRNA formation. It’s a mechanism that hadn’t been seen before. “In this study, we identified the chemical alterations that inactivate Dicer in rodents and humans owing to the accumulation of aldehyde caused by heart failure,” Ferreira said. “This was a hitherto unknown mechanism. The point is that Dicer is a limiting enzyme for formation and maturation of the microRNAs responsible for overall control of cellular biology.” Using a drug called AD-9308 on samples of human heart tissue, the researchers were able to restore Dicer activity and reverse the effect of heart failure, improving cardiac function in rodent models. In a previous study, link here, AD-9308 was shown to activate mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2), the major enzyme that detoxifies 4-HNE, to effectively treat cardiomyopathy in mice.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2469.mp3" length="893156" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Obesity linked to mitochondrial dysfunction in GI tract, treatable by fat restriction</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2466</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2466</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Feb 2024 18:58:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2466

I think the claim that obesity can be caused by lower metabolism is not something contentious, even though mainstream medicine will claim that it only happens in clinical hypothyroidism. The so-called idiopathic obesity in the general population (now affecting 40%+ of people) is claimed to be due to nothing more than the gluttony of said population, combined with not performing enough physical exercise. The study below demonstrates that obesity can be caused even in the context of normal caloric intake, if the mitochondria in the enterocytes lining the GI tract are not functioning properly. When there is such a GI tract mitochondrial dysfunction, the enterocytes cannot properly form/create chylomicrons, which distribute dietary fat to the peripheral tissues, where it usually is quickly oxidized by muscles and organs as fuel. In fact, muscles at rest oxidize predominantly fat. However, if that fat cannot reach the muscles the fat remains in the abdominal area (and if transported, it is exclusively to the liver), accumulating over time and causing the dreaded “central obesity” combined with liver diseases such as NAFLD/NASH/fibrosis/cirrhosis/etc. If that mechanism can explain obesity to a great degree then it matches perfectly with the lifestyle and diet of the Western population. Acute or chronic stress causes mitochondrial dysfunction by inhibiting blood flow to the GI tract, and cortisol has a direct mito-suppressive effect. In addition, there is myriad of chemicals in our food and drinks that act as metabolic/mitochondrial inhibitors. PUFA is obviously a major mitochondrial inhbitor, but there are more cunning ones used as food additive and approved as “safe” by the regulatory agencies. Things such as emulsifier, dyes, artificial flavors, silicon dioxide, talc, titanium dioxide, etc are all known mitochondrial inhibitors and a majority of the Western population ingests at least one such inhibitor on a daily basis. Conversely, the study suggests that things like niacinamide, aspirin, quinones, thyroid, saturated fats, sucrose, etc would be good approaches to restoring mitochondrial function and thus resolving, or at least stopping, the obesity process. Interestingly, feeding a fat free diet to the animals used in the study was also able to reverse the mitochondrial dysfunction and the accumulation of lipids in the GI tract. This matches quite well with Peat’s recommendations to lower fat intake in cases of obesity, or chronic diseases.

link here

“…Digested dietary fats are taken up by enterocytes where they are assembled into pre-chylomicrons in the endoplasmic reticulum followed by transport to the Golgi for maturation and subsequent secretion to the circulation1, link here. The role of mitochondria in dietary lipid processing is unclear. Here we show that mitochondrial dysfunction in enterocytes inhibits chylomicron production and the transport of dietary lipids to peripheral organs. Mice with specific ablation of the mitochondrial aspartyl-tRNA synthetase DARS2 (ref. 2, link here), the respiratory chain subunit SDHA3, link here or the assembly factor COX10 (ref. 4, link here) in intestinal epithelial cells showed accumulation of large lipid droplets (LDs) in enterocytes of the proximal small intestine and failed to thrive. Feeding a fat-free diet suppressed the build-up of LDs in DARS2-deficient enterocytes, which shows that the accumulating lipids derive mostly from digested fat.”

Warning: High Levels of Niacin (Vitamin B3) Linked to Heart Disease, link here

“…The researchers studied the function of mitochondria – organelles acting as powerhouses of the cell – in enterocytes, cells that line the intestine and specialize in the absorption and transport of nutrients from digested food. They found that disruption of mitochondrial function in the intestines of mice caused abnormal accumulation of dietary fat in enterocytes and impaired delivery of lipids to the peripheral organs. A key finding of the study was that, when mitochondria did not function properly, enterocytes showed impaired packaging and transport of lipids in the form of chylomicrons. Chylomicrons are crucial carriers of dietary fats, and their proper formation and transport are essential for the absorption of nutrients. “This discovery marks a significant leap forward in understanding the crucial role of mitochondria in dietary lipid transport and metabolism,” said Dr Chrysanthi Moschandrea, the lead author of the study. The implications of this discovery go beyond the realm of basic research. “These findings provide new perspectives for the better understanding of the gastrointestinal symptoms in patients suffering from mitochondrial disease, and may also lead to new therapeutic approaches,” added Professor Aleksandra Trifunovic.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2466.mp3" length="1249076" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>HIV-1 Breakthrough: niacinamide as a possible treatment</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2464</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2464</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Feb 2024 16:24:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2464

The study does not claim a cure but it is a direct corroboration of human trials with HIV-1 patients conducted back in the early 1990, as those trials used high dose niacinamide (3g daily) and found improvement in the general condition of the patients. The mechanism of actions was, again, elevations of NAD+ and thus NAD+/NADH ratio. Other human trials with 2g-3g aspirin daily, also conducted in the 1990s, showed even more promise for treating HIV-1, but were terminated early using the bleeding risks of aspirin as an excuse. In reality, the termination was demanded by Big Pharma due to concerns aspirin would kill the sales of the new anti-HIV drugs such as zidovudine. I suspect that if this study below had been conducted with a combination of aspirin and niacinamide, the effects would have been spectacular.

2 links here

“…In this study, researchers explored the effects of NMN on HIV-1 infection in primary CD4+ T cells. They discovered that NMN treatment increased intracellular NAD levels and suppressed HIV-1 replication, as evidenced by reduced viral p24 protein production in infected cells. This suppression occurred without significant cell death, indicating that the reduced p24 production was not due to NMN’s cytotoxicity. Moreover, NMN did not significantly alter the HIV-1 receptor CD4 and co-receptor CCR5 expression in these cells. However, the study found increased frequency and mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) in NMN-treated CD4+ T cells. Despite these findings, NMN did not significantly affect the early stages of the HIV-1 life cycle, such as viral entry, reverse transcription, integration, and transcription. The researchers also examined the effects of NMN on CD25+ CD4+ T cells and HIV-1 replication. They found that NMN treatment reduced the frequency of CD25+ and Human Leukocyte Antigen, link here – DR Positive (HLA-DR+) cells and significantly suppressed intracellular p24 in CD25+ CD4+ T cells. This suggested that NMN might affect the proliferation of infected cells. Additionally, NMN was found to modulate CD25 expression in specific CD4+ T cell subsets and reduced the proliferation of primary p24+ CD4+T cells via CD25 downregulation. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that NMN treatment altered the expression of several genes related to cell activation and proliferation. In the present in vivo study using a humanized mouse model infected with HIV-1, the researchers found that combined NMN and cART treatment significantly improved CD4+ T cell reconstitution compared to cART alone. This combination also resulted in lower frequencies of apoptotic, hyperactivated, and CD25+ activated CD4+ T cells in the spleens of these mice. Furthermore, the cART-plus-NMN group exhibited significantly lower frequencies of p24+ CD4+ T viz CD4+ T cells that have the HIV-1 p24 antigen cells and proliferating ki67+ CD4+ T viz CD4+ T cells that express the Ki-67 protein cells, suggesting a suppressive effect on T cell hyperactivation and HIV-1 replication.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2464.mp3" length="457268" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may treat Parkinson Disease (PD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2462</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2462</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Feb 2024 16:05:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2462

A very interesting study, which used a relatively high dose of nicotinamide riboside (NR) to treat Parkinson Disease (PD). The dosage used was 3,000mg daily for 4 weeks and it resulted in improvement of motor and cognitive symptoms of PD, while producing no side effects. The study references prior clinical studies with lower doses, which also showed benefit. However, that benefit was weaker and corresponded to the less robust elevations of NAD+ and the NAD+/NADH ratio produced by the lower doses NR. I would venture a guess that combining a lower doses niacinamide with an oxidizing agent such as methylene blue, emodin, vitamin K, etc would probably allow for no more than 500mg niacinamide to be used daily and still achieve the same effects on NAD+ and NAD+/NADH ratio as the study below with NR monotherapy.

link here

“…Our study met its primary outcome and established that orally administered NR at a dose of 3000 mg daily is well tolerated in PD over a course of 4 weeks. NR-recipients developed no moderate or severe adverse events. Furthermore, there were no mild adverse events likely attributed to NR, and no other clinical or biochemical signs of toxicity. While our data do not guarantee long-term safety, they allow future dose-optimization and efficacy studies to extend the tested dose range of NR to 3000 mg daily, provided that appropriate safety monitoring is implemented. In our opinion, adequate dose experimentation in clinical trials will be paramount, in order to adequately explore and exploit potential dose-dependent beneficial effects in PD, as well as the multitude of other neurological and non-neurological diseases, for which NR is currently being tested. Indicatively, there are 44 NR-related trials registered at link here at the time of submission. Furthermore, our results suggest that NR doses up to 3000 mg daily do not need to be gradually increased and can be initiated directly in NR-naïve individuals.”

“…NR-treatment improved clinical symptoms of PD, measured by MDS-UPDRS, while this remained unchanged in the placebo group. This improvement was driven mostly by MDS-UPDRS part III, which assesses motor function, and part I, which assesses non-motor aspects of daily living. Interestingly, a qualitatively similar but weaker effect was seen in the NADPARK trial where participants consumed 1000 mg NR daily18, link here. Taken together, these observations suggest that NAD augmentation may have a symptomatic anti-Parkinson effect.”

“…At a dose of 3000 mg daily, NR treatment greatly augmented the NAD-metabolome, including a ~3.7-fold (range 1.8–5.8-fold) increase in whole blood NAD+ levels. This increase is considerably higher compared to that reported with 1000 mg or 2000 mg NR daily, which increased blood NAD+ levels 1.37–2.8-fold26, link here,28, link here,33, link here,35, link here,36, link here. However, in addition to the applied NR dose these studies also vary in terms of both sample type (e.g., whole blood, peripheral blood mononuclear cells or serum), and duration of exposure. Therefore, while providing an indication of a dose effect, the results of these studies are not fully comparable.”

“…In addition to prominently elevated NAD+ levels, the NR-group exhibited a clear increase in the NAD+/NADH ratio, which has been reported to be decreased in PD43, link here. Furthermore, NR supplementation was associated with an increase in whole blood NADP. An elevated NADP pool may be beneficial in several ways. NADP is a major redox factor in anabolic synthesis reactions, but also mediates cellular defense against oxidative stress, is involved in cytochrome P450 dependent detoxification mechanisms, and plays a role in immune response by generating oxidative bursts, among others44, link here,45, link here. With regard to PD, the reduced form of NADP, NADPH, has been shown to ameliorate MPTP-induced dopaminergic neurodegeneration in cultured cells46, link here, and to exert anti-neuroinflammatory and anti-neurotoxic effects in an MPTP-induced mouse model of PD47, link here. Thus, it is possible that NADP augmentation may contribute to NR-associated neuroprotective effects in PD.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2462.mp3" length="455516" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin may reverse NAFLD/fibrosis by reducing fat accumulation, inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2457</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2457</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 20:05:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2457

Another great win for aspirin, especially considering the prevalence of NAFLD, NASH, fibrosis/cirrhosis and even liver cancer. This post comes mere minutes after the post on a single tablet aspirin (300mg) daily putting a terminal liver cancer in remission. This study below used a low-dose (81mg) aspirin, but given the benefits of the “high-dose” (300mg) in the prior study I don’t see a reason not to try higher doses for even stronger effects in NAFLD/NASH/fibrosis cases.

2 links here

“…Patients with metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD, formerly NAFLD) without cirrhosis, link here who took daily low-dose aspirin, link here in a double-blind randomized trial, link here demonstated significant reductions in liver fat content over 6 months compared with similar patients who took a placebo, study results show. “In MASLD without cirrhosis, low-dose aspirin, 81 milligrams daily, led to decreases in liver fat and improved markers of hepatic inflammation and fibrosis,” reported Robert M. Wilechansky, MD, a transplant hepatology fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “It was safe and well tolerated in this study, but we would like to see larger, longer-term clinical trials to test the efficacy of aspirin for improving histology and preventing adverse outcomes in MASLD,” he said here at The Liver Meeting 2023: American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).”

“…Aspirin was also associated with significantly greater reductions in liver transaminase levels and liver stiffness by VCTE. About one third of patients in each study arm had at least one adverse event. There was only one aspirin-related adverse event (heartburn) that led to discontinuation. There were no serious bleeding events in either arm. “We’re going to have to consider stratifying by aspirin use now in our trials,” said Mark Hartman, MD, from Eli Lilly & Co. in Indianapolis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2457.mp3" length="338540" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Just one aspirin (300mg) daily stops a patient’s terminal liver cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2455</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2455</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 19:45:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2455

While the evidence for aspirin’s preventive effects on numerous cancer types is extensive and even mainstream medicine has begrudgingly acknowledged aspirin’s prophylactic potential, studies on the therapeutic effects of aspirin in already established cancers are very few, and most of them are in animals. This is why the study below is such a gem. Not only was it a human case study, but the cancer was quite advanced and declared terminal (hence the palliative therapy). On top of that, the study hilariously calls the 0.3g (300mg) aspirin daily a “high-dose” treatment. Oh boy, I wonder what would a “mega-dose” treatment of say 1g-3g daily do…Scared to even think about it. News on the effects of “mega-dose” treatment coming soon, through my own study:-)

link here

“…A Chinese male patient with chronic hepatitis B infection was admitted to the Cancer Center of Sun Yat-sen University for the treatment of HCC identified in the S6 segment of the liver by contrast computed tomography (CT) scan in June 2012. Radical resection was performed. Tumor recurrence was observed in March 2014. Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) was performed followed by radiofrequency ablation with radical intent. However, the tumor recurred at the juncture of the S2 and S3 sections in September 2014. The tumor was resected. The tumor recurred in February 2015. A series of TACE procedures were performed as palliative local regional therapy from February 2015 to October 2016 at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. Sorafenib was administered after the first cycle of palliative TACE, but the treatment was suspended one month later due to grade III diarrhea. In that period, tumor progression was noted three times, which made local regional therapy an inappropriate choice for disease control.”

“…Aspirin is reported to be effective in inducing β-catenin phosphorylation by activating GSK3β due to inhibition of the cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2) pathway[7, link here]. As the COX2 pathway was assumed to act normally, high-dose aspirin (0.3 g/day) was chosen as a remedy from April 2016.”

“…This strategy achieved disease control for almost 5 years until February 2021, as confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging and monitoring of alpha fetoprotein. The treatment was well tolerated (Figure ​(Figure1A1A, link here and ​andC).C, link here).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2455.mp3" length="441620" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>STUDY: high serotonin linked to dementia; MEDIA: low serotonin linked to dementia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2453</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2453</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 19:24:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2453

Once again, a level of misreporting that I am much more included to ascribe to malice than incompetence simply because most of the popular press outlets covering a specific scientific study get the study authors to proof-read the press article before publishing. So, for patently false press articles like that to appear is most likely due to an attempt to preserve the status of serotonin as the “happy hormone”, as well as to delay/prevent the avalanche of lawsuit for iatrogenic dementia from all people taking SSRI and other serotonergic drugs. In summary, the actual study found that low levels of the serotonin transporter (SERT, link here) – the sodium-dependent protein responsible for uptake and deactivation of serotonin – were associated with cognitive impairment (which usually develops into full-blown dementia/Alzheimer with age). In other words, higher extracellular serotonin levels were associated with dementia. The press articles state the exact opposite – that lower levels of the “happiness” hormone serotonin were associated with dementia. No wonder mainstream media is dying…Be that as it may, the study also suggests the prevention of dementia/Alzheimer may be as simple as eating some extra salt (providing the required sodium co-factor of SERT), or using a serotonin antagonist. Air ionizers, which also tend to decrease extracellular serotonin may be helpful too and can provide benefit 24×7 without any conscious effort on behalf of the person/people using them.

link here

“…Loss of the “happiness” brain hormone serotonin might play a role in the decline of brain function as a person ages, a new study reports. People with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) had up to 25% lower levels of serotonin than healthy people in key regions of the brain associated with memory, problem-solving and emotion, researchers reported recently in the Journal of, link hereAlzheimer’s Disease, link here.”

link here

Serotonin Drop Linked to Memory Decline in Early Alzheimer’s Progression, link here

“…Researchers discovered a potential link between lower levels of serotonin, the “happiness” chemical, and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which could advance our understanding of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Their study indicates that individuals with MCI have significantly reduced serotonin transporter levels, a factor that might contribute to memory problems and potentially AD. This finding offers new avenues for treatment, as serotonin levels could become a target for early intervention to slow or halt disease progression.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2453.mp3" length="777020" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin may slow/stop aneurysm growth</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2450</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2450</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:59:56 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2450

Life, it seems, is not without a sense of irony:-)

We have been hearing non-stop fearmongering for decades about how aspirin will kill us through bleeding events in the GI tract and/or the brain. Despite multiple studies showing that aspirin actually decreases risk of both having a major bleeding event in those body areas, as well as reducing the risk of death if such an event does occur, the fearmongering continues unabated, and FDA recently came out with a recommendation against using aspirin for primary/secondary prevention of ischemic attacks unless no “better” options are available. The irony of this whole charade is that deaths from bleeding due to blood-thinners are way fewer than deaths from ruptured aneurysms, even then most of the bleeding events and deaths were not caused by aspirin but by prescription thinners such as warfarin, Xarelto, etc. Also, even when they do occur blood-thinner induced bleeding events are mostly survivable, while ruptured aneurysms are mostly lethal even when minor. Well, the study below now adds another “paradoxical” benefit to aspirin’s list. Namely, the study showed that aspirin can actually stop aneurysm growth, even when used at the commonly-prescribed “baby aspirin” dosage (80mg-100mg daily). In addition, and much to the chagrin of mainstream medicine, aspirin was (again) found to NOT increase bleeding risks despite the long duration of the study.

2 links here

“…Aspirin may slow abdominal aortic aneurysm, link here(AAA) progression, a new study has found. While aspirin didn’t appear to impact the risk of rupture, major bleeding or death, the findings, published inJAMA Network OpenTrusted Source, link here Tuesday, suggest that aspirin could be used to delay AAA progression in certain patients. Currently, managing risk factors — like smoking and blood pressure — is the best way to prevent AAA and there’s a need for medications to slow the growth of these types of aneurysms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2450.mp3" length="678812" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Multiple sclerosis (MS) may be due to low metabolism / glucose oxidation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2448</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2448</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:23:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2448

Nothing surprising in the findings of the study, and in fact a great corroboration of the results from the high-dose biotin human study with the aggressive form of MS published several years ago. The officially proposed mechanism of biotin in that study was improved glucose oxidation, mitochondrial respiration and oxygen consumption.

link here

The study below used fMRI scans of the brains of MS patients and discovered reduced oxygen consumption (and metabolic rate) of about 15% (compared to health controls) in the neurons of the patients, as well as reduced glucose oxidation (which automatically translates to increased lactate and fatty acid oxidation) of up to 40%. While the study dances around the issue of cause and effect in regards to these findings, it concludes that MS is undoubtedly a mitochondrial disease of completely environmental (non-genetic) nature. As such, we can make the suggestion that MS may be alleviated by pro-metabolic substances that enhance glucose metabolism such as aspirin, niacinamide, thiamine, biotin, thyroid, progesterone, and androgens (for males).

2 links here

“…Mitochondrial dysfunction has been indicated as a possible mechanism in the pathophysiology of relapsing/remitting multiple sclerosis, link here (RRMS); however, more studies are needed to determine the value of cerebral oxygen consumption as a predictive biomarker, according to a recent study published in Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, link here. Although recent progress has made multiple disease-modifying treatments (DMTs) available to patients with MS, patients are still susceptible to disease progression and cerebral atrophy—even when treatments are deemed successful. This reality leads researchers, such as the present authors, to ponder avenues for advancing the current understandings of MS pathophysiology. The authors of the present study detail that the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen consumption (CMRO2) is reduced in patients with MS compared with otherwise healthy individuals. Due to the observed alterations in oxygen and glucose metabolism, one theory suggests that the brains of patients with MS may be fatigued and affected by energy failures.”

“…Reflecting on their findings, the researchers recognize then need for further studies to examine the relationship between reductions in cerebral oxygen consumption and brain atrophy. However, their results do indicate mitochondrial dysfunction as the underlying pathophysiology of RRMS.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2448.mp3" length="570260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Almost 1000 common food/drug/household chemicals are (estrogenic) carcinogens</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2446</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2446</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 17:24:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2446

Back in 2023, I had an interview with Dr. Mercola in regards to estrogen and its role in many disease, especially cancer. We discussed the official classification of estrogen as a “known human carcinogen” by both the US government and WHO. That interview must have struck a nerve since a famous doctor went through the trouble of writing an extensive blog post trying to debunk the already established fact that estrogen is a carcinogen, by claiming that most of that data stems from the WHI studies, and that those are now considered flawed, ergo estrogen cannot be considered a carcinogen. As a response, I asked people in touch with her to send her the following links on the topic, and that list is certainly not exhaustive. To this day, I have no not received a response from her:-)

33 links here

Now, aside from that “short” (and non-exhaustive) list above, the study below should probably suffice to drive the point home that estrogen is a mutagenic carcinogen, and any chemical with estrogenic properties is a danger to health. Shockingly, it looks like we are bathing 24×7 in a toxic sea of almost 1,000 chemicals with such properties (aka xenoestrogens), and given their ubiquity in food, drugs, industry, household, hospitals, and even nature it is little surprise the population of Western countries is sicker than ever. Considering the sheer number of chemicals involved and the near impossibility of avoiding them, keeping the metabolic rate high (helps with excretion of xenoestrogens) and usage of anti-estrogenic chemicals (eg. vitamin E, progesterone, pregnenolone, aspirin, DHT, antihistamines, etc) becomes that much more important.

link here

“…We identified 279 mammary carcinogens (MCs) and an additional 642 chemicals that stimulate estrogen or progesterone signaling. MCs were significantly enriched for steroidogenicity, ER agonism, and genotoxicity, supporting the use of these KCs to predict whether a chemical is likely to induce rodent mammary tumors and, by inference, increase BC risk…”

link here

“…More than 900 chemicals commonly found in consumer products and the environment have been linked to breast cancer risk in a new study. The study, published today in Environmental Health Perspectives, link here, identified 921 chemicals that could potentially increase the risk of breast cancer and found that 90% are ubiquitous in consumer products, food and drinks, pesticides, medications and workplaces. The list includes chemicals like parabens and phthalates, which are commonly found in makeup, skin and hair care products; and numerous pesticide ingredients, including malathion, atrazine and triclopyr, which are used on food and in household pest control products in the U.S. Breast cancer among young women has increased, link here in recent years. Between 2010 and 2019, diagnoses among people 30 to 39 years old increased 19.4%, and among those ages 20 to 29, rates increased 5.3%. This change is too fast to be explained by genetics, so researchers have begun looking more closely at potential environmental causes, link here for the disease. A 2020 study found that women who used chemical hair straighteners more than six times a year had about a 30% higher risk, link here of breast cancer than those who didn’t use chemical straighteners. Those products typically contain one or more of the chemicals identified in the new study as increasing the chances of getting breast cancer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2446.mp3" length="832148" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Adolescent stress causes mental illness, cognitive issues by lowering metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2444</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2444</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 16:35:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2444

It has long been known that pre-natal stress (e.g. stressed of the mother during pregnancy), as well as chronic stress after birth are associated with high risk of mental illness, criminal behavior, substance abuse, reduced cognitive function, chronic illness, and even early death. However, the exact mechanism through chronic stress achieves these effects has not been really identified. The study below demonstrates that stress during adolescence results in lower mitochondrial respiration signified by reduced oxygen consumption. That is another way of saying that stress during adolescence results in lower metabolic rate and that was sufficient to cause mental health issues and reduced cognitive function during adulthood. The likely mechanism through which stress mediates its effects if probably through the known thyroid-suppressive and gonadal-suppressive effects of chronic HPA axis activation. The fact that cortisol has a positive feedback mechanism peripherally is probably what allows for this stress-induced reduced respiration to be come a persistent/chronic issue, from which many people may not be able to get out of unless supplementing with anti-cortisol and/or pro-thyroid remedies.

2 links here

“…Excessive stress during adolescence can cause alterations in the profile of genes expressed in the brain, especially those associated with bioenergy functions. These alterations may affect cell respiration, resulting in behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders in adulthood, according to a study in rats conducted by researchers at the University of São Paulo’s Ribeirão Preto Medical School (FMRP-USP) in Brazil. The results are reported in an article published, link here in the journal Translational Psychiatry.”

“…“We found that stressed animals in this life stage displayed a markedly poor behavioral profile, with anxiety, reduced sociability and impaired cognitive function,” Gomes said. To discover whether these variations were reflected by gene expression, the researchers sent RNA samples to the Behavioral Genetics Laboratory of the Brain Mind Institute (BMI) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). The laboratory is led by Carmen Sandi, a professor of neuroscience. To investigate gene expression in the rats’ brains, the laboratory sequenced messenger RNA and analyzed the results using bioinformatics tools. This part of the study was funded under a joint institutional internationalization program run by USP and CAPES, the Ministry of Education’s Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (PrInt USP/CAPES).  “The analysis showed alterations to the genes of the prefrontal cortex in the stressed animals. Among the ten most affected genes, several were associated with pathways linked to oxidative stress and mitochondrial function, a key cellular component of energy production for the brain,” Gomes said. Consumption of oxygen by mitochondria in the brains of these animals was also found to be impaired by stress. “We now have evidence of various kinds pointing to the importance of mitochondrial function in this behavioral profile,” Gomes said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2444.mp3" length="570452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) causes anxiety, LSD and its derivatives may treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2441</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2441</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 15:10:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2441

The so-called generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is perhaps the most commonly diagnosed mental health condition. Ergo, the drugs to treat GAD – the benzodiazepine (GABA agonist) class – are perhaps the most widely prescribed mental health drugs globally. Unfortunately, chronic use of such drugs leads to diminished effectiveness over time due to downregulated GABA receptor sensitivity. Such decreased sensitivity may trigger an “addiction” due to the patient feeling they need more of the drug to achieve the same results and also make it next to impossible to withdraw from the drug due to severely downregulated GABA receptor sensitivity, which can lead to seizures and even death if withdrawal is done cold-turkey. Don’t believe my horror-stories? Just search YouTube for “Klonopin withdrawal” or “benzo withdrawal” (no quotes when you search). It is beyond scary.

Now, it has been known for decades that 5-HT antagonists are potent and rapid relievers of anxiety. In addition, they do not suffer from the same receptor downregulation issues like the benzo drugs. These repeated findings, over many decades, obviously implicate 5-HT in the pathogenesis of anxiety. Not only is this a taboo topic in psychiatry but it is also quite dangerous legally since it may lead to people (and their lawyers) questioning whether the current epidemic of GAD is not actually iatrogenic – i.e. caused by serotonin-elevating drugs such as the widely-prescribed SSRI class. So, in order to circumvent this touchy issue, medicine is now reaching for drugs that are mixed agonists/antagonists on the 5-HT receptor family. This way, Big Pharma and mainstream medicine can even claim that 5-HT alleviates anxiety since this or that drug with mixed agonist/antagonist profile is effective for GAD. This is exactly what the study below demonstrates. Namely, that a non-hallucinogenic LSD derivative was highly effective at relieving GAD. The study even explicitly points out the ability of the drug to (weakly) activate 5-HT2A as a possible mechanism of action. The fact that the drug is an antagonist of 5-HT2C (as well as most of the other 5-HT receptors) – a receptor whose blocking has repeatedly been shown to alleviate anxiety – is, of course, never mentioned. The positive side of the story is that there are many other ergot derivatives with a pharmacological profile similar to LSD, so this people do not have to buy the patented and, likely, very expensive MM-120 mentioned by the study below. There are options to truly treat their anxiety with cheap, widely available drugs that are even sold OTC in some countries – i.e. while the widely used bromocriptine and cabergoline are prescription drugs, others such as nicergoline or ergotamine are often sold OTC in many countries. Cyproheptadine and Benadryl (diphenhydramine) would also be good options, and the latter one is also OTC in many countries.

link here

LSD Effective in Treating Anxiety, Phase II Clinical Trial Shows, link here

link here

“…Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is characterized by persistent and excessive worry or nervousness about everyday life, frequently causing disruptions in daily tasks and personal connections. Potential treatments include psychotherapy, medication, and lifestyle adjustments. GAD, categorized as an anxiety disorder, is prevalent, affecting 3.1% of the United States population in a given year, equivalent to 6.8 million adults. It is more frequently diagnosed in women. Coping with anxiety can present difficulties, but like other anxiety disorders, GAD is eminently manageable and responsive to treatment. Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in innovative treatments for brain health conditions, has just released promising findings from its Phase 2b clinical trial involving MM-120 (lysergide d-tartrate) for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Dr. Daniel Karlin, chief medical officer of MindMed, explained the key findings to Medical News Today: “MindMed conducted this study with participation from 198 patients, all of whom suffered with a primary psychiatric diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), across 20 clinical sites in the United States.””

“…“The data available to us at this time show that patients experienced meaningful and lasting symptom reduction. Four weeks following a single dose of MM-120, 78% of participants who received either a 100 or 200 µg dose measured as having a clinically significant response to the drug. 50% of participants who received the 100 µg dose were considered to be in clinical remission at Week 4, meaning that the patient no longer suffered from clinically significant symptoms of GAD.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2441.mp3" length="1494476" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Optimal vitamin D intake may be at least 2,000 IU daily</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2439</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2439</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 14:40:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2439

As most people supplementing with vitamins know, the daily RDA for vitamin D has been set at 400 IU (in some countries up to 800 IU) daily, despite no evidence that such doses do anything beneficial, including even the basic target – preventing rickets. More recent studies have argues that the daily supplementation limit, especially in the winter, should be at least 5,000 IU daily. However, such studies usually get viciously attacked by public health authorities and Big Pharma with arguments that such doses carry high risk of dangerous side effects such as hypercalcemia, soft tissue calcification, kidney disease, and even seizures. The study below is perhaps the first to demonstrate that in order to achieve the optimal range of serum vitamin D levels, an adult needs to supplement with at least 2,000 IU daily, that at such doses there is virtually no risk of serious side effects, and that daily dosing is more effecting the than a high, bolus, weekly or monthly dosing. In fact, the study found that a significant portion of the general population (e.g. those with obesity, chronic inflammatory conditions, diabetes, etc) may need quite a bit more than 2,000 IU daily in order to achieve optimal serum levels.

2 links here

“…Further, the authors noted that randomized controlled trials (RCTs) testing 25(OH)D needs may be biased towards healthy people who may not accurately represent the general population, especially those with obesity. In fact, optimal serum 25(OH)D concentrations for most chronic diseases are slightly above 75 nmol/L (30 ng/mL). Thus, obese individuals, individuals with higher body mass index (BMI), and patients with malabsorption syndromes may require higher doses of vitamin D to increase their serum 25(OH)D levels. Some may not meet the threshold even after supplementing with daily 2000 IUs of vitamin D, like patients with inflammatory bowel disease during episodes of high disease activity.”

“…Recent RCTs like the Vitamin D and OmegA-3 Trial (VITAL) gathered safety data on using 2000 IU of vitamin D/day in general adult populations who showed no signs of vitamin D toxicity for 5.3 years, indicating the safety of this daily dosage. Further, a meta-analysis of 15 vitamin D RCTs found no increase in kidney stones when supplementing with ≥70 µg of vitamin D for at least one year.”

“…Adherence to conservative dosing regimens not exceeding 800 IU (20 µg) of vitamin D per day may not sufficiently treat vitamin D deficiency, considering the heterogeneity in inter-individual dose-response and accounting for the multiple clinical factors involved, such as obesity, malabsorption syndromes, and medications that impair vitamin D metabolism. This review revealed that daily vitamin D supplementation was more effective than intermittent bolus dosing in adults. However, precaution is needed for older and diseased individuals, who are more prone to adverse effects of vitamin D overdosing. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2439.mp3" length="620876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Elevated serotonin (from SSRI) directly damages offspring brain</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2437</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2437</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 14:20:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2437

After decades of openly supporting the medical fraud related to the “happiness hormone” serotonin (5-HT), mainstream media is finally calling the spade a spade. Namely, that elevated extracellular serotonin due to SSRI use during pregnancy directly damages the offspring brain and puts it into a state of impaired neuronal maturation and chronic hyperexcitability. Sounds familiar? Yeah, it is basically a more technical definition of autism. Worse, the study found that SSRI/serotonin can cause the same brain damage even after the baby is born by getting into the breast milk the baby consumes. While there have been many studies on the association between SSRI use during pregnancy and offspring autism, the study below is the first one that directly implicated 5-HT, the specific 5-HT receptors involved, as well as suggesting potential remedies. Namely, since serotonin exerted its neurotoxic effects through receptors 5-HT2 and 5-HT7, antagonists on those receptors may be able to prevent or even reverse the damage. Cyproheptadine is probably the most widely available chemical that blocks both types of receptors. Ergot derivatives such as bromocriptine, lisuride and metergoline are other options with a similar pharmacological profile. Finally, Benadryl (dyphenhydramine) is also a decent partial option as it is over-the-counter in many countries, but it only blocks the 5-HT2 family of receptors.

link here

“…5-HTergic transmission is a critical mediator of PFC development, evidenced by a growing body of literature highlighting the long-term behavioral consequences of 5-HT imbalances during gestation and early postnatal life7, link here,9, link here,10, link here,11, link here,12, link here,13, link here. While it is widely accepted that 5-HT acts as a key neuromodulator regulating neuronal connectivity in the cortex10, link here,26, link here,30, link here,31, link here,42, link here, the underlying synaptic mechanisms remain unclear. We demonstrate a synapse-specific role for 5-HTergic signaling in excitatory synapse maturation during the critical period of circuit formation in early PFC development.”

“…Third, while our uncaging experiments elucidate glutamatergic-independent mechanisms of 5-HT-mediated plasticity on PFC slices, our work does not exclude a possible contribution of glutamatergic signaling after 5-HTergic neuron manipulations in vivo. Potential co-release of glutamate or varied levels of glutamatergic signaling throughout the PFC could explain the functional excitatory changes observed. ”

“…Taken together, we clarify the cellular and molecular basis of 5-HT-dependent plasticity at the level of single dendritic spines and highlight the significance of 5-HT neuromodulation in shaping PFC circuitry during early brain development. SSRIs such as FLX are commonly taken throughout the world by pregnant people, affecting 5-HTergic signaling in offspring7, link here,8, link here. Infants born following perinatal exposure to SSRIs have a higher risk for neurodevelopmental disorders7, link here,8, link here, however, the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. Our findings provide experimental evidence that postnatally FLX-treated animals exhibit deficits in synapse maturation in the PFC via 5-HTergic activities resulting from enhanced 5-HT2A and 5-HT7 receptor signaling. ”

link here

“…Using antidepressants during pregnancy or while breastfeeding can damage a baby’s brain and increase their risk of suffering mental health problems in the future, a study found. Prozac, also known as fluoxetine, increases levels of mood-boosting serotonin in the brain – but scientists discovered this can affect a child’s developing prefrontal cortex. They also found the drug can pass into the breast milk of new mothers who take it and end up being fed to newborns. Research suggest that between 300,000 and 400,000 kids are being exposed to Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor(SSRI) drugs, link here each year in the US during pregnancy. Professor Won Chan Oh, of the University of Colorado, link here, said: ‘We are the first to provide experimental evidence of the direct impact of serotonin on the developing prefrontal cortex when fluoxetine is taken during pregnancy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2437.mp3" length="755228" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Obesity is estrogen-driven; Chronic fasting burns mostly muscle, not fat</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2427</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2427</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 17 Dec 2023 20:06:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2427

I wanted to do a quick post on this, as this topic is one of the most discussed in both medicine and society in general. Namely, whether fasting is a good and healthy approach to weight loss, which is largely determined by whether the weight we lose during fasting is mostly fat or muscle. Even mainstream doctors readily agree that if it is the former then the effects of fasting would be considered beneficial and if it is the latter, the effects of fasting would be devastating since losing muscle mass not only makes one (relatively) fatter (ratio of muscle to fat mass), but also drastically lowers one’s resting metabolic rate (RMR) since RMR depends heavily on fat-free muscle mass. So, if chronic fasting results mostly in muscle loss that would make a person not only relatively fatter as a result, but also continue to gain weight on even fewer calories than previously eaten due to their now lower RMR. Well, the study on the Biggest Loser show participants was pretty clear in its findings that this devastating outcome from fasting (and/or “endurance” exercise) is exactly what happens in humans.

If that study was not convincing enough, here is another expert medical opinion below, with an added explanation why fasting may have this negative effect, while also, once again, implicating obesity as an endocrine disorder driven by estrogen.

link here

“And to those willing to do dietary extremes Dr. Thomas shared some bad news, “Starving won’t help losing fat from regions like the butt and thigh.” Dr. Purwa Duggal says stubborn fat in areas such as abdomen, thighs, hips, butt, etc are linked to high estrogen. Prolongedstarvation does not necessarily mean burning fat. It may initially cause muscle wasting or utilisation of glycogen stores. Catecholamines, which are fight or flight hormones produced in the body in response to stress, are required to burn fat. “Blood flow to stubborn fat areas is usually very poor, as a result, the catecholamines are unable to reach the area to mobilise the fat. Even if the fat is mobilised, while it continues to be in the blood stream, it may get re-deposited in the original areas,” she adds. However, both she and macrobiotic nutritionist Shonali Sabherwal agree that a controlled diet — excluding unhealthy fats, processed food and sugars — complimented with focussed exercise, under supervision, may aid in developing the desired muscle tone over time.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2427.mp3" length="632516" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The fraud unravels – statins cause, not prevent heart disease (CVD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2425</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2425</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 17 Dec 2023 18:31:48 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2425

While the news that the statin fraud is finally being exposed is certainly good, it is sad that it took so many decades to admit to something so biochemically obvious. Namely, since statins interfere with the synthesis of mevalonic acid, link here, as a consequence they also inhibit the synthesis of the crucial respiratory redox molecule coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), as well as vitamin K (VK). This is due to the fact that both CoQ10 and VK have a long isoprene side chain, which in humans is synthesized only from mevanolic acid. It is already well-established that a deficiency of CoQ10 (whether caused by statins or something else) results in lower oxidative metabolism (and thus lower ATP levels). In addition, it is also well-established that VK deficiency (whether caused by statins or something else) results in soft-tissue calcification. Both of these effects have been confirmed numerous times not only by CoQ10/VK depletion studies, but also by performing studies with other agents (e.g. rotenone) that inhibit respiration at the steps where CoQ10 is involved or agents that deplete vitamin K (e.g. warfarin). Moreover, those effects have been directly confirmed with statins too, and further corroborated by other studies (see below) showing that supplementation with CoQ10 and/or VK ameliorates those negative effects of statins. And as if all that was not enough, the last study below demonstrated that statins also increase systemic inflammation, which is another major factor in vascular calcification and CVD. Oh, and lest we forget, there is also the “minor” issue with statins suspected of causing deadly neurological diseases such as ALS, link here (via the same mechanisms as for CVD). With so many different mechanisms of causing pathology, the only reasonable conclusion is that the introduction of statins into clinical practice was either remarkably stupid…or deliberate.

8 links here

“…For decades, statins have been heralded as the reliable heroes in the battle against heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States and globally. However, this seemingly flawless reputation has been called into question. A new expert review suggests that long-term use of statins may be inadvertently aiding the enemy by accelerating coronary artery calcification instead of providing protection.”

“…The review, published in Clinical Pharmacology, suggests statins may act as “mitochondrial toxins,” impairing muscle function in the heart and blood vessels by depleting coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), an antioxidant cells use for growth and maintenance. Multiple studies show statins inhibit CoQ10 synthesis, leading many patients to supplement. CoQ10 is vital for producing ATP, the cell’s fundamental energy carrier. Insufficient CoQ10 inhibits ATP production, resulting in an energy deficit that the review authors say “could be a major cause for heart muscle and coronary artery damage. “We believe that many years of statin drug therapy result in the gradual accumulation of mitochondrial DNA damage,” according to the authors. A 2022 study published in Biophysical Journal linked reduced ATP to heart failure. A 2008 study published in BioFactors reaffirms the statin–CoQ10 link. Researchers evaluated 50 statin patients for side effects like fatigue and muscle pain. All then stopped statins and supplemented CoQ10 for 22 months on average. Heart function improved or held steady for the majority of patients. The researchers conclude statin side effects, including statin cardiomyopathy, “are far more common than previously published and are reversible with the combination of statin discontinuation and supplemental CoQ10.”

“…Statins impair the production of vitamin K, an essential vitamin in managing calcification, according to the review. Optimal vitamin K2 intake helps avoid plaque buildup of atherosclerosis—thickening or hardening of the arteries—and keeps calcification risk low. Coronary calcification happens when calcium accumulates in the walls of the coronary arteries that provide oxygen to the heart. This plaque buildup is a sign of early coronary artery disease, which can block blood flow and trigger a heart attack. A 2021 study published in the Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences found a connection between statin use, coronary artery calcification, and vitamin K2 deficiency. The results shed light on how statins may spur arterial calcium accumulation by inhibiting vitamin K. The study’s findings were “in agreement with the existing evidence about positive association between statins and vascular calcification,” the authors added. Statins were also linked to increased calcification in a 2022 study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. However, the authors proposed that statins may encourage calcification by heightening inflammation rather than nutrient deficiency.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2425.mp3" length="932492" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>LipOdd – Liquid Product With Odd-Chain Saturated Fats (SFA)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2408</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2408</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 05 Dec 2023 18:26:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2408

More than a decade ago, when I was just beginning my exploration of bioenergetics, one of the first indications that Ray’s writings were onto something when it came to SFA vs. PUFA was the fact that while mainstream medicine ruthlessly bashed SFA in general and promoted PUFA, virtually very little bad publicity was directed at dairy fat. In fact, it seemed even back then that medicine had  already resigned itself to the existence of the “dairy fat paradox” and periodically published articles about the “surprising” or “paradoxical” benefits of dairy in bastions of medical propaganda such as NEJM, BMJ, Nature, etc that were often given even bigger publicity by mainstream media.

2 links here

That fact that it is dairy fat (and not the protein or calcium in dairy) that has unique beneficial effect is easily surmised from the studies with ice-cream, where the primary ingredient is fat, and mostly of the SFA kind.

2 links here

As part of its studies on dairy, medicine even developed a test for quantifying dairy consumption and that test consists of measuring blood/tissue levels of two odd-chain SFA found primarily in dairy. Namely, pentadecanoic acid (PA, C15:0) and heptadecanoic acid (HA, C17:0). The latter is also known as margaric acid. Their average concentrations in dairy are about 1% and 0.5%, respectively, of total fats in dairy.

2 links here

After that initial interest in researching dairy fats, I moved onto other research and almost forgot about the existence of PA and HA. Years later, while researching succinic acid as part of the development of our product SolBan, my attention was drawn to a pair of Japanese studies for treating hair loss by topical application of PA. As those studies described, due to its odd-chain, PA is only partially metabolized via the beta-oxidation pathway, through which even-chain fatty acids get metabolized to ultimate form acetyl-CoA and then enter the Krebs Cycle. The terminal metabolism of odd-chain fatty acids, including PA, forms succinic acid, and ultimately succinyl-CoA, which then enters the Krebs Cycle. Since rising levels of acetyl-CoA has an inhibitory effects on pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), eating a diet high in fat with mostly even-chain fats would result in reduction of glucose metabolism, even if all the fats are of the SFA type, as per the Randle Cycle. However, if those fats are of the odd-chain species and enter the Krebs Cycle as succinic acid (i.e. without effect on the acetyl-CoA/CoA ratio), then virtually no such reduction of glucose metabolism is expected to occur and, in fact, PA was described in the Japanese studies as stimulating mitochondrial function and ATP production, which ultimately resulted in improved hair growth. The Japanese reseachers even filed a patent for treating hair-loss with PA and in that patent they opined that other odd-chain fatty acids with similar length, especially the C17:0 fat HA mentioned above, would have similarly beneficial effects on hair-growth through increasing mitochondrial function (OXPHOS).

2 links here

Those studies above were performed in the early 1990s and since then there have been quite a few additional studies discovering remarkable benefits of odd-chain SFA, with the bulk of the research focusing on PA and HA. Several studies have compared PA and HA to the “essential” omega-6 fatty acids, as well as to omega-3 fats, and have concluded that PA and HA are much more deserving of the label “essential” than the omega-6, let alone the omega-3. In fact, at least one study demonstrated that the omega-3 are cytotoxic when used in concentrations that are lower than concentrations typically achieved when eating cold-water fatty fish or taking fish oil supplements, while the odd-chain PA and HA were not only not cytotoxic but their cellular benefits were dose-dependent. Such effects are reminiscent of pregnenolone, progesterone, vitamin K, etc for which the body seems to have remarkably high affinity and accumulates them inside cells in concentrations exceeding blood levels by several orders of magnitude.

link here

“…The robust inverse association of 15:0 and/or 17:0 concentrations in plasma phospholipids or RBCs with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) risk is quite impressive. The latter is observed in various European populations with different dietary backgrounds (5, link here). This review brings forward hypotheses about the possible sources of 15:0 and 17:0 and their potential involvement in metabolic pathways. They may be used for synthesis of odd-numbered VLCFAs, provide anaplerotic intermediates for the CAC, or store away excess propionic acid. ”

link here

“…Further, an 18-year longitudinal study including over 25,000 individuals demonstrated that children fed whole fat milk had a lower risk of having obesity compared to children who were provided fat-free or 1% fat milk, and multiple studies have demonstrated associations between higher dietary intake of full-fat dairy and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease7, link here–9, link here. As such, there is a need re-evaluate potential health risks versus benefits of dietary dairy fats10, link here.”

“…While dietary ECFAs have been associated with increased risk of inflammation, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes in humans12, link here–15, link here, higher dietary intake and circulating levels of OCFAs have been associated with lower risks of adiposity, chronic inflammation, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pancreatic cancer and other conditions14, link here–27, link here. In a prospective cohort involving over 14,000 people followed for an average of 14 years, increased dietary intake of OCFAs was associated with lower mortality in both men and women, while higher ECFA intake was associated with higher mortality in women28, link here.”

“…Since fatty acids can affect mitochondrial function45, link here, the effects of OCFAs and ECFAs on repairing mitochondrial function and reducing mitochondrial ROS were evaluated in serum starved HepG2 cells. Here, C15:0 had a dose-response u-curve effect on mitochondrial function, including lower mitochondrial ROS production in cell systems supplemented at 10 µM (17.8 ± 2.7%, P = 0.04), 20 µM (12.9 ± 3.2%, P = 0.005) and 50 µM (15.4 ± 2.6%, P = 0.007) compared to non-supplemented control cell systems (23.4 ± 4.3%) (Fig. 1, link here). There were no differences in ROS production when comparing cells supplemented at higher C15:0 concentrations (100 and 200 µM) compared to non-supplemented controls. Among a variety of other OCFAs and ECFAs evaluated (C13:0 through C18:0), C15:0 through C18:0 (20 µM) had lower mitochondrial ROS compared to the non-supplemented control group, while C13:0 and C14:0 did not significantly lower mitochondrial ROS (Suppl Fig. 2, link here).”

“…Based on a definition of cytotoxicity in which more than 50% of total protein in the cell system was reduced, C15:0 did not induce cytotoxicity in any of the 12 cell systems (Suppl Table 2, link here).”

“…Here, C15:0 had dose-dependent, annotated anti-inflammatory activities, including reduced monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) and secreted immunoglobulin G (IgG) (Fig. 2, link here). C15:0 also had antifibrotic activities, including reduced Collagen I, plasminogen activation inhibitor 1 (PAI-1), and 72-hour fibroblast proliferation (Fig. 2, link here). Anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic activities were present at both 6.7 and 20 µM. C15:0 cell-based anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic activities at 20 µM were better than C17:0 at the same concentration; other saturated fatty acids (C13:0, C14:0 and C16:0) had no anti-inflammatory or antifibrotic activities (Fig. 3, link here). Because C14:0, C15:0, and C16:0 all had similar dual PPARα/δ agonist activities (reported above), results from our human cell phenotypic screening support that C15:0 activities go beyond C15:0’s role as a natural PPARα/δ fatty acid ligand. This study also supports that a relatively minor increase in C15:0 concentrations (e.g. from 2.2 µM to 6.7 µM) can positively impact its anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic activities.”

“…Thus, a single oral dose of C15:0 at 35 mg/kg succeeded in achieving our targeted active plasma concentrations in this rodent model, between 2.5 to 5 µg/ml (equivalent to 6.7 to 20 µM), from 1 to 8 hours post-dose. Plasma total C17:0 levels also increased, albeit less so than C15:0, following a single oral dose of C15:0; similar, sustained increases were not apparent with C13:0 (Fig. 4, link here). These findings support de novo elongation of C15:0 to C17:0.”

“…These levels are consistent with our studies, which demonstrated cell-based PPARα/δ agonist, anti-inflammatory, antifibrotic, and mitochondrial protective C15:0 activities between 10 and 50 µM, with most of our studies demonstrating optimal activities at 20 µM. Human pharmacokinetic studies support that a single dose of 200 mg of C15:0 results in 20 µM circulating C15:0 concentrations (approximately 5 µg/ml)75, link here”

“…To further evaluate the safety of C15:0 at increasing doses, Sprague Dawley rats (n = 10 per group, 5 females and 5 males, 7 to 8 weeks old) were dosed orally once daily for 14 days with C15:0 at 35, 175 and 350 mg/kg body weight. A non-dosed vehicle control group was included. Safety assessments included clinical observations, body weight, food intake, clinical chemistries, and histology (liver, kidney, heart, and adrenal glands). Additionally, total plasma C15:0 and C17:0 concentrations were measured at Day 14. There were no mortalities or observed abnormal behaviors in animals throughout the 14-day study across all study groups, and there were no significant differences when comparing body weights and organ weight-to-body weight ratios or the prevalence of abnormal clinical chemistry values or histologic observations between C15:0-supplemented and non-supplemented control animals (Suppl Table 3, link here). ”

“…Mice supplemented with oral C15:0 for 90 days at low doses (5 mg/kg) had lower circulating levels of the proinflammatory chemokine, monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1), and the proinflammatory cytokine, interleukin 6 (IL-6) compared to non-supplemented controls (Fig. 5, link here). The C15:0-supplemented group also had lower glucose, lower cholesterol, and lower percent body weight gain on the high fat diet compared to non-supplemented controls (Fig. 5, link here, Suppl Table 4, link here). In contrast, mice supplemented with daily low dose C17:0 (5 mg/kg) had no significant differences in clinical chemistry values compared to non-supplemented, diseased controls, while high dose C17:0 (50 mg/kg) supplemented mice had lower serum MCP-1 compared to controls (Suppl Table 4, link here). ”

“…Specifically, C15:0 supplementation raised hemoglobin, hematocrit, and red blood cell count, and lowered nucleated red blood cells, red blood cell distribution width, and reticulocytes. In this model, these changes are consistent with decreased loss of fragile red blood cells and lowered need for new red blood cell production46, link here. Further, C15:0-supplemented animals had lower cholesterol, triglycerides, globulins, and platelets compared to non-supplemented diseased controls (Fig. 7, link here). Additionally, multiple liver health indices in C15:0-supplemented animals, including bilirubin and icterus were lower than non-supplemented diseased controls, matching that of healthy controls (Supplement Table 6, link here). Histologically, C15:0-supplemented animals also had less severe liver fibrosis and liver iron staining scores within Kupffer cells compared to non-supplemented diseased controls. Unlike the non-supplemented diseased controls, C15:0-supplemented animals did not progress from Stage 2 to Stage 3 (bridging) fibrosis (Suppl Table 6, link here).”

“…Here, we show C15:0 as an active dietary fatty acid that attenuates inflammation, anemia, dyslipidemia, and fibrosis in vivo, potentially by binding to key metabolic regulators and repairing mitochondrial function. This is the first demonstration of C15:0’s direct role in attenuating multiple comorbidities using relevant physiological mechanisms at established circulating concentrations. Pairing our findings with evidence that (1) C15:0 is not readily made endogenously, (2) lower C15:0 dietary intake and blood concentrations are associated with higher mortality and a poorer physiological state, and (3) C15:0 has demonstrated activities and efficacy that parallel associated health benefits in humans, we propose C15:0 as a potential essential fatty acid. Further studies are needed to evaluate the potential impact of decades of reduced intake of OCFA-containing foods as contributors to C15:0 deficiencies and susceptibilities to chronic disease.”

link here

“…Beyond population-based studies, experimental research has shown that C15:0 is an active and beneficial fatty acid with direct pleiotropic activities relevant to stemming chronic conditions, especially with age [26, link here–29, link here]. Specifically, C15:0 is a dual partial peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α/δ agonist, AMP-activated protein kinase activator, and histone deacetylase 6 inhibitor [26, link here–28, link here]. Further, C15:0 has been shown to repair mitochondrial function, improve the stability of red blood cells, regulate glucose metabolism, and decrease proliferation of cancer cells [26, link here–29, link here].”

“…In addition to MCP-1, C15:0 and EPA effectively lowered CD40 and T cell proliferation in a single system relevant to T-cell driven inflammatory conditions. This cell system is used to discover potential therapeutics for autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and Crohn’s disease, as well as for hematological oncology applications. Although use of EPA has been proposed as a method to manage autoimmune diseases, supportive studies have been primarily limited to fish oil that did not discriminate between the effects of EPA versus other fatty acids [32, link here–36, link here]. Our study is the first to report the potential for C15:0 to manage autoimmune diseases. ”

“…While C15:0 and EPA shared 12 common activities, our studies also demonstrated 35 differences between these two fatty acids, including substantially broader anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and antifibrotic activities caused by C15:0 that were not present with EPA. Of the 11 cell systems in which C15:0 had disease-attenuating properties that were not present with EPA, three were relevant to atherosclerosis, vascular inflammation, and restenosis, as well as two others relevant to asthma, allergies, and metabolic diseases. Examples of biomarkers lowered by C15:0 and not EPA in these systems included sIL-10, CD69, HLA-DR, TNF-α, IL-17F, IL-17A, and IL-1α. Given these findings, further studies are warranted to evaluate if C15:0’s broader therapeutic activities at the cellular level translate to broader health benefits to individuals and populations compared to EPA and other omega-3s fatty acids.”

“…Demonstrated mechanisms of actions for C15:0 and EPA may help explain both their shared and differentiated activities. C15:0 and EPA are endogenous peroxisome proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) agonists, including PPAR alpha and delta; their roles as PPAR agonists can explain their shared anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic activities [28, link here, 39, link here]. Additionally, C15:0 and EPA have been shown to target the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) pathway, which modulates glucose metabolism [23, link here, 40, link here, 41, link here], as well as inhibit histone deacetylase (HDAC), a proposed means of treating cancer by stemming cancer cell proliferation [26, link here, 42, link here]. While C15:0 and EPA share several key mechanisms of action, they appear to have opposing effects related to MAPK and JAK-STAT signaling, which use oxidative stress to elicit cytokine and inflammatory processes. Specifically, polyunsaturated fatty acids, like EPA, induce MAP and JAK-STAT signaling, while C15:0 inhibits these pro-inflammatory pathways [29, link here, 43, link here, 44, link here]. JAK-STAT inhibitors have been proposed as promising therapeutics to inhibit cytokines and treat numerous inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, and this key mechanism of C15:0 may explain why it had broader anti-inflammatory effects in our study compared to EPA [45, link here].”

“…When assessing clinically relevant and dose-dependent activities of C15:0 and over 4,500 additional compounds, our study demonstrated common cell-based phenotypic profiles between C15:0 and therapeutics for mood disorders, infections, and cancer, based on concentration. At lower concentrations (1.9 and 5.6 μM), C15:0 human cell-based activities closely matched those of bupropion at 10 and 30 μM, respectively. Bupropion, sold as Wellbutrin®, is a dopamine-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor and commonly used antidepressant that is considered safe, well tolerated, and does not result in weight gain [51, link here]. Specific conditions managed by bupropion include major depressive disorder and seasonal affective disorder, and it has shown promise as a non-nicotine agent that promotes smoking cessation in clinical trials [51, link here]. Bupropion is a pill that is typically taken 2–3 times a day in doses ranging from 100–150 milligrams. Based on human pharmacokinetic data with pure free fatty acid C15:0, approximate doses of 19 to 56 mg is expected to achieve circulating C15:0 concentrations with activities similar to bupropion [52, link here].”

“…A growing body of evidence supports that pentadecanoic acid (C15:0), an odd-chain saturated fat found in butter, is an essential fatty acid that is necessary in the diet to support long-term metabolic and heart health. Here, dose dependent and clinically relevant cell-based activities of pure C15:0 (FA15TM) were compared to eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), a leading omega-3 fatty acid, as well as to an additional 4,500 compounds. These studies included 148 clinically relevant biomarkers measured across 12 primary human cell systems, mimicking various disease states, that were treated with C15:0 at four different concentrations (1.9 to 50 μM) and compared to non-treated control systems. C15:0 was non-cytotoxic at all concentrations and had dose dependent, broad anti-inflammatory and antiproliferative activities involving 36 biomarkers across 10 systems. In contrast, EPA was cytotoxic to four cell systems at 50 μM. While 12 clinically relevant activities were shared between C15:0 and EPA at 17 μM, C15:0 had an additional 28 clinically relevant activities, especially anti-inflammatory, that were not present in EPA. Further, at 1.9 and 5.6 μM, C15:0 had cell-based properties similar to bupropion (Pearson’s scores of 0.78), a compound commonly used to treat depression and other mood disorders. At 5.6 μM, C15:0 mimicked two antimicrobials, climabazole and clarithromycin (Pearson’s scores of 0.76 and 0.75, respectively), and at 50 μM, C15:0 activities matched that of two common anti-cancer therapeutics, gemcitabine and paclitaxel (Pearson’s scores of 0.77 and 0.74, respectively). In summary, C15:0 had dose-dependent and clinically relevant activities across numerous human cell-based systems that were broader and safer than EPA, and C15:0 activities paralleled common therapeutics for mood disorders, microbial infections, and cancer. These studies further support the emerging role of C15:0 as an essential fatty acid.”

Now, if something has such a broad beneficial effects on health as the studies above describe, one would expect said substance to have an anti-aging and lifespan extending effects as well. While we still don’t have direct in-vivo evidence for such effects of PA and/or HA, in-vitro evidence already exists. As the study below demonstrated, PA has anti-aging effects matching, and even exceeding, those of the standard drug for anti-aging research, rapamycin, the most widely used antagonist of the eponymous pathway mTOR.

link here

“…To assess the potential for C15:0 to enhance processes associated with longevity and healthspan, we used human cell-based molecular phenotyping assays to compare C15:0 with three longevity-enhancing candidates: acarbose, metformin, and rapamycin. C15:0 (n = 36 activities in 10 of 12 cell systems) and rapamycin (n = 32 activities in 12 of 12 systems) had the most clinically relevant, dose-dependent activities. At their optimal doses, C15:0 (17 µM) and rapamycin (9 µM) shared 24 activities across 10 cell systems, including anti-inflammatory (e.g., lowered MCP-1, TNFα, IL-10, IL-17A/F), antifibrotic, and anticancer activities, which are further supported by previously published in vitro and in vivo studies. Paired with prior demonstrated abilities for C15:0 to target longevity pathways, hallmarks of aging, aging rate biomarkers, and core components of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, our results support C15:0 as an essential nutrient with activities equivalent to, or surpassing, leading longevity-enhancing candidate compounds.”

“…First, as anticipated for a healthspan and longevity-enhancing compound, C15:0 directly targets multiple hallmarks of aging, including mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, impaired cellular signaling, and inflammaging. Pure C15:0 rescues mitochondrial function at complex II of the mitochondrial respiratory pathway via increased production of succinate and has a dose–response effect on repairing mitochondrial function [2, link here,83, link here,84, link here]. Consistent with the cell membrane pacemaker theory of aging, C15:0, as a stable, odd-chain saturated fatty acid that is readily incorporated in cell membranes, stems premature cellular senescence and lowers the risk of lipid peroxidation [23, link here,35, link here,36, link here,37, link here,38, link here,85, link here,86, link here]. Beyond the role of C15:0 as an mTOR inhibitor and AMPK activator, C15:0 supports healthy cellular signaling as a dual partial PPAR α/δ agonist, JAK-STAT inhibitor, and HDAC6 inhibitor, which are well-established moderators of metabolism, lipids, inflammation, and cancer [2, link here,22, link here,24, link here,26, link here,87, link here,88, link here,89, link here]. As shown in the current study, C15:0 has broad anti-inflammatory activities expected to directly address inflammaging, a chronic, low-level inflammatory state that contributes to the onset and exacerbation of many aging-associated diseases [90, link here].”

“…”Beyond targeting multiple hallmarks of aging, C15:0 has been shown to slow the rate at which humans age. Declining hemoglobin, a marker of red blood cell (RBC) loss, has also been identified as a biomarker of an accelerated aging rate [91, link here,92, link here]. This may be due, in part, to the ease of detecting increased fragility of RBCs with age, which serves as a clinically relevant marker of overall cellular fragility with aging [93, link here,94, link here]. Increasing dietary C15:0 effectively raises RBC membrane C15:0 concentrations, which independently predicts raised, healthier hemoglobin concentrations in long-lived mammals [38, link here]. Further, daily supplementation of pure C15:0 (FA15) for 12 weeks successfully increases low hemoglobin in vivo [2, link here]. These studies demonstrate that C15:0 can effectively slow a key biomarker of the aging rate.”

“…While improving clinical indices is important, a longevity-enhancing compound should effectively delay the onset and progression of chronic diseases that cause mortality: Type 2 diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. In addition to the discussion on type 2 diabetes above, numerous large studies have shown that C15:0 is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, including heart failure, first myocardial infarctions, and coronary heart disease [3, link here,4, link here,5, link here,6, link here,7, link here,8, link here,9, link here,10, link here,11, link here,16, link here,17, link here,18, link here,19, link here]. Further, C15:0 has a strong dose-dependent antiproliferative effect on multiple cancer cell types, including human breast cancer (MCF-7, MDA-MB-231), lung cancer (A549), pancreatic cancer (PANC-1), and liver cancer (HepG2) cells, which have been attributed to JAK2/STAT3 and HDAC6-inhibiting C15:0 activities [24, link here,26, link here]. C15:0 has also been shown to reverse tamoxifen resistance in MCF-7/SC breast cancer cells and improve the efficacy of gemcitabine across multiple cancer cell lines and in vivo [23, link here,28, link here]. Consistent with these studies, the cell-based phenotypic profile of C15:0 at higher doses (50 µM) closely mimics leading and broad anticancer therapeutics, gemcitabine and paclitaxel, which aligns with associations found between higher circulating C15:0 concentrations and lower risks of having breast cancer, small lung cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, colorectal cancer, pharyngolaryngeal cancer, and hematologic malignancies in humans [16, link here,17, link here,18, link here,19, link here,25, link here,96, link here,97, link here]. While these studies are early, they support pure C15:0 as a promising lead or adjunct to safely address multiple types of cancer, a leading cause of mortality.”

“…Beyond evidence that C15:0 lowers the risk of conditions that are leading causes of mortality, higher C15:0 has been linked to lower risks of a number of other aging-associated conditions, including anemia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hair loss, and Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically, children with higher erythrocyte cell membrane C15:0 levels have less severe iron deficiency anemia [37, link here], and daily oral C15:0 supplementation successfully attenuates anemia in vivo [2, link here]. Regarding lung disease, dietary C15:0 intake is linearly correlated with improved lung function (FEV1/FVC) in people with COPD [100, link here]. A double-blinded clinical trial demonstrated the efficacy of topical pentadecanoic acid glyceride in treating male pattern alopecia [82, link here,101, link here]. Further, higher free fatty acid C15:0 in cerebrospinal fluid is associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease [102, link here]. These studies support C15:0 as a healthspan and longevity-enhancing nutrient that can delay the onset and progression of multiple chronic age-related diseases.”

“…While not part of a typical checklist for a healthspan and lifespan-enhancing compound, studies have demonstrated that C15:0 has both antimicrobial and antidepressant properties. Specifically, C15:0 hinders the growth of both bacteria (Staphylococcus epidermidis and Klebsiella pneumoniae) and fungi (Candida albicans) [39, link here,40, link here]. These antimicrobial effects are further supported by C15:0′s cell-based phenotypic profile at moderate concentrations, which closely matches that of clarithromycin and climbazole [25, link here]. Interestingly, both C15:0 and rapamycin have antifungal properties [103, link here].”

The studies above mostly focus on PA, and one would be tempted to conclude that most of the benefits of dairy fat stem from the presence of PA. However, the much less discussed HA has been the subject of several intervention studies that strongly suggest it is at least as beneficial as HA and not only contributes to the beneficial effects of dairy fat but is synergistic with PA. One particularly interesting study found that dolphins, our closest relatives in the animal world in terms of intelligence and metabolism, readily develop diabetes when fed the crappy processed food diet full of PUFA, but that diabetes can be prevented and even quickly reversed when the dolphins are fed the human equivalent of 50mg-100mg HA daily for about 6 moths.

2 links here

“…”We were surprised to find that among the 55 fatty acids studied, the saturated fat heptadecanoic acid appeared to have had the most beneficial impact on dolphin metabolism,” said Venn-Watson. “Dolphins with higher levels of heptadecanoic acid in their blood had lower insulin and triglycerides.” The study also showed that while some fish have high levels of heptadecanoic acid, other fish types had none. Six dolphins with low heptadecanoic acid were then fed fish high in this fatty acid. Within six months on the new diet, indicators of metabolic syndrome in dolphins, including elevated insulin, glucose, and triglycerides normalized. Key to this surprising outcome was reversal of high ferritin, an underlying precursor to metabolic syndrome. “We saw blood ferritin levels decrease in all six dolphins within three weeks on the new diet,” said Venn-Watson. Heptadecanoic acid, also called margaric acid or C17:0, is a saturated fat found in dairy fat, rye, and some fish.”

Another interesting finding from the dolphin study above was that high ferritin was causally associated with the (pre)diabetes seen in the animals and HA was able to alleviate this iron toxicity, which provides another plausible mechanism of why these odd-chain SFA are beneficial and suggests other diseases for which they may also be therapeutic – i.e. above all, cancer. Iron overload is a well-known feature of cancer and iron chelators such as desferoxamine, link here have shown great promise in pre-clinical studies for the treatment of many types of cancer. Low and behold, HA (in the forum of ship tail fat), in a human equivalent dose (HED) of just 0.5mg/kg daily was effective in restricting growth of a human lung cancer (xenograft model), as effectively as the so-called standard-of-care drug.

link here

“…We previously reported that the odd-chain saturated fatty acid (OCSFA), heptadecanoic acid (C17:0), profoundly inhibits non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell proliferation. However, the antitumor potential of edible lipids rich in C17:0 remains unclear. Here, we determined that sheep tail fat (STF) is a dietary lipid rich in C17:0 and exhibited the greatest inhibitory effect against three NSCLC cell lines (A549, PC-9, and PC-9/GR) among common dietary lipids. Cell migration experiments demonstrated that STF could significantly inhibit the wound healing capacity of three NSCLC cell lines by promoting the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and subsequent cell death. Mechanistic studies showed that STF suppressed NSCLC cell growth by downregulating the Akt/S6K signaling pathway. Furthermore, administration of STF reduced tumor growth, weight, and expression of the proliferative marker Ki-67 in nude mice bearing A549 xenografts. Collectively, our data show that STF has antitumor activity against NSCLC, implying that dietary intake of C17:0-rich STF may be a potential adjuvant therapy for lung cancer (NSCLC).”

“…Edible oils extracted from plants and deep-sea fish are thought to be beneficial for human health because of their high content of UFAs (Wang et al., 2016, link here). In contrast, common animal lipids are considered unhealthy due to their abundance of SFAs. Excessive intake of SFAs is considered to drive the occurrence and development of several health conditions, including obesity, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases (Eckel et al., 2014, link here; Kromhout et al., 2016, link here; Binns et al., 2017, link here). However, other studies have found that SFAs are not the underlying cause of these conditions (Malhotra, 2013, link here; Chowdhury et al., 2014, link here; Li et al., 2015, link here; Dehghan et al., 2017, link here; Malhotra et al., 2017, link here; Veum et al., 2017, link here). It was recently reported that SFAs also play important roles in various diseases. For instance, intake of SFAs can reduce the severity of pancreatitis in humans (Khatua et al., 2021, link here). C16:0 decreases the metastatic capacity of hepatocellular carcinoma cells (Lin et al., 2017, link here). These reports suggest that animal lipids rich in certain SFAs may enhance the efficacy of clinical therapies for various diseases. As a functional OCSFA, C17:0 intake has been inversely correlated with multiple diseases (Holman et al., 1989, link here; Khaw et al., 2012, link here; Meikle et al., 2013, link here). Here, we found that, among the common dietary lipids, C17: 0 is abundant in STF. Interestingly, our results show that STF is unique in its ability to inhibit NSCLC cell proliferation compared to other common dietary lipids.”

“…Although C17:0 increases with animal age in sheep (Watkins and Frank, 2019, link here), the concentration of C17:0 is still much lower in STF than that of other fatty acids, such as C18:0. To assess the role of high levels of C17:0, fatty acid mixtures with different ratios were generated. The results shown in Supplementary Figure S7, link here indicate that enrichment of C17:0 may result in a more significant antitumor effect of fatty acid mixtures. However, little is known about C17:0 enrichment in ruminant lipids. Therefore, optimization of C17:0 in lipids and its antitumor potential against lung cancer cells require further investigation.”

Interestingly enough, anemia, which is almost always present in cancer patients, is apparently preventable and preventable and treatable by PA (as per the studies above), at least in amimals. Most substances that improve one of these biomarkers usually exacerbate the other – i.e. aspirin is well-known to lower body stores of iron (i.e. ferritin, iron saturation index, etc), however it can readily cause anemia if it is taken in high doses for a few weeks or months, and the high doses are often needed for conditions such as diabetes, CVD, cancer, etc. Thus, the combination of PA and HA seems to have the, possibly unique, property of ameliorating anemia while also preventing/treating iron toxicity. Needless to say, given the effects of PA and HA describes so far, those fatty acids may be synergistic with aspirin and other pro-metabolic and anti-inflammatory chemicals like it.

On an somewhat related and very interesting note, a pair of studies demonstrated that PA and HA can be extracted from algal and fish oils. This suggests that the numerous studies on the benefits of fish/algal oil consumption may be legitimate findings but ascribing the benefits to the wrong constituents – i.e. omega-3 fatty acids instead of odd-chain SFA such as PA and HA.

2 links here

Now, it turns out that PA in its free acid form is not very easy to source. As such, I decided to research an alternative to using the pre-formed PA in the formulation to be sold by IdeaLabs. One such alternative is the alcohol of PA, known as 1-pentadecanol (PD). In addition to metabolizing in the body into PA, this long-chain fatty alcohol seems to have some interesting properties of its own, specifically anti-bacterial activity, especially when applied topically as many of our products are designed to be. Most of the research on PD so far seems to be focused on using it as a nutraceutical for acne.

link here

“…A 1994 study evaluated 1-pentadecanol as a potential anti-acne, link here agent. While primary alcohols were known to be effective against Gram-positive, link here bacteria, it was previously found that free fatty acids, link here and alcohols between C8 and C14 were skin irritants, link here. Since the effect had ended at C15, several longer-chain alcohols were evaluated for their activity against Propionibacterium acnes, link here; 1-pentadecanol was found to have a minimum inhibitory concentration, link here (MIC) of 0.78 μg, link here/mL and a minimum bactericidal concentration, link here of 1.56 μg/mL.[15], link here”

“…In a 1995 paper by the same research group, the 0.78 μg/mL MIC against P. acnes was replicated, and remained the lowest MIC against P. acnes among all primary alcohols, link here tested (from C6 to C20). 1-Pentadecanol was, additionally, found to have a MIC of 6.25 μg/mL against Brevibacterium ammoniagenes, link here, and a MIC greater than 800 μg/mL (essentially, no effect) against the dermatomycotic, link here yeast Pityrosporum ovale, link here. It, along with 1-hexadecanol, link here, was found to be selectively antimicrobial against P. acnes and not other Gram-positive bacteria (unlike other alcohols, like 1-dodecanol, link here, that were more broadly antimicrobial to all Gram-positive bacteria).[16], link here”

Interestingly, PD has also been found to have anti-bacterial effects in regards to the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis, link here, the primary causative agent of tuberculosis in humans. Now, while that is great news in and of itself, it suggests that PD may also have anti-bacterial effects against the closely-related pathogen Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP), link here, which is the proposed causative agent in humans of the autoimmune inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) condition known as Crohn’s Disease (CD), link here. Interestingly, the MAP pathogen is proposed to be also the causative agent of the autoimmune condition known as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), link here. While it is not yet known whether PD would have an anti-bacterial effects against other species comprising our microbiome, the research on other, closely-related fatty alcohols suggest that it may, which may also make it a good candidate as a nutraceutical for endotoxin/LPS. Thus, it seems that using PD instead of PA may be a safer alternative (legally) to PA, while also providing additional effects that PA itself does not have.

In summary, given the extensive evidence of health benefits from consuming dairy fat, as well as the studies narrowing down the effects to specific SFA found in dairy – specifically PA (C15:0) and HA – we decided to release a product  – named LipOdd, after the odd-chain lipids – containing both of those lipids in the ratio at which they are found in dairy fat. Instead of using pre-formed PA, the product contains the precursor known as PD. The suggested daily serving provides sufficient amounts of PA and HA to match the design of most studies mentioned above and below (references). Of course, with PD and HA being simply lipids with apparently non-toxic effects even in high doses (as per the publicly available toxicity data), one could take higher daily doses to determine if there is dose-dependent benefit increase. It is also possible that even lower daily doses than the suggested serving may be needed to observe benefits. Namely, the studies listed above and the reference section below almost invariably studied the effects of either PA/PD or HA, but not a combination of both. The amounts provided by LipOdd in a single serving are based on those studies with the individual fats. At the same time, both PA and HA are present in dairy (in a ratio of roughly 2:1) and we have extensive evidence for the health benefits of consuming even low amounts of dairy fat daily, which suggests a synergistic effect of PA/PD and HA and thus the possibility that lower doses than the suggested daily serving of LipOdd would do.

****************************************************************************

LipOdd is a liquid (but very viscous) product containing the odd-chain saturated lipids known as 1-pentadecanol (C15-OH) and heptadecanoic acid (HA, C17:0). Those odd-chain lipds are found primarily in dairy, but also in lipids of marine origin and various plants. The latter may explain the much-touted benefit of eating fatty fish, which has unfortunately been ascribed to omega-3, which are anything but beneficial. PA/PD and HA have been the subject of an extensive list of studies in regards to obesity, diabetes, inflammation, fibrosis, cancer, depression, neurodegenerative conditions, anemia, ferrotoxicity , mitochondrial function, metabolism, aging and lifespan. It can be bought from the link here link.

Serving size: 20 drops

Servings per container: about 30

Each serving contains the following ingredients:

1-Pentadecanol           (C15-OH):  100mg

Heptadecanoic acid     (C17:0):       50mg

Other ingredients: add product to shopping cart to see info

****************************************************************************

References:

1. Studies with both PA (C15:0) and HA (C17:0)

14 links here

 

2. Studies with PA (C15:0)

29 links here

 

3. Studies with HA (C17:0)

8 links here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2408.mp3" length="5644940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:12:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>How adrenochrome works – it is a potent oxidizer/quinone and serotonin antagonist</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2401</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2401</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Nov 2023 18:10:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2401

As most of my readers know, the topic of adrenochrome is perhaps one of the most controversial in both politics and medicine, due to its purported harvesting from children and usage for anti-aging purposes, as well as due to its purported role in causing schizophrenia and a number of other mental disorders.

link here

Interestingly, despite enjoying almost equal popularity and controversy with LSD back in the middle of the 20th century, official publications on adrenochrome all but disappeared and it became more of an urban legend as a chemical used by the elite to delay/reverse aging. Putting the scary stories about its harvesting aside, it looks like adrenochrome may indeed be a legit anti-aging remedy. First, it is a powerful oxidizing agent, with its quinone-like structure arranged so that its carbonyl groups are in the 2,3-position, or in other words an ortho-quinone. A number of recent studies have demonstrated that ortho-quinones have much stronger effects as oxidizing agents, compared to para-quinones or even less potent oxidizing agents where the carbonyl groups are in a different geometrical shapes). Case in point, the molecule 2,3-naphthoquinone (2,3-NQ) is currently considered the most potent among the naphtho-, benzo- and anthra- types of quinones, and adrenochrome is structurally very similar, with the same carbonyl arrangements as 2,3-NQ. In other words, adrenochrome is a powerful stimulant of oxidative metabolism.

link here

The anti-cancer molecule beta-lapachone, link here is also an ortho-quinone and Dr. William Koch stated multiple times in his writings that the ortho-quinones such as beta-lapachone that he extracted from the bark of the Pau D’Arco tree were his preferred agents for not only treating cancer but increasing vitality and systemic health. The fact that adrenochrome decreases the decarboxylation of glutamic acid, as per the study below, suggests that it has an effect similar to vitamin K  (another potent quinone, albeit in the para-configuration, with known benefits for health and lifespan). In addition, apparently adrenochrome is also a potent non-selective serotonin antagonist and, as such, was the basis for the development of the synthetic drug Iprazochrome.

link here

“…Chemically, it is a derivative of adrenochrome, link here, which is a product of adrenaline, link here oxidation. And it is a derivative of carbazochrome, link here as well.”

We already know that serotonin antagonists  are capable of extending maximum lifespan by 30%-40% percent, which is way beyond what caloric restriction can achieve. Interestingly, a number of high-profile LSD-users advocated back in the 1960s and 1970s usage of LSD not only for its psychedelic effects but also due to its health benefits (in lower doses). These beneficial effects were a major reason why eventually Big Pharma got involved and developed several non-hallucinogenic LSD derivatives (bromocriptine, cabergoline, nicergoline, methysergide, metergoline, lisuride, etc) for official use as (expensive) clinical drugs.

Increasing serotonin (5-HT) breakdown delays/prevents aging, link here

3 links here

So, the urban legend may turn out to be true as there are several solid biochemical reasons to use adrenochrome as an anti-aging remedy. These effects of adrenochrome also directly call into question the official recommendations to lower metabolic rate and increase serotonin, as a methods for improving health and increasing lifespan. Now, since the general public has no interest in harvesting adrenochrome, something more benign such as a combination of vitamin K and famotidine/cyproheptadine/Benadryl, or maybe even the drug Iprazochrome mentioned above, would probably suffice to replicate the effects of adrenochrome.

link here (“On the antagonistic effect of adrenochrome on serotonin in smooth muscle organs”)

link here

“…Adrenochrome markedly inhibits decarboxylation of glutamic acid in brain tissue (Holtz and Westermann, 1956), oxidizes simple amino acids, and is polymerized to brownish melanin pigments in brain, intestinal mucosa, and skin. It is an antagonist of serotonin (Stern et al., 19.56). However, its action is not always inhibitory or toxic. Derouaux and Roskam ( 1949) found that sympathetic nerves in the rabbit’s ear did not fatigue as rapidly in the presence of adrenochrome. On the other hand Marrazzi ( 1957) and Hart et al. ( 1956) reported adrenochrome inhibited synaptic transmission as did epinephrine. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2401.mp3" length="1713356" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PARADOX: Cortisol promotes inflammation, drives Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2399</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2399</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2023 19:42:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2399

It looks like serotonin (5-HT), commonly known as the “happy hormone” has a serious competitor for the title of the most grossly mischaracterized substance in medicine. That serious competitor is cortisol, in both its synthetic and bioidentical forms, commonly known as the “master of inflammation”. Namely, there is hardly an inflammatory condition/state, whether acute of chronic, where glucocorticoids (GC) are not prescribed like candy with the rationale that this is the most potent anti-inflammatory therapy available. However, if one checks the literature not promoted on pharma-sponsored journals peddling ghostwritten and likely fraudulent articles, link here, one quickly discovers that just like 5-HT, the steroidal GC are pretty much opposite in effects as what is promoted publicly. Well, at least in the long run. There is no doubt that GC have acute anti-inflammatory effects, but as several of my recent posts have shown that benefit is more than offset by the pro-inflammatory effects of GC in the form of increasing the expression of major pathways of inflammation such as COX, LOX, TLR4, TLR9, etc. So, even while GC are still being used the major pathways of inflammation are already pumping out more inflammatory mediators, which probably explains why GC gradually lose their effect when used chronically – i.e. their anti-inflammatory effects gradually get overwhelmed by the pro-inflammatory ones. And since GC are now known to stimulate their own synthesis and promote inflammation, one would expect GC to be causal factors in many chronic diseases. I already did posts on studies showing GC promote cardiovascular disease (CVD), obesity, diabetes, liver disease, and cancer. Now, the study below demonstrates that the stimulating effects of GC on one of the inflammatory pathways mentioned above (LOX) is at the core of the development and progression of AD – a fatal, progressive disease with no officially recognized cure.  Combining that finding with the well-known elevation of blood coritsol levels in people with dementia/AD leaves little doubt that GC are a causal factor and that GC therapy should almost never be administered to such patients. Yet, GC therapy is one of the most common intervention in elderly patients, mos of whom have some form of dementia/AD, often for treating inflammatory conditions such as arthritis. And the fact that GC apparently have a positive-feedback synthesis mechanism peripherally, makes GC therapy one of the most detrimental interventions medicine could use on any person, young and old alike. The good news from the study is that simply inhibiting the inflammatory pathway LOX promoted by GC was sufficient to prevent the AD pathology. I would add that blocking excessive GC activity is also likely to help, as other studies have demonstrated with the anti-cortisol drug RU486. So, once again a combination of aspirin and pregnenolone or progesterone seems like a pretty good option for yet another deadly and “incurable” condition with a rather mundane/obvious cause.

link here

“…Psychosocial stress has been suggested to be one important environmental factor that can influence AD age of onset and/or development [3], link here. Several clinical studies have linked dysregulation of stress hormone levels, such as glucocorticoids, with AD pathogenesis. Plasma cortisol levels are increased in subjects with mild cognitive impairment and in AD patients [4], link here–[6], link here. Recently, it has been demonstrated that chronic stress and glucocorticoids promote amyloid beta (Aβ) deposition and tau accumulation in transgenic mouse models of AD [7], link here, [8], link here. Among the different biological actions, dexamethasone is known to increase the expression levels of the 5-Lipoxygenase (5-LO), an enzyme widely expressed in the central nervous system (CNS) where it localizes mainly in neuronal cells [9], link here. Previous studies have reported that 5-LO immunoreactivity is increased in hippocampi of AD patients, and that its protein levels are higher in cortex and hippocampus, but not cerebellum, of AD brains when compared with healthy controls [10], link here, [11], link here. Further, genetic absence of 5-LO results in a significant reduction of brain Aβ levels and deposition in a transgenic AD mouse model, suggesting that this enzymatic pathway plays a functional role in modulating the amyloidotic phenotype of this model [11], link here. In the present study, we sought to determine whether 5-LO was involved in the glucocorticoid-dependent Aβ elevation. To this end, we investigated the effect of dexamethasone on Aβ formation and metabolism in the presence and in the absence of 5-LO enzymatic activity in vitro and in vivo. Here we confirm that glucocorticoid challenge enhances the synthesis of Aβ, and report the novel finding that pharmacological blockade or genetic absence of 5-LO prevents this biological effect. Our findings underscore a new mechanism by which psychological stress affects AD-like amyloid pathology and suggest that 5-LO could be a therapeutic target in individuals where stress management or pharmacological reduction of glucocorticoids approaches are not applicable.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2399.mp3" length="1470812" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Most cancers overproduce cortisol, and it accelerates their growth</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2396</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2396</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2023 19:02:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2396

This post is right on the heels of the one I just did on cortisol stimulating its own production and driving cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, etc. The study below demonstrates that most tumor types known to medicine overexpress the rate-limiting enzyme for cortisol synthesis known as 11beta-HSD1, link here. This overexpression results in local glucocorticoid (GC) excess, similar in magnitude to the one seen in the study I posted about atheroma and CVD/stroke. And like its causal role in obesity, diabetes, CVD progression the study below shows that cortisol also has a causal role in the progression of all those tumor/cancer types. In other words, tumor cells are stuck in a positive-feedback mechanism of cortisol production and this directly contributes to the growth of the tumor and its metastasis. Conversely, inhibiting 11beta-HSD1 greatly reduced tumor growth. What is particularly sad about this is that, unlike diabetes/CVD, GC therapy is common in virtually all cancer cases and is often considered part of the “standard of care” treatments. So, just as with the common usage of GC therapy in COVID-19 that often led to further immunosuppression and (paradoxically) increased inflammation, we now see that GC usage may be a big deleterious factor in cancer treatments as well. Emodin, aspirin, pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, DHT, etc are probably viable options to tackle the peripheral GC excess. Coincidentally, there are multiple studies with those substances demonstrating remission or even complete regression of various cancers, in further corroboration of the pro-cancer effects of glucocorticoids.

2 links here

“…Glucocorticoids are steroid hormones with potent immunosuppressive properties. Their primary source is the adrenals, where they are generated via de novo synthesis from cholesterol. In addition, many tissues have a recycling pathway in which glucocorticoids are regenerated from inactive metabolites by the enzyme 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11β-HSD1, encoded by Hsd11b1). Here, we find that multiple tumor types express Hsd11b1 and produce active glucocorticoids. Genetic ablation of Hsd11b1 in such cells had no effect on in vitro growth, but reduced in vivo tumor progression, which corresponded with increased frequencies of CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) expressing activation markers and producing effector cytokines. Tumor-derived glucocorticoids were found to promote signatures of Treg activation and suppress signatures of conventional T cell activation in tumor-infiltrating Tregs. Indeed, CD8+ T cell activation was restored and tumor growth reduced in mice with Treg-specific glucocorticoid receptor deficiency. Importantly, pharmacologic inhibition of 11β-HSD1 reduced tumor growth to the same degree as gene knockout and rendered immunotherapy-resistant tumors susceptible to PD-1 blockade. Given that HSD11B1 expression is upregulated in many human tumors and that inhibition of 11β-HSD1 is well tolerated in clinical studies, these data suggest that targeting 11β-HSD1 may be a beneficial adjunct in cancer therapy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2396.mp3" length="861620" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cortisol stimulates its own synthesis (peripherally), drives obesity/diabetes/CVD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2394</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2394</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2023 18:16:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2394

Synthetic/bioidentical glucocorticoids (GC) are perhaps the most widely used steroids clinically. In addition, the HPA axis, culminating in cortisol production, is one of the most widely studied mechanisms in regards to many chronic diseases including obesity, diabetes,  CVD, mental conditions, neurodegenerative conditions, etc. It is well-known that cortisol, like several other end-point hormones (e.g. T4, T3, testosterone, aldosterone, etc) has a negative feedback mechanism centrally. In other words, cortisol is subject to robust self-regulation and as such medicine says endogenous cortisol is unlikely to ever be a causal factor in diseases, except in cases where that negative feedback mechanism is malfunctioning (e.g. Cushing syndrome/disease, glucocorticoid resistance, etc). This negative feedback mechanism is one of the main arguments mainstream medicine has been using to deny a causal role of cortisol in conditions with otherwise obvious hyper-glucocorticoid phenotype – obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, hypothyroidism, etc. Indeed, blood tests done on people with such diseases rarely show significantly elevated cortisol. However, all of those conditions are “peripheral” conditions, so while the central negative feedback mechanism of cortisol may be intact and working this does not explain much in regards to what is happening in organs and tissues. Just like estrogen, it is quite possible that there can be GC excess in those tissue that is not reflected in blood levels since GC can be synthesized locally/peripherally in tissues, while the blood GC levels mostly represent adrenal function. The studies below shows that there is not only precisely such peripheral GC excess present, but that cortisol stimulates its own synthesis peripherally by increasing the expression of the rate-limiting enzyme for cortisol synthesis known as 11beta-HSD1, link here – i.e. a positive feedback cycle peripherally, in contrast to the negative feedback cycle centrally. That positive feedback cycle is what apparently drives atheroma (plaque) formation and progression, ultimately leading to ischemic heart attacks and strokes. That same positive feedback mechanism is what apparently drives obesity and diabetes. It is worth pointing out that in blood vessels with atheroma the expression of 11beta-HSD1 is apparently 2-10 times higher than in healthy vessels. The same is likely true about this enzyme’s expression in tissues of people with diabetes and obesity. In other words, a person with obesity/diabetes can have 2-10 times higher peripheral cortisol levels than a healthy person, and these are levels that if present in the blood would easily qualify said person for a Cushing disease/syndrome diagnosis. Thus, our intuition appears to be correct, once again. Namely, one look at any aging person over 50 invariably discovers multiple symptoms of GC excess such as central obesity, sarcopenia, fat accumulation around the neck/shoulders (a hump), neck/throat hair, atrophied skin/nails, etc. As such, measures should be taken to address this peripheral GC excess since it is not at all benign, but a direct cause of the most common chronic conditions in the “developed” world. Aspirin’s metabolite salicylic acid is known to inhibitor the expression of 11beta-HSD1, link here. Progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, DHT and other androgens are known to inhibit the activity of 11beta-HSD1 and some of them even increase the activity of the cortisol-deactivating enzyme 11b-HSD2. Most of those steroids are also antagonists at the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), as is the powerful synthetic GR antagonist Mifepristone/RU486. So, an example of a decent and cheap anti-cortisol regimen using over-the-counter substances would be a combination of aspirin and, say, pregnenolone.

2 links here

“…High cortisol and aldosterone levels increase cardiovascular risk, but the respective roles of each hormone within the arterial wall remain controversial. We tested the hypothesis that cortisol production within the arterial wall may contribute to atherosclerotic remodeling and act through illicit activation of the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR). Gene expression studies of the corticoid system components and marker genes of the atherosclerotic process in human carotid atheroma plaque and nearby macroscopically intact tissue (MIT) were considered together with clinical data and compared with pharmacological stimulations of human vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in contractile or lipid-storing phenotypes. The components of corticoid production and action were present and active within the human carotid wall and VSMCs. Atheroma plaque and lipid-storing VSMCs expressed 11β-hydroxysteroid deshydrogenase-1 (11β-HSD1) at two- to tenfold higher levels than MIT or contractile VSMCs. The 11β-HSD1 expression was stimulated by cortisol and cortisone, especially in lipid-storing VSMCs. MR mRNA level was lower in atheroma and lipid-storing VSMCs and downregulated via MR by fludrocortisone and cortisol. Cortisol upregulated collagen1 and MCP-1 mRNAs via the glucocorticoid receptor (GRα), in both VSMC phenotypes, whereas fludrocortisone stimulated the collagen1 expression only in lipid-storing VSMCs. The GRα mRNA level in MIT was higher in patients with previous stroke and correlated positively with the collagen1 mRNA but negatively with diastolic blood pressure. Local cortisol production by 11β-HSD1, and its action via high parietal GRα could be relevant from the first step of atherosclerotic remodeling and auto-amplify with transdifferentiation of VSMCs during atheroma progression.”

link here

“…The evidence outlined in the present review indicates that perturbations in adrenocortical steroidogenesis have an important impact on food intake, glucose metabolism, lipid storage, and energy balance: 1) chronic stress-induced GC excess is associated with increased food intake and abdominal/visceral obesity; 2) the increase in aldosterone also favors adipogenesis and is responsible for hypertension along with concomitant risks of developing atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases; 3) GC enhance 11β-HSD1 expression, thereby presumably amplifying local GC production, notably in visceral adipose tissue; 4) the overall increase in GC (systemic and/or local) leads to insulin resistance, mainly at the adipose tissue, liver, and skeletal muscle level; 5) aldosterone and the overall increase in GC are associated with hyperactivity of the RAS, notably at the adipose tissue level, which further stimulates GC and aldosterone production. When initiated, these perturbations thus induce a feed-forward loop that contributes to maintaining all of these systems in activated mode such as an endless spiral: more GC in the systemic and/or local level leads to more GC at the adipocyte level, which leads to more insulin resistance, more aldosterone, and more local production of ANG II, etc. In humans, perturbations of local androgen production and metabolism, which are supplied in part by adrenal precursors, also appear to be involved in a sex-dependent fashion. Thus, dysregulation of adrenocortical steroidogenic activities, in interaction with hyperactivity of the hypothalamo-pituitary complex and of the RAS as well as increased GC reactivation and altered androgen metabolism at local levels, may all be involved in the development of obesity and insulin resistance, henceforth leading to metabolic syndrome-associated pathologies such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and cardiovascular diseases (Fig. 4, link here).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2394.mp3" length="1881692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) can cause gastro-intestinal (GI) polyps, precursors to GI cancers</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2390</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2390</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Nov 2023 19:12:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2390

The bad news for the “happy hormone” keep streaming into the public consciousness, despite the gargantuan effort to censor such information and double-down on serotonin (just like estrogen) as the best thing our bodies can get. The study below discovered that the development of polyps anywhere in the GI tract is driven by 5-HT and, as most of my readers know, GI polyps are a precursor condition to the dreaded intestinal (mostly colon) and gastric (GI) cancers. The rates for those cancers have not only been skyrocketing over the last 10-15 years but are know diagnosed mostly in young people, despite being considered “old people cancers” since their discoveries. The good news is that the study also found that inhibiting 5-HT synthesis can prevent such polyps from developing or potentially even treat already established ones. Serotonin receptor antagonists were also found by other studies (see study below with PMID 22609381) to have a similarly inhibitory effect on polyps. Yay!

Now, I showed this study to a few doctors I correspond with and their immediate reaction was that this finding about 5-HT’s causative role in polyps (and potentially GI cancer) formation was only in regards to a specific condition known as Cronkhite-Canada syndrome. However, as my readers know well by now, the word “syndrome” is simply a medical euphemism for either fraud or incompetence, and this seems to be the case for this specific “syndrome” as well. Namely, it has no specific diagnostic test(s) and its symptoms almost perfectly overlap with symptoms seen in obesity, diabetes, and aging in general – nail atrophy and skin pigmentation – with aging, obesity and diabetes being known risk factors for polyps and GI cancers. Hhmm, I wonder (not!) if 5-HT may also be capable of causing obesity, diabetes and aging…:-)

link here

“..There is no specific test to diagnose Cronkhite–Canada syndrome. Diagnosis is based on symptoms and features of the disease.[8], link here”

In other words, the GI polyps seen in people with this “syndrome” are the exact same kind as the ones diagnosed through routine colonoscopies/endoscopies and aggressively excised with the hope of preventing them from turning into cancer.

“…Polyps, link here are found throughout the GI tract (most frequently in the stomach, link here and large intestine, link here, followed by the small intestine, link here) though typically avoid the esophagus, link here.[6], link here A biopsy, link here will reveal them to be hamartomas, link here; the possibility that they progress to cancer is generally considered to be low,[7], link here although it has been reported multiple times in the past.”

So, the evidence from this study and the lack of any substantive difference between this “mysterious” syndrome and the polyps found in the general population during screenings, seems to me to suggest that 5-HT can once again be labelled as a villain in yet another devastating epidemic – the GI cancers, which are now targeting the youngest segment of adults (and even teens). The fact that SSRI drug prescription rates have also been skyrocketing in the same time period of skyrocketing GI cancer rates is a good corroboration of the pathological role 5-HT has in those cancers. And if this is not enough to convince a person of just how dangerous 5-HT is, here is another study demonstrating the pathological effects of serotonin, and specifically SSRI drugs on GI health and especially on polyp development.

link here

You see, the “funny” part in this story is that 5-HT used to be considered a very dangerous endogenous amine up until the SSRI drugs hit the market. The role of 5-HT in GI cancers was well-known due to studies of people with the so-called carcinoid tumors, which have the uncanny ability to generate secondary, non-endocrine tumors elsewhere in the GI tract, and the patient would usually die not from the primary of secondary tumors but from the massive disseminated fibrosis the chronically elevated 5-HT levels would cause in such patients. So, the fact that medicine knew for a fact that 5-HT was very, very dangerous and now only was this knowledge “lost” but turned onto its head, is hard for me to chalk off to stupidity. I think it is fair to say that SSRI drugs would probably go down in history as one of the most evil and globally-devastating medical intervention ever designed.

link here

Human mini guts reveal new insights into Cronkhite-Canada syndrome and potential new therapies, link here

“…More than 90% of serotonin in the body is produced by the enteroendocrine cells in the intes­tinal tract. Although serotonin is best known for its role as a neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, it also affects a variety of functions in other organs, including some tasks of the intestinal epithelium. “Supporting the novel role of serotonin in intestinal epithelial proliferation, we found that treating non-Cronkhite-Canada syndrome organoids with serotonin increased their proliferation and inhibiting serotonin production in the Cronkhite-Canada syndrome organoids decreased proliferation, suggesting a link between local serotonin production and control of epithelial intestinal cell proliferation,” said Blutt, associate professor of molecular virology and microbiology, link here at Baylor and corresponding author of the work….The findings suggest the potential benefit of serotonin inhibitors to treat this condition.””

“…5HT was inhibited using L-DOPA, or 3,4-Dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine (Sigma-Aldrich). L-DOPA inhibits 5HT synthesis by blocking the function of TPH1, the critical enzyme for conversion of tryptophan to 5HT. L-DOPA was diluted to a concentration of 600 ng in 1 M Tris HCl (78, link here) and was added to the matrigel at plating and the media every day for 3 days. Cells were pulsed with EdU 24 hours before organoid harvest.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2390.mp3" length="1911092" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Increasing serotonin (5-HT) breakdown delays/prevents aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2388</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2388</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Nov 2023 16:41:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2388

The naked mole rat (NMR) is one of the most fascinating species. Despite being a humble rodent, much smaller than a regular house/city rat, the NMR has an exceptionally long life-span of 35+ years (compared to 2-3 years for the common rat) and on top of that is remarkably resistant to the effects of aging – i.e. NMR even in their 30s remain very active, fertile and youthful, without any of the chronic diseases affecting the common rat (e.g. cancer, infections, vascular disease, etc). In other words, not only does the NMR live long, it stays biologically young and highly functional for the vast majority of its lifespan. As such, the NMR has been subjected to numerous studies trying to unravel the secrets of its longevity and health. Unfortunately, most such studies try to come up with genetic explanations, despite complete lack of evidence implicating genes. A much simpler explanation for the exception NMR longevity may be the fact that those rodents live in deep burrows that they almost never leave, and as such are chronically exposed to CO2 ambient concentrations that are many-fold higher than the CO2 exposure of the common rat. One of the results of breathing high-CO2 air is increased uptake and degradation of serotonin (5-HT). Aside from 5-HT having a known role in chronic diseases, the study below now demonstrates that 5-HT may also have a crucial role in aging – i.e. it is the uniquely upregulated degradation of 5-HT in the NMR that prevents the accumulation of senescent (old) cells, thus largely preventing the “old” phenotype in these animals regardless of their age. Aside from increasing endogenous CO2 levels, other interventions that may achieve the same effect in humans is intake of substances known to upregulate the activity of the monoamine-oxidase type A (MAO-A) enzyme discussed in the study. Such substances are vitamin B2 (riboflavin), copper, magnesium, progesterone, and androgens. Obviously, reducing 5-HT synthesis is probably an even better approach, and can be achieved by avoiding dietary tryptophan and/or inhibiting its absorption from the GI tract. Gelatin and aspirin are probably the most appropriate interventions for addressing the tryptophan angle.

2 links here

“…Naked mole-rats have the longest life span among all rodents and can resist aging and the age-related diseases. However, the precise mechanisms underlying this ability are largely unclear. In a new study, Japanese researchers have identified a unique species-specific “natural senolytic” or senescent cell-removal mechanism in NMRs, involving serotonin metabolism and the INK4a-RB signaling axis. Their findings provide useful insights into ways to resist aging and age-related diseases, including cancer. The study is published in The EMBO Journal. Heterocephalus glaber or naked mole-rats, link here (NMRs)—a mammal species, link here native to Eastern Africa—are the longest-living rodents with an exceptionally long lifespan of over 37 years with a unique ability to delay aging and resist age-related diseases, such as cancer. For these reasons, NMRs have attracted a lot of attention, with researchers hoping to unravel the mechanisms contributing to their longevity.”

“…The Department of Aging and Longevity Research, Kumamoto University is the only center in Japan which breeds NMRs and conducts research on their resistance to aging and cancer. Explaining the rationale behind their study, Professor Miura, states, “Senolysis or the targeted removal of senescent cells has been shown to inhibit aging-related decline in mice.””

“…They observed that induction of cellular senescence led to cessation of cell proliferation due to arrest of the cell cycle with the activation of INK4a and RB (important factors for induction of cellular senescence), in both NMR- and mouse-fibroblasts. However, only NMR cells gradually and significantly activated cell death, suggesting that senescent cell accumulation in NMRs may be suppressed through their removal. Through further experiments, the researchers observed that there was an accumulation of serotonin (a neurotransmitter that sends signals between nerve cells) in the non-senescent NMR-fibroblasts, but not in the mouse-fibroblasts. Upon senescence induction, in NMR cells, serotonin was metabolized by monoamine oxidase (MAO; an enzyme highly activated in senescent NMR fibroblasts after induction of cellular senescence) and converted to 5-hydroxyindole acetic acid (5-HIAA; a metabolite), releasing large amounts of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). The team proposed that oxidative stress due to the intracellular production of H2O2 predisposed the senescent NMR fibroblasts to the cell death pathway, thus leading to senolysis (selective removal of senescent cells). This was confirmed by the observation that the addition of MAO inhibitors and antioxidants inhibited cell death in NMR fibroblasts.”

“…Furthermore, treatment with the MAO inhibitor significantly suppressed cell death but increased the number of senescent cells only in NMR lung on day 21. This suggests that MAO plays a role in inducing cell death and reducing the number of senescent cells following the induction of cellular senescence, link here in NMR lung cells. These results are consistent with the in vitro findings and suggest that MAO contributes to suppress the accumulation of senescent cells in NMR tissues.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2388.mp3" length="1116212" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dopaminergic/antiserotonin drug treats schizophrenia – psychiatry is a giant FRAUD!</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2383</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2383</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 31 Oct 2023 15:55:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2383

Some people make take issue with the title and claim that it is too dramatic. In this case, at least, the title may even be an understatement in regards to evidence of just how utterly FRAUDULENT psychiatry is and has been for decades. Speaking of the latter, psychiatry has claimed for decades that psychotic diseases, and especially schizophrenia, are caused by excessive dopamine signalling/levels. As such, psychiatry has been treating patients with “antipsychotic” drugs that are potent dopamine antagonists. The drug haloperidol, link here, is perhaps the most widely used “typical” antipsychotic for the treatment of schizophrenia, as well as most other psychotic states. It is a potent dopamine antagonist and while it does seem to alleviate psychotic symptoms, it has terrible side effects including depression, infertility, suicide, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, etc. Over the last several years, additional studies into the drug’s mechanism of action uncovered that the drug is also a potent serotonin (5-HT) antagonist, as even its Wikipedia page (above link) readily admits. Of course, those studies never saw any publicity and if you ask any psychiatrist about haloperidol, he/she will invariably still claim that the drug’s mechanism is its dopamine antagonism. Other studies (going back almost a century) with carcinoid tumors, which produce a lot of 5-HT, have demonstrated that such patients often have mental/mood symptoms identical to schizophrenia – i.e. they are highly psychotic, and the severity of their psychosis closely matches how advanced their carcinoid tumor is, which translates into how much 5-HT that tumor produces. In other words, there has been indirect evidence for decades that it is 5-HT excess, and not dopamine excess, that causes schizophrenia. Yet, psychiatry kept doubling-down on its fraudulent dopamine hypothesis. In the last decade or so, newer drugs for schizophrenia were developed and were called “atypical” antipsychotics since their mechanism of action could not be explained by dopamine antagonism. All such drugs have one thing in common – they are antagonists on one or more 5-HT receptors. However, since many of them also have partial dopamine antagonism effects as well, psychiatry still managed to cling to the dopamine hypothesis. Now, a new drug has shown effectiveness in a Phase III human trial for schizophrenia, and that drug should be the straw that breaks the camel’s back – i.e. the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia, and hopefully psychiatry as a whole. That drug – brilaroxazine, link here – is a dopamine agonist and a 5-HT antagonist, on multiple receptors of either kind. I am not sure what is the statute of limitations on medical malpractice in most countries, but I hope the relatives of people destroyed by the fraudulent dopamine hypothesis and drugs such as haloperidol unite and put in jail as many psychiatrists as they can. To the doctors’ minor “credit”, Big Pharma is probably a bigger villain here as it was instrumental in creating the dopamine hypothesis, which came out of its partnerships with government agencies on how to “antagonize” the mental/social effects of LSD (also a dopamine agonist and approximate serotonin antagonist). Namely, governments in the West were terrified that the effects of a drug such as LSD, which the governments tested extensively on humans (see video below) during the Cold War, would lead to mass insubordination in the military, and anarchy in society.

link here

So, they contracted Big Pharma to propagandize the message that (dopaminergic) drugs like LSD made people act crazy, and to also develop drugs that work in a way opposite to drugs such as LSD. The result of this “collaboration” was that psychiatry readily deduced that since dopamine (or dopaminergic drugs) make people act crazy and schizophrenics do act crazy, high dopamine is the cause of schizophrenia and anti-dopamine drugs should be its treatment. And since Big Pharma came up with the SSRI drugs as the “antagonists” to LSD, psychiatry also often added SSRI drugs to the treatment of schizophrenics, thus ensuring that their mental (and physiological) health is completely destroyed. Add to that the recent evidence I posted thatserotonin/SSRI cause depression while anti-serotonin drugs treat it, link here, and I think even the most ardent defenders of medicine will agree that it is way overdue we see some high-profile psychiatric and Big Pharma luminaries go to jail for the genocide and fraud that has been perpetrated for decades.

Brilaroxazine Improves Symptoms in Patients With Schizophrenia, link here

“…Treatment with brilaroxazine was associated with clinically meaningful reductions in all major symptom domains in adults with schizophrenia, according to positive topline data from a pivotal phase 3 trial.”

“…The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter RECOVER trial (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05184335, link here) evaluated the efficacy and safety of brilaroxazine, a novel serotonin-dopamine signaling modulator, in 412 patients with acute schizophrenia. Study participants were randomly assigned to receive either brilaroxazine at fixed doses of 15mg or 50mg once daily or placebo for 28 days. ”

link here

“…Brilaroxazine acts as a potent partial agonist, link here of D2, link here, D3, link here, D4, link here and 5-HT1A, link here receptors, and as an antagonist, link here of 5-HT2A, link here, 5-HT2B, link here, 5-HT2C, link here, 5-HT6, link here and 5-HT7, link here receptors.[9], link here[11], link here Brilaroxazine exhibits high affinity, link here for D2S, D2L, D3, D4.4, 5-HT1A, 5-HT2A, 5-HT2B, 5-HT7 and H1, link here receptors…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2383.mp3" length="2170292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Even a single endotoxin/LPS exposure has long-lasting health effects</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2380</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2380</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 17:41:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2380

I am posting this study simply as an example of how profound the effect of endotoxin/LPS is on an organism’s energy levels and behavior. A single exposure to supra-physiological (though non-toxic) LPS levels resulted in the animals increasing their night rest period for an hour or more for up to three (3) weeks after the exposure. In other words, an acute/single LPS exposure has chronic effects. According to the study, the increased rest seen in the animal model was a surrogate for the lower energy levels of the animals as a result of LPS exposure – i.e. their increased rest was aimed at both conserving energy as well as restoring its levels to normal. This is a confirmation that LPS is a much bigger factor in our health than mainstream medicine likes to admit. Namely, a single bout of elevated LPS as a result of, say, eating a meal high in “resistant” starch and/or a night out drinking with friends can suppress our metabolism and have health consequences for weeks. This is something most people (and doctors) probably don’t even think about – i.e. that dietary decisions on a single day can affect their health (as well as mood, cognition, movement, etc) weeks down the road. Perhaps, with increasing number of studies like the one below, medicine and society as a whole will acknowledge the crucial role of LPS in our systemic health and change dietary recommendations away from consuming foods that actually promote LPS (e.g. resistant starch, nuts, seeds, etc). Another interesting observation of the article is that LPS actually suppressed the animals’ immune system, instead of activating it. LPS is commonly used as an “adjuvant” in human vaccines and other immunomodulatory therapies precisely due to its purported stimulating effect on the immune system. If it is, in fact, an immuno-suppressant, imagine how dangerous LPS can be when present in a vaccine for, say, COVID-19 or flu or any other infectious disease, where even a slight suppression of the immune system can be lethal.

2 links here

“…The experiment consisted of capturing 45 of the birds, affixing very tiny accelerometers to their backs, injecting half of them with lipopolysaccharide and then setting them all free. Lipopolysaccharide is a compound that makes animals, such as birds, feel as if they have been infected by a bacteria—it does so by damping the immune system, link here.”

“…The research team suggests their findings were not a surprise; birds do not store fat, which means they must keep moving and looking for food or they will run out of energy, preventing them from flying, which would almost certainly lead to death. They did find one thing surprising, however. The early resting behavior lasted for almost three weeks—long after the effects of lipopolysaccharide had worn off. The researchers note that they conducted their experiment during the period after breeding and before winter, when conditions would be the least challenging for the birds, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2380.mp3" length="962012" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking prostaglandins restores (glucose) metabolism, reverses brain aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2378</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2378</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:57:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2378

It is rare to find a study like the one below that combines so many crucial topics into a unified message. Namely, the role of energy in aging and disease, the role of oxidative glucose metabolism in aging and health, the pathological role of PUFA as a negative (glucose) metabolic regulator and thus a major pathological factor, the reversibility of this PUFA-driven state and even aging, and finally the positive feedback loop that so many of the pathological mediators form in the organism (i.e. sickness reinforces itself, as does health). In this specific case, the (in)famous PUFA metabolite (through the cyclo-oxygenase  (COX) pathway) prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) was found to be directly responsible for inhibiting oxidative glucose metabolism in the brain and thus instead of glucose being used to synthesize ATP and support brain function (cognition) and structure, the glucose was instead diverted to glycogen synthesis. That condition alone was sufficient to produce an “aged brain” phenotype with significant deterioration in cognition. While the study did not investigate it, if glucose oxidation is suppressed, then lactate levels will rise as well as fatty acid oxidation (as a result of Randle cycle dynamics). So, another way to state the findings of the study is that lower glucose oxidation and elevated fatty acid oxidation drives brain aging by lowering brain energetic reserves (ATP) and this entire process is driven by the PUFA metabolites known as prostaglandins. Conversely, blocking the effects of PGE2 even only peripherally (i.e. not in the brain) was sufficient to restore glucose metabolism, and reverse the “aged brain” phenotype as demonstrated by the completely restored cognition in the aged animals. Speaking of PUFA, while the study only examined its PGE2 metabolites and speaks of other prostaglandins as “beneficial”, I don’t think this is the case as other studies have demonstrated pathological roles of PGD2 and PGF2 as well. Just as importantly, even non-metabolized PUFA is perfectly capable of suppressing glucose metabolism and increasing inflammatory biomarkers such as IL-1, IL-6, TNF-a, NF-kB, histamine, serotonin, etc. As such, while taking aspirin would be perhaps the most direct method for replicating the study design/findings, an even more systemic approach would be avoiding dietary PUFA to start with as it has pathological roles of its own that are not dependent on prostaglandins. Finally, it is worth pointing out that the study found prostaglandins form a positive-feedback loop with the COX enzyme producing them, so that increased levels of prostaglandins result in both increased COX expression and activity, resulting in even more inflammation/prostaglandins, and so on. This vicious cycle forms with many other pathological mediators such as cortisol, estrogen, serotonin, histamine, etc and often breaking even a single portion/pathway of this cycle (e.g. serotonin<-> cortisol) results in the unraveling of the entire pathological cascade.

link here

“…Our study suggests that the development of maladaptive inflammation and cognitive decline in ageing may not be a static or permanent condition, but rather that it can be reversed by inhibiting inflammatory PGE2 signalling through the myeloid EP2 receptor. First, we find that ageing is associated with a significant increase in pro-inflammatory PGE2 signalling in myeloid cells, which drives the sequestration of glucose into glycogen through the AKT–GSK3β–GYS1 pathway and away from the generation of ATP. Second, we uncover a fundamental vulnerability of ageing myeloid cells, in which they become dependent on glucose and are unable to use alternative energy sources to support mitochondrial respiration. These two mechanisms converge, leading to a reduction of glucose flux and the development of an energy-depleted state that drives pro-inflammatory immune responses. Third, by directing glucose towards the production of ATP, as opposed to glycogen storage, inhibition of myeloid EP2 in ageing cells reverts the polarization state to a more homeostatic anti-inflammatory state that prevents age-associated cognitive decline. We also demonstrate that peripheral EP2 blockade is sufficient to re-establish youthful immune homeostasis not only in the blood, but also in the brain, and to restore hippocampal function and plasticity in aged mice. The mechanisms underlying this rescue are probably distinct from those that underlie the effect of a brain-penetrant EP2 inhibitor that can directly target microglial EP2 signalling. Peripheral EP2 blockade may lead to changes in the composition of blood, components of which could beneficially affect the ageing cerebrovascular endothelium or penetrate the brain parenchyma to improve neuronal function. Finally, our findings are consistent with a feedforward loop involving the inflammatory COX-2–PGE2–EP2 cascade, in which increasing PGE2 signalling via the EP2 receptor induces additional COX-2 expression and activity, further amplifying downstream PGE2 generation and signalling24,38,39. Thus, inhibition of EP2-dependent changes in myeloid metabolism may represent a new approach to disorders of ageing, with greater specificity than the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs that target COX-2 and COX-1 and suppress both beneficial and toxic prostaglandin signalling pathways40.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2378.mp3" length="1507556" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Higher doses of vitamin D, other steroids, may be needed in obese people</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2376</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2376</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 26 Oct 2023 17:34:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2376

The title, at least in regards to vitamin D, is something Ray commented quite a few times when people asked him what the optimal dose for raising vitamin D levels was. His response always cautioned that there is no one-size-fits-all due to the fact that in obese people vitamin D can accumulate in adipose tissue and thus create a “functional deficiency” for the rest of the organs/tissues. In such people, higher doses of vitamin D would be needed to maintain serum levels in the normal range. The study below offers a direct confirmation for that hypothesis/claim. It demonstrated that in males the waste circumference while in females the waste-to-hip ratio were the best predictors of vitamin D deficiency, and in fact in people with obesity as defined by those measures only 38% of males and (gasp!) ONLY 17% of females achieved normal vitamin D levels after supplementation with doses known to normalize vitamin D levels in non-obese subjects. Now, one remedy would be to increase the dosage of vitamin D, but I am always wary of “more is better” approaches. One possible downside to higher vitamin D doses is that if the excess is accumulated in fat tissue (as the study suggests), during stressful times a lot of that vitamin D will be released through lipolysis and may lead to temporary hypervitaminosis of D, which may cause kidney issues depending on how severe it is, or it may freak a doctor out if a blood vitamin D test is done around that time and the doctor may order unnecessary/dangerous anti-calcium interventions after seeing such results. IMO, a better approach would be to use Dr. Peat’s method for steroid delivery – i.e. dissolved in vitamin E. Since vitamin D is a (seco)steroid itself it can be easily dissolved in vitamin E and used orally/topically similarly to Ray’s progesterone product (Progest-E). When dissolved in vitamin E, the solute will effectively have the same serum half-life as that of vitamin E – about 48 hours – while also avoiding selective accumulation into fat tissue.

Speaking of steroids and since vitamin D is also a (seco)steroid – I think the findings of the study also apply to regular steroids used for HRT. Namely, in obese people using steroid doses considered sufficient in clinical practice, may in fact be woefully inadequate to elicit the desired therapeutic effect. It is well-known among urologists and and sports medicine practitioners that low pharmacological doses (25mg-30mg daily) of testosterone (T) work very well in lean people but are ineffective and even detrimental in obese people. Why? Well, the low-dose T gets accumulated into the fat tissue of the obese people, just like vitamin D, creating functional deficiency for other organs/tissues. Worse, when T is used at low doses and ends up in fat tissue (with high expression of the aromatase enzyme) it ends up fueling estrogen synthesis, which further contributed to obesity and poor systemic health of the obese person. In such obese people, usually bodybuilder-level doses of steroids (100mg+ T daily) are needed to elicit the desired anti-obesity and muscle-building effects, which confirms the sequestration effects of fat tissue on other steroids and not just vitamin D. However, the estrogenic risks of such high doses of T still remain. The same issue has been reported with progesterone therapy – i.e. in some people (usually with extra weight) usually much higher doses of progesterone are required to experience benefit, while lower doses are sometimes reported to worsen symptoms despite being effective in other (leaner) people. So, the solution would be, again, to use T ( or progesterone or any other steroid used for the patient) dissolved in vitamin E or another lipophilic carrier with a long half-life so that selective accumulation into fat tissue is avoided and systemic effects are prolonged.

2 links here

“…Investigators in Italy sought to determine the relationship between visceral adipose tissue and vitamin D levels, particularly examining the potential threshold for vitamin D storage and sequestration using adipose tissue. Their findings suggest that in visceral adipose tissue vitamin D is stored, but may become trapped, leading to its reduced availability for metabolic processes. These results support the hypothesis that adipose tissue acts both as a potential reservoir and sequestration site for vitamin D, the researchers said. They added: “The storage or sequestration of vitamin D in adipose tissue may have implications for individuals with obesity or abdominal obesity, as they are more likely to have insufficient or deficient vitamin D levels. This finding aligns with previous studies that have shown an inverse relationship between abdominal obesity and vitamin D levels.”

“…For males, there was a relationship between vitamin D levels at follow up and waist circumference at baseline. In females, the best predictor of the vitamin D level at the end of the study was the waist-to-hip ratio. An analysis of the effects of vitamin D supplementation revealed that a smaller proportion of males (38%) and females (17%) achieved normal vitamin D levels, particularly among subjects with higher visceral adipose tissue. “These findings suggest that different anthropometric variables may influence vitamin D status in males and females,” the researchers said. After 6 months of supplementation, the mean increase in vitamin D levels was 9.6 ng/mL, with 55.2% of subjects becoming deficient. These results imply that abdominal obesity, specifically visceral adipose tissue, may play a crucial role in vitamin D homeostasis, as previously suggested by others, the scientists said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2376.mp3" length="1820828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SSRI drugs cause depression/anxiety, blocking serotonin rapidly reverses the latter</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2372</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2372</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 23 Oct 2023 16:37:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2372

It is hard to come up with a more controversial statement in psychiatry than to say that the blockbuster “antidepressant” drugs not only actually cause depression – the very condition they are supposed to treat-  but also anxiety (a separate mental disorder, according to DSM V) on top of that. The combination of (uni/bi)-polar depression and the anxiety disorders spectrum (e.g. GAD) is responsible for the vast majority of mental health diagnoses, so the implications of the study below are huge. Namely, that serotonin (5-HT) is the cause of most “mental” disorders (likely through its role as a negative metabolic regulator); that the most popular drugs (SSRI) prescribed to patients with such disorders not only do not treat said disorders, but actually exacerbate them or (gasp!) even cause them de-novo; that cheap, real treatments are widely available in the form of over-the-counter (OTC) drugs such as Benadryl (diphenhydramine, a 5-HT antagonist when used in doses below 150mg daily), or dietary restriction of the 5-HT precursor tryptophan (i.e. consuming more gelatin as part of the daily protein intake), or inhibiting tryptophan absorption from the digestive tract with aspirin, gelatin or branched-chain amino acids (BCAA).

link here

“…When compared with vehicle-treated animals, acute administration of fluoxetine induced a 80% decrease in the number of visits to the center of the open-field apparatus (p<0.01, PLSD Fisher’s test), whereas no significant change was observed after acute administration with SB-269970. Interestingly, administration of SB-269970 after fluoxetine counteracted the decrease of the number of visits to the center induced by fluoxetine (p<0.05, PLSD Fisher’s test). These results demonstrated that fluoxetine, acutely administered, induced an anxiogenic-like effect that was prevented by the 5-HT7 receptor antagonist SB-269970.”

“…As reported in previous studies, the SSRI fluoxetine (20 mg/kg, s.c.) potentiated the head-twitch behavior evoked by 5-HTP (>10 fold; p<0.001, PLSD Fisher’s test). Interestingly, SB-269970 completely blocked the enhancement of HTR following fluoxetine administration (p<0.001, PLSD Fisher’s test). These results therefore indicate that 5-HT7 receptor blockade did not facilitate the motoric component of the 5-HT syndrome but prevented the potentiating effect of fluoxetine.”

“…These results showed an increase in anxiety-like behavior by postnatal exposure to the SSRI fluoxetine, but not with the 5-HT7 receptor agonist or the antagonist. In the FST, a significant effect of treatment was observed (F3,34=5.35; p<0.01, one-way ANOVA). The immobility duration was significantly enhanced by 32% in fluoxetine-exposed rats (p<0.05, PLSD Fisher’s test) during the neonatal period, but not in AS19- or SB-269970-exposed animals (Figure 7b, link here). Taken together, these results showed that neonatal exposure to the SSRI fluoxetine, but not to AS19 or SB-269970, produced anxiety- and depression-like behaviors in early adulthood of the rats.”

“…It has also been reported that both pharmacological inhibition and genetic inactivation of 5-HT7 receptors induce antidepressant-like behavior in the mouse tail suspension test (Hedlund et al, 2005, link here; Bonaventure et al, 2007, link here; Sarkisyan et al, 2010, link here), as well as an antianxiety effect in the Vogel drinking test in rats, the elevated plus maze in rats, and in the four-plate test in mice (Wesolowska et al, 2006, link here). Interestingly, a dose of 2 mg/kg of SB-269970 had no detectable effect in the present study by itself, suggesting a lack of modification of 5-HT release as previously shown (Bonaventure et al, 2007, link here), it counteracted the anxiogenic-like effect of acute administration of fluoxetine in the illuminated open field (Figure 1, link here). Previous reports have shown that the SSRIs fluoxetine and citalopram display anxiogenic behaviors via the activation of 5-HT2C receptors as their effects were prevented by a 5-HT2C antagonist (Burghardt et al, 2007, link here; Dekeyne et al, 2000, link here; Greenwood et al, 2008, link here). Hence, it can be suggested that an enhanced activation of 5-HT2C, and also of 5-HT7, receptors might be a mechanism for the anxiogenic effects of SSRIs observed initially during treatment, based on the present results. These findings are of particular interest as several atypical antipsychotics, such as amisulpride and aripiprazole, which are potent 5-HT7 antagonist, are used in the treatment of mood disorders (Smeraldi, 1998, link here; Montgomery, 2002, link here; Na et al, 2008, link here: Berman et al, 2009, link here). Additionally, Abbas et al (2009), link here demonstrated that, in contrast to their wild-type littermates, 5-HT7 receptor knock-out mice did not respond to amisulpride in the FST and the tail suspension test. This indicates that 5-HT7 receptor antagonism may underly, at least in part, the antidepressant-like actions of antipsychotics such as amisulpride and aripiprazole (Abbas et al, 2009, link here; Sarkisyan et al, 2010, link here). Taken together, these data suggest that 5-HT7 receptor antagonists are of potential interest for the treatment of both depression and anxiety.”

“…Overall, the multiple experimental approaches used herein provided important support for the hypothesis that 5-HT7 receptor antagonists may act as antidepressant (AD) agents with a rapid onset of action. Thus far, only one 5-HT7 receptor antagonist has been assessed in a clinical trial for moderate to severe depression (JNJ-18038683; Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development). It is hoped that the present results will further stimulate the development of selective 5-HT7 receptor antagonists as a novel and potentially improved class of ADs.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2372.mp3" length="666860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking serotonin may treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2370</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2370</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 23 Oct 2023 15:55:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2370

While the meta-study only reviewed studies about blocking the 5-HT3 receptor, other studies listed below directly implicate the 5-HT1, 5-HT2 and 5-HT7 receptors as well, which strengthens the hypothesis that serotonin (5-HT) as a whole is the driver of OCD. In addition, consider the fact that the drug Meta-Chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) is perhaps the most widely-used and well-researched agent for causing/exacerbating OCD. That drug is also the perfect synthetic surrogate of serotonin – i.e. it is an agonist on most 5-HT receptors, it increases serotonin release, and also acts as an SSRI. Hard to get more serotonergic than this.

link here

The old ergot derivative metergoline, link here – a non-selective serotonin antagonist – has been shown to block the pro-OCD effects of mCPP.

link here

To me at least, the evidence above alone means cased closed on the causes and cures of OCD, but since it is only one study I decided to also add the ones below. If that serotonin-as-a-cause-of-OCD hypothesis is correct, then the current treatment of OCD with the serotonergic SSRI drugs is nothing short of criminally negligent and may explain to a great degree why OCD rates continue rising (especially in children and young adults) – i.e. the rising usage of SSRI drugs by those age groups are likely directly contributing to the rising rates of OCD.

4 links here

Serotonin 3 receptor antagonists for obsessive-compulsive disorder: A systematic review and pairwise meta-analysis., link here

“…Pooled 5-HT3R-As outperformed placebo regarding Y-BOCS total score (MD = -5.08, 95% CI = -7.04, -3.12, N = 9, n = 560), Y-BOCS obsession subscale score, Y-BOCS compulsive subscale score, treatment response, and remission rate. Individually, all 5-HT3R-As outperformed placebo regarding Y-BOCS total score (granisetron: MD = -5.59, 95% CI = -8.79, -2.39, N = 3, n = 178, ondansetron: MD = -5.72, 95% CI = -8.06, -3.37, N = 6, n = 331, tropisetron: MD = -2.87, 95% CI = -5.19, -0.550, N = 1, n = 96). However, all-cause discontinuation and incidence of individual adverse events between pooled 5-HT3R-As and placebo were not significantly different. In conclusion, our meta-analysis suggested 5-HT3R-As as efficacious for symptom improvement in individuals with OCD. However, the number of individuals included in each study was small; thus, a replication randomized trial of 5-HT3R-As should be conducted using a larger sample size.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2370.mp3" length="797876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA (linoleic acid) is hepatotoxic and carcinogenic; MUFA/SFA are not</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2366</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2366</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 19 Oct 2023 16:36:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2366

A neat little commentary in the Cell journal on a study in Nature. Not very surprising for most people following Peat’s writings, but definitely an eye-opener for the general public (if they ever even become aware of this publication, considering no popular press outlet covered this article). Namely, not only is PUFA responsible for the formation of NAFLD (30%+ of people in the US have that condition), but also its progression to the more severe NASH, and the final descent into cirrhosis and liver cancer (HCC). In other words, linoleic acid (LA) is a liver carcinogen and is entirely sufficient to cause by itself the traversal of the entire liver disease spectrum. Also, the studies show that both LA peroxidation, as well as its “normal” oxidation that contribute to the liver pathologies. In contrast, none of other tested fatty acids – the monounsaturated (MUFA) oleic or saturated (SFA) palmitic or stearic –  were fattening for the liver or caused progression into liver cancer. So, another way to state this finding is that only PUFA is hepatotoxic and carcinogenic. Another interesting takeaway from the articles is that the progression of fatty liver to HCC is driven by the death/apoptosis of immune cells, which linoleic acid potently induces. So, PUFA is also a potent immuno-suppressor and as such it has relevance for many other diseases, especially infectious ones (COVID-19 anyone?). Since the general population is eating, on average, 15g-20g PUFA daily this amounts to a daily immunosuppressive regimen rivaling the effects of chronic glucocorticoid therapy. Oh, just in case people are wondering, PUFA also activates the HPA axis and leads to chronically elevated glucocorticoids as well – i.e. a doubly immunosuppressive effect.  It is that pro-inflammatory and pro-glucocorticoid effect that makes LA/PUFA relevant for many others disease as well, which the study agrees with, though they only mention diabetes and obesity. For example, in light of this population-wide dietary “immune suicide”, it is little wonder infectious diseases are much more prevalent today and are much more lethal than in the past. The good news is that the ROS formation triggered by LA was fully preventable by administration of an anti-oxidant, so a daily dose of 100 IU vitamin E or a weekly dose of say 400 IU may not be a bad idea considering how ubiquitous PUFA is. Not only in foods, but also cosmetics, household products, varnishes/dyes, etc.

3 links here

“…Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the second most common cause of cancer-related death. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects a large proportion of the US population and is considered to be a metabolic predisposition to liver cancer1, link here,2, link here,3, link here,4, link here,5, link here. However, the role of adaptive immune responses in NAFLD-promoted HCC is largely unknown. Here we show, in mouse models and human samples, that dysregulation of lipid metabolism in NAFLD causes a selective loss of intrahepatic CD4+ but not CD8+ T lymphocytes, leading to accelerated hepatocarcinogenesis. We also demonstrate that CD4+ T lymphocytes have greater mitochondrial mass than CD8+ T lymphocytes and generate higher levels of mitochondrially derived reactive oxygen species (ROS). Disruption of mitochondrial function by linoleic acid, a fatty acid accumulated in NAFLD, causes more oxidative damage than other free fatty acids such as palmitic acid, and mediates selective loss of intrahepatic CD4+ T lymphocytes. In vivo blockade of ROS reversed NAFLD-induced hepatic CD4+ T lymphocyte decrease and delayed NAFLD-promoted HCC. Our results provide an unexpected link between lipid dysregulation and impaired anti-tumour surveillance.”

“…C18:2 (LA) has also been identified as an important fatty acid in the context of NAFLD in humans26,27. We tested whether C18:2 also affects human CD4+ T lymphocyte survival. Consistent with our mouse data C18:2, but no other tested FFAs, caused selective CD4+ but not CD8+ T lymphocyte death (Fig. 4p and Extended Data Fig. 7a).”

link here

“…NAFLD is associated with linoleic acid (LA) accumulation in hepatocytes. Steatotic hepatocytes secrete free LA (fLA), which is taken up by CD4+ T cell, where it undergoes b-oxidation and generates reactive oxygen species (ROS) that results in CD4+ T cell death and diminished immunosurveillance, thereby promoting liver cancer growth…It was previously shown that CD4+ T cells inhibit initiation of oncogene-driven HCC, through immune surveillance of senescent hepatocytes (Kang et al., 2011). Ma et al. (2016) showed that release of linoleic acid (LA) by fat-laden hepatocytes and its subsequent uptake by liver resident CD4+ T cells, which oxidize LA in their mitochondria, resulted in endogenous reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and self-inflicted cell death (Figure 1). Incubation of CD8+ and CD4+ T lymphocytes with different fatty acids confirmed that CD4+ cells are more susceptible to LA induced cell death than CD8+ cells, but other than greater CD4+ mitochondrial mass, the basis for these differences is not entirely clear. ”

“…LA-induced CD4+ T cell loss may also have other effects. For instance, Tregs are highly enriched in abdominal fat of lean mice, but their numbers are strikingly and specifically reduced at this site in insulin-resistant models of obesity, thereby enhancing adipose tissue inflammation and insulin resistance (Kolodin et al., 2015). Whether adipose tissue Tregs are related to liver CD4+ T cells and subject to a similar depletion mechanism remains to be seen. Lipid can also modify CD4+ T cell function in an agerelated manner, as old age is associated with development of insulin resistance that is promoted by adipose tissue Tregs (Bapat et al., 2015).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2366.mp3" length="1229372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fat increases estrogen synthesis, even in menopausal females; glucose lowers it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2363</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2363</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 19 Oct 2023 02:03:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2363

A fascinating study, which provides a number of important findings and insights. First, the study shows that fat (from diet or lipolysis) drives estrogen production not only in fat cells (which has been known for decades, even by mainstream medicine), but also in other organs typically not considered relevant for influencing serum estrogen levels. The study below shows that the stomach is not only also a steroidogenic organ, but a major contributor to serum levels of estrogen. I think this is the first study that implicates an organ other than the ovaries as major source of serum estradiol (E2) in females. Second, the study demonstrated that the cells lining the stomach preferentially synthesize estrogen (and not other steroids) and that serum triglycerides (derived from dietary fat or lipolysis) are both the trigger for such synthesis and also serve as the preferred (maybe even obligate?) energy source for those cells to produce estradiol. Third, since estrogen stimulates lipolysis, which elevates serum triglycerides, and the elevated serum triglycerides activate synthesis of more estrogen, this obviously forms a vicious circle. This is a great example of how estrogen stimulates its own synthesis, contrary to medicine’s claims that estrogen exerts a negative feedback. The claim about negative feedback is somewhat correct, but only when it comes to central control – i.e. involving the pituitary hormones LH and FSH acting on the ovaries. When estrogen is produced in an ovary-independent manner, as it apparently can be done by the stomach, the negative feedback mechanism not only does not apply but actually turns into a positive feedback mechanism! Fourth, the study showed that dietary glucose not only did not stimulate estrogen synthesis, but lowered serum triglycerides and also lowered estrogen levels (probably by lowering the triglycerides).

In regards to dosing, the dietary fat intake that was sufficient to trigger the estrogen synthesis process was not that high – i.e. a single/bolus human-equivalent dose (HED) of about 330mg/kg of olive oil almost doubled the serum levels of estradiol (E2), and did so even in menopausal (ovariectomized) females! Not only does this once again disprove the baseless claim that menopause is a condition of estrogen “deficiency”, it also means that for most people ingesting “just” 25g-30g fat per meal would be enough to replicate the design of the study. Well, since most people in the “developed” countries ingest on average (with about 30% of population ingesting way over 100g daily) 80g-90g of fat daily, this means the majority of Western populations would easily meet the dietary fat threshold for triggering estrogen synthesis. The good news is that a single HED of 300mg/kg dose of glucose not only did not increase estrogen levels but lowered them by about 25%-30% below baseline. It is also worth noting that the study used olive oil as the dietary fat source, which elevated serum triglycerides and triggered the estrogen synthesis. Most of the fat in olive oil is MUFA, which is not known to have a direct estrogenic effect itself and the oil’s role in the study was simply as the catalyst and energy source for estrogen synthesis. However, the situation likely becomes much worse when the dietary fat contains anything more than a few grams of PUFA per serving since, as I posted just days ago, PUFA is directly estrogenic itself, link here. Well, the average PUFA daily intake by Western populations is on the order of at least 10g-15g daily. Thus, the majority of Western populations are literally giving themselves doubly-estrogenic HRT multiple times daily, and the frequency as well as the length of this exposure create a health risk that likely dwarfs the risks of exposure to all other xeno-estrogens.

link here

“…Here, we show that parietal cells act as a sensor for the blood triglyceride levels and secrete gastric estrogen in response to the blood triglyceride levels, using male and ovariectomized (OVX) female rats. Estrogen inhibits the feeding behavior and de novo lipogenesis in the liver and adipocytes (decrease of lipid supply), but increases the white adipose tissue (WAT) mass under conditions of suppressed lipogenesis (an increase of lipid uptake by WAT)14, link here,15, link here,16, link here,17, link here,18, link here,19, link here and the lipid consumption in muscles20, link here. ”

“…Triglyceride (olive oil, 2.5 mL per kg body weight) or control water was orally administered to male rats, and their tail venous triglyceride, estrogen (E2), and cholesterol levels were measured before (0 h) and at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 h after the administration (Fig. 2a, link here). Blood triglyceride levels (basal: ~130 mg/dL) increased, peaked at 2 h post-administration (~280 mg/dL), and then declined to the basal levels (5 h) as reported previously28, link here. Blood E2 levels (basal: ~55 pg/mL) also increased, peaked at 2 h after the administration (~85 pg/mL), and then returned to the basal levels, while blood cholesterol levels increased but were not significant. ”

“…Male rats were orally administered glucose (2 g per kg body weight) or control water, and their tail venous glucose, E2, and triglyceride levels were measured before (0 h) and at 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, and 5 h after the administration (Fig. 2c, link here). Blood glucose levels (basal: ~70 mg/dL) increased, peaked at 1 h after the administration (~170 mg/dL), and declined toward the basal levels32, link here; however, blood E2 or triglyceride levels did not increase, rather decreased, when blood glucose levels were high.”

“…In this study, we showed that blood triglyceride levels directly regulate the production of gastric estrogen and the following blood estrogen levels, using male and OVX female rats. Parietal cells in the stomach exclusively produce estrogen among the tissues upstream of the portal vein. Production of estrogen requires energy which parietal cells generate using triglyceride. Blood estrogen levels increase as blood triglyceride levels are rised by the oral or intravenous administration of triglyceride. Blood triglyceride-dependent increase of blood estrogen levels is canceled in GX rats.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2363.mp3" length="1827116" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA (linoleic acid) is a true estrogen, similar to estradiol</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2360</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2360</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 15 Oct 2023 21:03:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2360

This is one of those studies that, in my view, largely puts the debate about PUFA to rest. If PUFA, as the study found, is a direct xeno-estrogen, link here at the receptor level, and can cause the same genomic effects as estradiol, then it is a moot point to argue about any “benefits” of that lipid. Why did I say xeno-estrogen? Well, since we cannot endogenously synthesize the “essential” fatty acids such as linoleic acid, this makes PUFA an obligate exogenous estrogen that can only come through the diet, and that is now known as a xeno-estrogen (similar to the ones coming from plastic, pesticides, herbicides, artificial flavors/colors, etc). That means a population-wide avoidance of PUFA intake would dramatically lower the estrogenic load in the population, considering PUFA is consumed at virtually every meal, and in high amounts. Speaking of high amounts, the concentrations at which linoleic acid activated the estrogen receptors in the study are achievable in humans with less than 1g of dietary PUFA daily, which means most people on a Western diet are essentially bathing their entire organism in xeno-estrogens multiple times daily, considering PUFA intakes are in the 10g+ range per meal. The US government already declared estrogen a “known human carcinogen”, link here, so the combination of PUFA’s now known estrogenicity and estrogen’s known carcinogenicity should be enough to convince most people (but probably not doctors) that PUFA is a carcinogen to be avoided at all cost.

link here

“…The methanol extract of chaste-berry bound to both ERα and ERβ with an IC50 value of 46 ± 3 µg/ml and 64 ± 4 µg/ml, respectively. The assay guided isolation resulted in the identification of linoleic acid as the corresponding estrogen receptor ligand. Linoleic acid bound to ERα and ERβ with an IC50 value of 27 ± 2 µM and 30 ± 6 µM, respectively.”

“…Upregulation of ERα mRNA expression in T47D:A18 breast cancer cells was found to be constitutive using RT-PCR (data not shown); however, expression of ERβ mRNA was inducible in the presence of estrogen receptor ligands. Both the chaste-berry extract (10 µg/ml) and linoleic acid (3.6 µM) enhanced the expression of ERβ mRNA in T47D:A18 breast cancer cells (Fig. 2). Ishikawa is an ER positive endomentrial adenocarcinoma cell line (Holinka et al. 1986). The mRNA of the progesterone receptor in Ishikawa cells is expressed in higher amounts in the presence of compounds that bind to the estrogen receptor and activate the estrogen response element found upstream from the DNA encoding the PR. PR mRNA from treated Ishikawa endometrial cells was upregulated by chaste berry extract at 10 µg/ml and by linoleic acid at 3.6 µM (Fig. 3). ”

“…In conclusion, bioassay-guided fractionation using estrogen receptor binding as a marker led to the isolation and identification of linoleic acid as an estrogenlike compound found in V. agnus-castus berries. Both the chaste-berry methanol extract and linoleic acid showed significant up-regulation of mRNA expression of PR in Ishikawa cells and ERβ in T47D:18A cells.”

“…The interaction of linoleic acid with the estrogen receptor did increase the mRNA of estrogen inducible genes in Ishikawa and T47:A18 cells. Previous studies demonstrated the ability of conjugated linoleic acid to bind to PPAR gamma and alter the expression of some genes regulated by an estrogen response element (ERE) (Stoll, 2002). ”

link here

“…In other compounds group, all compounds showed strong estrogenic activity (>60% in 20 lg mL1). Linoleic acid (28) with higher estrogenic activity (141.67% in 20 lg mL1) might act as a more potent estrogen agonist. Anisole (29) and aucubin (30) with estrogenic activities (100% in 20 lg mL1) could also be as potent estrogen agonists. Cinnamaldehyde (32) and benzaldehyde (38) possessed biphasic activity, which exhibited high estrogenic activity at low concentration, and the activity was reversed at high concentration. Maybe aldehyde group in the benzene ring was responsible for the biphasic activity.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2360.mp3" length="740852" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aversion to bitter taste may be a sign of endotoxin/LPS overload, chronic disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2358</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2358</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Oct 2023 18:18:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2358

Just a few days ago I did a post about a study, which showed that endotoxin (LPS) makes body odor unpleasant and leads to both self-isolation and shunning from others. The study below adds more evidence to the LPS puzzle by showing that exposure to LPS strongly increased aversion to bitter taste, while also blunting preference for sweet taste. The authors note that while the study in question was specifically about the effects of LPS administration, the same taste preference changes occur in many chronic conditions, including cancer and neurological diseases. I think the main benefit of the study is that if it found that LPS causes systemic inflammation and can change the taste phenotype to match the type of many (inflammatory) chronic diseases, then LPS is likely a major cause of those diseases, which is something medicine continues to deny. Just as importantly, as the study itself states, if cancer treatments are known to increase aversion to bitter taste then it would not be too fat fetched to hypothesize that those “treatments” achieve that effect by increasing LPS absorption from the gut into the blood, where said LPS massively increases inflammation and likely contributes to the deterioration of the cancer patient, so the “treatment” is anything but helpful.

link here

The Bitter Truth: Illness, Inflammation, and the Genetic Code of Taste, link here

“…In addition to being unpleasant, a bitter taste in the mouth or from food can contribute to a loss of appetite, an effect associated with ailments from the common cold to cancer. Bitter taste can also affect patients’ willingness to take certain medications, especially when they are young children.”

“…Bitter receptors are encoded by Tas2r genes, which also provide an important defense against bacteria and parasites in the mouth and gut. However, this process is not well understood. For this study, the team explored how inducing inflammation would affect gene regulation of these taste receptors. Using lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a compound that induces inflammation similar to that caused by bacterial infections, they found that mice showed a distinct elevated aversion to bitter tastes. The team used nerve-recording experiments to confirm that this aversion originates in the taste buds of mice, rather than in their brains. “Our study had very clear data showing this is actually a change at the peripheral level, not deep in the brain,” said Wang, confirming that genes in taste cells govern bitter taste distortion to this type of inflammation. This finding has interesting clinical implications for the study of behavioral aspects of illness, such as a loss of appetite. When people are sick they often do not feel like eating. This can affect even humans’ love for sugary treats, as other studies have noted. Mice also have a decreased preference for sweet tastes during illness and forced intake of sugar can make them sicker. These results potentially indicate a protective behavior with a biological or evolutionary basis.”

“…This finding sheds light on why cancer treatment and certain chronic illnesses can cause a lingering bitter taste in the mouth or alter the taste perception of certain foods. This diverse response across taste receptors has potential implications for research on how to make more effective bitter blockers for medications and other edible health and wellness products.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2358.mp3" length="658700" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:30</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Inhibiting dopamine breakdown reverses obesity WITHOUT caloric restriction</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2355</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2355</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 12 Oct 2023 16:24:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2355

Yet another study showing that the dogma we have been fed for decades – eat less and move more – is little more than a fraudulent lie. Recent studies have already demonstrated that chronic caloric restriction changes body composition for the worse – i.e. despite the weight loss, most of that weight loss is lean muscle mass and is also accompanied by a dramatic drop in the resting metabolic rate (RMR). The contest aptly named “The Biggest Loser” is perhaps the best example of what happens when somebody chronically fasts and exercises at the same time. Those poor people not only regained all the weight they lost during the contest, but felt completely miserable afterwards and found themselves gaining even more weight on a caloric intake that was up to 50% lower than what they were eating before the contest. That, of course, is the guaranteed outcome when their RMR had dropped by about 50%, as a result of participation in the contest. Other human studies with less restrictive regimens demonstrated similarly (proportionally to the restrictiveness of the regimen) alarming results in regards to lean muscle loss, insomnia, cognitive dysfunction, mood changes, etc that can all be traced back to the elevated baseline cortisol that the dogma “eat less, more more” invariably leads to. So, if fasting and torturing ourselves is not the path to slimness and health then what is? Well, if we accept that obesity is an endocrine/metabolic disorder then measures to increase RMR and change the endocrine profile away from stress would be beneficial. One of the main mediators of stress is serotonin. In fact, it is serotonin that is perhaps the major controller of cortisol release (through the 5-HT2C receptor). There are multiple ongoing human studies with drugs that inhibit the synthesis of serotonin – tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH) inhibitors – or drugs that block serotonin at the receptor level, and those have shown great promise so far not only for obesity, but for diabetes, heart disease and even neurological disorders. In other words, serotonin is obesogenic and it induces those effects by lowering of the RMR. Here is just a small list of such studies, for the people who still believe serotonin is the “happy hormone”.

11 links here

Coincidentally (or not) the recent large study refuting the “serotonin hypothesis” in depression stated the exact same thing as the findings of the Biggest Loser contest – i.e. serotonin has nothing to do with happiness, its main role is as a (negative) metabolic regulator and if it has a role in depression it must be a negative role (i.e. it causes, not relieves depression) due to lowering energy levels in the brain. But I digress, so back to weight loss and obesity. Assuming serotonin is obesogenic then what is the mechanism for its endogenous control? There must be some mechanism through which healthy people manage to keep serotonin in check and thus stay lean/healthy without dieting/exercising. Older studies from the 60s and 70s of the past century suggest that the main endogenous antagonist of serotonin is the neurotransmitter dopamine – the one we are told leads to impulsiveness, instability and craziness. You see, that “crazy” dopamine just so happens to be a potent TPH inhibitor as well, while serotonin happens to be an inhibitor of the dopamine-synthesizing enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase.

4 links here

So, serotonin and dopamine are largely antagonistic to each other and their levels are inversely correlated. The latter fact has already been confirmed in humans, and it is also well-known that obese people have lower baseline dopamine levels. In light of all those relationships one could surmise that elevating dopamine levels may be beneficial for obesity, by lowering serotonin and thus raising the RMR. While raising dopamine by supplying precursors such as L-DOPA has been used for decades to treat Parkinson Disease (PD), such treatments quickly lose effectiveness and thus the pharma industry started looking at alternative solutions such as inhibiting the breakdown of dopamine by blocking the dopamine-degrading enzyme monoamine oxidase type B (MAO-B, link here). One of the oldest drugs in clinical use for PD is exactly such an MAO-B blocker under the name of selegiline/Deprenyl, link here. That drug is already notorious for being able to delay aging and protect from chronic disease, and it is widely used by celebrities and politicians around the world as an anti-aging and life-extension drug. Well, if the findings of the study below are legit that drug will soon become an even bigger blockbuster. Namely, the study found that using a novel, patented (though identical in pharmacology to selegiline) MAO-B inhibitor lead to increase in thermogenesis/uncopling (and thus RMR), which led to loss of weight without any changes in caloric intake or exercise regimen. According to the study, the MAO-B inhibitor achieved those effects by lowering GABA levels in astrocytes (since MAO-B also synthesizes GABA), but I do not agree with that explanation and maintain that it is the lowering of serotonin by increasing dopamine (through MAO-B) that was the main mechanism of anti-obesity action in this study. Regardless of my opinion, the main takeaway (in the study’s own words) is that MAO-B inhibition is a viable mechanism for reversing obesity even on highly obesogenic diet.

2 links here

“…In a diet-induced obese mouse model, the researchers observed significant slowing in the pacemaker firing of the GABRA5 neurons. Researchers continued with the study by attempting to inhibit the activity of these GABRA5 neurons using chemogenetic methods. This in turn caused a reduction in heat production (energy consumption) in the brown fat tissue, leading to fat accumulation and weight gain. On the other hand, when the GABRA5 neurons in the hypothalamus were activated, the mice were able to achieve a successful weight reduction. This suggests that the GABRA5 neurons may act as a switch for weight regulation. In a new surprising and unexpected turn of events, the research team discovered that the astrocytes in the lateral hypothalamus regulate the activity of the GABRA5 neurons. The numbers and sizes of the reactive astrocytes are increased, and they begin to overexpress the MAO-B enzyme (Monoamine Oxidase B). This enzyme plays a crucial role in the metabolism of neurotransmitters in the nervous system and is more predominantly expressed in reactive astrocytes. This ends up in the production of a large amount of tonic GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid), which inhibits the surrounding GABRA5 neurons. It was also discovered that suppressing the expression of the MAO-B gene in reactive astrocytes can decrease GABA secretion, thereby reversing the undesirable inhibition of the GABRA5 neurons. Using this approach the researchers were able to increase the heat production in the fat tissue of the obese mice, which allowed them to achieve weight loss even while consuming a high-calorie diet. This experimentally proves that the MAO-B enzyme in reactive astrocytes can be an effective target for obesity treatment without compromising appetite. Furthermore, a selective and reversible MAO-B inhibitor, ‘KDS2010’, which was transferred to a biotech company Neurobiogen in 2019 and is currently undergoing Phase 1 clinical trials, was tested on an obese mouse model. The new drugs yielded remarkable results, demonstrating a substantial reduction in fat accumulation and weight without any impacts on the amount of food intake.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2355.mp3" length="2495492" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Reduced availability/oxidation of glucose sufficient to cause heart failure (HF)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2351</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2351</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 10 Oct 2023 16:58:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2351

Yet another “mysterious” idiopathic condition turns out to be nothing but metabolic dysregulation in disguise. Also, unlike many other studies implicating metabolism in disease, this one actually manages to demonstrate that reduction of oxidative glucose metabolism is sufficient to cause severe and lethal HF. No genes or toxic environmental agents required. A simple reduction (both kinetically and chemically) in the mitochondrial metabolism of pyruvate and export of the resulting lactate build-up was all that it took to cause HF and kill most of the animals. Conversely, increased transport of pyruvate into the mitochondria where it can be oxidatively metabolized via the Krebs cycle was sufficient to both prevent and reverse HF. Of course, the results directly imply that reduced glucose availability would also have the same effects on HF since pyruvate can only come from glucose, and low pyruvate availability would mimic the lower activity of the MPC protein mentioned by the study below. Another interesting observation is that if the accumulated lactate (from pyruvate accumulation and its reduction by LDH) was allowed to be exported outside of the cell, that could also exacerbate the HF. However, preventing lactate export outside the cell prevented HF exacerbation and death. The explanation of the authors is that lactate actually gets re-oxidized back to pyruvate inside the cell (by the bi-directional LDH) and precluding the former’s export forces the cell to use lactate as a fuel. Obviously, that reverse LDH pathway and usage of lactate as fuel happens at the cost of a drop in NAD+/NADH ratio (shift towards reduction), so it can only work when there is a sufficient amounts of NAD+ or at least sufficiently high total adenine dinucleotide pool (ADP). The study did not examine situations where NAD+/NADH levels or the ADP levels are low (aging, established chronic disease, infection, etc), so my suspicion is that blocking lactate export won’t be as effective or even beneficial at all when lactate cannot get oxidized back into pyruvate. Assuming lactate can get reoxidized, if lactate is allowed to get out of the cell, a number of bad things may happen, including the well-known metabolic acidosis, as well as the shifting of the Randle Cycle in favor of oxidizing fat. Hence the benefit of inhibiting the lactate export. Speaking of fat oxidation, it is already a known cause of HF, the fibrotic states that are precursors to HF, and even cardiac arrest. The fact that fat is harmful for the heart during exertion was the rationale for the developing the drug known as Meldonium/Mildronate. So, another way to state the finding of the study would be that reduced glucose oxidation, which goes hand-in-hand with increased fat oxidation, is sufficient to cause lethal HF. And last but not least, the study explicitly mentions the virtually identical metabolic phenotype in HF and cancer, and that the same metabolic dysregulation causing HF can cause cancer as well. One more reason to take niacinamide and avoid restricting glucose (low-carb diets).

link here

“…The metabolic rewiring of cardiomyocytes, link here is a widely accepted hallmark of heart failure (HF). These metabolic changes include a decrease in mitochondrial pyruvate, link here oxidation, link here and an increased export of lactate. We identify the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier, link here (MPC) and the cellular lactate exporter monocarboxylate transporter, link here 4 (MCT4) as pivotal nodes in this metabolic axis. We observed that cardiac assist device-induced myocardial recovery in chronic HF patients was coincident with increased myocardial expression of the MPC. Moreover, the genetic ablation, link here of the MPC in cultured cardiomyocytes and in adult murine hearts was sufficient to induce hypertrophy and HF. Conversely, MPC overexpression attenuated drug-induced hypertrophy in a cell-autonomous manner. We also introduced a novel, highly potent MCT4 inhibitor that mitigated hypertrophy in cultured cardiomyocytes and in mice. Together, we find that alteration of the pyruvate-lactate axis is a fundamental and early feature of cardiac hypertrophy, link here and failure.”

“…Previous work on mitochondrial pyruvate metabolism in the heart focused primarily on the PDH enzyme (Gopal et al., 2018, link here; Seymour and Chatham, 1997, link here). Our study, as well as other studies that have recently been published (Zhang et al., 2020, link here; Fernandez-Caggiano et al., 2020, link here; McCommis et al., 2020, link here), highlight the importance of the MPC, which precedes the PDH by importing the PDH substrate pyruvate, and appears to have many of the same metabolic consequences. This transition to a low MPC state characterized by a glycolytic metabolic phenotype has been observed as a common feature of solid tumors, link here, where it is believed to promote a biosynthetic program to sustain the biomass needs of cell proliferation, link here. In particular, we recently identified the loss of the MPC as an early insult promoting hyperproliferation and eventual tumor formation in the colon (Bensard et al., 2020, link here). Primary cardiac tumors are exceedingly rare (Cresti et al., 2016, link here). Our results raise the possibility, however, that the same metabolic perturbation that drives cellular proliferation in tumor-initiating cells in the colon might also be driving cellular hypertrophy in post-mitotic cardiomyocytes.”

“…Given the similarities between the metabolic rewiring observed in both cancer and HF, we hypothesized that blocking lactate efflux in hypertrophied cardiomyocytes, via MCT4 inhibition, would lead to redirecting of glycolytic carbon flux back toward mitochondrial pyruvate oxidation and might reverse the hypertrophic phenotype (Figure 5, link hereA). To test this hypothesis, we first treated H9c2 cells simultaneously with both PE and the MCT4 inhibitor VB124 for 48 h and found that MCT4 inhibition completely prevented PE-induced cellular hypertrophy (Figure 5, link hereB). To determine if MCT4 inhibition could not merely prevent PE-induced hypertrophy but also reverse it, we pretreated H9c2 cells with PE for 48 h followed by a combination of PE and VB124 for an additional 48 h (Figure 5, link hereB). MCT4 inhibition completely reversed the hypertrophic phenotype in these cells (Figure 5, link hereB). We next treated ACMs with PE and ISO and found that VB124 also mitigated the hypertrophic phenotype in these cells (Figures 5, link hereC and 5D). These effects of MCT4 inhibition, along with the anti-hypertrophic effects of MPC overexpression, highlight the importance of mitochondrial pyruvate metabolism in cardiomyocytes and are reminiscent of the increased MPC abundance that we observed in the responder LVAD-treated patients.”

“…Integral to our approach was, first, that LDH, link here is a bidirectional enzyme that is regulated by the concentrations of its substrates: lactate and pyruvate as well as the NAD+/NADH ratio (Spriet et al., 2000, link here). Moreover, LDHA, link here activity is important for cardiac hypertrophic growth (Dai et al., 2020, link here). Inhibiting lactate export leads to an intracellular build-up of lactate that pushes LDH in the reverse direction toward pyruvate accumulation, while producing NADH as a by-product of this reaction. In turn, accumulation of pyruvate drives its entry into the mitochondria via the MPC (or other alternative routes), where it can inhibit the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase, link here (PDK) (Sugden and Holness, 2003, link here). This impedes the function of PDK to suppress PDH activity, thus increasing the cells’ ability to oxidize pyruvate. An unexpected by-product of the build-up of pyruvate and lactate was a decrease in intracellular ROS, link here. This could be due to the ability of lactate and pyruvate to scavenge free radical, link here species (Liu et al., 2018, link here; Groussard et al., 2000, link here; Herz et al., 1997, link here). Indeed, pyruvate and lactate have been previously reported to protect myocardium from oxidant stress, link here (Yanagida et al., 1995, link here; de Groot et al., 1995, link here). Damaged mitochondria have been identified as a precursor to heart failure (Wai et al., 2015, link here; Acin-Perez et al., 2018, link here), and the improvement in mitochondrial membrane potential, link here and overall mitochondrial health with MCT4 inhibition adds to a growing body of evidence linking mitochondrial health to cardiac health (Brown et al., 2017, link here; Zhou and Tian, 2018, link here; Lesnefsky et al., 2001, link here). Our data in multiple systems demonstrate the importance of mitochondrial pyruvate metabolism for maintenance of mitochondrial structure and function and to limit the production of ROS in cardiomyocytes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2351.mp3" length="1476284" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking serotonin (5-HT) stops withdrawal symptoms in addicts</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2349</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2349</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 10 Oct 2023 15:03:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2349

The role of 5-HT and other stress mediators such as cortisol, adrenaline, estrogen, prolactin, histamine, etc has long been suspected in both “addiction” and the withdrawal symptoms seen in virtually all “addicts” upon abstinence. The anti-adrenaline (and anti-cortisol) drug clonidine has been used for decades off-label to treat the withdrawal symptoms of “hard” drugs, though its mechanism of action is considered “unknown”. In addition to the involvement of the HPA axis in withdrawal, the fact that “addicts” tremble, and have fever, anxiety, hallucinations, psychosis, delirium, depression, etc should immediately also draw attention to 5-HT (as all those symptoms are symptoms of 5-HT excess). However, we know that until there are studies implicating 5-HT directly no doctor or medical organization out there will ever say or do anything to even suggest pathological effects of the “happiness” hormone, as doing so would endanger the multi-billion-dollar SSRI industry. Well, here is one such study below. It demonstrated that the administration of the broad-spectrum serotonin antagonist mianserin, link here/mirtazapine, link here managed to alleviate/block the entire spectrum of opioid withdrawal signs/symptoms, which of course means lower or completely eliminated risk of relapse for the patient. Btw, other studies have demonstrated similar effects of blocking 5-HT for not only opioids but also addiction to stimulant (cocaine/amphetamines), alcohol, marijuana, etc. The fact that mianserin/mirtazapine is actually approved for treating depression and that it not only blocks serotonin, but also raises dopamine should be sufficient evidence to immediately “cancel” the entire “serotonin hypothesis” in depression, or at least expose the fact that the current theories of depression are about 180 degrees from the truth. Namely, the hypothesis actually backed by evidence is that serotonin causes depression and dopamine alleviates it, so blocking serotonin and/or increasing dopamine is perhaps the primary pathway of curing depression. Moreover (for those who don’t know it), it just so happens that most of the symptoms of withdrawal (from any drug) overlap with the symptoms of depression as well, so if an anti-serotonin drug can treat/cure the former, what does that (again) say about the latter?

2 links here

“…Mirtazapine, an atypical (anti-serotonin) antidepressant used to treat major depressive disorder, may also relieve several symptoms of opiate discontinuation, according to the findings of a recent study. “The implications may be decreased polypharmacy, decreased drug adverse reactions and multiple drug?drug interactions, and a higher likelihood of completing withdrawal without relapse,” said study author Elisha Lalani, BBA, MD, MPH, an internal medicine specialist at the University of Texas Department of Internal Medicine, in San Antonio. The literature review cited both clinical and basic science studies to demonstrate how mirtazapine treats each of the following symptoms:

Nausea and vomiting: Mirtazapine exerts antagonistic effects on the 5-HT3 receptor, giving the drug antiemetic properties.

Diarrhea: Mirtazapine blocking of serotonergic pathways via 5HT receptors has been shown to reduce diarrhea, abdominal pain and discomfort in patients with irritable bowel syndrome.

Anxiety, jitteriness, jumpiness and depression: Mirtazapine eases these symptoms by increasing dopamine levels.

…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2349.mp3" length="1150148" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Another “paradox” – elevated cortisol, from high-fat diet, increases inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2347</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2347</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Oct 2023 17:34:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2347

Over the last year or so I posted about several studies demonstrating that even short-term usage of glucocorticoids may be a double-edged sword. Namely, while it is beyond doubt that, acutely, glucocorticoids suppress inflammation, those studies demonstrated that the glucocorticoids upregulated the expression of several inflammatory pathways such as the endotoxin receptor family (TLR4/9), as well as the cyclooxygenase pathways. So, as soon as glucocorticoids are stopped the patient likely ends up with higher basal inflammation than before using those steroids. This pro-inflammatory effect of glucocorticoids is something most doctors would flat out deny, but it may explain why long-term usage of even low-dose glucocorticoids invariably worsens the prognosis of whatever disease they were prescribed for. The “autoimmune” conditions were some of the first to be demonstrated to have a worse long-term course when chronically treated with glucocorticoids, and this is one reason the current official guidelines are to use glucocorticoids only for “acute exacerbation” of such conditions. Similar observations have been made for arthritis, heart disease, chronic pain, etc. The study below adds more evidence for this “paradoxical” pro-inflammatory effect of glucocorticoids, in the context of even short-term high-fat diets. In fact, the study suggests that it is the glucocorticoids that may drive inflammation seen in people on high-fat diets and not the fat itself, though I would caution that in cases of high-PUFA diets the fat itself undoubtedly has inflammatory effects of its own. The elevated cortisol increased several inflammatory biomarkers and the inflammatory response to endotoxin/LPS administration, which is in line with the findings of the previous studies I mentioned on TLR4/9 upregulation by cortisol, and caused memory impairment. All of these effects – on inflammation and cognition – were blocked by administration of the cortisol blocker RU486. Thus, the moral of the story is that glucocroticoids are not at all benign and may in fact have the opposite long-term effects of what medicine uses them for. It should also serve as a caution to people on high-fat/low-carb diets, as it suggests such diets have a direct endocrine pro-obesity effect (by raising cortisol) even when used for short periods of time, and that effect is likely much worse for high-PUFA diet (due to their both pro-estrogenic and pro-cortisol effects). Thus, the study makes a good case for using steroids such as pregnenolone and progesterone, because both have been shown to reduce the TLR4/9 expression, the activation of the “inflammasome”, and are also direct antagonists of cortisol at the receptor level.

link here

“…A growing literature has demonstrated that HFD consumption can cause memory impairments in humans and rodents in as little as 3-5 d, long before frank signs of obesity appear (Kanoski and Davidson, 2010, link here; Holloway et al., 2011, link here; Beilharz et al., 2014, 2016, link here). These findings support the notion that the macronutrient profile of foods may be as important for cognitive health as is obesity status or total energy intake. Moreover, they provide a context in which inflammatory mechanisms could be examined without confounding by other comorbid conditions. It is well known that HFD consumption induces inflammation in peripheral tissues through active secretion of adipokines by adipocytes (Coppack, 2001, link here; Xu et al., 2002, link here; Cano et al., 2009, link here). Importantly, peripheral inflammation is capable of signaling the brain, via various routes of communication (Konsman et al., 2002, link here), leading to de novo production of cytokines in the brain that can then alter behavior (Layé et al., 1994, link here).”

“…These studies have shown that HFD consumption alone does not produce elevated cytokine expression in the brain, but does elevate microglial markers of activation. Moreover, short-term HFD consumption sensitizes the hypothalamus and hippocampus to over-respond to an immune challenge, such as to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and, in turn, produces functional impairments mediated by those brain regions. However, little is known about the mechanisms that mediate this short-term HFD-induced priming effect, and thus is the focus of the present study. Here, we explored the novel idea that short-term consumption of HFD would induce an elevation in hippocampal corticosterone (CORT), which would in turn prime the hippocampus to amplify its inflammatory response to a mild inflammatory challenge, finally resulting in impairments in memory consolidation. Despite its classic role as an immunosuppressant, there is a growing literature demonstrating that CORT can prime hippocampal microglia (Frank et al., 2010a, 2014, link here; Barrientos et al., 2015a, link here) and potentiate the neuroinflammatory response to a subsequent inflammatory challenge (Frank et al., 2010a, link here; Munhoz et al., 2010, link here; Hains et al., 2011, link here; Loram et al., 2011, link here). Here, we demonstrate that short-term HFD consumption produces CORT elevations in the hippocampus, increases the expression of neuroinflammatory priming signals, potentiates the proinflammatory response to LPS, and causes a deficit in forming long-term memory. To test that this HFD-induced CORT increase is a critical mechanism in this cascade, we administered the GR antagonist mifepristone at the time of HFD intake. If this treatment would prevent an HFD-plus-LPS-induced potentiated neuroinflammatory response and memory impairment, this would provide new insight into the mechanisms underlying the impact of HFD consumption on cognitive declines.”

“…The data presented here strongly implicate a role for CORT as a mediator of HFD-induced neuroinflammatory priming, and potentiated inflammatory responses to LPS that lead to contextual memory impairments. This is concluded because the inhibition of CORT signaling with mifepristone prevented all of these effects. Together, these data suggest that the glucocorticoid receptor may be an important target for attenuating the neuroinflammatory effects associated with HFDs.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2347.mp3" length="1304516" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Raising DHT levels even only in the brain reverses systemic atherosclerosis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2345</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2345</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Oct 2023 16:46:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2345

As my readers know, I have been a fan of the strong, non-aromatizable androgen DHT for a long time. One of the first signs for me that DHT is beneficial was the uniform and relentless propaganda against that steroid by mainstream medical publications, despite the obvious (and increasing) feminization of males in “developed”countries, clearly driven by androgen deficiency. Another sign that DHT is beneficial is the fact that its levels decline rapidly with aging and that DHT administration can restore vitality even in 90+ year old males. In fact, the totality of studies I have seen so far suggest that testosterone (T) is little more than a precursor to DHT and it is the latter that is responsible for both the male phenotype as well as optimal male health. The study below demonstrated that hypogonadism can reliably induce atherosclerosis, and administering androgens – T or DHT – directly into the brain reversed not only the localized brain inflammation caused by the hypogonadism, but also the systemic risk factors and biomarkers of atherosclerosis. It is worth noting that while DHT was fully effective, T was only only partially so, which corroborates my hypothesis that the benefits of T are due to its conversion into DHT. The study also confirm once again Peat’s writings that the brain is the master controller of systemic health and that brain health should be taken into account in any chronic condition, no matter how far away that condition is physically located from the brain.

link here

“…Hypogonadism in males confers elevated cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk by unknown mechanisms. Recent radiological evidence suggests that low testosterone (T) is associated with mediobasal hypothalamic (MBH) gliosis, a central nervous system (CNS) cellular response linked to metabolic dysfunction. To address mechanisms linking CNS androgen action to CVD risk, we generated a hypogonadal, hyperlipidemic mouse model with orchiectomy (ORX) combined with hepatic PCSK9 overexpression. After 4 wk of high-fat, high-sucrose diet (HFHS) consumption, despite equal body weights and glucose tolerance, androgen-deficient ORX mice had a more atherogenic lipid profile and increased liver and leukocyte inflammatory signaling compared with sham-operated control mice. Along with these early CVD risk indicators, ORX markedly amplified HFHS-induced astrogliosis in the MBH. Transcriptomic analysis further revealed that ORX and high-fat diet feeding induced upregulation of inflammatory pathways and downregulation of metabolic pathways in hypothalamic astrocytes. To interrogate the role of sex steroid signaling in the CNS in cardiometabolic risk and MBH inflammation, central infusion of T and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) was performed on ORX mice. Central DHT prevented MBH astrogliosis and reduced the liver inflammatory signaling and monocytosis induced by HFHS and ORX; T had a partial protective effect. Finally, a cross-sectional study in 41 adult men demonstrated a positive correlation between radiological evidence of MBH gliosis and plasma lipids. These findings demonstrate that T deficiency in combination with a Western-style diet promotes hypothalamic gliosis concomitant with increased atherogenic risk factors and provide supportive evidence for regulation of lipid metabolism and cardiometabolic risk determinants by the CNS action of sex steroids.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2345.mp3" length="732188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Androgens, glucocorticoids are antagonistic – former inhibit, latter promote fat gain</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2343</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2343</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Oct 2023 16:13:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2343

As most of my readers know, androgenic steroids are considered extremely dangerous by medicine and are in fact outlawed in most “developed” countries. Aside from the (in)famous “roid rage”, medicine claims that a large number of chronic conditions (spanning the spectrum from cosmetic to terminal) are caused by elevated levels of androgens in the body. Some of the most notable examples are “androgenic” alopecia, PCOS, obesity, diabetes, infertility, prostate cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), etc. Yet, none of these claims have ever been backed by experimental evidence and the only “evidence” for such claims comes from observational studies, and even those are quite flimsy. On the other hand, glucocorticoids (both endogenous and synthetic) are some of the most widely used drugs in medicine, despite their proven biochemical effect of inhibiting metabolism and promoting central obesity (e.g. Cushing syndrome/disease) with concomitant muscle loss (sarcopenia). The fact that levels of endogenous glucocorticoids remain more or less constant throughout the lifespan of a human while androgens (and their precursors) steadily decline is considered nothing but a impactless coincidence by clinical practice and even basic research. Athletes know that all of these theories are a complete fabrication, which is why competitive athletes (and especially bodybuilders) almost never fast and/or do exhaustive exercise to control weight, since they are aware of the detrimental effects of elevated cortisol. Another well-known tool in the athletic playbook are the so-called “anabolic androgenic steroids” (AAS), which athletes use to both increase muscle mass/strength, as well as to get rid of excess body fat. This would imply that androgenic steroids and glucocorticoids are mutual antagonists. While it has been known for some time that most AAS do antagonize the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), the reverse has not been readily demonstrated. The study below provides evidence for that mutual and bidirectional antagonism, which can explain not only the slimming effects of AAS but also the ability of glucocorticoids (most commonly from chronic stress) to promote fat accumulation as well as cause functional hypogonadism (by antagonizing androgens). So, based on this study and prior knowledge of what androgens and cortisol do, it would be reasonable to conclude that the fat accumulation and muscle loss almost universally seen in middle age and beyond (in both sexes) are nothing more than a sign of declining androgens, with a resulting relative cortisol excess (i.e. low androgen/glucocorticoid ratio). This anabolic/catabolic ratio has already been studied by various researchers and so far all studies have found that the cortisol/DHEA (unisex) and cortisol/testosterone (in males) ratios are some of the most reliable predictors of not just body composition and diseases such as diabetes, but of all-cause mortality and morbidity as well. As the study says, inhibiting glucocorticoid effects may be a viable prevention/treatment for obesity and diabetes. Aside from AAS and endogenous androgens such as testosterone, DHT and their precursor DHEA other glucocorticoid antagonists include progesterone and pregnenolone. There is also the synthetic cortisol blocker RU486, but it also blocks the progesterone receptor (which may be dangerous) and frankly I don’t see anything RU486 can do that progesterone cannot.

2 links here

“…”We used a novel approach that combined the gene expression studies with automated microscopy and ‘high content’ image analysis to identify unique signatures specific to human cells and not the mouse cell line usually used in such studies,” said Hartig. The work identified the androgen receptor as a uniquely expressed gene in human fat cells that is both expressed and functional during the early stages of fat cell differentiation. “Activation of the androgen receptor can inhibit the early stages of human fat maturation,” he said. However, he said, another important steroid receptor the glucocorticoid receptor tightly regulates how the androgen receptor is expressed. High levels of glucocorticoids can lead to lipid accumulation in fat cells and their deposition throughout the body and, in particular, in the abdominal or visceral area. Abdominal fat is associated with higher risks of heart disease and diabetes. “Using a custom developed image analysis software platform usually found only in large pharmaceutical screening centers, we applied specific algorithms to sensitively detect the glucocorticoid inhibition of androgen receptor activity,” said Mancini. “Without the automated, ‘high content’ image analysis approach, we could not have made these observations.””

“…The glucocorticoids can affect the expression of the androgen receptor and inhibit its activity, facilitating fat storage. “This has implications in this era of an obesity epidemic,” said Mancini. “If you can reduce glucocorticoids, you might be able to upregulate (or increase) androgen receptor activity and regulate fat storage. This work is another example of the how high throughput approaches can enable research to study basic science problems, with a follow-on paths leading to translational science.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2343.mp3" length="1682828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) drives diabetes and liver disease, blocking it is therapeutic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2341</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2341</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 Oct 2023 17:41:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2341

After more than a decade of doing research in bioenergetics, I have come to the conclusion that there is hardly a disease (both acute and chronic) where 5-HT is not involved as a causal factor. Out of all those conditions, the ones with the biggest public health impacts are probably obesity, diabetes, and liver disease and those are usually present together (i.e. co-morbidities) in a patient. Despite official claims that the cause of these widespread conditions is eating too much (and especially sugar) and moving too little, the fact that even wild animals living close to humans are getting fat and diabetic virtually guarantees that the cause is environmental. Putting the eternal villain PUFA aside, another ubiquitous environmental factor is the usage of serotonergic drugs, as well as the presence of chronic stress – both resulting in increased serotonergic tone by themselves and greatly synergistic in combination. The study below demonstrates that elevated 5-HT leads to hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, insulin resistance, and hepatic steatosis/inflammation/fibrosis through the activation of the 5-HT2 receptor. Conversely, lowering 5-HT synthesis by administration of an inhibitor of tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH, rate-limiting step in serotonin synthesis) and/or blocking the 5-HT2 receptor (with a serotonin antagonist) lead to amelioration (and even reversal) of most of these pathologies. Btw, it is probably just a “coincidence” that despite medicine continuing to gaslight the public about 5-HT being the “happiness” hormone, behind the scenes many companies are running clinical trials with TPH inhibitors or serotonin receptor antagonists as curative treatments for a host of incurable conditions including pulmonary/cardiac fibrosis, as well as the more “benign” but much more widespread conditions collectively known as the metabolic syndrome.

2 links here

“…These effects of the 5-HT system were also detected in palmitic acid- or high glucose-treated PMHs and regulated multiple inflammatory signaling pathways. In diabetic mice, co-treatment with antagonists of both 5-HT synthesis and 5-HT2R significantly abolished hepatic steatosis, inflammation, and fibrosis as well as hyperglycemia and dyslipidemia. Conclusion: Activation of the hepatocellular 5-HT system plays a crucial role in inducing diabetes-related hepatic dysfunction and is a potential therapeutic target.”

“…Numerous patients with T2DM develop NAFLD with inflammatory complications, namely, NASH. However, the mechanisms underlying these processes are not understood entirely. We revealed that the 5-HT system, including 5-HT synthesis and 5-HT2R, is activated in the hepatocytes of a T2DM mouse model, which crucially affected the occurrence of hepatic steatosis and inflammation with fibrosis. 5-HT2R activation in hepatocytes regulates PKCε activation with the subsequent phosphorylation of Akt, mTOR, and ERK1/2, ultimately resulting in ELS, including de novo lipogenesis, and TG and VLDL synthesis with LDA, whereas the activation of both 5-HT synthesis and 5-HT2R modulates oxidative stress with the activation of NF-κB and inflammatory signaling molecules, including p38, JNK, and STAT3, resulting in PICG.”

“…We found that the levels of dopamine, another molecule synthesized by AADC, were very low and unchanged in the liver and serum of Ctrl and T2DM mice with or without CDP treatment (data not shown), whereas 5-HT levels were significantly elevated in the liver and serum of T2DM mice, and were obviously reduced by CDP treatment; hepatic 5-HT levels were also inhibited by Sar (Fig. 8a). The expression of hepatic Tph1, AADC, 5-HT2AR, and 5-HT2BR was up-regulated in T2DM mice compared to Ctrl mice (Fig. 8a). T2DM mice exhibited PKCε activation with increased phosphorylation of Akt, mTOR, and ERK1/2, upregulated ACC, GPAT1, and MTTP expression (Fig. 8b), and increased TG and VLDL levels (Fig. 8c) in the liver; they also showed hepatic oxidative stress and inflammation with up-regulated MAO-A expression, increased H2O2 and MDA levels, NF-κB activation, increased phosphorylation of p38, JNK, and STAT3, and increased TNF-α and IL-1β levels (Fig. 8b and c). These alterations were remarkably inhibited by Sar and CDP in a synergistic manner.”

“…By hematoxylin and eosin staining (Fig. 8d), we found hepatic steatosis and lobular inflammation with inflammatory cell infiltration and hepatocyte ballooning in the lobes. By Masson’s trichrome staining (Fig. 8e), we found hepatic fibrosis in the periportal and parenchymal regions of T2DM mice. These phenotypes were significantly ameliorated by Sar and CDP, particularly by the combination of both. Additionally, increased hepatic levels of hydroxyproline (Fig. 8c), a marked amino acid in the collagen of fibrous tissue [33], and liver injury with increased activity of serum ALT and AST (Fig. 9c) were also reversed significantly in T2DM mice by Sar and CDP in a synergistic manner.”

“…Treatment with Sar and CDP, alone or in combination, reversed the bodyweight loss and reduced the increases in food intake and hepatic index in T2DM mice (Fig. 9a). Whereas there was no significant difference between the three treatments for the amelioration of bodyweight loss, food intake, and hepatic index, suggesting that these effects are not crucial for treating NASH. Sar and CDP treatment (alone or in combination) of T2DM mice also ameliorated dyslipidemia and IR in a synergistic manner, including a reduction of the increased serum levels of TG, FFAs, LDL-c, and VLDL-c, decreased serum levels of HDL-c (Fig. 9b), and increased levels of fasting blood glucose and serum insulin with an increased HOMA-IR index (Fig. 9c). Taken together, our findings show that 5-HT system activation in the liver is a crucial event leading to T2DM-related NASH.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2341.mp3" length="938396" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Inhibiting oxidative metabolism can cause inflammation, aggressive cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2336</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2336</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 Oct 2023 16:46:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2336

Despite medicine’s rabid defense of the “cancerous mutation” origin theory of cancer, it looks like evidence for the metabolic origins of cancer has always been around and hiding in “plain sight”. The study below cites the apparently well-known causal link between accumulation of fumarate (a Krebs cycle intermediate/metabolite) and aggressive kidney cancer (with as survival prognosis in the single digits). The study also found that accumulation of fumarate causes inflammation and mitochondrial damage, likely due to triggering a “reverse” Krebs cycle, link here flow, which (similarly to the reverse electron transport chain flow) results in massive release of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can easily explain the cancer link. To make matters worse, the mitochondria damaged by accumulated Krebs cycle reverse flow and its intermediates/metabolites is itself not at all benign, but can create an infection-like spread of the “sickness field” capable of causing serious conditions (e.g. Parkinson Disease) far away from the cells where the original mitochondrial damage occurred. Thus, the findings of this study are a perfect confirmation of Otto von Warburg’s claim made almost a century ago that all that it takes for disease (and especially cancer) to form is for something to interfere with oxidative phosphorylation for sufficiently long period of time. In other words, function and structure are inseparable at every level and functional disturbances (e.g. Krebs inhibition, resulting in fumarate accumulation) are sufficient to cause structural damage (damaged mitochondria, inflammation, autoimmunity, cancer, etc).

2 links here

“…A new study shows for the first time a connection between a mitochondrial metabolite and the activation of an inflammatory response. Mitochondria are functional units of our cells that fulfil important tasks, i.e. chemical reactions, for the functioning of the cell. One of these tasks is the production of energy that is necessary for cell growth and reproduction. If certain chemical reactions in the mitochondrion change, diseases occur. For example, deficiencies in fumarate hydratase (FH) in the Krebs cycle, one of the most important metabolic pathways in mitochondria, cause an aggressive form of kidney cancer in humans. FH loss leads to the accumulation of the molecule fumarate, which contributes to the development of cancer. For this reason, fumarate is called an oncogenic metabolite, or “oncometabolite” for short. The research team led by Alexander von Humboldt Professor Dr Christian Frezza, formerly at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and now at the CECAD Cluster of Excellence for Aging Research at the University of Cologne, has now developed a new mouse and cell model together with the research group led by Professor Prudent of the University of Cambridge to deepen the understanding of aggressive kidney cancer. In the models, the silencing of the fumarate hydratase gene can be temporally controlled by the scientists. Using a combination of high-resolution imaging techniques and precise biochemical experiments, the scientists have shown that fumarate causes mitochondrial damage. This in turn releases the genetic material of the mitochondria in small vesicles called mitochondrial-derived vesicles. These vesicles filled with mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and RNA (mtRNA) trigger an immune reaction that eventually leads to inflammation. The study titled “Fumarate induces vesicular release of mtDNA to drive innate immunity” was published in Nature.  “Our study shows for the first time a correlation between a mitochondrial metabolite and the onset of inflammation, which could be the trigger for cancer and autoimmune diseases,” said Professor Frezza. “Based on these findings, we can now work on new approaches to treat patients, which will hopefully lead to the development of new therapeutic strategies to treat cancer patients in the future.”

link here

“…According to scientists, a key enzyme known as Fumarate Hydratase is suppressed in macrophages, a type of immune cell, link here involved in various diseases such as Lupus, link here, Arthritis, Sepsis, and COVID-19.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2336.mp3" length="817916" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Illness (endotoxin) makes body odor unpleasant, may lead to social shunning</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2334</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2334</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 Oct 2023 14:54:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2334

The study below demonstrated something most of us have known intuitively since childhood. Namely, sick people not only look sick, but they also smell “sick”. While this has already been established scientifically for people with terminal diseases (e.g. cancer, which increases body levels of foul-smelling putrescine and cadaverine), so far had not been demonstrated in relatively healthy people or people with more benign conditions. Just a day ago I did a post on Parkinson Disease (PD) being caused through activation of the endotoxin/LPS receptors (TLR) by damaged mitochondria floating around in the blood. It just so happens that there have been several studies already demonstrating that specially trained dogs can reliable distinguish between healthy controls and people with PD, based on smell alone. Now, the study below corroborates all of those studies and demonstrates that elevated endotoxin/LPS alone is enough to trigger a change in bod odor, which even humans (with olfactory sensitivity much worse than canines) can reliably detect, rating it as very unpleasant/disgusting, and leading to the social avoidance (isolation) of such people. Btw, most doctors dismiss endotoxin/LPS as something of concern only for people with liver failure, and even then they don’t believe it can cause serious problems. So, aside from corroborating our intuitive knowledge, another benefit of this study is that it confirms even minor elevations of endotoxin/LPS in the blood can cause systemic inflammation even in healthy people, with dire consequences not only for their body odor, but their systemic health as well.

link here

Can Sickness Change Body Odor to be Perceived as Aversive?, link here

“…A new study has found that individuals who are sick may emit different body odor compared to when they are healthy. Researchers tested whether experimental activation of the immune system in healthy individuals could make their body odor more aversive. Participants who received an endotoxin injection to create systemic inflammation were found to have a more unpleasant body odor compared to those who received a placebo. Analysis of the body odor samples indicated qualitative changes in the volatile components, rather than quantitative changes. These findings suggest that odor cues of inflammation in sweat can be detected just a few hours after immune system activation, potentially triggering behavioral avoidance to protect against pathogens.”

“…Furthermore, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis revealed qualitative changes in the volatile substances of the body odor samples from the endotoxin group. This indicates that the qualitative composition of body odor can change as a result of immune system activation. These findings support the hypothesis that inflammation-related odor cues in axillary sweat can be detected shortly after immune system activation, potentially triggering behavioral avoidance to protect against infected individuals. Further research is needed to understand the specific volatile compounds that contribute to the aversive perception of body odor during sickness.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2334.mp3" length="813860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA metabolites (prostaglandins) drive “flu” pathology</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2332</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2332</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Oct 2023 18:24:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2332

A highly relevant study in light of the recent (and apparently, still ongoing) COVID-19 pandemic, which not only casts doubt on the official story about how infectious disease develops, but also its treatments and public health response. The study below demonstrated that prostaglandins – the PUFA metabolites through the cyclooxygenase (COX) pathway – are the main signal through which the brain recognizes the presence of a viral respiratory infection. The study used the influenza virus for its experiments, but states that its findings are likely applicable to all other respiratory infection viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. The more prostaglandins synthesized, the more severe the immune response of the host, up to the point of developing the (in)famous cytokine storm, multi-organ failure and even death. Conversely, blocking prostaglandin effects at the receptor or reducing their synthesis greatly reduced symptoms of a viral infection, as well as risk for organ damage and mortality. In other words, what we call the “flu” may be nothing more than a symptom of PUFA overload, and the degree of that overload determines the course of the viral infection. This finding matches the common observation that children – who have much lower PUFA stores than adults – get the flu (and other viral infections) much less often than adults and when they do get sick their disease course is almost always milder, which translates to lower mortality as well. Thus, the study directly suggests that the focus of public health authorities should not be on any specific viral pathogen or a vaccine for it, but on the food supply chain and availability of cheap, safe drugs that reduce prostaglandin synthesis. The classic example of such a prostaglandin-reducing (COX inhibitor) agent is, of course, aspirin. The study used the HED of 1.5 mg/kg bw daily dosage and that increased survival from 30% (control group) to 70% (aspirin group) in influenza-infected animals. The findings of this study also contradict the common medical warning to not use aspirin in viral infections (especially in flu cases) due to risks of developing so-called Reye syndrome, link here. That warning has never been backed by actual evidence, yet it remains widely known among health practitioners and most adults have probably heard it from their doctor(s) either in regards to their own disease or flu infections in their children. As has become customary over the last 2-3 decades such warnings turn out to be nothing more than fear-mongering due to either incompetence or, worse, malicious intent to smear aspirin (as has been the case for its use in heart disease, stroke, dementia, etc). As far as food – the study suggests that limiting PUFA intake and/or administering anti-lipolysis drugs would be another important step towards limiting the impact of viral pandemics on the population, and their combination with aspirin would be even more effective than either agent alone. Luckily, aspirin also happens to reduce excess lipolysis! Finally, the study also throws into question the very concept of “infectious” disease, since older studies with PUFA-depleted animals demonstrate the near-impossibility to get them infected with any virus (and especially the influenza family), and even when infected they were near-impossible to kill regardless of the viral load they got injected with. In other words, it is not the virus that kills, but the host’s reaction to it, and PUFA is a core component of that (negative) reaction that is responsible for the totality of symptoms/pathology we know as the “flu”.

2 links here

“…Importantly, he found that these neurons are necessary to signal to the brain that a flu infection is present and have receptors for lipids called prostaglandins. These lipids are made by both mice and humans during an infection, and they are targeted by drugs such as ibuprofen and aspirin. Cutting the glossopharyngeal nerve, eliminating the neurons, blocking the prostaglandin receptors in those neurons, or treating the mice with ibuprofen similarly reduced influenza symptoms and increased survival. Together, the findings suggest that these airway neurons detect the prostaglandins made during a flu infection and become a communication conduit from the upper part of the throat to the brain. “We think that these neurons relay the information that there’s a pathogen there and initiate neural circuits that control the sickness response,” Liberles said. The results provide an explanation for how drugs like ibuprofen and aspirin work to reduce flu symptoms — and suggest that these drugs may even boost survival. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2332.mp3" length="1648700" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Parkinson Disease (PD) akin to infectious disease – driven by endotoxin, damaged mitochondria</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2330</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2330</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Oct 2023 16:08:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2330

Yet another study demonstrating that there is no need for genes or any other hereditary mechanism to explain the cause and development of PD. The study below demonstrated that the presence of damaged mitochondrial DNA in the bloodstream is sufficient to cause all symptoms of PD, and the effects of that mitochondrial debris were exerted through activation of the (in)famous endotoxin/LPS receptor TLR4. Of course, such findings immediately imply that elevated endotoxin/LPS, itself the main TLR4 activator, is also sufficient to cause PD. In the absence of endotoxin/LPS, stress would be the other main suspect since mitochondrial damage and the presence of mitochondrial debris in the blood is mainly driven by cortisol through its catabolic effects on virtually all tissues incorporating amino acids (e.g. muscle, skin, bones, most organs, etc). So, there we have it – poor diet that promotes endotoxin (resistant starches anyone?) and/or chronic stress are all that is needed to cause PD even in completely healthy organisms. Interestingly, the damaged mitochondria not only activated the TLR receptors, but could cause PD in another organism in an infection-like manner – i.e. injecting healthy animals with mitochondrial DNA from animals with PD fully reconstituted the PD pathology in the healthy animals as well. This is very concerning as it corroborates the intuitive drive of people to avoid chronically (non-infectious) sick individuals due to fear of the disease somehow transferring onto the healthy companion. This phenomenon has been observed for at least a century and it is well-known that nurses in wards with chronically ill people tend to come down with the same condition their patients have/had. Being physically close (and/or intimate) to the sick person makes it even more dangerous as mitochondrial DNA is present in bodily fluids, so activities such as kissing and sexual intercourse, or even just skin touch can transfer the mitochondrial debris from the sick person to the healthy one. Evidence for such horizontal DNA transfer already exists in humans and it is collectively known under the term of microchimerism, link here. So, chronic stress experienced by even a fraction of the population of a country can potentially have detrimental health effects on the entire country through the so-called “bystander effect”. And it is not just PD that the findings of the study apply to – i.e. other recent studies have implicated endotoxin/LPS and the TLR family of receptors in Alzheimer Dieases (AD), Huntington Disease (HD), multiple sclerosis (MS), and even the infectious-related Mad Cow Disease could easily be caused by chronic activation of the TLR receptor family.

link here

“…To investigate the relevance of mtDNA damages in PD pathology, we utilized spontaneous mice PDD models where IFNβ or IFNAR genes are deleted [27, link here, 28, link here, 30, link here]. We observed that lack of endogenous neuronal IFNβ-IFNAR signaling causes altered mtDNA, harboring sequence variations and oxidative damages. Damaged mtDNA is in turn extruded from IFNβ/IFNAR knock-out neurons partly through EVs causing and spreading neurotoxicity. Moreover, we established that, although the damages in mtDNA and their subsequent release from neurons occurs only when the endogenous IFNβ-IFNAR signaling is defective, their “infectious-like” spread of the pathology is IFNβ/IFNAR-independent. Furthermore, we identified that the damaged mtDNA extrusion is dependent on its recognition by Rps3, a protein reported to be involved in oxidative DNA repair [61, link here] and in TLR4 activation [32, link here], but with no previously known role in the extrusion of damaged mtDNA and neurodegeneration. Importantly, we demonstrated that the damaged mtDNA extruded from neurons is neurotoxic, notably through the coactivation of TLR9 and TLR4 which direct different molecular events. Our results established that while TLR9-dependent sensing is involved in neuronal mitochondrial oxidative stress, TLR4 activation contributes to neuronal cell-death. Of note, we did not observe a role for cGAS-STING pathway, one of the earlier suggested main players [62, link here,63, link here,64, link here], in our reported neuronal pathologies.”

“…Significantly, we demonstrated that damaged mtDNA, resulting from impaired neuronal IFNβ-IFNAR signaling, does not only induce PDD-like pathology upon injection into healthy animals, including causing motor and cognitive deficits, pα-synuclein accumulation, and neuronal loss, it also triggers the spread of the pathology to other brain regions in an “infectious-like manner”. The precise mechanisms of this spread are still to be elucidated, but the impact of damaged mtDNA on TLR9-mediated mitochondrial membrane potential reduction and oxidative stress increase suggests that damaged mtDNA could spread mitochondrial dysfunction to neighbouring healthy neurons. This is supported by the observed increase in neuronal oxDJ1, not only at the injection site but also in distant brain regions. Interestingly, previous studies have demonstrated that oxidative stress promotes prion-like protein aggregation [70, link here].”

“…Our findings indicate that the neuronal pathology induced by damaged mtDNA involves the coactivation of TLR9 and TLR4. We observed increased expression of both receptors in the transcriptome of PDD patients, which was further verified in another cohort of PDD patients, mouse brains injected with damaged KOmtDNA, and primary neurons treated with damaged KOmtDNA. Surprisingly, Tlr4 showed higher upregulation upon treatment with damaged mtDNA compared to WTmtDNA. While TLR9 has been previously reported to recognize unmethylated CpG motifs from mtDNA [50, link here, 51, link here], the association of TLR4 with mtDNA sensing is elusive. Previous studies had suggested the involvement of TLR4 in PD pathology [71, link here, 72, link here], but primarily linked to microglia activation by α-synuclein [73, link here, 74, link here]. However, its association with mtDNA pathology and its role in neuronal death associated with PDD had not been demonstrated. In our study, we identified Rps3 as a key mediator of TLR4 activation in response to damaged mtDNA in neurons. Rps3 specifically recognizes oxidative damages on mtDNA and directly binds to TLR4. It plays a crucial role in nuDNA and mtDNA maintenance during oxidative stress in mammalian cells, including neurons [56, link here, 57, link here, 75, link here,76, link here,77, link here]. We show that Rps3 is essential for the recognition of damaged mtDNA in neurons and its extrusion from mitochondria in EVs. This alternative mechanism is particularly important in neurons with defective mitophagy, such as Ifnb−/−/Ifnar1−/− neurons. This would restrict cytosolic mtDNA leakage and subsequent cGAS activation, thereby preventing an inflammatory response [58, link here]. However, if damaged mtDNA is released extracellularly, in cell-free form or enclosed within EVs, it may cause an infectious-like pathology upon uptake by healthy neurons. Our data reveal a distinct role of damaged mtDNA in neurotoxicity and the spread of an infectious PDD-like pathology. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2330.mp3" length="1285388" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may lower blood pressure in humans by raising NAD+</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2328</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2328</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Oct 2023 17:12:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2328

The study actually used the now-banned NAD+ precursor known as nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), but, as I keep reminding people, multiple studies have demonstrated statistically equivalent rise in NAD+ levels from equal doses of any of the known NAD+ precursors such as niacin, niacinamide (NAM), nicotinamide riboside (NR) and NMN. Speaking of NR, now that NMN has effectively been labelled a “drug” by the FDA and can no longer be acquired OTC, it is highly likely that NR will soon suffer a similar fate given its nearly identical history as NMN. Namely, a private company (ChromaDex) sponsoring multiple human clinical studies, which they would obviously love to recover the costs of by having NR declared a drug so that they have monopoly on its market – i.e. the exact same script as the one followed by NMN and the company that pushes its use. Thus, considering the undesirable side effects of niacin, NAM may soon remain the only OTC method for boosting the total adenine dinucleotide (AD) pool. Oxidizing agents such as methylene blue, vitamin K, CoQ10, tetracyclines, etc can raise the NAD+/NADH ratio but they achieve that by simply increasing the oxidation of NADH back into NAD+. They do not raise the total AD pool (NAD+ plus NADH), while NAM does, and the total pool size is also important for good health. As such, perhaps the optimal method for raising both the AD pool and the NAD+/NADH ratio is through using both NAM and an oxidizing agent. A combination of NAM and a few milligrams (mg) of methylene blue or vitamin K seems like a very good option for achieving that.

But I digress, so back to the study. It had both an animal model and a human “arm”, which makes it that much more relevant, since it demonstrates the validity of the NAD+ deficiency model in CVD across multiple species, while also directly demonstrating its intervention effectiveness for reversing NAD+ deficiency, in both animals and humans. Namely, the study demonstrated that NAD+ levels are about 50% lower in animals and humans with cardiovascular disease (CVD), that hypertension (one of the core signs/symptoms of CVD) is directly controlled by NAD+ levels, and that administration of an NAD+ precursor both restored NAD+ values to healthy levels and lowered hypertension and biomarkers of blood vessel damage. Since hypertension is such a core sign/symptom of CVD and raising NAD+ levels was therapeutic, it begs the question whether raising NAD+ levels would not also be therapeutic for CVD as a whole. My readers know the answer to that question, much to the chagrin of Big Pharma. The interesting mechanism here is that NAD+ levels were lower in people with CVD due to overactive enzyme CD38. That enzyme consumes/degrades NAD+ and while NMN may have simply acted as an NAD+ precursor to offset the effects of CD38, plain old NAM may have an additional advantage/trick up its sleeve in that (unlike NMN) it is also a direct inhibitor of CD38, link here, and thus superior to a simple precursor such as NMN. As far as the regimen – participants took 800mg NMN once daily, orally for 6 weeks and that regimen was enough to raise NAD+ levels by 40%+ – i.e. effectively restore NAD+ to a level seen in healthy controls.

link here

NMN Reduces Systolic Blood Pressure in Clinical Trial, link here

“…This research begins with a discussion of NAD+ and its nature as a fundamental aspect of human metabolism. In particular, the authors home in on the immune factor CD38, which has been previously found to suppress NAD+. Blocking CD38 has been found to improve the metabolism of aged mice [1]. Macrophage infiltration, in which immune cells penetrate the blood vessels and release CD38, has been found to release inflammatory cytokines, which encourage CD38 expression [2]. As previous research has found that the NAD+ precursor nicotinamide riboside (NR) may have positive effects on arterial stiffness in people [3], these researchers decided to use another precursor, nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), to determine if this NAD+ supplement would help in hypertension. First, the researchers examined 102 people, 52 of whom were healthy and 50 of whom were recently diagnosed with hypertension. While the relative levels of NAD+ precursors were similar, the hypertensive group had far less NAD+ than the healthy group. Similarly, there was an inverse correlation with blood NAD+ and blood pressure. The researchers also looked specifically at the aortas of hypertensive patients. They found that NAD+ was depleted by nearly half in this tissue. These results were recapitulated in mice. However, these biometrics were substantially improved in mice given NMN, which enjoyed lower blood pressure and better aortic health. This was also tested in people. A total of 19 people completed a second study, in which 9 were treated with lifestyle modifications and 10 were treated with lifestyle modifications plus NMN. As expected, NMN significantly increased NAD+ in the treated group. Diastolic blood pressure was not affected to the level of statistical significance, but systolic blood pressure was significantly reduced in the NMN group. Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity, a marker of blood vessel damage, was also reduced in the NMN group.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2328.mp3" length="1686548" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D deficiency and low, not high, dopamine drive schizophrenia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2326</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2326</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 12 Sep 2023 17:42:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2326

One of the most persistent medical myths can be found in psychiatry. More specifically, in the category of psychotic mental disorders. Schizophrenia is perhaps the most widely studied representative of such conditions and the prevailing dogma/hypothesis about schizophrenia (and other psychotic disorders in general) is that it is driven by excess dopamine production in the brain. Due to that dominant hypothesis/dogma, to this day the standard-of-care drugs for schizophrenia are all dopamine antagonists – e.g. haloperidol, link here being the most widely used drug in the category of such antagonists. Haloperidol does relieve symptoms of schizophrenia, but causes a number of severe side effects. Namely, as a result of dopamine antagonism prolactin rises quite a bit and this results in a number of side effects such as obesity, hypogonadism, sexual dysfunction, cognitive deficiencies, and (over time) insulin resistance, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer. On a bit of a side (but related) note, it is worth noting that if prolactin is a widely-accepted cause of all these severe side effects then the same risks apply to estrogen. Namely, prolactin and estrogen are like the proverbial evil twins. Each one promotes the release/synthesis of the other and amplifies its effects. So, it is truly criminal that Big Pharma and its army of corrupt doctors are now pushing for a return of estrogenic HRT in women of all age groups and claiming it is beneficial. Yeah, it is about as “beneficial” as prolactin.

Anyways, back to schizophrenia. It has been known for decade that people with elevated serotonin (either central or peripheral) have a strikingly higher rates of psychotic disorders compared to the general population. Perhaps the most extreme example of this is the case of carcinoid (a serotonin-producing tumor) syndrome patients most of which have full blown psychosis and hallucinations, which worsen as their disease progresses (and thus serotonin synthesis/release increase). Another good (and more common) example is the serotonin syndrome, which also has psychosis, deliriums and hallucinations as common signs. In other words, there is a mountain of evidence going back at least a century that high serotonin causes psychotic states. However, serotonin and dopamine are inversely correlated and direct inhibitors of each other’s synthesis. So, it is next to impossible to have a real-life situation of a patient with schizophrenia that has both a high dopamine (as medicine claims) and high serotonin (as the historical and biochemical evidence claims). So, how does haloperidol work then, considering it is indeed a dopamine antagonist. Well, unbeknownst to the vast majority of even the medical community, the pharmacological profile of haloperidol was recently updated based on some more recent evidence and it is now known that haloperidol is not just a dopamine antagonist but also a potent serotonin antagonist, link here on several of the serotonin receptors. In addition, virtually all of the so-called atypical antipsychotics are also partial serotonin antagonists. This kind of muddies the water a bit, since proponents of the dominant hypothesis (i.e. the high dopamine hypothesis) can still claim it is haloperidol’s (or atypical antipsychotics’) dopamine antagonism effects that are truly treating the condition. Well, there are plenty of studies demonstrating that serotonin antagonists (such as cyproheptadine) can resolve psychotic conditions in people with carcinoid or serotonin syndromes. However, those conditions are officially considered distinct from schizophrenia and doctors refuse to accept the fact that cyproheptadine’s effectiveness in those conditions is evidence that high serotonin (and thus low dopamine) is the actual cause of “exclusively” mental conditions such as schizophrenia.

This is why the study below is such a great find. It demonstrated that vitamin D deficiency reliably leads to dopaminergic deficiency, specifically in the brain, and that increasing vitamin D levels leads to increased dopamine synthesis. A prior study by the same authors demonstrated that vitamin D deficiency in childhood can reliably cause schizophrenia later on. So, this implies that it is dopamine deficiency (and this serotonin excess) that drives schizophrenia, which directly contradicts the established hypothesis/dogma. The exact same situation is now becoming more widely accepted to be the case with serotonin and depression – i.e. high, now low, serotonin drives depression. But wait, it gets better. Not only do we now have evidence that simple, OTC and cheap substance such as vitamin D can prevent/treat psychotic states such as schizophrenia, we also have the plausible mechanism of action, and once again it implicates serotonin as the cause of this pathology. Namely, vitamin D is known to inhibit the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH), link here, which is responsible for the synthesis of serotonin. In other words, vitamin D is both a serotonin synthesis inhibitor and dopamine synthesis stimulant (as the study below demonstrated). This effect has remarkably broad applicability spanning not just mental disorders but virtually all diseases known to medicine. No wonder there are studies out there demonstrating beneficial effects from vitamin D on virtually all chronic, and acute conditions, including ones related to physical injury/trauma.

link here

“…The data presented here add to numerous prior investigations outlining the role vitamin D plays in DA neuron differentiation. We demonstrate that 1,25OHD treatment increases neurite outgrowth both in vitro and in two ex vivo models of dopaminergic development as well as increasing DA production along with the synthetic enzymes (TH), and presynaptic release proteins (SV2C) that may be involved in DA release. Perhaps, most importantly, we also present the first evidence to suggest that differentiating cells with 1,25OHD also promotes the pharmacological release of DA from TH+ cells. DVD deficiency is an epidemiologically proven risk factor for schizophrenia (Eyles et al., 2018, link here; McGrath et al., 2010, link here). The work presented here further suggests developmental variations in vitamin D may subtly alter the trajectory of DA neuron development, supporting the emerging hypothesis that schizophrenia is a developmental dopaminergic disorder (Eyles, 2021a, link here; Eyles et al., 2012, link here). Our results also suggest possible new avenues of research aimed at investigating the connection between vitamin D and SV2C function with respect to the molecular mechanisms underlying the disrupted DA-signalling found in schizophrenia.”

 

Critical role of vitamin D in dopaminergic function and schizophrenia, link here

“…Neuroscientists have discovered how vitamin D deficiency affects the development of neurons, contributing to disorders such as schizophrenia. Using innovative technology, they were able to observe that vitamin D deficiency not only alters the development of neurons, but also affects the dopamine release mechanism in the brain. They found that dopamine release was improved in cells cultured in the presence of vitamin D, compared to a control. This study confirms the importance of vitamin D in the structural differentiation of dopaminergic neurons and suggests that maternal vitamin D deficiency may alter how early dopaminergic circuits are formed.

“…Key facts:

The research team showed that vitamin D deficiency affects the mechanisms of growth and dopamine secretion in dopamine neurons.

They found that dopamine release was improved in cells cultured in the presence of the vitamin D hormone, compared to a control.

The study hypothesizes that early changes in dopaminergic neuron differentiation due to vitamin D deficiency may be the neurodevelopmental origin of dopamine dysfunction  [read: deficiency] in adults who develop schizophrenia.

…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2326.mp3" length="2519588" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Molecules dissolved in vitamin E preferentially target brain injuries</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2324</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2324</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 08 Sep 2023 15:58:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2324

A fascinating study, confirming Ray’s work from decades ago. Namely, that various lipophilic molecules (e.g. steroids) dissolved in vitamin E not only significantly bypass the liver, but are also taken up by organs/tissues in much higher amounts than if those molecules were floating around freely in the blood (as it commonly happens after injection). The study below demonstrated that lipophilic chemicals dissolved in vitamin E (tocopherols) not only preferentially accumulate in the brain but actually target damaged brain areas (e.g. from stroke). There is already a plethora of successful studies with pregnenolone and/or progesterone for various brain-specific pathologies such as stroke, TBI, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson Disease (PD), as well as androgens such as DHT for broader neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS) or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Thus, the study below suggests that dissolving those substances in vitamin E would not only increase their effectiveness (thus allowing lower doses to be used), but also target specifically the areas with the most damage. It is the Holly Grail of pharmacology – maximizing effectiveness and specificity while minimizing dosage (and thus risk of side effects). It looks like lowly vitamin E may very well fit this bill, at least when it comes to targeting the brain. Interestingly enough, another widely distributed endogenous lipid-like molecule – cholesterol –  did not provide injury-specific uptake. This suggests that if other molecules structurally similar to cholesterol (e.g. steroids) are administered without vitamin E, they will not preferentially affect the site of the lesion, which would likely require much higher doses of said steroids in order to achieve the same benefit.

2 links here

“…To get therapies into the brain after a stroke, researchers are increasingly making use of the blood–brain barrier, which allows only certain molecules to pass from the blood into the brain. In a study published earlier this year in Molecular Therapy, Japanese researchers have found that antisense oligonucleotides—specialized molecules that can modulate RNA and alter protein production—are preferentially taken up from the blood into areas of stroke damage when they’re linked to a specific kind of lipid known as α-tocopherol (TOC).”

“…Current stroke therapies are only effective if they are delivered within a short window of time, which limits their effectiveness in many patients. Many new therapies are being investigated that can be applied outside this short window of opportunity. One such therapy involves the use of antisense oligonucleotides, which can be targeted to increase the production of beneficial proteins after a stroke, for example, or to decrease the production of harmful proteins. However, getting these molecules into the right area at the right time can be difficult, something that the researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University wanted to address.”

“…Unexpectedly, the TOC-linked molecules were observed at very high levels in the stroke-lesioned side of the brain only, whereas the cholesterol-linked molecules were high in both sides of the brain. This suggests that TOC specifically increases HDO uptake after stroke, while cholesterol does not. Furthermore, because HDO can be tailored to target different genes, it was used to silence a gene known to be beneficial in stroke. As expected, the researchers observed greater areas of stroke-related damage in the mice treated with this TOC-linked HDO. “Together, our findings suggest that TOC-linked HDO is safe to use and is preferentially taken up and incorporated into cells in areas of stroke damage,” says Yokota. “This delivery method is potentially very useful for the targeted up- or down-regulation of protein expression after stroke.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2324.mp3" length="853220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D is a ‘Game Changer’ for Patients With GI Cancers</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2322</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2322</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 08 Sep 2023 15:15:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2322

The actual title of the article and I agree with that statement since the study demonstrated that taking just 2,000 IU vitamin D daily reduced relapse/death by 30%+ for a number of different GI cancers that have seen their rates skyrocket recently, especially in people under 40 years of age. The only drawback of this study is that it used a rather small vitamin D dose. There are a number of published case studies showing daily vitamin D doses of 10K+ IU can stop the progression of even late stage pancreatic cancer, this study could have easily been conducted with higher doses. However, modern medicine considers vitamin D as something quite dangerous, akin to a rat poison, and the RDA for this life-saving vitamin is still a puny 400 IU for adult, which would likely be insufficient to prevent even rickets. A recent study found that the original experiments on which the vitamin D were erroneously conducted and underestimated the RDA by a factor of at least 10. As such, the real RDA for optimal adult health is likely north of 4,000 IU daily, and it seems reasonable to use at least as much for a person who has (any) cancer.

2 links here

“…Vitamin D supplements have been demonstrated to have a positive effect on some patients with digestive tract cancer, as it reduces the risk of relapse or death, according to recent research. A study from JAMA Network Open found that taking 2,000 IU of vitamin D supplements every day targets mutated p53 proteins, which accumulate in cancer cells, reducing risk of disease relapse or death by nearly a third among some patient populations. The respective study had a total of 392 patients with digestive tract cancer, who had levels of anti-p53 antibody (a generation of antibodies from mutant p53 proteins) measured. The specific cancer types included 183 patients with colorectal cancer, 170 patients with gastric cancer, 37 patients with esophageal cancer and two patients with small bowel cancer. All patients were followed up for a median time of 3.5 years.”

“…“The observation … is a game changer for vitamin D and cancer. It provides an additional variable in our understanding of whether improving vitamin D status has any benefit for reducing risk of developing cancer as well as improving relapse-free and mortality outcomes,” Holick wrote. “For more than 100 years, sunlight and vitamin D deficiency has been associated with the risk for many deadly cancers, including colorectal, prostate, and breast.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2322.mp3" length="584852" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin lowers all-cause mortality</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2320</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2320</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 07 Sep 2023 17:02:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2320

A fascinating study, which highlights once again that there is a lot more to aspirin than “COX inhibition” (as medicine would have us believe). The study was done on ICU patients only, but I view that as an even stronger evidence in favor of aspirin, since ICU patients are in a very precarious position and even benign things such as a little extra water or the wrong type of food (if they are even able to eat by themselves) can easily kill them. Thus, a substance that has such a strong effect on decreasing all-cause mortality in ICU patients should work even better on people who are not in the ICU. Another strong point of the study was that it included ICU patients with a plethora of conditions, not just heart disease (CVD). Unfortunately, the patients were all given just a baby aspirin dose since this is the only “preventive” dose the medical protocol in ICU (or hospitals in general) allows for, so we cannot make a direct claim that higher doses would have worked even better. However,  other humans studies with severe chronic conditions (e.g. multiple sclerosis) have demonstrated that 2-4 tablets of aspirin lower mortality in those patients too, and there is also a yeast study showing that the human-equivalent dose (HED) of about 1g aspirin daily increased maximum lifespan by 400%! So, there does seem to be a dose-dependent benefit for aspirin dosage and for most people the benefits for overall health and lifespan probably continue to increase up to 2-3 tablets (325mg each) daily. For those who are prone to bleeding or concerned about aspirin’s pro-bleeding effects, taking 1mg vitamin K2 (MK-4) or 100mcg MK-7 for every tablet of aspirin taken daily should negate most of those bleeding risks (which are overblown by Big Pharma to start with).

link here

Aspirin Use Associated With Reduced Mortality After ICU Stay, link here

“…Study limitation include it being a retrospective analysis where not all participant characteristics are recorded. There is also no record of the rationale for administering aspirin to participants. The investigators recommend future randomized controlled trials to further study the effects of aspirin in ICU patients, link here. “…aspirin treatment in ICU patients, particularly those with SIRS symptoms and those without sepsis, led to lower 28-day all-cause mortality,” the study authors wrote.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2320.mp3" length="914420" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Restoring mitochondrial function reverses aging in blood/immune cells</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2316</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2316</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 07 Sep 2023 16:37:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2316

The number of studies focusing on bioenergetics as a reliable method for delaying (or even reversing) aging continues to rapidly grow. A few years ago, an in-vivo study with humans, link here demonstrated that human immune system aging can be reversed by a combination of DHEA and a few other, less -than-desirable ingredients with the purpose of the latter likely being to simply conceal the fact that DHEA was the main “active ingredient” in that combo treatment. Even before that study came out, in-vitro studies with humans cells demonstrated that glycine, methylene blue, progesterone, vitamin K, T3, etc can all reverse the aging phenotype. The one thing that unites all of these substances is that they are all pro-metabolic and improve mitochondrial function (OXPHOS). So, bioenergetic modulation seems to be a viable pathway through which we can tackle not only aging but all of its symptoms commonly known as “chronic diseases”. Case in point – the study below demonstrated reversal of aging in-vivo in a mouse model, were the administration of the naturally occurring metabolic/mitochondrial enhancer urolithin A, link here reversed the signs of aging in the animals’ hematopoietic and immune systems. While urolithins seem to have somehow become very popular in scientific research, and especially for anti-aging purposes, they are expensive to produce/acquire and have not been studied enough for safety. Since the proposed mechanism of action of urolithin A in this study is enhanced mitophagy and increased mitochondrial function, other chemicals with the same effects should also be able to achieve the same results. All of the substances mentioned earlier in the post are known to also have such effects on mitochondria, so I don’t see a reason to try one or more of them for anti-aging purposes.

2 links here

“…However, the researchers discovered a remarkable solution. By introducing a naturel compound called Urolithin A, which targets mitochondria – the energy powerhouses of cells – they were able to reverse the decline in HSC function. Mitochondria abnormalities were identified as a contributing factor to the aging of HSCs. Urolithin A acted as a mitochondrial modulator, effectively restoring the mitochondrial function within HSCs. Urolithins are not found in food; however, their precursors are. Urolithin A is the result of transformation of ellagic acids and ellagitannins by the gut microflora in humans. Ellagitannins are found in pomegranates, nuts, some berries. The most interesting finding of this preclinical study was that this intervention not only rejuvenated the blood reconstitution capability of older HSCs but also improved immune system function in aged mice. When Urolithin A was incorporated as a dietary supplement, it not only revitalized the immune system’s lymphoid compartments but also enhanced overall HSC performance. This translated to an improved immune response against viral infections, showcasing the potential of Urolithin A to combat age-related immune system decline. In essence, this groundbreaking research indicates that by encouraging the recycling of mitochondria using Urolithin A, it is possible to reverse the aging process within the hematopoietic and immune systems. These findings hold immense promise for the development of interventions targeted at addressing age-related health conditions in older individuals and pave the way for envisioning clinical trials.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2316.mp3" length="865796" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Parkinson Disease (PD) is metabolic, of gut origin, progesterone to the rescue</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2314</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2314</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 06 Sep 2023 17:55:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2314

One of the most famous sayings in medicine since antiquity has been Hippocrates’ quip that “all disease begins in the gut”. Despite millennia that passed since that phrase was first uttered and countless “advances” in our knowledge of diseases, evidence continues to accumulate that the ancients knew more about physiology than even the most adept modern doctors. It has long been known in basic research that neurological conditions such as PD, Alzheimer Disease (AD), autism, etc are strongly associated with gastro-intestinal (GI) disturbances. In fact, there are a number of animal (and, recently, human) trials showing that administration of antibiotics, charcoal or digestion-enhancing remedies such as insoluble fiber (aka carrot salad in Peat-world) have strikingly positive effects on cognitive, motor and emotional/mood symptoms of patients with such conditions. These findings strongly implicate a digestive toxin of some sort as the original cause of such neurological conditions, and the evidence pointing to endotoxin/LPS as the most likely candidate is very strong. Perhaps the most well-known systemic effect of endotoxin/LPS is the ability to impair OXPHOS, not only in the digestive tract but systemically as well. That being said, the study below demonstrated that exposure of enteric nervous system (ENS) cells to the herbicide and known metabolic inhibitor rotenone, link here (inhibitor of complex I of the ETC) is sufficient to recreate the PD phenotype. Rotenone is a known inducer of PD in both animals and humans (due to second-hand exposure) and since its main mechanism of action is as a metabolic inhibitor, the link between PD and metabolism is hard to deny. The novelty of the study findings is that rotenone seems to be able to trigger PD without directly reaching brain, but rather by damaging ENS cells lining the GI tract. Endotoxin/LPS has the same metabolic-inhibitor mechanism of action as rotenone, which further corroborates the role of metabolism and GI health in PD (and other neurological disease). Co-exposure of the ENS cells to physiological concentrations of progesterone reduced the negative effects of rotenone by almost 50%, which corroborates progesterone’s role as a metabolic enhancer. In addition, I think progesterone’s known ability to block the pro-inflammatory effects of endotoxin/LPS, as well as its ability to inhibit the synthesis of serotonin (which endotoxin/LPS promotes) also contributed to the beneficial effects of progesterone seen in this study, despite those pathways/mechanisms not being investigated by the study.

2 links here

“…The nerve cells of the gastrointestinal tract communicate with those of the brain and spinal cord. This suggests that the nervous system of the digestive tract could influence processes in the brain that lead to Parkinson’s. Paula Neufeld and Lennart Stegemann, medical doctoral students at the Department of Cytology at the Faculty of Medicine at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, were the first to detect progesterone receptors in the nerve cells of the gastrointestinal tract and showed that progesterone protects the cells. Their findings open up perspectives for the development of novel neuroprotective therapeutic approaches to counteract diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The study was published in the journal Cells on April 21, 2023.”

“…A person’s diet has a direct impact on the intestinal microbiome, which in turn interacts with the ENS. Studies show that the composition of the microbiome can also affect the CNS via the gut-brain axis, especially via the vagus nerve, and promote diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. A balanced diet can therefore not only contribute to the preservation of nerve cells in the intestine, but may also delay Parkinson’s disease for many years or even prevent it entirely.”

“…Medical doctoral students Paula Neufeld and Lennart Stegemann have now successfully demonstrated a protective effect of the natural steroid hormone progesterone on the nerve cells of the ENS. In a series of experiments, the duo cultivated nerve cells from the ENS over several weeks and treated them with a cell toxin to simulate harmful conditions similar to Parkinson’s disease. They found that the nerve cells that were additionally treated with progesterone died significantly less frequently than the untreated cells. Paula Neufeld points out the significance of their discovery: “Our research provides important insights to complete our basic knowledge about the role of progesterone receptors in the enteric nervous system. This opens up completely new avenues for studying the neuroprotective mechanisms of action of progesterone inside and outside the intestinal tract.” Lennart Stegemann adds that “this study could potentially pave the way for new steroid hormone-based therapeutic approaches. There is also hope that steroid-based therapeutic approaches could help to slow down or even stop neurodegenerative diseases“.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2314.mp3" length="1276556" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress/Injury (mitochondrial dysfunction) sufficient to cause de-differentiation, even cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2312</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2312</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 06 Sep 2023 17:10:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2312

One of the most pernicious myths in medicine is the “irreversibility” of several cellular processes related to aging, diabetes, fibrosis and, of course, cancer. Perhaps the most fundamental of those processes is cellular differentiation. To this day, the dominant opinion in medicine is that once a stem cell embarks on the process of differentiation that process cannot be reversed and it can only end with cellular death due to senescence or injury. This erroneous idea is used to support the dogma in oncology that a normal cell (differentiated) can never become a cancer cell (de-differentiated, stem-alike) under normal circumstances, so a cancerous mutation of some sort is conjured out of thin air to explain the cancerization. Conversely, the dogma also holds that once cancerous de-differentation occurs, the “cancer” cell can never become a “normal” cell again. Thus, the only hope for the “cancer” patient is to have those “cancer” cells killed by any means necessary – usually through the (in)famous combination of surgery (cut), chemotherapy (poison), and radiation (burn).

Well, the study below not only pours cold water on these dogmatic medical myths, but also once again highlights the central role metabolism and mitochondria play in such processes. Namely, the study demonstrated that any type of differentiated cell can easily convert back to a de-differentiated (stem) cell if the mitochondrial production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), link here is elevated beyond a certain threshold. Unfortunately, another common medical dogma is that ROS are produced when the metabolic rate is high – i.e. when forward electron transport across the metabolic chain is high. However, as discussed on Dr. Mercola’s and Danny Roddy’s podcasts, this is completely false and, in fact, exactly backwards to what is happening in the cell. Namely, ROS are overproduced when forward electron flow is blocked at one or more of the OXPHOS steps and so-called “reverse electron flow, link here” commences. In other words, ROS overproduction happens predominantly when metabolism is low/blocked, while less than 0.5% of ROS are generated when metabolism is functioning properly and forward flow is as fast as the cell can accommodate. The cellular “phenotype”  of high ROS production is seen in virtually all diseases known to medicine – both chronic and acute alike. Thus, the finding suggests de-differentiation diseases such as cancer are nothing more but degrees of metabolic dysfunction and that preventing or curing them can be achieved entirely through metabolic modulation – i.e. raising the metabolic rate, which is invariably low not only in cancer but also in most diseases, and aging as well. The findings also suggest that the vast majority of diseases are environmentally – driven, with stress playing a major role. In fact, the study findings suggest that anything interfering with OXPHOS is bound to cause severe illness sooner or later. This realization also happens to be precisely the opinion Otto von Warburg, though he only expressed it in regards to cancer – i.e. anything interfering with oxygen utilization or blocking electron flow would ultimately cause cancer.

2 links here

“…Recent studies have shown that dedifferentiation isn’t actually unique: many fully differentiated cells can roll back up the hill if you injure tissue, Duan said. Cancer cells also show this kind of plasticity, which complicates the ability to treat them.”

“…However, when mitochondria release mitochondrial ROS, in the correct amounts, they act as signaling molecules. The team found that when cell dedifferentiation and proliferation were induced, ATP production was increased and mitochondrial ROS levels went up in these cells. When the ROS levels go up, an enzyme that plays a role in cellular stress response called Sgk1 also increases in the cell’s cytoplasm. Then, Sgk1 moves from the cytoplasm into the mitochondria, where it phosphorylates the enzyme that synthesizes ATP and triggers ATP production. To test this loop’s impact on the cell’s ability to dedifferentiate, the researchers blocked each step in this cycle. “We feel this is actually required for the cell to roll back in the cell cycle,” Duan said. “In our system, if we knock out the ATP protein enzyme, if we knock out Sgk1, if we block the ROS production—if we block any of the steps, the cell can no longer go back in the cell cycle, link here.” The researchers then examined this mitochondrial loop in living human breast cancer cells and found that the same steps took place in human breast cancer cells. This suggests that this is a commonly preserved mechanism that is useful to most cells, they say.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2312.mp3" length="1514084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Nitric oxide (NO) causes autism, blocking NO reverses autism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2309</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2309</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 05 Sep 2023 17:42:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2309

Autism rates are relentlessly climbing. Even the official stats, which are manipulated in order to avoid disclosing the scale of the catastrophe, are shocking – i.e. about one in thirty children have autism and the increase in that rate shows no signs of abating. While mainstream medicine tried for decades to convince the public that autism is mainly a genetically-driven disease, the rapidly rising rates despite no changes in diagnostic methods/techniques proves beyond reasonable doubt that the cause is environmental. Some studies have implicated vaccines, but the increase in autism is seen even in unvaccinated children. Other studies have made a strong argument for maternal use of SSRI as the cause of autism, and the evidence for serotonin’s role is actually quite strong. It just so happens that serotonin and NO always go hand in hand (each one promoting the other’s synthesis/release) and the study below demonstrates that NO may be one of the direct causal agents in autism. Namely, providing effective NO precursors (e.g. arginine, citrulline) directly produced all symptoms of autism in the animal model, while inhibiting NO synthesis reversed all such symptoms. If NO is indeed a major factor in autism, then it becomes even more imperative to avoid dietary nitrates and nitrites, as they are very effective NO precursors. Since the levels of nitrates/nitrites is highest in mass-produced edible plants, that could explain why the rates of autism are rising despite (or maybe because?) the massive PR campaign by public health officials (and especially pediatricians) aimed at increasing even more plant consumption, especially among children. As far as more widely accessible agents that reduce/block NO – methylene blue, niacinamide, agmatine, aspirin, progesterone are perhaps the most accessible and effective.

2 links here

“…Within the brain, normal levels of nitric oxide are responsible for blood flow, neuronal growth and metabolism, among other functions. But at increased levels, the molecule can be toxic, disrupting cellular processes. When researchers injected typical mice with a nitric oxide donor — a substance that releases nitric oxide — the mice displayed molecular and behavioral changes that were indicative of ASD. “Our findings show that [nitric oxide] affects the expression of key neuronal proteins that are important for brain development. We believe that [nitric oxide] leads to the degradation of these proteins,” said Amal. In response to high levels of nitric oxide, some neuronal proteins were produced in excess, while the making of others was quashed.”

“…The researchers injected the mice with an inhibitory chemical that would suppress the production of nitric oxide. As levels of nitric oxide fell, the signs of autism tapered off. Normal levels of neuronal proteins were restored, and dendritic spines returned at typical density. “In an ASD state, the number of spines is reduced, and after treatment we found an almost full recovery,” explained Amal.”

“…After having tested their hypothesis in living mice, the researchers turned their focus to cell cultures. To begin with, they cultured neuronal cells from normal and mutant mouse models. Increasing and decreasing levels of nitric oxide in these cultures led to similar biochemical changes as those seen in experiments with mice. Having investigated the impact of nitric oxide in mice, Amal’s team sought to confirm their findings in humans. First, they tested neurons that were derived from the stem cells of people with mutations in the SHANK3 gene, living with ASD. These neurons had high levels of proteins that help diagnose stress caused by nitric oxide. When researchers treated these neurons with a nitric oxide inhibitor, the levels of these proteins subsided. Thereafter, Amal’s lab measured the levels of the same proteins in samples of blood plasma taken from children with ASD. They wanted to validate their results in this demographic. Compared with unaffected children, those with ASD had higher levels of biomarkers that indicate nitric oxide stress.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2309.mp3" length="877556" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin reduces risk of developing diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2307</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2307</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 05 Sep 2023 17:18:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2307

Not sure if my readers have noticed it, but Big Pharma has drastically increased their bashing of aspirin since the pandemic started. Those attacks began when a few studies published back in 2020 demonstrated that aspirin users had a much lower risk of both contracting and dying from COVID-19, and that aspirin was unique among NSAID in providing such benefits. The bashing of aspirin continues even in the study below, but it is forced to (begrudgingly) admit that low-dose aspirin led to 15% lower risk of developing diabetes in older adults. Now, 15% reduction may not seem like much, but so far there has been no other drug shown to lower risk of developing diabetes. Also, these effects were seen from low-dose aspirin and the pro-metabolic effects of aspirin are known to be dose-dependent (e.g. uncoupling and inhibition of both lipolysis / fatty acid oxidation), so higher doses would have likely led to much bigger risk reduction. Of course, the fear-mongering from Big Pharma about aspirin’s dire bleeding risks effectively prevents human trials with higher doses, so unfortunately aspirin probably won’t see much clinical use as prevention/therapy for diabetes.

link here

“…A total of 16,209 participants were included in the analysis (8,086 randomized to aspirin and 8,123 to placebo). Over a median follow-up of 4.7 years, 995 incident diabetes cases were recorded (aspirin: 459, placebo: 536). Compared with placebo, the aspirin group had a 15% reduction in incident diabetes and a slower rate of increase in FPG (difference in annual FPG change: -0.006 mmol/L). The authors say, “Aspirin treatment reduced incident diabetes and slowed the increase in fasting plasma glucose over time among initially healthy older adults. Given the increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes among older adults, the potential for anti-inflammatory agents like aspirin to prevent type 2 diabetes, link here or improve glucose levels needs further study.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2307.mp3" length="585572" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K reduces vascular stiffness, blood pressure in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2305</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2305</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 05 Sep 2023 16:55:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2305

The topic of vitamin K and blood pressure has been coming up for years among followers of Peat. He mentioned several cases, of which he had first-hand knowledge, where people managed to significantly and rapidly reduce their blood pressure by taking large doses of vitamin K. A number of naysayers kept bashing Ray and his claims about vitamin K, saying there is no evidence whatsoever that vitamin K reduces blood pressure, and that in fact there is no known mechanism through which vitamin K can effect blood pressure. Well, as a start, here is a decade-old case study reporting that not only can vitamin K lower blood pressure it can do so to the point of hypotension (depending on the dose).

link here

And now, the controlled, randomized human study below demonstrated that vitamin K can indeed lower blood pressure consistently and the likely mechanism is the reversal of vascular stiffness, which the supplementation with vitamin K also achieved. Vascular stiffness is a symptom of vascular calcification, and vitamin K has been shown in numerous animal studies (and now human ones) to be able to prevent/reverse said calcification. So, considering vitamin K not only effectively lowers blood pressure but actually treats the underlying cause, it probably won’t be long before vitamin K becomes a regulated drug in the West, mimicking its prescription-only status in many Asian countries. That would be the only way to prevent/limit the damage vitamin K can do to the multi-billion dollar CVD drug industry.

2 links here

“…In post-hoc analyses, results showed that both pre/peri-menopausal and post-menopausal subjects taking MK-7 saw a significant decrease in dp-ucMGP plasma levels. In post-menopausal women, supplementation with MK-7 significantly attenuated vascular stiffness in post-menopausal women, and those with a high stiffness index saw significant improvements in vascular markers such as decreased blood pressure at brachialis, decreased blood pressure at carotid artery, increased distensibility coefficient and increased compliance coefficient. The study concluded that hormonal changes do in fact negatively impact the vasculature of post-menopausal women, and that MK-7 may attenuate these changes. However, more research is necessary to determine the mechanism by which MK-7 exerts these benefits. “This abstract strengthens the proof that K2 as MenaQ7 supports healthy cardiovascular function in aging women and can serve as an inexpensive tool for protecting heart health,” said Professor Leon Schurgers, lead researcher on the post-hoc analysis and chair of the Gnosis Vitamin K2 Scientific Advisory Committee, in a press release.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2305.mp3" length="705716" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Big Pharma – oral GABA doesn’t work; Also Big Pharma – oral GABA works, can replace alcohol</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2302</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2302</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 01 Aug 2023 05:49:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2302

We are now living in an openly clown world, so I don’t really expect many doctors to change their position based on contrarian evidence, but it is a stunning admission on behalf of medicine regardless. Namely, mainstream medicine and its partners in crime (often, literally) Big Pharma have spend a ton of money financing, ghostwriting, and publishing bogus studies claiming oral GABA does not have central (brain) effects. You see, if oral GABA worked centrally, the entire benzodiazepine industry for treating all kinds of anxiety disorders (and even seizures) will disappear overnight. Those GABA receptors that endogenous GABA activates (duh!) just happen to also be the main target of the benzodiazepine drugs – i.e. all such drugs are GABA agonists. So, it was absolutely crucial for Big Pharma to convince the public (and especially psychiatrists) that orally ingested GABA does not cross the blood-brain barrier and is thus ineffective in activating the GABA receptors in the brain. When some brave maverick doctors tried to make a case for using oral GABA as a treatment for anxiety (and even depression) back in the 1960s, Big Pharma turned on its propaganda machine, smeared those scientists/doctors, and convinced the public and medicine that oral GABA is cannot reach the brain and is thus ineffective for anxiety/depression. That propaganda is still ongoing despite hundreds of studies demonstrating oral GABA crossing the blood-brain barrier and exerting central effects.

Now, despite decades of unfounded claims that oral GABA is centrally ineffective, Big Pharma is pushing oral GABA as an alcohol substitute. Why? Well, it just so happens that most of alcohol’s effects perceived as positive by people are due to ethanol’s ability to also activate GABA receptors, both in the brain and elsewhere – i.e. alcohol is a powerful GABA agonist. So, on a slight tangent, if one follows this train of thought without any bias, one could conclude at least three things. One, people with anxiety would probably have a higher rate of alcohol consumption than the general population, and even an “addiction” to it in cases of severe anxiety. Two, there is probably no such thing as “alcoholism” or “addiction” as defined by the (in)famous (and completely bogus) DSM V, but rather a simple case of self-medication by people under stress by using a powerful GABA agonist (and thus anxiolytic) substances that is cheap and widely available (namely, alcohol). Three, people with anxiety are probably under chronic stress as the latter blocks the GABA system and activates the anxiogenic HPA-axis. It just so happens that all these conclusions have been proven beyond reasonable doubt. As a side note to alcohol’s effects – the latter is also an NMDA antagonist and that mechanism also contributes to alcohol’s positive effects such as disinhibition and rapidly acting anti-depressant (though, becoming depressant with long-term use). Thus, GABA agonism probably won’t replicate all of alcohol’s positive effects but could still be a close substitute. This link between GABA and alcohol was well-known as far back as the early 1970s and Big Pharma even synthesized a molecule called “DS1, link here” (of course, a GABA agonist) reputed to replicate alcohol’s positive effects almost completely, with none of the downsides. That molecule never reached the market and the official excuse was that Big Pharma was concerned about the “moral hazard” of selling such a molecule. However, a more conspiratorial (read: realist) person would probably suspect that heavy lobbying from the trillion-dollar alcohol beverage industry probably played a much bigger role in the decision not to sell DS1. In conclusion to this long diatribe, the article below discusses that there is at least one pharma company out there (GABA Labs, link here) that is now openly claiming that oral GABA is certainly centrally active, and is thus developing an oral GABA product as an alcohol substitute that should have most/all of alcohol’s positive effects but none of detrimental effects, which include not only the dreaded hangover but also serious chronic conditions such as liver disease, CVD, and even cancer. The article mentions two other companies also working on oral GABA-based drugs, and there are probably many others we don’t yet know about. My only hope is that all this good publicity in regards to the benefits of oral GABA does not result in GABA being declared by the FDA a “novel drug”, and thus banned from over-the-counter sales.

For those curious enough to do some self-experimentation, aside from GABA itself other amino acids with similar pro-GABA effects such as taurine, beta-alanine, theanine, and even glycine should have similar alcohol-replicating effects. What’s the dose you ask? Well, based on the information below provided by a company using the GABA Labs technology, it looks like each shot of their alcohol-mimetic has 1g of GABA. Assuming similar effectiveness of GABA agonism across the various amino acids, I’d try 1g taurine or beta-alanine per shot. Theaning seems to be more potent and probably would work best in doses of no ore than 200mg per drink/shot. In addition, GABA agonist steroids such as progesterone and allopregnanolone should also have such effects, and in fact high-dose progesterone is well-known to produce a “drunk” effect described by the afflicted as very similar to alcohol’s.

SENTIA Red 50cl & Black 50cl, link here

link here

“…David Orren, managing director of GABA Labs, told WSJ: “Alcohol is like playing the piano with boxing gloves on. You hit too many keys.” Dr. David Nutt, the chief scientific officer of GABA Labs, is a former psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist. He has spent two years as chief of section of clinical science in the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at the National Institutes of Health, the Journal notes, and has long argued about the negative effect of alcohol on society. “It feels like what a glass of wine feels like. It feels relaxing. It makes you a bit more chatty, a bit more socially engaged with people,” he said about the company’s product, called Alcarelle. GABA is looking to raise $10.3 million and finish food safety testing in the U.S. by the middle of 2026, the report says. Orren and Nutt have been testing the product themselves, with Orren commenting: “It feels like a warm glow. You’re being you. And you’re being with somebody that’s being them. You’re being real.”  The next step will be testing the product, including testing it when mixed with actual alcohol. Dr. Mack Mitchell, senior medical advisor for Amygdala, a company working to inhibit alcohol cravings with an oral drug that targets similar receptors, commented: “People who can’t control drinking don’t always want to stop drinking completely. They just want to be able to drink normally.” Another company, Indivior, is working on a nasal spray to inhibit alcohol cravings as well. Its CEO Mark Crossley added: “I arrive in the parking lot. I don’t want six or seven drinks. I’ll top up with a nasal spray.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2302.mp3" length="2570204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Human trial – niacinamide may treat Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2300</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2300</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 20 Jul 2023 14:53:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2300

One of my first posts on the topic of bioenergetics – more than a decade ago – was in regards to a promising animal study with the human-equivalent dose (HED) of 30mg/kg niacinamide (NAM) daily showing robust effects on that animal species’ model of AD. The authors of the animal study followed up with a human study (using 1,500mg twice daily) and I have been waiting for the study results to be released, ever since I was first alerted to its existence back in 2016.

link here

Now, it appears the first results of the study are being presented at a conference and about to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. The results are preliminary and the full data is not yet available, but even those limited results suggest that NAM both slowed the cognitive decline of the patients as well as reduced the tau protein accumulation in their brains. There were no serious adverse events (SAE) or notable side effects due to treatment. Now, considering that the main proposed mechanism of NAM action in AD is likely through raising NAD+ (as scientists stated at the beginning of the trial), and the fact that methylene blue (MB) has displayed striking effectiveness in AD, link here and also raises NAD+ levels (through a different mechanism compared to NAM), one would expect a much more robust effect from a combination NAM+MB treatment. When both substances are used together, I don’t think one needs to use the relative high doses of each substance used in each respective trial. In my experience, a daily intake of 500mg NAM and up to 5mg MB raises NAD+ levels to the point of making one very relaxed (almost drowsy) and with reduction in oxygen saturation down to the 91-93 range, which is a good indication of high CO2 production and robust OXPHOS.

link here

“…In a phase 2a proof-of-concept trial, treatment with nicotinamide (Genentech) resulted in significantly less change on Clinical Dementia Rating-Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB) in patients with early Alzheimer disease (AD) relative to those on placebo. Above all, the benefits observed in the trial warrant further study for nicotinamide as a treatment for early AD, the study investigators wrote.1 Presented at the 2023 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), link here, held June 16-20, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, the trial featured 47 individuals who received either 1500 mg twice daily of nicotinamide or placebo, for a 12-month period. Results showed no significant treatment effects on secondary biomarker outcomes of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) phospho-tau181, amyloid-ß (Aß)40, Aß42, and total tau (all P >.05); however, mean changes in CSF p-tau181 (0.4 [±29.8] vs 10.4 [±41.8]) and total tau (8.4 [±228.6] vs 60.5 [±237.5]) favored nicotinamide.”

“…On the primary outcome of change in CSF p-tau231, no statistically significant difference was observed on ANCOVA models (mean difference, 2.06 [SE, 4.03]; P = .61); although, greater mean declines were found in the nicotinamide arm (–4.7 [±14.5]) than placebo (–2.3 [±10.6]). Nicotinamide was associated with significantly less change on CDR-SB (estimate, –1.42 [SE, 0.65]; P = .03) but not on cognitive or functional assessments, explained through the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale 13 (estimate, –1.93 [SE, 1.93]; P = .32) and Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study-Activities of Daily Living for Mild Cognitive Impairment scale (estimate, –3.10 [SE, 1.86]; P = .10).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2300.mp3" length="879428" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking endotoxin (TLR4) may prevent death from viral infections (COVID-19/ARDS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2298</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2298</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 18 Jul 2023 19:28:39 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2298

Almost a decade ago I posted about a “rogue” study which had the audacity to suggest that most of so-called viral infections (including HIV) produce most of their most severe symptoms not through the virus or its direct effects, but through synergism with the bacterial endotoxin (LPS) that we all produce constantly. The virus simply helps LPS get into the bloodstream by increasing gut permeability. Once in the blood, LPS acts mostly through the so-called “endotoxin receptor” TLR4, unleashing a chronic inflammatory cascade, which sometimes ends in a so-called “cytokine storm”, followed by multi-organ failure, and often death. The vast majority of COVID-19 patients (as well as patients from previous viral pandemics) who died from their infection were victims of precisely this inflammatory cascade and not the virus itself, though the virus can have detrimental effects by itself (in the case of SARS-CoV-2 that occurs by blocking/binding the ACE II enzyme). That old study also had the audacity to demonstrate that cholesterol – a natural TLR4 antagonist – as well as other structurally similar molecules (e.g. progesterone, pregnenolone, etc) were highly effective at blocking this inflammatory cascade and preventing organ damage and death. Hhhmm, if cholesterol is a natural protection against viruses, I wonder if the widespread consumption of statin drugs contributed significantly to the COVID-19 mortality, which was highest in “developed” countries. It is a rhetorical question of course, we all know the answer….Thus, there is quite a bit of evidence going back many decades demonstrating that blocking endotoxin may be the proper way of treating any viral condition. The article below shows that at least one company has wisened up to that hypothesis and is developing a TLR4 antagonist as a single drug against influenza (and possibly other viruses). For the people who do not want to wait until this drug hits the market – there are many natural TLR4 antagonists including niacinamide, vitamin A/D, emodin, progesterone/pregnenolone, as well as direct endotoxin detox agents such as activated charcoal and insoluble fiber.

link here

“…Edesa Biotech, Inc., link here (NASDAQ:EDSA), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on inflammatory and immune-related diseases, announced positive findings from an in vitro study of its monoclonal antibody candidate, paridiprubart, against a panel of respiratory pathogens. The study was completed by the University of Toronto in parallel to the company’s ongoing clinical study of EB05 (paridiprubart) in hospitalized Covid-19 patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), a severe form of respiratory failure characterized by widespread inflammatory injury to the lungs. Approximately 10% of all ICU admissions are ARDS related. The research results available today in preprint demonstrated that multiple pathogens, including Influenza A, coronavirus and a common bacterium (H. influenzae), can initiate an overactive immune response through Toll-like Receptor 4 (TLR4), a key component of the innate immune system. More importantly, the study determined that inflammation signaling from each of these pathogens was inhibited by Edesa’s TLR4 antagonist, paridiprubart.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2298.mp3" length="1124804" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may prevent atrial fibrillation (afib)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2296</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2296</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 18 Jul 2023 19:05:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2296

Some good news to all the people with this condition. Their numbers are, unfortunately, steadily rising and Big Pharma has produced “wonderful” (and actually, fraudulent, link here) new drugs such as Xarelto to “help” them, with the end results of afib rates still rising and Xarelto becoming one of the most commonly consumed drugs in people over 40. The study below is great news for the people who want to avoid the (deadly) Xarelto scam. Aside from aspirin, which was repeatedly shown to be “non-inferior” (Big Pharma speak for “superior”) to Xarelto and other blood thinners, now we can add vitamin D to the list of cheap, safe and non-prescription remedies for afib. Please also note that this was a placebo-controlled trial, so its findings are that much more relevant. However, while aspirin has been demonstrated to work more as a treatment of already established afib, the study below showed that vitamin D may an effective preventative measure, even when used at a dose of <4,000 IU daily, taken over a period of 5 years or more.

2 links here

“…Atrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia, the risk of which increases with age, and which is associated with an increased risk of stroke, heart failure and mortality. Vitamin D has been shown to have an effect, for example, on the atrial structure and the electrical function of the heart, suggesting that vitamin D might prevent atrial fibrillation. Conducted at the University of Eastern Finland in 2012–2018, the main objective of the Finnish Vitamin D Trial, FIND, was to explore the associations of vitamin D supplementation with the incidence of cardiovascular diseases and cancers. The five-year study involved 2,495 participants, 60-year-old or older men and 65-year-old or older women, who were randomized into three groups: one placebo group and two vitamin D3 supplementation groups, with one of the groups taking a supplement of 40 micrograms (1600 IU) per day, and the other a supplement of 80 micrograms (3200 IU) per day. All participants were also allowed to take their personal vitamin D supplement, up to 20 micrograms (800 IU) per day, which at the beginning of the study was the recommended dose for this age group. At baseline, study participants had not been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease or cancer, and they completed comprehensive questionnaires, both at the beginning and throughout the study, on their lifestyles and nutrition, as well as on risk factors of diseases and disease occurrence. Data on the occurrence of diseases and deaths were also obtained from Finnish nationwide health registers. Approximately 20% of participants were randomly selected for more detailed examinations and blood samples. During the five-year study, 190 participants were diagnosed with atrial fibrillation: 76 in the placebo group, 59 in the 40 micrograms group, and 55 in the 80 micrograms group. The risk of atrial fibrillation was 27% lower in the 40 micrograms group, and 32% lower in the 80 micrograms group, when compared to the placebo group. In the sub-cohort selected for more detailed examinations, the mean baseline serum calcidiol concentration, which is a marker of the body’s vitamin D concentration, was relatively high, 75 nmol/l. After one year, the mean calcidiol concentration was 100 nmol/l in the 40 micrograms group, and 120 nmol/l in the 80 micrograms group. No significant change in the calcidiol concentration was observed in the placebo group.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2296.mp3" length="526436" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Anti-anxiety drugs cause brain damage, unemployment, and suicide…even if stopped</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2294</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2294</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 18 Jul 2023 18:43:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2294

Just a few minutes ago I posted about a study implicating serotonin (5-HT) and, by extension, SSRI drugs in brain atrophy and depression, especially in aging people. In clinical practice, while SSRI drugs are considered plenty “safe”, anti-anxiety drugs such as the popular benzodiazepines (e.g. Valium, Xanax, Klonopin, etc) are considered even “safer”, and this is why most of them do not have “blackbox warnings” on their label mandated by the FDA. This perceived “safety” of benzos (as they are commonly known) has led to them being prescribed to all age groups (even babies!) for all sorts of symptoms (often completely unrelated to anxiety), to the point that even the limitless greed of Big Pharma has acknowledged an epidemic of over-prescription. Hardly a day that goes by without some celebrity admitting on national TV an addiction to benzos, requiring formal hospitalization. Now, the study below demonstrates what we have all been suspecting for many years – i.e. there is nothing “safe” when it comes to benzos and they are capable of causing serious brain damage, which persists even after brief benzo usage and/or discontinuation, with the brain injury leading to negative outcomes later on such as job loss, social/relationship breakdown or even suicide. The study authors believe the incidence of these side effects of benzos is so high (about 1 in 5) that it warrants its own medical term – benzodiazepine induced neurological dysfunction (BIND). Worst of all, as the study itself states, BIND caused completely unrelated symptoms and health issues to appear – i.e. it generated multiple new serious disorders/conditions, while being only marginally effective at treating the relatively harmless one (anxiety) for which they were prescribed originally. Case in point – more than half of the study participants taking benzos reported contemplating or attempting suicide!

3 links here

“…Benzodiazepine use and discontinuation is associated with nervous system injury and negative life effects that continue after discontinuation, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus., link hereThe study was published today in the journal PLOS One., link here“Despite the fact that benzodiazepines have been widely prescribed for decades, this survey presents significant new evidence that a subset of patients experience long-term neurological complications,” said Alexis Ritvo, M.D, link here, M.P.H., an assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, link here and  medical director of the nonprofit Alliance for Benzodiazepine Best Practices, link here.“This should change how we think about benzodiazepines and how they are prescribed.” “Patients have been reporting long-term effects from benzodiazepines for over 60 years. I am one of those patients. ”

“…Symptoms were long-lasting, with 76.6% of all affirmative answers to symptom questions reporting the duration to be months or more than a year. The following ten symptoms persisted over a year in greater than half of respondents: low energy, difficulty focusing, memory loss, anxiety, insomnia, sensitivity to light and sounds, digestive problems, symptoms triggered by food and drink, muscle weakness and body pain. Particularly alarming, these symptoms were often reported as new and distinct from the symptoms for which benzodiazepines were originally prescribed. In addition, a majority of respondents reported prolonged negative life impacts in all areas, such as significantly damaged relationships, job loss and increased medical costs. Notably, 54.4% of the respondents reported suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide. BIND is thought to be a result of brain changes resulting from benzodiazepine exposure. A general review of the literature suggests that it occurs in roughly one in five long-term users. The risk factors for BIND are not known, and more research is needed to further define the condition, along with treatment options.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2294.mp3" length="937172" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:12</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High serotonin linked to poor aging trajectory (brain atrophy and depression)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2291</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2291</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 18 Jul 2023 18:08:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2291

This is one of the studies that Big Pharma will probably spend a lot of money on trying to get retracted. It directly demonstrates that elevated serotonin (5-HT) in the brain drives brain atrophy and depression. Both the rates and severity of these conditions increase with aging and the study demonstrates that, coincidentally, the brain’s capacity to synthesize 5-HT also increases with age. So, all those SSRI drugs being handed out like candy to even toddlers, are doing nothing but replicating this pathological 5-HT excess in all age groups. It is little wonder the IQ scores have been dropping since the 1990s and show no sign of reversing or even flattening the downward trend. Another, just as important, corollary of the study is that systemic corticol and estrogen are also likely rising with age, in direct contradiction to what we are being told by mainstream medicine, especially in regards to women. The reason is that 5-HT is one of the most potent inducers of ACTH release (likely even stronger than CRH) as well as the aromatase enzyme. Conversely, serotonin antagonists have been successfully used to treat diseases of excess cortisol (e.g. Cushing’s, obesity, diabetes, etc) as well as excess estrogen (gyno, breast cancer, infertility, etc). So, with just one drug class (SSRI) Big Pharma is directly contributing to some of the most frequent chronic conditions, both mental and physiological (actually, they are one and the same).

link here

“…The dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) is one of the earliest targets of Alzheimer’s disease-related tau pathology and is a major source of brain serotonin. We used [18F]Fluoro-m-tyrosine ([18F]FMT) PET imaging to measure serotonin synthesis capacity in the DRN in 111 healthy adults (18–85 years-old). Similar to reports in catecholamine systems, we found elevated serotonin synthesis capacity in older adults relative to young. To establish the structural and functional context within which serotonin synthesis capacity is elevated in aging, we examined relationships among DRN [18F]FMT net tracer influx (Ki) and longitudinal changes in cortical thickness using magnetic resonance imaging, longitudinal changes in self-reported depression symptoms, and AD-related tau and β-amyloid (Aβ) pathology using cross-sectional [18F]Flortaucipir and [11C]Pittsburgh compound-B PET respectively. Together, our findings point to elevated DRN [18F]FMT Ki as a marker of poorer aging trajectories. Older adults with highest serotonin synthesis capacity showed greatest temporal lobe cortical atrophy. Cortical atrophy was associated with increasing depression symptoms over time, and these effects appeared to be strongest in individuals with highest serotonin synthesis capacity. We did not find direct relationships between serotonin synthesis capacity and AD-related pathology. Exploratory analyses revealed nuanced effects of sex within the older adult group. Older adult females showed the highest DRN synthesis capacity and exhibited the strongest relationships between entorhinal cortex tau pathology and increasing depression symptoms. Together these findings reveal PET measurement of the serotonin system to be a promising marker of aging trajectories relevant to both AD and affective changes in older age.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2291.mp3" length="746708" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hormonal birth control puts women in chronic stress, by blocking progesterone synthesis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2287</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2287</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Jul 2023 18:41:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2287

A truly remarkable study as it exposes so many lies that Big Pharma and its medical accomplices would rather not become public knowledge. Since most hormonal birth control (pills, patches, IUD, injections, etc) contain a combination of an estrogen and a synthetic progestin, it implicates both types of hormones in causing a state of chronic, relentless stress. So, the first lie the study exposes is that synthetic progestins are beneficial and moderate the known, pro-stress effects of estrogen. The second lie the study exposes is that the synthetic progestins are “just like natural progesterone, only better”, which is a lie that virtually every gynecologist and/or endocrinologist repeats daily. As the study states, it is precisely the blocking of endogenous progesterone production by both estrogens and synthetic progestins that is likely responsible for the induced state of chronic stress since progesterone has known anti-stress effects, many of them mediated through its conversion into allopregnanolone. And the third lie the study exposes is that hormonal birth control has no consistent effects on mood and/or mental health. There is proven link between chronically elevated cortisol levels and virtually every mental disease known to psychiatry, especially depression, bipolar disorder and various psychotic states. So, based on the study below one can plausibly conclude that hormonal birth control directly makes women mentally ill, when taken for sufficiently long periods of time. And given the proven link between cortisol and obesity, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and even cancer the hormonal birth control intervention starts to look more and more like criminal negligence…at best.

2 links here

“…Researchers from Aarhus University and the United States have studied the stress response of 131 young women when having a blood sample taken. Some of the women were on birth control pills, while others were not. The researchers specifically measured the levels of the stress hormone ACTH in the women’s blood. The study showed that 15 minutes of social activity after having a blood sample taken lowers stress hormone levels in women who are not on the birth-control pill. In contrast, women who are on birth control pills do not experience any reduction of their ACTH levels.”

“…Being with other people is one of the most effective ways of reducing stress. Our results are really important because they indicate that people who use birth control pills do not experience the same reduced stress hormone levels in connection with social activity as people who do not use the pill,” says Michael Winterdahl. He is a visiting scholar at the Translational Neuropsychiatry Unit at the Department of Clinical Medicine and is the last author of the article.”

“…Birth-control pills are known for being able to affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. As the name indicates, the stress signal travels from the hypothalamus in the brain through the pituitary gland, that releases ACTH, to the adrenal glands, that release cortisol. The researchers still need a final explanation for why birth-control pill users do not experience the same reduction of stress hormone levels in connection with social activities as people who are not on the pill. “There are several competing hypotheses that try to explain the lower cortisol levels in people who use birth control pills. Our research has pushed us closer to an explanation that centers on the brain and the ACTH dynamics. The biochemistry is complex, but we are working based on the assumption that birth-control pills can suppress the body’s own production of progesterone,” says Michael Winterdahl. Progesterone is broken down into the hormone allopregnanolone, which is involved in a wide range of calming effects and can have an influence on the stress response.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2287.mp3" length="826796" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dietary PUFA (linoleic acid) causes inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2285</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2285</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Jul 2023 18:19:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2285

The rates of IBD have truly skyrocketed over the last 10-15 years, significantly surpassing the general increase seen in most chronic conditions, especially in people younger than 40. Over the last couple of years, I posted about studies showing artificial colors (e.g. Red 40), silicon dioxide, titanium dioxide, talc, etc can all cause IBD at concentrations commonly found in commercial foods. The usual response to those studies including from their authors, was “eat more unprocessed food, lacking these chemicals, and you’ll be OK”. However, the increase in IBD rates in very young, very health-conscious people suggests that there is another environmental factor involved and it is probably present even in “healthy” foods. Well, the study below demonstrates that dietary PUFA may very well be that ubiquitous dietary factor causing IBD rates to skyrocket.There is hardly a commercial food on the market these days, even if labelled organic, that does not include PUFA. Worse, even people who cook their own food use mostly PUFA since seed oils are the preferred oils for frying, sauteing, and even oven-baking. As the study says, this wide usage of seed oils is the reason people in the Western world to consume up to 10% of their daily calories in the form of linoleic acid – a truly massive and disease-inducing amount! Olive oil is seeing a surge in usage, but many studies have shown that most of the olive oil on the market is actually seed oils made to look and taste like olive oil. Even then, olive oil is mostly used for salads, which are a minor part of most people’s daily caloric intake. Now, a lot of public health officials will defend PUFA by saying that it is only dangerous when it is peroxidized. Yet, the study below found that it is not the peroxidation products of PUFA that drove IBD, but rather PUFA’s enzymatic metabolism by the enzymes COX and LOX. In other words, it was the prostaglandins and leukotrienes that were causal factors for IBD, as well as the ability of linoleic acid to compromise the gut barrier (which increases endotoxin absorption). The good news here is that the findings of the study suggest that even for people who cannot avoid PUFA, a simple intervention such as aspirin or vitamin E may do wonders for lowering the IBD risks from PUFA consumption. Vitamin E may be especially relevant since in addition to its ability to inhibit COX and LOX, it also inhibits PUFA peroxidation, and the latter is heavily involved in digestive system (and other types) cancers, which people with IBD are at a much higher risk of and the rates of which (especially colon cancer) have been also skyrocketing, mostly in the young. Oh, and a recent study I posted about demonstrated that vitamin E can restore the gut barrier, which is yet another mechanism through which vitamin E opposes PUFA’s nefarious deeds.

2 links here

“…Soybean oil is the most commonly used edible oil in the United States and is increasingly being used in other countries, particularly Brazil, China, and India. In the U.S., soybean production took off in the 1970s for use as animal feed; a byproduct of the increasing trend in growth was soybean oil. Soybeans, a good source of protein, are easy and cheap to grow. “Our work challenges the decades-old thinking that many chronic diseases stem from the consumption of excess saturated fats from animal products, and that, conversely, unsaturated fats from plants are necessarily more healthful,” said Poonamjot Deol, link here, an assistant professional researcher in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, link here and a co-corresponding author on the paper, link here published July 3 in Gut Microbes, an open access journal. Deol explained it is linoleic acid in soybean oil that is the main concern.”

“…“While our bodies need 1-2% of linoleic acid daily, based on the paleodiet, Americans today are getting 8-10% of their energy from linoleic acid daily, most of it from soybean oil,” she said. “Excessive linoleic acid negatively affects the gut microbiome.””

“…“It’s the combination of good bacteria dying off and harmful bacteria growing out that makes the gut more susceptible to inflammation and its downstream effects,” Deol said. “Further, linoleic acid causes the intestinal epithelial barrier to become porous. The barrier function of the intestinal epithelium is critical for maintaining a healthy gut; when disrupted, it can lead to increased permeability or leakiness. Toxins can then leak out of the gut and enter the bloodstream, greatly increasing the risk of infections and chronic inflammatory conditions, such as colitis. The researchers note that the increase in IBD parallels the increase in soybean oil consumption in the U.S. and hypothesize the two may be linked.”

“…According to Sladek and Deol, olive oil, which has lower amounts of linoleic acid, is a healthier oil to consume. “Olive oil, the basis of the Mediterranean diet, is considered to be very healthy; it produces less obesity and we have now found that, unlike soybean oil, it does not increase the susceptibility of mice to colitis,” Sladek said.”

“…At the same time, the gut showed an increase in oxylipins, which are oxygenated polyunsaturated fatty acids that regulate inflammation. “We previously found that oxylipins in the liver correlate with obesity,” Deol said. “Some oxylipins have also been found to be bioactive in colitis studies. The bottom line of our current study is that a soybean oil-enriched diet similar to the current American diet causes oxylipin levels to increase in the gut and endocannabinoid levels to decrease, which is consistent with IBD in humans.” Most processed foods in the U.S. contain soybean oil, perhaps explaining why many Americans have more than the recommended daily allowance for linoleic acid. Further, most restaurants in the U.S. use soybean oil because it is relatively inexpensive. “Try to stay away from processed foods,” Sladek advised. “When you buy oil, make sure you read the nutrition facts label. Air fryers are a good option because they use very little oil.” The researchers use olive oil for cooking and salads. Other healthy options for cooking, they said, are coconut oil and avocado oil. They cautioned that corn oil, on the other hand, has the same amount of linoleic acid as soybean oil. “We recommend keeping track of the soybean oil in your diet to make sure you are not consuming excessive linoleic acid,” Deol said. “That is our take-home message.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2285.mp3" length="1342964" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low mitochondrial function is akin to immunosuppression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2283</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2283</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Jul 2023 17:43:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2283

While most people intuitively link metabolic rate with things like weight and exercise/athletic performance, few people realize that since everything in the body (including its structure) is dependent on energy production, our immune system function and response to infections is also largely controlled by mitochondrial function. Medicine so far has not been able to properly explain why vulnerability to infections increases with age (hint: metabolic rate plummets with age), even in people who have intact thymus glands (which tend to atrophy in aging). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the higher mortality rate was seen in seemingly unrelated groups of people. Some of the deaths were in the groups of “usual suspects” – people with obesity, diabetes, CVD, or on immunosuppressive drugs. Yet, other groups composed of lean, very physically active people also had high mortality rates. Finally, the (in)famous “obesity paradox, link here” reared its head again even in this infectious disease situation and doctors have been scratching their heads about these seemingly paradoxical findings. Well, as the study below suggests, it may all come down to mitochondrial function, at least in kids. Namely, the necessary conversion of B-cells into plasma cells is impaired due to low(er) energy production and since the latter is responsible for antibody production people with such energetic deficiency have impaired antibody response to viral and bacterial infections, and even minor infections in such people can be deadly. This finding is corroborated by the recent findings that raising mitochondrial NAD+ levels is therapeutic for COVID-19, likely due to the improved OXPHOS that elevated NAD+ engenders.

2 links here

“…In a new study, National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers found that altered B cell function in children with mitochondrial disorders led to a weaker and less diverse antibody response to viral infections. The study, published in Frontiers in Immunology, was led by researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), who analyzed the gene activities of immune cells in children with mitochondrial disorders and found that B cells, which produce antibodies to fight viral infections, are less able to survive cellular stress. “Our work is one of the first examples to study how B cells are affected in mitochondrial disease by looking at human patients,” said Eliza Gordon-Lipkin, M.D., assistant research physician in NHGRI’s Metabolism, Infection and Immunity Section and co-first author of the paper.”

“…Using a genomic technique called single-cell RNA sequencing, which analyzes gene activity in different cell types, researchers studied immune cells found in blood. These cells include different types of white blood cells that help the body fight infections. During stressful conditions, these cells produce a microRNA called mir4485. MicroRNAs are small strings of RNA that help control when and where genes are turned on and off. mir4485 controls cellular pathways that help cells survive. “We think that B cells in these patients undergo cellular stress when they turn into plasma cells and produce antibodies, and these B cells then try to survive by producing the microRNA to cope,” said Dr. McGuire. “But the B cells are too fragile due to their limited energy, so they are unable to survive the stressful conditions.” Researchers used a technique called VirScan to look at all past viral infections, assess how well the immune system fought those infections and see the effects of B cells and plasma cells on antibody production. With a weaker antibody response, the immune systems in children with mitochondrial disorders are less able to recognize and neutralize invading viruses and clear infections.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2283.mp3" length="839828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B1 (thiamine) may treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2278</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2278</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jun 2023 18:19:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2278

A human case study, corroborated by the literature review done by the authors, suggesting that yet another degenerative and invariably lethal condition may be nothing more than energetic deficiency in disguise. The literature review the authors performed revealed that ALS patients, as well as most animal models of ALS, have 60%+ lower thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) levels in the brain and peripheral nervous system, and without that vital co-factor glucose metabolism is, of course, severely impaired. Conversely, in such a case of thiamine deficiency, fatty acid oxidation (FAO) must be adaptively increased to compensate for the energetic deficiency caused by the impaired glucose metabolism. As such, one can plausibly say that ALS may be yet another condition characterized by excessive FAO, link here, joining the long list of obesity, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, etc with the same likely cause. In any event, the human case study reported here demonstrated that 300mg benfotiamine daily induced a remission in many of the ALS symptoms in the patient, that the symptoms relapsed upon stopping the supplementation, and then remission was achieved once again when supplementation was resumed.

link here

“…Homogenates of brain tissue from the frontal cortex at autopsy in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) showed dramatically reduced levels of the enzyme thiamine pyrophosphatase (TPPase), the enzyme responsible for the conversion of thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) to thiamine monophosphate (TMP). Additionally, free thiamine (vitamin B1) and TMP levels have been shown to be significantly reduced in the plasma and cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) of patients with ALS. These findings suggest that there is impaired thiamine metabolism in patients with ALS. Impaired thiamine metabolism decreases adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production and is a well-established cause of neurodegeneration. Decreased levels of TPPase, resulting in decreased levels of TMP in the cells of the frontal cortex, might account for the focal neurodegenerative changes observed in motor neurons in ALS. Benfotiamine, a safe, lipid-soluble, highly absorbable thiamine analogue, significantly raises free thiamine, TMP, and TPP levels in the blood. A case in which benfotiamine may have positively impacted the symptoms of a patient with ALS is presented. The use of benfotiamine in patients with ALS appears to be a promising therapeutic option. Considering the severity and the lack of satisfactory treatment options associated with this disease, more research on the effects of benfotiamine on the course of ALS is urgently needed.”

“…A 69-year-old white male with a diagnosis of slow-progressing ALS of one year’s duration claimed to be in less pain and to have significantly less fatigue within four days of initiating a course of 300 mg of benfotiamine and 1 mg of methylcobalamin (BAM) twice a day by mouth. He also claimed a sense of improved cognition. His sense of greater muscular strength and improved cognition remained unchanged for approximately eight weeks of taking BAM daily. At the end of the eight-week course, he discontinued taking BAM and claimed that within four days his symptoms had regressed to where they had been prior to initiating BAM. The patient then resumed taking BAM and claimed that within two days he experienced a resumption of his sense of greater muscular strength and improved cognition.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2278.mp3" length="621236" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Progesterone (or pregnenolone) – a cheap, safe and effective treatment of infertility</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2276</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2276</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jun 2023 17:52:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2276

It looks like Big Pharma is getting desperate and are now setting their sights on progesterone. The studies showing benefits of bioidentical progesterone have been steadily increasing over the last 5+ years and it probably won’t be long before a pharma company asks the FDA to declare progesterone a “novel drug” that can no longer be sold over-the-counter (OTC). Be that as it may, we at least are getting confirmation about progesterone’s effectiveness in a number of very common conditions, including infertility. Most people don’t know it, but a full 50% of couples (yes, not a typo) cannot naturally conceive a child, link here, and as such become clients patients of the medical-fertility complex (MFC), and even then with abysmal results that leave 3/4 of them childless. In the meantime, all those childless couples are being told that the cause of the infertility is “unexplained” and this is why not much can be done about it. Well, the study below demonstrates that the “unexplained” cause may simply be low progesterone in women, since a vaginal application of progesterone for just 14 days resulted in doubling of the pregnancy rates in that group. In addition, the women that used progesterone before conceiving had just half the rate of miscarriage compared to the women who did not use progesterone. An interesting (and related) fact that most people do not know is that sperm motility is literally driven by progesterone (or pregnenolone). There is a little-known receptor in sperm (required for sperm motility) that progesterone and pregnenolone activate, link here, and if the levels of those steroids are low, the male will be infertile (even sterile) despite a normal sperm count. Considering the known effects of stress and poor diet in suppressing progesterone and pregnenolone production, it is little wonder that we have skyrocketing rates of infertility. Conversely, it looks like progesterone and/or pregnenolone can be viable, cheap, and low-risk infertility treatments for both sexes.

2 links here

“…A small study with couples experiencing unexplained infertility suggests that a hormone treatment could increase the chances of having a baby. The trial, presented today (Monday) at the 39th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) [1], compared couples trying to conceive naturally with couples where the woman used a vaginal progesterone treatment during the second half of her menstrual cycle. The researchers say a larger trial is now warranted but, given the treatment is safe and low-cost, it could ultimately benefit many people living with infertility around the world. The study was presented by Dr Claudia Raperport, a researcher at Queen Mary University of London, (UK). It included 143 couples who had unexplained infertility, a diagnosis that affects around one-third of couples referred to fertility services. All the participants used ovulation test kits to plan intercourse for three menstrual cycles. Half of the women were given treatment of 400 milligrams of progesterone via a twice-daily vaginal suppository for 14 days. Among the women treated with progesterone, 11 out of 72 (15.3%) had babies. Among the women who were not treated, 5 out of 71 (7.0%) had babies. Although the birth rate was more than doubled with treatment, the small numbers mean that this could have happened by chance. Among the women treated with progesterone who became pregnant, the rate of miscarriage was 20%, compared with 40% in the untreated group. Among women who took progesterone according to the treatment protocol (throughout the second half of their menstrual cycle and early pregnancy with no breaks), there were no miscarriages. Again, the numbers are too small for researchers to be sure these results did not happen by chance. Vaginal progesterone has been safely used for over 30 years with minimal side effects alongside other fertility treatments such as IVF. The cost for three months of treatment would be around €200 or less. Dr Raperport said: “The cost of progesterone is minimal compared to the cost of IVF and other fertility treatments. It also carries far less clinical risk, and physical and emotional burden for the couples involved. “We need to do further research to prove these results in a larger group of people, but this trial suggests a potential treatment for couples with unexplained fertility. Given its safety and low price, there is no harm in offering this treatment in the meantime.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2276.mp3" length="934124" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E reduces exercise-induced muscle damage</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2274</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2274</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jun 2023 17:21:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2274

Nothing much to add here and the article title is essentially identical to my post. I am mostly posting this as a possible “remedy” for the many people who engage in endurance exercise, usually with the (misguided) goal to lose weight. As the study says, the effects of vitamin E are most pronounced in such activities and I think the two main mechanisms of action are the ability of vitamin E to limit lipolysis, as well as its effects on limiting the peroxidation of PUFA, which is the dominant type of fat released in circulation due to lipolysis. Another interesting finding was that daily doses above 500 IU did not add further benefit, which corroborates prior human studies showing that most humans cannot utilize doses of vitamin E higher than 500 IU – 750 IU daily.

2 links here

“…A team of Korean researchers have published a Meta-Analysis of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) that suggested low dosages of dietary vitamin E supplementation may significantly reduce the oxidative stress and muscle damage brought on by exercise. In this article, 17 RCTs were chosen among 44 studies with comparable markers, measurement frequencies, and valid exercise protocols. The investigations assessed biomarkers such as creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), malondialdehydes (MDA), total antioxidant status (TAS) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). Dietary vitamin E supplementation’s impact on exercise-induced muscle damage was investigated using CK and LDH concentrations. They discovered that vitamin E supplementation had a significant impact on muscle damage immediately after exercise. Furthermore, low dosages of vitamin E supplementation (500 IU daily) exhibited a protective impact against muscle damage, whereas high doses (>500 IU daily) had no such effect. Additionally, vitamin E supplementation had a positive effect on athletes’ CK concentrations while having no positive impact on non-athlete participants.”

“…Vitamin E is made up of two broad members – tocopherols and tocotrienols. Tocotrienols have also been shown to improve endurance capacity as indicated by a longer duration of swimming and reduce exercise induced oxidative stress. As such, vitamin E supplementation has demonstrated potential in mitigating exercise-induced muscle damage. By scavenging free radicals and reducing lipid peroxidation, full spectrum vitamin E (d-mixed tocopherols + d-mixed tocotrienols) may help minimise oxidative damage to muscle tissues. This effect is particularly relevant for endurance athletes who engage in prolonged, strenuous and repetitive exercise, as they are more prone to muscle damage caused by oxidative stress,” said Dr Ariati Aris, Scientific Affairs Specialist at PhytoGaia.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2274.mp3" length="411284" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low progesterone, not low estrogen, drives night sweats, insomnia of menopause</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2271</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2271</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jun 2023 16:56:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2271

Every time I see a study like this I catch myself singing the glorious Queen lyrics “…another one bites the dust”. In this case, what bytes the dust is the pernicious myth that estrogen deficiency drives many of the features of menopause – from the more benign symptoms such as insomnia, night sweats, irritability and loss of libido to the more serious ones such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), dementia, autoimmune conditions, etc. A recent study I posted about already demonstrated that it is low androgens, not low estrogens, that are linked to increased CVD rates, link here. Now, the study below demonstrates that it is low progesterone, not low estrogen, that drives the insomnia and night sweats that are so common among peri- and menopausal women. Unlike the CVD study I mentioned above, this study was actually an intervention trial, meaning it administered biodentical progesterone (P4) and found it ameliorated those symptoms while simultaneously citing the failure of prior studies with estrogen administration to elicit similar benefit. Thus, the only reasonable conclusions here are: 1) menopause is likely not a condition of estrogen deficit, 2) progesterone is the true protective factor lost in menopause and replenishing its levels is warranted in order to improve the health in peri- and menopausal women. In fact, the study itself notes that at least as far as peri-menopause is concerned, estrogen is usually higher, not lower, compared to health pre-menopausal women and it is the higher estrogen driving symptoms such as “…heavy flow, sore breasts, and migraine headaches“. While the study does not mention it, I would also like to add that there have been numerous trials with synthetic progestins and they have also generally failed to improve those symptoms. So, it is only bio-identical progesterone that has so far been demonstrated to be beneficial, despite what Big Pharma has been broadcasting for decades in regards to their “just like progesterone, only better” synthetic progestogenic poisons.

2 links here

“…“This guideline assumes that hormone levels and symptoms are the same in the early years of menopause and in menstruating perimenopausal women,” according to co-author, Dr. Michelle Fung, endocrinologist at William Osler Health System, Ontario. “Although menopausal women have low hormone levels, perimenopausal women may experience heavy flow, sore breasts, and migraine headaches related to higher estrogen levels” Dr. Fung added. “No previous study has even attempted to investigate MHT as a perimenopausal VMS treatment,” stated author, Andrea Cameron, research-nurse investigator who coordinated this study. “Current assumption is that hot flushes are caused by low estrogen in both perimenopause and menopause, thus estrogen therapy would be effective.” They just assumed that hot flushes are caused by low estrogen levels, thus estrogen therapy would be effective.” “Previous studies treating perimenopausal hot flushes have not been successful. These include trials of low-dose birth control pills or estrogen as a skin gel,” co-author Christine L Hitchcock, PhD, research-consultant in Oakville, Ontario asserted. “All studies to date, including ours, studied too few perimenopausal women because perimenopausal VMS are much more variable than menopausal ones. Consequently, despite almost 200 participants, our primary outcome was not statistically different between Progesterone and placebo.” “The significant results for night sweats and sleep on Progesterone were from a planned secondary outcome asking women at study-end to assess changes they perceived,” stated principal investigator and endocrinology professor at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Jerilynn C. Prior. “Although some reviewers ascribed both night sweat and sleep improvements to Progesterone’s known actions to increase deep sleep, that doesn’t explain the significantly decreased intensity of daytime VMS that women also perceived.” “Given the evidence, and urgent need for effective treatment of perimenopausal VMS, a physician can reasonably prescribe a trial of 300 mg of oral micronized progesterone for a menstruating woman having night sweats waking her twice a week or more frequently,” according to Dr. Carol Herbert, Professor emerita, former Dean of the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University and former Head of Family Practice at UBC. Perimenopause has very variable and higher estrogen levels based on previous research by Prior and others at UBC Endocrinology’s Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research (link here).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2271.mp3" length="953948" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Height is not genetic – UK’s drastic drop in height due to austerity, poor diet</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2269</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2269</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jun 2023 16:15:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2269

A few years before the pandemic hit, I did a several posts on studies demonstrating that height is not genetically determined and that diet and environment play a much more important role. One of the big studies on that topic demonstrated that Dutch men gained ~20cm (~4in) of height in the last 150 years simply due to increased dairy consumption. The second study demonstrated that in Montenegro, a genetically very similar population has a very pronounced height dimorphism depending on where they live, with the mountain-dwelling people of the country being almost a foot taller then their genetic brethren living down in the fields. Those mountain-dwelling Montenegrins were taller than even the Dutch (who are the tallest, on average, in Europe), while the field-dwelling Montenegrins were among the shortest (on average) in Europe. My guess is that the higher CO2 retention and, again, the higher dairy intake of the “mountain men” were the major factors driving their height gains.

Now, a study from the UK adds even more evidence that height is primarily determined by the environment, by demonstrating that UK kids have “lost”, on average, up to 2.7in since 1985 in comparison with their aged-matched peers in the Netherlands. According to the study, the main factors responsible for this drastic diminution were poor diet and growing up in an environment of austerity (both economic and social). I have seen something very similar unfold in the US as well. When I first arrived in the country in the late 1990s I was shocked at how tall the average US male was compared to most Europeans I had seen, even in the non-mountainous DC, and this was especially pronounced in the DC police force. Over the last 2+ decades, this height “premium” seems to have all but disappeared and now most males in the DC police force looks like under-developed adolescents. Since the evidence now points to height being one of the most sensitive indicators of environmental quality, the only reasonable conclusion is that Western populations have been subjected to absolutely abysmal living and dietary conditions since 1985, in direct contrast to the politicians’ constant harping about the ever-increasing “prosperity” of their constituents. The studies below mention mostly the economic austerity measures instituted since the financial crisis in 2008. However, I think the elephant in the room that has not manifested its “weight” yet is the pandemic with the associated lockdowns, mask-wearing and social isolation that will probably dwarf the negative height effects of the post-2008 austerity.

3 links here

“…British five-year-olds are on average seven centimetres shorter than Dutch children, with a poor diet being blamed for kids falling behind in height rankings. On average, five-year-olds in Britain are up to 2.7 inches shorter than in comparable wealthy nations like the Netherlands, experts revealed. The trend has been described as ‘pretty startling’, with British youngsters ‘falling behind’ European kids and dropping 30 places down international height charts since 1985…Professor Tim Cole, an expert in child growth rates at the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, University College London, explained that height is a clear indicator of living conditions.”

link here

“…British children who grew up during the years of austerity, link here are shorter than their peers in Bulgaria, Montenegro and Lithuania, a study has found. In 1985, British boys and girls ranked, link here 69 out of 200 countries for average height aged five. At the time they were on average 111.4cm and 111cm tall respectively. Now, British boys are 102nd and girls 96th, with the average five-year-old boy measuring 112.5cm and the average girl, 111.7cm. In Bulgaria, the average height for a five-year-old boy is 121cm and a girl, 118cm. Experts have said a poor national diet and cuts to the NHS, link here are to blame. But they have also pointed out that height is a strong indicator of general living conditions, including illness and infection, stress, poverty and sleep quality.”

“…“Children in the poorest areas of England are both fatter and significantly shorter than those in the richest areas at age 10 to 11,” said Henry Dimbleby, the former government food adviser.“This is a big enough problem to have an impact at an international level.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2269.mp3" length="1206332" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Chronic stress doubles the weight gain from high-fat diets</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2267</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2267</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jun 2023 18:45:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2267

I am only posting this to demonstrate that the (in)famous claim so many doctors and dietitians and public health figures like to quote (calories in = calories out) does not hold and in fact body weight is heavily influenced by environmental conditions as well, such as chronic stress. As the study stated, chronically stressed animals gained twice as much weight than non-stressed animals while consuming the same amount of calories, having the same amount of physical activity, and staring with the same body weight and basal metabolic rate at the beginning of the study.  The findings of this study match the well-established role of elevated cortisol (from chronic stress) in increasing fat gain, as well as the intervention studies showing that cortisol-blocking drugs such as RU486 can lead to rapid and sustained weight loss in humans. The study is one of the few to remind people that (chronic) stress can override the entire energy homeostasis in the organism and lead to weight gain even when the person is eating the “healthy”, low-calorie diet public health authorities recommend.

2 links here

“…While some people eat less during times of stress, most will eat more than usual and choose calorie-rich options high in sugar and fat. To understand what drives these eating habits, the team investigated in mouse models how different areas in the brain responded to chronic stress under various diets. “We discovered that an area known as the lateral habenula, which is normally involved in switching off the brain’s reward response, was active in mice on a short-term, high-fat diet to protect the animal from overeating. However, when mice were chronically stressed, this part of the brain remained silent – allowing the reward signals to stay active and encourage feeding for pleasure, no longer responding to satiety regulatory signals,” explains first author Dr Kenny Chi Kin Ip from the Garvan Institute. “We found that stressed mice on a high-fat diet gained twice as much weight as mice on the same diet that were not stressed.”

“…The researchers say their findings identify stress as a critical regulator of eating habits that can override the brain’s natural ability to balance energy needs. “This research emphasises just how much stress can compromise a healthy energy metabolism,” says Professor Herzog. “It’s a reminder to avoid a stressful lifestyle, and crucially – if you are dealing with long-term stress – try to eat a healthy diet and lock away the junk food.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2267.mp3" length="504548" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low androgens, not low estrogens, linked to heart disease in aging women</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2265</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2265</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jun 2023 18:08:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2265

One of the most pernicious myths medicine created (and has been promoting for the last century) is that menopause is a condition of estrogen “deficiency”. Other, similarly pernicious myths are that estradiol is a “female” hormones while testosterone is a “male” hormone. These myths have persisted despite the fact that estrogen-sensitive cancer rates increase in females (and in males) with age, and anti-estrogenic substances are established drugs for treating such cancers. In addition, multiple studies have demonstrated that old/sick males can produce more estrogen on a daily basis than a young, healthy woman during ovulation. Moreover, supplementing with estrogen was conclusively shown by the massive, long-running Women Health Initiative (WHI) studies to increase rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD), strokes and heart attacks in women of all age groups, not just menopausal ones. Despite all this evidence, public health authorities continues to claim that estrogen is protective for the cardiovascular system and that it is precisely the “deficiency” of estrogen in menopause that drives the higher risk of CVD seen in aging women. In addition, numerous studies have been published over the last 2-3 decades claiming that androgens are harmful for aging women (and men) and that steps must be taken to keep androgens levels lower. The evidence for those claims is pretty thin and stems mostly from the fraudulent hypothesis that androgens cause PCOS/diabetes in women, despite the abundant evidence that estrogen is the real culprit in those conditions as well. Conveniently, one of the most reliable methods for keeping androgens low in both men and women is supplementation with estrogen, and the mutual antagonism between the estrogens and androgens is in medicine’s opinion further corroboration of estrogen’s “benefits” and androgens’ “harmfulness”. Well, the study below begs to disagree and reports that low levels of testosterone and DHEA, but not low estrogen, are strongly linked to CVD and ischemic events in aging women. Yes, the study is observational, but it matches the findings of the placebo-controlled WHI studies and the well-known strong declining curve for androgens in aging women (and in men) against a steeply rising curve of CVD rates. Also, as the authors themselves state, findings such as the ones below contradict “expert opinion” that estrogen is good while testosterone is harmful for the cardiovascular system, and that testosterone is a male-specific hormone.

4 links here

Low testosterone levels in older women double the risk of heart events, link here

“…It measured testosterone, DHEA and estrogen levels in the blood of women over the age of 70 who had not previously had cardiovascular disease. The researchers found that women with low blood testosterone and DHEA levels, but not low estrogen levels, had twice the risk of a cardiovascular event compared to women with higher blood testosterone levels. The results, now published in the journal The Lancet Healthy Longevity, underscore the potential benefits of higher testosterone levels in older women. “Previous studies have shown that testosterone therapy lowers blood pressure and increases blood flow in the arteries.”

“…“Our hypothesis was that higher testosterone levels might protect older women from cardiovascular disease, which contradicts the conventional wisdom that testosterone is harmful to the cardiovascular system,” said Professor Davis. She added, “We need to stop thinking of testosterone as a ‘male’ hormone that’s bad for women.” It’s an important hormone for both sexes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2265.mp3" length="1222316" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>STUDY: Glycine may treat depression; MEDIA: Glycine may cause depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2254</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2254</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 May 2023 15:11:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2254

The level of misreporting in mainstream media is reaching criminal levels. For example, there have been many studies discovering that an increase in the activity of the serotonin transporter (SERT), which results in lower levels of extracellular serotonin, results in alleviation of depression or resilience to its onset. In other words, LOW (extracellular) serotonin is therapeutic for depression. Invariably, the media took those studies and reported “High serotonin good for depression”, so basically the exact opposite of what the studies said. It looks like this charade is not isolated to serotonin (and estrogen), but is probably a general rule that media follows at the orders of its pharma sponsors. Case in point – the study below. It demonstrated that the activation of a specific receptor contributes to the development of depression, and animals lacking that receptor were remarkably resilient to developing depression. Ergo, a substance that inhibits said receptor would be therapeutic for depression. The amino acid glycine was found to be an inhibitor of that receptor and as such is expected to be therapeutic for depression, as well as anxiety and other mood disorders. The study authors even started a company developing synthetic inhibitors of said receptor as treatment for various mental disorders, and another article quoted the study author saying that the reason they are not pursuing glycine (or taurine) as antidepressant treatment is the lack of “selectivity” of those molecules for the receptor in question (GPR158, link here). What did mainstream media report? You guess it – “glycine…likely contributing to major depression, anxiety and other mood disorders“. I think we are in a desperate need for a change in the laws protecting media for misleading the public on important health matters. While most people saw clearly the media failure in properly informing the public during the pandemic, the pandemic misdeeds of media are small peanuts compared to issues like the one discussed in this post since the latter affect the health of hundreds of millions of people around the world for decades, considering mental disorders are typically chronic conditions. Deliberately misreporting on such issues of public health should have legal repercussions. A doctor can lose his/her license for engaging in such misinformation repeatedly, even if the acts were not deliberate. Why should the media be treated any differently? Oh, and lest I forget, the receptor GPR158 that glycine (and possibly taurine) are inhibiting is activated by glucocorticoids, link here and, once activated, also drives the development of various tumors such as prostate cancer. Yet another piece of evidence that stress can directly cause cancer, depression and other mental disorders. Conversely, glycine and taurine can be viewed as functional antagonists to stress/cortisol.

2 links here

Newly Discovered Trigger for Major Depression Opens New Possibilities for Treatments, link here

“…A common amino acid, glycine, can deliver a “slow-down” signal to the brain, likely contributing to major depression, anxiety and other mood disorders in some people, scientists at the Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology have found.”

“…In 2018 the Martemyanov team found the new receptor was involved in stress-induced depression. If mice lacked the gene for the receptor, called GPR158, they proved surprisingly resilient to chronic stress. That offered strong evidence that GPR158 could be therapeutic target, he said. But what sent the signal? A breakthrough came in 2021, when his team solved the structure of GPR158. What they saw surprised them. The GPR158 receptor looked like a microscopic clamp with a compartment — akin to something they had seen in bacteria, not human cells. “We were barking up the completely wrong tree before we saw the structure,” Martemyanov said. “We said, ‘Wow, that’s an amino acid receptor. There are only 20, so we screened them right away and only one fit perfectly. That was it. It was glycine.” That wasn’t the only odd thing. The signaling molecule was not an activator in the cells, but an inhibitor. The business end of GPR158 connected to a partnering molecule that hit the brakes rather than the accelerator when bound to glycine.”

Study suggests mGlyR could be a promising antidepressant target, link here

“…Both glycine and aurine affect mGlyR. Researchers believe these chemicals play a role in depression. “We have previously published research implicating GPR158 in the pathology of mood disorders,” said Kirill Martemyanov, professor and chair of the department of neuroscience at Scripps Biomedical Research. “Specifically, we found it to be upregulated in humans suffering from major depressive disorder and in mice subjected to stress, which is a major aggravating factor for depression.”

A 1995 study in European Neuropsychopharmacology, link here found that glycine and taurine and other excitatory amino acids are dysregulated in the plasma of humans diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Additionally, a 2017 paper in Nature, link here found that taurine has an antidepressant effect on stress-induced depressive rats.

“We also found that in mice, suppressing GPR158 leads to an antidepressant phenotype and resilience to stress,” Martemyanov said. “Therefore, we think that interventions aimed at blocking GPR158 would offer relief from stress-induced depression.”

“…The widespread presence of glycine and taurine, and their involvement in numerous bodily processes, limit their potential as medications. The authors note, however, that the identification of mGlyR offers a novel antidepressant target for developing new medications. The authors suspect that such novel drugs would be small molecules that specifically inhibit the mGlyR receptor, as they could prevent potential interactions with related receptors such as GPR179 found in the eye.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2254.mp3" length="1541060" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) may drive both schizophrenia and Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2250</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2250</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 May 2023 03:24:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2250

Unbeknownst to most people, psychiatry has started to make a quiet “paradigm shift” in regards to psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia. Namely, after claiming for decades that psychotic states are caused by excessive dopamine levels/activity, psychiatry has now quietly change the official story to a more “nuanced” approach, after several studies confirmed that the “standard of care” antipsychotic drug haloperidol is a strong 5-HT antagonist in addition to its known effects as a dopamine antagonist. Moreover, other studies also demonstrated that eliminating haloperidol’s dopamine blocking effects did not change its effectiveness for schizophrenia. Furthermore, a whole new class of drugs known as atypical antipsychotics have been approved for treating psychotic states such as schizophrenia and most of these drugs have pronounced 5-HT antagonism effects, often with little to no effects on dopamine. All in all, it looks like schzophrenia is primarily a condition of serotonin excess, which is something doctors suspected as early as the 1950s when observing that people with carcinoid syndrome/tumor (thus producing a lot of 5-HT) have mental symptoms shockingly similar to schizophrenia. This is one of the reasons I am posting the study below – i.e. is directly acknowledged that a drug with strong 5-HT inverse agonism (i.e. even stronger than an antagonist) known as sulpiride (working mostly as 5-HT7 inverse agonist) is used to treat schizophrenia. The second reason, and the main finding of the study, is that 5-HT7 receptor (over)activation apparently drives the AD structural abnormalities. Conversely, the administration of sulpiride, managed to block the structural changes seen in brains of animal models of AD, and apparently also reversed the cognitive symptoms of AD in those same animal models. Stage II human trials are set to begin later this year.

2 links here

“…A common feature of many neurodegenerative diseases are pathological protein deposits in the brain. These protein aggregates cause nerve cells to die and, as a result, entire brain areas to shrink, which manifests in affected individuals as progressive dementia. The so-called tau protein in particular is involved in the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and frontotemporal dementia. A research team led by Professor Dr. Evgeni Ponimaskin, a scientist at the MHH Institute of Neurophysiology, has already discovered that signal transmission through a specific serotonin receptor called 5-HT7R plays a crucial role in this process. Now, in collaboration with international scientists, link here, the MHH team has investigated the effect of the antipsychotic amisulpride on the receptor. The drug, which is approved for the treatment of schizophrenia, can block the 5-HT7R and thus prevent the pathological accumulation of the tau protein, link here. The effect of amisulpride has been successfully tested in various cellular models as well as in animal models of dementia. The results have now been published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.”

“…Serotonin is a messenger substance that controls a number of vital processes, such as blood clotting, learning processes or the sleep-wake rhythm. Since it also influences our mood, it is known as the “happiness hormone.” The messenger substance mediates its effects by activating certain receptors that are bound to the cell membrane, link here. These serotonin receptors occur in different variants and are increasingly found in brain regions that are affected in dementia. For the receptor 5-HT7R, Professor Ponimaskin has already found a high basal activity in previous studies. “This means that the receptor is permanently active, even without serotonin binding to it,” explains the neurophysiologist. Through its high activity, 5-HT7R stimulates a chemical change in tau proteins that promotes pathological accumulation in the cell. However, the pathological overactivity can be stopped by using counterparts, so-called inverse agonists, to block the receptor’s signal transmission.”

“…”The antipsychotic amisulpride was found to be a potent inverse 5-HT7R receptor agonist,” notes Dr. Josephine Labus, who conducted this study with Professor Ponimaskin. It is true that dead nerve cells could not be repaired. However, in the early stages of the disease, the drug could stop dementia or even prevent it altogether. The therapeutic effect of amisulpride was also shown, among other things, in nerve cells, link here differentiated from human stem cells with disease-relevant mutations. “Now, in cooperation with the Neurological Clinic of the LMU Munich and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Magdeburg, we are preparing a Phase II clinical trial to test the effect of amisulpride in the treatment of patients with dementia, link here,” explains Professor Ponimaskin. The study is to start before the end of this year.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2250.mp3" length="956444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fasting/exercise/lowcarb/keto may promote cancer (melanoma) metastasis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2245</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2245</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 May 2023 02:19:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2245

Quite the title for this post, but I think the evidence from the study below is clear. Namely, chronic activation of the so-called “master metabolic sensor” AMPK, link here is a key mechanism through which melanoma cells rewire their metabolism from higher into lower OXPHOS, change their physical structure and mitochondria shape/size, and become highly invasive/aggressive. Conversely, blocking AMPK reversed the aggressive melanoma phenotype back to a less aggressive, localized version. Now, AMPK has been promoted for decades all over the blogosphere (and medical journals) as the best thing next to immortality, and is proposed as the key mechanism through which “endurance” exercise, caloric restriction, low-carb diets, or even pharmaceutical lifespan extenders exert their benefits. Its main systemic effect is to increase metabolic efficiency, and switch metabolism from OXPHOS of glucose to primarily fatty acid oxidation (FAO). Speaking of lifespan extenders, the current pharmacological darling of the blogosphere (and mainstream medicine) – metformin, link here – works primarily as an AMPPK-activator. Despite all of the purported “benefits” of AMPK, even the official Wiki page acknowledges that AMPK may have a role as a tumor promoter, link here, ironically, by protecting cancer cells from metabolic stress induced by chemotherapy/radiation. In other words, after cancer has formed, AMPK may be strong protector of said cancer. However, the Wiki page states that there is no evidence suggesting inhibiting AMPK is prophylactic/therapeutic for cancer. Well, the study below confirms the role of AMPK as tumor promoter and provides perhaps the first contrarian evidence to the claim of the Wiki page that inhibiting AMPK is not therapeutic for cancer. The tumor in this case was metastatic melanoma (one of the deadliest cancers currently inflicting humanity). The morale of this story/study, at least for me, is that, just as in the case of autophagy, we once again see that “more is often less” when it comes to chronically promoting the activity of very basic, evolutionary ancient physiological mechanisms in humans. Oh, and for the people who are wondering – AMPK activation is one of the major activators of autophagy:-) Another major finding of the study is the acknowledgement that function can drive/control structural changes, which is something the proponents of the metabolic/bioenergetic theory of disease have been saying for more than a century and medicine (especially oncology) continues to deny. As Dr. Peat often said in his articles, “structure and function cannot be separated, they are interdependent on every level”, and it does seem to be so for human cells used in this study, where minor changes in the metabolic/bioenergetic processes induced major structural/skeletal modification.

Now, while the study did not mention it, I suspect the mechanism through which AMPK activation promotes metastasis is precisely through its effects of increasing FAO – a process I have written about many times, link here, and observed in every cancer type known to medicine. If excessive FAO is at the core of metastasis, then instead of direct/specific inhibition of AMPK, one could probably achieve similar benefits by inhibiting said excessive FAO. As mentioned numerous times in the past, niacinamide, vitamin B1, vitamins A/D/E/K, aspirin, glycine/gelatin, progesterone, androgens, etc can all be viable approaches for restricting excessive FAO. For the most severe cases, the direct FAO inhibitor Meldonium/Mildronate, link here may need to be administered in order to stop the severe metabolic derangements that sick/stressed cells experience.

link here

“…Cell migration is crucial for cancer dissemination. We find that AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) controls cell migration by acting as an adhesion sensing molecular hub. In 3-dimensional matrices, fast-migrating amoeboid cancer cells exert low adhesion/low traction linked to low ATP/AMP, leading to AMPK activation. In turn, AMPK plays a dual role controlling mitochondrial dynamics and cytoskeletal remodelling. High AMPK activity in low adhering migratory cells, induces mitochondrial fission, resulting in lower oxidative phosphorylation and lower mitochondrial ATP. Concurrently, AMPK inactivates Myosin Phosphatase, increasing Myosin II-dependent amoeboid migration. Reducing adhesion or mitochondrial fusion or activating AMPK induces efficient rounded-amoeboid migration. AMPK inhibition suppresses metastatic potential of amoeboid cancer cells in vivo, while a mitochondrial/AMPK-driven switch is observed in regions of human tumours where amoeboid cells are disseminating. We unveil how mitochondrial dynamics control cell migration and suggest that AMPK is a mechano-metabolic sensor linking energetics and the cytoskeleton.”

link here

“…In the new study, published in Nature Communications, the team investigated how metastasizing cells rewire their energy systems, link here to move quickly and efficiently on their journey to other parts of the body. The researchers examined migrating tumor cells in a special model system allowing movement in three dimensions—a departure from conventional systems that place cells on a flat surface that doesn’t accurately replicate how cells move through living tissue. They found that metastasizing tumor cells adopt a style of movement known as rounded-amoeboid migration, where cells maintain a loose connection to their surroundings, enabling them to slither through the tissue. This requires far less energy than a common style of cell movement known as mesenchymal migration, where cells grip tightly onto their surroundings and drag themselves through their environment. They observed that the invasive tumor cells reshape their mitochondria to suit this efficient style of movement, opting to have many, small, fragmented mitochondria that operate in a low-power mode. This is in contrast to less-invasive cells, which have large, branching networks of mitochondria that operate in a high-power mode. “These metastatic cells are rewiring themselves to be very efficient,” explains Dr. Eva Crosas-Molist, first author on the new paper. “They only need low levels of energy to move, which helps them to survive in the potentially stressful environments they are migrating to, where there may be a lack of nutrients or oxygen.” Intriguingly, the team found that if they manipulate the shape of the mitochondria in their metastasizing tumor cells and force them to become more joined up, the cells lose their invasive behavior. Likewise, if they make mitochondria more disconnected in non-invasive cells, the cells start to behave like metastasizing tumor cells, link here. The researchers discovered that a molecule called AMPK sits at the center of these processes. It senses the energy requirements of the cell and also controls the cytoskeleton, which determines how the cell moves and behaves. “That was a really surprising thing for us—we wouldn’t have imagined that changing the mitochondria could affect the cytoskeleton and vice versa.” Professor Sanz-Moreno explains. “By modifying these little mitochondria you create a global change, link here, altering what the cell looks like and its whole behavior.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2245.mp3" length="1819940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>How vitamin K protects from diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2242</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2242</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 25 May 2023 18:28:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2242

The study discovered a new protein requiring vitamin K as a co-factor. It has long been known that vitamin K regulates both the synthesis and carboxylation of osteocalcin, link here, with the latter subsequently regulating functions as diverse as blood clotting, bone mineralization, soft-tissue decalcification, metabolic rate of fat cells, testosterone/progesterone synthesis in male/female gonads, insulin secretion, etc. It is that last function – regulating insulin secretion – that has been of great interest lately in regards to both vitamin K and osteocalcin. There are multiple observational studies demonstrating strong inverse link between vitamin K levels/consumption and diabetes. There are also a few intervention trials (both human and animal ones) demonstrating vitamin K administration can ameliorate insulin resistance and/or diabetes. However, up until now, the mechanism of vitamin K effects has been incomplete as its effects on osteocalcin are not sufficient to explain its anti-diabetic potential. The study below found a previously unknown protein in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) that may provide additional explanation for vitamin K effects. That protein, called eGRP, is responsible for controlling bi-directional calcium flux between the cytosol and ER in the beta-cells of the pancreas (where insulin is produced). Too much calcium entry into the ER means too much insulin secretion and that would be the classic hyperinsulinemia seen in diabetes type II. The study discovered that sufficient vitamin K levels enable the proper functioning of EGRP, thus trapping excess calcium and protecting the beta-cells. If chronic calcium overload occurs (due to lack of vitamin K), the overload and resulting hyperinsulinemia eventually lead to toxicity and beta-cell death, and thus to diabetes type I. As such, vitamin K may protect from both types of diabetes.

2 links here

“…Vitamin K is a micronutrient known for its role in blood clotting, in particular in gamma-carboxylation, an enzymatic reaction essential to the process. It has been suspected for several years that this vitamin, and thus gamma-carboxylation, may have other functions as well. Several studies suggest a link between a reduced intake of vitamin K and an increased risk of diabetes. However, the biological mechanisms by which vitamin K protects against diabetes remained a mystery until now. In their study, UdeM associate research professor of medicine Mathieu Ferron and his team at the IRCM were first able to determine that the enzymes involved in gamma-carboxylation and therefore in the use of vitamin K were present in large quantities in pancreatic beta cells, link here, the very cells that produce the precious insulin that controls blood sugar levels. “Diabetes is known to be caused by a reduction in the number of beta cells or by their inability to produce enough insulin, hence our keen interest in this novel finding,” said Ferron, a leading researcher in molecular biology. “In order to elucidate the cellular mechanism by which vitamin K maintains beta cell function, it was essential to determine which protein was targeted by gamma-carboxylation in these cells.” “We were able to identify a new gamma-carboxylated protein called ERGP,” added Julie Lacombe, who conducted the work in Ferron’s laboratory. “Our study shows that this protein plays an important role in maintaining physiological levels of calcium in beta cells in order to prevent a disturbance of insulin secretion, link here. Finally, we show that vitamin K through gamma-carboxylation is essential for ERGP to perform its role.” This is the first time in 15 years that a novel vitamin K-dependent protein has been identified, opening a new field of research in this area.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2242.mp3" length="911732" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hair glucocorticoid levels predict future cardiovascular disease (CVD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2239</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2239</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 24 May 2023 17:33:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2239

Ever since we launched our hair/nail steroid analysis service, link here couple of years ago, I have been seeing a steadily increasing number of studies on using hair/nail steroid analysis to predict future risk and also assess severity of (already existing) many chronic conditions. While most of the studies seem to focus on obesity/diabetes or mental disease, some of the more recent ones are taking aim at linking directly levels of glucocorticoids with rates/risk of CVD or even cancer. The link between chronic stress and CVD has been suspected for more than a century, however the excuse of the public health authorities has always been that multiple large studies did not find a link between levels of glucocorticoids and CVD, so the link (if any) must be genetically driven. It is indeed true that most large scale studies performed so far did not find a clear link between blood glucocorticoid levels and CVD. However, that missing link can easily be explained by the fact that blood tests for glucocorticoids are a very poor estimate of long-term systemic glucocorticoid exposure due to the fact that blood levels of most steroids change rapidly (often in mere seconds) in response to a plethora of environmental factors, as well as sleep and nutrition status. So, those studies should ideally be repeated, though this time by replacing the blood glucocorticoid tests with another test that can measure long-term glucocorticoid levels. Some attempts have been made to perform such studies by collecting all urine a patient produces over a period of a few weeks and then measuring glucocorticoid levels there. However, even those tests are not really indicative of long-term glucocorticoid exposure but rather of kidney and liver functions involved in the excretion of endogenous glucocorticoids. Regular tissue biopsy or testing glucocorticoid levels in hair/nails seems to be the only feasible method (currently) of assessing long-term glucocorticoid exposure, and that is what the study below attempted to do. It tested hair levels of cortisol and the (ostensibly inactive) cortisone and assesses their correlation with future CVD risk over a 5-7 year follow-up period. This study did find a correlation between glucocorticoids and future CVD event, and as such is perhaps the largest and more direct study to date that directly acknowledged that stress is a cause of CVD. Interestingly, it was the “inactive” precursor cortisone that was strongly correlated with a future (short-term) CVD disease risk, but not cortisol. This may be surprising for most people, but one only needs to look at the sister-steroid pair estrone-estradiol for a very similar finding. Serum levels of estradiol have not been conclusively linked with cancers or CVD (as many doctors suspected they would) but serum estrone levels and especially serum estrone sulfate levels were very strong predictors of future cancer and/or CVD event in both men and women. In fact, the estrone pair is now known to be a very good prognostic indicator of mortality from prostate, breast, ovarian, and even colon cancers. That being said, while hair cortisol has not by itself been conclusively linked with CVD, the ratio of hair cortisol/DHEA has been identified by multiple studies as not only a good CVD predictor, but also as perhaps the most reliable (currently) predictor of future mortality and morbidity, and as a very good lifespan predictor. It is a pity that the study below did not include DHEA in its analysis, especially considering it is also an adrenal steroid and its role is intimately linked to the role of the glucocorticoids, with the former being an antagonist of the latter. Finally, another interesting finding was that the strongest association between cortisone and future CVD was found in the youngest portion of the study participants. This is yet another stark reminder of the rapid decline in the health of the chronologically young people, whose biological age currently probably rivals the biological age of people 20-30 years chronologically older.

link here

“…We investigated 6341 hair samples of participants from a large prospective cohort study (Lifelines) for cortisol and cortisone levels, and associated these to incident cardiovascular diseases (CVD) during the 5-7 years of follow-up. We estimated the odds ratio (OR) of HairGC levels for incident CVD cases, corrected for age, sex, waist circumference, current smoking, systolic blood pressure, and the presence of type 2 diabetes mellitus. RESULTS: Hair cortisone levels were associated with incident CVD in both the crude and adjusted analyses (OR 2.91 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.47-5.60 per point increase in 10-log cortisone concentration (pg/mg).p=0.002), and OR 2.15 (95% CI 0.99-4.55, p=0.049 respectively). This effect was most profound in the youngest half of incident CVD (OR 3.70, 95% CI 1.27-10.3, p=0.014). In the elder half of CVD cases, hair cortisone was not associated with incident CVD. In this cohort, hair cortisol showed no significant associations to incident CVD. CONCLUSIONS: In this large prospective cohort study, higher long-term glucocorticoid levels measured in scalp hair, represent a relevant and significant predictor for future cardiovascular diseases. We found the strongest associations for hair cortisone, and within younger individuals.”

link here

“…Long-term levels of scalp hair cortisol and its inactive form, hair cortisone, are increasingly used biomarkers that represent the cumulative exposure to glucocorticoids over the previous months. There is a large body of evidence indicating that the stress hormones cortisol and cortisone affect the body’s metabolism and fat distribution. But data on these stress hormone levels and their effect on long-term CVD outcomes is scarce. To find out more, researchers analysed cortisol and cortisone levels in 6,341 hair samples from adult men and women (aged 18 and older) enrolled in Lifelines—a multi-generational study including over 167,000 participants from the northern population of the Netherlands. Study participants’ hair was tested, and participants were followed for an average 5-7 years to assess the long-term relationship between cortisol and cortisone levels and incident CVD. During this time, there were 133 CVD events. Researchers adjusted for factors known to be linked with increased risk of CVD including age, sex, waist circumference, smoking, blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes. The researchers found that people with higher long-term cortisone levels were twice as likely to experience a cardiovascular event like a stroke or heart attack, and this rose to over three times as likely in those aged 57 years or younger. However, in the oldest half of CVD cases (aged 57 and older), hair cortisone and cortisol were not strongly linked to incident CVD. “Our hope is that hair analysis may ultimately prove useful as a test that can help clinicians determine which individuals might be at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Then, perhaps in the future targeting the effects of stress hormones in the body could become a new treatment target,” says Professor Elisabeth van Rossum, the principal investigator of the study from Erasmus University Medical Center.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2239.mp3" length="1840676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Media: Endotoxin (LPS) drives obesity/diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2232</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2232</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 21 May 2023 17:41:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2232

I did not think we will ever see such a headline in a major news outlet, but here is is. And in The Guardian of all places, which is a newspaper that rarely deviates from the official medical narrative on any condition, especially obesity and diabetes. The official narrative for those conditions is that they are caused by too much eating and not enough exercising, in the context (as usual) of the mysterious “genetic susceptibility”. A number of high-profile studies have come out over the last 5-6 years and shattered this fake narrative by demonstrating that average current caloric intake is much lower than early 20th century, while others showed that modern adults move a lot more than their ancestors from the early 20th century. And since a lot of the people involved in those recent studies are at least partially descended from the lean beasts living in the early 1900s, the genetic narrative also falls apart. So, medicine is now forced to “pivot” (a euphemism for covering up fraud) and search for new explanations, and there are few legitimate such explanations remaining other than chronic inflammation, in this case driven by endotoxin (also known as LPS), absorbed from the gut into the bloodstream. Even more importantly, the study did confirm that the main mechanism of endotoxin action is reduction of the basal metabolic rate (by increasing inflammation)! This admission, in my opinion is a giant step for mankind, and the only thing missing is the admission that there is also an exogenous driver of inflammation that synergizes strongly with endotoxin, and that driver is PUFA. We actually have experimental confirmation of this hypothesis, in the form of animal (and some human) studies demonstrating that a sterile gut (resulting in elimination of endotoxin) and/or elimination of most of dietary PUFA results in rapid weight loss (in case of already present obesity) or striking resistance to developing obesity for lean organisms, even in presence of caloric intake that is 4-5 times higher than baseline/control. Unfortunately, instead of recommending well-known anti-endotoxin remedies such as eating easily digestible foods, avoiding resistant starches, eating a good amount of insoluble fiber, taking substances with anti-endotoxin effects (charcoal, saturated fats), etc the study concludes with a giant ad for Big Pharma – i.e. bariatric surgery. That is the (expensive and risky) procedures, which, according to the authors, is the answer to the chronic low-grade endotoxemia that is the cause of most cases of obesity/diabetes around the world. Even if endotoxin production is not addressed, something as simple as restoring the gut barrier with niacinamide, link here and/or vitamin E, link here would still be preferable, in my opinion, to bariatric surgery.

3 links here

“…Fragments of bacteria leaking into the body from the gut are damaging fat cells and driving weight gain, research suggests. Scientists at Nottingham Trent University have found that these microbe fragments, known as endotoxins, are able to enter the bloodstream and directly affect how well fat cells function. The researchers said their findings, recently published in the journal BMC medicine, help shed light on how endotoxins may drive obesity and associated disease such as type 2 diabetes. They also added that weight loss interventions such as bariatric surgery “can reverse the damage our gut can pose to our fat cells, which ultimately will have a major impact on our health”.

“…Lead researcher Prof Mark Christian, of Nottingham Trent University’s school of science and technology, said: “Gut microbe fragments that enter the blood stream reduce normal fat cell function and their metabolic activity, which is exacerbated with weight gain, contributing to increased diabetes risk. “It appears that as we gain weight, our fat stores are less able to limit the damage that gut microbe fragments may cause to fat cells. “Endotoxin from the gut reduces fat cell metabolic activity and its ability to become ‘brown-like fat cells’ that can be useful to help lose weight. “Our study highlights the importance of the gut and fat as critical interlinked organs that influence our metabolic health.” He added: “As such, this work suggests the need to limit endotoxin-induced fat cell damage is even more important when you have excess weight, as the endotoxin contributes to reduce healthy cellular metabolism.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2232.mp3" length="1276244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Keto diet linked to higher risk of heart disease (CVD) and stroke</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2229</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2229</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 May 2023 18:16:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2229

The controversy over low-carb diets is steadily increasing. While such diets are still all the rage on popular podcasts and blogs, many academic researchers and practicing clinicians have started to distance themselves from the diet and no longer recommend it to their patients due to the negative evidence that has accumulated over the last 3-5 years. The study below adds one more piece of evidence against adopting low-carb diets. The study is observational, so it should be taken with a grain of salt, but it is among a long list of similar such studies covering very large, heterogeneous populations around the world.

2 links here

“…“After an average of 11.8 years of follow-up – and after adjustment for other risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and smoking – people on an LCHF diet had more than two-times higher risk of having several major cardiovascular events, such as blockages in the arteries that needed to be opened with stenting procedures, heart attack, stroke and peripheral arterial disease,” researchers found, according to the news release. The researchers said in the release that their study “can only show an association between the diet and an increased risk for major cardiac events, not a causal relationship,” because it was an observational study, but their findings are worth further study, “especially when approximately 1 in 5 Americans report being on a low-carb, keto-like or full keto diet.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2229.mp3" length="318548" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E may prevent, treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA) by restoring the gut barrier</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2227</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2227</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 May 2023 18:00:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2227

This is one of those studies where the most important finding is not directly stated, but implied. Namely, if healing the gut barrier, as the study says, may prevent/treat RA then the condition is most likely tied to the microbiome in our GI tract. More specifically, to the byproducts of the microbiome that can absorb into the bloodstream, and that applies mostly to our old friend endotoxin (LPS). Intact bacteria rarely absorb into the bloodstream from the GI tract, and if they do then one usually gets a potentially life-threatening sepsis instead of RA. So, the main finding of the study, at least to me, is that endotoxin drives RA and limiting endotoxin’s effects is both preventive and therapeutic for RA. One way to achieve this is by improving the gut barrier, which is what vitamin E is claimed to do. However, if the endotoxin assault on the colon wall is chronic (i.e. after every meal) then the wall/barrier easily get damaged again, and it becomes a tug-of-war between restoring/damaging said gut barrier. Reducing endotoxin production by consuming easily digestible foods, insoluble fiber, and substances with antibacterial effects (charcoal, saturated fats, etc) is probably a better approach as it would have a longer-term effect than taking vitamin E daily. There is nothing wrong with using the vitamin E, but any good prevention/treatment should look at the original cause of the disease and that cause in the case or RA is endotoxin. One additional (and direct) benefit of vitamin E may also be its anti-estrogenic effect. Estrogen is a known promoter of autoimmunity and in many cases can cause an auto-immune condition de-novo. To make matters worse, endotoxin promotes estrogen synthesis (by activating aromatase) while estrogen increases gut permeability, thus increasing endotoxin absorption into the blood. A perfect vicious cycle that vitamin E may be able to break.

2 links here

“…Plus, there are dietary changes, link here, such as reducing the consumption of foods that have been found to contribute to rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. Now, new evidence suggests that vitamin E supplements could help prevent and treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In a study published in late April in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, link here, researchers from the Xi’an Honghui Hospital in Shaanxi, China looked at information from a range of sources on how supplementation with the vitamin affected outcomes related to the disease. They found, in a meta-analysis (statistical analysis across multiple studies) of nine sources, encompassing nearly 40,000 participants altogether, that vitamin E supplements had a positive effect on those with RA for sensitive joints and swollen joints. Vitamin E’s ability to restore the intestinal barrier and improve the gastrointestinal tract may be linked to the prevention and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis,” the study authors write. “Vitamin E supplements used on a regular basis can help individuals with RA reduce joint discomfort, edema [swelling from excess fluid], and stiffness, as well as enhance their overall quality of life.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2227.mp3" length="913100" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>NAD+ deficiency causes kidney disease, niacinamide prevents it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2225</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2225</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 May 2023 17:27:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2225

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is one of the most prevalent complications of obesity and diabetes. Its causes, as usual, are “unknown” according to mainstream medicine but high glucose levels and genetic predisposition are thought to play a role. Many studies have called into question these claims, and have in fact shown that elevated lipolysis (delivering inflammatory PUFA to the kidneys) and, consequently, elevated fatty acid oxidation (FAO) as per the Randle Cycle are the more likely culprits. It is well-known that one of the effects of elevated FAO is a decline in the mitochondrial NAD/NADH ratio – i.e. relative deficiency of NAD+. This is actually the primary mechanism through which elevated FAO inhibits glucose oxidation since lower NAD/NADH ratio inhibits the activity of the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase. In any event, the study below demonstrates that relative deficiency in NAD+ (i.e. lower NAD/NADH ratio) is the direct cause of kidney damage due to the resulting OXPHOS dysfunction. Conversely, elevating NAD+ (and thus NAD/NADH) levels with precursors such as nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) or nicotinamide riboside (NR) was effective in completely preventing kidney damage and CKD. Since NMN is no longer available over the counter and NR is rather expensive, niacinamide remains as the most viable option for replicating the study in humans with CKD, especially considering the fact that niacinamide is just as effective as an NAD+ precursor as NMN/NR while also having potential additional benefits the other two precursor do not. Namely, niacinamide is an inhibitor of the NAD-consuming enzymes PARP-1 and CD38, so taking niacinamide not only directly increases NAD+ levels but also inhibits its excessive consumption/decline. I can’t find the actual published study that article is based on, but other studies have demonstrated benefits for CKD in animals from human-equivalent (HED) doses in the 250mg-500mg daily range.

link here

A deficiency of an important enzyme in the body causes kidney disease, link here

“…NAD+ coenzyme Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide is a coenzyme found in every cell that regulates various metabolic pathways, as well as being involved in DNA repair and immune cell function. It is essential to maintain metabolic balance through its effect on the mitochondria, the energy generators in the cell, and without adequate amounts of enzymes, the body’s cells cannot generate the energy they need to perform their metabolic functions. Tubular cells in the kidneys need a lot of energy produced by mitochondria to perform their function, reabsorb essential nutrients and excrete waste and toxins. When the mitochondria in these cells are damaged, an inflammatory response is triggered that leads to kidney disease, which causes the body to build up fluid, electrolytes, and waste products.”

“…The researchers tested kidney samples from a healthy control group against samples from patients with diabetic kidney disease or kidney disease caused by high blood pressure. It turns out that NAD+ levels are significantly lower in diseased kidneys. To investigate the disease mechanism underlying these differences, they performed RNA-sequencing of the samples.”

“…The researchers sought to determine the relationship between NAD+ levels and mitochondrial gene expression, and concluded that low NAD+ levels are a key feature of human kidney disease. Furthermore, when laboratory mice were given over-the-counter supplements of the NAD+ precursor nicotinamide riboside or nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) to increase NAD+ levels, tubular cell mitochondria were protected from damage and prevented the development of kidney disease.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2225.mp3" length="1097348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:30</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Deficiency of activated folate may be the cause of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2222</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2222</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 May 2023 16:02:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2222

Yet another common, mysterious, and “incurable” conditions may turn out to be surprisingly simple in reality. The study below found that the majority of people with this condition have low levels of the active (methylated) folate and elevated levels of unmetabolized folate. As such, a clinical trial is underway to quickly test if supplementing with methylated folate will alleviate/cure the condition.

2 links here

“…You may know someone with overly flexible joints, a friend or family member who can easily slide into a split or bend limbs to impossible angles. But hypermobility is a more serious condition than being “double-jointed.” For those with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), the same conditions that create fragile connective tissue can cause a range of symptoms that, on the surface, can seem unrelated: physical conditions such as joint pain, chronic fatigue, thin tooth enamel, dizziness, digestive trouble and migraines; and psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety and depression. Women with hypermobile EDS may also be at increased risk for endometriosis or uterine fibroids. Researchers have long struggled to find the cause of hypermobility and hypermobile EDS. Of the 13 subtypes of EDS, hypermobile EDS comprises more than 90% of the cases. But until this study, hypermobile EDS was the only subtype without a known genetic correlate. As a result, symptoms have often been treated individually rather than as the result of a single cause. Researchers at Tulane University School of Medicine have linked hypermobility to a deficiency of folate — the natural form of vitamin B9 — caused by a variation of the MTHFR gene. “You’ve got millions of people that likely have this, and until now, there’s been no known cause we’ve known to treat,” said Dr. Gregory Bix, director of the Tulane University Clinical Neuroscience Research Center. “It’s a big deal.””

“…Doctors discovered the connection between folate deficiency and the MTHFR gene by working with patients at Tulane’s Hypermobility and Ehlers-Danlos Clinic, the only such clinic in the U.S. that focuses on fascia disorders. Blood tests of hypermobile patients who showed signs of associated medical conditions revealed elevated levels of unmetabolized folate. Subsequent tests showed that most of those with elevated folate serum levels had the genetic polymorphism. The good news is a treatment already exists. Methylated folate — folate that is already processed — is FDA-approved and widely available. “It’s an innocuous treatment,” Bix said. “It’s not dangerous, and it’s a vitamin that can improve people’s lives. That’s the biggest thing: We know what’s going on here, and we can treat it.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2222.mp3" length="234932" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin, cold, flue increase risk of dementia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2220</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2220</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 May 2023 15:25:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2220

I am posting this study not so much because of the link between chronic low-grade inflammation and neurological conditions it demonstrates. That link is by now well-known even in mainstream medical circles. The main reason this study/article caught by eye is that the experiment mimicked the symptoms (including inflammation) of repeated viral infections by administering low doses of endotoxin (LPS) to animals. By using that experimental protocol, the study not only confirms that endotoxin exposure can cause neurological issues, but also indirectly admits that many/most of the symptoms of the cold/flu may be nothing more than symptoms of endotoxemia. Fever, chills, head/muscle/body/joint aches, trouble sleeping, fatigue, etc are all established symptoms of endotoxin exposure and they are also classic symptoms of a cold/flu infection. So, eating insoluble fiber and/or taking some charcoal on a semi-regular basis may do more for preventing future neurological (and other) problems than the “aggressive treatments” (usually antivirals and vaccines) the article calls for.

2 links here

“…Studies in humans have shown that greater exposure to microbial infections during one’s lifetime is associated with a greater decline in cognitive function with aging. A new animal study assessed the impact of inflammation caused by repeated microbial infections on cognitive function by intermittently administering the inflammation-inducing bacterial toxin, lipopolysaccharide to mice. The study found that mild-to-moderate inflammation induced by repeat lipopolysaccharide administration resulted in deficits in memory and learning in early middle-aged mice. These findings in agings mice suggest that mild-to-moderate sickness caused due to microbial infections may need more aggressive treatment than the current standard of care, especially in populations vulnerable to cognitive impairment, such as elderly individuals.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2220.mp3" length="566852" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Long-Covid incidence, severity no worse than post-influenza syndrome</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2218</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2218</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 May 2023 19:04:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2218

As most people around the world witnessed, one of the key reasons authorities provided for the draconian lockdowns and (semi)mandatory vaccination programs imposed on people was the risk of not only getting COVID-19 and dying from it, but also the high (we were told) risk of developing so-called “long-COVID” (LC). The latter is a nebulous and poorly defined list of symptoms including chronic fatigue, immune dysfunction, pulmonary damage, cardiovascular complications, mental illness, neurological diseases, and even cancer (i.e. some viruses are known tumor promoters). Yet, the evidence for the risk and severity of this dreaded LC was never presented to the public and the excuse since early 2020 has always been that we do not have enough historical data since COVID-19 has only been around for 3-4 years. As such, the risk calculations for LC have so far been exclusively theoretical, based on computer models comparing long-term  mortality/morbidity rates of COVID-19 with other similar viral pathogens known to be able to cause SARS. The study below is one of the first to present actual data on risk of developing and expected severity of LC, and found that the risk is no higher than the same risk associated with the well-known post-influenza syndrome. The latter is now accepted to often cause the so-called chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), which medicine claimed for years was nothing but a “psychiatric” disorder or patients malingering for attention. In fact, certain subgroups of the studied population were more likely to develop post-influenza syndrome than LC. Well, it looks like yet another key reason for accepting massive increases in totalitarianism worldwide turns out to be at best falsehood, and at worst deliberate fearmongering with power-gain in mind.

link here

“…Long Covid is a complex, multi-system condition that develops during or after having COVID-19, and is used to describe symptoms that continue for 4-12 weeks and longer-term sequelae beyond 12 weeks known as post-COVID syndrome. Long COVID has the potential for a substantial impact on society, from increased health care costs to economic and productivity losses. In the highly vaccinated population of Queensland exposed to the Omicron variant, long COVID appears to manifest as a post-viral syndrome of no greater incidence or severity than seasonal influenza, according to new research being presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Copenhagen, Denmark (15-18 April).”

“…Interestingly, the analyses suggests that younger age groups and non-indigenous populations were more likely to report moderate to severe functional limitations after influenza than Omicron. “In our highly vaccinated population, the public health impact of Long COVID does not appear to result from any unique property of SARS-CoV-2. Rather, the impact results from the sheer number of people infected over a short period of time,” says Dr John Gerrard, Queensland’s Chief Health Officer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2218.mp3" length="862652" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Regaining weight post diet/exercise due to lowered metabolism by increased PUFA in cardiolipin</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2214</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2214</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 May 2023 18:28:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2214

This is by far the most significant study I have seen come out in the last 2-3 years, simply because of the impact it has on virtually every person out there who has tried to lose excess weight (and who hasn’t?). Virtually every person considering (or having done) dieting/exercise to lose excess weight dreads the infamous “rebound”. You see, losing weight is not that hard for most people, even the weak-willed couch potatoes. It is keeping it off after losing it that is the hard part. Years ago, I posted about a study on the contestants in the show the Biggest Loser.

link here

As I explained in that post, not only had all of them regained the lost weight within 6 months after leaving the show, but many of them found out they surpassed their original weight even on a lower-calorie diets. How could this be!?? Well, the study on the Biggest Loser found out that the resting metabolic rate of the contestants had plummeted as a result of the drastic weight loss they had endured, so when they stopped the grueling regimen those poor souls had the metabolic rate of turtles (famously slow metabolizers). Worse, in the process of losing that excess weight, the contestants lost a majority of their lean muscle mass and by the time they were done with the show they all had some degree of the so-called “sarcopenic obesity, link here” (colloquially known as “skinny-fat”), which even doctors dread as they know this condition is a very good predictor of future mortality and morbidity and puts people with that condition at a higher risk than even the morbidly obese people that those “losers” used to be. Lean muscle mass is one of the primary determining factors of the resting metabolic rate (RMR) and losing it through severe dieting and/or exhaustive exercise is one of the worst outcomes one can “achieve” with such regimens.

Now, the study below demonstrates that the dastardly PUFA plays a central role in this fiasco. The study confirmed again that weight loss reduced RMR, and found that the mechanism behind this reduction in RMR is the increased proportion of PUFA-containing phospholipids in cardiolipin, link here (the crucial mitochondrial enzyme, largely controlling the speed of OXPHOS). Specifically, the study found that weight loss through dieting/exercise increased the content of the omega-6 linoleic acid phospholipid species composing cardiolipin. Dr. Peat mentioned in several of his interviews that the lipid composition of cardiolipin changes over the lifespan of a human (and most mammals), being composed of mostly saturated fats in childhood and progressively switching to PUFA species in adulthood and old age, link here (the same process is seen in most chronic diseases too). Conversely, several studies have shown that feeding old animals lipids completely devoid of PUFA, link here can change the cardiolipin composition back to a more PUFA-deficient state and restore the metabolic rate of even very old animals back to youthful levels. The human equivalent dose (HED) of that PUFA-deficient lipid feeding study was ~200mg/kg, so for most humans a daily dose of 15g-20g of coconut or moringa oils (both have very low PUFA content), or a completely hydrogenated oil (as the study used, but more difficult to obtain) may be able to prevent/reverse the decline in metabolic rate seen after dieting/exercising people and/or even old age.

3 links here

“…Regaining weight is a prevalent issue among individuals who have lost weight. Several research studies indicate that overweight individuals experience a decrease in overall energy expenditure after shedding pounds. This decline in energy expenditure disproportionately affects different tissues, resulting in an energetic mismatch. This imbalance is primarily due to a reduction in lean tissue, thereby increasing the likelihood of regaining weight. Despite identifying this phenomenon, the precise mechanisms of how weight loss affects skeletal muscle mitochondrial respiration remain unknown, and concrete evidence is yet to be established. In April 2023, Life Metabolism featured a study by Professor Katsuhiko Funai at the University of Utah titled “Weight loss elevates skeletal muscle mitochondrial energy efficiency in obese mice.” The research team discovered that obese mice undergoing weight loss experienced an improvement in the efficiency of skeletal muscle mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, leading to decreased energy expenditure throughout the body. This reduction in energy expenditure may contribute to weight regain following weight loss.”

“…To investigate the effects of weight loss on mitochondrial energy metabolism, researchers conducted a study using obese mice treated with dietary interventions to induce weight loss. High-resolution respirometry and fluorometry measurements were used to assess changes in mitochondrial energy metabolism, while mitochondrial proteomes and lipidomes were analyzed to examine any related changes. The results showed that while there was no significant change in mitochondrial proteomes or respiratory chain supercomplex formation, weight loss did lead to an increase in oxidative phosphorylation efficiency (as seen in Figure 1). Additionally, the researchers found that weight loss accelerated the remodeling of mitochondrial cardiolipin (CL) acyl-chains, resulting in an increase in the content of tetralinoleoyl CL (TLCL), a lipid species believed to be critical for respiratory enzymes. Knocking down the CL acyltransferase tafazzin was shown to reduce TLCL levels and skeletal muscle oxidative phosphorylation levels, allowing mice to avoid diet-induced weight gain (also shown in Figure 1). Taken together, these findings suggest that weight loss can increase skeletal muscle mitochondrial energy production efficiency, leading to a reduction in overall energy expenditure in the body.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2214.mp3" length="1583804" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Inhibiting fatty acid synthesis reverses bacterial antibiotic resistance</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2211</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2211</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 May 2023 17:37:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2211

The topic of antibiotic resistant bacterial species is currently at the forefront of public health discussions globally. This global importance of antibiotic resistance was highlighted most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was discovered that diabetic patients around the world had a much higher COVID-19 mortality rate than the general population. The diabetics were also poor responders to antibiotic treatments given to them for bacterial pneumonia secondary to COVID-19, but the cause of that poor response has not yet been discovered. The study below may offer some clues as to that cause and also suggests a method for reducing antibiotic resistance for all patients subject to such treatments. Namely, increased fatty acid synthesis (FAS), which is common in diabetic and morbidly obese people, apparently drives the resistance of bacteria (especially the Gram-negative species, capable of releasing endotoxin and causing a cytokine storm) to antibiotics. Conversely, inhibiting FAS restored the sensitivity of even antibiotic-resistant species to treatment. The study used an obscure FAS inhibitor, which is also not approved by the FDA. However, few people (including doctors) know that aspirin is also a powerful FAS inhibitor, link here and since it is available in virtually all hospitals and clinics, it may be an effective and cheap remedy to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. As the study above on aspirin demonstrated, even a low-dose aspirin (80mg-100mg daily) inhibited FAS by 50%+, which should be sufficient to replicate the design of the study an antibiotic resistance below.

2 links here

“…Treating multidrug-resistant infections has increasingly relied on last-resort antibiotics, including polymyxins, for example colistin. As polymyxins are given routinely, the prevalence of their resistance is on the rise and increases mortality rates of sepsis patients. The global dissemination of plasmid-borne colistin resistance, driven by the emergence of mcr-1, threatens to diminish the therapeutic utility of polymyxins from an already shrinking antibiotic arsenal. Restoring sensitivity to polymyxins using combination therapy with sensitizing drugs is a promising approach to reviving its clinical utility. Here we describe the ability of the biotin biosynthesis inhibitor, MAC13772, to synergize with colistin exclusively against colistin-resistant bacteria. MAC13772 indirectly disrupts fatty acid synthesis (FAS) and restores sensitivity to the last-resort antibiotic, colistin. Accordingly, we found that combinations of colistin and other FAS inhibitors, cerulenin, triclosan and Debio1452-NH3, had broad potential against both chromosomal and plasmid-mediated colistin resistance in chequerboard and lysis assays. Furthermore, combination therapy with colistin and the clinically relevant FabI inhibitor, Debio1452-NH3, showed efficacy against mcr-1 positive Klebsiella pneumoniae and colistin-resistant Escherichia coli systemic infections in mice. Using chemical genomics, lipidomics and transcriptomics, we explored the mechanism of the interaction. We propose that inhibiting FAS restores colistin sensitivity by depleting lipid synthesis, leading to changes in phospholipid composition. In all, this work reveals a surprising link between FAS and colistin resistance.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2211.mp3" length="812900" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may prevent/treat migraine in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2206</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2206</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 May 2023 17:21:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2206

Yet another chronic and debilitating condition may turn out to have a surprisingly cheap, widely available, and safe solution. Namely, vitamin D. In pharma research, a new drug that demonstrates effectiveness for a specific condition of just 20% over a placebo group is considered a very solid “hit”. In cases, where a new drug demonstrates 20% effectiveness over an already established drug, that is considered a blockbuster result. Well, the study below is an example of the latter. The “placebo” group was given the drug topiramate, which is already approved for migraines. The active group was given topiramate plus 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily. Treatment lasted four (4) months. The results were a response rate of 76% in the active and 53.5 in the “placebo” group. That is an effectiveness rate of 22.5% over an established drug – a truly blockbuster result. Even better – subsequent data analysis revealed that vitamin D was more effective than “placebo” (topiramate) for migraine frequency, severity, duration, and disability. In other words, no need to reach for the topiramate (or other migraine drugs) at all, as vitamin D can provide at least as much benefit at a fraction of the costs and risks. Now, the study was with children, so the adult vitamin D3 dosage would probably have to be 2-3 times higher, but that is still within the limits of what most studies consider safe.

Finally, IMO the likely mechanism of action of vitamin D for migraines is reduction of serotonin synthesis since some of the oldest and effective anti-migraine drugs on the market (e.g. methysergide, link here) work by blocking/reducing serotonin. A post I did almost a decade ago discussed a study, which found that vitamin D reduces activity/expression of the serotonin-producing enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH), thus lowering serotonin levels in the brain.

2 links here

“…In children who are subject to migraine attacks, vitamin D supplementation may be an effective and safe adjunctive prophylactic therapy to topiramate, results of a study in Saudi Arabia showed. The 56 children (34 girls and 22 boys), who ranged in age from 5 to 14 years had 2 or more headache attacks each week, were not receiving any migraine preventive therapies other than topiramate, and had not taken vitamin D3 supplements within the past 3 months. The patients were divided into 2 groups. The intervention group received topiramate tablets (2mg per kg of body weight) in 2 daily divided doses along with 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 for 4 consecutive months. The placebo group received only the topiramate along with a placebo. Investigators observed a good response to treatment in both groups: 76.13% of patients in the intervention group and 53.5% of those in the placebo group. However, a comparison of migraine characteristics in the 2 groups at the conclusion of the trial showed that D3 supplementation was more effective than “placebo” (topiramate) in reducing migraine frequency, severity, duration, and disability.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2206.mp3" length="938852" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may ameliorate/resolve (allergic) asthma</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2204</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2204</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 May 2023 04:31:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2204

It looks like vitamin D may be the “vitamin” (actually, seco-steroid) analog of aspirin – i.e. there is hardly a condition where this humble “vitamin” has not demonstrated beneficial effects. The new study now adds asthma to the list of chronic, debilitating (and potentially lethal) conditions for which vitamin D may be therapeutic. As the study itself states, there have been quite a few epidemiological studies showing negative associations between vitamin D and asthma. Yet, not many studies have examined the direct effects of vitamin D on asthma. The study below performed both in-vitro, and in-vivo experiments and corroborated the results of those experiments with human data. All types of experiments demonstrated effectiveness of vitamin D3 for asthma. The intervention arm of the study was done with mice, for just 42 days, and the asthma-resolving dose of vitamin D3 they got was equivalent to a human dose of about 60 IU / kg daily. That means for most people 4,000 IU – 6,000 IU vitamin D3 daily should be able to replicate the design of the study. That is quite a reasonable dose and unlikely to produce side effects even in very fragile/sick people.

2 links here

“…A vitamin D3 deficiency can lead to severe symptoms, for example in people suffering from allergic asthma. This has already been shown in several studies. However, we still do not fully understand how exactly this vitamin influences the cellular inflammatory reaction in the body. A team of researchers from the Department of Molecular Pneumology at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen, link here has now demonstrated for the first time how taking vitamin D3 can alter the cellular inflammatory reaction in allergic asthma and alleviate asthma symptoms.”

“…The team of researchers discovered that children and adults who took vitamin D3 supplements had less pronounced asthma symptoms and presented with less severe asthma, at the same time as requiring fewer steroids for inhalation. In certain cells in the blood of people with higher levels of vitamin D3, the scientists discovered greater quantities of the protein blimp-1, that is responsible for controlling the immune response of T helper cells. In order to gain a better understanding of the mechanism, Janina Grund investigated the effects administering vitamin D3 has on the immune response in mice. Once again, the vitamin led to less severe cases of asthma. She also found fewer allergy-inducing antibodies (IgE) that are responsible for certain allergic diseases such as hay fever, asthma or eczema. Administering higher doses of vitamin D3 even triggered an anti-inflammatory reaction in the immune system, specifically with the messenger substance IL-10 and cells that create blimp-1. Interestingly, the working group was able for the first time to prove that the vitamin has an effect on long-lived memory T cells that are key to the long-term immune response in the case of asthma.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2204.mp3" length="609884" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may prevent neurodegeneration</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2202</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2202</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 May 2023 03:58:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2202

Yet another study demonstrating that maintaining high energy levels through OXPHOS is crucial for health, in this case brain health. There are many studies, going back decades, demonstrating that a drop in NAD+ levels, and thus of NAD/NADH and, consequently, of OXPHOS is a common feature of virtually all neurodegenerative diseases. Conversely, many studies have already demonstrated that raising NAD+ levels through the use of precursors such as vitamin B3 or by increasing NADH oxidation through supplementation with quinones and other oxidizing agents is both prophylactic and therapeutic for numerous neurological conditions, chronic (e.g. Alzheimer’s) and acute (e.g. ischemic stroke) alike. The study below is not really novel in that regard, however what sets is apart if that IMO it is the first one to demonstrate that perhaps the main purpose of autophagy in the organism (and specifically, in the brain) is to keep NAD+ levels optimal. In other words, the study demonstrated that declining autophagy was a cause of the declining NAD+ levels seen in both aging and brain conditions. That being said, autophagy is not always a benign/beneficial process and can sometimes act as a tumor-promoter. This is probably why the study authors did not recommend increasing autophagy, but rather raising NAD+ levels as that was the ultimate/direct cause of the neurodegeneration processes seen in the study. And last but not least, the study is one of the few to pour cold water on everybody’s favorite antit-aging target – the sirtuins (SIRT). I mentioned SIRT years ago in a post demonstrating that its activity is greatly increased in cancer and that SIRT promotes fatty acid oxidation (FAO), which drives cancer growth and metastases. Now, the study below demonstrates that the sirtuin genes are also heavy consumers of NAD and also mentions that their activity actually increases in aging and patahological states. Conversely, inhibiting the sirtuins (SIRT) would be beneficial, as the study itself demonstrates. Of course, my readers are already guessing that I am going to mention niacinamide, just as the study itself did. The really good news here is that niacinamide is not only a precursor to NAD+, but is also an inhibitor (in higher doses) of both NAD-consuming enzymes mentioned in the study (PARP-1 and SIRT). None of the other NAD precursors have been shown (so far) to inhibit the NAD-consuming enzymes. Since aspirin is known to modulate autophagy (raise it when it is abnormally low and lower it when it is abnormally high) and niacinamide is a very effective NAD precursor, it is reasonable to try them in combination that should be synergistic when it comes to protecting the brain (and the entire organism) from diseases and even aging.

2 links here

“…Brain cells die from malfunction of autophagy, a process by which cells get rid of cellular waste and generate energy for their survival. In new research published in Cell Reports, researchers have found that a metabolic failure arising from loss of autophagy is detrimental to brain cells, link here called neurons. When autophagy stops working, the levels of a coenzyme called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, link here (NAD) falls, causing the cells to not be able to get enough energy to maintain normal function and to survive.”

“…They generated neurons from these hESCs to understand how loss of autophagy kills brain cells. In autophagy-deficient neurons, depletion of NAD was identified to mediate cell death. The researchers found that upon loss of autophagy, NAD was consumed by hyperactivation of naturally occurring enzymes such as Sirtuins and PARPs. Critically for brain health, dropping NAD levels resulted in undesirable electrical changes to mitochondria, leading to them not being able to function effectively and cells aren’t able to metabolize energy to continue to maintain homeostasis. The researchers say that the findings of this neurotoxic pathway provide new clues about a way to combat neurodegenerative diseases, link here, by showing that compounds boosting NAD levels can improve the survival of neurons with loss of autophagy.”

“…”NAD can be boosted through the use of targeted therapeutics such as supplementation with NAD precursors like nicotinamide (NAM), nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) and nicotinamide riboside (NR), as well as through the consumption of vitamin B3 also called niacin.” “Our research also identifies the potential for drugs that slow down the NAD-eating enzymes in the PARP and Sirtuin families, all of which could support healthy aging and reduced risk of neurodegeneration.”

