Team Asprey

Landmark New Study: Weight Loss Alone Can Reverse Diabetes

December 5, 2017 by Team Asprey

A new landmark study in The Lancet reports that weight-loss can reverse diabetes. The British study found that type 2 diabetes, a chronic condition affecting more than 422 million people worldwide, can go into remission simply through weight loss — and no medication[ref url=”http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)33102-1/fulltext?elsca1=tlpr”].

Weight loss is an important treatment for diabetes

When patients receive a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, doctors usually prescribe medication to control blood sugar levels. In this study, researchers divided 300 participants into two groups. Half went off their medication and used a weight loss program to manage the disease. The other half stuck with their usual diabetes treatment and medication. Those on the weight-loss program lost an average of 30 pounds over the course of three to five months using a liquid diet, along with a period of food reintroduction and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Compared to just 4% in the control group, 46% of the people in the diet group went into remission with their diabetes. All participants had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within six years of the study.

This study shows just how important it is to incorporate weight loss and diet into a treatment plan as soon as a person is diagnosed with diabetes. Dietary changes that include weight loss can help people take control of their disease, avoid serious complications like heart disease and neuropathy, and possibly even reverse the disease.

Why diet works better than medication in treating diabetes

Normally, insulin, the hormone that processes sugar, keeps blood sugar levels in check — by sending sugar to cells for energy or storing it as a future energy reserve. However, when insulin cannot do its job to keep blood sugar levels in check — because of excess fat in the pancreas and liver — blood sugar levels spike. While medication brings down sugar levels, it does not address the inefficient insulin mechanism. Weight loss, on the other hand, addresses the root cause by removing excess fat in the pancreas and liver. This lets the body control blood sugar levels and the insulin mechanism naturally — without drugs that don’t address the root cause.

How to embark on your own weight-loss plan

While the people in this study used liquid meal replacements to lose weight, it’s not a realistic or healthy approach for anyone not in a controlled medical study. Instead, look to a diet that minimizes sugar and carbohydrates. Research continues to demonstrate that diabetes is most closely linked to sugar in diets[ref url=”http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938410000600″].

What’s more, studies show that a ketogenic weight loss plan, characterized by high fat and low carbs, can reverse diabetes[ref url=”https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11010-007-9448-z”][ref url=”http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900712000731″]. Get more detailed diet advice on taking control of your diabetes here.

If you decide to embark on a weight loss program for diabetes, first, connect with your doctor and make sure your physician’s treatment philosophy (drugs, diet, and what kind of diet specifically) aligns with your own.

Study Reveals Human Touch Affects Infant Genes

December 1, 2017 by Team Asprey

According to new research from the University of British Columbia and BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, the amount of comforting contact (good old-fashioned human touch) caregivers offer their infants can influence children at a molecular level. A study[ref url=”http://www.med.ubc.ca/holding-infants-or-not-can-leave-traces-on-their-genes/”] published in Development and Psychopathology revealed that children who were distressed as infants and received less physical contact were underdeveloped for their age at a cellular level.

Human touch has biochemical consequences for infants

Researchers of 94 healthy 5-week old infants asked parents to chart their child’s behavior (sleeping, fussing, crying, or feeding) and the amount of care they provided through bodily contact. Then at 4 ½ years old, the researchers sampled the childrens’ DNA to track a biochemical modification known as DNA methylation.

The study distinguished methylation changes (affecting genetic immunity and metabolism) between children who received contact and those who did not. The results? Children who received less physical comfort had an epigenetic age that was lower than expected, given their actual age. Essentially, human contact early in life has a deeply-rooted effect on biochemical changes that affect gene expression.

Supplemental research conducted on rats

While this is first study to demonstrate that the simple act of touching has profound influence on gene expression in humans, there is supplemental evidence from animal studies to support the latest claim. In The Better Baby Book, we talk about a similar experiment conducted with rats: the pups of calm mothers were swapped with pups from anxious mothers, each mother raising, licking, and grooming the other’s pups. It turned out that the anxious pups became calm under the care of the calm mother rat. Scientists then concluded that the calm mother’s behavior caused permanent changes in the way the anxious pups’ genes were translated[ref url=”http://alumni.berkeley.edu/news/california-magazine/marchapril-2008-mind-matters/nurture-nature”].

