A really awesome thing happened early yesterday morning…
The RFS website crashed!
Anyone else would probably consider that bad news. Not me, though!
I was actually delighted to learn that so many people were attending the summit that the server couldn’t handle it.
This real food thing is really catching on!
Let’s keep the momentum going with today’s lineup of speakers:
In Room 1, my favorite medical doctor, Dr. Cate Shanahan teaches you five simple tests that will help you determine whether a food or supplement is really healthy or just hype.
If you didn’t already know, I’m a huge fan of US Wellness Meats (USWM). I keep my freezer stocked with nothing but real food from their farm.
(By the way, there’s a 15% off coupon code at the bottom of this post.)
In Room 2, USWM founder John Wood shows you why it so critical for animals to eat right, so you can, too. Just wait till you hear about the waterlogged chickens!
Ever heard of the Pottenger’s Cats study? If not, our Room 3 presentation from Gray Graham is going to blow your mind. You’ll learn what a cat study from the 1930s has to do with our chronic disease epidemic.
If you think your genes control your health, you definitely want to check this out. It will change your mind, for sure.
That first line from one of my favorite gangsta rap songs perfectly captures the spirit of today’s blog.
Nutrigenomics is a topic that sparked my interest almost two years ago when I began skeptically investigating Protandim and its claims. Eventually, it led me to such classic books as Deep Nutrition, The Primal Blueprint, Genetic Nutritioneering, and now Forever Young by Dr. Nicholas Perricone.
Nutrigenomics is exactly as it sounds. It is the combination of nutrition and genomics. In other words, it is the study of how nutrients and other substances influence the expression of our genes.
For some, genetics unfortunately hold us hostage. Many of us erroneously assume that our genes are all-powerful, leaving our health at the mercy of our genetic blueprints. For example, my father and his mother both died of pancreatic cancer. Two generations of such a ruthless disease should have me quaking in my Nikes.
But what should I do? Should I just count down the days, months, or years until I get the formal diagnosis?
Hell no.
I hit switches.
Music, please!!
The switches I hit turn my good protective genes ON and my bad genes that cause cancer and other diseases OFF.
You can do it too! And we can all do it through the foods we eat and/or the supplements we take.
The public, media, and medical professionals always tend to lag about twenty years behind the scientific research. One thing that we haven’t quite caught on to is the fact that the benefits of foods go well beyond ORAC values, antioxidant profiles, and macronutrient ratios. Nutrients like catechins, polyphenols, and stilbenes actually affect gene expression.
Today, we’ll focus on what are known as transcription factors. Transcription factors are not really genes. Rather, they are protein messengers in our cells that are activated by different stimuli (i.e. food). When activated, they migrate to the cell’s nucleus, where they attach to receptor sites on the genes and flip the ON switch for specific genetic activities and expressions.
Transcription factors are not always nice guys. NF-kB and AP-1 accelerate the processes of disease and aging. When NF-kB is activated, it skedaddles over to the nucleus and tells the genes to crank up the production of what are called inflammatory cytokines. Not good. This is why NF-kB has been linked to a multitude of diseases, including AIDS, allergy, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, and atherosclerosis.
And those are just the A’s. (I stole that from Bill Maher.)
AP-1 (activator protein 1) activation tells your genes to make more collagen-digesting proteins, causing microscars in the deep layer of the skin that give rise to wrinkles.
Anyone want wrinkles?
Better question. Anyone want to hit the switch on NF-kB and the many diseases linked to it?
I didn’t think so. Keep those two turned OFF.
The hero of this story is nuclear factor (erythroid-derived )-like 2. It’s a mouthful!
Fortunately it has a nickname, NRF2.
Just like the bad guys, when activated, NRF2 moves to the nucleus of the cell and attaches to genes. But instead of turning on inflammation, it tells your genes to turn ON the production of more than a dozen protective anti-inflammatory enzymes as well as antioxidant enzymes like glutathione, the chief cellular antioxidant (more on this later in the week).
Now that’s a switch you want to hit! Turning on NRF2 is like hitting the three-wheel motion. (I wonder how many readers know what that means. See pic in the upper right.)
So which foods turn the good guys ON and the bad guys OFF. Well, I’ll be blogging all about the Big Three (tea, turmeric, and cocoa) tomorrow. For now, let’s discuss just how these foods and drinks hit the right switches.
As I mentioned earlier, we tend to focus on ORAC scores and such, but we completely tune out other important substances like Michael acceptor pharmacophores.
