In recent years the human APOE gene has become a hot topic for a number of reasons. You get one allele from each parent and each comes in three variants. These alleles correlate to a number of major biological traits. If you are among the 36% who have one of the less common APOE alleles (APOE2 or APOE4) it would be very beneficial to find out because your ideal diet and exercise will likely be very different from the typical regimens "work" for "most people" i.e. the other 64%. You can find out by doing a
APOE4 = 26% population population, thought to be the "oldest" allele, more slow twitch muscle fibers ex. marathon runners, higher carb/lower fat diets, handle fats well
APOE3 = 64% population"neutral" health wise, moderate fast twitch muscles ex. baseball, basketball, etc.
APOE2 = 10% population super fast twitch muscles ex. sprinters & boxers, special high risk for Alzheimers, suggested very high fat/low carb diet
APOE4 = "Ancestral Allele"?
Some scientists believe that APOE4 is the oldest allele. It seems to be very rare among highly agricultural populations and is thought to be a hunter-gatherer trait. One scientist calls it a "food collection" allele vs. a "food production" allele, viz. foraging for food in circumstances where supply is sporadic and unpredictable.
APOE4 = "Endurance" Allele?
A 2007 study by Williams & Folland poinpoints the APOE4 gene as optimal for the slow-twitch muscle fibers required for endurance sports like marathon running etc., while APOE2 is optimal for fastest-twitch muscle fibers required for explosive sports like sprints boxing, etc. This seems logical insofar as the fastest-twitch muscles require sugar (glycogen) to function whereas endurance muscle requires only oxygen.
APOE Spatial Variation in Geographic Distribution AfricaAPOE Gene varies widely across Africa. Since Africa is the cradle of humankind and APOE4 is the oldest allele, one might think that most Africans have APOE4. However, it is well known that many Africans excel at sprinting and other fast-twitch sports, which indicate APOE2 gene, the other extreme from APOE4. In fact, the 2007 study by Williams & Folland notes that West Africa is home to a higher percentage of sprinters but East Africa has more endurance athletes. This makes sense as East Africa (Ethiopia/Kenya/Tanzania/etc.) is the cradle of human civilization hence it would seem logical that it contains the highest percentage of the oldest allele APOE4.
Diet and the APOE4 Gene
There is extremely interesting discussion surrounding the question of what sort of diet suits the APOE4 gene since the risk of Alzhimer's is so high, but the topic is well worth investigating regardless of Alzheimer's risk. There is an "Alzheimer's Diet" which is super-high in fat, and indeed many recommend a high fat diet for APOE4, including Stefanie Seneff of MIT http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/ who has published studies on Alzheimer's like this one http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/EJIM_PUBLISHED.pdf
There is a book called the "APOE Gene Diet" but it after giving a brief outline of the different APOE Genes it its diet recommendations for the three types are so similar as to be meaningless, it is not a good source of dietary guidelines for APOE.
Some interesting sites on APOE
A study that seeks the genetic markers of elite endurance athletes and find APOE4 to be the endurance allele
http://jp.physoc.org/content/586/1/113.full
APOE4 - The Ancestral Allele
http://primale4.wordpress.com/
23andme.com
Gene Testing
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Orexin - a hormone that controls waking up, staying awake, and lose weight
For anyone trying to figure out why it is hard to wake up and/or stay awake... the hormone orexin may be part of your answer.
Orexin - a wakefulness and weight control hormone
Orexin is a hormone which stimulates wakefulness, in fact it is deficient in people with narcolepsy. It also appears to be absolutely necessary to keep weight under control--without it, mice in a study automatically became obese. So what stimulates the production of orexin?
Turns out protein (amino acids) stimulates orexin. Conversely, high sugars block orexin. However, protein also prevents sugars from blocking orexin, so protein is doubly necessary to keep orexin secretion going.