“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2202.mp3" length="1342820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin may treat (idiopathic) pulmonary fibrosis (PF)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2200</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2200</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 May 2023 03:19:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2200

I mentioned in several of my latest podcast appearances that Pfizer is running clinical trials with a serotonin antagonist to reverse/treat several lethal conditions, for which medicine claims there is no cure. Those conditions include heart fibrosis / heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, cystic fibrosis, and (idiopathic) PF. The last one of these is of particular interest lately as several studies have shown that people who have had a SARS/ARDS type of disease (as a result of flu, cold, COVID-19, pneumonia, etc) often have permanent lung scarring (fibrosis). That scarring/fibrosis not only greatly reduces their physical performance and quality of life, but is now known to often lead to more serious problems in the future including heart failure, pulmonary insufficiency, and lung cancer. Considering the clinical trials Pfizer is running with the serotonin antagonist (terguride, link here) seem to be progressing along nicely and none of them have been cancelled yet for safety or inefficacy reasons, the financial prospects for Pfizer look bright while the healthcare systems prepares to get drained by yet another highly expensive new drug. Fortunately, the study below may pour cold water on Pfizer’s financial dreams. It demonstrated that lowly little aspirin may be able to achieve the exact same results as terguride – i.e. actually reverse already established PF. And I do mean little – i.e. strikingly, the aspirin dose that produced such remarkable effects was quite low (equivalent to a daily baby aspirin for a human), and the treatment regimen lasted only 27 days. Enough said.

link here

Aspirin shows benefits in cell, mouse models of pulmonary fibrosis, link here

“…PF is marked by progressive scar tissue buildup — fibrosis — and inflammation in the lungs. The disease, for which there is no cure, still has limited treatment options. Aspirin is a medication that can be purchased without a prescription and is commonly used to alleviate pain, fever, and inflammation. It’s also used preventively in people at risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Recent research indicates that aspirin also has anti-fibrotic effects in the liver, heart, and uterine lining. This may be due to its ability to inhibit the P13K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway that regulates autophagy. It has been suggested that autophagy, link here has anti-fibrotic effects — with autophagy impairments linked to accelerated lung fibrosis. Tissues from patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, link here (IPF), in which the underlying cause of the disease is unknown, also have been reported to show signs of insufficient autophagy. Altogether, this suggests that aspirin could have benefits for people with PF. However, its potential role in the disease hasn’t been investigated. Thus, a team of researchers in the U.S. and China explored this possibility in a joint study. First, they turned to a cell culture model of fibrosis using cells called fibroblasts. The activation of these cells and their differentiation into myofibroblasts is thought to be a key process driving fibrosis in PF. Aspirin treatment was able to significantly reduce the activity of fibrosis-related genes and slow cell migration in the PF model, suggesting that treatment had anti-fibrotic effects…The findings overall were similar in a mouse model of induced PF. Animals given aspirin every day for about a month had less tissue injury and inflammation than untreated mice, as well as significant reductions in lung fibrosis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2200.mp3" length="810188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA, not sugar, causes eye damage associated with diabetes/aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2198</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2198</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 May 2023 17:44:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2198

An amazing pair of new studies that coincidentally (synchronicity!) came out at the same time, but without the authors seemingly knowing each other or citing each other’s work. One of the studies dispels the ubiquitous myth that high blood glucose is what causes eye damage, especially in diabetics and old people. Debunking a myth of that magnitude should be front-page news, yet mainstream media has very little to say about this. Outside of the 2-3 specialized medical news outlets, I could not find a single reference to these studies in any of the mainstream press outfits tasked with shaping public opinion on health matters. Aside from debunking the “sugar hypothesis”, as the study itself called the dietary myth of eye damage, another interesting finding was that the damage to the retina was detectable years before the person became obese and/or developed diabetes. The study did not suggest a “dietary cause” of the eye damage, but the second study did, demonstrating that high-fat diets are to blame and we know such diets precede obesity/diabetes. The second study found that high-fat diets increased the formation of vitamin A degradation products, known as bisretinoids, in occular tissues. Those degradation products are known to cause damage to the retina directly, but they also participate in the formation of retina lipofuscin. The latter, just as lipofuscin found elsewhere in the body, is a byproduct of PUFA peroxidation. In fact, the study specifically calls out the PUFA linoleic acid as a causal factor of eye damage already identified by prior studies. Thus, it seems that dietary PUFA is once again the main driver of a chronic and progressive pathology that had mystified scientists for a long time, while an innocent bystander (sugar) got the blame. Vitamin E is probably a good therapeutic choice to consider in this context, not only because it helps limit PUFA peroxidation and thus lipofuscin formation, but also because some studies suggest it can actually remove lipofuscin already accumulated in tissues. As per a recent blog post of mine, aspirin and/or eugenol are other substances that can both prevent lipofuscin formation as well as removed already accumulated one.

link here

Sweet Deception: “Sugar Hypothesis” of Diabetic Cataract Development Gets an Eye-Opening Reality Check, link here

“…Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have discovered a novel mechanism in the development of diabetic cataracts, challenging the long-held “sugar hypothesis.” Their study revealed that immune cells migrate from the eye’s ciliary bodies towards the lens, resulting in cellular changes that compromise lens function. These changes occur even before high blood sugar levels are present, suggesting that diabetic complications may begin during the pre-diabetic state. This discovery calls for a reexamination of current theories and may bring the medical community closer to understanding diabetic complications’ origins and potential non-surgical treatments.”

2 links here

“…To summarize, the study examined the association between high-fat diet-induced and leptin deficiency-induced obesity and the accumulation of bisretinoids in the eyes using mice models of obesity. The findings suggested that bisretinoid accumulation is associated with a high-fat diet and due to an increase in vitamin A delivery to the visual cycle.”

“…Vitamin A aldehyde adducts called bisretinoids are formed when retinaldehyde reacts with the photoreceptor outer segment lipid and accumulates naturally with age in human eyes. Bisretinoids have properties that cause adverse outcomes, such as photosensitivity, with the tendency to produce reactive oxygen forms such as singlet oxygen and superoxide anion. These reactive oxygen species further react with bisretinoids, leading to the release of molecular fragments with dicarbonyl and aldehyde.”

“…The researchers believe that a high-fat diet can result in bisretinoid accumulation through two potential mechanisms — either through the increase in the bisretinoid fluorophores comprising the retina lipofuscin or by increasing the phosphatidylethanolamine levels in the photoreceptor cells. Other studies have also reported alterations due to a high-fat diet in the relative proportions of linoleic acid and α-linoleic acid, the precursors of omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, respectively, in the retina.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2198.mp3" length="1116644" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Century-long metabolic decline, not less exercise and/or more eating, causing the obesity epidemic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2195</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2195</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 May 2023 17:01:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2195

I did a few posts years ago on the alarming findings that the youngest generations are among the most physically active, consume the least amount of calories, yet are the most obese (on average) compared to previous generations going back to at least the 1950s. Those studies did not look at specific reasons, but opined that since the trend also matches the decline in IQ scores, testosterone levels, fertility, lifespan, etc the cause is likely something profoundly systemic that affects all of these variables. One of those studies suggested that it is a decline in metabolism that may be to blame, listing in support the much higher caloric intake recorded among both children and adults in the 1950s. The study even listed commercials from that time period showing medical advertisements to mothers suggesting children eat 4-5 meals daily with plenty of sugar-sweetened soda, ice cream, pastry, etc. The study below supports that hypothesis by demonstrating that adjusted basal metabolic rates (BMR) have declined by double digits over the last three (3) decades and that this is a trend that goes back at least a century. It does not take much acumen to realize that with double digit declines over a 3-decade period, by now our BMR is probably only half of the BMR of people who lived at the turn of the 20th century. What makes the situation worse is that if BMR has declined so much, the current guidelines for “optimal” health – reduced caloric intake and plenty of exercise – are virtually guaranteed to make the situation worse since they will invariably further lower the BMR. If this vicious cycle is not broken, I think the W.H.O. projection that half of adults will be obese/diabetic by 2050 is actually quite optimistic. Oh, and last but not least – what could be causing these declines in BMR? Well, chronic stress aside, that decline in BMR mirrors almost perfectly the curves of PUFA consumption rates in the general population. Namely, as the BMR curve has steadily declined over the last 100 years the PUFA consumption rate curve has steadily moved upwards over time. Unless this trend of ever-increasing PUFA consumption is interrupted, I don’t see the decline of BMR flattening (let alone reversing) any time soon.

2 links here

“…A new study published in Nature Metabolism (pdf, link here) has revealed that the basal metabolic rate (BMR) in people in the United States and Europe has decreased over the past three decades, potentially contributing to the growing obesity epidemic in both regions. Basal metabolic rate, or basal energy expenditure, refers to the energy required per unit of time for the body to maintain vital functions such as breathing, blood circulation, and maintaining body temperature. Put simply, BMR is the number of calories the body burns while at rest. BMR is one component in the body’s total energy expenditure. The other is activity expenditure, the number of calories burned during physical activity, such as running or walking. According to the study, which analyzed data from the present day back to the late 1980s from nearly 4,800 adults in Europe and the United States, the adjusted total daily energy expenditure has decreased significantly since the 1990s. The data indicated a decline of approximately 7.7 percent in men and 5.6 percent in women. In terms of adjusted basal energy expenditure, men experienced a drop of 14.7 percent over time, while women’s decline was 2 percent and not deemed significant. However, the authors noted that a larger dataset of BMR measurements of nearly 10,000 adults across 163 studies going back 100 years confirms the decline in both men and women. “The surprising conclusion is we spend less energy when resting now than individuals did 30-40 years ago!” John Speakman, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shenzhen, China, and a lead author of the study, wrote on Twitter, link here. “The magnitude of the effect is sufficient to explain the obesity epidemic.” Speakman addressed the lack of significance of the basal energy expenditure drop in women, attributing it to the inclusion of data from just one study. “If data from that single study was removed the trend was also highly significant in females.”

“…The BMR plays a crucial role, accounting for around 60 to 75 percent of an individual’s total daily energy expenditure, particularly for those with sedentary jobs. This rate directly impacts the rate at which a person burns calories and ultimately influences whether a person maintains, gains, or loses weight. It is generally believed that the obesity epidemic has been primarily caused by decreased physical activity levels and increased food intake. However, the study revealed that physical activity levels have actually increased in both men and women, but the total energy expenditure has significantly decreased, alongside a corresponding decline in basal energy expenditure. One possible explanation is that increased physical activity during leisure time—such as jogging or swimming—is offsetting the progressive rise in sedentary behavior.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2195.mp3" length="1067372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B3 counteracts (cancer) cachexia, by restoring NAD+ levels</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2191</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2191</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 May 2023 04:40:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2191

As many of my readers know, the majority of cancer patients do not succumb from the actual tumor burden, but as a result of (usually in that order) cachexia, immunocompromise from radiation/chemotherapy, hospital-acquired infection, and/or cytokine storm after surgery for removing the tumor. Of these, cachexia is perhaps the most pernicious as its cause is considered unknown, it affects all organs/tissues, and no remedies exist to even mitigate it. Cachexia is also the main cause of death in other “wasting” conditions, including sarcopenia of advanced age, diabetes type I, untreated chronic inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, prolonged bedridden states, etc. If decline in NAD+ levels is the main reason behind cachexia in general, then the findings of this study may provide a cheap, safe and widely available remedy that can affect a significant percentage of chronically ill people worldwide. This is why I put the “cancer” word in the title in brackets, as the findings of this study likely apply to cachexia of any origin, not just cancer.

The study below demonstrates that niacin at a provably non-toxic human-equivalent dose (HED) of about 10mg/kg daily almost completely prevented the cachexia in animals with advanced human colon cancer (xenograft model). The mechanism of action was, as usual, restoring NAD+ levels (and thus the NAD/NADH ratio), which are known to be drastically lower in cancer patients…as well as people with virtually any disease (including acute/infections ones). Importantly, this high(ish) dose of niacin inhibited the major NAD-consuming enzymes such as PARP-1 and CD38, both of which are elevated in cancer and, again, in virtually all known human disease, and especially in aging! Lower doses of niacin (or other NAD precursors such as niacinamide/nicotinamide, nicotinamide riboside (NR), nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), etc) in the <500mg daily range may be converted more easily into NAD than higher doses (such as the one used in this study) and this lower dosing regimen may be preferable in healthier people. However, in people with severe disease and/or advanced aging, the NAD-consuming pathways dominate over the synthesis ones and the inhibition of the former (and thus preventing NAD decline) may be more important than increasing NAD synthesis by a precursor. As such, there may be a context-dependent difference in needs/doses when it comes to supplementation. In healthier people interested in general prevention the lower doses of vitamin B3 (<500mg daily) seem to work better, especially for issues such as obesity and insulin resistance. For people with more serious issues, the higher doses, as used in this study (and even higher), may be a better fit due to only higher doses inhibiting the NAD-consuming pathways. Speaking of better fit, I don’t think niacin is the optimal form of vitamin B3 for human usage. It is known to raise blood levels of both histamine and serotonin, which can be highly detrimental, especially in cancer cases. Niacinamide is, in my opinion, a better option, followed by the more commercially/pharmaceutically oriented NR, NMN, etc. However, since NMN is now banned by the FDA from OTC sales and NR is quite expensive, niacinamide is perhaps the only reasonable option.

And last but not least, I would like to point out that this study yet again discovered that in advanced cancer the levels of autophagy and AMPK are increased. Increasing both of these pathways remains one of the main goals and “selling points” of proponents of fasting, low-carb diets, endurance exercise, etc and is all-but officially endorsed by public health agencies such as FDA, CDC, USDA, etc. As I pointed out in several interviews, I don’t think it is wise to increase these pathways until we know more about them, especially given their role in cancer, and considering the fact that some of the most promising new anti-cancer drugs are autophagy inhibitors.

2 links here

“…Cachexia is a debilitating wasting syndrome and highly prevalent comorbidity in cancer patients. It manifests especially with energy and mitochondrial metabolism aberrations that promote tissue wasting. We recently identified nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) loss to associate with muscle mitochondrial dysfunction in cancer hosts. In this study we confirm that depletion of NAD+ and downregulation of Nrk2, an NAD+ biosynthetic enzyme, are common features of severe cachexia in different mouse models. Testing NAD+ repletion therapy in cachectic mice reveals that NAD+ precursor, vitamin B3 niacin, efficiently corrects tissue NAD+ levels, improves mitochondrial metabolism and ameliorates cancer- and chemotherapy-induced cachexia. In a clinical setting, we show that muscle NRK2 is downregulated in cancer patients. The low expression of NRK2 correlates with metabolic abnormalities underscoring the significance of NAD+ in the pathophysiology of human cancer cachexia. Overall, our results propose NAD+ metabolism as a therapy target for cachectic cancer patients.”

“…NRKs catalyze the utilization of NAD+ precursor NR via the salvage pathway. In the skeletal muscle, Nrk2 is the most expressed isoform in both BALB/c and C57BL/6 mouse strains as compared to Nrk1 (Supplementary Fig. 3a, link here). Considering the Nrk2 repression in CC and the lack of a simple, translatable tool to correct Nrk2 expression, we decided to use the NAD+ booster NA, a precursor that is utilized for NAD+ biosynthesis through the Preiss-Handler pathway thus bypassing NRK218, link here. C26-F animals were treated with a daily dose of NA (150 mg/kg) starting from day 4 after C26 implantation until day 28 (Fig. 3a, link here). In addition to NAD+ depletion (Fig. 1a, link here), C26-F mice presented with a significant decrease of NADH and NADPH levels while NADP+ levels were similar in comparison to controls (Supplementary Fig. 3b, link here). Besides Nrk2 loss, C26-F mice showed an overall repression of genes involved in NAD+ biosynthesis via the salvage and Preiss-Handler pathways (Supplementary Fig. 3c, link here) and enhanced enzyme activity of poly(ADP-ribose)polymerases (PARPs), one of the main consumers of cellular NAD+ pool operating, for example, in DNA repair (Supplementary Fig. 3d, link here). Interestingly, NA increased skeletal muscle NAD+ and NADP+ concentrations almost to the control levels and slightly impacted on NADH and NADPH levels (Fig. 3b, link here, Supplementary Fig. 3b, link here). Moreover, NA supplementation improved cachexia symptoms by counteracting the loss of body weight and muscle mass and partially rescuing grasping strength (Fig. 3c–e, link here, Supplementary Fig. 3e, link here). Consistent with our previous report19, link here, C26-F mice presented with decreased skeletal muscle protein synthesis, increased ratio of the active LC3B isoform (LC3B-II; Fig. 3f–h, link here) and AMPKThr172 phosphorylation (Fig. 3f–i, link here), suggestive of increased autophagy and energy shortage, respectively. Interestingly, both protein synthesis and LC3B-II accumulation were in part rescued by NA (Fig. 3f–h, link here), while AMPK activation was partially prevented (Fig. 3f,i, link here).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2191.mp3" length="1967204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking estrogen (and/or taking DHEA) prevents menopausal obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, etc</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2189</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2189</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 May 2023 03:31:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2189

A remarkable study, which for a reasonable person should unilaterally invalidate the mainstream dogma that menopause is a condition of estrogen “deficiency”, and that most of the symptoms associated with menopause (of which osteoporosis, infertility, obesity and insulin resistance are among the most pronounced) are due to said “deficiency” of estrogen. As a result of this erroneous (fraudulent?) theory, mainstream medicine continues to push hormone replacement therapy (HRT) with estrogen on most/all pre- and menopausal women, despite the damning findings in regards to estrogen coming from the Women Health Initiative (WHI) studies.

Well, the study below does not leave much room for doubt. Using a so-called pure estrogen antagonist (EM-652), completely prevented the diet-induced obesity in menopausal animals. Tangentially but importantly, as the study mentioned at the beginning, EM-652 is also known to reverse bone loss as a result of menopause. DHEA, given on its own, had very similar effects to EM-652, though the antiestrogen was slightly better in some criteria/biomarkers. The antiestrogen did induce a mild elevation of triglycerides, which was prevented by adding DHEA to the antiestrogen treatment, and the addition of DHEA also completely reversed the insulin resistance induced by menopause and the diet. The antistrogen on its own was also beneficial for insulin resistance and blood glucose, but the combination of the antiestrogen and DHEA reversed all pathological changes back to normal in the menopausal animals.

DHEA was applied topically, at a dose of 100mg/kg daily. A good rule of thumb in most studies using the same topical preparation of DHEA (dissolved in ethanol and propylene glycol) is that 5%-10% of the applied dose is absorbed systemically. That corresponds to a bioavailable dose of about 7.5mg/kg daily for the rats, which translated to about 1mg/kg for a human. That is not a low dose and may raise estrogen in some people. However, when combined with an antiestrogen such as in this study (or even better – an aromatase inhibitor) the risks of such supra-physiological dose of DHEA are usually greatly reduced and even eliminated. This is probably one reason the study did not find any negative effects from this high-dose DHEA regimen. EM-652 is experimental and cannot be readily acquired, and its safety profile is murky due to lack of experimental data on the drug. Thus, a better approach in humans would be to combine DHEA with an antiestrogen such as progesterone or pregnenolone. Adding aspirin, another antiestrogen, should help limit risks further. In general, a progesterone:DHEA or pregnenolone:DHEA ratio of at least 3:1 would be needed to limit/block the risks of DHEA, most of which stem from its propensity to convert into estrogen when used in high doses.

All in all, based on this study, one can/should conclude that: 1) menopause is NOT a condition of estrogen deficiency, but rather an excess; 2) an antiestrogen is thus likely beneficial for most/all symptoms of menopause; 3) osteoporosis, obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes, even in absence of menopause, are likely driven by excess estrogen and opposing estrogen can be beneficial; 4) DHEA mimics the effects of an antiestrogen when used in proper doses and is synergistic when used with an antiestrogen.

link here

“…EM-652 is a pure antiestrogen in human breast and uterine cancer cells that also reduces bone loss and plasma lipid levels in the rat. This study aimed to assess the ability of EM-652, alone or with dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), to prevent obesity and related metabolic abnormalities induced by an obesity-promoting diet and ovariectomy.”

“…The present study aimed to assess the ability of EM-652, an anticarcinogenic antiestrogen, to prevent diet- and OVX-induced obesity and its metabolic complications. An obesity-promoting diet was chronically fed to intact and OVX rats that were treated with EM-652, either alone or in combination with DHEA. It was found that both EM-652 and DHEA prevented obesity induced by diet and OVX, either alone or combined, and most of its concomitant lipid and glucose/insulin abnormalities. The compounds were effective in both intact and OVX animals, generally with more marked effects in the latter. The compounds did not exert additive effects, but their combination resulted in the DHEA-mediated prevention of EM-652-induced modest liver triglyceride accumulation and in a more marked improvement in fasting insulinemia and insulin sensitivity.”

“…Both EM-652 and DHEA reduced fasting hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) that were observed in the untreated intact and OVX rats (more so in the latter), DHEA tending to be more potent than EM-652. Insulin resistance is frequently associated with obesity, particularly with its visceral form (24, link here, 25, link here, 26, link here). It is likely that the effect of EM-652 and DHEA on energy balance was involved in such an improvement in insulin action, although a direct action of the compounds on the pancreas and on insulin target organs cannot be excluded a priori. It must be noted that indices of lipid metabolism and insulin sensitivity were assessed in the fasted state, i.e., at a time when lipid flux is minimal. Therefore, treatment effects represent robust phenomena that persisted after 12 hours of fasting. The consequences of OVX and pharmacological treatments observed in the present study would conceivably become more evident in the postprandial state, during which the metabolic handling of glucose and lipids becomes fully active.”

“…To summarize, in addition to the previously reported beneficial effects of EM-652 on breast cancer proliferation and bone mineral density, this study demonstrates that the compound can be considered as an effective agent to prevent diet- and OVX-induced obesity and its metabolic complications such as insulin resistance. The adrenal steroid DHEA given alone did not alter body weight of intact rats but reduced their fat gain, and prevented OVX-induced obesity. The combination of EM-652 and DHEA did not exert additive effects on energy and lipid metabolism, but had the advantage of preventing the modest EM-652-induced liver accumulation of triglycerides, and of completely normalizing fasting insulinemia and insulin sensitivity. Therefore, the beneficial metabolic effects of such combined steroid therapy may eventually prove to be clinically relevant.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2189.mp3" length="1705340" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin may replicate the benefits of fasting, while avoiding its risks</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2187</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2187</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 May 2023 02:37:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2187

I just made a post about fasting raising risk of early death by about 30%. On the other hand, fasting has been shown to lower biomarkers of inflammation as well as increase autophagy, with at least the former being undeniably beneficial. We already know from other studies that the benefits of fasting are largely due to lower levels of endotoxin (LPS) as well as restriction of intake of specific amino acids such as tryptophan, methionine, cysteine, arginine, glutamate, etc. Thus, if one were to eat food deficient in those nutrients while also keeping the microbiome in check with charcoal, insoluble fiber, antibiotics, etc then one would not need to restrict calories. However, keeping all these rules in mind can get pretty exhausting and invariably people slip on their dietary rules. So, instead of playing Russian roulette with fasting and hoping it won’t lead to an early death, wouldn’t it be be nice if one could get those benefits of fasting but without the risks, while also not restricting calories, specific nutrients, or worrying about the microbiome? The study below presents evidence that taking aspirin daily may be such an all-in-one caloric restriction mimetic (CRM). The daily HED of the mice dose the study experimented with was about 8mg/kg, which means that taking 2 tablets (325mg each) aspirin daily should be able to replicate for most people the design of this study.

link here

“…Based on the results described in this paper, aspirin may be classified as a CRM. Indeed, aspirin fulfills all the criteria of a CRM (Madeo et al., 2014, link here) as it (1) reduces protein acetylation by virtue of its ability to inhibit the acetyltransferase activity of EP300, (2) stimulates autophagic flux, and (3) has no cytotoxic activity. Caloric restriction-based strategies or periodic fasting have a favorable impact on health and longevity, both in non-human primates (Colman et al., 2009, link here, Mattison et al., 2017, link here) and in human studies (Longo and Mattson, 2014, link here), although studies carried out in different research centers yielded controversial results regarding CR-mediated improved survival outcomes in rhesus monkeys (Mattison et al., 2012, link here). CRMs have been efficiently used to sensitize tumor cells to chemotherapy (Pietrocola et al., 2016, link here), to treat obesity and metabolic syndrome (Cantó et al., 2012, link here), and to prolong health span and lifespan (Eisenberg et al., 2016, link here, Eisenberg et al., 2017, link here, Madeo et al., 2014, link here). Aspirin is known to reduce the occurrence and progression of several human cancer types (Li et al., 2015, link here, Rothwell et al., 2012, link here), to reverse high-fat diet-induced insulin resistance (Kim et al., 2001, link here), and to prolong lifespan in mice (Strong et al., 2008, link here).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2187.mp3" length="693140" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:34</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low-carb/fasting raise, low-fat diets lower risk of early death by 30%+</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2184</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2184</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 May 2023 01:55:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2184

Not very good news for the low-carb proponents, especially considering the fact that those findings match the clinical studies showing that pharmacologically lowering blood sugar increases all-cause mortality, link here by about the same percentage (30%-40%). The study found that even the better-controlled (and this ostensibly healthier) keto diets also raised mortality risk by almost 30%, compared to high (not regular) carb intake. So, to me this is sufficient evidence that dietary carb restriction is not a good thing and should be avoided. Interestingly, the study also found that low-fat diets decreased risk of early death by up to 34%, and this finding is also corroborated by both clinical studies and real-world low-fat diets such as the Okinawan, link here and the Tsimane, link here diets. Finally, one could draw the conclusion that combining low-fat with low-carb diets, which is a good surrogate for fasting, is expected to have a null effect on health as the decrease and increase of early death risk by both diets is of similar magnitude, so the effects of each diet would cancel each other when combined. However, another study found that fasting (even intermittent) actually increases risk of early death by about the same magnitude as the low-carb diet, even in the presence of a very healthy lifestyle (avoiding smoking, exercising, avoiding processed food, etc). Thus, the moral of the story seems to be that low-fat, high-carb diets are the healthiest, and any other type of macronutrient or caloric restriction is detrimental to health, even in the presence of otherwise healthy lifestyles.

2 links here

Keto – It’s Probably Not Right for You, link here

3 links here

“…Intermittent fasting – one of the most popular and promoted dieting techniques – may actually raise the risk of an early death. A study of 24,000 Americans over 40 found those who ate one meal per day were 30 per cent more likely to die from any cause in 15 years than those who ate three. Intermittent fasting – which means eating within a strict time window or skipping meals entirely – became one of hottest diet tools in the early 2010s. Study tracked 24,000 Americans over-40 from across US for nearly 15 years. Compared to three, one meal a day linked to 30% raised risk of all-cause death. Skipping breakfast was linked to a higher chance of dying from heart disease. But missing lunch or dinner appeared to raise the risk of deaths from any cause. Results remained even if people exercised, ate healthily and rarely smoked.”

link here

“…Researchers found that adopting a low fat diet could slash risk of death each year by up to 34 percent. Meanwhile, low carb diets increased mortality risk up to 38 percent…’In this study, all [low fat diet] scores were associated with lower total mortality, indicating remarkable health benefits of dietary fat reduction for regaining health. Meanwhile, eating a low-carb diet was a path to an early death. People on keto-like diets were 28 percent more likely to die from any cause when compared to their high-carb peers. Participants on an unhealthy low carb diet increased their mortality risk 38 percent every year.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2184.mp3" length="805532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin / eugenol can remove lipofuscin from cells</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2178</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2178</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Mar 2023 17:35:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2178

One of the visible hallmarks of aging is the accumulation of so-called “age pigment” or “aging spots”, commonly known in scientific circles as lipofuscin, link here. The latter is a complex mix of peroxidized polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) and various metals (especially iron) that accumulates in cells with aging and once accumulated cannot readily be removed by cells. For a long time, medicine considered lipofuscin nothing by a benign cosmetic consequence of aging, appearing on the surface (skin) only. Studies over the last 2 decades demonstrated that none of these assumptions are true. Namely, lipofuscin is far from a harmless sign of aging, but rather is an active metabolic/mitochondrial suppressor that can reliably predict the failure of various organs and even mortality risk (independently of age). Speaking of organs, the more recent studies found that lipofuscin readily accumulates in any organ/tissue and the highest amounts are actually found not on the skin of old people, but rather in their brains, hearts, livers, and even gonads. Recognizing its active pathological role, some research circles have been trying to come up with ways to limit lipofuscin accumulation and the two most reliable dietary methods for achieving that is limiting the consumption of PUFA and iron-rich foods. Duh! Anti-oxidants, which prevent/limit PUFA peroxidation, have also been found to be effective at preventing/slowing lipofuscin formation/accumulation, with vitamin E displaying especially strong effects. However, the scientific consensus is that so far there is no known reliable way to remove already formed/accumulated lipofuscin, despite some studies have found that low-dose ethanol (alcohol), high-dose vitamin E, DMAE, curcumin, and other related chemicals may be able (in specific cases) to remove already deposited, intracellular lipofuscin.

The study below demonstrates that humble aspirin, and the main ingredient of clove oil – eugenol – can reliably lower already accumulated lipofuscin. In fact, in “large” doses (as the study calls them), the combination of aspirin and eugenol (given for just 8 weeeks) lowered lipofuscin levels below the levels of even the control (healthy, young) group. Aspirin or eugenol on their own were also effective, but the combination was much more powerful. Why did I put the “large” in quotes a few lines above? Well, the doses  of aspirin and eugenol used in the study were the human-equivalent doses of about 1.5mg/kg daily. That means 1-2 baby aspirin tablets and a few drops of eugenol daily would be enough to replicate in humans the study design, and those doses are puny compared to regular strength aspirin (325mg tablets) or the animal studies with either aspirin or eugenol where the human-equivalent doses are often in the 1g+ daily range, and still without serious side effects. For more specific information on how effective aspirin/eugenol were, take a look at Tables 1 & 2 on page 4403 of the study below.

link here

“…The results were shown in Table 1 and 2. In model group compared with blank group, MDA and lipofuscin content increased significantly and there was signfiicant difference (p<0.01). This showed that the oxidation resistance of mice in model group was significantly lowered. Compared with eugenol group, aspirin group and AEE group, the decline of MDA and lipofuscin content with the increase of AEE dose were lowered significantly (p<0.01) and there also were positive dependence relationship between AEE dose and effect. Compared with eugenol group and aspirin group, the oxidation resistance in high dose AEE group was stronger….The results show that the small doses of AEE can effectively remove free radicals caused by D/galactose and large doses of AEE can make free radical level below the normal level. This will be healthier to mouse organisms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2178.mp3" length="1457108" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide/NAD+ may prevent heart failure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2176</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2176</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Mar 2023 16:56:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2176

The rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) continue to rise and the condition is still the top killer in developed countries, though it is likely that cancer will take the top spot in the next few years and CVD will move back to second place. Heart failure (HF) is one of the common outcomes of (even treated) CVD, assuming a heart attack or stroke does not kill the patient first. HF is currently considered an incurable, progressive and lethal condition for which medicine claims both the cause and potential therapeutic mechanisms are unknown. At least, that is the official story amplified by mainstream media (MSM) every day. Our “friends” over at Pfizer beg to (secretly) disagree, at least when it comes to potential therapies. They are very busy running human clinical trials with the anti-serotonin chemical terguride, link here, after animal studies conclusively showed the condition can be reversed by terguride,, link here even in very advanced stages. So, now we know that at least half of the mainstream story on HF is a lie. What about the other half – the cause of HF? Well, the study below demonstrates once again that HF is nothing by a localized symptom of energetic deficiency, specifically OXPHOS dysfunction. More specifically, drop in NAD+ levels leads to drop in ATP levels and this puts the cardiomyocytes in a stressed state that leads to the release of a number of pro-fibrotic mediators. Those mediators further suppress OXPHOS and over time lead to cell death, collagen deposition, and fibrosis – i.e. the hallmarks of NF. The study found that replenishing NAD+ levels by direct administration prevented the energetic dysfunction and the ultimate development of HF. However, once fibrosis had set in, NAD+ supplementation could not reverse it and this is probably why the Pfizer folks focused their attention on anti-serotonin drugs, which are known to reverse established structural problems such as fibrosis. The NAD+ dose (administered by injection, as NAD+ is not very bioavailable orally) was the human-equivalent of 3.5mg/kg and was given daily for 2 months. I am not sure why the scientists decided to use NAD+ and not a cheaper (and orally bioavailable) precursor such as niacinamide, but I think the latter would be just as effective, even at the same doses but administered over a longer period of time.

link here

Surprising Discovery: Change in Heart Energy Production May Be Key to Preventing Heart Failure, link here

“…Led by Dr. Paul Delgado-Olguín, a Scientist in the Translational Medicine program, and supported by the Ted Rogers Center for Heart Research, the research may also help to explain the diversity of causes underlying heart failure. “We were surprised to find that dysregulation of energy production was the earliest sign of heart failure,” says Delgado-Olguín. “People associate deficiency in energy production with later stage heart failure, but our findings show this could actually be the cause of heart failure, not a result.””

“…Published on February 13, 2023, in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research, the research team analyzed a large dataset on gene expression, the process by which DNA is converted to proteins, in human hearts at a later stage of heart failure and found that KDM8 was less active. This allowed TBX15 to be more highly expressed, leading to changes in metabolism. Researchers also found that TBX15 was expressed at the highest levels in hearts where energy production genes were most strongly suppressed. “There are many genes that help regulate energy production in our bodies, but we were able to identify changes in specific proteins that occur well before cardiac deterioration,” says Delgado-Olguín. After identifying change in energy production as an early sign of heart failure, the research team drilled down further to explore how metabolic pathways could be modified to prevent the failure. In doing so they found that the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) pathway, which regulates energy metabolism, was less active. The team was then able to intervene and prevent heart failure in a mouse model by providing NAD+ injections and boosting energy production. “This research suggests it may be possible to alter certain metabolic pathways to prevent heart failure before damage to the heart begins,” says Delgado-Olguín.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2176.mp3" length="1189532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may prevent dementia / Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2174</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2174</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Mar 2023 16:27:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2174

The study is observational and does not really include information on specific dosing, but it was written in a way that suggests any exposure to vitamin D over a year was linked to significantly lower risk of both getting dementia/AD and/or dying from it over the next 5 years. Considering the study included a number of trials that used puny vitamin D doses in the 400 IU daily range, I’d guess that a daily dose of 2,000 IU – 3,000 IU would probably be representative of the group/segment in the study showing the lowest dementia/AD and mortality risks.

2 links here

“…In the study, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, the team found that taking vitamin D was associated with living dementia-free for longer, and they also found 40 per cent fewer dementia diagnoses in the group who took supplements. Across the entire sample, 2,696 participants progressed to dementia over ten years; amongst them, 2,017 (75%) had no exposure to vitamin D throughout all visits prior to dementia diagnosis, and 679 (25%) had baseline exposure. Professor Zahinoor Ismail, of the University of Calgary and University of Exeter, who led the research, said: “We know that vitamin D has some effects in the brain that could have implications for reducing dementia, however so far, research has yielded conflicting results. Our findings give key insights into groups who might be specifically targeted for vitamin D supplementation. Overall, we found evidence to suggest that earlier supplementation might be particularly beneficial, before the onset of cognitive decline.” While Vitamin D was effective in all groups, the team found that effects were significantly greater in females, compared to males. Similarly, effects were greater in people with normal cognition, compared to those who reported signs of mild cognitive impairment — changes to cognition which have been linked to a higher risk of dementia.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2174.mp3" length="319724" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Metabolic rate may determine personality type and disease risk</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2172</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2172</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Mar 2023 16:12:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2172

Very interesting study that links mitochondrial density/number (and as such, the metabolic rate) with personality types. Namely, people with fewer mitochondrial (i.e. hypometabolic) tend to have high levels of neuroticism, with the latter causally linked to a higher risk of a number of serious diseases. This study adds to the evidence I have mentioned in the past that mood/personality can be easily modulated by changing ATP levels in the brain – i.e. low ATP levels make organisms violent, selfish and psychopathic while higher levels make them open-minded, gregarious and altruistic. The study did not look into whether manipulating mitochondrial biogenesis can change the personality type, but studies on animals already suggest that this is possible. Thus, contrary to what psychologists have been telling us for years, there is really no such thing as a “personality type”. All that exists is a constantly fluctuating personality/mood, a mere gauge (one of many) of the metabolic rate.

link here

“…So we hypothesised that people with certain personality will have different characteristic of mitochondria and these different characteristic of mitochondria will mediate the relationship between personality and health outcome. And in this case we look for mortality because mortality and survival are very, very solid and strong health outcomes. There is a biomarker of mitochondria that you can measure in the blood. When you do a genome sequencing in the blood, there are many, many, many molecule of mitochondrial DNA, and the amount of mitochondrial DNA is an indicator of mitochondrial volume and mitochondrial health. So we hypothesised that lower mitochondrial DNA copy number in the blood will be associated with different personalities.”

“…Personality is measured with a highly standardised questionnaire and divide people and measures different aspect of personality. And there is a very strong and wide literature suggesting of this personality trait. Neuroticism is associated with adverse health outcome, higher risk of cardiovascular disease and higher risk of cancer. And in fact what we found is that neuroticism were strongly associated with lower level of mitochondrial DNA copy number. It was amazing that the result were exactly the same in these two very, very independent and very, very different populations.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2172.mp3" length="500204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Drinking Pepsi/Coke freely is androgenic for males, enlarges testicles, ups testosterone</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2170</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2170</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 01 Mar 2023 16:17:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2170

I think the sales of Coke/Pepsi are about to go through the roof. The study sounds like it was sponsored by one/both of the soda makers, but it was not, and in fact is corroborated by prior studies on (human) male fertility and sugar consumption, link here that I posted about in the past. The study below had the animals consume freely (no restrictions/dosing whatsoever) either Pepsi or Coke, and the groups were further separated into drinking diluted soda (1:1 with tap water) or undiluted soda (100% Pepsi/Coke). The experiment lasted for only 15 days and the findings are unequivocal. Namely, only the groups drinking undiluted sodas had an increase in total testosterone (T) levels, as well as testicle size/volume. In fact, by end of the 15-day experiment, T levels almost doubled in the groups drinking undiluted soda. In addition, only the groups drinking undiluted sodas had an increase in AR expression levels in the testicles, and the increase was in the 60%-78% range. The study tries to explain the findings away with the caffeine contents of the sodas, however both sodas have a relatively low concentration of caffeine (~100mg/L), which translated into animal (mice) doses of about 15mg/kg b.w. and the human-equivalent dose of that is ~1mg/kg daily. Daily human doses of 80mg-100mg caffeine have been studied many times in males and have never been shown to cause such a large increase in testicle size, T levels, or AR expression. Thus, the only plausible explanation for the study findings is the sugar content of the sodas, which is corroborated by the improved male fertility from eating a lot of sugar, seen in the study I linked to above. Now I wonder if the epidemic of (male) infertility we are seeing lately is not to a large degree driven by the ridiculous recommendations from FDA/USDA to limit sugar consumption as much as possible… On the flip side, I bet it won’t be long before we start seeing Coke/Pepsi ads showing 10+ member families with the patriarch winking at the camera and saying “I drink Coke/Pepsi. How ’bout you?” 🙂

link here

“…The testes weights of PEP-2, COC-1 and COC-2 were significantly increased on day 15 (P<0.05) as compared to PEP-1 and CG (Table 1, link here). The outcomes demonstrated a high dose of Pepsi-Cola or Coca-Cola could promote testis growth and development.”

“…As shown in Figure 1A, link here, the concentrations of serum testosterone in all mice were enhanced after the Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola treatment. Serum testosterone concentration of PEP-2 was higher than that of other four groups. On days 10 and 15, there were significant differences between PEP-2 and CG. Serum testosterone concentration of COC-2 was also higher than that of CG (P<0.05). The outcomes indicated that high doses of Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola could improve testosterone secretion of male mice.”

“…Expression levels of AR mRNAs in mouse testes were detected using qRT-PCR so as to assess the FRBI influences on s of AR mRNAs. As shown in Figure 2, link here, expressions of AR mRNAs in four treatment groups were increased. On day 15, increments of COC-1, COC-2, PEP-1 and PEP-2 mice were 60.18%, 67.26%, 65.93% and 78.76% (P<0.05) on the bases of the CG level. Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola could enhance expressions of AR mRNAs in the testes of mice.”

link here

“…The country’s most popular sodas might refresh the parts other drinks can’t reach – by giving men bigger testicles and making them more masculine, a study suggests. Research on mice showed adult males who drank Coca-Cola or Pepsi had higher testosterone levels and larger genitals than their peers…’The outcomes demonstrated a high dose of Pepsi-Cola or Coca-Cola could promote testis growth and development,’ the study said. Testosterone levels were also recorded, and concentrations were found to be enhanced at the end of the study. On days 10 and 15, the group which drank pure Pepsi had significantly higher concentrations of testosterone than the control group. After 15 days, the control group’s testosterone concentration was around 23 nanomoles (nmol) per liter, whereas the groups which drank pure Coca-Cola and Pepsi had a concentration that was roughly 30 nmol/L. The mice who were allocated the pure Coca-Cola also had higher levels of the male hormone than the control group. The results suggest that large doses of Pepsi and Coca-Cola could improve testosterone production in male mice.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2170.mp3" length="1098884" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Zero-calorie sweetener (erythritol) linked to clotting, heart attacks and strokes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2168</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2168</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 28 Feb 2023 20:26:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2168

A striking finding but this new study below, and it is even more striking due to the fact that it involves erythritol – one of the non-caloric sweeteners thought to be the most harmless. You see, many studies have already demonstrated negative health effects from artificial zero-calorie sweeteners such as sucralose, sacharin, acesulfame potassium, etc and while mainstream medicine continues to claim that the evidence of harm from these artificial sweeteners is inconclusive, the negative findings were one of the reason for the food industry to search for alternative non-calorie sweeteners. The so-called sugar alcohols, which the body cannot readily metabolize, are the alternative the food industry identified and now advertises as the “safer” options for artificial sweetening of food and drinks. One of the main reasons for the food industry claiming that the sugar alcohols are harmless is the fact that they are very poorly absorbed from the GI tract of humans. Since there is very low absorption, the food industry decided that this was a sufficient evidence for lack of harm. However, the sugar alcohols are readily metabolized by the bacteria in our intestines, which usually results in increased levels of endotoxin (LPS). Since our own endotoxin (LPS) is now a recognized major factor in cardiovascular disease (CVD), the findings about erythritol make perfect sense, and probably apply to all other sugar alcohols used as sweeteners, with the possible exception of xylitol. The latter has a strong antibacterial effect and this is why it is used in chewing gums and dental hygiene products – i.e. to kill the oral bacteria known to cause cavities and gum disease.

3 links here

“…A sugar replacement called erythritol – used to add bulk or sweeten stevia, monkfruit and keto reduced-sugar products – has been linked to blood clotting, stroke, heart attack and death, according to a new study. “The degree of risk was not modest,” said lead study author Dr. Stanley Hazen, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Diagnostics and Prevention at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute. People with existing risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes, were twice as likely to experience a heart attack or stroke if they had the highest levels of erythritol in their blood, according to the study, published Monday, link here in the journal Nature Medicine.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2168.mp3" length="772940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Declining DHT in aging linked to cardiovascular disease (CVD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2166</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2166</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 28 Feb 2023 19:42:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2166

Yet another study demonstrating that the “villain of all males around the world” – the dastardly androgen dihydrotestosterone (DHT) – actually is, in all likelihood, beneficial for males, at least when it comes to their cardiovascular health. However, since CVD is one of the risk factors for prostate enlargement/cancer (which DHT ostensibly causes), the study below raises (again) serious doubts that DHT is a causative factor in prostate disease as well. I wonder how much longer can the charade known as the androgen hypothesis, link here continue before the general public realizes it is been had.

link here

“…Results: Although concentration of testosterone was not different between young and older group, it was demonstrated that DHT, DHEA-S, AE and ADG were significantly lower in older men in comparison to young men (p < 0.01). Interestingly the most surprising difference was found for DHT concentration, that was as much as 61 % lower in aged men that displayed significantly higher values of cIMT, AI, crPWV and SI (p < 10-4), suggestive of arterial stiffness. Furthermore, DHT was negatively correlated to all arterial wall parameters (cAI, crPWV, SI and cIMT), c-reactive protein (CRP) and hyaluronic acid (HA) concentration, as well as positively correlated to markers of endothelial function (MNA and 6-keto-PGF1α) in all studied individuals (n = 23). Conclusions: We have shown that ageing leads to a significant decrease in DHT concentration that is accompanied by impaired arterial wall characteristics and worsened endothelial function. Therefore more attention should be paid to the DHT, DHEA-S and ADG concentrations as a biomarkers for vascular dysfunction in ageing men.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2166.mp3" length="348860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serum endotoxin level is a reliable biomarker of liver disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2162</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2162</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 28 Feb 2023 19:13:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2162

It looks like the interest in gut-derived pathogenic substances is steadily increasing in the medical field. After claiming for decades (and still doing so) that liver disease is either genetic in origin or driven mostly by sugar (especially fructose) consumption, now studies like the one below are wisening up to the real culprit – endotoxin (LPS), generated by our own microbiome. This endotoxin, produced every time undigested food reaches the colon, causes a chronic low-grade inflammatory reaction in the intestinal wall, which over time compromises the so-called “gut barrier” and causes a condition known as “leaky gut”. Once leaky gut is established, a lot of the endotoxin released (potentially after every meal) gets into the portal vein, which drains into the liver. Endotoxin itself is a highly inflammatory molecule and is known to cause tissue degeneration, including fibrosis and even cancer. Most of these effects of endotoxin are driven by activation of the TLR4 receptor, which triggers a downstream cascade of nitric oxide (NO, serotonin, histamine, IL-1/6, NF-kB, etc. However, up until recently, mainstream medicine claimed that little to no endotoxin gets into the blood stream, and as such is not a factor in chronic diseases, including liver disease. The study below found the exact opposite – i.e. not only is endotoxin a likely cause of all forms of liver disease (e.g. NAFLD, NASH, hepatitis, fibrosis/cirrhosis, etc), but its levels in the blood directly correlate with the severity/stage of liver disease. The solution to all this? It looks like humble vitamin E (first study below) may be a viable tool for both prevention and treatment of the damage that endotoxin causes.

3 links here

“…“NAFLD is asymptomatic during early development, thus hindering early disease detection. Moreover, even during progression of the disease, noninvasive diagnostic tools for a reliable diagnosis and disease staging are lacking,” Josefin Soppert, MS, and colleagues wrote. Source: Adobe Stock In a systematic review and meta-analysis, Soppert and colleagues evaluated 43 studies to determine endotoxin values and potential relationships to disease stage, age, sex, parameters of systemic inflammation, metabolic syndrome, liver function and histology. They reported higher blood endotoxin levels among patients with simple steatohepatitis, link herecompared with healthy controls (standardized mean difference [SMD] = 0.86; 95% CI, 0.62-1.11) as well as among patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis compared with nonalcoholic fatty liver and non-NASH patients (SMD = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.27-1.35). Further, patients with more advanced histopathological gradings of liver steatosis and fibrosis had “consistently higher” endotoxin levels. A rise in BMI among patients with NAFLD also correlated with increased blood endotoxin levels ( = 0.2217; 95% CI, 0.0391-0.4043), and meta-analysis revealed a “significant increase” in biochemical parameters of systemic inflammation (C-reactive protein), metabolic syndrome and liver dysfunction. “Our meta-analysis revealed that blood endotoxin levels are increased in NAFLD patients compared to liver-healthy controls, also after compensation for differences in BMI,” Soppert and colleagues concluded. “Increased blood endotoxin levels were already detected in simple steatosis patients vs. liver-healthy controls as well as in NASH vs. NAFL/non-NASH patients, overall suggesting blood endotoxin levels as potential biomarker for NAFLD.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2162.mp3" length="894740" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Restoring mitochondrial function may be sufficient to reverse aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2160</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2160</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 28 Feb 2023 18:19:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2160

The findings of the study may not sound very novel to my readers, however please keep in mind that the vast majority of anti-aging studies so far have only looked at slowing (not even stopping) aging. Actually reversing aging is the Holy Grail of gerontology, and to date very few studies have demonstrated anything of note in that regard. I posted about one such study several years ago, demonstrating reversal of biomarkers of immune system aging in humans by administering DHEA – a steroid that has known immunostimulating effects, likely due to its ability to oppose glucocorticoids. Another interesting property of DHEA is the ability to raise the metabolic rate, though the mainstream medical dogma considers such effects to be pro-aging. The study below is one of the first to demonstrate that that: (1) aging is characterized by a distinct decline of OXPHOS/metabolism, and that (2) actually raising the metabolic rate, by improving mitochondrial function (OXPHOS), has anti-aging effects. This evidence directly contradicts the so-called rate-of-living theory, link here, on which most anti-aging research has relied so far. Aspirin, progesterone, thyroid, DHEA, androgens, caffeine, niacinamide, glycine/gelatin, sodium, magnesium, etc are all substances with known pro-metabolic effects and should be able to replicate many of the findings of the study below.

3 links here

“…A double membrane, link here surrounds each mitochondrion. The interior layer has accordion-style pleats. Age-related declines in the voltage potential (the ability to transfer charged particles across the inner membrane) have been noted in earlier modeling studies by others. Numerous essential functions of these cellular organelles, such as the synthesis of energy molecules, immunological signaling, and genetic regulation, are driven by the mitochondrial membrane potential. “Decreased mitochondrial membrane potential is an attractive explanation for the complex dysfunctions of aging. However, it is unclear if lessening of the mitochondria voltage potential is a cause or a consequence of cellular aging,” said researchers in their study, which was published in Nature Aging, link here on December 30. To achieve the elusive goal of verifying causality, the researchers used optogenetics, a technology that uses light to precisely manipulate a biological process inside a cell. Using a light-activated proton pump, they were able to specifically increase the mitochondrial membrane potential in the cells of adult roundworms. This instrument was dubbed “mitochondria-ON.” The scientists’ three different strains of roundworms experienced several age-associated indicators of aging reversed by the optogenetics method, which also reproducibly increased the treated worms’ lifetime compared to untreated worms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2160.mp3" length="697844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:37</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A ubiquitous dishwasher rinse agent may cause many serious diseases</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2158</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2158</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 28 Feb 2023 17:48:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2158

Another article demonstrating that a ubiquitous chemical, widely used in both industrial and household settings, has very toxic effects on the GI tract of humans and can directly cause a number of GI and neurological diseases, as well as cancer. While the study only looked at the so-called alcohol ethoxylates, used in the vast majority of commercial dishwashers, I am not convinced that the findings only apply to those ingredients. Most dishwasher detergents also contain artificial dyes and fragrances, many of which have been proven to have detrimental effects on human health. As such, I think it would be wise to avoid any commercial dishwasher liquid that consists of anything more than plain liquid soap (i.e. glycerin or other fatty-acid-derived types). No coloring, no flavors – i.e. same simple soap as the one grandma used 75 years ago to wash the dishes.

2 links here

“…A typical cycle in a commercial dishwasher involves circulating hot water and detergent for around 60 seconds at high pressure. Afterwards, there is a second 60-second washing and drying cycle in which water and a rinse agent are applied. “What’s especially alarming is that in many appliances, there’s no additional wash cycle to remove the remaining rinse aid,” says Cezmi Akdis, UZH professor of experimental allergology and immunology and director of the SIAF, who led the study. “This means that potentially toxic substances remain on the dishes, where they then dry in place.” When the dishes are used the next time, this dried chemical residue can easily end up in the gastrointestinal tract. This inspired the research team under Akdis to investigate what effect the components of commercial-grade detergents and rinse agents have on the epithelial barrier in the gut – the layer of cells that lines the intestinal tract and controls what enters the body. A defect in this barrier is associated with conditions such as food allergies, gastritis, diabetes, obesity, cirrhosis of the liver, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, autism spectrum disorders, chronic depression and Alzheimer’s disease. Similar protective layers are also present on the skin and in the lungs. As numerous studies have shown, many additives and chemicals that we encounter in everyday life can damage these layers. “We assume that defective epithelial barriers play a role in triggering the onset of two billion chronic illnesses,” says Akdis. This connection is explained by the epithelial barrier hypothesis, which Akdis has helped develop during his more than 20 years of research in this field. The researchers used a newly developed technology for their study – human intestinal organoids and intestinal cells on microchips. The tissue forms a three-dimensional clump of cells that is very similar to the intestinal epithelium in humans. The team used various biomolecular methods to analyze the effect that commercial detergents and rinse aids have on these cells. They diluted these substances to reflect the amounts that would be present on dry dishes (1:10,000 to 1:40,000). The result was that high doses of rinse agents killed the intestinal epithelial cells and lower doses made it more permeable. Researchers also observed the activation of several genes and cell signaling proteins that could trigger inflammatory responses. A more detailed analysis showed that one component of the rinse agent – alcohol ethoxylates – was responsible for this reaction.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2158.mp3" length="429644" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Thiamine+biotin can treat Huntington Disease (HD), by restoring glucose metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2156</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2156</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 24 Feb 2023 19:31:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2156

Many carrot-salads ago, back in ancient pre-pandemic times, I posted a study on high-dose biotin (300mg daily) stopping the so-called primary-progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) – the most aggressive variant of this “autoimmune” illness. The proposed mechanism of action for the benefit seen in that human clinical trial was biotin’s effects on restoring oxidative metabolism (OXPHOS) and ATP levels in the myelin-producing cells that are part of the central and peripheral nervous systems. A few years later, another study came out and demonstrated conclusively that all forms of MS are metabolic diseases, and can be successfully treated by reducing fat oxidation and improving glucose oxidation. It is well-known that biotin is one of the key factors in the oxidation of glucose. Vitamins B1 (thiamine) and B3 (niacinamide) are the other major factors controlling glucose oxidation. Thus, the therapeutic effects of high-dose biotin in MS are in all likelihood due to its effects on glucose metabolism.

Over the last several years, several smaller studies, in both animals and humans, have demonstrated that reduced glucose metabolism is also implicated in a number of other neurological conditions, including Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Parkinson Disease (PD), ALS, Huntington Disease (HD), etc. Borrowing from the prior discoveries in regards to MS, AD, PD, etc the studies below now claim that not only is reduced glucose metabolism the major driving factor for HD, but that intervention with high doses of thiamine and biotin seems to completely reverse the pathology. The animal study did confirm the thiamine+biotin combo to reverse the HD pathology, but the human clinical trial has not completed yet. Assuming the human clinical trial got the animal dose conversions right, it looks like thiamine in daily doses of 600mg-1,200mg combined with biotin in daily doss of 150mg, taken for up to a year, should be able to put HD in my favorite medical-euphemism state – “permanent remission”. It is the kind of bizarre word gymnastics medicine uses when it does not want to use the word “cure”:-)

Btw, since the human study states that it is using the thiamine Hcl and/or thiamine mononitrate salts, which have low absorption and bioactivity, it is plausible that using one of the liphillic thiamine analogs such as allithiamine, sulbutiamine, fursultiamine, prosultiamine, etc may provide both stronger effects while also using much lower doses (e.g. 1/10 of the daily dose used for the Hcl/mononitrate salts). Oh, and considering the crucial role of niacinamide in glucose metabolism (as mentioned above) I don’t see why adding niacinamide to the thiamine+biotin combo won’t increase the effectiveness even more.

3 links here

“…Additionally, we show that DAG lipids, which activate PRKCE, were decreased in HD brains. Interestingly, protein kinase C signaling has been shown to be important to OPC differentiation, and myelination66, link here,67, link here,68, link here,69, link here. We found PRKCE levels to be decreased in HD, and that downregulating PRKCE in OPCs in vitro leads to increased differentiation of OLs. Further determination of the mechanism underlying these findings is the subject of future studies. Moreover, appropriate glucose metabolism is critical for the proper development and function of OLs, as OPCs transition to myelinating OLs70, link here,71, link here,72, link here,73, link here. Finally, thiamine metabolism is linked to OL differentiation based on evidence from deficient pyruvate dehydrogenase function in humans, which is known to cause structural white matter abnormalities74, link here, and experimental evidence from pyruvate-dehydrogenase deficient mice, which show a reduction of O4-positive OL/OPCs75, link here.”

link here

“…OL cells generate the insulating coating around neurons, called myelin. The study, published online in the journal Nature Communications, provides detailed insight into the entire process of how these changes in the genes that regulate cell metabolism impair development of OLs, as well as the therapeutic value of treating HD with high doses of thiamine and biotin. Thiamine and biotin are both B vitamins and are involved in a wide range of metabolic processes that help keep the nervous system healthy. “Our findings validate that the mutation that causes HD leads to maturation deficits in the myelin-producing cells and show that high-dose thiamine and biotin treatment restores normal function of those cells,” said Leslie Thompson, Ph.D., co-corresponding author and Donald Bren and Chancellor’s professor in the departments of psychiatry & human behavior and biological chemistry at the UCI School of Medicine, and neurobiology & behavior in the School of Biological Sciences. Using advanced modeling methods, researchers confirmed that in mouse and human HD brain tissue, the maturation state of OL cells and their precursors are arrested in intermediate development, impairing production of the myelin that is critical for neuronal health and function. They found that high doses of thiamine and biotin were connected to significant rescue of gene expression changes in OL cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2156.mp3" length="1384076" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:12</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide fully reverses endotoxemia and leaky gut (from ethanol)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2151</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2151</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Feb 2023 19:09:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2151

The study below is a true gem due to both its broadness of impact, as well as the ease and low-cost of the therapeutic intervention it studied. Chronic endotoxemia, a cause and a result of increased gut permeability (aka “leaky gut”) is now known to be a major cause of virtually all chronic degenerative conditions, and many of the acute ones as well (including seemingly unrelated issues such as viral/bacterial infections). Thus, one of the main goals of the pro-metabolic approach is to heal the gut and reduce both the production and systemic absorption of endotoxin (LPS). While tools such as charcoal, insoluble fiber, antibiotics, etc have their use in achieving this goal, the mechanism through which leaky gut develops had so far been largely unknown. As the study below demonstrated, leaky gut is nothing but energetic deficiency in disguise. Namely, since apparently intestinal epithelial cells (forming the bulk of the gut barrier) consume at least 20% of the ATP we synthesize daily, any sizable drop in ATP levels results in massive dysfunction in both the structure and function of these cells. On a related note, something similar has already been demonstrated to happen in the brain (a similarly highly-energetically-sensitive organ) – i.e. a mere 20% drop in brain ATP levels leads to violent, homicidal aggression in the organism experiencing this energetic drop. Endotoxin (LPS), produced by the gram-negative members of out microbiome, is known to deplete ATP levels in the epithelial cells. The study used another known ATP depleting agent – ethanol – to cause the energetic deficiency in the epithelial cells and, unsurprisingly, found that endotoxin levels in the blood massively increased. However, the study found that administering niacinamide at a human-equivalent dose (HED) of 30mg/kg daily, for 10 days, fully prevented the endotoxemia caused by ethanol, and reversed all the energetic (ATP, NAD, Krebs cycle function) deficits as well, thereby restoring the gut barrier function. In fact, niacinamide supplementation reversed the energetic deficits to a level surpassing the healthy control group! As I mentioned above, the study is relevant even for people who do not drink alcohol since endotoxin naturally formed in our intestines in response to feeding can also cause similar energetic depletion in the intestinal cells and thus cause the same state of “leaky gut” as ethanol. While 30mg/kg of niacinamide daily is not a small dose, it is below the daily dose even mainstream medicine considers toxic, and the duration of usage was just 10 days. Furthermore, the treatment lasted 10 days since ethanol was also administered for 10 days. If a person is not drinking daily, then the niacinamide treatment would also likely not be needed daily. In the absence of daily drinking, I think a reasonable protocol would be to take 30mg/kg on weekends (2 days), maybe twice a month, as a general prophylactic and/or gut-repair regimen. A daily dose of 200mg-300mg would probably have similar beneficial effects as the larger doses taken sporadically. Several human studies already demonstrated that a daily dose of 300mg niacinamide raises NAD levels to the same degree as 1,000mg daily.

2 links here

“…The permeability of the epithelial intestinal barrier is known to increase with age. The resulting condition, also known as “leaky gut,” can be exacerbated by dietary, lifestyle, and environmental factors, such as alcohol consumption [2]. While not lethal, like cancer or cardiovascular diseases, leaky gut is not a trifling matter. Recent studies have shown that intestinal contents, such as the bacterial byproduct lipopolysaccharide, become potent immune system triggers in the bloodstream. This is how a leaky gut causes inflammaging: the persistent systemic inflammation that drives multiple diseases of aging [3].”

“…In this new study, the researchers investigated the deleterious effects of ethanol on gut permeability in mice and whether they can be alleviated by NR. Over the course of the experiment, mice fed an ethanol-rich diet experienced intestinal barrier deterioration. However, in mice who also received NR, this effect, as measured by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) concentration in serum, was largely abolished.”

“…Recent studies show that energy homeostasis is important for tight junction formation between intestinal epithelial cells [6]. The researchers confirmed that NAD+ levels were greatly depleted in those cells by ethanol, but elevated by NR supplementation – amazingly, above those of healthy controls. Levels of ATP, the molecule considered cellular “energy currency”, showed a similar dynamic.”

“…Since most of the energy production in cells occurs in mitochondria, the researchers also analyzed mitochondrial health. As expected, levels of succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) and citrate synthase (CS), two functional mitochondrial enzymes, were reduced by ethanol but rescued by NR supplementation. Same picture was observed for mitochondrial DNA number.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2151.mp3" length="1589780" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Atherosclerosis linked to high estrogen/cortisol/serotonin, low androgens</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2149</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2149</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Feb 2023 18:23:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2149

The findings of the study are not surprising, but I wanted to post it on the blog since it is one of the few studies I have seen that examined more than one of the “sickness” mediator levels in a major chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), and found all of them to be elevated. Given the ability of pregnenolone/progesterone to oppose most of these mediators, and the proven ability of non-aromatizable androgens such as DHT to oppose all of them, one might think that there is nothing mysterious about CVD – i.e. just another endocrine disorder – and that its treatment may be quite simple.

link here

“…A comparative study of the heart phasic pattern was carried out using phlebo-, sphygmo- and kinetocardiography in male patients with chronic nonspecific pulmonary disease and the chronic pulmonary heart syndrome with or without atherosclerosis. Systolic pressure in the pulmonary artery was calculated using Burstin’s method. Atherosclerosis in patients with chronic nonspecific pulmonary disease was shown to be accompanied by high pulmonary hypertension and feature corticosteronemia, hyperestrogenemia, androgen (testosterone) deficiency and increased production of serotonin and noradrenalin.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2149.mp3" length="318908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Muscular dystrophy may be driven by estrogen</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2147</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2147</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Feb 2023 18:14:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2147

Aside from implicating estrogen in yet another “mysterious” chronic, incurable condition the study below is also worth considering due to the fact that the cases it looked at were all “hereditary” muscular dystrophy. Why put hereditary in quotes? Well, because as the study makes it quite clear, there is no known gene involved in this condition, so the only thing that remains as a culprit even in this “genetic” condition is the hormonal imbalance – i.e. the elevated estradiol, corroborated by the other symptoms of estrogen excess such as sexual dysfunction, feminization, and even arrested development. It is also worth noting that ALL examined patients with muscular dystrophy had elevated estrogens. In a further corroboration of the study findings, there are multiple case studies on people with various muscular dystrophic conditions (including the lethal ALS) recovering fully or at least stopping the progression of the condition by using various anti-estrogenic tools such as androgen therapy, anti-estrogen therapy, vitamin D, vitamins B1/B3, etc.

link here

“…Hypophyseal-testicular function was examined in 11 patients with Becker’s progressive myodystrophy (PMD), in 9 with Erb-Roth’s PMD and in 10 with Landouzy-Dejerine’s PMD. The patients’ age ranged from 21 to 45 years. Blood serum LH, FSH, prolactin, testosterone and estradiol were measured by RIA. A sexological study was carried out as well. All the patients’ groups suffering from PMD were characterized by a significant rise of blood estradiol. Apart from hypoestrogenemia, some of the patients manifested hypotestosteronemia, hyper- and hypoprolactinemia, reduction of the LH level. It is assumed that the identified hormonal alterations, primarily hyperestrogenemia, may play an adaptation role under the conditions of the genetically determined myodystrophic process. On the other hand, however, the neuroendocrine alterations provoked sexual disorders in PMD patients. The patients often manifested arrest of sexual development, libido decrease, objective signs of demasculinization and feminization, subjective complaints of sexual dysfunction whatever the PMD pattern.”

4 links here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2147.mp3" length="523460" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The “cancer metabolism” drives aging in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2144</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2144</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Feb 2023 05:06:56 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2144

A truly monumental study, as it is perhaps the first one to demonstrate that “aging” in human cells is entirely under metabolic control. What can I say – Ray Peat right again! Unfortunately, the way the actual study has been worded has been, once again, criminally mis-represented by mainstream media to state the exact opposite of what the study findings were. Namely, the study identified that a deficiency of OXPHOS and, compensatorily, elevation of glycolysis – i.e. the “cancer metabolism” – drives the aging process. For some strange reason, the study chose the word “hypermetabolism” to refer to the hyperlycolytic state, though it makes it quite clear numerous times that the “hypermetabolism” discussed hereby is actually a state of low OXPHOS and high glycolysis. Whether that choice of words was an unfortunate mistake or deliberate manipulation, time will tell. What matters is that the press picked up that poor choice of words and ran with the story that “overactive cell metabolism” drives aging. That press claim is not only in contradiction to the gist of what the study found, but it will invariably be seen by all sorts of public health agencies as a confirmation of the (in)famous “rate of living, link here” theory. I included the popular press article (first link below) for reference, but due to the garbage “journalism” it contains I decided to quote directly from the study, unlike other posts of mine. Perhaps the most revealing finding from the study was that in healthy, non-senescent cells the ATP production is derived from an OXPHOS:glycolysis metabolic ratio of about 2:1. Namely, in a healthy, non-aged cell, about 2/3 of the ATP is derived from OXPHOS and the other 1/3 from glycolysis. In contrast, in aged (and sick) cells, this OXPHOS:glycolysis ratio for ATP synthesis changes over to 1:4 – i.e. more than completely reversed, in favor of glycolysis. Thus, just as in cancer, the aged cells ramp up their glycolysis to produce the same amount of ATP as healthy cells. So in a way, in cancer and in aging, a cell has to “run” twice as fast just to keep up, link here. As the study shows, this inefficient, glycolytic metabolism directly results in mitochondrial (and possibly nuclear) DNA instability, which can, of course, directly cause cancer. In addition, the study demonstrated that the deranged metabolism also resulted in massive release of inflammatory cytokines, increase in (wasteful) energy-consuming pathways, and telomere shortening. In fact, the Hayflick limit, link here (HL) of the hyperglycolytic cells was 53% lower than the healthy ones! Now, as Dr. Peat has mentioned in the past, the HL is likely a fake limit on cellular division, but it does have its uses when comparing aging with healthy cells, and such a drastic shortening is likely to result in much higher risk of a number of degenerative diseases, especially ones of the brain and muscles (Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, ALS, etc).

Assuming the study findings are replicated by other scientists the path to retarding, or even reversing, aging seems rather simple. Namely, increase mitochondrial activity while suppressing excessive glycolysis. Thyroid, aspirin, methylene blue and various other quinones such as vitamin K, progesterone, saturated fats, vitamins B1/B3, androgens, etc all have a sizeable pile of evidence in regards to promoting OXPHOS and/or suppressing excessive glycolysis. Moreover, most of these substances have already been demonstrated to extend maximum lifespan in-vivo.

Study Finds Mechanism That Resembles Ageing And Cancer In A Finnish Mitochondrial Disease, link here

2 links here

“…In control cells, the balance of estimated ATP derived from OxPhos and glycolysis was 64:36%, such that under our specific tissue culture conditions (physiological 5.5 mM glucose, with glutamine, pyruvate, and fatty acids), healthy fibroblasts derived the majority of ATP from OxPhos. In contrast, SURF1 deficiency robustly shifted the relative OxPhos:Glycolysis contribution to 23:77% (p = 4.1e − 6, g = −5.1), reflecting a significant shift in OxPhos-deficient cells towards an alternative, and therefore less energy efficient, metabolic strategy (Fig. 2g, h, link here). As expected, removing glucose from the media did not substantially affect growth in control cells, but the absence of glucose was lethal to SURF1 cells within 5 days, confirming their dependency on glycolysis for survival (Supplementary Fig. 3, link here).”

“…Integrating available clinical and animal data together with our longitudinal fibroblast studies has revealed hypermetabolism as a conserved feature of mitochondrial OxPhos defects. A major advantage of our cellular system is that it isolates the stable influence of genetic and pharmacological OxPhos perturbations on energy expenditure, independent of other factors that may operate in vivo. Thus, these data establish the cell-autonomous nature of hypermetabolism. Moreover, despite the diverging mode of action of SURF1 and Oligo models, as well as some divergent molecular responses, both models converge on the same hypermetabolic phenotype, adding confidence around the generalizability of this phenomenon. Our data also rule out mitochondrial uncoupling as a main driver of hypermetabolism in SURF1 patient-derived fibroblasts, and instead implicate the activation of energy-demanding gene regulatory programs, including but likely not limited to increased metabokine/cytokine secretion, which can compete with growth and longevity (Fig. 9, link here). Our resource cellular lifespan data provide several novel observations that agree with previous work79, link here, and that are relevant to understanding how primary mitochondrial OxPhos defects triggers core physiological and phenotypic hallmarks of aging and mitochondrial diseases.”

“…Finally, given the deleterious effect of hypermetabolism-causing OxPhos defects on the lifespan of patients with mitochondrial diseases and in animal models, these genome-wide data prompted us to examine how OxPhos defects and hypermetabolism relate to dynamic genomic markers of cellular aging and senescence. The complete population doubling curves of each donor (Fig. 8a, link here) provided initial evidence that cellular lifespan was reduced in SURF1 and Oligo-treated cells. The Hayflick limit (i.e., the total number of cell divisions56, link here) was, on average, 53% lower in SURF1 cells (p = 0.072, g = 2.0), and Oligo decreased the Hayflick limit by 40% (p < 0.066, g = 2.0) relative to the untreated cells of the same donor (Fig. 8a, b, link here). Interestingly, the magnitude of these effects (40–53%) on total population doubling loosely corresponds to the 3–4 decade loss in human lifespan documented among adults with mitochondrial diseases (see Fig. 1g, h, link here), which would represent 38–50% for an average 80-year life expectancy.”

“…Third, mitochondrial OxPhos defects dramatically increased the telomere erosion rate per cell division, despite the adaptive transcriptional upregulation of telomere protection complex components. This effect of mitochondria on telomeres agrees with the variable telomere maintenance in mtDNA conplastic mice88, link here, with the life-shortening effect of pathogenic mtDNA variants32, link here and OxPhos defects in mice34, link here, and with the reduced lifespan in patients with mtDNA disease shown in Fig. 1g, h, link here. A study in skeletal muscle of children with high heteroplasmic mtDNA mutations also reported excessively short telomeres, similar in length to the telomeres of healthy 80-year-old controls83, link here. Because skeletal muscle is a post-mitotic tissue, this previous result also implies that OxPhos defects could accelerate telomere attrition at a disproportionate rate, or perhaps independent from cell division, as suggested by the disconnect between the loss of telomeric repeats and genome replication/cell division observed in our hypermetabolic fibroblasts. Beyond severe OxPhos defects, mild alterations of OxPhos function driven by mild, common variants in complex I subunits genes, may also shape disease risk89, link here and influence lifespan90, link here.”

“…Fourth, our longitudinal RNASeq and DNAm datasets reveal conserved recalibrations implicating developmental and translation-related pathways, as well as cell–cell communication, with OxPhos defects and hypermetabolism. These identified pathways overlap with previously identified multi-omic overrepresentation analysis performed on iPSC-derived neurons from SURF1 patients92, link here. In both this and our study, neural development, cell signaling, morphogenesis, cell cycle, and metabolism were the predominant processes altered in SURF1-related disease. The induction of these energetically-demanding pathways that constrain growth at the cellular and possibly at the organismal level41, link here, could help explain why a major feature of pediatric mitochondrial disorders (including our SURF1 donors) is a neurodevelopmental delay, and also why adult patients commonly display short stature (restricted growth)30, link here. In relation to cell-cell communication, we note that the biomarker picture of adult patients with mitochondrial encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) is dominated, as in our fibroblast models, by elevated (not reduced) signaling and metabolic markers in blood72, link here. Thus, the organism under metabolic stress does not initiate an energy-saving hypometabolic state with reduced signaling activity, but instead activates energivorous stress responses (ISRs), which must divert and consume energetic resources, thereby forcing an apparent tradeoff with other processes such as growth and longevity pathways.”

“…Finally, the OxPhos defects in our fibroblasts triggered a shift toward glycolytic ATP production. …For example, although basal respiration was markedly lower in SURF1 cells, the maximal FCCP-uncoupled respiration in SURF1 cells was relatively preserved (see Fig. 2b, link here and Supplementary Fig. 2c, link here). This result implies a cellular decision to route metabolic flux towards an energetically less efficient pathway (i.e., glycolysis). This could be explained on the basis of energetic constraints and proteome efficiency, since the proteome cost of OxPhos is at least double that of glycolytic fermentation19, link here. Thus, cells can “choose” to divert metabolic flux towards glycolysis even when OxPhos is at least partially functional, as in cancer, because of rising intracellular energetic constraints driven by hypermetabolism. We note again that hypermetabolism is apparent across multiple animal models of primary OxPhos defects, manifesting as an elevated cost of living, even during rest and sleep in mice10, link here,24, link here,25, link here,26, link here. In particular, deep phenotyping of Ant1−/− mice across three studies25, link here,95, link here,96, link here reveals a systemic physiological picture highly consistent with mitochondrial diseases, including excessive mitochondrial biogenesis, elevated circulating catecholamine levels, severe hypermetabolism (+82 to −85% REE) when adjusted for lower physical activity levels, reduced adiposity, elevated mtDNAcn, and mtDNA instability, and decreased median lifespan. These in vivo data thus provide additional converging evidence, beyond the clinical data in Fig. 1, link here, that mitochondrial OxPhos defects impair whole-body energetic efficiency and cause physiological hypermetabolism in mammals. Identifying hypermetabolism as a feature of the mitochondrial diseases may be clinically relevant as it provides an explanatory framework for some of the major symptoms in affected patients. First, fatigue and exercise intolerance are evolutionary conserved, subjective experiences that arise when the organism consumes more energy than it would under optimal conditions (e.g., subjective fatigue during the oxygen debt after strenuous exercise, or during an infection). Thus, symptoms of fatigue could be direct consequences of impaired metabolic efficiency and hypermetabolism.”

“…Third, alcohol appears to be poorly tolerated and associated with symptom onset in some patients with mtDNA defects97, link here,98, link here,99, link here, but the basis for alcohol intolerance remains unknown. Alcohol itself causes hypermetabolism in healthy individuals—increasing whole-body REE by as much as 16%, and inhibiting lipid oxidation by 31–36%100, link here,101, link here. Alcohol may therefore aggravate pre-existing hypermetabolism, thus imposing further energetic constraints on vital cellular or physiological functions.”

“…Overall, the meta-analysis of clinical data from hundreds of patients and two cellular models of OxPhos dysfunction identifies hypermetabolism as a feature of mitochondrial diseases. Our longitudinal patient-derived fibroblasts data delineate some of the cellular and molecular features of OxPhos-induced hypermetabolism, including sustained induction of the ISR, genome instability, hypersecretion of cyto/metabokines, and genome-wide DNA methylation and transcriptional recalibrations that emphasize the upregulation of energy-dependent processes related to signaling and communication (see Fig. 9, link here). A resource webtool with all data from this study, including the longitudinal RNAseq and DNAm data, is available and can be explored for genes or processes of interest (see Data Availability Statement). Altogether, these translational data, therefore, provide a basis to rationalize some unexplained clinical features of mitochondrial diseases and suggest that intracellular and systemic energy tradeoffs (rather than ATP deficiency) may contribute to the pathogenesis of mitochondrial diseases. The proposed explanatory framework of cellular and physiological hypermetabolism calls for well-controlled studies to further understand the extent to which hypermetabolism is a bystander or a harbinger of morbidity and early mortality in patients with mitochondrial diseases. Our translational findings highlight the need for collaborative partnerships that bridge the cellular, clinical, and patient-reported aspects of mitochondrial diseases and aging.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2144.mp3" length="1797356" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Gel manicures lead to cell death, mitochondrial dysfunction and cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2138</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2138</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 18 Feb 2023 01:47:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2138

Yet another common and “benign” cosmetic procedures has now been demonstrated to be actually quite dangerous. Prior studies have already demonstrated that hair dyes, makeup, botox, nail polish, and even essential oil therapy all have toxic side effects that in the long run can cause serious health issues, both locally and systemically. The study below now demonstrates that the widely used “gel” manicure procedure is cytotoxic, genotoxic, mitotoxic, and ultimately carcinogenic. More specifically, it was the UV-emitting devices, used to harden the manicures that caused all of these toxic effects, despite the brief exposure of the hands/fingers to the UV light. The toxicity of UV light to human skin cells has been known for decades, especially in cells abundant in PUFA, though nobody expected that UV light would display toxicity after even brief exposures (15-20 minutes). Now, even though the article does not mention it, I think the gel used for the actual manicure is also dangerous. That gel is usually composed of a mix of various acrylates, and benzoyl peroxide. Both of those classes of chemicals are toxic and classified as probably human carcinogens. So, even if the cosmetic procedure did not use UV light, it would still be toxic. Finally, this is one of the very few studies that seems to directly disprove (inadvertently) the central dogma of cancer. Namely, the central dogma of cancer states that cancerous mutations happen first and those mutations eventually lead to the typical metabolic/mitochondrial dysfunction seen in cancer cells (e.g. Warburg Effect, hypoxia, excessive fat oxidation / gluconeogenesis, etc). The study found that the mitochondrial dysfunction caused by UV light can happen first and that metabolic/mitochondrial dysfunction was sufficient to trigger cancerous mutations in the human skin cells. In other words, it is metabolism that drives/controls cancer, not the other way around. Thus, as a metabolic disease, cancer is perfectly preventable and treatable, without any use of the “cut, poison, burn” paradigm:-)

3 links here

“…If you look at the way these [UV] devices are presented, they are marketed as safe, with nothing to be concerned about,” said Ludmil Alexandrov, a professor of bioengineering as well as cellular and molecular medicine, link here at UC San Diego, and corresponding author of the study published in Nature Communications. “But to the best of our knowledge, no one has actually studied these devices and how they affect human cells, link here at the molecular and cellular levels until now.” Using three different cell lines—adult human skin keratinocytes, human foreskin fibroblasts, and mouse embryonic fibroblasts—the researchers found that the use of these UV emitting devices for just one 20-minute session led to between 20 and 30 percent cell death, while three consecutive 20-minute exposures caused between 65 and 70 percent of the exposed cells to die. Exposure to the UV light also caused mitochondrial and DNA damage in the remaining cells and resulted in mutations with patterns that can be observed in skin cancer, link here in humans.”

“…”I thought that was odd, so we began looking into it, and noticed a number of reports in medical journals saying that people who get gel manicures very frequently—like pageant contestants and estheticians—are reporting cases of very rare cancers in the fingers, suggesting that this may be something that causes this type of cancer,” said Alexandrov. “And what we saw was that there was zero molecular understanding of what these devices were doing to human cells.””

“…”We saw multiple things: first, we saw that DNA gets damaged,” said Alexandrov. “We also saw that some of the DNA damage does not get repaired over time, and it does lead to mutations after every exposure with a UV-nail polish dryer. Lastly, we saw that exposure may cause mitochondrial dysfunction, which may also result in additional mutations. We looked at patients with skin cancers, and we see the exact same patterns of mutations in these patients that were seen in the irradiated cells.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2138.mp3" length="1017380" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin as effective as pharma blood thinners</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2136</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2136</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Feb 2023 02:56:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2136

The study only looked at patients hospitalized for bone fractures, but I don’t see why the results would be any different for any other condition and in any other setting (hospitalized or not). This probably at least the 10th study I have seen over the last few years demonstrating that humble (and dirt-cheap) aspirin, as a dose of 81mg daily was not only “non-inferior” to the supper expensive pharma blood thinners, it is less risky too. Maybe, as the article itself states, FDA will finally start paying attention to these findings and start recommending aspirin as the default drug of choice for all clot-prone patients, unless there is serious evidence (e.g. severe allergy to aspirin) demanding another treatment.

2 links here

“…The study enrolled 12,211 patients with leg or arm fractures that necessitated surgery or pelvic fractures regardless of the treatment. Half were randomly assigned to receive 30 mg. of injectable low molecular-weight heparin twice daily. The other half received 81 mg. of aspirin twice daily. Patients were followed for 90 days to measure health outcomes from the two treatments. The main finding of the study was that aspirin was “non-inferior,” or no worse than low molecular-weight heparin in preventing death from any cause — 47 patients in the aspirin group died, compared with 45 patients in the heparin group. For other important complications, the researchers also found no differences between the two groups in clots in the lungs (pulmonary embolisms). The incidence of bleeding complications, infection, wound problems, and other adverse events from the treatments was also similar in both groups. Of all the outcomes studied, the only potential difference noted was in blood clots in the legs, called deep vein thrombosis. This condition was relatively uncommon in both groups as it occurred in 2.5 percent of patients in the aspirin group, and in 1.7 percent of patients in the heparin group. “This relatively small difference was driven by clots lower in the leg, which are thought to be of less clinical significance and often do not require treatment,” said study co-principal investigator Deborah Stein, MD, MPH, Professor of Surgery at UMSOM and Director of Adult Critical Care Services at UMMC.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2136.mp3" length="362876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Chronic stress causes depression by depleting allopregnanolone</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2134</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2134</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Feb 2023 02:41:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2134

This is perhaps one of the very few articles that directly makes the claim that stress can, by itself, cause mental illness. All official information “sources” on mental disease etiology claim that stress by itself is neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause. If stress has any role, the sources claim, it is only in cases where there is genetic vulnerability present, and even then it play a minor role. As such, people with depression are rarely told to change their lifestyle and/or diet as those are thought to not really affect their mental health, and are instead medicated with the toxic and provably ineffective SSRI drugs. Another good feature of the study is that it demonstrates it is the lack/deficiency of a specific steroid that leads to depression symptoms, and much to the chagrin of Big Pharma, that steroid was not an estrogen. You see, Big Pharma and its accomplices in clinical practice, have always claimed that estrogen is a strong brain-protective factor in both males and females, and that its “lack” in conditions such as menopause (or andropause) is what caused neurological issues and mental disease such as depression. This study does not support such a role for estrogen and in fact suggests that a steroid – allopregnanolone (ALLO) – known to behave as a functional estrogen antagonist, is what regulates mental health. Namely, chronic stress depletes brain levels of ALLO and this deficit causes depression. As a confirmation, artificially restoring the levels of ALLO alleviated the depression, and raising ALLO levels before subjecting the organism to stress greatly increased its resilience to depression. As far as replicating the study findings at home – multiple human studies have found that both pregnenolone and progesterone supplementation (in any dose) reliably raises ALLO levels. Adding a bit of niacinamide may increase that effect since niacinamide is known to promote the 5-alpha-reductase pathway and the synthesis of both ALLO and the androgen DHT. Speaking of DHT, several animal studies have demonstrated potent antidepressant effect for that steroid as well, and in men over the age of 40 (known to have declining androgen levels – i.e. andropause) administration of DHT may be preferable to ALLO, as the former may also alleviate physical constitution issues (e.g. sarcopenia, frailty, obesity, etc) in those males that are also big contributing factors to poor mental health, while ALLO is not known to have significant ergogenic/anabolic effects.

link here

Neurosteroid Deficits Leads to Depressed Behavior, link here

“…Our findings suggest that the behavioral deficits following chronic stress involve impaired neurosteroid synthesis and signaling,” says lead author Najah Walton, a PhD student in neuroscience at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. “We found that mice subjected to chronic unpredictable stress had an impairment in allopregnanolone production within the basolateral amygdala, a brain region crucial for mediating emotional responses.” To confirm the link, Walton and colleagues in the Maguire Lab at the School of Medicine used CRISPR technology to adjust the enzymes necessary for allopregnanolone production.”

“…Mice with abnormally low levels of the neurosteroid showed depressive behaviors like those that had experienced chronic stress, while their counterparts with abnormally high levels of allopregnanolone showed more resilience to chronic stress. “The potential implications of these findings suggest that synthetic neurosteroid analogs might exert a beneficial effect in individuals with depression by virtue of their ability to target part of the underlying neuropathology that leads to the condition,” says senior author Jamie Maguire, professor of neuroscience at the School of Medicine.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2134.mp3" length="1198124" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D can reverse peripheral neuropathy and demyelination</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2132</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2132</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Feb 2023 02:14:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2132

Some great news for patients with diabetes and/or multiple sclerosis (MS). The former is well-known to cause peripheral neuropathy (PN) and the latter’s defining characteristics is a progressive demyelination, which leads to both central and peripheral symptoms, including pain, burning, muscle weakness, tremors, cognitive decline, etc. Both PN and MS are considered incurable once set in motion and there is little doctors claim can be done except (as usual) “manage the symptoms”. The study below demonstrates that not only is a potential treatment available, but it is dirt cheap, widely available and works in low doses not known to cause side effects in humans even with prolonged use. That miracle treatment appears to be vitamin D (the D3 form to be specific). Administering the human-equivalent dose (HED) dose of 70 IU / kg daily, for just 4 weeks ameliorated the peripheral neuropathy caused by artificially-induced demyelination. The demyelination was essentially fully reversed as well.

link here

“…Our literature search revealed that the regenerative role of vitamin D in the VIPN model has not been investigated. However, the application of either vitamin D2 or vitamin D3 at higher (500 IU/kg/day) and lower (100 IU/kg/day) doses were found to have neuroprotective or neuroregenerative effects on experimental peripheral nerve injury models [10-12]. It was observed that vitamin D3 was more effective, delivering considerable electrophysiological and locomotor recovery when administered at higher doses [12].”

“…Withdrawal responses to mechanical allodynia and pinch tests were significantly higher in the vitamin D3-treated group (P < 0.05). The electrophysiological analysis also supported these results. Electron microscopic evaluation revealed that the remyelinated nerve fibers in the vitamin D3-treated group (Group 3) had thick myelin sheaths and normal axonal morphology.”

“…Our study demonstrated that vitamin D3 could promote functional and structural recovery in a rat model of vincristine-induced peripheral neuropathy (VIPN). Further studies should be conducted to elucidate the underlying mechanisms by which vitamin D3 exerts its regenerative effects in VIPN, using alternative administration protocols.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2132.mp3" length="521948" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mitochondrial dysfunction is a major cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2128</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2128</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 12 Feb 2023 23:02:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2128

At a first glance, mitochondrial dysfunction (a “functional” problem) has little in common with the build-up of plaque on arterial walls (a “structural” problem). However, as my readers know quite well, structure and function cannot be separated and a functional pathology is perfectly capable (in fact, guaranteed) to ultimately cause a structural pathology. Case in point – as the study below demonstrates, mitochondrial dys-function is a major causal factor in development of CVD, through the mechanism of “oxidative” stress downstream of the mitochondrial dysfunction. Since mitochondrial dysfunction is not addressed by any of the existing CVD treatments currently in clinical use, the authors argue it is not at all surprising that medicine has made zero progress in both preventing and treating this pathology.

2 links here

“…The paper, “Mitochondrial Dysfunction: The Hidden Player in the Pathogenesis of Atherosclerosis?” appears in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. The authors propose a closer examination is necessary of this relationship between mitochondrial dysfunction, endothelial impairment, and atherosclerosis, to identify new precision medicine targets to better regulate mitochondrial functioning in patients with these conditions. Malfunctioning mitochondria causes endothelial dysfunction due to a molecule called a reactive oxygen species (ROS), or ‘free radicals,’ which are produced by the dysfunctional mitochondria. The increase in ROS then leads to oxidative stress, inflammation, and a buildup of cholesterol and lipids, forming atherosclerotic plaque in the blood vessels. The modulation of mitochondrial function through precision medicine could delay the development of this endothelial dysfunction. Although mitochondria have been recognized as a new therapeutic target in different pathological contexts, no clinical or preclinical studies have been designed on atherosclerosis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2128.mp3" length="422372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Glycine may prevent/treat diabetic neuropathy</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2124</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2124</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 12 Feb 2023 22:33:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2124

A very interesting study, which adds more evidence in favor of the recent hypothesis that glycine (just as taurine) is in fact an essential amino acid. Namely, despite our ability to synthesize glycine, as needed, from the truly essential amino acids, its absence in the diet leads to pathologies even in healthy organisms – i.e. in this case neuropathy. Conversely, adding the glycine back to the diet (at a HED of 3g-4g daily) prevented and reversed the neuropathy in both healthy and diabetic organisms.

2 links here

“…They found that, compared with mice without either condition, those with diabetes had, on average, lower levels of the amino acids serine and glycine in their tissues and blood plasma. Further analysis suggested this is because insulin is necessary for preventing the breakdown of those amino acids. The team then fed 10 non-diabetic mice a diet without serine or glycine for a year and 10 non-diabetic mice a standard diet. On average, the mice in the first group were slower to retract a paw from a heated laser than those in the other group, indicating greater nerve damage. When viewed under a microscope, their paws also had reduced nerve fibre density, suggesting that serine and glycine deficiencies contribute to neuropathy. A separate group of 17 mice with type 2 diabetes ate either a serine/glycine-enriched diet or a standard diet for eight weeks, after which, those in the serine/glycine group retracted their paw from the laser about 1 second faster, on average, than those in the control group. These findings suggest that increasing serine/glycine levels either through dietary supplements or targeted drugs could improve the condition, says Metallo. However, people with diabetic neuropathy shouldn’t rush to grab serine/glycine supplements, as more research is needed to establish a safe dosage and potential side effects, he says. The findings also suggest we may need to rethink how we view certain nutrients. “Serine and glycine are non-essential amino acids, so we consume them in our diet, but we can also produce them within the body,” says Metallo, meaning levels are rarely monitored closely. “But this highlights that the metabolism of non-essential amino acids can [also] cause defects.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2124.mp3" length="288452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SSRI/serotonin cause heart damage/failure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2122</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2122</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 12 Feb 2023 22:14:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2122

The role of serotonin in fibrotic conditions is well-known in research circles but is a taboo topic in medicine. Perhaps the best example of this bipolar (and potentially criminal) attitude is the fat that Pfizer sells billions of dollars worth its SSRI drugs Zoloft and Pristiq, yet at the same time quietly runs clinical trials with the anti-serotonin chemical terguride, link here for precisely the conditions that are known to be driven by serotonin such as heart failure, pulmonary fibrosis, cirrhosis, etc. When publicly challenged about this hypocrisy and potentially criminal behavior, Pfizer defiantly insists that there is no proven link between SSRI drugs and the conditions for which it is testing terguride, despite the fact that SSRI drugs’ primary mechanism of action is increasing extracellular serotonin. While Pfizer may have been technically right in the past, the study below may end that travesty of an excuse. The study is perhaps the first that shows a direct link between SSRI usage and heart damage that ultimately leads to fibrosis, heart failure and death. More specifically, the study demonstrated a causal link between the decreased activity of the so-called serotonin transporter protein – precisely the protein whose activity the SSRI drugs inhibit – and mitral valve damage, which invariably progresses to heart failure. As such, Pfizer is now directly implicated in selling millions of people a massive amount of the poison (SSRI drugs) while working behind the scenes on the remedy (terguride). This is eerily similar to the recent Project Veritas undercover interview with a Pfizer director who admitted that Pfizer is deliberately mutating the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the lab (i.e. “gain of function” research, banned under both international and US law) so that it can preemptively develop and sell vaccines against the new viral variants. Of course, if one of those variants somehow finds its way into the populace it would be a complete “coincidence”. /s And now I can’t help but wonder how is it that Pfizer had an mRNA vaccine ready for testing mere weeks after SARS-CoV-2 was declared a pandemic by WHO, despite the fact that it usually takes a decade to develop such a vaccine for a wild-type virus?? Perhaps even more importantly, the study is yet another stunning refutation of the bizarre mantra repeated 24×7 by mainstream media that serotonin is somehow the “happy hormone” and we should be doing everything in our powder to increase its levels in our bodies. Aside from terguride, which is not widely available, other anti-serotonin chemicals such as cyproheptadine, famotidine, and the ergot derivatives may also help prevent and possibly reverse the damage caused by SSRI/serotonin.

2 links here

“…Serotonin can impact the mitral valve of the heart and potentially accelerate a cardiac condition known as degenerative mitral regurgitation, according to a new study, link here led by researchers at Columbia University’s Department of Surgery in collaboration with the Pediatric Heart Valve Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), the University of Pennsylvania, and the Valley Hospital Heart Institute.”

“…Degenerative mitral regurgitation (DMR) is one of the most common types of heart valve disease, link here.The mitral valve is located between the left atrium and left ventricle of the heart. It closes tightly when the heart contracts to prevent blood from leaking back into the left atrium. In DMR, the shape of the mitral valve becomes distorted, preventing the valve from closing completely. This allows blood to leak back toward the lungs (regurgitation), limiting the amount of oxygen-rich blood moving through the heart to the rest of the body. As a result, DMR can bring about symptoms like fatigue and shortness of breath. Because of the reduced efficiency in circulation, the heart has to work harder, which over time causes permanent damage. This can lead to a number of serious and life-threatening cardiac issues, including atrial fibrillation and heart failure. Currently, there is no treatment for mitral valve degeneration. “Certain medications can ease the symptoms and prevent complications, but they do not treat the mitral valve,” says Ferrari, scientific director of the Cardiothoracic Research Program at Columbia. “If the degeneration of the mitral valve becomes severe, surgery to repair or replace, link here the valve is needed.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2122.mp3" length="1294124" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking PUFA metabolism may treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2120</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2120</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 12 Feb 2023 21:43:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2120

The disease ALS needs no introduction. It is perhaps the most dreaded disease in current/former athletes as it is currently considered incurable, invariably lethal, and is known to strike athletes in much higher rates than the general population. Medicine claims that about 10% of the ALS cases are familial/generic/inherited, though there is no solid evidence to support that claim (e.g. no ALS gene has been identified so far). Even so, the remaining 90% of ALS cases are acknowledged to be environmentally-driven, yet medicine claims that the cause is unknown. As usual, nothing can be further from the truth. Numerous animal studies have demonstrated that the disease is of mitochondrial origin, and that administration of pro-mitochondrial substances such as copper can reverse the pathology in those animal models. There is an ongoing human clinical trial with copper supplementation, but the results are not available yet. Other studies have all but proven that “oxidative” (actually, reductive is the proper word) stress is a known driving factor of the disease and that PUFA metabolites through the COX (e.g. prostaglandins) and/or LOX (e.g. leukotrienes) pathways are the main drivers of said “oxidative” stress. Conversely, blocking COX/LOX was shown to be very therapeutic in animal models with ALS and to extend the lifespan of the sick animals to the point of matching the lifespan of the healthy animals. In other words, animal studies have already demonstrated that blocking PUFA metabolism can effectively cure ALS or at least make it a non-deadly chronic condition similar to arthritis. Based on those animal studies, the article below reports that a Phase I human clinical trial with a LOX inhibitor was just successfully completed, and now Phase II is under way. Unfortunately, despite this good development that would undoubtedly benefit ALS patients, nobody is discussing the elephant in the room – i.e. the presence of PUFA in our tissues, which is entirely of dietary origin (e.g. we cannot synthesize PUFA ourselves). So, instead of chasing downstream toxic metabolites of PUFA (which always runs the rusk of not addressing 100% of the causal factors), one could attempt to treat (and prevent) ALS by dietary PUFA restriction. Coincidentally, the symptoms of vitamin E – a functional PUFA antagonist and a known COX/LOX inhibitor – deficiency include progressive muscle atrophy, paralysis and eventual death. In other words, systemic deficiency in the main dietary PUFA antagonist results in a lethal condition with symptoms identical to those of ALS. Other interventions that work along similar anti-PUFA pathways include saturated fats (duh!), aspirin – a known COX (and partial LOX) inhibitor – as well as progesterone, androgens, vitamins D/K, thyroid, magnesium, flavones/flavanones, glycine/gelatin, etc.

link here

Phase 1 Safety Study Clears Path to Test Utreloxastat in ALS Patients, link here

“…The nerve cells that control muscle movement, called motor neurons, are lost in ALS, leading to symptoms, link here of muscle weakness that affect motor function, speaking, swallowing, and eventually, breathing. A central mechanism behind motor neuron loss is oxidative stress — cell damage caused by an excess of highly reactive oxygen-containing molecules generated by normal cellular processes. Oxidative stress increases the production of an enzyme called 15-lipoxygenase (15-LO), triggering several processes known to contribute to motor neuron death. Utreloxastat is designed to block the action of 15-LO, reducing further oxidative stress, preventing motor neuron death, and slowing or preventing disease progression. So far, promising preclinical studies in multiple animal models have supported the therapy’s further evaluation in human clinical trials.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2120.mp3" length="1426388" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Neuron/brain growth depends on metabolism (OXPHOS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2118</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2118</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 12 Feb 2023 21:13:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2118

As many of my readers know, the mainstream medical dogma is that the number of neurons in the human brain increases until early adulthood, after which it stops completely. Thus, medicine views the adult human brain as having a fixed number of neurons and any damage to them or complete loss of neurons is thus irreversible, as new neurons cannot be grown past early adulthood. Well, the study below begs to disagree and it demonstrates that neuronal growth rate is not only possible even in old age, but is entirely controlled by oxidative metabolism (OXPHOS), performed by the mitochondria. By manipulating OXPHOS pharmacologically, the scientists were able to increase the growth of even mature neurons and increase neurite length, neurite complexity and synaptic function to a level seen in species with much faster metabolism (e.g. in this case, mice). Conversely, inhibiting OXPHOS almost completely retarded neuronal development and maturation, with the latter being a hallmark of cancer (especially brain tumors such as neuroglioblastoma). These findings led the authors to suggest that treating neurological conditions, especially ones seen in old age, may be as simple as pharmacologically increasing mitochondrial function (OXPHOS). I’d go a step further, and suggest that such interventions may be a viable treatment for cancer, in the brain or elsewhere. In fact, reference [2] below makes a compelling claim that the metabolic rate if THE “pacemaker” for all biological processes everywhere, not just in the brain. Can”t say I disagree. As far as interventions – some of the most effective metabolic stimulators include T3, aspirin, caffeine, progesterone, salt, androgens, protein, and saturated fats (especially the odd-chain ones).

[1] link here

[2] link here

2 links here

“…Human brains grow extraordinarily slowly—a trait many neuroscientists speculate is related to our distinctive intellect. But how and why a human neuron takes years to grow when a mouse neuron grows for mere weeks has remained unclear. Now, scientists have uncovered one piece of the puzzle: Neuron growth is mediated by its mitochondria’s metabolism, according to a January 26 study in Science, link here. The finding could not only help answer fundamental questions about brain development, the study authors say it could widen treatment options for developmental disorders.”

“…Initially, Vanderhaeghen says, the team examined mitochondrial morphology and genetics. But on a whim, they also decided to look at the organelles’ respiration rates—basically, how much oxygen they consume, which is also a measure of how much cellular fuel they produce. They used oxygraphy to monitor the oxygen intake of mouse neurons for the first 20 days after their birth—and were stunned to find that after two weeks, the oxygen consumption rate of neurons had grown to nearly ten times that of human neurons. From there, Vanderhaeghen says everything fell into place. The team knew they could manipulate mitochondrial respiration pharmacologically, so they sped up metabolism in human cortical neurons in vitro. Vanderhaeghen recalls a moment in the lab looking at the neurons; at only a few weeks old, the accelerated cortical neurons were considerably more mature than a normal human neuron. “To us, this was a big eureka moment,” he says. “There we thought, ‘this is it.’” The scientists tested the same principle in vivo, speeding up the mitochondrial metabolism of human neurons and implanting them into mice, as well as slowing down the mitochondrial metabolism of mouse neurons both in culture and inside the mice’s brains. The results from both in and out of the brain aligned: Human neurons with increased metabolic rates grew faster than normal, and mouse neurons with decreased mitochondrial metabolic rates displayed slower growth.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2118.mp3" length="880364" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D supplementation may lower suicide risk by 50%</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2116</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2116</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 12 Feb 2023 19:28:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2116

Suicide rates have been rising for the last 20+ years and have truly gotten out of control since the pandemic started. As usual, the mainstream version is that this is not an environmentally-driven issue but a “complex” interplay of genetic factors and poor lifestyle choices. As such, medicine has no solution for the suicide crisis except lobotomizing every patient it can gets its hand on with massive doses of SSRI drugs. Despite these record-setting SSRI consumption rates, suicide rate continues to rise. The study below demonstrates that there may be an embarrassingly easy/cheap solution that can halve the suicide rate. Namely, supplementation with vitamin D (either D2 or D3), with daily doses in the 2,00 IU – 5,000 IU range or weekly doses in the 40,000 IU – 50,000 IU range. Higher doses had a stronger effect on reducing suicides than lower doses, but even the “high” doses (in the range of 5,000 IU daily) are in fact physiological and commonly prescribed to people in Northern countries to take continuously, with no ill effects. Since chronic depression is one of the main risk factors for suicide, a possible mechanism of action if the antidepressant effect of vitamin D demonstrated by prior animal/human studies.

link here

“…Vitamin D3 and D2 supplementation were associated with a 45% and 48% lower risk of suicide attempt and self-harm ((D2 Hazard Ratio (HR) = 0.512, [95% CI, 0.457, 0.574]; D3 HR = 0.552, [95% CI, 0.511, 0.597])). Supplemented black veterans and veterans with 0-19 ng/ml vitamin D serum levels were at ~64% lower risk relative to controls (Black Veteran HR: 0.362 [95% CI: 0.298,0.440]; 0-19 ng/ml HR: 0.359 [95% CI: 0.215,0.598]). Supplementation with higher vitamin D dosages was associated with greater risk reductions than lower dosages (Log Average Dosage HR: 0.837 [95% CI: 0.779,0.900]).”

link here

“…A new study hints that treating low vitamin D levels with supplements might have a critical benefit for certain people: a decreased risk of attempting suicide. In a study of more than 1 million U.S. veterans, researchers found that those prescribed vitamin D were nearly 50% less likely to attempt suicide over eight years, versus those who were not prescribed the supplements….When the researchers weighed other factors, like physical and mental health conditions, vitamin D supplementation was still linked to a 45% to 48% lower risk of attempting suicide. And it turned out that the association was strongest among veterans who had low vitamin D to start (blood levels lower than 20 ng/mL), and among Black veterans. The body naturally synthesizes vitamin D when the skin is exposed to sunlight. But darker skin, with more melanin, results in less vitamin D production.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2116.mp3" length="681620" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Major depression likely driven by mitochondrial deterioration/dysfunction</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2114</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2114</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 12 Feb 2023 19:01:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2114

This the latest study demonstrating that not only are various chronic diseases and aging essentially the same process, but that this process is fundamentally bioenergetic in nature. Namely, dysfunctional mitochondria, leading to low OXPHOS, is the direct cause of many physiological and “mental” conditions, as well as the overall process of aging. Conversely, the study proposes using mitochondrial boosters as universal drugs for both chronic conditions (in this case major depression) and aging. The finding of the study may explain why so many chemicals/drugs that are structurally unrelated have similar beneficial effects no matter what disease they are tried on. Namely, aspirin, vitamin K, progesterone, vitamin D, niacinamide, vitamin B1, flavones/flavanones, magnesium, etc have remarkably similar systemic effects, despite having almost nothing in common structurally. What they do have in common is that they all promote mitochondrial biogenesis/function, and as such increase OXPHOS. In corroboration of the study below, all of those chemicals have demonstrated robust antidepressant effect in both animal and human studies.

link here

Mitochondrial Deterioration Linked to Major Depression in Older Adults, link here

“…These power plants are the mitochondria, tiny structures within our cells that handle several important tasks. The most critical is producing the molecules our cells use for energy. When mitochondria don’t function well, it causes all kinds of problems for us. Mitochondrial diseases such as Alper’s disease and Barth syndrome are the best known and usually become obvious in infancy or childhood. But researchers are now finding other effects. Major depression, for example. A team of researchers from several institutions, led by UConn School of Medicine student Emma Mastrobattista and Breno S. Diniz, an associate professor in psychiatry and the UConn Center on Aging, reports in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry that older adults with major depression often have rapidly aging mitochondria. The team measured levels of a protein produced by mitochondria in the blood of depressed adults over 70. The protein, GDF-15, is strongly associated with aging, poorly functioning mitochondria. And aging mitochondria are strongly linked with fast biological aging. The higher the level of GDF-15 in the blood, the more impaired the mitochondria tend to be. In other words, this is when our tiny power plants start to fall apart.”

“…The researchers have begun testing interventions that improve mitochondrial function and clear senescence in humans in hopes that they may slow or even reverse biological aging. They are also collaborating with partners working with senolytics, experimental drugs that selectively remove aged, malfunctioning cells, in the hopes of improving mood, strength, and energy in older adults.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2114.mp3" length="627404" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Elevated serotonin (5-HT) and norepinephrine (NE) drive nightmares in PTSD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2112</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2112</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 12 Feb 2023 18:44:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2112

More than a quarter of all military/veteran personnel are estimated to have some form/level of PTSD, regardless of whether those soldiers have seen combat or not (e.g. Coast Guard members also have high rates of PTSD). Despite the obvious link to severe stress, medicine continues to claim that the cause of PTSD is “unknown” and tries to push a genetic link since “only” 25% of the people serving (or having served) in the armed forces have PTSD while the rest do not. So, doctors say, maybe those 25% are just genetically vulnerable and PTSD is not a problem for the other 75% since they are not genetically vulnerable. Of course, medicine conveniently forgets that the definition of PTSD has been changed several times since it was first coined, in order to make fewer people eligible for the diagnosis. In addition, medicine conveniently forgets that several studies have demonstrated that up to 75% of the military members satisfy the diagnostic criteria for one or more of the disorders on the psychopathy spectrum. In other words, the reason “only” 25% of the military have PTSD is mostly due to misdiagnosis, and the rest 75% of the military members are immune to PTSD only because they are psychopaths who are unnerved by atrocities.

To make matters worse, medicine also claims that a cure for PTSD is not possible since the cause is unknown. As such, they “treat” PTSD patients mostly with SSRI drugs and verbally induced delusions (aka counselling/therapy). Needless to say, these interventions do not work and thus PTSD patients have perhaps the highest suicide rate of any psychiatric diagnosis (higher than even clinically depressed people), followed closely by the LGBTQ community. Perhaps the most fundamental sign/symptom of PTSD is recurring nightmares and daytime hallucinations involving reliving the traumatic events that led to the PTSD. Needless to say, this puts the PTSD patient in state of constant stress, due to both the traumatic ideations, as well as the lack of proper sleep as a result of chronic nightmares. To add insult to injury, the study below now demonstrates that 5-HT and NE – two fundamental stress mediators – are at the core of those recurring nightmares and traumatic ideations, which corroborates the role of stress in the pathology of PTSD. This study findings are also corroborated by the findings of prior studies demonstrating that anti-serotonin chemicals such as cyproheptadine can reliably stop the nightmares/ideations, and essentially cure the PTSD.

4 links here

As such, we now have a pretty robust set of evidence that stress is a direct cause of PTSD, and that chronically elevated stress mediators – 5-HT, NE, cortisol, estrogen, etc – are the drivers of symptoms in people with chronic PTSD. Speaking of cortisol, studies in males have demonstrated that elevated cortisol/testosterone ratio is one of the hallmarks of PTSD and elevated cortisol/DHEA ratio is a hallmark of PTSD (and depression) in women. It just so happens that anti-serotonin chemicals such as cyproheptadine lower cortisol (and estrogen) and increase androgens. This suggests that other anti-cortisol interventions such as progesterone and/or androgens would also be therapeutic for this conditions. And last but not least, if 5-HT is one of the main drivers of PTSD then giving those patients SSRI drugs (which elevate extracellular serotonin) is at best travesty…and at worst criminal negligence.

2 links here

“…Sleep can bring out emotions that typically stay inside of us — sometimes in the form of nightmares. For those with post-traumatic sleep disorder, the brain tends to make bad memories come back night after night among people with PTSD. Now, Virginia Tech researchers say they know why post-traumatic stress disorder patients keep reliving these disturbing incidents in their sleep.”

“…Generally, in REM sleep, levels of the neurotransmitters that typically promote wakefulness like norepinephrine and serotonin decrease. Vijayan and the team linked lowered levels with the brain’s ability to inhibit fear expression cells, through rhythms sent between the front of the brain and the amygdala — a region connected to emotional expression. In PTSD, link here patients, these levels remain elevated. As such, study authors explored how the levels observed in sleeping PTSD patients could affect these fear-linked rhythms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2112.mp3" length="1732004" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cells preferentially accumulate Pregnenolone (P5), Progesterone (P4), and DHEA</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2104</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2104</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Dec 2022 19:02:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2104

A study not directly dealing with disease, though its findings are probably relevant for all diseases. It demonstrates that in addition to the so-called “active transport”, which we have been told is the dominant mechanism in steroid absorption and intracellular relevance, there also exists a “passive transport” (simple diffusion through cells) for steroids, which is not really saturable (at least not in the concentrations tried so far) and favors specific steroids, while excluding/limiting others. In fact, the passive transport for 3b-OH steroids such as P5 and DHEA is apparently the dominant pathway for steroid accumulation inside the cell and for those steroids, the intracellular concentrations can easily reach levels ~100 times higher than concentrations in the extracellular medium (e.g. blood). In fact, the intracellular concenrations were higher for all tested steroids compared to extracellular ones, which ones again confirms the suspicion many doctors have that blood tests for steroids are not very useful clinically since they do not accurately reflect steroid levels inside the cells. Yet another interesting finding is that cells preferentially accumulate progestogens (pregnanes) compared to androgens (androstanes) or estrogens (estranes), and end-point steroids such as cortisol, cortisone, estradiol and estrone (though not T or DHT, which were accumulated on par with DHEA) are the least preferentially accumulated inside the cells. Perhaps most strikingly, this steroid “preference” was present even in dead cells, so there must be something structurally facilitating in the “preferred” steroids to explain their accumulation against a massive gradient. As the study shows, that something it simply the degree of lipophilicity of each steroid – i.e. the more lipophilic the steroid the more it accumulated inside the cells at concentrations much higher than the extracellular medium. P5, being the most lipophilic of the known endogenous steroids, accumulated in the highest concentrations, followed by progesterone (P4), and then DHEA/T/DHT after that, followed by estradiol, estrone and glucocorticoids at the last place. I think the study confirms Ray’s statements that cells “prefer” certain steroids, and that the most preferential steroids can be taken at high doses without much ill effect since the cell can use a virtually unlimited amount of them and higher intracellular concentrations of those “youth” steroids (e.g. P5, P4, DHEA) are generally associated with better health and longevity.

link here

“…To test cells’ tendency to take up steroids (Fig 1A, link here) and the effects of steroid structural differences on uptake (Fig 1B, link here), human cell lines derived from prostate, breast, and placenta were treated in vitro with nine different [3H]-labeled steroids in parallel: pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, Δ4-androstenedione (AD), testosterone (T), dihydrotestosterone (DHT), DHEA sulfate (DHEA-S), cortisol, and cortisone (Fig 1C–1E, link here). Uptake of estradiol and estrone was tested in a second set of experiments, in parallel with pregnenolone and DHEA to aid in comparison to the initial set of experiments (Fig 1F–1H, link here). Although there were minor differences between cell lines, the overall uptake trends were surprisingly consistent across the three cell lines. All tested steroids had substantially greater concentrations in the cells after 1 hour than in the culture media. Our major observation was that pregnenolone reached the highest concentrations of any steroid, with concentrations up to roughly 100 times the original treatment concentrations in the culture media, and that cells have strong preferences for 3β-OH, Δ5-steroids (i.e., pregnenolone and DHEA) vs. 3-keto, Δ4-structural features (i.e., progesterone and AD) and for progestogens vs. androgens.”

“…The results were striking: the uptake magnitudes were generally similar in dead cells as in parallel treated live cells (Fig 2C–2F, link here). Crucially, the existence of elevated steroid concentrations in both live and dead cells implies not only that steroids can enter cells regardless of cell viability, but also that some force independent of any active cellular processes (i.e. active transport, active binding to intracellular proteins, or both) causes steroids to be retained in the cells at greatly elevated concentrations and in a structure-specific manner. To verify the findings using an alternate experimental method, uptake of unlabeled steroids (pregnenolone, DHEA, AD) in both live and dead cells was assayed by mass spectrometry and similar trends were observed as with [3H]-labeled steroids (S1 Fig, link here). These results support the conclusion that a passive mechanism drives cellular preferences for progestogen and 3β-OH, Δ5-steroid uptake.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2104.mp3" length="1258076" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen causes prostate fibrosis (cancer?), DHT prevents/treats it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2102</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2102</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Dec 2022 18:25:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2102

Slowly, but surely, the myth of the “evil” dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and the “beneficial” estrogen, when it comes to prostate health, is going the way of the dodo. In fact, people I know who work in research circles say that the “androgen hypothesis” in prostate cancer is no longer being taken seriously in basic research, and this has been the case for at least a decade. Unfortunately, this “paradigm shift” has so far failed to impact clinical practice, where chemical/physical castration is still a “standard of care” treatment for prostate cancer. Some recent human studies with a small number of patients demonstrated curative effects of testosterone (T) injections directly into the prostate. However, the medical cabal was quick to claim that it was the conversion of T into estrogen, which explained the beneficial effects and that DHT was still a “villain”. Well, the study below now demonstrates directly that estradiol cause/promotes prostate fibrosis (a precursor, and obligate, stage to prostate cancer) while DHT prevented those effects of estrogen, and even reversed them when estrogen was administered first and fibrosis had already set in. Since the study was in-vivo, we can get an idea of what dosage of DHT may be therapeutic in humans. The HED of DHT was just 0.02 mg/kg, which means a daily dosage of just 1mg-2mg should be able to replicate the study design (and, hopefully, the effects) of the study.

link here

“…Results: Compared with the uncastrated control and corn oil injection groups, the collagen fiber content and collagen I and fibronectin expression were increased and elastin expression was decreased in the castrated rat prostate with corn oil injection group (p < 0.01). Compared to castrated corn oil injection group, collagen fiber content, collagen I, and fibronectin expression were significantly decreased, and elastin expression was significantly increased in the castrated rat prostate 0.15 mg/kg DHT treatment group (p < 0.01). Following treatment with 0.15 mg/kg DHT, the content of collagen fibers, and the expression of collagen I and fibronectin were increased, and the expression of elastin was decreased in the rat prostate with increasing concentrations of E2 treatment group compared to the 0.15 mg/kg DHT group (p < 0.05, p < 0.01). Following treatment with 0.05 mg/kg E2, the collagen fiber content and the expression of collagen I and fibronectin were decreased, and the expression of elastin was increased in the rat prostate with increasing DHT concentration treatment group compared to the 0.05 mg/kg E2 group (p < 0.05, p < 0.01). Compared with the Control group, the expression of collagen I, fibronectin, TGF-β1 and Smad3 was decreased, and the expression of elastin and Smad7 was increased in WPMY-1 cells after treatment with 10 nM DHT (p < 0.01). Following treatment with 10 nM DHT, the expression of collagen I, fibronectin, TGF-β1, and Smad3 was increased, and the expression of elastin and Smad7 was decreased in WPMY-1 cells with increasing E2 concentration treatment compared to the 10 nM DHT group (p < 0.05, p < 0.01). Following treatment with 5 pM E2, the expression of collagen I, fibronectin, TGF-β1, and Smad3 was decreased, and elastin and Smad7 expression was increased with increasing DHT concentration compared to the 5 pM E2 group (p < 0.05, p < 0.01). Compared to the 10 nM DHT + 5 pM E2 group, the expressions of collagen I and fibronectin were decreased; the expression of elastin was increased in WPMY-1 cells after the supplement of TGF-β/Smad pathway inhibitor SD208 group (p < 0.05, p < 0.01). Conclusions: An imbalance in the estrogen/androgen ratio may affect prostate fibrosis. E2 may activate the degree of prostate fibrosis. In contrast to the effect of E2, DHT may inhibit the degree of prostate fibrosis, which might involve the TGF-β/Smad signaling pathway.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2102.mp3" length="773564" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SSRI drug use during pregnancy linked (again) to autism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2099</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2099</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Dec 2022 01:19:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2099

I don’t think the topic needs much of an introduction. At this point, the only people who deny the causal link between SSRI use by pregnant or soon-to-become pregnant women and autism in their children are either pharma employees…or doctors who receive so much money from pharma companies to prescribe SSRI drugs that they are de-facto pharma employees. Mainstream media is also criminally culpable in my opinion. Despite discussing the study and its bombshell findings about SSRI drugs (specifically Prozac), the news article talks about “blocking” the “serotonin pathway” as the detrimental mechanism causing autism, which would invariably lead most people to internalize a message that blocking serotonin may lead to autism, when in fact the SSRI drugs promote serotonin’s effects by inhibiting serotonin’s degradation through the so-called serotonin transporter (SERT), link here.

3 links here

“…A recent study done by a graduate student at UVA found women who take an antidepressant during pregnancy are linked to autism in children. They used the medication Prozac in their study. Antidepressants and antianxiety medications are safe for pregnant women to use; however, they are finding some may be better to use than others. “What our findings show is that combining antidepressants and anti-anxieties with an inflammatory bout that could arise due to infection, viral infection, or an autoimmune disorder can synergize and negatively affect birth brain development and lead to behavioral abnormalities that are associated with autism,” said John Lukens, Associate Professor in Neuroscience at UVA. They have not tested this with any other medication at this time but they highly encourage women who are pregnant or may become pregnant in the near future and are currently on Prozac to discuss other options for treatment for depression and anxiety with a doctor. “It really depends on the actual medication obviously there are various different drugs that target serotonin to treat anxiety and depression some are safer to take during pregnancy than others. It kind of makes sense because the serotonin pathway which we’re blocking also acts on immune cells too,” Lukens adds.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2099.mp3" length="454532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ubiquitous food dye causes inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)…by increasing serotonin</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2095</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2095</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Dec 2022 00:42:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2095

It is rare these days to get a so-called “one-two punch” study. Namely, a study that not only discovers that instead of a genetic (medicine’s favorite) there is a purely environmental (and man-made at that) cause of yet another chronic, degenerative conditions medicine considers incurable, but also the mechanism of action through which the environmental assault directly causes said condition is by elevating the levels of a substance in the body mainstream medicine trumpets as the best thing since sliced bread, and in fact sells drugs designed specifically to raise the levels of said substance. Hold on there, Georgi! Are you saying that medicine may actually be causing said chronic degenerative condition by selling toxic drugs?!? Well, it certainly seems that way, based on the study below. Namely, the widely used food dye known as “Allura Red AC, link here” (also known as FD&C Red 40 and Food Red 17) was shown to be able to directly trigger IBD, and the mechanism of action through which this “harmless” food ingredient achieved that feat was by increasing the production of serotonin in the gut. Now, while increased gut serotonin production is not exactly the same as taking one of the (in)famous SSRI drugs, the systemic effects are quite similar. So, knowing the ubiquity of that food dye and the absolutely massive usage of SSRI drugs, even a layman like me could come to the conclusion that yet another class of chronic/degenerative diseases is likely entirely man-made, and since colon cancer is often the logical conclusion of IBD, that the skyrocketing rates of that cancer can also likely be covered by the same explanation/cause. And if you thought the news could not get any worse, the study also claims that this food dye is most commonly used on products for children, since they find the color attractive. Hhhm, I wonder what could explain the recent catastrophic findings that colon cancer rates are rising with scary speed in the youngest patients, while stabilizing or even declining in those over 50…

2 links here

“…Long-term consumption of Allura Red food dye can be a potential trigger of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, says McMaster University’s Waliul Khan. Researchers using experimental animal models of IBD found that continual exposure to Allura Red AC harms gut health and promotes inflammation. The dye directly disrupts gut barrier function and increases the production of serotonin, a hormone/neurotransmitter found in the gut, which subsequently alters gut microbiota composition leading to increased susceptibility to colitis. Khan said Allura Red (also called FD&C Red 40 and Food Red 17), is a common ingredient in candies, soft drinks, dairy products and some cereals. The dye is used to add color and texture to foodstuffs, often to attract children.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2095.mp3" length="974828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA metabolite (prostaglandin) promotes lipolysis / fibrosis, causes obesity / diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2093</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2093</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Dec 2022 00:17:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2093

Just in case there are still doubts out there about just how detrimental PUFA is to our health, here is a study showing that just one of PUFA’s “normal” metabolites (i.e. enzymatically derived, instead of through peroxidation) is sufficient to elevate lipolysis, and that effect alone is enough to cause fibrosis, obesity and ultimately diabetes. Obviously, since fibrosis is also induced, the study suggests that this PUFA metabolite (through the COX enzyme) – prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), to be precise – can lead to organ failure and cancer as fibrosis is an obligate step on the road to those end-states. The study tries to play dumb and says the findings should lead to the development of new therapies, but it fails to mention the “elephant in the room” – aspirin. The latter is perhaps the oldest COX inhibitor in existence and it inhibits the synthesis of PGE2 more than anything else. Oh, and if that was not enough, aspirin also has anti-lipolytic effects, so it should have anti-obesity, anti-fibrotic and anti-diabetic effects independently of PGE2, since many other factors can drive excessive lipolysis including acute/chronic stress, low-carb diets, fasting, intense exercise, etc.

2 links here

“…Bioactive lipid prostaglandin (PG)E2, produced in adipose tissue, was demonstrated for the first time in the world to promote lipolysis and fibrosis via its receptor EP4 and lead to ectopic fat deposition in the liver, resulting in lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes. The results of this research project should lead to new preventive and treatment methods for lifestyle-related diseases. This program was implemented with the support of the Advanced Research & Development Programs for Medical Innovation (AMED-CREST) by AMED.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2093.mp3" length="647972" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Finasteride causes gut inflammation, high serotonin, low dopamine; allopregnanolone may treat</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2090</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2090</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Dec 2022 20:28:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2090

A great new study, which goes a long way towards explaining the dreaded post-finasteride syndrome (PFS), link here. Currently, medicine does not recognize PFS as a formal disease and in fact attempts to gaslight the patients with PFS into believing they are simply mentally ill and in need of SSRI drugs. While the mental illness component of PFS may very well be present due to the lowered levels of the steroid allopregnanolone (recently approved as an antidepressant by the FDA), the fact remains that it is finasteride that caused this issue, which is something medicine vehemently denies. In support of its claims, medicine cites evidence showing that blood levels of steroids (e.g. DHT) altered by finasteride treatment usually revert back to normal within 1-2 weeks of stopping the drug. However, as the study below demonstrates (and as Dr. Peat has been saying for years), blood steroid levels are not indicative of tissue steroid levels. Specifically, the study not only demonstrated disturbance of steroid levels in the gut of animals after usage of finasteride, but also found that those gut steroid disturbances (DHT and allopregnanolone) did not resolve even a full month after finasteride was discontinued. This implies that finasteride does indeed cause prolonged dysregulation of steroidogenesis and my guess would be that finasteride acts as a suicide inhibitor of the enzyme 5-AR, similarly to the effects of the drug exemestane on aromatase. Moreover, finasteride induced a long-term decline in gut levels of dopamine while also increasing gut levels of serotonin, and the inflammatory biomarkers IL-1b and TNF-a. In other words, finasteride wrecked the steroid balance in the GI tract, and caused a chronic inflammatory state which then affected the brain through the gut-brain axis. The study is one of the few that openly recognizes the pathological role of serotonin in GI conditions, and I think just the serotonin elevation (and lower dopamine) by itself caused by finasteride can explain to a great degree the symptoms that PFS patients experience (especially the sexual and mood/cognitive disturbances). Speaking of serotonin, considering finasteride chronically elevates it in he gut (and likely the brain), administering SSRI drugs to PFS patients may be just about the worst “therapeutic” approach, as it will likely worsen their condition in both the gut and the brain.

Now, what can be done about this? Well, perhaps the simplest approach would be to administer steroids that finasteride decreases and see if that alleviates the condition. For some reason the study authors did not administer DHT, despite the fact that it is the primary target of finasteride. Instead, they administered allopreganolone (ALLO), another 5-AR derived steroid, in a HED of 0.7mg/kg b.w. for sixteen (16) days. This short-term therapy was effective in reversing most of the steroidogenic dysfunction induced by finasteride, as well the inflammatory state, and the elevated serotonin in finasteride-treated subjects. Unfortunately, ALLO treatment was not able to reverse the lower dopamine post-finsateride withdrawal, though, as the study suggests dopamine agonists (e.g. lisuride, metergoline, bromocriptine, etc) may be able to address that angle. This is perhaps the first direct evidence that ALLO decreases serotonin levels (and raises dopamine levels), which would be a plausible mechanism of action (which FDA currently considers “unknown”) for its antidepressant effects. And last but not least, I strongly suspect that adding DHT to the ALLO regimen (in a dose about 7 times lower than ALLO) will likely strongly increase the benefits, not just for PFS but for also depression (for which ALLO is already approved), as well as for chronic inflammatory conditions and especially the ones affecting the gut (i.e. inflammatory bowel disease). All in all, finasteride is one nasty substance and there is now significant evidence to support a class-action lawsuit against pharma companies peddling this poison, considering the systemic damage that persists long-after after finasteride has been discontinued, and likely remains until the appropriate treatment (e.g. ALLO + DHT + dopamine agonist) has been administered.

link here

“…The assessment of these steroids after 1 month of withdrawal revealed that ALLO levels were still significantly decreased, whereas an increase in PREG levels was observed (Figure 2, link here). The levels of the other steroids measured at the finasteride withdrawal were not significantly modified.”

“…In contrast, finasteride withdrawal induced a significant increase in the mRNA levels of IL-1β and TNF-α, with no changes in TLR-4 and IL-6 levels (panel B) and in those of ZO-1 and Cld-1 (panel D). The levels of dopamine and serotonin significantly decreased and increased, respectively (panel F).”

“…Based on the reported anti-inflammatory features of ALLO [35, link here,36, link here,37, link here,38, link here,39, link here], using a previously established treatment schedule for steroids [40, link here,41, link here,42, link here,43, link here], we have analyzed the possible protective effects of this steroid on changes induced by finasteride withdrawal. As reported in Figure 4, link here, ALLO treatment was able to significantly counteract the increase induced by finasteride treatment in mRNA levels of IL-1β (panel A) and TNF-α (panel B), as well as in the levels of serotonin in the adult male rat colons (panel D). ALLO treatment did not counteract the decrease in the dopamine levels induced by finasteride withdrawal (panel C).”

“…As reported, subchronic treatment with finasteride did not affect these markers, but an increase in IL-1β and TNF-α as well as a decrease in dopamine levels and an increase in those of serotonin were reported at the drug withdrawal in the colon of adult male rats. These changes, as reported by others [46, link here,47, link here,48, link here,49, link here] may suggest a local inflammation. Indeed, in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), there is a decreased transcription of the serotonin transporter (SERT) resulting in elevated serotonin level, which ultimately causes diarrhea and discomfort, which is transmitted by serotonin through the gut-brain axis [50, link here,51, link here]. Gut inflammation was also supported by our previous observations in this PFS experimental model, indicating alterations in gut microbiota populations at the finasteride withdrawal, with specific significant changes in the microbial communities (weighted and unweighted UniFrac distance) [8, link here].

“…Moreover, increased levels of L-dopa and decreased levels of dopamine were reported in patients with IBD, indicating low L-amino acid decarboxylase activity [55, link here]. Impairment of the dopaminergic system as a feature of IBD pathogenesis is supported by the finding that dopamine agonists may rescue to the normal function [56, link here].”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2090.mp3" length="2044916" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Higher protein, sugar, and vitamin E consumption beneficial for health/aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2088</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2088</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Dec 2022 19:30:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2088

I would say right from the start that there are obviously a very large number of dietary components that can have beneficial effect on our health. The study below cannot possibly look at all of them, but from the ones it examined those three (3) variables the title mentions gave the most benefit when tweaked (in this case increased).

2 links here

“…They used eight models with increasing complexity and interactions between micro and macronutrient intake. The different models not only noted the amount of these nutrients but their relationship to one another, a distinct difference from “univariable” dietary studies. They then correlated the dietary models, what people had eaten, with evidence of dysregulation, or biological aging among the study participants. Here are a few of their key qualitative findings. [1]

Even their most complex model, when considering micro- and macronutrients and other “potential” predictors of health status, “explain less than 5%” of the dysregulation.

Above-average protein intake coupled with α-tocopherol (Vitamin E) was associated with the lowest levels of dysregulation.

Above-average carbohydrate intake with average protein and lipid intake was associated with the lowest levels of “biological aging.”

…Their dysregulation score is only one means of measuring biological age; the components of optimum nutrition can vary significantly depending on what you seek to optimize.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2088.mp3" length="266276" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:37</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Colonoscopies worse than useless – no cancer death reduction, high risk of side effects</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2084</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2084</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Dec 2022 19:12:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2084

Yet another medical procedure touted as one of the pillars in the long-lost “War on Cancer, link here“, has turned out to be a dud. I did a post on a study several years ago demonstrating that taking a daily aspirin likely outweighs the benefits of colonoscopies while also having a much more acceptable risk profile. However, at the time colonoscopies were too popular to attack directly, so the study did not dare conclude the obvious – i.e. take your daily aspirin and skip the GI doctor visit.

2 links here

Hopefully, the study below will give most patients and doctors second thoughts, especially considering the known, frequent, and potentially lethal side effects of colonoscopies. On a similar note, another very large recent study found that colonoscopy’s cousin – the endoscopy – was also worse than useless. Namely, no reductions in cancer deaths and a very high risk of (potentially lethal) side effects. Yet other studies have demonstrated similar lack of benefit for other, less invasive, cancer prevention methods such as PSA test for prostate cancer, fecal calprotectin for colon and liver cancer, antidiuretic hormone test for lung cancer, BRCA gene testing for breast cancer, etc. One by one, the “miracles” of modern medicine in regards to disease prevention turn out to be little more than expensive (and dangerous) frauds. I can’t help but make the comparison between the failure of those highly touted medical interventions and another recent highly-touted, expensive and dangerous public health fiasco, which came damn near close in becoming mandatory too. Yes, I am referring to the masks, vaccines, and lockdowns imposed on us with the excuse of launching another war – on COVID-19. Now, if the level of “success” in those medical procedures above is a surrogate measure for the overall competence of our public health officials, it seems prudent to seriously question and/or oppose any future attempt at imposing any nation-wide health policies,  unless very strong evidence backing them up is presented.

As many as 25% of screening colonoscopies are unnecessary, study finds, link here

3 links here

“…Colonoscopies are a dreaded rite of passage for many middle-age adults. The promise has been that if you endure the awkwardness and invasiveness of having a camera travel the length of your large intestine once every decade after age 45, you have the best chance of catching – and perhaps preventing – colorectal cancer. It’s the second most common cause of cancer death in the United States. Some 15 million colonoscopies are performed in the US each year. Now, a landmark study suggests the benefits of colonoscopies for cancer screening may be overestimated. The study marks the first time colonoscopies have been compared head-to-head to no cancer screening in a randomized trial. The study found only meager benefits for the group of people invited to get the procedure: an 18% lower risk of getting colorectal cancer, and no significant reduction in the risk of cancer death. It was published Sunday in The New England Journal of Medicine.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2084.mp3" length="991748" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) drives fear and conditions such as anxiety/PTSD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2080</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2080</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Dec 2022 17:33:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2080

Conversely, blocking 5-HT or lowering its synthesis can probably cure most fear-based conditions such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), PTSD, psychotic conditions (e.g. schizophrenia), etc. At least, those are the findings of the study below, which demonstrated that animals completely lacking the 5-HT2C receptor were absolutely fearless and impervious to the development of anxiety and stress-driven pathologies. Interestingly enough, the 5-HT2C receptor is the primary controller of ACTH release, and thus the activation of the HPA axis. In other words, activating 5-HT2C (which serotonin does) activates the stress system, while blocking it stops the stress response. Even more interestingly, many SSRI drugs (and especially Prozac) are antagonists of the 5-HT2C receptor, which probably explains most of their antidepressant effects.

3 links here

In other words, chronic stress drives conditions such as depression, anxiety and PTSD through the HPA axis, and blocking the HPA system or its master regulator 5-HT has therapeutic effects for those conditions. One of the most widely-available serotonin antagonists is cyproheptadine and it has already been shown to stop the nightmares of people diagnosed with PTSD. Other serotonin antagonists capable of blocking 5-HT2C include metergoline, the tricyclic class of antidepressants, and the OTC chemical Benadryl. Yes, diphenhydramine (commercially sold as Benadryl) is an antagonist on several 5-HT receptors. Word of caution for Benadryl – in doses below 150mg daily it has mostly 5-HT antagonism effects, but in higher doses it starts to act as an SSRI so many/most of its benefits may be negated. Thus, if Benadryl is used I’d stick to doses in the 50mg-100mg daily range, which have already been shown to have therapeutic effects in conditions such as diabetes, so we know the lower doses are effective and there is no need for taking the higher doses that many doctors and pharma companies push for financial reasons (i.e. higher doses = more money spent).

And now, as per the study below, it looks like blocking those pathways can also prevent those conditions. So, once again we have strong evidence that 5-HT is anything by the “happy hormone” and promoting its effects through the administration of SSRI drugs or due to chronic stress (i.e. 5-HT rises during stress) is perhaps the most detrimental approach to “treating” mental health. To make matters worse, since chronic activation of HPA has now been implicated in virtually all chronic/degenerative conditions, promoting serotonin and its effects pharmacologically or environmentally is a guarantee for a public health disaster.

2 links here

“…Mice lacking a specific serotonin receptor unlearn fear faster than those with the receptor. The findings open the door to the development of new treatments for PTSD and other disorders associated with fear…The neurotransmitter serotonin plays a key role in both the onset and in the unlearning of fear and anxiety. A research team from the Department of General Zoology and Neurobiology headed by Dr. Katharina Spoida and Dr. Sandra Süß in the Collaborative Research Center “Extinction Learning” at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, has been investigating the underlying mechanisms. The researchers showed that mice lacking a specific serotonin receptor unlearn fear much faster than the wild type. The results of the study provide a viable explanation how drugs that are typically used for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) alter our brain activity. The ability to unlearn fear is often impaired in PTSD patients, making it more difficult to carry out therapies.”

“…To this end, they examined so-called knock-out mice that lack a certain serotonin receptor—the 5-HT2C receptor—due to genetic modifications. These mice learned in one day to associate a certain sound with a mild but unpleasant electrical stimulus. “As a result of this learning process, on the following day they showed a fear response that was characterized by a motionless pause as soon as the tone was played, which we refer to as ‘freezing,’” explains Katharina Spoida. In the next step, the researchers repeatedly played the tone to the mice without applying the electrical stimulus. “Interestingly, we noticed that knock-out mice learned much faster that the tone does not predict the fear stimulus than mice who lacked this specific genetic modification,” says Katharina Spoida. “Consequently, it looks like the absence of the serotonin receptor provides an advantage for extinction learning.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2080.mp3" length="1403420" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking serotonin, promoting dopamine may reverse cardiovascular disease (CVD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2077</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2077</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Dec 2022 17:00:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2077

The claim in the title stems from the fact that bromocriptine – the drug used in the study below – is an approximate 5-HT antagonist while also being full agonist on several dopamine receptors. IMO, the study is a monumental success since CVD is largely considered a progressive condition, for which neither a cure nor disease-modifying therapy exists, according to mainstream medicine. Yet, this study shows actual reversal of CVD biomarkers after just a month of therapy. Interestingly enough, bromocriptine is already approved by the FDA for treating type II diabetes. Importantly, the proposed mechanism of action of bromocriptine used for its diabetes II approval is inhibition of lipolysis and gluconeogenesis. This implies that the CVD risk in patients with type I diabetes are probably driven by the same mechanisms – i.e. excessive lipolysis and gluconeogenesis. Aspirin and niacinamide are also excellent anti-lipolytic chemicals and the former is also known to inhibit gluconeogenesis. As such, those OTC remedies may be able to serve as alternatives to bromocriptine for people who do not have access to that medication or have a doctor unwilling to prescribe it.

3 links here

“…Research Highlights:

Teens with Type 1 diabetes who took bromocriptine, a medication usually prescribed to treat Parkinson’s disease, had lower blood pressure after one month of treatment compared to those who did not take the medicine.

Participants taking the medication for one month also experienced significant improvements in aortic stiffness, a measure of vascular health.

Larger, longer-term studies are needed to determine if bromocriptine may be recommended to adolescents with Type 1 diabetes.

…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2077.mp3" length="603644" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Exhaustive eccentric exercise (EEE), such as running, causes hyperlipidemia and liver damage</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2075</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2075</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 16 Dec 2022 16:32:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2075

…and vitamin D can apparently reverse those negative effects, when given at a dose of just 2,000 IU daily during the exercise time period. In addition, the vitamin D supplementation resulted in a significantly bigger weight (fat) loss than the group doing only exercise. I think the biggest takeaway from the study is that most endurance exercise is not good for you when done to the point where it is effective for weigh loss. Considering most people do such types of exercise precisely for weight loss purposes, we can safely conclude that in most cases endurance exercise as commonly practiced is detrimental to health. A possibly less-damaging form of such exercise would be to limit the exertion until glycogen stores run out, as the hyperlipidemia observed in this study was most likely caused by the elevated lipolysis, which exhaustive exercise triggers due to glycogen depletion. Furthermore, as the study itself states, running is a type of eccentric exercise, which corroborates the hypothesis that only the concentric portion of muscle exertion (i.e. contraction with a load, relaxation without a load) is beneficial for health. As such, I think the findings of the study can be extended to other types of eccentric exercise, including the eccentric portion of exertion in weightlifting. Now, note that I emphasized the word “most” above. Why? Well, because there are endurance exercise types that involve mostly concentric effort. Such types are swimming, biking, rowing, and running (up)stairs. So, those types of exercise are probably safer but I would still try to limit the effort duration until glycogen stores are depleted, as if lipolysis is elevated it invariably causes damage even if triggered by concentric exercise. For the people that are still doubting the negative effects of exhaustive exercise, I have also included another study (first link below), which demonstrates that elevated glucocorticoids (invariably present during exhaustive exercise and other types of stress), reliably cause fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and hyperlipidemia, which matches perfectly the findings of the study in question (second link below).

2 links here

“…This study aimed to investigate the effect of a short-term Vit D supplementation on the alterations of liver enzymes (AST, ALT, and GGT) and lipid profile following EEE in overweight women with NAFLD. The results of our study indicate significantly reduced BW, BMI, BFP, and WHR in the experimental group following six-week Vitamin D supplementation. In parallel to our study, Hoseini et al. (2016) reported that high doses of vitamin D could significantly reduce BW, BMI, and visceral fat in rats with metabolic syndrome [17, link here]. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin stored in larger adipose tissues after synthesizing and entering the bloodstream, releasing it at a slower rate. low levels of vitamin D might impair insulin function, glucose metabolism, and other metabolic processes in the adipose tissue, which might be another mechanism in the association of anthropometric changes following vitamin D supplementation [17, link here, 18, link here]. Interestingly, the results of this study showed significantly increased liver enzymes and lipid profile (except for HDL) following EEE. According to the results of other studies, vigorous exercise training increases mitochondrial oxygen consumption [19, link here] and free radicals production, which leads to fat peroxidation [20, link here], membrane-dependent enzyme dysfunction, and the destruction of the cell membrane [21, link here]. Therefore, altered liver enzymes and lipid profiles could indicate the leakage of cell continents and structural cell damage [20, link here]. Besides, eccentric contraction (e.g., running on a negative slope) exerts a greater force on the muscles, leading to muscular and hepatic cell damage and changed serum levels of liver enzymes [22, link here, 23, link here].”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2075.mp3" length="1009628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Harvard Psychiatrist: All Mental Disease is Metabolic/Bioenergetic Disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2069</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2069</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Nov 2022 18:07:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2069

It is always nice to see mainstream medicine plagiarize from Dr. Peat attempt to right its course after decades-long mistakes. While the genetic dogma still rules supreme in medicine’s attitude towards most “physical” diseases, the utter failure of the “serotonin hypothesis” and its dear offspring (the SSRI drug class) seems to be driving a revolution of sorts in psychiatry. A very prominent psychiatrist from Harvard University has recently published a book in which he makes the “novel” (and very bold, considering the implications to his career) claim that if one was to look at the totality of published/available evidence, one would inevitably come to the conclusion that all mental disease is nothing by a symptom of low brain energy (hypometabolism). Moreover, as the doctor writes in his book, even if we subscribe to the “serotonin hypothesis” (or any other chemical imbalance hypothesis, for that matter), metabolism is still the driving factor as everything the cell does and the mind-altering factors (GABA, dopamine, serotonin, glutamate, cortisol, estrogen, etc) it produces is downstream of its mitochondrial activity – i.e. a metabolic downstream effect. As such, the doctor makes the call for basically ditching drugs and instead using metabolic interventions, avoiding stress, proper diet, etc as the main tools for treating (curing?) mental disease. In support of his claims, the doctors provides a shocking case study of severe, treatment-resistant schizophrenia of 2 patients being put into full remission by using only dietary modifications. Of course, the doctor neglects to mention that this evidence has been available for a VERY long time, and metabolic approaches have been used decades ago to treat/cure mental illness, only to be completely “shadow-banned” by the medical-industrial complex.

2 links here

You know, articles like this sound almost like the “Pandemic Amnesty” piece published not long-ago, which basically called for a change in public health (and social) direction due to catastrophic failure in past approaches, though without admitting any guilt. So, psychiatry is now (sneakily) offering us a peace deal, as if nothing happened, promising to actually help us in the future through proper treatments. Though, if all mental disease is metabolic disease then psychiatry is now admitting that medicine as a profession has been directly making us all ill for decades through stress, poor diet recommendations, environmental pollution, and toxic drugs. Do we take this “peace offer” or do we go our own way?

3 links here

“…If you think this is too pessimistic, it’s important to note that depression, link here is now the single most disabling illness—above heart failure, back pain, cancer, and other conditions—even though we have dozens of antidepressants, link here, different types of psychotherapy, link here, electroconvulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, link here, ketamine, link here, and other treatments available. Although the problems with access to mental health care might explain some of these increases, even when people get treatment, it often fails to put illnesses into full and lasting remission, link here.”

“…In the just released book, Brain Energy, I argue that mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain. This new theory integrates decades of clinical, neuroscience, link here, genetic, and metabolic research. It includes all of the biological, psychological, and social factors that we know play a role in mental illness and combines them into one unifying theory. This new understanding answers questions that have long plagued the mental health field, but also offers new treatments, ones that come with the hope of long-term healing as opposed to just symptom reduction. This new understanding also helps us understand the connections between mental health and physical health.

“…Although many people think metabolism is “burning calories” and related to weight, it’s actually much more than that. Metabolism is the process that all living organisms use to convert food into energy or building blocks for proteins, membranes, and other cell parts. It is fundamental to the definition of life. When there are problems with metabolism, there will be problems in the way cells function. I argue that metabolic dysfunction in brain cells can explain all of the symptoms of mental illness. Although metabolism is extraordinarily complex and involves numerous chemical reactions and pathways, it turns out that there is an easier way to understand metabolism, and that is through tiny organelles in most of our cells called mitochondria. They are the primary regulators of metabolism. Doing a deep dive into the science of mitochondria helps us understand all of the factors related to mental illness.For example, mitochondria play a critical role in the production and regulation of neurotransmitters,, link heresuch as serotonin, dopamine, link here, and GABA. They also play a key role in the production of key hormones, link here, such as cortisol, estrogen, link here, testosterone, link here, and progesterone. Mitochondria actually help to control the expression of genes, link here in the cell nucleus and they also play key roles in inflammation, link here. By better understanding the science of metabolism and mitochondria, we can finally connect the dots of mental illness.”

“…The much more exciting news about this theory, in my view, is that it opens the door to new treatments. Interventions such as diet, link here, exercise, stress reduction, sleep management, link here, and reducing substance use can effectively treat mental disorders in many people. You might be thinking that this is nothing new; we already knew most of that. However, understanding the details of this science can lead to new and surprising treatments, such as dietary interventions to treat disorders like schizophrenia, link here and alcoholism, link here, which on the surface don’t seem like they are related to diet. Some patients with schizophrenia have experienced full and lasting remission of symptoms off antipsychotic medications for years now, as highlighted in this Psychology Today post, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2069.mp3" length="1245668" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone (P5) blocks stress-induced anxiety, hypertension and cocaine cravings</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2064</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2064</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 25 Nov 2022 19:07:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2064

A great new study, and with humans too! As the study aptly demonstrates, the primary driver of cocaine cravings is likely stress and the anxiety it causes. This finding is another corroboration of the findings of the great Rat Park, link here experiment/study on “addiction”. In the study below, the administration of both 300mg and 500mg P5 daily, blunted both the anxiety and the cocaine cravings induced by stress, with the 500mg dose completely eliminating both anxiety and cravings. The P5 was administered orally, twice daily at a dose of 150mg and 250mg for the 300mg and the 500mg groups respectively. Perhaps the even more valuable finding was that P5, at the 500mg daily dose, completely blocked the elevated heart rate and systolic/diastolic blood pressure caused by the stress. On a related note, P5 has also been shown to block both the development of tolerance as well as the cravings for other “addictive” substances such as alcohol (animal study) and benzodiazepine drugs (human study). In other words, P5 may have a great potential not only for “addiction”, but also for hypertension and cardiovascular disease (CVD), since elevated blood pressure and stress are the primary causal factors of the latter. Also, considering the lack of side effects in this study, P5 may actually be preferable to the drugs Big Pharma peddles.

link here

“…This is the first study to test the effects of two supraphysiologic doses of pregnenolone in an established and validated model of provoked stress- and cocaine cue-induced craving, anxiety and autonomic arousal in individuals with cocaine use disorder (CUD). The study findings show that exogenous pregnenolone (a) increased circulating levels of pregnenolone, (b) decreased stress- and cue-induced craving, (c) dose-specifically reduced anxiety and (d) decreased autonomic responses at the higher dose but not the lower dose. Moreover, despite the small sample sizes and preliminary nature of the study, the results produced large effect sizes in the range of 0.5 to 1.34 for craving, anxiety, and autonomic measures indicating robust effect of pregnenolone doses. These effects sizes also indicated adequate power ranging from 0.90 to 0.99 with the current sample size for detecting differences between the tested doses of pregnenolone and placebo. The current results support the use of human laboratory models as an experimental therapeutic strategy for early assessment of the effects of target compounds such as pregnenolone for intermediate outcomes of drug craving, anxiety and physiological adaptations associated with CUD. On the basis of these results, current findings support pregnenolone as a promising target to reduce provoked craving, anxiety and autonomic system activation in CUD.”

“…Both doses of pregnenolone significantly reduced stress- and cocaine cue-induced craving in this study. This finding is very important because, research has repeatedly shown that individuals with CUD experience a stress- and cocaine cue-induced craving state, which is accompanied by enhanced negative emotion and anxiety [3, link here,38, link here,43, link here], and is a strong predicter of relapse [4, link here]. While clinical research in CUD that directly targets neuroactive steroid potentiation is lacking, we previously reported that potentiation of allopregnanolone by high dose exogenous progesterone in individuals with co-morbid alcohol and cocaine use disorder normalized HPA axis responding to stress, improved cognitive performance in response to stress and cue, and overall decreased craving in the laboratory [44, link here]. However, the current study is the first that assessed and found beneficial effects of pregnenolone administration on stress- and cocaine cue-induced craving in individuals with CUD.”

“…Pregnenolone reduced cocaine-cue induced anxiety at both doses, and dose-specifically reduced stress-induced anxiety at the higher dose, but not at the lower dose. The reduction in anxiety is clinically relevant, as anxiety is one of the hallmark features of protracted early abstinence symptoms in cocaine use disorder [45, link here,46, link here], and exposure to stress- and cocaine cues results in significant increases in subjective anxiety in individuals with cocaine use disorder [3, link here]. Therefore, reduction in anxiety should be an important target of effective treatment interventions for CUD. Neuroactive steroids have potent anxiolytic properties similar to those induced by other GABAA receptor potentiating drugs [15, link here,16, link here]. Consistent with this previous research, current findings show stress- and cue-induced increases in anxiety in the placebo group, and the ability of the 500 mg/day of pregnenolone to reduce this sensitized anxiety response to stress may have tangible clinical relevance in the overall beneficial effects on treatment outcome and relapse risk in CUD.”

“…Pregnenolone also had marked effects on autonomic responses to stress- and cocaine cue provocation. Pregnenolone at the higher dose, but not the lower dose, decreased stress-induced HR response. Similarly, the higher pregnenolone dose reduced stress-induced SBP, and stress-and cue-induced DBP. This is an important finding, as individuals with CUD consistently show adaptations in the autonomic nervous system [47, link here]. Exposure to stress in individuals with cocaine use disorder results in significant increases in cardiovascular output, such as stress-induced increase in heart rate, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure [3, link here]. Current findings suggest that pregnenolone may be reversing some of these autonomic adaptations and reducing the stress-induced cardiovascular hyperactivation, which was again observed in the placebo group.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2064.mp3" length="735980" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Downtrend of sperm count, penis length accelerating; humans now endangered species</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2062</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2062</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 25 Nov 2022 18:01:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2062

A number of eminent fertility experts are now sounding a dire alarm in regards to the human species. What used to be mostly the stuff of girls-night-out jokes in regards to the size of a male’s member has now apparently acquired catastrophic proportions due to male penis size emerging as a reliable metric of endocrine disruptor exposure. Namely, penis length is a reliable surrogate of serum testosterone (T), and its decline is a reliable indication of plummeting T levels. In corroboration, the decline of sperm count (another good surrogate of T levels) globally is not only continuing but is accelerating. Females are also not exempt from this epidemic, with the average twenty-something woman now apparently having the same fertility as her grandmother…when she was 35. In other words, not only are the “young” quickly becoming the “old”, as I mentioned in previous posts of mine, but the trend is accelerating to the point where the authors of the declining fertility and penis length studies claim that humans are now meeting the criteria of endangered species. The main culprit blamed in both studies are the endocrine disruptors found mostly in plastics. However, I think dietary factors such as PUFA, hormonal birth control, stress and toxic drugs such as SSRI, PPI, statins, etc are also very big factors in this fertility catastrophe.

Now, the million dollar questions is – if humans are an endangered species and on a VERY strong downtrend in both their development and count, then are all the desperate cries coming from WHO, GAVI, Gates, WEF, etc about the dire need to reduce global population nothing but theater? Theater, designed to fool the masses into accepting open fascism, terrible living standards and mass deaths under the pretext of saving the planet from climate disaster due to overpopulation…when in reality, the human race is already “on its way out”.

link here

“…Pollution is causing human penises to shrink, according to one scientist. A leading epidemiologist and environmental expert has published a book that examines the link between industrial chemicals and penile length. Dr Shanna Swan’s book, Count Down, argues that our modern world is altering humans’ reproductive development and threatening the future of our species. The book outlines how pollution is leading to higher rates of erectile dysfunction, fertility decline, and growing numbers of babies born with small penises. Though the headline fact about shrinkage may sound like a laughing matter, the research paints a bleak portrait of humanity’s longevity and ability to survive. “In some parts of the world, the average twenty-something today is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35,” Dr Swan writes, link here, dubbing the situation a “global existential crisis” in the book.”

“…According to the book, humans meet three of the five possible criteria used to define whether or not a species is endangered. “Only one needs to be met,” writes Dr Swan, “the current state of affairs for humans meets at least three.” According to Dr Swan’s research, this disruption is caused by phthalates, chemicals used in plastic manufacturing, which can impact how the hormone endocrine is produced.”

2 links here

“…Sperm counts worldwide have halved over the past five decades, and the pace of the decline has more than doubled since the turn of the century, new research shows. The international team behind it says the data is alarming and points to a fertility crisis threatening the survival of humanity. Their meta-analysis looked at 223 studies based on sperm samples from over 57,000 men across 53 countries. It shows for the first time that men in Latin America, Asia, and Africa share a similar decline in total sperm counts and concentration as previously observed in Europe, North America, and Australia. The authors warn that the mean sperm count has now dropped dangerously close to the threshold that makes conception more difficult, meaning couples around the world may encounter problems having a baby without medical assistance.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2062.mp3" length="916244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may prevent (and even reverse) uterine fibroids</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2058</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2058</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 16 Nov 2022 20:31:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2058

Yet another big win for vitamin D, much to the chagrin of the medical establishment, which has been throwing “mud” (read: fake, ghostwritten studies) against vitamin D ever since it showed so much promise in human studies for both preventing and treating COVID-19. Now, the study below demonstrates yet another serious condition where vitamin D may be able to both “prevent and treat”. Namely, the dreaded uterine fibroids, which affect 80%+ of women at least once in their lifetime, and the rates of which continue to increase. In other words, a disease that affects virtually all women, and for which the only available “treatments” are surgery and/or even radiation. Some doctors prescribe synthetic progestins, but those have demonstrated an unacceptable level of side effects, too high for even medicine’s increased tolerance for homicidal interventions. As such, the synthetic progestins are not widely used as treatment. On top of that, those treatments are not only dangerous, but they do not resolve the condition as the fibroids invariably reoccur after a few years. What’s worse, these fibroids have a high chance of turning into uterine/endometrial cancer, so an effective prevention/treatment would be a huge win for public health. Well, based on the study below, it looks like humble vitamin D may be able to fit the bill. Keeping its blood levels above 20ng/mL may have a significant preventive effects and a level above 30ng/mL may even shrink/remove the fibroids. Btw, since I mentioned the synthetic progestins and it is accepted that progestins have beneficial effects, using bioidentical progesterone may be another viable treatment option but without the side effect risks of synthetic progestins. Finally, multiple studies have demonstrated synergism between vitamin D and bioidentical progesterone, allowing for much lower doses of each to be used when taken together. So, a combo of low-dose vitamin D and bioidentical progesterone may very well be the “killer combo” mainstream medicine has been looking for and dares not discuss in public out of fear the sales of surgeries, radiation treatments and synthetic progestins will collapse for good.

2 links here

“…Uterine fibroids are noncancerous tumors of the myometrium that cause significant morbidity including menorrhagia and pelvic pain, often requiring medical or surgical intervention. Fibroid treatments that have few side-effects and can preserve fertility are a clinical priority of all treating doctors. A new study conducted by Quaker E Harman and team showed that high levels of vitamin D prevent fibroid growth, although their effects are constrained by the small number of individuals with blood 25(OH)D levels below ≥30ng/mL. Further as compared with existing medical and surgical treatments for fibroids that have significant side-effects and impact fertility, vitamin D is safe and compatible with pregnancy. The findings of the study were published in Fertility and Sterility.Clinical priorities include fibroids therapies that can sustain fertility and have minimal adverse effects. In order to evaluate the relationship between serum vitamin D and uterine fibroid development, incidence, and loss, this study was carried out. The purpose of this prospective population cohort research (enrollment 2010–2012) was to test 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), perform standardized ultrasounds, and update variables based on the Detroit, Michigan region. There were four study visits spread over five years. Self-identified African American or Black women between the ages of 23 and 35 who had not previously received a clinical diagnosis of fibroids participated in this study. Using immunoassay or liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, serum 25(OH)D was analyzed for this investigation. The main results were fibroid incidence and fibroid growth, as determined by change in log volume every 18 months. Estimated volume differences for high and low 25(OH)D were derived using adjusted growth estimates from linear mixed models. Age-specific Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios for incidence differences. Using Poisson regression, the secondary outcome of fibroid loss (decrease in fibroid number between visits) was predicted. The 25(OH)D was treated as a time-varying component, together with covariates (reproductive and hormonal characteristics, demographics, body mass index, and current smoking).The key findings of this study were:1. At enrolment, 73% of the 1,610 individuals had insufficient vitamin D (<ng/mL), and just 7% had sufficient vitamin D (≥30ng/mL), with a mean age of 29.2 years. 2. Similar to the minimum adjusted result of -8.4%, serum 25(OH)D >20ng/mL compared with <20ng/mL was linked to an estimated 9.7% reduction in fibroid development. 3. A rough 22% reduction in incidence was linked to serum 25(OH)D levels below ≥30ng/mL when compared to levels over >30ng/mL, which is close to the unadjusted estimate of 0.84. 4. Additionally, fibroid reduction increased by 32% in the group with >30ng/mL. In conclusion, concentrations of 25(OH)D greater than 20 ng/mL were linked to slower fibroid development. Results of research that looked at 25(OH)D concentrations >30 ng/mL suggested that fibroid removal was more likely and that the incidence of fibroid growth may have decreased.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2058.mp3" length="1047404" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Human study – vitamin B6 may relieve anxiety and depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2056</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2056</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 16 Nov 2022 19:43:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2056

Vitamin B6 is perhaps one of the most underrated B vitamins. While it attracted a lot of interest in the 1960s and 1970s as a potential natural treatment to raise dopamine and/or lower prolactin, subsequent “well-controlled” studies claimed that it was not effective. However, the fact remains that vitamin B6, as its “active” metabolite pyridoxal-5-phosphate (P5P), link here, is a required cofactor for the synthesis of all three members of what I call the “Holly Trinity” of neurotransmitters – serotonin, dopamine and GABA – and the synthesis of GABA with P5P occurs by consuming (and thus lowering) another important neurotransmitter known as glutamate. If there is one thing modern medicine gets right it is that there is no neurological/psychiatric condition where at least one of those neurotransmitters is not dysregulated. The most common psychiatric conditions are anxiety and (unipolar) depression, and GABA/glutamate are known to play a major role in both of them – GABA is low and/or glutamate is high in these conditions. As such, drugs that act as GABA agonists (Valium, Xanax, Klonopin, etc) are “standard of care” for treating anxiety, while glutamate antagonists class of drugs is one of the most promising new candidates for treating depression. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a substance capable of beneficially affecting both pathways, and without the severe side effects associated with the pharma drugs mentioned above? Well, vitamin B6 (P5P) is exactly such a substance since, as explained above, it increases GABA levels while also lowering glutamate levels by helping convert glutamate into GABA. Simple, right? Well, despite the obviousness of vitamin B6 potential and the numerous older studies confirming its benefit in both animal models and human studies, mainstream medicine continues to claim that vitamin B6 is ineffective for any mental/neurological condition. The study below may change that attitude, as it demonstrates the administration of 100mg pyridoxine Hcl (which converts into P5P) for just 30 days was effective in relieving both anxiety and depression in humans, and without causing any serious side effects. The proposed mechanism of action is just as explained above – reducing glutamate (antidepressant effect) by converting it into, and thus increasing, GABA (both anti anxiety and antidepressant effects). Now, since pyridoxine itself is inactive precursor and only the P5P can be used as the cofactor for the enzymes causing the changes of GABA and glutamate, the question naturally arises is why not use P5P directly? I suspect this approach should not only work just as well, but also allow much lower doses to be used. Animal studies show that only about 10% of pyridoxine gets converted into P5P, which suggests that a P5P dose of “only” 10mg daily should be able to replicate the beneficial study findings, while further limiting the risk of side effects.

2 links here

“…By randomly allocating participants to three groups, we compared the effects of taking a high dose of Vitamin B6 to that of a placebo or a high dose of Vitamin B12. We used questionnaires and laboratory-based tasks to measure the effects of these interventions. We found a reduction in the average level of anxiety and a trend towards reduced depression [with B6 but not with B12]. Our lab tasks showed subtle changes in visual processing. It is worth noting that our sample had a high (on average) level of anxiety at baseline, while this was not the case for depression. It is plausible to suggest that we were able to find the (on average) reduction in anxiety due to the high baseline level.”

“…Our evidence is most consistent with the following explanation, although I would not consider this to be 100% proven as the causal pathway yet: In the brain, neural excitation and neural inhibition are constantly in competition with each other. Anxiety is associated with reduced levels of inhibition and, more specifically, with reduced levels of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. You can think of GABA as having a calming influence on the brain. Reducing neural inhibition in anxiety allows excitatory neural activity to increase above normal levels. Some recent theories also directly connect depression with reduced GABA; furthermore, it is accepted that depression and anxiety are highly connected conditions. Vitamin B6 comes into the picture because it is a co-factor for a metabolic pathway in the brain that converts the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate into the inhibitory (calming) GABA. By increasing the quantity of the co-factor, we slightly speed up the rate of this metabolic process, and so you end up with a bit more of the GABA neurotransmitter and a bit less glutamate. The net effect of this is to reduce the activity in the brain slightly.”

“…There is currently no data comparing B6 supplements to other treatments for anxiety and depression, so I can only answer this with plausible speculations I’d like to test by collecting data. I guess the reduction in anxiety achieved by taking a high dose of B6 is less than would be obtained by a patient taking drugs such as SSRIs….One likely advantage of Vitamin B6 over things like SSRIs is far fewer side effects.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2056.mp3" length="1449092" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The “incel” phenomenon is likely a deliberate government policy/psyop</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2047</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2047</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Nov 2022 03:15:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2047

It is hard to believe that the government would engage in such absurd actions, but according to the article below the US military was convinced as far back as early 20th century that sexual DIS-satisfaction was key to making men angry, aggressive and homicidal and the military designed official policies towards sexually manipulating its soldiers in WWI towards such a dissatisfied state. If the government holds the firm belief that sexually satisfied soldiers are happy, anti-war, and disobedient and the govt has openly pushed the incel, link here “phenotype” on its soldiers as far as back as WWI, then it does not seem too much of a conspiracy to assume the same would be (or has already been) attempted on a nationwide scale, and not just in regards to military service. Note that the “powerful figures” (as the article calls them) that came up with the WWI “incel” policy did not envision its applicability only in regards war/military. They believed that sexually dissatisfied men are motivated in general, in regards to any objective. Considering CIA ops such as Mockingbird, link here or MKULTRA, link here, a psyop on manipulating the sexuality of the populace towards facilitating obedience and lifelong hard (low-paid?) work seems like an innocent cartoon in comparison. There is an old proverb saying “The rich thrive when the poor strive”, and apparently one of the best ways to ensure that the “plebs” (both men and women) “strive” (especially at work) is to deprive them of sexual satisfaction. The “incel” movement is hardly a niche problem any more. A number of large recent studies showed that a record number of Western citizens are completely celibate, and the highest rate of celibacy is in the youngest cohort. Just a decade ago, such findings would be unthinkable, but now they are a reality and resonate strikingly well with other studies finding chronic diseases to be skyrocketing in the young instead of the old. In other words, it looks like there is a “war on the young”, that war is not at all coincidental, and sexuality is a major target in that war.

2 links here

“…Initially neutral, the US began to change its position after a German U-boat sank the Lusitania in 1915, and when it was revealed that Germany sought to urge Mexico to attack the United States. But even as their first troops landed in France in June 1917, few Americans fully understood let alone supported this faraway conflict. In a study published in the Journal of the History of Sexuality, Eric Wycoff Rogers argues that the US Government and military took drastic action to use sexuality to motivate its conscripted soldiers to embrace their roles in the war. “The war didn’t feel relevant to young American men in the way it did to European men,” Rogers says. “Particularly after President Wilson’s sudden U-turn on American belligerency, the government had to work hard to convince civilians to support the war, and this was doubly true for soldiers, many of whom were drafted against their will. “In this context, the War Department actively exploited sexuality to psychologically manipulate American soldiers to fight.” This involved enforcing sexual abstinence while simultaneously exposing soldiers to carefully controlled forms of sexual stimulation. Believing that sexually satisfied men could not be easily motivated, the aim of this teasing was to generate unmet sexual desire, which the War Department could leverage as motivation to fight, especially through appeals to chivalry and heroism.”

“…Drawing on the relatively neglected records of the morale agency, and the writings of the academics and reformers who led it, Rogers shows that these powerful figures believed that sexual climax wasted the energy which fuelled a man’s motivation. They also believed, however, that stimulating and then diverting a soldier’s sex drive could boost his motivation. Based on this “parasexual logic”, as Rogers terms it, these theorists of morale designed a range of manipulative policies and activities that both regulated and stimulated soldiers.”

“…Through the Young Women’s Christian Association, the CTCA trained women and girls to support their aims. The CTCA dispatched speakers to cities and towns close to training camps to advise young girls and their mothers on guarding their sexuality from the troops. At the same time, military and civilian leaders set about extracting sexually active women and girls from areas frequented by soldiers. “By making sexual opportunities hard to find, the military sought to preserve men’s fighting strength.””

“…Thousands of women were arrested, examined under duress and detained during the country’s brief involvement in the war. Rogers says: “One of my key findings is that venereal disease was primarily an excuse to police women and reduce sexual opportunities for soldiers. Morality, too, was a pretext for these programmes. “The real purpose of these horrific measures, however, was fundamentally about maintaining the sexual frustration that kept soldiers motivated.”

““They also engaged in censorship,” Rogers says. “In a few instances, the Morale Branch’s staff opposed the inclusion of cartoons and other content that they deemed off-message.”

“…At the same time soldiers were pressed to write letters to women back home, supported by the provision of free envelopes and paper in YMCA huts and tents. CTCA officials hoped that when soldiers penned their love letters, the presence of attractive canteen workers would act as an exciting proxy for the women they were addressing. “Sexual denial, status anxiety and perceived pressure from women – this was a powerful combination,” Rogers says. “In striving for the approval of women, the morale planners hoped soldiers would perform their duties without complaint, fight harder, and be willing to risk their lives.”

“…The sudden end of the war did not mark the end of morale or sexualized motivation. After the war, Munson and some of his fellow morale planners published their theories as part of a new focus on human resources management which sought to boost morale and motivation in commercial industries. The campaigns to police women’s sexual behaviours – labelled the ‘American Plan’ – continued for over two decades, with police detaining thousands of women accused of being infected with STDs. According to Rogers, the spillover of the wartime programmes testifies to their enduring significance in modern society, and complicates how we periodize historical eras.”

“…“The military’s ‘parasexual’ blend of constraint and stimulation offers a clear sketch of a cultural logic that runs deep in American culture: the use of sexual allure to motivate and to sell non-sexual experiences and products.” “Especially if we are going to navigate the tensions of the so-called ‘gender war’, we urgently need to understand the role that powerful individuals and organisations continue to play in manipulating sexuality and fuelling sexual frustration, not least in advertising, films and on social media.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2047.mp3" length="1026836" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lowering adrenaline as effective as opioids for severe/chronic pain</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2045</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2045</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 06 Nov 2022 16:58:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2045

Most of my readers know about the raging opioid abuse epidemic in Western countries. What most people do not know is that the bulk of the epidemic is not in usage of illegal opioids such as fentanyl, but in legally prescribed opioids such as methadone, oxycontin, and even morphine. There are thousands of medical outfits that specialize in cash-only “chronic pain treatments”, which is simply a cover for prescribing a ton of opioids to patients willing to pay. The National Geographic even produced a documentary called “The Oxycontin Express, link here“, which detailed the epidemic of legal prescription opioid abuse in a network spanning 15+ US states. The excuse for over-prescribing opioids has always been that these patients are in severe chronic pain and nothing else works for improving their quality of life. The reality is that opioids abuse is driven by the de-industrialization of Western countries, and the hopelessness people feel as a result of them losing their opportunities for meaningful, creative work.

Now, political issues aside, medicine claims that it recognizes the moral hazards of opioids prescriptions, and Big Pharma has been avidly looking for chemicals that can replace opioids for chronic pain treatment. The study below demonstrates that treating chronic pain may be as simple as reducing excessive adrenaline output, by a mechanism of action through which the famous anti-stress drug clonidine exerts its beneficial effects. And since adrenaline is overproduced in stress, the study implicates stress in virtually any chronic/severe pain condition. That corroborates the “Rat Park, link here” hypothesis/experiment that opioid “addiction” is nothing but a desperate attempt to medicate downstream effects of stress. Remove the stress, and the “addiction” (and in this case, chronic pain as well) disappears.

link here

Pain Relief Without Side Effects and Addiction, link here

“…New substances that activate adrenalin receptors instead of opioid receptors have a similar pain-relieving effect to opiates, but without the negative aspects such as respiratory depression and addiction. This is the result of research carried out by an international team of researchers led by the Chair of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU).”

“…Peter Gmeiner is currently following a lead that seems very promising: “Many non-opioid receptors are involved in pain processing, but only a small number of these alternatives have as yet been validated for use in therapies”, he explains. Gmeiner and a team of researchers from Erlangen, China, Canada and the USA have now turned their attention to a new receptor that is responsible for binding adrenaline – the alpha 2A adrenergic receptor. There are already some analgesics that target this receptor such as brimonidine, clonidine and dexmedetomidine.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2045.mp3" length="904412" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low vitamin D levels linked to premature death</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2043</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2043</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 06 Nov 2022 16:34:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2043

Another way to phrase the findings of the study is that vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of death from any cause. Another important finding of the study is that it was the levels of 25-OH-D (calcifediol, a biomarker of of cholcalciferol (vit. D3) supplementation) and not 1,25-OH-D (calcitriol), which had inverse correlation to all-cause mortality and premature death. The fact that about 30% of US adults have vitamin D deficiency and another ~10% have vitamin D insufficiency, may be a major cause behind the recent drop in expected lifespan of US adults.

3 links here

“…New research reveals that improving your vitamin D levels can be a matter of life or death. A new population study from Annals of Internal Medicine shows mortality risk increases with vitamin D deficiency, link here, which is defined as a 25(OH)D serum level of 20 ng/ml or lower. Considering 29% of U.S. adults, link here1, link here are deficient in vitamin D, this new research is a bit alarming. The study also found an association between low vitamin D status and mortality from cancer, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory diseases. This means the 60% of U.S. adults, link here2, link here living with at least one chronic disease and 40% that have two or more chronic diseases could be at even higher risk of mortality if they’re also deficient in vitamin D, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2043.mp3" length="328940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Gut bacteria overgrowth drives (cocaine) addiction; glycine can reverse it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2041</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2041</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Nov 2022 15:20:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2041

Yet another study highlighting the importance of the microbiome for our health, and suggesting again that there may be no such thing as truly beneficial bacteria. Any bacteria capable of colonizing our GI tract seems to be capable of causing pathology if it is allowed to proliferate without restrictions. In this case, the bacterial overgrowth caused by cocaine usage formed a positive-feedback cycle such that more cocaine led to overgrowth of bacteria that consumes a lot of glycine, and the resulting deficiency of glycine exacerbated the cocaine “addiction”, which led to more bacterial growth, further glycine depletion, and so on. As such, interventions such as antibiotics, insoluble fiber, and/or charcoal may be able to help break the vicious cycle. Adding glycine/gelatin to this regimen would probably be even more beneficial as it was the deficiency of glycine (an inhibitory neurotransmitter) that was the direct driver of addictive behavior.

2 links here

“…Additionally, by supplementing glycine back systemically or using a genetically modified bacteria that cannot use glycine, the response of the mice to cocaine falls back to normal levels, demonstrating that this amino acid can act as an addiction-like behavior mediator in animal models. “I was interested in the gut-brain axis, and I found it very new and exciting,” says first author Santiago Cuesta, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Cuesta and colleagues found that when cocaine enters the gut of the mice, it triggers the activation of the QseC protein that aids in the growth of γ-proteobacteria, such as E. coli. These bacteria, fueled by glycine, outcompete the normal gut bacteria that already exist in our digestive tracks, taking up most of the space and resources. “The gut bacteria are consuming all of the glycine and the levels are decreasing systemically and in the brain,” says senior author Vanessa Sperandio, a microbiologist from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “It seems changing glycine overall is impacting the glutamatergic synapses that make the animals more prone to develop addiction.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2041.mp3" length="476564" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Iron drives heart failure by fattening the heart; iron chelators may prevent/cure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2039</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2039</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2022 18:05:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2039

Recommending high intake of iron is one of the most common dietary recommendations of registered dieticians, as well as many doctors. The fact that lipofuscin – a highly insoluble complex of iron and PUFA peroxides – increases with age is conveniently ignored in those recommendations. The reality is that iron is a heavy metal and there is plenty of evidence implicating it as a causal factor in infections disease, dementia, Parkinson disease (PD), “autoimmunity”, diabetes, CVD, and cancer. The study below now demonstrates that iron, even in physiological concentrations, drives the fattening of the heart after a heart attack, and this ultimately leads to heart failure. Since iron “loves” to interact with PUFA and the latter is preferentially stored in tissues after ingestion, it is likely that most of those fatty acid deposits driving heart failure are made up of PUFA and, consequently, lipofuscin. Conversely, the study claims that iron chelators should be beneficial for both preventing and treating such cases of heart failure. The great news here is that we can go a step further by simply using a natural chemical available in most convenience stores – vitamin E. That humble vitamin is capable of both reducing total body iron stores, as well as preventing/limiting the formation of lipofuscin by reducing the generation of PUFA peroxides (which btw also depend to a great degree on iron availability). In addition, at least one animal study has suggested that vitamin E may be able to dissolve lipofuscin already formed/stored in organs, which further increases the therapeutic potential of this vitamin in heart failure, or aging in general (characterized by increased lipofuscin accumulation). Aspirin is another molecule known to reduce body iron stores, as well as inhibit PUFA peroxidation, though I haven’t seen studies on whether aspirin may help remove lipofuscin.

2 links here

“…The study, which involved collaborators from institutions in the United States and Canada, followed large animal models over six months. It found that in heart attacks that result in bleeding within the heart muscle—which is about half of them—scar tissue is slowly replaced by fat. Fatty tissue can’t push blood from the heart effectively, and this is what leads to heart failure and eventually to death in many survivors of hemorrhagic heart attacks, Dharmakumar said. “Using noninvasive imaging, histology and molecular biology techniques, and various other technologies, we have shown that iron, link here from red blood cells, link here is what drives this process,” he explained. “When we removed the iron, we reduced the amount of fat in the heart muscle. This finding establishes a pathway for clinical investigations to remedy or mitigate the effects associated with iron in hemorrhagic myocardial infarction patients.” Dharmakumar’s team is currently testing iron chelation therapy, link here to do just that in a just-launched clinical trial.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2039.mp3" length="884492" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Young age, instead of old, is now a risk factor for stroke…even without predisposing conditions</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2037</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2037</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2022 17:40:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2037

Just a week or so ago I did a post on the unfolding epidemic of cancer in the young. Just 20 years ago, most cancers were seen in people over 50 years of age and the strongest predictive factor for developing cancer was age itself. That link has now been reversed and the older generations are enjoying both lower incidence of cancer and lower death rates from cancer, while the exact opposite has become the norm for people younger than 40. The study below now adds stroke to the risk of morbidities, for which age now forms and inverse relationship. Namely, stroke rates have decreased in the old and increased in the young, and this finding remains after controlling for all co-morbidities known to be associated with or predisposing one to strokes – i.e. diabetes, CVD, obesity, smoking, drinking, etc.

link here

“…Results  A total of 2429 incident strokes were ascertained (mean age, 73.6 [SD, 14.4] years; 51.3% female). From 2002-2010 to 2010-2018, stroke incidence increased significantly among participants younger than 55 years (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.67; 95% CI, 1.31-2.14) but fell significantly among participants aged 55 years or older (IRR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.78-0.92; P < .001 for difference). The significant increase in incidence at younger than 55 years was independent of sex, stroke severity, pathological subtype, and changes in investigation and was also seen for TIA (IRR, 1.87; 95% CI, 1.36-2.57) but not for myocardial infarction and other major vascular events (IRR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.58-0.93). Although TIA and stroke at younger than 55 years were significantly associated with diabetes (risk ratio [RR], 3.47; 95% CI, 2.54-4.74), hypertension (RR, 2.52; 95% CI, 2.04-3.12), current smoking (RR, 2.38; 95% CI, 1.92-2.94), and obesity (RR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.07-1.72), the significant increase in incidence from 2002-2010 to 2010-2018 was still seen in individuals without these risk factors. The increase was greatest in professional/managerial occupations (IRR, 2.52; 95% CI, 1.75-3.62) and least in partially skilled/unskilled occupations (IRR, 1.17; 95% CI, 0.79-1.74). The proportion of TIAs and strokes among those younger than 55 years without known vascular risk factors increased significantly over time (45 [30.4%] vs 115 [42.4%]; absolute difference, 12.0%; 95% CI, 2.6-21.5), especially in patients with cryptogenic events (10 [18.5%] vs 63 [49.2%]; absolute difference, 30.7%; 95% CI, 17.2-44.2; P < .001; P = .002 for heterogeneity).

Conclusions and Relevance  Comparing persons living in Oxfordshire, England, in 2002-2010 vs 2010-2018, there was a significant increase in stroke incidence in those younger than 55 years, but a decrease in those aged 55 years or older. Given the absence of this divergence for other vascular events, further research is needed to understand the causes of this difference.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2037.mp3" length="421532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Gut bacteria causes rheumatoid arthritis (RA)…and likely all other “autoimmune” conditions</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2035</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2035</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2022 17:28:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2035

After decades of fraudulent theories on the origins and development of RA, the study below seems to finally admit the obvious – RA is not an “autoimmune” disorder but simply the body producing antibodies to specific pathogens found mostly in the gut, which, however, have managed to translocate to the joints of RA patients due to those patients’ compromised gut barrier. Yes, just like that, open admission that one of the most common “autoimmune” conditions is not what has been claimed for many decades. However, despite this admission of microbiome involvement, medicine is apparently still not ready to look at the obvious and true cure – antibiotics. The authors go out of their way to perform mental acrobatics and deny that antibiotics would be therapeutic. Saying things like “but, but, but, antibiotics kill both “good” and bad bacteria, which will do more harm than good” (a pure, unadulterated lie as there are no “good” gut bacteria), or “but, but, but even if you kill the pathogenic bacteria there is no guarantee that the antibody response will disappear” (really?? and where is the evidence it won’t disappear?? why not just try it??), or “but, but, but maybe there is still some sort of “autoimmune” component we don’t know about so we should not try antibiotics before we know for sure” (how much longer should we work on this fake hypothesis?? another 50 years??). Frankly, I am amazed at the length some doctors would go to defend a fraudulent theory that has produced no true cures, and slowly but surely destroys both the quality of life and the long-term health of RA patients. Oh, and lest we forget, considering now even mainstream medicine has stated ALL “autoimmune” conditions are likely the same underlying disease, with varying tissue-specific manifestations, the findings of the study below may be applicable to ALL other “autoimmune” conditions such as lupus, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, Hashimoto’s, Graves disease, dermatomyositis, Addison’s, etc. And, last but not least, if bacteria is THE cause of “autoimmune” conditions then suppressing the patient’s immune system is probably one of the worst possible “therapies”. Yet, that is exactly what all of the current “treatments” for RA and other “autoimmune” conditions do. Whether it is potent, synthetic glucocorticoids or TNF-blockers, or IL-6 antagonists, or some other selective abominable immunosuppressive chemical – any patient with an “autoimmune” condition is always between a rock and a hard place when it comes to choosing a course of treatment, when in reality a simple course of antibiotics may often cure their disease for good.

3 links here

“…Specifically, we wondered if bacteria in the microbiome, link here, a community of microorganisms that live in the intestines, might be the ones activating the immune response that leads to rheumatoid arthritis. Since microbes commonly live at the same sites as the antibodies driving rheumatoid arthritis, we hypothesized that these bacteria could be triggering the production of these antibodies. We reasoned that though these antibodies were meant to attack the bacteria, rheumatoid arthritis develops when they spread beyond the intestines to attack the joints. First, we sought to identify the intestinal bacteria targeted by these antibodies. To do this, we exposed the bacteria in the feces of a subset of people at risk for developing rheumatoid arthritis to these antibodies, allowing us to isolate just the bacterial species that reacted and bound to the antibodies. We found that one previously unknown species of bacteria was present in the intestines of around 20% of people who were either diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis or produce the antibodies that cause the disease. As a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, I suggested we name this species Subdoligranulum didolesgii (“didolesgii” means arthritis or rheumatism in Cherokee) as a nod to the contributions that other Indigenous scholars have made to science as well as the fact that rheumatoid arthritis affects Indigenous people, link here at a higher rate than other populations. Subdoligranulum didolesgii has not been detected in the feces of healthy people before, and it is currently unknown how prevalent this bacteria is in the general population. We also found that these bacteria can activate specialized immune cells called T cells in people with rheumatoid arthritis. T cells drive inflammatory responses in the body, and have been linked to the development of different autoimmune diseases, link here. These findings suggest that these gut bacteria may be activating the immune systems of people with rheumatoid arthritis. But instead of attacking the bacteria, their immune system attacks the joints.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2035.mp3" length="1255148" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>NSAID drugs, except aspirin, linked to heart failure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2033</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2033</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2022 16:51:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2033

The link between NSAID usage (except aspirin) and heart attacks is not new, but I decided to still post this study due to the fact that it is the first to suggest those non-aspirin NSAID may actually damage the heart themselves rather than cause CVD events indirectly. Notably, once again, aspirin is missing from this list and this uniqueness of aspirin’s benefits was recently also seen in a COVID-19 study as well, where only aspirin did not increase mortality risk in COVID-19 patients. So, whatever aspirin does, it is beneficial for many conditions while the synthetic, selective COX inhibitors prescribed by doctors like candy have once again been proven to be dangerous.

link here

“…The current study10, link here, presented at the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona, Spain, demonstrated that short-term use of NSAIDs is associated with heart failure in individuals with Type 2 diabetes.11, link hereThe scientists wrote12, link here that a previous association had been made between NSAIDs and an increased risk of heart failure in the general population.13, link here 14, link here They sought to determine if using NSAIDs with Type 2 diabetes could increase the risk of heart failure, given that people with Type 2 diabetes have twice the risk of heart failure without using NSAIDs.15, link hereThe researchers included 331,189 participants whose average age was 62 years. Those who used NSAIDs claimed to have prescriptions of ibuprofen, diclofenac, naproxen, and celecoxib.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2033.mp3" length="368108" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) – a reliable biomarker of cardiovascular disease (CVD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2031</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2031</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2022 16:33:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2031

It looks like more and more medical groups are waking up to the important role LPS plays in many chronic diseases. In the body, LPS is transported back to the liver for processing/excretion by the so-called lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP), link here and by measuring serum levels of LBP, one can get an idea of the LPS exposure the patient has. The higher the LBP levels are, the more LPS is likely present in their blood and peripheral tissues. The study below discovered that LBP level is an independent, predictive biomarker of a future CVD event as well as severity of already established CVD. While LBP is not a very common test ordered by doctors, it is available at most major testing labs and should not be very difficult to order through a doctor of directly though the self-testing online labs that have become popular recently. It is also worth noting that previous studies have found LBP to be a predictive biomarker for AIDS mortality, as well as mortality from the “flu” and other viral diseases. This suggests that LBP may be a good biomarker for COVID-19 development as well.

link here

Cardiovascular Events and Lipopolysaccharide-binding Protein Levels in Hemodialysis Patients, link here

“…The analysis comprised 360 hemodialysis patients in total. About 90 patients (25.0%) had cardiovascular events after a median follow-up of 3.1 years. Independent of age, sex, hypertension, diabetes, CVD, vintage of dialysis, body mass index, non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, albumin, phosphorus, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, and interleukin-6, patients in the upper tertile of serum LBP levels had a significantly higher risk of cardiovascular events [hazard ratio (HR) 4.87; 95% CI, 2.12-11.15] than those in the lower tertile. Whether competing risk of mortality was taken into consideration (subdistribution HR 4.87; 95% CI, 1.96-12.11 for upper vs. lower tertiles) or serum LBP was examined as a continuous variable (HR 1.30; 95% CI, 1.02-1.66 per 1 SD increase), the connection persisted. In hemodialysis patients, serum LBP levels were independently related to cardiovascular events. A new biomarker for CVD in ESKD may be LBP.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2031.mp3" length="617012" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fasting/exercise decreases androgens, increases aldosterone (and possibly cortisol/estrogens) in women</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2023</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2023</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 27 Oct 2022 01:58:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2023

I often get criticized that I rely too much on animal studies, so here is a human one that should give the proponents of caloric restriction / fasting a pause. Even a short fast (24-48 hours) resulted in decreased androgen synthesis in women, while increasing aldosterone. In general, fasting seemed to increase levels of precursors such as pregnenolone and progesterone, and depress all other downstream hormones except aldosterone. According to the authors, this effect is due to fasting inhibiting the activity of the enzymes 17,21-lyase, which is the rate-limiting step in the synthesis of androgens. Since estrogens are also part of this pathway, one would expect estrogen levels to decline. However, the study found a tendency of increased aromatase activity (and thus estrogen), though the effects did not reach statistical significance. The same non-significant, but clear, trend for increase was seen for activity of 11b-HSD1, suggesting fasting may increase cortisol as well. In corroboration, exhaustive exercise, which mimics fasting in terms of biochemical effects was also found to decrease intracellular levels of androgens (first link below).

5 links here

“…Fasting did not change overall steroidogenesis, although it increased progestogen production and lowered relative mineralocorticoid, glucocorticoid, and androgen production. The largest decrease in urine metabolites was seen for β-cortol, dehydroepiandrosterone, and androstenediol; higher levels were found for pregnanediol in urine and progesterone and aldosterone in serum. Activity of 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase (CYP17A1), essential for androgen biosynthesis, was decreased after fasting in healthy women as were 21-hydroxylase (CYP21A2) and 5α-reductase activities. By contrast, hydroxysteroid 11-beta dehydrogenase 1 (HSD11B1) activity for cortisol activation seemed to increase with fasting.”

“…This prospective study was set up to enhance our understanding of the interplay between energy homeostasis and steroid metabolism in healthy young women during a 48-hour fasting period. Previous studies in women with abnormal metabolic states and in vitro cell model data revealed different changes but led us to hypothesize that a short period of fasting might induce a hyperandrogenic state in healthy women. However, our study did not confirm this hypothesis. After fasting, healthy women produced more steroid precursors but (relatively) less end-products of all steroid pathways, especially androgens. This seemed regulated by an inhibitory effect of fasting on the steroid enzyme activities of CYP17A1 and SRD5A (5α-reductase) essential for glucocorticoid and androgen biosynthesis (Fig. 3, link here); an inhibitory effect on CYP21A2 remained unclear.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2023.mp3" length="626420" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low testosterone (T) may drive kidney and liver disease (NAFLD) in men</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2019</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2019</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 Oct 2022 17:55:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2019

As many of my readers know, the “normal” range for T has been changed multiple times over the last several decades and each new iteration shifts both the lower and upper limit of the “normal” range downwards. In other words, a male with serum T in the 300 range would be considered “healthy” by current standards, while the same results would have been considered severe hypogonadism back in the 1960s when the normal range for serum T was roughly 500 ng/dL – 1,100 ng/dL. This is one of many trick mainstream medicine has adopted to both conceal the fact that its treatments often harm rather than help patients, while also concealing the drastic decline in general health due to various environmental assaults such as pollution and toxic diet. Yet, as the studies below demonstrate, even the artificially lowered “normal” range for serum T cannot conceal the fact that low T is a causal factor in many chronic diseases that have become extremely common over the last several decades, especially liver and kidney disease. The studies below were in males but I think a similar conclusion can be derived for females and DHEA, since in them intracellular T is synthesized predominantly from DHEA. As such, DHEA and/or DHEA-S levels in women would probably have similar predictive power for those conditions, as serum T in males.

link here

“…Results: The risk of NAFLD decreased as total testosterone concentration increased in men with T2DM. After adjusting for age, current smoking, current drinking, body mass index, duration of T2DM, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio, uric acid, C-reactive protein, and sex hormones in model 4, the adjusted odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of NAFLD for tertile3 vs tertile1 was 0.37 (0.17-0.77; P = 0.024 for trend). When taken as a continuous variable, this association was still robust in model 4 (OR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.42-0.80; P < 0.05). No significant associations were found between increasing levels of the precursors of androgens and the odds of NAFLD in men with T2DM (all P > 0.05). Moreover, women showed no significant associations of total testosterone, androstenedione, DHEA, and DHEAS, with the odds of NAFLD (all P > 0.05)….Serum total testosterone was independently associated with the risk of NAFLD among men with T2DM. This study highlights the potential role of testosterone as a risk factor for NAFLD in patients with T2DM.”

link here

“…Results: No randomized-controlled trials that met the inclusion criteria were identified. One study was conducted in the general population and reported an increased risk of incident CKD with low vs normal testosterone (hazard ratio (HR): 1.38, 95% CI: 1.05;1.80). Seven studies were conducted in men with CKD and included testosterone as determinant, of which six could be meta-analyzed. Low testosterone was associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality and CV events (pooled HR: 1.98, 95% CI: 1.36;2.89; pooled HR of 2.40, 95% CI: 1.22;4.71, respectively). Two studies showed an increased risk of all-cause mortality with decreased dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) in men with CKD; results regarding CV events were conflicting…Although literature is scarce, evidence suggests that lower testosterone may increase CKD risk in the general population and risk of all-cause mortality and CV events in men with CKD. Whether testosterone supplementation could prevent these potential detrimental outcomes should be determined in future intervention studies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2019.mp3" length="683996" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:34</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, cancer are bioenergetic diseases; PUFA may be the cause</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2015</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2015</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 Oct 2022 17:27:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2015

The bad news for PUFA (in this case linoleic acid) just keep piling on. At this point, there is hardly a chronic condition out there that has not been linked to elevated PUFA and/or their peroxidation products. The first study below makes the argument that PUFA peroxidation byproducts (created by the increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) itself driven by PUFA) such as 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE), link here, are the cause of diabetes and cancer. In fact, the study makes the argument that the two conditions are basically slightly different points on the same spectrum of systemic disease (i.e. cancer being the more severe one). The second study is more experimental in nature and demonstrates that cells of Alzheimer Disease (AD) patients have lower mitochondrial function and the two factors most highly associated with such decline in OXPHOS on those patients are low glycocholic acid, link here and high PUFA (linoleic acid). The authors of the second study also try to make the claim that it is the tendency of PUFA metabolism to elevate ROS (resulting in peroxidation of said PUFA), that is mainly to blame for its role in AD. However, as my readers know quite well, the elevated ROS and peroxides are only a small part of the “sickness field” PUFA generates. It is their endocrine effects (mimicking estrogen/cortisol and opposing androgens/progesterone) and physical properties (i.e. making the cell more hydrophilic) that are probably much more important for their pathological role in virtually any chronic (and acute – e.g. COVID-19) condition. One way or another, the “genie is out of the bottle” and PUFA is probably going to be recognized in the not too distant future as a true weapon of mass destruction.

link here

“…Having summarized the above aspects of diabetes and cancer pathology, we propose that the major bioactive product of oxidative degradation of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), the reactive aldehyde 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE), which is also considered a second messenger of free radicals, may be the key pathogenic factor linking diabetes and cancer.

“…Because the bioactivities of 4-HNE are cell-type and concentration-dependent, are often associated with inflammation, and are involved in signaling processes that regulate antioxidant activities, proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis, we believe that further research in this direction could reveal options for better control of diabetes and cancer. Controlling the production of 4-HNE to avoid its cytotoxicity to normal but not cancer cells while preventing its diabetogenic activities could be an important aspect of modern integrative biomedicine.”

link here

“…Mitochondrial alterations occur in the brain and peripheral cells of patients with AD, suggesting systemic bioenergetic decline associated with disease progression. Based on this premise we hypothesized that non-cellular circulating factors, present in plasma, can drive bioenergetic differences based on the cognitive status of older adults. In this study, we demonstrate that both circulating PBMCs, as well as naïve N2a cells exposed to plasma, exhibit lower bioenergetic capacities in DEM compared to NC participants. By combining PBMC and N2a bioenergetic data with lipidomic data, we were able to identify two lipids that have the potential to be “mito-active” and are differentially expressed between NC and DEM cohorts.”

“…Another molecule meeting both selection criteria is linoleic acid (LA). Our analyses indicate that LA is increased in the DEM group compared to the NC and MCI groups and is negatively correlated with three cognitive scores. LA is an essential polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid found in a variety of foods but is especially prevalent in soybean oil, nuts, seed, meat, and eggs. Although linoleic acid is found in many nutrient rich foods and is associated with positive health outcomes, it is also highly abundant in processed foods that use soybean oil, therefore and elevated consumption may not always be associated with a health. As our cohort is expected to primarily consume a western diet, this is of particular importance to consider. LA is blood-brain-barrier penetrable, however, most of the LA that enters the brain is not converted to AA (DeMar et al., 2006, link here; Chen et al., 2008, link here). Roughly 59% of LA transported into the brain is broken down by fatty acid β-oxidation and results in metabolites that are likely products of the TCA cycle (DeMar et al., 2006, link here). Fatty acid β-oxidation is not the preferred pathway to generate energy in the brain due to elevated ROS production, against which neurons have poor defenses (Chen et al., 2014, link here). Excessive ROS production is detrimental to mitochondrial function and could be a way that LA plays a role in decreased bioenergetic function in AD. Other studies have also found that lowering LA consumption attenuates migraine symptoms, increases anti-inflammatory metabolites, and reduces pro-inflammatory eicosanoids derived from AA (Lin et al., 2015, link here; Ramsden et al., 2015, link here; Taha et al., 2018, link here). As LA crosses the blood-brain barrier, has a potential mechanism of impairment toward CNS cells, and decreased consumption is thought to reduce inflammation and relieve CNS symptoms, this indicates that LA is also an ideal target for further investigation into potential bioenergetic effects and as a potential mediator of dementia-related bioenergetic decline.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2015.mp3" length="897308" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Impaired OXPHOS by high ketones drives heart failure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2013</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2013</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 Oct 2022 16:50:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2013

Just a few weeks after my post on how excessive fatty acid oxidation (FAO) drives cancer, below is another great new study, which corroborates once again the hypothesis that excessive FAO (and/or fatty acid supply into the mitochondria of the cell) result in impaired OXPHOS and organ damage. This hypothesis was the rationale behind the creation of the drug Meldonium (Mildronate), link here, and the drug’s only official approval/indication remains the treatment of heart conditions. As the study below demonstrates, impaired OXPHOS is driven by a deficiency of one of the Krebs Cycle co-factors known as succinyl-CoA. It is synthesized from succinic acid and coenzyme A (CoA). In general, a deficiency of any of the intermediates of the Krebs Cycle results in a dysfunction of the entire cycle and subsequently dysfunction in the electron transport chain (ETC) complexes too. Since Krebs+ETC comprise OXPHOS, the latter as a whole is inhibited. Besides being a Krebs Cycle intermediate, succinyl-CoA is also a precursor to heme. The study suspects that the deficiency of succinyl-CoA is driven by either increased requirements for heme synthesis (a relatively minor consumer pathway of succinyl-CoA) or increased consumption of succinyl-CoA in the process of breaking down ketones. The latter option is much more likely given the extensive evidence demonstrating increased ketone levels in malfunctioning organs, and especially the heart. The authors decided to treat the deficiency of succinyl-C0A by administering 5-aminolevulinate, link here – another precursor to heme that circumvents succinyl-CoA and thus spares it. This regimen was beneficial but did not fully prevent/reverse the damage of the heart muscle. Considering that the main process of heart failure is driven by ketone accumulation, providing exogenous succinate (which can then be used for both the heme and ketone pathways) seems to be a much better option. Moreover, succinate is an inhibitor, link here (Table I, item #8) of the enzyme BBOX, link here (which synthesizes L-carnitine) and this is the same mechanism of action as the drug Meldonium mentioned above. Another beneficial approach, perhaps even preferable to exogenous succinate, is to limit the supply of ketones to the organs. Since ketones are synthesized from fat in periods of glucose deficiency and/or increased lipolysis, it seems rather prudent to avoid low-carb and/or high-fat diets, as well as avoid stress as it increases lipolysis. In terms of supplements, niacinamide and/or aspirin seem particular applicable since both of them inhibit excessive lipolysis and can also decrease excessive FAO.

2 links here

“…Chronic heart failure causes the cell’s powerhouses to malfunction, in part due to overconsumption of an important intermediary compound in energy production. Supplementing the diet to compensate for this could prove a promising strategy for treating heart failure. The findings were published in the journal PNAS by Hokkaido University scientists and colleagues in Japan. Mitochondria are small organelles found in almost every cell and are responsible for converting carbohydrates, fats and proteins into energy to power biochemical reactions, link here. Chronic heart failure is known to be associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, link here, but much is still unknown about how this happens at the molecular level.”

“…They found a significant reduction in a compound called succinyl-CoA, which is an intermediary in the cell’s tricarboxylic acid cycle. This cycle, which happens inside mitochondria, link here, plays an important role in breaking down organic molecules, link here to release energy. Further investigations revealed that this reduction of succinyl-CoA levels was at least in part caused by its overconsumption for the synthesis of heme, which is essential for mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation. This latter process is needed for transferring and synthesizing energy-carrying and storage molecules by mitochondria. Adding a compound called 5-aminolevulinate acid (5-ALA) to the drinking water of mice immediately after cutting off the blood supply to part of the heart significantly improved their heart function, treadmill running capacity and survival. At the molecular level, link here, it improved the oxidative phosphorylation capacity of heart muscle mitochondria and appeared to restore their succinyl-CoA levels. Further research is needed to clarify other factors involved in reducing mitochondrial succinyl-CoA levels in heart failure. For example, the scientists found evidence that succinyl-CoA may also be overconsumed in heart failure-affected mitochondria in order to break down ketones as a source of energy. But more investigations are needed to understand why this might happen and whether there really is a direct link between the two.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2013.mp3" length="1285292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A global epidemic of cancer in the young</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2011</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2011</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 18:43:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2011

I did a post about 2 years ago where I stated that “the young have now become the old” – i.e. that people under 40 now have the same diseases as people 20-30 years older. At the time, I was ridiculed for my fear-mongering, but now even CNN has stated the exact same thing. The “good” news is that this cancer pandemic should definitively prove to even the most die-hard genetic oncologists that cancer is NOT a genetic disease. Second, even metabolic diseases cannot really become a pandemic in even a single country, let alone the entire world, in just a few years. Don’t pay attention to the claims that improved diagnostic procedures are behind the increased rates. This is a common lie that medicine has used since at least the 1980s to explain rising rates of many chronic and deadly conditions. If the improved detection was the reason we would have seen a decline in age-specific cancer-related death rates (due to early diagnosis/treatment). Yet, those death rates are skyrocketing. Which brings me to the following “conspiratorial” thought. What unprecedented event happened in the last few years that had not occurred in over 100 years? I leave the answer to that question to my readers, but when even the wife of the POTUS starts making claims of impending cancer epidemic (second link below), before the cancer pandemic study was even published, it makes one question the remarkable prescience of our leaders. Hint: All of the lab animals that got mRNA COVID-19 vaccines got cancer, and it was 100% lethal.

3 links here

“…A new review, link here of cancer registry records from 44 countries found that the incidence of early-onset cancers is rising rapidly for colorectal and 13 other types of cancers, many of which affect the digestive system, and this increase is happening across many middle- and high-income nations. The review’s authors say the upswing in younger adults in happening in part because of more sensitive testing for some cancer types, such as thyroid cancer. But testing doesn’t completely account for the trend, says co-author Shuji Ogino, a professor of pathology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.”

“…The younger you are, the higher the risk: Ogino’s review found something called a cohort effect, meaning the risk of an early-onset cancer has increased for each successive group of people born at a later time. Those born the 1990s have a higher risk of developing an early-onset cancer in their lifetime than those born in the 1980s, for example.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2011.mp3" length="732596" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Exposure to even ultra-low dose of RoundUp causes kidney/liver damage</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2009</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2009</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 18:14:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2009

So much for the official statement by Monsanto that RoundUp (glyphosate) is so safe that a person can drink a glass full of it and there would be no ill effects. They even sent their lawyer to a famous TV show to make the same claims, but that lawyer became berserk when the show host poured him a glass of the herbicide and asked him to drink it. As usual, it is the old mantra of “do as I say, not as I do”. Well, if the study below is any indication, even extremely low daily doses of RoundUp – 10-100 times lower than what an average Western human is exposed to daily – can result in liver and kidney damage. That would mean the usual recommendations by USDA to thoroughly wash produce as a way of eliminating the risks of RoundUp exposure are at best bunk, and at worst a mockery, considering the revolving door between EPA/USDA agencies and Monsanto. I suppose eating organic produce might be one way to avoid/mitigate the risks of RoundUp exposure, but considering how minute the quantities used in the study were, I suspect any store carrying both organic and non-organic certified produce at the same physical premises might end up contaminating the organic produce sufficiently that it can match the exposure levels used in the study below. IMO, it is way overdue that RoundUp is simply banned, similar to the (in)famous chemical DDT, which was also claimed to be very “safe” for years before finally getting the axe when the lawsuits associated with its toxicities became too big to ignore. If exposure to even minute amounts of RoundUp is unavoidable, it may help to at least try to mitigate its effects. Most of the negative effects of RoundUp are associated with its activity as antagonist on the glycine receptor. Thus supplementation with several grams daily of agonists of that receptor may help mitigate the damage. Glycine agonists include glycine (duh), taurine, and beta alanine. So, generous servings of gelatin, seafood (rich in both glycine and taurine), or even an occasional RedBul may all contribute to mitigate the damage from this ubiquitous poison.

2 links here

“…The expression of 4224 and 4447 transcript clusters (a group of probes corresponding to a known or putative gene) were found to be altered respectively in liver and kidney (p < 0.01, q < 0.08). Changes in gene expression varied from −3.5 to 3.7 fold in liver and from −4.3 to 5.3 in kidneys. Among the 1319 transcript clusters whose expression was altered in both tissues, ontological enrichment in 3 functional categories among 868 genes were found. First, genes involved in mRNA splicing and small nucleolar RNA were mostly upregulated, suggesting disruption of normal spliceosome activity. Electron microscopic analysis of hepatocytes confirmed nucleolar structural disruption. Second, genes controlling chromatin structure (especially histone-lysine N-methyltransferases) were mostly upregulated. Third, genes related to respiratory chain complex I and the tricarboxylic acid cycle were mostly downregulated. Pathway analysis suggests a modulation of the mTOR and phosphatidylinositol signalling pathways. Gene disturbances associated with the chronic administration of ultra-low dose Roundup reflect a liver and kidney lipotoxic condition and increased cellular growth that may be linked with regeneration in response to toxic effects causing damage to tissues. Observed alterations in gene expression were consistent with fibrosis, necrosis, phospholipidosis, mitochondrial membrane dysfunction and ischemia, which correlate with and thus confirm observations of pathology made at an anatomical, histological and biochemical level. Our results suggest that chronic exposure to a GBH in an established laboratory animal toxicity model system at an ultra-low, environmental dose can result in liver and kidney damage with potential significant health implications for animal and human populations.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2009.mp3" length="972836" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Disrupting mitochondrial function can cause severe anemia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2007</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2007</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 17:49:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2007

Most doctors consider anemia mostly an iron-related issue, despite the fact that iron supplementation often fails to correct the condition, even in people with true iron deficiency anemia (e.g. low iron saturation index, low ferritin, high transferin). The role of bioenergetics is rarely considered, even when there is evidence of impaired red blood cell generation/renewal and the fact that hemoglobin production depends on thyroid (and androgens). The study below demonstrates that disrupting the function/division of mitochondria or removing it altogether (which fully blocks ability for OXPHOS) is sufficient to cause a very severe anemia that is not amenable to treatments with iron. The findings of the study corroborate studies conducted before the 1950s, which demonstrated that giving patients with cancer (who had almost always have severe anemia) glandular thyroid resulted in the resolution of the anemia, and often full remission of the cancer too.

2 links here

“…In a study published in September in Pharmacological Research, researchers from the University of Tsukuba have revealed that disrupting mitochondrial function, link here and dynamics causes anemia through at least two distinct mechanisms. Bone marrow harbors blood, link here cell precursors called hematopoietic stem cells, link here (HSCs) that eventually form all types of blood cells. During this differentiation process, the HSCs rely increasingly on mitochondria, link here for energy, and the mitochondria undergo characteristic changes in shape that reflect this process.”

“…”The results were strikingly clear,” states Ishikawa. “Both the mito-miceΔ model and the Drp1 KO model exhibited anemia, and mice with both mutations had even more severe anemia, demonstrating the key role that both of these factors play in hematopoiesis.” The mito-miceΔ model showed cytoplasmic vacuoles in marrow precursor cells, link here, while the Drp1 KO model showed increased T cell, granulocyte, and macrophage counts and decreased B cell and bone marrow cell counts. In addition, both mutations were associated with abnormal iron metabolism. “Taken together, our findings suggest that mitochondrial respiration, link here and morphology play key, yet distinct, roles in hematopoietic differentiation,” states Ishikawa.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2007.mp3" length="471212" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin as effective as heparin for preventing blood clots</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2005</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2005</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 17:19:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2005

Mainstream medicine makes no secret of its intense hate for aspirin. That humble drug has been the subject of countless articles of propaganda (many of them ghostwritten), with the goal of driving doctors towards eliminating aspirin from their practice. One of the most “sensitive” areas of aspirin’s influence over the medical field has been blood clotting. Despite multiple smaller studies demonstrating the effectiveness of aspirin in prevention of clots (which is what led to its usage for heart attack prevention in the first place), medicine kept insisting that other options such as the pro-calcification, rat poison heparin or the newer, fraudulently-approved drugs such as Xarelto are much “better” and “safer” options. Well, the largest study to date comparing aspirin to heparin (the gold standard in anti-clot treatment) has just been published and the results are clear. Aspirin is at least as effective as heparin for clot prevention, and likely safer at that too.

link here

“…Patients who have surgery to repair bone fractures typically receive a type of injectable blood thinner, low-molecular-weight heparin, to prevent life-threatening blood clots, but a new clinical trial found that over-the-counter aspirin is just as effective. The findings, presented today at the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) annual meeting in Tampa, FL, could cause surgeons to change their practice and administer aspirin instead to these patients. The multi-center randomized clinical trial of more than 12,000 patients at 21 trauma centers in the U.S. and Canada, is the largest-ever trial in orthopedic trauma patients. The trial was co-led by the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and the Major Extremity Trauma Research Consortium (METRC) based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2005.mp3" length="465116" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Being Sad and Lonely Accelerates Aging More Than Smoking</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2003</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2003</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 17:03:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2003

The title is the same as the one of the popular press article. And since feelings of sadness and loneliness are primarily caused by elevated serotonin, we can add premature aging to the list of “benefits” serotonin offers. The findings of this study probably explain a great deal of the premature aging seen in people with chronic usage of SSRI drugs. Premature greying is another symptom of using such drugs (and is a symptom of accelerated aging) and multiple studies have already demonstrated links between stress / low metabolism (other promoters of serotonin) and greying, which further corroborates the role of serotonin in the aging process.

link here

Being Sad and Lonely Accelerates Aging More Than Smoking, link here

“…Aging acceleration was detected in people with a history of stroke, liver and lung diseases, smokers, and most intriguingly, people in a vulnerable mental state. In fact, feeling unhappy, hopeless, and lonely was demonstrated to increase one’s biological age more than smoking. Living in a rural area (due to the low availability of medical services) and being single are two additional factors associated with an accelerated aging process.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2003.mp3" length="371300" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) may drive kidney damage in diabetes type II</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=2001</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=2001</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 16:50:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=2001

Not much of a news, but I like adding to the, already big, pile of evidence that endotoxin/LPS is a major causal factor in virtually all chronic conditions that continue to mystify medicine. Since the study below mentions the compromised intestinal barrier in diabetes patients, interventions such as gelatin, magnesium, niacinamide, saturated fat, etc may help as those are all known to help restore the gut barrier.

link here

“…Results: hs-CRP, IL-6, LPS, DLA, DAO, and TLR4 were markedly increased in subjects with T2DM compared to the controls (P < 0.05 for all). Moreover, LPS was positively correlated with FBG, HbA1c, hs-CRP, IL-6, UAER, DLA, DAO, and TLR4 (P < 0.05 for all). In addition, TLR4 was positively correlated with UAER, hs-CRP, FBG, DLA, HbA1c, and LPS (P < 0.05 for all). In regression analyses, TLR4, LPS, HbA1c, and hs-CRP were independently associated with UAER (P < 0.05 for all), while FBG, LPS, TLR4, and hs-CRP (P < 0.05 for all) were found to be risk factors for microalbuminuria in T2DM. Conclusion: Intestinal integrity is compromised in subjects with T2DM, and the activation of LPS-TLR4 signaling might play an important role in the development of microalbuminuria in T2DM.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-2001.mp3" length="242348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA damages mitochondria, blocks mitophagy, leads to heart damage</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1999</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1999</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 16:43:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1999

I can’t get access to the full study text, so the comments I have here are based only on the abstract of the study below. However, even just the abstract is sufficient to demonstrate once again the dangers of PUFA. Despite the study not calling PUFA out directly, it does mention lard as the food used to achieve the negative effects suggested by the title. Since lard, especially in grain-fed pigs (vast majority of them), is 40%-60% PUFA, I think the title is a good match to the study’s findings. Namely, when mitochondria in adipocytes are damaged by oxidative (actually, reductive) stress (which, btw, is also caused by PUFA), they are usually transferred to macrophages co-present in adipocytes for processing and disposal. The study shows that consumption of high-PUFA diet (in the form of lard) blocks this proper disposal of damaged mitochondria and instead redirects those mitochondrial debris to the heart (and other organs). We already know that mitochondrial debris in the bloodstream cause an inflammatory reaction with subsequent activation of HPA axis and even “autoimmunity” state, and we also know that accumulation of such debris in organs leads to a chronic inflammatory reaction, fibrosis, and ultimately cancer in the specific organ(s) of accumulation. Interestingly, when the animals were fed a high-carb/low-fat diet, or a diet in which most of the fats were derived from hydrogenated coconut oil the blockage of mitochondrial disposal and subsequent accumulation of debris in the heart was not observed. In fact, not even aging was sufficient to lead to the pro-inflammatory effects of PUFA! This is another piece of evidence strongly suggesting that it was PUFA in the lard that was the pathogenic factor, since coconut oil contains very little PUFA. The study claims that coconut oil contains only medium-chain fats, but that is not correct as that oil contains stearic, oleic, palmitic, and myristic fatty acids and they are all long-chain SFA/MUFA fats. However, in hydrogenate coconut oil (which is what the study used), the oleic and linoleic acids naturally present in coconut oil are fully saturated and end up as stearic acid, which adds to the already present stearic acid in natural coconut oil. In other words, fully hydrogenated coconut oil contains 100% SFA and its composition is similar to the one of butter, and approximately opposite to the one of lard. In summary, dietary PUFA damages mitochondria (through “oxidative” stress), blocks the proper processing/excretion of the damaged mitochondria and redirects those mitochondrial debris to the blood and ultimately the heart (and other organs) with a resulting state of chronic inflammation and ultimately organ damage/cancer, and this is a pathological effect that even aging cannot match!

link here

“…The heparan sulfate–dependent transfer of mitochondria from adipocytes to resident macrophages in adipose tissue promotes metabolic homeostasis. This process is disrupted by a high-fat diet, which induces the systemic release of oxidatively damaged mitochondria from adipocytes that are taken up by the heart. Borcherding et al. found that a diet enriched in long-chain fatty acids promoted this diversion of mitochondria from adipose tissue macrophages to the heart. Analysis of mice expressing an adipocyte-specific mitochondrial reporter revealed that mitochondria were transferred not only to macrophages but also to other cell types in adipose tissue, such as endothelial cells and neutrophils, in a tissue-specific manner. Mitochondrial transfer from adipocytes to other cell types, in particular to macrophages, was reduced by a high-fat diet based on lard, which consists of long-chain fatty acids. Treatment of BV2 macrophage-like cells with long-chain fatty acids decreased the uptake of purified mitochondria and the biomass of the mitochondria that were taken up. Long-chain fatty acids inhibited a heparan sulfate–dependent mechanism of mitochondrial uptake by macrophages. In mice, feeding with the lard-based, high-fat diet increased the release of adipocyte-derived mitochondria into the circulation and the appearance of these mitochondria in heart tissue. These effects of the lard-based, high-fat diet were not observed with a high-fat diet based on hydrogenated coconut oil (which consists primarily of medium-chain fatty acids), a high-sucrose or -cornstarch diet, or aging. Thus, dietary intake of long-chain fatty acids prevents macrophages in adipose tissue from taking up mitochondria released by adipocytes and redirects these mitochondria to be taken up by the heart.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1999.mp3" length="1320524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hypothyroidism, deficiency of calcium, vitamin D/B12 may cause hair graying</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1997</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1997</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 16:09:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1997

Yet another study/article that reports a link between bioenergetics and hair color. Premature graying has been one of the fastest-growing “epidemics” over the last 20 years in developed countries. While a connection with stress has been suggested by numerous studies, mainstream medicine has countered with the argument that “stress” is a non-specific term and cannot be formally listed as a cause of this condition. Besides, medicine says, most of hair graying is genetic in origin. Well, the studies discussed in the article below pours cold water on those claims as it found several crucial metabolic deficiencies in people with premature graying. Hypothyroidism is one of them and probably the “smoking gun” in regards to graying being metabolic/bioenergetic in origin. In addition, the study also found likely causal links between deficiencies in calcium, vitamins D/B12 and premature graying as well. All three of the substances also happen to play a crucial role in maintaining a proper metabolic rate.

link here

“…Trace element deficiencies such as vitamin B12, vitamin D3 and calcium may also be associated with premature hair greying. In an early body of research published in the International Journal of Trichology, researchers found that premature greying often coincided with low levels of vitamin D.”

“…In 2017, the Indian Journal of Dermatology published a study conducted on 71 cases of premature hair greying, defined as hair greying at the age of 25 and over. Patients’ records were retrieved, which provided details on several health parameters at the time that their hair started turning grey. Reports included information about anaemia, thyroid disorders, fasting blood glucose, and vitamin B12 levels…Hypovitaminosis B12 and hypothyroidism showed significant association with the disorder, whereas anaemia, serum ferritin and fasting blood glucose did not“, noted the researchers.”

“…Fortunately, hair pigmentation loss caused by nutritional deficiencies could be reversible. There is evidence that thyroid hormone may help reverse greying caused by autoimmune diseases like Hashimoto’s.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1997.mp3" length="538244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fatty acid oxidation – linking all illness (especially cancer) with stress and diet (fasting / low-carb)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1994</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1994</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Oct 2022 17:16:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1994

The study below is one perhaps the most comprehensive review published to date, challenging the medical dogma that cancer is a genetic/mutation disease. As the study aptly explains, the evidence, spanning as far back as Otto Warburg’s original work on this disease, is overwhelmingly in support of cancer being entirely metabolic in origin. Warburg stated that the metabolic defects seen in cancer are “irreversible”, but that does not mean they are of genetic origin! To the contrary – the accumulated evidence strongly suggests that any genetic mutations observed in “cancer” cells are secondary and downstream effects of those cells’ deranged metabolism. When Warburg said the metabolic changes are “irreversible”, apparently he meant that in a strictly “functional” context – i.e. irreversible for as long as the factor driving them is still present. Remove that factor and the “cancer” cells likely revert to normal behavior/metabolism. So, what is that mysterious prima causa of cancer, causing initially its functional derangement (e.g. Warburg Effect) and subsequently its structural changes (genetic mutations)? Well, as the article convincingly demonstrates, (excessive) fatty acid oxidation (FAO), also known as β-oxidation, through the reductive state (lowered mitochondrial NAD/NADH ratio) it leads to is both a necessary and sufficient factor for the initiation, growth and metastasizing of cancer. Thus, FAO is likely that prima causa medicine has been searching for more than century. Conversely, inhibiting FAO is likely the most promising avenue for truly curing that disease, and likely other metabolic (all?) diseases. Speaking of other diseases, as the study demonstrates, there does not seem to be some critical, specific threshold beyond which FAO becomes detrimental. The pathological effects of FAO are basically on a spectrum – the more it is increased the more reductive the redox state of the cell becomes, and the more deranged its metabolism becomes in desperate attempt to allow the cell to survive in this pseudo-hypoxic environment. As such, the “seeds” of cancer development can be seen even in states that medicine considers perfectly normal, and even desirable. Namely, glucose deprivation (through fasting and/or low-carb diets), acute/chronic stress (e.g. exhaustive exercise), or even administration of “beneficial” drugs such as metformin. Any activity or substance that shifts the so-called Randle Cycle, link here in favor of FAO will likely lead to pathology, and the severity of that pathology can vary from mild elevations of blood glucose, to insulin resistance, to diabetes, and ultimately to CVD, liver disease, and even cancer depending on to what degree the Randle Cycle has been shifted in favor of FAO and for how long that state has persisted. Btw, one of the most effective metabolic inhibitors that is consumed by people every day is PUFA. Ironically, as the study explains, the initial process of FAO actually favors PUFA as a substrate. So, PUFA seem to have a unique role as not only a universally-consumed metabolic inhibitor, but also as the preferred fuel of cancer.

If this hypothesis is correct, simple, cheap and widely available interventions may be able to truly cure cancer in many/most cases, as well as most/all other diseases (assuming they are all metabolic in origin). Namely, aspirin, quinine, niacinamide, thiamine, progesterone, pregnenolone, androgens, vitamin D, baking soda, methylene blue, vitamin K, tetracycline antibiotics, anti-serotonin chemicals, etc all have a role as therapies (especially for cancer) and their combination is likely to be even more effective than using any of those on its own. For very advanced or highly aggressive cancers, high doses of drugs such as Meldonium (Mildronate), link here may be needed to sufficiently restrict FAO, and adding aspirin would be highly synergistic as several studies on Meldonium/aspirin for heart disease have already demonstrated. Equally important would be practices such as avoiding dietary PUFA (and other metabolic inhibitors such as raw vegetables), limiting stress, and performing exercise that is mostly of concentric origin (biking, swimming, climbing stairs, jumps, etc) and only within the so-called glycogen-bound state (i.e. only until glucose stores are depleted and then the person must stop and replenish glycogen stores so that the person does not end up in state where FAO takes over within the Randle cycle).

link here

“…The main aspect of these pioneering studies is the increased mitochondrial ratios of NADH/NAD+, acetyl-CoA/CoA and ATP/ADP, and the accumulation of citrate in the mitochondria [70] (Figure 5). Currently, the study of antagonism between mFAO and glycolysis and accumulation of acetyl-CoA from fatty acid oxidation seems to have been forgotten. Even less attention is paid to the increased NADH/NAD+ ratio [83]. The increase in NADH has not been explained and has also been forgotten. The Krebs cycle could be inhibited by elevated NADH concentrations. High amount of NADH inhibits the PDH and Krebs cycle dehydrogenases and decreases combustion of pyruvate and glucose [87]. This is normal regulation when the amount of ATP is at the upper threshold in the cell, which decreases glucose combustion. Does this regulation also work for mFAO to decrease fatty acid combustion? The answer seems to be positive, given that the Krebs cycle can be inhibited by high concentrations of NADH.

“…However, mFAO consists of two parts—β-oxidation and the Krebs cycle. ATP does not apply the same force to β-oxidation, which precedes the Krebs cycle. We are accustomed to accept that at rest, the energy metabolism is self-regulating on the principle of feedback and the NADH/NAD+ ratio in mitochondria may vary depending on the utilization of ATP. Sahlin and Katz reported that mitochondrial NADH in skeletal muscles at rest is between 36% and 60%, while in the heart muscles it is between 4.2% and 13% [88]. So, that must be the difference in the redox state of the mitochondrial matrix between highly active tissues and tissues in rest. In rest, ATP has a feedback effect on all metabolic processes associated with its production. This also applies to the Krebs cycle.”

“…In 2012, the same authors demonstrated that glucose deprivation without hypoxia also induces reversal of SDH-reaction [105]. It appears that β-oxidation, which is assumed to be activated in glucose deprivation, has almost the same power to reduce the Q-pool as accumulated NADH in hypoxia.The reversibility of reactions of the Krebs cycle is a revolutionary concept that is beginning to be discussed by scientists [101]. In the case of activated β-oxidation, it is quite possible for the Krebs cycle to be inhibited at the succinate segment by increasing the thermodynamic force and significantly decreasing the SDH activity, which will be accompanied by the accumulation of succinate.”

“…The substrate specificity of LCAD overlaps with that of VLCAD and LCAD9. Studies show that LCAD is difficult to detect in human tissues such as the liver, heart, and skeletal muscles [135, 136]. The specificity of LCAD is to unsaturated fatty acids…”

“…Upon nutrient deprivation, the expression and activity of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase increase, which inhibits PDH by phosphorylation [139] (Figure 4). This process is reversible, and in fed state, pyruvate dehydrogenase phosphatases restore PDH activity. However, upon nutrient deprivation, mFAO is activated and acetylation of PDH further inhibits PDH activity and this is irreversible if SIRT3 is not activated. ”

“…However, the transition from fatty acids to glucose as a fuel requires increased SIRT3 expression, to increase PDH activity when glucose is already available. Therefore, the activation of mitochondrial sirtuins, especially SIRT3, is very important to protect the organism from certain pathologies [141, 142]. Endogenous regulators of SIRT3 have recently been described, including the best-known activator NAD+ [142].”

“…In 2007, Koves et al. found that obesity-related insulin resistance and high-fat diet are characterized in skeletal muscles by excessive β-oxidation and impaired transition to a carbohydrate substrate during the fasting-to-diet transition [154]. The authors report that factors, suppressing the import of fatty acids in mitochondria, protect against lipid-induced insulin resistance.”

“…Decreased SIRT3 expression in high availability of fatty acids may cause a permanent dependence of cells on fatty acids as a fuel and compromised transition of their metabolism to glucose combustion.”

“…As already mentioned above, Guarás et al. found that electron flux through the FAD-dependent pathway (via fatty acids or complex II) downregulates the content of complex I to adjust the electron flux from a different FADH2/NADH ratio [97]. This means that getting out of the β-oxidation trap is quite difficult and it is necessary to know the limit to which the NADH/NAD+ ratio in the mitochondrial matrix can increase.”

“… Partial defects in complexes I and III should exert pressure on the Q10H2/Q10 ratio and should increase the inhibitory effect of β-oxidation on SDH. Inhibition of ETC will also increase the NADH/NAD+ ratio to inhibit α-KGDH and NAD-dependent IDH. In fact, some mutations in the subunits of complex I that are responsible for its deficient activity lead to stimulation of tumor growth and make cancer cells highly metastatic [219]. However, further inhibition of ETC could cause problems even for cancer cells that are completely addicted to glycolysis and do not rely on mitochondria for ATP synthesis [219]. Although the “β-oxidation shuttle” can provide ATP to the cell, the main function of this metabolic pathway is to provide cytoplasmic citrate. Aspartate is crucial for the survival of cancer cells, as it is the main precursor for the synthesis of purines and DNA synthesis, respectively [174].”

“…Theoretically, we can consider the coexistence of the two processes, “FAS+β-oxidation shuttle”, as a separate metabolic cycle when β-oxidation is overactivated, and the Krebs cycle is inhibited (see Figure S1, link here(C) in the Supplementary Materials). For this artificial process, we can calculate that it is energetically possible and relies only on the availability of the NADPH. This NADPH could be produced in PPP or reductive glutaminolysis, if combined with NADPH-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase and isocitrate-dependent NADPH exporting shuttle. The ability that cancer cells can express both metabolic pathways simultaneously, FAS and mFAO, sounds irregular. We are accustomed to assuming that it is not energetically profitable to synthesize a substance and decompose it at the same time.”

“…Cancer cells in a high-fat environment, contrary to normal expectations, increase lactate production and glutamine consumption when mFAO is overactivated. We would like to emphasize the word “overactivated” because our opinion is that “mitochondrial β-oxidation over the energy needs of the cell” is the driving force behind all these peculiarities of cancer metabolism. Evidence of this is the ability to stimulate reductive glutaminolysis, as well as the consumption of fatty acids not only in cancer cells but also in normal cells when pyruvate is not available and α-KGDH is inhibited.”

“…In conclusion, the findings described and analyzed in this article indicate that irregular overactivation of mitochondrial β-oxidation may switch to the “β-oxidation shuttle” due to insufficient activity of key enzymes of the Krebs cycle or PDH or ETC complexes. On the other hand, overactivation of mitochondrial β-oxidation can cause dysfunctions in the ETC, as well as in the Krebs cycle, especially in hypoxic conditions. The resulting overreduced redox state of the cells triggers compensatory pathways for nonmitochondrial ATP production and utilization of NADH, which is anaerobic glycolysis. The subsequent return to normal combustion of pyruvate and fatty acids may not occur easily and the delay may cause diseases, including carcinogenesis. It is still unclear what is the key event that turns cells into malignancy and makes this metabolic and redox state irreversible. One clue for the key events in transformation of cells to cancerous seems to be the increased utilization of overproduced citrate by the FAS and mevalonate pathway. Nevertheless, targeting and modulating the altered mitochondrial redox state by redox-active substances seems to be valuable therapeutic alternative, especially in cancer [235]. Surprisingly, the “β-oxidation shuttle” fits well with the Warburg effect, which has not yet been convincingly explained. When cancer cells are removed from their natural hypoxic environment, they could have normal oxygen consumption, but still prefer to convert glucose anaerobically. Increased oxygen demand of the “β-oxidation shuttle”, combined with the inhibited activity of PDH and partially inhibited β-oxidation enzymes, can lead to seemingly normal oxygen consumption combined with lactate production, inefficient mitochondrial ATP synthesis, and huge cataplerosis. This explains well the Warburg effect, as well as the uncontrolled growth and proliferation. Glycolysis and OXPHOS should not be antagonized, because OXPHOS can coexist together with anaerobic glycolysis when the “β-oxidation shuttle” is expressed. The possible inefficient synthesis of ATP in the “β-oxidation shuttle” provides conditions for some cancer cells to be dependent simultaneously on OXPHOS and glycolysis. As much inefficient is the mitochondrial ATP synthesis in relation to the “β-oxidation shuttle”, as more cancer cells should be dependent on glycolysis. The main role of the “β-oxidation shuttle” should be the export of citrate and the huge cataplerosis—the main characteristic of cancer cells. On the other hand, we consider that the overreduced mitochondrial matrix is a consequence of overactivated mitochondrial β-oxidation, and at the same time, a major cause of the expression of β-oxidation outside the Krebs cycle. Lactate dehydrogenase helps cancer cells to decrease the reduced state of the mitochondrial matrix by producing NAD+. This explains anaerobic glycolysis as a compensatory mechanism not only for the ATP production but also for mitigation the consequences of the enormously increased redox state of the mitochondrial matrix. The “β-oxidation shuttle” could be expressed to some extent under control in noncancerous proliferating cells, as well as in certain types of immune cells and embryonic cells. However, this expression should be reversible, while in cancer cells it should be irreversible. The “β-oxidation shuttle” may be tightly connected with some chronic diseases such as diabetes 2, obesity, fatty liver disease, and cardiac hypertrophy, but it is difficult to predict whether this “weird” metabolic pathway is reversible in these diseases. All these assumptions need experimental validation. It needs to be clarified whether it is possible to restore normal functionality of mitochondria after they fall in this metabolic dysfunction. The role of the “β-oxidation shuttle” in impaired cancer metabolism should be an object of future studies. This could be a crucial metabolic “secret” of cancer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1994.mp3" length="2117396" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone/aspirin can block cellular estrogen uptake, PUFA promotes it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1992</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1992</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 30 Sep 2022 17:50:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1992

I have posted in the past about the “obscure” estrogen estrone sulfate (E1S) and its role as a biomarker of both onset and progression of breast, colon, prostate, endometrial, and many other cancers. Despite its major role in cancer development, E1S remains known to mainstream medicine as simply an “inactive” estrogen precursor, relevant only to menopausal women. The role as a precursor is certainly true – i.e. cells can synthesize E1 and E2, as needed, using E1S as a precursor and the body does seem to be using E1S as a long-term storage reservoir of estrogen. Thus, blood levels of E1S have been proposed as a reliable biomarker of whole-body estrogenic tone, since it can (and it is) easily converted to the “active” estrogens E1 and E2. Conversely, interventions aimed at lowering E1S levels have been proposed as viable methods for preventing and potentially treating the types of cancer E1S is involved in. Lowering E1S uptake into the cells would also likely be therapeutic as it basically deprives the cell of this estrogenic precursor that the cell can turn into the more active estrogens E1 and E2. As it turns out, anions such as E1S are subject to a so-called “active transport”, which can be controlled (blocked or enhanced) and this would lead to changes in the cellular levels of E1S. The transporter of E1S is something called the organic anion transporter protein (OATP) family, and it seems to control the transport/levels of others important steroids, especially cortisol.

2 links here

There is a closely-related family of transporters known as the cation organic transport protein (OCTN/OCTP), which are responsible for transporting/controlling carnitine inside the cell, and I have written about them in the past in regards to substances such as Meldnium/Mildronate, aspirin, quinine, etc. Anyways, back to E1S and OATP. It turns out that a number of molecules is capable of inhibiting this protein as well. The study below demonstrates that the PUFA metabolites known as prostaglandins strongly increased E1S cellular uptake. Conversely, the abundant endogenous steroid pregnenolone-sulfate (PS) (and to a much smaller degree, DHEA-S) was capable of inhibiting E1S update into the cell and thus depriving the cell of its major estrogen precursor used to synthesize the active estrogens. Importantly, at concentrations of 50 uM/L PS inhibited E1S uptake by about 80%. Now, every cell can synthesize estrogen de-novo, without using E1S as a precursor. However, studies have shown that the de-novo pathway is energetically very expensive and as long as the cell has access to pre-formed precursors such as E1S it prefers to use them instead of synthesizing E1 and E2 from scratch using cholesterol as a precursor. Overall, about 90% of the active estrogens inside the cell are derived from E1S and only 10% are synthesized de-novo from cholesterol and other precursors. Thus, if one inhibits significantly the E1S uptake into the cell, this has the effect of drastically reducing the estrogenic tone of a cell/organism. That means that the cheap and widely available aspirin and PS are functional anti-estrogens and can be used similarly to known anti-estrogenic drugs such as the SERM class or aromatase inhibitors (AI). The study corroborates this hypothesis by demonstrating that OATP expression in breast cancer cells is more than 100-fold higher than in healthy cells, ensuring a major role for E1S (and its uptake inhibitors) in breast cancer. If cortisol uptake into the cell is indeed controlled to a large degree by the same transporter as for E1S, this suggests that pregnenolone and aspirin may also be useful in conditions driven by excess cortisol such as Cushing syndrome/disease, diabetes, sarcopenia, osteoporosis/osteopenia, mental diseases (especially depression, and bipolar disorder), dementias, liver diseases, etc.

link here

“…There are also epidemiological data to support an association between the circulating concentrations of hormones and prohormones, including E1S and DHEAS, and the eventual risk of developing breast cancer, especially in the postmenopausal years (14, 15). This link implies that steroids in their sulfated, anionic form gain access to the intracellular milieu and can determine the extent of exposure to downstream, biologically active hormones. Sulfated steroid conjugates carry a net negative charge at physiological pH levels, and as such, their transfer across cell membranes is carrier mediated. Steroid sulfates have been identified as substrates for distinct members of two organic anion carrier gene families: the organic anion transporting polypeptide (OATP) superfamily, classified within the solute carrier 21A gene family (SLC21A) (16) and the organic anion transporter (OAT) family, encoded by the solute carrier 22A (SLC22A) genes (17).”

“…In cis-inhibition studies with 5 mol/liter [3H]-E1S, DHEAS showed a dose-dependent effect that reached statistical significance at 50 umol/liter (Fig. 5A). Another adrenally derived steroid hormone precursor, pregnenolone sulfate, was a more potent inhibitor and significantly inhibited E1S uptake to 50% and 20% of control values at 10 umol/liter and 50 umol/liter, respectively. Other pregnenolone derivatives, 17-OH pregnenolone sulfate and 21-OH pregnenolone sulfate, inhibited uptake to a moderate degree at the higher concentration tested (Fig. 5B). The unconjugated forms of pregnenolone, 17-OH pregnenolone and 21-OH pregnenolone, exerted no effect when tested at 10 mol/liter (data not shown).”

“…Unexpectedly, the naturally occurring cyclopentenone PGA1, which is derived from PGE1, increased OATP-B-mediated [3 H]-E1S transport (Fig. 7A). The PGA1-mediated stimulation was detectable after 15 sec and was maximal at 1 min (Fig. 7B). No further stimulation occurred when transport was measured at longer intervals or when cells were preincubated with PGA1 (data not shown). A more marked stimulation was observed at lower substrate concentrations (500 nmol/liter) with both 100 nmol/liter and 1 mol/liter (Fig. 7B). PGA2, a second cyclopentenone prostanoid derived from PGE2, also enhanced E1S uptake at similar concentrations. However, PGJ2, a third cyclopentenone PG, which differs from the PG of the A series by the position of the reactive electrophilic carbon, had no effect (Fig. 7C). ”

“…To establish whether widely used breast cancer cell lines expressed OATP carriers and could serve as in vitro models for additional studies of steroid sulfate transport, the mRNA expression of OATP-B, OATP-D, and OATP-E was measured in MCF-7, T47D, and MDA-MB-453 cell lines. For comparison, the expression levels in the OATP-B stably transfected CHO cells as well as in the Hep-G2 cell line, which reportedly expresses both OATP-B and OATP-E (34), are given. None of the breast cancer lines examined gave detectable signals for OATP-B above background levels (Table 2). Conversely, when standardized for expression in Hep-G2 cells, our studies identified MCF-7 as the cell line with the highest expression of OATP-E (13-fold higher than Hep-G2), whereas the MDA-MB-453 and T47-D cell lines express 10-fold and 100- fold less, respectively. Although no standard cell line was available for OATP-D, MCF-7 again expressed the highest levels of OATP D mRNA (approximately 100-fold more than T47-D and 500-fold more than MDA-MB-453) (Table 2). “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1992.mp3" length="1942100" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Another “paradox” – glucocorticoids cause inflammation, insulin blocks it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1989</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1989</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Sep 2022 17:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1989

As many of my readers know, I am not a fan of the ubiquitous usage of both bioidentical and synthetic glucocorticoids (GC) in medicine. Once used only in the most severe cases, some form of GC therapy awaits virtually all patients in a hospital (regardless of condition), and doctors are now increasingly relying on those drugs for outpatient/chronic conditions too. Medicine seems to have finally learned the lesson that inflammation is bad, in any amount, however it is reaching for the wrong “tool” to treat it. Multiple studies have demonstrated that GC therapy is ineffective in sepsis (the leading cause of death in hospitalized patients), yet GC are still part of the official protocol for treating sepsis. This (ab)use of GC therapy reached truly catastrophic proportions during the COVID-19 pandemic, where they were considered “standard of care” for all COVID-19 hospitalized patients precisely due to the mistaken belief that they help with issues such as the cytokine storm and multi-organ failure these patients sometimes succumb to. The absurdity of GC usage for COVID-19 should have been obvious considering the immunosuppressive effects of GC in the context of using them to “treat” a viral infection. But, what about the inflammation that GC actually treat? Well, a few months ago I posted a study demonstrating that chronic GC usage ensures an increased inflammatory response in the long run due to upregulating the expression of the prostaglandin-producing COX enzyme.

Glucocorticoids may increase inflammation in the long run, link here

I got a few responses by people in the healthcare field saying that while COX may be upregulated due to GC usage, while the GC are in use inflammation is suppressed and the patient gets better. Well, the study below begs to disagree and demonstrates that GC usage upregulates several inflammatory pathways while still being administered. Perhaps even more importantly, the inflammatory effects of GC were mostly mediated through increasing the signalling of the TLR system of receptors. Yes, GC appear to promote the effects of endotoxin, as the study itself states. This “paradoxical” pro-inflammatory (and I’d add, pro-endotoxin) effect is what the study authors think is responsible for the clinical failure of GC therapy in serious conditions such as sepsis, cytokine storm, multi-organ failure, and even auto-immune conditions. So, phrased differently, the reason so many of the hospitalized patients with COVID-19 died may not have been due to the viral lethality but rather due to the pro-inflammatory effects of the GC drugs those people were invariably given to actually treat their sepsis, cytokine storm, organ failure, pneumonia, etc secondary to COVID-19. Remember, aside from the infection, COVID-19 is mostly an inflammatory disease/cascade driven by the angiotensin, serotonin and prostaglandin (COX) systems. And we now have evidence that GC therapy promotes all three of those systems…

And last but not least, the study mentioned earlier work (which I have also referenced below) by the same authors, which discovered that insulin actually has ANTI-inflammatory effects, and opposes specifically the inflammatory effects of GC. I think this is an extremely important finding since insulin and cortisol usually mirror each other’s levels – e.g. people with type II diabetes usually have both high insulin and high cortisol levels, and insulin levels rise when people are given GC therapy. This relationship has been traditionally explained with cortisol rising to control insulin’s supposed inflammatory effects. The study below suggests the relationship may be the exact opposite – i.e. insulin being released in order to dampen the inflammatory effects of cortisol or synthetic GC therapy. That suggests eating a high-carb diet is ANTI-inflammatory and not inflammatory as most public health officials try to convince us.

3 links here

“…Results: There was a significant increase in glucose (from 92±4 to 116±6 mg/dl), insulin (from 4.5±0.7 to 5.3±0.8 mU/ml) and FFA concentrations (from 0.38±0.1 to 0.80±0.15mM) following the administration of hydrocortisone compared to placebo treatment. While NFκB binding and the mRNA expression of MyD88, TRIF, chemokines and chemokine receptors were suppressed significantly in MNC, there was a paradoxical increase in the mRNA expression of TLR 2, 5 and 9 and HMG-B1 was increased by 103±24%, 107±19%, 56±13% and 58±12% above the baseline, respectively in the MNC. Plasma concentrations of HMG-B1 and MMP-9 increased by 37±12% and 125±22%, respectively, while TNF-α concentrations fell by 27±9%. Conclusion: While this high dose of hydrocortisone exerts a powerful anti-inflammatory effect, it also exerts certain proinflammatory effects mainly on TLRs expression. The known pro-inflammatory effects of glucose and FFAs may have contributed to these effects. These paradoxical pro-inflammatory effects may account for the inability of these drugs to show benefit in clinical trials of septicemia and other severe pro-inflammatory states and might contribute to some of the side effects of corticosteroids use.”

link here

“…Dandona and fellow researchers found that high doses of corticosteroids — or steroids — have a primary anti-inflammatory effect. Yet, they also have certain pro-inflammatory effects that may limit their overall benefits. “Our data show for the first time that corticosteroids lead to marked and persistent suppression of chemokines and several other inflammatory cytokines and mediators in humans, in vivo,” he explains. Chemokines and cytokines are regulators of inflammatory responses, and their suppression is a part of the anti-inflammatory action of steroids.”

“…At higher doses, [glucocorticoid] steroids induce proteins and mediators such as toll-like receptors, which mediate responses to infectious agents and endotoxin, but may also lead to potentially harmful excessive inflammatory responses, Dandona explains. In addition, they induce the protein HMG-B1, an alarmin that when increased in mice is related to mortality after an injection of endotoxin. Steroids also cause an increase in plasma levels of glucose and free fatty acids, which are inflammatory and interfere with insulin action, inducing insulin resistance and promoting diabetes. “There is a need for novel anti-inflammatory agents that are potent but do not exert harmful side effects,” he emphasizes. While steroids are effective in many inflammatory conditions, they are ineffective — even when given in extremely high doses — in the treatment of septicemia, a state of severe inflammation often caused by overwhelming infection, Dandona notes.”

“…In 2013, Dandona and fellow researchers discovered that insulin injections exert a strong anti-inflammatory effect at the cellular and molecular level, link here. “Since our previous work has shown that insulin suppresses the pro-inflammatory factors induced by corticosteroids, the observations from this study lay the foundations for an anti-inflammatory cocktail of steroids and insulin,” he says.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1989.mp3" length="1866644" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low testosterone detrimental, TRT beneficial for men with COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1985</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1985</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Sep 2022 18:38:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1985

Within a month of the pandemic start back in early 2020, doctors were already noticing a gender-specific trend in COVID-19 cases. Namely, pre-menopausal women fared much better in terms of COVID-19 disease course compared to post-menopausal women and (adult) men. The ever-corrupt Big Pharma was apparently keeping a close eye on those findings and immediately saw an opportunity to make money by selling more estrogenic hormone replacement therapy (HRT). So, Big Pharma promptly declared (without any evidence) that the protective factor in women is, of course, estrogen! After a few more studies were published demonstrating that COVID-19 course was milder during the luteal phase (i.e. high progesterone relative to estrogen), Big Pharma begrudgingly admitted that progesterone may also be a protective factor and sponsored a few (smaller) trials with progesterone as well. AFAIK, the trials with estrogen (with both men and women) have all been cancelled due to either null or negative findings, while the trials with progesterone are still ongoing and a few have even successfully been completed. However, Big Pharma never admitted defeat in this obvious fiasco for estrogen, and simply changed the story to blame the higher androgen, and especially testosterone (T), levels in males for their increase vulnerability to COVID-19. After all, the so-called immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (ICHH) is one of the most established “achievements” of modern medicine in the 20th century, and Big Pharma thought the hypothesis is immune (pun intended) to criticism. The ICHH holds that the higher androgen (and, specifically, T) levels in males serve to increase their mating success and physical prowess at the expense of immune system robustness. So, according to the ICHH, it is only “natural” for males to be more vulnerable to COVID-19 due to their high(er) androgen levels compared to women. Of course, like so many other hypotheses medicine has proposed over the last 100+ years, the ICHH has been beset by “paradoxes” – i.e. euphemisms for evidence proving the hypothesis is a scam. Namely, multiple studies around the world have repeatedly demonstrated that men with higher androgen levels are more resilient to both infectious and chronic diseases, live longer, and maintain their cognitive function intact even in very old age. The study below, sent by a reader of mine from Austria, now provides direct evidence that low androgen (e.g. T) levels in males increase the risk of COVID-19 exacerbations and subsequent hospitalization. In addition, successful administration of testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) was therapeutic and reduced the risk of the hypogonadal males to normal, and even below the risk of the healthy general population. This basically proves a cause-and-effect relationship  – i.e. T is beneficial for males when it comes to COVID-19, and since T is antagonistic to estrogen and vise versa, the estrogen trials Big Pharma was conducting for COVID-19 can probably be classified as at best criminal negligence, with obvious legal ramifications.

Could testosterone supplements keep men from being hospitalized for COVID?, link here

Low testosterone may increase risk of COVID-19 hospitalization for men, link here

“…Among men diagnosed with COVID-19, those with low testosterone levels are more likely to become seriously ill and end up in the hospital than men with normal levels of the hormone, according to a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Saint Louis University School of Medicine. The team analyzed the cases of 723 men who tested positive for COVID-19, mostly in 2020 before vaccines were available. The data indicate that low testosterone is an independent risk factor for COVID-19 hospitalization, similar to diabetes, heart disease and chronic lung disease. They found that men with low testosterone who developed COVID-19 were 2.4 times more likely to require hospitalization than men with hormone levels in the normal range. Further, men who were once diagnosed with low testosterone but successfully treated with hormone replacement therapy were no more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 than men whose testosterone levels had always tested in the normal range. The findings, published Sept. 2 in JAMA Network Open, suggest that treating men with low testosterone may help protect them against severe disease and reduce the burden on hospitals during COVID-19 waves.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1985.mp3" length="1562660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Deliberate self-injury may be driven by systemic inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1980</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1980</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Sep 2022 17:32:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1980

This study below is not really discussing metabolic topics, but I though it would be interesting to post just as a reminder of the total scam modern psychiatry is. People prone to the so-called non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) are invariably diagnosed with a plethora of mental disorders and given all types of toxic/detrimental drugs, and are often involuntarily hospitalized in order to prevent further self-injury. The condition, is quite common among children and adolescents and despite (or should I say because of) aggressive “treatments” it persists in its patients for many years and often lasts a lifetime. It is truly sad to see that yet another “mysterious” disorder has a very simple and easily-treatable cause, but instead of reaching for the aspirin jar, most doctors keep torturing their patients for years.

link here

“…There was no significant difference in demographic data between the two groups. The NSSI group exhibited significantly higher MLR (P = 0.001) and PLR (P = 0.007) than the non-NSSI group. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that MLR (OR 1.545, 95%CI [1.087–2.281], P = 0.021) and PLR (OR 1.327, 95%CI [1.215–1.450], P < 0.001) were independently associated with NSSI. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses demonstrated that for differentiating NSSI from non-NSSI, the optimal cut-off value of MLR was 0.135 and the area under curve was 0.638 ([0.561- 0.715], P < 0.001), with a sensitivity of 90.60% and a specificity of 33.70%; the optimal cut-off value of PLR was 127.505 and the area under curve was of 0.611 ([0.533–0.689], P < 0.001), with a sensitivity of 39.60% and a specificity of 81.10%. Conclusions: Systemic inflammation, as indicated by elevated MLR and PLR, was found to be strongly associated with NSSI among adolescents.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1980.mp3" length="412508" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A single, low dose niacinamide drops triglycerides by 75%</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1978</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1978</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Sep 2022 17:22:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1978

Among the vitamin B3 analogs, niacin is perhaps the most famous for its ability to both raise “good” cholesterol (HDL) and also lower triglycerides. However, niacinamide, nicotinamide riboside (NR) and nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) are all effective precursors to NAD (as niacin is) and raising NAD levels is known to inhibit lipolysis and as such should result in lowering of blood lipids. Yet, mainstream medicine continues to claim that only the flush-inducing niacin has those effects and that other vitamin B3 analogs are ineffective in beneficially modifying these biomarkers of CVD. In reality, niacin has never been shown to beneficially affect the course of CVD in humans, and this is probably due to its pro-inflammatory effects of raising histamine and serotonin (hence the flush). In contrast, several studies have demonstrated improved biomarkers of CVD as a result of niacinamide and, more recently, NR (studies sponsored by the NR peddler ChromaDex), but so far a convincing mechanism of action for the beneficial effects of those vitamin B3 analogs has not been proposed. The study below is probably the first to confirm the anti-lipolysis effects of the non-flush vitamin B3 analogs in humans, which would be a plausible mechanism of action for the non-flush vitamin B3 analogs in CVD. It demonstrates that a single administration of just 300mg NMN resulted in a whopping 75%+ drop in triglycerides in the human volunteers, that drop was maintained for at least 3 hours, and the triglyceride levels were still below baseline at 5 hours post-administration (see Figure 2 in the link below).

link here

“…An increase in nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) levels alleviates age-related disease progression and promotes healthy life expectancy. Several studies have demonstrated that NAD+ levels can be efficiently replenished via nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) intake; additionally, the safety of its oral ingestion has been confirmed in recent clinical trials. However, the efficacy and safety of intravenous NMN administration in humans remain unclear. Therefore, we verified its safety in 10 healthy volunteers. Intravenous administration of NMN did not affect electrocardiograms, pulse, and blood pressure, nor did it affect metabolic markers in the liver, heart, pancreas, and kidneys. These results indicate that intravenous NMN administration is safe and beneficial in humans. Furthermore, NMN administration significantly increased blood NAD+ levels without damaging blood cells and significantly reduced blood triglyceride (TG) levels. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1978.mp3" length="815468" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>COVID-19 is a serotonin-dependent disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1976</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1976</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Sep 2022 17:24:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1976

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread all over the world in early 2020, some of the earliest studies identified serotonin (5-HT) as a culprit in the severity of the disease and proposed using 5-HT antagonists such as cyproheptadine as treatment. Other studies found by accident that the anti-acid drug famotidine also helped reduce severity of the disease but were baffled by its effectiveness since only a handful people around the world know that famotidine has a potent anti-serotonin effects. Despite multiple studies implicating 5-HT as a pathological factor in COVID-19, modern medicine moved quickly to quash attempts to paint 5-HT in a negative light and even funded a few studies demonstrating that SSRI drugs such as fluoxetine (Prozac) were beneficial for COVID-19. Since fluoxetine is marketed as an SSRI drug, its benefits effectively precluded a discussion on the role pathological role of 5-HT in COVID-19, yet unbeknownst to most people is the fact that fluoxetine/Prozac is actually a potent antagonist on several 5-HT receptors (especially the widely expressed 5-HT2 family). So, once again Big Pharma managed to avoid exposing 5-HT as a pathological factor, even in infectious disease such as COVID-19. Well, the study below demonstrates that the serotonin-producing cells in the gut express all three proteins/receptors necessary for viral entry/infection of a cell and that the overproduction of serotonin as a result of those cells’ exposure to SARS-CoV-2 accelerated COVID-19 development and exacerbated its clinical course. As such, usage of 5-HT blocking drugs is once again highlighted as perhaps the most systemic approach to both preventing and treating COVID-19, and the drugs (cyproheptadine, famotidine, bromocriptine, etc) for such treatment are widely available and much cheaper/safer than the “modern” therapies (e.g. Paxlovid) pushed by Big Pharma.

2 links here

“…New findings from Flinders University have demonstrated a molecular link between COVID-19 and serotonin cells in the gut…COVID-19 displays an array of symptoms, which can regularly include gastrointestinal issues such as diarrhea. Recent research has indicated that these gut symptoms in COVID-19 patients worsen with the severity of the disease, and this is linked to heightened gut-derived serotonin, released to cause gut dysfunction, increasing the body’s immune response and potentially worsening patient outcomes. Published in Gut, this new collaborative study involved three Flinders research teams, including teams led by ARC DECRA Fellow Dr. Alyce Martin and FAME Director of Bioinformatics and Human-Microbe Interactions, Professor Robert Edwards. “Our study endeavored to understand whether the gut could be a site of disease transmission and what genes might be associated with the virus entering the cells lining the gut wall,” says study senior author Professor Damien Keating, Deputy Director of the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute and Head of the Gut Sensory Systems research group. The researchers looked at gene expression, link here amongst the different cell types that line the gut wall, analyzing whole genome sequences from thousands of individual cells from within the intestine. They found specialized cells within the gut that synthesized and released serotonin had a highly enriched expression of a particular SARS-CoV-2 receptor and were the only type of cell that expressed all the genes associated with COVID-19. “Many genes linked to COVID-19 were found expressed in the different cell types lining the gut wall but only serotonin cells expressed all three receptors for the virus,” says Professor Keating. “Expression of all three SARS-CoV-2 receptors triples the rate of cell infectivity, compared to expression of only two receptors.” With the exact sites of infection and the primary drivers of COVID-19 disease severity, link here not yet fully understood, the authors say this study provides important information on the gut’s role in the virus. “Our study adds further evidence that COVID-19 is far more likely to infect cells in the gut and increase serotonin levels through direct effects on specific gut cells, potentially worsening disease outcomes,” says Professor Keating.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1976.mp3" length="1010348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Progesterone, bromocriptine may treat autism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1974</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1974</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:49:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1974

A great new study, which, while genomic in character, inadvertently points the finger directly at estrogen and/or serotonin as causes of autism. After all progesterone’s main role in the human organism is as an estrogen (and cortisol!) antagonist, while bromocriptine is one of the oldest anti-serotonin drugs in clinical use and despite recent attempts to market is as a “dopaminergic” drug its main research designation (as an LSD derivative) remains as a serotonin antagonist. Mainstream medicine has been trying to blame androgens and even dopamine as potential causes of autism but recent studies have confirmed that virtually all autism cases have low serum allopregnanolone (a progesterone metabolite), high whole-blood serotonin, low dopamine metabolites in urine, and elevated prolactin. It just so happens that progesterone or bromocriptine have beneficial effects on all of these biomarkers of autism and their combination would probably highly synergistic.

link here

Diarrhoea drug, 2 hormonal contraceptives may help treat core autism symptoms, Norway study finds, link here

“…A common anti-diarrhoea drug and two common hormonal contraceptives are among four drugs identified by researchers at the University of Oslo as potential candidates to treat the most common symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In findings, link here published in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology Monday, researchers named loperamide and contraceptives progesterone and progestin drospirenone to treat the most common ASD symptoms, such as difficulty in social interactions and communications. The fourth drug, bromocriptine, is commonly used for diseases like Parkinson’s.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1974.mp3" length="522788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:12</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dietary sugar can treat chronic depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1972</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1972</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:17:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1972

Not much to comment on here, except to point out that the sugar “addiction” in depressed people has been recognized by medicine for at least 50 years and has always been treated as a co-morbidity of the depressed state, also in need of treatment. Doctors have been advising depressed patients to resist the urge to load up on sugar, warning that such “binges” would have detrimental effects both on mood and the systemic health of the patient. Well, the study below begs to disagree and demonstrates once again (just as the infamous Rat Park experiment did 50 years ago) that most “addictive” behavior is simply a desperate attempt at self-medication. And in the case of sugar, it is actually truly therapeutic and much safer than the toxic SSRI drugs modern medicine dispenses like candy (put not intended) to patients of all age groups (even babies). Yet, the popular press article still cautions people to not “sugar binge” as that may have detrimental effects on health. As the saying goes – some people never learn…and it ain’t the patients in this case:-)

link here

“…

Feeding sugars or octopamine (OA) can alleviate a depression-like state in Drosophila

…”

link here

“…The researchers’ investigations showed that the pathway was considerably more complex than anticipated. Three different neurotransmitter systems have to be activated until the serotonin deficiency at the mushroom body, which is present in flies in a DLS, is compensated for by reward. One of these three systems is the dopaminergic system, which also signals reward in humans. In view of these findings, however, human beings should not assume that it would be a good idea to consume foods with a high sugar content accordingly. Flies perceive sweetness as a reward, whereas humans can achieve the same effect by other and more healthy means.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1972.mp3" length="517244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin enhances learning from punishment, reduces learning from reward</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1970</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1970</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Aug 2022 19:57:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1970

Research as early as the 1960s firmly established that there is nothing “happy” when it comes to serotonin (5-HT). Namely, elevated 5-HT levels were found in many chronic diseases and especially clinical depression. It took more than 7 decades for medicine to finally start admitting that 5-HT is a cause of depression instead of cure for it. Other studies have demonstrated that 5-HT is involved in the formation of traumatic memories, obedient/servile behavior, psychopathy, aggression, violence, etc. Studies with LSD – an approximate 5-HT antagonist – found that it can prevent such effects of 5-HT and reverse those effects when such pathological behavior has already been established. The study below adds yet another negative finding in 5-HT’s court. Namely, increasing serotonin by administration of an SSRI drug largely negated the ability of human subjects to learn through positive reinforcement (award) while strongly increasing their ability to learn from a negative reinforcement (punishment, fear, etc). The study is even more valuable due to the fact that not only it implicates once again 5-HT as a substance associated with (and causative of) pathology, but directly implicates SSRI drugs are powerful means of controlling behavior. Namely, mass usage of SSRI would likely promote a social environment where punishment/fear is emphasized/valued while award/goodness/positivity are neglected. No wonder governments all around the world are in love with SSRI drugs – i.e. there is a hardly a “better” way of turning humans into servile, uncreative, and psychopathic freaks capable of little more than following orders…under fear of punishment, of course.

link here

“…Instrumental learning is driven by a history of outcome success and failure. Here, we examined the impact of serotonin on learning from positive and negative outcomes. Healthy human volunteers were assessed twice, once after acute (single-dose), and once after prolonged (week-long) daily administration of the SSRI citalopram or placebo. Using computational modelling, we show that prolonged boosting of serotonin enhances learning from punishment and reduces learning from reward. This valence-dependent learning asymmetry increases subjects’ tendency to avoid actions as a function of cumulative failure without leading to detrimental, or advantageous, outcomes. By contrast, no significant modulation of learning was observed following acute SSRI administration. However, differences between the effects of acute and prolonged administration were not significant. Overall, these findings may help explain how serotonergic agents impact on mood disorders.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1970.mp3" length="862964" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) causes Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1967</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1967</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Aug 2022 19:42:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1967

I have made posts on this topic in the past, but it seems this most recent study directly states that endotoxin/LPS is a major cause of AD. All other studies have been either animal models or did not directly implicate LPS. The study below claims to be the first that integrates all available knowledge and demonstrates how a lack of fiber impairs intestinal motility, which in turn increases LPS production by the bacteria feeding on undigested food, and how over time this overproduction of LPS compromises the gut barrier and gets into the bloodstream and eventually into the brain where it acts as a potent AD-causing neurotoxin. The solution the scientists propose is quite simple – i.e. increase fiber intake. Unfortunately,t he scientists suggest increasing soluble fiber (from chia seeds) which has the effect of actually increasing LPS production. Insoluble fiber is what we need to consume instead, as it both binds already present LPS and also has antibacterial effect against the microbiome. The latter effect helps reduce production of LPS, even when poorly digestible foods are consumed. This is another great finding of the study – i.e. our own gut flora can be very dangerous despite the myriads of commercials and medical advice advocating we feed/promote that flora.

2 links here

“…To find out what’s happening in the brain with Alzheimer’s, link here, LSU researchers are looking to the gut. A team of scientists at LSU Health New Orleans have discovered how a potent neurotoxin produced by gut bacteria makes its way to the brain, according to a study published this summer in Frontiers in Neurology, link here. The neurotoxin is a molecule called lipopolysaccharide, or LPS for short. A lot of previous research has pointed to its presence in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s, though it has been unclear how it gets there. But once it arrives, it does a lot of damage. “It is maybe the most inflammatory neurotoxin known,” said Walter Lukiw, one of the study authors and a professor of neuroscience, neurology and opthamology at the LSU Health School of Medicine. “It’s not supposed to be there. Lukiw and a team of researchers conducted an analysis of what is known about LPS and carried out research using human brain cells and animals. “We added all the pieces together,” said Lukiw. “We made the connection that the LPS is making a messenger molecule that goes from the gut through the bloodstream to the brain and then it does bad things to brain cells.” The neurotoxin causes the brain cells to shrink, and they lose their ability to signal between other neurons. The finding has the potential to lead to new treatments for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. The good news is that there’s already a way to limit the neurotoxin: adding more fiber to your diet. “The toxins are coming from within us, and they are very much regulated by diet,” said Lukiw. Increasing fiber can keep the gut bacteria in check and prevent the formation of LPS. Gut bacteria are a good thing, but only if kept in balance.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1967.mp3" length="634124" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low vitamin D and HIGH (not low) PTH predict bone deterioration</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1965</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1965</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Aug 2022 19:25:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1965

A great new study, which would hopefully trigger a re-assessment of the current approaches in treating osteoporosis/osteopenia. Namely, one of the core therapies for deteriorating bone health/density (usually associated with aging, glucocorticoid treatment, kidney disease, etc) is administration of parathyroid hormone (PTH) by injection, by itself or in combination with calcium, vitamin D and even estrogen. I have always been at a loss grasping the rationale for using PTH, considering its effects are to increase bone resorption by elevating prolactin, serotonin, cortisol, etc. Now, the study below corroborates the view that PTH is actually a catabolic hormone for the bone, while vitamin D is anti-catabolic. Since vitamin D administration is perhaps the standard intervention to lower PTH, it should be quite obvious to medicine that if one of those substances is associated with good bone health, the other should have the exact opposite effects. However, until the study below becomes more widely acknowledged, most orthopedic clinicians will probably continue to administer PTH and make their patients’ bone conditions worse.

Vitamin D, Parathyroid Hormone Linked With Bone Decline in Older Men, link here

“…At both the distal radius and tibia, total bone mineral density, cortical thickness, cortical area, and cortical bone mineral density significantly decreased and trabecular area increased more rapidly due to conversion of tissue in men with 25OHD levels of 20 ng/mL or less (or less than 12 ng/mL, link here) compared with more than 30 ng/mL (vitamin D sufficiency). Results were similar in analyses of the whole cohort and in analyses restricted to men with an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) greater than 60 mL/min/1.73 m2. The findings also did not differ in analyses of men who did not take calcium or vitamin supplements during the 8 years.”

“…Bone microarchitecture declined faster when PTH values exceed 44 pg/mL, which is the upper limit of normal range, Pawel Szulc, MD, PhD, of INSERM UMR 1033, Hôpital Edouard Herriot in Lyon, France, and colleagues reported in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. According to Dr Szulc’s team, the results suggest that “current vitamin D/PTH status is a strong determinant of bone microarchitectural decline in older home-dwelling men and seem to explain the morphological basis underlying the loss of bone mass and strength in older individuals with vitamin D deficiency and SHPT.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1965.mp3" length="597188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin may treat pancreatitis…and other fibrotic conditions</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1962</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1962</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Aug 2022 19:11:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1962

While most of medicine’s attention is focused on acute pancreatitis (AP) since AP is often deadly, rates of chronic pancreatitis (CP) have been rising over the last 2-3 decades and it is now recognized that CP is a “gateway” condition to either liver or pancreatic cancers. Officially, CP has no treatment and the only recommendation doctors give is to cut back (or completely stop) drinking alcohol as that is one of the known causes of CP. However, CP often persists despite alcohol abstinence and as such there is an urgent need for effective treatments. In a previous post of mine I discussed how serotonin antagonists such as cyproheptadine and ketotifen may be able to treat both AP and CP. However, those drugs are not widely available and remain by prescription-only in many countries. The study below now demonstrates that humble aspirin at a HED of ~7mg/kg daily for 4-6 weeks may be able to treat CP. Importantly, aspirin managed to reverse to a great degree the fibrosis in the inflamed pancreas, which suggests that aspirin may be a viable treatment for many other fibrotic conditions. Also, since fibrosis is almost universally a precursor to cancer, this anti-fibrotic effect of aspirin may explain a good deal of its cancer-prevention effects.

link here

“…Results: L-arginine-induced CP resulted in over-expression of the inflammatory enzyme cyclooxygenase (COX)-2. COX-2 expression decreased after ASA treatment. Pancreatic-injury inflammatory response (measured by changes in amylase, CK-19, F4/80, CD3, MCP-1, IL-6) and fibrosis degree (measured by expression of COL1A1, MMP-1 and TIMP-1) was reduce in ASA -treated mice model. The therapeutic effect of ASA was also observed in caeruelin-induced CP.

Conclusion: ASA has an ameliorating effect in murine models of CP through inhibition of pancreatic inflammation and fibrosis, which may be a promising option for clinical treatment.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1962.mp3" length="651452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D likely effective as an antidepressant</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1959</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1959</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Aug 2022 18:54:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1959

That is the simple conclusion of the largest meta-study to date. Namely, vitamin D in doses above 2,000 IU daily has antidepressant effect when used as monotherapy. The antidepressant effects of vitamin D when used in combination with pharma antidepressant drugs is already well-established, so this new study combined with the recent admission that SSRI drugs are no better than placebo strongly suggests the clinical trials that reported benefits of SSRI when used in combination with other substances may have simply measured the antidepressant effects of those other substances (as SSRI drugs are next to useless). At the very least, the study below suggests that may be the case for vitamin D – a true antidepressant, available OTC in most countries.

3 links here

“…Now a new meta-analysis, link here of 41 previous studies suggests that taking vitamin D supplements can relieve depressive symptoms in people already diagnosed with depression, link here, opening up a potential alternative option for treatment. As well as controlling levels of calcium and phosphate in the body, it’s thought that vitamin D helps to regulate various functions in the central nervous system – and earlier research on animals suggests it could even contribute to the control of chemical balances in the brain, link here, which may explain the association between vitamin D and mental health. “These findings will encourage new, high-level clinical trials, link here in patients with depression in order to shed more light on the possible role of vitamin D supplementation in the treatment of depression,” says Tuomas Mikola, link here, doctoral researcher and lead author at the University of Eastern Finland. The new meta-analysis covered a total of 53,235 study participants from 41 studies, including those with and without depression, people taking vitamin D supplements and people taking placebos, and individuals with a variety of physical conditions. While the doses used varied, the typical vitamin D supplement was 50-100 micrograms a day. In the participants with depression, vitamin D supplements were shown to be more effective than placebos at alleviating depressive symptoms. Vitamin D supplements seemed to be most effective in shorter bursts (under 12 weeks), the researchers report. However, in healthy individuals, it was placebos that had a slightly greater impact on depressive symptoms. “Our results suggest that vitamin D supplementation has beneficial effects in both individuals with major depressive disorder as well as in those with milder, clinically significant depressive symptoms,” write the researchers in their published paper, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1959.mp3" length="395348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>BREAKING: Seminal study, core of the amyloid-Alzheimer theory, was FABRICATED!</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1955</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1955</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 23 Jul 2022 02:48:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1955

It rarely gets any more damning for a scientific field than what was just announced today. Namely, the study considered the most important/influential in maintaining scientific support for the central dogma of dementia research – the beta-amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer Disease (AD) – was not just wrong, but directly and deliberately FABRICATED in order to “better fit a hypothesis”. Here is the **cough** FRAUDULENT**cough**…I mean, “seminal”, study in question.

link here

Now, against that news please consider also the article below, which states that virtually ALL research on AD over the last 2 decades failed to produce any significant advance in understanding or a treatment for that disease.

link here

Since most of those clinical trials were based on the “amyloid hypothesis”, which we now know to be fraudulent, it is hard to see why the outcome of those trials would have been any different. In fact, the failure of all those trials is actually kind of amazing, as it suggests the trials themselves were/are still conducted with some form of scientific integrity. Otherwise, fabrications like the one described below would have occurred in at least one those trials considering the billions in costs for each one them and thus the incentive to cheat and get a drug (fraudulently) approved. Another amazing thing is that, as it has become usual, instead of doing a mea culpa and prosecuting the fraud to the fullest legal extent possible (given the massive poisoning effects the fraud had on science, as well as the direct harm to MILLIONS of innocent patients) the pharma industry and its medical supporters are trying to defend the amyloid link and continue to gaslight the public. I think that is probably the most depressing part of the article below – i.e. despite the obvious/open FRAUD it will still be “business as usual” – i.e. the industry will continue to both waste money on a fraudulent idea as well as harm innocent patients. So don’t expect true AD cures or even so-called disease-modifying therapies to come out of Big Pharma any time soon. Now, for many people who do not really follow pharma/medical news, it would probably be reasonable to just brush this aside as a serious but rare instance of scientific fraud that does not undermine the health system as a whole. However, another one of my posts a few years ago demonstrated that similar direct fraud has also happened in other high-impact scientific areas (e.g. ionizing radiation risks, serotonin-depression link, estrogen-cancer link, etc), with the explicit goal of helping business/sales and with the knowledge and participation of the highest echelon of government, science and pubic health brass. Here is the one about ionizing radiation fraud, a crime of truly global impact/proportions, affecting several generations of billions of people around the world.

link here

If our “health” experts can openly and unabashedly lie about matters of global health  and scientific importance, fabricate scientific “evidence”, while relentlessly gaslighting the public whenever exposed, then how much confidence can one really have in regards to public health, scientific or even government/political matters?? I guess not much, and while many people will find that thought depressing I’d say that such news/realization may be a blessing in disguise. Why? Well, it may do more for pushing people away from the health industry and Big Pharma than all the COVID-19 scams over the last 2+ years combined. This way, we can at least drastically lower the third leading cause of death – i.e. the iatrogenic one.

2 links here

“…The data behind the most influential theory of what causes Alzheimer’s, link here disease may have been ‘manipulated’, a damning scientific probe has claimed. Experts fear the allegedly falsified results have misled research over the last 16 years, potentially wasting billions of pounds of funding. A six-month investigation by Science, link here, considered one of the world’s most respected research journals, uncovered ‘shockingly blatant’ tampering of results in the seminal 2006 University of Minnesota, link here study.”

“…The paper pointed to a particular protein — known as amyloid beta — as the driving force behind Alzheimer’s. It was the first substance in brain tissue ever identified that seemed to be behind the condition’s memory-robbing effects. Published in rival journal Nature, link here, the study became one of the most cited articles on Alzheimer’s ever published. Around £1.3billion ($1.6billion) of funding for studies mentioning amyloids was spent by the US Government over the last year alone. It made up half of the country’s total Alzheimer’s research funding. But images from the study, which involved injecting mice with the protein, appear to be doctored to ‘better fit a hypothesis’, according to Dr Elisabeth Bik, a forensic image consultant who was asked to review the data. Charities today slammed the ‘extremely serious’ allegations.”

“…Dr Matthew Schrag, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilty University in Tennessee, was the first to uncover problems with the Nature study. He noticed anomalies in the original images, published by Dr Sylvain Lesné and his team, during another probe into an experimental Alzheimer’s drug. They had ‘the potential to mislead an entire field of research’, Dr Schrag told the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Science, the publication of the AAAS — American Association for the Advancement of Science, conducted its own investigation to the research, finding ‘strong support for Dr Schrag’s suspicions’. Ms Bik told the journal: ‘The obtained experimental results might not have been the desired results. ‘That data might have been changed to… better fit a hypothesis.’  German psychiatrist Aloiz Alzheimer first identified plaques in the brain in dementia patients in 1906. A study in the 1980s then suggested amyloid beta was behind the build-up. But hundreds of trials over the next 20 years, designed to finally find a therapy that targets the toxic accumulation of proteins in the brain, were unsuccessful. The theory had lost momentum until the landmark University of Minnesota paper in 2006, which became the basis of hundreds of studies since. Reviewing the pictures used to prove amyloid beta’s effect on mice in the study, Dr Dennis Selkoe, a Harvard University neurologist, claimed ‘there are certainly at least 12 or 15 images where I would agree there is no other explanation’ than manipulation. Dr Sara Imarisio, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: ‘These allegations are extremely serious. ‘While we haven’t seen all of the published findings that have been called into question, any allegation of scientific misconduct needs to be investigated and dealt with where appropriate. ‘Researchers need to be able to have confidence in the findings of their peers, so they can continue to make progress for people affected by diseases like dementia.’ She described the amyloid protein as being ‘at the centre of the most influential theory of how Alzheimer’s disease develops in the brain’.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1955.mp3" length="1642772" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Negative childhood experiences accelerate aging/disease in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1953</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1953</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 22 Jul 2022 17:51:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1953

I am posting this study mostly as a counterexample to all the drivel coming out of gerontology research circles. Namely, the dogma is that biological aging is overwhelmingly influenced/determined by genes and cannot really be retarded (pun intended) or accelerated by the environment. This dogma persists despite decades of research on pregnant mothers showing maternal stress during pregnancy can increase risk of virtually all chronic diseases, and in fact even guarantees the development of some them (e.g. autism). Since disease and aging are the same process, it is obvious the gerontology dogma is false, but the billions poured into finding a genetic cause of aging cannot simply be written off as a waste, so the “scientific” charade continues. Be that as it may, the study below shows that stress continues to imprint the health phenotype of a child even after birth. Namely, experiencing even one significant adverse event as a child was strongly associated with advanced biological age gauged by a number of biomarkers related to insulin sensitivity, inflammation, immunity, liver function, etc. The negative/adverse childhood experiences with the strongest effect were neglect and physical/sexual abuse.

2 links here

“…Individuals exposed to adverse childhood experiences tend to be biologically older than their counterparts, according to new research published in the scientific journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, link here. Adverse childhood experiences refer to a set of potentially traumatic events that occur before adulthood. These experiences include various forms of abuse and neglect, witnessing intimate partner violence, parental death or serious illness, parental divorce or separation, and psychiatric illness of a family member. Biological aging, on the other hand, refers to the accumulation of damage and loss of function to cells, tissues and organs. Previous research has found that people exposed to adverse childhood experiences are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases and have a shorter lifespan. The authors of the new study were interested in whether accelerated biological aging could help explain the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and poor health outcomes later in life.”

“…The study focused on 23,354 participants who had completed a 90-minute interview and taken part in physical and clinical assessments. The researchers examined a number of biomarkers related to the biological aging process, including albumin, creatinine, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1C), C-reactive protein, lymphocyte percentage, mean cell volume, red blood cell distribution width, and white blood cell count. The average age of the participants was 59, and most (63%) reported experiencing at least one adverse childhood experience. Participants who reported adverse childhood experiences tended to be biologically older than those who did not. In addition, the researchers found that the link between adverse childhood experiences and biological age was stronger for more severe forms of adversity, such as physical and sexual abuse. The findings suggest “that harms in early life can take many forms, and can lead to health consequences many years down the road,” Verschoor told PsyPost. “What our study shows is that these consequences manifest as perturbations to multiple biological systems, which can be measured from biomarkers in blood.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1953.mp3" length="605348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lifestyle, not age, rules cognitive function…</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1950</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1950</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 21 Jul 2022 18:45:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1950

…whether you are 18 or 80. Yes, I know it is hard to believe this statement but that is the conclusion of the study after examining the link between lifestyle (and environment) and cognitive function in a group of people with ages spanning the 18-89 years interval. The conclusion of the study was that an 80-year old one can be just as sharp as a person decades younger provided the “oldie” has at least a high school education, does not smoke, does not abuse drugs, does not have traumatic brain injury (TBI) or diabetes/depression. So, very little about cognitive function seems to be linked to genes or age, rather than to making health-promoting choices. Here is another choice the article did not mention but is probably much more important than the ones it did mention – avoiding professional medicine. Unbeknownst to most people, iatrogenic reasons are the THIRD leading cause of death in Western countries!

2 links here

So, just avoiding going to the doctor (unless it is an emergency) would add more years to your life than eliminating completely stroke (cerebrovascular diseases), Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, infectious disease, kidney disease …COMBINED! Yeah, I think ’nuff said:-)

2 links here

“…Individuals with no dementia risk factors, such as smoking, diabetes or hearing loss, have similar brain health as people who are 10 to 20 years younger than them, according to a new Baycrest study. The study found that a single dementia risk factor could reduce cognition by the equivalent of up to three years of aging. “Our results suggest lifestyle factors may be more important than age in determining someone’s level of cognitive functioning. This is great news, since there’s a lot you can do to modify these factors, such as managing diabetes, addressing hearing loss, and getting the support you need to quit smoking,” says Dr. Annalise LaPlume, Postdoctoral Fellow at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute (RRI) and the study’s lead author.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1950.mp3" length="560564" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Higher metabolic rate, not exercise, makes people naturally slim</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1947</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1947</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 15 Jul 2022 17:15:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1947

Hopefully, this study will pour cold water on all the “fitness gurus” out there who preach (though, not often practice) the mantra “no pain, no gain”. Or in this case, instead of gain they mean loss – of fat mass, that is. If there is any industry that is recession-proof it is probably the exercise/fitness one, and its promoters have been engaging in increasingly bizarre advocacy, currently bordering on madness – i.e. eat as close to zero carbs as possible and move as much as possible. Despite this approach, the average BMI of “developed” countries continues to increase and now almost half of the Western population is overweight, while a quarter probably satisfies the criteria for (pre)diabetes. The study below demonstrates that when it comes to natural slimness it is all about the metabolic rate, and more specifically, all about the levels of active thyroid hormone (T3). In fact, it demonstrates that despite the much lower levels of physical activity the naturally slim people had great biomarkers of CVD, including cholesterol and blood pressure. That last finding is perhaps the most damning as it undermines the central argument for exercise – i.e. even if it does not  lower BMI it lowers those biomarkers and subsequent risk of CVD. In fact, considering that long-term exercise raises baseline cortisol, which further raises BMI and CVD risk, it looks like yet again the official recommendations in regards to health are about the exact opposite of what one should do. Instead of exercising ourselves to death while counting calories, we should be avoiding stress, avoiding anti-thyroid foods (PUFA anyone?) and (if needed) consuming pro-metabolic substances such as sugar, caffeine, aspirin, pregnenolone, progesterone, androgens…and, of course, thyroid.

2 links here

“…To date most research on obesity has focused on studying those with a high body mass index (BMI), but a research group in China is taking a different approach. In a study published July 14 in the journal Cell Metabolism, the scientists looked at individuals with a very low BMI. Their findings reveal that these individuals are actually considerably less active than people with a BMI in the normal range, contrary to speculation that they have a metabolism that makes them naturally more active. Additionally, they eat less food than those with a normal BMI. “We expected to find that these people are really active and to have high activity metabolic rates matched by high food intakes,” says corresponding author John Speakman, a professor at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology in China and the University of Aberdeen in the UK. “It turns out that something rather different is going on. They had lower food intakes and lower activity, as well as surprisingly higher-than-expected resting metabolic rates linked to elevated levels of their thyroid hormones.”

“…The investigators found that compared with a control group that had normal BMIs, the healthy underweight individuals consumed 12% less food. They were also considerably less active, by 23%. At the same time, these individuals had higher resting metabolic rates, including an elevated resting energy expenditure and elevated thyroid activity. “Although these very lean people had low levels of activity, their markers of heart health, including cholesterol and blood pressure, were very good,” says first author Sumei Hu, currently at the Beijing Technology and Business University. “This suggests that low body fat may trump physical activity when it comes to downstream consequences.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1947.mp3" length="862676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone (P5) improves recovery from stroke</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1942</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1942</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 15 Jul 2022 15:13:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1942

One of the few direct studies with P5 in-vivo, though that may be changing as I noticed the rate of articles on P5 has been rising over the last 5-6 years. This study used four (4) administrations of P5, at a HED of just 0.3mg/kg, 1, 6, 12, and 18 hours after the (ischemic) stroke was caused. The reason I emphasize “after” is that if P5 managed to drastically improve the recovery from stroke hours after it occurred, it may have an even stronger effect when used as a prophylactic, even if not taken daily. Once weekly usage of P5 has also been shown to work well, similarly to other fat-soluble substances such as the vitamins A/D/E/K, which can also be taken once weekly and still produce similar benefits to daily use. Anyways, this single administration of low-dose P5 was sufficient to reduce the infarct volume, neurological deficits and cognitive function caused by the stroke, as well as improve grip strength and motor coordination. Importantly, P5 also improved the functioning of Complex I and Complex II of the electron transport chain (ETC), which probably explains most of its benefits seen in the study. A study published in 2021 demonstrated that P5 also has strong anti-inflammatory effects and that is probably another mechanism through which P5 protected the brain in this study. The study also references prior evidence demonstrating that progesterone (P4) and allopregnanolone (ALLO) have even stronger protective effects in stroke, and many of those effects are through distinct mechanisms compared to P5. As such, taking P5 with P4 or ALLO may be an even better approach, especially considering the findings that ALLO worked even in very low doses. Thus, a protocol of a single dose of 150mg P5 and 5mg ALLO taken as soon as the stroke has been recognized/diagnosed may be more helpful than the doctors in a hospital, especially if one adds even a single tablet of aspirin (which has already been shown to synergyze with P5 when used in brain/spine damage conditions).

link here

“…P5 promotes neurological recovery in ischemic stroke rats, according to our findings. To support the existence of neurological abnormalities associated with cerebral ischemia and the action of P5, we conducted a number of behavioral experiments in rats. P5’s effect on neuronal processes that are crucial for neurological functioning may explain why ischemia-induced neurological deficits were reduced. P5 has been shown to be a cognitive enhancer, capable of directly stimulating neuronal activation in brain regions important for cognitive function.14, link here−16, link here In humans, muscle or motor dysfunction is a common complaint following a stroke. Our findings showed that ischemia causes severe motor coordination impairment, which was alleviated by the P5 therapy. P5 sulfate has previously been shown to normalize extracellular GABA and the glutamate-NO-cGMP pathway activity in the cerebellum of hyperammonemic rats, resulting in improved motor coordination.17, link here P5 has been shown to enhance motor coordination and a variety of other neurological impairments, including spinal cord damage, according to prior findings from other study groups.11, link here The effect of P5 injection after occlusion on grip strength in tMCAO rats was also examined. P5 was able to reduce the muscle damage caused by ischemia. With P5, sensory function was also consolidated, as treated rats were able to remove the sticky tape in shorter time. These findings are consistent with prior findings that P5 improves neurological disability.8, link here Intranasal injection of P5 enhances memory recovery in mice, according to previous research.18, link here,19, link here P5 has been effective in enhancing the release of acetylcholine and increases the spatial memory in rats.20, link here,21, link here To confirm that infarct volume is a measure of how serious the ischemia damage is, TTC staining was utilized, which accurately identifies the infarct volume. Because of ischemia, the rats given tMCAO had a considerable amount of lesioned regions.22, link here In the frontotemporal areas of the cerebral cortex, ischemia caused neuronal death. The administration of P5 was able to reduce the infarct volume in the peripheries of the frontotemporal areas. Other studies have revealed that P5 inhibited the neuronal death, but the mechanism has not been thoroughly elucidated.13, link here The fact that these behavioral and TTC findings coupled in with flow cytometry data, resulting in a reduction in mitochondrial ROS in the frontal cortex part of the rat brain, could be the explanation. Ischemia-induced brain increased mitochondrial ROS and weakened ETC complexes, affecting mitochondrial constituents and ROS accumulation.23, link here Mitochondrial ROS, which impacts mitochondrial function and is one of the hallmarks of reperfusion injury, was found in the frontal cortex region of the mitochondria.24, link here,25, link here P5 treatment reduced mitochondrial ROS, boosting the activity of the ETC complexes in stroke rats. P5’s antioxidant properties appear to have scavenged ROS in the mitochondria and refilled the ETC complex enzymes. We used TMRE and Ca2+ induced swelling to investigate the influence on mtPTP in frontal cortex-isolated mitochondria. P5 treatment after stroke had no effect on mitochondrial edoema and had no effect on the mitochondrial membrane potential. The effects could be explained by the participation of GABAergic mechanisms.17, link here,26, link here In our previous studies, we have determined that P4 inhibits the mtPTP in ischemic stroke, as its parent compound P5 could not inhibit the mtPTP. P5 metabolites such as P4 and ALLO block the mtPTP, preventing the discharge of cytochrome c from mitochondrial cascade, according to prior research. P4 and ALLO show binding affinity for the mtPTP, according to cumulative evidence from patch clamp and flow cytometry.7, link here,27, link here We believe that P5 does not have a high affinity for mtPTP, but more research is needed to fully understand the mechanism. Cerebral oxidative metabolism produces ATP, carbon dioxide, and water mostly from oxygen and glucose.28, link here The uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation and ETC causes dysregulation of mitochondrial bioenergetics, which is the first stage in ischemia. Changes in mitochondrial activities, such as reduced electron transport chain activity, adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-stimulated mitochondrial respiration, and oxygen utilization, have been seen in various hypoxia–ischemia models.29, link here,30, link here “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1942.mp3" length="1034540" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:20</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mitochondrial debris (from stress/injury) causes “autoimmune” disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1937</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1937</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 15 Jul 2022 01:58:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1937

After dancing around the issue for the last 10+ years, it looks like medicine is finally ready to admit the obvious. Namely, cellular (and more specifically, mitochondrial) debris created by stress/injury and dumped into the bloodstream causes the (in)famous “flares” that define virtually all “autoimmune” conditions and are the main focus of doctors and pharma industry. The evidence that cellular debris levels are elevated in the bloodstream of patients with such conditions was first proven beyond doubt in the early 2000s. However, as is usually the case, medicine and its Big Pharma accomplices, were quick to claim that the link was not causal and it could in fact be the other way around – i.e. the debris could be a result of the immune system attacking and/or destroying the respective tissue/organ. Well, the study below is probably the biggest to date to show conclusively that the link is in fact causal – i.e. it is the presence of cellular/mitochondrial fragments in the cytosol and bloodstream that triggers SYSTEMIC inflammatory response/cascade. The study also demonstrated that acute/chronic stress/injury reliably leads to the release of such cellular/mitochondrial debris, which then directly triggers the “flare”. So, the standard-of-care “treatment” for “autoimmune” conditions with glucocorticoids is one of the worst possible approaches due to both the fact that glucocorticoids are catabolic and themselves increase levels of cellular debris, as well as the fact that those steroids upregulate the expression of inflammatory enzymes (COX, LOX, etc) and the inflammation of the treated patient ends up much higher than pre-treatment as soon as the glucocorticoids are withdrawn (which in most patients they are, as the guidelines are for them to only be used short-term, for “acute exacerbations”). The long-term “treatments” (e.g. Humira) are not benign either as the immunosuppression they cause is known to often result in cancer. Instead, true curative treatment of “autoimmune” conditions should involve stopping tissue catabolism/injury, as well as controlling inflammation. It has been known for almost 100 years that anabolic steroids such as testosterone (as well as nandrolone, oxandrolone, trenbolone, methenolone, etc) are highly effective in stopping almost immediately an “autoimmune” flare and often curing the entire condition for good. This effectiveness has always been a thorn in the side of medicine and Big Pharma, as those steroids are anticatabolic and mostly work by blocking the effects of cortisol. So, if they work, and do so in a manner about directly opposite of glucocorticoids’, then medicine prescribing glucocorticoids for such conditions is at best incompetent and at worst openly criminal. However, since neither testosterone nor any of the other anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) have been approved for “autoimmune” conditions, their usage has remained very rare and this has allowed medicine and Big Pharma to continue their scam unnoticed and unopposed. Now, since testosterone is easily aromatized in patients with chronic inflammation (which is the case in “autoimmune” conditions) non-aromatizable anti-catabolic steroids are likely a better option. That includes the endogenous androgen DHT and possibly other non-aromatizable metabolites/precursors such as androsterone. Of course, the “usual suspects” of the OTC anti-catabolic arsenal such as pregnenolone and progesterone are also highly applicable. I don’t mention DHEA due to its even higher aromatization risk compared to testosterone, however even the risky DHEA has demonstrated great promise in human studies with Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, etc. Aspirin and niacinamide for controlling inflammation and improving the energetic balance of the cell should be a great addition to the steroid regimen, and in fact many studies have gone as far as saying that raising NAD+ levels (which niacinamide reliably does) is likely to be curative for all “autoimmune” conditions. In corroboration to the benefit of such an approach, I have many emails from people suffering from “autoimmune” conditions who have been in “indefinite remission” (a nonsensical term invented by their doctors) through a simple combination of pregnenolone/aspirin, progesterone/aspirin, or either steroid combined with aspirin and niacinamide. I am starting to get concerned that the FDA will soon go after these OTC steroids once it realized their potential for treating many diseases that medicine currently considers utterly incurable…

2 links here

“…When stressed, damaged or dysfunctional, mitochondria expel their DNA (mtDNA), oxidized and cleaved, into the cytosol — the fluid within a cell in which organelles float — and beyond into the bloodstream, triggering inflammation. In autoimmune conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, the amounts of circulating oxidized mtDNA correlate with disease severity, flare-ups and how well patients respond to therapies. An unanswered question that has plagued the field is whether oxidized mtDNA is simply a biomarker or indicator of disease or something more: a critical player in disease pathology. In a new study, published the July 13, 2022 issue of the journal Immunity, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues elsewhere, describe the biochemical pathway that results in the generation of oxidized mtDNA, how it is expelled by mitochondria and how it triggers the complex and destructive inflammatory response that follows. “In addition to charting a new pathway responsible for the generation of inflammation-provoking fragments of oxidized mtDNA, this work opens the door to the development of new anti-inflammatory agents,” said senior study author Michael Karin, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Pathology at UC San Diego School of Medicine. When macrophages — a type of white blood cell that detects infections and tissue damage and marshals other immune system cells to respond — are exposed to metabolic danger signals, one of the immediate responses is for mitochondria to rapidly take up calcium ions from the cytosol, which results in the generation of reactive oxygen species that lead to formation of oxidized mtDNA and the opening of pores in the mitochondrial membranes through which oxidized mtDNA escapes. “However this oxidized mtDNA is large and before it can sneak through the mitochondrial pores, it needs to be chopped into smaller fragments,” said Hongxu Xian, PhD, the study’s first author and a postdoctoral scholar in Karin’s lab. “That job is carried out by an enzyme called FEN1.” Once chopped by FEN1, oxidized mtDNA fragments enter the cytosol where they can bind with two different sensors: NLRP3 and cGAS. NLRP3 is part of a multi-protein complex called the inflammasome that activates inflammatory responses. cGAS is an enzyme that generates a small molecule that acts as a chemical messenger to encourage production of other cytokines — proteins that stimulate, recruit and proliferate immune cells. Together, NLRP3 and cGAS spur inflammation, which in autoimmune diseases has characteristically run amok…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1937.mp3" length="2129540" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cancer relies on fat as fuel due to high reductive stress</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1933</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1933</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 Jul 2022 15:31:56 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1933

One of the few studies out there that not only links cancer with impaired OXPHOS, but demonstrates directly the role of reductive stress (exemplified by the NAD/NADH ratio) in cancer’s appetite for fats as fuel required for the cancer survival and proliferation/metastasis. It also once again demonstrates the falsehood of the popular term “oxidative” stress, as it is in fact reductive stress, at least when it comes to cancer. Not much I can add as commentary, other than to say the study itself makes the claim that limiting fat availability to cancer cells may be THE cardinal approach to curing cancer. There are several methods one can use to achieve this goal. One is (obviously) dietary fat restriction. However, this approach does not address the issue of endogenous fat supply through lipolysis. The issue of (excessive) lipolysis can be addressed with anti-lipolytic agents such as sugar, aspirin, niacinamide, vitamin E, insulin, etc. However, since baseline lipolysis is still present even if those methods are used, one needs to block fat uptake/transport into the cell. It looks like the study authors are favoring that approach (as well as the dietary modification just mentioned above). Blocking fat uptake has two components – blocking uptake into the cytosol and blocking uptake into the mitochondria. I don’t think uptake into the cytosol from the extracellular environment is possible as fats can enter the cell through passive diffusion even if active transport mechanisms are blocked. However, longer chain fatty acids (LCFA) require the presence of the amino acid L-carnitine for transport into the mitochondria, and reducing carnitine availability essentially prevents LCFA entry into the mitochondria and subsequent use as fuel. The most widely-known drug with such effects is Meldonium/Mildronate, and I would not be surprised if we soon see cancer studies with that drug. Other chemicals that have similar carnitine blocking/depletion effects include aspirin (in doses above 3g daily) and quinine. There is some evidence that in higher doses niacinamide may also be able to inhibit fatty acid oxidation, however the exact mechanism is yet unknown.

link here

“…When electron acceptors are limited, environmental lipids become crucial for proliferation because NAD+ is required to generate precursors for fatty acid biosynthesis. We find that both oxidative and even net reductive pathways for lipogenic citrate synthesis are gated by reactions that depend on NAD+ availability. We also show that access to acetate can relieve lipid auxotrophy by bypassing the NAD+ consuming reactions. Gene expression analysis demonstrates that lipid biosynthesis strongly anti-correlates with expression of hypoxia markers across tumor types. Overall, our results define a requirement for oxidative metabolism to support biosynthetic reactions and provide a mechanistic explanation for cancer cell dependence on lipid uptake in electron acceptor-limited conditions, such as hypoxia.”

link here

“…Oxygen is most known for its role in making energy in the body; that is why when we exercise, we start breathing harder. Because many cancer cells live in oxygen-depleted environments, it is often assumed that their growth is limited by energy. But oxygen also has a less celebrated role, and that is to provide oxidizing power for the chemical reactions driving synthesis of biomolecules necessary for building new cells. Many biosynthetic reactions require a co-factor called NAD+, and when oxygen is lacking, cells cannot regenerate growth-promoting NAD+. And their key synthetic reactions come to a halt. The new study found, surprisingly, that hypoxic cancer cells usually have more energy than they need for growth. When the researchers provided cancer cells with extra nutrients for energy generation, the cells did not respond. Instead, when researchers used various methods to unclog biosynthetic pathways inhibited by lack of oxygen, cancer cells robustly increased proliferation. The researchers found that while various biosynthetic pathways are sensitive to oxygen availability, synthesis of fats was among the most affected. Fat molecules are used to create membranes of new cells, and fat synthesis is especially challenging for cancer cells that need to synthesize new membranes for their growth. Without access to oxygen, cells cannot adequately supply their fat synthesis pathways. “What makes our result very counterintuitive,” Vitkup says, “is that fat synthesis is not considered to be a process requiring a lot of oxygen. But our experiments demonstrated that up to 30% of oxygen used by cancer cells is not for energy generation but for synthesizing fats.” As a result of oxygen’s impact on biosynthesis, cancer cells growing in oxygen-limited environments are strongly dependent on the import of fats from the environment. This creates a crucial vulnerability for cancer cells, such that cutting their supply of imported fats may slow or stop cancer growth. Vitkup’s team is now trying to identify the receptors that cancer cells use to import fats in different tumors and which receptors could be targeted by drugs. The study also suggests that changing the composition of fats in the diet may play a vital role in influencing cancer growth.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1933.mp3" length="1062812" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>No evidence for rate-of-living theory of aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1931</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1931</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 Jul 2022 17:29:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1931

Just a quick post, since this topic dominates anti-aging research – i.e. despite lack of concrete evidence for it, mainstream research (and finding agencies) continue to claim that longevity is tied to metabolism, but in an inverse relationship. The study below is on turtles – one of the longest living organisms on the planet – and it found no support for the rate-of-living hypothesis. In fact, some of the non-aging species of turtles had the highest metabolic rates (in their genus).

link here

“…Miller explained that the “thermoregulatory mode hypothesis” suggests that ectotherms — because they require external temperatures to regulate their body temperatures and, therefore, often have lower metabolisms — age more slowly than endotherms, which internally generate their own heat and have higher metabolisms. “People tend to think, for example, that mice age quickly because they have high metabolisms, whereas turtles age slowly because they have low metabolisms,” said Miller. The team’s findings, however, reveal that ectotherms’ aging rates and lifespans range both well above and below the known aging rates for similar-sized endotherms, suggesting that the way an animal regulates its temperature — cold-blooded versus warm-blooded — is not necessarily indicative of its aging rate or lifespan.  “We didn’t find support for the idea that a lower metabolic rate means ectotherms are aging slower,” said Miller.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1931.mp3" length="252644" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Plant protein has much lower cellular uptake/utilization, compared to animal</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1926</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1926</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 Jul 2022 17:12:56 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1926

Despite the efforts of the powers that be, the evidence against the benefits of plant protein intake continues to accumulate. It has been known since the 1970s that the so-called net nitrogen utilization (NNU) of plant protein is quite low and potentially lower than 0.5, which means that consuming plant protein is actually a net harm for the body. The highest NNU is about 0.9 and applies to whole egg protein as well as gelatin, milk protein is about 0.8, meat is about 0.7-0.75, and the plant proteins tested at the time were all below 0.6 with some data suggesting a value below 0.5. However, those older studies were criticized by Big Agriculture as outdated and poorly designed and we have been bombarded ever since by propaganda 24×7 on how plant protein is the greatest thing under the sun and we should all switch over to eating that instead of animal protein…and if we still feel the need to eat animal protein then we will “eat bugs”…and “be happy” (as WEF claims). Well, the study below pours cold water on many of those claims by demonstrating that 1) plant protein is much less bioavailable compared to animal (chicken, in this case) protein and that 2) human cells have much lower uptake of plant protein compared to the animal protein. Now, the study just came out and I still don’t have access to it, but if the older studies are correct plant protein has up to 30% lower bioavailability and 40%-60% lower cellular uptake/utilization compared to animal protein. If those numbers are true then plant protein is a no-go as far as meat replacement, even if the main factor in its usage is climate change since producing that much more protein (to account for its lower absorption/utilization) would negate any benefits it may have on climate change and carbon footprint.

2 links here

“…Consumers can now buy almost any type of alternative meat, from ground beef to fish sticks. To mimic the look and texture of the real thing, plants are dehydrated into a powder and mixed with seasonings. Then, the mixtures are typically heated, moistened and processed through an extruder. These products are often thought of as being more healthful than animal meats because the plants used to make them are high in protein and low in undesirable fats. However, lab tests have shown that proteins in substitutes don’t break down into peptides as well as those from meats. Osvaldo Campanella, Da Chen and colleagues wanted to go a step further and see if human cells can absorb similar amounts of peptides from a model meat alternative as they can from a piece of chicken. The researchers created a model meat alternative made of soy and wheat gluten with the extrusion process. When cut open, the material had long fibrous pieces inside, just like chicken. Cooked pieces of the substitute and chicken meat were then ground up and broken down with an enzyme that humans use to digest food. In vitro tests showed that meat-substitute peptides were less water-soluble than those from chicken, and they also were not absorbed as well by human cells. With this new understanding, the researchers say the next step is to identify other ingredients that could help boost the peptide uptake of plant-based meat substitutes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1926.mp3" length="909116" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Reductive stress drives pathogenesis and progression of tuberculosis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1923</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1923</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 Jul 2022 16:53:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1923

I am posting this study b/c it is one of the few I have seen lately demonstrating that even infectious diseases are metabolic in origin. Of course, a pathogen is involved as well, but as it turns out it may not be able to cause an infection by itself. For that to happen, a metabolic dysfunction is also required. The study below demonstrates that in the case of tuberculosis, an increase in the inflammatory mediator TNF-a results in reverse electron transport chain (ETC) flow, and this is energetic deficiency allows the bacteria to infect even more cells and thus exacerbate the infection. The article calls this reverse electron transport flow “oxidative” stress, but it is actually reductive stress as it caused by leakage of excess electrons through the inner membrane. An excess of electrons (unable to be paired with oxygen due to block in the ETC) is by definition reductive, and not oxidative, stress. The findings of this study may explain why niacinamide has effectiveness against tuberculosis. Namely, its role as an NAD precursor facilitates ETC flow and prevents this reductive stress from occurring. Even more effective remedies may include the group of quinones as they can process those excess electrons directly. As such, CoQ10, vitamin K, methylene blue, tetracycline antibiotics, flavones/flavanones, etc may all be quite beneficial not only for tuberculosis but for all infectious diseases as well. Even aspirin, though not an electron acceptor itself, may help as it reduced TNF-a and may prevent the reductive stress the latter causes.

link here

Pathway behind pathogenic mechanism of tuberculosis identified, link here

“…Tumour necrosis factor (TNF) is a key host protective factor against tuberculosis (TB). However, an excess of TNF is known to worsen TB pathogenesis, leading to more severe disease in TB patients. Lalita Ramakrishnan, link here, Group Leader in the LMB’s Cell Biology Division and Head of the University of Cambridge’s Molecular Immunity Unit (housed at the LMB), has previously shown that excess TNF causes infected macrophages to die. This releases the infectious TB bacteria into the extracellular milieu thereby inciting further growth and disease progression. Her group has also shown that excess TNF caused TB-infected macrophages to overproduce mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mROS), which causes them to die. Now, Lalita’s group has identified that TNF induces mROS, which drive pathogenesis and disease progression, through reverse electron transport (RET) in mitochondria during TB infection. Normally, mROS are produced as electrons make their way down the electron transport chain along the cell’s inner mitochondrial membranes. Now, Lalita’s group have shown that pathological mROS in TB infected cells are not made through forward electron transport, but instead through RET, a pathway only recently recognised as pathologically important to conditions like heart attacks and strokes. This new study from Lalita’s group highlights the RET pathway’s role as a major pathogenic mechanism of TB too. They found that high levels of TNF caused levels of cellular succinate, a molecule involved in the Krebs cycle to increase, which, in turn, caused RET.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1923.mp3" length="820316" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low-dose aspirin may prevent most dementias (even Alzheimer’s)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1921</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1921</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 Jul 2022 16:16:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1921

Over the last couple of months, a few studies came out arguing (again) that aspirin is not worth the risk and that people should stop taking it. It seems that Big Pharma has a schedule of pumping propaganda out every year or so against the main “threats” to its dominance – aspirin, vitamin D, caffeine, B vitamins, sucrose, calcium, etc. The list of things Big Pharma routinely bashes is suspiciously similar to things Dr. Peat writes about and recommends, and they all happen to be pro-metabolic, anti-inflammatory, anti-aging, etc. The study below is a gulp of fresh air in this suffocating cesspool of lies and it showed that even a low-dose aspirin (80mg-100mg daily) was able to strongly decrease incidence of most types of dementias, including Alzheimer Disease (AD). Another key finding of the study is that the aspirin had to be taken for several years in order for the benefits to be seen. This may explain the “null” studies on aspirin Big Pharma relies on to bash aspirin in the media – i.e. all of those studies were of limited duration and usually included people who are not expected to benefit much from aspirin anyways.

2 links here

“…The meta-analysis of both cohorts demonstrated a marginal decrease in the risk of all-cause dementia. Low-dose ASA had the greatest preventive benefit in people with coronary heart disease both in cohorts, and a significant association was seen. In particular, a 31% reduction in the risk of AD, a 69% reduction in the risk of VD, and a 34% reduction in the risk of all-cause dementia was reported in a meta-analysis. Furthermore, consumers of low-dose ASA for 10 years or longer had a considerable protective impact on all dementia outcomes, particularly VD, as compared to non-users, although no beneficial correlations were identified with shorter low-dose ASA usage. The PI concluded that the outcomes of this study suggest that persons with CHD may benefit from long-term low-dose ASA usage not just by lowering their CVD risk, but also by lowering their dementia risk. The findings of this study can only be extrapolated to primarily Caucasian populations aged 55 and older, and they must be validated in RCTs with high sample numbers and lengthy follow-up periods.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1921.mp3" length="557588" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA metabolites may trigger diabetes type I</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1919</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1919</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 12 Jul 2022 19:19:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1919

Type I diabetes is known as an autoimmune condition. Namely, for some “unknown” reason(s) the beta-cells of the pancreas get attacked by the immune system and over time this leads to their destruction and inability to produce insulin. Of course, no such thing as an “autoimmune” disease exists. It is just a symptom of a diseased organ shedding debris into the bloodstream and the immune system tagging said debris for removal by creating antibodies specific for that organ/tissue. No actual attack by the immune system occurs against the organ/tissue in question. The study below corroborates the hypothesis of a lack of attack by demonstrating that the reason for antibody production is overpexression of the enzyme 12/15-lipoxygenase, link here – an enzyme involved not only in synthesizing the inflammatory leukotrienes, but also metastatic cancer. So, the findings of this study essentially state that PUFA metabolites (leukotrienes) are responsible for the development of type I diabetes, and suggests that using a 12/15-LOX inhibitor would be therapeutic. The study actually did administer such an inhibitor and found it effective in preventing the development of beta-cell “autoimmunity”. Other anti-leukotriene drugs such as the direct antagonists montelukast and zafirlukast would probably also be effective, as would vitamin E (a COX/LOX inhibitor). However, a more upstream approach would be avoiding/replacing dietary PUFA altogether and that can be done by both decreasing the overall quantity of PUFA in the diet as well as using antilipolytic chemicals such as aspirin and niacinamide so that the body stored do not supply PUFA to peripheral tissues to be metabolized into the dreaded leukotrienes.

2 links here

“…The study, published today in Cell Reports, describes how the researchers used genetic tools to knock out or delete a gene called Alox15 in mice that are genetically predisposed to developing type 1 diabetes. This gene produces an enzyme called 12/15-Lipoxygenase, which is known to be involved in processes that produce inflammation in beta cells. Deleting Alox15 in these mice preserved their amount of beta cells, reduced the number of immune T cells, link here infiltrating the islet environment, and prevented type 1 diabetes from developing in both males and females. These mice also showed increased expression of the gene encoding a protein called PD-L1 that suppresses autoimmunity. “The immune system doesn’t just decide one day that it’s going to attack your beta cells. Our thinking was that the beta cell itself has somehow fundamentally altered itself to invite that immunity,” said senior author Raghavendra Mirmira, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Diabetes Translational Research Center at UChicago. “When we got rid of this gene, the beta cells no longer signaled to the immune system and the immune onslaught was completely suppressed, even though we didn’t touch the immune system,” he said. “That tells us that there is a complex dialogue between beta cells and immune cells, and if you intervene in that dialogue, you can prevent diabetes.”

“…In the new study, the researchers also tested a drug that inhibits the 12/15-Lipoxygenase enzyme on human beta cells. They saw that the drug, called ML355, increases levels of PD-L1, suggesting that it could interrupt the autoimmune response and prevent diabetes from developing. Ideally, it would be given to patients who are at high risk because of family history and show early signs of developing type 1 diabetes, or shortly after diagnosis before too much damage has been done to the pancreas. Mirmira and his team are taking the first steps to start clinical trials to test a possible treatment using ML355.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1919.mp3" length="830636" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SSRI use during pregnancy increase risk of neonatal seizures/epilepsy</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1917</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1917</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:20:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1917

So much for “safe and effective during pregnancy”…I shudder at the thought of how many women get talked into using SSRI during pregnancy without even having depression. You know, just in case they MIGHT get postpartum depression.

link here

Serotonergic Antidepressant Use in Pregnancy and Risk for Neonatal Seizures, link here

“…Researchers at Indiana University in Bloomington used data from the Medical Birth Register in Stockholm, Sweden, to examine the association between reported maternal use of SSRIs or SNRIs and the diagnosis of neonatal seizures or epilepsy in over 1.2 million children born from 1996 through 2013. Following the evaluation of the SSRI, link here and SNRI use and parental epilepsy, researchers adjusted for a wide range of background factors (eg, age, education, and comorbidities) and pregnancy-specific characteristics (eg, maternal use of tobacco and use of other psychiatric medications). The study found that the children born to women with reported use of SSRIs or SNRIs during pregnancy had 41% greater risk for newborn seizures (n=1,551,906; risk ratio [RR], 1.41; 95% CI, 1.03-1.94) and 21% increased risk for being diagnosed with epilepsy during follow-up (n=1,367,087; hazard ratio [HR], 1.21; 95% CI, 1.03-1.43) compared with children who were unexposed to SSRIs or SNRIs. In this study, neonatal seizures and epilepsy were classified using International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-9 and ICD-10. Neonatal seizures were defined by at least 1 diagnosis within the first 30 days of life and epilepsy was defined by at least 1 diagnosis at any time after birth.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1917.mp3" length="212252" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B1 as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1914</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1914</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 12 Jul 2022 17:31:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1914

After decades of denial that AD is a metabolic condition, Big Pharma and Big Govt, are silently doing an 180-degree turn by secretly funding university clinical trials for metabolic interventions in that disease. The study below will evaluate the effects of benfotiamine – a lipophilic analog of thiamine (vitamin B1) – on mild to moderate AD. As the PR page says, there is strong evidence that raising levels of B1 in the brain may be an effective treatment for the less severe forms of the diseases, and the lipophilic analogues of vitamin B1 are known to reliably raise both thiamine and thiamine pyrophosphate levels in the brain. In contrast, most studies with regular thiamine (as the Hcl or nitrate salts) do not demonstrate increases of B1 and active co-factor in the brain, even if the precursors were administered through IV. The human dosage will likely be 300mg twice day.

link here

“…Dysfunction in the brain’s ability to metabolize glucose is a known marker of AD and other dementias and can begin decades before a person has clinical symptoms or memory loss. Previous work by Burke Neurological Institute/Weill Cornell Medicine, link here researcher Dr. Gary E. Gibson, link here, who will also be a leader of the upcoming clinical trial, suggested that reduction in glucose metabolism is due to a decline in thiamine-dependent processes. Using multiple experimental models, he and others have shown that increasing thiamine to very high levels via benfotiamine was protective against Alzheimer’s-like symptoms. Dr. Gibson noted, “I am particularly excited about this trial because it will determine how relevant these decades of research are to the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. If our hypothesis is correct, we will advance an exciting investigative clinical treatment pathway relevant for millions of patients, and with potential advantages in safety and value.” These foundational experiments led to a recent pilot study, published, link here in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2020 and carried out by Dr. Gibson along with research partners at Weill Cornell Medicine, Burke Rehabilitation Institute, and Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The study suggested a slowed rate of cognitive decline in 35 participants with mild MCI or early AD who took 300-mg benfotiamine pills twice daily, and the treatment was completely safe.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1914.mp3" length="454436" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide increases ATP/NAD, lower glucose/cortisol in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1911</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1911</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 12 Jul 2022 16:56:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1911

A great new study demonstrating for the first time in a human experiment what hundreds of animal studies had suggested in the past. Namely, that niacinamide can serve as a reliable precursor to NAD+ and by raising the NAD/NADH ratio results in improved glucose metabolism and higher ATP levels. In addition, since NAD is the co-factor for the enzyme 11b-HSD2, which deactivates cortisol (into cortisone) one would expect niacinamide to lower cortisol as well, which is what the study observed. In fact, the cortisone/cortisol ratio, which we can measure in our hair/nail steroid analysis service, is another good redox indicator similar to the NAD/NADH, pyruvate/lactate, GSSG/GSH, etc discussed in past posts of mine, and if niacinamide lowered cortisol it means it raised the cortisone/cortisol ratio and improved the redox status. Finally, the study is one of the few out there that did NOT use the expensive and heavily promoted NAD precursors nicotinamide riboside (aka NiaGen) or nicotinamide mononucleotide. The study used plain old niacinamide in combination with D-ribose. This study is actually a good corroboration of my previous posts about nicotinamide riboside offering no special advantage to plain niacinamide due to being quickly metabolized in the body back to niacinamide and D-ribose. So, if anything, the study showed that by combining the dirt cheap and widely available D-ribose and plain niacinamide you can get the same effects as ingesting nicotinamide riboside. But, as they way in the infomercials on late night TV, there is more! Since D-ribose is rather abundant inside most mammals – i.e. it is a metabolite of glucose – one can replicate the study without the need to supplement with D-ribose. All one needs to do it take niacinamide with a sweet drink providing at least 20g of sugar and voila! The effects would be largely the same as this study. This approach is similar to the studies showing that taking glycine is sufficient to raise glutathione levels, b/c while glutathione contains both NAC and glycine, the former is abundant in the organism and does not need to be taken as a supplement while the latter is the true limiting factor on glutathione synthesis. Speaking of niacinamide, the study used 240mg niacinamide, twice daily, for just one (1) week! For those interested, the D-ribose dose was 1,280mg twice a day. So, there you have it. In addition to the recent study on low-dose niacinamide resulting in a dramatic fat loss now we have another study showing that a relatively low dose (~500mg daily) of plain niacinamide may be a viable approach to treating insulin resistance while improving the redox status of the organism and protecting against stress (by lowering cortisol).

2 links here

“…A recent study published in Nutrients, link here1 found that the combination of nicotinamide and D-ribose called RiaGev from Bioenergy Life Science (Ham Lake, MN) support healthy levels of Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) metabolomes and its related benefits. In the randomized, triple-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover pilot study, 50 healthy men and women between the ages of 36 and 65 were randomized to either RiaGev (1,520 mg dosage) then placebo, or placebo then RiaGev. Supplementation took place twice daily over seven days. Blood samples were taken on day 1, day 3, day 5, and day 8. Results showed that subjects taking RiaGev saw significant increases in NAD+ and NADP+ compared to placebo at day 5 and 8, with significant within group concentration increases of 9.4%, 14.8%, and 9.7% at days 3, 5, and 8. NAPDH levels trended upwards for the RiaGev group, but were only significantly higher compared to placebo when combined with NADP+. Supplementation with RiaGev was also associated with a significant reduction in blood glucose iAUC levels, compared to baseline, with no significant changes in insulin secretion, suggesting improved insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance. Additionally, subjects taking RiaGev also experienced significant increases in total glutathione at days 3 and 5, increases in high energy phosphates ATP and ADP ratio at days 3, 5, and 8, as well as significant reductions in salivary cortisol at days 5 and 8, compared to placebo. Subjects in the study took the Checklist Individual Strength (CIS) questionnaire with subscales that measured physical fatigue, mental concentration, motivation, and physical activities. Both RiaGev and placebo group saw improvements in CIS scores with the exception of physical activity subscales. However, scores were consistently greater in the RiaGev group compared to the placebo group with total CIS scores improving by 21.5%, 18.3%, and 12.7% at days 3, 5, and 8, respectively. Compare this to the placebo group which saw total CIS score improvements of 10.4%, 6.2%, and 4.1% at days 3, 5 and 8, respectively.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1911.mp3" length="1397972" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Progesterone may help quitting smoking</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1905</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1905</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 07 Jul 2022 19:23:56 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1905

A very interesting article, on a topic that has been studied for decades but has not seen much mainstream media exposure mostly because it does not fit the narrative. Namely, that “addictions”, including smoking, are mostly genetically determined and not much can be done about them except manage the cravings and steer the person into some form of medication and/or “therapy” to modify their behavior away from “addictive” triggers. Of course, none of that has any basis in reality and, as I mentioned above, research as early as the beginning of the 20th century demonstrated that at least when it comes to smoking, the “addiction” is heavily influenced by hormones. Observational studies demonstrated time and again that smoking cravings abate during the week when women are having their periods, and often disappear completely during pregnancy. Both of those periods are characterized with high progesterone synthesis (especially pregnancy) and thus high progesterone/estrogen ratios. Speaking of estrogens, studies later in the 20th century demonstrated that synthetic estrogens such as DES exacerbated addictive behaviors such as smoking and in some cases even cause people to pick up smoking anew. The knowledge of the neurological effects of those steroids was not advanced enough at that time to explain how progesterone may work against addiction and estrogen for it. More recent studies demonstrate that the cholinergic system is heavily involved in “addiction”, and that progesterone is an antagonist on cholinergic receptors while estrogen is an agonist. Nicotine, the primary “addictive” substance in tobacco, is actually the main naturally occurring agonist of the cholinergic receptors and, in fact, a subset of those receptors is called just that – “nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, link here“. Other anticholinergic steroids include pregnenolone, DHEA, and some androgens. Pharma drugs with anticholinergic effects include the Benadryl (diphenhydramine), cyproheptadine, the tricyclic antidepressants, and various muscarinic antagonists used clinically as an anti-dote to poisoning/overdose with cholinergic substances. Btw, the anti-addiction effects of progesterone and other anticholinergic substances are not limited to smoking. There is multitude of studies demonstrating benefits of progesterone in virtually all types of addiction, including opioid, cocaine, amphetamine, anti-anxiety drugs, etc. I suspect this is due to the central role the cholinergic system plays in depression, as described by Dr. Peat in one of his articles, link here. Namely, most people with “addiction” are in a very stressed state, likely experiencing depression due to the overactive cholinergic system. Blocking the cholinergic system alleviates their stress/depression and they simply do not need to abuse those substances any more – i.e. a direct echo of the findings of the great Rat Park, link here experiment from the 1970s that still gives nightmare to the entire addiction treatment industry.

Oh, I almost forgot about the actual study:-) It was with humans and demonstrated that female smokers had 40% higher chance of quitting smoking during the week of high progesterone compared to any period throughout the study.

2 links here

“…Progesterone is a steroid hormone, or chemical messenger, found in the bodies of both men and women, but it is present at higher levels in women and is released in the second half of the menstrual cycle. Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) researchers Nathaniel Baker, M.S.,, link here and Michael Saladin, Ph.D.,, link here have been studying progesterone’s effect on women who are trying to quit for almost eight years. In 2015, they published a paper, link here noting the connection between the hormone and smoking cessation success, and they found that, specifically, the use of a nicotine patch alongside naturally occurring increases in progesterone levels over the course of a week led to a 37% increase in the odds of achieving abstinence. ”

“…“What we found in that study,” said Baker, “was that it wasn’t necessarily high progesterone, but it was high and increasing that affected abstinence.”…Saladin said the aim of this study wasn’t to recruit participants who wanted to quit during the trial but to look at their hormone fluctuations, as well as their cigarette smoking fluctuations, and compare those results with what they already knew about serum levels. “What we found was so interesting,” he said. “When a woman’s progesterone level was increasing from a low level, she smoked fewer cigarettes per day without even knowing it or trying to. But that effect on smoking behavior eventually levels off. When progesterone peaks in a woman’s cycle, it’s very high. The benefits plateau.” He noted that the biggest finding is that quitting success comes from the low to high increase, which can help with timing a woman’s cessation attempt with her hormone cycle.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1905.mp3" length="1458332" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Consciousness is not computation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1901</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1901</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jun 2022 19:08:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1901

Actual title of the article below…and I would also add that, since intelligence and computation are inseparable, computation is NOT intelligence either. After spending the better part of the last decade arguing that a so-called (digital) Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is impossible and is likely nothing more than another (desperate) marketing trick Big Tech uses to wow the general public and politicians into keeping the taxpayer funding flowing its way, I am pleased to finally see/hear some voices in the mainstream media are starting to make similar claims. My arguments stem mostly from the fact that intelligence/knowledge (structure) is intimately structured within consciousness (function) and the two cannot be separated. So, intelligence (and by extension, AGI) is impossible without consciousness and vice versa. The article below makes a slightly simpler argument by arguing that consciousness is NOT computation  simply due to the fact that computation is not an independent system and requires an external observer to define its meaning, while consciousness is pretty much the opposite of that (independent and meaningful on its own). Now, nobody sane would deny that there are algorithms in existence quite adept at manipulating symptoms, usually words, to the point that those algorithms can hold an “intelligent” conversation with a human to the point where the human thinks it is conversing with another human. This is the definition of the (in)famous Turing Test, but that test does not really test for intelligence. It tests for an ability to manipulate symbols (words, in this case) according to a set of statistical rules representing arbitrary humanoid preferences/culture when using those symbols. True intelligence can only be achieved by a directed flow of electrons, constantly building structure (in our case, the brain) that further supports even more efficient electron flow. Computers do produce a directed electron flow, but that flow does not produce flow-reinforcing structure. In fact, the structure that the computer electron flow produces is mostly static, cannot be updated in real time (unlike the brain), and has no meaning aside from the one humans assign to it. So, a true AGI system, if ever built, must be analog in nature, and with structure that is meaningful outside somebody’s arbitrary definitions. Oh, and one last thing – as was proven mathematically back in the 1950s, no combination of deterministic and random methods (what a computer is) can EVER increase mutual information (knowledge). However, humans can. So, whatever humans are, it is very much unlike computers, and very much unlike the AGI we hear Big Tech brag about all the time. I just hope that more wake up and realize that the entire game about AGI is nothing but another giant waste of money scam that won’t produce anything of value for the regular person. Don’t believe me? Well, maybe the articles below will change your mind. The legendary IBM Watson artificial intelligence engine that was supposed to revolutionize medicine, law, science, and even society as a whole was recently sold part by part due to its failure to live up to the hype. Google was also caught faking its “artificial intelligence” demo, and so were a few other Big Tech players claiming to have an AI capable of talking/behaving like a human.

7 links here

Yeah, we got scammed, again. At best, the AI Big Tech keeps pushing will automate most of the already boring/soul-crushing/unintelligent blue and white collar jobs and plunge the majority of the population into poverty. At worst, it will generate brutally oppressive systems of control to rule over people’s lives that will further degrade the ability of humans to act intelligently to the point where there will indeed be little difference between the behavior of so-called “artificial intelligence” and humans. Not because the former had truly become intelligent, but rather because the latter had lost their ability to act so.

link here

“…Of course it is simplest to build a computer where the high voltage states correspond to 1s and the low voltages states 0s or vice versa. But there is no requirement that we build our computers that way. We could build a perfectly valid computer where the high voltage states of even valued registers correspond to 1s and where they correspond to 0s in the odd valued registers, or a computer where the mapping flips on every 13th clock cycle. The system only “computes” because of the way we have encoded information. [9, link here] So computer simulations can never produce the entity they are simulating since the “simulation” is not an independent system. It is only defined in terms of its relation to an external observer. A simulation of a brain cannot produce consciousness any more than a simulation of the weather can produce rain.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1901.mp3" length="1784420" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A real medical “conspiracy” is the reason for failure of Alzheimer treatments</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1897</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1897</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jun 2022 18:59:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1897

A meta-review study I posted about years ago stated openly that 99% of all clinical trials for Alzheimer Disease (AD) have failed. It is hard to call this anything but abject, miserable failure pointing to the fact that the hypothesis on the pathology/origin of AD is dead-wrong. However, it is hard to imagine that billions of dollars and 20+ years have been wasted completely without somebody raising the alarm that maybe medicine is on the wrong track when it comes to AD. Apparently, such alarms have been raised multiple times over the years, but have been brutally suppressed by a true medical cabal attached too strongly politically and financially to the so-called “beta amyloid hypothesis”. Namely, the hypothesis that AD is caused by accumulation of misfolded beta-amyloid and tau proteins in the brain. That medical cabal simply refused to allow any new ideas to take hold if those ideas would undermine the generous funding the cabal was enjoying on the back of the taxpayers worldwide. If this level of conspiratorial behavior is not only real, but wit global reach, and lasting for decades, it is hard to imagine that something similar (and likely even more sinister) is happening at the political level in most countries around the world.

As Alzheimer’s drug developers give up on today’s patients, where is the outrage?, link here

The maddening saga of how an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure for decades, link here

 

“…In the 30 years that biomedical researchers have worked determinedly to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, their counterparts have developed drugs that helped cut deaths from cardiovascular disease by more than half, and cancer drugs able to eliminate tumors that had been incurable. But for Alzheimer’s, not only is there no cure, link here, there is not even a disease-slowing treatment. The brain, Alzheimer’s researchers patiently explain, is hard — harder than the heart, harder even than cancer. While that may be true, it is increasingly apparent that there is another, more disturbing reason for the tragic lack of progress: The most influential researchers have long believed so dogmatically in one theory of Alzheimer’s that they systematically thwarted alternative approaches. Several scientists described those who controlled the Alzheimer’s agenda as “a cabal.” In more than two dozen interviews, scientists whose ideas fell outside the dogma recounted how, for decades, believers in the dominant hypothesis suppressed research on alternative ideas: They influenced what studies got published in top journals, which scientists got funded, who got tenure, and who got speaking slots at reputation-buffing scientific conferences.”

“…This stifling of competing ideas, say a growing number of scholars, is a big reason why there is no treatment for Alzheimer’s. (The four approved drugs have no effect on the disease, providing only a temporary memory boost.) The scientists described the frustrating, even career-ending, obstacles that they confronted in pursuing their research. A top journal told one that it would not publish her paper because others hadn’t. Another got whispered advice to at least pretend that the research for which she was seeking funding was related to the leading idea — that a protein fragment called beta-amyloid accumulates in the brain, creating neuron-killing clumps that are both the cause of Alzheimer’s and the key to treating it. Others could not get speaking slots at important meetings, a key showcase for research results. Several who tried to start companies to develop Alzheimer’s cures were told again and again by venture capital firms and major biopharma companies that they would back only an amyloid approach. “The amyloid hypothesis has been one of the most tragic stories [in] disease research,” said neurobiologist Rachael Neve of Massachusetts General Hospital.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1897.mp3" length="687452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:34</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Even elephants become “thugs” when they grow up without a father figure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1895</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1895</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jun 2022 18:39:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1895

I bet this study will never make the front-page of mainstream media outlets, simply because it is too inconvenient for both sides of the political spectrum. As it seems, there is no substitute for a father’s love and guidance/discipline, no matter what the babbling psychos on TV would have us believe. One side has largely given up on those “thugs” and pushes drugs and “therapy” to control the outbursts of such incorrigible juveniles, while the other insists on brutal, militaristic “justice” for such juveniles so that they can be forced into a socially acceptable behavior. Neither side is doing much, or even proposing relevant solutions, in regards to restoring the cohesion and coherence of the fundamental unit of modern society – the family.

3 links here

“…LIKE children, young elephants need discipline if they are to grow up as responsible members of society. Wildlife biologists say that orphan bull elephants in South Africa’s Pilanesberg Game Reserve have turned delinquent because they have never been taken in hand by their elders. Rogue elephants have become a serious problem in Pilanesberg, a small wildlife reserve about 250 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg. Earlier this month, a young bull charged a group of tourists on a photo-safari. The next day the same elephant attacked and killed a professional hunter who had been sent to shoot it. These are not isolated incidents. Two years ago another tourist was attacked, chased out of his battered car, and trampled to death in the reserve. Humans are not the only victims: in the past three years, 19 white rhinoceroses have been gored to death by elephants in Pilanesberg. Park rangers have also seen bull elephants trying to mount rhino cows.

“…Scientists working for the Rhino and Elephant Foundation (REF), based in Johannesburg, have now completed a study of the problem, and think they can explain the elephants’ aberrant behaviour. Clive Walker, chairman of the foundation, says that in each incident the rogue animal was from a group of young male elephants brought into Pilanesberg from the Kruger National Park in the early 1980s—after the rest of their herd was culled as part of an effort to control Kruger’s burgeoning elephant population. “We believe the stress these animals have been subjected to along with the fact that they have never been subjected to the discipline and nurturing of a matriarchal cow, which is a central feature of normal elephant family life, accounts for their behaviour,” says Walker.”

“…Marion Garaï, coordinator of the REF’s elephant research programmes, says that some of the orphan elephants attached themselves to a herd of rhinos after arriving in Pilanesberg. As they grew into young bulls, they tried mating with rhino cows. “Either through frustration or territorial aggression, the elephant bulls then turned on the rhino cows,” says Garaï. Garaï agrees that a lack of discipline from older animals helped turn the elephants into delinquents. “A contributing factor is the absence of older bull elephants, who are known to discipline aggressive young bulls during the mating season,” she says. The park’s small size may also have played a part, however. The Pilanesberg Game Reserve covers only about 35 000 hectares and is heavily stocked with large mammals. It is also visited by a great number of tourists because of its proximity to Johannesburg and a casino complex—which may place the animals under stress. “These could be additional factors that cause territorial aggression and unusual elephant-rhino interaction,” says Garaï.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1895.mp3" length="383276" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>An estrogen antagonist treats many cancers, including triple-negative breast cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1892</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1892</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jun 2022 18:18:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1892

Just a portion of the title is already paradoxical, according to mainstream medical dogma. Namely, how can an estrogen antagonist treat triple-negative breast cancer that is supposedly fully immune to any hormonal effects!? Well, maybe the whole idea of hormonal “receptors” as the only mechanism through which hormones exert their effects on cells is rather obsolete/incorrect and requires prompt updating. That is, there is really no such thing as “triple-negative” breast cancer, which was already suggested by another study I posted about in 2021, showing that a strong androgen such as DHT can treat such hormone-insensitive breast tumors. However, the good news does not end there. The study also discovered that the estrogen antagonist is effective against a multitude of other cancer types, which had long been considered non-endocrine tumors. In other words, virtually all major cancer types responsible for the majority of cancer deaths worldwide ARE in fact endocrine cancers and are driven primarily by estrogen signalling. Conversely, administering an estrogen antagonist (in this case ERX-11, link here) may be a viable treatment for most cancers. Rather than using exotic and untested molecules such as ERX-11, interventions such as aspirin, progesterone, vitamins A/E/D/K, tetracycline antibiotics, etc are all viable anti-estrogenic interventions (especially when used in combination) and have the potential to treat 90%+ of the cancer types afflicting humans globally.

2 links here

“…The Vadlamudi lab studies breast and ovarian cancer progression, including in therapy resistance, with a goal to developing small-molecule inhibitors for therapy-resistant cancers. In 2017, he and his colleagues identified a compound called ERX-11 that targets the estrogen receptor (ER), a protein that drives the vast majority of breast cancers. From a screen of chemical analogs of ERX-11, the researchers identified that a compound called ERX-41 not only killed ER-positive cancers in petri dishes, but also readily killed triple-negative breast cancers (TNBCs), including more than 20 distinct TNBC cell lines. TNBC is a cancer subtype lacking receptors for estrogen, progesterone and human epidermal growth factor 2, and for which there is a paucity of targeted treatments. The researchers expanded these studies to show ERX-41 had activity against a large number of human tumors grown from several of these cell lines in mouse models. In addition, ERX-41 was potent against patient-derived xenografts, as well, causing shrinkage of these human tumors grown in mouse models without affecting normal breast cells or causing any discernible toxicity in these animals. “The safety profile and high therapeutic index of this compound is particularly notable and bodes well for clinical translation,” Dr. Vadlamudi said. Other experiments showed that in addition to ER-positive breast cancers and TNBC, ERX-41 is also effective against other cancer types with elevated endoplasmic reticulum stress, including pancreatic, glioblastoma and ovarian cancers, which all have few effective treatments. The endoplasmic reticulum is a structure in many cell types that performs assorted functions, including manufacture of proteins.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1892.mp3" length="768740" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>“Endurance” exercise ages the vascular system of males by more than a decade</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1890</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1890</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jun 2022 19:03:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1890

A very interesting study, though I don’t really agree with its findings that while “endurance” (in this case running) exercise damages male vascular system it is beneficial for the female one. The majority of intervention studies that looked at both sexes, across all age groups found that chronic “endurance” exercise leads to vascular calcification and thus cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the long run, regardless of sex, for people older than 40. The most likely culprit for this vascular aging is the elevated baseline cortisol that most endurance athletes have been shown to have. Cortisol, in higher concentrations, activates the mineralocorticoid receptors, and acts similarly to aldosterone, link here – a known cause of vascular stiffness/calcification.

link here

“…Researchers from this group had previously developed a method of calculating vascular age, which estimates the age of arteries based on their stiffness. Stiffer arteries are associated with an increased risk of heart and circulatory diseases, such as heart attack and stroke, in non-athletes – but the impact on the cardiovascular health of athletes is not known.”

“…The team discovered that for older male athletes, their aortas were stiffer and, on average, 9.6 years older than their chronological age. However, for female athletes, the vascular age of their aorta was around the same as their chronological age. They also investigated the vascular age of different sections of the aorta. Researchers found the greatest difference in the descending aorta, which is the section of the aorta that runs through the chest. For male athletes, this was on average 15 years older than their chronological age. But for female athletes, it was, on average, six years younger.”

“…“Our research showed that in masters athletes, the aorta is generally stiffer in men and their vascular age is therefore older. But for women, we saw a surprisingly opposite finding, as some areas of their aorta were several years younger than their chronological age. “In non-athletes, aortic stiffening is associated with heart and circulatory diseases. How this finding applies to potential risk in athletes is not yet fully understood, so more work will be needed to help identify who could be more at risk.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1890.mp3" length="400556" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Malnutrition (fasting) or protein deficiency sufficient to cause diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1888</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1888</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jun 2022 18:30:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1888

Yet another study that should give a pause to all health care providers who push their patients to lose weight at any cost – i.e. “lower is always better”, when it comes to BMI, as the dogma goes. Well, apparently not, according to the study below. The even more astounding fact is that it looks like the ability of malnutrition (involuntary fasting) or even just protein deficiency to cause diabetes was well-known to medicine back in the 1950s-1980s timeframe, yet due to heavy lobbying by Big Pharma that “nutritional” diabetes was removed from the medical books and clinical guidelines. Considering that current guidelines for treating diabetes II call for drastic caloric restriction (a type of malnutrition), this “treatment” approach may explain the rising cases of newly diagnosed diabetes I in adults, which used to be quite rare in the past – i.e. most new cases of diabetes I used to be diagnosed in childhood or late teen years. Another interesting finding of the article was that the malnourished diabetic patients were as insulin-resistant as the diabetes II patients. This suggests that losing weight may not improve the insulin resistance of an overweight, (pre)diabetic patient, which ones again undermines the national health policy to push for weight loss at any cost in at-risk populations.

2 links here

“…Between the 1950s and 1980s, various, link here studies, link here reported the prevalence of diabetes with distinctive features in young people with a history of nutritional deficiency in low- and middle-income countries. The reports motivated the World Health Organization (WHO) to create, link here the category “malnutrition-related diabetes mellitus.” But in 1999, the same agency removed, link here it as an official category, based on what it said was a lack of evidence “that diabetes can be caused by malnutrition or protein deficiency per se. A clinical study published May 27 in Diabetes Care, link here now argues that malnutrition-related diabetes mellitus is indeed a distinct type of diabetes, and that studying it as such may improve how it is treated. By studying a small sample of diabetic and healthy males from South India, the authors concluded that diabetic patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 19 kg/m2 or below with a history of malnutrition have a defect in insulin secretion—a feature previously suspected, link here in these diabetic lean populations. ”

“…By assessing insulin production over the first three hours after a meal, the team found that patients with diabetes and low BMI had significantly lower insulin secretion than those with type 2 diabetes, but higher than those with type 1. On the other hand, insulin resistance was on the whole significantly lower in the lean diabetes patients than in type 2 diabetes. A few of these lean participants were as insulin resistant as those in type 2 patients, though, “and maybe, if we studied hundreds of [them], we would start to see subgroups,” says Hawkins. But for these lean diabetes subjects, the major problem was insulin secretion, not insulin resistance, she notes. The research team hypothesizes that this secretion failure may result from decreased beta cell mass, a feature that has been associated with maternal low-protein diets in mice, link here. Weanling rats fed with a low protein diet also show, link here a marked defect in insulin secretion. While low protein intake may be the main culprit in impaired beta cell function in malnourished diabetic populations, Hawkins explains that other nutritional deficiencies could also play a role. For example, “a lot of micronutrients like zinc can be extremely important in improving insulin secretion and improving beta cell function,” she says.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1888.mp3" length="651788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:30</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Higher progesterone, lower estrogen makes women more generous</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1885</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1885</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jun 2022 18:02:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1885

It looks like the beneficial effects if progesterone and harmful effects of estrogen are not limited to health. The study below found a women become much more generous in terms of buying drinks or gifts for their peers during the luteal phase, when progesterone is elevated and estrogen is low. If progesterone and estrogen are the hormones responsible for altruistic and selfish behavior respectively, the recent studies of ever increasing selfishness in young females (actually, young people of either sex) make much more sense now since the majority of young females are on at least one type of hormonal contraceptive. Those contraceptives are either monotherapy with a synthetic estrogen or a combination of synthetic estrogen and a synthetic progestin. Some people may find it strange that a combination of an estrogen and progestin would increase selfishness, but other recent studies I posted about last year found that synthetic progestins are also estrogenic. Thus, most young women are effectively taking either a pure estrogen or an estrogen combined with a fake estrogenic progestin, with the net effects of both types of therapy being highly estrogenic. Now, considering that progesterone is the main endogenous estrogen antagonist in women, a similar claim of effects on generosity can probably be made in regards to androgens and estrogens in men, as androgens are the main endogenous estrogen antagonist in adult males. Since the same increase in selfishness has been demonstrated in males over the last 2-3 decades, we can conclude that males are either producing a lot less androgens than before (and thus their estrogens are left largely unopposed) or are exposed to environmental estrogens that produce effects similar to the estrogens naturally produced in women. There is evidence supporting both claims, and that may explain to a large degree the various social maladies Western populations are currently experiencing.

2 links here

“…Researchers studied women’s hormones and found an increase in progesterone and lower estradiol corresponded with more generous behaviour. This combination of hormones occurs during the luteal phase – the two weeks after ovulation – when a woman’s body prepares for potential pregnancy.”

“…The psychologists studied 129 women aged 18-36 who were not using hormonal contraceptives and who had regular menstrual cycles. They were given a task in which they had to choose whether to take high selfish rewards to benefit themselves or lower rewards for themselves with rewards for other people. Meanwhile saliva samples were taken from each of the women and tested for the amounts of different hormones they contained. The paper, published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, said: ‘At increased levels of progesterone and decreased levels of estradiol, participants tended to be more generous towards socially-close others.’]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1885.mp3" length="1150844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D Deficiency Can Lead to Dementia And Stroke</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1882</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1882</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jun 2022 13:34:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1882

Despite this being an observational study, the analysis for extraneous factors has been strong enough that the authors believe the link between vitamin D deficiency and dementia/stroke is causal. As the study itself says, almost 20% of dementia/stroke cases could be prevented by simply supplementing with vitamin D. And since by supplementation such studies often mean using the puny RDA value/dose, that means a daily dose of 2,000 – 3,000 IU may be much more effective and save a much higher percentage of people.

2 links here

“…A world-first study from the University of South Australia could make this a reality as new genetic research shows a direct link between dementia and a lack of vitamin D. Investigating the association between vitamin D, neuroimaging features, and the risk of dementia and stroke, the study found:

low levels of vitamin D were associated with lower brain volumes and an increased risk of dementia and stroke

genetic analyses supported a causal effect of vitamin D deficiency and dementia.

in some populations as much as 17 per cent of dementia cases might be prevented by increasing everyone to normal levels of vitamin D (50 nmol/L).

…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1882.mp3" length="287852" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:37</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Even low-dose Vitamin D may prevent/treat dental cavities</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1879</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1879</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2022 17:36:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1879

Another study demonstrating that an “inevitable” conditions such as dental cavities may actually be preventable and, at least in its early forms, even treatable by vitamin D. The study immersed extracted teeth in different types of saliva with varying pH levels. One of the saliva types also came from volunteers that had been taking a (paltry) dose of 1,000 IU vitamin D3 daily for six weeks, before the saliva was collected. The tooth immersion was just 12 hours, and that was sufficient to significantly increase the re-mineralization of the teeth immersed in the saliva from people who had taken the vitamin D. Considering the puny dose of vitamin D used, and the fact that it was also oral route, these robust results suggest that a more targeted application of vitamin D – i.e. directly into the cavity, on the gums, or sublingual – may achieve much stronger effects, potentially even for severe dental cavities. Combining vitamin D with vitamin K may have an even stronger effect, due to the synergy of those vitamins in regards to osteocalcin synthesis/release and bone/calcium metabolism.

link here

“…For all specimens, there was a significant decrease in both (Ca and P weight %) after demineralization and then they significantly increased after receiving vitamin D3. The microhardness and elemental analysis provide confirmed results that were represented as a statistically significant difference at (P≤ 0.05) between groups that received vitamin D3 and those without vitamin D3 dosage. Oral vitamin D3 has a significant potential in motivating remineralization of early lesions on the enamel surfaces representing improved surface microhardness and minerals content (Ca and P weight %) of demineralized tooth surfaces.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1879.mp3" length="544580" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ocular progesterone administration may treat eye, brain, and mental illness</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1877</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1877</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2022 17:07:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1877

A few months ago, I posted a study demonstrating improvement in localized, ocular steroidogenesis by administration of a small amount of niacinamide (as an aqueous solution) directly into the eye. It looks like ocular administration of a variety of substances is a hot topic in research circles, as I saw a number of other studies published in high-profile journals since then, and they all advocated for the administration of anti-inflammatory drugs and antioxidant substances directly into the eye. Since the retina is part of the central nervous system (CNS) that approach seems promising. However, up until now most of the discussion on ocular administration has revolved around hydrophilic chemicals, be that niacinamide, other vitamins, or pharma drugs. However, the study below demonstrates that ocular administration is a viable route even for lipophilic substances such as progesterone. Namely, the study found strong therapeutic effects against retinitis pigmentosa from the ocular administration of the HED ~0.1mg/kg progesterone, twice daily, into each eye, for 10 days. The study suggests that the same approach can be used for other retina diseases too. As I mentioned earlier, since the retina is part of the CNS, I would extend that claim to neurological diseases as well. In addition, considering the mental/cognition effects of steroids, the ocular administration of steroids such as progesterone, pregnenolone, DHEA, androgen, etc may be a viable and targeted treatment for mental health conditions as well.

2 links here

“…Over the course of his doctoral research, Dr Alambiaga, under the supervision of Prof López Castellano and Dr Calatayud, developed a range of pharmaceutical formulations of progesterone for topical delivery to the eye. These included aqueous solutions, which increase the durability and diffusion of the molecules on the ocular surface, and ocular inserts, which increase the contact time of the drug on the ocular surface, increase drug availability to the body, and enable a controlled release, more precise dosages and less frequent administration. For the group’s lead researcher, Professor Alicia López Castellano, who specializes in pharmaceutical technology at CEU UCH, Dr Alambiaga’s thesis shows that “we have demonstrated for the first time that topical administration of progesterone in the eye is viable. This opens up possible new therapeutic strategies for retinitis pigmentosa patients, and by extension for patients with other eye conditions in which oxidative stress is a risk factor, such as glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, link here, macular edema due to retinal vein occlusion, cytomegalovirus retinitis, posterior uveitis and diabetic retinopathy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1877.mp3" length="759788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D can prevent, and even reverse, the cancerization process</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1874</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1874</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2022 16:32:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1874

The study is on ovarian cancer but I don’t see why its findings won’t apply to all other cancers, as the study itself states, especially the ones forming in the abdominal cavity and involving the peritoneum. he study found that vitamin D can actually restore the “cancer” cells back to normal, which is reminiscent to another study I posted not too long ago claiming the same effects and proving them in-vivo. This study demonstrated that vitamin D can prevent/treat ovarian cancer by reversing the cancerization of the peritoneal cells induced by the ovarian cancer, which completely blocks its spread. The cancerization process is apparently driven by the pro-fibrotic protein TGF-β1, and vitamin D administration worked by blocking the release of TGF-β1 by the primary tumor. Other substances, which block TGF-β1, include progesterone, aspirin, and especially strong androgens such as DHT, link here.

Interestingly enough, several people I correspond with sent me emails discussing the disappearance of uterine fibroids and even colonic lesions after the administration of vitamin D, progesterone or androgens into the navel, as per my post on high bioavailability of navel route. Since navel administration rivals IV route in terms of effectiveness and affects predominantly the peritoneum, these results are now much easier to explain in light of the study findings below.

link here

“…Other groups have also reported that CAMs play a tumor-promoting role in gastric [15], link here, pancreatic [16], link here, and colorectal cancers [17], link here, by modifying the normal stroma to tumor-promoting stroma. Therefore, we believe that inhibiting the activities of CAMs is a worthwhile option for the treatment of OvCa.”

link here

“…Ovarian cancer often undergoes a process called peritoneal metastasis. In this process, its cells detach from their primary site in the ovary and travel to a secondary implantation site, such as the peritoneal wall or diaphragm. The peritoneum defends against this process using a barrier consisting of mesothelial cells, which prevent the adhesion of cancer cells and limit their spread. However, ovarian cancer gets around this defense by transforming the protective mesothelial cells into cancer-associated mesothelial cells. This creates an environment that helps metastasis, assisting the spread of cancer around the body. The group, led by Dr. Masato Yoshihara of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in collaboration with colleagues at the Bell Research Center and the Department of Pathology at Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, found that vitamin D not only counteracted this process but also restored cancer-associated mesothelial cells to their original state. This process strengthened the barrier effect of mesothelial cells and reduced further spread of the cancer. Their study suggests that vitamin D therapy may be a useful addition to the treatment of ovarian cancer.”