Say what!
We’ll just call them MAPs. A pharmacophore is like a key that unlocks a door. In this case, the MAPs on the food molecules mentioned (as well as many others) have a set of structural features that are recognized by a receptor thus hitting the switch on the appropriate transcription factor and sending either the good or bad guys into action.
What is quite interesting is the fact that these beneficial food molecules are actually electron deficient and pro-oxidative! They cause oxidative stress.
If you go back to seventh grade science class, you know that molecules that are deficient in electrons will do whatever they can to steal electrons from another molecule in order to fill its outer shell. This causes damage to molecule being stolen from, including damage to the DNA (may cause cancer), enzymes, and cell membrane. I did a pretty decent job explaining this in my Antioxidant Myth blog from last year.
You would think that these foods would be harmful to your health. However, they are quite sneaky. The mild oxidative stress they cause actually tricks NRF2 into waking up and going to work. NRF2 rushes over to the nucleus, binds to the gene receptor, and turns ON the production of the protective anti-inflammatory and antioxidant enzymes.
At the same time, these foods turn OFF the bad guys.
Trickery at its finest.
Stay tuned! This week is all about how to take the power away from your bad genes and show them who’s boss through the foods you eat and the switches you hit. Why stay 20 years behind the research? Do it NOW.
Tune in tomorrow! We’re gonna set up shop, never close, and get riches. And never stop eating well and hittin’ switches!
In my quest to become the most prolific blogger in the history of health bloggerdom, I came up with the idea of sharing my newest learnings in the form of the What I Learned Today (WILT) series. This is the first of many golden nuggets of health information gleaned from the pages of the countless books I spend my days and nights reading obsessively. Today, I’ve been immersed in Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan MD, a former low-fatter who once believed she knew everything there was to know about diet and nutrition. That is, until she discovered Weston A. Price, arguably the greatest nutrition pioneer who ever lived.
A page-turner indeed, it was actually a short sidebar on page 12 regarding the Hippocratic Oath that struck a chord with me. As most of us know, our medical professionals take this oath on their graduation day. However, most have a limited knowledge as to what the oath truly means.
Believed to have been written by Hippocrates or by one of his students, the Oath begins:
“I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculpius, and Hygieia, and Panacea, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation . . .”
The Greek god Apollo is sure to ring a bell, but who are these other mysterious characters?
Devout believers in the laws of balance, the ancient Greeks understood true health and wellness to rest upon two complementary ideas. The first is Hygieia, the goddess of health.
By name alone, one may assume that Hygieia solely embodies the concept of general hygiene and cleanliness. However, she symbolizes the application of sound nutrition principles throughout one’s life, as well as successive generations, in order to ensure the proper building of healthy bodies. Such nutritional practices were intended for all phases of life, including prenatal, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Certainly, the proper time for nourishment is any time. Abiding by Hygieia’s decree was recognized as the most effective means of preventive medicine. How easily she has been forgotten.
Aesculpius, the god of medicine, typifies the indispensable knowledge of surgical procedures and remedies. Working with the tools of Panacea (the god of potions and cure-alls), Aesculpius comes to the rescue when nutrition fails, accidents happen, or infections set in.
Surely without Hygieia, there would be no health. And without Aesculpius, there would be no means of recovering health once it falters. The two work in synergy, balancing the feminine with the masculine.
Medicine has lost its roots, electing to abandon the feminine while adopting a hypermasculinized approach to wellness. The building of the body through Hygienic means has become an afterthought. Balance is no longer present. And when such imbalance is present, the inescapable result is chaos and disorder, thus the state of health in the modern industrialized world.
To swear an oath is to declare a truth. Hippocrates’ words represent the ultimate truth in the pursuit of health and sound medicine. Unfortunately, many who raise their right hands and swear this oath have no idea what it stands for. In turn, they have no idea what they stand for. This is the plight of our broken medical system, a system uncertain of the foundation on which it stands.
Join us for a LIVE question-and-answer session with our Day 3 SexyBack Summit presenters, including:
* Cynthia Pasquella - Chasing the Big O: Overcoming the Inability to Orgasm
* Elliott Hulse - How Male and Female Sex Energy Is Magnified Through Deep Breathing
* Christa Orecchio - Why We Get UTIs, Yeast Infections, and Candida...
* Katy Bowman - The Painful Pelvis, the Paleo Pelvis, and Sex
Register to attend this FREE weeklong online event at www.sexybacksummit.com.
by Sean Croxton
