Message #23535

[mccoy]

Sorry guys, I've not logged in frequently but the recent news in nutrition has revived powerfully my old interests in this field.

First of all, I'd like to reassure Pete that those guys I linked are not just doctors with excellent credentials. they are guys who reasoned against the common beliefs of medicine and experimented their beliefs on their own bodies and on many patients. They are guys who have deep intuition in the topic they speak about and are willing to share those extraordinary insights. I do not believe they are necessarily correct 100%, since individual variability is huge. Dr Attia recognizes that though. He has been an endurance athlete, he graduated in mechanical engineering then in medicine, he has a deep intuitive knowledge in many fields of practical medicine. He is a redoubtable figure. Those guys are indeed bright minds who are disseminating some fascinating aspects of the workings of the human body which were unknown so far to the greater public. I am utterly fascinated by these metabolic pathways, which are sure governed by astral intelligences, They are sort of master switches of the animal kingdom, common to yeasts, invertebrates, mammalians.
Such master switches posses an inherent deep significance in relation to survival of the species. They are intelligent biological procedures which optimize the animal existence and keep the body in repair when there is little or no food, while boosting it into growth and proliferation when there is abundant food.
The astral powers which govern such complex metabolic pathways are semi-conscious. Their work is similar to automatons, they just do what they are meant to do.

I went thru Dr. Rosedale's presentation at least 3 times. It took that to understand fully the implications of his reasonings.

mTOR, or the mammalian Target Of Rapamycine (AKA the mechanistic Target Of Rapamycine) is an ON-OFF biological switch.

mTOR is an organic sensor which senses an abundance of dietary proteins, more exactly of free amino acids and particularly leucine, which is common in many foods.

This is an ancestral mechanism. When food was scarce, mTOR was inhibited, switched OFF. Body in repair and manteinance mode. Since the time was not favourable to growth and reproduction, mTOR OFF told the body to cleanse itself, practice autofagy eliminating the damaged cells, regenerating the immune system and many otehr processes.

When the food was abundant though and provided an abundance of the building block of growth: proteins, mTOR went ON.
It told the body to grow and reproduce. It triggered a cascade of anabolic mechanisms. Pregnancy, growth, lactation. It told animals and people to assure the survival of the species. It still tells that. We are inheriting this ancestral mechanism.

After reproduction has been carried out, the spawn able to live on their own, we have grown older. We are disposable to the inexorable evolutionary process.
mTOR is still an alive sensor, but now there is no more much advantage in growing, except when we want to grow muscle mass after an illness, or during periods of hard physical labour.

When we are past our reproductive age, surely when we are over 40, mTOR in the ON mode is something we want to avoid.

We want to avoid that since with mTOR ON useless growth is spurred. Cancer cells can proliferate. Repair and manteinance is subordinate, damaged cells are not efficiently disposed of, the immune system cannot regenerate. In this ON mode the probability of occurrence of many illnesses is higher: cancer, degenerative diseases like cardio-vascular and cerebro-vascular disease, alzheimer, Parkinson. The ON mode brings about illness, the OFF mode brings about longevity. Statistically speaking of course, since we cannot avoid karma, although we can minimize it.

Bottom line is that we can downregulate this powerful master switch simply by regulating our own diet and not eating an abundance of proteins. This is a new school of thought which descends from the experiments on caloric restriction.

Now, what's abundance and what is not nobody knows exactly. Dr Rosedale suggests to stick to the 0.75 grams of proteins per kilogram ideal weight per day. He says sticking to 0.6 is best.

I've gone deeper that that, given my geeky nature, and in that I'm similar to Dr. Attia.

Sticking to our minimum proteic requirement would assure us not to starve, at the same time ensuring an OFF mTOR switch.

More on the optimum proteic requirement later.

Here I'll just say that there are other important biological master switches which govern longevity, the IGF-1 switch and the Insuline switch.

IGF-1 (Insuline-like growth factor 1) is also sensitive to dietary proteins. We want it in an OFF mode by eating fewer amino acids, especially methionine.

Low quantities of IGF-1 boost regeneration and rejuvenation of the body. hi quantities of IGF-1 (ON mode) boost cellular growth and anabolism. Bad things in old geezers.

Insuline is a blood sugar sensor. We want to avoid too large an amount of blood insuline and big peaks in its release. Insuline also feels proteins, and has an anabolic function.

To keep the insuline switch in an OFF mode we want to eat moderate amounts of sugars and starches and moderate amount of proteins.

We have seen that just by moderating the amount of proteins we ingest we can downregulate to our advantage 3 fundamental biological mechanisms which favour growth but decrease longevity.