So eating enough protein especially if and when you eat carbs/sugars is the key factor in producing enough orexin to stay awake and keep weight under control.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/10/05/hormone-orexin-may-help-control-weight-gain-study-finds/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/why-sugar-makes-us-sleepy-and-protein-wakes-us-up/
Orexin - a wakefulness and weight control hormone
Orexin is a hormone which stimulates wakefulness, in fact it is deficient in people with narcolepsy. It also appears to be absolutely necessary to keep weight under control--without it, mice in a study automatically became obese. So what stimulates the production of orexin?
Turns out protein (amino acids) stimulates orexin. Conversely, high sugars block orexin. However, protein also prevents sugars from blocking orexin, so protein is doubly necessary to keep orexin secretion going.
So eating enough protein especially if and when you eat carbs/sugars is the key factor in producing enough orexin to stay awake and keep weight under control.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/10/05/hormone-orexin-may-help-control-weight-gain-study-finds/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/why-sugar-makes-us-sleepy-and-protein-wakes-us-up/
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Road work for thighs and rear ends and the wrong advice for women and men
Some people have naturally big thighs and rear ends due to fat, muscle, or both. They want to slim their thighs, not bulk them up. This site addresses the issue.
http://www.laststopfatloss.com/how-to-lose-weight-in-your-thighs
For those with a lot of bulk in their thighs and rear end, the standard one-size-fits all fitness advice to start by building muscle in the legs does not apply--it will just increase the disproportionate bulk, even if it is muscle. Rather than squats, sprints, and bike riding, etc., for these people (including me!) "road work" i.e. long very slow running 45-60 minutes is a better approach to these areas.
Road Work
Boxers, especially the heavier weights, do road work to keep their weight under control and build endurance for long fights. It is just running really slow over 45-60 minutes. Forget distance, it doesn't matter, you may cover just a three laps on a track in 45 minutes. The motion is almost like bouncing/jumping rope/shuffling because you are going so slow.
Joe Frazier doing road work
Somewhere out there a fitness guru is saying "Wrong! You'll lose all your precious muscle this way! You have to build muscle to increase fat burning!" Again, this is for those with too much muscle mass in the thighs, not those at the other end of the spectrum struggling to hold on to muscle .
Adding Cardio Intensity Intervals to Road Work
Slow running can work together with short anaerobic exercises like pushups to amplify the intensity without bulking up.
To add a little cardio intensity spice to long slow running without bulking legs, sprinkle in short intervals of anaerobic exercise like pushups every so often 6-8 times over the 45-60 minutes. For example, if you're at a track just drop once every lap or two and do 1-5 pushups, pop up and go right back to running slow. It is not meant to be a full chest workout or to work to failure. What this does is forces the heart to work heart to send the blood from general circulation (running) to local muscle groups (chest, arms) and then quickly back out to general circulation as you go right back to running. You make feel a little kick of light headedness and adrenaline as you switch back to running, that tells you you need more blood in general circulation, which is good
Instead of pushups during the intervals, other upper body exercises work like tricep dips on a park/bleacher bench or a couple quick pullups if there is a bar around somewhere. Or bring some dumbells and leave them on the side to do curls, kickbacks, or military presses. Best thing I find is to mix several of these exercises so you're doing 4 of one and 4 of another rather than overworking the same muscles 8 sets. Whatever the exercise, go right back to running as soon as your done.
Frequent Mis-Advice for Women
Women naturally tend to have bigger thighs and rear ends than men so it is a key area that they focus on in exercise. One of the biggest mistakes told to women is that to "tone" their thighs they should do any exercise that works the muscles there--ride the stationary bike, do squats, sprints, etc. But this is counterproductive for women shaped like "spoons" and "hourglasses" i.e. who naturally have curves and bulk, and you see the results everywhere around you jumping out of the spandex: women who have done so much leg exercise trying to slim their thighs and yet their thighs have gotten bigger than when they started. This point is spelled out in the website above and also in the book Escape Your Shape. Road work (above) is a better way to slim and tone thighs and rear end.
