In this series I’ve been using the analogy of a flooded engine to help to understand some pretty complicated dynamics that happen in the mitochondria when we burn fat. The details can be overwhelming but the high-level perspective is pretty straightforward. If you fill the mitochondria with too much fuel and not enough oxygen, the …
Introduction In a recent Twitter thread, Simon Hill, MSc. BSc. tweeted this about a recent podcast episode of The Proof featuring Bill Harris, PhD. Did you listen to the debate on my show? Omega 6 being a driver of CHD is a very hard position to take. — Simon Hill MSc, BSc (Hons) (@theproof) June …
Dietary Linoleic Acid Does Not Reduce Diabetes Risk Read More »
I argued in part II of this series that consumption of unsaturated fats fails to create a properly oxygenated fuel mix, which leads to a rise in mitochondrial acetyl-CoA and NADH levels along with a drop in NAD+ levels. This is reductive stress. The system that replenishes NAD+ while burning fat is the production and …
Acetylation Turns on Lipogenic Enzymes; How Seed Oils Cause Reductive Stress, Part III Read More »
In part I of this series I introduced the analogy of reductive stress as a flooded engine. If there is too much fuel and not enough air, an engine will flood. Elevated circulating acylcarnitines in obesity are analogous to black smoke out of the tailpipe of a flooded engine – unburnt fuel spewing back out …
I’ve been writing a lot about reductive stress and its role at the heart of both oxidative stress and obesity. I’m aware that the term reductive stress isn’t terribly intuitive. It’s a wonky, scientific term and calling it “the opposite of oxidative stress” really does little to aid in understanding for non-redox scientists. I’ve been …
The Flooded Engine, An Analogy; How Seed Oils Cause Reductive Stress, Part I Read More »
The idea of this series is that the underlying condition that drives obesity forward is reductive stress, as defined by the NAD+/NADH ratio being too low (not enough NAD+). CD38 is a membrane bound enzyme, expressed in most tissues, that increases throughout life, steadily reducing NAD+ levels​1​. It is the body’s “primary NADase”, the main …
CD38 links obesity, bacterial-induced inflammation, and reductive stress Read More »
The WebMD entry on alpha lipoic acid (ALA) begins with, “Alpha-lipoic acid is an antioxidant”. ALA can in certain situations act as an antioxidant, but in general it does not act as an antioxidant. If you read my article about antioxidants you’ll know that in a redox reaction, when one thing in a reaction is …
The Pro-oxidant Alpha Lipoic Acid makes you lean, Antioxidants make you fat (sometimes) Read More »
This is another article in my series on reductive stress as a unifying model for obesity. The intro article is here! Food Is Reduced In the food that we consume, the Hydrogens (H) and Carbons (C) are in a reduced state – they are in control of their own electrons. We release them as CO2 …
Introduction This is the second article in my series about reductive stress. Check out the intro. The terms oxidative stress and antioxidant have been thrown around a lot in recent decades, often without a clear understanding of their true nature. Oxidative stress is caused by an overproduction of superoxide and hydrogen peroxide or by a …
I recently had an informal debate with someone who believes that obesity is caused simply by consuming more calories than you burn. In his mind, the obesity epidemic started because our modern processed food is too palatable, it overwhelms our hypothalamus and causes us to overeat. When I asked how that fact that dioxins – …
PUFA Induced Reductive Stress as a Unifying Mechanism in Obesity Read More »
I want to thank Jeff Nobbs, Dr Anthony Gustin and others for giving me the opportunity to speak at the first ever Future of Fat Summit! This was a good opportunity for me to summarize the info presented on this blog in just under an hour. All of the presenter videos are available on the …
Brad’s Future of Fat Summit presentation is now live! Read More »
There are great tales in the medical literature if you look for them. In the 1930’s – the early days of metabolic research – a sort of North-South challenge presented itself. An SEC-Big 10 challenge of metabolic rates (For those who are not American college football fans, the SEC is a Southern Conference and the …
Brad is on TikTok! Why IS Obesity like a headache?
I’ve recently had several run-ins with people who believe strictly in the calories-in, calories-out hypothesis of obesity. I just read Herman Pontzer’s book Burn, so I’ll continue to pick on him for the moment. In Pontzer’s estimation, humans are just calorie-burning machines. Slightly complicated machines, but machines nonetheless. We have a more or less fixed …
I just finished reading Herman Pontzer’s book Burn. It’s good, I recommend it! I don’t agree with everything, though. Pontzer is the metabolic researcher who went to Africa to study the metabolic rates of Hadza hunter gatherers. To his surprise he discovered that hunter gatherers burn the same number of calories per day as sedentary …
