Tag Archives: mTOR

Medicine, Men's Health, Opinion, Women's Health

THE DOCTORS 101 CHRONIC SYMPTOMS And CONDITIONS #23: OLD AGE / GROWING OLD

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Old age is an inevitable condition if you are lucky enough to live a long life. Middle aged people say it begins at 70 years of age. According to an Elysium survey of people 40 and older, the average American FEELS old for the first time at age 47 years.

In the distant past, 50 was CONSIDERED to be old. The generally better conditions and Medicine of modern times keeps extending LIFESPAN, if not always HEALTHSPAN. Old age is certainly a Condition, and it is for sure Chronic, thereby qualifying for inclusion, but is it a Disease?

It is not considered a disease by the authorities, and so it doesn’t gather research funds like it should. What exactly IS old age? Being 88 Years old, and a physician, I feel qualified to comment. Old age is a collection of past accidents and sports injuries plus complications of past illnesses engrafted on a gradually deteriorating body.

Where does Obesity and Metabolic syndrome fit in this rubric? The Plague of our time fits in the disease category. It is definitely preventable, although with difficulty. Please search past postings for more information on this topic.

In what way does the body gradually deteriorate? Any organized, non-random high information structure gradually becomes more disordered, and “worn away” with the passage of TIME, the destroyer. Entropy (disorder) gradually increases, in the absence of corrective energy input.

Even rocks and mountains eventually erode, given enough time. One of the most interesting characteristics of life is that it maintains its integrity for an inordinate amount of time, given its complexity and furious dynamism.

Every day our DNA sustains thousands of molecular ruptures from high energy radiation and other stressors. Proofreading and repair mechanisms are employed, at high energy cost, to repair these breaks. This corrective is especially efficient when we are young and vigorous; In our youth, our reproductive years, growth and repair predominate. Gradually, growth ceases, repair mechanisms age, and we become old.

Our Darwinian “warranty” expires. We are left with an aging body, unimportant to evolution. We are long on experience and short on future. But we still have a marvelous metabolism at our disposal, depending on our lifestyle. There are a number of metabolic pathways which affect aging, 2 of which have been more studied.

The mTOR pathway is most attuned to youth, senses nutrients and gears up for ANABOLISM, or growth. If you have not been careful to tailor your food intake to suit your decreasing requirements, your efficient metabolism stores it away for a rainy day, around your belly and in your arteries, a bad effect from an essential mechanism. Antagonistic Pleiotropy is the name for a body mechanism that can be good for one function (or age) and bad for another.

The Sirtuin system is also important in aging, and has a variety of housekeeping functions, including mitochondrial maintenance. It is activated by exercise. The cells of our bodies change with aging. In old tissues, there are less stem cells and other young, functional units. There are more damaged, dysfunctional “zombie” cells that don’t do much but promote inflammation, and hence more inflammatory cells accumulate.

Controlling the mTOR System and promoting the sirtuins help increase apoptosis and get rid of dysfunctional cells, including cancer. DOCTORS SHOULD PRESCRIBE EXERCISE, as well as SLEEP AND DIET, like they do medicine, and maybe we wouldn’t need so many pills. We might also feel better into old age.

–Dr. C.

Disease, Metabolic syndrome, Entropy, DNA, Metabolism, Apoptosis, Zombie cells

Dr. C "Comments", Men's Health, Studies, Women's Health

DIET STUDIES: HIGH-SUGAR DIETS SUPPRESS DOPAMINE, LEADING TO OVEREATING

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From Phys.org/Univ. of Michigan (June 9, 2020):

High-Sugar Diet Dampens Release of Dopamine Causing Overeating - Univ of Michigan - Credit Christina May and Monica Dus

“On a high-sugar diet, we find that the fruit flies’ dopaminergic neurons are less active, because the high sugar intake decreases the intensity of the sweetness signal that comes from the mouth,” Dus said. “Animals use this feedback from dopamine to make predictions about how rewarding or filling a food will be. In the high-sugar diet flies, this process is broken—they get less dopamine neuron activation and so end up eating more than they need, which over time makes them gain weight.”

It is well known that consuming food and drink high in sugar is not great for us, but scientists are continuing to unravel the intricacies of how the sweet stuff drives negative health outcomes. The latest finding comes from researchers at the University of Michigan, who through studies in fruit flies have found that excess amounts of sugar can shut down crucial neural circuits linked to regulating satiety, possibly leading to overeating in humans.

Read entire article

COMMENTARY

SUGAR IS A POISON.

A novel illustration of sugars’ lethality was the Georgia sugar refinery explosion in 2008, which killed 14 people. Finely ground sugar is flammable.

Sugar appeared early in civilization, but it was expensive, sparing all but the wealthy of its’ depredations, mainly tooth decay.  Only with the post WWII expansion of wealth was it consumed excessively to produce the diseases of overeating. The developed world now consumes over 70 pounds of sugar per person, amounting to over 250 CALORIES PER DAY!

This  article shows how SUGAR acts like a DRUG In its INTERFERENCE with the DOPAMINERGIC Reward system. The neurons send less signal, so you need MORE SUGAR to satisfy.

The metabolic systems through which overeating and sugar causes the OBESITY, DIABETES, VASCULAR DISEASE and Early DEMENTIA are convoluted.The best detailed explication is in the NEJM article in intermittent fasting, a healthful practice that is the polar opposite of overeating.

Two very important metabolic mechanisms are discussed, the mTOR system and the Sirtuin system. These systems are important for NUTRIENT SENSING and repair, and conserved in all animals. They worked just fine in our early ancestors.

It seems that primitive man was not blessed (or is it cursed) with easy overabundance or food, and actually spent hours or days in Hunger. When times were good, his body put on muscle, and stored fat against the hard times to come. This is called ANABOLISM. When times were bad, his body went into repair mode, and used the fat for energy. This is called CATABOLISM.

Anabolism has evolved expressly for Young Animals, where extra food is welcome for Growth. After the growing and Reproductive years, our Bodies’ evolutionary “warrant” expires, since the genes it carries have already been spread. Our older bodies are left to deal with machinery more suited to an earlier vibrancy. Our metabolism didn’t evolve to deal with the calories we shove into our aging Bodies. Many mechanisms beneficial in the young prove harmful later on. This divergence has been called “ antagonistic pleiotropy”.

Whatever the explanation, the observation remains: if adults eat more than they can use, they gain weight. With insufficient exercise, this weight is fat. With excessive fat, the joints, blood vessels, liver, heart and brain suffer,  and lifespan is shortened.

RETHINK YOUR LIFESTYLE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. AVOIDING SUGAR, and ALL THINGS CONTAINING SUGAR is as good a place as any to start. You will be rewarded by being able to fully taste and enjoy the natural sweetness of many REAL FOODS, and afforded a longer life to partake in this pleasure.

—Dr. C.