http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Your-Shape-Smarter-Harder/dp/0743211448
Frequent Mis-Advice for those with natural thigh muscle mass
There are others, men and women, who just have a lot of muscle (rather than soft curves) naturally on their thighs and rear end (and then there are people who have both). They are usually good sprinters. I am one of them; when I was going into 1st grade and looking for Catholic school uniform pants, we had to go to Sears to get "Husky" size because of my thighs, even though I wasn't particularly chunky anywhere else. (I always wondered what Alaskan Huskies had to do with pants?) And I still managed to split a few pairs during the primary grades. So the standard advice about muscle for guys (usually written solely from the perspective of gaining muscle rather than overall body shape and proportion) to focus on squats and sprints as the foundation of muscle building doesn't work for us, it just builds disproportionately-bulky muscle in this area. Pants sizes go through the roof; yes, there is such a thing as too much muscle. A better approach is to do road work for the lower body and focus on lifting in other areas like arms, shoulders, etc. which are usually naturally less bulky in those with naturally big thighs.
http://www.laststopfatloss.com/how-to-lose-weight-in-your-thighs
For those with a lot of bulk in their thighs and rear end, the standard one-size-fits all fitness advice to start by building muscle in the legs does not apply--it will just increase the disproportionate bulk, even if it is muscle. Rather than squats, sprints, and bike riding, etc., for these people (including me!) "road work" i.e. long very slow running 45-60 minutes is a better approach to these areas.
Road Work
Boxers, especially the heavier weights, do road work to keep their weight under control and build endurance for long fights. It is just running really slow over 45-60 minutes. Forget distance, it doesn't matter, you may cover just a three laps on a track in 45 minutes. The motion is almost like bouncing/jumping rope/shuffling because you are going so slow.
Joe Frazier doing road work
Somewhere out there a fitness guru is saying "Wrong! You'll lose all your precious muscle this way! You have to build muscle to increase fat burning!" Again, this is for those with too much muscle mass in the thighs, not those at the other end of the spectrum struggling to hold on to muscle .
Adding Cardio Intensity Intervals to Road Work
Slow running can work together with short anaerobic exercises like pushups to amplify the intensity without bulking up.
To add a little cardio intensity spice to long slow running without bulking legs, sprinkle in short intervals of anaerobic exercise like pushups every so often 6-8 times over the 45-60 minutes. For example, if you're at a track just drop once every lap or two and do 1-5 pushups, pop up and go right back to running slow. It is not meant to be a full chest workout or to work to failure. What this does is forces the heart to work heart to send the blood from general circulation (running) to local muscle groups (chest, arms) and then quickly back out to general circulation as you go right back to running. You make feel a little kick of light headedness and adrenaline as you switch back to running, that tells you you need more blood in general circulation, which is good
Instead of pushups during the intervals, other upper body exercises work like tricep dips on a park/bleacher bench or a couple quick pullups if there is a bar around somewhere. Or bring some dumbells and leave them on the side to do curls, kickbacks, or military presses. Best thing I find is to mix several of these exercises so you're doing 4 of one and 4 of another rather than overworking the same muscles 8 sets. Whatever the exercise, go right back to running as soon as your done.
Frequent Mis-Advice for Women
Women naturally tend to have bigger thighs and rear ends than men so it is a key area that they focus on in exercise. One of the biggest mistakes told to women is that to "tone" their thighs they should do any exercise that works the muscles there--ride the stationary bike, do squats, sprints, etc. But this is counterproductive for women shaped like "spoons" and "hourglasses" i.e. who naturally have curves and bulk, and you see the results everywhere around you jumping out of the spandex: women who have done so much leg exercise trying to slim their thighs and yet their thighs have gotten bigger than when they started. This point is spelled out in the website above and also in the book Escape Your Shape. Road work (above) is a better way to slim and tone thighs and rear end.
http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Your-Shape-Smarter-Harder/dp/0743211448
Frequent Mis-Advice for those with natural thigh muscle mass
There are others, men and women, who just have a lot of muscle (rather than soft curves) naturally on their thighs and rear end (and then there are people who have both). They are usually good sprinters. I am one of them; when I was going into 1st grade and looking for Catholic school uniform pants, we had to go to Sears to get "Husky" size because of my thighs, even though I wasn't particularly chunky anywhere else. (I always wondered what Alaskan Huskies had to do with pants?) And I still managed to split a few pairs during the primary grades. So the standard advice about muscle for guys (usually written solely from the perspective of gaining muscle rather than overall body shape and proportion) to focus on squats and sprints as the foundation of muscle building doesn't work for us, it just builds disproportionately-bulky muscle in this area. Pants sizes go through the roof; yes, there is such a thing as too much muscle. A better approach is to do road work for the lower body and focus on lifting in other areas like arms, shoulders, etc. which are usually naturally less bulky in those with naturally big thighs.
