A Quote for Thought
... After shedding pounds of cognitive dissonance, I adopted the idea that health problems were likely the result defective energy metabolism.
While this may sound abstract, the idea shifts the conversation to the health of the living cell, rather than speculative theories about evolution or reductionist physiology obsessed with blood sugar, cholesterol and insulin.
Danny Roddy
Comments
Yes. Of course. Instead, we obsess over the PUFAs, the grains, all that endotoxin-speculation along with serotonin, fibre is bad mantra and other fun stuff that is essentially trading in one brand of reductionism for another brand of reductionism.
". . .reductionist physiology obsessed with blood sugar, cholesterol and insulin."
What about serotonin and estrogen--oh, the heart rate below 85 BPM and not being 98 degrees warm--and every other vague straw-grasping issue that we are contracted to construe as a thyroid malfunction?
Evelyn, now perhaps you'll better appreciate my comment that I made with regards to Colpo referencing Lundett. Lol.
The blood sugar and cholesterol "quip" I believe is in reference to the low carb and low fat camps. BG issues? Cut the carbs = reductionist approach. Lipid issues? Cut the fat = reductionist approach. Every malady under the sun is "because evolution", so "eat paleo" = reductionist approach.
So leaving aside ancillary arguments, Danny's post from which this quote came makes some good points in regards to the metabolic health of the cell and its relation to the metabolic health of the whole.
The young and the lean and the healthy rely on oxidative glucose metabolism, with robust insulin responses/signalling when appropriate. They are not "fat burning beasts" This declines in the obese, the sick (e.g. diabetes) and the elderly. It is up for debate (I'd like to open the discussion) how best to promote a "youthful" metabolism, but I've not seen much if any evidence countering what that is.
One of these days I'll get to look into some of this detail further. For now it was just the quote, but I see your point. I must have missed the Colpo/Lundell reference.
I picked up a copy and as I was reading it, I was reminded that we had discussed that here before: http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2011/08/join-discussion-on-metabolic.html
Danny Roddy's post seemed to be reiterating it from a different perspective.
So I went off to redo some old research and found this: http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/28440/InTech-Measurement_and_physiological_relevance_of_the_maximal_lipid_oxidation_rate_during_exercise_lipoxmax_.pdf
For me, this all boils down to: Diet didn't break it and diet won't fix it.
metabolism, with robust insulin responses/signalling when appropriate.
They are not "fat burning beasts"..."
I believe that it's more accurate to say that the young and the lean and the healthy are more metabolically-flexible (MF) and can use substrates as & when required, as per http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/279/6/E1325.full.pdf
Referring to Fig 2 in http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18765680 , the metabolically-inflexible (MI) are slower to switch substrates. RER goes up & down more slowly in response to fasting, carb re-feeding etc in the MI than in the MF.
Fig 2B is interesting. When insulin-clamped, RQ/RER is lower in the MI than in the MF, due to impairment of glucose oxidation and non-oxidative glucose disposal. The reason why I've mentioned this is because Danny Roddy has used an insulin clamp study (Simonson DC, et al. 1988 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3065112 ) as evidence to support the theory that low RQ/RER (more fat-burning) is bad.
I believe that poor diet (deficiencies) & lifestyle (no sun & Vit D) & sedentariness (no burning) are the main causes of MI/IR and that they are all fixable to some degree.
One could use the same rationate to argue that Cholesterol and blood glucose dysregulation are real issues, but how people go about addressing them is another matter. Individuals shouldn't be taking in anything that is essentially compromising those figures.
If it's clear that something in the diet is pushing the body in the wrong direction when numbers in these areas start to go wrong then action needs to be taken. In some cases, fat needs to be reduced and in other cases, sugar intake needs to be mediated or compensated for with something else. There have been scenarios where Paleo has actually improved lipid numbers, so cholesterol
management isn't necessarily about lowering fat or cutting eggs, but that doesn't meant that the figures should be ignored if the numbers are sky rocketing. The same can be said for blood glucose.
"The young and the lean and the healthy rely on oxidative glucose
metabolism, with robust insulin responses/signalling when appropriate."
Sure. They have good metabolic flexibility and they're able to readily rely on glucose as their primary fuel at the peak of exertion. But the young and the lean also happen to rely on both forms of oxidation--hence the flexibility--and especially having a low resting RQ, they'd probably rely more on fat in general (Nigel's links tell a good story). You know, part and package of the whole cardiovascular fitness and stamina jibber-jabber of having a low heart rate.
Post a Comment
Comment Moderation is ON ... I will NOT be routinely reviewing or publishing comments at this time..