“…Vitamin D can do this because of the complicated way cancer spreads. Previous studies found that cancer cells secrete a protein called TGF-β1, which is associated with cell growth. This also increases the amount of another protein, thrombospondin-1, through the TGF-β/Smad pathway. Thrombospondin-1 has long interested researchers of ovarian cancer because it is found in higher amounts in the later, more deadly stages of cancer. In ovarian cancer, thrombospondin-1 is a key protein that enhances the adhesion and proliferation of ovarian cancer cells to the peritoneum. As vitamin D disrupts the TGF-β/Smad pathway, it may prevent cancer. Dr. Kitami explains: “The administration of Vitamin D helps normalize the peritoneal environment.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1874.mp3" length="685052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Even very low-dose endocrine disruptors induce learned helplessness, anhedonia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1872</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1872</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2022 16:02:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1872

Not much to comment on this study, considering the mountains of literature already available on the topic of endocrine disruptors such as BPA/BPA/DEHP, except to point out that the results were obtained even with very low-dose exposure to the harmful chemicals. Another interesting finding was the feminization of the male threat response that the chemicals caused. And perhaps the most eye-opening findings were the reductions in dopamine, as well as the induction of passive coping strategies in both sexes – a reliable sign of learned helplessness. So, in summary, even very low dose exposure to endocrine disruptor chemicals leads to anhedonia (low dopamine), feminization (in males), and learned helplessness in both sexes.

link here

“…However, male offspring administered high-dose DEHP showed feminized anxiety-like behavior in a maze. Fear responses among male offspring in most of the groups exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals were impaired in a test examining the response to a threatening object. Interestingly, low-dose endocrine disruptors led to passive coping strategies in male and female offspring. Brain studies indicate male offspring in the BPA, low-dose and high-dose DEHP, and BPA and high-dose DEHP groups had diminished dopamine levels in the paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1872.mp3" length="380660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>BOMBSHELL: Serotonin High in Depression, Not a “Happy” Chemical, Lowers Energy, Depression Self-Resolves</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1869</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1869</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Jun 2022 18:16:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1869

When I first saw the article pop up in my feed, I could hardly believe my eyes that a mainstream mouthpiece of Big Pharma will publish such frank admission of psychiatry’s utter failure – i.e. the claims in regards to serotonin (5-HT), its role in mental illness, and even its social “label”. In just two pages, the article openly admits that 5-HT are actually very high (instead of low) in clinically depressed people, that serotonin is NOT the “happy hormone” as media has brainwashing people for 50+ years, and that serotonin’s main role is actually metabolic and such that results in lower energy (metabolism) in order to induce an “avoidant” behavior. So, depression is a metabolic/bioenergetic disease and serotonin is its major direct cause. In addition, the article even suggests (inadvertently) a possible mechanism through which SSRI drugs drastically increase risk of suicide. Namely, SSRI drugs initially raise extracellular 5-HT levels even higher than they already were in clinically depressed people. After 2-3 weeks, the article claims that regulatory mechanisms kick in due to abnormally high 5-HT levels induced by the depression and the SSRI drugs, and the body starts to produce less serotonin as a compensatory mechanism. Then serotonin levels drop, and the person’s depression is relieved. The first portion of this statement is spot-on, but I disagree with the second portion. Extracellular 5-HT levels of depressed people treated with an SSRI drug do NOT drop after a few weeks. So, for the first few weeks after starting an SSRI and the patient has a still-intact higher cognitive function (i.e. empathy) the extremely high 5-HT levels raise the risk of only suicide. After the patient gets “numbed” by the SSRI, my guess is the propensity/risk for homicide/violence rises as well since the patient is no longer capable of empathy or caring about others (or self) – i.e. the patient has been (chemically) lobotomized. This (chemical) lobotomy is mis-diagnosed as “remission” from the depressive state, but psychiatrists know quite well it is NOT a return to the former healthy state and they (wrongly) advise their patients to stay on the drug for life due to fear of a relapse. Speaking of depression, another bombshell admission by the article is that most cases of depression (even severe ones) resolve on their own within 6-9 months!! So much for the “lifesaving” importance of the mental health industry. I wonder how many fewer people would have died from suicide/violence due to mental health issues if the mental health industry had NOT been around…

link here

“…So how does CBT do as well as medication in the short term (and better in the long term) if it’s not directly treating the underlying “chemical imbalance”—the low serotonin that causes depression? As it turns out, low serotonin in depression is a myth, link here. But the real link between serotonin and depression is even more surprising. “The evidence is pretty clear,” said Hollon. “There’s not a deficit—there’s an excess.” He described findings from a study, link here that measured metabolite levels from blood in the brain, which indicate how much serotonin the brain is using. Results from this study revealed that serotonin levels were elevated among those with clinical depression, and returned to normal levels following medication treatment. Other studies (e.g., Gjerris et al., 1987, link here, and Sulllivan et al., 2006, link here) using different methods have found similar results. These findings sound paradoxical, given that depression medications tend to increase the amount of serotonin in the synapse, at least initially. But Hollon explained that “within a week to ten days, you increase the amount of serotonin so high that the regulatory mechanisms push back.” As a result, serotonin levels fall. “It’s like holding a match up to a thermostat to turn the furnace down,” said Hollon. “You’re tricking the system into kicking back in and regulating” serotonin levels.”

“…High levels of serotonin in depression make more sense when we realize that serotonin is not the “feel-good neurotransmitter,” as has often been claimed based on its involvement in depression; that role is played by the endogenous opioids (as the name suggests) like endorphins. According to Hollon, “Serotonin is the energy transfer regulator. It moves you back and forth between approach and avoidance behavior.”

“…There is a common belief that depression sticks around indefinitely unless it’s treated; however, research shows that most episodes are time-limited even without treatment. “Nobody knows for sure [how long an average episode lasts],” Hollon said, “but it looks like it’s about six to nine months.” This spontaneous remission may be a result of the rumination processes described above, to the extent that they lead to effective solutions. Nevertheless, Hollon points out that helping depression to resolve in “three to six weeks” through an effective treatment like CBT “is much better than six to nine months.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1869.mp3" length="1298876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low-dose niacinamide has striking anti-obesity effects</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1866</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1866</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 31 May 2022 17:49:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1866

It looks like the medical world has firmly set its sights on the bioenergetic wave/target, as the number of scientific papers focusing on niacinamide, NAD/NADH ratio and OXPHOS in general has been steadily climbing since 2010. That would be good news, despite companies such as ChromaDex claiming that their “patented” substances such as nicotinamide ribodise (NR) are the most effective intervention for reliably raising NAD levels (and thus the NAD/NADH ratio), and all others should be declared by the FDA to be “adulterated drugs”. In any event, the role of OXPHOS in various pathologies such as diabesity, CVD, and even cancer is becoming almost impossible to deny any longer. Speaking of diabesity, the study below presents some remarkable findings, that may call into question ChromaDex’ claims. Namely, the administration of the cheap, unpatentable NAD precursor niacinamide (NAM), at low HED dose of 2.5mg/kg daily for 3 weeks, had striking anti-obesity effects in animals fed a high-fat diet. The low-dose NAM intervention reduced body fat by almost 50%, while also increasing lean muscle mass. In addition, NAM not only served as precursor to NAD but increased the activity of the enzyme NAMPT that synthesizes NAD. This increase in NAD also resulted in increased mitochondrial biogenesis, higher CO2 levels, improved insulin sensitivity, increased physical activity of the (formerly) obese animals back to control levels, and generally higher levels of OXPHOS. Finally, as another confirmation of the anti-obesity effects of this substance, NAM administration reduced the weight of not only the group that ate the high-fat diet, but also the weight of the group that ate the regular/normal diet.

link here

“…A three-week NAM supplementation significantly decreased the body weight in mice (Figure 1, link hereA). NAM also decreased fat mass by 47% as measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (9.39 ± 0.64 g fat mass of CTR group vs 2.94 ± 0.27 g of NAM group), while lean mass was increased by 1.4 fold (22.04 ± 0.46 g lean mass of CTR group vs 18.55 ± 1.35 g of NAM group) (Figure 1, link hereB). In addition, weights of subcutaneous adipose tissue (SCAT), epididymal adipose tissue (eWAT), brown adipose tissue (BAT) and liver were all significantly decreased (Figure 1, link hereC). Especially, the volume of SCAT and eWAT also declined (Figure 1, link hereD). Consistently, HE staining showed that NAM decreased hepatic lipid content and the size of adipocytes from several anatomical locations including SCAT, eWAT and BAT (Figure 1, link hereE). In addition, NAM supplementation lowered the glucose level at each time point over glucose tolerance test (GTT) (Figure S1A and S1B). Meanwhile, we observed carefully raw phenotype of the mice treated with NAM, and no symptoms including diarrhoea and vomiting were observed during NAM supplementation. In addition, we found hair color of NAM-treated mice looked black and glossy as control group mice did with less oil on the surface of hair induced by high fat diet than control group (Figure S1C). NAM-treated mice move as much as control group and showed similar day-night rhythm (Figure S1D). Food intakes were similar between mice treated with NAM and control (Figure S1E). In order to examine whether NAM supplementation induced injury of liver and heart, we checked the serum protein aspartate aminotransferase (AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and creatine kinase (CK). We found that AST and CK were not changed (Figure S1F, G), and LDH were decreased by NAM treatment (Figure S1H), indicating NAM supplementation did not change significant injury of liver and heart. In addition, after measuring serum content of creatinine and uric acid by LC-MS/MS, we found that level of creatinine was not changed and uric acid even decreased (Figure S1I, J), so it can be concluded that NAM supplementation did not lead to injury of kidney. Furthermore, we examined the effects of NAM on 16-week C57BL/6J male mice fed a chow diet. NAM decreased body weight of mice fed a normal diet (Figure S1K). As obese mice, AST, ALP, CK or LDH were not increased by NAM supplementation, suggesting NAM supplementation did not induce injury of liver and heart (Figure S1L- O). The data indicated that NAM reduced fat content in DIO mice and improved glucose metabolism.”

“…As shown in Figure 2, link hereC, glucose was consumed via glycolysis pathway to produce intermediate metabolites such as F16BP, 3PG and pyruvate, or pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) to produce 5-phosphoribosyl-1-pyrophosphate (PRPP). NAM treatment did not change the levels of F16P, and 3PG (Figure S2D, E), suggesting glycolysis was not altered in NAM treated cells while PRPP was decreased (Figure S2F). PRPP was used to synthesize NMN, which were converted into (m+5) and (m+10) NAD+, in which 22% and 55% of NAD+ were in (m+5) and (m+10) forms, respectively (Figure 2, link hereC). NAM treatment increased the labelling efficiency in both (m+5) and (m+10) forms (Figure 2, link hereD), suggesting that supplementary NAM enhanced NAD+ biosynthesis. Moreover, in 3T3L1 cells, both protein level and mRNA level of NAMPT were increased while NNMT was not changed as the dosage of NAM increased (Figure 2, link hereE, F). These data demonstrated that NAM increased NAMPT and enhance NAD+ synthesis.”

“…We performed ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA) of these 154 DEPs to identify the biological pathways regulated by these DEPs. The results showed that NAM dramatically increased the abundance of proteins associated with oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), fatty acid β-oxidation, TCA cycle and oxidative stress defense system (Figure 3, link hereB). To confirm that mitochondrial proteins were upregulated, western blot analysis was used to examine the expressions of COXIV and SOD2 and found that NAM upregulated both proteins (Figure 3, link hereC). Additionally, mRNA levels of mitochondrial genes such as COXIV, COX8b, SOD1, SOD2, ACADm, and ACADl were increased (Figure 3, link hereD). To confirm that NAM enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis, we performed qPCR on PPARα and PGC1α and found that both genes were upregulated in NMN-treated mice (Figure 3, link hereD).”

“…Herein, we reported that NAM supplementation ameliorated metabolic dysfunction in high fat diet induced obese (DIO) mice. We found that NAM strikingly decreased mass of SCAT, and boosted adipose NAD+, NADP, and N1-methylNAM, in which NAD+ was increased by 32 fold. The increase of lean mass partly contributed to the dramatic increase of NAD+ level. Interestingly, NAM also upregulated NAMPT expression, the rate limiting enzyme in NAD+ synthesis from NAM [38, link here,39, link here], and thus suggested that NAM reprogrammed NAD+ salvage pathway. The elevated NAD+ activated SIRTUINs. Consequently, protein acetylation was decreased in NAM-treated adipose tissue. Furthermore, the decreased acetylation intensity of SOD2 suggested that NAM improved the function of SIRT3, the major mitochondrial deacetylase to control mitochondrial biogenesis [33, link here,35, link here,40, link here,41, link here]. NAM-enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis was confirmed by proteomic analysis showing that mitochondrial proteins involved in fatty acid β oxidation, OXPHOS and TCA were all upregulated in adipose tissue. Consistently, NAM also increased O2 consumption, CO2 production, and adipose acylcarnitine levels by increasing expression of genes for carnitine biosynthesis in DIO mice.”

“…In conclusion, our results provided a systemic perspective of effects of NAM on adipose tissue by reprogramming metabolic pathway to enhance mitochondrial biogenesis, and increased GSH production. These results suggested that NAM supplementation was an effective approach to increase fatty acid catabolism and to ameliorate obesity.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1866.mp3" length="922628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>IdeaLabs Service – Steroid Analysis (hair and/or (toe)nail)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1858</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1858</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 28 May 2022 03:31:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1858

Order the steroid analysis, link here

Note (5/27/2022): This launch is Part I of a two-part service – steroid analysis in hair or nails. While we have confirmed our ability to analyze steroids in both types of samples, nail steroid analysis is still in its scientific infancy and there are very few publications on the topic. As such, there is very little published/public information on so-called “normal population ranges” for each steroid we are capable of detecting. In comparison, there is a lot more information on such ranges in regards to analyzing hair samples. As such, we will offer the hair analysis for now, until we collect enough nail samples from volunteers so that we can experimentally derive ranges for the various steroids in nails. Once those ranges are available, we will add the option to be able to select/order “nails” as a sample analysis in the online shopping system, and will update this thread with another note under this one confirming that we can do the nails as well and the date on which this second part of the service has been launched.

Note (9/9/2022): Part II of the steroid analysis is now also available – i.e. we can now analyze nail samples as well.

********************************************************************************************

After many months of hard work and many “false” leads, I am please to finally announce that we can now offer steroid testing in samples such as hair (usually from scalp) and/or nails (usually from toes). A few months ago, we launched a similar service – mineral analysis – in both hair and nails.

New IdeaLabs Service – Mineral Analysis (hair and/or (toe)nail), link here

In that post above, I explained that there has been a great deal of interest in research circles to perform a similar analysis but of other so-called analytes, especially steroids. There have been quite a few studies on analyzing individual steroids in hair samples, and more recently in nails as well. The most common analysis done in hair/nails is for the adrenal hormone cortisol, and multiple studies (see references below) have suggested that hair/nail cortisol may be a reliable biomarker of chronic stress. Why chronic? Well, just like for the mineral analysis, hair and nails are actual tissues composed of many individual cells added to the hair/nail over a specific period of time. Thus, by analyzing the entire sample for the presence and amount of cortisol, one can get an idea for the amount of cortisol to which the cells composing the sample have been exposed over a period of time measured in days, months, and even years (e.g. very long hair). In contrast, measurements of cortisol in the blood are strictly short-term biomarkers since cortisol levels vary drastically in a matter of minutes depending on levels of stress experience by the organism around the time period the blood sample for testing cortisol was collected. Thus, single blood tests for cortisol are not very indicative of the typical/background levels of stress the organism is experiencing in its environment. Of course, one could try to do longer term estimates by doing repeated blood tests for cortisol over a period of time and the average value of those tests would indeed approximate the typical/background level of stress experienced by the organism between the first and lest blood test. However, in order to get a reliable “distribution”, many tests (maybe every 2-3 days) need to be done, so it becomes clear that estimating the average levels of cortisol, and thus chronic stress, over a period of even a single month is impractical, invasive, expensive, and even dangerous for the patient. In fact, medical guidelines recommend against drawing blood for testing more than once biweekly, due to the inherently stressful nature of blood extraction, which can easily raise levels of biomarkers such as LDH, CRP, and even…cortisol itself! However, analyzing the amounts of cortisol in a hair or nail sample does not suffer from any of these drawbacks, is painless, does not require any special sample storage/transportation, and the length of time over which one would like to do analysis for cortisol can be varied at will. For example, to test average levels of cortisol over the last month, a hair sample of 0.5in of length (from the base of the scalp) would be sufficient. For a two (2) month (in the past) analysis, a sample twice as long (1in) would be sufficient, and so on potentially indefinitely depending on how long the person’s hair is. For individuals with significantly long hair, one could analyze cortisol levels from years ago, which obviously cannot be done by blood as steroid turnover in blood is complete in at most 24 hours for the vast majority of steroids.

The same logic can be applied, and has been applied (see references below), to virtually all other steroids known to science. In addition to cortisol, other commonly assessed steroids include DHEA, DHEA sulfate (DHEA-S), and other more sex-specific steroids such as androgens, pregnanes (pregnenolone, progesterone), estrogens, glucocorticoids. mineralocorticoids, etc. In fact, a recent study on a large population of over 200 Chinese women did an extensive analysis of over 30 different steroids (see Table 1) in hair samples collected from those women, and was able to successfully quantify the vast majority of them.

link here

This study is the culmination of several decades of smaller studies, analyzing just one or two steroids in hair/nail and slowly establishing this type of analysis as a reliable method of steroid profiling in humans. Over the last few years, several so-called “meta-review” studies were also published, reaching the same conclusions as the overall message of this post – i.e. the field of hair/nail analysis seems to hold a lot of potential as a non-invasive, reliable, longitudinal testing of not just steroids, but virtually any substance/chemical capable of accumulating in cells.

One-time testosterone dose and stress leave lasting hormonal marks in your hair, link here

2 links here

“… In recent years, remarkable advances in sensitive analytical techniques have enabled the analysis of drugs in unconventional biological specimens such as hair. The advantages of this sample over traditional media like urine and blood are obvious: collection is almost noninvasive, relatively easy to perform, and in forensic situations it may be achieved under close supervision of law enforcement officers to prevent adulteration or substitution. Moreover, the window of drug detection is dramatically extended to weeks, months or even years. The aim of this review is to document the current detection of anabolic steroids in hair.”

link here

“…We compare the clinical utility and application of hair cortisol with traditional methods of measurement while acknowledging the limitations of analysis including variations in hair growth parameters. We explore the value of hair cortisol in cases of Cushing syndrome (particularly Cyclical Cushing), Adrenal insufficiency (including Addison’s disease), therapy monitoring, cardiovascular disease, stress, and mental illness. Hair cortisol provides a unique objective biomarker for the analysis of endogenous cortisol levels for not only clinical diagnostic purposes but also in research. The use of hair cortisol [analysis] has great potential for advancing patient care.”

2 links here

“… Our results show that, when methodological challenges are adequately addressed, LC-MS protocols can not only yield excellent sensitivity and specificity but are also characterized by relatively simple sample processing and short run times. This makes LC-MS based hair steroid protocols particularly suitable as a high-quality option for routine application in research contexts requiring the processing of larger numbers of samples.”

However, the good news on steroid analysis in hair/nails does not end there. Over the last several decades, researchers have noticed the value of using steroid ratios to uncover specific health disturbances, but also to assess general/systemic health, predict health problems years before they manifest and even predict mortality lifespan. While most of the work on steroid ratios (using blood analysis) came out of the mental health research field, more recent studies have demonstrate the usefulness of those ratios to virtually all medical sub-fields. For example the cortisol/DHEA-S ratio in blood has been proposed as one of the most reliable predictors of all-cause mortality in addition to its well-known role as a potential biomarker of mental illness (especially depression), cardiovascular health, and immune system function. Namely, the lower the cortisol/DHEA-S ratio, the healthier the person. However, some of the researchers publishing those studies opined that while blood DHEA-S is a reliable indicator of long-term adrenal health and resilience to stress, blood cortisol is quite unreliable as a long-term biomarker due to the reasons mentioned earlier. As such, the test for cortisol/DHEA-S ratio in blood is not as reliable as scientists want, due to its denominator lacking in reliability. The testing of cortisol and DHEA (or DHEA-S) in hair address this issue precisely due to its innate property of providing average longitudinal values over longer periods of time. As such the cortisol/DHEA ratio in blood should be able to address the drawbacks of the cortisol/DHEA-S test in blood. Indeed, multiple studies on the cortisol/DHEA ratio in hair (or nails), listed in the references section below, corroborate the usefulness of this ratio as a great biomarker of chronic stress (and resilience to it), which translates into it being a great indicator of systemic health, and good predictor of longevity/lifespan. A number of other steroid ratios have been examined over the last several decades, including the progesterone/estrogen (estradiol) ratio Dr. Peat has mentioned many times,  the testosterone/estradiol ratio, the cortisol/testosterone ratio, the DHT/estrogen (estradiol) ratio, total androgen/estrogen ratio, the androsterone/etiocholanolone ratio, the cortisone/cortisol ratio, the estrone/esradiol ratio, the T3/T4 ratio, etc. Combining the detected values of individual steroids with one or more of the above mentioned ratios, further improves the ability to assess systemic health over virtually any period of time chosen by the person (or his/her health care provider) providing the sample for analysis. Speaking of steroids and their ratios, which steroids can our service currently detect and quantify? Here is the current list, which we hope to be able to grow by quite a few more if we add anabolic steroids to the list of analytes of interest.

Precursors: Pregnenolone (P5), Progesterone (P4). 17-OH-P5, 17-OH-P4

Androgens: DHEA, DHEA-S, Androstenedione, Testosterone, Epitestosterone, DHT, Androsterone, Etiocholanolone, Adrenosterone, 11-keto/11-OH androgens

Estrogens: Estradiol, Estrone, Estriol (in progress)

Mineralo/Gluco-Corticoids: Cortisol, Cortisone, Corticosterone, 11-deoxycorticosterone, 11-deoxycortisol, 21-deoxycortisol, Aldosterone

Thyroid: Triiodothyronine (T3), Thyroxine (T4), Reverse T3 (in progress)

Overall, we are very excited about the opportunity this presents to not only provide direct value to the individual person seeking to improve their health, but also about the potential this has for advancing science by now being able to merge the hair/nail mineral analysis (often frowned upon by medical doctors) with the steroids analysis and draw valuable correlations between the two, which may help put the former on a more solid scientific basis while informing the latter of feedback cycles between minerals and steroids that were either unknown before or were considered too controversial to accept in mainstream medicine/science.

Order the steroid analysis, link here

Order the thyroid analysis, link here

Sample report screenshots:

Sample Report (PDF): Sample_Report_Hormone_Analysis_Hair_Nail, link here

 

REFERENCES:

1. Hair

44 links here

 

2. Nails

9 links here

 

Steroid Ratios

67 links here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1858.mp3" length="4975220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:11:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking androgens causes inflammation and prostate disease/cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1855</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1855</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 24 May 2022 18:57:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1855

Yet another study striking directly the incredibly corrupt theory known as the “androgen hypothesis” – i.e. that androgens are the cause of many of the issues aging males experience, especially prostate enlargement (BPH) and/or prostate cancer. For almost a century now, the so-called standard of care “treatment” has been androgen deprivation therapy. Originally done through physical castration, the medical profession has gradually shifted its choices to more palatable forms of “treatment”, which are nothing but chemical forms of castration. The administration of antiandrogenic drugs like finasteride, dutasteride, flutamide, bicalutamide, spironolactone, etc is the current standard of care, yet rates of both benign and malignant prostate diseases continue to increase, and an ever larger proportion of the newly diagnosed prostate cancers are of the so-called high aggressive and castration-resistant type, which usually kill the patient within a few years after diagnosis. There has been solid circumstantial evidence that low, not high, androgen levels lead to prostate disease in males. In fact, the ultimate “villain” of urology – dihydrotestosterone (DHT) – is approved as treatment of prostate enlargement in several European countries under the trade name Andractim. However, despite the commercial and clinical success of Andractim, its more widespread usage has been limited by a lack of proposed mechanism of (beneficial) action. The study below may change that by providing evidence that the presence of the androgen receptor, and thus the ability of androgens to exert their effects, is crucial to preventing cell leakiness, as well as preventing production of inflammatory cytokines. Blocking androgen’s effects had the opposite effects and resulted in a highly inflammatory state (that likely won’t be localized to the prostate), as well as drastically increased cell proliferation (hallmark of cancer). To make matters worse, the authors suspect that the increased inflammation as a result of blocking androgen’s effects (or lowering their levels) further inhibits the ability of androgens to exert their effects, thus resulting in a vicious cycle. If that is the case, it may turn out that most cases/deaths of prostate disease and prostate cancer are largely iatrogenic…

2 links here

“…”When we deleted the androgen receptor in a fraction of prostate epithelial cells called luminal cells, the cells produced mediators of inflammation called cytokines, which the luminal cells normally don’t do. Deletion of the androgen receptor also resulted in defects in tight junctions — connections between two adjacent cells that close the space between them,” said Xin. “In normal cells, tight junctions are intact and molecules, such as mediators of inflammation, cannot leak into surrounding areas. But in the luminal cells in which the androgen receptor was deleted, tight junctions were not intact and cytokines produced by the luminal cells could leak into surrounding areas.” The scientists observed that the ‘leaked cytokines’ promoted the recruitment of immune cells, especially macrophages and T cells, into the prostatic microenvironment. These immune cells then secreted additional cytokines, such as IL-1, that subsequently attracted more immune cells. In addition, IL-1 induced stromal cells to secrete growth factors that stimulated the proliferation of cells in the prostate, including luminal cells and basal epithelial cells. “In summary, deleting the androgen receptor triggers an inflammatory response that promotes cell proliferation,” said Xin. “In the process, some luminal cells that rely on androgen signaling for their survival will die, but, at the same time, the chain of events creates a signal that promotes luminal cell proliferation. Our result that disruption of androgen receptor signaling in luminal cells can drive inflammation is consistent with the observation that luminal cells of inflamed human prostate glands have fewer androgen receptors than luminal cells from non-inflamed prostates. Our results, however, do not rule out that inflammation can affect androgen receptor expression. It is possible that this is a vicious cycle.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1855.mp3" length="1063940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SHBG may be a good test for liver (metabolic) health</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1853</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1853</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 24 May 2022 18:32:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1853

A very good study, which probably runs counter to the “mantra” most bodybuilders adhere to – i.e. they would say one must keep their SHBG low in order to increase levels of “free” steroids since, the claim goes, only free steroids are active and capable of influencing cells. If SHBG is high, the claim is that this would lead to low levels of free steroids such as testosterone, or whatever anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) the bobybuilder is using, and this is akin to the body “deactivating” those steroids since they cannot exert their effects while bound to SHBG. Those claims have little evidence behind them, and in fact there is serious evidence to the contrary. So, be kind to your liver! Your (metabolic) health may very well depend on it.

5 links here

As such, I am appalled that in many countries the local health authorities seem to be on board with the “broscience”, since doctors routinely test only free steroids (especially when it comes to androgens and thyroid hormones such as T4 and T3), and they also recommend lowering SHBG if one wants to enhance the effects of one’s endogenous steroids. To make matters worse, multiple studies in the past have suggested that low levels of proteins such as SHBG, albumin, etc are associated with higher all-cause mortality and are in fact reliable predictors of adverse outcomes in hospital patients. The study below now reports that SHBG is, in fact, a very good biomarker of the metabolic health of the liver and suggests that conditions such as insulin resistance and/or diabetes II are in fact not insulin-related issues but rather symptoms of declining liver health. Combining the findings of the study below with prior studies demonstrating albumin (another protein of liver origin) is a reliable predictor of longevity and vitality in old age, it looks like liver health is a cornerstone of systemic health. That is hardly surprising when examined through the prism of metabolic health since the liver is the primary source of protective steroids such as DHT and T3, while also being the primary factory for processing and deactivating estrogens, cortisol and aldosterone.

link here

“…We discovered that low levels of SHBG in a person’s blood means the liver’s metabolic state is out of whack – because of inappropriate diet or something that’s inherently wrong with the liver – long before there are any disease symptoms,” says Dr. Geoffrey Hammond, the study’s principal investigator, scientific director of the Child & Family Research Institute in Vancouver, Canada, and professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of British Columbia. “With this new understanding, we can now use SHBG as a biomarker for monitoring liver function well before symptoms arise,” says Dr Hammond, who is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Reproductive Health. “We can also use it for determining the effectiveness of dietary interventions and drugs aimed at improving the liver’s metabolic state.” Physicians have traditionally measured SHBG in the blood to determine a patient’s amount of free testosterone, which is key information for diagnosing hormonal disorders. In addition, SHBG levels are used to indicate an individual’s risk for developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The discovery dispels the earlier assumption that too much insulin reduces SHBG, a view which arose from the observation that overweight, pre-diabetic individuals have high levels of insulin and low levels of SHBG. This new study proves that insulin is not to blame and that it’s actually the liver’s metabolism of sugar that counts.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1853.mp3" length="1012604" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT blocks, androgen antagonists promote breast cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1850</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1850</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 24 May 2022 17:45:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1850

The first claim of the title is already well-known to my readers and to clinical practice. DHT was clinically used back in the middle of the 20th century as a treatment for breast cancer, and the synthetic androgen Drostanolone (Masteron), which still retains its approval by FDA for breast cancer treatment, is a simple DHT derivative (i.e. 2alpha-methyl-DHT). However, the finding that anti-androgens promote breast cancer would probably be news to most oncologists and endocrinologist. That is what the study below found – i.e. while DHT was able to largely block the tumor-promoting effects of estrogen, adding an androgen receptor antagonist abrogated the protective effects of DHT, and when the anti-androgen was used on its own it also had tumor-promoting effects, which were synergistic with those of estrogen. As the study itself suggests, considering the anti-androgenic effects (and ubiquity) of most plastic-derived endocrine disruptors such as BPA/BPS, it is little wonder that breast cancer rates are skyrocketing even in women who have never used hormonal contraceptives.

2 links here

“…When estrogens and androgens were present in the cell culture medium, increasing concentrations of p,p’-DDE accelerated the growth of CAMA-1 breast cancer cells. p,p’-DDE had a similar effect on the proliferation of MCF7-AR1 cells, an estrogen responsive cell line genetically engineered to over express the AR. Adding the potent androgen dihydrotestosterone together with estradiol to the cell culture medium decreased the recruitment of CAMA-1 cells in the S phase and the expression of ESR1 and CCND1, by comparison with cells treated with estradiol alone. These androgen-mediated effects were blocked with similar efficacy by p,p’-DDE and the potent antiandrogen hydroxyflutamide. ‘Our results suggest that in addition to estrogenic compounds, which have been the main focus of researchers over the past decades, chemicals that block the AR could favour breast cancer progression‘ says Pierre Ayotte, who is leading the research team. Ayotte’s team had previously linked concentrations of p,p’-DDE with tumour aggressiveness in women with breast cancer. They are now investigating the effect on breast cancer cell proliferation of a complex mixture of environmental chemicals, similar to that found in the blood of women, which comprises compounds with estrogenic and antiandrogenic activities.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1850.mp3" length="545516" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacin / niacinamide ratio may be a very good test for bacterial infection</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1848</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1848</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 24 May 2022 17:16:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1848

A very interesting study, which may provide a cheap, fast and easy method for testing whether a person has a bacterial or not. This is very useful in cases of respiratory diseases where a clinician has to determine if the respiratory infection is of bacterial or viral origin, in order to decide if prescribing antibiotics is warranted or not. Believe it or not, up to this day, it is not an easy to task to distinguish between the two infection types in a patient. One recent study proposed blood procalcitonin levels as a biomarker of bacterial infection, but it turns out that it is not a very specific test so it cannot be reliably (or cheaply) used clinically. The study below discovered that the simple ratio of niacin to niacinamide may provide both a cheap/easy and highly specific test for bacterial infection. This is due to the simple fact that mammalian organisms contain mostly niacinamide (unless there is exogenous supplementation with niacin) and since mammals do not express the enzyme nicotinamidase (which converts niacinamide into niacin), but bacteria do, a measurement of niacin/niacinamide ratio above 0.1 may be a reliable indicator for the presence of pathogenic bacteria. Another interesting potential corollary of the study is that bacterial infections may be able to wreak their havoc on the host at least in part due to them lowering the NAD/NADH ratio. Namely, since niacinamide is an obligate precursor on the path to NAD, a reduction of niacinamide (by conversion into niacin by bacteria) results in reduced ability to synthesize NAD. This suggests that one may be able to ameliorate bacterial infections by supplementing niacinamide (or NAD directly, by infusion) in order to raise the NAD/NADH ratio, which would improve the energetic state of the cell and allow it to better resist the bacterial infection. Interestingly enough, doctors noticed decades ago that niacinamide may be able to treat tuberculosis (a severe bacterial infection) when used in high doses, and recent studies have again corroborated the anti-tuberculosis effects of niacinamide. In fact, the first tuberculosis drug (isoniazid) was a niacinamide derivative.

link here

In addition, accumulation of niacin in tissues/blood of patients is still used as a diagnostic test for tuberculosis, which corroborates the usefulness of niacin as bacterial infection biomarker. Now, since in a severe bacterial infection a good portion of the administered niacinamide may end up getting converted back to niacin by the bacteria, it may help if the niacinamide is administered with a nicotinamidase inhibitor. While most commercially available such inhibitors have toxic side effects, an older study found that NAD itself can inhibit the nicotinamidase enzymes.

link here

Thus, administering niacinamide with a substance capable of raising NAD levels independently may be able to enhance the anti-bacterial effects of niacinamide while also further improving the redox state of the cell. Among such substances are methylene blue and various other quinones such as vitamin K, emodin, CoQ10, the tetracycline antibiotics, and even the flavones/flavanones such as apigenin, naringenin, chrysin, etc.

2 links here

“…The researchers identified secreted metabolites that were uniquely found in microbe-contaminated human cell cultures but not in uncontaminated ones, based on the analysis. Among these metabolites found in human cell culture media, nicotinic acid was found to be widely conserved in cell cultures contaminated with multiple types of microorganisms. Upon further analysis, CAMP’s studies revealed that nicotinic acid production was associated with nicotinamidase, an enzyme that converted the nicotinamide in the culture medium into nicotinic acid. The research findings showed that nicotinamidase was not found in mammals, including humans, and the majority was found in bacteria species. Therefore, the ratio of nicotinic acid to nicotinamide indicated the presence of microbial contaminations in human CTPs. This method surpasses existing and conventional techniques in terms of both sensitivity and speed. It can detect microbial contaminations in half a day, depending on the type of microorganism tested. In contrast, conventional methods require up to 14 days for detection. Alternative microbiological methods also face several limitations, such as the invasive process of cell extraction from and during the manufacturing process, requiring an incubation period for microbial enrichment that lengthens detection time to multiple days, or detecting only a limited range of bacterial species. Overcoming existing limitations, the method developed by CAMP is able to detect cell therapy contamination rapidly, using a small volume of spent cell culture medium in a non-cell destructive manner while maintaining the human CTP. Furthermore, this approach can differentiate between live and dead bacteria. Dead bacteria are non-infectious, and the ability to identify and measure only live bacteria, which pose a health threat, could lead to lower false-positive rates.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1848.mp3" length="1531532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Milk or water are optimal drinks for (oral) vitamin D bioavailability</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1846</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1846</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 24 May 2022 16:29:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1846

Just a quick post about something I thought many people will probably find interesting, considering the widespread use of oral vitamin D supplements. The findings of the study are a bit surprising, considering that vitamin D is one of the “fat-soluble” vitamins and as such is expected to be poorly absorbed from the GI tract when ingested with something not containing any fat (e.g. water). Other surprising findings were that ingestion of vitamin D with protein (whey) or juice did not improve bioavailability, contradicting earlier findings suggesting that ingestion of vitamin D with protein works better than taking vitamin D on its own.

2 links here

“…Vitamin D supplements are therefore vital, and knowing whether they will be absorbed and how best to aid absorption is crucial. To answer this question, Dr. Rasmus Espersen of Aarhus University in Denmark and his colleagues conducted a randomized trial on 30 postmenopausal women, link here aged 60–80 with vitamin D deficiency. The study aimed to measure immediate changes in blood concentrations in response to the consumption of various food items containing 200 g D3. In a random order, 500 mL of water, milk, juice, juice with vitamin D bound to whey protein isolate as well as 500 mL of water without vitamin D (placebo) were presented to the study participants. Blood samples were collected at 0h, 2h, 4h, 6h, 8h, 10h, 12h, and 24h on each study day. “One aspect that surprised me was the fact that the results seen in the water and milk groups were equal. This was quite unexpected given the fact that milk contains more fat than water,” stated Dr. Espersen. The study revealed that whey protein, link here isolate in apple juice did not enhance maximum concentration of D3 compared to juice without WPI. However, compared to juice, D3 concentrations were significantly higher in response to intake of milk and water. No difference was observed between milk and water. Therefore, the conclusion from this study is that vitamin D fortification works better in water or milk than in juice.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1846.mp3" length="343724" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The “burning mouth” syndrome may be due to vitamin deficiencies, hypothyroidism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1844</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1844</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 May 2022 16:20:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1844

Just a quick post since I get a lot of emails about this issue, and apparently the rates have increased a lot since the pandemic began. According to the study below, this symptoms can be caused by insulin resistance, vitamin D/B6/B1 or zinc deficiencies, or hypothyroidism (high TSH). Looking at those issues, one immediately sees that they overlap to a great degree – any one of them may cause one or more of the others (e.g. hypothyroidism may cause insulin resistance or vitamin D deficiencies, and vice versa), though vitamin D deficiency is apparently the most common cause. Since the vitamin or zinc deficiencies are relatively easy to address, it may be worth trying some of those supplements if a person experiences the “burning mouth” issue for more than 2-3 days in a row, and a food/dietary reason has been excluded.

Tongue Can Indicate If You Are Low On The Sunshine Which Is Vitamin-D Nutrient, link here

“…A study was scheduled by the Department of Dermatology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester which is based in the USA in the year 2017. “In patients with symptoms of Burning Mouth Syndrome (BMS), our results suggest it is reasonable to screen for fasting blood glucose, vitamin D (D2 and D3), vitamin B6, zinc, vitamin B1, and TSH. Deficiencies of vitamin B12 and folic acid were rare.” The study was titled: “Burning mouth syndrome: results of screening tests for vitamin and mineral deficiencies, thyroid hormone, and glucose levels-experience at Mayo Clinic over a decade”. Yet again a report was carried out by Express.co.uk, this burning pain or this sensation is mostly located in the lips or tongue, or in some the other cases it is more widespread in the whole of the mouth. One can also sense other symptoms including numbness, dryness, and an unpleasant taste. This sensation can make mealtimes very uncomfortable. But Burning Tongue Syndrome is not exclusively linked to Vitamin D deficiency and can also be caused by a variety of different vitamin and mineral deficiencies, such as vitamin B, iron, and zinc.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1844.mp3" length="473204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA is part of spike protein, PUFA restriction may treat COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1842</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1842</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 May 2022 17:49:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1842

A pair of studies forwarded by one of my readers. The first one discovered that a PUFA – linoleic acid – is part of the structure of the spike protein. The latter is perhaps the most pathogenic portion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and likely responsible for causing most of the symptoms now known as COVID-19. While we did know that the spike protein affects the angiotensin system and thus can cause acute increase in inflammation, the presence of the inflammatory linoleic acid inside the spike protein suggests that the spike protein has direct inflammatory effects itself, which the study authors are not shy to directly state. In addition, it suggests the spike protein has estrogenic effects as well, which has already been reported by various observational studies with COVID-19 patients. The second study demonstrates that the severity of COVID-19 in patients correlates with the levels of two (2) PUFA metabolites, and as such, dietary PUFA restriction (and/or inhbition of lipolysis) may be therapeutic for COVID-19. All in all, it looks like there is no disease, infectious or otherwise, where PUFA does not rear its ugly head.

2 links here

“…To arrive at the findings of the study, the researchers, headed by Professor Imre Berger, and Professor Christiane Schaffitzel, utilized a powerful imaging technique, dubbed as the electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM), to study and explore the characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein at the atomic level. They produced the virus spike proteins in the laboratory to study them and determine their structure. Powered by the Oracle high-performing cloud computing, the team has created a three-dimensional stricture of the virus spike protein, which allowed them to observe the structure and identify its molecular composition. Upon the analysis of the molecular structure of the spike protein, the team has found something interesting. They revealed the presence of a small molecule, called linoleic acid (LA), link here, which was discovered in a customized pocket within the spike protein.”

“…The human body cannot produce linoleic acid, and it is found mainly in food. Intriguingly, LA plays a significant role in inflammation and immune modulation, which are key elements of the COVID-19 infection. Aside from that, these fatty acids are also essential to maintain cell membranes in the lungs to promote ventilation….”We were truly puzzled by our discovery and its implications. So here we have LA, a molecule which is at the center of those functions that go haywire in COVID-19 patients, with terrible consequences. And the virus that is causing all this chaos, according to our data, grabs and holds on to exactly this molecule – basically disarming much of the body’s defenses,” Professor Berger said.”

link here

“…It is clear that the two regioisomeric linoleic acid diols (DiHOMES) had highly elevated concentrations in these COVID-19 positive patients, as did their precursor epoxides (EpOMEs; Table 2, link here). Previous studies show that high levels of the epoxide and diol metabolites of linoleic acid are mitochondrial toxins, stimulate vascular permeability and that injection of either metabolite into mice leads to pulmonary edema and inflammation reminiscent of ARDS (Greene and Hammock, 1999, link here; Zheng et al., 2001, link here).”

“…The high abundance of linoleate as a substrate, coupled with the increased biosynthesis of anti-inflammatory EpFA during severe coronavirus infections and the induction of sEH in an inflammatory state (Kodani and Hammock, 2015, link here) may explain the increased rate of synthesis and concentration of leukotoxin diols observed in COVID-19 patients in our study. This finding raises the possibility that amelioration of COVID-19 symptoms may be achieved in part by reduction of omega-6-rich diet, …”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1842.mp3" length="593012" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:20</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Just a week-long break from social media alleviates anxiety and depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1838</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1838</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 May 2022 17:25:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1838

I don’t think this study will come as a surprise to my readers, but it still helps to have some peer-reviewed evidence confirming what many people intuitively sense, yet are afraid to verbalize due to FOMO or being ostracized – i.e. social media, and digitization in general, is a bane on human consciousness and its effects actually go well beyond mental health. With chronic (over)usage social media can activate the serotonergic system and slowly turn most people into autistic psychopaths, who are much more willing to turn on each other than fight the elite that rules over all of us.

link here

Just a Week‑Long Break From Social Media Can Reduce Anxiety, Depression: Study, link here

“…“Social media detox” is a buzzword we’ve come across far too often; many of us have, perhaps, jumped on this bandwagon too. According to a new study, taking the “detox”-route isn’t just a faux wellness fad. Turns out, it is scientifically proven to promote our wellbeing and reduce the depression and anxiety many of us have learned to live with post-2020. Published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, link here, the study based its findings on an analysis of the social media behaviors of 154 participants aged between 18 and 72, who reported spending an average of eight hours every week on social media. They were divided into two groups — one that took a week-long break from social media, and one that didn’t. Prior to the division, the researchers assessed their mental health. After the experiment concluded, the participants who had abstained from social media noticed significant improvements in anxiety, depression, and general mental wellbeing. On the other hand, the group that had continued using social media, as usual, didn’t experience any comparable positive outcomes. “Many of our participants reported positive effects from being off social media with improved mood and less anxiety overall… This suggests that even just a small break can have an impact,” said, link here Jeffrey Lambert, first author of the study, and lecturer in health and exercise psychology at the University of Bath.”

“…Explaining how social media is anxiety-inducing and taking a break from it can be helpful, it adds, “Social media is a way for people to prove how successful, pretty, likable, or confident they are, and sometimes that creates competition in terms of how many likes, views, or comments they get. This situation can lead to constant posting, checking, and… worrying. Taking a step back from that routine can give [people] the time to relax and break this toxic cycle.” The “cycle,” in question, is one that spins tirelessly. Over the years, we’ve become so accustomed to the state of affairs that we barely even notice it spin anymore — even though we’re pedaling it ourselves. “Scrolling social media is so ubiquitous that many of us do it almost without thinking from the moment we wake up to when we close our eyes at night,” Lambert noted.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1838.mp3" length="341780" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hypogonadism in older males due to low OXPHOS</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1835</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1835</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 10 May 2022 14:50:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1835

I suspect many readers will simply say “duh!”, but believe or not the origin of age-related hypogonadism in males is still considered unknown. Most endocrinologists have discovered experimentally that treating their patients with SERM or AI drugs restores androgens to youthful levels, but the actual cause of this decline in androgens in the first place is considered unknown. The study below suggests that this hypogonadism in older males may be simply due to low tissue oxygenation. Since the latter depends on CO2 production in said tissues (Bohr Effect, link here), one could rephrase the findings to mean that age-related hypogonadism is due to lower OXPHOS in elderly males compared to younger ones. Another good insight of the study was that pregnenolone (P5) gets preferentially metabolized into progesterone (P4) when tissue oxygenation is low, since the activity of the enzyme 17a-hydroxylase is oxygen-dependent. This suggests that in older males, one may need to administer P5 together with some pre-formed DHEA in order to achieve a true TRT effect, instead of just accumulation of unmetabolized P4. Another option would be to administer P5 with an NAD precursor such as niacinamide (tissue oxygenation depends on the NAD/NADH ratio) and/or a quinone such as vitamin K, CoQ10, methylene blue, etc. Or, one could simply take thyroid and call it a day 🙂

link here

“…Testosterone and the testosterone precursors pregnenolone, progesterone, 17α-hydroxyprogesterone, 17α-hydroxypregnenolone, androstenedione, androstenediol and deny droepiandrosterone were measured in the spermatic vein plasma and in the testicular tissue of young and old men. Testosterone and its precursors decreased in the testicular tissue of old men. However, progesterone and 17α-hydroxyprogesterone increased in relation to testosterone in the testicular tissue and in the spermatic vein of old men. It is assumed that these age-dependent changes are caused by an impaired oxygen supply of the ageing testes. This hypothesis is supported by the observation that the same changes in steroid pattern seen in old age can be observed under reduced oxygen supply in in vitro incubation experiments with testicular tissue.”

“…In search of an explanation for the changes in the steroid pattern in testicular tissue and the spermatic vein, we postulated that a decreased oxygen supply of the testes may alter the pattern of steroid production in the observed way. This assumption is supported by the data of Sasano and Ichijo (1969), who observed a high incidence of atherosclerotic changes in the testicular blood vessels of old men. We would expect that under low oxygen pressure pregnenolone is preferably converted to progesterone (not oxygendependent) rather than to 17a-hydroxypregnenolone (oxygen-dependent). We should thus observe increased concentrations of progesterone and the other steps of the A4 pathway (17a-hydroxyprogesterone and androstenedione). The effect should be most pronounced for progesterone, because the further metabolism of progesterone (17a-hydroxylation) again requires oxygen. In order to test our hypothesis we performed the in vitro incubation experiment, in which we systematically reduced the oxygen supply of the tissue. We predicted that the production of progesterone and 17a-hydroxyprogesterone would increase in relation to the testosterone production under reduced oxygen supply. This effect was indeed observed. Our in vitro experiment is one piece of evidence supporting the hypothesis that Leydig cell function in old age may be impaired as a consequence of reduced oxygen supply of the testes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1835.mp3" length="734372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lipolysis preferentially releases PUFA from adipose tissue</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1833</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1833</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 10 May 2022 13:48:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1833

…compared to SFA and/or MUFA. This topic is considered highly controversial in Peat-land, mostly because of the dearth of studies dealing with it. I must have received hundreds of emails at this point criticizing Peat’s stance on this issue and claiming that there is no evidence for preferential PUFA release from adipose tissue compared to SFA/MUFA. I hope the study below will answer some of that criticism and, more importantly, will give people a pause before they embark on a lipolysis-maximizing endeavor such as exercising on an empty stomach, prolonged fasting, intake of beta-agonists (popular among athletes), etc.

link here

“…The release of up to fifty-two different individual fatty acids was recently studied by comparing the fatty acid composition of FFA with that of fat cell TAG from which they originated through lipolysis (Raclot & Groscolas, 1993). For most of the fatty acids, the relative proportion by weight in FFA was significantly different from that in the TAG. Compared with TAG, released FFA were enriched in some PUFA and depleted in long-chain saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. The mobilization of the most-readilymobilized fatty acid (18:5n-3) was 15-fold higher than that of the least (24:1n-9). Among major fatty acids, the mobilization of eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5n-3; EPA) was five times higher than that of 20:1n-9. For a given number of double bonds, the mobilization decreases with increasing chain length, whereas for a given chain length, it increases with increasing unsaturation. Thus, fatty acids are not mobilized in direct proportion to their content in adipose tissue TAG, but selectively according to molecular structure. Generally, fatty acids are more readily mobilized from fat cells when they are short-chain and unsaturated, and when their double bonds are closer to the methyl end of the chain. In addition to this previous work, more recent studies have sought to determine whether the mobilization of fatty acids is a general metabolic property of adipose tissue, the nature of the underlying mechanisms, and the physiological relevance and implications for health.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1833.mp3" length="323948" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stearic acid (SA) is an estrogen receptor antagonist</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1828</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1828</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 09 May 2022 18:07:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1828

Over the last year or so I stumbled upon a few studies claiming both SA (C18:0) and its methyl ester are capable of binding the estrogen receptors (ER) and modulate their transcription effects. However, those studies did not evaluate if SA acted as an agonist or antagonist on those receptors. So, I did a little searching around and found a dissertation/study that perform such analysis and found that 50 uM/L concentration of SA was able to suppress the downstream transcriptional effects of ER-alpha activation by 50%-60%. In addition, SA at the same concentration was able to even lower the expression of ER-alpha in some cells. The concentration of 50 uM/L is not high at all and is achievable with a single SA dose of about 1g, which can be provided by even a single small meal containing 5g-10g mostly dairy or ruminant animal fat. In addition, the study cites evidence that other fatty acids are also putative ER modulators. Namely, palmitic acid (C16:0), oleic acid (C18:1) and linoleic acid (C18:2). Btw, there is already published evidence that palmitic acid is an antagonist on ER and that oleic acid (a MUFA) is neutral on that receptor. There is also the study below demonstrating that long-chain fatty acids drive progression of prostate cancer by activating ER.

link here

Since the saturated fats (SFA) such as stearic and palmitic acids, and monounsaturated fats such as oleic acid are either antagonists or ER or are neutral on that receptor, the combined findings of the study above and the one below suggest that PUFA can act as ER agonists. So, their role is not simply as estrogen effect “promoters”. They are themselves (xeno)estrogens that have potent estrogenic effects in concentrations easily reachable by eating even a single meal of most commercially available foods prepared with seed oils. Since the affinity for ER of both SFA and PUFA are about the same, that means a person should consume SFA and PUFA in at least 2:1 ratio to be able to significantly blunt the direct estrogenic effects of PUFA. Of course, PUFA consumption ideally should be zero, but for people who cannot avoid it and are forced to eat commercially prepared/processed “food” targeting a high SFA:PUFA ratio is probably the only realistic option.

link here

“…In BMDM, C18:0 was able to repress the expression of IL-4-receptor despite E2 co-stimulation, as shown in Fig. 29A. The finding that C18:0 is decreasing the expression of an ERα-target gene in macrophages, led to the next question, e.g. whether stearic acid is directly influencing the transcriptional activity of ERα. For this purpose, luciferase genereporter assay experiments were conducted in THP-1 macrophages, assessing the E2-induced transcriptional activity of ERα depending on the co-administration of C18:0. Indeed, as shown in Fig. 29B, the FA was able to highly repress transcriptional activity of ERα in macrophages. Next, expression of ERα in dependence of C18:0 co-stimulation was assessed by WB, in order to question whether the FA might influence transcriptional activity through downregulation of the nuclear receptor. Analyses of 6, 12 and 24 hours of stimulation of BMDM revealed no regulation of ERα expression on protein levels (Fig. 29D). Though, 24h stimulation with stearic acid seemed to reduce overall protein (ERα) expression in primary macrophages, pointing towards a higher susceptibility of this cell type in-vitro towards the FA. ”

“…As subjected in chapter 1.5.1, FAs are more than just nutrients supplying energy, but important modulators in cell function. For palmitic acid (C16:0), La Rosa and colleagues (La Rosa et al., 2012) already demonstrated the ability of FAs to bind to ERα and to modulate its transcriptional function by acylation at the residue C447. The mutation of this binding site resulted in the present study in attenuation of C18:0 mediated inhibition of transcriptional activity (Fig. 29C), demonstrating that this specific cysteine residue is at least one of the possible targets of the fatty acid. To assess whether C18:0 itself is able to bind to ERα, immunoprecipitation (IP) experiments were conducted in HeLa cells overexpressing ERα after co-stimulation of E2 and stearic acid versus E2 and BSA, as control. After the IP, protein-beads complexes were subjected to analysis by LC/MS in order to identify fatty acids possibly binding to the protein of interest. Indeed, few fatty acids could be found in the ERα-precipitates and were quantified. Mainly three FAs were present in considerable amount: palmitic acid (C16:0), oleic acid (C18:1n9) and linoleic acid (C18:2n6). Only C18:1n9 was significantly induced by C18:0 stimulation, suggesting desaturation of C18:0 after incorporation into the cells. Oleic acid is indeed the main metabolite of C18:0 and C18:0 was itself not detectable in the IPs. In conclusion, these results point towards a previously unknown interaction between ERα and dietary fatty acids, modulating the transcriptional activity of this nuclear receptor and therefore influencing negatively macrophage function and immune response.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1828.mp3" length="1173788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Higher PUFA intake correlated with mental disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1825</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1825</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 09 May 2022 16:57:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1825

An epidemiological study, yet still useful IMO since the correlation was maintained across the various levels of PUFA intake – i.e. the higher the PUFA intake the higher the prevalence of a mental disorder such as depression, which suggests a causal link. The link was the strongest in males and increased with age in both sexes. The proposed mechanism of action is the pro-inflammatory nature of PUFA. In fact, the authors mention only one of the inflammatory pathways of PUFA while neglecting to mention its main metabolic pathways through the COX and LOX enzymes. The role of those enzymes in mental disorders is corroborated by the fact that virtually all prostaglandin/leukotriene antagonists and/or synthesis inhibitors in existence have demonstrated robust antidepressant, anti-psychotic, and anti-anxiety effects in multiple studies across many models (both animal and human ones). Long story short – the authors opine that reduction in PUFA intake may be a viable method in decreasing rates of mental disorders.

link here

“…This cross-sectional study revealed that higher consumption of linoleic acid (as percentage of energy intake) was associated with higher odds of depression in a large group of Iranian population. In addition, the stratified analysis showed significant associations between LA intake and depression in men, individuals older than 40 years, and normal-weight adults. Furthermore, a higher intake of LA was related to increased odds of psychological distress in older individuals. However, we did not find any connection between LA intake and anxiety. To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies in Middle-Eastern region that investigated the relation between LA consumption and mental health. Psychological disorders appear to have a growing prevalence across several countries worldwide (36, link here), especially among individuals with chronic disorders such as cardiovascular disease and obesity (37, link here, 38, link here). These disorders could exacerbate disabilities and raise mortality rate (39, link here). Furthermore, a meta-analysis found a reciprocal connection between systemic inflammation and mental illnesses (40, link here). So, the strategies to modulate inflammatory pathways in a hope to diminish the occurrence of psychological disorders are needed. Our findings revealed that reduction in LA intake might be an effecting factor in achieving this target.”

“…Several mechanisms could explain the positive association between increased LA intake and depression. Intake of LA increases the expression of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) (58, link here). The transcription of (NF-κB) stimulates the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines (59, link here), such as IL-6. These cytokines have a significant impact on the central nervous system (CNS), causing and reinforcing depressive moods as well as physical symptoms such as exhaustion and lethargy (52, link here). These cytokines could additionally block serotonin production, decrease plasma tryptophan levels, suppress the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and, in turn, increase the chance of depression (60, link here). The peptide BDNF is required for optimal neuronal function and seems to be lowered in depression (60, link here, 61, link here). In addition, inflammatory factors can change the synthesis, processing, and transmission of neurotransmitters (such as serotonin, glutamate, and dopamine) that have a synergistic impact on mood (62, link here).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1825.mp3" length="495500" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Virtual communication blunts creativity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1822</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1822</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 09 May 2022 16:42:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1822

The title says it all, and it is really something most people working in an office environment and engaging in daily tele-/video- conferencing already intuitively know is true. However, the mechanism through which this “creativity-killing” effect of virtual communication methods manifested itself was not quite clear until now. The study below found that it is the very nature of virtual communications that is responsible – i.e. the ability of such communication methods to put people into  hyper-focused state (both mentally and visually). Apparently, creativity flourishes when a person is allowed to shift their visual focus continuously from one object to another, and the mind is allowed to do the same. While the study only looked at videoconferencing and teleconferencing in the work setting, I see no reason why the same findings would not apply to the broader use of virtual communication mechanisms including social media. Maybe the reason societies are becoming more polarized and driven by so-called “tunnel vision” politics is precisely the widespread usage of virtual communication mechanisms by most age groups. Namely, the developed countries have essentially become a mass of narrow-minded Zoom-ers. As such, the adults on which society depends for resolving social problems through creativity and collaboration end up in their own self-created echo chambers simply because they can’t come up with anything new while staring at a black screen for the better part of the day.

link here

“…COVID-19 accelerated a decade-long shift to remote work by normalizing working from home on a large scale. Indeed, 75% of US employees in a 2021 survey reported a personal preference for working remotely at least one day per week1, link here, and studies estimate that 20% of US workdays will take place at home after the pandemic ends2, link here. Here we examine how this shift away from in-person interaction affects innovation, which relies on collaborative idea generation as the foundation of commercial and scientific progress3, link here. In a laboratory study and a field experiment across five countries (in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia), we show that videoconferencing inhibits the production of creative ideas. By contrast, when it comes to selecting which idea to pursue, we find no evidence that videoconferencing groups are less effective (and preliminary evidence that they may be more effective) than in-person groups. Departing from previous theories that focus on how oral and written technologies limit the synchronicity and extent of information exchanged4, link here,5, link here,6, link here, we find that our effects are driven by differences in the physical nature of videoconferencing and in-person interactions. Specifically, using eye-gaze and recall measures, as well as latent semantic analysis, we demonstrate that videoconferencing hampers idea generation because it focuses communicators on a screen, which prompts a narrower cognitive focus. Our results suggest that virtual interaction comes with a cognitive cost for creative idea generation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1822.mp3" length="676388" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Allopregnanolone found safe, may slow brain atrophy from Alzheimer’s</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1820</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1820</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 May 2022 00:01:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1820

A great new study, which is one of the very few to examine the safety and effectiveness of allopregnanolone in humans. The trial was conducted in patients with Alzheimer Disease (AD) and aimed to establish the safety of various doses of once-weekly allopregnanolone administration, as well as any potential benefits on brain morphology in AD patients. The route of administration was IV and the doses tried were 2mg, 4mg, 6mg, 10mg, and 14mg. All groups received their respective doses once weekly for 12 weeks. The outcome of the safety arm was that allopregnanolone is safe in doses up to 10mg for males and 14mg for females. The main side effect from the therapy was sedation, which is to be expected of a strong GABA agonist such as allopregnanolone. The other good news is that administration of these low doses (as low as 4mg once weekly) of allopregnanolone once weekly led to reduced brain atrophy in the AD patients, increased neurogenesis, white matter integrity and functional connectivity in the AD patients. However, at higher doses some of the benefits plateaued and there was even reduction in neurogenesis. Based on the follow-up trial with 4mg once weekly dose, my guess is that the 4mg weekly dose was the optimal in terms of benefit, while also being safe and virtually free of side effects. The trial is now into its long-term phase trying to determine if chronic allopregnanolone administration can actually fully stop or (hopefully) even reverse the AD pathology.

link here

#AAN2022 – Allopregnanolone Found Safe, May Ease Brain Atrophy, link here

“…It has been shown, link here that Alzheimer’s patients have low brain levels of allopregnanolone compared with healthy people. Data from animal models of Alzheimer’s showed that allopregnanolone treatment promoted nerve cell regeneration, link here, reduced the buildup of amyloid-beta, and restored cognitive function, link here. Researchers from the University of Arizona led the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (NCT02221622, link here) reported on at the AAN meeting. That trial assessed the safety, tolerability, and feasibility of single or multiple ascending doses of allopregnanolone in 24 people older than 55 with early Alzheimer’s disease. The participants received allopregnanolone or a placebo via weekly into-the-vein (intravenous) infusions for 12 weeks, or about three months. They were monitored during a one-month follow-up. Those who received the treatment were split into three groups of six patients. One group received a dose of 2 mg per infusion, another received a 4 mg dose, and the last received increasing doses ranging from 6-18 mg. The remaining six participants received a placebo. The study’s primary goal was to determine the treatment’s safety and tolerability, with secondary goals of investigating its pharmacokinetics and the maximum-tolerated dose. Other exploratory measures included changes to cognitive function and MRI imaging parameters. Results showed that allopregnanolone was generally well-tolerated and safe. Most reported side effects were mild or moderate in severity, and their incidence did not differ between treated and untreated participants. The most commonly reported side effects included rash (22%) and fatigue (17%). One reported side effect — a case of non-serious dizziness — was attributed to allopregnanolone. The treatment did not have adverse effects on cognition or MRI-based outcomes throughout the study. Allopregnanolone was shown to promote nerve regeneration at some concentrations. However, at too high a dose, it actually can suppress it. That means that the concentrations of the drug in the body are important, the team noted. A pharmacokinetic analysis showed that concentrations of allopregnanolone reached in the blood were at levels expected to promote nerve regeneration, the researchers said. Some participants experienced mild sedation at the highest doses of allopregnanolone. Based on this data, the researchers determined that the highest tolerable dose was 10 mg for males and 14 mg for females. MRI findings indicated a trend of decreased atrophy of the hippocampus — a brain region known to be involved in Alzheimer’s — in allopregnanolone-treated patients. Participants carrying the ApoE E4 genetic variant, a known Alzheimer’s risk variant, saw the greatest gains. The team also observed signs, in treated patients, of greater integrity of white matter, which contains mostly nerve cell projections. Greater functional connectivity also was seen between brain regions, suggesting that allopregnanolone may restore more normal nerve cell communication, the researchers suggested. The primary goal of the REGEN-BRAIN trial is to assess changes in hippocampal tissue volume in ApoE E4–positive patients after allopregnanolone treatment (4 mg). Secondary trial goals include changes in other MRI parameters, cognition, and life quality. REGEN-BRAIN is expected to be completed in June 2024.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1820.mp3" length="804500" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dopamine agonists can treat anhedonia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1818</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1818</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 May 2022 18:44:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1818

The title may sound obvious to many, but this study is one of the few to bring up the taboo topic of serotonin’s role in symptoms of depression. The current dogma still holds that raising serotonin levels (or activating its receptors) is the most beneficial mechanism to treating depression and all of its symptoms, of which anhenodia is a major one. In addition, while medicine admits that chronic stress has a role in depression, current dogma insists that stress by itself is not a direct cause depression. Now, after decades of serotonergis drugs (e.g. SSRI usage) medicine is starting to realize that the SSRI drugs are no better than placebo when it comes to treating depression, and in fact often make some symptoms (e.g. anhedonia) worse or even induce them anew. The study below demonstrates that activating the dopamine receptors, and more specifically the D2 receptor, was highly effective in relieving stress-induced anhedonia while activation of the serotonin receptors was not. Perhaps just as importantly, the study demonstrated that raising dopamine or administering dopamine agonists had a beneficial effect on another common symptom of chronic stress and depression – i.e. enlarged adrenal glands (a proxy for elevated cortisol). Namely, the pro-dopamine interventions restored the adrenal glands back to normal size seen in unstressed animals. The latter effect has already been corroborated by older studies demonstrating successful remission/cure of Cushing disease/syndrome with administration of dopamine agonist drugs such as bromocriptine, cabergoline, pramipexole, etc.

2 links here

“…”There are very few effective remedies for anhedonia, which is a debilitating condition that involves deficient motivation to pursue rewarding activities,” Steven J. Lamontagne, Ph.D., one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Medical Xpress. “Current first-line drug treatments for depression target the serotonin system, but these are largely ineffective in treating anhedonia.” The main objective of the recent work by Lamontagne and his colleagues was to examine the effects of dopamine modulation on stress-induced motivational deficits in an animal model, specifically on rodents. Their new study was inspired by one of their previous papers, where they tested rodents on a probabilistic reward task and found that chronic stress impaired their reward learning, while amphetamine, which potentiates dopamine transmission, improved it. “A logical hypothesis derived from this finding was that we could rescue stress-induced reward dysfunction by enhancing dopamine signaling, but that hadn’t been empirically tested,” Lamontagne explained. “In our recent work, we completed two major projects to address this question.” In their experiments, Lamontagne and his colleagues exposed 48 male rats to stressful stimuli for a period of three weeks. Subsequently, they treated half of them using systemic, low-dose injections of the drug Amisulpride, which is known to increase dopamine transmission. The other half was treated using micro-infusions of Quinpirole, a chemical that acts as a selective D2-like receptor agonist, into either the nucleus accumbens or the medial prefrontal cortex, two brain regions known to be associated with motivation and goal-directed behavior.”

“To determine whether dopamine modulation differentially affects reward learning based on susceptibility to stress, we measured adrenal gland weights as a proxy for stress reactivity,” Lamontagne said. “Using immunohistochemistry, we measured D2 receptor expression in the mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways to shed light on stress-related changes at a receptor level.” In their experiments, the researchers gathered interesting results. Most notably, they found that the modulation of dopamine, link here repaired motivational deficits elicited by stress. In addition, the most stress-reactive rats (i.e., those who appeared to have been most adversely affected by the 3-week stress-inducing period) had the best response to the treatment. “We found higher mesolimbic D2 receptor expression in rats with high stress reactivity, suggesting differences in D2 receptor sensitivity could underlie these effects,” Lamontagne said. “Overall, our findings suggest that the dopaminergic system, particularly mesolimbic D2-like receptors, could be critical targets for drug interventions in the treatment of reward-related dysfunction.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1818.mp3" length="757892" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking endotoxin may reverse cognitive decline of aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1815</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1815</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2022 17:51:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1815

Another study implicating endotoxin (LPS) and its associated receptor (TLR4) in a phenotype of aging considered “normal” by mainstream medicine, though it almost universally progresses into dementia territory with advancing age, to the point where 90%+ of people over 85 have at least moderate levels of dementia, even if not officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Well, the study below demonstrates that there may be nothing “natural” or “unavoidable” about this cognitive decline associated with (actually, due to) aging, and that a major component of it is chronic inflammation, driven by activation of TLR4. While the article never mentions endotoxin by name and tries to fearmonger about blocking TLR4, it does concede that in older people blocking TLR4 may be highly beneficial, at least when it comes to brain health. In fact, a “surprising” finding of the study was that remove TLR4 completely (genetic knockout model) did not have any detrimental effects on the animals. Thus, chemically blocking TLR4 would be even less risky as it comes nowhere near the effectiveness of deleting/removing the TLR4 receptor altogether. A number of OTC substances act as TLR4 blockers including progesterone, androgens, pregnenolone, emodin, vitamin D3, vitamin A, vitamin K, etc. In addition, mos of the old and well-tested tricyclic molecules used as antidepressants in the 1960s and 1970s are also quite potent. Ketotifen and cyproheptadine are two such chemicals, and even non-tricyclics such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl) are quite effective at blocking TLR4.

2 links here

“…In a new study, genetic deletion of the TLR4 receptor ameliorated aspects of age-related cognitive decline in naturally aging mice, probably due to decreased inflammation [1]….The researchers do not report any deleterious effects of TLR4 knockout, which is intriguing since TLR4 is an important part of the immune system. The reason for that might be that lab animals live in a cleaner environment and encounter fewer pathogens.”

“…Since TLR4 participates in the innate immune response, going after it might seem like a bad idea, but with age, due to its inflammatory nature, TLR4’s overall contribution likely becomes negative. Whichever is the case, lifelong TLR4 knockout is unavailable for humans, but chemically suppressing TLR4 later in life is an intriguing approach, though it demands a lot of further research.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1815.mp3" length="818204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High-dose vitamin D could help fight HIV/AIDS</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1813</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1813</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2022 17:18:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1813

Actual article title, though I disagree with the “high-dose” qualifier as it corresponds roughly to a vitamin D3 dose of ~7,000 IU daily, which is not really a pharmacological dose. While the authors were not brave enough to claim that vitamin D supplementation could be an effective prophylactic measure for HIV/AIDS they did demonstrate that lack of sunlight (in this case due to low UVB exposure of people in the winter) and the accompanying vitamin D deficiency result in both a suppressed immune system and a semi-anemic condition. Both of those effects of sunlight deficiency were reversed by supplementing vitamin D3 for 6 weeks, at a dose of 60,000 IU once weekly. Perhaps most importantly, the blood of people deficient in vitamin D was vulnerable to infection/replication with HIV, while the blood of supplemented subjects was highly resistant to the pathogen. Whether that means vitamin D supplementation alone can prevent (maybe treat?) HIV/AIDS is as of yet unanswered, but the authors seem confident-enough in their results to state that vitamin D can become a powerful tool in the fight against the disease, especially in low-income regions like Africa (where the study was conducted), and where only a cheap and widely available intervention such as vitamin D has a chance of being adopted.

link here

“…To investigate the functional consequence of seasonal serum 25(OH)D levels on the immune system, we next investigated seasonal differences in full blood count (FBC) and the effect of vitamin D3 supplementation on FBC in Xhosa participants. Vitamin D3 supplementation in the winter increased WBC count (P = 0.0016) and in particular lymphocyte count (P = 0.023), and there was a winter trend for decreased monocytes (Fig. 2 A–C, link here). In the winter, participant’s RBC parameters tended toward macrocytic anemia [evidenced by decreased RBC and RBC distribution width (RDW), increased mean corpuscular volume, and a trend toward decreased Hb], and this tendency was reversed by supplementation (P ≤ 0.0007) (Fig. 2 D–F, link here and Fig. S4A, link here).”

“…Infection of PBMCs in winter, compared with summer, resulted in greater productive HIV-1 infection on day 9, as measured by culture supernatant p24 antigen levels. This result was seen in PBMCs isolated from both Xhosa (P = 0.0003, Fig. 2 G–I, link here) and Cape Mixed (P < 0.0001, Fig. S4 E and F, link here) participants. This winter increase in HIV-1 infection was seen with both preparations of HIV-1, with ∼1-log higher p24 measured from cells infected with unpurified virus (Xhosa median 7,038 pg/mL unpurified vs. 738 pg/mL purified) (Fig. 2 H and I, link here). After 6 wk of vitamin D3 supplementation in winter, the winter increase in HIV-1 p24 was attenuated, and Xhosa participants’ PBMCs showed a diminished capacity for productive HIV-1 infection: on day 9 p24 levels had dropped to the level as observed in summer (Fig. 2G, link here). Again, this decrease occurred with infections using both purified and unpurified virus (Fig. 2 H and I, link here), demonstrating the robustness of oral vitamin D3 supplementation in suppressing productive HIV-1 infection in peripheral blood cells ex vivo. Moreover there was a significant negative correlation between paired serum 25(OH)D and day 9 p24 concentrations from PBMCs infected with purified virus, across all time points (Spearman rs = −0.36; P < 0.0001), indicating a direct correlation between serum 25(OH)D levels and the ability of peripheral blood cells to limit productive HIV-1 infection.”

link here

“…Vitamin D supplementation may improve the ability of the body to fight diseases, including HIV, link here, in African regions with seasonal exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet B rays or UVB, according to a new study. Researchers from South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States say that although vitamin D status could influence health outcomes, studies on how it could protect or worsen HIV are lacking. According to the study published on in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) last month (30 June), link here, vitamin D supplementation may lessen HIV replication, increase white blood cells and reverse winter-associated anaemia.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1813.mp3" length="650948" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen may cause/exacerbate reflux disease (GERD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1810</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1810</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 06 Apr 2022 13:55:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1810

A very interesting study, which once again corroborates the hypothesis that there is no chronic condition, which is not either caused or heavily influenced by steroids. Among the conditions medicine considers not to be linked to hormone imbalances is the extremely common “reflux disease”, medically known as GERD. The official dogma is that GERD is caused by stomach acid leaking through the weakened esophageal sphincter and over time causing damage to the esophagus. The dogma also maintains that if the acid exposure continues for extended periods of time, the condition will eventually exacerbate and turn into the so-called Barrett’s esophagus, and if that condition is not treated it would turn into the invariably lethal esophageal cancer. While the progression of GERD described by medicine is more or less accurate, its cause is a lot less clear. Recent studies have demonstrated that chronic inflammatory plays a major role in GERD and the acid exposure is at most a minor component. In addition, GERD is well correlated with aging, which implies metabolic origins, which we now know are primarily driven by hormonal imbalance, including thyroid.

Well, the study below implicates estrogen as a cause of GERD (at least in women) and found that progesterone is protective (duh). In fact, the authors of the study suggest women on estrogen-only HRT to be switched to progesterone-only therapy. Furthermore, the study states that menopause is a risk factor for GERD, and this directly calls into question the dogma that estrogen decreases with age in women and that menopause is a state of estrogen-deficiency. Personally, I think cortisol is also involved, considering its weakening effects on muscles (including the esophageal sphincter) and that matches with the study findings as estrogen and cortisol promote each other’s synthesis, while progesterone acts as both an estrogen and cortisol antagonist.

2 links here

“…Estrogen and progesterone are suggested to confer their effect on the GI tract by increasing nitric oxide synthesis, muscle relaxant which decreases smooth muscle tone of the lower esophageal sphincter and esophageal body predisposing patients to gastroesophageal reflux. However, there is a need for elucidating the exact mechanism that these hormones play in GERD because menopause (a risk factor for GERD) is tied to a decrease in the levels of estrogen and progesterone. Thus, there is no clarity on the exact relationship between the different hormonal therapies and GERD.”

“…A total of 895,890 postmenopausal women were identified as not taking any form of HRT. There were 11.1% postmenopausal women on estrogen-only preparations and 1.0% on progesterone-only preparations. As compared with postmenopausal women on no HRT, there were increased ORs for the development of GERD (OR, 1.44; and OR, 1.48), nonerosive reflux disease (OR, 1.43; and OR, 1.49), eGERD (OR, 1.48; and OR, 1.42), Barrett’s esophagus (OR, 1.57; and OR, 1.57), and esophageal stricture (OR, 1.88; and OR, 1.76) after starting either estrogen-only therapy or progesterone-only therapy, respectively.  After adjusting for alcohol use, smoking, obesity, and White race, the use of estrogen-only preparations was still associated with increased risk for GERD (OR, 1.18), eGERD (OR, 1.38), Barrett’s esophagus (OR, 1.19), and esophageal stricture (OR, 1.30). In contrast, the use of progesterone-only preparation in postmenopausal women did not have increased risk for any of the aforementioned diagnoses. ”

“…”Providers should be cognizant of potential increased risks for GERD and its complications associated with estrogen-only HRT; if suitable, alternatives such as progesterone-only therapy may be considered in certain settings such as bothersome reflux-associated symptoms and/or reflux complications,” wrote the authors. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1810.mp3" length="922820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin A is required for male fertility</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1808</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1808</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 01 Apr 2022 16:21:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1808

I am posting about this study not because I am thrilled at the possibility of society now having oral (non-steroid) contraceptive methods for males, but rather because this study highlights that vitamin A is actually required for male fertility. Even minor interference with so-called retinoic acid receptor alpha (RAR-a) causes fertility problems and fully blocking that receptor invariably renders all subjects fully infertile. That receptor is activated by all-trans-retinoic acid – i.e. the “active” form of vitamin A synthesized from retinol and its various dietary/supplement precursors such as retinyl palmitate and retinyl acetate. The study managed to achieve full infertility in 99% of the study subjects (animals) by administering an RAR-a antagonist. The study also claims the effects were reversible after a few months of not using the RAR-a antagonist, but I have serious doubts about that claim. Why? Well, one reason is that vitamin A deficiency has been shown in many animal studies to often cause irreversible sterility if maintained for a sufficiently long period of time. The study itself readily acknowledges that fact while also explicitly stating that the RAR-a antagonist was initially abandoned by the pharma company that discovered it, since it was confirmed it acted as a “testicular toxin”. Also, considering vitamin A is a required factor for steroidogenesis, and not just spermatogenesis, interfering with the RAR-a receptor may lead to hypogonadism severe enough to cause testicular atrophy, which is rarely reversible. Finally, since vitamin A and RAR-a activation are required for proper vision, this study may end up unleashing on the world a “solution” that causes terrible health problems in males on a global scale. Hhhm, if I was an evil person, dedicated to the cause of depopulation, I would probably think this drug is a “gift” from the gods. I wonder who funded those studies…Yes, that right, CONRAD – funded by Bill Gates and many other “elites” with an openly stated depopulation agenda.

So, all in all, this study below should serve as a serious warning to the crowd out there arguing that supplementing with ANY amount of vitamin A is “toxic” and that apparently many health problems can be “cured” by simply restricting vitamin A in take to the point of deficiency. Considering fertility is one of the primary biomarkers of good systemic health in males (and in females too), I fail to see how degrading it by reducing the activation of RAR-a (through vitamin A intake restriction) is in any way healthy. Perhaps the multitude of studies demonstrating virtually guaranteed cancer (usually hematological) development in organisms deficient in vitamin A would be even more convincing…if the vitamin A haters can even be bothered reading them.

2 links here

“…Scientists have known for almost 100 years that depriving an animal of dietary vitamin A causes male sterility. While investigating targeted loss of function of the gene encoding one of the RARs, RARalpha, which results in male infertility, senior author Debra J. Wolgemuth, Ph.D., ran across a paper by Bristol-Myers Squibb on a compound that was being tested for the treatment of skin and inflammatory diseases. The compound seemed to cause changes in the testis similar to the mutation that she and Dr. Chung were studying in Dr. Wolgemuth’s lab. (Dr. Wolgemuth is professor of genetics and development and of obstetrics and gynecology; and Dr. Chung is an associate research scientist, both at Columbia University Medical Center). Bristol-Myers dropped its interest when it found that the compound also was ¬- in the company’s words — “a testicular toxin.” The paper did not elaborate on how the drug caused infertility, so Dr. Wolgemuth and her team tested the drug in mice to find out; they noted that the changes it caused were similar to what one sees with vitamin A-deficiency and loss of function of RARalpha. “We were intrigued,” said Dr. Wolgemuth. “One company’s toxin may be another person’s contraceptive.” To investigate whether the compound prevented conception at even lower levels than those cited in the company’s study, Dr. Wolgemuth and her team placed the treated male mice with females and found that reversible male sterility occurred with doses as low as 1.0mg/kg of body weight for a 4-week dosing period. One advantage of using a non-steroidal approach, the researchers say, is avoiding the side effects commonly associated with steroidal hormone-based methods.”

“…This study was supported in part by grants initially from CONRAD and subsequently from the NIH, NICHD.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1808.mp3" length="1335140" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cyproheptadine (12mg daily) cures patient’s metastatic liver cancer in just 2 weeks</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1806</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1806</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 18:25:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1806

A truly shocking case study, which demonstrates once again how even terminal disease are often curable with cheap, safe, and widely available compounds that have long ago been written off as “obsolete” by mainstream medicine. More importantly, the case study highlights the core role metabolism and major metabolic modulators such as serotonin (5-HT) play in virtually all chronic degenerative and even terminal diseases. Oh, and lest I forget – unlike other cancer studies so far that have used cyproheptadine as an add-on to mainstream cytotoxic treatments, in this case the 5-HT/H1 antagonist cyproheptadine was the only therapy administered.

link here

“…A 62-year-old woman with suspected advanced HCC accompanied by bone metastasis with severe back pain and sciatica showed disease remission after cyproheptadine monotherapy. Initially, her serum alpha fetal protein (AFP) level was high, reaching up to 17697.62 ng/ml. A dose of 4 mg cyproheptadine, 3 times a day for 17 months was prescribed as the only treatment. Within 3 months, the serum AFP level gradually normalized down to 4.3 ng/ml. Both liver biopsy and bone biopsies were subsequently performed after 2 weeks of cyproheptadine. The results showed no malignancy. During the 34 months of follow-ups, the serum AFP remained normal in the range of 1.05 to 2.86 ng/ml. The patient has survived for 5 years without back pain and sciatica thus far.”

“…In this case, we prescribed only cyproheptadine based on our prior analysis of its anti-cancer properties (3, link here, 7, link here); it may stimulate the immune system; it may suppress prolactin, growth hormone and cortisol; thalidomide was not added at that time due to precautions of its possible adverse side effects. One tablet of cyproheptadine is 4 mg; A dose of 4 mg thrice daily is commonly recommended for colds and allergies, and it demonstrates being safe yet effective on HCC patients based on our previous report (3, link here). Because the patient responded well to the single drug therapy while we were waiting for the results of biopsies, we decided to continue it. Because the patient’s immune system responded well to the single drug therapy while we were waiting for the results of biopsies, we decided to continue it. After three months, the results of her blood test (e.g. AFP level) and CT scan (e.g. tumor) all returned normal ranges. However, the results of CT scan still showed traces of suspected tumors. To avoid recurrence, we continued the same therapy for another fourteen months until there were no more traces of suspicious tumors, tests and symptoms.”

“…We are certain that this is not a case of spontaneous regression of HCC. The patient did not receive other type of anti-cancer therapy before or after cyproheptadine monotherapy; her symptoms vanished, and the HCC had nearly complete remission while she was treated continuously with cyproheptadine monotherapy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1806.mp3" length="374180" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stem cells availability, and their differentiation, depend on metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1804</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1804</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 18:10:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1804

Once again, the master controller role metabolism plays in human life is revealed in yet another experiment. The study below demonstrated that the degree of cell “stemness”, as well as its differentiation into a specific organ/tissue depends entirely on the metabolic rate of the cell, and thus can be easily/simply modulated based on health needs. For instance, lower metabolic rate increased the “stemness” of a cell, which could be helpful in cases of gross trauma/injury, infection, etc when new tissue/organ needs to be created. The study also immediately corroborates the role of metabolism in disease like cancer. Stem cells are integral part of all cancer types as the former ensure the tumor can be quickly repaired/restored after external assaults such as surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, ultrasound therapy, heating, etc. So, what the study found is that lowering the metabolic rate essentially recreates one of the fundamental characteristics of cancer. That finding also explains why other metabolic inhibitors such as estrogen, radiation, toxins, etc (and even viruses) are invariably carcinogenic when the organism is exposed to them for sufficiently long periods of time. Conversely, raising the metabolic rate forced the cells to differentiate and the degree/intensity of metabolic rate, as well as the surrounding cell types, determined what type of cell the stem cell differentiated into – i.e. the process of morphogenesis is primarily controlled by the metabolic rate.

2 links here

“…Tissue stem cells renew tissues by producing daughter cells that either remain as stem cells or differentiate into specialized cells, such as intestinal or skin cells. Certain stem cells seal the fate of their daughter cells already at the time of division. Researchers at the University of Helsinki have discovered how stem cells control the function of their daughter cells in cell division. When a stem cell transfers its more active old mitochondria into one daughter cell, that cell loses its capacity to self-renew and is differentiated into a cell that maintains tissue function. The other daughter cell, receiving younger mitochondria, continues its life as a stem cell and remains capable of repairing tissue over and over again. The researchers found that the older mitochondria inherited by the differentiated daughter cell are better at maintaining metabolism based on cellular respiration.”

“…Switching on genes central to cellular functions ultimately determines the identity of cells, but metabolism appears to be the very first determinant of their fate.””

“…”When we restricted cellular respiration by reducing the quantity of a single protein enriched in the old mitochondria, the daughter cells actually remained self-renewing stem cells,” says Doctoral Researcher Julia Govenius (née Döhla) from the University of Helsinki. This demonstrates that small differences in mitochondrial quality can affect whole cell metabolism and, ultimately, the cell’s fate in tissues. “The self-renewal of stem cells can be influenced through surprisingly small and correctly timed metabolic changes,” says Emilia Kuuluvainen, research coordinator of the Centre of Excellence in Stem Cell Metabolism. This finding is part of basic research that lays the groundwork for developing novel ways to promote tissue regeneration in, for example, degenerative diseases or accelerate recovery from tissue damage.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1804.mp3" length="725156" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol), unlike D3 (cholecalciferol), ineffective for immune health</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1801</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1801</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 17:52:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1801

A very important study, with huge ramifications, considering most people taking prescription vitamin D are consuming vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) as that is the only FDA-approved vitamin D variety available for oral use. The widely available OTC variety vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) is not FDA-approved and doctors rarely prescribe it to their patients out of litigation fears. Well, according to the study below, when it comes to boosting immunity, people might as well throw their vitamin D2 pills/drops in the trash. Only viamin D3 was found to modulate a key biomarker of immune activity (type I interferon) responsible for the initial response to invading pathogens such as bacteria and/or viruses. Something tells me that the “active” vitamin D, known as calcitiriol, is also ineffective as immune booster…but I don’t want to rile up the vitamin D goblins attacking Danny and me lately:-)

link here

Study Finds Vitamin D3 Important for Fighting Infections – Helps Strengthen Defenses Against COVID-19, link here

“…In a collaborative study by the Universities of Surrey and Brighton, researchers investigated the impact of vitamin D supplements – D2 and D3 – taken daily over a 12-week period on the activity of genes in people’s blood. Contrary to widely held views, the research team discovered that both types of vitamin D did not have the same effect. They found evidence that vitamin D3 had a modifying effect on the immune system that could fortify the body against viral and bacterial diseases. Professor Colin Smith, lead-author of the study from the University of Surrey, who began this work while at the University of Brighton, said:  “We have shown that vitamin D3 appears to stimulate the type I interferon signaling system in the body – a key part of the immune system that provides a first line of defence against bacteria and viruses. Thus, a healthy vitamin D3 status may help prevent viruses and bacteria from gaining a foothold in the body.“Our study suggests that it is important that people take a vitamin D3 supplement, or suitably fortified foods, especially in the winter months.”

“…Professor Susan Lanham-New, co-author of the study and Head of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Surrey, said: “While we found that vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 do not have the same effect on gene activity within humans, the lack of impact we found when looking at vitamin D2 means that a larger study is urgently required to clarify the differences in the effects. However, these results show that vitamin D3 should be the favoured form for fortified foods and supplements.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1801.mp3" length="558164" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Eating vegetables does nothing to protect against heart disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1798</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1798</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 17:27:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1798

The bad news for vegans keep piling on. Yesterday, I posted about meat-eating extending lifespan, unlike eating vegetables. In corroboration of the latter, the study below now claims that eating vegetables does nothing good for the heart. Now, I don’t endorse completely shunning vegetables, however, the vegan lifestyle the goons over at WEF have in store for us is definitely something that should be vigorously questioned and, based on the totality of evidence so far, resisted as much as possible.

link here

Eating vegetables does little or nothing to protect against heart disease, study says, link here

Eating vegetables does not protect against cardiovascular disease, finds large-scale study, link here

“…A sufficient intake of vegetables is important for maintaining a balanced diet and avoiding a wide range of diseases. But might a diet rich in vegetables also lower the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD)? Unfortunately, researchers from the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the University of Bristol found no evidence for this. That the consumption of vegetables might lower the risk of CVD might at first sight seem plausible, as their ingredients such as carotenoids and alpha-tocopherol have properties that could protect against CVD. But so far, the evidence from previous studies for an overall effect of vegetable consumption on CVD has been inconsistent. Now, new results from a powerful, large-scale new study in Frontiers in Nutrition, link here shows that a higher consumption of cooked or uncooked vegetables is unlikely to affect the risk of CVD. They also explain how confounding factors might explain previous spurious, positive findings. “The UK Biobank is a large-scale prospective study on how genetics and environment contribute to the development of the most common and life-threatening diseases. Here we make use of the UK Biobank’s large sample size, long-term follow-up, and detailed information on social and lifestyle factors, to assess reliably the association of vegetable intake with the risk of subsequent CVD,” said Prof Naomi Allen, UK Biobank’s chief scientist and co-author on the study.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1798.mp3" length="352844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA cause obesity, diabetes, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1795</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1795</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 16:59:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1795

The title is an actual quote from the article, so there is no editorializing on my part and it speaks volumes about how the authors feel about their findings. In addition, opposite effects were found for saturated fats, in this case coconut oil, which leads the authors to once again remind everybody that the medical mantra “saturated fat (SFA) = bad, PUFA = good”, is not only unproven but significant evidence to the contrary exists. Btw, the authors of the same study have done a few prior ones on PUFA and SFA with very similar conclusions, and those can be found by using the search function of the site. Anyways, I don’t think there is much else that needs to be said about this study, so my suggestion is for any contrarian to simply read it…and weep:-)

2 links here

“…New UC Riverside research shows soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression. Used for fast food frying, added to packaged foods, and fed to livestock, soybean oil is by far the most widely produced and consumed edible oil in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In all likelihood, it is not healthy for humans. It certainly is not good for mice. The new study, published this month in the journal Endocrinology, compared mice fed three different diets high in fat: soybean oil, soybean oil modified to be low in linoleic acid, and coconut oil. The same UCR research team found in 2015 that soybean oil induces obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, and fatty liver in mice. Then in a 2017 study, the same group learned that if soybean oil is engineered to be low in linoleic acid, it induces less obesity and insulin resistance.”

“…The research team discovered roughly 100 other genes also affected by the soybean oil diet. They believe this discovery could have ramifications not just for energy metabolism, but also for proper brain function and diseases such as autism or Parkinson’s disease.”

“…”This could help design healthier dietary oils in the future,” said Poonamjot Deol, an assistant project scientist in Sladek’s laboratory and first author on the study. “The dogma is that saturated fat is bad and unsaturated fat is good. Soybean oil is a polyunsaturated fat, but the idea that it’s good for you is just not proven,” Sladek said. Indeed, coconut oil, which contains saturated fats, produced very few changes in the hypothalamic genes. “If there’s one message I want people to take away, it’s this: reduce consumption of soybean oil,” Deol said about the most recent study.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1795.mp3" length="405308" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Even briefly elevated lactate is a “master” cause of chronic diseases</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1792</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1792</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 16:34:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1792

The title of the post actually does not do justice to how strongly the study authors word their statements in regards to lactate. The lead study author called lactate “a master regulator of carcinogenesis” (with “regulator” being a euphemism for “cause”, otherwise the study won’t get published), while the rest of the study goes to great lengths to explain that lactate is far from being just as “waste product” (CO2 anyone?) and is in fact a key driver of heart failure, diabetes and even neurological disease. The mechanism of action? Lactate damages mitochondria – something Peat has been writing about for decades. The really eye-opening finding of the study is that even a brief lactate exposure (48 hours) was sufficient to turn on those pro-disease mechanisms. A 48 hour exposure to elevated lactate may not seem like much but it is common in endurance athletes, as well as people under chronic stress, or consuming certain foods/medications. In fact, most studies consider the 48-hour period as within the span of so-called acute exposure, while chronic exposure is usually defined as spanning 7 days or more. As such, the study findings apply to virtually all people, as most of us have numerous period throughout any given year when we are exposed to elevate lactate for 48 hours, or more. The only drawback of this study, which reads as if Peat wrote it, is that it states that “brief” periods of lactate exposure are “beneficial” and that endurance exercise is the “only” tool for restoring damages mitochondrial function, when in fact it is very often damaging to the mitochondria and invariably raises lactate itself. A much safer method for improving mitochondrial function is raising levels of CO2, which is, to mimic the wording of the study author, the “master regulator” of mitochondrial biogenesis. Concentric exercise is another such method, as are the administrations of oxidizing agents (e.g. quinones) or agents that inhibit the stress response (aspirin, pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, DHT, vitamin D, niacinamide, etc). Regardless, it looks like the tide is turning on lactate/CO2, and thus on the mainstream medical attitudes towards the (metabolic) cause(s) of many/most chronic diseases.

2 links here

“…Acute amounts of lactate like those generated during exercise are probably required for healthy cells, but chronic exposure causes cellular disruption which can lead to cancer, heart failure and type 2 diabetes, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus….We know that lactate is not just a waste product, link here,” said lead author Iñigo San Millán, Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and associate professor at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. “It has significant signaling and regulation properties at the cellular level.” Lactate, a byproduct of glucose, is a major source of energy for the cell, especially the mitochondria. It’s a preferred fuel over glucose in the beating heart, muscles and the brain. The substance is also produced during exercise and rapidly cleared from the body through the mitochondria which swiftly oxidizes it. But San Millán and his colleagues found that when rats were exposed to lactate for  up to 48 hours they became more susceptible to disease. “We know that when lactate is acutely exposed to cells, like during exercise, it is beneficial,” San Millán said. “But chronic exposure disrupts cellular metabolism entirely.” The researchers focused on whether chronic lactate exposure could decrease the activity of cardiac mitochondria, cause cellular disruption and lead to metabolic inflexibility of the heart. They discovered that long-term lactate exposure led to a significant decrease in fatty acid transport, alterations of a key component in mitochondrial membranes known as cardiolipin and decreases in mitochondrial ATP or energy production. It also prompted increases in free radicals that could cause heart failure, link here and play a role in type 2 diabetes. “We found that dysregulated lactate is probably a major player in disease,” San Millán said. “This is a rat model, link here but we believe the results would be similar in human cells.”

“…San Millán, who in addition to his research trains top athletes including last year’s winner of the Tour de France, has done extensive research into the relationship between lactate and cancer and the overall importance of mitochondrial health. In a previous study, his research group showed that lactate could be a master regulator of carcinogenesis—the process that turns a normal cell into a cancer cell. “Cancer cells, link here are producing glucose all the time and they are producing lactate all the time and it is never cleared out like it is during exercise,” he said. “This lactate accumulation regulates the expression of many key genes involved in cancer as we have recently shown.” For San Millán, it comes down to mitochondrial health. “We believe that a primary mitochondrial impairment or dysfunction could lead to excessive lactate, link here accumulation leading to disease,” he said. “And right now, the only medication we have to fix mitochondrial function is exercise.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1792.mp3" length="1122884" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Age-related steroid deficiency may be treatable with niacinamide</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1790</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1790</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 15:55:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1790

The study is actually about eye health, and the effects androgens play in it. However, the findings are not limited to the eyes and are in fact applicable for any other tissue/organ experiencing a decline in steroidogenesis with advancing age, which is basically all of them. As such, I am posting this study not so much for its eye-health findings but for the findings that androgen (in this case, testosterone) deficiency seen almost universally with advancing age is apparently due primarily to deficiency of the co-factor NAD+, which can apparently be remediated by supplementing NAD+ precursors such as niacinamide. It appears that the rate-limiting step for androgen (testosterone) synthesis is the enzyme 3b-HSD, for which NAD+ is the main cofactor. Thus, a decline in NAD+ seen in aging (and disease) leads to decline in 3b-HSD activity and thus reduced androgen (testosterone) levels. Conversely, the study found that restoring NAD+ levels almost fully remediated the reduced function of 3b-HSD, the androgen (testosterone deficiency), and thus was basically curative for the specific condition (dry-eye) the study investigated.

For those interested specifically in treating the dry-eye condition, the treatment in this case was a 5% solution of the NAD+ precursors nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) or nicotinamide riboside (NR), which means plain niacinamide should be just as effective for raising NAD+, as confirmed in numerous studies (including human ones). The study looked at two regimens. The chronic one used the HED of ~2mg NAD+ precursor, four times daily, in each eye, for 90 days. The acute one used ~5mg NAD+ precursor, six times daily, in each eye, for 14 days. Given the virtual lack of toxicity of niacinamide, I think even higher doses may be used and may accelerate the recovery further. In addition, recent studies demonstrated that raising NAD+ levels with orally administered precursors such as NMN may be an effective treatment for cataracts, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration. Since this study proves that local administration (into the eye) of a NAD+ precursor solution is also effective in raising NAD+ levels, the solution and regimen used in this study may be used in lieu of the oral administration regimens in the other studies, and likely achieve the same results using much smaller amounts of the NAD+ precursor, and over much shorter time periods. As far as as the systemic steroidogenic deficiency seen with aging that I mentioned earlier, oral dosing of an NAD+ precursor such as  niacinamide would likely be needed, and human studies have demonstrated that daily doses in the 300mg-500mg daily range optimally stimulate NAD+ synthesis. While most studies found that higher daily oral doses are unable to further raise NAD+ levels through the precursor pathway, higher doses of niacinamide specifically have been shown to inhibit the enzyme PARP-1, which is a “consumer” of NAD+ and inhibiting it also raises NAD+ levels. So, experimenting with the niacinamide with doses in the 500mg-1,500mg daily range would probably identify an optimal daily dose regimen for most people looking to increase steroidogenesis, especially if precursors such as pregnenolone and/or DHEA are taken as well.

2 links here

“…Health issues for people over age 60 commonly involve the heart and other vital organs. So do eye-related conditions such as cataracts and glaucoma, but dry eyes don’t often come to mind. Or do they? In fact, more than 70% of people in this age group are believed to suffer from meibomian gland disorder, the most common cause of dry eyes, link here. A new study led by Kyoto University researchers reports that the loss of sex steroid hormones produced by the enzyme 3-hydroxyl-steroid dehydrogenase, or 3-HSD, causes the condition, but it can be treated with nicotinamidemononucleotide, or NMN, which is a non-steroid agent. “Meibomian glands are found in the eyelids and have a role in producing the oil that coats the eyes. Without this oil, tears evaporate, ” notes project leader Masao Doi. Despite the high frequency of meibomian gland disorder, it does not appear to be life-threatening. Nevertheless, the chronic condition could lead to serious eye damage to the eyes if left untreated. No curative therapy is currently available for meibomian gland disorder because the underlying molecular mechanisms are still unknown. As we age, our hormone production, link here decreases. The best-known examples are the sex hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen, which clearly correlate with age-associated incidence of meibomian gland disorder.”

“…”Indeed, disturbed intracrine 3-HSD enzyme activity, link here in mutant mice was found to result in atrophy of the gland, which further led to the disorder,” Doi concludes. The research team’s key interest in 3-HSD activity lies in its circadian rhythm, responsible for a number of oscillating physiological behaviors such as sleep, menstrual cycles, and hormone secretion. Further research on these circadian rhythms is expected to provide more clues on treating 3-HSD-related conditions. Doi adds, “We found that the enzymatic activity of 3-HSD peaked in mice just as they went to sleep. This observation suggests the timing of the drug administration is important.” The oscillating activity of 3-HSD is attributed to the abundance in the gland of the 3-HSD cofactor nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD, which is a coenzyme found in all cells and commonly sold as an over-the-counter supplement. It is also gaining attention as a compound in drug development for its ability to activate or enhance hormone-producing enzymes including 3-HSD. Confirming this point, the study shows that topically administering nicotinamide mononucleotide, or NMN, a precursor of NAD, elevates the amount of NAD needed to reboot 3-HSD activity. Adding NMN periodically to the meibomian gland of snoozing mice reduced atrophy of the meibomian gland, effectively alleviating dryness in the eyes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1790.mp3" length="1664756" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Alzheimer’s Severity Tied to Longer Estrogen Exposure in Women</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1788</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1788</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:51:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1788

A neat study, which somehow managed to slip through my “radar” when it was first published the middle of last (2021) year. The study is pretty straighforward in its claim that longer exposure to endogenous estrogen was associated with exacerbated/higher biomarkers of Alzheimer disease (AD), as well as lower glucose metabolism and smaller brain volume in women. Another interesting link the study mentions, which is relevant for both sexes, is that lower testosterone levels are also associated with exacerbated/higher biomarkers of AD. The earlier puberty and earlier menopause associations also mean shorter exposure to progesterone. As such, the study can be summarized with the simple statement that estrogen is detrimental while progesterone and testosterone are protective against AD.

2 links here

“…Longer exposure to endogenous estrogen was linked to higher levels of Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers in cognitively normal older women, a 25-year study showed. A longer reproductive period — age at menarche to age at menopause — was associated with lower cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of amyloid-beta 1-42 (Aβ42), higher levels of phosphorylated tau (p-tau), and a lower ratio of Aβ42 and amyloid-beta 1-40 (Aβ42/Aβ40), reported Jenna Najar, MD, PhD, of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and co-authors, in Menopause, link here. Women have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease than men, and “for a long time, this sex difference in Alzheimer’s risk was thought to be explained only by the fact that women live longer than men,” Najar told MedPage Today. “However, evidence shows that the sex difference in longevity could not explain all of the differences in dementia risk between men and women.” Estrogen has been suggested as a potential explanation, but “as far as we know, no previous study has examined the relation between length of reproductive period and levels of CSF markers of Alzheimer’s disease,” Najar noted.“

“…Another area gaining attention is the relationship between testosterone levels and Alzheimer’s biomarkers, with recent evidence suggesting that lower levels of testosterone also may be related to higher levels of p-tau, Buckley added. “What is absolutely clear is that, as a result of different reproductive changes throughout life, women are impacted by the disease differently than men, and this likely has ramifications for drug treatment in Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials,” she said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1788.mp3" length="414692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Eating meat extends human life expectancy</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1786</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1786</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:39:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1786

Another study challenging the vegan dogma relentlessly promoted by mainstream media under the aegis of World Economic Forum (WEF) members and other similarly microcephalic goons. As the study says, other studies that found benefits in eating vegan diets have failed to account for the so-called socioeconomic factor – i.e. that educated, well-paid people in developed countries can spend time and money on finding plants that can somewhat mimic the composition and nutritional profile of meat, and thus have an overall beneficial effect on health. However, eating even those carefully chosen plant diets cannot match the full benefits meat eating has on health and lifespan. Now, that does not mean one should gobble up meat for every meal, as there are indeed important factors in meat that need to be mitigated (e.g. the low calcium/phosphorus ratio). However, even with those caveats in mind a predominantly meat-based diet is probably still more beneficial in the long run compared to a pure vegan diet.

2 links here

“…Study author, University of Adelaide researcher in biomedicine, Dr Wenpeng You says humans have evolved and thrived over millions of years because of their significant consumption of meat.

“We wanted to look more closely at research that has thrown a negative spotlight on meat consumption in the human diet,” Dr You says. “Looking only at correlations of meat consumption with people’s health or life expectancy within a particular group, and or, a particular region or country, can lead to complex and misleading conclusions. “Our team broadly analysed the correlations between meat eating and life expectancy, and child mortality, at global and regional levels, minimising the study bias, and making our conclusion more representative of the general health effects of meat eating.” Published in the International Journal of General Medicine, link heretoday, the study examined the overall health effects of total meat consumption in 170+ countries around the world.  The researchers found that the consumption of energy from carbohydrate crops (grains and tubers) does not lead to greater life expectancy, and that total meat consumption correlates to greater life expectancy, independent of the competing effects of total calories intake, economic affluence, urban advantages, and obesity.”

“…But with the strong development of nutrition science and economic affluence, studies in some populations in developed countries have associated meat-free (vegetarian and vegan) diets with improved health. “I think we need to understand that this may not contradict the beneficial effect of meat consumption,” nutritionist on the study, Yanfei Ge says. “Studies looking into the diets of wealthy, highly educated communities, are looking at people who have the purchasing power and the knowledge to select plant-based diets that access the full nutrients normally contained in meat. Essentially, they have replaced meat with all the same nutrition meat provides.””

“…“While this is no surprise to many of us, it still needs to be pointed out,” Dr Saniotis says. It highlights that meat has its own components contributing to our overall health beyond just the number of calories consumed, and that without meat in our diet, we may not thrive. “Our take home message from the paper is that meat-eating is beneficial to human health provided that it is consumed in moderation and that the meat industry is conducted in an ethical way.”  “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1786.mp3" length="465908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endurance exercise is bad for dental/oral health</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1784</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1784</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:22:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1784

It is common knowledge among dentists that athletes often have poor teeth. However, there aren’t that many studies on the subject and most of this knowledge is considered anecdotal, so the question of whether some types of exercise are actually detrimental for dental health is not even asked officially out of fear that it would scare people into more sedentary lifestyles. There are a few studies demonstrating a link between endurance exercise and poor dental health but most of those studies were conducted on groups of people too small to be considered statistically significant. Well, the study below may finally change that as it demonstrates that the poor dental health in endurance athletes is not a fluke, and there is even a strong correlation between number of hours spend doing the endurance exercise and how poor the dental health of the subjects were. Perhaps most importantly, the study found that the widespread consumption of sweet drinks by endurance athletes was not associated with poor dental/oral health. Now, while the study is wise enough not to blame the exercise itself for the poor dental health of the athletes, it is well-known that endurance athletes hyperventilate and on average have much lower levels of CO2 in their bodies. Low CO2 levels can directly cause bone and teeth deterioration due to inability of the organism to sequester calcium in those tissues. This is actually common knowledge in veterinary medicine as a result of the observation that during hot weather egg-laying chickens mouth-breathe a lot, which leads to hyperventilation and CO2 loss, which ultimately translates to those chickens laying eggs with extremely brittle/thin shells. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if human doctors talked to a vet every once in a while and incorporated some that knowledge into their treatment of humans? 🙂

link here

There’s New Data on Whether Endurance Athletes Get More Cavities, link here

 

“…However, despite the scary stories that circulate every now and then, there isn’t much evidence that tells us how bad this problem really is. Dental exams at Olympic Village in 2012 found that 55 percent of athletes had tooth decay — which sounds bad until you consider that the prevalence of tooth decay among American adults is 92 percent. A small 2015 study found that the risk of cavities was proportional to the hours of training in athletes.”

“…A new study in The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, from a group led by Cordola Leonie Merle and Lisa Richter of the University of Leipzig, gets off to a humble beginning. They compared 88 elite endurance athletes, mostly runners and athletes, all competing with German national or development teams, with 57 non-competing amateur athletes. Crucially, unlike some previous studies in the field, they didn’t just ask them about their health: All subjects received a detailed dental examination, including assessments of caries, dental plaque, and gum health, from the same dentist. The good news: Both groups had lower levels of plaque, gingivitis, and dental erosion. Both groups also had similar numbers of decayed, missing, or filled teeth: 2.7 for the athletes and 2.3 for the controls. But if you narrow that down to just decaying teeth, there was a huge difference: 0.6 for athletes, with a 34 percent prevalence; 0.3 for controls with a prevalence of 19 percent. There were some other differences. The athletes also tended to have deeper pockets between the teeth and gums, a warning sign of gum disease. And they were more likely (43 percent versus 25 percent) to have temporomandibular dysfunction, which indicates problems with the jaw muscles or joints such as clicking when chewing. It’s hard to blame clicking sports drinks, which is an important point. Perhaps the competing athletes have ended up spending a lot of time gnashing or gnashing their teeth at night – or maybe there are some fundamental differences between the two groups that have nothing to do with what they’re drinking. For example, socioeconomic status is a major predictor of dental health (higher income people have more cavities in general, lower income people have untreated caries).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1784.mp3" length="843380" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress (cortisol) makes even altruistic people selfish</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1782</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1782</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1782

A great new study, which may explain a good deal of the general perception and several studies from the last decade claiming that societies in Western countries are becoming more selfish, combative/polarized, and even psychopathic. The more shocking finding of the study was that cortisol was most effective in making specifically the most altruistic people more selfish. The authors take that to mean that cortisol is only detrimental/dangerous for “undamaged” people, however I see no evidence for that claim. While in selfish people cortisol may have less of an effect that is simply because there is not much altruism left to destroy in them, so if one only measures the decline in altruism, the results obviously be less of a decline than in a much more altruistic person. However, if one measures changes in other types of personality aspects such as narcissism, psychopathic and personality disorders one would find that the effects of cortisol are not blunted in selfish people but rather continue to degrade other aspects of normal human personality. All in all, this human study is a great corroboration of the famous saying by that unpopular revolutionary fellow that “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness”. Namely, if you live a life of savagery (chronic stress), then you become a savage yourself. Hence, the findings of all those studies about the unraveling social fabric in Western countries.

2 links here

“…The stress hormone cortisol reduces altruistic behavior and alters activity in brain regions linked to social decision making — but only in people who are better at imagining others’ mental states, according to new research published in JNeurosci. In a study from Universität Hamburg, participants decided how much money to donate to a selection of charities before and after completing a stressful public-speaking task while researchers monitored their brain activity with fMRI. To simulate the personal cost of making an altruistic decision, the participants received a portion of the money they did not donate. Before the stressful task, people with higher mentalizing ability, or the ability to imagine others’ mental states, donated more money than people with low mentalizing ability. In people with high mentalizing ability, increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol decreased donations; cortisol had no effect on people with low mentalizing ability. The researchers could predict how high mentalizers would choose to donate based on activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain region involved in social decision making. Yet higher levels of cortisol infringed on this pattern, indicating stress reduced the neural representation of donations in the DLPFC. These results reveal cortisol might alter the activity of the DLPFC, which has a more pronounced effect on people who rely on mentalizing to make social decisions.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1782.mp3" length="704204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin can slow down the progression of emphysema</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1778</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1778</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Mar 2022 18:56:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1778

Yet another study, adding to the mountain of evidence that if there is such a thing as a “wonder drug” then aspirin comes as close to it as possible. The study findings are great news not only because emphysema is such a widespread disease, but also because it is considered both progressive and incurable. While the current findings are not enough to suggest aspirin as a cure, the doses used were small and used infrequently (i.e. 81mg-325mg per dose, 2-3 times weekly). If bigger doses were used and on a daily basis, I suspect the results would have been curative for a large portion of the patients.

link here

Aspirin may slow down the progression of emphysema, link here

“…Currently, no strategies exist— beyond smoking cessation—that reduce the risk of developing emphysema. Because previous data has drawn associations between emphysema and the pulmonary vasculature, link here, researchers hypothesized that aspirin, which reduces platelet activation, may help to prevent progression of the disease. In order to further explore this possibility, researchers followed 4372 participants over 10 years. Participants underwent up to 4 CT scans assessing the progression of emphysema, and 81% of participants underwent spirometry, link here tests to measure breathing. Overall, 21% of participants were regular aspirin users, and 55% either smoked or had quit smoking before the study began. Researchers found that participants who took aspirin regularly had a significantly slower progression of emphysema over the course of the study, even after adjusting for factors such as age, gender, duration of smoking, and high blood pressure. “Our study found that persons taking aspirin regularly had a slower progression of emphysema over 10 years compared to those who did not, and that this difference was not explained by many factors that we believe affect progression of emphysema,” they concluded. “The findings might suggest that regular aspirin use may slow the progression of subclinical emphysema, perhaps through effects on platelet activation or inflammation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1778.mp3" length="350420" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen promotes, progesterone inhibits drug (cocaine) abuse</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1775</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1775</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Mar 2022 18:41:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1775

An interesting study, which not only exposes yet another negative side of estrogen but also demonstrates the opposing actions estrogen and progesterone have on the brain. The former is excitatory (by activating the glutamate system and inhibiting the GABA system) while the latter does the exact opposite (acts as a glutamate antagonist and GABA agonist). These results also demonstrate, once again, that the very mainstream idea of “addiction” is wrong and what we call “addiction” is simply a state of brain hyperexcitability, which the “addicts” desperately try to self-medicate. While the article does not mention it, cortisol is another steroid known to put the brain in a hyper-excited state, which confirms once again the role of acute/chronic stress in engendering and promoting “addiction”, as well as the role of estrogen as a true stress hormone. A recent CNN front page article stated that drug/alcohol abuse skyrocketed during the lockdowns associated with COVID-19, and almost admitted that the severe stress  (known to raise both cortisol and estrogen, as well as serotonin) associated with this involuntary confinement was the cause of the increased substance abuse rates. Moreover, the study below raises concerns about the likely causal link between widespread use of estrogenic birth control methods, SERM drugs, osteoporosis drugs (often estrogenic), cancer treatments (e.g. estrogen is approved for “treating” prostate cancer), etc and the rates of substance abuse, especially of drugs like cocaine. In summary, chronic substance abuse is no mystery and its drivers are entirely environmental, manifested through the stress system (cortisol, estrogen, serotonin), and as such there are many widely available and cheap/safe treatments. But don’t hold your breath for CDC/FDA to tell you any time soon about neither the true causes of “addiction” nor the truly effective treatments.

2 links here

“…Based on the findings they reviewed, the researchers concluded that estrogen might facilitate the transmission of…glutamate. This means that the higher vulnerability to cocaine use disorder observed in women could ultimately be linked to differences in hormone, specifically estrogen, production. Murray, Peart and their colleagues also wanted to examine the potential of progesterone as a therapeutic agent to reduce cocaine cravings. In fact, past studies with humans have found that administering progesterone can reduce cocaine cravings and reward-seeking behaviors. “Administering progesterone has also been shown to decrease cocaine seeking elicited by stress, cocaine cues, or cocaine itself in male and female rats using a model of relapse,” Peart and Murray explained. “Indeed, administering progesterone or its metabolite allopregnanolone…may be an option for treatment of cocaine use disorder in humans trying to maintain abstinence from cocaine use to prevent relapse.” Overall, the recent review paper by this team of researchers suggests that researchers and physicians should pay greater attention to the relationship between cocaine use disorder and estrogenic medications, such as some birth control pills, breast cancer treatments, and bone health medications, among others.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1775.mp3" length="930380" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Epilepsy/seizures caused by energetic deficit leading to calcium overload</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1771</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1771</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Mar 2022 18:00:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1771

Yet another study demonstrating that not only is a chronic, “incurable” disease of unknown origin treatable but that its main cause is energetic/metabolic and linked to impaired glucose metabolism. Specifically, the study demonstrated that impaired pyruvate transport into the mitochondria is sufficient to both cause new seizure activity in otherwise healthy organisms, as well as exacerbate, and even make lethal, seizures in organisms with already established seizure disorder. Another core finding was that the impaired glucose metabolism through pyruvate availability had an effect calcium metabolism – i.e. confirming Peat’s comments that the “ability to relax” (in this case sequester calcium inside the mitochondria) depends on the flow or energy/electrons through the OXPHOS pathway. In other words, somewhat paradoxically, being in state of low energy puts the brain in a state of chronic hyperexcitability through neuronal free calcium overload. The authors speculate that the ketogenic diets’ well-known anti-seizure effects work through the same mechanism – improving mitochondrial function, which helps sequester the calcium inside the mitochondria.

2 links here

“…The laboratory of Jean-Claude Martinou, professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Faculty of Science, is interested in how mitochondria work. His group had already discovered the universal carrier that allows pyruvate, a product of glucose catabolism, to enter into mitochondria. He is now investigating the role of the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) in neuronal activity and whether a defect in the transport of pyruvate in mitochondria could be linked to certain neurological diseases, notably epilepsy.”

“…The biologists administered a pro-epileptic drug, capable of inducing epileptic seizures, to normal mice and to mice whose cortical neurons lacked the MPC. In normal mice, injection of a low dose of the drug did not induce seizures. On the other hand, and contrary to the initial hypothesis, in mice lacking the MPC, very severe, even fatal, seizures occurred as soon as low doses of the pro-epileptic drug were administered. Upon further analysis of what was happening in these neurons, the biologists found that the neurons without MPC had abnormally high levels of calcium, a crucial element for the proper transmission of nerve messages. “Pyruvate imported into mitochondria not only plays the role of a fuel for the cell, but it also allows mitochondria to sequester calcium. It turns out that it is this second function that is involved in the triggering of epileptic seizures. Since it is no longer trapped by the mitochondria, the calcium remains free in neurons and its concentration increases, which makes the neurons hyperexcitable,” explains Carmen Sandi, professor at EPFL and coauthor of the study.”

“…”We found that MPC-deficient mice fed on a ketogenic diet or treated with ketone bodies had much less severe seizures. With this diet, the functions of mitochondria and neurons are restored, and the calcium level is normal,” said Marine Laporte, researcher in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and co-first author of the study. This work, financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Foundation, helps to explain the epileptic seizures frequently observed in patients with mitochondrial pathologies as well as to consider a treatment based on ketone bodies, less drastic than ketogenic diets.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1771.mp3" length="582764" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aging and disease are the same process, driven by low metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1768</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1768</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Mar 2022 17:17:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1768

I am posting about this mostly due to its “told you so” factor – i.e. more and more professionals in the medical and research fields are starting to realize that the super-specialized approach to treating chronic diseases has not produced any substantial results. In addition, the correlation between age and chronic diseases has pushed scientists to explore the connection between the two issues and a consensus has started to form that there is nothing “natural” about aging, just as there is nothing “natural” about developing say cancer, diabetes or a neurological disease. In fact, as the researchers have started to realize, chronic diseases share all of their features with aging and can be viewed as nothing more than premature aging of specific organ/tissue. More importantly, scientists have started to realize that the common cause underpinning both aging and diseases is mitochondrial hypofunction/dysfunction, which is another way of saying that both aging and diseases are driven by low metabolism. Let’s hope this sentiment and approach that has already established itself in certain research circles takes over the more practical fields (such as medicine) as well.

link here

“…“If we could pause, delay or even reverse aging, we would make a significant impact against numerous diseases,” said Guo, professor of neurology, molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, link here. “I want to create a higher quality of life over a healthy life span, rather than just prolonging life.” Her particular approach to her research is inspired by her compassion for her patients who have Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and other brain degenerative disorders, and from the discoveries she has made in her research lab. The percentage of people with Alzheimer’s doubles every five years after the age of 65, so Guo believes that intervening in the aging process could be the path to reducing the disease’s massive impact. Slowing aging could also help combat a range of other diseases and conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis, as well as the increased vulnerability to infection that occurs with aging.”

“…There’s now a body of research indicating that damaged mitochondria contribute to premature aging, and their implications for human health stretch beyond one illness. “Dysfunctional mitochondria are associated with not only Parkinson’s disease, but also other neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, diabetes and heart disease,” Guo said. “So we asked, ‘Is it possible for us to reverse this damaged mitochondrial signature?’” Mitochondria have their own genetic materials — distinct from those in the cell’s nucleus — and exploring mitochondrial DNA has become a signature of Guo’s research. In one of her recent studies, a collaboration with Caltech researchers, Guo and her colleagues discovered how to reverse up to 95% of the damage to mitochondrial DNA in animals.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1768.mp3" length="550844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) drives obesity, diabetes and CVD in young people</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1766</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1766</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Mar 2022 16:54:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1766

It looks like medicine is starting to change course on its attitude to endotoxin (LPS). After claiming that LPS is not an issue at all for any human with a functioning liver, a number of high profile studies have come out recently demonstrating chronic endotoxemia (even low-grade) is a causal factor in a number of chronic conditions in adults, including diseases not considered to be metabolic such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Parkinson Disease (PD), scleroderma, cancer, etc. Now, the study below implicates LPS as a causal factor in the whole spectrum of “metabolic” diseases in young people, including obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes II, liver disease (NAFLD), and cardiovascular disease (CVD). It looks like simple blood tests for unbnound/free endotoxin (LPS), the LPS binding protein, and an immunoglobulin rising when LPS levels are high, is a sufficient battery of tests to determine LPS status of a person. The first two of those tests seem to be fairly routine and can probably be ordered easily by most GP doctors, and are probably offerred a-la-carte by many “self-test” companies too, so it be worth adding those to the lists of tests to do on the annual checkup most people undergo.

2 links here

“…Metabolic endotoxemia is shown to be a shared mechanism underlying childhood obesity and early-onset metabolic diseases (e.g., non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes). Against this context, Wei Perng, Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, and colleagues aimed to examine prospective associations of serum endotoxin biomarkers lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and its binding protein, LPS binding protein (LBP), and anti-endotoxin core IgG (EndoCabIgG) with adiposity and cardiometabolic risk in youth in a prospective study.”

“…The researchers reported the following findings:

Higher LPS and LBP predicted greater adiposity across follow-up.

Each 1-unit ln-transformed LPS corresponded with 0.23 units BMI z-score, 5.66 mm 3 VAT, 30.7 mm 3 SAT, and 8.26 mm skinfold sum. EndoCabIgG was associated with VAT only (3.03 mm 3).

LPS was associated with higher insulin (1.93 µU/mL) and leptin (2.28 ng/mL), and an adverse lipid profile.

No association was observed with HFF. Accounting for pubertal status and lifestyle behaviors did not change findings.

Adjustment for pre-pregnancy BMI and gestational diabetes attenuated most associations.

…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1766.mp3" length="635756" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine inhibits OXPHOS, creates the same metabolic state as cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1763</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1763</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Mar 2022 19:39:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1763

I typically avoid posting about vaccines, considering the highly politicized nature of the debate, but this study is just too shocking to ignore. It basically demonstrated that within 4 days of cell exposure to the Pfizer vaccine solution (containing mRNA), there was a significant decline of the critical mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C (CyC), which is one of the limiting factors on the rate of OXPHOS. Unsurprisingly, this reduction of CyC by the vaccine led to reduction in OXPHOS rates and thus decreased ATP production. Furthermore, exposure to the vaccine inhibited apoptosis and the overall immune response, which leads the authors to believe that exposure to the vaccine will lead to decreased ability of the organism to fight cancer! Finally, the authors observed that the metabolic state the vaccine induced in cells was the same as the one observed in the highly aggressive glioblastoma cell lines. Moreover, the decline in OXPHOS induced by the vaccine correlated with the decline of OXPHOS in the cancer cells, and the decline in OXPHOS in those cancer cells correlated with tumor aggressiveness.

In summary, exposure of human cells to the Pfizer mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 wrecks metabolism and puts cells in the same metabolic state as highly aggressive brain cancer, while also reducing the ability of the organism to fight off present/future cancers. Since the degree of aggressiveness of the brain cancer cells is correlated (a better word is probably “driven by”)  with the decline of OXPHOS in such cells, the degree of OXPHOS decline in normal cells exposed to the Pfizer mRNA vaccine can probably be used as a good “biomarker” of much damage the vaccine wreaked on those cells.

link here

“…

Incubation of normal and tumor glial cells with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (BNT162b2) led to alterations in the biochemical profile of various cell organelles.

The vaccine was shown to decrease concentrations of the oxidized form of cytochrome c in mitochondria, which decreases effectiveness of oxidative phosphorylation, reduces apoptosis, and decreases ATP production.

The investigators also observed alterations in lipid composition, decreases in amide I concentration, and histone modifications in the cell nucleus.

…”

link here

“…Our results from Fig. 10 show that apoptosis is reduced upon mRNA vaccine for astrocytoma and glioblastoma which indicate decreased ability to fight against cancer development by programmed cell death.”

“…We used Raman spectroscopy to monitor changes in the redox state of the mitochondrial cytochromes in human brain cells in vitro of normal astrocytes, astrocytoma, glioblastoma upon incubation with mRNA vaccine. We observed the effect of the mRNA vaccine on biodistribution of different chemical components, particularly cytochrome c, in the specific organelles of human brain glial cells: nucleus, mitochondria, lipid droplets, cytoplasm, rough endoplasmatic reticulum and membrane. We showed that mRNA vaccine (Pfizer) changes mitochondria by downregulation of cytochrome c resulting in lower effectiveness of respiration (oxidative phosphorylation) and lower ATP production. It can lead to lower immune system response. Decrease of Amide I concentration in mitochondrial membrane potential may suggest functional deterioration of the adenine nucleotide translocator. mRNA vaccine modifies significantly de novo lipids synthesis in lipid droplets. The results presented in paper suggest that upon incubation with mRNA the role of signaling function of lipid droplets increases. The observed alterations in biochemical profiles upon incubation with the Pfizer/BioNT in the specific organelles of the glial cells are similar to those we observe for brain cancer vs grade of aggressiveness.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1763.mp3" length="910484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lactate is a key driver of diabetes/obesity, by promoting inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1761</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1761</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2022 17:41:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1761

A great study, demonstrating that in diabetes (just as in cancer) the so-called Warburg Effect (aerobic glycolysis) is as much a cause of those degenerative conditions as it is an effect of. The study below demonstrated that increased intracellular lactate results in robust increase in systemic release of inflammatory cytokines, resulting in aggravation of systemic insulin resistance. In other words, metabolic effects considered peripheral and unrelated to the core disease (e.g. diabetes type II) are, in fact, major driving factors of that core disease. The study may also explain why not all obese people develop diabetes type II and why some lean people have severe insulin resistance. And, yes, metabolic rate is once again the likely distinguishing factor. Intracellular lactate accumulation, barring cofactor (thiamine, vitamin B2/B3, biotin, etc) deficiencies and/or presence of cancer, is a reliable sign (and also a cause) of low metabolic rate (RMR). Thus, an obese person with higher RMR (per kg of bodyweight) is likely to fare better and be healthier than a leaner person with lower RMR (per kg of bodyweight). On a bit of side note, this discrepancy of RMR (often in favor of the obese/overweight) is the likely explanation of the so-called “Obesity Paradox, link here“. In corroboration, up to 60% of hospitalized patients (with any condition) who eventually succumb while in the hospital have lactic acidosis at the time of hospital admission. So, it looks like lactate is no joke and a major factor in both acute  (yes, it is involved in COVID-19 mortality as well) and chronic pathologies alike. As such, reducing lipolysis (to limit lactate synthesis due to Randle cycle) and providing a bit extra of the important enzymatic cofactors listed above can go a long way in preventing the chronic, low-grade hyperlactaemia which can apparently wreak havoc on the organism if left unchecked. The more I learn about it, the more lactate starts to sounds like the more evil twin of the already evil endotoxin (LPS). Namely, since endotoxemia in blood is a widely recognized factor in sepsis doctors will check for it and try to address it, while high intracellular lactate is very hard to diagnose (short of a biopsy, which is usually only done for cancers) and will likely go unaddressed as it won’t be suspected as a cause of the increased blood levels of the inflammatory cytokines.

Now, while the study does not say it, I’d also venture a guess that lactate is also a promoter/driver of the obesity often seen in type II diabetics. If lactate is a robust promoter of inflammation, as a consequence cortisol would also be elevated (and indeed it is, when measured in such patients). Cortisol is a confirmed obesogen, and the increase in fatty tissue it causes will also result in synthesizing more estrogen (another obesogen). So, the humble lactate that really does not get on anybody’s (medical) radar may turn out to be one of the most fundamental driver’s of chronic conditions related to inflammation…which is basically all of them. PUFA called and wants its “evil mastermind” title back:-)

link here

“…Numerous evidences indicate that inflammation in adipose tissue is the primary cause of systemic insulin resistance induced by obesity. Obesity-associated changes in circulating LPS level and hypoxia/HIF-1α activation have been proposed to be involved in boosting obesity-induced inflammation. However, what triggers obesity-induced inflammation is poorly understood. In this study, we pinpoint lactate as a key trigger to mediate obesity-induced inflammation and systemic insulin resistance. Specific deletion of Slc16a1 that encodes MCT1, the primary lactate transporter in adipose tissues, robustly elevates blood levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and aggravates systemic insulin resistance without alteration of adiposity in mice fed high-fat diet. Slc16a1 deletion in adipocytes elevates intracellular lactate level while reducing circulating lactate concentration. Mechanistically, lactate retention due to Slc16a1 deletion initiates adipocyte apoptosis and cytokine release. The locally recruited macrophages amplify the inflammation by release of pro-inflammatory cytokines to the circulation, leading to insulin resistance in peripheral tissues. This study, therefore, indicates that lactate within adipocytes has a key biological function linking obesity to insulin resistance, and harnessing lactate in adipocytes can be a promising strategy to break this deadly link.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1761.mp3" length="1507028" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:34</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Exercise brain-boost may be due simply to increasing brain selenium levels</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1755</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1755</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2022 21:14:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1755

Yet another study demonstrating that many of the “mysterious” benefits of exercise most likely have nothing to do with the (insignificant) amount of extra calories burned, but are due to peripheral effects related to metabolism and redox balance. Namely, the study below investigates the well-known phenomenon that neurogenesis (which declines strongly with age) is strongly boosted by exercise and discovers that this boost actually has a very simple explanation – increased selenium delivery to the brain. The aged animals subjected to exercise responded with increased synthesis of a selenium-carrying protein, and this resulted in increased selenium concentrations in specific brain areas, and increased neurogenesis and improved cognitive function. When other aged mice, genetically engineered to lack that protein, were subjected to exercise they did not experience increased neurogenesis and improved cognitive function. To find out if selenium was the actual beneficial factor, the researchers administered selenium to the aged mice both through direct brain injections and also in the drinking water, and both methods of selenium supplementation resulted in identical (to exercise) increases in neurogenesis and improved cognitive function.

So, a major beneficial effect of exercise may be obtainable simply by eating enough seafood (good source of selenium), while also avoiding the negative effects of exercise such as lipolysis, inflammation, serotonin, cortisol, etc. Now, the author’s explanation in regards to selenium’s beneficial effects on the brain involve its role as a potent antioxidant, and I think this is indeed part of the answer. However, IMO a much bigger part of the story is selenium’s role as a cofactor for the enzyme converting the inactive thyroid hormone T4 into the active version T3. While most of that conversion happens in the liver, up to 40% occurs in other tissues/organs, especially the brain. So, my hypothesis is that the main mechanism of action for selenium’s “anabolic” effect on the brain is its role in increasing T3 synthesis. There are plenty of studies, both human and animal, demonstrating increased neurogenesis and better cognitive function (especially in the elderly) as a result of thyroid administration, so I am not exactly shooting in the dark with my hypothesis.

And finally, what about selenium doses? The dose given to mice in their water is HED to several mg daily, which is a very high dose, however toxicity studies comparing rodents and humans demonstrate that the dosage used in the study is equivalent in toxicity to 200mcg-300mcg daily in an adult human. Such amounts/doses are below the “danger” limit set by most drug regulators around the world and mimic what most supplements on the market offer as daily doses. And since the administration produced effects after only 4 weeks, such doses on a daily basis for a month should not be a problem for an aging human who probably suffers from selenium deficiency to start with (as the study itself suggests).

link here

“…Although the neurogenesis-enhancing effects of exercise have been known for more than two decades (van Praag et al., 1999a, link here, van Praag et al., 1999b, link here), the molecular mechanisms underlying this response have remained largely unclear. Taken together, our data show that an exercise-induced increase in antioxidant selenium transport activates quiescent hippocampal NPCs, resulting in increased NPC proliferation and adult neurogenesis. Furthermore, we show that mimicking the exercise-induced increase in systemic selenium transport by dietary selenium supplementation can restore neurogenesis and reverse the cognitive decline associated with aging and hippocampal injury.”

“…Selenium is important for maintaining normal brain function and its deficiency has been linked to a number of age-related neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease (Cardoso et al., 2015, link here). Selenium status also declines naturally with age (Akbaraly et al., 2007, link here). In this study, we showed that selenium supplementation can rescue the decreased hippocampal neurogenesis and associated learning and memory deficits in animal models of physiological aging and ET-1-induced hippocampal lesion, models in which the cognitive deficits have also been shown to be rescued by physical exercise (Codd et al., 2020, link here; Horowitz et al., 2020, link here). It has been reported that, during aging, increased quiescence rather than stem cell depletion accounts for the observed decrease in neurogenesis (Kalamakis et al., 2019, link here; Lugert et al., 2010, link here). In support of this, we found that although NPC proliferation was greatly reduced in the aged hippocampus, the magnitude of selenium-induced activation was greater in older mice than young mice. This is similar to our previous observation in aged mice following KCl-induced hippocampal NPC activation (Walker et al., 2008, link here). Determining whether long-term activation of quiescent NPCs by selenium supplementation (or exercise) results in their depletion or whether these NPCs divide asymmetrically to continually self-renew following selenium-induced activation will provide insight into the life-long maintenance of NPC populations in the DG.”

“…Overall, our finding that selenium metabolism is involved in mediating the exercise-induced increase in adult hippocampal neurogenesis demonstrates how systemic or environmental factors can regulate adult neurogenesis and hence plasticity in the DG. This could have far-reaching implications, as the activity-dependency of adult hippocampal neurogenesis is one of its key features and central to modern concepts of how adult-generated neurons provide life-long adaptability to the hippocampus in both health and disease. The identification of the mechanism underlying the exercise-induced increase in adult neurogenesis could facilitate the discovery of novel therapeutic interventions (including dietary selenium supplementation), which could be used to mimic the beneficial effects of exercise on cognitive function. Given that selenium is a cheap, readily available dietary supplement that is found in a number of commonly eaten foods, such as nuts, grains, and dairy products, it could easily be boosted in the diet of elderly people. This is particularly important for the treatment of individuals who are unable to exercise due to advanced age, frailty, or disability.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1755.mp3" length="1419548" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>“Reductive” stress harms cells, mitochondria protect by increasing metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1753</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1753</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2022 20:35:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1753

Finally a study that provide me with some “ammo” during my arguments with people I know who work in the medical profession. A common topic in such arguments is the mainstream medical idea that it is almost impossible to have too much antioxidants and too little oxidation. In fact, to many doctors it is excessive oxidation that we need to guard carefully against as it creates reactive oxygen species (ROS), which have a proven role in many chronic conditions. High oxidation (metabolic) rates are also linked to the “rate of living” theory that says that the “faster” you live (metabolize) the shorter your lifespan will be. Of course, the fact that high ROS and high oxidation rate are actually inversely correlated, and the fact that bats – the species with one of the highest metabolic rate per unit of mass – have one of the longest lifespans relative to other species is conveniently ignored (or actively shut down) during such discussions:-)

Low, not high, metabolism creates oxidative stress, link here

Well, the study below finally brings some much-needed clarity on this confusion and argues directly that accumulation of molecules containing sulfhydryl/thiol (reductant) groups is such a dangerous state for the organism, that higher organisms have developed a specialized mechanism to get rid of thiols promptly. That mechanism is through increased mitochondrial function (oxidation) resulting in higher metabolic rate. This immediately reminded me of another study that came out 3-4 years ago demonstrating that the human organism promptly recognizes as threats a number of environmental toxins and endocrine disruptors in the environment, as soon as it comes into contact with them, and the main pathway through which the organism disposes of such molecular threats is, again, through increased metabolic rate and consequently oxidative destruction of those offending molecules.

link here

New spheres trick, trap and terminate water contaminant, link here

So, to a layman like me, it appears that the metabolic rate is a one of the (if not THE) fundamental protective mechanisms higher organisms have evolved in order to deal with virtually any environmental stressor (direct/molecular or indirect/psychological). Thus, it would actually be a good idea if one maintains his/her metabolic rate high rather than low.

Now, another question that arises is what exactly are those thiol containing molecules. Well, while there are probably more than 100 different molecules with such groups present (and used) by the organism, the ones that represent the bulk of the “herd” include albumin, coenzyme A (CoA), reduced glutathione (GSH), cysteine, methionine, etc. However, the thiol groups in albumin and CoA are not free, and as such those two members do not contribute to reductive stress. It is the free/unpaired thiol group that has reducing (electron-donating properties). So, in terms of contributors to reductive stress, we are left with GSH, cysteine and methionine. Both Peat and I have mentioned GSH quite often as it is part of the GSH/GSSG ratio, which is (naturally) a redox indicator. So, a higher ratio is indicative of a shift towards reduction, and the study below now claims that such a shift is perceived as stress by the organism and emergency steps have to be taken to push the body back towards oxidation. I hope this is sufficient evidence that one should not supplement with GSH, which, aside from being absurdly expensive, has now been demonstrated to be detrimental to the organism. I also hope that it is good evidence in favor of keeping the metabolic rate high, which is another way of saying keeping the organism in a relatively oxidized state. Thus, this study also lends credence to other interventions for pushing the body towards oxidation such as taking niacinamide (to raise the NAD/NADH ratio) or oxidizing agents such as quinones (vitamin K, methylene blue, CoQ10, etc), thyroid, and even some steroids (e.g. progesterone, pregnenolone, DHEA, testosterone, DHT, etc) as they can shift all of the major redox indicators towards oxidation (e.g. NAD/NADH ratio, pyruvate/lactate ratio, acetoacetate/beta-hydroxybutyrate, GSSG/GSH ratio, etc). Now, if somebody’s blood tests confirm that the total glutathione (GSH+GSSG) pool is low and GSH supplementation is advised by medical staff, then there is a much safer alternative. Simply taking glycine would allow one to synthesize as much GSH as needed, and that approach has been confirmed in several human studies already (including people with HIV). The reason is that GSH is a combination of glycine and cysteine, and there is always an abundance of cysteine in the body/blood. So, glycine (not cysteine) availability is the true limiting factor of glutathione synthesis, and glycine’s myriad of other benefits for the body makes it a no-brainer when it comes to handling glutathione deficiencies. That being said, the issue for most people is not a lack of GSH but rather an excess, which causes the “reductive stress” the study below is talking about.

Speaking of cysteine and methionine, I don’t think these two amino acids need any introduction to my readers. Both have been confirmed, in numerous animal studies with species spanning the entire taxonomy of complexity from worms to monkeys, to have detrimental effect on the organism when present in excess. In fact, a number of studies on caloric restriction (CR) looking to extend lifespan discovered that the life-extending properties of CR were due to the lower amount of ingested cysteine/methionine (and tryptophan). Ergo, dietary cysteine and/or methionine (and/or tryptophan) restriction has been demonstrated to provide the same extension of lifespan (15%-20%) as CR, but without any restriction in calories. A quick Google search for say “cysteine restriction lifespan” or “methionine restriction lifespan” (no quotes when Googling) would provide a lot of published studies on that topics.

Even in regards to issues concerning day-to-day health, several human studies have demonstrated resolution of obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension, etc by restricting dietary methionine intake to NMT 2mg/kg body-weight daily. That means the optimal/healthy methionine daily intake is 20-30 times lower than most people consume on a daily basis. Some of the highest concentrations of methionine are found in grains and muscle meats, while cysteine is mostly found in the latter. Thus, we are once again back to the basic diet of the “Peatarian” – i.e. eating non-starchy foods, with plenty of metabolic boosters in them, while avoiding ingesting things high in reductants (muscle meats, grains, alcohol, etc).

But, as the infomercials say, “wait, there is more!”. Apparently, the rate of thiol oxidation controls protein folding and stability. In other words, accumulation of thiol groups can lead to both protein misfolding (think “mad cow” disease), as well as direct decline in the ability to synthesize vital proteins such as insulin. This once again connects the metabolic rate to a number of crucial regulatory processes in the organism that are known to decline with aging, and is now becoming apparent that the well-known decline of the metabolic rate with aging is hardly a coincidence. In other words, aging and disease are the same processes, and both stem from the decline of the metabolic rate that serves as a master conductor of the entire organism with its trillions of cells.

2 links here

“…According to a team of plant researchers, mitochondria provide unexpected help for cells in a crisis by respiring away harmful substances. The current study produced by the Institute of Biology and Biotechnology of Plants (IBBP) at the University of Münster and the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES) at the University of Bonn has been published in the journal Plant Cell.”

“…”The main job that mitochondria have,” explains study leader Prof. Markus Schwarzländer from the IBBP at the University of Münster, “is to act as hubs of metabolism. What is surprising now is that evidently they are also able to take care of an excess of reduced sulfur compounds, so-called thiols, which could otherwise lead to damage at other places in the cell.” To support this, a special crisis program is triggered, the ANAC017 signaling pathway. “The ‘alternative oxidase’ protein then ensures there is a higher respiratory capacity in the mitochondria in plants,” says Schwarzländer. This process was jointly discovered some years ago by two teams of researchers from Australia and Belgium. What is new now, is the discovery that it can be triggered through reductive stress, link here and can serve to protect protein folding in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), i.e. the export system for proteins in the cell.”

“…Something that is also new—and unexpected—is that the mitochondria manage to respire away thiols at a high rate. “This contradicts current thinking,” Schwarzländer concedes, “which is why we used several different methods in order to be able to validate our observations independently and rule out any possible errors.” To this end, the team developed a new method for dynamically investigating the energisation of mitochondria.”

“…He adds that the idea of a collaboration between ER and mitochondria during reductive stress came to light just recently through work being done on yeast and animal cells, link here. “What was particularly surprising was the observation that thiols can indeed be respired away at a high rate by mitochondria in plants—either directly or via a kind of ‘metabolic bypass’ which now needs to be examined.” As a result, the mitochondria, link here in the cell acquire a new, unexpected function as the ‘patron saints’ of protein folding in the ER. According to the researchers, it is regulated by the cell, depending on the cell’s requirements.”

“…All life consists of cells, link here. All cells need proteins, which have to be folded very precisely to be able to fulfill their function. Proteins which are secreted from animals, fungi and plants—or which contribute to environmental interaction on their surface—have to be stabilized by means of so-called disulfide bridges. One example of this in humans is insulin. In general, though, countless vital receptor and signaling proteins only function with the correct links via disulfide bridges. These are established at a very precise place in the cell, the so-called endoplasmic reticulum, link here (ER). For this purpose, sulfur atoms from each of two thiol groups of the amino-acid cysteine in the interior of the ER are oxidized and linked covalently.”

“…If, however, more disulfide bridges are suddenly needed, or if they are broken up by a stress factor or by certain chemical substances, this is problematic for the cell. Wrongly folded proteins can cause extensive damage, even death. It is for this reason that the cell reacts with special crisis programs. These well-examined programs support protein, link here-folding in the interior of the ER—for example, by providing additional capacity in the oxidization machinery. The novel finding in this study is the discovery that, when a crisis arises, the ER receives support from another area of the cell.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1753.mp3" length="3540428" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:08:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High blood PUFA “a specific feature of severe COVID-19 pneumonia”</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1748</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1748</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2022 18:53:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1748

The evidence for PUFA being a crucial pathological factor in yet another disease is probably not surprising to my readers. The reason I like this study is that since COVID-19 is still (unfortunately) the main topic of the day in most Western countries, a study discussing PUFA in a COVID-19 context may get a lot more attention than something like a PUFA-diabetes or a PUFA-cancer study. In nothing else, it may stimulate a lot of people to Google for “polyunsaturated fats” or “PUFA” and thus become acquainted with the most ubiquitous poison of our time. So, again, if PUFA is a major issue in COVID-19, and especially in the associated pneumonia (which is what is responsible for most hospitalizations/deaths) then anti-lipolytic interventions such as aspirin, niacinamide, vitamin E, sugar, pregnenolone/progesterone may be cheap and widely available OTC substances that can save countless lives if adopted more liberally by the healthcare system. And if Big Pharma won’t use those due to lack of profit potential, then doctors should at least consider patented niacin derivatives such as Acipimox, link here (which has the same effects as niacin(amide) but costs 100 times more).

link here

“…COVID-19 pneumonia has specific features and outcomes that suggests a unique immunopathogenesis. Severe forms of COVID-19 appear to be more frequent in obese patients, but an association with metabolic disorders is not established. Here, we focused on lipoprotein metabolism in patients hospitalized for severe pneumonia, depending on COVID-19 status. Thirty-four non-COVID-19 and 27 COVID-19 patients with severe pneumonia were enrolled. Most of them required intensive care. Plasma lipid levels, lipoprotein metabolism, and clinical and biological (including plasma cytokines) features were assessed. Despite similar initial metabolic comorbidities and respiratory severity, COVID-19 patients displayed a lower acute phase response but higher plasmatic concentrations of non-esterified fatty acids (NEFAs). NEFA profiling was characterised by higher level of polyunsaturated NEFAs (mainly linoleic and arachidonic acids) in COVID-19 patients. Multivariable analysis showed that among severe pneumonia, COVID-19-associated pneumonia was associated with higher NEFAs, lower apolipoprotein E and lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations, independently of body mass index, sequential organ failure (SOFA) score, and C-reactive protein levels. NEFAs and PUFAs concentrations were negatively correlated with the number of ventilator-free days. Among hospitalized patients with severe pneumonia, COVID-19 is independently associated with higher NEFAs (mainly linoleic and arachidonic acids) and lower apolipoprotein E and HDL concentrations. These features might act as mediators in COVID-19 pathogenesis and emerge as new therapeutic targets. Further investigations are required to define the role of NEFAs in the pathogenesis and the dysregulated immune response associated with COVID-19.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1748.mp3" length="617444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Not a “male” hormone – testosterone (T) beneficial for female heart health</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1746</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1746</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2022 18:26:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1746

It always feels good to read an article on a scientific discovery and have one of the authors put on his Peat-y hat and quote Peat directly. I am joking, of course, but the study below and the statements from its lead author do sound like Peat had a significant participation in the study write-up, as well as in the education of its authors. Namely, the study discusses the strong inverse correlation between androgens, such as T and DHEA, and cardiovacular disease risk, especially in post-menopause women. Just as importantly, the benefits of higher androgens were progressive and started manifesting themselves as low as the 25% percentile of the range for each steroid. And perhaps most surprisingly, the study found that while low androgens did result in much higher CVD risk in women, lower estrogens (estrone) did not. So much for the mainstream hypothesis of “the estrogen deficiency of menopause, causing chronic diseases”…Now, I may actually email the authors and suggest that in their next study they test not estrone (which doctors think is the predominant serum estrogen in menopausal women), but rather estrone sulfate (E1S), which has been shown to serve as the most reliable biomarker of total-body estrogenic reserves/load. I’d venture a guess that if E1S was measured instead, the relationship with CVD would have been positive (contributing) and not negative/inverse (protective).

2 links here

“…Australian researchers are challenging the notion testosterone is a “male” hormone that is bad for women. Higher testosterone may actually protect older women from cardiovascular disease, a Monash University study released on Tuesday has found. Researchers measured blood testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and oestrogen levels in thousands of healthy women over 70 with no prior cardiovascular disease events. Older women with low blood testosterone and DHEA concentrations, but not low oestrogen, were found to have “twice the risk of a cardiovascular event” such as a heart attack or heart failure than those with higher testosterone. “The apparent protective effects of testosterone and DHEA appeared to emerge early, with the higher three quartiles for each hormone tracking together,” the research paper stated. It is the largest prospective longitudinal study of its kind of women 70 and older and dispels the myth that a higher concentration of testosterone in the blood was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease in older women. “We need to stop thinking about testosterone as a ‘male’ hormone that is bad for women. It is an important human hormone for both women and men,” study lead Professor Susan Davis said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1746.mp3" length="694508" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:37</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>New IdeaLabs Service – Mineral Analysis (hair and/or (toe)nail)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1740</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1740</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2022 00:36:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1740

This is part one of a two-part announcement, with the second part hopefully coming out in the next 3-4 weeks….

Edit (05/27/2022): The second part is now ready too – i.e. the steroid analysis in hair/nails.

IdeaLabs Service – Steroid Analysis (hair and/or (toe)nail), link here

…The first part covers mineral analysis (which many of my followers are already familiar with), while the second one will hopefully cover steroid analysis. The novelty factor here is two-fold. First, in addition to the better-known mineral analysis in hair, we are now pleased to offer such analysis in (toe)nails as well. The advantages of (toe)nail analysis are discussed in more detail below. Second, the analysis of steroids in nail/hair is such a cutting edge area of research that only a handful of experiments/publications exist on the topic. In addition, those experiments/publications overwhelmingly focus either on just one or at most 2-3 (e.g. cortisol, DHEA, testosterone) of the 20+ major steroids known to endocrinology. Based on preliminary experiments, we believe we may be able to perform the analysis of most major steroids typically included as part of an annual endocrine/metabolic panel. Those include pregnenolone (P5), progesterone (P4), DHEA, testosterone (T), DHT, androsterone, estradiol (E2), estrone (E1), estriol (E3), aldosterone, cortisol, cortisone, T3 and T4. Since nail analysis is similar in nature to tissue biopsy, we hope that such steroid analysis in nails (and possibly hair) may be able to offer good insight about the intracellular steroid homeostasis for a given person, which is much more clinically relevant than blood analysis of the same steroids.

I digress, so let me back back on topic – mineral analysis in hair/nails. I would like to emphasize right from the start that while we can perform mineral analysis in both types of samples (hair or nail), we strongly prefer the latter and, more specifically, nails harvested from each of the big toes. Ideally, we need a nail sample from each toe since our experiments demonstrated (slight but non-negligible) differences in the mineral levels between each toe nail sample. Thus, a more accurate picture of mineral whole-body exposure/concentrations is obtained by combining both nail samples into a single pool for analysis (i.e. effectively averaging the values across both samples).

Interestingly enough, despite the existence of multiple studies on the topic, it appears that the advantages of nail (and disadvantages of hair) analysis are virtually unknown among companies operating in this industry. Hair mineral analysis appears to be the “industry standard” despite the well-known drawbacks of using hair for such purposes. Namely, extensive (usually at least once daily!) exposure of hair to detergent chemicals such as soaps/shampoos/conditioners/etc, dust/moisture/wind/sun from the environment, and, perhaps most importantly, the extensive cosmetic procedures to which hair is often subjected in order to change its shape, color, texture, odor, and even growth characteristics. There is also the issue of hair exposure to prescription drugs in the form of topical application of substances for hair-growth such as finasteride, minoxidil, NO donors, steroids, NSAID, etc. In contrast to hair, nails are (for the most part) not subjected to most of these “assaults” or at least not nearly as often as hair. The main issues with nail analysis are the usage of nail polish and nail polish remover liquid. However, due to the thickness of the nail, exposure to such chemicals does not seem to significantly affect the structure of the nail and/or the concentration of minerals inside, which is most certainly not the case with hair. Thus, nails are also less vulnerable than hair to chemical/physical assaults/adulterants, and their analysis is (or should be) the de-facto “scientific standard” for non-invasive, mineral analysis in tissues. When asked about it, Dr. Ray Peat (RP) also expressed the opinion that toenails (and specifically nails from the big toes) offer a more reliable sample for mineral analysis, compared to hair. Please keep in mind that Dr. Peat’s quotes below do not constitute him endorsing, approving, advertising, recommending or generally encouraging people to use our (or any other) service for mineral analysis.

“RP:…The hair quickly and firmly absorbs things that it’s exposed to, from the air and water. Copper and calcium are often from the water and plumbing using in washing. Toenails are more representative of body composition. If the hair and nails have an abnormally large amount of calcium, it’s more likely to indicate a dietary deficiency than excess, since when there is a deficiency of calcium in the diet, or vitamin D, the parathyroid hormone increases, causing calcium from the bones to move into the other tissues. A vitamin K deficiency is another cause.””

“Q:…Do you have any opinion on hair mineral testing and analysis? Can it be a useful way to acquire information about mineral status and other things going on in the body, do you think?”

“RP:…Toenails are much better, because they absorb more from the body, less from environmental air and water exposure.”

An important disclaimer, which is also listed on the sample hair/nail analysis reports below, is that unlike virtually all other companies offering hair mineral analysis, we DO NOT subscribe to the interpretations (largely based on the ideas of the metabolic types, pioneered by Dr. Wilson, link here) offered by such companies. As far as we are concerned, while the mineral analysis may provide some information as to the overall health state of the individual, it is by no means indicative of a specific metabolic “type”, (mal)function of specific organs/tissues/processes, indicative of personality types, mood(s), mental/cognitive disorders, etc. The results may be indicative of dietary deficiencies and/or excess (see above quote from Dr. Peat), but context is everything when making even such basic interpretations. In our opinion, the mineral analysis should always be interpreted in combination with other biomarkers, and always under the supervision of a licensed medical professional who can make qualified decisions on causal relationships between specific values (minerals, steroids, etc) and systemic health (or pathology). For more detailed information, including how to collect/harvest hair/nail samples, please visit the link below.

link here

Basically, the mineral analysis service one can order from the link above is broken down into three (3) parts. Each one of those parts can be ordered separately, and also in combination with the rest. The parts are essentially the mineral groups available for analysis – nutritional elements (e.g. calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, zinc, iron, etc), toxic elements (e.g. lead, aluminium, cadmium, uranium, arsenic, etc), and miscellaneous elements found in trace amounts in humans (e.g. lithium, nickel, germanium, tin, vanadium, etc). Typically, a person orders all three (3) parts together as the results for an element from one part can support/explain the findings for an element from another part. For example, it is common for people with lead overload/toxicity to have low levels of one/more of the alkaline minerals calcium/sodium/magnesium/potassium as lead can displace those elements inside the cell. Thus, having high lead (a member of the toxic group) levels and low level(s) of one or more of the alkaline minerals (members of the nutritional group) better supports the hypothesis of lead overload/toxicity than only a finding or high lead levels, or only a finding of low level(s) of one/more of the alkaline minerals. That being said, if so desired, a person could also place an order for just the nutritional elements, just the toxic ones, just the miscellaneous ones, or any combination thereof.

Finally, attached are two sample reports of mineral analysis, for both hair and toenails, of an adult male volunteer. Those reports are provided for information purposes only. The exact report(s) delivered to the client may vary, depending on changing technology, processes, published literature, regulatory/legal mandates, preferences, etc.

Hair Mineral Analysis Sample Report, link here

Toenail Mineral Analysis Sample Report, link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1740.mp3" length="3534236" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:08:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking serotonin may treat leukemia and other blood cancers</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1738</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1738</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 19:54:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1738

Yet another cancer is revealed to be metabolic of origin and potentially treatable with cheap and widely available anti-serotonin chemicals (e.g. Benadryl, cyproheptadine, the ergot derivatives, etc). Conversely, the study raises serious questions in regards to whether the explosion in blood cancer rates over the last decade (and especially in the group younger than 20) is causally linked to the drastic increase in prescriptions/usage of serotonergic drugs (e.g. SSRI). Even on a more mundane/basic dietary level, the study demonstrates that the amino acid tryptophan has a direct role in carcinogenesis and aside from its role as vitamin B3 precursor, there is not much else that tryptophan is beneficial for in adult human beings. As such, it would probably be beneficial to restrict dietary tryptophan as much as possible and/or consume it with gelatin, aspirin, BCAA, etc as they inhibit its absorption and may also limit its conversion into serotonin.

2 links here

“…A new study has found that to stop acute myeloid leukaemia, one of the deadliest blood cancers, targeting neighbouring bone cells may be a better strategy. The study has been published in the ‘Cancer Discovery Journal’. Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is one of the hardest-to-treat blood cancers. And though it’s possible to achieve remission with drugs that target and destroy the stem cells that give rise to leukaemia, the disease usually returns with deadly consequences. Patients relapse when new types of leukemic stem cells that elude all existing treatments surface. Trying to develop additional drugs that target new stem cells is challenging, said cancer researcher Stavroula Kousteni, PhD, because cancer will eventually mutate to circumvent the drugs. Her new study shows that targeting neighbouring cells in the bone marrow – osteoblasts, the cells which make bone – could turn a friendly environment for leukaemia cells into a hostile one. That’s because the osteoblasts are lured into helping leukaemia stem cells, Kousteni’s team, led by Marta Galan-Diez, PhD, found. The new study revealed how leukaemia cells lure the osteoblasts to function to their advantage by releasing a molecule called kynurenine. Kynurenine binds to a serotonin receptor (HTR1B) on the osteoblasts, sending the message to osteoblasts to help nurture leukemic cells by secreting an acute phase response protein (SAA1). SAA1 then tells the leukemia cells to make more kynurenine, and a vicious cycle ensues that leads to more disease progression. The crosstalk between leukaemia cells and osteoblasts can be broken, Galan-Diez and Kousteni found, suggesting a way forward for new AML treatments. In experiments with mice, they found that genetically eliminating the serotonin receptor that binds to kynurenine blocks the progression of leukemic cells. And in humanized mice carrying leukaemia cells from patients and experiencing an AML relapse, an experimental drug that inhibits kynurenine synthesis “had a substantial effect in combination with traditional chemotherapy, slowing disease progression,” Galan-Diez said. (The drug, called epacadostat, is being tested in other cancers). In the same study, Kousteni and Galan-Diez observed increasing levels of kynurenine and SAA1 in AML patients and in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), another haematological cancer that often transforms to AML. Levels of both molecules increase with MDS progression to AML and SAA1 promotes proliferation of MDS and AML cells from patients, suggesting the same partnership between MDS or leukemia cells and osteoblasts is active in the human form of disease. “The advantage of this approach is that it doesn’t matter which stem cells are causing the disease. They all need osteoblasts to grow, and if we can stop these two types of cells from communicating, we might be able to stop the disease,” Kousteni said. In addition, the same approach may also prevent pre-leukemic conditions like MDS from progressing. (ANI)”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1738.mp3" length="491180" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D effective in humans for preventing autoimmune diseases</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1736</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1736</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 19:22:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1736

A human study, one of the largest ever conducted, and covering virtually all major autoimmune conditions. Also, the study claims that this is the first intervention trial that looked at effects of vitamin D on developing autoimmune conditions, so the link is causal – i.e. we can now claim that taking vitamin D does prevent autoimmune diseases, while in the past all the evidence was from observational/epidemiological trials. The other interesting finding of the study was that the dosage of vitamin D used was quite low – i.e. 2,000 IU daily. Considering the widespread vitamin D deficiency (and even insufficiency) in the general population, a dosage of 5,000 IU – 10,000 IU would have been much more appropriate, even if taken only during the fall/winter seasons. Multiple human studies have demonstrated that such higher doses are required in order to correct the deficiency/insufficiency during the fall/winter season, and in overweight/obese people this higher dose may be needed even during spring/summer due to the higher “volume of distribution” of the vitamin in such people, as well as its preferential storage of vitamin D in fat tissue. Finally, while the popular press articles conveniently neglect to mention it, the study also found that taking omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) was NOT effective in preventing the development of autoimmune conditions. In fact, taking the omega-3 together with vitamin D negated the protective effects of the latter, so hopefully this study would give serious pause to dietitians/doctors who still recommend/prescribe this toxic PUFA industrial waste.

link here

“…Conclusions Vitamin D supplementation for five years, with or without omega 3 fatty acids, reduced autoimmune disease by 22%, while omega 3 fatty acid supplementation with or without vitamin D reduced the autoimmune disease rate by 15% (not statistically significant). Both treatment arms showed larger effects than the reference arm (vitamin D placebo and omega 3 fatty acid placebo).”

link here

“…Vitamin D, link here supplements really do prevent people developing an autoimmune disease, at least for those over 50, in a study providing the first evidence of a causal link between the two. Previous studies on the effect of vitamin D on autoimmune conditions have looked at vitamin D levels in those with an autoimmune disease or in those who go on to develop one. Other studies have hinted at the supplement’s beneficial effects on the immune system. “We know vitamin D does all kinds of wonderful things for the immune system in animal studies,” says Karen Costenbader, link here at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “But we have never proven before that giving vitamin D can prevent autoimmune disease.” Costenbader and her colleagues randomly split nearly 26,000 people in the US who were 50 or over into two groups, giving them either vitamin D supplements or a placebo. “The great thing about randomised trials is they really answer the question of causation,” says Costenbader. The team tracked the participants for around five years to measure the development of autoimmune conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, link here, autoimmune thyroid disease and psoriasis. This revealed that a dose of 2000 international units (IU) of vitamin D per day reduced the development of autoimmune disease by 22 per cent, compared with the placebo. This is a larger dose than the standard 400 IU recommended by health organisations such as the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1736.mp3" length="795500" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Muscles starve/waste in the absence of vitamin D</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1733</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1733</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 14:59:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1733

As turns out, yet again, vitamin D is far from being the simple “bone vitamin” as most TV/online commercials would have us believe. It is actually a (seco)steroid and has already been implicated in a host of metabolic and immune process affecting virtually every disease. Recently, I posted a few studies demonstrating that vitamin D has an anti-catabolic effect on muscles, as well as protective effects on liver against the harm caused by excess cortisol. The study below now demonstrated that vitamin D has an even more basic metabolic function when it comes to muscle health – i.e. allowing the muscles to utilize the glycogen stored inside them. As the study shows, without sufficient vitamin D, the muscles synthesize a lot of glycogen but cannot use it, and this creates a state of “glucose deficiency”, which triggers cortisol release and subsequent muscle breakdown/wasting despite plenty of energy being stored in the actual muscle. I wonder if this is one of the mechanisms implicated in type II diabetes – i.e. plenty of glycogen in the muscles yet very low levels of muscle protein synthesis and, often, even sarcopenia.

2 links here

“…Initially, scientists suspected that the absence of VDR is preventing the synthesis of glycogen from the food. “We checked whether the energy deprivation in skeletal muscles is associated with differences in glycogen levels,” says Dr. Aneeshkumar. To their surprise, VDR knockout mice had higher glycogen levels than the control ones. “We found that the glycogen synthase, the key enzyme that converts glucose into glycogen, was having a field day without the inhibitory enzymes active”. More and more glycogen was being produced and stored in the skeletal muscle. Nevertheless, the glycogen phosphorylase, an enzyme that converts glycogen to glucose when energy is needed, was significantly lower. “As a result, while muscle continued to make glycogen, none of it could be converted back to glucose resulting in energy deficiency,” explains Dr. Aneeshkumar. Even with abundant glycogen present, the skeletal muscle could not extract the energy in the absence of vitamin D. “From this research, we think we have found the molecular mechanism by which the vitamin D deficiency leads to muscle wasting. Without vitamin D, glycogen storage cannot be utilised for glucose production. When the glycogen storage does not give energy, particularly in a post-absorb state, the skeletal muscle draws more glucose from the blood. This leads to a systemic energy shortage. When there is systemic lack of energy, like during hunger, the protein degradation in muscle is triggered leading to muscle wasting,” explains Dr. Aneeshkumar.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1733.mp3" length="571508" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Oral vitamin D3 may treat steroid-driven hair loss</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1729</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1729</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Jan 2022 01:28:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1729

A very interesting study, which demonstrates that a relatively low (5,000 IU) oral daily dose of vitamin D3 for 6 months, may be able to treat gender-specific (driven by steroids) hair loss. Now, the study participants were all female, with female-pattern hair loss (FPHL), however the findings should be applicable to the other gender as well since it has been established that the causal factors (steroids) in either female-pattern or male-pattern hair loss are largely the same. Namely, medicine claims that high DHT levels are the main cause of hair loss in both genders. The study used minoxidil as the “standard of care” treatment for female-pattern, and administered it to one of the groups as a monotherapy, and also in combination with vitamin D3 in another group. Since minoxidil is also a “standard of care” therapy for male-pattern hair loss as well, it is reasonable to postulate that the study findings should be applicable to male-pattern baldness (androgenic alopecia) too. The best effects were seen in the group with minoxidil+vitamin D combo, however other studies with higher doses of vitamin D have demonstrated benefits for this condition even when vitamin D is used as monotherapy.

2 links here

“…Conclusion: Oral vitamin D combination to topical minoxidil is recommended to treat patients with FPHL; they had better results than with vitamin D or topical minoxidil alone.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1729.mp3" length="615668" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Prostate levels of androgens/DHT drastically lower in prostate cancer patients</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1726</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1726</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 12 Jan 2022 14:58:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1726

Yet another study, which raises serious doubts about the so-called “androgen hypothesis” of prostate cancer (PC). The study found that androgen levels, and especially DHT, are drastically (90%+) lower in PC than in people with benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH). In fact, 1/3 of the PC patients included in the study had undetectable DHT levels in their prostates. The authors are compelled to conclude that apparently PC can occur completely independently of androgens, which (again) calls into question the entire “androgen hypothesis”, as well as the current “treatment” approaches that focus mainly on physical/chemical castration.

link here

“…LC/MS/MS analysis of 18 AS-BP and 18 recurrent prostate cancer specimens showed similar testosterone but different dihydrotestosterone levels (Table1, link here). Testosterone levels were 2.75 pmol/g in AS-BP and 3.75 pmol/g tissue in recurrent prostate cancer (Wilcoxon two-sided, P = 0.30) (Table 1, link here). Median tissue levels of dihydrotestosterone were 91% lower in recurrent prostate cancer (1.25 pmol/g tissue) than AS-BP (13.70 pmol/g tissue; Wilcoxon two-sided, P < 0.0001). Six patients had undetectable levels of dihydrotestosterone and one of those patients also had an undetectable level of testosterone. Recurrent prostate cancer patient 14 suggests that prostate cancer can recur completely independent of testicular androgens. Thirteen of these 18 recurrent prostate cancer specimens and 9 of these 18 AS-BP specimens had been analyzed previously using RIA (2, link here), which permitted comparison of results obtained using the two methods. Median dihydrotestosterone levels were similar in recurrent prostate cancer specimens measured using LC/MS/MS (1.25 pmol/g tissue) and RIA (0.46 pmol/g tissue). Both methods showed that median dihydrotestosterone levels decreased by ∼90% in recurrent prostate cancer compared with AS-BP.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1726.mp3" length="396500" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen associated with arterial stiffness in women</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1723</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1723</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 11 Jan 2022 17:07:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1723

Blood pressure rises with age, and most people over the age of 50 are on some type of blood pressure controlling medication. It is well-known that blood vessels calcify/stiffen with age and that such stiffness is what leads to increased blood pressure – i.e. the inability of vessels to expand/relax during increased heart activity. This is another common feature of aging and cardiovascular disease (CVD), which medicine considers of “unknown” origin, despite multiple studies demonstrating that the administration of glucocorticoids or mineralocorticoids can reliably cause the stiffening even in young/healthy people. The study below now suggests that estogen and FSH are also contributing to the stiffening of blood vessels. Since the relationship between estrogen and stiffening was seen even in menopausal women, the study also suggests that estrogen levels in menopause are NOT low, thus contradicting yet again the mainstream medical dogma.

2 links here

“…The entire study consisted of women aged 19 to 58 years. The older the women were, the stiffer their arteries were. Of the hormones measured, estradiol and follicle-stimulating hormone were associated with arterial stiffness, but age was a stronger determinant of stiffness than hormone levels were. Examination of the subsets showed hormonal state to be associated with arterial stiffness. The attenuation of the pulse wave was faster in the late follicular and ovulation phases than it was during menstrual bleeding. Combined oral contraceptive users have varying hormonal levels due to taking pills containing estrogen and progestogen for the first three weeks and then changing to hormone-free pills for a week during which withdrawal bleeding occurs. While taking the hormonal pills, the arteries were more elastic than they were during bleeding. Among menopausal women, postmenopausal women on hormone therapy had the stiffest arteries.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1723.mp3" length="459500" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may prevent/delay Type I diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1721</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1721</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 11 Jan 2022 16:49:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1721

Vitamin D seems to be trying to take aspirin’s crown as a universal drug away. The study below is the latest evidence that this remarkable nutrient may have therapeutic effects in conditions that most doctors consider completely unrelated outside of vitamin D’s realm (e.g. calcium absorption). As per the study below, vitamin D joins niacinamide as the only two substances known to be able to prevent/delay development of Type I diabetes. Vitamin D may actually be preferable to niacinamide since the doses of the latter that were shown to have beneficial effects were in the 3g+ daily range, and such doses can cause nausea and stomach upset in many people, while the 50,000 IU of vitamin D weekly used by the study below have been repeatedly shown to be virtually free of side effects.

2 links here

“…Nwosu’s research shows giving young Type 1 diabetes patients doses of vitamin D when they are first diagnosed slowed the progression of the disease, keeping them in what’s known as the “honeymoon period” of the illness. “So for vitamin D, which is a cheap and easily available product, to actually impact this phase is significant,” Nwosu said. “Classically, honeymoon periods last from three months to 12 months. However, there are recent studies now showing that they are actually able to pick up actually pick up C-peptide and evidence of insulin production in people who have had diabetes for more than 50 years. So it can last for long in some people.” Nwosu said there is more research to do in terms of the impact of the treatment, but his message to families living with this illness is clear. “What I think our study shows is that if someone is diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, the parents can actually feel confident to add vitamin D as a supplement to what they are receiving. Most kids are receiving vitamin D anyway,” he said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1721.mp3" length="406052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Carboxymethylcellulose, ubiquitous food/drug additive, is highly inflammatory</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1719</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1719</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 11 Jan 2022 16:28:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1719

This study is a great reminder that we are surrounded by toxins, and that food/drugs/supplements are one of the major sources of those toxins. I already posted several studies demonstrating that industrial citric acid and vitamin C – additive present in virtually all commercial sort drinks and foods due to their preservative effects – are potent inflammatory agents despite FDA considering them “generally regarded as safe” (GRAS). The study below adds carboxymethylcellulose to that list. As its name implies, this substance is a simple ester of regular cellulose and is widely used a a thickening agent or emulsifier in pharmaceutical or OTC formulations. On top of that, it is often added to commercially prepared foods as a “dietary fiber” despite lack of evidence that it works as such. The study below demonstrates that even small amounts of this substance can lead to chronic intestinal irritation, and ultimately to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

2 links here

“…Titanium dioxide, for example, was used for decades as a white food coloring agent. Long thought to be essentially non-toxic it was only recently, link here that scientists discovered the chemical’s profound effect, link here on the gut microbiome, particularly when delivered in the form of nanoparticles. Many countries in the world have now banned the additive, link here from foods. Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) was originally approved as safe to use in foods in the 1960s. It is commonly used as a thickening agent or emulsifier, and listed under E numbers 466 or 469. It is also sometimes referred to as “cellulose gum, link here” and added to foods as “dietary fiber.”

“…Recent lab and animal studies have indicated CMC may perturb the gut microbiome and promote the development of inflammatory disease. But, the effect of CMC on animals doesn’t necessarily mean it is harmful to humans. So this new research set out to systematically test how CMC influences the human gut microbiome. Sixteen subjects were recruited for what is known as a controlled feeding study. For 11 days the participants were admitted as inpatients into a controlled hospital environment and either received a diet supplemented with CMC or a diet free of CMC. At the end of the study notable changes were detected in the gut bacteria populations of the CMC group compared to the control fed the same diet but without CMC. Alongside bacterial changes, alterations to bacterial metabolites, including reductions in short-chain fatty acids and free amino acids, were detected.”

“…However, it is noted that all of the changes detected in the short study do correlate with biomarkers previously associated with inflammatory diseases. “It certainly disproves the ‘it just passes through’ argument used to justify the lack of clinical study on additives,” adds Andrew Gewirtz, senior author on the study.

“…Ultimately, the researchers hypothesize CMC could be playing some kind of role in the rise of chronic gut inflammatory disease over the past few decades. Of course, this singular food additive is not suspected to be the sole cause of inflammatory disease, but instead it may contribute to a person’s overall risk of developing gut inflammation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1719.mp3" length="510740" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may treat lymphoma</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1717</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1717</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 11 Jan 2022 16:04:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1717

A very interesting study and a “synchronicity” event as well, considering the recent in-vivo experiments I conducted with a combination of vitamin B1 and vitamin B3 (niacinamide) in a mouse xenograft model of human mantle-cell lymphoma. In that experiment of mine, HED of 15mg/kg B1 and 30mg/kg B3 completely stopped the tumor growth. One of the pathways, which niacinamide affects is SIRT3 – i.e. niacinamide is an inhibitor of SIRT3.

link here

Inhibition of that gene results in inhibition of histone deacetylase, and such HDAC inhibitors have been postulated to be viable therapeutic agents for cancer. The study below demonstrates that SIRT3 inhbition can be therapeutic for lymphoma and that may explain the results of my in-vivo experiment as well.

2 links here

“…Dr. Melnick, Dr. Lin and their colleagues set out in the study to investigate SIRT3, which resides in mitochondria, the tiny, oxygen-burning fuel reactors in our cells that are essential for powering cellular activities. The research team had discovered in a 2019 study that SIRT3 strongly supports the growth and survival of DLBCLs by speeding up the biochemical reactions that produce the molecular building blocks cells need to proliferate. In the new study, the researchers explored further how SIRT3 promotes DLBCL growth, and found that one of the important ways it does this is by increasing the production of another metabolism-influencing protein, ATF4. Their experiments revealed that SIRT3, as it turbo-boosts DLBCL metabolism, reduces the pools of amino acids that cells use to make proteins and otherwise fuel their growth. This reduction amounts to a starvation signal that activates the production of ATF4, which in turn ramps up the production and import of amino acids, further sustaining DLBCLs’ malignant proliferation. Dr. Melnick and Dr. Lin in their 2019 study developed a selective SIRT3 inhibitor and showed that it kills DLBCL cells regardless of the cancer-driving mutations they carry. In the new study the researchers showed that SIRT3 inhibition results in accumulation of specific amino acids that are generated by the treated cells cannibalizing their own proteins. This situation essentially tricks DLBCL cells into behaving as if they had an adequate nutrient supplies and results in paradoxical suppression of ATF4 production, in turn leading to more severe starvation. Further harnessing this effect for therapeutic benefit, the investigators experimented with a compound that blocks the activation of ATF4 and found that it has a similar broad impact on DLBCL cells. In addition, they found that combining the blockers of ATF4 and SIRT3 has a striking lymphoma cell-killing effect — much more potent than either blocker on its own. Combining ATF4 and SIRT3 inhibitors thus seems a promising strategy against DLBCLs.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1717.mp3" length="1398068" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Inhibiting lipolysis may treat diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1715</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1715</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 11 Jan 2022 15:30:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1715

Probably nothing surprising to my readers, but I think the study below is still important as it is one of the very few that openly state that diabetes is driven not by genetics but by excessive free fatty acids in the blood. While it does not mention it directly, the study is a great corroboration of the Randle Cycle. It also corroborates the usage of anti-lipolytic chemicals like aspirin, niacinamide, vitamin E, etc for the treatment of diabetes, despite most endocrinologists scoffing at that pathway and focusing instead on lowering blood glucose directly, which is known to increase all-cause mortality.

link here

Salk researchers find a new route for regulating blood sugar levels independent of insulin, link here

“…The study, which was published in Cell Metabolism, link here on January 4, 2022, shows that a hormone called FGF1 regulates blood glucose by inhibiting fat breakdown (lipolysis). Like insulin, FGF1 controls blood glucose by inhibiting lipolysis, but the two hormones do so in different ways. Importantly, this difference could enable FGF1 to be used to safely and successfully lower blood glucose in people who suffer from insulin resistance.”

“…When we eat, energy-rich fats and glucose enter the bloodstream. Insulin normally shuttles these nutrients to cells in muscles and fat tissue, where they are either used immediately or stored for later use. In people with insulin resistance, glucose is not efficiently removed from the blood, and higher lipolysis increases the fatty acid levels. These extra fatty acids accelerate glucose production from the liver, compounding the already high glucose levels. Moreover, fatty acids accumulate in organs, exacerbating the insulin resistance—characteristics of diabetes and obesity. Previously, the lab showed that injecting FGF1 dramatically lowered blood glucose in mice and that chronic FGF1 treatment relieved insulin resistance. But how it worked remained a mystery. In the current work, the team investigated the mechanisms behind these phenomena and how they were linked. First, they showed that FGF1 suppresses lipolysis, as insulin does. Then they showed that FGF1 regulates the production of glucose in the liver, as insulin does. These similarities led the group to wonder if FGF1 and insulin use the same signaling (communication) pathways to regulate blood glucose. It was already known that insulin suppresses lipolysis through PDE3B, an enzyme that initiates a signaling pathway, so the team tested a full array of similar enzymes, with PDE3B at the top of their list. They were surprised to find that FGF1 uses a different pathway—PDE4.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1715.mp3" length="343028" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking PUFA metabolism therapeutic for Multiple Sclerosis (MS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1713</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1713</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 11 Jan 2022 15:13:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1713

The rates of MS have been steadily rising over the last several decades. While mainstream medicine claims the cause is “unknown”, it is well known that it has an almost perfect inverse association with sunshine exposure, vitamin D levels, aspirin usage, histamine blockers, etc. This suggest an inflammatory cause, which implicates PUFA since the majority of the inflammatory cascade stems from those fatty acids through their inflammatory metabolites prostaglandins (synthesized by the enzyme COX) and leukotrienes (synthesized by the enzyme LOX). The human study below corroborates that hypothesis by demonstrating that inhibition of the LOX enzyme results in significant improvement in ~2/3 of the patients receiving the treatment, and in some patients all inflammatory lesions disappeared (so effectively, they were cured). The study used Boswellic acid as the LOX inhibitor, but AFAIK it is not readily available commercially. As such, vitamin E, progesterone, eugenol, vitamin D, etc can be used as an alternative since they are all decent LOX inhibitors.

link here

“..“Initially, basic work was done in the 90s to detect large amounts of an enzyme called 5-lipoxygenase in the brain of patients with multiple sclerosis. Clarissa Hanja Sterner, one of the authors of the study, said: “5-lipoxygenase is part of a class of lipids that act as messengers of inflammation in the body, but what’s the connection with spices? If given to the patient, it reduces the inflammation of his illness. “We assume that the bioactive formulas of the spice that have been used as an anti-inflammatory substance for thousands of years in traditional Oriental and Oriental medicine are boswellic acids., Say researchers. Several small randomized clinical trials have shown a favorable safety and tolerance profile of spices in many inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.“.

“…To confirm that boswellic acid is effective in treating multiple sclerosis, scientists conducted a clinical trial on 28 volunteers suffering from the disease. For eight months, they took four aromatic capsules three times a day in the form of ethanol extract. And the results are reliable: “Inflammation levels were significantly lower in patients treated with spices, 63% of all patients, and some of them had no inflammation in the brain.“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1713.mp3" length="539084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fasting causes aging by energy depletion, vitamin B2 can stop it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1711</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1711</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Dec 2021 20:13:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1711

Well, if this title does not rile up the fasting crowd, I don’t know what will:-) Aside from that controversy, it is actually a great study that not only suggests a dirt cheap and widely available option for retarding aging, but once again demonstrates that stress (e.g. fasting) directly causes aging by depleting/blocking OXPHOS, and the key mechanism for stopping/reversing aging is by restoring energy production. The proposed “senolytic” in this study is the humble vitamin B2, also known as riboflavin. Vitamin B2 is the precursor for FAD – a key coenzyme, responsible for about 20% of the energy produced in the OXPHOS process. Btw, the other 80% are controlled by NAD – a molecule synthesized endogenously from the precursor niacinamide. There has been an explosion in publications over the last decade touting NAD as the cure to virtually every disease out there, and many of those claims are well-backed by evidence. While there are several companies selling proprietary NAD precursor such as nicotinamide riboside and nicotinamide mononucleotide, plain old niacinamide works just as well and is drastically cheaper. Niacin is another NAD precursor but is increases histamine and serotonin, and still has to be converted into niacinamide before it can end up as NAD. So, no reason to take anything else but niacinamide. Doing so, raises the NAD/NADH ratio, shifts the cell redox state towards oxidation (as opposed to reduction), and the ample energy produced by the cell can be used for all types of maintenance “work” the cells needs to perform in order to stay healthy, prevent aging, etc.

Oh wait, this was a post about vitamin B2 (riboflavin), right? Ok, well, vitamin B2 has a similar metabolic role as well. It is a precursor to the co-factor FAD and taking B2 raises FAD and thus the FAD/FADH ratio, which facilitates electron flow through the electron chain complexes I&II. Conversely, having insufficient levels of FAD (and/or low FAD/FADH ratio) can effectively block the ETC. This crucial role of FAD in the ETC demonstrates why excessive fatty acid oxidation (FAO) is harmful. Namely, FAD is consumed in the process of beta-oxidation of fatty acids and as such excessive FAO can consume too much FAD, drop the FAD/FADH ratio, and thus block electron flow through ETC. This reduction/blockade of ETC is exactly what is seen in most chronic, degenerative diseases, but especially in conditions such as cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune conditions, etc. Well, the study below found that this reduction of mitochondrial activity (ETC) is exactly what triggers the senescence process, and activating mitochondria (specifically ETC II) by supplementing vitamin B2 prevented cellular aging. Here is the actual explanation from the study authors.

“…Cells under stress produce SLC52A1, and increase their absorption of vitamin B2 from outside the cell. Once inside the cell, the vitamin B2 is converted into FAD and inreases mitochondrial energy production by becoming a coenzyme of mitochondrial respiratory chain complex II. As a result of the AMPK and p53 (which induce cellular senescence) are inactive, therefore stress-mediated cellular senescence is suppressed.”

Now, I did mention that the study bashes fasting, right? Where in the study does it say so? Well, the study does not use the word “fasting” but refers to it through its chief biochemical mechanism. Namely, the study demonstrated that stress activates an enzyme known as AMPK. This enzyme is like a sensor for when the energy levels in the cell drop…as in during fasting. High mitochondrial activity apparently keeps AMPK suppressed, while reduced mitochondrial activity activates AMPK and that triggers the initiation of senescence processes. Well, fasting is well-known to activate AMPK and there is a multi-billion dollar industry out there trying to come up with “fasting-mimetic” drugs/supplements that activate AMPK.

2 links here

“…In the hypothalamus, AMPK is inhibited by leptin and stimulated by fasting, and manipulation of hypothalamic AMPK activity influences energy balance.”

The study below is one of the few I have seen so far that directly implicate fasting as a stressor that directly causes aging. This is in direct contrast to what is being promoted on TV and by most public health officials – i.e. fasting is the only known mechanism through which aging can be delayed. As usual, the truth seems to be 180 degrees from what is being pushed on the public…

2 links here

“…The research team discovered a phenomenon whereby resistance to cellular senescence occurred as a result of increasing the amount of SLC52A1 produced. SLC52A1 is the protein responsible for transporting vitamin B2 into cells (vitamin B2 transporter). When SLC52A1 production was increased, cellular senescence did not occur immediately even under stress conditions (where human cells were treated with a drug to injure the DNA and induce aging). Following on from this, the researchers conducted an experiment where they exposed the cells to stress and then increased the amount of vitamin B2 in the culture solution. They found that resistance to senescence increased in accordance with the amount of vitamin B2 in the solution. Inside the cell, vitamin B2 is converted into a substance called Flavin Adenine Dinucleotide (FAD), a coenzyme that promotes the chemical reactions necessary for biological activities such as energy production. In fact, the amount of FAD in cells exposed to stress increased, which resulted in the vitamin B2 that had been transported into the cells to be converted into FAD, thus suppressing senescence.”

“…Next, the research team focused on the mitochondria to investigate the mechanism behind FAD’s suppression of cellular senescence. It is known that functional decline in mitochondria causes cellular senescence, and that FAD is essential for energy production in mitochondria as it functions as a respiratory chain complex II coenzyme. When the researchers investigated the response of the mitochondria, they were surprised to find that mitochondrial activity, link here temporarily increased in cells subjected to stress, with the subsequent decline in [mitochondrial] activity resulting in senescence. Furthermore, the researchers were able to maintain the high level of stress-mediated mitochondrial activity by increasing the amount of vitamin B2 in the culture solution, which also allowed a high level of anti-aging to be maintained.”

“…Finally, the researchers sought to illuminate how mitochondrial activity and anti-aging are connected. To do this, they investigated the activity of the enzyme AMPK, which detects when there is insufficient energy inside a cell, and discovered that AMPK activity is suppressed by mitochondrial activity. Conversely, suppressing mitochondrial activity with a drug caused AMPK to be activated, and sends signals to the protein p53 (that induces cellular senescence, link here) to stop cell division thus resulting in an aged state. The above results reveal that Vitamin B2 increases mitochondrial activity in cells exposed to stress and prevents aging by suppressing the functions of AMPK and p53.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1711.mp3" length="1963364" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fasting / stress decimate gonadal steroidogenesis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1707</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1707</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Dec 2021 19:18:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1707

A very interesting and very “controversial” (read: inconvenient truth) study, since it shows beyond reasonable doubt that even brief (4 days) fasting is a form of severe stress, at least when it comes to endocrine health. The study may also provide answers to various endocrine “mysteries” becoming more common among the male population of “developed” countries, especially the so-called “idiopathic hypogonadism”. The latter is an increasingly common condition where blood androgen levels are low/suboptimal despite normal blood levels of the pituitary hormones LH/FSH, stress hormones such as cortisol/prolactin, and lack of testicular trauma. The doctors are mystified and can offer no explanation as to how this situation occurs and what drives it. Well, the study below may provide a lot of the missing pieces in this “puzzle”. Namely, it demonstrates that while brief fasting (4 days) did not raise blood levels of stress hormones such as cortisosterone (CORT), the rodent equivalent of the human stress hormone cortisol, it raised significantly blood levels of the pituitary stress hormone ACTH. Also, it lowered the blood levels of androgen precursors such as progesterone, and truly decimated blood levels of the precursor androstenedione and androgens like testosterone (T). The more interesting story was at the tissue level – i.e. in the gonads / testes of the animals. Inside the gonadal tissues, fasting / stress drastically increased the levels of CORT, and the latter (through suppressive effects on the Leydig cells) caused testicular atrophy and absolutely decimated the levels of precursors steroids like progesterone/androstenedione and the androgens (T, DHT) themselves – i.e. ~98% reduction of tissue T levels. The authors tried to determine the mechanisms through which this massive hypogonadism occurred and determined that inside the gonads fasting / stress decreased the expression of the side-chain cleavage enzyme (which produces pregnenolone from cholesterol), as well as the expression of 3β-HSD (which synthesizes progesterone from pregnenolone). In addition, while fasting / stress did not increase the expression of the glucocorticoid synthesizing enzyme 11β-HSD1, it did increase its activity and this resulted in the dramatic increase in tissue CORT. In summary, the authors state that the drastic decline in gonadal activity and the rapid induction of hypogonadism by fasting / stress is a result of energetic deficiency. Also, the old saying “don’t be fooled by appearances” (in this case blood biomarkers) seems to be holding very true, as apparently blood tests rarely tell the true story. IMO, this study should raise serious concerns among the proponents of (intermittent) fasting who have so far managed to defend their practices/diets by claiming that blood tests do not show much in terms of abnormality/pathology as a result of the fasting. Apparently, fasting/stress can do a lot of damage in a very short period, but initially it is mostly “under the hood” so this is probably why its risks/dangers have not been identified by mainstream medicine yet.

link here

“…The testes weight of adult male rats, which were fasted for 96 h, decreased (Fig. 1). In addition, PGT and T blood levels reduced to approximately 50% and 2% of control, respectively (Table 1). The blood levels of PGN increased However, there was no change in glucocorticoid DCC and CORT blood levels (Table 1). Serum ACTH levels increased significantly (Fig. 2). Therefore, it was suggested that ACTH increased due to inhibition of glucocorticoid synthesis in the adrenal gland. The levels of CORT, T, DHT, and their precursors in the testes are shown in Fig. 3. By fasting in adult male rats, CORT and DHC levels were increased significantly, more than 3 and 18 times in the testis, respectively; however, DCC, T, and their precursors were drastically reduced, and T was reduced to approximately 5% of control, as shown in Fig. 3. PGN did not change in the testes; T, PGT, DHT, and its precursor, significantly decreased, indicating that PGT could not be synthesized by fasting. Therefore, we investigated the activity of enzymes that synthesize steroids assayed according to a previously reported protocol [15,26]. The enzymatic activities mediating steroidogenesis in testes homogenates are shown in Fig. 4. The in vitro assay results using testicular homogenate as the enzyme source and DCC as the substrate showed that CORT was produced (Fig. 4A); however, PGN as substrate showed that PGT synthesis was suppressed in fasting stress (Fig. 4B). The immunoblotting analysis of testicular proteins showed that the protein expression levels of P45011β was unchanged from fasting (Fig. 5C and E), whereas expression of P450scc and 3β-HSD decreased as shown in Fig. 5A, B and E. Schematic illustration of the steroid synthesis pathway in rat testis is shown Fig. 6.”

“…Blood CORT levels in fasted rats did not change, but PGT and T levels decreased. In contrast, the blood concentration of ACTH increased. The basal levels of ACTH and CORT are greater in intermittent fasting rats [32]. The effects of ACTH on the local testicular production of CORT are important for the regulation and physiological functions. CORT plays various roles in cells, including the regulation of glycolysis and glycogenesis. Adrenal CORT is regulated by ACTH via the HPA axis and is accepted only by cells with type I or type II receptors; whereas local production may be controlled based on the needs of each cell, such as those associated with energy production [33]. The blood levels of corticosterone were not changed, but their tissue concentrations were increased (Table 1). Stress “habituation” is an important adaptive response to repeated challenge, wherein responses to a given stressor decreases upon repeated exposure and thereby reduces the overall physiological burden (e.g., cumulative effects of glucocorticoid secretion) with time [34]. Animals can generally habituate to repeated stressors [35]. This is evident by a marked reduction in HPA axis activation with repeated exposure to the same stimulus [34]. The rate of habituation is dependent on the severity of the stressor [36]. Testicular androgens were rapidly reduced by fasting stress, but glucocorticoids (particularly CORT, whose blood levels did not change) were elevated; it was considered that the dramatic increase in CORT in the testes was not only carried from the blood but was synthesized in the testes. This dual-directional process affects energy regulation, such as that associated with glycogen phosphorylase by serum epinephrine throughout the body and ATP concentrations within cells. Testosterone biosynthesis in Leydig cells is strictly dependent on the LH; However, it can be directly inhibited by excessive glucocorticoids (CORT in rats), which could be caused pathologically by Cushing’s syndrome or psychologically by stress [37,38]. Corticoids suppress the release of LH through their receptors on central level [39]. Another plausible mechanism by which glucocorticoids suppress the testicular testosterone biosynthesis is by reduction of LH receptor expression via glucocorticoids through their receptors in Leydig cells [40].”

“…Blood levels of testosterone were dramatically reduced by fasting. (Table 1). The serum LH level was not altered by metyrapone-induced corticosterone deficiency, but serum testosterone was decreased. The reduction in testosterone may be due to a mechanism that is independent of serum LH level [40]. The stress-induced increase in CORT secretion resulted in apoptosis in Leydig cells [6,41]. Glycolysis regulation is needed periodically for performing testicular functions, such as spermatogenesis, and the testicular production of CORT may play a role in local metabolic regulation. Sertoli cell glucocorticoid receptor is required to maintain normal testicular functions, circulating gonadotropin levels, optimal Leydig cell maturation, and steroidogenesis [19]. During stress, increases in plasma levels of glucocorticoids in male rats act via glucocorticoid receptors on testicular interstitial cells to suppress the testicular response to gonadotropins. The decline of T production during IMO stress is in part mediated by the direct action of glucocorticoids on the testes [24]. Testicular homogenate as the enzyme source and DCC as the substrate showed that CORT was produced; however, PGN as substrate showed that PGT synthesis was suppressed in fasting stress (Fig. 4B).”

“…The immunoblotting analysis of testicular proteins revealed that expression of 3β-HSD levels decreased in fasting rats (Fig. 5). The testicular testosterone and all of their precursors (except PGN) drastically decreased in fasting adult male rats, indicating that testicular steroidogenesis was reduced via the 3β-HSD activity. Most of the CORT in the testis is performed by blood; however, since the enzymatic activity of P45011β is not affected by fasting (Fig. 4A), it may be synthesizing CORT using the DCC as a substrate in the testis. These results suggest that adrenal corticosteroids regulate testicular CORT production; this finding is similar to that of a previous report that the testosterone production in rat Leydig cells was induced by aldosterone [43]. Testicular T and CORT were drastically decreased in the adrenalectomized adult male rats, testicular steroidogenesis was reduced via decrease in 3β-HSD activity, and DCC and CORT were synthesized from PGT locally in the testis [13]. Low CORT levels locally synthesized in the testes might affect itself in a paracrine or autocrine manner. Further studies are required to clarify the physiological role of CORT synthesized locally in the testes.”

“…In conclusion, fasting suppressed 3β-HSD enzyme activity in the testes and drastically reduced T synthesis. Conversely, 11β-hydroxylase enzyme activity was induced, and CORT synthesis increased. It can be considered that T synthesis involved in cell proliferation is suppressed due to a lack of energy during fasting. Additionally, CORT synthesis is increased to cope with the fasting stress. From these results, it can be concluded that CORT synthesis in the testes plays a role in the local defense response.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1707.mp3" length="1528940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT may treat thyroid cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1705</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1705</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Dec 2021 15:42:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1705

Yet another “non-endocrine” tumor turns out to be anything but. Thyroid cancer rates have been rising for the last 30 years and parallel the increase in diagnoses of its likely precursor – i.e.  the “autoimmune” disorder Hashimoto Disease. While there is solid evidence implicating endocrine disruptors, especially from plastics (proven to have estrogenic, anti-androgenic, and thyroid antagonist effects) , as well as fluoride (tap water) in the increase of the rates of these diseases, mainstream medicine continues to label thyroid cancer as “hormone insensitive” similar to the “triple-negative” breast cancer type. And just as a recent study demonstrated that an androgen (DHT) was therapeutic for that “hormone-insensitive” breast cancer, link here, the study below now demonstrates that DHT may be able to treat thyroid cancer as well. The DHT concentrations used in this study with therapeutic effects were physiological (10 nM/L), which suggests that there may be no need for exogenous supplementation and simply avoiding the decline in DHT associated with aging/stress may be sufficient to protect from thyroid cancer.

2 links here

“…The American Cancer Society predicted more than 52 000 new cases of thyroid cancer in 2020, making it the most prevalent endocrine malignancy. Due to the approximately threefold higher incidence of thyroid cancer in women, we hypothesize that androgens and/or androgen receptors play a protective role and that thyroid cancer in men represents an escape from androgen-mediated cell regulation. The analysis of androgen receptor (AR) expression in patient tissue samples identified a 2.7-fold reduction in AR expression (p < 0.005) in papillary thyroid cancer compared with matched, normal tissue. An in vitro cell model was developed by stably transfecting AR into 8505C undifferentiated thyroid cancer cells (resulting in clone 84E7). The addition of DHT to the clone 84E7 resulted in AR translocation into the nucleus and a 70% reduction in proliferation, with a shift in the cell cycle toward G1 arrest. RNASeq analysis revealed significant changes in mRNA levels associated with proliferation, cell cycle, and cell cycle regulation. Furthermore, androgen significantly decreased the levels of the G1-associated cell cycle progression proteins cdc25a CDK6 CDK4 and CDK2 as well as increased the levels of the cell cycle inhibitors, p27 and p21. The data strongly suggest that DHT induces a G1 arrest in androgen-responsive thyroid cancer cells. Together, these data support our hypothesis that AR/androgen may play a protective, antiproliferative role and are consistent with younger men having a lower incidence of thyroid cancer than women.”

“…Contrarily, DHT has been shown to decrease thyroid cell growth, and AR expression has been shown to be downregulated in both differentiated and anaplastic cancer, suggesting that the loss of AR is associated with the initiation and/or progression of thyroid cancer.”

“…The above data suggest that both AR and androgensmay play a protective role against thyroid cancer. As both men and women express AR in their thyroid follicular cells, both the level of AR expression and circulating androgens are critical players. In a young man, higher circulating androgen levels may be able to compensate for low AR expression. Likewise, in a woman, high AR expression may compensate for lower circulating androgen levels. As androgen levels decrease with age in men, this could lead to a loss of proliferative regulation.11,12 Therefore, in patient data, it is important to know the steroid hormone receptor expression and functionality, as well as the level of circulating hormones. Determining if the loss of AR is part of thyroid cancer progression or if AR is lost as a product of dedifferentiation, is critical to understanding the mechanism behind the loss of AR and if the loss of AR is diagnostic or prognostic.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1705.mp3" length="597668" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT as anti-inflammatory as cortisol, but without the side effects</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1703</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1703</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Dec 2021 15:20:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1703

As most of my readers know, glucocorticoids (synthetic or bioidentical) are widely used clinically and there is hardly a chronic conditions for which they are not prescribed even if only for managing brief “acute exacerbations”. Despite mainstream medicine doing everything it can to conceal the massively pathogenic effects of those steroids, even seasoned doctors would readily admit that glucocorticoids are to be used “with caution” due to their “propensity for exacerbating” issues related to insulin sensitivity, weight, bone/muscle, health, mood (e.g. depression/psychosis), cognition, fertility, digestion, etc. The rationale for using glucocorticoids clinically is the infamous T.I.N.A. – i.e. there is no alternative. Namely, cortisol and and its synthetic analogs are known to have all of these (underreported) pathogenic effects but the risks need to be weighed against the benefits since there is no alternative that can provide same/similar potent and rapid anti-inflammatory effects. If you ask a doctor about pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, T, DHT, etc they would likely give you a blank stare, yell at you for using “unapproved drugs”, or reject them as an alternative due to lack of anti-inflammatory effects. The first two (nut)cases aside, the study below argues that the third case is also not supported by evidence. Namely, the potent, non-aromatizable androgen DHT is capable of completely substituting for cortisol as an anti-inflammatory agent, in this case related to gastric inflammation. More importantly, while prolonged use of cortisol is actually known to cause a pre-cancerous condition called “atrophic gastritis”, androgens like DHT not only do not cause it, but are known to treat it. In corroboration, the study below shows that while cortisol had similar anti-inflammatory effects to DHT, only DHT was able to reverse already established structural pathology. So, the next time your doctor tries to put you on glucocorticoids for whatever reason (legit or not), simply say “thanks doc, I’d rather use DHT”:-) Oh, and last but not least, the DHT treatment in this study was administered to females, and there were still no side effects despite mainstream medicine claiming that high DHT in females directly causes the (in)famous PCOS.

link here

“…Results: We show that adrenalectomized female mice develop spontaneous gastric inflammation and spasmolytic polypeptide-expressing metaplasia (SPEM) but that the stomachs of adrenalectomized male mice remain quantitatively normal. Simultaneous depletion of glucocorticoids and sex hormones abolished the male-protective effects and triggered spontaneous pathogenic gastric inflammation and SPEM. Treatment of female mice with DHT prevented gastric inflammation and SPEM development when administered concurrent with adrenalectomy and also reversed the pathology when administered after disease onset. Single-cell RNAseq of gastric leukocytes revealed that ILC2s expressed abundant levels of both the glucocorticoid receptor (Gr) and androgen receptor (Ar). We demonstrated that DHT treatment potently suppressed the expression of the proinflammatory cytokines Il13 and Csf2 by ILC2s. Moreover, ILC2 depletion protected the stomach from SPEM development. Conclusions: Here, we report a novel mechanism by which glucocorticoids and androgens exert overlapping effects to regulate gastric inflammation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1703.mp3" length="1152620" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT can stop aging of the pancreatic beta-cells (insulin-producing)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1701</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1701</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Dec 2021 18:56:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1701

Another great study, which demonstrates that far from being a “villain” (in both males and females) DHT is in fact a crucial and positive factor in health. In this specific study below, it was demonstrated that DHT dose-dependently inhibited the aging/dysfunction of the pancreatic beta-cells, and the highest dose of DHT tested completely stopped that process. The doses needed to achieve that highest concentration would correspond to 500mg+ single-dose for an adult human. By all means, I am not mentioning this as a suggestion to gorge on DHT, but rather as an illustration that even massive doses/concentrations of DHT can have beneficial effects, which is in direct contrast to the mainstream medical mantra that DHT simply “kills”, both men and women, in any amounts. According to the authors, the results suggest that DHT may become viable therapy for conditions related to insulin dysfunction – i.e. a treatment for both types of diabetes.

link here

“…Results: The application of H2O2 significantly increased (p<0.05) the degree of senescence and apoptosis of cultured INS-1 β-cells. DHT not only showed anti-oxidant protective capacity, but also significantly reduced (p<0.05) the degree of accelerated senescence. Conclusions: DHT effectively protects pancreatic islet INS-1 β-cells from H2O2 induced oxidative stress.”

“…To determine the mechanism of the anti-apoptotic or cell-preserving function of DHT, we measured the expression levels of pAkt and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), which play a pivotal role in cell survival under oxidative stress (Fig. 3A, link here). pAkt expression increased 3-fold in the H2O2-treatment alone group compared with the control group, and significantly decreased (p<0.05) with DHT treatment dose dependently. In particular, pAkt expression in the 100-µM DHT group was lowered to almost the same level as that in the control group (Fig. 3B, link here). In addition, PARP expression increased in the H2O2-treatment alone group and significantly decreased with DHT treatment in a dose-dependent manner (p<0.05) (Fig. 3C, link here).”

“…We evaluated the effect of DHT on the expression of Sirt1, p16, and photpho-P38 MAPK, markers related to the cellular aging process. Sirt1 expression was reduced in the H2O2 treatment alone group compared with the control group, and significantly increased (p<0.05) with DHT treatment at both concentrations, 1 and 100 µM (Fig. 4A, 4B, link here). Phospho-p38 MAPK expression, in the DHT-treatment groups, increased with H2O2 treatment and reduced to almost the same level as that in the control group (Fig. 4C, link here). The p16 expression level increased in the H2O2-treatment alone group compared with the control group, and significantly decreased (p<0.05) with DHT treatment (Fig. 4D, link here). In addition, β-galactosidase staining was performed to elucidate the anti-aging effect of DHT on senescent INS-1 cells (Fig. 5, link here). β-Gal (+) cells significantly increased (p<0.05) in the H2O2-treatment alone group compared with the control group, whereas it decreased in the DHT-treatment groups dose dependantly. Overall, DHT may attenuate the H2O2-induced accelerated senescence of INS-1 pancreatic β-cells.”

“…Here, we observed that a high fraction of pancreatic β-cells showed cell death after 40 µM of H2O2 treatment, and the addition of DHT recovered the cell viability. Moreover, in the presence of different concentrations of DHT, the proportion of apoptotic cells identified with Annexin-V labeling was significantly decreased (p<0.05), especially at a concentration of 10 µM. These findings are concordant with those of previous studies by Xu et al [16, link here], in which DHT inhibited cell death and enhanced cellular viability through antioxidative effects, while DHT action was being tested on human vascular endothelial cells. It is well known that the activation of PI3 kinase and Akt phosphorylation is responsible for anti-apoptotic activities and enhancement of cell survival by DHT [20, link here]. Our results suggest the possibility of activation of PI3 kinase signaling for anti-apoptotic effects of DHT during the H2O2-induced oxidative stress. Our experiments showed that H2O2-induced oxidative stress decreased Sirt1 expression, and increased phospho-p38 MAPK and p16 protein expression in INS-1 pancreatic β-cells, and the addition of DHT opposed senescence marker levels [21, link here]. In addition, H2O2-induced oxidative stress increased the SA-β-Gal stain positivity in INS-1 pancreatic β-cells, and the number of SA-β-Gal positive cells significantly decreased (p<0.05) after DHT treatment. Cellular senescence is a natural course by which aged or damaged cells undergo cell cycle arrest and are inhibited by replication [22, link here]. Two major pathways of cellular senescence were discovered: replicative and stress-induced [23, link here]. In both pathways, DNA damage is triggered, which is mediated by p53, p21, and p16, leading to cell cycle arrest [24, link here]. Once the cells undergo senescence, they exhibit morphological changes and secrete numerous proteins as part of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), consisting of inflammatory cytokines, growth factors, and proteases [25, link here]. SA-β-Gal is most commonly used and can highlight senescent cells with a blue dye by detecting increased β-galactosidase activity within the lysosomes of aged cells [25, link here]. Aging, especially cellular senescence, is generally accepted as the leading risk factor for most age-related chronic diseases, such as T2DM and cardiovascular disease [26, link here]. Targeting senescent cells, such as using senolytic agents [e.g. DHT] that act against their own SASP phenomenon, has emerged as an attractive therapeutic strategy [27, link here]. From this viewpoint, targeting senescent pancreatic β-cells represents noteworthy opportunities for advancement in the prevention and treatment of T2DM and its complications [28, link here].”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1701.mp3" length="505436" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Scoliosis (even in females) may be driven by low androgen levels, DHT may treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1699</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1699</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Dec 2021 18:29:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1699

I am posting about this condition as it seems recently its numbers have absolutely exploded in the general population. Scoliosis used to be a relatively uncommon condition, usually present in adults over the age of 50. Mainstream medicine has no explanation for its possible causes, but suspects inflammation is involved. The study below suggests that a deficiency specifically of DHT, known to occur in all aging adults, may be the primary cause. Conversely, administration of DHT may be able to treat/reverse it. While this study did not directly address the topic, several other studies have demonstrated that chronic exposure to glucocorticoids (whether from stress or with synthetic ones by prescription) can reliable cause this pathology, and estrogen can as well. Thus, scoliosis seems little more than another biomarker of stress/aging and as such, its alarming increase in young adults and kids is a testament to the deteriorating environment in which we live.

link here

“…Previous studies have confirmed that androgen can promote cortical bone formation through IL-6, which indicated that androgen plays a very important regulatory role in bone formation and growth (17, link here). A study conducted by ElBaradie et al. demonstrated that DHT regulates growth plate chondrocytes in a sex-specific manner via rapid signaling pathways (34, link here). In an earlier study, Raz et al. found that rat costochondral growth plate chondrocytes exhibit sex-specific and cell maturation-dependent responses to testosterone. In addition, these researchers proposed that the specific response of chondrocytes to hormones requires further metabolism of testosterone to DHT (35, link here). Therefore, in our study, primary chondrocytes from AIS patients were treated with 5×10−7 M DHT, and the results showed that androgen played an important role in cartilage through IL-6. Specifically, DHT inhibited IL-6 expression through AR activation in chondrocytes of AIS patients. In addition, the serum androgen levels in patients with AIS were lower than those in the non-AIS group, which resulted in a weakened inhibitory function of androgen on IL-6 in patients with AIS. These results suggest that androgen might play a protective role in the development of AIS to inhibit IL-6-induced abnormal chondrocyte development. In conclusion, this study provides a new perspective for studying the pathogenesis of AIS. Our results show that androgen can reduce abnormal cartilage development in patients with AIS through AR/IL-6/STAT3 pathway inhibition (Figure 7, link here). The data suggest that decreased androgen levels in female AIS patients might play a potential role in the occurrence of AIS.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1699.mp3" length="499724" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cancer cells deprive immune cells of energy by devouring their mitochondria</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1696</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1696</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Dec 2021 17:32:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1696

In a description that could be a good plot for a horror-movie, the study below demonstrates that the immune failure often seen in cancer is, again, bioenergetic in origin. More specifically, the immune system cells are getting literally the energy (i.e. mitochondria) sucked out of them by cancer cells using tiny, nano-sized tentacles (a trunk would be more appropriate analogy IMO). Thus, deprived of the ability to performs OXPHOS, immune systems quickly die and the cancer proliferation continues unopposed. About a year ago, I posted a study demonstrating that immune system decline with aging is driven by estrogen (and cortisol), and reducing estrogen synthesis and/or blocking its effects can fully restore the functioning of the immune system even in very old organisms. I suspected that estrogen or/and another element of the stress cascade is involved in the development of these “tentacles” (invadopodia is the technical term) and, indeed, there is at least one study that demonstrates exposure to estrogen and/or endotoxin (LPS) triggers the development of such invadopodias in cancer cells, with the subsequent acceleration of metastasis and cachexia.

4 links here

“…Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and MIT used the power of nanotechnology to discover a new way that cancer can disarm its would-be cellular attackers by extending out nanoscale tentacles that can reach into an immune cell and pull out its powerpack. Slurping out the immune cell’s mitochondria powers up the cancer cell and depletes the immune cell. The new findings, published in Nature Nanotechnology, could lead to new targets for developing the next generation of immunotherapy against cancer. “Cancer kills when the immune system is suppressed and cancer cells are able to metastasize, and it appears that nanotubes can help them do both,” said corresponding author Shiladitya Sengupta, PhD, co-director of the Brigham’s Center for Engineered Therapeutics. “This is a completely new mechanism by which cancer cells evade the immune system and it gives us a new target to go after.” To investigate how cancer cells and immune cells interact at the nanoscale level, Sengupta and colleagues set up experiments in which they co-cultured breast cancer cells and immune cells, such as T cells. Using field-emission scanning electron microscopy, they caught a glimpse of something unusual:  Cancer cells  and immune cells appeared to be physically connected by tiny tendrils, with widths mostly in the 100-1000 nanometer range. (For comparison, a human hair is approximately 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers). In some cases, the nanotubes came together to form thicker tubes. The team then stained mitochondria — which provide energy for cells — from the T cells with a fluorescent dye and watched as bright green mitochondria were pulled out of the immune cells, through the nanotubes, and into the cancer cells. “By carefully preserving the cell culture condition and observing intracellular structures, we saw these delicate nanotubes and they were stealing the immune cells’ energy source,” said co-corresponding author Hae Lin Jang, PhD, a principal investigator in the Center for Engineered Therapeutics. “It was very exciting because this kind of behaviour had never been observed before in cancer cells. This was a tough project as the nanotubes are fragile and we had to handle the cells very gently to not break them.” The researchers then looked to see what would happen if they prevented the cancer cells from hijacking mitochondria. When they injected an inhibitor of nanotube formation into mouse models used for studying lung cancer and breast cancer, they saw a significant reduction in tumour growth. “One of the goals in cancer immunotherapy is to find combinations of therapies that can improve outcomes,” said lead author Tanmoy Saha, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Engineered Therapeutics. “Based on our observations, there is evidence that an inhibitor of nanotube formation could be combined with cancer immunotherapies and tested to see if it can improve outcomes for patients.”

link here

“…The combination of estradiol and specific TLR4 agonist lipopolysaccharide (LPS) synergistically promoted metastatic behaviors in NSCLC cells. In cell culture and murine lung metastasis models, exposure to estradiol and LPS induced increased matrix degradation and accelerated invadopodia and metastasis formation in NSCLC cells compared with that in cells treated with estradiol or LPS alone. Together, we showed that estrogen promoted NSCLC metastasis via ERβ by upregulating TLR4 and activating its downstream signaling axis myd88/NF‑κB/MMP2. The combined targeting of ERβ and TLR4 may be a novel therapeutic strategy against advanced metastatic lung cancer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1696.mp3" length="589916" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Oral allopregnanolone coming soon to a pharmacy near you</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1693</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1693</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Dec 2021 17:07:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1693

Kidding aside, it looks like pharma companies are starting to develop a very strong interest in oral delivery of steroids, using the technique described by Peat decades ago to bypass the first-pass metabolism in the liver. Namely, as Peat described, mixing a steroid (or another molecule) with long(er) chain fats (chain length 12 or more) enables the digestive system to incorporate said molecule and the long(er) chain fats into chylomicrons. Since the chylomicrons are too large to enter blood vessels in the GI tract, they are instead transported through the lymphatic system to the thoracic duct, at which point there are released into the systemic circulation. After claiming for more than 50 years that orally administered steroid are useless, now Big Pharma is all over this idea and several companies are working on such oral steroid formulations. Namely, an oral testosterone undecanoate (TU) formulation was recently approved by the FDA under the trade name Jatenzo. And now, this company has released a press briefing about its own pre-clinical trial with humans demonstrating that an oral formulation of allopregnanolone (AlloP) works quite well and much more bioavailable than allopregnanolone administered on its own. If approved by the FDA, they expect this new formulation (LYT-300) to be able to treat the full spectrum of neurological and psychiatric conditions. While the details on the technology are sparse, the overall principle described is the same as Jatenzo – i.e. combining the allopregnanolone with long-chain fat triglycerides so that when consumed orally, the allopregnanolone (largely) avoids the first pass metabolism through the liver and instead gets systemically delivered. In other words, Peat’s approach to oral steroid delivery has been validated and is now rapidly being explored for commercial success as an alternative to IV/injection formulations. Allopregnanolone has already been approved as an injection formulation known as Zulresso, for the treatment of depression. This new company below is directly targeting not just the steroid market but potentially all other drugs currently administered by IV/injection. So, the approach of lymphatic-systemic delivery of molecules via oral route seems to be applicable to just about any molecule. The bad news about all of this is that, now that the oral-lymphatic-systemic route has been validated, I would not be surprised if many other steroids currently available as OTC supplement are soon developed as patented pharmaceutical formulations, and then taken off market by the FDA. Perhaps, this is how the FDA can go around directly banning OTC steroids such as pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, allopregnanolone, etc. Namely, simply wait (and maybe even encourage) for a company to develop a commercial formulation, and once said formulation is approved then all OTC analogs can be declared as unapproved prescription drugs, and withdrawn from the market by order of FDA. Let’s all hope Big Pharma has bigger fish to fry and leaves (at least for now) the OTC steroids alone.

2 links here

“…BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE, link here)–PureTech Health plc, link here (Nasdaq: PRTC, LSE: PRTC) (“PureTech” or the “Company”), a clinical-stage biotherapeutics company dedicated to discovering, developing and commercializing highly differentiated medicines for devastating diseases, today announced the presentation of preclinical proof-of-concept data at the 60th American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) Annual Meeting that support the clinical advancement of LYT-300 (oral allopregnanolone), PureTech’s wholly-owned therapeutic candidate for the potential treatment of neurological and neuropsychological conditions, including depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, fragile X tremor-associated syndrome, essential tremor and epileptic disorders, among others. LYT-300 was recently advanced into a Phase 1 clinical study, link here, which is designed to characterize the safety, tolerability and PK of orally administered LYT-300 in healthy volunteers and is expected to read out in the second half of 2022.”

“…LYT-300 is an oral form of allopregnanolone. Allopregnanolone is a natural neurosteroid that is a positive allosteric modulator of γ-aminobutyric-acid type A (GABAA) receptors, which are known to play a key biological role in depression, epilepsy and other neurological and neuropsychological conditions. Natural allopregnanolone has poor oral bioavailability, thus limiting its development as a therapeutic. An injectable formulation of allopregnanolone is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a 60-hour infusion for the treatment of post-partum depression, though the method of administration has limitations. Synthetic oral analogs of allopregnanolone have had variable clinical success, and comparable activity with natural allopregnanolone remains to be established. Using PureTech’s proprietary Glyph technology platform, LYT-300 is designed to unlock the validated biology of allopregnanolone to potentially offer a new, oral treatment option for a range of conditions where there is significant patient need. The data presented at ACNP showed that systemic exposure of natural allopregnanolone was achieved after oral administration of LYT-300 in multiple preclinical models of increasing complexity. In contrast, systemic levels of allopregnanolone were not observed following oral administration of natural unmodified allopregnanolone. These results demonstrate the potential of the Glyph technology platform to enhance the systemic absorption of natural bioactive molecules and other small molecules with poor oral bioavailability.”

“…Glyph is PureTech’s synthetic lymphatic-targeting chemistry platform which is designed to employ the lymphatic system’s natural lipid absorption and transport process to enable the oral administration of therapeutics. Glyph reversibly links a drug to a dietary fat molecule, creating a novel prodrug. The linked fat molecule re-routes the drug’s normal path to the systemic circulation, bypassing the liver and instead moving from the gut into the lymphatic vessels that normally process dietary fats. PureTech believes this technology has the potential to (1) enable direct modulation of the immune system via drug targets present in mesenteric lymph nodes and (2) provide a broadly applicable means of enhancing the bioavailability of orally administered drugs that would otherwise be reduced by first-pass liver metabolism. PureTech is leveraging validated biology to accelerate the development of a Glyph portfolio, prioritizing highly characterized drugs to enhance with the Glyph technology based on the potential value unlocked in improving their oral bioavailability or lymphatic targeting. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1693.mp3" length="1419524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide + pyruvate may treat glaucoma (human study)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1687</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1687</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Dec 2021 16:32:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1687

Some excellent results from a human clinical trial. Namely, a combination of 3g niacinamide and 3g (calcium) pyruvate daily demonstrated significant therapeutic effect in patients with already established glaucoma. I can’t access to actual study link on JAMA, but I suspect the mechanism of action is, again, improved bioenergetic state with niacinamide raising the NAD/NADH ratio and suppressing excessive lipolysis, while both niacinamide and pyruvate also suppressing excessive fatty acid oxidation (FAO). Pyruvate also has anti-inflammatory effects of its own, as does niacinamide and those effects were probably also involved in the therapeutic mechanism of action. Finally, considering the studies I posted in regards to our product Pyrucet, instead of using 3g calcium pyruvate, one may be able to get away with a much lower dose ethyl pyruvate (found in Pyrucet). Multiple studies have demonstrated ethyl pyruvate can provide the same effects as salts such as calcium pyruvate, but at 100-fold lower doses. So, just to err on the side of caution, that means one may be able to replicate the study dosage of calcium pyruvate by using 50mg-100mg ethyl pyruvate. Now, Pyrucet also contains (ethyl) acetoacetate and that chemical is also capable of raising the NAD/NADH ratio. Thus, by using Pyrucet, one may be able to lower the niacinamide dose as well. In my experience, a dose of 500mg ethyl acetoacetate daily provides similar oxidative boost as a dose of about 2g niacinamide. That means 1g niacinamide and a full dose (24 drops) of Pyrucet may be able to not only replicate the study design but potentially provide additional benefit that the study protocol could not.

3 links here

“…A new study reveals that a combination of nicotinamide and pyruvate significantly improved visual function in the short term. The results confirm previous experimental research suggesting a role for these agents in neuroprotection for people with glaucoma and confirming the need for long-term studies to establish their usefulness in slowing progression. The findings of this study were published in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology on 18th November 2021. This study was conducted by Carlos Gustavo De Moraes and the team with the objective to see if a combination of nicotinamide and pyruvate can enhance retinal ganglion cell activity in people with glaucoma, as evaluated by routine automated perimetry. This was a phase 2 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study where 197 participants were evaluated for eligibility at a single academic institution. 42 patients with treated open-angle glaucoma and moderate visual field loss in at least one eye were chosen and randomized. The study included 32 participants who finished it and were included in the final analysis. The average (standard deviation) age was 64.6 (9.8) years. Twenty-one of the twenty-one participants (66%) were female. Data on participant race and ethnicity were acquired by self-report to verify that the distribution mirrored that seen in clinical practice in the United States, but are not disclosed here to safeguard patient privacy. For this work, patients were recruited in April 2019 and were followed up on until December 2020. The data was examined from January through May of 2021. The results were seen as; patients with manifest open-angle glaucoma treated with a combination of nutritional supplements (nicotinamide and pyruvate) experienced a statistically significant improvement in visual function based on the number of improving test locations on SAP compared to the placebo group in this placebo-controlled clinical trial. Furthermore, the rate of change of the visual field PSD was considerably different, indicating that global perimetric sensitivity has improved. In conclusion, nutritional supplementation with high doses of nicotinamide and pyruvate can increase visual field sensitivity in treated glaucoma patients with mild functional loss in the near term. The development of novel neuroprotective medicines for glaucoma patients may be enabled by the selection of drugs targeting NAD and bioenergetic capability to boost cellular resilience. A clustered visual field testing paradigm will most likely be effective for assessing future neuroprotective drugs.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1687.mp3" length="2045660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) may directly cause cancerization of normal cells</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1684</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1684</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 09 Nov 2021 17:49:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1684

A very interesting new study, which confirms the direct causal role LPS has in chronic inflammatory diseases, and especially in cancer. In addition, the study may answer one of the long-standing critiques the medical establishment has always had against the hypothesis that LPS causes cancer (and other inflammatory diseases). Namely, various luminaries in the medical field have opined that LPS cannot be a direct cause of cancer because people with confirmed (acute?) endotoxemia do not have cancer rates higher than people without endotoxemia. As the study aptly shows, only low-dose LPS promotes cancerization of normal cells because its effects remain largely undetected by the immune system. If the dose/levels of LPS is high enough to qualify for what doctors consider “acute endotoxemia”, the immune system is activated and probably detects and destroys any cells that the LPS managed to turn into a malignant type. Low-dose LPS, on the other hand, achieves the infamous “chronic low-grade inflammation” that does NOT activate fully the immune system, and which goes largely undetected on regular blood tests, yet is now recognized as a causal factor in most chronic diseases (including cancer). It is not that the biomarkers for systemic inflammation such as CRP, ESR, TNF-a, NF-kB, etc are not useful but rather that the levels of most of these biomarkers vary rapidly and only repeated tests over many months and even years can paint a reliable picture of whether a patient is suffering from said low-grade inflammation or not. Needless to say, the medical system is not set up to monitor subtle changes in sensitive biomarkers over months/years. Rather, the model is “fire-and-forget” – i.e. if a (usually) single test of a biomarker “approved” for a specific condition comes back “positive” the patient is officially diagnosed, and if it is negative then the patient is declared “healthy” despite potentially having that chronic low-grade inflammation that causes serious diseases over a period of several months/years. Speaking of biomarkers, one of the more reliable biomarkers of even mild endotoxemia (precisely the cancerization-capable one the study below discusses), is the so-called “good cholesterol” HDL. Most doctors love to blindly repeat the mantra that LDL is “bad” while HDL is “good” and that a low LDL/HDL ratio is protective against heart disease. However, these statements are based entirely on observational data/studies and have never been verified experimentally. In fact, all clinical trials with drugs designed to raise HDL have failed spectacularly, which suggests that messing with HDL is not a good idea.

3 links here

A well-forgotten fact that most doctors learn in medical school is that  the main role of HDL is to carry toxins (and cholesterol) from peripheral tissues back to the liver. One of those toxins is, of course, endo-toxin (LPS)! Thus, is a person has an issue with low-grade endotoxemia their HDL is usually in the upper 25% of the “normal” range, or slightly above. Doctors love such numbers, but they forget that the population where such HDL levels are most commonly observed are chronic alcoholics – hardly the epitome of health. Other studies have also shown HDL levels to be predictive of severity of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, several types of cancer, and (most worryingly) all-cause mortality. As such, monitoring HDL levels may be an easy way to monitor your low-grade inflammation status and since most insurance companies cover such tests and doctors love to prescribe them, maybe in this case we can have our cake and eat it too. Just don’t tell your doctor about the HDL-LPS  connection or you may get a condescending lecture about “reading too much on the Internet”:-)

As far as treatment – it was rather obvious. The study used a potent antibiotic Trichostatin A (TSA), which also happens to work as a histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDAC), link here – an already established therapeutic mechanism for cancer. Btw, niacinamide and butyric acid (from butter) are probably the two most widely accessible HDAC inhibitors. Treatment with TSA blocked the cancerization induced by LPS. The authors plan another study in the near future that will examine if that same antibiotic can reverse already established tumors caused by LPS.

link here

“…Decades ago, microbial infections-induced abscess was found to be associated with prostate carcinogenesis.8, link here,9, link here Later on, bacteria were found to invade the prostate gland/tissue through nastiness sexual intercourse, urinary infection and even leaky gut, etc. to form chronic inflammation, which further induced inflammation-mediated prostatic epithelial malignant transformation and carcinogenesis due to the constant exposure to microbial infection.10, link here,11, link here However, the inside molecular mechanism was not clear. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is the outer membrane major component of Gram-negative bacteria. As the bacterial lipoglycans and an endotoxin, LPS recognizes cell membrane molecules of LBP (LPS-binding protein), CD14 (mCD14, sCD14), MD-2 (myloid differentiation protein-2), TLRs (Toll-like receptors), SR (scavenger receptor), etc. and activates the cell signaling transduction.12–14, link here And LPS was broadly reported to stimulate inflammatory responses to induce epithelial cell to undergo malignant transformation and to promote carcinogenesis both in vitro and in vivo. For instance, LPS was documented to enhance the migration and invasion of prostate cancer (PCa) cells,15–18, link here to promote EMT,15, link here,19, link here to activate EMT-related signaling pathways such as Stat3 pathway.15, link here,20, link here,21, link here Moreover, TSA has been reported to reverse EMT in PCa PC3 cells.22, link here Importantly, LPS was reported to augment cancer stemness in esophageal squamous cell cancer,23, link here squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck24, link here and colorectal cancer.25, link here”

“…Knowing from the acute inflammation, which is a short-term response that usually results in healing, the chronic inflammation is defined as a prolonged, dysregulated and maladaptive response to inflammatory agents or factors. The accumulated evidence also showed that the core of chronic inflammation-induced cell malignant transformation lies in chronic and continuous stimulation with a low-dose of inflammatory agent or factors. Such persistent inflammation is associated with many chronic human conditions and diseases, including cancer development and autoimmune diseases.33, link here,34, link here ”

“…In this study, we attempted to test LPS-induced malignant transformation in prostate epithelial cells by utilizing multiple tools including stem-like tumorosphere forming assay. Indeed, treatment with lower dose of LPS (less than 0.02 μg/mL), rather than with higher dose of LPS, promoted the epithelial cell undergoing migration, invasion with down regulation of CK8/vimentin and CK18/vimentin (Figure 1, link here). Presumably, a lower concentration of LPS induced chronic inflammation and was responsible for the induction of EMT with alteration of biological activity (migration, invasion) and molecular phenotype (CK8/vimentin, CK18/vimentin), but a higher dose of LPS stimulated acute inflammatory reaction. Notably, the lower dose of LPS also increased stem-like tumorosphere formation in multiple prostatic epithelial cell lines (Figure 2A, link here and B, link here) with increase of clonogenic growth in 2D and 3D culture condition (Figure 2C, link here and D, link here). Furthermore, treatment with LPS enriched double positive CD44+CD133+ stem cells in the tumorospheres with augment of stem cell biomarkers expression in PCa DU145 cell (Figure 3, link here). Although the LPS-induced tumorosphere cells were not tested to generate tumor in vivo in current study, this matter of fact was already demonstrated in our previous study and other’s investigation.4, link here,52, link here”

“…Our data demonstrated that the inflammatory agent of bacterial LPS augmented malignant transformation and promoted cancer stemness in PCa epithelial cells. TSA could prevent the LPS-induced malignant transformation by targeting p-Stat3/c-Myc signaling pathway and reducing inflammatory IL-6, IL-8. Thus, appropriate management and treatment of bacterial infection are crucial for preventing the chronic infectious inflammation-induced prostate epithelial malignant transformation and cancer origination.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1684.mp3" length="2132180" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Uncoupling metabolism/OXPHOS may treat inflammatory conditions</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1680</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1680</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 07 Nov 2021 23:50:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1680

In several of his articles and interviews, Peat mentioned that one of the reliable signs/symptoms of low metabolism is the presence of low-grade chronic inflammation. Basically, the cell is stuck into a constant (and futile) repair process as it cannot complete it properly after discovering the injury/infection due to lack of sufficient energy reserves. The same analogy has been used to describe cancer as an “unhealing wound”, and unsurprisingly tumors have very levels of both inflammatory biomarkers as well as expression of the enzymes that drive the inflammatory cascade (e.g. COX, LOX, NF-kB, NO, etc). Along that line of thought, a logical corollary would be that increasing the metabolic rate would be beneficial and help reduce/stop inflammation. Since all metabolic boosters (DNP, thyroid, caffeine, aspirin, etc) uncouple metabolism (i.e. use electrons from food to generate heat instead of ATP) when used in sufficiently high doses, it is also reasonable to suppose that raising metabolism to such levels would be beneficial. That is exactly what the study below demonstrates, and the hypothesis it provides is that the uncoupling is an adaptive mechanism of the organism to reduce the elevated stress (in the form of ROS production) the mitochondria experience during an inflammatory reaction. Now, I think the much more systemic and beneficial approach would be to prevent the inflammatory reaction from starting in the first place by depleting PUFA stores in the organism. However, if that is not practical for various reasons, uncoupling seems like a viable strategy. This mechanism may explain the “mysterious” anti-inflammatory effects of pro-metabolic substances like thyroid, caffeine, salt, various steroids, etc that do not have a known direct effect on key drivers of the inflammatory cascade mentioned above. It also suggests that substances with both a direct anti-inflammatory and uncoupling effects are probably more beneficial than a chemical with only one of those effects. That would explain the remarkable effects of aspirin (COX/LOX inhibitor and a metabolic uncoupler) against virtually all (inflammatory) conditions – acute and chronic alike.

2 links here

“…The scientists were able to demonstrate that the danger signal interleukin 33, which is released from damaged cells, triggers lasting changes to the metabolism of macrophages, so that their waste disposal capacity significantly increases. The sheer quantity of waste produced during the inflammatory reaction places the mitochondria under severe strain, and they produce increased quantities of damaging oxygen radicals as a result. Interleukin 33 regulates the function of the mitochondria by initiating a process known as uncoupling in these cell components and protecting them from overloading. ‘This enables the macrophages to ‘let off steam’ and carry on ingesting waste without interruption despite the heavy strain placed upon them, resolving the inflammation processes as a result,’ explains Maria Faas, lead author of the article recently published in the journal ‘Immunity’.”

“…It may be possible to accelerate and support the resolution of inflammatory processes in the long term by influencing the cell metabolism of the macrophages and deliberately uncoupling their mitochondria – Prof. Gerhard Krönke”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1680.mp3" length="1062020" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin, SSRI drugs may be the cause of IBD, Parkinson’s, diabetes, etc.</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1677</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1677</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 06 Nov 2021 23:03:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1677

A great new study that points the finger straight at serotonin (5-HT). It has been known since the 1940s that not only is 5-HT produced predominantly in the GI tract, but also that elevated serotonin levels are causally linked to a plethora of chronic conditions, especially various inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis (UC), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and even cancer (carcinoid tumors). However, that knowledge was gradually sidetracked starting in the mid 1960s when various government agencies realized that anti-serotonin drugs like LSD were making people “non-compliant” (which was later officially codified as a mental illness called “oppositional-defiant disorder”), while serotonergic drugs made animals (and the unwitting humans on which they were tested) pliable, obedient, and generally dumb, link here. As such, massive amounts of money was poured into serotonergic drug development, culminating with the regulatory approval of the so-called SSRI drugs, which remain to this day the most widely prescribed psychotropic drugs in the “developed” world. However, selling a lot of SSRI drugs is not really compatible with the idea that 5-HT is highly detrimental to health, even if that detrimental 5-HT effect is localized to the GI tract (hint: it is not). Thus, the campaign of censoring, concealing, and even outright fraud in regards to the real effects of serotonin has not only not stopped since it first started in the mid-1960s, but in fact rages with bigger fervor today considering how much more (money) is at stake nowadays. Nonetheless, the old published evidence of the detrimental effects of 5-HT is still available and every once in a while a study comes along that cites that old evidence and adds new one of its own. Namely, the study below demonstrates that 5-HT is a major causal factor in IBD, and perhaps a host of other issues seemingly unrelated to the GI tract. Worse, the study cites direct evidence that the very usage of those SSRI drugs is likely a causal factor in all of these disease (duh!). Those other conditions include Parkinson disease (PD), Alzheimer Disease (AD), Multiple sclerosis (MS), theumatoid arthritis (RA), Lupus, diabetes, osteoporosis, hypogonadism, mental illness, cancer, etc since all of them have been found to be at least partially caused by impaired autophagy, and the study below demonstrates that a major mechanism of 5-HT’s pathological role is by impairing autophagy. Now, since 5-HT production in the GI tract largely depends on the production of endotoxin, the study below once again implicates endotoxin/LPS and ultimately the microbiome, as the top-level cause of virtually all chronic diseases. Thus, while using serotonin antagonists would likely be therapeutic for any of the above mentioned conditions (as the study below actually demonstrated), a more systemic approach would be to simply keep the microbiome in check by eating easily digestible food and ingesting sufficient amount of insoluble fiber daily, or periodically taking antibiotics and/or charcoal, as all of those approaches ultimately result in lower endotoxin/LPS and/or bacterial biomass in the GI tract. Btw, while endotoxin/LPS is the major factor driving 5-HT production in the GI tract, there are other factors that we should keep in mind. For example, mechanical stress such as twisting, tossing, jerking, vibrating, etc of the intestines can also easily trigger 5-HT production. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that most long-distance runners (especially at extreme events like marathons/triathlons) experience bouts of diarrhea (a sign of high 5-HT) during those events. In addition, stress (acute or chronic) leads to reduction of blood flow in the GI tract (in order to direct metabolic resources and oxygen to more vital organs like brain and heart), and reduction of blood flow to the GI tract can also easily trigger the production of 5-HT. Finally, while 90%+ of 5-HT is synthesized in the GI tract, the brain can also synthesize 5-HT (from the amino acid tryptophan). Tryptophan uptake into the brain can be increased by lack of sufficient dietary protein, since a number of the other amino acids compete for uptake into the brain with tryptophan and reduction in the supply of those other amino acids leaves tryptophan brain entry unopposed, ultimately resulting in elevated brain 5-HT synthesis. Finally, even protein intake is sufficient, a rise in lipolysis (due to stress, fasting, low-carb diets, etc) displaces tryptophan from albumin (where it is normally bound) and that increase in unbound tryptophan allows it to enter the brain in higher amounts, which also results in increased 5-HT production. TLDR: To limit the risk of any of these chronic diseases – avoid stress (including its more furtive examples like fasting, low-carbing, protein deficiency, etc), eat easily digestible food, and keep your gut as clean/sterile as possible.

link here

“… In HT-29 cells, 5-HT–induced reduction in the autophagy proteins LC3-II, Beclin-1, and Atg12-5 and elevation of p-mTOR and p62 were completely reversed by the 5-HT7 receptor antagonist, SB269970 (fig. S5, A and B). In addition, in mouse primary IECs, 5-HT–induced alteration in the autophagy proteins LC3-II and p62 was significantly blocked by the 5-HT3 receptor antagonist tropisetron, 5-HT4 receptor antagonist RS39604, and 5-HT7 receptor antagonist SB269970 (fig. S5, C and D). These findings indicate that although 5-HT impairs autophagy via all three 5-HT receptors expressed on IECs, 5-HT7 receptor might be playing a major role. Together, these findings suggest an important role of 5-HT and its receptors in the regulation of autophagy in IECs.”

“…An increase in plasma/serum 5-HT levels is observed in patients with IBD, and the use of selective 5-HT reuptake inhibitors is associated with microscopic colitis (21, link here, 23, link here, 39, link here, 40, link here, 60, link here, 61, link here). In addition, dysfunction in the autophagic process is implicated in the development of intestinal inflammation in patients with IBD”

“…This study is the first to report the important role of the 5-HT–autophagy axis in IECs and its contribution to the regulation of microbiota in relation to susceptibility to intestinal inflammation. Our findings suggest that blocking 5-HT signaling may promote autophagy and alleviate the severity of intestinal inflammation. Given recent reports of impaired autophagy in patients with CD (2, link here, 42, link here) and the established changes in 5-HT production in IBD (20, link here–22, link here), this research sheds light on 5-HT as a novel regulator of autophagy in gut inflammation. These findings may ultimately lead to the discovery of novel therapeutic strategies in intestinal inflammatory conditions such as IBD and other health disorders that exhibit dysregulated autophagy.”

link here

“…A new treatment may be on the horizon for people with a major form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) called Crohn’s disease, after a McMaster University-led study identified serotonin as a possible trigger of flare-ups. Scientists discovered that increased levels of serotonin hormones prevent gut cells from carrying out autophagy, the routine ‘housework’ of the gut cleaning out damaged or malfunctioning cellular components. Researchers gleaned their results by analyzing blood and biopsy samples from two groups totalling 18 people with Crohn’s disease, comparing them to a matching number of people from two healthy control groups. A mouse model of IBD was also used. Senior author Waliul Khan said the resulting autophagy dysfunction has been implicated in triggering IBDs such as Crohn’s disease, as well as other conditions such as diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1677.mp3" length="2455844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D3 anabolic, calcitriol catabolic for muscle/thymus</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1670</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1670</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 21 Oct 2021 17:52:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1670

Several great studies, which will probably do little to calm down the controversy that seems to be brewing lately in the blogosphere over whether supplementing with vitamin D3 is beneficial or not. Namely, the last study below demonstrated direct muscle-anabolic effects from supplementation with vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), in direct opposition to the known catabolic effects of glucocorticoids. The study also cites evidence that the “active” vitamin D form, known as calcitriol (1,25-dihydroxy-D3), actually promotes the synthesis of cortisol, which would make it directly catabolic. So, the studies effectively argue that cholecalciferol (being a (seco)steroid itself) is an anabolic agent similar to the androgenic-anabolic steroids (AAS) widely (ab)used by bodybuilders and athletes for muscle growth and ergogenic effects, since the “anabolic” effects of the latter have been proven to be largely due to their ability to block glucocorticoids at the receptor level. Finally, the study found that vitamin D3 administration partially restored the thymus gland that had atrophied completely as a result of glucocorticoid administration. As far as the regimen, vitamin D3 was given orally at a HED of 85 IU/kg daily, for 4 weeks. And last but not least, vitamin D3 (being a (seco)steroid) is known to synergize with other steroids, especially with other anticatabolic steroids such as progesterone, DHEA, T, DHT, etc. There is Dutch firm that has patented a formulation combining vitamin D3 and nandrolone, claiming that the combination of both steroids is more effective than either one by itself, and that vitamin D3 protects from most of the side effects associated with nandrolone use. The study authors below seem to indirectly agree by suggesting that vitamin D3 be used as an add-on whenever glucocorticoid therapy is considered, as it seems to protect from the muscle/immune side effects of such therapy.

3 links here

“…The exact effect that GCs have on vitamin D3 metabolism remains ambiguous. For instance, one study indicates that 1,25(OH)2D3 (calcitriol) stimulates (in human adipocytes) the expression of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (HSD11B1) [17, link here]. The same research shows that calcitriol may act through a rapid, non-genomic mechanism that also stimulates GC release in adipocytes by increasing Ca2+ through 1,25-D3-membrane-associated rapid-response steroid binding (1,25-D3-MARRS) and, in consequence, increases the availability of GCs. Moreover, there is a report showing that calcitriol increases oxidative stress in cultured murine and human adipocytes [18, link here].”

“…As was expected, cold water immersion treatment caused a significant induction in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activation and a CORT surge into the blood flow. Plasma CORT level significantly increased in both (placebo and supplemented) stressed groups of rats. The levels were 403.54 ± 49.73 in the stressed placebo (STR PL) and 359.67 ± 46.32 ng/mL in the stressed supplemented with vitamin D3 (STR SUP) groups, respectively. There were no differences from the baseline in the control sham-stressed (SHM) rats. In order to assess the correctness of the selection of sham stress conditions, we also determined the CORT level in the control (CON) group, and no changes in that group were observed (Figure 1, link here).”

“…Our findings show that despite the elevated circulating CORT in cold water-immersed rats, no body and muscle weight changes were observed in either the vitamin D3-supplemented or placebo groups. We found that chronic DEX treatment decreased serum 25(OH)D3 concentrations, and cold water immersion had no effect on native vitamin D3 levels. Moreover, body weight and muscle loss occurred concomitantly only with exogenously administered DEX. Our results indicate that DEX-induced muscle loss was abolished in rats supplemented with vitamin D3, but only concerning the SOL muscle. The massive consumption of endogenous vitamin D3 was caused by an attempt to protect against muscle loss in DEX-treated rats. The additional supply of exogenous vitamin D3 in the DEX SUP group supports that this rapid “on-going” utilization of circulating vitamin D3 was accompanied by the protection of muscle atrophy. Our findings show that DEX treatment should be combined with vitamin D3 supplementation since the long-term treatment of DEX leads to a sharp reduction in vitamin D3 levels. Moreover, as a consequence, this may contribute to the adverse effects of DEX treatment alone.”

“…Moreover, body weight and muscle loss occurred concomitantly only with exogenously administered DEX. Our results indicate that DEX-induced muscle loss was abolished in rats supplemented with vitamin D3, but only concerning the SOL muscle. The massive consumption of endogenous vitamin D3 was caused by an attempt to protect against muscle loss in DEX-treated rats. The additional supply of exogenous vitamin D3 in the DEX SUP group supports that this rapid “on-going” utilization of circulating vitamin D3 was accompanied by the protection of muscle atrophy. Our findings show that DEX treatment should be combined with vitamin D3 supplementation since the long-term treatment of DEX leads to a sharp reduction in vitamin D3 levels. Moreover, as a consequence, this may contribute to the adverse effects of DEX treatment alone.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1670.mp3" length="984716" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Restoring oxidative metabolism has curative effects on cancer (leukemia)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1668</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1668</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 21 Oct 2021 17:06:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1668

A great study, which directly demonstrates not only the OXPHOS deficiency characteristic of all “cancer” cells, but also proving that restoration of OXPHOS is highly therapeutic (and likely curative) for leukemia. Just as importantly, the study demonstrates that cancer cells have, in fact, higher respiration rates than normal cells, however the mitochondria of cancer cells consume rather than produce ATP. The source of that ATP is likely the upregulated glycolysis (Warburg Effect), which is another hallmark of all cancer cells. So, in a sense, cancer cells have a very high rate of “futile” metabolism and they consume ATP in order to grow and multiply, instead of contributing to the healthy (OXPHOS vs. glycolysis) process of producing energy. Cancer, it seems, is an energetic parasite of sorts. While the study was done on leukemia cells, the authors discuss that the same metabolic phenotype has been demonstrated in every other type of cancer cell studied, and as such their findings are likely applicable to all other cancers, hematological or solid alike. The study used several chemicals as interventions to restore OXPHOS, and one of them was the naturally occurring chemical curcumin. However, since the OXPHOS deficiency (which is a requirement for cancer cell survival/growth) was found to be due to inhibition of electron transport chain (ETC) Complex II/III/IV (one of more of them) this means that all other remedies that target those portions of the ETC will likely also be therapeutic/curative. Many quinone molecules are known to restore the function of those ETC segments, which provides a plausible explanation of why the tetracycline family of antibiotics (also quinones) has been known to induce immediate remission in virtually all blood cancers studied, link here. If those antibiotics are not available then other quinones such as methylene blue, vitamin K, emodin, CoQ10, etc may also be able to provide the same effects.

Finally, while the study did not look at the cause of reduced ETC/OXPHOS functionality in cancer cells, I’d venture a guess that is due to the increased fatty acid oxidation (FAO) in cancer, which lowers the mitochondrial NAD/NADH ratio, which ultimately inhibits the flow of electrons along the entire ETC. Thus, simply reducing FAO should also have broad therapeutic (and even curative) effects, as has already been demonstrated by other studies posted on my blog in the past.

link here

“…Currently there is great interest in targeting mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) in cancer. However, notwithstanding the targeting of mutant dehydrogenases, nearly all hopeful ‘mito-therapeutics’ cannot discriminate cancerous from non-cancerous OXPHOS and thus suffer from a limited therapeutic index. Using acute myeloid leukemia (AML) as a model, herein, we leveraged an in-house diagnostic biochemical workflow to identify ‘actionable’ bioenergetic vulnerabilities intrinsic to cancerous mitochondria. Consistent with prior reports, AML growth and proliferation was associated with a hyper-metabolic phenotype which included increases in basal and maximal respiration. However, despite having nearly 2-fold more mitochondria per cell, clonally expanding hematopoietic stem cells, leukemic blasts, as well as chemoresistant AML were all consistently hallmarked by intrinsic OXPHOS limitations. Remarkably, by performing experiments across a physiological span of ATP free energy, we provide direct evidence that leukemic mitochondria are particularly poised to consume ATP. Relevant to AML biology, acute restoration of oxidative ATP synthesis proved highly cytotoxic to leukemic blasts, suggesting that active OXPHOS repression supports aggressive disease dissemination in AML. Together, these findings argue against ATP being the primary output of leukemic mitochondria and provide proof-of-principle that restoring, rather than disrupting, OXPHOS may represent an untapped therapeutic avenue for combatting hematological malignancy and chemoresistance.”

“…Increased mitochondrial oxidative metabolism, an established metabolic hallmark of leukemia (Byrd et al., 2013, link here; Kuntz et al., 2017, link here; Lee et al., 2015, link here; Sriskanthadevan et al., 2015, link here; Suganuma et al., 2010, link here), has been historically interpreted to reflect an increased reliance on mitochondrial ATP production. However, fractional OXPHOS kinetics had not been empirically evaluated in leukemia at the onset of this project. Thus, it remained to be determined whether higher basal respiration in leukemia reflected accelerated demand for ATP regeneration or intrinsic OXPHOS insufficiency. Both conditions would be expected to similarly restrict cellular ATP/ADP equilibrium displacement (i.e. ΔGATP charge) and thus could potentially result in identical respiratory profiles in intact cells. For example, a small network of mitochondria each respiring near maximal capacity could in theory produce an identical ‘basal’ oxygen consumption rate to that of a comparatively larger mitochondrial network in which forward respiratory flux was constrained across each mitochondrial unit. Our findings provide definitive support for the latter scenario in AML, as application of our diagnostic biochemical workflow revealed that intrinsic limitations in fractional OXPHOS characterize an expansive mitochondrial network in human leukemia. In fact, a substantial portion of the AML mitochondrial network is incapable of contributing to oxidative ATP production, as leukemic mitochondria primarily consume, rather than produce, ATP across a physiological ΔGATP span. Intrinsic OXPHOS limitations in AML appear to derive from a unique biochemical mechanism whereby extra-mitochondrial ATP gains access to the matrix space, where it then directly inhibits electron transport flux in a ΔGATP-dependent manner. Such inhibition is independent of ATP synthase (i.e. CV) and presumably localized to the respiratory complexes downstream of the ubiquinone pool (i.e. CIII, Cyt C, CIV). Given that evidence for this effect was also observed in bone marrow-derived CD34+ stem cells, allosteric and/or post-translation regulation of ETS flux is likely a primary mode of OXPHOS regulation in hematopoietic progenitors that is maintained during leukemogenesis. Importantly, reversal of this effect was strongly cytotoxic to AML, indicating that direct OXPHOS regulation by ΔGATP confers a survival advantage during hematopoietic clonal cell expansion. Although additional work will be required to fully elucidate the mechanism(s) by which ATP uptake directly inhibits OXPHOS flux in AML, our preliminary findings leveraging gamitrinib and curcumin provide proof-of-principle that such regulation can indeed be targeted therapeutically.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1668.mp3" length="1226060" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA are remarkably estrogenic, toxic to the ovaries</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1665</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1665</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2021 17:58:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1665

One of the few studies that looks into the issue of whether the xenoestrogenic burden we are exposed to 24×7 in Western countries is due entirely to synthetic, industrial chemicals or if there is more to the story. Well, there is definitely more to the story, and the additional evidence we have from the study below is that PUFA is now officially a xenoestrogen, at least as potent as the better known ones such as phthalates, bisphenols, parabens, SSRI drugs, link here, etc. And just as all those xenoestrogens, regular consumptions of PUFA from vegetable oils like canola, sunflower, rapeseed, grapeseed, etc can have a detrimental effect on the female reproductive tract. One could make the argument that PUFA is even more pernicious than the synthetic xenoestrogens due to its widespread consumption and presence in virtually all commercial food/beverage products (as well as its official status as “essential fats”), while the synthetic xenoestrogens are at least officially recognized to be harmful. So, the latter have some (albeit, woefully inadequate) legal framework for regulation/control and are consciously avoided by many consumers, while the former is left untouched by regulators and mass-consumed by people. It seems, it may be time for EPA/FDA/USDA to look into this matter and reconsider just what exactly constitutes “safe food” and an “endocrine disruptor”. Just because something like PUFA is edible, does not mean it is safe or beneficial.

link here

“…Initial evidence on the endocrine-disrupting effects of genetically modified (GM) food motivated us to evaluate the reproductive toxicity of GM and non-GM plant-derived edible oils in female Wistar rats. Sunflower (non-GM), maize (GM), and canola (GM) oils as popular resource dietary oils were purchased from the local market. After tracking the target sequence of CaMV 35S and Nos terminator in all selected batch numbers of edible oils by real-time PCR, oil samples were daily gavaged to 10 weeks Wistar rats for 28 days. Clinical factors, serum lipid levels, sex hormones, and gonadotropins as well as the histopathological changes were compared among groups by statistical analysis. Besides normal lipid profile, gonadotropin levels, and LH/FSH ratio at day 28, serum estradiol levels were raised in both GM (canola oil (p=0.04)) and non-GM (sunflower oil (p=0.008)) groups. In necropsy studies, ovarian atrophies were detected in canola (p<0.001) and sunflower groups (p<0.043) although uterine remained unchanged in all groups. In histopathological evaluations, all sections showed severe congestion and multiple follicular cysts in the sunflower oil group. Simple and secondary cysts in the maize group were the other type of ovarian toxicity in this short period of time. Remarkable estrogenic properties of GM and non-GM plant-derived edible oils with signs of ovarian atrophy, congestion, and cysts may contribute to phthalate or other xenoestrogenic contaminations; therefore, analytical studies of samples and further human populations studies are highly recommended.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1665.mp3" length="730508" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High (extracellular) serotonin causes Alzheimer’s and depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1662</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1662</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2021 17:34:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1662

The utter corruption of “journalism” is once again on full display in MSM. The actual scientific study is very clear in its statements/conclusions that a decrease in the levels of serotonin transporter (5-HTT) led to accumulation of beta-amyloid and onset of depression. Lower levels of 5-HTT – the protein that deactivates serotonin – means higher extracellular serotonin levels. The most popular class of “antidepressant” drugs – the SSRI – inhibit precisely the activity of 5-HTT and thus, according to the article findings, taking an SSRI may cause Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and/or depression. Yet, the popular press article twists this 180 degrees and shamelessly reports that “low serotonin” is the cause of these conditions, when the study claims the exact opposite. Call me extreme, but I think level of journalistic malevolence should be punishable by jail as it has the potential to poison the minds (and ruin the health) of millions of people around the world.

2 links here

“…“What’s unique about PET scans is that they enable us to look at chemicals localized in the living brain in relation to Aβ proteins associated with memory loss,” says Gwenn Smith, Ph.D., link here, Richman Professor of Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “This was fundamental for our work because we were able to test hypotheses from past research on mice with dementia for our imaging study in the human brain.””

“…In a series of tests using radiotracers — short-acting radioactive molecules that “light up” in a PET scan — the researchers looked at both sets of participants for the amounts of Aβ and serotonin transporter (5-HTT), a protein that regulates the amount of serotonin in nerve cells.  The data collected from the PET scans were then analyzed using a mathematical formula that identified a pattern showing how Aβ accumulation relates to 5-HTT. The pattern, Smith says, was significantly higher in the late-life depression group, indicating that a decrease in 5-HTT is linked to higher levels of Aβ in different areas of the brain — and in turn, to depression. The researchers also examined the relationship between the mathematically derived pattern and the severity of depression. For all study participants, the more that the decreased serotonin/increased Aβ pattern was seen, the greater were the depressive symptoms. Lower serotonin levels, say the researchers, were previously linked to depression. Therefore, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors — antidepressants that increase the amount of the brain chemical to a more normal level — have been prescribed for treatment of major depressive disorders, anxiety disorders and other psychological conditions. “Our work reinforces the role of serotonin in late-life depression and the proteins associated with memory loss,” says Smith.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1662.mp3" length="536924" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Omega-3 increase risk of atrial fibrillation (afib)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1660</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1660</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2021 17:15:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1660

It looks like Big Pharma is just living the dream. Considering doctors left and right are recommending massive doses of omega-3 to everybody and their cat, Big Pharma selling drugs that treat afib seems like the perfect conspiracy of “sell them the poison and then the remedy”. Hopefully, the study below should give serious pause to doctors recommending and patient considering taking omega-3 for heart health. It would be great if after this study its authors conduct another one with omega-6, but I suspect that would be too much for most scientific journals to swallow. After all, what would we do without those “essential fatty acids” if a study finds they are dangerous for our health. Well, stay tuned for another post on that:-)

2 links here

“…However, other clinical trials conducted outside of Cedars-Sinai pointed to an elevated risk of developing atrial fibrillation in patients treated with omega-3 fatty acids, causing confusion among clinicians and patients alike. To further explore the potential reasons for differences between the results of these studies, Albert and team performed a meta-analysis, which combines the results of multiple scientific studies. This analytical comparison between studies suggested that the risk of developing atrial fibrillation is dependent on the dose of omega-3 fatty acids.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1660.mp3" length="376628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cartilage/bone health depends on oxidative metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1658</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1658</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2021 17:00:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1658

A good study that demonstrates yet another “structural” aspect of health – the strength and growth or our cartilage/bones – is heavily dependent on proper mitochondrial function. As such, even minor disruptions of oxidative metabolism can lead to long-term deformations in bone/cartilage, which is often corroborated by the facial deformities and other bone pathologies in adults who have been abused as children. Furthermore, the raging epidemic of bone diseases in most “developed” countries should probably be viewed as a good “biomarker” of just how poor our environmental conditions and metabolisms are. At least, we now know what the root cause of the problem is and how it can be addressed, without the need for expensive medical “treatments” that do little more than enrich the medical industry and destroy us.

link here

Cartilage Matrix Integrity Rests on Respiring Mitochondria, link here

“…As a model system, the scientists used mutant mice with selective genetic inactivation of the mitochondrial respiratory chain in cartilage tissue. The researchers reported that in one-month-old mutant mice a central area of the articular cartilage at the head of the femur bone in the upper thigh expanded abnormally showing disorganized cartilage cells (chondrocytes) and excessive extracellular matrix. Through the scRNA-Seq analysis, the researchers also uncovered reduced mitochondrial respiratory chain genes in a group of chondrocytes and a unique regulation of genes that synthesized the extracellular matrix in cartilage cells that do not face the hip joint (non-articular chondrocytes). These changes in gene expression are linked to changes in the composition, structure, and stiffness of the extracellular matrix in mature cartilage tissue, particularly a change in the amount of collagen in the cartilage tissue and the degree to which the elastic collagen fibers are crosslinked to form a stable mesh. The team showed that loss of mitochondrial respiration led to disorganization, expansion, and stiffening of the cartilage matrix due to impaired metabolic signaling and consequent changes in the composition and mechanical properties of the cartilage. “These results demonstrated that mitochondrial respiratory chain dysfunction is a key factor that can promote extracellular matrix integrity and mechanostability in cartilage and presumably also in many other tissues,” the authors concluded.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1658.mp3" length="431060" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low testosterone (T) and/or high estrogen/T ratio predict COVID-19 mortality</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1655</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1655</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2021 16:44:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1655

So, there we have it – yet another shameless lie exposed. After claiming completely evidence-free since the beginning of 2020 that high androgen levels are detrimental to males when it comes to COVID-19, mainstream medicine now gets to see its lies/incompetence exposed. Those shameless lies become even more egregious considering the abominable clinical trials with administration of estrogen as COVID-19 treatment/prevention for males badly backfired and quickly folded without any discussion about the failure in MSM. This lying narrative is an extension of the old, and utterly baseless/corrupt, theory that androgens are a bane for males and cause issues like balding, prostate cancer, obesity, mental disease, violent behavior, etc. Of course, none of that is true, and in fact the exact opposite seems to be the case, as I have posted about many times in the past. The findings of the study below provide one possible explanation of why progesterone is protective (i.e. its estrogen antagonism and aromatase inhibition) in COVID-19, and further suggests that non-aromatizable androgens like DHT may also be therapeutic for COVID-19 (and likely other viral conditions as well).

2 links here

“…RESULTS: Patients were divided into survivors (n=20) and non-survivors (n=39). As compared to survivors, non-survivors showed significantly higher median neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) values, D-dimer and procalcitonin (PCT) levels, along with significantly lower median 25(OH)D levels and total testosterone levels. Non-survivors exhibited significantly higher median values of E2/T ratio (a marker of aromatase activity). Spearman’s correlation analysis revealed that total testosterone levels were significantly and inversely correlated with NLR, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), interleukin-6, D-dimer and PCT. Conversely, E2/T ratio values were significantly and positively correlated with the aforementioned markers and with white blood cell (WBC) count. In a multivariate analysis performed by a logistic regression model after adjusting for major confounders (age, body mass index, hypertension and cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus and malignancy), total testosterone levels were significantly and inversely associated with risk of COVID-19-related in-hospital mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Low total testosterone levels and elevated E2/T ratio values at admission are associated with hyperinflammatory state in hospitalized men with COVID-19. Low total testosterone levels at admission represent an independent risk factor for in-hospital mortality in such patients. Therefore, total testosterone and E2/T ratio may serve as prognostic markers of disease severity in this population.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1655.mp3" length="624620" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Infrared/red light applied to the skull can treat Alzheimer’s/dementia…</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1653</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1653</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2021 16:18:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1653

…and improve cognition even in healthy people! The mechanism of action is the familiar effects of red/infrared light on stimulating mitochondrial function, and especially complex IV, while also decreasing chronic inflammation. The regimen was light exposure for 6min, twice a day, for 4 weeks. Even a single 100W red bulb should be enough to replicate the design of this study, but despite the study finding the treatment had no side effects, I’d make sure to be well-fed as overexposure to such light can lead to a drop in glycogen/glucose levels and a stress reaction.

2 links here

“…The research saw 14 healthy people, aged 45 and over, from the UK, receive six minutes of PBM-T twice daily at a wavelength of 1068 nanometres over a period of four weeks. This was carried out alongside a control group of 13 members using a dummy PBM-T helmet. Scientists conducted a series of memory, verbal, and motor skills tests on the participants in both groups before and after the treatment period to see what improvements in function might have been achieved. The researchers found a signiﬁcant improvement in performance in motor function (finger tapping), memory performance (mathematical processing, a type of working memory), delayed memory and brain processing speed, in healthy people who had received PBM-T compared to those in the control placebo group. Participants reported no adverse effects caused by the treatment.”

“…It works by delivering infrared light from 14 fan cooled LED light arrays deep into the brain, focused by the skull, at a wavelength of between 1,060 to 1,080 nanometres delivering 1,368J of energy to the cranium during each six-minute treatment cycle. This stimulates the mitochondria that generate most of the chemical energy needed to power cells’ biochemical reactions. This in turn leads to a rise in the level of an organic compound called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), markedly decreased in dementia patients, that provides the energy to drive processes in living cells and help nerve cells to repair.”

“…The latest findings also follow recently published, separate pilot Alzheimer’s disease clinical studies involving Drs Chazot and Dougal. Published in the journals, Cureus and Aging and Disease, and led by Dr Jason Huang (Texas A&M University), those findings suggested that PBM-T1068 – also known as Transcranial near-infrared (tNIR) treatment – had a similar profound and rapid positive effect on the condition for both men and women with mild to moderate dementia.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1653.mp3" length="316676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B1 and/or biotin may treat Huntington Disease (HD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1649</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1649</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2021 16:04:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1649

As some of my own studies with cancer recently demonstrated, vitamins are no laughing matter when it comes to their ability to treat very serious conditions. This seems to be especially true in regards to the B vitamins, which are required co-factors for most of the metabolic reactions inside our organisms. The study below adds more to that line of evidence by demonstrating that conditions such as HD may be little more than organ-specific symptoms of intracellular deficiency of one or more of the B vitamins. I emphasized the word “intracellular”, because doctors have tested blood levels of those vitamins in patients with various conditions (including HD) and the levels have invariable came back normal. However, as is often the case (and mainstream medicine refuses to admit), normal blood levels of a substance does not imply normal intracellular levels as well. Aware of this discrepancy, the study authors checked thiamine (vitamin B1) and biotin (vitamin B7) levels in brains of animals with the equivalent of HD, as well as in autopsy samples of people who died with HD, and confirmed intracellular deficiency in both of these vitamins. So, the authors surmised that giving pharmacological doses of those vitamins may be able to reverse that intracellular deficiency, and indeed that’s exactly what happened, with the end result being great amelioration of HD symptoms. I can’t get access to the full study so I can get the actual doses, but human studies with Crohn’s disease(CD) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) have also confirmed intracellular deficiency of those vitamins and has successfully treated the deficiencies (as well as the actual pathology, at least in regards to MS, link here) with about 600mg thiamine (for CD) and 300mg biotin (for MS) daily. The mechanism of action for the therapeutic benefit of those vitamins in both conditions has already been confirmed to be improvement of oxidative metabolism, with consequent increase in ATP and CO2 synthesis.

2 links here

“…In a study, link here published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers discover people with Huntington’s disease don’t take up the nutrient thiamine from their diet into their brain cells. At the same time, this issue may present a new treatment strategy for a disease with no known treatment. Typically, people get thiamine, link here by eating proteins like pork and fish, or legumes, link here like peas or soybeans. “Blood levels of thiamine are normal in people with Huntington’s,” José Lucas, link here tells Inverse. Lucas is a professor at Centro de Biología Molecular-Severo Ochoa in Spain and an author of the new study. “Therefore, eating a diet rich in thiamine and biotin will not solve the problem of inefficient uptake by brain cells,” he adds. So Lucas and his team posed another question: Could supplementing meals with the nutrients thiamine and biotin — vitamin B1 and vitamin B7— make a difference to the disease’s core symptoms? By testing this hypothesis in mice, they found the vitamin supplements, link here improved both motor symptoms and slow brain-cell damage, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1649.mp3" length="949268" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Alzheimer’s patients have lower metabolic rate and higher fatty acid oxidation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1647</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1647</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 30 Sep 2021 17:58:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1647

Just a quick post in regards to a study that found the drug donepezil – commonly used to “treat” Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) – may improve mitochondrial function in muscles. While the findings of the study in regards to donepezil are debatable and not particularly interesting, buried inside the actual study is the finding that AD patients have much lower basal metabolic rate, significantly upregulated fatty acid oxidation (FAO), and decreased carbohydrate oxidation. This finding may explain the successful treatment of AD in animal models using chemicals that decrease fat supply to the cells (e.g. lipolysis) and/or inhibit FAO directly. Aspirin, niacinamide, progesterone, pregnenolone, etc are some of those interventions and they have all shown curative effects on animal models of AD.

3 links here

“…We notably found that both unmedicated MCI and MCI+med subjects exhibited lower fasting RER values during quiet rest prior to the GXT. Both groups of MCI subjects appear to be more primed to use fatty acid substrates compared to cognitively healthy elderly adults, who exhibit an RER with a greater reliance on carbohydrate use. Somewhat surprisingly, we did not observe any differences in the plasma lipid profile or fasting markers of insulin resistance between groups. This may be due to a variety of factors, including the early disease stage, the high degree of physical activity in all the subjects, the cross-sectional nature of the study, or other factors known to affect lipid homeostasis, such as genetics. Nevertheless, this indicates that the mitochondrial bioenergetic differences can exist outside of or even precede whole-body insulin resistance and/or dyslipidemia.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1647.mp3" length="416900" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Maternal SSRI/SNRI use leads to offspring addiction/withdrawal</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1645</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1645</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 30 Sep 2021 17:41:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1645

After being told for decades that SSRI/SNRI drugs are safe for usage during pregnancy, now the truth finally starts to come out. Well, technically it has been out for a long time considering the skyrocketing autism rates and the strong causal link between serotonin and autism. However, up until now there had been no official studies demonstrating negative health effects on offspring due to maternal use of antidepressants. The study also indirectly confirms another topic that mainstream doctors avoid at all cost – the remarkable similarity between the SSRI withdrawal symptoms experienced by those babies and the withdrawal symptoms experienced by other “addicts”. In other words, the study confirms that most of what we call “withdrawal” symptoms (see list below provided by the actual article) are actually just symptoms of elevated serotonin. As such, it also suggests a rather simple treatment for most such withdrawals – i.e. the administration of anti-serotonin chemicals (e.g. cyproheptadine, famotidine, Benadryl, etc). Also, since it is the withdrawal symptoms that are responsible for most “relapses” in addiction, if those anti-serotonin chemicals are used for a sufficiently long period, they should be able to end the actual “addiction” as there would be no “withdrawal” when the “addict” stops taking their favorite fix. Conversely, the study raises the interesting question of whether SSRI chemicals can act as the so-called “gateway drugs” – i.e. the withdrawal they induce may be able to push people towards using other drugs that alleviate the withdrawal symptoms. The fact that many patients using SSRI drugs also abuse alcohol, opioids, weed, etc strongly suggests that SSRI (and serotonin) are indeed contributing to the “addiction” epidemic facing “developed” countries.

2 links here

“…Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a form of antidepressant that works by increasing serotonin by limiting its ability to be reabsorbed. Alternatively, serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) prevent the reabsorption of both serotonin and norepinephrine. In conclusion, upon considering the thirteen separate studies, the researchers found reasonable evidence to suggest that newborns can experience withdrawal upon prenatal exposure to SSRIs and SNRIs. According to Mad in America, link here, the researchers observed the following symptoms of withdrawal in the babies:

Respiratory Distress, link here

Hypotonia: decreased muscle tone

Tachypnea: rapid, shallow breathing

Tachycardia: unusually rapid heart rate

Tremors: involuntary quivering movement

Hypoglycemia: deficiency of glucose in the bloodstream

Hypertonia: unusually high level of muscle tone or tension

One of the studies the researchers considered in their meta-analysis found that 30% of infants exposed to antidepressants in pregnancy, link here suffered from neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), an umbrella term for a variety of side effects that occur when a baby goes through withdrawal following prenatal exposure to drugs, whether prescription or otherwise…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1645.mp3" length="890876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin A may treat anosmia (loss of smell) due to COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1643</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1643</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 30 Sep 2021 17:05:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1643

Once again, evidence emerges that widely available, dirt-cheap interventions may be able to treat a condition for which mainstream medicine claims there is no available cure. Namely, one of the most persistent and “baffling” symptoms associated with current or past COVID-19 experience is anosmia – the partial or full loss of smell. Anosmia is actually a very common symptom of any viral infection, but the general public only became aware of this issue during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been known since the 1960s that elevated serotonin is involved in the loss of smell and that anti-serotonin agents are therapeutic. It is now known that serotonin is heavily involved in the pathology of COVID-19 (and likely all other viral infections), yet doctors are afraid to discuss serotonin’s role or offer anti-serotonin therapies in fear of “killing the hen that lays golden eggs” – i.e. the multi-billion dollar SSRI drug industry. Well, the studies below demonstrate that the loss of smell may be reversible by a simple regimen of putting 10,000 IU vitamin A daily in the nose, for 8 weeks. Considering most vitamin A products on the market are in the form of esters such as acetate or palmitate, the palmitate ester may be the way to go due to the acetate being potentially irritating to the nasal mucosa. If the vitamin A has been dissolved in tocopherols, the effect may be even stronger since anosmia is now known to involve lipid peroxidation and vitamin E can help with that, while also protecting vitamin A from peroxidation as the latter is just as vulnerable to this process as PUFA.

3 links here

“…Vitamin A nose drops will be given to volunteer patients as part of a 12-week trial, link here by the University of East Anglia (UEA), with the results compared to a group receiving a placebo of inactive drops. Previous research from Germany has “shown the potential benefit” of vitamin A in treating smell loss, UEA said, and the trial is designed to “explore how this treatment works to help repair tissues in the nose damaged by viruses.”

“…Philpott said around 1 in 10 Covid-19 patients who lost their sense of smell had not fully recovered four weeks after infection and said a “key problem” for patients and doctors is “the lack of proven effective treatments.” Philpott said the German study found that people treated with vitamin A “improved twice as much” as those who didn’t receive the treatment.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1643.mp3" length="785876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Exercise causes (and worsens) arterial calcification</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1640</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1640</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 24 Sep 2021 17:13:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1640

A great new study sent to me by one of my blog’s readers. It will more than likely cause a lot of controversy, despite its findings having a very simple explanation. Namely, chronic exercise increases baseline cortisol and over time, cortisol (acting through the aldosterone/mineralocorticoid receptor) causes vascular calcification. High aldosterone, caused by chronic salt restriction can also do the same.

link here

Chronic exercise also increases prolactin and serotonin, which increase PTH and this also drives bone resorption and subsequently deposition of this calcium from bones into soft tissue. Btw, as the study below suggests, the severity of calcification seems to be dependent on both the intensity of exercise and its duration. So, what’s the solution? Well, first of all make sure you don’t overexert yourself on a long-term basis, and if it is short-term exercise it is not of an intensity/pace that leaves your breathless. It doesn’t even have to be exercise. Any time of chronic stress resulting in elevation of the stress hormones will have the same effect as long-term exercise discussed in the study below. Another thing that can be done as prevention is using substances that block the negative effects of cortisol. Pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, T/DHT and vitamin D are some of the steroids with directly anti-cortisol effects. Aspirin, emodin, vitamin A, sugar, saturated fat, salt, etc are some of the dietary measures that may achieve the same if one does not wish to use steroids.

link here

“…Results We analysed 25 485 participants with at least two CAC score measurements. The proportions of participants who were inactive, moderately active and HEPA were 46.8%, 38.0% and 15.2%, respectively. The estimated adjusted average baseline CAC scores (95% confidence intervals) in participants who were inactive, moderately active and HEPA were 9.45 (8.76, 10.14), 10.20 (9.40, 11.00) and 12.04 (10.81, 13.26). Compared with participants who were inactive, the estimated adjusted 5-year average increases in CAC in moderately active and HEPA participants were 3.20 (0.72, 5.69) and 8.16 (4.80, 11.53). Higher physical activity was association with faster progression of CAC scores both in participants with CAC=0 at baseline and in those with prevalent CAC. Conclusion We found a positive, graded association between physical activity and the prevalence and the progression of CAC, regardless of baseline CAC scores.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1640.mp3" length="739916" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA required for periodontal disease, aspirin may help</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1636</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1636</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 24 Sep 2021 16:43:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1636

It is common knowledge even among mainstream dentists that periodontal disease is caused by bacteria accumulating under the gums, which over time leads to chronic inflammation and thus destruction of both gum tissue and the alveolar/jaw bone underneath the gums. Another “new” discover is that microbiome overgrowth (and thus endotoxin/LPS production) is also involved and that bacteria can “translocate” from the gut into the gums, thus mimicking in the oral cavity the inflammatory conditions the same bacteria causes in the gut. However, the exact mechanism of this inflammatory cascade remains unknown and this lack of “smoking gun” has allowed the corrupt public health officials to advise against the administration of antibiotics for treating periodontal disease. Well, hopefully the study below will finally provide that missing smoking gun. It identifies the highly inflammatory PUFA metabolites known as prostaglandins as the direct cause of bone resorption in the jaw, and thus suggests that either dietary PUFA restriction or using simple prostaglandin synthesis inhibitors such as aspirin may be viable methods to both prevent and treat periodontal disease. These interventions avoid the touchy (and overblown) issue of antibiotic resistance, which is another major trick mainstream medicine and the pharma industry use to avoid allowing cheap, safe antibiotics as curative treatment of this condition. Interestingly enough, the study also dispels the myth that only Gram-negative bacteria are involved in periodontal disease. While such bacteria are the main sources of endotoxin, the study found that Gram-positive bacteria can also cause periodontal disease (without the involvement of endotoxin/LPS) simply by increasing inflammation through prostaglandins. This suggests that PUFA is a more fundamental cause of periodontal disease than bacteria and endotoxin are, which suggests that a combination of antibiotics and aspirin may be even more effective than either treatment by itself.

2 links here

“…In a previous study, the researchers injected lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Gram-negative bacteria into mice engineered without the gene that produces molecules that gather at sites of damaged tissue. Without these molecules, called prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), the LPS failed to induce bone loss. This suggested, Inada said, that PGE2 is required for periodontitis to progress. “LPS is considered to be a dominant pathogen causing inflammatory bone resorption in periodontitis,” Inada said. “On the other hand, Gram-positive bacteria have been known to contribute to the inflammation of the periodontal gums in the initial phases of periodontitis; however, there was little evidence to show that these pathogens contribute to the induction of inflammatory bone resorption in the late phase of periodontitis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1636.mp3" length="952028" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Simple saline solution stops SARS-CoV-2…and maybe all viruses?</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1634</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1634</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Sep 2021 15:41:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1634

More news adding to the evidence that COVID-19 and its associated virus are little more than a media circus, at least when it comes to the gauging the pandemic’s true danger to our health. We already have at least two amazing studies showing vitamins D/E can not only stop/treat COVID-19, but are also at least 2 orders of magnitude more effective than the flagship pharma drug (e.g. remdesivir) pushed by mainstream medicine. Now, we have a study proposing an even simpler prevention/treatment method that can be made/applied in just about any country, regardless of how poor and remote it is. Namely, a simple solution of salt in water, such that the concentration of salt is about 1.5% (e.g. commonly known as “hypertonic”) in the solution, had a 100% effectiveness of stopping SARS-CoV-2 replication. Oh, and no side effects either! This effectiveness actually exceeds the results (90% inhibition) demonstrated by the study on low-dose vitamin E mentioned above. As the study says, this simple hypertonic saline solution can be administered as a nasal spray as a prophylactic method, or for treating early stages of the infection. For already established or more severe cases affecting the lungs, a nebulizer may have to be used so that the salt vapors can reach the lower regions of the respiratory tract. The mechanism of action for the anti-viral effects of the saline is remarkably simple – i.e. the extra salt from the solution accumulates into the cells, which forces them to expend ATP in order to re-balance the electrolyte gradient, and this limits the amount of ATP available for viral replication. Since virtually all viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, depend for their survival on being able to hijack ATP for their own replication this study suggests hypertonic saline may be a universally applicable antiviral treatment. As such, ending deadly flu and common cold pandemics worldwide may be as simple as increasing dietary salt intake in the general population, which (unlike a spray or nebulizer) ensures the antirival effects of salt are not limited to specific organs, but are systemic. No need for financially ruinous multi-billion dollar vaccination campaigns, and the long-term public health fallout from the side effects that all vaccines have. There are already studies with both animals and humans demonstrating increased dietary salt intake improves immune system status, and may be effective against even cancer. Thus, the “superhero salt” hypothesis is quite plausible. Who’d have thought that the cure for some of the most lethal viral conditions may already be in your kitchen cabinet:-) I guess the ancients knew what they were doing when they treated salt as a commodity more valuable than gold and built empires and routes that spanned the world so that they can trade in this gift from the Gods…

2 links here

“…Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil have shown that a hypertonic saline solution inhibits replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and have elucidated the biochemical mechanism involved. An article reporting the research is published in ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science. The study was performed in the laboratory using human epithelial lung cells infected with the virus…”It’s very simple and cheap. It’s already used prophylactically against other respiratory diseases, link here, and it could minimize the severity of COVID-19 by reducing viral load. It could be added to safety protocols without replacing the use of face coverings, social distancing and vaccination,” Guzzo said.”

“…By comparing different concentrations of the product, the researchers found that a 1.5% NaCl solution completely inhibited viral replication in Vero cells, link here. In human epithelial lung cells, a 1.1% solution was sufficient to achieve 88% inhibition. Vero cells are derived from kidney epithelial cells extracted from an African green monkey, and widely used as a model for studying SARS-CoV-2. Hypertonic saline is already adopted prophylactically to manage cases of influenza, bronchiolitis, rhinitis, sinusitis, and other respiratory disorders. A spray is sufficient for the upper airways, while a nebulizer is needed to reach the lungs. These interventions can minimize the symptoms of such diseases, but the mechanisms underlying their effects are poorly understood.”

“…To grasp the mechanism involved, it is useful to bear in mind that viruses use elements of the host cell such as proteins and energy sources to replicate their genetic material and invade other cells and organs. “We discovered that NaCl doesn’t interfere with interaction between the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and the ACE-2 receptor used by the virus to invade cells, but the saline does affect the post-infection viral cycle,” Guzzo said. In an earlier article, published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, link here, Guzzo and colleagues showed how interaction between the spike protein and ACE-2 receptor survived different concentrations of NaCl. “The virus probably evolves so as to compensate for fluctuations in ionic strength and maintain an effective medium for cell invasion,” she said. When NaCl molecules enter a cell, the membrane surrounding the cytoplasm is polarized owing to an increase in sodium ions (Na+). As a result of this energy imbalance, a large amount of the cell’s potassium (K+) is ejected to restore a balance of charges in the membrane (this mechanism is known as the sodium-potassium pump). Saturation due to the sodium-potassium pump makes the cell expend ATP (adenosine triphosphate), one of the main sources of energy for cellular processes.Consumption of ATP for cellular depolarization prevents the virus from using it to replicate. “Cells have to get rid of sodium via the sodium-potassium pump, and this uses up their energy store, so there’s no ATP left for viral replication,” Ulrich explained. The study also showed that the salt does not affect mitochondrial activity. Mitochondria are dynamic organelles involved in cellular respiration and ATP creation, as well as other metabolic processes. “At these concentrations, the salt doesn’t damage the cell. We observed that mitochondria remained healthy throughout the process,” Guzzo said. In the study, the researchers suggest that the use of hypertonic saline could be tested in two ways. One is a nasal spray for prophylaxis of the airways, the main gateway for SARS-CoV-2 to enter the organism. “This type of spray can be found in any pharmacy and could be used prophylactically by front-line health workers or other people who are highly exposed to the virus. If its efficacy is confirmed in clinical trials, it could reduce viral replication in the nose and throat,” Guzzo said. The other strategy they propose is nebulizing the saline into the lungs. In this case, the right concentration of NaCl is essential, and the efficacy of the method can be assessed only in clinical trials involving COVID-19 patients. It is worth recalling that hypertonic saline nebulization is already used to treat children with bronchiolitis, for example. In the case of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the most common cause of bronchiolitis, hypertonic saline is known to reduce infection and inflammation in cultured human respiratory epithelial cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1634.mp3" length="1342268" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lowering/blocking serotonin is therapeutic for cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1632</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1632</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Sep 2021 16:53:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1632

One of the few studies that is brave enough to point the finger directly at serotonin as a tumor-promoter. Mainstream medicine has acknowledged that serotonin has a growth-promoting effects, but only in one specific tumor – carcinoid syndrome – and refuses to admit that the same growth-promoting mechanisms may manifest in other tumor types as well. For example, it is common for patients with other GI cancers (such as pancreatic and colon) to have facial flush and/or diarrhea. These are telltale signs of elevated serotonin, but even if elevated serotonin is confirmed on blood tests in such patients, doctors claim this is a result of the diseases and not a cause. Well, the study below begs to disagree and demonstrated that blocking the 5-HT2 family of receptors or lowering serotonin synthesis by inhibiting the enzyme TPH is highly therapeutic for both pancreatic and colon cancer. It appears the main mechanism through which serotonin enhances tumor growth is by suppressing the immune system function, and especially the tumor-killing T-cells.

link here

“…Platelet-derived peripheral serotonin has pleiotropic effects on coagulation, metabolism, tissue regeneration, and cancer growth; however, the effect of serotonin on the tumor microenvironment remains understudied. Peripheral serotonin–deficient (Tph1−/−) mice displayed reduced growth of subcutaneous and orthotopically injected syngeneic murine pancreatic and colorectal cancers with enhanced accumulation of functional CD8+ T cells compared to control C57BL/6 mice, resulting in extended overall survival. Subcutaneous and orthotopic syngeneic tumors from Tph1−/− mice expressed less programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1), suggesting serotonin-mediated regulation. Serotonin enhanced expression of PD-L1 on mouse and human cancer cells in vitro via serotonylation, which is the formation of covalent bonds between glutamine residues and serotonin, resulting in activation of small G proteins. Serotonin concentrations in metastases of patients with abdominal tumors negatively correlated to the number of CD8+ tumor-infiltrating T cells. Depletion of serotonin cargo or inhibition of serotonin release from thrombocytes decreased growth of syngeneic pancreatic and colorectal tumors in wild-type mice, increased CD8+ T cell influx, and decreased PD-L1 expression. Pharmacological serotonin depletion with oral fluoxetine or intraperitoneal injection of the TPH1 inhibitor telotristat augmented the effects of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) checkpoint blockade and triggered long-term tumor control in mice subcutaneously inoculated with syngeneic colorectal and pancreatic tumors. Overall, peripheral serotonin weakens effector functions of CD8+ T cells within tumors. Clinically approved serotonin targeting agents alone or in combination with PD-1 blockade provided long-term control of established tumors in murine models, warranting further investigation of the clinical translatability of these findings.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1632.mp3" length="514940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SSRI drugs decrease androgens / progestogens, increase estrogens</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1627</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1627</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Sep 2021 15:34:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1627

As hard as it is to believe, this is the actual title of the study – i.e. SSRI drugs are bonafide endocrine disruptors. As it turns out, all of the six most-prescribed SSRI drugs the study looked at behaved not only as inhibitors of gonadal androgen synthesis (e.g. testosterone, DHT), but also adrenal androgens (DHEA) and progestogens (progesterone). Due to these effects, all six SSRI drugs would be expected to cause infertility and this has apparently already been demonstrated in human studies (cited inside the article). Perhaps the most troubling finding was that all six SSRI drugs were moderate to potent inducers of aromatase, and as such are likely indirectly carcinogenic, for which the study also cites corroborating evidence (at least in regards to breast cancer). When we add to these dismal findings the known/accepted findings that SSRI drugs work no better than placebo when it comes to depression, it starts to look like the pharma companies selling those drugs, and the doctors pushing them on patients, may be liable for serious malpractice. Namely, these drugs not only do not improve the patient’s primary condition (depression) but ruin the patient’s systemic health and virtually ensure serious/lethal problems down the road including cancer, autoimmune condition, neurodegenerative diseases, reproductive failure, premature aging, CVD, etc. Since almost a half of the US population in reproductive age takes at least one such drug the study findings may elucidate the “mysterious” massive drop in fertility and increase in chronic diseases seen in both sexes since the SSRI drugs first hit the market.

link here

“…Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) used as first line of treatment in major depressive disorder (MDD) are known to exert negative effects on the endocrine system and fertility. The aim of the present study was to investigate the possible endocrine disrupting effect of six SSRIs, fluoxetine, paroxetine, citalopram and its active enantiomer escitalopram, sertraline and fluvoxamine using the OECD standardized and validated human in vitro adrenocortical H295R cell assay. All the major steroids, including progestagens, corticosteroids, androgens and estrogens were analysed using a fully validated LC-MS/MS method. All 6 SSRIs were found to exert endocrine disrupting effects on steroid hormone synthesis at concentrations just around Cmax. Although the mechanisms of disruption were all different, they all resulted in decreased testosterone levels, some due to effects on CYP17, some earlier in the pathway. Furthermore, all SSRIs relatively increased the estrogen/androgen ratio, indicating stimulating effects on the aromatase. Our study demonstrates the potential of SSRIs to interfere with steroid production in the H295R cells around Cmax levels and indicates that these drugs should be investigated further to determine any hazards for the users.”

“…The overall findings from the experiments are summed up in Table 2 along with the main suggested mechanisms of the six SSRIs. Based on the present studies, fluoxetine appears to be a CYP19 stimulator, but may also inhibit important processes prior to steroid formation such as the StAR and the CYP11A1. Paroxetine appears to be mainly a CYP17-lyase inhibitor, citalopram and escitalopram are general CYP stimulators, sertraline a CYP19 stimulator and fluvoxamine a CYP17-hydroxylase inhibitor. All 6 SSRIs are to some extent aromatase stimulators.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1627.mp3" length="811484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>For most individuals, the risks of keto diets outweigh the benefits</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1625</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1625</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 13 Sep 2021 15:21:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1625

The title is the actual conclusion of the study, in the authors’ own words. Among the diseases they claim keto diets cause are colon cancer, CVD, kidney disease, liver disease, Alzheimer Disease (AD) and…diabetes! If there is one disease keto diets are supposed to help with preventing and even treating, that is diabetes. The very design of the keto diet is such that it avoids the “evil” carbs, yet apparently it is the keto diet that causes that disease.

2 links here

“…Very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets have been long been used to reduce seizure frequency and more recently have been promoted for a variety of health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, and liver disease. Ketogenic diets may provide short-term improvement and aid in symptom management for some chronic diseases. Such diets affect diet quality, typically increasing intake of foods linked to chronic disease risk and decreasing intake of foods found to be protective in epidemiological studies. This review examines the effects of ketogenic diets on common chronic diseases, as well as their impact on diet quality and possible risks associated with their use. Given often-temporary improvements, unfavorable effects on dietary intake, and inadequate data demonstrating long-term safety, for most individuals, the risks of ketogenic diets may outweigh the benefits.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1625.mp3" length="262484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamins D and E – the Taliban in the COVID-19 war</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1622</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1622</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Sep 2021 14:20:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1622

Despite the massive censorship all over the Internet, there have been plenty of articles and studies on vitamin D and its role in COVID-19. Several studies reported that at least 9 in 10 of hospitalized patients have severe vitamin D deficiency. In addition, a few small studies demonstrated that high-dose vitamin D may ameliorate COVID-19 symptoms. However, since no known mechanism for vitamin D effects on COVID-19 has been proposed, mainstream medicine has refused to consider using vitamin D as part of an officially recognized and widely-used COVID-19 prevention-treatment protocol. Now, the study below may change that status quo. It discovered a specific mechanism of action through which vitamin D and other structurally related chemicals are capable of directly inhibiting the replication of SARS-CoV-2 once it has infected a person. More importantly, this mechanism is generic enough to bestow effectiveness of vitamin D not only against the original SARS-CoV-2 but also against all of its future mutations! Someone, please remind me – why do we need vaccines then?? Well, “for the glory of the Empire, sire!”, as that famous movie (Gladiator) once said, and the Gladiator was spot on. As it seems, life imitates art, once again. The more time passes, the clearer it becomes that regardless of how one feels about the risks/severity of COVID-19 presented by public health authorities, its prevention and treatment is apparently dead simple and dirt cheap. More importantly, some of these treatments, such as vitamin E, vastly outperform even the gold standards developed by Big Pharma (e.g. remdesivir).

Vitamin E 100-fold more potent than remdesivir for SARS-CoV-2 / coronaviruses, link here

Who would have thought that a virus so deadly that you need a test to find out if you have it, would have a prevention/cure so simple and cheap (e.g. even sunlight works, as the study says), it would make Big Pharma look retarded. From now on, I am going to refer to the vitamins E/D as the Taliban in the COVID-19 war:-) After all, we are being bombarded 24×7 with scary news about how we are in an existential war with this virus, so I think my analogy is rather apt. Apparently, even Dr. Fauci is on board with this:-)

2 links here

“…Promising new data from a recent study indicates that active forms of vitamin D can inhibit the replication and expansion of COVID-19. The study’s findings also suggest lumisterol, produced by a chemical reaction in the body using sunlight, works to block COVID-19. Vitamin D and lumisterol metabolites were able to block two specific enzymes (RdRP and Mrpo) required for the SARS-CoV-2 life cycle, according to the team of researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham; the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Basic Sciences in New Delhi, India; and the University of Western Australia. The study is published in the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism and has been chosen as an APSselect, link here article for September. Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, suggested in September 2020 that vitamin D could help fight COVID-19. He also estimated that 40% of the U.S. population is vitamin D deficient. Scientists in this new study were able to prove that novel and physiologically relevant vitamin D and lumisterol derivatives “act on multiple targets, suggesting that they may be effective against original and mutant strains of SARS-CoV-2.” Other benefits of vitamin D cited by researchers include its low cost and easy access. Andrzej T. Slominski, MD, PhD, a senior author of the study, described lumisterol as a natural product. Once vitamin D is consumed, it is metabolized into various active forms by enzymes called cytochrome oxidases or CYP enzymes. Researchers on this study say their findings help explain a possible mechanism for why low vitamin D levels seem to promote COVID-19 infection and poor outcome in certain individuals. This correlates to other studies showing a relationship between vitamin D deficiency and poor disease outcomes. More studies and clinical trials are planned to test the efficacy of vitamin D and lumisterol as an antiviral therapeutic for COVID-19 in animals and humans.”

link here

“…Using the nano-luciferase as a measure of virus replication we identified 35 drugs that reduced replication in Vero cells and human hepatocytes when treated prior to SARS-CoV-2 infection and found amodiaquine, atovaquone, bedaquiline, ebastine, LY2835219, manidipine, panobinostat, and vitamin D3 to be effective in slowing SARS-CoV-2 replication in human cells when used to treat infected cells. In conclusion, our study has identified strong candidates for drug repurposing, which could prove powerful additions to the treatment of COVID.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1622.mp3" length="1121396" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) causes rheumatoid arthritis…and COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1619</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1619</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Sep 2021 15:50:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1619

A great new study, which is perhaps the first to directly point the finger at endotoxin as perhaps the main cause of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). RA is an “autoimmune” condition and not only shares symptoms with other similar conditions such as Lupus, psoriasis, MS, etc, but now all of them are considered officially to be part of the same “spectrum” – i.e. same underlying disease but manifesting in different organs/tissues. As such, the study below suggests that endotoxin is a major cause of all those other conditions as well. Btw, the fact that an infectious entity (or its remnants, such as endotoxin) are involved in most autoimmune conditions should have become obvious to medicine long ago due to the ongoing febrile episodes in such patients (e.g. the infamous “rheumatic fever”). Yet, that connection has never been explored in-depth AFAIK. Be that as it may, the study below not only found the cause but managed to actually cure the RA by restoring compromised gut lining and thus reducing blood levels of endotoxin. By extension, the same approach/treatment can be used to cure all those other conditions too that are part of the same “spectrum”. To repair the gut barrier, the study used a drug called Larazotide (AT-1001), link here. However, as the the study itself states, since the bacterial overgrowth and subsequent endotoxin absorption is the direct cause of RA, the same results can be achieved by reducing bacterial overgrowth and/or blocking the endotoxin receptor (TLR4). Antibiotics for microbiome reduction do not really need introduction here, and as far as TLR4 antagonists go some of the most widely available ones include naltrexone, trycyclics such as Benadryl and cyproheptadine, or supplements such as vitamin D, emodin, glycine, etc. Interestingly enough, the article claims that endotoxin is apparently a well-known cause of neurological diseases and even COVID-19. While I have seen the studies on the former and have heard even mainstream media mention it, I have yet to hear a doctor or public health official (yes, Fauci, I am talking about you) mention the role of endotoxin in COVID-19. Perhaps, if that role had been recognized earlier, we would not have had so many COVID-19 patients iatrogenically terminated in hospitals due to wrong treatments that are not only untherapeutic but also misguided due to medicine’s refusal to recognize endotoxin’s role in many so-called “infectious” conditions. You know, if the public realizes even pandemics like the “Black Death” were endotoxin-driven, link here, they may start questioning the entire infectious medicine narrative, and the need for any of its tools such as vaccines, anti-virals, intubations, etc. And, of course, we can’t have that since “health services” are ~20% of GDP in most “developed” countries, and if the public stops consuming those “services” the suicide rate of doctors would rise even more…though it won’t matter, as it is already the highest of any profession, link here.

2 links here

“…University College London conducted a comprehensive study on bacterial imbalances present in the gut. Based on the study, microbiomes could be among the largest factor responsible for rheumatoid arthritis, link here development. The research also found that the severity of arthritis and even joint inflammation are linked with the infliction of the gut lining in a rheumatoid condition.”

“…Although the bacteria in the gut is usually tagged as the culprit behind other neurological diseases and even COVID-19, the scientific community still does not have any strong evidence on the influence of the microbiome on arthritis pathology.”

“…Division of Medicine and Division of Infection and Immunity and Transplantation’s Centre for Rheumatology expert Claudia Mauri said in a report by New Atlas, link here that their team’s goal is to find if the intestinal lining damage during the surge of arthritis development is actually initiated by the abnormal growth of white blood cells that causes inflammation. The experiment conducted for the research was made possible with the help of mouse models. The group bred with genetic predisposition of their gut microbiome was found to have severe arthritis developed in their bodies. The other group was induced with arthritis collagen to develop signs of joint inflammation disease eventually. Once their gut permeability was treated, the subjects had a lower inflammation and swelling. The research also included several human participants that are also patients of rheumatoid arthritis. According to the study, these patients also suffer from a specific high blood level condition called lipopolysaccharide or LPS. In some cases, LPS is present along with LPS binding protein (LBP) and the intestinal fatty acid-binding protein. Further studies will be conducted regarding the exact reason behind the correlation between rheumatoid arthritis and gut microbiomes. In the meantime, Mauri said that the initial findings gathered in the new study can be a reference to develop new drugs and treatments to target the gut and improve gut permeability.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1619.mp3" length="1453580" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Protein and saturated fats beneficial, PUFA detrimental for thyroid</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1617</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1617</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 06 Sep 2021 16:56:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1617

A good new study, which again confirms that saturated fat is anything but detrimental to our health. Most of the studies until now demonstrating improved thyroid function from saturated fat used coconut oil, and that has led to attacks from mainstream medicine that this pro-thyroid and healthy effect is unique to the coconut oil due to its contents of only medium chain saturated fats. Longer chain saturated fat, doctors say, are still bad for us and should be restricted. Well, the study below will hopefully pour cold water on that lie as the saturated fat intake measured in the study included mostly dairy, butter and fats from ruminant animals, and those fat sources contain predominantly long chain saturated fats such as palmitic and stearic acids. The finding about protein helping thyroid function is expected, not only because the amino acid tyrosine is needed to synthesize thyroid hormones, but also because protein intake tends to reduce serotonin synthesis in the brain. Serotonin is perhaps the main brake on metabolism, and has a direct suppressive effect on the thyroid gland. As such, anything reducing serotonin and/or blocking its effects is likely to raise the metabolic rate. Strangely enough, the study claims that foods high in sugar had negative effect on thyroid function, but the results of the study say the exact opposite – i.e. higher sugar intake was associated with lower TSH levels (which means better thyroid function and systemic health). Finally, the study corroborates the negative effects of PUFA on thyroid by demonstrating that regularly consuming fatty fish was associated with much higher TSH levels compared to controls.

2 links here

“…According to data from a cross-sectional study published in the journal Nutrition, eating meals high in protein and saturated fatty acids often is linked to higher thyroid function. This study found that eating meals with a high glycemic index on a regular basis has a detrimental impact on thyroid function. Simultaneously, ‘healthy foods’ with high protein content and foods high in saturated fatty acids, which are not restricted in today’s diet, were found to have beneficial effects on thyroid function.The goal of this ground-breaking study was to look at the effects of a wide range of dietary variables on plasma levels of free triiodothyronine, free thyroxine, and thyroid-stimulating hormone. A total of 4,585 people from three Croatian regions were recruited to take part in the study (60.1 percent women; mean age, 53.5 years). Blood samples were obtained from all of the subjects to determine plasma-free T3, free T4, and TSH levels. The researchers looked into the links between free T3, free T4, and TSH in each dietary category. The study highlights: • In comparison to men, women exhibited greater TSH levels and lower free T3 and T4 levels. • Non-smokers and ex-smokers have lower TSH levels than smokers. • In the research group, 4,217 people had free T3 levels that were within normal limits. Adults who ate more bacon and sausages had greater free T3 levels, but eating more mushrooms and pickled vegetables had a negative correlation with free T3. • 4,124 people had free T4 levels that were within normal limits. Pork, cattle, and eggs, as well as mushrooms and canned or pickled vegetables, butter, and animal fat, were linked to decreased free T4 levels. • Free T4 was positively linked with eating a lot of fish, white bread instead of whole-grain bread, fruit juices, Cedevita vitamin drinks, non-alcoholic beverages, bacon and sausages, powdered soups, and vegetable juice. • There were 3,866 individuals in the research group who had normal TSH levels. Consuming a lot of fruit juices, Cedevita vitamin drinks, and non-alcoholic beverages was linked to lower plasma TSH levels, but eating a lot of venison or fish was linked to higher plasma TSH levels. ‘This is the first study to analyze the influence of a comprehensive set of dietary factors on plasma free triiodothyronine, free thyroxine, and thyroid-stimulating hormone levels, the study showed frequent consumption of foods with a high glycemic index showed a positive association with fT3 and fT4 levels and a negative association with TSH levels…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1617.mp3" length="777812" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Achilles heel of cancer discovered – its lack of CO2</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1615</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1615</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 29 Aug 2021 19:32:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1615

Several years ago I posted about a study demonstrating that an Achilles heel of cancer had been found – i.e. its addiction to fat (not glucose, as doctors and media continue to mindlessly parrot).

link here

As my readers know from my other posts and various podcasts, excessive fatty acid oxidation (FAO) translates into lower CO2 levels due to the fact that FAO produces less CO2 per unit of substrate (fat or glucose) oxidized, while also producing a lot more reactive oxygen species (ROS). The lower production of CO2 results in relative hypoxia inside the tumor compared to the rest of the organism and that further accelerates tumor growth. Since CO2 and lactic acid are inversely correlated, lower CO2 means higher lactate levels inside the tumor and that means more angiogenesis (lactate is the most potent endogenous stimulator of VEGF) and more tumor growth. A new study below now demonstrates that the low CO2 levels are not just a minor side effect of tumor metabolism (i.e. excessive FAO) but in fact another crucial “defense” mechanism that tumor cells use to grow and metastasize. Namely, the study found that tumors overexpress the enzyme carbonic anhydrase (specifically isoenzyme CAIX), and that inhibiting CAIX fully stopped cancer growth. In fact, the results from the animal experiments were so promising that there is an ongoing Phase I human trial for patients with pancreatic cancer using the same patented CAIX inhibitor (SLC-0111) the study below discusses. So, it does look like combining FAO inhibitors and CA inhibitors may be viable interventions for cancer that may have truly curative effects. Interestingly enough, the study also found that increased expression of CAIX prevented a type of apoptosis process in cancer cells known as ferroptosis. This is an apoptosis is driven by iron accumulation inside the cells, and it may explain the presence of so-called “anemia of chronic disease” (actually a condition of intracellular iron overload) in most cancer patients. It looks like the high ferritin levels (and thus high intracellular levels of iron) seen in this condition are an adaptive response by weakened/sick cells through which they attempt to commit apoptosis and prevent further damage to the organism. However, the lack of CO2 through the overexpression of CAIX prevents that process from achieving its goal, which not only allows the tumor to survive but also further weakens and sickens the patient due to the chronically elevated intracellular levels of iron.

A quick note on the specific drug used in the study. It is a new, patented chemical targeting specifically the CAIX isoenzyme. As such, its long term safety is unknown and the cost of using it will probably be prohibitive for most people unless it is prescribed by a doctor. In addition, there is plenty of evidence that tumors overexpress multiple CA isoenzymes, which means using a drug selective for just isoenzyme IX is likely to be less therapeutic compared to a drug that targets most/all of them. One such broad-spectrum CA inhibitor is acetazolamide, and it is a drug with decades of usage behind its back, lacking major side effects. So, the available evidence suggests that using acetazolamide would be preferable to the new, patented drug used in the study below. Moreover, recent studies have discovered that vitamin B1 (thiamine) is also a powerful CA inhibitor, on multiple CA isoenzymes, with overall effects and potency very similar to acetazolamide.

link here

Thus, using thiamine in comparable daily doses (1,000mg-1,500mg) to acetazolamide should be able to achieve the same effects with even less risk of side effects. Since thiamine also activaves PDH while also inhibiting PDK, further cements its potential as a therapy for cancer. As far as the FAO aspect of cancer metabolism, niacinamide and aspirin are perhaps the best-known and least risky options to limit both availability (through lipolysis) and oxidation of lipids by the “cancer” cells. Multiple animal studies have demonstrated robust anti-cancer effects of niacinamide in HED of 3,000mg-5,000mg daily and aspirin in the same dose range. Since vitamin B1 (thiamine) and niacinamide have synergistic effects, it seems reasonable to propose vitamin B1+B3 combination (in the dose ranges discussed above) as a generic/systemic intervention for cancer regardless of its type/location, and adding aspirin to that combination (even at lower doses than discussed above) would likely potentiate the anti-cancer effects of the vitamin combination even more.

5 links here

“…Cancer’s ‘Achilles’ Heel’ has been identified by scientists. The protein fuels tumours when oxygen levels are low, say scientists. It enables them to adapt and survive – and become more aggressive. The enzyme called CAIX (Carbonic Anhydrase IX) helps diseased cells spread to other organs. It could hold the key to new treatments for the deadliest forms including breast, pancreatic, lungs, bowel and prostate cancers. Study senior author Professor Shoukat Dedhar, of the University of British Columbia in Canada, said: “Cancer cells depend on the CAIX enzyme to survive, which ultimately makes it their ‘Achilles’ heel.’ “By inhibiting its activity, we can effectively stop the cells from growing.”

“…As the tumours advance, the blood vessels are unable to provide enough to every part. Over time, the low-oxygen environment leads to a buildup of acid inside the cells. They overcome the stress by unleashing proteins, or enzymes, that neutralise the acidic conditions. The process is behind spread, or metastasis, to other organs – which is what kills patients. Finding a way to prevent it is the ‘Holy Grail’ of cancer research – turning it into a chronic, rather than fatal, illness. One of the enzymes is CAIX. The Canadian team previously identified a unique compound known as SLC-0111 as a powerful inhibitor. It is currently being tested in clinical trials. Experiments in mice with breast, pancreatic and brain cancers showed its effectiveness. It suppressed tumour growth and spread although there were side effects, with other cellular properties diminished. Now the researchers have demonstrated other weaknesses in CAIX using a technique called genome-wide synthetic lethal screening. The powerful tool systematically deletes one gene at a time to determine if a cancer cell can be killed by eliminating the enzyme. Surprisingly, results pointed to an unexpected role of proteins and processes that control a form of cell death called ferroptosis. It happens when iron builds up and weakens a tumour’s metabolism and cell membranes. Dr Dedhar added: “We now know the CAIX enzyme blocks cancer cells from dying as a result of ferroptosis. “Combining inhibitors of CAIX, including SLC-0111, with compounds known to bring about ferroptosis results in catastrophic cell death and debilitates tumour growth.” A large international effort is currently underway to identify drugs that induce ferroptosis. The study is a major step forward in this quest.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1615.mp3" length="2249300" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin puts the brakes on libido, by lowering dopamine</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1612</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1612</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Aug 2021 16:55:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1612

Nothing really surprising, as far as Peatarians are concerned, in the findings of this study. I am only posting it here as it is one of the few that officially acknowledge that serotonergic drugs cause sexual dysfunction – i.e. something mainstream medicine has vehemently denied for decades. As such, it corroborates the approach of using anti-serotonin drugs such as cyproheptadine or low-dose (25mg-50mg daily) Benadryl, as well as dopamine agonists of the ergot class for the treatment of so-called PSSD – the persistent sexual dysfunction induced by serotonergic drugs. The study also explains why/how chronic stress inhibits libido – i.e. stress is known to powerfully elevate serotonin and lower dopamine. And last but not least, since these neurotransmitters play a key role in reproductive health as well, the study below demonstrates how/why stress causes infertility (in both sexes). The good news is that the therapies I mentioned above are applicable for both the lack of libido and infertility, whether caused by stress or by pharmacological poisons such as SSRI drugs.

link here

Sex Drive Linked to Medication-Sensitive Neuronal Signaling Mechanism, link here

“…The researchers propose that elevated serotonin may act as a brake on dopamine signaling in mating-related circuits, thereby decreasing libido—a side effect that nearly 75% of patients taking SSRIs experience. The scientists suggest that future therapies could target the newly identified dopamine-releasing neurons that regulate the drive to mate to alleviate the problem, thereby eliminating a major reason patients discontinue taking antidepressant medications.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1612.mp3" length="586580" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D, reducing fat oxidation may treat lung fibrosis, COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1609</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1609</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Aug 2021 16:43:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1609

Pulmonary fibrosis, regardless of etiology, is considered invariably a progressive and fatal disease. Despite this official story, behind the scenes several pharma companies are running clinical trials with several anti-fibrotic agents and the results so-far demonstrate that the condition is both preventable and treatable. The most advanced trial so far is the one run by Pfizer with the serotonin antagonist terguride (dihydro-lisuride), which is expected to result in approval of that drug some time in 2022. The drug seems to be effective not just for lung fibrosis, but also for heart, kidney, liver and even pancreatic fibrosis. So, there good evidence that serotonin is a major cause of fibrotic diseases. Now, the study below demonstrates that lung fibrosis is yet another condition that can be triggered by metabolic dysfunction implicated in “traditional” metabolic diseases such as diabetes. Namely, the study found that increased fatty acid oxidation (FAO) is responsible for blocking apoptosis, increasing inflammation and thus enabling fibrosis. As such, blocking fatty acid oxidation seems like a viable pathway for both preventing and treating fibrotic conditions. Interestingly enough, the second study below demonstrates that vitamin D may also serve as prevention/treatment, though the mechanism described in the study is inhibition of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), which is apparently overactive in fibrotic conditions and corroborated by the fact that aldosterone antagonists such as spironolactone are common treatments for heart fibrosis. As such, the second study also suggests that other aldosterone antagonists such as pregnenolone and progesterone should also demonstrate therapeutic effects for fibrotic conditions  in many organs/tissues, including the lungs. The second study also corroborates other recent posts on this blog discussing vitamin D ability to block/treat fibrotic changes in organs such as the liver, and suggests that vitamin D has a generic anti-fibrotic effect. One other possible mechanism for the therapeutic effects of vitamin D may be through its ability to inhibit the enzyme TPH (which synthesizes serotonin), making it similar in effects to anti-serotonin agents such as terguride/lisuride. Be that as it may, the studies below demonstrate both that yet another lethal, “incurable” disease is anything but, while also demonstrating that cheap and widely available OTC supplements such as vitamin D, pregnenolone/progesterone, and niacinamide/aspirin (which reduce FAO and lipolysis) may be its viable treatments, and accessible to all. And last but not least, the second study demonstrates that the effects of vitamin D on the RAAS system are virtually identical to the drug losartan. This corroborates the findings that vitamin D levels are crucial determinant of COVID-19 vulnerability, as well as the hypothesis that (similar to losartan) vitamin D may be a viable prevention/treatment for COVID-19.

link here

“…The deletion of Bcl-2 in macrophages protected mice from developing pulmonary fibrosis. Moreover, mice had resolution when Bcl-2 was deleted or was inhibited with ABT-199 after fibrosis was established. These observations implicate an interplay between macrophage fatty acid β-oxidation, apoptosis resistance, and dysregulated fibrotic remodeling.”

link here

“…In this study, mice were given bleomycin for 12 days to establish lung fibrosis and treated daily until 21 days with ABT-199, also known as Venetoclax, an approved leukaemia medication. The researchers found increased mitochondrial B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) in the mitochondria of lung macrophages from bleomycin mice, as well as an increase in two proteins: mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) and carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1a (Cpt1a), an enzyme in mitochondria that is the rate-limiting step for the fatty acid beta-oxidation energy pathway. MCU was previously known to regulate metabolic reprogramming of lung macrophages to fatty acid oxidation and acts in the progression of lung fibrosis and apoptosis resistance.”

“…Taken together, these observations suggest that fatty acid oxidation provokes apoptosis resistance through the stabilisation of Bcl-2 in the mitochondria by binding to Cpt1a,” said Professor Brent Carter, who led the study. “Moreover, these data demonstrate that monocyte-derived macrophages are required for fibrosis progression and they suggest a novel therapeutic target to prevent progressive aberrant fibrotic remodelling.””

2 links here

Vitamin D Eases Lung Fibrosis by Blocking RAS Pathway, Study Finds, link here

“…IPF, a form of pulmonary fibrosis, link here with no clear cause, is characterized by excessive wound healing that leads to fibrosis and increased stiffness of lung tissue, making it difficult for patients to breathe. A growing number of studies have described several non-classic functions of the vitamin D hormone, besides its well-known role in regulating calcium balance and bone health. The sunshine vitamin, as it is often called, is known to also have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-fibrotic effects. Previous research associated vitamin D deficiency, link here with a higher risk of death among IPF patients, and showed that oral vitamin D supplementation can reduce lung fibrosis in a mouse model. However, the mechanisms by which vitamin D exerts its anti-fibrotic effects remain largely unknown. A team of researchers in the U.S. and China found strong evidence indicating that vitamin D’s anti-fibrotic action involves RAS, a signaling pathway mainly known for its role in regulating blood pressure, fluid and salt balance in the body. RAS is also involved in fibrosis. Notably, angiotensin II (Ang II), the main effector molecule of RAS signaling, “is well known to have potent pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic activities, which are mediated by angiotensin receptor type 1 (AT1R),” the researchers wrote. The team had previously shown, link here that mice genetically modified to have chronic RAS activation spontaneously developed progressive lung fibrosis. In the current study, the researchers used a mouse model of induced IPF to assess the effects of vitamin D on lung fibrosis. They found that treatment with paricalcitol, an active form of vitamin D with low calcium-related activity, prevented disease-associated weight loss and significantly lessened lung fibrosis and the levels of fibrotic markers — in some cases, reaching levels seen in healthy mice. Vitamin D’s protective role was also supported by mice that, after being fed a low-vitamin D diet and developing vitamin D deficiency, had more severe weight loss and lung scarring than those ingesting a sufficient amount of the vitamin. The vitamin D-deficient diet by itself was also found to promote lung fibrosis in healthy mice. Further analyses revealed a significant increase in the levels of RAS-related molecules, such as renin, Ang II, and AT1R, in the lungs of the IPF mouse model relative to healthy mice, suggesting a strong fibrosis-associated RAS activation. Notably, this activation was significantly blocked in paricalcitol-treated mice. Treatment with losartan — a medication for high blood pressure that blocks AT1R — also reduced weight loss, substantially lessened lung fibrosis, and significantly blocked TGF-beta 1 induction in the lungs of vitamin D-deficient, IPF-induced mice. TGF-beta 1 is a known driver of pulmonary fibrosis. The active form of vitamin D hormone was also found to markedly suppress the pro-fibrotic effects of TGF-beta 1 and Ang II in lab-grown mouse lung cells. These findings “strongly suggest that vitamin D mitigates lung fibrosis by blocking the activation of the lung RAS in this mouse model of IPF,” the researchers wrote. “The therapeutic implication of this conclusion is that low calcemic vitamin D analogs [similar molecules] and anti-RAS [therapies] may be useful for the management of human IPF,” the team wrote.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1609.mp3" length="1499084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>How lipolysis may damage organs such as the heart</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1606</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1606</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Aug 2021 16:04:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1606

It is well-known in endocrinology, and especially among doctors specializing in diabetes, that excessive lipolysis is highly detrimental not only for the overall progression of metabolic diseases like diabetes, but also for most of the organs of the patient. Lipolysis is known to be elevated in most obese people, and especially in people with diabetes. One of the most common morbidities observed in diabetes patients is cardiovascular disease. In fact, most type II diabetic patients eventually succumb to either kidney failure or heart attacks. However, despite the well-established connection between diabetes and heart disease medicine still does not have an explanation as to how diabetes causes heart disease. The study below demonstrates that lipolysis may play a key role in damaging the heart, not only by supplying the highly inflammatory PUFA, but also by increasing production of ROS. While the study only looked at ROS production in the heart, the mechanism is generic enough to apply to all other organs and as such explain their damage in diabetic patients as well. Namely, during lipolysis (which is elevated during stress) fat cells shed their contents into the bloodstream. The contents includes not only fatty acids (predominantly PUFA) but also mitochondrial fragments from the fat cells. Fat cells are, after all, structurally similar to other cells (except red blood cells, which do not have mitochondria) and as such contain mitochondria. Multiple studies have demonstrated that the presence of mitochondrial debris in the bloodstream is interpreted as a stress signal by the organism, with the subsequent activation of the stress system (HPA axis), suppression of gonadal/thyroid axis, and activation of various defense systems such as the heat-shock proteins, serotonin, estrogen, etc at the expense of overall systemic health of the organism. The study below confirms that the presence of fat cell mitochondria in the blood stream triggers the activation of such stress systems in the heart, with the resulting increase in ROS production. This ROS burst “primes” the heart to be prepared in the case of a future ischemic event. However, that “preparedness” for stress comes at the cost of long-term damage, usually in the form of fibrosis. So, while the study suggests chronically elevated lipolysis may help the heart survive a single ischemic event, it essentially guarantees long-term (usually terminal) pathology such as congestive heart failure. As such, measures to keep excessive lipolysis at bay may prove viable treatment options not only for diabetes but also for the damage diabetes causes to peripheral organs. This may explain why studies on long-term usage of anti-lipolytic interventions such as aspirin and niacinamide demonstrate strikingly lower rates of chronic heart and kidney disease. Btw, the study induced stress in fat cells by increasing their levels of ferritin, which corroborates the pathological role iron excess plays in many chronic diseases. I also hope that the study will raise alarm in regards to the recommendations by doctors for exercise regimens that increase lipolysis with the goal of “burning more fat”. In addition to the evidence for increased fatty acid oxidation being a root cause of many/most chronic diseases, this study demonstrates that even the the initial step of this process (e.g. lipolysis) is detrimental in and of itself due to the “stress-signal” cascade it triggers, independently of increasing fatty acid oxidation.

2 links here

“…If fat cells become metabolically stressed and dysfunctional, they start churning out chunks of mitochondria that serve as warning signals to the heart of potential catastrophe, suggest the authors of a paper published in Cell Metabolism, link here today (August 20). The mitochondrial signals cause a burst of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in heart cells that seems to prime and protect the organ against future insult. “It’s a fascinating observation, says Scott Summers, a diabetes and metabolism researcher at the University of Utah who was not involved with the project. “I think we’re all going to be watching to see if this [mitochondrial shuttling] ends up being a major regulatory pathway by which organs change their behavior.””

“…He and his colleagues therefore considered extracellular vesicles to be the prime suspects behind an unexplained effect of fat on the heart they’d previously reported, link here: when they stressed mouse adipose tissue—by engineering the fat cells to have overactive mitochondrial ferritin (a mitochondrial matrix enzyme) and feeding the animals a high-fat diet—oxidative stress levels in the heart, where mitochondria functioned normally, also ramped up.”

“…The team also analyzed plasma samples from human volunteers. They found that in plasma from obese, metabolically unhealthy individuals, a greater proportion of extracellular vesicles contained mitochondrial DNA than did vesicles from the plasma of lean people, suggesting that mitochondrial fragments may act as signals in humans too. The finding that the vesicles cause oxidative stress in the heart might be considered a bad thing, and in the long term, it probably is, says Summers.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1606.mp3" length="1837724" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Human study – vitamin B1 safe &amp; effective for preventing &amp; treating Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1602</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1602</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Aug 2021 15:32:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1602

A remarkable study, that for some reason is not being covered by mainstream media. Considering 99% of the clinical trials for AD since 2000 have completely failed, this study should be front-page news for most mainstream outlets. I suspect mainstream media, being literally owned by the same interests that own Big Pharma, finds it too embarrassing (and dangerous?) to cover a story about a simple, dirt-cheap vitamin being able to both prevent and treat an “incurable” and invariably lethal disease that affects most people over the age of 80. You know, in addition to people rushing to treat themselves with this simple, safe and cheap vitamin they may also start to ask the question “why is our money being spent on health/medical services that represent 20% of the national GDP, but cannot cure anything, while suppressing already existing natural cures right under our noses??” Before you know it, all doctors may be out of a job…

In terms of intervention and dosing, the study used 300mg of benfotiamine twice daily for a year. However, all other thiamine analogs (including thiamine itself) should have similar benefit. The only reason the study used benfotiamine is the cited prior studies with animal models of AD that used that form of benfotiamine, so the human study wanted to build on that data. Interestingly, the study observed improvement of glucose metabolism, which undoubtedly played a major role in the dramatic reduction (77%) of cognitive decline observed in the patients. AD has already been proposed to be re-classified as “diabetes of the brain” or type III diabetes, which better represents the crucial role impaired glucose metabolism plays in this pathology, as well as its purely metabolic origins.

2 links here

“…A small exploratory clinical trial, carried out by Dr. Gary E. Gibson’s laboratory at the Burke Neurological Institute, link here in collaboration with researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University Irving Medical Center, suggests that benfotiamine, a synthetic precursor of thiamine (vitamin B1), has the potential to be an effective treatment or preventive measure for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The study found the drug both safe and effective in slowing the rate of functional decline in participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or early AD. The research was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, link here and paves the way for a larger clinical trial.”

“…In the current study, Dr. Gibson and his team evaluated the use of benfotiamine over a year-long period in individuals with existing MCI or mild AD. Half of the group of 70 participants took 300-mg benfotiamine pills twice daily, while the other half took placebo (inert) pills. To measure cognitive function, including memory, language, and attention, the team used several tools, including the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-Cog) and the clinical dementia rating (CDR). Glucose metabolism was captured via PET scans of the brain and biomarkers in the blood. Genetic testing was also done to determine which participants carried the APOE ε4 gene variant, which puts one at higher risk for AD. Benfotiamine was very safe as shown by the observation that there were no benfotiamine related adverse events. After a year, the increase in ADAS-Cog score was 43% lower in people who’d taken benfotiamine, compared to placebo, which indicates less cognitive decline in the treatment group. Though the finding wasn’t statistically significant (meaning it could technically have been due to chance), it suggests an effect that may be better detected with a larger study. Among those who took benfotiamine, CDR scores were significantly reduced (by 77%), relative to placebo, again indicating a slower rate of functional decline. Select measures of glucose metabolism improved significantly in the benfotiamine group. The effects of benfotiamine were more robust in participants who did not have the APOE ε4 gene variant, though those subgroups were small.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1602.mp3" length="860684" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Both “long” COVID-19 and CFS are likely caused by hypometabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1600</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1600</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Aug 2021 15:05:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1600

A good study that examines the remarkable parallels between the so-called “long” COVID-19 (i.e. chronic display of symptoms associated with COVID-19) and the (in)famous chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Namely, increases inflammation, excessive glycolysis, suppressed mitochondrial function and decreased synthesis of ATP. Despite all of these known signs of both pathologies, no study so-far (including the new one below) has suggested treatments with thyroid or other pro-metabolic therapies. For some reason, the therapies suggested by mainstream doctors revolve around antioxidants, and hydration therapies, which, while likely helpful, do not address the underlying cause. Considering both COVID-19 and its common therapies such as glucocorticoids suppress thyroid function, IMO addressing the thyroid angle as well as the inflammatory response should be the primary goal in regards to treating both “short” and “long” COVID-19, as well as CFS. Something as simple as progesterone administration could be a game-changer for these conditions due to both the pro-metabolic effects of progesterone, as well as its direct anti-viral effects combined with anti-inflammatory and (contrary to glucocorticoids) pro-immunity effects. Btw, based on the evidence available so far it is rather clear that CFS is little more than chronic hypometabolic state triggered by a cytokine storm or the stress reaction associated with either the original viral infection or its “treatments”.

link here

“…Although most patients recover from acute COVID-19, some experience postacute sequelae of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection (PASC). One subgroup of PASC is a syndrome called “long COVID-19,” reminiscent of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). ME/CFS is a debilitating condition, often triggered by viral and bacterial infections, leading to years-long debilitating symptoms including profound fatigue, postexertional malaise, unrefreshing sleep, cognitive deficits, and orthostatic intolerance. Some are skeptical that either ME/CFS or long COVID-19 involves underlying biological abnormalities. However, in this review, we summarize the evidence that people with acute COVID-19 and with ME/CFS have biological abnormalities including redox imbalance, systemic inflammation and neuroinflammation, an impaired ability to generate adenosine triphosphate, and a general hypometabolic state. These phenomena have not yet been well studied in people with long COVID-19, and each of them has been reported in other diseases as well, particularly neurological diseases. We also examine the bidirectional relationship between redox imbalance, inflammation, energy metabolic deficits, and a hypometabolic state. We speculate as to what may be causing these abnormalities. Thus, understanding the molecular underpinnings of both PASC and ME/CFS may lead to the development of novel therapeutics.”

“…Several therapies targeting redox imbalance already have been utilized or proposed for the treatment of disease. NO inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro (154, link here) and improves oxygenation in people with COVID-19 when administered by inhalation (155, link here). Small studies of ubiquinol (156, link here) and of a combination of NADH and CoQ10 (157, link here) have reported clinical benefit. Many other potential treatments targeting redox imbalance also deserve consideration: for example, glutathione (and glutathione donors), N-acetyl cysteine, cysteamine, sulforaphane, ubiquinol, nicotinamide, melatonin, selenium, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, melatonin plus pentoxyfylline, disulfiram, ebselen, and corticosteroids. In two cases of acute COVID-19, glutathione administered therapeutically counteracted dyspnea associated with COVID-19 pneumonia and reduced pulmonary inflammation (158, link here).”

“…People with acute COVID-19 and people with ME/CFS share redox imbalance, systemic inflammation and neuroinflammation, impaired production of ATP and other abnormalities in common (Fig. 2, link here), abnormalities that have bidirectional connections (169, link here). The syndrome of long COVID-19 that can develop in some COVID-19 survivors (people called “long haulers”) is very similar to ME/CFS, so it may well be that the group of abnormalities seen in acute COVID-19 and in ME/CFS also will be seen in long COVID-19. Presumably, redox abnormalities in COVID-19 are secondary to the infection with SARS-CoV-2. The same may be true among those ME/CFS patients whose illness began with an “infectious-like” illness. Clearly, COVID-19–induced permanent damage to the lungs (chronic hypoxia), heart (congestive failure), and kidneys (fluid and acid-base abnormalities) could cause some of the persisting symptoms seen in long COVID-19. In both long COVID-19 and ME/CFS other symptoms (e.g., fatigue, brain fog) may be generated by neuroinflammation, reduced cerebral perfusion due to autonomic dysfunction, and autoantibodies directed at neural targets, as summarized elsewhere (170, link here). As many as 2.5 million people suffer from ME/CFS in the United States (6, link here). The COVID-19 pandemic may generate a similar number of cases of long COVID-19 in the coming 1 to 2 y (5, link here). It therefore is imperative that increased research be focused on both long COVID-19 and ME/CFS. Fortunately, the United States and several other countries have committed substantial funding to study chronic illnesses following COVID-19, one of which is long COVID-19. Two registries and associated biobanks of people with long COVID-19 and/or ME/CFS are available to aid research.*, link here We suggest that the study of the connections between redox imbalance, inflammation, and energy metabolism in long COVID-19 and in ME/CFS may lead to improvements in both new diagnostics and therapies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1600.mp3" length="750092" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Manufactured citric acid is a powerful inflammatory/allergy agent</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1596</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1596</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Aug 2021 18:19:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1596

I great study, which goes hand-in-hand with another one I recently posted about in regards to silica (ubiquitous in commercially sold food products/drinks). Namely, just as that other study found silica to be a potent inducer of the endotoxin/LPS receptor TLR4 even in minute amounts, this study below describes the powerful inflammatory effects of manufactured/citric acid capable of causing chronic inflammatory disease in the respiratory, digestive, muscular, bone/joint, etc systems. One may wonder how can manufactured/industrial citric acid cause all of these issues yet its natural version is harmless. Well, the answer lies again in the deviousness of the business interests behind this product. Since its discovery and up until the 1950s citric acid was predominantly extracted from natural sources such as lemon (and other citrus) juice. However, subsequently, it was discovered that it can be more cheaply produced through extraction from a mold organism (Aspergillus Niger, link here), which is highly pathogenic and can cause severe infections in humans. As such, the industrially produced citric acid extracted from that mold contains fragments of that mold’s cells, as well as other contaminants. That is the substantive difference between the manufactured and natural citric acid, and it is this contamination in the manufactured version the authors of the study below believe is responsible for a wide range of inflammatory disorders. I wonder how many other GRAS ingredients this cautionary tale applies to as well – i.e. malic acid, salicylic acid, acetic acid, various benzoates, etc are all commonly used preservatives often used as substitutes for citric acid…

IMO, this study also directly corroborates Peat’s repeated claims about vitamin C and pregnenolone. Namely, he claims the production process for those chemicals has also changed over the years and their effects nowadays are incomparable with the effects he experienced when he first used them in the 1960s. He thinks contamination in the manufactured versions of those chemicals (analogous to the ones in manufactured citric acid), are likely responsible for the lack of beneficial effects (or even allergic/inflammatory effects) people report nowadays with when using chemicals.

link here

“…Citric acid naturally exists in fruits and vegetables. However, it is not the naturally occurring citric acid, but the manufactured citric acid (MCA) that is used extensively as a food and beverage additive. Approximately 99% of the world’s production of MCA is carried out using the fungus Aspergillus niger since 1919. Aspergilus niger is a known allergen. The FDA placed MCA under the category of GRAS without any research to substantiate this claim. In 2016, 2.3 million tons of MCA were produced, predominantly in China, and approximately 70% is used as a food or beverage additive. There have been no scientific studies performed to evaluate the safety of MCA when ingested in substantial amounts and with chronic exposure. We present four case reports of patients with a history of significant and repetitive inflammatory reactions including respiratory symptoms, joint pain, irritable bowel symptoms, muscular pain and enervation following ingestion of foods, beverages or vitamins containing MCA. We believe that ingestion of the MCA may lead to a harmful inflammatory cascade which manifests differently in different individuals based on their genetic predisposition and susceptibility, and that the use of MCA as an additive in consumable products warrants further studies to document its safety.”

“…Manufactured citric acid (MCA) is a ubiquitous substance and one of the most common food additives in the world. Approximately 99% of the world production of MCA is through microbial processes using predominantly a mutant strain of the black mold Aspergillus niger [1, link here]. This method has been the industry standard for production of MCA since 1919, long before the FDA’s involvement in evaluating food additives. When the FDA adopted the Food Additives Amendment in 1958, Congress excluded from the definition of Food Additive the common food ingredients in use before 1958, including MCA. Although the FDA has studied many food additives to ensure that they are within acceptable safety parameters, certain additives were granted GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status by the FDA due to lack of demonstrated harm over a history of prior use [2, link here,3, link here]. Thus, MCA was considered GRAS and did not undergo any FDA evaluation. MCA is one of the most common additives used today, with applications ranging from food to non-food industries. It is estimated that 70% is used in foods and beverages, 20% in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry, and 10% in cleaning detergents and softening agents [1, link here]. In foods and beverages, it is used as a flavoring, a preservative, an acidulant, and to provide pH control. The growth of the processed foods industry, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics is currently the driving force behind the rapid growth of the citric acid market globally.”

“…Historically, citric acid was first isolated by William Scheele in England in 1784 from lemon juice imported from Italy [2, link here]. Subsequently, Italy controlled the industrial production of citric acid from lemon juice and commanded a high price for the next 100 years, with peak production in 1915–1916 at 17,500 tons, after which it started to decline due to cost.2 This led to attempts all over the world to find alternatives to its production with chemical and microbial techniques, including commercial production by sugar fermentation [2, link here]. Citric acid was first manufactured using the fermentation process in 1919 in Belgium using Cytromices mold (now known as Penicillium), but this method was abandoned due to contamination and duration of fermentation [2, link here]. In 1917, American food chemist James Currie had begun experimenting with a process of making citric acid from mold. Currie discovered that strains of Aspergillus niger provided high yields of citric acid through a fermentation process using low cost molasses as the raw material [4, link here]. This system was very cost effective and rapidly adopted. Pfizer started to produce citric acid from Aspergillus niger in 1919, and this method is still used today across the world, particularly in China. The molecular formula of the natural citric acid obtained from lemons and limes and that of MCA is the same, C6H8O7. However, the potential presence of impurities or fragments from the Aspergillus niger in MCA is a significant difference that may trigger deleterious effects when ingested. We have done several literature searches and have been unable to find any research evaluating the safety of long term or repetitive exposure to MCA, which has become ubiquitous in processed and pre-prepared foods, carbonated beverages, energy drinks, fruit drinks, nutritional supplements, pediatric and adult vitamins, confectioneries, processed dairy, common snacks, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, detergents and cleansers. In certain common energy beverages, it is the second leading ingredient following water. We provide evidence with four case reports that ingestion of foods, beverages or supplements containing MCA may lead to increased inflammation, which in susceptible individuals affects the respiratory, gastrointestinal, neurological and musculoskeletal systems. Although MCA is an unnatural substance and is produced from Aspergillus niger, there has been a paucity of research to ascertain its safety with repetitive exposure over time. To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report revealing the potential inflammatory reactions related to ingestion of MCA.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1596.mp3" length="1084340" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin reduces symptom severity, COVID-19 mortality by half</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1592</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1592</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Aug 2021 17:41:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1592

Another great result for aspirin, which I suspect will not see much mainstream media publicity and will probably get censored the moment it hits my Twitter feed:-) Be that as it may, at this point the evidence for available successful/effective treatments for COVID-19 becomes too big to ignore, which of course invalidates the legal rationale for EUA given to all those “innovative” vaccines…

link here

“…After adjusting for eight confounding variables including demographics and comorbidities, aspirin tended to provide a protective effect and was independently associated with a 44% decreased risk for mechanical ventilation, a 43% reduced risk for ICU admission and a 47% decrease in hospital mortality. In addition, there were no differences in major bleeding or overt thrombosis between the groups. The reason for not observing a lower rate of the latter may be the low number of reported events in each group or reporting bias from avoidance of diagnostic imaging. “The results of the study do not really surprise us because we know that COVID causes excess clot formation and we know that aspirin is a very potent blood thinner,” Dr. Chow said. “So when you have a disease that causes clots and a medication that thins your blood, that may lead to the protective effects that we found.”

“…Peter Papadakos, MD, the director of critical care medicine at the University of Rochester in New York, found the study results unexpected because previous research showed the benefit of aspirin in treating acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). “I am a firm believer that an aspirin a day keeps the doctor away,” he said. “Aspirin, which has been around for [more than a hundred] years, offers some positive anti-inflammatory effects in ARDS.”

“…Aspirin is also an anticoagulant. “One of the unique features of COVID-19 that we did not know early on is the microemboli that occur in lung tissue,” said Dr. Papadakos, noting that the anti-inflammatory and anticoagulant properties of aspirin make for an “ideal combination for COVID-19 therapy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1592.mp3" length="233084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cellular “memory” of stress can be passed on for 50+ generations</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1590</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1590</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Aug 2021 17:06:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1590

There was a study that came out 2-3 years ago showing that when animals were exposed to a toxin, often the negative effects did not even manifest in the directly exposed organism but manifested in their offspring and were passed on for more than 14 generations. The study below now demonstrates that the effects of stress can also be “memorized” at the cellular level, especially in neurons, and passed on to more than 50 generations. Certainly puts in perspective the words Hans Selye: “Stress kills! Have some respect for it”. Except that now we know that not only is stress damaging but it can damage our offspring for many generations to come. No wonder the younger generations are so decrepit. The environmental assault on their parents’ and grandparents’ health has been relentlessly increasing for at least the last 100 years. Unless this trend is reversed, it does not portend well for the human race…

2 links here

“…The impact of the parental experiences has been observed to extend over multiple generations in various organisms. It is therefore of significant scientific interest to determine what environmental and physical conditions could induce transgenerational effects. In a study published in Nature Cell Biology, Dr. Tian Ye’s group from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences revealed that neuronal mitochondrial stress signals can be transmitted to the mitochondria in the germline to potentially promote the maternal inheritance, link here of elevated mtDNA levels across many generations in a Wnt signaling-dependent manner. The researchers described a discovery from a serendipitous observation that neuronal mitochondrial stresses elicit a global induction of the UPRmt that can be transmitted to offspring for multiple generations (>50) in Caenorhabditis elegans even after the original stress signal has been gone. The transgenerational induction of UPRmt was caused by the elevated mtDNA inherited maternally, which disturbed the balance between mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation subunits encoded by the mtDNA and the nuclear DNA to induce mitochondrial proteostasis stress. Wnt signaling is required for the propagation of elevated mtDNA levels across generations via transgenerational regulation of the mtDNA polymerase polg-1.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1590.mp3" length="462308" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Metabolically, children are different species compared to adults</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1588</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1588</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Aug 2021 16:51:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1588

A great study, which once again puts metabolism in the spotlight. Many studies have tried to discover the main biological differences between children and adults and so far none of them have discovered a “smoking gun”. At the same time, multiple studies have demonstrated that children are much more resilient to both infections and “adult” diseases such as cancer and “autoimmune” conditions (though this is changing lately as the health of the young has demonstrably declined), recovery more quickly from fatigue, trauma, starvation, etc. Considering that the risk of adult diseases rises with…well…adulthood, it is likely that something in the aging process is responsible for those changes. Yet, structurally, not much changes with advancing age inside cells except the likelihood of spontaneous DNA mutations, but that only becomes substantial in people over the age of 80. The study below may have finally found the smoking gun and that is, of course, metabolism! As the study demonstrates, young children have at least 50% higher resting metabolic rate compared to adults, and this discrepancy is so high that it technically designates children as separate species! Peat mentioned in one of his articles that the children of a given species resemble the adults of species of higher evolutionary complexity. The findings of the study below perfectly corroborate that view – i.e. children are our evolutionary future due to higher metabolism, and if we manage to restore the metabolism of an adult back to childhood levels that adult is likely to stop regressing. Speaking of regressing, the study has several other interesting findings. Namely, the metabolic rate continues to rise up until the age of 5, then declines a bit until the age of 20 is reached, then it stays stable until the age of 60 (not sure about that one), and then declines by about 25% by the time the person reaches the age of 90. In addition, the brain consumes more than 40% of daily calories in a child up until the age of 5, which is higher than what is seen in adults and likely explains the much higher intelligence and learning abilities of young children. Conversely, it also suggests that intelligence (or lack thereof) is an energy problem and as such it can be modulated by modulating the metabolic rate. Since intelligence and longevity have been conclusively shown to be highly correlated, it also suggests that aging itself can also be modulated (reversed?) by modulating the metabolic rate. This hypothesis has already been corroborated by studies demonstrating that metabolic boosters such as caffeine, aspirin, progesterone, T3, DHEA, pregnenolone, testosterone, DHT, vitamin D, etc are all capable of extending both average and maximum lifespan.

3 links here

“…As any parent knows, toddlers are bundles of energy. Now, the first comprehensive study of energy use over the human life span has quantified their burn rate: Infants between the ages of 9 and 15 months expend a stunning 50% more energy in 1 day than adults do, adjusted for body size. These wee dynamos consume and use up energy even faster than pregnant women and teenage boys, most likely to fuel their energetically expensive brains and organs. “Little people are not burning energy like small adults,” says Duke University evolutionary biologist Herman Pontzer, who led the new analysis of data from around the world. “They are burning energy superfast … like a different species.”

“…When the scientists plotted metabolic rates across life span, they found infants are born with the same metabolic rates as their mothers, when adjusted for their smaller body size. But between 9 and 15 months, they rev up their cells to burn energy faster, link here, the team reports today in Science. Children’s metabolic rates stay high until age 5, but the rate slowly begins to glide down until it plateaus around age 20. Interestingly, adult rates are stable until age 60, when they begin to decline. After age 90, humans use about 26% less energy daily, Pontzer says. The study also found that pregnant women don’t have higher metabolic rates than other adults; their energy use and calorie consumption scales up with body size. “We know that pregnant women burn more calories, but they’re burning more energy just by virtue of being bigger,” Pontzer says. The metabolic rate didn’t zoom up in hungry teenagers either, which also makes the findings seem counterintuitive. “When kids hit puberty, there seems to be a big spike in how many calories they’re consuming,” Pontzer says. “In your 30s and 40s, people often feel like they slow down; when menopause hits, you slow down more.” But metabolic rate doesn’t change at those times. Hormonal changes, stress, disease, growth, and activity levels influence appetite, energy, and body weight, he says. Pontzer speculates that the metabolic rate speeds up in toddlers because developmental changes in the brain, other organs, or the immune system consume lots of energy. And it slows in older people as their organs shrink and they lose gray matter in their brains. The growing brain is likely the key energy sucker in little kids, says biological anthropologist Chris Kuzawa of Northwestern University. Kuzawa did not participate in this study, but in 2014 his team found that the brains of young children consume a stunning 43% of all energy used by the body, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1588.mp3" length="1267412" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide increases aerobic capacity, muscle endurance in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1586</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1586</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jul 2021 15:15:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1586

There has been a steady increase in human studies with vitamin B3 analogs over the last 3-5 years. Most of that human research is sponsored by the company ChromaDex, which sells a proprietary formulation of nicotinamide riboside (NR), despite its own studies demonstrating that niacinamide / nicotinamide (NAM) is just as effective at raising NAD/NADH ratio and as such ameliorating a host of pathologies. Due to the largely positive results in such human trials, rival companies have started to sponsor trials with other B3 analogs such as nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) despite, again, human studies demonstrating that NAM and NMN also work equally well. The good news is that by doing such human studies, having demonstrated the equivalence of NAM / NR / NMN, those companies are indirectly building a case for the usage of NAM, considering its much lower price, worldwide availability, and lack of patents and other legal restrictions on its usage. The study below is another such example. It demonstrated that in doses of 600mg-1,200mg daily taken for 6 weeks NMN (and, as such, NAM) increases oxygen uptake and power output. Also, the VO2-max almost doubled in the 1,200mg group compared to placebo and the effect was dose-dependent across all three intervention groups, yet somehow that change did not reach statistical significance. Interestingly, only the medium dose (600mg daily) improved the single leg stance results, which matches with other recent human studies demonstrating little additional benefit for  issues like infertility, or endotoxin protection from doses above 500mg daily. That being said, higher doses of NAM do have another benefit related to direct reduction in fatty acid oxidation due to SIRT inhibition, but such effects are relevant mostly for severe conditions such as ischemic heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer, etc. For general improvement of health, it seems that 500mg NAM is probably the sweet spot for most people.

link here

“…Analysis of covariance of the change from baseline over the 6 week treatment showed that the oxygen uptake (VO2), percentages of maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max), power at first ventilatory threshold, and power at second ventilatory threshold increased to a higher degree in the medium and high dosage groups compared with the control group. However, there was no difference in VO2max, O2-pulse, VO2 related to work rate, and peak power after the 6 week treatment from baseline in any of these groups. Conclusion: NMN increases the aerobic capacity of humans during exercise training, and the improvement is likely the result of enhanced O2 utilization of the skeletal muscle.”

“…It was reported in mice that lower dosages of NMN (100 mg/kg/d) were better compared with larger doses (300 mg/kg/d) for body weight, body composition, insulin sensitivity, bone mineral density, and physical activity [7, link here], and treatment with 62.5 mg/kg NMN was better than that with 125–500 mg/kg NMN for ischemia-induced brain damage [8, link here]. Furthermore, a lower dose of NMN led to an improvement in female infertility with enhanced oocyte quality [42, link here]. According to an equivalent surface area dose (mg/kg body weight) conversion, a human dose is approximately one-tenth of that for a mouse [7, link here]. Therefore, 50, 100, and 200 mg/kg/d of NMN for mice is approximately 300, 600, 1200 mg/d for humans of 60 kg body weight. In contrast, our human study showed that exercise combining with NMN supplementation increases VT in a dose-dependent and the large dose of NMN had better effect. Of note, we also measured physical function and the results show that exercise combined with NMN supplementation had no effect on grip strength, push-up, or sit-and-reach compared with exercise only, but 600 mg/d NMN, not 1200 mg/d NMN, significantly improved single leg stance test results (Supplementary Tables S3, link here–S5, link here). “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1586.mp3" length="1017956" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B1 can reverse heart damage/failure caused by alcoholism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1584</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1584</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jul 2021 15:50:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1584

The beneficial effects of vitamin B1 (thiamine) on the nervous system have been known for a long time, and the vitamin is routinely used in hospitals around the world to treat both acute alcohol intoxication as well as the nervous system damage known as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, link here caused by chronic alcohol abuse. It has been known for a long time that alcohol can also cause myopathies but medicine claims those are permanent and cannot be reversed, so not much progress has occurred on that front. Now, the study below demonstrated that a relatively low-dose thiamine (200mg daily) for 3-6 months can reverse (partially) the damage to the heart muscle as a result of alcohol abuse.

2 links here

“…Alcoholic cardiomyopathy (ACM) is a chronic dilated heart disease with decreased left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). A recent study by Oruganti Sai Satish et al points out that cardiomyopathy when treated with thiamine showed beneficial results. The study has been published in the Indian Heart Journal. The objective of the study was to study the efficacy of thiamine supplementation along with standard medical therapy in ACM patients and reversibility of left ventricular systolic dysfunction.”

“…They were treated with 3 days of intravenous (IV) therapy with thiamine (200mg daily) followed by oral supplementation. The researchers found that the average mount of alcohol consumed was 60-110g / day over a mean duration of 14 years. LVEF was 30% at baseline, which improved by 45%-53% along with reduction in LV dimensions over at 3 and 6 months respectively.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1584.mp3" length="362084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Doxycycline can CURE melanoma in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1582</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1582</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jul 2021 15:33:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1582

A great study and perhaps the first that confirmed in humans the already well-known anti-cancer effects of the tetracycline antibiotic family. Considering the almost complete ban on the word “cure” scientific journals have bestowed on cancer-related publications using non-mainstream therapies, the fact that this article/study was allowed to utter it speaks volumes by itself. Unfortunately, I cannot get access to the full study as Sci-Hub has stopped indexing new studies since the beginning of 2021 (due to legal challenges in India) so I can’t post about what dosages of doxycycline were found to be effective in both the rodent and the human patient reported in the study. However, other recent human studies have demonstrated great effects in breast cancer from 200mg doxycycline daily, so this is probably a good starting dose to try for most cancers.

link here

“…The ability to adapt to environmental stress, including therapeutic insult, contributes to tumor evolution and drug resistance. In suboptimal conditions, the integrated stress response (ISR) promotes survival by dampening cytosolic translation. We show that ISR-dependent survival also relies on a concomitant up-regulation of mitochondrial protein synthesis, a vulnerability that can be exploited using mitoribosome-targeting antibiotics. Accordingly, such agents sensitized to MAPK inhibition, thus preventing the development of resistance in BRAFV600E melanoma models. Additionally, this treatment compromised the growth of melanomas that exhibited elevated ISR activity and resistance to both immunotherapy and targeted therapy. In keeping with this, pharmacological inactivation of ISR, or silencing of ATF4, rescued the antitumoral response to the tetracyclines. Moreover, a melanoma patient exposed to doxycycline experienced complete and long-lasting response of a treatment-resistant lesion. Our study indicates that the repurposing of mitoribosome-targeting antibiotics offers a rational salvage strategy for targeted therapy in BRAF mutant melanoma and a therapeutic option for NRAS-driven and immunotherapy-resistant tumors.”

link here

“…Researchers from KU Leuven may have found a new weapon in the fight against melanoma: antibiotics that target the ‘power plants’ of cancer cells. These antibiotics exploit a vulnerability that arises in tumour cells when they try to survive cancer therapy.”

