by Dr. G. Pepper | Aug 18, 2011 | diet and weight loss, general health & nutrition, hormones, metabolism, thyroid
Zach points out that most of the posts about thyroid treatment issues at metabolism.com are from women. That makes sense because autoimmune thyroid disease is approximately 10 times more common in women than men. But man or woman, thyroid hormone treatment is still the same and his success with Cytomel is something worth noting.
Zach writes:
Hi everyone. From what I can gather, most posters here are women, well I’m a guy with similar problems. I thought my story might be useful so that men don’t think it’s a women only problem. I gained a hypothyroid diagnosis at the age of 25 due to Hashimodo’s. There was no direct cause, it runs heavily in my family. For a year, or two, maybe even three (it’s hard to tell due to widespread symptoms), I was feeling nervous, bad memory, attention problems, sleep problems, low appetite, and easily fatigued from a normal 8 hour work day. I assumed my lifestyle choices were causing these symptoms so didn’t go to the doctor for years.
Finally when I was diagnosed I was put on levothyroxine. The very first day I took it I felt IMMENSLY better. However, months down the road the symptoms gradually built up again. Every time my dose was raised, I would feel better for about 2 days, but the symptoms would gradually return. My endo decided to drop my T4 dosage and put me on a combo T4/T3 (T4 was dropped by 50 mcg and one quarter of the drop was added in as T3, so 12.5 mcg of T3). This is the first day I’ve tried it, and instantly the morning of starting on T4/T3 my body aches have almost disappeared and I am feeling much less sleepy at my desk during work.
by Dr. G. Pepper | Feb 6, 2011 | diet and weight loss, fitness, general health & nutrition, health, hormones, metabolism, nutrition
A guest contributor, Jim Rollince, shares this informative article on how the amount of light in our environment can have a big impact on health.
Jim writes:
Ambient Light During Sleep and The Affect on Metabolism
By Jim Rollince of Gym Source, distributor of home gym equipment, including treadmills, ellipticals and other home gyms.
Frustrated that your exercise routine and constantly calorie counting has not yielded any weight loss results? Are you in fact gaining more weight then before you began exercising and monitoring your food consumption? The key to your weight gain could be a result of an external factor that you never took into account, the exposure to light at night.
New research in sleep science has shown that prolonged exposure to light during the regular nighttime sleeping hours may cause weight gain. This weight gain occurs independent of daytime calorie consumption and physical activity.
These research findings came out of a study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study tested animals, and the findings have begun to raise discussion from the scientific community based on whether the human body experiences metabolic sluggishness and weight gain as a result of too much light exposure at night.
A research team from Ohio State University discovered that mice exposed to a dim light during the course of a night for roughly a two-month period, gained 50 percent more body mass than mice exposed to a regular light-dark cycle. “Although there were no differences in activity levels or daily consumption of food, the mice that lived with light at night were getting fatter than the others,” said Laura Fonken, a neuroscience doctoral student at Ohio State and director of the study.
Although the lab mice were exposed to nighttime light they did not become less active nor eat more. However, they did eat at times when they normally wouldn’t. In fact, in one part of the study when the mice were exposed to light at night and then restricted from eating with the exception of their normal feeding times, they did not experience more weight gain.
“Something about light at night was making the mice in our study want to eat at the wrong times to properly metabolize their food,” Randy Nelson, professor of neuroscience and psychology at Ohio State and co-author of the study.
The researchers found that levels of the stress hormone corticosterone were not different among the mice exposed to the dim light and mice exposed to standard light-dark. This finding was surprising for the research team since corticosterone is connected to changes in metabolism. The research has shown that changes in metabolism have the potential to cause weight gain independent of corticosterone levels.
What is the link between dim light at night and fat-causing changes in one’s metabolism? The Ohio State research team postulates that the presence of light during the night works to disrupt hormone melatonin. Hormone melatonin plays a significant role in the functioning of the metabolism. To this end, light exposure at night could in fact disrupt expression of clock genes, which aid in controlling the time animals choose to be active and eat.