So what does this mean? Social interaction does affect gene translation in animals and humans, especially during important developmental phases. However, this doesn’t mean there’s nothing parents can do for their kids if they weren’t able to provide close, physical comfort during infancy. After all, this is just one study and more research is needed to understand all the links between human contact and healthy development — at every age.

What’s important is to recognize that there is still time to help shape their life in infinite ways.

For instance, have you hugged your child today? Hugging releases oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that encourages bonding and empathy — so hug often. Check in with your kids, — maybe even go on a mother-son or father-daughter date, one-on-one, to truly connect. To learn more nurturing ways to care for your kids, read 8 Hacks to Stress-free Mornings with Kids and Can Kids Eat Bulletproof?

What may matter most is that they feel loved, so their brains wire to attach to you — to trust you, and in turn, trust the world.

New Study Reveals Your Heart Attack Risk Differs by Gender

November 30, 2017 by Team Asprey

A new study[ref url=”https://www2.rsna.org/timssnet/Media/pressreleases/pr_target.cfm?id=569″] presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) finds that when it comes to heart disease, men and women have very different risk factors. Specifically, women with high amounts of coronary plaque are at greater risk of major cardiac events (i.e. heart attack and stroke) than men with the same amount of plaque build-up.

What your gender says about your heart attack risk

Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina reviewed the results of a coronary CT angiography (CTA) — a noninvasive test assessing coronary arteries for blockages — of 480 patients with severe chest pain. A CTA determines the number of vessel segments containing plaque; the severity of blockages; as well as plaque composition. Comparing CTA results over a 12.8-month follow-up period, the research team measured plaque buildup (extent, severity, and type — calcified, noncalcified, or mixed) against instances of cardiac events like heart attack or bypass surgery.

The findings revealed that women with extensive plaque build-up of any kind are at greater cardiovascular risk than men. However, cardiovascular risk is greater in men overall, particularly in instances where they show signs of non-calcified plaque. In other words, there’s a lot we still don’t know about the progression of heart disease, and that the hardening of one’s arteries, aka atherosclerosis, doesn’t always equate to heart attack risk, depending on your gender and other factors.

Why is this study important?

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. — for both men and women[ref url=”https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm”] — which is why it’s important than ever to adopt a heart-healthy lifestyle. The problem is, experts don’t necessarily agree on what constitutes a heart-healthy diet anymore.

For instance, the American Heart Association (AHA) recently released their latest dietary guidelines telling Americans to eat processed vegetable oils instead of stable, natural oils like coconut oil and grass-fed butter.[ref url=”http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2017/06/15/CIR.0000000000000510″] While this may seem like sound advice, new research suggests that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fats, like those found in safflower and corn oils, increase the risk of heart attack and death.[ref url=”http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i1246 “] Another landmark study from 2017 found that saturated fat does not clog your arteries, as previously thought[ref url=”http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2017/03/31/bjsports-2016-097285”]. The study’s authors went on to say that the treatment of heart disease requires “an urgent paradigm shift,” and “despite popular belief among doctors and the public, the conceptual model of dietary saturated fat clogging a pipe is just plain wrong.”

Meanwhile, a report last week found that more than 40 years ago, the sugar industry covered up evidence proving that sugar is linked to heart disease. This shifted the heart disease blame to fats and led to the low-fat craze that was supposedly heart-healthier. Unfortunately, replacing fats with sugar pushed obesity and heart disease rates even higher. Yet, still, the AHA recommends low-fat, high-sugar snacks like yogurt and cereal.

What you can do to minimize your heart disease risk

A happy heart begins with a diet that’s high in quality, stable fats, moderate in protein, and low in carbohydrates and sugar. Here’s how to incorporate healthy fats into your diet.
Learn why coconut oil is better than vegetable oil here.