“…The researchers implanted patient-derived tumours into mice, which were then treated with antibiotics — either as the only treatment or in combination with existing anti-melanoma therapies. Leucci: “The antibiotics quickly killed many cancer cells and could thus be used to buy the precious time needed for immunotherapy to kick in. In tumours that were no longer responding to targeted therapies, the antibiotics extended the lifespan of — and in some cases even cured — the mice.“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1582.mp3" length="432836" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) as a cause of liver disease, obesity and diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1579</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1579</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jul 2021 15:16:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1579

The first article below is actually about praising fermented foods, which I don’t really agree with. So, I am posting it mostly because of the quote on endotoxin/LPS, which is a very rare finding in published medical literature since medicine does not recognize chronic, low-grade endotoxemia as a cause of any disease and claims the “liver will quickly take care of it (endotoxin)”. Well, apparently the liver itself is a victim of endotoxin, as the second study below shows, and even a minor drop in HDL (“good” cholesterol) production quickly leads to liver inflammation (and ultimately fibrosis/cirrhosis). So, endotoxin is a systemic burden even in ostensibly healthy people and measures should be taken to keep its production and systemic absorption down to a minimum.

link here

Multiomics Clinical Trial Compares Fermented and High-Fiber Diets, link here

“…“Gut inflammation and decreased gut microbial diversity are linked to stress, alcohol, and high-sugar diet among other causes. Low microbial diversity leads to an increase in gut permeability (aka leaky gut), which increases influx of lipopolysaccharide (aka endotoxin) from the gut. Studies have shown that a rise in circulating endotoxin levels precedes metabolic syndrome, weight gain, eventually leading to an elevated BMI with obesity, and diabetes,” said Vincent M. Pedre, MD, medical director of Pedre Integrative Health and author of the book Happy Gut.”

2 links here

“…To understand why this happens, scientists studied the problem in a mouse model with the same condition. They remove a portion of the small intestine in mice and study the liver fibrosis that results. There were hints in the literature that HDL cholesterol might interfere with lipopolysaccharide detection by immune cells, link here. The receptor for lipopolysaccharide might be linked to liver disease following bowel surgery.”

“…Randolph said, link here, “The surgery seems to cause two problems. A shorter intestine means making less HDL3, and the surgery itself leads to an injurious state in the gut, allowing more lipopolysaccharide to spill over into the portal blood. When you remove the part of the intestine that makes the most HDL3, you get the worst liver outcome. When you have a mouse that cannot genetically make HDL3, liver inflammation is also worse. We also wanted to see if this dynamic was present in other forms of intestinal injury, so we looked at mouse models of a high-fat diet, link here and alcoholic liver disease, link here.” “In all of these models of intestinal injury, HDL3 was protective, binding to the additional lipopolysaccharide released from the injured intestine and blocking its downstream inflammatory effects in the liver.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1579.mp3" length="462716" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Iron supplementation may not cure anemia, unless nutrition is also improved</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1574</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1574</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2021 18:27:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1574

As many of my readers know, Peat is against supplementing with isolated iron. Aside from the well-known toxicity risks (e.g. liver damage) multiple studies have shown that in a good portion of the people treated with oral iron supplements, anemia either does not resolve or rapidly returns upon stopping the supplements. This is most likely due to insufficient production of the iron-carrying protein ferritin, which is produced in the liver and its synthesis depends on thyroid hormone, protein availability and estrogenic load (which burdens the liver independently). The study below corroborates that hypothesis by demonstrating that iron supplements on their own often do little to correct the anemia unless overall nutrition is also improved. It is the latter that supports liver function and helps with estrogen excretion, thyroid synthesis, etc thus allowing for proper ferritin synthesis to occur.

Iron Supplements Not Enough To Address Anemia if Diet Remains Poor, Study Shows, link here

“…Anemia, commonly associated with low levels of iron in the body, is also a result of poor quality of diet and socioeconomic factors, a new analysis shows. The pan-India study, conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Nutrition (N.I.N.), included a sample size of 33,000 children and adolescents in urban and rural areas from the Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey of 2016–2018, link here. The study found that children from rich urban backgrounds had iron deficiency but fewer cases of anemia. On the other hand, in poor children from rural areas, despite high iron levels, there was a higher prevalence of anemia. This is because a lack of nutritious diets leads to poor utilization of iron to synthesize hemoglobin in the body, the researchers concluded. “When anemia prevalence increases … Usually, iron supplementation interventions through supplemental iron tablets or iron fortification of foods is intensified. But are these solutions that focus merely on increasing intake of iron enough to reduce anemia prevalence in India? It does not seem so as per this recent study,” said Dr. Hemalatha R., director of the NIN. The findings of the study can help re-evaluate existing approaches to address the condition, which affects over 50%, link here of women and children in India. In children, anemia can have various effects, link here, such as problems with learning and the development of motor skills.”

“…This is corroborated by a 2019 study, link here by Cambridge University that drew a similar conclusion: in addition to iron supplements, socioeconomic conditions of households needed to be improved in order to improve maternal health, low birth weight, and other associated problems linked with childhood anemia in India. Researchers in an earlier study, link here by the NIN, in collaboration with the University of Maryland, found that adding a multiple micronutrient powder containing iron, zinc, Vitamin C, Vitamin B12, folic acid, and so on to children’s meals showed a significant reduction of anemia in children aged 3 – 6 years. The study also said that strategies to address anemia can make use of the Anganwadi infrastructure, which covers childcare services for more than 2.5 crore children in this age bracket.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1574.mp3" length="475148" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D improves ovarian reserves in women with infertility</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1572</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1572</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2021 18:15:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1572

Diminished ovarian reserves are one of the major causes of female infertility. It used to be a problem mostly in women over 45 who were trying to get pregnant, however, it has now become a common finding even in 30+ year-old females. Estrogen is known to play a big role, and some studies have demonstrated beneficial effects of aromatase inhibitors. More recent studies have also demonstrated robust benefit from DHEA supplementation, and some fertility centers now use DHEA as part of their treatment protocols for women. Unfortunately, often the doses used are way too high and end up elevating estrogen, so that the net benefit is either minor or entirely absent. The study below offers one alternative to DHEA that is probably less risky. It demonstrated that weekly supplementation with 50,000 IU vitamin D increased ovarian reserves and increased pregnancy rates. A quick look at the results suggests the improvement was similar in magnitude to the one observed with DHEA, but obviously without the risk of raising estrogen. As such, I don’t see why a combination of vitamin D and DHEA would not be synergistic, especially considering that vitamin D is a steroid with anti-estrogenic effects and is known to synergize with other steroids, especially androgens such as DHEA.

2 links here

“…Researchers conducted the study for analyzing the effect of vitamin D supplementation on ovarian reserve in women with diminished ovarian reserve and vitamin D deficiency. The study is a before-and-after intervention study on women with a diminished ovarian reserve who were referred to the Shahid Mofteh Clinic in Yasuj, Iran. Eligible women were given vitamin D tablets at a weekly dose of 50,000 units for up to 3 months. At the end of 3 months, serum levels of vitamin D and anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) were assessed. The current study’s findings support a possible beneficial effect of vitamin D on increasing AMH expression by acting on the AMH gene promoter. As a result, vitamin D may raise AMH levels without affecting antral follicle count/ovarian reserve.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1572.mp3" length="631916" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Intense exercise causes mitochondrial damage even in elite athletes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1570</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1570</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2021 17:52:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1570

Hopefully, this post won’t be interpreted as trying to bash exercise. Its goal is to simply draw attention to the fact that intense exercise can be detrimental even for elite athletes. While the damage the study observed was temporary, it is now known that (just like ionizing radiation) the damage of chronic stress / overtraining may be cumulative, which means it should be avoided as much as possible. Speaking of elite athletes – they are known to have much higher rates of CVD, cancer, and neurodegenerative disease after the completion of their careers, and some of them experience those issues while still actively competing and in top shape. So, the moral of the story to me is this – do not overtrain and/or avoid chronic stress (even if it appears mild)! Looking slim and fit is not always a sign of good health. If you feel like you are overstraining yourself (in exercise, work, social life, etc) it may be wise to take a break to allow for recovery. The motto “no pain, no gain” is probably a major cause behind many societal and physiological ills, and there is now a good amount of evidence exposing its falsehood.

2 links here

“…In the research team’s new study, the researchers worked with a small group of male elite athletes, link here, many of whom held national titles or were internationally recognized for their performance in cycling and triathlon. The athletes participated in a four-week training, link here program in their primary sport that consisted of two to four days of low-to-moderate–intensity endurance workouts, followed by three days of more intense training. The intense workouts included high-intensity interval training in the morning, followed by a seven-hour break and then a moderate-intensity cycling session in the afternoon. The total number of activity hours ranged between 12 and 20 per week for each volunteer. Though the men were used to heavy training, they were not accustomed to this specific workout schedule. To the research team’s surprise, the highly trained participants’ mitochondrial capacity was impaired after the month-long training period. “We thought that elite athletes should be more resistant against [these] kind of alterations,” said Filip Larsen, Ph.D., of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences and corresponding author of the study. Elite athletes may be able to prevent temporary mitochondrial impairment by listening to their bodies. Paying attention to changes such as “mood disturbances, reductions in maximal heart rate [during exercise, link here] and muscles that feel heavy and unresponsive” may help top athletes pull back and avoid overtraining situations that could contribute to reduced mitochondrial content and function, Larsen explained. “Exercise is good for you, but too much unaccustomed training might have mitochondrial consequences.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1570.mp3" length="562700" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Damaged mitochondria may cause 90%+ of Parkinson Disease (PD) cases</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1567</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1567</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2021 17:26:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1567

More evidence that yet another “incurable” condition is little more than energy deficit (due to mitochondrial dysfunction) in disguise. In this case the mitochondrial dysfunction was caused by accumulation of mitochondrial debris inside the cell, which has been repeatedly shown by other studies (and discussed on this blog) to be due primarily to chronic stress. So, there seem little doubt left at this point that PD is nothing but a symptom of chronic stress and, as such, treatable by anti-stress interventions such as pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, androgens, thyroid, aspirin, vitamin E, etc.

6 links here

“…In a new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen show that the most common form of the disease, encompassing 90 to 95 percent of all Parkinson’s Disease cases known as sporadic PD, is caused by a blockage of a pathway that regulates the nerve cell’s powerhouse, the mitochondria. ‘Just like when people eat, cells take what they need and get rid of the rest waste products. But if our brain cells have this specific kind of signaling blockage, it means that the powerhouse of the cell – mitochondria – cannot get cleaned up after being damaged’, explains corresponding author and group leader Professor Shohreh Issazadeh-Navikas at the Biotech Research & Innovation Centre. The blockage leads to an accumulation of high amounts of damaged mitochondria, while not being able to produce enough energy for the cells. It causes neurons to gradually die, which is the reason for the development of Parkinson’s Disease symptoms, and why it leads to dementia.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1567.mp3" length="337436" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aging is an energy deficiency problem, taking cardiolipin may reverse it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1563</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1563</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2021 16:01:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1563

Yet another study demonstrating that “aging” is nothing but a phenotype characterizing an organism with declining energy production. Since most of the cellular energy is produced in the mitochondria, another way of stating the same is that aging (and any specific disease for that matter) is a mitochondrial dysfunction problem. Conversely, reversing that energy/mitochondrial deficiency may reverse the aging/sickness. The study below corroborates the latter hypothesis, by demonstrating that aging is characterized a decline in the communication between mitochondria and the lysosomes, driven by decline in cardiolipin inside the mitochondria. As discussed before, cardiolipin is a crucial mitochondrial protein responsible for the function of the last enzyme of OXPHOS, known as cytochrome C oxidase. Multiple studies across many animal species have already demonstrated that cardiolipin content not only declines with aging but also changes in composition so that its lipid component shifts in composition from saturated fat to PUFA, and that feeding fully saturated fats to aging organisms restores their mitochondrial function back to normal. Well, in this case, the study used direct supplementation with (saturated) cardiolipin, but the effects were the same – reversal of aging and significant extension of (maximum) lifespan.

2 links here

“…From their research, the scientists found a nuclear protein called NFYB-1 that switches on and off genes affecting mitochondrial activity, and which itself goes down during ageing. In mutant worms lacking this protein, mitochondria don’t work as well and worms don’t live as long. Unexpectedly, the scientists discovered that NFYB-1 steers the activity of mitochondria through another part of the cell called the lysosome, a place where basic molecules are broken down and recycled as nutrients.  “We think the lysosome talks with the mitochondria through special fats called cardiolipins and ceramides, which are essential to mitochondrial activity,” says Max Planck Director, Adam Antebi, whose laboratory spearheaded the study. Remarkably, simply feeding the NFYB-1 mutant worms cardiolipin restored mitochondrial function and worm health in these strains. Because cardiolipins and ceramides are also essential for human mitochondria, this may mean human health and ageing can be improved by understanding on how such molecules facilitate communication between different parts of the cell. This work has been recently published in Nature Metabolism.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1563.mp3" length="660572" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>It’s official: COVID-19 vaccination may be stemming evolution of “fitter” SARS-CoV-2 variants</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1560</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1560</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2021 15:42:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1560

Actual title of the press article. I won’t comment much on this for obvious (read: censorship) reasons, but I will say this – Luc Montagnier was right (see first link below).

Nobel Prize Winner French Virologist Luc Montagnier Explains How COVID-19 Vaccines Are Creating Variants, link here

2 links here

“…“This study demonstrates that mass vaccination may serve as an antigenic impediment to the evolution of fitter and more transmissive SARS-CoV-2 variants,…”

“…The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines and the mass rollout of vaccination across many countries has led to more than 800 million individuals now being fully immunized globally. Such accelerated immunization of a large proportion of the population at the height of the ongoing pandemic could significantly increase evolutionary pressure on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, warn the researchers.”

“…Strikingly, the team found that the diversity of these lineages has declined globally, with this decline appearing to coincide with the onset of mass vaccination rollout. When the researchers analyzed the relationship between vaccination rates and lineage entropy in 25 countries where more than 25% of the population was fully vaccinated, they found that the decline in lineage diversity was indeed correlated with increased rates of mass vaccination. Furthermore, the decline in lineage diversity was coupled with increased dominance of the B.1.1.7 (alpha), B.1.1.617 (delta) and P.1 (gamma) variants of concern, suggesting that these variants may be “fitter” SARS-CoV-2 lineages.”

“…mass vaccination may consequently go far beyond the widely reported mitigation of SARS-CoV-2 infection risk and amelioration of community transmission, to include the stemming of rampant viral evolution,” they conclude.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1560.mp3" length="224636" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E 100-fold more potent than remdesivir for SARS-CoV-2 / coronaviruses</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1557</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1557</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2021 15:04:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1557

A great study that demonstrates once again the versatility of vitamin E, not only as a PUFA peroxidation blocker (a better term than “antioxidant”, as the latter actually implies a metabolic inhibitor), but also as a substance with direct antiviral effects. Several studies came out over the last year demonstrating that most of the symptoms, morbidity and even mortality of COVID-19 are due to lipid peroxidation and an inflammatory cascade triggered by both angiotensin II and the inflammatory mediators derived from PUFA through the activity of the COX and LOX enzymes. However, there are much fewer studies demonstrating substances with direct viral replication inhibiting effects against SARS-CoV-2. Glycine, naringenin, vitamin D, quinine, and potentially zinc are some such substances but it would be nice if there was a substance that could provide both a direct viral inhibition as well as inhibiting the development of COVID-19 once the infection has already taken hold. Well, it looks like vitamin E may be one such substance. The study below demonstrated that even at a low concentration of 10 uM/L, alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) inhibited SARS-CoV-2 by more than 90%. That concentration can be achieved in human by taking just 75 IU – 100 IU orally, once daily. Since vitamin E has a half-life of about 48 hours, this dosage can even be taken every other day and still achieve the same concentrations and, hopefully, the same antiviral effects. And if that was not already great news, the study also found that vitamin E can block the replication/infection caused by the entire family of beta-coronaviruses (of which SARS-CoV-2 is a member)! So, it looks like vitamin E may be a cheap, safe and widely available OTC protection against not only the “fearsome” SARS-CoV-2 but also the common cold. The latter is something modern medicine claims is impossible. We’ve all heard the story on TV for years – “Listen to me boy – there is no cure/protection against the common cold!” 🙂 And the good news does not end there. The study also found that alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) was about 100-fold more potent/effective than remdesivir against SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses!

The only handicap of the study is that it claims it studied “water-soluble” versions of vitamin E, which prompts most readers to think that regular vitamin E would not have such effects. However, the study explicitly found that the plain, unesterified alpha-tocopherol was the beneficial element and the only reason the study bothered with the water-soluble versions of vitamin E was the persistent (and false) myth that unesterified vitamin E somehow has poor absorption when taken orally (due to its lipophilicity) and thus water-soluble versions need to be taken for optimal absorption/effects. Also, in-vitro studies typically use aqueous cellular environment and as such water-soluble chemicals are preferred as their effects are much easier to ascertain. Btw, none of the oral bioavailability nonsense is true and multiple human studies have demonstrated that unesterified vitamin E not only absorbs well in humans after oral use, but all of the water-soluble esters have lower anti-peroxidation activity and often cause allergic side effects. So, if one wants to replicate the findings of the study below, I’d suggest using orally plain alpha-tocopherol mixed with some fat.

2 links here

“…This led to the identification of 12 compounds that reduced SARS-CoV-2 propagation by more than 90% at a concentration of just 10µM. Next, the researchers found that five of these top 12 compounds reduced the burden of SARS-CoV-2 by more than 90% in the human lung epithelial cell line Calu3. Four of these drugs – niclosamide, remdesivir, lopinavir, and D-α-tocopherol polyethylene glycol succinate (TPGS) – showed maximal efficacy, link here in preventing established SARS-CoV-2 infection in VeroE6 cells. In addition, 11 of the 12 top compounds demonstrated strong antiviral activity against the seasonal betacoronavirus OC43, suggesting that most of the compounds are effective against betacoronaviruses more broadly.”

“…To understand the mechanism underlying the antiviral activity of TPGS, the researchers tested its constituent components: D-α-tocopherol, succinate, and polyethylene glycol. Since α-tocopherol alone is insoluble in an aqueous environment, the researchers instead tested α-tocopherol succinate (αTOS) and α-tocopherol phosphate (αTOP). This revealed that αTOS is capable of inhibiting SARS-CoV2 replication in VeroE6 cells, suggesting that α-tocopherol is the active antiviral component in TPGS. Given the potent synergy observed between TPGS and remdesivir – which is a known inhibitor of the SARS-CoV-2 RdRp – the team hypothesized that TPGS also inhibits this RdRp. The researchers measured the ability of TPGS to inhibit the transcriptional activity of purified SARS-CoV-2 RdRp composed of the catalytic subunit non-structural protein 12 (NSP12) and two accessory proteins – NSP7 and NSP8. They found that TPGS inhibited the transcriptional activity of the SARS-CoV-2 RdRp, with a potency that was approximately 100-fold that of remdesivir.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1557.mp3" length="1696340" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Avoiding sunlight increases colon cancer risk</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1555</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1555</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2021 14:00:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1555

Some time ago I posted about avoiding sunlight being as bad for systemic health as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. The study below corroborates that view, but with a focus on colon cancer risk and vitamin D. Namely, avoiding sunlight exposure results in much lower vitamin D, which is something quite expected and to most doctors just a benign consequences “worth” the risk compared to the risk of getting some kind of skin cancer. Yet, vitamin D deficiency is anything but benign and has been shown to influence the risk for myriad of chronic (and potentially lethal) conditions, as well as all-cause mortality across all age groups. So, despite its innocent-sounding name, vitamin D (and its deficiency) is not to be trifled with. And when it comes to the risk of skin cancer, multiple studies have shown that sun exposure does not increase risk of melanoma (the deadliest form of skin cancer) and avoiding sun increases risk of dying from melanoma. Sun exposure does seem to increase risk of the more benign version basal cell carcinoma, but most of these cancers are localized (and often self-correcting), and even those can be avoided by taking measures to limit PUFA peroxidation in the skin caused by the sunlight. Those measures include increasing dietary intake of saturated fats and taking one of more of the common protective nutrients such as aspirin, niacinamide, vitamin E, progesterone, etc.

2 links here

“…Inadequate exposure to UVB light from the sun may be associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer, particularly in older age groups, according to a study using data on 186 countries, published in the open access journal BMC Public Health.Researchers at the University of California San Diego, USA investigated possible associations between global levels of UVB light in 2017 and rates of colorectal cancer for different countries and age groups in 2018. The authors found that lower UVB exposure was significantly correlated with higher rates of colorectal cancer across all age groups from 0 to over 75 years in people living in the 186 countries included in the study. The association between lower UVB and risk of colorectal cancer remained significant for those aged above 45 after other factors, such as skin pigmentation, life expectancy and smoking were taken into consideration. Data on these factors were available for 148 countries. The authors suggest that lower UVB exposure may reduce levels of vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency has previously been associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer. Future research could look directly at the potential benefits on colorectal cancer of correcting vitamin D deficiencies, especially in older age groups, according to the authors.Raphael Cuomo, co-author of the study said: ‘Differences in UVB light accounted for a large amount of the variation we saw in colorectal cancer rates, especially for people over age 45. Although this is still preliminary evidence, it may be that older individuals, in particular, may reduce their risk of colorectal cancer by correcting deficiencies in vitamin D. ‘The authors used UVB estimates obtained by the NASA EOS Aura spacecraft in April 2017 and data on colorectal cancer rates in 2018 for 186 countries from the Global Cancer (GLOBOCAN) database. They also collected data for 148 countries on skin pigmentation, life expectancy, smoking, stratospheric ozone (a naturally-occurring gas that filters the sun’s radiation) and other factors which may influence health and UVB exposure from previous literature and databases. Countries with lower UVB included Norway, Denmark and Canada, while countries with higher UVB included United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Nigeria, and India. The authors caution that other factors may affect UVB exposure and vitamin D levels, such as vitamin D supplements, clothing and air pollution, which were not included in the study. They also caution that the observational nature of the study does not allow for conclusions about cause and effect and more work is needed to understand the relationship between UVB and vitamin D with colorectal cancer in more detail.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1555.mp3" length="661004" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may treat (opioid) “addiction”</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1551</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1551</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:46:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1551

Interesting article, which corroborated the role of vitamin D as an anti-stress hormone. As vitamin D is an actual steroid, it is expected to have a role as neurosteroid as well, and as such influence behavior and habits, including pathological ones such as “addiction”. Why do I put “addiction” in quotes? Mostly because the totality of available evidence (outside of paid Big Pharma propaganda taught in medical schools) strong suggests there is no such thing as addiction, but rather such behavior is just a desperate attempt at self-medicating when an organism is under stress. In other words, trying to relieve a state of high cortisol (and serotonin) and low dopamine, even if the substances consumed (drugs, alcohol, etc) or behavior engaged in (gambling, racing, sex, etc) is dangerous and detrimental in the long-run. The (in)famous Rat Park, link here experiment performed in Canada several decades ago provided indisputable proof that organisms will do just about anything to remediate stress and “addiction” is one such (suboptimal) remedy that the organism uses for only as long as the stress is present. Take away the stress and the “addiction” disappears.

Anyways, the study below demonstrates that deficiency of vitamin D increases risk of developing (opioid) addiction, which is not surprising considering that vitamin D antagonizes cortisol and inhibits serotonin synthesis. Conversely, when vitamin D levels are low it has been found by multiple (both animal and human) studies that baseline cortisol increases, dopamine decreases, and 5-HIAA (a metabolite of serotonin) increases. In other words – vitamin D deficiency mimics stress, which explains why organisms in such a state would be more prone to developing an (opioid) addiction. In support of this hypothesis, treating the vitamin D deficient animals with vitamin D reversed their “addictive” behaviors.

link here

“…In the Science Advances paper, Fisher, Kemény and a multidisciplinary team from several institutions addressed the question from dual perspectives. In one arm of the study, they compared normal laboratory mice with mice that were deficient in vitamin D (either through special breeding or by removing vitamin D from their diets). “We found that modulating vitamin D levels changes multiple addictive behaviors to both UV and opioids,” says Kemény. Importantly, when the mice were conditioned with modest doses of morphine, those deficient in vitamin D continued seeking out the drug, behavior that was less common among the normal mice. When morphine was withdrawn, the mice with low vitamin D levels were far more likely to develop withdrawal symptoms. The study also found that morphine worked more effectively as a pain reliever in mice with vitamin D deficiency–that is, the opioid had an exaggerated response in these mice, which may be concerning if it’s true in humans, too, says Fisher. After all, consider a surgery patient who receives morphine for pain control after the operation. If that patient is deficient in vitamin D, the euphoric effects of morphine could be exaggerated, says Fisher, “and that person is more likely to become addicted.” The lab data suggesting that vitamin D deficiency increases addictive behavior was supported by several accompanying analyses of human health records. One showed that patients with modestly low vitamin D levels were 50 percent more likely than others with normal levels to use opioids, while patients who had severe vitamin D deficiency were 90 percent more likely. Another analysis found that patients diagnosed with opioid use disorder (OUD) were more likely than others to be deficient in vitamin D. Back in the lab, one of the study’s other critical findings could have significant implications, says Fisher. “When we corrected vitamin D levels in the deficient mice, their opioid responses reversed and returned to normal,” he says. In humans, vitamin D deficiency is widespread, but is safely and easily treated with low-cost dietary supplements, notes Fisher. While more research is needed, he believes that treating vitamin D deficiency may offer a new way to help reduce the risk for OUD and bolster existing treatments for the disorder. “Our results suggests that we may have an opportunity in the public health arena to influence the opioid epidemic,” says Fisher.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1551.mp3" length="1977020" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Maternal high-PUFA diet causes alcoholism, aggressiveness, early puberty, and hyper-estrogenism in offspring</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1547</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1547</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2021 18:32:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1547

Finally, an intervention study that should help convince some of the die-hard PUFA fans that these fatty acids are far from benign/beneficial, but in fact can cause a variety of chronic diseases. A very important finding of the study, that distinguishes it from other PUFA studies, is that it demonstrates without a doubt the estrogenicity of PUFA (which is a common topic in arguments for/against PUFA consumption). It was precisely the increase in estrogenic signaling as a result of PUFA consumption that was likely responsible for both the aggressiveness and alcoholism in offspring. As such, considering the indisputable results from the WHI studies on the role of estrogen in causing heart attacks, stroke, and cancer (at least in women) this (bidirectional) link between PUFA and estrogen should give a pause to most people listening to their doctor laud the glorious health “benefits” of unsaturated fats…most of which usually boil down to lowering cholesterol. Even if one believes lowering cholesterol is beneficial (it is not!) one should ask the question if (by eating PUFA) it is worth risking alcoholism, mental disease, and all chronic diseases caused by estrogen for the dubious “benefit” of lower cholesterol. And last but not least, another important study finding indicating PUFA harmfulness was that the offspring of mothers eating high-PUFA diet had much earlier onset of puberty, which even mainstream medicine now recognizes as a major risk factor of virtually all chronic diseases in females, early menopause and premature death.

link here

“…We have increased estradiol levels in pregnant rats byfeeding them a diet containing high levels of n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) from corn oil [4, 5]. This manipulation of maternal feeding alters the development of the brain and behavior among offspring [6]. In particular, exposure of pregnant mice to a high n-6 PUFA diet increases female offspring’s aggressiveness…Since an in utero exposure to estrogenic compounds also increases aggressive behaviors [7], the mechanism by which an in utero high n-6 PUFA diet exposure affects this behavior, and perhaps other behaviors, may be via estrogens.”

“…An exception was puberty onset, defined as the day of vaginal opening, that occurred earlier in the offspring of the high n-6 PUFA offspring than the low n-6 PUFA offspring [17]. By the age of 4 months, when alcohol intake was assessed and brains collected, body weights were similar in the female offspring of high (mean B SEM; 27.1 B 1.3 g, n = 10) and low n-6 PUFA (27.5 B 1.0 g, n = 10) mothers.”

“…In the present study, female CD-1 mice exposed in utero to a high n-6 PUFA diet through their pregnant mother consumed significantly more alcohol than female mice exposed to a low n-6 PUFA diet in utero. These findings confirm our unpublished data obtained in older female C3H mice which also consumed elevated levels of alcohol if exposed to a high n-6 PUFA diet in utero [Cho and Hilakivi-Clarke, unpubl. data]. Thus, a maternal intake of a high n-6 PUFA diet during pregnancy elevates voluntary alcohol intake in female offspring. In utero estrogen exposure has a similar effect: according to Mankes et al. [3] administration of estradiol through the pregnant mother increases preference of alcohol in adult offspring. Maternal high n-6 PUFA (corn oil) intake increases pregnancy estradiol levels in rats [4, 5], possibly by increasing the presence of adipose tissue that is an important site of estrogen aromatization, or by increasing placental aromatization of estrogens via arachidonic-acid-induced stimulation of aromatase. Therefore, the present finding of increased alcohol intake may have been caused by the ability of a high n-6 PUFA diet to elevate pregnancy estradiol levels. The mechanisms by which a maternal exposure to a high n-6 PUFA diet and/or an increase in pregnancy estrogen levels affects alcohol intake in female offspring may be linked to long-lasting changes in estrogenic activities.”

“…ERa and ER-ß protein levels in the hypothalamus were found to be up-regulated in the present study. Protein levels of both subtypes were higher in the hypothalamus of female mice exposed to a high n-6 PUFA diet in utero than in those exposed to a low n-6 PUFA diet, suggesting that increased expression/protein levels of ERa and ER-ß may participate in increasing voluntary alcohol intake. ER levels in the frontal part of the brain were not altered, concurrent with the lack of effect on PKC activity in this brain area [6]. Taken together, estrogenic pathways, including ER-·, ER-ß and PKC in the hypothalamus might be particularly sensitive to the effects of in utero fat/estrogen manipulations, and participate in inducing changes in voluntary alcohol intake patterns.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1547.mp3" length="766676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress ups cortisol/estrogen/prolactin, drops DHT, causes male infertility and prostate issues</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1545</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1545</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2021 18:01:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1545

If you try to discuss infertility with a fertility/reproductive specialist or an endocrinologist, and mention that chronic stress may be a factor in infertility, you will probably get laughed out of the room. This is not just speculation. This exact same thing happened to several friends and relatives who struggled to conceive, and it is apparently an epidemic of epic proportions since 1 in 4 couples cannot conceive naturally. The most striking example I can provide involves a former classmate of mine, who got lectured for months that his infertility is “genetic” and nothing can be done about it while the doctor simultaneously refused to do even a basic hormonal panel. When my classmate finally did the blood tests on his own and the results came back with low androgens, and high cortisol/estrogen/prolactin, the doctor refused to even look at them and continued to double-down on his genetic bet. When the classmate provided multiple studies proving that males with total testosterone (T) in the lower 25% cannot beget children, the doctor scoffed at the “Google baiting”. When the classmate finally gave up on the doctor, took 5mg exemestane daily for 2 weeks and promptly got his wife pregnant, the fertility doctor became instantly enraged, and kicked him out of the office while screaming “How dare you use UNAPPROVED methods behind my back!?!? Who do you think you are!?!? I can put you in jail for using controlled chemicals without prescription!!!” So, to the fertility specialist, it was much more important to be right than to help his patient, and when the medical incompetence was finally and indisputably exposed, the doctor became violent/enraged instead of learning a lesson and using this “new” information to help future patients. Speaking of “new”, the information on the causes of infertility is not new at all. The (in)fertility roles of estrogen, cortisol, prolactin, androgens, thyroid, etc have been known for decades. It is just that some doctors refuse to accept reality. Such is the clown world we live in…

Anyways, the study below demonstrates that chronic stress (in the form of limbs immobilization/disuse) promptly led to increased estrogen, cortisol and prolactin and decline in androgens (especially DHT). Unsurprisingly, this change in hormonal balance led to decreased spermatogenesis and thus infertility. Perhaps most interestingly, the prostate glands of the stressed animals increased significantly in size and displayed pathological changes in its structure!! In light of the drastic drop in T/DHT and increase in cortisol/estradiol/prolactin in those animals, any remaining doubt of whether DHT (or any other androgen for that matter) is the “villain” causing prostate disease should dissipate at once. And last but not least, while the study is specifically about the effects of stress on male fertility (and prostate health), the same principles apply to female infertility as well, and the study actually references quite a bit of additional evidence (2nd to last quote below) demonstrating the role of estrogen as a fertility blocker in both sexes.

link here

“…Hindlimb unloading for one month significantly decreased body weight (Fig. 1, link here). Body weights of the control rats increased gradually over the 30 days of experiment while the body weights of the HU group began declining sharply after 14 days (Fig. ​(Fig.1a).1, link herea). The average weights of the testes and epididymides significantly decreased in the HU group when compared to the control group (Fig. ​(Fig.1b,1, link hereb, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test). However, the weights of the prostate glands significantly increased (Fig. ​(Fig.1b,1, link hereb, P < 0.05 by Student’s t-test). The testicular and epididymal somatic indices significantly declined in the HU group (Fig. ​(Fig.1c,1, link herec, P < 0.001 and P < 0.01 respectively by Student’s t-test) while the prostate gland somatic index was significantly elevated in the HU group as compared to the control group (Fig. ​(Fig.1c,1, link herec, P < 0.01 by Student’s t-test). The average weights and the somatic index of the seminal vesicles showed no significant differences between the control and HU group (Fig. ​(Fig.1b1, link hereb and c). Hindlimb unloading for 30 days induces severe oligospermia (Table. 2, link here, P < 0.01 by Student’s t-test) with no motile sperms. The sperm abnormalities in this study couldn’t be detected due to oligospermia.”

“…Serum levels of kisspeptin-1 were significantly increased in the HU group (Fig. 2, link herea, P < 0.01 by Student’s t-test). However, the concentrations of reproductive hormones, namely GnRH, LH, FSH and testosterone, were significantly inhibited in the HU group compared to the control group (Fig. ​(Fig.2b-e,2, link hereb-e, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test). On the contrary, serum concentrations of inhibin, prolactin and E2 hormones were significantly increased in the HU group as compared to the control group (Fig. ​(Fig.3a-c,3, link herea-c, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test). However, the levels of SHBG were significantly reduced in HU group (Fig. 3, link hered, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test). Serum concentrations of corticosterone were significantly increased following hindlimb unloading (Fig. ​(Fig.3e,3, link heree, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test). The intratesticular levels of kisspeptin-1 were significantly elevated in the HU group as compared to the control group (Fig. 4, link herea, P < 0.01 by Student’s t-test). However, the intratesticular concentrations of DHT and 5 α-reductase enzyme were suppressed (Fig. ​(Fig.4b4, link hereb and c, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test), while the levels of aromatase were increased in the HU group (Fig. ​(Fig.4d,4, link hered, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test).”

“…The testicular mRNA expression levels of Kiss1 gene increased while the expression levels of Kiss1R decreased in the HU group (Fig. ​(Fig.5c,5, link herec, P < 0.05 by Student’s t-test). Furthermore, the expression levels of aromatase gene mRNAs were significantly elevated in the HU group as compared to the control group (Fig. ​(Fig.5c,5, link herec, P < 0.01 by Student’s t-test).”

“…The testicular antioxidant enzymes SOD, CAT and GPx, in addition to NO, significantly increased in the HU group (Fig. 6, link herea-d, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test). Conversely, the testicular levels of the lipid peroxidation indicator MDA significantly declined in the HU group as compared to the control group (Fig. ​(Fig.6e,6, link heree, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test). Both testicular and seminal TAC were significantly elevated in HU group (Fig. ​(Fig.6f6, link heref and g, P < 0.001 by Student’s t-test).”

“…Histological examination of the testes from the control groups revealed normal morphological patterns of the seminiferous tubules with preserved spermatogonia, spermatocytes, spermatids and sperms. Moreover, a normal population and structures of both leydig cells and sertoli cells were also observed. On the contrary, the testes of the HU groups showed testicular lesions, representing the destruction of the seminiferous tubules with the disappearance of a large number of spermatogonia and spermatocytes. Some seminiferous tubules lacked any spermatozoa and showed atrophic and necrotic changes. Moreover, characteristic increases in the interstitial tissues occurred. Mild congestion of the testicular blood vessel was also observed (Fig. 8, link herea). The examined sections from the epididymis of the control groups demonstrated normal cuboidal to columnar lining epithelium of the tubules with long microvilli. The epididymal lumina filled with stored spermatozoa. However, the epididymal tubules of the HU groups displayed a severe reduction in the amount of stored sperm with edematous interstitial tissue (Fig. ​(Fig.88, link hereb). The seminal vesicles of the control groups showed normal secretory acini with columnar epithelial lining and papillary projections, as well as normal eosinophilic secretion. On the contrary, the seminal vesicles of the HU groups revealed mild interstitial congestion. The epithelial lining the glandular tissue showed mild hyperplastic changes with secretory products and desquamated epithelium in their lumina (Fig. ​(Fig.88, link herec). Sections from the prostates of the control groups showed apparently normal glandular tissue with columnar epithelial lining and acidophilic secretion within the alveolar lumina. However, sections from the prostate glands of the HU groups demonstrated less active glandular tissue with cuboidal epithelial lining the acini and less secretory products (Fig. ​(Fig.88, link hered).”

“…Hindlimb unloading for 30 days markedly upregulated the mRNA expression levels of aromatase as well as the intratesticular concentrations of aromatase and hence, the serum levels of E2 were elevated. Previous studies have demonstrated the detrimental effects of E2 on male fertility [20, link here]. High doses of E2 have been shown to inhibit reproductive behavior, induce azoospermia and abolish fertility in adult rats [21, link here]. Moreover, excessive intratesticular E2 concentrations decreased intratesticular androgens and induced spermiation failure in E2-treated rats [22, link here, 23, link here]. Furthermore, in male humans, E2 hinders gonadotropin release through the hypothalamus and pituitary gland [24, link here]. Enhancement of prolactin secretion has been reported by E2 direct action at the pituitary level [25, link here]. This study revealed elevated levels of circulating prolactin in the HU group. Although the functional significance of prolactin in male reproduction is unclear, the hormone has been linked mainly with male infertility. Acute hyperprolactinemia suppresses testosterone synthesis and male fertility by inhibiting the secretion of GnRH [26, link here], while a moderate increase in circulating prolactin has been shown to suppress both LH and FSH but not testosterone [21, link here]. Therefore, high circulating levels of prolactin may contibute to hindlimb unloading-induced hypogonadism via inhibition of gonadotropins and testosterone synthesis. The bioavailability of sex steroids and their physiological responses are regulated by SHBG [27, link here]. Since prolactin has been demonstrated as an inhibitor of SHBG [28, link here], hyperprolactinemia observed in the present study may contribute to the reduced plasma levels of SHBG in HU group.”

“…In summary, hindlimb unloading suppresses the reproductive functions in male rats via various mechanisms including 1) inhibition of the kisspeptin-HPG axis and subsequent downregulation of mRNAs expression levels of FSHβ and LHβ, with a decrease in gonadotropin secretion that inhibits both spermatogenesis and steroidogenesis; 2) Suppressive effects of hyperprolactinemia on gonadotropin and testosterone synthesis with a resulting hypogonadism; 3) An inhibitory effect of high inhibin concentrations on FSH production; and 4) Upregulation of testicular aromatase mRNA expression levels and thereby an elevation in E2 concentrations that suppress gonadotropin release (Fig. 9, link here). Furthermore, hindlimb unloading represents an environmental stress in which organisms try to adapt themselves via an enhancement of antioxidant enzymes activities and an improvement of anti-apoptotic factors as HSP70 and Bcl2. Finally, some precautions should be considered in order to protect space travelers from the adverse effects of microgravity on their reproductive system.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1545.mp3" length="1498052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cortisol causes fatty liver (as well as obesity, diabetes, etc)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1543</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1543</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2021 15:40:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1543

Not really a surprise for most of my readers, but it is always nice to see more evidence establishing various disorders attributed to “gluttony”, “weak will”, “addiction”, etc as actual endocrine disturbances. And since the current study implicates cortisol, we can point the finger once again at (chronic) stress. While the current study mostly focused on cortisol as a cause of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), there is evidence for cortisol’s role in the more severe forms such as NASH (or even cirrhosis) as well as the whole spectrum of metabolic syndrome pathologies including obesity, insulin resistance, CVD, diabetes II, and even Alzheimer Disease (recently re-classified as “diabetes of the brain”). The authors themselves certainly don’t make a secret of the fact that they think cortisol plays a direct causative role in all of these disorders.

2 links here

“…It was still unknown which conditions cause the body to deposit fat in the liver. However, scientists knew that the body’s own glucocorticoid hormones such as cortisol promote the development of fatty liver. This can be observed, for example, in a condition known as Cushing syndrome. Cortisol levels in affected patients are permanently raised – often caused by malignant tumors. This, in turn, leads to high blood sugar levels and patients frequently develop fatty liver. Long-term cortisone therapies such as those used for treating chronic inflammatory diseases such as asthma also cause the triglyceride level in the liver to rise to dangerous levels….The researchers in Herzig’s team specifically switched off the cortisol receptor in the livers of mice, thus blocking the hormone’s effect. As a result, the triglyceride level in the livers of the experimental animals dropped considerably. Investigations have revealed that, in the absence of the cortisol receptor, large amounts of the HES1 protein are produced in the livers of these animals. HES1 activates a number of enzymes that break down fat and, thus, counteracts fat accumulation in the liver. If, on other hand, normal mice are treated with cortisol, their HES1 levels in the liver drops, while triglyceride levels rise. Further experiments have shown that the cortisol receptor in this newly found metabolic pathway act directly on a switch of the HES1 gene and, thus, switches it off completely. “We have discovered a key mechanism here that plays a crucial role in many pathologic metabolic disorders,” explains Stephan Herzig. “It has been obvious for some time that there is an association between the body’s own cortisol or therapeutically administered cortisone and the development of fatty liver. Now we also know what the interconnections look like at a molecular level.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1543.mp3" length="488708" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>COVID-19 is an energy deficiency disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1541</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1541</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2021 15:20:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1541

Yet another seemingly non-metabolic disease turns out to be nothing but energy deficiency in disguise. Apparently, the SARS-CoV-2 virus selectively disables so-called complex I of the electron transport chain (ETC), and as such the overall OXPHOS process. Such inhibition is known to reliably increase the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which is known to lead to lipid peroxidation, hypercoagulation, and eventually cytokine storm in the most energetically compromised patients. As the study authors state, this explains why certain people with chronic conditions are at increased risk of severe COVID-19 or death – i.e. they are already in an energetically compromised state and COVID-19 greatly exacerbates the existing energetic deficiency. This suggests that chemicals like methylene blue (MB), which can bypass (and often rectify) complex I issues may be a viable treatment (and possibly prevention as well) for COVID-19, especially in already energetically compromised patients. MB has already been shown to be able to directly kill the virus, which makes it that much more appropriate as a therapeutic intervention. Unfortunately, the ongoing human clinical trials with MB for COVID-19 use very high doses (100mg several times daily), which increase the risk of elevating serotonin and the latter is already known to be a major risk factor for COVID-19 exacerbation and/or subsequent death. Considering most human trials with MB found no benefit beyond 15mg daily (even for a severe disease such as Alzheimer’s), I think a much more sensible approach would be to take say 5mg and spend a few hours in the sun, thus implementing the so-called photodynamic therapy, which Pfizer recently patented as a viable treatment for cancer.

link here

New Discovery Helps Explain How COVID-19 Overpowers the Immune System, link here

“…Seeking to understand why COVID-19 is able to suppress the body’s immune response, new research from the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology suggests that mitochondria are one of the first lines of defense against COVID-19 and identifies key differences in how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, affects mitochondrial genes when compared to other viruses. These differences offer possible explanations as to why older adults and people with metabolic disfunction have more severe responses to COVID-19 than other individuals and they also provide a starting point for more targeted approaches that may help identify therapeutics, says senior author Pinchas Cohen, professor of gerontology, medicine and biological sciences and dean of the USC Leonard Davis School. “If you already have mitochondrial and metabolic dysfunction, then you may, as a result, have a poor first line of defense against COVID-19. Future work should consider mitochondrial biology as a primary intervention target for SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses,” he said. The study, published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, expands on recent findings that COVID-19 mutes the body’s innate inflammatory response and reports that it does so by diverting mitochondrial genes from their normal function.

“…“We already knew that our immune response was not mounting a successful defense to COVID-19, but we didn’t know why,” said lead author Brendan Miller, a senior doctoral student at the USC Leonard Davis School. “What we did differently was look at how the virus specifically targets mitochondria, a cellular organelle that is a crucial part of the body’s innate immune system and energy production.”

“…Chief among their findings is that SARS-CoV-2 uniquely reduces the levels of a group of mitochondrial proteins, known as Complex One, that are encoded by nuclear DNA.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1541.mp3" length="948908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hyperserotonemia confirmed as a cause of autism and insomnia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1539</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1539</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2021 15:03:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1539

Given the flood of recent studies lately, with virtually identical findings as the study below, I don’t think much needs to be said. So much for “serotonin is the happiness hormone”…Yet despite the solid evidence implicating serotonin as a (if not THE) major cause of autism, even this study did not dare mention blocking serotonin (e.g. cyproheptadine) as a logical/rational therapeutic approach. Instead, it tried to manipulate the duration/schedule of sleep in order to address the pathology. I guess attacking the “goose that lays golden eggs” (i.e. the multi-billion $$$ SSRI industry) is frowned upon even when the evidence of serotonin’s pathological role is indisputable. Oh btw, the study also exposes serotonin as a cause of sleep disturbances, thus overturning another old (and fake) medical dogma that it is high dopamine that causes insomnia. As it turns out, it is high serotonin that causes insomnia (and not just in autistic patients), which probably explains why various anti-serotonin antagonists are being tested for sleep problems in humans, and why the ancient tranquilizer reserpine, link here works so well for sleep (hint: it powerfully depletes monoamines in the brain, but mostly serotonin).

2 links here

“…Bad sleep causes severe health issues and affects our ability to concentrate, memorize, and cope with challenging situations. Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and intellectual disability, frequently suffer from sleep problems. However, little is known about their underlying mechanisms. In Science Advances, a Dutch-American research team, coordinated by Radboudumc, now describes how these problems can arise. Mimicking two genetic causes of autism in fruit flies, they uncovered that flies show the same sleep problems as the patients, and that the disturbed sleep is caused by high levels of serotonin – also frequently observed in autism. ”

“…Often [it is thought] the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a role in sleeping problems. This study also looked at this, but dopamine levels were normal. In contrast, the neurotransmitter serotonin appeared to be important. Coll-Tané: “When we reduce kismet specifically in glia, we found the concentration of serotonin in fruit fly heads to be doubled. This is a very interesting finding because increased serotonin, also referred to as hyperserotonemia, is one of the most commonly found biomarkers in autism.” In a series of further genetic and drug experiments, the researchers provided evidence that the increased serotonin levels during development are responsible for kismet’s sleep fragmentation. Coll-Tané: “Our work has linked a leading genetic cause of autism to a frequent biomarker and an important clinical complaint in autism. We propose that our identified mechanism is relevant to autism more widely”.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1539.mp3" length="1080260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Loss of mitochondrial function (OXPHOS) induces de-differentiation (cancer)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1537</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1537</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 31 May 2021 00:39:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1537

The study only focuses on the lymphatic system and its cells, but the principle is general and has been observed in other organ/tissue cells. The most obvious example is cancer – no matter which organ it occurs in, the tumor is composed of de-differentiated cells not unlike the stem cells from which all other tissues/organs develop. In fact, the developing embryo can be viewed as a massive tumor, which is under the control of powerful differentiating fields produced by the mother’s organism, placenta, etc. When those differentiating fields are lost/weakened in an adult organism then various developmental pathologies start to manifest including protein misfolding/accumulation, fibrosis and, of course, cancer. The study below demonstrates that all that is needed for such de-differentiation to occur is loss of mitochondrial function (and as such OXPHOS). In other words, the morphogenetic fields (and thus the cell’s fate, in the authors’ own words) require efficient energy production and without this energy the cells quickly revert to their primordial, de-differentiated, ravenous, growing state (e.g. cancer).

2 links here

“…”For the first time, we’ve defined that mitochondria activities are also required for cell fate—a concept that a few years ago was unthinkable,” said Oliver, who is also a professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension and director of the Center for Vascular and Developmental Biology at the Feinberg Cardiovascular and Renal Research Institute. “We believe this is probably a more common functional role—cell specification and migration happens in a variety of cell types and tissues.”

“…Navdeep Chandel, Ph.D., the David W. Cugell, MD, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics and co-author of the study, previously discovered that deletion of mitochondrial complex III in blood endothelial cells of young mice affected the endothelial cells’ proliferation and migration. “I was surprised by those results from Navdeep’s lab because I believed that without mitochondrial respiration those cells would die,” Oliver said. Oliver, along with Wanshu Ma, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Oliver laboratory and lead author of the study, removed mitochondrial complex III—a structure essential for cellular respiration —from lymphatic endothelial cells in mouse embryos. Surprisingly, the investigators found that without mitochondria complex III, the number of lymphatic progenitor cells was greatly reduced, and those that did leave the vein quickly lost their lymphatic cell fate by reverting back to their original blood vasculature phenotype. This was caused by downregulation of VEGFR3, which in turn downregulates Prox1, a master regulator constantly required to maintain lymphatic cell fate, link here, according to Ma. “These cells are losing the very features that make them lymphatics,” Ma said. Using several experimental approaches, the scientists also discovered that without mitochondrial complex III and cellular respiration, certain metabolic byproducts were missing from the cells, which acted as a signal that enough lymphatic endothelial progenitor cells, link here have left the vein and the Prox1-VEGFR3 feedback loop can shut down. “This is probably a general sensor of the metabolic status of the cell, somehow capable of sensing the micro-environment and detecting what the cells, link here need to do,” Oliver said. While this study only examined lymphatic endothelial cell development, Oliver said he believes that mitochondria are likely vital for this process elsewhere, and Chandel has shown that similar signaling is crucial for stem cell development and in tumor formation. “We believe this is a more global phenomenon—not just regarding lymphatics, but for every differentiating cell type,” Oliver said.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1537.mp3" length="1604060" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High PTH, low vitamin D implicated in bipolar disorder (BD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1535</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1535</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 30 May 2021 21:21:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1535

A great study highlighting once again the importance of calcium, vitamin D and especially the pro-inflammatory parathyroid hormone (PTH) for mental health. While there are many studies (both observational and intervention ones) examining the role of vitamin D in mental health, this is one of the very few looking into the role of PTH. It may very well turn out that one of the main mechanisms through which vitamin D improves mental health is through its known effect on lowering PTH. Lower PTH in turn leads to lower serotonin synthesis, which again exposes the theory of “low serotonin synthesis causes depression” as little more than a medical fairy-tale.

As good as the study is at exposing the virtually unknown pathological role of PTH in mental disorders, the popular press article is once again written with criminal negligence (or intent) in plain sight. The very first sentence is phrased in a way to suggest that higher vitamin D is also linked to worse clinical outcomes for BD, yet the actual study says the exact opposite. I really hope that such level of misreporting is soon criminalized as it directly influences public perception about the benefits/risks of vitamin D and further discourages the public of looking into this cheap, widely available and safe intervention that has showed therapeutic potential in virtually all chronic (and acute – e.g. COVID-19) diseases.

2 links here

“…Calcium homeostasis may play a role in bipolar disorder, link here (BD) severity, with raised serum vitamin D, link here and parathyroid hormone, link here (PTH) levels linked to worse clinical outcomes and high psychological burden, new research suggests. After measuring serum PTH, vitamin D, and calcium levels in patients with type I or type II BD, investigators found that the number of hospitalizations and prior psychiatric episodes was significantly associated with PTH levels. In addition, increased PTH levels were highly correlated with levels of emotional and physical abuse and neglect. “The results suggest that calcium imbalance may influence the long-term outcome of bipolar disorder,” lead investigator Carmela Palummo, Department of Psychiatry, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli,” Naples, Italy, said during the virtual European Psychiatric Association (EPA) 2021 Congress. The findings also highlight the importance of routinely assessing PTH, vitamin D, and calcium levels in patients with BD as a marker of clinical severity ― and may point to vitamin D “as a valid add-on treatment for these patients,” Palummo added.

“…Vitamin D influences mood and its fluctuations via the modulation of neurotransmitter biosynthesis. In conjunction with PTH, vitamin D also plays a central role in calcium homeostasis, Palummo noted. Although previous studies have identified an association between vitamin D deficiency and BD severity, few have investigated the impact of alterations in calcium homeostasis on the course of the disorder, she added.”

“…Baseline measures included clinical and demographic characteristics, as well as plasma levels of calcium, vitamin D, and PTH. Participants were administered a series of disease rating scales, including the Young Mania Rating Scale and the Hamilton Rating Scales for Anxiety and Depression, link here. Results showed that serum PTH levels were directly correlated with total number of hospitalizations, as well as the number of depressive (P < .0001), manic (P < .001), and hypomanic episodes (P < .01). Strong correlations were also found between increased PTH levels and emotional neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse, physical neglect, and total scores on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire–Short Form (P < .0001). Serum vitamin D levels were positively associated with age at first psychiatric contact and were inversely correlated with total number of depressive episodes (P < .05) and a cyclothymic temperament (P < .05).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1535.mp3" length="685628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Working too hard / long can kill you</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1533</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1533</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 30 May 2021 20:54:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1533

Another study directly implicating work stress in not only chronic, degenerative conditions but also death directly. Apparently, as corrupt/inept as W.H.O is, the evidence linking hard work with early death is too strong even for them to ignore. Btw, what the study used as definition for “hard” and/or “long” work would come as a surprise to most people – i.e. anything longer than 55 hours weekly. In my experience that number pales in comparison to what most Americans put in nowadays, considering they are always “on” through their mobile devices. No wonder people are dropping like flies and getting sicker by the minute.

link here

“…Working long hours, link here is killing hundreds of thousands of people a year through stroke and heart disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In a global analysis of the link between loss of life and health and working long hours, WHO and the International Labour Organization estimated that in 2016, some 745,000 people died as a result of having worked at least 55 hours a week. Most of the deaths were recorded among people aged 60 to 79, who had worked at least 55 hours between the ages of 45 and 74. Men were the worst affected, accounting for 72% of deaths, the analysis found. People living in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia, and middle-aged or older workers took on a particularly significant share of the disease burden, the report said.”

“…”Working 55 hours or more per week is a serious health hazard,” Dr. Maria Neira, director of WHO’s Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health said in a statement. “It’s time that we all, governments, employers, and employees wake up to the fact that long working hours can lead to premature death.”…

“…”Teleworking has become the norm in many industries, often blurring the boundaries between home and work. In addition, many businesses have been forced to scale back or shut down operations to save money, and people who are still on the payroll end up working longer hours. “No job is worth the risk of stroke or heart disease. Governments, employers and workers need to work together to agree on limits to protect the health of workers,” he added.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1533.mp3" length="328628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mitochondrial dysfunction may be the cause of anemia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1531</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1531</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 30 May 2021 20:45:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1531

Despite anemia being a pretty common condition, I still don’t think medicine has a good idea what causes anemia (putting aside the more obvious reasons such as chronic bleeding and dietary iron deficiency). In one of the KMUD interviews Peat opined that in his opinion true  iron deficiency anemias were rare and the anemias characterized by low hemoglobin, low ferritin, low iron saturation index, etc. were instead tied to poor thyroid function (i.e. energetic deficiency). The study below corroborates that view by discovering that CoQ10 deficiency, a vital co-factor for proper functioning of the electron transport chain (ETC), reliably causes anemia and replenishing CoQ10 stores quickly reversed the anemia. This is further corroborated by various anecdotal reports and published case studies demonstrating that vitamin K (another electron-carrier-capable molecule similar to, but more effective than, CoQ10) is also effective as anemia treatment. Thus, once again we have a condition often diagnosed by doctors as idiopathic turn out to be nothing more but energetic deficiency in disguise.

link here

New connection between metabolism and red blood cell development, link here

“…“Metabolic programs are hardwired in every single tissue and the pathways are really similar to each other. But it turns out that because of the unique demands of the tissues, there are certain control mechanisms that each tissue uses to fine tune its metabolic pathways,” said senior author Leonard Zon, who is a professor of stem cell and regenerative biology and the Grousbeck Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard. “In this particular study, we uncovered a very important mechanism by which red blood cell precursors regulate their metabolism, by having a dedicated transcription factor to drive the production of the metabolite coenzyme Q.”

“…“This enzyme sits right inside mitochondria, leading us to speculate that in our case it actually has less to do with nucleotide biosynthesis than with mitochondrial functions. That’s what brought us to investigate mitochondrial metabolism,” Rossmann said. The researchers found that TIF1γ directly controls many of the enzymes that are involved in the production of coenzyme Q, an important part of the energy-producing respiratory chain in mitochondria. The researchers confirmed that the zebrafish anemia model had low levels of coenzyme Q, and that adding back an analog of coenzyme Q rescued the blood production defect.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1531.mp3" length="579308" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Muscle weakness / wasting linked to poor mitochondrial function</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1527</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1527</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2021 13:45:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1527

A study that once again illustrates the central principle of bioenergetics – structure and function cannot be separated. They are interdependent at every level. In this specific case, the “structural” pathology is muscle weakness and wasting (sarcopenia, cachexia, etc). Most doctors, when evaluating such condition, will look for structural problems such as genetic mutations, trauma, fibrosis, tumors, etc that may lead to this condition. If none such causes are found then the disorder will be declared “functional” and treated “supportively” by managing the symptoms so that the “quality of life” of the patient is maintained as much as possible. In other words, medicine would give up on trying to cure the condition because the issue is not “structural”. Well, the study below demonstrates that this structural condition has a very functional origin. Namely, poor mitochondrial function, which led to decreases ATP levels and CO2 production, and decreased levels of mDNA synthesis (a hallmark of mitochondrial pathology). As such, it suggests that most such muscle wasting conditions may (and should?) be treated by simply improving the energetic flow through dietary and supplement interventions. Increased glucose, saturated fats (as they stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis), niacinamide, thiamine, methylene blue, CoQ10, progesterone, DHEA, T/DHT, etc.

link here

Muscle Weakness Tied to Poor Mitochondria Function, link here

“…Upon close examination of pieces of tissue taken from the quadriceps, they found that transgenic mice had a high number of muscle fibers with centrally located nuclei. This particular feature is a clear sign of muscle disease. In contrast, in normal, wild-type muscle fibers, nuclei were located at the periphery and were distributed evenly. Moreover, in transgenic mice, the average diameter of single muscle fibers was almost half that of wild-type mice. In addition to being thinner, muscle fibers from transgenic also were damaged, as showcased in another experiment in which investigators used a special dye called Evans blue. This dye was able to enter into muscle fibers of transgenic animals — a clear sign of muscle tissue breakdown — but not those of wild-type mice. At the molecular level, transgenic mice had smaller amounts of certain muscle-specific proteins involved in the breakdown of proteins into smaller amino acids (protein building blocks). The researchers suggested this reduction may be “a protective attempt to reduce further muscle wasting.” To meet their energy demands, muscle fibers have multiple mitochondria. Researchers wondered if mitochondria damage could explain muscle weakness and wasting in transgenic mice. Using a transmission electron microscope to obtain highly magnified images of muscle fibers, they found that mitochondria of transgenic, but not of wild-type mice, were swollen. Mitochondrial swelling is a sign that mitochondria may not be working properly. More experiments revealed that mitochondria found in the muscles of transgenic animals produced less adenosine triphosphate (ATP) — the cell’s main energy source — than those found in the muscles of healthy mice. Overall, the researchers concluded that muscle weakness/atrophy in transgenic mice could be linked to poorly working mitochondria.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1527.mp3" length="738740" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking the endotoxin receptor (TLR4) may prevent / treat hearing loss</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1525</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1525</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2021 13:26:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1525

I did a post a few months ago on the connection between tinnitus and serotonin – i.e. using anti-serotonin drugs may treat tinnitus. Since tinnitus is almost always a precursor state to hearing loss (and eventually deafness), the two conditions obviously go hand-in-hand and are likely caused by the same agent (e.g. serotonin). Since more than 90% of serotonin is synthesized in the GI tract, these hearing pathologies suggest that a digestive process is driving the increase in serotonin synthesis and in most of the cases this process is increased endotoxin (LPS) release and absorption into the bloodstream. Endotoxin (LPS) triggers serotonin synthesis/release mostly through activation of the TLR4 receptor. This line of reasoning suggests that of serotonin is the cause of tinnitus and hearing loss, and its synthesis is driven mostly by endotoxin (LPS) through activation of TLR4 then blocking TLR4 should have therapeutic effects for these conditions. And that is exactly what the study below found – i.e. administration of a TLR4 antagonist prevented damage to the hearing apparatus triggered by a chemotherapy drug with known serotonergic properties.

2 links here

“…The cells affected by TLR4’s signals are located within the cochlea of the ear, where they play a crucial role in hearing, translating vibrations in the ear info electrical impulses…”These cells don’t renew. You really only get one shot and if they’re gone, you’re in trouble. The hearing loss is permanent,” said Bhavsar. The only way to prevent the damage is to stop the signals TLR4 produces that lead to the accumulation of cisplatin. To confirm the efficacy of inhibiting the TLR4 receptor, Bhavsar and his team looked at zebrafish models, with the help of Ted Allison, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and member of the U of A’s Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute. They examined neuromasts, which are sensory cells within zebrafish that behave similar to the human hair cells typically damaged by cisplatin. Bhavsar was able to prove that inhibiting TLR4 led to inhibition of the damage on the sensory cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1525.mp3" length="613460" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Upregulated serotonin synthesis may be a biomarker for breast cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1523</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1523</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2021 12:40:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1523

Once again, the available evidence contradicts the popular myth promoted by public health agencies that serotonin is the “happiness hormone”. One only needs to talk to a person on serotonergic (SSRI) drugs for a few minutes to realize just how “happy” those people are as a result of their medication. The study below now exposes elevated tissue serotonin as a potential biomarker of something much more serious than “unhappiness”. Namely, breast cancer, and not only the common estrogen-receptor positive type, but also the highly aggressive and difficult to treat triple-negative type. Whether that means breast cancer can be caused by simply taking SSRI drugs for prolonged periods of time remains to be seen. However, given the highly pro-fibrotic nature of serotonin, and that fibrosis is a required feature for solid tumors to occur, I would not be surprised if the answer is yes and as such it may be worth re-examining the overprescription epidemic of such drugs around the world (and especially in Western countries).

link here

“…Results: Our results suggested that both human breast cancer cells and human breast epithelial cell line could synthesize serotonin and melatonin. Unlike melatonin, serotonin levels varied significantly between human breast cancer and breast epithelial cell line (p< 0.01). In addition, serotonin N-acetyltransferase (NAT) and acetylserotonin methyltransferase (ASMT), the key enzymes in the pathway of melatonin synthesis from serotonin, were also detectable. In agreement with these findings of human breast cancer cell and human breast epithelial cell line, serotonin expression was also much higher in triple-negative (PR−, ER−, HER-2−) breast cancer (TNBC) and triple-positive breast cancer (TPBC) compared to para-carcinoma tissues (PCTs). Conclusion: Here, we provided evidence that the human breast cancer cell (MCF-7, Bcap-37) and human breast epithelial cell (MCF-10A) could synthesize intrinsic serotonin and melatonin, and serotonin expression was higher in the breast cancer tissue compared with PCT. The findings suggested that serotonin might be used as a predictive marker for breast cancer patients.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1523.mp3" length="522620" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B6, lowering stress, may treat schizophrenia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1521</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1521</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 May 2021 15:34:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1521

Both human and animal studies. The human study was with pyridoxamine – a vitamin B6 isomer declared by FDA to be a “prescription drug” and as such banned for OTC sale in USA while still being widely available in most other countries. That FDA ruling is pointless due to the fact that pyridoxamine is NOT the active form of B6 and needs to be converted in the active form pyridoxal-5-phosphate (P5P) in order to exert its beneficial effects, and the studies below also clearly state that the latter is the true beneficial compound. P5P is still available OTC in most countries, including USA. Since P5P is up to 10 times more active than pyridoxamine, the human dosage (1200mg-1400mg daily) discussed in the article below can probably be lowered 10-fold if P5P is used instead of pyridoxamine. The official mechanism of action of B6 suggested by the article is reductions in noradrenaline turnover, but I suspect an additional explanation is its effects on increasing dopamine synthesis as a cofactor for the dopamine-synthesizing enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase (TH). Dopamine is known to inhibit the serotonin-synthesizing enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH), and multiple studies have demonstrated that physiological doses of B6 lower prolactin and increase dopamine. There is extensive evidence going back several decades that it is elevated serotonin instead of dopamine that causes most of the symptoms of schizophrenia, and the so-called dopamine antagonists (e.g. haloperidol) used to treat schizophrenia all turned out to be non-selective serotonin antagonists as well. More recent studies confirmed the primary pathological role of serotonin in psychotic diseases such as schizophrenia by demonstrating strikingly fast resolution of most symptoms by administering serotonin antagonists that do not affect the dopaminergic system. Since the study confirmed the role of the noradrenergic system by replicating the beneficial effects with an alpha-2A agonist (which lowers levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline), this means that the anti-stress drug clonidine can also be used therapeutically, which confirms once again the role of stress in psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, which is quite unsurprising considering stress elevated serotonin and lowers dopamine. In fact, chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) is a proven method for inducing psychotic conditions in animals. Yet the medical profession continues to claim that the role of stress in mental disorders is “controversial” – i.e. we by now that this means “true, but threatening to profits if widely known”.

3 links here

“…Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous psychiatric disorder characterized by positive symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, negative symptoms such as apathy and lack of emotion, and cognitive impairment. We have reported that VB6 (pyridoxal) levels in peripheral blood of a subpopulation of patients with schizophrenia is significantly lower than that of healthy controls. More than 35% of patients with schizophrenia have low levels of VB6 (clinically defined as male: < 6 ng/ml, female: < 4 ng/ml). VB6 level is inversely proportional to severity score on the positive and negative symptom scale (PANSS), suggesting that VB6 deficiency might contribute to the development of schizophrenia symptoms. In fact, a recent review has shown the decreased VB6 in patients with schizophrenia as the most convincing evidence in peripheral biomarkers for major mental disorders. Additionally, we recently reported that high-dose VB6 (pyridoxamine) was effective in alleviating psychotic symptoms, particularly the PANSS negative and general subscales, in a subset of patients with schizophrenia. Although a link between lower VB6 level and schizophrenia is widely hypothesized, the mechanism behind this remains poorly understood.”

“…Furthermore, VB6 supplementation directly into the brain using an osmotic pump ameliorated the hyperactivation of the NAergic system and behavioral abnormalities. indicating that the enhanced NA turnover and the behavioral deficits shown in the VB6(-) mice are attributed to VB6 deficiency in the central nervous system. In addition, the ?2A adrenergic receptor agonist guanfacine also improved the hyperactivated NAergic system in the frontal cortex and behavioral disorders. These results show that the behavioral deficits in VB6(-) mice may be caused by an enhancement of NAergic signaling.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1521.mp3" length="1289708" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHEA causes fat-loss and improved glucose metabolism in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1516</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1516</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2021 18:10:48 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1516

Another study corroborating the role of DHEA as one of the “youth” hormones. A recent study already demonstrated that DHEA can reverse aging of the human immune system, link here, which usually goes hand in hand with lower cortisol and improved metabolism. The proven anti-cortisol effects of DHEA are probably the reason behind its effects on decreasing fat mass and improved insulin sensitivity seen in the study below. Other important findings included the rise of estrogen (estradiol) in both men and women, as well as the rise in testosterone (T) in women only. The rise in estrogen is not at all surprising considering that the DHEA dosage used was 50mg daily for 6 months – a dose that is 4-5 times higher than the physiological production of DHEA in healthy young humans (10mg-15mg daily). As such, I suspect that if the daily dosage was physiological (10mg-15mg daily) instead of pharmacological (20mg+ daily) the results would have been just as positive, but without the proven risks of elevated estrogen in elderly humans, in whom estrogen levels (in the form of estrone and estrone sulfate) not only do not decline but are higher than their younger peers. In fact, if a lower DHEA dosage was used so that estrogen is not elevated, this would have probably resulted in even more potent anti-cortisol (and, thus, fat-loss and insulin-sensitizing) effects of DHEA due to the fact that estrogen promotes cortisol release. Yet another example of how “less is more” is a core principle in supplementation (and even pharma drug administration).

link here

“…Significant decreases in abdominal visceral fat occurred during the 6 months of DHEA replacement (TABLE 3). These decreases were of similar magnitude in the men and women in absolute terms. The decrease in visceral fat relative to initial values averaged 10.2% in the women and 7.4% in the men. The DHEA therapy also resulted in a significant decrease in abdominal subcutaneous fat, averaging approximately 6% in both the men and women.”

“…The insulin AUC during the OGTT was significantly reduced after 6 months of DHEA replacement therapy (TABLE 4). Despite the lower insulin levels, the glucose AUC was unchanged, providing evidence for an improvement in insulin action. This improvement is reflected in a significant increase in the insulin sensitivity index (Table 4). There was an inverse correlation between the changes in insulin sensitivity index and visceral fat area (R=–0.50, P=.003).”

“…We found in this preliminary study that DHEA reduced abdominal fat and improved insulin sensitivity index. Larger studies, however, will be needed to verify our findings and should include patient groups that are fully representative of the population at risk.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1516.mp3" length="833780" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Depression fades away when serotonin levels drop</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1514</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1514</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2021 17:45:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1514

A very, very inconvenient study for mainstream medicine and its Big Pharma goons. The so-called “serotonin hypothesis” is slowly crumbling and the results from the most recent studies are so unequivocal that the fraud about serotonin as the “happiness hormone” may go down in history as one of the most open and grotesque examples of medical genocide. It seems that at this point even mainstream media (MSM) is afraid to twist the study findings and report them in a way that portrays serotonin in a positive light. Namely, the study below talks about the so-called serotonin transporter (STT), link here, which is responsible for deactivating serotonin in a sodium-dependent fashion (yet another reason not to restrict your salt intake). As such, high levels of STT means low-levels of (extracellular) serotonin. The SSRI class of drugs inhibit STT, and thus raise serotonin levels. In previous studies with similar findings, MSM fraudulently reported that “low serotonin” levels were implicated in depression, when those other studies also talked about low STT levels (i.e. high serotonin). This time, even the “scientific” press is reporting accurately that the findings of the study directly “challenge” (IMO, “invalidate” is the more appropriate word) the so-called “serotonin hypothesis”, and by extension the entire multi-billion dollar SSRI industry. I wonder if we will finally see a class-action lawsuit challenging this medical fraud that has persisted for more than half a century…The evidence is now too strong to suppress, and too big to go away.

2 links here

“…”Our results suggest that changes to the serotonin system are part of the biology of depression and that this change is related to the episode rather than a static feature — a state rather than a trait,” says the study’s last author Johan Lundberg, researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. “The finding raises many questions about the function of the serotonin system in depression and opens up for lines of research that could challenge the prevailing concept of serotonin and depression.” Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that affects, amongst other things, mood and emotion. Its transporter protein, 5-HTT, is considered to play a critical part in depression, as it pumps serotonin away from the cerebral neuron synapses, thus regulating the amount of active serotonin the brain. Many modern antidepressant drugs inhibit this transporter, which increases the concentration of serotonin in the synapses. However, the effect of these drugs can be delayed by several weeks and in certain cases they have no effect at all, so the need for new or improved drug therapies is pressing. To achieve this, more knowledge is needed about the biological causes of the disease. Earlier studies have shown that depressed individuals have lower levels of 5-HTT in the brain than healthy individuals. This finding is somewhat surprising given the dominant theory of serotonin function in depression, “the serotonin hypothesis.” This theory dictates that low levels of synaptic serotonin causes depressive symptoms, and since the function of 5-HTT is to reduce the concentration of serotonin, high levels of the protein could be expected in depressed individuals. To better understand these findings a longitudinal or post-treatment study design can be used to answer the question of whether 5-HTT is temporarily or chronically low in people with depression.”

“…The researchers found that levels of 5-HTT were on average 10 percent higher after three months’ treatment, when 13 of the 17 patients reported a significant improvement in their symptoms. Prior to treatment, the individuals with depression had roughly the same average level of 5-HTT as a control group of 17 healthy individuals. “Instead of lower levels of serotonin transporter when depression had been treated, we found the opposite — more transporter after improved symptoms,” says Jonas Svensson, postdoc researcher in Dr Lundberg’s group.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1514.mp3" length="823244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Almost half of obese adults are (metabolically) healthy</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1512</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1512</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2021 17:20:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1512

A seemingly contradictory title, but only to people who are not aware of the so-called “obesity paradox, link here“. As I have mentioned in the past, usage of the word “paradox” usually implies a very inconvenient truth that threatens the profits of one or more branches of mainstream medicine. In this case of the obesity “paradox”, it is very embarrassing to doctors that, on average, their recommendations for weight loss at all costs (restrictive dieting, exercise, drugs, and even surgery) result in patients with much higher risk of both getting and dying from a condition such as cancer, IBD, multiple sclerosis, infectious disease, etc. Even in cases of acute trauma such as accidents or being victims of violent crime (e.g. getting shot/stabbed) the obese usually have a much better chance of survival compared to their lean, “healthy” peers who follow religiously the latest and greatest recommendations from their licensed nutritionist, doctor, coach, etc. The new study below now quantifies the obesity paradox on a national level and suggests that 40%+ of obese people are in fact metabolically healthy and without increased risk of chronic diseases. In fact, the authors of the study are proposing a new medical term – metabolically healthy obesity (MHO) – that can be used to properly “diagnose” such people (and hopefully tame a bit the overzealous advocates of leanness). So, the next time your doctor admonishes you on your “excessive” weight/gluttony, you may want to show him/her the study below.

2 links here

“…But a new study published on May 7 in the JAMA Network Open has revealed that not all obese people have the same risk of serious health issues. In fact, they found that 40 percent of obese people in the U.S., link here were not at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease or death. In fact, the study found that people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more, which is considered obese, were found to be “metabolically healthy” if they had three things in particular.”

“…The scientists behind the new study looked at 386,420 individuals and they found that obese people with normal blood pressure levels, a relatively low waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and no existing type 2 diabetes were not an increased risk of heart disease or death, leading them to define people who meet these metrics as having “metabolically healthy obesity (MHO).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1512.mp3" length="742748" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Air pollution impairs cognition, aspirin is protective</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1510</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1510</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2021 17:00:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1510

A new study demonstrating that even short-term (less than a month) exposure to polluted air impaired cognition in humans, and that the mechanism of action was by triggering an inflammatory response. Ergo, anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) and especially aspirin, were found to be protective. Since the anti-inflammatory effects of aspirin focus mostly on the COX family of enzymes, it would not be a big stretch to say that air pollution depends on PUFA to wreak havoc on the human brain. As such, dietary PUFA restriction/avoidance, is likely an even more appropriate approach to limiting the damage of pollution, especially if combined with aspirin.

2 links here

“…The researchers examined the relationship between exposures to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon, a component of PM, and cognitive performance in 954 older white males from the Greater Boston Area enrolled in the Normative Aging Study. They also explored whether taking NSAIDs could modify their relationships. Cognitive performance was assessed using the Global Cognitive Function (GCF) and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scales. Air pollution levels were obtained from a site in Boston. Elevated average PM2.5 exposure over 28 days was associated with declines in GCF and MMSE scores. Men who took NSAIDs experienced fewer adverse short-term impacts of air pollution exposures on cognitive health than non-users, though there were no direct associations between recent NSAID use and cognitive performance. The researchers postulate that NSAIDs, especially aspirin, may moderate neuroinflammation or changes in blood flow to the brain triggered by inhaling pollution.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1510.mp3" length="340484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Many people may suffer from chronic serotonin syndrome</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1507</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1507</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2021 16:49:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1507

A very interesting article, which calls out the widespread usage of serotonergic drugs (usually SSRI), and argues that their widespread use may have created an “epidemic” of a chronic, milder version of the (in)famous serotonin syndrome (SS). Currently, mainstream medicine does not recognize chronic SS as a condition, and most ER doctors are inadequately trained how to diagnose even the acute, often-lethal, version of SS. Be that as it may, as the article states, the chronic milder version of SS is far from benign, it does not resolve by itself, and can unpredictably progress into the acute version of SS. In fact, the chronic version of SS may be much more pernicious and relevant for public health due to its prevalence and difficulty of diagnosing even by experienced physicians. Btw, many of the core symptoms of chronic SS mimic those of viral infections, including COVID-19. It has already been recognized that serotonin plays a role in the course of COVID-19 and contributes to both its morbidity and mortality. Considering that almost 20% of  the US population takes antidepressants, it may very well be that many of the severe COVID-19 cases, and even deaths associated with the virus, are in fact acute exacerbations of chronic SS.

2 links here

“…The study serves as an important reminded for psychiatrists to keep an eagle-eye approach for diagnosing chronic SS. SS typically presents within 24h of initiation of change in the dose of serotonergic agents, and it may evolve very rapidly, leading to death within a few hours. However, mild cases of SS (tremor with hyperreflexia and hypertonia) may be ignored by patients and doctors, and patients continue to take serotonergic drugs for a longer period. Such patients may represent the chronic variant of SS.”

“…Generalized body pain, stiffness of the limbs, insomnia, dizziness, and irritability were the common presenting features. Such nonspecific symptoms are often ignored by patients, and even physicians do not take these symptoms seriously and attribute such symptoms to underlying primary disorders or associated somatic complaints or nonspecific drug-induced side effects. A diagnosis of SS is important even in mild and indolent form, as it is not supposed to resolve spontaneously as long as serotonergic drugs are administered. Furthermore, it may progress rapidly to death by an inadvertent increase of the dose or addition of another serotonergic agent. Take home message: The incidence of SS is increasing because of the widespread use of serotonergic drugs. There is a need to improve the awareness about SS among the physicians for early recognition and effective management.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1507.mp3" length="1021556" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Inflammation (from PUFA), not telomeres, determines lifespan / healthspan</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1505</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1505</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2021 20:08:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1505

The idea of lifespan being entirely determined by limits on cellular division has ruled biology for more than a century and is perhaps best exemplified by the (in)famous (and false) Hayflick limit, link here. Reaching the said limit is postulated to be controlled by telomere length, and as such the simplistic hypothesis materialized that could extend/control lifespan by controlling (extending) telomere length. The fact that telomere length is highly variable across centenarians has been conveniently ignored, as has been the fact that most cancer cells have long telomeres. As such, attempts to artificially maintain or even extend telomere length are at best unfounded, and at worst dangerous and disease (cancer) promoting. Speaking of inflammation, the study cites an extensive list of evidence demonstrating that activation of just the “master” inflammation factor NF-kB, link here is enough to trigger premature aging (with all of the associated signs/symptoms) in various animal models, independently of species type. Conversely, the study claims that the evidence is strong enough to suggest that suppressing/lowering inflammation is a viable life-extension approach. The wonder-drug aspirin is mostly known to medicine as an anti-inflammatory chemical, and animal models demonstrate that aspirin administration can extend maximum lifespan by 400%+, link here. However, as good as aspirin is, one can probably do better by preventing/limiting inflammation at a higher point in the cascade. Namely, most of systemic inflammation is driven by PUFA metabolites. As such, it would arguably be better to not only take aspirin but also restrict dietary PUFA since the latter takes care of currently unknown inflammation pathways that PUFA metabolites activate.

link here

“…This allowed us to identify low-level inflammation as, after age itself, the most important correlate of not only survival, but also capability and cognition. Over all groups combined and, especially, in the (semi-)supercentenarians, the impact of inflammation on these main indicators of successful ageing is stronger than that of gender, haematopoiesis/anaemia, liver or kidney function, lipid and glucose metabolism, or immune cell senescence. Renal function appeared as a similarly strong predictor of capability, but this was most probably due to its association with low muscle mass. Furthermore, only the inflammation index is consistently lower in centenarian offspring as compared to their spouses and older cohorts (even despite an inverted gender ratio). These results confirm and extend data from younger and/or smaller cohorts (Jenny et al., 2012, link here, Akbaraly et al., 2013, link here, Schnabel et al., 2013, link here, Varadhan et al., 2014, link here).”

“…Our data suggest another interpretation: Seeing low levels of systemic inflammation in centenarian offspring indicated that the rise of inflammatory mediators in centenarians may be a relatively late, ‘catch-up’ event. Thus, future centenarians may be risk-protected over most of their lifespan by low levels of systemic inflammation, but when these levels rise towards the end of their lifespan they predict centenarian mortality, disability and cognitive decline at least as strongly as in the general population. This interpretation is consistent with results from animal studies. In mice, as in humans, enhanced systemic inflammation is associated with accelerated ageing and increased mortality risk (Osorio et al., 2012, link here, Kawahara et al., 2009, link here, Tilstra et al., 2012, link here, Caballero et al., 2009, link here). Importantly, systemic activation of the major pro-inflammatory transcription factor NF-κB in the absence of any other genetic or environmental factor is sufficient to accelerate ageing in mice, suggesting that chronic enhancement of pro-inflammatory mediators is not just a bystander but a driver of ageing (Jurk et al., 2014, link here). Together, our results suggest suppression of chronic inflammation as a major determinant of successful longevity, which is relevant over a very wide age range up to extreme old age. Further human studies in independent cohorts of the extreme old will be necessary to address the generalisability of these results.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1505.mp3" length="869300" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT, not T, likely the “active” androgen in heart and brain</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1503</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1503</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2021 17:26:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1503

Interesting study, done on baboons (so should have good relevance for humans), demonstrating that the cardiovascular system (CVS) exclusively accumulates and recognizes (at the receptor level) DHT, instead of testosterone (T). In fact, the androgen receptor in CVS is so structurally different it apparently cannot even bind T. Recent studies with ALS patients suggest the same may be true in humans, not only in the CVS but in the nervous system as well. Namely, ALS patients tend to have high (circulating) T but lower DHT levels, especially in their brains, link here. The hypothesis for a unique role of DHT in tissues is further corroborated by animal ALS studies demonstrating that administration of DHT is therapeutic, link here, while multiple studies with T have produced null or negative effects. Aside from suggesting once again that DHT, instead of T, is the true tissue-active androgen in humans (and most animals) it also suggests that administration of 5-AR drugs such as finasteride / dutasteride may play a direct causative role in CVD and lethal neurodegenerative conditions such as ALS. Such ALS link has already been established for statins, link here, and considering statins’ decimating effects on DHT levels, the risks from finasteride / dutasteride use are likely to be much higher.

link here

“…This study, along with our previous studies (McGill et al., 1980; McGill and Sheridan, 1981; Sheridan et al., 19811, allows us to compare the in vivo nuclear uptake and retention of 3H-androgen in the cardiovascular system after the injection of 3H-testosterone or 3HDHT. This comparison, along with our biochemical data and the data published in the literature, has led us to two main conclusions to be discussed in detail below. First, we interpret the aggregate data to indicate that the main androgen acting on the cardiovascular system of the baboon is circulating DHT. Second, we believe that the androgen receptor in the baboon cardiovascular system is a physically different androgen receptor from that found in the kidney of a number of species and from the androgen receptor found in certain areas of the developing rat brain.”

“…In summary, after comparing the uptake and retention and metabolism of 3H-steroid in the cardiovascular system of baboons following the injection of 3H-testosterone in the present study and 3H-DHT in previous studies (McGill et al., 1980; McGill and Sheridan, 1981; Sheridan et al., 1981), we interpret the data to suggest that the physiological important androgen for the cardiovascular system is circulating DHT, not testosterone, even though there is approximately ten times more circulating testosterone than DHT. In addition, in comparing our autoradiographic data, indicative of in vivo nuclear uptake and retention of 3H-androgens, with the published biochemical data dealing with the in vitro binding characteristics of cytosolic receptor, we interpret the discrepancy between in vivo nuclear uptake and retention of unmetabolized testosterone in the kidney and lack of in vivo nuclear uptake and retention of unmetabolized testosterone (DHT is accumulated) in the myocardium to be indicative of separate receptors for testosterone and DHT.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1503.mp3" length="695660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogens cause obesity / PCOS in women, DHT is protective</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1501</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1501</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2021 16:07:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1501

Female obesity and the closely related condition PCOS are perhaps the female equivalent of the so-called “androgen hypothesis” for balding and prostate cancer in men, as the female version of this hypothesis not only blames androgens for these conditions but specifically singles out DHT as the main “villain”. The mainstream medical dogma is that a state of hyperandrogenism in women leads to obesity by somehow worsening insulin resistance, and over time this leads to conditions such as diabetes II and/or PCOS. Many attempts have been made to treat such conditions with estrogens (since they oppose/block androgens), but those efforts have invariably backfired. Despite these failures, anti-androgenic therapies are still the “standard of care” for conditions such as PCOS and there is a lot of money being spent by Big Pharma on developing new and more potent androgen antagonists and/or inhibitors of androgen synthesis. The situation is absurd, as multiple studies have already demonstrated that estrogen administration in females can reliably cause both obesity and PCOS, link here, but unfortunately the findings of the WHI studies (i.e. estrogens are bad for female health) have been labelled by Big Pharma as “misguided”, and estrogen HRT is being re-introduced in Western countries. Perhaps the study below will give doctors some food for thought, as its findings are perfectly in line with the WHI trials, while also vindicating the role of DHT in female health. Interestingly, it is one of the few studies that looked at the role of different estrogens and found that estrone (E1), link here and the (in)famous estrone sulfate(E1S), link here are correlated with obesity and fat cell size, while out of all the androgens it was only DHT that was associated with leanness and small fat cell size. As I have discussed in previous blog posts, when it comes to estrogens, medicine focuses almost exclusively on estradiol (E2). Since E2 levels drops after menopause, medicine has used this fact as “irrefutable” evidence to claim that menopause is a condition of low estrogen, and as such estrogen HRT is warranted, despite evidence that estradiol can cause pretty much any of the known cancers (in both men and women). Simultaneously, medicine continues to ignore evidence that levels of E1 and E1S do not drop (but often even rise) after menopause and both of these estrogens can be easily converted back into estradiol in tissues. Specifically, E1S has been described as the most reliable biomarker of long-term estrogenic “reserves” in an organism and its levels have been found to predict both the development and mortality of breast and prostate cancers. In other words, high E1/E1S levels signal estrogenic excess and to speak of menopause as a condition of estrogen “deficiency” is absurd in light of the rising (or at least non-declining) levels of E1/E1S in such women. The fact that E1S predicts both the development and mortality from prostate cancer also largely invalidates the “androgen hypothesis” for that condition.

Now, I can already hear the howls to high heaven from the critics/doctors that this is only an observation study and proves absolutely nothing. True, but unfortunately for the critics, the second link below is an intervention study, which demonstrated that topical administration of 37.5mg DHT  (Andractim) twice a day for 6 months to postmenopausal women with concerning increase in weight produced highly significant fat loss. This dosage regimen amounts to 75mg daily topical dose, which studies claim translates to about 10% (7.5mg) absorbed daily dose – a pharmacological dose even for a male – yet produced no side effects! In other words, direct confirmation of the findings of the more recent observation study in the first link, even more so when considering that DHT is a known estrogen antagonist, in addition to (and largely because of) being a strong androgen agonist. IMO, the combined findings from both the studies below should send a very clear message to any overweight woman (or man) – if she wants her weight to drop, anti-estrogenic interventions/remedies must be adopted. It is also time for mainstream medicine to admit its “mistakes” and stop poisoning and killing both men and women with estrogenic and/or anti-androgenic therapies.

Lastly, while supplementing DHT in women is possible and apparently greatly improves body composition, it may have undesirable virilizing effects in some women due to its high androgenic potency. Progesterone, aspirin, vitamin E, and DHEA (a good DHT precursor in women) are probably some of the most widely available and cost-effective options with less risk for virilizing side effects.

link here

“…We computed pairwise correlation coefficients to test the associations between measures of adiposity, body fat distribution, and plasma levels of DHT, D4-dione, DHEA, E1, and E1-S. As shown in Table 4 , DHT was negatively and significantly associated with BMI, total body fat mass, SAT, and VAT. The association between plasma DHT levels and VAT remained significant after adjustment for total body fat mass and the age of the women. None of these results differed when menopausal women were excluded. No significant correlation was observed between D4-dione or DHEA levels and any measure of adiposity and body fat distribution. On the other hand, plasma levels of E1 and E1-S were positively associated with BMI and total body fat mass. A positive association was also found between E1-S and percent body fat. Positive trends were observed between plasma levels of E1-S and abdominal adipose tissue areas. Table 5 shows the associations between adipocyte/adipose tissue characteristics and plasma DHT, adrenal androgen precursor, and estrogen levels. DHT levels were negatively correlated with adipocyte diameter in the OM compartment while no significant association was found in the SC depot between DHT and any adipocyte/adipose tissue characteristic. The OM/SC ratio was calculated as an indicator of preferential LPL activity or lipolysis in one compartment vs. the other. As shown in Table 5, the OM/SC ratio for HR-LPL activity was negatively and significantly associated with plasma levels of DHT, D4-dione, and DHEA. The OM/SC ratio of basal lipolysis was negatively and significantly correlated with D4-dione. These associations suggest lower HR-LPL activity or lipolysis in the OM vs. SC compartment with high levels of the hormone. No significant association was found between OM/SC ratio for adipocyte diameter and steroid levels, although DHT levels tended to be negatively correlated with adipocyte diameter when expressed as a ratio. When postmenopausal women were excluded, the associations between the OM/SC ratio of HR-LPL activity and D4-dione or DHEA were no longer significant, as well as the correlation between the OM/SC ratio of basal lipolysis and D4-dione. No significant association was found between plasma E1 or E1-S levels and any of the above adipocyte/ adipose tissue characteristics. To examine the relation between TESTO levels and visceral adiposity, we stratified women in tertiles of VAT after statistical adjustments for age and total body fat mass. As shown in Figure 1 , no significant difference was found among VAT tertiles for TESTO levels. When examining other hormones, women with the highest VAT had significantly lower levels of DHT compared with all other women. D4-dione and DHEA levels did not differ significantly among tertiles of VAT after adjusting for total body fat mass. Higher E1-S levels were found in women with the highest VAT.”

“…The impact of local DHT production on adipocyte and adipose tissue function needs to be established. Gruber et al. [42] have previously shown that in postmenopausal women, percutaneous injection of DHT led to a significant decrease in total body fat percentage and abdominal fat percentage measured by DEXA. Similar results were observed by Lovejoy et al. [43] using nandrolone decanoate, a weak androgen that also favored weight loss in the abdominal SC fat depot and promoted weight gain in the visceral compartment.”

“…Some limitations need to be acknowledged. The analyses computed in this study are based on cross-sectional data. Therefore, it is not possible to conclude on causeand-effect relations between the plasma adrenal and gonadal levels and body fat distribution as well as abdominal adipocyte characteristics. Although we used accurate methods to quantify plasma concentration of androgens,

failure to measure significant levels of TESTO in several subjects limits our ability to compare our results with other studies. In conclusion, the general assumption that high androgens relate to android body fat distribution in women should be critically re-examined.”

link here

“…Objecti6es: This study was carried out to assess the effect of topical androgen replacement therapy on body weight, body composition and fat distribution in postmenopausal women. Methods: 39 healthy postmenopausal women (51.492.24 years), with increasing body weight, were prospectively studied for 6 months. Body composition (fat mass, kg, %) was measured by means of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Hormonal and lipid parameters were also measured. Subjects were divided into two groups. An androgen (Andractim) gel (group A) or placebo gel (group P) was topically administered to the abdominal and gluteo-femoral regions. DXA was performed before commencement of topical treatment and after 6 months. Results: A highly significant total body weight reduction was found in group A (68.0913.1 to 65.4911.8 kg). Abdominal fat (37.3911.2 to 35.199.7%), gluteo-femoral fat (46.396.6 to 45.497.7%), total body fat (38.297.9 to 36.198.6%) and BMI (24.894.3 to 23.793.8) were also found to have decreased significantly in this group. No significant reduction in body weight (kg) and body fat (%) could be measured in the placebo group. No influence on lipid parameters was found although total testosterone increased significantly in group A (0.2990.24 to 0.7290.17 ng/ml). Conclusions: Topically applied androgen is capable of reducing abdominal fat accumulations as well as total body weight in postmenopausal women with unexplained weight gain. In contrast to systemic androgen application, topical administration has no effect on the lipid profile. Gluteal fat, however, is less effectively influenced by androgens.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1501.mp3" length="2316500" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress causes/exacerbates allergies, pregnenolone/progesterone therapeutic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1499</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1499</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 19:58:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1499

Yet another studies demonstrating the “controversial” link between stress and a condition doctors insist has nothing to do with stress or hormones in general. This time the culprit is CRF/CRH, which is the initial step in the “stress” cascade and is now known to be implicated in conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer, depression alcoholism, etc, link here. Interestingly enough, despite cortisol itself having immediate anti-inflammatory effects it seems to promote long-term inflammation by increasing expression of inflammatory enzymes, link here. As such, the use of cortisol in patients with severe allergies is likely counterproductive and may exacerbate the conditions in the long-run. Interestingly enough, the study authors suggest using CRH antagonists (antalarmin, link here) as interventions to prevent/treat allergies, which suggests that pregnenolone, being the most potent known endogenous CRH antagonist (with progesterone a close second), link here, may be a great OTC, low-cost alternative.

2 links here

“…Increased allergic reactions may be tied to the corticotropin-releasing stress hormone (CRH), suggests a study published this month in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. These findings may help clarify the mechanism by which CRH induces proliferation of mast cells (MC) – agents involved in the development of allergies in the human nasal cavity.  “In my daily practice, I meet many patients with allergies who say their symptoms worsened due to psychological stress,” states lead researcher Mika Yamanaka-Takaichi, a graduate student of the Department of Dermatology, Osaka City University, “This is what led me to do this research.”  Together with Professor Daisuke Tsuruta of the same department, they hypothesized that due to its role in inducing MC degranulation in human skin, “CRH may also be involved in stress-aggravated nasal allergies,” says Professor Tsuruta.  When the team added CRH to a nasal polyp organ culture, they saw a significant increase in the number of mast cells, a stimulation both of MC degranulation and proliferation, and an increase of stem cell factor (SCF) expression, a growth factor of mast cells, in human nasal mucosa- the skin of the nasal cavity. In exploring possible therapeutic angles, “we saw the effect of CRH on mast cells blocked by CRHR1 gene knockdown, CRHR1 inhibitors, or an addition of SCF neutralizing antibodies,” states Dr. Yamanaka-Takaichi. In vivo, the team found an increase in the number of mast cells and degranulation in the nasal mucosa of mouse models of restraint stress, which was inhibited by the administration of CRHR1 inhibitor, antalarmin.  “In addition to understanding the effects stress has on our allergies, we have also found promising therapeutic potential in candidates like antalarmin,” adds Dr. Yamanaka-Takaichi, “And this is wonderful news for my patients.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1499.mp3" length="562844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low DHT can cause hypogonadism symptoms even in eugonadal men</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1497</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1497</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 19:43:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1497

Seemingly contradictory title, but the study findings are pretty clear. Namely, even in males with normal testosterone levels there is a direct inverse relationship between DHT levels and symptoms of hypogonadism such as sexual dysfunction and “aging male” syndrome. For every 10% increase in DHT levels there was a 4.67% decrease in hypogonadism symptoms of eugonadal males. So, once again, this is evidence that testosterone (T) is little more than a pro-hormone produced in the gonads and peripheral tissues and that its metabolite DHT is the primary androgen responsible for health of males.

link here

“…Results: Serum total/free T as well as dihydro-T (DHT) was associated with IIEF-EF and AMS scores in the overall population using univariate analyses. Multivariate approaches revealed DHT concentrations in subjects with normal T levels (n = 416, Total T > 12 nmol/L) to be significant predictors of AMS scores. A 0.1 nmol/l serum DHT increase within the eugonadal range was associated with a 4.67% decrease in odds of having worse symptoms (p = 0.011). In men with biochemical hypogonadism (Total T < 12 nmol/L), total and free T rather than DHT were associated with AMS results. This association was not found for IIEF-EF scores. Indirect effects of age and BMI were seen for relations with hormone concentrations but not questionnaire scores. Conclusion: DHT can be associated with symptoms of hypogonadism in biochemically eugonadal men. Serum DHT measurement might be helpful once the diagnosis of hypogonadism has been ruled out but should not be routinely included in the primary diagnostic process.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1497.mp3" length="350852" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress (cortisol) causes hair loss</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1495</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1495</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 19:31:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1495

Amazing study, which perfectly corroborates the findings of a previous study showing that estrogen (a cortisol promoter) also causes hair loss, link here, while administering an estrogen-blocker reversed the hair loss. Administration of androgens (known cortisol and estrogen blockers) such as testosterone had similar effects, link here, and even the “hair villain” DHT robustly promoted hair growth, link here. Cortisol is one of the main activators of the enzyme aromatase, and as such estrogen/cortisol form a vicious (positive-feedback) circle. Ergo, we can now confidently say that chronic stress, through its mediators cortisol / estrogen / prolactin / aldosterone / PTH / serotonin, is the main driver of hair loss. Conversely, treatments aimed at blocking one or more of these stress mediators (or simply avoiding stress, for the lucky-enough folks who can afford it) may be viable treatments of hair loss. Interestingly enough, the study found that even normal baseline levels of cortisol have “quieting” effects on hair growth, which suggests an inverse relationship between cortisol and hair growth and may explain why patients with Addison disease, link here (chronic and severe cortisol deficiency) almost always have strikingly dense and bushy hair. Btw, this new study on cortisol is from the same group that recently demonstrated the causative role of chronic stress in greying of hair, link here. I can only hope that this group keeps publishing, as studies like this are sorely lacking…

Now, what does that mean in terms of practical measures? Well, all anti-cortisol and anti-estrogen interventions may be potentially therapeutic. Namely, progesterone, DHEA, T/DHT, vitamin D, T3, pregnenolone, aspirin, niacinamide, anti-serotonin / anti-histamine / anticholinergic chemicals (which lower cortisol and block estrogen effects), etc can all be part of the arsenal that may lead to hair-regrowth.

link here

Researchers discover how chronic stress leads to hair loss, link here

“…In a mouse study published in the journal Nature, link here, the researchers found that a major stress hormone puts hair follicle stem cells into an extended resting phase, without regenerating the follicle or the hair. The researchers identified the specific cell type and molecule responsible for relaying the stress signal to the stem cells, and showed that this pathway can be potentially targeted to restore hair growth.”

“…The hair follicle is one of the few mammalian tissues that can undergo rounds of regeneration throughout life, and has become a paradigm that informs much of our fundamental understanding of mammalian stem cell biology. The hair follicle naturally cycles between growth and rest, a process fueled by hair follicle stem cells. During the growth phase, hair follicle stem cells become activated to regenerate the follicle and hair, and hairs grow longer each day. During the resting phase, the stem cells are quiescent and hairs shed more easily. Hair loss can occur if the hairs shed and the stem cells remain quiescent without regenerating new tissue.”

“…The researchers studied a mouse model of chronic stress and found that hair follicle stem cells stayed in a resting phase for a very long time without regenerating tissues. A major stress hormone produced by the adrenal glands, corticosterone, was upregulated by chronic stress; giving mice corticosterone reproduced the stress effect on the stem cells. The equivalent hormone in humans is cortisol, which is also upregulated under stress and is often referred to as the “stress hormone.” “This result suggests that elevated stress hormones indeed have a negative effect on hair follicle stem cells,” Hsu said. “But the real surprise came when we took out the source of the stress hormones.” Under normal conditions, hair follicle regeneration slows over time — the resting phase becomes longer as the animals age. But when the researchers removed the stress hormones, the stem cells’ resting phase became extremely short and the mice constantly entered the growth phase to regenerate hair follicles throughout their life, even when they were old. “So even the baseline level of stress hormone that’s normally circulating in the body is an important regulator of the resting phase. Stress essentially just elevates this preexisting ‘adrenal gland–hair follicle axis,’ making it even more difficult for hair follicle stem cells to enter the growth phase to regenerate new hair follicles,” Hsu said.”

“…Last year, Hsu’s group discovered how stress affects another type of stem cell in the hair follicle: the melanocyte stem cells that regenerate hair pigment. The researchers found that stress activates the sympathetic nervous system and depletes melanocyte stem cells, leading to premature hair graying, link here. With the new study, the two findings together demonstrate that although stress has detrimental impacts on both hair follicle stem cells and melanocyte stem cells, the mechanisms are different. Stress depletes melanocyte stem cells directly via nerve-derived signals, while stress prevents hair follicle stem cells from making new hairs indirectly via an adrenal-gland-derived stress hormone’s impact on the niche. Because hair follicle stem cells are not depleted, it might be possible to reactivate stem cells under stress with mechanisms such as the Gas6 pathway.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1495.mp3" length="1003412" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endocrine disruptors in cosmetics may cause postpartum depression, premature births</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1491</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1491</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 18:48:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1491

Hardly a surprising finding, but it will probably come as a shock to most modern women who are the biggest consumers of such products (e.g. nail polish, perfumes, shampoo, etc). One of the reasons for this “controversy” is that doctors continue to insist that using such products during pregnancy is perfectly safe, for both mom-to-be and baby. Importantly, the mechanism through which the phthalates, link here, the endocrine disruptor in question, cause PDD is by lowering levels of progesterone and as such its metabolite allopregnanolone (which was recently approved by FDA as treatment for PPD, link here). Since progesterone is the main pregnancy-preserving (tocolytic) hormone, the study findings also suggest that exposure to these chemicals may trigger premature birth and/or abortion. Considering that phthalates are estrogenic and act as thyroid antagonists similarly to the (in)famous plastic ingredients BPA/BPS, the link between phthalates and PPD and their effects on hormonal balance reported in this study are hardly surprising.

link here

“…Di-n-octyl phthalate (DnOP) and diisononyl phthalate (DiNP) metabolites were associated with reduced progesterone concentrations. Log-unit increases in ∑DnOP and ∑DiNP predicted 8.1% (95% Confidence Interval (CI): -15.2%, -0.4%) and 7.7% (95% CI: -13.3%, -1.7%) lower progesterone, respectively. ∑DnOP was associated with increased odds of PPD (odds ratio=1.48 (95% CI: 1.04, 2.11)). Conclusions: Endocrine disrupting chemicals may influence hormonal shifts during pregnancy as well as contribute to PPD.”

link here

“…A new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism suggests there may be a link between postpartum depression and exposure to chemicals, link here found in plastics and beauty products such as nail polish, shampoo, and perfume. Researchers found endocrine-disrupting chemicals called phthalates may influence hormonal shifts, link here and contribute to postpartum depression. “Phthalates are a class of chemicals used in plastics and personal care products that have been shown to affect and interfere with endogenous hormones,” Melanie Jacobson, the study’s lead author and an epidemiologist and research scientist at the NYU Langone Medical Center, link here in New York, tells Romper. “Their use is so widespread that nearly all U.S. adults, including pregnant women, have detectable levels in their systems.” According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), phthalates can prolong a fragrance’s shelf life, link here and increase the flexibility of plastic. They’re found in a wide array of products, including toys, vinyl flooring, detergents, food packagings, and personal care products like nail polish, hair sprays, aftershave lotions, soaps, shampoos, and perfumes. In nail polish, for example, phthalates known as dibutylphthalate serve as a plasticizer, essentially working to reduce cracking within the polish. In hair spray, phthalates known as dimethylphthalate help create the flexible hold users love. In perfumes, phthalates known as diethylphthalate helps preserve the fragrance.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1491.mp3" length="542732" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D (topical) safe and effective for removing scars</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1489</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1489</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 18:32:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1489

A neat human study, which demonstrates that topical treatment with vitamin D may treat even large scars that have been present on the skin for years. Many people have such scars as a result of surgery, trauma, chemical/heat burns, radiation, etc. As the study says, the typical treatment is with cortisol injections, however the effectiveness is less than 10%, and the only other option is cosmetic surgery, which of course leaves scars of its own and can hardly be considered a “solution”. Humble vitamin D may come to the rescue and even though the study used injections of the vitamin into the scar, topical administration of vitamin D has also been found to achieve high skin concentrations. The dosage used in the study was 200,000 of vitamin D3, and all that was needed was 3-4 sessions of such treatment. The mechanism of action, as expected, was the antifibrotic effects of vitamin D, which I have discussed many times in my posts. The study abstract does not mention timing/duration but considering mos doctors prescribe 50,000 IU weekly, this suggests the study used the 200,000 IU once monthly and as such the treatment duration was 3-4 months. There is no reason why the same effects cannot be achieved with daily treatments using lower doses, which means daily topical administration of 10,000 IU – 15,000 IU of vitamin D3 (higher dose than the 200,000 / 30 in order to account for absorption of less than 100% through the skin) should be able to achieve similar results.

2 links here

“…A recent study in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology examines the safety and efficacy of using vitamin D intralesional injection for the treatment of keloid scars. Treating keloid scars continue to be a particular challenge for dermatologists due to the scars oversized nature, continued growth, and difficult treatment. While intralesional corticosteroid injection is considered first-line treatment for keloids, a recent study in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology1 (JCD) examined vitamin D efficacy treating keloids using intralesional injection. Vitamin D slows the progression of tissue fibrosis by keloid fibroblasts and inhibits collagen synthesis in dermal fibrosis, according to the study, making the vitamin a key player in cell proliferation and differentiation. The study, which evaluated the efficacy of intralesional injection of vitamin D in the treatment of keloids, both clinically and ultrasonically, included 40 patients with keloids. Patients were injected weekly with intralesional vitamin D at a dose of 0.2 ml (200,000 IU) per 1 cm lesion. The keloid scars were evaluated before and after treatment with the Vancouver Scar Scale (VSS) and by a high-resolution ultrasound using B mode. Study patients received 3 to 4 sessions. Results showed a statistically significant reduction in VSS after treatment with the vitamin injection (p value ≤0.001) along with a highly significant improvement in ultrasonic keloid scar thickness post-treatment (P value ≤0.001). From this data, study investigators concluded that intralesional vitamin D is a safe and effective treatment of keloid scares. Additionally, ultrasound is useful in assessing keloid improvement after treatment.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1489.mp3" length="766532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin and oxytocin promote gullibility, trainability, and servility</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1487</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1487</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 18:15:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1487

A great study, which while done with horses, will probably raise questions (unfortunately only in people with already-low serotonin) of whether the relentless promotion of serotonin (5-HT) as the “happiness hormone” and oxytocin as the “love and connection hormone” has any evidence in support. According to the study, the horses with the lowest serotonin levels showed the highest dominance while the ones with the highest ones were the most “trainable”, which is euphemism in animal science for obedience, servility, and (social) defeat. This is by far not the only study on the topic and it is well-known in animal research circles that the so-called “social defeat” paradigm, which leads to the drop of an animal’s social rank and subsequent development of depression and chronic disease, is driven by a rise in serotonin as a result of the stressful experience of “training” (usually outright torture). In fact, animal studies show that changes in serotonin levels are the primary driver of appearances of hierarchies in societies, and maintaining high serotonin levels (and thus servility/defeat) in the non-dominant social members is perhaps the primary mechanism through which the “elites” maintain their dominance over the “plebs”. Now, think what that implies about SSRI drugs and their massive usage in most “developed” countries…

link here

Trainability of horses linked to good levels of oxytocin, link here

“…The plasma serotonin concentration in the high dominance group was significantly lower than those in the low and medium dominance groups. Interestingly, they said, there was no significant difference in the plasma serotonin concentration between the medium and low dominance group. The researchers said there was a significant positive correlation between the plasma oxytocin concentrations and the degree of trainability. Horses assessed by the professors as being highly trainable had significantly higher plasma oxytocin concentrations compared with those grouped in the medium trainability category.”

“…“Although it was not statistically significant, a positive correlation between the concentration of serotonin in horse blood plasma and the trainability of horses appeared to be present. “Interestingly, in humans, the depletion of serotonin caused several problems such as decreasing the level of cooperation and being discredited between partners. “Combining the results in horses and humans, serotonin appears to play a positive role in cooperation and trust, leading to high trainability.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1487.mp3" length="724700" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D deficiency impairs muscles by lowering energy production</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1485</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1485</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:51:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1485

Perhaps this study below will put some of the arguments against vitamin D supplementation to rest. It demonstrated up to 40% reduction of energy production in the muscles of animals deficient in vitamin D, in spite of unchanged number/size/density of mitochondria inside the cells. In addition, it demonstrated decrease in lean mass in the deficient animals, which suggests energy production is crucial for maintaining muscle mass and energetic deficiency may be the primary reason of loss of muscle mass in aging/disease. As this study says, this link between vitamin D / energetic deficiency and muscle health has been confirmed in human epidemiological studies on people with sarcopenia / cachexia. The new study findings match well with the findings of older studies demonstrating a strong overlap of effects between vitamin D and active thyroid hormone (T3), the latter being the main controller of the rate of oxidative metabolism in the organism. Conversely, supplementing with vitamin D, so the deficiency can be resolved, may be a decent surrogate of T3 supplementation for people who cannot get access to thyroid hormone(s) and/or are concerned about using them. One thing to keep in mind is that since vitamin D is primarily stored in fat tissue, overweight people may need 2-3 times higher daily doses in order to bring blood levels back within the normal range. So, if a doctor recommends 2,000 IU – 3,000 IU daily to a deficient, overweight person then the effective dosage that needs to be taken is probably around 10,000 IU daily.

3 links here

“…Vitamin D deficiency may impair muscle function due to a reduction in energy production in the muscles, according to a mouse study published in the Journal of Endocrinology. Vitamin D deficient mice were found to have impaired muscle mitochondrial function, which may have implications for muscle function, performance and recovery. This may suggest that preventing vitamin D deficiency in older adults could help maintain better muscle strength and function and reduce age related muscle deterioration, but further studies are needed to confirm this. Vitamin D is a hormone well known to be important for maintaining bone health and preventing rickets and osteoporosis. In recent years, vitamin D deficiency has been reported to be as prevalent as 40% in European populations and linked to increased risk for several conditions, including COVID-19, cancer and diabetes. Although these studies report association rather than causation, the benefits of vitamin D supplementation are now a major subject of health debate. Multiple studies have also linked low vitamin D levels to poor muscle strength, particularly in older people. Skeletal muscle enables us to move voluntarily and perform everyday activities. It is essential that they have enough energy to power these movements. Specialised organs in cells, called mitochondria, convert nutrients in to energy to meet this demand. Previous studies indicate that impaired muscle strength in people with vitamin D deficiency may be linked to impaired muscle mitochondrial function. Determining the role of vitamin D in muscle performance of older people is also difficult, as they may suffer from a number of pre-existing health conditions that can also affect their vitamin D status. Therefore, previous studies have been unable to determine how vitamin D may directly affect muscle performance.”

“…”Our results show there is a clear link between vitamin D deficiency and oxidative capacity in skeletal muscle. They suggest that vitamin D deficiency decreases mitochondrial function, as opposed to reducing the number of mitochondria in skeletal muscle.” Dr Philp comments. “We are particularly interested to examine whether this reduction in mitochondrial function may be a cause of age related loss in skeletal muscle mass and function.”

“…These findings suggest that vitamin D deficiency may impair mitochondrial function and reduce the amount of energy produced in the muscles, which may lead to poor muscle function. Therefore, preventing vitamin D deficiency in older people may help maintain muscle performance and reduce the risk of muscle related diseases, such as sarcopenia. However, further studies that investigate the direct effect of vitamin D deficiency on muscle function and strength are necessary to confirm this.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1485.mp3" length="969692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) may be the cause of fatal lung damage in COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1483</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1483</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:23:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1483

Yet another study, which demonstrates that there is virtually no disease (acute of chronic, infections or not) where the infamous LPS does not play a causative role. As it turns out, the often fatal inflammatory reaction (cytokine storm) that usually kills patients with COVID-19 in ICU, is driven by endotoxin through activation of its TLR4 receptor. Conversely, blocking that receptor may prevent the severe lung damage and mortality in such patients. Considering my recent post about even minute amounts of silica activating TLR4 and causing a severe systemic inflammatory reaction, I wonder how many of those COVID-19 patients in hospitals died iatrogenically due to TLR4 activation by the silica present in virtually all oral drugs used in hospitals…

link here

“…Researchers at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine are about to receive their first shipment of the drug, a therapeutic antibody called EB05 that preclinical studies have shown can limit the inflammatory immune response that leads to acute respiratory distress syndrome – the main cause of death in people with COVID-19. The researchers will study cells and animal models in the faculty’s Combined Containment Level 3 Unit, link here (C-CL3) to see whether a molecular receptor called TLR4 plays a direct role in the overactive immune response – a condition known as a cytokine storm – and how EB05 can block the receptor and inhibit the inflammatory pathway.”

“…“There has been good work suggesting that targeting TLR4 could be an effective strategy, first in bacterial endotoxins and later for viruses that trigger inflammation,” Gray-Owen said. “It’s also a bit fortuitous that we’ve had two decades to figure that out, since this work highlights that the immune system is much more sophisticated than anyone first imagined.” The path from discovery of TLR4 to treatment with a monoclonal antibody shows that the outputs of basic research are often completely unforeseen, Gray-Owen added. Scientists identified TLR4 in the late 1990s and found that it recognizes harmful bacteria as part of the innate immune response, with two of the researchers winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery in 2011. But it turns out the receptor can also detect danger signals in other cells activated by the immune system to cause inflammation as part of the adaptive immune response. Researchers now generally accept that modulating TLR4 is a valid way to up- or down-regulate immune-based inflammation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1483.mp3" length="436076" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin beneficial, other NSAID harmful, for COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1481</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1481</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:13:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1481

Once again, the miracle of nature known as aspirin gets some recognition. Studies done early in the COVID-19 pandemic (early 2020) suggested that non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) may help reduce severity/lethality of COVID-19, however subsequent studies challenged those results and demonstrated worse outcomes in patients treated with NSAID. As more and more studies were done on the topic it now appears that aspirin is truly beneficial and reduces severity/lethality of COVID-19 while the most commonly used NSAID ibuprofen and acetominophen worsened severity/lethality. The only group where aspirin did not help was in people with pre-existing chronic inflammatory disorders (e.g. arthritis), which is probably due to the fact that such people are already in a very systemically inflamed state and in such people even mild COVID-19 can be deadly. The new findings suggests aspirin has unique effects not directly related to the simplistic “COX inhibition” that are responsible for its benefits. In all likelilhood, those additional effects are related to aspirin’s lipolysis inhibition effects as well as its ability to decrease lipid (PUFA) peroxidation, and inhibit fatty acid oxadation (FAO) – all of which have been shown to be relevant for COVID-19 pathology. If nine out of 10 COVID-19 deaths are due to vitamin D deficiency (as another recent blog post of mine discussed), and if aspirin drastically lowers the severity/lethality of COVID-19 (as another blog post also discussed) then we can save countless lives by simply administering these two dirt cheap, safe, widely available substances. Of course, such intervention is not nearly as “sexy” as selling “advanced” DNA modification therapies such as mRNA “vaccines”, so I doubt it will catch on.

link here

“…Indomethacin and naproxen are among the NSAIDs which seem to directly antagonize SARS-CoV-2. Conversely, ibuprofen seemed to worsen clinical severity in a French study. The OpenSAFELY-based study from early in the pandemic, used data from 40% of English patients over 3.5 months in 2020. It showed that the use of NSAIDs within four months of March 1, 2020, did not increase COVID-19-related deaths in either of two groups: one with rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis and one with a history of regular NSAID use within four months of the start of the study. Other small studies showed that aspirin use in patients within 24 days after admission, or seven days before admission, reduced both the severity and fatality rate of COVID-19.”

“…The odds ratios for increased severity of COVID-19 were highest with acetaminophen, at between 6-fold and 9-fold higher odds compared to non-users. In the cohort of non-survivors, these associations were equally significant.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1481.mp3" length="947708" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Silica, present in most supplements/food, activates the endotoxin receptor (TLR4)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1477</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1477</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 16:51:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1477

Many of my readers know about the health risks of silica – a substance doctors and pundits call completely “benign, present in virtually all commercially sold dietary supplements and also in most commercially sold food (even organic ones!). The most commonly used form commercially is silicon dioxide, which is essentially powdered glass! However, despite its ubiquity, the risks of silica have not been widely studied and warning people about its dangers usually elicits accusations of “conspiracy theories” and/or “fearmongering”. However, the dangers of endotoxin (LPS), link here and of other substances capable of activating its receptor (TLR4, link here) are now becoming publicly known to the point where even general practitioners (GP) and family doctors are starting to advise their patients to not consume foods that result in elevation of LPS in the bloodstream. In light of that knowledge, perhaps the study below will change people’s perception on silica being “benign”, as it demonstrates that simply inhaling silica (which is an amount much smaller than what is ingested through food/supplements) is capable of activating TLR4 and triggering a systemic inflammatory reaction that not only damaged lungs (duh) but also negatively affected bone metabolism and led to bone loss.

link here

“…Results: The data indicated that silica inhalation might activate the RANKL and TLR4 signaling pathways in lung macrophages, thus inducing the lung inflammatory and proteolytic phenotype of macrophages and osteoclasts in lung and bone. Ac-SDKP maintained the lung elastin level by inhibiting lung inflammation and macrophage activation via the RANKL and TLR4 signaling pathways. Ac-SDKP also attenuated the reduction in femoral bone mineral density in silicotic rats by inhibiting osteoclast differentiation via the RANKL signaling pathway. Conclusion: Our findings support the hypothesis that inhalation of crystalline silica induces activation of lung macrophages and bone osteoclasts via the RANKL and TLR4 signaling pathways. Ac-SDKP has the potential to stabilize lung homeostasis and bone metabolism.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1477.mp3" length="666236" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide improves glucose metabolism and muscle health in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1475</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1475</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2021 16:36:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1475

Niacinamide probably does not need in introduction to the people reading my posts. However, despite the multitude of animal studies demonstrating beneficial effects of this vitamin in virtually every chronic condition (and especially conditions associated with disturbed glucose metabolism), human studies with it are very scarce. The study below is one of those rare human ones, and it demonstrated that daily intake of nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN, link here), a metabolite of niacinamide and a direct recursor to NAD, link here, improved glucose metabolism in postmenopausal women with prediabetes (the majority of whom were obese). The daily dosage of NMN was just 250mg and the trial lasted a little over 2 months (10 weeks). Animal studies suggest that higher doses of niacinamide, on the order of 1g-1.5g daily can actually reverse type II diabetes, but I guess for prevention purposes even 250mg would be a good start and when taken over a longer period of time may be able to alleviate even established diabetes. In addition to the benefits on glucose metabolism, the supplementation also changed favorably expression of genes involved in muscle synthesis and remodeling, which suggests niacinamide may also be relevant for other conditions such as muscle loss (sarcopenia, cachexia) often seen in sick and/or old people.

3 links here

“…A natural compound previously demonstrated to counteract aspects of aging and improve metabolic health in mice has clinically relevant effects in people, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. A small clinical trial of postmenopausal women with prediabetes shows that the compound NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) improved the ability of insulin to increase glucose uptake in skeletal muscle, which often is abnormal in people with obesity, prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes. NMN also improved expression of genes that are involved in muscle structure and remodeling. However, the treatment did not lower blood glucose or blood pressure, improve blood lipid profile, increase insulin sensitivity in the liver, reduce fat in the liver or decrease circulating markers of inflammation as seen in mice. The study, published online April 22 in the journal Science, is the first randomized clinical trial to look at the metabolic effects of NMN administration in people. Among the women in the study, 13 received 250 mg of NMN orally every day for 10 weeks, and 12 were given an inactive placebo every day over the same period.”

“…NMN is involved in producing an important compound in all cells, called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). NAD plays a vital role in keeping animals healthy. Levels of NAD decline with age in a broad range of animals, including humans, and the compound has been shown to contribute to a variety of aging-associated problems, including insulin resistance in studies conducted in mice. Supplementing animals with NMN slows and ameliorates age-related decline in the function of many tissues in the body.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1475.mp3" length="691196" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking cortisol may treat terminal pancreatic cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1466</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1466</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Mar 2021 15:04:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1466

Recently, I made a post about some truly amazing results in treating terminal cancer patients, link here with the glucocorticoid/progesterone antagonist Mifepristone (RU486), link here. Some of the cases were stage 4 and possibly terminal. Now, a new case study below reports possibly curative effects on a confirmed terminal case of pancreatic cancer using 200mg daily dose of RU486. The patient went from being assigned to a hospice and taking a morphine drip for pain to an almost fully functional state. His cancer was officially re-categorized from stage 4 down to stage 2. The patient was well on his way to perhaps complete cure, however he felt that he was a burden on his children, could not afford the $500 a month for RU486, and decided to stop the treatment. His cancer returned and he died a few weeks after stopping the RU486 treatment. Interestingly enough, the case report mentions that the patient had obtained RU486 without prescription and was considering self-treatment due to his son informing him of the recent successful studied with that drug in advanced cancers. This suggests the general public is becoming aware of such “alternative” therapies targeting the metabolic nature of cancer, which gives me hope that more and more people will start rejecting the guaranteed death sentences handed out by mainstream oncologists, and will take treatment matters into their own hands. As I mentioned in the previous RU486 post referenced above – despite the amazing effects, this drug is not without side effects, is expensive, and very had to get a doctor to prescribe. Progesterone, being a natural glucocorticoid antagonist, is widely available (usually without prescription), cheap and with much better side effects profile compared to RU486. Based on receptor affinity studies, progesterone should be able to replicate the effects of 200mg RU486 daily when used in doses of 250mg-500mg daily.

link here

“…Pancreatic cancer has one of the highest mortality rates among all malignancies, with a 5-year survival rate of about 20% (1-3). There are multiple reasons for the poor prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer, including the failure to present with symptoms until the cancer has already reached an advanced stage, thus precluding early detection (4). Other factors include the aggressive nature of the pancreatic cancer itself, and the lack of highly successful chemotherapy or immunotherapy (5).”

“…A 57-year-old man was admitted to the hospital for severe abdominal pain, and vomiting (25 time per day), along with dyspnea on exertion, and weakness. He was found to have extensive pancreatic cancer. His oncologist advised him that the cancer was so extensive that there was no anti-cancer therapy that could be rendered. He was advised that hospice was the only solution. He was hospitalized on a morphine drip preparing to die within 1-3 weeks. However, his son had a friend who knew of the use of mifepristone therapy for a variety of cancers (12). He was finally taken out of hospice and placed on oral single agent mifepristone 200 mg daily, administered from his home, after obtaining a compassionate use investigational new drug (IND) approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). When a compassionate use IND from the FDA is obtained, generally 3 months of mifepristone is purchased at one time. The drug costs about $500 per month, with a discount for patients with cancer from the Danco Pharmaceutical company. He did not have $1500, plus it would be wasted if he died 2 weeks later. We agreed to buy it for him and sell him 10 pills at a time. He was slumped over in a wheelchair when he first presented and was considered ECOG-4. Within 2 months, in taking single agent oral mifepristone 200 mg daily, he had no pain or vomiting, his weakness was much less, and he was able to walk without assistance. After 5 months of therapy he did not require any analgesics or anti-emetics, and only complained of mild dyspnea on exertion, and mild weakness. He was considered ECOG-2.”

“…At nine months his depression worsened, because he was having trouble affording the drug, and he felt that he was a burden to his family. Thus, at nine months, in stable condition, he elected to stop mifepristone therapy. His pain and vomiting returned within 2 weeks, and was placed in hospice once again. He died 2 weeks later.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1466.mp3" length="984956" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:12</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Replacing starch with sucrose increases metabolism, prevent obesity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1462</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1462</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2021 18:04:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1462

A study that will certainly generate controversy in the low-carb blogosphere, but the findings are hard to dispute. Namely, feeding a diet for 15 weeks, in which 74.3% of the calories come from carbs in the form of starch was clearly obesogenic, caused insulin resistance and elevated blood glucose, triglycerides, and free fatty acids (FFA). Replacing 38.5% of the calories with sucrose resulted in striking insulin sensitivity, lower triglycerides, and lower free fatty acids in the blood despite the highest caloric daily intake in the high-sucrose group compared to both the normal and high-starch diet groups. And the mechanism behind these highly beneficial effects of sucrose? Increase in the resting metabolic rate by about 20%. So much for the “white poison” rearing its ugly head in every grocery store. 🙂

link here

“…In this study, we show that mice fed a chronic high-sucrose diet, link here do not develop obesity, primarily due to an increase of energy expenditure accompanied with increased expression levels of ChREBP and FGF21, link here mRNA in liver and BAT. Body weight as well as glucose metabolism, link here is regulated by various hormones such as GLP-1, link here, which contributes to reduction of weight gain by slowing gastric emptying and suppressing appetite [8], link here as well as increasing energy expenditure [10], link here, [11], link here.”

“…Thus, chronic high-sucrose diet increases FGF21 production concomitant with increase of the expression levels of ChREBP mRNA in liver and BAT. It also increases the expression levels of FGFR1c and KLB mRNA. These changes act to attenuate weight gain by increasing energy expenditure (Fig. 6, link here)…SUC-fed mice show increased energy expenditure and potent insulin sensitivity…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1462.mp3" length="451436" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D can force cancer cells to differentiate back into normal</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1456</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1456</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2021 17:33:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1456

Danny and I already discussed this topic on a recent podcast, but I decided to post the studies anyways, considering how important the topic is. While progesterone and testosterone are the most well-known differentiating factors in humans, the role of vitamin D has gone largely unnoticed. The studies below demonstrate that vitamin D is a powerful differentiating agent, and can cause the regression of even advanced tumors when used in doses proven to be safe for most people (5,000 IU – 10,000 IU daily). The studies cover both in-vitro and in-vivo models and the third link is a human case report. Importantly, at least two of the studies (second and third to last) demonstrate that the “inactive” cholecalciferol (25-OH-D3, commonly used as a supplement) is just as active in terms of differentiating effects as the “active” form known as 1,25-OH-D3 (calcitriol). Moreover, cholecalciferol has a much lower risk of causing hypercalcemia compared to calcitriol, and in fact may lower elevated levels of calcitriol that are seen in many chronic inflammatory conditions.

6 links here

“…Several investigators reported that 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (vD3) and its active metabolite cholecalciferol (calcitriol, DHCC) causes monocytic differentiation of leukemia cells. This appears to be due in part to down-regulation of expression of cell cycle related proto-oncogenes (e.g., c-myc). Differentiation inducing effect was also seen against certain solid tumors including prostatic cancer and squamous cell carcinoma.”

“…In a number of studies, vD3 was evaluated as a growth inhibitor. In tissue culture studies it was found effective in osteosarcoma, link here, squamous cell carcinoma, breast cancer, link here, prostate cancer, link here, and leukemias.”

link here

“…The antiproliferative effect of 1,25(OH)2D 3 has been confirmed in vivo. In high doses the sterol inhibits growth of human malignant melanoma and colonic cancer xenografts in immune suppressed mice [23] and of nitrosomethylurea-induced mammary tumours in rats [24], while administration of I~(OH)D 3 reduced the number of lung metastases after implantation of Lewis lung carcinoma cells into mice [25]. The fact that 1,25(OH)2D 3 stimulates fibronectin synthesis in several human cancer cell lines may be related to the possible antimetastatic effect of the hormone [26].”

“…From the data currently available it seems clear that 1,25(OH)2D3 has a regulatory effect on cell growth and proliferation. However, high doses of the sterol are needed. Therefore, it remains to be established whether 1,25(OH)2D3 can produce long-term antitumour effects without unacceptable toxicity, like the development of hypercalcemia. In this light, the recent development of new vitamin D analogues which have potent effects on cell proliferation and differentiation in vitro without inducing severe hypercalcemia is of interest [27-29].”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1456.mp3" length="589748" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Oral testosterone + vitamin E may treat NAFLD, NASH, cirrhosis in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1454</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1454</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2021 14:58:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1454

Several years ago, I posted a few studies from the 1970s demonstrating very high cure rates of advanced cirrhosis in humans with a combination treatment of testosterone (T) and vitamin B1 (thiamine). Not bad for a condition modern medicine tells us is incurable and the only option the patient has is a liver transplant.

4 links here

In those studies, the administration of both T and B1 was by injection, however the doses were not that high. The average daily dose of T was about 25mg daily and B1 dosage was just 50mg twice a week. Now, a series of recent studies below demonstrates that using only the T component of the combination treatment is also effective, and the administration can be done orally. The T formulation (LPCN 1144) used in the human studies below was in the form of the undecanoate ester mixed with a “proprietary” lipid emulsion, which allows that T to avoid first-pass metabolism through the liver and reach the systemic circulation through the lymphatic system. If that description sounds familiar, it is probably because Peat’s product Progest-E is based on the same idea and Peat has been speaking for decades about combining steroids with longer chain fats as a method of achieve high bioavailability of steroids when used orally. To make matters even more suspiciously plagiaristic, one of the studies administered the T formulation together with vitamin E and found that the beneficial effects were even stronger. I suppose the only reason the company Lipocine, Inc did not develop a T formulation dissolved in vitamin E is the patent Peat filed on such formulations, which prevents Lipocine using the idea without paying Peat royalties. Be that as it may, at least we have proof from clinical trials that Peat’s method for oral steroid delivery works and is quite effective at treating even “incurable” conditions. The dosages used in the human studies below were 142mg LCN 1144 (testosterone formulation) twice daily and 217 mg alpha-tocopherol once daily. The route of administration was oral and treatment period was up to 36 weeks.

4 links here

“…Lipocine Inc. (NASDAQ: LPCN, link here), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on metabolic and endocrine disorders, today announced it will present a poster with results from a preclinical study investigating LPCN 1144 treatment on hepatic fibrosis and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (“NASH”) features at The Liver Meeting Digital Experience™, link here, hosted by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (“AASLD”). The poster will be available virtually on Friday, November 13, 2020, Room 1970 between 6:00 AM – 11:55 PM ET.

“It has been shown that low testosterone levels in men are independently associated with the presence and severity of NASH,” said Dr. Mahesh Patel, Chairman, President and CEO of Lipocine Inc. Dr. Patel further stated, “These preclinical data add to our understanding of the effects of oral testosterone on the liver, showing that LPCN 1144 improved high fat diet induced hepatic fibrosis and NASH features.”

“…Both the LPCN 1144 and LPCN 1144+AT arms improved mean histological scores of NASH with fibrosis compared to HFD arm. Importantly, the fibrosis percentage (in sampled liver tissue area) was significantly improved in both the LPCN 1144 (p<0.05) and LPCN 1144+AT (p=0.05) treatment arms vs the HFD arm. Both LPCN 1144 and LPCN 1144+AT arms also reduced HFD-induced elevated liver mRNA inflammation and fibrosis markers. Furthermore, LPCN 1144 concomitant treatment improved insulin resistance, visceral adiposity, and low testosterone (metabolic dysfunctions) induced by HFD.”

“…In the ongoing randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled 36-week treatment LiFT study, subjects with F1-F3 fibrosis were randomized 1:1:1 to one of three arms (Treatment A is a twice daily oral dose of 142 mg testosterone equivalent, Treatment B is a twice daily oral dose of 142 mg testosterone equivalent formulated with 217 mg of d-alpha tocopherol equivalent, and the third arm is twice daily matching placebo). The primary endpoint is change in hepatic fat fraction via Magnetic Resonance Imaging Proton Density Fat Fraction (“MRI-PDFF”) and exploratory liver fat/marker end points post 12 weeks of treatment. Additionally, key secondary endpoints post 36 weeks of treatment include assessment of histological change for NASH resolution and/or fibrosis improvement as well as liver fat data.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1454.mp3" length="1027604" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Androgens (T, DHT) highly protective against the flu</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1452</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1452</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2021 14:33:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1452

A gem of a study that throws a wrench in one of medicine’s core dogmas – i.e. androgens have detrimental effects on the immune system and males have evolved to live with a trade-off between high androgen levels (and as such high fertility) and higher risk of severe viral episodes that can be even deadly. This flawed hypothesis has led to the absurd claims that estrogen is protective in males against viral infections and several clinical rials have recently started to test if estrogen administration can prevent/treat COVID-19! However, virtually all of the evidence supporting that claims is from epidemiological studies, usually with makes in already compromised health. Like so many other medical dogmas, it turns out that there is little evidence to support that claim when an actual intervention experiment is conducted, as the studies below demonstrate. As it turns out, the age-related increase in vulnerability to viral infections (in this the case influenza) in males is fully explainable by the declining levels of testosterone (T) in such organisms. When exogenous T was administered to aging males, their increased vulnerability to the flu was completely reversed. Moreover, castration of young males quickly renders them as vulnerable to viral infections as their older counterparts in which androgens levels have declined to almost castration-induced levels. In order to confirm if the beneficial effects of T are due to its role as an androgen or due to its aromatization into estrogen, one of the studies also administered DHT and found that the protective effects were even (slightly) stronger. These findings make the claim that androgens are detrimental while estrogens are beneficial in viral infections (or for the immune system in general) very hard to take seriously. The doses of both T and DHT administered in the studies were physiological, which means 5mg T or 2mg-3mg DHT daily in human males would be sufficient to replicate the design of the studies. The mechanism of action of the androgens, as Peat has mentioned several times, was systemic anti-inflammatory effects. As it turns out, viral infections are nothing but acute inflammatory syndrome and as such, their severity can be controlled not only by administration of androgens but by various measures aimed at controlling PUFA availability and its metabolism, considering PUFA is the main driver of inflammation. Namely, dietary PUFA restriction, lipolysis inhibition (aspirin, niacinamide), lipid peroxidation inhibition (vitamin E), COX/LOX inhibition, etc. should all help both increase resistance to viral infections and accelerate recovery from them. And unlike androgen administration, those measures can be safely used in both sexes.

2 links here

“…Inflammatory immune responses, including cytokine production and the cell-mediated activities of both myeloid and lymphoid cells, are required to control IAV infection, but if improperly regulated can contribute to tissue damage and severe outcomes [19, link here, 33, link here, 50, link here–52, link here]. In the current and previous studies [21, link here, 22, link here], androgens, including testosterone and DHT, in male mice reduce the severity of IAV infection by promoting the resolution of pulmonary inflammation rather than by affecting viral replication. The improved resolution of IAV-induced inflammation [22, link here] in androgen-treated males was not caused by suppression of the cytokine storm, but rather by accelerated contraction of pulmonary Ly6C+ monocytes during peak inflammation and the mitigation of pulmonary CD8+ T cells and eosinophils after virus was cleared. The effect of androgens on pulmonary leukocyte activity was dependent on AR signaling in the lungs, which created a pulmonary environment that reduced the numbers and activities of these cells in the lungs following IAV infection. We and others [21, link here, 23, link here] have shown that males experience less severe disease and recover faster from IAV than females. Data from the current study and others [22, link here, 23, link here] illustrate that androgens limit pulmonary inflammation during IAV infection, thus maintaining greater tolerance during infection in males and even females. In addition to reduced inflammation, males also repair damaged tissue faster than females which is mediated by greater production of epidermal growth factor amphiregulin in males than females [23, link here]. Testosterone does not regulate production of amphiregulin; therefore, elevated levels of both testosterone and amphiregulin contribute to improved IAV outcomes in males than females. In the current study, the depletion of testosterone resulted in the accumulation of inflammatory monocytes during peak virus replication and eosinophils in the lungs following control of viral replication, which was unexpected given the lack of observed changes in pulmonary concentrations of IL-5, IL-13, and exotoxin. Eosinophils are androgen responsive despite the absence of AR expression [53, link here–55, link here], with testosterone-mediated differences in eosinophilic airway responses instead being attributed to the actions of Type II innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) [56, link here, 57, link here]. Though not evaluated in this study, androgens have been shown to inhibit the maturation of ILC2s, while decreasing IL-5 production and eosinophilic responses in murine models of airway inflammation [56, link here, 57, link here]. Although the precise role of eosinophils in the immune response to IAV is unclear, previous studies in mice show accumulation of eosinophils in the lungs following control of viral replication [58, link here, 59, link here]. In the current study, depletion of eosinophils during the later stages of infection did not reduce morbidity in testosterone-depleted males, suggesting that the protective effects of testosterone on IAV pathogenesis are not directly mediated by effects on eosinophils. Whether the accumulation of eosinophils during the resolution phase of infection represents the activation of type 2 tissue repair responses [60, link here], or a pathological response contributing to immunopathology warrants further study.”

“…Testosterone can be metabolized by aromatase into estradiol to signal through ERα, which can dampen inflammation and improve the outcome of IAV infection in females [21, link here, 45, link here–47, link here]. Moreover, in male mice gonadectomized prior to the onset of puberty, castration-mediated protection against lethal IAV infection is reversed by testosterone treatment and subsequent conversion to estradiol, but not by treatment with non-aromatizable DHT [73, link here]. In the present study, the protective effects of testosterone on IAV pathogenesis were dependent on AR signaling in the lungs.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1452.mp3" length="1286684" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress (cortisol) causes pre-term birth by blocking progesterone</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1449</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1449</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Mar 2021 20:01:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1449

If you ask a gynecologist what causes premature birth, the answer will usually be something along the lines of “insufficient progesterone” often accompanied by mumbling about “genetic predispositions”. Yet, how exactly is insufficient progesterone responsible for premature birth has remained a mystery, at least for most practicing doctors. Back in the first half of the 20th century it was known that progesterone was the most potent endogenous antagonist at both the glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors (GR and MR). It is also well-known that just before onset of labor, progesterone levels rapidly drop and cortisol levels rise. So, the simplest explanation is that progesterone is able to maintain pregnancy by both increasing metabolism and blocking the effects of cortisol. Yet, medicine seems to have lost the knowledge on just how progesterone works and the focus nowadays is almost entirely on progesterone’s effects through the eponymous receptor (PR). There are probably hundreds of synthetic PR agonists developed and approved for clinical use and medicine views them as equivalent (or superior) to bioidentical progesterone, despite the fact that almost none of them have the tocolytic (pregnancy-sparing) effects of progesterone. It just so happens that almost all of those synthetic progestins are agonists of either GR and/or MR, which immediately elucidates their inability to maintain pregnancy. The study below revitalizes the cortisol-progesterone interplay/antagonism (at least when it comes to pregnancy) and hopefully will lead to both more attention to the detrimental effect of stress for both mother and child, as well as the systemic protective/therapeutic effects progesterone could have in many conditions associated with cortisol/aldosterone excess.

2 links here

“…Preterm birth is a leading cause of infant deaths and illness in the U.S. — yet its underlying molecular causes remain largely unclear. About 40 to 50% of preterm births, defined as births before 37 weeks of pregnancy, are estimated to be “idiopathic,” meaning they arise from unexplained or spontaneous labor. And, maternal stress linked to depression and post-traumatic stress disorders as well as fetal stress have been strongly implicated in preterm births with no known cause. Now, for the first time, a University of South Florida Health (USF Health) preclinical study has uncovered a mechanism to help explain how psychological and/or physiological stress in pregnant women triggers idiopathic preterm birth. A research team at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology shows how cortisol — the “fight-or-flight” hormone critical for regulating the body’s response to stress — acts through stress-responsive protein FKBP51 binding to progesterone receptors to inhibit progesterone receptor function in the uterus. This reduced progesterone receptor activity stimulates labor.”

“…For the current study focused on maternal stress-induced idiopathic preterm birth, the researchers combined experiments in human maternal decidual cells and a mouse model in which FKBP5, the gene that makes FKBP51, had been removed, or “knocked out.” Altogether, their results revealed a novel functional progesterone withdrawal mechanism, mediated by maternal stress-induced uterine FKBP51 overexpression and enhanced FKPB51-progesterone receptor binding, that decreased progestational effects and triggered preterm birth. The researchers found that Fkbp5 knockout mice (with depletion of the gene encoding for FKBP51) exhibit prolonged gestation and are completely resistant to maternal stress-induced preterm birth.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1449.mp3" length="878444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Metabolic (energy) deficiency may be the cause of Parkinson Disease (PD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1447</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1447</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Mar 2021 19:24:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1447

The dogma that PD is just a simple dopamine deficiency manifesting in genetically vulnerable individuals is quickly becoming untenable. It is well-known among clinicians that administering dopamine precursors such as L-Dopa, or selective dopamine agonists such as pramipexole has limited therapeutic effects for PD patients and invariably become ineffective after a few years of use. A few months ago, several studies identified serotonin excess as the primary driver of several key symptoms of PD such as tremors and psychosis. The role of serotonin in PD is corroborated by the fact that dopamine agonists that also possess serotonin antagonism properties such as bromocriptine, lisuride, methysergide, etc do not generally lose effectiveness with prolonged use. Serotonin has a known, potent, anti-metabolic effect and anti-serotonin agents are now studied as possible treatments for obesity, diabetes, CVD, dementias, and even aging. The study below demonstrates that at its core, PD is likely an energetic deficiency disorder, which would explain both the serotonin excess seen in PD patients, as well as the positive effects of anti-serotonin/pro-dopamine drugs. It also opens the avenue to a number of metabolic therapies for PD, including reduction of endotoxin/LPS, and usage of OTC substances such as aspirin, naicinamide, progesterone, DHEA, testosterone/DHT, salt / baking soda, quinones (methylene blue, vitamin K, tetracyclines, etc), and anti-estrogenic substances (both OTC and pharma drugs), among others. Coincidentally, there is at least one study for any of the substances I mentioned above demonstrating robust therapeutic (and preventative) effect of said substance in a PD animal model. Some of them have already been tested in humans, but FDA demands that clinical trials with thousands of people be conducted before any of those substance can be used on PD patients, despite their proven safety and low cost.

2 links here

“…Although it is known that PD is caused by the loss of dopaminergic cells in substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc), the decisive cause of this inexorable cell loss has not clearly been elucidated before. The IIT Madras researchers developed a computational model that showed that energy deficiency might be a major cause of SNc cell loss in Parkinson’s Disease. This computational modelling was developed by Dr. Vignayanandam Ravindernath Muddapu, who completed his Ph.D. recently at IIT Madras, under the guidance of Prof. V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras. Dr. Vignayanandam Ravindernath Muddapu has now joined the Blue Brain Project, an EPFL-linked research center for postdoctoral research. The findings of this research have been published recently in the prestigious peer-reviewed International Journal Nature Scientific Reports. Elaborating on the important findings of this research, Prof. V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras, said, “While existing treatments manage PD symptoms – sometimes with great effect – a cure demands an understanding of the root cause of SNc cell loss. This is the main question addressed in our work: What is the major underlying cause of SNc cell loss in PD?” Further, Prof. V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy said, “It is quite remarkable that loss of neurons in a small nucleus like SNc can have wide-ranging, devastating effects in all the four major domains of brain function – sensory-motor, cognitive, affective, and autonomous. The sequence of the three computational studies suggests that metabolic deficiency within the basal ganglia circuit is the common underlying factor at the subcellular, cellular, and network level in PD. Thus, we have a reasonably comprehensive theory of the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease.” This research was undertaken at IIT Madras Computational Neuroscience Laboratory, which aims to build a simplified model of the whole brain and use it to develop applications in medicine and engineering. Prof. V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy is the head of Computational Neuroscience Laboratory. The computational model showed that: At the subcellular level, metabolic deficiency leads to changes like including alpha-synuclein aggregation, reactive oxygen species production, calcium elevation, and dopamine dysfunction, which are characteristic subcellular changes in Parkinson’s disease.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1447.mp3" length="980468" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin may prevent and treat COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1445</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1445</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Mar 2021 19:02:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1445

I may get banned from social media for making a post with such a title, but I am simply reporting on what the study discovered. Namely, even a low-dose aspirin used mostly for ischemic attack (heart or brain) prevention reduced risks of SARS-CoV-2 infection by almost 30%, while also shortening the duration of infection by several days. The study did not look at whether aspirin would prevent COVID-19 exacerbations or deaths, but prior studies have already provided such evidence, link here, so the overall picture on aspirin seems pretty clear. Namely, it is a dirt-cheap, globally available intervention, capable of preventing and treating COVID-19 while also significantly reducing the (already tiny) risk of dying of COVID-19.

2 links here

“…The researchers analyzed data of 10,477 persons who had been tested for COVID-19 during the first COVID-19 wave in Israel from February 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020. Aspirin use to avoid the development of cardiovascular diseases in healthy individuals was associated with a 29% lower likelihood of COVID-19 infection, as compared to aspirin non-users. The proportion of patients treated with aspirin was significantly lower among the COVID-19-positive individuals, as compared to the COVID-19-negative ones. And those subjects who had been treated with aspirin were less associated with the likelihood of COVID-19 infection than those who were not. Moreover, the group observed that the conversion time of SARS-CoV-2 PCR test results from positive to negative among aspirin-using COVID-positive patients was significantly shorter, and the disease duration was two-three days shorter, depending upon the patients’ pre-existing conditions.”

link here

“…Over 400 patients admitted from March to July 2020 to hospitals around the United States, including those at GW Hospital, the University of Maryland Medical Center, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and Northeast Georgia Health System, were included in the study. After adjusting for demographics and comorbidities, aspirin use was associated with a decreased risk of mechanical ventilation (44% reduction), ICU admission (43% reduction), and in-hospital mortality (47% reduction). There were no differences in major bleeding or overt thrombosis between aspirin users and non-aspirin users. Preliminary findings were first published as a preprint in fall 2020. Since then, other studies have confirmed the impact aspirin can have on both preventing infection and reducing risk for severe COVID-19 and death. Chow hopes that this study leads to more research on whether a causal relationship exists between aspirin use and reduced lung injury in COVID-19 patients. “Aspirin is low cost, easily accessible and millions are already using it to treat their health conditions,” said Chow. “Finding this association is a huge win for those looking to reduce risk from some of the most devastating effects of COVID-19.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1445.mp3" length="407276" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (5-HT) is a key driver of asthma</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1443</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1443</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Mar 2021 18:36:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1443

Yet another blow to the status of the so-called “happiness hormone”. While histamine, acetylcholine, and estrogen have long been known as key drivers of asthma the link between the mast cells and the nervous system’s production of the vasoconstrictor acetylcholine has remained unknown. The study below demonstrates that the release of serotonin (5-HT) from mast cells, under the influence of irritating exogenous agents, is that key link that enables an asthma attack to occur. This finding also explain why asthma attacks can occur seemingly without an external cause, usually during a period of stress even as “mild” as say intensive exercise. Both 5-HT synthesis (in both the brain and gut) as well as 5-HT release from mast cells increase when the organism is under stress. This suggests that asthma can be treatable (and possibly cured) by restricting 5-HT synthesis and/or blocking the serotonin receptors. There is plenty of evidence to corroborate that hypothesis. The drug ketotifen, link here, is a histamine (H1) antagonist and is often used for stopping/preventing asthma attacks. However, pure histamine antagonists are known to be inadequate for either stopping or preventing asthma attacks. So, there must be something else ketotifen is doing behind the scenes that explains its effects. That something is 5-HT antagonism. Ketotifen is structurally almost identical to the non-selective serotonin antagonist cyproheptadine, link here, and has been shown to have a very similar 5-HT antagonism profile (mostly on 5-HT2 receptors). It seems, we can now add asthma to the list of metabolic disease caused/exacerbated by stress and treatable by pro-metabolic interventions.

2 links here

“…Mast cells, which are immune cells of a specific type belonging to the innate immune system, are found mainly in tissues that are in contact with the external environment, such as the airways and the skin. Because of their location and the fact that they have numerous different receptors capable of recognising parts of foreign or pathogenic substances, they react quickly and become activated. In their cytoplasm, mast cells have storage capsules, known as granules, in which some substances are stored in their active form. When the mast cell is activated, these substances can be rapidly released and provoke a physiological reaction. This plays a major part in the body’s defence against pathogens, but in asthma and other diseases where the body starts reacting against harmless substances in the environment, it becomes a problem. In their study, the researchers were able to demonstrate that the mast cells contribute to airway hyperresponsiveness by having a receptor that recognises methacholine: muscarinic receptor-3 (M3). When methacholine binds M3, the mast cells release serotonin. This then acts on nerve cells, which in turn control the airways. Thereafter, the airways produce acetylcholine, which also acts on M3 in smooth muscle cells and makes the trachea contract even more. A vicious cycle is under way. The scientists’ discovery also means that drugs like tiotropium, which were previously thought to work solely by blocking M3 in smooth muscle, are probably also efficacious because they prevent activation through M3 in mast cells. Accordingly, the ability of mast cells to rapidly release serotonin in response to various stimuli, thereby contributing to airway hyperresponsiveness, has been underestimated.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1443.mp3" length="889964" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA metabolites may drive bacterial infections and their resistance to antibiotics</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1441</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1441</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Mar 2021 18:02:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1441

The study below demonstrates yet again that there is hardly an aspect of human health that PUFA does not influence in a detrimental manner, even seemingly non-metabolic aspects such as bacterial infections. As it turns out, most bacteria express the enzyme family known as lipoxygenases (LOX), link here and uses those enzymes to evade the endogenous immune response. Namely, once inside the host the bacteria use their LOX enzymes to synthesize various PUFA metabolites known as lipoxins, which dampen the immune response and allow the bacteria to survive. In addition, apparently the activation of LOX is also involved in the bacteria exchanging genes associated with antibiotic resistance. As such, the authors suggest that targeting the LOX pathway with various inhibitors may be beneficial for both helping the host handle bacterial infections on its own (without antibiotics) and/or preventing antibiotic resistance in severe infections that mandate usage of antibiotics. LOX inhibitors or leukotriene (LOX metabolites) antagonists are already in clinical use and have recently been proposed as curative treatments for virtually every chronic disease driven by low-grade inflammation (i.e. all of them). Of course, the more systemic and beneficial approach would be to deplete PUFA in the organism altogether. The success of the latter approach has already been corroborated by multiple studies demonstrating that PUFA (EFA) deficient animals are remarkably resistant to both developing bacterial infections and dying from them, even when the bacterial/endotoxin injections administered doses hundreds of times higher than what is sufficient to kill animals not deficient in PUFA/EFA.

2 links here

“…One group of the identified bacterial clades does not fit the picture described above but shows quite different associations. It is as though these ‘evil-doers’ have learnt to use lipoxygenases not for constructive, but for destructive purposes — as virulence factors. This mechanism has been experimentally demonstrated for a nosocomial pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa — its lipoxygenase initiates synthesis of lipoxins, which, as was mentioned above, dampen inflammation and thus facilitate invasion of the host tissues. Our study showed that numerous other opportunistic and nosocomial pathogens — i.e. Acinetobacter baumannii, Burkholderia cepacia, Enterobacter cloacae, Cedecea lapagei — could use lipoxygenase this way. Notably, lipoxygenases are transferred very rapidly in the particular subclades of pathogens — like antibiotic resistance genes. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, mentioned above, appeared to be one of such ‘superspreaders’. This provides a final link between our bioinformatic results and experimental works on this bacterium. Such ‘superspreading’ of possible virulence factors between dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria is an important warning sign. As yet, we do not know whether the presence of lipoxygenase is crucial for virulence in these pathogens, but we hope to attract the attention of our scientific and medical colleagues to this enzyme: maybe, it is the next target in fighting antibiotic resistance.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1441.mp3" length="830084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fasting ineffective for shrinking belly fat, may actually increase it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1439</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1439</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 04 Mar 2021 05:03:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1439

Hopefully, this study will give some serious food for thought to people who use (intermittent) fasting (IF) with the goal of losing excess weight. A recent post of mine discussed that IF is ineffective for fat loss and actually leads to loss of lean mass, link here. The lead author of that study, himself an IF practitioner for many years, immediately stopped practicing IF and stopped recommending it to his patients. Now, the study below demonstrates (perhaps unsurprisingly) that not only does IF not work for losing the most dangerous type of fat (visceral), but in fact likely contributes to its long-term growth by increasing the capacity/propensity of those regions to store new fat ingested from diet or synthesized de-novo (usually due to high cortisol/estrogen). Moral of the story once again is this – obesity is an endocrine/metabolic problem and cannot be healthily resolved through starving/exercising oneself to no end. Professional athletes, as unhealthy as they are, almost never fast. They use metabolic enhancers such as DNP, T3, anabolic steroids, etc because they know quite well torturing oneself with diets and “endurance” exercise does nothing but ruin health. The only people for who fasting/exercise are beneficial are the ones selling books/tutorials on such “holy inquisition” practices.

2 links here

“…A research team led by Dr Mark Larance examined fat tissue types from different locations to understand their role during every-other-day fasting, where no food was consumed on alternate days. The fat types where changes were found included visceral “belly” fat, which is fat tissue surrounding our organs including the stomach, and subcutaneous fat, which lies just under the skin and is associated with better metabolic health.

“…During fasting, fat tissue provides energy to the rest of the body by releasing fatty acid molecules. However, the researchers found visceral fat became resistant to this release of fatty acids during fasting. There were also signs that visceral and subcutaneous fat increased their ability to store energy as fat, likely to rapidly rebuild the fat store before the next fasting period. Dr Larance said it was possible that a history of repeated fasting periods triggered a preservation signalling pathway in visceral fat. “This suggests the visceral fat can adapt to repeated fasting bouts and protect its energy store,” he said. “This type of adaptation may be the reason why visceral fat can be resistant to weight loss after long periods of dieting.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1439.mp3" length="676676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:34</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mitochondrial debris leaking in bloodstream may cause autoimmune disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1437</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1437</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 04 Mar 2021 04:39:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1437

This has been a recurring topic in my posts, and I am glad to see that more and more scientists are starting to take seriously the idea that chronic stress may be the ultimate cause of most/all “autoimmune” conditions. The whole idea of the immune system suddenly starting to attack an organ/tissue is quite bizarre and can only come from pathological thinking that views even the human organism as a barely tolerable collection of competing parts that often go to “war” with each other. It is an extension of the primitive, mechanistic, militaristic view of nature that has controlled medicine for more than century, but that discussion is better left for a podcast with Danny and Ray 🙂

Anyways, the study below demonstrated that when cells die they (unsurprisingly) rupture and “spill” their inner contents into the bloodstream. Some of that inner contents are the mitochondria and its own DNA. The study found that mitochondrial DNA in the bloodstream binds to and activates one of the TLR receptors and this activates an immune response and production of antibodies for the DNA/RNA of mitochondria specific to that organ/tissue. Interestingly, the TLR7, link here receptor in question is also used by the organism to recognize the presence of DNA/RNA viruses in the bloodstream, including SARS-CoV-2 that is responsible for COVID-19. As such, the study not only adds to the evidence that “autoimmune” conditions are nothing but an attempt by the immune system to clear up cellular debris from disintegrating organs (usually due to chronic stress), but also raises the scary possibility that the mRNA vaccines now distributed for COVID-19 have the capacity to trigger a chronic (lifetime?) autoimmune response if the spike protein mRNA they contain gets incorporated into the patient’s genome and as such results in chronic production of that spike protein with subsequent chronic activation of TLR7. Several researchers, including the Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier, already warned about such possible side effects from the mRNA vaccines but their warnings were immediately censored and most of these researchers were dubbed “mentally unstable”. Scary times we live in…

2 links here

“…NIEHS researchers and their collaborators found that mice from which the gene IRGM1 was removed developed an autoimmune disease that looked like Sjogren’s syndrome, link here in humans. The mouse condition appeared to be caused by accumulation of defective mitochondria — energy-generating organelles in the cell — which activated the immune system. The team published their work Jan. 28 in the journal Nature Immunology, link here. The accumulation of defective mitochondria led to overproduction of an inflammatory protein called type 1 interferon. The findings suggest that failed quality control of mitochondria may cause Sjogren’s, lupus, and other autoimmune diseases through production of interferon.

“…The researchers saw a marked difference between the cells. In fibroblasts, leaking DNA activated an immune receptor called cGAS, but in macrophages, an RNA receptor known as TLR7 was activated, likely due to mitochondrial RNA. “Both fibroblasts and macrophages made type 1 interferon, but the mechanism was different, suggesting that autoimmune diseases can affect different tissues in a selective manner,” Rai said.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1437.mp3" length="1596140" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Inhibiting respiration/metabolism reliably causes bipolar disorder</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1435</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1435</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 04 Mar 2021 04:18:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1435

Just a quick post on a study, which claims to have established a reliable method for inducing bipolar disorder in an animal model. This reliable method consists simply of administering a low-dose of a mitochondrial inhibitor. More specifically, an inhibitor of complex I of the electron transport chain (ETC). The chronic, low-dose administration reliably reproduced all core symptoms of bipolar disorder including mania, depression, anhedonia, anxiety, etc. So, the takeaway from the study is not only that bipolar disorder is most certainly of metabolic origin, but that even a mild inhibition of oxidative phosphorylation can reliably cause it. Considering the chronic stress most citizens in the “developed” world are subjected to on a daily basis, I am surprised that so few (relatively speaking) people have been diagnosed with that condition. But bipolar diagnosis numbers are skyrocketing, so in a twisted sense it is not a lost cause for psychiatry and its quest to convert every living person into a (preferably lifetime) patient. On the flip side, the study also suggests that improving the function of ETC, and more specifically of Comples I & II, may be a reliable treatment of bipolar disorder. One of the most effective therapeutic for Compl I & II deficiencies is methylene blue (MB). In corroboration for that hypothesis, MB has already been shown to be therapeutic for severe depression, link here and possibly bipolar disorder, link here in humans.

link here

“…We mimicked mild mitochondrial-distress robustly reported in bipolar-disorder (BD) by chronic exposure to uniquely low doses of inhibitors of mitochondrial-respiration complexes in vitro and in vivo. Exposure of the neuronal-originating SH-SY5Y cells to very low dose (10 pM) rotenone, a mitochondrial-respiration complex (Co)I inhibitor, for 72 or 96 h did not affect cell viability and reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. Yet, it induced a dual effect on mitochondrial-respiration: overshooting statistically significant several-fold increase of most oxygen-consumption-rate (OCR) parameters vs. significantly decreased all OCR parameters, respectively. Chronic low doses of 3-nitropropionic acid (3-NP) (CoII inhibitor) did not induce long-lasting changes in the cells’ mitochondria-related parameters. Intraperitoneal administration of 0.75 mg/kg/day rotenone to male mice for 4 or 8 weeks did not affect spontaneous and motor activity, caused behaviors associated with mania and depression following 4 and 8 weeks, respectively, accompanied by relevant changes in mitochondrial basal OCR and in levels of mitochondrial-respiration proteins. Our model is among the very few BD-like animal models exhibiting construct (mild mitochondrial dysfunction), face (decreased/increased immobility time in the forced-swim test, increased/decreased consumption of sweet solution, increased/decreased time spent in the open arms of the elevated plus maze) and predictive (reversal of rotenone-induced behavioral changes by lithium treatment) validity. Our rotenone regime, employing doses that, to the best of our knowledge, have never been used before, differs from those inducing Parkinson’s-like models by not affecting ROS-levels and cell-viability in vitro nor motor activity in vivo.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1435.mp3" length="723692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Glucose + vitamin B3 combo synergistic for treating mitochondrial disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1433</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1433</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 04 Mar 2021 03:59:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1433

A very interesting study, which demonstrates the unique synergy between glucose and vitamin B3 in treating deficiencies of function in Complex I & II of the electron transport chain (ETC). Deficiencies on those metabolic steps are the most common causes for the wide varieties of debilitating symptoms (or even death) in people with “inborn” mitochondrial pathologies such as Leigh Syndrome, link here, MERFF, MELAS, link here, etc. The vast majority of those mitochondrial diseases are considered incurable, yet the study below demonstrates that a simple combination of glucose and vitamin B3 is highly effective in restoring mitochondrial function and normalizing a number of biomarkers indicative of mitochondrial dysfunction such as increase lactate/pyruvate ratio, increased NADH/NAD ratio, low ATP, and elevated GSH/GSSG ratio. The aforementioned combination also included N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), but I don’t think it is necessary for the beneficial effects to manifest, and in fact may be harmful considering that all mitochondrial diseases have increased GSH/GSSG ratios and NAC (being a reductant itself) will only further increase said ratio. Interestingly, the study did not test known mitochondrial therapeutic such as aspirin or methylene blue (or for that matter other quinones such as vitamin K, emodin, etc.). Neither did the study test the other vitamin B3 family member niacinamide/nicotinamide, however, they do explain that the rationale for using niacin was its role as a precursor to NAD+, which automatically means niacinamide/nicotinamide will likely have even stronger therapeutic effects. Finally, the study states that mitochondrial dysfunction is often the result of chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson, Alzheimer, etc. but I think the study got it backwards. It is those chronic conditions that are caused by mitochondrial dysfunction, so addressing the mitochondrial dysfunction would also likely result in reliable treatments for the myriads of chronic conditions we are constantly told are currently “incurable”. I suppose such a statement would be too dangerous to see in the study itself, even for well-funded scientists working at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) – an institution second probably only to the Mayo Clinic in terms of financial resources.

2 links here

“…Mitochondrial disease describes a collective group of energy deficiency disorders with no FDA-approved treatments or cures. Approximately 350 different gene disorders have been shown to substantially impair mitochondrial respiratory chain function, an essential process for making energy to power our cells. Respiratory chain function can also become severely disrupted by other genetic conditions, certain medications or environmental exposures, as well as common metabolic disorders, strokes, heart attacks, the aging process, and Alzheimer and Parkinson’s diseases. In the absence of FDA-approved therapies, many affected patients seek out or are prescribed a wide variety of vitamins, supplements, and enzyme cofactors or “helper molecules” that generally fall into three different treatment classes: antioxidants, metabolic modifiers, and signaling modifiers. However, rigorous clinical trials have not been performed for these compounds to guide the medical community in understanding their comparative safety or benefit in mitochondrial disease patients. Additionally, prior to this study, it was unknown whether the best options were to give specific therapies alone or whether a combination of therapies are actually safe to administer and may work synergistically to provides patients with any direct health benefit. “We wanted to test unique combinatorial treatment regimens in preclinical models of mitochondrial disease to determine whether they showed any objective and measurable benefit to health, and to learn whether some combinations may be more effective than others,” said senior study author Marni Falk, MD, Professor in the Division of Human Genetics as well as attending physician and Executive Director of the Mitochondrial Medicine Frontier Program CHOP. “This modeling approach would show us where physiology is most improved and take the guesswork out of developing treatment options for our patients.” The study team, including Mitochondrial Medicine team members Sujay Guha, PhD and Neal D. Mathew, PhD, used two translational animal models of mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I disease – the most common biochemical site of dysfunction in mitochondrial disease – to evaluate 11 random combinations of drugs selected from each of the three treatment classes. Of those combinations, only one combination – glucose, nicotinic acid, and N-acetylcysteine – synergistically improved the lifespan of the first model beyond any individual component alone, as well as mitochondrial membrane potential, a quantitative measurement of how well mitochondria perform their essential energy-producing function. Importantly, this combination treatment yielded these survival and cellular physiology improvements without exacerbating any negative side effects, such as oxidative or mitochondrial stress. Validation studies performed in the second model, zebrafish, showed that glucose, nicotinic acid, and N-acetylcysteine combination therapy prevented stress-induced brain death – a sign that this therapy may prevent metabolic strokes such as those that occur with stress in Leigh syndrome and other mitochondrial disease syndromes – and rescued larval zebrafish animal swimming capacity as well as their tissue levels of ATP and glutathione.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1433.mp3" length="1155788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:34</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin may be the “aggression hormone” in most living organisms</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1431</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1431</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 04 Mar 2021 03:07:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1431

So much for the “happiness hormone”, which medicine keeps telling us should be kept as high as possible. This idiotic hypothesis gave birth to an entire drug industry, which continues to poison people to this day with its SSRI, link heredrugs, despite solid evidence that they are no better than placebo, do not reduce depressive symptoms, increase risk of suicide and may even be responsible for turning vulnerable individuals into serial killers. Yes, I do mean serial killers. The few studies that have been done on the topic have found drastically higher serotonin levels in cerebrospinal fluid of executed serial killers, as well as much lower levels of the SERT, link here protein responsible for deactivating serotonin. Interestingly, in basic research circles, apparently it is well-known that serotonin drives aggression in most mammals, including humans! According to the study below, the role of serotonin in mammalian aggression has been known for decades, and has now also been confirmed in fruit flies. Given the conserved role of serotonin in such vastly different species, it suggests that its role in controlling aggression is very ancient and relates to some very basic aspects of life shared across all species. Namely, fight for dominance/survival when resources become scarce. So, we can now rephrase the famous “survival of the fittest” motto into “survival of the meanest”, or at least survival of whomever takes the most SSRI 🙂 For some reason, this “inconvenient truth” about serotonin is not allowed to percolate up to the top and become public knowledge. Or maybe, just like so many other human inventions, society knows about the risks of serotonin, but the profit of selling serotonergic drugs is too big to ignore…so the charade will go on for as long as it is profitable to keep around.

2 links here

“…Serotonin is a major signaling chemical in the brain, and it has long been thought to be involved in aggressive behavior in a wide variety of animals as well as in humans. Another brain chemical signal, neuropeptide Y (known as neuropeptide F in invertebrates), is also known to affect an array of behaviors in many species, including territoriality in mice. A new study by Drs. Herman Dierick and Ralph Greenspan of The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego shows that these two chemicals also regulate aggression in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. In a series of studies that used drug treatments and genetic engineering we have produced flies that make increased or decreased amounts of serotonin, or whose nerve cells that use serotonin or neuropeptide F are silent or inactive. Our investigations showed that the more serotonin a fly makes, the more aggressive it will be towards other flies. Conversely, presence of neuropeptide F has an opposite modulatory effect on the flies’ behavior, reducing aggression. Serotonin and neuropeptide F are part of separate circuits in the brain, circuits which also differ to some extent between males and females. Male flies are much more aggressive. Both of these chemical modulators affect aggression in mammals, and finding these effects in flies suggests that the molecular and neural roots for this complex social behavior are of ancient evolutionary origin.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1431.mp3" length="1532756" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Nine out of ten COVID-19 deaths may be due to vitamin D deficiency</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1427</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1427</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 04 Mar 2021 02:36:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1427

A remarkable claim in this study, but not really surprising to people who have been studying the vitamin D effects on the immune system. While the study was observational, as the authors explain, the correlation between vitamin D insufficiency and COVID-19 mortality was so high that the authors do not think any other explanation is possible except that the deficiency was responsible for the lethal outcome in 9 out of 10 COVID-19 deaths. As such, most of those deaths could be prevented by simply supplementing with vitamin D, even if only while the patient is in the hospital. It is truly a travesty that in the face of so much evidence about the importance of vitamin D in COVID-19, the low risks/price of its supplementation, and the wide availability of this substance, public health authorities still insist that “the evidence is insufficient” for recommending supplementation. The situation is virtually identical to the one with aspirin. Namely, over the last century a massive amount of both observational and intervention evidence has accumulated demonstrating that aspirin may prevent and treat virtually any cancer. Instead of embracing this truly insurmountable evidence and using aspirin accordingly, public health authorities continue to lament its “unacceptable risks” in regards to GI/brain bleeding, despite evidence that aspirin actually protects precisely from such bleeding events (or at the very least cancels their lethality). Btw, aspirin has already been shown to be protective in COVID-19, and it also synergizes with vitamin D. So is/does vitamin K2, as per the first link below. Considering recent reports demonstrating that majority of Americans over 40 use aspirin or vitamin D regularly (despite their doctors’ “advice”), gives some reason for optimism and suggests that the public is losing its trust in the medical establishment. One can only hope that an event like the current “pandemic” will spur even more people to take their health into their own hands instead of relying on expensive “medical” advisors whose main goal is usually to prescribe drugs, not to cure the patient. As the saying goes “Let no good crisis go to waste”, but in this case it is the general public that may seize on this crisis and the medical profession may not like the results.

2 links here

“…We read, with great interest, the recent article by Radujkovic et al. that reported associations between vitamin D deficiency (25(OH)D < 12 ng/mL) or insufficiency (25(OH)D < 20 ng/mL) and death in a cohort of 185 consecutive symptomatic SARS-CoV-2-positive patients admitted to the Medical University Hospital Heidelberg, who were diagnosed and treated between 18 March and 18 June 2020 [1, link here]. In this cohort, 118 patients (64%) had vitamin D insufficiency at recruitment (including 41 patients with vitamin D deficiency), and 16 patients died of the infection. With a covariate-adjusted relative risk of death of 11.3, mortality was much higher among vitamin D insufficient patients than among other patients. When translated to the proportion of deaths in the population that is statistically attributable to vitamin D insufficiency (“population attributable risk proportion”), a key measure of public health relevance of risk factors [2, link here], these results imply that 87% of COVID-19 deaths may be statistically attributed to vitamin D insufficiency and could potentially be avoided by eliminating vitamin D insufficiency. Although results of an observational study, such as this one, need to be interpreted with caution, as done by the authors [1, link here], due to the potential of residual confounding or reverse causality (i.e., vitamin D insufficiency resulting from poor health status at baseline rather than vice versa), it appears extremely unlikely that such a strong association in this prospective cohort study could be explained this way, in particular as the authors had adjusted for age, sex and comorbidity as potential confounders in their multivariate analysis.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1427.mp3" length="1963484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Surgery no better than placebo – doctors are superfluous</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1423</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1423</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2021 20:35:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1423

A great article that should give a serious food for thought even to the most ardent defenders of allopathic medicine. Despite the findings of the (in)famous Dr. Ioannidis that 80%+ percent of most clinical trials for drugs are bunk, link here, one of the unassailable bastions of medicine has always been surgery. I mean, how many people would dare question an agitated doctor who recommends a physically invasive procedure as the only path to health/life? The very nature of surgery conditions most recipients (and its performers) that it must work as it structurally changes the organism in a very physical/direct manner. Sure, it does bring about a change, but is it for the better? Well, the article below claims that in all the surgery clinical trials ever performed in a true randomized, placebo-controlled fashion more than half of them found the surgical procedure to be no batter than placebo. Even more worryingly, ALL recent (in the last decade) such trials, performed according to the most robust and modern trial design methods found surgical procedures to be no better than placebos. A scary thought of not just how much money is being wasted on simply keeping doctors employed, but also on how much trauma (and even death) those procedures generate for their recipients. Speaking of keeping doctors employed, apparently even sick and physically mangled prisoners of war usually recover fully without ANY medical treatment. So, in the words of the article itself, doctors were (are?) superfluous!

Ian Harris on “Surgery, the Ultimate Placebo”, link here

“…He tells the story of Archie Cochrane, for whom the Cochrane Collaboration of systematic analyses was named. As the only doctor in a POW camp in World War II, he was responsible for 10,000 prisoners, many suffering from open wounds, dysentery, typhoid, and other serious diseases. His requests for doctors and medicines were denied by his German captors, who said doctors were superfluous. In six months, only 4 prisoners died, each of them shot while trying to escape. The rest all got better, without treatment.”

“…Harris covers the many factors that affect a patient’s response to a placebo. A systematic review found that placebo was just as effective as surgery in over half of the cases studied, and all of the recent trials comparing surgery to placebo have found that surgery was no better than placebo. He demolishes all the arguments surgeons give for continuing to do these operations that have been tested and shown not to work. The real reason is that they continue to believe the procedure is effective, just as the dowsers continued to believe they could find water with a forked stick. Tradition and personal experience triumph over science and reason. Science is just a systematic way to reduce error. Imperfect, but better than any other way. Blinded trials are the least biased way to determine effectiveness.”

“…He concludes by saying we should treat new surgical procedures like new drugs, and only pay for those that are part of a trial to find out if they work. Most surgical procedures being done today have not been subjected to blinded trials. Advice to patients: it’s OK to ask for a second opinion, and you should always ask your surgeon for the evidence showing the benefits and risks of the procedure, and what you can expect to happen if surgery is not done.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1423.mp3" length="741188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT better (and safer) than testosterone for improving blood pressure, insulin levels</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1421</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1421</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2021 19:21:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1421

A great human study on the beneficial effects of androgens for a variety of metabolic biomarkers associated with insulin resistance and diabetes II. The only gripe I have with this study is that they claim it was conducted with “healthy” men when in reality all men had low plasma total testosterone (PTT), which of course makes them anything but healthy considering the broad negative effects low gonadal function (of which total T is a sign of) has on systemic health. One of the strengths of the study is that the androgen doses used as treatment were physiological – estimated absorbed steroid amounts were about 12mg for T and 3.5mg for DHT daily. Thus, it demonstrates that restoring normal concentrations of androgens in men has a number of positive effects on biomarkers that are currently considered more of a genetic than environmental origin, and most certainly not due to an endocrine dysfunction. Another strong point of the study was that it lasted only 3 months, yet the benefits were quite robust, and happened without ANY changes to dietary or exercise habits. Finally, my favorite finding of the study – DHT was more effective than T at improving those biomarkers, despite the almost 4-fold lower dose used! So, if you are a male above 35 and have a few extra inches around your midsection, you should probably politely decline your doctor’s offer of metformin and instead request a steroid panel combined with a DHT script 🙂 Oh, and last but not least – while one subject in the T group developed (benign) prostatic nodules, none of the DHT subjects developed any prostate issues. Another (mild) issue of possible concern is that some of the subjects in the T group had increased hemoglobin and hematocrit. The medical literature keeps warning about increased hematological risks as a result of androgen therapy, but as it turns out once again those risks are mostly associated with aromatizable androgens.

link here

“…Men with low levels of PTT (confirmed by two measurements) were selected from a large occupation-based population. The inclusion criteria were as follows: 1) either PTT ≤3.4 ng/ml [5th percentile value of PTT distribution in the 1,718 men of the TELECOM Study (7, link here)] from 1985 to 1987 and <4.0 ng/ml (13th percentile value) from 1992 to 1993 (3, link here) or PTT <4.0 ng/ml from 1992 to 1993 and <4.0 ng/ml a few days before inclusion; 2) no history of vascular thrombosis or ischemic heart disease; 3) no treatment by androgens, anti-androgens, and antidiabetic or antithrombotic drugs; 4) normal values of plasma prolactin, estradiol, and thyroxin; 5) no current prostatic disease and a normal PSA value. A total of 18 healthy men with stable low plasma androgens (Table 1, link here) and a range of PTT from 1.4 to 3.7 ng/ml at baseline were included. The 18 selected men were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: testosterone, DHT, or placebo. The randomization code was known only to the study manager. Treatment was a gel administered every morning by percutaneous route. The daily dose during the first weeks was 125 mg for the testosterone and 35 mg for the DHT treatment groups. The adaptation of treatment doses between days 10 and 20 aimed at obtaining a trough level of PTT between 4 and 10 ng/ml for the testosterone group and a trough level of plasma DHT between 4 and 10 ng/ml for the DHT group. To maintain the double blinding, the study manager also sometimes changed the dose of placebo. The subjects were asked not to change their dietary and physical activity. Compliance to treatment was assessed by interview and by measuring sex hormones and gonadotropins at the end of the trial.”

“…At baseline, the three treatment groups were similar with respect to age, BMI, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), blood pressure, plasma glucose, lipids, insulin, leptin, androgens, and sex hormone–binding globulin, as well as hemoglobin, hematocrit, coagulation, and fibrinolysis parameters (data not shown). At the end of the trial, a significant difference was shown for the variation of fasting plasma insulin (P < 0.05), fasting plasma insulin–to–fasting plasma glucose ratio (P < 0.01), and HOMA index (P < 0.05), which all decreased under androgens. The two-by-two comparisons showed a significant improvement only for DHT compared with placebo (P < 0.01 for all of these indexes of insulin sensitivity). No significant differences were observed for 2-h plasma glucose and insulin among the three groups (data not shown), whereas plasma leptin significantly decreased under androgen treatment (P < 0.05), mainly with DHT (P < 0.05 for DHT vs. placebo). Systolic blood pressure increased in the placebo group (P = 0.052) (Table 1, link here). The only serious event was the discovery of a prostatic nodular hyperplasia, benign at biopsy, in a subject treated by testosterone. A trend for an increase in weight was observed under androgen treatment (P = 0.09), mainly with testosterone (Table 1, link here), without any modification of waist circumference and WHR (data not shown). No change was observed on the ECG recordings. No significant difference was shown among the three groups for lipids (Table 1, link here), PSA, hepatic enzymes, coagulation, and fibrinolysis parameters, but hemoglobin and hematocrit increased under androgens (P < 0.05 and P < 0.01, respectively), mainly with testosterone (data not shown).”

“…This randomized, controlled, double-blind trial provides evidence that in healthy men, androgen treatment, particularly DHT, improves insulin sensitivity and decreases plasma leptin level without notable side effects. The three treatment groups were quite identical at baseline concerning glucose tolerance status. In the placebo group, one subject was diabetic according to 2-h plasma glucose (227 mg/dl, with fasting plasma glucose at 85 mg/dl), and none had impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or impaired fasting glucose (IFG). In the DHT group, one subject had IGT, and none had diabetes or IFG. In the testosterone group, all of the subjects had normal glucose tolerance. The primary differences at baseline concerned bioavailable testosterone with a trend for a higher level in the DHT group, which should have blunted (not increased) the response to DHT treatment and blood pressure, probably explaining the nearly significant improvement of systolic blood pressure under androgens by a regression to the mean phenomenon in the placebo group. On the contrary, the parallel decrease in fasting plasma insulin and leptin and the improvement in insulin sensitivity under androgens appear very consistent. Our study may appear limited because of the sample size (half of that planned), enjoining the use of conservative nonparametric tests, and causing the final statistical analysis to be equivalent to a planned intermediary analysis. Indeed, to have confirmed the a priori hypotheses in these conditions of weak statistical power emphasizes the effect of androgens, mainly DHT, to improve insulin sensitivity and to decrease leptin concentrations in healthy men with low PTT. Very few side effects were observed, including a tendency for weight increase and an increase in hemoglobin and hematocrit, although these were reversible a few months later (data not shown), thus indicating good patient compliance to the allocated treatment, also confirmed by hormone measurements.”

“…The decrease in plasma leptin concentration is also probably explained by the supposed reduction in adipose tissue mass (11, link here), but the influence of androgens on leptin could also be mediated by a stimulation of the splanchnic β-adrenoceptors (12, link here) or by a direct suppressive effect on ob gene expression (13, link here). Nevertheless, our data clearly demonstrate the role of androgens to decrease leptin levels in healthy men, as previously suggested (5, link here). In conclusion, this clinical trial demonstrates that androgens improve insulin sensitivity and decrease leptin levels in adult men. We recruited healthy subjects ranked in the lowest 10 percentiles of the PTT distribution from a large occupation-based population by systematically measuring PTT. Therefore, these data can most likely be extrapolated to healthy men in the first decile of the PTT distribution. The pathways through which androgens exert their inhibiting effects on insulin and leptin in humans deserve further fundamental research. In parallel, as low levels of testosterone are predictive of the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes (14, link here), and as type 2 diabetic patients are known to have a lower level of PTT than nondiabetic men (15, link here), larger studies on androgen treatment in insulin-resistant nondiabetic subjects and in type 2 diabetic patients are necessary.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1421.mp3" length="1581644" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Even mainstream medicine admits many claims about sugar are myths</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1419</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1419</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2021 18:48:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1419

It is always nice to see when a outpost of mainstream medicine tries to set the record straight on something as controversial as refined sugar. My personal favorites are the myths on sugar and causal links to diabetes / cancer. Apparently, there is solid evidence those links are myths. Yet, every doctor I ever met keeps promoting those falsehoods…yet rarely practices them. The same appears to be true of FDA, even though their constant parroting of lies/falsehoods is probably more driven by lobbying then (institutional) stupidity.

link here

(1) Sugar is addictive

“…Along similar lines, Prof. David Nutt, Chair of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs and head of the Department of Neuropsychopharmacology and Molecular Imaging at Imperial College London, writes: “There is not currently scientific evidence that sugar is addictive, although we know that sugar has psychological effects, including producing pleasure, and these are almost certainly mediated via brain reward systems.”

(2) Sugar makes kids hyperactive

“…This is perhaps the most common myth associated with sugar: eating candy causes children to run wild. In fact, there is no scientific evidence that sugar increases hyperactivity in the vast majority of children. For instance, a 1995 meta-analysis in JAMA combined data from 23 experiments across 16 scientific papers. They concluded: “This meta-analysis of the reported studies to date found that sugar (mainly sucrose) does not affect the behavior or cognitive performance of children.”

(3) Sugar causes diabetes

“…Another relatively common myth is that sugar directly causes diabetes. However, there is no direct link between the two. The confusion perhaps arises because there is an intrinsic association between blood sugar levels and diabetes.”

(4) Avoid fruit when dieting

“…Fruits are delicious, partly because they are sweet, thanks to naturally occurring sugars. Because of their sugar content, some people believe that we should avoid eating fruit when maintaining a moderate weight. This is a myth. Fruits contain a range of healthful compounds, including a variety of vitamins and minerals, and fiber.”

(5) Sugar causes cancer

“…Cancer cells divide rapidly, meaning they require a great deal of energy, which sugar can provide. This, perhaps, is the root of this myth. However, all cells need sugar, and cancer cells also require other nutrients to survive, such as amino acids and fats, so it’s not all about sugar. According to Cancer Research UK: “There’s no evidence that following a sugar-free diet lowers the risk of getting cancer, or boosts the chances of surviving if you are diagnosed.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1419.mp3" length="375188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT / Progesterone / aspirin treat, cortisol ineffective, PUFA promotes prostate cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1414</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1414</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2021 18:03:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1414

A great study, albeit in-vitro, that once again throws into doubt the entire hypothesis behind prostate cancer. First, it proves the key role of PUFA in the genesis and progression of prostate cancer by demonstrating that inhibitors of the COX enzyme (responsible for synthesizing prostaglandins from PUFA) are therapeutic even when used as a monotherapy. Second, it demonstrates that exposure of prostate cancer to high concentrations of the “villain” steroid DHT is highly synergistic with COX inhibitors in terms of inhibiting the tumor growth. More importantly, it also demonstrates that exposure of prostate cancer to high concentration of DHT by itself is also highly therapeutic, and that androgen receptor activation is key for that benefit to manifest. Thus, as the study itself states, androgen-deprivation (castration) therapies are not only ineffective, but they actually guarantee death! In other words, taking finasteride/dutasteride is very much (delayed) suicide! Finally, it demonstrates that treatment with progesterone (P4), at the same concentrations as DHT, was just as effective both as a monotherapy and combination therapy with a COX inhibitor and/or DHT. In contrast, treatment with cortisol was completely ineffective at restraining tumor growth. The reason I am mentioning cortisol is that glucocorticoid therapy is one of the core interventions in virtually all cancer treatments due to its purported anti-inflammatory effects. Since cancer has a known (and major) inflammatory component, it is thought that cortisol would be highly therapeutic. However, no human study has ever found lasting benefit (in terms of tumor regression) as a result of glucocorticoid therapy, and in fact some studies indicate accelerated cancer growth. In light of the findings of the study below that COX activity promotes tumor growth, the “counterintuitive” findings in regards to cortisol may be a result of cortisol’s ability to promote COX expression, link here (while temporarily blocking its activity). As such, IMO the use of glucocorticoids in cancer (or any other inflammatory conditions) should be promptly reconsidered. As far as therapeutic steroid concentrations – basically the study found that the higher the better. Concentrations of DHT or P4 that resulted in 90%+ apoptosis were in the range of 100 uM/L. In other to achieve such concentrations, doses of 300mg+ daily of each steroid are needed. However, there is reason to believe that P4 and DHT have synergistic effects, especially in regards to blocking estrogen – a key driver of (prostate) cancer. Thus, one could probably achieve even better results with doses in the range of 50mg+ P4 and 10mg-15mg DHT daily, when used in combination. P4 may also protect from some of the side effects associated with high dose androgen therapy such as increases in RBC, hemoglobin, and serum calcium. Throw in on top of that a few grams of aspirin (a COX inhibitor, among other things) daily, and prostate cancer may become no more serious than the flu 🙂 It seems that the authors themselves think androgen (and even DHT) therapy may be a viable approach to prostate cancer, and cite a number of older studies demonstrating striking results from high-dose testosterone (T) injections.

link here

“…These results indicate that prior exposure of LNCaP cells to DHT predisposed these cells to subsequent indomethacin-induced apoptosis. Also, pre- and postincubation with high concentrations of DHT alone resulted in an increase in the percentage of apoptosis from exposure to DHT (P<0.005). It therefore appears that long-term exposure of LNCaP cells to very high concentrations of DHT can itself induce apoptosis independently of the effects of NSAIDs.”

“…LNCaP cells contain an abnormal androgen receptor system with broad steroid-binding affinity. In this series of experiments, we evaluated whether or not the addition of the steroid hormones hydroxycortisone or progesterone to the incubation medium would promote indomethacin-induced apoptosis in a manner similar to the effect of DHT. The addition of a high concentration (10–5 M) of hydroxycortisone did not significantly increase the percentage of indomethacin-induced apoptosis of LNCaP cells when compared with cells cultured with indomethacin plus 10–9 M DHT alone (P>0.05; Fig. 5). The addition of 10–5 M progesterone, however, did result in a statistically significant increase in the percentage of apoptosis of LNCaP cells when compared with samples incubated with progesterone alone and samples incubated with indomethacin plus 10–9 M DHT (P<0.05; Fig. 5). The increased apoptosis seen in the presence of progesterone plus indomethacin was not significantly different from that seen in the presence of an equivalent amount of DHT plus indomethacin (10–5 M; P>0.05).”

“…We found that in addition to DHT, progesterone, but not hydrocortisone, promoted indomethacin-induced apoptosis. The finding that progesterone behaves in a manner similar to DHT is perhaps not unexpected in that LNCaP cells possess a mutated androgen receptor with a high affinity for progesterone [39]. Furthermore, the presence of progesterone, like DHT, both stimulates and inhibits the growth of LNCaP cells [32, 33]. Our observation that androgen-insensitive cells (i.e. PC-3 cells) did not respond to indomethacin-induced apoptosis in the presence of high concentrations of DHT, further indicates that the androgen receptor is needed to elicit the synergistic effect between DHT and NSAIDs.”

“…Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in men in the United States [16]. Although androgen ablation produces significant palliation of symptoms in patients with advanced prostate cancer, the proportion of tumors that regress is actually relatively small [4]. More important, however, is the fact that this treatment regimen is doomed to failure in the long term because it promotes hormone-refractory disease, which is ultimately lethal to the patient. In a recent article, Prehn [27] has argued that declining rather than high levels of androgens contribute to human prostate carcinogenesis and that androgen supplementation may lower the incidence of the disease. In fact, high levels of androgen appear to be inhibitory to prostatic cells (due to a mechanism mediated by the androgen receptor), and excess androgen can inhibit prostate cancers under experimental conditions [15, 25, 34, 37, 41, 42]. Significant regression of prostate cancer in response to exogenous androgen has also been seen in a substantial proportion of the few patients in whom this treatment has been tried [2, 21, 28, 36]. With respect to future treatment regimens, our observations indicate that prolonged exposure to high concentrations of DHT may predispose prostate cancer cells to effective NSAID treatment.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1414.mp3" length="1654580" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Keto (low-carb) diet causes heart fibrosis, blocks mitochondrial biogenesis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1412</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1412</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2021 04:16:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1412

The bad news for the low-carb / keto community keep piling on. There are a number of posts on this blog about studies demonstrating insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity and even sarcopenia as a result of low-carb diets or their close mimetic known as intermittent fasting. Now, the study below provides the first direct evidence that a keto / low-carb diet directly leads to cardiac fibrosis combined with reduced mitochondrial biogenesis, as a result of increased serum fatty acids (FFA), ketone bodies, fatty acid oxidation (FAO), and reduced glucose metabolism. While the study claims that the fibrosis is likely to be localized only to the heart due to its unique vulnerability to elevated FFA, I am far from convinced this is true. For example, chronic kidney and liver diseases commonly seen in patients with type II diabetes are now known to also be caused by elevated FFA. Several neurodegenerative conditions are also strongly linked to elevated FFA. Finally, cancer (arguably the ultimate killer disease) is now slowly becoming exposed as a disease of elevated FFA and fatty acid oxidation (FAO), and it is common knowledge that fibrosis always precedes (solid) tumor formation. So, if elevated FFA, ketone bodies, and FAO leads to fibrosis then in my opinion the findings of the study below are relevant for virtually ALL chronic diseases. Perhaps the most corroborating evidence for this hypothesis is the reduced mitochondrial biogenesis as a result of the fatty acid overload. Finally, the study demonstrates that the elevation of FFA and ketone bodies as a result of low-carb / keto diet leads to activation of the sirtuin gene SIRT7, and this activation was crucial for the inhibition of mitochondrial biogenesis. Multiple other studies have already demonstrated that sirtuin activation leads to increased FAO and accelerated cancer growth. These combined findings should give a pause not only to the low-carb dieters, but also to people who consider using stilbenoid substances such as resveratrol, which are known to be potent sirtuin activators (and are heavily marketed for that purpose). Conversely, these findings once again corroborate the benefits of niacinamide, which is the most potent sirtuin inhibitor used clinically. Even if none of what I wrote so far seems convincing, perhaps the opinions of the study authors would receive greater consideration. Namely, the study concludes with the warning that unless an intervention is discovered that can mitigate/block these fibrotic and antimetabolic effects of low-carb / keto diets, it may not be wise for the general population to embark on such dietary “adventures” at all.

2 links here

“…n addition to their use in relieving the symptoms of various diseases, ketogenic diets (KDs) have also been adopted by healthy individuals to prevent being overweight. Herein, we reported that prolonged KD exposure induced cardiac fibrosis. In rats, KD or frequent deep fasting decreased mitochondrial biogenesis, reduced cell respiration, and increased cardiomyocyte apoptosis and cardiac fibrosis. Mechanistically, increased levels of the ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate (β-OHB), an HDAC2 inhibitor, promoted histone acetylation of the Sirt7 promoter and activated Sirt7 transcription. This in turn inhibited the transcription of mitochondrial ribosome-encoding genes and mitochondrial biogenesis, leading to cardiomyocyte apoptosis and cardiac fibrosis. Exogenous β-OHB administration mimicked the effects of a KD in rats. Notably, increased β-OHB levels and SIRT7 expression, decreased mitochondrial biogenesis, and increased cardiac fibrosis were detected in human atrial fibrillation heart tissues. Our results highlighted the unknown detrimental effects of KDs and provided insights into strategies for preventing cardiac fibrosis in patients for whom KDs are medically necessary.”

“…Third, increased levels of SIRT7 were observed in cardiac tissues from patients with AF compared with those in patients with SR, according to both western blotting (Fig. 6b, link here and Supplementary Fig. 11a, link here) and IHC (Fig. 6c, link here and Supplementary Fig. 11b, link here). Fourth, markers of fibrosis, including type I collagen, type III collagen, and α-SMA, were higher in patients with AF (Fig. 6b, link here and Supplementary Fig. 11a, link here). Lastly, the number of mitochondria was significantly lower in cardiac tissues from patients with AF than in those from patients with SR, as indicated by the ratio of mtDNA to nucleic DNA (Fig. 6d, link here). These findings, together with the observation that the cardiac β-OHB concentration was negatively correlated with the number of mitochondria (Fig. 6e, link here), confirmed that elevations in β-OHB were associated with cardiac fibrosis and an increased risk of AF.”

“…Some studies have indicated that β-OHB exhibits beneficial effects in the cardiac system under pathological conditions and can, for example, be used as an alternative fuel in the human failing heart.43, link here Moreover, this compound improves cardiac cell excitation–contraction coupling during hypoxia44, link here and prevents myocardial damage after coronary occlusion in animal model.45, link here In this study, we provided evidence and mechanistic explanations from cultured cells, animal models, and clinical samples to show that long-term KD-induced β-OHB accumulation was detrimental to heart health by promoting cardiac fibrosis (Fig. 6f, link here).”

“…However, although theoretically all cells in the body are exposed to elevated levels of ketone bodies, cardiomyocytes are among those most vulnerable to high ketone body exposure, as high levels of ketone bodies reduce the mitochondrial content significantly, as demonstrated in our study.”

“…In the current study, we aimed to confirm that the β-OHB/HDAC2/SIRT7 pathway was important to mitochondrial biogenesis. Therefore, we did not measure other cardiac fetal genes that may be regulated by HDAC2. Further studies are required to reveal regulatory effects of HDAC2 on mitochondrial genes. Last, we validated that SIRT7 inhibited mitochondrial biogenesis in cardiomyocytes, consistent with previous findings showing that increased expression or activity of SIRT7 inhibited mitochondrial biogenesis in hematopoietic stem cells and human embryonic kidney cells.40, link here,50, link here ”

“…The findings of our current study defined the mechanism underlying the negative health effects of KDs, which are adopted worldwide for therapeutic purposes and have been increasingly preferred by healthy individuals in order to prevent obesity. Our results strongly suggest that unless the adverse effects of a KD on the cardiac system can be effectively avoided, healthy individuals should reconsider the use of a KD for weight loss.”

link here

“…Ketogenic diets, which forgo carbohydrates to replace them with fats, have become extremely popular in recent years, rising to the top as the most-searched-for diet of 2020, link here. Whilst these diets are effective in treating epilepsy, link here and have applications in various other diseases, the evidence for use as a tool for weight loss in healthy individuals remains disputed.  In a recent study performed on rats, researchers have suggested that keto diets are having a dramatic impact on people’s hearts. The results showed the high-fat-diet-induced changes within the rats’ hearts, reducing the production of mitochondria and creating scar tissue. Their work was published in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, link here. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1412.mp3" length="1291052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Glucocorticoids may increase inflammation in the long run</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1409</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1409</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2021 20:58:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1409

Glucocorticoids (both bioidentical and synthetic) are some of the most widely used drugs in the clinical setting, as well as in outpatient treatment for all sorts of ailments – i.e. autoimmune conditions, joint pain, post-operative inflammation, asthma, and even infectious diseases such as COVID-19. The officially improved indications for those glucocorticoid drugs continue to increase despite mountains of evidence that such drugs do not improve the long-term outcomes of any disease, and are at best simply masking symptoms. The endogenous production of cortisol is also viewed as primarily an anti-inflammatory mechanism in addition to keeping blood glucose from falling too low. A recent post of mine discussed a study directly claiming that glucocorticoid usage sets up the stage for pro-inflammatory environment, link here, which would explain why patients deteriorate (compared to baseline) the moment they stops using said drugs. The mechanism mentioned by that study was a fairly obscure one, so it probably won’t satisfy most of my critics as good evidence for the pro-inflammatory risks of long-term usage of such drugs. Hopefully, the studies below will provide that stronger evidence, as it demonstrates that glucocorticoids increase the expression of the COX and LOX enzymes in-vivo, which is in direct contradiction to the official designation of glucocorticoid usage. Namely, one of the major reasons for using glucocorticoids in medicine is the claim (by doctors and public health agencies) that they suppress the COX/LOX pathways. COX is the main producer of prostaglandins from PUFA (omega-6 and omega-3), and the prostaglandins are responsible for 60%-80% of the inflammatory cascade. LOX is responsible for producing (also from PUFA) the inflammatory leukotrienes, which probably account for another 10%-20% of the inflammatory response/cascade. As such, COX/LOX inhibitors like aspirin and other NSAID are widely prescribed as prevention/treatment of inflammatory conditions, and the same benefit is not only being ascribed to glucocorticoids, but the claim is that the latter are even more potent than NSAID at inhibiting COX/LOX. Well, apparently not, as per the studies below. Even if those drugs inhibit COX/LOX activity, increasing their expression sets up the stage for a much stronger inflammatory response (compared to baseline) the moment the glucocorticoids are discontinued, so the outcome is worse than the classical “borrow from Peter to pay Paul”. This would explain why long-term usage of glucocorticoids invariably worsens the chronic condition for which it is being prescribed, while also dramatically raising the risk for virtually any type of cancer (another condition caused/promoted by chronic inflammation), CVD, diabetes, etc. Once again, it seems that the truth in medicine is often about 180 degrees away from what is practiced clinically.

link here

“…At week 12, cyclooxygenase-2 expression remained high in nonasthmatics while it decreased in asthmatics. Cyclooxygenase-2 protein was not detected under any circumstances. Glucocorticoid therapy enhances cyclooxygenase-2 expression in vivo in nasal polyps, a finding that does not follow the generally accepted assumption that cyclooxygenase-2 expression is suppressed by glucocorticoids.”

link here

“…In the brain, the expression of 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO), the enzyme responsible for the synthesis of inflammatory leukotrienes, increases during aging. Antiinflammatory drugs are currently being evaluated for the treatment of aging-associated neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Although generally considered antiinflammatory, glucocorticoids, whose production also increases during aging, are not particularly effective in this disease. In human monocytes, 5-LO mRNA content increases on exposure to the synthetic glucocorticoid dexamethasone, which prompted us to hypothesize that glucocorticoids might increase 5-LO expression in the brain as well. We treated rats for 10 days either with corticosterone (implanted subcutaneously) or with dexamethasone (injected daily); they were killed on day 10 after pellet implantation or 24 h after the 10th dexamethasone injection. We found increased levels of 5-LO mRNA and protein in hippocampus and cerebellum of glucocorticoid-treated rats; 5-LO-activating protein (FLAP) mRNA content was not affected. Using western immunobloting, we also observed the concurrent translocation of 5-LO protein from cytosol to membrane, an indication of its activation. Thus, glucocorticoid-mediated up-regulation of the neuronal 5-LO pathway may contribute to rendering an aging brain vulnerable to degeneration.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1409.mp3" length="1425284" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Topical DHT therapy promotes hair growth</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1405</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1405</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2021 20:22:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1405

Despite mentioning it in another post on testosterone (T) treatment for hair loss, link here, I thought that this study deserves its own post, just because its findings are so contradictory to the perennial dogma of “androgenic alopecia” – i.e. that androgens, and especially DHT, cause the male-pattern baldness in males and non-localized hair loss in women. The study used rodents, but the experimental groups included both males and females, which makes the findings that much more interesting. As the saying goes – a picture is worth more than a thousand words – so, I decided to extract the 2 figures from the study drive the message home. Namely, physiological concentrations (10^-7 mol/L = 100 nM/L) of DHT applied topically on the skin/scalp for just 18 days, can accelerate hair growth! Now, the study did find that 10-fold higher concentrations (10^-6 mol/L = 1 uM/L) of DHT inhibit hair growth, but such concentration are impossible to occur naturally, unless there is an androgen-secreting tumor present or a person is using 50mg+ DHT daily. Also, even with the pharmacological concentrations the inhibition was so small that hair growth was barely statistically different from the control animals that received no treatment. I suspect that the slightly elevated (but nowhere near 1 uM/L) concentrations of DHT that some studies have identified in people with “androgenic alopecia” may very well be adaptive, in response to the elevated estrogen/prolactin/cortisol levels in such people, and in no way prove that DHT is a cause of hair loss. The body, being much smarter than doctors give it credit for, may be simply trying to protect itself from estrogen/cortisol/prolactin by raising DHT levels.

I think it is time that medicine owns up to its mistakes (and maybe even fraud?) and we end this charade that has resulted in not only lack of cures for hair loss but also ongoing usage of “chemical castration” drugs like finasteride/dutasteride by tens of millions of men around the world. Predictably, with abysmal results.

link here

“…In our study, we found a similar phenomenon: when the DHT concentration decreased from 10-6 mol/L to 10-7 mol/L, the HFs grew much better than in the presence of higher DHT concentrations. In fact, the results suggest that an appropriate level of DHT is required for normal androgen-sensitive HF growth. Once the DHT concentration decreased from 10-7 mol/L to 10-8 mol/L, the HF growth rate showed no significant difference from that in the control group, which explains why beard growth is weaker in castrated males.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1405.mp3" length="1072196" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Testosterone therapy (TRT) reverses hair loss (in women)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1403</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1403</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2021 19:49:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1403

The evidence undermining the fake/corrupt hypothesis of “androgenic alopecia” keeps accumulating. I really wish the study below was conducted in men instead of women, since its findings would have probably finally put an end to the debate as to whether androgens promote or inhibit hair growth. However, even in women the findings are quite important as the study itself states that “androgenic” alopecia is found in women too and the explanation given is the same detrimental effect androgens supposedly have on hair. The example usually given are women with PCOS and other “hyperandrogenic” conditions who frequently have hair loss not unlike the one occurring in males. The official story is that PCOS is driven by elevated androgens, despite the multitude of studies demonstrating that estrogen is the much more likely culprit, and that estrogen administration reliably causes PCOS in animal models, link here. As it happens, estrogens have been demonstrated to cause hair loss, link here and anti-estrogenic substances have been shown to reverse that hair loss. In fact, even the perennial villain DHT has been shown to increase hair growth, link here when used in physiological concentrations. Testosterone has a known anti-estrogenic effect (despite its ability to aromatize into estradiol), which further corroborates the findings of the study below as legitimate. The dosage of T used in women was about 133mg given over a period of about 28 months. So, for ease of calculation purposes, the women received 5mg T per month and the administration was subcutaneous. Since males produce about 10-30 times more T than women, the dosage for males would be in the range of 50mg-150mg monthly, which is certainly a physiological range. Other interesting findings of the study include the fact that before starting the therapy women with lower T levels had more hair loss, and after T treatment the women with higher BMI responded more poorly or not at all to the T therapy. The latter finding once again implicates estrogen (and cortisol) in hair loss. Finally, the study claims that not a single woman receiving T therapy reported hair thinning and/or loss, despite their blood T reaching levels 4 times higher than normal! The combination of all of these findings, from an intervention study, leaves virtually no chance of survival for the “androgenic alopecia” hypothesis.

link here

“…In view of the widely held concept that androgens have a deleterious effect on scalp hair growth, the results of our study were unexpected. The study was not designed to investigate specifically the response of hair growth to androgen replacement therapy, and we recognize the limitations of a questionnaire in providing an objective measure of hair growth. To confirm our findings, formal assessment of hair growth, e.g. using methods such as a phototrichogram, would be needed. It is possible, for example, that a general positive effect on wellbeing of testosterone replacement misled subjects into believing that their hair growth had also improved. However, the fact that hair growth responded in the opposite direction to that expected and that patients reporting hair loss prior to therapy had lower testosterone levels than those not reporting hair loss does provide support for the veracity of the observation. Although a patient’s perception of hair thickness and texture is subjective, only one of 284 female patients was unsure of hair loss/thinning prior to testosterone therapy. Previous studies have shown that self-perception correlates with investigator assessment and photography (Dr T.L. Dawson, personal communication). In our experience, women are acutely aware of changes in their hair. Significantly, no patient in this cohort, treated with continuous testosterone for over 1 year, reported ‘hair loss or thinning’ despite average serum testosterone levels of over 300 ng dL−1, four times the upper limit of normal for endogenous production, and sufficient to cause an increase in facial hair growth in the majority.”

“…This is consistent with our findings – women who reported ‘no hair regrowth’ on testosterone therapy had significantly higher BMIs compared with patients who reported ‘hair regrowth’ on testosterone therapy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1403.mp3" length="1164260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Childhood stress causes mental illness in adults by blunting androgens</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1401</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1401</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2021 17:36:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1401

Yet another great study solidifying the evidence on just how detrimental early childhood stress is. It has been known for decades that childhood stress leads to early puberty, and that the latter is associated with greatly increased risk of chronic diseases later in life, as well as early death. However, mainstream medicine has always heatedly insisted that this stress->disease connection is due to “genetic vulnerability” in those children rather than suboptimal environment during childhood. Well, the study below contradicts that genetic narrative once again. It demonstrates that childhood stress (in this case, poverty) leads to significantly blunted increases in testosterone (T) levels during puberty and, as such, lower T levels in adulthood. Interestingly enough, about half of the participants in the study were females, so this is yet another study demonstrating the falsehood of blindly assigning the labels “male” or “female” to any steroid without considering the context and stage or an organism’s development. Apparently, T is also absolutely crucial for female development, and especially for brain volume/maturation (as the study below demonstrates). Namely, the deficiency of T due to stress resulted in much smaller volume of the hippocampus, and as such greatly reduced ability to regulate emotions, in both males and females. While the study did not find a link between childhood stress and lower DHEA levels in adulthood, other studies have found such a link. The reason I am bringing this up is that T and DHEA are two of the major endogenous cortisol antagonists, and lower levels of one/both of those steroids results in amplification of cortisol’s effects on all tissues/organs. It is already known from multiple animal studies that cortisol shrinks the brain, and especially the portions responsible for emotional regulation and higher cognitive function. Cortisol is as catabolic for the brain as it is for muscle/thymus. Thus, the findings of the study should not be at all surprising, considering that childhood stress leads to chronic hyperactivity of the HPA axis. If that is the case, possible remedies include all known anti-cortisol interventions such as thyroid, pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, T, DHT, emodin, salt, niacinamide, etc. The brain is quite capable of regeneration as long as the right nutrition is provided and excess cortisol is reigned in.

2 links here

“…Early poverty has been established as a risk factor for developmental issues and has been tied to psychological impairment in childhood and adulthood. Intervention strategies to address these consequences early on are needed. Deanna M. Barch, link here, the Gregory B. Couch Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University, and her colleagues note that in order to design effective interventions, researchers first need to understand the mechanisms behind the link between early poverty and impaired mental health. The researchers proposed that the hippocampus, a major brain structure situated in the temporal lobe, might be implicated in this pathway. There is evidence that early adversity is linked to dysfunction in the hippocampus, with some studies pointing to decreased hippocampal volume and altered connectivity in the hippocampus. In turn, hippocampal dysfunction has been linked to emotional dysregulation problems and increased risk of depression.”

“…The researchers proposed a pathway whereby stress affects the testosterone and dehydroepiandosterone (DHEA) hormones through modulation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal (HPG) axis. This dysregulation of hormones may then disrupt hippocampal development, leading to impaired emotion regulation and greater risk of depression.”

“…Through a series of analyses, Barch and her team found that early poverty did predict shallower increases in testosterone throughout adolescence, even when accounting for early depression. Early poverty also predicted higher depression scores and worse emotion regulation scores at the last assessment, when the youth were an average of 15 years old. Early poverty did not appear to affect DHEA. Furthermore, there was evidence that testosterone slopes and mental health outcomes were linked. Steeper increases in testosterone over the years were associated with larger increases in hippocampal growth, as well as decreased emotion dysregulation and lower depression at the last assessment. Finally, it appeared that larger hippocampal volume growth across time was also tied to better emotion regulation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1401.mp3" length="1148348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:37</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cortisol may drive COVID-19 mortality</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1399</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1399</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 09 Feb 2021 20:19:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1399

The reason I decided to do a post on this study is that over the last several months, various public health authority bodies around the world have adopted “treatment protocols” for COVID-19 hospitalized patients, and virtually all such protocols contain a potent synthetic glucocorticoid such as dexamethasone, link here. If the findings of the study below are true, then these protocols may be directly contributing to the death of all those critical COVID-19 patients who were unlucky enough to end up in a hospital and get such “treatment”. Given the high mortality of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in some countries, yet very low mortality rates in others suggests that it is some kind of difference in the medical interventions across the various countries that is contributing to the different outcomes. Intubation/ventilators has already been confirmed as an exacerbating factor in COVID-19 hospitalizations/deaths, and now we may have to add synthetic glucocorticoid drugs as another. In fact, considering that those synthetic glucocorticoids are administered very early after patient is admitted into the hospital (and usually long before intubations are attempted), the glucocorticoid therapy may very well be the primary factor driving exacerbations of those COVID-19 patients (with already VERY high cortisol levels) who eventually end up on a ventilator and/or dead.

2 links here

“…COVID-19 patients with extremely high levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their blood are more likely to deteriorate quickly and die, according to new research published today. The study, led by NIHR Research Professor Waljit Dhillo from Imperial College London and Consultant Endocrinologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, provides the first data to show that cortisol, link here levels are a marker of the severity of the illness. The researchers suggest they can be used to identify those patients who are more likely to need intensive care, link here. Cortisol is produced by the body in response to stress such as illness, triggering changes in metabolism, heart function and the immune system to help our bodies cope. Our cortisol levels when healthy and resting are 100-200 nm/L and nearly zero when we sleep. When ill patients have low levels of cortisol, it can be life threatening. Excessive levels of cortisol during illness can be equally dangerous, leading to increased risk of infection and poor outcomes. In the new observational study of 535 patients, of whom 403 were confirmed to have COVID-19, cortisol levels in patients with COVID-19 were significantly higher than in those without. The levels in the COVID-19 group ranged as high as 3241—considerably higher even than after major surgery, when levels can top 1000. Amongst the COVID-19 patients, those with a baseline cortisol level of 744 or less survived on average for 36 days. Patients with levels over 744 had an average survival of just 15 days. Professor Dhillo, Head of Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism at Imperial College London, said: “From an endocrinologist’s perspective, it makes sense that those COVID-19 patients who are the sickest will have higher levels of cortisol, but these levels are worryingly high.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1399.mp3" length="678668" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:30</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress (cortisol) as the driver of hyperglycemia in type II diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1397</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1397</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 09 Feb 2021 20:00:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1397

To most of my readers, the title of the post may seem like something completely obvious and not deserving explanation of clarification. However, according to mainstream medicine (until now, at least) cortisol does not really have a causative role either in the development of diabetes type II or in its various manifestations such as obesity, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, secondary hypogonadism, etc. The main cause of the disease, the doctors say, is a combination of genetics and consumption of high-sugar foods. In other words, mainstream medicine claims that type II diabetes is NOT a hormone-driven condition. This absurdity remains the official position of various public health authorities such as FDA, AMA, etc despite numerous studies implicating cortisol, link here as a cause of both the development of obesity/diabetes, as well as exacerbation of its main biomarkers listed above. Recently, even human studies have confirmed the role of cortisol in this condition, and some doctors are using (off-label) anti-cortisol drugs such as RU486 for treating their patients, link here, after realizing that interventions like fasting and exhaustive exercise spectacularly backfire, link here. Now, RU486, link here is not a bad choice compared to the other official interventions for this condition, however it does have side effects and the core of that chemical is an “estrane” molecule (same as in estradiol), so estrogenic effects from long term use cannot be ruled out. Other interventions that should be able to replicate the effects of RU486 on keeping hypercortisolemia at bay (with arguably fewer risks) include progesterone, DHEA, vitamin D, pregnenolone, aspirin, emodin, etc all of which either block cortisol at the receptor level and/or inhibit its synthesis, and/or increase its degradation. One can only hope that FDA actually pays attention to the changing views on diabetes II and changes its treatment guidelines, as well as its lockdown / social-distancing guidelines accordingly, considering they are a major stress factor contributing to elevated cortisol and/or glucocorticoid resistance.

2 links here

“…Throughout the country, rising cases, link here of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) prove stressful for individuals most at risk of dying from the disease, including those with underlying conditions such as diabetes, link here. As ofJune, link here 2020, patients with diabetes hospitalized for COVID-19 accounted for more than 20% of individuals admitted to intensive care units (ICUs), while patients with diabetes represent 25% to 34% of the population receiving care in ICU and non-ICU settings, respectively, for COVID-19. In addition to health risks, financial hardships are taking a toll on this population. New data, link here from dQ&A, The Diabetes Research Company, and the American Diabetes Association found 24% of people with diabetes have used savings, loans, or money from their stimulus check to pay for diabetes care within the past 3 months. According to results from the 5000-person survey, a quarter of individuals with diabetes have turned to self-rationing supplies to cut costs of diabetes care, while in June the unemployment rate among people with diabetes was higher than the national rate at 18% vs 12%. Compounding these issues, new results from a study, link herepublished in Psychoneuroendocrinology show the stress hormone cortisol is associated with higher blood sugar levels in individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D), suggesting cortisol plays a detrimental role in contributing to glycemia in this population. “Most people with T2D know the importance of exercising regularly, eating a healthy diet, and getting plenty of rest,” said, link here Joshua J. Joseph, MD, a lead author of the study. “But stress relief is a crucial and often forgotten component of diabetes management.”

“…The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is responsible for responding to imminent or perceived threats and stressors through a response that involves the release of glucocorticoids. Glucocorticoids are also important in that they regulate energy balance and glucose homeostasis.”

“…“In healthy people, cortisol fluctuates naturally throughout the day, spiking in the morning and falling at night,” Joseph said. “But in participants with T2D, cortisol profiles that were flatter throughout the day had higher glucose levels.” The relationships were also independent of body mass index, leading authors to hypothesize that glucocorticoids affect glucose metabolism directly through effects on insulin secretion and insulin signaling.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1397.mp3" length="1266932" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA promote torpor / hibernation, decrease lifespan</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1395</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1395</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 09 Feb 2021 00:36:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1395

Not many studies on this topic, but here is one that will hopefully satisfy my critics who keep complaining that there is no evidence for the anti-metabolic, pro-hibernation effects of PUFA. Apparently, PUFA is sought after by hibernating animals (but even they consume it within very tightly controlled amounts/seasons) and universally avoided by non-hibernating ones (when given the choice). Considering we humans have not yet turned into marmots (a hibernating animal) I think it would behoove us to follow the lead of our non-hibernating brethren if we want to keep our health. As far as a mechanism of action, it appears that PUFA interferes with the activity of the electron transport chain complex, specially complex I & II (dependent on CoQ10). In addition to this being a direct evidence of the metabolism-inhibition effects of PUFA, it also suggests that PUFA are powerful inducers of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation (as another post of mine recently discussed, link here) independently of their peroxidation potential. Perhaps surprisingly, the MUFA oleic acid apparently also promotes torpor when present in high amounts in the diet and in some cases it could fully compensate for the lack of PUFA in the diet when it comes to induction of torpor/hibernation. Yet another reason to not overindulge in all those overpriced (and often fake) imported olive oils sold at the local organic store. Finally, the study references evidence that maximum lifespan is inversely correlated to omega-3 cellular content despite the widely quoted “rate of living” theory of aging – i.e. organisms with higher PUFA tissue content have lower metabolism and shorter lifespan, link here.

link here

“…To date, there has been no systematic experimental study on the effects of various ratios of n-6/n-3 uptake on hibernation or torpor patterns. However, positive effects of PUFA-enriched diets on the propensity for torpor, minimum body temperature, metabolic rate, and torpor bout duration were all caused by diets with increased linoleic acid content, that is, the major PUFA of the n-6 class (55, link here). These positive effects of high dietary linoleic acid content, in particular, on torpor bout duration and torpor propensity, were observed in several genera of daily heterotherms (Peromyscus, Phodopus, Sminthopsis) and hibernators (Acrobates, Cynomys, Tamias, Spermophilus, Marmota) (55, link here). There is also some evidence indicating that high amounts of dietary oleic acid (C18:1 n-9) can partly (31, link here) or even fully (26, link here) compensate for low n-6 intake and that this MUFA also leads to increased torpor bout duration and decreased body temperatures during hibernation.”

“…Another effect of n-6 PUFA-enriched diets is increased torpor bout duration, which can be profound (e.g., 21, link here, 29, link here, 30, link here, 72, link here). Since torpor bout duration seems to be linked to energy turnover in the hibernating state (27, link here, 29, link here, 31, link here), minimizing the lowest tolerated body temperature, and hence metabolism, by establishing high n-6/n-3 ratios in heart phospholipids would also explain their effect on the length of torpor bouts.”

“…The translation and transcription of SERCA, as of all proteins, are sharply and acutely downregulated during entrance into torpor and only resumed during arousals. (10, link here, 35, link here, 77, link here, 78, link here). Degradation of proteins, on the other hand, is also decreased several-fold at low body temperatures but may not be entirely blocked (overview in Ref. 78, link here). During torpor entrance, protein damage may be even increased because of the stress of severe changes in metabolism (78, link here). ”

“…An undisputed adverse effect of high PUFA content on membranes is their high susceptibility to peroxidation by radical oxygen species (ROS), which are generated during mitochondrial respiration (40, link here, 46, link here). Lipid peroxidation leads to deleterious products such as reactive aldehydes that cause damage to membranes as well as enzymes, and inhibit DNA and protein synthesis (overview in 40).Therefore, it has been argued that optimal levels of PUFA intake in hibernators result from a trade-off between their beneficial effects on cellular function during hypothermia, and peroxidation-related cellular damage (e.g., 24, link here, 55, link here). This trade-off is thought to be the underlying reason why some hibernators reduce torpor when provided with large amounts of PUFAs (56, link here), or, when given the choice, do not simply maximize linoleic acid intake, but appear to ingest an “optimal,” intermediate amount (24, link here).”

“…Specifically, high ratios of n-6 to n-3 PUFAs increase the activity of the Ca2+-Mg2+ pump in the sarcoplasmic reticulum of the heart (SERCA) and counteract Q10 effects on SERCA activity at low tissue temperatures.”

“…In summary, our analysis supports the view that proper Ca2+ handling of cardiac myocytes is the crucial adaptation that separates hibernators and daily heterotherms from homeothermic mammals (3, link here, 81, link here). Further, we propose that the key to understanding the impact of PUFAs on hibernation is to recognize the opposing effects of n-6 and n-3 PUFAs on SERCA activity in cardiac membranes, and the risk of low n-6/n-3 ratios for cardiac arrest during hypothermia. One might be tempted to think that the effects of these essential fatty acids are quite specific and limited to the particular problem of maintaining cellular function at low body temperatures. Arguably however, this is not the case. For instance, we recently found that n-6 to n-3 PUFA ratios in skeletal muscle phospholipids are closely associated with (body-size corrected) differences in maximum running speed in mammals, an effect which may be also mediated via their effects on SERCA activity (64, link here). Further, n-6 to n-3 PUFA ratios appear to be the only aspect of membrane fatty acid composition that is clearly associated with maximum life span across mammals (76, link here). Thus, it seems that the ratio of n-6 to n-3 PUFAs in biological membranes may have important general physiological functions and can create crucial trade-offs that go far beyond their effect on seasonal adaptation and hibernation alone.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1395.mp3" length="823364" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA are potent immunosuppresive agents</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1393</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1393</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2021 23:58:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1393

Just a quick post for all those PUFA/fish-oil lovers who keep sending me hate-mail about the “incredibly beneficial” omega-3, and even omega-6 (e.g. some athletes/bodybuilders tout arachidonic acid as a natural “anabolic agent”). As the study below discusses, all PUFA, but especially omega-3, are about as potent as glucocorticoids in inducing T-cell death. Modern medicine has already recognized that anything that suppresses T-cell formation likely increases cancer risk, and some of the most promising cancer therapies to get recently approved are precisely T-cell activity boosters (e.g. Opdivo, link here). Hopefully, the study below will give all PUFA fans a pause and reconsideration before they continue consuming this carcinogenic, immunosuppressive poison.

link here

‘”…Although the studies are not conclusive and there are conflicting reports (17), the n−3 PUFAs decrease specific disease symptoms and the need for antiinflammatory drugs for patients with chronic inflammatory diseases (6, 18). n−3 Fatty acids may be immunosuppressive agents for a variety of inflammatory ailments, including Crohn disease, atherosclerosis, colitis, graft-versus-host disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, asthma, and systemic lupus erythematosus (19–28). ”

“…A series of studies from Kleinfeld’s laboratory (55) showed that unsaturated free fatty acids (FFAs) could inhibit specific aspects of cytotoxic T cell function by perturbing membranes. Initially, it was shown that short-term exposure of murine allogeneic effector T cells to low levels of unsaturated FFAs (<10 μmol/L), including PUFAs, inhibited lysis of target APCs. The change in lysis of target cells was a direct consequence of the FFA added to the CTLs, because lysis could be inhibited by extracting the unsaturated FFA with bovine serum albumin before CTL-target conjugation (55). Specific aspects of T cell function inhibited by unsaturated lipids included the initial rise in intracellular [Ca2+] on conjugate formation, protein phosphorylation events, and subsequent CTL esterase release. On the other hand, release of inositol phosphates and binding to target cells were unaffected (55–59). Because the inhibition in CTL calcium release linearly correlated with the decrease in membrane acyl chain order induced by the presence of increasing unsaturation in the plasma membrane (56), it was hypothesized that modulation of membrane structure affected T cell Ca2+ signaling. Information on the effects of PUFAs on the T cell calcium response has continued to grow (60, 61). For example, Stulnig et al (61) showed that administration of PUFAs reduced the calcium response dose dependently in vitro on stimulation of Jurkat T lymphocytes. Although no change was observed with the saturated palmitic acid, maximal effects were observed with GLA and DGLA and modest effects with EPA and AA.”

“…Some of the in vivo or ex vivo data on PUFAs and T cell function are consistent with findings from cell culture. For example, healthy persons infused with lipids to elevate serum PUFAs had a reduced calcium response of their CD4+ and CD8+ T cells (61). Also, feeding mice n−3 PUFAs, predominately DHA, lowered the proliferative response of splenic T lymphocytes on in vitro stimulation through CD28 and the TCR/CD3 complex (74)…Inner leaflet lipids (eg, PEs and PSs) isolated from mice fed diets rich in fish oils were enriched with PUFAs to a greater extent than were outer leaflet lipids (77, 78). Surprisingly, it was also observed that the sphingomyelin content of DRM fractions was significantly (≈30%) lower in fish oil–fed mice than in control corn oil–fed animals (77, 78). In the same study, recruitment of PKCθ into rafts of T cells from mice fed diets supplemented with fish oils or purified DHA was inhibited relative to cells isolated from mice fed corn oil. In addition, receptor-induced activation of the transcription factors AP-1 and nuclear transcription factor κB was lowered and, consequently, IL-2 production and T cell proliferation were inhibited in cells isolated from fish oil–fed mice (78). Fish oil–fed mice also show elevated concentrations of Fas colocalization with raft molecules in naive T cells (78). In light of data that showed that n−3 PUFAs enhanced activation induced cell death in T cells (79), it was speculated that Fas relocalization by PUFAs may be yet another mechanism by which n−3 PUFAs inhibit T cell activity (78, 80).”

“…

1) PUFA incorporation disrupts sphingomyelin-cholesterol microdomain formation and alters signal transduction. A perturbation in the stability of liquid ordered microdomains by PUFAs changes the distribution of proteins between domains as readout by localization to either DRMs or DSMs (assuming that detergent extraction is some crude representation of differing membrane heterogeneities). The physical disruption would be driven by the low affinity of cholesterol for PUFA acyl chains. Disruption of liquid ordered domains by PUFAs may also explain the reduction in sphingomyelin concentrations in DRM fractions in ex vivo studies (77). Indeed, raft disruption by cholesterol depletion has been shown to effect cellular signaling (141).

2) DRMs may not accurately depict the differing types of lipid microdomains that may sequester into these fractions. It has become increasingly clear from cell studies that raft microdomains may exist as nanoclusters <5 nm, with a few glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored proteins in each cluster (142). It has been suggested that there is tremendous heterogeneity in DRM microdomains (51) and it is reasonable to speculate that PUFA microdomains may exist on a nanometer scale (143). Therefore, PUFA-rich microdomains may show up in DRM fractions but may still segregate from liquid ordered domains based on steric incompatibility between cholesterol and PUFAs. These interactions may trigger protein displacement and loss of function.

3) On dietary intake, most PUFAs are esterified to phospholipids in the sn-2 position, with saturated acyl chains in the sn-1 position. Therefore, the sn-1 chains may participate in microdomain formation with cholesterol and exclude PUFAs, as suggested by the work of Huster et al (1998). However, during detergent extraction, the high affinity between the sn-1 chain and cholesterol may result in PUFA enrichment in the DRM fraction. Even though biochemical analysis of DRMs shows substantial amounts of PUFAs, they are not directly involved in the formation of liquid ordered domains.

4) PUFA incorporation into cells drives cholesterol from the outer to the inner leaflet (144, 145). The efflux of cholesterol may drive changes in outer and inner leaflet microdomain formation. The signaling complexes of the inner leaflet may respond to a reduction in cholesterol concentrations and alter T cell signaling. Our laboratory has shown that cholesterol depletion can result in a reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton (106). Perhaps PUFA-induced changes in cholesterol also alter the organization of the cytoskeleton, which could modify cellular signaling.”

“…As the data grow on how select PUFAs may modulate inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, there is a growing need for elucidating the underlying molecular mechanisms. An understanding of the effect of PUFAs at the level of T cell membrane organization is only starting to emerge, whereas relatively little is known about membrane modulation of APCs. The data from cellular and animal studies tell us that PUFAs induce changes in localization of proteins from DRM to DSM fractions, which has measurable consequences for T cell signaling and proliferation. However, the mechanisms by which PUFAs induce changes in protein localization are not known, and it is here that model membrane experiments suggest testable hypotheses. We know that PUFA-containing phospholipids impart unique structural effects on bilayers, but what is required is better knowledge of how these effects translate into functional consequences at the cellular level. Further investigation at the interface between model bilayers and cellular systems may answer some questions regarding PUFA-raft interactions. How PUFAs modulate MHC conformation, vertical orientation, lateral organization, and trafficking—on the basis of literature reports and some data from our own laboratory—also requires extensive investigation at all levels, from synthetic bilayers to animal experiments. Because dietary intake of PUFAs will result in a distribution to virtually every cell of the body, the changes described above for APCs are also applicable to T cells. PUFA modification of cellular membranes may be an important target for immunosuppression.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1393.mp3" length="678428" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking PUFA/prostaglandins restores metabolism and reverses brain aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1388</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1388</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2021 21:23:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1388

The bad news for PUFA has been accumulating for decades, yet public health authorities continue to claim that type of fat is “essential”. Whatever indirect admissions of the pathological role of PUFA in both chronic and acute/infectious diseases is given to the public, is usually confined to the well-known PUFA metabolites known as prostaglandins. However, the disclaimer is always that even if prostaglandins have known pathological effects, those effects are limited to acute inflammatory reactions and some of those are even claimed to be beneficial! Well, according to the study below, the prostaglandins are perhaps the primary driver of brain aging and the pathological effects they exert is due to lowering the metabolic rate of brain cells by restricting glucose metabolism. Conversely, blocking the effects of prostaglandins restore glucose metabolism, reversed the metabolic rate inhibition, and reversed the aging brain phenotype. In summary, for those that still defend PUFA or think it is essential – according to the study below, PUFA is a direct causative factor in brain aging trough increased inflammation and decreased metabolic rate carried out by its metabolites known as prostaglandins. Blocking the effects prostaglandins or, dare I say, restricting dietary PUFA, can fully reverse brain aging. Speaking of blocking prostaglandins – the study used a selective prostaglandin antagonist, which is far from optimal IMO since it acts too far downstream and will undoubtedly miss any other “non-genomic” (non-receptor-mediated) negative effects prostaglandins have. It would be preferable to administer the well-known and battle-tested COX inhibitors, which inhibit the very synthesis of prostaglandins. I suspect my readers are already guessing what the preferred COX inhibitor will be and they will be right if they guessed aspirin! Humble aspirin has already had numerous observational human studies strongly suggesting it has pro-cognitive and anti-aging effects in the human brain. Animal studies go much further and have already demonstrated that aspirin can cure Alzheimer disease (AD) in rodents, as well as extend maximum lifespan of yeast/worms by more than 400%, link here! The new study below now provides a solid justification/rationale for those well-documented beneficial effects of aspirin on the nervous system. And last, but not least, if prostaglandins are the primary driver of impaired glucose metabolism the findings of the study below suggest that aspirin would be a great intervention for conditions such as the metabolic syndrome and diabetes II. There is already one study with already diabetic humans demonstrating that a high dose aspirin completely reversed their glucose metabolism abnormalities, link here, so considering the new study below I really don’t see a good reason why medicine refuses to try aspirin as treatment for all such conditions.

link here

“…In the study, blocking the interaction of a particular hormone and a receptor that abounds on myeloid cells was enough to restore the youthful metabolism and placid temperament of mouse and human myeloid cells in a dish and in living mice. This blockade also reversed age-related mental decline in older mice, restoring their recall and navigation skills to those exhibited by young mice. “If you adjust the immune system, you can de-age the brain,” Andreasson said. Her team’s experiments in human cells suggest that similar rejuvenation may be possible in people, she said.”

“…The researchers found that myeloid cells undergo an increasing propensity, driven by age-associated increased PGE2-EP2 binding, to hoard glucose by converting this energy source into long glucose chains called glycogen (the animal equivalent of starch) instead of “spending” it on energy production. That hoarding, and the cells’ subsequent chronically energy-depleted state, drives them into an inflammatory rage, wreaking havoc on aging tissues. “This powerful pathway drives aging,” she said. “And it can be downshifted.” The Stanford scientists showed this by blocking the hormone-receptor reaction on myeloid-cell surfaces in the mice. They gave mice either of two experimental compounds known to interfere with PGE2-EP2 binding in the animals. They also incubated cultured mouse and human macrophages with these substances. Doing so caused old myeloid cells to metabolize glucose just as young myeloid cells do, reversing the old cells’ inflammatory character. More striking, the compounds reversed mice’s age-related cognitive decline. Older mice who received them performed as well on tests of recall and spatial navigation as young adult mice. One of the two compounds the Stanford scientists used was effective even though it doesn’t penetrate the blood-brain barrier. This suggests, Andreasson said, that even resetting myeloid cells outside the brain can achieve profound effects on what goes on inside the brain.”

link here

“…Our study suggests that the development of maladaptive inflammation and cognitive decline in ageing may not be a static or permanent condition, but rather that it can be reversed by inhibiting inflammatory PGE2 signalling through the myeloid EP2 receptor. First, we find that ageing is associated with a significant increase in pro-inflammatory PGE2 signalling in myeloid cells, which drives the sequestration of glucose into glycogen through the AKT–GSK3β–GYS1 pathway and away from the generation of ATP. Second, we uncover a fundamental vulnerability of ageing myeloid cells, in which they become dependent on glucose and are unable to use alternative energy sources to support mitochondrial respiration. These two mechanisms converge, leading to a reduction of glucose flux and the development of an energy-depleted state that drives pro-inflammatory immune responses. Third, by directing glucose towards the production of ATP, as opposed to glycogen storage, inhibition of myeloid EP2 in ageing cells reverts the polarization state to a more homeostatic anti-inflammatory state that prevents age-associated cognitive decline. We also demonstrate that peripheral EP2 blockade is sufficient to re-establish youthful immune homeostasis not only in the blood, but also in the brain, and to restore hippocampal function and plasticity in aged mice. The mechanisms underlying this rescue are probably distinct from those that underlie the effect of a brain-penetrant EP2 inhibitor that can directly target microglial EP2 signalling. Peripheral EP2 blockade may lead to changes in the composition of blood, components of which could beneficially affect the ageing cerebrovascular endothelium or penetrate the brain parenchyma to improve neuronal function. Finally, our findings are consistent with a feedforward loop involving the inflammatory COX-2–PGE2–EP2 cascade, in which increasing PGE2 signalling via the EP2 receptor induces additional COX-2 expression and activity, further amplifying downstream PGE2 generation and signalling24,38,39. Thus, inhibition of EP2-dependent changes in myeloid metabolism may represent a new approach to disorders of ageing, with greater specificity than the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs that target COX-2 and COX-1 and suppress both beneficial and toxic prostaglandin signalling pathways40.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1388.mp3" length="1358684" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide as treatment for scleroderma (systemic sclerosis)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1385</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1385</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2021 20:41:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1385

Yet another “incurable” disease has been demonstrated to be nothing more but energetic deficiency in disguise. According to mainstream medicine, scleroderma (also known as systemic sclerosis), link here is an incurable chronic, autoimmune, progressive, fibrotic disease that attacks virtually all organs and can lead to significant disability and even death if it affects some of the more vital organs such as lungs, heart, pancreas, etc. No known treatment for the condition exists, and as such treatment is “supportive” – i.e. mainly glucocorticoids for acute exacerbations, and immunosuppressive drugs for chronic “treatment”. In other words, not much different than other autoimmune conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, etc. Interestingly enough, it has been known for at least 5 decades that the disease has an endotoxin component as a cause, link here since administering TLR4 (endotoxin receptor), link here antagonists such as ketotifen or Benadryl (diphenhydramine) has been able to cure the disease in some patients and greatly retard its progression in others, link here. The fact that endotoxin has a causative role in this condition should have directed the medical authorities to dig further into the energetic aspect of this disease, but not much has been done in this direction considering that medicine does not believe functional disorders (energetic deficiency) can lead to structural ones (systemic sclerosis). Now, the study below adds more evidence in favor of the crucial role metabolism/energy plays in this disease. It demonstrates that depletion of NAD+ can directly lead to the formation of fibrotic tissue identical to the one seen in humans with the condition. Conversely, alleviating the NAD+ depletion by blocking its consumption (CD38 inhibitor) or providing an NAD+ precursor such as nicotinamide (riboside) can fully prevent the structural lesions associated with the disease. The HED of nicotinamde (riboside) was 30mg/kg and the treatment was administered for just 3 weeks. Just as importantly, the study found that the formation of scars is entirely controlled by energy availability. In other words, the higher the metabolic rate and the higher the energetic production/reserves of the organism, the less scar formation occurs (from any cause). This corroborates Peat’s writings and multiple publications noting that wound healing in young children is scar-less, and this is now known to be due to the much higher metabolic rate of adolescent humans.

link here

“…”We found that scleroderma inflammation dramatically increases CD38, an enzyme that normally breaks down a metabolic nutrient, NAD+. When NAD+ levels decrease, tissue injury becomes chronic and progresses to scar formation rather than to healthy repair,” says study author John Varga, M.D., division chief of rheumatology at Michigan Medicine. According to the study, treatments that prevented NAD+ reduction in the mice, whether by boosting the levels of the nutrient genetically or pharmacologically, prevented scarring in the skin, lungs and abdominal wall. “This is one of the first studies to find a relationship between CD38 and scleroderma, as well as the linking between inflammation and metabolism to skin and organ scarring,” says study author Johann Gudjonsson, M.D. Ph.D., a dermatologist at Michigan Medicine. Boosting NAD+ via the precursor nicotinamide riboside, a safe and inexpensive dietary supplement, prevented skin and other organ scarring, providing the researchers a previously undiscovered pathogenic role of CD38 in scleroderma scarring. “These results open the door to entirely novel treatments for fibrosis and scleroderma. Using precision medicine, these treatments could be selectively targeted to block CD38 in scleroderma patients who have elevated CD38,” says study author Bo Shi, Ph.D., a research assistant professor of dermatology at Northwestern Medicine. The research findings also create possibilities for restoring levels of NAD+ using pre-existing drugs, or well tolerated dietary supplements. Both of these therapeutic approaches are entirely novel strategies to halt scleroderma’s most debilitating side effect.”

link here

“…In view of the substantial fibrosis protection accompanied by a rise of NAD+ levels that was noted in mice lacking CD38, the principal NAD+-consuming enzyme, we sought to determine if organismal NAD+ boosting by either selectively blocking its CD38-mediated hydrolysis and/or by NAD+ precursor supplementation will mitigate fibrosis. To this end, 18-month-old female mice maintained for 2 weeks on either standard chow diet or chow supplemented with nicotinamide riboside (NR, 3 g/kg chow) were treated with a thiazoloquin(az)olin(on)e compound 78c selective for the CD38 NADase (Tarrago et al., 2018, link here). Treatment with 78c (30 mg/kg weight) administered by daily oral gavage was initiated concomitantly with a two-week course of daily subcutaneous bleomycin injections, and mice remained on NR-supplemented chow diet and continued daily 78c gavage until sacrifice at day 21 (Figure 3, link hereA). On standard chow diet, mice treated with bleomycin suffered significant weight loss (maximal 40% at day 11), which however was substantially attenuated in mice on an NR-supplemented chow diet combined with the CD38 inhibitor 78c (Figure 3, link hereB). Dietary NR supplementation by itself, or combined with 78c treatment, resulted in a ∼5-fold increase in skin NAD+ levels compared to mice treated with bleomycin only (Figure 3, link hereE). Notably, boosting NAD+ in bleomycin-treated mice resulted in significantly improved skin fibrosis, including attenuated increase in dermal thickness, skin collagen content, and fibrotic gene expression, as well as the number of ASMA (alpha smooth muscle actin)-positive myofibroblasts in the lesional dermis (Figures 3, link hereC, 3D, 3F, 3G, S4, link hereA and S4B). In the skin, the anti-fibrotic efficacy of supplementation with NR was greater compared to the efficacy of CD38 inhibitor treatment. This differential response might reflect limited tissue penetration of the CD38 inhibitor. The expansion of the fibrotic dermis was inversely correlated with tissue levels of NAD+, directly linking NAD+ boosting in the anti-fibrotic effect (Figure 3, link hereE). Strikingly, NAD+ boosting by either NR supplementation or via CD38 inhibition also afforded mice robust protection from pulmonary fibrosis, with significantly ameliorated radiological and histological fibrotic changes in the lungs coupled with reduced collagen accumulation and fibrotic gene expression (Figures 3, link hereC and 3H–3K). Monocytes and macrophages are thought to play an important role in the pathogenesis of organ fibrosis in SSc and in mouse models of the disease (Bhandari et al., 2020, link here; Marangoni et al., 2016, link here). Significant accumulation of macrophages in both the dermis and the lungs from bleomycin-treated mice was mitigated with NAD+ boosting via treatment of mice with CD38 inhibitor or NR supplementation alone or in combination (Figure S5, link hereA and S5B). In particular, the combination treatment markedly attenuated the accumulation of CD11b + macrophages in the skin (Figure S5, link hereC) and CD64+CD11b+Sigleclow (myeloid derived) infiltrating macrophages in the lung, while having no significant effect on CD64+CD11b+Siglechigh (tissue resident) macrophages (Figure S5, link hereD). In view of the pivotal role that macrophages and other myeloid-derived leukocytes play in SSc pathogenesis (Bhandari et al., 2020, link here), the decrease in macrophage accumulation observed in mice with NAD+ boosting might contribute to the anti-fibrotic effect of this intervention.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1385.mp3" length="1225604" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT restores anabolism / vitality / sexuality even in 90+ y.o. males</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1382</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1382</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:36:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1382

A great study, a true blast from the (better) past, when androgenic steroids and especially DHT were not considered the devil reincarnate, but were commonly used for all types of ailments, including the broad physiological and psychological symptoms of aging such as sarcopenia (muscle loss), osteoporosis, senility, apathy/depression, and even sexual function. The study demonstrates that daily treatment with 25mg DHT (a.k.a Stanolone) was able to reverse most of these aging symptoms in a group of males with average age of 77+ years, and containing two subjects aged 83 and 93 years. Anybody who has met 90+ year-old (or even 80+ year-old) people is quite aware that such people have great difficulty moving, are often of poor mood and rarely have an interest in doing anything challenging/exciting – no doubt a result of their poor metabolic/energetic status and generalized frailty. Above all, such people are almost universally quite apathetic to the opposite sex and specifically to sexual activity. As the study demonstrates, DHT treatment not only greatly improved the muscle/bone/mood health but was able to reverse the “neuter attitude” quite common among such elderly males. If 25mg DHT daily can make 80-90 year-old males chase female nurses all day long, and get into fights out of jealousy – apparently, a medically-recognized sign of rejuvenation 🙂 – then the anti-aging industry is probably doomed as the humble DHT may have already solved their problem. Yes, that same DHT, which medicine tells us will make us bald, cancerous, and raging lunatics. Hhhmm, actually that last description fits quite well most male doctors I have met:-)…and, of course, they do everything in their power to lower their endogenous DHT 🙂

link here

“…The stanolone used was suspended as microcrystals in a concentration of 50 mg./ml. sterile distilled water containing sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (0.1%) as a suspending agent, thimerosal (0.01%) as a preservative, and sodium chloride (0.9%). The steroid was administered intramuscularly in doses of 50 mg. on alternate days….A late result of hormone therapy was the change in mental attitude of the subjects. Joviality increased; testimonials of well-being were volunteered; generalized euphoria seemed to seize some; interest in the female sex was frequently expressed; evidences of jealousy over favors rendered by the female nursing staff developed, and a decided change from the customary neuter attitude of the patients toward the nurses became apparent.”

“…The metabolic balance data indicate that stanolone is able to cause retention of the pro- toplasmic constituents of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus in men past 70 over and above the retention achieved by an adequate diet high in protein. When an isocaloric low protein diet was offered to the same indi- viduals, androgen therapy also resulted in re- tention of nitrogen, potassium, and phos- phorus, but to a quantitatively less extent than on the high protein regimen. Calcium retention was not produced by the hormone on either regimen. Data on urinary steroids revealed a significant increase in 17-keto- steroid excretion but no other changes. Side effects induced by the androgen used were primarily those of pain at the injection site, fluid retention, and increase in euphoria and libido.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1382.mp3" length="946028" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Androgens (e.g. DHT) curative even for treatment-resistant breast cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1380</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1380</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 31 Jan 2021 23:58:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1380

As many of my readers know, back in the “good ol’ days” (when medicine was slightly less evil and berserk) breast cancer in women was treated with androgens, and the results were so impressive that a synthetic DHT-derivative known as Drostanolone / Masteron (2α-Methyl-DHT), link here was approved by the FDA in 1960s as the main therapy for ER+ breast cancer. Masteron is basically DHT with greatly reduced androgenic effects and increased resistance to degradation/deactivation by the enzyme 3α-HSD. Masteron remained the main clinical treatment for breast cancer until the estrogen industry got involved, as it wanted a piece of action and had poison to sell. That poison was the synthetic, (partial) estrogens known as SERM, link here, which were not only less effective but also (ironically) carcinogenic. Also, it was quickly discovered that breast tumors developed resistance to SERM treatments. However, that did not stop the estrogen industry (a subset of Big Pharma) from conducing multi-year, massive marketing campaigns in favor of the SERM drugs while simultaneously fear-mongering about the “risks” of proven therapies such as Masteron. Long story short – Masteron (and androgen therapy in general) was quickly forgotten and nowadays the “standard of care” therapies for ER+ breast cancer are SERM (e.g. tamofixen, link here), aromatase inhibitors (AI), and cytotoxic therapies such as radiation. However, the FDA approval of Masteron for breast cancer is still active and a patient can still get treated with it provided the patient has nerves of steel and is willing to endure raging sessions of savage vitriol from their oncologist trying to “convince” the patient to try the newer and “better” therapies. Speaking of Masteron, the original studies with it did not produce convincing results that it is more effective than the stronger (and more virilizing) androgens such as testosterone (T) and especially DHT. In fact, there was strong evidence that it was precisely the androgenic effects of steroids such ad T, DHT (and even nandrolone) that were partially responsible for their benefit in breast cancer.

And now, the study below demonstrates once again that fate is not without a sense of irony. After marketing and prescribing a toxic lie for more than 5 decades, medicine is willing to re-discover the benefits of androgen therapy yet again. Why? Well, simply because treatment of ER+ tumors has reached a dead-end due to rapidly developing resistance of such tumors to the SERM drugs, and even some of the AI drugs (only the non-steroidal ones). The study below demonstrates that treatment with the “antihero” DHT was so strikingly effective in several mouse models of ER+ breast cancer, that the tumors almost disappeared within 60 days of treatment (see Fig. 3E and 3F in the study). The HED of DHT used in the study was about 4mg/kg, which may seem high but matches exactly the doses used in the successful trials with Masteron (and other androgens such as T and nandrolone) performed in the first half of the 20th century. I mentioned earlier that ER+ tumors are now known to develop resistance to non-steroidal AI just like they do to SERM drugs. However, there has been no reported resistance to the steroidal AI drugs such as exemestane, link here, which just happens to be quite androgenic, link here, and it is precisely the androgenicity of the steroidal AI drugs that seems to retain their therapeutic effects, link here. These findings in regards to the androgenic AI corroborate the findings of the study below, and suggest that exemestane may also be useful as monotherapy ER+ breast cancer. Now, DHT is also known to behave as an AI, and one may think that using only exemestane or DHT may be good enough and that combining them may be redundant. Not so, as life is stranger than fiction 🙂 A recent post of mine demonstrates that a combination of DHT + AI is highly synergistic, link here and capable of reversing chronic kidney disease (which btw is known to be driven by PUFA and estrogen), that neither drug on its own was able to to reverse. So, if exemestane or DHT monotherapies can make tumors almost disappear within 60 days, imagine what they can do in combination. But, as they say in infomercials, “wait there is more”! Considering exemestane is a prescription drug and has some side effects of its own (related to prostaglandin release), one could replace the exemestane with progesterone, as the latter is also a potent aromatase inhibitor, estrogen receptor antagonist, and glucocorticoid (GR) antagonist. The GR antagonism has already been shown to be therapeutic for hormone-negative breast cancers, link here, so the combination of progesterone + DHT may very well be able to cover all breast cancer types, which is something medicine currently claims is impossible… despite already published evidence, link here. And if all of this was not already great news, the study below reluctantly admits that the new “kid on the block” in steroid receptor therapies – namely, the SARM, link here molecules – are likely much less effective than DHT, while also known to be quite toxic. Namely, treating breast cancer cells with physiological concentrations of DHT resulted in almost complete inhibition (97%) of estrogen binding sites (and as such, transcription effects of estrogen), while a much higher (and likely toxic) concentration of the SARM in question achieved only 67% inhibition.

So, there we have it folks. It looks like, we have had the cure (or at least the knowledge of it) for likely all types of breast cancer since at least the 1960s, in the form of bioidentical steroids such as DHT, T and progesterone (especially in combination). Yet, for decades we have been sold on “treatments” that are either carcinogenic synthetic semi-estrogens (e.g. SERM drugs), toxic synthetic semi-androgens (SARM drugs), or ineffective and possibly estrogenic, link here (non-steroidal) AI drugs. If the purpose of the “Great Reset” we are currently enduring is to destroy old, inhumane industries then I see no better starting point than Big Pharma and its paramour known as mainstream medicine 🙂

link here

“…Hormone therapies, or endocrine therapies, are widely used to treat breast cancer that is estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, but resistance is a common problem. That has sparked interest in drugs targeting the androgen receptor (AR). But the role of AR in ER-positive disease remains unclear, leading to the development of both AR agonists and antagonists. Now a research team led by scientists at the University of Adelaide has reported new findings that support AR as a tumor suppressor in ER-positive breast cancer. The study, published in Nature Medicine, link here, showed that natural androgen dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and Veru’s investigational AR agonist enobosarm inhibited tumor growth in mouse models.”

“…Androgen therapy had once been used to treat ER-positive breast cancer but was abandoned because androgen is a sex hormone that can give rise to male characteristics, making it less desirable than drugs that directly target ER. But the resistance problem inspired some scientists to develop selective AR modulators that don’t cause side effects.”

“…Because some studies yielded conflicting results regarding the role of AR in this cancer type, the University of Adelaide-led team set out to find out more. The researchers first delved into a breast cancer patient library. They found that AR was positively associated with survival in ER-positive cases and it was a good predictive biomarker of response to endocrine therapy.”

“…In lab experiments, the researchers found that AR activation and its transcription factor activity was key in the inhibition of ER signaling in breast cancer cells. The AR activity hampered ER’s ability to upregulate certain cell cycle genes that modulate cell proliferation, the team showed, suggesting this might be how AR inhibits cancer proliferation. Then the team tested the effect of AR-targeting drugs in mice. Tumor growth in mice that got Pfizer and Astellas’ antiandrogen drug Xtandi was similar to that of controls, the researchers found. In contrast, both DHT and enobosarm slowed tumor growth throughout the 90-day test course. The drugs also worked in tumors that were resistant to endocrine therapies.”

2 links here

“…Androgens were once effectively used for treatment of breast cancer8,9, but knowledge of hormone receptors in breast tissue was rudimentary at the time, and efficacy was thought to be 50 via suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. Androgen therapy was ultimately discontinued due to virilising side effects and the advent of drugs that directly target ER10. Collectively called endocrine therapy, ER targeting agents are now standard-of-care for clinical management of ER+ breast cancer. While endocrine therapies are effective in the majority of cases, de novo or acquired resistance remain the major cause of breast cancer mortality,necessitating alternative therapeutic strategies. This has renewed interest in androgen therapy,especially since non-virilising selective AR modulators (SARMs) are now clinically available.”

“…Mice were implanted with E2 pellets and, when tumours reached ~100 mm3 in size, were randomly allocated to treatment with Vehicle, DHT, Enobosarm or Enzalutamide. Tumours were harvested at short- (5 days post-treatment) or long-(90 days or ethical end-point) term time points. While Enzalutamide reduced growth initially, this was not sustained; the proliferative index of Enzalutamide-treated tumours was similar to controls by 5 days of treatment (Extended Data Fig. 9a-d). In contrast, both AR agonists (DHT, Enobosarm) durably inhibited tumour growth throughout the course of 90 days, with a significant reduction in the proliferative index by 5 days of treatment (Extended Data Fig. 9ad). Accordingly, AR agonists potently opposed expression of E2-regulated genes and upregulated AR target genes, but Enzalutamide did not (Extended Data Fig. 9e-f).”

“…A striking loss (97%) of E2-stimulated ERBS occurred in tumours from animals treated with the natural AR ligand, DHT (Extended Data Fig. 10a). Enobosarm had a less pronounced effect, but still induced a substantial loss (67%) of ER chromatin binding events (Extended Data Fig. 10a-c). 270 Loss of ER binding upon AR activation in vivo was evident at loci associated with several cell cycle genes, including the essential ERBS in the MYB and CCND1 genes (Extended Data Fig 10d).”

“…Our study provides compelling evidence that exploitation of an endogenous, ligand activated AR pathway to inhibit ER-mediated transcriptional activity constitutes an attractive, immediately implementable therapeutic opportunity to treat ER+ breast cancers, even those resistant to current forms of endocrine therapy and those with genomic aberrations of ESR1 or CCND1. Moreover, we provide new evidence that AR agonists can be more effective than existing (e.g. Tamoxifen) or new (e.g. a CDK4/6 inhibitor, Palbociclib) standard-of-care treatments and, in the case of the latter, can be combined to enhance growth inhibition.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1380.mp3" length="3135692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:07:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) as a cause of systemic inflammation seen in obesity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1378</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1378</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 07 Jan 2021 19:23:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1378

Yet another study implicating the great villain of systemic health – endotoxin / LPS. It is well-known that most people with obesity have high levels of inflammatory biomarkers both in their tissues and bloodstream. The study below demonstrates that the inflammation seen in adipose tissue of obese organisms is likely due to endotoxin / LPS. When the endotoxin receptor TLR4 was deleted or its activation blocked pharmacologically, obesity did not cause nearly as much chronic/systemic inflammation. However, even without endotoxin / LPS inflammation was not entirely abrogated, which should direct the authors of the study to look for the remaining culprit(s). I will give them a hint – the adipose tissues of most obese people contains mostly PUFA, and their blood contains high levels of the inflammatory PUFA metabolites derived from the COX and LOX pathways 🙂

2 links here

“…To prove that FIPs play a key role in harmful inflammation, scientists removed a critical gene from the cells, called Tlr4. After another fiveigh-f months on the hat diet, the mice without Tlr4 gained the same amount of weight and fat as their peers. The one difference the study reveals is that mice with no Tlr4 gene did not have high levels of inflammation. Study authors add that mice without Tlr4 have inflammatory molecule levels in their adipose tissue which are closer to levels typical in mice on low-fat diets, link here. Gupta’s team then uncovered that increasing levels of another signaling molecule, ZFP423, inside FIPs can also improve inflammation in the fat cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1378.mp3" length="469076" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin behind the mortality of Black Death and 1918 Flu pandemics</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1376</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1376</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 07 Jan 2021 19:09:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1376

As many of my readers know, many/most people dying from COVID-19 develop either sepsis and/or respiratory failure. Endotoxin (LPS) is now a known cause behind both of these conditions, as a virus by itself has no known mechanism of causing a cytokine storm. As much as I revile the term “scientific consensus”, in this case it seems to be on the right path by stating that activation of the TLR4 (endotoxin) receptor is required in order to bring about a cytokine storm, and, subsequently, multi-organ failure. AFAIK, no virus has ever been demonstrated to activate TLR4 directly. Since most of patients with severe viral disease do NOT present with co-existing bacterial infection, the only explanation for the induction of that cytokine storm is endotoxin (LPS) absorption from the intestine due to severely compromised gut barrier as a result of stress, high cortisol/estrogen, inflammation, etc. As many of my readers know, over the last 4-5 years there have been multiple large human studies demonstrating highly therapeutic effect on bacterial sepsis of vitamin C + vitamin B1 combination. In fact, several large hospitals around the world have started to adopt this protocol as standard treatment even for patients who are just being admitted and have a risk of developing sepsis but have not developed one yet. Coincidentally, several smaller human trials have demonstrated robust benefit of the same protocol against the cytokine storm seen in severe COVID-19. Since the protocol seems to work against both bacterial and viral conditions, the question arises as to what is the common thing between the two. In one word – endotoxin – and the article below states that the same endotoxin-driven cytokine storm is now thought to have been the cause of the high mortality seen in two other world-changing pandemics (one viral and one bacterial) – the 1918 “Spanish” Flu and the Black Death (plague) in the Middle Ages. As such, it is not the pathogen that is likely biggest threat, but rather poor systemic health, inflammation driven by PUFA, and high endotoxin (LPS) load.

Sepsis Biomarker Prospect Found in Sugar-Binding Protein, link here

“…A main trigger for the cytokine storms during sepsis is the overreaction of the body when it detects an infection inside the cells. Other diseases can also cause cytokine storms; medical historians believe cytokine storms were behind the lethality of the 1918–1919 flu epidemic, as well as the Black Death. Cytokine storms are also observed in patients with severe COVID-19 and believed to be involved in patient death in COVID-19. When a cell detects bacteria or pieces of bacteria inside itself, it immediately activates enzymes that in turn activate a protein that pokes holes on the cell membrane from within, eventually causing the cell to burst open and spill cytokines into the bloodstream which activate the immune system. Usually, the system calms down after some time. But in sepsis, it spins out of control, causing more and more cells to burst and die, releasing even more cytokines into the bloodstream. More specifically, the inflammatory caspase sensing of cytosolic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) triggers programmed cell death and the release of damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). Collectively, DAMPs are key determinants that shape the aftermath of inflammatory cell death. However, the identity and function of the individual DAMPs that are released are poorly defined.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1376.mp3" length="1075460" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Sugar (sucrose) lowers stress-induced cortisol</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1374</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1374</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 07 Jan 2021 18:09:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1374

Just a quick post to give some props to the much-vilified sucrose. The study below demonstrates that sucrose consumption for just 3 days prior, blunted most of the negative effects of stress, and especially the rise in plasma cortisol. The HED of sucrose was about 4g/kg, which matches closely Peat’s recommendations that consumption of 350g-400g sugar daily provides strong protection against the negative effects of stress on the body (and especially on the brain). Too bad most doctors recommend the exact opposite, often combined with prescriptions for SSRI drugs which further decimate the brain…

link here

“…More calories were consumed in cold than at room temperature (RT), provided that corticosterone concentrations were elevated above mean daily basal values in cold. Neither increased sucrose nor increased chow ingestion occurred in cold if the rats were ADX and replaced with 30%B. However, sucrose drinking in this group markedly ameliorated other responses to cold. By contrast, ADX30%B rats not drinking sucrose fared poorly, and none of the metabolic or endocrine variables were similar to those in sham-ADX controls. ADX100%B group in cold, resembled intact rats without sucrose; however, this group was metabolically abnormal at RT. We conclude that drinking sucrose lowers stress-induced corticosterone secretion while reducing many responses to cold; elevated corticosterone concentrations in the stress-response range are essential for the normal integrated cold-induced responses to occur.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1374.mp3" length="348404" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Some aromatase inhibitors (AI) are estrogenic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1372</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1372</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 07 Jan 2021 17:53:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1372

I have long suspected this considering the peculiar side effects of some AI drugs, but was not able to find concrete evidence…until now. The study below demonstrates that one of the most widely used AI – anastrozole – is a potent estrogen receptor activator/agonist, and at low concentrations too. At higher concentrations, the estrogenic effects seem to disappear but those concentrations are not achievable with clinically used doses. As such, for most people taking anastrozole in the clinically-approved 1mg-2mg (or lower) doses daily, the drug is a potent estrogen activator, which likely negates most of the benefit of inhibiting aromatase. While the closely-related analog letrozole apparently did not have estrogenic effects, structurally the drugs are very similar and produce very similar side effects. As such, I suspect letrozole also has at least partial estrogen agonism. The steroidal AI exemestane did not display estrogenic effects, and it also happens to not produce the side effects associated with the *zole drugs. Several studies have demonstrated that exemestane metabolizes into the potent androgen 17-beta-OH-6-methylene-boldenone, link here, and that metabolite has anti-estrogenic effects similar to other androgens, link here such as testosterone, DHT, Masteron, etc., all of which have been successfully used in the past for treating breast cancer. IMO, this androgenic property makes steroidal AI drugs such as exemestane, formestane, and atamestane less risky than the *zoles, especially if the steroidal AI are combined with endogenous anti-estrogens such as progesterone.

link here

“…Results: Women with E1 ≥1.3 pg/mL and E2 ≥0.5 pg/mL after 6 months of AI treatment had a 2.2-fold increase in risk (P = 0.0005) of an EBCE, and in the anastrozole subgroup, the increase in risk of an EBCE was 3.0-fold (P = 0.001). Preclinical laboratory studies examined mechanisms of action in addition to aromatase inhibition and showed that only anastrozole could directly bind to estrogen receptor α (ERα), activate estrogen response element-dependent transcription, and stimulate growth of an aromatase-deficient CYP19A1-/- T47D breast cancer cell line. Conclusions: This matched case-control clinical study revealed that levels of estrone and estradiol above identified thresholds after 6 months of adjuvant anastrozole treatment were associated with increased risk of an EBCE. Preclinical laboratory studies revealed that anastrozole, but not exemestane or letrozole, is a ligand for ERα. These findings represent potential steps towards individualized anastrozole therapy.”

“…However, in CYP19A1 KO T47D cells, only anastrozole at 0.1–10 nM resulted in increased cell proliferation, with a decrease in cell proliferation when anastrozole concentrations increased to 100–500 nM (Fig. 2B, link here). In CYP19A1 KO T47D cells, treatment with exemestane or letrozole at the same concentrations (0.1 to 500 nM) did not affect cell proliferation compared with vehicle-treated cells (Supplementary Fig. S8B, link here).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1372.mp3" length="813044" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Even “non-carcinogenic” estrogens can cause cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1370</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1370</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 07 Jan 2021 17:30:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1370

I know, the title is a “paradox”, but this is truly what the article discusses. By now, we already know that the word “paradox” in science is just a euphemism for idotism and/or fraud. Apparently, mainstream medicine has managed to convinced the public somehow that there are carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic estrogens. An example of the former would be (17)-beta-estradiol and an example of the latter would be (17)-alpha-estradiol. The former is a strong agonist/activator of both estrogen receptors while the latter binds and interacts with those receptors very weakly. That is precisely the reason, medicine has been claiming that alpha-estradiol is non-carcinogenic. While beta-estradol has been officially labelled a “known carcinogen”, link here by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which is a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and as such Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the alpha isomer has not. Now, the article is almost 17 years old and many things have changed since then. Namely, mainstream medicine has completely ignored the NIEHS announcement and has also been staging attacks on the results of the WHI studies that demonstrated beta-estradiol causes cancer, heart disease, strokes, dementia, etc. So, 17 years after the (still standing) official classification of estrogen as a carcinogen by the very “experts” we are all told to obey, the new position of those same experts is that neither the beta nor the alpha isomers of estradiol are carcinogenic. One of the main justifications given for the renewed promotion of estrogen is that it acts as an “antioxidant”, yet the study below found the exact opposite – estrogen, by itself, can cause oxidative stress that is crucial for carcinogenesis. To me, at least, the evidence is quite clear and in plain sight – there is no such thing as a safe estrogen! Especially, in the presence of PUFA, which amplifies estrogen’s genomic/receptor effects and also increases oxidative stress.

2 links here

“…It’s disconcerting to think that a natural hormone circulating in significant amounts through the bodies of half the world’s population is a carcinogen, but it’s now official. In December, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) added estrogen to its list of known cancer-causing agents. For years, estrogen has been a suspected carcinogen, since strong epidemiological evidence associates the hormone to breast, endometrial, and uterine cancers. Women who begin menstruating early, or who start menopause late, produce more estrogen over their lifetimes and have a higher risk of breast cancer. Recently, the clinical trial of estrogen plus progestin treatment therapy was terminated because of an increased risk of breast cancer.”

“…To see if cancer-causing estrogens need oxygen radicals to produce tumors, Bhat implanted pellets of the hormone in hamsters that are susceptible to estrogen-induced kidney cancer. This model is widely used as an animal model of hormonal cancer. As expected, when the carcinogenic 17beta-estradiol (E2) was used, nearly all hamsters with the pellets developed cancer within seven months. E2 promotes cell proliferation and produces oxygen radicals when metabolized by the cell.”

“…Also, as expected, none of the hamsters developed kidney cancer when a non-carcinogenic estrogen, 17-alpha-ethinyl-estradiol (EE) was implanted. EE acts through estrogen receptors to create new cells like E2, but unlike E2, is poorly broken down and does not produce oxygen radicals. But when EE was combined with a non-estrogen molecule that generates oxygen radicals, 30 percent of the hamsters developed kidney cancer within seven months.”

“…But it also suggests that reputedly “safe” estrogens that are touted as replacements for the estrogens in hormone replacement therapy may not be so safe after all. “If we have oxidative stress in cells from other chemicals, then women are at risk for cancer even with estrogens that are considered non-carcinogenic,” Bhat says. “The therapy may be safer if taken with antioxidants, but more research is needed to make safe and more effective antioxidants.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1370.mp3" length="991796" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Reduced pyruvate and/or increased lactate drive heart failure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1363</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1363</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 16 Dec 2020 21:09:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1363

I just did a post on the role of reduced glucose metabolism, lower pyruvate/NAM/NAD and elevated lactate in the pathogenesis of glaucoma, link here. Just minutes later, another study popped up in my newsfeed. Namely, a study that demonstrates the exact same metabolic disturbances as the main drivers of heart failure. The study below demonstrates that heart failure is characterized by reduced transport/uptake of pyruvate (MPC) and increased transport/uptake of lactate (MCT4). Increasing pyruvate transport/uptake (MPC) was highly beneficial and so was inhibition of lactate uptake (MCT4). While (AFAIK) there are no commercially available drugs that reliably increase pyruvate transport/uptake (MPC), simply increasing the pyruvate supply (especially when combined with inhibiting fatty acid supply) has been shown to reliably raise pyruvate levels in tissues, even if the pyruvate administration is done orally. That’s exactly the therapeutic method used by the study on glaucoma cited above. As also mentioned in that post, combining pyruvate with niacinamide (NAM) has synergistic effects as NAM inhibits excessive lipolysis and as such further improves glucose metabolism and thus pyruvate generation, transport and uptake by cells. Alternatively, one would also inhibit lactate transport/uptake (MCT4), and the study below found that the administration of such an inhibitor had similar therapeutic effects to boosting the pyruvate route. Considering the wide availability and lost cost of pyruvate and NAM, I think the pyruvate amplification route probably holds more promise for the general population, while the lactate inhibition route will probably be more relevant for Big Pharma companies looking to make a lot of money off of a patented chemical. Btw, considering that oxidizing agents such as methylene blue (Oxidal, link here anyone?) and other quinones such as emodin, vitamin K, tetracycline antibiotics, etc can directly oxidize lactate and turn it back into pyruvate there may already be an option to attack the lactate angle as well without paying an arm and a leg for a pharma MCT4 inhibitor. Also, as I mentioned in my post about glaucoma, using the ethyl ester of pyruvate (as in our product Pyrucet, link here) can allow one to use 10-100 lower doses of pyruvate, which may be even safer and definitely cheaper than buying and ingesting large quantities of plain pyruvate.

link here

“…The metabolic rewiring of cardiomyocytes is a widely accepted hallmark of heart failure (HF). These metabolic changes include a decrease in mitochondrial pyruvate oxidation and an increased export of lactate. We identify the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) and the cellular lactate exporter monocarboxylate transporter 4 (MCT4) as pivotal nodes in this metabolic axis. We observed that cardiac assist device-induced myocardial recovery in chronic HF patients was coincident with increased myocardial expression of the MPC. Moreover, the genetic ablation of the MPC in cultured cardiomyocytes and in adult murine hearts was sufficient to induce hypertrophy and HF. Conversely, MPC overexpression attenuated drug-induced hypertrophy in a cell-autonomous manner. We also introduced a novel, highly potent MCT4 inhibitor that mitigated hypertrophy in cultured cardiomyocytes and in mice. Together, we find that alteration of the pyruvate-lactate axis is a fundamental and early feature of cardiac hypertrophy and failure.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1363.mp3" length="1211156" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Glaucoma likely a metabolic disease, treatable by pyruvate and/or niacinamide</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1361</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1361</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 16 Dec 2020 20:37:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1361

About a year ago, a publication came out that demonstrated therapeutic effects of raising the (mitochondrial) NAD/NADH ratio in glaucoma patients, link here. That study used niacinamide (NAM) and suggested that the “irreversible” changes in eye structure seen in glaucoma patients are in fact nothing more than a downstream effect of metabolic (OXPHOS) disturbances. Now, a new study by the same set of authors corroborates those findings and demonstrates that glucose metabolism is inhibited in glaucoma patients. It also demonstrates that another ratio – the pyruvate/lactate one – can be used (just as the NAD/NADH ratio) to both estimate the severity of the condition and to intervene therapeutically by raising said ratio through pyruvate administration. In fact, pyruvate administration was shown in this latest study to be more effective at rescuing the metabolic and structural defects of glaucoma than NAM administration. Some of the important mechanisms observed in this study was lowered fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and transport, improved glucose metabolism, lower lactate and possibly even beneficial changes in the microbiome. Considering NAM is known to lower lipolysis and inhibit excessive FAO, it would be plausible to suggest that combining NAM and pyruvate would be even more effective than either one alone. That is exactly what the study authors themselves did, and demonstrated that a combination of lower doses NAM and pyruvate was more effective than higher doses of either chemical on its own. The oral HED for pyruvate and NAM used in the study when used on their own were 40mg/kg b.w. NAM daily and 35mg/kg b.w. pyruvate daily. While the study does not say what the lower dose NAM was when used in combination with pyruvate, typically studies use a 50% lower dose when combination treatment is administered. As such, a 20mg/kg NAM daily dose should suffice when used together with pyruvate. Furthermore, a number of studies have demonstrated that the ethyl ester of pyruvate is not only much more stable than plain pyruvate but is also 10-100 times more potent in its effects, link here. As such, using ethyl pyruvate should allow one to replicate the study design with doses in the 0.35mg/kg – 3.5mg/kg range daily. Our product Pyrucet, link here happens to use ethyl pyruvate as one of its ingredients (500mg per serving), and it also contains ethyl acetoacetate, which should further improve the redox balance (e.g. raise NAD/NADH levels), especially when combined with NAM.

Thus, we now have a number of studies demonstrating that the redox balance of a tissue/organ is one of the cardinal factors in its health. Aside from the NAD/NADH and pyruvate/lactate ratios, other relevant/similar ratios (and therapeutic targets) include the GSSG/GSH, acetoacetate/beta-hydroxybutyrate, CO2/lactate, DHEA/cortisol, testosterone/cortisol, etc and they can all be used more or less interchangeably. In other words, findings a disturbance in one is a pretty good indication of a disturbance in all of them, and correcting the disturbance in one usually has a corrective effect in all of them. Perhaps the best news in regards to all of those findings is that there is already an ongoing human glaucoma clinical trial with niacinamide and pyruvate, link here, so we will soon know if those findings translate into humans. Considering the identical metabolic pathways for NAM and pyruvate across all mammals, I just don’t see how the results would not be positive. The doses planned for that human clinical trial are 3g NAM and 3g pyruvate daily.

link here

“…An additional key difference in metabolic profiles between control and glaucoma retinas was a decrease in retinal NAM. NAM levels were lower in D2 retinas compared to controls consistent with decreased retinal nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) levels in this model (7, link here) and decreased serum NAM levels in primary open angle glaucoma patients (23, link here). We have previously demonstrated that NAM confers a robust neuroprotection against damaging IOP insults. NAM supplementation prevents age-dependent decreases in NAD levels, transcriptional reprogramming of RGCs, mitochondrial decline, and RGC neurodegeneration (5, link here, 7, link here, 24, link here, 25, link here). Unexpectedly, our metabolomic analysis of retinas from NAM-treated and untreated D2 mice did not detect differences outside of NAM itself. Pyruvate treatment rescued more IOP-dependent changes in the retinal metabolome than NAM. Pyruvate-treated D2 mice had differences in 27 metabolites compared to untreated mice, including lower levels of glucose and higher levels of NAM (SI Appendix, Fig. S6, link here). As pyruvate was delivered orally, contributions from metabolite changes due to enzymatic activity by the gut microbiome or in other tissues (e.g., liver, blood) are possible. Pyruvate-induced changes in gut microbiome metabolism may indirectly benefit against glaucoma. Nevertheless, in D2 mice, oral pyruvate supplementation raises pyruvate levels in the retina (Fig. 1A, link here), suggesting that intact pyruvate reaches the target tissues.”

“…Pyruvate and NAM are ideal treatments for clinical use, with long histories and favorable safety profiles in humans (5, link here, 33, link here). The most protective dose of NAM that we previously demonstrated in D2 mice is large, complicating compliance, and may be unachievable or unsafe in some patients (5, link here, 7, link here). Importantly, our metabolomic data suggested that pyruvate and NAM treatments may be complementary. Thus, supplementing the diet of D2 mice with both pyruvate and a suboptimal dose of NAM may be beneficial. Combination therapy of pyruvate and NAM lowered the risk of RGC loss and optic nerve degeneration in D2 mice by ∼2.6-fold, more than either treatment regime alone (SI Appendix, Fig. S7, link here). This combination therapy showed that targeting IOP-dependent (declining pyruvate) and age-related (declining NAD) changes in glaucoma can be additive and might represent an ideal combination for human translation.”

“…In conclusion, these findings are consistent with a model of glaucoma where elevated IOP disrupts energy homeostasis by affecting the availability of metabolic energy substrates. Further affected by low availability of coenzymes, such as NAD+, RGCs ultimately lack the energy needed to function and cope with stress and inflammation associated with age and ocular hypertension. Energy supplementation not only reduces degeneration, but also improves visual function. In this light, decreased visual function prior to degeneration may be an adaptive response to reduce energy consumption and signal a need for energy supplements. Although the combination of decreased NAD and pyruvate represent a critical component of RGC susceptibility in glaucoma, it is directly therapeutically approachable. Combining vitamin and energy supplements with established IOP-lowering therapies represents a powerful therapeutic strategy for human glaucoma that necessitates clinical investigation.”

link here

“…In the search for new ways to treat the incurable eye disease glaucoma, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and St. Erik Eye Hospital in Sweden have discovered more clues as to its pathogenesis. A new study shows how metabolic disturbance of the neurons coincide with raised pressure in the eye. In animal and cell models, rapamycin and pyruvate treatments were shown to have a protective effect. The study is published in the journal PNAS. Glaucoma is an incurable disease that leads to partial or total loss of vision in 80 million people worldwide, 100,000 – 200,000 of whom in Sweden. The three major risk factors are age, high intraocular pressure, and genetic predisposition. The only treatment strategies currently available target the pressure in the eye using eye drops or surgery; despite this, the risk of blindness in one eye is still high. A new study now reveals a connection between metabolic disturbance in the retinal ganglion cells (nerve cells in the retina whose axons make up the optic nerve) and high intraocular pressure. In animal models, the researchers have found a blocking of the cells’ ability to convert glucose into other essential molecules, one of which is pyruvate. “We demonstrate how glaucoma is associated with metabolic disturbance in these cells,” says Pete Williams, research group leader at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet and head of St. Erik Eye Hospital’s new glaucoma laboratory. “More specifically, we show that there is a correlation between high intraocular pressure and low levels of pyruvate. When we gave a pyruvate supplement it had a protective effect in both animal and cell models.”

“…The research group at Karolinska Institutet and St. Erik Eye Hospital have been researching glaucoma for many years, and have previously found a correlation between low levels of the molecule NAD and old age and elevated intraocular pressure. A clinical study published this summer showed that following administration of nicotinamide (the amide of vitamin B3), one quarter of the study participants reported improved vision. A clinical study is now underway at Columbia University Medical Center that combines pyruvate with nicotinamide.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1361.mp3" length="1833260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Heart attack survivors have high stress (cortisol/adrenaline) hypersensitivity, low androgens</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1359</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1359</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 16 Dec 2020 19:42:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1359

A very interesting study that highlights yet again the connection between chronic stress and ill systemic health, especially cardiovascular disease (CVD). The study demonstrates that people who had experienced a heart attack have dramatically higher higher cortisol and adrenaline/noradrenaline levels, combined with low levels of androgens such as testosterone and DHEA a full 6 months after the heart attack had occurred and their heart lesions had completely healed. In addition, the study demonstrates that those survivors retain a striking hypersensitivity to even a mild stress stimulus, again, months after the heart attack has occurred. While the study was examining the hormonal changes after a heart attack has occurred, and as such cannot directly claim that high stress caused the heart attack directly, the study authors very clearly state they think the link is causative. For example, they cite the extensive studies by Selye demonstrating that cortisol or aldosterone administration can directly cause tissue damage and heart attacks in animals. Combining all of that information, I think it is quite plausible to state that heart attacks are not a disease themselves but the final symptoms of months/years of chronic stress elevation, or exposure of hypersensitive people to even minor chronic stress. There is a reason animal biochemical studies even have a protocol called CUMS – chronic unpredictable mild stress – which is used to cause mental illness and/or CVD in pretty much any animal model. So, animal researchers know quite well what is going on and this may be why every person I’ve met who works with animals subjected to CUMS regularly takes aspirin, often against the advice of their “doctor”. As Selye himself said – stress kills, and we’d better have some respect for it.

link here

“…A striking difference between the low levels of some androgen indexes and the signs of a permanent increase of glucocorticoid activity have been found in the subjects of this study. The total urinary 17-keto steroids were significantly lower than normal. The patients of this study showed a dehydroepiandrosterone excretion also significantly lower than the controls and a hypercholesterolemia which agrees with Adlercreutz’s findings [ 193. It is believed that a reduced secretion of dehydroepiandrosterone might counteract the inhibitory effect of this steroid on the glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-PD) and so an increased synthesis of NADPH results with an augmented synthesis of cholesterol and fatty acids [ 191. Fatty acids increased by this mechanism could account for the augmented triglycerids frequently found in cases of coronary disease. As approximately one-third of the total urinary 17-keto steroids represents the metabolites of testosterone secreted by testes, future studies of testosterone secretion rate in these patients would be of great interest. Cook [20] and Marshall [2 l] have also discussed the effect of certain 17-keto steroid fractions on lipid metabolism. Many authors [22-241, have studied adrenergic function in myocardial infarction, but they have reported its overactivity only in the acute state. In our subjects plasmatic and urinary free 11-OH corticoids under basal conditions were found to be significantly elevated. Under the conditions in which the patients were studied the 11-OH-corticoids are practically entirely cortisol. An unexpected finding was that the audiogenic stress in some of these patients did not cause a glucocorticoid elevation although highly significant responses of catecholamines were observed. As the remaining basal plasma corticoid levels were very high this fact would indicate that patients with coronary heart disease are emotionally stressed people who arrived at the hospital with exaggerated pituitary-corticoadrenal activity and who were reassured and relaxed during a study that did not cause them pain or discomfort. The cortisol secretion rate was not significantly increased although its mean value was considerably higher than that of the control group and in one third of the cases this index was abnormally high. We have found that patients having completely recovered after convalescence from cardiac infarction showed marked responses to stressful stimuli. It is considered that in contrast to the circulating basal cortisol which is more than 90 % protein-bound, the ratio of stress-released unbound cortisol to the bound moiety is increased, and consequently its biological activity is also higher than in less stressed subjects showing equivalent total plasma cortisol levels [24]. Selye [25], has demonstrated that gluco and mineralocorticoids experimentally administered to rats could cause myocardial necrosis particularly when the animals were subjected to stress (cold bath or restraint). According to the results obtained in this study, the myocardial infarct patients, after long convalescing periods and with apparently healed lesions still reveal signs of an elevated concentration of blood glucocorticoids. This might be characteristic of a predisposition to overreact to stressful stimuli, a fact also demonstrated in our patients by the marked rise of catecholamine excretion induced by noise. This characteristic could be one of the most important factors of myocardial infarction in modern urban life. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1359.mp3" length="834380" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress-driven lipid peroxidation, inflammation re-awakens dormant cancer cells</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1357</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1357</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Dec 2020 18:40:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1357

Yet another study demonstrating that stress is anything but benign or irrelevant for chronic diseases, especially for cancer. The study below demonstrates that stress-induced increases of epinephrine and norepinephrine results in increased lipolysis and a cascade of pro-carcinogenic downstream effects. Now, if the fat released as a result of the increased lipolysis was fully saturated it would not be a big deal, even though it would probably still be suboptimal due to Randle Cycle competition with glucose for oxidation. However, since dietary PUFA is preferentially stored and preferentially released when under stress, stress-induced lipolysis floods the bloodstream with PUFA type fatty acids. Those fatty acids are easily peroxidizable and highly inflammatory, and can wreak havoc on systemic health including genomic stability. The study below finds that those inflammatory lipid peroxidation products have another highly dangerous effect – activating dormant cancer cells. This probably explains why rates of spontaneous remission are extremely rare for cancer patients in stressful situations such as hospitals, and much more common in low-stress situations such as taking vacations or avoiding routine, boring activities/work. The good news is that the study found those cancer-activating effects of stress to be easily suppressible with the administration of beta-blocker drugs, which block the increase of lipolysis as a result of elevated epinephrine/norepinephrine. Lowering excessive lipolysis has the effects of also lowering excessive fatty acid oxidation (FAO) by limiting supplies of fat to the cells. I think this downregulation of FAO is another highly therapeutic effect that the study did not address, but has already been confirmed, link here by other research groups. The easiest way to emulate beta-blockers through diet is through increased consumption of salt. In addition, both aspirin and niacinamide can lower lipolysis as effectively as beta-blockers, while also limiting the synthesis of inflammatory lipid mediators as well as PUFA peroxidation. Finally, anti-inflammatory steroids such as pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, DHT, etc can suppress the direct inflammatory effects of those lipid peroxidation products. Of course, there is no reason not combine one or more of these approaches, and, in fact, they have been shown to be synergistic. And, of course, an ideal scenario is to avoid stress altogether as that is the most “upstream” method of avoiding the carcinogenic effects of modern life.

link here

“…Tumor recurrence years after complete surgical resection or complete clinical response to chemotherapy or radiation therapy is one of the major causes of cancer-related deaths (1, link here, 2, link here). Cancer cell dissemination is likely to happen early during primary cancer evolution before initial therapy (3, link here, 4, link here). Disseminated tumor cells can lie dormant for an extended time before initiating tumor outgrowth. Cancer cell dormancy encompasses two major conditions: populations maintaining steady state through similar rates of growth and death (population-level dormancy) and single/small population of quiescent cells in a reversible state of cell arrest in which cells retain the ability to re-enter the cell cycle (cellular dormancy) (5, link here). Senescence is a stress response that can be induced by a wide range of intrinsic and extrinsic factors including p53/p21cip1 pathway, radiation, or chemotherapy (6, link here). Senescent cancer cells have enlarged size, accumulation of DNA damage foci, and increased activity of senescence-associated β-galactosidase (7, link here). The DNA damage response induces cell cycle arrest either in the G1 or more often in the G2-M stage of cell cycle (8, link here). Senescent cells can persist for a long time, can activate stemness programs, and acquire higher tumorigenicity than original nonsenescent cells (9, link here). In contrast to irreversible replicative senescence of normal cells, a tumor cell senescence-like state induced by oncogenes, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy can be reversed (10, link here, 11, link here). The mechanisms that contribute to reactivation of dormant tumor cells and subsequent cancer recurrence remain mostly unclear. Inflammation is implicated in supporting growth of disseminated tumor cells (12, link here). However, epidemiological evidence directly linking inflammation and infections with cancer recurrence is lacking. Myeloid cells are a critical component of any inflammatory process and are a major part of tumor microenvironment (TME). Myeloid cells include populations of macrophages (MΦ), dendritic cells (DC), polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN), and monocytes (MON). Accumulation of pathologically activated immune suppressive PMN and MON, termed polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells (PMN-MDSC) and monocytic MDSC (M-MDSC), respectively, is one of the prominent features of cancer and chronic inflammation (13, link here). These cells contribute to tumor progression via multiple mechanisms, and their accumulation has been shown to correlate with both cancer stage and poor response to therapy (14, link here, 15, link here). Thus, pathologically activated MDSC may represent a starting point in understanding the mechanisms behind reactivation of dormant cells. Here, we identified a stress- and inflammation-dependent mechanism of reactivation of dormant tumor cells by PMN. We found that stress hormones induced massive release of proinflammatory S100A8/A9 complexes by PMN via β2-adrenergic receptors without affecting their viability. These proteins caused accumulation of oxidized lipids in PMN in an autocrine and paracrine fashion, which, upon release, directly activated proliferation of dormant tumor cells via up-regulation of a fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) pathway.”

Elevated stress hormone levels could reawaken dormant cancer cells, study finds, link here

“…The recurrence of cancer months or even years after successful treatment is an all too common phenomenon, and scientists have been chipping away at understanding how undetectable cells can once again unleash disease on the body — often more aggressively than the first time around. In a new study, link here published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, one group of researchers describes how a cascade of events set off by high levels of a stress hormone could cause dormant tumor cells to reawaken to once again cause cancer.”

“…It can happen in all cancers. We know, for instance, that breast cancer patients can experience relapse after 20 years of being in remission…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1357.mp3" length="1235804" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may treat ALS by improving energetic state</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1355</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1355</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Dec 2020 18:08:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1355

Another study sent to me by the Austrian collaborator. Once again, the energetic origin of “incurable” diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is on full display. The study elucidates that ALL types of ALS are characterized by metabolic/energetic abnormalities and the metabolic phenotype of that disease is indistinguishable from cancer. In other words, little to no OXPHOS (and as such low ATP levels), excessive glycolysis, and overproduction of lactate – i.e. the (in)famous Warburg “Effect”. Unsurprisingly, the so-called gross physical presentation of ALS is remarkably similar to cancer’s – rapid deterioration of physical abilities, muscle atrophy, and cachexia. The study found that administration of niacinamide (NAM) fully reversed the abnormal metabolic phenotype of the ALS-inflicted neurons. The study was in-vitro and used NAM concentrations (0.5 mM/L) that have been shown to be achievable in humans with doses in the range of 2g-3g daily. At such doses, NAM is known to be non-toxic and the study suggests that this simple vitamin may one day become a viable treatment for ALS.

link here

“…Motor neurons (MNs) are highly energetic cells and recent studies suggest that altered energy metabolism precede MN loss in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), an age-onset neurodegenerative disease. However, clear mechanistic insights linking altered metabolism and MN death are still missing. In this study, induced pluripotent stem cells from healthy controls, familial ALS, and sporadic ALS patients were differentiated toward spinal MNs, cortical neurons, and cardiomyocytes. Metabolic flux analyses reveal an MN-specific deficiency in mitochondrial respiration in ALS. Intriguingly, all forms of familial and sporadic ALS MNs tested in our study exhibited similar defective metabolic profiles, which were attributed to hyper-acetylation of mitochondrial proteins.”

“…Since ATP production in ALS MNs is significantly reduced, we reasoned that these neurons would have to turn to other sources of energy to fuel their metabolic needs. One possibility is to derive additional ATP through glycolysis. To investigate if these neurons switch to glycolysis to meet their energy demands, we measured extracellular acidification rate (ECAR) using a metabolic flux analyzer. ECAR measurements revealed that ALS MNs exhibited increased basal acidification, glycolysis, and glycolytic capacity when compared to healthy MNs (Fig. 2c, d, link here), confirming that the ALS MNs have a hyper-glycolytic phenotype. Similarly, this hyper-glycolysis was recapitulated in BJ-SOD1L144F and BJ-TDP43G298S MNs compared to BJ-iPS MNs, revealing that this is an ALS-specific metabolic feature rather than due to variation between cell lines (Fig. 2c, d, link here). To provide further evidence of hyper-glycolysis in ALS MNs, we measured the amount of lactate secreted into culture media as high lactate levels tend to associate with hyper-glycolysis. We found increased lactate levels in culture media derived from ALS MNs (Supplementary Fig. 2d, link here), providing further evidence of a hyper-glycolytic metabolic phenotype in ALS MNs.”

“…To investigate this, we measured NAD+ levels in mitochondria isolated from iPSC-derived MNs and found 60–80% reduction in NAD+ levels in the mitochondria of sporadic, familial, and isogenic ALS MNs when compared to healthy controls (Fig. 5a, link here). To increase mitochondrial NAD+, 0.5 mM NAM was used, resulting in significantly elevated mitochondrial NAD+ in ALS MNs (Fig. 5a, link here). We found that NAM treatment promoted ALS MN survival (Fig. 5b, link here) and improved basal mitochondrial respiration, ATP production as well as spare respiratory capacity (Fig. 5d, e, link here), reversing ALS phenotypes. Moreover, addition of exogenous NAM to cell culture media was able to promote healthier neuronal morphologies similar to that of wild-type MNs (Fig. 5f, g, link here).”

“…ALS is a heterogeneous MN disease where it is classically divided into “sporadic” form when there is no family history of ALS or dementia, and “familial” form when there is. However, the distinction between these forms has been quite porous because the same genes which are involved in familial ALS have also been found in apparently sporadic populations [21, link here]. Genes in the same pathway may not be found yet, and a form may appear to be sporadic simply because of de novo mutations, epigenetic mutations, small family lines, or contributions of more than one gene (oligogenic contributions) [21, link here]. Yet all ALS patients have similar clinical manifestations, suggesting the possibility of a converging pathogenic pathway independent of the various genetic mutations known to cause ALS. In this study, we identified a metabolic hallmark of both sporadic and familial ALS MNs that is characterized by hypo-oxidation and hyper-glycolysis. Previous reports concur with our findings: central nervous system acidosis was reported in SOD1G93A mice [2, link here] while we show increased basal acidification and lactate release from various sporadic and familial ALS MNs. Reductions in cellular respiration were also observed in the postmortem spinal cord of sporadic ALS patients [22, link here, 23, link here]. It is likely that hyper-glycolysis was a compensatory mechanism to overcome the lack of ATP generated through oxidative phosphorylation in ALS MNs, because restoration of mitochondrial respiration through NAM and C12 treatment corrected the hyper-glycolytic metabolic profile. One of our key findings was that reduced mitochondrial respiration and hyper-acetylated mitochondrial proteins are molecular hallmarks of ALS MNs. MNs derived from familial and sporadic patient iPSCs, as well as isogenic iPSC lines with SOD1L144F and TDP43G298S mutations demonstrate a consistent increase in acetylated mitochondrial proteins, including MnSOD K68ac, a well characterized target of SIRT3. Postmortem analyses of ALS spinal cords further corroborate this finding. This molecular defect was accompanied by a resultant defect in mitochondrial respiration, which was reversed by SIRT3 activation…This suggests that early ALS neuronal deficits are reversible and treatable and that the SIRT3 is a crucial upstream target regulating MN function and integrity. In support of our data, it has also been reported that Sirt3−/− mouse cortical neurons are particularly vulnerable to excitatory, oxidative, and metabolic stress [25, link here]. Our data support recently published work that NAD+ levels in ALS patients are reduced compared to the healthy population [26, link here], and confirm that supplementation of NAD+ precursors may benefit ALS.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1355.mp3" length="607052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may treat depression by improving energetic state</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1353</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1353</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Dec 2020 17:46:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1353

A very interesting study, sent to me by a collaborator who lives in Austria. It demonstrated that depression is accompanied by increased SIRT1 activity (i.e. increased fatty acid oxidation), lower ATP levels and redox balance shifted towards reduction. The study demonstrated that animals without the SIRT1 gene were highly resistant to depression and had high ATP levels. Since niacinamide (NAM) is a known SIRT1 inhibitor, the study tested the hypothesis that NAM administration will be therapeutic. It was indeed, and even though NAM increased SIRT1 activity somewhat, the increase in ATP levels and change in redox balance was more than enough to relive the depression. The HED was about 15mg/kg daily and treatment duration was a little over a month. These finding about NAM may explain why aspirin also has demonstrated an antidepressant effect in multiple studies. Namely, just like NAM, aspirin also inhibits lipolysis and decreases fatty acid oxidation. Finally, both aspirin and NAM also have anti-serotonin effects, which is probably an additional antidepressant mechanism the scientists were not aware of.

2 links here

“…Consistent with our previous report, the 24-h-restraint stress could produce long-term depressive-like phenotypes including deficits in sucrose preference test and forced swim test (Fig. 1, link herea–c). To investigate the expression of SIRT1, we harvested hippocampal samples from 24-h-restraint (Res) and control (Con) mice 5 weeks after the modeling procedure. The qPCR and Western blot experiments were conducted. The protein and RNA levels of SIRT1 did not change in the hippocampus (Fig. 1, link hered, e). However, SIRT1 activity was remarkably higher in the restraint mice than that in the control mice (Fig. 1, link heref). As previous research reported that the brain-special conditional Sirt1 knockout mice displayed antidepressant behaviors [8, link here], we subjected the mice to the 24-h-restraint stress and found that Sirt1flox/flox; Nestin-Cre mice were resistant to this stress in FST (Fig. 1, link hereg). These results suggested us that SIRT1 may play an important role in depression.”

“…Clinical studies have demonstrated that NAM can stably improve the incidence of depression in patients, but the mechanism remains uncertain. NAM was previously thought to regulate a variety of physiological functions with the change of SIRT1. For example, Mitchell, S. J et al. found that chronic NAM supplementation could improve health span measures in mice without extending lifespans, and that enhanced acetylation of some SIRT1 targets in a diet and in NAM act in a dose-dependent manner [20, link here]. However, Hwang et al. doubted the interpretation of results in studies that have used NAM as a SIRT1 inhibitor. They thought that NAM was an inhibitor of SIRT1 in vitro, while it could be a stimulator in cells [21, link here]. Because SIRT1 activity was enhanced in the restraint depressive mice, we initially hypothesized that NAM could mediate depression by reducing SIRT1 activity. However, the application of NAM significantly reversed the depressive behaviors but increased SIRT1 activity further. ”

“…Decreased ATP metabolism has been reported in patients with MDD and in animal models of depression [19, link here, 22, link here, 23, link here]. Importantly, we found the level of ATP was reduced in the restraint model for depression, consistent with previous study [9, link here], and recovered by the administration of NAM. As NAM could increase NAD+ levels that modulate the mitochondrial production of ATP through oxidative phosphorylation [12, link here]. We concluded that NAM reduced depression-like behavior by increasing the ATP level in our mouse model. Besides, the further increased SIRT1 activity may also due to the raised NAD+ levels after NAM administration [21, link here, 24, link here, 25, link here]. We also found that Sirt1flox/flox; Nestin-Cre mice were anti-depression with higher ATP level in the hippocampus of brain. However, the level of ATP in Sirt1flox/flox; Nestin-Cre mice resilient to 24-h-restraint stress need to be detected in the future. According to these results, we speculated that the level of ATP could regulate depressive-like behaviors, whether the SIRT1 activity was increased or deleted. These results remind us that the role of the SIRT1-mediated pathogenesis of depression in the model of environmental stress must be reconsidered. This role may resolve some of the controversies surrounding the change of SIRT1 in depression. Our study also provides new insights into the use of NAM in treating depression.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1353.mp3" length="599300" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:20</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Sexual activity and stress levels (HPA activity) may determine longevity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1349</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1349</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 08 Dec 2020 18:11:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1349

The study below tried to tease out the main factors affecting the longevity of the legendary naked mole rat, link here – the animal with longest lifespan in its genus, and the sole mammal known to be virtually immune to developing cancer. Most of the biological/biochemical findings in regards to naked mole rats have already been found to be applicable to humans. The study describes a spectrum of longevity in that species, and discovered that the longest living members of this species are the ones who are sexually active, have low stress levels. and produce the most DHEA. The DHEA/cortisol ratio is already known in medical circles as a good predictor of morbidity and all-cause mortality, and the study below suggests that ratio may be a good predictor of longevity too.

link here

“…Sexual activity and/or reproduction doubles life expectancy in the long-lived rodent genus Fukomys. To investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, we analyzed a total of 636 RNA-seq samples across 15 tissues. This analysis suggests that the differences in life expectancy between reproductive and non-reproductive mole-rats are mainly caused by critical changes in the regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress axis, which we further substantiate with a series of independent evidence. In accordance with previous studies, the up-regulation of the proteasome and several so-called “anti-aging molecules”, such as DHEA, is also linked with enhanced life expectancy…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1349.mp3" length="406124" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin can cure liver cancer in just 24 hours (in rabbits)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1346</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1346</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 07 Dec 2020 17:34:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1346

A pair of studies by a group of scientists in Brazil. They used intratumoral injections of a 5% aspirin or 5% acetic acid (vinegar) solution in the first study, and 10% solutions of each in the second study. EITHER treatment not only destroyed the tumor within 24 hours but after 7 days all the biochemical and structural measurements returned to normal. In other words, aspirin or acetic acid can rapidly CURE cancer and without side effects, at least in rabbits. It is worth noting that the only the group receiving aspirin maintained normal biochemical profile throughout the entire study while the control group and the one receiving acetic acid had elevations of various liver enzymes. The liver enzyme elevations in the control group are expected as the tumor is known to cause cellular damage and people with liver cancer always have elevated liver enzymes. It is not clear if the elevations in the acetic acid group was due to the treatment or due to the tumor, but I suppose that it does not matter much since a cure was achieved in that group as well. Be that as it may, the lack of enzyme elevations or other biochemical abnormalities in the aspirin group suggest that aspirin is superior to acetic acid and that it may have additional protective effects unique to that molecule.

Now, the study used intratumoral injection in order to ensure that a sufficient amount of the therapeutic agent reaches the tumor. The HED of the treatment was about ~7mg/kg. That means about 2 aspirin tablets in the form of injection directly into the tumor. However, considering that oral aspirin has to pass through the liver first before it reaches the bloodstream I don’t think an intratumoral injection is needed. Oral aspirin has about 50% systemic bioavailability, and of the 50% that are “lost” before reaching the bloodstream about half of that stays in the liver for processing/deactivation. This means that an oral dose 4x higher than the HED used in the study should be able to achieve the same live concentrations of aspirin or acetic acid in the liver. As such, 6-8 tablets of aspirin orally should suffice as a (liver) cancer cure. Since salicylic acid has long half life (30+ hours) those 6-8 tablets can be taken in several divided doses over the course of the day, which should further reduce risks associated with aspirin. Bleeding risks, if any, associated with such higher doses of aspirin can be mitigated by adding just a few milligrams (5mg-10mg) of vitamin K2 (MK-4). Coincidentally, vitamin K2 (MK-4) has already shown great promise in preventing, link here and even treating, link here liver cancer and rumor has it that it may soon be approved for that indication in humans. It rarely gets better than that – two ingredients capable of preventing/curing cancer, having synergistic effects AND also protecting from the side effects of each one when used solo. I wonder why these studies are not all over the mainstream media…:-)

link here

“…In the animals with VX2 carcinoma, both solutions caused necrosis of the tumor tissue within 24 hours after injection. At 7 days after injection, the areas destroyed were found to be free of tumor tissue and showed regeneration of the hepatic tissue, presenting fibrotic foci and inflammatory infiltrate. No clinical alterations were observed. The only statistically significant biochemical alterations were the increases in ALT levels at 24 hours after injection in animals receiving 5% acetic acid and the increases in AP levels in control group animals at 14 days after injection.”

link here

“…Some limitations inherent to this study design may have impacted our results and must be considered with interpreting our findings. First, our study focused solely on one therapeutic agent, and no comparisons were made with similar substances, such as acetic acid. However, we previously demonstrated that aspirin has less toxicity than either aqueous phenol, acetic acid, or glycerine[14, link here–16, link here], and therefore we have focused our subsequent research on aspirin [37, link here–39, link here]. Second, we did not evaluate the pharmacological parameters of the aspirin treatment. Since acetylsalicylic acid is one of the best studied therapeutic substances[40, link here–42, link here], we chose to focus our current study on its antineoplastic benefit and safety as an intratumorally-delivered agent for liver cancer. Future experimental studies should not only be designed to overcome these limitations but also to include further long-term effects of this solution and delivery method prior to extending the analysis to humans in a clinical environment. In conclusion, the rabbit VX2 hepatic tumor model was used to show that intratumoral injection of 10% aspirin can induce tumor destruction within 24 h after delivery, and that the antineoplastic effects were maintained out to 7 d post-treatment, with no signs of necrotic areas or tumor nodules but with signs of hepatic tissue regeneration and fibrosis foci.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1346.mp3" length="1427420" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Glycine (and leucine) can treat fatty liver (NAFLD and NASH)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1344</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1344</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 07 Dec 2020 16:16:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1344

A great new study that demonstrates the strong protective effects of glycine, alone or in combination with leucine, on preventing/treating various forms of fatty liver disease, as well as the obesity that often accompanies these conditions. One of the strong points of the study is that it also established a minimum daily dosage needed to produce those effects. According to the study, a daily human oral dose of 27mg/kg glycine is the minimum needed to produce the therapeutic effects on liver, excess weight and inflammation, but the optimal effects were seen with a HED of about 40mg/kg. This minimum therapeutic dose can be obtained from as little as half a tablespoon of gelatin while the optimal dose can easily be obtained (and even exceeded) by a full tablespoon. For the record, much higher doses of glycine in the order of 100g daily have been used successfully in the past to treat bleeding ulcers, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and even diabetes type I. No ill effects were ever seen even with those massive glycine doses (as the study below also suggests), so a daily tablespoon of gelatin looks like candy in comparison. Interestingly, the study found that a glycine:glycine:leucine tri-peptide/combination in a 1:1:1 ratio was even more effective than glycine on its own in reversing NAFLD/NASH, inflammation, obesity and other pathologies associated with the high-fat (PUFA) diet. That means adding some BCAA to the gelatin may work even better. Coincidentally, that combination also lowers brain serotonin so that should have additional benefits for metabolism and systemic health. Since whole foods are usually preferable to isolated amino acids, I think adding a spoon of gelatin to the meal of the day highest in protein should be good enough to replicate the design of the study.

link here

“…In previous studies, glycine was administered to rodents via their drinking water or diet (19–22). To enhance the translational value of the current study, we applied daily and controlled oral administration of glycine to the mice. Whereas the above studies demonstrated glucose/lipid-lowering and hepatoprotective effects using higher glycine doses (≥1 mg/g per day) 19–22), we report here protective effects in the NASH model at a lower dose of 0.33 mg/g per day. Considering a 12.3-dose conversion factor between mice and humans (47), our findings suggest that a minimum of 27 mg/kg per day of glycine may have beneficial effects in humans. Although the potential benefits of glycine administration to patients with NAFLD and evaluation of the optimal doses had not been reported yet, treatment of T2D patients with 5 g/day (~70 mg/kg per day) of glycine for 3 months lowered glycemia and proinflammatory cytokines (18), further underscoring its potential clinical benefits.”

“…In a search for glycine-based compounds more potent than glycine for the dual glucose/lipid-lowering effects, we tested combinations of glycine with leucine, another amino acid previously reported to improve glucose tolerance and reduce HS in mice (35). Applying various T2D models, our lab uncovered potent glucose-lowering effects for the tripeptide DT-109 that exceeded those of free glycine, leucine, or their dipeptide combinations (36). Here, we show that DT-109 also improves lipid profile, HS, and NASH using hyperlipidemia and NAFLD murine models. Unlike previously reported (35), we did not observe substantial effects in mice treated with leucine, which could be explained by the lower dose used in the current study. However, metabolic benefits were evident after glycine treatment. Also, profound benefits were noted with the lower dose of DT-109 (0.125 mg/g per day). Treatment with DT-109 at 0.5 mg/g per day prevented NASH diet induced alternations in body composition and reduced liver DAGs and NAS, indicating that DT-109 was more potent than equivalent amounts of glycine in protecting against diet-induced NASH.”

“…Our findings may have translational potential for the clinical management of NAFLD, currently without approved treatments. In humans, although with small sample sizes and not including patients with NASH, glycine-based treatments were shown to improve glycemic control (17, 18), lower proinflammatory markers (18), and reduce HS (8). Furthermore, glycine is well tolerated and safe even at high doses (57). Therefore, the therapeutic potential of DT-109 in NAFLD warrants further clinical evaluation.”

link here

“…A new study further implicates low levels of the amino acid glycine, link here in development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, link here, or NAFLD. It also suggests addressing this might hold the key to a future treatment for the disease. “We’ve uncovered a new metabolic pathway and potential novel treatment,” says senior author Y. Eugene Chen, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of internal medicine and surgery, from the Michigan Medicine Frankel Cardiovascular Center. His team collaborated with researchers from the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Chen says there is a large need to expand treatment options for patients with NAFLD. Although it’s the most common chronic liver disease, there are currently no approved drugs to treat it.”

“…The researchers were able to improve body composition and several other measures in mouse models using a tripeptide known as DT-109. “Glycine-based treatment attenuates experimental NAFLD…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1344.mp3" length="891452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin promotes (futile) patience and (false) faith in future rewards</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1337</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1337</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Dec 2020 18:36:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1337

This study alone explains so much of the pathological behavior seen in humans living in developed countries. Namely, the vast majority of them are willing to break their backs working and “delaying gratification” in the hopes that one day they will “make it” and all of their efforts will be generously rewarded. Of course, this pipe dream never materializes for most of them but for some reason the steady stream of gullible suckers never seems to end. The study below suggests that the constant stress and mass prescription of serotonergic drugs (e.g. SSRI class) go hand-in-hand as enablers of this psychotic behavior of the masses. Namely, it is serotonin that enables “patient” (absurd or fanatic are better words IMO) behavior, delayed gratification, and continued faith in future rewards despite past disappointment. Karl Marx once called religion an “opium for the (regular) people”, but I think these days religion has been replaced by something much more successful, advanced, and profitable – the SSRI drugs. The crushing environment we all live in does not help much either. Last but not least, the study below puts the word (medical) patient in a new light – i.e. a gullible person who waits for his/her reward (cure) that usually never materializes, while doctors continuously admonish the patient to be…well…patient and continue taking various patience-promoting drugs. What a sick world!!

2 links here

“…Now, in a study on mice conducted by the Neural Computation Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), the authors, Dr. Katsuhiko Miyazaki and Dr. Kayoko Miyazaki, pinpoint specific areas of the brain that individually promote patience through the action of serotonin. Their findings were published 27th November in Science Advances. “Serotonin is one of the most famous neuromodulators of behavior, helping to regulate mood, sleep-wake cycles and appetite,” said Dr. Katsuhiko Miyazaki. “Our research shows that release of this chemical messenger also plays a crucial role in promoting patience, increasing the time that mice are willing to wait for a food reward.” Their most recent work draws heavily on previous research, where the unit used a powerful technique called optogenetics — using light to stimulate specific neurons in the brain — to establish a causal link between serotonin and patience.”

“…The researchers found that the model best fitted the experimental data of waiting time by increasing the expected reward probability from 75% to 94% under serotonin stimulation. Put more simply, serotonin increased the mice’s belief that they were in a reward trial, and so they waited longer.”

“…Ultimately, increasing our knowledge of how different areas of the brain are more or less affected by serotonin could have vital implications in future development of drugs. For example, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are drugs that boost levels of serotonin in the brain and are used to treat depression.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1337.mp3" length="884060" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin (and SSRI drugs) can cause anxiety and PTSD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1335</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1335</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Dec 2020 18:13:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1335

Yet another great study exposing just how much of a “happy hormone” serotonin really is. As usual, the popular press article does everything possible to avoid pointing the finger at serotonin and even engages in misdirection. For example, it says that SERT is the main target of drugs like cocaine, while in reality it is the main target of the SSRI class of drugs – the most widely prescribed psychotropic drugs worldwide. Fortunately, the curious, the evidence is right there on full display. Namely, the study below demonstrated that removing or inhibiting the activity of the so-called serotonin transporter (SERT) leads to chronic anxiety and PTSD. A quick look at the Wikipedia page reveals that the primary role of SERT is deactivation of serotonin.

link here

“…This transport of serotonin, link here by the SERT protein terminates the action of serotonin and recycles it in a sodium-dependent manner. This protein is the target of many antidepressant medications of the SSRI, link here and tricyclic antidepressant, link here classes.[7], link here”

In other words, when SERT is missing or its activity is inhibited, the effects of serotonin are increased. This was the very rationale for developing the SSRI class of drugs and the Wikipedia page is quite clear that inhibiting SERT is their main effect. So, if the findings of the study below are correct, taking SSRI drugs (or being exposed to chronic stress, which raises serotonin levels) may directly cause chronic anxiety and even PTSD. Conversely, eating plenty of salt would be protective as sodium is the main co-factor increasing the activity of SERT (mentioned even in the Wiki quote above) and as such the deactivation of serotonin. Yet another class of insurable diseases seem to be little more than stress and poor diet in disguise, as well as genocidal fraud on behalf of medicine and Big Pharma. I shudder at the thought of how every military veteran with anxiety, PTSD or other mental health issues is routinely prescribed an SSRI as a “standard of care” and advised to eat a low-salt diet due to their increased risk of heart disease…

2 links here

“…The mental stability of people worldwide seems to be under constant attack in 2020. As the public fears for its safety from the coronavirus pandemic, link here and socioeconomic unrest, a study finds this fear may be transforming into mental health disorders. A team of researchers from the University of Mexico has now discovered how the brain changes its reaction to fear into anxiety. “Until now, psychiatrists had little information about what goes on in the brain after a fearful experience, and why some people don’t easily recover and remain anxious, link here, for even as long as the rest of their lives,” lead researcher Bearer says in a media release, link here. The team of researchers wanted to shed light on fear transitioning into anxiety and how that can create post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for some.”

“…Researchers triggered anxiety, link here by manipulated the brain activity of the subjects. They specifically altered the serotonin transporter (SERT), which is a main target of psychoactive drugs like cocaine. By ridding brains of the SERT gene (SERT-KO), anxiety thrives.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1335.mp3" length="917852" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Progesterone and allpregnanolone are protective against COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1333</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1333</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Dec 2020 17:54:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1333

I think we will be seeing more studies on this topic, especially in light of the ongoing human studies administering progesterone or (gasp!) estrogen to men in the hopes of improving the course of their COVID-19 disease. The results from the estrogen trials are already – surprise, surprise – strongly negative, and the progesterone trials have not yet been completed. The study below indicates that at least some doctors are in the right state of mind as they specifically call out the protective effects of progesterone and its metabolites such as allopregnanolone. While the study does not go as far as directly condemning estrogen, it does explain that the risks of severe COVID-19 skyrockets after a pregnant woman gives birth. Considering that after birth the levels of progesterone and its metabolites plummets, while the levels of estrogens rises, it leaves little doubt as to what the true protective hormone is, as much for pregnant women as for anybody else.

2 links here

“…According to recent CDC data, in the United States, 38,071 women who were pregnant contracted COVID-19, with 51 deaths — 0.13%. For non-pregnant women, the death toll is 2%. “Pregnant women are 15 times less likely to die from COVID than other women,” said Pinna. There is a difference between the severity of symptoms, and intensive care hospitalization between men and women with COVID-19, with women being more resistant. It was thought that female hormones protected women, but it was difficult to ascertain why, said Pinna. “This observation in pregnant women provides significant scientific background, not only as to why women are more protected than men, but also why older people are less protected than younger people because we know the older you are, the more decreased your hormones are,” said Pinna. Pinna’s paper also discusses the importance of reproductive hormones in stimulating the production of antibodies and promoting lung cell repair after virus infection and fighting against the ‘cytokine storm’ — an immune response where the body starts to attack its own cells and tissues rather than just fighting off the virus. “Progesterone and allopregnanolone can block the incredible overreaction of the inflammatory system, repressing it and avoiding the over-expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines,” said Pinna.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1333.mp3" length="1088108" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Oral pregnenolone as hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1330</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1330</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Dec 2020 17:37:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1330

As many of my readers know, the first step in steroid synthesis is the so-called “side-chain cleavage”, which converts cholesterol into pregnenolone (P5). That step is known as the rate-limiting step in the steroid cascade, and its function depends on the redox status and ATP levels. In other words, the rate-limiting step of steroid synthesis depends on metabolic intensity, which makes it quite clear why cholesterol rises while downstream steroids (except estrogen and cortisol) decline with age. One of the reasonable interventions that may be able to correct this decline in steroid synthesis would be to circumvent the side-chain cleavage and administer one of the downstream steroid products, such as P5. Unfortunately, there are very few direct studies with P5 administration as a correction of hypogonadism (and/or milder forms of “steroidopenia”), and the few that have been done did not measure how the administration of P5 affected downstream steroid balance. Over the last few years there have been maybe 2-3 studies that examined the effects of P5 on steroid balance and they found increases in pregnenolone sulfate (PS), allopregnanolone, progesterone, and DHEA-S, but no changes in androgens such as testosterone (T), or other steroids such as cortisol, estrogen, aldosterone, etc. It is perhaps this dearth of studies with P5 in humans that has led to the blogosphere (and especially the bodybuilding community) declaring P5 a “dud” as hormone replacement therapy (HRT), despite the extensive animal studies done by Hans Selye in the 1960s and 1970s demonstrating that P5 can correct almost any steroid deficiency AND/OR excess. More recent studies have again confirmed the androgen-raising effects of P5 in animals, link here.

The study below is one of the few human studies with oral P5 that measured its effects on various downstream steroids. It found that a single oral administration of 175mg P5 increased levels of virtually all downstream steroids, but especially the levels of PS, progesterone, DHEA, DHEA-S, androstenedione (A4), and T. Perhaps just as importantly, P5 administration lowered levels of human growth hormone (hGH). While athletes and bodybuilders will probably balk at the latter effect, I think these findings are actually very good news and likely responsible for a good portion of P5 anti-cancer effects. It has been known since the 1960s that GH administration accelerates the growth of virtually any cancer cell/type and substances that either reduce GH levels of block its effects have strong therapeutic effects in cancer.

So, there it is, in plain sight – oral P5 works as an HRT agent. The fact that P5 as HRT worked in those two subjects – males in their mid-40s – is also a strong side of the study as that is the age at which a steep decline in the levels of youth steroids is seen and HRT is usually entertained by doctors (for both males and females). Perhaps one of the reasons the effectiveness of P5 as HRT  has not been confirmed in the other 2-3 human studies (with oral P5) is that it seems the effects of P5 on blood levels of downstream hormones last about 24h after which the levels of the affected downstream steroids return to baseline. Also, measuring the levels of most steroids in blood is rarely indicative of tissue levels. The other studies with P5 did one-time measures of blood steroid levels, and only checked levels of the “common” steroids (DHEA, T, progesterone, etc) in the blood. Those studies did not check blood/urine/tissue levels of the steroids or several of their metabolites that are indicative of true steroid reserves. Case in point – a human study demonstrated that while administration of DHEA does not increase blood levels of androgens such as DHT, it does increase levels of DHT metabolites, link here, which indicates that DHEA robustly raises tissue levels of androgens and that effect cannot be detected by measuring only the blood levels of “common” downstream metabolites of DHEA such as T or DHT. The same is likely true of P5 administration and this may be why we have not seen more interest in P5 as HRT, as most studies do not have the resources or time to measure multiple steroidal metabolites, and not only in blood but also in tissue, urine, saliva, hair, ear wax, link here, etc. Speaking of ear wax, I think such testing method would be a great (and cheap) way to verify the effects of oral P5 on steroid balance in the entire organism, and hopefully we will see a study on that soon. While the current study did not do steroid metabolite measurements in blood, tissue, urine, etc it did do six (6) blood measures over the course of 24h, and that was enough to demonstrate that P5 had a pronounced downstream effect. I think that since several of the downstream steroids participate in negative feedback mechanisms, it would have been more beneficial to administer lower doses several times a day (30mg-50mg x 3 daily is probably a better approach). In addition, the nucleotide NAD+ is a co-factor for many of the downstream steroidogenic enzymes and a higher NAD/NADH ratio not only increases the metabolism of P5 into downstream steroids, but also inhibits certain not-so-desirable pathways such as the ones responsible for the synthesis of cortisol, aldosterone, and estrogens. As such, taking each P5 dose with say 100mg niacinamide will probably greatly amplify the HRT effectiveness of P5, while also limiting the risks of increasing the synthesis of steroid that are not so beneficial for health/metabolism. Interestingly enough, a combination of P5 and DHEA (in a 1:1) ratio is sold under the trade name Equi-Bolic, and marketed as a legal anabolic product for horses.  I guess one can think of it as our Pansterone,, link here but designed for horses 🙂 Unlike rodents, horses have similar metabolism of P5/DHEA to humans and the effects of a P5/DHEA combination in horses can be taken as a good surrogate for its likely effects in humans. According to the last 2 links below, a P5/DHEA combination in a 1:1 ratio (at a dosage of 1mg/kg of body-weight daily), raised T levels in ALL of the (castrated) horses to normal levels found in non-castrated animals. In addition, in one of the castrated (gelding) horses, the P5/DHEA combo raised T levels above the upper limit for the normal range for non-castrated horses. Furthermore, in all the (castrated) horses the ratio of T to epitestosterone (Epi) rose 20-30 times. In general, a T/Epi ratio higher than 5 is indicative of  anabolic steroid use, so the P5/DHEA combo worked just as well as TRT or one of the anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) that athletes and bodybuilders (ab)use all the time. Now, horses have a slightly lower metabolism than humans, so the HED of that horse regimen would be ~2mg/kg of each steroid for a human daily. I don’t think administering 2mg/kg DHEA daily is safe for humans (or horses, for that matter) due to the estrogenic risks, so I would keep the DHEA dosage to no more than 15mg daily, while the pregnenolone dosage can be increased even more if desired. However, since most humans are not castrated and even hypogonadal males/females still produce some steroids in their gonads, I think the 2mg/kg P5 and <15mg DHEA daily combination should be sufficient for most people. A recent study found that DHEA administration raised total T levels, link here, which further corroborates the usefulness of P5/DHEA as widely available OTC options for HRT that may be less risky than traditional HRT options if used wisely.

link here

“…Data obtained in two healthy male subjects during the first 8 hr after ingestion of 175 mg of P (Fig. 2) are consistent with the idea that oral P could be a precursor of glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, and sex steroids produced, as depicted in Fig. 2. PS showed the greatest relative postingestion increase of any of the steroids (Figs. 2 and 3), increasing more than P. PS levels remained elevated at 24 hr, at which time P values had returned to control levels or below.”

“…The relative decreases in levels of GH reflected in inverse fashion the relative increases in PS in both individuals studied. Of the substances measured other than PS, the IGF-1yGH ratio was elevated over the 8-hr period in a pattern most closely resembling that of PS (Fig. 3). In subject 1 the IGF-1 levels were elevated for at least 8 hr but not at 24 hr; the IGF-1yGH levels were elevated at 1, 4, and 24 hr in subject 2. The elevations in IGF-1yGH largely are attributable to decreased levels of GH after P ingestion. Inferences cannot be made at present as to whether or not a particular steroid or combination of steroids elevated after P administration or feedback inhibition by elevation of IGF-1 might be causally related to the decrements in GH.”

In further corroboration to the potential benefits of P5 as oral HRT in humans, this other study below demonstrates that P5 and P4 have direct anabolic (e.g. increase in DNA synthesis) effects in both muscle and organs. In fact, both P5 and P4 appear to stimulate DNA synthesis to a greater degree than testosterone (the “gold standard” of anabolism), but less so than DHT and nandrolone. Considering the evidence that pregnenolone may have direct anti-glucocorticoid effect, link here at the receptor level, I suspect that high doses (say in the 1g-2g daily range) may be able to match or even exceed the effects TRT, while being potentially less risky. Interestingly, DHEA was also determined to have a stimulatory effects on DNA synthesis, and that effect was stronger than the effects of DHT and nandrolone. As such, adding even a small amount of DHEA may potentiate significantly the effects of an HRT regimen with P5, if the oral P5 administration does not raises DHEA levels sufficiently by itself. However, if high doses of P5 are used I suspect that over time the DHEA pathway will be replenished sufficiently so that supplementation with preformed DHEA may not be needed.

link here

“…Since Burkhart (1) demonstrated in 1942 that a single injection of 0.1 mg of testosterone to 40-day-old castrated rats caused a wave of mitotic activity, androgens have been known to have an important role in growth and development of certain tissues such as muscle and prostate. In 1965 Sheppard et al. (2) described the stimulatory action of androgens on DNA synthesis in target organs. These findings have been confirmed by others (3-5). The exact mechanism by which testosterone stimulates DNA synthesis and growth is unknown. Guanylate cyclase [GTP pyrophosphate-lyase (cyclizing), EC 4.6.1.2] and its product guanosine 3′,5′-monophosphate (cyclic GMP) are throught to be involved in cell growth (6-10). Cyclic GMP itself has been shown to stimulate DNA synthesis (6, 11, 12). Because cyclic GMP and androgens seem to have similar actions, the effects of testosterone and androgen precursors and degradation products were tested on the guanylate cyclase-cyclic GMP system. Progesterone, pregnenolone, 17a-progesterone, 17-a-hydroxypregnenolone, androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone, testosterone, 17 methyltestosterone, 19a-nortestosterone, 5a-dihydrotestosterone, androsterone, epiandrosterone, and etiocholanolone all had stimulatory effects on guanylate cyclase activity. Cholesterol, from which the precursors are generated, had no effect on guanylate cyclase activity.”

2 links here

“…Steroid concentrations and ratios measured for the pre- and postdose samples following the administrations of testosterone propionate (Testoprop®, IM, 5 x 50 mg, weekly), DHEA (oral, 1 mg/kg) and a mix of DHEA and pregnenolone (Equi-Bolic®, oral, 500 mg) are shown in Table 6. The post-dose results in Table 6 were chosen on the basis that they represented the peak concentration (Cmax) time point for testosterone following each administration. Data were acquired for the full time course in each case, but are not presented herein to avoid the potential misuse of detection times. Sample analysis showed that testosterone concentrations exceeded the international urine threshold following the administration of each preparation. This is in agreement with the previously published studies, which have shown significant increases in testosterone concentrations for the administrations of testosterone esters,[7,8] DHEA alone,[10] and in combination with pregnenolone.[34]”

“…Epitestosterone concentrations were not increased following the administration of testosterone propionate, although a small increase in epitestosterone concentrations was observed following dosing with DHEA and Equi-Bolic®. This suggests that the exogenous testosterone is not converted to epitestosterone, which is supported by the previous studies following the administrations of 14C-testosterone[26] and testosterone esters.[23] Exogenous DHEA and androstenedione have been previously shown to convert to epitestosterone[10] but this occurs to a lesser extent than conversion to testosterone. The T:E ratio exceeded the proposed upper limit of 5 following the administrations of testosterone propionate, DHEA and a mix of DHEA and pregnenolone. Importantly, the upper T:E limit was exceeded at all time points that the international threshold of 20 ng/mL was also breached; suggesting that a T:E assessment would serve as a useful adjunct. These administrations can be excluded as a cause of elevated testosterone concentrations observed in the atypical samples where T:E ratios were within the reference range.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1330.mp3" length="4435412" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:10:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Compared to meat eaters, vegans / vegetarian / pescatarians have higher risk of fractures</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1325</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1325</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 24 Nov 2020 15:50:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1325

The study just hit major news outlets and is generating a lot of “controversy”. Why putting that word in quotes? Because, as I mentioned in several other posts, that word has become a euphemism for “embarrassing truth” that mainstream medicine (and often society at large) will do just about anything to suppress. While the negative effects of veganism and vegetarianism on bone health have been known for some time (mostly due to the state of protein deficiency they induce), the fact that pescatarians also had increased risk of bone fracture is somewhat surprising. That is, until one considers the fact that fish is full of PUFA that, while that PUFA is of the less-inflammatory omega-3 variety, has known detrimental effects on bone morphology and growth. There are safer types of fish, such as cod as well as most tropical fish (due to having more saturated fats in its tissues), however most pescatarians do not really care to make such selections and, in fact, tend to stick with the cold-water fish (abundant in PUFA) such as salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel, etc. The study actually did confirm the deficiency of protein and calcium as a mechanism of action in the vegan and vegetarian groups fractures. It also added this gem – higher BMI was protective against bone fractures. Yes, “obesity paradox” strikes again! Yet another “controversy” for medicine to reckon with. I actually propose that this study title be changed to “Malnourished people have a much higher risk of fractures”, because that is what the findings amount to considering the diets of the vegans, vegetarians and pescatarians, as well as the findings that eating more protein and calcium reversed the increased risks  of fractures. However, a study to implying that eating mostly vegan, vegetarian and pescatarian diets amounts to malnourishment would be so…”controversial”…and it probably would not have gotten published 🙂

3 links here

“…New results from the EPIC-Oxford study suggest that vegans, vegetarians and pescatarians (people who eat fish but no other meat) may be at higher risk of bone fractures, compared with meat eaters. In particular, the results showed that vegans had a higher risk of fractures anywhere in the body (total fractures), as well as fractures of the legs and vertebrae, compared with meat eaters. In addition, vegans, vegetarians and pescatarians had a significantly greater risk of hip fractures. In all cases, however, the increased fracture risk was reduced if participants had a higher body mass index (BMI) and higher calcium and protein intake. There were no differences in the risks of wrist or ankle fractures by diet group with or without BMI adjustment, nor for arm fractures after BMI adjustment. Dr Tammy Tong, Nutritional Epidemiologist at NDPH’s Cancer Epidemiology Unit and the lead author said: ‘This is the first comprehensive study on the risks of both total and site-specific fractures in people of different diet groups. We found that vegans had a higher risk of total fractures which resulted in close to 20 more cases per 1000 people over a 10-year period compared to people who ate meat. The biggest differences were for hip fractures, where the risk in vegans was 2.3 times higher than in people who ate meat, equivalent to 15 more cases per 1000 people over 10 years.’]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1325.mp3" length="1592468" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Orange juice (OJ) as therapy for all coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1323</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1323</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 20 Nov 2020 20:54:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1323

If anybody needs a reason to convince themselves (or their family members) that drinking OJ is beneficial, maybe this new study in the context of COVID-19 will be good enough as evidence. It demonstrated that one of the main components of OJ – naringenin – is a powerful inhibitor of viral replication and it also has the ability to reduce viral entry into the cells. Peat also mentioned in several of his articles that chemicals in OJ such as naringenin are responsible for the majority of its beneficial effects. Considering naringenin also has strong anti-inflammatory properties, link here, it may also be suitable for reducing the risk of COVID-19 exacerbations, which have demonstrated to be essentially nothing more than a systemic inflammatory syndrome. A few lesser known beneficial properties of naringenin are its anti-estrogenic, link here and progestogenic effects. In fact, naringenin (together with apigenin) is one of the few well-known phytoprogestogens, link here. Progestogenic and/or anti-estrogenic chemicals have already been confirmed as therapeutic for viral infections, possibly including COVID-19, link here as well. Even more interestingly, the study below suggests that naringenin may be a universal treatment for ALL types of coronavirus infections. As such, if SARS-CoV-2 were to mutate or we get hit by another coronavirus pandemic, naringenin should still be therapeutic.

link here

“…On the whole, Nar behaves as a lysosomotropic active natural compound exhibiting human pan-CoV antiviral activity. Interestingly, besides its antiviral power, Nar has anti-inflammatory activity by inhibiting TNF-α and IL-6 secretion [15, link here] which may synergistically enhance its antiviral effect in vivo. The potential of possible Nar-based medical treatment is that it could tackle both viral infection and the cytokine release/cytokine storm syndrome in COVID-19. As regards clinical trials, the therapeutic potential and safety of Nar have been reviewed [16, link here] and a more recent clinical trial on the pharmacokinetics and metabolism of Nar indicates this compound as a very promising candidate for clinical applications [17, link here]. In particular, it has been reported that in healthy humans an oral dose of 600 mg Nar results in a serum Cmax of about 50 μM, whithout relevant toxicity [18, link here]. Interestingly, this dosage could approach the threshold to ameliorate the cytokine storm as well as inhibit the activity of TPCs. The use of Nar, a hydrophobic molecule able to cross biological membranes and to reach intracellular compartments, as a specific inhibitor of TPCs [4, link here,5, link here] provides further support for exploiting TPCs inhibition as a novel antiviral therapy. In our view, optimal Nar therapeutic delivery would require nanotechnological approaches and targeting the drug directly to the upper respiratory airways, a non-invasive method of administration, which would warrant direct and selective access at the sites most susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, given the gradient of infectivity reported in the respiratory tree [19, link here]. In conclusion, data presented in this work point to Nar as a safe anti-SARS-CoV-2 agent endowed with pan-coronavirus inhibitory activity. These findings offer a potential molecular model for CoV infection and a candidate drug target for further, in vivo, experimental trials aimed at improving the management of COVID-19 patients.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1323.mp3" length="722372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Face masks (at best) ineffective against SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 and flu</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1320</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1320</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 20 Nov 2020 19:39:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1320

A series of studies, some of them covering viruses other than SARS-CoV-2, yet the findings of all of them are the same – no statistically significant protective effect of face masks, and, in some cases, possibly increased rates of infection (see first study below).

2 links here

“…A total of 3030 participants were randomly assigned to the recommendation to wear masks, and 2994 were assigned to control; 4862 completed the study. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 occurred in 42 participants recommended masks (1.8%) and 53 control participants (2.1%). The between-group difference was −0.3 percentage point (95% CI, −1.2 to 0.4 percentage point; P = 0.38) (odds ratio, 0.82 [CI, 0.54 to 1.23]; P = 0.33). Multiple imputation accounting for loss to follow-up yielded similar results. Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection. The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use. The data were compatible with lesser degrees of self-protection.

link here

“…Conclusion: : Existing data pooled from randomized controlled trials do not reveal a reduction in occurrence of ILI with the use of facemask alone in community settings.”

link here

“…Conclusion: Surgical mask wearing among individuals in non-healthcare settings is not significantly associated with reduction in ARI incidence in this meta-review.

link here

“…Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1320.mp3" length="216308" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:30</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT is an estrogen (receptor) antagonist</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1317</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1317</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 20 Nov 2020 19:02:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1317

A neat little study, and in-vivo at that, which demonstrates that DHT is a direct estrogen receptor (ER) antagonist. According to the study, so are testosterone, nandrolone and a few other steroids with demonstrated therapeutic effects on ER-positive breast cancer (BC). However, all of the other steroids mentioned by the study are aromatizable and as such suboptimal as anti-estrogens compared to DHT. This is probably one of the reasons that back in the 1960s when synthetic steroids for treatment of BC were first developed, only DHT derivatives such as Proviron and Masteron eventually made it to clinical trials and got approval for this condition. None of the aromatizable synthetic androgens (or testosterone for that matter) made it through the clinical trials despite being much more widely used (experimentally) for BC at the time. When we also consider the fact that DHT (and other 5-AR derives steroids) are also aromatase inhibitors, link here, it becomes clear that DHT is right up there with progesterone in terms of importance for estrogen antagonism, and perhaps the main anti-estrogen in males. Another interesting finding of the study was that the anti-estrogenic effects of DHT were independent from its role as an androgen agonist. However, androgen agonists are well-known known to have anti-estrogenic effects of their own, so the effectiveness of DHT as an anti-estrogen is actually amplified by its role as a strong androgen. Finally, the study provide some information on what a physiological dose of DHT would be, which is subject to much debate in the literature and in the blogosphere. As the study states, healthy males produce about 45 mcg estrogen daily and DHT amounts need to be about 50 times higher in order to fully block the effects of a given amount of estrogen. This means that a daily physiological dose is about 2mg for healthy adult males, and that dose may need to be increased with increasing age or pathological conditions resulting in elevated estrogens such as liver disease, diabetes, prostate cancer, etc.

link here

“…Estrogen treatment to such mice stimulates breast growth and as in other species increases the amount of progesterone receptor in the breast. Both effects of estradiol can be inhibited by dihydrotestosterone. We concluded that this might be an adequate model system for investigating the mechanism of the antiestrogenic action of androgen, and we designed experiments to assess two mechanisms that have been proposed for this action, namely that androgen acts at the genomic level via its own receptor to block estrogen action or that androgen acts as a pharmacological antagonist and/or weak estrogen agonist by competing with estradiol for the estrogen receptor. The findings in these experiments favor the latter possibility. Indeed, the fact that dihydrotestosterone was equally effective in blocking estrogen effects in tfm/Y and control mice suggests that this action of androgen is not mediated by the androgen receptor. If this interpretation is correct, then this effect of androgen is different than the antiestrogenic effect of the hormone in the embryonic mouse breast (11) and in the uterus (12). Dihydrotestosterone binds weakly to the estrogen receptor in mouse breast and like some other antiestrogens appears to anchor the estrogen-receptor in the nucleus of the cell. These effects have only been studied with pharmacological amounts of hormone, but the fact that the relative binding affinities of dihydrotestosterone, 313-androstanediol, testosterone, and Sfdihydrotestosterone correlate with their capacities to inhibit induction of the progesterone receptor is in keeping with the finding in MCF7 tumor cells (10) that androgens bind to the estrogen receptor. Unlike the situation in MCF7 cells, however, we were unable to demonstrate any estrogen-like effects of dihydrotestosterone on the mouse breast.”

“…If androgen prevents the development of gynecomastia in normal men by acting as a direct antiestrogen at the level of the estrogen receptor, this is the first androgen action recognized that is not mediated by the androgen receptor.”

“…Normal men produce ~45 mcg of estradiol each day, a sixth of which is secreted by the testes and the remainder of which is derived from the extraglandular aromatization of circulating androgens (1). Extraglandular estradiol formation takes place by two mechanisms, one from the direct conversion of testosterone to estradiol and the other from androgens of adrenal origin by the sequence of androstenedione – estrone – estradiol. The function of estradiol in normal men is unknown, but feminization, commonly manifested by gynecomastia, ensues under conditions of relative or absolute estrogen excess (2)….By this estimate estradiol binds to the estrogen receptor with an affinity that is approximately fifty times greater than that of dihydrotestosterone.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1317.mp3" length="999884" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:12</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fasting ups estrogen &amp; cortisol, decimates vitamin D, may cause diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1314</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1314</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 17 Nov 2020 16:20:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1314

A really interesting study, which will likely generate more than a few hateful emails for my Inbox 🙂 Anyways, as the study demonstrates, fasting achieves these negative effects due to the elevated fatty acids working through PPAR activator PGC-1α, link here, to activate both the estrogen receptor (ER) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR). So, aside from the important findings on vitamin D, IMO the bigger takeaway from the study is that fasting ALWAYS increases both estrogen and cortisol signalling, as fasting always increases PGC-1α. In terms of vitamin D inhibition, the situation is just as bad. The activation of ER and GR not only inhibited vitamin D synthesis but also increased its degradation. More specifically, a 12-hour fast decreased vitamin D synthesis by ~50% while a 24-hour fast completely blocked vitamin D synthesis! Imagine what happens during the multi-day fasting regiment so many high-profile doctors and Internet gurus recommend these days…

Considering the study discusses all of these changes in the context of diabetes, I think it is reasonable to state that fasting may mimic diabetes (and probably cause it, when practiced long term) and that diabetes is an endocrine condition driven by high estrogen/cortisol and low vitamin D. While most doctors will certainly not deny that diabetes I is an endocrine disease, they universally balk at acknowledging the same for diabetes II, and most certainly balk at the idea that estrogen/cortisol may be the direct causes of both diabetes types. The good news is that vitamin D is known to be a GR antagonist, link here while also inhibiting ER, link here activation and aromatase, link here. This may be one of the reasons vitamin D supplementation has been shown to be therapeutic in diabetes II and, if the study findings below are correct, it may also be helpful in diabetes I. Actually, the buck does not stop with diabetes. Excess estrogen/cortisol are now known to be involved in virtually all chronic diseases, which may make vitamin D one of the universally protective factors on par with aspirin, progesterone, and thyroid.

link here

“…We next investigated the mechanisms of CYP2R1 repression and hypothesized that nutrition-responsive coactivator PGC-1α would be involved in this process since PGC-1α plays a central role in the fasting response and in uncontrolled diabetes (34, link here). PGC-1α overexpression in mouse primary hepatocytes with PGC-1α-Ad downregulated CYP2R1 strongly and dose dependently, resulting in only an 11% expression at MOI 1 compared with GFP-Ad control (Fig. 2A, link here). To explore the mechanism in more detail, we transduced mutant PGC-1α into hepatocytes (Supplementary Fig. 2A, link here). Gaillard et al. (35, link here) described PGC-1α mutants selective for nuclear receptor interactions; PGC-1α-L2L3M mutant is unable to bind any nuclear receptors, whereas PGC-1α-2×9 mutant interacts selectively with nuclear receptors ERRα or HNF-4α. Interestingly, PGC-1α-2×9 downregulated CYP2R1 expression almost similarly to the WT (Fig. 2B, link here), whereas the L2L3M mutation abolished the CYP2R1 repression and even resulted in weak induction (Fig. 2B, link here). These results indicate that an interaction with a nuclear receptor, most probably ERRα, is indispensable for PGC-1α–mediated CYP2R1 suppression. Supporting this hypothesis, several ERRα target genes (35, link here) were upregulated by the WT and the PGC-1α-2×9 mutant (Supplementary Fig. 2B–D, link here). Moreover, the majority of the PGC-1α-2×9 mutant–induced genes are dependent on ERRα (35, link here).”

“…Furthermore, we confirmed the role of ERRα by using ERRα inverse agonist XCT790. Indeed, 2 μmol/L XCT790 prevented CYP2R1 repression by PGC-1α (Fig. 2D, link here) without any effect on PGC-1α or ERRα expression (Supplementary Fig. 2G and H, link here). Analysis of public Encyclopedia of DNA Elements data indicates that PGC-1α and ERRα bind to two common regions within the human CYP2R1 gene in HepG2 cells (31, link here) (Supplementary Fig. 2M, link here). We performed a bioinformatics promoter analysis of the mouse Cyp2r1 gene with MatInspector software and identified a potential ERRα binding site in the proximal promoter. When −1.2 kb Cyp2r1-5′-luciferase-reporter construct was transfected into human hepatoma HepG2 cells and the cells were infected with PGC-1α-Ad, luciferase activity was repressed; however, mutation of the ERRα binding site at position −1,117 to −1,122 bp (relative to the TSS) abolished the PGC-1α response (Fig. 2E, link here). Interestingly, ERRα-Ad did not have an effect on the luciferase activity, indicating a crucial need for PGC-1α (Fig. 2E, link here). Altogether, these data indicate that ERRα plays a novel, indispensable role in PGC-1α–mediated downregulation of CYP2R1 expression in mouse hepatocytes.”

“…GR activated by cortisol is another key pathway controlling the fasting response in the liver and is also activated in diabetes (38, link here). To investigate the role of GR in the regulation of CYP2R1, we treated mice with a GR agonist, dexamethasone, for 6 h. The treatment decreased liver CYP2R1 mRNA levels by 49% along with changes in the expression of several known GR target genes, including ANGPTL8, NR1D1, and TAT (38, link here,39, link here), and increased PGC-1α levels 3.3-fold (Fig. 3A, link here), suggesting involvement of GR in the regulation of CYP2R1 in vivo. GR is also a known interaction partner for PGC-1α (34, link here). The CYP2R1 protein was decreased 26% by 6-h dexamethasone treatment (Fig. 3B, link here). Furthermore, analysis of the published microarray data (accession number GSE24256) (40, link here) supports the effect of dexamethasone on CYP2R1 expression in mouse liver (Supplementary Fig. 3A, link here).”

“…We now show that the CYP2R1 enzyme may be repressed also functionally at the level of gene regulation. Twelve-hour fasting suppressed liver microsomal vitamin D 25-hydroxylation ∼50%, and after 24-h fasting, we were unable to detect any 25-OH-D formation. Thus, the first vitamin D bioactivation step is under the strict control of nutritional state. Although the acute food deprivation resulted in a strong effect on vitamin D 25-hydroxylase activity, this was not reflected in the plasma 25-OH-D concentration, presumably because of the long half-life of 25-OH-D (47, link here). Therefore, it seems unlikely that short-term fasting would have a significant effect on vitamin D functions at the systemic level. This raises the question of the physiological purpose of the CYP2R1 repression during fasting. A likely explanation is that fasting launches physiological adjustment as precaution for possible longer-term food shortage. This may potentially be related to the role of vitamin D in energy homeostasis (1, link here) and could have been evolutionarily beneficial during periods of starvation. Alternatively, 25-OH-D could have some unknown local function in liver. Furthermore, we observed induction of CYP24A1 in the kidney during fasting. This is a mechanism that limits the level of 1α,25-(OH)2-D and consequently activation of VDR (10, link here). The CYP24A1 induction and the CYP2R1 repression are expected to suppress vitamin D signaling in a synergistic manner.”

“…PGC-1α is one of the major molecular factors regulating gluconeogenesis and other metabolic pathways activated in the diabetic liver (34, link here,50, link here). We now show that PGC-1α, ERRα dependently, also represses vitamin D bioactivation and, thus, establishes regulation of vitamin D metabolism as a novel metabolic function under the control of PGC-1α. Furthermore, the CYP24A1 induction by fasting in the kidney was demonstrated to be under the control of PGC-1α-ERRα. Thus, the PGC-1α-ERRα pathway appears to play a major role in the crosstalk between energy homeostasis and vitamin D metabolism. Interestingly, a recent study showed that Cyp2r1-deficiency in zebrafish affected lipid metabolism through vitamin D–regulated function of PGC-1α (51, link here). PGC-1α and vitamin D metabolism could thus form a regulatory loop.”

“…Although, the PGC-1α-ERRα pathway was found to be an effective regulator of CYP2R1, the PGC-1α KO did not prevent CYP2R1 suppression during fasting. This indicates that additional molecular mechanisms play a role in the regulation of CYP2R1 during fasting. Activation of GR was found to be a second mechanism capable for CYP2R1 suppression. Indeed, cortisol levels are increased during fasting as well as in diabetes (38, link here). By using pharmacological inhibition of GR, we could partially prevent fasting-mediated repression of CYP2R1, suggesting that GR is involved in CYP2R1 repression by fasting. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that additional regulatory mechanisms mediate CYP2R1 repression by fasting. From the point of view of drug therapy, the observed repression of CYP2R1 by pharmacological glucocorticoid treatment may explain the observed association between glucocorticoid use and vitamin D deficiency (52, link here).”

“…In summary, our results reveal a novel crosstalk between energy homeostasis and the vitamin D pathway, suggesting a physiological need for suppression of vitamin D signaling during nutrient deprivation (Fig. 6, link here). This may be related to the role of vitamin D in energy metabolism (1, link here,3, link here). Altogether, our study provides a mechanism that may explain the lower vitamin D levels in patients with diabetes…”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1314.mp3" length="1082660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ear wax testing as a reliable method for measuring long-term steroid levels</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1311</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1311</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 15 Nov 2020 21:03:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1311

Many of my readers already know about the unreliability of using steroid blood tests as diagnostic methods, except in cases where the values are so extreme that are unlikely to be temporary fluctuations. Saliva tests for steroids are even less reliable, even though combining both saliva and blood tests usually provides more reliable information than either method alone. As such, other testing methods are urgently needed, especially in light of the mounting evidence that most chronic diseases are of endocrine origin. Two other methods are hair and nail testing, but they are both much more expensive and time consuming to perform. Now, a new study demonstrates that ear wax, and especially the one from the right ear, is a highly reliable and easy method for testing long-term steroid levels similarly to the long-term blood sugar test HbA1C, link here. The study focuses specifically on testing for cortisol, due to its increasingly recognized role as a biomarker of virtually all mental health disorders. However, studies done in the past have demonstrated that if cortisol is deposited in a specific tissue in levels amenable to detection, so are a number of other steroids commonly present together with cortisol in an organism. Namely, pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA/S, testosterone, DHT, aldosterone, etc. Thus, doing an ear wax swab and sending to a lab to do a test for all these steroids may be a non-invasive, stress-free and more reliable method that reveals long-term (average) steroid profile covering a period of at least a month, and potentially much longer (depending on how much earwax a person is able to collect for analysis). The study authors also feel that this method can be applied to analysis of many other hormones in addition to cortisol. It is worth noting that an additional benefit of the ear wax test was that it was resistant to fluctuations in steroid levels caused by lifestyle choices such as drinking, drug use, exercise, etc while the hair, blood and saliva analysis were not. One word of caution – the method may not work well for people of Asian ethnicity due to the fact that the ear wax they produce is dry and flaky and apparently that prevents it from being a good long-term storage of steroids.

link here

“…This instruction allowed us to collect a standardized amount of secreted earwax 30 days after the baseline visit (the follow-up assessment). It has previously been found that 3–8 mg of earwax represents four weeks of earwax production in the healthy ear (Cipriani et al., 1986, link here).”

