Brad Marshall

SCD1 Regulates AMPK and AMPK Regulates SCD1

So like I was saying, biology is weird.  AMPK and SCD1 are a literal teeter totter. When SCD1 goes up, AMPK goes down.  When AMPK goes up, SCD1 goes down. This matters because, as I pointed out in the last post, AMPK can help to keep us out of torpor. In hibernating animals and obese …

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AMPK is Kryptonite to the Nuclear Receptor “Superfamily”

Summary  Activating AMPK in the livers of mice prevents diet induced obesity despite higher caloric consumption Mice with activated AMPK have lower levels of cytochrome P450 enzymes that produce 12-HETE and 15-HETE – specific activators of PPAR gamma Mice with activated AMPK have higher rates of both fat and glucose metabolism AMPK blocks the pathway …

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Announcing Fire In A Bottle, The Podcast!

That’s right, Brad has a podcast now. In the first episode he tells the story of the squirrel and the acorn, what makes acorns so uniquely fattening and how Native Americans knew to avoid acorn oil! And it’s funny! Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The AhR is the Keymaster to Torpor

My last posts were viewed by some as pessimistic in a “once you’re obese, you are stuck” kind of way.  I don’t believe that and very soon I will start writing about solutions.  Having said that, this post will perhaps seem pessimistic if you thought the previous ones were.  I’m working through the basic mechanisms …

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PPAR gamma With Oxidized PUFA is the Gatekeeper to Metabolic Inflexibility

In a recent post I talked about three groups of pigs with differing levels of insulin sensitivity. Group 1 was fed a low fat diet and remained insulin sensitive. Group 2 was given 40% of calories as a special soybean oil blend with the triply unsaturated alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) largely removed.  These pigs became what …

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Brad on The Mr. Bill podcast

Mr Bill’s podcast is not a health-based, typically. This is a great starting point if you you’re looking for a podcast about Fire In A Bottle concepts with little technical background.

Accumulating Linoleic Acid Prevents Diabetes

This is from the EPIC Potsdam study in Germany, which looked at the association between membrane phospholipid composition, diet and type 2 diabetes risk.​1​ Read it and weep. It looks like linoleic acid prevents diabetes after all.  Time to shut down the blog, run out and buy some corn oil. KIDDING! Remember what happened to …

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Obesity prone pigs go from Normal to Pathological Insulin Sensitivity to Torpor when given enough PUFA

Hap MD asked me if I had any thoughts on Ossabaw pigs.  They are interesting because they are one of the only animals other than humans who spontaneously have heart attacks (the only?).  Ossabaw piings are descended from Spanish pigs that were dropped on Ossabaw island off of the coast of Georgia, United States, in …

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This Is How Linoleic Acid Makes You Fat, Leptin Resistant and Torpid

I’ve written a lot about the strong correlation between the Desaturase Index (DI) and human obesity. DI is an indirect indicator of the activity of the SCD1 gene. I have also suggested that the consumption of linoleic acid – the primary Omega 6 polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) in the human diet found in vegetable oil, bacon …

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