Good website for fat loss
This is a guy with very practical information.
http://www.laststopfatloss.com/
http://www.laststopfatloss.com/
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Workout and diet for endomorphs and endo-mesomorphs
Good discussion about approaches to workouts and diet for endomorphs and endo-mesomorphs (like me).
forums.johnstonefitness.com/showthread.php?t=52054
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Why our bodies are unnaturally full of acids
Weak Acids
Weak acids are found in fruits and vegetables as well as whey protein and yogurt, honey, and some other foods. They can make you tired, cranky, etc. and make your skin dry. This is not natural and is largely a result of the industrialized way that we harvest crops.
Crops lose their acids as they ripen on the vine, but if you pick them before they are ripe they won't lose those acids as they ripen off the vine. In industrialized farming, crops (like apples) are harvested before they are ripe, then ripen off the vine while in storage (refrigerated train cars, warehouses, etc.) waiting to be sold. So when you eat it, it looks ripe but still has all the acids it did when it was picked unripe.
Solution? Either search high and low for crops picked recently or for a farm where you can "pick your own", or eat the few fruits that are always low in acids like bananas, dates, and pears (there are many lists online of food acid content).
Strong Acids
Strong acids are created by our digestive systems. If you eat a steak or a bunch of fatty foods (keeping in mind that fats are not bad) your body creates acids to break the food down. Some people process this acid efficiently (especially when they drink plenty of water), but many people are slow in processing strong acids and get acidosis, which can make you really tired, give you an ulcer, etc. Just ask last year's NBA MVP Derrick Rose, who went to the hospital with 2 ulcers the same year due to a love of spicy food and candy.
From ESPN Chicago:
"'Everybody's got their poison, and mine is sugar... I'll be having binges where I'll just eat tons and tons of candy,' he said. 'I could go without eating candy for like two weeks, but right when I [have] the first taste of candy in a day, I'll go through like two pounds of candy. For real, like two pounds.'
A sugar high isn't a problem for a grizzled candy veteran like Rose.
'I'm so used to it,' he said. 'I could eat a whole bunch of candy and then go to sleep. Most people would be up, [saying] 'I can't go sleep.' I'd go right to sleep, man. That's how bad it is. I wish I could [stop].'
While Skittles and Gummy Bears are some of his favorites, Rose is an equal opportunity candy-a-holic. Everything but chocolate, that is."
Funny, chocolate is the only candy I do eat... anyway.
Weak vs. Strong Acids
These fruit and vegetable acids are weak acids, which the body must get rid of through oxidation (i.e. breathing). They are in the fruit itself, unlike strong acids (digestive acids) which are produced by us to break down foods and must be expelled through water i.e. sweat and urine.
Some people have difficulty expelling acids
The process of getting rid of acids is very fast for some people and very slow for others. So what happens for those who get rid of them slowly? The acids build up in the bloodstream and the are stored off in the tissues. Not good. As a countermeasure, the body releases alkaline minerals from the muscles to neutralize the acids--calcium and magnesium. So many people with acidosis end up with lowered minerals as well as losing muscle mass.
How to get rid of acids
Getting rid of acids is not hard once you know what to do; the bigger problem is to stop eating foods that bring/create them.
A quick way to get rid of acids is to neutralize them by taking common alkaline minerals. (Alkaline is the opposite of acidic.) The easiest are Calcium and Magnesium. You may actually feeler lighter in 20 minutes after a handful of magnesium tablets make their way into your bloodstream; they are neutralizing those acids (both strong and weak acids)in your tissues so that they literally disappear.