“…ECC using the novel device may be measured in patients with stress-related and affective disorders. The ability to discriminate between the average level of cortisol over weeks may become vital for psychiatrists. Indeed, earwax may contribute to investigating the antidepressant effect on mood. Overall, this usually appears after weeks, rather than months (Tanum and Malt, 1996, link here). This clinical observation suggests that the actual antidepressant effect in terms of long-term cortisol level alterations may not be accurately distinguished using hair samples, considering that no less than 1 cm of hair (1 month) has been used for analysing its cortisol level. Conversely, a baseline earwax cleaning, using the self-sampling device might allow measuring chronic cortisol levels over different time frames, including weeks.”

2 links here

“…There are a lot of ways to measure cortisol: in saliva, in blood, even in hair. But saliva and blood samples capture only a moment in time, and cortisol fluctuates significantly throughout the day. Even the experience of getting a needle stick to draw blood can increase stress, and thus cortisol levels. Hair samples can provide a snapshot of cortisol over several months instead of several minutes, but hair can be expensive to analyze — and some people don’t have much of it. Andrés Herane-Vives, a lecturer at University College London’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Institute of Psychiatry, and his colleagues instead turned to the ear. Earwax is stable and resistant to bacterial contamination, so it can be shipped to a laboratory easily for analysis. It also can hold a record of cortisol levels stretching over weeks.”

“…In a small pilot study, researchers collected blood, hair and earwax from 37 participants at two different time points. At each collection point, they sampled earwax using a syringe from one ear, and using the new self-swab method from the other. The researchers then compared the reliability of the cortisol measurements from the self-swab earwax with that of the other methods. They found that cortisol was more concentrated in earwax than in hair, making for easier analysis. Analyzing the self-swabbed earwax was also faster and more efficient than analyzing the earwax from the syringe, which had to be dried out before using. Finally, the earwax showed more consistency in cortisol levels compared with the other methods, which were more sensitive to fluctuations caused by things like recent alcohol consumption. Participants also said that self-swabbing was more comfortable than the syringe method. The researchers reported their findings Nov. 2 in the journal Heliyon, link here. Herane-Vives is also starting a company called Trears to market the new method. In the future, he hopes that earwax could also be used to monitor other hormones. The researchers also need to follow up with studies of Asian individuals, who were left out of this pilot study because a significant number only produce dry, flaky earwax as opposed to wet, waxy earwax.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1311.mp3" length="1047044" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Glycine has a universal anti-viral effect</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1306</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1306</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Nov 2020 20:15:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1306

While the study below does not go as far as to say that glycine would be an appropriate intervention for the current COVID-19 pandemic, it does describe an anti-viral mechanism for glycine that is (at least in theory) applicable to ALL viruses. Namely, glycine prevents for formation of capsids, without which viruses are unstable and cannot infect other cells as they simply disintegrate without a capsid “shell”. So, it may be worth upping gelatin intake over the “Dark Winter”, which one of the POTUS candidates keeps scaring us is coming…

3 links here

“…Viruses carry around an outer shell of proteins called a capsid. The proteins act like a lockpick, attaching to and prying open a cell’s membrane. The virus then hijacks the cell’s inner workings, forcing it to mass produce the virus’s genetic material and construct many, many viral replicas. Much like popcorn kernels pushing away the lid of an overfilled pot, the new viruses explode through the cell wall. And the cycle continues with more virus lockpicks on the loose….Viral infections are top of mind right now, but not all viruses are the same. While microfluidic devices that use dielectrophoresis could one day be used for on-site, quick testing for viral diseases like COVID-19, the Michigan Tech team focused on a well-known and closely studied virus, the porcine parvovirus (PPV), which infects kidney cells in pigs. But then the team wanted to push the envelope: They added the osmolyte glycine, an important intervention their collaborators study in viral surface chemistry and vaccine development, link here. “Using our system, we could show time-dependent behavior of the virus and cell membrane. Then we added the osmolyte, which can act as an antiviral compound,” Habibi explained. “We thought it would stop the interaction. Instead, it looked like the interaction continued to happen at first, but then the new viruses couldn’t get out of the cell.” That’s because glycine likely interrupts the new capsid formation for the replicated viruses within the cell itself. While that specific portion of the viral dance happens behind the curtain of the cell wall, the dielectric measurements show a shift between an infected cycle where capsid formation happens and an infected cell where capsid formation is interrupted by glycine.  This difference in electrical charge indicates that glycine prevents the new viruses from forming capsids and stops the would-be viral lockpickers from hitting their targets.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1306.mp3" length="298244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D prevents cortisol-induced depression and…inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1304</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1304</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Nov 2020 19:49:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1304

A great study for a number of reasons. First, it discussed openly that in animal research circles cortisol administration is considered an official and reliable method of causing major depression. As the article states, for some reason human medical circles have been unwilling to accept the stress-depression causal link and continue to argue that stress is just a risk factors that ultimately depends on genetic predispositions to actually cause depression.

More importantly, the study also demonstrated that oral vitamin D (D3, a.k.a. cholecalciferol) administration for just 7 days concurrently with the cortisol administration (which was given to cause the depression) was able to fully prevent the depressive symptoms. Another finding was that vitamin D administration was also able to upregulate the expression of the glucocorticoid receptors (GR), which were downregulated as a result of the chronic administration of cortisol. These findings suggest, yet again, that vitamin D acts as a direct glucocorticoid antagonist and corroborates it not only as a rapidly-acting antidepressant (which GR antagonists are known to be, link here), but also as an anti-catabolic / anabolic substance, link here, which GR antagonists are also known to be as described, link here in another recent post of mine. Let’s just hope that FDA won’t take action and either ban vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) as an “unapproved drug”, or put it in the category of prescription chemicals such as vitamin D2. The latter is know known to have only about 30% of the effects of vitamin D in equivalent doses and has a much higher risk of side effects such as kidney disease, hypercalcemia, etc.

But what’s up with the contradictory title? Isn’t cortisol a powerful anti-inflammatory steroid/treatment, as our doctors keep telling us? Well, as they say in the movies – “life is stranger than fiction”, and so it seems to be in medicine as well. As the study explains, cortisol, while directly anti-inflammatory itself, sets the stage for a pro-inflammatory systemic response that starts even while cortisol is still being administered. So, at best cortisol is an inflammatory symptom “masker” with the trade-off of drastically higher inflammation down the road, even if cortisol administration continues! One of the likely mechanisms for cortisol’s pro-inflammatory effects is that being a highly catabolic hormone, cortisol administration floods the blood stream with cellular / tissue debris and those are known to trigger potent inflammatory reactions that persist for as long as there is a sufficient amount of debris left in the bloodstream. In a sense, the systemic inflammatory response can never stop as long as cortisol is being administered, and the longer cortisol is administered the worse systemic health becomes.

3 links here

“…Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a highly prevalent and disabling psychiatric disorder that affects > 350 million people, causing a high personal and socioeconomic burden (World Health Organization, 2017). It is well reported that chronic stress and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction are risk factors for MDD (Goodyer et al., 2000; Nowacki et al., 2020). Chronic stress can induce increased levels of glucocorticoids, namely cortisol in humans and corticosterone in rodents, which may damage the hippocampus, a region that presents a high density of glucocorticoids receptor (GR) crucial for HPA axis autoregulation and mood modulation (Anacker et al., 2011; Lee et al., 2002).”

“…In keeping with these premises, exogenous corticosterone (CORT) administration in rodents has been proposed as a pharmacological stress model of depression that mimics the behavioral and neurochemical alterations associated with HPA dysfunction in the depressive state (Pazini et al., 2016; Rosa et al., 2014; Zhao et al., 2008). Despite the numerous studies reporting that chronic stress underlies the genesis of MDD, the mechanisms by which glucocorticoids contribute to the depressive symptoms have not been entirely established. Compelling evidence indicates that glucocorticoids may induce a peripheral and central pro-inflammatory state that involves the stimulation of the nod-like receptor pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3), an intracellular multiprotein complex responsible for the inflammatory response (Busillo et al., 2011; Kaufmann et al., 2017). Importantly, NLRP3-driven pro-inflammatory response culminates in neuronal damage and death remarkably in brain regions involved with mood modulation, and these events are thought to underlie depressive symptoms (Miller et al., 2009).”

“…In the present study, we showed that a low dose of cholecalciferol abrogates the depressive- and anhedonic-like behavior induced by chronic corticosterone administration, confirming a previous study from our group (Camargo et al., 2018). We extend these findings providing evidence that these behavioral effects were accompanied by the reestablishment of GR immunocontent impaired by corticosterone. Additionally, the ability of cholecalciferol in reducing NLRP3 inflammasome-related proteins ASC, TXNIP, and caspase-1 in the hippocampus of mice was also demonstrated.”

“… In the present study, we reinforced the notion that repeated administration of cholecalciferol (2.5 μg/kg, p.o.) for 7 days is effective to reduce the immobility time, in a way similar to fluoxetine, in vehicle-treated mice submitted to the TST (Camargo et al., 2018; Souza et al., 2020). We also showed the cholecalciferol’s ability to prevent corticosterone-induced depressivelike behavior evaluated in the TST, when administered in the last 7 days of corticosterone protocol. This result agrees with previous reports of our research group carried out in male Swiss mice (Camargo et al., 2018) and female Swiss mice (Souza et al., 2020). Of note, previous studies showed that administration of cholecalciferol (5 mg/kg, s.c.) or α-calcidiol (1 μg/kg, p.o.) caused an antidepressant-like effect in the forced swim test in rodents (Fedotova et al., 2016; Kawaura et al., 2017), in agreement with our results.”

“…Collectively, our results show that repeated administration of cholecalciferol has an antidepressant-like effect, confirming previous findings (Camargo et al., 2018; Fedotova et al., 2016; Kawaura et al., 2017; Souza et al., 2020), an effect associated with the reestablishment of hippocampal GR immunocontent impaired by chronic corticosterone administration. Although we did not ascertain the causal relationship between GR and behavioral outcomes, further experiments could be carried out in future studies to shed light on this issue.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1304.mp3" length="1328348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin may cause schizophrenia, Parkinson, and Alzheimer diseases</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1297</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1297</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 Nov 2020 20:28:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1297

One by one, medical myths (slowly) go the way of the Dodo. Two of the most pervasive such myths are that psychotic conditions like schizophrenia are caused by excess dopamine, and Parkinson Disease (PD) is caused by a deficiency of dopamine. Unbeknownst even to most doctors, studies exist demonstrating that hallucinations (indistinguishable from those in people with psychotic conditions like schizophrenia) exist in people with PD. In fact, more than 75% of people with PD experience such hallucinations at some point in their life, which basically makes them a core symptoms of PD. Even more interestingly, the Wiki page below states that the psychosis seen in people with PD may herald the onset of dementia. Hmmm, I wonder what is the most common type of dementia in the elderly (in whom PD is most likely to appear)…Yes, Alzheimer Disease (AD), of course!

link here

“…Hallucinations, link here or delusions, link here occur in approximately 50% of people with PD over the course of the illness, and may herald the emergence of dementia. These range from minor hallucinations – “sense of passage” (something quickly passing beside the person) or “sense of presence” (the perception of something/someone standing just to the side or behind the person) – to full blown vivid, formed visual hallucinations, link here and paranoid, link here ideation. It is now believed that psychosis is an integral part of the disease.” 

This is yet another “paradox”, recognized by isolated medical studies as early as the 1950s. However, it is very rarely discussed in medical settings simply because it is too “controversial”. Why do I put “paradox” and “controversial” in quotes? I do that because, as I mentioned in several prior posts, in the medical world those words are euphemisms for incompetence or sometimes outright fraud. It takes no medical degree to recognize that if hallucinations are caused by excess dopamine then those should rarely (if ever) be found in people with dopamine deficiency conditions such as PD. How does medicine get around this *cough* fraud *cough* I mean “paradox”? By calling such issues Parkinson Disease Psychosis (PDP). If you look up the hallucination symptoms of PDP (see Wiki page above for quick reference) you will immediately see that they are identical to the ones of schizophrenia. No explanation is, of course, given as what differentiates PDP from regular schizophrenia and the charade goes on uninterrupted dragging along the unwitting public.

In several of my previous posts I discussed the extensive evidence that both schizophrenia, link here and PD, link here are both caused by serotonin. Aside from the direct imaging studies on brains of people with either condition, as well as rodent studies, there are also recent studies that “stumbled upon” the “shocking” evidence that anti-dopamine drugs commonly used for treating schizophrenia such as haloperidol are actually potent serotonin antagonists, link here as well. In a sense, drugs like haloperidol work similarly to the ancient drug reserpine that has been used by native cultures for millennia to sedate and/or treat both psychotic and tremor-related conditions like PD. Reserpine powerfully depletes both dopamine and serotonin,, link here but has a strong preference for the latter. However, that evidence is considered indirect and simply corroborating to the hypothesis that serotonin is the cause of both conditions. The new clinical trial below may add the first piece of direct evidence by demonstrating that serotonin is a causative factor in both psychosis and PD. The trial is based on pre-clinical results (with a limited number of patients) demonstrating that the administration of a selective serotonin (5-HT3) antagonist (ondansetron), link here is capable of stopping PDP in people with PD. This directly implicates serotonin as a causative factor in both schizophrenia and PDP (and possibly AD as well), because ondansetron is a highly selective 5-HT3 antagonist and does not have any other known effects on monoamines or other mechanisms considered relevant for those conditions. If the trial also demonstrates improvement in other core symptoms of PD then I think serotonin’s fate is sealed. While the full-scale trial won’t start until 2022 the researchers are pretty confident in their preliminary results, which will hopefully lead to more doctors thinking twice before prescribing SSRI drugs to patients with schizophrenia or PD. More importantly, this direct evidence should prompt re-evaluation by the medical profession about just how “beneficial” serotonin really is and whether there is EVER a rationale for increasing its levels in people. And if there still any doubt that high serotonin, instead of high dopamine, is the culprit – see the quote below describing that a core impetus for conducting the trial has been the drastic increase in hallucinations in people with PDP during the lockdown/pandemic. Even a mainstream doctor will admit it is common knowledge that acute (or chronic) stress, such as social isolation and/or constant fear from an unknown enemy (e.g. virus), elevates serotonin and lowers dopamine. However, if the bigger trial is successful I doubt the popular press will present the news as a collapse of the serotonin house of cards. Even now, in the popular press articles they do not even say serotonin may be pathological. One of the articles does not mention serotonin even once, while the other one only mentions it in regards to ondansetron and even then the information is presented with ambiguity. Instead of saying that ondansetron is a potent and selective serotonin antagonist, which would immediately make it clear that serotonin is the suspected pathology in these diseases, they deviously say that ondansetron “binds to serotonin receptors to try to stop the hallucinations“. This is criminally malicious level of misreporting because it removes the core message that ondansetron stops the hallucinations not just by binding to the serotonin receptors but by antagonizing / blocking them. What a travesty!

5 links here

“…A world-first double-blind clinical trial led by UCL researchers will investigate if a powerful drug used to treat nausea in chemotherapy patients could alleviate hallucinations in people with Parkinson’s. Parkinson’s UK is partnering with UCL and investing £1 million in a pioneering phase II clinical trial to explore if the drug ondansetron is safe and effective against hallucinations. There are currently 145,000 people living with Parkinson’s in the UK and 75% of them will experience visual hallucinations at some point. The trial comes at a crucial time as a survey carried out by the charity found that one in 10 people with Parkinson’s reported an increase in hallucinations during lockdown, which led to an increase in calls to their helpline.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1297.mp3" length="2558756" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D is anti-catabolic / anabolic, protects liver from cortisol injury</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1292</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1292</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 Nov 2020 18:34:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1292

In a recent post of mine I discussed the effects of cortisol on various aminotransferases (especially TAT), link here, their role as biomarkers of catabolism, and how inhibitors of said aminotransferases have a potent anti-catabolic / anabolic effects. In that same post, I also described how cortisol (a catabolic steroid) is, naturally, a potent inducer of those aminotransferases. Since some of those aminotransferase enzymes (ALT, AST, GGT, etc) are also used as biomarkers of liver injury / disease, I opined that the epidemic of elevated liver enzymes seen in Western populations may be caused mostly by chronic stress (high cortisol) and not necessarily by alcohol abuse (even though that has its role too) as the media keeps telling us. Within hours of making that post I started receiving messages and emails criticizing me for claiming “without evidence” that cortisol can cause liver injury. Well, I hope that the study below satisfies my critics as it demonstrates that cortisol treatment reliably increases levels of “liver” injury biomarkers, and is apparently known to induce hepatitis in patients who need chronic cortisol treatment (demyelinating diseases). Considering cortisol is actually a demyelinating steroid, I think this evidence should call into serious question the suitability of cortisol “treatment” for such diseases as it quite likely worsens the pathology instead of improving it. Some evidence supporting that suspicion already exists, as it has been shown that patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) who get only cortisol treatment have much shorter lifespan than non-treated patients, despite being able to maintain “remission” most of the time. This is further corroborated by the findings of the study below that cortisol treatment strongly increases nitric oxide (NO) synthesis, which has been known for decades to have a detrimental effect on demyelinating diseases. Overall, it seems that while cortisol may have acute anti-inflammatory effects it really sets up the stage for long term disaster by injuring the liver, promoting a highly catabolic, and actually increasing inflammatory mediators such as NO that take over as soon as the treatment with cortisol is stopped.

Another interesting finding of the study is that treatment with vitamin D (cholecalciferol, D3), at an HED of about 150 IU / kg daily for 30 days, was highly beneficial in BOTH reversing the cortisol-induced liver injury AND blocking cortisol’s catabolic effects by lowering the levels of the aminotransferases. According to the study, the most plausible explanation is the ability of vitamin D to compete with glucocorticoids (cortisol) for receptor binding and act as an antagonist of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). As such, vitamin D (being actually a steroid itself) has anti-catabolic / anabolic effects that are quite similar to those of androgenic-anabolic steroids (AAS) such as Trenbolone, testosterone, nandrolone or other non-AAS steroids with anti-catabolic effects such as progesterone and DHEA. At the doses used in the study, vitamin D is probably less risky than the AAS and on par with progesterone/DHEA. Vitamin D treatment also lowered NO levels as well as NF-kB expression, which cortisol had upregulated. Finally, the authors cite evidence that vitamin D is capable of protecting the liver from a wide-range of hepatotoxicants (including cortisol), which strongly corroborates Dr. Peat’s consistent recommendations to raise vitamin D levels in cases of suspected or proven liver disease / injury. Oh, one last thing – vitamin D is known to synergize with other steroids, especially progesterone/DHEA, and the riskier AAS. In fact, a Dutch company obtained a patent for administering the AAS nandrolone together with vitamin D, link here as a way of reducing the the side effects of nandrolone while increasing its anti-catabolic / anabolic effects.

2 links here

“…However, chronic glucocorticoid (GC) treatment can increase, via genomic and/or nongenomic mechanisms, the risk of serious side effects, in particular osteoporosis, muscle atrophy, adrenocortical insufficiency, hypertension, insulin resistance and impaired glucose tolerance (Ericson-Neilsen and Kaye 2014). Furthermore, GCs were also shown to have extensive adverse effects on hepatic function in several clinical studies. It has been reported recently that the levels of marker liver enzymes were significantly upregulated in blood serum of patients after receiving high doses of methylprednisolone for the treatment of demyelinating disease that is typical of acute hepatitis (Loraschi et al. 2010). Liver damage, due to the development of cholestasis and biliary disease, was also found to be the consequence of GC therapy in persons with abnormal hepatocellular function (Lu et al. 2012).”

“…Despite emerging evidence of deleterious side effects on the liver induced by long-term application of synthetic GCs, the precise mechanisms are still poorly understood…We hypothesized that simultaneous increase in NO and ROS levels could cause peroxynitrite synthesis and nitrosative protein modifications leading to hepatocellular damage.”

“…Accumulating evidence also suggests that vitamin D3 has the ability to correct complications caused by acute or chronic administration of hepatotoxicants, including prednisolone (De Mattia et al. 2013; Han et al. 2013). However, no reliable information is available regarding the vitamin D3 activity against NO-mediated liver damage associated with prednisolone treatment. ”

“…In the present investigation we further confirmed the importance of sufficient vitamin D3 availability in maintaining proper function of hepatic cells in normal and diseased conditions. It has been demonstrated that prednisolone-induced oxidative/nitrosative stress and liver injury may be related to established inadequate circulating level of 25OHD3, because prohormone repletion after vitamin D3 treatment resulted in partial or complete normalization of the most detrimental alterations associated with GC hepatotoxicity. Interestingly, vitamin D3 deficiency was shown to be correlated with the elevation of 3-nitrotyrosine that was attributable to extensive nitrosative stress in different tissues (Codoñer-Franch et al. 2012; Keeney et al. 2013).”

“…We can assume that vitamin D3 efficacy to counter the negative consequences of GC action in the liver is probably related to the ability of cholecalciferol to compete with prednisolone, structurally similar steroid, for binding to the consensus sequence in the promoters of target genes. Notably, vitamin D3 has been reported to reduce NF-κB nuclear translocation by upregulating IκB-α levels via increasing mRNA stability and decreasing IκB-α phosphorylation (Cohen-Lahav et al. 2006). Our results also show that downregulation of NF-κB/ iNOS/NO pathway in liver tissue of the animals treated with vitamin D3 may be associated with increased inhibitory control of IκB-α. In conclusion, the relevance of our study is to provide further knowledge about the mechanisms that account for the GC-induced liver complications. They are associated with the activation of hepatic NF-κB/iNOS/NO pathway and vitamin D3 deficiency. Augmentation of cholecalciferol metabolism was shown to be an effective therapeutic tool for weakening hepatotoxic effects of GCs. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1292.mp3" length="1915100" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:20</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA is catabolic, SFA is anti-catabolic (anabolic)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1287</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1287</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Nov 2020 19:58:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1287

During the early days of anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) science, it quickly became apparent that the ability of AAS to preserve and/or increase muscle mass was related to their ability to reduce/block the expression of amino acid catabolic enzymes such as tyrosine aminotransferase (TAT), link here. TAT is induced almost exclusively by glucocorticoids and is used clinically as a highly sensitive biomarker of cortisol levels/exposure. This immediately suggests that most of the “anabolic” effects of AAS are in fact “anticatabolic (anti-cortisol) effects, as I described in details in a post from a few years ago. On a bit of a tangent – unbeknownst to most people, the well-known “liver” enzymes ALT, AST, and GGT are also amino acid transferases that are also highly sensitive to cortisol levels/exposure. Some people may counter by saying that elevated blood levels are not the same as increased expression/activity in tissues, and that is technically correct. However, multiple studies have demonstrated very strong correlation between blood levels of those enzymes (due to leakage from tissues expressing those enzymes) and actual tissue expression/activity levels. So, a blood test showing elevated “liver” enzymes is in fact a good surrogate measure for tissue expression/activity of those enzymes and as such the test results may mean not just exposure to something hepatotoxic (e.g. alcohol) but also severe stress such as strenuous exercise (e.g. running a few miles 2-3 times a week can easily do it). There is an epidemic of elevated liver enzymes in Western populations even in people who never drink alcohol, take drugs or are exposed to other hepatotoxins. The doctors are at a loss as to what could be causing these abnormal blood tests, when in reality the explanation may be quite simple – stress/cortisol. Here are just a few studies demonstrating robust induction of liver enzyme expression/activity (and blood levels) by stress.

4 links here

Anyways, back to the old studied on steroids. In those studies, the most potent steroids demonstrated almost complete inhibition of the TAT enzyme and, in fact, inhibition of TAT has been proposed as an alternative metric of “anabolism” in addition to the well-known measurement of the levator ani muscle since it provides a much easier method for measuring the anabolic effects of steroids and comparing them to each other. The TAT metric quickly demonstrates why a steroid such as Trenbolone is much more potent than say testosterone, despite their relatively similar effects on levator ani hypertrophy at similar doses. Trenbolone is capable of almost 100% inhibition of TAT at doses at which testosterone does not even register an effect. An even more interesting finding of those early studies was that estrogen was potently catabolic and could increase TAT expression almost as much as glucocorticoids.

3 links here

“…Tyrosine aminotransferase activities, however, were very much increased by ethynyl oestradiol treatment (P < 0.00 I) and were depressed after trienbolone acetate (P < 0.1). F or all animals tyrosine aminotransferase activity was inversely correlated with both growth rate (P <0.001, r = 0.807) and feed intake (P < 0.05, r = 0.445).”

In those early studies, progesterone (and to a lesser degree DHEA) was also shown to almost fully block TAT induction by cortisol, but unlike Trenbolone it also raises the metabolic rate and if the animals do not get extra food they do not gain muscle. That’s what led to progesterone being labelled as either “ineffective” or even a “catabolic” steroid when in fact if the caloric/protein intake is increased to match the metabolic rate progesterone may be as “anticataboilc” as Trenbolone. That “anticatabolic” effect of chemicals capable of inhibiting TAT expression has been confirmed in multiple studies across multiple species, and across several decades. The study below demonstrates that saturated fat (SFA) is one such anti-catabolic substance due to their TAT inhibition properties, while PUFA are actually catabolic. Even though the study used coconut oil, other studies have demonstrated that the longer the chain of the fatty acid the stronger its TAT inhibition effects. As such, the very long chain saturated alcohols known as policosanol, link here may be particular effective as anti-catabolic substances, which may explain the variety of beneficial effects seen with them in studies involving frailty/sarcopenia/stress. The study also refers to evidence that PUFA enhances the lipolytic effects of adipose tissue to norepinephrine while SFA completely blocks it, which corroborates the anti-diabetic effects of SFA and the pro-diabetic effects of PUFA discussed multiple times on this blog. As far as a mechanism of action for the fatty acids – the study proposes three of them. I personally think the last one is the most plausible – i.e. the effects of various fats on cell permeability. Cortisol (being much more hydrophilic and similar to PUFA in nature as opposed to other steroids such as progesterone, pregnenolone or androgens) is largely prevented from entering the cell when the cell has been exposed to a sufficient quantity of the highly hydrophobic SFA and, conversely, its entry/uptake into the cell is enhanced when the cells contains a large quantity of PUFA. If that last explanation turns out to be true then SFA would also be protective against excessive exposure to estrogens, aldosterone, prolactin and serotonin while PUFA will promote their effects. As in the case with TAT inhibition, there are multiple studies that have found exactly such diverging effects of SFA and PUFA on those hormones/neurotransmitters as well.

2 links here

“…It has been established that alterations in the quality of fatty acids in the diet of experimental animals can alter a variety of cellular functions and hormonal responsiveness. Among the first demonstrations of this phenomenon was the work of Awad and Zepp (i) in which it was shown that the responsiveness of adipose tissue from rats fed a coconut oil-rich diet (high in saturated fatty acids) to the lipolytic activity of norepinephrine was abolished while adipose tissue from rats fed a safflower oil-enrlched diet (high in polyunsaturated fatty acids) was responsive to norepinephrine in a doserelated manner.”

“…It is clear that, in two separate experiments (Table 2), cortisol was more effective at inducing tyrosine aminotransferase activity in livers from rats fed Diet 1 (safflower oil-enriched) than in rats fed a diet rich in coconut oil (Diet 2) (+0.58 vs +0.35 ~moles/min/mg protein, respectively, in exp 1 and +1.08 vs +0.64, respectively, in exp 2). Cortisol exhibited an intermediate ability to induce the activity of this enzyme in the livers from rats fed Diet 3 (corn oil-enriched). In both experiments, cortisol produced a 66% and a 69% greater stimulation, respectively, of liver enzyme activity in rats fed Diet i when compared to the increase in activity produced in livers from rats fed Diet 2. Similarly, in rats fed Diet i, the cortisol-induced increase in enzyme activity was 45% (exp i) and 23% (exp 2) greater than that which was produced by cortisol in livers from rats fed Diet 3. The greater degree of enzyme induction produced by cortisol in the rats fed all three diets in exp 2 relative to that which occurred in exp 1 is mainly reflected in the higher basal levels of enzyme activity found in exp. i. This is most likely due to the fact that the animals in exp 2 were kept in a more sequestered environment during the feeding period, hence were less subject to chronic stress and the elevated adrenal cortical activity which would accompany such stress (6).”

“…The results in the present paper do not address potential mechanisms for this altered ability of cortisol to induce the activity of tyrosine aminotransferase in livers from rats fed diets differing in their fatty acid compositions. Several potential mechanisms could contribute to this phenomenon. Yannarell and Awad (2) have shown that mRNA transport is reduced from nuclei isolated from rats fed diets high in saturated fatty acids (as coconut oil). It is currently thought that steroid hormones of all classes exert their actions through combining with a cytoplasmic receptor protein forming a steroid- receptor complex which migrates or translocates into the nucleus and stimulates production of new mRNA (9). The mRNA must then be transported to the cytoplasm where it functions in protein synthesis. The induction of hepatic tyrosine aminotransferase by cortisol involves hormone stimulation of enzyme synthesis (3). Therefore, any process which inhibits the transport of mRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm could result in reduction in the ability of cortisol to stimulate enzyme synthesis. A second possibility might also stem from the alteration of mRNA transport observed by Yannarell and Awad (2) in livers from rats fed the different diets. It is conceivable that the decrease in hepatic mRNA transport observed in rats fed diets high in coconut oil could lead to a decrease in the levels of cytosolic cortisol receptor protein available for hormone binding. The result of such a decrease would be a decrease in active steroid-receptor complex for translocation to the nucleus. In such a situation, the ability of cortisol to stimulate the induction of tyrosine aminotransferase would be impaired. A third possible explanation could lie with alterations in the lipid matrix of both the plasma membrane and/or the nuclear envelope resulting in changes in membrane fluidity. It has been established that altering dietary fatty acid composition can alter plasma membrane fluidity in a variety of tissues (10-12). It is possible that alterations in membrane fluidity resulting from dietary fatty acid manipulation could affect the ability of cortisol to diffuse across the plasma membrane into the cytosol, the ability of the steroid-receptor complex to translocate to the nucleus and/or the transport of mRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. Studies are currently underway to investigate these various potential mechanisms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1287.mp3" length="2518700" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low energy production (glucose metabolism) may cause andropause</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1285</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1285</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Nov 2020 19:05:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1285

As many of my readers know, aging men can also experience the equivalent of menopause and doctors informally call that state “andropause”. Its official name is age-related hypogonadism and most of that hypogonadism is of the “secondary” type – i.e. the gonads appears to be in fine shape but for some “unknown” reason they do not produce as much steroids in a 50-year old male as they do in a 20-year old one. The most common treatments of andropause are either TRT or administration of a SERM (partial anti-estrogen) such as clomiphene, tamoxifen, etc. TRT is now known to have many side effects, likely due to the aromatization and that is corroborated by the findings that the SERM drugs usually work well for correcting the hypogonadism. However, being synthetic estrogens, they themselves have partial/selective estrogenic effects (especially in the brain) that limit their clinical use. The fact that estrogen is likely involved in andropause should have led medicine to consider the role of macronutrient metabolism in this condition, since estrogen is known to powerfully increase fatty acid oxidation (FAO) with the consequent reduction in glucose metabolism. Conversely, anti-estrogenic and/or androgenic chemicals suppress FAO and increase glucose metabolism. Unfortunately, none of that rather obvious “connecting the dots” exercise has been done and, in fact, medicine refuses to recognize even the role of estrogen in andropause by claiming that SERM drugs works precisely because they are partially estrogenic. Well, the study below is one of the few that points the finger directly at reduced energy production as a cause of andropause, and specifically reduced glucose transport (e.g. reduced GLUT expression) and metabolism in the gonads. Again, estrogen is well-known to cause both of these effects, mostly through its promotion of FAO, and there are multiple studies demonstrating estrogen levels increase with aging in males (and females for that matter, if the proper biomarkers are analyzed). A bit on the positive side, the findings of the study below also suggest that, aside from blocking estrogen or its synthesis, something as simple as aspirin, niacinamide, vitamin E, etc may be enough to put the brakes on andropause even in very old males by lowering FAO and improving glucose metabolism. The studies should also server as a bit of a warning for people following a low-carb diet, as well as various fasting protocols, as apparently the male gonads cannot produce testosterone without a steady supply of glucose!

2 links here

“…To achieve normal reproductive function adequate amount of energy is required (Rato et al., 2012). Energy metabolism and metabolic regulators play pivotal roles in controlling longevity and cellular senescence. Since natural senescence or aging is associated with reduced energy production, it is thus important to find out whether energy production declines in the testis during aging. Glucose and its metabolite, lactate, are vital to most mammalian cells including testicular cells, and the passage of glucose across cell membranes is facilitated by a family of integral transport proteins, the glucose transporters (GLUT) (Simpson et al., 2008).”

“…The serum and testicular concentration of glucose varied significantly (P<0.05) during different stages of ageing in mice (Fig. 1 A and B). The serum glucose concentration showed a peak during the period of weaning (day 29) and significantly (#P<0.05) declined in senescent (65 weeks) mice from other groups. The testicular glucose level showed a peak during reproductively active state and declined during senescence.”

“…The serum and testicular concentration of glucose varied significantly (P<0.05) during different stages of ageing in mice (Fig. 1 A and B). The serum glucose concentration showed a peak during the period of weaning (day 29) and significantly (#P<0.05) declined in senescent (65 weeks) mice from other groups. The testicular glucose level showed a peak during reproductively active state and declined during senescence.”

“…The aim of the present study was to evaluate the hypothesis whether the decrease steroidogenesis or hypoandrogenism occurs due to decreased transport of glucose to the testis during aging in mice. The results obtained in this study confirmed the earlier findings in rat that various steroidogenic parameters, such as the testicular mass, histology, and expression of StAR, and serum testosterone level, decline during aging (Ottinger, ’98; Zirkin and Chen, 2000). The result further showed the significant decline in GLUT 8 expression and glucose level in the testis during aging. A significant correlation was observed between changes in expressionof GLUT 8 and glucose level in the testis with the circulating testosterone level and expression of StAR in the testis during aging (Table 1a). These observations thus suggest that reduced availability of glucose may be responsible for decreased testosterone synthesis or hypoandrogenism in the testis of mice during aging. The result further showed a gradual increase in testicular glucose concentration along with an increase in testicular mass from birth to reproductively active stage (15 weeks). Testicular glucose concentration declined markedly in senescent (65 weeks) mice as compared with the reproductively active (15 weeks) mice. The glucose concentration in the testis was significantly higher during the period of puberty (Day 42) and in reproductively active (15 weeks) mice as compared to other stages of aging. Significantly higher glucose concentration during puberty coincides with the number of physiological changes occurred in the testis during this period such as differentiation of Sertoli cells leading to active spermatogenesis (Rey et al., 2009). Thus, the study suggests that increased glucose transport to the testis may be responsible for increase in serum testosterone level and increased testicular expression of StAR protein at puberty in mice.”

“…This study further showed that LH through cAMP signaling increases expression of PEPK in the Leydig cells, and correlated with increased testosterone production. This observation suggests direct involvement of glucose in upregulating Leydig cell steroidogenesis.”

“…The intra‐testicular treatment with 2‐DG, an inhibitor of facilitated transporter of glucose, resulted in decreased testicular 3b‐HSD activity in comparison to the control testis. How 2‐DG inhibits the steroidogenic enzyme activity is not known. Based on earlier studies it is likely that the decreased enzyme activity following 2‐DG treatment could be due to decreased glucose availability in the testis. Earlier study has shown that glucose availability modulates the level of mitochondrial enzyme NADPH (Mailloux and Harper, 2010). This study thus further supports the earlier finding that Leydig cells cannot produce testosterone in the absence of glucose (Rommerts et al., ’73; Amrolia et al., ’88).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1285.mp3" length="1231940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The tetracyclines protect against sepsis independently of their antibiotics effects</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1281</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1281</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2020 18:23:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1281

A remarkable study, which demonstrates that not all antibiotics have been created equal. Namely, the tetracycline family of antibiotics is strikingly protective against lethality from sepsis, and that protection is completely separate from their antibiotics effects. For example, the study demonstrated that pre-treatment with a puny single dose of doxycycline in a HED of 0.25 mg/kg (intraperitoneal route, so orally one would need ~0.4 mg/kg to achieve the same effects) resulted in 80%+ survival of the mice inoculated with sepsis-causing bacteria while 100% of the non-treated mice died within a week of sepsis development. Furthermore, treatment with doxycycline increased survival and accelerated lung recovery in animals infected with an influenza virus, which conclusively proves that the protective effects are not due to antibiotic effects of the chemical as viruses are “immune” to antibiotic treatments. Doxycycline worked both when given a few hours before sepsis took hold and also when given for 3 consecutive days post-infection.

link here

Portugal: Researchers discover group of antibiotics which can protect against sepsis, link here

“…A team of Portuguese researchers has discovered that a certain group of antibiotics also provides protection against sepsis, in addition to helping in the direct control of the infection, by raising the possibility of their use as adjuvant treatments. In a study published Wednesday in the medical journal ‘Immunity’, the researchers concluded that tetracyclines (broad spectrum antibiotics) partially inhibit the activity of cell mitochondria and, in doing so, induce a compensatory response by the body that decreases tissue damage during an infection, such as sepsis, which results from a generalised infection and is characterised by triggering a deregulated immune response, which causes about 11 million deaths per year worldwide and for which there is no specific treatment.”

“…In their observations, the researchers found that doxycycline, an antibiotic of the tetracycline family, gives an increase in the survival capacity of sepsis in mice, regardless of its effects on the bacterial load. According to Henrique Colaço, the other author of the study, these benefits extend to the lungs, with a decrease in cell damage and the activation of tissue repair mechanisms. “In addition, in the liver there is activation of stress response and metabolic changes that foster tissue protection”.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1281.mp3" length="837788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Cure for Aging Might be the Cure for Alzheimer’s</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1279</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1279</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2020 18:03:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1279

Almost 25 years ago, Dr. Peat himself wrote a 2-article series in which he outlined arguments in favor of the hypothesis that aging and Alzheimer Disease (AD) are just examples of a more and less systemic sign respectively of declining energy production, and that curing one would lead to a cure of the other.

2 links here

Now, after decades of 99.6% failure, link here to make even a dent in the formidable wall that AD is, the article below outlines the exact same arguments presented in Dr. Peat’s articles. It’s almost as if somebody read his articles and decided to use the ideas there to craft an apologetic essay about medicine’s abysmal failure and feebly suggest a “different” (but does not dare call it better) course of future work in curing chronic diseases such as AD, cancer, CVD, etc. Well, I guess better later than never but the troubling part is that even though medicine seems to be realizing the futility of the current highly-specialized approach, the systemic approach to diseases/aging mentioned in the article still seems to be based on the same discredited ideas – i.e. deleting “bad genes” as a “promising” approach to addressing the systemic nature of all chronic diseases. Not a single mention of that other thing that is common among ALL diseases and aging – low metabolism. Let’s just hope that the utter failure of techniques like CRISPR to produce anything of note so far will be a strong deterrent to base the next 50 years of medical developments on the same obsolete ideas that dominated the world of medicine for the last century.

The Cure for Aging Might be the Cure for Alzheimer’s, link here

“…There’s been a lot of talk lately about possibilities for treating aging—from blood transfusions from old mice to young, to eradicating “zombie” cells, to taking daily rapamycin and metformin pills to extend your healthspan. Some of it sounds like science fiction; some of it is. But what is very real is what is underlying all the talk: the creation of a very substantial new field of science, and a new area of biology, focused on the aging process. Aging doesn’t kill people—diseases kill people. Right? In today’s world, and in a country like the United States, most people die of diseases such as heart attack and stroke, cancer, and Alzheimer’s. These diseases tend to be complex, challenging, difficult, and extremely ugly to experience. And they are by nature chronic, caused by multifactorial triggers and predispositions and lifestyle choices. What we are only now beginning to understand is that the diseases that ultimately kill us are inseparable from the aging process itself. Aging is the root cause. This means that studying these diseases without taking aging into account could be dangerously misleading… and worst of all, impede real progress.”

“…The biggest risk factor for Alzheimer’s isn’t your APOE status; it’s your age. People in their twenties don’t get Alzheimer’s. But after you hit the age of 65, your risk of Alzheimer’s doubles every five years, with your risk reaching nearly one out of three by the time you’re 85.  What if going after this one biggest risk factor is the best vector of attack? Maybe even the only way to truly address it? This isn’t about the vanity of staying younger, about holding on to your good looks or your ability to run an 8 minute mile. It’s about the only concrete possibility we have to cure these diseases. Instead of choosing targets for a single specific disease, i.e. a specific condition that arises in conjunction with aging, we can get out in front of disease by choosing targets that promote health. And we can identify these by looking at disease through the lens of the biology of aging. Take the example of senescent cells. These “zombie” cells that accumulate with aging were long postulated to be actively toxic. In 2016 scientists discovered that simply deleting these cells in middle-aged mice could dramatically increase lifespan and delay the onset of age-related disease. While the first clinical skirmish against this toxic cell type was not successful (for a particular target, and a particular indication, osteoarthritis), today there is a whole new crop of biotech companies actively targeting this cell population with different small molecules addressing multiple different biological pathways, and planning human clinical trials in a broad range of different indications: Alzheimer’s, COPD, macular degeneration, frailty… the list goes on. The one common risk factor underlying all these different diseases? Aging.”

“…Even with our best efforts, best technologies, and best science for each of these major diseases, curing age related diseases one at a time is ultimately low impact. Let’s say we completely cured cancer; that would add a paltry 4yrs to average lifespan, link here, because another major killer like stroke would be just around the corner. Only by targeting aging itself can we make significant impact on improving quality of life and healthspan. Understanding how we age is a way into a new era of medicine, into identifying new targets for diseases we’ve never truly understood (let alone known how to treat). The cure for aging just might be the cure for disease.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1279.mp3" length="777068" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low, not high, metabolism creates oxidative stress</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1277</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1277</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:44:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1277

A hugely popular tenet of the “rate of living” theory is that the higher the metabolic rate the more reactive oxygen species (ROS) an organism produces. ROS elevation has already been implicated in a host of chronic disease including diabetes, CVD, cancer, neurological conditions and even mental health disorders. However, the explanation of higher ROS simply due to elevated metabolic rate just does not make much “structural” sense. Namely, in order to generate the superoxide radical the organism needs molecular oxygen and an excess of unpaired electrons. Similar requirements apply to the hydroxyl radicals as well. This suggests that a buildup of unpaired electrons drives ROS generation and such a buildup is usually driven by inability of electrons to freely flow from food to the “terminal electron acceptor” – oxygen. Blockade of electron flow in the step of glycolysis rarely occurs after birth and if it does it is universally lethal as no organism can survive without glycolysis working well. So, the remaining steps where such build up of electrons can occur are the pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) entry step into the Krebs cycle, the Krebs cycle itself, or electron transport chain (ETC). The PDH complex already has an efficient mechanism for “disposal” of excess electrons. Namely, using pyruvate as electron acceptor and generating lactate in the process. The Krebs cycle also has an efficient “disposal” mechanism – i.e. de-novo synthesis of fats from citrate through the activity of the enzyme fatty acid synthase (FAS). The emergency “disposal” mechanisms in both PDH and Krebs cycle are well-known to be upregulated in ALL chronic diseases but especially in diabetes and cancer. So, we know that those mechanisms are suboptimal but at least they exist and as such ROS generation at the PDH or Krebs cycle steps is highly unlikely. However, there does not seem to be such disposal mechanism in the final step of OXPHOS – i.e. the ETC. A buildup of electrons there has no resolution mechanism and eventually those electrons start to “leak” through the mitochondrial membrane, combine with oxygen and wreak havoc by generating ROS. While the main danger of ROS is lipid peroxidation for all cellular structure having lipids (PUFA) as a component, the also have the ability to structurally damage the ETC itself. This forms a vicious circle and can cause the development of virtually any chronic disease. Apparently, Otto Warburg was right when he said that anything that interferes with the proper usage of oxygen (which is another way of saying anything that promotes buildup of electrons) WILL cause disease, but tends to especially favor cancer. Using slightly different wording, in the context of this post, it is low oxidative metabolism (OXPHOS), not high, that causes ROS generation. In other words, it is low OXPHOS that causes aging, not high. As it happens so often in mainstream science, the official story presented to us is once again at 180 degree angle with the actual truth. As it turns out, the term “oxidative stress” doctors throw at us every chance they get is in fact “reductive stress” (lack of oxygen, excess of electrons). So, the solution is MORE oxidation, not LESS.

Below is a study that discusses the process of ROS generation and how low OXPHOS (through ETC inhibition) drives this process. The study also provides a rationale for why fatty acid oxidation (FAO) is not a beneficial process in excess. Namely, FAO generates primarily FADH (processed mainly by Complex II of ETC), and ROS generation is most highly correlated with the levels of this electron donor. So, the more fat you oxidize the more ROS you will generate, especially if your metabolic rate is low. Using the so-called “antioxidants” may prevent some of the damage of ROS buildup but ultimately only serves to mask the underlying pathology – i.e. a deficiency of electron acceptors (oxidizing agents) to pair with those excess electrons. As such, with the notable exception of vitamin E, most so-called anti-oxidants are merely the metabolic equivalents of mainstream medicine’s favorite activity over the last 100 years – i.e. “managing symptoms”. An actual treatment in this case would be an electron acceptor. Ironically, such a substance is also known as an “oxidizing agent”, which doctors cannot stop telling us just how “dangerous” a substance it is. Ideally, that electron acceptor would be oxygen but if its usage is not possible due to a deficiency in CO2 (which is required for proper oxygen delivery to tissues, link here) and/or inhibition of ETC pathway(s), then other electron acceptors such as methylene blue (the closest in terms of “electron promiscuity” to oxygen), emodin, vitamin K, tetracycline antibiotics, etc. would be the next best intervention.

link here

“…The mammalian mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) includes complexes I‑IV, as well as the electron transporters ubiquinone and cytochrome c. There are two electron transport pathways in the ETC: Complex I/III/IV, with NADH as the substrate and complex II/III/IV, with succinic acid as the substrate. The electron flow is coupled with the generation of a proton gradient across the inner membrane and the energy accumulated in the proton gradient is used by complex V (ATP synthase) to produce ATP. The first part of this review briefly introduces the structure and function of complexes I‑IV and ATP synthase, including the specific electron transfer process in each complex. Some electrons are directly transferred to O2 to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the ETC. The second part of this review discusses the sites of ROS generation in each ETC complex, including sites IF and IQ in complex I, site IIF in complex II and site IIIQo in complex III, and the physiological and pathological regulation of ROS. As signaling molecules, ROS play an important role in cell proliferation, hypoxia adaptation and cell fate determination, but excessive ROS can cause irreversible cell damage and even cell death. The occurrence and development of a number of diseases are closely related to ROS overproduction. Finally, proton leak and uncoupling proteins (UCPS) are discussed. Proton leak consists of basal proton leak and induced proton leak. Induced proton leak is precisely regulated and induced by UCPs. A total of five UCPs (UCP1‑5) have been identified in mammalian cells. UCP1 mainly plays a role in the maintenance of body temperature in a cold environment through non‑shivering thermogenesis. The core role of UCP2‑5 is to reduce oxidative stress under certain conditions, therefore exerting cytoprotective effects. All diseases involving oxidative stress are associated with UCPs.”

“…Mitochondria are a main source of cellular ROS. Under physiological conditions, 0.2-2% of the electrons in the ETC do not follow the normal transfer order but instead directly leak out of the ETC and interact with oxygen to produce superoxide or hydrogen peroxide (48, link here,49, link here). A total of 11 sites that produce superoxide (O2−) and/or hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) that are associated with substrate oxidation and the ETC have currently been identified in mammalian mitochondria (50, link here). Sites OF, PF, BF and AF are in the 2-oxoacid dehydrogenase complexes, sites IF and IQ are in CI, site IIIQo is in CIII, and sites IIF, GQ, EF and DQ are linked to the Q-dependent dehydrogenases in the QH2/Q pool (50, link here). The occurrence of numerous diseases and hypoxia are closely related to the increase of ROS production. CI and CIII, especially CI, are considered to be the main sites of ROS production in mitochondria (51, link here,52, link here). ROS can be generated in the matrix at both site IF (FMN site) and site IQ (CoQ binding site) during the transfer of electrons from NADH to CoQ in CI (Fig. 1, link here). Rotenone and piericidin are site IQ inhibitors that interrupt the electron transfer to CoQ and increase ROS production at site IF. Hernansanz-Agustin et al (53, link here) found that acute hypoxia produces a superoxide burst during the first few minutes in arterial endothelial cells and CI mainly participated in this process. CII produces ROS at site IIF (Fig. 1, link here), which is associated with succinate dehydrogenase. The level of ROS produced by site IIF under normal conditions is negligible, but the increases in ROS observed in CII mutation-related diseases are mainly derived from site IIF (54, link here,55, link here). The study of isolated mitochondria from rat skeletal muscle also indicated that the maximum capacity for ROS production of site IIF is very high, exceeded only by site IIIQo and perhaps site IQ (50, link here,56, link here). The capacity of site IIF to produce ROS is closely related to the quantity of reduced flavoprotein, whose FAD is a potent site of electron leakage to generate ROS. ROS are exclusively produced in the matrix, because the flavoprotein is located on the matrix side of the inner mitochondrial membrane (56, link here). In addition, any contribution by site IIF can be dampened by the occupation of the CII flavoprotein site by dicarboxylic acids, particularly oxaloacetate, malate and succinate, which blocks the access of oxygen to site IIF, where it would form ROS (21, link here,57, link here). CIII produces small amounts of ROS, which could be overlooked compared to the ROS production of CI (52, link here). CIII transfers electrons through the Q-cycle. In this process, ubisemiquinone (QH−) of the Qo site carrying a single electron can move freely in CIII, directly leaking the single electron to O2, forming ROS through a nonenzymatic reaction (58, link here,59, link here). The formed ROS can be released into both the matrix and IMS despite the location of the Qo site on the IMS side of the inner mitochondrial membrane. Muller et al (60, link here) built two models explaining how superoxide can reach the matrix. The O2− released into the IMS can be converted to the relatively more stable form of H2O2 by superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzymes (Fig. 1, link here). This permanent and stable oxidant molecule, which freely disperses through the outer membrane of mitochondria, acts as an intracellular signaling molecule, physiologically functioning via the direct modification of amino acids (61, link here). However, supporting evidence demonstrates that O2−can permeate through the mitochondrial membrane into the cytosol through anion channels (62, link here). Treberg et al (63, link here) experiments in the mitochondria of wild-type rat skeletal muscle proved that ~63% of ROS are produced in the matrix. Antimycin A can specifically block the Qi site of CIII, resulting in the stalling of electrons on the QH– at site IIIQo, which could react with O2 to generate ROS (64, link here,65, link here). As specific inhibitors of the Qo site, stigmatellin and myxothiazol can block the binding of QH2 to the Qo site, which also blocks the transfer of electrons into CIII, thereby preventing the production of ROS in CIII (64, link here). Previously, a chemical suppressor of site IIIQo electron leak called S3QELs was screened and found to specifically suppress the ROS formation at site IIIQo without affecting electron transport or the redox states of other centers (66, link here). CIV is less prone to produce ROS when O2 is bound to Fea32+ or when O2 is negatively polarized (O2−) and expected to undergo a structural change. This structural change allows O2− to receive three electron equivalents from CuB1 +, Fea33+ and the hydroxyl group of Tyr244 (Tyr-OH) in no particular order, providing the complete reduction of O2 and minimizing the production of ROS (67, link here). It is important to note that the binu-clear center structure of CIV is crucial for the nonsequential transfer of the three electron equivalents (39, link here,67, link here).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1277.mp3" length="2438180" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lowering estrogen prevents memory decline in menopausal females</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1274</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1274</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Oct 2020 18:40:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1274

As many of my readers know, the WHI studies were highly detrimental to the profits of the estrogen industry. Every since the results of those studies came out, the estrogen industry has been trying to undermine the findings and re-introduce estrogen HRT for women with the claims that estrogen is highly beneficial if used in the “correct doses”. One of the most highly touted “benefits” of estrogen is its ability to “improve” brain function, and as such to serve as a protective factor against Alzheimer Disease (AD). However, there is no evidence for estrogen having either preventive of therapeutic role in AD. In fact, there is quite a bit of research that shows the exact opposite. The study below demonstrates that memory impairment (a warning sign in older women of impending AD) in menopausal organisms is likely driven by estrogen, and that inhibition of the estrogen-synthesizing enzyme aromatase quickly reversed those memory impairments. I think the more important takeaway from the study is that if estrogen is what drives cognitive decline in menopausal women then it is absurd (criminal?) for mainstream medicine to continue describing menopause as an estrogen-deficiency state, and, worse, to attempt reintroducing estrogen HRT as “treatment” for cognitive decline and/or AD in aged women. Another important takeaway from the study is that aromatization of androgens has been shown to also impair memory in pre-menopausal female organisms. IMO, this makes the case against clinical use of estrogen even more solid.

2 links here

“…Androstenedione, the main circulating ovarian hormone present after menopause, has been shown to positively correlate with poor spatial memory in an ovary-intact rodent model of follicular depletion, and to impair spatial memory when administered exogenously to surgically menopausal ovariectomized rats. Androstenedione can be converted directly to estrone via the aromatase enzyme, or to testosterone. The current study investigated the hormonal mechanism underlying androstenedione-induced cognitive impairments. Young adult ovariectomized rats were given either androstenedione, androstenedione plus the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole to block conversion to estrone, androstenedione+the androgen receptor blocker flutamide to block androgen receptor activity, or vehicle treatment, and were then administered a battery of learning and memory maze tasks. Since we have previously shown that estrone administration to ovariectomized rats impaired cognition, we hypothesized that androstenedione’s conversion to estrone underlies, in part, its negative cognitive impact. Here, androstenedione administration impaired spatial reference and working memory. Further, androstenedione did not induce memory deficits when co-administered with the aromatase inhibitor, anastrozole, whereas pharmacological blockade of the androgen receptor failed to block the cognitive impairing effects of androstenedione. Anastrazole alone did not impact performance on any cognitive measure. The current data support the tenet that androstenedione impairs memory through its conversion to estrone, rather than via actions on the androgen receptor. Studying the effects of aromatase and estrogen metabolism is critical to elucidating how hormones impact women’s health across the lifespan, and results hold important implications for understanding and optimizing the hormone milieu from the many endogenous and exogenous hormone exposures across the lifetime.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1274.mp3" length="743348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen can both cause and exacerbate Lupus</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1271</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1271</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Oct 2020 18:18:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1271

A quick post as a response to a recent argument I had over email with an endocrinologist who follows me on Twitter. His claim was that the causes of Lupus are currently unknown but are likely “multifactorial” and me ascribing such causes to “isolated peculiarities” such as endotoxin (LPS) or estrogen is unwarranted. The fact that the incidence ratio of Lupus among females is close to 10:1 compared to males seems to not bother the reknowned endo the slightest bit, and he ascribes it to “genetic differences between the sexes” while also claiming the widespread use of estrogenic contraceptives among females in developed countries is “likely immaterial” to this pathology. Well, here are some studies below demonstrating estrogen administration can both cause Lupus in completely healthy organisms, and/or exacerbate its course (if the disease is already established).

4 links here

“…One possible mediator of sex differences in the prevalence and outcomes of SLE is sex steroid hormones, such as estrogens [254–263]. Administration of exogenous estrogens can induce a lupus-like syndrome in otherwise healthy mice [258] and exacerbate symptoms in MRL/lpr mice, in which estrogens globally increase IgM levels [264] autoantibody titers [156], glomerulonephritis, lymphoproliferation, mortality [257], and cytokine levels [265]. Conversely, treatment with the estrogen receptor antagonist, tamoxifen, reduces proteinuria, serum tiers of anti-dsDNA autoantibodies and increases survival [266]. Estrogens also differentially affect B and T cell-mediated immune responses in MRL/lpr mice [255, 256]. Immune complex-mediated glomerulonephritis is significantly accelerated by estrogens whereas T cell-mediated lesions, such as renal vasculitis and periarticular inflammation, are reduced in MRL/lpr mice after estrogen treatment [255, 256]. Estrogens can also modulate blood-brain barrier permeability [267, 268] and increase cytokine levels in patients with SLE [259, 262, 269, 270]. Moreover, the myriad effects of estrogen on neuroprotection are being increasingly recognized [271–273]. While space constraints prevent going into further details about the role of sex hormones in maintaining the integrity of the blood-brain barrier and providing neuroprotection, the interested reader can find additional details in some recent comprehensive reviews [267, 271, 272, 274, 275]. These sex and hormone differences may have clinical implications for treatment of SLE, as cyclophosphamide prevents pulmonary disease in male but not female MRL/lpr mice [276]. Similarly, sex differences in the efficacy of treatment in autoimmune disorders is not uncommon [277]. Furthermore, there are notable sex differences in both humans and in animal models in the susceptibility of depression, responses to antidepressant treatments, and in underlying hormonal, immune, and neurochemical alterations in affective disorders [278, 279].”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1271.mp3" length="479180" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin has dramatically lower bleeding risk than pharma anticoagulants</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1268</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1268</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Oct 2020 18:04:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1268

Just a quick post that adds to the mountain of evidence contradicting the fearmongering about aspirin we hear on a daily basis from every doctor who manages to get some TV time. It has been known for a while that aspirin lowers bleeding risk in brain and GI tract, despite being an anti-coagulant drug itself. Big Pharma agents did everything possible to convince the public (without evidence) that patented poisons like Xarelto are somehow safer. Yet, every human trial that compared aspirin to a pharma anticoagulant drug found otherwise, including the study below. Maybe this is why there are so few such direct comparison trials…to avoid exposing the ugly truth about the anti-coagulant industry.

link here

“…In POPULAR TAVI, 690 patients were randomly assigned to aspirin alone or aspirin plus clopidogrel for 3 months after TAVR. The study’s findings are provocative and challenge common practice of DAPT prescription after TAVR. They show that for patients without another reason for DAPT or anticoagulation, aspirin alone is associated with fewer bleeding events than DAPT. The difference was rather dramatic, as aspirin was associated with a nearly threefold reduction in Valve Academic Research Consortium (VARC) major bleeding at 12 months compared with DAPT (2.4% vs 7.5%). Among patients who received aspirin and clopidogrel, 26.6% experienced the primary outcome of all bleeding at 1 year compared with 15.1% of the aspirin-alone group (RR = 0.57; 95% CI, 0.42-0.77). Similarly, nonprocedural bleeding occurred in 24.9% of patients assigned to aspirin plus clopidogrel vs. 15.1% of patients assigned to aspirin alone (RR = 0.61; 95% CI, 0.44-0.83). Interestingly, in the study there did not seem to be a significant cost of using aspirin alone, as there was no difference in ischemic events including stroke, MI, or valve thrombosis, and aortic valve function was no different in the aspirin alone or DAPT groups out to 12 months. I do feel that POPULAR TAVI will make a meaningful clinical impact. This study answers an important clinical question and is very relevant to clinical practice. I expect the results will persuade most clinicians to adopt an aspirin-only strategy after TAVR, as now there are data to support this.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1268.mp3" length="357164" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dietary PUFA in childhood causes diabetes and irreversible (male) infertility</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1265</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1265</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Oct 2020 17:41:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1265

A great study, which corroborates the discussion in another recent post of mine on PUFA’s role in infertility, link here and insulin-resistance / diabetes, link here. However, the study below found that the infertility caused by dietary PUFA exposure were NOT reversible upon discontinuation of the high-fat (both PUFA and MUFA) diet, while previous studies found that the infertility was reversible, link here. I think the reason for the discrepancy was that previous studies targeted specifically PUFA reduction in the diet to restore fertility, while the current study simply lowered the amount of fat in diet, but there was still a sufficient amount of PUFA left in the diet to prevent restoration of fertility. On a bit of conspiracy tangent – when I first saw the popular press article (10/23/2020) it clearly stated that the infertility issues were characterized/caused by accumulation of PUFA in testes. However, as of today (10/26/2020) the references to the infertility-causing effects of PUFA have all been removed from the press article and can only be found in the actual study, which, of course, most members of the general public will not read. This level of manipulation and (mis)reporting on the findings of a scientific study should be criminalized!

Since we can no longer rely on the popular press to report the truth, I extracted the relevant quotes from the study itself so that it becomes clear that the message of the study authors themselves is that it was the high PUFA in the diet that was detrimental for both insulin sensitivity and fertility. Saturated fat (SFA) was found to have a positive effect on fertility and was found to accumulate ONLY in the gonads of fertile animals. Interestingly, MUFA were also found to accumulate in the gonads of infertile animals, likely because the gonads of the high-fat diet animals were able to synthesize PUFA from MUFA through overexpression of de-saturase enzymes. Finally, event though the goal of this study was to test the long-term fertility effects of a high-PUFA diet fed in childhood, there is nothing in the study that prevents the same outcome in adult fed a high-PUFA diet. Also, there is no reason why the findings of this study apply to males only. High-fat (PUFA) diet causes PUFA accumulation just as easily in ovaries as it does in testes. IMO, the epidemic of infertility among Millenials is a corroboration of that hypothesis. The majority of that generation was almost entirely formula-fed and baby formula has a PUFA composition that is even worse than the high-fat diet in this experiment.

link here

“…After grouping FAs by degree of unsaturation and the position of the double bonds (Table S5 and Figure 4), we observed  that the most abundant FA family in the testis of CTRL and HFDt groups are the saturated fatty acids (SFAs) (55.79% and 41.83%, respectively), while polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are the most abundant in the testis of mice from the HFD group (44.21%). HFD and HFDt mice had also increased testicular relative abundance of monosaturated fatty acids (MUFAs)  (26% and 21%, respectively), with increased accumulation of oleic acid (C18:1n-9). Moreover, Table S5 also shows indirect measures for the anti-inflammatory/pro-inflammatory potential via lipid mediators (C22:6n-3/C20:4n-6 ratio), the combined  activity of Δ5- and Δ6-desaturases (D5D and D6D) (C20:4n-6/C18:2n-6 ratio), and the activity of Δ4-desaturases (D4D) (C22:5n-6/C20:4n-6 ratio).”

“…In our previous work (12), we also reported reduced sperm quality which was associated with fat deposition. Moreover,  there is a decrease in the activity of antioxidant enzymes (Cat and GSR) in the testes of life-long HFD fed mice. Therefore, it is possible that extra lipid intake, notably in PUFAs, is the cornerstone in testicular antioxidant balance. This hypothesis is supported by the differences in lipid fractions between groups (Figure 4), the differences in the correlations of lipid fractions against sperm parameters (Figure 6A), and the sample separation achieved by the corresponding PCA (Figure 6B).”

“…In sum, our data demonstrates that a HFD during early life akin to childhood and puberty causes an excessive accumulation of unsaturated FAs is testes. A diet intervention, replacing HFD for a balanced diet was proven effective in protecting/preventing metabolic dysfunction. However, a HFD during early life caused irreversible metabolic remodeling in testes, with long-term sperm defects. Dietary intervention in early adulthood promotes lipolysis in testes, particularly from unsaturated FAs, towards the CTRL state, but this process is apparently too slow to recover normal sperm parameters. Mechanistically, our data suggests that HFD promotes a pro-inflammatory state in testis, aggravated by a positive feedback system that favors the accumulation of n-6 PUFAs, precursors of inflammatory response signaling molecules. Our model did not allow us to verify whether testicular lipid composition and normal sperm quality could be achieved later in life…”

link here

“…A new study explores whether a high-fat diet in childhood can irreversibly damage sperm quality later in life even after a healthy diet, link here is adopted. The researchers studied young male mice; one group was given a high-fat diet after weaning, and another group was fed a high-fat diet for two months before switching to a standard diet. Both high-fat groups were compared with a control group on a standard diet. After four months on the diets, all mice were randomly placed in mating pairs with age-matched females. The research team observed reproductive success rate and the size of each litter. After an additional 10 weeks, researchers measured the males’ blood sugar, insulin and reproductive hormone levels. They also analyzed sperm for factors that included overall concentration in the testes, fat levels, link here, mitochondrial activity, viability, motility and morphology (shape). The research team found that…reducing fat in the diet helped to reverse elevated blood sugar levels. However, a high-fat diet negatively affected fat metabolism, caused an accumulation of fatty acids and reduced function of the antioxidant defense system in the testes that did not correct itself upon switching to a standard diet. These changes can lead to inflammation and metabolic changes that correspond with long-term sperm defects. The high-fat diet, link here groups also had higher rates of pinhead sperm, a serious defect that alters the shape of sperm cells, link here. The group that shifted from a high-fat to normal diet showed signs of lipolysis—the process of breaking down fats in the body—which is a positive change, but “this process is apparently too slow to recover normal sperm parameters,” the researchers wrote.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1265.mp3" length="1233788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Alcohol causes liver (and other organ) damage by lowering NAD/NADH ratio</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1262</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1262</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 22 Oct 2020 13:57:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1262

A neat little study, which demonstrates once again the crucial role of energy and optimal redox status in a public health issue that has now reached catastrophic proportions. Namely, alcohol-related morbidity and mortality. Those have always been an issue in any developed country but since the start of the “pandemic” have exacerbated dramatically. As most people who have ever talked to their doctor about alcohol’s risks know, the moralizing story we get is that abstinence is best because once alcohol starts damaging the liver, that process is “irreversible” and eventually lethal. I don’t endorse binge drinking, but as it turns out, none of that is true. Multiple studies (some of them human) have demonstrated that even advanced liver disease in HIV patients can be reversed by something as simple as vitamin E, link here. Now, the study below highlights once again the crucial role of the redox status, represented by the “master” ratio of NAD/NADH, in alcohol-related pathologies involving not just the liver but all organs. If the decline of NAD/NADH is the main driver of alcohol-related pathologies it immediately suggests cheap, OTC remedies for all such conditions. The two most directly applicable ones are niacinamide and methylene blue. Both can raise the NAD/NADH ratio quite robustly on their own, but in combination are synergistic and may allow for much lower doses to achieve the same effects. People have sent me emails showing their blood tests demonstrated the same increase in NAD/NADH from a combination of 1mg MB and 250mg niacinamide as using 5mg+ MB or 750mg-1,000mg niacinamide separately.

2 links here

“…Alcohol consumption can provide a welcome reprieve from the hassles of every-day life but can lead to binge drinking and excessive alcohol consumption. Over time, excessive alcohol use results in the development of chronic diseases and other serious problems. UCLA scientist and pathologist Dr. Samuel French published a review on the effects of chronic alcohol binging on cellular health, link here. In his review, Dr. French specifically examined how binge drinking injures the liver and other organs by diminishing the cellular levels of a molecule called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). Dr. French’s review highlights studies showing that high blood alcohol levels result in the conversion of NAD+ to a form called NADH that inhibits its functionality as a coenzyme….However, with NAD+ not available…there is an increased quantity of protein modifications in liver cells that induce an inflammatory response and, ultimately, cause alcoholic fatty liver disease. What’s more, all enzymatic activities dependent on NAD+ shut down, leading to reduced lifespan and healthspan.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1262.mp3" length="861860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Asthma can be caused by endotoxin (LPS)…from air filters</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1259</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1259</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 19:32:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1259

Not a clickbait title but the actual (and fascinating) findings of several studies. I think the biggest find here is that endotoxin (LPS) can directly cause asthma and exacerbate already existing asthma. To my knowledge, while mainstream medicine does admit that asthma is an inflammatory condition, it continues to insist that the direct cause is unknown. Nothing surprising here, according to mainstream medicine most chronic conditions are of “unknown” origin and if any cause is ever discussed it is usually genetic. Be that as it may, the other interesting finding is that air purifiers are capable of disrupting/rupturing the wall of bacteria present in air and as such release their endotoxin (LPS), which then starts to accumulate in the filters of the air purifiers. So, the longer an air purifier has been in use the bigger the endotoxin (LPS) load in its filter and the more of that endotoxin gets discharged into the ambient air. Apparently, the amount of endotoxin those air purifiers release is enough to cause/exacerbate asthma. While the article does not mention it, in general most modern air conditioning systems have air filters with fine-enough mesh to cause endotoxin release from aerial bacteria (e.g. HEPA filters) and then accumulate it. So, the epidemic of asthma we have been seeing over the last 20-30 years may very well be due to the proliferation of air conditioning units and other air purification devices in virtually every office/home building . If that was not already bad enough, the article below cites evidence that endotoxin is also present in “sterile” water solutions used for injections in hospitals, link here. If the amount of endotoxin in those water solutions is as high as the one in air capable of causing/exacerbating asthma, I would not be surprised if a significant percentage of people who deteriorate (and/or die) after hospital admission do so as a result of getting a treatment with endotoxin-contaminated solution(s). Oh, and of course, if would not be a true Haidut post if I did not mention that estrogen is also causally involved in asthma while androgens and progesterone are protective, link here, and estrogen and endotoxin promote each others’ release/effects.

4 links here

“…Chinese researchers have undertaken an assessment of stand-alone portable air purifiers. These types of devices are being used on a wider basis to address dust inside homes and especially in areas where outdoor pollution levels are high. While there are different views, link here about the effectivness of such devices, the use of fixed or portable units has become a popular means of controlling individual inhalation exposure. Many such devices use high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) fiters, link here. However, there are concerns in general about exposure to bacterial endotoxins, link here and the role these cellular fragments play in relation to respiratory inhalation health (triggering conditions such as asthma, especially as endotoxin exacerbates asthma, link here). For example,a Japanese study, link here published in 2020 found that endotoxin in outdoor air is significantly associated with an increased risk of asthma exacerbation in children. Of concern to the researchers from Beihang University, Beijing, is the impact of indoor air purifiers. The researchers looked at changes in endotoxin levels in indoor air before and after purification by a portable air purifying devices. The results showed an increase in endotoxins after a previously used air purifier was turned on in order to clean indoor air. This led the researchers to conlude that the use of air purifier devices could lead to increased endotoxin deposition in airways when used in the home. The particular physioogical area of concern was the alveolar region. In terms of why this should be the case, the scientists demonstrated that endotoxin concentrations on the HEPA filters were strongly correlated with the free DNA concentrations on the HEPA filters. This correlation indicates that bacteria disrupted by the HEPA filter (which is designed to capture bacteria and pollutants like pollen) led to the release of free bacterial DNA and endotoxins. Hence, HEPA filters are a source of indoor airborne endotoxins and could have an association with different respiratory diseases. The research has been published in, link here the journal Environment International. The research paper is titled “Indoor air filtration could lead to increased airborne endotoxin levels.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1259.mp3" length="1055012" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Netherlands Approves Euthanasia Of Children / Babies</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1256</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1256</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:37:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1256

I am posting this simply as an example of just how insane the world is rapidly becoming. Considering doctors around the world have had no problem giving morphine to terminally ill patients until they expire on their own, I really don’t see what good the explicit permission to euthanize children of ANY age does to the families of those children or to society in general…

We no longer need to use the expression “to club a baby seal” as the ultimate expression of cruelty, we now have the “to club a baby” *cough*…I mean “to euthanize a baby” as a replacement. The world is going madder by the minute…

link here

“…The Dutch government will allow doctors to euthanize terminally ill children as young as one year old, making the Netherlands the second country in the world to permit the practice….The decision does not amend any laws, but exempts doctors from prosecution for ending a child’s life in certain conditions and with parental consent. Children between the ages of one and 12 will now be eligible for assisted suicide, whereas previously only newborn infants and teenagers could be euthanized.”

Now, keep in mind that “terminal condition” is actually a very vague definition under Dutch/Belgian (the 2 countries allowing euthanasia so far) law. You’d think it is reserved for something like inoperable cancer but it is not. There was a news article back in 2013 on 2 adult Belgian brothers choosing euthanasia because they were…deaf and thought they were going blind. Belgian law allows defining blindness as a “terminal” condition and thus allowed the doctors to go along with the brothers’ wishes to be euthanized. I hope that article below sinks in deep into the brains of any haters that keep emailing me that I am fear-mongering without evidence. So, when I say that we may soon see doctors euthanizing babies for being born without a leg or with, God forbid, cleft palate it is not just some far-fetched conspiratorial dream of mine.

link here

“…Marc and Eddy Verbessem, 45-year-old twin brothers who were born deaf, were euthanized in Belgium on Dec. 14 after finding out they were going blind, in a case that has drawn euthanasia in Europe back into the spotlight. It’s the first assisted suicide case in which two brothers have been allowed to die together, and is also unusual because neither man was in extreme pain or terminally ill at the time of death.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1256.mp3" length="696188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Keto diet can cause lethal kidney failure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1252</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1252</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 06 Oct 2020 19:33:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1252

The bad news for the low-carb diets just keep piling on. This case report is about a young and (presumably) healthy Indian actress, which quickly deteriorated and eventually died of kidney failure while subjecting herself to the keto diet. Before the hate mail starts pouring into my mailbox, please read the article as it explains that her doctors were the ones who blamed the keto diet, it was not my “own spin” on the story. The part where I disagree with her doctors is their claim that it was the elevated protein intake that destroyed her kidneys, while I suspect it is the very high fat consumption (main goal in keto diets) that was the culprit (assuming most of that fat was PUFA). The primary role of elevated free fatty acids (FFA) in kidney disease/damage, link here is well-known, but unfortunately it is only cited in cases where the patient was diabetic, as if elevated lipolysis/FFA/FAO somehow selectively spares non-diabetic kidneys. Well, this case below demonstrates that elevated FFA can kill even a young and (presumably) healthy person.

link here

“…As per statements doing rounds in media reports, the actress’s family had cited kidney failure as the reason for her unfortunatemi dese. The official statement which was shared on an entertainment portal stated, “Actress Mishti Mukherjee who marked her brilliance in many films and music videos with her ace acting is no more. Due to keto diet, her kidney failed in Bangalore and she breathed her last on Friday night, the actress suffered a lot of pain. Unforgettable and unfortunate loss. May her soul rest in peace. She is survived by her parents and brother.”

“…While the high-fat diet is touted to have several health benefits and has many takers, several studies have also linked it to adverse effects on the body, especially if followed for a long time. This diet may put a lot of stress on your kidneys and may lead to kidney stones. Even though keto is a high-fat diet (and not high-protein diet), the moderate increase in protein also needs to be carefully monitored, especially in those who are already suffering from chronic kidney disease or any other kind of kidney ailment…”It may also worsen the kidney functioning of those who already have kidney diseases.”

“…The IANS report further quoted Priya Bharma, a Senior Dietician, Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute in New Delhi. She said, “Keto diet is one of the hardest diet schedules to follow which primarily focuses on weight loss. It surely has the potential risk of other health problems as the user is on high proteins and fats intake.” “A person with ideal or lesser body weight is generally not suggested to go for it. It is not suggested to continue for more than 45 days in one go as the body starves for other nutrients as well as high protein puts pressure on the kidney without other related precautions,” she noted.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1252.mp3" length="543908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Obesity “paradox” strikes again – protection against COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1250</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1250</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 04 Oct 2020 23:33:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1250

I suspect this one will not go down will with the “lean is always good” crowd, which consists predominantly of members of the medical profession. Aside from all the health risks of obesity for pretty much any chronic disease, the news over the last 6 months have been replete with warning from all kinds of “experts” that we should carefully watch our weight because obesity is a BIG risk factor for both getting infected with and drying from COVID-19. Well, the study below found the exact opposite. More importantly, the risk reduction with rising population obesity rate is striking – i.e. 72% lower chance of getting infected and 35% lower chance of dying in the populations with the highest obesity rates! Interestingly, the authors suggest that one of the possible explanation for the obesity “paradox” is the increased metabolic reserves/rate. If that does not convince the “experts” to drop their simplistic attitude towards weight (and exhaustive exercise + fasting as the panacea) then I don’t know what will.

link here

“…Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a declared global pandemic with multiple risk factors. Based on recent empirical studies, obesity is considered by several researchers as one of the serious risk factors for coronavirus-related complications. Yet, other scholars argue in favor of the existence of an obesity survival paradox. The objective of the current study is to analyze the potential relationships between different corona indicators and obesity on a statewide level. Since the United States is ranked as one of the OECD countries with a high level of overweight and obesity among its citizens—the majority of US states exceed the 30% benchmark of obese population—it is an especially interesting case study to explore this issue. In an attempt to estimate projected probabilities for infection by coronavirus and mortality rates as a function of obesity prevalence, the fractional logit regression is employed. Findings may support the counter-intuitive possibility of an obesity survival paradox. Consequently, ethical guidelines referring to priority in intubation and intensive care treatments should account for these complex relationships between obesity and corona. Both projected rates of infection and mortality drop with elevated prevalence of obesity. The reasons for these findings might be explained by several conditions such as elevated social distancing from more obese persons, increased metabolic reserves, more aggressive treatment, and unidentified factors that should be examined in future research.”

“…Results demonstrate that the projected probability to be infected from coronavirus drops with a higher prevalence of obesity, from 62 per 10,000 persons in states whose population exhibits 20% prevalence of obesity to only 17 per 10,000 persons in those states whose population has a 38% prevalence of obesity. Moreover, the null hypothesis of no drop with obesity prevalence is rejected statistically at the 5% level (p = 0.0467). Finally, note that the 95% confidence interval spread around the projection is the highest for 20% prevalence of obesity (0.0007–0.0117) and drops considerably with an elevated prevalence of obesity. One possible interpretation of this finding is a smaller number of states with higher obesity prevalence. Consequently, we ran a symmetry distribution test for prevalence of obesity across the states. Note that the null hypothesis of symetrical distribution (calculated adjusted Chi-square statistic with two degrees of freedom is 1.21 and p = 0.5455) is not rejected. The implication is that there are an equal and small number of states with low and high prevalence of obesity.”

“…Results demonstrate that projected probability of mortality from coronavirus drops with a higher prevalence of obesity: from 535 per 10,000 persons infected by coronavirus with a state population with a 20% prevalence of obesity to 346 per 10,000 persons in a state population with a 38% prevalence of obesity. Moreover, the null hypothesis of no drop with obesity prevalence is rejected statistically at the 10% level (p = 0.0733). Unfortunately, based on the 95% confidence intervals, the projected mortality rate from coronavirus at the statewide level is above 2% within all range of obesity prevalence.”

“…Following Simonnet et al. [9, link here]; Garg et al. [10, link here], and Wu and McGoogan [2, link here], obesity may be considered as one of the serious risk factors causing coronavirus-related complications. Yet, Stefan et al. [3, link here] points out that: “Conversely, an obesity survival paradox has been observed in patients with pneumonia. That is, despite the increased risk of pneumonia and difficulties of intubation and mask ventilation, the risk of death in patients with obesity and pneumonia might be decreased”.

“…The outcomes obtained from our study may support the existence of an obesity survival paradox. The reasons for the drop in infection and mortality rates with an elevated prevalence of obesity might be explained by several conditions such as higher social distancing by more obese persons, increased metabolic reserves, more aggressive treatment, and unidentified factors that should be examined in future research.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1250.mp3" length="535076" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>We Learn Faster When Our Choices Aren’t Forced / Influenced</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1245</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1245</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 01 Oct 2020 17:44:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1245

One of the most popular quotes by Peat states that “The attempt to steer a person can make it hard for them to move, because it inactivates their own guidance system“. While he said it in the context of authoritarian systems designed to force/elicit specific actions from people, I have long suspected that such inactivation of innate guidance mechanisms applies to more abstract aspects of life as well, such as learning. The study below clearly demonstrated that when people are literally told what the “correct” answer/solution/protocol/principle/etc is this results in a dramatically slower rate of learning. Also, knowing that knowledge is temporary, conditional, flexible and context-dependent and fluid should quickly make one realize that most of the ostensibly “correct” answers imposed on learners are anything but. So, our schools may be simply factories for slow learning of (often) incorrect information. Cue the famous Pink Floyd song “Another Brick in The Wall, link here” 🙂 I can already hear the criticisms I get on a daily basis – “Come on Georgi, this is about some academic, unimportant concept of learning. When the stakes are high, people need discipline and robust instruction in learning!”. Well, there is at least one study that shows new surgeons in training also learn faster and make fewer (potentially lethal) mistakes when nobody is “on their case”, link here. To the contrary, the study below also found that in the epitome of forced / influenced learning – the military – the low-ranking soldiers (who are the ones most often told what/how to learn/do) have almost no sense of agency/control and have poor learning skills.

The study below adds to a long line of evidence (consistently ignored by educational authorities) that conditioning people to learn abstract immutable absolutisms (especially by force) results in a very twisted approach to education/knowledge and towards life in general. This “forced learning” protocol in modern society/schools is precisely what Ivan Illich railed against in his treatise on public education, and also the fundamental premise behind “engineered consent” used so widely by politicians around the world. As the study below confirms yet again, people learn (and live) best when allowed to make free choices about the knowledge of and interaction with the world around them. Just as importantly, the study also found that people learned faster through rewards than through punishments. But even when learning through punishments, people still learned faster than when they were conditioned with instructions on what the “right” answer is, or what the “right” approach of solving a problem is. Considering these findings, if most of our learning is based on exactly the opposite approach of what is optimal for people, it is little wonder that the world is in existential crisis right now.

2 links here

“…Using disarmingly simple tasks, Palminteri’s team found choice had a clear influence on decision-making. Participants in the study observed two symbols on a screen and then selected one with the press of a key to learn, through trial and error, which image gave the most points. At the end of the experiment, the subjects cashed in their points for money. By careful design, the results ruled out competing interpretations. For example, when freely choosing between the two options, people learned more quickly from the symbols associated with greater reward than those associated with punishment, which removed points. Though that finding resembled a positivity bias, this interpretation was ruled out by trials that demonstrated participants could also learn from negative outcomes. In trials that showed the outcomes for both symbols after a choice was made, subjects learned more from their chosen symbol when it gave a higher reward and when the unchosen one would deduct a point. That is, in this free-choice situation, they learned well from obtained gains and avoided losses.”

“…That result looked like a confirmation bias, with people embracing outcomes—positive or negative—that confirmed they were right. But there was more to it. The experiments also included “forced choice” trials in which the computer told participants which option to select. Here, though the subjects still pressed keys to make the instructed choices, confirmation bias disappeared, with both positive and negative outcomes weighted equally during learning. This impartiality might seem optimal, yet the learning rates were slower in the forced-choice situation than they were in the free-choice one. It is as though the participants were less invested in the outcomes—showing ambivalence about learning from them somewhat like a child woodenly practicing their scales on the piano to please a parent. Because the confirmation bias arose only during the free-choice situations, the authors dubbed it “choice-confirmation bias.” The tendency persisted in both poor and rich conditions, when rewards were scant or abundant. “Our human subjects were not capable of adjusting the bias as a function of the environment,” Palminteri says. “It seems to be hardwired.” This observation means the brain is primed to learn with a bias that is pegged to our freely chosen actions. Choice tips the balance of learning: for the same action and outcome, the brain learns differently and more quickly from free choices than forced ones. This skew may seem like a cognitive flaw, but in computer models, Palminteri’s team found that choice-confirmation bias offered an advantage: it produced stabler learning over a wide range of simulated conditions than unbiased learning did. So even if this tendency occasionally results in bad decisions or beliefs, in the long run, choice-confirmation bias may sensitize the brain to learn from the outcomes of chosen actions—which likely represent what is most important to a given person.”

“…Another question raised by this research is: What might influence a person’s sense of control? It may be an inherent feature of an individual’s personality. Or it could be more pliable, as suggested by a recent study of people in the military in Belgium published in Nature Communications. The paper reported a greater sense of control, link here among senior cadets, who are further along in their officer training and give orders, compared to privates, who obey them. The latter individuals’ sense of control, also called agency, was equally diminished in both free-choice and forced-choice situations. “They don’t experience agency, even when they’re free to choose what to do, which should not be the case,” says study leader Emilie Caspar of the Free University of Brussels (ULB).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1245.mp3" length="1375892" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen may be the cause of “estrogen-negative” breast cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1243</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1243</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 01 Oct 2020 16:22:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1243

IMO, one of the biggest medical frauds so far is the idea that androgens (especially DHT) cause and promote prostate cancer. We now have an abundance of evidence (posted on this blog) that it is instead deficiency of androgens and/or excess of estrogens that initiates and drives the progression of prostate cancer. When chemical castration (more palatably known as androgen-deprivation therapy) fails to cure the prostate tumor and actually starts to promote its growth and even turn it into a lethal cancer (prostate cancer is rarely lethal when left untouched, as doctors themselves say) mainstream medicine declares that the tumor has mutated into the mysterious entity known as “castration-resistant prostate cancer”. The officially promoted theory is that no hormonal intervention (deprivation or administration) can affect that type of cancer. At that stage, the only options for a patient are cytotoxic chemotherapy and radiation, but most men with that type of androgen-independent cancer die within 2-4 years.

I have always suspected that the idea of hormone-independent cancer is pure fraud, most likely invented to conceal the pathological role of estrogen in all types of advanced cancers as those are usually found to be “hormone-independent” regardless of the tumor type (breast, prostate, gastric, brain, lung, kidney, ovarian, uterine, etc). While it can be easily demonstrated that tumors without receptors for a specific steroid (estrogen, androgen, progesterone, etc) do exist, this does not at all mean that they are impervious to the effects of steroids. One of the main reasons for the myth of steroid-independent tumors is that medicine refuses to admit that a steroid can affect a cell without actually binding to its respective receptor. This stubbornness may also be driven by ulterior motives since accepting the widespread non-genomic (e.g. without the need for a receptor) effects of steroids, which would quickly undermine the genomic theory of cancer genesis and progression. The combination of these reasons is probably why we have not seen much research into the topic of how steroids such as say estrogen affect steroid-independent tumors. Perhaps the most pertinent example is the estrogen-receptor negative (ER-) breast cancer (BC), which is notoriously hard to treat, has high lethality and whose rates have been skyrocketing over the last 2 decades. The study below demonstrates that estrogen can directly cause that cancer to develop, without the presence of any ER inside the cell. Conversely, administering an aromatase inhibitor quickly stops the initiation/growth of the tumor. Just as importantly, the study below also states that estrogen-driven malignancy depends little on circulating levels of estrogen and depends almost entirely on local, intracellular aromatization of androgens. This corroborates the views of Peat and a number of studies demonstrating that serum estrogen levels have weak association with intracellular estrogen levels, and it is perfectly possible to have low or even undetectable estrogen levels in the blood but very high estrogen levels in tissues. Perhaps the best example of such a state is menopausal women who have undetectable levels of estrogen in blood yet are at much higher risk for developing breast (and other estrogen-driven) cancer. So, instead of wasting money on and getting a false sense of security from a blood test for estrogen, it is better to check levels of prolactin and estrone sulfate (E1S) as those are much better indicators of total body estrogen load regardless of what blood test show. Perhaps the most important portion of the study is the reference to evidence from another study (the first link below) demonstrating that breast cancer cannot develop at all in animals deficient in aromatase.

As far as interventions to inhibit aromatase that can mimic the study, there are several options. Non-pharmacological alternatives to AI inhibitors like letrozole, link here (the one used in the study below) include progesterone, pregnenolone, vitamin E, aspirin, the B group of vitamins, etc. If a pharmacological AI is considered then the steroidal ones like exemestane may be a safer option as they act similarly to androgens (which are known, and even approved, to treat breast cancer) but without the risk of aromatization of androgens like testosterone and without most of the risks for virilization in women seen with testosterone, nandrolone, or the FDA-approved steroid Masteron, link here (a DHT derivative).

2 links here

“…Overexpression of aromatase increases tissue estrogen levels. The precise mechanism by which estrogen causes breast cancer is not fully understood. A widely accepted concept is that E2, acting through estrogen receptor a (ERa), stimulates cell proliferation and initiates mutations that occur as a function of errors during DNA replication. The promotional effect of E2 then supports the growth of cells harboring mutations, which accumulate until cancer ultimately results. Our studies and those of others suggested that ERa-independent, metabolite-mediated mechanisms are also involved in the process of estrogen carcinogenesis.14–17 Increased local E2 concentrations due to aromatase expression would increase the levels of oxidative metabolites of E2, which cause DNA damage and eventually initiate breast cancer.”

“…E2 has long been identified as a risk factor of breast cancer. It has been well documented that E2 stimulates proliferation of breast cancer cells, but the precise mechanisms whereby E2 initiates breast cancer development are not well understood. A number of studies suggest that ER-independent mechanisms are involved in estrogen carcinogenesis. To specifically identify ER independent effects of E2, we established a model characterized by overexpression of aromatase in benign breast epithelial cells that do not express ERa. The results reported here demonstrate that overexpression of aromatase in MCF-10A breast epithelial cells promotes early signs of malignant transformation in the absence of ERs. This is evidenced by increased cellular mobility and anchorage-independent growth. Aromatase expression increased the levels of 4-OHE2-1-N7Gua. Measurement of this compound in its DNA-free form indicates formation of the 4-OHE2 adduct and that depurination has taken place, as evidence of DNA damage. Aromatase expression increased the stem-like cell population as indicated by reduction of CD24 mRNA levels in MCF-10Aarom cells. Production of genotoxic metabolites and induction of stem cell population are potential ER-independent mechanisms underlying estrogen carcinogenesis.”

“…Several lines of experimental and clinical evidence suggest that upregulation of aromatase has a critical role in breast cancer development. Our previous studies showed that in situ aromatization of androgens increases tissue E2 concentrations more efficiently than uptake from the circulation.”

“…They found that the levels of aromatase expression in normal breast tissues of BRCA1 mutation carriers are significantly higher than in the control subjects. These data implicate that aromatase overexpression due to the loss of the inhibitory function of BRCA1 is a critical factor responsible for breast cancer development. As an evidence of the biological effects of aromatase overexpression, Diaz-Cruz et al.28 compared the effect of aromatase expression versus ERa expression in transgenic mouse models on the generation of mammary hyperplasia and cancer. They found that mammary-targeted aromatase led to more diffuse ductal disease and a higher prevalence of hyperplastic alveolar nodules, ductal hyperplasia, and invasive adenocarcinomas when compared with mammary-targeted ERa overexpression. Notably, invasive adenocarcinomas only occurred in aromatase-expressing animals.”

“…We demonstrated here that overexpression of aromatase increases the number and the function of stem-like cells in MCF10A cells in the absence of ERa. CD24low is the marker of stem cells. The levels of CD24 mRNA in MCF-10Aarom cells inversely correlate with aromatase activity. Furthermore, inhibition of aromatase activity by letrozole could completely abrogate mammosphere formation of MCF-10Aarom cells. Taken together, our results demonstrate that aromatase overexpression causes early-stage transformation of MCF-10A benign breast epithelial cells. This effect is mediated by estrogen produced in the cells and does not require ERa. The ultimate demonstration of the role of aromatase in breast cancer development would be tumorigenesis of aromatase-expressing MCF-10A cells in immunodeficient mouse.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1243.mp3" length="2093564" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Intermittent fasting (IF) ineffective and may even be dangerous</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1240</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1240</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Sep 2020 20:09:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1240

I have no doubt the findings of this study will quickly get dismissed by the massive industry that has formed around the idea that ANY weight loss is a good thing, and, just as importantly, if you lose weight while torturing yourself (in this with fasting) somehow the “gains” are even more worthwhile. Well, the lead author of the human study below abandoned his own multi-year intermittent fasting regimen after seeing the study results, and concluded the interview with the punchline – “Just losing weight alone doesn’t mean good things are happening for your health.” Amen to that, and thank you for bringing some sanity into the dietary fads world that is starting to resemble more and more the methods of the Holly Spanish Inquisition. Aside from the lack of effectiveness for weight loss in the IF group there were also some negative results as well. The IF group lost muscle mass (known as sarcopenia, link here), while the regular eating schedule group seems to have kept theirs largely intact. Losing muscle mass is universally considered a bad sign even by mainstream medicine since it has been shown to predict all-cause mortality (and disability in already sick people) better than any other metric, except possibly albumin levels. However, albumin and muscle mass are strongly correlated. So, muscle mass can be used as a good surrogate biomarker for albumin changes as well, and it is also a lot less invasive to measure. But, as the infomercials say, wait, there is more! The control group that did not practice IF had a reduction in systolic blood pressure, and also maintained their level of physical activity while there was a decrease in physical activity in the IF group. Finally, the sleep quality (PSQI) improved in the non-fasting group while it did not change in the IF group. In light of all these findings, it is no wonder the doctor not only promptly stopped his own IF regimen but also stopped recommending IF to his patients.

link here

“…As measured by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), there was no significant change in whole body fat mass (FM) in the TRE (−0.51 kg; 95% CI, −1.17 kg to 0.15 kg; P = .13) or the CMT groups (−0.03 kg; 95% CI, −0.66 kg to 0.60 kg; P = .93), and there was no significant difference between groups (−0.48 kg; 99.7% CI, −1.75 kg to 0.79 kg; P = .30) (Table 3, link here). There was a significant decrease in lean mass (calculated as fat-free mass minus bone mineral content) in the TRE (−1.10 kg; 95% CI, −1.73 kg to −0.48 kg; P < .001) but not in the CMT group (−0.35 kg; 95% CI, −0.95 kg to 0.25 kg; P = .25). There was no significant difference in lean mass between groups (−0.75 kg; 99.7% CI, −1.96 kg to 0.45 kg; P = .09). Appendicular lean mass (ALM) was decreased significantly in the TRE group (−0.64 kg; 95% CI, −0.89 kg to −0.39 kg; P < .001) but not in the CMT group (−0.17 kg; 95% CI, −0.41 kg to 0.07 kg; P = .16), and there was a significant difference between groups (−0.47 kg; 95% CI, −0.82 kg to −0.12 kg; P = .009). There was a significant decrease in appendicular lean mass index (ALMI) in the TRE group (−0.22 kg/m2; 95% CI, −0.30 kg/m2 to −0.14 kg/m2; P < .001) but not in the CMT group (−0.06 kg/m2; 95% CI, −0.14 kg/m2 to 0.02 kg/m2; P = .14). The difference in ALMI between groups was also significant (−0.16 kg/m2; 95% CI, −0.27 kg/m2 to −0.05 kg/m2; P = .005). Trunk lean mass significantly decreased in the TRE group (−0.47 kg; 95% CI, −0.88 kg to −0.06 kg; P = .02). There was no significant change in trunk lean mass in the CMT group (−0.15 kg; 95% CI, −0.54 kg to 0.24 kg; P = .45) or between groups (−0.32 kg; 95% CI, −0.89 kg to 0.25 kg; P = .27). For a comprehensive list of all body composition variables analyzed, see eTable 2 in Supplement 3, link here.”

“…There was no significant difference in systolic blood pressure in the TRE group (−1.69 mm Hg; 95% CI, −5.54 mm Hg to 2.15 mm Hg; P = .39), but there was a significant decrease in the CMT group (−3.86 mm Hg; 95% CI, −7.58 mm Hg to 0.14 mm Hg; P = .04) (eTable 1 in Supplement 3, link here). There was no significant between-group difference in systolic blood pressure (2.17 mm Hg; 95% CI, −3.18 mm Hg to 7.52 mm Hg; P = .43).”

“…The Oura ring data also revealed a significant reduction in daily movement in the TRE group (−2102.14 au; 95% CI, −3162.54 au to −1041.73 au; P < .001) and between groups (−1673.44 au; 95% CI, −3211.11 au to −135.7 au; P = .03) but not in the CMT group (−428.70 au; 95% CI, −1542.25 au to 684.85 au; P = .45). There was a significant decrease in step count in the TRE group (−2498.89 steps; 95% CI, −3939.91 to −1057.88; P < .001) and between groups (−2241.41 steps; 95% CI, −4320.51 to −162.31; P = .04) but not in the CMT group (−257.48 steps; 95% CI, −1756.20 to 1241.23; P = .74).”

link here

“…The study found “no evidence”, link here that time-restricted eating works as a weight loss strategy.  People who were assigned to eat at random times within a strict eight-hour window each day, skipping food in the morning, lost an average of around 2 pounds over a 12 week-period. Subjects who ate at normal meal times, with snacks permitted, lost 1.5 pounds. The difference was not “statistically significant,” according to the research team at UCSF. “I went into this hoping to demonstrate that this thing I’ve been doing for years works,” he said by phone. “But as soon as I saw the data, I stopped.”

“…Intermittent fasting, once a trend among self-styled “biohackers,” who use diet and lifestyle tweaks to try and improve their health, has become increasingly mainstream over the last decade. Instagram influencers regularly weigh in, link here on the trend, and super-fit celebrities like Hugh Jackman, link here have said it helps them get in shape for movie roles. In Silicon Valley, entrepreneur Kevin Rose launched an app called Zero to help people monitor their fasts, link here, noting that the scientific data “starts to get pretty exciting.” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and the actress Jennifer Aniston also rank among the famous fans. With so many stars touting its benefits, in 2019, intermittent fasting was the top-trending diet search in Google, according to Google Trends data., link here”

“…There may also be a potential downside to intermittent fasting. A smaller percentage of participants were asked by the researchers to come on-site for more advanced testing, including changes in fat mass, lean mass, fasting glucose, fasting insulin and so on. Through those measurements, researchers discovered people who engaged in time-restricted eating seemed to lose more muscle mass than the control group. Weiss says the outcome wasn’t definitive, but he is hoping to conduct further studies down the line.”

“…But for now, he won’t be recommending it to his patients. “Just losing weight alone doesn’t mean good things are happening for your health,” he explained.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1240.mp3" length="868652" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Melanoma defined by increased fatty acid synthesis and unsaturation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1238</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1238</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Sep 2020 19:35:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1238

Yet another study implicating dysregulated fatty acid, instead of glucose, metabolism in cancer cells. Namely, the expression and activity of the enzyme fatty acid synthase (FASN), link here is increased in melanoma cells. Another interesting finding of the study is the increased unsaturation of the accumulated fats inside the tumor. The FASN enzyme synthesizes palmitic acid (PA) from glucose and this has been used by some critics of Peat to argue that saturated fats (SFA) such as PA drive cancer progression. Yet, the study below shows that as soon as PA is synthesized, it is quickly desaturate to the MUFA palmitoleic acid and, if there is stearic acid (SA) in the organism, the overexpressed desturase enzymes in the tumor quickly “degrade” SA to the MUFA oleic acid. It is the accumulation of those MUFA in lipid droplets that provide a “reservoir” of sorts that supplies the tumor with lipids for growth. SFA by themselves were actually inhibitory for tumor growth. In fact, the study found that if SFA levels increase and the SFA-to-unsaturated ratio reaches a specific level the tumor cells immediately undergo apoptosis. Thus, SFA is therapeutic because it increases differentiation and restrains tumor growth, and the tumor does everything it can to lower levels of SFA through desaturation as a way of preventing its own apoptosis. Administering either a FSAN inhibitor or a delta-9 desaturase enzyme inhibitor immediately triggered apoptosis in the melanoma cells. For those interested in FASN inhibitors – aspirin is one of the more better-known ones, link here that is widely available, cheap, and OTC. However, medicine really hates aspirin and prefers using synthetic FASN such as orlistat, link here or cerulenin, link here.

link here

“…Elevated FASN activities in the more differentiated melanoma cell lines suggest that the FASN pathway may constitute a metabolic susceptibility in just those phenotypes. In fact, interruption of this pathway has been previously studied for cancer drug development46. We tested this hypothesis by treating the cells with FASN inhibitors, 10 μM cerulenin46 or 0.2 μM TVB-316647, for 3 days. As hypothesized, the three most differentiated phenotypes exhibited the highest sensitivity to cerulenin and TVB-3166 while the two most undifferentiated cell lines are barely affected by such drug treatments (Fig. 2h and Supplementary Fig. 6d). These data demonstrate that single-cell Raman spectro-microscopy, integrated with transcriptional profiling, can uncover phenotype-specific druggable susceptibilities in cancer cells.”

“…Indeed, bulk lipidomics data for M381 cells clearly shows that while droplet-enriched species of TAG and CE have the highest unsaturated fatty acid (UFA) composition among major lipid species (Fig. 3i), they only account for a small portion (in total <6%) of all major lipid species (Fig. 3j). Thus, M381 has elevated lipid unsaturation levels specifically within intracellular LDs.”

“…To this end, we utilized a comparative analysis of Raman spectro-imaging on intracellular LDs to identify that lipid-unsaturation associated metabolic activities were uniquely upregulated in the mesenchymal M381 phenotype, as depicted in Fig. 7. ”

link here

“…Wei says the team uncovered a few new metabolic susceptibilities in cancer cells, including fatty acid synthesis and mono-unsaturation, but adds that right now, the primary purpose of the research is to do fundamental science.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1238.mp3" length="905060" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Drop in mom’s thyroid levels, undetectable by blood tests, tanks child IQ</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1236</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1236</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2020 16:00:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1236

I am posting this article mostly for the specific quote corroborating Peat’s writing that thyroid blood tests are very unreliable and always have to be interpreted together with other “biomarkers” of thyroid function such as pulse, core temperature, muscle tone, reflexes, etc before a comprehensive diagnosis can be made. In fact, the article says even if there is no detectable drop in mom’s thyroid blood tests, offspring health is still affected. If a drop in a pregnant woman’s thyroid function so tiny it cannot be detected by blood tests can cause such drastic drop in offspring IQ, then imagine what more measurable drops in adult thyroid function can do to adult IQ (and systemic health). Even if those drops leave thyroid hormone levels still in the “normal range”, where normality has been defined by biased (sometimes even corrupt) doctors based on data from populations that were anything but euthyroid. Thyroid aside, the whole article is still a great read, because it talks about decline in health due to endocrine disruptors. It seems that FDA is finally starting to pay attention to the dangers those pose, but whether the FDA will manage to convince the EPA to regulate levels of those disruptors in the environment is very much doubtful…

link here

“…”We’re talking about each child losing roughly 2% of her lifetime economic productivity on average with the loss of one IQ point, or $20,000,” Trasande said. “You multiply that across four million kids born each year and that’s a lot of zeros and a huge impact on our economy. “So this is more than a mom and baby story. This is really about the future of our ability to compete in the global economy.” Scientists used to think that it was a baby’s thyroid hormone level that was important to brain development. Studies have now shown that a shift in an expecting mother’s thyroid hormone, “even if it’s so subtle it doesn’t show up on a clinical test,” can have consequences to a child’s future development, Trasande said. It’s all too easy for a pregnant woman or parent to tip the scales into toxic territory. Take, for example, a dinner of organic vegetables stored in plastic wrap, steamed in nonstick cookware with tap water as a beverage. The plastic wrap can contain chlorine, the nonstick cookware is made with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and the vegetables and drinking water may contain nitrates from fertilizers, which often leach into ground water, especially in agricultural areas, link here. All three of those chemicals are known endocrine disrupters, link here. A review of the last five years of research by Trasande found an “explosion of evidence, link here” about the negative impact on our health of such chemicals in agricultural pesticides and plastic or other containers used in manufacturing that touch our food. The dangers extend beyond pregnancy. Any negative impact of food additives will be much worse for children of any age, said Dr. Margaret Cuomo, author of “A World Without Cancer,” a book that explores environmental impacts on cancer risk.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1236.mp3" length="615788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pre-existing COVID-19 immunity in 20%-50% of people – better than vaccines?</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1234</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1234</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2020 15:39:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1234

A fascinating article that is unfortunately not getting any coverage in mainstream media (MSM). The review is published in BMJ, which is both surprising and also gives it that much more weight. That may be a reason why it is not being covered by MSM – because it argues not only in favor of pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2 but also claims that herd immunity threshold is 3-5 times lower than what is currently being targeted. It also raises the question if this pre-existing immunity may be good enough to make a COVID-19 vaccine at best pointless and at worst harmless in comparison. None of the possible answers offered by this publication is palatable to public health officials. If there is pre-existing immunity because SARS-CoV-2 is likely NOT a new virus then questions will arise as to why there is a (continuing) need for lockdowns and other drastic measures considering the virus has been with us for a very long time without worldwide mass deaths. If the pre-exiting immunity is due to “spillover” from infection with other similar coronaviruses then again the question is raised as to whether we may have good immunity to many (any?) viruses (including SARS-CoV-2) without the need for direct exposure to every specific one, and thus without a need for specific vaccine against every one of them. This possibility also raises serious questions about the necessity for lockdowns and other drastic social/medical measures. Finally, there is also the possibility that antibodies and their associated tests are overrated and do not give a reliable picture of neither current infection status nor of future infection vulnerability. Considering the fact that antibody testing/response is perhaps the primary measure of a vaccine’s effectiveness in a clinical trial, it also raises serious doubts about the effectiveness not just of a COVID-19 vaccine but almost any other vaccine currently approved and in clinical use. The article also discusses the uncanny similarity between the COVID-19 pandemic and the “swine flu” (H1N1) one from 2009. The same concerns were raised and the same calls for drastic social measures were made during both of them. However, back in 2009 the population just did not “buy” the scary story and the news of pre-existing immunity quickly became known worldwide. This time, there is no news coverage in MSM about pre-existing immunity and only nerds like me reading the BMJ will likely learn about the very similar rates of pre-existing immunity in SARS-CoV-2 and H1N1. If that is the case and there were no lockdowns and mass deaths back then, why are there now?? I wonder how long before this review is pulled from the BMJ website…

link here

“…With public health responses around the world predicated on the assumption that the virus entered the human population with no pre-existing immunity before the pandemic,4, link here serosurvey data are leading many to conclude that the virus has, as Mike Ryan, WHO’s head of emergencies, put it, “a long way to burn.” Yet a stream of studies that have documented SARS-CoV-2 reactive T cells in people without exposure to the virus are raising questions about just how new the pandemic virus really is, with many implications.”

“…At least six studies have reported T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 in 20% to 50% of people with no known exposure to the virus.5, link here6, link here7, link here8, link here9, link here10, link hereIn a study of donor blood specimens obtained in the US between 2015 and 2018, 50% displayed various forms of T cell reactivity to SARS-CoV-2.5, link here11, link here A similar study that used specimens from the Netherlands reported T cell reactivity in two of 10 people who had not been exposed to the virus.7, link hereIn Germany reactive T cells were detected in a third of SARS-CoV-2 seronegative healthy donors (23 of 68). In Singapore a team analysed specimens taken from people with no contact or personal history of SARS or covid-19; 12 of 26 specimens taken before July 2019 showed reactivity to SARS-CoV-2, as did seven of 11 from people who were seronegative against the virus.8, link here Reactivity was also discovered in the UK and Sweden.6, link here9, link here10, link hereThough these studies are small and do not yet provide precise estimates of pre-existing immunological responses to SARS-CoV-2, they are hard to dismiss, with several being published in Cell and Nature. Alessandro Sette, an immunologist from La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California and an author of several of the studies (box 1, link here), told The BMJ, “At this point there are a number of studies that are seeing this reactivity in different continents, different labs. As a scientist you know that is a hallmark of something that has a very strong footing.”

“…In late 2009, months after the World Health Organization declared the H1N1 “swine flu” virus to be a global pandemic, Alessandro Sette was part of a team working to explain why the so called “novel” virus did not seem to be causing more severe infections than seasonal flu.12, link hereTheir answer was pre-existing immunological responses in the adult population: B cells and, in particular, T cells, which “are known to blunt disease severity.”12, link here Other studies came to the same conclusion: people with pre-existing reactive T cells had less severe H1N1 disease.13, link here14, link here In addition, a study carried out during the 2009 outbreak by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 33% of people over 60 years old had cross reactive antibodies to the 2009 H1N1 virus, leading the CDC to conclude that “some degree of pre-existing immunity” to the new H1N1 strains existed, especially among adults over age 60.15, link hereThe data forced a change in views at WHO and CDC, from an assumption before 2009 that most people “will have no immunity to the pandemic virus”16, link here to one that acknowledged that “the vulnerability of a population to a pandemic virus is related in part to the level of pre-existing immunity to the virus.”17, link here But by 2020 it seems that lesson had been forgotten.”

“…Researchers are also confident that they have made solid inroads into ascertaining the origins of the immune responses. “Our hypothesis, of course, was that it’s so called ‘common cold’ coronaviruses, because they’re closely related,” said Daniela Weiskopf, senior author of a paper in Science that confirmed this hypothesis.18, link here “We have really shown that this is a true immune memory and it is derived in part from common cold viruses.” Separately, researchers in Singapore came to similar conclusions about the role of common cold coronaviruses but noted that some of the T cell reactivity may also come from other unknown coronaviruses, even of animal origin.8″, link here

“…Nearly 50 years later, Gabriela Gomes, an infectious disease modeller at the University of Strathclyde, is reviving concerns that the theory’s basic assumptions do not hold. Not only do people not mix randomly, infections (and subsequent immunity) do not happen randomly either, her team says. “More susceptible and more connected individuals have a higher propensity to be infected and thus are likely to become immune earlier. Due to this selective immunization by natural infection, heterogeneous populations require less infections to cross their herd immunity threshold,” they wrote.22, link here While most experts have taken the R0 for SARS-CoV-2 (generally estimated to be between 2 and 3) and concluded that at least 50% of people need to be immune before herd immunity is reached, Gomes and colleagues calculate the threshold at 10% to 20%.22, link here23 …, link hereAnother group led by Sunetra Gupta at the University of Oxford has arrived at similar conclusions of lower herd immunity thresholds by considering the issue of pre-existing immunity in the population. When a population has people with pre-existing immunity, as the T cell studies may be indicating is the case, the herd immunity threshold based on an R0 of 2.5 can be reduced from 60% of a population getting infected right down to 10%, depending on the quantity and distribution of pre-existing immunity among people, Gupta’s group calculated.2″, link here

“…But memory T cells are known for their ability to affect the clinical severity and susceptibility to future infection,25, link here and the T cell studies documenting pre-existing reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 in 20-50% of people suggest that antibodies are not the full story. “Maybe we were a little naive to take measurements such as serology testing to look at how many people were infected with the virus,” the Karolinska Institute immunologist Marcus Buggert told The BMJ. “Maybe there is more immunity out there.” The research offers a powerful reminder that very little in immunology is cut and dried. Physiological responses may have fewer sharp distinctions than in the popular imagination: exposure does not necessarily lead to infection, infection does not necessarily lead to disease, and disease does not necessarily produce detectable antibodies. And within the body, the roles of various immune system components are complex and interconnected. B cells produce antibodies, but B cells are regulated by T cells, and while T cells and antibodies both respond to viruses in the body, T cells do so on infected cells, whereas antibodies help prevent cells from being infected.”

“…Buggert’s home country has been at the forefront of the herd immunity debate, with Sweden’s light touch strategy against the virus resulting in much scrutiny and scepticism.26, link here The epidemic in Sweden does seem to be declining, Buggert said in August. “We have much fewer cases right now. We have around 50 people hospitalised with covid-19 in a city of two million people.” At the peak of the epidemic there were thousands of cases. Something must have happened, said Buggert, particularly considering that social distancing was “always poorly followed, and it’s only become worse….“The conventional wisdom is that lockdown occurred as the epidemic curve was rising,” Gupta explained. “So once you remove lockdown that curve should continue to rise.” But that is not happening in places like New York, London, and Stockholm. The question is why.”

“…Another possibility is that a lot of people are immune because of T cell responses or something else. “Whatever it is,” Gupta added, “if there is a significant fraction of the population that is not permissive to the infection, then that all makes sense, given how infectious SARS-CoV-2 is.” Buggert’s study in Sweden seems to support this position. Investigating close family members of patients with confirmed covid-19, he found T cell responses in those who were seronegative or asymptomatic.10, link here While around 60% of family members produced antibodies, 90% had T cell responses. (Other studies have reported similar results.27, link here) “So many people got infected and didn’t create antibodies,” concludes Buggert.

“…T cell studies have received scant media attention, in contrast to research on antibodies, which seem to dominate the news (probably, says Buggert, because antibodies are easier, faster, and cheaper to study than T cells). Two recent studies reported that naturally acquired antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 begin to wane after just 2-3 months, fuelling speculation in the lay press about repeat infections.28, link here29, link here30, link hereBut T cell studies allow for a substantially different, more optimistic, interpretation. In the Singapore study, for example, SARS-CoV-1 reactive T cells were found in SARS patients 17 years after infection. “Our findings also raise the possibility that long lasting T cells generated after infection with related viruses may be able to protect against, or modify the pathology caused by, infection with SARS-CoV-2,”8, link here the investigators wrote…The immunologists I spoke to agreed that T cells could be a key factor that explains why places like New York, London, and Stockholm seem to have experienced a wave of infections and no subsequent resurgence. This would be because protective levels of immunity, not measurable through serology alone but instead the result of a combination of pre-existing and newly formed immune responses, could now exist in the population, preventing an epidemic rise in new infections.

“…“At the start of the pandemic, a key mantra was that we needed the game changer of antibody data to understand who had been infected and how many were protected,” two immunologists from Imperial College London wrote in a mid-July commentary in Science Immunology. “As we have learned more about this challenging infection, it is time to admit that we really need the T cell data too.”32, link hereTheoretically, the placebo arm of a covid-19 vaccine trial could provide a straightforward way to carry out such a study, by comparing the clinical outcomes of people with versus those without pre-existing T cell reactivity to SARS-CoV-2. A review by The BMJ of all primary and secondary outcome measures being studied in the two large ongoing, placebo controlled phase III trials, however, suggests that no such analysis is being done.33, link here34, link hereCould pre-existing immunity be more protective than future vaccines? Without studying the question, we won’t know.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1234.mp3" length="1321052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Policosanol is antiviral and a potent inducer of anti-aging gene Klotho</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1232</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1232</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 22 Sep 2020 15:40:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1232

This post is a good complement to the recent ones I did on androgens, estrogens and their opposing effects on the expression of the anti-aging gene Klotho, link here. While I was doing research on that gene, I had a “random” thought pop up in my mind. It is well-known that some Caribbean countries have a very high numbers of centenarians per capita. This is considered as a type of longevity “paradox” since most of those countries are also known for their high consumption of sugar cane alcohols (mostly rum) as well as their heavy smoking habits (mostly cigars). While their relatively stress-free lifestyle certainly contributes to their low rates of diseases and long life, I suspected that there may be a dietary factor involved as well. Cuban doctors (a Caribbean country) started publishing studies as early as the 1970s demonstrating remarkable pro-health effects of the very long chain (VLC) saturated fatty acid alcohols (FAA) known as policosanol, link here. Those FAA are extracted mainly from sugar cane, but are also present in wheat germ oil and certain types of vitamin E extracted from wheat germ oil in a manner that preserves the contents of policosanol. Coincidentally, when people email Ray Peat about the benefits of vitamin E, he consistently replies that it was the presence of policosanol in vitamin E that was responsible for a good deal of the benefits seen with vitamin E administration studies performed in the first half of the 20th century. In light of the high consumption of policosanol in Caribbean countries, the studies on beneficial effects of policosanol, and Peat’s statements I wondered if policosanol may have some specific anti-aging effects in addition to the overall systemic benefit. Well, the studies below seem to indicate that policosanol increases expression of Klotho by 4-10 fold in just 24 hours after administration, and as such may be therapeutic for cancer. While that is great news in and of itself, it also suggests additional benefit of policosanol consumption, especially for males. Considering the post about androgens/estrogens and Klotho I mentioned above, it suggests that policosanol may have an androgenic effect as activation of androgen receptor (AR) was necessary for the induction of Klotho by androgens and the suppression of AR was behind the ablating effects of estrogens. Since activation of AR usually means suppression of estrogen signalling and/or estrogen synthesis, it suggests policosanol may have anti-estrogenic effects. Considering vitamin E is itself an estrogen receptor (ER) antagonist and aromatase inhibitor (AI), it makes perfect sense that the synergy between these anti-estrogenic substances in the original vitamin E formulations would produce the robust results seen in studies done before 1950s, which abated significantly when the production methods of vitamin E were modified so that the policosanol was removed. Oh, and last but not least, it appears that policosanol has potent-antiviral effects, including against SARS-COV-2 (the cause of COVID-19), which are likely at least partly due to the increased Klotho gene expression, but may also be due to the protective effects of saturated fats (SFA) against COVID-19, link here.

link here

“…Metadichol (US patent 8,722,093) is a nano emulsion of long-chain alcohols found in many foods. It is commonly called policosanol and is present in foods such as rice, sugar cane, wheat and peanuts. ”

link here

“…Klotho is an anti-aging protein that is mostly secreted by the kidneys, the brain, and the thyroid. It plays a significant role in regulating kidney function and vascular health. Klotho gene is named after “the Spinner” (Clotho from Greek mythology), the goddess who spins the thread of life. Klotho is a transmembrane protein known to be a co-receptor for Fibroblast Growth Factor-23. Klotho gene is expressed in a variety of tissues changes in the levels are associated with many diseases. Klotho is a tumor suppressor in breast cancer and its expression is reduced in human pancreatic adenocarcinoma, and treatment with klotho inhibits the growth of pancreatic cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. Growing evidence suggests that an increase in KL expression may be beneficial for age-related diseases such as arteriosclerosis and diabetes. It remains a challenge today to induce Klotho expression. Herein we show that treating pancreatic cancer cells PANC1, MIAPACA and COLO-205 with Metadichol® a novel food based lipid emulsion of long chain alcohols at picogram/ml, concentration led to a 4-10 fold increase in Klotho expression as seen quantitative RT-PCR. These results suggest the use of Metadichol® given its constituents that are present in foods we consume every day is a novel therapeutic intervention for pancreatic cancer and other diseases.”

link here

“…Metadichol®, a nano lipid formulation of long-chain alcohols, has been shown to inhibit TMPRSS2 (EC50 96 ng/ml). Compared to the inhibitor camostat mesylate (EC50 26000 ng/ml), it is 270 times more potent. Additionally, Metadichol® is also a weak inhibitor of ACE2 at 31 µg/ml. Further a live virus assay in Caco2 cells, Metadichol® inhibited SARS-CoV-2 replication with an EC90 of 0.16 µg/ml…Metadichol inhibits SARS-COV-2 virus and since it a non toxic molecule can be easily tested in humans and as it has LD 50 of over 5000 mg/kilo and could help mitigate the crisis facing the world today.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1232.mp3" length="1526756" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Androgens boost, estrogen inhibits, anti-aging gene Klotho</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1230</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1230</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 22 Sep 2020 14:43:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1230

This post has two main messages, based on the studies below. Namely, androgens (and especially DHT) potently increase the expression of the anti-aging gene Klotho, link here while estrogens strikingly decrease its expression. Moreover, the more potent the androgen, in terms of androgen receptor (AR) agonism, the more robustly it increases Klotho. Conversely, the most potent the estrogen the more robustly it decrease Klotho. As such, stronger androgens (such as DHT) are even more effective than say testosterone (T) while synthetic estrogens (such as ethinyl estradiol) are more effective than endogenous estradiol. Just think about what that means for the millions of women around the world using contraceptives on a regular basis…

Furthermore, expressions of Klotho have by now been conclusively linked to longevity and systemic health and decline in its levels has been discovered in virtually all chronic diseases including diabetes, CVD, cancer, neurological conditions, mental health disorders, and even infectious disease (COVID-19 anyone?). Combined with my recent post showing estrogens are highly detrimental for male reproductive health, link here, I really can’t come up with any reason why a human (male or female) would ever want to increase estrogen levels, naturally or through supplementation. In light of the recent clinical trials administering estrogen to males with the hope that it would lead to better outcomes in COVID-19 patients, one begins to wonder if mainstream doctors are beset by some kind of institutional encephalopathy or if there is something more sinister at play…

link here

“…To confirm the previous in vivo findings, we treated the rat renal epithelial cell line NRK-52E with the indicated concentrations of DHT for the indicated durations. In line with these findings, semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis demonstrated that DHT induced renal klotho and AR mRNA expressions in dose- and time-dependent manners (Figure 3), and renal klotho and AR mRNAs were significantly increased by 3.6- (P<0.01) and 3.5-fold (P<0.05) after stimulation with 100 nM DHT for 24 h, respectively. In line with the mRNA data, immunoblotting analysis showed dose-and time-dependent effects of DHT on renal klotho and AR proteins, and renal klotho and AR protein levels were elevated by 2.1- (P<0.05) and 2-fold (P<0.05) in NRK-52E cells exposed to 100 nM DHT for 24 h (Figure 4). The effects of DHT encouraged us to investigate whether AR is directly involved in the regulation of klotho mRNA expression.We first observed co-expression of klotho andARproteins in proximal tubular cells by immunohistochemistry staining (Figure 5A). We also observed that endogenous AR proteins were induced by exogenous DHT, and this induction was in a time-dependent manner (Figure 5B), suggesting the possibility of correlation of testosterone level and klotho expression mediated through AR dependent transactivation. We further exogenously transfected AR into NRK-52E cells in the presence or absence of DHT stimulation to study the functional role of AR in the regulation of klotho mRNA expression. In the presence of DHT activation, AR was able to induce klotho mRNA expression (Figure 5C), whereas klotho mRNA was not affected by exogenous AR alone. In the present of the AR antagonist flutamide, the stimulatory effect of DHT on klotho mRNA was suppressed in NRK-52E cells (Figure 5D).”

5 links here

“…The regulation of Klotho by several factors and in different organs is depicted in Table 1, link here. In the kidney, klotho protein, link here level is markedly increased in estrogen deficiency, link here as in the aromatase-deficient mice model and is decreased after estradiol, link here therapy (Oz et al., abstract No. 1013, ASBMR, 2006).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1230.mp3" length="791444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen lowers T, DHT, and fertility; inhibits 5α-Reductase (5-AR)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1228</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1228</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 22 Sep 2020 14:10:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1228

I am posting this study below as a response to numerous angry emails I have been getting over the years. People sending me those emails just cannot accept the idea that estrogen can be detrimental for males (and females as well), and that estrogen levels are directly antagonistic to the male phenotype. This “‘male antagonism” of estrogen is one of the main reasons it was approved back in the 1960s as “treatment” for prostate cancer. Yet, myths about its “benefits” in males persist, not only among athletes/bodybuilders but also in medical circles. One of the claims of “benefit” of estrogen is that it induces the enzyme 5-AR and somehow increases androgenic tone, with the role of estrogen to “balance” the androgenicity it itself induces. This is the so-called contrarian endocrinology, which seems to have affected even the community of Peat followers over the last few years despite no evidence for any of these claims. To the contrary, I recently did a post demonstrating that estrogen is NOT needed even for male sexual function, link here, and the claim linking estrogen with sexuality is perhaps the main reason for people to defend estrogen when it comes to male health. There is also evidence that estrogen is NOT needed neither for bone, link here nor for muscle, link here development. In reality, the evidence so far points to the following – similarly to prolactin, if a male’s estrogen (mostly E2, but E1 and E3 matter too) levels are in the upper 50% of the “normal” range defined for males by mainstream medicine, then that male’s health will be poor. That includes not only sexual/reproductive but also mental, physiological, and thus systemic health.

link here

“…The pharmaceutical 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) is considered as an endocrine-disrupting chemical that interferes with male reproduction and hormonal activation. In this study, we investigated the molecular mechanism underlying EE2-regulatory testosterone release in vitro and in vivo. The results show that EE2 treatment decreased testosterone release from rat Leydig cells. Treatment of rats with EE2 reduced plasma testosterone levels and decreased the sensitivity of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). EE2 reduced luteinizing hormone receptor (LHR) expression associated with decreased cAMP generation by downregulation of adenylyl cyclase activity and decreased intracellular calcium-mediated pathways. The expression levels of StAR and P450scc were decreased in Leydig cells by treatment of rats with EE2 for 7 days. The sperm motility in the vas deferens and epididymis was reduced, but the histopathological features of the testis and the total sperm number of the vas deferens were not affected. Moreover, the serum dihydrotestosterone (DHT) level was decreased by treatment with EE2. The prostate gland and seminal vesicle atrophied significantly, and their expression level of 5α-reductase type II was reduced after EE2 exposure. Taken together, these results demonstrate an underlying mechanism of EE2 to downregulate testosterone production in Leydig cells, explaining the damaging effects of EE2 on male reproduction.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1228.mp3" length="863636" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking cortisol may treat even terminal cancers</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1226</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1226</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2020 16:17:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1226

The metabolic causes of cancer are slowly starting to be recognized, and especially the role of cortisol. I recently did a post on the role of cortisol in triple-negative breast cancer and the protective effects of androgens such as DHT, link here. Now, mainstream medicine does not deny that androgens have therapeutic role in breast cancer (BC) but it claims that such a role is reserved strictly for the estrogen-receptor positive type of breast cancer (ER-BC). In fact, the synthetic DHT derivative Drostanolone (Masteron), link here remains approved for treating breast cancer. Interestingly, the Wikipedia page on Masteron has quietly dropped the sentence describing Masteron’s approval by FDA for ER-BC, and has replaced it with the vague statement that the steroid has been introduced for “medical use” in 1961. Anyways, the (case) studies and press article below suggest that the pathological role of cortisol goes way beyond breast cancer and spans a number of other, almost invariably lethal, cancer including lung and kidney types. This suggests that cortisol works through a general mechanism likely applicable to all cancers and the only currently known such mechanism are the metabolic effects of cortisol. Namely, cortisol promotes the activity of the enzyme fatty acid synthase (FAS), link here as well as fatty acid oxidation (FAO), while simultaneously inhibiting the activity of the glucose-metabolizing enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), link here, thus resulting in elevated lactate, hypoxia/HIF-1 and angiogenesis. These are the hallmark metabolic abnormalities of every cancer known to medicine, and apparently cortisol can induce all of them.

So, the question then arises – if cortisol can induce the cancer metabolism, would reversing this pathological metabolism by blocking cortisol’s effects be therapeutic in cancer? The answer is apparently affirmative, at least when it comes to the cancer types discussed in the studies below. However, considering those were terminal stages of cancer and types of cancer with no known treatment that even slows them down, I am inclined to think this approach would work for every cancer.

The cortisol-blocking drug used in those studies was Mifepristone (RU486), link here. That drug is commonly known as the “abortion pill” since it is also a powerful antagonist of the progesterone receptor (PR) vital for maintaining pregnancy. However, unbeknownst to most doctors and even pharmacology scientists is the fact that RU486 was designed/developed as a glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonist and its current clinical usage for abortion is a result of a strategic marketing/financial decision. Namely, the pharma company that invented the drug in 1980s realized that the rise of feminism and female emancipation created a much bigger market for an abortion pill than it did for a humble cortisol antagonist for treating a relatively rare disease (Cushing syndrome). Thus, RU486 was quickly re-branded as a PR antagonist “abortion pill”, and that’s how it is now known in popular culture and medical circles. Well, ironically, its original purpose/design may now allow it to change from a life-terminating back into a life-giving drug. Namely, a cancer cure, if the findings of the (case) studies below are replicated in bigger trials.

Now, another question that naturally arises when speaking of cortisol antagonism is if there are other chemicals that can achieve the same as RU486. The answer is again in the affirmative. Progesterone (P4), pregnenolone (P5), DHEA, testosterone, DHT, etc are all cortisol antagonists, which explains at least partially the beneficial effects of DHT on triple-negative BC mentioned above. P4 happens to be the most potent cortisol antagonist among these, and arguably with the least propensity for side effects. In fact, some in-vitro studies suggest P4 has even greater affinity for the GR than RU486. DHEA is a close-second in terms of (endogenous) cortisol antagonism but unlike P4, DHEA works mostly by inhibiting the synthesis of cortisol and increasing its degradation. This may be why, both steroids have been shown to have powerful effects on reversing thymus atrophy and maybe even retarding/reversing aging, link here. So, instead of using the risky RU486 one may be able to achieve similar anti-cancer effects by using a progesterone/DHEA combination. The RU486 dosage used in the terminal cancer case studies was not high – a mere 200mg daily. That means 200mg P4 daily should be a good substitute with similar effects but as seen in the blog post on reversing aging, a slightly lower P4 dosage may be more optimal, especially if combined with DHEA.

3 links here

“…Jerome Check firmly believes that mifepristone, better known as the abortion pill, can extend and improve the lives of terminally ill lung cancer patients who have run out of treatment options. He has enough circumstantial evidence of this that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave him permission to formally test the drug in 40 advanced-stage patients. Mifepristone also is interesting. Synthesized in 1980 by the French company Roussel-Uclaf, the compound dubbed RU486 became the world’s most controversial drug after it was developed to derail a pregnancy when used in combination with a second drug that causes contractions.”

“…In 2004, during a routine gynecological checkup, a patient confided to Check that she had a very rare cancer of the thymus, an immune system organ in the neck. Her tumors were growing despite chemotherapy and radiation. She became his first mifepristone patient. The FDA gave permission for “compassionate use” of Danco’s pills. The patient’s tumors stabilized for more than two years – the second-longest survival ever recorded by the Thymic Cell Carcinoma Society, Check wrote in a 2010 journal article. Then, hoping to wipe out the cancer, she stopped mifepristone and had more radiation, which caused a fatal lung complication. Over the next decade, Check treated 10 more patients who were dying of colon, brain, pancreatic and other cancers. They seemed to live longer than their oncologists expected, and their energy, appetite, and pain levels seemed to improve. But there was no way to know whether this was luck, biased impressions, or actual benefits of mifepristone. Consider the most remarkable case, an 80-year-old woman who happened to be Check’s mother-in-law. When the ex-smoker went to the emergency room in respiratory failure, X-rays revealed lung lesions typical of cancer. She refused surgery and chemo, but agreed to try mifepristone. After six weeks on the drug, the lesions were gone. Her lungs were still clear when she died five years later of a heart attack.”

“…Although only two lung cancer patients have been treated in Check’s trial so far, both have beaten the survival odds. The names are not being disclosed because of the trial’s confidentiality requirement. The first patient, a 71-year-old retired bus driver who lives in New York City, was diagnosed in 2013 with lung cancer that had spread to his bladder. Surgery and chemo helped for two years, when a small brain metastasis was detected. He wasn’t a candidate for a checkpoint inhibitor, so his oncologist suggested Check’s trial. “In 2016, I started mifepristone,” said the patient, who drives to Melrose Park once a month for monitoring tests. “The lung lesions are stable. There’s no further evidence of metastases in the brain. I have no shortness of breath. No side effects whatsoever.” The second patient, a 69-year-old woman from South Jersey, already had debilitating pulmonary disease from years of smoking when she was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer in 2014. After chemo, two targeted drugs, and a checkpoint inhibitor failed to control it, her Voorhees oncologist, Trina Poretta, told her about the trial. In April, with her cancer stable for more than 19 months, she said, “You take a pill once a day at the same time. That’s pretty much it. You can eat anything. I’ve had no headaches, no nausea.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1226.mp3" length="2349860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA exacerbate, saturated fats (SFA) / albumin / calcium ameliorate COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1222</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1222</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2020 14:13:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1222

A few months ago I posted about a study discussing the role of lipid peroxidation in the COVID-19 pathology, link here. While that study did not make any statements about effects of diet on the disease course/outcome, it did suggest lipid peroxidation blockers such as vitamin E would be therapeutic. Now, we have another study that points the finger straight at dietary PUFA while also vindicating SFA by finding they are directly protective in COVID-19 patients. The beneficial mechanism of action of SFA was by blocking/inhibiting lipolysis, and it is by now well-known that the latter releases mostly PUFA into the bloodstream due to their propensity for storage when acquired through the diet. Furthermore, corroborating the previous study on lipid peroxidation, the one below found that agents that can bind and neutralize PUFA are also therapeutic. Aside from vitamin E, two other such agents are albumin and calcium. I did know about the PUFA neutralizing effects of albumin but did not know about calcium’s. When viewed in that context, Peat’s recommendation to eat grams of calcium daily now makes perfect sense 🙂

Furthermore, the study also found that PUFA is responsible for the (often lethal) acute pancreatitis seen in many COVID-19 patients. Given the epidemic of both acute and chronic pancreatitis in the general population (in the absence of COVID-19), apparently we need to look no further than PUFA for its cause(s). And finally, even if the reference above and the study below are not enough to convince you that PUFA are the primary driver of COVID-19, another recent study found that blocking the effects of the inflammatory PUFA metabolites known as leukotrienes, link here, is another potential curative treatment for COVID-19, link here.

2 links here

“…Some COVID-19 patients go on to develop severe infection with organ failure, potentially leading to death, and one of the contributing factors appears to be toxicity from the release of stored unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs), according to a small study in Gastroenterology, link here. Vijay P. Singh, MBBS, a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, and colleagues retrospectively looked at mortality and dietary and other factors in 15 COVID-19 patients, one of of whom died and seven of whom needed intensive care (ICU group). The rest were discharged home. They found that the ICU group had an early drop in serum calcium and albumin several days before ICU admission. Separately, on analyzing global COVID-19 mortality data and comparing it with 12 risk factors for mortality, they found unsaturated fat intake to be associated with increased mortality. This was based on the dietary fat patterns of 61 countries in the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization database, link here. Surprisingly, they found saturated fats to be protective. In experimental studies, UFAs were seen to cause hypocalcemia and hypoalbuminemia. Since calcium and albumin can bind and neutralize UFA toxicity only when given early, this led the investigators to conclude that the simple low-cost intervention of maintaining adequate calcium and albumin levels early in the disease could bind UFAs, reduce injury, and help prevent death.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1222.mp3" length="904724" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) caused by histamine and serotonin</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1220</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1220</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2020 13:44:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1220

I did not expect to see this statement in a mainstream science news outlet, but here it is below. I am starting to see a change in attitude towards serotonin but mainstream medicine is careful about its game. Somehow, the message about serotonin has now split into two separate, nonsensical ones – i.e. there are somehow two types of serotonin, one produced in the gut and one produced in the brain. The former is bad and its overproduction leads to a number of GI diseases, while the latter is beneficial and is the “happy” hormone we continue to hear about in SSRI drug ads and lecturing by our doctors. This is, of course, complete nonsense. There is only one type of serotonin (5-HT) and more than 90% of it is produced in the GI tract. Despite the claims by doctors that serotonin itself cannot cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), extensive evidence to the contrary exists (similar to the GABA claims also made by doctors) and that alone invalidates the ludicrous claims above. Well, let’s see how long this charade lasts, but the good news is that at least when it comes to GI conditions, the message is now becoming clear that many of them are simply a sign/symptom of serotonin excess, and as such should be curable. Perhaps the most common of those GI disorders is IBS, with an estimated 15%+ of the US population suffering from it. Considering that the study below also implicates histamine in the GI pathologies, it makes drugs like tricyclics, Benadryl, cyproheptadine, and the ergot family of drugs prime candidates for treating those conditions.

Finally, the study also discusses the role steroid hormones play in those pathologies and especially the protective role of androgens. While the study does not go as as far as claiming that estrogen is pathological, the fact that it discusses the higher prevalence of those GI diseases in women and the protective roles of androgens (even in females), with their propensity to block estrogen’s effects, should be enough for most readers to draw their own conclusions.

2 links here

“…Published in the most recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study answers questions about why females are at increased risk for common diseases that involve or target the immune system like asthma, allergies, migraines and irritable bowel syndrome. The findings by Adam Moeser, Emily Mackey and Cynthia Jordan also open the door for new therapies and preventatives.”

“…Moeser also previously discovered sex differences in mast cells. Female mast cells store and release more inflammatory substances like proteases, histamine and serotonin, compared with males. Thus, female mast cells are more likely than male mast cells to kick-start aggressive immune responses. While this may offer females the upper hand in surviving infections, it also can put females at higher risk for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. “IBS is an example of this,” says Mackey, whose doctoral research is part of this new publication. “While approximately 25% of the U.S. population is affected by IBS, women are up to four times more likely to develop this disease than men.”

“…Moeser, Mackey and Jordan’s latest research explains why these sex-biased disease patterns are observed in both adults and prepubertal children. They found that lower levels of serum histamine and less-severe anaphylactic responses occur in males because of their naturally higher levels of perinatal androgens, which are specific sex hormones present shortly before and after birth. “Mast cells are created from stem cells in our bone marrow,” Moeser said. “High levels of perinatal androgens program the mast cell stem cells to house and release lower levels of inflammatory substances, resulting in a significantly reduced severity of anaphylactic responses in male newborns and adults.” “We then confirmed that the androgens played a role by studying males who lack functional androgen receptors,” says Jordan, professor of Neuroscience and an expert in the biology of sex differences.

“…While high perinatal androgen levels are specific to males, the researchers found that while in utero, females exposed to male levels of perinatal androgens develop mast cells that behave more like those of males. “For these females, exposure to the perinatal androgens reduced their histamine levels and they also exhibited less-severe anaphylactic responses as adults,” says Mackey, who is currently a veterinary medical student at North Carolina State University.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1220.mp3" length="970868" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Red light therapy for Parkinson Disease (PD) begins human trials</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1218</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1218</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2020 13:19:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1218

A few weeks ago, I posted about a human study demonstrating reversal of age-related vision decline, link here by staring at a red light for just a few minutes a day. The mechanism of action proposed in that study had to do with improved mitochondrial function and energy production. Now, it seems another branch of medicine – neurology – has taken note of that study and is embarking on a similar approach for the treatment of PD. IMO, once we start seeing clinical trials for red light therapy in cancer patients, it would be game over for mainstream medicine with its genetic hypothesis, CRISPR, surgery, radiation, etc.

link here

“…Light therapy can help lift moods, heal wounds, and boost the immune system. Can it improve symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, too? A first-of-its-kind trial scheduled to launch this fall in France aims to find out. In seven patients, a fiber optic cable implanted in their brain will deliver pulses of near-infrared (NIR) light directly to the substantia nigra, a region deep in the brain that degenerates in Parkinson’s disease. The team, led by neurosurgeon Alim- Louis Benabid of the Clinatec Institute—a partnership between several government-funded research institutes and industry—hopes the light will protect cells there from dying. The study is one of several set to explore how Parkinson’s patients might benefit from light. “I am so excited,” says neuropsychologist Dawn Bowers of the University of Florida College of Medicine, who is recruiting patients for a trial in which NIR will be beamed into the skull instead of delivered with an implant. Small tests in people with Parkinson’s and animal models of the disease have already suggested benefits, but some mainstream Parkinson’s researchers are skeptical. No one has shown exactly how light might protect the key neurons—or why it should have any effect at all on cells buried deep in the brain that never see the light of day. Much or all of the encouraging hints seen so far in people may be the result of the placebo effect, skeptics say. Because there are no biomarkers that correlate well with changes in Parkinson’s symptoms, “we are reliant on observing behavior,” says neurobiologist David Sulzer of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, an editor of the journal npj Parkinson’s Disease. “It’s not easy to guard against placebo effects.”

“…In 2017, together with research fellow Cécile Moro, they injected 20 macaques with a neurotoxin known to cause Parkinson’s symptoms. In nine of them, they also delivered NIR to the midbrain area through an implanted device. Mitrofanis recalls how the first NIR-treated monkey behaved after a 3-week recovery period: “He was moving around like there was nothing wrong. We looked at each other and just hugged. … It was euphoric.” Overall, NIR-treated monkeys developed fewer symptoms than the untreated group and retained 20% to 60% more of the brain cells targeted by the neurotoxin.”

“…Bowers will also look for signs that, as some have proposed, light boosts brain cells’ energy-producing mitochondria. Test tube experiments have shown that light can trigger the enzyme cytochrome C oxidase, which is present on mitochondrial membranes, to rev up cellular energy production, which in turn might increase blood flow and stimulate cells to churn out several neuroprotective proteins and growth factors. “But I’m not convinced a transcranial device can penetrate deeply enough to show substantial improvements,” Bowers says. She’s more hopeful about Benabid’s trial.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1218.mp3" length="336668" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aromatase inhibitor (AI) + DHT combo may reverse kidney disease (CKD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1208</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1208</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2020 17:19:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1208

A truly great study for a number of reasons. First, it cites extensive evidence that male patients with diabetes (both types) have low androgens and high estrogen (estradiol). The association between this endocrine abnormality and the severity of diabetes is apparently quite strong, yet it is virtually unknown in endocrinology circles. In fact, there have been clinical trials (unsuccessful, of course) trying to treat diabetes in both men and women by administering estrogen! Needless to say, nobody has gone to jail over these criminally inept trials. In fact, estrogen treatment is back on the table (at least for females) as Big Pharma has spent millions attacking and undermining the findings of the WHI studies in order to be allowed to push estrogen on the unsuspecting public again. Criminal history of medicine aside, after spending some time looking into this more, IMO there is extensive epidemiological evidence that the low-androgen + high-estrogen state is a factor in the development of diabetes. The few people sending me hate mail on a regular basis would probably exclaim “but…but…but it is only an association!” True, but the study below gets an inch closer to proving the causal link. Namely, it demonstrates that by correcting the high-estrogen state by administering an aromatase inhibitor (AI) at relatively low doses AND also correcting the low-androgen state by administering the non-aromatizable androgen DHT, the chronic kidney disease (CKD) so common in diabetes patients can be completely reversed. Why this combination? Well, the study cites evidence from previous experiments that administering only DHT or only an AI drug partially reversed the CKD in diabetic animals. Considering that diabetes is characterized by BOTH high estrogen AND low androgens, the authors of the present study thought it would be plausible to try a combination treatment and see if the effects would be synergistic. And they were indeed – i.e. the kidney damage was reversed to the point of no significant difference from control, non-diabetic animals. The study does not make the claim that administering the AI + DHT combo will treat the actual diabetes. However, considering the strong association between low-androgen + high-estrogen and diabetes incidence/severity, I don’t think it is far fetched to advance that hypothesis. It does mention a number of studies where diabetes was partially ameliorated by T administration, in line with the findings of low-androgen being pathological for diabetes, and something that suboptimal androgen (such as T) administration can only partially reverse. Namely, T is an aromatizable androgen and when administered above physiological doses it will reliably raise estrogen, thus cancelling much (all?) of the benefit from the androgenic effects of T. Unfortunately, AFAIK there are no human trials with DHT and the blame for that can be squarely placed in the court of Big Pharma and public health authorities for demonizing DHT as a cause of prostate cancer and baldness. If it wasn’t for this fraudulent myth, it is quite likely that by now diabetes will have been revealed to be a stress-driven condition, with the resulting decrease of androgens and elevation of estrogen levels in males. Now, what about dosing? The AI drug used was anastrozole and the HED was 0.02mg/kg daily. That dose is actually commonly used clinically in humans – i.e. 1mg-2mg daily for an adult. As far as DHT goes – the dose HED was 0.3mg/kg, which means 20mg-30mg daily for most adult males. That is a supra-physiological dose but the authors claim that this is the dose that raised the hypogonadal levels of DHT in diabetic animals back to normal. So, the corresponding dose for humans may be much lower than what is suggested by the extrapolation/scaling formulas, and as such 5mg-10mg may suffice. Interestingly, 5mg-10mg daily doses of the anabolic steroid oxandrolone, link here (a DHT-derivative) have been shown to improve glucose control and reduce diabetic complications in humans, and I think that corroborates the expectation that 5mg-10mg DHT daily would be enough. What about people who do not have access to a pharma AI and/or DHT? I think a progesterone + DHEA combo may come close in effectiveness. Progesterone is a known AI and also an estrogen receptor antagonist, so it may actually be even more beneficial than a drug like anastrozole (which has known side effects). As such, a progesterone + DHT combo may be a better option for replicating the design/results of the study, which resonates with my post from about 5 years ago where I suggested that progesterone and DHT are probably the only two steroids worth optimizing for (or supplementing with) in males. As far as a DHT replacement, while DHEA won’t be able to match fully the effects of 5mg-10mg DHT using up to 15mg DHEA daily (in divided doses) over time should come pretty close IMO. This expectation is based on long-term studies with humans demonstrating even low-dose DHEA administration (10mg daily) raising 2-3 fold the levels of DHT metabolites (e.g. 3α-androstanediol and its glucuronide) in blood/urine in humans. IMO those findings suggest DHEA reliably replenishes the DHT pool when used chronically.

Finally, the study provides additional evidence that androgens (DHT in this case) INCREASE instead of lower expression/levels of the androgen receptor (AR). In addition, the treatment also lowered ERα resulting in a greatly increased AR/ERα ratio in the treated animals. I can’t even count the number of angry emails (or discussions on the RP forum) I have gotten over the years claiming that administering androgens is counterproductive for conditions such as post-finasteride syndrome (PFS) because it would downregulate further the already lowered expression/levels of AR in such patients. As the study showed, the combination AI + DHT treatment actually increased AR expression (and AR/ERα ratio) close to control (non-diabetic) levels. Moreover, the study demonstrates that estrogen levels correlate directly with ERα expression (as do DHT and AR levels), which means lowering estrogen levels will decrease ERα, instead of raising it as some of my critics continue to claim. I only wish Big Pharma would read studies like the ones below before starting campaigns to “educate” the public about the “evil” DHT and the “beneficial” estrogen…

3 links here

“…Studies in humans have shown that diabetes is associated with an imbalance in sex hormone levels. Namely, males have low testosterone and high estradiol levels (12, link here–13, link here, 29, link here, 42, link here)…Furthermore, studies in both clinical and experimental models have shown that this imbalance correlates with renal injury. Specifically, in men with type 1 diabetes, the decrease in testosterone/increase in estradiol correlates with the progression from microalbuminuria to end-stage renal disease and the decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate (29, link here–30, link here, 38, link here, 44, link here). In experimental models, this imbalance also correlates with the progression of albuminuria, systemic inflammation, and fibrosis (44, link here). These observations suggest that sex hormones may play an important role in the progression and pathogenesis of diabetic renal disease and that possibly restoring the balance of these hormones to those observed in nondiabetic subjects may attenuate or abolish the progression of renal injury.”

“…Men with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, as well as experimental models of diabetes, exhibit decreased circulating testosterone (9, link here, 12, link here–13, link here, 18, link here, 39, link here, 42, link here, 44, link here) and increased circulating estradiol levels (42, link here, 44, link here). Furthermore, low testosterone and high estradiol levels in type 1 diabetic men are associated with a decline in renal function (29, link here). This imbalance in the physiological levels of both androgens and estrogens in diabetic men may be a predictor of the severity of renal injury with progression of diabetes. While no clinical study to date has directly examined the role of restoring either androgens or estrogen levels to physiological range in diabetic men to prevent or reverse renal damage, lack of testosterone in male patients with diabetes has been shown to increase mortality among dialysis patients (4, link here) and is associated with endothelial dysfunction, increased risk of heart failure, and cardiovascular disease in both diabetic and nondiabetic subjects (14, link here, 23, link here–24, link here, 41, link here, 45, link here). Furthermore, testosterone supplementation has been shown to be beneficial in the setting of diabetes. In one case report, testosterone replacement therapy was shown to attenuate insulin resistance and improve several cardiovascular risk factors in hypogonadal men with type 2 diabetes (16, link here).One of the underlying mechanisms for this observation may be the antiapoptotic effect of testosterone, as observed in STZ-induced diabetic, castrated rats (33, link here, 35, link here).”

“…Our previous studies in the female STZ-induced diabetic rat have shown that restoring circulating estradiol to physiological levels resulted in partial attenuation of diabetes-associated renal injury by reducing albuminuria, creatinine clearance, glomerulosclerosis, tubulointerstitial fibrosis, and transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) protein expression (27, link here). In the male STZ-induced diabetic rat, supplementing dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the non-aromatizable androgen (43, link here), or blocking estradiol synthesis (26, link here) partially attenuated albuminuria, markers of inflammation, and tubulointerstitial fibrosis. These studies indicate that individually restoring the levels of either androgens or estrogens is not sufficient to provide full renoprotection.”

“…Diabetes was associated with a 19% decrease in androgen receptor (AR)/estrogen receptor (ER) α protein expression compared with ND animals. Dta animals had a 52% increase in AR/ERα protein expression compared with D and similar protein expression compared with those observed in the ND group (Fig. 3, link here).

“…Confirming our previous reports, diabetic male rats have a reduction in AR/ERα protein expression in the renal cortex compared with nondiabetic animals (26, link here, 37, link here), and the combined treatment with DHT and anastrozole restored this protein expression to that seen in ND. These observations suggest that the changes in the ratio of AR/ERα protein expression parallel the change in the relative balance of testosterone/estradiol levels. Furthermore, this relative balance in the expression of AR/ERα receptors may lead to differential effects of sex hormones not just in the opposite sex, but also in different disease models.

“…In summary, the present study demonstrates that restoring the balance of sex hormones by supplementing DHT and inhibiting estradiol synthesis prevents the progression of renal disease in the male STZ-induced diabetic rat. These data underscore the importance of sex hormones in the pathophysiology of diabetic renal disease and warrant further studies to elucidate the mechanisms by which sex hormones exert their actions in the diabetic kidney.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1208.mp3" length="3177428" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:07:12</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Activation of the endotoxin receptor (TLR4) may cause hearing loss</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1205</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1205</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 10 Sep 2020 16:53:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1205

There is currently an epidemic of tinnitus (ear ringing) and hearing loss in virtually all developed countries. Experts are scratching heads and are failing to come up with a reason/explanation for this epidemic. As it often happens, the cause is often hidden in plain sight and if one follows the clues and the available evidence, instead of the lofty speeches of medical “experts”, the truth gradually becomes clear. A few weeks ago I did a post on serotonin being able to cause tinnitus, which can (logically) be treated by administering a serotonin antagonist. Considering that more than 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut (as a result of endotoxin (LPS) activating the TLR4 receptor), it seems natural to conclude that endoxotin (LPS) would be implicated in hearing loss. Well, as obvious as that may seem, that link had not been established so far. The study below is now the first to prove that activation of TLR4 leads to hearing loss, and as such suggests that reducing endotoxin with antibiotics or (non-soluble) fibrous foods, or blocking its effects with TLR4 antagonists may be a viable treatment for hearing problems. It is worth keeping in mind that endotoxin (LPS) is not the only substance that can activate TLR4. Other TLR4 agonists, link here include PUFA, alcohol (ethanol), opioids, marijuana, SSRI drugs, anticonvulsants, etc. Considering the widespread consumption/use of these substances, it is little wonder that there is an epidemic of hearing loss and tinnitus in the “developed” world. As far as TLR4 blockers, there is no need to wait for the group below to synthesize one. Drugs like cyproheptadine, ketotifen, naltrexone, Benadryl (diphenhydramine), vitamin D/A, emodin, etc are known TLR4 antagonists, link here, and widely available either from a doctor or as a dietary supplement.

2 links here

“…”If we’re able make cisplatin, an otherwise invaluable chemotherapeutic tool, safe for everyone—not just low-risk patients—it could be a game-changer for the quality of life of the children using cisplatin as their cancer therapy, link here,” said Babolmorad. The platinum atom at the center of cisplatin is responsible for killing cancer cells, link here, but can also activate an immune receptor in the cell membrane, link here, known as TLR4, that experts have long thought plays a role in inflammation. Immune receptors are proteins that detect the presence of a pathogen—or something wrong, like a cancer cell—and generate a signal to combat the pathogen. The inflammation caused by the immune receptor that Babolmorad and her supervisor Amit Bhavsar were interested in occurs in the cochlea and results in damage to the auditory cells and, ultimately, hearing loss. To better understand the mechanism behind this inflammation, th team treated two groups of auditory hair cell lines—similar to the ones found in human ears responsible for perceiving sound—that were essentially identical, except one of them lacked the TLR4 immune receptor, with platinum. “As expected, we only saw signals arise in the cells with TLR4,” said Babolmorad. “Basically, platinum, and cisplatin by extension, can activate the TLR4 immune receptor, which causes a response in the immune system—like inflammation in the cochlea.” However, thanks to genetic variation, there are people who express a low level of this immune receptor, link here, which means their immune system, link here isn’t activated and they have a low risk of developing hearing loss, said Babolmorad. Babolmorad is now working with other U of A researchers, including groups led by chemistry professor Fred West and biology professor Ted Allison, to examine potential synthetic inhibitors that can block the TLR4 receptors.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1205.mp3" length="953420" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Alcohol brain damage due to iron accumulation; vitamin B1 to the rescue</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1202</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1202</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 10 Sep 2020 16:26:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1202

Chronic alcohol abuse is highly detrimental to health and especially to the brain. Alcohol puts the body in a reductive state and depletes vitamin B1 (thiamine) stores. If the B1 deficiency becomes severe enough it manifests through what is clinically known as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS), link here, characterized by dementia and other severe neurological symptoms. It is treatable by administering B1 and most hospitals have the so-called “banana bags”, which are IV solutions containing glucose and B vitamins, including high-dose B1. However, mainstream medicine claims that B1 therapy can only help in early stages of that syndrome and that all other stages are incurable and progressive. The main reason for these claims is that mainstream medicine does not know what the mechanism through which alcohol damages the brain is. Well, the study below serves to both corroborate Peat’s views on the “synergy” between alcohol, iron and PUFA while also possibly refuting the mainstream medical claim that B1 cannot treat chronic cases of WKS. As it turns out, alcohol stimulates the release of iron in the blood and its subsequent accumulation in the brain. B1 not only supports the energy production in this extremely energy-sensitive organ but also prevents the iron accumulation in the brain by restoring the blood-brain-barrier. The study also mentions the potential therapeutic role of iron chelators, which suggests that aspirin, vitamin E, tetracycline antibiotics, milk, etc all have potential therapeutic roles. Actually, B1 may itself have iron chelation effects, which may explain why in animal models of WKS the administration of B1 has been shown to fully reverse it on its own. Considering the toxic iron deposits in various organs are not in the form of free iron but in the form of lipofuscin, link here (PUFA+iron), it would be an amazing result if the clinical trial planned by the study authors below discovers that B1 can prevent / reverse lipofuscin accumulation. The accumulation of the latter is a hallmark not only of chronic diseases but of the aging process in general and multiple studies have demonstrated that removing lipofuscin from the cell restores mitochondrial function to youthful levels.

2 links here

“…Researchers Stephan Listabarth, Daniel König and Benjamin Vyssoki from the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Division of Social Psychiatry at MedUni Vienna and Simon Hametner from MedUni Vienna’s Department of Neurology, Division of Neuropathology and Neurochemistry, have now advanced a plausible hypothesis to explain alcohol-induced brain damage: the cognitive deterioration is caused by iron deposits in the brain but the administration of vitamin B1 could protect the brain from these deposits. We know from various neurodegenerative diseases that iron deposits in the brain are responsible for nerve tissue damage. These deposits can also be detected in specific regions of the brain (including the basal ganglia) in people who drink a lot of alcohol. The hypothesis advanced by the study authors now also offers an explanation as to why iron deposits are so prevalent in this patient group: high alcohol consumption results in elevated iron levels in the blood and also to vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency, which, among other things, is important for maintaining the blood-brain barrier. If these two situations coincide, more iron will be deposited inside the brain, ultimately leading to oxidative tissue damage. This newly described role of vitamin B1 in this process could represent a huge step forward in our understanding of the development of alcohol-related neurological damage and, in particular, could offer a new point of attack for preventive and therapeutic approaches. It would then be conceivable to give continuous vitamin B1 substitution in the future, as a preventive measure. The researchers believe it would also be useful to evaluate the use of drugs to reduce iron levels (e.g. chelators), as is already done in other neurodegenerative diseases. The authors of the current work have already started planning a prospective clinical study to validate the above-mentioned relationship between alcohol dependency, vitamin B1 deficiency and cerebral iron deposits and to provide a basis for further research in the field of alcohol-related dementia in the future.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1202.mp3" length="1981004" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lipolysis / FFA drive breast cancer by promoting estrogen signalling</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1200</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1200</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 10 Sep 2020 15:59:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1200

The evidence for the fat-loving nature of cancer just keeps on accumulating. During the last podcast with Danny and Ray, I mentioned that in cancer cells the enzyme fatty acid synthase (FAS) is actually part of the estrogen receptor (ER) complex. As such, anything that increases the expression/activity of one promotes the other as well. FAS is by now a well known target for cancer therapy and multiple FAS inhibiting drugs are being developed/tested by Big Pharma. The fact that aspirin is a dirt cheap and widely available FAS inhibitor is never mentioned, but that is a topic for another post.

link here

“…The gene that codes for FAS has been investigated as a possible oncogene, link here.[35], link here FAS is upregulated, link here in breast and gastric cancers, as well as being an indicator of poor prognosis may also be worthwhile as a chemotherapeutic target.[36], link here[37], link here[38], link here FAS inhibitors, link here are therefore an active area of drug discovery, link here research.[39], link here[40], link here[41], link here[42], link hereFAS may also be involved in the production of an endogenous ligand, link here for the nuclear receptor PPARalpha, link here, the target of the fibrate, link here drugs for hyperlipidemia,[43], link here and is being investigated as a possible drug target for treating the metabolic syndrome.[44], link here Orlistat, link here which is a gastrointestinal lipase inhibitor also inhibits FAS and has a potential as a medicine for cancer, link here.[45], link here[46], link hereIn some cancer cell lines, this protein has been found to be fused with estrogen receptor alpha, link here (ER-alpha), in which the N-terminus, link here of FAS is fused in-frame with the C-terminus, link here of ER-alpha.[8]”, link here

To make matters worse, there has been evidence dating back to early 20th century that fatty acids (whether produced by FAS or obtained through the diet) also promote estrogen signalling. However, the power of the pro-estrogen industry has managed to suppress any discussions of the possible relevance of this fact for breast cancer development. Moreover, recently the estrogen industry has even started to criticize the findings of the WHI study and has pushed for return of HRT (with estrogen) for all post-menopausal women. If you ask an oncologist if fats promote breast cancer or if they are estrogenic, you are likely to get a blank stare at best or be chased out of his/her office at worst. I am hoping that the study below will change that attitude. It demonstrated directly that elevated lipolysis and its “product” free fatty acid (FFA) levels not only drive cancer growth, but do so by directly activating estrogen receptors and by increasing inflammation. In addition, it found that elevated lipolysis/FFA increased aerobic and fatty acid oxidation while suppressing Krebs cycle activity (classic example of the Randle effect). Conversely, lowering lipolysis/FFA reduced estrogenic signalling and abolished cancer growth.

link here

“…Scientists at the University of Illinois have found that free fatty acids in the blood appear to boost proliferation and growth of breast cancer cells. The finding could help explain obese women’s elevated risk of developing breast cancer after menopause.”

link here

“…This analysis showed that postmenopausal women who developed breast cancer had significantly higher levels of lipolysis byproducts, FFAs, including OA, PA, LA, SA, and arachidonic acid (AA), and glycerol in their plasma as compared with healthy controls (Fig. 1F, link here; Supplementary Fig. S1).”

“…To confirm that OA-increased cell proliferation occurred through ERα and mTOR pathways, a cell viability assay was performed with OA treatments in the presence of fulvestrant, an ERα antagonist, and RAD001, an mTOR pathway inhibitor and PaPE-1. All of the tested agents blocked OA-induced cell proliferation, revealing the dependence of the OA-induced cell proliferation on the ERα and mTOR pathways (Fig. 5C, link here). To evaluate whether also plasma from obese individuals induced MCF-7 cell proliferation through ERα and mTOR pathways, cell proliferation assays with plasma samples were performed in the presence of 4-OH-tamoxifen, fulvestrant, and PaPE-1. Notably, PaPE-1 was the most effective agent in inhibiting plasma-induced proliferation of MCF-7 cells (Fig. 5D, link here, left). However, in standard cell culture conditions with 5% FBS, 4-OH-Tamoxifen and fulvestrant showed a stronger inhibition on cell proliferation than PaPE-1 (Fig. 5D, link here, right). These results suggest that treatment with the plasma from obese individuals makes MCF-7 cells more vulnerable to the growth-inhibitory effect of PaPE-1. Increase in MCF-7 cell viability upon OA and PA treatments was blocked in the cells knocked down for CD36, a membrane protein that imports FFAs to the cell (Fig. 5E, link here). These data indicate that FFAs need to be transported inside the cell to stimulate cell proliferation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1200.mp3" length="341996" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Meditation can worsen mental health, even cause clinical psychiatric issues</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1195</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1195</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2020 20:30:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1195

I have always been ambivalent in regards to meditation, mostly due to its teachings that many perceived problems are simply in “our head” and all we need to do as “treatment” is steer our thoughts in a particular direction. We are flooded with information/advice that once we master whatever technique the specific type of meditation is promoting, all of our mental health issues would magically go away, or at least we would find peace. Unfortunately, my (albeit limited) experience with people with mental health disorders suggests this is approach is highly counterproductive as the true cause of mental distress is physical, real, tangible, stress. Worse still, the continued insistence of medical professionals and all sorts of “bliss coaches” that the problem is not coming from the outside but from the inside, that we are somehow flawed and internally disturbed for no tangible reason strikes me as very patronizing and openly manipulative. Instead of identifying problems in our environment, diet, relationships, politics, etc that negatively affect our physiological health (and thus mental health), many psychiatrists and “gurus” insist that we need to decouple our mental health from all of these tangible issues and instead focus on “quieting the mind” as the key to solving our distress. As if somehow, our mind is insulated from the body and the signals it received from the environment! Does it remind of you something else, often preached and practiced by doctors? Yes, of course! It is an idealistic attitude, similar to the “cancer gene” idea that teaches cancer is a defect within ourselves not related to the external environment. That toxic/fraudulent idea has ruled medicine/oncology for more than a century, with disastrous results for all involved patients. And now we see that similar ideas are permeating the field of mental health.

In the last decade, meditation classes and coverage in the media has increased several hundred fold and continues to rise, while at the same time the mental health of the population continues to massively deteriorate, link here. In light of this reality, I think serious skepticism about the benefits of meditation is more than warranted but up until recently there was little in terms of concrete evidence to suggest that meditation is not the magic bullet we are being led to believe. So, my discussions on the topic with friends and family were often ridiculed for being little more than fearmongering. However, recently published studies and articles below provide the “first systematic review of the evidence” and the picture is not pretty. Those studies suggest that meditation can make matters worse for a significant percentage of practitioners. One study from 1992 found that more than 60% of practitioners experienced at least one adverse mental effect, and 7% experienced profoundly negative effects. In many cases, those negative effects did not dissipate upon stopping meditation and some became full-blown clinical psychiatric issues that lasted, on average, for several years. I think the negative side effect rate is actually much higher because the studies lasted only a few months each and for many people the true effects of meditation are not known years, and sometimes decades after starting practicing. This is corroborated by one of the studies below, which found that practitioners with more past meditation experience were more likely to experience deteriorating mental health. That suggests a “dose-response relationship” both in magnitude and duration of meditation. One of the studies also directly states that the number of people found to experience negative effects is an underestimate. It is my hope that more people will realize meditation is far from a magic bullet and can often make things worse by convincing a person to see the problem in terms of a “defective self” instead of a sub-optimal environment that drives pathology.

3 links here

“…I looked further into the literature. In 1992, David Shapiro, a professor at UCLA Irvine, published an article about the effects of meditation retreats. After examining 27 people with different levels of meditation experience, he found 63 per cent of them had suffered at least one negative effect and seven per cent profoundly adverse effects. The negative effects included anxiety, panic, depression, pain, confusion and disorientation. But perhaps only the least experienced felt them – and might several days of meditation not overwhelm those who were relatively new to the practice? The answer was no. When Shapiro divided the larger group into those with lesser and greater experience, there were no differences: all had an equal number of adverse experiences. And an earlier study had arrived at a similar, but even more surprising conclusion: those with more experience also had considerably more adverse effects than the beginners.”

“…Amid the small pile of articles on the topic, I found two by Arnold Lazarus and Albert Ellis, co-founders of CBT. In 1976, Lazarus reported that a few of his own patients had had serious disturbances after meditating, and strongly criticised the idea that “meditation is for everyone”. And Ellis shared his misgivings. He believed it could be used as a therapeutic tool, but not with everyone – and overall, that it could be used only in moderation as a “thought-distracting” or “relaxing” technique. “Like tranquilisers,” he wrote, “it may have both good and bad effects – especially, the harmful result of encouraging people to look away from some of their central problems, and to refrain from actually disputing and surrendering their disturbance-creating beliefs.”

“…Willoughby Britton, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at Brown University, is now trying to map what she calls “the dark side of Dharma”, an interest that arose from witnessing two people being hospitalised after intense meditation practice, together with her own experience after a retreat in which she felt an unimaginable terror. And reading through the classical Buddhist literature, she realised that such experiences are often mentioned as common stages of meditation.”

“…Other unpleasant things can happen, too, as Britton discovered through interviews with numerous individuals: arms flap, people twitch and have convulsions; others go through euphoria or depression, or report not feeling anything at all as their physical senses go numb. Still, unpleasant though they are, if these symptoms were confined to a retreat, there wouldn’t be much to worry about – but they’re not. Sometimes they linger, affecting work, child care and relationships. They can become a clinical health problem, which, on average, lasts for more than three years. What’s more, meditation teachers know about it – Britton says – but researchers are usually sceptical; they ask about the psychiatric history of meditators who develop mental illness, as if meditation itself had little or nothing to do with it.”

“…”There is a new dogma about meditation: when it fails, its limitations are never questioned,” she said. “We are told they weren’t doing it right. But maybe neither the practice nor the person is wrong. The truth about our human condition is that no one thing works for everyone. The spiritual journey is about the unmasking of oneself, being more authentically ‘self’, and whatever path leads us there is grand for each of us. That particular path is not necessarily good for all of us – but since it has moved out of the monastic environment into the wider secular world, meditation is being sold as that which will not only make us feel better but will make us better people – more successful, stronger, convincing …”

2 links here

“…TWITCHING, trembling, panic, disorientation, hallucinations, terror, depression, mania and psychotic breakdown – these are some of the reported effects of meditation. Surprised? We were too. Techniques such as transcendental meditation, link here and mindfulness are promoted as ways of quieting the mind, alleviating pain and anxiety, link here, and even transforming you into a happier and more compassionate person: natural cure-alls without adverse effects. But happiness and de-stressing were not what meditation techniques, with their Buddhist and Hindu roots, were originally developed for.”

link here

“…A quarter of regular meditators say they have experienced negative mental states as a result of meditation, including anxiety and fear. Marco Schlosser at University College London and colleagues surveyed 1232 people who had meditated, link here at least once a week for at least two months….People who had previously attended a meditation retreat and those who had higher levels of repetitive negative thinking were more likely to report unpleasant meditation-associated experiences, while women and religious respondents were less likely.”

link here

“…Mindfulness and other types of meditation, link here are usually seen as simple stress-relievers – but they can sometimes leave people worse off. About one in 12 people who try meditation experience an unwanted negative effect, link here, usually a worsening in depression, link here or anxiety, or even the onset of these conditions for the first time, according to the first systematic review of the evidence. “For most people it works fine but it has undoubtedly been overhyped and it’s not universally benevolent,” says Miguel Farias at Coventry University in the UK, one of the researchers behind the work.”

“…They found that about 8 per cent people who try meditation experience an unwanted effect. “People have experienced anything from an increase in anxiety up to panic attacks,” says Farias. They also found instances of psychosis, link here or thoughts of suicide. The figure of 8 per cent may be an underestimate, as many studies of meditation record only serious negative effects or don’t record them at all, says Farias.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1195.mp3" length="1827020" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The case for water fluoridation may be nothing but a corporate plot</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1193</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1193</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2020 19:44:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1193

When the mighty “trend-setter of the masses” (as The Atlantic magazine is known in the journalism industry) publishes an extensive article exposing the fraud and lack of evidence of benefit in regards to water fluoridation, you know that a scandal is brewing. The Atlantic has been in bed with corporate interests for decades, and if it writes on such a “controversial” topic it means the fraud/stupidity has become impossible to conceal any longer. Despite being one of the pillars of modern public health achievements, the topic of water fluoridation has actually been contentions from the very onset of the issue/debate, more than century ago. One just needs to type “fluoride health risks” into PubMed to see that studies demonstrating the negative effects of fluoride on systemic health go back all the way to the early 20th century, and some of them are even older. I posted a few other recent reviews calling for re-evaluation of the water fluoridation policy, but the coverage by The Atlantic is by far the most direct discussion I have seen on the corrupt influence industrial/corporate interests have had on public health policy in the Western world.

2 links here

Maybe, we will now start seeing class-action lawsuits similar to the ones for talc, titanium dioxide and breast implants, and that will finally see some change for the better when it comes to the quality of water most people are exposed to on a continuous basis even if they do their best to avoid it. The fact that nations with non-fluoridated water have better dental health (as the article itself states) should be enough of a clue to the general public that, just as with so many other medical “miracles”, the massive exposure to fluoride of generations of Americans is little more than criminal enterprise promoted/marketed/sold to the general public by some of the best PR companies in the world.

2 links here

“…Then I wondered: How much fluoride is in my water, and how did public-health officials set the dose? Fluoride in large quantities is bad news. Potential side effects, I quickly discovered, include joint pain, bone fractures, sperm decline, dementia, premature puberty, link here, gastrointestinal distress, immune-system dysfunction, (possibly) cancer, and (also possibly) lower IQ in children. Children have smaller bodies than adults and thus are at risk of relatively greater exposure when they drink. In calculating the dose, I thought, the authorities must have taken into account the weird thirsty kid who guzzles water by the quart. But if they lower the dose to avoid harming that child, where would that leave my mother-in-law, who for some reason has decided she no longer wants to drink much water at all? Is she getting shortchanged?”

“…McKay contacted a famous Chicago dentist (famous in dental circles, anyway) and got him to describe the syndrome to the Colorado state dental association. Hardly anyone paid attention. Trying again, McKay and the Chicago dentist evaluated students at Colorado College, in Colorado Springs. They found that students raised in Colorado Springs had discolored teeth, whereas students from other areas had normal teeth. Hardly anyone paid attention. The two researchers then published an article, “An Investigation of Mottled Teeth: An Endemic Developmental Imperfection of the Enamel of the Teeth Heretofore Unknown in the Literature of Dentistry.” Unknown in the Literature of Dentistry! Still, hardly anyone paid attention. In the 1930s, McKay and others identified the staining agent: naturally occurring fluoride compounds in water supplies. (This kind of staining, along with the other negative effects of fluorine absorption by bones and ligaments, is now called fluorosis.) The researchers also discovered something else: Although the staining looked terrible, people with fluoride stains had fewer decayed and missing teeth. A small group of dentists began agitating to add low levels of fluoride to drinking water—low enough to avoid staining and also low enough to be safe.”

“…Those dentists would soon get corporate reinforcement. Fluorine, a chemical element, is lethal in small doses and extremely reactive. Fluorides—compounds of fluorine—can be nearly as toxic but are much more stable. They are a common waste product of the fertilizer, pesticide, refrigeration, glass, steel, and aluminum industries. In the ’30s, many of these industries were facing protests and lawsuits for poisoning workers, polluting the soil, and contaminating water supplies. Understandably, executives were thrilled to discover that the chemicals they had to get rid of because they could seep into city water systems might be gotten rid of by being jettisoned into city water systems. Less understandably, some later anti-fluoridation activists described the corporate embrace of fluoridation as evidence of a Communist plot, link here. It was more like a capitalist plot. From 1921 to 1932, the secretary of the Treasury was Andrew W. Mellon, a founder of the Aluminum Company of America, better known as Alcoa. The U.S. Public Health Service was then under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department. In January 1931, Alcoa chemists discovered high levels of fluoride in the water in and around Bauxite, Arkansas, an Alcoa company town. By May, at Mellon’s urging, a Public Health Service dentist had been assigned to examine the link between fluoride and reduced cavities. Eight years later, a biochemist at the Mellon Institute, in Pittsburgh, became the first researcher to call for the widespread fluoridation of water.”

“…Starting in 1945, tests were conducted in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Newburgh, New York, link here. Both cities added fluoride to their water. In both cases, the control was a nearby city that did not add fluoride. The experiments were supposed to continue for at least a decade, with dentists in each city examining their patients to evaluate long-term effects. As it happened, one of the control cities fluoridated its water within seven years because its citizens had heard rumors about the benefits.”

“…The differences between the two graphs don’t leap out at the viewer. Nonfluoridated nations such as Belgium, Luxembourg, and Denmark actually have better dental health by this measure than the United States, one of the world’s fluoridation champions. Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland tried fluoridation, abandoned it years later—and saw no rise in tooth decay. What’s going on?”

“…One of the lesser-known advantages of government-run health-care systems, such as Britain’s National Health Service, is the fact that because taxpayers are funding everything, the government occasionally tries to determine whether the money is being spent usefully. In 1999, the government asked the NHS to “carry out an up-to-date expert scientific review of fluoride and health.” A research team based at the University of York evaluated every study of fluoridation it could find—about 3,200 of them. The team’s conclusion was, it said, “surprising.” Despite the long fight over fluoridation, few of the thousands of studies counted as “high-quality research.” The implication was that Britain had been tinkering with its water supply with little empirical support. Trevor Sheldon, the head of the York review’s advisory board, was blunt: “There’s really hardly any evidence” that fluoridation works, link here, he told Newsweek. “And if anything there may be some evidence the other way.” These findings were respectfully ignored.”

“…To evaluate the efficacy of water fluoridation, the Cochrane researchers wanted to select properly conducted scientific research, discarding studies that were badly designed (too few participants to produce sound data, for example) or incompetently executed (for instance, the researchers didn’t follow their own protocols). To evaluate the studies, the team used two simple but strict criteria: They needed to have two large groups of subjects, one with fluoride (the intervention group) and one without (the control group), and each group had to be examined at least two times. Moreover, the studies needed to be prospective (meaning the scientists announced beforehand what they were looking for, then measured it) as opposed to retrospective (meaning the scientists sifted through historical data looking for patterns). Scrutinizing medical databases, the Cochrane team found 4,677 fluoridation studies. All but 155 of them—20 that focused on tooth decay, and 135 that focused on dental fluorosis—failed to meet the two criteria. Worse, all of the tooth-decay studies and all but a handful of the fluorosis studies were, in the jargon, “at high risk of bias”—for example, variables such as age and income hadn’t been properly taken into account. The Grand Rapids study is an example of these problems. Not only was it cut short when the control city, Muskegon, started fluoridating its water, but the experimenters had not established whether the two populations had similar incomes or ethnic backgrounds. Nor did the researchers evaluate people’s teeth blindly, by taking X-rays to be examined by technicians who did not know which group a patient belonged to. Instead the study dentists simply looked into patients’ mouths and subjectively reported what they saw—a recipe for what is called “confirmation bias,” in which people tend to interpret what they see in ways that reinforce their prior beliefs.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1193.mp3" length="858932" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Parkinson Disease (PD) may begin in the gut</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1191</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1191</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2020 18:06:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1191

The article below is one of at least 20 I have seen in just 2020 alone that are starting to draw attention to the metabolic/inflammatory origins of yet another neurological disease of “mysterious” origin – namely, Parkinson Disease (PD). What makes this article both interesting and infuriating is that apparently the connection between gut pathology, high endotoxin, GI inflammation and PD has been known for more than 200 years! Despite the obvious signs of serotonin overload such as constipation, “shaking palsy”, brain fog, indigestion, etc. mainstream medicine has been obliviously pursuing all kinds of other exotic and frankly absurd causes mostly involving around genetics. Maybe it is time to start taking endotoxin (LPS) seriously and stop calling PD a dopamine-deficiency disease. While dopamine levels are arguably lower in such patients, all of the symptoms of PD and especially the unmistakable trembling (that was identified and named as “shaking palsy” more than 200 years ago) are actually CLASSIC signs of serotonin excess.

Serotonin excess, not dopamine deficiency, may be the cause of Parkinson, link here

Considering the inseparable connection between endotoxin (LPS) and serotonin (90%+ of which is produced in the gut under the influence of endotoxin), it becomes abundantly clear that diet quality and digestive health are squarely at the center of this disease and as such, something as simple as administering a serotonin antagonist or antibiotics may very well cure it.

link here

“…The earliest evidence that the gut might be involved in Parkinson’s emerged more than 200 years ago. In 1817, the English surgeon James Parkinson reported, link here that some patients with a condition he termed “shaking palsy” experienced constipation. In one of the six cases he described, treating the gastrointestinal complaints appeared to alleviate the movement-related problems associated with the disease. Since then, physicians have noted that constipation is one of the most common symptoms of Parkinson’s, appearing in around half, link here the individuals diagnosed with the condition and often preceding, link here the onset of movement-related impairments. Still, for many decades, the research into the disease has focused on the brain. Scientists initially concentrated on the loss of neurons producing dopamine, a molecule involved in many functions including movement. More recently, they have also focused on the aggregation of alpha synuclein, a protein that twists into an aberrant shape in Parkinson’s patients. A shift came in 2003, when Heiko Braak, a neuroanatomist at the University of Ulm in Germany, and his colleagues proposed that Parkinson’s may actually originate in the gut rather than the brain.”

“…Microbes themselves are another potential trigger for promoting the build-up of intestinal alpha-synuclein. Researchers have found, link here that, in mice, bacterial proteins could trigger the aggregation of the alpha-synuclein in the gut and the brain. Some proteins made by bacteria may form small, tough fibers, whose shape could cause nearby proteins to misfold and aggregate in a manner akin to the prions responsible for mad cow disease, explains Robert Friedland, link here, a neurologist at the University of Louisville who coauthored that study.”

“…The microbiome, the totality of microorganisms in the human body, has spurred intense interest among Parkinson’s researchers. A number of reports, link here have noted that individuals with the disease harbor a unique composition of gut microbes, and scientists have also found, link here that transplanting fecal microbes from patients into rodents predisposed to develop Parkinson’s can worsen motor symptoms of the disease and increase alpha-synuclein aggregation in the brain.”

“…This study further validates the theory that gut inflammation could drive Parkinson’s pathogenesis, says Madelyn Houser, link here, a graduate student in neuroscientist Malú Tansey’s lab at Emory University. The anti-TNF finding in particular, she adds, suggests that the “overlap between the two diseases might be primarily mediated by inflammation.” Intestinal inflammation might give rise to Parkinson’s in several ways, Houser explains. One possibility is that a chronically inflamed gut might elevate alpha-synuclein levels locally—as Zasloff’s investigation in children suggests—or else it may give rise to inflammation throughout the body, which in itself could increase the permeability of the gut and blood-brain barriers. Or else it could increase circulating cytokines, molecules that that can promote inflammation. Tansey adds that changes in the microbiome could also be influencing gut inflammation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1191.mp3" length="757844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The social fabric in Western countries may be unraveling</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1189</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1189</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:52:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1189

In one of Peat’s recent newsletters he mentioned that there is an epidemic of mental disease in the population because the evil system these people live is preventing them from living their lives “meaningfully, creatively”. A recent study corroborated Peat’s writings on the truly abysmal state of mental health in young people, link here. Add to that the growing nutritional, financial, emotional, intellectual, and other scarcities and I am surprised the findings of the study below were not even worse. Actually, I suspect the the raw findings were more bleak but as it happens with studies of that character the data gets “massaged” in order to present a more “palatable” picture. The rule to not promote panic is somewhat followed in scientific studies, even if it means fudging the raw data a bit. Interestingly, the exact opposite seems to be true in politics where all kinds of lies and frauds are concocted precisely in order to promote panic in the general population. The COVID-19 fiasco is the latest and perhaps most global example of the latter. While Peat called the mental health deterioration issue an “epidemic” in his newsletter, I find the word “unraveling” (that the article author uses below) a much more appropriate term.

The study below confirms yet again the troubling trend I have been posting about – i.e. that the mental health is worst in the youngest sections of society and in a certain sense, there are no “young” people any more. Everybody is sick and the “young” are, shockingly, the sickest. Case in point – while a (stunning in its own right) 41% of the general population reports having at least one mental health disorder, almost 63% of the younger people report the same. This age-related disease “inversion” is corroborated by the suicide ideation rates where a striking 10% of the population is seriously considering suicide, while a stunning 25% of the younger people report the same. While the study is based on a US population, recent studies in European countries have produced similar findings, which makes the issue one of global proportions/significance. It is little wonder that the author of the popular press article concludes that the social fabric may be “Fraying Severely, if Not Unraveling”. The author deserves further credit for pointing out that this absolute health catastrophe does NOT originate with the “pandemic”, even though it is certainly not helped by it. These problems have been evident for a VERY long time and the public health authorities have been acting with suspicious nonchalance, as if almost wanting them to happen. Considering the deliberate destruction of the environment we live in, I would venture a guess that in this case there is probably more malice than stupidity. After all, these mental health patients will have to be treated and that means more profits and higher GDP. For the current system, there is profit even in death…maybe especially so. Now, speaking of the pandemic, the article contains another gem. One of the doctors interviewed by the journalist opined that the major causes of this catastrophe are self-imposed and have to do with isolation, lack of community/support, lack of real relationships, and ever-increasing financial burden for the average citizen. Maybe I am delusional, but I can’t help but notice that the “measures” imposed on everybody with the ostensible goal of dealing with this “pandemic” dramatically aggravate all of those factors.

link here

“…Lurking beneath the headlines justifiably devoted to these major stories of 2020 are very troubling data that reflect intensifying pathologies in the U.S. population — not moral or allegorical sicknesses but mental, emotional, psychological and scientifically proven sickness. Many people fortunate enough to have survived this pandemic with their physical health intact know anecdotally — from observing others and themselves — that these political and social crises have spawned emotional difficulties and psychological challenges. But the data are nonetheless stunning, in terms of both the depth of the social and mental health crises they demonstrate and the pervasiveness of them. Perhaps the most illustrative study was one released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month, based on an extensive mental health survey, link here of Americans in late June. One question posed by researchers was whether someone has “seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days”— not fleetingly considered it as a momentary fantasy nor thought about it ever in their lifetime, but seriously considered suicide at least once in the past 30 days. The results are staggering. For Americans between 18-24 years old, 25.5 percent — just over 1 out of every 4 young Americans — said they had. For the much larger group of Americans ages 25-44, the percentage was somewhat lower but still extremely alarming: 16 percent. A total of 18.6 percent of Hispanic Americans and 15 percent of African Americans said they had seriously considered suicide in the past month. The two groups with the largest percentage who said yes: Americans with less than a high school degree and unpaid caregivers, both of whom have 30 percent — or almost 1 out of every 3 — who answered in the affirmative. A full 10 percent of the U.S. population generally had seriously contemplated suicide in the month of June.”

“…In a remotely healthy society, one that provides basic emotional needs to its population, suicide and serious suicidal ideation are rare events. It is anathema to the most basic human instinct: the will to live. A society in which such a vast swath of the population is seriously considering it as an option is one which is anything but healthy, one which is plainly failing to provide its citizens the basic necessities for a fulfilling life. The alarming CDC data extends far beyond serious suicidal desires. It also found that “40.9% of respondents reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition, including symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder (30.9%), symptoms of a trauma- and stressor-related disorder (TSRD) related to the pandemic (26.3%), and having started or increased substance use to cope with stress or emotions related to COVID-19 (13.3%).” For the youngest part of the adult population, ages 18-24, significantly more than half (62.9 percent) reported suffering from depressive or anxiety disorders.”

“…But what makes these trends all the more disturbing is that they long predated the arrival of the coronavirus crisis, to say nothing of the economic catastrophe left in its wake and the social unrest from this year’s protest movement. Indeed, since at least the financial crisis of 2008, when first the Bush administration and then the Obama administration acted to protect the interests of the tycoons who caused it while allowing everyone else to wallow in debt and foreclosures, the indicia of collective mental health in the U.S. have been blinking red. In 2018, NBC News, using health insurance studies, reported that, link here “major depression is on the rise among Americans from all age groups, but is rising fastest among teens and young adults.” In 2019, the American Psychological Association published a study, link here documenting a 30 percent increase “in the rate of death by suicide in the United States between 2000 and 2016, from 10.4 to 13.5 per 100,000 people” and a 50 percent increase “in suicides among girls and women between 2000 and 2016.” It noted: “Suicide was the 10th-leading cause of death in the United States in 2016. It was the second-leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 34 and the fourth-leading cause among people ages 35 to 54.”

“…In March 2020, the New Yorker’s Atul Gawande published a survey of data, link here from two Princeton economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, under the headline: “Why Americans Are Dying from Despair: the unfairness of our economy, two economists argue, can be measured not only in dollars but in deaths.” The decades long economic stagnation for Americans, the reversal of the American Dream, and the shockingly high mass unemployment ushered in by the pandemic are obviously significant reasons why these pathologies are rapidly worsening now.”

“…One answer was provided by Dr. Laurel Williams, chief of psychiatry at Texas Children’s Hospital, to NBC when discussing the rise of depression: “There’s a lack of community. There’s the amount of time that we spend in front of screens and not in front of other people. If you don’t have a community to reach out to, then your hopelessness doesn’t have any place to go.” That answer is similar to the one offered by the brilliant book on depression and modern western societies, link here by Johann Hari, “Lost Connections,” along with his viral TED Talk, link here on the same topic: namely, it is precisely the attributes that define modern Western societies that are crafted perfectly to deprive humans of their most pressing emotional needs (a book by Hari on addiction, “Chasing the Scream,” and an even-more-viral TED Talk, link here about it, sounds a similar theme about why Americans are turning in horrifyingly large numbers to serious problems of substance abuse). Much attention is devoted to lamenting the toxicity of our discourse, the hate-driven polarization of our politics, and the fragmentation of our culture. But it is difficult to imagine any other outcome in a society that is breeding so much psychological and emotional pathology by denying to its members the things they most need to live fulfilling lives.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1189.mp3" length="1538132" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hypothyroidism can cause anxiety, panic attacks and other mental issues</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1187</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1187</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:03:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1187

One of the few studies that is at least attempting to frame mental health issues in terms of endocrinology. More specifically, the study below demonstrated that people with Hashimoto disease have drastically increased rates of anxiety, panic attacks and risks for other mental health disorders. More importantly, treatment with an NSAID (ibuprofen) and thyroxine (T4) for just 14 days resolved both the “autoimmune” thyroiditis (as Hashimoto’s is also known) and the mental health issues of those patients. IMO, using aspirin instead of ibuprofen would have been much more beneficial given aspirin’s other effects such as reductions in estrogen and serotonin signalling, both of which are involved in mental health disorders. In addition, ALL of the drugs in the NSAID category, with the notable exception of aspirin, have a known side effects of raising the risk of cardiac arrest and heart attacks. Another peculiar and handicapping aspect of the study is that it only measured TSH, and T4/T3 and despite the “slightly” elevated TSH the study concluded that thyroid function was “normal” in those patients. It is a widely acknowledged fact that most patients with Hashimoto’s are hypothyroid, so the study would have been a lot more useful if it had done the correct measures and had concluded that hypothyroidism is a cause of all those mental health issues. Oh well, I guess we can’t have everything good happen in just one study. The good news is that the authors of that study seem to be aware of the deep connection between endocrinology and mental health and plan on doing a follow up study where they will be measuring adrenal and gonadal function. If the results come back as I expect – elevated adrenal and suppressed gonadal function – the dream of Broda Barnes may very well come true. Namely, banish the fake “science” of psychiatry from the field of medicine and replace it with endocrine physiology, where mental health issues are seen as specific symptoms of an endocrine disturbance, and the latter itself is seen as a symptom of energetic disturbance driven by external factors such as stress, toxins, poor diet, etc.

link here

“…The study showed that thyroid inflammation should be investigated as an underlying factor in psychiatric disorders such as anxiety. Current examinations for anxiety disorders usually focus on the dysfunction of the nervous system and do not take into account the role of the endocrine system. The results were presented at the European Society of Endocrinology’s e-ECE 2020 Conference which is being held from September 5 to 9. “These findings indicate that the endocrine system may play an important role in anxiety. Doctors should also consider the thyroid gland and the rest of the endocrine system as well as the nervous system when examining patients with anxiety,” said Juliya Onofriichuk from Kyiv City Clinical hospital in Ukraine. The thyroid gland produces hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) that are essential for regulating heart, muscle and digestive function, brain development and bone maintenance. Autoimmune inflammation in the thyroid occurs when our bodies wrongly produce antibodies that attack the gland and cause damage.

“…Onofriichuk investigated thyroid function in 29 men (average age 33.9) and 27 women (average age 31.7) with diagnosed anxiety who were experiencing panic attacks. Ultrasounds of their thyroid glands assessed thyroid function and levels of thyroid hormones were measured. The patients with anxiety showed signs of inflammation of their thyroid glands but their function was not affected with thyroid hormone levels all within the normal range, although slightly elevated. They also tested positive for antibodies directed against the thyroid. Treatment for 14 days with ibuprofen and thyroxine reduced thyroid inflammation, normalised thyroid hormone levels and reduced their anxiety scores, said the study. Onofriichuk now plans to conduct further research that examines the levels of thyroid, sex and adrenal hormones — cortisol, progesterone, prolactin, oestrogen and testosterone — in patients with dysfunctional thyroid glands and anxiety disorders.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1187.mp3" length="982916" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Simply inhaling endotoxin (LPS) may cause Parkinson Disease (PD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1183</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1183</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Aug 2020 17:36:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1183

The role of endotoxin (LPS) in neurodegenerative diseases is becoming more and more recognized, despite claims by mainstream medicine that LPS only poses danger to people with severely compromised livers. However, even scientists that are aware of the causative role of LPS in those diseases focus mostly on the absorption of LPS from colon into the bloodstream, and focus their studies either on treatments that limit the production of LPS (e.g. antibiotics) or its absorption into the bloodstream (charcoal, improvement of gut barrier, etc). The study below demonstrates that simply inhaling LPS over a period of just six (6) weeks is enough to cause classic signs of PD in animals. Just as importantly, LPS was able to cause PD even without physically making its way into the brain. The inflammation in the nasal region caused by LPS eventually made its way into the brain and triggered the PD pathology. This directly contradicts the claims of mainstream medicine that LPS is harmless if it is not absorbed into the bloodstream, as LPS is known to cause GI inflammation even when localized inside the colon and the study below demonstrates that such localized inflammation can become systemic over time. That is actually the main message/conclusion of the study – inflammation (first local and then systemic), of any origin, is a major causative factor in PD. It does not really matter if that inflammation if triggered by PUFA, LPS, stress, radiation, toxic drugs, etc. On a more practical note, it is well-known that air in homes have bacteria/LPS levels several-fold higher than air outdoors. So, in addition to the benefits of sunlight exposure, link here, we now have another VERY good reason to spend as much time outside as possible.

link here

Inhaled Toxins Can Inflame Brain in Ways That Promote Parkinson’s, Study Suggests, link here

“…Inhaled bacterial toxins can cause inflammation in a brain region associated with smell, and this inflammation may help in the initiation and propagation of Parkinson’s-related molecular changes in the brain, a study in mice suggests. The study, “IL‐1β/IL‐1R1 Signaling Induced by Intranasal Lipopolysaccharide Infusion Regulates Alpha‐Synuclein Pathology in the Olfactory Bulb, Substantia Nigra and Striatum,” was published in Brain Pathology. Loss of the sense of smell is a common early non-motor symptom of Parkinson’s disease, often occurring before motor symptoms are noticeable and progressing over the course of the disease. Researchers in China and the U.S. tested the idea that inflammation might link these processes.”

“…The research team administered lipopolysaccharide (LPS) into the nasal cavities of mice daily for up to six weeks. LPS is a molecule found in some bacteria membranes; it is a powerful driver of inflammation. After two weeks, LPS-treated mice showed increased activation of microglia — a type of immune cell within the brain — in the olfactory bulb, but not the substantia nigra. After six weeks of LPS exposure, increased microglia activation was seen in both brain regions. “These results show microglia activation induced by the LPS treatment initially occurred in the OB [olfactory bulb], but reached the SN [substantia nigra] later,” the researchers wrote.”

“…These brain regions also showed increased levels of interleukin-one beta (IL‐1 beta), a powerful inflammatory signaling molecule. Pre-treating mice with a chemical that blocks microglia activation significantly lowered IL‐1 beta levels in LPS-treated mice, suggesting “that the enhanced IL-1β [beta] in the OB [olfactory bulb] and SN [substantia nigra] was released from activated microglial cells,” the researchers wrote. Notably, LPS itself was not detected in the mice’s brains. This suggests that inflammation within the brain is driven by downstream inflammatory signaling, not by the inflammatory molecule itself.”

“…Further experiments indicated that LPS exposure led to the death of dopamine-producing neurons in the brains of wild-type mice, but not in mice lacking IL-1R1. LPS exposure also caused Parkinson’s-like motor symptoms in wild-type mice; again, these were significantly eased in mice lacking IL-1R1. Collectively, these results suggest that inflammation — specifically, inflammation mediated by IL‐1 beta/IL-1R1 signaling — drives the initiation and spread of Parkinson’s-like changes in the brain. This indicates that inflammation, and this pathway in particular, may be a viable therapeutic target in Parkinson’s disease.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1183.mp3" length="917780" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Many “inert” additives in drugs and food are actually active and toxic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1181</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1181</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Aug 2020 17:06:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1181

In addition to the recent legal/health fiascoes with talc and titanium dioxide we now have evidence that hundreds of other “inert” additives in commercial/pharma drugs (and food too) are not at all inert and in fact affect multiple physiological pathways, often in a strongly detrimental manner.

3 links here

“…Some supposedly inert ingredients in common drugs – such as dyes and preservatives – may potentially be biologically active and could lead to unanticipated side effects, according to a preliminary new study by researchers from the UC San Francisco School of Pharmacy and the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, link here (NIBR). Most medications include only a relatively small amount of their active pharmaceutical ingredient by mass (for instance, the acetaminophen in Tylenol and other medications). The rest of any given pill, liquid or injectable can be composed of ingredients including preservatives, dyes, antimicrobials and other compounds known as excipients. These ingredients play critical roles in making sure a drug’s active ingredient is delivered safely and effectively, as well as conferring important qualities like shelf stability and the ability to quickly distinguish pills by color. Excipients are generally accepted to be biologically inactive based on their long history of use, or because they don’t produce any obvious toxicity in animal studies. But few studies have looked for more subtle effects of long-term exposure to these compounds or how they might interact in people who take multiple different medicines that include these ingredients.”

“…As reported in their new study, published July 23, 2020, online in Science, link here, the researchers have now systematically screened 3,296 excipients contained in the inactive ingredient database, and identified 38 excipient molecules that interact with 134 important human enzymes and receptors. “These data illustrate that while many excipient molecules are in fact inert, a good number may have previously unappreciated effects on human proteins known to play an important role in health and disease,” Shoichet said. “We demonstrate an approach by which drug makers could in the future evaluate the excipients used in their formulations, and replace biologically active compounds with equivalent molecules that are truly inactive.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1181.mp3" length="197468" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Progesterone – not a sex hormone, but a systemic health hormone</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1179</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1179</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Aug 2020 16:53:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1179

An older study, but some great information in there. Not only does it call attention to the fallacy of progesterone being nothing more than a “sex” hormone, but it also warns about the fallacy of equating the synthetic progestins with bioidentical progesterone. At least, when it comes to vascular/heart/muscle effects. Over the last 15 years I met only one doctor who was aware of the difference between progesterone and the synthetic progestins and even that doctor claimed progesterone is clinically obsolete and offers nothing that the synthetic progestins do not. Yet, the study authors below claim that it is precisely the decline in progesterone, and NOT estrogen, after menopause that may be driving the increased risk of CVD in both women (and in aging males too). It is always a pleasant surprise to see that there is least one well-known researcher that has not yet completely lost his/her mind and continues to expose the fallacies surrounding progesterone.

link here

“…Research from Weill Medical College of Cornell University and other institutions provides new evidence that the sex steroid hormone progesterone is also a vasoactive hormone that directly affects blood vessels. This finding sheds light on both the drop in blood pressure that usually accompanies pregnancy (when progesterone levels are high) and the rise in blood pressure that often occurs in women after menopause (when the production of progesterone falls off). It may also focus and sharpen the debate on the value of female hormones in long-term cardiovascular protection.”

“…As explained by senior author Dr. Lawrence M. Resnick, Professor of Medicine at the Hypertension Center of Weill Cornell, hormones such as progesterone have previously been thought of primarily in terms of their most obvious reproductive function. Progesterone is produced by the ovaries in the second half of the menstrual cycle, after the release of the egg, to help prepare the uterus to receive and nurture the fertilized egg. Indeed, the highest levels of this hormone in the body are observed during pregnancy. But progesterone is also produced, in men as well as in women, by the adrenal gland (just above the kidneys) as well as by the ovaries, and progesterone affects other parts of the body besides the reproductive system, such as the heart, the brain, and blood vessels.”

“…Results showed that progesterone (1) dilated, or opened up, blood vessels, (2) prevented the rise in blood pressure caused by adrenalin-like hormones and other stimuli, and (3) blocked the uptake of calcium by calcium channels in smooth muscle cells in much the same way as the blood-pressure-lowering drugs known as calcium channel blockers. Dr. Resnick observes that it has been known since the 1950s that progesterone is a mild diuretic—increasing the loss of sodium from the kidney into the urine. Aside from this mechanism, he says, “It turns out that progesterone may also play a role in regulating blood pressure by its direct calcium-channel-blocking-like effects on blood vessels.”

Although most attention has focused on estrogen, the other main female sex steroid hormone, the effects of withdrawing progesterone at the time of the menopause may also contribute to the increased incidence of high blood pressure in postmenopausal women. Dr. Resnick observes, “As you know, the benefit of giving women female hormone replacement therapy after the menopause for long-term cardiovascular protection has not been as clear as initially hoped. This may be because some recommendations include estrogen only, and some use estrogen with synthetic progestins, not real progesterone.” Dr. Resnick says the difference between the synthetic progestins and natural progesterone may be important. “Most of the synthetic progestins are closely related to male hormones like testosterone. Unlike progesterone itself, male hormones may have opposite effects, to promote calcium uptake and facilitate smooth muscle constriction, rather than blocking it as does natural progesterone. So the proper regimen for postmenopausal women is still a very open question—it may be that only with the naturally occurring progesterone will hormone replacement therapy be more clearly protective.” Dr. Resnick adds that his research may potentially lead to the development of new therapies to treat hypertension and hardening of the arteries with age.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1179.mp3" length="1053428" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Childhood stress / deprivation leads to early puberty / aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1177</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1177</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Aug 2020 16:18:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1177

The evidence that adult health problems have their roots in childhood or even prenatally continues to accumulate. The study below demonstrates that children who have experienced violence, trauma, deprivation or have had generally stressful childhoods not only enter puberty much earlier but are on average several years older (biologically) than their peers. While being several years prematurely older is already a scary prospect, it becomes much more shocking when you consider that those several years amount to 30%-50% of a child’s age. So, another way of putting the same findings are that stressed children are up to two times older than their peers, and the speed of aging was “dose-dependent” in regards to the amount of stress/violence/deprivation. Particularly troubling is the findings of increased DNA methylation as a result of childhood stress, as it is perhaps the primary driver of cancer development. While the scientists try to downplay the severity of the findings, the rapidly rising rates of childhood (and adult) cancers beg to disagree…Scary findings indeed, and they expose yet again the fraudulent concept of genes being the master controllers of our health and lifespan.

2 links here

“…Children, link here who experience violence or trauma seem to age faster, going through puberty earlier and showing greater signs of ageing in their cells, researchers have found. They say the findings add to a growing body of work that suggests early adversity can become “biologically embedded” with the potential for adverse health effects later in life. “There are also clear practical implications for these findings,” said Dr Katie McLaughlin, co-author of the research at Harvard University. Screening for adversity may be warranted in children who have early puberty to help identify those who might be at risk of early onset of physical and mental health problems, she said.”

“…In the case of cellular ageing – as measured by the shortening of telomeres, the caps on the end of chromosomes, and the accumulation of methyl groups on DNA – the team say children who experienced violence or trauma appeared to be months or even years older than they really were. “We know [these measures] are very powerful predictors of health outcomes and even mortality later in life,” said McLaughlin. Studies in adults suggest faster biological ageing at the cellular level is associated with increased risk of conditions from cancer to cardiovascular disease. The team also examined a further 25 studies on the impact of childhood adversity on the thinning of the cortex, the outer layer of the brain, which occurs with age and is linked to an increase in efficiency in processing. “What we see is that growing up in a dangerous environment accelerates that process for regions of the brain that are processing social and emotional information and helping us to identify and respond to threat,” said McLaughlin. That may be beneficial in the short term, but other work suggests such changes could be linked to an increased risk of mental health problems, she said. Accelerated thinning was also seen in children who experienced deprivation, but in different regions of the brain, including those linked with memory and decision making. For all markers of ageing, the effects of childhood adversity appeared to scale with the magnitude or severity of the experience. The team note that only small number of studies were explored for each measure of ageing, and that the role of genetic heritability in the findings requires further scrutiny.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1177.mp3" length="580820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Declining vision from aging can be restored by staring at red light</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1175</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1175</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2020 19:46:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1175

The rates of cataracts, glaucoma, and other vision problems continue to rise and the increasingly aging world population will likely see this problem worsen in the coming years/decades. As such, therapeutic interventions that improve vision are desperately needed. The study below now adds declining vision to the list of problems now known to be caused by energetic deficiency. More importantly, it demonstrates (in humans) that the declining vision can be restored in just 2 weeks by simply looking at red light light for 3 minutes daily. The mechanism of action is, of course, improved mitochondrial function. Considering the claims of mainstream medicine that declining vision is an incurable progressive disease that can only be delayed by surgery/drugs, I wonder why the same “miraculous” results cannot be also achieve with other degenerative diseases, especially in the brain, of which the visual system is a part. After all, previous studies have demonstrated improved cognitive function from exposing the retina to red light, which demonstrates that the metabolic/mitochondrial benefits of such therapy are not limited to the visual system only. Maybe an “incurable” disease such as Alzheimer may also “miraculously” disappear if one were to stare at red light daily for 2 weeks. Or, you know, just spend more time under the sun, much to the chagrin of your doctor advising heavy use of sunscreen and avoidance of the sun. You will be better off if you picked up smoking, link here than listening to your doctor…

2 links here

“…Lead author, Professor Glen Jeffery (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology) said: “As you age your visual system declines significantly, particularly once over 40. “Your retinal sensitivity and your colour vision are both gradually undermined, and with an ageing population, this is an increasingly important issue. “To try to stem or reverse this decline, we sought to reboot the retina’s ageing cells with short bursts of longwave light.” In humans around 40 years-old, cells in the eye’s retina begin to age, and the pace of this ageing is caused, in part, when the cell’s mitochondria, whose role is to produce energy (known as ATP) and boost cell function, also start to decline. Mitochondrial density is greatest in the retina’s photoreceptor cells, which have high energy demands. As a result, the retina ages faster than other organs, with a 70% ATP reduction over life, causing a significant decline in photoreceptor function as they lack the energy to perform their normal role. Researchers built on their previous findings in mice, bumblebees and fruit flies, which all found significant improvements in the function of the retina’s photoreceptors when their eyes were exposed to 670 nanometre (long wavelength) deep red light. “Mitochondria have specific light absorbance characteristics influencing their performance: longer wavelengths spanning 650 to 1000nm are absorbed and improve mitochondrial performance to increase energy production,” said Professor Jeffery.”

“…All participants were then given a small LED torch to take home and were asked to look into* its deep red 670nm light beam for three minutes a day for two weeks. They were then re-tested for their rod and cone sensitivity. Researchers found the 670nm light had no impact in younger individuals, but in those around 40 years and over, significant improvements were obtained…Professor Jeffery said: “Our study shows that it is possible to significantly improve vision that has declined in aged individuals using simple brief exposures to light wavelengths that recharge the energy system that has declined in the retina cells, rather like re-charging a battery. “The technology is simple and very safe, using a deep red light of a specific wavelength, that is absorbed by mitochondria in the retina that supply energy for cellular function. “Our devices cost about £12 to make, so the technology is highly accessible to members of the public.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1175.mp3" length="722348" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lab animals kept under stressful conditions, thus affecting study results</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1170</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1170</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2020 17:55:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1170

Several months ago, I did a post on just how stressful the IP administration method is for lab animals, link here. That method is considered the de-facto standard for steroid studies, yet it appears it is so stressful that it can easily produce invalid results due to the its strong effects on the HPA axis and overall hormonal profile. Now, a new study claims that the ambient temperature at which most study rodents are kept is far from optimal and may affect study results, especially ones on cancer and diabetes (which is probably 80%+ of all rodent studies). As an interesting side note, the study noted that mice kept at lower temperatures had faster growing tumors and insulin/glucose dysfunction. This corroborates the ideas that higher metabolism and thus higher body temps are beneficial for health, at least when it comes to cancer, link here. As such, those studies below pour cold water (pun intended) on the claims of benefit from induced “cold thermogenesis” and turning of white fat into brown fat. This process heavily depends on adrenaline and, as one of the study below demonstrates, such stressful phenotype drives both tumor growth and its resistance to therapies. In addition, the process of turning white fat into brown is known to drive cachexia in cancer, likely as a result of elevated lipolysis (which, of course, depends on adrenaline/cortisol).

5 links here

Lab mice have a chill, and that may be messing up study results, link here

“…Lab mice are often the first testing ground for human drugs, from vaccines to cancer treatments. But an oft-overlooked detail of their accommodations in laboratories is raising concerns about the results of some mouse studies: the mice have a chill. “It’s still not widely appreciated that the housing temperature that you keep mice at affects the biology and the physiology of the mouse … enough that it can change the [research] outcome,” said Bonnie Hylander, a scientist at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y.”

“…That was something Hylander realized a few years ago, when the lab in which she was working was studying the impact of temperature on mouse physiology. One of their experiments, link here found that tumors grow more quickly in cold mice than warm mice, and ever since then, Hylander has been looking into the issue.”

“…In a study, link here on inflammation, researchers found that mice at cooler temperature had lower insulin and higher glucose levels. Other research has revealed that temperature can impact how plaque builds up in mice’s arteries and can modify, link here how effective some cancer therapies are.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1170.mp3" length="730940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen directly causes polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1165</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1165</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 26 Jul 2020 23:42:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1165

The worldwide rates of PCOS are skyrocketing, and have more than doubled over the last 10 years. Currently, about 12% of women in child-bearing age living in “developed” countries have PCOS and as a result struggle with infertility, diabetes, CVD, acne, bone issues, and even cancer. The fact that infertility is almost always present in those women as well as the well-known connection between infertility and estrogen should have given a hint to endocrinologists long time ago that estrogen may be a causative factor in PCOS. However, not only has this simple connection escaped the minds of endocrinologists but they usually claim the exact opposite – i.e. that estrogen is a protective factor and it is elevated androgens that cause PCOS. The fact that androgens are actually known to improve insulin sensitivity, fertility, bone health, etc in BOTH men and women, and have been used clinically for decades to correct those issues is conveniently ignored by th emedical gurus in their lofty public statements. Peat has written extensively on the topic, and has repeatedly told people over email or during interviews that estrogen is the main causative factor for PCOS and anti-estrogenic interventions are highly therapeutic. There has been a lot of criticism in regards to his views and I have also gotten hate mail for “defending” his views. I am not defending anybody, I simply look at the available evidence and make conjectures based on the known metabolic effects of various steroids. Almost 3 years ago I did a post on 2 articles implicating estrogen in PCOS, link here, but I received criticism about that post too since the studies in it were observational. Recently, an article reviewing the role of estrogen in “metabolic” diseases (of which there are very few according to mainstream medicine) popped up in my news feed and it raised the alarm that the current epidemic of PCOS may be linked to the rising rates of hormonal contraceptive use among young women. The article did not directly say estrogen is the cause of PCOS, opting instead for the more popular statement that the issue is “controversial”. However, the article did mention a lot of “troubling” evidence coming out of Iranian research groups and upon digging further I stumbled upon the following (non-exhaustive list of) studies, which directly demonstrate that PCOS is easily induced in laboratory animals by administering a relatively low dose of estradiol (valerate) – an estrogen ester commonly used in contraceptive pills – for just 30 days! Most women take birth control pills with estradiol valerate for years, and often decades. A quick Google search for “estradiol valerate PCOS” returned hundreds of scientific studies which discuss at length the apparently well-known role of estrogen in the pathology of PCOS and various antiestrogenic interventions as a potential treatment/cure. So, once again, medical censorship is on full display. As it turns out, a large number of non-Western countries have a very different view on the etiology of PCOS and have made significant advances towards treating/curing it. It seems, it is only the corruption of the Western medical system and the accompanying censorship that prevents the same from happening over here.

2 links here

“…Intraperitoneal injection of estradiol valerate for 25 days was used to induce PCOS in Wistar rats, followed by intraperitoneal administration of 8 and 16 mg/kg thymoquinone for 30 days. Rats were divided into 5 groups; control, sham or PCOS, experiment-1 (PCOS and 8 mg/kg thymoquinone), experiment-2 (PCOS and 16 mg/kg thymoquinone), and metformin (PCOS and metformin administration, 100 mg/kg) groups. All of the animals were subjected to serum biochemical analysis of blood and histopathological study of ovaries.”

link here

“…Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS is one of the most common cases of infertility among women of reproductive age. It is an endocrine disorder with inflammatory aspects leading to lack of ovulation. Eugenol is an active phenolic constituent of clove essential oil with the anti-inflammatory properties.Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic effects of eugenol in rats suffering from PCOS. Materials and Methods: 32 adult Wistar rats were divided into four groups of control, PCOS, PCOS + intra peritoneal injection of eugenol (12 and 24 mg/kg) for 30 days. The induction of syndrome was done by intra peritoneal injection of 4 mg of Estradiol valerate for 28 days.”

6 links here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1165.mp3" length="1539284" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low metabolism, cellular debris may cause Huntington Disease (HD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1161</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1161</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2020 19:38:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1161

Yet another study demonstrating the crucial role of oxidative metabolism (OXPHOS) in a chronic degenerative condition considered largely genetic in origin. Just as importantly, the study corroborates findings from other recent reports/experiments demonstrating that the presence of cellular debris in the blood stream is anything but benign. The presence of such debris is interpreted by the organism as akin to a “viral” infection, with the subsequent activation of an exaggerated immune response and activation of the stress system (HPA axis). That forms a vicious circle since the presence of cellular debris is driven largely by stress/cortisol (HPA axis) and declining OXPHOS in cells. As such, restoring OXPHOS should be highly therapeutic as it can interrupt that vicious cycle. Interestingly, the study reports that thiamine deficiency can fully mimic the mitochondrial dysfunction/debris symptoms of a condition virtually indistinguishable from HD. In addition, at least one study has demonstrated that thiamine administration was able to fully reverse such pathologies, which corroborates strongly the role of OXPHOS in these “incurable” conditions. In summary, stress kills the nervous system and it does so largely through reductions in metabolism/OXPHOS and the ensuing cellular breakdown/debris leads to further exacerbation of this process.

2 links here

“…In the first study to comprehensively track how different types of brain cells respond to the mutation that causes Huntington’s disease (HD), MIT neuroscientists found that a significant cause of death for an especially afflicted kind of neuron might be an immune response to genetic material errantly released by mitochondria, the cellular components that provide cells with energy. In different cell types at different stages of disease progression, the researchers measured how levels of RNA differed from normal in brain samples from people who died with Huntington’s disease and in mice engineered with various degrees of the genetic mutation. Among several novel observations in both species, one that particularly stood out is that RNA from mitochondria were misplaced within the brain cells, called spiny projection neurons (SPNs), that are ravaged in the disease, contributing to its fatal neurological symptoms. The scientists observed that these stray RNAs, which look different to cells than RNA derived from the cell nucleus, triggered a problematic immune reaction. “When these RNAs are released from the mitochondria, to the cell they can look just like viral RNAs, and this triggers innate immunity and can lead to cell death,” says study senior author Myriam Heiman, associate professor in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. “We believe this to be part of the pathway that triggers inflammatory signaling, which has been seen in HD before.”

“…The team’s two different screening methods, “TRAP, link here,” which can be used in mice, and single-nucleus RNA sequencing, which can also be used in mice and humans, not only picked up the presence of mitochondrial RNAs most specifically in the SPNs but also showed a deficit in the expression of genes for a process called oxidative phosphorylation that fuel-hungry neurons employ to make energy. The mouse experiments showed that this downregulation of oxidative phosphorylation and increase in mitochondrial RNA release both occurred very early in disease, before most other gene expression differences were manifest. Moreover, the researchers found increased expression of an immune system protein called PKR, which has been shown to be a sensor of the released mitochondrial RNA. In fact, the team found that PKR was not only elevated in the neurons, but also activated and bound to mitochondrial RNAs. The new findings appear to converge with other clinical conditions that, like Huntington’s disease, lead to damage in a brain region called the striatum, Heiman said. In a condition called Aicardi-Goutières syndrome, the same brain region can be damaged because of a misregulated innate immune response. In addition, children with thiamine deficiency suffer mitochondrial dysfunction, and a prior study has shown that mice with thiamine deficiency show PKR activation, much like Heiman’s team found. “These non-HD human disorders that are characterized by striatal cell death extend the significance of our findings by linking both the oxidative metabolism deficits and autoinflammatory activation phenomena described here directly to human striatal cell death absent the [Huntington’s mutation] context,” they wrote in Neuron.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1161.mp3" length="721868" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) can trigger social withdrawal / isolation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1159</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1159</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2020 19:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1159

If you talk to a doctor about endotoxin (LPS), he/she will most likely give you a blank stare as this topic is very rarely covered in medical schools and the little coverage it gets simply states that endotoxin is never an issue in most people as the liver will quickly deactivate it. Yet, what is missing from this bare-bones discussions is the fact that at least 25% of US adults have NAFLD and when you add to this number the other forms of liver diseases such as NASH, cirrhosis, hepatitis, it quickly becomes obvious that more than half of adults have some form of liver dysfunction. This means that it is not at all clear that endotoxin will be quickly deactivated in such people. In addition, chronic endotoxin exposure itself is known to trigger liver disease and fibrosis, so the exposure to endotoxin seems anything but benign for most people.

The study below adds more counter-evidence in regards to the purported benign nature of endotoxin. It demonstrates that injecting bats with an amount of endotoxin that is tiny by comparison to what people get exposed to on a daily basis was enough to trigger the “sick child” syndrome and accompanying social withdrawal behavior. Social withdrawal is also the hallmark of many chronic conditions, and especially mental health disorders. So, it is quite possible that psychiatry (and other medical specialties) may have been barking up the wrong tree when it comes to treatments. Namely, medicine has been treating the symptom (social withdrawal) instead of the cause (endotoxin overload) by administering powerful psychotropic drugs many of which are provably ineffective and often quite detrimental (e.g. SSRI). If nothing else, it demonstrates that even tiny amounts of endotoxin are nothing to scoff at and needs to be taken much more seriously by mainstream medicine.

2 links here

“…To determine whether the bloodsuckers practice social distancing, the researchers injected 18 female bats with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a chemical that triggers an immune response without the adverse effects of an infection. Later they performed a control study in which the same bats were only injected with saline. In both experiments, they removed the flying rodents from the larger group — but still within earshot — and then documented the frequency of their calls. They found that the LPS caused “female vampire bats to produce 30% fewer contact calls, with 15 of 18 bats producing fewer contact calls” during the sickness simulation compared to the control study. Unfortunately, the bloodthirsty critters don’t self-isolate as a disease-prevention policy. Rather, the researchers concluded that they just feel too ill to interact — like a sick kid taking a rain check on a playdate.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1159.mp3" length="874292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Doxycycline akin to Meldonium / Mildronate, may cure triple-negative breast cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1157</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1157</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2020 18:41:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1157

Once again, the role of excessive fat oxidation is on full display. While mainstream medicine is slowly and reluctantly admitting that cancer may in fact be a metabolic disease, it still views glucose as the primary oncogenic factor in the diet. Yet, little by little, research demonstrates that it is the excessive FAO driving cancer growth. One of the most treatment-resistant cancer is triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and the prognosis for the women (and sometimes men) who get it is rather grim. The study below demonstrates that using the same mechanism of action, link here as the venerable drug Meldonium/Mildronate, link here, TNBC may very well be cured. Namely, the study discovered that TNBC cells overexpress the gene BBOX1, which is responsible for the synthesis of the enzyme BBOX, which then synthesizes the amino acid L-carnitine, link here. Without L-carnitine, cells cannot oxidize longer chain fatty acids and are literally “forced” to oxidize glucose as a result of the Randle cycle, link here shifting in favor of glucose. It appears, often that is all that is needed to turn a lethal disease into little more than a short-lived metabolic derangement. Considering the complete lack of side effects from BBOX1/BBOX inhibition, it is simply a travesty that this treatment is not rushed to all the patients with TNBC whose only options currently are cytotoxic therapies more dangerous than the cancer itself. But there is more good (or terrible, depending on how you look at it) news! The study demonstrated that the well-known, widely available, and cheap antibiotic doxycycline is a BBOX1 gene depleting agent and successfully treated the animals with TNBC. The study authors also used Meldonium as a BBOX enzyme inhibitor and it had similar effects to the doxycycline treatment. The HED dosage for Meldonium was 30mg/kg, which is on the high end but commonly used by athletes to improve their performance during a competition/match. There is no information in the study on the dosage for doxycycline, but a recent study human study demonstrated that 200mg daily is sufficient to produce a robust effect against breast cancer, link here. Now, for those who are curious about alternatives to Meldonium/Mildronate and doxycycline – aspirin is another confirmed BBOX inhibitor, link here but it requires higher doses than Meldonium to achieve the same effects. The IC50 of aspirin for BBOX inhibition is about 1 mM/L, which in humans is achievable with about 3g single oral dose. That means to achieve say 75%+ inhibition, doses on the order 5g-6g daily are needed, which confirms Peat’s repeated statements that aspirin in 5g-6g daily doses would be (one of) his choice of treatment if he were to get cancer.

2 links here

“…Their focus quickly narrowed to a specific 2-OG-dependent member called gamma-butyrobetaine hydroxylase 1 (BBOX1) that’s known to facilitate cell synthesis of carnitine, a molecule that plays a key role in energy metabolism. When the researchers turned off the gene responsible for producing BBOX1, TNBC cells stopped dividing and eventually died, although turning off this gene in healthy breast cell lines had no effect. The opposite was also true: Overexpressing the gene for BBOX1 caused TNBC cell lines to wildly proliferate.”

“…On the flip side, eliminating BBOX1 could have the potential to stop TNBC tumors in their tracks. The researchers demonstrated this in mice by injecting the animals with TNBC cells that were modified so that the gene for BBOX1 could be turned off either directly or by feeding the animals an antibiotic called doxycycline. Turning off the BBOX1 gene directly in these cancer cells stopped primary tumor growth. In another strategy to simulate the breast cancer growth and treatment in patients, the researchers injected tumor cells into the mice and let the TNBC cells grow unabated into sizeable tumors. Then, the mice received doxycycline to turn off the BBOX1 gene. They found that these tumors stopped growing and shrank. Zhang’s team was able to replicate these results by dosing mice with pharmaceuticals that inhibit BBOX1. These drugs effectively fought TNBC tumors but had no negative effects on normal breast tissue or on the animals as a whole, with no detectable toxicity. Zhang points out that while two of these drugs are still in development, one of them – known as Mildronate – is already prescribed in some European countries for increasing oxygen to tissues to treat coronary artery disease. This, or other BBOX1 inhibitors, could eventually be the targeted treatments for TNBC that patients have been waiting for, he says. “Right now, TNBC patients have limited options, which leads to dismal clinical consequences,” says Zhang, the study’s senior author. “We think BBOX1 inhibitors could be a powerful new weapon in the arsenal to treat these cancers.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1157.mp3" length="1385996" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Simple, non-invasive test for adrogenic / estrogenic tone</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1155</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1155</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2020 17:42:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1155

One of the core issues in modern endocrinology is the relatively weak correlation between serum levels of steroids and the overall activity in the organism associated with a particular steroid. For example, post-menopausal women have very low levels of estradiol yet very high whole-body estrogenicity due to the deficiency of progesterone that menopause induces. Even in younger women and males, the serum levels of estradiol are rarely indicative of whole-body estrogenicity and it is quite common to observe low serum estradiol levels in people with obviously very high estrogenic tone manifested by gynecomastia (gyno) in males, central obesity, muscle atrophy, uterine hypertrophy (in females), etc. Prolactin has emerged as a much more reliable indicator of whole-body estrogenicity (as well as serotonin dominance), but it is a still a blood test and requires a trip to the doctor and a painful/risky venous blood draw.

The study below provides a possible alternative to the blood tests. It demonstrates that the rate of sebum production increases when whole body androgenic tone increase, and decreases when estrogenic tone increase. More importantly, the composition of the sebum also changes, and the ratio of palmitic/stearic acid increases when androgenic tone increases and decreases when estrogenic tone increase. Based on the data the study presents, it seems a palmitate/stearate ratio above one (1.0) is indicative of androgenicity and below one (1.0) is indicative of estrogenicity. It is worth noting that while administration of androgenic steroids increased the ratio several-fold, administration of prolactin decreased the ratio below even the control/untreated group. Using the newly discovered metric of androgenicity, the study then scores (Table 3 in the study) several androgenic steroids according to their potency in changing the fatty acid ratio and arrives at an estimate of those steroids’ androgenicity that is strikingly similar to the already published data using other methods such as prostate, seminal vesicle, and preputial gland hypertrophy. This strongly suggests the metric of androgenicity/estrogenicity using fatty acid ratios in sebum is quite accurate. Using this information, a person can easily do a swab of their face with a piece of cotton or bandage dipped in alcohol (vodka, rubbing alcohol, whiskey, etc would all work) and then dip the cotton in small container of alcohol so that the sebum collected by the cotton/bandage can dissolve into the liquid. The liquid can then be sent to any chemical lab doing HPLC/MS tests and a person can ask the lab to analyze the liquid for the presence of palmitic and stearic acids and then calculate their ratio. No needles or doctors needed!

link here

“…The administration of 1 mg testosterone propionate/4 days (Table 1, group F) to 12-week-old female rats, hypophysectomized when 3-4 weeks of age, brought about a significant rise in the rate of production (from 13-6 to 34-3 mg/100 g body weight/2 days) and in the palmitate : stéarate ratio (from 0-82 to 3-70) of the skin surface lipids. Simultaneous treatment with prolactin did not further increase either of these parameters in 33-week-old hypophysectomized animals receiving testosterone (Table 2).”

“…Androstenedione and dehydroepiandrosterone were found to have 68 and 61 % of the activity of testosterone propionate, respectively, when the androgens were administered i.m. in doses of 100 mg three times weekly for 7-11 weeks. In the present study, the potencies of these androgens (Table 3) were only 6-17 % and 25-33 % of the potency of testosterone propionate, respectively. These figures are of about the same order of magnitude as those reported by Dorfman & Dorfman (1962, 1963), who assayed the effect of these androgens on the weight of the chick comb as well as on the weight of the seminal vesicles and the ventral prostate of the rat.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1155.mp3" length="1308980" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Navel application/absorption rivals intravenous route, other skin routes not far behind</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1153</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1153</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2020 17:12:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1153

One of the most common questions I get from my readers is “What is the topical absorption rate of your products?” There are a number of studies demonstrating that a solvent mixture of DMSO/ethanol achieves close to 100% absorption no matter where on the skin it is applied. However, we stopped using DMSO/ethanol for most of our products, and while that alleviated the concerns about the odor and skin irritation due to DMSO, questions began streaming in asking about the effectiveness of the new SFA/ethanol solvent (as well as the tocopherol/oil one) when applied topically. My experience with both solvents, verified by blood tests, demonstrate an absorption rate of about 65%-70% of the products when applied to the skin but people keep asking for references that would back up that estimate, and also keep asking for changes to the solvents that would increase absorption rate even more. Well, the study below seems to answer both questions/concerns. It confirms that absorption of testosterone (T) through the skin (forearm) is about 50% when only acetone is used as a solvent. However, multiple other studies have demonstrated that acetone is inferior as a transdermal carrier when compared to ethanol. In addition, the studies also demonstrated that using only a volatile solvent reduces the absorption of the active ingredient through the skin because the solvent evaporates too quickly before it has had a chance to increase skin permeability much. As such, the studies have suggested pairing up the volatile solvent with a non-volatile one that would allow the volatile solvent to stay on the skin longer and as such to achieve better absorption. This volatile (ethanol) + nonvolatile solvent combination approach has already been verified as effective when it comes to another steroid – cholecalciferol, link here – known to the general public as vitamin D. As far as achieving even higher absorption, the study below also demonstrates that applying the T dissolved in acetone directly into the navel has an absorption rate of about 80% and is not far behind the “absorption” rate of intravenous route (IV) – the gold standard in clinical pharmacology (defined as ensuring 100% absorption). Considering the 80% absorption rate through the navel was achieved using only acetone as a solvent, and keeping in mind the discussion above about volatile/nonvolatile aspects of transdermal delivery, the SFA/ethanol combination we use as a solvent for most of our products may very well get within a hair-width distance of the IV route absorption rate.

link here

“…We evaluated the transdermal bioavailability of testosterone through the skin tissues at the navel area2 and compared the data with that obtained from the transderma1 administration on the forearm area (dorsal surface) using four rhesus monkeys as the model animal. [l4CC]-Testosterone [5 pCi (25 pg)], in 100 uL of acetone, was applied on a skin area (controlled at 0.2 cm2 by a metal templet) for 5 d. The solvent was quickly evaporated, and the site of drug administration was then covered with a piece of plastic adhesive which remained intact throughout the study.”

“…The data generated (Fig. 1) suggest that administration via the navel yields a relatively faster absorption and also greater systemic bioavailability of [ l4C] testosterone than administration via the forearm. Both routes of percutaneous absorption give well-defined first-order elimination kinetics, which is very much in parallel to that of intravenous administration. It is interesting to note that the systemic bioavailability of‘ [14C] testosterone by navel absorption is relatively close to the level obtained by the intravenous administration of an equivalent dose and is substantially greater than the level achieved by forearm administration. Calculated from Eq. 1, navel absorption of [ I4C] testosterone has achieved a relative bioavailability of 79.9%, as compared with 49.9% by forearm administration.”

“…The relative bioavailability of [ ‘‘C]testosterone by navel and forearm absorption may also be compared using urinary recovery data. The results (Fig. 2) indicate that during a 5-day drug administration period a total of 57.3,45.2, and 33.2% of the [14C]testosterone dose administered had been recovered in urinary excretion, respectively, from intravenous, navel, and forearm administrations. Using the intravenous urinary recovery data (57.3%) as the reference for comparison, it is estimated that a relative bioavailability of 78.970 was achieved after navel administration and of 57.9% by forearm administration. The results are in good agreement with the plasma data reported (79.9 and 49.9%, respectively). Both plasma profiles and urinary recovery data demonstrate that navel absorption produces a greater transdermal bioavailability of [“Cltestosterone than forearm administration (79.9 and 78.970 uersus 49.9 and 57.9%).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1153.mp3" length="1212764" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Topical DHEA has potent anti-aging effects on human skin</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1148</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1148</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2020 00:18:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1148

I often get emails in regards to possible interventions with anti-aging effects on skin. The study I usually quote is an old one (circa 1967) that did extensive tests on 200+ people with age range of 57-88 years residing in a retirement home, and demonstrated that topical testosterone (1%) cream had the most potent anti-aging effects in both men and women, followed closely by 1% progesterone and 1% pregnenolone.

link here

“…”…The male hormone, testosterone, has a rejuvenating or ameliorative effect when applied to aging human skin. Clinically evident changes, such as effacement of wrinkles, hair growth, and augmented sweating, are present but modest, particularly when compared to the improvement in the microscopic architecture of the skin. Progesterone and pregnenolone produce similar but more diminutive alterations. The female hormone, ethinyl estradiol, was without effect, while the corticosteroids accentuated the degradative changes of senescence.”

More recent studies have examined the effects of DHEA on aging skin but most of those studies used oral administration and extremely high doses that result in hyperestrogenicity. The study below is a good find because it demonstrates that topical DHEA administration (in the form of 1% and 2% DHEA creams) has robust anti-aging effects on the skin when applied twice daily for 13 weeks. A plausible mechanism of action, according to the study, is the highly androgenic effects of DHEA administration, including BOTH 3-fold increase in expression of the androgen receptor (AR) as well as increased synthesis of DHT by the skin using DHEA as a precursor. There was no change in the expression of any of the estrogen receptors. This lack of estrogenic effect of topical DHEA (combined with the striking effectiveness of testosterone and ineffectiveness of estradiol in the retirement home study) raises serious doubts in regards to the claims made about estrogen’s purported anti-aging effects. Despite the damning results from the WHI studies in regards to estrogen, the drug industry has slowly been re-introducing estrogen as HRT for older women and one of the main “selling points” the industry has been using is the purported strong anti-aging effects of estrogen on the skin. Well, topical testosterone converts mostly into DHT and so does DHEA. Multiple human and animal studies have demonstrated that both of these interventions have potent anti-aging effects and the proposed mechanisms of both is the increase in androgenic tone. No increase in estrogenic tone was observed as a result of any of those interventions. In addition, the increase in DHT from the treatments has anti-estrogenic effects of its own. I will let my readers draw their own conclusions if androgens or estrogens are the true anti-aging agents. To me at least, the evidence is quite clear 🙂

link here

“…In this prospective placebo-controlled, randomized study, the data show the effects of DHEA treatment on the levels of AR, procollagen 1 and 3, and HSP47 in the skin of postmenopausal women. A marked stimulation by DHEA of AR levels was observed in the epidermis, in the absence of specific modification of overall epidermal architecture. In the dermis, a marked increase in the expression of types 1 and 3 procollagen was observed together with an increased expression of HSP47, a procollagen chaperone protein.33 An increase of 574% over basal levels of the serum DHEA concentration was observed after twice-daily application of a 2% DHEA cream, while a much lower transformation into both androgens and oestrogens was measured, thus indicating the limited transformation of DHEA into active sex steroids in postmenopausal women.28 In light of this effect of DHEA on the serum levels in postmenopausal women, we investigated for the first time the consequences of DHEA treatment on overall skin structure, morphology and gene expression, including both the epidermis and dermis compartments. In a previous study, it was observed that after 4 weeks of topical application of DHEA, procollagen a1 significantly increased in both aged and young human skin.29 In mice, after 3 weeks of daily administration of a DHEA physiological dose, an increase of AR expression was observed in epidermal cells and in sebocytes.22 AR expression was also reported in human eccrine sweat glands and in scalp skin.32,34–36 In the present study, AR expression was detected in most of the nuclei of the epidermal cells and a significant increase was detected in response to DHEA treatment compared with placebo. These findings, in addition to those describing the presence in the skin of the main steroidogenic enzymes26,37,38 are in agreement with the belief that the human skin synthesizes a significant amount of sex steroids from DHEA, including the potent androgen DHT.26 Using immunostaining, we also investigated the expression of ERa in epidermal cells where a low expression was observed in most of the nuclei (data not shown). ERb expression was also investigated and in agreement with previous observations,32 a much stronger expression than the ERa immunostaining was observed in most of the nuclei. However, the expression of ERa and ERb did not change when comparing the DHEA-treated groups with the placebo group.”

“…The present study describes an increase in the expression of both procollagen 1 and 3 mRNA following local application of DHEA. In addition, we have shown that HSP47 protein levels significantly increased with DHEA treatment. As HSP47 has been described as a type I collagen chaperone protein,33 this upregulation underlines early modification in the regulation of extracellular matrix production. In addition, the HSP47 immunostaining showed an important increase in dermal fibroblast size in response to DHEA treatment. In conclusion, it is well known that the skin undergoes regressive changes after menopause and that these changes are mainly related to a loss of skin collagen content. The potent stimulatory effect of topical DHEA reflected by an increase in the number and size of dermal fibroblasts and the expression of procollagen types 1 and 3 suggest the possibility that topical DHEA could be a useful antiageing agent in the skin.”

And another one, confirming the effects of the first study.

link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1148.mp3" length="1195436" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Simple metabolic change sufficient to turn “normal” cells into “cancer”</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1146</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1146</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2020 23:31:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1146

Yet another study exposing the fraud/myth that somehow “cancer” cells are different and evil and as such the only hope for curing cancer is killing them before they kill their “host”. The central dogma of oncology is that genetic mutations happen first (and randomly so). Then, once a “cancerous” mutation happens the cell is fundamentally changed and all subsequent metabolic and structural derangements are a mere result of these (permanent) mutations. Well, when it comes to lymphoma at least, the study below begs to disagree. It demonstrates that a simple increase in activity of an enzyme involved in serine/glycine metabolism and also generations of extra methyl groups (which confirms the role of overmethylation in cancer genesis) is fully sufficient to trigger the “cancerization” of a normal B cells into B cell lymphoma. Again, there is no actual “conversion” into a different cell type, there is simply change in behavior due to restrictive/suboptimal environment and metabolic deficiency. As soon as those are corrected, the “cancer” cells usually revert to “normal”. The authors of the study themselves state so and argue that metabolic therapies hold great promise for treating at least this type of “cancer”. Cancer is, and always has been, nothing but a metabolic derangement. As such, its fraudulent cytotoxic “treatment” over the last 100 years is the biggest genocide in the history of this world!

link here

Lymphoma-Associated Metabolic Enzyme May Be a Drug Target, link here

“…Cancer cells have an increased demand for building materials and energy. They meet these added demands by altering their metabolism, e.g., taking in larger amounts of fuel. Historically, these metabolic changes have been considered a consequence rather than a cause of cancer, and therefore not good drug targets. Now, a new study in Nature Cancer—“The serine hydroxymethyltransferase-2 (SHMT2) initiates lymphoma development through epigenetic tumor suppressor silencing, link here”—from the Sloan Kettering Institute laboratory of Hans-Guido Wendel, MD, challenges that assumption.

“Cancer cells adapt their metabolic activities to support growth and proliferation. However, increased activity of metabolic enzymes is not usually considered an initiating event in the malignant process. Here, we investigate the possible role of the enzyme serine hydroxymethyltransferase-2 (SHMT2) in lymphoma initiation. SHMT2 localizes to the most frequent region of copy number gains at chromosome 12q14.1 in lymphoma. Elevated expression of SHMT2 cooperates with BCL2 in lymphoma development; loss or inhibition of SHMT2 impairs lymphoma cell survival,” write the investigators.

“…SHMT2 catalyzes the conversion of serine to glycine and produces an activated one-carbon unit that can be used to support S-adenosyl methionine synthesis. SHMT2 induces changes in DNA and histone methylation patterns leading to promoter silencing of previously uncharacterized mutational genes, such as SASH1 and PTPRM. Together, our findings reveal that amplification of SHMT2 in cooperation with BCL2 is sufficient in the initiation of lymphomagenesis through epigenetic tumor suppressor silencing. “We find that increased activity of a normal metabolic enzyme, called SHMT2, is sufficient to transform normal B cells into B cell lymphomas,” says Sara Parsa, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Wendel lab and the first author of the paper.”

“…SHMT2’s main role is to speed the conversion of serine into glycine, simultaneously generating a methyl group. This methyl group, the researchers found, epigenetically binds to the promoter of genes that encode previously unrecognized tumor suppressor proteins. This binding turns off these tumor suppressors, resulting in B cell lymphoma.”

“…While scientists have documented previous links between metabolism and cancer, most of these involve metabolic proteins that are mutated. “This may be the first time that anyone has shown that too much of a normal metabolic enzyme can drive cancer,” Wendel says. “It reinforces the idea that metabolic changes can be a cause rather than simply an effect of cancer.” He notes that the research reveals that SHMT2 could be a potential drug target for cancer therapies, provided there is a way to target it specifically in cancer cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1146.mp3" length="742220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cytokine storm in COVID-19 / sepsis due to “cancer metabolism” (Warburg Effect)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1144</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1144</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2020 19:42:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1144

A few great studies illustrating the crucial effects of metabolism even in “non-metabolic” conditions like COVID-19. We already have evidence that increased PUFA peroxidation is one of the causes behind the (often lethal) cytokine storm in viral diseases, including COVID-19. However, the direct mechanism through which immune cells such as phagocytes “go berserk” and increase release of inflammatory cytokines (that cause multiple organ failure and death) is not well-understood. The studies below provide a neat explanation demonstrating that viral disease is metabolically not very different from diabetes, cancer, CVD, etc. First, they demonstrate that “aerobic glycolysis” (cancer metabolism) is required for viral infection to take hold. Second, when there is an increased energetic demand placed on the cells of a specific system for a prolonged period of time, the cells in that system will start “abandoning” OXPHOS in favor of more primitive but faster method of energy production (e.g. aerobic glycolysis) and in the process generate a lot of oxidative stress and tissue damage. Inhibiting the excessive glycolysis is apparently highly therapeutic BOTH for preventing the actual viral infection and for controlling its course after it takes hold, including the cases of immune overreaction in COVID-19 patients. This demonstrates that “deranged” cells can quickly return back to normal if their metabolism is improved. The process is in principle valid for any other disease (viral or not) where a cytokine storm is present. This raises serious questions as to why the reversal back to normal can apparently happen quite easily in “deranged” immune cells, but we are told by doctors it cannot happen in “deranged” cancer cells. The study below has no problem comparing the “deranged” immune and “deranged” cancer cells and discussing reversibility. So, I think my readers already know (or can easily guess) the answer to that (fake) riddle. 🙂 If inhibiting the cancer metabolism is therapeutic for viral infections, it explains a good deal of the beneficial effects seen with administration of methylene blue, vitamin C, tetracycline antibiotics, vitamin D, etc as they all inhibit “aerobic glycolysis”.

link here

“…The pathogenesis of a COVID-19 respiratory infection, in a major way, is related to what is referred to as the cytokine storm [cytokine storm syndrome (CSS, hypercytokinemia, etc.], i.e., it is a hyper-inflammatory response. During this response, an explosive production of proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α IL-1β, and others occurs, greatly exaggerating the generation of molecule-damaging reactive oxygen species (free radicals) [1, link here]. In severe cases, the cytokine storm is responsible for the most obvious signs of a COVID-19 infection including fever, lung injury which causes cough and shortness of breath (and the long-term complication, lung fibrosis) and in death. A causative factor related to the hyper-inflammatory state of immune cells is their ability to dramatically change their metabolism. Similar to cancer cells in many solid tumors, immune cells such as macrophages/monocytes under inflammatory conditions abandon mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation for ATP production in favor of cytosolic aerobic glycolysis (also known as the Warburg effect) [2, link here]. This switch is driven by the transcription factor HIF-1α (hypoxia inducible factor-1α) and the serine/threonine kinase, mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) and other proteins. The change to aerobic glycolysis allows immune cells to become highly phagocytic, accelerate ATP production, intensify their oxidative burst and to provide the abundant metabolic precursors required for enhanced cellular proliferation and increased synthesis and release of cytokines (Fig. 1, link here ).”

2 links here

“…We also need to take into account that quite a lot of similarities in metabolic pathways of virally infected and cancer cells have been observed.3, link here Viruses usually target mitochondria as cellular power houses and various interplays have been detected between viruses and mitochondrial dynamics.4, link here Most viruses require aerobic glycolysis as the energy source for replication and its inhibition could attenuate this process.4, link here“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1144.mp3" length="1197164" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Male sexual function does NOT require estrogen</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1142</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1142</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2020 19:14:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1142

It is a “sacred” mantra in the medical and sports worlds – i.e. “estrogen is crucial for males, without it they won’t have any sex life”. This mantra is also part of the justification given for the currently ongoing COVID-19 clinical trials with males receiving estrogen in the hope it will reduce the lethality of the disease. You know, if estrogen is crucial for male sexual function, then how bad can it be to give a little extra when the male has a viral disease?? Aside from the potent immunosuppressive effects of estrogen (which testosterone gets blamed for unfairly, link here), the studies below pour cold water even on the sex health claim. They conclusively demonstrate that males have perfectly good sexual function when either the effects of estrogen are blocked at the receptor level or its synthesis is decreased dramatically. In fact, there was even a temporary increase in sexual desire of eugonadal men while undergoing treatments with DHT. Treatments with a SERM (tamoxifen) or an aromatase inhibitor (testolactone) did not induce ANY change (positive or negative) in sexual function. Btw, treatment with DHT suppressed BOTH testosterone and estrogen to castration levels, which demonstrates that testosterone (which is an aromatizable steroid) is also not that crucial for male sexual health. Adding to all that evidence the study demonstrating that estrogen is NOT needed for muscle growth, link here either reduces the justification of estrogen use in males to nil.

link here

“…Results: DHT treatment increased serum DHT with complete suppression of serum T, luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, and estradiol throughout the 24-month study resulting in reduced spinal bone density. There were no spontaneous complaints, or discontinuations for, adverse effects on sexual function during the study. DHT administration had no effects on any of 33 measures of sexual function and mood, apart from a mild, but significant decrease in overall sexual desire, which was reversible after cessation of treatment. Increasing age and less often increasing BMI were associated with significant decreases in most aspects of sexual function.Conclusions: We conclude that aromatization plays only a minimal role in maintenance of sexual function in healthy eugonadal middle-aged or older men, but age and obesity are significantly associated with decreases in most aspects of self-reported sexual function and satisfaction. The dependence of male sexual function on aromatization may be conditional on age and obesity and can be overcome by a nonaromatizable androgen.”

link here

“…The agonadal men did not notice any significant difference, whether treated with the aromatizable TU or the nonaromatizable DHTU. Only in the eugonadal students did the administration of DHTU, which increased the levels of DHT, give rise to a transient change in the parameters assessed. They noted a significant increase in nocturnal sexual dreams and nocturnal (sometimes painful) erections…These effects waned after 3-4 weeks of administration. The overall appreciation of the participation in the experiment was negative: four of the six stated that they would not be prepared to repeat the experiment. This contrasts with the participants of the testolactone experiment. Sexual acts were not influenced, nor was the occurrence of daytime sexual thoughts. ”

“…This study tested whether, as in the rat and other species, T needs to be converted to estrogens in order to exert fully its effects on sexual behavior. The results could not establish an effect of administration of an antiestrogen, known to interact with cerebral estrogen receptors. The rise of LH, FSH, and testosterone following the administration of tamoxifen demonstrates that this agent acts as an antiestrogen when administered to adult men. Apparently, the rise of endogenous T also did not affect sexual functions in these men. Further, an approximately 50% fall in circulating E2 levels, induced by testolactone, did not influence any of the parameters assessed in these young men. It is presently not known whether testolactone crosses the blood-brain barrier and reduces brain estradiol levels. Thus, some caution is warranted. These results do not support the conclusion of Luisi and Franchi (1980). Another approch to the problem was replacement of testosterone in hypogonadal men by dihydrotestosterone. This led to a further increase of already supraphysiological levels of DHT and the disappearance of measurable levels of T and E» No side-effects were noted by these men. The latter data would have gained strength if our study had included a placebo comparison group, but this was not acceptable to the subjects tested. On the other hand, it is unlikely that the testosterone effects would carry over for the full 9 weeks of DHTU administration. Skakkebaek et al. (1981) found that such an effect is mainly noticeable in the first 2 weeks after transferring patients from testosterone to placebo. Surprisingly, the increase of DHT levels had noticeable effects in eugonadal men, namely, an increase of nocturnal sexual dreams and nocturnal erections and a feeling of congestion and irritability that waned after 3-4 weeks. This disappearance was not due to increased metabolism of DHT, since levels of DHT were not lower after 6 weeks of treatment than after 3 weeks. Why these effects occurred in the eugonadal but not in the agonadal men is not obvious. However, a few possibilities can be considered. In the agonadal men, DHT levels were, as a result of TU treatment, already supraphysiological, whereas in the eugonadal men these were in the physiological range. Since the effects in the eugonadal men were of a transient nature it may be that the agonadal men had adapted or were desensitized to supraphysiological levels of DHT. Further, in the eugonadal men, DHT, T, and E2 were simultaneously present, whereas in the agonadal men only DHT was circulating. It is not clear whether this played a role. In conclusion, due to the small size of the samples and the limited power of statistical tests, and also the absence of placebo-treated control groups, each of the four experiments may not be fully convincing that conversion of T to E2 is not required to maintain sexual functions in adult men with an established sex life. Collectively, however, the data do support this conclusion.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1142.mp3" length="732044" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The World Might Actually Run Out of People</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1138</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1138</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 19:59:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1138

As many of my readers know, the mantra of overpopulation has been the driving force behind countless political initiatives, usually related to draconian austerity. You see, according to most of the imbeciles we have put in office all over the world’s governments, the world’s population is exploding uncontrollably and there is simply not enough resources to feed and take care of everybody. As such, a number of drastic and often directly evil measures are undertaken including heavy advertising of abortion, hormonal contraceptives, vasectomies, childless families by choice, etc, etc. Then there are also the conspiracy theories, some of which have direct evidence of veracity, link here, related to the forced sterilization of young people in developing countries through the introduction of contaminated vaccines, link here, and other medical interventions during childhood that lead to infertility/sterility later in life.

Now, the article below discusses a book that provides strong arguments and evidence disproving the very claim that the world is experiencing a population explosion. In fact, the authors of the book argue, if current trends in female education patterns, modernization, and family planning continue, the world may actually experience a “depopulation” event. It is yet another example of a few loud (and rich/powerful) voices pushing a narrative that suits only them. Apparently, just as is the case in medicine, there is actually a majority dissenting opinion we never get to hear since the guards/owners of the gateways to information/knowledge (Google, mainstream press, scientific journals, etc) never let those voices be heard. If even 1% of what that book argues is true then all the “population control” measures undertaken so far by UN, WHO, various governments around the world, and especially private medical companies, are nothing short of genocide…

EDIT (7/16/2020): In yet another striking example of synchronicity, link here, just hours after I made this post my news feed provided an article about a study done at University of Washington that not only confirms the overall predictions of the book that the world population will decline, but also provides some specific projections for world population and the number is strikingly close to the one provided in the book as well. The opinion of the study authors is far from rosy. If there is an actual population decline, this will have a devastating economic impact worldwide as the ratio of old/young people will increase and as such pension funds, health cares systems, and other social support structures (that depend on a constant stream of young workers) may very well collapse. The study and the article are posted below, after the link about the book and the quotes discussing it. As far as I can tell, neither the book authors nor the study authors know each other or have cited each other’s previous work. So, now we have two independent groups arriving at largely the same conclusion, which is itself a prime example of synchronicity, or using more modern terminology – an example of morphic resonance as per Rupert Sheldrake, link here. Btw, I find the BBC article particularly relevant as it calls attention to the “jaw-dropping global crash” of fertility rates. So much for the “explosion” of world population…

link here

“…You know the story. Despite technologies, regulations, and policies to make humanity less of a strain on the earth, people just won’t stop reproducing. By 2050 there will be 9 billion carbon-burning, plastic-polluting, calorie-consuming people on the planet. By 2100, that number will balloon to 11 billion, pushing society into a Soylent Green scenario. Such dire population predictions aren’t the stuff of sci-fi; those numbers come from one of the most trusted world authorities, the United Nations. But what if they’re wrong? Not like, off by a rounding error, but like totally, completely goofed? That’s the conclusion Canadian journalist John Ibbitson and political scientist Darrell Bricker come to in their newest book, Empty Planet, due out February 5th. After painstakingly breaking down the numbers for themselves, the pair arrived at a drastically different prediction for the future of the human species. “In roughly three decades, the global population will begin to decline,” they write. “Once that decline begins, it will never end.”

“…The UN population data is something we call vertical knowledge, or “everybody knows” knowledge. Whether it’s the prime minister of a country, a university academic, a business leader, a student, just a guy on the street, you ask any of them, “What is happening with population?” and they go, “Oh it’s terrible, there’s a huge population explosion. I was just watching a movie last night where Earth got so crowded everyone had to relocate to the moons of Jupiter.” It’s just deeply embedded. DB: And whenever that happens you should really go and look hard at the assumptions, and test them yourself, because most of the time reality has already moved past where that vertical knowledge resides.”

“…JI: So that’s what we did. And it didn’t take long before we realized that there was a whole body of demographers who have been questioning the UN’s numbers for years. They’ve just been talking to each other at conferences and through scholarly articles, but they’ve never gotten this information before the general public. That was kind of our starting point. And then when we went out and talked to real people in the world about the choices they’re making, that’s when the statistics we were seeing came to life.”

“…DB: There was a moment when we were sitting in this little school in Srinivaspuri, listening to a focus group of 13 or 14 women who lived there. And I kept seeing this faint glow light up under their saris. I didn’t know what it was. And then I saw one woman reach in and pull out a smartphone, look at it, and put it back. And I realized, here we are in a slum in Delhi, and all these women have smartphones. Who can read. Who have data packages. And I was thinking, they have all of human knowledge in their hands now. What’s the impact of that going to be?”

“…DB: So, the UN forecasting model inputs three things: fertility rates, migration rates, and death rates. It doesn’t take into account the expansion of education for females or the speed of urbanization (which are in some ways linked). The UN says they’re already baked into the numbers. But when I went and interviewed [the demographer] Wolfgang Lutz in Vienna, which was one of the first things we did, he walked me through his projections, and I walked out of the room gobsmacked. All he was doing was adding one new variable to the forecast: the level of improvement in female education. And he comes up with a much lower number for global population in 2100, somewhere between 8 billion and 9 billion.”

“…JI: Lutz has this saying that the most important reproductive organ for human beings is your mind. That if you change how someone thinks about reproduction, you change everything. Based on his analysis, the single biggest effect on fertility is the education of women. The UN has a grim view of Africa. It doesn’t predict much change in terms of fertility over the first quarter of the century. But large parts of African are urbanizing at two times the rate of the global average. If you go to Kenya today, women have the same elementary education levels as men. As many girls as boys are sitting for graduation exams. So we’re not prepared to predict that Africa will stagnate in rural poverty for the rest of the century.”

“…DB: And that’s just one cultural variable. So you can say that the old models always worked in the past, but what if the past is not prologue? What if we’re moving into a different cultural moment? What if it’s accelerating? And what if that cultural moment really is about the personal decisions women make about their lives?”

“…JI: We polled 26 countries asking women how many kids they want, and no matter where you go the answer tends to be around two. The external forces that used to dictate people having bigger families are disappearing everywhere. And that’s happening fastest in developing countries. In the Philippines, for example, fertility rates dropped from 3.7 percent to 2.7 percent from 2003 to 2018. That’s a whole kid in 15 years. In the US, that change happened much more slowly, from about 1800 to the end of the Baby Boom. So that’s the scenario we’re asking people to contemplate.”

“…DB: A lot of people who are thinking about the future of the world, the future economy, the future of city planning, they’re basing their projections on that future size of the human population. And people are actually making decisions based on this. If you dig in and see that there isn’t going to be a lot of growth of young people coming into the population, a lot of growth is actually going to come from older people hanging around longer because we’re getting better every day at keeping them alive. How does that affect transit decisions in New York City? Or how governments support rural communities that are collapsing at an enormous rate right now. All those decisions are based on having a correct understanding of what our societies will look like in the future.”

3 links here

“…Overpopulation has been a staple of dystopian fiction for decades, link here, with stories predicting an unmitigated spread of humanity pushing Earth’s resources to breaking point. A fresh look at the numbers paints a very different scenario. A team of researchers estimate by the 2060s there’ll be maybe another two billion people on Earth. Just a few decades later, numbers will drop as fertility rates decline, link here and nations like Japan and Italy lose as much as half of their population. Just how this overall decline will impact society and the planet is hard to say. We might assume fewer mouths to feed and fewer bodies to house would be less taxing on the environment. But the reality of a shrinking population may be a bleak one. “While population decline is potentially good news for reducing carbon emissions and stress on food systems, with more old people and fewer young people, economic challenges will arise as societies struggle to grow with fewer workers and taxpayers, and countries’ abilities to generate the wealth needed to fund social support and health care for the elderly are reduced“, says, link here first author of the new study Stein Emil Vollset, a biostatistician from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Washington.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1138.mp3" length="1525052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The “safe” levels of thyroid inhibitor in tap water much lower than previously thought</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1136</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1136</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 19:18:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1136

Yet another study demonstrating that tap water may be quite unsafe to drink, and that yet another one of EPA/FDA regulations on “safe” levels of a potent thyroid-inhibiting contaminant in drinking water are nothing more than wishful thinking. Namely, the study below claims that the levels of perchlorate, link here in drinking water defined as safe by the EPA/FDA are an order of magnitude higher than what is considered “acceptable” risk, and there is likely no truly safe level of exposure similarly to the story now unfolding about fluoride and the decade-long scientific fraud in regards to its safety. Unsurprisingly, the heavily-lobbied EPA recently rules against regulating levels of perchlorate in the environment, choosing to continue its course of (in)action as it also did in regards to other known endocrine disruptors such as fluoride, bisphenols, teflon constituents, etc.

2 links here

“…Sometimes toxins, such as hazardous wastes and industrial byproducts, seep into groundwater, the source of our drinking water. One such pollutant is perchlorate, a chemical compound used in rocket fuels, fireworks, fertilizers and other materials. The compound is thought to contribute to health issues in humans such as hypothyroidism, the decreased production of hormones from the thyroid gland, which can impact development. In a new study published May 25, 2020, in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, link here, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Vanderbilt University and the University of California, Irvine, report on the mechanism that perchlorate uses to impact and damage normal functioning of the thyroid gland. The findings, they say, suggest that an acceptable safe concentration of perchlorate in drinking water is 10 times less than previously thought.”

“…In May 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled not to place regulations on the amount of perchlorate that can be allowed in drinking water. The findings from the new study strongly suggest that this environmental pollutant is more hazardous than previously thought, raising serious concern about the decision. “We hope that these findings will prompt the EPA to change its mind,” Amzel says.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1136.mp3" length="464756" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High-intelligence not unique to humans, is due to extended childhood</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1133</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1133</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 18:59:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1133

A great new study that confirms many of Peat’s writings on the subject. Namely, that it is the brain to body mass ratio that largely determines the intelligence of an organism. Moreover, good nutrition and extended childhood are the main factors in determining the intellectual development of an organism. The latter contributes to intelligence by allowing the organism to spend more of its lifetime in an unrestricted, playful, stimulating environment where things are done because they are fun and not because they are “profitable” or “practical”. As one of the study author says, if we judge animals by those criteria of extended childhood and brain/body ratio we discover that quite a few other species, and especially some birds, can probably match our intelligence. All the more so considering ours is on the decline due to the current toxic environments we live in.

The study also underscores another factor crucial for intelligence – that extended childhood is only possible through good parenting and parental investment in the lives of the offspring. This statement is sacrilegious to utter in a modern society. It is considered oppressive, patriarchal, and incompatible with the “career development” of any young person (especially a female). The message young people get these days from all directions is quite uniform and clear – children are a toxic drag on a parent’s progress and should be “disposed off” as soon as possible to the care of an evil, inhumane, expensive, damaging, and incompetent day-care and education industry. In light of the treatment children have been getting from their parents for the last 2-3 decades, it is hardly surprising the world is awash with imbecilic, twisted, creatures that hate both the world around them and themselves.

2 links here

“…Human beings typically don’t leave the nest until well into our teenage years—a relatively rare strategy among animals. But corvids—a group of birds that includes jays, ravens, and crows—also spend a lot of time under their parents’ wings. Now, in a parallel to humans, researchers have found that ongoing tutelage by patient parents may explain how corvids have managed to achieve their smarts. Corvids are large, big-brained birds that often live in intimate social groups of related and unrelated individuals. They are known to be intelligent—capable of using tools, link here, recognizing human faces, link here, and even understanding physics, link here—and some researchers believe crows may rival apes for smarts, link here. Meanwhile, humans continue to grow their big brains and build up their cognitive abilities during childhood, as their parents feed and protect them. “Humans are characterized by this extended childhood that affects our intelligence, but we can’t be the only ones,” says Natalie Uomini, a cognitive scientist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. But few researchers have studied the impact of parenting throughout the juvenile years on intelligence in nonhumans.”

“…To study the link between parental care and intelligence in birds, Uomini and her team created a database detailing the life history of thousands of species, including more than 120 corvids. Compared with other birds, they found corvids spend more time in the nest before fledging, more days feeding their offspring as adults, and more of their life living among family. The results, reported last week in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, also confirm corvids have unusually large brains, link here compared with many other birds. Birds need to be light for flight, but a raven’s brain accounts for almost 2% of its body mass, a value similar to humans. The researchers next took to the field to study how easily wild birds can solve novel tasks, a more direct measurement of cognition. Uomini and her colleagues have spent years studying Siberian jays and New Caledonian crows, two corvid species with extended childhoods that are known to be smart: The crows use sticks to fish grubs from logs (see video, above), while jays can solve food puzzles and recognize rare predators.”

“…Young birds learned these tasks more quickly by watching their parents, the team found. Adults were quite tolerant, allowing juveniles to practice and supplementing their food while they learned. Young crows and jays often remained with their parents for up to 4 years—the equivalent of about 2 decades in human years—growing more skilled at mentally challenging tasks all the while. The experiments strongly suggest parenting helps shape bigger brains, says study co-author Michael Griesser, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Konstanz. It’s costly to grow a large brain—our own requires 20% of our daily calories, link here—and juveniles start their learning early. “The only way you can do that is through parental investment”—providing an example and feeding juveniles as their brains grow, he says.”

“…Other researchers studying cognition also welcome the results. Ben Ashton, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Western Australia, Perth, says members of the field have “often been at loggerheads” as they seek to identify the most important drivers of cognitive evolution. “What’s interesting about this study is that it’s compatible with other existing ideas,” Ashton says, including the hypothesis that the cognitive demands of group living helped spur larger brains in humans. For her part, Uomini thinks too much credit has been given to humans “as the pinnacle of evolution and intelligence.” Animals such as corvids have evolved independently to be both intelligent and attentive caregivers, suggesting the human condition is not so unique. By studying other animals, she says, we can gain “insights into the evolutionary conditions that helped our big brains and our intelligence to evolve.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1133.mp3" length="815804" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dietary PUFA causes (reversible) male infertility and androgen deficiency</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1131</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1131</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 18:35:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1131

An amazing study, which should serves as a causing to the nuts-and-seeds crowd precisely because it used exactly such a diet to produce these highly negative effects on male fertility. Come to think of it, it is common knowledge in many cultures around the world that seeds and seed extracts are often used as male contraceptives, yet for some reason this fact has somehow escaped the attention of the dietary industry in the Western world. However, it has not escaped the attention of urology/oncology where the effects of various seeds are well-known and in fact a number of companies are working on “safer” chemical castration drugs based on seeds that are to be used in “treatment” of prostate cancer. The study below demonstrates that the addition of a certain level of pumpkin seed to the diet can cause (reversible) infertility and severe androgen deficiency. Those highly detrimental changes were apparently reversible upon discontinuation of the pro-castration diet, but I am not at all convinced about the safety of those seeds given the cytotoxic effects in gonads and inhibition of steroidogenic enzymes they caused. The dietary levels of pumpkin seeds (which contain mostly PUFA) used in the current study correspond to about 0.5%-2% dietary PUFA daily, which is easily achieved by most people on a Western diet as it contains a significant amount of plant oils. I don’t even want to think about how much extra PUFA on top of that the nuts-and-seeds crowd ingests on a daily basis. In light of these effects of dietary PUFA the current epidemic of infertility in young couples is hardly surprising. The authors of the study themselves say that pumpkin seeds added to the diet have a potential to be developed into a male contraceptive agent. Yet, considering their own results show pumpkin seed to also directly kill Sertoli cells, I am not sure those seeds can be safely used even for such purpose. I suppose, the Broda Barnes saying about playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun when it comes to PUFA is quite accurate, at least in regards to maintaining fertility and masculinity.

link here

“…Some components of the human diets are believed to be promising male contraceptive agents. The present study examined the antispermatogenic efficacy, reversibility and toxicity of fluted pumpkin seed-supplemented diet (DFPS) in adult male Wistar rats. Adult rats were given DFPS at 2.5, 5 and 10% for 60 days followed by 60 days post-treatment period. The control animals received normal standard rat diet not supplemented with fluted pumpkin seeds. The sperm quality variables, testosterone and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), oxidative status of the testis, steroidogenic enzymes and gamma-glutamyl transferase (γ-GT) activities and the histology of the testis were determined to evaluate the anti-fertility activity of fluted pumpkin seeds. Treatment of animals with DFPS at 5% and 10% resulted in decreased serum and intratesticular testosterone and FSH concentrations. This effect was associated with decreased activity of 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17β-HSD), increased testicular oxidative stress and poor sperm quality in the 10% diet group. After 60 days DFPS post-treatment, intra-testicular 17β-HSD and γ-GT activities, FSH and testosterone levels recovered to control values. Furthermore, poor sperm motility, count, morphology and viability as well as severe loss of spermatogonia and other matured epithelial germ cells and Sertoli cells observed especially in the 10% DFPS-treated animals reverted to nearly control values 60 days after withdrawal of treatment. Dietary fluted pumpkin seeds may selectively act on the epithelial germ cells, possibly mediated via Sertoli cells, leading to oligospermia, oxidative damage and androgen insufficiency. The reversibility of these effects to near normal levels after withdrawal of treatment justifies further consideration of DFPS as it may be an effective and readily reversible agent that meets the required criteria of a male contraceptive agent.”

“…It is therefore speculated in the present study that DFPS could directly kill Sertoli cells to arrest spermatogenesis. It is therefore thought that the observed oligospermia could be due to selective action of FPS on developing germ cells, possibly mediated via Sertoli cells. Furthermore, severe oligospermia (concentrations of less than 1 million sperm per/mL) is thought to decrease the chances of conception to less than 1% per year, and has emerge as a reasonable goal for male contraceptive research (Amory 2016). The available evidence shows that a FPS supplemented diet promotes spermatogenic arrest in adult rat’s testes through multiple mechanisms including direct killing of Sertoli cells. The reversal of the antifertility effects of FPS on testicular functions makes it a potential male contraceptive candidate. However, further studies to confirm this view are therefore warranted.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1131.mp3" length="973580" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone (P5) may be ergogenic and helps recovery from exercise</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1129</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1129</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 17:58:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1129

Take this study with a grain of salt simply because the only link to it is from a scientific conference, which means the study is not yet published in peer-reviewed journals. Yet, the results it reports are quite interesting. Namely, a single 100mg pregnenolone (P5) dose accelerated recovery from intensive physical exertion in the form of a competitive volleyball competition, as measured by several key biomarkers. It also delayed fatigue in the players, apparently. The fact that pregnenolone lowered CK, lactate and blood glucose strongly suggests an anti-cortisol effect since cortisol is known to robustly rise with exertion intensity and to reliably elevate all of those biomarkers. The brief abstract does not specify if pregnenolone was taken before or after the physical exertion but the fact that it delayed fatigue suggests it was used before the session. I don’t see a reason why a both before and after session administration cannot be adopted for potentially improved results, considering the safety or pregnenolone and its excellent tolerability by humans (at least at the doses used in this study).

link here

“…The aim of the study is to determine the effect of 100 mg/d Pregnenolone on biological variables after plyometric training for volleyball players. Methods: 15 male volleyball players participated in this study. Serum levels of testosterone, creatine phosphokinase (CPK), lactate, and glucose were measured before and post-exercise. Results: Testosterone was not altered, while creatine phosphokinase (CPK), lactate, and glucose levels significantly decreased. It is recommended to use Pregnenolone administration to decreased muscle damage and delayed fatigue for volleyball players after plyometric training. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that oral Pregnenolone administration of 100 mg/d might decrease muscle damage and delayed fatigue which may affect positively the volleyball players after a plyometric training bout.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1129.mp3" length="549668" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Topical T3 dramatically stimulates hair growth</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1127</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1127</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 17:46:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1127

I am posting this just a quick follow up and possible enhancement over the approach discussed in my previous post on estrogen causing hair loss, link here. The study below demonstrated that applying daily the HED of a few mcg of T3 per square inch of skin increased hair length by several thousand percent. As such, a combination of an anti-estrogen discussed in the post above and a T3 solution (in ethanol, acetone, etc) may very well be synergistic for hair growth.

link here

“…The skin is a classic target tissue for thyroid hormone action. Although the histology of skin in hypothyroid states is well documented, the literature contains little assessment of skin in thyrotoxic states. In light of the paucity of information on skin under the influence of excess thyroid hormone, we investigated the direct effect of thyroid hormone on skin. Triiodothyronine (T3) was applied topically daily in liposomes to SKH-1 hairless mice for 7 days and to CD rats for 2 weeks. There was a dose-dependent increase in epidermal proliferation, dermal thickening, and hair growth in T3-treated animals. Mice that received 3.8 microg of T3 had 42% more hairs per millimeter than controls (p < 0.01), hair length that was 1,180% longer (p < 0.001), 49% greater epidermal 3H-thymidine incorporation (p < 0.01), and 80% more 5-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine (BrdU) stained cells (p < 0.05). Rats receiving 12.8 microg T3 had 48% greater dermal thickness than controls (p < 0.001), 26% greater epidermal thickness (p < 0.001), 85% more hairs per millimeter (p < 0.005), and 130% greater 3H-thymidine incorporation into the epidermis (p < 0.01). Thus, topically applied thyroid hormone has dramatic effects on both skin and hair growth. These observations offer a new strategy for developing thyroid hormone and its analogues for treating disorders of skin and hair growth.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1127.mp3" length="266108" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Simply diluting “old blood” has the same anti-aging effects as parabiosis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1125</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1125</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 17:38:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1125

The topic of using blood from young people to stave off aging and disease is hardly new. Rumors have been circulating for centuries that the old and rich use all kinds of gruesome methods to acquire blood from young people and use that blood for all sorts of bizarre rejuvenating procedures. There is even a company in California that offers a “young blood” infusion treatment for a hefty price,, link here and the rumor is that this company counts the world’s elite as its clients. A number of recent scientific studies seem to provide evidence in favor of the idea that replacing “old” blood with “young” one has anti-aging and anti-disease effects. The procedure is known in scientific circles as “parabiosis, link here” and involved the physical joining of two organisms for the purpose of creating a single circulatory system and as such allowing one organism to influence the health/biochemistry of the other. Those recent studies demonstrated that when an old animals is conjoined with a young one, there is a profound rejuvenating effect on the old animal and many of the signs (and diseases) of aging disappear. These results got a lot of people interested in finding out what the “aging” factors in old blood are, of course, with the hope that it would turn out to be some obscure protein that can be specifically (and profitably) targeted with a vaccine, CRISPR technique, or a drug. Peat spoke about parabiosis during some of the KMUD interviews and shared the opinion that the process is probably nothing special but involved mostly the reduction in levels of free fatty acids (FFA) in the conjoined animals, given that their levels are quite low in the young animal and that is what is mostly responsible for its vitality and health. The study below partially corroborates Peat’s views and demonstrates that a simple process of diluting the “old” blood while keeping albumin levels constant is enough to produce the same beneficial effects as parabiosis. In other words, removing all factors that carry an “age” imprint (whether young or old) creates a “neutral age” blood replacement and the study demonstrated that infusions with this neutral-age solution to old animals is just as anti-aging and therapeutic as parabiosis. The study does not directly single out FFA as the culprit in aging, however, considering that cells and glucose in the diluted blood were kept constant the only remaining factors that got diluted are various proteins leaking from cells in the body into the bloodstream and of course FFA. Considering the already existing evidence that cellular debris is hardly inert and can actually robustly activate the HPA axis, I think the it is quite plausible that precisely the reduction in such debris and FFA as a result of the dilution process is what triggers the anti-aging effects and allows the organism to restore itself to its youthful glory. No special tricks or multi-million dollar treatments needed.

2 links here

Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice, link here

“…After the Conboys published their groundbreaking 2005 work, showing that making conjoined twins from the old mouse and a young mouse reversed many signs of aging in the older mouse, many researchers seized on the idea that specific proteins in young blood could be the key to unlocking the body’s latent regeneration abilities. However, in the original report, and in a more recent study, link here, when blood was exchanged between young and old animals without physically joining them, young animals showed signs of aging. These results indicated that that young blood circulating through young veins could not compete with old blood. As a result, the Conboys pursued the idea that a buildup of certain proteins with age is the main inhibitor of tissue maintenance and repair, and that diluting these proteins with blood exchange could also be the mechanism behind the original results. If true, this would suggest an alternative, safer path to successful clinical intervention: Instead of adding proteins from young blood, which could do harm to a patient, the dilution of age-elevated proteins could be therapeutic, while also allowing for the increase of young proteins by removing factors that could suppress them.”

“…To test this hypothesis, the Conboys and their colleagues came up with the idea of performing “neutral” blood exchange. Instead of exchanging the blood of a mouse with that of a younger or an older animal, they would simply dilute the blood plasma by swapping out part of the animal’s blood plasma with a solution containing plasma’s most basic ingredients: saline and a protein called albumin. The albumin included in the solution simply replenished this abundant protein, which is needed for overall biophysical and biochemical blood health and was lost when half the plasma was removed. “We thought, ‘What if we had some neutral age blood, some blood that was not young or not old?’” said Michael Conboy. “We’ll do the exchange with that, and see if it still improves the old animal. That would mean that by diluting the bad stuff in the old blood, it made the animal better. And if the young animal got worse, then that would mean that that diluting the good stuff in the young animal made the young animal worse.” After finding that the neutral blood exchange significantly improved the health of old mice, the team conducted a proteomic analysis of the blood plasma of the animals to find out how the proteins in their blood changed following the procedure. The researchers performed a similar analysis on blood plasma from humans who had undergone therapeutic plasma exchange. They found that the plasma exchange process acts almost like a molecular reset button, lowering the concentrations of a number of pro-inflammatory proteins that become elevated with age, while allowing more beneficial proteins, like those that promote vascularization, to rebound in large numbers.”

“…“I think it will take some time for people to really give up the idea that that young plasma contains rejuvenation molecules, or silver bullets, for aging,” said Dobri Kiprov, a medical director of Apheresis Care Group and a co-author of the paper. “I hope our results open the door for further research into using plasma exchange — not just for aging, but also for immunomodulation.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1125.mp3" length="1402988" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen and histamine, not HPV, drive cervical cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1123</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1123</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 17:01:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1123

A few months ago, I did a post about a study which made the bold claim that estrogen instead of HPV is the actual cause of the (often deadly) cervical cancer, link here. According to that study, HPV infection is at best permissive and at worst simply an (largely innocent) bystander. A statement like this is absolute heresy in oncology considering the billions poured into vaccinations against HPV and the lack of any solid treatment options for this cancer. To modern oncology, vaccination against HPV is the only hope against cervical cancer in women and mouth, throat, etc cancers in both sexes as all of those are claimed to be caused by HPV. In terms of pharmacological treatment, the only available options are cytotoxic since the cancers caused by HPV are typically not considered hormonally-sensitive. Yet, in the study mentioned in the post above they successfully treated the cervical cancer with anti-estrogenic therapy (e.g. a synthetic progestin). Now, the study below adds more evidence to the claim that it is estrogen that drives cervical cancer. More importantly, it corroborates the claims Peat has been making for years that estrogen and histamine are synergistic and blocking the effects of one often blocks the effects of the other. Over the last few years I must have received hundreds of angry emails claiming there is no evidence for that claim, and now here it is in full glory. The study below directly demonstrates that histamine drives cancer growth by increasing the expression of estrogen receptor alpha (ERα), which is the main receptor through which estrogen manifests its effects on cells. The expression of the inhibitory estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) was not affected by histamine, which translates in greatly decreased ERβ/ERα ratio and as such highly estrogenic environment in tumors. IMO, it is hard to come up with more direct evidence that estrogen initiates and promotes cervical cancer growth.

Unlike the previous study from the post above, which treated the cervical cancer by blocking the estrogen receptors directly with a progestin, this study decided to treat the cancer with a natural anti-histamine molecule known as apigenin, link here. However, apigenin is not just an anti-histamine but also a phytoprogestogen, link here and as such a natural, potent estrogen receptor antagonist similar in effects to the synthetic progestin used in the first study above, yet without dangerous side effects. Peat has also written about both apigenin and naringenin as natural anti-estrogenic substances that may treat melanoma, so I think the anti-estrogenic effect of apigenin contributed at least as much to the beneficial outcome as its anti-histamine effects. That being said, I do believe that using a substance that blocks both histamine and estrogen would be more effective than a pure estrogen blocker since histamine has other tumor-promoting effects (related to increased inflammation) that a pure estrogen blocker would not be able to address. In corroboration to the findings of the study above, the study below also showed that a pure estrogen blocker is therapeutic. Finally, the study provides evidence that the histamine-estrogen axis is causally involved in other cancers such as of the breast, prostate, endometrial and even lung. I already posted a study in the past implicating even melanoma as such an estrogen-driven cancer, link here. In yet another example of synchronicity, recent studies called attention to the therapeutic effects of histamine antagonists in melanoma, link here. In summary, the direction in which the evidence points to so far is quite clear (at least to me) – most/all cancers can be considered endocrine in origin and due to excess histamine/estrogen. Conversely, histamine/estrogen blockers will likely have therapeutic effects in just about any cancer, no matter which organ/tissue it develops in.

link here

“…The development of cervical cancer, as a kind of hormone dependent cancer, was believed to be closely related to the body’s hormone and receptor levels [17, link here,18, link here]. Recent evidence has indicated that histamine can induce the proliferation of prostate cancer cells by influencing the expression level of androgen receptors [16, link here]. It is also very well known that the immune system plays a crucial role with respect to the development as well as resolution of malignant lesions. A previous study showed that histamine secreted by mast cells triggers cell proliferation, embryonic development and tumor growth [19, link here]. We found that histamine can induce HeLa cell proliferation by causing abnormal ER signal. Following the same train of thought, we hypothesized that apigenin attenuated the effects of histamine on tumors by regulating the expression level of estrogen receptors to inhibit cervical cancer growth. As is expected, our data support this hypothesis. Regarding the contribution to tumor progression, pro-inflammatory factors, growth factors and immune factors are the best-characterized soluble microenvironmental factors [20, link here]. According to several papers, histamine becomes an autocrine growth factor that regulates cell proliferation via HRH1 in experimental mammary carcinomas [21, link here,22, link here,23, link here]. In another hormone-dependent cancer, prostate cancer, HRH3 was found to be overexpressed in prostate cancer tissue and associated with cell proliferation [16, link here]. As previously mentioned, our data are consistent with their conclusion that histamine can induce HeLa cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, in the in vivo study, we determined that the promotion effects of histamine on cervical cancer is based on the ER signal. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that reports that histamine induces HeLa cell proliferation by influencing ER expression.”

“…In the last decade, several studies have reported that apigenin could act as an estrogen receptor modulator, revealing the potential relation between apigenin and ER [26, link here,27, link here,28, link here]. According to latest research, ERβ levels and/or the ERβ/ERα ratio decreases with ovarian carcinogenesis, indicating that loss of ERβ expression may be involved in carcinogenesis [29, link here]. When it comes to ERα, accumulating evidence shows that the expression level of ERα is closely associated with estrogen-dependent growth and invasion in gynecologic cancer. For instance, as a direct target of the tumor suppressor microRNA (miR)-206, ERα usually causes down-regulation of minR-206 in ovarian cancer cell lines and tissues, whereas the introduction of miR-206 can inhibit cell proliferation and the invasion of cancer cells [30, link here]. In this study, the histamine treatment decreased the ERβ/ERα ratio while apigenin showed the opposite influence. Specifically, Western blotting revealed that the expression level of ER showed the same changing trend of in vitro experiments, namely the ERβ/ERα ratio increased after the administration of apigenin. Similarly, cervical tumor development was inhibited in the nude mice injected with 2 mg/kg ER modulator (AZD9496 and DPN) and 1 mg/kg histamine. Our results suggest that apigenin can attenuate the abnormal ER signaling caused by histamine in vivo and in vitro.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1123.mp3" length="1783796" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Prenatal stress ups serotonin, which causes autism and mental disease in offspring</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1121</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1121</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2020 19:54:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1121

Another good study, which not only corroborates the causative role of elevated serotonin in a number of behavioral disorders in children (which extend into adulthood) but demonstrates the key role of endotoxin (LPS) in that process. Namely, the pregnant animals exposed to stress who had sterile guts were immune to the pro-inflammatory effects of stress and their offspring was as healthy as the offspring of non-stressed animals. So, the microbiome-endotoxin-serotonin axis is once again on full display in yet another major pathology. As such, I really hope that the FDA wakes up soon from its (corrupt) slumber and retracts its recommendations on eating resistant starch as a cornerstone of health.

link here

“…Prenatal stress (PNS) is associated with neuropsychiatric disorders in offspring, including anxiety, depression, and autism spectrum disorders. There is mounting evidence that these behavioral phenotypes have origins in utero. Maternal microbes, inflammation, and serotonergic dysfunction have been implicated as potential mediators of the behavioral consequences of PNS; whether and how these systems interact is unclear. Here, we examine the effects of PNS in utero using late-gestation maternal restraint stress in wild-type (WT), germ-free (GF), and CCL2−/− genetic knock-out (KO) mice. In WT mice, PNS leads to placental and fetal brain inflammation, including an elevation in the chemokine CCL2. This inflammation is largely absent in GF mice, indicating the critical role of maternal microbes in mediating immune processes in utero. Furthermore, PNS in the absence of CCL2 failed to increase pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-6 in the fetal brain. PNS offspring also exhibited deficits in sociability and anxiety-like behavior that were absent in CCL2−/− PNS offspring. Tryptophan and serotonin (5-HT) were elevated in the WT PNS placenta, but not in CCL2−/− and GF animals. Altogether, these findings suggest that a complex interaction between maternal microbes, inflammation, and serotonin metabolism regulates the emergence of behavioral abnormalities following PNS.”

link here

“…We found that prenatal stress, link here leads to changes in the intrauterine environment that has long-lasting implications on the behavior of the offspring, link here in a mouse model,” said first author Helen J. Chen, a graduate student in the NIH-funded medical scientist training program (MSTP) with Ohio State’s Department of Neuroscience. “We focused on chemokines, which are a family of signaling proteins secreted by cells that influence the immune system. Our results implicate maternal microbes and the chemokine CCL2 in mediating the intrauterine dysfunction, and demonstrate that CCL2 is necessary for the stress-induced behaviors.”

“…This research builds on previous work showing a model of prenatal stress in mice leads to behavioral changes in the offspring and alterations in the gut microbiome, link here of both the mouse mother and offspring. “Our new research shows that these behavioral changes have intrauterine origins and implicated the maternal microbiome, immune system, link here and serotonergic system in contributing to the changes,” Gur said.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1121.mp3" length="576764" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide (vitamin B3) may cure HIV (human study)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1119</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1119</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2020 19:34:48 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1119

The title of the post sounds a bit too good to be true but this is basically what the case study claims and is also reported by the mouthpiece of Big Pharma – the Science Magazine. So, little by little the truth comes out, which is always good news. The only bad news in this case is that the patient was treated not only with niacinamide but also with anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. This is an insidious but common trick used by Big Pharma when it wants to conceal the true cure and instead claim that it was the “unique, proprietary, patented combination” of a drug cocktail that was the silver bullet. Since monotherapy with niacinamide is considered unethical and will likely never be done (at least officially) Big Pharma gets to both claim to have found an HIV cure and continue to sell its toxic and expensive drugs. However, we do have prior evidence from more than 20 years ago that aspirin, link here and niacinamide, link here monotherapies worked quite well even though they were never ran to completion (for obvious political reasons). Subsequent in-vitro work confirmed viable mechanisms of action, link here, but of course none of that got any traction…until now.

The one HIV patient who got both ARV and niacinamide for 48 weeks has now been HIV-free for more than 5 years while the other four patients in the study who got only ARV therapy had their HIV return. To me, this strongly suggests it was niacinamide that cured the infection. Even more interestingly, while being on the B3 + ARV therapy, that patient was the only one who tested positive a few times during the treatment period. I think this is a good indication that niacinamide is actually somehow forcing the infected cells (especially in lymphatic system and gut) to “shed” their viral load and over time the organism becomes truly HIV-free. The study authors also think this is a plausible explanation. And of course, the million dollar question – what was the curative dose of niacinamide? A (relatively) puny 500mg twice a day! At that dose niacinamide is not really known to have any serious side effects and even Wikipedia admits doses of up to 3g daily are likely safe for most people. Now, if I was a smart man (and I am not) I would combine the results of this study with the results of the aspirin study in the 1990s and conclude that 2g aspirin + 1g niacinamide daily may very well put the HIV/AIDS industry out of business 🙂

link here

“…A 36-year-old man in Brazil has seemingly cleared an HIV infection—making him the proof of principle in humans of a novel drug strategy designed to flush the AIDS virus out of all of its reservoirs in the body. After receiving an especially aggressive combination of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and nicotinamide (vitamin B3), the man, who asks to be referred to as the São Paulo Patient to protect his privacy, went off all HIV treatment in March 2019 and has not had the virus return to his blood. The patient’s story is “remarkable,” says Steven Deeks, an HIV/AIDS clinician at the University of California, San Francisco who was not involved with this study…Most people who suppress HIV with ARVs and later stop treatment see it come racing back to high levels within weeks. Not only did the São Paulo Patient not experience a rebound, but his HIV antibodies also dropped to extremely low levels, hinting at the possibility he may have cleared infected cells in the lymph nodes and gut.”

“…After 48 weeks on this intensified schedule, the five trial participants returned to their regular three-drug regimen for 3 years, after which they stopped all treatment. Four saw the virus quickly return, but the São Paulo Patient has now gone 66 weeks, link here without signs of being infected. Sensitive tests that detect viral genetic material did not find HIV in his blood. An even more sensitive test, which mixed his blood with cells that are susceptible to HIV infection, produced no newly infected cells. Intriguingly, during the intensification period with nicotinamide, this man was the only one of the five who twice had the virus detected on standard blood tests. To Diaz, this suggests that latently infected cells had been roused, leading to blips of viral production. “I’m always trying to be a little bit the devil’s advocate, but in this case, I’m optimistic,” Diaz says.

2 links here

“…Five of the participants added dolutegravir, maraviroc and 500mg twice daily of nicotinamide to their original three-drug antiretroviral regimen for 48 weeks. They then reverted back to standard ART and finally underwent an analytical treatment interruption, in which viral load and other parameters are closely monitored. As Savarino explained in an interview with aidsmap prior to the conference (watch above), nicotinamide was chosen because it appears to fight HIV by multiple mechanisms. Available as an inexpensive oral supplement, nicotinamide is being studied as a cancer treatment because of its immune-boosting properties. It helps prevent exhausted T cells from committing suicide (apoptosis) by inhibiting the activity of enzymes called PARPs that repair broken DNA. It may also act as a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor that keeps T cells out of a latent state. Maraviroc, too, may act as a latency-reversing agent in addition to its better-known effect of blocking HIV entry into cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1119.mp3" length="1205828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Elevated serotonin may cause schizophrenia and bipolar disorder</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1117</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1117</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2020 19:02:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1117

The study and even the popular press article are fairly technical so I won’t go into the full details here but I will just give a TLDR. Namely, the study below provides strong evidence that lower levels / expression / activity of the serotonin transporter (SERT) protein, link here is likely a direct cause of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and even anxiety. Considering that lower SERT levels / expression / activity means elevated extracellular serotonin levels, a simpler way of stating the same is that elevated serotonin is likely the major cause behind schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and anxiety, which together cover at least 80% of the mental health diagnoses doled by psychiatrists. Of course, the article and the study are very careful to not directly mention the phrases “elevated serotonin” and “mental illness” in the same body of text but in light of the main physiological role of SERT the message is quite clear. Keep in mind that the SERT protein is the main target of the (in)famous SSRI drugs – i.e. they are potent inhibitors of SERT. As such, I will say what no doctor currently dares to – SSRI drugs may very well be behind the current epidemic of mental disorders in the Western world awash in this serotonergic poison.

2 links here

“…SERT regulates the concentration of the neurotransmitter serotonin within the gap between neurons where neurotransmitters are exchanged (the synaptic cleft). It is considered to be deeply involved with mental illnesses, and drugs targeting the protein are widely used as treatments for depression and anxiety disorders, link here. In particular, a polymorphism called 5-HTTLPR in the gene that encodes SERT has been a target for many mental disorder studies. When the polymorphism is the L (long) type, more SERT is produced, and when it is the S (short) type, less is produced. People generally have one combination of these types, L/L, S/L, or S/S. In 2003, an analysis (Capsi et al., 2003) became highly regarded for reporting that people with the S-type polymorphism had a stronger tendency for anxiety and were more susceptible to depression.”

“…Furthermore, a detailed analysis of the SERT gene polymorphism 5-HTTLPR revealed that the methylation rate was high in patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia when 5-HTTLPR was hypoactive type (S/S or S/L). When the CpG3 site of the SERT gene was artificially methylated, researchers found that the transcriptional activation ability and production of the SERT protein were both markedly suppressed.”

“…Researchers also investigated the volume of the amygdala with MRI images from 41 healthy subjects and 57 schizophrenia age- and gender-matched patients. The amygdala is a part of the brain that, among other functions, plays a major role in emotional responses. SERT actions are strong there and its association with DNA methylation has been reported in the past. The volume of the left amygdala of male patients with hypoactive type 5-HTTLPR polymorphism was found to have an inverse correlation with the DNA methylation rate of CpG3. This suggests that male schizophrenia patients of this polymorphism type may have a hypermethylated SERT gene that leads to decreased amygdala volume through decreased SERT protein levels.”

“Our research shows that a specific site in the SERT gene is hypermethylated in male patients, link here with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and is associated with volume changes in the amygdala,” said study leader, Dr. Kazuya Iwamoto. “In the future, we believe that this can be used as a biomarker for onset prediction, diagnosis, and to assess therapeutic effects. It could even be a clue for the molecular pathologies of these disorders, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1117.mp3" length="644324" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT is negatively associated with death from prostate cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1110</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1110</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 16:36:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1110

Just a quick study that, despite being epidemiological, raises serious questions about the validity of the “androgen-driven” hypothesis of prostate cancer. If the assumption is that DHT is the primary driver of prostate cancer it is hard to come up with any plausible explanation of how the elevated levels of DHT in this study were protective. To this day, the core of every prostate cancer therapy is androgen-deprivation and even in cases of “castration-resistant” prostate cancer doctors continue to practice androgen-deprivation “just in case”. I wonder how long this fraud will be allowed to continue unchallenged and how many other men with the disease will needlessly die – not from the disease, but from the barbaric treatments doctors continue to administer.

link here

“…High DHT levels were positively correlated to a lower risk for prostate cancer death in the entire cohort: HR = 0.44 (0.25‐0.77 95% confidence interval [CI]). The positive correlation remained significant for the subgroup analysis. HR for the men enrolled in the study without any clinical signs of prostate cancer was 0.25 (0.07‐0.88 95% CI) and for the men with a prostate cancer diagnosis at time of inclusion: HR = 0.50 (0.26‐0.94 95% CI)….Conclusion: DHT is negatively associated with long‐term prostate cancer death regardless of clinical presentation at time of inclusion.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1110.mp3" length="412052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B3 may treat “incurable” muscle disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1108</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1108</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 16:27:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1108

Over the last 2-3 years I have seen a dramatic increase in the number of studies and popular press articles using the keywords “controversial”, “paradox”, “paradigm shift”, “ameliorates an incurable condition X”, etc. This is just a thinly veiled attempt to mask the collapse of the corrupt dogma that has controlled medicine for more than a century and is now being replaced by a more holistic view of health that gives metabolic energy a central place/role. The study below is a great example of how the course of medicine as science is changing and diseases previously considered incurable are now shown to be treatable by simple, cheap interventions that target key metabolic aspects. In this case, the study below demonstrates that niacin can treat an “incurable” type of mitochondrial myopathy. The mechanism of action is, as expected, elevation of NAD and restoring its levels in such patients to normal by a daily dose of 750mg – 1,000mg niacin. Duration of treatment was 4-10 months, depending on symptom amelioration. As the authors themselves state, the mitochondrial myopathy disease turned out to be nothing mysterious and was simply a specific sign/symptom of depleted NAD. I wonder how many other “named” diseases are also just a sign/symptom of NAD deficiency…Oh, and as an additional benefit liver fat decreased by 50% in the treated patients and their metabolism was restored to that of healthy controls. I hope that this finally puts an end to the constant debates of whether vitamin B3 helps or hinders liver fat loss. These additional effects of vitamin B3 further corroborate the role of impaired metabolism in this disease.

Be that as it may, I am not sure why the study used niacin, considering that niacinamide is a much more effective precursor to NAD, and proven so by multiple human studies. If this disease is indeed caused by a simple NAD deficiency then using even lower doses niacinamide (say 500mg daily) may work just as well. This protocol can be further improved by using an even lower dose niacinamide (say 200mg-300mg daily) in combination with a little bit of methylene blue (MB) at a dose of 1mg-2mg daily. Why try to use lower doses of vitamin B3? Well, as the study found, doses of vitamin B3 in the 750mg – 1,000mg range may cause a tendency for anemia and this is definitely something to be avoided. High doses niacinamide have also been shown to potentially have this side effect. Considering the effectiveness of MB in oxidizing NADH back to NAD, this provides us with an alternative to achieve the same (or even higher) elevations of NAD while avoiding the risks of higher dose vitamin B3. The only “drawback” of this study is that it raises serious questions about the claims and viability of companies like ChromaDex. That company promotes the expensive NAD precursor nicotinamide riboside (NR), despite ChromDex’ own studies showing niacinamide to be just as effective as NR when used at the same doses. According to the study below, plain niacin can also elevate blood NAD levels more than 8-fold with a daily dose that is only a fraction of the NR dose planned for upcoming human trials. I really like studies with such “drawbacks” 🙂

link here

“…NAD+ is a redox-active metabolite, the depletion of which has been proposed to promote aging and degenerative diseases in rodents. However, whether NAD+ depletion occurs in patients with degenerative disorders and whether NAD+ repletion improves their symptoms has remained open. Here, we report systemic NAD+ deficiency in adult-onset mitochondrial myopathy patients. We administered an increasing dose of NAD+-booster niacin, a vitamin B3 form (to 750–1,000 mg/day; link here NCT03973203, link here) for patients and their matched controls for 10 or 4 months, respectively. Blood NAD+ increased in all subjects, up to 8-fold, and muscle NAD+ of patients reached the level of their controls. Some patients showed anemia tendency, while muscle strength and mitochondrial biogenesis increased in all subjects. In patients, muscle metabolome shifted toward controls and liver fat decreased even 50%. Our evidence indicates that blood analysis is useful in identifying NAD+ deficiency and points niacin to be an efficient NAD+ booster for treating mitochondrial myopathy.”

link here

“…An international team of scientists, led by University of Helsinki reported that vitamin B3, niacin, has therapeutic effects in progressive muscle disease. Niacin delayed disease progression in patients with mitochondrial myopathy, a progressive disease with no previous curative treatments.””…In the current publication, a collaborative team of investigators led by academy professor Anu Suomalainen-Wartiovaara and academy research fellow Eija Pirinen report lowered NAD+ levels in both blood and muscle of mitochondrial myopathy patients. “The disease is characterized by progressive muscle weakness, exercise intolerance and cramps. Currently, no treatments that would slow down disease progression, link here exist,” says Suomalainen-Wartiovaara.”

“…Pirinen and colleagues report that niacin treatment efficiently increased blood NAD+ both in patients and healthy subjects. Niacin restored NAD+ in the muscle of the patients to the normal level and improved strength of large muscles and mitochondrial oxidative capacity. Overall metabolism shifted towards that of normal subjects. The results of this open pilot study revealed that niacin is a promising treatment option for mitochondrial myopathy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1108.mp3" length="1627364" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A third of Americans show signs of clinical anxiety, depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1106</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1106</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 15:42:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1106

The news about deteriorating health of the population just keep piling on. The latest one below shows that at least a third of the US population shows signs of clinical anxiety and/or depression. The reason I put clinical in bold is that it means the pathology is severe enough to require treatment and if left untreated it can lead to a variety of terrible outcomes such as suicide, homicide, violent crime, domestic abuse, etc. Previous studies on the subject never used such strong qualifiers and usually belittled the findings by explaining that as long as the disease is not clinical it does not really warrant much attention or action. Well, it looks like a third of the US population is now clinically mentally ill, but this only tells part of the picture because it is an average across the entire country. In some states, half of the population is clinically mentally ill and, perhaps most important of all, it is the youngest age groups that have the highest rates. So, once again, the young have become the old. If that is not a reason for the FDA and other health authorities to sound the alarm on the absolutely abysmal state of health affairs, then I don’t know what is.

2 links here

“…A third of Americans are showing signs of clinical anxiety or depression, Census Bureau data shows, the most definitive and alarming sign yet of thepsychological toll, link here exacted by the coronavirus pandemic. When asked questions normally used to screen patients for mental health problems, 24 percent showed clinically significant symptoms of major depressive disorder and 30 percent showed symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. The findings, link here suggest a huge jump from before the pandemic. For example, on one question about depressed mood, the percentage reporting such symptoms was double that found in a 2014 national survey.”

“…New York, which had the worst coronavirus, link here outbreak in the country, ranked 12th nationwide in terms of share of adults showing symptoms. Nearly half of Mississippians screened positive for anxiety or depression — a staggering number. By contrast, in Iowa, just over a quarter screened positive. Some groups have been hit harder than others. Rates of anxiety and depression were far higher among younger adults, women and the poor. The worse scores in young adults were especially notable, given that the virus has been more likely to kill the elderly or leave them critically ill. Those results reflect a deepening of existing trends: rising depression, stress and suicide among young adults, link here. “It’s been a problem many have been studying with no clear answers — whether it’s social media or the way this generation was reared or just a greater willingness to talk about their problems,” said Maria A. Oquendo, a professor psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. “What’s worrying is the effect this situation is clearly having on young adults.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1106.mp3" length="539900" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Statins may cause insulin resistance by depleting vitamin K</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1100</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1100</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 15:15:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1100

A great study, which both highlights the dangers of statins while also providing a plausible mechanism for those side effects that both FDA and Big Pharma vehemently continue to dispute. This plausible mechanism involves the inhibition of vitamin K2 (MK-4) synthesis, which requires the same enzymes that synthesize cholesterol. As the authors themselves state, vitamin K is crucial for proper glucose metabolism. One of the key roles of vitamin K is as a co-factor for the synthesis of osteocalcin and it is the latter that is a powerful regulator of both insulin as well as gonadal steroid synthesis, both of which heavily influence glucose homeostasis. Perhaps studies like this will finally convince the FDA to get off of its high horse and admit that vitamin K is not just some puny vitamin used clinically by “an obscure Asian country” but rather a powerful regulator of systemic health.

2 links here

“…A cohort of Canadian adults prescribed statins, and hydrophilic statins, in particular, had higher levels of insulin resistance compared with non-statin users, according to findings published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society. “There is emerging data to suggest that by inhibiting the production of intermediates of cholesterol biosynthesis, statins also inhibit the mevalonate pathway and impede the production of vitamin K2 in peripheral tissues,” Rachel M. Holden, MD, a nephrologist and associate professor in the department of medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and colleagues wrote in the study background. “There is growing evidence to suggest that vitamin K2 plays a key role in glucose homeostasis as well as vascular calcification. On this background, we hypothesized that statin use would be associated with both insulin resistance and vascular calcification, link here in community-dwelling participants of a large longitudinal study of osteoporosis.”

“…“Statins, widely prescribed drugs to lower cholesterol, may have unintended consequences related to glucose homeostasis that could be relevant in healthy aging,” the researchers wrote. “In those individuals with risk factors for diabetes, consideration for choosing non-lipophilic statins and avoidance of rosuvastatin and lipophilic statins may provide the intended cardiovascular protection without the increased incidence of insulin resistance.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1100.mp3" length="465908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Magnesium, vitamin D, B12 combo strikingly therapeutic for COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1098</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1098</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 14:54:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1098

It is always good to see proof that medicine has not completely lost its mind by blindly chasing only the latest and greatest discovery in pharma antiviral drugs. The preventive and therapeutic effects of magnesium on viral diseases have been known for decades and has prompted the health authorities in several countries to market a combination product of magnesium and zinc (another potent antiviral compound) as both prevention and treatment remedy during every flu season. The mechanism of antiviral activity of zinc is relatively well-known and has to do with “…inhibition of viral protease and polymerase enzymatic processes, as well as physical processes such as virus attachment, infection, and uncoating“. However, the antiviral mechanism of action for magnesium remains a “mystery”. I propose that it has to do with its ability to improve glucose metabolism, raise ATP levels in the cell, and reduce systemic inflammation. The combination used in the study below also included vitamin B12. I do not think this is a good addition and in fact the authors themselves state that it was included not because it has direct effects on the coronavirus replication but because it stimulates growth of intestinal bacteria. It is precisely for this reason I think B12 should NOT be used in the preparation – i.e. the role of endotoxin in the severity/lethality of COVID-19 is already well-established and the last thing a patient with this condition needs is even further increase in endotoxin and as such systemic inflammation. As the study demonstrated, administering the DMB (as they call the combination of the 3 nutrients) was strikingly effective in reducing BOTH the progression of COVID-19 from mild to severe state AND its progression from severe to lethal state. As the authors themselves say, the benefits of DMB become even more impressive when excluding from the analysis 2 patients with very advanced form of the disease who received the DMB intervention too late for it to have any benefit. The authors also state that the DMB intervention should also be beneficial for any other viral infection that involves a systemic inflammatory reaction and a cytokine storm. Well, that’s pretty much all of them, so apparently magnesium and vitamin D combination is a universal antiviral remedy. IMO, adding zinc to it would make it even more effective. Finally, the doses used in this study were tiny. Vitamin D was given at a daily dose of 1,000 IU daily and magnesium at a dose of 150mg daily. I think this needlessly handicaps the effectiveness of this great intervention. A vitamin D dose of 3,000 IU daily has been shown in human studies to be superior to lower doses in regards to protection from viral infections. Magnesium has been repeatedly shown in human studies to have a more potent immunostimulating effect when used in doses of 300mg-400mg daily compared to doses below 200mg daily. Zinc can be added at a dose of 30mg daily as that dose has been shown to be about as effective as the higher doses (50mg-100mg daily) used in other human studies while being devoid of the side effects of those higher doses. And finally, recent evidence suggests that vitamin K may also be a powerful protective nutrient against COVID-19, link here. Considering its known synergy with vitamin D when it comes to metabolic health and anticatabolism, it would make a perfect addition to the combo. So, it’s time for DMB to mover over and be replaced by DMK.

2 links here

“…The current thinking on the pathogenesis of the condition is that hyperinflammation plays a crucial role in patient outcomes. In other words, direct viral injury is not the only or even primary player in organ dysfunction related to COVID-19. Rather, it is the result of the organ toxicity caused by the unregulated release of pro-inflammatory cytokines like IL-6 and IL-8, in response to the immune induction by the virus. Immunomodulation is thus an attractive option in the treatment of COVID-19 and may prevent the progression of the patient to severe or critical illness. Various biologic molecules have been tried, such as the IL-6 blocker tocilizumab.”

“…The present study was an observational cohort study of a consecutive series of hospitalized COVID-19 patients aged 50 years and above, who were given a combination of the above micronutrients (DMB), comparing the rate of progression of disease in this group to another cohort of patients who were not given DMB. Vitamin D protects the respiratory epithelium structure and function. Magnesium promotes vitamin D functions, acting as a cofactor in multiple enzymes involved in vitamin D metabolism, while also having independent bronchodilator and vasodilator activity. Vitamin B12 improves the health of the gut bacteria, which in turn is vital for an active and effective immune system. All are safe and well-tolerated by patients.”

“…Available data from around the world shows that up to a fifth of COVID-19 patients experience life-endangering complications. IL-6 blockers and anti-thrombotic agents may be little better than a Band-aid in this situation, addressing the late events and mostly ineffective. However, the current study sought to make use of pre-emptive immunoregulatory, safe, and well-tolerated agents to reduce the cytokine storm associated with terminal organ damage and death….The analysis showed that the odds of requiring oxygen went up with age and the presence of other illnesses, but went down significantly with DMB treatment, even after adjusting for age, gender, and other illnesses. The odds would have been even more impressive if the two patients who received DMB late in their clinical course were excluded. Importantly, there were no adverse effects that could be traced to DMB.”

“…The apparent success of this strategy could allow it to be adopted as a safe, easily administered, and early intervention in the primary care setting. It could also be equally effectively used to prevent symptomatic or severe disease among high-risk contact clusters traced during an outbreak. It is extremely cost-effective, making it suitable for low- and middle-income countries, even when vaccines or therapeutic drugs may be too costly to afford. Lastly, the use of DMB may be equally effective in other viral infections that also produce high levels of cytokines and thus cause injury independent of the direct tissue injury. The small sample size and absence of biologic assays to support the clinical improvement in the study cohort are limitations. However, the authors conclude, “It is a proof-of-principle effort with very promising results. Our findings would need to be further validated in a well-designed randomized study.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1098.mp3" length="1653692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cardiolipin supplementation may reverse signs of aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1096</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1096</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 19:44:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1096

One of the key features of aging is the decline in mitochondrial function (metabolism), and that fact is widely recognized even by mainstream medicine. However, doctors still claim that the relationship between metabolic decline and aging has not be elucidated and a causative link cannot be established (yet). In other words, we don’t know if mitochondrial decline causes aging or vice versa. The only way to establish a causal link is to perform an intervention study but that is infeasible in humans given their long lifespan. Even rodents would be hard to study since their lifespan is measured in years and it would be quite expensive to perform such a study over the full lifespan of the rodents. However, interventions that boost mitochondrial function can be performed in shorter-lived species such as worms, yeast, and fruit flies and this precisely what the study below did. It demonstrated (in worms) again that decline in mitochondrial function is a key feature of aging and severity of the aging phenotype matches well the magnitude of decline in mitochondrial function. Strikingly, the study found that both the mitochondrial decline and the features of aging could be easily reversed by feeding the worms cardiolipin, link here. So, this is likely the first direct evidence that the link between mitochondrial function decline and aging is causative and that restoring metabolic function reverses the features of aging. The cardiolipin molecule located in the mitochondria is crucial for the functioning of electron transport chain (ETC) complexes III and IV, and the levels of cardiolipin not only decline with age but its composition switches from almost fully saturated to mostly unsaturated lipids (PUFA), link here. While it is technically possible to supplement with it as the study demonstrated, cardiolipin is extremely expensive and unless obtained from ruminant animals it is likely to contain a lot of PUFA. Fortunately, older studies performed in the 1970s and 1980s in former Soviet Union hinted at the possibility that mitochondrial decline can also be reversed by supplementing saturated phosphatidylcholine (PC), link here, which is a close structural analog of cardiolipin. As such, our product MitoLipin, link here may be an affordable alternative to try and replicate the study design/findings.

3 links here

“…As people get older, they often feel less energetic, mobile or active. This may be due in part to a decline in mitochondria, the tiny powerhouses inside of our cells, which provide energy and regulate metabolism. In fact, mitochondria decline with age not only in humans, but in many species. Why they do so is not well understood. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne set out to understand how mitochondrial function is diminished with age and to find factors that prevent this process. They found that communication between mitochondria and other parts of the cell plays a key role.”

“…Unexpectedly, the scientists discovered that NFYB-1 steers the activity of mitochondria through another part of the cell called the lysosome, a place where basic molecules are broken down and recycled as nutrients. “We think the lysosome talks with the mitochondria through special fats called cardiolipins and ceramides, which are essential to mitochondrial activity, link here,” says Max Planck Director, Adam Antebi, whose laboratory spearheaded the study. Remarkably, simply feeding the NFYB-1 mutant worms cardiolipin restored mitochondrial function, link here and worm health in these strains.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1096.mp3" length="1062140" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Food emulsifiers and endotoxin (LPS) cause brain bleeding</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1092</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1092</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 17:56:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1092

The study below is both ground-breaking and scary. Ground-breaking because it demonstrates yet another mysterious and potentially lethal disease – cavernous angioma (CA) – has a very simple explanation – endotoxin / LPS. Scary, because it refers to evidence that emulsifiers widely approved for use in the food industry and even in foods with the “organic” label, can cause the same vascular lesions and brain bleeding that endotoxin / LPS can. One of those emulsifiers – carrageenan – has already been banned as a known carcinogen in some countries. However, the more widely used gums such as acacia, carob bean, gellan, etc are so widely used that one study analyzing commercial food samples found only one that did not contain at least one of those gums in measurable concentrations. No wonder the rates of hemorrhaging stroke, Kawasaki disease and other vascular/bleeding disorders have been increasing for the last 3 decades. This period coincides perfectly with the rapid increase in emulsifier use to make more palatable/marketable the massive number of fat-free products introduced to the public during that timeframe. Another interesting finding is that the study is one of the few that warns against using probiotics to treat the endotoxin / LPS excess and instead recommends an antibiotic course. The study authors are of the opinion that probiotics are much more dangerous than antibiotics and often make the situation worse. This opinion is not an isolated event and echos the findings of another study I posted about last year that plainly states there is no such thing as beneficial gut bacteria andall probiotics should be regulated due to their inherent dangers, link here. Finally, the study authors state that they consider food emulsifier risky enough to recommend their patients avoid them at all cost. At the same time, FDA has certified many of those emulsifiers as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) and allows their use in any amount in food preparations sold to the general public. The incompetence (or fraud) on behalf of public health authorities is just astounding!

2 links here

“…Investigators had hints that the [bleeding] disease could be affected by the gut microbiome: Senior author Issam Awad, MD, the John Harper Seeley Professor of Neurosurgery and Director of Neurovascular Surgery at UChicago Medicine, was a partner in a previous study in mice, which showed that the cells that lined the blood vessels of the brain reacted to the animals’ gut bacteria. “The implications of that were very big,” he said. “But we didn’t know if this concept of a unique microbiome that favors the development of lesions would be true in human beings.” To find out, UChicago researchers — working with investigators at the University of California San Francisco, University of New Mexico, University of Pennsylvania, and the Angioma Alliance patient support group — collected stool samples from more than 120 CA patients. The samples were then analyzed for their bacterial content and compared with samples from the general population. The CA samples showed significantly higher amounts of gram-negative bacteria and less gram-positive bacteria. The researchers identified a combination of three common bacterial species, whose relative abundance can distinguish CA patients from control patients without CA lesions, with high sensitivity and specificity.

“…The CA samples also showed an imbalanced network of bacteria that was much more disordered than the general population’s bacterial network. “The CA patients from all the different collection sites had the same distinctive microbiome, regardless of whether they had inherited the mutation or had a sporadic lesion, and regardless of the number of lesions they had,” Awad said. The investigators further showed that the bacterial imbalance in patients with CA produces lipopolysaccharide (LPS) molecules, which travel through the bloodstream to the brain and attach to the brain’s blood vessel lining, facilitating lesion development. “All this evidence pointed to the microbiome as a cause of lesions rather than an effect,” Awad said. The investigators also collected blood from several CA patients and used advanced computational machine learning to identify the combination of molecular signals associated with the disease. Those with CA had significantly different LPS-related related blood biomarkers and inflammatory molecules. The result was essentially a smart, personalized test for each CA patient. “By looking at both bacteria combinations and the blood biomarkers, we were able to measure just how aggressive the disease was in each patient,” said Sean Polster, MD, a neurosurgery resident at UChicago Medicine and first author on the paper. Polster spent two years of his neurosurgery residency coordinating the study among the different institutions.

“…The researchers are beginning to think about how these results affect treatment. Earlier studies in mice showed that those fed emulsifiers — which are often used as preservatives in processed foods — had more bleeding in the brain, likely due to the way they disrupted the gut’s bacterial network. The researchers now tell patients to avoid these preservatives…probiotics might seem like natural courses of treatment, they could change the bacterial balance in ways that lead to bigger problems. “This is more complicated than it appears,” said Awad. However, he tells CA patients who have infections caused by gram-negative bacteria (such as urinary tract infections or prostatitis) to have them treated right away to avoid more potential brain lesions.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1092.mp3" length="1006220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking serotonin treats fatty liver disease (NAFLD / NASH)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1090</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1090</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 17:22:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1090

The bad news for serotonin just keeps on coming. Just minutes ago I posted about serotonin turning people into violent criminals, and being the actual cause of depression instead of its cure (as FDA and Big Pharma would have you believe). Now, the study below adds another pathology that is caused by serotonin – the so-called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Some evidence for the role of serotonin in NAFLD has been available for years, especially after the approval of the 5-HT3 antagonist drugs, which have been shown to treat metabolic abnormalities associated with a high-fat diet. However, to my knowledge, the study below is the first one so far to specifically target serotonin blockade as a curative approach to NAFLD. Actually, the actual study demonstrated that blocking serotonin treats even the more severe form of fatty liver disease known as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) but for some reason the popular press article neglected to mention that finding. The study used the recently approved drug primavanserin, link here – a 5-HT2 serotonin antagonist approved for treating Parkinson disease (PD). Speaking of PD, this study inadvertently brings attention to yet another fraud. Namely, that PD, far from being a disease of unknown cause/origin, is actually also caused by serotonin, and blocking serotonin is therapeutic. I used to wonder if there is any named disease in which serotonin does not play a causative role. I wonder no more!

3 links here

“…For their study, the scientists focused on a well-known neurotransmitter called serotonin. Serotonin is widely known as the “happy” neurotransmitter, and its deficiency in the central nervous system (CNS) can cause various brain disorders. But, not many know that it is also found in the gastrointestinal tract; here, it is called “peripheral” serotonin, which has different functions altogether, such as regulating lipid metabolism in the liver. In a previous study published in Nature Communications, link here, Prof Hail Kim, the co-corresponding author of this study, had investigated peripheral serotonin as a drug target with knockout mice models (mice lacking functional peripheral serotonin). This study reported that these mice showed reduction in liver weight, hepatic lipid accumulation, and hepatic triglyceride content and improved NAFLD activity.

These findings formed the basis of Prof Ahn’s study and prompted the research group to identify new peripheral serotonin antagonists. The scientists selected a CNS drug approved for the treatment of Parkinson’s, called pimavanserin. Pimavanserin acts as an “antagonist” to serotonin, mimicking its effect in the CNS. The scientists then structurally modified this drug such that it cannot permeate the blood-brain barrier, by adding different types of molecules to it. In this way, they generated an array of novel compounds. On testing these, the scientists found one compound in particular to show promising results: it showed very low blood-brain barrier permeation and thus had the potential to target peripheral serotonin systems. The scientists tested this compound in obese mice with impaired liver function. Interestingly, the mice showed improvement in symptoms of fatty liver disease, such as improved glucose tolerance. Additionally, their body fat decreased while lean body mass increased. Prof Ahn says, “Through the chemical optimization of an existing drug, pimavanserin, we identified a new peripheral agent for the possible treatment of NAFLD.” Although this novel compound is yet to be tested in humans, these findings show that it has remarkable potential in treating fatty liver disease. Optimistic about these findings, Prof Ahn concludes, “We hope that our novel drug candidate will offer relief to patients bearing the brunt of NAFLD.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1090.mp3" length="736556" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Ketamine cures depression by reducing serotonin, increasing dopamine</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1086</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1086</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 17:02:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1086

As many of my readers know, FDA recently approved the party drug ketamine, link here (known as Special-K on the street) as a rapidly-acting antidepressant. The rapid antidepressant effects of ketamine have been known since the 1960s but FDA denied that those effects are relevant in humans and refused to consider “scheduled” illicit drugs for therapeutic uses. Ketamine, together with ecstasy (MDMA), LSD, GHB, etc is a highly illegal drug and FDA/DEA ruthlessly enforce laws against the possession, distribution and sale of such drugs by the general public. However, the pharmaceutical industry has been growing increasingly desperate over the last two decades since many new studies came out demonstrating its blockbuster antidepressant drugs (most notably the SSRI class) are no better than placebo while at the same time turning patients into violent criminals, link here. As a result of this desperation, pharma companies began lobbying FDA/DEA to ease restrictions on performing studies with those “evil” illicit drugs young people “ruin” their lives with and the results have been just spectacular. Ketamine was shown to rapidly cure depression in humans, LSD was shown to eliminate violent behavior and recidivism in felons, MDMA was shown to cure post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), GHB was shown to cure alcoholism, etc. So, Big Pharma managed to get the best of both worlds – on one hand it got all of these highly effective and relatively safe drugs banned for the general public, while on the other it is allowed to re-introduce these drugs in proprietary formulations for use in the general population at costs thousands of times higher than what they cost on the street. However, this is not the whole story. As it turns out, there may be another reason for the banning of these drugs that is now coming out. That reason is related to the proposed mechanism of antidepressant action for ketamine. Big Pharma and its regulatory accomplices have been trumpeting for decades that ketamine’s antidepressant effects are manifested through antagonism of the NMDA receptor – i.e. that ketamine acts as glutamate antagonist. This mechanism is plausible since other NMDA antagonists, such as magnesium, are also rapidly acting antidepressants, link here. However, the benefits of those NMDA antagonists still take at least 2-3 days to start manifesting, while ketamine works in hours and sometimes even in mere minutes after admnistration. That extremely rapid onset of action suggests that some other mechanism may be the primary route through which ketamine works. And now, the new study below materializes the worst nightmares of Big Pharma and its regulatory ilk. Namely, the study below demonstrates that ketamine produces its rapid and potent antidepressant effects by lowering serotonin and increasing dopamine. No wonder FDA/DEA want to ban all access to the drug – the inconvenient truth about serotonin is too profitable to allow to perish! As such, we now have at least one officially approved drug that unequivocally demonstrates what medicine and medical authorities have been concealing for decades – that serotonin is a CAUSE of depression and lowering its levels and/or raising the levels of its “antagonist” dopamine cures depression. I would not be surprised if that study below ends up being the straw that breaks the SSRI camel’s back and unleashes a flurry of class-action lawsuits against the fraudulent serotonin industry and all people/companies/agencies that support and profit from it.

2 links here

“…The anaesthetic drug ketamine has been shown, in low doses, to have a rapid effect on difficult-to-treat depression. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet now report that they have identified a key target for the drug: specific serotonin receptors in the brain. Their findings, which are published in Translational Psychiatry, give hope of new, effective antidepressants. Depression is the most common psychiatric diagnosis in Sweden, affecting one in ten men and one in five women at some point during their lives. Between 15 and 30 per cent of patients are not helped by the first two attempts at therapy, in which case the depression is designated difficult to treat. Studies have shown that low doses of the anaesthetic drug ketamine are rapid acting on certain sufferers, but exactly how it works is unknown. A nasal spray containing ketamine has recently been approved in the USA and EU for patients with treatment-resistant depression.”

“…Serotonin plays a key role in depression and low levels are thought to be linked to more serious disease. There are 14 different kinds of receptor for this neurotransmitter on the surface of neurons. For their PET imaging, the researchers used a radioactive marker that binds specifically to serotonin 1B receptors. They found that the ketamine operated via these receptors in a formerly unknown mechanism of action. Binding to this receptor reduces the release of serotonin but increases that of another neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine is part of the brain’s reward system and helps people to experience positive feelings about life, something that is often lacking in depression. “We show for the first time that ketamine treatment increases the number of serotonin 1B receptors,” says the study’s last author Johan Lundberg, research group leader at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1086.mp3" length="1657820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Reducing stress may reverse greying of hair</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1084</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1084</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 15:53:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1084

Just a few weeks ago I made a post about yet another study linking grey hair to increased stress, link here. The mechanism of action described in that study was increased HPA activity and specifically elevated norepinephrine levels. Other studies have also implicated tryptophan/serotonin, which is still consistent with the stress hypothesis as serotonin is perhaps the master mediator of stress – more pernicious than its better known “cousins” such as the components of the HPA cascade. Doctors, of course, deny that stress plays a role in grey hair but regardless of the proposed cause doctors are even more adamant in their dogma that this process cannot be reversed. However, there are several published case studies of grey hair restoring its normal color as a result of the person receiving treatment with anti-serotonin and/or pro-dopamine drugs. I suppose medicine is not interested in solutions to a problem it views as largely cosmetic and unrelated to systemic health. Or maybe medicine is concerned that if the true cause of grey hair is discovered and made common knowledge the public will start questions about what other diseases may stress be causing too…

In any event, the study below demonstrates that a simple reduction in stress is often enough to restore hair color back to normal. No need for taking pharmaceutical drugs that block this or that specific mediator of stress. Since reduction of stress is apparently capable of reversing a condition universally thought to be irreversible, there is little reason why the same may not also apply to more physiological “irreversible” conditions such as CVD, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, etc.

2 links here

“…People’s grey hairs sometimes naturally regain their original colour, typically when individuals feel less stressed. The finding suggests it may be possible to develop drugs to reverse greying. Lab mice go grey when stressed and the same thing seems to occur in people. It has long been assumed that once hairs turn grey, they stay that way. But Martin Picard at Columbia University in New York and his colleagues discovered by chance that hair greying sometimes naturally reverses. The researchers looked at the hair of 14 healthy men and women from different ethnic backgrounds with an average age of 35. They plucked 397 hairs from the participants and studied them under a microscope. They identified hairs that were turning grey by looking for those that were grey at the roots while still coloured at the tips, as new hair grows from the scalp. To their surprise, the researchers discovered some hairs showed the opposite pattern – they were coloured at the roots and grey at the tips – suggesting they were reverting from grey to their original colour. Because hair grows at a fixed rate of 1 to 1.3 centimetres per month, the team was able to trace these colour transitions back to specific life events. The reversals tended to correlate with periods of reduced stress. For example, it occurred in one participant when he went on a two-week holiday and in another after she recovered from the stress of her marriage breakdown. It is feasible that stress reductions could trigger a reversal of hair greying, says David Fisher at Harvard University.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1084.mp3" length="769436" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SSRI drugs increase violent behavior and promote recidivism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1082</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1082</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 15:33:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1082

Despite decades of animal research demonstrating how elevated serotonin in general, and SSRI drugs in particular, turn animals into homicidal, vicious creatures, link here, (and are actually the cause of depression and not the cure for it, link here) mainstream medicine continues to deny that such scary effects are possible in humans. Recent studies demonstrating loss of empathy in humans using SSRI drugs, link here, as well as findings that serotonin is the master switch of “danger” signal, link here in our organism have started to make a small dent into that fraudulent “denial wall” but the consensus among psychiatrists is still that SSRI drugs are quite safe and in fact safe enough to prescribe to even pregnant women and toddlers.

The “denial wall” may begin to crumble if more studies like the one below start to come out. That study found that using SSRI drugs causes people to develop a “tendency” to commit violent crimes. Namely, using those drugs increase the risk of committing a violent crime by a whopping 26%! Perhaps just as importantly, this increase in propensity for violence continued for up to 12 weeks after stopping the drug. However, the 12 weeks number is an average across all patient groups studied. The study found a correlation between length of SSRI usage and duration of violence propensity after stopping the drugs. So, a person that has been taking an SSRI for say 10 years may expect to remain violent/homicidal for years after stopping the drug. And if that is not enough, the study also found that SSRI drugs increase recidivism – i.e. a person with a history of violent behavior in their past were more likely to commit a violent crime again when put on an SSRI drug.

Btw, this link between SSRI and violent behavior is nothing new. When Prozac was first introduced on the European health market decades ago, several countries in Europe refused to approve the drug for treating depression. The most notable example is Germany, link here, which resisted approval for Prozac for almost a decade as it was concerned both about the risks of the drug as well as potential fraud in Eli Lilly’s studies touting it. While most articles covering that “resistance” the German agency BGA put up against the toxic SSRIs focus on the increase in suicide risk from those drugs, BGA’s refusal was driven more by the concern for violent behavior and turning people into criminals. It is quite understandable that a country is more worried about the potential of one person harming many others AND themselves, than harming only themselves.

link here

“…Three years before Prozac received approval by the US Food and Drug Administration in late 1987, the German BGA, that country’s FDA equivalent, had such serious reservations about Prozac’s safety that it refused to approve the antidepressant based on Lilly’s studies showing that previously nonsuicidal patients who took the drug had a fivefold higher rate of suicides and suicide attempts than those on older antidepressants, and a threefold higher rate than those taking placebos.”

Germany and its BGA finally succumbed when the German government was threatened with sanctions and withdrawal of military aid if Prozac was not allowed to be sold in the country. Even then, Germany continued to tout publicly safer and cheaper alternatives such as St. John’s wort, and as a result of that campaign herbal extracts containing this plant are still officially sold and marketed as treatment for depression in the country. Official stats show that many more Germans receive treatment for depression with this herb than SSRI drugs of other pharmaceutical preparations. After the publication of the study below, I would not be surprised if Sweden soon follows suit and starts touting herbal and other “alternative” remedies (e.g. magnesium), for which extensive evidence has been accumulating for decades.

Now, just to address criticisms that I am somehow enamored with the German-style healthcare – I am not. At this point Germany’s medicine is just as sadistic and pathological as elsewhere in “developed” countries. In fact, it was German companies like Bayer who first started promoting the idea that serotonin can be used “therapeutically”, although they never meant that as a cure for some disease but rather in service of Nazi ideals. I am just mentioning the German story to highlight that even the German Nazi-style medical agencies were concerned about approving serotonergic drugs for use in the general public.

3 links here

“…Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are some of the most widely prescribed antidepressant, link here drugs in the world. Now, an unsettling new study out of Sweden finds that some people given these medications develop a “tendency” to commit violent crimes. According to the research, this violent effect can even last for up to 12 weeks after halting SSRI treatment.”

“…“This work shows that SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) treatment appears to be associated with an increased risk for violent criminality in adults as well as adolescents…though the risk appears restricted to a small group of individuals,” notes first author Tyra Lagerberg, from the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Karolinska Institutet, in a statement., link here”

“…Lagerberg says earlier studies have made the connection between the drugs and violent behavior in youths, but this latest and larger work is the first to draw a link to adults. Age didn’t seem to make a difference in the outcome.”

“…A massive dataset was analyzed for this research. The medical records of 785,337 people between the ages of 15 and 60 who had been prescribed SSRIs in Sweden between 2006 and 2013. All of those patients were tracked for an average of seven years, regardless of whether or not they continued taking SSRIs.”

“…“The study also shows that past offenders were more likely to commit a violent crime during SSRI treatment: this in itself is an interesting finding, which could be the main focus of future research on the topic,” concludes lead author Professor Eduard Vieta.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1082.mp3" length="1872572" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:12</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen, not androgens, may be the cause of baldness</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1073</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1073</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2020 18:12:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1073

A quick post about a study calling into question yet another dogma in medicine – i.e. that the “evil” androgens (especially DHT) are the causes of men losing their hair and getting prostate cancer. So, the “solution” modern medicine proposes is “chemical castration” with drugs like finasteride, dutasteride, flutamide, bicalutamide, etc that render men impotent, demented, and overall very far from being…men, let alone healthy ones. I have studies in the works attempting to debunk one of those myths – DHT as a cause of prostate cancer – but the study below is already pointing at another part of the myth about DHT being false. It demonstrates that estrogen, and not androgens, cause hair loss in males and administration of estrogen “receptor” antagonists restores hair back to normal levels. The estrogen receptor antagonist used in the studies below was the breast-cancer drug Fulvestrant (ICI-182780), link here and just twice weekly topical application was enough to restore hair growth to control levels. After 12 weeks of treatment ALL bald mice had hair-growth restored to control levels. Progesterone is the main endogenous estrogen antagonist and works similarly to Fulvestrant. Other estrogen antagonists such as (gasp!) DHT and even aromatase inhibitors such as exemestane may also work. As such, our products Progestene, link here and CortiNon (and especially CortiNon+), link here come to mind as possible alternatives to Fulvestrant, and SolBan, link here also has a number of studies on its ingredients boosting hair growth in animal models. What about the dose? Well, the study used 10 nMol Fulvestrant dissolved in 200uL of acetone, and applied that dosage topically, only twice weekly, to treat an area of 10 cm^2. Since progesterone has roughly the same affinity/antagonism for the estrogen receptor as Fulvestrant, the HED of progesterone to replicate the design of this study would be about 10mcg/kg bodyweight for every 10 cm^2 of balding area. This means a man weighing 100kg would need to apply roughly 1mg of progesterone for every 10 cm^2 of balding area. Applying even higher amount or more often, if there is no response within 3-4 weeks, should be fine as progesterone is not known to inhibit hair growth even in massive doses. Dissolving the progesterone in ethanol (or ethanol/SFA as our Progestene) should mimic the transdermal permeability of acetone (solvent used in the study) pretty well. As a side note, if androgenic antagonists of the estrogen receptor (e.g. DHT, Masteron, exemestane, etc) are used then just to stay on the safe side, I would not use more than 1mg for every 10 cm^2, and would stick to the twice weekly regimen.

Perhaps the most promising finding of the research is not so much about possible hair-loss treatments but the connection between estrogen and skin cancer. In fact, the lead author of the studies below stated that the same estrogen blocker used to restore growth may also be useful as skin cancer treatment/prevention. Oh well, it seems medicine is not entirely a lost cause and is slowly getting back on the right track 🙂

4 links here

“…Dr. Robert Smart and graduate assistant Hye-Sun Oh were studying the pesticide’s impact when they found that the shaved skin of mice grew hair when treated with an estrogen blocker.”Estrogen was playing some fundamental role in skin biology,” Smart said. The discovery by the North Carolina State University researchers was published in Tuesday’s edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery is being tested for possible application in humans, but any commercial use could be five years away, Smart said. Smart said the studies also provided insights into skin cancer, but a scientist who wasn’t involved in the research said it was too soon to suggest the data may lead to cures for either condition….Smart said the estrogen blocker acts as a switch to turn on hair growth in the lab mice. He said research to determine if the same switch exists in humans is underway at Wake Forest University’s Bowman-Gray School of Medicine.”

link here

“…The latest debate erupted last year when Dr. Robert Smart, a researcher at North Carolina State University, link here, reported that the female hormone estrogen harmed hair follicle growth, and hence played a role in baldness. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Smart’s research entailed clipping off the hair of three groups of mice. One group then was coated with a chemical that arrested hair growth for a prolonged period. Two control groups received chemicals that had a minimal effect. When Smart treated the denuded skin of the first group with an estrogen-blocking drug, their hair follicles responded. Within 10 weeks, the mice produced coats so thick they were indistinguishable from untreated mice. Smart says the estrogen blocker prevented normal estrogen stimulation and hair growth was the result.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1073.mp3" length="1611644" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High-carb (65%-85%) diets therapeutic in diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1071</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1071</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2020 17:49:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1071

Another medical myth continues to (slowly) crumble. The myth of diabetes as the “sugar disease” may be still alive but the evidence against it is quickly mounting. Perhaps the only thing still preventing it from collapsing overnight is the large numbers of Paleo-diet supporters who currently dominate the blogosphere and serve as a convenient excuse for Big Pharma to sponsor yet another study on the “benefits” of lowering blood sugar through dubious diets or, preferably (to pharma companies) through one of their toxic drugs. It seems to bother virtually nobody that drugs used to lower levels of HbA1C are known to increase all-cause mortality, link here, which is perhaps the strongest evidence yet that the high blood sugar seen in diabetes is not the problem and is at best just a symptom of the true causative issue in diabetes (hint: fat/cortisol). The fact that eating 1lbs. of sugar daily has strikingly positive effects on male fertility, link here also seems to be ignored or dismissed as a “statistical oddity”, instead of being accepted as corroborating evidence for the benefits of high-carb diets.

Dr. Peat mentioned in a few of his articles the studies from more than a century ago (in the late 1800s) demonstrating that feeding diabetics (even type I) 8-10 ounces of sucrose daily resulted in dramatic improvements in tissue wasting and organ dysfunction, which are often the cause of death in patients with diabetes. If a modern doctor is even willing to entertain a discussion about those old studies, the criticism will invariably be that those studies were so old that we cannot be sure of their methods, findings, conclusions, or if they even happened. Yet, as it turns out, much more recent studies on the subject are available and also demonstrate improvement of insulin sensitivity, cholesterol, weight, etc in diabetics by feeding them a diet with up to 85% of the calories in the form of simple sugars (15% protein, 0% fat). The studies below are a small list of such examples, and the last one is particularly telling. The fact that the carbohydrate types used in the last study were of the so-called “simple” variety (dextrose+maltose) creates even bigger problem for the mainstream diabetes hypothesis since it is precisely those “simple” types that have been vilified and blamed for the obesity and diabetes epidemics over the last 30 years. Well, as it has become a tradition at this point, not a day goes by without the public learning that the “poison” they were told to avoid turns out to be the remedy.

link here

“…Daly et al (1) state that animal work has clearly shown the capacity of high-sucrose diets to reduce insulin sensitivity, but that “the evidence from human studies is often inconclusive or conflicting.” Their study, unfortunately, does not help to clarify this issue because they did not specify the form in which sucrose was consumed, as others also have not (2–7). This specification, however, is so important that only the results of studies in which is it provided can be usefully compared to extend the knowledge in this area (7). For example, sucrose consumed in solid form has been reported to increase both fasting and postprandial serum insulin and glucose concentrations (8), whereas no adverse effects were observed when “virtually all sucrose contained in the high-sucrose diet was added to fruits, milk, beverages, and coffee” (9). That sugars are innocuous and even beneficial only in the form of diluted solutions is also suggested by the improved glucose tolerance with a liquid-formula diet containing 85% of energy as dextrose or a mixture of dextrins and maltose (10).”

5 links here

“…To evaluate the effect of increased dietary carbohydrate in diabetes mellitus, glucose and immunoreactive insulin levels were measured in normal persons and subjects with mild diabetes maintained on basal (45 per cent carbohydrate) and high carbohydrate (85 per cent carbohydrate) diets. Fasting plasma glucose levels fell in all subjects and oral glucose tolerance (0 to 120-minute area) significantly improved after 10 days of high carbohydrate feeding. Fasting insulin levels also were lower on the high carbohydrate diet; however, insulin responses to oral glucose did not significantly change. These data suggest that the high carbohydrate diet increased the sensitivity of peripheral tissues to insulin.”

“…In 1935 Himsworth showed in normal men that isocaloric reduction of dietary carbohydrate actually impaired, and increased dietary carbohydrate improved oral glucose tolerance [1]. These observations of the effects of a higher carbohydrate diet on oral glucose tolerance in normal subjects have recently been confirmed [2-4]…Diabetic patients may also respond in a similar manner to high carbohydrate diets. Studies in which weight changes were not controlled showed that fasting blood glucose levels decreased [5,6], glucose tolerance improved [5], and insulin requirements were either unchanged or decreased [5-9], when patients with insulin-dependent diabetes were fed carbohydrate-rich diets.”

“…Fasting plasma glucose decreased on the 85% carbohydrate diet in all 22 subjects in this study. Oral glucose tolerance was improved, as reflected by the diminished absolute glucose area. This improvement in glucose tolerance may have been due in part to the decreased fasting glucose levels. The incremental insulin area, which reflects the insulin response during the oral glucose tolerance test, was not significantly changed. How, then, is the paradox of improved glucose tolerance with unchanged insulin response explained? One possible effect of the carbohydrate-enriched diet is to increase the sensitivity to insulin of tissue sites of insulin action. This is supported by Himsworth’s observation that a high carbohydrate diet shortened the time of onset and increased the rate of fall of glucose during an insulin tolerance test. The decline in fasting serum insulin levels with the simultaneous decrease in plasma glucose levels observed after high carbohydrate feeding is further evidence of increased issue insulin sensitivity, or may represent a counter-regulatory response to the lowered glucose level, as seen during fasting and alcohol infusions [17]. Thus, in normal persons and subjects with mild diabetes there was an improvement in diabetic control as measured by fasting glucose levels and glucose tolerance, on the dietary extreme of 85% of the calories supplied as the simple sugar dextrose.”

“…Preliminary data [18] suggests that patients with moderate and severe diabetes, after therapy with oral sulfonylureas or insulin, respond to the same high carbohydrate formula diet in a manner similar to that of those with mild diabetes…A well known acute effect of increased carbohydrate intake is the improvement of glucose tolerance noted in preparation of subjects for oral glucose tolerance testing with a minimum of 300g of carbohydrate per day[28]….The only large, controled, prospective study is that of Stone and Connor, who are evaluating the chronic effect of a diet containing 64 percent carbohydrate on serum lipids in an outpatient, insulin-treated, diabetic population [11]. In agreement with the short-term results in the present study, they demonstrated that long-term, high carbohydrate ingestion did not impair glucose tolerance and caused on increase in insulin requirements. Furthermore, they noted decreased cholesterol levels, which have been consistently demonstrated in diabetic patients on such diets, reciprocally low in fat as well as increased in carbohydrate [6,7], and no long-term changes in triglyceride levels[11].”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1071.mp3" length="1228892" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Anti-histamines may prevent, treat melanoma</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1069</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1069</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2020 16:14:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1069

About 2 years ago I did a post discussing the hypothesis that melanoma is an endocrine tumor, similar to breast cancer – i.e. driven by estrogen, link here. In fact, if one has the time to dig into the published literature on all known malignancies, it quickly becomes apparent that virtually all cancers can be classified as “endocrine” (hormone-sensitive) and there is strong evidence that they are all driven by excess estrogen. Conversely, substances known to interfere with estrogen signalling (e.g. progesterone, DHT, pregnenolone, testosterone, vitamin E, aspirin, etc) are therapeutic regardless of the tumor type they are applied to.

One of the lesser-known recent findings in endocrinology is that hormones exert their most of their effects not through classic steroid receptors but through “peripheral mechanisms”. Case in point – most of estrogen’s systemic effects on cellular proliferation are exerted through the histaminergic and cholinergic systems. As such, interfering with one of both of those systems significantly inhibit (or fully blocks) the effects of estrogen in tissues. This “peculiarity” was first noted back in the 1960s when epidemiological studies discovered that anti-histamines (commonly used as allergy drugs) had profound beneficial effects on initiation, progression, and lethality of breast cancers in humans. Unfortunately, those findings did not materialize in intervention studies or public policy changes to improve breast cancer rates or disease course through the use of antihistamines.

Now, a new study makes the connection between melanoma and estrogen even stronger by demonstrating that anti-histamine drugs are protective in such patients, while having no side effects. One could only hope that this will re-ignite the interest in non-genomic pathways of hormonal action and intervention studies with anti-histamines will be performed soon. Judging from the epidemiological studies, it seems likely that simply taking an anti-histamine like Benadryl on a daily basis could cut by at least 50% BOTH the newly diagnosed cases of endocrine malignancies such as breast cancer and subsequent deaths from it. The impact on melanoma would probably be similar and considering this is one of the deadliest cancers, it would save many lives.

2 links here

“…“Previous studies have shown that the same antihistamines have survival benefits in breast cancer. Now we see the same thing concerning malignant melanoma. However, more research is required to confirm the results”, emphasises Professor Håkan Olsson. He is one of the researchers behind the study, which was recently published in the research journal, Allergy. In the study, the researchers examined the use of six antihistamines in patients diagnosed with malignant melanoma; desloratadine, cetirizine, loratadine, clemastine, ebastine and fexofenadine.”

“…We observed improved survival among those who used desloratadine and to a certain extent also loratadine, particularly in the age group 65 and older, when we compared with those who had not used antihistamines. The use of the other antihistamines showed no significant survival effect. The use of desloratadine and loratadine also seemed to reduce the risk of getting a new malignant melanoma”, says Håkan Olsson. “The finding is interesting for a future drug against melanoma and may also help in advanced stages of the disease. In addition, the medicines have virtually no side effects.” The research team is now planning animal experiments and randomised studies in order to understand the mechanisms behind the effect, the appropriate dose and optimum treatment period. “We are collaborating with researchers in Barcelona and Stockholm. In Lund, we are underway with studies in both animal and human subjects, in which doses of antihistamines will be compared with the patients who do not take antihistamines, in order to measure the treatment effect”, concludes Håkan Olsson.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1069.mp3" length="1067396" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mad cow disease may be a mitochondrial/metabolic issue</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1065</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1065</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2020 19:47:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1065

Peat has mentioned the Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD) / BSE, link herein several of his articles and interviews and has explained how environmental stress, estrogen, PUFA, ionizing radiation, etc can cause metabolic derangements resulting in the same brain damage so characteristic of this pathology. The public is more familiar with that pathology under the name of mad cow disease (MCD) and it seems virtually every country in the world with large beef-producing industry is periodically hit by a wave of this pathology. What makes MCD relevant to humans is that it can actually cause the same disease in humans by virtue of consuming meat from animals inflicted by CJD/BSE. The official version is that the cause of the disease is unknown but it results in misfolded proteins that acquire infectious properties and can cause the same deformities in the brains of people who eat contaminated meat. How exactly small proteins not carrying genes (unlike, say, viruses) are capable of becoming infectious continues to baffle mainstream medicine. Some mainstream geneticists have proposed that the disease is caused by so-called “slow viruses”, yet not such viruses have been found so far. As usual, the answer may be something much simpler and more fundamental. Namely, as the study below demonstrates, the CJD/BSE/MCD pathology may be simply a symptom/sign of mitochondrial failure. More importantly, the study is one of the few that states proper energy production is required for maintenance of a cell’s structure (and not just function). As such, this disease may very well be treatable by interventions that improve mitochondrial function and shift the metabolism away from the oxidation of fat and towards the oxidation of glucose. That same approach has already been shown to be therapeutic in other neurodegenerative conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS), link here and even the invariably lethal amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), link here. I don’t see a reason why it won’t also work in CJD/BSE/MCD.

2 links here

“…A study performed by researchers from the University of Bergen, Norway, and the University of Vienna, Austria, shows damage of the mitochondria—the cell’s microscopic powerhouses—in the brains of people with Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. The researchers found that the mitochondrial power generator (known as the respiratory chain) is severely impaired in brain cells from people who died with Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. “These mitochondrial defects were widespread in the brain and correlated with the severity of disease,” says Professor Charalampos Tzoulis at the University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen. Damaged mitochondria are no longer able to provide the energy required for neuronal maintenance and function. “These findings strongly suggest that mitochondrial failure contributes to the pathogenesis of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease,” says Tzoulis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1065.mp3" length="1000100" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin protects mitochondria from inflammation and aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1063</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1063</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2020 19:16:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1063

The good news about aspirin just never seem to stop. While the anti-inflammatory effects of aspirin are well-known, mainstream medicine like to explain them away with the limited (and frankly primitive) mechanism of COX inhibition alone. If aspirin happens to achieve some other beneficial health effects, the doctors always try to either frame it in terms of COX inhibition or otherwise way the mechanism is unknown. Yet, aspirin has numerous pro-metabolic effects and has been shown to protect cells from a variety of assaults including toxins and inflammation independently of COX. The study below discusses one such protective effect of aspirin – reducing mitochondrial fragmentation (fission) known to increase in inflammatory conditions or with aging in general. It is quite possible that the decline in mitochondrial function in aging is due to the increase in inflammation, while reducing inflammation could preserve metabolic function and retard aging. There is already published evidence corroborating this hypothesis – aspirin increases lifespan (in yeast) by 400%+, link here while maintaining youthful levels of metabolism.

link here

Link Discovered between Blood Vessel Inflammation and Malfunctioning Mitochondria, link here

“…Researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) say they have uncovered a novel mechanism by which abnormalities in mitochondrial fission in endothelial cells contribute to inflammation and oxidative stress in the cardiovascular system. They further show how the fission-fusion balance can be stabilized to lower inflammation using salicylate, the main active ingredient in everyday pain-relieving drugs like aspirin. Their study “Mitochondrial Fission Mediates Endothelial Inflammation, link here” appears in Hypertension.”