Dr. Nelson furthers her comments by saying that if her team’s research results are confirmed, eating late at night is a serious contributing factor to obesity. “Light at night is an environmental factor that may be contributing to the obesity epidemic in ways that people don’t expect,” he said. “Societal obesity is correlated with a number of factors including the extent of light exposure at night.”
Past research similar to this study have been prolonged television and computer use as contributing risk factors for obesity. Yet these studies were centered in the idea that engaging in prolonged television or computer usage contributed to a lack of physical activity. The current connection between weight gain and the light coming from a TV or computer, is related to the disruption of the metabolism via the negative bodily effects of getting too much light exposure at night and eating at the wrong time.
“Clearly, maintaining body weight requires keeping caloric intake low and physical activity high, but this environmental factor may explain why some people who maintain good energy balance still gain weight,” Dr. Nelson’s press statement.
by Dr. G. Pepper | Jun 16, 2010 | diabetes, diet, fitness, general health & nutrition, health, hormones, metabolism, Uncategorized
During the past decade researchers have discovered that lack of adequate sleep can cause metabolic defects similar to those of diabetes. Blood sugar tends to be higher and insulin resistance more pronounced in people who don’t get adequate sleep. To create these abnormalities in blood sugar metabolism for studies, researchers typically deprived subjects of sleep to an extreme degree for several days. Recent research however, showed that less drastic sleep deprivation can create the same diabetes-like problems in metabolism.
In a study just published in the June edition of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (95:2963-2968, 2010), researchers in the Netherlands allowed normal subjects to sleep for only 4 hours for a single night. They found that after one night of sleep deprivation the body was not able to respond nearly as well to insulin as after a normal night of sleep.
Can this type of sleep deprivation eventually lead to permanent blood sugar problems? A group of researchers from Columbia University found that people who habitually sleep less than 5 hours per night are twice as likely to develop diabetic levels of blood sugar compared to those who sleep more.
What is the connection between sleep deprivation and diabetes? The thought is that lack of sleep fosters an inflammatory environment in the body. Whether this is because during sleep the body removes inflammatory cells and toxins or whether sleeplessness increases the production of inflammatory agents is not known. Inflammation, in turn, creates the basic metabolic defect in type 2 diabetes known as insulin resistance. Since insulin is the hormone that regulates blood sugar, if the body is resistant to insulin than high blood sugar (diabetes) can develop.
Conclusion? Work and worry less, sleep better and longer, and reduce your risk of getting diabetes. (Did I hear you say he must be dreaming?)
This article is for educational purposes only and is not meant as medical advice or treatment.
Gary Pepper, M.D.
Editor-in-Chief, Metabolism.com
by Clinical Nutritionist | Feb 3, 2010 | Uncategorized
5 steps, 5 simple steps can help us reduce dis-ease and induce ease.
1) Â EAT WHAT GROWS OUT OF THE GROUND. Â A pretty simple concept, yet the best way to have a healthy diet high in fiber, antioxidants, phytonutrients, good fats and good carbs. Â Eating 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables combined can reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, Â high blood pressure and even osteoporosis. Â Ideally eat 9 or more servings per day for optimal health. Â Add whole grains, legumes, Â nuts, seeds, herbs and spices and you are on your way to a truly health promoting diet. Â Of course it is important to minimize exposure to pesticides and toxins that can end up in our produce and we’ll cover that in a future post.
2) Â HYDRATE. Â Drinking adequate amounts of fluids is extremely important to our metabolism. Â Our bodies are at least 60% water and even mild dehydration can lead to headaches, fatigue and impaired athletic performance. Â Preferably our fluid intake will mostly come from purified water (I recommend Reverse Osmosis for several reasons we will cover in a future post). Â You can use RO water to make tea, coffee, lemonade and fruit seltzers. Â Most of us need at least 1 ounce per kilogram of body weight to start. Â We need to take in additional fluid in case of hot weather, losses during exertion, fever and other specific conditions.
3) Â BE ACTIVE. Â We all know that a sedentary lifestyle can increase our risk of heart disease and even cancer! Â Moderate activity that lasts at least 60 minutes should be done daily , or at least 5 days per week. Â To improve our fitness level, aerobic activity can be added a minimum of 3 times per week along with some weight training to build and maintain lean body mass.