And if you’d like to try out the Bulletproof Diet, here’s how you can get started.

New Study Shows Exercise Alone Will Not Save Your Knees

November 29, 2017 by Team Asprey

Obesity and arthritis can go hand-in-hand — which is why doctors often recommend weight loss to protect your joints. New research presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America confirms that losing weight can slow down cartilage deterioration of the knees — with a catch. Losing weight through exercise alone will not save your knees. However, weight loss via diet will[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4907808/”].

The best way to protect your knees and lose weight

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease affecting approximately one-third of adults over the age of 60, and the knees are one of the most common places to get it. Because it’s impossible to reverse cartilage loss, slowing down its progression is key in treating arthritis. While the researchers knew that weight loss can help treat knee arthritis specifically, they wanted to find out if all methods produced the same results.

The findings reveal that to get the biggest benefit for your joints, your weight loss program should involve diet and exercise or diet alone. Exercise by itself did not contribute to cartilage protection.

What the study showed

The study involved 760 people from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (a nationwide research study for the prevention and treatment of knee osteoarthritis) who had a body mass index of greater than 25. The patients, who either had mild to moderate osteoarthritis or presented disease risk factors, were divided into two groups — those who lost weight and a control group who did not. The weight loss group was then divided by weight loss method: diet and exercise, diet alone, and exercise alone.

The researchers used an MRI to measure participants’ knee cartilage degeneration at the beginning of the study, then at 48 and 96 months. The weight loss group showed demonstrably lower degrees of cartilage degeneration, compared to the control group by the study’s end. However, this result only presented itself among the patients who lost weight through diet and exercise or through diet alone. In fact, while patients who lost weight through exercise alone lost as much weight as the other weight-loss groups, there were no pronounced differences in cartilage degeneration compared to the control group who didn’t lose any weight at all.

What you should take away from this study

First, don’t throw in the towel on all that exercise-induced sweating just yet. While exercise alone may not help your knees, including it with a dietary change will. Additionally, you may wish to rethink the type of exercise you do. While excessively and repeatedly pounding the pavement (i.e., running) may speed up knee degeneration[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16790540″], resistance training (exercises that prompt your muscles to work against external force, i.e. doing pushups or using dumbbells) is a low-impact way to decrease knee pain and improve daily function[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3635671/”]. Resistance training has also been shown to increase lean muscle mass; boost insulin sensitivity and metabolic rate; balance hormones; and improve resilience to fatigue, disease, pathogens, and toxins[ref url=”https://daveasprey.com/bulletproof-body/”]. There are plenty of good reasons to sweat it out—and resistance training is truly the bees’ knees in this case.

Secondly, to preserve your knees, diet is critical to a weight-loss regimen. This post offers six nutritional ways to get relief from arthritis, including: switching to good salt, avoiding sugar, adding collagen to your diet and supplementing with anti-inflammatory spices like turmeric.

Report: Sugar Industry Hid Study Linking Sugar to Heart Disease and Cancer

November 22, 2017 by Team Asprey

A new investigation[ref url=”http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003460″] has found that the sugar industry knew about the harmful health effects of sugar decades ago, and buried it – drawing comparisons to similar cover-up tactics used by the tobacco industry.

More than four decades ago, the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) funded an animal study called Project 259 that looked into the effects of sugar on cardiovascular health. They compared a high-sugar diet to a high-starch diet and found that table sugar, or sucrose, was linked to heart disease and bladder cancer. When the scientists presented these initial findings, the sugar board pulled the plug on the study and buried the evidence.

Why the sugar industry’s cover-up matters

This finding is especially significant because, back in the 1960s when the study occurred, the idea that diet could impact our health – specifically heart health – was still a new one, and the debate between fat vs. sugar was raging. The results showed that sugar was in fact influencing heart disease risk, not to mention acting as a possible carcinogen. Had the research been made public, it could have influenced heart-health dietary recommendations. Instead, argues professor of medicine Stanton Glantz, PhD, author of the investigation, “they shifted all of the blame onto fats.” If you’re a product of the 70s and 80s, you’ll recall the birth of low-fat, high-sugar snack foods that were supposedly healthier for you.