“…In endothelial cells, chronic inflammation causes mitochondria to become smaller and fragmented. This damaging process is mediated by a molecule known as dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1). Normally, Drp1 plays a helpful role in maintaining fission-fusion balance. When cells are stressed by inflammation, however, it steps up fission activity, resulting in mitochondrial fragmentation. “How Drp1 acts to increase mitochondrial fragmentation when endothelial cells are inflamed has been unclear,” Eguchi said. “But we wondered whether it might interact with nuclear factor (NF)- kB, which oversees the regulation of inflammatory processes and is involved in endothelial dysfunction.” In endothelial cells, Eguchi and colleagues stimulated inflammatory pathways that produced mitochondrial fragmentation. They then examined the effects of blocking Drp1 activity and expression. These experiments showed that in cells, Drp1 inhibition suppresses mitochondrial fission, NF-kB activation, and inflammation. Reductions in fission and inflammation were also observed in cells following NF-kB inhibition, as well as in follow-up studies in mice genetically engineered to have less Drp1. The researchers next determined whether the anti-inflammatory drug salicylate could also reduce mitochondrial fragmentation. Salicylate works by blocking the activity of multiple inflammatory molecules, including NF-kB. As anticipated, in mice, treatment with salicylate attenuated inflammation and mitochondrial fragmentation via its effects on NF-kB and downstream pathways. “Our findings suggest that salicylate may be able to maintain the balance between mitochondrial fission and fusion under inflammatory conditions,” Eguchi said. “This observation could have real clinical impact, since salicylate is already used in aspirin and related pain-relievers.” In future work, Eguchi plans to explore the influence of aging and other factors on Drp1 and mitochondrial fission in endothelial cells. “Mitochondrial function declines with aging, but we also know that exercise and diet influence this process. How these factors come together mechanistically to impact vascular health is not fully understood,” Eguchi explained.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1063.mp3" length="591308" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>My first scientific study: Anti-cancer effects of CortiNon+</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1061</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1061</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2020 18:14:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1061

After more than 9 months of dealing with scientific bureaucracy, publishing politics, carefully crafting wording to avoid “rocking the boat”, and of course the “minor” issues of funding a study with personal income, I am pleased to present the two publications below (one of them co-authored by me). Namely, the results of both an in-vitro and an in-vivo study about the effects of our product CortiNon+, link here on the initiation and progression of a blood cancer in hamsters. The cancer in question is the so-called Graffi Murine Leukemia (GML), link here – a type of murine leukemia caused by a virus, link here. The reason this type of cancer was chosen for the study is that the cancer is known to be 100% transplantable, 100% lethal, and with no known cases of spontaneous regression. The former means that the cancer is known to develop in 100% of the virus-treated animals (usually after a single injection), and the other two features are self-explanatory. There is no known cure and even the most successful treatments do not result in more than 20% increase in survival compared to an untreated group. As such, any benefit against this cancer displayed by the administration of a substance would be considered a significant scientific achievement.

What is CortiNon+, link here? It has essentially the same ingredients as the regular CortiNon but the “+” version contains a progesterone:DHEA ratio of 8:1 instead of 3:1. Why such higher ratio? Well, it is based on a recent human study that found reversal of immune system aging (thymus atrophy) as a result of DHEA administration. In my post about that study, link here, I also discussed several older studies demonstrating potent effects of progesterone on reversing thymus atrophy. The doses used in those studies have a HED in the range of 80mg-120mg daily. Considering the physiological DHEA doses that can help reverse thymus atrophy are in the 5mg-15mg range that suggests a 8:1 ratio of progesterone:DHEA should be able to replicate the studies with both DHEA and progesterone. In other words, CortiNon+ is expected to have a beneficial effect when it comes to thymus aging/atrophy and as such a positive effect on the immune system. The development of tumors as a result of viral inoculations depends heavily on immune system function, so I conjectured that it would be a good idea to investigate the effects of CortiNon+ on GML in hamsters and thus confirm/reject its immunomodulary and anti-aging effects.

The reason there are 2 publications is that the first one is a type of an in-vitro study, based on a spectral analysis of the plasma of animals treated with CortiNon+ and/or the tumor virus. Based on the works of Dr. Ling, link here, Dr. Pollack, link here, and Dr. Peat’s, link here writings we now know that water inside the cell exists in a special state – i.e it is highly structured and very much unlike the (bulk) water that exists outside the organism. Healthy organisms are known to maintain the structure of said water while in sick organisms the water inside their cells and blood resembles more the bulk water found elsewhere in nature. This phenomenon is most readily visible in disease like cancer. Based on the difference of water structure between sick/healthy organisms it has been postulated that substances that increase the structure of intracellular water would have a beneficial effects while ones that decrease intracellular water structure would have detrimental effects on health. Progesterone is a good example of the former and estrogen a good example of the latter.

While searching for people who would be willing to perform the study with our product CortiNon+ I found a group, link here of researchers at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), link here that are keenly aware of the work on water structure by the trio mentioned above. Moreover, the BAS group seem to have extended the idea of structured water (EZ water, link here, in Pollack terms) mentioned above and has identified that specific degrees of water structure are associated with specific health effects. That group has developed a method for measuring the degree of structure in water, whether bulk or obtain from an organism. That method consists of essentially measuring the energy spectrum of hydrogen bonds formed by water molecules in a given sample. For people interested in reading more about the method, please see Section 3.2 of the BAS publication, link here from 2018. According to the BAS team, there are several “peaks” along the energy spectrum of those hydrogen bonds that correspond to specific health effects – anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, immunomodulatory, promoting neurological health, etc. So, by measuring the change of energy spectrum of hydrogen bonds in the water inside an organism treated with a specific chemical and comparing it to the water energy spectrum of a control organism, the team can anticipate what health effects the substance will have in-vivo. This is basically what the first publication below discusses in regards to the anticipated effects of CortiNon+. One striking finding of the study was that pre-treatment of one of the animal groups with CortiNon+ for seven (7) days results in a higher resilience to development of tumors compared to the control (healthy) group. In other words, pre-treatment with CortiNon+ is expected to have strong preventive effects on tumor development compared to even healthy organisms without any treatment. This exactly what was seen in the in-vivo study, which supports the validity of the water-structure analysis model developed by the people at BAS.

link here

“…The influence of CortiNon+ on the development of Graffi tumor implanted in hamsters is assessed. The results show restructuring of water molecules in clusters with distribution that influences beneficially hamster (and human) health on molecular and cellular level. The results from the application of NES and DENS spectrums and mathematical models confirm the effects of CortiNon+ on the nervous and endocrine systems, and anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor effects, as well. One interesting observation is that higher effect from the application of CortiNon+ on the tumor-bearing hamsters from Gr. 1 that have been treated 7 days before the injection is obtained relative to even the result of healthy hamsters from Gr. 4”

The second publication (of which I am a co-author) describes the results of the in-vivo experiment using CortiNon+ on hamsters inoculated with GML virus. As can be seen from the graphs inside the study, pre-administration of CortiNon+ for 7 days before viral inoculation resulted in striking protective effects against the development of tumors. Namely, in the 7-day pre-treatment CortiNon+ group not only did ALL the animals require multiple injections to develop a tumor, but one animal required multiple daily injections for 19 days before it could develop a tumor! In contrast, 40% of the untreated animals developed tumors after a single injection, and the other 60% developed tumors over the next 5 days. This confirms the predictions of the model of water structure change described above – namely, the animals pre-treated with CortiNon+ for just 7 days became highly resilient to the development of a tumor with no known prevention and no known cure.

link here

“…This study used an animal cancer model based on the Graffi solid tumor, a type of murine myeloid tumor. The experimental Graffi solid tumor is maintained in vivo in hamsters on a monthly basis from the research team at IEMPAM – BAS [4] via subcutaneous (s.c.) transplantation of live tumor cells (1-2.106) in the area of the back. Between days 7 and 15 after transplantation tumors appeared at the spot of injection, growing progressively, and hamsters died 30-35 days after the injection. For this tumor model 100% transplantability of tumor and 100% mortality rate have been observed. Spontaneous regression, i.e. spontaneous shrinking and disappearance of the tumor has not been reported [4].”

“…The results obtained in the current in vivo experiments show that the oral administration of CortiNon+ in hamsters with experimental Graffi myeloid tumor demonstrates a positive effect on the biometric parameters of tumor growth, namely increasing the tumor latency period up to 19 days, slowing-down the tumor growth, delaying mortality and increasing the median and individual survival in the treated groups compared to the untreated one. Also, the blood parameters have been influenced showing differences between the two experimental groups and control one. The results also give information that CortiNon+ acts as an immunomodulatory agent, raising the production of lymphocyte blood count on the 10th and 20th days for Gr1 and Gr2 compared to control – Gr3. Nevertheless, all the animals died. Thus, the antitumor effect of CortiNon+ needed explanation. We presumed that it might be associated with different levels of activation – non-selective immunomodulating activity (unpublished data), optimization of the oxidant-antioxidant balance, cytotoxic action on tumor cells by an apoptotic way [9,14] and etc. Recent evidence has also demonstrated that membrane progesterone receptors (mPRs) mediate most of the non-classical progesterone actions Valadez-Cosmes [16].”

“…The food supplement CortiNon+ is a combination of the steroids progesterone (Pr) and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). A series of studies have shown that sex steroids exert a wide spectrum of pharmacological effects [6,7,8,17,11,13,16,18,19]. In the skin tumor model in mice, DHEA treatment inhibits tumor initiation, as well as tumor promoter-induced epidermal hyperplasia and promotion of papillomas [13]. Pharmacological doses of DHEA exhibit chemopreventive and anti-proliferative effects on malignant human cancer cell lines and some tumors in experimental animals. The growth of HepG2 and HT-29 cancer cells was significantly inhibited by DHEA, in a dose-and time-dependent manner [8,17,20]. Progesterone (Pr) containing compounds have been extensively used in the treatment of patients with early, advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer Francis et al. [18], Montz et al., [20]. Cytostatic and cytotoxic activities of sex steroids were also evaluated in vitro against ten human leukemia/lymphoma cell lines [6]. The influence of Pr on the autoimmune, infectious and malignant diseases via Pr-receptors (adaptive and innate immune effects) is examined in human leukemia [7,8]. We first in the scientific literature examined the influence of CortiNon+, a progesterone and dehydroepiandrosterone containing compound on the model of experimentally induced myeloid Graffi tumor in hamsters, evaluating that the treatment has a positive effect on tumor appearance and growth, and improves survival rate of tumor-bearing animals.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1061.mp3" length="3056972" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:06:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking serotonin may treat allergies and inflammatory diseases</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1057</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1057</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2020 17:45:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1057

The bad news for serotonin (5-HT) just keeps accumulating. Aside from its well-known (outside of medical office, of course) effects on causing pretty much any mental illness defined in DSM V, as well as fibrosis in any organ/tissue unfortunate enough to be exposed to 5-HT now we can add infectious disease, allergies and inflammatory diseases. The study found that certain human immune cells induced themselves into an inflammatory state by increasing their levels of the serotonin-producing enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH). As such, the study claims that inhibiting TPH could be a promising approach for treating allergic/inflammatory disorders. Since the study openly points the finger at serotonin as the inflammatory trigger, IMO serotonin antagonists should work just as well as TPH inhibitors. My opinion is corroborated by the fact that a number of anti-serotonin drugs that do not block histamine much are known to exert beneficial effects on allergies and inflammatory disorders such as scleroderma, psoriasis, lupus, etc. A prime example is the class of ergot derivatives such as metergoline, lisuride, bromocriptine, and even LSD.

Importantly, the study is one of the very few I’ve seen that recognizes the fact that the brain is involved in the control of systemic inflammation through serotonin. That would easily explain the “mystery” baffling doctors as to why people with mental health disorders (i.e. high serotonin) often have a chronic inflammatory disorder as well. Unfortunately, the study suffers from the same dogmatic myopia inflicting mainstream medicine, which prevents it from seeing serotonin in its true light. Namely, to doctors, inflammation and good immune function are the same thing and they classify inflammation into a number of different categories, including some that doctors claim are not only benign but highly beneficial. Case in point, the study below claims that the inflammatory state induced by serotonin is beneficial as it may help fight worm infections (even though there is no evidence for that claim). Yet, the authors then do a 180-degree turn and announce that in the absence of worms in the environment this inflammatory state driven by serotonin is detrimental and may be behind many inflammatory and allergic disorders. Doctors like to take pride in such baffling medical “paradoxes”, as if it somehow makes the discipline awe-inspiring. However, the reality is that a “paradox” is usually either a fraud or stupidity in disguise. When it comes to serotonin dogma in mainstream medicine, it is actually a bit (or a lot?) of both.

2 links here

“…A class of immune cells push themselves into an inflammatory state by producing large quantities of a serotonin-making enzyme, according to a study in mice led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine. The study, published March 10 in Immunity, link here, found that the inflammatory and infection-fighting abilities of the cells, called type 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s), are much impaired without the enzyme. The finding suggests possibilities for new treatments targeting ILC2s, which have been linked to asthma and other allergic disorders, to suppress their activation in inflammatory disorders. The work also hints at what could be a major mechanism of “cross-talk” between the nervous system, which uses serotonin as a signaling molecule or neurotransmitter, and the immune system.”

“…Innate lymphoid cells are a recently discovered family of white blood cells that reside in the skin, airways and other barrier tissues of the body. They appear to have important roles as first responders against environmental pathogens, but scientists also recognize that ILCs may hold the keys to understanding common inflammatory and autoimmune conditions such as asthma and inflammatory bowel disease. ILC2s are involved in type 2 immune responses, which appear to have evolved for defending the body against worms and certain other parasites. Especially in societies that lack endemic infections with such pathogens, type 2 responses appear to underlie many allergic and inflammatory disorders. Inflammatory ILC2s in particular are suspected of playing important roles in allergic airway diseases such as asthma and hay fever, and eczema, an allergic skin condition.”

“…Perhaps more importantly, the scientists found that ILC2s, in shifting to the inflammatory state, start producing relatively large amounts of an enzyme called tryptophan hydroxylase 1 (Tph1), which is best known as a key factor in the production of the neurotransmitter serotonin. “The Tph1 gene becomes by far the most upregulated gene in an activated ILC2 – it’s fairly dramatic,” said Artis, also director of the Friedman Center for Nutrition and Inflammation at Weill Cornell Medicine.”

“…The finding suggests that, in principle, future drugs could target Tph1 or ICOS locally, for example in the airways or on skin, suppressing them to quell allergic and inflammatory conditions – or enhancing their production to fight worm infections, which afflict about 1.5 billion people globally. The work also suggests that much remains to be discovered about innate lymphoid cells and how they are activated and regulated. For example, serotonin, for whose synthesis Tph1 plays a crucial role, has many functions outside the brain including the regulation of intestinal muscle movements. Prior research also has linked elevated serotonin levels to asthma. The new study suggests the possibility that Tph1 production in ILC2s leads also to local serotonin production, which in turn helps stimulate those ILC2s along with other immune elements – and perhaps also sends signals to the nervous system. “In a prior study,” Artis said, “we observed that ILC2s are very intimately associated with nerve fibers in the tissues where they reside, which hints that there may be some cross-talk between them.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1057.mp3" length="1225196" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Raising NAD levels may be therapeutic for COVID-19</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1055</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1055</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 03 May 2020 22:49:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1055

A rather timely study, which demonstrates once again the crucial role energy plays even in “non-metabolic” diseases such as viral infections. At this point, even mainstream medicine admits that every function of the organism requires energy, so it would be plausible to expect an organism with higher energy reserves to be better able to defend itself from a viral infection such as COVID-19. The fact that many countries now consider COVID-19 a systemic disease (instead of just respiratory) should be an even stronger hint that energy is a key problem in this disease too. Yet, all we hear from the boffins at WHO is “Vaccines! Vaccines to the rescue!”. Let’s see how many of those boffins line up to take the first shot of the “miraculous” vaccine. By bet is not many, and for the rest of us a daily dose of niacinamide and/or methylene blue may be all that’s needed to avoid getting sick with both the coronavirus and whatever “idiotavirus” is infecting the brains of doctors 🙂

2 links here

“…A new preclinical study, link here found that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) infection of cell lines, infected ferrets, and a deceased patient’s lung dysregulates nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) synthesis and utilization. Explaining the findings that led to this current preclinical study, Charles Brenner, PhD, chief scientific advisor to ChromaDex (Los Angeles, CA), and co-author of the study states: “We started by looking at the effect of a related coronavirus that infects mice. It disturbs the gene set that controls cellular NAD. Moreover, we showed that within 12 hours of initial infection, the virus greatly depresses levels of NAD, the central catalyst of metabolism.” In the current preclinical study, Brenner explains, researchers found that the COVID-19- causing virus turns off two gene pathways for NAD production and increases gene activity in two other pathways when it infects a cell. “The nicotinamide riboside pathway is frequently up-regulated in conditions of metabolic stress. Viral infection is such a condition,” says Benner. The study provides important evidence about the nature of immune defense to the virus, but further research is necessary to determine potential treatments. “Our data says that the innate immune defense against viral infection depends on NAD and that it may be more effective at higher NAD,” says Brenner. “We’re looking at whether nicotinamide… a vitamin…will protect against viral infection in cells and animals. We need a bit more proof of concept, and then we’ll be able to do human clinical studies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1055.mp3" length="540788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SSRI drugs, not depression, destroy empathy</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1053</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1053</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 03 May 2020 22:29:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1053

Yet another medical myth gets busted today. A common dogma in psychiatry is that one of the core symptoms of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) is lack of empathy. In other words, while such patients are perfectly in tune with their own suffering and negative emotions, they are indifferent (and sometimes even pleased) at the sight of suffering of others. Yet, as has become common for medical myth busting lately, a review of the literature finds no evidence for this hypothesis and after reading a sufficient number of psychiatric studies one starts to wonder if the doctors were actually projecting their own lack of empathy, link here onto their patients. Well, the study below removes the last shred of doubt that this is exactly what is happening. First, it found no difference between the empathetic response of both control and MDD patients. Second, it found robust decreases in empathy after treatment with…drum roll please…SSRI drugs, of course! While there have been multiple prior studies about SSRI drugs turning animals into vicious, homicidal maniacs, link here or court cases about callous murderers induced by SSRI therapy, link here, this is the first “intervention” study that proves conclusively the zombifying, psychopathic effects of SSRI drugs in humans. Suddenly, everything makes perfect sense. Since psychiatry is a fake profession incapable of either properly diagnosing or treating its patients, link here, its only option is to administer a “treatment” that removes all traces of humanity from a person. After all, by definition, if one cannot feel anything one cannot be depressed, right? Problem solved! Well, not even close, but this is how most psychiatrists think. I wonder how many of them are on SSRI drugs too…

link here

“…Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been hypothesized to lead to impairments in empathy. Previous cross-sectional studies did not disentangle effects of MDD itself and antidepressant treatment. In this first longitudinal neuroimaging study on empathy in depression, 29 patients with MDD participated in two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sessions before and after 3 months of antidepressant therapy. We compared their responses to an empathy for pain task to a group of healthy controls (N = 35). All participants provided self-report ratings targeting cognitive (perspective taking) and affective (unpleasant affect) aspects of empathy. To control for general effects on processing of negative affective states, participants additionally underwent an electrical pain task. Before treatment, we found no differences in empathic responses between controls and patients with MDD. After treatment, patients showed significant decreases in both affective empathy and activity of three a priori selected brain regions associated with empathy for pain. Decreases in affective empathy were moreover correlated with symptom improvement. Moreover, functional connectivity during the empathy task between areas associated with affective (anterior insula) and cognitive (precuneus) empathy decreased between sessions in the MDD group. Neither cognitive empathy nor responses to painful electrical shocks were changed after treatment. These findings contradict previous cross-sectional reports of empathy deficits in acute MDD. Rather, they suggest that antidepressant treatment reduces the aversive responses triggered by exposure to the suffering of others. Importantly, this cannot be explained by a general blunting of negative affect, as treatment did not change self-experienced pain.”

“…Such reduced responses to negative affective experiences might also come into play in more complex social situations involving empathy. Influences of SSRIs on the hemodynamic response (e.g., via changes in blood flow) could be seen as a potential limitation.”

“…The presented insights put a different complexion on depression-related changes of empathy. As demonstrated, antidepressant treatment might lead to effects that were previously attributed to MDD. Considering the observed relationship between reductions in affective empathy and improvements in symptom severity, this might be an advantageous side effect with protective function, which could possibly spread to other kinds of negative events in social contexts. It remains to be explored whether these treatment-induced changes also lead to changes in prosocial behavior…On the other hand, it might substantially reduce the salience of the situation, and, consequently the motivation to help the other. Thus, this seems to be an important endeavor for future research.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1053.mp3" length="841772" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>It is a “folly” to claim that DNA is the main blueprint for life</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1051</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1051</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 03 May 2020 21:08:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1051

Finally, some common sense coming out of the bastion of “institutionalized” science – genetics. After spending more than a century proclaiming that DNA is the core concept driving life, heredity, health and longevity medicine has now lost all hope of producing anything useful with all these idiotic assumptions. Thankfully, the genome-centric view never fully conquered the field of biology and isolated groups of scientists continued to work on more nuanced and more experimentally-derived ideas such as morphogenetic fields, epigenetic inheritance, long-range cellular interaction/effects, etc. The latest pair of studies below finally admits that the genome-centric view of biology/life is nothing short of a “folly”. Apparently, DNA is nothing more than a list of “ingredients”, not only insufficient by themselves to create a living organism, but having no actual role as an “instruction book” either. It appears DNA is just ONE of the “entities” used to build a living organism. Other crucial entities include even small (compared to peptides or DNA/RNA) molecules (ATP, ions, etc) as well as their properties such as type, concentration, combinations, etc. Some of those “entities” of life are capable of sensing the properties of other entities and adjust the structure of the organism accordingly and on an ongoing basis. In other words, if a living organism is a structure akin to a house, DNA is not even akin to the individual bricks. It is at most ONE type of a brick from a multitude of other types used to build a house. The structure of the house depends BOTH on its entities and the dynamic adjustment based on the ability of the “house” to sense its environment and to adjust accordingly. Without capturing all of this information, it is indeed nothing short of a “folly” to claim that DNA by itself is a sufficient blueprint and building block of life. A living organism is a dynamic and fully unique system that is constantly changing, and as such cannot be identically recreated from a static set of instructions (DNA), that now turns out to be not even complete! All of that information – the entities, their sensors and properties of the system, and its environment is passed down to the offspring, and while the offspring may contains some of the same building blocks (DNA) it will be a unique organism due to the ever changing nature of the environment it lives in. Perhaps even more importantly, this framework of heredity considers it perfectly normal to pass down acquired information (the infamous nurture) down the generations without ANY change in the actual genetic code. This is a step forward from the currently dominant views in epigenetics where some non-genetic changes are begrudgingly accepted as heritable but they are still strictly limited to methylation patterns of DNA. Current epigenetic dogmas certainly do not allow for passing down information such as say average ATP levels or magnesium concentrations in the brain. The new framework below seems to provide for a mechanism of such organism-wide acquired feature heredity. Finally, this new framework throws cold water on claims that science will one day be able to resurrect extinct species solely based on DNA it managed to recover from some well-preserved carcass. As the studies below aptly explain, the creature re-created purely from DNA material will have very little to do with the original species.

link here

“…Here, I develop a framework for heredity and development that includes the cycling regulators parsed in terms of what an organism can sense about itself and its environment by defining entities, their sensors and the sensed properties. Entities include small molecules (ATP, ions, metabolites, etc.), macromolecules (individual proteins, RNAs, polysaccharides, etc.) and assemblies of molecules. While concentration may be the only relevant property measured by sensors for small molecules, multiple properties that include concentration, sequence, conformation and modification may all be measured for macromolecules and assemblies. Each configuration of these entities and sensors that is recreated in successive generations in a given environment thus specifies a potentially vast amount of information driving complex development in each generation. This entity–sensor–property framework explains how sensors limit the number of distinguishable states, how distinct molecular configurations can be functionally equivalent and how regulation of sensors prevents detection of some perturbations.”

2 links here

“…The common view of heredity is that all information passed down from one generation to the next is stored in an organism’s DNA. But Antony Jose, associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, disagrees…In two new papers, Jose argues that DNA is just the ingredient list, not the set of instructions used to build and maintain a living organism. The instructions, he says, are much more complicated, and they’re stored in the molecules, link here that regulate a cell’s DNA and other functioning systems.”

“…Jose’s argument suggests that scientists may be overlooking important avenues for studying and treating hereditary diseases, link here, and current beliefs about evolution may be overly focused on the role of the genome, which contains all of an organism’s DNA. “DNA cannot be seen as the ‘blueprint’ for life,” Jose said. “It is at best an overlapping and potentially scrambled list of ingredients that is used differently by different cells at different times.” For example, the gene for eye color exists in every cell of the body, but the process that produces the protein for eye color only occurs during a specific stage of development and only in the cells that constitute the colored portion of the eyes. That information is not stored in the DNA. In addition, scientists are unable to determine the complex shape of an organ such as an eye, or that a creature will have eyes at all, by reading the creature’s DNA. These fundamental aspects of anatomy are dictated by something outside of the DNA. Jose argues that these aspects of development, which enable a fertilized egg to grow from a single cell into a complex organism, must be seen as an integral part of heredity. Jose’s new framework recasts heredity as a complex, networked information system in which all the regulatory molecules that help the cell to function can constitute a store of hereditary information.”

“…Jose proposes that instructions not coded in the DNA are contained in the arrangement of the molecules within cells and their interactions with one another. This arrangement of molecules is preserved and passed down from one generation to the next. In his papers, Jose’s framework recasts inheritance as the combined effects of three components: entities, sensors and properties. Entities include the genome and all the other molecules within a cell that are needed to build an organism. Entities can change over time, but they are recreated with their original structure, arrangement and interactions at the start of each generation. “That aspect of heredity, that the arrangement of molecules is similar across generations, is deeply underappreciated, and it leads to all sorts of misunderstandings of how heredity works,” Jose said. Sensors are specific entities that interact with and respond to other entities or to their environment. Sensors respond to certain properties, such as the arrangement of a molecule, its concentration in the cell or its proximity to another molecule. Together, entities, sensors and properties enable a living organism to sense or ‘know’ things about itself and its environment. Some of this knowledge is used along with the genome in every generation to build an organism. “This framework is built on years of experimental research in many labs, including ours, on epigenetics and multi-generational gene silencing combined with our growing interest in theoretical biology,” Jose said. “Given how two people who contract the same disease do not necessarily show the same symptoms, we really need to understand all the places where two people can be different—not just their genomes.” The folly of maintaining a genome-centric view of heredity, according to Jose, is that scientists may be missing opportunities to combat heritable diseases and to understand the secrets of evolution. In medicine, for instance, research into why hereditary diseases affect individuals differently focuses on genetic differences and on chemical or physical differences in entities. But this new framework suggests researchers should be looking for non-genetic differences in the cells, link here of individuals with hereditary diseases, such as the arrangement of molecules and their interactions. Scientists don’t currently have methods to measure some of these things, so this work points to potentially important new avenues for research. In evolution, Jose’s framework suggests that organisms could evolve through changes in the arrangement of molecules without changes in their DNA sequence. And in conservation science, this work suggests that attempts to preserve endangered species through DNA banks alone are missing critical information stored in non-DNA molecules.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1051.mp3" length="1574084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>“Anti-aging” hormone (hGH) may actually shorten life</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1049</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1049</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 03 May 2020 15:50:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1049

The duo of hGH/IGF-1 does not need an introduction. Hardly a day passes without some ad on TV promoting the latest and greatest product that “naturally boosts” either hGH or IGF-1 levels. The two hormones have an almost perfect correlation – each one inducing the endogenous synthesis of the other. Clinics catering to the super rich exists all over the world where a person can get treatments with either hormone, as well as other more traditional interventions such as estrogen/testosterone. Yet, the evidence behind the claims of longevity and health effects of these two hormones is virtually nil and there have been isolated editorials published in medical journals warning the profession to stop promoting unproven remedies that may turn out to be dangerous. Speaking of dangerous, it is hard to get more ironic than the studies below. They followed people in their 90s for eleven years and took regular blood samples for analysis. The findings – for every unit drop in hGH/IGF-1 the person lived a week longer. The studies also do not hold back on exposing the connection between hGH/IGF-1 and every cancer and neurodegenerative disease known to medicine. Unfortunately, if anything, those studies seems to have had the opposite effect on the anti-aging industry than the one desired. The studies were published in 2014-2016 and since then there has been explosion in ads and treatments with various peptides in the “growth hormone” category promising much longer lifespan and healthspan. While traditionally it has been Hollywood that “leads” the way in staying young forever treatments, this time around it seems everybody else famous is also on board – elite athletes, politicians, and even celebrity doctors. The world has truly gone insane…

As the study below hints, whatever “benefits” hGH may have could actually be due to its effects on increasing DHEA levels. Using DHEA as an anti-aging strategy was already confirmed, link here in a small human trial, and can be implemented with much fewer risks. Yet, the very nature of DHEA being OTC, orally bioavailable, and legal for anybody over 18 to buy makes it unattractive as medical therapy. It is hard to convince your billionaire patient to pay for six-figure protocols if they are based on a small, cheap pill. Injections, IV infusions and surgeries command an aura of respect and authority and are (ironically) much easier to “sell” than cheaper, more effective and safer treatments. It is hard to blame the doctors when apparently the Endocrine Society is itself making health- and longevity-related claims about hGH usage. As long as medicine remains an “industry” catering to its clients, instead of a profession trying to improve health, such travesties will remain the norm rather than the exception.

4 links here

“…Call it anti-anti-aging therapy. It turns out that injections of growth hormone — a staple of anti-aging, hormone-replacement therapy — may have the opposite effect as intended, thwarting a person’s quest to live to an advanced age. In an ongoing study of very old people, those in their 90s with naturally low levels of human growth hormone appear to have a far better chance of living into their 100s, link here compared with people who have above-average levels of the hormone. In other words, juicing yourself up with growth hormones, link here as an anti-aging strategy might backfire, undermining the body’s natural defenses against the diseases of old age, according to researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Their study appears in the April issue of the journal Aging Cell.”

“…The billion-dollar anti-aging hormone-therapy industry is based on a simple premise: Levels of various hormones decrease significantly as adults hit middle age; so replenishing youthful levels of those hormones should make graying adults look and feel younger. The primary hormones administered through anti-aging clinics are human growth hormone (HGH), which prompts the body to make another hormone called insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), a precursor of estrogen and testosterone. This industry traces its roots to a 1990 New England Journal of Medicine study, in which 12 men over age 60 were given shots of growth hormone. The men experienced a modest increase in muscle mass and bone density, and a decline in body fat. To some entrepreneurs, that meant “anti-aging,” and they have repackaged the study that way ever since. But the treatment came with side effects and myriad unknowns. First, author Dr. Daniel Rudman remained adamant until his death that his study had no implications for anti-aging. In 2003, the NEJM published an editorial lashing out at the anti-aging industry for citing Rudman’s study so prominently in their advertising. “If people are induced to buy a ‘human growth hormone releaser’ on the basis of research published in the Journal, they are being misled,” the editorial stated.”

“…Studies have since shown that using HGH, estrogen and other hormones can lead to cancer, cardiovascular disease, link here, joint problems and other ailments. Now the new study finds that low IGF-1 levels might be a benefit, a predictor of exceptionally long life. In the new study, researchers followed 184 men and women in their mid-90s for up to 11 years. Strikingly, the chance of living through the length of the study depended mostly on the participants’ blood levels of IGF-1. Every 1-nanogram per milliliter decrease in IGF-1 translated into about one more week of life. The lower IGF-1 levels were particularly beneficial for cancer survivors. Three years after entering the study, 75 percent of participants who had previously had cancer and also low IGF-1 levels were still living, whereas only about 25 percent of participants with past cancer and higher IGF-1 were alive.”

“…Previously, this research group, led by Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the school’s Institute for Aging Research, found that many centenarians have a mutation that keeps their IGF-1 levels naturally below average. Moreover, mice can live significantly longer — and ward off cancer — when they are resistant to the effects of growth hormone.”

“…The Endocrine Society, a professional medical organization, maintains that growth hormone therapy offers benefits in body composition, exercise capacity, skeletal integrity and quality-of-life measures, and is most likely to benefit those patients who have more severe HGH deficiency. “Growth hormone administration causes ‘melting’ of fat and tightening of skin, so one may look better,” Milman told Live Science. “It may be beneficial for maintaining a ‘Hollywood kind of longevity’ but would not serve the public good, in general, as an anti-aging strategy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1049.mp3" length="1339604" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D/K combo increases penis size as much as surgery</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1045</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1045</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 27 Apr 2020 18:46:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1045

A very interesting study, not only because of its obvious social implications but also because it confirms the anabolic effects of the vitamin D/K combination, link here, as well as the likely androgenic effects of vitamin D. I could not help but pronounce the D/K combo in my head as “dee-k” 🙂 Another interesting finding of the study below was that both length and thickness were increased – a reliable sign of androgenic effects of the vitamin D/K combo, which are also corroborated by the increased libido and sense of vitality of the patients. I think that vitamin K also has androgenic effects considering the masculine changes it elicits on male jaws and that if higher doses were used (e.g. the study used 100mcg daily) the effects would have been much more pronounced. The only drawback of this study was that the daily dose of vitamin D used was high (50,000 IU). However, the authors were well-aware of the risks for hypercalcemia and tracked their patients closely yet, fortunately, no such side effects occurred. Duration of treatment was 3-6 months. I would personally be more comfortable with a vitamin D dose around 5,000 IU daily and a higher vitamin K2 (MK-4) dose in the range of 10mg-15mg daily, as the study on muscle anabolism linked above calls for. In fact, according to the same study above, doses of K2 as low as 1mg may be sufficient. However, I have a read a number of other human studies with vitamin K2 (MK-4) and they all claim bone/muscle/brain benefits robustly increase up to at least 5mg daily doses, and, considering vitamin K2 has really no known drawbacks (other than price) I think trying 10mg-15mg daily may accelerate the materialization of the “benefits” mentioned in the study below 🙂

I just took a dose of that combo using our products Calcirol, link here (D3) and Kuinone, link here (K2, MK-4). Btw, it may be even more effective if the D/K combo is used topically (on the penis) and this may also both increase the effectiveness as well as decrease the risks of side effects from D3 (hypercalcemia).

link here

“…Fourteen male friends were invited to participate in a research project. They signed an informed consent form which explained the project and agreed to have blood drawn initially and whenever possible at 3 and 6 months after taking daily 50,000 units of D 3 and 100 mcg of vitamin K2. K2 is generally considered to be synergistic with D3 in enhancing deposits of calcium into bone. They were instructed to take no calcium supplements while on the D 3. They also agreed to have the senior author measure their flaccid stretched penis or to provide digital photos showing length and circumference of their erect penis initially and at 3 and 6 months.”

“…The two earlier studies, which demonstrated penis enlargement,5,6 used vacuum pumps that required 30 minutes of daily vacuum pumping to achieve enlargement of up to 1 inch in length (average 0.67 inches) up to 0.75 inches in circumference (average 0.55 inches). Interestingly, it is reported that surgical enhancement results in only 1-2 cm increase in length and 2.5 cm augmentation in circumference! [7] In the current study, average increase in length of 0.46 inches and circumference of 0.523 inches is highly statistically significant and approximately equal to that obtained with vacuum pumps or surgical augmentation.”

“…The only known risk of large dosages of vitamin D3 is excessive blood calcium levels with potential kidney damage. For that reason, individuals taking the large dosage of D3 are advised to avoid calcium supplements. In this current study, serum calcium levels at 3 and 6 months were all within the normal range. The physiological explanation for apparent androgenic effects of vitamin D3 are not simple, although plasma levels of vitamin D metabolites have been reported to have an effect upon sexual maturation and growth.11 There is some evidence that vitamin D3 is an androgen agonist and binds to Androgen Receptors.12,13 Much further work will be needed to explore this as a possible mechanism for enhanced penis augmentation with vitamin D.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1045.mp3" length="1132484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Bacteria in colon (microbiome) more exception than rule in nature</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1038</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1038</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2020 18:38:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1038

One of the criticisms against Peat’s views that I most commonly hear is that his ideas on the pathogenicity of colon bacteria is plain wrong, and that having a vibrant microbiome is key to good health. I have been told by biologists that apparently the presence of a microbiome is the norm in mammals and, without it, we will be left without immune system – defenseless against evil pathogens all around us. Never mind the recent studies exposing such views as little more than wishful thinking, link here. As the article below explains, a consistent presence of microbiome is more of an oddity in nature than a rule. Even in the species where it is present, the symbiotic relationship between a host and its microbiome seems to either depend on diet or on the bacteria performing a very feature- and time-specific vital function, without which the animal cannot survive. Our microbiome does NOT fit any of those requirements. We are not herbivorous, so one major reason (according to the studies discussed below) for having a microbiome is absent. The bacteria in our gut also do not perform any vital survival function, unlike in other species. There have been multiple studies on humans with sterilized guts demonstrating no ill-effects. To the contrary, recent studies have suggested that gut sterilization can treat “incurable” diseases, link here.

As such, the totality of evidence seems to point to the current (wrong) ideas about the human microbiome being the result of the advocacy of a few persistent, loud voices who polluted the scientific literature back in the 1960s and 1970s when this topic was first beginning to emerge. Due to minority of scientists having the time/resources to oppose it, this assumption “that obligate, fixed and functional symbioses were universal” gradually became accepted as self-evident truth in the collective scientific mind. Interestingly, a very similar (but much more authoritarian) process engulfed medicine in the 20th century and managed to completely exclude the role of environment in human health. The dominant theory (wrong, again) that “won” due to the advocacy of vocal (and well-funded) proponents was that genes were the beginning and the end of the story of human health. As it seems, the evidence for yet another major assumption related to human physiology is wrong/fraudulent and needs to be discarded so that science can embark on a more truthful path.

4 links here

“…To stay healthy, humans and some other animals rely on a complex community of bacteria in their guts. But research is starting to show that those partnerships might be more the exception than the rule.”

“…In some of those ant species, he saw “this amazing, dense, packed cloud. It was like a galaxy of microbes,” he said. “They’d explode in your eyes when you looked at them” under the microscope. Which is what you might expect to find, given the extent to which we and so many other animals depend on the trillions of bacterial cells that reside within us — for processing food that we can’t otherwise digest, for providing key nutrients, for training our immune system to act effectively against infections. The microbiome is so critical to our health and survival that some researchers even find it useful to think of animals as the sum of their microbial parts, link here. But when Sanders turned to the rest of the ants — about two-thirds of the different colonies and species he had collected — he was surprised to find that “you would be hard-pressed to find any cells in the gut that you could readily identify as bacteria,” he said. Food, debris, the cells of the insects’ gut lining — all were present. Microbes that might be engaged in the symbiotic relationships we take for granted — not so much.”

“…In the early 20th century, biologists began to uncover fascinating relationships between complex organisms and their microbes: in tubeworms that had no mouth, anus or gut; in termites that fed on tough, woody plants; in cows whose grassy diet significantly lacked protein. Such observations generated excitement and prompted follow-up experiments. In those years, the absence of microbial helpers in an animal wasn’t considered particularly surprising or interesting, and it often received little more than a passing nod in the literature. Even when it was thought to merit more than that — as in a 1978 report in, link hereScience, link here that tiny wood-eating crustaceans, unlike termites, had no stable population of gut bacteria — it ended up flying under the radar. And so expectations quietly began to shift to a new norm, that every animal had a relationship with bacteria without which it would perish. A few voices protested this oversimplification: As early as 1953, Paul Buchner, one of the founders of symbiosis research, wrote with exasperation about the notion that obligate, fixed and functional symbioses were universal. “Again and again there have been authors who insist that endosymbiosis is an elementary principle of all organisms,” he seethed. But counterexamples drowned in the flood of studies on the importance of host-microbe symbioses, especially those that drew connections between human health and our own microbiome.”

“The human microbiome has completely driven a lot of our thinking about how microbes work,” said Tobin Hammer, link here, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Texas, Austin. “And we often project from ourselves outwards.”

“…A transient, almost nonexistent relationship with bacteria was what Sanders saw in his tropical ants. He brought his samples back to his lab (then at Harvard University, although he is now at Cornell), where he sequenced the insects’ bacterial DNA and quantified how many microbes were present. The ant species with dense, specialized microbiomes had approximately 10,000 times more bacteria in their guts than Sanders found in the many other species he had captured. Put another way, Sanders said, if the ants were scaled to human size, some would carry a pound of microbes within them (similar to what humans harbor), others a mere coffee bean’s worth. “It’s really a profound difference.”

That difference, reported in, link hereIntegrative & Comparative Biology, link here in 2017, seemed to be associated with diet: Strictly herbivorous tree-dwelling ants were more likely to have an abundant microbiome, perhaps to make up for their protein-deficient diet; omnivorous and carnivorous ground-dwelling ants consumed more balanced meals and had negligible amounts of bacteria in their gut. Still, this pattern was inconsistent. Some of the herbivorous ants also lacked a microbiome. And the ants that did have one didn’t seem to have widespread, predictable associations with particular species of bacteria (although some sets of microbes were common to individual genera of the insects). That result marked a clear departure from mammalian microbiomes like our own, which tend to be very specific to their hosts.”

“..Repeated experiments that disrupted the butterflies’ microbial populations, link here yielded no effect on the hosts’ growth or development. Neither did reintroducing the bacteria to their guts. “Really,” Agashe said, “they don’t seem to care about their microbes at all” — even though the butterflies feed on toxic plants and seem like perfect candidates for a full-fledged, functional microbiome that could detoxify their meals. Like Hammer and Sanders, “initially we were scratching our heads,” Agashe said. “It was a surprising result, and actually it took us a while to wrap our heads around it.” But maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising. As the scientists realized, when microbiomes are present, they’re often found in specific tissues — and they involve specific bacteria that influence specific traits at specific times. The bobtail squid, for example, has a symbiosis that’s limited to one species of luminous bacteria, link here, which is sequestered in a single light-producing organ while the squid’s gut and skin remain microbe-free. Adult honeybees have important relationships with their bacteria, but the larvae don’t. So it’s not such a leap to think there could be animals that don’t have such relationships at all, or that have relationships that play by different rules. “I think there’s now an increasing realization that there’s this whole spectrum of kinds of associations that you might find,” Agashe said. Hammer agreed. “We’re just getting a glimpse at the tip of the iceberg,” he said.”

“…Even in humans, she points out, the microbiome (including transient microbes) can shift with changes in diet or behavior. Studying living systems that don’t depend on a stable microbiome could help scientists disentangle the effects of those shifts. It could also allow them to better pinpoint the costs of having a microbiome and gain new insights into its evolution.”

“…Even among mammals, there’s diversity in how the microbiome presents itself. Although most mammalian species seem to associate predictably with specific bacteria, a recent study by Sanders and his colleagues, link here found that bats do not. In fact, their microbiomes were more transient and random — and bore a far closer resemblance to the microbiomes of birds than to those of fellow mammals. The researchers posit that this difference might relate to an evolved need for both bats and birds to be as light as possible to enable powered flight. Perhaps they couldn’t afford to carry any additional baggage.”

“…“We need to keep our eyes and ears open,” he added. “There’s still a lot to learn from natural variation and diversity.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1038.mp3" length="1488212" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone may be a potent antibiotic, even for lethal infections</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1036</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1036</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2020 17:42:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1036

This is an old case study, reporting dramatic results from treatment with high doses pregnenolone (acetate ester) for an intractable bacterial infection that was rapidly spreading and proved resistant to all other therapies. The dose of pregnenolone (acetate) used was high – 100mg twice daily for a 6 year old child. That would correspond to 600mg+ for an adult, but those high doses should not be a problem considering recent human studies administering 500mg+ on a daily basis without any side effects except rare cases of drowsiness. The authors of the old case study also state that the treatment is safe and much higher doses of pregnenolone acetate have been shown to be completely benign. Compared to the standard treatments in such cases, pregnenolone looks like orange juice by comparison, in terms of safety. While the study talks about fungi and anti-fungal effects of pregnenolone acetate, the pathogen in question is Nocardia asteroides, link here, and it is in fact a type of Gram-positive bacteria that causes fungi-resembling chronic infections with up to 80% lethality depending on which organ/tissue is affected. Infections with this pathogen are commonly seen in immuno-compromised patients, most often carriers of HIV. To have pregnenolone as a reliable and safe treatment of such resistant infections is truly a miraculous finding and I can only hope that additional research is done to investigate the antibiotic effects of pregnenolone against other strains, especially the more resilient Gram-negative species. Come to think of it, this is a great idea for my next study with the group of researchers that did the studies on CortiNon and Oxidal 🙂 I will report back when the results are available.

link here

“…Nocardia is a genus of weakly staining Gram-positive, catalase-positive, rod-shaped bacteria. It forms partially acid-fast beaded branching filaments (acting as fungi, but being truly bacteria). It contains a total of 85 species. Some species are nonpathogenic, while others are responsible for nocardiosis.[1] Nocardia species are found worldwide in soil rich in organic matter. In addition, they are oral microflora found in healthy gingiva, as well as periodontal pockets. Most Nocardia infections are acquired by inhalation of the bacteria or through traumatic introduction.”

link here

“…Nocardia asteroides is the most common species identified in several reports of Nocardia infection in HIV-infected patients, and the lung is the most commonly affected site.”

link here

“…THE PURPOSES of this presentation are (1) to report a case of mycetoma (nocardiosis) in a child who had failed to respond to all the standard forms of therapy and who apparently has been cured by treatment with pregnenolone acetate and (2) to call attention to pregnenolone acetate as an agent free from undesirable metabolic or toxic effects, which has useful antifungal properties that warrant further clinical investigation.”

“…The reaction to a tuberculin patch test applied on May 4 was negative at the end of 96 hours. At this time, pregnenolone acetate tablets (100 mg. twice daily) were prescribed. All other medication and irradiation were discontinued. The patient was observed regularly. On June 7 the lesion appeared to be somewhat improved and was healing. There was more drainage and a little increased tenderness. By June 27 there was definite healing of the lesion, and at that time the dose of pregnenolone acetate was increased to 300 mg. daily. On July 11, the anterior lesion on the dorsum of the left foot was completely closed, and the one on the medial surface of the ankle was beginning to fill in much better.”

“…Mycetoma of the feet and hands due to various species of fungi is known for its chronicity and resistance to all forms of therapy. Subsequent amputation of the infected part after all methods of treatment fail is the final recourse in most cases. Infections in man due to the aerobic variably acid-fast N. asteroides are regularly resistant to all forms of therapy. Tucker and Hirsch6 collected 34 cases from the literature and added 3 cases of their own. The mortality rate appeared very high ; only 5 of the 37 patients could be considered as having recovered, and all 5 received sulfonamide therapy in addition to other forms of therapy. The infection was pulmonary in 33 cases; metastatic abscesses of the brain were present in at least 11, and 1 case of mycetoma of the foot, similar to that of our patient, reviewed by Henrici and Gardner 7 in the presulfonamide era, was cured by amputation after all other therapy had failed.”

“…It is of interest that this child with mycetoma (nocardiosis) failed to respond to any form of therapy, including the sulfonamides, for nine months and then improved dramatically when pregnenolone acetate medication was started and all other forms of therapy were discontinued. The time relationship of her response to the administration of the pregnenolone acetate suggests that this agent was responsible for her recovery. The fact that her general appearance changed in two weeks after the start of steroid therapy—i. e., increased appetite, weight gain, and lack of pain in the foot—favors this view. The most important feature of the useof pregnenolone acetate in this case was the complete lack of undesirable metabolic or toxic effects. Other steroids may prove to be more potent antifungal agents, but all others thus far utilized in man have pronounced secondary sexual and metabolic actions which limit their usefulness very decidedly. This is not true for pregnenolone acetate, which can be given in a large dosage with complete impunity.5 It can be used without hesitation in treatment of children and adults of both sexes.”

“…Pregnenolone acetate administered orally in a dosage of 200 or 300 mg. daily for eight months (a total dose of about 60 gm.) produced an apparent cure in a case of intractable mycetoma in a child 6 years of age, thus preventing eventual amputation. The medication in this large dosage produced no systemic manifestations and no evidences of metabolic activity or toxicity. The organism isolated from the mycetoma was identified as an atypical strain of Nocardia asteroides.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1036.mp3" length="850244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Alzheimer Disease (AD) linked to PUFA accumulation in brain</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1031</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1031</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2020 03:27:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1031

So much for the “beneficial” effects of PUFA. What makes this study particularly interesting is that it calls into question a favorite defensive maneuver of clinical nutritionists. Namely, when challenged about the known inflammatory effects of omega-6 fatty acids, most medical professionals make a desperate claim that omega-3 fatty acids are actually protective and we should try to increase the omega-3/omega-6 ratio instead of criticizing all PUFA. Well, the study below pours cold water on that claim as it found that AD is associated with a build up of all major PUFA, both omega-6 and omega-3, as well as one of the MUFA. So, those fish oil supplements we still see advertised on TV are likely worse than useless – they may directly cause AD if used for a sufficiently long period of time. In contrast, not a single saturated fatty acid was found to be associated with AD, and I think that by itself speaks volumes of who the culprit is. Perhaps just as importantly, in the lead author’s own words, the study corroborates once again the hypothesis that AD is a metabolic condition.

2 links here

“…Researchers are studying late-onset Alzheimer’s in the context of age-related brain changes. A new study – published, link here in the journal PLOS Medicine – looks at how fatty acid metabolites in the brain tissue of healthy seniors behave and affect the participants’ cognitive abilities.”

“…The researchers measured the metabolite levels of the brain regions commonly associated with Alzheimer’s: the middle frontal gyrus and the inferior temporal gyrus. They also examined metabolite levels in a brain area that is not normally affected by Alzheimer’s pathology – the cerebellum…The fatty acids shown to correlate with AD in this study were: docosahexaenoic acid, linoleic acid, arachidonic acid, linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid, and oleic acid. Cristina Legido-Quigley and colleagues explain the significance of the study: “[This] work suggests that dysregulation of UFA’s metabolism plays a role in driving AD pathology and that these results provide further evidence for the metabolic basis of AD pathogenesis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1031.mp3" length="546332" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dietary fat, not carbs or protein, makes people fat</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1029</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1029</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2020 03:13:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1029

The study below adds some evidence to the debate that is has been raging for decades – i.e. just what dietary component contributes the most to weight gain. The current favorite “villain” of clinical nutrition are carbohydrates, especially their easily digestible form such as sucrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, etc. The public space is littered with ads admonishing people to watch their carb intake and be especially mindful of the amount of “simple” or added sugars they eat. The rationale is that those carbs lead to an exaggerated insulin response, which medicine claims leads to everything from obesity, to diabetes/cancer/CVD/Alzheimer/etc. While there have also been warnings about consuming too much fat, the warnings have mostly been reframed to vilify saturated fats while essentially giving PUFA (and to a lesser degree MUFA) a free pass. There is plenty of evidence that this advice is approximately opposite to what constitutes a healthy diet, most of the “contrarian” findings never see the light of day in mainstream press. The article below is one of the few exceptions and it was apparently the biggest such study done in more than half a century. It plainly states that indulging in neither carbs nor protein leads to weight gain, while loading up on fat is quite obesogenic. In fact, the relationship was dose-dependent – i.e. the more fat the animals ate, the fatter they became. Since having some fat in the diet is crucial to good health, the study also tried to address the question of how much fat is optimal. The results show that daily fat intake in the 10%-20% range of calories is best when it comes to keeping weight down.

link here

“…Now, new joint research by Chinese and British scientists suggests something simpler – and maybe something we already knew in our gut: to avoid putting on the pounds, avoid fat in your diet. The Chinese government-backed study, published last week in the scientific journal Cell Metabolism, showed that weight gain in mice was linked only to dietary fat levels, not to protein or sucrose. An increased intake of dietary fats was found to drive obesity in mice more than an increase in protein or carbohydrates. In other words, the bigger the proportion of fat in their diet, the more likely they were to overeat, which led to a higher likelihood of obesity. The research involved a collaboration between Chinese and British researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. The study was the biggest nutrition study of its kind in 50 years, according to the team.”

“…The same strictly controlled diets would have been impossible to replicate in testing on humans over the same time period, he said. “We found that the only macronutrient that caused an increase in body fat was dietary fat. So if you ramped up the fat in their diet from 10 to 60 per cent, the mice progressively got fatter and fatter,” Speakman said. An increased amount of fat triggered the release of feel-good hormones like dopamine and serotonin from the brain’s reward centres, making it more pleasurable to overeat, he said. If one’s diet had a relatively low percentage of fat, those reward centres were not activated. The team found that adjusting other macronutrients, like the amount of protein or carbohydrates, had no impact on the weight of the mice.”

“…“Based on our findings, you have to have some fat in your diet since they’re essential for the human metabolism,” he concluded. “We found the mice that gained the least weight were on a diet of 10 to 20 per cent fat – that seems to protect individuals from consuming excess calories.” The typical amount of fat in a standard American diet is 35 per cent, according to a 2006 study.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1029.mp3" length="783572" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Drop in dopamine behind giving up</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1027</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1027</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2020 02:56:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1027

I would have much preferred if the authors of the study below investigated the level of serotonin and its relation to giving up (“learned helplessness” anyone?), but I suppose the dogma of serotonin is still too “sacred” to be questioned in biomedical research. So, instead of saying that elevated serotonin causes despair and giving up, a more palatable (but equivalent) way to convey the same message would be to say that a drop in dopamine is the main cause. In light of the study’s findings one can conclude that giving depressed/desperate people SSRI drugs is perhaps the single worst intervention medicine can administer, likely much worse than doing nothing. Maybe one day patients will finally wisen up and launch a legal crusade against Big Pharma and its minions in regulatory agencies who have been getting away literally with murder (e.g. suicides caused by SSRI-induced despair) for decades.

2 links here

“…Inside the brain, a group of cells known as nociceptin neurons get very active before a mouse’s breakpoint. They emit nociceptin, a complex molecule that suppresses dopamine, a chemical largely associated with motivation. The findings, reported July 25 in Cell, offer new insight into the complex world of motivation and reward. The nociceptin neurons are located near an area of the brain known as the ventral tegmental area. The VTA contains neurons that release dopamine during pleasurable activities. Although scientists have previously studied the effects of fast, simple neurotransmitters on dopamine neurons, this study is among the first to describe the effects of this complex nociception modulatory system. “We are taking an entirely new angle on an area of the brain known as VTA,” said co-lead author Christian Pedersen, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the UW College of Engineering. Researchers at the UW School of Medicine and at Washington University School of Medicine as well as colleagues at other universities, spent four years looking at the role of nociceptin in regulating motivation. “The big discovery is that large complex neurotransmitters known as neuropeptides have a very robust effect on animal behavior by acting on the VTA,” said Pedersen. The researchers said this discovery could lead to helping people find motivation when they are depressed and conversely decrease motivation for drugs in substance- abuse disorders, like addiction. The discovery came by looking at the neurons in mice seeking sucrose. The mice had to poke their snout into a port to get sucrose. At first it was easy, then it became two pokes, then five, increasing exponentially, and so on. Eventually, all the mice gave up. Neural activity recordings revealed that these “demotivation” or “frustration” neurons became most active when mice stopped seeking sucrose.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1027.mp3" length="453812" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>TSH in the mid-normal range can cause female infertility</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1023</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1023</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2020 02:34:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1023

A great study that exposes the utter absurdity of the ranges currently defined as “normal” for a number of biomarkers, but especially for TSH, prolactin, testosterone, estrogen, liver function, albumin, etc. Out of those, perhaps the most absurd example is the range for TSH. The “normal” range for TSH has been redefined a number of times over the last 30-40 years and each revision pushed the upper limit of normal downwards. Yet, despite this downward trend of the upper limit, the rate of metabolic disease diagnoses keeps increasing. The current upper limit of normal for TSH is 4 despite numerous studies demonstrating poor health in most people with TSH over 2. The study below now adds infertility to the list of problems caused by having TSH smack in the middle of the normal range. Yet, despite their own findings the authors describe the condition as “underactive thyroid within normal range”. LOL, this would have been funny if the issue did not concern the health of millions. How can thyroid be underactive, yet in the normal range!?!? One of these statements must be wrong and since underactive thyroid was an actual finding and it was tied to an actual pathology (female infertility) the only option that remains is that the “normal range” currently used for diagnostic purposes is not at all normal. Hopefully, FDA and Merck (responsible for defining the “normal” ranges for all biomarkers) are taking notice and will finally come up with a range for TSH that truly reflects health/disease.

2 links here

“…The study found women who have unexplained infertility were nearly twice as likely to have higher levels of a hormone that stimulates the thyroid gland than women who did not conceive due to known issues with their male partner’s sperm count. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) is produced by the pituitary gland at the base of the brain and tells the thyroid gland to produce more hormones when needed. Elevated TSH levels can be a sign that the thyroid gland is underactive.”

“…The researchers found that women with unexplained infertility had significantly higher TSH levels than women with infertility due to a known cause. Nearly twice as many women with unexplained infertility had a TSH greater than 2.5 mlU/L compared to women whose partners had male factor infertility. “Since we now know from our study that there is an association between TSH levels at the high end of the normal range and unexplained infertility, it is possible that a high-normal TSH level may negatively impact women who are trying to get pregnant,” Fazeli said. “This could open up new avenues for possible treatments. The next step will be to see if lowering TSH levels will help this group conceive.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1023.mp3" length="766988" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Thyroid hormone (T3) therapy may treat multiple sclerosis (MS)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1021</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1021</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Apr 2020 20:16:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1021

A great study, which directly demonstrates that the demyelination seen in this “autoimmune” condition targeting the nervous system, link here is driven by low levels of T3. Conversely, the study also found that administration of either plain T3 or a synthetic analog was able to restore the myelin sheet and ameliorate the disease. As such, MS is likely yet another condition of clear metabolic origin, and in which metabolic therapies may be curative.

link here

“…Treatment with a potential remyelinating agent called liothyronine, link here was safe and well-tolerated by people with multiple sclerosis, link here (MS) in a Phase 1b trial. Preliminary results also suggested benefits in cognition, motor function, and fatigue.”

“…According to Newsome, thyroid hormones are critical for the development of the nervous system. These hormones may promote remyelination, link here — the formation of new myelin sheaths, the protective coating around neurons — in the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) by boosting the differentiation of oligodendrocyte precursor cells, link here into mature oligodendrocytes, link here. Those are the cell types that form myelin. Tri-iodothyronine, link here (T3) is believed to play a central role in the most important actions of the thyroid hormones. Therefore, researchers believe that liothyronine — a synthetic form of T3 — may induce repair and limit neurodegeneration in people with MS.”

2 links here

“…Researchers have developed a compound based on the thyroid hormone T3, link here that is able to repair damaged myelin in the brain of mice, a discovery that holds promise for healing myelin loss in patients with multiple sclerosis, link here (MS), results of an early study reveal. The compound combines a brain-penetrating agent and a chemical mimic of T3, and may be a future remyelination therapy delivered specifically to the central nervous system (CNS) — brain and spinal cord — with few side effects. During development, the active form of the thyroid hormone T3 promotes the formation of myelin-producing cells at the CNS; these cells are called oligodendrocytes. As a result, the myelin sheath around nerve fibers grows in the presence of this hormone. However, using thyroid hormone has not been eyed as a potential remyelination therapy given its unwanted side-effects when delivered systemically (into the bloodstream) and affecting the entire body.”

“…That’s why scientists at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), link here, in collaboration with researchers from other institutions, devised a novel approach to address this limitation. The team used sobetirome, link here, a thyromimetic — a molecule that mimics T3,    binding to and activating its natural receptor in the body. Sobetirome is devoid of the adverse side effects associated with excess thyroid hormone, “and unique among thyromimetics for its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and distribute to the CNS from a systemic dose” researchers wrote. The blood-brain barrier is a protective barrier between the brain’s blood vessels and the brain tissue.”

“…In addition, sobetirome also increased the number of myelinated nerve fibers at the spinal cord. “The mouse showed close to a full recovery,” Tom Scanlan, PhD, professor of physiology and pharmacology in OHSU School of Medicine and the study’s senior author, said in a press release, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1021.mp3" length="272492" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) may be simply hypothyroidism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1019</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1019</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Apr 2020 20:00:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1019

The rate of CFS in the general population has been steadily increasing over the last 2 decades. While mainstream medicine refuses to accept the pathology as objectively existing condition, an off-label diagnosis of CFS is often communicated by a doctor to a patient, and is explained as being a “functional” idiopathic disorder for which currently there is no cure. The cause of CFS remains unknown but among doctors who agree that it exists the prevailing opinion is that some sort of immune dysfunction leads to a metabolic dysregulation characterized by reduced glucose oxidation. Sounds familiar? Well, the study below examined a group of such patients and found that the majority of them have classic objective biomarkers of hypothyroidism – i.e. low levels of T4 and T3 and elevated levels of reverse T3 (rT3). The only thing missing from this set of biomarkers is elevated TSH and then the patient would have been officially diagnosable as hypothyroid. It is truly unfortunate that public health authorities have ruled that TSH is the gold standard in diagnosing hypothyroidism. Even accepting the pathological upper limit of the “normal” range for TSH, it is hard to argue that a patient will be in good health if their circulating levels of thyroid hormones are low, especially when combined with elevated rT3. In addition, CFS patients often have low temperatures and pulse, which are also classic signs of hypothyroidism. However, in the twisted medicalized reality we live in low pulse is seen as a sign of “good” heart health and is much more likely to draw praise rather than concern from the doctor. My only hope is that the low T4/T3 and high rT3 will be enough for some doctors to prescribe thyroid therapy, and if those patients rapidly improve that may draw the attention of the medical powers that be that yet another mysterious condition is nothing more than low metabolism in disguise. Actually, in this case there is no disguise 🙂

2 links here

“…Chronic fatigue syndrome is a common disease marked by lengthy spells of weakness, fatigue and depression. Its diagnosis is predominantly based on symptoms and on ruling out any underlying medical condition, rather than on laboratory tests and physical examination. Interestingly, several symptoms resemble those of hypothyroidism — a condition where the thyroid gland does not produce enough thyroid hormone. In hypothyroidism, the body tries to encourage thyroid hormone activity by releasing more thyroid-stimulating hormone — however, this does not happen in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. This contrast in thyroid-stimulating activity led the study’s authors to hypothesize that chronic fatigue syndrome is caused by low activity of thyroid hormones in the absence of thyroidal disease. Led by Dr. Begoña Ruiz-Núñez at the University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands, the researchers compared thyroid function and markers of inflammation between 98 CFS patients and 99 healthy controls. Remarkably, the CFS patients had lower serum levels of certain key thyroid hormones such as triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4), but normal levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone. Additional analyses indicated that CFS patients had a lower urinary iodine status and low-grade inflammation, which possibly mirrored the symptoms of patients with hypothyroidism. These CFS patients, however, had relatively higher levels of another thyroid hormone called “reverse T3” or rT3. This appeared to be due to a shift in hormone production, where the body preferred to convert T4 to rT3 instead of producing T3. The low T3 levels found in CFS patients coupled with this switchover to rT3 could mean that T3 levels are severely reduced in tissue. “One of the key elements of our study is that our observations persisted in the face of two sensitivity analyses to check the strength of the association between CFS and thyroid parameters and low-grade inflammation,” says Dr. Ruiz-Núñez. “This strengthens our test results considerably.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1019.mp3" length="951644" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Levothyroxine (T4) monotherapy often ineffective for hypothyroidism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1017</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1017</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Apr 2020 19:35:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1017

As most of my readers know, the currently approved therapy for hypothyroidism is levothyroxine (T4). While technically T3 and combined T4/T3 therapy are also approved by FDA, the former is only used in severe cases of myxedema and the latter is considered obsolete and a remnant of the days when the use of natural dessicated thyroid (NDT) was the norm due to lack of purified/isolated T4 and T3. As such, hypothyroid patients have little choice but to submit to the T4 monotherapy if they want to keep their doctor and have the prescriptions/treatments be covered by their insurance policy. There is a plethora of evidence demonstrating that T4 monotherapy is ineffective for a large portion of hypothyroid patients and in fact could be making their symptoms worse. The doctors are at a loss of explaining why T4 monotherapy fails and usually invoke genetic factors as well as “non-compliance” by the patient with the prescribed dosage/regimen. However, the explanation (as the study below demonstrates) is actually much simpler. Considering T4 is actually a pro-hormone and depends on conversion into T3 (by the liver) in order to exert its therapeutic effects, it is plausible to expect observing lack of such conversion in patients in whom T4 monotherapy does not work. The reason for widespread lack T4-to-T3 conversion in hypothyroid patients is the already poor liver function in such people. Hopefully, the study below will catch the attention of endocrinologists and spur change in guidelines for treating hypothyroidism. The change I’d like to see is FDA either recommend T3 augmentation to the T4 therapy or allow T3 monotherapy in non-responding hypothyroid patients. It is a shame that millions of people are currently suffering needlessly when the evidence for a problem and its solution is so readily available.

link here

“…Women with obesity and primary hypothyroidism prescribed levothyroxine continued to have a lower resting energy expenditure, a measurement of whole-body metabolism, when compared with similar women who were euthyroid, according to findings published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. “The results of our study are in agreement with a line of thinking that suggests levothyroxine therapy, link here may not be able to correct the entire set of symptoms and metabolic defects associated with hypothyroidism,” Emanuele Muraca, MD, of Policlinico di Monza, Universita delgi Studi dell’Insubria, Italy, told Healio. “In particular, the findings show that whole-body energy metabolism, which is known to be impaired in overt hypothyroidism, measured using indirect calorimetry, was not fully normalized in women with obesity and long-lasting hypothyroidism taking the right dose of levothyroxine in comparison with women who are obese without hypothyroidism.”

“…Researchers found that resting energy expenditure was reduced among women with hypothyroidism in the levothyroxine group vs. controls (mean, 28.59 vs. 29.91 kcal/kg of free fat mass), with results persisting after adjustment for age, BMI, body composition and level of physical activity (P = .008). The between-group difference was attenuated only after adjusting for insulin resistance, according to researchers. “A portion of patients with hypothyroidism may remain with truly unmet needs in spite of proper therapy,” Gianluca Perseghin, MD, a full professor of endocrinology in the department of medicine and surgery at Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca at Policlinico di Monza, Italy, told Healio. “One possibility is that achieving appropriate circulating levels of triiodothyronine using oral administration of levothyroxine may be a difficult task in these patients, especially when the effect is to be measured on metabolic variables. It is also possible that our finding could be related to the nonphysiological oral route of administration of levothyroxine, implying a major role of the intestine and the liver, yet to be clarified, in the homeostasis of thyroid hormones.”

“…Perseghin said the findings demonstrate that different patient groups with thyroid dysfunction may require different therapeutic approaches. Perseghin said it is crucial to better understand thyroid hormone physiology and genetic variations in deiodinases, TSH receptors and thyroid hormone transporters. “They are all important rate-limiting steps implicated in thyroid hormone metabolism and in the mechanisms of adaptation of peripheral tissues to the oral rather than physiologic administration of thyroid hormones,” Perseghin said. “Preparations of thyroid hormones with a physiologic extended-release profile, in particular T3, may also be one of our options for therapy in the future.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1017.mp3" length="913676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Long Work Hours Linked to Hypothyroidism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1014</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1014</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Apr 2020 19:10:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1014

The connection between stress and health issues is perhaps the best kept “public secret”. As the saying goes, the only people who do not believe in the pathology of stress are doctors…and the dead. I would add to this category the profession of statisticians who publish studies like the one below. Despite demonstrating “dose-dependent” relationship between the amount of hours people work per week and the severity of the resulting hypothyroidism, the authors of the study still refuse to suggest a cause-and-effect between stress from long work and the onset of hypothyroidism. If a rational argument can be made for the opposite hypothesis – i.e. people with hypothyroidism tend to work longer hours – then I am all ears. But the few doctors I contacted in regards to this study were at a loss of suggesting an alternative explanation and also think that long work hours (stress) are indeed a likely cause of hypothyroidism.

2 links here

Long Work Hours Linked to Greater Risk for Hypothyroidism, link here

“…Increased weekly working hours are associated with a higher risk for hypothyroidism in workers with no evidence of thyroid autoimmunity, according to study results published in Thyroid. To determine if long work hours are associated with thyroid function, researchers conducted a cross-sectional study using data from 2160 South Korean adults (69.9% men). Individuals who had provided blood and urine samples, were working ≥36 hours per week and <12 hours per day, were not pregnant, did not have a history of thyroid disease, did not have a positive thyroid peroxidase antibody test, did not have isolated hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism, and were not missing relevant data were included.”

“…There was a significant association between hypothyroidism and longer work hours per week, even after adjusting for all biological and lifestyle covariates (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.46; 95% CI, 1.12-1.90) and excluding outliers in number of work hours per week (aOR, 1.99; 95% CI, 1.19-3.31) and individuals with overt thyroid dysfunction (aOR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.11-1.88). Hyperthyroidism was not significantly associated with the number of hours worked per week. Moreover, hypothyroidism, link herewas approximately 2.6 times more prevalent in individuals who worked 53 to 83 hours per week compared with those who worked 36 to 42 hours per week. As the study was cross-sectional and observational in nature, causation could not be determined. The researchers suggested that “[f]urther research is needed to clarify the causal relationship and the underlying mechanism” of hypothyroidism in connection to longer working hours.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1014.mp3" length="1035260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Restoring glucose metabolism may treat Crohn’s disease (CD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1012</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1012</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Apr 2020 18:57:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1012

As my readers know, the role of metabolism in the initiation and progression of cancer is enjoying renewed interest, after more than a century of neglect and deliberate suppression. One of the promising drugs that target metabolic pathways is dichloroacetate (DCA), link here. The main mechanism of action for DCA is its ability to restore glucose oxidation by inhibiting the enzyme PDK and thus activating the rate-limiting enzyme for glucose metabolism PDH. DCA has demonstrated excellent therapeutic effects in a number of different cancers, but there has been essentially zero interest from Big Pharma and/or governments around the world in funding trials with it. For more than a decade, University of Toronto (UoT) maintained a special (and highly ranked on Google) website for DCA that solicited donations from the public that could fund human clinical trials with DCA large enough so that the drug could be officially approved for treating cancer. Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical industry threatened to pull funding for several large scientific projects at UoT and the university recently agreed to remove the page from its official website, which resulted in the drug basically disappearing from public discourse on disease treatments.

Well, a new study may bring renewed interest in DCA as a treatment for CD, a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). It found that mitochondrial dysfunction drives relapses of CD (and likely other IBD conditions) and that treatment with DCA can prevent the relapse by improving mitochondrial function. As usual, the the study authors are very careful about their statements and one has to read between the lines in order to glean the real meaning of the research. Namely, the results demonstrate that CD is a metabolic disease driven by impaired glucose metabolism and that restoring glucose metabolism is highly therapeutic. DCA has no known direct effect on mitochondrial function and in fact is known to be toxic to the mitochondria when used chronically and/or in high doses, which leaves its boosting effects on glucose metabolism as the only explanation. Interestingly enough, restoring glucose metabolism has recently been shown to be therapeutic in other “autoimmune” conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS), link here and even lethal motor-neuron diseases such as ALS, link here. At this point, the evidence for most chronic diseases being of metabolic origins is so extensive that I would not be surprised if the public starts taking matters into its own hands and “self-medicating” at home instead of going to see a “specialist” doctor who not only does not want to hear about metabolic causes but cannot legally prescribe metabolic therapies even if she/he believed in such causes.

2 links here

“…In both human patients and mouse models, alterations in Paneth and stem cells coincided with decreased mitochondria functionality. Knowing that a lowered mitochondrial respiration leads to alterations in the stem cell niche, the researchers used dichloracetate (DCA), a substance applied in cancer therapy leading to an increase in mitochondrial respiration. The shift in cellular metabolism induced by DCA was able to restore the intestinal stem cell functionality of mice suffering from inflammation, as demonstrated in intestinal organoids, organ-like structures cultured ex vivo. “These findings point to a new therapeutic approach for prolonging the inflammation-free remission phases of Crohn’s disease,” said Eva Rath, scientist at the TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan and co-author of the study. The aim of further research is to investigate the effect of DCA in animal models and patients in more detail. A so-called metabolic intervention – making targeted changes in the cells’ metabolism – could prevent functional loss of stem cells and Paneth cells, which both maintain the intestinal barrier. This could lead to preventing subsequent inflammation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1012.mp3" length="1269884" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone (P5) – a new osteoporosis drug</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1010</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1010</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Apr 2020 18:28:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1010

About a month ago, I made a post in regards to aspirin becoming a new treatment for osteoporosis, link here. Several months ago, I made another post about an in-vitro study demonstrating powerful anabolic effects of pregnenolone (P5) on bones, link here. Apparently, the protective effects of P5 on bone health are known in certain circles and there have been attempts to synthesize synthetic P5 derivatives to use as anti-osteoporosis agents, despite the fact that plain P5 works quite well, link here. Now, a new study has been published, which successfully demonstrated the bone-anabolic effects of P5 in-vivo, and at physiological doses too. Perhaps the most important result is that P5 managed to prevent/reverse osteoporosis driven by BOTH chronic inflammation driven by endotoxin/LPS and menopause (ovariectomy model). The mechanism of action of P5 was through dampening of inflammation driven by endotoxin/LPS, and prevention of osteoclast formation (and thus bone resorption). The effective HED used in the study was about 0.8 mg/kg daily and duration of treatment was 4 weeks, but the administration was every other day instead of daily. That means on a daily basis one could take half the dose (0.4 mg/kg) or maybe use the once weekly dose the size of an aspirin tablet as Peat mentioned in one of his articles. Those are perfectly physiological doses as most young, healthy people produce up to 50mg daily. Also, the 4-week treatment was only needed for the menopause-driven osteoporosis. The protective effects of P5 on endotoxin/LPS induced bone loss were visible after only 7 days of treatment. Finally, a lower dose (HED of 0.08 mg/kg every other day) did not have protective effects in the menopause model but still had strong protective effects in the endotoxin/LPS model.

As an interesting side note, the study below raises serious doubts about estrogen as a protective factor for bones and its role in menopause-driven osteoporosis. P5 is known to have NO effect on estrogen levels in rodents, and in fact it has been known to act as an estrogen antagonist, link here, partially through its conversion to progesterone.

link here

“…On the other hand, Preg treatment (both low and high doses) significantly lessened the destructive effects of LPS, reducing inflammatory cell infiltration and osteoclast activity. In particular, treatment with high dose Preg (10 mg/kg bodyweight) almost completely prevented LPS-induced bone destruction and bone loss, with bone volume almost comparable to that of sham controls (Figures 6A, C, link here). The number of TRAP+ve osteoclasts in high dose Preg treated group were also comparable to sham controls indicating the inhibition of osteoclast formation and therefore activity (Figure 6E, link here).”

“…Apart from the local suppressive effect of Preg on osteolysis, we further investigated whether Preg can be systemically used to prevent bone loss. Similar protective effects were seen in the OVX-induced bone loss model but only when mice were given high-dose of Preg (10 mg/kg bodyweight). No significant protective effects were observed when mice were given low dose of Preg (1 mg/kg bodyweight) over the 4 week experimental period (Figure 8, link here). Three-dimensional reconstructions of the tibial bone tissue shows significant reduction in bone volume and trabecular bone loss after bilateral ovariectomy (Figures 8A, B, link here). TRAP staining of the tibial bone sections shows significant enhancement in the total number of TRAP+ve osteoclasts and the number of osteoclasts lining the trabecular bone surface (Figures 8C–E, link here). However, treatment with low dose Preg did not protect against OVX-induced bone loss and trabecular bone deterioration. Only at high doses of 10 mg/kg did Preg demonstrate its protective effect against OVX-induced reduction in trabecular bone via the suppression of osteoclast formation and activity. In addition, there was no significant difference in cortical bone thickness between OVX and Preg treatment groups. (Figure 8B, link here). Thus collectively, and in general, Preg particular at high doses demonstrates protective against inflammatory bone destruction as well as postmenopausal bone loss via the inhibition of osteoclast formation and bone resorption. It is worth noting that no adverse effects were observed in mice treated with high dose Preg suggesting that Preg may exhibit a relatively safe in vivo drug profile.”

“…the level of Preg dramatically decline with age, with the levels at the age of 75 being 60% less than the levels produced in the mid 30s (Roberts, 1995, link here; Morley et al., 1997, link here). It has been proposed that Preg has potential as a novel anti-osteoporotic agent (Maurya et al., 2017, link here). In our study we provided further evidence to support this claim. Preg was found to protect mice against both LPS-induced inflammatory bone destruction as well as OVX-induced bone loss in vivo via the inhibition of osteoclast formation and bone resorptive activity. In vitro cellular assays further confirmed a direct inhibitory effect of Preg on RANKL-induced osteoclast formation from primary BMMs and also mature BMM-derived osteoclast bone resorption. Our study did not find any effect of Preg on the osteogenic differentiation of BMSCs or downstream mineralization activity.”

“… In previous studies, it has been confirmed that Preg can promote the production of ROS (Li et al., 2017, link here). However, in our studies, we showed that Preg treatment significantly reduced intracellular ROS levels during RANKL-induced osteoclast formation. To our knowledge, our study is the first to show that Preg exhibits potent anti-oxidant properties, and the effect of Preg on RANKL signaling cascade may involve the suppression of ROS induction.”

“…In all, our current study provides some interesting finding for the biological effects of Preg on osteoclast formation and activity. Preg was found to inhibit RANKL-induced differentiation of primary BMMs into multinucleated osteoclasts and subsequent downstream bone resorptive activity in vitro and prevented osteoclast-mediated inflammatory bone destruction and estrogen-deficiency induced bone loss in vivo. The anti-osteoclastogenic effect of Preg could be in part attributed to the suppression of RANKL-induced ROS generation and activation of ERK and NF-κB. This consequently attenuated the induction of c-Fos and NFATc1, key transcription factors for osteoclast formation and function. These results provide some promising evidence for the use of Preg in the prevention or therapeutic treatment of osteoclast-mediated osteolytic bone diseases.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1010.mp3" length="1109468" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress causes grey hair</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1003</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1003</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2020 18:10:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1003

Not exactly news for most of my readers, but it is a popular topic for many people and, as usual, the response of most doctors is that the premature greying is genetically influenced and not much can be done about it. While the study below conclusively links greying to stress, I think the mechanism provided in the article is not the major one, even though the link to noradrenaline excess makes sense as a mediator of stress. Older studies who looked at the issue before it became so controversial discovered that greying is due to elevated tryptophan/serotonin in the blood (and thus hairs) and serotonin antagonists and/or dopamine agonists can reverse it. Topical solution of copper may also work but it can also encourage the appearance of moles on the skin. So, something like Benadryl, cyproheptadine or even bromocriptine may be better options and their effects make perfect sense considering they mitigate the effects of stress. Avoiding stress would be ideal of course but that is not really an option for most people these days. And if the sympathetic system does play a major role then adding a bit of extra salt to the diet may also be helpful, especially considering salt increase serotonin uptake/deactivation.

3 links here

“…Stress can have a variety of negative effects on the body. The idea that acute stress can cause hair to turn gray is a popular belief. But until now, that link wasn’t scientifically proven. Hair color is determined by cells called melanocytes, which produce the pigment melanin. New melanocytes are made from melanocyte stem cells that live within the hair follicle at the base of the hair strand. As we age, these stem cells gradually disappear. The hair that regrows from hair follicles that have lost melanocyte stem cells has less pigment and appears gray. Researchers set out to determine if stress could also cause hair to gray, and if so, how. The study was funded in part by NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) and other NIH components. The findings appeared in Nature on January 22, 2020. The research team, led by Dr. Ya-Chieh Hsu of Harvard University, used mice to examine stress and hair graying. The mice were exposed to three types of stress involving mild, short-term pain, psychological stress, and restricted movement. All caused noticeable loss of melanocyte stem cells and hair graying. Having established a link between stress and graying, the scientists then explored several potential causes. They first tested whether immune attack might be responsible for depleting melanocyte stem cells. But stressing mice with compromised immune systems still led to hair graying. The team then investigated the role of the stress hormone corticosterone, but altering its levels didn’t affect stress-related graying. The researchers eventually turned to the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, which, along with corticosterone, was elevated in the stressed mice. They found that noradrenaline, also known as norepinephrine, was key to stress-induced hair graying. By injecting noradrenaline under the skin of unstressed mice, the researchers were able to cause melanocyte stem cell loss and hair graying. Noradrenaline is produced mostly by the adrenal glands. However, mice without adrenal glands still showed stress-related graying. Noradrenaline is also the main neurotransmitter of the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the “fight-or-flight” reaction in response to stress. The team ultimately discovered that signaling from the sympathetic nervous system plays a critical role in stress-induced graying. Sympathetic nerves extend into each hair follicle and release noradrenaline in response to stress. Normally, the melanocyte stem cells in the follicle are dormant until a new hair is grown. Noradrenaline causes the stem cells to activate.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1003.mp3" length="554732" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA are toxic/carcinogenic, and that has been known for decades</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1001</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=1001</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2020 17:50:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1001

Quite a statement in that title but apparently that is what the current state of knowledge is, if one cares to dig a bit under the surface of lies/deception spread by public health authorities and even primary care doctors. Apparently, in some circles, the effect of PUFA on the human brain is known to rival in magnitude the effects of the ongoing climate change. The authors of the study below state that the most obvious solution to this threat from PUFA is to cut it out completely from the diet and replace it with butter, coconut or even olive oil. Wow! I had to pinch myself when I was reading this to make sure I was not dreaming. I thought I’d never hear such a call to action from a public health figure. The only “bad” news from the study is that apparently the harmful effects of PUFA on health have been known for years/decades, yet the advertising for corn, sunflower, cottonseed, rapeseed, etc oils continued unabated. Maybe it is time the legal system takes a look into this matter. If the impact of PUFA exposure on mankind is as serious as climate change, the PUFA “pollution” of generations may very well be the crime of the century.

4 links here

“…Cooking with vegetable oils releases toxic chemicals linked to cancer and other diseases, link here, according to leading scientists, who are now recommending food be fried in olive oil, coconut oil, link here, butter or even lard. The results of a series of experiments threaten to turn on its head official advice that oils rich in polyunsaturated fats – such as corn oil and sunflower oil – are better for the health than the saturated fats in animal products. Scientists found that heating up vegetable oils led to the release of high concentrations of chemicals called aldehydes, which have been linked to illnesses including cancer, heart disease and dementia. Martin Grootveld, a professor of bioanalytical chemistry and chemical pathology, said that his research showed “a typical meal of fish and chips”, fried in vegetable oil, contained as much as 100 to 200 times more toxic aldehydes than the safe daily limit set by the World Health Organisation.”

“…In contrast, heating up butter, olive oil and lard in tests produced much lower levels of aldehydes. Coconut oil produced the lowest levels of the harmful chemicals. Concerns over toxic chemicals in heated oils are backed up by separate research from a University of Oxford professor, who claims that the fatty acids in vegetable oils are contributing to other health problems. Professor John Stein, Oxford’s emeritus professor of neuroscience, said that partly as a result of corn and sunflower oils, “the human brain is changing in a way that is as serious as climate change threatens to be”.

“…But Prof Grootveld, of De Montfort University in Leicester, who carried out a series of experiments, said: “For decades, the authorities have been warning us how bad butter and lard was. But we have found butter is very, very good for frying purposes and so is lard. “People have been telling us how healthy polyunsaturates are in corn oil and sunflower oil. But when you start messing around with them, subjecting them to high amounts of energy in the frying pan or the oven, they undergo a complex series of chemical reactions which results in the accumulation of large amounts of toxic compounds.” The findings are contained in research papers. Prof Grootveld’s team measured levels of “aldehydic lipid oxidation products” (LOPs), produced when oils were heated to varying temperatures. The tests suggested coconut oil produces the lowest levels of aldehydes, and three times more aldehydes were produced when heating corn oil and sunflower oil than butter. The team concluded in one paper last year: “The most obvious solution to the generation of LOPs in culinary oils during frying is to avoid consuming foods fried in PUFA [polyunsaturated fatty acid]-rich oils as much as possible.” Prof Grootveld said: “This major problem has received scant or limited attention from the food industry and health researchers.” Evidence of high levels of toxicity from heating oils has been available for many years, he said. Health concerns linked to the toxic by-products include heart disease; cancer; “malformations” during pregnancy; inflammation; risk of ulcers and a rise in blood pressure.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1001.mp3" length="543236" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Striking accumulation of PUFA in aged cells</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=999</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=999</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2020 17:21:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=999

Peat has written many times about the changes that occur in “aged” cells. Those changes are virtually indistinguishable from the ones that occur in “sick” cells and are characterized by reduced mitochondrial number/size and a shift in lipid composition away from saturated and towards unsaturated fats. The crucial mitochondrial lipid enzyme cardiolipin (CL), link here comprises at least 20% of the lipids present in the inner mitochondrial membrane and its lipid composition determines it ability to both stabilize the inner mitochondrial membrane and proton flow across it, link here as well as carry electrons between Complex III and Complex IV in the electron transport chain, and ensure proper structure of Complexes III, IV and even V, link here. The more unsaturated the lipid composition of CL is the more vulnerable to attack/destruction by those electrons it carries is, and thus the more vulnerable Complexes III, IV, and V that contain CL are as well. In other words, more PUFA in the cell = more structural disintegration and less OXPHOS.

Thus, one would expect that aging (and disease) to be associated with a shift in cellular lipid composition in general (and CL composition in particular) towards PUFA. However, up until now evidence for age-related changes in cell lipid composition in favor of PUFA has been sparse to non-existent. The study below changes the status quo by demonstrating that senescence is characterized by a striking accumulation of PUFA inside cells. In fact, of the 19 types of triacylglycerols present in relative abundance in aged cells compared to adult ones, every single one of those glycerol types contained at least one PUFA member. The study does not go as far as to say that this accumulation is what drives aging because the study only looked at association, not causality. However, the fact that the level of PUFA accumulation was age-dependent implies causality and the knowledge about the effects of PUFA on CL function seals the deal, at least for me. The conclusion of the study was that lipids are far from passive when it comes to health and aging and they may regulate the very process of aging itself. I will go a step further and state that PUFA accumulation is the major cause of cell aging and reversing that accumulation likely restores a cell’s biological age back to youthfulness.

link here

“…Cellular replicative senescence, a state of permanent cell-cycle arrest, has been linked to organismal aging, tissue repair and tumorigenesis. In this study, we comparatively investigated the global lipid profiles and mRNA content of proliferating and senescent-state BJ fibroblasts. We found that both expression levels of lipid-regulating genes and the abundance of specific lipid families, are actively regulated. We further found that 19 specific polyunsaturated triacylglycerol species constituted the most prominent changes in lipid composition during replicative senescence. Based on the transcriptome analysis, we propose that the activation of CD36-mediated fatty acid uptake and diversion to glycerolipid biosynthesis could be responsible for the accumulation of triacylglycerols during replicative senescence.”

link here

“…As cells age and stop dividing, their fat content changes, along with the way they produce and break down fat and other molecules classified as lipids, according to a new University at Buffalo study. “Traditionally, lipids have been thought of as structural components: They store energy and form the membranes of cells,” says G. Ekin Atilla-Gokcumen, PhD, an assistant professor of chemistry in UB’s College of Arts and Sciences. “Our results add to evidence that lipids may actually play a much more active role in the body, in this case, in the process of replicative senescence, which is linked to cellular aging. This is a new, emerging field of study.”

“…When the researchers compared the lipid content of young cells to older cells, some interesting trends emerged. In senescent cells, 19 different triacylglycerols, a specific type of lipid, accumulated in substantial amounts. These increases occurred in both lung and foreskin fibroblasts, showing that such changes are not limited to a single variety of cell.”

“…The study found that during cellular senescence, the accumulation of triacylglycerols corresponded with a significant increase in the levels of genes involved in responding to oxidative stress…All had a remarkably similar structure, featuring long chains of fatty acids, including at least one polyunsaturated fatty acyl (PUFA) chain.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-999.mp3" length="1127972" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA may be a major factor in sterility</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=995</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=995</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2020 16:41:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=995

Just a few days ago I made a post about PUFA driving obesity, inflammation, and liver damage in diabetes II patients, link here. The omega-6 fatty acid DLGA (a metabolite of linoleic acid), link here was the main pathological factor examined in that study. Now, a new study study demonstrates that DLGA may also cause sterility. Official estimates indicate that 1 in every 4 young couples is infertile or even sterile. Considering how ubiquitous PUFA is, the findings of the study make perfect sense.

link here

“…Dietary DGLA causes C. elegans to become sterile due to destruction of germ cells during larval development. Through genetic, biochemical and morphological studies, we demonstrate here that CYP-33E2 acts on dietary DGLA to produce two toxic metabolites, 8,9- and 14,15-EED, that mediate the destruction of germ cells. This is the first example of a DGLA-derived epoxide with physiological activity.”

“…However, our studies demonstrate that an overabundance of DGLA in the diet leads to the synthesis of 8,9-EED and 14,15-EED, which may interfere with a physiological signal or act as toxins triggering germ defects and death. The specificity of these two isomers is critical to the germ cell phenotype, because exposure to 11,12-EED did not lead to germ cell abnormalities. Alternatively, our experiments do not rule out possibility that exposure to excess DGLA-derived epoxides lead to germ cell defects indirectly, for example, due to the disruption of signaling pathways that are regulated by a specific membrane lipid milieu37, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-995.mp3" length="293300" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA increases risk of all cancers, especially prostate</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=991</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=991</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2020 22:01:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=991

The bad news for PUFA just keep on coming. There seems to be no health pathology that PUFA does not promote, even indirectly, link here. The study below demonstrates that BOTH omega-3 and omega-6 increase risk of ANY cancer and death from it, but specifically the risk of aggressive prostate cancer. It is mind boggling that in light of so much evidence for the harmfulness of PUFA the FDA has actually approved an omega-3 product as a prescription drug (e.g. Lovaza), link here for treating pancreatitis (among other conditions), which is a precursor state to pancreatic cancer.

link here

Taking Omega 3 Supplements May Increase the Risk of Prostate Cancer, link here

“…Recently, a new study appeared in the British Journal of Cancer exploring the effects of omega-3 supplementation and shows a negative impact of taking them. More specifically, it looks at the supplements and the potential increase in the risk of prostate cancer. Taking omega-3 supplements for various purposes is a common practice around the world. The habits became popular at the start of the past decade with an increase in the number of studies on the supplements. The new study shows yet another dangerous effect of taking omega-3 supplements, which is the increase in the risk of developing prostate cancer. Previously, research has identified the link between the omega-3 supplements and the chances of cancer in general. After the observatory period, the researchers concluded that taking omega-3 supplements…can increase the risk of prostate cancer. Secondly, they also noted that increasing the intake of PUFAs is also associated with the overall risk of developing cancer as well as deaths due to cancer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-991.mp3" length="356540" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Diet (PUFA) causes inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=989</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=989</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2020 21:45:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=989

Rates of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as ulcerative colitis (UC) have been steadily increasing and predominantly so in the youngest cohorts studied. The official cause of UC is of course “unknown” even though the public health authorities do admit that an environmental agent is most likely at fault. UC is an “autoimmune” condition and as such estrogen, together with estrogen mimetics should be a prime suspect. One of the most ubiquitous estrogen mimetics are the PUFA family of fats, and one would expect to see them implicated as a possible cause of UC. That is exactly what the human study below found, and it did not hesitate to make the “controversial” statement that PUFA causes IBD! Of course, like so many other studies published in mainstream journals, this study also desperately tries to excuse its findings with the (unfounded) claims that while omega-6 are inflammatory and implicated in UC, the omega-3 are protective. However, the clock is ticking for omega-3 as well. Multiple large human trials found them at best useless for various chronic diseases and sales have hit rock bottom. I suspect that once the public completely loses interest in supplementing with fish oil, we will start seeing studies admitting their nefariousness on par with omega-6.

3 links here

“…A high intake of polyunsaturated fat “may lead to inflammatory bowel disease”, BBC News has reported. According to the website, experts believe that a high intake of linoleic acid, found in foods such as margarines may be implicated in a third of ulcerative colitis cases. The study underlying this report looked at the diet and lifestyle of over 200,000 people and compared those who developed ulcerative colitis with a sample of those who remained healthy. It found that dietary linoleic acid may play a role in the development of ulcerative colitis. The findings need confirmation in studies of a more robust design as there are some shortcomings with this methodology. However, the results show a ‘dose-response’ relationship, with a higher dose of linoleic acid linked with an increased risk of disease. This supports the idea of a causal relationship.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-989.mp3" length="621860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA is a cancer “sensitizer”</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=987</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=987</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2020 21:32:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=987

A neat study, which demonstrates that in addition to its direct carcinogenic effects, PUFA is also a cancer “sensitizer” – i.e. is triggers the development of cancer in the presence of less-than-healthy chemicals that are relatively harmless by themselves. This sensitizing role of PUFA seems to be well-known to the research community and applies to virtually all types of environmental stressors as diverse as lack of sufficient sunlight exposure, very-low-dose ionizing radiation, EMF exposure, chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS), maternal malnutrition, etc. Unfortunately, FDA and other public health authorities have repeatedly stated that animal dietary studies findings do not translate well to humans. Maybe the new human study below will change their mind considering it found that dietary PUFA transforms even very low doses of so-called heterocyclic amines (HA) from almost completely harmless to strongly carcinogenic.

2 links here

“…Substances called heterocyclic amines (HAs) found in cooked meat and fish don’t appear to boost a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer after menopause, Swedish researchers report. However, low intake of these substances combined with high consumption of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which are found in most types of vegetable oil, may indeed increase the likelihood that postmenopausal women will develop breast cancer, Dr. Emily Sonestedt, of Lund University, Malmo, and her colleagues found. “The interaction in the present study between omega-6 PUFAs and HAs is not easily explained, and points toward the importance of examining the impact of food patterns rather than the influence of single dietary factors,” Sonestedt and her team state in the October 1 issue of the International Journal of Cancer. HAs form in meat or fish cooked at high temperatures, and have been tied to breast cancer in rats. Rats fed a fatty diet having a high omega-6 content developed even more tumors in response to dietary HAs than rats given a low fat diet. Sonestedt’s team examined whether HA consumption was related to breast cancer, and whether omega-6 PUFA intake played a role in this relationship, in women enrolled in the Malmo Diet and Cancer study. The cohort included 11,699 women 50 and older. During follow-up, which averaged about 10 years, 430 of the women were diagnosed with breast cancer. Women who consumed the most HAs were at no greater breast cancer risk than those who consumed the least, the researchers found. However, in women with low HA consumption, high omega-6 PUFA intake increased the likelihood of being diagnosed with breast cancer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-987.mp3" length="460244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA makes girls fat / lazy / diabetic and exercise futile</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=984</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=984</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:24:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=984

Just a few minutes ago I made a post about PUFA (from nuts) increasing risk of diabetes, link here. I just came across another very similar study below. It found that PUFA consumption, in both mice and humans, makes them fat and highly sedentary while also increasing their diabetes risk. MUFA and SFA had no such effects and, in fact, the study authors recommends promptly switching from PUFA to MUFA or even SFA (butter) in the diet. What I find particularly damning is the statement of the lead stud author that an exercise regimen without evaluation of dietary habits makes little sense. Namely, consuming PUFA may make any exercise attempts/benefits futile. Now, that is a message I want FDA and The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics to start running with!

2 links here

“…Sanjoy Ghosh, a professor at the University of British Columbia, has found that consuming large amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids (found in corn, sunflower, and similar oils) rather than monounsaturated fatty acids like those found in olive oil, makes people fat and lazy. The effects are particularly pronounced in girls and young women. Ghosh, working with a team of researchers and data analysts, showed that a diet high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) correlated with TV watching and other sedentary behaviors. PUFAs are commonly found in convenience foods like chips and cookies. No such correlation was found with the monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) in olive and avocado oils. Interestingly, consuming the saturated fats in meat and dairy products also did not lead to sedentary behavior, the researchers said.”

“…The results, Ghosh told reporters, show a clear connection to the consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and an increase in sedentary behavior. A significant correlation was shown between the sedentary behavior of the 11-year-old girls and PUFAs. In addition, the consumption of PUFAs was weakly associated with diabetes among adult women.”

“…The study, published in the PLOS One, link here research journal, follows a 2015 study by Ghosh and other scientists that consuming omega‑6 polyunsaturated fats, or n‑6 PUFA, is associated with sedentary behavior in mice. “I am not a dietitian nor a medical doctor, but all recent evidence points out switching to monounsaturated fats, and that even a saturated fat like butter might be healthier,” said Ghosh.”

link here

“…Previously, heart disease was linked to saturated fats — an idea that has become increasingly controversial in recent years. This thinking instigated the intentional removal of saturated fatty acids from most food supplies in favour of MUFA and PUFA. Currently, all fats in our ‘convenience’ foods like potato chips, energy bars, crackers or burgers use cooking oils like corn, sunflower and soybean and margarine — are rich in MUFAs and PUFAs, Ghosh said. “If someone is beginning an exercise program without taking a close look at the fats, especially PUFA they are consuming, or changing what they’re eating, then it might be doomed to failure,” he added.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-984.mp3" length="423380" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Nut consumption may cause diabetes even without obesity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=982</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=982</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:04:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=982

Such are the findings of this intriguing study, and I suspect the authors probably “massaged” the data a bit in order to avoid getting their study rejected by the peer-review committee. Cases of diabetes II without the presence of obesity are extremely rare, so the finding that nut consumption robustly increases diabetes risk and blood sugar levels, while reducing risk of obesity and dyslipidemia are very, very suspect to me. Well, I guess even the partially reliable results of this study would be sufficient for most readers to avoid nuts. Who wants to avoid obesity and dyslipidemia at the cost of getting diabetes!? And the likely culprit in those effects of nut consumption? You guessed it – it is PUFA once again.

2 links here

“…While nuts are often considered the healthiest snack to munch on and are packed with a number of health benefits, a recent study from Iran has noted that nut consumption might increase blood sugar levels in diabetics. However, nuts were found to lower the risk of obesity. In terms of dietary composition, nuts are high in…polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), and are good sources of vegetable protein.”

“…Based on the tertile of nuts consumption, cut-points and associations were evaluated between the thirds of nut intake. Compared with those in the first third, subjects in the last third were less likely to have hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and obesity, but more likely to have diabetes. ‘A greater intake of nuts was associated with a lower risk of dyslipidemia in the crude model’. “After adjustment for potential confounders, an inverse association for nut consumption and obesity, but the positive association for diabetes and nut intake was observed,” concluded the authors.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-982.mp3" length="360596" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA increases risks of skin cancers</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=980</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=980</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2020 19:48:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=980

As the study says – not total fat but its composition in the diet is what drives (skin) cancer risk. And as expected, PUFA “shines” once again. What is particular good about this study is that it exposes both omega-6 and omega-3 as cancer-promoting. Omega-3 has been the defense of last resort for modern nutritional “science” considering the mounting evidence exposing omega-6 being “essential” only for disease. You see, it is the ratio of omega-3/omega-6 that matters, dietitians/doctors say, because omega-3 is anti-inflammatory and balances the “controversial” inflammatory effects of omega-6. Well, apparently not so when it comes to cancer. Both are about equally bad, and none of the other fats (SFA/MUFA) were associated with the deadly melanoma. In other words, only PUFA promotes melanoma. Other gems from the study include the findings that SFA/MUFA and cholesterol are likely protective against the various cancer types. So much for the recommendation to eat PUFA in order to reduce cholesterol. Sure, it will work but it may give you skin cancer in the process.

link here

“…Higher omega-6 fat intake was associated with risks of SCC, BCC, and melanoma. Omega-3 fat intake was associated with risk of BCC, but not with SCC or melanoma. No other fats were associated with melanoma risk. The associations were similar in women and men and by other skin cancer risk factors.”

Link Found Between Skin Cancer Risk and High Polyunsaturated Fat Intake, link here

“…Results showed that a high intake of polyunsaturated fats — fats found in foods such as soybean, corn, and flax oil — increased the risk of SCC by 16% (P=.001) and BCC by 6% (P=.01). Higher intake levels of omega-6 fat were associated with melanoma, SCC, and BCC risk, and omega-3 fat intake was found to increase the risk of BCC, but not melanoma or SCC. Additionally, a higher intake of cholesterol was associated with a reduced risk of SCC and higher intake of monounsaturated fats was associated with a reduced risk of BCC. The authors concluded that “because there have been few experimental and epidemiologic studies of fat intake and skin cancer, our findings on certain types of fat and skin cancer need to be replicated and may motivate future studies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-980.mp3" length="618740" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA may drive obesity, insulin resistance, liver issues in diabetes II patients</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=978</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=978</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2020 19:32:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=978

Yet another study where the message is clear – there is nothing “essential” about the PUFA we are bombarded with from all directions be that diet, medical interventions, household products, etc. What makes this study particularly relevant is that PUFA ingestion actually is promoted as one of the healthiest ways to keep weight at bay, improve insulin resistance and protect the liver from various lifestyle assaults such as alcohol, hormonal treatments (e.g. birth control), pharma drugs, and sedentary lifestyle. Well, the findings of the study are pretty much the exact opposite of what the official recommendations are. In fact, the study authors suggest serum PUFA as a biomarker predictive of future metabolic abnormalities and indicative of the (low) quality of diet of patients. The main PUFA toxin identified by the study is known as DLGA and it is a metabolite of linoleic acid, link here.

link here

“…Conclusion A high serum DGLA level was associated with obesity, body fat accumulation, a high ALT level, and insulin resistance in patients with type 2 diabetes. The measurement of the serum PUFA levels may be useful for evaluating metabolic abnormalities and estimating the dietary habits of patients.”

link here

“…Results from a study1 published in Internal Medicine suggest that omega-6 fatty acids may contribute to fat accumulation and insulin resistance in patients with type 2 diabetes. Specifically, the researchers found that a high serum dihomo-γ-linolenic acid (DGLA), an omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid, was especially associated with obesity, body fat accumulation, and insulin resistance, in Japanese subjects with type 2 diabetes.”

“…Analysis indicated that a higher serum level of DGLA was associated with obesity, body fat accumulation, a high alanine amino transferase level, and insulin resistance. “These results suggest that an excessive intake of [omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids] is associated with obesity and its related metabolic abnormalities,” the researchers state. They add that there was no consistent correlation between the serum levels of omega-3 fatty acids and obesity-related parameters.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-978.mp3" length="470300" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High levels of DHT may reduce diabetes risk</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=976</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=976</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2020 19:19:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=976

The title says it all, as the study is quite clear. DHT “…was most consistently associated with a lower level of insulin resistance and lower risk of incident diabetes” in the words of the study’s lead author. The current darling of “aging/obese male” treatments – testosterone (T) – was not associated with lower insulin resistance and diabetes risk. The steroid carrier SHBG was also linked to lower risk but the relationship did not hold across all tests done, thus leaving only DHT as the likely metabolically beneficial steroid in males (at least in this study). The study authors think that their results can explain the contradictory results from other studies in regards to T and its role in diabesity. Some studies found protective, others negative, and still others null effects of T in this cluster of metabolic conditions. The authors think that measuring T does little good since DHT is the likely protective factor and studies assessing the role of androgens in diabesity should measure at least DHT or DHT and it precursor T, but never T only.

2 links here

“…“Among testosterone, [sex-hormone binding globulin] and dihydrotestosterone, we found that [dihydrotestosterone] was most consistently associated with a lower level of insulin resistance and lower risk of incident diabetes in older men,” Kenneth J. Mukamal, MD, MPH, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told Endocrine Today. Mukamal and colleagues evaluated data from the Cardiovascular Health Study on 852 men free of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in 1994 to determine the relationships between sex hormones, insulin resistance and incident diabetes. Homeostasis model of assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) was used to estimate insulin resistance, and the Gutt index was used to estimate insulin sensitivity, link here. Follow-up was conducted for a mean of 9.8 years. After adjustment for demographics, alcohol consumption, smoking status and BMI, SHBG and dihydrotestosterone were inversely associated with HOMA-IR (P = .01 for both). Better insulin sensitivity, initially (P = .01) and with mutual adjustment (P = .05), was related to SHBG. Better insulin sensitivity initially (P = .12) was related to dihydrotestosterone and was attenuated by 60% with mutual adjustment (P = .69), according to the researchers. Overall, there were 112 incident cases of diabetes, link here. Researchers observed no statistically significant relationship between free testosterone levels and the risk for diabetes. In initial models, the risk for diabetes was 21% lower with higher dihydrotestosterone levels (P = .009), the researchers wrote. “Because [dihydrotestosterone] is difficult to measure routinely, this isn’t quite ready for clinical use, but it may help to explain the confusing relationships between testosterone and diabetes found in earlier studies,” Mukamal told Endocrine Today. “Additional studies confirming these findings, particularly in younger men and women, who were not included in our study are needed.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-976.mp3" length="551756" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT may be vital for the morphogenesis of organism(s)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=974</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=974</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2020 21:19:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=974

As many of my readers know, the potent androgen DHT is one of the most vilified endogenous substances produced by the human body, second only to cholesterol. Aside from verbal vitriol published in mainstream scientific journals, this attitude of medicine towards DHT can also be estimated from the number of prescriptions for 5-alpha-reductase (5-AR) inhibitors such as the (in)famous finasteride/dutasteride (and less so androgen receptor antagonists such flutamine/bicalutamide) as those are the main pharmaceutical tools in the “war” against DHT. Those drugs are mostly prescribed to males and the number of prescriptions is in the top five prescribed drugs, behind only statins, PPI (anti-acid drigs), and blood pressure drugs. As a result of those prescriptions, there is a large and ever-growing number of males who experience long-term psychological and physiological decline despite the vehement denials by mainstream medicine and Big Pharma that those drugs are risky or cause any long-term issues. These long-term issues from using 5-AR inhibitors are collective known as post-finasteride syndrome (PFS), link here, and class-action lawsuits have already been launched against pharma companies for deliberately concealing the side effects of such drugs, which were apparently known even during their development.

Now, another study demonstrates the crucial role of DHT not only in psychological and sexual health but also the very developmental fields that maintain the structure of the organism and give a living being its unique shape and behavior (phenotype). The study below demonstrates that exposure of snails to the 5-AR inhibitors finasteride and dutasteride dramatically disrupted the development of the snail’s shape as well as the viability of its embryos. Exposure to either drug resulted in uncoiled (banana-shape) instead of spiral (ram horns) shell shapes. The concentrations of the two drugs used was rather low and easily achievable by commonly prescribed doses of those drugs. Exposure to a slew of other steroidogenic inhibitors, statins, mutagens, or anti-flammatory chemicals did NOT result in shell disruption. This suggests that the morphogenesis function is unique to DHT and other known beneficial steroids such as progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, etc are not involved (much) in maintaining the shape of an organism. This morphogenesis function of DHT is unrelated to sexual effects as the snails do not use DHT for sexual development/reproduction and do not express the androgen receptor (AR) (or any of the other steroid receptors for that matter). That means DHT has potent non-genomic (metabolic?) beneficial effects, through mechanisms which are just starting to be elucidated. What could those mechanisms be? Well, the study suggests that in other, similar types of snails, such disruption of shell shape is often caused by environmental stressors. In other words, DHT may be acting as a cardinal protector from such stressors or the 5-AR inhibitors are a potent type of such stressors. I think it is reasonable to suspect both are true until more is known.

link here

“…5-alpha-reductase (5αR) is the enzyme humans use to convert hormones needed to reproduce. Researchers turned off that same enzyme in developing snails and found their snails grew banana-shaped shells instead of spirals. “Normally they look like ramshorn shapes, very tightly curled,” said Dr Alice Baynes at Brunel University London. “But here they get very elongated, so something’s happening when we disrupt their 5αR”.  “We’re not sure if not having the enzyme stops the shells from curling, or if the curl isn’t starting at the right angle. The enzyme is probably converting something into a hormone, link here that helps shell patterning. They just get this really wide-open curl and when they keep growing for longer, their shells actually look like ring donuts.” In mammals, 5αR converts the male sex hormone testosterone into the stronger male sex hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT), an androgen which helps male development and reproduction. Snails and molluscs, like mussels and squid, also have the 5αR enzyme, link here. But research shows that snails do not use either testosterone or DHT for reproductive development. So scientists wanted to discover what snails do use these hormones for.”

“…In a study in Nature’s latest Scientific Reports, the team used the drug dutasteride – which treats enlarged prostates – to block 5αR enzymes in growing snail embryos.  “We found a surprising effect on snail shell development,” said Dr Baynes. “The snail embryos grow elongated ‘banana-shaped’ shells instead of tightly curled shells“.  “This disruption to shell shape is not what we might expect in a mammal or a fish, which would be reduced male characteristics or sperm production. Our findings indicate 5αR has an essential role in snails, link here and could lead to a better understanding of hormones and shell, link here development in molluscs.  It’s an interesting first step.”

link here

“…In four independent experiments, dutasteride (DUT) induced an elongated banana-shaped shell phenotype in a dose-dependent manner. The average minimum banana-shaped phenotype response (1% of embryos had banana-shaped shell phenotype) was observed at a dose of 10 µg/L, and the average maximum response (89% of embryos had banana-shaped shell phenotype) at the highest tested dose of 160 µg/L DUT. The banana-shaped shell phenotype became significantly elevated compared to the solvent control at 40 µg/L DUT (P < 0.0001) and higher concentrations (Fig. 4, link here). Finasteride (FIN) also induced the banana-shaped phenotype and its effects were also dose-dependent, although it was less potent than DUT, with the average (based on four independent experiments) minimum response (3% banana-shaped) at 300 µg/L and the maximum (82% banana-shaped) at 1520 µg/L (Fig. 4, link here). FIN significantly induced the banana-shaped phenotype at 450 µg/L FIN (P < 0.0001) and above. In both the DUT and FIN experiments, the number of embryos classed as ‘normal’ was inverse to the banana-shaped phenotype and was significantly reduced in a dose-dependent manner. The percentage of other malformations or embryos that died/did not develop remained stable across the experiments and there was no significant effect (P > 0.05) of DUT or FIN concentration for these endpoints.”

“…Eight other compounds, including three other pharmaceutical steroidogenic enzyme inhibitors (Galeterone (GAL); CYP17A1 inhibitor, Trilostane (TRI); 3β-HSD inhibitor, Atorvastatin (ATO); HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor), one 5β-reductase inhibitor (Chenodeoxycholic acid (ChenA)), a mutagen (Benzoquinoline (BENZO)), and an anti-inflammatory chemical (γ-linolenic acid (y-LIN) were tested in the embryonic B. glabrata assay to assess whether the banana-shaped phenotype was specific to 5αR inhibitors, or if it was a general enzyme-inhibition or toxicity effect. None of the other compounds tested elicited the banana-shaped phenotype (Supporting Information Table S4, link here)…Dorsomorphin (DORS) was included as it had previously been reported to induce ‘immature shell-shape’ or cone-shaped (non-coiling) phenotypes in the gastropod Lymnaea stagnalis (at 0.5 and 1 µM, depending on exposure window)47, link here. However, no banana-shaped phenotype or non-coiling embryos were observed in any of the DORSO concentrations we tested (Supporting information Table S3, link here)…In summary, none of the other compounds tested (pharmaceutical enzyme inhibitors or experimental chemicals) induced the banana-shaped phenotype in developing B. glabrata embryos (Supporting information Tables 3, link here). Only the potent pharmaceutical 5αR inhibitors elicited the developmental effect of shell malformation. Which suggests that the 5αR inhibitors were specifically impacting a particular enzyme vital to B. glabrata morphological development.”

“…To test whether the pharmaceutical 5αR inhibited phenotype was species-specific, a small experiment was conducted with a second freshwater gastropod species, Physella acuta. P. acuta embryos were developmentally exposed to solvent control, 100 and 200 µg/L DUT. This experiment induced strikingly similar results to B. glabrata, with 71.2 and 82.6% of the embryos developing the elongated banana-shaped phenotype in the 100 and 200 µg/L DUT respectively (Fig. 5, link here, Supporting information Table S5, link here). Both DUT doses tested produced significant induction (P < 0.0001) of banana-shaped snails compared to the solvent control, with the reciprocal reduction in normal shaped embryos. As seen with B. glabrata no significant effects of DUT dose were found for the number of non-specific malformations (P > 0.9999, P = 0.8770, respectively) or deaths (P = 0.9282, P > 0.9999, respectively).”

“…A number of gastropods, such as those within the Vermetidae50, link here and the Caecidae families51, link here produce shells that are elongated in shape compared to typical coiled gastropod shells. Variation in coiling can also be seen within freshwater gastropods, and there is some debate about whether these curious findings are distinct species or if the unusual shell growth is a sporadic aberrant phenotype52, link here. Recent investigations into a corkscrew-like shell of the typically planispiral-shaped Gyraulus sp., discovered in a remote Tibetan lake, suggest these phenotypes are the result of as-yet-unknown ecological stressor rather than speciation52, link here. ”

“…Here we demonstrate that pharmaceutical 5αR inhibitors induced a strong and highly reproducible phenotypic response in developing B. glabrata and P. acuta embryos that is not associated with toxicity. We have also confirmed that both 5αR homologues identified in B. glabrata are expressed during embryonic development and that antibodies raised against human 5αRs proteins are reactive in B. glabrata embryo extracts; this strongly suggests that pharmaceutical 5αR inhibitors could be acting on B. glabrata 5αR enzymes to cause this phenotypic disruption. In adult B. glabrata, 5αRs transcripts have been detected in mantle tissue32, link here. This is of note as molluscan shells are formed from secretory cells in the mantle21, link here, providing a possible link between 5αR and shell formation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-974.mp3" length="1490660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Luca Turin’s quantum theory of smell</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=971</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=971</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Apr 2020 16:59:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=971

Just a placeholder post for people who are not familiar with this topic. The topic of smell has come up in numerous interview with Ray Peat. His typical response is that the mechanism of smell is not well-known but he think the theories of Dr. Luca Turin, link here are a much better explanation than the reductionist key-lock receptor mechanism mainstream medicine uses to explain smell as well as every other biological concept or drug effect. The Turin Theory (TT), link here, as I like to call it, postulates that instead of key-receptor mechanism the different smell we are able to perceive from various molecules is due to their different molecular vibration frequencies. For example, an odorous molecule such as acetophenone (used in the study below) would smell differently depending on whether we smell the “regular” version of it or its isotope in which some of the hydrogen atoms in the molecule have been replaced by deuterium. The plain and deuterated versions have identical structures, but different molecular mass and as such different vibration frequencies. The TT postulates that vibrational patterns/frequencies, instead of plain molecular structure, are the true determinants of how a specific molecule would smell to a living organism that has a sense of smell. A neat theory indeed, and its correctness can probably be guessed by the fact that it is widely reviled by “traditional” biologists, chemists, biochemists and doctors due to its “woo” factor involving energy and vibration. There is one small human study from 2001 that demonstrated people can distinguish between the smell of benzaldehyde and its deuterated version, link here. In addition, there is also a more robust study listed below demonstrating fruit flies can also distinguish between the smell of regular and deuterated versions of acetophenone. The next steps for Dr. Turin’s team would be decoding the amino acid composition of the smell “receptor” in order to determine is there is an interaction between the vibrating molecules of the odorous molecules and specific amino acids making up the “receptor”. Here is a wild prediction of mine – molecules with pleasant odors will be discovered to interact with the glycine, link here residue of the smell “receptor”.

3 links here

“…How does a nose generate the signals that the brain registers as smell? The conventional theory says it’s down to the different shapes of smelly molecules. But fruit flies have now distinguished between two molecules with identical shapes, providing the first experimental evidence to support a controversial theory that the sense of smell can operate by detecting molecular vibrations. The noses of mammals, and the antennae of flies, are lined with different folded proteins that form pocket-shaped “receptors”. It has been generally assumed that a smell arises when an odour molecule slides into a receptor like a key in a lock, altering the receptor’s shape and triggering a cascade of chemical events that eventually reach the brain. But this “shape” theory has limitations. For one, it can’t easily explain why different molecules can have very similar smells, link here. In 1996, Luca Turin, a biophysicist now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed a solution. He revived a theory that the way a molecule vibrates can dictate it odour, and came up with a mechanism to explain how this might work. His idea was that electrons might only be able to pass across a receptor if it was bound to a molecule that vibrated at just the right frequency. Ordinarily, the energy needed for the electron to make this journey would be too great, but the right vibrational energy could prompt a quantum effect in which the electron “tunnels” through this energy barrier, and this would then be detected and registered as a particular smell (see diagram).”

“…Their team initially placed fruit flies in a simple maze that let them choose between two arms, one containing a fragrant chemical such as acetophenone, a common perfume ingredient, the other containing a deuterated version. If the flies were sensing odours using shape alone, they should not be able to tell the difference between the two. In fact, the researchers found that flies preferred ordinary acetophenone. They also showed a preference for ordinary versions of octanol and benzaldehyde over deuterated versions. The team also found they could use mild electric shocks to either reinforce or reverse this preference for non-deuterated molecules in general. This suggests the flies may be able to sense the vibrations characteristic of the bonds linking deuterium to carbon atoms.”

“…Turin sees the results as a “vindication” of his theory, at least in flies. “My theory was described as impossible physically, implausible biologically, not supported by evidence,” he says. “This is a clear indication that some component of fruit fly olfaction is sensing vibrations.” The experiment “really supports this idea that fruit flies have the ability to be quantum detectors”, says Gregg Roman, link here of the University of Houston in Texas, whose lab just started studying isotope detection in fruit flies.”

“…Experiments are planned in another type of mammal. Several years ago John Sagebiel of the University of Nevada, Reno and Mary Cablk, link here of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, found that their pet dog, an Australian shepherd, seemed to be able to tell apart ordinary acetophenone and a deuterated version. They are now applying for funding to see if these informal results hold up in other dogs.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-971.mp3" length="1018436" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking PUFA supply halts brain cancer (glioblastoma)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=968</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=968</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Apr 2020 18:32:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=968

Just a few days ago I posted about the strikingly therapeutic effects of vitamin B3 in brain cancer (glioblastoma), link here. The mechanism of action of niacin in that study was deemed to be boosting of the immune system’s ability to recognize the tumor and destroy it. In that post I opined that I suspect niacin’s inhibition of fatty acid oxidation (FAO) to probably be a more reasonable explanation. A day after I made that post I stumbled upon the study below, which corroborates my statement from the niacin post. The study below demonstrates once again the crucial role of PUFA in cancer growth and also provides further evidence that inhibiting either the supply of PUFA to orits oxidation by the tumor, link here, can completely halt the growth of various cancer types. In other words, despite oncology’s insistence to the contrary, the evidence accumulated so far strongly suggests that tumors of various organs are essentially the same disease of metabolic origin and as such can be reliably treated through metabolic interventions. More specifically, the study below found that glioblastoma (and likely all other types of cancer) depends on PUFA not only for fuel but also for the stability of lysosomes membranes inside its cells. PUFA is transported inside cells by a so-called fatty-acid binding protein (FABP) 3, also known as mammary-derived growth inhibitor (MDGI). The study demonstrated that MDGI is induced by hypoxia and its expression is much higher in glioblastoma cells compared to normal cells, and that higher expression reliably predicts mortality. Inhibition of that protein leads to PUFA deficiency inside cancer cells and thus to degradation of the lysosomes’ membranes – an effect known clinically as lysosomal membrane permeabilization (LMP). Increasing LMP by MGDI blockade or by administering drugs known to have an LMP effect through another mechanism blocked tumor growth. The LMP inhibitor used by the study was clemastine, link here– an old antihistamine with a high-rate of side effects, which may limit its applicability as cancer treatment. However, the study also mentions a number of other drugs with similar therapeutic effects, link here and those drugs include the well-known tricyclics such as nortryptiline, amitryptiline and, of course, cyproheptadine.

Brain Cancer Halted in Mice Using Antihistamine Drug, link here

“…Studies in mice by researchers in Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland have shown how the most aggressive form of brain cancer, glioblastoma, can be stopped in its tracks by an antihistamine drug that triggers a form of cell death caused by leaky lysosomes. Headed by Pirjo Laakkonen, PhD, at the University of Helsinki, the studies demonstrated an association between the fatty acid binding protein mammary-derived growth inhibitor (MDGI) and poorer prognosis in patients. MDGI shuttles fatty acids into cells, and the team’s studies found that blocking the MDGI gene in glioblastoma cell lines disrupted fatty acid transport into cells and incorporation into lysosomal membranes, which compromised lysosomal membrane composition and integrity, resulting in lysosomal membrane permeabilization (LMP). LMP is an intracellular cell death pathway triggered when the lysosome contents leak into the cell. The team’s subsequent studies in cell lines and in live mice found that treatment with clemastine, an older type of antihistamine that can cross the blood-brain barrier, effectively mirrored the effects of MDGI, triggering LMP and causing glioblastoma cell death, without harming healthy cells.”

“…Their work had previously identified MDGI as a glioma biomarker of invasive gliomas, and linked increased expression of the protein with more severe glioma grade. Also known as heart-type fatty acid binding protein (FABP3), MDGI is a fatty acid binding protein (FABP) that is involved in the uptake of fatty acids, and particularly polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) uptake into glioma cells.”

“…The team’s studies in cell lines indicated that blocking MDGI prevented the transport of fatty acids—and particularly linoleic acid—into the cells for incorporation into lysosomal membranes. Linoleic acid is an essential PUFA, which cells can’t be made from scratch, and so it has to be obtained from food and imported into cells. Without MDGI the glioma cells couldn’t access enough linoleic acid, which was then lacking from the lysosomal membranes. “Our lipid analyses show that MDGI silencing impaired trafficking of polyunsaturated fatty acids (FA) into cells, resulting in significant alterations in the lipid composition of lysosomal membranes.” Without the correct fatty acid composition the lysosomal membranes become more permeable, and the enzymes and other components they leaked out into the cell cytoplasm, triggering cell death.”

“…Previous work had suggested that some classes of antihistamines can trigger LMP, so the team carried out a series of tests to evaluate clemastine, a first generation cationic amphiphilic (CAD) antihistamine, on both cultured human glioblastoma cells and on the growth of human glioblastoma xenografts in experimental mice. Encouragingly, the drug effectively killed the lab-grown tumor cells at doses that weren’t harmful to any other cell type tested. “We observed a dramatic loss of the glioblastoma cell viability that was associated with the loss of lysosomal membrane integrity at doses that did not affect the proliferation or viability of several normal cells in vitro,” the investigators wrote. Clemastine treatment also blocked tumor growth and increased survival in the tumor-bearing mice. “When we evaluated the preclinical efficacy of clemastine, the survival of animals bearing intracranial glioblastoma xenografts was significantly prolonged compared to controls due to the eradication of invasive glioma cells.” Interestingly, the authors pointed out, a prior study had shown that the use of CAD antihistamines was linked with significantly reduced all-cause mortality among cancer patients when compared with non-CAD antihistamines.”

link here

“…We have previously identified mammary‐derived growth inhibitor (MDGI) as a glioma biomarker expressed in tumour cells and their associated vasculature (Hyvönen et al, 2014, link here). MDGI, also known as heart‐type fatty acid binding protein (H‐FABP/FABP3), belongs to the family of fatty acid binding proteins (FABPs) that facilitate the intracellular transport of fatty acids (Glatz & van der Vusse, 1996, link here)….In glioma cells, MDGI has been found to mediate lipid droplet formation and fatty acid uptake (Bensaad et al, 2014, link here) with the highest binding affinities to polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs; Richieri et al, 2000, link here).”

“…Surprisingly, MDGI silencing compromised spheroid growth and glioma cell survival via lysosomal membrane permeabilization (LMP). Lipid analyses of the lysosomal membranes showed that linoleic acid (18:2n‐6), the major PUFA in the cell culture medium, was inefficiently incorporated into lysosomal phospholipids in MDGI‐silenced cells. This led to biased molecular species composition of the phospholipids, in conjunction with reduced degree of lysosomal ceramide unsaturation. In addition, we show that glioma cells were more sensitive than normal cells to an LMP‐inducing drug, the antihistamine clemastine, in vitro, and that clemastine treatment eradicated the invasive glioma cells in vivo. Our results suggest that MDGI expression is crucial for glioma cell viability and an important regulator of lysosomal integrity. The vulnerability of invasive glioma cells to lysosomal membrane destabilization opens new opportunities for LMP‐inducing drugs as a promising treatment option.”

“…MDGI silencing dramatically compromised the viability of patient‐derived glioblastoma cells in vitro and impaired neoplastic initiation in vivo, while its overexpression promoted tumour invasiveness…CADs, lysosomotropic agents such as the blood‐brain‐barrier permeable antihistamines, cholesterol‐lowering agents, or tricyclic antidepressants, could also trigger LMP in patient‐derived glioma cells…Treatment of mice bearing patient‐derived glioblastomas with the antihistamine clemastine induced LMP in the tumour, and prevented glioblastoma cell invasion into the brain.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-968.mp3" length="1136420" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fatty acid oxidation (FAO) inhibition abrogates triple-negative breast cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=965</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=965</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Apr 2020 17:25:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=965

The evidence for the role of excessive FAO in cancer keeps piling on. As many of my readers know, triple-negative breast cancer is one of the most difficult to treat and its proportion of total breast cancer cases has been steadily rising over the last 20 years. When a patient is diagnosed with such a cancer, oncologists waste no time and put the patient on an aggressive regimen of radiation and cytotoxic chemotherapy as they think this is the patient’s only chance of surviving it. Unlike the more common hormone-sensitive cancers, oncologists do not believe this type of cancer can be slowed down or controlled to the point where the patient lives with it as a form of chronic disease without it becoming life-threatening. Needless to say, metabolic therapies are not even mentioned to the patient simply because oncology does not believe such therapies stand any chance at treating the cancer. Well, the study below begs to disagree. It not only highlights yet again the crucial role of FAO in cancer initiation/progression but it also demonstrates that simply inhibiting FAO can fully stop the cancer growth and ensure 100% survival (see Fig. 4e/4f below). The FAO drug used in the study was etomoxir, link here and it is a so-called CPT1 inhibitor. The HED of etomoxir that abrogated the cancer was about 5mg/kg daily. Unfortunately, etomoxir is severely hepatotoxic and as such its clinical use has been halted, so it would be next to impossible to obtains it for human use or convince a doctor to prescribe it. Fortunately, niacinamide is also a CPT1 inhibitor, link here and can achieve the same effects as etomoxir with a human dose of about 7mg/kg. Needless to say, other FAO inhibitors like aspirin, Mildronate/Meldonium, ethyl pyruvate + ethyl acetoacetate, progesterone, etc can also be used as interventions and will likely be highly synergistic with niacinamide.

link here

“…The observed reduction in bioenergetic metabolism prompted us to analyze the effects of prolonged FAO inhibition on the growth of MO-TNBC tumors. We performed orthotopic transfer of MTB-TOM or HCI-002 PDX tumors into the mammary fat pad of FVB/N or NOD/SCID mice, respectively. We administered 40 mg/kg etomoxir or vehicle by IP injection daily for 14 d to MTB-TOM allograft-bearing mice. We administered 40 or 60 mg/kg etomoxir or vehicle by IP injection daily for 21 d to HCI-002 PDX-bearing mice. Etomoxir treatment resulted in significant attenuation of tumor growth in both models, and a significant extension of the time to ethical endpoint in the PDX model (Fig. 4d,e, link here). In contrast, we observed no significant attenuation in tumor growth of the HCI-009 MYClow TNBC PDX tumors treated with 40 mg/kg etomoxir (Fig. 4a,f, link here).

“…Although etomoxir treatment of cultured MO-TNBC cell lines had a marked effect on cell proliferation without appreciable changes in cell death (Supplementary Fig. 3, link here), in vivo FAO inhibition resulted in a concurrent decrease in proliferation and an increase in apoptosis of MO-TNBC (Fig. 4g, link here). These results are consistent with FAO playing a more critical role for in vivo tumor development. Elevated MYC expression was recently discovered to be a defining factor of TNBC1, link here,2, link here. The present study is amongst the first to investigate the role of MYC in TNBC metabolism in vivo. Here we show that MO-TNBC upregulates FAO, that TNBC is sensitive to FAO inhibition in a MYC-dependent manner, and that FAO inhibition abrogates growth of distinct models of MO-TNBC in vitro and in vivo. This work supports a critical role for FAO in TNBC7, link here,8, link here, and identifies a dependency on MYC as a marker for this phenotype. Inhibition of FAO demands further investigation as a therapeutic strategy for MO-TNBC.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-965.mp3" length="948428" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Giving COVID-19 patients pure oxygen (O2) may be brain-toxic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=962</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=962</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2020 23:44:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=962

The current coronavirus epidemic is bringing a number of pervasive but concealed issue to the forefront. One of those issues is the peculiar choice of mainstream medicine for treating critically ill people with pure oxygen (O2) through breathing masks. The rationale behind the therapy is the apparent hypoxia seen in many/most critically ill COVID-19 patients. Yet, giving people pure oxygen has repeatedly been shown to not improve outcomes, especially in respiratory emergencies such as COVID-19/SARS. The most likely reason is the so-called Bohr effect, link here – i.e. the oxygenation of tissues is proportional to the amount of CO2 they produce. In other words, while the presence of oxygen is crucial in order for hemoglobin to pick it up from the air a patient breathes and carry it around the body, that oxygen will only get released into tissues that have sufficient amount of CO2 in them and, consequently, in the ambient blood. If an organ/tissue does not produce/release sufficient CO2 it will not get sufficient oxygen released from hemoglobin, thus resulting in functional hypoxia despite the presence of plenty of oxygen carried by hemoglobin in the blood. The levels of CO2 depend on metabolic rate and are inversely correlated to levels of lactate. Thus, if a patient has low metabolic rate and/or elevated lactate levels they will experience functional hypoxia even if they get put on to 100% oxygen (O2) breathing therapy.  What’s worse, according to the study below putting a metabolically compromised (high lactate, low CO2) patient on pure oxygen therapy trigger a massive stress response through the HPA axis and interferes with the heart’s ability to maintain proper circulation and deliver hemoglobin/oxygen to the tissues that need it most. In other words, putting metabolically compromised patients on 100% O2 therapy has the exact opposite effects of what is being intended – i.e. it drastically exacerbates hypoxia instead of relieving it. Is there a remedy? Yes, yes, there is and it is called CO2. As the study aptly demonstrates adding just 5% CO2 to the O2 therapy prevents those stressful/hypoxic effects and allows oxygen to be properly delivered and used by the hypoxic organs/tissues/cells.

How is this relevant for COVID-19? Well, the vast majority of critically ill COVID-19 patients have various degrees of lactic acidosis and as such are critically low on CO2. Thus, giving them pure O2 therapy is one of the worst possible interventions medicine can provide, and likely hastens their demise. Lactic acidosis is often lethal and the pure O2 therapy worsens it, while CO2 treats it. If only those ER doctors remember what they learned in medical school and physiology classes…

2 links here

“…Yet growing research suggests that inhaling straight oxygen can actually harm the brain. For the first time, a new UCLA brain-imaging study reveals why. Published in the May 22 edition of Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine, the findings fly in the face of national guidelines for medical practice and recommend a new approach adding carbon dioxide to the gas mix to preserve brain function in patients…“For decades, the medical community has championed 100 percent oxygen as the gold standard for resuscitation. But no one has reported what happens inside our brains when we inhale pure oxygen,” explained Ronald Harper, distinguished professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “What we discovered adds to a compelling body of evidence for modifying a widely practiced standard of care in the United States….”When the children inhaled pure oxygen, their breathing quickened, resulting in the rapid exhalation of carbon dioxide from their bodies,” said coauthor Paul Macey, associate researcher in neurobiology. “The drop in carbon dioxide narrowed their blood vessels, preventing oxygen from reaching tissue in the brain and heart….All this activity awakened the hypothalamus, which regulates heart rate and hormonal outflow. Activation of the hypothalamus triggered a cascade of harmful reactions and released chemicals that can injure the brain and heart…. “Several brain areas responded to 100 percent oxygen by kicking the hypothalamus into overdrive,” explained Harper. “The hypothalamus overreacted by dumping a massive flood of hormones and neurotransmitters into the bloodstream. These chemicals interfere with the heart’s ability to pump blood and deliver oxygen — the opposite effect you want when you’re trying to resuscitate someone.” When the children inhaled the carbon dioxide-oxygen mix, the hypothalamus’ hyperactivity vanished from the MRI scan. “Adding carbon dioxide to the oxygen relaxed the blood vessels, allowed oxygen to reach the heart and brain, calmed the hypothalamus and slowed the release of dangerous chemicals,” said Macey. “Pure oxygen kindles the match that fuels a forest fire of harm to the body,” said Harper. “But a little whiff of carbon dioxide makes it all go away…Based on their findings, the researchers strongly encourage healthcare providers to add carbon dioxide to oxygen dispensation, especially when resuscitating infants or administering oxygen for more than a few minutes. The new direction could hold particular implications for patients of stroke, heart attack, carbon monoxide poisoning and any long-term oxygen therapy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-962.mp3" length="1318244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SSRI drugs strikingly toxic for fetal brain, may cause autism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=960</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=960</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2020 23:13:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=960

As many of my readers know, autism rates keep rising and even mainstream medicine has acknowledged that the condition is not genetic. There is significant evidence implicating serotonin overload during pregnancy, yet despite this solid and causative link doctors continue prescribing serotonergic (SSRI) drugs to pregnant women claiming that there is no evidence those drugs are directly harmful for the mother or the child. Well, the study below begs to disagree. It found that paroxetine, one of the most commonly prescribed SSRI drugs, is strikingly toxic to the fetal brain and was capable of inhibiting brain development by up to 75%. Perhaps even more importantly, these effects were seen in therapeutic concentrations known to be achieved easily with commonly prescribed doses and in fact the toxicity was seen even at low concentrations that may be achievable by simply drinking tap water. That’s right, tap water. Many people are unaware that the municipal water treatment plants are not capable of removing most of the prescriptions drugs from sewage or ground water sources. As such, most people drinking tap water, or ingesting commercial beverages/food are chronically exposed to a variety of prescription drugs and studies have found that even very low concentrations are sufficient to trigger scary/lethal effects, link here. According to the authors of the new study, the effects seen in their research are fully explainable by the “dysregulation” (the currently fashionable way to label “excess”) in serotonin signaling caused by SSRI drugs such as paroxetine, and as such SSRI use during pregnancy is a plausible explanation for the increase in autism rates. Now, if we can only get the FDA to listen and take action…

link here

Researchers Find Paroxetine Harms Developing Brain, link here

“…Researchers, using a lab-grown miniature of the developing human brain, found that the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) paroxetine had numerous neurotoxic effects. They write that their results demonstrate the harmful effects of SSRIs on the developing fetus. “These results identify paroxetine as a potential human developmental neurotoxicant, and suggest that the contraindication for its use should be evaluated and possibly extended far beyond the first trimester of pregnancy.” The researchers were led by David Pamies at the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) at Johns Hopkins and published their results in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience.”

“…SSRIs can cross the placental barrier in pregnant women, but their effects on fetal development are still somewhat unknown. Scores of studies, link here have demonstrated harmful effects on the fetus, including increased risk of cardiac problems, link here, birth defects, link here, and an increased prevalence of autism, link here, in children who were exposed to SSRIs in the womb. However, SSRIs are still commonly used by pregnant women.”

“…The researchers grew two different batches of BrainSpheres and tested two different levels of paroxetine against them. Both levels of paroxetine (20 ng/mL and 60 ng/mL) were considered normal, “therapeutic” levels of the drug. Although the higher level appeared to cause more damage in one of the batches of BrainSpheres, both levels were consistently associated with neurotoxic effects compared to the control BrainSpheres (which did not receive paroxetine). Paroxetine did not appear to directly kill neurons. Instead, it damaged a number of elements of neuronal connection. According to the researchers: “At therapeutic blood concentrations, which lie between 20 and 60 ng/ml, Paroxetine led to an 80% decrease in the expression of synaptic markers, a 60% decrease in neurite outgrowth and a 40–75% decrease in the overall oligodendrocyte cell population, compared to controls.” The harms observed in this study are consistent with the disruption of the serotonin system in the developing brain and could explain the increased prevalence of autism in children whose mothers took an SSRI. They write that these findings should inform further statements about the dangers of paroxetine in pregnant women.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-960.mp3" length="858596" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin B3 remarkably therapeutic for brain cancer (glioblastoma)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=958</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=958</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2020 20:04:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=958

As many of my readers know, brain cancer rates have been steadily rising over the last 3 decades and are now a leading cause of death in both elderly and also very young people. The most common (and deadly) form of brain cancer is glioblastoma multiforme, link here and the average life expectancy after diagnosis is just 12-15 months. Late Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy died from this type of cancer. Well, as the study below demonstrates, vitamin B3 may be a surprisingly potent and safe treatment option. A relatively low-dose (HED of 7 mg/kg daily) stopped tumor growth and not only prolonged survival almost 2-fold, but one of the mice in the niacin group survived the entire study despite still having a well-formed tumor in its brain. Moreover, niacin was without side effects while the “standard of care” drug temozolomide (TMZ) used for comparison was so toxic that it killed most of the mice receiving it and the study had to be redone with a lower dose. Conveniently, those deaths caused by TMZ were not included in the study. Oncologists engage in the same practice to hide iatrogenic deaths due to toxic drugs and not to the actual cancer. However, even in the presence of this blatant statistical manipulation to make TMZ look less bad, the niacin-treated group still survived longer than the TMZ one (after it was re-tested with a lower dose). The study used niacin but niacinamide works just as well, and the proposed mechanism of action was immune system activation. I, personally, do not buy this explanation as a main mechanism of action. IMHO vitamin B3’s known effects on inhibiting lipolysis (and even fatty acid oxidation in higher doses) and promoting the oxidation of glucose are probably more important for inhibiting the tumor growth and prolonging survival. Well, let’s not split hairs here but rather celebrate the continuous stream of evidence demonstrating that cheap, widely available substances are capable of treating deadly diseases, for which medicine can do little more other than invent toxic drugs that kill more often than help.

link here

“…For the mice with BT048 implants, temozolomide (40 mg/kg) was given orally 5 days/week for 3 consecutive weeks with a break of 2 days of no injection between weeks. This was unexpectedly toxic, resulting in six deaths in the first week of temozolomide treatment, and the mice that died were excluded from analyses.”

“…In conclusion, we propose the immune-stimulatory activity of niacin, a common vitamin that could be rapidly translated into clinical use, as an adjunctive treatment for patients with GBM. The subverted myeloid immunity in other cancers could also be conducive for niacin intervention, but this remains to be determined in future studies.”

link here

“…Glioblastoma is the most commonly diagnosed, link here – and most lethal – kind of malignant brain tumor, link here. Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy can help slow their growth, but the tumor almost always returns. Roughly 18,000 people, link here in the United States receive a diagnosis of glioblastoma every year; the median survival prognosis is less than fifteen months. Efforts so far to come up with a more effective treatment have been, by and large, unsuccessful. But a new study, link here in mice offers hope for a diagnosis that, at present, is often a death sentence. In the study, a common vitamin called niacin, link here, also known as vitamin B3, was seen to reprogram immune cells in the brain, in turn boosting the cell’s ability to fight off the tumor. The research was published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The finding that niacin had the ability to rejuvenate the immune system so as to suppress brain cancer was “REMARKABLE”, says study author V. Wee Yong, link here, a professor at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine.”

“…Using mouse models that had been implanted with BTICs derived from human patients to form glioblastomas, they tested how effective niacin worked in vivo. When they treated the mice with the vitamin compound, they found that the growth of the brain tumor was brought under control, and the lifespan of the mice greatly extended.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-958.mp3" length="1029956" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may treat fibrotic eye disease and prevent vision loss</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=956</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=956</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2020 18:09:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=956

A great new study that demonstrated nicotinamide (NAM) may also have anti-fibrotic effects in addition to its positive effects on maintaining favorable NAD/NADH ratio and redox balance. The mechanism of action of NAM was inhibition of the TGF-β, link here pathway and overall reduction of inflammation. This anti-fibrotic effect of NAM may explain its well-known protective effects on liver, brain, heart, gonads, etc and ability to prevent fibrotic changes as a result of toxicity from alcohol, PUFA, endocrine disruptors,  pharma drugs, or even elevated lipolysis from chronic stress. The authors themselves are also of the opinion that NAM may have application to a lot more than just eye disease. This study also corroborates other recent findings in regards to NAM and prevention of glaucoma, link here in aged individuals.

2 links here

“…Researchers have found that Vitamin B3 may slow down fibrotic eye diseases and mitigate vision loss or blindness. Nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3, can inhibit aggressive cell transformations during wound healing and may be key to the development of therapies to treat fibrotic eye diseases that impair vision, according to a new Mount Sinai study published in Stem Cell Reports. The findings apply to a condition in which cells in the retinal pigment epithelium, a layer that supports the retina, transform and develop the characteristics of more aggressive cells known as mesenchymal cells. The condition can be triggered by aging, diabetes, or injury to the eye. This causes development of fibrous membranes that resemble damaging cells found in retinal scar tissue, and can lead to retinal detachment. The researchers found that nicotinamide not only inhibits these cell transformations, but can also reverse that cell transition and slow down the development of eye diseases that may lead to vision loss or blindness. When applying nicotinamide as a therapy to human adult cells in vitro, the researchers found that the vitamin B derivative slowed down the aggressive cellular transformation and could promote the opposite transition, from mesenchymal to epithelial, helping to preserve the cell’s original identity. “This is the first study that shows how nicotinamide can inhibit invasive wound healing, but also reverse the development of membranes associated with scar tissue,” said Timothy Blenkinsop, PhD, co-lead investigator of the study and Assistant Professor of Cell, Developmental and Regenerative Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “This discovery helps evolve our understanding of wound healing, as well as good inflammation versus bad inflammation. Good inflammation essentially nudges the system into a regenerative response, while bad inflammation can create harmful scar tissue formation. This is an exciting time to understand how this compound can be used to treat and reverse not only fibrotic diseases of the retina but other diseases too.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-956.mp3" length="451796" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The government knows stress causes “learned helplessness” / depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=952</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=952</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2020 17:43:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=952

I have had discussions with numerous psychiatrists about the concept of “learned helplessness” (LH) and its relation to chronic stress. All of those doctors flatly denied that LH is a concept relevant to humans and argued that it is nothing more than a useful model of depression in animal studies, designed to evaluate animal exposure to chronic stress. Those doctors were even more agitated in their denials of applicability of LH or chronic stress to human mental health disorders due to the purported significant genetic component of such diseases, which makes stress alone an insufficient explanation/cause. Well, apparently the model of human psychiatric conditions used by government agencies for military purposes is quite different from the one used by civilian psychiatrists. As the articles below demonstrate, the government designed the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (aka torture) with the explicit goal of inducing a state of LH/depression in the enemy combatants through the application of inescapable, chronic stress. The military and intelligence agencies apparently use theories of human mental health that do not even mention genetics and to the best of my knowledge none of the enemy combatants were genetically profiled for vulnerability to depression. The irony of the story is that some of the most secretive, and closed-minded organizations in the world are apparently a lot more open and progressive in regards to environmental influence on mental health than are the authors of the(in)famous DSM., link here

link here

“…“Learned helplessness” in this context was the theory that detainees might become passive and depressed in response to adverse or uncontrollable events, and would thus cooperate and provide information.”

link here

“…Mitchell and Jessen were interested in applying the psychological concept of “learned helplessness” to interrogation. Psychologist Martin Seligman pioneered studies on the phenomenon in experiments he conducted on dogs in the 1960s. Seligman used the term “learned helplessness” to describe the state of utter passivity prompted by a series of negative events that leads subjects to believe there is nothing they can do to escape their suffering. Seligman conducted his experiments by administering electric shocks to different groups of dogs. When given the chance to avoid their pain, the dogs in his experiment that had been able to escape the shocks did so quickly. Those that couldn’t stop the pain didn’t even try to avoid it, even when given the opportunity. They believed they had no ability to control their fates. They had learned helplessness.”

“…Mitchell and Jessen posited that this theory could be applied to interrogation — that harsh measures could be used to break any resistance of al-Qaida captives by inducing a state of learned helplessness. Torture would “shape compliance” with interrogation, Mitchell and Jessen theorized. Once detainees were abused to the point of learned helplessness, resistance would crumble, and the detainees would divulge information that they might otherwise withhold.”

link here

“…The psychologists relied heavily on experiments done by American psychologist Martin Seligman, link here in the 1970s on learned helplessness, link here.[87], link here In these experiments caged dogs were exposed to severe electric shocks in a random way in order to completely break their will to resist.[87], link here Mitchell and Jessen applied this idea to the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, link here.[71], link here[87], link here Many of the interrogation techniques used in the SERE program, including waterboarding, cold cell, long-time standing, and sleep deprivation were previously considered illegal under U.S. and international law and treaties at the time of Abu Zubaydah’s capture.[88], link here[89], link here“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-952.mp3" length="739700" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>COVID-19/SARS may be due simply to serum PUFA and its peroxidation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=945</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=945</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2020 19:00:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=945

During the last podcast with Danny Roddy, Dr. Peat and I discussed the role of elevated free fatty acids (FFA) in the blood as facilitators of viral infection. I opined that the hydrophilic nature of PUFA circulating in the blood increases the permeability of cells and allows for easier viral entry inside the cell and subsequent infection. In yet another example of synchronicity, link here, one of the regular readers of my blog sent me two studies that not only corroborate the discussion with Dr. Peat but suggest that the core of the respiratory illness (COVID-19/SARS) associated with the coronavirus may be driven primarily by elevated PUFA in the blood and its peroxidation products. The virus certainly plays a facilitating role as its presence in the bloodstream triggers the stress response (HPA axis) and thus elevation of FFA. However, whether one will develop COVID-19/SARS or not seems largely determined by the amount of PUFA in the person’s blood and its peroxidation levels (mostly determined by vitamin E status). Thus, once again we have a situation where the focus of medicine is on the wrong “enemy”. In this case, a virus – a complicated and elusive foe – while in reality it is not the virus itself, but metabolic status and lipid composition of fat stores that are the true determinants if a patient will develop COVID-19/SARS or not. As the study demonstrated, the ARDS (another name for COVID-19/SARS) was successfully treated with lisofylline – a compound that lowers serum PUFA levels. These findings suggest a rather simple and safe way to prevent COVID-SARS development (and potentially treat it) even in vulnerable patients – administration of niacinamide to control excessive lipolysis (and thus keep FFA blood levels low) and vitamin E to keep lipid peroxidation under control. In addition, it just so happens that vitamin E has already been demonstrated to improve immunity, link here in the elderly and prevent/treat pneumonia, link here. Throwing in a bit of aspirin would likely further increase the benefits as aspirin has a direct anti-viral effect, in addition to its anti-lipolytic and FAO blocking effects.

link here

“…During intensive care treatment, in patients with ARDS …there was usually an increase in plasma 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal, link here values, one of its specific peroxidation products, suggestive of severe oxidative stress leading to molecular damage to lipids.”

link here

“…MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We measured the serum free fatty acid concentrations in the 39 healthy control subjects, and then we prospectively examined the serum free fatty acid concentrations in 30 age-matched patients in samples obtained within 24 hrs from the onset of sepsis, trauma, or development of ARDS. We then prospectively studied eight septic, at-risk patients who were matched for age, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II scores, Multiple Organ Failure index, and Glasgow Coma Score, in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, pilot study. These patients included four patients who received no treatment and four patients who received lisofylline, a compound that decreases serum unsaturated free fatty acids and diminishes acute lung injury in animals caused by sepsis and/or trauma. The calculated ratios of serum free fatty acids (Le., the ratio of C18 unsaturated fatty acids linoleate and oleate to fully saturated palmitate, C16:0) increased and predicted the development of ARDS in at-risk patients. Serum samples from the 30 patients, obtained within 24 hrs from the onset of sepsis, trauma, or development of ARDS, had significantly increased mean acyl chain ratios (1.42 +/- 0.35 [SD]) compared with healthy control subjects (0.86 +/- 0.25; p < .01). Sera from 13 patients with sepsis or trauma who did not develop ARDS (group A [at-risk, non-pre-ARDS]) also had increased acyl ratios (1.23 +/- 0.27) compared with sera from healthy control subjects (0.86 +/- 0.25; p < .01). Sera from seven patients who subsequently developed ARDS (group B [at-risk, pre-ARDS]) had higher acyl ratios (1.70 +/- 0.21) than group A at-risk patients who did not develop ARDS (1.23 +/- 0.27; p < .01) or healthy control subjects (0.86 +/- 0.25; p < .001). Sera from ten group C patients with ARDS at the time of admission to the study had the highest acyl ratios (1.80 +/- 0.75), which exceeded values for healthy control subjects (p < .001) and group A at-risk patients without ARDS (p = .01), but were not significantly different then group B at-risk, pre-ARDS patients (p = .17). Prospective study of eight septic, at-risk patients demonstrated significantly (p < .05) increased serum acyl ratios in the four untreated patients (findings consistent with the first study) but a significantly (p = .02) reduced ratio in the four at-risk patients treated with lisofyline. CONCLUSIONS: Increases in unsaturated serum acyl chain ratios differentiate between healthy and seriously iII patients, and identify those patients likely to develop ARDS. Thus, the serum acyl ratio may not only prospectively identify and facilitate the assessment of new treatments in patients at highest risk for developing ARDS, but may also lead to new insights about the pathogenesis of ARDS.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-945.mp3" length="1105676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin – a new osteoporosis drug</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=941</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=941</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 22 Mar 2020 20:02:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=941

A study published almost a decade ago made the bold claim that aspirin may be a novel drug for osteoporosis.

link here

However, the study did not get much traction and was in fact mocked by medical professionals since mainstream medicine considered the known anti-estrogenic effects of aspirin to be incompatible with a bone-protective effect. The study below may finally change this attitude as it provides direct evidence from human trials for the benefits of aspirin.

2 links here

“…The researchers conducted a systematic review and exploratory meta-analysis of observational studies. This study was published in the British Medical Journal, link here. A total of 12 studies were included in the meta-analysis, Electronic searches of MEDLINE and Embase, and a manual search of bibliographies was undertaken for studies published to 28 March 2018. Studies were included if participants were men or women aged ≥18 years; the exposure of interest was aspirin.Risk of bias was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklists for observational studies. Following are the findings: 1) Data pooled from six studies that included 511 390 people indicated aspirin was associated with a 17% lower odds of any fracture. 2) Aspirin was associated with a higher total hip BMD for women and men. 3) No meta-analyses were undertaken for femoral neck or total body BMD as there were too few studies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-941.mp3" length="247724" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin antagonists as treatment for COVID-19 / SARS</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=939</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=939</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 22 Mar 2020 19:53:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=939

A quick post to let my Twitter followers know that serotonin is implicated in viral diseases as well. I have posted in the past about the therapeutic effects of cyproheptadine and Benadryl on severe viral infections such as Ebola, HIV or even rabies. The serotonin antagonist below has already been observed to treat SARS caused by viruses such as the coronavirus. Dr. Peat mentioned it in several of his recent interviews as potential treatment of COVID-19. While cinanserin is not available commercially, the benefits of this chemical seem to stem from its 5-HT2 antagonism so any other chemical with similar pharmacological profile should have similar effects.

link here

“…Cinanserin (INN, link here) is a 5-HT2A, link here and 5-HT2C receptor, link here antagonist, link here which was discovered in the 1960s.[1], link hereThe molecule is an inhibitor of the 3C-like protease of SARS-coronavirus (SARS, link here).[2], link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-939.mp3" length="550220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin may be a cause of hemorrhoids and tinnitus</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=937</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=937</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 22 Mar 2020 19:45:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=937

The two conditions mentioned in the title of the post are quite pervasive among Western societies and their cause is, of course, officially labelled as unknown. While medicine claims that no treatment exists for tinnitus the only approved curative treatment for hemorrhoids is surgery and like any other surgical treatment of varicose veins, the problems usually recurs within a year or two after the surgery.

While researching serotonin antagonists I stumbled upon the chemicals below. The reason I am posting on this topic is not so much to generate interest in these specific chemicals but to emphasize yet again the major role serotonin plays in two very common and “mysterious” conditions for which mainstream medicine has no cure or even a theory of their origins. If serotonin is indeed the cause of these issues then OTC chemicals like famotidine and/or Benadryl may be quite helpful and easy to obtain for most patients, and if those do not help then more powerful serotonin antagonists such as cyproheptadine may be considered.

3 links here

“…Iferanserin (INN, link here; VEN-309) is a drug, link here which acts as a selective, link here 5-HT2A receptor, link here antagonist, link here.[1], link here It is under development as an intra-rectal, link here formulation, link here for the treatment of hemorrhoid disease, link here, and as of February 2012, is in phase IIb, link here clinical trials, link here.[1], link here“

link here

“…CONCLUSION: Compared with placebo, intra-anal iferanserin was associated with significantly reduced patient-reported severity of bleeding and itching and physician-assessed bleeding frequency in these patients presenting with grade I, II, and/or III internal hemorrhoids and bleeding at 5 sites in Germany. ”

Btw, the serotonin antagonist below is actually an approved drug in several European and Asian countries, so if patients have an open-minded doctor who is willing to deal with foreign pharmacies they may be able to obtain it through official channels. The anti-cramping effect is also interesting and this may explain why it is used by some athletes as an ergogenic aid.

link here

“…Naftidrofuryl is marketed under a variety of trade names, link here, including Artocoron, Azunaftil, Di-Actane, Dusodril, Enelbin, Frilix, Gevatran, Iridus, Iridux, Luctor, Nafti, Naftilong, Naftodril, Nafoxal, Praxilene, Sodipryl retard, and Vascuprax. Historically, it has been used to treat sudden idiopathic, link here hearing loss and acute tinnitus, link here.[4], link hereNaftidrofuryl may be effective for relieving the pain of muscle cramps, link here.[5]”, link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-937.mp3" length="913724" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Studies in animals often use stressful methods that produce invalid results</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=934</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=934</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2020 17:47:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=934

Back in 2012, when I first started writing about the benefits of steroids such as pregnenolone, I often got emails quoting the study below as evidence that pregnenolone and related steroids amplify instead of mitigate the stress response (HPA axis).

link here

“…We chose IP injection to assess neuroactive steroids effects at the central level because steroids can easily cross the blood–brain barrier due to their lipophilic nature (Baulieu, 1998).”

That same study was sent multiple times to Peat and his response always was that the results are invalid due to the stressful method of steroid administration. This response puzzled a lot of people since the study above used intraperitoneal (IP) injections as the administration method, and this happens to be one of the standards for steroid administration in animal studies. They kept asking Peat for evidence that this method is stressful but to my knowledge he never provided evidence to back his claim and this was labelled as one of the contrarian examples on pregnenolone for which Peat had no answer. However, as I mentioned on several of Danny’s recent podcasts, recently I started doing my own animal studies and as such the issue of administration route of steroids came up several times. The lab performing the studies on my behalf kept insisting that IP injections should not be used and their preferred method was oral/gastric gavage or if that fails then subcutaneous injections. So, I asked the lab to send me justification for their claims and they sent me the following links below. As it turns out, IP injection is indeed considered one of the most stressful methods for chronic administration and special justifications need to be produced in order for ethical boards to approve the study design. Come to think of it, this should not really be a surprise for anybody. The human equivalent of an IP injection is having a foot-long needle inserted deep into the abdomen, having it sit there for a minute or two and then deliver the experimental chemical. And now imagine this being done on a daily basis for several months! People who have had repeated abdominal injections for rabies (a procedure very similar to IP injections) can tell you it’s brutally painful, and some of them even develop anxiety disorders after the experience. So, no wonder rodents and other animals undergoing chronic IP injections with any chemical often respond with HPA overactivation, which usually invalidates the conclusions the study reached about the studied chemical(s). So, the moral of the story is (once again) that reading abstracts is next to useless and the key to understanding a study lies in reading the “Materials & Methods” section.

[21] link here

link here

“…PCPA has proved useful after intraperitoneal (i.p.) treatments lasting from 2-5 days 16–18 to 4-8 weeks. Nevertheless, repeated i.p. administration is a mildly aversive procedure that can cause cumulative irritant effect[19]. Certainly, noxious stimuli like i.p. injections are perceived as localized and sharp pain given that the parietal peritoneum receives innervation by both somatic and visceral afferent nerves[20]. Although injections are done by experienced and trained professionals, needle damage, and potentially injections into abdominal organs cannot be disregarded[21]. According to the FELASA Working group on Severity classification, the severity of a procedure is determined by the degree of pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm expected to be experienced by an individual animal during the course of the procedure22. Whereas single parenteral injections are considered as mild, techniques like repeated i.p. injections in which animals are likely to experience long-lasting mild pain, correspond to the moderate category[23]. Indeed, ethical committees require rigorousjustification for repeated i.p. injections[21]. For these reasons, and in order to refine common protocols used in mice, we designed a protocol to replace i.p. injections for voluntary oral consumption of PCPA in mice.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-934.mp3" length="1153292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:34</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone safe and effective in big human trial for back pain</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=932</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=932</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2020 16:06:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=932

About 2 years ago I posted about a study that suggested pregnenolone may relieve low-back pain in humans, link here. At the time, a bigger human clinical trial was planned and the results of that trial were just released. Pregnenolone, slowly titrated to reach doses of 500mg/day, was found to be safe and effective for low-back pain in military veterans when administered for just 4 weeks. While most of the cases of back pain in the new study were “idiopathic” (read: endotoxin-driven) the good news is that pregnenolone was found to be effective even for pain induced by radiation treatments (usually for cancer). And since I mentioned endotoxin, my guess is that the mechanism of action of pregnenolone is probably blockade of the endotoxin family of receptors (TLR group), link here. Progesterone has similar effects, link here and probably all other pregnanes as well. I suspect that many of the benefits of cortisol and other synthetic glucocorticoids may actually be due to their TLR blocking effects, since most of those steroids are also pregnanes. If that is the case, mainstream medicine can achieve the same benefits by using pregnenolone/progesterone instead of the glucocorticoids as the latter have serious side effects and can cause a number of chronic conditions such as depression and diabetes, as well as accelerate growth of already present tumors.

2 links here

“…Use of pregnenolone resulted in a significant reduction in pain intensity rating in veterans with chronic low back pain, link here after 4 weeks of treatment, findings of a recent randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial showed. Jennifer Naylor, PhD, and a team of North Carolina-based colleagues aimed to learn whether adjunctive pregnenolone had a therapeutic for treatment of Iraq- and Afghanistan-era US military veterans with chronic low back pain. The findings suggested that the steroid hormone may be safe and effective for the treatment of such pain. Naylor, from the Durham VA Health Care System, enrolled 94 veterans aged 18-65 years old with chronic low back pain who got treated at the Durham VA Health Care System over 6 weeks. To be eligible, the pain needed to exist most days for >6 months and a weekly mean intensity score of >4 at baseline. The pain needed to be restricted to thoracic vertebrae 6 or below or associated with radiation to the proximal part of the lower limb.”

“…Pain scores significantly improved in the pregnenolone group compared with placebo (Least-square mean [LSM] change in pain diary rating, -.56; P=.02; LSM change in pain recall, -.7; P=.01). Interference scores for work (LSM change, .71; P=.04) and activity (LSM change, .71; P=.03) were also improved in the pregnenolone group. Pregnenolone could serve as a safe and effective treatment to alleviate chronic low back pain in veterans, the study authors concluded.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-932.mp3" length="678356" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Restoring metabolism prevents / reverses “permanent” nerve damage</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=930</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=930</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2020 22:27:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=930

Yet another study demonstrating the crucial role cellular metabolism plays in pathological processes. While most of the posts on this blog deal with beneficial effects of improving OXPHOS on various chronic diseases, the study below demonstrates that the same may be true in acute pathologies such as traumatic injury, especially in tissues with high energy demands such as the nervous system. More importantly, the study may help overthrow an old dogma, which even the general populations seems to be strongly indoctrinated in – i.e. that once injured, nerve cells cannot recover, and as such nerve damage is permanent. Well, according to this new study, there is nothing permanent about nerve injury and the lack of regeneration is nothing but a sign of depleted energy reserves (as a result of the injury) and/or malfunctioning mitochondria. Simply improving energy production in the nerve cells (axons) prevented most of the “permanent” damage caused by the injury as well as the subsequent paralysis. And how was the energy production improved? The scientists gave the animals creatine, in an HED of about 10g-15g daily for a period of 8 weeks. The mechanism of action of creatine was through increasing ATP levels. I wonder what the results would have been if instead of only creatine the scientists had given a combination of substances all proven to enhance recovery from traumatic nerve injury – creatine, inosine, progesterone, pregnenolone, niacinamide, thyroid, magnesium, etc. There may have been no nerve damage at all, and thus full recovery.

link here

“…Nerve fibers or axons of the central nervous system (CNS) in adult mammals regenerate poorly after injury, often leading to permanent neurological impairments. Axonal regeneration is a highly energetic process, suggesting that enhancing energy metabolism could be a way to facilitate axonal regrowth after injury. By using three CNS injury mouse models, this collaborative study by the Xu and Sheng groups reveals that enhancing the transport of mitochondria, the power supply of the cell, by deleting one of its protein anchors rescues injury-induced cellular damage and facilitates axonal regeneration and its connections while restoring motor functions. Administration of the bioenergetic compound creatine also facilitates regeneration. This study establishes that mitochondrial dysfunction and energy deficits contribute to poor CNS axonal regeneration and that supplementing the energy supply can be ameliorative.”

“…We aimed to directly target energy metabolism with creatine, an FDA approved blood-brain-barrier permeable ergogenic compound that rapidly regenerates ATP from ADP independent of mitochondrial transport (Tarnopolsky and Beal, 2001). Creatine monohydrate (2 g/kg) was administered to mice via gavage twice per day up to 8 wpi (Figure 7A). In vertebrates, creatine is converted into phosphocreatine for rapid ATP generation by creatine kinase (CK); CK activity correlates with creatine content and energy demands in tissue (Wyss and Kaddurah-Daouk, 2000).”

link here

“…When the spinal cord is injured, the damaged nerve fibers — called axons — are normally incapable of regrowth, leading to permanent loss of function. Considerable research has been done to find ways to promote the regeneration of axons following injury. Results of a study performed in mice and published in Cell Metabolism suggests that increasing energy supply within these injured spinal cord nerves could help promote axon regrowth and restore some motor functions. The study was a collaboration between the National Institutes of Health and the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.”

“…We are the first to show that spinal cord injury results in an energy crisis that is intrinsically linked to the limited ability of damaged axons to regenerate,” said Zu-Hang Sheng, Ph.D., senior principal investigator at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and a co-senior author of the study. Like gasoline for a car engine, the cells of the body use a chemical compound called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for fuel. Much of this ATP is made by cellular power plants called mitochondria. In spinal cord nerves, mitochondria can be found along the axons. When axons are injured, the nearby mitochondria are often damaged as well, impairing ATP production in injured nerves. “Nerve repair requires a significant amount of energy,” said Dr. Sheng. “Our hypothesis is that damage to mitochondria following injury severely limits the available ATP, and this energy crisis is what prevents the regrowth and repair of injured axons.” Adding to the problem is the fact that, in adult nerves, mitochondria are anchored in place within axons. This forces damaged mitochondria to remain in place while making it difficult to replace them, thus accelerating a local energy crisis in injured axons.”

“…To test the energy crisis model further, mice were given creatine, a bioenergetic compound that enhances the formation of ATP. Both control and knockout mice that were fed creatine showed increased axon regrowth following injury compared to mice fed saline instead. More robust nerve regrowth was seen in the knockout mice that got the creatine. “We were very encouraged by these results,” said Dr. Sheng. “The regeneration that we see in our knockout mice is very significant, and these findings support our hypothesis that an energy deficiency is holding back the ability of both central and peripheral nervous systems to repair after injury.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-930.mp3" length="750140" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Restoring energy production in immune cells is therapeutic in cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=927</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=927</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2020 21:04:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=927

The title of the popular press article is kind of the reverse of mine – i.e. cancer cells evade treatment by blocking energy production in immune cells (T-cells). However, my title still holds since the actual study did show that restoring energy production in T-cells restores the effectiveness of immune-boosting therapies for cancer. Either way, the energetic/metabolic deficiency in cancer is once again on full display. The authors did try to identify the molecule(s) released by tumors that results in inhibition of T-cell mitochondrial function but were unsuccessful. However, they do opine that it is probably a metabolite associated with tumor cells and they ruled out purines as well as protein-based molecules released by the tumor. Well, that leaves very few options for the identity of the immunosuppressive factor. It can be either a metabolite of glucose (such as lactate) of fatty acids themselves (NEFA/FFA), as both of these metabolites are elevated in cancer cells. Well, considering the well-known immunosuppressive effects of both, then the answer, at least to me, is rather obvious.

link here

“…A small molecule that inhibits energy production in immune T-cells allows some tumours to escape treatment with an immunotherapy called PD-1 blockade therapy, says a study in mice published today in eLife…”We found that some human cancer cells release immunosuppressive molecules that inhibit the activity of energy-producing mitochondria in T-cells,” Kumar explains. Treating the mice with a mitochondria-boosting compound reversed this effect in the immune-suppressing tumour.”

link here

“…We found that CD8+ T cells from responsive (MC38 and GL261) tumor-bearing hosts had significantly higher basal respiration, maximal respiration, spare respiratory capacity (SRC), and ATP turnover by PD-1 blockade, which was not observed in unresponsive (B16 and LLC) tumor-bearing hosts (Figure 2A). Similar results were obtained in mice on the BALB/c background (Supplementary Figure S3B). In addition, mitochondrial superoxide production (MitoSox) and Cellular ROS (CellRos) in CD8+ TIL were increased by PD-1 blockade therapy only in responsive tumor-bearing mice (Figure 2B and C). Together, increased activity in CD8+ T cells by PD-1 blockade in responsive tumor-bearing mice parallels with their activation status of mitochondria.”

“…In addition, different parameters of mitochondrial activation such as cellular ROS and mitochondrial potential were significantly inhibited by the LLC supernatant compared with the B16 and GL261 supernatants (Figure 6C). The OCR and the extracellular acidification rate (ECAR), a parameter for glycolytic function, were severely reduced in CD8+ T cells cultured for 48 hours in the presence of LLC supernatants compared with those from B16 and GL261 (Figure 6D and E). Similar suppressive activities were observed by supernatants from BALB/c background tumor CT26 (Supplementary Figure S5D). These results indicate that the immunosuppressive factors released from SIP-positive tumors inhibit the mitochondrial function and proliferation of CD8+ T cells.”

“…Since SIP reduced the mitochondrial activity, we examined whether mitochondria activation drug combination can reverse the immune suppression by SIP-positive tumors. As bezafibrate activates mitochondria and synergizes with PD-1 blockade therapy, we first tested whether bezafibrate can reverse the suppression of mitochondrial function and proliferation caused by suppressive factors from the LLC culture supernatants in vitro (Chowdhury et al., 2018). Proliferation and mitochondrial function were regained significantly when bezafibrate was used along with culture supernatant (Figure 7A). Encouraged with these in vitro results, we performed PD-1 blockade combinatorial therapy with bezafibrate for LLC tumor-bearing hosts (Figure 7B). We found that the tumor-killing effect by the PD-1 blockade was enhanced and mouse survival was increased in the combination therapy (Figure 7C). Of note is the fact that the combinatorial treatment could not rescue the B16-bearing host (Figure 7C). We observed similar results in tumors on the BALB/c background. The survival of SIP-positive CT26-bearing hosts was improved with the combinatorial therapy with bezafibrate (Supplementary Figure S7). In summary, the SIP effects of unresponsive tumors were partially rescued by a mitochondrial activation chemical, bezafibrate in vitro and in vivo.”

“…Since the tumor-derived soluble suppressive factor(s) are small, non-protein molecules with a size less than 3 kDa, we tested whether known candidates such as adenosine, Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and kynurenine show similar activities. However, the suppressive tumors did not express the significant level of related enzymes including CD39, CD73, COX-2, mPGES1 and IDO (Supplementary Figure S6).”

“…Small molecules with less than 3 kDa size which is released from SIP263 positive tumors appear to attenuate mitochondria-mediated energy metabolism in T cells. We rule out the known factors such as suppressive cytokines, adenosine, Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and kynurenine. Tumor cells show dysregulated cellular metabolism and the metabolic products often induce immune suppression (Deberardinis, 2008; Munn & Mellor, 2013; Vazquez et al., 2016)…Other metabolites could be candidates, which are derived from tumor’s metabolic activity.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-927.mp3" length="557180" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin C and Immuno-Oncology</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=925</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=925</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2020 20:33:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=925

Just posting this to keep my readers aware that after mocking Linus Pauling for half a century mainstream medicine now seems eager to embrace his therapies of cancer using high-doe vitamin C. Unfortunately, it appears even staff writers at ScienceMag are unaware that therapies with vitamin C have already been proven effective and one of them is now even FDA-approved. Namely, the drug Apatone, link here, which I have posted about in the past. Well, slowly but surely medicine will do 180 degree turn.

link here

“…Linus Pauling was a fearsomely great scientist who is remembered by the general public for his advocacy of megadoses of Vitamin C, a favorite topic of his later in life. Infectious disease, cancer: Pauling advised gram amounts of ascorbic acid and had a lot of theorizing to offer about why that was beneficial. So while his scientific legacy is (among other things) his work on chemical bonding, on genetically-based disease and the concept of molecular biology in general, and plenty of lesser-known deeds such as encouraging the earliest NMR studies of organic compounds, his legacy in the wider world involves increased vitamin sales and the association of Vitamin C in particular with the treatment of disease.”

“…Here’s a new paper, link here from a team in Italy that suggests that these effects have to do with immuno-oncology, and that the combination of i.v. ascorbate and immunomodulators might be quite useful. Vitamin C only showed effects in mouse tumor models when the animals had a fully competent immune system. Narrowing down, its beneficial effects appear to depend on T-cell pathways: antibodies to CD4 or CD8, for example, took things back to baseline tumor development. But on the other hand, the combination of Vitamin C with anti-PD1 and/or anti-CTLA-4 antibodies was noticeably more effective. This appears to be independent of the pro-oxidative damage mechanism mentioned above, as well as of the reported effects of high-dose ascorbate on iron metabolism.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-925.mp3" length="261740" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Asthma is driven by endotoxin and its receptors (TLR4, TLR5)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=920</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=920</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Mar 2020 18:13:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=920

Yet another study demonstrating the crucial role of the endotoxin/LPS (and its sentinel receptors) in a chronic idiopathic condition – in this case asthma. The cause of asthma is, as usual, officially claimed to be unknown but it is known that asthma can be exacerbated by environmental pollution (even though a causal relationship is flatly denied). The exact mechanism through which those pollutant trigger chronic inflammation and acute asthma attacks also remains unknown.

The study below demonstrates that asthma attacks are driven by endotoxin (LPS) activation of TLR4, and more specifically by synergistic interaction between TLR5 and TLR4. As it turns out, the bacterial sentinel receptor TLR5, link here, a close relative of TLR4, controls the level of activation of TLR4 by endotoxin (LPS) and the subsequent inflammatory response, which drives the course of asthma. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that TLR5 can be activated by environmental pollutants and not just endotoxin (LPS). Then, the activated TLR5 can activate TLR4 even in the absence of bacteria and/or its endotoxin (LPS), or primary TLR4 activation. According to the study, people without a functional TLR5 did not exprience an asthma attack when exposed to an air pollutant. This suggests that the TLR family of receptors have a much broader sensitivity than previously thought (e.g. not just to bacteria) and as such asthma can be caused/exacerbated by something as simple/mainstream as poor quality air. And by poor quality air, I do not mean living next to a coal power plant. The study found that pollutants capable of activating TLR5 are found in the air of the average home. It also suggests that for many people with unexpected, rapid development of asthma or sudden asthma attack, compromised digestion could very well be the “mysterious” cause. This means that asthma could be controlled by antibiotics and/or TLR4/TLR5 antagonists, which is already (under)utilized clinically in the form of the TLR4 antagonist ketotifen, link here – a close structural analog of cyproheptadine. In fact, the entire class of tricyclic antidepressants seems to have TLR antagonist properties, link here, and as such can be utilized accordingly. The tetracycline antibiotics are not only capable of controlling the bacteria whose endotoxin (LPS) activates TLR4/TLR5, but are also direct antagonists of those receptors. I believe minocycline is the most potent TLR antagonist but the rest of the tetracycline family is also quite effective in that regards.

2 links here

“…Immune cells in the lung help guard against infections. On the surface of these cells are proteins called TLR receptors that recognize dangerous molecules or DNA from disease-causing microbes such as bacteria. When the immune cells detect these invaders, the TLR receptors spring into action and trigger an inflammatory response to destroy the microbes. This inflammation usually helps the lung clear infections. But it can also be harmful and damage the lung, for example when inflammation is caused by non-infectious substances such as pollutants in the atmosphere. There are several TLR receptors that each recognize a specific molecule. In 2010, researchers showed that the receptor TLR4 is responsible for causing inflammation in the lung after exposure to pollution. Another receptor called TLR5 also helps activate the immune response in the lung. But it was unclear whether this receptor also plays a role in pollution-linked lung damage. Now, Hussain, Johnson, Sciurba et al. – including one of the researchers involved in the 2010 study – have investigated the role of TLR5 in immune cells from the lungs of humans and mice. The experiments showed that TLR5 works together with TLR4 and helps trigger an inflammatory response to both pollutants and bacteria. Hussain et al. found that people lacking a working TLR5 receptor (which make up 3–10% of the population) are less likely to experience lung inflammation when exposed to pollution or bacterial proteins that activate TLR4. These findings suggest that people without TLR5 may be protected from pollution-induced lung injury. Further research into the role of TLR5 could help develop genetic tests for identifying people who are more sensitive to damage from pollution. This information could then be used to determine the likelihood of a patient experiencing certain lung diseases.”

link here

“…In addition to allowing humans and animals to breathe, lungs also play a role in the immune response and are heavily affected by external conditions. The lungs are constantly exposed to the environment and are susceptible to inflammatory diseases, like asthma, which are influenced by substances in the air. In two newly published papers, a team led by NIEHS scientists described how environmental exposures promote and worsen asthma. The mechanism involves the immune pathway of a protein called toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5). More than 26 million Americans have asthma, link here, so the findings may have important implications for easing the severity of the disease.”

“…Researchers used an NIEHS-funded study group of healthy individuals (see top sidebar) who were exposed to ozone concentrations similar to an Air Quality Index, link here alert level of orange or red. Participants’ lungs responded by producing airway inflammation, but the study found individuals who lacked a functional TLR5 receptor had much less lung inflammation. Team members found a similar result when blood cells from participants in the NIEHS Environmental Polymorphisms Registry, link here (EPR), a North Carolina DNA bank used to find environmental determinants of human disease, were exposed to a common bacterial component called endotoxin. The second paper, published in Lung, link here on Feb. 14, went a step further and concluded that the activator of the TLR5 pathway is found not only in pollutants, but also in homes. The researchers examined EPR participants with asthma rather than healthy individuals. They noticed that those with a nonfunctional TLR5 experienced less asthma symptoms. The team also confirmed in a mouse study that activating TLR5 promoted worsening of asthma.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-920.mp3" length="1334588" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Stress (cortisol) can cause ANY autoimmune condition by disrupting gut barrier</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=912</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=912</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2020 02:04:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=912

A great new study that is not afraid to point out the paradox between mainstream medicine’s claims of beneficial effects of cortisol and the reality of “autoimmune” conditions more often than not being associated with elevated levels of CRH, ACTH and cortisol. The role of CRH as a causative factor in a number of chronic conditions, including multiple sclerosis (MS) is already recognized.

link here

“…Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) is a 41-amino acid peptide derived from a 196-amino acid preprohormone. CRH is secreted by the paraventricular nucleus, link here (PVN) of the hypothalamus, link here in response to stress, link here. Increased CRH production has been observed to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease, link here and major depression, link here,[6], link here and autosomal recessive hypothalamic corticotropin deficiency has multiple and potentially fatal metabolic consequences including hypoglycemia, link here.[5], link here“

“…In the short term, CRH can suppress appetite, increase subjective feelings of anxiety, and perform other functions like boosting attention. Although the distal action of CRH is immunosuppression via the action of cortisol, CRH itself can actually heighten inflammation, a process being investigated in multiple sclerosis, link here research.[8], link here

However, the role of cortisol as a causative factor in autoimmune conditions is vehemently denied by the medical profession. In fact, cortisol remains a core treatment protocol for many of those conditions and if any discussion about its role in autoimmune conditions arises it is invariably its purported deficiency instead of excess that dominates the discussion. Yet, indirect evidence for cortisol’s pathological role in autoimmune conditions has been accumulating for decades. For example, it is well-known that rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, etc are all characterized by low circulating levels of DHEA(S), and sometimes testosterone (T). One of links below even discusses the success of DHEA supplementation as a therapy for lupus, and considering DHEA’s role as one of the main glucocorticoid antagonists in the organism it is hard to argue that does not implicate cortisol as a pathological factor in that condition. Progesterone, pregnenolone, T, and DHT are all within the group of steroids with anti-cortisol effects and a drop in the levels of any of them contributes to a relative increase in glucocorticoid signalling.

3 links here

Considering the strong inverse correlation between cortisol and DHEA/T, it would be quite plausible to suspect relative excess of glucocorticoid signalling in those conditions even if the actual cortisol levels are within range since it is the DHEA/cortisol and T/cortisol ratios that matter, not the absolute levels of each steroid. And speaking of DHEA/cortisol and T/cortisol ratios, recent studies have implicated a drop in those ratios as a causative factor in “mood” disorders such post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

High cortisol and low testosterone likely drive PTSD, link here

PTSD is perhaps the prime example of a condition driven exclusively by stress, and mainstream medicine does not deny that even though the dogma is still that there needs to be genetic susceptibility in order for a person to develop PTSD, and that stress alone cannot do it. This is why the study below is such a great find because it demonstrates that people with PTSD have a dramatically higher chance of developing an autoimmune condition shortly after a PTSD diagnosis. The study also makes it quite clear that the link is causative and that, even without experiencing the stress/trauma required for a PTSD diagnosis, any person under chronic stress is at similar risk. The proposed mechanism is disrupted gut barrier and the resulting endotoxin (LPS) and bacterial translocation into the bloodstream, which triggers a chronic low-grade inflammatory reaction. As I have posted in the past, it is now known that if the endotoxin/LPS and bacteria accumulate in sufficient amounts into specific organ/tissue this can lead to accelerated tissue breakdown to the point that the immune system starts to produce antibodies specific for the cellular debris of those organs/tissues. Once that happens, the person would typically be diagnosed with an autoimmune condition for that specific organ/tissue and cortisol injection/infusions will be initiated to control the acute phase before the person is put on some sort of chronic immunosuppressive treatment such as Humira. Yet, cortisol contributes further to tissue breakdown and this leads to an even more intense immune response later on, often needing higher corisol doses upon subsequent treatments. This vicious circles continues indefinitely and it is highly unlikely that the person would get better with such line of treatment. Hundred of studies have confirmed that while cortisol helps suppress the immune response in the short run, as soon as it is withdrawn this leads to exacerbation of “autoimmune” symptoms and the disease course accelerates. Back in the 1970s studies found that patients with MS treated exclusively with cortisol (the main form of therapy at the time other than methotrexate) deteriorated much faster even though the symptoms of their “relapse” were milder due to treatment with cortisol. These patients often died 10+ years earlier compared to their untreated peers. Interestingly enough, the same mechanism of endotoxin/LPS and bacterial translocation into the blood and accumulation in specific organs has been demonstrated in a number of lethal cancers such as pancreatic, lung, esophageal, etc and antibiotics have been found to be quite therapeutic. So, for those who think an autoimmune condition is nothing to worry about, please keep in mind that the risk is not limited to immune disorders.

In summary, stress is a prime cause of chronic conditions and, as Selye often said, should be respected. Often, something as simple as progesterone, link here, aspirin, link here, or niacinamide, link here can break the vicious circle and allow the body to recover, provided, of course, the initial stressor is no longer present.

4 links here

“…A recent study (Boggs Bookwalter et al., 2020) finds that people suffering from PTSD, link here may be at increased risk of developing autoimmune diseases. These findings support a growing body of evidence showing a link between PTSD, stress, link here, and physical health. In a previous study, for example, Song et al., (2018) analyzed more than 100,000 people who were diagnosed with stress-related symptoms. They found that, after a year, people who had a diagnosis of stress-related symptoms were significantly more likely to develop an autoimmune condition than those who did not.”

“…The current study examined the link between PTSD and the risk of developing an autoimmune condition (rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, inflammatory bowel diseases, and multiple sclerosis) in U.S. active-duty personnel. Participants in the study were enrolled in the Millennium study cohort, which investigated health effects associated with military service (2001, 2004, 2007, 2011). From the Millennium cohort, about 120,572 who were serving in active duty (when completing the baseline survey) and were not diagnosed with prior autoimmune conditions were enrolled in this study…The authors found that U.S. personnel who were on active duty with a history of PTSD were associated with an increased risk of selected autoimmune conditions (with a time duration between baseline and follow up averaging five years) Additionally, there was an approximately 60 percent increased risk for developing autoimmune diseases for personnel with a history of PTSD relative to those without a history of PTSD (p. 3).”

“…The authors conclude that biological changes that take place in the body of individuals with PTSD—and possibly those with high levels of stress—impact the immune system through enhanced inflammation, activated genes, link here, and accelerated emergence of immune cells (p. 6). All of these together, they propose, indicate an association of PTSD and stress with autoimmune conditions that were similar for both survivors of combat and survivors of physical or sexual trauma…One result is damage to the lining of the gut, often called “leaky gut.” In a weakened condition, the intestinal walls of the gut no longer provide an impermeable barrier between the teeming microbiome within and the rest of the body. Toxins and bacteria may penetrate intestinal walls and enter the bloodstream. This triggers a reaction of the immune system, including inflammation. Inflammation can cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to the brain—and this is when many mental health symptoms appear to emerge. In some individuals, inflammation triggers an overreaction in the body’s immune response. The body mistakenly begins attacking itself. Such a response can lead to an autoimmune disease. After a misdirected autoimmune response has been triggered once, inflammation will be triggered in the future in response to even small amounts of whatever initially triggered the response. Viruses, infections, environmental toxins, stress, and trauma can trigger a renewed inflammatory response at any time. Werbner et al (2019) suggested that stress causes changes in the activity of the gut. These changes trigger immune responses from the body that can include an inflammation “attack” of the body against itself.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-912.mp3" length="1001180" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High-salt diet strongly inhibits cancer growth</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=909</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=909</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 28 Feb 2020 19:53:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=909

I am posting this study mostly as a response to the hostile exchanges I have had with doctors over what they claimed was “irresponsible” promotion of high salt intake. While these discussions mostly revolved around CVD, I also made claims that increased sodium intake would be protective for cancer as well. Needless to say, this statement did not go well with the MDs. The standard medical response was that sodium depletion instead of sodium supplementation is much more likely to be therapeutic. So, hopefully, they will take the study below more seriously. It demonstrated that a daily salt intake in the range of 30g-40g strongly inhibited (50%+) growth of several different tumor types. This quantity of salt amounts to about 2 tablespoons daily. While it is certainly not a small amount of salt and it would likely make any doctor go berserk and prescribe diuretics, much higher quantities of salt were prescribed to and consumed by soldiers during both WWI and WWII. The doctors back then were well aware of the protective effects of salt in conditions of severe stress and increased risk of infection (from suppressed immunity). The study below corroborates the latter part of the rationale and demonstrates that the anti-tumor effects of salt were driven by its immune-boosting effects.

link here

“…To examine the effects of HSD on cancer development we used the B16F10 syngeneic melanoma transplantation model. This poorly immunogenic tumor model (29, link here, 30, link here) was chosen to analyze possible immune activating effects of a HSD in mice. We first applied a protocol previously used in models of hypertension and autoimmunity by pre-feeding mice with a 4% NaCl containing chow and 1% NaCl in the drinking water compared to a control diet before tumor inoculation (Figure 1A, link here) (1, link here, 4, link here). Of note, HSD fed mice showed a significantly inhibited tumor growth in the B16 tumor model (Figure 1B, link here). Delayed tumor outgrowth was evident as early as day 11 post-injection (p.i.), leading to significant differences in tumor size between both groups at day 13 p.i. and at the day of sacrifice (day 15–17 p.i.) (Figures 1B,C, link here). This effect seemed to be specific for the dietary regimens, since besides water intake no other confounders like e.g., general appearance, weight gain, and food intake were different (Supplementary Figure 1, link here and data not shown) nor was there a direct effect of high sodium concentrations (additional 40 mM NaCl) on tumor cell viability during in vitro culture nor any effect of mannitol as an osmolyte control (Supplementary Figure 2, link here). The NaCl concentrations used in vitro are comparable to the in vivo situation in high salt fed animals (24, link here, 25, link here). Only at concentrations much higher than 40 mM NaCl high salt conditions were toxic to tumor cells as reported for other tested cell types before (1, link here) (Supplementary Figure 2, link here). To examine if the results were reproducible also in other transplanted tumor models, we tested the HSD regimen in the Lewis lung carcinoma model (LLC) (31, link here). Similar to the B16 model, HSD also significantly delayed LLC tumor growth (Figures 1D,E, link here). Thus, HSD was able to significantly inhibit tumor growth in two independent tumor transplantation models.”

“…Since it is well-known that a HSD could have a profound impact on the host immune system by several mechanisms (7, link here) we first analyzed general immune parameters in tumor-bearing mice receiving a HSD compared to controls.”

“…Importantly, a clear modulation of suppressive activity under high salt conditions was also observed in circulating human MDSCs from cancer patients. This indicates that high salt could similarly affect MDSC function in humans…In summary, we show that a high salt diet significantly delays tumor growth in two independent murine tumor transplantation models. This effect seems to be mediated through enhanced anti-tumor immunity by a functional inactivation of MDSCs. Since high salt conditions also affected human MDSCs in a similar manner, our data suggest that the targeting of this mechanism could potentially be a novel beneficial strategy to block MDSC function in settings of cancer immunotherapy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-909.mp3" length="622148" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pulmonary hypertension (usually fatal) likely driven by increased fat oxidation (FAO)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=907</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=907</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 28 Feb 2020 18:23:56 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=907

Most of my medically inclined readers are familiar with the “mysterious” condition pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), link here. I put “mysterious” in quotes, because mainstream medicine claims that its cause is unknown, its onset is unpredictable, there is no cure, and females are affected 4-5 times more often than males. Sounds familiar? Yet, while we are being lied to publicly, behind the scenes and without ANY of the usual publicity that Big Pharma loves so much, Pfizer bought the commercial rights for the serotonin antagonist terguride known to not only prevent but also cure the condition, link here. Terguride’s chemical name is dihydro–lisuride, so it is just the slightly-modified, patented version of lisuride, link here.

The fact that serotonin causes PAH is highly indicative of a metabolic cause in this condition, but mainstream medicine keeps vehemently denying any possibility that the condition might be of metabolic origin. Well, such denials will become much more difficult as a result of the study below. It discovered that fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and ketogenesis are dramatically elevated in PAH patients, while glucose oxidation is concomitantly decreased. In other words, PAH may be nothing but just another organ-specific manifestation of the “stress metabolism” – a sort of “diabetes of the lungs” analogous to the recently proposed label for Alzheimer as “diabetes of the brain”. Now, this study did not look at what happens if you inhibit FAO and promote glucose oxidation, but I think the answer is already pretty much known. Why do I think that? Well, just a few days ago, I posted about another study that found switching from fat to glucose oxidation can treat another chronic, lethal, mysterious condition – heart failure.

Forcing the heart to burn glucose instead of fat may cure heart failure, link here

Some people may accuse me of jumping the gun and trying to draw parallels between two conditions that have nothing in common. I wonder what those critics would say if I showed them that Pfizer is already testing the drug terguride for heart failure, link here as well. So, apparently the two “mysterious” conditions are quite closely related, and what works for one in terms of metabolic treatments works for the other. So, the next time you meet a doctor who tells you that PAH is incurable and mysterious, just laugh maniacally and show him/her a bottle of aspirin or niacinamide 🙂

link here

“…This is the first work to use the hyperglycemic clamp to investigate ß-cell function in individuals with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension. We confirmed a decreased insulin response to hyperglycemia in PAH, corroborating our findings from an oral glucose tolerance test(9). The novel contribution of this work is that the reduced insulin response to hyperglycemia was not attributable to reduced pancreatic ß-cell insulin secretion or skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity compared to age-, BMI- and sex-matched Controls. Rather, hepatic insulin extraction was significantly elevated in PAH, suggesting hepatic insulin extraction may contribute to the poor oral glucose tolerance in observed PAH pathophysiology. Another primary contribution of this work was defining preferential lipid and ketone metabolism associated with PAH clinical measures, along with replicating these findings in a larger cohort using a plasma metabolomics approach. Fatty acid oxidation (acetylcarnitine) and ketogenesis (ßOHB) were elevated in PAH while maintaining a greater propensity to convert available free fatty acids to ketones (defined by the FFA:ßOHB ratio)…These data suggest an adaptive shift in nutrient metabolism towards fatty acid and ketone utilization at the expense of glucose control in PAH.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-907.mp3" length="1191980" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Epilepsy, as a result of brain injury (TBI), is caused by endotoxin receptor (TLR4)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=905</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=905</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 28 Feb 2020 17:31:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=905

Traumatic brain injury (TBI), link here is a pathology affecting most often military staff exposed to explosions, competitive athletes in contact sports (especially in the NFL), accident victims, etc but lately has also been shown to occur in more benign situations such as repeated low-grade impacts such as playing soccer on a regular basis and heading the ball 2-3 times per game. TBI almost always leads to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and a variety of related issues such as dementia, psychosis, violent behavior, seizures/epilepsy, etc. The military and various sports associations have spent billions of dollars on trying to find treatments for TBI/CTE but so far nothing has emerged as a solution. Except progesterone, link here, of course, but don’t hold your breath for the military of NFL to start recommending progesterone any time soon.

Speaking of TBI, the study below demonstrates that endotoxin (clinically known as LPS) is the main driver of epilepsy in TBI patients. The mechanism of action is activation of the (in)famous receptor TLR4, which has now been implicated in virtually all chronic conditions spanning CVD, neurological conditions, psychiatric disorders, diabetes, and of course cancer. Interestingly enough, in this case it was not LPS that activated TLR4. It was cellular debris from dead cells as a result of the traumatic injury that activated TLR4. This finding once again corroborates the direct causal effects of stress/trauma in chronic inflammation and pathology, as described in another recent post.

How chronic stress (cortisol) causes disease, link here

Unsurprisingly, blocking TLR4 prevented the development of epilepsy as a chronic condition, but the study claims that the receptor blockade needs to be done soon after TBI occurred or otherwise it won’t prevent epilepsy. I bet to disagree, and this brings us back to progesterone. Not only is progesterone known to treat TBI, which is the actual cause of the epilepsy, but it has also been used as treatment for epilepsy, link here for more than a century. Progesterone is a potent GABA agonist and this class of drugs is a core treatment for seizure disorders. And if that was not enough, progesterone (and other pregnanes such as pregnenolone) can apparently even deactivate endotoxin directly.

Progesterone may bind and deactivate endotoxin (LPS) directly, link here

So, what we have here is a substance that is known to affect the entire cascade of pathology – TBI->inflammation/endotoxin/LPS->epilepsy – yet the public health authorities continue to act as if progesterone did not exist. The latest proposal from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to test progesterone as a treatment for severe TBI was axed due to lack of funding. Yet, at the same time, billions were poured into the latest CRISPR abomination studies…

2 links here

“…The development of epilepsy is a major clinical complication after brain injury, and the disease can often take years to appear.  “Working on rats, whose immune response system models that of humans, we identified that after brain injury a certain immune system receptor makes the brain more excitable, which promotes development of epilepsy,” said Viji Santhakumar, link here, an associate professor of molecular, cell, and systems biology, link here at UC Riverside and the lead author of the study, link here that appears in the Annals of Neurobiology. “If this receptor can be suppressed, preferably within a day after injury, the future development of epilepsy can be reduced if not entirely prevented.” The receptor in question is the Toll-like receptor 4, or TLR4, an innate immune receptor. Following a brain injury, TLR4 increases excitability in the dentate gyrus, link here of the hippocampus, the brain structure that plays a major role in learning and memory. Santhakumar explained two factors are involved in brain injury: a neurological complication and the immune system. These factors have traditionally been studied separately, she said. “Our team, however, studied these factors together,” she added. “This approach helped us understand that the immune system operates through a very different mechanism in the injured brain than in the uninjured brain. Understanding the difference can guide us on how best to target treatments aimed at preventing epilepsy after traumatic brain injury.” The team specifically studied concussions, the kind suffered by many football players, which can lead to cell death in the hippocampus, affecting the processing of memory. Cell death activates the immune system, including TLR4. TLR4, in turn, increases excitability in the hippocampus. “What our rat studies on traumatic brain injury show is that if we target early changes in excitability, we can alter long-term pathology,” Santhakumar said. “Blocking TLR4 signaling shortly after brain injury reduces neuronal excitability in the hippocampus and seizure susceptibility. This seizure susceptibility is not reduced if we delay the blocking of TLR4 signaling after injury.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-905.mp3" length="1438028" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Adrenaline suppresses the immune system and promotes viral infections</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=903</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=903</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 Feb 2020 18:39:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=903

The timing of this study just could not have been better considering the current coronavirus epidemic. The study below demonstrates that both adrenaline and noradrenaline suppressed the immune system and both increases vulnerability to viral infection as well as increasing mortality after the infection takes hold. Conversely, blocking the adrenergic receptors increased survival rates by more than 40% even when the animals were inoculated with lethal amounts of a viral load. The official explantion of the study is that adrenaline/noradrenaline increase inflammatory signalling through activation of the beta-adrenergic receptors and this results in suboptimal immune system response. However, I think the much more likely explanation is the increased lipolysis as a result of activated adrenergic system. The role of elevated NEFA/FFA in vulnerability to infections and subsequent death from sepsis and/or cardiac/ischemic events is well-established.

In terms of treatments, aside from the obvious choice of beta blockers I think aspirin and niacinamide would be good options too considering their inhibitory effects on lipolysis. And of course, good old salt is perhaps the most widely accessible option. Interestingly enough, increased dietary salt intake has already been demonstrated to have a strong immune-boosting effect, link here.

link here

“…In humans, psychological stress has been associated with a higher risk of infectious illness. However, the mechanisms by which the stress pathway interferes with host response to pathogens remain unclear. We demonstrate here a role for the β2-adrenergic receptor (β2-AR), which binds the stress mediators adrenaline and noradrenaline, in modulating host response to mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV) infection. Mice treated with a β2-AR agonist were more susceptible to MCMV infection. By contrast, β2-AR deficiency resulted in a better clearance of the virus, less tissue damage, and greater resistance to MCMV. Mechanistically, we found a correlation between higher levels of IFN-γ production by liver natural killer (NK) cells and stronger resistance to MCMV. However, the control of NK cell IFN-γ production was not cell intrinsic, revealing a cell-extrinsic downregulation of the antiviral NK cell response by adrenergic neuroendocrine signals. This pathway reduces host immune defense, suggesting that the blockade of the β2-AR signaling could be used to increase resistance to infectious diseases.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-903.mp3" length="647132" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:25</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cortisol drives triple-negative breast cancer, androgens (DHT) are therapeutic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=901</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=901</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 Feb 2020 18:18:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=901

Another confirmation of a hypothesis made more than 100 years ago – i.e. all cancers are hormonally sensitive and to speak of a steroid-negative cancer is nonsense. If all cancers are driven by at least one steroid then it would make sense to discover what that steroid is and develop therapeutic interventions that block its effects. Case in point – the study below demonstrates that the so-called triple-negative breast cancer is actually driven by cortisol and that androgens such as DHT have a protective effect. Back in the 1960s, a few small studies demonstrated benefit of treating this cancer type with progesterone but were quickly dismissed as nonsense as you see triple-negative breast cancer cannot respond to progesterone by definition since it does not express the progesterone receptor (PR). Yet, a little known endocrinological fact is that progesterone is the most potent endogenous antagonist of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). In light of the study below, the findings of those studies from the 1960s make perfect sense. Too bad progesterone’s role as a GR antagonist is not widely known (or utilized) clinically, so I would not hold my breath for medicine to start using it for triple-negative breast cancer any time soon. The dogma of “one chemical, one receptor” is too strong in the medical field to overcome and infuse some common sense that can save lives. Even androgens are not likely to be adopted widely considering the bad name DHT has in endocrinological circles. Yet, according to the study below we should be adopting exactly such a therapy, and even better – a combination of progesterone + DHT. Truth be told, FDA did approve a DHT derivative called drostanolone (Masteron), link here as a treatment for breast cancer back in the 1960s. However, that steroid has not been used clinically for the last 30 years and lately FDA has been strongly advising against using it for breast cancer since newer and “improved” therapies are available. Interestingly enough, triple-negative breast cancer mortality rates have been rising since the 1960s and that speaks volumes of just how “improved” those newer treatments are.

link here

“…RESULTS: GR positivity in carcinoma cells was significantly associated with adverse clinical outcome of the patients and AR positivity was significantly associated with lower histological grade and Ki-67 labeling index of the cases examined. In particular, AR positivity was significantly associated with decreased risks of developing recurrence in GR-positive TNBC patients. The subsequent in vitro studies revealed that DEX-promoted cell migration was inhibited by the co-treatment with DHT in GR/AR double-positive HCC38 cells. In addition, DHT inhibited the DEX-increased serum and glucocorticoid-regulated kinase-1 (SGK1) mRNA expression. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to reveal that the interaction of GR and AR did influence the clinical outcome of TNBC patients and GCs induced cell migration in TNBC cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-901.mp3" length="1045340" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:20</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Exposure to fluoride actually damages teeth, even at low concentrations</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=899</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=899</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 Feb 2020 17:27:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=899

Most adults are familiar with the much-publicized (and advertised) claims of public health authorities about the purported benefits of fluoride exposure for dental health. The official story is that by adding fluoride to tap water, people’s teeth are exposed to “low” concentration of fluoride, which has a strengthening effect on the enamel and makes it resistant to future damage by acid in the oral cavity. However, even the corrupt public health authorities readily admit that fluoride exposure has a very narrow therapeutic range and in higher concentrations fluoride is actually known to damage the enamel (not to mention the thyroid, reproductive organs, brain, heart, etc) and cause a condition known as dental fluorosis (DF).

Why did I put “low” in quotation marks above. Well, the study below confirms that short-term exposure to high concentrations of fluoride quickly damages the enamel and this effect is caused by a combination of extracellular calcium depletion as well as inhibition of mitochondrial function. Both of these are known effect of fluoride. However, another striking finding of the study was that chronic exposure to fluoride concentrations several times lower than the currently approved standards for fluoride content in tap water also caused similar enamel damage. Let’s see if this study gets replicated by another group but so far it looks like there is no “low” or “safe” level of fluoride exposure and the story we have been fed by public health authorities on dental benefit of fluoride may be yet another medical scam.

2 links here

“…Enamel crystals develop in specialized extracellular compartments modulated by the activities of epithelial cells, known as ameloblasts, during the secretory and maturation stages of enamel development (6–8). Ameloblasts coordinate the transport of ions required for the growth of crystal (7, 8). The effects of fluoride incorporation during enamel development are reversed when excessive fluoride intake occurs, posing a health problem known as dental fluorosis (DF) (3, 9, 10). Rather than strengthening the bonds between enamel crystals, excessive fluoride disrupts mineralization, resulting in pitted enamel with white opaque surfaces and hypomineralization (3, 9, 11, 12). DF is exclusively a developmental defect and has a major effect worldwide: ~30% of the U.S. population and ~60 million people in India are affected by DF with varying degrees of severity (2, 13). Therefore, the current recommendation for daily fluoride intake is less than 1.0 ppm (parts per million), with water fluoridation not exceeding 0.7 ppm (0.7 mg/L, ~37 uM/L) (14).”

“…We showed that fluoride treatment resulted in lower intracellular Ca2+ pools in primary secretory and maturation stage EO cells of rat incisors and in LS8 cells. Furthermore, SOCE was abnormally low in all fluoride-treated enamel cells (Fig. 1, A and B)…We found that prolonged treatment but not transient treatment of LS8 cells with fluoride (1 mM/L or 10 uM/L) slowed the release of IP3-sensitive ER Ca2+ pools.”

“…Maximal respiration elicited by FCCP, which forces H+ across the inner mitochondrial membrane instead of through the ATP synthase, was also substantially lower in fluoride-treated cells, indicating that fluoride modified cellular bioenergetics.”

“…In summary, this study investigated how fluoride affected the intracellular milieu of enamel cells. The effects of fluoride were wide ranging and complex. Fluoride affected Ca2+ homeostasis but not in all cells. Because transient application of fluoride disrupted m but did not immediately affect IP3R-mediated ER Ca2+ release, we suggest that the dysregulation of Ca2+ homeostasis by fluoride in enamel cells is initiated in the mitochondria (Fig. 6). The subsequent disruption of the transmembrane potential for hydrogen ions, which is required for ATP synthesis, results in decreased ATP levels. Such a decrease in ATP limits SERCA function, and as a result, there is a decline in ER Ca2+ content. These detrimental defects are compounded by a down-regulation of MRPs. SOCE is attenuated because of low ATP levels, up-regulation of Saraf, or mitochondrial dysfunction. Together, our data provide a potential mechanism for DF.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-899.mp3" length="728060" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Forcing the heart to burn glucose instead of fat may cure heart failure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=897</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=897</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 Feb 2020 00:45:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=897

One of the blockbuster studies I have seen over the last 12 months. It reads as if written by Peat himself and discusses tissue regeneration, Randle cycle, dietary control of metabolism, etc. AFAIK this is the first study brave enough to demonstrate that simply switching fuel types in an organism can have profound structural effects, and reverse pathological changes (e.g. heart fibrosis / failure) officially considered irreversible. Another important finding of the study was that the beneficial effects on heart failure could be elicited both by pharmacologically inhibiting fatty acid oxidation (FAO), as well as by simply lowering dietary fat intake and increasing carbohydrates. The pharmacological intervention that decreased FAO and increased glucose oxidation was aimed at inhibiting the enzyme PDK (PDK4 specifically). That enzyme is the master brake of another crucial respiratory enzyme known as pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH). PDH is the rate-limiting step in glucose oxidation. Anything that activates PDK results in PDH inhibition and thus glucose oxidation. Increased FAO just so happens to be one of the most powerful activators of PDK (PDK4 specifically) and as such (due to the Randle cycle) an inhibitor of glucose oxidation. Conversely, anything that inhibits PDK will release the “brakes” on PDH and result in increased glucose oxidation. Interestingly, the study used tamoxifen to inhibit PDK4, which directly implicates estrogen in pathologies such as heart disease, cancer, and neurological disturbances, mental disorders, etc as all of them are characterized by increased FAO and decreased glucose oxidation. This suggests that the therapeutic effects of tamofixen in breast cancer are likely metabolic (by inhibiting excessive FAO) and that tamofixen may be therapeutic in many other conditions too. It also suggests that any other chemical/intervention that decreases FAO and increases glucose oxidation will likely have broad therapeutic effects for virtually all chronic conditions that plague the developed world nowadays.

However, tamoxifen is not without its risks. It is, after all, a synthetic estrogen (even though the corrupt drug industry calls it a SERM) and has potent estrogenic effects in various tissues except the breast. As such, tamofixen is not really a safe option for people who want to inhibit PDK. It just so happens that vitamin B1 is both a co-factor (and as such an activator) of PDH and also an inhibitor of PDK. This dual beneficial property of B1 has been extensively studied and, as the study below demonstrates, its potency as a PDK inhibitor is actually higher than the well-known PDK inhibitor DCA, which has shown so much promise as a treatment for cancer.

link here

While the study above does not mention specific doses for B1, in-vivo studies with both animals and humans have demonstrated that a HED of 100mg-300mg daily is sufficient to elicit a potent PDK inhibition and PDH activation effect. Adding 300mg-500mg niacinamide (vitamin B3) will likely potentiate the effects of B1 as a result of the anti-lipolytic effects of niacinamide as well as its direct FAO inhibition effects due to SIRT blockade. So, as hard as it is to believe that an “irreversible” condition such as heart failure may be curable it looks like the solution may not only be simple but cheap, safe, and widely available as well. Now, the only thing remaining to demonstrate so that the picture is complete is that not only does increased FAO (probably due to estrogen) prevent proper heart regeneration beyond infancy, it may be THE actual cause of heart failure to start with (at any age).

link here

“…Importantly, increased fatty acid oxidation perpetuates dependence on fatty-acid utilization by inhibiting glucose oxidation via the Randle cycle, in which acetylCoA generated from fatty-acid oxidation inhibits the mitochondrial enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) 36. Cardiac PDH activity is regulated by various isoforms of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinases (PDK1, PDK2 and PDK4) and phosphatases (PDP1 and PDP2), with phosphorylation resulting in enzyme inhibition37–39. Of the PDK isoforms, PDK4 is largely responsible for inhibiting PDH in the presence of fatty acids and increasing the reliance of the heart on fatty-acid oxidation for energy production 37,39–41. Intriguingly, our group and others have shown that mitochondria produce H2O2 at an elevated rate when using fatty acids rather than pyruvate as a respiratory substrate.”

link here

“…Current pharmaceutical treatments for heart failure — including ACE inhibitors and beta blockers — center on trying to stop a vicious cycle of heart muscle loss as strain further damages remaining heart muscle, causing more cells to die, explains UT Southwestern physician-researcher Hesham A. Sadek, M.D., Ph.D., the J. Fred Schoellkopf, Jr. Chair in Cardiology. There are no existing treatments for rebuilding heart muscle. Nine years ago, Sadek and his colleagues discovered that mammalian hearts can regenerate if they’re damaged in the first few days of life, spurred by the division of cardiomyocytes, the cells responsible for a heart’s contractile force. However, this capacity is completely lost by 7 days old, an abrupt turning point in which division of these cells dramatically slows. Subsequent research has shown that this change in regenerative capacity appears to stem, at least in part, from damaging free radicals generated by organelles known as mitochondria, which power cells. These free radicals damage cells’ DNA, a phenomenon called DNA damage, which prompts them to stop dividing. The shift in free radical production appears to be spurred by a change in what mitochondria in the cardiomyocytes consume for energy, Sadek explains. Although mitochondria rely on glucose in utero and at birth, they switch to fatty acids in the days after birth to utilize these energy-dense molecules in breast milk. Sadek and his colleagues wondered whether forcing mitochondria to continue to consume glucose might stymie DNA damage and, in turn, extend the window for heart cell regeneration. To test this idea, the researchers tried two different experiments. In the first, they followed mouse pups whose mothers were genetically altered to produce low-fat breastmilk and that fed on low-fat chow after they weaned. The researchers found that these rodents’ hearts maintained regenerative capacity weeks later than normal, with their cardiomyocytes continuing to express genes associated with cell division for a significantly longer window than those fed a diet of regular breastmilk and chow. However, this effect didn’t last into adulthood — their livers eventually made up the deficit by synthesizing the fats that their diets were missing, which significantly reduced their hearts’ regenerative capacity. In the second experiment, the researchers created genetically altered animals in which the researchers could delete an enzyme, known as pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4 (PDK4), necessary for the heart cells’ mitochondria to digest fatty acids. When the researchers delivered a drug to turn off PDK4 production, the animals’ cardiomyocytes switched to consuming glucose instead of fatty acids, even in adulthood. After researchers simulated a heart attack, these animals experienced improvement in heart function, which was accompanied by markers in gene expression that suggested their cardiomyocytes were still actively dividing. Sadek notes that these findings provide proof of principle that it’s possible to reopen the window for heart cell regeneration by manipulating what cardiomyocyte mitochondria consume for energy. “Eventually,” he says, “it may be possible to develop drugs that change what cardiomyocytes eat to make them divide again, reversing heart failure and representing a true cure.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-897.mp3" length="1822316" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low-dose (but not high) niacinamide reverses reproductive decline in old females</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=893</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=893</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Feb 2020 20:31:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=893

A great new study, which once again confirms the importance of metabolism in “aging” disorders such as infertility (both female and male) and menopause. More specifically, it was the increase in NAD/NADH ratio that was the main mechanism of action behind the beneficial effects of nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) the study below discovered. Now, the study was performed with NMN instead of plain niacinamide (NAM) but most of my readers probably know that NMN is a downstream metabolites of niacinamide, so taking the latter raises the levels of the former. More importantly, studies comparing the effectiveness of NMN, nicotinamide riboside (NR) and NAM found that they are equally effective in raising NAD levels, link here and thus the NAD/NADH ratio. Despite marketing propaganda from vendors peddling NR or NMN at high prices, this equivalence is not at all surprising considering both NR and NMN are hydrolyzed back to NAM upon ingestion, which makes them largely equivalent to supplementing with NAM (at least when it comes to raising NAD levels). The HED of the effective regimen was 6mg/kg daily and duration of treatment was 4 weeks. That means a daily dosage of 250mg-500mg for a month should be able to replicate the design (and hopefully findings) of the study for most humans. I suspect that the findings of this study, combined with the findings on aspirin preventing pregnancy complications, link here that I just posted, are going to give many sleepless nights to the global population control lobby 🙂

link here

“…The length of NMN treatment in animals correlated with improvements in inner cell mass size (Figure 2, link hereH), and to confirm that this translated to improved fertility outcomes, we treated a cohort of 13-month-old animals with two different doses of NMN (drinking water, 0.5 and 2 g/L) for 4 weeks before the introduction of a male of proven fertility. Breeding performance as determined by pregnancy, live births, and litter size was then assessed for the following 9 weeks, from 14–16 months of age (Figures 2, link hereI–2M). NMN treatment improved the time to first live birth (Figure 2, link hereJ) and the overall proportion of animals achieving live birth during the breeding trial (Figure 2, link hereK), though this surprisingly occurred at the lower dose of NMN (0.5 g/L), suggesting that previous experiments were performed at a dose that benefited oocyte quality but may have adversely affected other aspects of fertility…These data from orthogonal pharmacological and genetic approaches show that increasing NAD+ enhances ovulation rate, oocyte quality, and overall live birth rates in aged female mice, though they point to an optimum range of dosing.”

link here

“…The University of Queensland, link here study found a non-invasive treatment could maintain or restore the quality and number of eggs and alleviate the biggest barrier to pregnancy for older women. A team led by UQ’s Professor Hayden Homer, link here found the loss of egg quality through ageing was due to lower levels of a particular molecule in cells critical for generating energy. “Quality eggs are essential for pregnancy success because they provide virtually all the building blocks required by an embryo,” Professor Homer said. “We investigated whether the reproductive ageing process could be reversed by an oral dose of a ‘precursor’ compound – used by cells to create the molecule.” The molecule in question is known as NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) and the ‘precursor’ as NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide). Professor Homer said fertility in mice starts to decline from around one year of age due to defects in egg quality similar to changes observed in human eggs from older women.  “We treated the mice with low doses of NMN in their drinking water over four weeks, and we were able to dramatically restore egg quality and increase live births during a breeding trial,” Professor Homer said. Professor Homer said poor egg quality had become the single biggest challenge facing human fertility in developed countries. “This is an increasing issue as more women are embarking on pregnancy later in life, and one in four Australian women who undergo IVF treatment are aged 40 or older,” he said. “IVF cannot improve egg quality, so the only alternative for older women at present is to use eggs donated by younger women. “Our findings suggest there is an opportunity to restore egg quality and in turn female reproductive function using oral administration of NAD-boosting agents – which would be far less invasive than IVF. It is important to stress, however, that although promising, the potential benefits of these agents remains to be tested in clinical trials”.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-893.mp3" length="821372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Antidepressants are physically addictive, should not be taken long-term</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=891</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=891</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Feb 2020 19:30:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=891

What is surprising about this study is not that antidepressant drugs are addictive. We have known this (despite the vehement denials from pharma executives) even way back before those drugs got approved for human use. What is surprising in this study is that for the first time there is an admission in mainstream media about their addictiveness, combined with public admission that those drugs were never meant for indefinite use. WOW! The last time I checked, the official position of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) was that depression is a “highly recurrent disorder”, whose pharmacological treatment is likely to last a lifetime. Yet, now we are beginning to hear a very different story possibly driven by the massive epidemic of both prescription and illicit drug abuse in virtually all Western countries. Namely, antidepressants are no different than other physically addictive drugs such such as opioids and just like opioids the antidepressants are incredibly hard to wean off, which leads to most people staying on them even when there is no medical need. Apparently, according to the study, federal guidelines call for doctors prescribing those addictive drugs to not only be warning the patients about the addictive risks but also providing a “discontinuation plan” for the patient and advising them to stop the drugs when they are no longer needed. LOL! I had the (dis)pleasure to run into quite a few psychiatrist back when I was working in a medical setting and I never met a single one of them who did even one of those things. Instead, they were all pushing pills like they were the hottest thing since sliced bread.

Well, I guess yet another corrupt practice may come to an end soon. Not bad as a start, and now that the gate of public admissions has opened I would like to see some articles on how SSRI drugs turn users into homicidal, violent, psychotic, creatures completely devoid of ability for love, wisdom and empathy. Those are not my words, they are direct quotes from previous studies on SSRI drugs I have posted.

2 links here

“…Reviewing six decades of data, three Chicago researchers found persistent evidence that, when a person abruptly stops taking their antidepressant medication, they can experience symptoms like headaches, insomnia, agitation, diarrhea, anxiety, fatigue, and flu-like symptoms….the authors write in a clinical review in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, link here, “with extended use, [antidepressants] can be notoriously difficult to quit because they can produce a state of physical dependence.”

“…Doctors often over-prescribe antidepressants and don’t have advice patients on how to best wean themselves off the drugs over time, which leads to patients becoming dependent on them, the authors warn. “I understand that many people feel safe in that their depression or anxiety is continuously managed by medication. However, these are mind-altering drugs and were never intended as a permanent solution,” Mireille Rizkalla, PhD, the lead author of the review, said in a press release.”

“…The study warns that long term use increases patients’ risk of developing antidepressant discontinuation syndrome. Their body is so accustomed to the medication, it makes it even more difficult for patients to come off of their medication because they want to avoid those side effects. The review authors said that one reason patients become dependent on antidepressant medication is because doctors often don’t equip them with plans for eventually weaning themselves off of the medication.” According to Rizkalla, doctors who prescribe a patient these drugs should also provide them with a plan for eventual discontinuation as well as suggestions for promoting their mental health with non-drug methods, like therapy, exercise, or meditation, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-891.mp3" length="927020" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin now officially recommended for pre-eclampsia, pre-term birth, and birth defects prevention</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=889</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=889</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Feb 2020 18:57:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=889

After almost a century of evidence in favor of aspirin, combined with complete failure to develop other pharmacological interventions (and believe me, Big Pharma tried hard) mainstream medicine seems to be growing desperate enough to start recommending aspirin to ALL pregnant women as prevention of (pre)-eclampsia, pre-term birth, and birth defects. The pilot recommendation is coming from a big hospital in Texas but the FDA is also reported to be mulling releasing pro-aspirin guidelines at the federal level. Notably missing from the recommendations are the usual warning about aspirin’s “risks” related to bleeding and GI upset/damage. The recommendations are issued for ALL patients and aspirin is treated just like a pre-natal vitamin. Considering the recent studies on niacinamide preventing birth defects and (pre)-eclampsia as well, an aspirin-niacinamide combo may soon hit the pharmacy shelves as an “innovative” (and expensive), patented formulation that should have actually been approved by FDA 100 years ago. The only negative aspect of this news is that apparently now majority of patients are at risk of (pre)-eclampsia, which is probably what spurred this desperate 180-degree reversal of mainstream medicine guidelines/practices.

2 links here

“…Lowering the risk of developing a life-threatening condition while pregnant is as simple as taking low-dose aspirin every day, according to OB-GYNs at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). They are now recommending their patients take a low-dose aspirin of 81 milligrams daily to prevent preeclampsia as part of routine prenatal care, just like taking a prenatal vitamin. Preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication characterized by dangerously high blood pressure, is a leading cause of maternal and infant illness and death. It has increased 25% in the last two decades, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). “Over the years, research has shown the use of low-dose aspirin in a high-risk population reduces the risk of preeclampsia without causing side effects. Aspirin causes decreased production of the hormone thromboxane A2, which is thought to increase the risk of preeclampsia.” – said Nana Ama Ankumah, MD, maternal-fetal medicine specialist with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth.”

“…”This change especially makes sense for us because the majority of our patient population is considered at-risk,” Blackwell said. “There is a very low cost and risk associated with this therapy, and we hope a universal approach minimizes missed opportunities for treatment at a population level.” The routine use of low-dose aspirin could also reduce rates of other adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preterm birth and fetal growth restriction, while only costing less than $10 per pregnancy, Sibai said. “Most patients are amenable once they understand what preeclampsia is and how serious it is. The dose is so small and there’s really no side effects, so most patients are fine with adding it to their prenatal vitamin. For perspective, people taking daily aspirin for heart attack are recommended to take 325 mg, about four times the 81 mg we’re recommending,” Ankumah said. Under this recommendation, low-dose aspirin is recommended beginning at 12 weeks and continued through delivery. According to ACOG, there is no increased risk of postpartum bleeding or placental abruption. Exclusions include women with allergies to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and women with vaginal bleeding. “This is a major paradigm shift in prenatal care and is just another way we are incorporating several novel aspects to care to provide cutting-edge, evidence-based treatments to our patients,” Blackwell said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-889.mp3" length="642788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin/salt for treating a broken heart, and what REALLY causes Afib</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=886</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=886</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 11 Feb 2020 19:48:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=886

At a first glance the study below seems rather mundane but a careful read provides some very interesting insights. The syndrome of “broken heart” is a real physiological condition that medicine has tried to deny for decades despite even assigning it its own official medical name – Takotsubo Syndrome (TS), link here. People grieving over the loss of a loved one (a breakup can also cause it) are often dismissed by mainstream medicine as “softies” who are likely over-dramatizing or even imagining their suffering, and as such at most warranting a treatment with an anti-depressant. Yet, there has been a steady stream of published case studies demonstrating heart attacks, strokes and even death as a result of the loss of a loved one and doctors in Japan finally accepted it as an officially recognized physiological condition in the 1990s, and named it TS. Yet, it still remains unrecognized and vilified as a “fake” condition in the West. However, apparently even mainstream medicine suspects that estrogen, cortisol and adrenaline (cetacholamines) are three of the main causes.

link here

“…Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is rare, affecting between 1.2% and 2.2% of people in Japan and 2% to 3% in Western countries who suffer a myocardial infarction. It also affects far more women than men with 90% of cases being women, most postmenopausal. Scientists believe one reason is that estrogen, link here causes the release of catecholamine, link here and glucocorticoid, link here in response to mental stress. It is not likely for the same recovered patient to experience the syndrome twice, although it has happened in rare cases.[42], link here The average ages at onset are between 58 and 75 years. Less than 3% of cases occurred in patients under age 50.”

“…The first studied case of takotsubo cardiomyopathy was in Japan in 1991 by Sato et al. More cases of the syndrome appeared in Japan within the next decade, although western medicine had still not acknowledged it.”

One of the main signs/symptoms of TS is the notorious atrial fibrillation, link here, commonly known as Afib. I doubt there is an adult in the US who has not seen at least one commercial on TV about drugs such as Xarelto (rivaroxaban) claiming to treat Afib. On a side note, what those adults don’t know is that the FDA approval of Xarelto was based on a fraudulent trial FDA knew about, did nothing to stop it, and gave the drug full approval, link here. The age of the actors and paid patients in those ads has been steadily declining due to pharma companies recognizing that the condition incidence is rapidly increasing in the youngest age groups studied (some as young as early 20s). The official explanation, of course, is that the cause is unknown but is most certainly not hormonal. Yet, the study above strongly suggests that it is indeed hormonal, and, more importantly, the ultimate cause is stress. As such, one would expect that anti-stress interventions such as blocking the effects of catecholamines, estrogen, and cortisol would be highly therapeutic. And that brings us to the study that inspired this post. It found that the once-daily combination of a beta-blocker  (metoprolol) and a low-dose aspirin (100mg) reversed both the Afib and the anxiety associated with the grieving, and reversed the increased risk of a major cardiovascular event WITHOUT side effects. The usage of a beta-blocker is self-explanatory and corroborates the role of catecholamines in TS mentioned above. What about aspirin? As my readers know quite well, aspirin is a decent aromatase inhibitor and also tends to block most of estrogen’s downstream effects. It is also known to inhibit 11β-HSD1, link here, which results in lower cortisol synthesis. Thus, the beneficial effects of aspirin in this study corroborate the role of estrogen and cortisol in TS mentioned above. What about salt in the title of the post? Well, for people that do not have access to a beta-blocker, salt is likely the most accessible method of reducing adrenaline. Progesterone may also help as it is known to lower catecholamine release. Finally, the drug clonidine would probably be an ideal replacement of metoprolol as it can do everything the beta blockers can but without many of the side effects, while also having additional benefits in terms of potentially lowering ACTH levels (and thus cortisol) and possibly even serotonin (which is heavily involved in grieving). No wonder the FDA accepted a fraudulent clinical trial as evidence to approve Xarelto. Only fraud would do in cases where a proposed drug has no effect on the underlying causes of a condition like Afib.

3 links here

“…Researchers followed 85 people who had lost a child or spouse within the fortnight over a six week period. Forty-two participants received low daily doses of a beta blocker and aspirin, while the remaining 43 took a placebo. The small study, conducted by a team from the university, Royal North Shore Hospital and the Kolling Institute, is the first randomised controlled clinical trial to show it is possible to reduce several cardiac risk factors in the recently bereaved using medication, without an adverse psychological effect.”

“…The University of Sydney’s Professor Geoffrey Tofler, who led the study, has been researching heart attack in early bereavement for over a decade and believes it should be considered as a “standalone, acute risk factor” for heart attack. “Bereavement is a rather unique sort of stress in that it has an acute manifestation but then continues,” he said. An increase in heart rate, blood pressure and clotting as well as anxiety and depression in the month following an unexpected bereavement has been repeatedly shown in research. A 2012 Harvard study of close to 2000 US heart attack survivors, on which Professor Tofler worked, found risk of heart attack was roughly six times higher than normal within the first week of a significant person’s death, declining steadily over the first month after bereavement. In 2016, a large-scale Danish population study found a person’s risk of developing atrial fibrillation was highest eight to 14 days after the loss of a spouse and remained elevated for a year.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-886.mp3" length="1739948" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E can treat/cure severe fatty liver disease (NASH) in humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=884</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=884</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 Feb 2020 21:25:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=884

As many of my readers know, currently there is an epidemic of the condition known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). By some estimates, more than 30% (100mil) of people living in the US have NAFLD and in about 25% of those the condition will progress to the more severe form known as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is almost always progresses to cirrhosis and/or liver cancer. Mainstream medicine states that there is no known treatment for NAFLD, let alone for NASH. Billions of dollars are being poured into finding cures for these conditions considering the massive number of people they affect. Well, as the studies below demonstrate, a daily dose of 800 IU alpha-tocopherol can reverse well-established NASH in about 6 months. What makes this result much more important is that one of the studies was on patients with HIV, who already have highly compromised liver function and are much more resistant to treatment. So, if vitamin E could cure their NASH, one can only imagine how much more effective it would be in the general population. Oh, and in case somebody is wondering – yes, vitamin E has already been shown to be effective for the milder form of liver disease – NAFLD. I really hope the FDA is taking notes, success stories like this rarely come along…

2 links here

“…In this first trial, we showed that 24 weeks of vitamin E treatment decreased ALT, the degree of hepatic steatosis and hepatocyte apoptosis in HIV mono-infected patients with NASH. The intervention was both effective and safe, with no patient lost to follow-up and no serious adverse event reported. HIV-infected patients are currently excluded from registrational clinical trials of  new antifibrotic molecules for the treatment of NASH, and this poses an ethical and clinical dilemma. Vitamin E represents an available therapeutic option.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-884.mp3" length="643388" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Some ALS cases may be cured by vitamin B2 (riboflavin)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=882</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=882</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 Feb 2020 21:11:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=882

A rather fascinating case study/report, which, despite its misleading and convoluted description, suggests yet again that motor neuron diseases such as Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), link here are nothing but severe mitochondrial/energetic dysfunction that can often be remediated quite easily. This is not at all an exaggeration – several studies I posted about (see below) in the last 5 years clearly demonstrate that copper supplementation can be a viable treatment for ALS due to copper’s powerful pro-metabolic effects (it is a cofactor for ETC IV known as cytochrome C oxidase).

3 links here

So, if ALS is mostly a functional/energetic disorders then one would expect other pro-metabolic nutrients to also remediate/treat/cure it. And that is exactly what the case study below reports. It describes a case of “juvenile ALS”, which responded to IV vitamin B2 (riboflavin) at a daily dose of 15 mg/kg. While that dose seems high, it is quite safe and in the range of riboflavin clinically used for treating migraines (800mg+ daily). As the study states, as a result of the B2 treatment the 18-year old patient went from bed-bound and on mechanical ventilator to fully independent functioning adult. But why did I say the case study is misleading? I said it, because despite the patient being diagnosed with ALS the doctors are trying to explain it away as some sort of rare “riboflavin transporter deficiency” (RTD), which however was not detectable by tests. Get it? Basically, the authors are saying this: “Yes, the diagnosis was ALS but it cannot be really ALS since it responded to riboflavin treatment. So, despite no evidence for this being a case of the very rare RTD syndrome we will call it so because we cannot fathom why else such simple treatment would work for a lethal disease which nobody knows how to even slow down, let alone cure”. Unless of course the whole official story about ALS is a charade/idiocy and it is instead a disease that can be both caused relatively easily by energetic disturbances (driven by environmental factors such as chronic stress, toxins, radiation, etc) and can also be cured relatively easily by methods that oppose the stress/toxins and restore OXPHOS. I, personally, vote for the official version being bunk. It is hardly the first time we find out we have been lied to by the doctors…

link here

“…An Ig IV treatment was given at 2 g/kg the day after her hospitalization to treat potential auto‐immune disease (Guillain‐Barré syndrome), with no observed efficiency. After 1 month with failure to wean mechanical ventilation, tracheostomy was decided, and a high dose per os riboflavin trial (15 mg/kg) was initiated. Her clinical condition then very slowly improved – tracheostomy removal was possible 7 months after treatment onset (M7) with discontinuation of diurnal ventilation but need for nocturnal NIV; at M16 she only used nocturnal NIV three nights a week; at M20 she could totally stop NIV with no sign of hypoventilation when evaluated after 1 month (notably normal pCO2 after night sleep). Vital Capacity was measured at 1690mL at M4, increased at 2730 mL (+67%) at M15. Limb weakness did not obviously improve whereas motor nerve conduction study showed a slightly improvement after 1 year, mostly in lower limbs (Table S1, link here). She was independent for all daily activities.”

“…We report here a very unusual presentation of a probable RTD: our patient did not suffer from overt hearing loss, and had a late‐onset MND, with no signs of bulbar or pontine localizations. Usually, in RTD: (1) age at first manifestations occurs earlier; (2) the neuro‐sensorial disorder is a key feature of the disease, and very often the first manifestation; (3) and finally the motor neuron phenotype is characterized by particular localizations, bulbar but also pontine with lower and upper facial weakness. In addition, blood acylcarnitine profile and riboflavin were normal in our patient; however, there is increasing evidence that these biochemical abnormalities are often absent in adults with RTD.5, link here First diagnostic hypothesis was juvenile ALS, due to inaugural diaphragmatic dysfunction associated with a diffuse pure motor neurogenic disorder. Despite no specific clinical or biological argument for RTD,4, link here riboflavin trial was decided considering unusual features for ALS – the very young age of the patient, the symmetric pattern of weakness, and the absence of fasciculations. RTD suspicion must lead to specifically treat early, without waiting for genetic confirmation.6″, link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-882.mp3" length="1807532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Simple heating of tumor often leads to a rapid and complete cure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=875</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=875</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 06 Feb 2020 17:44:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=875

As many readers of my blog know, one of the primary signs/symptoms in cancer patients is the frequent occurrence of fevers. The official position of mainstream medicine is that the cause of these fevers is unknown but may have to do with the so-called “tumor lysis syndrome, link here“. Regardless, the fever is considered something peripheral to the cancer, certainly not beneficial, and something to be “managed” or treated as it creates impediments for “normal” cancer treatment (e.g. cut. poison, burn). Apparently, nothing can be further from the truth. As the studies below demonstrate, raising body temperature (hyperthermia) may be one of the primary mechanisms of our organism for effectively curing the tumor on its own. No “cut, poison, burn” needed even though raising body temperature apparently raises the effectiveness of even those mainstream treatments as well.

As the studies below explain, cancer cells are highly sensitive to temperature changes while healthy cells are much less so. Namely, cancer cells experience DNA damage and even disintegrate when their ambient temperature is raised by even a few degrees. There are hundreds of pushed cases of people’s cancer completely disappearing for good as a result of a febrile illness the cancer patient experienced as a result of infection by a pathogen or due to medically administered toxins. Short of getting ourselves sick with the “flu” or some other fever-causing pathogen, simple heating of the tumor (or the entire body) may also do the trick. While the studies below report that the most common hyperthermia methods were heated water baths and electromagnetic stimulation, some studies found exposure to 300W incandescent light bulbs just as effective. This corroborates Peat’s advice on using incandescent light bulbs of at least 200W as a good replacement of red light source when such is not available.

As far as the proposed mechanism of action, the studies are mostly mum on this even though they describe a number of specific changes that hyperthermia causes in tumors. However, it is well-known that the immune system functions much better at temps above 25 C, and usually even a mild hyperthermia increases the immune response several-fold. There has been a lot of noise in mainstream media lately about re-activating the immune system as a curative treatment for a number of cancers including melanoma, glioblastoma, and even prostate cancer. Former President Jimmy Carter got his metastatic melanoma successfully treated with such immune boosting drugs. However, I think the more likely mechanism of hyperthermia is stimulation of OXPHOS and inhibition of (excessive) glycolysis. The studies below confirm that excessive glycolysis is abolished in tumor cells as a result of hyperthermia. This alone would have the substantial benefit of reducing levels of the “oncometabolite” lactic acid.

Baking soda may treat cancer, metformin may cause it, link here

Lactate is an oncometabolite (promotes cancer), no genes/mutations needed, link here

Acidosis (Warburg Effect) drives cancer through increased fat oxidation (Randle Cycle), link here

 

What the studies below do not mention is that heat also activates OXPHOS. Aside from having the effect of changing the cell quorum away from the sickness field, active OXPHOS generates a lot of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which is also a proven method for treating cancer. Why am I mentioning ROS? Because we already have another method for treating cancer, which though not widely known (due to Big Pharma propaganda) has already been patented by Big Pharma for treating everything from cancer, link here, to lethal viral conditions, to bacterial infections, to sepsis. The name of this method is “photodynamic therapy, link here” (PDT) and perhaps the most effective photosensitizer for PDT is methylene blue (MB). In addition to its effects as an excellent radiosensitizer, MB also has the advantage of selectively accumulating in tumors (see study quotes below). So, what does that have to do with heat and the topic of this thread? Well, as the first study below demonstrates, MB synergizes not only with light but also with heat (even in the complete absence of light). So, the combination of MB and heating of tumor tissue may actually be a viable therapy for cancer. Adding (red) light won’t hurt of course. So, if one wants to replicate the design (and hopefully findings) of the studies below a good approach would be to take orally 10mg-15mg MB and about 30min later to get exposed to 1-2 of the common infrared heating lamps sold in most hardware stores. Make sure to get the ones that also emit red color as this would combine the hyperthermia benefit discussed by the studies below with the proven and well-known benefit of PDT. The lights should be directed towards the general area where the tumor is located and should be placed as close to the skin as can be tolerated without pain (to get the hyperthermia effect). As the studies below mention, about an hour of exposure should suffice.

But wait, (as they say in commercials) there is more! Hyperthermia can also be caused/induced chemically. In fact, one of the studies below does mention tumor cures as a result of chemically-induced fever. However, those cases were accidental and due to injections of toxins. One could do much better by administering safe(er) hyperthermic agents known as uncouplers. The chemical dinitrophenol, link here (DNP) is notorious as a dangerous but highly effective weight-loss drug. What is less known is its potential for treating cancer and some studies have already demonstrated promising results.

2 links here

Unfortunately, the FDA has banned DNP and aggressively prosecutes anybody who tries to sell it. So, what is one to do if DNP is not available? Well, there are a number of safer uncouplers/thermogens I have posted about in the past. Those include aspirin, thyroid, progesterone, DHEA, caffeine, salt, dietary phenols, etc. The evidence for aspirin as a treatment for cancer is so extensive that continuing to ignore it clinically is perhaps the (medical) crime of the century. While most studies with aspirin used low doses more suitable for anti-coagulation, it is the higher doses that uncouple effectively and that may explain why aspirin is most effective against cancer (in animal studies) in HED of 3g+ daily. Combing aspirin with progesterone or caffeine crates a synergistic effect and allows for much lower doses of each to achieve the same thermogenic effects when combined.

So, there it is folks – all in plain view. Simple heating of the tumor (or the whole body) often completely cures it. Hot water baths can be quite effective but perhaps a localized heating with red/infrared bulbs would work even better (due to the separate therapeutic effect of red light) while also being more convenient. That effect can be greatly amplified by adding “thermosensitizers” such as MB (also a photosensitizer) or thermogens in their own right such as DNP, aspirin, thyroid, progesterone, DHEA, caffeine, salt, etc. Not bad for a disease that a $100B a year industry has UTTERLY, link here failed at treating.

 

link here

“…The observation that hyperthermia could be an effective agent in causing tumour regression and could, therefore, have the potential for use in the treatment of cancer was made many years ago (Overgaard and Overgaard 1972. Suit and Shwayder 1974). It has been demonstrated that heat is a radiosensitizer (Stewart and Gibbs 1984, Yerushalmi 1975, Stewart and Denekamp 1978, Sapareto et al. 1978), chemosensitizer (Hahn et al. 1975, 1977, Hahn 1979, Marmor 1979) and an interactant in the photodynamic therapy of cancer (Waldow and Dougherty 1984, Mang and Dougherty 1985). These properties have led to the use of hyperthermia as an adjuvant in other cancer therapies. Methylene blue (MB) is a thiazine dye with strong photodynamic properties. In contact with cells, both pro- and eucaryotic, it sensitizes them to the action of visible light, chiefly in the red band of the electromagnetic spectrum. MB, like other dyes, has been shown to accumulate and be retained in some malignant tissues more efficiently than in normal ones (Fukui e? a/. 1977, Lavelle 1980, Fukui et af. 1983, Konig et af. 1987), which is the rationale for the use of this dye in photodynamic therapy. This work is a report on experimental results that indicate the existence of marked lethal interaction between MB and heat in E. coli.”

“…ABll57 bacteria were incubated with 6 pg/ml MB for 2 h at various temperatures. After incubation, the cells were centrifuged and the supernatant examined in a spectrophotometer at 660 nm to determine the remaining amount of dye and, indirectly, the amount of dye incorporated into the cells. Figure 3 shows that the maximum amount of [MB] incorporation occurs in the range between 25 and 4O”C, and that from 40 to 46°C there is a surprising decrease in the incorporation of MB, so that the amount of dye bound to the cells at 46°C is half of that at 40°C”

“…In darkness, concentrations of MB up to 6 ug/ml did not succeed in impairing the colony-forming ability of a Gram-negative bacteria (E. coli ABl157) when incubation was kept at 37″C, as shown in Figures 1 and 2. However, at this same temperature, it was possible for 6 ug/ml MB in darkness to inactivate the Gram-positive Staphylococcus epidermidis (unpublished data) and a mutant of E. coli K12 (PQ35), which is deficient in some lipopolysaccharides of the outer membrane, making this membrane much more permeable to exogenous molecules (Figure 4). This observation has led to the hypothesis that MB alone, independent of light, can inactivate cells when it penetrates into them and becomes intercalated in the DNA. Indeed. it has recently been shown that MB in contact with E. ”

“…Heat, like other physical and chemical agents used in cancer therapy, has the property of distinguishing normal cells from malignant cells. This seems to be also true of MB. This article shows that heat sensitizes E. coli cells to the lethal action of MB (or viceversa). In any case, it is clear that a lethal synergism exists between these two agents when they are applied concomitantly to these bacteria. If the same synergistic action exists in mammalian cells, both in vim and in vivo, this dye could eventually be used as an adjuvant in the therniotherapy of cancer.”

link here

“…Currently, there is increasing interest in the possible application at the clinical level of local, regional, or systemic hyperthermia as a therapeutic modality in the management of the cancer patient. This interest is actually of very long duration, certainly in excess of 70 years. A perusal of the literature indicates that activity in this area was especially great in the 2nd and 4th decades of this century, and has been increasing during the 1960s and 70s up to the present time. This interest is based on both old and relatively recent observations that in experimental animals and in man destruction of established tumors has been achieved as a result of application of hyperthermia alone in the temperature range of 41-43.3 C for brief periods of time. (For reviews of this subject, see References 5, 21, 27, 31, and 33.) These data are of special interest to the radiation therapist and radiation biologist, because eradication of tumor by a single and relatively brief exposure to hyperthermia means that both aerobic and hypoxic cells have been inactivated. Since this has been achieved in certain instances by temperatures which produce tolerable degrees of damage in normal tissues, hyperthermia is a proper subject of study in oncology. In fact, Cater et al. proposed in 1964 that hyperthermia might be an especially effective approach to the inactivation of hypoxic cells.*

“…There is extensive literature and experience dealing with what appears to be an occasional dramatic regression of tumor in patients who have incidentally had a severe febrile reaction associated with infectious process or secondary to medically administered bacterial toxins.”

“…Earlier, George Crile described results of hyperthermic treatment of S91 melanoma, sarcoma 180, and sarcoma T41 as transplants growing in the feet of young adult mice.7 This latter point is a significant detail of technique, because the foot is a sensitive structure and the relative damage of tumor and normal tissue is readily scored. For his studies, hyperthermia was achieved by immersion of the tumor-bearing foot into a water bath set at a specified temperature. The relationship between time of hyperthermia and temperature of water bath which resulted in “majority cured” for the sarcoma 180 is shown in Fig. 1. For each degree C rise in temperature, the time required to achieve this effect was reduced by a factor of two. For this animal tumor system, simple immersion hyperthermia was quite effective: 43.5 C x 55min resulted in “cure” of a majority of mice, but not until exposure was increased to 115min did the majority of mice lose the affected foot.”

“…Dickson and Muckleg have treated the rabbit VX-2 carcinoma growing in the limb by local hyperthermia (immersion in water bath) or total body heating (radiation heating using 300 watt electric bulbs).”

link here

“…During the past century it has repeatedly been claimed that heat may exert an inhibitory effect on a malignant tumour, or even cure it. A considerable number of clinical reports have been published on permanent cures or protracted improvements of confirmed malignant tumours after disease with a high-grade fever [1-9], and Cooley’s tumour treatment may somehow be associated with heat, as the successful results were mostly obtained in patients with a high fever of long duration [10-12]. Moreover, in recent years, Cavaliere et al. [13] and Mondovi et al. [14] have reported a number of cures of human tumours treated with local application of heat. Similar experiments have shown that almost all investigated transplantable tumors in tissue or culture are influenced by heat, and it has been demonstrated that lower temperatures of about 41,5-42°C may destroy the viability of the tumour tissue if the exposure time is sufficiently long, i.e. up to 15 to 20 hr [16-39].”

“…Heat tolerance is probably somewhat higher in normal tissue than in turnout cells. The classical Cohnheim experiment [40] in a rabbit ear showed a tolerance of 45°C/30 min or 49°C/6-7 rain, and other tissues have also shown a relatively high tolerance [41, 42]. The specific testicular epithelium is an exception showing reaction at a temperature as low as 40-41°C [43-48]. Cultures of normal tissue (mostly relatively primitive) are fairly insensitive to heat and tolerate temperatures of 42-43°C continuously, and somewhat higher temperatures for a short period [29, 34, 35, 41, 42, 49-58]. At the higher temperature general retardation of growth and some morphological changes may occur [51-54, 56, 58].”

“…This difference in heat sensitivity was demonstrated very clearly by Chen and Heidelberger [59] in experiments on induced malignant cell transformation: the higher heat sensitivity seems to be an integral part of the characteristics of the malignant cell. Tumour tissue shows a distinct reduction in aerobic glycolysis on a moderate increase in temperature, while anaerobic glycolysis diminishes at 42-43°C, accompanied by irreparable cell damage [13, 60-64].On the other hand, aerobic glycolysis in normal parenchymatous tissue (e.g. regenerating liver tissue) does not react to heat doses of that size [13, 62-64]. Heat exposures within the same range reduce the synthesis of nucleic acids and proteins in tumour cells [64, 65], while the growth of normal cells is not impaired. The effect of this growth-inhibiting process depends to a great extent on the growth rate of the tumour cells [66] and may be intensified by a number of added drugs [37, 67, 68]”

“…Local heating of the turnout and its surroundings by external heat application (water bath, microwave, ultra-sound) is possible only in superficial tumours, as vascular cooling makes an action on the deeper parts impossible. Nevertheless, some effects with such approaches have been reported [32, 33, 78–93]. In many experiments, local treatment of the tumour with h.f. currents has resulted in permanent cures of transplanted tumours without serious damage to the surrounding tissue [23, 60, 94-106]. In most of these experiments, no attempts were made to measure the intratumoural temperature during the treatment, but measurements after the treatment showed a local or a generalized increase in the body temperature in several cases. In some experiments, temperature measurements during the treatment were attempted, but the methods used were unreliable and misleading [60, 106].”

“…Insufficient understanding of technical manifestations has led some investigators to presume that a narrow range of h.f. currents (88.2 to 93.7 MHz) might have a specific athermic tumour damaging effect [107-112], but further investigations unequivocally indicate that heat is the only biological factor acting on the tumour tissue in question, and that the great effect of some wave lengths of h.f. currents is due to some unrecognized technical factor [91, 100, 104, 113-116].”

“…Several observations–both clinical and experimental indicate that a moderate influence of heat may inhibit the growth of, or completely destroy, malignant tumour tissue, but although a considerable number of cures of transplanted tumours are on record, we actually know very little about the dose of heat which is necessary to produce such an effect. Our knowledge of the histological reactions in heattreated tumour tissue is very sparse, and the mechanism of action of the heat applied is still unclarified.

“…About 1200 mice with tumours measuring 5 × 5 x 6-8 mm were anaesthetized with an intraperitoneal injection of Nembutal (72 mg/kg) to which was added 1 ml of isotonic glucose solution. They were then treated with local short-wave diathermy (27″12Mc) using a model generator with an output of 1 W and about 25 V and insulated electrodes of 2-4 cm 2 under strict control of the intratumoural temperature by means of a special h.f.-neutral thermocouple (Fig. 1). By automatic regulation of the generator output it was possible to maintain any desired temperature continuously with a variation of about 0″ 1 °C. The heat dose was designated as a fraction, the numerator being the temperature in °C and the denominator the exposure time in minutes. The starting temperature in the tumour was about 35 to 36°C. The time from the start of the heating until the planned temperature was reached (mostly 3 to 5 min) was noted, but not included in the heat dose. By this method it was possible to obtain a temperature in the central part of the tumour of up to 46 to 47°C, apparently without damaging the skin or the underlying tissue. Of the animals studied, 173 succumbed during anaesthesia and treatment, while 710 which survived for at least 10 days were used in the evaluation of the curative effect of the various doses applied. All the mice were exposed to only one heat treatment. Initial experiments had shown that heat doses of 43°C/45 rain resulted in complete disappearance of the tumor in 20% of the treated animals. As a moderate increase in the dose–as regards temperature and exposure time–did not change the results appreciably, we found it likely that the method, on account of the above mentioned factors of uncertainty with which the technique was beset, had its practical limit at this level, and the value of the lowest curative exposure time in the temperature range between 41.5°C and 43.5°C was worked out without variation in the procedure. The results appear in Table 1.”

“…Immediately after the treatment, tumors treated with a single adequate heat dose showed a slight increase in size, but already on the next day the tumour had decreased and become slightly firmer in consistency. During the following days, the decrease in size and the increase in consistency continued; so that the tumour had completely disappeared after the lapse of 2 to 3 weeks, usually without leaving any visible scar. In most cases, the skin covering the tumour showed no alterations at all during this process, and no ulceration occurred. In some cases, the tumour infiltrated the skin, which, together with the tumour, formed a necrotic crust within a few days, which remained for 2 or 3 weeks and gradually exfoliated, leaving a small hairless scar. In a few cases, discoloration of the hairs in the treated region occurred, and local alopecia developed in two animals. The cured animals were normally observed for at least 6 months. Evidence of local recurrence was observed only in one animal, after a tumour-free period of 3 months. If the technical conditions had failed, the initial reaction would have been the same, but within 2 or 5 days the growth would have been resumed–usually at the pole of the tumour–and be progressing as if no treatment had been given…All the control animals died with a large tumour within 6 weeks.”

2 links here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-875.mp3" length="3370988" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:07:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Babies are altruistic, even to their own detriment</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=872</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=872</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2020 20:45:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=872

A great study that raises serious questions about the validity of currently dominant theories a-la “Selfish Gene, link here” about human nature/character, as well as the sanity of proponents of such theories (I am looking at you Richard Dawkins). As the study demonstrates, human babies at the tender age of 12-18 months are willing to sacrifice their own well-being in order to help another human. Moreover, unlike previous studies which only looked at whether babies are willing to expend energy in order to help, this study demonstrated the willingness to give up food for the benefit of another living creature. Forgoing food is considered one of the cardinal “sins” in mainstream evolutionary biology and is postulated to NEVER occur spontaneously in nature except in cases where the “altruistic” organism is helping out another, genetically related, organism. Hence the quotes around “altruism” – to psychopaths like Dawkins and his ilk, altruism is only explainable through more selfishness such as the genes of one organism helping out the same genes in another (genetically related) organism survive. To the psychopath Dawking and his ilk, true altruism is impossible in nature. Well, Mr. Dawkins, as they say “read it and weep” – those babies below helped genetically unrelated babies just as willingly as their own siblings. As such, considering the well-documented increase in selfishness and psychopathic behavior with aging (see the Wiki page on Dawkins for a great example), the study below may be corroborating one of the mantras of the civil rights / antiwar movements of the 1960s – “never trust anyone over 30, link here“. It is children we should be looking up to for guidance on how to treat each other; not corrupt, perverted, psychopathic “leaders” such as Dawkins and his ilk.

2 links here

“…Human adults often respond to hungry people, whether through food banks or fundraisers, or by simply handing over their lunch. But when, and how, does that spirit of giving start? New research by the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, or I-LABS, finds that altruism may begin in infancy. In a study of nearly 100 19-month-olds, researchers found that children, even when hungry, gave a tasty snack to a stranger in need. The findings not only show that infants engage in altruistic behavior, but also suggest that early social experiences can shape altruism. The study is published online Feb. 4 in Scientific Reports, an open-access journal from the Nature Publishing Group. “We think altruism is important to study because it is one of the most distinctive aspects of being human. It is an important part of the moral fabric of society,” said Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, a postdoctoral researcher at I-LABS and lead author on the study. “We adults help each other when we see another in need and we do this even if there is a cost to the self. So we tested the roots of this in infants.”

“…”The infants in this second study looked longingly at the fruit, and then they gave it away!” said Andrew Meltzoff, who is co-director of I-LABS and holds the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair in psychology. “We think this captures a kind of baby-sized version of altruistic helping.” The research team also analyzed the data in different ways — whether children offered fruit on the first trial of the experiment or got better during the process, for example, and whether children from particular types of family environments helped more. The researchers found that infants helped just as well on the very first trial of the experiment as on later trials, which Barragan said is informative because it shows that the children did not have to learn to help during the study and needed no training. Indeed, children spontaneously and repeatedly helped a person from outside of their immediate family. The researchers also found that children with siblings and from certain cultural backgrounds were especially likely to help the adult, indicating that the expression of infant altruism is malleable. These results fit well with previous studies with adults that show positive influences of having a cultural background that emphasizes “interdependence,” that is, a background that places particular value on how much an individual feels connected to others. Said Barragan, “We think certain family and social experiences make a difference, and continued research would be desirable to more fully understand what maximizes the expression of altruism in young children. If we can discover how to promote altruism our kids, this could move us toward a more caring society.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-872.mp3" length="863324" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>More than 30% of GP doctors suffer from “compassion fatigue”</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=870</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=870</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2020 18:40:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=870

What a twisted/perverse way to say that a good portion of doctors are psychopaths. If anybody thinks this is an exaggerated/unsubstantiated statement of mine check the link below.

link here

So, while the article at the end of the post makes the argument that burnout and crazy working hours are mostly responsible for the increase in “compassion fatigue”, I think is also (unwittingly) provided a much more plausible explanation. Namely, the “workplace factors” doctors face are designed to create psychopaths because that is the only way a person can spend decades doing things that are highly detrimental to patients’ health and not completely lose their mind. And what happens to the ones that refuse or are unable to become psychopaths? They commit suicide of course! Not many people know that doctors have the highest suicide rate of any profession. I wonder why no politician or public health authority figure/agency talks about that – i.e. how is it that the most admired profession forces such a large number of its practitioners to kill themselves…

link here

Be that as it may, the article below reveals that the insanity does not stop there. Apparently, the powers that be are keenly aware that doctors are becoming psychopaths as a result of the very design of the system they work in. And instead of tackling that psychopathic system head on, the debate is now whether doctors should receive “evidence-based psychological interventions” in order to…”improve their quality of life”. Do you know who gets “evidence-based psychological interventions” to “improve quality of life”? Terminally ill patients. In other words, people on whom the system has given up and has decided that nothing will be done to try and improve their lot. In other words, it’s not that we can’t, we simply won’t. Apparently, doctors are now treated as terminally ill mental health patients. The powers that be mockingly “acknowledge doctors’ frustration” (insanity would be a better word than frustration) and the source of their ills (literally) but decide it is more convenient (and profitable) to subject the doctors to the infamous “evidence-based” medicine that they practice so eagerly on their own patients. I guess you reap what you sow…

2 links here

“…GPs and emergency doctors – those working on the frontline – are more likely to feel exhausted, stressed and ‘compassion fatigued’, said the study, which noted these doctors are ‘often working under pressure due to the nature and number of patients, time constraints and understaffing’.”

“…A total of 31.5% UK doctors reported a high level of burnout, with 26.2% experiencing secondary traumatic stress – fear and negative feelings from work-related trauma – and 30.7% had low levels of compassion, said the study, published in BMJ Open., link hereThe BMA said the findings are ‘alarming’ and reflect years of underfunding in the NHS meaning doctors are working for longer, with fewer staff…The mean score across all doctors was 37. Respondents were asked about burnout, secondary traumatic stress and compassion levels, with 8% (120) scoring poorly across all three areas. Doctors most commonly reported self-distraction as a way of coping. Male respondents were ‘significantly more likely’ to use denial and humour to cope, whereas woman more often used support – emotional or through actions – and positive reframing.”

“…They questioned whether doctors should receive evidence-based psychological interventions to improve their professional quality of life, or whether the problems should be tackled by ‘acknowledging and improving workplace factors’. The authors concluded: ‘It could be argued that if the NHS is to continue to remain among the highest-rated healthcare systems globally, ensuring the psychological well-being of its doctors should be seen as a matter of national importance.’”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-870.mp3" length="1084724" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lactate is an oncometabolite (promotes cancer), no genes/mutations needed</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=868</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=868</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2020 16:39:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=868

It has now been more than 5 years since a seminal post/discussion on Reddit raised the question publicly of whether the dominant medical theory on cancer may actually be nothing but an elaborate fraud. Namely, a study that spurred the Reddit discussion demonstrated that that the so-called Warburg Effect, link here is as much an effect as also a driver of cancer, and that metabolic dysfunction (lactic acidosis) precedes and is a cause of subsequent genetic mutations. That finding places cancer squarely within the category of metabolic diseases and confirms the genetic hypothesis of cancer as either the “fraud of the century” or the “idiotism of the century”. Either way, the current practice of oncology definitely deserves a nomination for the Darwin Awards, link here of the entire 20th century.

 The Warburg Effect drives oncogenesis: researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and in Japan show cancer really does have a sweet tooth, link here from science, link here 

 

That “controversial” discussion on Reddit was universally condemned in mainstream media as spreading “confusion” in regards to cancer’s origins and treatment. Yet, since then numerous other studies were published that continue to corroborate the idea that lactic acid is anything but a benign metabolic waste. Those studies demonstrated that raising endogenous levels of lactic acid through the use of metabolic toxins such as metformin is BOTH a necessary and sufficient condition for cancerization, and that neutralizing lactic acid with even a “primitive intervention” (as oncologists like to call it) such as baking soda can completely stop metastases and block further tumor growth.

Baking soda may treat cancer, metformin may cause it, link here

Acidosis (Warburg Effect) drives cancer through increased fat oxidation (Randle Cycle), link here

The latest study [4] below on the topic of lactate confirms yet again the role for endogenous lactate as an oncometabolite – i.e. a cancer promoter – and it also demonstrates that exogenous lactate has identical effects when given in sufficient amounts. In fact, the study proposes a new term for this detrimental effect of lactate – lactagenesis – a combination of lactate + carcinogenesis. The study demonstrates that elevated lactate alone is a sufficient condition for the activation of all the so-called “oncogenes” (genes promoting cancer) as well as the de-activation of major tumor suppressors genes. Moreover, the study also provides references to evidence demonstrating that the increased rate of mutations is woefully inadequate as an explanation of carcinogenesis [1]. Namely, rate of mutations is increased in perfectly healthy cells in aging organisms, while in many cancerous cells it is decreased. Furthermore, aside from the questions the study raises about human activity resulting in chronically elevated lactate (exhaustive exercise, fasting, stress, low-carb diets, etc) this study also raises serious questions about the safety of clinically used products such as Ringer’s lactate, link here, which is perhaps the most widely used hydrating and resuscitating solution in hospitals worldwide. Interestingly, mainstream medicine has quietly starting to replace the lactate version of this product with the acetate form, claiming (correctly) that the lactate version can cause serious issues in people with poor liver function. However, clinically relevant liver insufficiency is not common enough to justify this widespread replacement of the product. I think the more likely explanation is that clinicians have noticed the highly detrimental (and often lethal) effects the lactate version is having on cancer patients. Keep in mind that cancer is now the second-leading cause of death worldwide and THE leading cause of death in Western countries. As such, critically ill patients in a hospital are much more likely to have cancer than liver failure. So, if cancer patients are the most frequent recipients of resuscitating solutions and if the studies above and the one below are to be trusted, giving those patients a lactate solution is one of the worst possible interventions a hospital can provide. Thus, in order to reduce legal risk the vendor has quietly started to replace the lactate product with another one that (while still far from optimal given acetate’s role in promoting cancer) at least won’t immediately kill the patient. The part that makes this whole store even more depressing is that a cheap and effective alternative for treating these patients exists – methylene blue (MB). It is routinely used for reviving critically ill patients in shock and it can actually quickly lower endogenous lactate. On top of that, there are studies going back to the early 1900s demonstrating that MB may even treat cancer by fully blocking the Warburg “Effect”. Oh well, I guess when it comes to admitting the truth, better late than never…

[0] link here

[1] link here

[2] link here

[3] link here

[4] link here

“…Our findings demonstrate that in the MCF7 human breast cancer cell line, lactate alters the transcriptional activity of several key oncogenes as well as other driver genes involved in metabolic reprograming as well as the regulation of cell cycle and proliferation. In the aggregate, these observations are in line with our “lactagenesis hypothesis” (8, link here) positing augmented lactate production for signaling carcinogenesis as one essential purpose of the Warburg Effect. After both 6 and 48 h exposures there was a high presence of glucose-derived lactate in the cells incubated in glucose without added lactate (or glutamine), which replicated the Warburg studies (Figure 1, link here). Previously, we have shown that lactate is oxidized in mitochondrial preparations from non-transformed tissues (14, link here, 45, link here, 46, link here), and recently it has been confirmed that lactate is also oxidized by mitochondria of cancer cells (6, link here, 24, link here) purportedly for energetics (7, link here, 24, link here). Beyond lactate bioenergetics and biomass properties, our study suggests that glucose-derived lactate is sufficient to alter the transcriptional activity of key oncogenes, transcription factor genes, tumor suppressor genes as well as cell cycle, and proliferation genes, all of which are known to be involved in the development of MCF7 breast cancer cells (Table 1, link here, Figure 2, link here). The experiments, adding 10 and 20 mM of Lactate to MCF7 cells, augmented the transcriptional properties of lactate (Table 1, link here, Figures 3A,B, link here) which supports the hypothesis that lactate could be an oncogenic regulator, an oncometabolite.”

“…Although lactate is the obligatory product of glycolysis under fully aerobic conditions (13, link here), and our findings indicate that the addition of L-lactate to glucose (glutamine-free) media increases the transcriptional activity of the candidate genes studied herein, it is certainly possible that lactate and other metabolites involved in glycolysis, the pentose phosphate pathway or the TCA cycle could also influence the transcriptional activities of various genes in tumorigenesis. For example, Damiani et al. have observed that TCA intermediates that are not used for biomass purposes can be disposed via lactate production (34, link here). Hence, while lactate is a metabolic intermediate, it has numerous downstream effects as known to occur via cell redox changes (14, link here), allosteric binding (47, link here), metabolic reprograming (26, link here), and lactylation (25, link here).”

“…PIK3CA is considered to be the most mutated oncogene in breast cancer (48, link here, 49, link here). Furthermore, PIK3CA mutations are key drivers of breast cancer and its upregulation is associated with poor prognosis (50, link here). Noteworthy, PIK3CA mutations are more frequent in estrogen receptor cancer cells, such as like MCF7 (51, link here). In this study we demonstrate that lactate exposure to MCF7 cells is able to increase the transcriptional activity of PIK3CA between 2.2- and 4.3-fold (p < 0.05–0.001) (Table 1, link here, Figures 2, link here, 3A,B, link here). Furthermore, the PIK3/AKT/mTOR pathway is key and important intracellular pathway with major role regulating cell cycle, tumor growth, and proliferation (52, link here, 53, link here), one of the most activated signaling pathways in breast cancer (52, link here) as well as required for survival of MCF7 (54, link here). In our study, we found that AKT1 transcriptional activity was upregulated between 2- and 3.35-fold. The significant increase in transcriptional activity elicited by lactate in both PIK3CA and AKT1 implicates lactate as a signaling oncometabolite of the key PIK3/AKT/mTOR pathway involved in the development of many cancers. Another major oncogene, MYC, is known to have multiple roles in metabolic regulation including cellular adaptations following endurance exercise training (55, link here), but is frequently overexpressed in breast cancer cells (56, link here, 57, link here), including MCF7 cells (58, link here), and associated with poor prognosis (57, link here). In our study, we found that MYC is highly expressed across all our experiments between 2.8- and 7.7-fold (p < 0.01) (Table 1, link here, Figures 2, link here, 3A,B, link here).”

“…Hypoxia inducible factor 1 (HIF1α) as a major transcription factor in cancer (39, link here, 42, link here). HIF1α increases the transcription of genes regulating glucose transport and glycolytic enzymes (42, link here), eliciting a metabolic reprogramming, leading to the Warburg Effect and lactate production. Furthermore, the overexpression of HIF1A, the gene encoding HIF1α, plays an important role in breast cancer tumor growth and metastasis as well as being related to aggressiveness and poor prognosis (59, link here–61, link here). In all of our lactate exposures experiments HIF1A transcriptional activity was overexpressed (between 2.9- and 4.8-fold, p < 0.001) (Table 1, link here, Figures 2, link here, 3A,B, link here), a finding that is not novel, as others have previously found similar results (22, link here). Still, our present results corroborate those of others showing an important effect of lactate on transcriptional activities of this key transcription factor. Our results showing an effect of lactate on expressions of MYC and HIF1A genes are consistent results of others showing an upregulation of the glycolytic pathway in cancer (62, link here, 63, link here). Hence, our results obtained on transcription of MYC and HIFA are supportive our lactagenesis hypothesis.”

“…BRCA1 and BRCA2 are tumor suppressor genes typically mutated in breast cancer and highly connected with cancer aggressiveness and survival (64, link here–66, link here). BRCA1 contributes to the regulation of DNA repair, chromosomal remodeling, apoptosis, cell-cycle control, and transcriptional activity (67, link here). While the loss or reduced expression of nuclear BRCA1 is prevalent in basal-like breast cancers with negative estrogen, progesterone, and epidermal growth factor receptors (triple negative), its cytosolic expression is observed in estrogen-positive receptor breast cancers (68, link here). In estrogen-positive receptor breast cancer cells (the characteristic of MCF7 cells), cytosolic BRCA1 expression is inversely related to survival (68, link here). Furthermore, transcriptional activity of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes has been observed in multiple breast cancers (including MCF-7 cells) (69, link here–71, link here). In our study, we found that lactate exposure is a potent regulator of their transcriptional activity with increases in mRNA expression between 3.3- and 6.1-fold (p < 0.001) (Table 1, link here, Figures 2, link here, 3A,B, link here).”

“…Increased cell cycle and proliferation is a characteristic of cancer cells where all different phases in cell cycle are affected in cancer mainly by cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) (72, link here). Among the significant results, we found that all CDKs were overexpressed by lactate exposure in a range from 2- to 6.7-fold (p < 0.01–0.05) (Table 1, link here, Figures 2, link here, 3A,B, link here). While the trigger of this genetic dysregulation hasn’t been elucidated, our data show that most genes involved in the different phases of cell cycle are overexpressed by lactate alone as well as exogenous lactate; again, implicating lactate as a regulator of CDKs, thus shedding new possible light in cancer cell division and proliferation as well as therapeutics. The traditional view of dysregulated downstream signaling pathways in cancer is hierarchically mediated by somatic mutations mainly due to dysregulation of oncogenes and tumor suppressors (73, link here, 74, link here). Our results show that, at least in MCF7 cells, lactate doesn’t obey a hierarchical order of signaling, and also that in MCF7 cells, lactate signals multiple key steps essential in carcinogenesis, including cell proliferation.”

“…It has been estimated that each gene driver mutation confers only a small selective growth advantage, about 0.4% increase in the difference between cell birth and death (75, link here). However, this small difference over many years can result in significant production and accumulation of tumor cells leading to cancer (36, link here). Likewise, we believe that a similar phenomenon can hold true for the constant transcriptional activity elicited by dysregulated lactate on the main key driver genes over the years. Furthermore, Marticorena et al. (76, link here) have recently shown that genetic mutation alone could not be a necessary element for cancer development as in their study, they found that both non-cancerous and cancerous esophagus cells shared cancer-associated genetic mutations.”

“…Beyond the roles of oncogenes and tumor suppressor factors, others have speculated that Epi-drivers, like epigenetic changes affecting DNA and chromatin proteins could also be involved in carcinogenesis (36, link here). As mentioned above, a remarkable new study by Zhang et al. has shown the regulation of gene expression by histone “lactylation,” where both exogenous and endogenous lactate levels stimulate gene transcription from chromatin in human and mouse (25, link here). From the extensive work of others, it is known that many mechanisms are also involved in histone acetylation in cancer. A classic example is the retinoblastoma pathway. Once hypophosphorylated at the beginning of G1 phase, retinoblastoma protein (pRb) is hyperphosphorilated at the end of G1 phase and the E2F1/pRB complex breaks off, allowing transcriptional activity of E2F1 at the end of G1 phase. E2F1 can then recruit histone acetylase for acetylation allowing chromatin transcription of genes to facilitate cell cycle moving passed the restriction (R) point into the G1/S transition and S-phase of cell cycle. In our study we show that lactate increases E2F1 mRNA transcription between 1.6- and 4.1-fold (p < 0.05–0.001). Again, results support our lactagenesis hypothesis.”

“…In concert, here we show that at least in MCF7 cells, lactate acts as an oncometabolite capable of regulating transcriptional activities of key oncogenes, transcription factors, tumor suppressors, and cell cycle genes involved in breast cancer. An imperative question we pose now is what cell-specific properties, and mechanisms allow lactate to induce candidate cells toward a cancer phenotype. We have a plethora of knowledge and expertise about muscle (77, link here, 78, link here) and whole-body lactate metabolism during exercise (14, link here) and as mentioned vide supra, we have known for decades that lactate is a major source of cellular energy, especially for mitochondria. In normal physiology, there is a dynamic, order of magnitude, range of muscle lactate production, and accumulation (14, link here). However, as a tissue, muscle is resistant to carcinogenesis. In fact, rhabdomyosarcoma, historically thought to be a rare form of muscle cancer, has been recently proven to raise from endothelial progenitor cells following metabolic reprogramming and myogenic transdifferentiation, but not being originated from myocytes in the tissue itself (79, link here). As well, from epidemiology, we know that regular exercise reduces the incidences of some forms of cancers in addition to other chronic diseases (80, link here). Although lactate has been historically associated to exercise, it is noteworthy to differentiate between effects of transient increases in exercise-derived lactate and chronic lactate elevation in cancer. During and after exercise, lactate is ultimately cleared from muscle fibers with the clearance rate depending on mitochondrial function and cardiometabolic fitness level of the person. In contrast, in cancer, lactate is not rapidly cleared, and is highly concentrated in the tumor and its microenvironment; an effect of which could be to promote carcinogenesis. In summary, our study supports the hypothesis that lactate has the potential to serve as an oncometabolite, regulating transcriptional activities of different key cancer-related genes involved in metabolic reprograming as well as cell cycle and proliferation (p‘s < 0.05–0.001). Beyond present results with MCF-7 cells additional studies on different cancer cell lines and cultured tumor biopsy cells will be needed to further support the lactagenesis hypothesis and to better understand the role of lactate in carcinogenesis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-868.mp3" length="2288828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low Dose Lithium May Stop Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in Its Tracks</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=866</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=866</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 03 Feb 2020 18:21:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=866

This study was sent to me by one of my Twitter followers. In some of my past interviews/podcasts, I did mention isolated published case studies, as well as anecdotal medical reports of even advanced cases of AD getting rapidly reversed by micro-dosing regimens using lithium salts such as aspartate or orotate. The doses reported by the case studies and anecdotal stories were in the 5mg-10mg (elemental lithium) daily range and the treatment typically lasted for no more than 6 months due to the frequent MRI scans such patients endure in order to track the disease progression. To use the words of the son of one elderly female patient with advanced AD, 3 months of daily 5mg lithium orotate/aspartate resulted in completely clean MRI scans and “reduced her doctor to mumbling incoherent incredulities” and accusing them of using “unapproved methods”. Wait, what!? Instead of congratulating them on successfully curing the “incurable” AD, the response was more or less along the lines of “how dare you play dirty in OUR game”. As if the purpose of medicine is following rules instead of curing lethal diseases…

Well, the study below is pretty bold in its claims – lithium can stop AD in its tracks! It used a tiny dose of lithium as the citrate salt, administered rectally 5 days a week, for a period of 3 months. Coincidentally or not, the length of the study matches pretty well most of the published case studies and anecdotal reports about lithium’s effects on AD, and it gives those reports even more credibility. The HED of elemental lithium used would be about 0.006mg/kg, which means even a heavy person (100kg, 220lb+) would need less than 1mg daily. I am not sure why the study decided to use rectal route of administration but I suspect it is due to the peculiar pharmacokinetics of the patented lithium formulation NP03 used in the study. Be that as it may, most lithium salts on the market have close to 100% oral bioavailability and as such an oral route of say 1mg (elemental) lithium daily should be able to fully replicate the design of the study and hopefully its findings as well.

Now, the evidence about benefit of lithium for virtually all neurological conditions is not new. It spans more than a century of small studies or isolated reports, to which medicine has always responded with its favorite line – “it is controversial”. This line is essentially a euphemism for “of course it works, but it will decimate our careers/funding if we admit it does”. Hard to argue with that, considering lithium’s known mechanisms of action are ALL related to improving mitochondrial health and OXPHOS. Mainstream medicine now admits publicly that it is precisely those pro-metabolic effects of lithium that are behind its status as the “gold standard” of ANY psychiatric disease treatment. Most people probably know of lithium as only a treatment for bipolar disorder, and that is a result of a careful and deliberate PR campaign by Big Pharma over the last 40-50 years to make the humble unpatentable metal obsolete/forgotten. Yet, it is in fact an approved treatment for pretty much all mood disorders listed in DSM, link here. It is easy to see why medicine is scared of lithium. Most psychiatric conditions are officially labelled as “functional”, so it is more or less OK to admit a pro-metabolic chemical treats/cures them. However, it is very dangerous (to mainstream medicine) to start discussing the role of function (metabolism/energy) in the so-called “structural” disorders such as AD, PD, Huntington, Down syndrome, etc. Why? Because it will rapidly become clear that functional and structural disorders are two sides of the same coin and that improving function (metabolism/energy) can treat/cure structural disorders as well. And that is exactly what the study below demonstrated. Now, if I was a smart man (and I am not) I would venture a guess that combining methylene blue (MB), link here with low-dose lithium may be a curative, highly synergistic approach to AD 🙂

2 links here

Low Dose Lithium May Stop Alzheimer’s Disease in Its Tracks, link here

“…There remains a controversy in scientific circles today regarding the value of lithium therapy in treating Alzheimer’s disease. Much of this stems from the fact that because the information gathered to date has been obtained using a multitude of differential approaches, conditions, formulations, timing and dosages of treatment, results are difficult to compare. In addition, continued treatments with high dosage of lithium render a number of serious adverse effects making this approach impracticable for long term treatments especially in the elderly. In a new study, however, a team of researchers at McGill University led by Dr. Claudio Cuello of the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, has shown that, when given in a formulation that facilitates passage to the brain, lithium in doses up to 400 times lower than what is currently being prescribed for mood disorders is capable of both halting signs of advanced Alzheimer’s pathology such as amyloid plaques and of recovering lost cognitive abilities. The findings are published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-866.mp3" length="2020580" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K May Help Reduce Arterial Stiffness &amp; Improve Blood Pressure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=864</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=864</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 03 Feb 2020 17:27:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=864

For those of my readers who don’t know, vitamin K is a prescription drug in many countries for treating/preventing osteoporosis, blood pressure, liver disease, neurological disorders, cancer, etc. Japan is where this remarkable substance enjoys perhaps the most prestige as an actual drug for treating so many of the chronic maladies developed societies encounter. Yet, despite its proven efficacy in so many large, human clinical trials, vitamin K remains shunned in the Western world because the medical authorities in Europe and North America want to see clinical trials conducted on “Western” (read: Caucasian) populations before it grants any approvals for a specific condition. Hopefully, the large human study below conducted in a Western European country will be a big step in that direction. While this study does not discuss specific doses, other studies have demonstrated reversal of soft tissue calcification with 10mg vitamin K every other day taken for a period of 6+ months. However, other studies have demonstrated that blood pressure reduction is already noticeable within the first month of supplementation.

4 links here

“…Hardening of the arteries is a risk factor for chronic heart disease, one of the keys to having a healthy heart is maintaining the health of the arteries. A study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association suggests that vitamin K may help to reduce arterial stiffness as well as improve blood pressure.”

“…According to the researchers a higher inactive desphospho‐uncarboxylated matrix gla protein was associated with a greater pulse wave velocity, central pulse pressure, forward pulse wave, and backward pulse wave velocity. “This research articulates the importance of pulse wave velocity measurements in gauging cardiovascular impact. Also blood pressure measurements confirm a link between low vitamin K2 status and the risk of cardiovascular disease, since participants of this population study who had higher level of dp-ucMGP had also higher blood pressure,” said Katarzyna Maresz, president of the International Science and Health Foundation, in a statement. “Similarly as this one, a lot of previous studies showed that by improving one’s vitamin K2 status, one can serve a protective role to the cardiovascular system.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-864.mp3" length="554204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D Reduces Blood Sugar And Body Fat In Obese Women</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=862</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=862</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 30 Jan 2020 19:09:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=862

A neat study, albeit lasting much longer (about 1.5 years) than most other intervention studied with vitamin D. What makes this study particularly interesting is that it only used high doses vitamin D (60,000 IU once weekly) initially until blood levels rose into the normal range. It did not seek to achieve a specific target in terms of blood levels of vitamin D, sufficiency according to standard blood tests was all that was attempted and tracked. Once the blood levels of vitamin D fell within the normal range the supplementation regimen scaled down to a tiny 200 IU daily maintenance dose. So, it is fair to say that during the study the subjects took an average daily dose of vitamin D that was well below the RDA (400 IU daily) established in most countries. And yet, despite this meager supplementation regimen the study outcome was significant fat loss and and improvement of insulin resistance to the point of achieving normoglycemia in the majority of patients.

2 links here

“…We observed a significant reduction in FBG, 2-hour glucose post-OGTT, HbA1c, and truncal subcutaneous fat and reversal to normoglycemia in overweight/obese prediabetic vitamin D deficient Asian Indian women after 78 weeks of vitamin D supplementation,” concluded the authors.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-862.mp3" length="496820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pre-natal Viagra use causes offspring hypertension and maternal diabesity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=860</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=860</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jan 2020 20:22:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=860

The study looks weird at first glance – why would pregnant women take Viagra? After all, it is a drug initially developed for treating hypertension and erectile dysfunction (ED) in men. Well, the same misguided idea of using nitric oxide (NO) promoting drugs like Viagra to induce vasodilation has now been applied to the field of gynecology. Namely, drugs like Viagra are being tested on women who experience the so-called foetal growth restriction (FGR) – i.e. their babies do not grow sufficiently in the womb and often end up born prematurely, stillborn, or spontaneously aborted. The very nature of the condition has the signs of insufficient progesterone written all over it. However, mainstream doctors in their infinite wisdom have decided that inducing vasodilation with drugs like Viagra is a “better” approach. Well, now a new study casts strong doubt on this approach and in fact undermines the core claim about Viagra usage in adults – i.e. that it would lower blood pressure. As the study aptly described, giving pregnant women Viagra is not only ineffective for reversing FGR but results in lifelong hypertension for the babies after birth. What’s worse, in some cases it led to the babies developing so-called pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which is invariably lethal, often while still in the womb. And if that was not bad enough, the mothers who got Viagra treatment started to exhibit the initial signs of diabetes by the end of the experiment. In light of the findings of this study and the other studies it cites, I am not sure under what rationale does the FDA still allow the prescription/sales of this poison to continue…

2 links here

“..The drug, commonly used to treat erectile dysfunction, as it enhances blood flow – has been undergoing trials as a potential treatment for FGR. However, in a recent study in mice, Viagra showed no improvement in foetal growth but did result in high blood pressure in the pups as they reached maturity. Babies with Foetal Growth Restriction (FGR) are at increased risk of stillbirth and are more likely to suffer from developmental problems and other conditions such as heart disease and diabetes in adulthood.”

“…An international clinical trial of Viagra on severe cases of human FGR called STRIDER, and carried out at the same time as the Manchester study, also found the drug had no significant benefit on foetal growth or prolongation of pregnancy. The Dutch arm of the STRIDER trial was halted after 11 babies of mothers using the medication died from lung complications, though this did not happen to babies in the New Zealand-Australia or the UK-Ireland trials. In the Manchester study, over 90% of mice whose mothers were given Viagra during their pregnancy experienced a significant increase in their blood pressure. This increase was in the range of values equivalent to those used to diagnose high blood pressure in humans. The effect was similar in both wild type (normally grown) and growth restricted mice and was consistent in both females and males. Female mice also experienced a modest increased weight gain after birth and a minor reduction in glucose tolerance after 8 weeks. The study was carried out by former PhD student Dr Lewis Renshall. He said ”This, and other studies have shown Sildenafil – otherwise known as Viagra – may not be a suitable treatment for FGR unless life-saving benefits can be demonstrated.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-860.mp3" length="784220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The keto diet works only for a week, then it causes obesity and diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=858</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=858</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jan 2020 20:00:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=858

A great study that goes a long way towards dispelling the currently dominant dietary fad – the keto diet, as well as various other functionally equivalent diets such as Paleo, Warrior, intermittent fasting, etc. As the study unequivocally demonstrates, the reductions in blood sugar and weight while on a low-carb happens only during the first 1-2 weeks. This matches perfectly the widely reported experiences of virtually all followers of such diets – i.e. they tend to rapidly lose weight in the first 2 weeks and then invariably hit a wall. Why is that? Well, most of the initial weight loss is due to water loss since cutting carbs has similar effects to taking diuretic drugs. There is not much fat loss, which is ironic as losing fat is arguably the goal of every diet. After the initial water loss and drop in blood glucose due to carb restriction, the stress system (HPA axis) gradually starts going into overdrive to compensate for the lack of dietary carbs. So, if cortisol rises after the initial “honeymoon” week then one would expect the weight to start climbing again (since cortisol promotes fat storage) and blood glucose to rise even if the person consumes only fat and is in ketosis. This is exactly what the study below found. By the second week of embarking on a keto diet, the balance between fat oxidation and fat storage starts to get heavily skewed in favor of the latter and the organism develops obesity and diabetes (II). That alone should be enough to give every keto follower a pause. Namely, the low-carb diets do not work even for the basic goal of fat loss, and will in fact make a person even fatter than before embarking on the diet. On top of that, the effects of chronically upregulated fatty acid oxidation (FAO) as well as fat storage are a separate and highly detrimental aspect of low-carb diets and has been implicated in virtually all chronic degenerative conditions but especially cancer, CVD, and neurological disorders.

link here

“…After 2–3months of ad libitum KD feeding, mice gained significantly more weight compared to chow-fed controls (Fig. 6a) and exhibited elevated fasting blood glucose (Fig. 6b). KD-fed mice remained ketogenic (Fig. 6c) despite exceptional weight gain. Obesity in KD-fed mice was driven by excessive whole-body fat accumulation (Extended Data Fig. 6a–c) including in the liver (Extended Data Fig. 6d,e). Analysis of insulin-induced AKT phosphorylation in the livers of long-term KD-fed mice revealed an inverse relationship of weight gain/adiposity to insulin action (Extended Data Fig. 6f). Collectively, all these obesity-related phenotypes were associated with impaired glucose tolerance (Fig. 6d).”

link here

“…A keto diet tricks the body into burning fat, said lead author Vishwa Deep Dixit of the Yale School of Medicine. When the body’s glucose level is reduced due to the diet’s low carbohydrate content, the body acts as if it is in a starvation state — although it is not — and begins burning fats instead of carbohydrates. This process in turn yields chemicals called ketone bodies as an alternative source of fuel. When the body burns ketone bodies, tissue-protective gamma delta T-cells expand throughout the body.”

“…But when the body is in this “starving-not-starving” mode, fat storage is also happening simultaneously with fat breakdown, the researchers found. When mice continue to eat the high-fat, low-carb diet beyond one week, Dixit said, they consume more fat than they can burn, and develop diabetes and obesity. “They lose the protective gamma delta T-cells in the fat,” he said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-858.mp3" length="932132" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>How chronic stress (cortisol) causes disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=856</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=856</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jan 2020 19:08:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=856

Back in 2018 I did a post on a neat study that demonstrated how the presence of cellular (mitochondrial) fragments in the blood stream acts identically to the pituitary hormone ACTH and as such activates the HPA axis. The more cellular fragments are in the bloodstream the more intense the stress response from the adrenals. Those cellular fragments are, of course, the result of elevated cortisol (which increases cellular breakdown) and if they trigger cortisol release themselves it is easy to see how this forms a vicious cycle (positive-feedback) and why sometimes it is so hard to break out of the “sickness” mode.

2 links here

The study above only looked at mitochondrial fragments and how they affect the stress response. Now, a new study demonstrates that entire, intact mitochondria are also present in the bloodstream and are capable of activating the inflammatory cascade and the immune system, which could explain the persistent nature of the so-called “autoimmune” diseases. Namely, as long as there is a certain amount of cellular debris in the bloodstream, the immune system will produce antibodies in an attempt to deactivate/destroy them. To a mechanistically thinking doctor that looks like an immune system “attack” against a specific organ/tissue. In contrast, the view of “autoimmune” conditions as response to cellular debris quite easily explains why the use of glucocorticoids in such diseases invariably worsens their long-term course despite a short-term improvement in symptoms. Namely, if cortisol is the main driver of influx of cellular debris in the bloodstream then clearly administering potent glucocorticoids such as dexamethasone or Medrol is likely to exacerbate the stress/immune response. To make matter worse, even if the glucocorticoid administration is stopped the positive-feedback cycle has already been triggered and/or augmented. Now, if cortisol (stress) is in fact a cause of “autoimmune” conditions instead of treatment then one would expect that administering substances that can block the effects of cortisol would be therapeutic. And this is exactly what numerous studies have demonstrated with the administration of DHEA, link here, testosterone, link here, DHT, link here, progesterone, link here, etc. Maybe one day mainstream medicine will wisen up to that view too…

3 links here

“…The work of a team led by Inserm researcher Alain R. Thierry at the Montpellier Cancer Research Institute (Inserm/Université de Montpellier/Montpellier Cancer Institute) has now revolutionized knowledge of this organelle by revealing that whole functioning extracellular mitochondria are in fact found in the bloodstream. The researchers used previous findings which showed that the plasma of a healthy individual contains up to 50,000 times more mitochondrial DNA than nuclear DNA. They hypothesized that for it to be detectable and quantifiable in the blood in this manner, the mitochondrial DNA had to be protected by a structure of sufficient stability. In order to identify such a structure, plasma samples from around 100 individuals were analyzed. This analysis revealed the presence in the blood circulation of highly stable structures containing whole mitochondrial genomes. Following examination of their size and density, as well as the integrity of their mitochondrial DNA, these structures observed using electron microscopy (up to 3.7 million per ml of plasma) were revealed to be intact and functional mitochondria.”

“…But what is the role of these extracellular mitochondria? The answer to that could be linked to the structure of the mitochondrial DNA, similar to that of bacterial DNA, which gives it the ability to induce immune and inflammatory responses. Based on this observation, the researchers hypothesize that these circulating mitochondria could be implicated in many physiological and/or pathological processes requiring communication between the cells (such as the mechanisms of inflammation).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-856.mp3" length="1073948" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>America’s favorite oil causes diabetes, obesity, autism, and liver / brain disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=853</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=853</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 19 Jan 2020 05:13:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=853

A series of shockingly direct studies that do not shy away from pointing the finger at the real villain in modern public health history – PUFA, and more specifically the “essential” linoleic acid (LA). As the studies demonstrate, soy oil has strikingly detrimental effects on metabolic health and the main culprit, at least as far as diabetes goes, is precisely LA. Considering it is LA that is apparently responsible for the dramatic detrimental effects of soy oil, I see no reason why the studies’ findings cannot be extended to ALL vegetable oils containing significant portions of omega-6 PUFA such as LA. Now, if this was not enough, the same group published another study in 2017 demonstrating that omega-3 and its metabolites are also causative factors for diabetes. The findings on omega-3 were “surprising” to the researchers, because while medicine has slowly started to recognize the toxicities of omega-6, when challenged about health effects of PUFA the default defense tactic of medicine is to always claim that while omega-6 may indeed be pathological the omega-3 are not. As such, the doctors claim, the skyrocketing rates of CVD, diabetes, neurological disorders, cancer, etc are due to insufficient consumption of omega-3. You see, according to the doctors, all of our health problems would magically disappear if we simply increased the dietary ratio of omega-3/omega-6. Of course, they conveniently neglect to mention the multitude of studies demonstrating the role of omega-3 in lethal cancers such as melanoma, metastatic prostate cancer, glioblastoma, lung cancer, etc. I suspect that in another 10-15 years the evidence will finally be considered sufficient for medicine to reverse its genocidal dietary recommendations. Unfortunately, the price for that delay will be another 5-10 million lives lost to cancers caused by PUFA.

However, this is not all. The same group that exposed the pathological effects of soy oil and linoleic acid did additional experiments and compared soy oil to corn oil, olive oil, coconut oil, and high fructose diet. Regular soy oil and corn oil reliably caused diabetes, as expected. A genetically engineered variety of soy oil called Plenish, link here, which has almost no linoleic acid but a lot of oleic acid did not cause diabetes but was strikingly effective in causing fatty liver disease. The fatty acid composition of Plenish is almost the same as olive oil, and the scientists found that oilive oil also caused fatty liver disease. Coconut oil and fructose caused neither diabetes nor fatty liver disease. Finally, soy oil and other PUFA-laden oils reduced the activity of xenobiotic enzymes in the liver, which results in increased systemic burden of endocrine disruptors to which we are all exposed on a daily basis. Given all this evidence, it is not surprising that the conclusion of the scientists, possibly for the first time in mainstream public health recommendations, is “avoiding conventional soybean oil as much as possible“. The studies also corroborate Peat’s statements on animal fat such as lard. Humble lard is mocked and vilified in biomedical research and is often used to model a diet high in saturated fat. However, the fatty acid composition of pigs mirrors their diet, just like us. Considering pigs (and most other farm-raise animals) are mostly fed cheap soybean meal, this would result in a high-PUFA composition of lard and would explain the negative effects seen in most recent studies with lard, which contrast with studies before 1950s that found mostly positive effects. In conclusion, the only safe fats available for consumption nowadays are butter, coconut oil, beef tallow, sheep fat, and oils found in tropical fruits/animals (as those tend to be highly saturated in composition due to the high ambient temperature).

4 links here

“…Compared to mice on the high coconut oil diet, mice on the high soybean oil diet showed increased weight gain, larger fat deposits, a fatty liver with signs of injury, diabetes and insulin resistance, all of which are part of the Metabolic Syndrome, link here…The mice on the soybean oil-enriched diet gained almost 25 percent more weight than the mice on the coconut oil diet and 9 percent more weight than those on the fructose-enriched diet. And the mice on the fructose-enriched diet gained 12 percent more weight than those on a coconut oil rich diet.”

“…“This was a major surprise for us — that soybean oil is causing more obesity and diabetes than fructose — especially when you see headlines everyday about the potential role of sugar consumption in the current obesity epidemic,” said Poonamjot Deol, link here, the assistant project scientist who directed the project in the lab of Frances M. Sladek, link here, a professor of cell biology and neuroscience.”

“…In the U.S. the consumption of soybean oil has increased greatly in the last four decades due to a number of factors, including results from studies in the 1960s that found a positive correlation between saturated fatty acids and the risk of cardiovascular disease. As a result of these studies, nutritional guidelines were created that encouraged people to reduce their intake of saturated fats, commonly found in meat and dairy products, and increase their intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids found in plant oils, such as soybean oil. Implementation of those new guidelines, as well as an increase in the cultivation of soybeans in the United States, has led to a remarkable increase in the consumption of soybean oil, which is found in processed foods, margarines, salad dressings and snack foods. Soybean oil now accounts for 60 percent of edible oil consumed in the United States. That increase in soybean oil consumption mirrors the rise in obesity rates in the United States in recent decades. During the same time, fructose consumption in the United States significantly increased, from about 37 grams per day in 1977 to about 49 grams per day in 2004. The research outlined in the paper is believed to be the first side-by-side look at the impacts of saturated fat, unsaturated fat and fructose on obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which along with heart disease and hypertension, are referred to as the Metabolic Syndrome. The study also includes extensive analysis of changes in gene expression and metabolite levels in the livers of mice fed these diets. The most striking results were those showing that soybean oil significantly affects the expression of many genes that metabolize drugs and other foreign compounds that enter the body, suggesting that a soybean oil-enriched diet could affect one’s response to drugs and environmental toxicants, if humans show the same response as mice. The UC Riverside researchers also did a study with corn oil, which induced more obesity than coconut oil but not quite as much as soybean oil. They are currently doing tests with lard and olive oil. They have not tested canola oil or palm oil.”

link here

“…Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have tested a genetically-modified (GM) soybean oil used in restaurants and found that while it induces less obesity and insulin resistance than conventional soybean oil, its effects on diabetes and fatty liver are similar to those of conventional soybean oil. Soybean oil is the major vegetable cooking oil used in the United States, and its popularity is on the increase worldwide. Rich in unsaturated fats, especially linoleic acid, soybean oil induces obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, and fatty liver in mice. UC Riverside researchers tested Plenish, link here®, a genetically-modified (GM) soybean oil released by DuPont, link here in 2014. Plenish is engineered to have low linoleic acid, resulting in an oil similar in composition to olive oil, the basis of the Mediterranean diet and considered to be healthful. The study, link here, published today in Nature Scientific Reports, is the first to compare the long-term metabolic effects of conventional soybean oil to those of Plenish. The study also compares both conventional soybean oil and Plenish to coconut oil, which is rich in saturated fatty acids and causes the least amount of weight gain among all the high-fat diets tested. “We found all three oils raised the cholesterol levels in the liver and blood, dispelling the popular myth that soybean oil reduces cholesterol levels,” said Frances Sladek, link here, a professor of cell biology, link here, who led the research project. Next, the researchers compared Plenish to olive oil. Both oils have high oleic acid, a fatty acid believed to reduce blood pressure and help with weight loss. “In our mouse experiments, olive oil produced essentially identical effects as Plenish – more obesity than coconut oil, although less than conventional soybean oil – and very fatty livers, which was surprising as olive oil is typically considered to be the healthiest of all the vegetable oils,” said Poonamjot Deol, link here, an assistant project scientist working in Sladek’s lab, link here and the co-first author of the research paper. “Plenish, which has a fatty acid composition similar to olive oil, induced hepatomegaly, or enlarged livers, and liver dysfunction, just like olive oil.” Sladek explained that some of the negative metabolic effects of animal fat that researchers often see in rodents could actually be due to high levels of linoleic acid, given that most U.S. farm animals are fed soybean meal. “This could be why our experiments are showing that a high-fat diet enriched in conventional soybean oil has nearly identical effects to a diet based on lard,” she said.”

“…Deol and Sladek recommend avoiding conventional soybean oil as much as possible…But with its effects on the liver, Plenish would still not be my first choice of an oil,” Sladek said. “Indeed, I used to use exclusively olive oil in my home, but now I substitute some of it for coconut oil. Of all the oils we have tested thus far, coconut oil produces the fewest negative metabolic effects, even though it consists nearly entirely of saturated fats. Coconut oil does increase cholesterol levels, but no more than conventional soybean oil or Plenish.”

link here

“…New UC Riverside research shows soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression. Used for fast food frying, added to packaged foods, and fed to livestock, soybean oil is by far the most widely produced and consumed edible oil in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, link here. In all likelihood, it is not healthy for humans.”

“…However, in the study released this month, researchers did not find any difference between the modified and unmodified soybean oil’s effects on the brain. Specifically, the scientists found pronounced effects of the oil on the hypothalamus, where a number of critical processes take place. “The hypothalamus regulates body weight via your metabolism, maintains body temperature, is critical for reproduction and physical growth as well as your response to stress,” said Margarita Curras-Collazo, a UCR associate professor of neuroscience and lead author on the study. The team determined a number of genes in mice fed soybean oil were not functioning correctly. One such gene produces the “love” hormone, oxytocin. In soybean oil-fed mice, levels of oxytocin in the hypothalamus went down. The research team discovered roughly 100 other genes also affected by the soybean oil diet. They believe this discovery could have ramifications not just for energy metabolism, but also for proper brain function and diseases such as autism or Parkinson’s disease. Identifying the compounds responsible for the negative effects is an important area for the team’s future research.  “This could help design healthier dietary oils in the future,” said Poonamjot Deol, an assistant project scientist in Sladek’s laboratory and first author on the study.  “The dogma is that saturated fat is bad and unsaturated fat is good. Soybean oil is a polyunsaturated fat, but the idea that it’s good for you is just not proven,” Sladek said. Indeed, coconut oil, which contains saturated fats, produced very few changes in the hypothalamic genes. “If there’s one message I want people to take away, it’s this: reduce consumption of soybean oil,” Deol said about the most recent study.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-853.mp3" length="1794908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Advertising Makes People Unhappy</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=851</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=851</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 19 Jan 2020 01:26:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=851

Engineering demand is one of the main goals of marketing, and as such it is an indispensable tool for any for-profit company. In fact, these days, advertising is actually a crucial task in virtually any organization engaging with the public, be it non-profit, academic, government, local, etc. Yet, economic studies consistently demonstrate that advertising does not result in more optimal choices and in fact can lead to “analysis paralysis” with an overall decrease in optimal decision-making (at least according to the economic definition of such). The article below does a good job of reviewing the reasons for this “paradox” and largely echoes the words of Dr. Peat that “advertising is a dangerous cultural toxin” – i.e. in most cases it will be detrimental even when it tries to promote a beneficial product/service. The study also managed to discover a surprisingly specific quantitative (inverse) relationship between advertising and happiness. Namely, for every doubling in advertising spending happiness decreases by 3%. Considering advertising spending in the US has been doubling on average every 5 years or so since the 1960s, this alone can explain the mental health decline of most young people today.

Half of Millennials and 75% of Gen Zers may be mentally ill, link here

Then what does make us happy? Well, according to the study – being healthy, feeling loved, and a sense of purpose/community. Apparently, life is pretty simple if you listen to your intuition and not to whatever the latest ad is babbling about:-)

link here

“…The University of Warwick’s Andrew Oswald and his team compared survey data on the life satisfaction of more than 900,000 citizens of 27 European countries from 1980 to 2011 with data on annual advertising spending in those nations over the same period. The researchers found an inverse connection between the two. The higher a country’s ad spend was in one year, the less satisfied its citizens were a year or two later. Their conclusion: Advertising makes us unhappy.”

“…We did find a significant negative relationship. When you look at changes in national happiness each year and changes in ad spending that year or a few years earlier—and you hold other factors like GDP and unemployment constant—there is a link. This suggests that when advertisers pour money into a country, the result is diminished well-being for the people living there.”

“…Their line is that advertising is trying to expose the public to new and exciting things to buy, and their task is to simply provide information, and in that way they raise human well-being. But the alternative argument, which goes back to Thorstein Veblen and others, is that exposing people to a lot of advertising raises their aspirations—and makes them feel that their own lives, achievements, belongings, and experiences are inadequate. This study supports the negative view, not the positive one.”

“…Yes, some might see that watch ad and say, “Why are men buying $10,000 watches when they carry a mobile phone with the time on it?” Or respond to a car ad by congratulating themselves for not buying a gas-guzzler that’s expensive to service and destroys the environment. Our research shows that the really big influences on human happiness are things like health, intimate relationships, being employed, social safety nets, not being in midlife (there really is a crisis for many), and so on. Buying that watch or car can help make us feel slightly happier, but deep down it has a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses status effect. And when everybody buys the same thing the effect is nullified. That’s partly why advertising hurts group happiness; there’s only so much status to go around.”

“…Our analysis shows that if you doubled advertising spending, it would result in a 3% drop in life satisfaction. That’s about half the drop in life satisfaction you’d see in a person who had gotten divorced or about one-third the drop you’d see in someone who’d become unemployed. We have a lot of experience working out how people are affected by bad life events, and advertising has sizable consequences even when compared with them. I try to be an evenhanded statistical researcher, but I can see how you might look at our study and think, “Maybe it’s sensible for me to opt out of some of these ads.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-851.mp3" length="740228" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:43</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>FDA and NIH let clinical trial sponsors keep results secret (illegally)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=849</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=849</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 19 Jan 2020 01:00:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=849

A very good overview of how little power (or incentive) the federal authorities have to ensure proper reporting of clinical trials results, considering their own trials/studies are some of the biggest violators. By law, all sponsored human research/trial has to be registered in the public database ClinicalTrials.gov and upon completion its results should also be posted there. However, as the article explains, there is very little incentive for entities conducting such trials to register the trials and their results. Most studies produce either null or statistically weak findings, and as a result many of those findings are not published as to not negatively affect the sales of an already approved drug that was tested in the (failed) trial. Yet, such negative findings are crucial for scientific progress as they serve as indicators what venues for further research may be a likely dead-end. Considering the revolving door between FDA/NIH and Big Pharma, the findings of the article are of little surprise. Hopefully, its warnings will make people more careful when it comes to believing pharma propaganda. A good rule of thumb of biomedical research is that for every positive/successful study on a commercial drug there are at least 3 others that did not find a benefit but never saw the light of day.

link here

“…For 20 years, the U.S. government has urged companies, universities, and other institutions that conduct clinical trials to record their results in a federal database, so doctors and patients can see whether new treatments are safe and effective. Few trial sponsors have consistently done so, even after a 2007 law made posting mandatory for many trials registered in the database. In 2017, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tried again, enacting a long-awaited “final rule” to clarify the law’s expectations and penalties for failing to disclose trial results. The rule took full effect 2 years ago, on 18 January 2018, giving trial sponsors ample time to comply. But a Science investigation shows that many still ignore the requirement, while federal officials do little or nothing to enforce the law.

“…Science examined more than 4700 trials whose results should have been posted on the NIH website ClinicalTrials.gov under the 2017 rule. Reporting rates by most large pharmaceutical companies and some universities have improved sharply, but performance by many other trial sponsors—including, ironically, NIH itself—was lackluster. Those sponsors, typically either the institution conducting a trial or its funder, must deposit results and other data within 1 year of completing a trial. But of 184 sponsor organizations with at least five trials due as of 25 September 2019, 30 companies, universities, or medical centers never met a single deadline, link here. As of that date, those habitual violators had failed to report any results for 67% of their trials and averaged 268 days late for those and all trials that missed their deadlines. They included such eminent institutions as the Harvard University–affiliated Boston Children’s Hospital, the University of Minnesota, and Baylor College of Medicine—all among the top 50 recipients of NIH grants in 2019. The violations cover trials in virtually all fields of medicine, and the missing or late results offer potentially vital information for the most desperate patients. For example, in one long-overdue trial, researchers compared the efficacy of different chemotherapy regimens in 200 patients with advanced lymphoma; another—nearly 2 years late—tests immunotherapy against conventional chemotherapy in about 600 people with late-stage lung cancer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-849.mp3" length="613292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The inconvenient truth about cancer and mobile phones</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=847</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=847</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 19 Jan 2020 00:40:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=847

This mainstream media article is one of the best reviews on the dangers of EMF exposure and it does a very good job of explaining why this “inconvenient truth” is not more widely known – i.e. deliberate and well-funded propaganda campaign by the wireless industry often involving direct bribing and even physical violence aimed at concealing the truth. Please keep in mind that at this point a number of government organizations (including WHO/UN) have publicly labelled EMF exposure as either a “possible” or “known” human carcinogen, and recent studies by NIH/NIST leave little doubt over the risks of EMF exposure. Over the last few months mass media has been ablaze about the successful lawsuits against Monsanto and its carcinogenic blockbuster product RoundUp (glyphosate), link here, yet the exposure to EMF dwarfs glyphosate and its negative impact on public health. The newest reincarnation of wireless technology (5G) is already generating controversy in regards to its safety (or lack thereof).

We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe, link here

If there is any doubt in anybody’s mind about the dangers/risks of EMF please scroll down to the 6th paragraph/quote below, which explains that insurance companies refuse sell coverage for EMF damage. Why? Well, because to them the evidence is clear that EMF causes cancer, so it makes little sense to sell coverage for an adverse event that WILL occur due to EMF exposure. You see, insurance companies like to sell coverage for events that are NOT likely to occur so that they can collect most of the premiums and not have to make any policy payments. So, even Big Money is betting that EMF causes cancer, yet we keep hearing otherwise from mainstream media. So, instead of suing Monsanto (which is still a good idea) the public’s time/effort/money are probably much better spent on taking action against private and government factors pushing for ever-increasing pervasiveness of EMF. Even if the increase in wireless deployments cannot be stopped, at the very least the legal action can create requirements for transparency about the true risks of such technology and ensure severe penalties for any corrupt proponent of wireless technology that knowingly creates FUD, link here with fake/sponsored “research”.

4 links here

“…On 28 March this year, the scientific peer review, link here of a landmark United States government study concluded that there is “clear evidence” that radiation from mobile phones causes cancer, specifically, a heart tissue cancer in rats that is too rare to be explained as random occurrence. Eleven independent scientists spent three days at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, discussing the study, link here, which was done by the National Toxicology Program of the US Department of Health and Human Services and ranks among the largest conducted of the health effects of mobile phone radiation. NTP scientists had exposed thousands of rats and mice (whose biological similarities to humans make them useful indicators of human health risks, link here) to doses of radiation equivalent to an average mobile user’s lifetime exposure. The peer review scientists repeatedly upgraded the confidence, link here levels the NTP’s scientists and staff had attached to the study, fuelling critics’ suspicions that the NTP’s leadership had tried to downplay the findings. Thus the peer review also found “some evidence”, link here – one step below “clear evidence” – of cancer in the brain and adrenal glands.”

“…Not one major news organisation in the US or Europe reported this scientific news. But then, news coverage of mobile phone safety has long reflected the outlook of the wireless industry. For a quarter of a century now, the industry has been orchestrating a global PR campaign aimed at misleading not only journalists, but also consumers and policymakers about the actual science concerning mobile phone radiation. Indeed, big wireless has borrowed the very same strategy and tactics big tobacco and big oil pioneered to deceive the public about the risks of smoking and climate change, respectively. And like their tobacco and oil counterparts, wireless industry CEOs lied to the public even after their own scientists privately warned that their products could be dangerous, especially to children. Outsiders suspected from the start that George Carlo was a front man for an industry whitewash. Tom Wheeler, the president of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, link here (CTIA), handpicked Carlo to defuse a public relations crisis that threatened to strangle his infant industry in its crib. This was back in 1993, when there were only six mobile subscriptions for every 100 adults in the United States, but industry executives foresaw a booming future.”

“…Carlo seemed like a good bet to fulfil Wheeler’s mission. An epidemiologist with a law degree, he had conducted studies for other controversial industries. After a study funded by Dow Corning, Carlo had declared that breast implants posed only minimal health risks. With chemical industry funding, he had concluded that low levels of dioxin, the chemical behind the Agent Orange scandal, were not dangerous. In 1995, Carlo began directing the industry-financed Wireless Technology Research project (WTR), whose eventual budget of $28.5m made it the best-funded investigation of mobile safety to date.”

“…Carlo sent letters to each of the industry’s chieftains, link here on 7 October 1999, reiterating that WTR’s research had found the following: the risk of “rare neuroepithelial tumours on the outside of the brain was more than doubled… in cellphone users”; there was an apparent correlation between “brain tumours occurring on the right side of the head and the use of the phone on the right side of the head”; and the “ability of radiation from a phone’s antenna to cause functional genetic damage [was] definitely positive”. Carlo urged the CEOs to do the right thing: give consumers “the information they need to make an informed judgment about how much of this unknown risk they wish to assume”, especially since some in the industry had “repeatedly and falsely claimed that wireless phones are safe for all consumers including children”. The very next day, a livid Wheeler began publicly trashing Carlo to the media.”

“…The key strategic insight animating corporate propaganda campaigns is that a given industry doesn’t have to win the scientific argument about safety to prevail – it only has to keep the argument going. Keeping the argument going amounts to a win for industry, because the apparent lack of certainty helps to reassure customers, fend off government regulations and deter lawsuits that might pinch profits. Central to keeping the scientific argument going is making it appear that not all scientists agree. Towards that end, and again like the tobacco and fossil-fuel industries, the wireless industry has “war-gamed” science, as a Motorola internal memo, link here in 1994 phrased it. War-gaming science involves playing offence as well as defence – funding studies friendly to the industry while attacking studies that raise questions; placing industry-friendly experts on advisory bodies such as the World Health Organisation and seeking to discredit scientists whose views differ from the industry’s.”

“…A closer look reveals the industry’s sleight of hand. When Henry Lai, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington, analysed 326 safety-related studies completed between 1990 and 2006, he discovered that 44% of them found no biological effect from mobile phone radiation and 56% did; scientists apparently were split. But when Lai recategorised the studies according to their funding sources, a different picture emerged: 67% of the independently funded studies found a biological effect, while a mere 28% of the industry-funded studies did. Lai’s findings were replicated by a 2007 analysis in Environmental Health Perspectives, link here, which concluded that industry-funded studies were two and a half times less likely than independent studies to find health effects. One key player has not been swayed by all this wireless-friendly research: the insurance industry. In our reporting for this story, we found not a single insurance company that would sell a product-liability policy that covered mobile phone radiation. “Why would we want to do that?” one executive asked with a chuckle before pointing to more than two dozen lawsuits outstanding against wireless companies, demanding a total of $1.9bn in damages.”

“…The industry’s neutralisation of the safety issue has opened the door to the biggest prize of all: the proposed transformation of society dubbed the Internet of Things. Lauded as a gigantic engine of economic growth, the Internet of Things will not only connect people through their smartphones and computers but will also connect those devices to a customer’s vehicles and appliances, even their baby’s nappies – all at speeds much faster than can currently be achieved. There is a catch, though: the Internet of Things will require augmenting today’s 4G technology with 5G technology, thus “massively increasing” the general population’s exposure to radiation, according to a petition signed by 236 scientists worldwide, link here who have published more than 2,000 peer-reviewed studies and represent “a significant portion of the credentialled scientists in the radiation research field”, according to Joel Moskowitz, link here, the director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, who helped circulate the petition. Nevertheless, like mobiles, 5G technology is on the verge of being introduced without pre-market safety testing.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-847.mp3" length="1073108" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Children frequently receive unnecessary / dangerous medical care</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=845</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=845</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 18 Jan 2020 23:55:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=845

This study provides some clues in regards to the declining health of younger people that I have discussed numerous times in my posts. Lifelong health “imprinting” starts in the womb and continues for at least 3-4 years after birth. Health changes and epigenetic (re)programming continue throughout the entire life of a person, of course, but children are especially vulnerable to invasive procedures and treatments and the damage tends to carry over into their adult lives as well. Perhaps the most damaging medical intervention children receive is head CT scans, which expose their brains and thyroid to the equivalent of 50-100 X-rays every time the CT imaging is done. The majority of children who received at least one CT scan go on to receive more at a later point in time since doctors tend to follow past diagnosis/treatment precedent, which limits their legal liability. As such, I would not be surprised if the majority of children get at least one head/chest CT scan by the time they start school. This is more than enough to increase their lifetime cancer and hypothyroidism risk more than 10-fold, and in many cases triggers a cancer while still in childhood. It is not a coincidence that childhood cancer rates are the highest they’ve ever been. Aside from radiation, some of the prescription drugs children apparently receive as part of this “excessive” care are far from benign, despite the fact that doctors will market them as such. PPI, link here drugs and SSRI, link here antidepressants are two categories approved for use even in very young pre-school children, yet are among the most dangerous mass-prescribed drugs currently in circulation. The sooner this madness stops, the better for the (literal) future of this world. We can’t afford turning chronologically young people into biological “retirees” any longer.

2 links here

“…One in nine publicly insured and one in 11 privately insured children received low-value care in 2014, according to the findings published in journal Pediatrics. Researchers evaluated data for 8.6 million children in 12 states to see whether having public or private insurance is associated with receiving low-value medical services…Researchers estimated the prevalence of 20 low-value diagnostic tests, imaging tests, and prescription drugs, such as unnecessary vitamin D screening, imaging for acute sinus infections, and antibiotic prescriptions for colds.”

“…”Doctors have a strong fear of missing something,” Chua says. “Some doctors would rather over-treat and risk the side effects of the intervention than undertreat and risk missing a catastrophic problem.” Unnecessary care has consequences, Chua says. Overuse of antibiotics, for example, can increase antibiotic resistance and the risk of allergic reactions. MRIs sometimes expose children to the risks of sedation while CT scans expose them to radiation, which can increase the lifetime risk of cancer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-845.mp3" length="857636" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Emulsifiers found in most commercial foods cause brain tumors, hemorrhage, and stroke</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=841</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=841</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 18 Jan 2020 23:10:45 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=841

A really interesting study that demonstrates how emulsifiers considered “benign” by the FDA/USDA and present in virtually all commercial food can actually cause quite a bit of damage to health. The study demonstrates that even a low-dose of a common commercial emulsifier Polysorbate 80 (P80), link here damages the mucosal barrier of the gut and increases both endotoxin (LPS), link here and actual bacterial translocation to the brain. Once there, LPS activates the “endotoxin” receptor TLR4, link here and that leads to the formation of tumors known as cerebral cavernoma (CMM), link here. This is yet another study that links endotoxin/LPS to tumor formation. I made a number of posts a few months ago demonstrating that liver, pancreatic, colon, lung, and even esophageal cancers are also linked to bacterial and LPS translocation from the gut to the respective organ/tissue where the tumor formed. However, those studies did not go as far as stating that the endotoxin/LPS/bacteria were the direct cause of the cancer/tumor, while this new study does. Aside from the polysorbates, other emulsifiers known to disrupt the mucosal barrier include carrageenan (which is actually a known carcinogen) as well as various gums such as locust bean, acacia gum, carob bean gum, etc. These emulsifiers are authorized for use even in products certified as organic by USDA, but their levels in organic foods are subject to tighter restrictions, while their levels in non-organic foods are largely unregulated. A few recent studies discovered that products from fast food chains such as Burger King, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Popeye’s, etc contain the highest amount of emulsifiers of all commercial foods tested. I suspect that it is the presence of those (indirectly) carcinogenic additives that allow fast food items to survive more than 20 years without ANY decay, link here, as the bacteria that normally degrades/metabolizes food left out in the open is also quite vulnerable to those toxic additives. The fact that many hospitals serve fast food from these chains to hospitalized patients, often people with GI disorders/surgeries/procedures, makes me cringe…

2 links here

“…For many years, scientists have studied the link between gut microbiota and diseases such as dementia, autism, Parkinson’s, diabetes, obesity or colitis, proving that each disease has a specific gut microbiota profile. Studies have also focused on the gut-brain axis, in which bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS) translocate to the brain through circulating blood, while gut microbiota also generates metabolites that affect brain function and the immune system. However, we are yet to identify the specific mechanisms, molecules, and genes that cause a disease: a finding that would allow us to develop appropriate therapies. A new publication from Alan T. Tang of the University of Pennsylvania focuses on explaining the relationship between gut microbiota and cerebral cavernous malformation (CCM), which is a neurological disease that leads to hemorrhagic stroke and seizure.”

“…In a third objective, Tang decided to investigate the impact of disrupted gut microbiota and epithelium cells damage induced by dextran sulfate sodium (DSS). In mice that develop CCM due to endothlial cell specific deletion of Krit1, only 50% survived DSS treatment, and survivors showed a twofold increase in CCM volume compared to vehicle treated littermate controls. Thus, chemical disruption of the gut epithelial barrier exacerbated CCM disease.”

“…Researchers wanted to prove their hypotheses with non-invasive treatment. As it is known that emulsifiers found in processed foods promote colitis by degrading the mucosal barrier, they treated a PDCD10-deleted mouse with a low quantity of P80 (emulsifier) and noted a low but significant increase in mucosal barrier lesions. The main goal of this research was to identify the mechanism by which PDCD10 deletion in individuals is responsible for increased bacterial translocation and CMM symptoms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-841.mp3" length="1072196" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Glucose is anabolic for thymus, opposes catabolic effects of cortisol</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=839</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=839</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 18 Jan 2020 22:30:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=839

As most of my readers know, cortisol is a highly catabolic steroid and one of the main agents (estrogen being another) responsible for thymus atrophy with age. These catabolic effects of cortisol can be blocked by progesterone, DHEA, pregnenolone and even DHT (but not by testosterone). The study below confirms the catabolic effects of cortisol on thymus, and its ability to lower ATP levels. It also demonstrates that we can now add dietary factors to the list of agents that affect thymus size/atrophy and as such may oppose the catabolic effects of cortisol on thymus. The study examined the effects of a number of sugars as well as their metabolites pyruvate and lactate on thymus growth, and discovered that glucose was by far the most potent stimulator of thymus anabolism. The study suggests that these effects of glucose were likely due to the ability of glucose to increase synthesis of adenine nucleotides (including ATP) and of the intermediate glucose-6-phosphate. Btw, inosine is one of the adenine nucleotides and, in corroboration of the claims of the study below, it is worth noting that inosine has a known potent immunostimulant effect and is in fact approved as an anti-viral drug (Inosine Pranobex / Isoprinosine) in many European countries. In further corroboration of the study below, inosine is known to elevate ATP levels through a nucleotide salvaging pathway. It would have been really interesting for the study to also test the effects of fatty acids on thymus growth,  but I suppose for now we just have to accept the consolation prize that glucose is highly beneficial for the immune system and won’t make you vulnerable to infectious disease, as many doctors claim.

link here

“…Amino acid incorporation into thymus cell protein is at least partly dependent upon glucose metabolism or, perhaps stated more accurately, dependent upon metabolites derived from glucose. We have not yet found a combination of substrates at any concentration which can completely replace glucose, whereas even small concentrations of glucose (Fig. 2) maintain incorporation at higher levels than are obtained with large concentrations of readily metabolized substrates such as pyruvate and lactate. It seems reasonable to tentatively attribute the special effects of glucose to its ability to provide glycolytic intermediates at the level of glucose-6-P. Our findings that, when compared with low levels of glucose, lactate and pyruvate also slightly elevate glucose-6-P, and that under these conditions equal rates of amino acid incorporation are associated with equal levels of glucose6-P, raise the possibility that the effects of pyruvate and lactate on incorporation may also be at least partly through their ability to provide, or spare, glycolytic intermediates.”

“…In these studies of rates of amino acid incorporation we have shown that the stimulatory effects of carbohydrates are associated with substantial increases in ATP levels, and that the inhibitory effects of cortisol are associated with, and usually preceded by, smaller but distinct inhibitions of the ability of glucose and other carbohydrates to produce ATP. The observed ATP changes are usually associated with reciprocal changes in ADP and AMP. These data suggest a working hypothesis to be tested by further experimentation that the effects of substrate and of cortisol are in fact mediated through changes in adenine nucleotide levels, which in turn influence amino acid incorporation rates.”

“…Cortisol addition leads to an early inhibition of only the carbohydrate-dependent amino acid incorporation into protein. This hormone effect is associated with a cortisol inhibition of the ability of glucose and other carbohydrates to generate ATP, the effects on ATP in some instances preceding the effects on incorporation. With glucose as substrate, effects of cortisol on ammo acid incorporation may be attributed to a prior inhibition of glucose uptake; with lactate and pyruvate as substrate, effects on substrate uptake and on the initial metabolic steps were not found. Although the inhibition of glucose uptake is not the unique action of cortisol, the results suggest that hormonal inhibition at this site has considerable physiological significance. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-839.mp3" length="816236" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lowering DHT synthesis causes severe hypothyroidism, despite higher T levels</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=824</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=824</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 05 Jan 2020 20:05:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=824

Just a quick post in regards to one of the most controversial steroids out there – dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Mainstream medicine has vilified this steroid for decades and has blamed a host of male and female pathologies on it – i.e. baldness, prostate enlragement (BPH), prostate cancer (PC), PCOS, diabetes, obesity, dementia, osteoporosis, etc. One of the most popular prescription drugs in the last two decades was the 5α-Reductase, link here (5-AR)) inhibitor finasteride, link here, which is the drug of choice for “treating” male baldness, BPH, PC, and even PCOS. Unfortunately, a large number of finasteride users develop the so-called post-finasteride syndrome (PFS), link here, which is so debilitating that many people with PFS commit suicide. Doctors, pharma companies producing finasteride and related drugs, public health officials, and even mainstream media continue to deny that PFS exists, despite over 1,300 individual lawsuits (see link on PFS above) brought by patients against the drug makers the vast majority of which were either settled out of court or won by the plaintiffs. There have been multiple studies on PFS and the opinion on the exact cause(s) varies, but the consensus is that the pathology is at least partially caused by the drop in androgenic tone as a result of lower DHT levels as well as reduced 5-AR expressions in virtually all tissues that express the enzyme. Upon reviewing the symptoms of PFS it quickly becomes apparent that they significantly overlap with the symptoms of hypothyroidism. Mainstream medicine and pharma executives vehemently deny that finasteride (and other 5-AR inhibitors such as dutasteride) affects thyroid function or causes hypothyroidism but there are multiple studies demonstrating elevated prolactin, cortisol, cholesterol, and blood glucose as a result of using 5-AR inhibitors, and those are classic symptoms of hypothyroidism. And now the study below states it is apparently known in medical circles that inhibition of DHT synthesis causes severe hypothyroidism, despite the elevated levels of testosterone (T). The normal, or even elevated, levels of T in PFS patients have repeatedly been used as an argument by finasteride defenders that the drug does not amount to a “chemical castration” because T is the main steroid responsible for the male phenotype, so the higher T levels should compensate for the drop in DHT. Well, apparently, yet another “expert opinion” bites the dust…

Be that as it may, if using a 5-AR inhibitor indeed causes (severe) hypothyroidism, it would easily explain most of the manifestations of PFS and suggests a rather straightforward approach to treating it (e.g. administration of thyroid supplement). And of course, this study once again underscores the fact that DHT is far from pathological – it is in fact vital for (male) health and the campaign against it may very well gown down in history as one of the longest-lasting, most widespread, state-sanctioned, male-focused iatrogenic atrocities of our times.

link here

“…ETU is a common environmental contaminant, metabolite, and degradation product of the fungicide class of ethylenebisdithiocarbamateas, such as mancozeb and zineb [89, link here]. They are used to prevent crop damage in the field and to protect harvested crops from deterioration in storage or transport [90, link here]. Toxicological data show the thyroid gland as the primary target of ETU through the interference with thyroid peroxidase activity [91, link here]. In addition, pre- and post-natal exposures to low doses of ETU are associated to effects on development and on the reproductive hormone profile in rats [89, link here]. In particular, the reproductive hormone profile showed significantly reduced levels of serum DHT in male rats at ETU 0.3 mg/kg body weight/day, which corresponded to the dose at which the hypothyroid status was more evident. Severe hypothyroidism has been demonstrated to be associated with the inhibition of T conversion to DHT by 5α-reductase, with a consequent increase in serum T concentration.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-824.mp3" length="1500812" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D – the new antibiotic against skin and gut infections</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=820</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=820</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Jan 2020 18:47:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=820

A great new study demonstrating the crucial role of vitamin D in maintaining proper immune function. The study demonstrates that maintaining normal levels of vitamin D is strongly protective against gut infections by Salmonella-type bacteria. Interestingly, the authors claim that vitamin D is likely to provide protection against inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) conditions such as ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD), yet they call these conditions “non-pathogenic”. Well, at this point it is well-established that CD has a very high-likelihood of being caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium paratuberculosis. In fact, studies have raised questions whether specific/exclusive diagnosis of either CD or tuberculosis are not in fact the same disease, thus calling for the treatment of CD as an infectious rather than as an “autoimmune” condition. If it does turn out that CD is in fact a pathogen-driven disease then this would likely turn into yet another incredibly embarrassing and litigious quagmire in the medical community since the current therapy for CD is mainly immunosuppression and this is the worst possible “therapy” for a patient who may in fact turn out to be suffering from a chronic bacterial infection. Oh, and it just so happens that high-dose vitamin D protocols for treating IBD and other “autoimmune” conditions already exists, which further corroborates both the findings of this study and the hypothesis that a pathogen (or its endotoxin) is involved in likely all “autoimmune” conditions.

2 links here

Moving on, the study also demonstrated that once-daily, topical application of vitamin D3 (dissolved in an ethanol-based carrier) for two days in a row resulted in strikingly improved healing of skin wounds infected by staph-type bacteria. In fact, the skin infection could be treated entirely with vitamin D3, without using an antibiotic as add-on. The HED of vitamin D3 was 60 IU / kg of bodyweight daily. I suspect that adding vitamin E and A to the D3 would make even more effective as both vitamins have already established pro-immune and anti-bacterial effects. Assuming the usual 3:1 – 5:1 optimal ratio rule for A:D still applies, that means 180 – 300 IU vitamin A / kg of bodyweight would be needed. Vitamin E would likely work in any dose, but the studies utilizing for topical wound protection most often cite a daily dose of 100 IU – 200 IU.

Unfortunately, they did not test internal vitamin D3 administration as a treatment of Salmonella gut infection but that is proposed to be tried soon in a subsequent study. What this study did show, is that the higher the expression of the CAMP protein, the more resistant the organism is to a gut infection. Considering CAMP is dependent on vitamin D levels, I think the likelihood of vitamin D administration also treating gut infections is high.

2 links here

“…Oregon State University researchers have led the development of a new model for studying vitamin D’s role in infection prevention, and tests using the model suggest that vitamin D treatment can dramatically reduce the number of disease-causing bacteria in skin wounds.”

“…The current study examines the bioactive form of vitamin D’s role in promoting the body’s production of the cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide, typically abbreviated to CAMP. A peptide is a compound consisting of two or more amino acids linked in a chain, and CAMP is made by immune cells, link here and cells that provide a barrier against infection, such as skin and gut cells.”

“…To study how vitamin D and CAMP work together to help thwart infection, Gombart and his research team developed a line of mice that carry the CAMP gene but not Camp. They bred mice engineered to carry human CAMP to mice with their Camp gene knocked out, resulting in mice with an antimicrobial peptide gene regulated by the bioactive form of vitamin D. The scientists believe the novel model will be useful as research into vitamin D-induced expression of CAMP progresses, involving diseases caused by microorganisms and also conditions that are “non-pathogenic,” such as inflammatory bowel disease, link here. In this study, researchers showed that the mice, link here with the human CAMP gene had increased resistance to gut infections, and that staph infections on their skin could be successfully treated with the bioactive form of the vitamin.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-820.mp3" length="1397252" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E, anabolic / catatoxic steroids, egg yolks stop soft tissue calcification and (maybe) even aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=817</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=817</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 31 Dec 2019 04:56:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=817

A great series of studies performed in the 1960s, with Hans Selye spearheading most of the investigations. It is amazing how much was known about human disease and aging, and how much of that knowledge has been so thoroughly forgotten to the point that doctors nowadays have never even heard of the term “catatoxic”. One of most important topics the studies below cover is the fact that soft tissue calcification can be triggered by a variety of endogenous and environmental agents, many of which are considered beneficial by mainstream medicine and billions are spent every year promoting their use. As the study below states, some of those well-known (back in the 1960s, that is) endogenous agents triggerring soft-tissue calcification (calciphylaxis) include estrogen, serotonin and parathyroid hormone (PTH) – those same agents that pharma companies and public health authorities spent billions on advertising for every year.

[1] link here

“…Calciphylaxis enables the organism to deposit calcium selectively in certain areas. Thus, following pretreatment with parathyroid hormone or dihydrotachysterol (DHT), various calciphylactic challengers (egg white, metals, serotonin, etc.) can induce selective calcification-often with inflammation, sclerosis, necrosis or degeneration–in the skin, muscles, cardiovascular system, pancreas, salivary glands, or uterus.”

[2] link here

“…Subsequently, it was noted that removal of the testis also increases the arterial calcification (Monckeberg’s sclerosis), and the loss of body weight induced in male rats by intoxication with dihydrotachysterol (DHT). These observations led to the suspicion that some, not further identified, “testicular factor” exerts a prophylactic action in these conditions[3] and soon afterwards it could be shown that this anti-DHT effect can be duplicated by methyltestosterone and abolished by estradiol.”

However, as the series of studies in this post shows, the issue of calcification runs much deeper. This soft-tissue calcification (calciphylaxis) is actually a primary sign of a number of conditions involving premature aging (e.g. progeria), and in fact quite possibly the process of systemic human aging as well. Moreover, evidence exists that this calciphylaxis is not just a sign but the very cause of aging in humans. As such, agents such as estrogen, serotonin, PTH, heavy metals, etc can be considered as primary causes of aging and its associated pathology, and any agents capable of reversing this calciphylaxis (hereby called anacalciphylactic agents) can be thought of as general anti-aging substances. Note the description below and the image extracted from [1] above comparing an animal with calciphyalxis with one whose calciphylaxis has been blocked / reversed by (methyl) testosterone. The aged (calciphylactic) rat in section A is strikingly reminiscent of the appearance of an old human being.

[3] link here

“…It is a well known fact that the calcium avidity of soft tissues increases with advancing age. In elderly patients, gross calcification often occurs in the cardiovascular system, cartilaginous structures, tendons, periarticular tissues and cataracts; furthermore, calcareous concretions tend to appear in the pineal gland, prostate, or the urinary passages [1]. Apart from such macroscopically visible calcium deposits there is a gradual increase in the chemically detectable calcium content of various organs in old individuals throughout the animal kingdom [2]. This tendency towards soft-tissue calcification also manifests itself in patients with premature senility as it occurs in the Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome, or progeria. Here, atrophy with wrinkling of the skin and calcifying arteriosclerosis of the Monckeberg type are combined with a shortened life span [3, 4, 5]. Although many investigators believe that this type of calcinosis is a secondary result of “decreased tissue vitality”, others maintain that an increase in the tissue calcium concentration may actually be the cause of the changes characteristic of senility [2]”.

So, what (if anything) can be done about this process of accelerated aging and “natural” human aging in general? Well, one of the studies above already hints at a solution. Namely, preserving gonadal function retards the aging process and soft-tissue calcification. The studies below demonstrate that a high dose (but commonly used by athletes) dosage of (methyl) testosterone can completely prevent these “aging” changes induced by calciphylaxis agent(s). In other words, (methyl) testosterone is an anacalciphylaxis agent. As demonstrated by [2] above, other catatoxic / anabolic steroids including oxandrolone, norbolethone, ethylestrenol, spironolactone, etc can also fully prevent the calciphylaxis / aging. The dosage of (methyl) testosterone used was equivalent to a human dose of 1.5 mg/kg daily, and the treatment lasted for 30 days. Such a dose of anabolic steroid is indeed high but it happens to be the standard dose for bodybuilders during a cycle – i.e. 100mg – 150mg of testosterone daily. Now, it is well-known that such high doses of anabolic steroids increase the risk of serious side effects. The good news is that a much lower dose (HED of 0.15 mg/kg daily) also had a protective effect but could not fully block the calciphylaxis. The even better news is according to [5] and [6] below a hefty dose of vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol acetate) was also able to fully block the calciphylaxis. Now, the dose of vitamin E used in that study was also quite high – an HED of about 4g-5g daily. However, the study used alpha-tocopheryl acetate, which is known to be only about 30% – 50% as effective as alpha-tocopherol. So, if one used pure alpha-tocopherol then a dose of 2g -2.5g daily should suffice. This is still a high dose but it has been used clinically in the 20th century for a variety if estrogen-related issues, especially by the Shute brothers. Perhaps just as importantly, study [7] below demonstrates that vitamin E protects from the side effects of high-dose anabolic steroids, which makes a combination of vitamin E + testosterone a rather good combination for blocking / reversing systemic soft-tissue calcification and possibly retarding the whole aging process. Unfortunately, there was no anacalciphylaxis synergy between vitamin E and testosterone, so the combined usage is aimed at reducing the steroid’s side effects and not increasing the anacalciphylaxis. If one is too concerned about those side effects, then one can use vitamin E only, which even at the hefty multi-gram daily doses has few serious side effects in humans, with the possible exception of increased bleeding risk, which can easily be controlled by taking some vitamin K a few hours before/after the vitamin E regimen. It just so happens that vitamin K (10mg+ daily dose) is also a anacalciphylaxis agent [8], and together with vitamin E should make a great non-steroidal therapy for soft-tissue calcification and maybe aging in general. And if a person is really averse to using either a high dose anabolic steroid or vitamin E, the studies provide yet another alternative – eating egg yolks. Yes, the studies demonstrate that a HED of 1 g/kg egg yolk was highly effective as anacalciphylaxis agent when administered orally. However, please keep in mind the quote above from [1], which demonstrated that egg white is a potential calciphylaxis agent. So, if one decides to go the (delicious) route of egg yolks, please make sure only the yolks are consumed and not the whole eggs.

Finally, a few small but hopefully important observations. First, note that none of studies with vitamin E refer to it as an “antioxidant” – something mainstream medicine has spent billions to try to convince the public about. All of the studies in this post refer to vitamin E as an “anti-sterility vitamin”, as Peat himself also mentioned quite a few times. This gives a clue to the possible mechanism of action for the benefit of vitamin E and (methyl) testosterone. Namely, opposition to estrogen. The anti-sterility effects of vitamin E are well-known to be linked to the powerful anti-estrogenic effects of this vitamin. Testosterone and its various synthetic derivatives including the methylated-varieties, is also a known estrogen antagonist. Estrogen is a potent calciphylaxis agent, as the quote from [2] clearly states. This raises the possibility that other anti-estrogenic agents such as progesterone (P4) should also work. However, study [2] did test P4 and did not find it to be effective. Maybe higher doses are needed for P4 to exert anacalciphylaxis effects. However, in corroboration of the role of serotonin as a calciphylaxis agent, the serotonin antagonist cyproheptadine has already been shown to prevent/reverse soft-tissue calcification, link here. In addition, anti-serotonin chemicals have been shown to increase lifespan, link here, which matches perfectly with the claims of the studies in this thread that anacalciphylaxis agents such as serotonin antagonists should have anti-aging effects, link here.

[4] link here

“…It has been known for more than thirty years that in the fetal or in the newborn rat, intoxication with an impure vitamin-D preparation (irradiated ergosterol) produces a kind of osteoporosis with spontaneous fractures, intense catabolism and loss of skin elasticity (2, 3), whereas in older rats, it tends to produce calcification in various soft tissues, especially in the arteries, heart and kidneys (3, 4). More recently, it was shown that a syndrome reminiscent of progeria can be produced by chronic overdosage with small doses of dihydrotachysterol (DHT) and that all the manifold manifestations of this experimental disease are inhibited when tissue calcification is prevented by simultaneous treatment with ferric dextran (Fe-Dex) (5), methyltestosterone (6) or 17 -ethyl-19-nortestosterone (7).”

“…During the five days preceding the initiation of DHT treatment, the animals of all groups gained weight approximately at the same rate and showed no evident clinical manifestations of disease, except for a slight brownish discoloration of the skin (indicative of mild hemosiderosis) in the group treated with ferric dextran. Accordingly, the body-weight curves in Graph I follow a virtually identical course until the first day of DHT treatment. However, after this the growth of the rats receiving DHT alone soon fell behind that of the other groups, and beginning on the fifth day it declined rapidly, until at the end of the observation period it returned to the starting level. On the other hand, the rats treated with DHT + methyltestosterone continued to grow just as rapidly as the controls. Indeed, their final weight was slightly (though not significantly) above that of the untreated controls. Eventually the body weight of these rats was more than twice that of the rats given DHT alone. We may well speak of a complete abolition of the DHT-induced catabolism.”

[5] link here

“…Calciphylaxis is a reaction through which the organism can send calcium selectively to certain organs; on the other hand, anacalciphylaxis (calciphylactic desensitization or reverse calciphylaxis) can prevent the formation of pathologic soft-tissue calcification (1). The mechanism through which calciphylaxis and its variant, anacalciphylaxis, exert these seemingly opposite effects is not yet well known. It appears however that, in calciphylaxis, sensitization with a systemic calcifying agent (e.g., vitamin-D derivatives) followed by the local application of a challenger (e.g., metallic compounds) to a limited tissue region, attracts calcium and causes massive mineralization of the part challenged. Conversely, in anacalciphylaxis, the challenger is diffusely distributed throughout the organism; thereby it induces a generalized avidity of tissues for calcium, phosphate or mineralizable organic matrix. Presumably, anacalciphylaxis prevents the massive mineralization of any one part, through competition for the available extraskeletal calcium which, being widely disseminated, is readily metabolized. It has long been known that an increased tendency toward soft-tissue calcification (particularly of the arteries, cartilages and the crystalline lens) is characteristic of senility.”

“… For example, Fe-Dex proved to be more effective by the intraperitoneal than the subcutaneous route, whereas egg yolk was more potent when given orally rather than intravenously. Yet, even intravenous injection of egg yolk, the least effective among the procedures listed, permitted a statistically highly significant body-weight gain as compared with the controls given DHT alone (P < 0.01)….Egg yolk is also a potent calciphylactic challenger, hence its prophylactic action could depend upon a similar phenomenon, i.e., the deviation of calcium by diffusely distributed yolk corpuscles.”

“…The growth inhibitory action of calciphylaxis (Group 10) was significantly counteracted by Fe-Dex, methyltestosterone and vitamin E (Groups 11-13). Here again, the anabolic effect was usually associated with a diminution in the cardiovascular and renal calcinosis as well as in the osseous changes, although methyltestosterone was least effective in these latter respects despite its potent growth-promoting action.”

[6] link here

“…Recently, we observed that vitamin E (d-atocopheryl acetate) can prevent the development of various forms of calcinosis normally induced in dihydrotachysterol-sensitized rats by the administration of certain calciphylactic challengers.[5]”

“…The present observations indicate that vitamin E also acts as a dihydnotachystenol antagonist, but-at least under our experimental conditions-its effect is not enhanced by the androgen. Among many agents tested, so far we have been able to find only the following three which can antagonize the production by dihydrotachysterol of the progenia-like syndrome: (1) fernic dextran, a calciphylactic challenger commonly used in clinical medicine to stimulate hemopoesis ; (2) methyltestosterone, an anabolic androgen ; and (3) d-a-tocopheryl acetate (an antistenility vitamin).”

[7] link here

[8] link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-817.mp3" length="1012844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Eating 1 lb of sugar daily has strikingly positive effects on (male) fertility</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=815</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=815</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2019 15:49:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=815

When I saw this news article pop up in my daily feed I immediately thought to myself “This study will never get covered by large mainstream news outlets”. And of course, the websites of CNN, Fox, ABC, CNBC, USA Today, etc have no trace of an article covering the study or even just the basic findings. And those findings are particularly damning for nutritional mantra we hear every day – “eat less, move more, and for God’s sake drop the sweet stuff”. Well, as it seems, if a male wants to have children then eating at least a pound of “the sweet stuff” a day, on top of his regular diet, may be one of the best things that male can do for is reproductive health.

2 links here

“…Researchers have found a study that sperm is affected by diet and its results appear rapidly. The research also gave new insights into the sperm process which, in the long term, can continue to assess sperm values by modern testing methods. The study published in ‘PLOS Biology’ was found by researchers at Linkoping University who fed healthy young men a high sugar diet.

“…In some cases, such epigenetic changes will contribute to the transmission of properties through the sperm or egg from parent to parent. In an earlier study, researchers have shown that male fruit flies that had eaten excess sugar shortly before the patient became overweight more often produced offspring. Scientists have hypothesized that RNA sperm fragments may engage in epigenetic processes, but it is too early to tell whether they do in human beings. The new study was initiated by the researchers to investigate whether high consumption of sugar affects the RNA fragments in human sperm. The study examined 15 normal, non-smoking young men, who followed a diet in which they were given all food from the scientists for two weeks. The diet was based on the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations for healthy eating with one exception: during the second week, the researchers added sugar, corresponding to around 3.5 litres of fizzy drinks, or 450 grammes of confectionery, every day. The sperm quality and other indicators of the participants’ health were investigated at the start of the study, after the first week (during which they ate a healthy diet), and after the second week (when the participants had additionally consumed large amounts of sugar). One third had poor sperm motility at the beginning of the test. Motility is one of several factors influencing the quality of sperms, and that of the general population was the proportion of people with low sperm motility studied. The authors were surprised to learn that the motility of sperm of all participants during the research had become natural. “The study shows that sperm motility can be changed in a short period, and seems to be closely coupled to diet. This has important clinical implications.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-815.mp3" length="384452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Adopting Aristotle’s views resolves the “paradoxes” in quantum mechanics and consciousness</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=813</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=813</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2019 15:22:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=813

As it seems, the old Greek philosopher was right all along. Unfortunately, at some point in 1600 Western science abandoned its Aristotelian approach to reality and instead adopted the mechanistic, reductionist Cartesian view based on the ideas of René Descartes, whose own work he famously summed up as “Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.” Well, as it seems, matter cannot be so divided down to “fundamental”, indivisible blocks, as it leads to variety of paradoxes and dead-ends. This misguided approach, which treats matter (the term Descartes used was “res extensa”) as simply “stuff” extended in space, has led science, and especially physics/quantum mechanics (QM), down a path of fake discoveries that seem absolutely baffling and paradoxical. I suspect, this Cartesian approach to science/reality/matter is one of the main reasons for the stagnation of science I posted about recently.

2 links here

What’s worse, in order to conceal these “paradoxes” it seems that the entire discipline of quantum mechanics may have engaged in systemic scam/fraud, as another one of my recent posts discussed.

A fundamental tenet in quantum physics may be nothing but a scam, link here

Is there a way out? According to the article (and accompanying study) below the answer is not only yes but it may in fact be a surprisingly easy solution. Namely, we have to drop the primitively mechanistic Cartesian view that all that exists is “res extensa” – i.e. things, objects, etc. The notion of reality needs to be extended to include the ontologically real but extraspatiotemporal notion/principle of “res potentia” a.k.a “prima matter” as defined by Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago. This Aristotelian view of reality posits that reality is composed of two primary principles (as opposed to particles, as modern science claims) – potential (res potentia) and actuality (res extensa). The equivalent mainstream terms would be energy and “matter”, while the original Aristotelian terms would be “prima matter” and “substance”. Note that Aristotle used “prima matter” to refer to what we now call energy, and he used the term “substance” for what we now call matter, “things”, objects, etc. To Aristotle, “prima matter” was the source of all observable things in this world and was a concept beyond space and time, and as such ultimately undefinable. The equivalent Peatarian terms would be function and structure, which Peat uses in virtually all of his written work. What we call “motion” would be the continuous process of conversion of potential into actuality. As such, the world we see is always “bubbling forth” as Heraclitus said as well. Things are always “becoming” and nothing is really still for as long as there is still potentiality that has not yet been “converted” into actuality. Adopting such a definition of reality resolves a number of “paradoxes” in QM including nonlocality, entanglement, null measurements, and wave function collapse. Even Einstein’s ideas take a backstage – i.e. spacetime is not all there is to reality. It is in fact a higher-level structure that emerges from quantum “res potentia” as a result of a quantum physical process known as “measurement”, which links “res potentia” and “res extensa”. The same authors propose even a solution to the so-called “hard problem of consciousness”. Namely, in their view, consciousness is a physical entity capable of performing such a (quantum) measurement, or at least capable of participating in the “measurement” that creates the ordinary world we are familiar with. I supposed this is what Peat meant when he said in one interview that the world is in a process of “continuous creation” and we are full participants in that creative process.

3 links here

“…I adopt Res Potentia and Res Extensia linked by Measurement, both ontologically real, as a working hypothesis, which may be true or false. Then: What IS consciousness? The obvious hypothesis is that mind and consciousness participate in Res Potentia. Mind participates in an ontologically real Possible. Where is it natural to locate experience, or qualia? I hypothesis that experience, qualia, the experience of the blueness of blue, is associated with quantum measurement. I note that R. Penrose and H. Stapp, respectively a mathematician and a quantum physicist, have made the same suggestion before me. On this view unconscious mind or dreamless sleep may well be related to Res Potenia. But our conscious experience itself is associated only with measurement. If measurement is not a substance and not process in time, we cannot pick up a shovel-full of experience. In a later post I will hypothesize that quantum entanglement and non-local measured quantum correlations may play a role in the Unity of Consciousness and the very short term “iconic memory” needed for conscious experience.”

Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities, link here

“…When you think about it, it shouldn’t be surprising that there’s more than one way to explain quantum mechanics. Quantum math is notorious for incorporating multiple possibilities for the outcomes of measurements. So you shouldn’t expect physicists to stick to only one explanation for what that math means. And in fact, sometimes it seems like researchers have proposed more “interpretations” of this math than Katy Perry has followers on Twitter.”

So it would seem that the world needs more quantum interpretations, link here like it needs more Category 5 hurricanes. But until some single interpretation comes along that makes everybody happy (and that’s about as likely as the Cleveland Browns winning the Super Bowl), yet more interpretations will emerge. One of the latest appeared recently (September 13) online at arXiv.org, link here, the site where physicists send their papers to ripen before actual publication. You might say papers on the arXiv are like “potential publications,” which someday might become “actual” if a journal prints them.

And that, in a nutshell, is pretty much the same as the logic underlying the new interpretation of quantum physics. In the new paper, three scientists argue that including “potential” things on the list of “real” things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses. It is perhaps less of a full-blown interpretation than a new philosophical framework for contemplating those quantum mysteries. At its root, the new idea holds that the common conception of “reality” is too limited. By expanding the definition of reality, the quantum’s mysteries disappear. In particular, “real” should not be restricted to “actual” objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or “potential” realities, that have not yet become “actual.” These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence. “This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of ‘what is real’ to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility,” write Ruth Kastner, link here, Stuart Kauffman, link here and Michael Epperson, link here.”

Considering potential things to be real is not exactly a new idea, as it was a central aspect of the philosophy of Aristotle, 24 centuries ago. An acorn has the potential to become a tree; a tree has the potential to become a wooden table. Even applying this idea to quantum physics isn’t new. Werner Heisenberg, the quantum pioneer famous for his uncertainty principle, considered his quantum math to describe potential outcomes of measurements of which one would become the actual result. The quantum concept of a “probability wave,” describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotle’s potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy, link here. “It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.”