You can also speed up the process of getting rid of weak acids by doing aerobic exercise, the increase in respiration/oxygen intake will speed up the body's natural oxidation process.
For strong acids, you can help the body by drinking more water, which is needed for the kidneys to process these acids.
Christopher Vasey wrote one of the best books on Acids
The Acid-Alkaline Diet for Optimum Health: Restore Your Health by Creating pH Balance in Your Diet
Weak acids are found in fruits and vegetables as well as whey protein and yogurt, honey, and some other foods. They can make you tired, cranky, etc. and make your skin dry. This is not natural and is largely a result of the industrialized way that we harvest crops.
Crops lose their acids as they ripen on the vine, but if you pick them before they are ripe they won't lose those acids as they ripen off the vine. In industrialized farming, crops (like apples) are harvested before they are ripe, then ripen off the vine while in storage (refrigerated train cars, warehouses, etc.) waiting to be sold. So when you eat it, it looks ripe but still has all the acids it did when it was picked unripe.
Solution? Either search high and low for crops picked recently or for a farm where you can "pick your own", or eat the few fruits that are always low in acids like bananas, dates, and pears (there are many lists online of food acid content).
Strong Acids
Strong acids are created by our digestive systems. If you eat a steak or a bunch of fatty foods (keeping in mind that fats are not bad) your body creates acids to break the food down. Some people process this acid efficiently (especially when they drink plenty of water), but many people are slow in processing strong acids and get acidosis, which can make you really tired, give you an ulcer, etc. Just ask last year's NBA MVP Derrick Rose, who went to the hospital with 2 ulcers the same year due to a love of spicy food and candy.
From ESPN Chicago:"'Everybody's got their poison, and mine is sugar... I'll be having binges where I'll just eat tons and tons of candy,' he said. 'I could go without eating candy for like two weeks, but right when I [have] the first taste of candy in a day, I'll go through like two pounds of candy. For real, like two pounds.'
A sugar high isn't a problem for a grizzled candy veteran like Rose.
'I'm so used to it,' he said. 'I could eat a whole bunch of candy and then go to sleep. Most people would be up, [saying] 'I can't go sleep.' I'd go right to sleep, man. That's how bad it is. I wish I could [stop].'
While Skittles and Gummy Bears are some of his favorites, Rose is an equal opportunity candy-a-holic. Everything but chocolate, that is."
Funny, chocolate is the only candy I do eat... anyway.
Weak vs. Strong Acids
These fruit and vegetable acids are weak acids, which the body must get rid of through oxidation (i.e. breathing). They are in the fruit itself, unlike strong acids (digestive acids) which are produced by us to break down foods and must be expelled through water i.e. sweat and urine.
Some people have difficulty expelling acids
The process of getting rid of acids is very fast for some people and very slow for others. So what happens for those who get rid of them slowly? The acids build up in the bloodstream and the are stored off in the tissues. Not good. As a countermeasure, the body releases alkaline minerals from the muscles to neutralize the acids--calcium and magnesium. So many people with acidosis end up with lowered minerals as well as losing muscle mass.
How to get rid of acids
Getting rid of acids is not hard once you know what to do; the bigger problem is to stop eating foods that bring/create them.
A quick way to get rid of acids is to neutralize them by taking common alkaline minerals. (Alkaline is the opposite of acidic.) The easiest are Calcium and Magnesium. You may actually feeler lighter in 20 minutes after a handful of magnesium tablets make their way into your bloodstream; they are neutralizing those acids (both strong and weak acids)in your tissues so that they literally disappear.
You can also speed up the process of getting rid of weak acids by doing aerobic exercise, the increase in respiration/oxygen intake will speed up the body's natural oxidation process.
For strong acids, you can help the body by drinking more water, which is needed for the kidneys to process these acids.
Christopher Vasey wrote one of the best books on Acids
The Acid-Alkaline Diet for Optimum Health: Restore Your Health by Creating pH Balance in Your Diet
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