4) Â RELAX. Â Stress can be as detrimental as a poor diet. Â The “fight or flight” response is great if you have to wrestle a foe or escape from one. Â A chronic “fight or flight” response is not great as the hormones coursing through our bloodstream can actually wreak havoc on our systems over time. Â A constant barrage of cortisol can even negatively affect parts of the brain. Â Deep breathing can reverse the stress response and begin to restore balance and harmony. Â Plan play time and get adequate sleep in order to keep that balance.
5) Â SMILE! Â Just the thought of a smile can make us feel really good. Â Imagine what the real thing can do!
by Dr. G. Pepper | May 27, 2009 | diet and weight loss, general health & nutrition, misc, nutrition, stress, weight gain, weight loss
Over eating and emotional eating is just another sign that you are in fact human.
You’ll see a lot of articles about how to fight the occasional eat-fest, in fact I dare you to find one woman’s or man’s magazine near the holidays and at the beginning of summer that doesn’t address this issue.
In these magazines, and even on weight loss forums all over the net, you’ll see suggestions with how to beat it: eat this food, don’t eat that food. Go for a walk, take a bath. But let’s be honest, if these things worked, we’d all be prunes from taking all of those bubble baths and ben and jerry’s would be out of business….well, okay, they’d have to at least sell the summer home in Buenos Aires.
So here’s some more practical advice on discovering your reasons for binging and how to heal from them:
There are only 2 possibilities for eating past hunger:
1) you’re not getting enough nutrients from the foods you eat.
If this is true, your cravings will be for very particular food groups and will often come with other health problems like light headedness, cranky moodswings, headaches, muscle cramps, etc.
For example, someone that does not get enough protein or is getting too much protein will crave sugary foods because both proteins and sugars will show up in your blood sugar insulin levels, keeping the right amount of proteins in your diet will keep sugar cravings at bay. If this is you, you may feel fatigued in your workouts, have irregular periods or feel sluggish.
People on over restrictive diets low on calories will crave carbohydrates and sugars because these are the sources more quickly turned into energy in the body.
If you know that you’re not eating well or are on a ___diet (fill the blank in with any one food item and you KNOW it’s a bad idea), this could be your reason. Do you feel hungry constantly, do you have trouble sleeping? These could be signs of imbalanced carbohydrates in your diet.
2)you’re not getting enough emotional outlets in your life.
Look, we’re emotional beings. We eat for hunger, yes, but we also eat because we’re stressed, tired, lonely, bored, celebrating. And we’re not the only ones. I’ve watched my cat eat until she puked (and then eat the puke, and then puke the puked food and eat it again) because she was lonely, so why should we expect more from ourselves? Okay, fine, don’t eat what you’ve puked.
If you know this is why you over eat, I ask you to think of one question: What feeling am I seeking when I eat too much?
This one question will get you a lot more than you may think. If you eat until you feel happy, what happened today or earlier that made you UNhappy? If you eat until you feel calm, what made you irritated? Generally, emotional eating form their own kind of food groups:
Crunchy salty foods = aggravation, irritation.
Sweet, soft doughy,creamy foods = sadness, need for consolation.
Soft, salty foods = boredom, loneliness.
Fatty, fried foods = feeling spacy, ungrounded, unsure.
Now of course there’s no science book that’s going to break down these parallels in what you eat, when and why. You could be ready to punch your boss in the face and reach for ice cream, not chips, but hey, don’t you want someone to console you after you punch him?
In the end, if you can start with knowing why YOU eat too much, that’s more than half the battle.
So I’m not saying the next time you go shopping to distract yourself from the Dorito aisle because it’s “bad”, but just think, what do I want to feel after I eat this? and see if that changes anything.
Kimberly, counselor since 1998 and founder of www.RedAppleYoga.com, holds a Masters in Health & Healing as a Certified Nutritional Counselor, a Masters in Education and is an internationally trained advanced  Yoga and Yoga Therapy instructor that has worked and studied in New York, Spain and in Southern India. Her practice is based in New York City. She believes in showing her clients how to combine time-tested ancient theories with modern knowledge to get the best benefits from both worlds. 