In their paper, titled “Taking Heisenberg’s Potentia Seriously,” Kastner and colleagues elaborate on this idea, drawing a parallel to the philosophy of René Descartes, link here. Descartes, in the 17th century, proposed a strict division between material and mental “substance.” Material stuff (res extensa, or extended things) existed entirely independently of mental reality (res cogitans, things that think) except in the brain’s pineal gland. There res cogitans could influence the body. Modern science has, of course, rejected res cogitans: The material world is all that reality requires. Mental activity is the outcome of material processes, such as electrical impulses and biochemical interactions.

Kastner and colleagues also reject Descartes’ res cogitans. But they think reality should not be restricted to res extensa; rather it should be complemented by “res potentia” — in particular, quantum res potentia, not just any old list of possibilities. Quantum potentia can be quantitatively defined; a quantum measurement will, with certainty, always produce one of the possibilities it describes. In the large-scale world, all sorts of possibilities can be imagined (Browns win Super Bowl, Indians win 22 straight games) which may or may not ever come to pass.

If quantum potentia are in some sense real, Kastner and colleagues say, then the mysterious weirdness of quantum mechanics becomes instantly explicable. You just have to realize that changes in actual things reset the list of potential things.

Consider for instance that you and I agree to meet for lunch next Tuesday at the Mad Hatter restaurant (Kastner and colleagues use the example of a coffee shop, but I don’t like coffee). But then on Monday, a tornado blasts the Mad Hatter to Wonderland. Meeting there is no longer on the list of res potentia; it’s no longer possible for lunch there to become an actuality. In other words, even though an actuality can’t alter a distant actuality, it can change distant potential. We could have been a thousand miles away, yet the tornado changed our possibilities for places to eat.

It’s an example of how the list of potentia can change without the spooky action at a distance that Einstein alleged about quantum entanglement. Measurements on entangled particles, such as two photons, seem baffling. You can set up an experiment so that before a measurement is made, either photon could be spinning clockwise or counterclockwise. Once one is measured, though (and found to be, say, clockwise), you know the other will have the opposite spin (counterclockwise), no matter how far away it is. But no secret signal is (or could possibly be) sent from one photon to the other after the first measurement. It’s simply the case that counterclockwise is no longer on the list of res potentia for the second photon. An “actuality” (the first measurement) changes the list of potentia that still exist in the universe. Potentia encompass the list of things that may become actual; what becomes actual then changes what’s on the list of potentia.

Similar arguments apply to other quantum mysteries. Observations of a “pure” quantum state, containing many possibilities, turns one of those possibilities into an actual one. And the new actual event constrains the list of future possibilities, without any need for physical causation. “We simply allow that actual events can instantaneously and acausally affect what is next possible … which, in turn, influences what can next become actual, and so on,” Kastner and colleagues write.

Measurement, they say, is simply a real physical process that transforms quantum potentia into elements of res extensa — actual, real stuff in the ordinary sense. Space and time, or spacetime, is something that “emerges from a quantum substratum,” as actual stuff crystalizes out “of a more fluid domain of possibles.” Spacetime, therefore, is not all there is to reality.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-813.mp3" length="4972484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:11:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Metabolic dysfunction is a primary cause of aging and its symptom Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=811</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=811</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 29 Dec 2019 21:04:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=811

As it seems, not all hope is lost when it comes to mainstream medicine. Just a few days ago I posted about a landmark human study with AD demonstrating that the a low daily dose of the cheap, unpatentable chemical methylene blue (MB) may stop AD. LSD may do the same, and both MB and LSD likely work by increasing metabolism, which has also been shown to reverse AD.

Low-dose methylene blue (MB) may stop Alzheimer Disease (AD), link here

LSD enters clinical trials for Alzheimer Disease (AD), link here

Increasing metabolism may reverse Alzheimer Disease (AD) and general aging, link here

However, the authors of that study still seem committed to the beta-amyloid and tau accumulation theory of AD and ascribed the beneficial effects of MB to its ability to somehow “mysteriously” block the formation of these proteins. Not a single sentence in that human study mentioned that the main effect of MB for which it is used clinically is its ability to shift the redox status towards oxidation, and serve as an alternative electron acceptor if certain enzymes in the OXPHOS chain are malfunctioning or oxygen is not available. In other words, MB is a powerful pro-metabolic chemical.

Fortunately, the study below provides evidence that it is most likely the pro-metabolic effects of MB that are its mechanism of action for AD due to the fact that AD is quite clearly a metabolic disease. Just as the human trial above, this new study demonstrates that AD can quite easily be stopped AND reversed by restoring proper metabolism/OXPHOS. I am not sure the drug metformin they used is the best choice, especially considering its pro-cancer effects, link here. IMO using low-dose MB (as per the study above) is a much better option. Considering the multitude of animal studies with aspirin and niacinamide demonstrating that these chemicals can also reverse AD, a combined supplementation approach would likely be even more effective. The study below also demonstrates that the metabolic defects seen in patients with AD precede the beta-amyloid and tau accumulation in the brain by decades, and as such this protein accumulation can simply be seen as a sign/symptom of metabolic dysfunction, but not really a cause of the pathology. This quite easily explains why virtually all (99%+) clinical trials with AD in the last 2 decades have failed, link here – i.e. the drugs they tested only targeted the protein accumulation but not the metabolic/energetic dysfunction. Furthermore, the study quite openly states that both aging and aging-associated disease are due to metabolic dysfunction. As such, all age-related diseases such as AD, cancer, CVD, etc should be viewed as simply a sign/symptom of aging instead of separate/isolated pathologies of “unknown cause”. So, it looks like the FDA may want to take note and change its position on “aging”, since the evidence so far demonstrates that there is nothing “natural” or “inevitable” about “aging”. Rather, the evidence clearly points to “aging” being just a systemic sign/symptom of metabolic dysfunction. Moreover, just as the studies in this post demonstrate quite clearly that the “incurable” AD can be reversed/cured, the same can likely be achieved with “aging” using the same methods that worked for its “specific” symptom known as AD.

2 links here

“…An international team of scientists has found evidence that metabolic dysfunction is a primary cause of Alzheimer’s disease. They published their findings in the journal eLife. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common neurodegenerative disease affecting the elderly worldwide, as well as one of the most common causes of dementia. In Singapore, one in ten people aged 60 or above is believed to suffer from dementia. After more than twenty years of research effort worldwide, scientists are still unable to identify the exact causes of Alzheimer’s and no proven treatment is available.”

“…Two competing theories are currently proposed to explain the cause of Alzheimer’s disease: the first is focused on the accumulation of a specific protein, called amyloid-beta protein, in the brain. The second and more recent theory proposes that metabolic dysfunction—specifically, a dysfunction of the cell’s energy-producing machinery called mitochondria—is responsible. Using the worm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism, researchers led by Assistant Professor Jan Gruber at the Yale-National University of Singapore College have discovered that metabolic defects occur well before any significant increase in the amount of amyloid-beta protein is detected.”

“…For example, the team detected abnormalities in the relative quantities of amino acids and triglycerides—subunits that make up proteins and fatty acids, respectively—in worms that eventually went on to accumulate amyloid-beta plaques. Importantly, when the researchers treated worms with a common anti-diabetes drug called metformin, they were able to reverse the metabolic defects and normalize the worms’ healthspan and lifespan. “Current trials of Alzheimer’s drugs targeting proteins have failed despite billions of dollars being invested. Based on the emerging strong links between mitochondrial dysfunction and Alzheimer’s pathology, it might be better to adopt a preventative strategy by targeting metabolic defects, especially mitochondrial defects, directly and early, well before protein aggregates are even present,” said Gruber.”

“…He added that metabolic and mitochondrial dysfunctions should be viewed as fundamental features of aging in general, and that age-dependent diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, should therefore be viewed as manifestations of ageing. Hence, it may be easier to prevent or treat age-dependent diseases by targeting the mechanisms of ageing rather than treating individual diseases after symptoms occur, he said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-811.mp3" length="1614908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>In most cases, genes have less than 5% contribution to disease risk</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=809</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=809</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 26 Dec 2019 19:11:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=809

Yet another study (published by geneticists who have a vested interest to come up with results that say otherwise) according to which for the vast majority of diseases genes explain at most 5% of the cause. So, worded differently, more than 95% of the risk of developing a particular disease is entirely environmental. Btw, those 5% or less should also not be ascribed to genes just yet. The authors use genetic as an equivalent term to hereditary, yet we now know that health status and propensity for developing disease can be heritable but NOT genetic. It is gene methylation patterns that can be passed on from parents to offspring and studies have demonstrated transgenerational (inherited) “memories” of ancestral health that can span at least 14 generations. One of those studies argued that our health is basically an exponential weighted average of the health of the previous 10-14 generations of our direct ancestors, with the health of the last 3 generations contributing the most.

3 links here

Either way, as it turns out the Weismann’s Doctrine, link here is little more than another “scientific” fraud and the fact that it continues to be taught as pure fact in medical schools and used to guide medical research is nothing short of criminal. It has become patently obvious that in the absence of direct and irrefutable evidence for a genetic component (i.e. specific gene or cluster of such) of a specific disease, every disease should be considered environmental in origin and as such both reversible and very often iatrogenic, link here.

2 links here

“…In most cases, your genes have less than five percent to do with your risk of developing a particular disease, according to new research by University of Alberta scientists. In the largest meta analysis ever conducted, scientists have examined two decades of data from studies that examine the relationships between common gene mutations, also known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and different diseases and conditions. And the results show that the links between most human diseases and genetics are shaky at best. “Simply put, DNA is not your destiny, and SNPs are duds for disease prediction,” said David Wishart, professor in the University of Alberta’s Department of Biological Sciences and the Department of Computing Science and co-author on the study. “The vast majority of diseases, including many cancers, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease, have a genetic contribution of 5 to 10 percent at best.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-809.mp3" length="736244" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Long work hours (stress) at the office cause hypertension and CVD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=807</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=807</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 23 Dec 2019 18:22:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=807

Many of my readers surely are familiar with the saying “work hard, play hard”. This mantra is at the core of the psychotic work culture of most “developed” countries and despite the assurances of doctors and public health officials that bad health is largely due to “bad luck” (e.g. genes) the skyrocketing rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) argue otherwise. The fact that this mantra serves the interests exclusively of the powers that be is somehow lost on the general public, which if course is one of the desired effects of “work hard, play hard”. Namely, everybody is too consumed by activities to slow down and examine the effects of those activities on one’s health. And if a person does slow down and does even a cursory review of the extremely biased and pro-business “medical” literature, that person will discover that even this biased/fraudulent literature cannot concealed the findings that if one does anything too “hard” or long enough one will eventually pay the price with their health.

This is also the message of the study below. It found that long working hours (even in the absence of additional work stress such as psychotic boss or idiotic co-workers) reliably lead to elevated blood pressure. To make matters worse, the blood pressure is of the kind that often goes undetected in doctor’s offices (masked hypertension). According to the study, as a result of the insane working hours most people in Western countries endure now almost 20% of workers have hypertension that apparently does not respond to blood pressure medication and another 13% have “masked hypertension” that does not even get treated. This means about 1/3 of workers have an established major sign of CVD, and it is entirely due to environmental factors such as work stress (long hours in this case). Strangely enough, work stress is somehow absent from the list of risk factors for developing CVD published annually by the American Heart Association…

2 links here

“…Office workers who spend long hours on the job are more likely to have high blood pressure, including a type that can go undetected during a routine medical appointment, according to a new study published today in the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension. High blood pressure affects nearly half of Americans ages 18 and older and is a primary factor in more than 82,000 deaths per year. Approximately 15-30% of U.S. adults have a type of the condition called masked hypertension, meaning their high blood pressure readings are normal during health care visits but elevated when measured elsewhere.”

“…”Both masked and sustained high blood pressure are linked to higher cardiovascular disease risk,” said lead study lead author Xavier Trudel, Ph.D., assistant professor in the social and preventive medicine department at Laval University in Quebec, Canada. “The observed associations accounted for job strain, a work stressor defined as a combination of high work demands and low decision-making authority. However, other related stressors might have an impact,” Trudel said. “Future research could examine whether family responsibilities – such as a worker’s number of children, household duties and childcare role – might interact with work circumstances to explain high blood pressure.”

“…In all, almost 19% of the workers had sustained hypertension, which included employees who were already taking high blood pressure medications. More than 13% of the workers had masked hypertension and not receiving treatment for high blood pressure. “The link between long working hours and high blood pressure in the study was about the same for men as for women,” Trudel said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-807.mp3" length="947444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking serotonin, adrenaline treats anxiety, brain damage due to alcohol “addiction”</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=805</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=805</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 23 Dec 2019 18:02:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=805

Over the last 2 decades a large number of studies have come out demonstrating that the withdrawal symptoms in “addicts” are due largely due to elevated serotonin and adrenaline. As such, drugs such as cyproheptadine, clonidine, propranolol, etc have been successfully used off-label for treating withdrawal symptoms.

3 links here

Now, a new study adds more evidence corroborating the role of serotonin / adrenaline in the pathology of “addiction”. It is well-known that many “addicts” suffer from chronic anxiety. That anxiety is often treated with benzodiazepine drugs that are sometimes even more addictive than the primary drug of addiction. In addition, they are sometimes almost impossible to withdraw from due to their potent downregulation effects on the GABA system. One of the most notable examples of such drugs is clonazepam (Klonopin), which even pharma executives are known to avoid using themselves or getting prescribed for their family members.

Well, the study below demonstrates that simply blocking the serotonin receptor 5-HT1 and the beta adrenergic receptors with the drug pindolol completely eliminates the generalized anxiety associated with alcohol “addiction”. The drug also reversed many of the negative effects of alcohol on cognition and mood, including its “addictive” potential.

link here

It just so happens that other beta blockers such as propranolol are also partial serotonin antagonists, and this may explain their therapeutic effects not only in “addiction” treatment but also in mood disorders such as depression and even psychosis. I would venture a guess that combining drugs such as pindolol or propranolol (or even clonidine) with a general serotonin antagonist such as cyproheptadine or a dopamine agonist of the ergot family (lisuride, metergoline, bromocriptine) may be vastly more therapeutic than either of these drugs by itself.

2 links here

“…A drug used to treat high blood pressure may alleviate anxiety induced by long-term heavy alcohol use, and also halt the damage such drinking can cause to the brain’s ability to grow new cells, QUT research shows.”

“…“This is a drug that is inexpensive and already available in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia,” she said. “It’s a beta-blocker that is prescribed for high blood pressure, angina and heart arrhythmias. “We have been studying it for a number of years and have already shown in animal models, link here that it reduces alcohol intake, link here when there is long-term consumption. “In this latest study, we investigated the drug’s effect on other alcohol associated issues –  anxiety and neurogenesis. “Long-term and heavy drinking can cause anxiety disorders, and people’s anxiety can worsen when alcohol is withdrawn, and alcohol abuse can also reduce neurogenesis, which is the process by which new neurons (cells) are formed in the brain. “We showed that pindolol reduced alcohol-associated anxiety-like behaviour in mice and also alleviated the damaging effects of alcohol consumption on newly formed and immature brain cells.” Professor Bartlett said repurposing drugs like pindolol was a way to fast-track new treatments to manage alcohol dependence, binge-drinking and addiction, which are significant and complex problems both in Australia and globally.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-805.mp3" length="890108" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>LSD enters clinical trials for Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=803</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=803</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 23 Dec 2019 17:41:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=803

For the last 5+ decades, Big Pharma and public health officials together with the entire law enforcement apparatus have been propagating myths, lies and outright fraud in regards to psychedelic drugs and especially about LSD. This attitude grew out of the civil rights movement and protests in the 1960s. During that time period a number of high-level government officials were genuinely scared of the effects psychedelic drugs such as LSD had on people. Perhaps the most “disturbing” effect of LSD was the utter lack of tolerance for authoritarian attitudes, routine, following orders, and doing “business as usual”. Even more “disturbingly”, these anti-authoritarian effects seemed to be really long-lasting and manifested after only brief exposure to the drug, and often at very low concentrations (microdosing). Many high-ranking government officials who observed people “tripping” on LSD commented that it was making people act completely “crazy”. The government agencies that did extensive research with LSD noticed that it was basically a very broadly-acting, approximate serotonin antagonist. This mechanism of action was used by the government to promote a counter-theory – i.e. if LSD (being (mostly) a serotonin antagonist) was making people crazy then promoting the effects of serotonin should make people sane – i.e. bring about all kinds of “good” and “desirable” traits/behavior such as obedience, calm behavior, tolerance to routine and adversity, being resigned to “one’s fate” (a notion of largely religious origin now known in medical circles as “learned helplessness”), and in general an attitude of absolute conformity when it comes to all aspects of social behavior. While serotonergic drugs did bring about many of those effects, there was no physiological/medical basis to claim such effects/behavior were healthy or even desirable, and on one of those claims the serotonergic drugs bombed spectacularly. Namely, the induction of calm behavior. We now know that serotonin is the primary driver of violent, psychotic, homicidal (or suicidal) behavior and despite this being well-known to the public health authorities nothing is being done about it. One example in corroboration of this pro-violence effect is the fact that in all mass-shootings in the US over the last 3 decades the vast majority of perpetrators have been chronically using at least one mind-altering, fully legal, serotonergic (usually an SSRI) prescription drug.

These myths about LSD and its craziness-promoting effects endured for more than 5 decades and continue to be promoted by pharma executives and public health “experts”. However, over the last 2 decades the situation in public health has deteriorated to the point where even the most reviled “public enemy” (e.g. LSD) is now a potential ally. Neurodegenerative disease rates have skyrocketed, and the situation is especially dire with AD. In addition to rising rates of AD, death rates from AD have also skyrocketed, and since 2002 every single new drug tested on humans has failed.

2 links here

In other words, the situation is truly desperate and in its desperation the government is now ready to overlook more than 5 decades of its own policy and test “evil” drugs like LSD for AD. The study below is the first step of a multi-phase trial on “microdosing” LSD for AD. It found that all tested doses were well-tolerated and without serious side effects. The study also describes the broad anti-inflammatory effects of LSD as one expected beneficial mechanism of action. However, it appears the government and mainstream medicine is still not ready to let the serotonin myth die. Since LSD has been known and promoted as being an antagonist of serotonin for more than 5 decades, if the trial demonstrates effectiveness of LSD for AD it would raise questions about whether serotonin is actually a cause of AD. If that happens, it may lead to the demise of the multi-billion-dollar-a-year SSRI industry. So, the study below instead tries to explain away the beneficial effects of LSD through its partial serotonergic properties and there is not a single mention of its dopamine agonism as possible beneficial mechanism despite the fact that LSD acts as an agonist on ALL known dopamine receptors.

link here

So, it appears that medicine has entered its final stages of fraud and delusion. When nothing designed according to its preferred theories works medicine then turns to chemicals it has vilified for years and excuses its miserable defeat with fraudulent explanations that are entirely politically motivated. Btw, LSD is not an isolated event. After pharma companies realized the public is catching a wind of the fact that the most serotonergic drugs are no better than placebo, it quickly made peace with the “vile party drug” ketamine and got it quickly approved as a fast-acting antidepressant. Yet another “party drug” that endured similar fate was ecstasy (MDMA) and it is currently in late stages of human trials for treatment of PTSD and suicidal ideation. At this point it is patently obvious that Big Pharma is capable of curing absolutely nothing using their fraudulent theories. When the fraud becomes sufficiently widely known, the pharma companies simply use their lobbying power to usurp drugs it had demonized for years and sell them to the public at an outrageous markup while still keeping those drugs as Schedule I substances that mandate ruthless criminal prosecution and mandatory jail time for their possession without a prescription. TLDR: It is not “getting high” when it is done by prescription and at the right price. Everybody else goes to jail.

link here

“…Research has shown that psychedelics, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), have profound anti-inflammatory properties mediated by 5-HT2A receptor signaling, supporting their evaluation as a therapeutic for neuroinflammation associated with neurodegenerative disease.”

“…This was a phase 1 double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized study. Volunteers were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 dose groups (5 μg, 10 μg, 20 μg LSD, and placebo), and received their assigned dose on six occasions (i.e., every 4 days).”

“…Our results suggest safety and tolerability of orally administered 5 μg, 10 μg, and 20 μg LSD every fourth day over a 21-day period and support further clinical development of LSD for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)…These findings support the feasibility of using intermittent low dose LSD treatment in clinical therapeutic strategies and open the door for larger studies designed to evaluate anxiolytic, antidepressant, pro-cognitive, and anti-inflammatory efficacy in a clinical population, including specific evaluation as a disease-modifying therapeutic approach to treat Alzheimer’s disease.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-803.mp3" length="2637716" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:06:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Almost 40% of military women (and even more military males) are infertile</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=801</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=801</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 20 Dec 2019 18:41:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=801

I think this study should dispel some of the myths about what being “fit” really means, and that being truly healthy or “fit” often are quite divergent paths. Infertility is actually one of the most reliable indicators of poor systemic health and predictor of future chronic disease (in both sexes). So, by that measure, almost 40% of military women are chronically ill (or on their way to become so) while still being classified as quite fit both by their peers/commander and the general public/press. The data on military male fertility is even more abysmal, so this paints a strikingly different picture of the “image of health” that we are often told military members are.

4 links here

The explanation for this  striking rate of infertility in military women (and men) is quite obvious IMO. Namely, chronic stress due to things like basic training, daily “drills”, sleep deprivation, strikingly low-quality food, and of course being exposed to the horrors of war, among others. Considering the military lifestyle is considered a model for organizing modern corporations, it is a small miracle that the infertility rate in the general population is not much higher than what is currently reported. The good news? Apparently, even the bastion of authoritarianism we know as the armed forces is aware of the beneficial effects of bioidentical progesterone on fertility and may be considering providing such progesterone treatment options to the service women in its ranks. Too bad most doctors around the country don’t even know about this treatment option, let alone mention it to their patients. If they do mention anything at all in terms of infertility treatments, it will likely involve either (carcinogenic) hCG injections, or administering (also carcinogenic) SERM drugs such as clomiphene (clomid) or tamoxifen. Anything really, other than recommending the known pro-fertility factors (for both men and women) such as progesterone, vitamin E, pregnenolone, aspirin, DHEA, etc. Btw, despite the commonly cited mantra that testosterone is the main fertility factor in males, it is actually pregnenolone and progesterone that contribute the most, at least when it comes to gonadal health. So, testing for low progesterone needs to be extended to males as well, as does the actual treatment with pregnenolone/progesterone/DHEA/vitamin E.

2 links here

“…The Air Force, link here is investing $50,000 in a progesterone-testing kit company that could help service members who are trying to conceive. One year after a study, link here estimated 37% of women currently serving report fertility issues, the Air Force awarded a Small Business Innovation Research grant to Proov, a company that makes $40 kits for women to test their hormone levels. The Centers for Disease Control put the overall national infertility average at about 12%, link here. With the grant, Proov will provide free kits to Air Force couples who request them, and connect them with doctors specializing in fertility who may help them conceive naturally. The company said this five-minute at-home test is used by women to self-diagnose low progesterone levels and gain information about possible infertility factors. Progesterone is a necessary hormone for pregnancy, causing women to ovulate.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-801.mp3" length="1121156" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Half of Millennials and 75% of Gen Zers may be mentally ill</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=794</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=794</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Dec 2019 18:30:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=794

The bad news for the chronologically young just keep accumulating. About a week ago I posted another study demonstrating that, if current trends continue, Millenials will die earlier than their Gen X counterparts due to poor(er) health. That study was aggregate and included all sorts of reasons for declining life expectancy, including substance abuse, pharma drugs, diseases like cancer/CVD and of course the skyrocketing suicide rates. In addition to that study, I have posted about and discussed on podcasts the hundred of others looking at rates of specific disease all of which are skyrocketing in age groups where these diseases were virtually unknown just a decade ago.

Millennials will likely die earlier than Gen X due to poor(er) health, link here

The tiny speck of hope in this ongoing bleak health news stream was that there was not much data on the health of Gen Z. Since they are considered smarter and more adaptive than Millenials, many public health figures had hoped that Gen Z will change behavior in order to avoid the health catastrophe of previous generations. Unfortunately, judging by the study below, the health situation in Gen Z may be even worse. This is just one study and it only focuses on mental health, but the fact that 75% of Gen Z have left at least one job due to mental health issues is hardly encouraging. Now, keep in mind that according to mainstream medicine the vast majority of mental diseases are NOT episodic events. In other words, they are chronic conditions that once manifested are usually present and “treated” for life. So, the statement that 50% of Millenials and 75% of Gen Z have left a least one job for mental health reasons is a criminally manipulative way of saying that 50% of Millenials and 75% of Gen Z are mentally ill! At least according to how current medical practice diagnoses and classifies mental disease. As the article itself states – young people today are completely “lost”, and it is likely the zombifying school culture that spurred this mental health catastrophe. What was that saying – “Study/work all day and no play, gives Johnny a mental health decay”. Well, I made that up, but you get the idea. Before long, we will all become autistic, as another recent study proclaimed.

If current trends hold, within a decade the entire population may become autistic, link here

Then it is little wonder that with such zombified public, the assault on our consciousness and health continues with impunity. Maybe for the first time in history, the revolt against this genocidal system (if it ever materializes) will be led by the chronologically old. Revolutions have always been a young man’s business, but these days it is the oldest members of society who are likely the fittest and the most lucid…

3 links here

“…It’s no surprise, then, that a recent study, link here by Mind Share Partners, Qualtrics and SAP reveals that half of millennials and 75% of Gen Zers have left a job for mental health reasons. The study, which looked at mental-health challenges and stigmas in the U.S. workplace, polled 1,500 respondents ages 16 and older working full-time. Another recent study, link here, by the American Psychological Association, found the percentage of young adults experiencing certain types of mental health disorders has increased significantly in the past decade. In particular, the percentage of people dealing with suicidal thoughts increased 47 percent, link here from 2008 to 2017. The Mind Share Partners, SAP, and Qualtrics study, link here also shows that the younger generations suffer more from mental illnesses. Younger people dealt with a mental illness at about three times the rate of the general population. The findings are corroborated by another recent study, link here, which shows that while the amount of serious psychological distress increased across most age groups, the largest increase between 2008 and 2017 was among adults ages 18–25, at 71%. For adults ages 20–21, the figure was 78%.”

“…But Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College, said that it’s not social media or young people’s fractured attention spans that are causing their anxiety; it is school itself. He traces a progression from the mid-1950s in which society has gradually taken away children’s internal locus of control (someone with an internal locus of control is likely to believe that both successes and failures are due to their own efforts). As a result, many young people today are lost. “Since the mid-1950s, when they began taking away children’s play, people haven’t learned to take control of their own lives.” Gray said that control is essential to ward off excessive anxiety.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-794.mp3" length="1264652" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A piece of plastic can learn through training, just like animals</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=792</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=792</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Dec 2019 17:46:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=792

The house of cards that is modern “science” continues to crumble, albeit slowly. Several years ago I made a post on the ability of an “inanimate” piece of matter (dough) to learn simple behaviors through repetitive training, akin to the widely publicized “Pavlov dog”. The dough study references an older one, performed in the 1950s with metals as training subjects, as an inspiration.

2 links here

That dough study above generated huge controversy  online with “scientific experts” from both sides of the political spectrum universally condemning the study as promoting “animism”. Yet, the findings are nothing new and these principles of learning, fatigue, recovery and hysteresis in general have been demonstrated more than a century ago by JC Bose in Cambridge and other UK institutions of higher learning. Furthermore, there are multiple archaeological artifacts suggesting this property of matter was known to most ancient cultures going as far back as the Babylonians / Assyrians.

link here

Then, just as now, such research was condemned as “vitalism”, “animism”, “reactionary”, “revolutionary”, “subversive”, etc. Well, whatever adjective may be attached to it, the independent confirmation of these phenomena over a span of over a century makes them another adjective too – true. Maybe it is the idea of dualism of matter (i.e. living, non-living) that is false and together with it more than a century of (fake) science needs to go the way of the Dodo.

2 links here

“…Scientists have trained plastic to walk on its own, link here using a combination of photosensitive bio-inspiration and light-reactive coatings. Look at it go! The scientists use an analogy to Pavlov’s dog, but the truth is more like how a plant bends toward the sun and away from darkness. Light and heat reaction induce constriction or expansion that bends joints and enables motion. For plants, any Pavlovian reaction is built in because the light itself is the food. But the plastic robot is trained to respond to light even after the heat stimulus is removed, which is the Pavlovian side.”

“…To condition a non-coded material to execute commands, scientists used the way plants and animals are conditioned to respond to stimuli like light, other sensory data, and danger. “Learning can be considered as a sequence of processes whereby a biological system or organism modifies its behavior upon past experiences,” the researchers write, link here. By keeping their plastic walker extremely simple and limiting its stimuli very carefully, they adapted natural organism learning to plastic. First, the plastic experienced heat separately and responded to that. The researchers exposed it to light separately as well, and nothing happened. Then the plastic was “trained” by repeated exposure to both light and heat simultaneously. When heat was taken away, the material continued to respond only to light. By combining light arrays with responsive materials, the scientists have taught a plastic item how to learn a very simple, but real behavior. “We propose that concepts inspired by the simplest forms of associative learning can act as a guide to design adaptive functional materials,” they conclude. This complex setup seems analogous to how sensory input and electrical zaps seem to be what guide the human brain, with dozens of “peripheral devices” like nerve-laced skin surface and stereoscope vision combining to form not just a picture of the world, but a plan to interact with it.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-792.mp3" length="735716" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Increasing metabolism may reverse Alzheimer Disease (AD) and general aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=790</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=790</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Dec 2019 17:05:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=790

Yet another study demonstrating the remarkable parallels between the decline in function (metabolism) and the structural abnormalities that occur not only in specific pathologies such as AD but also in the generalized degradation known as “aging”. FDA currently does not recognize aging as a disease, but the evidence for it is rapidly accumulating. Just a few days ago I made another post about a study making the same claim and actually calling on FDA to change its approach to how it labels/treats aging.

Aging likely caused by decreased respiration / metabolism, not genetic mutations, link here

Reversing human aging likely possible with progesterone / DHEA, link here

Now a new study demonstrated that increasing levels of acetyl-CoA (the starting intermediate of the Krebs cycle), even at a stage of very advanced aging/AD, can reverse aspects of both pathologies. While the study used patented compounds, the same effects can be achieved by ensuring a steady supply of dietary carbs combined with increasing the function of pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), link here. Increasing the activity of PDH can be achieved by supplementing with vitamin B1 (a cofactor of PDH), keeping the NAD/NADH ratio  as high as possible and keeping fatty acid oxidation (FAO) down. Incidentally, these approaches have been successfully tested in many animal models and one of the molecules that works through the latter two mechanisms is niacinamide. In fact, there is a human clinical trial (still ongoing) with 3g niacinamide daily for treating AD, and though the results have not been published yet the leaked information suggests highly positive results. Methylene blue (MB) can do the same, and coincidentally I just posted a thread on its highly positive effects on AD.

link here

Low-dose methylene blue (MB) may stop Alzheimer Disease (AD), link here

In addition to increasing PDH activity, similar effects can be achieved by providing other Krebs cycle intermediates, as several of them (including acetyl-CoA) have the effects of speeding up the full cycle. One other such molecule is succinic acid, and in corroboration of the energetic hypothesis of AD and aging, succinic acid has already demonstrated positive results for both.

5 links here

So, maybe the treatment of AD and even aging is as simple as stimulating mitochondrial metabolism (OXPHOS), achievable with a variety of OTC substances as well as thyroid, progesterone, androgens, aspirin, etc.

link here

“…To test this idea, we fed CMS121 and J147 to aged SAMP8 mice and used a multiomics approach to identify modes of action. We first show that both compounds reduce metabolic and gene transcription markers of aging in the SAMP8 model of aging and dementia when administered at a late stage of the aging process. We further demonstrate that both compounds share a mechanism of action that maintains high levels of acetyl-coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA), at least in part, by the inhibition of acetyl-CoA carboxylase 1 (ACC1). Importantly, the compounds increase histone acetylation in cultured neurons and SAMP8 mice at a site on histone H3 that is required for memory formation (Mews et al., 2017, link here). Together, these data show that aging and dementia share a common metabolic pathway related to brain mitochondrial function that can be therapeutically targeted.”

link here

“…”The contribution of old age-associated detrimental processes to the disease has been largely neglected in Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery,” says Antonio Currais, a Salk staff scientist and first author of the new paper. Maher and David Schubert, the head of Salk’s Cellular Neurobiology Lab, previously developed CMS121 and J147, variants of plant compounds with medicinal properties. Both compounds tested positive for their ability to keep neurons alive when exposed to cellular forms of stress related to aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Since then, the researchers have used the drug candidates to treat Alzheimer’s in animal models of the disease. But experiments revealing exactly how the compounds work suggested that they were targeting molecular pathways also known to be important in longevity and aging.

“…In the new research, Maher, Currais and their colleagues turned to a strain of mice that ages unusually fast. A subset of these mice was given CMS121 or J147 beginning at nine months old–the equivalent of late middle age in humans. After four months, the team tested the memory and behavior of the animals and analyzed genetic and molecular markers in their brains. Not only did the animals given either of the drug candidates perform better on memory tests than mice that hadn’t received any treatment, but their brains showed differences at the cellular and molecular levels. In particular, expression of genes associated with the cell’s energy-generating structures called mitochondria was preserved by CMS121 and J147 with aging. “The bottom line was that these two compounds prevent molecular changes that are associated with aging,” says Maher.”

“…More detailed experiments showed that both drugs affected mitochondria by increasing levels of the chemical acetyl-coenzyme A (acetyl-coA). In isolated brain cells, when the researchers blocked an enzyme that normally breaks down acetyl-CoA, or when they added extra amounts of an acetyl-coA precursor, they saw the same beneficial effect on mitochondria and energy generation. The brain cells became protected against the normal molecular changes associated with aging. “There was already some data from human studies that the function of mitochondria is negatively impacted in aging and that it’s worse in the context of Alzheimer’s,” says Maher. “This helps solidify that link.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-790.mp3" length="1216676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin safe and effective for prevention AND treatment of migraine</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=774</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=774</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Dec 2019 20:35:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=774

A human study, which dispels the myths that migraine is yet another “mysterious” disease with an unknown cause and no effective treatment. Considering the role of serotonin in migraines, it  adds to the evidence that aspirin is a potent anti-serotonin agent in higher doses. The good news is that even lower doses in the 81mg – 325mg range were beneficial but for prevention instead of treatment. For the treatment, daily doses in the 900mg – 1,300mg were needed. And why haven’t we heard about these amazing effects of aspirin yet, which have been known for decades? The very authors of the study say the reason is that aspirin is cheap, safe, effective, and over-the-counter. Apparently, only expensive, dangerous, prescription-based, ineffective poisons catch the attention of mainstream media, pharma companies, and (sadly) the general public.

2 links here

“…Philadelphia, December 3, 2019 – According to a new report, link here in The American Journal of Medicine, link here, published by Elsevier, aspirin can be considered an effective and safe option to other, more expensive medications to treat acute migraines as well as prevent recurrent attacks. A review of randomized evidence suggests efficacy and safety of high dose aspirin in doses from 900 to 1,300 milligrams taken at the onset of acute symptoms. The data also support a lower dose of from 81 to 325 milligrams as a possible preventive option. “Aspirin provides a possible clinical option for primary healthcare providers to relieve the debilitating symptoms of acute migraine headaches and prevent recurrent attacks. Aspirin’s side effect profile and low cost may also favour its use,” noted senior author Charles H. Hennekens, MD, DrPH, the first Sir Richard Doll Professor & Senior Academic Advisor to the Dean of the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA. The investigators reviewed the randomized evidence for high dose aspirin in treatment and low dose aspirin in prevention of migraine headaches.”

“…Professor Hennekens mused that, “If aspirin were only half as effective, 10 times more expensive, and available by prescription, then perhaps patients and, possibly some of their healthcare providers, would take it more seriously.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-774.mp3" length="450188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A fundamental tenet in quantum physics may be nothing but a scam</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=767</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=767</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Dec 2019 16:37:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=767

I have always suspected most of “advanced” quantum physics as being little more than a mathematical smokescreen. The overly complex mathematics and the fact that many of the theory’s propositions are so bizarre have resulted in quantum physics becoming an esoteric discipline, in which only the chosen ones are allowed to work, question and develop further. It feels just like the authoritarianism in medicine that has resulted in such a dramatic deterioration of health that the notions of chronological age and biological age have become completely uncoupled (metabolic pun intended) – i.e. biological age remains constant (and advanced) across all levels of chronological age. TLDR: Everybody is old/sick regardless of when they were born.

Now back to quantum physics. One of the central tenets in this theory is the dual nature of reality/matter. Quantum physics claims that matter can be both a wave or particle, depending on the specific experimental conditions and whether in fact there is an “observer” or not. You see, the theory holds that without an “observer” elementary particles of matter do not really exist as individual units but are in fact (quantum) “waves”, that can be described mathematically like classical waves (water wave, sound wave, EMF wave, etc) but are not in fact “physical” waves. Exactly what such waves are is still a subject of raging debate in quantum physics. I, personally, favor David Bohm’s interpretation, known as Bohmian Mechanics, link here.

Anyways, when an “observer” interacts with the quantum “wave” of interest, this “wave” undergoes a process called a “collapse” and becomes an individual particle with well-defined behavior typical of individual objects. The most famous experiment, on which much of subsequent quantum physics was based is the so-called “double-slit experiment”. In this experiment, an individual electron is shot towards a screen and made to pass through a wall with two slits on it. When there is no “observer” of the electron’s travel from the shooting device towards the screen, the reflection pattern the electron leaves on the screen (after multiple electrons are fired in succession one after the other) is what one expects would happen if the electron was an atomized, separate particle. Namely, the screen contains an “image” of the two slits created by the electrons passing through the slits and making an impression on the screen. Yet, when nobody is “observing” the electron(s) travel, the reflection pattern on the screen is an interference pattern composed of multiple dark, bright stripes, as if a wave had passed through the slits and then interfered with itself and formed this pattern. Famous quantum physicist Richard Feynman once opined that the “double-slit experiment” is the core of quantum mechanics and pretty much any other problem in this field can be reduced or shown to be equivalent to that experiment.

“R. Feynman: Any other situation in quantum mechanics, it turns out, can always be explained by saying, ‘You remember the case of the experiment with the two holes? It’s the same thing’

Now, a Canadian mathematician and quantum physicist has called into question the veracity of the experiment and whether such “duality” of nature exists at all. Apparently, a known law in elementary particle physics, known as Duane’s Law, explains neatly the “mystery” of the double-slit experiment without the need of invoking “duality” of nature, collapsing wavefunctions, multiple Universes, etc.

link here

Duane’s Law is actually consistent with another physics theory known as the Wave Structure of Matter (WSM), which I have posted about in the past. Namely, actual particles as separate physical objects are no more separate/individualized objects than waves in the ocean are separate objects. Neither one of them is really a separate, atomized object, but are rather a perturbation (a wave) in an underlying medium (ether). Under the WSM theory, electrons are simply standing wave patterns in this ethereal medium.

link here

Going back to the quantum physics experiment, as the blog post below by the mathematician/physicist aptly notes, there can be no other explanation of the omission of the direct (and so far unfalsified) explanation provided by Duane’s Law other than deliberate manipulation (fraud) on behalf of quantum physicists in order to protect the “mystery” of their profession and thus their well-paying careers. As it seems, the fraud in science is pervasive and certainly not limited to medicine. Ray Peat has a point when he says that “science” as a discipline/career is a dangerous cultural creation, mostly used for control and oppression rather than progress.

The following link is another post from the same author discussing the existence of the ether as universal medium, without which even Theory of Relativity does not make sense.

link here

And here is the post on the fraud/scam in regards to the double-slit experiment.

link here

“…The famous double slit experiment is an unfathomably deep mystery, any number of people will tell you. People who should know. Experts. Briefly, you shoot a beam of particles at a screen with vertical slits in it (maybe only two slits) and when they hit a detector screen on the other side you get a diffraction pattern. As if the beam were waves instead of particles. Even when you send one particle at a time. Mysterious … as Feynman says”

“…The experiment has been  in the news again. Recently, the Scientific American reported that: Now, in a paper published Sept. 23 in the journal Nature Physics, link here, an international team of researchers has caused a molecule made up of up to 2,000 atoms to occupy two places at the same time. What actually happened was that a team managed  to successfully carry out the slit experiment with a beam of these huge molecules. Despite  their size, a diffraction pattern showed up (I don’t doubt the experiment). What many don’t realize is that the double slit experiment (with particles), proposed by Feynman in 1963, was for decades only a thought experiment. Finally, in 2013, it was successfully performed with electrons, link here. It’s easy to see why it took so long: the slits were 62 billionths of a meter apart. Like everyone else I was absolutely baffled by this phenomenon. But I never bought the so-called explanations. I didn’t believe that particles are at the same time waves, or that particles are accompanied by waves, or that the particles clone themselves and are in two places at once to interfere with themselves. And I certainly didn’t believe the more outlandish ones, e.g. that the universe splits in two etc. Anyway, one day I’m browsing in the physics shelves of Warwick University library and this book New Foundations of  Quantum Mechanics, link here caught my eye. The author is Alfred Landé, one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics. What a revelation! Landé argues that waves are waves and particles, in particular electrons, are particles. The fact that waves sometimes behave like particles, and particles like waves, is remarkable and important but does not change this basic fact. He rejects “dualism” – the wave/particle duality approach that says that electrons are both waves and particles at the same time. Whatever that would mean. What about the two slit experiment? It turns out that there is a simple explanation using a well established but usually overlooked rule of quantum mechanics, namely Duane’s Law, link here (I don’t know why Wikipedia calls it a “hypothesis”).”

“…To understand the law, consider the slit experiment. An electron heads for the slitted screen and emerges on the other side – usually, not heading in the same direction. The electron’s momentum has changed – it has interacted with the screen and exchanged momentum with it. In particular is has exchanged momentum in the direction parallel to the screen and perpendicular to the slits. Classically, any amount of momentum is possible meaning the electron could head in any direction with straight ahead being most probable. But Duane’s Law says this is not what happens. Duane’s Law says that if a body is periodic in space in a given direction then momentum exchanges in that direction are quantized. That means that the emerging electron is more likely to go in certain directions than in others, depending on how many quanta of sideways momentum are exchanged. Guess what? When a stream of electrons is sent through, a ‘diffraction’ pattern results.

“…Duane and Landé, and others after them, have worked out the details and the pattern is quantitatively exactly what you get from a wave model. Duane and Landé have explained the slit experiment without resort to guide waves, wave particle duality, or multiple universes. Or to bodies being in two places at once. In fact, I regard the slit experiments as experimental confirmation of Duane’s law. Admittedly there’s still a bit of mystery left. How does periodicity in space quantize momentum (I think if it as a sort of resonance phenomenon). But it’s hardly an impenetrable, soul searing mystery that makes you question reality itself.”

“…So how come hardly anybody knows about this? Landé himself asked this question. He called it a “closely guarded secret” and said he’s searched through the works of Bohr, Dirac, Pauli, and many others and found not a trace. It is inconceivable that Feynman didn’t know about Duane. Duane’s become a nonperson. Possibly, Landé is wrong about something and everybody knows. But I’ve never seen a rebuttal; just silence. Recently Anil Ananthaswamy published a whole book, Through Two Doors at Once, link here, about the two slit experiment, the experiment that “captures the enigma of our quantum reality”. Neither Duane nor Landê are mentioned; their names are not in the index. One can only speculate why Duane’s explanation is such a secret … but it has two consequences. (1) it makes scientists seem superhuman, able to work with contradictory models and somehow know which to choose in a particular situation; and (2) it sends the message that ordinary people with ordinary, finite, rational brains, can’t grasp science any more. So don’t even try.

“…I can see that this narrative suits certain elite sectors of the population. Widespread knowledge of the Duane/Landé explanation  would let the air out of quite a few tires. So it ain’t gonna happen (despite this post). What about the rest of QM? There are many more phenomena that are on the face of it mysterious. I don’t have explanations for all of them but I believe they can all eventually be cleared up. I think Feynman was (ironically) correct when he said: Any other situation in quantum mechanics, it turns out, can always be explained by saying, ‘You remember the case of the experiment with the two holes? It’s the same thing’”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-767.mp3" length="1335044" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHEA-S completely prevents breast cancer metastasis due to estrogen</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=765</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=765</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Dec 2019 01:14:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=765

A great new study that debunks several myths related to DHEA. One of those myths is that when used in physiological doses DHEA can increase risk of estrogen-positive cancers, especially breast cancer. Another myth is that declining DHEA levels seen with advancing age are simply a consequence of aging and restoring said levels would likely do no good and may cause harm due to inherent estrogenicity of DHEA. A third myth is that DHEA is largely inactive steroid and whatever effects it may have in the human organism are entirely due to conversion of DHEA into more potent downstream steroids of the estrogen and androgen family. As the study demonstrated conclusively, none of these claims survive careful examination and test through experiment. Not only is DHEA not inactive or estrogenic in physiological doses but it fully prevented the carcinogenic and pro-metastatic effects of estradiol. The even better news is that the same mechanism through which DHEA benefited breast cancer is also implicated in a number of other solid tumors including lung, gastric, colon and liver cancers. As a result, the study calls for change in public health policy towards advocating supplementation with DHEA to restore its levels to youthful values as a robust approach to preventing and possibly treating many chronic, age-related disease including cancer.

link here

“…Physiological concentrations of DHEAS promote d phosphorylation of Erk1/2, whereas DHEA and 17ß-estradiol failed to stimulate Erk1/2 phosphorylation, indicating that the sulfated steroid acts as an autonomous hormone. Exposure of MCF-7 cells to 17ß-estradiol stimulated cell proliferation and the expression of pro-metastatic and pro-invasive elements such as claudin-1, matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9), and the CC chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2). In contrast, treatment with DHEAS did not stimulate these responses but prevented all of the actions of 17ß-estradiol, and as a consequence cell migration and invasion were completely inhibited.The results of this study not only challenge the assumption that DHEAS poses a danger as an endogenous source of estrogen, they rather favor the idea that keeping DHEAS levels within a physiological range might be supportive in treating estrogen-responsive breast cancer.”

“…The generally accepted dogma is that DHEAS is a waste product of steroid metabolism, and, under circumstances, a source for the generation of DHEA and estrogens such as 17ß-estradiol. The results of the current investigation directly refute this concept. Here we demonstrate for the first time that 17ß-estradiol and DHEAS trigger opposing effects in human metastatic MCF-7 breast cancer cells and that all effects of 17ß-estradiol assessed are completely prevented in the presence of the sulfated steroid. Thus, Erk1/2 phosphorylation was triggered only by DHEAS, whereas DHEA, 17ß-estradiol, or a combination of the two latter failed to stimulate the kinase. The results obtained here are in good agreement with results of an earlier comprehensive study demonstrating the failure of 17ß-estradiol to stimulate Erk1/2 phosphorylation in MCF-7 cells under all conditions applied [40].

“…Under control conditions MCF-7 cells express a measurable, basal amount of claudin-1 as demonstrated by immunofluorescence and western blots. Exposure to DHEAS or to 17ß-estradiol affects the expression of claudin-1 in opposite ways; DHEAS significantly reduces claudin-1 expression, whereas 17ß-estradiol stimulates the expression of the claudin and simultaneously stimulates mitotic activity of the cells, which triple their numbers within the 24 h of incubation compared with untreated controls. Both of these effects of 17ß-estradiol are prevented by DHEAS. It is worth mentioning that the stimulatory effect on cell proliferation appears to be 17ß-estradiol-specific; exposure of the cells to varying concentrations of DHEAS did not affect cell proliferation, even after almost seven days of incubation.”

“…Regardless of the underlying mechanism, the finding that DHEAS triggers anti-inflammatory responses is entirely new and could provide the basis for further investigation in that direction.”

“…In summary, DHEAS antagonizes all 17ß-estradiol-mediated effects on MCF-7 breast cancer cells that we measured. Not only does it avert the 17ß-estradiol induced stimulation of cell proliferation, it also prevents up-regulation of claudin-1, of the chemokine CCL2, and of the matrix metalloproteinase MMP-9, all of which are parameters involved in promotion of cell migration. As a consequence, the migratory activity and invasiveness of MCF-7 cells is attenuated in the presence of DHEAS.”

“…In lung carcinoma cells or in human gastric cancer claudin-1 not only stimulates cell migration, it also mediates TNF-induced gene expression [23, 48]. In A549 lung adenocarcinoma cells it triggers the expression of a large number of inflammatory mediators, among them the chemokines CCL2 and CCL5 [48]. Expression of either of these two proteins is elevated in breast cancer at primary tumor sites, and their presence is associated with cancer development and progression [29-32].”

“…The data presented here, together with results from our previous investigations [16-19], redefine the biological and physiological significance of DHEAS. All of its effects identified thus far bear the potential of being positive for human physiology. Considering that age-related illnesses steeply increase as DHEAS concentrations decline, it would appear that–as suggested by others [54, 55] – restoring and maintaining DHEAS levels in the elderly at those seen in young adults might benefit their everyday life. Additional experiments, also with animal models, may eventually help to solidify this conclusion.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-765.mp3" length="671036" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hypoxia, nutrient deficiency rapidly rewires cells for cancer metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=763</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=763</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Dec 2019 00:46:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=763

One of the earliest observations of Otto Warburg when he studied cancer was that anything that interferes with oxygen supply to the cell effectively caused the cell to become “cancerous”. In other words, he opined that cancer was essentially an adaptation to a lack of oxygen, not a mutant gory monstrosity as the medical industry spends billions every year trying to convince you. Sadly, due to rapid corruption of the medical profession and science in general, Warburg did not get a chance to further develop his hypothesis and for for more than 80 years there was basically zero progress in cancer treatment. In the last few years, several studies came out demonstrating quite conclusively the metabolic nature of cancer and virtually everything that Warburg and Randle claimed about cancer. Namely, cancer is driven by hypoxia, excessive fatty acid oxidation, inflammation, and in general low metabolism. Consequently, any chemical or event in real life that exerts one or more of these pathological effects on an organism can be considered a “carcinogen”, and no mutations are needed to explain this process. I recently posted about one of those studies, which is the most comprehensive review to date on the role of the Warburg “Effect” in actually causing cancer.

Baking soda may treat cancer, metformin may cause it, link here

Now, the study below takes this a step further and demonstrates that chronic hypoxia and/or nutrient deprivation (fasting anyone?) causes cells to rewire their metabolism away from oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and towards excessive glycolysis. This rewiring is an unavoidable result of a cell dismantling its own mitochondria in the face of said hypoxia and/or nutrient deprivation. It makes perfect sense for a cell to do so, considering mitochondria is (energetically) expensive to maintain and when oxygen or nutrients are insufficient the cell has no use of its mitochondria. The cells exposed to hypoxia and/or nutrient deprivation used a protease enzyme called YME1L1, link here to degrade their mitochondria and convert it into energy. Inhibiting that enzyme was therapeutic in a highly aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. Unfortunately, the authors still do not fully accept the metabolic theory of cancer. Otherwise, they would have also attempted to reverse the hypoxia and nutrient deficiency, which would have probably been sufficient on its own to reverse the rewiring of “cancerous” cellular metabolism. At the very least, it would likely have been highly synergistic with the YME1L1 inhibition.

2 links here

“…Mitochondria burn oxygen and provide energy for the body. Cells lacking oxygen or nutrients have to change their energy supply quickly in order to keep growing. In a study published in Nature, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing have now shown that mitochondria are reprogrammed under depleted oxygen and nutrients. Tumours of the pancreas may also use this reprogramming mechanism to keep growing despite reduced nutrient and oxygen levels. The researchers believe that proteins in this newly discovered signaling pathway could be a good target for therapies against pancreatic cancer, for which no drug is currently available. Cells adapt to oxygen deficiency by switching their energy supply to glycolysis, in which sugar is fermented without oxygen. This may be necessary in old age, for example, as the cells in the body are often less supplied with oxygen and nutrients. Also, cancer cells can face this problem, because some tumours have poor blood supply and thus little oxygen and nutrients reach the cells. “It has been known for some time that cells reduce the number of mitochondria when they lack oxygen and switch to glycolysis. We have now discovered that the remaining mitochondria are additionally reprogrammed to meet the new requirements,” explains Max Planck Director Thomas Langer.”

“…This happens via a newly discovered signalling pathway in the cell: a protease in the membrane of mitochondria is activated during the conversion to glycolysis and then breaks down various proteins in the organelles. As a result, no new mitochondria can be formed and the remaining mitochondria change their metabolism. This process eventually stops on its own, as the protease begins to degrade itself at high activity. “This signalling pathway not only has a built-in timer, but also enables a very rapid response to oxygen deficiency,” said Langer. The researchers examined cancer cells originating from patients with pancreatic tumours. These tumours grow under oxygen deficiency and are highly aggressive. The scientists were able to reduce tumour growth by switching off the signalling pathway in the mitochondria. This was seen in cancer cells in the Petri dish as well as in pancreatic tumours in mice. “There is currently no treatment available for pancreatic cancer. I believe that this protease can be a very interesting therapeutic target because we have seen that the signalling pathway is also active in human patients with pancreatic cancer,” explains Langer. “However, there are no known substances that have an effect on this protease.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-763.mp3" length="1184180" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin causes anhedonia…and mental illness in general</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=761</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=761</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Dec 2019 00:23:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=761

As many of my readers know, anhedonia is one of the most pernicious symptoms of most mental disorders, and is perhaps the most resistant to therapy. It also happens to be one of the main triggers of attempted suicide, based on interviews with suicide survivors. I posted some threads in the past demonstrating that chronic stress leads to mental illness and anhedonia but the medical industry keeps claiming that the actual biochemical cause of anhedonia is unknown.

Chronic stress (adversity) lowers dopamine and causes mental illness, link here

The study below may finally shut those idiotic claims up, by demonstrating again that chronic stress causes mental illness. Just as importantly, it also demonstrated that serotonin excess is the main direct cause of anhedonia. It found that animals developing anhedonia had dramatically higher expressions of the serotonin-synthesizing enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH, link here) and thus much higher extracellular serotonin. Inhibiting TPH made the animals highly resistant to the development of anhedonia. This puts into perspective the known side effects of the class of serotonergic drugs (SSRI), which are the main treatment of depression to this day. One of the main known side effects is actually anhedonia, yet they are being prescribed for treating anhedonia precisely because mainstream medicine continues to claim that the biochemical cause of anhedonia is unknown. As such, hopefully inadvertently, psychiatry may have been causing (or at least exacerbating) one of the very conditions it is claiming to treat. Hopefully, with this new evidence accumulating, serotonin antagonists and/or TPH inhibitors (dopamine agonists are a prime example of the latter) will start to be taken a lot more seriously as treatment of mental illness. And maybe while the public is at it, some Big Pharma companies will get sued in class-action style to compensate innocent patients for the fraud they have propagated and the poison (e.g. SSRI drugs) they have been peddling for decades.

link here

“…Stress-induced anhedonia was assessed in adult male rats using social defeat and intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS), while changes in serotonergic phenotype were investigated using immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization. Susceptible, but not resilient, rats displayed an increased number of neurons expressing the biosynthetic enzyme for serotonin, tryptophan-hydroxylase-2 (TPH2), in the ventral subnucleus of the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRv).”

link here

“…Scientists came to their conclusions after tracking the brain activity of laboratory rats placed in testing social situations. The experiment allowed the researchers to monitor the rats’ reaction to stress over a 21-day period and their resilience to anhedonia, a key feature of psychiatric conditions—including depression—that relates to a loss of pleasure or interest. Susceptibility to anhedonia varies from person to person, or rat to rat. Previous research looking at animals and depressed patients that have committed suicide suggests this relates to an impaired functioning of the brain reward system. According to a paper published in JNeurosci, link here, rats that are “susceptible” to stress-induced anhedonia displayed elevated numbers of serotonin-signaling neurons caused by the “recruitment” of non-serotonin-signaling neurons in the central section of the dorsal raphe nucleus, an area of the brain associated with regulating stress. The finding supports previous research linking impairments to mechanisms that regulate serotonin to psychiatric disorders, such as depression. This is because serotonin plays an important role in processing stress and managing emotions.”

“…Interestingly, researchers were unable to determine which rats were susceptible and resilient to socially-induced stress before—or even during the early stages of—the experiment. This suggests the response was not triggered by acute moments of stress but rather developed over an extended period of time, with chronic exposure to stress. In this instance, the stress was related to social defeat.”

“…The researchers found that those susceptible to anhedonia required higher intensities of self-stimulation to feel pleasure. Those that were resilient did not. What’s more, the researchers explain they were able to reverse the effects by manipulating neurons in the central amygdala to put a stop to the increase in serotonin signaling, resulting in noticeably less-stressed out rats.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-761.mp3" length="944588" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Progesterone may treat diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=759</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=759</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Dec 2019 22:30:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=759

Interesting new study, which adds more to the already existing mountain of evidence for the benefit of progesterone in a variety of conditions of metabolic origin. While the study does not mention any specific doses, it is known that the receptor (PGRMC2, link here) whose activation the study found to be beneficial for diabetes/obesity, is activated by progesterone in physiological concentrations. This means that even “low” doses of progesterone in the 15mg-30mg daily range should be enough to activate that specific cell-membrane progesterone receptor and replicate the findings of the study. I am not even sure why the study did not use progesterone as the obvious choice of endogenous activator but instead went with an obscure (but patented and expensive) synthetic molecule. Wait, I think I know the reason…

2 links here

“…Scientists at Scripps Research have come up with an unexpected finding of a protein that is highly expressed in fat tissue. The study, link here has opened the door to critical new understandings about obesity, metabolism and potentially other diseases. The results of the study, link here were published in the Journal Nature. The signaling protein, known as progesterone receptor membrane component 2 (PGRMC2), had not been extensively studied in the past. Short for “progesterone receptor membrane component 2,” it had been detected in the uterus, liver and several areas of the body.”

“…And that is how they made their next big discovery: Without PGRMC2 present in their fat tissues, mice that were fed a high-fat diet became intolerant to glucose and insensitive to insulin, hallmark symptoms of diabetes and other metabolic diseases. By contrast, obese-diabetic mice that were treated with a drug to activate the PGRMC2 function showed a substantial improvement of symptoms associated with diabetes.”

“…“Even though their brain was sending the right signals to turn on the heat, the mice were unable to defend their body temperature,” Galmozzi says. “Without heme, you get mitochondrial dysfunction and the cell has no means to burn energy to generate heat.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-759.mp3" length="428756" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin causes the startle response, and likely PTSD as well</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=757</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=757</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Dec 2019 22:17:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=757

As my readers know, I have posted quite a few threads in the past on the topic of PTSD. It is a condition that affects up to 30% of current/former military members, and is considered a condition of unknown cause and without treatment. Current treatment options consist of mostly symptom management with serotonergic (SSRI) drugs and despite those “treatment” most of the patients steadily decline. Many of them die as a result of violence (suicide, homicide, crime, etc) and the rest typically die of cancer and CVD, much earlier than their peers. The reason I put “treatment” in quote is that the study below provided evidence demonstrating that those serotonergic drugs may be doing a lot more harm than good and may in fact be ensuring the PTSD state continues indefinitely. After all, PTSD is commonly known among doctors as a “chronically exaggerated” startle / freeze response.

link here

“…The intensity of the startle response, a motor reflex, is probably the most robust potential PTSD disease marker to date. As mentioned above, the significance of startle and fear responses as PTSD risk markers is less clear. It was shown repeatedly that elevated startle occurs in both human PTSD patients [73, link here–76, link here] and rodents suffering from a PTSD-like syndrome [71, link here, 77, link here–80, link here].”

The study below demonstrates that a rise in serotonin levels is what controls/causes the startle response and blocking serotonin receptors prevented the startle response from occurring. The authors of the study are certain that the same mechanism is at play in every organism complex enough to have a nervous system, including humans. As such, blocking serotonin receptors with chemicals like cyproheptadine may be a viable and truly therapeutic approach. Interestingly enough, cyproheptadine is already used to reduce nightmares in people with PTSD and those studies have shown that PTSD patients on cyproheptadine behave like normal people. However, those extremely promising results were dismissed as either flukes or as being due to those people not really having a PTSD. That’s how modern medicine deals with its miserable failures – either claim that it was a result by chance or that the initial diagnosis was wrong. Nobody in charge of public health will willingly kill the goose that lays golden eggs (e.g. the multibillion dollar SSRI industry) unless the corruption/fraud becomes so obvious that social unrest seems likely.

2 links here

“…A Columbia University study in fruit flies has identified serotonin as a chemical that triggers the body’s startle response, the automatic deer-in-the-headlights reflex that freezes the body momentarily in response to a potential threat. Today’s study reveals that when a fly experiences an unexpected change to its surroundings, such as a sudden vibration, release of serotonin helps to literally — and temporarily — stop the fly in its tracks. These findings, published today in Current Biology, offer broad insight into the biology of the startle response, a ubiquitous, yet mysterious, phenomenon that has been observed in virtually every animal studied to date, from flies to fish to people.”

“…Their initial results revealed that activating neurons that produce serotonin in the VNC slows flies down, while silencing those same neurons speeds flies up. Additional experiments showed that serotonin levels could impact the insects’ walking speed under a wide variety of conditions, including different temperatures, when the flies were hungry, or while they walked upside down, all situations that normally affect walking speed. “We witnessed serotonin’s biggest effects when the flies experienced rapid environmental changes,” said Clare Howard, PhD, the paper’s first author. “In other words, when they were startled.”

“…”We found that when a fly is startled in these scenarios, serotonin acts like an emergency brake; its release is needed for them to freeze, and that part of this response may be a result of stiffening both sides of the animal’s leg joints,” said Dr. Mann, who is also the Higgins Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics (in Systems Biology) at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “This co-contraction could cause the brief pause in walking, after which the insect begins to move.” “We think this pause is important,” added Dr. Howard, “It could allow the fly’s nervous system to gather the information about this sudden change and decide how it should respond.”

“…While these findings are specific to fruit flies, the ubiquity of serotonin and the startle response provides clues as to the chemical and molecular processes that occur when more complex animals, including people, get startled.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-757.mp3" length="975548" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Low-dose methylene blue (MB) may stop Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=755</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=755</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Dec 2019 21:48:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=755

Another great result for the humble dye whose only claim medical fame so far has been as treatment for malaria, and even that “designation” has largely been deprecated due to the advent of new and “improved” drugs. About a decade ago, a company in the UK started researching MB as potential treatment for AD. Their animal tests were highly promising and their single, limited human trial demonstrated that MB may be effective but ONLY if the patient is NOT simultaneously treated with other approved (read: toxic) drugs for AD. Also, that first study used a dose of MB that is not considered high clinically (200mg daily) but is high enough to cause side effects including serotonergic symptoms in people taking SSRI drugs or MAO-A inhibitors. Now, this new study below demonstrates that a much lower dose MB (8mg daily, intended in the new study to function as the placebo group) had the same improvements in cognitive function and brain atrophy as the high dose. Actually, the study found that over the course of the trial, treatment with 8mg MB daily reduced cognitive decline by more than 85%! That is the medical profession’s twisted way of saying that MB effectively stopped AD in its tracks, or at least its cognitive symptoms, which is what this disease is all about. It is a type of dementia after all. Perhaps just as importantly, it found that drugs currently approved for managing symptoms of AD interfere with the therapeutic benefit of MB when administered together with it! As the study says, this matches results from earlier trials showing MB works best when used by itself (monotherapy).

Apparently, the authors behind the study do not read the medical literature before designing their trials. Otherwise, they would have found the human studies with 15mg MB daily showing rapid improvement in bipolar and unipolar depression, psychosis, dementia, etc. The existence of such human studies should have allowed the authors to surmise that MB is therapeutic even in strikingly low doses and when used by itself, which allows for much safer protocols with it to be developed. The fact that MB is effective in such low doses should have guided the scientists towards the true mechanism of action of MB – i.e. improving oxidative metabolism in the brain. Yet, we still get the same old discredited story about amyloid/tau accumulation. But wait, it gets better. Without seemingly knowing about those earlier human trials the current study reached virtually the same conclusion – i.e. that MB is expected to be therapeutic in doses up to 16mg daily and then no further benefit would be seen thereafter with higher doses. Well, I guess one cannot expect the medical world to be rational when most of its theories on major diseases are wrong. Instead, we should just celebrate the success of MB against a condition which medicine says has no cure, or disease-modifying treatment. Except, of course, for those “old” and “obsolete” pro-metabolic drugs like the adamantane derivative memantine, aspirin, pregnenolone, progesterone, thyroid, magnesium, etc.

link here

“…Hydromethylthionine has pharmacological activity on brain structure and function at the 8 mg/day dose as monotherapy or as add-on to symptomatic treatments. This combined with a plateau at higher doses is consistent with the lack of dose-response seen in the Phase III trials. Treatment benefit is predicted to be maximal at 16 mg/day as monotherapy. A placebo-controlled trial in mild/moderate AD is now ongoing to confirm efficacy at this dose.”

link here

“…In a paper published in today’s online issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (DOI 10.3233/JAD-190772), TauRx has reported unexpected results of a pharmacokinetic analysis of the relationship between treatment dose, blood levels and pharmacological activity of the drug hydromethylthionine on the brain in over 1,000 patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease. These results showed that, even at the lowest dose of hydromethylthionine previously tested in two Phase 3 global clinical trials (8 mg/day), the drug produced concentration-dependent effects on cognitive decline and brain atrophy. Hydromethylthionine, taken as a tablet, is the WHO-approved non-proprietary name for the compound previously referred to by TauRx as LMTM. This drug blocks abnormal aggregation of tau protein in the brain,2,3 which is increasingly recognised as an important driver of clinical dementia.1 In Phase 3 global clinical trials conducted in almost 1,700 patients with  mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease between 2012–2016, hydromethylthionine was tested at doses of 150–250 mg/day against a low dose of 8 mg/day, which was intended only as a control to mask the discolouration of urine that can sometimes occur with the drug. The study designs were based on the findings from an earlier trial that used a different variant of the drug.6 Surprisingly, there was no difference between the high doses and the low dose of hydromethylthionine on any of the clinical outcomes in the trials.4,5″

“…To further explore these results, the researchers conducted a new pharmacokinetic population analysis using plasma concentration data from 1,162 of the patients who participated in either of the two completed Phase 3 hydromethylthionine trials to measure how blood levels of the drug relate to its effects on the brain. Using a new assay, the researchers found that the effects of hydromethylthionine at the 8 mg/day dose were determined by the blood level, and that the majority of patients had high enough blood levels of the drug at this dose to produce meaningful reductions in cognitive decline and brain atrophy. They concluded that a slightly higher dose of hydromethylthionine of 16 mg/day would ensure that all patients would have the blood levels needed to maximise the drug’s activity, since its effects plateau at higher concentrations and doses. The pharmacokinetic profile they found, typical of many drugs, now explains why the pharmacological effects of hydromethylthionine at the high doses tested in the trials were no better than those seen in patients with high blood levels at the 8 mg/day dose. The analysis also showed that whilst hydromethylthionine has a similar concentration-response profile in patients taking the drug as an add-on therapy to the routinely used symptomatic treatments in Alzheimer’s disease, the maximum effect in these patients was reduced by half. This finding supports the hypothesis that symptomatic drugs for this condition interfere with the disease-modifying treatment effects of hydromethylthionine. This hypothesis was initially proposed on the basis of the drug’s Phase 3 trial results.4,5″

“…”In addition to the reduction in brain atrophy, we were surprised to see the large cognitive effects of treatment in the patient group with the higher blood levels of hydromethylthionine at the 8 mg daily dose,” he added. “According to scores from the ADAS-cog scale, the effect was around 7.5 points, or three times that seen from current routine Alzheimer’s treatments, and would be equivalent to an 85% reduction in cognitive decline over 65 weeks.” The Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale–cognitive subscale (ADAS-Cog) is the standard cognitive scale used to measure neuropsychological changes in Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials. A 4-point change is generally considered as indicating a clinically meaningful difference.i Professor George Perry, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, commented: “The extensive data, experience, and now pharmacokinetics, highlight the potential of hydromethylthionine treatment as an important new avenue forward in Alzheimer’s disease. The clinical benefit and reduction in brain atrophy greatly exceed those reported for other therapeutic routes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-755.mp3" length="1435124" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Inhibiting estrogen synthesis may treat / prevent ectopic pregnancy</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=753</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=753</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Dec 2019 18:29:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=753

I just made a post about the role of estrogen in male infertility, which matches perfectly the evidence about estrogen’s role as a metabolic inhibitor, and an agent that causes atrophy in both male and female gonads.

Male fertility depends on intensity of (sperm) metabolism, link here

Now, a new study demonstrates that using an aromatase inhibitor (AI) to lower the levels of estrogen may treat a condition known as ectopic pregnancy – a condition that was and still is considered NOT hormonal in origin. Perhaps just as importantly, the findings of this new study may lead to ending the practice of treating the ectopic pregnancy with the highly toxic cancer chemotherapy drug methotrexate. While the study did not examine if the AI can also prevent ectopic pregnancy from forming, it demonstrates quite convincingly the role of estrogen in this pathology. As such, until evidence to the contrary is presented, my assumption is that elevated estrogen is a (if not THE) cause of this pathology. This hypothesis is further strengthened by the fact that progesterone has also been shown reduce the risk of ectopic pregnancy, and the main endogenous role of progesterone is opposition of estrogen (and cortisol). Unfortunately, the choice of AI in the study (letrozole) was not optimal and I suspect much better results would have been obtained if a steroidal AI was used instead. This proposition of mine stems from the known androgenic effects of steroidal AI such as exemestane and formestane, as those effects provide opposition to estrogen at the receptor level as well. Of course, good ‘ol progesterone would be my primary choice of treatment (as it is itself a steroidal AI) and the only reason I am mentioning the (other) steroidal AIs is that in some people with very high estrogen levels a more potent AI (than progesterone) may be needed to bring the situation quickly under control. Furthermore, there is no reason why progesterone and a steroidal AI such as exemestane cannot be combined and likely produce a superior effects than either one on its own.

2 links here

“…USA: A recent study has suggested that the use of letrozole, an aromatase inhibitor, can end ectopic pregnancy as effectively as the chemotherapeutic agent methotrexate. The study was presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) 2019 Scientific Congress by Mohamed Mitwally, Odessa Reproductive Medicine Center in Helotes, Texas. According to the authors, this could be a huge breakthrough as in contrast to methotrexate, letrozole works hormonally. So, the findings, if confirmed, could do away with the need for chemotherapy regimen for the treatment of ectopic pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy occurs when the fertilized egg, instead of growing inside the uterus, grows outside of it, usually in the fallopian tube. Growing pregnancy can cause the tube to burst that can cause major internal bleeding. This can be life-threatening and requires immediate surgery. A pregnancy can’t survive outside of the uterus, so all ectopic pregnancies must end. Till now, early ectopic pregnancy was managed with the injection of a drug called methotrexate (Trexall). This can be given if the patients have low levels of hCG — a hormone your body makes when you’re pregnant and there’s no damage to the fallopian tube. Methotrexate stops the cells from growing and allows your body to absorb the pregnancy. But the drug does have some side effects, like nausea, vomiting, dizziness, diarrhoea, and stomatitis (mouth and lip ulcers). And most women have abdominal pain a couple of days after the injection.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-753.mp3" length="964340" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Male fertility depends on intensity of (sperm) metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=749</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=749</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Dec 2019 17:48:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=749

Yet another aspect of health that turns out to be directly controlled by quality/speed of metabolism. I made a few posts in the past demonstrating that progesterone and pregnenolone activate a calcium channel (CatSper, link here) specific to progesterone, which greatly increases sperm motility.

2 links here

However, I suspected that this is not the whole story behind sperm motility and that energy is somehow involved since increased motility increases energetic demands. The effects of progesterone on increasing metabolism further suggested such metabolic principle is involved but until now there was no direct evidence. The study below fills in this gap and demonstrates that sperm motility directly depends on sperm cell metabolic intensity. Considering estrogen blocks the activation of CatSper by progesterone/pregnenolone, these recent findings also implicate estrogen in yet another pathology affecting massive numbers of people worldwide and part of the benefit of progesterone/pregnenolone exert is likely also due to their opposition to estrogen, especially in the gonads as another recent post discussed.

Pregnenolone (P5) fully prevents testicular atrophy due to steroid (ab)use or high estrogen, link here

Interestingly, other steroids including cortisol and even testosterone (in high dose) were also found to block the CatSper channel, which easily explains why stress leads to infertility and why clinical trials with testosterone for male infertility have mostly failed. Even more intriguing is that various terpenoids widely distributed in the plant kingdom were also found to block that channel, which could explain the striking prevalence of infertility among male vegans.

link here

“…The calcium channel of sperm (CatSper) is essential for sperm hyperactivated motility and fertility. The steroid hormone progesterone activates CatSper of human sperm via binding to the serine hydrolase ABHD2. However, steroid specificity of ABHD2 has not been evaluated. Here, we explored whether steroid hormones to which human spermatozoa are exposed in the male and female genital tract influence CatSper activation via modulation of ABHD2. The results show that testosterone, estrogen, and hydrocortisone did not alter basal CatSper currents, whereas the neurosteroid pregnenolone sulfate exerted similar effects as progesterone, likely binding to the same site. However, physiological concentrations of testosterone and hydrocortisone inhibited CatSper activation by progesterone. Additionally, testosterone antagonized the effect of pregnenolone sulfate. We have also explored whether steroid-like molecules, such as the plant triterpenoids pristimerin and lupeol, affect sperm fertility. Interestingly, both compounds competed with progesterone and pregnenolone sulfate and significantly reduced CatSper activation by either steroid. Furthermore, pristimerin and lupeol considerably diminished hyperactivation of capacitated spermatozoa. These results indicate that (i) pregnenolone sulfate together with progesterone are the main steroids that activate CatSper and (ii) pristimerin and lupeol can act as contraceptive compounds by averting sperm hyperactivation, thus preventing fertilization.”

“…However, coadministration of testosterone and P4 to spermatozoa, which were preexposed to testosterone, completely prevented ICatSper potentiation by P4 (Fig. 1 A and B, link here and Table S1, link here). Estradiol (E2) and hydrocortisone (HC) partially reduced CatSper activation by P4 to 3.6- and 4.1-fold, when applied simultaneously with P4 (Fig. 1 C and D, link here and Table S1, link here). ”

Furthermore, since up to 25% of couples are directly or functionally infertile, the study below serves as another striking reminder of just how poor the metabolic health of the general population is. It also suggests direct measures that can be taken to improve male fertility including (the obvious) progesterone/pregnenolone supplementation due to their direct effect on sperm, as well as other pro-metabolic measures such as thyroid, magnesium, vitamin E, salt, protein, sugar, etc.

2 links here

“…Thanks to the advanced possibilities, in vitro fertilization is part of everyday medical practice. The so-called swim-up method is a sperm purification method that is being used daily in andrology labs around the world as a simple step for in vitro sperm selection. This method accumulates the most motile sperm in the upper fraction and leaves sperm with low or no motility in the lower fraction by adding them to a culture medium. The reasons for the different sperm qualities are still poorly understood. A team of biologists from TU Dresden has now compared bovine sperm from the upper and lower layers with regard to their metabolic rate, their motility and sperm tail length. In their study, they identified clear connections: the faster sperm selected by swim-up show higher metabolic rates and longer driving flagella than non-selected cells. The results of the study are the first to provide a metabolic explanation for why the swim-up method selects sperm that appear to be functionally superior. These findings can be applied to all human and animal sperm and provide valuable new insights into the origins of life.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-749.mp3" length="1034396" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D strikingly therapeutic for type II diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=747</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=747</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Dec 2019 17:21:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=747

Despite the ongoing assault against “ineffective” dietary supplements, the evidence in favor of them keeps piling on. One of the favorite targets of mainstream media is vitamin D, and multiple claims of “ineffectiveness” based on “meta” studies have come out in the last 5 years. Usually, this is a sign that something big, and financially unfavorable for Big Pharma, is brewing. That something may very well be the intervention studies below, which demonstrated that administration of 5,000 IU vitamin 3 daily for  6 months in patient with type II diabetes dropped their blood glucose by a whopping 55%, reduced their risk of metabolic syndrome by 51% and risk of CVD by 33%! In addition, the vitamin D improved function of pancreatic beta-cells, which reduced the risk of the type II diabetes turning into type I. No pharma drug, already in clinical use or still under development can claim such success. This should be front page news on CNN, Fox, etc yet the only popular press outlet that reported on it is a virtually unknown foreign media with no influence in the Western world.

2 links here

“…Vitamin D supplementation may slow down metabolic deterioration in Type 2 diabetes patients, revealed a study published in the European Journal of Endocrinology. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with impaired glucose homeostasis. Association of vitamin D supplementation with various health benefits is of particular interest in nutritional research. Prior studies from the same group demonstrated that higher serum vitamin D levels were associated with a 55% reduction in the blood sugar, a 51% decreased risk of the metabolic syndrome and a 33% lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). The present study demonstrated that high-dose vitamin D supplementation (5000 IU daily) for 6 months significantly improved peripheral insulin sensitivity and beta-cell function in individuals at high risk for diabetes or newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes (T2D), thus confirming the results of earlier studied by the same group.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-747.mp3" length="557084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Down Syndrome (DS) cognitive handicap is due to (cellular) stress, may be reversible</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=745</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=745</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 27 Nov 2019 21:11:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=745

If there is any disease that is currently considered incurable even in principles, it likely comes from the group of inherited/genetic disorders. Perhaps the most well-known one, due to rapidly rising incidence and thus publicity, is DS. Perhaps its most disabling aspect of DS is the cognitive dysfunction that manifest in such patients. The bulk of the evidence demonstrates an average IQ score of about 50 for an adult with DS at the height of their cognitive development. This roughly corresponds to the intelligence of an 8-9 year old child and as such DS patients require lifelong care. If there was a way to reverse this cognitive handicap, DS would probably transform from a lifelong disability into a treatable condition, even if only symptom management is performed. Well, the study below found that this may indeed be possible. More importantly, it demonstrated that the cognitive features of DS are due to exaggerated so-called integrated stress response (ISR), and that blocking this stress response restores cognitive function. Interestingly enough, ISR can apparently be triggered by a variety of factors including hypoxia, amino acid deprivation, glucose deprivation, viral infections, etc. and (unsurprisingly) has a major role in cancer and many other chronic health conditions such as CVD, diabetes, etc.

link here

“…The integrated stress response can be triggered within a cell due to certain conditions.[1], link here These can either be extrinsic or intrinsic factors.[1], link here Extrinsic factors include hypoxia, amino acid deprivation, glucose deprivation, viral infection and presence of oxidants.[1], link here The main intrinsic factor is endoplasmic reticulum stress due to the accumulation of unfolded proteins.[1], link here It has also been observed that the integrated stress response may trigger due to oncogene activation.[1], link here The integrated stress response will either cause the expression of genes that fix the damage in the cell due to the stressful conditions, or it will cause a cascade of events leading to apoptosis, which occurs when the cell can not be brought back into homeostasis.[1], link here“

So, what we may have in this study is that even for genetic conditions like DS, the actual manifestations can be easily remediated. This reminds me of the famous study with locust/grasshoppers demonstrating the a mere spike in serotonin levels can cause drastic changes in an organism similar to speciation even though genetically it was the same species. And serotonin levels were entirely driven by the lack of food. What a coincidence (synchronicity?) with the amino acid and glucose deprivation above in regards to ISR! Maybe that’s what DS is all about – it is the genetic manifestation of environmental “restriction” – i.e. suboptimal diet, low metabolism in one or both parents, insufficient progesterone synthesis by the mother, etc. As such, easy prevention methods probably exist and the assertions that it is all about the “insurmountable” age factor of the parents are nothing but an easy way out for doctors who prefer to wait for the disease to happen and then “treat” it with dangerous genetic editing (e.g. CRISPR). Speaking of aging, I just posted a thread demonstrating that human aging is likely due to epigenetic / energetic issues, and can be reversed. If age is the main factor in DS, then as preventative intervention why not try to reverse the (biological) age of “older” parents-to-be?

Aging likely caused by decreased respiration / metabolism, not genetic mutations, link here

Combined with the findings of the new study below that the cognitive features of DS are likely reversible, there is no excuse to continue with the ridiculous “genetic counselling” sessions given to all couples who are expecting, which often result in stern recommendations of abortion in case the DS tests come back positive. Maybe the solution for most pregnant women at-risk is as simple as improving diet, avoiding fasting/stress, and maybe taking extra progesterone, or aspirin as all of these interventions both prevent the ISR from being activated during pregnancy and when applied to the offspring can stop his/her already (over)activated ISR.

2 links here

“…In a surprising finding using the standard animal model of Down syndrome (DS), scientists were able to correct the learning and memory deficits associated with the condition – the leading genetic cause of cognitive disability and the most frequently diagnosed chromosomal disorder in the U.S. – with drugs that target the body’s response to cellular stresses. In a study published Nov. 14, 2019, in the journal Science, link here, a team led by researchers at UC San Francisco and Baylor College of Medicine show that some of the intellectual impairments associated with DS may be traced to altered protein production in a region of the brain called the hippocampus, which is central to learning and long-term memory formation. But in the so-called Ts65Dn mouse, engineered to capture genetic, behavioral and cognitive features of human Down syndrome, these changes can be undone. When the researchers administered drugs that target one of the cell’s key stress response pathways, they were able to bring protein levels back to normal, which caused the cognitive deficits typical of the Ts65Dn mouse to vanish. Although the cognitive features of DS have generally been thought of as irreversible, the researchers say, these findings indicate that it may be possible to improve cognitive function in human DS using similar compounds.”

“…The researchers discovered that hippocampal cells in DS mice had activated what’s known as the integrated stress response (ISR), a biological circuit that detects when something’s awry – the presence of an extra chromosome, for example, in the case of DS – and engages a protective response that activates machinery to tamp down protein production. “The cell is constantly monitoring its own health. When something goes wrong, the cell responds by making less protein, which is usually a sound response to cellular stress. But you need protein synthesis for higher cognitive functions, so when protein synthesis is reduced, you get a pathology of memory formation,” said Walter…Taken together, these findings strongly suggest that the ISR is involved in, and perhaps even responsible for, certain DS symptoms.”

“…“We started with a situation that looked hopeless,” Walter said. “Nobody thought anything could be done. But we may have struck gold.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-745.mp3" length="1609700" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aging likely caused by decreased respiration / metabolism, not genetic mutations</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=729</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=729</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 27 Nov 2019 20:12:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=729

It looks like after a century of utter idiotism in biology and medicine, those two disciplines may finally be getting on the right course. Despite the fact that the “rate of living” theory is still the dominant theory of aging in the halls of academia, a new generation of scientists is emerging that is not afraid to point out the elephant in the room (i.e. slow instead of fast metabolism in advanced age). As the authors themselves state, the idea that aging is caused by accumulation of mutations in mitochondrial DNA does not pass the evidence test. To the contrary, this study and several others before it, discovered that downregulation in metabolism is responsible for the decline in cellular growth/repair seen with aging. This downregulation in metabolism was itself due to reduced activity in a specific enzyme that is responsible for synthesizing glycine and taurine, and that change was driven by purely epigenetic (read: environmental) factors. This study immediately reminded me of a previous one, demonstrating that aging in humans cells is characterized by reduced ability to metabolize glucose and can be completely reversed by treatment with glycine.

2 links here

Just as in that study above, the new one below again makes the claims that glycine (and possible taurine) treatment may be a viable approach to reversing aging in humans by restoring mitochondrial function. As such, aging seems to be simply due to a deficiency in energy production driven entirely by a suboptimal environment (in which nutrition likely plays a major role). This means that in principle, reversing aging is not only possible but should be pretty straighforward, as no evidence exists so far to suggest that cellular damage accumulated with “aging” is somehow irreversible and the pathways of metabolic inhibition can be counted on the fingers of both hands. On a side but interesting note, the study also backs up a common assertion in metabolic theory that has been attacked by mainstream medicine as unfounded. Namely, that anemia may often be caused by deficiency in mitochondrial function. So, before you load up on that iron as your doctor orders you to, the state of your metabolism should probably be evaluated first and iron only supplemented with when it is a proven case of iron-deficiency anemia, which is relatively rare due to heavy food fortification in most Western countries.

link here

“…The livers but not the brains from Shmt2-knockout E13.5 embryos exhibit mitochondrial respiration defects and growth retardation. Because E13.5 foetal liver is an erythropoietic tissue23, link here, growth retardation of foetal livers without functional Shmt2 directly induces the depletion of erythroblasts and the manifestation of anaemia. Furthermore, mitochondrial respiration defects in foetal livers without functional Shmt2 might also induce the depletion of erythroblasts by the arrest of erythroblast differentiation. This assertion is supported by our previous finding24, link here that anaemia is induced by the transplantation of adult bone marrow cells exhibiting mitochondrial respiration defects caused by the inclusion of mtDNA harbouring a large-scale deletion mutation30, link here,31, link here into irradiated normal mice as a consequence of the differentiation arrest of erythroblasts from transplanted bone marrow cells. Elevated mutagenesis of mtDNA and the resulting mitochondrial respiration defects have also been shown to arrest erythroblast differentiation and induce anaemia in adult mice25, link here.”

“…We previously proposed that age-related mitochondrial respiration defects in human fibroblasts from elderly subjects8, link here,10, link here are the results of epigenetic controls, which induce age-associated downregulation of nuclear DNA-encoded genes, such as SHMT2 involved in 1C metabolism14, link here. The results in this study also suggest that age-associated downregulation of SHMT2 would furthermore control age-related growth retardations, as well as mitochondrial respiration defects, in human fibroblasts from elderly subjects. Therefore, activation of SHMT2 or uptake of certain supplementary 1C sources, such as formate and glycine, might thwart the manifestation of age-related disorders. Moreover, administration of these supplements to pregnant mothers might rescue embryonic anaemia caused by inactivation of SHMT2.”

link here

“…To do this, the researchers used mouse embryos that had been genetically modified to lack the SHMT2 gene. This strain of mice, termed Shmt2-knockout mice, had impaired mitochondrial respiration and growth retardation in the liver but not the brain. The liver was found to exhibit downregulation in the metabolic pathways that generate taurine, which is necessary for mitochondrial respiration, as well as nucleotides, which are molecules that are implicated in cell division. These insufficiencies were also linked to anemia in the Shmt2-knockout E13.5 embryos. “Although some researchers have proposed that human aging and age-related defects in mitochondrial respiration are caused by the accumulation of mutations in mitochondrial DNA,” study senior author Jun-Ichi Hayashi says, “our data support an alternative explanation: age-related defects in mitochondrial respiration may be triggered by changes in the activity of metabolic pathways that are caused by epigenetic downregulation, but not by mutations, of specific genes associated with mitochondrial function.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-729.mp3" length="1107116" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Calorie restriction (CR) increases cancer rates by more than 60%</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=742</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=742</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 26 Nov 2019 19:56:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=742

The title says it all, so I won’t comment much on this other than to say that yet another myth propagated by mainstream medicine seems little more than wishful thinking. Namely, that calorie restriction (CR), link here will make you healthier. The official story on CR is not yet that it would make us live longer but using fasting to “combat” obesity, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, CVD, and even conditions such as AIDS and cancer is all the rage right now. Considering that cancer is a surrogate for accelerated aging, I think the study demonstrates that the effects of CR are pretty much the exact opposite of what is being heavily advertised for – extending youthfulness.

The study may also seem like providing disappointing evidence in regards to DHEA supplementation but a closer look reveals that the doses used were absolutely massive – i.e. the daily HED extrapolated from the study would be in the range of 50mg-250mg daily, depending on which treatment group we look at. At such doses, DHEA becomes massively estrogenic, as discussed many times before, and that effect dwarfs any potential benefit the steroid may provide.

link here

“…We investigated tumor patterns and longevity in mice subjected to dietary changes, CR, and/or DHEAS administration in middle age. DHEAS supplementation was selected because of extensive current human usage in the face of limited data to support the benefits of this practice. Treatment with DHEAS did not influence body weight, tumors, or longevity at two caloric intakes, despite urine samples from DHEAS-treated mice containing 10-fold higher levels of DHEA and DHEAS compared to samples from unsupplemented mice. In contrast, CR lowered body weight by 26%, increased maximum life span by ∼15% and the age at which tumor-bearing mice died and, unexpectedly, increased the percentage of mice dying with cancers. The lifetime incidence of the most prevalent cancer, PCN, was higher in RD mice (66%) than in ND mice (41%).”

“…A diagnosis of plasma cell neoplasms (PCN) was more frequent in both the RD and RD+D mice, 60 and 73%, respectively, than in the ND and ND+D mice, 34 and 46%, respectively (P < 0.005; Table 4 ⇓, link here )…A significantly smaller percentage (P < 0.005) of the RD and RD+D mice, 13 and 6%, respectively, ultimately died without a diagnosis of PCN, LL, or hepatocellular carcinoma than did the ND and ND+D mice, 22 and 16%, respectively (Table 4) ⇓, link here .”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-742.mp3" length="573044" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Despite striking increase in dieting and exercise, obesity is skyrocketing</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=727</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=727</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 25 Nov 2019 00:49:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=727

Maybe it takes a study like the one below to finally wake the public health authorities from their century-long slumber. I doubt there is a person alive today living in the Western world who has not been raised by the mantra “eat less and move more” as the single proven way to lose weight. Interestingly, weight loss through dieting and exercise has not been proven to lead to better health outcomes, except possibly for people with diabetes II and only for the first 5 years after losing the excess weight. There is no data on the benefits of weight loss (as a result of diet/exercise) even for these patients beyond the 5-year mark. Now, a new study has demonstrated that even when it comes to weight loss, dieting and exercise did not lead to weight loss for the majority of people despite massive increase in rates for these two interventions. What’s worse, over the almost two-decade period covered by the study the population dutifully increased its vegetable and fruit consumption AND reduced sugar intake! Yet, obesity kept rising with tremendous speed. Considering the average daily caloric intake has not really risen for most people in Western countries, the verdict from this study is quite damning – further drop in calories even when accompanied by more exercise and less calorie-dense foods could not offset the increases seen in obesity rates. The only explanation in the face of such damning findings is that one or more environmental factors are at play here. Since the rates for most chronic diseases are also rising, especially among the youngest members of society who have not yet become obese, the evidence points to a common cause(s) for both obesity and chronic disease. In fact, it becomes more and more plausible that obesity is more of an “innocent bystander” than the actual cause of all the illness that plagues civilization as health “experts” would have you believe. I’ll give public health authorities a hint – ubiquity of PUFA, stress, endocrine disruptors, sunlight avoidance, and EMF “pollution” can probably explain 99% of any modern society’s ills. But don’t hold your breath for any upcoming change in public health policies. To the contrary, lately there has been a strong push (funded by Big Pharma) to declare the damning findings about estrogen (coming from the WHI studies) invalid and as such (re)introduce estrogen therapy women and even men.

2 links here

“…More and more Americans are trying to lose weight, but few are finding success, a new study has found. According to figures published Wednesday in the journal JAMA: Diabetes and Endocrinology, link here, the percentage of U.S. adults 20 and older that have attempted a weight-loss regimen has increased from 34.3 percent in 1999 to 42.2 percent in 2016. However, over the same period, researchers found increases in weight and weight gain — an indication that their efforts may be in vain. “Obesity has been increasing in the US, while many people have made efforts to lose weight,” study co-author Lu Qi, director of the Tulane University Obesity Research Center, told UPI. He and his colleagues felt “a study linking the trends in weight loss attempts and weight change may help figure out whether the previous strategies were effective or not,” he added.”

“…The most commonly reported weight loss strategies among study participants were reduced food consumption, which increased from 21.2 percent to 31.9 percent over the study period; exercise, from 18.2 percent to 31.5 percent; and frequent water intake, from 0.2 percent to 26.3 percent. From 2005-2006 to 2015-2016, the authors also noted increases in participants reporting increased consumption of more fruits, vegetables, and salads, from 0.1 percent to 29.4 percent; changed eating habits, from 0.3 percent to 20.5 percent; and reduced consumption of sugar, candy and sweets, from 0.2 percent to 20.9 percent.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-727.mp3" length="1101500" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone (P5) fully prevents testicular atrophy due to steroid (ab)use or high estrogen</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=725</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=725</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 Nov 2019 23:42:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=725

I often get emails from bodybuilders, athletes and others who have used or currently use steroids and want to either protect themselves while using those steroids or want to recover after long-term usage. It is well-known that most performance enhancing steroids, including plain testosterone (T) or DHT, suppress gonadal function through a negative feedback mechanism at the pituitary level. There is some evidence that some suppression may also occur independently of the pituitary, through androgen receptor (AR) activation in Leydig cells by the steroids being used. Either way, the most common sign of gonadal suppression is testicular atrophy and as a result lower ejaculatory volume, increased refractory period, and even pituitary damage. In addition to these issues in males, an equivalent atrophic process happens with the ovaries of females as a result of steroid (ab)use. Common treatments for such gonadal suppression/atrophy include hCG, SERM (clomiphene, tamoxifene, etc), aromatase inhibitors (AI), etc. However, all of these approaches have risks and, with the possible exception of steroidal AI such as exemestane, are quite dangerous (and even carcinogenic). Thus, there is a huge unmet need for a treatment that could prevent and/or reverse such gonadal atrophy but without the risks and side effects of the currently available “therapies”.

It has been known since the early 20th century that pregnenolone (P5) administration has a trophic effects on the gonads. In fact, the initial consensus about P5 formed in 1940s was that if P5 had one primary function in the organism it was protecting the testicles from atrophy under the influence of estrogen. That is one reason P5 was used as male infertility treatment up until the 1960s. Around that time, it was gradually replaced by more “advanced” treatment options such as hCG, SERM, etc due to Big Pharma lobbying aggressively to use the newer profitable treatments instead of “archaic” glandular extracts and steroids such as P5. Well, as it seems, good ol’ P5 may be coming back in vogue, as the study below demonstrates P5 can fully prevent testicular atrophy by the rather large daily dose of T (or estrogen) when administered in a ratio of 10:1 with the T. The HED of T used in the study was 1.25mg daily, which is about the same as the daily doses used by most bodybuilders (600mg-700mg weekly). Now, considering the bodybuilders inject the equivalent of 100mg+ daily that means using 1g+ daily of pregnenolone and that is rather cumbersome to accomplish by injection. However, as some of the other studies posted further down in the thread demonstrate, P5 has absorption/bioavailability of about 70%-80% when used orally (actually intragastrically, which is the same as oral in humans). That means the same effects should be achievable if oral P5 is used with injectable T in a ratio of 12:1 – 15:1. Furthermore, as the same study on preventing testicular atrophy from high doses T demonstrated, pregnenolone was able to prevent the testicular atrophy caused by estrogen when administered in a 6:1 – 7:1 ratio. On a slightly tangential note, one of the studies states that progesterone (and T itself) can also prevent gonadal atrophy due to estrogen, but does not mention a specific dose. Since the atrophy caused by T is likely mostly due to T converting into estrogen, the lower ratio of pregnenolone:T (or pregnenolone:E2 for people with estrogen dominance) may do just fine. The estrogen role in gonadal atrophy caused by T is suggested by one of the studies showing that while “lower” doses T (in the range of HED 1mg/kg daily)  were suppressible and caused gonadal atrophy, VERY high doses (equivalent to 1g+ daily in humans) increased gonadal size. Considering higher concentrations of T act as a moderately strong AI and an estrogen receptor (ER) antagonist, this effect is expected as AI inhibitors and ER antagonists increased gonadal size/weight and and can reverse the atrophy caused by estrogen. Thus, the cumulative evidence once again points to estrogen as being THE atrophic factor for both male and female gonads.

While ingesting 600mg-700mg or more P5 daily may seem large and risky, repeated human and animal studies have shown that this steroid is devoid of any toxicity even in HED doses equivalent to about 10g-15g daily. Of course, for most people a much lower P5 dose would do as most endocrinologists do not prescribe T in doses higher then 25mg-30mg daily. As far as the bodybuilders, it would also be much safer to not use 100mg+ T daily, but I suspect they will not be easily convinced 🙂 Maybe they will change their minds if they read my post on Pansterone. As discussed discussed there, P5 is known to potentiate the effects of androgens/progestogens it is co-administered with. Thus, if P5 is used with T in say a 10:1 ratio then I suspect as “little” as 25mg T daily may have the same effects when combined with P5 as 100mg+ daily when used on its own. This suspicion is corroborated by another one of the studies below demonstrating dramatic rise in fecal androgens after administration of single HED of 2mg/kg P5. This suggests that P5 either strongly increases endogenous androgen synthesis or gets heavily converted into androgens itself. Either way, it leads to an increase in the androgen pool, thus there is no need to overdo the T, which has well-known risks of its own. So, when it comes P5 apparently “oldie but a goodie” is spot on!

link here

“…(b) Androgens. Neither local nor systemic antagonism to androgens is found in the capon test (9). Clinically, however, there is some as yet ill-defined implication that the virilizing action of testosterone in women is modified by pregnenolone. The “atrophy” of the testis seen after “small” doses of testosterone in rats, 1 mg. daily in animals weighing 121 Gm., is counteracted by 10 times the dose of pregnenolone (70) (see also subsequent section No. 6, Kidney). (c) Estrogens. Under certain conditions, in animals, estradiol produces a decline in the weight of the testis: the action is offset by pregnenolone (53,54). For example, the testes of rats are maintained about equally well if either 2 or 10 mg pregnenolone be given concurrently wth 300 micrograms of estradiol daily (53);”

link here

“…The testis atrophy caused by estradiol is most actively inhibited by delta-5-pregnenolone (group 19) in the low dosage series, while at the 10 mg. dose level several of the testoid compounds are somewhat more active. This is of particular interest since in castrate rats delta-5-pregnenolone is practically inactive as a testoid compound whence one may conclude that the gonad-protecting ability of steroids is independent of their testoid potency. It had previously been noted (9) that there is no close correlation between the gonad protecting activity of a steroid and its ability to maintain the accessory sex organs of the castrate male. Yet all gonad protecting substances so far observed proved to possess some measure of testoid activity and vice versa. The present experimental series revealed a testoid compound (ethinyl testosterone) which is devoid of gonadprotecting action and an active gonadotropic steroid (delta-5-pregnene-3b-ol-20-one) which proved inert as a testoid, when assayed on castrate rats. It appears justified to conclude, therefore, that this type of gonadotropic action is entirely independent of testoid activity.”

“…It will be seen that at low dosage levels delta-5-pregnenolone is even more gonadotropic than testosterone, methyl testosterone, androstenediol or dehydro-iso-androsterone, while at the 10 mg. dosage level delta-5-pregnenolone is less effective than the above compounds. The explanation of this is probably given by the observation of Selye and Albert (17) who found that at low dosage levels all these testoids cause some degree of testis involution by themselves, while delta-5-pregnenolone does not decrease the testis size at any dose level. It will also be recalled that small doses of testosterone cause a testis atrophy which is not seen at high dose levels (1 1). This fact could best be explained by the assumption that comparatively low doses of testoids inhibit the gonadotropic hormone secretion of the pituitary and thus cause a secondary testis involution which, in the case of high doses, is over-compensated by the direct testis-stimulating effect of these compounds. The present findings are in accord with the previously reported observation (12) that delta-5-pregnenolone causes no testis atrophy at any dose level and is highly effective in protecting the gonads against atrophy produced by various means. This implies that it can safely be employed as a testis protecting drug without running the risk of causing testis damage at any dosage level. Desoxycorticosterone acetate caused marked testis involution in itself when given at high dose levels (13). As was to be expected it aggravated the testis weight loss caused by estradiol.”

“…It is particularly noteworthy that delta-5-pregnenolone (group 6) and progesterone (group 7) which proved quite inactive in causing seminal vesicle enlargement in immature castrate rats (17, 14) elicited a marked hypertrophy in the present series. This apparent contradiction may be due to the circumstance that the above steroids are inactive in castrates because they have to be activated in some manner within the testis tissue. Another possible explanation, however, is that the animals of the present series proved highly sensitive to the above steroids merely because they were of post-pubertal age. It has been shown (10) that at puberty there is a sudden increase in the sensitivity of castrates to certain testoids while other testoid compounds are approximately equally effective in pre- and post-pubertal rats. Experiments are now under way to determine which of these two explanations is the correct one. Be this as it may, the fact remains that delta-5-pregnenolone and progesterone (groups 6 and 7) are markedly effective in stimulating the accessory sex organs under the conditions prevailing in these experiments, while this activity is destroyed by substitution of a hydrogen at C21 by an acetoxy group which transforms these compounds into acetoxyoregnenolone and desoxycorticosterone acetate (groups 15 and 18) respectively.”

2 links here

“…An important argument against the clinical use of testoidst in patients suffering from eunuchoidism is that such compounds may aggrayate the testicular atrophy when they are given in doses just sufficient to restore the accessory sex organs to the normal size. It is known that gonad atrophy is produced only with moderate doses which suffice to inhibit the hypophyseal gonadotropic hormone production, but not to exert a direct gonadotropic effect. Very high doses – which maintain the spermatogenic epithelium even in the absence of the pituitary – cause no testis atrophy in the intact organism since their direct gonadotropic effect fully compensates for the inhibition of hypophyseal function.’ However, such high doses could hardly be given in clinical cases of eunuchoidism since they would lead to an excessive development of the secondary sex characteristics. As it has recently been shown that the testis atrophy caused by estradiol can be inhibited by testosterone and progesterone [2,3] the question arose whether the testis atrophy normally elicited by “therapeutic doses’’ of testosterone might not in its turn be inhibited by steroids devoid of testoid activity. It was felt that if this could be accomplished testosterone might be given in combination with such gonadotropic steroids without the fear of aggravating testis atrophy or having to give enormous closes which would lead to excessive masculinization.”

link here

“…Gas-liquid chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and radio-gas chromatography were used to identify endogenous steroids and metabolites of [14-C]pregnenolone in bile from female bile fistula rats. About 70°/, of the administered radioactivity was recovered in the bile during the fist 24 h, and less than 1 during the following three days. 76%, of the biliary radioactivity was extracted and was separated according to conjugation.”

“…In contrast, the present study has shown that metabolites of [14-C]pregnenolone in the bile of female bile fistula rats are present in the glucuronide fraction (22%) as well as in the free (2%), monosulphate (45%) and disulphate (28%) fractions. One possible explanation for the presence of steroid glucuronides in bile and the absence of these conjugates in faeces may be the action of glucuronide hydrolyzing enzyme( s) in the intestinal mucosa [23]. The radioactivity present in the steroid glucuronide fraction in bile was correlated to several steroids identified in this fraction; radio-gas chromatography showed that 3a-hydroxy-5a-androstan-17-one (androsterone), 3a-hydroxy-5a-pregnan-20-one and 3a,16-dihydroxy-5a-pregnan-20-one were labelled, whereas 3a-hydroxy-5a,17a-pregnan-20-one and 5a-pregnane-3a,20b-diol were unlabeled.”

2 links here

“…One gram of pregnenolone was dissolved in ethanol and injected into the jugular vein of a Holstein cow, and 1 g. of pregnenolone in olive oil was given subcutaneously, daily, for three successive days to a Holstein bull. An ethanolic solution of 1 g. of 17-OH-hydroxyprogesterone was injected into the jugular vein of a Holstein cow.”

“…Previous reports by the authors (11, 13) have demonstrated (a) the biosynthetic transformation of progesterone to fecal androgens in the male and female bovine, and (b) the isolation of androstenedione, together with certain of its transformation products, from bovine feces following the administration of progesterone to a pregnant cow. The present study reports the biosynthetic transformation of pregnenolone and 17a-hydroxyprogesterone to fecal androgens in the bovine. These results indicate the role of pregnenolone, progesterone, and 17a-hydroxyprogesterone as biochemical precursors of the fecal androgens, and demonstrate the importance of the feces as a pathway for the elimination of the C-19 androgen metabolites of these C-21 hormones.

link here

“…The radioactivity was excreted at a slower rate after administration of [14C]pregnenolone sulphate than after [14C]pregnenolone and [14C]corticosterone. The recovery of radioactivity in the bile during the first 8 h was about the same, 65% -76% for all three steroids….In all experiments the major part of the radioactivity given to bile fistula rats was excreted in the bile. The biliary radioactivity represented between 40 -74 of the administered dose. Most of the remaining radioactivity was usually found in faeces. However, after intragastric administration of pregnenolone 31%, of the dose was recovered from the urine and 8% from faeces. After intragastric administration of labelled pregnenolone, pregnenolone sulphate and deoxycorticosterone sulphate, 48%, 58% and 73%, respectively, of the administered radioactivity was recovered from the bile. The corresponding figures after intracaecal administration were 74%, 40%, and 74%, showing a significant absorption of steroids from the caecum.”

link here

“…A review of repeat dose toxicology studies for pregnenolone was reported by Henderson et al. (1950). Among the studies reviewed, one study investigated the effects of various steroids, including pregnenolone, in albino rats. Pregnenolone was administered subcutaneously at a dose of 0.5 mg/day for the first month, followed by increasing the dose to 1.0 mg/day for the second month and then to 2.0 mg/day during the third month. Animals (n=2/sex/group/time point) were terminated at the end of each month of dosing. Recovery animals (n=6/sex/group) were maintained for an additional two months after the end of the third month of dosing. Additional animals (n=6/sex/group) were treated for only two weeks with pregnenolone at 2 mg/day. At the end of the study, organ weights were recorded and histopathology was performed. No drug-related findings were noted. However, insufficient details were provided in the review to determine the potential target organ toxicity for pregnenolone at the dose levels tested in this study. In rats, oral gavage administration of pregnenolone at 1g/kg three times per week for 50 doses (over a period of 17 weeks) had no significant effects on the following parameters: red blood cell count, hemoglobin, white blood cell count, or visceral weights. In the daily dosing studies, the following parameters were assessed: growth rate, food intake, fertility, and the size and overall condition of treated rats. Dietary (oral) administration of pregnenolone at 0.01 and 0.1 g/kg daily for three months did not reveal any significant findings of toxicity (Henderson et al. 1950).”

link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-725.mp3" length="2819804" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:06:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Burning more fat and less glucose leads to diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=723</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=723</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 22 Nov 2019 20:35:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=723

I really hope the keto community and other low-carb diet afficionados are taking note of the stream of recent studies that keep demonstrating a causative link between low-carb and/or high-fat diets, fasting, chronic stress, cortisol and diabetes. The evidence at this point is indisputable, no matter how much effort the medical industry puts into trying to suppress the simple mechanism that explains this connection – i.e. Randle Cycle, link here. I have already posted some on this blog some of the more damning studies but they just keep coming in.

Keto diet (low-carb) causes liver insulin resistance, raises diabetes risk, link here

Increased fat oxidation (FAO) does not lead to weight/fat loss, link here

The study below is a very interesting one, because it demonstrates the falsehood of the assumption that if one feels an influx of energy while on a diet that promotes fat burning then this must be a good sign and a demonstration of its superiority. The mice with increased fat oxidation did have higher endurance, and this is a phenomenon demonstrated in humans too. After all, it is all too natural to have higher endurance when using the fuel that was meant for long-lasting exertions – fat – compared to the fuel for intense but short-lived efforts (glucose). Yet, this higher endurance did not prevent the mice from developing insulin resistance and even diabetes while in increased fat-oxidation mode. What caused this insulin resistance was an increase in amino acid breakdown, which strongly points to increased muscle/tissue catabolism. This increased supply of amino acids somehow switched the fuel preference of cells from glucose to fat. You see, the organism needs its glucose and if it is not provided in the diet then it will be procured through other means and those other means are almost universally pathological. In this case, the increased amino acid influx most likely came from muscle/tissue breakdown as a result of elevated cortisol. The role of cortisol in diabetes has already been proven and one of the studies above shows that cortisol directly leads to fatty liver disease and state precursor to diabetes. As such, chronic stress is also immediately implicated as a causative factor in diabetes due to it effects on baseline cortisol levels. Thus, the findings of the study below match perfectly with the findings of the studies above. It also points to a possible way of reversing preventing diabetes – i.e. inhibit amino acid breakdown through its primary driver cortisol. Evidence already exists that steroids like progesterone and testosterone improve insulin sensitivity and can be therapeutic in diabetes (II). It just so happens that both steroids are potent glucocorticoid antagonists and block the effects of cortisol on muscle/tissue breakdown. So, the next time your doctor tries to lecture you on the virtues of the Paleo diet, intermittent fasting, calorie counting, etc – you can show him/her this post and the study below. Namely, burning more fat and less glucose directly leads to diabetes and tissue catabolism. It would be hard even for your brainwashed doctor to argue that these are desirable outcomes of dietary change.

link here

“…”…Here we find that depletion of the epigenome modifier histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) specifically in skeletal muscle causes severe systemic insulin resistance in mice but markedly enhances endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue, despite reducing muscle force. This seemingly paradoxical phenotype is due to lower glucose utilization and greater lipid oxidation in HDAC3-depleted muscles, a fuel switch caused by the activation of anaplerotic reactions driven by AMP deaminase 3 (Ampd3) and catabolism of branched-chain amino acids.”

link here

“…When normal mice eat, their blood sugar increases and insulin is released, which stimulates muscles to take in and use glucose as fuel. “When the knocked out mice ate, their blood sugar increased and insulin was released just fine, but their muscles refused to take in and use glucose,” said Sun. “Lacking HDAC3 made the mice insulin resistant and more prone to develop diabetes.” Yet, when the HDAC3-knocked out mice ran on a treadmill, they showed superior endurance, “which was intriguing because diabetes is usually associated with poor muscle performance,” said Sun. “Glucose is the main fuel of muscle, so if a condition limits the use of glucose, the expectation is low performance in endurance exercises. That’s the surprise.” The researchers then studied what fueled the HDAC3-knocked out mice’s stellar performance using metabolomics approaches and found that their muscles break down more amino acids. This changed the muscles’ preference from glucose to lipids and allowed them to burn lipid very efficiently. This explains the high endurance, because the body carries a much larger energy reservoir in the form of lipid than carbohydrate.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-723.mp3" length="1440164" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen, not HPV, causes cervical cancer; progesterone can stop / reverse it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=719</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=719</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 22 Nov 2019 19:39:30 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=719

Yet another one of the carefully crafted, fear mongering myths that modern medicine literally sells to us on a daily basis just got busted. As many of my readers know, there has been huge publicity over the last 10 years in regards to the human papillomavirus (HPV) and the multitude of cancers is purportedly causes. For the record, more than 80% of sexually active people are already infected with this virus but for most people the infection stays dormant most of the time, not unlike the situation with the herpes virus (HSV1 and HSV2) family. Among the cancers blamed on HPV, perhaps the most highly publicized one is cervical cancer and, due to its purported lethality, an HPV vaccine has been developed and promoted in virtually every developed country around the world – for both men and women. A type of skin cancer – squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) – was recently also labelled as likely caused by HPV. However, the story on HPV and SCC is already starting to unravel. Just last week I made a post about how it is suppressed immunity and not really HPV that is the likely causative factor of SCC.

Suppressed immunity, not viruses (HPV), may be the cause of (skin) cancer, link here

Estrogen and cortisol are already known clinically as the most potent endogenous immunosuppressants. So, a hypothesis that estrogen/cortisol cause SCC may actually get some acceptance in medical circles. However, the medical industry continues to vehemently deny that cervical cancer (unlike breast cancer) is somehow caused by a hormone imbalance and the blame is still placed squarely on HPV. As a result, HPV vaccine promoting events and spending on HPV vaccine marketing is at an all-time high. Even publicly elected figures have joined the “fight against HPV” and actively campaign (or should I say advertise) in favor of the HPV vaccine. Yet, the story on HPV causing cervical cancer may also turn out to be nothing but a (profitable) myth. The study below drives a stake directly into the heart of these claims – i.e both that HPV is the (main) cause of cervical cancer and that cervical cancer is largely hormone independent (at least its genesis). It found that only HPV-infected organisms with elevated estrogen went on to develop cervical cancer. The study also showed that in those organisms treatment with progesterone not only fully prevented the development of cervical cancer but also managed to revert cancerous lesions back to a non-cancerous state. MPA is NOT cytotoxic (like other of forms of chemotherapy) so it could not have work by killing the “cancer” cells. So, what happened to the mutated “cancer” cells!? How dare they revert back to “normal”, against the rules of medicine!? Remember folks, medicine has spent 100 years and trillions of dollars telling us that once a cell turns “cancerous”, it cannot be turned back to “normal”, so killing it is the only path to a cure. I simply don’t know any more if I should cry or laugh at this (lethal) idiocy…

Anyways, the therapeutic mechanism of action of MPA was through activation of the progesterone receptor (PR). Unfortunately, the authors of the study put a small blemish on an otherwise almost perfect study. Instead of making the (obvious) choice of using bioidentical progesterone as a PR agonist in their experiments, they used a progesterone derivative known as medroxyprogesterone acetate, link here (MPA). Fortunately, the astute reader can make the own conclusions and decide what therapy is best for them, and even the authors themselves make the claim that progesterone itself is therapeutic for cervical cancer. The MPA dose used in the study to elicit either prevention or regression of cervical cancer was equivalent to a human dose (HED) of 0.5mg/kg. Considering MPA has about twice as high affinity for PR compared to progesterone, link here, this means a two times higher progesterone dose (1mg/kg) should be able to achieve the same results. Just as importantly, the study does not really dance around the issue and calls out estrogen exposure as a prime suspect in the development of cervical cancer. It mentions birth control (BC) pills, endocrine disruptors, and even stress as possible causes of the elevated estrogen and thus cervical cancer. Naturally, aromatase inhibitors (exemestane anyone?) would also be expected to be therapeutic in this aggressive cancer whose lethality apparently depends on whether it is treated or not – i.e. at least 70% of untreated cases regress on their own while “treated” ones are known to be highly aggressive and often lethal. That raises a VERY serious question as to what is responsible for the indisputable lethality of this cancer once a patient submits to standard, allopathic treatment. Well, aside from the “treatment” itself there aren’t many other likely suspects…

link here

“…Persistent HPV infection promotes the development of high-grade CIN3, with a 3-year risk of 14% to 40% depending on HPV type.9, link here Although CIN3 is recommended to be treated, up to 70% of cases regress without any treatment.10, link here These observations suggest that HPV infection is not by itself sufficient to drive high-grade cervical cancer and that other cofactors are required for cervical cancer. The long-term use of oral contraceptives and multiple full-term pregnancies increase the risk for cervical cancer in HPV-infected women, implicating the female sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone.11, link here,12, link here These hormones function through estrogen receptor (ER)-α and progesterone receptor (PR), which are ligand-dependent transcription factors of the nuclear receptor superfamily.13, link here The risk for high-grade CIN is 2.3-fold higher in women who have been exposed in utero to diethylstilbestrol, a synthetic estrogen.14, link here The use of an aromatase inhibitor that blocks estrogen biosynthesis has been associated with a lower risk for cervical cancer.15, link here These observations suggest that estrogen promotes cervical cancer. The role of progesterone in cervical cancer, however, is much less explored. One epidemiologic study showed that the use of medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), a synthetic progesterone, was associated with a reduced risk for cervical cancer in HPV-infected women.16, link here Although it needs to be verified in independent studies, this observation suggests that progesterone inhibits cervical carcinogenesis.”

New drug found to be effective in preventing cervical cancer, link here

“…Researchers at the University of Houston investigated whether the drug medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) could be used as a potential treatment for cervical cancer. The results of their study were published in The American Journal of Pathology., link here Mice engineered to express HPV genes were first all treated with estradiol – a type of estrogen – in order to develop CIN lesions. The mice with CIN lesions were then further treated with either just estradiol or a combination of estradiol and MPA, for varying amounts of time, to test the effect of treatment and lack of treatment on the lesions.”

“…The mice that were treated with estradiol went on to develop cervical cancer, whereas the mice that were treated with a combination of estradiol and MPA did not develop cervical cancer. The researchers created two different groups of mice that were to receive MPA treatment, there was a long-term prevention group and a short-term prevention group. The long-term prevention group received a combination of estradiol and MPA treatment for three months, while the short-term prevention group received estradiol and MPA treatment for one month and then just estradiol treatment for an additional two months. It was seen that the long-term prevention group did not get cervical cancer and in addition, the MPA treatment was able to revert existing CIN lesions back to less developed states. On the other hand, some mice in the short-term prevention group did go on to develop cervical cancer. However, it was seen that even one month of treatment with MPA was able to reduce the severity of existing lesions. Even though there were still some cases of cervical cancer that developed in the short-term prevention group, the overall proportion of mice that had cervical cancer was still lower than in the group that received no MPA treatment. The way that MPA was able to stop the development of cervical cancer was by first encouraging the death of abnormally functioning cells and then also by preventing the multiplication of abnormal cells. The mice with HPV were further classified based on their progesterone-receptor status as either progesterone-receptor positive or progesterone-receptor negative. The researchers found that almost half of the progesterone-receptor negative mice that were treated with MPA went on to develop cervical cancer. This led to the idea that the progesterone-receptor must be a major mediating factor in the effectiveness of MPA as a treatment strategy for cervical cancer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-719.mp3" length="2337788" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Millennials will likely die earlier than Gen X due to poor(er) health</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=711</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=711</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 Nov 2019 18:06:39 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=711

This study is perhaps the pearl in the crown of at least 20 studies that have come out over the 2-3 years. It finally states what has been abundantly clear from those prior studies in individual diseases. Namely, there are no young / healthy people any more. Both the Generation X (Gen X) and Millennials are of the same health as somebody 20-30 years older. And now this study demonstrates that there is a significant gap even between the last two generations to the point that Millennials are on track to die earlier (on average) than Gen X members. It seems we have been on a downward health trend for the entire 20th century. The Greatest Generation was the healthiest, followed by the Silent Generation, followed by the Boomers, followed by Gen X, and finally the Millennials. If the early studies available on Gen Z are a reliable indicator, this trend has NOT been reversed but is accelerating. As I mentioned in previous posts, I have trouble imagining how society will survive considering its youngest members will need as much (or maybe more) access to (already strained) health care and disability resources than its older ones….

2 links here

“…American millennials aren’t exactly the picture of health. They’re seeing their physical and mental health decline at a faster rate than Gen X did as they age, a new Blue Cross Blue Shield report found, link here. The report used a baseline projection representing historical outcomes of “health shocks” and an adverse projection of current trends. It’s possible this decline could be rectified with proper management and treatment, but without intervention, millennials could see a 40% increase in mortality compared with Gen Xers of the same age, the adverse projection showed.”

“…The report found that rates of depression and hyperactivity among American millennials increased by about 30% from 2014 to 2017. These findings are underscored by previous reports that analyzed data from Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Health Index. One found that, link here major-depression diagnoses were rising at a faster rate for millennials, link here and teens than they were for any other age group. There has also been a rise in accidental deaths, which overall make up a larger share of mortality among millennials than they did for Gen Xers at the same age, the latest Blue Cross report found. It’s worth noting that accidental deaths from heroin and other opioid overdoses specifically have increased by 1,400% among all generations from 2010 to 2017. A report by the public-health groups Trust for America’s Health and Well Being Trust, link here yielded similar findings earlier this year. It found that more millennials were dying “deaths of despair,” or deaths related to drugs, alcohol, and suicide, Jamie Ducharme reported for Time in June, link here. While these deaths have increased across all age groups in the past 10 years, they’ve increased the most among younger Americans, accounting for the deaths of about 36,000 American millennials in 2017 alone, the report said. Drug overdoses were the most common cause of death.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-711.mp3" length="549908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Chronic stress (adversity) lowers dopamine and causes mental illness</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=709</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=709</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 Nov 2019 17:47:18 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=709

The evidence for the role of chronic stress in virtually every health condition doctors have a name for just keeps on accumulating. Unfortunately, even in this latest study the scientists keep insisting that there is some mysterious and unquantifiable difference between chronic stress “increasing risk of” and “causing” pathology. Yet, those same scientists have no problem stating in other studies they have performed that “chronic unpredictable mild stress” (CUMS), which is the animal equivalent of human stress/adversity, directly causes depression, despair, anhedonia, and even sudden cardiac arrest, etc. I guess not losing grant money is high on every researcher’s New Year resolutions, and this group is no exception. It is simply a career-ender to state nowadays that something like CUMS that has been shown to cause mental (and physical illness) in every animal model tested so far is directly applicable in humans. Even when this statement is corroborated by evidence from the human study below, and even when the proposed “genetic” causes have all been debunked. Call me naive, but until I see serious evidence to the contrary, the most reasonable assumption is that ALL mental disorders are not genetically-driven either, and stress/diet is a major causative factor.

There is no “Depression Gene”, and any “evidence” of a genetic cause so far has been fairy tales, link here

Vast majority (90%) of depression cases are caused by stress, link here

Speaking of the study at hand – it demonstrates that chronic stress / adversity downregulates dopamine synthesis so that when a new stressful situation arises, not only is the person facing it not able to mount the proper dopamine surge response but their cortisol response is blunted too. What’s worse – in people exposed to chronic stress, baseline dopamine levels are much lower but baseline cortisol levels are higher. This type of dysfunction has been observed in virtually all mental health conditions but is especially prominent in PTSD, depression, and generalized anxiety disorders (GAD). The lack of dopamine, of course, also leads to chronic anhedonia, which is one of the most reliable predictors of future suicide. The findings of the study also immediately implicate serotonin as a causative factor in this dysfunction as well. How so? Well, it is an established fact that dopamine is the main endogenous break on the production of serotonin due to the former being the most potent endogenous inhibitor of the enzyme that synthesizes serotonin – tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH). In addition, serotonin itself has an inhibitory role on dopamine synthesis. Thus, it immediately becomes obvious how chronic stress creates a vicious cycle of low dopamine -> high serotonin -> lower dopamine -> higher serotonin, etc, etc. Serotonin is also the master controller of cortisol synthesis by regulating ACTH through the 5-HT2C receptor. Most successful antidepressants (and especially Prozac) are actually antagonists of 5-HT2C and as such lower ACTH (and thus baseline cortisol) and increase dopamine. Those drugs are still terribly toxic due to SSRI inhibition, but the key point here is that they treat depression by actually (partially) blocking the effects of serotonin at the receptor level (and as such lowering cortisol) and/or increasing dopamine levels.

2 links here

That is only part of the story and it is well-hidden because even psychiatrists are not aware of the partial anti-serotonin effects of these drugs and continue to parrot idiotically whatever pharma reps feed them. However, despite the ongoing propaganda that serotonin is still the “happy hormone”, multiple Big Pharma companies (led by Pfizer and its drug antiserotonin drug terguride) are currently running clinical trials with a variety of drugs that either block serotonin at the receptor level (e.g. terguride) or inhibit its synthesis by blocking TPH. These trials cover diverse, serious chronic conditions spanning the spectrum of diabetes, morbid obesity, pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), heart failure / fibrosis, Alzheimer Disease (AD), Parkinson Disease (PD, infectious disease like Ebola or even HIV, and many more. And based on even a single study like the one below, we can immediately see that all of these conditions can stem from something as “benign” or even mundane and widely accepted as chronic stress.

2 links here

“…We already know that chronic psychosocial adversity can induce vulnerability to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression,” explains lead author Dr Michael Bloomfield, Excellence Fellow and leader of the Translational Psychiatry Research Group at University College London, UK. “What we’re missing is a precise mechanistic understanding of how this risk is increased.” To address this question, Dr Bloomfield and his colleagues used an imaging technique called positron emission tomography (PET) to compare the production of dopamine in 34 volunteers exposed to an acute stress. Half of the participants had a high lifetime exposure to psychosocial stress, while the other half had low exposure. All of them undertook the Montréal Imaging Stress Task, which involved receiving criticism as they tried to complete mental arithmetic. Two hours after this stress task, the participants were injected with small amounts of a radioactive tracer that allowed the scientists to view dopamine production in their brains using PET. The scans revealed that in those with low exposure to chronic adversity, dopamine production was proportional to the degree of threat that the person perceived.”

“…In people with high exposure to chronic adversity, however, the perception of threat was exaggerated whilst their production of dopamine was impaired. The researchers found that other physiological responses to stress were also dampened in this group. For example, their blood pressure and cortisol levels did not increase as much as in the low-adversity group in response to stress. “This study can’t prove that chronic psychosocial stress causes mental illness or substance abuse later in life by lowering dopamine levels,” Dr Bloomfield cautions. “But we have provided a plausible mechanism for how chronic stress may increase the risk of mental illnesses by altering the brain’s dopamine system.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-709.mp3" length="2083628" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:48</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen and cortisol, not androgens, suppress immunity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=705</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=705</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 Nov 2019 18:42:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=705

There is a very famous theory in reproductive biology still considered the dominant one in its field. Namely, males have to accept a trade-off between androgen levels and immunity. It is known as the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (ICHH). Higher androgen levels, the theory goes, allow the male to (physically) outcompete other males around him for access to females and food. However, this comes at the cost of reduced immunity because, the theory goes, androgens destroy the thymus and thus lower resistance to infectious diseases.

link here

Fortunately, and as has become quite common lately with dominant “scientific” theories, this one also seems to be based on nothing but idiotism and political motivations. Multiple studies have challenged the theory however it still remains dominant in reproductive biology to this day. This situation is mostly due to the solid evidence that demonstrates testosterone to indeed have a powerful atrophic effect on the thymus, and castration to regenerate thymus even in old animals.

2 links here

There is of course another, quite simple explanation. Testosterone easily aromatizes into estrogen and this process accelerates with age (and increase fat mass). Castration lowers not only testosterone but also estradiol, to undetectable levels. So, the simple and intuitive explanation would be that it is the conversion of (aromatizable) androgens into estrogens that has atrophic effects on the thymus, and not the androgens themselves. It is an explanation that fits the available clinical observations perfectly. Namely, with advancing age the estrogen/androgen and cortisol/DHEA ratios keep rising and reach a peak at time of death. The same increase in ratios is seen in virtually all chronic conditions such as CVD, diabetes, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, life-threatening infections, sepsis, etc. As such, one could come to the conclusion that lowering those ratios should regenerate the thymus, even in older animals. Some approaches for achieving that goal would be inhibiting the synthesis of estrogen (with aromatase inhibitor (AI) drugs), and/or blocking excessive glucocorticoid activity (by administering progesterone+DHEA). Indeed, if one cares to do a little searching, there are several studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach in both male and female organisms.

2 links here

Reversing human aging likely possible with progesterone / DHEA, link here

“…The combination of testosterone and ATD significantly increased body weight gain, and oestradiol significantly decreased it. Thymus growth was inhibited by both doses of testosterone and by oestradiol, but not by DHT. ATD alone did not inhibit thymus growth, nor did the lower dose of ATD inhibit the action of testosterone. The higher dose of ATD did, however, significantly reduce the inhibitory action of testosterone on the thymus. The inhibitory action of testosterone on the growing thymus may be due, at least in part, to its conversion to oestradiol.”

As the quote from the second study above suggests, if it is indeed estrogen (and cortisol) and not androgens responsible for atrophy of the thymus then we’d expect non-aromatizable androgens such as DHT to not cause atrophy. Interestingly enough, there are almost no studies with DHT on any aspect of health except, of course, its widely publicized role as the “evil” androgen that causes prostate cancer and male baldness. However, if one looks into older studies from times when DHT was not as vilified as it is today, the evidence is there in plain view. In light of all the recent studies pointing to the role of suppressed immune system in cancer, one can only wonder if the widespread “treatments” with estrogen and cortisol (the 2 most destructive steroids for immunity) for patients of both sexes for all sorts of conditions are perhaps the main reason for the massive increase in cancer rates (and deaths)…

link here

“…The differences between the effects of the steroids were most apparent when considering the histological appearance of the thymus. In testosterone- and oestradiol-treated animals there was a severe depletion of thymic lymphocytes in the cortical region, which was narrow, and the corticomedullaryjunction was ill-defined (results not shown). There were areas of fatty tissue which we have always seen in age-related cases of thymic involution. In contrast, the thymus from DHT-treated animals was normal and indistinguishable from that of orchidectomized sham-treated animals or from normal young rats (results not shown);”

“…The pattern of total white cell counts obtained is shown in Fig. la. In blood from testosterone-treated rats the total white cell count was significantly (P<0-01) lower than that in blood from sham-treated rats. The total white cell count was also significantly ( <0 5) reduced in oestradiol- and corticosteronetreated rats, but not in rats treated with progesterone or DHT. Table 1 shows the results of the differential white cell count. From this it may be deduced that the reduction was due possibly to changes in the lymphocyte count. In all steroid-treated groups the neutrophil count was markedly increased.”

“…Dihydrotestosterone is generally considered to be the potent active metabolite of testosterone, but it appeared to have no involutionary effect on the regenerating thymus, despite the reduction in weight compared with that of untreated animals. Furthermore, DHT did not reduce the total white cell count significantly. A possible explanation for the different effects of testosterone and DHT may be provided by Pearce, Khalid & Funder (1981) who injected DHT chronically into intact and orchidectomized male mice. Dihydrotestosterone had no effect on the thymus of intact mice…Testosterone markedly involutes the thymus in intact males (Selye & Albert, 1942a).”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-705.mp3" length="1572692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:37</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Inhibiting aromatase (to lower estrogen) may treat gastric (stomach) cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=703</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=703</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 Nov 2019 17:21:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=703

Yet another study demonstrating the causative link between estrogen and a cancer considered to be hormone-independent. Gastric cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-deaths worldwide, and especially Asian countries. It is considered very hard to treat and most patients are diagnosed at stages when surgery is not a viable option. As such, the 5-year survival rate is truly abysmal and by some measures “rivals” the one for pancreatic cancer. Some older studies demonstrated a strong decrease in the androgen index, and increase in estrogen/cortisol in patients with gastric cancer from both sexes. Unfortunately, for some reason this discovery did not seem to have follow up studies done on it and did not change/inform clinical practice.

2 links here

Now, more than 40 years after those initial studies linking steroid imbalance to the gastric cancer pathology, a new study demonstrates that aromatase inhibition may be a viable treatment approach for this type of cancer. The study used both in-virto and in-vivo methods, and the chemical of choice was the steroidal, suicidal aromatase inhibitor (AI) exemestane (EXE). The doses used in the in-vivo portion correspond to about the 25mg daily dose currently approved for prevention/treatment of breast cancer. Interestingly, of all the AI tested only EXE had therapeutic effects. According to the authors, it is due to the fact that EXE not only inhibits the activity of aromatase but lowers its expression too, so much less of it is produced by cells. Aromatase expression increases robustly with aging, obesity, stress, high-PUFA diet, lack of sunlight exposure, vitamin D deficiency, etc. As such, we can once again point the finger to environmental/metabolic/dietary factors in causing this disease.

link here

“…As mentioned, two MOAs of ARIs were considered to test whether ARIs can be used for GCa therapy. Three ARIs (ARI‐I: anastrozole and letrozole, reversible inhibitor; and ARI‐II: exemestane, irreversible inhibitor) were introduced. Cytotoxicity (Figure ​(Figure22, link hereA,​A,2B)2, link hereB) and colony formation capacity (Figure ​(Figure2C)2, link hereC) were measured, and the results revealed that exemestane had excellent cytotoxic against GCa cells. By contrast, we did not observe a significant cytotoxic effect of anastrozole or letrozole on GCa cells, implying that ARIs have a different mode of action in GCa. In addition, exemestane could suppress Ar expression at the transcriptional level (Figure ​(Figure2D).2, link hereD). The discrepancy in cytotoxic efficacy between ARI‐I and ARI‐II raised the question whether Ar expression but not enzymatic activity (concerting androgens to oestrogens) may be crucial for cytotoxic efficacy against GCa cells.”

“…The tumour size decreased with exemestane treatment in a dose‐dependent manner (Figure ​(Figure5A).5, link hereA). A low dose (10 mg/kg/mouse) of exemestane could reduce the tumour size by approximately 50%, and a medium dose (20 mg/kg) of exemestane could reduce the tumour size by approximately 70%. Furthermore, a low dose (5 mg/kg) of 5‐FU slightly reduced the tumour size (65%), but add‐on treatment with exemestane could suppress the tumour size by approximately 90% (Figure ​(Figure5B).5, link hereB). Notably, the bodyweights were comparable among all groups. Tumour weight was significantly reduced in mice treated with exemestane (P = .0002), but mice receiving a low dose of 5‐FU alone did not show significant tumour growth inhibition (P = .3895). In addition, exemestane and 5‐FU could synergistically promote anticancer efficacy (from P = .0263 to P = .007). Considering the effects of the treatments on the general wellness of the experimental mice, we divided tumour weight by bodyweight (Figure ​(Figure5C).5, link hereC). We used it as the basis to compare within the treatment groups. We determined that combination treatment was the best scheme for therapy.”

“…In this study, we observed that Ar is a crucial GCa prognostic biomarker. Suppressing Ar expression by using ARI‐II could be an excellent therapeutic strategy, particularly when ARI‐II is used in combination with 5‐FU. Additional pharmaceutical studies and human trials are encouraged.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-703.mp3" length="879236" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Suppressed immunity, not viruses (HPV), may be the cause of (skin) cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=701</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=701</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 13 Nov 2019 16:56:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=701

Recently, I posted some threads in regards to immunosuppression and cancer. Here are two that provide a good overview and tie together the immunosuppressive effects of PUFA, estrogen, and cortisol with the protective effects of vitamin A, E, D, progesterone, etc.

PUFA are immunosuppressive, fasting and protein restriction (possibly) even more so, link here

Vitamin D may stop melanoma growth, link here

However, despite the accumulating evidence that it is suppressed immune system allowing the cancer to form and spread, mainstream medicine keeps chasing “evil” entities that can be “killed” or vaccinated against. One of the most notable examples is the viral theory of cancer.

link here

It gave rise to one of the famous anti-cancer vaccines – against human papillomavirus (HPV). That virus is reputed to be the direct cause of cervical, anal, penile, oral, throat an other cancers and the vaccine is heavily marketed to both young children (of either sex) as well as adults. Yet, few people know that a true causal link between HPV and any of those cancers was never really established. Not only that, but it has been linked to a so-called “HANS” (syndrome) condition that strikes the central nervous system and so far the only treatment for it seems to be administration of adenosine receptor antagonists such as theophylline and caffeine.

link here

Now, the study below discovered that HPV may also be involved in one of the well-known skin cancers – squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Yet, the study also found that it is not the virus per se that caused SCC. It was the suppressed immune system that allowed both the cancer and HPV to take hold. As such, HPV appears to be little more than  a symptom of a suppressed immune system – i.e. another instance of the “innocent bystander” effect, of which the most famous example is cholesterol (and its “role” in CVD). Could the same be true of other viral “diseases” too?? In other words, could those viruses simply be symptoms and not causes of many terrible conditions for which officially the is no cure? Well, I’ll let the reader judge for herself/himself and will only mention that the “flu”, “AIDS”, Ebola, etc have already been linked to suppressed immune system and endotoxin overload, with the virus playing at most a minor and often completely peripheral role in the pathology.

While the study below only discusses the (non-existent) role of HPV in SCC, I see no reason why the same findings do not also apply to the primary cancers for which HPV has been blamed – i.e. cervical, anal, penile, oral and throat cancers. Little by little, the accumulating evidence exposes the viral theory of cancer as yet another diversion on the path of “heroic medicine” (link here) that currently rules the Western world. Btw, viruses are currently blamed not only for cancer(s) but also for causing a number of autoimmune conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS), neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer Disease (AD), CVD, diabetes, liver disease, infertility, etc. The very fact that an immune dysfunction has already been established as a cause in all of these conditions strongly suggests that their viral link is, again, either a ruse (to sell vaccines), a diversion (to avoid exposing a flawed theory – i.e. retoviruses such as HIV causing AID) or just plain negligence on behalf of Big Pharma and the government agencies that “regulate” the pharma business.

2 links here

“…The researchers found that the body’s immune response to beta-HPV is key. In their experiments, mice that demonstrated an immune response to HPV seemed to have protection from the development of SCC following carcinogenic UV or chemical exposure. Similarly, when the researchers transplanted T cells from those mice into immunocompromised mice, the recipients also developed protection against skin cancer. In short, it is not beta-HPV that encourages SCC in immunocompromised individuals. Instead, it is the loss of immune function that increases the risk of SCC.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-701.mp3" length="1642676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Rats can drive cars (to lower stress), befriend robot rats and help them when in trouble</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=696</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=696</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 08 Nov 2019 17:01:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=696

Official/pathological science keeps sternly warning us not to anthropomorphize and to think of animals as nothing but dumb, soul-less automatons. Yet, there has been no evidence discovered in over 100 years of pathological science reign to support such a view. To the contrary, the studies below add even more to the already existing pile of evidence that animals are indistinguishable from us when it comes to pretty much any aspect of life as we know it. Perhaps just as importantly, one of the studies shows yet again the importance of fun for good health. The rats that were trained to drive cars kept driving them not because they were forced by the scientists with some painful method, and not because there were offered rewards. The rats seemed to be driving the cars simply for the fun of it, which manifested into much higher DHEA and lower cortisol levels. A high DHEA/cortisol ratio is one of the most reliable predictors of all-cause mortality and morbidity, and the higher that ratio is the lower the chance that something bad will happen to a person health-wise. So, it appears the rats may be even smarter than us – i.e. they kept engaging in activities that were beneficial to them yet we humans keep running in the proverbial “rat race” or “rat wheel”. Who’s the rat now?!

link here

“…Would you help a trapped robot? Some rats would. The rodents can form social bonds with robots and will even help rescue a robotic rat that’s trapped in a cage. Animals, including rats, need to be highly attuned to social signals from others so they can identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid.”

link here

“…Rats have mastered the art of driving a tiny car, suggesting that their brains are more flexible than we thought. The finding could be used to understand how learning new skills relieves stress and how neurological and psychiatric conditions affect mental capabilities.”

“…Learning to drive seemed to relax the rats. The researchers assessed this by measuring levels of two hormones: corticosterone, a marker of stress, and dehydroepiandrosterone, which counteracts stress. The ratio of dehydroepiandrosterone to corticosterone in the rats’ faeces increased over the course of their driving training. This finding echoes Lambert’s previous work showing that rats become less stressed after they master difficult tasks like digging up buried food. They may get the same kind of satisfaction as we get when we perfect a new skill, she says. “In humans, we call this self-efficacy or agency.” In support of this idea, the team found that rats that drove themselves had higher dehydroepiandrosterone levels and were less stressed than rats that were driven around as passengers in remote-controlled cars.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-696.mp3" length="633596" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin K may treat leukemia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=694</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=694</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 08 Nov 2019 16:23:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=694

Another great study demonstrating both the therapeutic potential of vitamins as well as the metabolic/redox nature of cancer. As I mentioned in some of my podcasts, vitamin K2 (MK-4) is currently in clinical trials for treating/preventing a number of different cancers, especially liver cancer (HCC) and the so-called myelodisplastic conditions which spans all blood cancers such as leukemias, lymphomas, various pernicious anemias, and even neurologically manifested conditions such as PML. In addition, vitamin K3 (in combination with vitamin C) is already approved as a drug for treating advanced/terminal prostate cancer under the trade name Apatone.

link here

In this new study, vitamin K3 was shown to eliminate leukemia stem cells (which prevents cancer progression) even when administered on its own, without vitamin C. Considering all cancer cells have largely the same metabolic derangements, I don’t see why the combination with vitamin C won’t be even more effective for leukemia than vitamin K3 on its own. The universality of the mechanism of Apatone has already been corroborated in multiple cancer types, and as such there is currently no evidence to suggest that leukemia cells are somehow unique and won’t respond to the same mechanism of action –  generation of ROS and shifting the redox balance towards oxidation.

3 links here

However, vitamin K3 is currently banned for human use by the FDA unless the treatment has been granted explicit exemption by that agency. The officially stated reason is that vitamin K3 has high risk of side effects / toxicity in humans. At the same time, vitamin K3 is approved as an OTC supplement to treat excessive bleeding in many other countries with little to no restriction on its use. The good news is that vitamin K2 (MK-4) can be used instead of vitamin K3 and it would still provide the same benefits, with virtually no risk of side effects. So, the FDA ban on vitamin K3 at best achieves nothing, and at worst invites speculation of why the agency is banning the sales of a product considered safe in most other countries while at the same time allowing private companies to sell it as cancer treatment at an insanely inflated price…

2 links here

“…The findings suggested that KLF4 promotes disease progression in this mouse model by repressing the production of the DYRK2 enzyme. The results also suggested that it was possible that doing the opposite, elevating the production of DYRK2 enzyme, would reduce or inhibit leukemia stem cell survival and self-renewal. Looking to translate these results to the clinic, the researchers searched for a possible pharmacological means to enhance the stability of the DYRK2 enzyme. Searching the literature revealed a potential way to achieve this goal. They found that vitamin K3 inhibits SIAH2, an enzyme that is implicated in the degradation of DYRK2. “We hypothesized that if we inhibited SIAH2 with vitamin K3, we would prevent or reduce the degradation of DYRK2, and therefore likely increase the levels of DYRK2, which would trigger inhibition of survival and self-renewal of leukemia stem cells,” Lacorazza said. The researchers tested this strategy in chronic myeloid leukemia cell lines, in their mouse model, link here and in patient samples in the lab. The results were encouraging. They saw that treatment with vitamin K3 increased DYRK2 and inhibited the expansion of the leukemia stem cells. “Vitamin K3 may be toxic to humans. Although in our view vitamin K3 is not going to be the drug to treat leukemia stem cells, it has proved the concept that stabilizing DYRK2 enzyme could help eliminate the leukemic stem cell population,” Lacorazza said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-694.mp3" length="1052036" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may stop melanoma growth</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=692</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=692</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 08 Nov 2019 15:41:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=692

A great study that corroborates my recent post on avoiding sunlight being as bad for health as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. After all, without sunlight there won’t be much vitamin D synthesis and supplementation is not effective for many people due to variety of factors including excess weight, poor digestion, high PTH, etc.

Avoiding sunlight may be as bad for health as smoking a pack a day, link here

Now, the study below  demonstrates that low vitamin D levels are highly detrimental for people diagnosed with melanoma. In other words, both low vitamin D levels or low expression of the vitamin D receptor (VDR) dramatically increased the risk of melanoma spreading and becoming lethal. Conversely, raising vitamin D levels or increasing VDR was strongly protective and in fact restoring vitamin D levels within the normal range fully blocked melanoma from metastasizing. In light of these findings, I am not sure why the authors still conclude that vitamin D on its own “won’t treat cancer”. After all, that is exactly what their own study showed, or at the very least is showed that melanoma can be stopped in its tracks which for most people amounts to a cure.

link here

“…This study reports that vitamin D-VDR signaling bestows a prognostic benefit for melanoma patients by inhibiting Wnt/-catenin signaling and increasing immune cell infiltration. These findings also suggest that activating vitamin D-VDR signaling has the potential to enhance anti-tumor immunity in an adjuvant setting. Notably, our findings suggest that vitamin D deficiency (<25nmol/L) is deleterious for melanoma survival rather than that high levels are protective. As melanoma is causally related to intense sun burn (59), sun avoidance is frequently recommended to patients in follow up. Our data suggest a causal relationship between reduced vitamin D-VDR signaling and therefore, as sun exposure is the dominant vitamin D source in most populations, simultaneous avoidance of vitamin D deficiency is important health advice. ”

link here

“…They also discovered that tumours with lower VDR levels also had a higher activity of genes linked to cancer growth and spread, especially those controlling the Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway, which helps to modulate a variety of biological processes within the cell, such as its growth. In mice, the researchers found that increasing the amount of VDR on the melanoma cells reduced activity of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, and slowed down the growth of the melanoma cells. They also found that the cancer was less likely to spread to their lungs. Professor Newton-Bishop said: “After years of research, we finally know how vitamin D works with VDR to influence the behaviour of melanoma cells, link here by reducing activity of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. This new puzzle piece will help us better understand how melanoma grows and spreads, and hopefully find new targets to control it. “But what’s really intriguing, is that we can now see how vitamin D might help the immune system fight cancer. We know when the Wnt/β-catenin pathway is active in melanoma, it can dampen down the immune response causing fewer immune cells to reach the inside of the tumour, where they could potentially fight the cancer better. “Although vitamin D on its own won’t treat cancer, we could take insights from the way it works to boost the effects of immunotherapy, which uses the immune system to find and attack cancer, link here cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-692.mp3" length="565316" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Increased fatty acid synthesis (FAS) is simply a sign of oxygen deficiency / low metabolism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=690</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=690</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 08 Nov 2019 01:05:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=690

Just a quick post on a study that provides insight as to how increased fatty acid oxidation (FAO) can “paradoxically” result in increased FAS as well, thus leading to a vicious cycle most commonly seen in diabetes and cancer. One of my recent posts discussed a much more recent study that demonstrated the same effect due to acidosis/FAO.

Acidosis (Warburg Effect) drives cancer through increased fat oxidation (Randle Cycle), link here

Namely, an increase in FAO increases the mitochondrial NADH/NAD ratio as per the Randle cycle, and this has wide reaching effects across the entire metabolic cascade but especially at the level of the Krebs cycle, but also at the level of the ETC.

link here

“…The impairment of glucose metabolism, link here by fatty acid oxidation is mediated by the short-term inhibition of several glycolytic processes. The extent of inhibition increases along the glycolytic pathway, being most severe at the level of pyruvate dehydrogenase and less severe at the level of glucose uptake and 6-phosphofructo-1-kinase (PFK-1, link here).[5], link here This sequence occurs because of the initial event, triggered by fatty acid oxidation, is an increase in the mitochondrial ratios of [acetyl-CoA]/[CoA] and [NADH]/[NAD+]. These both serve to inhibit pyruvate dehydrogenase activity.[7], link here It has been proposed that these changes lead to an accumulation of cytosolic citrate, which in turn inhibits PFK-1, followed by an increase in glucose 6-phosphate, which eventually inhibits hexokinase.[5], link here“

This increase in the NADH/NAD ratio as a result of increased FAO creates “oxygen debt”. In such a situation, the acetyl-CoA units coming into the Krebs cycle cannot be paired with sufficient amounts of the terminal electron acceptor (oxygen). As a result, those extra electrons (acetyl-CoA) have to go somewhere and there are only a few available “side channels” for metabolizing those extra electrons. Synthesizing fats is one such channel, and synthesizing nucleic acids and cholesterol two other such channels. The first two of these are highly upregulated in cancer and diabetes, while the latter is an extremely common sign seen with advancing age. So, elevated cholesterol is simply one of the most common (and more benign) signs of declining metabolism, and the other two corroborate yet again the “Warburg Hypothesis” – i.e. cancer is simply a metabolic defect characterized by oxygen deficiency and increase FAO/FAS, and both of these phenomena promote each other. Restoring oxygen availability by inhibiting FAO and/or providing alternative electron acceptors such as methylene blue or other quinones may quickly reverse this “defect”.

link here

“…When the NADH : NAD+ ratio decreases rapidly, such as in State 3, fatty acid oxidation commences, including oxidation of the recently synthesized fatty acids. It is postulated that the synthetic system is the reversal of the oxidation process and that there is present, therefore, a fatty acid oxidation/synthesis “cycle.” The rate of activity of this cycle in either direction is controlled by the NADH: NAD+ ratio. On the basis of the present experiments, the concept has been developed that the mitochondrial fatty acid-synthetic pathway represents a storage form of acetyl units during the development of “oxygen debt.” When oxygen is again readily available, these acetyl units are oxidized to yield energy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-690.mp3" length="973748" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA are immunosuppressive, fasting and protein restriction (possibly) even more so</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=688</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=688</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 08 Nov 2019 00:34:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=688

Several great studies, which quickly illustrate the connection between PUFA, immune system, estrogen, cortisol, cancer and the protective role vitamin A/E play as well as their likely mechanism(s) of action. As I mentioned on one of the first podcasts with Danny Roddy, the role of PUFA as immunosuppressants is actually well-known in the organ transplant industry and at some point in the 1980s there was apparently even a commercial PUFA-based product sold to hospitals as part of a so-called “total parenteral nutrition” solution, but with the added “benefit” in helping prevent organ rejection in transplant patients. Not sure if this product is still on the market but if I remember correctly it was a 1:1 mixture of linoleic and arachidonic acids. While that product was meant for IV administration, the studies below demonstrate that PUFA are quite potent immunosuppressants even when ingested. Based on one of the studies, the HED that resulted in prevention of skin transplant rejection in rodents was about 70mg/kg daily. That corresponds to a daily oral dose of about 5g-7g PUFA for most people, which is an easily achievable amount in the Western world, and in fact most people eating a commercial food diet easily eat at least twice that amount on a daily basis. Considering the rapidly accumulating evidence that immune suppression is behind many chronic diseases and especially cancer, it is little surprise that we are seeing a cancer epidemic affecting all age groups almost equally.

2 links here

And while the pathological effects of PUFA will probably not surprise many of my readers, the studies below also discuss that even short term caloric restriction (fasting) and/or dietary protein deficiency may not only rival the immunosuppressant effects of PUFA, but in some cases (if done early in life) may result in lifelong immunosuppression that may be very difficult to reverse. I think this effect alone should give a pause to any nutritional guru or doctor advocating fasting or going on a high-fat, low-carb diet, not the least because of the well-known effects of both interventions on the synthesis/release of cortisol. Speaking of cortisol, its role in immunosuppression is widely accepted and not really controversial, but the role of estrogen in immune suppression is still vehemently denied. Yet, there is little doubt that PUFA, mostly due to their unsaturated structure, are estrogenic and multiple studies have demonstrated their pro-cortisol nature as well.

5 links here

On the flip side, recent studies have demonstrated that blocking the effects of estrogen at the receptor level or by inhibiting its synthesis regenerates the thymus gland and reverses immune decline seen with aging.

link here

The studies below, combined with the studies above now paint a more complete picture of how exactly PUFA wreak havoc on health. Namely, the estrogenic and pro-cortisol effects of PUFA directly cause immunosuppression, which then may lead to cancer and all other diseases linked to declining immune system. The good news is that those immunosuppresant effects may be controlled/opposed. Namely, one of the studies demonstrated a potent anti-cancer effects of vitamin A (retinyl acetate to be precise), in direct opposition to the cancer-promoting effects of PUFA. That protection of vitamin A against PUFA-induced immnosuppression and carcinogenicity makes perfect sense if one considers that vitamin A has known anti-estrogenic and anti-cortisol effects.

5 links here

Now, there is of course another nutrient that is a known direct antagonist to PUFA and that is (of course) vitamin E. So, if vitamin E is a known antagonist to PUFA and the hypothesis presented in this post is true then one would expect vitamin E to also have immunopotentiating effects. And that is exactly what both animal and human studies have found.

4 links here

Now, combining what we know about the crucial role vitamin D plays in immune system health together with the information on vitamin A and E one could come to the conclusion that a simple A / D / E combination (EstroBan anyone?) may be able to protect the immune system from many of the environmental assaults and even the overall effects of “aging”. Why am I putting “aging” in quotes? Because, as my recent post on reversing human “aging” discussed, regenerating the thymus is a big factor in systemic rejuvenation and “aging” begins to look more and more like an unnatural, immune-dependent, pathological process that should be treated like any other health condition. As such, a good start would be to reverse immune system decline, which may very well prevent most of the pathologies associated with “aging”.

link here

“…Immunopotentiation by retinol (Dresser, 1968) and other retinoids, especially retinoic acid, is already well known (Bollag, 1972; Floersheim & Bollag, 1972; Dennert & Lotan, 1978). Although it would be begging the question to attribute the anti-cancer action of VAA (Medawar et al. 1979) to immunopotentiation, experiments on the survival times of skin allografts left no doubt that VAA (vitamin A acetate) shares this property with other retinoids: the administration to female CBA mice of 250 mg/kg VAA from day of grafting reduced the median survival time (MST) of female C3H skin allografts from 12 5 to 11 0 days; using a more sensitive system (skin grafts from male to female C57 mice), the administration of VAA from 14 days before grafting reduced the MST from 27 5 to 16 5 days; but when VAA was administered from the day of grafting the reduction was only from 27-5 to 20 0 days, with a corresponding reduction in the survival time of second-set graftings (from 11 5 to 10 0 days).”

“…If VAA acts through immunopotentiation its effect should be at least partially annulled by the administration of immunosuppressive agents. Medawar et al. (1979) have already shown that linoleic acid, which was already known to have immunosuppressive properties (Mertin, 1976; Mertin & Hunt, 1976), can diminish the heightened resistance against methylcholanthrene-induced tumours conferred upon CBA mice by VAA…there is clearly a prima facie case for thinking that retinyl acetate, and possibly other retinoids, act through the immunopotentiation they undoubtedly exercise.”

2 links here

“…Subcutaneous administration of C18:1 in the same dose regimen as used for C18:2 was virtually without effect on graft survival times (Fig. 2). Oral C18:2 administration also prolonged graft survival times (Table 2). This result confirms the finding of Ring et al. (6) in skin allografted rats. PUFA-deficient diet caused a relative immunopotentiation, i.e., first and second skin allografts were rejected markedly faster than in the control diet groups (Fig. 3). There was also a smaller incidence of methylcholanthrene-induced tumors in PUFA-deficient animals (Fig. 4). Autoclaving the control diet likewise resulted in an acceleration of first and second set skin graft rejection similar to that found in PUFA-deficient animals, whereas autoclaving the deficient diet had no significant additional effect (Fig. 5). C18:2 injection could abrogate the effect of PUFA deficiency (Fig. 5).”

“…Studying immune resistance in malnutrition, Jose and Good (7-9) have shown that CMI remained intact in mice with restricted protein intake, the protein content of the diet being as low as 5% protein calories. Beyond that limit, at 3% protein calories, CMI was depressed (8). This effect was irreversible when the mice were restricted in protein and calorie intake for 2 weeks at the time of weaning and then returned to a normal diet (9). However, in animals fed with a moderately restricted diet CMI was found more effective, this observation being interpreted by the authors as failure of a blocking antibody to develop (7). Tumor-potentiating effects of PUFA-enriched diets have been interpreted by Tannenbaum and Silverstone (10) as resulting from increased efficiency of energy utilization by high fatty acid intake augmenting tumor growth. In our opinion the exercise of control by PUFA through an immunological surveillance system offers an alternative explanation for the long-known relationship of fatty acids and tumors (10) and our collected evidence supports this view.”

“…Hopkins and West from the Australian National University have studied the influence of PUFA on experimental tumors in animals (11). Rats given a carcinogenic polycyclic hydrocarbon showed increased tumor incidence when fed a diet containing polyunsaturated rather than saturated fatty acids.”

“…The results of our study strongly support the hypothesis of an immunoregulatory PUFA effect taking the form of immunoinhibition by PUFA treatment and immunopotentiation in the state of PUFA deficiency (1-3). The immunoregulatory aspect is stressed by the finding that the immunopotentiating effect of PUFA- deficient diet can be abrogated by C18:2 administration. This is in contrast to the observation mentioned above of irreversible changes in CMI induced by short-term calorie and protein deficiency (9).”

link here

“…Tumors developed less rapidly in rats consuming rations containing olive oil than in those given corn oil, while hydrogenated coconut oil retarded tumor formation significantly…Increasing the corn oil content from 5 per cent to 20 per cent of the diet strikingly enhanced tumor formation, but replacing the 5 per cent corn oil with 20 per cent partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil or 20 per cent lard produced no appreciable augmentation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-688.mp3" length="2154452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=686</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=686</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 06 Nov 2019 21:07:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=686

It is always pleasing to see that a bastion of corrupt, institutionalized science such as the Scientific American is publishing editorials exposing 5G wireless technology for what it is – a known human carcinogen that has also been already causally linked to virtually every chronic health condition known to medicine. Considering this damning evidence, to have FDA and FCC reaffirm the “safety” of exposure limit standards adopted in the mid 1990s is a travesty and a sad testimony about just how profoundly those agencies have become “captured” by the very industries they are supposed to regulate and reign-in. What’s even worse is that (as the article itself bemoans) 5G wireless technology will not replace right away 4G/3G or even older technologies, for which there is already a mountain of evidence proving their detrimental effects on health. Btw, guess what the wireless industry told us when it was deploying 2G/3G/4G decades ago? The all too familiar – “trust us, it’s safe”. So, not only are the same unfounded claims of safety now being made about 5G as well but this new and untested technology will co-exist with the older (and provably dangerous) technologies for decades to come. As such, the negative effects on health may very well be synergistic. In an ironic twist of fate, there are rumors that one of the first deployments of 5G in government buildings may very well be at FDA and FCC locations. Maybe only if there is a dramatic drop in health among agency staffers will make them finally start taking the risks of these technologies seriously…

link here

“…The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently announced through a press release, link here that the commission will soon reaffirm the radio frequency radiation (RFR) exposure limits that the FCC adopted in the late 1990s. These limits are based upon a behavioral change in rats, link here exposed to microwave radiation and were designed to protect us from short-term heating risks due to RFR exposure, link here. Yet, since the FCC adopted these limits based largely on research from the 1980s, the preponderance of peer-reviewed research, more than 500 studies, link here, have found harmful biologic or health effects from exposure to RFR at intensities too low to cause significant heating.”

“…Citing this large body of research, more than 240 scientists who have published peer-reviewed research on the biologic and health effects of nonionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF) signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, link here, which calls for stronger exposure limits. The appeal makes the following assertions: “Numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines. Effects include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to both plant and animal life.”

“…The FCC’s RFR exposure limits regulate the intensity of exposure, taking into account the frequency of the carrier waves, but ignore the signaling properties of the RFR. Along with the patterning and duration of exposures, certain characteristics of the signal (e.g., pulsing, polarization)increase the biologic and health impacts, link here of the exposure. New exposure limits are needed which account for these differential effects. Moreover, these limits should be based on a biological effect, link here, not a change in a laboratory rat’s behavior. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified RFR as “possibly carcinogenic to humans“, link herein 2011. Last year, a $30 million study conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) found “clear evidence” that two years of exposure to cell phone RFR increased cancer in male rats and damaged DNA in rats, link hereand mice, link hereof both sexes. The Ramazzini Institute in Italy replicated the key finding of the NTP using a different carrier frequency and much weaker exposure to cell phone radiation over the life of the rats.”

“…Based upon the research published since 2011, including human and animal studies and mechanistic data, the IARC has recently prioritized RFR to be reviewed again in the next five years. Since many EMF scientists believe we now have sufficient evidence, link here to consider RFR as either a probable or known human carcinogen, the IARC will likely upgrade the carcinogenic potential of RFR in the near future. Nonetheless, without conducting a formal risk assessment or a systematic review of the research on RFR health effects, the FDA recently reaffirmed the FCC’s 1996 exposure limits in a letter to the FCC, link here, stating that the agency had “concluded that no changes to the current standards are warranted at this time,” and that “NTP’s experimental findings should not be applied to human cell phone usage.” The letter stated that “the available scientific evidence to date does not support adverse health effects in humans due to exposures at or under the current limits.”

“…Millimeter waves are mostly absorbed within a few millimeters of human skin and in the surface layers of the cornea. Short-term exposure can have adverse physiological effects in the peripheral nervous system, the immune system and the cardiovascular system. The research suggests that long-term exposure may pose health risks to the skin (e.g., melanoma), the eyes (e.g., ocular melanoma) and the testes (e.g., sterility). Since 5G is a new technology, there is no research on health effects, so we are “flying blind” to quote a U.S. senator. However, we have considerable evidence about the harmful effects of 2G and 3G. Little is known the effects of exposure to 4G, a 10-year-old technology, because governments have been remiss in funding this research. Meanwhile, we are seeing increases in certain types of head and neck tumors in tumor registries, which may be at least partially attributable to the proliferation of cell phone radiation. These increases are consistent with results from case-control studies of tumor risk in heavy cell phone users.”

“…5G will not replace 4G; it will accompany 4G for the near future and possibly over the long term. If there are synergistic effects from simultaneous exposures to multiple types of RFR, our overall risk of harm from RFR may increase substantially. Cancer is not the only risk as there is considerable evidence that RFR causes neurological disorders and reproductive harm, likely due to oxidative stress. As a society, should we invest hundreds of billions of dollars deploying 5G, a cellular technology that requires the installation of 800,000 or more new cell antenna sites in the U.S. close to where we live, work and play? Instead, we should support the recommendations of the 250 scientists and medical doctors who signed the 5G Appeal, link here that calls for an immediate moratorium on the deployment of 5G and demand that our government fund the research needed to adopt biologically based exposure limits that protect our health and safety.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-686.mp3" length="762020" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Humans have a ‘salamander-like’ ability to regrow cartilage</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=684</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=684</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 06 Nov 2019 20:10:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=684

The title says it all, but the study authors make the unfortunate/handicapped conclusion that while we may very well be able to regrow cartilage, we cannot regrow limbs. Well, multiple animal studies I posted in the last beg to disagree and point to both high metabolism and progesterone as potent regenerative factors that may be able to spur regrowth of limbs in non-salamander organisms, including humans.

3 links here

“…Millions of people live with amputated limbs that are gone forever. But that might not be the case in the future. For the first time, scientists have shown that adult frogs can regrow amputated legs. They say the approach can work in humans, too, link here. “There is no reason that human bodies can’t regenerate,” said Tufts University biologist Michael Levin, who led the new research.”

“…The trigger the team found is progesterone, the sex hormone involved in the female menstrual cycle, pregnancy and breastfeeding. The scientists applied the compound to frogs’ amputated back legs with a wearable bioreactor device for 24 hours. Then they watched as the limb regenerated. Frogs that did not receive the progesterone treatment developed cartilaginous spikes at the amputation site, whereas ones that wore the hormone delivering bioreactor for one day regrew a paddle-shaped appendage. Differences between the frogs were visible within a few weeks, Levin and team revealed today in the journal Cell Reports, link here. Within about six months the regenerated limbs stopped growing, but the development had progressed to the point where under typical growth, fingers and toes appear. The regrown limbs had increased bone volume and density, bundles of well-organized nerve fibers and major blood vessels — all of which translated to frogs with regrown limbs that could move and swim with activity levels that were indistinguishable from frogs with intact legs. The research shows that spurring regeneration in vertebrate animals is possible and paves the way for similar work in mammals and eventually humans. “We may be able to induce the body to do what it does best, build complex organs,” Levin said. “The potential scope is huge.”

Well, the new study below adds cartilage regrowth to the list of “impossible” feats our bodies are capable of, which gives even more credibility to the limb regrowth claims from the studies above. Funny enough, the study does acknowledge that finger tip regrowth is a well-established phenomenon in children yet it claims that this may not be possible in adults due to the “oldness” of their cartilage and bones.

link here

As the study notes, the further away from the torso a specific damaged appendage is the “younger” it is and the more capable of regeneration. They do not provide an explanation for this difference in bone/cartilage “age” depending on location, but one possible explanation is the higher levels of CO2 and youthful steroid synthesis in limbs. This matches quite well the regenerative effects of progesterone and elevated metabolism demonstrated by the studies listed earlier in the post. If the authors of the current study had done a little bit more literature review before publication we could have had a blockbuster study that provides a unified explanation of the regenerative capacity of pretty much any tissue in the human body, provided metabolism is kept high – i.e. at the youthful levels seen in those children with regrowing finger tips. Well, I may send an email to the authors to discuss further. Considering they did not cite each other’s work, maybe such a blockbuster study is simply a question of introducing these scientists to each other 🙂

2 links here

“…Humans may not be able to regrow amputated limbs like salamanders can — but we do have a “salamander-like” ability to regrow damaged cartilage, a new study has found. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, link here, found that “cartilage in human joints can repair itself through a process similar to that used by creatures such as salamanders and zebrafish to regenerate limbs,” according to the press release by Duke Health, link here, which helped lead the research. These findings could open the door to new treatments for joint injuries and diseases like osteoarthritis — and perhaps even lead to human limb regeneration one day. Salamanders, axolotl, and other animals with regenerative abilities have a type of molecule called microRNA, which help regulate joint tissue repair. We have microRNA too, but our mechanism for cartilage repair is stronger in some parts of the body, the study found. For example, the microRNA molecules are more active in our ankles, and less active in our knees and hips.”

“…The study also found that the “age” of cartilage — meaning whether proteins have changed structure or undergone amino acid conversions — depends on its location in the body. Cartilage is “young” in the ankles, “middle-aged” in the knees, and “old” in the hips. This correlation lines up with how animals regenerate fastest at the furthest tips of their bodies, like tails or the ends of legs. These factors — the activity level of microRNA and the age of cartilage — explain why ankle injuries heal faster than knee and hip injuries, and there are fewer instances of arthritis in the ankle compared to the other two areas. Scientists have known for years that humans do have some regenerative capabilities — when children’s finger tips are amputated, the tip can regenerate, link here when treated correctly. But it was widely believed that these capabilities were limited, and that humans were “unable to counteract cumulative damage” to their joints, the study said — which these new findings disprove.”

“…”We believe that an understanding of this ‘salamander-like’ regenerative capacity in humans, and the critically missing components of this regulatory circuit, could provide the foundation for new approaches to repair joint tissues and possibly whole human limbs,” Kraus said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-684.mp3" length="875156" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dietary niacinamide (B3) deficiency may be a cause of schizophrenia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=682</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=682</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 06 Nov 2019 18:41:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=682

As many of my readers know, the link between niacinamide and schizophrenia dates back at least the 1950s and possibly much earlier. The late Abram Hoffer, one of the founders of the orthomolecular approach, was convinced that stress was a huge factor in mental illness and ran several successful trials with high dose niacin/niacinamide as treatment for schizophrenia. While his results were replicated several times, the medical industry never accepted his hypothesis and continued to argue that schizophrenia is primarily genetically driven. It is easy to see why – if chronic stress and other poor environmental conditions are accepted as causes of one of the most severe psychiatric disorders then it is a short step from there to the general population asking “if stress causes X, what else does it cause?” As such, the medical industry and its mouthpieces spent millions on trying to discredit Hoffer and his work, largely succeeding in convincing the public in believing that both the stress hypothesis of (mental) disease is false as well as that vitamin therapy is ineffective.

Well, the study below may vindicate Hoffer, if not in his belief in “adrenochrome” at least in his belief that niacinamide is therapeutic. The study has a more plausible explanation, and one that has become quite familiar to followers of metabolic therapy. Namely, that schizophrenia is driven by energetic deficiency largely resulting from insufficient NAD production. According to the authors of the study, this decline in NAD levels is likely driven largely by a simple deficiency of niacinamide. Thus, it can, at least in principle, be corrected by supplementing niacinamide. That approach not only provides a viable, non-toxic alternative to current barbaric treatments but also adds to the evidence that schizophrenia is a metabolic disorder. If nothing else, it establishes niacinamide as a highly important vitamin, at least as important as folic acid when it comes to prenatal supplementation. It also adds to the evidence that the vegan diet is not only suboptimal for health but may contribute to the development of schizophrenia or any other condition that is sensitive to NAD depletion (Hint: they ALL are)

link here

“…This enzyme helps in the process of converting niacin into nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), which is essential for many biochemical processes in the body, like the aerobic respiration in cells. Interestingly, the amount of NAPRT1 enzyme in the brain changes with age. The study found that the amount of NAPRT1 in the brain is highest before birth, and decreases thereafter. It functions during a critical time window when the young brain is forming, implying that there may be differences in brain development in healthy people and those who have schizophrenia.”

“… They suggest that vitamin B3 is linked with schizophrenia since the pathway for synthesising NAD uses NAPRT1 and vitamin B3. A disturbance in either the level of vitamin B3 or the enzyme metabolising it might increase the risk for schizophrenia.”

“…Since the diet is an external factor contributing to schizophrenia, the researchers analysed the participants who had lower levels of NAPRT1 based on whether they were vegetarians or non-vegetarians. Interestingly, a higher number of schizophrenia patients had a vegetarian diet. A vegetarian diet lacks tryptophan ⁠— an amino acid used by the body to produce NAD without using vitamin B3. A gene-linked deficiency of NAPRT1 and the lack of tryptophan in the diet may aggravate the overall scarcity of NAD. This condition could lead to developmental anomalies and increase the risk of schizophrenia, say the researchers. “In principle, niacin supplementation can increase NAD levels. However, we are uncertain whether this will improve health outcomes,” remarks Dr Periyasamy. “Since schizophrenia has a developmental origin, the effects of the risk factors during prenatal stages can be permanent, and these treatments may not work in such cases,” he adds. As a next step, the researchers plan to conduct clinical trials to test if niacin supplements can reverse the symptoms. “These supplements might have to be prescribed during pregnancy, similar to how folic acid is being prescribed,” suggests Dr Periyasamy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-682.mp3" length="1018532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin may treat brain aneurysms</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=680</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=680</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 06 Nov 2019 17:58:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=680

Another huge win for aspirin, not only because of the condition’s lethality, but because there is currently no treatment for it. While the study did not last long enough to make such claims, given the potent inhibitory effect on aneurysm growth I would not be surprised if aspirin actually makes aneurysms disappear. The authors of the study certainly seem to strike the same tone. Yet, if you listen to your doctor and/or the “friendly” public health announcement by the FDA (and/or various cardiology and neurology industry association groups), you’d walk away with the firm conviction that aspirin is one of the most dangerous bleeding-inducing chemicals there is. Btw, this is not the first time the lies about aspirin and bleeding have been exposed. A few years ago, another study demonstrated that aspirin actually decreases risk of bleeding in the brain.

link here

So, instead of funding fear campaigns in the popular press, maybe Big Pharma should embrace aspirin for the wonder drug that it is and thus buy some of its evil soul back from the devil 🙂

2 links here

“…CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (OCTOBER 29, 2019). Researchers conducted a database search to investigate whether aspirin can aid in the prevention of intracranial aneurysm rupture by hindering aneurysm growth. The researchers identified 146 patients harboring multiple intracranial aneurysms, five millimeters or less in diameter, that had been observed for at least five years. In this set of patients, the researchers found an association between aspirin use and a decreased rate of aneurysm growth. Growth is important in intracranial aneurysms because it increases the risk of aneurysm rupture. Detailed findings are found in the article, “Aspirin associated with decreased rate of intracranial aneurysm growth,” by Mario Zanaty, M.D., and colleagues, published today in the Journal of Neurosurgery, link here.”

“…The authors of this paper note, “to date, there is no medical treatment to arrest aneurysm growth and subsequent progression to rupture.” If there were, patients could feel assured that the risk of aneurysm rupture would remain steady. The authors do tell us that there has been some evidence that aspirin may reduce the risk of aneurysm rupture due to the drug’s anti-inflammatory effect on the weakened aneurysm wall. Their aim in the current study was to discover whether aspirin can protect against aneurysm growth in a population of patients harboring multiple small intracranial aneurysms.”

“…When asked about the study, Dr. Hasan said, “This study is very promising, as it outlines for the first time the potential therapeutic effect of aspirin in decreasing aneurysm growth. If proven in a larger study, this could offer the first, cheap, effective over-the-counter therapeutic agent that could halt aneurysm growth and prevent rupture. Many people around the world could benefit from this.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-680.mp3" length="499748" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Elevated ESR and hCG levels are strong predictors of impending cancer diagnosis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=678</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=678</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 06 Nov 2019 17:33:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=678

I am posting this study for two reasons. One of them is to corroborate a statement from Peat on the role of inflammation in cancer and the diagnostic value of “non-specific” (as the medical industry likes to call them) inflammatory biomarkers such as erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR).

2 links here

“…It is commonly known that the ESR (red cell sedimentation rate) of cancer patients is always high. Thus far, completely unagglutinated blood has been found only in strictly healthy animals and men. No severely ill person has yet been seen who did not have intravascular agglutination of the blood and visibly pathologic vessel walls.” Melvin H. Knisely, et al., 1947).”

The second reason for posting this study is that it demonstrates the strong link between hCG and cancer. This hormone is currently all the rage in anti-aging circles, is commonly injected by athletes for performance enhancement reasons, and is also standard treatment for age-related hypogonadism in both males and females. The fact that urinary and blood hCG are standard diagnostic measures for testicular cancer (aside from pregnancy) appears to bother neither the doctors prescribing hCG injections nor the people demanding such injections. However, the link between hCG and cancer goes well beyound the testicular cancer in males and ovarian cancer in females. Elevated levels of hCG have been reported in many other cancers, yet, just like other “non-specific” cancer biomarkers such as ESR and LDH, the likely pathological role of this hormone is ignored.

2 links here

The study below did analyzed the link between a number of biomarkers and subsequent cancer diagnosis in patients who presented with “non-specific” complaints and found that ESR and hCG were the strongest predictors of already established/diagnosable cancer. Hopefully, this will pour a bit of cold water on the enthusiasm for (ab)using hCG and its related (in regards to anti-aging and performance claims) “cousin” hGH in the (false) promise of health and/or longevity.

link here

“…Twenty-five of the blood tests had an estimated LR of cancer above 1.0 when abnormal (Table 3, link here), which resulted in post-test probabilities of cancer ranging from 13.4 to 44.4%. The highest post-test probability of cancer was found in patients with high human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) (44.4%), high M protein (37.4%) or high cancer antigen 125 (CA-125) (36.8%). In men with high hCG and women with high CA-125, the predominant cancer types were of non-gonadal origin.”

“…The most frequent abnormal blood tests among cancer patients were high inflammatory markers (CRP or erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR)), high monocyte count, anaemia, low lymphocyte count, hypo-albuminaemia and high alkaline phosphatase (Table 3, link here).”

“…A recent Danish study of patients referred by their GP for diagnostic workup at a diagnostic centre found proportions of anaemia, high ESR and alkaline phosphatase in patients who were later diagnosed with cancer that were similar to those reported in our study [34, link here]. This study used the same cut-points as our study, and the authors found a LR of cancer of 1.8 among patients with anaemia, a result that is very similar to our findings.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-678.mp3" length="874820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Natural progesterone (but not synthetic progestins) has potent anti-hypertensive effects</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=676</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=676</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 06 Nov 2019 16:50:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=676

As many readers already know, synthetic estrogens and progestins currently dominate the market for female reproductive health. These chemicals are in everything from birth control pills, to drugs for “treating” endometriosis, to drugs for menopausal symptoms, to treating neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, etc. The argument for using synthetic version of both hormones has always been the same (scam) – i.e. they are just like the bioidentical steroids, only better…and safer. Of course, none of these claims has ever been tested/proven in human clinical trials. Now, while the dangers of estrogen (both synthetic and natural) have largely been uncovered (yet currently disputed by Big Pharma) as a result of the Women Health Initiative (WHI) studies, the dangers of synthetic progestins are largely kept under wraps. Even when a damning study about them appears in a scientific journal the industry aggressively lobbies the scientific news outlets to write the popular press articles about “progesterone” and avoid mentioning both the synthetic progestins as well as suggesting that there may be any difference between the synthetic and bioidentical version. Thus, over the years, Big Pharma has made sure that natural progesterone got all the negative press while the synthetic progestins remained largely shielded. Here is just a small list of studies that barely begins to expose the giant scam on synthetic progestins.

4 links here

In addition to the breast cancer link to synthetic progestins, and the protective effects of natural progesterone, there are also studies linking the synthetic progestins to heart disease (CVD). Those  studies also claim natural progesterone has a protective effect.

link here

I stumbled upon an older study that demonstrates potent antihypertensive effect of natural progesterone, as opposed to synthetic progestins, and states that it is lower progesterone levels in men that may account for their higher risk of CVD, as well as for the equalized CVD risk in women after menopause. Hence, the study makes the call for using only natural progesterone and not the synthetic progestins if proper cardiovascular health is desired.

link here

“…Blood concentrations of progesterone in premenopausal women are high in the luteal phase of each ovulatory menstrual cycle but fall to 30% of the follicular phase in postmenopausal women. Men have similarly low blood concentrations of progesterone. The results of this pilot study suggest that natural progesterone produces a significant reduction in blood pressure at doses which give plasma concentrations that are just above luteal phase concentrations. The physiology of progesterone suggests that its antihypertensive action is peripheral, although an additional central action cannot be excluded. In this study the less predictable reduction of erect blood pressure could have been due to the presumed vasodilation action of natural progesterone being overridden by reflex sympathetic vasoconstrictor activity. We suggest that progesterone is a “protective” female hormone. The low blood progesterone concentrations present after the menopause could account for the finding that the prevalence of high blood pressure and incidence of cardiovascular disease in women tend to catch up with those in men.1 This property would recommend the use of natural progesterone in combined oral contraceptives instead of synthetic gestagens.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-676.mp3" length="1020572" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SFA / MUFA are preferentially oxidized, while PUFA are stored/accumulated</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=668</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=668</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 22 Oct 2019 16:51:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=668

Just a quick post in response to some of the hate mail I keep getting on a daily basis in regards to the body’s discriminatory treatment of various fat types. According to various proponents of keto diets, fasting, etc the organism has no preference for one type of fat or another in terms of oxidation or storage. As such, the claim is that body fat stores have a composition reflected by a person’s diet. Since the Western diet contains more SFA/MUFA than PUFA, the argument of the keto crowd is that if lipolysis is detrimental it is due mostly to the effects of SFA and MUFA, not PUFA.

Well, as the studies below show, that is not the case. Apparently, SFA are not only resistant to esterification (and thus storage) but are also oxidized as quickly as pyruvate (the glucose pathway). PUFA/MUFA, on the other hand, are readily esterified/stored and thus become the predominant fat found in fatty tissues, while at the same time being oxidized at only 1/5 the rate of pyruvate. This means that if PUFA consumption in the diet reaches a certain percentage of total fat consumed, and the total fat consumed exceeds the oxidation capacity of that specific person, the fat stores of a person will likely consist predominantly of PUFA (and maybe 5%-10% MUFA) and only trace amounts of SFA. Thus, during lipolysis the FFA being dumped in the blood will be predominantly PUFA and due to their slow rate of oxidation this will result in an extended inhibition of glucose oxidation as a result of the Randle cycle. If that was not bad enough, due to the slow rate of oxidation and high rate of esterification, if lipolysis exceeds a certain limit, there will be more FFA (PUFA) in the bloodstream than tissues can oxidize. Since one of the roles of the liver is to protect tissues from excessive lipid exposure, most of the excess PUFA that cannot be oxidized/excreted will end up as triglycerides in the liver, resulting in the infamous NAFLD. This is actually a lesser of two evils, because if the liver cannot cope with the flood of PUFA due to extreme lipolysis, then ketoacidosis (and even death) may result due to FFA blocking both insulin release and its action. If the liver is healthy enough to cope with the flood of PUFA and that process continues for some time, the interaction of PUFA with iron (a good portion of which is stored in the liver) will result in lipofuscin formation affecting the entire body, and liver-centric fibrotic changes that lead to NASH, then cirrhosis and eventually liver cancer (HCC). In addition, the extra PUFA floating around that the liver could not excrete or store within itself leads to all sorts of degenerative changes in organs, including kidney failure, brain atrophy, gonadal suppression, adrenal overactivation, etc as well as the well-known inflammatory cascades through COX/LOX pathways. All of these pathological changes are readily visible in patients with type II diabetes on an ongoing basis. In addition, blood samples from diabetic patients readily demonstrates the predominance of PUFA in the FFA fraction of the sample.

link here

“…Further, epoxides and ketones of eighteen carbon polyunsaturated fatty acids were elevated >80% in diabetes and strongly correlated with changes in NEFA, consistent with their liberation during adipose lipolysis. Endocannabinoid behavior differed by class with diabetes increasing an array of N-acylethanolamides which were positively correlated with pro-inflammatory 5-lipooxygenase-derived metabolites, while monoacylglycerols were negatively correlated with body mass. These results clearly show that diabetes not only results in an increase in plasma NEFA, but shifts the plasma lipidomic profiles in ways that reflect the biochemical and physiological changes of this pathological state which are independent of obesity associated changes.”

None of this is even remotely theoretical, as many other recent studies I have discussed in this blog have already confirmed that increased fatty acid oxidation drives most of the organ failures seen in diabetic patients. While kidney failure is the most-often cited example of lipolysis-induced organ failure, the destruction of the beta-cells in the pancreas, dementias, movement disorders (Parkinson, Huntington, etc), CVD, osteoporosis, hypogonadism, etc have all been tied to excessive (or prolonged) FFA exposure. In light of the studies discussed in this blog, I think we can safely reclassify all of these pathologies as due to PUFA exposure/overload.

The takeaway of this post is the following. If a person consumes a diet high on fat (e.g. >15% of daily calories) with a PUFA fraction above a certain critical level (I suspect that number is around 10% of total fat), over time their fat stores will increase and will be composed predominantly of PUFA. In addition, any time such a person is exposed to stress, fasting, exhaustive exercise, infection, or really any other event that results in increased lipolysis their bloodstream will be flooded with FFA consisting mostly of PUFA. This elevated lipolysis (if maintained chronically) will at best result in liver disease and at worst in all the degenerative changes seen in conditions such as diabetes, CVD, neurodegenerative diseases and even cancer. As such, fasting and/or exhaustive exercise are one of the worst things an overweight person can do as it will only lead to a prolonged PUFA exposure and the resulting suppression of glucose oxidation, increased inflammation and ultimately severe chronic disease. A healthy approach to this problem for an obese/overweight/diabetic person would be to (1) lower total fat intake; (2) ensure SFA/PUFA ratio is as high as practically possible; (3) protect the liver and other organs from excessive lipolysis (niacinamide, aspirin, vitamin E); (4) support hormonal environment that resists weight gain (e.g. keep cortisol/estrogen at bay and pregnenolone/progesterone/DHEA/T/DHT at optimal levels). If these guidelines are followed, over time the muscles should be able to oxidize the stored PUFA and the liver should be able to glucuronidate whatever the muscles cannot handle.

link here

“…Although there is no definitive mechanism explaining how SFAs induce ER stress, increasing evidence points to disordered phospholipid metabolism as one initiating factor. Unsaturated fatty acids are readily incorporated into inert TGs, but excess SFAs remain largely unesterified [28, link here]. Recent literature suggests that these free SFAs are rapidly assembled into saturated phospholipid species that are subsequently integrated into ER membrane bilayers [46, link here].”

link here

“…This previous study showed that SFA and MUFA levels are strongly reduced, while PUFA accumulates, in blunt snout bream fed a 15% fat diet [9], link here. SFA and MUFA in fish are preferentially used as oxidation substrates through the mitochondrial pathway, whereas this is not the case for PUFA [45], link here. Thus, it is predicted that decreased FA oxidation will not only affect lipid levels, but also the FA content of the liver.”

link here

“…Beta-oxidation was studied in red muscle mitochondria of 10 major fatty acids that are acquired in the diet and occur in the fat depots of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss Walbaum). The mitochondria were isolated by fractional centrifugation and the fatty acids were added as coenzyme A esters in the presence of carnitine. The fatty acids could be separated into roughly three groups in relation to their oxidation rates. Two fatty acids (14:0 and 16:0) were oxidized as rapidly as pyruvate. Another six acids (16:1 n − 7, 18:0, 18:1 n − 9, 20:1 n − 9, 22:1 n − 9 and 22:6 n − 3) were oxidized at about three-quarters to one-half the rate of pyruvate. The two essential fatty acids (18:2 n − 6 and 18:3 n − 3) had a slow oxidation rate, about one-fifth of that of pyruvate. The liver mitochondria from rainbow trout oxidized 18:0, 18:1, 18:2, and 18:3 at the same rate, 70–80% of that of pyruvate. These results show that rainbow trout red muscle discriminates between fatty acids used in energy production and essential fatty acid precursors, as indicated by the low β-oxidation rate of the latter acids.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-668.mp3" length="2563436" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>CamphoSal – Liquid Camphoric Acid + Salol</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=666</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=666</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 21 Oct 2019 19:06:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=666

As many readers know, Peat has written extensively on the benefits of antibiotics and on keeping the GI tract as free of bacteria as possible. Bacterial overgrowth in the colon alone is already a problem due to the production of endotoxin, but in hypothyroid people this bacterial overgrowth can extend into the small intestine. The latter condition is commonly referred to as SIBO, and it can lead to malabsorption, inflammation, bacterial translocation to liver / pancreas / gallbladder / spleen / heart / etc. As I posted in several other threads, the chronic inflammation and translocation can lead to a host of severe health issues including “autoimmune” conditions, diabetes, obesity, and even (liver/pancreatic) cancer(s).

One of the approaches to keeping the GI tract as bacteria-free as possible is by using antibiotics. However, for most people those are not an easy option as they require prescription and some of them have severe side effects. Fortunately, there are some dietary methods that may provide similar benefits. Those methods including substances such as charcoal, fiber, anti-serotonin chemicals, aspirin, etc. Of these, aspirin has a very long history of usage as a disinfectant, including in the GI tract. However, the problem with regular aspirin (and its metabolite salicylic acid) is that it gets quickly metabolized and absorbed in the stomach before it has a chance to exert its anti-bacterial effects. It may have some effects in the upper portion of the small intestine but likely does not remain intact long enough to affect the colon. Cognizant of both the potential and limitations of regular aspirin, doctors as far as back as late 19th century came up with a modified version of salicylic acid. The molecule is rather simple and is just an ester of salicylic acid with phenol. The commonly used name of this chemical was Salol – i.e. a combination of (sal)icylic acid and phen(ol).

Phenyl salicylate – Wikipedia, link here

“…It has been used as an antiseptic, link here[5], link here based on the antibacterial activity upon hydrolysis, link here in the small/large intestine.[citation needed, link here]. It acts as a mild analgesic, link here.[6], link here”

This simple esterification allows salicylic acid to survive more or less intact until it reaches the small intestine and colon where it is metabolized by the microbiome and broken down into phenol and salicylic acid. As it turns out, the phenol portion is at least as potent an antibacterial as salicylic acid and possibly even stronger. This spurred the development of a special synthetic version of phenol called Dimol, which was shown to be remarkably beneficial in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The benefits for RA were demonstrated to be due precisely to Dimol’s effects on reducing bacterial overgrowth and thus endotoxin levels.

4 links here

Around the same time Salol was becoming popular, another common remedy used as intestinal disinfectant was camphoric acid.

Camphoric acid – Wikipedia, link here

This is the dicarboxylic acid version of camphor, but unlike camphor is has no smell and its taste is tart/bitter similar to a combination of lemon and quinine. This allowed for the chemical to be orally administered and it was successfully used both as an intestinal disinfectant as well as for treating fevers due to various infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. Thus, we decided to release a combination of these two chemicals as a product for intestinal disinfection, and we called it CamphoSal – a combination of (Campho)ric acid and (Sal)ol. Below are some references related to the usage of both camphoric acid and salol as intestinal disinfectants, including comments from Peat on his usage of camphoric acid. It was his comments on the dosage (100mg-200mg daily) he used that influenced how much we formulated per single dose of our product.

Ray Peat Email Exchanges – Ray Peat Forum Wiki, link here

“…[Tongue, teeth, gum problems] There are some strong nervous and circulatory interactions between the intestine and the mouth, affecting surfaces and periodontal health, tooth sensitivity, etc. I knew a dentist who stopped doing periodontal surgery when he found that his patients were more easily cured with a laxative. Camphoric acid has been used as an intestinal disinfectant to remedy problems such as coated or sore tongue or bad breath. The tetracyclines have similar effects. Vitamins D and K are important.”

Flowers Of Sulfur Aka Brimstone Logs, link here

“…Local bacteria are usually involved in the white tongue, but typically the problem is mainly in the intestine. I have experimented with the old-fashioned “intestinal disinfectant” camphoric acid (it used to be a common pharmaceutical, 80 to 100 years ago), and when I would swallow about 100 to 200 mg of it in the evening, I would wake up with a perfectly clean tongue, not a bit of the white. Bamboo shoots, raw carrot, and flowers of sulfur are other antiseptics that can reduce the white tongue.”

link here acid intestinal disinfectant&f=false, link here

link here acid intestinal disinfectant&f=false, link here

link here acid intestinal disinfectant&f=false, link here

“…Camphoric acid is now an official drug duly recognized by the new pharmacopeia. The advisers acted wisely in accepting this drug as one of the additions for official recognition. Its place in therapeutics is firmly established. It has many used in medicine, but it is especially prominent as a remedial agent in combating the night-sweats of consumptives. The claim can safely be made that the use of no other remedy is followed by results so beneficial as follows the administration of camphoric acid in controlling the profuse night sweats of pulmonary tuberculosis. The controlling influence is also exerted in sweating from other causes. Locally, its action is that of a mild antiseptic. In one percent solution it is useful in the treatment of pharyngitis and laryngitis; in the same strength solution it has been used with benefit as a bladder irrigation in the treatment of chronic cystitis. Internally administered, camphoric acid gives good results as an intestinal disinfectant, proving beneficial in the treatment of diarrhea resulting from intestinal fermentation.”

2 links here

“…Phenyl salicylate, or salol, is a chemical substance, introduced in 1886 by Marceli Nencki, link here of Basel. It can be created by heating salicylic acid, link here with phenol, link here. It has been used as an intestinal antiseptic based on the antibacterial activity upon hydrolysis, link here in the small intestine. Once used in sunscreens, phenyl salicylate is now used in the manufacture of some polymers, lacquers, adhesives, waxes and polishes.. Salicylamide, link heres are a type of drug.”

link here

“…Salol was primarily used as an anti-rheumatic, especially in the treatment of acute cases. It was given as an antipyretic, in 30 to 45 grain doses, in powders or tablets. It is soluble in ether and petroleum spirit; very sparingly, if at all, in water. It does not disturb digestion because it passes through the stomach unaltered, being decomposed in the duodenum, by the ferments of the pancreas, into Salicylic acid and Phenol (it contains 38 per cent. of Phenol). These are excreted by the kidneys, and the condition of intestinal digestion has been estimated by the length of time required, after the ingestion of Salol, for them to appear in the urine. Upon this property also has been based the use of the remedy in acute diarrhœa, dysentery, cholera, and other diseases where intestinal asepsis is indicated, and also in affections of the bladder and urethra as a substitute for ordinary mechanical irrigations and injections. Its internal use in gonorrhœa (in 5-gr. doses three times a day) has met with much success (Helbing).”

link here

“…Salol is an easily administered, safe drug in the first stage of acute gastroenteritis in children, and in the more chronic forms of entrorcolitis, accompanied by slimy, bad-smelling evacuations. In the acute condition, it is necessary to keep the stomach at rest and administer two or three doses of salol within five or six hours. For the more chronic state of catarrh it is best given in somewhat larger doses belore meals. In frequent serious discharges, and in colitis, the salol does not produce the same good results as in the cases mentioned above, and its effect is uncertain, not being so rapid or so sure as an opiate. In dysenteric disorders it cannot be relied on. It seems, then, that salol acts best in morbid conditions, due to fermentation and decomposition in the stomach and upper bowel, and that it diminishes in power as it passess through the large intestine.”

Disclaimer: The fact that this post and product description contain quotes from Ray Peat does not mean he endorses/approves of this product. His opinions on a chemical may change when new evidence becomes available in the future, so future inquiries about a chemical, solvent, ingredients, etc contained in this product may elicit a different response than his quotes included in this post. Please seek his opinion independently on any chemical, solvent, ingredient, etc that you may have concerns/questions about.

The units listed on the label are just for measurement purposes. They do not indicate or suggest optimal dose. The product can be ordered from the link below:

link here

*******************************************************************************

CamphoSal is a liquid product containing a combination of camphoric acid and phenyl salicylate (Salol). Both of these ingredients were widely used clinically in the late 19th and early 20th century as intestinal antiseptics / disinfectants when antibiotics were not widely available and barely known. There is some evidence that both may have beneficial effect beyond modulating the intestinal microbiome (e.g. gonorrhea), however there is no recent research in that area, and as such no definitive statements can be made.

Serving size: 25 drops

Servings per container: about 30

Each serving contains the following ingredients:

Camphoric Acid, FG: 200mg

Salol (phenyl salicylate), FG: 100mg

Other ingredients: add product to shopping cart to see info

*******************************************************************************]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-666.mp3" length="2543396" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blue light accelerates aging and reduces lifespan by more than 50%</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=664</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=664</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 20 Oct 2019 22:49:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=664

In one of his interviews, Peat mentioned that red light exposure may be the most fundamental protective factor in nature, and that a deficiency of it (as commonly seen in Western lifestyles) may be the main driver of systemic aging and the diseases associated with it. The study below provides strong evidence in support of those statements, but approaches it from the opposite side – i.e. exposure to blue light instead of simply deficiency of red light. As the study demonstrates, exposure to blue light for 10-12 hours daily not only results in more than 50% reduction of lifespan but also induces neurodegenerative changes and systemic biomarkers of aging. It is worth noting that a person working in a modern office environment easily racks up 8+ hours of blue light exposure just from the fluorescent lights above her/his head. When we add to this the light from computer screens, TVs, mobile phone, etc (which are all heavy in the blue spectrum), it is actually quite easy to achieve and even exceed the exposures describes in the study below. I, personally, noticed as far back as my college days that fluorescent lights were giving me massive headaches but at the time did not know what to think of it and the school doctor laughed at me when I mentioned it. So, I dutifully tried to extinguish that fear in my mind and the situation continued to deteriorate until I discovered the metabolic theory of health and installed a red LED lamp in my office. I paid dearly for this quirk of mine and was mocked relentless by my coworkers, but one by one they all seemed to join my “camp” and much to the chagrin of management about half the office ended up glowing deep red throughout the work day.

Interestingly enough, the study sounds an alarm about the fluorescent lights used in most animal care facilities, warning that long exposure to such light may be affecting the outcome of animal studies and needs to be a factor controlled for in statistical analysis. Yet, the study is silent about the same light exposure of humans in office buildings or at home. I guess, research animals are more valuable to the medical industry than a few billion peons wasting away in office buildings designed after maximum security prisons…

link here

“…Understanding the effects of blue light on various life processes is becoming an increasingly important health issue as humans are exposed to more blue-enriched LED illumination for most of the day, or even at night due to shift work and light pollution in large cities.6, link here However, long-term consequences of increased daily blue-light exposure across the human lifespan are not known. In this study, we demonstrate that daily exposure to 12 h of visible light in the blue part of the spectrum accelerates aging in Drosophila. Light causes not only retinal damage but also neurodegeneration in the central nervous system, which may be involved in the premature decline in climbing ability and early mortality. Our data also suggest that susceptibility to light increases with age and repetitive exposure to blue light induces the expression of stress-response genes.”

“…The detrimental effects of light on longevity have been reported recently in C. elegans;29, link here exposing these nematodes to white light or different parts of the light spectrum significantly reduced their lifespan,29, link here suggesting a broad susceptibility to light in this species, albeit with stronger effects of shorter wavelengths. Our data suggest that blue light is driving the aging phenotypes in flies since it dramatically reduced the lifespan.”

“…A surprising outcome of our study is that blue light not only damaged the retina, but also caused neurodegeneration in the brain. A significant age-specific increase in the area of vacuoles indicative of neuronal death was observed in brains of flies in B:D compared with age-matched flies in D:D. In addition, we demonstrate that blue-light-induced damage to the brain occurs whether or not the retina is present, suggesting that light can affect the brain directly and independently of the visual system degeneration. To address possible blue-light-activated pathways in the brain, we tested the involvement of the photoreceptive proteins CRY and RH7, both of which are expressed in the brain, and determined that neither loss nor overexpression of either protein significantly affected fly survival in blue light. Further studies will be required to dissect the input pathways mediating the effects of blue light on the brain. We note that the effects of light on extra-retinal tissues may not be limited to invertebrates. There are reports that the exposure of rats or mice to constant light for several months was associated with a significant reduction in the number of dopaminergic neurons.31, link here,32, link here In addition, transcranial blue light may impact human brain activity.5, link here Taken together, these data suggested that the question of possible detrimental effects of light on brain aging deserves more attention. We hypothesize that light-induced brain neurodegeneration may be the main cause of the decreased vertical mobility and reduced lifespan. However, at this time, we cannot exclude the possibility that other fly tissues could be affected by blue light and contribute to the accelerated aging. For example, the study on C. elegans showed that mitochondria in the muscles were damaged by constant light exposure.29, link here“

“…The expression of selected stress-response genes was induced by light in worms29, link here and in photoreceptor cells of the fly retina.34, link here Our data are consistent with these findings in that we detected increased expression of several stress-response genes in the heads of 35-day-old flies in B:D. These included cnc gene, the fly homolog of the transcription factor Nrf2, which was also shown to be upregulated in response to blue light in murine retinal pigment epithelium cells.35, link here Importantly, expression of stress-response genes was not elevated in young flies in B:D compared with D:D, which is consistent with our data showing that mortality-inducing stress requires multiple cycles of blue light and is age-dependent. In summary, our data suggest that blue light needs to be added to a range of environmental stressors that become increasingly harmful with repetitive exposure. Flies are used extensively to understand the mechanisms of aging in laboratories across the world, but the specifics of light conditions in terms of intensity and spectral composition are usually not provided. Our study suggests that the light used in fly facilities may critically affect experimental outcomes and should be reported in aging studies to facilitate the consistency of the results coming from different labs. Our discovery that lifetime exposure to artificial light may cause extra-retinal damage and reduce longevity in a complex model organism provides a novel opportunity to understand the molecular mechanisms of the increasingly evident harmful side of light.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-664.mp3" length="989084" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin has a G.E.L.D.I.N.G effect, causes obesity and hypogonadism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=660</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=660</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 20 Oct 2019 20:20:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=660

A very interesting study proposing that the decline in gonadal function seen in obese/diabetic men is due to chronically elevated endotoxin levels in such people. The study calls this phenomenon (G)ut (E)dotoxin (L)eading to a (D)ecline (I)n (G)onadal function (GELDING) due to the remarkable similarities in the phenotypes caused by castration and chronic endotoxemia. While the study only discusses the GELDING phenomenon in reference to males, it mentions that there is evidence the same phenomenon occurs in females too. Namely, females have been shown to be just as vulnerable to endotoxin induced obesity and hormonal imbalances as males, even if their gonads (ovaries) produce mainly progesterone (P4) instead of T (though T is also produced by females). The study also puts the blame for chronic endotoxemia straight in fat’s court. As the authors clearly explain, high fat diet results in gut barrier breakdown, inflammation, and “improved” endotoxin absorption through formation of chylomicrons. The combination of all these mechanisms has a potent inhibitory effects on both pituitary and gonads, often resulting in circulating androgen (or progesterone in females) levels low enough to mimic castration.

The solutions proposed by the study are quite in line with official medical dogma – i.e. reverse obesity and supplement with probiotics. However, considering the study’s own references to the remarkable effectiveness of antibiotics, I think low dose antibiotics taken 2-3 times weekly would be much more appropriate for severe cases. Other measures include consuming insoluble fiber, saturated fats (especially MCT due to its antibacterial effects), charcoal, etc. There is already evidence in support for these OTC measures from another study I posted recently.

Supplementation with (long chain) saturated fats protects liver from alcohol, link here

While the study above was focused on protective effects of SFA on liver, it explains in great detail that the protective effects of SFA are due to restoring the gut barrier as well as reducing endotoxin load. As such, their effect is really systemic endotoxin antagonism, and not tied to any specific condition. On a more practical note, a tablespoon of coconut oil (MCT) with every meal, or using more saturated fats for cooking (butter, beef tallow, cocoa butter, etc) should be enough to replicate the design of the study above. In addition, other studies posted on this blog suggest that androgen and/or progesterone administration may also have a direct therapeutic effects. Androgens such as DHT can inhibit the inflammatory reactions stemming from endotoxin and even block the activation of TLR4 altogether. Progesterone (and related pregnane steroids), on the other hand, may be able to even bind and deactivate endotoxin directly.

link here

Progesterone may bind and deactivate endotoxin (LPS) directly, link here

Furthermore, there is evidence that hypogonadism further exacerbates gut permeability and inflammation, and under such conditions even “normal” / “benign” gut flora can be come quite pro-inflammatory and wreak havoc on systemic health. I put “normal” and “benign” in quotes in reference to my post from about a year ago that there is really no such thing as “benign” or “beneficial” gut flora provided the bacterial species comprising it are capable of producing endotoxin.

link here (see caption under Fig. 1)

As such, the pathologies of endotoxemia and hypogonadism appear to form a positive feedback loop and this vicious cycle can usually be broken by addressing either one of the endpoints – endotoxemia or hypogonadism. Considering that progesterone may bind/deactivate endotoxin directly, androgens reverse hyponadism, and both steroid types block the inflammatory effects of endotoxin, it seems rather natural to use a combination of these steroids for synergistic results. If androgens are used, I think it would be safer to use non-aromatizable types such as DHT or its derivatives such as drostanolone, Proviron, Stenbolone, etc. Aromatizable androgens easily convert into estrogen in a high-endotoxin environment. Estrogen is a known inducer of gut permeability as well as inducer of inflammatory pathways, so using an aromatizable androgen such as T may make the situation much worse. In combination with progesterone, using T is probably less dangerous than using on its own due to aromatase-inhibiting properties of progesterone. However, if safer options (such as the DHT steroid family) are available then IMO there is no reason to take the risk with aromatizable steroids.

link here

“…DHT levels in serum did not differ between the groups, but DHT levels in the liver and seminal vesicles were increased in GF (germ-free, no endotoxin) compared to CONV-R mice (figure 8a). T levels in serum did not differ between the groups and T levels in liver were increased in GF compared to CONV-R mice (figure 8b) while A-dione values did not differ between the groups in serum or the evaluated extra intestinal tissues (figure 8c). GF males had larger testes than CONV-R males (table 4).”

2 links here

“…The central key to the GELDING theory of male hypogonadism is that activation of the immune system by an obesity related trigger is then capable of impairing testicular function. Several large epidemiological studies have already reported an association between male obesity, markers of inflammation such as CRP and white cell count (WCC), and a reduction in serum testosterone [25, link here–28, link here]. As testosterone is known to be immune-suppressive [29, link here, 30, link here], this association between obesity related inflammation and lower levels of serum testosterone has previously been suggested to be caused by a reduction in testosterone’s immune-suppressive action [26, link here]. However, observational studies are incapable of proving cause and effect, nor the mechanistic direction of such associations. Therefore we contend that the reduction in testosterone’s immune-suppressive effect is not the underlying cause of increased inflammation seen in obese men, but rather the reverse. Specifically, obesity triggers an inflammatory response that in turn impairs testicular function, and that this results in both a reduction in testosterone production and impaired spermatogenesis.”

“…Obesity, and a diet high in fat or calories that is typically consumed by obese individuals, has been reported to cause a breakdown in the normal mucosal barrier function, leading to the passage of gut bacteria into the systemic circulation, initiating a chronic state of inflammation [34, link here, 35, link here]. Gram negative bacteria, which comprise 70 % of the total bacterial load in the human gut [36, link here], contain a potent immune stimulant in their cell wall referred to as lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or endotoxin. Animal experiments and human observational studies have shown that consumption of diets containing either high fat or high number of calories leads to significant changes in gut bacterial populations and increases in the circulating levels of plasma endotoxin [37, link here, 38, link here], implying a breakdown in gut mucosal wall integrity and the passage of gram negative bacteria into the systemic circulation. Interestingly, the magnitude of this “metabolic endotoxaemia” is reported to be more pronounced in mice placed on a high fat diet than an isocaloric high carbohydrate diet, suggesting that dietary fat is more efficient in transporting bacterial endotoxin from the gut lumen into the circulation, possibly mediated by transfer of endotoxin across the intestinal wall in lipid laden chylomicrons [34, link here, 38, link here]. Furthermore, a high fat diet is reported to unfavourably alter the gut microbial composition, leading to an increase in intestinal permeability due to disordered tight junction proteins (zonulin, occludin) [39, link here], and a reduction in the colonic mucous barrier [40, link here]. Confirming the importance of gut microbiome in facilitating endotoxaemia, the administration of antibiotics to obese mice or modification of their gut microbiome with prebiotic fibre, have both been reported to result in a decline in circulating plasma endotoxin levels [39, link here, 41, link here, 42, link here].”

“…Cross-sectional studies in humans have also reported an elevation in circulating levels of endotoxin [38, link here, 43, link here, 44, link here], or indirect markers of endotoxin (LBP) exposure [45, link here, 46, link here], in obese individuals. Obesity has also been shown to be associated with changes in the human gut microbiome, with several investigators now reporting a reduction in the beneficial genus bifidobacterium in the faecal samples of obese individuals [47, link here, 48, link here]. Since bifidobacterium are known to metabolise dietary fibre, producing short chain fatty acids (SCFA) that “feed” the host intestinal mucosa, and enhance the production of mucus and maintain tight junction barrier function [49, link here], it is likely that any reduction in bifidobacterium numbers due to obesity will result in a breakdown in intestinal barrier function and endotoxaemia. Furthermore, obese men have also been shown to have a more marked post-prandial endotoxaemic and inflammatory (IL-6) response to a standard meal containing 40 gm of fat than their age matched lean counterparts [34, link here, 50, link here]. As such, we propose that changes in the intestinal microbiome caused by obesity, and the associated “poor diet”, result in a breakdown in the mucosal barrier function of the gut (so called “leaky gut”), and that this results in the passage of gram negative bacteria into the circulation (metabolic endotoxaemia) which triggers a chronic state of inflammation that impairs testicular function.”

“…However, studies in women have confirmed an association between endotoxaemia and a reduction in the ovaries capacity to produce the female sex steroid hormone progesterone [46, link here]. Furthermore, there is abundant animal evidence suggesting that endotoxin (LPS) does have the capacity to impair testicular function. Firstly, the experimental administration of LPS to rats, sheep, cattle and non-human primates has been shown to decrease the frequency and amplitude of LH pulses by suppressing both hypothalamic and anterior pituitary function [51, link here], thereby reducing the pituitary drive for Leydig cells to produce testosterone. Secondly, animal studies have also confirmed that Leydig cells express the TLR4 for endotoxin [52, link here], and that experimental administration of LPS directly inhibits Leydig cell production of testosterone [52, link here–57, link here]. The direct inhibition of androgen production by endotoxin is most likely mediated by a reduction in Leydig cell expression of steroidogenic acute regulatory (StAR) protein activity [58, link here], a protein that plays a key role in the initial transfer of cholesterol into mitochondria where it is later converted into testosterone.”

“…The activation status of testicular macrophages is also likely to play a role in testosterone production. Leydig cells and macrophages are normally in close physical contact within the testicular interstitium, and under normal conditions these macrophages play a key role in Leydig cell development as they provide essential growth and differentiation factors [58, link here]. However, under immune-stimulatory conditions, as occurs with metabolic endotoxaemia, macrophages produce pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1 and TNFα, plus reactive oxygen species (ROS), all known to reduce steroid hormone production by the adjacent Leydig cell [55, link here, 57, link here, 58, link here]. Furthermore, Leydig cells themselves have been reported to produce inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, TNFα and IL-6) when exposed to LPS [52, link here], which would result in a further amplification of the neighbouring macrophages state of activation. Interestingly, dampening inflammation using TNFα blocking antibody therapy has been shown to normalise serum testosterone levels in spondylo-arthritis patients [59, link here], highlighting the potential role for inflammation in decreasing testosterone production.”

“…Obesity related endotoxaemia is likely to impair sperm production and function, both directly and indirectly. Firstly, high intra-testicular levels of testosterone are required for normal sperm production. Inadequate levels of testosterone disturbs Sertoli cell function, leading to retention and phagocytosis of mature spermatids [60, link here] and impaired epididymal function, both potentially reducing sperm number and quality. Secondly, human sperm have been reported to express both the TLR4 [61, link here] and the CD14 co-receptor for LPS [62, link here], as well as directly responding to LPS exposure by increasing their production of IL-6 [63, link here], initiating sperm apoptosis and a decline in sperm motility [61, link here, 64, link here–66, link here]. Furthermore, as semen is known to contain both LPS and leukocytes [61, link here], it is not surprising that endotoxin exposure would increase seminal leukocyte reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and result in sperm oxidative damage [67, link here, 68, link here]. Seminal plasma neopterin, a marker of macrophage activation status, has been reported to be increased in obese men [69, link here], with seminal plasma neopterin also being positively correlate with sperm oxidative stress, DNA damage and apoptosis [69, link here]. This finding, together with previous publications linking impaired sperm production with an increase in testicular macrophage density [70, link here, 71, link here], all support the concept that a trigger for inflammation such as metabolic endotoxaemia has the potential to impair spermatogenesis and sperm function.”

“…Firstly, obesity and a high fat diet have both been conclusively linked with changes in gut microbiota, increased intestinal permeability and the resultant leakage of bacterial endotoxin from the gut lumen into the systemic circulation (metabolic endotoxaemia) [38, link here, 43, link here–46, link here]. Secondly, animal studies have clearly shown that exposure to endotoxin does result in a reduction in testosterone production, both indirectly (impaired pituitary LH drive), and through direct inhibition of Leydig cell function [51, link here–57, link here]. While similar studies have not yet been conducted in men, it has been reported that serum testosterone levels do fall during times of infectious endotoxin exposure [86, link here], as anticipated by the GELDING theory. Furthermore, multiple large observational studies have now linked increased levels of inflammation (raised CRP and WCC) with lower serum testosterone [25, link here–28, link here].”

“…The GELDING theory is entirely novel in that for the first time it provides a clue to what may be initiating inflammation and impairing testicular function in obese men- gut derived endotoxin. If proven correct, the GELDING theory opens up a whole new scope for treatment of the hypogonadal male through modification of his gut microbiome and intestinal permeability. For example, obesity related hypogonadism becomes more common with increasing age, causing significant physical and psychological impairment. However, modification of the gut microbiome using probiotics has already been reported to reverse this age-related hypogonadism in rodents [112, link here], raising exciting therapeutic potential for older men.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-660.mp3" length="2226164" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:05:10</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA and serotonin promote each other, and likely cause mental illness</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=655</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=655</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Oct 2019 15:34:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=655

I neat new study that draws a direct parallel between PUFA-driven inflammation, serotonin and depression. As the study demonstrated, high levels of the PUFA arachidonic acid (AA) are highly correlated with lower density (expression) of the serotonin transported (SERT, 5-HTT), and the relationship is actually causative in both directions (AA<->serotonin). This results in increased serotonin availability/buildup since the primary role of SERT/5-HTT is to deactivate serotonin, using sodium as a co-factor.

link here

“…The serotonin transporter (SERT or 5-HTT) also known as the sodium-dependent serotonin transporter and solute carrier family 6 member 4 is a protein, link here that in humans is encoded by the SLC6A4 gene, link here.[5], link here SERT is a type of monoamine transporter, link here protein, link here that transports, link here serotonin from the synaptic cleft, link here back to the presynaptic neuron.[6], link hereThis transport of serotonin, link here by the SERT protein terminates the action of serotonin and recycles it in a sodium-dependent manner. This protein is the target of many antidepressant medications of the SSRI, link here and tricyclic antidepressant, link here classes.[7]”, link here

What’s even worse, the study demonstrates that serotonin and AA form a positive feedback cycle with the increased serotonin due to AA inhibiting SERT/5-HTT resulting in activation of the enzyme Phospholipase A2 (PLA2), link here that synthesizes AA from linoleic acid, which then results in stronger SERT/5-HTT inhbition and even higher serotonin availability. While the study tries to dance carefully around the role of serotonin in depression and states that “conflicting” results have been seen in other studies, it readily admits that AA is a known inducer of depression in animal models. Well, if AA is a highly inflammatory depressant and forms a positive feedback cycle with serotonin then I don’t see how serotonin could possibly be an anti-depressant…Another immediate takeaway from the study is that SSRI drugs are highly pro-inflammatory since they activate the AA<->serotonin cycle by inhibiting SERT/5-HTT (which is their primary mechanism of action). All in all, another great reason to avoid PUFA and eat plenty of salt (to taste).

link here

“…The relative peripheral levels of PUFA species are associated with neuropsychiatric illnesses, with elevated AA in proportion to DHA and EPA in MDD (Lin et al., 2010) and suicide risk (Huan et al., 2004; Lewis et al., 2011; Sublette et al., 2006). AA is particularly implicated in bipolar disorder, both postmortem (Kim et al., 2009) and in translational studies showing that multiple mood stabilizing medications downregulate AA metabolism (Rapoport, 2014).”

“…We have previously reported lower 5-HTT binding (BPP), using positron emission tomography (PET) and [11C]McN5652, in unmedicated MDD (Parsey et al., 2006a) and bipolar depressed (Oquendo et al., 2007a) groups compared with healthy controls. [11C]…We have reported lower [11C]DASB binding (VT/fP) in MDD patients with a history of suicide attempt (Miller et al., 2013), and lower binding potentials (BPF, BPP, and BPND, using a suboptimal reference region) in bipolar depression (Miller et al., 2016), considering a priori regions of interest (ROIs), although VT/fP did not differ in that study. ”

“…Separate models testing effects of DHA, EPA, and AA revealed no effects of DHA nor EPA on [11C]DASB binding potential (data not shown). However, AA had an effect on BPP (F = 9.14; df=1,19; p = 0.006) across regions, and given graphical evidence of a nonlinear relationship between AA level and BPP (Fig. 1A), we found that an added quadratic term was significant (F = 9.62; df=1,19; p = 0.006; also see Fig. 4, path a). The resulting inverted U-shaped relationship demonstrates that for most of the concentration range of AA, higher BPP correlated with lower AA levels. Exploratory analyses of PUFA effects on BPND and BPF (see Fig. 1B and C) similarly found that AA, but not DHA or EPA, demonstrated a comparable effect on BPND (F = 7.40; df=1,19; p = 0.014) while controlling for region, but had no statistically significant effect on BPF (F = 0.51; df=1,19; p = 0.484).”

“…Specifically, 5-HT2A/2C stimulates activation of cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2) (Berg et al., 1998; Qu et al., 2005; Garcia and Kim, 1997; Felder et al., 1990), triggering the release of unesterified AA from membrane phospholipids. Some of the released AA is recycled back into the membrane, a process that is stimulated by 5-HT1A receptors (Strosznajder et al., 1996). Remaining unesterified AA can decrease 5-HTT in certain brain regions (du Bois et al., 2006).”

link here

“…Drs. Sublette, Mann and colleagues including Gregory Sullivan, M.D., link here, a 2004 BBRF Young Investigator, discovered in their study that only one of the PUFAs they measured—AA, or arachidonic acid—had a potential impact on the availability of SERTs across the six brain areas that were imaged via PET scan. Specifically, they found that greater SERT availability in neurons correlated with lower AA levels in subjects, as measured in their plasma prior to the scans. This result led the team to hypothesize that AA may affect the severity of depression through its impact on the availability of SERTs in the brain. The nature of the observed correlation was complex, with extreme levels of AA affecting both SERTs and depression severity differently than moderate AA levels.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-655.mp3" length="327452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Acidosis (Warburg Effect) drives cancer through increased fat oxidation (Randle Cycle)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=653</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=653</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Oct 2019 00:54:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=653

The evidence continues to pile on that naming the (in)famous observation made by Otto Warburg in regards to cancer an “effect” is one of the most profound falsehoods the medical profession has ever concocted. Almost a century after the Warburg “Effect” term was coined, the evidence rapidly accumulates that the lactic acidosis is not at all a minor and therapeutically insignificant topic in oncology. Recent studies have directly implicated lactic acidosis (and chemicals like metformin that can cause it) as a necessary and sufficient condition for “cancerization” of healthy tissue. Conversely, blocking the systemic acidosis (in the study above baking soda was used) has been shown to have profoundly therapeutic effects, shrink the primary tumors and completely prevent metastases development.

Baking soda may treat cancer, metformin may cause it, link here

Despite these recent developments, the medical profession continues to insist that even if the Warburg “Effect” is indeed as much a cause of the cancer as it is its effect, the main driver of both the acidosis and tumor growth is glucose. This simplistic and frankly idiotic hypothesis likely grew out of the equally idiotic proposition that diabetes is a “sugar” disease due to the elevated blood glucose levels in such patients. Yet, regardless of the origins of these idiotisms, the actual evidence accumulated over the last 100 years points to increased free fatty acids (FFA) in the blood being a core aspect of both the diabetes and cancer pathologies. This is most readily visible in patients with diabetes II who are almost always obese, and the elevated FFA in blood of obese patients is a medical fact taught in introductory endocrinology at every medical school. However, it has also been confirmed in wasting patients with diabetes I, cancer, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer, etc. A closely related concept – the so-called Randle Cycle – is also taught in introductory courses in medical school but unfortunately does not get much attention beyound that and most doctors not only quickly forget about it but it is not used clinically in any medical system around the world.

The study below is a great addition to this pile of evidence because not only it confirms the role of acidosis in cancer once again but also demonstrates that, the Warburg “Effect” and the Randle cycle are actually two ends of a positive feedback cycle. Namely, the increased acidosis (Warburg Effect) blocks glucose oxidation (due to lower mitochondrial NAD/NADH ratio) and increases BOTH fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and fatty acid synthesis (FAS). As a result of the increased FAO/FAS (Randle Cycle) the oxidation of glucose is further inhibited resulting in even greater rise of lactic acid (Warburg Effect), and so this vicious circle feeds on itself until it is broken. What can break it? Well, as the study itself showed, providing extra glucose is one method and it is available rather cheaply to pretty much every patient around the world. Other, even more effective interventions included administration of FAO inhibitors (e.g. etomoxir) and inhibitors of FAS. A key discovery of the study is that while in normal cells the processes of FAO and FAS are largely mutually exclusive, this is not so in acidified cells. As such, both FAO and FAS contribute to cancer growth and while FAO is the major driver, dual inhibition of both FAO and FAS has additive effects in inhibiting cancer growth.

Furthermore, the study conclusively shows that the increased FAS activity seen in cancer is NOT fed by glucose, but by glutamine. In addition, cancer cells are apparently dependent on FAS for providing them with fuel to oxidize instead of taking up already preformed lipids from the diet. The combination of these features of cancer is in stark contrast with the mainstream primitive view that glucose should be avoided because it stimulates tumor growth and because it leads to lipogenesis. As the study showed one more time, cancer cells do NOT prefer glucose but fat, and most of that fat is synthesized de-novo from glutamine instead of being acquired from diet. The study also found that the increased FAO leads to mitochondrial proteins hyperacetylation, overfeeding, and thus downregulation of Complex I of the electron transport chain (ETC). This directly links increased FAO and FAS with the decrease in mitochondrial function seen in cancer and elevated lactate. All in all, the Randle cycle explains fully both the functional and structural changes seen in cancer cells and the Warburg “Effect” is simply the opposite end of a positive feedback cycle, with both the Warburg portion (lactate) and the Randle portion (FAO) promoting each other. As such, I hereby proposes that going forward we refer to this process as the Warburg-Randle Cycle in order to better capture the intimate relationship between glucose and fat oxidation as well as the key role metabolism plays in at least one major pathology – cancer.

Another interesting finding of the study is that the highly abnormal simultaneous upregulation of FAO and FAS is driven by histone deacetylation mediated by the sirtuin (SIRT) family of genes. As such, the study tested and confirmed that inhibiting SIRT1 and SIRT6 was highly therapeutic and restrained cancer cell growth. This role of SIRT genes is promoting cancer is actually not a new discovery and has been confirmed by a number of other studies.

4 links here

If SIRT activation can promote cancer, then it raises serious questions about the safety and effectiveness of hyped sirtuin activators such as resveratrol. I have warned about the dangers of resveratrol (a highly potent phyto-estrogen) for years and Dr. Peat even has a newsletter/article on the topic.

link here

Now, if SIRT inhibitors can arrest cancer growth then it seems reasonable to suppose that such inhibitors also have an inhibitory role in FAO. Indeed, niacinamide is the most potent SIRT inhibitor used clinically and has been shown to also inhibit FAO.

link here

Moreover, niacinamide blocks excessive lipolysis which further limits FAO by limiting the supply of fat from fat stores in the body. The combination of these effects makes niacinamide a much better candidate for treating cancer than etomoxir or whatever other toxic FAO inhibitor Big Pharma brings to market.

link here

“…MediGene funded a study of etomoxir as a treatment of heart failure in 2007, but the study was once again terminated prematurely. Four of the 226 patients taking the drug showed unacceptably high liver transaminase, link here levels, which was determined by the experimenters to likely be due to the treatment.[11], link here The University of Colorado, link here currently holds patents for the use of etomoxir as an anti-inflammatory, link here and anticarcinogenic, link here agent.[12], link here However, the clinical development of etomoxir has been terminated due to severe hepatotoxicity, link here associated with treatment.[13], link here“

Now, since the study also demonstrated that administering a FAO inhibitor in combination with FAS inhibitor is additive in stopping the growth of cancer, this immediately suggests either aspirin or orlistat as “adjuvant” treatments to be administered in combination with niacinamide. Orlistat is probably viable as a FAS inhibitor option but unfortunately, just like etomoxir, is plagued by severe liver and kidney side effects which limit its potential for long term use.

link here

As such, all the evidence points in favor of aspirin (as FAS inhibitor option) and is further corroborated by its extensive track record in animal studies as BOTH a preventative and therapeutic agent for cancer. The fact that aspirin not only potently inhibits FAS but is also a lipolysis and FAO inhibitor, makes it that much more appropriate to combine with niacinamide.

3 links here

In summary, the century-old incompetent/fraudulent “scientific” castle known as oncology is now crumbling like a house of cards. At this point, there is indisputable evidence that cancer is a purely metabolic disease, akin to an extreme form of diabetes, characterized by excessive FAO and FAS, blocked oxidation of glucose, and inflammatory/hypoxic environment driven by estrogen/serotonin/cortisol/NO. There is ZERO role for genes as a cause of cancer, and in fact mutations are now known to be a downstream effect of cancer. All of these metabolic derangements stem from something we have all come to view as perfectly acceptable and even mundane – chronic stress (and inflammation). Avoid stress and/or block inflammation (e.g. avoid PUFA), and cancer likely won’t develop.

link here

“…We then investigated the contribution of the major metabolic pathways known to generate acetyl-CoA to the increased mitochondrial protein acetylation observed under acidic conditions. To do so, parental and acidic pH-adapted cells were incubated with 14C-labeled substrates (glucose, glutamine, or palmitate) before mitochondria isolation and immunoprecipitation of acetylated proteins (Figures 2, link hereA, S2, link hereA, and S2B). We first observed that the radioactivity signal was dramatically reduced in the immunoprecipitated fraction from acidic pH-adapted cells incubated with [U-14C]glucose, compared to parental cells (Figures 2, link hereA and S2, link hereB). While no significant change was observed in cells pre-challenged with [U-14C]glutamine, the use of [U-14C]palmitate led to a net increase in the incorporation of radioactivity in acetylated mitochondrial proteins from acidic pH-adapted cells versus parental cells (Figures 2, link hereA and S2, link hereB). Notably, we showed that labeling of non-acetylated mitochondrial proteins (output fraction from the IP; Figure S2, link hereA) was very low, excluding the possibility that labeled amino acids resulting from transamination of TCA cycle intermediates could account for the observed differences in 14C labeling (Figures 2, link hereA, S2, link hereA, and S2B).”

“…We further found that histone deacetylation in acidic pH-adapted cells was prevented when SIRT1 and SIRT6 were silenced (Figures 5, link hereF and 5G), whereas the sirtuin extinction did not significantly influence the extent of H3K9 and H4K8 acetylation in parental cells (Figure S5, link hereB). Silencing of either SIRT1 or SIRT6 restored the expression of ACC2 protein in acidic pH-adapted cells (Figures 5, link hereH and S5, link hereC), while no effect was observed in parental cells (Figure 5, link hereH). Similar results (i.e., ACC2 re-expression, histone re-acetylation, and ACACB upregulation) were obtained upon treatment of acidic pH-adapted cells with EX-527, a dual SIRT1/SIRT6 inhibitor (Gertz et al., 2013,, link hereKokkonen et al., 2014, link here) (Figures S5, link hereD–S5F). ChIP-qPCR analysis also showed that H3K9 and H4K8 acetylation in two distinct regions of the ACACB promoter was significantly reduced in acidic pH-adapted cells (versus parental cells) (Figures 5, link hereI and S5, link hereG). Notably, in a pulse-chase experiment, we found that acidic pH-adapted cells released [3H]-acetate more efficiently than parental cells (Figure S5, link hereH); this effect was inhibited by EX-527, confirming a major contribution of SIRT1 and SIRT6 deacetylases in acidosis-induced protein deacetylation (Figure S5, link hereH). Treatment with EX-527 also restored expression of glycolysis-related proteins (Figure S5, link hereI) and subsequent glucose consumption and lactate secretion (Figure S5, link hereJ) in acidic pH-adapted cells.”

“…The main findings of this study are that fatty acid metabolism in tumor cells is profoundly reprogrammed in response to acidosis and that associated changes in the acetylome tune this metabolic rewiring. We found indeed that FAO and FAS could occur concomitantly, with exogenous FA uptake fueling the TCA cycle with acetyl-CoA and glutamine metabolism actively supporting citrate production and lipogenesis (see Figure 7, link here). This apparent juxtaposition of mitochondrial FA catabolism and cytosolic FA synthesis is rendered possible through the downregulation of ACC2, a mitochondrion-anchored enzyme that normally prevents the degradation of neo-synthesized FA in healthy tissues. Strikingly, while sirtuin-mediated histone deacetylation supports the change in ACC2 expression, non-enzymatic mitochondrial protein hyperacetylation restrains the activity of the respiratory complex I, thereby avoiding the risk associated with mitochondria overfeeding (Figure 7, link here). These observations point the pathways fueling the different acetyl-CoA pools as key determinants of tumor cell adaptation to acidic conditions and thereby provide a new rationale for the use of drugs interfering with FA metabolism to treat cancer (Currie et al., 2013, link here).”

“…Our data underline that although acidosis develops in the tumor microenvironment as a consequence of the metabolic requirements of proliferating cells, acidosis may in turn influence the tumor cell phenotype. We showed that these changes in metabolic preferences are profound since cancer cells chronically exposed to an acidic pH almost completely abandon glycolysis in favor of FAO as a source of mitochondrial acetyl-CoA that feeds into the TCA cycle and produces reducing equivalents for oxidative phosphorylation. Both aerobic and anaerobic glycolytic pathways contribute for a large part to protons that accumulate in the extracellular tumor compartment. We have previously documented that the dramatic reduction in glucose metabolism under acidic pH could be interpreted as an auto-adaptation of tumor cells that cannot handle more protons in their extracellular environment (Corbet et al., 2014, link here). In the current study, we now report that a net increase in FAO offers cancer cells the possibility to survive and proliferate in areas exhibiting a pH incompatible with further acidification. Interestingly, we found that while an increase in fatty acid uptake supports FAO, fatty acid synthesis is occurring at the same time in acidic pH-adapted cancer cells. We used [13C]glutamine labeled on C5 to document that reductive glutamine metabolism contributed to FA synthesis in cancer cells under acidosis (Figure 4, link hereD), a pathway maintained through a mass action effect related to the increased α-KG/citrate ratio (Figure 4, link hereC) as previously proposed (Fendt et al., 2013, link here). This is reminiscent of observations in tumor cells with defective mitochondria or under hypoxic conditions where reductive carboxylation of glutamine-derived α-ketoglutarate (α-KG) was reported to supply citrate for de novo lipogenesis (Metallo et al., 2012, link here, Mullen et al., 2012, link here, Wise et al., 2011, link here). However, in these studies, a role for FA as a source of mitochondrial acetyl-CoA was not identified, suggesting that under acidosis, stimulated FAO also required the maintenance of the canonical TCA cycle fueled by glutamine. The observed biosynthetic rewiring under acidosis is thus at odds with those studies reporting enhanced reductive carboxylation of glutamine when either electron transport chain (ETC) or TCA cycle function is altered by hypoxia or mutations. The acidosis-governed metabolic changes are actually in adequation with the anaplerotic needs of tumor cells proliferating independently of glucose, in particular to supply oxaloacetate to be combined with FAO-derived acetyl-CoA (Yang et al., 2014, link here). Notably, we found that glutamine also partially contributed to the pyruvate pool (Figure 4, link hereF) through a pathway presumably involving malic enzyme that also provides reduced NADPH for lipid synthesis (Vander Heiden et al., 2009, link here).”

“…The compartmentation of FAO in mitochondria and FAS in the cytosol may offer a first biological basis to account for the concomitant occurrence of these two apparent opposite pathways. Still, in healthy tissues, the risk of a futile cycle within cells degrading de novo synthesized FA is prevented by the capacity of malonyl-CoA produced by ACC enzymes to block CPT1 and thereby to impede the transport of fatty acyl-CoA into mitochondria for oxidation. Here, we showed that the mitochondrial ACC2 isoform (bu-Elheiga et al., 200, link here) is downregulated in acidic pH-adapted cells preventing this negative feed-back loop (see Figure 7, link here). The only ACC isoform expressed in tumor cells under acidosis is thus ACC1, which, as in lipogenic tissues, generates malonyl-CoA as a substrate for FA synthesis. The critical role of ACC2 extinction under acidosis was documented in experiments where the re-expression of recombinant ACC2 in acidic pH-adapted cancer cells dose-dependently inhibits the capacity of tumor cells to handle exogenous FA and blocks cell growth (Figures 6, link hereA–6D). Interestingly, we found that the downregulation of ACC2 results from an epigenetic process related to histone deacetylation. Global histone deacetylation has been proposed to contribute to the regulation of intracellular pH (pHi) (McBrian et al., 2013, link here). In our hands, however, the pHi of acidosis-adapted cancer cells is slightly alkaline and therefore does not represent the main trigger of histone deacetylation as reported in the above work. In addition, our study documents that instead of an apparent housekeeping mechanism of pH regulation, histone deacetylation at the ACACB promoter by SIRT1/6 leads to a direct proliferating advantage for tumor cells exposed to acidosis. Furthermore, activation of both sirtuins is in agreement with high cytosolic NAD+ levels associated with enhanced FAO and reduced glucose metabolism. Our study provides another insight in the acetylation-dependent regulation of specific actors of the metabolism of acidic pH-adapted cancer cells. Indeed, while histones were found to be deacetylated under acidosis, mitochondrial proteins were hyperacetylated because of the strong increase in the acetyl-CoA pool derived from stimulated FAO. Again, we showed that this apparent non-specific acetylation process (that we showed to occur non-enzymatically) has a selective impact through a partial inhibition of the electron transport chain complex I activity. Although this may appear counterintuitive in regards to the observed increase in mitochondrial respiration driven by fatty acid oxidation, we documented that restraining complex I activity may actually prevent ROS production as a consequence of mitochondrial overfeeding. This antioxidant effect may be particularly suited to limit ROS produced through reverse electron flow occurring upon preferential electron transfer to complex II (which we showed to be unaltered in acidosis-adapted cells) when switching from glucose to FAO (Hue and Taegtmeyer, 2009, link here).”

“…Another major outcome of the current study is related to the identification of molecular targets prone to lead to a therapeutic response if either inhibited or stimulated in acidosis-adapted cancer cells. As emphasized above, ACC2 downregulation upon histone deacetylation facilitates the FAO pathway under acidosis and led us to identify SIRT1/6 inhibition or silencing as modalities particularly adapted to block FAO under acidic conditions. More generally, we showed that fatty acyl-CoA formation and mitochondrial uptake though ACSL1 and CPT1, respectively, represent targets particularly suited to inhibit FAO-supporting anaplerotic processes under acidic conditions. Our data also point toward the glutamine metabolism as a target to limit FAS. Proliferating cancer cells are known to depend upon de novo FA synthesis, while most noncancer cells primarily take up lipids from circulation (Harjes et al., 2016, link here, Su and Abumrad, 2009, link here). Our study indicates that under acidosis, FAS is not supported by glucose metabolism but is mainly dependent on glutamine, making glutaminase inhibitors very attractive targets to perturb lipogenesis. Additive effects of etomoxir inhibiting CPT1 and BPTES blocking glutaminase GLS1 were observed in tumor-bearing mice. These in vivo experiments are, however, likely to underestimate the efficacy of these combo treatments since tumors were obtained from injection of in vitro acidosis-adapted cells to mice. This procedure is likely to transiently relieve the selective pressure of acidosis on the preferred expression of key metabolic regulators until the growing tumors themselves develop local acidosis.”

“…In conclusion, this study supports a model wherein under acidosis, mitochondria of tumor cells are particularly active, importing glutamine and FA instead of glucose-derived pyruvate to produce energy and anabolic intermediates (Figure 7, link here). How can these observations be reconciled with the well-established increased glycolytic pathway in many tumors? First, replacement of glucose by FA to produce acetyl-CoA and increased dependence on glutamine (through both reductive and oxidative pathways) are likely to be proportional to the extent of local acidosis. Second, tumor acidosis, like tumor hypoxia, is not a stable parameter in tumors but fluctuates with time or, in other words, may influence specific tumor areas at a given time. Correction of acidosis through the removal of excess protons (that saturate bicarbonate buffer) requires functional tumor vessels. As for the determinants of cycling hypoxia (Boidot et al., 2014, link here, Polet and Feron, 2013, link here), angiogenesis providing new blood vessels and variations in vessel hemodynamics (i.e., perturbations of tumor perfusion because of chaotic neovasculature) may thus account for an intermittent exposure of tumor areas to acidosis. Through the identification of major determinants of the specific behavior of tumor cells proliferating in (despite) the tumor acidic environment, our study opens new perspectives for the development of strategies to interfere with tumor FA metabolism in order to avoid the emergence of resistance from this acidic compartment.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-653.mp3" length="3704900" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:08:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The (remarkable) intelligence of plants</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=648</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=648</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Oct 2019 20:40:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=648

I made a few posts in the past about the altruism of plants, as well as their apparent consciousness (affected by anesthesia) despite the fact that they do not have a nervous system. The article below describes additional experiments demonstrating that plants are apparently capable of a number of stunning feats that make them look quite human and in some cases superhuman. Apparently plants can (among many other things) “read human minds,” “feel stress,” remember and adapt to dangerous event/environment, and even “pick out” a plant murderer. I personally don’t know of a single human that is capable of the first and last of these feats, but that does not stop a good number of humans to claim that they can and charge a good deal of money for the “service”. Considering Charles Darwin, most his other contemporary biologists, and even ancient Greeks firmly believed plants posses intelligence not much different than ours, the presence of intelligence in every living creature may turn out to be yet another “controversial” (read: true and threatening to the profits of some industry) idea that has been purposefully stifled during the Dark Ages of Science (e.g. the 20th century). As the article says, the implications of such ignorance and/or stifling are profound. If plants possess intelligence, our very relationship with and idea of reality may have to scrapped and re-built from scratch.

2 links here

“…A few years ago, Monica Gagliano, an associate professor in evolutionary ecology at the University of Western Australia, began dropping potted Mimosa pudicas. She used a sliding steel rail that guided them to six inches above a cushioned surface, then let them fall. The plant, which is leafy and green with pink-purple flower heads, is commonly known as a “shameplant” or a “touch-me-not” because its leaves fold inward when it’s disturbed. In theory, it would defend itself against any attack, indiscriminately perceiving any touch or drop as an offense and closing itself up. The first time Gagliano dropped the plants—fifty-six of them—from the measured height, they responded as expected. But after several more drops, fewer of them closed. She dropped each of them sixty times, in five-second intervals. Eventually, all of them stopped closing. She continued like this for twenty-eight days, but none of them ever closed up again. It was only when she bothered them differently—such as by grabbing them—that they reverted to their usual defense mechanism. Gagliano concluded, in a study, link here published in a 2014 edition of Oecologia, that the shameplants had “remembered” that their being dropped from such a low height wasn’t actually a danger and realized they didn’t need to defend themselves. She believed that her experiment helped prove that “brains and neurons are a sophisticated solution but not a necessary requirement for learning.” The plants, she reasoned, were learning. The plants, she believed, were remembering. Bees, for instance, forget, link here what they’ve learned after just a few days. These shameplants had remembered for nearly a month.”

“…The idea of a “plant intelligence”—an intelligence that goes beyond adaptation and reaction and into the realm of active memory and decision-making—has been in the air since at least the early seventies. A shift from religion to “spirituality” in the sixties and seventies unlocked new avenues of belief, and the 1973 bestseller The Secret Life of Plants catalyzed the phenomenon. Written by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, the book made some claims, such as that plants can “read human minds,” “feel stress,” and “pick out” a plant murderer. Mostly, it proved to be a touchstone. Cleve Backster, a polygraph tester for the CIA, did one such experiment in 1966 when, “on a whim,” he attached a galvanometer (a machine that registers electrical currents) to a dracaena, a tropical palm houseplant. Silently, Backster imagined the plant was on fire. The galvanometer flickered. Backster concluded the plant was feeling stress from his thoughts. “Could the plant have been reading his mind?” ask Tompkins and Bird in the book. In another experiment, Backster had a friend stomp on a plant. Then, that friend and five other human “suspects” walked out in front of the plant that had “witnessed” the stomping. The plant was hooked up to a galvanometer. When the killer entered the room, the plant sent out a wave of electricity, thereby “identifying” the murderer.”

“…Darwin floated the first modern ideation of plant intelligence in 1880. Writing in The Power of Movement in Plants, he concluded that the root of a plant has “the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts” and thus “acts like the brain of one of the lower animals; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense organs and directing the several movements.” Darwin was talking about how plants react to shifts in vibrations, sounds, touch, humidity, and temperature—but these are just adaptive reactions. Facing toward the sun or closing at a touch does not require quasi-neurological abilities. There is no processing or choice involved—unlike the apparent memory shown by Gagliano’s experiment. (Many of the Ancient Greeks—like Plato, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Empedocles—shared the belief that plants have a kind of brain where sensitivities could be “processed.”)”

“…When Wohlleben came across a tree stump that had been felled probably half a millennium ago, he realized—scraping at it and seeing that it was still bright green beneath—that the trees around it had been keeping it alive, sending it glucose and other nutrients. This plant communications system works similarly to the nervous system of animals. Trees can send out electrical pulse signals underground as well as signals through the air, via pheromones and gasses. When an animal, for instance, begins chewing on a tree’s leaves, the tree can release ethylene gas into the soil, alerting other trees, whereupon those nearby trees can send tannins into their leaves so that if they, too, get their leaves chewed, they might be able to poison the offending animal.”

“…Trees can differentiate between threats, as well. They respond differently to a human breaking off one of its branches than they do to an animal eating at them—with the former, it will try to heal; with the latter, it will try to poison. Plants even share space with one another. In a 2010 study, link here, when four Cakile edentula, or “sea-rocket plants,” were put in the same pot, they shared their resources, moving their roots to accommodate the others. If the plants were just acting evolutionarily, it would follow that they would compete for resources; instead, they seem to be “thinking” of the other plants and “deciding” to help them. Even the slightest possibility of a proven plant intelligence would have massive scientific and existential implications. If plants can “learn” and “remember,” as Gagliano believes, then humans may have been misunderstanding plants, and ourselves, for all of history. The common understanding of “intelligence” would have to be reimagined; and we’d have missed an entire universe of thought happening all around us.”

“…Plants, as Gagliano concluded, might have a far greater sentience than we’d ever thought possible. The implications of plants that “remember” being dropped and “decide” it’s safe to not protect themselves aren’t best expressed in anthropomorphic terms, but we don’t yet have other language. In truth, we know so little even about ourselves; our science cannot fully explain how humans learn and remember. Why not consider that plants have been doing the same for far longer than we have been around, with an intelligence that is radically different from ours?”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-648.mp3" length="663452" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:34</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Linguistic Genius of Prairie Dogs</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=646</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=646</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Oct 2019 20:05:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=646

A nice article showing that the one of the most uniquely human aspect of our existence – language – is actually a capacity that much “lower” animals possess as well, and may be even more adept than us at using. Apparently, prairie dogs are not only capable of verbalizing sentences with just about the same complexity as us, but also speak different dialects/languages depending on the group under observation. In fact, their language is so rich that scientists think they can build a device that translates from prairiedog-ese to human-ese 🙂

The Linguistic Genius of Prairie Dogs, link here

“…Con Slobodchikoff, PhD, has been studying prairie dogs for over 30 years. His studies have focused primarily on Gunnison’s prairie dogs, whose natural habitat is just outside the doors of Northern Arizona University, where Slobodchikoff is a professor emeritus. After first observing how a colony of prairie dogs reacted to the presence of predators, he discovered that they didn’t just give the same alarm call each time – it sounded different depending on what type of predator the prairie dogs saw. But that wasn’t the full extent of the calls’ complexity. Slobodchikoff also noticed that even though the calls signaling a certain type of predator would follow a distinct pattern, they contained small nuances that varied with each individual predator of that type. For instance, the prairie dogs had a similar call for all coyotes, but there were subtle differences for each different coyote. Based on this observation, Slobodchikoff had a sudden insight: “What if they’re describing the physical features of each predator?” A bit of experimentation soon proved his suspicions. After putting dogs, humans, and simple shape cutouts of all different forms, sizes, and colors within sight of the prairie dogs, analysis of the prairie dog calls revealed that the unassuming squeaks of alarm were rich with information.2,3 “They’re able to describe the colour of clothes the humans are wearing, they’re able to describe the size and shape of humans, even, amazingly, whether a human once appeared with a gun… In one 10th of a second, they say ‘Tall thin human wearing blue shirt walking slowly across the colony.’” What’s even more interesting is that the “language” of prairie dogs is not ubiquitous. It is unlikely that different species of prairie dogs would be unable to understand the calls of each other. Slobodchikoff bases this theory on a comparison of sonograms from various species of prairie dogs, all of which were different even though the calls were describing the same things. Just like humans, prairie dogs seem to have many different languages. Slobodchikoff is working to create a translation device that could potentially decode all of these prairie dog languages, as well as those of other animals, to make them understandable for humans.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-646.mp3" length="307676" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lack of light exposure may be the main cause of the myopia boom</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=644</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=644</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Oct 2019 00:52:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=644

As the study says, there has been a drastic increase in myopia cases over the last century. Early research pointed at excessive indoor book reading and studying as a cause of the epidemic. Unsurprisingly, these initial claims were quickly drowned by fake research denying that such a link exists. Modern society depends for its survival on the (well-marketed) illusion that decades spent hunched over books will somehow result in a boon for the student, when in fact it mostly benefits society. As usual, the modern explanations offered for the myopia epidemic consist mostly of sentences containing the word “gene” or “genetic”. Yet, no gene can explain the rapid increase in myopia rates. The article below aptly describes the history of the research on this topic and how the pathology actually develops. It is rather simple (as usual), much to the chagrin of your doctor and his Pharma sponsors. Namely, when the retina is not exposed to sufficient amount of bright sunlight, not enough dopamine is produced, and as it turns out dopamine is crucial for good vision. Modern urban dwellers, and especially children, have changed their lifestyle from being primarily outdoor species who only go inside their dwelling at night or during bad weather, to creatures who spend most of their waking time in indoor enclosures that are not only poor in natural light but provide ample exposure to fluorescent light that is highly damaging to vision. If that wasn’t enough, most people in white collar jobs spend 8+ hours daily looking at a computer screen which emits light not much better than the fluorescent demons above. The combination of all these bizarre lifestyle changes has resulted in a situation where the majority of Western adults (and especially children) suffer from chronic dopamine deficiency, and as a result apparently one third of the entire world’s population will be myopic within a decade. You can get an idea of just how bad the situation is simply by looking at the requirements for light exposure in order to maintain good vision – i.e. the study estimates at least 3 hours of outdoor time under bright light (10,000 lux) for children (and adults). Offices and classrooms are woefully inadequate in providing that amount of exposure. Needless to say, with the exception of a few blue collar workers, not many people in the Western world (adults or children) come even close to meeting that requirement. Perhaps worst of all, as the article itself points out, it took more than a hundred years of science going in the wrong direction to now come back full circle and realize what people in the early 20th century already knew about the causes of myopia. My bigger fear is that medicine is not the only science which had a “lost century”…and many fields have been utterly poisoned by a century’s worth of fake “evidence” supporting absurd theories that have no basis in reality.

The story of myopia the article weaves matches quite well with the findings that serotonergic drugs (which lower dopamine by definition) cause a number of pathologies in the visual system including cataracts, and even blindness. The story is further corroborated by studies demonstrating the profound vision enhancing effects of serotonin antagonists. Dopamine is perhaps the main endogenous serotonin antagonist as not only it directly opposes serotonin’s effects but it also inhibits serotonin synthesis by blocking the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH). So, to paraphrase the famous saying, the moral of the story is probably this – “all study and no (outside) play makes Jimmy a blind boy”.

link here

“…East Asia has been gripped by an unprecedented rise in myopia, also known as short-sightedness. Sixty years ago, 10–20% of the Chinese population was short-sighted. Today, up to 90% of teenagers and young adults are. In Seoul, a whopping 96.5% of 19-year-old men are short-sighted. Other parts of the world have also seen a dramatic increase in the condition, which now affects around half of young adults in the United States and Europe — double the prevalence of half a century ago. By some estimates, one-third of the world’s population — 2.5 billion people — could be affected by short-sightedness by the end of this decade. “We are going down the path of having a myopia epidemic,” says Padmaja Sankaridurg, head of the myopia programme at the Brien Holden Vision Institute in Sydney, Australia. The condition is more than an inconvenience. Glasses, contact lenses and surgery can help to correct it, but they do not address the underlying defect: a slightly elongated eyeball, which means that the lens focuses light from far objects slightly in front of the retina, rather than directly on it. In severe cases, the deformation stretches and thins the inner parts of the eye, which increases the risk of retinal detachment, cataracts, glaucoma and even blindness. Because the eye grows throughout childhood, myopia generally develops in school-age children and adolescents. About one-fifth of university-aged people in East Asia now have this extreme form of myopia, and half of them are expected to develop irreversible vision loss.”

“…For many years, the scientific consensus held that myopia was largely down to genes. Studies in the 1960s showed that the condition was more common among genetically identical twins than non-identical ones, suggesting that susceptibility is strongly influenced by DNA1, link here. Gene-finding efforts have now linked more than 100 regions of the genome to short-sightedness. But it was obvious that genes could not be the whole story. One of the clearest signs came from a 1969 study of Inuit people on the northern tip of Alaska whose lifestyle was changing2, link here. Of adults who had grown up in isolated communities, only 2 of 131 had myopic eyes. But more than half of their children and grandchildren had the condition. Genetic changes happen too slowly to explain this rapid change — or the soaring rates in myopia that have since been documented all over the world (see ‘The march of myopia’, link here). “There must be an environmental effect that has caused the generational difference,” says Seang Mei Saw, who studies the epidemiology and genetics of myopia at the National University of Singapore. There was one obvious culprit: book work. That idea had arisen more than 400 years ago, when the German astronomer and optics expert Johannes Kepler blamed his own short-sightedness on all his study. The idea took root; by the nineteenth century, some leading ophthalmologists were recommending that pupils use headrests to prevent them from poring too closely over their books. The modern rise in myopia mirrored a trend for children in many countries to spend more time engaged in reading, studying or — more recently — glued to computer and smartphone screens. This is particularly the case in East Asian countries, where the high value placed on educational performance is driving children to spend longer in school and on their studies. A report last year3, link here from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed that the average 15-year-old in Shanghai now spends 14 hours per week on homework, compared with 5 hours in the United Kingdom and 6 hours in the United States.

“…The team examined how the children spent their days, and “sort of as an afterthought at the time, we asked about sports and outdoorsy stuff”, says Mutti. It was a good thing they did. After five years, one in five of the children had developed myopia, and the only environmental factor that was strongly associated with risk was time spent outdoors6, link here. “We thought it was an odd finding,” recalls Mutti, “but it just kept coming up as we did the analyses.” A year later, Rose and her colleagues arrived at much the same conclusion in Australia7, link here. After studying more than 4,000 children at Sydney primary and secondary schools for three years, they found that children who spent less time outside were at greater risk of developing myopia.”

“…Yet animal experiments support the idea that light is protective. Researchers first demonstrated this in chicks, a common lab model for studying vision. By fitting chicks with goggles that alter the resolution and contrast of incoming images, it is possible to induce the development of myopia while raising the birds under controlled conditions in which only light intensity is changed. In 2009, Regan Ashby, Arne Ohlendorf and Frank Schaeffel from the University of Tübingen’s Institute for Ophthalmic Research in Germany showed that high illumination levels — comparable to those encountered outside — slowed the development of experimentally induced myopia in chicks by about 60% compared with normal indoor lighting conditions9, link here. Researchers elsewhere have found similar protective effects in tree shrews and rhesus monkeys10, link here. But what scientists really needed was a mechanism: something to explain how bright light could prevent myopia. The leading hypothesis is that light stimulates the release of dopamine in the retina, and this neurotransmitter in turn blocks the elongation of the eye during development. The best evidence for the ‘light–dopamine’ hypothesis comes — again — from chicks. In 2010, Ashby and Schaeffel showed that injecting a dopamine-inhibiting drug called spiperone into chicks’ eyes could abolish the protective effect of bright light11, link here. Retinal dopamine is normally produced on a diurnal cycle — ramping up during the day — and it tells the eye to switch from rod-based, nighttime vision to cone-based, daytime vision. Researchers now suspect that under dim (typically indoor) lighting, the cycle is disrupted, with consequences for eye growth. “If our system does not get a strong enough diurnal rhythm, things go out of control,” says Ashby, who is now at the University of Canberra. “The system starts to get a bit noisy and noisy means that it just grows in its own irregular fashion.”

“…Based on epidemiological studies, Ian Morgan, a myopia researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, estimates that children need to spend around three hours per day under light levels of at least 10,000 lux to be protected against myopia. This is about the level experienced by someone under a shady tree, wearing sunglasses, on a bright summer day. (An overcast day can provide less than 10,000 lux and a well-lit office or classroom is usually no more than 500 lux.) Three or more hours of daily outdoor time is already the norm for children in Morgan’s native Australia, where only around 30% of 17-year-olds are myopic. But in many parts of the world — including the United States, Europe and East Asia — children are often outside for only one or two hours.”

“…But eye drops and light boxes do not have quite the appeal of sending children outside to play, which has plenty of other benefits besides those for the eyes. “It probably also increases physical activity, which decreases likelihood of obesity and enhances mood,” Rose says. “I can only see it as a win — and it’s free.” More than a century ago, Henry Edward Juler, a renowned British eye surgeon, offered similar advice. In 1904, he wrote in A Handbook of Ophthalmic Science and Practice that when “the myopia had become stationary, change of air — a sea voyage if possible — should be prescribed”. As Wildsoet points out: “We’ve taken a hundred years to go back to what people were intuitively thinking was the case.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-644.mp3" length="1592876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:40</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Drop in androgen levels causes Parkinson Disease (PD), DHT reverses it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=642</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=642</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 10 Oct 2019 21:09:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=642

Yet another study demonstrating that many of the so-called chronic, degenerative and above all “mysterious” conditions often have quite a simple cause and, potentially, treatment. There is no need for mutated genes or complex interactions of genes with environment that nobody can decipher. Chronic stress leads to metabolic and endocrine changes that alone are sufficient to cause virtually all “named” pathologies we have on the books. Just as importantly, endogenous chemicals that have been declared “evil” for more than a century, now turn out to be among the most protective substances available to medicine. Case in point – the study demonstrated that all it takes for PD to develop in males is a sudden drop in androgen levels. While the study mentions both testosterone (T) and DHT as key players, the treatment regimen in this study for reversing PD used DHT instead of T. Yes, that same “evil” DHT that we have been told causes prostate cancer, baldness, obesity, PCOS, osteoporosis, etc. /s

All it took to reverse the symptoms of PD in these castrated rodents was DHT supplementation with HED of ~2mg/kg daily, for 30 days. This dose of DHT is high, but in extreme (and sudden) cases such as castration much higher doses of an androgen may be needed to reverse severe brain pathologies. Other rodent studies have shown that DHT at a HED of 5mg-10mg daily also has robust neuroprotective effects. Interestingly, the drop in androgen levels caused a massive increase in nitric oxide (NO) synthesis. This elevation in NO resulted in destruction of dopamine-producing neurons, as well as a drop in the brain-anabolic factor GDNF. DHT administration reversed all of these pathological changes. Speaking of androgen-depleting events – physical or chemical castration is not the only possible cause. Chronic stress, emotional trauma, radiation exposure (X-rays anyone?), endocrine disruptors, infectious disease, endotoxin, SSRI drugs, PPI drugs, statins, PUFA, etc all count as “castration” events that can potentially cause such PD-inducing drop in androgen levels. Speaking of PUFA, cholesterol and castration, I posted something on that very topic just a few weeks ago.

Cholesterol and saturated fat are anabolic; PUFA/MUFA akin to chemical castration, link here

Btw, the reason the study authors used DHT instead of T was that they were concerned about T aromatizing easily to estrogen, considering the negative effects estrogen has on brain pathologies like PD in males. In fact, the role of estrogen in PD pathology is acknowledged to the point that aromatase inhibitors are proposed as promising candidates for treating PD.

link here

Well, if androgen drop causes PD, androgen administration reverses it, and estrogen administration worsens it then the only conclusion is that DHT is the main protective factor here. T, aside from its conversion into estrogen, has only one other pathway it can go towards – conversion into DHT. Actually, it can convert back into androstenedione but that pathway is minor and also leads to estrogen. Finally, DHT lowers estrogen but T does not (it even increases it). So, it is fair to say that loss/decline of potent androgenic steroids can cause PD and supplementation with the most potent endogenous non-aromatizabe androgen (DHT) can reverse it. Considering the causative role elevated NO and lower dopamine (and as such higher prolactin) play in prostate cancer, the whole approach with chemical castration starts to look even more absurd. If anything, this study suggests that DHT should be used to treat prostate cancer 🙂

link here

“…To find out whether the observed pathological changes are due to castration-related loss of male sex hormone, we performed this experiment. However, testosterone may be converted into estrogen by aromatase. Therefore, to avoid the complexity, castrated male mice received DHT pellets (30-day release), which were implanted subcutaneously in the scapular area of the neck of castrated male mice on the day of castration (Fig. 8, link hereA). It is interesting to see that DHT supplementation protected nigral TH (Fig. 8, link here, B and C) and preserved striatal DA (Fig. 8, link hereD) in 4–5-week-old castrated male mice. Accordingly, DHT supplementation also improved rotarod performance (Fig. 8, link hereE), horizontal activity (Fig. 8, link hereF), total distance (Fig. 8, link hereG), movement time (Fig. 8, link hereH), number of movement (Fig. 8, link hereI), and stereotypy (Fig. 8, link hereJ).”

“…On the other hand, NO has also been implicated in several CNS disorders, including inflammatory, infectious, traumatic, and degenerative diseases (18, link here, 36, link here–, link here38, link here). There is considerable evidence for the transcriptional induction of iNOS (the high output isoform of NOS) in the CNS that is associated with degenerative brain injury (18, link here, 35, link here, 37, link here, 38, link here). NO is potentially toxic to neurons and oligodendrocytes that may mediate toxicity through the formation of iron-NO complexes of iron-containing enzyme systems (39, link here), oxidation of protein sulfhydryl groups (40, link here), nitration of proteins, and nitrosylation of nucleic acids and DNA strand breaks (41, link here). Here, we have described a new mechanism by which iNOS-derived NO may couple nigrostriatal degeneration (summarized in Fig. 12, link hereI). Whereas castration increased the expression of iNOS in the nigra, the level of GDNF went down drastically in the nigra after castration. ”

link here

“…”While scientists use different toxins and a number of complex genetic approaches to model Parkinson’s disease in mice, we have found that the sudden drop in the levels of testosterone following castration is sufficient to cause persistent Parkinson’s like pathology and symptoms in male mice,” said Dr. Kalipada Pahan, lead author of the study and the Floyd A. Davis endowed professor of neurology at Rush. “We found that the supplementation of testosterone in the form of 5-alpha dihydrotestosterone (DHT) pellets reverses Parkinson’s pathology in male mice.” “In men, testosterone levels are intimately coupled to many disease processes,” said Pahan. Typically, in healthy males, testosterone level is the maximum in the mid-30s, which then drop about one percent each year. However, testosterone levels may dip drastically due to stress or sudden turn of other life events, which may make somebody more vulnerable to Parkinson’s disease. “Therefore, preservation of testosterone in males may be an important step to become resistant to Parkinson’s disease,” said Pahan. Understanding how the disease works is important to developing effective drugs that protect the brain and stop the progression of Parkinson’s disease. Nitric oxide is an important molecule for our brain and the body. “However, when nitric oxide is produced within the brain in excess by a protein called inducible nitric oxide synthase, neurons start dying,” said Pahan.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-642.mp3" length="1817060" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cutting down on red / processed meat does NOT benefit health</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=640</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=640</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 10 Oct 2019 19:59:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=640

The crusade against meat is one of the most vibrant topics on the blogosphere. It used to be a small subset of the population who objected to eating meat mostly out of moral reasons (e.g. concern for animal welfare) or due to health concerns. At the same time, the meatless movement conveniently ignores studies that show vegans/vegetarians have higher risk of stroke – one of the key health emergencies that going meatless as supposed to prevent.

Vegans and vegetarians have a higher risk of stroke, link here

Now, the study below pours more cold water on the supposed health benefits of going meatless. The study looked at not only stroke, but CVD, diabetes, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, sarcopenia, bone issues, etc and and it claims that such benefits are simply non-existent. And as the study points out, since its authors reviewed pretty much all publicly available evidence, it would be hard to come up with an argument in favor of dropping meat.

2 links here

“…A panel of international scientists systematically reviewed the evidence and have recommended that most adults should continue to eat their current levels of red and processed meat. The researchers performed four systematic reviews focused on randomized controlled trials and observational studies looking at the impact of red meat and processed meat consumption on cardiometabolic and cancer outcomes. In one review of 12 trials with 54,000 people, the researchers did not find statistically significant or an important association between meat consumption and the risk of heart disease, diabetes or cancer. In three systematic reviews of cohort studies following millions of people, a very small reduction in risk among those who had three fewer servings of red or processed meat a week, but the association was uncertain. The authors also did a fifth systematic review looking at people’s attitudes and health-related values around eating red and processed meats. They found people eat meat because they see it as healthy, they like the taste and they are reluctant to change their diet. The five systematic reviews, a recommendation and an editorial on the topic were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine today.”

“…The accompanying editorial by authors at the Indiana University School of Medicine said: “This is sure to be controversial, but is based on the most comprehensive review of the evidence to date. Because that review is inclusive, those who seek to dispute it will be hard pressed to find appropriate evidence with which to build an argument.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-640.mp3" length="468140" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:05</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Arginine / glutamine depletion may treat cancer by blocking the Warburg “Effect”</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=635</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=635</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 10 Oct 2019 18:00:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=635

As my readers have noticed, I started putting quotes around the “effect” part of the infamous observation made by Otto Warburg himself. Over the last 3-4 years, even mainstream medicine has started to publish studies acknowledging that the “effect” is very much a cause as well. In other words, acidosis is not benign and is likely one of the main drivers of cancer (mostly through VEGF upregulation). In fact, a few recent studies have shown that metabolic (lactic) acidosis is a necessary and sufficient condition for cancerization of tissues.

Baking soda may treat cancer, metformin may cause it, link here

While cancer uses amino acids as raw material to synthesize glucose and then fat, one amino acid stands out as an exception – arginine – due to the fact that cancer cells do not use it as fuel yet it is crucial for the cancer’s survival/proliferation. Virtually all cancer types have been shown to be highly sensitive to arginine depletion or supplementation, with the former greatly restricting growth and latter promoting it. The arginine-depleting chemical L-NAME is in clinical trials for various cancers and so far the results are very promising. The main mechanism of action through which arginine-depletion retards the growth of cancer is likely through inhibition of nitric oxide (NO) synthesis. Arginine is the main endogenous precursor to NO and without arginine the only other source of NO is from dietary nitrates. While most studies with arginine depletion do not elucidate a mechanism through which arginine depletion inhibits lactic acidosis and tumor growth, I think the most likely explanation is inhibition of fatty acid oxidation (FAO). Anything that inhibits NO also results in lower FAO, likely due to restoration of OXPHOS, which NO reliably inhibits (at the cytochrome C oxidase step).

link here

“…BACKGROUND: Preeclampsia is one of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy. It is associated with abnormal lipid metabolism, including fatty acid oxidation metabolism. Long chain 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (LCHAD) plays an indispensable role in the oxidation of fatty acids. It has been reported that nitric oxide (NO) is one of the regulatory factors of the fatty acid oxidation pathway. The aim of this research was to investigate whether the nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitor L-NAME may cause down-regulation of LCHAD in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia.”

The study below now demonstrates that depleting arginine also arrests the Warburg “Effect” and, when combined with glutamine restriction/inihbition/depletion, is therapeutic for a number of lethal cancers (including sarcoma, melanoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, prostate cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, and pancreatic cancer) that do not respond to any conventional treatment. The study used a patented arginine-degrading chemical (ADI-PEG20) in order to reduce arginine availability for cancer cells. However, better options may already be available. One of them is L-NAME, which I mentioned before. Another one is methylene blue or niacinamide, both of which inhibit NO synthesis. Finally, the amino acid glycine has been shown to induce a functional arginine deficiency and supplementation with is retards cancer growth (in contrast to arginine). Aspirin also lowers NO synthesis by inhibition of both iNOS and nNOS. And of course, avoidance of dietary nitrates is very important to ensure that NO cannot be synthesized from exogenous precursors.

link here

“…Using global metabolomics analysis and stable isotope tracing, Kremer et al. show that arginine starvation of ASS1-deficient tumors causes an increase in serine biosynthesis, glutamine anaplerosis, and oxidative phosphorylation with a simultaneous decrease in aerobic glycolysis. Pharmacological inhibition of escape pathways to arginine deprivation exhibits a synthetic lethal interaction.”

“…We demonstrate that the removal of arginine from ASS1-deficient, arginine auxotrophic cancers rapidly alters metabolism, downregulates the Warburg effect, and upregulates glutamine anaplerosis (Figure 7, link here). Interestingly, targeting a defect in the urea cycle can lead to the upregulation of OxPhos, glutamine metabolism, and serine biosynthesis. This shift renders cells vulnerable to synthetic lethal metabolic strategies in which ADI-PEG20 induces arginine starvation, whereas glutaminase inhibitors suppress the compensatory reliance on glutamine and PHGDH inhibitors prohibit the upregulation of serine biosynthesis. Although neither GLS inhibition nor arginine deprivation alone is sufficient to induce high levels of cell death because of the rapid metabolic reprogramming that occurs upon single-agent exposure, together they are therapeutically effective at killing tumor cells and suppressing tumor growth. ADI-PEG20 also diverts glucose into serine biosynthesis and subsequent downstream single-carbon folate metabolism, sensitizing cells to anti-folate metabolites such as methotrexate.”

“…The decrease in lactic acid fermentation and increased rate of OxPhos indicate that arginine deprivation can inhibit the Warburg effect. As shown by the energetic profiling (Figure 5D, link here), glycolytic WT cell lines decrease the ECAR and increase the OCR upon short- and long-term ADI-PEG20 treatment as they downregulate the Warburg effect and upregulate OxPhos in response to arginine starvation.”

“…Another key observation is the realization that the Warburg effect can be exploited for therapeutic benefit. ADI-PEG20 treatment of glycolytic, ASS1-deficient cell lines resulted in inhibition of the Warburg effect. These changes were accompanied by a simultaneous redirection of glucose through the serine biosynthetic pathway and compensatory engagement of a survival program utilizing glutamine anaplerosis to harness the TCA cycle for energy and biomass generation. By altering how cancer cells utilize glucose, we can disrupt the ability of tumor cells to build the biomass necessary to sustain rapid cellular division.”

link here

“…But, a novel mechanism for specifically targeting cancer cells has been reported in the January 24th issue of Cell Reports. Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have uncovered a weak spot in cancer cells that is not present in normal cells—the need for arginine, one of the 20 amino acids that make up human proteins. Brian A. Van Tine, MD, PhD, an associate professor of medicine and colleagues found that cancer cells, especially those from sarcomas (2), have a critical defect—they rely on arginine in the blood for fuel. Normal cells make their own arginine, but 90 percent of sarcoma cancer cells cannot (3). When deprived of arginine, these cells starve, and begin a process called autophagy, link here (self-eating). This defect in cancer cell metabolism raises the possibility of a drug that would kill only cancer cells by selectively depleting the supply of arginine in the blood. But, this is not enough. An experimental drug called ADI-PEG20, which depletes arginine in the blood has failed in several clinical trials. This is because cancer cells are rather fond of living, and have developed a way to survive in the absence of arginine. When its supply is shut off, the cells slow down for a while, but then turn on a salvage pathway, which instead uses glutamine, another amino acid. In fact, when sarcoma cells were exposed to ADI-PEG20, they actually began to make more glutamine (upregulation). Van Tine’s group decided that a double whammy was necessary—shutting off the supply of both amino acids (4). When a drug that inhibits glutamine biosynthesis was added, the cells couldn’t handle both and began feeding on themselves. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-635.mp3" length="1391204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fish feel pain just like other animals and humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=633</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=633</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:19:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=633

Yet another piece of evidence that there is no such thing as a “lower animal” and pretty much anything with consciousness experiences pain much the same way we do. Yet despite these advances in our understanding of how similar we are to any other living creature, we still have surgeons performing surgery on babies without anesthesia, as well as vivisection studies done on live animals such as frogs and fish with the excuse that they do not feel pain the way we do because they are not “developed enough”. As if feeling pain required some measure of intelligence. If so, then considering the low intelligence of many doctors making such claims maybe then would agree to undergo surgery without anesthesia and have their screams brushed aside as “simple reflex to noxious stimuli”, which is the explanation given in regards to babies, frogs, fish, etc writhing in pain when subjected to this barbaric treatment.

link here

“…The existence of pain in mammals is a long-known fact, and helped give rise to veganism and vegetarianism. But many diets exclude meat but include fish, often due to a lack of evidence over whether fish feel pain. Now a study claims that fish do feel pain in similar ways to mammals – including humans. Fish given an electric shock in one part of the tank stopped feeding there, researchers from the University of Liverpool reported in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B journal. The fish would refuse to feed for three days, effectively starving themselves. Another type of fish called a perch would not feed as frequently after its mouth had been damaged by a fishing hook. This indicates that the fish had been hurt by the injury. Other fish were documented hyperventilating, waving their injury tails and rubbing parts of their body after an injury. Now experts say fish should be treated more humanely. This includes using less damaging hooks to catch fish, and killing fish more quickly after being caught, researchers say. “When subject to a potentially painful event, fishes show adverse changes in behaviour such as suspension of feeding and reduced activity, which are prevented when a pain-relieving drug is provided,” said Dr Lynne Sneddon, of the University of Liverpool. “When the fish’s lips are given a painful stimulus, they rub the mouth against the side of the tank – much like we rub our toe when we stub it.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-633.mp3" length="455108" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Poverty makes people dumb and prematurely old</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=630</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=630</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Oct 2019 19:45:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=630

A common debate in public policy is whether people slide into poverty because they are stupid or being poor makes people stupid and unable to cope with life. The study below adds some evidence to the latter claim and found that extended poverty (20 years or longer) exposure also causes premature aging. Perhaps one of the most striking finding was that even highly educated people and/or young people easily lost their mental prowess when exposed to poverty. This, again, suggests it is poverty that causes the mental decline and the other way around. Of the four explanations proposed by the authors on how poverty causes this mental decline and premature aging, I think the third one is the most salient – chronic stress and thus elevated cortisol. There are few things more destructive for the brain than cortisol. Serotonin is probably the only other stress mediator that can give cortisol a good run for its money.

2 links here

“…Falling into poverty, link here appears to make people become less intelligent and become old before their time, according to a new study. Researchers found life on the breadline for 20 years was “strongly associated” with “worse cognitive function” and premature aging. And they suggested the potential causes of this phenomenon included the stress of having little money, inadequate housing and sanitation, and an unhealthy lifestyle – a poor diet, smoking, alcohol and too little exercise. Writing in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, researchers led by Professor Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri, of Miami University, said the trend was found even among highly educated people who fell on hard times. This, they argued, means it is unlikely that people who are becoming less intelligent for some other reason are falling into poverty.”

“…What the researchers found was that people who lived continually in poverty “performed significantly worse” than those who had never had to survive on a low income in tests of verbal memory, the brain’s processing speed and its executive function. “The overall magnitude of the associations suggests that economic adversities experienced in young adulthood are important determinants of cognitive health in midlife,” the paper said.”

“Third, the stress of exposure to low income has been shown to be associated with dysfunction of the hypothalamic adrenocortical axis [glands inside the brain], which in turn is a pathway leading to worse risk factors of cognition.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-630.mp3" length="436820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Energy deficiency due to stress causes anxiety, panic disorders, and subbordination</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=628</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=628</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Oct 2019 19:03:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=628

This is a great study on so many levels. First, it directly demonstrates that chronic stress leads to mitochondrial dysfunction and reduced oxidative phosphorylation. Second, it demonstrates that glucocorticoids (cortisol) are a direct cause of this energy production downregulation. Third, it demonstrates a direct parallel between animal models and human mood/mental disorders by comparing the changes in mitochondrial function in stressed/anxious/panicked rodents with the changes in people with anxiety / panic disorders. This almost perfect match between the stress-induced mitochondrial dysfunction in rodents and the mitochondrial dysfunction seen in people pours cold water on the medical industry’s enthusiastic defensive response that “mice/rats are not people, so we can’t draw conclusions” (read: when we don’t like what a study shows we can always claim that since it was done on animals, so it does not apply to people). More importantly, the study directly suggests that the anxiety / panic disorders in people were also triggered by chronic stress. This is not at all surprising and has actually been tacitly acknowledged by the medical industry in a highly devious manner, as I described in this post of mine below. While that admission by medicine applies only to depression, we can now add anxiety and panic disorder to the list. Btw, most people with depression also struggle with of anxiety / panic disorder and vice versa, so the link makes perfect sense…except to your psychiatrist of course:-)

Vast majority (90%) of depression cases are caused by stress, link here

Moving on. Fourth, the study demonstrates that chronic stress leads to subordinate behavior in addition to triggering mental health disorders, and this subordinate behavior is linked to decreased oxidative phosphorylation. What else leads to subordinate behavior? You guessed it – serotonin. Hhmm, I wonder what happens to serotonin when we are under stress and/or take SSRI drugs…Yeah, suffices to say that serotonergic drugs are really the wet dream of any fascist state – they are the most direct way to produce obedient, zombified slaves. Fifth, it provides a simple and intuitive explanation for mental health disorders as the (mal)adaptive downregulation of energy production in the brain in an effort to conserve energetic resources in the face of inescapable stress (learned helplessness). Finally, the study also demonstrates the role of estrogen in stress-induced energetic changes, thus once again confirming estrogen’s role as a stress mediator as much as it is a “sex” hormone. Needless to say, the study is generating a lot of “controversy” in mainstream media (read: PR agencies hired by the medical industry scrambling to prepare responses on how it’s “all in your genes”), but the cat is slowly getting out of the bag. As the Chinese say “evil things done in secret have a way of becoming known”.

Well, in light of this terrible news, what is one to do? As the second study from the list below demonstrates, niacinamide supplementation rescues both the anxiety and subordinate (slave) behavior caused by chronic stress. The study design may be replicated with a human dosage of about 50mg, and the protective effects of niacinamide were due to elevation of NAD and ATP levels in the brain. Considering the rapid conversion into NAD of this relatively low dose niacinamide, the 50mg may need to be taken several times daily or upon experiencing a stressful event. Another approach would be to take a higher dosage in the 300mg-500mg range, which has been shown to keep NAD levels elevated for more than 24 hours.

4 links here

“…The target genes within the beta-estradiol cluster were predicted to be significantly downregulated (PFDR = 0.015) in the D2 resilient mice in comparison to the controls on the transcriptome level. On the proteome level, the same genes within the beta-estradiol cluster were significantly downregulated in the B6 resilient mice in comparison to the B6 controls (PFDR = 0.015)…Thus, as previously shown [32, link here], some stress-associated DE genes may be under the regulation of hormones.”

“…In an outbred strain rat model of social behavior, highly anxious rats that were prone to become subordinate during a social encounter with a rat with low levels of anxiety had lower levels of mitochondrial complex I and II proteins in the nucleus accumbens [48, link here]. In a study that specifically investigated gene expression of mtDNA-encoded genes [49, link here], four of these genes (mt-Nd1, mt-Nd3, mt-Nd6, and mt-Atp6) were downregulated after acute immobilization stress in the hippocampus. However, after chronic immobilization stress mt-Nd6 was upregulated. These effects were mediated by glucocorticoids.”

“…Additionally, D2 resilient mice with higher social interaction ratios also had an elevated latency to immobility in the FST, suggesting resistance to behavioral despair or lack of adaptation aimed at energy conservation in the face of inescapable situation.”

“…On the pathway level, oxidative phosphorylation-related genes were differentially expressed both in the mouse BNST and blood cells, and in the panic disorder patient blood cells. These genes were upregulated in the defeated B6 and downregulated in the defeated D2 mice compared to controls both in the BNST and blood cells. Strikingly, this pathway was downregulated in panic disorder patients directly and 24 h after an exposure-induced panic attack. It is interesting that the gene expression pattern of the patients resembles that of the more stress-susceptible mouse strain, suggesting that stress-susceptibility may involve a general modulation of genes associated with mitochondrial function.”

link here

“…After the CSDS test, the animals displayed significant changes in gene expression and protein levels in a brain region called the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST). The BNST is in the forebrain, and researchers are increasingly linking it to stress-related mental health conditions. These changes had a particularly prominent association with mitochondria. These small structures — that scientists refer to as the cell’s powerhouses — are present in the majority of our cells and responsible for energy production. Strikingly, in the stress susceptible D2 mouse strain, several genes related to mitochondrial functions were expressed at lower levels, while in the stress resilient B6 mouse strain, these were expressed at higher levels.”

“…For the second part of their study, Hovatta and her colleagues worked with 21 volunteers — 6 men and 15 women — who attended the anxiety disorder outpatient unit at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany. Each participant had a diagnosis of panic disorder, and none took medication for the condition. The team exposed each study participant to the trigger that causes them to experience a panic attack. During the experiment, the researchers collected blood samples prior to, as well as 1 hour and 24 hours after exposure. When they analyzed gene expression in the cells present in the volunteers’ blood, they also saw changes in genes they associated with mitochondria. The changes in gene expression most closely resembled the pattern seen in the D2 mice exposed to CSDS, with several mitochondrial genes expressed at lower levels. “Thus, although we found opposite gene expression patterns in the two mouse strains, the pattern of the highly stress susceptible mouse strain resembled that of panic disorder patients,” the authors comment in the paper. Based on their results, the team thinks this indicates that reduced expression of several key mitochondrial genes could lead to changes in cellular energy metabolism in mice and people who experience stress-induced anxiety.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-628.mp3" length="1722524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin may protect lungs from air pollution</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=626</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=626</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Oct 2019 15:34:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=626

It seems that there is nothing mighty aspirin cannot do. Just recently, I posted about its ability to treat (and, more importantly, potentially have curative effect) erectile dysfunction (ED) at least as effectively as established drugs such as Viagra, Levitra, Cialis, etc. yet with much fewer side effects.

Aspirin as effective as Viagra for ED, but with much fewer side effects, link here

As many of my readers know, air pollution is a full-blown health crisis in most major cities around the world and has been linked to numerous health problems such as autism, mental health disorders, and low IQ.

3 links here

However, without a doubt, air pollution’s strongest impact is on the lungs, considering this organ most often comes into contact with the pollutants in the air. As such, unsurprisingly, air pollution has been linked to a variety of lung diseases such as emphysema, bronchitis and even lung cancer.

3 links here

Well, mighty little aspirin may be able to help here as well. While the study did not specifically look at aspirin preventing the mood/neurological disorders from air pollution, there are separate studies on those topics that I have already posted – i.e. aspirin helping mood/cognitive disorders, even dementias and movement disorders such as Parkinson and Huntington. What the study did demonstrate is that even low dose aspirin robustly prevent damage in the lugs caused by air pollution, and the longer the aspirin usage continues the stronger the protective effects.

2 links here

“…To come to their conclusions, the research team analyzed a dataset collected from 2,280 male veterans with an average age of 73 hailing from the Boston area. Each man was given multiple tests measuring their lung function and overall health. The relationship between each participant’s lung test results, self-reported NSAID (aspirin) use, and particulate matter, link here (PM) / black carbon levels in Boston during the month prior to testing was evaluated. Additional factors were also considered, such as each man’s personal medical history and whether or not he was a regular smoker. Researchers discovered that the use of any NSAID mitigated the negative effect of PM on lung function by nearly half. This finding was consistent across all four air pollution readings taken during the study, ranging from PM levels collected on the very same day that lung testing took place, to as long ago as 28 days prior to testing. Most of the participants in the study were taking aspirin, so the study author’s say their findings apply mainly to aspirin specifically. That being said, they also believe non-aspirin NSAIDs likely have the same positive effect on lung function and should be investigated further.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-626.mp3" length="681524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:34</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>DHT may treat prostate cancer, estrogen (E2) strongly promotes it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=583</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=583</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 23 Sep 2019 19:25:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=583

As I have posted many times over the last 4-5 years and discussed numerous times on Danny Roddy’s podcasts, the so-called “androgen hypothesis” (as in androgens being a cause) of prostate cancer appears to be little more than untenable conjectures often combined with outright fraud. What’s worse, millions of men are not only being chemically castrated but the castration itself is often done by administering estrogens (both natural and synthetic) despite solid evidence that estrogen is carcinogenic and likely involved in the genesis of prostate cancer. Fortunately, over the last several years a number of studies have been published demonstrating that not only androgens do NOT cause prostate cancer, they in fact treat it, even in very advanced, terminal cases. The human studies showing the tremendous beneficial potential of androgen therapy for prostate cancer have so far used testosterone (T), but there are also multiple in-vitro studies showing DHT (and its derivatives/isomers) also has therapeutic effects.

link here

Drostanolone (a DHT isomer) may treat prostate cancer, link here

Well, the study below finally adds in-vivo evidence to the hypothesis that DHT is very much a treatment for and NOT a cause of prostate cancer. In fact, the study shows that in cases where the tumors were smaller than 250mm^3 in volume, the DHT treatment caused tumors to completely disappear. If we scale those mice tumors to a human size, assuming linear scaling that would correspond to tumors of volume close to 950 cm^3 for a male weighing 75kg. This is a massive tumor size and if DHT can cause such tumors to disappear then the study results suggest that for most men with prostate cancers DHT treatment would be curative. As far as the dosage of DHT – it corresponds to a human dose of 0.08 mg/kg weekly. This is a tiny dose as typical doses of DHT used clinically are on the order of 10mg-12mg daily. If the human equivalent of ~1mg DHT daily could make huge prostate tumors disappear then imagine what 10mg-12mg can do!

Now, if DHT is not the cause of prostate cancer, as the study strongly suggests, then what is?? Well, the study is silent on the direct cause (for obvious political reasons IMHO), but what it did show is that administration of estradiol (E2) dramatically increased tumor growth. Please note that both the high and low dose estradiol (E2) were equally potent in increasing tumor growth. So, a good interpretation of this result would be that there is no such thing as a safe/low estrogen dose/level, when it comes to cancer, despite what doctors and media “experts” trumpet all day. I think my dear readers can draw their own conclusions as to what hormonal agent causes prostate cancer. I’ll give you a hint – its name starts with an E…:-)

link here

“…Introduction & Objectives: Estrogen signalling in advanced prostate cancer is still unclear. Estradiol (E2) and metabolites of DHT can selectively activate ERb, an estrogen receptor which proposed functions also include antiproliferative action. The aim of this xenograft model was to elucidate the function of ERb in a chemotherapy regimen with docetaxel and Estradiol E2 (high and low dose – on/off schedule) and DHT and its effects on tumor growth, expression of steroid receptors and a mitotic kinase, Nek2.”

“…Material & Methods: Tumors were induced in 6 weeks old NMRI nude mice by injection of LnCaP cells (2×10^6 million cells) in both flans of the animals. Mice bearing tumors of > 200mm^3 were castrated, randomized in 5 groups and treatment with Docetaxel i.p. (40 mg/kg), Docetaxel and Estradiol in on-off schedule (High-dose: 1mg/kg or low-dose: 0.1mg/kg s.c., one week on, one week off) or Docetaxel and DHT (1mg/kg – on schedule weekly) started when tumors were considered as androgen independent. Mice were sacrificed when they were compromised by excessive tumor load. Yumors were harvested and immunohistochemical staining for ERb, AR, PSA, Ki-67 and Nek2 performed.”

“…Results: Tumor growth was 2 fold increased in the high-dose E2 and low-dose E2 treated group compared to the control group. Interestingly, combination therapy of DHT and docetaxel caused a signficant reduction of tumor volume (30%-50%) and tumors <250mm^3 disappeared. Tumor size in docetaxel treated mice could only be stabilized over 2 cycles. Immunohistochemical  staining showed a correlation of ERb expression, expression of Nek2 and AR in high-dose E2 treated mice and DHT treated mice.”

“…Conclusions: Combination of docetaxel and intermittent DHT application reduced tumor volume significantly in this animal model. DHT might promote chemosensitivity to docetaxel by complex modulation of ERb, AR and mitotic kinases like Nek2.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-583.mp3" length="1411004" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cholesterol and saturated fat are anabolic; PUFA/MUFA akin to chemical castration</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=574</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=574</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 20 Sep 2019 17:23:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=574

A pair of interesting study and a commentary in the highly respected Journals of Gerontology. Namely, higher cholesterol intake is associated with much higher lean muscle mass accrual as a result of weight lifting. Interestingly, higher protein intake was not. Even more interestingly, and much to the chagrin of the medical industry, the increased dietary cholesterol did NOT increase biomarkers of CVD. While the study that found this association did not provide an explanation of the mechanism, the commentary in the same journal did. Namely, dietary saturated fat increases androgens – both by stimulating sterodogenic enzymes (as I have discussed in other posts) and by increasing cholesterol levels. In contrast, PUFA (and to a lesser degree MUFA) decrease synthesis and subsequently blood levels of androgen such as T, DHT, DHEA, androstenedione, etc and even of some of their precursors such as pregnenolone. Famous US bodybuilder Vince Gironda, whose career began before AAS were widely available, often said something along the lines of “consuming 2-3 dozens of eggs daily has the same effects as AAS”. Considering that amounts to ingesting 5g-7g cholesterol daily, the “Iron Guru” was probably right on the money with his statement.

On a more sinister note, I do remember reading studies from the first half of the 20th century that suggested subjecting prostate cancer patients to a high-PUFA diet as a form of androgen deprivation therapy. Those studies made it quite clear that eating PUFA was akin to the “chemical castration” to which men continue to be subjected even today as “treatment” for their prostate cancer. The commentary to the cholesterol article also mentions the testosterone-decimating effects of PUFA, which makes me think that this castration effect of PUFA is well known among the medical professionals. On that note, the last two studies in this post are quite relevant. One of the studies found that PUFA-rich oils widely used in the food supply have a potent DHT lowering effects. The other study found that even the relatively “benign” oleic acid (a MUFA) exhibits strong estrogenic and anti-androgenic effects on offspring when fed to the mother in HED doses of 10g-15g daily, which is quite in line with what most consumers of Western diets are exposed to on a daily basis.

In light of the recent studies showing men’s T levels and sperm counts have plummeted over the last 2-3 decades maybe the infertility epidemic has a very easy explanation – deliberate chemical castration of men through their PUFA-loaded (even MUFA-loaded) food supply.

link here

“…The average dietary cholesterol consumption was strongly associated (r = 0.448, p =.001) with the change in lean mass, which was further strengthened by adjustments for body mass (r = 0.467, p =.001) and lean mass (r = 0.512, p <.001) (Figure 1A). Although dietary protein (g/kg lean mass/d) was significantly correlated with dietary cholesterol (r = 0.387, p =.004), protein was not significantly correlated with change in lean mass (r = −0.034, p =.802). Other dietary factors, kcal/kg lean mass/d, and mean kilocalories consumed per kilocalories of resting energy expenditure were not significantly correlated with the change in lean mass (18). Only dietary cholesterol entered a stepwise linear regression model (R2 = 0.27, p <.001), which evaluated the independent association of major dietary constituents to change in lean mass.”

“…The direct association between dietary cholesterol and changes in strength further supports the potential anabolic role of cholesterol. Moreover, the significant indirect association of HDL cholesterol with absolute strength both before and after training highlights the potential role of subfractions in the physiology of this response. Whereas the LDL subfraction delivers cholesterol to tissues and is strongly associated with muscle gain, the HDL subfraction delivers cholesterol away from tissues to be metabolized. Previous studies on cholesterol and muscle characteristics are quite limited; however, Kohl and colleagues (34) reported a strong inverse association, consistent with our findings, between HDL and 1 RM strength for chest and leg press (same as in the present report) in 5460 men.”

2 links here

“…Riechman and colleagues (1) have published an excellent article in this Journal examining the relationship between dietary and serum cholesterol and the accrual of lean body mass with resistance exercise training. Omitted from this article, however, was a possible mechanism that I believe could assist in explaining their results. That is, the effects of dietary saturated fats and/or cholesterol on circulating androgen concentrations. A number of studies (2–5) have shown that reducing saturated fat in the diet, and/or replacing saturated fat with what are considered more healthy fats (polyunsaturated and/or monounsaturated fats), results in significant decline in the circulating testosterone concentration. With the well-known anabolic effects of androgens on skeletal muscle, this potentially could provide an additional link between saturated fats and/or cholesterol, resistance exercise, and lean body mass accrual. Further, if the authors have not already done so, and samples are available, I believe they should consider assessing circulating androgen concentrations and relating them to the amount of dietary cholesterol/saturated fat ingested, circulating cholesterol, and lean body mass accrual resulting from resistance exercise.”

link here

“…Anti-androgenic substances, mainly prostate 5α-reductase inhibitors, used in the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) have been associated with side effects in man and animals. To reduce these side effects as well as suppress BPH development, the management of the condition has come to include dietary interventions. This study investigated the effect of some cooking oils on testosterone-induced hyperplasia of the prostate in rats. Male Sprague-dawley rats were distributed into eighteen groups (n=6) as A-R. A negative control group was injected subcutaneously with soya oil; while prostatic hyperplasia was induced subcutaneously in groups B-R with 3mg/kg testosterone daily for 14days. Group B was the positive control (BPH group) while groups C-R were also administered orally 800mg/kg of coconut, castor, canola, cottonseed, pomegranate, blackseed, sheabutter, olive oil, codliver, sardine, palm, repeatedly heated palm (RHPO), vegetable, repeatedly-heated vegetable (RHVO), sesame, and groundnut oils respectively, daily, for 14 days. Blood sample was drawn via retro-orbital sinus for the estimation of serum testosterone(T) and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) level and rats were thereafter euthanized to obtain the prostates for T and DHT determination as well as tissue weights. Data are mean ± SEM, compared by ANOVA. The oils significantly reduced the increase in prostate weight (PW) to body weight (BW) ratio induced by testosterone. Apart from the fact that all the oils reduced the PW:BW ratio, the blackseed, sheabutter, sardine, vegetable and groundnut oils suppressed the DHT level in the serum, while pomegranate, olive, RHPO reduced DHT level in the prostate compared to the BPH rats. This study suggests that blackseed, sheabutter, sardine, vegetable, groundnut, pomegranate, olive, and RHPO oils could inhibit testosterone-induced hyperplasia of the prostate and therefore may be beneficial in the management of BPH.”

link here

“…This study was designed to determine if prenatal exposure to oleic acid would alter testicular endocrine functions in either an estrogenic or antiandrogenic manner at puberty. Gravid dams were distributed into four groups of five rats each as follows: Control group (1 ml/kg olive oil throughout pregnancy), pre-treatment group (1000 mg/kg of oleic acid for 7 days before mating), preimplantation group (1000 mg/kg of oleic acid for the period of preimplantation), Organogenesis group (1000 mg/kg of oleic acid for the period of organogenesis). Dams delivered naturally and male offspring were studied into puberty. Morphological landmarks, hormone levels and sex accessory gland development were assessed. Estrogenic properties included shortened AGI, decrease in serum LH and T (P<0.001), increase in prolactin level in the organogenesis group. Antiandrogenic properties included delayed pubertal maturation, altered serum LH and T levels (P<0.001), epididymal sperm numbers in all treated groups. The results provide in vivo example of a pronounced degree of target tissue selectivity to an environmental endocrine-disruptor.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-574.mp3" length="1306820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Oral free/base (unesterified) testosterone is more effective and safer than synthetic AAS</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=563</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=563</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Sep 2019 19:58:36 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=563

A number of my blog readers contacted me over the last 2 weeks and urged me to write this post in response to the recent FDA approval of the first oral testosterone (T) product in the USA. The approved product will contain the testosterone ester undecanoate in the form of tablets.

link here

Well here is my take on this recent FDA decision. Most males will end up getting examined by an endocrinologist (endo) at least once in their lifespan, usually in regards to prostate health or declining virility due to aging (or iatrogenic reasons). If the patient is lucky enough to be considered worthy of conversing with by the medical authority in the room, the patient will often hear lengthy lectures on TRT and how oral T (and other AAS) is ineffective. As such, most endos will demand that their patients submit to injection hormonal therapy, which often results in elevated estrogen, gyno, blood count abnormalities, etc. This attitude from the vast majority of endos is not a coincidence – i.e. it stems directly from official FDA dogma/policy formulated decades ago and still in use today. It is beyond baffling to me why FDA and the medical profession would accept that steroids like pregnenolone, DHEA, progesterone, etc are highly bioavailable when administered orally yet somehow steroids like T, DHT, and various other synthetic derivatives are not. The only conclusion I can draw is that FDA purposefully tries to poison the field and steer the public away from oral route, which is easy and accessible for most people. In contrast, when it comes to injections most people depend on doctors to both prescribe and administer them.

Well, hopefully my readers who are more open minded will show the studies below to their doctors and demand an answer as to why this travesty continues. As the studies towards the end of the post demonstrate, not only is free/base T orally bioavailable, but even massive doses (400mg daily) have no negative side effects on the liver and in fact accelerates the activity of several liver detox enzymes. The latter effect is highly sought-after by Big Pharma and many drugs are currently being developed/tested with the hope that such a liver-metabolism-enhancing compound will be brought to market as it has tremendous potential for treating everything from obesity, to gyno, to side effects of toxic chemotherapy. Thus, as one of the studies below directly stated, artificial/synthetic T derivatives such as 17a-methylated varieties, 19-nortestosterone derivatives (and in general any other AAS with bizarre modifications to make them less metabolizable and longer acting) have no advantages over free/base T neither due to cost nor effectiveness. In fact, unlike the readily observed liver-toxicity (including liver cancer) from various synthetic AAS, using free/base T may actually cure 60%+ of even advanced cases of liver failure (cirrhosis), as confirmed by extensive human studies several decades ago.

4 links here

So, what does that have to do with FDA’s recent T undecanoate approval? Well, according to one of the studies below, that specific T ester only works if it is dissolved in oil AND administered with a large meal containing significant amounts of fat. On the other hand, oral free/base T was absorbed without using any carriers or fatty meals. In addition, androgen esters often have unpredictable effects and in some cases may be even carcinogenic, while the free/base steroid is highly protective. It just so happens that the formulation FDA approved does NOT contain any oils as carrier/solvent and does not carry a recommendation to consume with a significant amount of fat. So, at best the formulation will be ineffective and at worst it may be carcinogenic.

link here

“…”…CONCLUSIONS. Slow-release implants of DHT administered to L-W rats at age 12 months reduced by 50% the development of spontaneous P-SV tumors by age 24 months…In 1987, we reported that testosterone propionate (TP) promoted, but that dihydrotestosterone (DHT) did not promote, the development of cancers in the accessory sex glands [prostate and seminal vesicles (P-SV)] of Lobund-Wistar (L-W) rats [1]…The inhibitory effect of DHT on induced P-SV tumors was confirmed in Fischer [2] and in L-W rats [3].”

“…The inhibitory effects of DHT reported by us [1,5], contrasting with the reported trophic effect of DHT (6–8), was clarified: DHT (5a-Androstan-17b-ol-3-one) inhibited the development of induced P-SV tumors, but DHT propionate promoted tumor development [3].

I highly doubt the FDA considered any of these issues before approving a suboptimal, patented, potentially toxic, oral T formulation that also costs orders of magnitude more compared to free/base T that can be obtained with a prescription from any compounding pharmacy. But hey, what do I know! I don’t have a medical degree and apparently one is needed for a person to be allowed to form their own opinion based on published scientific evidence spanning several decades. Your doctor knows best. /s

2 links here

“…Twenty-six male volunteers received a single oral dose of testosterone as free crystals or as the undecanoate ester. The latter was given either in crystalline form or in arachis oil. All preparations were tested three times in the same individual, whilst fasting on 2 days and on one day together with a breakfast rich in fat. Serum testosterone concentration was measured at intervals for up to 6–24 h after the dose. A significant and reproducible rise in serum testosterone level was found after ingestion of free testosterone. Testosterone esterified with undecylenic acid was only effective when administered in arachis oil. The meal increased the bioavailability of the ester, but had hardly any effect on that of the free hormone. It is concluded that bioavailability of oral testosterone can be improved by pharmaceutical means to an extent sufficient to produce adequate blood levels in substitution therapy.”

link here

“…200 mg. of free testosterone (2-5 µ particles compressed into conventional tablets) produced normal male serum-testosterone levels for 5-7 hours in four subjects without testicular function. Serum-testosterone levels were still at least five times higher than initial values 6-8 hours after tablet ingestion. The clinical effectiveness of oral free testosterone 100 mg. 4 times a day was established in a double-blind trial in five eunuchs. It is concluded that artificial testosterone derivatives have no advantages, either in effect or cost, over oral androgen therapy. Adequate oral doses of natural free testosterone are fully effective in replacing hormonal testicular function.”

link here

“…17α-methyltestosterone impairs liver function and may even lead to hepatoma,’ and presumably, 17α-alkylated androgens or anabolic steroids will have to be abandoned. In 1974 we showed that free testosterone in tablet form at a dose of 400 mg/day is an effective form of androgen therapy.[2] We have now followed up ten men with no testicular function (castrates and eunuchs) who have been on continuous oral testosterone treatment for up to 7.5 years; liver function has remained normal.”

link here

“…Six normal male volunteers ingested a dose of 400 mg free testosterone daily as tablets over 21 days. By the end of treatment intravenous antipyrine half-life had decreased significantly from 8.0 +/- 2.7 to 5.7 +/- 2.6 hr. The subjects eliminated testosterone from serum more rapidly on the twenty-first day of testosterone ingestion than on the first day. Serum albumin, bilirubin, prothrombin, alanine-amino-transferase, and alkaline phosphatases were unchanged during the experiment. It is concluded that oral testosterone treatment induces the hepatic drug-metabolizing system including that of testosterone.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-563.mp3" length="1770908" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Rats play hide-and-seek for the fun of it, just like humans</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=561</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=561</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Sep 2019 16:04:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=561

Slowly but surely, the foundations of the “pathological science” – initiated and patronized by corporations like GE – are crumbling. One of the tenets of this “science” is the “false” human tendency for anthropomorphism – i.e. ascribing human qualities, abilities, and behaviors to “primitive” animals. The famed linguist Noam Chomsky is another known critique of anthropomorphism, mainly due to the fact that he does not believe animals possess the genetic apparatus for forming and using a language. Yet, despite more than a century of attacks on the idea that animals possess a so-called “theory of mind”, the evidence in favor of such theory continues to accumulate. In addition to dolphins, whales, elephants, parrots, apes, corvids, dogs, and cats we can now add a much more “primitive” animal to that list – the rat. As the study below demonstrates, rats are just as capable as us of enjoying a game and continue to expend energy playing it without any reward in return. Actually, they did get petting and tickling (not sure why the latter is a reward but it makes the study’s case even stronger), but that does not count as behavior-inducing reward in animal studies – only food, water or mating opportunities do. But even those “emotional” rewards the rats got were apparently not the reason they kept playing the game. It looks like they simply enjoyed participating in a social activity with their biped, non-squeaking pals who for some reason stubbornly refuse to run in wheels placed in cages, yet are perfectly content to participate in life-long “rat races” that even the rats know are unwinnable.

4 links here

“…Every child knows that a proper game of hide-and-seek must follow a strict set of rules. Players can’t switch from being the “seeker” to the “hider” midway through the game, for example, and hiders have to stay put until they’re found. Now, scientists have discovered that lab rats can rapidly learn the rules to hide-and-seek and, so far as they can tell, love playing the game with people. Neuroscientist Michael Brecht of the Humboldt University of Berlin got the idea for his experiment from YouTube. “There are all these YouTube videos from pet owners, link here that say their animals love to do this,” he says. Although it’s well known that rats play lots of rough-and-tumble games, hide-and-seek is so much more elaborate that Brecht wondered whether they could really do it.”

“…Each game began with a rat inside a lidded box. When the rat was the “seeker,” Reinhold would close the box and hide, opening the lid with a remote control. After training, the rat knew that was the cue to leap out of the box and go looking for Reinhold. When it found her, Reinhold rewarded the rat by petting and tickling it; no food was offered. When the rat was the “hider,” Reinhold would leave the box open, and crouch beside it while the rat jumped out and scurried to one of its seven hiding places. Within 2 weeks, five out of six adolescent male rats learned how to both seek and hide, link here—and not switch between those roles when they were in the middle of a game, the team reports today in Science. In a second set of experiments, a different researcher trained four more rats to play the game. “Many scientists think this is trivial, but these are very complex behaviors” because the rats assume different roles, follow rules, and even strategize about where to hide, Brecht says.”

“…To study the neuronal underpinnings of the rats’ playful behavior, the team recorded electrical signals from about 180 neurons in a brain region involved in learning called the prefrontal cortex, using a portable device implanted in the rodents’ heads. Roughly one-third of the cells fired like crazy when Reinhold closed the lid on the box—the cue which told the rat whether it should be seeking or hiding—suggesting that region is particularly sensitive to learning the rules of a game, Brecht says. Some of the rats’ behaviors even hinted at the ability to imagine another’s perspective, a higher level cognitive capacity called “theory of mind.” As Reinhold “searched” the room, for example, the rats would often dart to a place where she’d already looked, as though they were thinking she wouldn’t check it again. The rats also preferred hiding in an opaque box, rather than a transparent box, and stayed silent while they hid, despite making ultrasonic squeaks while seeking—all of which suggests the animals may be able to consider another’s viewpoint, Brecht says.”

“…The team also wanted to know whether the rats were playing for the fun of it or for the reward of cuddles from the researcher. Brecht says several clues point to the former. When the rats find the researchers, for example, they execute what are known as “joy jumps” or freudensprung. “This is something that a lot of mammals do when they are having fun,” including rabbits, lambs, and people, Brecht says. In addition, the rats often scurry off to a new hiding place after being found, extending the game and postponing the reward of being petted. “They make a good case,” says Ted Garland, an evolutionary physiologist at the University of California, Riverside, who was not involved in the work. Scientists have traditionally poo-pooed anthropomorphism, the attribution of human feelings and motives to animals. But findings that rats laugh when tickled, link here and can respond with empathy, link here to another’s pain have started to shift that perspective. Scientists have “come to the realization that pretty much everything that humans do, there are rudiments, at least, in other animals.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-561.mp3" length="784220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin E restores cardiac health after heart attack</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=559</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=559</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Sep 2019 15:32:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=559

A great study that gives vitamin E a much deserved exposure in mainstream media. A few years ago, vitamin E was lambasted by the press for failing to prevent prostate cancer and heart attacks. Yet, upon a more careful look, it quickly becomes evident that those trials were handicapped from the start in a way that deliberately portrays vitamin E in a bad light. For example, all of the randomized human trials so far used all-rac-alpha-tocopheryl acetate – a form that likely does not contain enough RRR-alpha-tocopherol to provide much benefit and also contains 87.5% of tocopherol isomers that are not known to have any beneficial effects and in fact may be harmful.

link here

“…Synthetic vitamin E derived from petroleum products is manufactured as all-racemic, link here alpha tocopheryl acetate with a mixture of eight stereoisomers. In this mixture, one alpha-tocopherol molecule in eight molecules are in the form of RRR-alpha-tocopherol (12.5% of the total).[23]”, link here

As such, a pharma company running an unsuccessful trial with this petroleum-derived racemic vitamin E,  and calling it a proof of negative effects from vitamin E, is an example of astounding arrogance and corruption. It is akin to the recent Act of Congress that had the de-facto effect of declaring pizza a “vegetable” and allowed pizza to be counted as several servings of vegetables simply because it contains tomato sauce. So, a greedy, corrupt, school cafeteria can make a ton of profit on the backs of unsuspecting parents by charging them more money due to serving their children fake “vegetables”. Apparently, pharma companies, profit-driven school cafeterias, and Congress share much in common and not at all good.

Well, the study below may rehabilitate some of the lost fame of vitamin E when it comes to CVD. While it does cite the unsuccessful human trials with the racemic, poisonous form of vitamin E for preventing heart attacks it also calls into question the design of those trials and instead uses the RRR-alpha-tocopherol that is naturally found in many fruit and seed-derived oils and has been studied for more than a century. The initial, wildly successful prevention studies with vitamin E on CVD were all conducted before Big Pharma had managed to get control of both scientific journals and the popular press, and all used either pure RRR-alpha-tocopherol or a mixture of the naturally occurring alpha/beta/gamma/delta isomers with about 2/3 of the mixture being the alpha isomer. Those trials reported up to 40% reduction of CVD events in people taking natural vitamin E (alpha tocopherol or tocopherol mixtures) on a daily basis – a blockbuster result that even aspirin has not been able to match so far.

link here

The study demonstrated that administering a low-dose (HED 0.4mg/kg daily) alpha-tocopherol for just 3 days – day before, day of, and day after the ischemic event – restored heart function to normal. In fact, heart damage, scarring/fibrosis and pumping capacity were not significantly different between the vitamin E treated group and the the group that did not undergo an ischemic event. As such, the authors recommend the usage of vitamin E as an acute treatment during or shortly after an ischemic event such as a heart attack is diagnosed. While a good portion of the benefits of vitamin E treatment were due to its well-known antioxidant effects, another major beneficial pathway was the dramatic reduction of inflammatory mediators in the vitamin E group, which are known to play a strong role in the long-lasting damage/scarring of the heart muscle following an ischemic event. Of course, many of these inflammatory mediators are derived from PUFA, so the study can also be interpreted as showing that PUFA is a major factor behind both the initiation and long-term heart muscle damage of heart attacks.

3 links here

“…With over 610,000 Americans, link here dying from heart disease every year, it’s important for consumers to know how to keep their hearts healthy. Now, a new study conducted by researchers from the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute found that Vitamin E could be the answer for keeping patients healthy following a heart attack. “One of the most effective anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory agents is vitamin E and its derivatives,” said researcher Karlheinz Peter. The researchers induced mice with heart attack symptoms in order to test their hypothesis; each specimen was injected with alpha-tocopherol — the strongest, most antioxidant form of vitamin E — for one hour to see what effects it had on the heart. The findings showed that vitamin E greatly improved the mice’s heart function and was responsible for healing damaged muscle tissue, which is common in patients following a heart attack and often difficult to achieve. The researchers hope to continue their testing on human patients, as doing so could provide a new avenue into heart attack treatment that is both effective and affordable. “As there is currently no drug available that can reduce the cardiac damage caused by overshooting inflammation after reopening of a blocked coronary artery, the potential impact of our finding on cardiovascular health would be significant,” said researcher Dr. Maria Wallert.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-559.mp3" length="349484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Gut serotonin (due to bacteria) is the master regulator of metabolism, insulin sensitivity, and weight</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=557</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=557</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Sep 2019 14:12:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=557

Over the last year I posted a number of studies demonstrating strong link between serotonin and chronic conditions such as obesity, insulin resistance, and even diabetes.

2 links here

However, when those studies came out the medical authorities immediately countered with the argument that it is not serotonin that is the culprit but changes in the microbiome that make the bacteria in our guts less “beneficial”. This statement is untenable in light of the numerous other studies demonstrating that there is no such thing as “beneficial” gut bacteria. Rather, there are only variations of harmfulness and any bacterial overgrowth has strong links to very serious conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer, Parkinson, CVD, etc.

3 links here

Now, if the medical industry was simply ignorant, its behavior and claims could be at least understood, if not excused. Yet, behind our backs, Big Pharma has quietly been running clinical trials with drugs that inhibit gut serotonin synthesis as a way of treating obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, etc.

5 links here

It just works so well for the medical/food complex to sell us both the poison (toxic food and drugs) and the remedy (serotonin inhibitors). Well, the study below claims to finally put the questions on the role of serotonin in obesity/diabetes to rest. It demonstrates that sterilizing the guts of mice has the exact same protective effects on their metabolism/weight/health as inhibiting gut serotonin synthesis (with a TPH-1 inhibitor). Administering both the antibiotics and the serotonin synthesis inhibitors did not have additive effects, thus exposing serotonin as the direct pathological agent. As such, there is little doubt that the “happy hormone” is anything but. There is already a mountain of evidence sanctioned by Big Pharma implicating gut bacteria in virtually every psychiatric condition. Now, we can replace the convenient euphemisms such as “microbiome imbalance”, “dysbiosis”, “bacterial overgrowth”, “SIBO”, etc with a single word – SEROTONIN. Aside from estrogen, there is probably no other endogenous mediator of such importance for systemic health, and the sooner the profitable myths about these two chemicals collapse the better for the (literal) survival of humanity. Btw, mainstream media is complicit in this medical disaster by dutifully promoting the medical myths about serotonin that Big Pharma generously sponsors through ads and paid op-ed articles. As readers can see from the the popular press articles, the wording is such that it creates a narrative as if there are somehow two forms of serotonin – “happy” (beneficial) and “unhappy” (harmful). This toxic and manipulative word game persists despite the fact that there is only one form of serotonin and the actual study clearly stating that (elevated) serotonin is pathological beyond any doubt.

2 links here

“…An intraperitoneal (i.p.) glucose tolerance test (IPGTT) was used to examine the links between peripheral 5-HT and the gut microbiome on host glucose homoeostasis. Comparisons within the same animal over time were used to remove potentially confounding interanimal variance. Glucose tolerance was unchanged after 28 d in vehicle-treated control mice (Fig. 1A, link here) but improved significantly in mice treated with LP533401 (Fig. 1B, link here), Abx (Fig. 1C, link here), or combined LP533401 and Abx treatment (Fig. 1D, link here). Importantly, these positive effects of inhibiting 5-HT synthesis and antibiotic-associated microbiota perturbation on glucose tolerance were not additive, as seen using paired comparisons within each mouse over time (Fig. 1E, link here), demonstrating their interdependence. Importantly, all treatments had similar effects in reducing both serum (Fig. 1F, link here) and colonic mucosal (Fig. 1G, link here) 5-HT levels. The effects of 5-HT inhibition and antibiotic-associated microbiota perturbation on glucose homeostasis are not due to differences in energy expenditure (Fig. 1H, link here), substrate use (Fig. 1I, link here), activity (Fig. 1J, link here), or body weight (Fig. 1K, link here).”

“…The outcomes of our study address a question which has long been unanswered. We used genetic and pharmacological models to provide evidence that gut-derived serotonin is the link through which the gut microbiome affects host glucose metabolism. The key evidence supporting this conclusion is that the combination of depleted EC cell 5-HT and gut antibiotic-associated microbiota perturbation did not show any additive effect compared to the individual treatments alone, demonstrating that the gut microbiome and EC cell 5-HT act via the same pathway to influence host glucose metabolism. If the microbiome were regulating host glucose homeostasis via another route, we would have seen improved glucose tolerance in the LP533401 + Abx group compared to Abx alone or in the Tph1−/− day 0 vs. day 28 comparisons. These impacts of antibiotic-associated microbiota perturbation in the presence or absence of gut-derived 5-HT on glucose handling are not driven by potentially confounding factors such as altered basal energy expenditure, physical activity, substrate use, or body weight.”

2 links here

“…Serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain, is nicknamed the ‘happy hormone’ and is normally linked with regulating sleep, well-being and metabolism. But the gut actually produces 95 percent of it, and not in the happy form like we know about in the brain. In a study published in the leading international journal Proceedings of the National Academicy of Sciences (PNAS) today, researchers from Flinders, SAHMRI, and McMaster University in Canada show exactly how bacteria, link here living in the guts of mice, the microbiome, communicate with cells producing serotonin, link here to influence blood sugar levels in the host body. Professor Damien Keating, Head of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Flinders University and Deputy Director of the Flinders Health and Mecical Research Institute, says this study sheds light on the unanswered question about exactly how bacteria in the microbiome communicate to control glucose levels, link here in the metabolism. “We found that the microbiome worsens our metabolism by signalling to cells in the gut that produce serotonin. They drive up serotonin levels, which we previously showed to be increased in obese humans, and this rise in blood serotonin causes significant metabolic problems.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-557.mp3" length="1415924" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Reversing human aging likely possible with progesterone / DHEA</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=546</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=546</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 13 Sep 2019 18:54:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=546

I decided to make a post on this topic after seeing the popular press articles about a study claiming reversal of human biological (as opposed to chronological) aging. That study used human growth hormone (HGH), DHEA and metformin combination as an intervention that restores thymus health and thus reverses immunosenescence (immune system aging). It is well-known in medical circles that the so-called “thymus involution” (atrophy) is a major cause of both morbidity and mortality in aging humans and is a major factor in increased risk for both infectious and chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, dementias, CVD, etc. As such, multiple (animal) studies have shown that reversing thymus atrophy/involution has been shown to have strong protective effects from the so-called “age-related diseases”.

First, the good news. The study noted that as a result of the 12-month treatment, on average there was about 2.5 years of biological age reversal for the participants. Moreover, the reversal of biological age markers accelerated after about 9 months of treatment and over the last 3 months of treatment averaged about 6.48 years / year of biological age reversal. Not bad at all! Especially considering we have been told repeatedly that aging is a “natural” process, is not a disease, and cannot be reversed.

link here

“…A small clinical study in California has suggested for the first time that it might be possible to reverse the body’s epigenetic clock, which measures a person’s biological age. For one year, nine healthy volunteers took a cocktail of three common drugs — growth hormone and two diabetes medications — and on average shed 2.5 years of their biological ages, measured by analysing marks on a person’s genomes. The participants’ immune systems also showed signs of rejuvenation. The results were a surprise even to the trial organizers — but researchers caution that the findings are preliminary because the trial was small and did not include a control arm. “I’d expected to see slowing down of the clock, but not a reversal,” says geneticist Steve Horvath at the University of California, Los Angeles, who conducted the epigenetic analysis. “That felt kind of futuristic.” The findings were published on 5 September in Aging Cell.”

link here

“…Furthermore, comparing the rates of aging regression between 0–9 and 9–12 months showed that, for every age estimator, the rate of aging regression appeared to accelerate substantially with increasing treatment time (Figure 5a–d and Table 1), with a mean slope over all four clocks of −1.56 ± 0.46 years/year in the first 9 months to −6.48 ± 0.34 years/year in the last 3 months of treatment (p < .005, Figure 5f).”

OK, so what is the bad news? Well, the trial design is bizarre, unsafe and likely purposefully biased. It ignores both the risks of its interventions as well as opportunities to achieve much more striking reversals of biological aging using other interventions. I highly doubt that the trial designers are stupid, so I suspect something more sinister is at play here (as I explain below). The first bizarre and unsafe intervention is HGH. As the study above notes, HGH was used because of its purported rejuvenating effects on the thymus. Why bizarre? Well, as the study itself states HGH has a known potent diabetogenic effect. Moreover, as the study itself states, HGH can actually have pro-aging effects on thymus and immune system.

“…Because GH‐induced hyperinsulinemia (Marcus et al., 1990) is undesirable and might affect thymic regeneration and immunological reconstitution, we combined rhGH with both dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and metformin in an attempt to limit the “diabetogenic” effect of GH (Fahy, 2003, 2010; Weiss, Villareal, Fontana, Han, & Holloszy, 2011).”

So, let me get this straight. The main intervention in the trial not only may cause diabetes (which itself has a VERY close association with aging) but can actually have pro-aging effects on both thymus and immune system in general! Wait, don’t take my word for it, the pro-aging and mortality-increasing effects of HGH have already been confirmed in humans, while its purported anti-aging effects appear to be based on nothing but overhyping of a single study, that even its own authors did not think demonstrated anti-aging effects of HGH.

link here

“…Call it anti-anti-aging therapy. It turns out that injections of growth hormone — a staple of anti-aging, hormone-replacement therapy — may have the opposite effect as intended, thwarting a person’s quest to live to an advanced age. In an ongoing study of very old people, those in their 90s with naturally low levels of human growth hormone appear to have a far better chance of living into their 100s, link here compared with people who have above-average levels of the hormone. In other words, juicing yourself up with growth hormones, link here as an anti-aging strategy might backfire, undermining the body’s natural defenses against the diseases of old age, according to researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Their study appears in the April issue of the journal Aging Cell.”

“…This industry traces its roots to a 1990 New England Journal of Medicine study, in which 12 men over age 60 were given shots of growth hormone. The men experienced a modest increase in muscle mass and bone density, and a decline in body fat. To some entrepreneurs, that meant “anti-aging,” and they have repackaged the study that way ever since. But the treatment came with side effects and myriad unknowns. First, author Dr. Daniel Rudman remained adamant until his death that his study had no implications for anti-aging. In 2003, the NEJM published an editorial lashing out at the anti-aging industry for citing Rudman’s study so prominently in their advertising. “If people are induced to buy a ‘human growth hormone releaser’ on the basis of research published in the Journal, they are being misled,” the editorial stated.”

Does that sound like a sane design for ANY trial? Namely, the main intervention is actually known to cause the very things the trial hopes it will prevent? Of course not. And in their infinite wisdom (or wickedness) what did the study authors do to combat these effects of HGH? They added DHEA and metformin to “balance” the diabetogenic and pro-aging effects of HGH. But wait, it gets better. The study itself states that actually it is DHEA that is known for its anti-aging effects.

“…DHEA has many effects, in both men and women, that oppose deleterious effects of normal aging (Cappola et al., 2009; Forti et al., 2012; Shufelt et al., 2010; Weiss et al., 2011).”

So, how can we be sure that the reversal of biological aging seen in this trial was due to HGH and not the DHEA that was added for “balance”? We can’t, of course, and I highly doubt a trial design like this can happen by accident. The most likely explanation IMO is that the trial was purposefully designed to mask the anti-aging effects of DHEA and ascribe them to HGH – a hormone that numerous studies have shown is associated with every major chronic denegerative condition afflicting people over 50. Why do I suspect malice where stupidity would suffice? Well, it is this statement from the study:

“…Neither DHEA (Riley, Fitzmaurice, & Regelson, 1990) nor metformin are known to have any thymotrophic effects of their own.”

Just…wow! I simply can’t accept that a scientist working on thymus aging can be that ignorant or incapable of simple searches on PubMed. As often studied in introductory endocrinology, DHEA is one of the endogenous anti-glucocorticoid steroids (others including pregnenolone, progesterone, testosterone, DHT, etc) and has well-known effects on reversing thymus involution caused by aging and/or excessive glucocorticoid exposure. In fact, there is a study that performed the exact same experiment as the human study discussed in this thread and found that a physiological DHEA dose (equivalent to about 0.15mg/kg daily for a human) fully reversed immune system aging. Not partially, as in the human study above, but fully!

link here

It is not just one study, there is a long list of publications discussing the immunotropic effects of DHEA in virtually every animal model known, and humans as well. Below is just a small subset of this list, which specifically points out the direct regenerative effects of DHEA on the immune system.

12 links here

And not to be outdone, the authors ensured that any positive effects of DHEA are handicapped from the get go. How did they achieve that? By administering a massive, unphysiological dose of 50mg DHEA daily. Physiological doses of DHEA are in the 10mg-15mg range. Multiple human studies have demonstrated that anything more than that quickly turns into estrogen, and of course that is what happened in this trial as well as confirmed by the development of gynecomastia (gyno) in one of the subjects.

“…Side effects included arthralgias (2 cases), anxiety (1 case), carpal tunnel syndrome (1 case), fluid retention (1 case), mild gynecomastia (1 case), and muscle soreness (1 case). One trial volunteer was removed from the study after approximately one month due to self‐reported bradycardia, which preceded the trial, and belated admission of a strong familial history of cancer.”

Why is the conversion of high doses DHEA into estrogen problematic? Because there is strong evidence that estrogen (together with cortisol) may be the primary causes of thymus involution seen with aging. Conversely, as demonstrated by the study below, inhibiting estrogen synthesis and/or effects has been shown to reverse thymus involution seen with aging. So, by giving such a large dose of DHEA the study authors (willingly or not) ensured that DHEA’s anti-aging effects would be severely handicapped.

link here

I am sorry, but nobody can be that ignorant, especially when deciding to include a chemical like DHEA in their study. A trivial search on PubMed would have turned up all of the above and a ton of additional evidence for the thymotrophic effects of DHEA, as well as its pro-estrogenic effects when administered in pharmacological (high) doses. So, why would a group of scientists design such a deliberately handicapped and bizarre trial? Well, by virtue of this design, the claim to fame goes to a patented, expensive and available-by-injection-only drug (HGH) instead of the humble, cheap, OTC anti-aging (when used in proper doses) chemical DHEA. I can already see Big Pharma arming its sales agents with the results of this human trial and sending them to doctors’ offices all over the country to push/market/sell various HGH preparations. A very similar tactic was used in recent clinical trials showing testosterone (T) injections stopping terminal prostate cancer in its tracks.

Cancer Paradox – Testosterone Injections Combat Lethal Prostate Cancer, link here

Remember folks, according to the FDA androgens like T and DHT are supposed to cause prostate cancer, not cure it! In those trials, instead of ascribing the benefit of stopping the cancer to T, the benefit was ascribed to the co-administered “chemical castration” agent leuprolide, link here. Why didn’t the leuprolide save the millions of other men (with metastatic prostate cancer) who got treated with it, but without the additional testosterone!? What would be the rationale of administering a “chemical castration” agent together with the very hormone the castration agent is supposed to block the synthesis of!? Only one reason, really. It is a desperate attempt to salvage the idiotic theory that androgens cause prostate cancer. This travesty is possible only because the public health authorities like the FDA have the power to ascribe benefits (or harm) from treatment to whatever chemical they choose. Whether that makes absolutely no sense, contradicts the evidence, is a potential conflict of interest (even fraud??), etc is immaterial. As we are told every day by mainstream media, we need medical degrees to be LICENSED/PERMITTED to even surmise we are being scammed. Simply put, we are NOT LICENSED to think for ourselves when it comes to our own health. This way people will obediently accept their “treatment” and simultaneously continue to be duped too so that they keep paying an arm and a leg for a system that quite openly kills them.

The bizarre design of the trial does not stop with HGH and abnormally high DHEA dosing. Same goes for metformin. It has become the darling chemical of the “official” (read: run by Big Pharma) anti-aging industry and multiple clinical trials with it are currently in progress with the hopes that it can reverse aging, treat/prevent cancer, dementias, Parkinson Disease (PD), osteoporosis, immune system aging, etc. None of those trials have shown an actual cure or reversal of aging. On top of that, now we have evidence that mitochondrial toxins like metformin raise lactic acid and cause systemic metabolic acidosis, which can directly CAUSE cancer. Remember, the Warburg “Effect” (lactic acidosis) is now acknowledged by even mainstream medicine to also be a cause of cancer.

Baking soda may treat cancer, metformin may cause it, link here

Again, call me paranoid but IMHO the combination of all the above evidence makes it highly unlikely that such bizarre trial design occurred by accident. An honest, well-read, first-year medical student could have designed a more sane trial for reversing aging and would have likely achieved strikingly better results. How? Well, let’s start with one of the trial ingredients – DHEA. As the trial itself states, DHEA has known, potent, anti-aging effects. Those anti-aging effects include specifically reversing thymus involution/atrophy as per the studies I posted earlier in the thread. However, in order to reap the benefits of DHEA without its risks, we need to limit its propensity for conversion into estrogen. This is easily achievable by ensuring that DHEA is used in physiological doses, which for most adults span the range of 10mg-15mg daily. However, even 10mg single doses of DHEA have been shown to elevate estrogen when used for long periods of time, as anti-aging trials often require. There is evidence suggesting that individual doses of DHEA not exceeding 5mg raise systemic DHEA/S levels without raising estrogen levels. Thus, reaping the benefits of DHEA without its risks may be as simple as taking 5mg DHEA with each meal. For those still doubting the immuno-regenerating effects of DHEA (when used wisely) here is a human study showing administration of only DHEA was enough to re-activate the immune system in aged males.

link here

Now, can we do better? Yes, yes we can! As I mentioned earlier, DHEA is one of several endogenous glucocorticoid antagonists. Such antagonists typically have thymotrophic effects, however such antagonists that are also strong androgens (ie. T, DHT, etc) can have detrimental effects on the thymus due to the activity on the androgen receptor (AR). So, in order to potentiate the anti-aging effects of DHEA on the thymus we need to combine it with an agent that is also a glucocorticoid antagonist yet does not cause thymus atrophy. Furthermore, it would be even more beneficial if the additional agent/chemical has anti-estrogenic effects as per the study I mentioned above showing that antiestrogenic agents can fully regenerate the thymus atrophied from aging. As many of my readers have already guessed, such remarkable agent/chemical already exists and its name is progesterone! The study below demonstrates the powerful thymotrophic effects of progesterone if used at the proper dosage.

link here

“…Of the steroids used, progesterone was the only one which produced a significant increase in the size of the thymus. All other compounds produced decreases of various degrees. The most effective steroids in this respect were cortisone, 11-dehydrocorticosterone, and testosterone. ACTH, cortisone, and 11-dehydrocorticosterone produced intense lymph node involution. Testosterone, the estrogens, and Reichstem’s Compound L all produced increased size of the lymph nodes.”

link here

As readers can see from the study screenshot above, the optimal in-vivo dosage of progesterone for restoring thymus size/weight is in the range of 20 µmol/kg – 30 µmol/kg bodyweight daily. That corresponds roughly to a human dose of about 1 mg/kg daily. Higher progesterone doses did NOT have stronger thymotrophic effects and at doses of 200 µmol/kg (corresponding to doses about 10mg/kg for a human) daily or higher progesterone actually had detrimental effects on the thymus. So, in this case the expression “the dose makes the poison” rings quite true. Thus, for an adult weighing 75kg, the optimal daily progesterone dose would be about 75mg. This total daily dosage can be taken as a single dose or split into multiple smaller ones and still have the desired effect. However, it is well-known that when progesterone and DHEA are administered together progesterone has more potent effects of blocking DHEA’s propensity to convert into estrogen than when the two are administered at different times. Thus, considering the optimal regimen for DHEA is to use no more than 5mg per dose several times daily it makes sense to split that 75mg progesterone dose into as many doses as those of DHEA the person is taking daily and administer the two steroids together. For example, if a person is taking 5mg DHEA x 3 daily then they could split their 75mg progesterone dose into three doses of 25mg each and take 25mg progesterone with each dose of 5mg DHEA.

There is another caveat. The study with progesterone and thymus regeneration used a subcutaneous administration for the steroid, which ensures close to 100% bioavailability. Most progesterone products for humans (e.g. Prometrium) are designed for oral use and do not achieve 100% bioavailability. In fact, for most of those oral products the bioavailability is around 15%. So, if somebody is using an oral product like Prometrium then they would need to take a dosage that is 6-7 higher than the 1mg/kg administered subcutaneously. The good news is that when progesterone is dissolved in tocopherols/oil mixture its oral bioavailability is close to 100%. Similarly, when progesterone is dissolved in alcohol/fat combination and applied topically, its absorption is also quite high. More specifically, when either formulation is administered topically in the navel area, systemic bioavailability / absorption rivals IV route and application on other skin areas still achieves at least 50% systemic absorption of the administered dose.

Navel application/absorption rivals intravenous route, other skin routes not far behind, link here

We already sell a product containing a progesterone/DHEA combination called CortiNon, link here. Currently, it contains progesterone:DHEA in a ratio of 3:1, however we will soon be releasing a version where the progesterone:DHEA ratio will be raised to 8:1. That higher ratio product should provide progesterone and DHEA in such amounts as to match the known thymotrophic effects of both seen in the studies above (and hopefully even providing s synergistic effect than either one on its own), while minimizing the propensity of DHEA to convert into estrogen and thus harm the thymus.

That’s all folks. Apparently, the knowledge to reverse human aging using OTC ingredients is out there and has been laying hidden in plain sight for decades. Many of those studies demonstrating anti-aging, thymotrophic, pro-immune effects of progesterone/DHEA were published in the early 20th century. The fact that they have not gotten more publicity and have not been used to engineer a safe, effective anti-aging intervention is IMO nothing short of criminal negligence on behalf of the medical/pharma industry. I strongly encourage my readers to email the lead author of the TRIIM anti-aging trial (Gregory Fahy, fahy@interveneimmune.com) and ask why the decades-old published evidence on the possibility of safely reversing human aging with progesterone/DHEA has been ignored (or maybe concealed) for so long. Better yet, please demand answers as to why the TRIIM trial was designed in such a bizarre, unsafe, and openly biased manner. Namely, designed in order to ignore/handicap the known anti-aging effects of OTC chemicals like DHEA while simultaneously ascribing any demonstrated benefit to dangerous (but patented and profitable) interventions such as HGH (or even metformin) that the authors themselves state have pro-aging effects on thymus and immune system. If you get any answers, please send them over. I promise, I will publish them here.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-546.mp3" length="7701812" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:17:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin as effective as Viagra for ED, but with much fewer side effects</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=542</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=542</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 12 Sep 2019 16:54:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=542

Yet another blockbuster drug may turn out to be nothing more than a well-marketed gimmick, which while not entirely a scam can be replaced with cheaper, safer alternatives that also have much lower potential for side effects. The drug in question is Viagra, and the humble, just-as-effective substitute is aspirin. A group of doctors out of Turkey has been conducting studies comparing the effects of aspirin on sexual performance in men diagnosed with erectile dysfunction (ED). The experiments go back at least a decade but up until 2018 they were done primarily on animals. However, the last two studies coming out of that group are with humans and the results are quite impressive, especially considering that the aspirin dose was just 100mg daily and the treatment lasted for only 6 weeks. An additional aspect that the popular press articles do not discuss is the potential for aspirin to actually be a so-called “disease modifying therapy”. ED is known to be caused by cardiovascular disease (CVD). While Viagra has never been shown to improve the pathology of CVD and no such claims have ever been made about that drug, aspirin HAS been shown to have a long term beneficial effect on CVD. As such, the benefits of aspirin may actually be much longer-lasting and may even be (dare I say) “curative”. In other words, after those 6 weeks of aspirin therapy the improvements in erection and sexual function may very well be persistent compared to the people taking Viagra. And as the study found, even if one has to use Viagra, taking aspirin with it significantly lowers the risk of side effects from that drug. Not bad for a tiny pill with more than 3 thousand years of human medical history, and dirt-cheap compared to Viagra.

2 links here

“…RESULTS: The changes in IIEF-EF scores after treatment were 7.2 ± 4.4, 7.3 ± 4.3, 7.5 ± 4.4, and 2.0 ± 4.6 for group 1 (p < 0.0001), group 2 (p < 0.0001), group 3 (p < 0.0001), and group 4 (p = 0.0204), respectively. The change in SEP-2 ratios after treatment were 36.6%, 36.9%, 41.7%, and 9.4% for group 1 (p < 0.0001), group 2 (p < 0.0001), group 3 (p < 0.0001), and group 4 (p = 0.2925), respectively. The change in SEP-3 ratios after treatment was 46.6%, 49.2%, 53.7%, and 12.5% for group 1 (p < 0.0001), group 2 (p < 0.0001), group 3 (p < 0.0001), and group 4 (p = 0.1456), respectively. In group 2 [tadalafil], both the number of patients who reported side effects (p < 0.0001) and stopped using the drug due to side effects (p < 0.05) were significantly higher than the control and others groups. CONCLUSIONS: Successful results were obtained by tadalafil and aspirin monotherapy and tadalafil + aspirin combination therapy in patients with VED. However, the least side effect was observed in the tadalafil + aspirin group. Aspirin can be used alone in the treatment of patients with VED, or combined with tadalafil to reduce side effects and increase success.”

link here

“…DAILY aspirin is as effective as Viagra-type drugs for impotence, according to a study. Doctors at Istanbul Medipol University in Turkey divided 336 men with erectile dysfunction into four groups and gave them either aspirin, tadalafil (a Viagra-like drug), tadalafil plus aspirin, or a placebo, according to the study published in International Urology and Nephrology. Taken separately, both drugs increased sexual activity by more than a third, and together, also removed headaches associated with tadalafil. Researchers say aspirin ‘thins’ the blood, so more can flow into the genital area, and may help the 70 per cent of men whose impotence has a vascular cause.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-542.mp3" length="818156" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Supplementation with (long chain) saturated fats protects liver from alcohol</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=538</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=538</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 12 Sep 2019 15:56:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=538

As many of my readers already know, there are a number of human studies, going back to at least the 1960s, demonstrating that supplementation with saturated fats (SFA) protects the liver from damage induced by alcohol. I fact, supplementation with SFA not only prevents alcohol-induced liver damage but actually fully reverses the fibrosis/cirrhosis induced by chronic alcohol abuse. Try telling an internal medicine specialist that liver fibrosis/cirrhosis is even partially reversible and watch him laugh you out of the room. How dare a humble dietary ingredient compete with the multi-billion dollar liver transplant industry! Anyways, the results are out there and while the work of Nanji et al. is perhaps the most commonly cited in that respect, the tradition of treating alcoholic liver injury with saturated fats goes back thousands of years.

3 links here

The studies by Nanji claimed that reduced peroxidation of PUFA as a result of feeding SFA was the main explanation of the benefit of SFA for liver injury by ethanol. The more recent study below looks a bit deeper into the protective mechanism of action of SFA and demonstrates that the protection is at least partly due to prevention of gut leakiness caused by ethanol (and thus reduction of endotoxin burden) as well as gut and small intestine dysbiosis in ethanol-fed animals. Those animals exhibited bacterial overgrowth in both colon and small intestine (the latter condition now commonly called SIBO) as well as changes in the microbiome composition towards species known for their pathological effects on intestinal walls. Supplementation with SFA reversed all of these detrimental changes. Interestingly enough, the study states that it was only long chain SFA (LCSFA) such as palmitic and stearic acids that were beneficial for ethanol-induced liver damage. Short-chain fats (SCFA) did not protect the liver from alcohol-induced damage even though they did protect from gut leakiness. That is in contrast to what most doctors passionately recommend – i.e. eating resistant starches and other foods that increase SCFA in the colon as a way to better liver health. The current finding on LCSFA corroborates the ones from Nanji’s studies that LCSFA protect the liver through additional mechanisms including reduction of lipid peroxidation. This also suggests that vitamin E would also have a protective effect and this has been already confirmed by multiple other studies. Furthermore, the study suggests that LCSFA acts as a substitute for B vitamins, which are crucial for intestinal wall health. As such, supplementing with those B-complex vitamins may also be a viable method of liver protection from ethanol damage.

link here

“…Development of alcoholic liver disease involves increased translocation of microbial products from the intestinal lumen to the liver, facilitated by a disruption of the epithelial barrier18, link here. Following ethanol administration, levels of gut-derived and translocated Escherichia coli proteins increased significantly in liver tissues from USF but not SF mice (Figure 3A, B, link here). Plasma endotoxin levels were significantly lower in alcohol-fed SF mice than alcohol-fed USF animals (Supplemental Figure 11, link here). These results indicate that ethanol feeding increases bacterial translocation, and that palmitic and stearic acid block this process. Changes in levels of tight junction proteins contribute to paracellular leakage; we compared levels of intestinal tight junction proteins in small intestine tissues of mice from both groups. Following ethanol administration, levels of occludin decreased in ethanol-fed vs control mice. However, ethanol-fed mice in the SF group had significantly higher levels of occludin than those of the USF group (Figure 3C, D, link here). Claudin-2 forms pores to increase barrier leakiness19, link here. Levels of claudin-2 increased following ethanol feeding of USF mice, but not SF mice (Figure 3E, F, link here).”

“…We found that ethanol administration results in intestinal bacterial overgrowth, reduced proportions of the phylum Firmicutes, increased numbers of the phylum Bacteroidetes, and reduced proportions of Lactobacillus species and Lactobacillus rhamnosus. These findings are consistent with previous reports that chronic ethanol administration induces dysbiosis in mice3, link here. Here, we report that administration of saturated LCFA reverses most of these effects (Figure 4B–F, link here), to restore intestinal eubiosis.”

“…Saturated fatty acids do not act directly on the intestine to stabilize its barrier. Instead, we showed that commensal lactobacilli metabolize saturated LCFA, in vivo and in cultured cells, to promote their expansion. Saturated fatty acids were reported to serve as vitamin B substitute and promote growth of Lactobacillus species21, link here. Chronic ethanol intake might therefore decrease levels of Lactobacillus species by reducing intestinal levels of saturated fatty acids. Interestingly, in contrast to LCFA, SCFA do not seem to be beneficial for alcoholic liver disease. Although supplementation with butyrate protects from intestinal tight junction disruption, it does not prevent steatohepatitis after chronic alcoholic feeding.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-538.mp3" length="1258892" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Testosterone does NOT impair empathy in men</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=527</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=527</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2019 15:22:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=527

I am sure most readers are quite familiar with the cliche that testosterone (T) is what drives stereotypical “boy behavior” – aggressiveness, carelessness, impulsive behavior, risk taking, cheating, and of course the militaristic attitude characterized by lack of (or reduced) empathy. As I mentioned in several previous posts, most of these behaviors seem to be driven by stress hormones like cortisol and estrogen, while T seems to have a more or less opposite effect than what the stereotype describes.

Cheating is driven by cortisol, not testosterone, link here

The stereotypes about testosterone (T) are likely wrong, link here

 

This new study combines the results of two intervention trials and concludes that T does not impair empathy. The reason this study holds much more water than previous ones is that it actually administered T to the test subjects, and as such can distinguish between correlation and causality. In fact, it used several different doses to determine if T has dose-related effects – i.e. maybe it does not impair empathy in lower doses but does so in higher doses. Yet, no such effect was discovered and the study concludes that other observational trials claiming that T drives stereotypical male behavior are “statistically underpowered”. I think a much more accurate statement would be that those studies were fraudulent or at the very least cleverly manipulated (p-hacking anyone?) to demonstrate the desired effect. Namely, that high T is undesirable for males because it makes them unruly, stubborn, aggressive, etc. Of course, the suggested remedy is estrogen and that has been administered to men for decades as part of the “chemical castration” therapy for prostate cancer, or unknowingly to males in the entire population in the form of estrogenic, anti-thyroid endocrine disruptors (e.g. BPA, gossypol, etc) in the food/water supply.  We all know how well that went…and actually still keeps going despite the evidence that T actually cures even very advanced prostate cancer.

link here

“…The capacity to infer others’ mental states (known as ‘mind reading’ and ‘cognitive empathy’) is essential for social interactions across species, and its impairment characterizes psychopathological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. Previous studies reported that testosterone administration impaired cognitive empathy in healthy humans, and that a putative biomarker of prenatal testosterone exposure (finger digit ratios) moderated the effect. However, empirical support for the relationship has relied on small sample studies with mixed evidence. We investigate the reliability and generalizability of the relationship in two large-scale double-blind placebo-controlled experiments in young men (n = 243 and n = 400), using two different testosterone administration protocols. We find no evidence that cognitive empathy is impaired by testosterone administration or associated with digit ratios. With an unprecedented combined sample size, these results counter current theories and previous high-profile reports, and demonstrate that previous investigations of this topic have been statistically underpowered.“]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-527.mp3" length="958916" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Allopregnanolone as a treatment of Alzheimer Disease (AD)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=524</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=524</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2019 14:59:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=524

It looks like the recent FDA approval of allopregnanolone (ALLO) for postpartum depression may open the floodgates to ton of new research with this steroid, as well as with its reliable precursors such as pregnenolone and progesterone. I posted several studies in the past demonstrating that pregnenolone, progesterone and ALLO are all endotoxin antagonists and the role of endotoxin in AD is by now widely recognized (yet not publicized much).

Progesterone may bind and deactivate endotoxin (LPS) directly, link here

Pregnenolone Is A Potent (functional) Endotoxin (TLR4) Antagonist, link here

 

Given these benefits of ALLO and the fact that AD patients have severe deficiency of this steroid, it makes perfect sense to try ALLO as AD treatment. This is exactly what the human trial described below will do. Moreover, the researchers emphasize once again that ALLO stimulates energy production in the brain and this yet another corroboration that AD is a metabolic disease driven by energetic deficiency. Definitely not news to the readers of this blog, but still quite progressive as a view coming from mainstream medicine. As the article mentioned, animal trials have already proven the effectiveness of ALLO for AD so this is just a fund-raising effort to run a full scale human clinical trial. For people willing to experience the benefits today, pregnenolone, progesterone and 5a-DHP would be the most effective means of raising ALLO levels in the brain.

link here

“Based on our discovery and early clinical research findings, we are optimistic that allo could be an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s,” said Roberta Diaz Brinton, director of the center and clinical trial lead. “Our precision medicine approach for Alzheimer’s is designed to treat the right person at the right time.”

“…We are thrilled to advance allo as the first regenerative therapeutic for Alzheimer’s and to bring innovations in the brain science of the future to those who need a cure today,” she continued. While the exact cause of Alzheimer’s disease is unknown, researchers do know that the disease leads to the death of brain cells and causes the connection between the cells to decrease. This is believed to be caused by the buildup of proteins within the brain, particularly the beta-amyloid protein. During a Phase 1 clinical trial, Brinton and her team found that allo, which is natural steroid that is already produced within the brain, has been shown to increase the generation of new brain cells, reduce the formation of beta-amyloids and improve cognitive function. Alzheimer’s patients have lower levels of allo in their brains compared to people with healthy brains. “What allo does is it promotes the energy system in the brain, and because of that, it reduces the generation of beta-amyloids and reverses that aspect of the disease,” Brinton said. “At the same time, it’s promoting the generation of new nerve cells.” According to Brinton, allo has also been shown to reduce inflammation within the brain, which is known as a defining indicator of Alzheimer’s disease.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-524.mp3" length="1271636" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vegans and vegetarians have a higher risk of stroke</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=522</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=522</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2019 14:47:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=522

A good reminder that vegetables are not as benign, let alone as healthy, as your board-certified, PhD-boasting, marathon-running corporate nutritionist would have you believe. In fact, this is not the first study to seriously question the “eat mostly plants” mantra. Several other very large and well-controlled studies have found that a diet high in vegetables has no benefit in preventing cancer, and in some cases may even increase cancer risk.

The study below now adds some direct evidence for negative effects of a predominantly vegetarian diet. While the findings on increased stroke risk match well the increased (phyto)estrogenic burden from predominantly plant diet, I find it a little hard to believe that the vegan/vegetarian population somehow also had lower risk of CVD. The two conditions are so highly correlated and even causally entangled (eg. CVD=>stroke) that the odd findings of lower CVD risk are likely either a fluke or deliberate manipulation to avoid destroying completely the massive industry that has formed to cater to the plant-eaters. I also don’t buy the explanation of low iron intake or vitamin B12 deficiency as causes of the higher stroke risk. Most people actually have much higher than optimal levels of iron in tissues, and iron toxicity is a known risk factor for both ischemic and hemorrhaging strokes. The same is likely true about vitamin B12. Considering the microbiome can synthesize B12 and the fact that most people have either SIBO or some form of colon dysbiosis, B12 deficiencies are very rare. In fact, many people who have tested their B12 often find that their levels are either high or at the very top of the normal range. Elevated B12 levels have been ties to higher risk for some cancers and also strokes.

As a follow up, I would like to see a study on hormonal changes as a result of different diets as that would likely expose just how “benign” estrogen is and how ubiquitous estrogenic molecules are in nature. Given the recent studies that bravely exposed estrogen as a cause of autism I have some hope that such hormonal studies can be happen even if Big Agriculture led by Monsanto spends billions every year to prevent them from seeing the light of day.