What the original study on sugar found

According to the internal documents discovered by UCSF researchers, the 1968 study found a significant increase in triglycerides (a type of fat found in the blood) in rats fed a high-sugar diet, compared to rats on a traditional diet. These results, which were revealed to SRF, demonstrated that gut microbiota play a causal role in carbohydrate-induced hypertriglyceridemia – i.e., heart disease caused by sugar. High levels of triglycerides increase the risk of heart attack and stroke in people. The study also found that rats fed a high-sugar diet versus a high-starch diet showed higher levels of beta-glucuronidase, an enzyme associated with bladder cancer, in their urine.

Big business = bad health

Glantz and his co-authors speculate that the so-called sugar controversy “may be rooted in more than 60 years of food and beverage industry manipulation of science.” This revelation reminds us why the biohacking community exists in the first place. Big industries have looming lobbies and whopping agendas to look out for their bottom line so it’s essential to consider where the facts are coming from, and take your health into your own hands.

Sugar vs. fat – the debate continues

What we now know more than 40 years later is that sugar intake is connected to heart disease. In addition to elevating triglycerides, it deregulates your hormones – wreaking havoc on testosterone[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22804876″] and spiking the release of cortisol and estrogen – which in excess can lead to heart disease[ref url=”http://www.ahjonline.com/article/0002-8703(88)90508-X/pdf”].

Meanwhile, the link between saturated fat and heart disease is murkier. While the American Heart Association still agrees with government recommendations to limit saturated fat, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics says there’s a lack of evidence connecting the two.[ref url=”http://www.eatrightpro.org/resource/media/press-releases/public-policy/academy-commends-strong-dietary-guidelines-report”] And in fact, recent studies call into question whether there’s a link at all.[ref url=”http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2016/11/30/ajcn.115.123463.abstract”] While a high-fat diet may feel counterintuitive to what you’ve learned about heart health until recently, it might not seem so strange now.

Here’s what you can do to cut back on sugar and embrace a heart-healthier lifestyle:

Almost Half of All Cancer Cases Can Be Prevented, Says New Study

November 21, 2017 by Team Asprey

Cancer is a tricky disease to navigate. A perplexing combination of genetic and environmental/lifestyle variables contribute to it—but new research suggests almost half of all cases are actually within your control.

A study led by Dr. Farhad Islami at the American Cancer Society[ref url=”http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.21440/full”], published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, analyzed cancer data and found that 42% of all cancer cases and 45% of cancer deaths could be avoided by changing certain lifestyle habits. That’s good news considering that cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the United States.

Which lifestyle factors contribute to cancer?

The findings reveal which habits (otherwise known as modifiable risk factors) contribute to the most cancer cases—and they are telling. Unsurprisingly, smoking came in at number one, causing 20% of all cancer cases. Being overweight or obese was the second-riskiest factor, accounting for nearly 8% of cases. Drinking alcohol constituted 5.6% of cases; unsafe UV exposure accounted for 4.7% of cases; while lack of exercise claimed 2.9% of cases. Eating too few fruits and veggies accounted for 2% of cancers. Just last week, the CDC reported that 90% of Americans are not eating enough produce.[ref url=”https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6645a1.htm?s_cid=mm6645a1_w&utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=f26644060f-MR&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-f26644060f-150444909″] Lastly, consumption of red and processed meat accounted for 1.3% of cases. (Find out why all red meat is not created equal.)

How to minimize your cancer risk

This study demonstrates that while all cancers may not be avoidable, a large percentage of them are within your control. To live a better, healthier life and hopefully keep diseases like cancer in check, take these next steps to reduce your risk:

Quit smoking without medication. Here’s how.
Unwind with kava instead of alcohol.
Try a fat-fueled weight loss plan.
Adopt a HIIT-style workout that keeps the weight off (without a major time commitment)
Eat more vegetables with these tasty recipes: Roasted Butternut Squash, Bulletproof Veggie Buddha Bowl

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