2 links here

“…It analyses data from the EPIC-Oxford study, a major long-term research project looking at diet and health. Half of participants, recruited between 1993 and 2001, were meat-eaters, just over 16,000 vegetarian or vegan, with 7,500 who described themselves as pescatarian (fish-eating). They were asked about their diets, when they joined the study and again in 2010. Medical history, smoking and physical activity were taken into account, Altogether, there were 2,820 cases of coronary heart disease (CHD) and 1,072 cases of stroke – including 300 haemorrhagic strokes, which happen when a weakened blood vessel bursts and bleeds into the brain. The pescatarians were found to have a 13% lower risk of CHD than the meat-eaters, while the vegetarians and vegans had a 22% lower risk. But those on plant-based diets had a 20% higher risk of stroke. The researchers suggested this could be linked to low vitamin B12 levels but said more studies were needed to investigate the connection.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-522.mp3" length="1037156" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Lancet: Cancer now leading cause of death in “developed”, “rich” countries</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=519</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=519</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Sep 2019 16:16:45 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=519

It is now official. After giving CVD a serious run for its money for more than a decade, cancer has now emerged as the leading cause of death in “developed” countries. And while CVD remains the leading cause of death worldwide, the studies claim that if current trends continue cancer will become the leading cause of death everywhere. I put “developed” and “rich” in quotations because economic development is of little use if the entire population becomes effectively of the same (old) biological age. Moreover, those high-income (HIC) countries would become a misnomer as their GDP will quickly plummet. There are simply no young/healthy people any more. Sickness/disease appear to have become uniformly distributed across all age groups. This is a worldwide catastrophe as the very survival of the current economic system (and states that implement it) depends on a few very simple rules. One of them is that younger, healthier people absorb the financial cost of maintaining/extending the life/health of older/sicker people (usually retirees, at least up until now). If social safety nets (and even private health insurance policies) can no longer depend on steady influx of funds from “younger” generations, because those social groups need just as much health care as chronologically older groups, then the whole system becomes untenable. A recent report from NBER predicted that there will be a generational “voting war” between Millenials and Boomers because both groups will end up fighting over access to a health care system (both private and Medicaid/Medicare) that can barely support the demands of even a fraction of people in ONE of those generations, let alone the full number of both generations drawing resources simultaneously. If the population-wide sickening trends continue, we will be lucky if the war remains only on words/votes…

Is there any good news in this horrific nightmare? Yes, there is. Even according to die-hard geneticists writing for The Lancet, more than 70% of both CVD and cancer cases are preventable by simple dietary/lifestyle changes. Unfortunately, official public health policy pushes for high-PUFA, high-legume diets as the remedy even though such diets were tried on large numbers of people in the early 20th century and the results were abysmal. If we can only stop demonizing eating nutritious, calorie-dense food and recognize chronic, economically-driven stress as an absolute killer it seems achieving worldwide health would be entirely within reach.

link here

“…Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of mortality among middle aged adults globally, accounting for 40% of all deaths, but this is no longer the case in HIC, where cancer is now responsible for twice as many deaths as CVD, according to a new report [1] from the PURE study published in The Lancet and presented at the ESC Congress 2019 [3]. It was estimated that 55 million deaths occurred in the world in 2017, of which approximately 17·7 million were due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) [see infographic 1].”

“…”The world is witnessing a new epidemiologic transition among the different categories of non-communicable diseases (NCD), with CVD no longer the leading cause of death in HIC,” said Dr. Gilles Dagenais, Emeritus Professor at Laval University, Quebec, Canada and lead author of the first report. “Our report found cancer to be the second most common cause of death globally in 2017, accounting for 26% of all deaths. But as CVD rates continue to fall, cancer could likely become the leading cause of death worldwide, within just a few decades.” [4].”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-519.mp3" length="1177028" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>New science blooms after “stars” die</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=517</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=517</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Sep 2019 15:47:39 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=517

As the article aptly quotes Max Planck, the running joke in physics for the last 100+ years has always been that science advances “one funeral at a time”. However, up until the study below came out this informal statement/knowledge was viewed as little more than the gripe of cynical, disillusioned, overworked post-docs. Shockingly, it appears the old joke was spot on. I suppose one can say that the findings are quite unsurprising. In an environment dominated by careerism and profit-seeking, truth is quite unwelcome. If it emerges at all it often takes the physical removal of its opponents to finally be recognized, accepted and further developed.

2 links here

“…The famed quantum physicist Max Planck had an idiosyncratic view about what spurred scientific progress: death. That is, Planck thought, new concepts generally take hold after older scientists with entrenched ideas vanish from the discipline. “A great scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it,” Planck once wrote. Now a new study co-authored by MIT economist Pierre Azoulay, an expert on the dynamics of scientific research, concludes that Planck was right. In many areas of the life sciences, at least, the deaths of prominent researchers are often followed by a surge in highly cited research by newcomers to those fields. Indeed, when star scientists die, their subfields see a subsequent 8.6 percent increase, on average, of articles by researchers who have not previously collaborated with those star scientists. Moreover, those papers published by the newcomers to these fields are much more likely to be influential and highly cited than other pieces of research. “The conclusion of this paper is not that stars are bad,” says Azoulay, who has co-authored a new paper detailing the study’s findings. “It’s just that, once safely ensconsed at the top of their fields, maybe they tend to overstay their welcome.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-517.mp3" length="337604" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Elevated maternal estrogen (estradiol) again linked to autism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=515</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=515</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Sep 2019 15:34:51 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=515

Just weeks after the first study on the link between elevated estrogens (all types) and autism, a new study again demonstrated a link between elevated maternal estrogen (estradiol in this case) and risk of offspring autism.

Estrogen excess during pregnancy may cause autism, link here

The studies were performed by different groups of researchers and do not cite each other’s work. This suggests the findings are independent, which bolsters the likelihood they are accurate. The more I read about autism, the more it is starting to look like the whole “testosterone-drives-autism” hypothesis is the same old corrupt/incompetent plot to shift attention away from the real problem in order to preserve the sales/revenue of the estrogen industry. While not yet implemented as it the case with prostate cancer, calls have already been made to initiate estrogen therapy for males either in-utero or at the time of autism diagnosis as a method of preventing and treating autism respectively. This is no different than the chemical castration (more benignly known as “androgen deprivation therapy”) in aged males with prostate cancer but it is much more evil as it will destroy the health of either unborn or very young children for life. Their lifelong poor health will, of course, then be blamed on poor genes and irresponsible lifestyle of their parents/ancestors and very likely even higher estrogen doses will be prescribed as “treatment”. It is my sincere hope that one day the doctors and pharma executives who invented/promoted the androgen genesis of prostate cancer as well as the androgen genesis of autism will stand trial and be held responsible for the millions of men (and possibly children) they castrated/mutilated/killed.

As they say in infomercials – “but wait, there is more”. The study not only found that elevated estradiol is linked to autism but it also states quite clearly that estrogen is a “stress hormone” and its role in the fetus is to sitmulate premature development, possibly in preparation for premature/preterm delivery. Not unlike the early puberty that estrogen is also known to trigger. So much for the “female hormone”.

2 links here

“…Researchers wanted to learn whether there were differences in steroids between samples drawn from moms whose babies developed autism compared to moms whose babies didn’t. They looked at birth certificate data to identify autism cases among children of mothers who provided the samples. Both the control group and the group of mothers whose children had autism were selected so that 50% of each group had an exposure to a condition such as gestational diabetes, hypertension and preeclampsia. Previous studies have shown links between those conditions and autism risk. The researchers looked at several different steroids in the blood samples. Bilder said she expected to find increased levels of steroids that were known to be associated with the conditions, like testosterone. She found those steroids, but they did not reach a statistical significance, according to Bilder. Bilder also expected progesterone and testosterone in the kids who developed autism to be elevated. “But that’s not what I found. Instead, what I found, is estradiol being elevated in the children who developed autism,” she said.”

“…But as the researchers looked at the steroid hormones that were measured, “what we realized is that the higher estrogen levels being produced by the placenta actually may be stimulating the baby’s development of his or her stress response.” Usually, a baby’s stress response takes time so that when the pregnancy reaches full term, the baby has developed its own stress response. But elevated levels of estrogen cause the baby’s stress response to develop early, Bilder said. That prepares babies, when there is an issue, to survive outside the mom. It causes early growth of the lungs, gut and skin so that if the baby doesn’t make it all the way through pregnancy, it’s more likely to survive, she said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-515.mp3" length="1038476" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>There’s no gay gene</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=513</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=513</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Sep 2019 14:56:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=513

Very apt title, in my opinion at least. And then it comes to genetic explanations of diseases, I guess an even more apt addition would be “another one bites the dust”. Recently, I posted about the complete and utter failure of the genetic hypothesis to explain depression. That indictment on the genetic link in depression was written by no other but an actual “industry insider” (read: a psychiatrist).

There is no “Depression Gene”, and any “evidence” of a genetic cause so far has been fairy tales, link here

Now, a study claims the same may be true of (homo)sexual orientation. According to that study, at most 25% of homosexuality may be linked to genetic “hints” and even then because of the gene-wide-associations (GWA), no specific genes, or even association/cluster of genes can be used to predict when an offspring will have homosexual orientation.

2 links here

“…Nearly half a million genomes reveal five DNA markers associated with sexual behaviour — but none with the power to predict the sexuality of an individual.”

“…The largest study1, link here to date on the genetic basis of sexuality has revealed five spots on the human genome that are linked to same-sex sexual behaviour — but none of the markers are reliable enough to predict someone’s sexuality. The findings, which are published on 29 August in Science and based on the genomes of nearly 500,000 people, shore up the results of earlier, smaller studies and confirm the suspicions of many scientists: while sexual preferences have a genetic component, no single gene has a large effect on sexual behaviours. “There is no ‘gay gene’,” says lead study author Andrea Ganna, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-513.mp3" length="471164" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Even a tiny amount of talc may cause diabetes II (T2DM), Benadryl may reverse it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=500</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=500</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Aug 2019 15:24:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=500

As many of my readers know, talc was recently implicated as an (ovarian) carcinogen. There have been several class-action lawsuits against manufacturers of baby powder containing talk and the ones that have reached verdicts already all found the talc vendors culpable.

link here

However, the amount of talc applied to body by users of baby powder is rather large, usually at least several grams per application, and powder vendors have repeatedly stated that when used in amounts under a gram talc is completely safe. The study below begs to disagree. It demonstrates that even a tiny amount (HED 1.5mg/kg) of talk ingested on a daily basis reliably causes diabetes II (T2DM) in just 2-3 weeks. This amount of talc exposure can be achieved with taking just 1-2 pills of most prescription drugs as talc is used as an excipient in most pharma drugs. That means many cases of T2DM are actually iatrogenic in origin as most people in US take at least one prescription drug daily. The good news is that even a low-dose Benadryl (diphenhydramine) was able to reverse most of the diabetic pathology caused by the talc in just 3 weeks. The HED of Benadryl used in the study was 0.15mg/kg daily, which means that for most people 10mg-15mg daily would be enough to replicate the study design. Since most Benadryl formulations on the market contain at least 25mg per pill, it should be very easy (and cheap) to contain the damage caused by talc. In addition, there are other studies demonstrating anti-cancer effects of Benadryl, so this humble chemical may even be able to contain the carcinogenic damage caused by the excipient.

link here

“…Evaluation of diphenhydramine in talc induced type 2 diabetes mellitus was done in Wistar rats. Oral administration of Talc (10mg/kg) carried out for 21 days increased the levels of serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT), glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT), serum creatinine, blood glucose, urea, uric acid and triglycerides (TGs), but when the animals were treated with diphenhydramine (DPH), the levels of the aforementioned biochemical parameters decreased significantly (p<0.0001). The level of serum cholesterol and high density lipoprotein (HDL) was found to be reduced in Diabetes Mellitus (DM) control and when it was treated with DPH control animals, these makers increased significantly. The study done on DM and Diphenhydramine suggests that Talc increases the blood glucose level at a dose of 10mg/kg (0.14gm) and Diphenhydramine (1mg/kg) reduces the increased blood glucose level. These finding simply that diphenhydramine may be useful in the management of talc induced diabetes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-500.mp3" length="860996" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>If current trends hold, within a decade the entire population may become autistic</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=498</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=498</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Aug 2019 14:25:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=498

Peat published a newsletter not long ago in which he presented evidence that not only are autism rates rising but the general population is starting to exhibit some signs/symptoms of the condition. I think he called the phenomenon a “generation-wide autism”. The study below alarmingly predicts that if current trends hold within the next decade all differences between people diagnosed with autism and the general “healthy” population will disappear. The study argues that this will happen because of increased vagueness of the autism diagnosis itself. I personally, think the study has it backwards. Given the evidence I posted in numerous other threads showing young people having the “health” of people 30-40 years older, I suspect it would happen because within a decade everybody will be sick. Instead of generation-wide we will have population-wide autism.

2 links here

“…However, Dr. Laurent Mottron, a professor at Université de Montréal’s Department of Psychiatry and a psychiatrist at Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies of the CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, has serious reservations about this data. After studying meta-analyses of autism data, his research team found that the differences between people diagnosed with autism and the rest of the population are shrinking.”

“…“If this trend holds, the objective difference between people with autism and the general population will disappear in less than 10 years. The definition of autism may get too vague to be meaningful—trivializing the condition—because we are increasingly applying the diagnosis to people whose differences from the general population are less pronounced.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-498.mp3" length="431828" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may restore female fertility in old age</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=490</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=490</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 22 Aug 2019 19:11:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=490

The mainstream medical dogma is that after the onset of menopause, female reproductive potential is essentially zero. I posted a thread recently that challenged that dogma and demonstrated that infertility is essentially an energetic dysfunction process and can be reversed with exposure to red light.

Fertility depends on metabollism (ATP), not age, link here

Now, the study below demonstrated that raising NAD levels by supplementation with nitocinamide mononucleotide (NMN) can greatly inhibit the infertility seen with advancing age. Considering the fact that ATP and NAD levels are almost perfectly correlated and the former strongly depends on the latter, the findings of the study below match quite well the findings of the study above. I suspect that combining both approaches – red light exposure with niacinamide supplementation – would be highly synergistic. The HED of NMN used in the study was on the high end (3g-4g for an adult human) but one must keep in mind that this was an acute study. In other words, fertility in old age was restored to almost youthful levels by a single administration of NMN. As such, longer term regimen with a lower dose should have similar effect without the (liver) risk higher doses niacinamide pose.

link here

“…There is an ongoing trend across the developed world to defer pregnancy until later in life. Combined with the steady decrease in female fertility beyond the middle of the third decade of life, this has led to falling fertility rates and a steady increase in demand for assisted reproduction technologies. Despite maternal age being the greatest clinical challenge for reproductive medicine, the mechanisms through which oocyte quality decline as women age remain largely unclear and there are no therapeutic treatments. In the current study, we provide evidence for NAD+ availability as an important determinant of fertility in aged females. We show that levels of NAD+rapidly decline in the ovary with age, and our data demonstrate that NAD+ repletion using the NAD+ precursor NMN in mice enhances ovulation rate, reduces oocyte spindle defects, improves oocyte developmental competence in vivo and embryo development during IVF, culminating in improved fertility.”

“…Together, this work represents a clinically tractable pharmacological intervention to non-invasively treat female infertility caused by a loss of oocyte viability or depletion of ovulation yield in reproductively aged females. These findings have immediate implications for the clinical treatment of infertility. We envisage that this work could lead to the development of an orally delivered therapeutic that improves oocyte quality for improving natural conception or the success of IVF. This would present an opportunity to transcend the need for, or enhance the success of fertility treatments including IVF. In addition, this work could also enhance the success rates of existing IVF protocols, through improving embryo culture conditions to grow embryos to a later stage of development. Providing an intervention at this critical step of IVF would make a clinically relevant difference to IVF success rates in the high proportion of IVF patients who are reproductively aged. Any intervention that would improve the success rates of IVF would also lead to cost savings and lower the emotional stress of failed IVF rounds or subsequent miscarriage which can lead to long term psychological and social issues including depression and relationship breakdown. This would represent the first intervention for enabling women with poor oocyte quality to have children with their own genetic make-up as currently, these women have no alternative but to use donated oocytes. Future studies should aim to test NAD+ raising compounds in a clinical setting, both as an oral therapeutic, and as an additive to embryo media during IVF, to test the relevance of these findings to human infertility.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-490.mp3" length="615692" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:24</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Two common iron supplements may cause (aggressive) GI cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=488</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=488</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 22 Aug 2019 18:58:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=488

As the study itself states, it is not just the iron used in dietary supplements that may the dangerous. The type used on food fortification is just as dangerous and may be even more impactful since virtually all people eat commercial food on a daily basis while much fewer numbers consume iron supplements. The fact that even very low amounts of iron supplementation was carcinogenic strongly corroborates Peat’s claims that aside from young children, most other people should stay away from supplementing iron. Unfortunately, due to the ubiquity of iron fortification in commercial food processing, it becomes next to impossible to avoid that extra iron without becoming orthorexic. As such, using aspirin or vitamin E several times weekly may be a more practical approach to reducing iron overload.

2 links here

“…The scientists — led by Nathalie Scheers, an assistant professor at the Chalmers University of Technology — explain that their research was prompted by older studies, link here that showed that two compounds, called ferric citrate and ferric EDTA, promote tumors in mice. But, these previous studies did not reveal “whether all forms of ‘bioavailable’ iron exacerbate gut cancer, link here cells,” or whether different forms of iron display the same mechanism. So, in the new study, Scheers and colleagues examined the effect of these two compounds on the growth of human colorectal cancer, link here cells. Additionally, they tested another widely available iron compound called ferrous sulfate. In their experiment, the researchers used levels of the compounds that might realistically be found in the gastrointestinal tract after taking the supplement. To their knowledge, Scheers and colleagues are the first to study the effect of these compounds on human cells. The researchers published their findings, link here in the journal Oncotarget.”

“…The study revealed that even in low amounts, both ferric citrate and ferric EDTA raised cellular levels of a cancer biomarker called amphiregulin and its receptor. By contrast, ferrous sulfate had no such effect on the cells. “[S]pecific iron compounds affect cell signaling differently, and some may increase the risk of colon cancer, link here advancement in an amphiregulin-dependent fashion,” the authors write. Scheers comments on the findings, saying, “We can conclude that ferric citrate and ferric EDTA might be carcinogenic, as they both increase the formation of amphiregulin, a known cancer marker most often associated with long-term cancer with poor prognosis.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-488.mp3" length="399932" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Drinking fluoridated water during pregnancy may lower IQ (in sons)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=486</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=486</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 22 Aug 2019 18:48:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=486

Another study (the most comprehensive to date) that finds a strong link between pre-natal exposure to fluoride in drinking water and lower intelligence in the offspring. As the article aptly notes, the benefits of fluoride were never proven before it was introduced in drinking water throughout the US, and the topic had apparently been mired in controversy (read: evidence-free, authoritarian fraud) since the very beginning. The fact that this study was published in JAMA, a bastion of mainstream medical practices, suggests that the negative effects of fluoride are likely much stronger than what is publicly announced. The study itself contains a hint – i.e. the negative effects of fluoride exposure on intelligence match almost perfectly those of lead – a well-known, potent neurotoxin whose levels (at least on paper) are tightly controlled in water and food supplies. The multiple threads I posted on the worldwide decline in IQ scores, and overall health of young people display graphs that coincide almost perfectly with the introduction of fluoridated water in Western countries.

link here

“…First piloted as an experiment to reduce dental cavities in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1945, fluoridated drinking water has since been hailed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta as “one of public health’s greatest success stories.” Today, about two-thirds of people in the United States receive fluoridated tap water, as do many people in Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Now, a controversial new study links fluoridation to lower IQ in young children, especially boys whose mothers drank fluoridated water while pregnant…Fluoride is well-known for protecting teeth against cavities by strengthening tooth enamel. It’s found naturally in low concentrations in both freshwater and seawater, as well as in plant material, especially tea leaves. Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, public health researchers and government officials in cities around the world experimentally added fluoride to public drinking water; they found it reduced the prevalence of cavities by about 60%. Today, fluoridated water flows through the taps of about 5% of the world’s population, including 66% of Americans and 38% of Canadians.”

“…Yet skepticism has dogged the practice for as long as it has existed. Some have blamed fluoridated water for a wide range of illnesses including cancer, but most criticism has been dismissed as pseudoscience. Over the years, though, a small number of scientists have published meta-analyses casting doubt on the efficacy of water fluoridation, link here in preventing cavities. More recently, scientists have published small-scale studies that appear to link prenatal fluoride exposure to lower IQ, link here, although dental research groups were quick to challenge them, link here. A study out today in JAMA Pediatrics offers perhaps the highest profile critique to date. Psychologists and public health researchers looked at data from Canada’s federally funded Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals program, a long-term study of pregnant women and their children in six Canadian cities that started to collect data in 2008 on everything from diet to education levels to traces of lead and arsenic in the urine. About 40% of the nearly 600 women lived in cities with fluoridated drinking water; they had an average urinary fluoride level of 0.69 milligrams per liter, compared with 0.4 milligrams for women living in cities without fluoridated water. Three to 4 years after the women gave birth, researchers gave their children an age-appropriate IQ test. After controlling for variables such as parental education level, birth weight, prenatal alcohol consumption, and household income, as well as exposure to environmental toxicants such as lead, mercury, and arsenic, they found that if a mother’s urinary fluoride levels increased by 1 milligram per liter, her son’s (but not her daughter’s) IQ score dropped by about 4.5 points, link here. That effect is on par with the other recent studies, link here looking at childhood IQ and low-level lead exposure.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-486.mp3" length="517772" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:11</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Chronic nerve pain may be caused by endotoxin, commercial food, and pharma drugs</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=484</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=484</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 22 Aug 2019 18:32:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=484

I posted a few threads last year demonstrating that some cases of chronic nerve pain may be caused by a side effects of opioids – activation of TLR4. However, that study only looked at why certain patients using opioids for severe pain go on to develop chronic pain of phantom origin. As such, the study did not look whether chronic activation of TLR4 can cause chronic nerve pain on its own, without opioid use. Well, the study below demonstrated just that. Chronically elevated levels of lysozymes, which is commonly seen in chronic low-grade endotoxemia, acts through the TLR4 receptor to cause the infamous phantom pain that so many war veterans, alcoholics, trauma survivors, patients with PTSD/depression and in general people under chronic stress report. So far, medicine has been treating such pain as psychological in origin and those poor patients have been drugged out of their mind with SSRI or antipsychotic drugs. Hopefully, as a result of this study safer approaches such cessation of opioids, antibiotics such as minocycline and other TLR4 antagonists such as naltrexone, tricyclic antidepressants, vitamin D/A, emodin, pregnenolone, etc would be considered instead.

Last but not least, the study raises some serious concerns about the safety of commercial food and pharmaceutical drugs, as lysozyme is commonly used as an ingredient in those products. Peat published an entire newsletter on the topic but its focus were nanoparticles and ingredients such as silica, titanium dioxide, food colors, etc and not enzymes. So, now apparently we have to add food-grade enzymes used in dairy and pickled food to the list of dangerous chemicals. While ingesting lysozyme(s) will likely lead to the degradation of the offending enzyme by stomach acid, in hypothyroid (or otherwise sick) people this process is greatly reduced due to the low levels of stomach acid. As such, lysozyme can “at best” be a serious allergen and at worst the food/drugs we buy from stores may be giving us the equivalent of low-grade endotoxemic reaction with all the risk that such reaction entails.

2 links here

“…Chronic pain makes lives miserable, and trillions of dollars are spent, link here globally for its treatment. Persistent nerve pain, due to damage or injury to the nerves, is one such. A quarter of diabetic patients and about 35%, link here of people with HIV infection suffer from this shooting and burning pain. Other causes of nerve pain include cancer, chemotherapy, multiple sclerosis, accidents, surgeries, spinal cord injury, and nutrient deficiency. Although it affects about 7-10%, link here of the world’s population, the available treatment options are not very useful. Besides, since the mechanisms behind chronic nerve pain are not completely clear, it is difficult to design new drugs. In a recent study, link here, Prof Avadhesha Surolia and Dr Saurabh Yadav from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, have described what could be causing such pain. The study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, also suggests some potential treatment options. The study was funded by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Science and Engineering Research Board. The researchers identified lysozyme, a protein found in secretions like tears, saliva and human milk as a cause for persistent nerve pain. Lysozyme is an integral component of our immune system and protects us from bacterial infection by breaking down their cell wall. It is also a commercially important enzyme used in the food, link here and pharmaceutical sectors. Studies on rat nerve cells in the laboratory revealed that the levels of lysozyme increase in these cells after a nerve injury. The injection of lysozyme also caused nerve pain by increasing the excitability of nerve cells. These observations confirmed the role of lysozyme in causing this chronic pain. In healthy nerve cells, the levels of lysozyme are low, and it increases following a nerve injury. A receptor called toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4), present on the surface of the nerve cells, gets activated during such damages. Although TLR4’s role  in causing nerve pain was known, the molecular pathway for its activation was not clear.”

“…Annexin A2 is another protein in the body that plays a role in inducing pain. Lysozyme interacts with annexin A2 at the surface of nerve cells and activates TLR4 receptors. The researchers found that lysozyme failed to invoke pain when annexin A2 was absent. The researchers hope that their findings could hold a clue for treating chronic nerve pain. One approach could be using compounds that inhibit lysozyme in the cells, without side effects. When the researchers injected chitobiose, a lysozyme inhibitor, they found that it relieved pain in rats with a nerve injury. Blocking lysozyme is also a safer option than targeting other molecules with a more critical role in the nerve cells. High levels of lysozyme are also found in some other nerve-related disorders like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis. The researchers hope that the findings of this study would form a base to explore the role of lysozyme in such nerve-related diseases.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-484.mp3" length="1029236" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Inhibiting fatty acid synthesis (FAS) dramatically improves sepsis survival rate</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=482</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=482</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 22 Aug 2019 18:10:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=482

Yet another study that points the finger straight at fat as a key factor in one of the most common causes of inpatient hospital mortality – sepsis. Sepsis is currently considered to be a condition of infectious (bacterial) etiology, driven by endotoxin. However, in light of the new findings it may be more appropriate to consider sepsis a metabolic/energetic disease. Despite all the “advances” in modern medicine, sepsis remains a condition with mortality in the 20%-30% range. Over the last several years a number of studies were published indicating a simple combination of thiamine, vitamin C (and sometimes cortisol) is remarkably effective in decreasing mortality from sepsis. However, the mechanism of action of this approach remains unknown.

Well, as the study below demonstrates, overactivation of the enzyme fatty acid synthase (FAS) likely plays a major role in the sepsis pathology. While the study does not mention it, overactive FAS means reduced glucose oxidation as a result of the Randle cycle. This may explain the benefit of thiamine in the thiamine+Vit C+cortisol combo, as thiamine activates the enzyme and improves glucose oxidation. When the scientists administered a FAS inhibitor (C75), the mortality rate in septic animals dramatically decreased. There are several inhibitors of FAS approved by the FDA for other conditions but they all (including C75) have toxic side effects. The least risky of these is probably orlistat and it is available OTC in the US, but even that chemical can cause severe side effects. One of the lesser known effects of aspirin is inhibition of FAS, and as such it may be able to achieve the same benefit without much of the side effects. Combining it with thiamine and niacinamide may further improve the effectiveness against sepsis by improving glucose oxidation and reducing lipolysis respectively.

2 links here

“…Sepsis is a disease that infects the body with bacterial infections and damages major organs. Around 30 million people develop sepsis a year, and 30 percent of sepsis patients die within a month. Pharmaceutical firms have developed numerous treatments, but the uncertain cause of sepsis and complex disease progressions have made it difficult to achieve meaningful results. Neutrophils kill bacteria but an excessive release of cytokines, which quickly remove bacteria and damage the body, should be avoided. Thus, it is difficult to find the right balance. Despite the eradication of bacteria, the patient could still die, which was the stumbling block in sepsis treatment. The leading cause of sepsis is endotoxin, a toxin in bacteria. The researchers investigated why endotoxins release large amounts of cytokines from leukocytes and damage the body. The researchers found that “MYD88 (myeloid differentiation primary response protein) palmitoylation” induced by bacterial endotoxins was important. MYD88 is an inflammation-mediated protein in white blood cells. Palmitoylation is a process in which a lipid is bound to a protein, and the activity of the protein is modified. The research team administered fatty acid synthase (FASN) inhibitor, which produces palmitic acid, a material for palmitoylation, to mice with sepsis. The result showed that mice treated with FASN inhibitor significantly improved survival rate with fewer abdominal infections.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-482.mp3" length="933260" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>While estradiol falls, estrone rises with age and is much more relevant for estrogen-driven diseases</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=480</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=480</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:50:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=480

I posted a few studies in the past demonstrating that estrone (E1) and especially its long-lasting derivative estrone sulfate (E1S) are reliable biomarkers of both breast and prostate cancer progression/prognosis. However, for some reason the medical industry is obsessed with estradiol and since its levels plummet after menopause this has allowed doctors to declare menopause a life-stage characterized by estrogen “deficiency”. E1 and/or E1S are almost never measured and most endocrinologists do not consider those steroids relevant for health/disease. While the estrones are indeed weaker estrogens than estradiol, both of them easily convert into estradiol or estriol in tissues and exert tissue-specific effects – a process known as “intracrinology”. If E1 and E1S are measured, together with estriol and estradiol (and preferably prolactin as well), it becomes apparent that total estrogen reserves RISE with age instead of falling as the doctor claim. Thus, menopause and its associated diseases are driven by estrogen excess and not deficiency.

Well, the study below may finally change this attitude. It found (unsurprisingly) that estrone is elevated in post-menopausal women and its levels correlated well with age – i.e. the older the woman the higher her estrone levels. It also makes the direct claim that unless estrone is also measured as part of a the hormone panels often done for women, using only estradiol as a diagnostic/treatment biomarker is next to meaningless.

link here

“…Researchers found that women aged 80 to 84 years had estrone levels that were on average 9.2% higher vs. women aged 70 to 74 years (P = .001); women aged at least 85 years had estrone levels that were on average 11.7% higher vs. women aged 70 to 74 years (P = .01). When stratified by BMI, excess weight further influenced sex steroid levels, the researchers wrote, noting that older women with obesity had estrone levels that were on average 34.1% higher vs. women with normal weight (P < .001). The increasing proportion of women with unmeasurable [estradiol] in the older groups most likely reflects different effects of age on the enzymatic pathways essential for the biosynthesis of these hormones,” the researchers wrote. “Regardless, a key message from the findings is that studies investigating the association between estrogens and diseases of aging in postmenopausal women must measure [estrone] in order to provide meaningful findings.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-480.mp3" length="752180" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mitochondrial damage and fatty acid buildup, not elevated glucose, may drive diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=476</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=476</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:22:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=476

Finally some common sense is coming out of mainstream medicine. The study below demonstrates that it is the buildup of fatty acid metabolites and mitochondrial damage that drives the chronic inflammation now known to be a major causative factor for diabetes II (T2DM). Aside from corroborating the role of fat in diabetes, as well as exonerating glucose, the study calls into question virtually all current therapies for diabetes II (T2DM). Those therapies focus mainly on lowering blood glucose (HbA1C), but the study’s findings question the effectiveness of this approach since it does not address the fatty acid buildup or the mitochondrial damage. As such, targeting glucose is at best misguided and at worst contributing to the diabetes pathology. This may explain why drugs that try to selectively lower HbA1C increase all-cause mortality.

2 links here

Combined with the recent study showing the causative role of drugs like metformin in the “cancerization” process I think it is way overdue for the medical industry to re-evaluate its relationship with glucose as well as its overall approach to treating diabetes. There are multiple studies showing niacinamide and aspirin being therapeutic for diabetes, and unlike the HbA1C lowering drugs the former two chemicals are rather benign, not to mention dirt cheap compared to pharma darlings like Jardiance, Glyxambi, sulfa drugs, etc.

link here

“…Our results effectively dismiss the oversimplified notion that glycolysis drives inflammation as in other diseases (Cham and Gajewski, 2005; Peng et al., 2016; Yin et al., 2015) by showing instead that glycolysis, which does not strictly result from hyperglycemia/insulinemia of T2D, parallels rather than promotes T2D inflammation. Because better glycemic control is generally the goal of classical T2D interventions, the demonstration that glucose is not the dominant activator of Th17-mediated inflammation in T2D raises clinical concerns that fatty acid metabolites will continue to drive systemic and/or tissue inflammation even after glycemic control is optimized. The newly appreciated disconnect between glucose as a fuel and T2D inflammation may also explain in part the modest impacts of anti-inflammatory drugs on glycemic control in T2D clinical trials: our data show the two characteristics of T2D are only secondarily linked.”

link here

“…A breakthrough discovery has cast doubt on previous assumptions that glucose is the main driving force behind chronic inflammation within type 2, link here diabetes. University of Kentucky researchers carried out a study to test whether glucose is the cause of chronic inflammation – previously it has been assumed that raised blood glucose levels, link hereis the cause. Their investigations indicate that an interaction between certain lipids (blood fats) and mitochondria (the powerhouse of cells in the body) appeared to be the problem. Blood glucose control is still important for managing type 2 diabetes, link here, but the researchers state it may not be the key factor in the development of problems related to inflammation such as heart and kidney disease, link here. Originally the researchers had set out to prove another theory: that immune cells from people with type 2 diabetes would produce energy by burning glucose.  “We were wrong,” said Barbara Nikolajczyk, from the UK Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center, Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences, who co-led the study. The researchers found instead that energy from glucose was not driving chronic inflammation, but rather it was a combination of defects in mitochondria and an increase in fat derivatives that were responsible. “Our data provide an explanation for why people with tight glucose control can nonetheless have disease progression.”

link here

“…Chronic inflammation, link here is the root cause of many of diabetes, link here‘ complications, including cardiovascular and kidney disease. Until now, the scientific consensus has been that glucose drives inflammation in type 2 diabetes, link here. But new research counters this popular notion and points instead to high levels of lipids and defects in mitochondria — the tiny energy-reducing organelles inside cells.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-476.mp3" length="716228" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Drostanolone (a DHT isomer) may treat prostate cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=472</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=472</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 05 Aug 2019 06:13:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=472

The bad news for the DHT-driven theory of prostate cancer just keep piling on. There have been at least 3 human trials in the last 5 years demonstrating that the direct injection of testosterone (T) into the prostate can stop advanced, inoperable prostate cancer. Instead of admitting what is quite obvious at this point – that androgens not only do not cause but may actually treat prostate cancer – the medical industry in its desperation doubled-down on its claims and insisted that the benefits from T injection are due to the prostate converting the T into estrogen, and it is estrogen that was therapeutic. Estrogen has been used as part of the chemical castration approach to prostate cancer for decades, so the medical charlatans thought the public can be duped despite the fact that those same charlatans teach in medical school that the prostate is overwhelmingly a DHT-producing organ while expressing very little aromatase for estrogen synthesis. If I were to guess, a nightmare scenario for the whitecoats depending on this theory for their employment would be a study showing that DHT itself is therapeutic in prostate cancer. As DHT cannot be aromatized into estrogen, that would effectively kill the entire theory and the massive industry that depends on it.

Well, that is exactly what the study below did. It used a synthetic isomer of DHT known as Drostanolone (D) and tested it together with several of its metabolites against several cancer types.

link here

The study found that both D and its metabolites had therapeutic effects against all the cancer types tested, including prostate cancer. In fact, D was actually found to be more potent against prostate cancer than the standard chemotherapeutic drug cisplatin. D is referred to in the study below as compound (1) and (9), which are the heptanoate ester and the base steroid respectively. As they say in the movies – “so much for the glory of Rome” 🙂

link here

“…In conclusion, the microbial transformation of anabolic-androgenic steroid drostanolone heptanoate (1) with C. aphidicola and F. lini led to the synthesis of eight metabolites, including five new metabolites 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8. Hydroxylation, oxidative cleavage of ester moiety, reduction, and dehydrogenation were the main reactions observed during the transformation. Compounds 1–9 exhibited anti-cancer potential against HeLa (human cervical carcinoma), PC-3 (human prostate carcinoma), H460 (human lung cancer), and HCT116 (human colon cancer) cancer cell lines between moderate to potent range. Interestingly, substrate 1 (IC50 = 3.1 ± 3.2 μM) and metabolite 9 (IC50 = 2.8 ± 0.2 μM) were found to be more active against HCT116 cancer cell line than the standard drug, cisplatin (IC50 = 11.2 ± 3.0 μM). Compounds 1 (IC50 = 5.0 ± 1.2 μM), 3 (IC50 = 16.7 ± 2.6 μM), and 4 (IC50 = 12.4 ± 2.3 μM) were found to be more active against H460 cancer cell line than the standard drug, cisplatin (IC50 = 22.2 ± 2.1 μM). Metabolites 5 (IC50= 39.8 ± 1.5 μM), 8 (IC50 = 19.6 ± 1.4 μM), and 9 (IC50 = 25.1 ± 1.6 μM) were also found more active against HeLa cancer cell line than the standard drug, cisplatin (IC50 = 40.1 ± 2.0 μM). Metabolites 3 (IC50= 68.0 ± 1.2 μM), 4 (IC50 = 60.4 ± 0.9 μM), 6 (IC50 = 58.4 ± 1.6 μM), 7 (IC50 = 59.1 ± 2.6 μM), 8 (IC50 = 51.8 ± 3.4 μM), and 9 (IC50 = 57.8 ± 3.2 μM) were also found more active against PC-3 cancer cell line than the standard drug, cisplatin (IC50 = 76.5 ± 1.2 μM). Except compounds 8 and 9, all compounds were found to be non-cytotoxic to normal 3T3 cell line. These results indicated specific cytotoxicity of this class of compounds against cancer cell lines, as compared to normal cell line. Thus, the results of presented study will be helpful towards the drug discovery against cervical, prostate, lung, and colon cancers.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-472.mp3" length="922292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen is a stress hormone, it can both trigger and potentiate the effects of stress</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=470</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=470</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 03 Aug 2019 23:01:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=470

I was quite surprised to see this article in WebMD – a website that is bastion of mainstream medicine. It regularly promotes dogmas related serotonin, estrogen, oxytocin, growth hormone, etc and the myriad of “benefits” these substances bestow upon humans. However, a bit of truth apparently manages to slip through the censorship every once in a while and the article below is a prime example of that. The study author directly states that higher estrogen levels are the likely explanation for the higher incidence of mental illness in females. As her studies (some of them listed below) demonstrated, estrogen is an actual stress hormones that can trigger the stress response by itself when its levels are sufficiently elevated. However, even at low levels estrogen is not benign at all as it can amplify the effects of an external stress signal that would normally not trigger a stress response in the absence of estrogen. It is amazing that despite all the evidence that has accumulated  about estrogen’s role in so many pathologies, most doctors still treat it (and medical schools teach about it) as if it was purely a “female hormone”, and one that is quite benign.

3 links here

“…New research from Yale University may help explain why women are twice as likely as men to suffer from stress-related mental illnesses such as depression, link here. Animal studies show that high levels of the female sex, link here hormone estrogen, link here affect the brain, link here‘s ability to deal with stress. Estrogen, link here was found to amplify the stress response in areas of the brain, link here most closely identified with depression, link here and other stress-related mental illnesses. Researchers say the findings may one day lead to the development of treatments for depression, link here that specifically target women. “These findings suggest that there is a difference between men and women in how the prefrontal cortex responds to stress,” says graduate student Rebecca M. Shansky, who was the study’s lead researcher.”

“…The Yale team exposed male and female rats to different levels of stress and then had the rats perform a short-term memory task designed to assess prefrontal cortex function. This region of the brain, link here has been shown in previous brain, link here imaging studies to be abnormal in depressed people. In the absence of stress, both the males and females performed the task equally well, and both sexes performed poorly when exposed to relatively high levels of stress. Yet when levels of estrogen were high, female rats were impaired by lower levels of stress than male rats. During periods when this hormone was low, they responded similarly to male rats to stress. “High estrogen levels made these animals more sensitive to the effects of stress,” Shansky tells WebMD.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-470.mp3" length="574820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:20</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA, from formula feeding or maternal obesity, may cause leukemia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=467</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=467</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 02 Aug 2019 17:31:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=467

Another great study, and one of the few that dares point the finger at medicine’s Holy Grail – the “essential fatty acids”. As the study aptly says, high levels of PUFA in the blood and especially higher levels of linoleic acid predict subsequent development of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in children. While the study is observational, the authors state quite clearly they think the link is causative and they mention evidence that elevated PUFA levels may predict other cancers types in BOTH children and adults. Just as importantly, they also found that PUFA levels are higher in the blood of children fed formula than the breast fed-ones. If the children were breast-fed, the ones with obese mothers had higher levels of PUFA in the blood, which suggests maternal obesity is also driven by PUFA (or at least strongly associated with it). So, in just one study we have evidence that the so-called “essential” fatty acids may cause both maternal obesity and deadly childhood leukemia, and possibly other cancers, and in adults as well. I cringe at the very thought of just how aggressively baby formula is being promoted in maternal wards around the Western world…

link here

“…Because ALL risks had previously been shown to be affected by age at diagnosis[10–13], we stratified cases by early (1-5 years) and late diagnosis (6-14 years) and, indeed, discovered mutually exclusive sets of predictive metabolomic features (Table 1). These 28 metabolites were mainly putative lipids (Table 1), some of which have been found to be perturbed in diagnostic blood for a number of malignancies [31,32] including childhood and adult acute leukemias [33,34]. Our study is unique in that the findings are based on pre-diagnostic blood collected at birth.”

link here

“…NIEHS grantees revealed associations between the presence of certain metabolites shortly after birth and childhood diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Notably, late-onset ALL patients exhibited more abundant metabolites linked to formula feeding rather than breast milk, indicating a possible role of nutrition in late-onset ALL risk. Using archived neonatal blood spots, the researchers compared 332 children who later developed ALL with 324 healthy children. The newborn blood spots were typically obtained between 24 and 48 hours post-delivery, generally after infants had received multiple feedings. Children diagnosed with ALL were separated by age at diagnosis into two groups: early, 1-5 years; and late, 6-14 years. The researchers identified metabolic features exclusive to each of the two groups of cases compared with controls. Nine metabolites predicted early ALL diagnosis and 19 different metabolites predicted late diagnosis. In the late-diagnosis group, they found a cluster of metabolites that indicated linoleic acid, an essential nutrient, was more abundant in these children than in either the early-onset cases or controls. Linoleic acid metabolites were also greater in infants fed formula rather than breast milk, in the form of colostrum, in the first few days of life. Levels of the metabolites increased with the mother’s pre-pregnancy body mass index, suggesting that mother’s weight may also be involved in late-diagnosis ALL risk.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-467.mp3" length="551372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin now officially recommended for (colon) cancer prevention</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=465</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=465</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 02 Aug 2019 17:02:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=465

It is only in the UK for now, but given how intertwined the health systems of most Western countries are I suspect it will soon spread to other health systems. Also, while the popular press article claims that the recommendation will only be for people with a specific genetic condition, the NHS UK website announcement makes it sound like it will be a recommendation for preventing ANY colon cancer, regardless of the type or underlying cause. It makes me sad that as groundbreaking changes to health care like these are made, studies are simultaneously pumped out calling for all people using aspirin preventatively to stop immediately due to the (overblown) bleeding risks.

link here

“…Taking aspirin, link here slashes the risk of cancer for hundreds of thousands of people with an inherited genetic condition, health chiefs have said. Carriers of Lynch Syndrome, which affects roughly one in 300 people, would gain significant protection against bowel, rectal and colon cancers from the daily pill, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice). Roughly four in five who carry the genes develop one of these forms of the disease – known collectively as colorectal cancer. However, trials have indicated that daily aspirin can cut the risk by up to 60 per cent. It is the first time Nice, which determines what drugs and treatments must be offered on the NHS, has recommended aspirin as a preventative treatment for cancer.”

“…Dr Paul Chrisp, director of the Centre for Guidelines at NICE, said: “The independent committee looked at evidence from a multi-country randomised controlled trial, which showed taking daily aspirin for more than two years reduces the risk of colorectal cancer in people with Lynch Syndrome, link here. “While there are risks associated with long-term aspirin use, the committee agreed that the benefits are likely to outweigh any potential harms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-465.mp3" length="331532" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Estrogen excess during pregnancy may cause autism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=444</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=444</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 29 Jul 2019 17:35:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=444

Finally! Some common sense is emerging from the medical profession. For one, it points the finger straight at estrogen as a possible cause of autism. And not just estradiol, which the medical profession considers the only estrogen of note, but all 3 of them (estrone, estradiol, estriol). So, all the talk about estrone/estriol being weak and benign flies out the window. Also, this is one of only maybe 2 or 3 studies that I have seen over the last 17 years that cautioned against thinking of estrogen as a “female” hormone. As the study said, estrogen has many roles and one of them is masculinizing the brains of male fetuses. I would have also added “a major stress hormone” to the list of roles, but I suspect even a renowned public figure such as Prof. Baron-Cohen is concerned about keeping his job, and as such avoids making such shocking statements 🙂




Anyways, the cat is out of the bag – (prenatal) stress causes autism. Why? Well, at this point, we have studies linking high serotonin, low allopregnanolone, low GABA, endocrine disruptors (BPA, BPS, etc), endotoxin (LPS), high adrenaline, etc during pregnancy to the development of autism in the child. If you look at this list of possible autism causes, they are ALL basically symptoms of chronic maternal stress and/or low metabolism. As such, we it seems plausible to say that autism is simply the neurological manifestation of maternal stress inhibiting oxidative metabolism. The study authors even propose a mechanism through which estrogen causes may cause autism – disruption of the GABA system in the brain. More specifically, estrogen acts as a functional GABA antagonist, which matches quite well with the other studies mentioned above that found decreases allopregnanolone levels (and thus lower GABA activity) in autistic children. This suggests that autism is a form of chronic brain excitotoxicity driven by deficiency of GABA signalling. And if chronic stress alone was not enough, the potent environmental (xeno) estrogens such as BPA, BPS, soy isoflavones, resveratrol, birth control (BC) pills, etc are all adding to the estrogenic burden. As a matter of fact, about one third of women of reproductive age use BC pills on an ongoing basis, with usage often spanning decades. No wonder autism rates keep increasing, we are all bathing in estrogen! 




The good news? It just so happens that progesterone addresses most of the possible causes listed above – i.e. inhibits TPH and thus serotonin synthesis, increases allopregnanolone levels, blocks the effects of BPA/BPS on estrogen and thyroid receptors and likely accelerates the elimination of such disruptors, binds/deactivates endotoxin and blocks TLR4, opposes adrenaline by increasing noradrenaline and of course it has a systemic pro-metabolic effects. Considering the rapidly rising rates/risk of (pre)eclampsia for all women, using supplemental progesterone is probably one of the most protective/beneficial things a mother-to-be can do. There should be no reason a doctor would deny progesterone to a pregnant woman, but some may try to push the synthetic progestins instead of bioidentical progesterone. Those progestins are poison! Most of them are estrogenic and androgenic, and despite their activity on the progesterone receptor cannot be compared to bioidentical progesterone. So, if a woman is talking to her doctor about progesterone I would be VERY careful that he/she does not do a bait-and-switch and prescribe a synthetic progestin instead by claiming that it is the “same as progesterone, only better”.




3 links here

“…Boys who develop autism may have been exposed to higher levels of ‘female’ hormones in the womb, suggests a new study. Cambridge University researchers found high levels of oestrogen had a bigger impact than the male hormone testosterone. The research team concluded that “oestrogenic excess is a characteristic of autism” in a paper published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. Three out of four oestrogens analysed in the study were linked with autism – with oestradiol levels being the “most significant predictor”.




“High levels of prenatal oestradiol contribute to a greater degree to autism likelihood than other prenatal sex steroids, including testosterone. “We conclude that prenatal oestrogenic excess is a characteristic of autism and may interact with genetic predisposition to affect neurodevelopment.” He warned the findings should not be used to screen for autism, adding: “We are interested in understanding autism, not preventing it.”




“…Study co-author Alex Tsompanidis, a PhD student, said: “These elevated hormones could be coming from the mother, the baby or the placenta. “Our next step should be to study all these possible sources and how they interact during pregnancy.” He said despite oestrogen being thought of as a ‘feminising hormone’, in the womb it also has effects on brain growth and even ‘masculinises’ the brain in many mammals.”




“This study reports the first evidence that elevated levels of prenatal amniotic oestradiol, oestriol and oestrone are each associated with autism, with oestradiol levels being the most significant predictor of autism likelihood in univariate logistic regression models. “We found that oestradiol had the strongest positive effect size on autism likelihood, followed by oestrone, oestriol and progesterone.”




“Oestrogen signalling could thus be a significant modulator of neuronal inhibition, particularly during early brain development and the critical period of cortical plasticity, which is heavily reliant on the GABAergic system. “We could not test whether prenatal oestrogens were associated with autism likelihood in females as there were too few diagnosed women in the HBC in this time window. We plan to test this by expanding the time window. Thus, at present, our findings only generalise to males.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-444.mp3" length="1729052" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Progesterone may bind and deactivate endotoxin (LPS) directly</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=441</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=441</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 27 Jul 2019 21:22:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=441

I made a few posts recently discussing the blocking effects of pregnenolone on TLR4 and TLR family receptors in general, and the reduction of systemic inflammation stemming from this blockade/regulation.

link here

It is well-known that glucocorticoids and mineralocorticoids are protective against endotoxemic shock, possibly due to blocking the hypotensive and inflammatory effects of endotoxin. However, a specific mechanism of action for the protective effects of steroids has still not been officially proposed, aside from the TLR4 antagonism by pregnenolone above.




The study below is really interesting because not only does it show that a HED 1mg/kg progesterone was remarkably protective against endotoxin inflammation and lethality, but it also suggests that progesterone may react directly with endotoxin and form a covalent bond. This progesterone-endotoxin complex is apparently inactive, which suggests that a significant portion of progesterone’s (and likely pregnenolone’s) protective effects against endotoxin may stem from a direct deactivation effects. If true, it would put steroids like pregnenolone/progesterone on par with charcoal as there are very few other known direct binders/deactivators of endotoxin. This effect is on top of the TLR4/histamine/serotonin/prostaglandin/etc antagonism that these steroids are already known to possess, and suggests that it is the physical properties of C-21 steroids rather than their “receptor” effects that may be responsible for some of their benefits. Truly remarkable, and similar to the rationale Peat provided for glycine’s benefits, which cannot be explained by its genomic or enzymatic interactions.




link here

“…We have found that progesterone markedly prolongs survival in cats that have been given endotoxin. The effect of progesterone on the course of endotoxic shock varied with the time the progesterone was given. Progesterone incubated with or given simultaneously with endotoxin lessened the initial and secondary fall in blood pressure seen in the control animals. Progesterone given 5 or 30 minutes after the endotoxin restored the initial falling blood pressure to near-normal levels and lessened the secondary hypotension which occurred at 1 to 1% hours in the control animals. The mechanism responsible for the initial hypotensive episode following the administration of endotoxin is thought to be related to the liberation of histamine or a similar vasoactive substance [3, 5].”




“…The preliminary results of our work with the ether and aqueous extracts of progesterone and endotoxin, and the increased survival obtained with prior incubation of endotoxin with progesterone, appear to indicate that progesterone may form an in vitro bond with the endotoxin compound. This has been suggested as a possible alternate explanation of the action of aldosterone and endotoxin [3, 4]. Whether this results in direct inhibition of the endotoxin or the inhibition is mediated through unknown substances in vivo is pure conjecture at this time. DeSaulles has demonstrated increased survival in animals given endotoxin and 19 oxoprogesterone [1]. This compound reportedly has no antiinflammatory or mineralcorticoid effects and may indicate that the inhibition of endotoxin by the glucocorticoids, mineralcorticoids, and progesterone bears no relationship to their known physiological actions.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-441.mp3" length="854660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>(Sometimes) to do nothing as cancer treatment is also good medicine</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=437</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=437</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jul 2019 20:37:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=437

Just a week ago I made post about a book calling for all but the abolition of the medical system. The evidence for any systemic benefit are just not there, while the evidence for iatrogenic harm and death, as well as astounding financial costs, is abundant.

A call for medical nihilism – to do nothing is also good medicine, link here




Now, an opinion in the WSJ, written by an esteemed oncologist makes a call not too dissimilar than the one in the book above. In fact, the doctor states that EVERY oncologist has one or more patients who simply live with their cancer. And invariably, those are patients that have refused treatment. It is those patients that apparently outlive the aggressively treated ones by many years and some are even in 10-year remission periods, officially known as “cures”. Furthermore, the doctor writes, given how long it takes for cancer to develop to the point of being diagnosable, most cancer patients have unknowingly been living with their cancer for most of their lives without it causing major issues. Why bother treating ALL of them when they are finally diagnosed? Clearly, if they have been living with their cancer for so long, then it is not something that likely warrants attention unless the tumor is affecting vital organs. Despite the anecdotal nature of those cases, they are still evidence and that evidence points to “doing nothing” being vastly better as therapy when it comes to cancer. I consider editorials/opinions like this a good development. If even mainstream media is making calls for a change in a discipline that has seen little progress over the last 100 years, then the end of this carnage/genocide is in sight.




link here

“…Cancer physicians for more than a century have followed the simple dictum that more is better—more surgery, more radiation, more chemotherapy and, most recently, more immunotherapy. But how much is enough? Do we escalate doses to the point of lethality, as those engaged in bone-marrow transplantation are forced to do regularly? Is this struggle to eliminate every patient’s cancer achievable or even warranted? These questions have taken on a new urgency because oncology has lost sight of a basic principle: Every patient is a uniquely complex person with different medical needs requiring different treatments. Every oncologist has patients who simply “live” with their cancers. After I told one patient with advanced lung cancer that she was unlikely to respond to conventional therapy, she declined intervention and proceeded to outlive all of her “treated” counterparts by several years. I describe her to my medical students as “my best response I never treated.”




“…We now know that cancer is a disease of altered cell survival, not excessive proliferation. That is, cancer doesn’t grow too much, it dies too little. Applying cell kinetics, we can trace a newly diagnosed colon cancer back to its first cell. This reveals that a cancer that has spread to the liver by the time it’s diagnosed may have its origins some 30 years earlier yet remain undetectable with current diagnostic techniques for well over two decades. The same holds true for pancreatic, lung and other tumors. By the time many patients are diagnosed, they have unknowingly lived more of their lives with cancer than without.”




“…A newly diagnosed patient with lung cancer and metastases to the brain once arrived in my office and told me that her first oncologist was so pessimistic that she was told to “get my affairs in order.” Her studies revealed a simple two-drug combination that provided a remission that has now lasted more than 10 years. When we met shortly after her diagnosis to discuss the recommended treatment, she blurted out, “You mean I’m not going to die?” “No” I said, “you’re not sick. You just have cancer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-437.mp3" length="759980" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Avoiding sunlight may be as bad for health as smoking a pack a day</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=434</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=434</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jul 2019 20:16:56 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=434

As most readers of this blog know, the current recommendations of the American Dermatology Association (ADA) call for pretty much no sun exposure of any skin areas unless those areas have been “protected” by sunscreen. The same recommendation applies to tanning beds and makes not distinction of a person’s place of living. In other words, the same recommendations of zero unprotected sun exposure apply to somebody living in Alaska and somebody living in Florida, despite the fact that there is an order of magnitude difference in sun exposure between the two states. Well, the article below does a great of calling into question not only the ADA recommendations but the very rationale on which they were based. As the article aptly points out, the ADA recommendations are akin to worrying about avoiding the flu when the process of avoiding that flu would lead to a much more serious and potentially lethal infection. In fact, the evidence accumulated so far suggests that avoiding the sun has the same cumulative risks for health as picking up a pack-a-day smoking habit! Furthermore, the overall risk of death was dramatically lower in the people with increased sun exposure, even in the ones that had sunlight-associated cancers. Considering the recent news that sunscreens applied topically result in systemic absorption of toxic ingredients that persist in the bloodstream for days, I think it becomes quite hard to make a case for sunlight avoidance or using “protection” in the form of sunscreen.

It is hard to believe that the medical profession is that stupid to ignore its own mountain of evidence in favor of sunlight. I am inclined to think that something more sinister is at play here. The very ideas of “protection” and “unprotected exposure” are strongly reminiscent of the recommendations of the International AIDS Society or the American Sexual Health Association. Namely, absolutely no sexual contact (oral, vaginal, etc) without “protection”, even among stable, monogamous couples. Whether one believes in conspiracies or not, the indisputable trend is that no human activity of any kind is encouraged without the proper recommendations or even license from the powers that be. Before we know it, we will be applying for licenses to even eat food that deviates from the official recommendations. And this benefits nobody except the very people who set the standards for “healthy” behavior. In addition, a more conformist public following (un)healthy recommendations also means never-ending supply of patients for the medical industry.

6 links here

“…It was around 15 years ago that Dr. Matt Zirwas, an Ohio-based dermatologist, first noticed something curious about the people he was treating at his clinic. “The older patients I was seeing [who had] lots of sun damage and lots of skin cancer would be very robust, very energetic people,” he says. These were people who, apart from their skin cancers, tended to be in excellent health and taking very few prescription drugs. “But then I’d see these people who had beautiful skin and no cancers, and they were very low-energy and taking medications for all these different health problems,” he recalls. He began to wonder whether exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light, mostly from the sun, had more health benefits than he and other experts realized. When most people consider UV light and its effects, skin cancer and premature aging come to mind. And there’s no question, link here that exposure to the sun, tanning beds, and other sources of UV light damages the skin in ways that promote aging and cancer. That’s why most dermatologists and public health officials recommend that Americans slather sunscreen on exposed skin whenever they leave the house — even in the wintertime — or take other steps to avoid sun exposure.”

“…Zirwas started reading the published literature on UV exposure and human health. In 2014, a study appeared that Zirwas says changed his thinking from “this is all kind of interesting” to “holy shit!” That study, link here was published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, and it examined 20 years of health data collected from nearly 30,000 Swedish women. The data included questionnaires that asked women about their sun habits, as well as about their smoking history, alcohol use, body weight, education level, income, and other variables that tend to raise or lower a person’s risk for death. The study found that the risk of death from all causes approximately doubled among women who tended to avoid the sun compared to women who got the greatest amount of UV exposure — including from both the sun and from tanning beds. The relationship was dose-dependent, the study found, meaning that the more sun a woman reported getting, the lower her risk of death. The protective effect of sun exposure remained significant, even after the study authors adjusted their figures for income, BMI, smoking history, and other factors that could account for their findings. “If that study’s findings are correct,” Zirwas says, “that means protecting yourself from ultraviolet light could have the same effect on your mortality as deciding to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day.” “That study,” he adds, “made me say, ‘Oh my God, there has to be a lot more to this story.’”

“…Heart disease is the most common cause of death in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And that study from Sweden found that a drop in heart-disease deaths among the sun-exposed women was the most significant contributor to their lower mortality rates. It’s not the only study that has drawn ties between sun exposure and improved heart health. For decades, researchers have observed what they call the “winter cardiovascular disease phenomenon.” Both in the United States, link here and in Europe, link here, heart disease-related deaths peak in winter and bottom-out in summer, and the swing is not subtle. There’s also evidence that some markers of heart disease rise fairly consistently, link here among people as their location slides farther north or south of the equator.”

“…Some of this research has come from Dr. Richard Weller, a dermatologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. “Without a shadow of a doubt, sun exposure is a risk factor for skin cancer,” Weller says. “But the question is, what is the risk-benefit ratio of sun exposure? Where is the evidence that sun exposure shortens life?” Weller says that this evidence does not exist. Along with the pro-sun Swedish study, he cites a large study from Denmark, link here that found people who had been diagnosed with skin cancer actually experienced lower rates of heart disease and death compared to the general population.”

“…How could skin cancer be associated with a reduced risk of death? A dig through the skin cancer stats yields some surprises. Skin cancer is by far the most common type of cancer in the United States, according to the CDC. And for those who develop melanoma, skin cancer is serious and sometimes lethal. But the vast majority of skin cancers — roughly 99% — are non-melanoma basal cell and squamous cell cancers. Of these, roughly 80% are basal cell cancers (BCCs). While removing BCCs can be a painful procedure and one that results in significant scarring, these cancers are almost never deadly. These are also the skin cancers most closely associated with sun exposure, and that commonly show up on a person’s hands, scalp, and other sun-exposed areas, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Even if sun exposure were the sole cause of all skin cancers, which is unlikely, the lethality of the disease is far lower than one might assume. The American Academy of Dermatology estimates, link here that melanoma will kill 7,230 people in the United States this year, while other forms of skin cancer will claim another 4,420 lives. Cardiovascular disease, meanwhile, kills approximately 650,000 Americans each year, per the CDC, link here. Both Zirwas and Weller argue that if sun exposure offers even modest protection against heart disease, the benefits of sun exposure could quickly outweigh its risks…“I think dermatologists want people to have skin that is healthy and cancer-free for as long as possible,” Jablonski says. “But most aren’t looking past the skin — they’re not thinking about the global well-being of their patients.” While she doesn’t believe that taking a vitamin D supplement can fully replace the health benefits of sun exposure, she says it’s one measure that research has linked with improved health outcomes.”

“…Looking beyond heart disease, research, link here has uncovered associations between higher levels of sun exposure and reduced rates of Type 2 diabetes. There’s also evidence linking sun exposure to a lower risk for some non-skin cancers. A 2013 study, link here from the National Cancer Institute found that people who lived in places with high levels of sun radiation experienced an uptick in risk for melanoma, but a drop in risk for cancers of the colon, lungs, prostate, bladder, kidney, and blood. Overall, UV radiation exposure showed “a significant inverse association with total cancer risk,” the study’s authors wrote. Meanwhile, there’s evidence — both positive and negative — linking UV light exposure to immune function. Some studies have found, link here that sunlight suppresses aspects of immune function, and that it can trigger or worsen, link here symptoms among people with autoimmune disorders such as lupus. On the other hand, studies, link here have found a link between greater sun exposure and lower rates of allergies, asthma, and autoimmune disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis. Researchers have even postulated, link here that humanity’s move indoors and away from the sun could explain the exploding rates of autoimmune disease. Sunlight also affects the way people think and feel. Research, link here has linked UV exposure to mood and well-being benefits, and to lower levels of depression.”

“…But short of burning, he says he has no problem with people developing a tan — a position that would likely outrage many of his fellow dermatologists. “I think the benefits of [non-burning] sun exposure far outweigh the skin-cancer risks,” he says. “If you’re worried about aging, put sunscreen on your face and hands,” he says. “But the idea that we should get no UV at all — we should be debating this.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-434.mp3" length="1129220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The stereotypes about testosterone (T) are likely wrong</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=431</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=431</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jul 2019 17:22:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=431

A really great study for a number of reasons. Not only does it show that the commonly cited stereotypes about T’s effects on human behavior are likely all wrong, but it also demonstrates the powerful effects the process of “pre-registering” has on study outcomes. The process of pre-registering involves the scientists submitting a priori their plan and methods of the study, raw data of the tests, the hypotheses to be tested, and the statistical methods planned to be used for analysis. This registration makes it much more difficult for scientists to engage in statistical manipulations commonly known as “p-hacking” and to bury inconvenient results that do not support the “popular” theory/outcome.




Well, the results of the study are in and in the words of the study authors themselves – we can safely say that we do not really know much about T’s effects on human behavior. What we do know is that the stereotypes about how it would affect behavior in terms of making people brash, immoral, utilitarian, risk-taking, etc are all wrong. If anything, administering T actually had the opposite effects – i.e. it made both men and women more sensitive to moral norms. This is another strong aspect of the study – it was an intervention experiment. Namely, it actually administered T and observed change in behavior instead of simply performing epidemiological analysis as the vast majority of T studies have been in the past. As such, the study below CAN make claims about cause-effect and its findings do NOT justify (some) stereotypes society holds on how T affects behavior.




I think most of the stereotypes about T in our society are actually politically motivated and deliberately promoted. The image of the “ideal male” is one of a highly militaristic attitude, aggressive, ruthless, opportunistic, and highly supportive of a “God-given” social hierarchy. This is exactly the type of male that serves well a highly polarized society, an empire of sorts. A male that will follow orders without question and will aggressively attack anything and anyone that threatens the “God-given” order he serves. However, there is plenty of evidence that while this stereotype does exist, it is driven predominantly by cortisol and estrogen, not T. In fact, high-androgen males are usually calm, collected and typically abhor violence due to its inherent antagonism to true problem-solving. True men solve problems, they do not resort to violence except in self-defense. It is not a coincidence that the militaristic male stereotype cannot develop in childhood but starts with and is solidified during puberty – the latter being initiated and driven by a surge in estrogen in both sexes.




3 links here

“…Some of us would like to think that we’d be able to step back and evaluate the situation dispassionately, but the reality is that our emotions often drive important decisions (and besides, as the clip from The Good Place linked above shows, there isn’t always time for careful evaluation). Since testosterone influences both emotions and decision-making, many people had ideas about how it might alter the decisions made by people weighing these moral issues. But when a team of researchers from the University of Texas, Austin, decided to test those ideas, it turned out none of them was right. That doesn’t mean testosterone does nothing, but it certainly indicates we don’t understand what it might do.




“…There has been a lot of discussion about the issues of reproducible research, p-hacking for any publishable results in data, and an inability to publish negative results. So it’s a pleasure to report on a paper that actually does something about it. The authors—Skylar Brannon, Sarah Carr, Ellie Shuo Jin, Robert Josephs, and Bertram Gawronski—actually pre-registered their research plan, link here, including the hypotheses they were going to be testing and the experiment that would test them. The hypotheses were based on previous suggestions that testosterone would make people less empathetic and therefore more likely to choose a purely utilitarian solution, minimizing the total number of deaths. They also hypothesized that people given testosterone would prefer taking action, which would bias them toward changing the status quo. To test these hypotheses, they got 200 volunteers and randomly assigned some to receive a boost of testosterone, while the rest got a placebo. The participants were then asked to consider a moral dilemma and come to some decision on what they felt the right course of action was.”




“…Rather than simply looking at what the subjects chose, the researchers recognized that there were several potential tiers of decision-making at play. These included a general preference for action vs. inaction and possible preferences for moral prohibitions or utilitarian views. The participants’ responses were plugged in to a model that determined where they fell on these various values. The outcome of that analysis was used to test the various hypotheses.”The results of the current study yielded no evidence in support of any of the four preregistered hypotheses,” write the authors. Those given testosterone were no more likely to prefer taking action than those given the placebo. It was predicted that they’d also be more prone to make utilitarian judgements that minimize total casualties; this wasn’t true, either. Another hypothesis suggested that those given testosterone would be less sensitive to moral prohibitions, such as not choosing to kill someone. In fact, the results suggest the exact opposite is true.“




“…Given this apparently contradictory result and the complete absence of other significant changes, it’s fair to say that we don’t know if testosterone is involved in this sort of decision-making, much less what its impact is if it is. It’s not even entirely clear that more work is warranted, given that there are more compelling indications of effects that might be better to follow up on. On the plus side, however, the paper does show the advantage of pre-registering experimental designs. The fact that the hypotheses were out there compelled the authors to be up front about them not being supported and undoubtedly contributed to their ability to get these negative results published in a high-profile journal. The only downside is that rather than focusing on the negative results, the authors’ title happily describes the one significant result they got from the main experiments, even though it falsified their ideas.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-431.mp3" length="1263524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Parents’ emotional trauma may change their children’s biology</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=428</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=428</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jul 2019 17:04:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=428

Not a new idea, but the study is a nice summary of recent work in the area and demonstrates that the old gene-centric idea of inheritance is slowly being replaced by a much richer theory of how organisms interact with their environment and how they pass this information down to generations. It is a very “scary” development, as the article itself says. Once people realize the true impact of everyday stress and trauma they experience at the hands of their corrupt government, employer, social network, etc the liabilities for the offending entities would be huge and the social dynamic/structure would probably radically change.




2 links here

“…That idea would have been laughed at 20 years ago. But today the hypothesis that an individual’s experience might alter the cells and behavior of their children and grandchildren has become widely accepted. In animals, exposure to stress, cold, or high-fat diets has been shown to trigger metabolic changes in later generations. And small studies in humans exposed to traumatic conditions—among them the children of Holocaust survivors—suggest subtle biological and health changes in their children. The implications are profound. If our experiences can have consequences that reverberate to our children or our children’s children, that’s a powerful argument against everything from smoking to immigration policies that split families. “This is really scary stuff. If what your grandmother and grandfather were exposed to is going to change your disease risk, the things we’re doing today that we thought were erased are affecting our great-great-grandchildren,” says Michael Skinner, a biologist at Washington State University in Pullman. Skinner’s own research in animals suggests changes to the epigenome, a swirl of biological factors that affect how genes are expressed, can be passed down through multiple generations, link here. If trauma can trigger such epigenetic changes in people, the alterations could serve as biomarkers to identify individuals at greater risk for mental illness or other health problems—and as targets for interventions that might reverse that legacy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-428.mp3" length="314396" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:42</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Gorillas have developed human-like “societies” that are not based on kin</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=424</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=424</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jul 2019 16:44:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=424

One of the central dogmas in biology is that any large number of animals behaving as a group in deliberate manner, spanning multiple generations, is invariably based on kin. The dogma argues that this is the only way individual survival and procreation can take a back stage to the interests of the group as a whole. The “selfish gene”, they say, rules supreme. Even in groups. As such, large, hierarchical social structures in animals are next to impossible, the theory argues.




Well, the study below (labelled “controversial”, of course) throws a wrench in that theory and claims that one of our closest genetic relatives – gorillas – forms large social structures that are not at all based on kin, yet exhibit high degree of cooperation and pro-social behavior. In fact, the authors of the study go as far as calling those interactions “friendship”, quite similar to the same interactions in unrelated humans.




2 links here

“…A bold claim about gorilla societies is drawing mixed reviews. Great apes, humans’ closest evolutionary relatives, were thought to lack our social complexity. Chimpanzees, for example, form only small bands that are aggressive toward strangers. But based on years of watching gorillas gather in food-rich forest clearings, a team of scientists has concluded the apes have hierarchical societies similar to those of humans, perhaps to help them exploit rich troves of food. The finding, reported in the current issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, challenges the prevailing notion that such sophisticated societies evolved relatively recently, link here, after humans split from chimpanzees. Instead, these researchers say, the origins of such social systems extend at least as far back as the common ancestor of humans and gorillas, but were lost in chimpanzees.”




“…By stationing themselves near the Mbeli Bai clearing in the Republic of Congo’s Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, she and her colleagues gained an intimate view of gorilla social connections from 2010 to 2015. They added to their observations similar data collected by others in 2001–02 at the Lokoué clearing in Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo. By analyzing the frequency and duration of social interactions among the hundreds of gorillas that gathered at each site, the scientists discovered a multitiered hierarchy. Family units were nested inside larger social units in a pattern strikingly similar to modern human societies. At both sites, individual gorillas spent time not only with their immediate families, but also with an average of 13 extended family members—for example, cousins, aunts, and grandparents. Even more surprising, each ape interacted with some 39 other gorillas to whom they weren’t related. Sometimes, younger males gathered in “all-male bachelor groups,” Morrison said in a press statement, comparing the overall gatherings to dynamics in a village. Her team’s analysis revealed that more than 80% of the close associations were between more distantly related—or even unrelated—silverbacks, as dominant male gorillas are called. Gorillas “clearly had preferences,” she said.” “If we think of these associations in a human-centric way, the time spent in each other’s company might be analogous to an old friendship,” she added. The ability to form friendships and cooperate with unrelated individuals is considered integral to the evolution of humans’ “social brains.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-424.mp3" length="466820" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:06</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may improve symptoms of ALS</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=421</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=421</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jul 2019 16:23:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=421

Just over a week ago I posted a thread on ALS being linked to increased fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and as such a decreased glucose availability/oxidation.




link here

Now, the study below further corroborates this FAO-disease association by demonstrating a causative link between a change in the microbiome and the development/progression of ALS. The change in microbiome was such that there was a decrease in the amount of bacteria producing niacinamide/nicotinamide and as a result the animals with the changed microbiome developed vitamin B3 deficiency. When those animals were given a supplementation of niacinamide the symptoms of ALS improved. However, the beneficial effects were weaker compared to restoring the levels of the beneficial bacteria, which suggests that lack of vitamin B3 is not the only factor in ALS pathology. My suspicion is that the B3-producing bacteria is a non-endotoxin species and as such increasing its levels decreases levels of the Gram-negative, endotoxin-producing Parabacteroides distasonis whose levels were found to be higher in patients with ALS. The study also examined stool and CSF from humans with ALS and confirmed that the human patients also had lower levels of the niacinamide-producing bacteria in the colon, as well as lower levels of vitamin B3 in their CSF.




2 links here

“…In a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, animals that had ample levels the bacterium Akkermansia muciniphila in their gut microbiomes fared better than those carrying almost no members of the species, which produces vitamin B3, according to a study published this week (July 22) in Nature, link here. Moreover, restoring A. muciniphila in mice that had low levels slowed the progression of their disease. “When we gave it to ALS-prone mice it very significantly improved ALS severity in these mice,” coauthor Eran Elinav, a microbiome researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, tells The Guardian, link here. On the other hand, two other members of the microbiome—Ruminococcus torques and Parabacteroides distasonis—were more common in mice with severe disease.




“…The researchers suspect that A. muciniphila’s production of B3 may have something to do with its apparently therapeutic effects. Treating mice with a form of vitamin B3 called nicotinamide improved some of their symptoms. However, this did not increase the mice’s lifespan as boosting levels of the bacteria had, suggesting there’s more to the bacterium’s effect than just B3. “Usually you don’t expect one miracle metabolite can rescue the mice completely,” Jun Sun, a medical microbiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who was not involved in the study, tells Science News, link here. The researchers gathered some preliminary data that suggest A. muciniphila abundance may relate to ALS in humans as well. Examining the microbiomes of 37 ALS patients and 29 healthy family members, Elinav and colleagues found lower levels of the bacterium in the stool of the ALS patients and lower levels of nicotinamide in their blood and cerebrospinal fluid. In addition, the levels of nicotinamide in the blood correlated with the severity of the patient’s disease: patients with lower levels tended to have worse symptoms.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-421.mp3" length="652220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Imagination is crucial for altruism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=418</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=418</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jul 2019 19:35:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=418

A great study that once again links altruistic behavior with metabolism and energetics. I posted in the past about the studies on egalitarian beliefs / attitudes being more energetically expensive than selfish ones, and as such implying that people with the former beliefs are in better metabolic health.

 

 Egalitarian Values Require Mental Effort: Research suggests humans naturally tend towards hierarchical structures, link here from MHOCStrangersBar, link here 




2 links here

Similarly, there are several studies linking the capacity for imagination to intensity of metabolism and even respiratory quotient (a metric for carbohydrate oxidation level/intensity).




link here

Now, the study below provides evidence linking imagination to altruism, which further strengthens the link to oxidative metabolism and overall health. In fact, the study claims that the relationship is linear – i.e. the greater the ease of imagination activity in certain brain areas the more altruistic the behavior of that imaginative person. So, maybe the crises of democracy and social interactions we are seeing currently around the world are really just a sign/symptom of poor health/metabolism. As such, the goal should NOT be “more discourse” (as politicians keep demanding) about how to simplistically address those signs/symptoms. The discourse (and action) should be why is people’s health so poor and how it can be improved, because that is the fundamental cause of social/national discord. And on a more practical note, independently of any politician, given the relationship between dopamine and imagination it may be feasible to increase altruism by increasing dopamine signalling and/or blocking serotonin. 




2 links here

“…Neuroimaging helped the researchers identify multiple neural pathways that explain the relationship between imagination and the willingness to help others, researchers from Boston College and the University of Albany, SUNY, reported recently in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.”




“…The study discovered evidence for the direct impact of scene imagery on willingness to help, according to Boston College Associate Professor of Psychology Liane Young, a co-author and the principal investigator on the project. While study participants imagined helping scenes, neural activity in MTL predicted overall willingness to help the person in need, according to the article, “A role for the medial temporal lobe subsystem in guiding prosociality: the effect of episodic processes on willingness to help others,” which was published in the journal’s April 14 edition. “If we are able to vividly imagine helping someone, then we think we’re more likely to actually do it,” said Young, director of the Morality Lab at BC. “Imagining the scenery surrounding the situation can also prompt people to take the perspective of the people in the situation who need help, which in turn prompts prosocial action.”

“…Neuroimaging revealed that the willingness to help was also predicted by activity in the RTPJ, a critical node that’s involved in taking the perspective of other people, according to the researchers. However, in the second experiment, when the team used TMS to temporarily inhibit activity in the RTPJ, they found that the altruistic effect of vividly imagining helping remained significant, suggesting that this effect doesn’t depend exclusively on perspective-taking.”




“…This contradiction may be explained by lower MTL activity reflecting greater ease of imagining episodes, and that ease of imagination means that participants are more willing to help. Consistent with this account, the team found that when participants reported finding it easier to imagine or remember helping episodes, they also tended to report being more willing to help the person in need.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-418.mp3" length="805604" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A call for medical nihilism – to do nothing is also good medicine</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=415</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=415</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jul 2019 18:15:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=415

To my greatest surprise, I stumbled upon yet another article in the Scientific American (SCIAM) that looked completely out of place in that publication. After all, SCIAM was (and continues to be) a bastion of official medicine and its articles often read more like drug company brochures than discussions on serious scientific matters. Yet, here it is below – an article reviewing a book calling for all but the abandoning most of medicine as we know it. If Ivan Illich is looking upon this world from somewhere, he is probably laughing and waving his book “Medical Nemesis” in our faces.




According to the author modern medicine’s limited utility can be summarized in a single sentence – i.e. surgery for trauma, aspirin for headache, antibiotics for infections, and insulin for diabetes. That is pretty much the sum total of interventions for which there is irrefutable evidence of benefit. Everything else is either wishful thinking or pharma-sponsored fraud. As far as the increased lifespan seen in the 20th century, for which medicine takes ALL the credit? It was likely not due to vaccines (and even antibiotics) but to improved standard of living, sanitation, and nutrition. Btw, doctors are in on the scam too, it is not just greedy Big Pharma or corrupt FDA killing us by the millions. Doctors are fully complicit in the so-called “disease mongering”, which creates an endless supply of patients for themselves and drug companies. Hippocrates was spot on when he said that (and I’d add “more often than not”) “to do nothing is also a good remedy”. Considering there was no organized medicine in his time, I would paraphrase this to match the modern times better as “to do nothing is also good medicine”.




2 links here

“…In Medical Nihilism, link here, published by Oxford University Press, Stegenga presents a devastating critique of medicine. Most treatments, he argues, do not work very well, and many do more harm than good. Therefore we should “have little confidence in medical interventions” and resort to them much more sparingly. This is what Stegenga means by medical nihilism. I learned about Medical Nihilism from economist Russ Roberts, who recently interviewed Stegenga on the popular podcast EconTalk, link here. Skepticism toward medicine, sometimes called “therapeutic nihilism,” was once widespread, even among physicians, Stegenga notes. In 1860 Oliver Wendell Holmes, dean of Harvard Medical School, wrote that “if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind—and all the worse for the fishes.”




“…Such cynicism faded with the advent of anesthesia, antiseptic surgical techniques, vaccines and truly effective treatments, notably antibiotics for infectious disease and insulin for diabetes. Stegenga calls these latter two “magic bullets,” a phrase coined by physician/chemist Paul Ehrlich to describe treatments that target the cause of a disease without disrupting the body’s healthy functions.”




“…Researchers have labored mightily to find more magic bullets, but they remain rare. For example, imatinib, brand name Gleevec, is “an especially effective treatment” for one type of leukemia, Stegenga says. But Gleevec has “severe adverse effects, including nausea, headaches, severe cardiac failure and delayed growth in children.” Most other forms of cancer, as well as heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, lack cures or reliable treatments. Many “widely consumed” medications are “barely effective and have many harmful side effects,” Stegenga writes. Examples include drugs for high cholesterol, link here, hypertension, link here, type-two diabetes, link here and depression, link here. Stegenga warns readers not to stop taking prescribed medications without medical supervision, because abrupt cessation can be risky. But our health will improve and our costs shrink, Stegenga contends, if we resort to treatments much less often. As Hippocrates once said, “to do nothing is also a good remedy.”




“…There is no place I would rather be after a serious accident than in an intensive care unit. For a headache, aspirin; for many infections, antibiotics; for some diabetics, insulin—there are a handful of truly amazing medical intervention, many discovered between seventy and ninety years ago. However, by most measures of medical consumption—number of patients, number of dollars, number of prescriptions—the most commonly employed interventions, especially those introduced in recent decades, provide compelling warrant for medical nihilism.”




“…The core of Stegenga’s book is his critique of clinical trials. Everybody wants positive results. Patients are desperate to be cured and prone to the placebo effect. Journals are eager to publish good medical news, journals and mass media to publicize it and the public to read it. Researchers can gain grants, glory and tenure by showing that a treatment works. Most importantly, biomedical firms, which sponsor the bulk of research, can earn billions from a single approved drug, like Prozac. John Ioannidis, a Stanford statistician who has exposed flaws in the scientific literature, link here and whom Stegenga cites repeatedly, contends that “conflicts of interest abound, link here” in medical research. Most clinical research, Ioannidis asserted bluntly in 2016, link here, “is not useful,” meaning it does not “make a difference for health and disease outcomes.”




“…Researchers eager for positive results can engage in p-hacking, which involves formulating hypotheses and finding data to support them after a study is carried out. P-hacking is a form of cherry-picking, which allows researchers to attribute significance to what may be random correlations. One way to prevent p-hacking is to make researchers pre-register studies and spell out hypotheses and methods in advance.”




“…Stegenga accuses the FDA, which has close ties to industry, link here, of setting the bar too low in approving drugs. He quotes a senior FDA epidemiologist complaining that the agency “consistently overrated the benefits of the drugs it approved and rejected, downplayed or ignored the safety problems.”




“…Stegenga faults physicians and drug companies for expanding their markets by inventing disorders and pathologizing common conditions. He calls this practice “disease-mongering.” Dubious disorders include restless leg syndrome, erectile dysfunction, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, halitosis, male balding, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, osteoporosis and social anxiety disorder.”




“…Although he focuses on treatments, Stegenga disparages tests, too. A staple of preventive care is that screening asymptomatic people for disease leads to earlier diagnosis and better outcomes. Unfortunately, Stegenga writes, screening can lead to “false positive diagnoses, overdiagnosis and overtreatment.” (Overdiagnosis occurs when a test detects a small tumor or other anomaly that if left alone would never cause harm.)A 2015 review, link here examined popular tests for four major killers: cancer, heart disease, diabetes and respiratory disorders. The study found that few screening methods reduced disease-specific mortality and none reduced all-cause mortality. The authors conclude that “expectations of major benefits in mortality from screening need to be cautiously tempered.”




“…Modern medicine gets too much credit for boosting average life spans, according to Stegenga. He cites evidence compiled by scholar/physician Thomas McKeown in the 1970s that increased longevity results less from vaccines, antibiotics and other medical advances than from improved standards of living, nutrition, water treatment and sanitation. McKeown’s work remains influential in spite of criticism, link here. Moreover, health-care providers routinely violate the Hippocratic decree to do no harm. A 2013 study estimated, link here that more than 400,000 “preventable hospital-caused deaths” occur in the U.S. every year, and as many as 8 million patients suffer “serious harm.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-415.mp3" length="850292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:00</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin now proposed as treatment for brain cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=411</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=411</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jul 2019 16:54:40 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=411

The news on treating cancer as metabolic disease just keep on coming. This new study discusses a “novel” drug based on aspirin as a potential treatment for brain cancer. Its only other (inactive) ingredients are triacetin and saccharin. The rationale for creating this bizarre “new” drug are apparently the widely publicized (but untrue) gastrointestinal side effects of aspirin. And the other reason, which the article is too shy to mention, is the patentability of the “new” drug (IP1867B), which would allow for its price to be thousands of times higher than plain aspirin. Let me repeat that again – aspirin is proposed as a potential treatment of one of the most lethal cancers striking humans. However, instead of publicizing the benefits of aspirin, a “new” formulation is proposed that adds nothing on top of aspirin in terms of effectiveness. Its only claims to fame are its proposed (but unproven) lower incidence of GI side effects (which are fraudulently exaggerated for plain aspirin) and its massively higher price. Oh well, at least we do get to finally hear officially/publicly the magic words that aspirin “could be effective against glioblastoma multiforme”.




link here

“…The research team showed that IP1867B – which is a novel formulation, combining reformulated aspirin with triacetin and saccharin, into a soluble form – worked with existing cancer treatments boosting their effectiveness and, in some cases, restored sensitivity to some treatments. Combination studies with traditional chemotherapy, targeted therapies and immunotherapies are now underway.”




“…In a new study, published in the journal Cancer Letters, IP1867B was shown to reduce the size of adult high-grade glioma brain tumours in a mouse model, while reducing the gastrointestinal tract problems experienced with conventional aspirin tablets. This research suggests that IP1867B [aspirin] could be effective against glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) brain tumours, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-411.mp3" length="605612" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Psychiatric diagnoses are ‘worthless’, most mental conditions stem from stress (trauma)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=391</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=391</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jul 2019 01:35:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=391

It is rare to see a study like the one below that does not hold anything back and exposes psychiatry for what it really is – fraud. Well, the exact words used were a “disingenuous categorical system” but words like “worthless” and “meaningless” were also used freely. In summary, psychiatry is a highly profitable scam, where complex sounding language and claims to authority have managed to mask not only the complete uselessness of its diagnoses but also the real cause of mental health disorders – trauma and adverse events in a person’s life. In yet another great example of Synchronicity (link here), I posted just days ago that more than 90% of depression cases are caused by stress.

link here

So, apparently psychiatry is quite aware of the role of stress/trauma, yet still chooses to push the genetic or “unknown cause” narrative. In light of this behavior, I think the study below labeling psychiatry a “disingenuous categorical system” does not even come close to describing the nefariousness of the profession. Unfortunately, the profession is so firmly embedded inside the pocket of Big Pharma that it is highly unlikely much will change until the patients themselves realize they are being both scammed and poisoned, while also often getting ruining financially. Many health insurance plans either do not cover or cover very little of the costs associated with mental health care. Maybe this will turn to be a blessing in disguise – i.e. so many fewer people end up seeing a psychiatrist than if the service was fully covered by insurance. One thing is certain, even insiders of the profession are now so sick of this scam that they are willing to risk their careers publishing scathing studies like the one below.




2 links here

“…A new study, published in Psychiatry Research, has concluded that psychiatric diagnoses are scientifically worthless as tools to identify discrete mental health disorders. The main findings of the research were: 1) Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules; 2) There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses; 3) Almost all diagnoses mask the role of trauma and adverse events; 4) Diagnoses tell us little about the individual patient and what treatment they need.”




“…The authors conclude that diagnostic labelling represents ‘a disingenuous categorical system’. Lead researcher Dr Kate Allsopp, University of Liverpool, said: “Although diagnostic labels create the illusion of an explanation they are scientifically meaningless and can create stigma and prejudice. I hope these findings will encourage mental health professionals to think beyond diagnoses and consider other explanations of mental distress, such as trauma and other adverse life experiences.” Professor Peter Kinderman, University of Liverpool, said: “This study provides yet more evidence that the biomedical diagnostic approach in psychiatry is not fit for purpose. Diagnoses frequently and uncritically reported as ‘real illnesses’ are in fact made on the basis of internally inconsistent, confused and contradictory patterns of largely arbitrary criteria. The diagnostic system wrongly assumes that all distress results from disorder, and relies heavily on subjective judgments about what is normal.” Professor John Read, University of East London, said: “Perhaps it is time we stopped pretending that medical-sounding labels contribute anything to our understanding of the complex causes of human distress or of what kind of help we need when distressed.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-391.mp3" length="831548" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>MS Tied To Glucose Deficiency Due To Endotoxin And Fat, Extra Glucose May Treat It</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=388</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=388</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jul 2019 01:15:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=388

Just a few days ago I posted the groundbreaking study on metabolic derangement in ALS – i.e. it is a diseased characterized by increased FAO, which wastes glucose. Simply increasing dietary glucose was able to greatly restrain the pathology.

Well, hot on the heels of that study is the study below, which found very similar pathology in Multiple Sclerosis (MS). According to the study, MS is a state of perceived glucose deficiency, which causes neuronal mitochondria to fuse and become unable to produce energy. The trigger for the fusion and the cause of the energetic blockade are the fatty acid derivatives known as ceramides. The cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF) of MS patients was found to contain very high levels of ceramides. Ceramide synthesis is known to be triggered by activation of the endotoxin (LPS) receptor TLR4, and ceramides are known to block the oxidation of glucose as well as overall mitochondrial function.

link here

“…Ceramides induce skeletal muscle insulin resistance, link here when synthesized as a result of fatty acid activation of TLR4, link here receptors.[6], link here Ceramides induce insulin resistance in many tissues by inhibition of Akt/PKB signaling, link here.[7], link hereAggregation of LDL cholesterol, link here by ceramide causes LDL retention in arterial walls, leading to atherosclerosis, link here.[8], link here Ceramides cause endothelial dysfunction, link here by activating protein phosphatase 2, link here (PP2A).[9], link here In mitochondria, ceramide suppresses the electron transport chain, link here and induces production of reactive oxygen species, link here.” 

So, the cascade of causes for the pathology of MS suddenly seems rather simple when examined from an energetic point of view. No need for Epstein-Barr viral infection, genetic predispositions, or other mysterious unknown causes. What’s even more shocking is that the solution to this pathology was also rather simple – simply increase the supply of glucose, the Randle cycle swings in favor of glucose and health is rapidly restored. And for those that prefer more direct interventions, TLR4 antagonists, antibiotics, or even aspirin may target more specific pathways and thus reduce the synthesis of those pesky ceramides.

link here

“…Treatment of neurons with medium supplemented with ceramides, induced a time-dependent increase of the transcripts levels of specific glucose and lactate transporters, which functionally resulted in progressively increased glucose uptake from the medium. Thus ceramide levels in the CSF of patients with progressive multiple sclerosis not only impaired mitochondrial respiration but also decreased the bioavailability of glucose by increasing its uptake. Importantly the neurotoxic effect of CSF treatment could be rescued by exogenous supplementation with glucose or lactate, presumably to compensate the inefficient fuel utilization. Together these data suggest a condition of ‘virtual hypoglycosis’ induced by the CSF of progressive patients in cultured neurons and suggest a critical temporal window of intervention for the rescue of the metabolic impairment of neuronal bioenergetics underlying neurodegeneration in multiple sclerosis patients.”

link here

“…The research team delved deeper to determine what was present in the CSF of progressive MS patients that could be causing these mitochondrial changes and, possibly, an increased energy demand. Previous research has indicated that mitochondria elongate in an effort to generate more energy for cells when there is enhanced energetic demand or a decrease in available glucose. The researchers’ lipid profiling of the CSF samples revealed that CSF from progressive MS patients had increased levels of ceramides.”

“When we exposed cultured neurons to ceramides, we elicited the same changes caused by exposure to CSF from progressive MS patients, and we further discovered that ceramides induced neuronal damage by acting on two cellular mechanisms,” said Maureen Wentling, a research associate in the Casaccia lab and the study’s first author. “On one end, ceramides impaired the ability of neurons to make energy by directly damaging the mitochondria. On the other end, they also forced neurons to more rapidly uptake glucose in an attempt to provide energy for the cell.” The researchers were able to prevent the neurotoxic effect of CSF on cultured neurons by supplementing glucose. Supplementation isn’t a sustainable approach in the diseased brain, however, so a different approach will ultimately be needed for developing therapies that improve mitochondrial function in patients with progressive MS.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-388.mp3" length="788660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:46</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Insects can feel both acute and chronic pain, can even develop insect-PTSD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=385</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=385</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 15 Jul 2019 21:01:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=385

Not many readers of this blog know it, but to this day surgery on babies or other painful procedures is often performed without anesthesia. The rationale for this horrific torture is that the nervous system of babies is not developed yet, so they don’t feel pain. It takes a special kind of sociopath to make that claim in the face of screaming, writhing babies getting operated on, getting needles inserted in the spinal cavity, having caustic skin procedures, etc. And while some scientists have spoken against treating babies like mindless, numb matter even those scientists usually readily subscribe to the theory that lower-level animals most certainly do not feel any pain. For that reason, vivisection on live animals is considered completely justified.

Well, the study below begs to disagree. It shows that animals as “primitive” as insects can feel both acute and chronic pain. Moreover, in the case of chronic pain the insect may even develop something akin to PTSD where they become hypervigilant and hypersensitive to their environment and perceive danger everywhere, all the time. Seeing studies like this makes me think that maybe the insensitive doctors making comments about lack of pain in others should get operated on without anesthesia. For the old Latin saying goes “eventus stultorum magister” – only experience can teach/change fools.

On a more positive note, the study found that chronic neuropathic pain is the result of loss of pain “brakes” – inhibitory signals in the nervous system that act to control/limit pain signals entering the CNS for processing. This finding suggests that loss of GABA/glycine signalling may be the cause of chronic pain in humans and this matches quite well the lifelong decrease of GABA and glycine signalling starting in the early 30s. A person in their 80s probably has only half of ability to respond to GABA/glycine and this allows excitatory signals to rule unchecked. No wonder old people can never relax and despite being always tired they cannot sleep deeply and the vast majority of them do report feeling some kind of chronic pain. Maybe the solution is as simple as eating gelatin on a daily basis or using some progesterone…

3 links here

“…Scientists have known insects experience something like pain since 2003, link here, but new research published today from Associate Professor Greg Neely and colleagues at the University of Sydney proves for the first time that insects also experience chronic pain that lasts long after an initial injury has healed. The study in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, link here offers the first genetic evidence of what causes chronic pain in Drosophila (fruit flies) and there is good evidence that similar changes also drive chronic pain in humans. Ongoing research into these mechanisms could lead to the development of treatments that, for the first time, target the cause and not just the symptoms of chronic pain.”

“…In the study, Associate Professor Neely and lead author Dr Thang Khuong, link herefrom the University’s Charles Perkins Centre, damaged a nerve in one leg of the fly. The injury was then allowed to fully heal. After the injury healed, they found the fly’s other legs had become hypersensitive. “After the animal is hurt once badly, they are hypersensitive and try to protect themselves for the rest of their lives,” said Associate Professor Neely. “That’s kind of cool and intuitive.” 

“The fly is receiving ‘pain’ messages from its body that then go through sensory neurons to the ventral nerve cord, the fly’s version of our spinal cord. In this nerve cord are inhibitory neurons that act like a ‘gate’ to allow or block pain perception based on the context,” Associate Professor Neely said. “After the injury, the injured nerve dumps all its cargo in the nerve cord and kills all the brakes, forever. Then the rest of the animal doesn’t have brakes on its ‘pain’. The ‘pain’ threshold changes and now they are hypervigilant.” 

“Animals need to lose the ‘pain’ brakes to survive in dangerous situations but when humans lose those brakes it makes our lives miserable. We need to get the brakes back to live a comfortable and non-painful existence.” In humans, chronic pain is presumed to develop through either peripheral sensitisation or central disinhibition, said Associate Professor Neely. “From our unbiased genomic dissection of neuropathic ‘pain’ in the fly, all our data points to central disinhibition as the critical and underlying cause for chronic neuropathic pain.” “Importantly now we know the critical step causing neuropathic ‘pain’ in flies, mice and probably humans, is the loss of the pain brakes in the central nervous system, we are focused on making new stem cell therapies or drugs that target the underlying cause and stop pain for good.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-385.mp3" length="1031372" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Goats are “excellent listeners”, can recognize and respond to the feelings of their peers</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=242</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=242</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 13 Jul 2019 23:34:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=242

Apparently, the expression “dull as a sheep/goat” needs to be revised. According to the study below, goats are not only perfectly capable of distinguishing various emotions in their peers’ calls but can also recognize their relatives, empathize with their peers’ emotions and even respond to these emotions – i.e. cheer a sad peer up. They are also highly intelligent and in tune with their environment and herders. Maybe medical doctors should hang out with goats more often. I never met a single doctor who even knew what empathy meant, let alone practice it. And don’t even get me started on trying to cheer their patients up. As I mentioned in another thread, many cases of depression have started by simply “talking to a doctor” (as the TV ads relentless admonish us to do) about symptoms of treatment options for a specific condition the person may (or may not) have.




3 links here

“…They are known for gobbling socks from washing lines and for their fearsome headbutting capabilities but the rich emotional life of goats may have been underestimated. Scientists have found that goats are able to distinguish emotions from each other’s calls and also respond to the feelings of their peers, a phenomenon known as emotional contagion.”




“…Despite its evolutionary importance, social communication of emotions in non-human animals is still not well understood,” said Luigi Baciadonna, the lead author of the study from Queen Mary University of London. Baciadonna and colleagues selected goats as a promising candidate for having emotional intelligence as previous research had revealed them to be surprisingly clever, link here and to have complex social lives. One experiment had indicated they could distinguish the calls of goat “friends”, link here from strangers’ calls, raising the question of whether they could also tell how their companions were feeling.”




“…They then played these sounds to other animals and recorded their reaction. They found the goats could distinguish between the different types of calls. They also had different physiological responses depending on the emotion they heard. When listening to positive emotions, the goats’ heart rate became more erratic. “They potentially can perceive the emotional content and be affected by the emotions of the calls they hear,” said Livio Favaro. “There might be the first suggestion of emotional contagion through vocalisations.” The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology, could have implications for the way livestock are housed.”




“…Rachel Sparkes, a goat keeper and spokeswoman for the British Goat Society, said the findings were in line with her experience. “I find goats to be much more sensitive to change than other livestock, so it would make sense that they notice emotional changes in the calls from other goats,” she said. “I have found over the years that goats are excellent listeners. They seem able to read human emotions well and if I’m having a bad day the goats will always cheer me up. They know when you’re upset or happy or stressed.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-242.mp3" length="454892" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>ALS tied to increased fat oxidation (FAO), increasing glucose may treat it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=239</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=239</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Jul 2019 16:59:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=239

I made a few posts in the past about ALS characterized by adrenal hyperactivity and suppressed gonadal function, as well as mitochondrial dysfunction and copper deficiency. Also, non-familial ALS is known to occurs 4-5 times more often in active/retired elite athletes. All of these findings strongly suggest ALS is linked to stress and dysregulated metabolism. The study below explains that the metabolic dysregulation of ALS is tied to increased fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and increased glycolysis due to glucose wastage as a result. The increased requirements of glucose and its increased wastage due to upregulated glycolysis are apparently a major reason for the progressive character of this condition. As such, providing extra (5-10 higher than normal dietary levels) dietary glucose enabled the affected neurons to survive much longer and be much more resilient to degeneration. So, according to the studies below, the metabolic phenotype of ALS is not much different from cancer and diabetes (type I). As such, just like them, ALS is also a wasting disease. If providing extra dietary glucose and/or restoring glucose metabolism with chemicals like DCA is therapeutic to ALS, might the same approach work in cancer and diabetes I?? My guess is YES.

Now, the study only looked at supplying extra glucose to the malfunctioning neurons. It did not look at why patients with ALS waste away so rapidly. The culprit, hinted at by the increased FAO, is increased lipolysis. It is that same uncontrolled lipolysis that is responsible for the wasting seen in diabetes I and (partially) cancer as well. So, considering the benefits of niacinamide and aspirin in restraining excessive glycolysis, I’d venture a guess that adding either one of those nutrients to the extra dietary glucose regimen would be dramatically more effective.

Peat spoke in one interview about a friend of his who was diagnosed with ALS about 20 years ago and is not only still alive but highly active and gainfully employed. His secret? Apparently, 3-5 tablets of aspirin daily when the disease was first starting and then decreasing this to 1 tablet daily about 6 months later and continuing on 1 tablet daily to this day. The late Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with ALS in the 1960s and survived for decades, albeit with severe motor deficits. Later on in his life doctors started questioning if his condition was ALS because, you know, nobody can survive with ALS for so long. I wonder if Mr. Hawking’s self-professed habit of taking an aspirin tablet twice a week had something to do with it…

link here

“…These models provide the tools for genetic and dietary interventions that can distinguish between cause and consequence. For example, although the primary cause remains unknown, in ALS muscles, there seems to be a reduction in glycolysis that is compensated by utilization of alternate fuels such as fatty acids (Figure 1, link here). In contrast, in motor neurons, the impairment in mitochondrial function may lead to compensatory mechanisms that counterbalance the defects in oxidative phosphorylation such as increased glycolysis as reported in cultured cells, or altered interactions with lactate producing glial cells.  

Another study using asymptomatic SOD1G86R mice indicated decreased glucose handling in glycolytic muscles of the diseased animals [43]. This is due to concerted effects caused by downregulation of the key glycolytic enzyme phosphofructokinase 1 (PFK 1), and upregulation of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4 (PDK4), an enzyme that inhibits pyruvate dehydrogenase complex through phosphorylation, thus blocking conversion of pyruvate into acetyl-coA. As a consequence, the lipid pathway was stimulated in these animals as early as during the pre-symptomatic stage, and remained active till end stage of the disease, thus switching the fuel preference towards fatty acids by suppressing glucose utilization. Consistent with this, treatment with DCA, a specific inhibitor of PDK, restored normal mRNA expression of Pdk and Pfk1 mRNAs, and resulted in decreased expression of denervation and atrophy markers. This was further translated at the functional level by restoration of muscle strength, larger muscle fibers and overall weight gain in DCA-treated animals compared to non-treated SOD1G86R mice. Thus altogether, this and previous reports show that as the glycolytic muscles progressively lose their ability to utilize glucose, they switch to lipids as an alternate energy source, and that, this metabolic switch happens largely in the early pre-symptomatic stage.

2 links here

“…Increased glucose, transformed into energy, could give people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, improved mobility and a longer life, according to new findings by a University of Arizona-led research team.” 

People with ALS use more energy while resting than those without the disease, while simultaneously they often struggle to effectively make use of glucose, the precise ingredient a body needs to make more energy. Experts have not known exactly what happens in a patient’s cells to cause this dysfunction or how to alleviate it. “This project was a way to parse out those details,” said Manzo, who described the results, published online in eLife, link here, as “truly shocking.”

“…The study revealed that when ALS-affected neurons are given more glucose, they turn that power source into energy. With that energy, they’re able to survive longer and function better. Increasing glucose delivery to the cells, then, may be one way to meet the abnormally high energy demands of ALS patients. “These neurons were finding some relief by breaking down glucose and getting more cellular energy,” Manzo said.”

“The fact that we uncovered a compensatory mechanism surprised me,” Zarnescu said. “These desperate, degenerating neurons showed incredible resilience. It is an example of how amazing cells are at dealing with stress.” The novelty of the findings partially lies in the fact that metabolism in ALS patients has remained poorly understood, Zarnescu said.”

“…Their findings were consistent with a pilot clinical trial, which found a high carbohydrate diet was one possible intervention for ALS patients with gross metabolic dysfunction. “Our data essentially provide an explanation for why that approach might work,” Zarnescu said. “My goal is to convince clinicians to perform a larger clinical trial to test this idea.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-239.mp3" length="1482332" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking cystine, and thus glutathione (GSH) synthesis, kills cancer stem cells</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=237</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=237</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2019 04:26:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=237

Yet another study that adds to the evidence that cancer is a metabolic disease, driven by excessive reductive stress. I posted a few other threads on the role of glutathione precursors in cancer, and specifically on the role of cysteine in melanoma. In the body, cysteine gets converted into cystine and the latter is used for glutathione synthesis. Glutathione depletion has been demonstrated to increase vulnerability of virtually all known cancer types to chemotherapy and radiation. Given that cancer cells rely primarily on glutathione (high GSH/GSSG ratio) to protect themselves from apoptosis and maintain a growth-promoting environment, the effects of glutathione depletion on mature cancer cells are quite expected. And now this new study demonstrated that blocking cystine uptake leads to quick death (ferroptosis) of cancer stem cells. The mechanism of action is again (reduced) glutathione depletion and increased vulnerability of cancer stem cells to ROS. While the study used various small molecules with toxic side effects, a number of other studies have shown that simply eating sucrose or administering aspirin also has a powerful effect on lowering GSH/GSSG and thus may potentially block the very “seed” of cancer.

link here

“…To further investigate the connection between ferroptosis in NCI-H522 cells and cystine availability, we deprived them of the amino acid. Cells died without cystine, but could be rescued by chelating iron (cyclopirox olamine), scavenging ROS (Trolox, ferrostatin), scavenging lipid ROS (liproxstatin) or providing reduced thiols (βME) (Fig. 5C,D, link here). Maximal rescue occurred at 100 μM external cysteine (Fig. 5D, link here). These results indicate that NCI-H522 can be induced to undergo ferroptosis simply by removing cystine. Next, we attempted to induce ferroptosis in NCI-H522 by elevating external glutamate to interfere with the xc−antiporter activity. Adding 5 mM glutamate for three days had no effect on viability (Fig. 5B, link here).” 

link here

“…Cancer stem cells are an intriguing target for researchers because of their potential to re-seed tumors. When doctors remove a tumor surgically or target it with chemotherapy drugs or radiation therapy, the cancer may appear to be gone. However, evidence suggests that a tiny subpopulation of adaptable cancer cells can remain and circulate through the body to seed new metastasis in far-off locations. Those cancer stem cells, Taylor said, are similar to dandelions in a well-manicured lawn. “You could chop the plant off, but it will drop a seed. You know the seeds are there, but they’re hiding,” he said. “You pull one weed out and another comes up right after it. Cancers can be like this as well.” The small molecule they have isolated appears to lock on to those stem cells and kill them by blocking their absorption of an amino acid called cystine. UToledo was awarded a patent for the discovery late last year. For Tillekeratne and Taylor, uncovering a new class of therapeutic molecules could prove to be an even larger contribution to cancer research than the project they initially envisioned. At present, there are no drugs that can kill cancer stem cells, but people are looking for them,” Tillekeratne said. “A lot of drugs are discovered by serendipity. Sometimes in research if you get unexpected results, you welcome that because it opens up a new line of research. This also shows the beauty of collaboration. I wouldn’t have been able to do this on my own, and [Taylor] wouldn’t have been able to do it on his own.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-237.mp3" length="636140" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Consciousness is quantum, can be modulated with specific chemicals</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=234</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=234</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2019 03:04:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=234

Many readers are likely familiar with the theories of Roger Penrose on the topics of consciousness and how it relates to physics and even cosmology. He is perhaps the most vocal proponent of “quantum consciousness” theories, including his own theory known as “orchestrated objective reduction”. The topic of anesthetics and how they work has always been an intense work in progress and largely a mystery ever since the first anesthetics were discovered. It is known that the strength of an anesthetic is correlated with its solubility in (olive) oil. But how exactly anesthetics work has remained largely a mystery.




The study below shows that the potency of xenon, a known anesthetic, depends on its nuclear spin. Certain isotopes of xenon, specifically xenon-129 and xenon-131 are much weaker anesthetics than the rest of the xenon isotopes without spin. In fact, nuclear spin determines entirely how consciousness-enhancing a xenon isotope is. The isotope xenon-121, which has a nuclear spin of 1/2 was found to be the most consciousness-promoting (weakest anesthetic). In fact, the study suggests that other atoms with nuclear spin 1/2 can also be used to enhance the process of consciousness. For those interested in investigating more, here is a table of the chemical elements listing isotopes with nuclear spin, including ones with spin of 1/2.




link here

According to the study author, this corroborates the idea that consciousness is of quantum origin and occurs as an entanglement effect in microtubules, considering nuclear spin is a quantum feature of atoms and determines their ability to form entanglement. Elements with spin of 1/2 are the most capable of forming quantum entanglement, which appears to be a crucial component of consciousness. Interestingly enough, the chemical pregnenolone is well-known stabilizer of microtubules and is known to counteract the anesthetic effects of various chemicals such as ethanol, benzodiazepines, opioids, etc as well as have beneficial effects in many disorders related to microtubule structure/dynamics.




5 links here

So, maybe pregnenolone IS one such nutrient capable of promoting consciousness. I will reach out to the author of the popular press article and inquire, but I doubt these effects of pregnenolone are just a coincidence. Peat also spoke of pregnenolone a few times as pro-consciousness and pro-intelligence nutrient. Coincidentally (or not), the (in)famous radio host Alex Jones sells pregnenolone as a supplement and calls it the “Red Pill” – i.e. the supplement that will open your eyes to the truth. No endorsement on my end of Mr. Jones and his views/wares, I just thought this is another great example of Synchronicity.

2 links here

“…The relation between nuclear spin and quantum processes in electron clouds as defined by Meyer-Overton is unclear, and deserves further study, as does the role of nuclear spin in mental states in general. Our results suggest that the quantum property of nuclear spin in the monoatomic anesthetic xenon promotes conscious processes at the xenon site of action, consistent with theories proposing quantum mechanisms in consciousness.”




link here

“…Anesthetic gases block consciousness selectively, sparing nonconscious brain activities, and thus their specific action could unravel the age-old mystery of how the brain generates, or mediates, consciousness. In this issue, Li et al.1, link here  make a significant contribution to our understanding of both anesthesia and consciousness, showing that an isotope of the anesthetic xenon (129Xe) with the quantum property of nuclear spin 1/2 is significantly less potent than xenon isotopes without spin, despite identical chemical actions. Li et al. suggest that the xenon nuclear spin antagonizes its own anesthetic action by promoting consciousness, and that consciousness involves quantum brain processes, thus supporting a genre of theories known as “quantum consciousness.”




“Quantum consciousness” theories suggest that entanglement, coherence, and quantum computing occur in the brain, offering potential solutions to challenges in cognitive neuroscience, e.g., the “binding problem.” In conscious vision, perceptual information for an object’s shape, color, motion, and meaning is processed at different times in different areas of visual cortex (V1, V2, V3, and so forth). Yet somehow, the disparate content is “bound together” in unified scenes, e.g., a red kite flapping in the wind. More generally, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and visual sensory modalities, along with memory and feelings, all apparently processed in different brain locations at different times, are also bound together, integrated, in unified conscious perceptions. (Indeed, Mashour2, link here  has suggested “unbinding” as the key effect of anesthetic action.) Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance”—entanglement—may quite literally bind and integrate disparate brain content into unified conscious moments, like frames in a film or video. Sequences of such moments can give rise to our familiar stream of consciousness.”




“…Anesthesia to the rescue! In the nineteenth century, gases with diverse chemical structures were found to reversibly render humans and animals immobile, unresponsive and unconscious. Seeking a unifying factor, Hans Meyer (1899) and Charles Overton (1901) discovered that anesthetic potency correlated strongly with gas solubility in a nonpolar, “hydrophobic” lipid-like medium akin to olive oil. Potency is quantified by the ED50 (effective dose producing immobilization in half the population), which, for volatile anesthetics, came to be known as the minimum alveolar concentration. The solubility binding involves weak quantum dipole couplings (van der Waals London forces6, link here ) between electron outer shells of anesthetic molecules, and, e.g., “π electron resonance” clouds of aromatic amino acid rings inside certain brain proteins.The Meyer-Overton correlation thus defines an intraprotein, olive oil–like medium that is “quantum-friendly,” nonpolar, hydrophobic (not “wet”), and potentially suitable for quantum information processing relevant to consciousness. As for “warm,” plant photosynthesis proteins use quantum coherence to transfer photon energy from sunlight through π resonance groups, facilitated by coherent mechanical vibrations, and thus are not “noisy” but rhythmic. Unlike olive oil, or bulk benzene (e.g., gasoline), π resonance electron clouds in protein interiors are arrayed at, or near, the van der Waals radius, conducive to quantum interactions (e.g., similar to the quantum material graphene).In which proteins do anesthetics act to erase consciousness? Membrane ion channels and/or receptors for γ-aminobutyric acid receptor type A, glutamate, acetylcholine, glycine, and serotonin were presumed targets, but evidence failed to support unitary anesthetic action,7, link here  and some results point to cytoskeletal microtubules inside neurons.8, link here  Polymers of the protein tubulin, microtubules have quantum resonance oscillations in terahertz, gigahertz, megahertz, and kilohertz frequency ranges,9, link here  and are proposed to host quantum computing regulating neurons, controlling behavior and mediating consciousness.4, link here  Computer simulations suggest anesthetic gases dampen (and nonanesthetic gases do not dampen) tubulin terahertz resonance (proportional to anesthetic potency).3, link here  Other “quantum consciousness” theories involve membrane proteins, ordered water, lipids, or DNA.Nuclear spin 1/2 is far more stable than electron cloud dipole states, and Fisher10, link here  has suggested that adenosine triphosphate hydrolysis can encode memory as geometric arrays of 31phosphorous nuclear spin 1/2. Now Li et al.1, link here  suggest nuclear spin 1/2 antagonizes anesthetic potency by promoting factors supporting consciousness.”




“…Quantum consciousness theories portray the brain as a multiscale hierarchy originating in quantum vibrational states at small, fast scales inside proteins in the neuronal membrane and/or cytoskeleton. These may amplify and resonate upward over many orders of magnitude (figs. 1, link here and 2, link here). Rather than a computer, the brain may be more like an orchestra; rather than a computational output, consciousness may be more like music.” The work by Li et al. also suggests various drugs, or supplements with nuclear spin 1/2, may enhance quantum brain vibrations and entanglement, possibly benefiting mental and cognitive states. The authors are to be congratulated for a significant breakthrough.”

link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-234.mp3" length="1314212" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>At least 15% of patients with brain injury and in coma may be conscious and capable of recovery</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=232</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=232</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2019 02:09:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=232

As many readers know, patients with severe brain injury are typically viewed by medical professionals as simply a “vegetable on a plug” and incapable of recovery. The family members are aggressively lobbied to agree for the patient to be “pulled off the plug” and allowed to die. The rationale is that not only is keeping these patients artificially semi-alive expensive and a burden on the family, but that the patient is already gone and has no reasonable chance of recovery. In many cases, end-of-life decisions are also made under the impetus of organ donation, and it has been shown in multiple studies that a comatose patient has a much higher chance of being allowed to expire if he/she is listed as an organ donor.

Well, as the study below shows, at least 15% of these brain-damaged and comatose patients are actually conscious, or at least capable of recovery. Once again, the evidence is clear that the medical profession cannot be trusted when it comes to making life-and-death decisions. Money and legal liability are the only concerns of this profession. The patient does not matter, especially when semi-dead.

2 links here

“…Patients who are brain-injured and unresponsive may appear unconscious, but a study published, link here Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine repurposed a widely-used technology to demonstrate that the brains of some of these patients are still active. The researchers used electroencephalography, link hereor EEG to look for signs of brain activity in a group of brain-injured patients, finding that 15% of those studied had residual activity despite being unable to speak or move. EEG is already used to diagnose epilepsy and other brain disorders, but this study shows that EEG recordings can be used to detect what some researchers call “preserved consciousness” in some unresponsive patients with a severe brain injury. This method might make it easier for doctors to predict whether a brain-injured patient will wake up from a coma and might help inform decisions related to withdrawal of life-support.”

“…Brain activity in these unresponsive patients might be used to predict whether they will regain consciousness. Half of the 16 patients who showed brain activity recovered enough that they were able to follow the same verbal commands before they were discharged from the hospital to continue rehabilitative treatment elsewhere. Only about a quarter of the patients who did not show brain activity were able to follow the verbal commands before they left the hospital.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-232.mp3" length="553484" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:16</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The human organism is an “electrome” and diseases can be cured by controlling electron flow</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=230</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=230</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2019 01:47:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=230

A great article describing the forgotten idea that the human organism is not simply a “wetware” of cells generated according to a master blueprint (DNA). Apparently, as early as the 1920s there were devices that could diagnose even very early stage cancer by simply measuring voltage difference between different body parts. In order words, cancer was diagnosed as a build up of free electrons, which is an issue that has repeatedly been shown to be at the center of virtually all chronic diseases. Subsequent research showed that by controlling the electric current of the organism, the so-called “electrome”, by applying external electrical current or by manipulating ion channels with drugs many other diseases can be treated including deep wounds, cancer or even severed limbs in non-regenerating species. As those studies showed, it is the “electrome” that controls the organism, not DNA. And the “electrome” itself is ultimately controlled by metabolism. In that model, there are no “evil” or “cancer” cells, only cells that have been isolated from the coherent field of the organism, and while they stay isolated they can do nothing but divide and grow.

link here

“…Your every movement, perception, and thought are controlled by electricity. If this seems unlikely to you, it’s probably because you assume electricity and the human body don’t mix. But just as electrical signals underpin the communications networks of the world, we are discovering that they do the same in our bodies: Bioelectricity is how our cells communicate with each other.”

“…Bioelectricity is not the kind of electricity that turns on your lights when you flick the switch. That kind of electricity is based on electrons: negatively charged particles flowing in a current. The human body—including the brain—runs on a very different version: the movements of mostly positively charged ions of elements like potassium, sodium, and calcium.”

“…This is how all signals travel within and between the brain and every organ and agent of perception, motion, and cognition. It’s fundamental to our ability to think and talk and walk. And it turns out, it also plays a big part in how our cells tell each other the systems in which they reside are healthy—or not. This has not always been obvious. Louis Langman, for instance, was ahead of his time. Working in the 1920s in New York City, he offered patients on his ward at the Bellevue Gynecological Service an unusual diagnostic for cancer: two electrodes, one placed into the vaginal canal and another onto the pubis. These allowed him to measure the electrical voltage gradient between the cervix and the ventral abdominal wall. If Langman detected a marked change in this gradient, he offered the woman a laparotomy to check if his suspicions were justified. The technique was surprisingly effective. Out of the 102 cases in which fluctuations revealed a significant shift in the voltage gradient, 95 were confirmed to have malignancies, link here. The exact locations of the cancer varied, but they were often identified before the woman had experienced obvious symptoms. Langman and his co-author, the Yale anatomist Harold Saxton Burr, were among a small clique of scientists investigating the electrical properties of human tissue. They believed that all living things—from mice to men to plants—are moulded and controlled by electrical fields that can be measured and mapped with standard voltmeters.”

“…Langman and Burr were correct, but their findings were poorly understood until 1949 when Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley discovered how ions help electrical signals hop across nerve cell membranes. That breakthrough, for which they later won a Nobel prize, link here, should have sparked an explosion of research, including looking for ionic communication beyond the nervous system. But no sooner had Hodgkin and Huxley discovered this mechanism than it was eclipsed by another breakthrough: In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick announced that they had discovered the double helix structure of DNA. The entire discipline of biology rapidly reorganized itself around genes. Bioelectricity was relegated to a niche concern within neuroscience.”

“…One of the earliest was skin cells, which generate an electric field when injured, link here. You can feel this so-called injury current yourself: bite your cheek hard and then put your tongue on it. You’ll feel a tingle. That’s you sensing the voltage. The wound current calls out to the surrounding tissue, attracting helpers like healing agents, macrophages to mop up the mess, and collagen-weaving repair cells called fibroblasts.”

“…But interestingly, he also found that people whose injury current was weak healed more slowly than people whose injury current was “louder.” More interesting still: Wound current strength declines with age, link here, emitting a signal that is only half as strong in over-65s as in under-25s. This has led to a surge of interest in using our body’s natural electricity to accelerate or improve wound healing. Ann Rajnicek at the University of Aberdeen has found that if she used channel-blocking drugs, link here to inhibit sodium ions, link here, and thereby interrupt the electrical signals sent by the wound current in rats, their wounds took longer to heal. Could the opposite be true? Could amping up the skin’s natural electric field decrease healing times, or even allow healing of wounds that are extremely resistant to healing at all? Recent trials indicate that the answer is yes. Perhaps the most harrowing kinds of wounds are severe bed sores, which can take months to years to heal (if they heal at all) and attack tissue, muscle, and bone deep beneath the skin. Two recent, link here meta-analyses, link hereconcluded that amplifying the natural wound current with electrical stimulation prevented them all from getting worse, and even healed some of the worst ones completely. Electrical stimulation almost doubles their healing. Similarly intriguing results have been obtained for non-healing diabetic wounds, link here—the kind that lead to the amputation of limbs, which usually leads within a few years to death. Nor is the effect limited to skin. A growing body of evidence, link here over the past few decades suggests that the same kind of electrical stimulation can accelerate healing in bone fractures—which may be relevant for treating or even preventing osteoporosis. There is even growing evidence the same cellular electric mechanisms could be harnessed to fix spinal injuries.”

“…A recent study found that the idea of electricity being relevant in biology is still too novel and counterintuitive for wide acceptance, link here. And even when clinicians have heard of it, they don’t know how to use it: No existing guidelines specify either the current type (direct? alternating?) or the parameters (how long should it be applied? how strong should it be?). Even the tools are not standardized. It’s little wonder that in the absence of clear recommendations, therapists prefer to resort to antibiotics rather than take responsibility for this intimidating set of options.”

“…Cancer has been called a wound that does not heal, link here. There are many similarities. For example, new blood vessels form both as wounds heal and as cells turn malignant, and there are changes to electrical signals in both cases. The difference is that in cancer, the signals never stop. As Langman and Burr suspected in the 1920s, cancers can be detected by their disruption of widely distributed bioelectrical properties of the body—disruptions detectable at locations far away from the tumor itself. Burr showed that if you implant a tumor into an animal, its body’s electrical signaling would almost immediately go haywire. Cancer is beginning to be viewed increasingly as a failure of communication; a misregulation of the field of information that orchestrates individual cells’ activities towards functioning as part of a normal living system. Individual cells “forget” they are part of a larger whole and treat the rest of the body as an environment whose resources can be exploited to feed themselves. This is a big departure from the mainstream view, which for decades held that what turns a healthy cell into a cancer cell is simply the accumulation of genetic damage. Mutations, the story went, link here, lead to unlimited proliferation. But what if there was more to this story? Michael Levin at Tufts University was among the earliest to wonder if a cell’s inability to communicate normally with the body’s patterning networks was also relevant to the behavior of cancer. There’s growing evidence that’s the case. The electric fields generated by ions pumping across skin or organ tissue send cues to cells to start migration, which is also crucial in cancer spreading around the body. Mustafa Djamgoz at Imperial College London has investigated the role of a particular kind of sodium channel in breast and prostate cancer. These proliferate in cancerous cells, link here, making them more electrically active than the body’s normal control mechanisms can manage. Such cells then invade other tissues, and metastasize. It’s not just metastasis that bioelectrical signals are implicated in. Frankie Rawson at the University of Nottingham has discovered thata different kind of biologically generated current, link here is important in cancer by enabling energy reprogramming, link here—another key aspect of cancer. Could cancer be reversed by controlling the bioelectric conversations among cells? In 2013, Levin’s group showed that they could prevent or reverse some tumors in tadpoles by using drugs to target their bioelectric signaling. The same drugs could turn cancer on and off at a distance, by treating the environment, not the cells themselves. In 2016 they restored normal bioelectric signaling in frog tadpoles with tumors. These had grown, spread and formed their own blood supply, until Levin added new, light-activated ion channels with gene therapy. That caused the cells to stop uncontrollably dividing—in fact, they reverted to a healthy state after the tumors had already formed. The cells inside them simply stopped being cancer cells, link here.”

“…Ultimately, wound healing looks rather like the kind of regeneration for which salamanders are famous—and indeed, Levin has demonstrated in several experiments that limbs and tails can be regenerated by bioelectric tweaking, even in species like frogs that are not naturally predisposed to it. This raises the prospect of future treatments that involve simply removing an affected body part and regrowing it.”

“…Nonetheless, we keep discovering more about how involved and connected our cellular communication networks are, in and across all cells. Last year, Djamgoz found that suppressing his particular sodium channels with a drug could stop metastasis in rats with prostate cancer, link here. He has already filed a patent to repurpose voltage-gated sodium channel blockers as anti-metastatic drugs, link here.”

“…The dream, within 10 or 20 years, is to use these insights to profile the electrical properties of biological tissues in the same way we have profiled its genetic basis—that is, to complete the human “electrome” and then use it crack the human bioelectric code, link here.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-230.mp3" length="570668" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The core of stars may be metallic and still made of gas</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=228</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=228</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2019 00:41:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=228

This is a great discovery because it corroborates a proposition made by EUT proponents who say that stars actually contain metallic cores engulfed by a relatively thin layer of plasma. So, on the outside a star looks like a fireball but inside it is actually a solid metallic core, but it is a metal made out of hydrogen. This metallic core explains the magnetic fields a star generates and matches statements by Tesla who said that to EMF planets and stars are nothing more than massive metallic balls, which can easily conduct electricity as this gas-made metal is a superconductor even at room temps.

2 links here

“…Scientists have long speculated that at the heart of a gas giant, the laws of material physics undergo some radical changes. In these kinds of extreme pressure environments, hydrogen gas is compressed to the point that it actually becomes a metal. For years, scientists have been looking for a way to create metallic hydrogen synthetically because of the endless applications it would offer. At present, the only known way to do this is to compress hydrogen atoms using a diamond anvil until they change their state. And after decades of attempts (and 80 years since it was first theorized), a team of French scientists may have finally created metallic hydrogen, link here in a laboratory setting. While there is plenty of skepticism, there are many in scientific community who believe this latest claim could be true. The study which described their experiment, titled Observation of a first order phase transition to metal hydrogen near 425 GPa, link here, recently appeared on the arXiv preprint server. The team consisted of Paul Dumas, Paul Loubeyre, and Florent Occelli, three researchers from the Division of Military applications, link here (DAM) at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, link here and the Synchrotron SOLEIL, link here research facility.”

“…As a synthetic material, metallic hydrogen would also have endless applications. First off, it is believed to have superconducting properties at room temperature and is meta-stable (meaning that it will retain its solidity once it has been brought back to normal pressure). These properties would make it incredibly useful when it comes to the revolution that is already underway in electronics.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-228.mp3" length="310652" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Statins are useless; high cholesterol makes people live longer, not get CVD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=226</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=226</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2019 00:21:50 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=226

Just a few days ago, I posted about a study demonstrating statins more thn double the risk of developing diabetes.

link here

I just stumbled upon another statin-related, blockbuster study. For some reason, this study came out in 2016 in the prestigious BMJ, yet I do not recall seeing/hearing any major news outlet report on it. Not only did the study found high “bad” cholesterol (LDL) to make people liver longer, study authors called cholesterol a “vital” molecules preventing infections, cancer, sarcopenia, etc. Considering that statins are perhaps the most prescribed drugs worldwide, then this extensive study with such blockbuster contrarian results, published in one of the most respected medical journals should have been front page news. Yet somehow, it went almost completely unnoticed. Since 2016, prescriptions for statins have increase by double digit percentage, which shows that a concerted censorship effort by pharma companies and their allies in the media business can easily silence even official sources of legitimate medical research. The recent move by Google to manipulate and scrub searches on natural health was bad enough but the silencing of such seminal BMJ front-page study goes above and beyond anything I have seen so far. Hopefully, the public is getting wiser and boycotting mainstream medicine, and that is why Google is resorting to such desperate censorship methods.




2 links here

“…Cholesterol, link here does not cause heart disease in the elderly and trying to reduce it with drugs like statins, link here is a waste of time, an international group of experts has claimed. A review of research involving nearly 70,000 people found there was no link between what has traditionally been considered “bad” cholesterol and the premature deaths of over 60-year-olds from cardiovascular disease. Published in the BMJ Open journal, the new study found that 92 percent of people with a high cholesterol level lived longer. The authors have called for a re-evaluation of the guidelines for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis, a hardening and narrowing of the arteries, because “the benefits from statin treatment have been exaggerated”.




“…Co-author of the study Dr Malcolm Kendrick, an intermediate care GP, acknowledged the findings would cause controversy but defended them as “robust” and “thoroughly reviewed”. “What we found in our detailed systematic review was that older people with high LDL (low-density lipoprotein) levels, the so-called “bad” cholesterol, lived longer and had less heart disease.” Vascular and endovascular surgery expert Professor Sherif Sultan from the University of Ireland, who also worked on the study, said cholesterol is one of the “most vital” molecules in the body and prevents infection, cancer, muscle pain and other conditions in elderly people. “Lowering cholesterol with medications for primary cardiovascular prevention in those aged over 60 is a total waste of time and resources, whereas altering your lifestyle is the single most important way to achieve a good quality of life,” he said. Lead author Dr Uffe Ravnskov, a former associate professor of renal medicine at Lund University in Sweden, said there was “no reason” to lower high-LDL-cholesterol.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-226.mp3" length="683996" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:32</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Statins more than double the risk of diabetes compared to non-users</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=223</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=223</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:27:43 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=223

Yet another damning study on the toxic effects of drugs whose main effect (lowering cholesterol by blocking its synthesis) is already known to be harmful and has no evidence behind its claimed benefits. So, we can now add diabetes to the list of cancer, ALS, dementia, birth defects, osteoporosis, infertility, premature aging, mental health orders, etc that statins have been shown to cause when used chronically. So, in summary – statins are at best useless (link here), and at worst very, very dangerous.

2 links here

“…Statins are a class of drugs that can lower cholesterol and blood pressure, reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke. More than a quarter of middle-aged adults use a cholesterol-lowering drug, according to recent federal estimates. Researchers found that statin users had more than double the risk of a diabetes diagnosis compared to those who didn’t take the drugs. Those who took the cholesterol-lowering drugs for more than two years had more than three times the risk of diabetes. “The fact that increased duration of statin use was associated with an increased risk of diabetes – something we call a dose-dependent relationship – makes us think that this is likely a causal relationship,” Zigmont said.”Researchers also found that statin users were 6.5 percent more likely to have a troublingly high HbA1c value – a routine blood test for diabetes that estimates average blood sugar over several months. The study, published in the journal Diabetes Metabolism Research and Reviews, link here, included 4,683 men and women who did not have diabetes, were candidates for statins based on heart disease risk and had not yet taken the drugs at the start of the study. About 16 percent of the group – 755 patients – were eventually prescribed statins during the study period, which ran from 2011 until 2014. Participants’ average age was 46.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-223.mp3" length="287204" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Coming Ice Age</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=221</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=221</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:08:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=221

I posted a few threads on the controversial ideas that the climate change we are seeing is not really global warming but global cooling, with the latter being driven by changes in the Sun’s magnetic field. As it turns out, this idea of cyclical Ice Age periods gripping the Earth every 10,000 – 12,000 years is not new at all. While the mainstream global warming crowd would have you believe that the research on climate change started with some seminal publications/books in the 1960s and 1970s, apparently the idea originated long before that and the original research was indeed much along the lines of a global cooling instead of global warming. The article below is from 1958 and its title leaves little doubt as to what the predicted climate changes were at that time.




As the article describes – the Earth has been undergoing periods of ice ages followed by thawing/warming for the last million years. Before that, fossil records show that the Earth was of a much more uniform climate and much warmer on average. The entire planet looked more or less like a tropical island with the appropriate flora and fauna. What, then, caused this abrupt switch from a tropical paradise to a freezing/thawing cycle? The answer is the change of Earth’s magnetic poles, and that change can apparently happen quite rapidly considering the Earth’s crust is literally floating on top of a liquid core. As the crust rotates over the liquid core, the magnetic poles change position in regards to the Earth’s surface and this (drastically) changes the weather patterns. It just so happened that this latest shift of the magnetic poles relocated the North Pole inside the small, landlocked Artic ocean and this started the Ice Age cycles that have been going on for the last million years.

link here

“…But oceans don’t freeze. Ocean currents dissipate the cold — except, of course, in the small Arctic Ocean which is almost entirely surrounded by land. “What would happen if the ice went out of the Arctic Ocean as it does in the Yukon or the Delaware?” Ewing and Donn remember wondering, as they went over the problem again, one day at Lamont. “Well, we figured, the Arctic Ocean would get warmer. Because water would flow more freely between it and the Atlantic, dissipating the cold. And of course, the Atlantic Ocean would get colder. But wait a minute . . . we saw it simultaneously. If the Arctic Ocean were open water, warmed by the Atlantic, warmer than the land around it, water would evaporate and fall as snow on the land. More snow on Greenland and northern Canada would make glaciers grow. Glaciers don’t grow now because there is no open water in the Arctic to provide the moisture for snow.” And suddenly we had the startling hunch that the Arctic Ocean was open during the Ice Age. And that it froze over only 11,000 years ago. It was this freezing over of the Arctic Ocean which so suddenly warmed the Atlantic — and ended the Ice Age.” “That rather exciting ten minutes,” they told me, “contradicted a whole lot of things we’d always taken for granted. Everyone has assumed that the Arctic Ocean, so covered with ice today, would be even colder and more completely frozen during an Ice Age. “You get a lot of these wild ideas in our business. If one lasts five minutes you begin to take it seriously. The more we thought about this one, the more it added up. It explained so many things that have always puzzled us. “For once you accept the radical idea that the Arctic was a warm open ocean at the time of the great continental glaciers, you can reconstruct a completely different weather pattern from the one we know today. As we worked it out, we could see a startling chain of cause and effect between the oceans and the glaciers themselves. We could see how the oceans would work as an actual ‘thermostat’ to keep the earth alternating between glacial ice ages and interglacial periods such as today.”




“It all hinges on the fact that the North Pole is where it is — in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, which is almost completely surrounded by land except for a shallow ‘sill’ between Norway and Greenland opening into the Atlantic, and the insignificant Bering Strait. If the cold waters of the Arctic interchanged freely over this sill with the warm Atlantic water, the Arctic Ocean would not freeze over. Its moisture would build glaciers. (In the cold temperatures of the north, the moisture that evaporates from the open Arctic would all fall as snow — too much snow to melt in the short Arctic summer. When the rate at which snow accumulates exceeds the rate at which it melts, glaciers grow.) But as those glaciers grew, they would lock up so much ocean water that sea level would fall. “We know that sea level was lowered between 300 and 400 feet at the peak of the last Ice Age. Now, most of that sill between Norway and Greenland is less than 300 feet deep. At a certain point the glaciers would lower the sea level so much that the Arctic Ocean would be virtually cut off from the warmer Atlantic. The Arctic Ocean would then freeze over. And the glaciers, no longer led by snow, would melt under the Arctic summer sun, restoring their water to the oceans. Then sea level would rise, until enough warm Atlantic water again flowed over that sill to melt the Arctic ice sheet, and start another glacial cycle.”




“We know that during the past million years, the world has swung back and forth between ice ages and weather like today’s,” Ewing and Donn told me. “Before then, the whole earth was much warmer. There were no zones of extreme heat or cold; palms and magnolias grew in Greenland, and coral around Iceland; subtropical plants thrived within eleven degrees of the North Pole. Why didn’t the Arctic Ocean-glacier ‘thermostat’ work then? What suddenly turned it on one million years ago? “The answer, we believe, is chat until a million years ago, the North Pole was not in that landlocked Arctic Ocean at all, but in the middle of the open Pacific, where there was no land on which snow and ice could accumulate, and ocean currents dissipated the cold. “The idea of wandering poles may seem fantastic. But recently-discovered magnetic evidence leads to the geological inference that the whole earth can shift its surface crust with respect to the interior. As the earth’s crustal zone ‘slides’ over the interior, different points on the surface can be at the North or South Pole. Such a shift in the earth’s crust, it is now believed, did take place before the first Pleistocene fee Age which began a million years ago. Before then, the magnetic record shows the North Pole in the middle of the Pacific, and the South Pole in the open southern Atlantic. “An abrupt shift in the earth’s crust carried the North Pole into the small and virtually landlocked Arctic, and the South Pole to the Antarctic continent, where the polar cold could not be dissipated by free ocean currents. That started the greatly contrasting zones of climate we know today — and the concentration of cold which finally froze the Arctic Ocean, to start the Ice Age cycles.”




“…This would explain why the Ice Age glaciers have always marched from the Arctic. No ocean thermostat exists to turn on drastic glacial-interglacial cycles in the Antarctic. There, according to the theory, the Antarctic ice cap has been building up continually since the South Pole shifted to that continent a million years ago, with only minor changes caused by the slight warming and cooling of the Atlantic in the glacial-interglacial cycles. This is confirmed by evidence from elevated beaches, which seems to indicate that maximum sea level has been dropping successively lower in each glacial era. And as long as the poles stay where they are, the Ice Age cycles must continue.”




“…Ewing and Donn realized that their theory had startling implications for the future. They have the scientist’s distaste for the sensational and carefully worked out the wording of the theory’s formal conclusion: “The recent epoch can be considered as another interglacial stage.” A number of scientists have tried to disprove their theory; so far they have been unsuccessful. As Ewing and Donn read the glacial thermostat, the present interglacial stage is well advanced; the earth is now heading into another Ice Age. Certain signs, some of them visible to the layman as well as the scientist, indicate we may have been watching an Ice Age approach for some time without realizing what we were seeing. Although scientists do not agree on its significance, they have observed an increasingly rapid warming and rising of the ocean in recent years. Warm water flowing north has driven the codfish off Cape Cod to Newfoundland; annual temperature has risen ten degrees in Iceland and Greenland; down here winters are warmer; the Hudson River no longer freezes over as it used to. It is part of the Ewing-Donn paradox that the next Ice Age will be preceded by such a warming of climate.”




“…For a long time after the ocean flood subsides, the only effect the Ice Age will have on us down here will be more rain. The new Arctic moisture that falls as snow on the glaciers will increase both rain and snow here, swelling rivers and watering deserts. Then, gradually, our weather will cool. Icy winds will blow from the advancing glaciers; the great snows will fall farther and farther south. In several thousand years a two-mile ice sheet may cover the United States and Europe. If man finds no way to switch the glacial thermostat, there may well be a real estate boom in the Sahara.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-221.mp3" length="777620" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Serotonin excess, not dopamine deficiency, may be the cause of Parkinson</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=219</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=219</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Jun 2019 19:44:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=219

One of the most paradigm-challenging studies I have seen this year and, unsurprisingly, mainstream media is pulling all sorts of tricks to avoid naming the culprit directly. Even the press release and the study abstract are worded in a convoluted way, talking about a “serotonin dysfunction” instead of what the results of the study demonstrated – serotonin excess. The findings of the study are simple. Loss and/or decreased functionality of the SERT protein precedes full-blown Parkinson disease by more than a decade and is likely a direct cause of it. SERT is the protein that de-activates serotonin and it depends on adequate sodium levels for its function. The SERT protein is the primary target of the SSRI drugs as they inhibit its function and as such promote the effects of serotonin. This decrease in SERT and consequent increase in serotonin not only precede actual PD symptom development but can also be used to measure its progression. The changes in the dopamine system and the dopamine deficiency now seem to be a very late-stage phenomenon, which may not even be causally related to the signs/symptoms. As such, serotonin antagonists like cyproheptadine or TPH inhibitors may be the actual viable treatment for PD before it even manifests in most people.




link here

“…The serotonin transporter (SERT or 5-HTT) also known as the sodium-dependent serotonin transporter and solute carrier family 6 member 4 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SLC6A4 gene.[5] SERT is a type of monoamine transporter protein that transports serotonin from the synaptic cleft back to the presynaptic neuron.[6] This transport of serotonin by the SERT protein terminates the action of serotonin and recycles it in a sodium-dependent manner. This protein is the target of many antidepressant medications of the SSRI and tricyclic antidepressant classes.[7]”




So, the study below found that a state of serotonin excess similar to the one caused by SSRI drugs may be the direct cause of Parkinson disease (PD) and can be used to diagnose the disease decades before it manifests in tremors, gait abnormalities, etc. This makes perfect sense since tremors are known clinically to be caused by serotonin excess and are one of the definining signs/symptoms of serotonin syndrome. Conversely, anti-serotonin drugs are known to stop tremors and twitching. Considering the inverse relationship between serotonin and dopamine it also makes perfect sense that an excess of serotonin results in a deficiency of dopamine. The findings of the study below may also explain why dopamine agonist drugs seem to be better at treating PD than standard therapy such as L-DOPA. The dopamine agonists are known to inhibit the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH), which is the rate limiting step for synthesis of serotonin, and as such lead to lower systemic serotonin load. On the other hand, L-DOPA is not known to have such effects, so the serotonin excess continues while L-DOPA-only treatment.




Two major takeaways from this study. First and foremost, academic institutions (no matter how prestigious) cannot be trusted to say the truth. The fact that neither the study abstract, not the the press release directly expose serotonin excess as the possible cause of PD cannot be explained away as a simple error. Too many convoluted words and evasion when the findings of the study are so simple and direct. Second, PD joins the long list of conditions directly stemming from an energetic dysfunction mediated in this case by serotonin and likely driven by stress or, even more likely, iatrogenic factors like SSRI drugs.




link here

“…Our findings provide novel insights into the premotor pathology and evolution of Parkinson’s disease, suggesting that serotonergic dysfunction, which can be detected by use of in-vivo molecular imaging in patients at risk of Parkinson’s disease, precedes the development of motor symptoms and visualisation of dopaminergic pathology. Moreover, we found that the presence of serotonergic pathology in the brainstem is associated with the overall burden of Parkinson’s disease.”




“…Premotor A53T SNCA carriers had normal striatal dopamine transporter scans, but loss of serotonin transporters was noted in raphe nuclei, brainstem, striatum, thalamus, hypothalamus, and amygdala. A53T SNCA carriers with Parkinson’s disease had loss of striatal dopamine transporters and loss of serotonin transporters extended to additional subcortical and cortical regions (eg, cingulate and insula), which were not seen in premotor A53T SNCA carriers. Our findings indicate that premotor A53T SNCA carriers with normal visualisation of dopamine transporters show an average of 34% loss of serotonin transporters in raphe nuclei and 22% loss in the striatum compared with healthy controls. In A53T SNCA carriers with Parkinson’s disease, the loss of serotonin transporters is extended to 48% in raphe nuclei and 57% in striatum, whereas the loss of striatal dopamine transporters in this group is 71%. In line with previous studies,18,19,24 A53T SNCA carriers with Parkinson’s disease showed increased loss of dopamine transporters in the caudate and no differences in the putamen compared with patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease. Furthermore, the severity of loss of serotonin transporter in premotor A53T SNCA carriers was in line with decreases observed in patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease, whereas A53T SNCA carriers with Parkinson’s disease showed greater losses of serotonin transporters than did idiopathic patients.”




link here

“…The new study, funded by the Lily Safra Foundation, provides the first evidence of a central role for the brain chemical serotonin in the very earliest stages of Parkinson’s. The results suggest changes to the serotonin system could act as a key early warning signal for the disease. Chief investigator Professor Marios Politis, Lily Safra Professor of Neurology & Neuroimaging at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), says: ‘Parkinson’s disease has traditionally been thought of as occurring due to damage in the dopamine system, but we show that changes to the serotonin system come first, occurring many years before patients begin to show symptoms. Our results suggest that early detection of changes in the serotonin system could open doors to the development of new therapies to slow, and ultimately prevent, progression of Parkinson’s disease.’




“…Data from the 14 people with SNCA gene mutations were compared with 65 patients with non-genetic Parkinson’s disease and 25 healthy volunteers. The researchers found that the serotonin system starts to malfunction in people with Parkinson’s well before symptoms affecting movement occur, and before the first changes in the dopamine system. First author Heather Wilson, from the IoPPN, says: ‘We found that serotonin function was an excellent marker for how advanced Parkinson’s disease has become. Crucially, we found detectable changes to the serotonin system among patients who were not yet diagnosed. Therefore, brain imaging of the serotonin system could become a valuable tool to detect individuals at risk for Parkinson’s disease, monitor their progression and help with the development of new treatments.’

link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-219.mp3" length="2204636" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:56</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vast majority (90%) of depression cases are caused by stress</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=217</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=217</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 18 Jun 2019 18:31:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=217

In case anybody continues to doubt the stress-depression connection and/or their doctor tries to convince them their depression is due to genetic predisposition, below is an eye-opening statement from the mighty WebMD – the mouthpiece of mainstream medicine. As the article states, about 10% of people fall into depression without a stressful event. This is a VERY diabolical way of saying that 90% of depression cases are caused by stress. Mainstream medicine may still actually try to claim that 90% of depressed people are genetically predisposed to it, but as I discussed in another post, that is nothing but fraud and fairy-tales.

link here

So, as unpleasant as this may be for us to face, this means almost all cases of depression are entirely due to the crushing environment we live in. At least we now know what the real cause is and can take action. I wonder how many other named psychiatric conditions are also predominantly stress-induced…




link here

“…Even positive events, such as getting married or beginning a new job, can be stressful and may lead to an episode of major depression, link here. Yet about 10% of people suffer from depression, link here without the trigger of a stressful event.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-217.mp3" length="468068" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endocrine disruptors (BPA) can cause autism several generations later</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=215</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=215</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 16 Jun 2019 21:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=215

In one of his recent newsletters, as well several KMUD interviews, Peat mentioned that the effects of GMO foods and other environmental toxins would not be immediately visible. In fact, they would take several generations to manifest and by the say third, forth, fifth generations we would start seeing things like sterility, cancer, neurodenegerative disease, CVD, etc. Several other studies, that did not specifically look at pathological changes but simply the overall transgenerational effects of epigenetic changes, found that those effects can be passed on for at least 14 generations.

2 links here

As a corroboration of the above, now a new study looked specifically at the ability of endocrine disruptors to cause autism (something public health authorities vehemently deny). It found that the well-known plastic-derived disruptor BPA is capable of causing autism in mice 3-4 generations after a specific generation of pregnant mice was exposed. For those who don’t know, BPA is a known potent estrogen receptor agonist, androgen receptor antagonist, and thyroid receptor antagonist. One of the worst combinations of effects possible.

link here

“…Transgenerational bisphenol A (BPA) exposure may contribute to autism, according to a mouse study published in the Endocrine Society’s journal Endocrinology. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are chemicals or mixtures of chemicals that interfere with the way the body’s hormones work. BPA is a common EDC used in plastics and food storage material, and it is already present in most humans’ urine or blood. Animal studies have linked BPA to anxiety, aggression, and poor learning and social interactions. Studies of human populations report associations between BPA and neurobehavioral issues like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism.

“Exposure of mouse fetuses to BPA disrupts formation of nerve cell connections in the brain, and this is a transgenerational effect,” said the study’s senior author, Emilie F. Rissman, Ph.D., of University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, Va. and North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C. “To put this in human terms, if your great grandmother was exposed to BPA during her pregnancy and none of your other relatives ever came into contact with BPA, your brain would still show these effects.” In this mouse study, researchers tested mice descended from those exposed to BPA for social recognition and found that they showed a social behavioral deficient like autistic behavior. Mice whose great grandmothers were exposed to BPA during pregnancy were more active and took longer to habituate to strangers than other mice. More strikingly, they didn’t explore the new mice that were introduced to the group. Mice are very social and curious, so this is an exciting finding. “Even if we ban all BPA right now, that will not change these long-term effects on the brain,” Rissman said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-215.mp3" length="565268" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Deficiency of vitamin K involved in age-related disability / frailty</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=213</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=213</guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 16 Jun 2019 20:55:29 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=213

A nice study illustrating that vitamin K deficiency may be one of the reasons people become frail with age. Age-relate disability/frailty is one the leading causes of death in the elderly, behind infections and iatrogenic causes. Given the role of vitamin K in the synthesis of osteocalcin and consequently insulin and steroids, the findings of this study are quite plausible.

2 links here

“Low vitamin K status has been associated with the onset of chronic diseases that lead to disability, but the work to understand this connection is in its infancy,” said Dr. Kyla Shea, a nutrition scientist in the Vitamin K Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts University. “Here, we’re building on previous studies that found that low levels of circulating vitamin K are associated with slower gait speed and a higher risk of osteoarthritis.” Dr. Shea and colleagues examined two biomarkers: circulating levels of vitamin K and a functional measure of vitamin K (plasma ucMGP). They used data from 635 men and 688 women ages 70-79 years old, who participated in the Health, Aging, and Body Composition Study (Health ABC).”

“…They found that older adults with low levels of circulating vitamin K were more likely to develop mobility limitation and disability. The other biomarker, plasma ucMGP, did not show clear associations with mobility limitation and disability. Specifically, older adults with low circulating vitamin K levels were nearly 1.5 times more likely to develop mobility limitation and nearly twice as likely to develop mobility disability compared to those with sufficient levels. This was true for both men and women. “The connection we saw with low levels of circulating vitamin K further supports vitamin K’s association with mobility disability,” said Dr. Sarah Booth, a nutrition researcher and director of the HNRCA at Tufts University. “Although the two biomarkers we looked at are known to reflect vitamin K status, biomarker levels can also be affected by additional known or unknown factors. Further experiments to understand the mechanisms of biomarkers and vitamin K and their role in mobility are needed.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-213.mp3" length="223100" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:30</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Playfulness, novelty, and leisure are vital for progress and true knowledge</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=203</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=203</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Jun 2019 19:46:17 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=203

About a year ago I made a post arguing that leisure, desire, playfulness and relaxation are vital for learning and knowledge. The study below now argues that unstructured play similar to the way children play is absolutely vital for making progress in any aspect of life, be that science, technology, politics or even every human interactions. As it seems, play is a quite serious matter and the exact opposite of “that annoying thing that children and deadbeats do”. Without play, playfulness and (at least some) freedom to do with one’s time what one feels like there can be no creativity and thus no progress. Life devolves into little more than factory work. No wonder so many aspects of modern life feel like factory work there days. There is little freedom to even choose when (and what) to eat, let alone fool around while on the clock. Until society realizes that there is nothing silly about play (even in adults), the true wizards in any society will always be children, doomed to grow up into imbecilic adults without much prospect of success, except maybe in tyranny over others.

link here

he 19th-century physicist Hermann von Helmholtz compared his progress in solving a problem to that of a mountain climber “compelled to retrace his steps because his progress stopped.” A mountain climber, von Helmholtz said, “hits upon traces of a fresh path, which again leads him a little further.” The physicist’s introspection provokes the question: How do creative minds overcome valleys to get to the next higher peak? Because thinking minds are different from evolving organisms and self-assembling molecules, we cannot expect them to use the same means—mechanisms like genetic drift and thermal vibrations—to overcome deep valleys in the landscapes they explore. But they must have some way to achieve the same purpose. As it turns out, they have more than just one—many more. But one of the most important is play. I don’t mean the rule-based play of a board game or the competitive play of a soccer match, but rather the kind of freewheeling, unstructured play that children perform with a pile of LEGO blocks or with toy shovels and buckets in a sandbox. I mean playful behavior without immediate goals and benefits, without even the possibility of failure.”

“…Play is so important that nature invented it long before it invented us. Almost all young mammals play, as do birds like parrots and crows. Play has been reported in reptiles, fish, and even spiders, where sexually immature animals use it to practice copulation. But the world champion of animal play may be the bottlenose dolphin, with 37 different reported types of play. Captive dolphins will play untiringly with balls and other toys, and wild dolphins play with objects like feathers, sponges, and “smoke rings” of air bubbles that they extrude from their blowholes. Such widespread play must be more than just a frivolous whim of nature. The reason: It costs. Young animals can spend up to 20 percent of their daily energy budget goofing around rather than, say, chasing dinner. And their play can cause serious problems. Playing cheetah cubs frequently scare off prey by chasing each other or by clambering over their stalking mother. Playing elephants get stuck in mud. Playing bighorn sheep get impaled on cactus spines…With costs this high, the benefits can’t be far behind. And indeed, where the benefits of play have been measured, they can make the difference between life and death. The more feral horses from New Zealand play, for example, the better they survive their first year. Likewise, Alaskan brown bear cubs that played more during their first summer not only survived the first winter better, but also had a better chance to survive subsequent winters.”

“…But at least in mammals, play goes beyond mere practice of a stereotypical behavior, like that of a pianist rehearsing the same passage over and over again. When mammals stalk, hunt, and escape, they find themselves in ever-new situations and environments. Marc Bekoff, a researcher at the University of Colorado and a lifelong student of animal behavior, argues that play broadens an animal’s behavioral repertoire, giving them the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances. In other words, animal play creates diverse behaviors, regardless of whether that diversity is immediately useful. It prepares the player for the unexpected in an unpredictable world.”

“…That very flexibility can also help the smartest animals solve difficult problems. A 1978 experiment demonstrated its value for young rats. In this experiment, some rats were separated from their peers for 20 days by a mesh in their cage, which prevented them from playing. After the period of isolation, the researchers taught all the rats to get a food reward by pulling a rubber ball out of the way. They then changed the task to a new one where the ball had to be pushed instead of pulled. Compared to their freely playing peers, the play-deprived rats took much longer to try new ways of getting at the food and solving this problem. University of Cambridge ethologist Patrick Bateson linked observations like this more directly to the landscapes of creation when he argued that play can “fulfill a probing role that enables the individual to escape from false endpoints, or local optima” and that “when stuck on a metaphorical lower peak, it can be beneficial to have active mechanisms for getting off it and onto a higher one.” In this view, play is to creativity what genetic drift is to evolution and what heat is to self-assembling molecules.”

“...If that is the case, it is hardly surprising that creative people often describe their work as playful. Alexander Fleming, who would discover penicillin, was reproved by his boss for his playful attitude. He said, “I play with microbes … It is very pleasant to break the rules and to find something that nobody had thought of.” Andre Geim, 2010 Nobel laureate in physics, declared that “a playful attitude has always been the hallmark of my research … Unless you happen to be in the right place and the right time, or you have facilities no one else has, the only way is to be more adventurous.” When James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix, they had help in the form of colored balls they could stick together—LEGO-like—to build a model. In Watson’s words, all they had to do was “begin to play.” And C.G. Jung, one of the fathers of psychoanalysis, said it best: “The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.”

 “…Less deliberate but just as powerful are the dreams that we experience in our sleep. It is no coincidence that the psychologist Jean Piaget, whose trailblazing research helped us understand how children develop, likened dreaming to play. It is in dreams that our minds are at their freest to combine the most bizarre fragments of thoughts and images into novel characters and plotlines. Paul McCartney famously first heard his song “Yesterday” in a dream and did not believe that it was an original song, asking people in the music business for weeks afterward whether they knew it. They didn’t. “Yesterday” would become one of the 20th century’s most successful songs, with 7 million performances and more than 2,000 cover versions. Another dream whispered to the German physiologist Otto Loewi the idea for a crucial experiment, which proved that nerves communicate through chemicals that we now call neurotransmitters. It would win him a Nobel Prize. Even in the state of half-sleep—psychologists call it hypnagogia—our minds are sufficiently loose to descend from those lowly hills. In this state, August Kekule, saw the structure of benzene, Mary Shelley found the idea for her iconic novel Frankenstein, and Dmitri Mendeleev discovered the periodic table of the chemical elements. ” 

“…Mind-wandering is often considered a harmless quirk, as in the cliché of the scatter-brained professor. But it has real consequences. Let’s begin with the bad ones. Absentminded people perform less well on tests that require focused attention, such as reading comprehension tests. More worrisome, they also perform more poorly on tests that you better not flunk if you have any career aspirations. Among them is the Scholastic Aptitude Test that many colleges require for admission. But mind-wandering also has an upside—at least for well-trained minds. Indeed, many anecdotes of creators like Einstein, Newton, and eminent mathematician Henri Poincaré, report that these scientists solved important problems while not actually working on anything. The common wisdom that the best ideas arrive in the shower is exemplified by Archimedes’s discovery of how to measure an object’s volume. (OK, he was in a bathtub.)…The apparently idle period before such insights arrive has a name: incubation. If hard and seemingly futile work on a difficult problem is followed up with a less demanding activity that does not require complete focus—walking, showering, cooking—a mind is free to wander. And when that mind incubates the problem, it can stumble upon a solution.”

If mind-wandering impacts creativity, then its opposite, the control of attention practiced in mindfulness meditation, should have the opposite effects, both good and bad. And indeed it does. A 2012 study showed, for example, that mindfulness meditation, by reducing mind-wandering, can improve scores on standardized academic tests. In contrast, less mindful individuals perform better on creativity tests like that just mentioned. The message is clear: Just as biological evolution can require a balance between natural selection, which pushes uphill, and genetic drift, which does not, so too does creativity require a balance between the selection of useful ideas—where a focused mind comes in handy—and the suspension of that selection to play, dream, or allow the mind to wander.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-203.mp3" length="1395188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>People with more intellectual humility have superior (general) knowledge</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=200</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=200</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Jun 2019 16:31:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=200

A really good study, which may suggest the arrogant “experts” running society are probably a lot less knowledgeable and wise then they would have us believe. The study is also potentially a corroboration of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. So, it looks like it is better to be surrounded by humble people. There is no guarantee that they will all be smart, but we now know that the arrogant ones are likely to be dumb as bricks.

link here

Another good finding of the study was that people with greater intellectual humility are better at acquiring/learning new knowledge but have worse grades at school. As we know by now, schools select for compliance, not knowledge. I don’t know what the authors used the term “intellectual humility” when it is very rarely used in psychology. In this case, the term simply meant “open-mindedness”, which is a much more widely used term in psychology. I like both terms but I think open-mindedness actually depends on humility and they are not fully interchangeable. If acquiring knowledge depends on intellectual humility then it is little surprise that science is in crisis. The very culture of science these days demands that one NEVER admits a mistake lest they be quickly stripped of funding and have their careers destroyed. Science is no longer done by scientists but by salesmen, politicians, and lawyers in disguise. 

Another positive finding of the study was that people with greater intellectual humility were less judgmental of other people and less likely to view other people’s views as inferior to their own. Finally, the study also found that intellectual humility can be induced by training. No need to wait for a crushing life event to remind you of just how fallible (and dumb?) you are. All that was needed was to remind people that intelligence is malleable and can be improved. If people believe their mistakes can be rectified by improving their knowledge tomorrow then they will be less likely to be a die-hard, know-it-all fanatics who are good for nothing but getting into a position of power, and wrecking economies and entire countries with their “expertise”. Conversely, we can conclude that a genetic view of life and intelligence promotes exactly this type of dangerous fanatical behavior because it teaches people that their capacity is fixed and they better not expose themselves as fools or they will never be able to recover from the (social) fallout.

2 links here

“…In the era of social media and rolling news there’s a constant pressure to be in the know, always on hand with an aperçus or two. Today intellectual humility, link here therefore feels more important than ever – having the insight and honesty to hold your hands up and say you’re ignorant or inexpert about an issue. Psychologists are responding by taking an increasing interest in intellectual humility, including investigating its consequences for learning and the thinking styles that support it. For a new paper, link herein The Journal of Positive Psychology a team led by Elizabeth Krumrei-Mancuso have continued this endeavour, showing, among other things, that intellectual humility correlates with superior general knowledge. This is a logical outcome because, as the researchers write, “simply put, learning requires the humility to realise one has something to learn.”

“…The findings in relation to knowledge acquisition were mixed. While an online study involving 604 adults (and using the more comprehensive measure of intellectual humility) found the aforementioned link between greater intellectual humility and superior general knowledge, another involving college students (and the briefer intellectual humility questionnaire) found that those higher in intellectual humility achieved poorer grades. Perhaps the latter result arose because the higher-achieving students used their objectively higher grades to judge their intellectual ability as higher, not having had the chance yet in life to confront their intellectual fallibility (but as mentioned, the use of different measures across the studies complicates any interpretation of the mixed results).” Meanwhile, other thinking styles and constructs that correlated with greater intellectual humility included being more inclined to reflective thinking, having more “need for cognition” (enjoying thinking hard and problem solving), greater curiosity, and open-minded thinking. More intellectual humility was also associated with less “social vigilantism”, defined as seeing other people’s beliefs as inferior.”

“…Across both studies, even after accounting for the influence of many other factors such as a person’s self-esteem, narcissism, and overall agreeableness, openness and humility, the students who scored higher on intellectual humility tended to think about the person who disagreed with them in more constructive ways – for instance, believing the other person has their own unique perspective and experiences to draw on – rather than dismissing their views as due to low intelligence or lack of understanding. Moreover, those participants with greater intellectual humility were more likely to say that, given the chance, they would try to learn more about the other person’s views, rather than simply argue with them or try to change their mind.”

“…Wouldn’t it be great if we all had a little more intellectual humility? The researchers tested an intervention that they hoped would increase intellectual humility via the promotion of a “growth mindset” – that is, belief in the malleability of intelligence. It makes sense that if you see intelligence as malleable, then you will be less worried about finding out you are wrong or that you don’t know the full story. After all, with this perspective, just because you are wrong or ignorant about something doesn’t mean you are forever condemned to being stupid. A final study showed that participants who read a popular magazine article about the malleability of intelligence (designed to foster a “growth mindset”) subsequently scored higher on intellectual humility than another group who read an article about intelligence being fixed. What’s more, those in the growth mindset condition went on to display a more positive approach when imagining dealing with someone with opposing views, and this seemed to be driven by their increased intellectual humility.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-200.mp3" length="1061108" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Nitrates in tap water may cause 12,500+ cancer cases annually</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=198</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=198</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Jun 2019 01:24:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=198

Despite the billions of dollars poured into advertising by municipal water authorities trying to convince people, the evidence for the negative effects of drinking such water just keeps piling on. And if fluoride in tap water and all of its ill effects was not enough of a concern, we now have another good reason to skip the tap water – nitrates. The same nitrates that are such a health concern in produce and are heavily regulated by USDA, but only when it comes to produce. As the study below shows, nitrates in levels less than 1/10 of what is considered completely acceptable by the USDA/EPA/FDA are capable of increasing risk of cancer. While the mechanism of action of nitrates’ carcinogenicity is officially labelled as “unknown” their role as a primary dietary precursor to nitric oxide (NO) is probably the main culprit. But given the love affair FDA and drug companies have with NO and its boosters like Viagra, do not expect the tide on NO (or nitrates for that reason) to reverse any time soon. As the study said, EPA already suspended its plans to revise the outdated standards for nitrate levels in tap water.

2 links here

“…Nitrate pollution of U.S. drinking water may cause up to 12,594 cases of cancer a year, according to a new peer-reviewed study by the Environmental Working Group. For the groundbreaking study, published today in the journal Environmental Research, EWG scientists estimated the number of cancer cases in each state that could be attributed to nitrate contamination of public water systems, largely caused by farm runoff containing fertilizer and manure. They also estimated the costs of treating those cases at up to $1.5 billion a year.

“…Nitrate contamination of drinking water is a serious problem, and especially severe in the nation’s farm country,” said Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., EWG senior science advisor and one of the study’s authors. “Now, for the first time, we can see the staggering consequences of this pollution.” The current federal drinking water standard for nitrate, set in 1962, is 10 parts per million, or ppm. Yet several well-regarded epidemiological studies have linked nitrate in drinking water with cancer and other serious health issues at levels less than one-tenth of the legal limit. Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency suspended plans to reevaluate its outdated nitrate standard.

“…Four-fifths of EWG’s estimated cases were occurences of colorectal cancer, with ovarian, thyroid, kidney and bladder cancer making up the rest. Nitrate in tap water has also been linked with serious neonatal health issues. EWG estimated that nitrate pollution may be responsible for as many as 2,939 cases of very low birth weight; 1,725 cases of very preterm birth; and 41 cases of neural tube defects. “Millions of Americans are being involuntarily exposed to nitrate, and they are also the ones paying the heavy costs of treating contaminated tap water,” said Alexis Temkin, Ph.D., a toxicologist at EWG and primary author of the study. “But the federal government is not doing enough to protect Americans from tap water contamination. EWG scientists estimate the level at which there would occur no adverse health effects from nitrate in drinking water to be 0.14 milligrams per liter – equivalent to parts per million. That level, 70 times lower than the EPA’s legal limit, represents a one-in-one-million risk of cancer.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-198.mp3" length="577220" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:18</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide, tetracyclines may prevent / reverse vascular calcification</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=196</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=196</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Jun 2019 01:14:28 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=196

The study below demonstrates that vascular (and other soft tissue) calficiation depends on overpexression of the enzyme Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). Inhibiting the synthesis/activity of that enzyme prevented vascular calficiation, and as such can be a powerful prevention tool for CVD and in general any ischemic event. The study used minocycline (a tetracycline-family antibiotic) as PARP inhibitor. However, I find this strange and uncalled for, considering the most potent generic PARP inhibitor used clinically is niacinamide. And while minocycline is safe, niacinamide is likely even safer, especially for chronic use considering lack of effects on microbiome. Doses of niacinamide known to inhibit PARP in humans start around 1g, and 80%+ inhibition has been demonstrated in humans with doses of 1g taken 3 times daily. But for the people who want to replicate the study design, the HED of minocycline was 7mg/kg and was taken for 6 weeks.

link here

“…Biomineralization of the extracellular matrix is an essential, regulated process. Inappropriate mineralization of bone and the vasculature has devastating effects on patient health, yet an integrated understanding of the chemical and cell biological processes that lead to mineral nucleation remains elusive. Here, we report that biomineralization of bone and the vasculature is associated with extracellular poly(ADP-ribose) synthesized by poly(ADP-ribose) polymerases in response to oxidative and/or DNA damage. We use ultrastructural methods to show poly(ADP-ribose) can form both calcified spherical particles, reminiscent of those found in vascular calcification, and biomimetically calcified collagen fibrils similar to bone. Importantly, inhibition of poly(ADP-ribose) biosynthesis in vitro and in vivo inhibits biomineralization, suggesting a therapeutic route for the treatment of vascular calcifications. We conclude that poly(ADP-ribose) plays a central chemical role in both pathological and physiological extracellular matrix calcification.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-196.mp3" length="549428" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:15</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Sterilizing the gut may treat heart failure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=194</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=194</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Jun 2019 00:53:06 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=194

Yet another study showing the key role of endotoxin (LPS) in “irreversible” and lethal conditions such as heart failure. It is also yet another study to suggest that there may be no such a thing as “beneficial” gut bacteria, as any strain capable of producing endotoxin likely contributes to development/progression of chronic disease, and most strains found in human guts do produce endotoxin.

2 links here

“…The research is based on the idea that microbes living in the gastrointestinal tract affect heart failure by increasing the production of T cells, a type of immune cell. Researchers found mice with induced heart failure fared better if they were treated with antibiotics for five weeks, essentially sterilizing the gut. “Our lab studies how the gut talks to the heart through T cells,” said Francisco J. Carrillo-Salinas, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at Tufts University who conducted the research. “Given that the gut is the body’s largest reservoir of T cells and microbes, by modulating the microbiota we could modulate T cell activation and changes in the heart that lead to heart failure.”

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs. Nearly 6 million Americans have heart failure, and about half of people diagnosed with heart failure die within five years. Carrillo-Salinas’ group has previously shown that T cells infiltrate the heart in patients with heart failure. Inflammation, which is a consequence of the immune response, also is known to play important roles in heart disease.

Among mice with induced heart failure, those that received antibiotics showed significantly better heart pumping ability and less damage to the heart tissue compared to those that did not receive antibiotics. “Because complete sterilization of the gut has proven to ameliorate some experimental models of T cell mediated diseases, our results were in agreement with our initial hypothesis,” said Carrillo-Salinas. “The fact that we see fully preserved heart function is surprising, and I am looking forward to exciting new data on what happens in the heart once different bacteria recolonize the gut.”

The results suggest that T cells are activated in the lymph nodes located nearest the heart, move into the heart and then contribute to heart failure progression by releasing signaling proteins known as cytokines and inducing the heart to become enlarged and form scar tissue. All of these changes were prevented in the mice that received antibiotics. “Understanding how the gut microbiota directly regulates the function of distant organs such as the heart will shed new light into potential new therapeutic approaches in patients recently diagnosed with heart failure to prevent progression,” said Carrillo-Salinas. “Our results demonstrate that gut microbiota depletion prevents cardiac dysfunction and set the stage for future studies that will determine which components of the microbiota are responsible for heart failure progression.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-194.mp3" length="1045508" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:21</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SIRT1 is a key promoter of leukemia and other blood cancers</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=192</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=192</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Jun 2019 00:44:37 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=192

SIRT1 (one of the sirtuin genes) is currently one of the stars in the nutritional/medical blogosphere. As far as back as 2004, SIRT1 was promoted as a key regulator of longevity and activating this gene was marketed as one of the most reliable ways of increasing lifespan. Resveratrol was lauded as one of the most potent natural SIRT1 activators and Harvard University put out a lot of studies promoting the use of SIRT1 activators, especially resveratrol and its patented varieties which Harvard owned. Dr. David Sinclair, one of the chief SIRT1/resveratrol boffins, went on to launch a company called Sirtris Pharmaceuticals. 

link here

The goal of this company was to commercialize the patented resveratrol derivatives and conduct human studies so that those derivatives are ultimately approved as drugs by the FDA. The company was sold for $720mil to GSK in 2008 and was shut down not long after due to increased death rates in active groups from clinical trials with Sirtris’ patented resveratrol. Long story short – resveratrol and SIRT1 activation is likely nothing but a scam. In fact, Dr. Peat releases an article called “The resveratrol scam”, which details many of the negative effects of SIRT1 activation in general and resveratrol specifically. For those who don’t know, resveratrol is a stilbenoid – naturally occurring molecules with potent estrogenic effects. One of the most (in)famous stilbenoids is Vioxx – the withdrawn COX inhibitor drug that killed quite a few people in the early 2000s, likely due to its potent estrogenicity, and possibly also SIRT1 activation.link here

Yet, the promotion of SIRT1 does not stop and other supplements are still marketed for SIRT1 activation. But why is activating SIRT1 dangerous? One of the core effects of SIRT1 activation is increased beta-oxidation. In other words, activating SIRT1 increases the oxidation of fat and by extension reduces the oxidation of glucose (Randle cycle). I posted several studies on the role of SIRT1 in cancer growth and metastases, and the protective role of SIRT1 inhibitors. I also posted in the crucial role of fat oxidation in cancer progression/metastasis, and the protective role of niacinamide/nicotinamide. Well, the most widely-recognized SIRT1 inhibitor happens to be niacinamide. And now, the study below corroborates yet again the role of SIRT1 as a cancer promoter. It shows that SIRT1 is overexpressed in chronic myeloid leukemia cells and that its overexpression is key for cancer cells maintaining their “stemness” and thus resistance to chemotherapy. Silencing/deletion of SIRT1 made the cancer easily susceptible to chemotherapy and prevented recurrence after treatment. Furthermore, because the fat-oxidation-promoting role of SIRT1 is so systemic, one would expect SIRT1 overexpression to promote the development of other cancers. That is exactly what the study authors found/claimed as well.

2 links here

“…In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Ajay Abraham, Ph.D., Shaowei Qiu, M.D., Ravi Bhatia, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, link hereshow how the stress-responsive protein SIRT1 plays important roles in maintaining the regenerative potential of CML leukemic stem cells and promoting leukemia development in CML. “Our studies provide a conceptual advance and new biological insights regarding the activity of SIRT1 and its role in CML leukemic stem cells,” said senior author Bhatia. At UAB, Bhatia is a professor of medicine, link here, director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology, link here, and interim director of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB, link here. In 2012, Bhatia and colleagues reported that SIRT1 was overexpressed in CML leukemic stem cells compared to normal hematopoietic stem cells, and this overexpression contributed to CML leukemic stem cell maintenance and resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors. However, the underlying mechanisms were not known.”

“…Treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors is known to suppress leukemic hematopoiesis. When SIRT1-deleted mice were treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors, the UAB researchers found an even greater suppression of leukemic hematopoiesis. The SIRT1 knock-out also impaired development of CML in the mouse model. Compared with the CML mice without SIRT1 knock-out, the researchers saw significant delays in developing increased numbers of leukocytes and neutrophils, and delayed enlargement of the spleen and time of death. The deletion also reversed redistribution of CML stem cells from the bone marrow to the spleen.”

“…Bhatia says the impact of this study extends to other hematological malignancies, including acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes and myeloproliferative neoplasms. “Our research reveals new knowledge and concepts regarding the role of SIRT1 in metabolic regulation of hematopoietic stem cell and leukemic stem cell maintenance, growth and resistance,” Bhatia said. “This raises the possibility of developing improved strategies to target kinase-independent metabolic alterations.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-192.mp3" length="1503764" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:23</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUFA (metabolites) drive heart failure and possibly diabetes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=180</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=180</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 04 Jun 2019 19:15:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=180

Over the years I have posted a number of studies on the roles of PUFA metabolites such as prostaglandins and leukotrienes in many chronic conditions including cancer, Alzheimer, Parkinson, ALS, MS, CVD, etc. For those that are new to this issue, COX enzymes are responsible for prostaglandin synthesis while LOX enzymes are responsible for leukotriene synthesis. The source material (substrates) for COX/LOX are PUFA such as arachidonic acid, DHA/EPA, and even the arachidonic acid precursor linoleic acid. Now, the study below discovered that one of the PUFA metabolizing enzymes – 12/15LOX (ALOX15) – is crucial for the development of heart failure after acute ischemic heart attack.

link here

When that enzyme was abrogated/inhibited, there was much better recovery from the heart attack and heart fibrosis (failure) did not develop. In addition, abrogation/inhibition of that enzyme also lowered levels of a highly selective and specific biomarker of diabetes – aminoadipic acid.

link here

As such, the study suggests that PUFA is responsible (through its metabolites) for organ fibrosis/failure and diabetes, and inhibiting PUFA metabolism is therapeutic for both conditions. Since PUFA restriction is an approach that addresses events earlier in the metabolic cascade than ALOX15 inhbition, IMO it is fair to say that avoiding dietary PUFA is therapeutic for both diabetes and heart failure.

link here

“…In mice, deletion of leukocyte responsive 12/15LOX enzyme altered homeostatic equilibria and lowered levels of diabetes biomarker α-aminoadipic acid with profound infarcted heart lipidomic remodeling in the acute HF, thereby delayed chronic HF. Deficiency of 12/15LOX in mice promoted cardiac healing and survival with: 1) marked decreased of 2-aminoadipic acid metabolite in plasma; 2) increased bioactive mediators cypoxins in the infarcted heart in compensation with LOX-derived SPMs; and 3) profound changes in leukocytes trafficking and metabolites signaling of hexoses, amino acids, biogenic amines, acylcarnitines, glycerophospholipids, and sphingolipids in acute HF with obvious structural and fibrotic remodeling in chronic HF syndrome.”

link here

link herelink here“…Heart failure after a heart attack is a global epidemic leading to chronic heart failure pathology. About 6 million people in the United States and 23 million worldwide suffer from this end-stage disease that involves dysfunction of the heart, a change that clinicians call cardiac remodeling. Despite medical advances, 2 to 17 percent of patients die within one year after a heart attack due to failure to resolve inflammation. More than 50 percent die within five years.”

link here

“…This work follows his 2017 discovery that knocking out 12/15 lipoxygenase, or 12/15LOX, a lipid-modifying enzyme that competes with two other lipid-modifying enzymes, leads to increased survival in a mouse model of heart failure after a heart attack. In a study now published online ahead of print in the journal Metabolism: Clinical and Experimental, Halade and colleagues detail the profound lipidomic and metabolic signatures and the modified leukocyte profiling that delay heart failure progression and provide improved survival in 12/15LOX-deficient mice. Only 6 percent of the 12/15LOX-deficient mice died in the progression of chronic heart failure, 56 days after heart attack, while 38 percent of mice with normal 12/15LOX had mortality due to heart failure or rupture. Specifically, the researchers quantified changes in the metabolome, lipidome and immune profiles during acute heart failure, one day after heart attack, and during chronic heart failure, eight weeks after heart attack. They found that the 12/15LOX-deficient mice biosynthesized the signaling molecules epoxyeicosatrienoic acids — also known as EETs or cypoxins — in left ventricle heart tissue after heart attack to facilitate cardiac healing. The lipoxygenase-deficient mice also had reduced amounts of the diabetes risk biomarker 2-aminoadipic acid and had profound alterations of plasma metabolic signaling of hexoses, amino acids, biogenic amines, acylcarnitines, glycerophospholipids and sphingolipids during acute heart failure. These changes are accompanied by delayed heart failure and improved survival. “Future studies are warranted to define the molecular network of the lipidome and metabolome in acute and chronic heart failure patients,” Halade said, though he notes this needs to be preceded by work with other animal models. “Collectively, our studies have discovered a novel link of LOX signaling between lipidomic and metabolic signatures in acute and chronic heart failure syndrome.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-180.mp3" length="994604" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:17</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Increased fat oxidation (FAO) does not lead to weight/fat loss</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=177</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=177</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 04 Jun 2019 18:36:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=177

The study below directly contradicts a mantra commonly repeated in nutrition circles – restrict glucose and increase fat oxidation in order to lose weight, and more specifically body fat. In fact, this idea is so ingrained into the minds of most people that I often get hate mail from people all over the world angrily admonishing me that without increasing fat oxidation weight loss will become impossible. 

Well, I suggest carefully reading the study below. First, it shows that FAO is independent of energy expenditure. This directly suggests that FAO has a role that is not so much about supplying energy but likely more as a signalling mechanism – i.e. a stress signal. As such, you’d expect increasing the stress signal (in this case FAO) to NOT lead to weight loss. The study found that increasing FAO by 30%+ did not lead to any weight/fat loss. What it did do is decrease glucose oxidation by the exact same percentage as the increase in FAO, thus confirming nicely the Randle cycle (which the study explicitly mentions). While the study did not look at what happened after the study ended, I’d venture a guess that the poor rodents subjected to pharmacologically increased FAO became insulin-resistant and gained even more weight than the control group after the torture ended. Hopefully, there will be a follow up study that will look at the long-term effects AFTER the stress signal (FAO) is no longer present, and what interventions could restore metabolism back to normal. The study did mention that the role of FAO in diabetes and obesity is “controversial” with some studies finding benefit while others finding FAO detrimental. The current study did NOT find any benefit of increased FAO for insulin sensitivity. So, until we see more follow up studies, the conclusion I’d draw from this study is that stress and its resulting increase in FAO (“endurance” exercise anyone?) is not only not a healthy way to lose weight, but for most people likely won’t even work.

link here

“…Body weight and fat mass in mammals are highly robust parameters. Fat mass is very well defended rendering many lifestyle interventions ineffective and so there is a growing need for new therapies. The hypothesis that manipulations which enhance fat burning will reduce adiposity has provided novel avenues and new hope for the treatment of obesity. Indeed there is a link between AMPK activation and leanness (Lage et al., 2008, link here; Narkar et al., 2008, link here). Currently the precise mechanism linking AMPK to leanness is unknown as AMPK activity has both short and long-term effects. On one hand AMPK rapidly increases FAO, primarily via its inhibition of ACC. On the other its prolonged activity regulates many other pathways such as mitochondrial biogenesis (Bergeron et al., 2001, link here; Winder et al., 2000, link here), uncoupling protein expression (Narkar et al., 2008, link here; Suwa et al., 2003, link here), GLUT4 expression (Winder et al., 2000, link here), and the SIRT1 pathway (Canto et al., 2009, link here). Hence, it is unclear if AMPK agonists promote leanness via the FAO pathway or an alternate route (Fig 4G, link here).”

“…To address this question we used pharmacological and genetic manipulations in rodents to increase FAO upstream or downstream of AMPK. We used AICAR to activate AMPK acutely and chronically for 10 days. There was no change in body composition, substrate utilization, or energy expenditure following AICAR treatment at either time point, but there was a clear stimulation of mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle after 10 days. To test the effects of long-term changes in FAO independently of AMPK we directly targeted ACC2 in mice. ACC2 inhibition led to reduced intracellular malonyl-CoA levels and a concomitant increase in FAO in skeletal muscle without any change in energy expenditure or adiposity. Rather, in both acute and chronic settings, our data show that increased FAO is offset by an alteration in the handling of other macronutrients. Our findings are consistent with previous studies using a non-selective ACC1/2 inhibitor in rats. This inhibitor decreased RER over a 3 h period without altering energy expenditure (Harwood et al., 2003, link here). Secondly, reduced ACC1/2 expression in rat liver and fat using antisense oligonucleotides was without effect on body weight (Savage et al., 2006, link here). This illustrates that increased FAO is insufficient to promote energy expenditure or weight loss. Rather, the inherent flexibility in the metabolic system compensates for enforced FAO by altering carbohydrate metabolism. Such an effect is consistent with the glucose-FA cycle first proposed by Randle (Randle, 1963).”

“…Excess adiposity and lipid accumulation in non-adipose tissues are linked to insulin resistance (Savage et al., 2007, link here). However the effect of increasing FAO on insulin sensitivity is controversial in that some studies indicate that enhancing FAO protects against HFD-induced insulin resistance (Bruce et al., 2009, link here), while other studies show that excessive FAO in fact promotes insulin resistance (Koves et al., 2008, link here). In our study we were unable to observe any protective effect of increased FAO against HFD-induced insulin resistance.”

“…Based on the present study it is unlikely that increasing lipid oxidation alone is sufficient to cause leanness. In view of the fact that increased FAO was considered one of the major mechanisms of AMPK in fat reduction and leanness, this leaves open the possibility that the adipose lowering effects of chronic AMPK activation are mediated via an alternate pathway such as increased mitochondrial biogenesis or increased expression of uncoupling proteins.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-177.mp3" length="923708" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:07</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>(Brain) Cancer is a metabolic disease, can be treated by glutamine restriction</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=174</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=174</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 01 Jun 2019 00:46:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=174

It seems that mainstream medicine is finally wisening up to the massacre they have been orchestrating for the last 100 years. Without much fanfare or apologies, medicine is now quietly changing its story on cancer, hoping the public won’t notice as long as a cure is finally found. The study below is yet another one that calls cancer squarely a “metabolic disease” originating in mitochondrial dysfunction and NOT in genetic mutations. What’s even more notable is that the team behind the study hails from such bastions of traditional (toxic) cancer treatment academic centers such as Harvard Medical School and Boston College. The decorated medical team tested metabolic therapy for the highly lethal brain cancer known as glioblastoma. The metabolic therapy consisted of administering a glutamine antagonist and changing the diet so that there is less lactate generated. Avid readers probably remember that cancer cancer cells have voracious appetite for two macronutrients – fatty acids and the amino acid glutamine. As such, restricting one or both of them has been shown to be therapeutic in many cancer models. In addition, tumors rely on lactic acid for growth and metastasis through VEGF/angiogenesis and de-novo cancerization as a result of increased extracellular acidosis. The study used dietary glucose-restriction in the hope that this will generate less lactate. I find that approach misguided since restricting glucose prompts the tumor to increase cortisol synthesis and shed muscle (cachexia anyone?) to be turned into glucose, which then the tumor wastes as lactate anyways. In addition, the low-carb, high-far (keto) diet the study employed supplies directly the tumor with fatty acids, and that will likely speed up instead of slow down tumor growth. Moreover, the high-fat diet was also a high-PUFA diet, which further promoted tumor growth through increased inflammation and estrogenic signalling. As the study itself noted, one of the benefits of the ketogenic diet is that it “opens up” (read: compromises) the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) and that allows for better saturation of the brain (and the tumor there) with the glutamine antagonist. IMO, that is probably the only benefit the ketogenic diet provided and a zero-fat, high-carb diet with a more lipophillic glutamine antagonist would have probably worked much better.

But hey, it is a good start and I am thrilled to finally see a major push for change in how cancer is treated. The study itself states that this dietary approach should work for any cancer type as all cancers studies so far rely on glutamine and lactic acid for growth and metastasis. Things are not looking good for the genomic pharmaceutical industry, which is a beast gobbling up tens of billions of dollars (mostly taxpayers’) every year. I say, it is well overdue!

2 links here

“…The researchers, probing a treatment modeled on evidence that glioblastoma is primarily a mitochondrial metabolic disease driven by fermentation, discovered the combination was able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier that shields the brain from both injury and interventions, they wrote in the article, titled “Therapeutic benefit of combining calorie-restricted ketogenic diet and glutamine targeting in late-stage experimental glioblastoma.” 

“…The carbohydrate glucose and the amino acid glutamine are the two major fermentable fuels in the body that can drive the growth of glioblastoma, as well as most cancers, Seyfried said. Yet relatively few studies have simultaneously targeted these fuels as candidates for therapeutic management of glioblastoma. In a report last December, Seyfried and colleagues identified glutamine fermentation as the “missing link” in the metabolic theory of cancer first posited by Nobel laureate Otto Warburg in 1931. Contrary to the theory that cancer is determined by genomic instability in the nucleus of a cell, the metabolic theory of cancer holds that cancer’s deadly path begins in the mitochondria, where cells generate energy. In their new study, the researchers administered DON, a glutamine antagonist, in concert with a calorie-restricted, ketogenic diet to treat late-stage tumor growth in the brain. DON targets the biochemical “missing link” – the reaction glutaminolysis – while the ketogenic diet both reduces glucose and elevates non-fermentable and neuroprotective ketone bodies, Seyfried said. “The diet-drug therapeutic strategy killed tumor cells while reversing disease symptoms, and improving overall mouse survival,” said Seyfried. “The therapeutic strategy also reduces edema, hemorrhage, and inflammation. Moreover, the calorie-restricted ketogenic diet facilitated DON delivery to the brain and allowed a lower dosage to achieve therapeutic effect.”

“The findings support the importance of glucose and glutamine in driving glioblastoma growth and provide a therapeutic strategy for non-toxic metabolic management,” said Seyfried, who has been searching for alternative cancer treatments throughout his career. Seyfried said next steps to further explore the combination would be to determine if the diet-drug therapeutic synergy found for glioblastoma could also be seen for other malignant cancers, as glucose and glutamine are the key fuels that drive most if not all malignant cancers regardless of cell or tissue origin.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-174.mp3" length="1322516" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:03</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Baking soda may treat cancer, metformin may cause it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=171</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=171</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 01 Jun 2019 00:19:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=171

As many readers know, using baking soda to treat cancer has been labelled as “quack medicine” by many mouthpieces of mainstream medicine, as well as by several “watchdog” groups. Here are some links “debunking” the usage of baking soda for cancer.

3 links here

Some of the claims of the baking soda proponents are not entirely accurate (e.g mechanism of action). Namely, the baking soda proponents claim that cancer tissue is highly acidic, and that this acidic environment feeds a cancer-causing fungus. As the story goes, administering baking soda alkalizes the tissues and that kills the fungus as it requires an acidic environment to grow. Strangely enough, the criticism of the “debunkers” has completely missed the real gaps in the baking soda treatment protocol and instead criticizes the portion that is actually correct – i.e. that acidity (Warburg “effect”) drives cancer and baking soda corrects that pathology.




Well, the actual evidence points to the fact that cancer cells maintain a highly akaline (high pH) intracellular environment and pump out the massive amounts of lactic acid they produce outside the cell, thus producing a highly acidic (low pH) extracellular environment. Peat has mentioned this dozens (if not hundreds) of times in his articles and interviews, explaining the tumor promoting (bystander) effects of lactic acid (e.g. through VEGF/angiogenesis, hypoxia/HIF, etc) and how acidification of the tumor cells inside quickly triggers apoptosis. Cabonic anhydrase (CA) inhibitors are perhaps the most direct approach to acidifying the intracellular tumor environment, but other approaches exist such as methylene blue, acetazolamide, niacinamide, thiamine, and, of course, baking soda. But the cancer industry cannot be convinced of anything, and continues to bark idiotic imbecilities about cancer being genetic disease and metabolic therapies like baking soda being nonsense.




Parallel to the official stance on cancer, the medical establishment has been pushing a number of drugs as longevity- and health-promoters, even going as far as to say that some of those drugs prevent cancer. Perhaps the most publicized such drug is metformin – the so-called gold standard for treating diabetes type II. Such is the love affair between the medical establishment and metformin that there have even been calls to put everyone over the age of 40 on it in order to prevent every named chronic disease the medical establishment has managed to concoct in the last 100 years. Not to be outdone, Silicon Valley executives and all kinds of “busy” (read: stressed to death and highly serotonergic) professionals are popping metformin like candy in the hopes of staving off disease and even death.




2 links here

Well, the study below pours cold water on both the genetic claim and the “beneficial” effects of metformin (at least in regards to cancer). First, it confirms the alkaline intracellular / acidic extracellular nature of cancer and demonstrates that tumor cells overexpress CA, which breaks down CO2 thus alkalizing the inside of the cell. Simultaneously, cancer cells overproduce lactic acid due to the so-called Warburg Effect. This lactic acid is transported outside the cells resulting in a highly acidic extracellular tumor-stroma environment. Perhaps most importantly, the study demonstrates that “…Extracellular acidity is necessary and sufficient for the induction of candidate splicing events“. Those candidate splicing events are what drives aggressive cancer phenotypes and even initial cancerization. Second, it demonstrates that administering baking soda orally retards tumor growth by effectively acidifying the inside of the tumor (by raising CO2 levels) and alkalizing the outside (by neutralizing lactic acid). Third, it shows that administering metformin has a cancer-promoting effect due to the ability of that drug to increase lactic acid synthesis inside ANY cell.




So, if baking soda is therapeutic for cancer then what is the protocol. The study used an oral administration of a human equivalent dosage (HED) of about 250mg/kg daily for a period of 8 weeks. This means that an oral dose of about 20g daily should be enough for most people. The reason I mention the 20g dosage is that it also happens to be the most widely used dosing regimen for enhancing performance among athletes. The performance-enhancing effect is achieved through the same mechanism with which baking soda is therapeutic for cancer – i.e. neutralizing lactic acid (lactic acid promotes muscle fatigue), and increasing CO2 (which improves tissue oxygenation and further depresses lactic acid synthesis).




There you have it folks. After decades of absolute incompetence (and possibly fraud as well), the truth is slowly coming out. Soon, it may very well turn out that your grandmother’s remedies (notable members of which include aspirin and baking soda) pack more punch than the latest “advances” in medicine, even against something as serious as cancer!

link here

“…We next tested ABP-LOXCAT in a model of drug-induced acute mitochondrial dysfunction using metformin, a mitochondrial complex I inhibitor[29]. Intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of 300mg kg−1 of metformin elevated the blood lactate:pyruvate ratio by 1.5-fold (P=0.0003) in 1h (Fig. 4d).”




2 links here

“…Unlike normal cells, cancer cells can adapt to survive in low pH environments through increased glycolytic activity and expression of proton transporters that normalize intracellular pH. Acidosis-driven adaptation also triggers the emergence of aggressive tumor cell subpopulations that exhibit increased invasion, proliferation, and drug resistance (4–7, link here). Acidosis also promotes immune escape, which maintains tumor growth (8, link here).”




“…Transcriptome-wide studies suggest that tumor stressors such as hypoxia, nutrient starvation, and lactate acidosis can each regulate gene expression at the transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels in vitro (12–14, link here). For instance, low extracellular pH induces increased histone deacetylation, thereby influencing the expression of certain stress responsive genes and concomitantly contributing to normalization of intracellular pH through the enhanced release of acetate anions that are co-exported with protons through monocarboxylate transporters (15, 16, link here). However, how these changes influence transcriptome dynamics is not well understood, nor is it clear whether changes in gene expression arising from such stresses in vitro also correlate with those induced by equivalent physiologic stressors in vivo.”




To confirm that pHLIP reliably labeled acidic tumor areas, we evaluated its overlap relative to two additional markers associated with low extracellular pH: expression of CA9 and of plasma membrane-localized LAMP2 (PM-LAMP2; refs. 2, 29, 30, link here). CA9 is a major transporter that contributes to extracellular acidification through reversible hydration of carbon dioxide to bicarbonate and protons. CA9 expression significantly correlated with areas of pHLIP retention at cell membranes in both the primary tumor (Fig. 1C, link here) and metastatic lesions (Supplementary Fig. S1D). Given the extensive overlap with, and similar patterns of CA9 expression (Fig. 1D, link here; Supplementary Fig. S1E) relative to pHLIP positive cells in the mouse model, we used CA9 as a surrogate to label cells in acidic areas in human tumor tissues. Similar to the mouse tumors, the CA9 was enriched at tumor-stroma interfaces in human tumors (Supplementary Fig. S1F).




PM-LAMP2 indicates cellular adaptation to chronic acidosis (2, 31, link here). PM-LAMP2 overlapped significantly with pHLIP labeled cells (Supplementary Fig. S2A) and most cells with PM-LAMP2 were proximal to the tumor–stroma interface confirming that it is acidic (Supplementary Fig. S2B). Similarly, in human IDC tumors, cells expressing CA9 significantly overlapped with cells exhibiting PM-LAMP2 (Supplementary Fig. S2C and S2D). Therefore, areas containing pHLIP labeled cells or cells expressing high levels of CA9 likely correspond to cellular areas exposed to acidic conditions in vivo.




“…To mimic increased glycolysis conditions in culture, we used metformin, a drug that inhibits the complex I of mitochondria and therefore forces excessive lactate production (44, link here). As expected, metformin addition increased the amount of lactate in the media and acidified the media (Fig. 5C′, link here). Metformin addition also induced the pattern of low pH-induced splicing, which were blocked by addition of HEPES (Fig. 5C, link here). Lactate content remained increased under hypoxic or lactate acidosis conditions with or without HEPES buffering (Supplementary Fig. S5C and S5D). These results indicate that, at least for the splicing events tested, exposure to extracellular acidity is sufficient to induce the observed changes, while hypoxia-induced changes in HIF expression or increased lactate are dispensable.”




“…To evaluate the pH responsiveness of the candidate splicing events in vivo, we examined the events in tumors collected from mice that received regular or bicarbonate water. As before, consumption of bicarbonate water was sufficient to reduce tumor acidity, evident by the reduction of pHLIP-localization in cells from those tumors relative to control (Fig. 7A–A′, link here), and to reduce lung metastasis (26, link here). In addition, the percentage of MenaINV positive cells was significantly reduced in those tumors (Fig. 7A′–A″, link here). To examine the pH-responsive splicing candidates in vivo, tumors from control or treated mice were analyzed by qPCR analysis. Compared with the control samples, in tumors from PyMT mice that consumed bicarbonate water the inclusion ratio of the INV exon of Mena was significantly reduced. Similarly, the DOCK7 exon 23 and DLG1 exon 6 trended toward increased ratios, following the expected directionality, however, in these cases the changes were not statistically significant (Fig. 7B, link here). The effect of buffering on pH-responsive exons was also evaluated in a xenograft model derived from MDA-MB-231 cells. In line with the findings in the MMTV-PyMT tumors, the appearance of all candidate pH-responsive splicing events was significantly attenuated in tumors collected from bicarbonate water treated group in the xenograft model (Fig. 7C, link here). These data indicate that alteration in the extracellular acidity in vivo directly influences the expression of the pH-responsive signature.”




“…We characterized the spatial characteristics of acidic tumor microenvironment using pHLIP technology, and demonstrated that tumor–stroma interfaces are acidic and that cells within the acidic front are invasive and proliferative. We found that exposure to low extracellular pH in vitromodulates RNA metabolism, particularly RNA splicing, and identified a potential role for a family of RBPs with affinity for AU-rich motif, in the pH-induced transcriptomic signature. The low-pH signature indicated extensive changes in alternative splicing and was notably enriched for splicing of genes implicated in regulation of adhesion and cell migration. Although the global regulation of RNA splicing in response to acidosis in vivo remains to be determined, we demonstrated that a set of functionally important candidate splicing events is similarly pH responsive in vitro and in vivo. The pH-responsive splicing of Mena and CD44 was sensitive to pH-induced histone deacetylation in vitro, demonstrating a link between chromatin deacetylation and modulation of RNA splicing in response to extracellular acidity. These findings provide new molecular insight into one way in which acidosis contributes to local transcriptomic alterations that promote prometastatic phenotypes.”




Consistent with its well established role in local invasion and malignant progression (7, 46, link here), we found that acidosis is enriched adjacent to tumor–stroma interfaces in addition to areas within hypoxic cores. Acidosis in well-oxygenated areas can be caused by adaptation to increased aerobic glycolysis or oxidative phosphorylation (1, 47, link here). LDHA expression was indeed enriched within a subset of acidic cellular areas at the tumor–stroma interfaces (3, 32, link here). Acidic regions, however, were not restricted to sites of increased glycolysis marked by LDHA, indicating that acidosis may also be induced by other means such as protons generated through oxidative phosphorylation. Prolonged exposure to extracellular acidification shifts cancer cell metabolic reprogramming towards reactive oxygen species homeostasis and therefore promotes proliferation and aggressive phenotypes under harsh conditions. An example of such mechanism is mediated through a balance between histone deacetylation, mitochondrial hyper acetylation, and increased fatty acid oxidation (16, link here). Consistently, we observed that cells within low pH areas express high levels of HDAC and Ki-67 in vivo. Our results build upon previous reports on the correlation of extracellular acidity and local growth (7, link here) and improve our understanding of the distribution of the acidic microenvironment relative to hallmarks of tumor progression.




The inclusion of exon 19 of CD44 generates a short isoform of CD44 with a truncated cytoplasmic tail. Its expression in vitro is upregulated in multidrug-resistant MCF-7/Adr cells, and also affects cell invasion through the Ras/MAPK signaling pathway (37, link here). Here we demonstrate both in vivo and in vitro that acidosis is necessary and sufficient to drive the expression of these isoforms in both mouse and human tumors. These examples indicate that acidic microenvironment induces the expression of isoforms of genes associated with malignancy; however, it remains to be established if acidosis in vivo induces a global transcriptomic rewiring that influences splicing similar to the phenomenon observed in vitro.




Together, our results lead us to propose that acidosis, an intrinsic feature of the microenvironment, is enriched at the tumor invasive fronts and triggers adaptive changes in gene expression and splicing that are potentially controlled through a specific set of RBPs and downstream of pH-induced chromatin modifications. Our study provides new insights into how acidosis contributes to alterations underlying malignant progression. Understanding how acidosis evokes transcriptomic changes that confer aggressive tumor phenotypes will provide therapeutically valuable insight.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-171.mp3" length="4478924" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:10:20</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>GWAS predicting height are bunk; same likely the case for disease-prediction</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=168</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=168</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 30 May 2019 17:43:34 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=168

Another study calls into question the validity of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), at least when it comes to traits such as height. Height (together with IQ) was once hailed as one of the most genetically-sensitive traits and so-called polygenic scores were developed that were claimed to predict a person’s height within a fraction of a millimeter. Well, as the study below states, these “signals” turned out to be simply noise, or actually human-introduced biases in calculations. As one of the authors said – “Maybe the Dutch drink more milk and this is why they are taller“. No kidding! And if something as (supposedly) as genetically-driven as height has not evidence behind that claim, then what about even less evolutionary plausible traits such as risk for specific diseases? Some of the authors of the GWAS-debunking studies are expressing such fears. And rightfully so – their careers depend on the medical applicability of GWAS.

2 links here

“…A key breakthrough was the recent development of genome-wide association studies (GWAS, commonly pronounced “gee-wahs”). The genetics of simple traits can often be deduced from pedigrees, and people have been using that approach for millennia to selectively breed vegetables that taste better and cows that produce more milk. But many traits are not the result of a handful of genes that have clear, strong effects; rather, they are the product of tens of thousands of weaker genetic signals, often found in noncoding DNA. When it comes to those kinds of features — the ones that scientists are most interested in, from height, to blood pressure, to predispositions for schizophrenia — a problem arises. Although environmental factors can be controlled in agricultural settings so as not to confound the search for genetic influences, it’s not so straightforward to extricate the two in humans.”

“…Not to be thwarted, over the past two decades experts have come up with robust statistical techniques to address the issue, using data collected from thousands of individuals. This approach has become particularly prevalent in human genetics, as researchers hope to predict, say, someone’s risk for a disease based on their genome. Some groups have even used these methods to probe how natural selection might have led to observed differences in height (and other traits) among populations. The findings generated further excitement about the potential applications in medicine and evolutionary biology for GWAS. But now, two results, link here published last month, link here have cast doubt on those findings, and have illustrated that problems with interpretations of GWAS results are far more pervasive than anyone realized. The work has implications for how scientists think about the interactions between genetic and environmental effects. It also “raise[s] the ghosts of the possibility that we overestimate … how important genetics is in contributing to differences between people,” said Rasmus Nielsen, link here, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley.”

“…What had also emerged from that research as an “obvious, beguiling offshoot,” according to Nick Barton, link here, an evolutionary biologist at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, was a specific prediction known as a “polygenic score.” Beyond the associations themselves, GWAS could provide estimates of how individual variants in the genome corresponded to measurable changes in a trait; polygenic scores constituted the sum of all those tiny effects. For instance, with height, having a guanine base instead of a cytosine one in a particular DNA region might correlate with being 0.1 millimeter taller than average. The polygenic score would take all those approximations, add them up and spit out a prediction for some individual’s actual height.”

“…Five years ago, a series of analyses on a European database made these dreams seem within reach. People of northern European ancestry are on average taller than those of southern European ancestry. Researchers wanted to explore whether those differences were a result of natural selection. They found that the polygenic scores for height did indeed increase from southern to northern Europe, much more so than would be expected from the random fluctuations in variant frequencies called genetic drift. That pattern supported the idea that genetics could explain a significant portion of why someone of Swedish descent was likely to be taller than someone with Italian roots — and, it seemed, those genetic differences reflected some process of natural selection and adaptation.”

“…And then the two recent papers in eLife, both relying on a newer database called the U.K. Biobank, link here, saw that signal disappear. That database was larger and more homogeneous than the one that had driven the previous findings, and had been compiled much more systematically, reducing some of its biases just a bit. As a result, it yielded slightly different estimates for the small effect sizes associated with each of the variants, which weren’t a big deal in individual cases but added up to significantly different overall polygenic scores.”

“The new studies are really quite disconcerting,” Barton said, because they demonstrated that scientists had been mistaking biases in the polygenic score calculations for something biologically interesting. Their statistical methods of accounting for population structure were not so adequate after all. Though it was always understood to be a problem, “no one realized how big of a problem it was,” said Shamil Sunyaev, link here, a computational geneticist at Harvard Medical School who performed one of the new eLife analyses with his graduate student Mashaal Sohail, link here and their colleagues.” “It was just that sort of feeling where the world shifts under your feet slightly,” said Coop, who with Berg and their colleagues coauthored the other eLife paper to try to confirm their earlier research. “It’s fairly humbling to see all of that work go away.” 

“Maybe the Dutch just drink more milk, and this is why they’re taller,” Sunyaev added. “We can’t say otherwise with this analysis.” And when the trait being studied isn’t height, that can be dangerous. It means that trying to use estimates made about the effects of variants on diseases in one population might not apply to individuals in another population. That’s particularly worrisome because the vast majority of genome-wide association studies rely on data from people of white European ancestry. “People are not homogeneous, and it can come back to haunt you,” said Magnus Nordborg, link here, a population geneticist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.”

“…Given that some experts want to roll out polygenic scores in the clinic, it’s already clear that this flaw could deepen the disparity in health care. In a study published last month, link here, researchers found that trying to translate insights gleaned from European data to make health predictions in people of African descent led to as much as a 4.5-fold drop in accuracy. Others have tried using polygenic scores to make poorly supported claims about differences in behavioral and social traits between populations (such as IQ and education attainment, which are far more difficult to define and unpack than height is, yet are being used to potentially inform future policymaking decisions). “It’s kind of scary,” said Sarah Tishkoff, link here, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania who emphasized how critical it is to collect more underrepresented genomic information.” 

 
“The methods developed so far really think about genetics and environment as separate and orthogonal, as independent factors. When in truth, they’re not independent. The environment has had a strong impact on the genetics, and it probably interacts with the genetics,” said Gil McVean, link here, a statistical geneticist at the University of Oxford. “We don’t really do a good job of … understanding [that] interaction.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-168.mp3" length="484100" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:08</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D deficiency can cause heart failure</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=166</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=166</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 30 May 2019 16:11:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=166

As many readers know, there is an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. It is of worldwide proportions, but is visible mainly in “developed” countries in the Western world. The official stance of mainstream medicine is that while vitamin D deficiency is undesirable, it does not really have much clinical relevance except for older people at risk for osteoporosis. This negligent attitude likely stems from the word “vitamin” in the name of the chemical, and most doctors are trained to ignore vitamin deficiencies as clinically relevant. Even vitamin insufficiencies are sometimes treated as little more than a nuisance. In fact, most doctors do not even know that “vitamin” D is in fact a steroid (a secosteroid, to be precise) and can interact with virtually all other steroid receptors, as I posted in the thread about our product Calcirol. As such, a deficiency in this steroid is likely to have widespread effects on health, as any other steroid imbalance would. Specifically, the role of this steroid in not only bone but also muscle health has been elucidated decades ago (at least in research circles) and multiple in vivo studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency leads to a number of myopathies, even in young organisms. One of the proposed mechanisms is insulin resistance and reduced glucose metabolism in the presence of vitamin D deficiency. Conversely, as another study I posted demonstrated, supplementing with vitamin D (especially in combination with vitamin K) can have potent, doping-like performance enhancing effects even for professional athletes due to the enhanced muscle function as a result of increased osteocalcin synthesis (which depends mostly on vitamin D &K).

Now, the study below corroborates the crucial role of vitamin D in muscle health and demonstrated that chronic deficiency can lead to heart failure, as the heart is perhaps the muscle most sensitive to vitamin D levels. In this study, deficiency of vitamin D led to increased inflammatory burden as demonstrated by elevated TNF-a, NF-kB, IL-6, etc. Those inflammatory biomarkers also happen to correlate perfectly with insulin resistance and in fact the study induced such a state in the rodents through a high-fat diet. And it was precisely the deranged glucose metabolism in insulin resistant hearts that led to heart failure. So, the study demonstrated a direct and crucial role of vitamin D in metabolic health, possibly related to increased inflammatory burden in the presence of vitamin D deficiency. Considering the epidemic of heart failure in the last few decades, especially in younger people, I would suspect that the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency is largely to blame. However, until mainstream medicine recognizes the vital role of this “vitamin” and attitudes to its widespread clinical deficiency change, I don’t think that link will be recognized, let alone addressed in clinical practice.

2 links here

“…The new study has shown that vitamin D deficiency alone can lead to heart failure, possibly through insulin resistance. It has found that cardiac insulin leads to the functional deterioration of heart in animals with low vitamin D levels. The utilization of glucose and fatty acids – key fuels for energy generation in the heart – is adversely affected due to insulin resistance in heart cells. Insulin plays a critical role in the regulation of cellular metabolism in many tissues in the body. 

“…At the end of 20 weeks, it was found that the hearts of vitamin D deficient animals were failing. They showed molecular and functional changes similar to the hearts of rats in the high-fat high fructose diet group. “The cardiac dysfunction caused by vitamin D deficiency alone was very similar to that by the other risk factor – high-calorie diet – sometimes even to a greater extent in some parameters. For example, cardiac inflammation was higher in vitamin D deficiency diet than high-calorie diet,” researchers have observed in the study.”

“…Researchers found greater expression of genes involved in the enlargement of cardiac muscles. These findings were confirmed when scientists measured heart wall thicknesses, chamber internal diameters and contracting capacity of the heart. Left ventricular posterior wall thickness was found to be increased in rats with vitamin D deficiency. This happens when cardiac workload increases and turns pathological if no remedial measures are taken, finally progressing to heart failure. In such a condition, the pumping action of the heart can no longer meet the metabolic demands of the body.”

“We have shown the link between vitamin D deficiency and cardiac dysfunction and how it may lead to heart failure. Vitamin D and its signaling modulate myocardial insulin sensitivity, the insufficiency of which induces impaired glucose utilization, remodeling response, and heart failure,” explained Dr Sanjay Kumar Banerjee, senior scientist at the Faridabad-based Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), who led the research team, while speaking to India Science Wire.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-166.mp3" length="1319516" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:01</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Millennials are sicker than previous generations</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=164</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=164</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 30 May 2019 13:59:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=164

Finally, a study that says what no doctor wants to say publicly – the younger generations are in such poor health they are far less healthy than their parents were at the same age, and less so than their grandparents. I posted quite a few studies showing the rapidly rising rates of various diseases in the youngest cohorts, but each time such a study came out some public health official immediately countered that it is just one disease and not representative of overall health, and even that specific disease finding was probably a statistical fluke. 

Some of the interesting highlights from the article are that apparently high blood pressure (BP) can be officially diagnosed as caused by vitamin D deficiency. I wonder how many of the high BP cases are caused by such deficiency because this is something much easier to fix for good by raising vitamin D levels with supplementation instead of taking toxic drugs for life that not only do not resolve the underlying issue but can cause cancer as well. 
link here

 Another interesting findings is that young women are on average 20% less healthy than their male peers. The very high rates of birth control and SSRI usage may be responsible for that discrepancy. I am starting to feel really bad about Millenials. Not only will they likely be the poorest generation in over a century but they will also likely be the sickest and as such with terrible quality of life. The ones that survive, that is. Now, it would be really informative if the study quantified a health gap as in between females and males but in regards to generations. I bet Millenials would be about 40% less healthy than Baby Boomers and probably at least 70% less healthy than the Greatest Generation (parents of Boomers). Those numbers are not random guesses. That’s how much sperm counts have declined in males over those generations, and I see no reason why the same decline won’t also apply to females across those years, especially considering the female health decline seen in this study. 

2 links here

“…A new study suggests millennials are less healthy than previous generations. “In general, we’re seeing millennials getting diagnosed earlier, things they have not been diagnosed in the past,” said cardiologist Darren Sidney, who works at Trident Medical Center.The study, conducted by health insurance provider Blue Cross, Blue Shield, looked at health data from 55 million commercially-insured millennials. It showed the prevalence for nearly all of the top 10 health conditions increased from 2014-2017 for people aged 22-36. Major depression was up 31% in that time and hyperactivity was up 26%. Hypertension and high cholesterol were also among the top ten.”

“…Robles said doctors determined a vitamin D deficiency caused her high blood pressure, but the diagnosis still surprised her, since she tried to eat healthily and exercises several times a week. “It was really frustrating because I was doing everything right and I couldn’t fix the problem,” she said. Experts suggest millennials are missing out on early diagnoses of many health issues because they don’t visit the doctor as regularly as Generation X-ers and older generations. The study also suggested millennial women were 20% less healthy than millennial men, based on the data. The study did not, however, suggest a reason for the trends. “I hope to continue being healthy and not suffer from blood pressure for years to come,” Robles said.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-164.mp3" length="885428" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:58</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cancer is a metabolic disease, diet is its drug</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=154</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=154</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2019 13:14:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=154

This is perhaps the most stunning article to date I have seen in mainstream media (MSM). For more than 100 years the story has always been that cancer is a genetic disease due to mutations that turn cells into rampant killing machines. Now, one of the bastions of MSM – the mighty “Atlantic” – has published an article that reads as if it has been copied straight from one Ray’s articles or the forum/blog posts we have been making here. The author is an MD, and this underscores just how big of a shift may be underway in medical thinking. First, the article starts by calling into question the theory that cancer is a genetic disease due to mutations. Instead, it says that cancer is a result of metabolic derangements. In other words, cancer is a metabolic disease! Second, it calls diet a drug! Hippocrates would be proud we finally found some common sense (and ethics) inside us. Third, it mentions specific dietary interventions that can likely treat cancer. Methionine restriction, asparagine restriction, glycine therapy, the importance of histamine in promoting cancer, the possibility that B12 is dangerous in excess, etc are all aspects that Peat has mentioned in his articles and we have posted on this blog. The article even coined a term for such an approach to treating cancer – metabolic therapy. So, it seems the powers that be are finally starting to listen to the “madness” we have been discussing for years. As such, now when you go to your doctor and tell him/her that “diet is a drug” you have some ground to stand on instead of being labelled a lunatic.

link here

“…Cancer cells grow in distinctive patterns that defy normal limitations. That growth activity requires energy, and so cancer cells metabolize nutrients in different ways from the healthy cells around them. In an attempt to kill the tumor without killing the normally functioning cells, chemotherapy drugs target these pathways inside of cancer cells. This is notoriously difficult, expensive, and prone to toxic side effects that account for much of the suffering associated with the disease.”

“…Now doctors are starting to think more about specific nutrients that feed tumor cells. That is, how what we eat affects how cancers grow—and whether there are ways to potentially “starve” cancer cells without leaving a person undernourished, or even hungry. “For a long time, the prevailing thought was that altered metabolism in cancer cells was the result of genes and mutations that determined metabolism,” says Jason Locasale, link here, a cancer biologist at Duke University. “Now, as we know, it’s a complex interaction of environment and genes, and one of the major factors at play is nutrition.” The importance of nutrition has long been accepted for conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, diagnoses that come with well-known dietary prescriptions. Even the most commonly used drug in type 2 diabetes, metformin, has been found in clinical trials to be inferior to diet and exercise. Cell biologists like Locasale see extending that line of thinking to cancer as a logical step, because at the cellular level, cancer is also a disease of metabolic pathways.”

“…While the sugar-and-insulin angle has shown promise, more of the research has focused on dietary protein—or, specifically, individual amino acids that make up that protein. Studies have shown that the restriction of the amino acids serine and glycine can modulate cancer outcomes. According to a 2018 study in Nature, link here, the chemotherapy drug methotrexate is affected by the amino acid histidine. Another, asparagine, is involved in the progression of breast cancer, link here metastasis.”

“…The most interest has gone to methionine, which is found in high levels in eggs, link hereand red meat, link here. In 2018, a review, link here of existing evidence from the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey deemed restricting methionine “a promising anti-tumor strategy.” That promise has also shown itself in brain tumors and melanomas, as the UC San Diego surgeon Robert Hoffman detailed, link here in February. Methionine is made in normal cells—out of homocysteine, folate, and vitamin B12. However, many types of cancer cells lack the enzyme that makes cellular manufacturing of methionine possible. So they require extra methionine from outside the body—via food we eat—for survival. Cut off that supply, and it should help to slow the tumor without starving the person. This month, Locasale and his colleagues at Duke released findings, link here showing that restricting methionine decreased tumor growth in mice and human subjects. Locasale’s particular area of research, known as metabolomics, uses enormous data sets to quantify metabolic activity. This allows the controversial, link herefield of nutrition research to operate with new levels of precision, where specific metabolic pathways can be monitored. Most nutrition research relies on self-reported data, in which people who say they eat almonds are found to have lower rates of some sort of cancer, and the best we can do is assume these two things are related. Locasale’s paper, by contrast, is full of complex statistical calculus involving “Euclidian distances” and “multidimensional scaling.”

“…In 2017, I reported on a provocative study of vitamin B12 supplements, link here, which can prevent anemia in people who don’t get enough through food. In excessive amounts, though, using these supplements was associated with higher rates of lung cancer. Again, this seemed to be by way of a metabolic pathway that fuels the tumor cells. Nutrients or vitamins are not simply good or bad, cancer-causing or cancer-fighting. If a book or blog recommends a single “cancer diet”—or even a supplement that promises to fight cancer—beware. It could end up making things worse. Especially if there is a person on the cover in a white coat with arms folded, and with teeth that look like they have never been used.

“…For now, unless an oncologist has advised a specific diet tailored to your specific tumor, the most common recommendation is to eat a generally healthy diet. None of this challenges the principle that staying well nourished is part of a healthy approach to any disease; and there is no evidence that overall starvation is good or even safe. But focusing on specific patterns of eating will likely be part of many cancer-treatment guidelines in coming years. Food is medicine—or metabolic therapy. And no metabolic therapy is good or bad for everyone in every condition.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-154.mp3" length="749588" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Aspirin actually decreases risk of bleeding in the brain</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=151</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=151</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2019 12:07:52 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=151

As many readers know, one of the scary stories Big Pharma tells about aspirin is that it increases the risk of bleeding in the GI tract or brain. As such aspirin has long been bashed as a possible cause of so-called hemorrhaging strokes. I posted two studies a few years ago demonstrating that aspirin, in fact, decreases the risk of death from bleeding events in BOTH the brain and GI tract. Those studies never saw coverage in mainstream media. Now the study below reiterates those findings and states that aspirin may DECREASE the risk of bleeding stroke by at least 50%. Let’s see if this news will finally cause a change of heart and mind among the medical “professionals” when it comes to aspirin.

link here

“…The findings “are reassuring for survivors of brain hemorrhage who need to take antiplatelet [anti-clotting] medicines to prevent heart attacks and strokes. I am keen to [further] investigate the possibility that these medicines might halve the risk of brain hemorrhage happening again,” said study author Rustam Salman, from the Center for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland.”

link here

“…Taking aspirin, link here or anti-clotting medicines like Plavix, link here won’t boost the risk of another stroke, link here if you’ve already survived a bleeding stroke, a new study suggests. In fact, they might even help guard against a second brain, link here bleed, the researchers noted. The findings “are reassuring for survivors of brain hemorrhage, link here who need to take antiplatelet [anti-clotting] medicines to prevent heart attacks, link here and strokes. I am keen to [further] investigate the possibility that these medicines might halve the risk of brain hemorrhage happening again,” said study author Rustam Salman, from the Center for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland.”

“…The important take away from this study is that there was no significant difference between the groups in the rate of recurrent intracranial hemorrhage or major hemorrhagic events,” said Dr. Andrew Rogove, medical director of stroke services at Northwell Health’s Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, N.Y. The researchers also found that taking anti-clotting drugs was not more hazardous for patients who’d had microbleeds in the brain, which can be a warning sign of future strokes.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-151.mp3" length="355868" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Elevated endotoxin (LPS) linked to lower survival in cancer</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=148</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=148</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2019 11:53:14 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=148

Another study about endotoxin, this time linking higher sensitivity to endotoxin to lower survival chance for people with lymphoma. While the study below looked at only one cancer, there are multiple studies with other cancer that have found a similar link. Endotoxin and cancer go hand in hand, that much is clear.

link here

“…Background: Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), a member of the pattern recognition receptors, has been reported to be involved in carcinogenesis. However, the clinical impact of TLR4 in peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCL) remains unclear. Methods: The current study, using immunohistochemical staining, first examined TLR4 and programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in patients with PTCL, to correlate TLR4 and PD-L1 expression with clinicopathological parameters. Results: It was found that the rates of high expression of TLR4 and PD-L1 were 41.7% and 45.8%, respectively. TLR4 expression was closely associated with PD-L1 expression. The expression of TLR4 was closely related to primary extranodal site involvement, increased Ann Arbor stage, and low hemoglobin expression, while the expression of PD-L1 was closely related to a low platelet count and multiple extranodal organ involvements (>1). High expression of either TLR4 or PD-L1 indicated a poor survival rate for patients with PTCL. Multivariate analyses further confirmed that increased expression levels of TLR4 and PD-L1 are unfavorable prognostic factors for PTCL.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-148.mp3" length="188252" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:27</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A selective serotonin antagonist is a potent antidepressant</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=146</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=146</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2019 11:48:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=146

Fraud, fraud and nothing but fraud! I used to think it is shear stupidity, but the evidence for deliberate manipulation of public opinion and health policy is just too strong. After more than half a century of claiming that serotonin cures depression, now mainstream medicine is quietly trying to retreat from this fiasco by introducing more and more potent (and selective) serotonin antagonists as treatment of depression and silently phasing the SSRI drugs out. The study below is one of the most direct and damning pieces of evidence against the “serotonin deficiency hypothesis” as a cause of depression. A highly selective serotonin antagonist (primavanserin) was found to have potent anti-depressant effects in a human trial. 

link here

This drug has no other effects except blocking the 5-HT2A (and to a smaller degree 5-HT2C) receptor. So, if this drug is a potent antidepressant then serotonin is a cause of depression, pure and simple. In addition, the drug’s pharmacological profile also reveals another fraud – i.e. that schizophrenia is caused by too much dopamine. The drug is also used to treat schizophrenia, but unlike other drugs for the condition primavanserin has NO antagonism on dopamine receptors. In other words, it treats schizophrenia by blocking ONLY serotonin. I posted about this fraud in regard to schizophrenia several years ago when I pointed out that the main drug for treating schizoprenia (haloperidol) is actually a serotonin antagonist in addition to being dopamine antagonist. For years, this information was concealed and only last month I noticed that the Wikipedia page for haloperidol has been updated to state that the drug is a serotonin antagonist as well. So, in case it is not clear yet let me say it loud and clear – serotonin causes BOTH depression and schizophrenia and blocking serotonin treats both conditions.

2 links here

“…Compared with placebo, pimavanserin reduced weighted HAMD-17 total scores in both stages (least-square means difference = –1.7; P = .04). Patients who received pimavanserin in the first stage separated from the placebo group on the HAMD-17 by the end of the first week (difference = –1.7; P = .04) and had significantly improved on the HAMD-17 by week 5 (difference = –4; P < .001).”

“This study indicates that pimavanserin, a molecule with a relatively unique pharmacological activity as a selective inverse agonist of the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor, may show antidepressant activity and could be a novel adjunctive treatment for patients who do not adequately respond to standard antidepressant therapy with either an SSRI or SNRI,” Maurizio Fava, MD, director of the division of clinical research of Massachusetts General Hospital Research Institute and executive vice chair of the hospital’s department of psychiatry, told Healio.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-146.mp3" length="899180" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking endotoxin (LPS) may reverse/cure diabetes type I (insulin dependent)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=144</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=144</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2019 11:31:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=144

Yet another study demonstrating the key role of endotoxin in the pathology of perhaps the most widespread chronic disease – diabetes. The study below discovered that the proliferation of the insulin-producing beta-cells in the pancreas is controlled almost entirely by the TLR4/TLR2 receptor family. Activation of those receptors led to rapid death of beta-cells and, conversely, deleting the TLR4/TLR2 receptors led to rapid recovery of beta-cells, even in the presence of continued feeding on high fat (PUFA) diet!




Now, the study took an extreme approach and created mice with completely missing TLR4/TLR2 receptors. However, the study itself says that simply blocking TLR4/TLR2 is likely sufficient to observe the same effect. Considering the pathogenic role of elevated FFA in diabetes as well, a combination of niacinamide (or aspirin, or vitamin E) and an endotoxin blocker such as naltrexone, cyproheptadine, Benadryl, progesterone, etc could be a viable treatment for BOTH types of diabetes (I & II). There is already some evidence that niacinamide on its own can reverse (early stages) diabetes I in children, which corroborates the findings of this study. 
So much for insulin-dependent diabetes being irreversible…




It is quite maddening that despite discovering the role of endotoxin in the pathology of diabetes, the authors conclude that “something” due to feeding high-far diet is causing the diabetes but the exact cause is “unknown”. You have got to be kidding me! How about the very agent known to activate TLR4/TLR2? Endotoxin (LPS) anybody? How about the well-known link between high fat diet and endotoxin? How about the well-known link between a high-PUFA diet and both higher endotoxin and higher peripheral inflammation due to conversion of PUFA into prostaglandins, leukotrienes, etc? Either bizarre stupidity or outright corruption had beset the medical profession to be blind to such obviousness.

4 links here

“…Western-type diets that are laden with carbohydrates and fats put extra demand on the body’s pancreatic islets to produce enough insulin to control blood sugar levels. If this demand can’t be met, then diabetes can result. Research by a University of Michigan-headed team of scientists has now suggested that it may be possible to trigger increased production of insulin. Their studies in mice showed that switching off two toll-like receptors (TLRs) effectively takes the brakes of islet cell expansion in the pancreas, and allows pancreatic islets to ramp up production of insulin-producing β cells, but only in response to a high-fat diet (HFD).




“…The researchers say the discovery that TLR2, TLR4, and HFD play a combined role in regulating β cell production could lead to new approaches for treating diabetes and obesity. “These data reveal a regulatory mechanism controlling the proliferation of β cells in diet-induced obesity and suggest that selective targeting of the TLR2/TLR4 pathways may reverse β cell failure in patients with diabetes,” they concluded in their published paper in Nature Immunology, which is titled, “Toll-like receptors TLR2 and TLR4 block the replication of pancreatic β cells in diet-induced obesity, link here.”




“…The researchers made the discovery on the back of experiments that were originally designed to investigate the role of the immune system, and TLR2 and TLR4, in the development of adipose tissue inflammation in obese mice. The team’s subsequent studies in the TLR2- and TLR4-deficient mice found that loss of both of the proteins effectively removed a block on β cell proliferation in animals fed a high-fat diet. Encouragingly, β cell function was maintained and blood sugar controlled in the HFD-fed mice that lacked TLR2 and TLR4.”




“…Qi and his team are now working to identify the role that a high-fat diet plays in islet expansion in the context of TLR2 and TLR4. “Something associated with high-fat-induced obesity plays a key role in this process, but we don’t yet know what,” he said. Qi also suggested that the discovery that negative factors can block β cell expansion indicates that approaches to boosting β cell numbers that focus solely on amplifying positive factors may not be effective.”




“…Both the proteins had to be disabled to unlock diet-related β cell proliferation. If either TLR2 or TLR4 was present the islets didn’t expand or generate additional β cells “… activation of either TLR2 or TLR4 was sufficient to suppress β cell proliferation in mice,” the scientists wrote. Further experiments ruled out a potential role for any factors circulating in the blood in allowing islet expansion, and suggested that “TLR2 and TLR4 deficiency affected HFD-induced β cell replication in an islet-intrinsic manner,” they continued. Pathway analysis indicated that in parallel with chronic consumption of high-fat foods, signaling pathways mediated by TLR2 and TLR4 downregulated the activation of MEK/Erk kinases, which blocked key molecules involved in cell replication from entering the nucleus, and so prevented β cell proliferation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-144.mp3" length="997844" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) may cause depression / anhedonia</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=141</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=141</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2019 11:04:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=141

As many readers know, anhedonia is one of the most pernicious aspects of clinical depression. It is present in other mental health conditions but is most pronounced and severe in clinical unipolar depression. It is also especially resistant to treatment and many doctors simply accept it as something that current drugs cannot address and focus on improving overall quality of life for the patient as much as current pharma options allow. The sad reality is that despite the well-known link between anhedonia and low dopamine (and thus high-serotonin), nobody has made the suggestion (at last officially) that serotonin may actually be a cause of depression. No suggestions have been made about treating anhedonia with dopamine agonists and/or serotonin antagonists despite the mountain of evidence from animal studies.

Be that as it may, the study below demonstrates the endotoxin can directly cause depression and anhedonia, by acting on the TLR receptors and thus increasing inflammation. While the study does not mention it, this also directly implicates serotonin as a causal factor in depression as endotoxin manifests most of its negative effects on health by activating serotonin synthesis in the gut and by increasing NO synthesis/release. It is impossible to activate the TLR4 receptors the study below discusses without also increasing serotonin/NO. I suppose it would be too brave for the authors to call serotonin out for what it is, but at the very least the role of endotoxin in chronic conditions is starting to get recognized, and I’d take this as a good start. The study does claim that the anhedonic and depressive effects of endotoxin affect mostly females, but I am not convinced males are exempt. I think males are simply more resilient initially due to their higher testosterone levels, which itself has potent antidepressant effects. On the other hand, the higher estrogen levels in women predispose them to depression and females’ estrogen levels are more sensitive to changes in endotoxin levels. This likely explains the gender differences seen in the studies, and when these differences between genders dwindle in older age, endotoxin becomes just as strong depressive and anhedonic agent for males as well. As such, blocking TLR4 may be a viable treatment for anhedonia/depression and studies with TLR4 antagonists like naltrexone, amitriptyline, cyproheptadine, progesterone, vitamin D/A, riboflavin, have all demonstrated antidepressant effects further corroborating the findings of the study below.

2 links here

“…Anhedonia, link here is one of the hallmarks of major depressive disorder. Anhedonia describes the inability to derive joy or pleasure from activities that used to feel enjoyable. On a neurological level, anhedonia presents itself as reduced activity in the brain’s reward processing area, called the ventral striatum, link here.”

“…Prof. Eisenberger and colleagues administered either a low dose of an endotoxin — in order to induce inflammation — or a placebo, link here to depression-free men and women. In total, the study included 115 participants, 69 of whom were female. The researchers randomly assigned the participants to either the control/placebo group or the low-dose endotoxin group.”

“…The results revealed that the endotoxin reduced the activity of the reward-processing ventral striatum. However, the researchers noticed that this effect differed according to sex. “Specifically,” report Prof. Eisenberger and colleagues, “in female participants, endotoxin (vs. placebo) led to decreased [ventral striatum] activity in anticipation of reward, but this effect was not present in male participants.” Also, these decreases in the activity of the ventral striatum “were related to increases in inflammation for female but not male participants.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-141.mp3" length="1156652" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:35</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Daily aspirin reduces by 37% risk of fatty liver progressing into cirrhosis</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=139</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=139</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2019 21:34:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=139

Another great study about aspirin. What I particularly like about this study is that one of the authors is calling aspirin “a promising anti-fibrotic strategy for NAFLD”. This is the first time I have heard a doctor refer to aspirin as anti-fibrotic chemical. Peat mentioned aspirin as one of the most protective chemicals for liver as early as the 1970s in one of his first books. However, up until now mainstream medicine had continued to insist that aspirin is nothing more than a (weak) COX inhibitor. Interestingly, and also consistent with Peat’s writings on the topic, the study below states that NSAID drugs other than aspirin did NOT have such anti-fibrotic benefits. Oh the times, they are a changin…

2 links here

…“Recent experimental data suggest that aspirin is a promising anti-fibrotic strategy for NAFLD,” Tracey G. Simon, MD, from the Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues wrote. “Given the growing incidence and burden of NAFLD, understanding the potential antifibrotic benefits of aspirin remains an important unmet need.”

“…Between 2006 and 2015, the researchers examined 361 adults with NAFLD every 3 months to 12 months for incident advanced fibrosis. Daily aspirin use correlated with lower risk for fibrosis, link here compared with non-regular use (adjusted OR = 0.54; 95% CI, 0.31-0.82). Daily aspirin use also correlated with NASH histology, link herei including lower risk for prevalent ballooning (aOR = 0.45; 95% CI, 0.23-0.88), lobular inflammation (aOR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.54-0.98), definite NASH (aOR = 0.68; 95% CI, 0.37-0.89) and advanced fibrosis (aOR = 0.46; 95% CI, 0.22-0.89) compared with non-regular use.”

“…Longer duration of pre-enrollment daily aspirin use also correlated with lower risk for prevalent fibrosis (P = .016). Compared with less than 2 years of use, prevalent fibrosis was less common among patients with 2 years to less than 4 years of use (aOR = 0.72; 95% CI, 0.56-0.48) and those with 4 years or more of use (aOR = 0.48; 95% CI, 0.32-0.69). Longitudinal analysis with multivariate analysis showed that the risk for advanced fibrosis was 37% lower among daily aspirin users compared with non-regular users (aHR = 0.63; 95% CI, 0.43-0.85). Simon and colleagues noted that they did not find a significant association between nonaspirin NSAID use and risk for fibrosis progression. “Aspirin uniquely modulates bioactive lipids by stimulating the biosynthesis of proresolving mediators, and inhibiting pro-inflammatory lipids, which in turn may prevent progressive liver damage,” they wrote. “Given the accelerating incidence and mortality of NAFLD, the potential magnitude of benefit from aspirin, link here could be profound.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-139.mp3" length="579404" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:20</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Obesity increasing; is NOT due to the cliche urban, gluttonous, sedentary lifestyle</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=129</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=129</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2019 16:21:26 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=129

I just made a post questioning the universal dogma peddled by every doctor – i.e. “eat less, move more”.

link here

The study below shows that obesity rates are rising worldwide. A doctor would immediately suggest that this is due to urban overpopulation, with hordes of gluttonous, chips-eating, video-game-playing, sedentary, bored people who do little more than eat, sleep, watch TV, and maybe play video games. However, the study below found the exact opposite to be true. In other words, the rise of global obesity rates is driven by dramatically increasing obesity in rural populations that tend to eat a lot less than their urban cousins AND also move a lot more. So, obviously something other than gluttonous laziness is driving this process, and the authors think it is food quality. While I agree that the food supply is incredibly compromised, rural populations still enjoy access to relatively better food than their urban cousins, even though they may choose not to eat it and gorge on the PUFA-laden “goodies”. But on average, rural and urban dwellers have about the same access to crappy, processed foods so it is not all bad food driving this. I suspect that endocrine disruptors, and environmental pollution (including EMF) are taking a big toll on the health of people in developed countries and rural people may be even more exposed due to more lax control/oversight. Over the last decade, whenever news about toxic chemical exposure, toxins in tap water, contaminated food/drugs/air, etc broke, it was always in small towns located in remote rural areas that many urban dwellers had never even heard about. In confirmation of the environmental quality decline hypothesis, there is quite a bit of evidence that wild animals are also becoming obese. Since those wild animals do not really munch on PUFA all day long, then it must be something else in the environment. 
link here




Since those wild animals do not really munch on PUFA all day long, then it must be something else in the environment. Whatever that is something is, it has been increasing in effects since the early 1970s, which is when the steep trends of decline of testosterone levels and sperm count in males, IQ in both sexes, and rise in chronic disease in all age groups (but especially the youngest) started.




4 links here

“…Around the world, obesity is on the rise. A global uptick in body mass index, or BMI — a measure of whether a person’s weight is healthy for how tall they are — has coincided with rapid urbanization, leading to the assumption that urbanization is the main reason behind the global obesity epidemic. Now, a large new report reveals the rise of global BMI comes from people living in rural areas rather than people living in urban areas. The finding contrasts theories that urban lifestyles contribute to the rise in obesity and suggests public health policies that stress food quality are needed.” “More than 55 percent of the rise in BMI in the world in men and women has been due to a rise in rural populations, so this is entirely opposite to the current paradigm,” Majid Ezzati, a public health expert at the Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, who led the new research, said in a press briefing.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-129.mp3" length="1466540" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dieting (fasting) is deleterious</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=127</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=127</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 May 2019 20:04:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=127

Hot on the heels of another post I recently made is the study below, which concludes that dieting (fasting) is deleterious to metabolism and health in general and needs to be seriously re-evaluated by medical professionals who repeat ad nauseam “eat less and move more”. Fasting and exercise closely mimic the effects of the low-carb diets such as the keto or Paleo types. The result of “eating less and moving more” is chronically elevated cortisol, which has known detrimental effects systemically and has been implicated in both insulin resistance and diabetes, as I mentioned in a previous post.




link here

Unfortunately, despite the known/proven role of cortisol in virtually all diseases officially designated as metabolic (and even beyond), the medical profession refuses to accept that it is possible to induce those disease through dieting/fasting and exercise. This can only happen by administering cortisol exogenously as a treatment, they say, and in most cases it is only a temporary pathology that clears up on its own. Well, not so, as both studies below argue. Eating less and/or moving more can quite literally make you sick.




link here

“…Conclusions: A low-carbohydrate diet alters cortisol metabolism independently of weight loss. In obese men, this enhances cortisol regeneration by 11β-HSD1 and reduces cortisol inactivation by A-ring reductases in liver without affecting sc adipose 11β-HSD1. Alterations in cortisol metabolism may be a consequence of macronutrient dietary content and may mediate effects of diet on metabolic health.”




link here

“… “…Results: Restricting calories increased the total output of cortisol, and monitoring calories increased perceived stress. Conclusions: Dieting may be deleterious to psychological well-being and biological functioning, and changes in clinical recommendations may be in order.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-127.mp3" length="564140" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Keto diet (low-carb) causes liver insulin resistance, raises diabetes risk</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=125</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=125</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 May 2019 19:52:38 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=125

Finally some common sense is coming out of mainstream medicine. As the study below aptly shows, eating low carb diets results in fatty liver and liver-specific insulin resistance, both of which are key components of diabetes II. In fact, the study says that eating a high-fat high-carb diet is LESS detrimental than eating high-fat, low-carb (keto) diet. The latter is often called the “Western diet” and has been ridiculed in the medical literature as the main cause of most metabolic diseases. Yet, as it turns out it is less problematic than the keto diets since it prevented the liver-centric insulin resistance. While the article does not discuss endocrine aspects that may also be involved in this pathology, other studies have already implicated cortisol.

link here

It is a well-known fact that low-carb diets raise baseline cortisol. Despite that well-known fact that even mainstream medicine does not deny, the study on keto diets and insulin resistance somehow fails to make the connection between endocrine imbalance (high cortisol) caused by the low-carb diet and diabetes II. I am not sure what else needs to happen before doctors realize that obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes II, and even CVD are endocrine disorders driven by cortisol/estrogen/prolactin and not simply due to “eating more and moving less”. Speaking of that last cliche, I will be soon posting another thread showing that dieting is in fact deleterious and a change in attitude among medical professionals on that topic is desperately needed.

link here

“…Ketogenic diets are low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets that have been shown to reduce weight. They change metabolism so that energy comes from fat instead of sugar. When researchers in Switzerland examined what happened to mice in the early stages of a ketogenic diet, they found that the animals showed a poorer ability to regulate blood sugar compared with similar mice on a high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. In a paper on their work now published in the Journal of Physiology, they note that “even though [keto diet]-fed animals appear healthy in the fasted state, they exhibit decreased glucose tolerance to a greater extent than [high-fat diet]-fed animals.” The reason for this, they found, was that the livers of the keto diet-fed mice were not responding as well to insulin. This condition, which is known as insulin resistance, raises the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.”

“…However, the researchers found that the main reason for decreased glucose tolerance in the keto diet-fed mice was due to insulin resistance in the liver “rather than impaired glucose clearance and tissue glucose uptake.” Despite extensive research into the causes of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, they are not completely understood. One thing that scientists do know is that fat-like substances called lipids are “clearly associated with insulin resistance.” Even here, however, many questions remain, such as, “Is the link due to circulating fats or to fat buildup in tissue?”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-125.mp3" length="760940" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:44</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>There is no “Depression Gene”, and any “evidence” of a genetic cause so far has been fairy tales</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=118</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=118</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 May 2019 17:44:09 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=118

I did not think that I would see such a brave post appear on the front page of “Science” magazine, but here it is below. Apparently, common sense is finally starting to prevail in psychiatry and some doctors have had enough with the whole genetics fraud. They published a paper arguing that not only there is no evidence for a “depression gene” but even genome-wide associations studies (GWAS) are baseless and have no evidence behind them. As the authors of the post says in the comments, the “publish or perish” dogma has essentially ensured that the vast majority of publications are simply junk driven by aggressive funding deadlines and overzealous PIs. Finally, as the authors says, some people are turning their efforts onto affecting enzymes related to brain function, and that is “not a stupid idea”. No kidding! How many more need to commit suicide or suffer for decades from a mental disorder before the public (and doctors) finally open their eyes??




5 links here

“…I wrote a couple of years ago, link here about the long-running study of mutations in a serotonin transporter gene. Over the years, polymorphism in the gene have been correlated with all sorts of human behavior and psychiatry, in keeping with the importance of serotonin signaling in human cognition. Depression, anxiety, that whole end of human behavior seemed to be affected by just what sort of genetic variation one had. Hundreds and hundreds of studies have appeared in the literature, many of them with truly impressive p-values. Well, as that old post shows, people have been throwing cold water on this idea for a while now as well, and now there’s a paper, link here that should (you’d think) expunge the whole idea of 5-HTTLPR variations having anything coherent to tell us about human disease. It doesn’t stop there: the authors go on to demolish every other “depression gene” connection in the existing literature. They went after the lot:”




“…Utilizing data from large population-based and case-control samples (Ns ranging from 62,138 to 443,264 across subsamples), the authors conducted a series of preregistered analyses examining candidate gene polymorphism main effects, polymorphism-by-environment interactions, and gene-level effects across a number of operational definitions of depression (e.g., lifetime diagnosis, current severity, episode recurrence) and environmental moderators (e.g., sexual or physical abuse during childhood, socioeconomic adversity).”




“…Nothing. No clear evidence for any given gene, in any polymorphic form, with any effect on depression, as either measured by itself or in combination with any other environmental effect. At this point it seems safe to say that there are no single standout genes that can be associated with depression. That’s not to say that there’s no genetic influence at all, but what this means is that (like so many other things) it’s a complex mix of dozens, hundreds, thousands of genetic factors tangled with environmental ones. It may well be that many of these end up binning into similar phenotypes or heading down common pathways, but we don’t know that for sure, either. What we do know is that talk of a “depression gene” is nonsense.”




“…Looking back, the single biggest problem with all these earlier proposals (and there have been plenty) is that their sample sizes were wildly, hilariously small. Once again, it’s all down to effect size. The paper calculates that the largest-effect-size gene candidates in this field would still need samples in the tens of thousands to detect. And what has the median sample size been over the years? 345 patients. Right. This literature is all noise, all false positives, all junk. As you actually move to larger and larger studies, everything disappears, which is what noise does. Real stuff, on the other hand, should become stronger and harder to ignore as you increase the N, with tighter error bars and better signal/noise.”




“…He goes on to note that there are a number of diagnostic tests that are supposed to help, link herepractitioners prescribe antidepressants based on gene sequence. But work like this latest paper strongly suggests that this is not well-founded. Some of these tests are for metabolic enzyme isoforms that could affect blood levels of specific compounds – and that’s not a stupid idea, although it’s often harder to realize in practice than just doing a sequence on someone. But there are companies using the exact same genes whose connection to depression is being invalidated. Slate Star Codex again: “




“…So far, there appears to be little or no, link here reliable evidence that such testing is useful. That’s not to say that it can’t ever be, just that the people who are trying to sell it to you right now don’t have a very strong case. Psychiatric indications, out of the entire landscape of medical therapy, are really the most difficult and treacherous region to try to navigate with any sorts of molecule-level explanations. We don’t know enough to get that granular. We really don’t. If you start digging into the details of depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar disorder and all the rest, the molecular and cellular-level explanations start coming apart in your hands like wet tissue paper. The field is littered with failed hypotheses, with just-so stories and compelling-but-wrong correlations, and with sources of unreliable data ranging from big, expensive, and completely honest efforts all the way down to plenty of outright charlatanry. Caveat emptor, and how.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-118.mp3" length="515516" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:13</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Progesterone can prevent recurrent miscarriages</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=116</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=116</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 May 2019 17:26:24 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=116

I am only posting this because this is yet another mysterious condition for which officially there is no cure. As a result, all kinds of absurd explanations are given including “genetic incompatibility” of partners, mental disorders, “addiction” and/or substance abuse, etc. As it turns out, it may be simply a progesterone deficiency, and giving those women progesterone as a supplement stops the vicious cycle of repeated miscarriages.

link here

“…Giving pregnant, link here women who have previously had a miscarriage, link here an additional dose of progesterone, link here could improve their chances of having a baby, link here, a new study suggests. According to the NHS, link here, progesterone is produced naturally in the female body and is used as a marker of ovulation in the investigation of infertility, link here. It also plays an important role in the menstrual cycle and in maintaining the early stages of pregnancy, link here.”

“…What’s more, of 137 women with three or more previous miscarriages, 98 (72 per cent) went on to have a live birth, compared with 57 per cent (85 out of 148) of women in the placebo group. While the study did not show that progesterone could help all women who suffered early pregnancy bleeding, it was found to be beneficial to those who had suffered miscarriages. Arri Coomarasamy, professor of gynaecology at the University of Birmingham, says the findings will have huge implications for practice. “This treatment could save thousands of babies who may have otherwise been lost to a miscarriage,” Coomarasamy says. ”We hope that this evidence will be considered by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) and that it will be used to update national guidelines for women at risk of miscarriage.“ Jane Brewin, chief executive of the Tommy’s, link here – the largest charity funding research into the causes of miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth – adds: ”The results from this study are important for parents who have experienced miscarriage – they now have a robust and effective treatment option which will save many lives and prevent much heartache.”

“…According to Tommy’s, link here, one in 100 women experience recurrent miscarriage, which is defined as three or more miscarriages in a row. The organisation explains that the cause is unknown in around half of cases and that research into the topic is the “only way we can save lives”.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-116.mp3" length="385292" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:54</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Osteoporosis is caused by mitochondrial dysfunction, driven by nitric oxide (NO)</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=113</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=113</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 May 2019 16:54:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=113

Let’s repeat the mantra one more time – structure and function cannot be separated, they are interdependent at every level of reality/life. As such, it is little surprise (to us) that a structural disorder like osteoporosis may be caused by a deficiency in energy production. Yet, despite being a sacrilege to utter this in a room full of orthopedists, this exactly what the study below found. When the crucial mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase was damaged, the production of osteoclasts increased dramatically and was also accompanied by a systemic inflammatory reaction. In other words, the body responds to an energetic deficiency with an inflammatory response, which increases bone resorption dramatically. As the study reports, a simple blockage of the inflammatory signal fully prevented the increased bone resorption. The study also found that increased NO is a key aspect of the inflammatory signal and one of the main mechanisms through which cytochrome C oxidase is blocked. So, instead of working downstream from the cause and blocking specific inflammatory signals like IL-6, a much better approach would have been to simply restore energy production. Considering the mechanism in this case involved nitric oxide (NO) blocking cytochrome C, it seems rather natural to use methylene blue (or red light) as the cure. So, in addition to aspirin and progesterone, both of which have strong evidence backing them as osteoporosis treatments, now we can add methylene blue to that list.

Finally, as the study says, many pharmaceutical drugs currently prescribed are likely to be a causative factor in osteoporosis, as well as simply stress and other environmental assaults like PUFA, alcohol, etc.

2 links here

“…A new study led by researchers from Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine reveals a mechanism by which these factors and osteoporosis may be linked. Damage to mitochondria — key cellular organelles and energy generators — leads to a surge in the creation of cells called osteoclasts, which are responsible for breaking down bone, the researchers report in FASEB Journal. They uncovered these effects in cells in culture as well as in an animal model.”

“In a normal individual, the process of bone degradation and rebuilding proceeds in a very balanced way, but in some people they somehow produce a lot more osteoclasts, and this leads to bone loss and osteoporosis,” said Narayan Avadhani, a biochemist at Penn Vet and senior author on the work. “We show in this paper that, when mitochondrial function is affected, it not only affects energy production but also triggers a type of stress signaling that induces the overproduction of osteoclasts.”

“…To understand how mitochondrial damage could be linked to osteoporosis through the work of macrophages, the researchers induced damage to a key enzyme responsible for energy production in mitochondria, cytochrome oxidase C, in lab-grown mouse macrophages. Doing so led the macrophages to release a variety of signaling molecules associated with an inflammatory reaction and also seemed to encourage them to go down the path toward becoming osteoclasts. Looking closely at what was going on, they observed an anomaly with a key molecule, RANK-L, that helps regulate the bone-rebuilding process and is released by bone-building cells as a means of inducing bone break-down. When mitochondria were damaged, they underwent stress signaling and transformed into osteoclasts at a much faster rate, even when RANK-L levels were low. These osteoclasts led to greater rates of bone resorption, or break down.

“In some respects, mitochondrial stress signaling may even be replacing RANK-L,” says Avadhani. “That we don’t know now, but we plan to look into that further.” The researchers confirmed their findings in a mouse model, showing that animals with a mutation that leads to dysfunctional mitochondria had increased production of osteoclasts. In addition, their macrophages had higher levels of phagocytosis, the process by which the immune cells engulf and “eat” invaders. The researchers believe this enhanced phagocytic ability could be responsible for some of the other physiological problems that can arise in people with defects in their mitochondria. Because some of the same environmental risk factors that seem to promote osteoporosis, like smoking and some pharmaceuticals, can also impact mitochondrial function, the team posits that this stress signaling might be the pathway by which they are acting to affect bone health.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-113.mp3" length="1640876" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:41</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fibromyalgia may be simply a sign of insulin resistance</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=111</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=111</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 May 2019 16:19:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=111

As many of your have seen on TV, there is currently a boom in ads for drigs to treat fibromyalgia. This condition is yet another one of mysterious origins, at least according to mainstream medicine. The treatment consists mainly of GABA agonists like Lyrica but the official version is (of course) that there is no cure because the causes are unknown.




Well, the study below shows yet again that often the cause (and the cure) of a mysterious and incurable condition is much more mundane and simple than authorities would have you believe. As it turns out, the simple blood test for chronic glucose levels (A1C) was able to differentiate almost perfectly between fibromyalgia patients and controls, and also to predict who will have “flare” episode of increased pain. In addition, treating people with a drug (metformin) commonly used for diabetes 2 that improves insulin sensitivity essentially cured the condition. This of course makes perfect sense because people with insulin resistance and diabetes II have peripheral neuropathy and other nerve problems, with pain being one of the most common complaints. As such, it is not at all surprising that GABA agonists like Lyrica help given the powerful effects GABA has on improving insulin sensitivity. If that is the case, then good old niacinamide should be perfect as treatment for fibromyalgia not only because of its beneficial effects on insulin sensitivity by lowering FFA, but also because niacinamide is itself a GABA agonist similar in effects to benzodiazepines (GABA-A agonists). The latter drugs are also commonly used to treat fibromyalgia and the only reason Lyrica was developed was because those older benzo drugs ran out of patent and are dirt cheap.




2 links here

“…The UTMB team of researchers, along with collaborators from across the U.S., including the National Institutes of Health, were able for the first time, to separate patients with fibromyalgia from normal individuals using a common blood test for insulin resistance, or pre-diabetes. They then treated the fibromyalgia patients with a medication targeting insulin resistance, which dramatically reduced their pain levels. The study was recently published in PlosOne. Fibromyalgia is one of the most common conditions causing chronic pain and disability. The global economic impact of fibromyalgia is enormous — in the U.S. alone and related health care costs are about $100 billion each year. Despite extensive research the cause of fibromyalgia is unknown, so there’s no specific diagnostics or therapies for this condition other than pain-reducing drugs.




“Earlier studies discovered that insulin resistance causes dysfunction within the brain’s small blood vessels. Since this issue is also present in fibromyalgia, we investigated whether insulin resistance is the missing link in this disorder,” Pappolla said. “We showed that most — if not all — patients with fibromyalgia can be identified by their A1c levels, which reflects average blood sugar levels over the past two to three months.” Pre-diabetics with slightly elevated A1c values carry a higher risk of developing central (brain) pain, a hallmark of fibromyalgia and other chronic pain disorders.” The researchers identified patients who were referred to a subspecialty pain medicine clinic to be treated for widespread muscular/connective tissue pain. All patients who met the criteria for fibromyalgia were separated into smaller groups by age. When compared with age-matched controls, the A1c levels of the fibromyalgia patients were significantly higher.




“Considering the extensive research on fibromyalgia, we were puzzled that prior studies had overlooked this simple connection,” said Pappolla. “The main reason for this oversight is that about half of fibromyalgia patients have A1c values currently considered within the normal range. However, this is the first study to analyze these levels normalized for the person’s age, as optimal A1c levels do vary throughout life. Adjustment for the patients’ age was critical in highlighting the differences between patients and control subjects.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-111.mp3" length="814028" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:51</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Insects (wasps) are capable of logic, recognizing peer faces, and socializing based on memories</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=109</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=109</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2019 16:22:45 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=109

Every time I look at the title for this post I can’t help but think – so, how are wasps different from us humans? I think the answer is – not much, if at all. And this is pretty much what the study below argues, adding yet another piece to an already sizeable mountain of evidence showing that the size of the nervous system may not be a limiting factor for intelligence, and our large brains are really just that – larger – but not necessarily more capable than other living organisms’. It reminds of Peat’s writing on spiders, bees, and even bacteria, all of which exhibit remarkably intelligent behavior when placed in an optimal environment.

3 links here

“…A new University of Michigan study provides the first evidence of transitive inference, the ability to use known relationships to infer unknown relationships, in a nonvertebrate animal: the lowly paper wasp. For millennia, transitive inference was considered a hallmark of human deductive powers, a form of logical reasoning used to make inferences: If A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, then A is greater than C. But in recent decades, vertebrate animals including monkeys, birds and fish have demonstrated the ability to use transitive inference.”




“…Paper wasps have a nervous system roughly the same size—about one million neurons—as honeybees, but they exhibit a type complex social behavior not seen in honeybee colonies. University of Michigan evolutionary biologist Elizabeth Tibbetts wondered if paper wasps’ social skills could enable them to succeed where honeybees had failed. To find out, Tibbetts and her colleagues tested whether two common species of paper wasp, Polistes dominula and Polistes metricus, could solve a transitive inference problem. The team’s findings were published online May 8 in the journal Biology Letters. “This study adds to a growing body of evidence that the miniature nervous systems of insects do not limit sophisticated behaviors,” said Tibbetts, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “We’re not saying that wasps used logical deduction to solve this problem, but they seem to use known relationships to make inferences about unknown relationships,” Tibbetts said. “Our findings suggest that the capacity for complex behavior may be shaped by the social environment in which behaviors are beneficial, rather than being strictly limited by brain size.”




“…For millennia, transitive inference was regarded as a hallmark of human cognition and was thought to be based on logical deduction. More recently, some researchers have questioned whether TI requires higher-order reasoning or can be solved with simpler rules. The study by Tibbetts and her colleagues illustrates that paper wasps can build and manipulate an implicit hierarchy. But it makes no claims about the precise mechanisms that underlie this ability. In previous studies, Tibbetts and her colleagues showed that paper wasps recognize individuals of their species by variations in their facial markings and that they behave more aggressively toward wasps with unfamiliar faces. The researchers have also demonstrated that paper wasps have surprisingly long memories and base their behavior on what they remember of previous social interactions with other wasps.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-109.mp3" length="337268" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:47</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Sun may be a significant source of gamma-ray radiation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=107</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=107</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2019 01:04:15 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=107

I like this study because, in the words of one of the authors, it reveals how little we know about the closest star to our planet. The current dogma is that gamma rays can only come from outside the Solar system, and are usually the result of supernova explosion somewhere in our (or outside of) galaxy. These highly energetic particles then travel to Earth and if the outburst is of sufficient intensity they can trigger mass extinction events such as the die out of the dinosaurs. Well, the study below seems to be detecting gamma rays coming from the Sun. This is similar to the articles I posted on the so-called “cosmic rays” actually being of terrestrial origin, created by thunderstorms or even the Earth itself. Unfortunately, instead of taking the evidence at face value, the authors immediately go on the defensive and state that the Sun cannot be producing most of these gamma rays and is instead just “deflecting” them towards Earth. All sorts of paradoxes prop up as the data does not agree with that dogma, but the scientists keep banging their heads and insist on defending the paradox instead of stating the obvious – i.e. the idea of “continuous creation” of matter that the Electric Universe Theory (EUT) folks and Peat have been speaking about seems to be gaining more and more traction. And that means, Big Bang, expanding Universe, dark matter, dark energy, etc all have to go the way of the Dodo.

link here

“…A decade’s worth of telescope observations of the sun have revealed a startling mystery: Gamma rays, the highest frequency waves of light, radiate from our nearest star seven times more abundantly than expected. Stranger still, despite this extreme excess of gamma rays overall, a narrow bandwidth of frequencies is curiously absent. The surplus light, the gap in the spectrum, and other surprises about the solar gamma-ray signal potentially point to unknown features of the sun’s magnetic field, or more exotic physics. “It’s amazing that we were so spectacularly wrong about something we should understand really well: the sun,” said Brian Fields, link here, a particle astrophysicist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The unexpected signal has emerged in data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, a NASA observatory that scans the sky from its outpost in low-Earth orbit. As more Fermi data have accrued, revealing the spectrum of gamma rays coming from the sun in ever-greater detail, the puzzles have only proliferated. “We just kept finding surprising things,” said Annika Peter, link here of Ohio State University, a co-author of a recent white paper, link here summarizing several years of findings about the solar gamma-ray signal. “It’s definitely the most surprising thing I’ve ever worked on.”

“…Not only is the gamma-ray signal far stronger than a decades-old theory predicts; it also extends to much higher frequencies than predicted, and it inexplicably varies across the face of the sun and throughout the 11-year solar cycle. Then there’s the gap, which researchers call a “dip” — a lack of gamma rays with frequencies around 10 trillion trillion hertz. “The dip just defies all logic,” said Tim Linden, link here, a particle astrophysicist at Ohio State who helped analyze the signal.

“…Physicists do not think the sun emits any gamma rays from within. (Nuclear fusions in its core do produce them, but they scatter and downgrade to lower-energy light before leaving the sun.) However, in 1991, the physicists David Seckel, link here, Todor Stanev, link here and Thomas Gaisser, link here of the University of Delaware hypothesized, link here that the sun would nonetheless glow in gamma rays, because of cosmic rays that zip in from outer space and plunge toward it. Occasionally, the Delaware trio argued, a sunward-plunging cosmic ray will get “mirrored,” or turned around at the last second by the sun’s loopy, twisty magnetic field. “Remember the Road Runner cartoon?” said John Beacom, link here, a professor at Ohio State and one of the leaders of the analysis of the signal. “Imagine the proton runs straight toward that sphere, and at the last second it changes its direction and comes back at you.” But on its way out, the cosmic ray collides with gas in the solar atmosphere and fizzles in a flurry of gamma radiation.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-107.mp3" length="668324" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:33</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Mitochondria (energy) as the main driver of health, intelligence, and aging</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=104</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=104</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2019 00:48:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=104

We are finally starting to see Peat enter the mainstream and article like the one below are calling for a complete review of what we know about health and aging and how intelligence is tied to them. As the authors says, or actually borrows from Peat, there is solid evidence that mitochondrial function and ATP production are the main factors driving intelligence, and levels of intelligence can be used as surrogate for general health and as predictors of future health decline. Perhaps the most important aspect of the article is its recognition that intelligence is just as dependent on energy production, as systemic health is. As such, declining energy production leads to not only declining health but also declining intelligence. The article also recognizes that chronic stress easily damages mitochondria. As such, chronic stress should be considered a major causative factor in all known diseases, as well as cognitive/mental disturbance and declining intelligence in general that we have been seeing over the last 4 decades.

2 links here

“…For over 100 years, scientists have sought to understand what links a person’s general intelligence, health and aging. In a new study, a University of Missouri scientist suggests a model where mitochondria, or small energy producing parts of cells, could form the basis of this link. This insight could provide valuable information to researchers studying various genetic and environmental influences and alternative therapies for age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease. “There are a lot of hypotheses on what this link is, but no model to link them all together,” said David Geary, Curators Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science. “Mitochondria produce cellular energy in the human body, and energy availability is the lowest common denominator needed for the functioning of all biological systems. My model shows mitochondrial function might help explain the link between general intelligence, health and aging.”

“…Geary’s insight came as he was working on a way to better understand gender-specific vulnerabilities related to language and spatial abilities with certain prenatal and other stressors, which may also involve mitochondrial functioning. Mitochondria produce ATP, or cellular energy. They also respond to their environment, so Geary said habits such as regular exercise and a diet with fruits and vegetables, can promote healthy mitochondria. “These systems are being used over and over again, and eventually their heavy use results in gradual decline,” Geary said. “Knowing this, we can help explain the parallel changes in cognition and health associated with aging. Also with good mitochondrial function, the aging processes will occur much more slowly. Mitochondria have been relatively overlooked in the past, but are now considered to relate to psychiatric health and neurological diseases. Geary said chronic stress can also damage mitochondria that can affect the whole body — such as the brain and the heart — simultaneously.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-104.mp3" length="482444" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Nearly all pharma drugs and dietary supplements contain highly allergenic excipients</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=102</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=102</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2019 00:21:46 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=102

Finally a study that directly corroborates one of Peat’s most consistent message over the years. Namely, that drugs prescribed by doctors and dietary supplements in the forms of capsules/tablets contain additives/excipients that are not harmless at all and in fact can be responsible for many severe health issues affecting the public at large. Peat’s latest newsletter from 2019 actually discusses in detail this very issue but I did not see him reference this study, so I guess this is once again an independent corroboration of his work. Synchronicity strikes again 🙂

2 links here

“..Inactive ingredients are supposed to improve a medication’s taste, appearance, absorption, or shelf life without any noticeable effect. But they aren’t always behind-the-scenes players. Some are allergens that can cause adverse events, and they’re present in nearly all prescription and over-the-counter pills and capsules, according to a recent analysis in Science Translational Medicine. The analysis indicates that clinical reports of adverse reactions triggered by inactive ingredients are on the upswing. Some are type 1 hypersensitivity allergic reactions that produce immunoglobulin E, causing symptoms such as urticaria, angioedema, bronchospasm, or anaphylaxis. Although severe allergic reactions are infrequent, many more people are intolerant of inactive ingredients such as lactose, which can cause gastrointestinal upset in people with insufficient lactase. The investigators found that nearly 93% of all solid oral medications contain at least 1 potential inactive ingredient—a chemical dye or peanut oil, for example—that could provoke an allergic reaction.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-102.mp3" length="788132" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:45</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endotoxin (LPS) may be a major cause of preterm births</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=100</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=100</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2019 19:39:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=100

As many readers have probably heard, rates of preterm births due to a variety of maternal conditions including (pre)eclampsia has been steadily increasing since the 1980s. The official version is that the cause is unknown despite older studies proving definitively that progesterone deficiency was a major cause and that treatment with progesterone or increasing dietary salt can often ensure normal pregnancy and complication-free delivery. Some studies demonstrated that even increasing dietary protein provides benefit.

The study below demonstrates that inflammation driven by endotoxin (LPS) through activation of TLR4 is likely a major cause of such preterm births. As such, antibiotic treatment or usage of TLR4 antagonists may also be useful tools to control/prevent the systemic damage endotoxin causes to both mother and child.

2 links here

“…Scientists have known for years that inflammatory reactions during pregnancy to infections and other causes can trigger preterm birth. Now experts at Cincinnati Children’s, link here report that the systemic inflammatory process begins in an unexpected location that suggests new ways to develop preventative medications. As pregnancy progresses, a mucosal lining called the decidua envelopes the developing fetus and lines the mother’s uterus. By studying multiple kinds of mouse models, researchers have learned that one major risk factor for preterm birth begins in the endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels within the decidua.”

“This was a completely unexpected finding,” Dey says. “We had suspected that decidual tissue had a role to play in maintaining the immune balance between the mother and the fetus, but we had never thought of this pathway.”

“…The new study was based on analyzing how mouse dams react at the molecular level when they were given LPS, a drug that mimics how infections can trigger inflammation and preterm birth. The research team learned that the reaction to LPS begins with TLR4 activation present on endothelial cells within the decidual blood vessels. TLR4 activation by LPS prompts the release of inflammatory cytokines including interleukin 6 (IL6), one element of the body’s defense system against infection. Normally, when IL6 rises, another interleukin, IL10, responds to knock the inflammation back down. However, if TLR4 activation is excessive it overwhelms the IL10 response, tipping the immune balance toward dangerous levels of inflammation and increasing the risk of preterm birth.”

“…“These findings highlight a previously unappreciated role of endothelial TLR4 in inflammation-induced preterm birth and may offer a potential therapeutic target to prevent preterm birth,” the co-authors wrote. Other research has already established that the TLR4 protein plays an important role in human delivery. Humans also have a similar pattern of IL10 expression and regulation. “The demonstration of the critical role for TLR4 in the decidua through these elegant preclinical studies provides exciting new potential for intervention in preterm birth in humans, an area where new therapies are desperately needed,” says Louis Muglia,MD, PhD, link here, Co-Director of Perinatal Institute and Director of the Center for Prevention of Preterm Birth at Cincinnati Children’s.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-100.mp3" length="449708" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:59</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Heart failure deaths on the rise in younger US adults</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=98</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=98</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2019 19:26:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=98

The bad news for younger Americans just keep on coming. In addition to lethal cancers, diabetes, stroke, CVD, infertility, etc now we can add yet another “old man” disease to the list of banes inflicting the “young”. Heart failure is a condition traditionally seen in people 65 and older, and mortality from it has been dropping over the last 2 decades. Yet, the study below found that over the this trend of decline has not only reversed but the mortality from this condition is rising mostly in people younger than 65. And of course, we keep hearing the same old mantra “eat less and exercise more” because, you see, this increases in heart failure deaths is apparently caused by high rates of obesity and diabetes, despite those rates either holding steady or also falling over the last 2 decades. Let me guess, the cause is again “mysterious” and “unknown”, if you ask the FDA.

2 links here

“…A recent decline in heart failure-related deaths in the United States has reversed, and those types of deaths are now climbing nationwide, especially among adults ages 35 to 64.The trend, which also revealed some racial disparities, was found in a research paper published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, link here on Monday.The paper points to an increase in the prevalence of obesity and diabetes as possibly driving a parallel rise in heart failure deaths.”

“…The research demonstrates “that greater loss of life from heart failure is occurring, especially premature death in those under the age of 65,” said Dr. Sadiya Khan, an assistant professor of cardiology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, link herein Chicago, who was first author of the paper.The paper doesn’t distinguish why this rise in heart failure deaths occurred — for instance, are more younger adults developing heart failure, or is heart failure more deadly now? “Our suspicion is that it is likely the former, because of the obesity, hypertension and diabetes epidemics,” Khan said.About 5.7 million adults in the United States have heart failure, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, link here. Heart failure is more common people who are obese or overweight, as excess weight can put strain on the heart, and those who have a history of heart attack, among other risk factors, link here.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-98.mp3" length="881156" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:04</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Endocrine disruptors in sunscreen absorb systemically after just one day of use, persist for days</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=95</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=95</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2019 19:17:57 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=95

So much for the safety of sunscreen. Of course, the article immediately goes on the defensive and warns against stopping sunscreen. It even includes gems like “The sun is the real enemy here” and keeps repeating the mantra that it is all about risk-benefits analysis. Yet, even MSM is forced to admit that the several of the ingredients found to absorb after just one day of usage are known endocrine disruptors demonstrated to cause birth defects in children when used by pregnant women, or low testosterone levels in males who use them. What’s worse, the levels of sunscreen chemicals in the blood continued to rise days after sunscreen use had ended. This suggests that the chemicals build up in the skin and that “reservoir” can provide a steady supply of toxic endocrine disruptors despite no continuous sunscreen use. 

I am amazed that despite all this evidence, the default position of the FDA is that “more studies are needed” instead of mandating the immediate removal of those endocrine disruptors until they are proven safe. This public stance FDA takes is even harder to defend considering those chemicals in sunscreen are known to be toxic to marine life and are banned in some states like Hawaii. On top of that, safe options like zinc oxide exist with the only downside to this option being the (mild) white coating of the skin it causes. With actions like these, the FDA keeps corroborating the accusations against it of regulatory capture.

3 links here

“…It took just one day of use for several common sunscreen ingredients to enter the bloodstream at levels high enough to trigger a government safety investigation, according to a pilot study conducted by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, an arm of the US Food and Drug Administration.The study, link here, published Monday in the medical journal JAMA, also found that the blood concentration of three of the ingredients continued to rise as daily use continued and then remained in the body for at least 24 hours after sunscreen use ended.”

“…The four chemicals studied — avobenzone, oxybenzone, ecamsule and octocrylene — are part of a dozen that the FDA recently said needed to be researched by manufacturers, link here before they could be considered “generally regarded as safe and effective.”So, should you stop using sunscreen? Absolutely not, experts say.”Studies need to be performed to evaluate this finding and determine whether there are true medical implications to absorption of certain ingredients,” said Yale School of Medicine dermatologist Dr. David Leffell, a spokesman for the American Academy of Dermatology. He added that in the meantime, people should “continue to be aggressive about sun protection.””The sun is the real enemy here,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, or EWG, an advocacy group that publishes a yearly guide on sunscreens, link here.”

“…In 2008, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, link here analyzed urine samples collected by a government study and found oxybenzone in 97% of the samples. Since then, studies have shown a potential link between oxybenzone and lower testosterone levels, link herein adolescent boys, hormone changes, link here in men, and shorter pregnancies and disrupted birth weights, link here in babies, but researchers caution about assuming association.Of all of the sunscreen ingredients, oxybenzone isknown to be the most common cause of contact allergies, link here; a 10-year study, link here found that 70% of people had a positive patch test when exposed.A Swiss study, link here found oxybenzone or one of four other sunscreen chemicals in 85% of breast milk samples, sparking concern that newborns could be exposed. And Hawaii, the Pacific nation of Palau and Key West recently banned sunscreens, link here containing oxybenzone and octinoxate because they cause coral bleaching and are dangerous to marine ecosystems.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-95.mp3" length="726284" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:39</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Height is dependent on diet quality, not genes</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=93</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=93</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2019 18:58:12 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=93

I posted a few threads in the past demonstrating that gene are likely not the main driver of height, despite the mainstream dogma vehement claiming to the contrary. Intelligence and height are often presented as two of the most genetically driven variables of any given human. Below is yet another study demonstrating that switching to a diet containing animal protein allowed the Chinese boys to gain ~10cm on average over a period of just 25 years. Considering the 50-percentile height of a 12-year old Chinese boy in 1985 was around 120cm, the ~10cm gain represents a whopping 8% increase in height. That change is highly statistically significant and cannot be explained by any statistical manipulations as a fluke.




link here

“…In the decade to 2017 global meat consumption rose by an average of 1.9% a year and fresh dairy consumption by 2.1% — both about twice as fast as population growth. Almost four-fifths of all agricultural land is dedicated to feeding livestock, if you count not just pasture but also cropland used to grow animal feed… It is largely through eating more pork and dairy that Chinese diets have come to resemble Western ones, rich in protein and fat. And it is mostly because their diets have altered that Chinese people have changed shape. The average 12-year-old urban boy was nine centimetres taller in 2010 than in 1985, the average girl seven centimetres taller. Boys in particular have also grown fatter.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-93.mp3" length="378356" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:50</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Study links stroke to vitamin B1 deficiency</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=91</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=91</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2019 18:43:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=91

The study was observational but I am inclined to see a causative role of the deficiency for stroke. My inclination stems from the thousands of intervention studies with vitamin B1 to treat a host of neurological issues including accelerating recovery from stroke. In addition, chronic alcoholics in withdrawal are routinely given vitamin B1 in hospitals in the form of the so-called “banana bag” and those treated alcoholics rarely go on to have a stroke, at least while in the hospital. In comparison, untreated alcoholics in withdrawal have many times higher chance of stroke. Considering the important role vitamin B1 plays in energy production (e.g. PDH enzyme), the study is not surprising at all but it is always good to see medicine moving in the right direction. Interestingly enough, some of the key signs of vitamin B1 deficiency are also key signs of stroke – i.e. ataxia, numbness, neuropathy, etc. As a follow up, I would like to also see a study on NAD/NADH and stroke considering that ratio is known to be several fold lower in alcoholics.

link here

“…The early analysis of data of an ongoing study by Dr Mansourian at the Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital has revealed that 10 per cent of stroke patients are thiamine deficient and 50 per cent are borderline deficient. Vitamin B1 is a vital vitamin for the development and maintenance of the nervous system. Prior studies have shown that vitamin B1 deficiency is prevalent in people who suffer from alcoholism, gastrointestinal absorption disorders, HIV/AIDS, or a genetic deficiency. There is a high risk of development of symptoms like confusion, peripheral neuropathy, ataxia, numbness, or others.”




“…Vitamin B1 is also known as thiamine which is which helps the body generate energy by converting carbohydrates. especially it provides energy to the brain. Vitamin B1 is present in foods such as whole grain products such as bread, cereals, rice, and flour, Legumes and peas, nuts and seeds. It fulfils a crucial function in amino acid, fat and carbohydrate metabolism, and is critical to proper nervous system function. Rare diseases like Wernicke-Korsakoff, Leigh syndrome, nutritional optic neuropathy and maple syrup urine disease are associated with the body’s inability to utilize thiamine even with an adequate diet. Mansourian and his team are now conducting a retrospective analysis of 200 stroke patients over a one-year period. The study will evaluate thiamine levels and look at cognitive function, length of stay, balance and other variables, breaking the population down by the predominant probable causes. These include diuretic use, diet, high alcohol intake, celiac disease and gastric bypass.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-91.mp3" length="532364" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SSRI drugs during pregnancy cause child autism, antiserotonin drugs cure it</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=86</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=86</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 04 May 2019 21:44:10 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=86

Yet another study pointing the finger directly at serotonin as a major causative factor in autism. This study comes just days after I made the post on decreased allopregnanolone synthesis by placenta as a possible cause of autism. It pains me just to think that currently all SSRI drugs are rated as safe for pregnant women and by some estimates up to half of all pregnant women are treated with SSRI as a “preventative” measure for addressing postpartum depression. This number does not include all the women who have “depression” and have been treated with SSRI before even getting pregnant. Needless to say, this treatment does not stop during pregnancy.

The study below discovered that elevated serotonin, caused by the administration of fluoxetine (Prozac), acting specifically through the 5-HT2A receptor fully replicated the autism phenotype. Activating selectively other specific serotonin receptors such as 5-HT1 did not contribute to the development of autism. Conversely, administering a 5-HT2A antagonist reversed the autism pathology, while 5-HT1 antagonists had no benefit. It is worth noting that fluoxetine (Prozac) is one of the less dangerous SSRI drugs. It has partial serotonin-blocking properties as the drug acts as an antagonist on 5-HT2C, which leads to reduced cortisol synthesis and this probably explains half of its antidepressant effects. In addition, fluoxetine is one of the most potent synthetic agents capable of increasing synthesis of the neurosteroid allopregnanolone (ALLO) and the latter is itself a potent antidepressant which recently got officially approved by the FDA for postpartum depression under the trade name Brexanolone. As I posted just days ago, reduced ALLO synthesis by placenta is one possible cause of autism. So, if even this ALLO-raising SSRI drug was capable of causing offspring autism when administered to a pregnant female, just think what damage the rest of SSRI gang can do considering none of them are known to act as 5-HT receptor antagonists or increase ALLO synthesis. And last but not least, the study demonstrated that prolonged exposure to elevated serotonin through administration of an SSRI resulted in increased serotonin receptor density. This is in contrast to what many “contrarian endocrinologists” expect to see when administering an 5-HT agonist (in this case serotonin itself) – i.e. decreased receptor density. In other words, prolonged exposure to serotonin (stress) makes you MORE and not LESS sensitive to its negative effects. Scary stuff indeed…

Anyways, back to good news. The study suggests that in terms of reversing the autism pathology 5-HT2 antagonists are probably the best option. This once again brings our old friend cyproheptadine into the limelight. While it is non-selective serotonin antagonist, cyproheptadine does have the highest affinity for the 5-HT2 receptor family and as such would be a great choice. Other serotonin antagonists such as metergoline, mianserin/mirtazapine, ketanserin, ritanserin, etc should also work. The study used a selective 5-HT2A antagonist known as MDL and the dosage used enough to achieve the same effects on 5-HT2A as cyproheptadine dosage in the 3mg-4mg daily.

link here

“…This increased frequency observed in L5 FS neurons was abolished by a subsequent treatment with MDL, a specific antagonist of 5-HT2ARs (1 μM), indicating that the increased responsiveness of 5-HT2AR in L5 FS neurons resulted in a 5-HT-dependent increase in AP frequency (Fig. 3d-g). In contrast, co-treatment with 5-HT1AR antagonists (WAY-100135, 10 μM) and 5-HT did not affect 5-HT-mediated changes in the spike frequency of L5 FS interneurons (Additional file 1: Figures S5A-D). Thus, 5-HT-mediated changes in acute spike frequency were modulated by 5-HT2ARs in the L5 FS interneurons of FLX-treated mice and subsequently increased sIPSCs in L5 pyramidal neurons.”

“…We showed that prenatally FLX-treated mice exhibited deficits in a working memory task and social novelty recognition paradigm via enhanced inhibitory synaptic activities in the L5 neurons of the mPFC resulting from enhanced 5-HT2AR signaling in FS PV neurons. More importantly, the acute inhibition of 5-HT2AR signaling in FLX-treated mice successfully reversed the observed behavioral deficits. Although 5-HT generally plays a critical role in mammalian neuronal development and behavior, the causal relationship between alterations in 5-HT homeostasis during pregnancy and adverse behavioral consequences in adulthood is poorly understood.”

“…We reasoned that the compensatory augmentation of specific 5-HT receptors could arise from prolonged exposure to 5-HT due to SSRI treatment and observed a concurrent increase in two 5-HT receptors, 5-HT1AR and 5-HT2AR, using qPCR analysis. Because of the lack of suitable antibodies against 5-HT receptors for immunohistochemical analyses, we performed electrophysiological recordings and pharmacology to test the contribution of the increased abundance of specific 5-HT receptors in the PFC of FLX-treated mice. Surprisingly, increases in activity- and 5-HT dependent changes in the excitability of FS interneurons were mediated by 5-HT2ARs, but not 5-HT1ARs (Fig. 3d-g and Additional file 1: Figure S5).”

“…In the present study, we adopted a treatment scheme similar to that of Noorlander et al. This treatment mimicked SSRI exposure before the 3rd trimester in humans, in which doctors recommend that pregnant women abstain from (or reduce the dose of ) SSRIs during late pregnancy [21]. In this paradigm, we consistently observed behavioral deficits in Y-maze spontaneous alternation tasks in prenatally FLX-treated mice without anxiety-related behaviors. More importantly, SSRI-treated mice exhibited normal sociability but impaired preference for social novelty in the three chamber test (Fig. 1g-i), which is strikingly similar to the behaviors of mice lacking integrin β3, whose activities are linked to 5-HT transport and the pathophysiology of hyperserotonemia and autism [40, 41], as well as other mice lacking genes associated with autism [42–44].”

link here

“…An international team led by Duke-NUS Medical School has found a potential link between autistic-like behaviour in adult mice and exposure to a common antidepressant in the womb. They also identified a treatment that helped improve memory loss and social interactions, according to the new study published in the journal Molecular Brain. Antidepressants are commonly prescribed for treating major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, including in pregnant women. One of the most commonly prescribed antidepressants is fluoxetine, a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Fluoxetine can cross the placenta and is also detected in breast milk. Little is known about its safety during pregnancy, and not enough studies have been conducted on its long-term effects on offspring.”

“…The team from Duke-NUS and their collaborators in South Korea and Singapore investigated adult mice born to mothers treated with fluoxetine (sold under the brand names Prozac and Sarafem) over a 15-day time period that corresponds to the second trimester in humans, in comparison with those born to mothers given normal saline as controls. They found key differences in behaviour. For example, the unexposed mice normally explored all three arms of a Y-shaped maze over a ten-minute time period and, over the courses of multiple arm entries, mice usually enter a less recently visited arm, while the fluoxetine-exposed ones were less inclined to explore unvisited arm.”

In a second experiment, the mice were introduced to two juvenile mice, one after the other. When the second new mouse was introduced, mice that were not exposed to fluoxetine were more likely to only sniff the newly introduced mouse, recognizing that they had already met the first mouse. But the fluoxetine-exposed group sniffed both mice, indicating that they had impaired social novelty recognition.

The team then examined nerve signal transmission in the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain involved in moderating social behaviour. They found impaired transmission caused by an overactive serotonin receptor. Treating fluoxetine-exposed mice with a compound that blocks the (5-HT2A) receptor alleviated their behavioural problems and improved their working memory.

“…The consensus among experts is that the rise in the number of people diagnosed with autism around the world is likely due to more awareness and testing rather than an increase in the prevalence of autism,” noted Professor Patrick Casey, Senior Vice Dean for Research at Duke-NUS. “This collaborative study by our researchers offers a compelling case for a link between autism and antidepressant exposure in the womb in an animal model, and a possible mechanism that could potentially be exploited for future therapies.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-86.mp3" length="1982036" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:04:26</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cosmology is nothing but a collection of fictional beasts and folktales</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=84</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=84</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2019 18:27:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=84

I did not expect to see this article come out of the Scientific American but I guess the situation is becoming untenable and somebody has to call the scam that “theoretical physicists” have been running for more than a century. Both a scientific and financial scam that is. As the article aptly points out, the core issue is that cosmology and most of “advanced physics” these days is purely theoretical nonsense that has no experimental justification whatsoever. However, once set in motion and maintained in this state for more than century, cosmology/physics has become irreparably so-called “path-dependent” – i.e. its future direction is driven entirely by past concoctions. Namely, the field as a whole would rather continue to invent idiotic fiction like Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, black holes, etc than fix the fundamentals and own up to the fraud it has been promoting for all these years. At this point, everything advanced physics and cosmology as fields do is simply invent new fiction to keep the mathematics of previous theories consistent. Most of these “scientists” probably dare not even look out the window without a “proper model” to guide them. In their world, a bird is a bird only if the currently fashionable model computes so.

2 links here

“…What do we really know about our universe? Born out of a cosmic explosion 13.8 billion years ago, the universe rapidly inflated and then cooled, it is still expanding at an increasing rate and mostly made up of unknown dark matter and dark energy … right? This well-known story is usually taken as a self-evident scientific fact, despite the relative lack of empirical evidence—and despite a steady crop of discrepancies arising with observations of the distant universe.”

“…In recent months, new measurements of the Hubble constant, the rate of universal expansion, suggested major differences between two independent methods of calculation. Discrepancies on the expansion rate have huge implications not simply for calculation but for the validity of cosmology’s current standard model at the extreme scales of the cosmos. Another recent probe found galaxies inconsistent with the theory of dark matter, which posits this hypothetical substance to be everywhere. But according to the latest measurements, it is not, suggesting the theory needs to be reexamined. It’s perhaps worth stopping to ask why astrophysicists hypothesize dark matter to be everywhere in the universe? The answer lies in a peculiar feature of cosmological physics that is not often remarked. For a crucial function of theories such as dark matter, dark energy and inflation, which each in its own way is tied to the big bang paradigm, is not to describe known empirical phenomena but rather to maintain the mathematical coherence of the framework itself while accounting for discrepant observations. Fundamentally, they are names for something that must exist insofar as the framework is assumed to be universally valid.”

“…Einstein’s general relativity framework provided an extended and more precise reach beyond the furthest reaches of our own galaxy. But just how far could it go? The big bang paradigm that emerged in the mid-20th century effectively stretches the model’s validity to a kind of infinity, defined either as the boundary of the radius of the universe (calculated at 46 billion light-years) or in terms of the beginning of time. This giant stretch is based on a few concrete discoveries, such as Edwin Hubble’s observation that the universe appears to be expanding (in 1929) and the detection of the microwave background radiation (in 1964). But considering the scale involved, these limited observations have had an outsized influence on cosmological theory. It is of course entirely plausible that the validity of general relativity breaks down much closer to our own home than at the edge of the hypothetical end of the universe. And if that were the case, today’s multilayered theoretical edifice of the big bang paradigm would turn out to be a confusing mix of fictional beasts invented to uphold the model along with empirically valid variables, mutually reliant on each other to the point of making it impossible to sort science from fiction.”

“…Compounding this problem, most observations of the universe occur experimentally and indirectly. Today’s space telescopes provide no direct view of anything—they produce measurements through an interplay of theoretical predictions and pliable parameters, in which the model is involved every step of the way. The framework literally frames the problem; it determines where and how to observe. And so, despite the advanced technologies and methods involved, the profound limitations to the endeavor also increase the risk of being led astray by the kind of assumptions that cannot be calculated. After spending many years researching the foundations of cosmological physics from a philosophy of science perspective, I have not been surprised to hear some scientists openly talking about a crisis in cosmology. In the big “inflation debate” in Scientific American a few years ago, a key piece of the big bang paradigm was criticized by one of the theory’s original proponents for having become indefensible as a scientific theory.”

“…Why? Because inflation theory relies on ad hoc contrivances to accommodate almost any data, and because its proposed physical field is not based on anything with empirical justification. This is probably because a crucial function of inflation is to bridge the transition from an unknowable big bang to a physics we can recognize today. So, is it science or a convenient invention? A few astrophysicists, such as Michael J. Disney, have criticized the big bang paradigm for its lack of demonstrated certainties. In his analysis, the theoretical framework has far fewer certain observations than free parameters to tweak them—a so-called “negative significance” that would be an alarming sign for any science. As Disney writes in American Scientist: “A skeptic is entitled to feel that a negative significance, after so much time, effort and trimming, is nothing more than one would expect of a folktale constantly re-edited to fit inconvenient new observations.” As I discuss in my new book, Metaphysical Experiments, there is a deeper history behind the current problems. The big bang hypothesis itself originally emerged as an indirect consequence of general relativity undergoing remodeling. Einstein had made a fundamental assumption about the universe, that it was static in both space and time, and to make his equations add up, he added a “cosmological constant,” for which he freely admitted there was no physical justification.”

“…From the outset, the theory only spoke to the immediate aftermath of an explicitly hypothetical event, whose principal function was as a limit condition, the point at which the theory breaks down. Big bang theory says nothing about the big bang; it is rather a possible hypothetical premise for resolving general relativity. On top of this undemonstrable but very productive hypothesis, floor upon floor has been added intact, with vastly extended scales and new discrepancies. To explain observations of galaxies inconsistent with general relativity, the existence of dark matter was posited as an unknown and invisible form of matter calculated to make up more than a quarter of all mass-energy content in the universe—assuming, of course, the framework is universally valid. In 1998, when a set of supernova measurements of accelerating galaxies seemed at odds with the framework, a new theory emerged of a mysterious force called dark energy, calculated to fill circa 70 percent of the mass-energy of the universe. The crux of today’s cosmological paradigm is that in order to maintain a mathematically unified theory valid for the entire universe, we must accept that 95 percent of our cosmos is furnished by completely unknown elements and forces for which we have no empirical evidence whatsoever. For a scientist to be confident of this picture requires an exceptional faith in the power of mathematical unification.”

“…In the end, the conundrum for cosmology is its reliance on the framework as a necessary presupposition for conducting research. For lack of a clear alternative, as astrophysicist Disney also notes, it is in a sense stuck with the paradigm. It seems more pragmatic to add new theoretical floors than to rethink the fundamentals. Contrary to the scientific ideal of getting progressively closer to the truth, it looks rather like cosmology, to borrow a term from technology studies, has become path-dependent: overdetermined by the implications of its past inventions.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-84.mp3" length="640100" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The people with the world’s healthiest hearts eat a 70%+ carbohydrate diet</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=82</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=82</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2019 17:07:44 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=82

So much for carbs making you fat, diabetic, sick and old. This is a nice corroboration of the other thread I posted on Okinawan diet. The author of this study actually mentions the Okinawan people as second-most-healthy in terms of cardiovascular system. The Tsimane diet has the same amount of protein as the Western diets but it has dramatically less fat and of course, a lot of carbs.

I do think there are additional factors at play here, such as living in nature and being completely isolated from modern society with all of its ills such as EMF, endocrine disruptors, toxic personalities, dog-eat-dog politics, etc. But still – I doubt the high-carb diets of both the Tsimane and Okinawans is just a coincidence. 

link here

“…The scientists looked for coronary artery calcium or “CAC” – which is a sign of clogged up blood vessels and risk of a heart attack. The scientists scanned 705 people’s hearts in a CT scanner after teaming up with a research group scanning mummified bodies. At the age of 45, almost no Tsimane had CAC in their arteries while 25% of Americans do. By the time they reach age 75, two-thirds of Tsimane are CAC-free compared with the overwhelming majority of Americans (80%) having signs of CAC. The researchers have been studying this group for a long time so it is not simply a case of the unhealthy Tsimane dying young. Michael Gurven, a professor of anthropology at University of California, Santa Barbara, told the BBC: “It is much lower than in every other population where data exists. “The closest were Japanese women, but it’s still a different ballpark altogether.”

“…Dr Gavin Sandercock, reader in clinical physiology (cardiology) at the University of Essex, said: “This is an excellent study with unique findings. “The Tsimane get 72% of their energy from carbohydrates. “The fact that they have the best indicators of cardiovascular health ever reported is the exact opposite to many recent suggestions that carbohydrates are unhealthy.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-82.mp3" length="373772" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D may be a safe, seizure-minimizing epilepsy treatment</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=80</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=80</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2019 19:50:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=80

Note that the title is the actual opinion of the study authors, and not my interpretation. The study lasted 12 weeks and used 5,000 IU vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) daily. Beneficial effects on seizures were visible after 6 weeks and were correlated with normalizing vitamin D levels in the seizure patients, all of whom had various levels of deficiency or even insufficiency for this “vitamin” (it is actually a steroid). And as the study said, unlike all other epilepsy treatments, the vitamin D intervention was without any side effects. Considering my other post about aromatase inhibitors being viable treatment for epilepsy, this suggests that vitamin D has anti-estrogenic effects, if not on aromatase then at least at the “receptor” level inside tissues. The thread on Calcirol has a study and some figures that demonstrate vitamin D’s ability to bind to and interact with virtually all steroid receptors including the estrogen ones. It seems to be an antagonist at the latter.

3 links here

“…Vitamin D may help reduce the frequency of seizures in epilepsy patients, according to a recent study from UCLA. Researchers in the lab of Christopher DeGiorgio, a professor of neurology, link here, found that epilepsy patients experienced moderately fewer seizure episodes after taking vitamin D pills. The study, link hereserves as the first step toward assessing whether vitamin D supplements may be a valid treatment for reducing seizures in epilepsy patients, DeGiorgio said.

“…Current drugs used to treat epilepsy have negative side effects, like depression or osteoporosis, prompting the need to develop safer treatments, said Ashley Curtis, a third-year neuroscience student and co-author on the study. Previous animal studies, link here have shown that vitamin D could reduce the duration and severity of seizures, DeGiorgio said. These results suggest vitamin D might play a role in alleviating the symptoms of epilepsy. However, many epilepsy patients are vitamin D deficient, he added.”

“…The first step in assessing whether vitamin D is a potential treatment for epilepsy is to determine the safety of high vitamin D doses, DeGiorgio said. Researchers administered an oral vitamin D supplement to nine epilepsy patients once per day for 12 weeks and monitored their health. After six weeks of vitamin D supplements, the vitamin D levels of most patients rose from insufficient to healthy levels. Common measures of health, like blood pressure, remained normal for all patients during the entire course of study, suggesting that vitamin D supplements had no obvious toxic effects. Seizure frequency decreased by about 27%, from a median of 5.2 to 3.6 seizures per month after the six-week treatment, according to the study.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-80.mp3" length="503588" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Allopregnanolone deficiency during pregnancy causes autism</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=78</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=78</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2019 19:39:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=78

Yet another study that links prenatal stress with the offspring developing autism. The rates of autism have been steadily rising over the last 3 decades but the medical profession claims this is simply due to better diagnostic methods. The fact that the health of general population, and especially young women of child-bearing age, is declining is dismissed as simply coincidental. 

The study below shows that even a minor interference with the placental synthesis of the powerful neurosteroid allopregnanolone is enough to reliably create the autism phenotype in the offspring. Given that allopregnanolone is a 5-AR derived steroid, anything that suppresses metabolism is likely to have cause such interference as 5-AR expression and activity is driven mainly by thyroid status. Elevated TSH and/or low T3 levels directly inhibit 5-AR activity. Endocrine disruptors such as BPA, BPS, plasticizers, EMF, radiation, and of course PUFA also have powerful inhibiting effects on 5-AR and the steroids derived from it. As such, and considering we are exposed to these toxic assaults 24×7 it is anything but surprising that autism rates are rising. 

link here

“…Disrupting steady supply of allopregnanolone, link here(ALLO), a hormone, link here made by the placenta, link here late in pregnancy, to the developing fetus can leave it vulnerable to brain injuries associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), revealed a study. The research was presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in 10 babies is born preterm, before 37 weeks of gestation. Premature birth is a major risk factor for ASD. The placenta is an essential and understudied organ that is shared by the developing foetus and the pregnant mother, delivering oxygen, glucose, link here and nutrients and ferrying out waste products. The placenta also delivers ALLO, a progesterone derivative, needed to ready the developing foetal brain for life outside the womb. ALLO ramps up late in gestation. When babies are born premature, the supply of ALLO stops abruptly. That occurs at the same time the cerebellum – a brain region essential for motor coordination, posture, balance and social cognition- typically undergoes a dramatic growth spurt. “Our experimental model demonstrates that losing placental ALLO alters cerebellar development, including white matter development. Cerebellar white matter development occurs primarily after babies are born, so connecting a change in placental function during pregnancy with lingering impacts on later brain development is a particularly striking result,” said Anna Penn, a neonatologist. The research team created a novel experimental model in which the gene, link here encoding the enzyme, link here responsible for producing ALLO is deleted in the placenta. They compared these preclinical models with a control group and performed whole brain imaging and RNAseq gene expression analyses for both groups.”

…”We saw long-term cerebellar white matter alterations in male experimental models, and behavioural testing revealed social impairments and increased repetitive behaviours, two hallmark features of ASD. These male-specific outcomes parallel the increased risk of brain injury and ASD we see in human babies born prematurely,” said Claire-Marie Vacher, lead study author. “Our findings provide a new way to frame poor placental function: Subtle but significant changes in the uterus may set in motion neurodevelopmental disorders that children experience later in life,” said Dr Penn, the study’s senior author. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-78.mp3" length="856772" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Elevated serotonin increases criminal activity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=76</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=76</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2019 15:21:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=76

The study looked at correlations between ambient temperature and criminal activity and found that higher temperatures correlate with reduced SERT density and as such elevated extracellular serotonin. The SERT protein is the one that deactivates serotonin and it is a sodium-dependent protein.

link here

Unfortunately, the popular press article that picked up this study included their own spin on the study findings and claims that higher serotonin results in higher impulsive, while the study actually found the exact opposite. It is not impulsivity that drives criminal activity, it is serotonin itself directly by promoting psychosis and violent behavior. But at least mainstream media may finally start to report that serotonin is not the “happy hormone” but rather is likely the main cause behind most crimes.

2 links here

“…Tracking ambient temperature and crime rates, a Finland study used nearly two decades of data to identify a possible connection between them. Researchers found that temperature changes were responsible for 10 percent of fluctuations in the nation’s crime rates, link here — a 1.7 percent increase in criminal activity for each degree centigrade rise in the temperature. More specifically, the study found that increased serotonin levels resulting from high temperature likely contributed to increased impulsivity and a higher risk of crimes. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-76.mp3" length="399404" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:55</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The brain can be revived hours after death, and without a body</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=67</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=67</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2019 19:13:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=67

I mentioned the idea of “suspended animation” on several of Danny Roddy’s podcasts and posted in a few threads that rat brains have been kept alive for days during experiments conducted in the early 1990s. 

2 links here

These experiments severely challenge our idea of what it means to be “dead” and suggest there is indeed an aspect of human existence that survives beyond “death”. Many science fiction novels have toyed with the idea of “brain in a box” and it was introduced into popular culture through the Twilight Zone series. As the study below shows, it now seems to be inching closer to reality. 

The study reports that the brains of pigs were taken up to 4 hours after the pigs had been slaughtered and quite reasonably (or is it?) considered dead. The brains were then hooked to machines that provided restored circulation and nutrient supply and that was sufficient for the brains to avoid deterioration/decay and even display electrical activity. Of course, the authors vehemently claim that at no point was consciousness restored, but I suspect this is complete bunk. The early studies with rat brains in the 1990s showed electrical activity consistent with consciousness, and in the current study the team performing the experiments had anesthesia doctors on standby ready to administer lethal doses of general anesthetics to the revived brains in case consciousness reached levels considered medically unethical. The study does not say if those anesthetics were ever employed during the experiment…Also, as the study says, cellular activity in the brain WAS restored by providing the cells with nutrition and an electron acceptor akin to oxygen. Since consciousness is an electronic phenomenon, restoring cellular activity (electron flow) in the brain is synonymous with restoring life/consciousness. And perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the story is that there does not seem to be a limit to how long this “brain in the box” can be maintained in a quasi-alive state. The experiment ended after 6 hours but only because this is how much life-maintaining solution (BrainEx) the scientists had prepared beforehand. With more supplies, this process can be maintained indefinitely. 

So much for the inevitability of death…I guess now we are only left with taxes 🙂

2 links here

“…Some aspects of death are not entirely irreversible. On Monday, Yale scientists announced, link here that they successfully restored circulation and cellular activity in pig brains four hours after the animals had died. The restored brains, the team emphasizes, were not alive — but they did become cellularly active.”

“…The experiment hinges on a newly developed system called BrainEx. In an issue of Nature scheduled to be published Thursday, the team explains that BrainEx involves connecting the brain’s vascular system to a solution developed to preserve brain tissue. The solution acts as a substitute for blood and contains a hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier and a range of pharmacological agents to keep a dead or dying brain alive. “

“…Furthermore the system reduced cell death, preserved anatomical architecture, ignited spontaneous neural activity and active cerebral metabolism. Meanwhile, the untreated control brains rapidly decomposed. The team stopped the experiment after six hours because of the limited availability of the BrainEx solution — which means they still don’t know how long these functions could have been sustained.”

“…“The researchers were prepared to intervene with the use of anesthetics and temperature-reduction to stop organized global electrical activity if it were to emerge,” Latham says. “Everyone agreed in advance that experiments involving revived global activity couldn’t go forward without clear ethical standards and institutional oversight mechanisms.” This study’s findings sharply contrast with what we know about dead brains. The established idea is that once oxygen and blood flow cease, basic cellular functions stop within seconds and in that moment, neural activity is irretrievably lost. From there, the brain is expected to begin a trajectory towards cell death and decay. The new research disrupts the idea that the demise of a dead brain is rapid and concrete. The team hopes that in the immediate future, this research can lead to a new way of studying the postmortem brain, allowing scientists to study complex cell and circuit conditions after the life of a specimen is lost.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-67.mp3" length="1079756" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:29</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fluorescent light (FL) exposure triggers chronic inflammation / immune overactivity</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=65</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=65</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:20:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=65

As Peat has discussed many times in this interviews and most people know first-hand, FL is really not pleasant to bask under. Unfortunately, this is the default lightning in most administrative buildings, including hospitals and daycare facilities. FL use in residential buildings is also widespread. Despite literally millions of people complaining of headaches, vision problems, disturbed sleep patterns, increased rate of diseases like diabetes and cancer, etc the official version is that this is all anecdotal and most likely hypochondriac evidence. FL is completely benign, they say.

Well, not so fast, the study below says, and shows that FL induces robust inflammatory response in a number of different and genetically distant species. As such, the study itself says, it is quite likely that this effect of FL is conserved in higher species like humans.

link here

“… Herein, we extend previous observations of fish skin to investigation of FL-induced genetic effects within internal organs (i.e., brain and liver). We provide head-to-head comparisons of FL-induced modulation of gene expression among two fish species (i.e., zebrafish and medaka) with each other, and with the hairless mouse (Mus musculus). The fish species utilized (medaka and zebrafish) are diurnal vertebrates originally derived from Japan and India, respectively, with an estimated divergence of ≈115 My [31, link here,32, link here,33, link here]. The mouse, a nocturnal rodent, has an estimated ≈450 My of divergence from the common ancestor that led to the fishes [34, link here,35, link here]. All animals were similarly exposed to FL (4100 K), and the transcriptional response in skin, brain, and liver organs compared after processing of RNA-Seq data. Our findings suggest the primary response to FL is extraordinarily well-conserved among these three highly divergent species. This suggests the gene expression changes that occur after light exposure may be due to ancient genetic circuitry that has remained embedded within the vertebrate genome.”

“…We present results that assessed changes in gene expression patterns due to FL exposure in zebrafish and medaka fishes, and in hairless mice. Following FL exposure, RNA from skin, brain, and liver was utilized for RNA-Seq, and gene expression was validated with NanoString nCounter assays. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs), due to the FL exposure, were utilized in functional analyses to identify FL-affected biological pathways for comparison.All organs, in all three animals, respond to FL by modulating pathways leading to inflammation and immune responses. These conserved genetic responses involved induction of the acute phase response (APR) in all organs of the fish species, and mouse skin and brain. The pathways affected by FL are regulated primarily by TNF and IL1B and are predicted to induce APR, leading to inflammation and immune responses. The only exception was the mouse liver, that showed suppression in the same APR pathways that were activated in the other organs examined. APR suppression in the mouse liver may be due to a nocturnal metabolism keeping the liver out of phase with FL exposure. Collectively, the conserved FL genetic response in both fishes and mice appear due to cellular perception of oxidative stress. These data suggest the primary response to FL is extraordinarily well-conserved among highly divergent species, representing both diurnal and nocturnal lifestyles, and; therefore, deeply embedded within the vertebrate genome.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-65.mp3" length="447860" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:02</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The (in)famous condition “chemo brain” may be simply a state of low DHEA</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=63</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=63</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:09:58 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=63

The condition known as “chemo brain” is notorious among cancer survivors and many other patients undergoing toxic interventions with chemotherapy and may affect up to 85% of cancer patients. It amounts to severe cognitive dysfunction, memory problems, and even personality changes that result in the patient becoming completely dependent and often unable to care for themselves. Actually, this condition is not unique to patients undergoing chemotherapy but is known to also afflict patients undergoing radiation therapy, prolonged surgery or even chemical castration for conditions like breast/prostate cancer.

The study below discovered that low DHEA-S levels caused by whatever intervention the patient is undergoing, are the likely cause of this condition. I think that elevated FFA and in general suppressed brain glucose metabolism are another major aspect of the condition, but since those go hand-in-hand with suppressed DHEA synthesis, using DHEA as a biomarker for the condition is probably reliable enough. As such, administering pregnenolone, on its own or with little DHEA, maybe an easy way to treat it. Pregnenolone already has an established reputation as a “brain doping” and research with it is enjoying a clinical Renaissance (much to the chagrin of Big Pharma). So, it should not be that difficult to convince a treating doctor to try a pregnenolone/DHEA intervention, even if he/she is vehemently opposed to trying thyroid.

link here

“…With this in mind, a team led by Associate Professor Alexandre Chan from the Department of Pharmacy at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Faculty of Science started to investigate levels of biomarkers in relation to chemobrain, to better understand its cause. “By identifying the clinically relevant factors which pre-dispose patients to chemobrain, more appropriate interventions can be tailored accordingly to patients who are at a higher risk of developing cognitive impairment,” explained Assoc Prof Chan. The team recently characterised plasma levels of the biomarker dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and its sulfated form (DHEAS) – jointly referred to as DHEA(S) – to be biological determinants of chemobrain. DHEA(S) are neurosteroids that help to regulate brain development, but it was previously unknown whether their levels correlate with cognitive function or are associated with the onset of chemobrain. This latest work was published in Pharmacotherapy: The Journal of Human Pharmacology and Drug Therapy on 20 March 2019. The study showed that early-stage breast cancer patients with higher plasma DHEAS levels prior to chemotherapy were found to have a lower risk of developing chemobrain in the specific domains of verbal fluency and mental acuity. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-63.mp3" length="712388" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:37</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>All gut bacteria is dangerous, their endotoxin drives liver cancer; antibiotics can cure.</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=61</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=61</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Apr 2019 19:46:33 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=61

As Peat has written many times, there is truly no such thing as “beneficial” gut bacteria as long as they are capable of producing endotoxin (LPS). And since most bacterial species known to colonize the gut can produce LPS when exposed to undigested food or mechanical stimulation (stretching or even bouncing the intestine through, say, running), the conclusion that one could make is that all gut bacteria can be pathogenic. I already posted a study showing that probiotics are dangerous and some doctors call for them to be regulated like drugs.

The study below corroborates once again that gut bacteria is pathogenic, at least as far as liver cancer is concerned, and shows that administration of antibiotics (tetracyclines anyone?) is curative in the majority of the cases. Since vitamin K2 (MK-4) is expected to be approved soon for treating liver cancer (HCC) it suggests that it may have some antibiotic effects of its own. In addition, it also suggests that quinones like emodin with known anti-endotoxin effects could also be a viable treatment/preventive method for that cancer.

2 links here

“…To understand why this occurred, the researchers looked at the signals sent by tumor cells in mice with and without the Nlrp12 gene. They found that the JNK (c-Jun N-terminal kinase) pathway—previously shown to be associated with liver cancer—is highly active in liver tumors that lack Nlrp12, Dr. Zaki said. The JNK pathway can be activated by a component of bacterial cell walls called lipopolysaccharide (LPS), he said. Both “good” bacteria—which line the gut and aid in digestion—and “bad” pathogenic bacteria—such as Salmonella or Escherichia coli—can release LPS, Dr. Zaki explained.”

“…The LPS can move from the gut to the liver via the bloodstream and contribute to inflammation by setting off the JNK and other signaling pathways. Such transport is much more common in chronically inflamed livers such as those of people suffering from hepatitis or fatty liver disease, he said. The study data suggest that NLRP12 suppresses inflammation caused by gut microbiota and cancer-promoting signals, added Dr. Zaki, a member of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.”

“…To confirm the gut-liver inflammation-cancer hypothesis, the researchers treated mice with antibiotics to reduce levels of gut bacteria. “Depletion of gut microbiota with antibiotics dramatically reduced tumor growth in mice without Nlrp12,” Dr Zaki said. “This study suggests that NLRP12 could be a potential therapeutic target. It also indicates that finding a way to increase NLRP12 in the liver in combination with current immune checkpoint blockade therapies may improve liver cancer treatment.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-61.mp3" length="577148" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:19</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Fertility depends on metabollism (ATP), not age</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=59</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=59</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Apr 2019 17:59:25 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=59

As many of you know, there are two fundamental dogmas in reproductive medicine. One is that every woman is born with a fixed number of eggs and those cannot be replenished. The second one is that there is a biological fertility clock in every woman that inexorably ticks, and if the female does not have kids by a certain age (say 40) then her chances of becoming a mother drop down to zero.

Well, the study below casts serious doubt on the second dogma. It showed that the decline in egg quality and female fertility with age is simply due to the fact that eggs contain several hundred times more mitochondria than any other cell in the body and as such are much more vulnerable to energetic deprivation. As mitochondrial function declines with age, so does egg quality. However, a simple and brief treatment with red light (LLLT) to the neck resulted in 21+% of the infertile women in advanced “reproductive age” becoming pregnant. The protocol used on average 21 sessions, each consisting of 15s irradiation of points on the neck known to contain major blood vessels. That was clearly enough to have a major beneficial effect on ovaries despite the remote application site, which suggests that simply sitting under regular red bulbs for about 30min would probably meet or even exceed the effects of the LLLT protocol.

And the mechanism of action of LLLT treatment? Just as Peat has written many times – removal from the cell of respiration-blocking (cytochrome C oxidase) molecule nitric oxide (NO). As a side note, magnesium, zinc, and of course methylene blue are known to accomplish the same thing and can be used as a substitute or synergizing regimen to red light. Oh and btw, the same method is expected to work in males whose declining sperm counts and testosterone (T) levels are have also been shown to be due to energetic dysfunction. Incidentally, there are multiple studies we have discussed here in the past showing red light application to male gonads increases T levels and sperm motility.

2 links here

“…Dr. Brown has pioneered the Brown Laser for Fertility Method which involves a series of low level lasers treatments directed at specific acupuncture points. Acubalance is the leading clinic in BC to be offering this method. Until recently Western reproductive medicine has maintained that aging and declining egg quality is an irreversible process. However, research with LLLT being done in Denmark and Japan is showing that it may be possible to improve egg quality, slow down the aging process, and significantly improve fertility in women and men.”

“…Similarly, Japanese studies have shown a connection between improved fertility and low level laser therapy concluding that LLLT can help improve the woman’s chances of conception. Under the direction of Dr Toshio Ohshiro at Sanno Hospital, an extended trial on LLLT was performed in 701 severe infertile patients, 156 (22.3%) of whom became pregnant. This resulted in a successful live birth rate in over half (50.1%) of those pregnancies. In another study by Dr. Nakamura in Japan a comparison of blastocyst reaching rate (BRR) before and after the intervention of acupuncture & moxibustion in conjunction with laser treatment (AMLT) was observed in retrospect and found significant differences. Dr. Nakamura’s data revealed that blastocyst reaching rate (number of day 5 embryos) almost doubles after the AMLT protocol. Watch interview between Dr. K Nakamura and Dr. Lorne Brown. It appears that LLLT displaces nitric oxide (the biomarker of oxidative stress that blocks oxygen from being absorbed by cells) which allows more oxygen to saturate cells. Laser therapy also allows more ATP (cellular energy) to be produced by the mitochondria of the cells and improves blood circulation, and regulates inflammation. These factors are all beneficial to female reproduction in general.”

“…Studies show that the mitochondria of older eggs are not so good at producing ATP. However, the rate of division and successful implantation of embryos has more to do with how much energy (ATP) than with maternal age per se. Similarly, it is known that older follicles have fewer defenses against cellular damage caused by oxidative stress, and that this is related to poorer IVF outcomes. “All our cells are powered by little structures called mitochondria. Eggs have about 200 times more mitochondria than any other cell. When eggs are developing, they use a tremendous amount of energy. After 35 years the mitochondria wear down. At age 40, nine out of 10 eggs are abnormal.” Says Brown. ”What is exciting about these studies is that they suggest that LLLT actually goes to the root cause of ovarian decline and improves mitochondrial function and ATP (energy) production which is necessary for aging ovaries.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-59.mp3" length="939980" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:09</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Blocking stress signal (adrenaline) just once cures anxiety, PTSD and maybe any mental disorder.</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=56</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=56</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2019 16:13:08 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=56

This is a remarkable study, which once again implicates extreme stress in the pathology of mental health disorders, specifically anxiety and PTSD. Just a few days ago I posted a study showing a high cortisol (C) / testosterone (T) ratio is likely a causative factor in PTSD. People with high C/T ratio also happen to have elevated adrenaline as cortisol and adrenaline promoted each other’s synthesis and release. As such, the study below is not surprising. What is surprising is that even a single dose of the adrenaline-blocking drug (beta blocker) propranolol was able to “erase” the emotional aspect of traumatic memories and as such reverse the anxiety and PTSD associated with them. The cognitive portion (e.g. the memory itself) was not affected, but the fearful/traumatic reaction to it was removed. As the authors say themselves, it appears every mental disorder may be amenable to such treatment. The results are almost too good to believe, but not if you know that stress is the fundamental cause of all disease. And last but not least, sleep was required in order for the effect to take hold. If people were given the drug and then their fear was “re-challenged” the same day then they still reacted with anxiety. However, if they were allowed to “sleep on it” overnight, the next day the fear was gone. My guess is that the adrenaline blockade removes the fear stimulus, but in order for that to become embedded into the brain’s structure, sleep is needed as such consolidations are only known to happen when the brain emits beta and gamma waves (sleep, meditation, etc).

2 links here

“…A single 40-mg dose of oral propranolol, judiciously timed, constitutes an outside-the-box yet highly promising treatment for anxiety disorders, and perhaps for posttraumatic stress disorder as well, Marieke Soeter, PhD, said at the annual congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. “

“…“It looks like permanent fear erasure. You can never say that something is erased, but we have not been able to get it back,” she said. “Propranolol achieves selective erasure: It targets the emotional component, but knowledge is intact. They know what happened, but they aren’t scared anymore. The fear association is affected, but not the innate fear response to a threat stimulus, so it doesn’t alter reactions to potentially dangerous situations, which is important. If there is a bomb, they still know to run away from it.” “

“…Most recently, she and a coinvestigator have been working to pin down the precise conditions under which memory reconsolidation can be targeted to extinguish fear memories. They have shown in a 30-subject study that the process is both time- and sleep-dependent. The propranolol must be given within roughly an hour before to 1 hour after therapeutic reactivation of the fear memory to be effective. And sleep is an absolute necessity: When subjects were rechallenged 12 hours after memory reactivation and administration of propranolol earlier on the same day, with no opportunity for sleep, there was no therapeutic effect: The disturbing fear memory was elicited. However, when subjects were rechallenged 12 hours after taking propranolol the previous day – that is, after a night’s sleep – the fear memory was gone (Nat Commun. 2018 Apr 3;9[1]:1316.doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03659-1, link here).”

 “Postretrieval amnesia requires sleep to happen. Sleep may be the final and necessary link to prevent the process of reconsolidation,” Dr. Soeter said. It’s still unclear, however, how much sleep is required. Perhaps a nap will turn out to be sufficient, she said.” Colleagues at the University of Amsterdam are now using single-dose propranolol-based therapy in patients with a wide range of phobias. “The effects are pretty amazing,” Dr. Soeter said. “Everything is treatable. It’s almost too good to be true, but these are our findings.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-56.mp3" length="792380" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:52</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Damaged mitochondria and endotoxin (LPS) drive chronic inflammation</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=51</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=51</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2019 19:56:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=51

Chronic, low-grade inflammation has now been recognized as the main cause behind a number of chronic degenerative conditions including CVD, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer, Parkinson, etc. Mainstream medicine claims that the cause of this chronic low-grade inflammatory reaction is unknown, despite the well-known role PUFA play as precursors of the most important inflammatory mediators (prostaglandins and leukotrienes). The study below now adds chronic stress and the mitochondrial damage it causes, as a major driver of the chronic inflammatory reaction. Now, while the popular press article does not make any mention of it, the actual study demonstrates that the inflammatory cascade starts with endotoxin (LPS) and involves increased choline uptake by the cells. Blocking endotoxin effects (through TLR4) or choline uptake abrogated the inflammatory response/cascade. Another possible approach is the administration of lithium or sodium, both which can trigger mitophagy in weakened/damaged mitochondria.

link here

However, considering the fact that both lithium and sodium are frowned upon by both Big Pharma and regulatory agencies like FDA, it is unlikely that any of these cheap, safe interventions will ever become part of the mainstream medical approach.

link here

“…Choline, link here is a vitamin-like nutrient that is taken up via specific transporters and metabolized by choline kinase, link here, which converts it to phosphocholine, link here needed for de novo synthesis of phosphatidylcholine, link here (PC), the main phospholipid, link here of cellular membranes. We found that Toll-like receptor, link here (TLR) activation enhances choline, link hereuptake by macrophages and microglia, link here through induction of the choline transporter CTL1. Inhibition of CTL1 expression or choline phosphorylation, link here attenuated NLRP3 inflammasome, link here activation and IL-1β and IL-18, link here production in stimulated macrophages. Mechanistically, reduced choline uptake, link here altered mitochondrial lipid profile, link here, attenuated mitochondrial ATP, link here synthesis, and activated the energy sensor AMP-activated protein kinase, link here (AMPK). By potentiating mitochondrial recruitment of DRP1, AMPK stimulates mitophagy, link here, which contributes to termination of NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Correspondingly, choline kinase inhibitors ameliorated acute and chronic models of IL-1β-dependent inflammation.”

link here

“…Inflammation is a balanced physiological response—the body needs it to eliminate invasive organisms and foreign irritants, but excessive inflammation can harm healthy cells, contributing to aging and chronic diseases. To help keep tabs on inflammation, immune cells employ a molecular machine called the NLRP3 inflammasome. NLRP3 is inactive in a healthy cell, but is switched “on” when the cell’s mitochondria (energy-generating organelles) are damaged by stress or exposure to bacterial toxins. However, when the NLRP3 inflammasome gets stuck in the “on” position, it can contribute to a number of chronic inflammatory conditions, including gout, osteoarthritis, fatty liver disease, link here and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. “

“…In a 2018 study published in Nature, Karin’s team had shown that damaged mitochondria activate the NLRP3 inflammasome. The researchers also found that the NLRP3 inflammasome is de-activated when mitochondria are removed by the cell’s internal waste recycling process, called mitophagy.” After that, we wondered if we could reduce harmful excess inflammation by intentionally inducing mitophagy, which would eliminate damaged mitochondria and should in turn pre-emptively inhibit NLRP3 inflammasome activation,” Karin said. “But at the time we didn’t have a good way to induce mitophagy.” More recently, Sanchez-Lopez was studying how macrophages regulate their uptake of choline, a nutrient critical for metabolism, when she discovered something that can initiate mitophagy: an inhibitor of the enzyme choline kinase (ChoK). With ChoK inhibited, choline is no longer incorporated into mitochondrial membranes. As a result, the cells perceive the mitochondria as damaged, and cleared them away by mitophagy. “Most importantly, by getting rid of damaged mitochondria, link here with ChoK inhibitors, we were finally able to inhibit NLRP3 inflammasome activation,” Karin said. To test their new ability to control NLRP3 inflammasome in a living system, the researchers turned to mice. They discovered that treatment with ChoK inhibitors prevented acute inflammation caused by uric acid (accumulation of which triggers gout flares) and a bacterial toxin. By several measures, ChoK inhibitor treatment also reversed chronic inflammation associated with a genetic disease called Muckle-Well Syndrome, which is caused by mutations in NLRP3 genes. One such measure is spleen size—the larger the spleen, the more inflammation. The spleens of Muckle-Well Syndrome mice are on average twice as large as normal mice, but their spleen sizes normalized after ChoK inhibitor treatment.”

link here

“…However, foreign particles don’t act directly on the NLRP3-inflammasome. Instead, Karin’s team found, foreign particles damage the macrophage’s mitochondria—the cell’s energy-producing “power plant.” In turn, damaged mitochondria release signals that activate the NLRP3-inflammasome and keep it cranking out IL-1beta. That’s a good thing if your body needs to clear out invading particles or microbes, but continuous production of IL-1beta is very dangerous—it can easily lead to an inflammatory chain reaction that results in multi-organ failure, septic shock and death. The body needs a way to turn off IL-1beta production by NLRP3-inflammasomes. To do this, Karin’s team discovered, macrophages responding to foreign microbes and irritants also bump up production of p62. This protein coats damaged mitochondria that release inflammasome-activating signals and ensures they are eliminated. Once these damaged mitochondria are removed, the NLRP3-inflammasome de-activates and IL-1beta production is turned off. “We’ve suspected for quite some time that damage to mitochondria caused by either genetic or environmental factors is the root cause of many age-related diseases, all of which are associated with chronic, low-grade inflammation,” said Zhong. “Therefore, p62—and its part in eliminating damaged mitochondria—could provide a new target for preventing such diseases. Indeed, we already know that another protein that collaborates with p62 to eliminate damaged mitochondria is Parkin, which plays a role in a rare form of Parkinson’s disease.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-51.mp3" length="636716" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:28</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Niacinamide may help treat/reverse heart disease</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=49</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=49</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2019 19:42:03 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=49

Yet another study showing the beneficial effects of improving mitochondrial function. This time, the study looked at heart health and found that NAD precursors like niacinamide and nicotinamide riboside (NR) can help prevent the decline in mitochondrial function and oxygen consumption driven by various stresses, including toxic assaults and calcium overload. The study showed that treatment for just 3 days with the HED of about 50mg/kg NR had reversed many of the damages that stress induced on cardiac cells. Given that niacinamide and NR are equally capable of raising NAD levels or stimulating UPRmt, the study effects should be reproducible by using plain niacinamide (nicotinamide) at the same doses as NR.

2 links here

“…Nicotinamide riboside, a novel form of vitamin B3, may help maintain mitochondrial function by stimulating a cellular repair pathway, suggests a new study using ChromaDex’s Niagen product. Animal data published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology​​ indicated that supplementation with nicotinamide riboside (NR) was associated with stimulation of a cellular response called the “mitochondrial unfolded protein response” (UPRmt) that helps maintain mitochondrial function. The study, conducted by principal investigators Prof. Ajay Shah and Dr Ioannis Smyrnias at Kings College London, also included a preliminary investigation of human heart tissue samples and found positive correlations between increased UPRmt activation and markers of healthy heart function. “NR supplementation is a new and exciting intervention that merits testing in the human treatment of heart failure and other cardiac conditions,”​ said Prof. Shah in a press release. 

Mitochondria play a vital role for heart function by generating ATP to support the contraction and relaxation of the heart muscle. “Mitochondrial dysfunction is a central feature of heart failure by contributing to energetic dysfunction, oxidative stress, calcium dysregulation, and cardiomyocyte death, and is considered a potential therapeutic target,” ​explained the researchers. The results from the in vitro and mouse studies showed that stress led to a short-lived induction of UPRmt. By boosting UPRmt with NR “significantly mitigated the reductions in mitochondrial oxygen consumption induced by these stresses”,​ said the researchers. “Enhancement of the UPRmt ameliorates mitochondrial and contractile dysfunction, suggesting that it may serve an important protective role in the stressed heart,” ​concluded the researchers.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-49.mp3" length="1247684" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:49</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Epidemic of NAFLD and NASH in young people</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=47</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=47</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2019 19:05:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=47

Yet another sad reminder of just how much the health of the average person has declined over the last 20 years. If these trends are not reversed or at least slowed down, we may start seeing people in their 20s filing for Medicare/Medicaid due to rapidly declining health and inability to cover their health expenses – a combination of factors typically seen only in 80+ year olds. No wonder politicians keep screaming about the pending insolvency of these programs. However, it is not the lack of funding for these programs that is the issue. That public argument is simply a diversion tactic from the real reason – i.e. people are becoming sicker at younger and younger ages. So, the very people who are supposed to fund these programs and only tap into them after retirement are actually in dire need of their services right now.

2 links here

“…Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is fairly common among older adults, detectable in about a quarter of the population. But a study has found, link here that substantial numbers of 24-year-olds are also affected, putting them at risk of serious later health problems, such as liver cancer, type-2 diabetes and heart attacks. Researchers from Bristol University tested more than 4,000 young people enrolled in a longitudinal study called the Children of the 90s, set up to follow the lives and health of children born in 1991 and 1992 in Avon, England. All of them had been given an ultrasound at the age of 18, which revealed that 2.5% had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Five years later, a newer kind of scan called transient elastography or fibroscan detected that over 20% had fatty deposits on the liver, or steatosis, indicating non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Half of those were classified as severe. The scans also found that 2.4% had fibrosis – scarring on the liver. Severe scarring can cause cirrhosis. Presenting the results of the study at the International Liver Congress in Vienna, Dr Kushala Abeysekera, from the University of Bristol, said: “We were concerned to find that, at only 24 years of age, one in five had steatosis and one in 40 had evidence of fibrosis, based on elastography results, in a group of largely asymptomatic, predominantly Caucasian young people. “The results of our study suggest greater public health awareness of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is needed in young adults in the UK.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-47.mp3" length="394124" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:53</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>High cortisol and low testosterone likely drive PTSD</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=45</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=45</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2019 18:52:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=45

As the article below states, 20%+ of service members come back with PTSD. It is a devastating mental condition that makes patients not only unable to participate meaningfully in society but often drives them to violent and homicidal/suicidal behavior. Given the roles of cortisol and serotonin in driving violent psychotic behavior, the etiology of PTSD seems rather clear from a Peatarian perspective. And indeed, early studies in the 1980s provided solid evidence that cortisol is a causative factor in PTSD. However, due to ghostwriting and general outcry from Big Pharma, the cortisol-PTSD link was disputed and the waters were muddied by often fake research questioning the connection between endocrinology and mental health. Well, it seems the cortisol connection is finally seeing the light of day again. As the study below shows, it is both elevated cortisol levels and low testosterone (T) levels that largely determine if somebody would develop PTSD or not. I think low T is not the only factor but rather in general the lack of anti-cortisol endogenous factors such as progesterone, DHEA, thyroid, pregnenolone, etc. So, it would be interesting to see the same study repeated and measurements for those other anti-cortisol hormones taken as well. But at least, this is a study is a long-overdue step in the right direction.

2 links here

“…Up to 20 percent, link here of U.S. veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder from trauma experienced during wartime, but new neuroscience research from The University of Texas at Austin suggests some soldiers might have a hormonal predisposition to experience such stress-related disorders. Cortisol — the stress hormone — is released as part of the body’s flight-or-fight response to life-threatening emergencies. Seminal research in the 1980s connected abnormal cortisol levels to an increased risk for PTSD, but three decades of subsequent research produced a mixed bag of findings, dampening enthusiasm for the role of cortisol as a primary cause of PTSD. However, new findings published, link here in the journal Psychoneuro-endocrinology point to cortisol’s critical role in the emergence of PTSD, but only when levels of testosterone — one of most important of the male sex hormones — are suppressed, researchers said.”

“…“Recent evidence points to testosterone’s suppression of cortisol activity, and vice versa. It is becoming clear to many researchers that you can’t understand the effects of one without simultaneously monitoring the activity of the other,” said UT Austin professor of psychology Robert Josephs, the first author of the study. “Prior attempts to link PTSD to cortisol may have failed because the powerful effect that testosterone has on the hormonal regulation of stress was not taken into account.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-45.mp3" length="662588" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:01:30</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cheating is driven by cortisol, not testosterone</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=43</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=43</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2019 18:39:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=43

The topic of macho behavior and its apparent mediator testosterone has been studies every since steroids were discovered. The mainstream dogma states that high testosterone drives cheating behavior (especially of males) as some sort of dominance-asserting behavior of genetically superior organisms. Yet, evidence has been accumulating that cheating, similarly to addiction, is simply a desperate attempt to relieve stress. Often this stress is caused by unrealistic expectations or by driving the message into people’s minds that this or that test can make or break their lives. As the study below shows, elevated cortisol was the impetus behind cheating and people who cheated reported reduced emotional stress, as if the cheating was a form of a “fix” or “hit” that has been shown to temporarily also relieve stress in drug “addicts”. And since the study found that relieving the stress activated reward centers in the brain, the study once again moralizes us that one can become “addicted” to cheating. If you let modern medicine make all the decisions in our lives, everything will be defined as addictive and all of us will be “junkies” in dire need of “treatment”. As far as testosterone – its only role was reducing the fear of punishment and allowing the stressed people to act upon their desires to relieve stress. By itself, testosterone had no effects on cheating behavior.

2 links here

“…Researchers asked 117 participants to complete a math test, grade it themselves and self-report the number of correctly completed problems. The more problems they got correct, the more money they would earn. From salivary samples collected before and after the test, researchers found that individuals with elevated levels of testosterone and cortisol were more likely to overstate the number of correctly solved problems. “Elevated testosterone decreases the fear of punishment while increasing sensitivity to reward. Elevated cortisol is linked to an uncomfortable state of chronic stress that can be extremely debilitating,” Josephs said. “Testosterone furnishes the courage to cheat, and elevated cortisol provides a reason to cheat.” Additionally, participants who cheated showed lowered levels of cortisol and reported reductions in emotional distress after the test, as if cheating provided some sort of stress relief. “The stress reduction is accompanied by a powerful stimulation of the reward centers in the brain, so these physiological psychological changes have the unfortunate consequence of reinforcing the unethical behavior,” Josephs said.]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-43.mp3" length="1154660" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:38</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Rats react the same way to observing pain in others as if they experience it themselves</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=41</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=41</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2019 18:21:21 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=41

So much for animals lacking empathy, or being “selfish machines” as famously coined by that sociopath Richard Dawkins. It never seizes to amaze how people like him who are so opposed to the idea of altruism keep arguing that their ideas are not anti-social at all and are perfectly compatible with large numbers of people living, collaborating, and even thriving together.

link here

“… How do the emotions of others affect us? The human anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) responds while experiencing pain in the self and witnessing pain in others, but the underlying cellular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here we show the rat ACC (area 24) contains neurons responding when a rat experiences pain as triggered by a laser and while witnessing another rat receive footshocks. Most of these neurons do not respond to a fear-conditioned sound (CS). Deactivating this region reduces freezing while witnessing footshocks to others but not while hearing the CS. A decoder trained on spike counts while witnessing footshocks to another rat can decode stimulus intensity both while witnessing pain in another and while experiencing the pain first-hand. Mirror-like neurons thus exist in the ACC that encode the pain of others in a code shared with first-hand pain experience. A smaller population of neurons responded to witnessing footshocks to others and while hearing the CS but not while experiencing laser-triggered pain. These differential responses suggest that the ACC may contain channels that map the distress of another animal onto a mosaic of pain- and fear-sensitive channels in the observer. More experiments are necessary to determine whether painfulness and fearfulness in particular or differences in arousal or salience are responsible for these differential responses. “]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-41.mp3" length="231188" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:31</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cortisol (stress) directly causes depression</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=38</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=38</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2019 18:12:31 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=38

I have posted quite a few threads/posts on the role of stress as perhaps the main cause of depression and other mental disorders. Officially, psychiatry claims that no environmental factor is known to be a direct cause of depression and that depression is a “complex” mix of genetic predispositions possibly “facilitated” by an environmental factor. Yet, in every animal model known to science and used to study depression, protocols like chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) and chronic social defeat (CSD) are used as the sole and direct causes of depression in the animals. No talk of genes whatsoever in those animal models. Medicine dismisses CUMS and CSD as too “complex” in nature to ascribe to a single factor like a steroid. Genes are again invoked and the main theme continues to be that there is no direct evidence implicating stress as a cause of depression. Well, no more. The study below does away with CUMS/CSD and instead of subjecting the animals to stress it makes them depressed by administering cortisol directly. Even more shockingly, the cortisol dose administered was physiological – HED of just 1mg/kg daily. For comparison, when a person is under severe stress she/he can produce endogenously 500mg+ daily. 

link here

“…We began by testing whether the induction of depression-related behavior in chronic stress models is associated with targeted effects on specific dendritic spine populations. To this end, we imaged the PFC through a prism (13, link here, 16, link here) chronically implanted in the contralateral hemisphere (Fig. 1A, link here). Using two-photon (2P) laser-scanning microscopy, we obtained high-resolution images of the apical dendrites of yellow fluorescent protein (YFP)–expressing projection neurons in the medial PFC (mPFC) [in Thy1/YFP-H mice (Jackson Labs)] before and after 21 days of exposure to corticosterone (CORT) (0.10 mg/ml in the drinking water) (21, link here), the principal murine stress hormone (Fig. 1A, link here). CORT is a critical mediator of chronic stress effects on behavior, and chronic CORT treatment recapitulates important aspects of the neuroendocrine response to chronic stress (21, link here–26, link here).”

link here

“…So Liston and a team of scientists from the U.S. and Japan gave mice a stress hormone that caused them to act depressed. For example, the animals lost interest in favorite activities like eating sugar and exploring a maze. Then the team used a special laser microscope to study the animals’ brains. The researchers were looking for changes to synapses. “Stress is associated with a loss of synapses in this region of the brain that we think is important in depression,” Liston says. And sure enough, the stressed-out mice lost a lot of synapses. Next, the scientists gave the animals a dose of ketamine. And Liston says that’s when they noticed something surprising. “Ketamine was actually restoring many of the exact same synapses in their exact same configuration that existed before the animal was exposed to chronic stress,” he says. In other words, the drug seemed to be repairing brain circuits that had been damaged by stress.”

Moreover, the study exposes another fraudulent meme commonly propagated by doctors – i.e. that steroids are not effective when administered orally – by causing depression through administration of cortisol in the drinking water. The study also suggests that the rapid antidepressant effects of the recently approved ketamine are likely due to being a functional or maybe even direct glucocorticoid antagonist. This is a mechanism of action for ketamine I have never heard discussed officially, possibly because it may undermine steroid sales and widespread use in hospitals. Instead, we are being fed the usual crap of ketamine having a “complex” mechanism of action that is mostly unknown at this point.
link here)

And if all the above damning findings were not enough, there is evidence that ketamine also acts against another major mediator of stress – serotonin. The very chemical that we have been told for decades is a “cure” for depression, a “happiness hormone” that tens of millions of people in the US alone are prescribed for life in the form of toxic serotonergic (SSRI) drugs.
link here 
link here]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-38.mp3" length="1140524" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:02:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vitamin D beneficial in advanced GI cancers</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=19</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=19</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 Apr 2019 15:28:35 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=19

The study shows that a daily dose of 4,000 IU – 8,000 IU vitamin D reduces cancer progression by up to 36%. The study had 2 phases, the first one used 4,000 IU vitamin D daily and the second one used 8,000 IU daily. Both phases reported robust benefits, and also noted something Peat has been mentioning to people over email – overweight/obese people have trouble raising serum vitamin D levels even when taking large doses. So, for those people a daily dose in the 8,000 IU – 10,000 IU range may be needed. Another study linked below looked at the effects of vitamin D on all types of GI cancers and also found benefit from doses as low as 2,000 IU daily, with higher doses being more beneficial.




3 links here

“…Results of a small clinical trial suggest that supplementing chemotherapy with high doses of vitamin D may benefit patients with metastatic colorectal cancer by delaying progression of the disease, say scientists from Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, link here. Prompted by the “very encouraging” results of the Sunshine clinical trial, link here, the potential benefits of vitamin D supplementation in metastatic colorectal cancer will be evaluated in a larger clinical trial planned to open at several hundred sites across the U.S. later this year, said Kimmie Ng, link here, director of clinical research in Dana-Farber’s Gastrointestinal Cancer Center, link here, and corresponding author of the Sunshine study. “To our knowledge, this study is the first completed randomized clinical trial of vitamin D supplementation for treatment of advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer,” Ng said. In the high-dose group, patients had a median delay of 13 months before their disease worsened; in the low-dose group, the median delay was 11 months. In addition, patients in the high-dose vitamin D group were 36 percent less likely to have disease progression or death during the follow-up period of 22.9 months. The trial included too few patients to determine whether those who took high-dose vitamin D survived longer overall. “The results of our trial suggest an improved outcome for patients who received vitamin D supplementation, and we look forward to launching a larger trial to confirm these exciting and provocative findings,” said Charles Fuchs, formerly of Dana-Farber and now director of Yale Cancer Center, the senior author of the study.”




“… The Sunshine trial randomized 139 patients with previously untreated metastatic colorectal cancer. One group took pills containing 4,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D per day along with standard chemotherapy, while the other group took 400 units (about the dose found in a multivitamin) along with chemotherapy. “




“… Against this backdrop, the randomized, prospective phase 2 Sunshine trial recruited patients at 11 academic and community centers across the U.S. to test whether vitamin D supplementation can improve outcomes in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. All patients received standard chemotherapy. Patients in the high-dose vitamin D group initially took 8,000 IU a day for 14 days, then 4,000 IU a day thereafter. The low or standard-dose vitamin D group took 400 IU daily during all cycles. All patients were asked not to take any other vitamin D or calcium supplements during the trial period. “




“…Analysis of the results showed less benefit from high-dose vitamin D in patients who were obese, and those whose tumors contained a mutated KRAS gene, suggesting “that certain subsets of patients may need even higher doses of vitamin D for anti-tumor activity,” the researchers said. They cautioned, however, that high doses of vitamin D shouldn’t be taken except within the context of a clinical trial.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-19.mp3" length="429764" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:57</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone Is A Potent (functional) Endotoxin (TLR4) Antagonist</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=17</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=17</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:40:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=17

It seems that pregnenolone is finally starting to look exciting to the medical industry. In addition for its intensive studies for a variety of mental issues, now studies are coming out demonstrating its endotoxin (LPS) antagonism effects. As most forum users know, endotoxin exerts its effects mainly through activation of the TLR4 receptor, and pregnenolone prevented proper activation of TLR4 by endotoxin. The article states that this TLR4 blocking effect of pregnenolone may turn it into promising treatments for alcoholism, schizophrenia, epilepsy, MS, sepsis, PTSD, Alzheimer, CVD, etc – i.e. all conditions associated with abnormal TLR4 activation. The TLR4 antagonism may also explain the benefits of pregnenolone for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as demonstrated by multiple human studies back in the first half of the 20th century.
The study showed that both pregnenolone and its downstream metabolite allopregnanolone prevented the inflammatory effects associated with TLR4 activation. Allopregnanolone was slightly more potent than pregnenolone but that difference can be overcome by simply increasing the pregnenolone dose. Since the potent anti-inflammatory effects were observed a concentration of 1 uM/L this suggests human doses of 30mg-50mg should be enough to replicate the study design. Also, while this study did not look at progesterone there are a number of other ones that have found progesterone is also a functional TLR4 antagonist in concentrations even lower then 1 uM/L.

The neurosteroid, pregnenolone promotes degradation of key proteins in the innate immune signalling to suppress inflammation. – PubMed – NCBI, link here
Endogenous Neurosteroid (3Î±,5Î±)3-Hydroxypregnan-20-one Inhibits Toll-like-4 Receptor Activation and Pro-inflammatory Signaling in Macrophages and Brain | Scientific Reports, link here
Scientists discover how neuroactive steroids dampen inflammatory signaling in cells, link here
“…For the first time, scientists discovered how neuroactive steroids naturally found in the brain and bloodstream inhibit the activity of a specific kind of protein called Toll-like receptors (TLR4), which have been known to play a role in inflammation in many organs, including the brain. This UNC School of Medicine-University of Maryland collaboration, published in Nature Scientific Reports, shows how the neurosteroid allopregnanolone prevents the activation of pro-inflammatory proteins important for gene regulation, as well as the creation of cytokines, which are known to be involved in many different inflammatory conditions. Inflammatory cell signaling in the brain is heightened in many neuropsychiatric conditions, including alcohol use disorder, depression, and posttraumatic stress. It is also seen in sepsis, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. “It has been very difficult to treat brain disease that involves inflammation, but allopregnanolone’s inhibition of TLR4 signaling activation in macrophages and the brain provides hope that we can develop better therapies to help millions of people suffering with these conditions,” said senior author A. Leslie Morrow, PhD, the John Andrews Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology at the UNC School of Medicine.”

“…Recent studies showed that the neurosteroid compounds pregnenolone and allopregnanolone have therapeutic effects in depression, schizophrenia and PTSD. But until now, scientists didn’t understand how. The UNC-Maryland study suggests that inhibition of inflammatory signaling may contribute to these effects, and inhibition of TLR4 signaling may be a new target for these conditions.”

“…In collaboration with Laure Aurelian, PhD, at the University of Maryland, Morrow and colleagues found that allopregnanolone inhibits TLR4 activation in macrophages, which are found in white blood cells and part of the immune system, including in the brain. In particular, the researchers found that allopregnanolone prevents TLR4 binding to MD2 proteins that work together to produce transcription factors that regulate the genes responsible for inflammatory responses in cells and tissues. Allopregnanolone also tamps down chemokines and cytokines, such as NFkB, HMGB1, MCP-1 and TNF-a, all of which are part of the immune system and involved in many different inflammatory diseases.

“…Morrow and colleagues found that pregnenolone also inhibited TLR4 signaling in macrophage cells. “Pregnenolone’s effects in the brain were less pronounced,” Morrow said. “But inhibition of peripheral inflammation protects the brain as well because systemic inflammation affects organs throughout the body indirectly.””]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-17.mp3" length="1595804" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:36</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Pregnenolone safe and effective for low-back pain</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=14</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.me/?p=14</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:36:23 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=14

After failing to find any effective treatments for the many ills that plague veterans, doctors are finally turning to older remedies successfully used back in the first half of the 20th century. Pregnenolone is one such remedy and I have been seeing more and more studies and ongoing trials with it for variety of conditions ranging from depression, to PTSD, to “addiction”, to autism, to even “abstract” pathologies such as loneliness.
The study below showed that pregnenolone relieved chronic low back pain in military veterans. The protocol used was the same as the one for humans with schizophrenia and reached a maximum of 500mg daily in two doses during the last week. Pregnenolone administration raised serum levels of neurosteroids like allopregnanolone known to have anesthetic effects and this is the proposed mechanism the authors propose as explanation for pregnenolone’s benefits.
Peat said a few times that chronic low back pain is linked to endotoxin and some of the neurosteroids derived from pregnenolone such as allopregnanolone, progesterone and 5a-DHP have known anti-endotoxin effects by blocking the 5-HT3 receptor. I think that may be the real mechanism of action, but regardless of the proposed explanation I am glad that mainstream medicine is finally starting to recognize pregnenolone’s promise as a safe treatment for chronic conditions.

I think that may be the real mechanism of action, but regardless of the proposed explanation I am glad that mainstream medicine is finally starting to recognize pregnenolone’s promise as a safe treatment for chronic conditions.

link here

New Drug Discoveries Aim to Help Veterans, Others With Chronic Pain, link here
“…Pregnenolone is a neurosteroid, which are endogenous molecules enriched in the brain, she said. They are synthesized de novo from cholesterol and are produced in the adrenal glands, gonads, and other peripheral tissues. They are neuroactive and and have pain-relieving properties. They are modulators of GABAAreceptors (proteins that were revealed as the potential target, link here of a post-partum depression treatment a decade ago in experiments with mice) and NMDA receptors and others. They have at least 7 properties relevant to pain relief, as they are potentially neuroprotective, anxiolytic, anticonvulsant, antidepressant, anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic (protecting the nerves), and have anti-aggression properties. The study enrolled 41 veterans in a treatment group taking pregnenolone, and 41 in the placebo group. The primary endpoint was the mean weekly pain rating scales averaged from daily pain diaries. Neurosteroids and other small molecules were taken via blood samples. The dosage of pregnenolone for those in the treatment group was 50 mg twice a day for 1 week, then 150 mg twice a day for 1 week, then 250 mg twice a day for 2 weeks. The pregnenolone group did significantly better than the placebo group, with a 20% reduction in pain versus a 4% reduction in the placebo group. In addition, their low back pain ratings were inversely related with serum neurosteroid levels, suggesting that their lack of those neurosteroids could have been contributing to their pain. Additionally, they had reduced levels of pain interfering in work and activity.”]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-14.mp3" length="1496780" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:03:22</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>We are live!</title>
      <link>https://haidut.me/?p=1</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">http://haidut.dyndns.org/wordpress/?p=1</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 Apr 2019 17:43:42 +0000</pubDate>
      <description><![CDATA[Original Post: https://haidut.me/?p=1

I have been thinking of starting my own blog to mirror the posts I make on the Ray Peat forum. After multiple delays and unforeseen hurdles, it looks like the blog is finally up and running. Yay!]]></description>
      <enclosure url="https://podcast.carverupton.com/haidut-blog/episodes/haidut-1.mp3" length="99044" type="audio/mpeg" />
      <itunes:duration>00:00:14</itunes:duration>
      <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>
