The human body has multiple ways of eliminating the hydrogen peroxide that is generated during metabolism. Glutathione and Thioredoxin rely on a steady stream of NADPH to eliminate the peroxide. This causes the NAD+/NADH pool to become more oxidized due to NADPH being regenerated from NADH by the mitochondrial enzyme NNT. In short, peroxide removal …
People talk about calories-in, calories-out. It is the idea that weight will be gained if you eat extra calories or lost if you burn extra calories, say by exercising. Many studies have been done and calorie restriction or exercise for weight loss and the results are very: these are losing strategies. In this video I …
With every new paper that comes out it becomes clearer that reductive stress is the root cause of oxidative stress. I tried to explain this before, but I’m not sure how well I did. Here’s how it works: Some Initiating Event There is an initiating event which pushes the cell into reductive stress, as defined …
Reductive Stress Causes Oxidative Stress (Take 2) Read More »
This post comes out a recent conversation I had with Tucker Goodrich and David Gornoski (not live yet, I’ll post it when its out). Tucker was arguing that obesity was caused by endogenous cannabinoids that are made from linoleic acid. I was arguing that obesity is caused by reductive stress. As I pointed out on …
Reductive Stress Gives You The Munchies by Activating D6D Read More »
Georgi is a follower of Ray Peat’s ideas and is extending them based on the latest science. I think this is a very interesting discussion. Don’t take my word for it. Still listening & enjoying with 30 min to go (need to break for something, reluctantly). From about 40mins in the discussion builds to excellence, …
Since I published The Croissant Diet there has been much interest in the scientific article I call “The banana milkshake study“​1​. The study showed that ingestion of 24g of stearic acid in a banana shake after a two day low fat diet caused mitochondrial fusion and a drop in circulating acylcarnitines. We are very interested …
How Stearic Acid Battles Reductive Stress; The Banana Milkshake Study Redux Read More »
Obesogens are environmental toxins that make you fat. A commonality among them is that they activate receptors such as hormone receptors, androgen receptors, and perhaps most importantly, receptors in the nuclear receptor superfamily. Of course, if certain chemicals can make you fat, you have to really question the calories-in-calories-out theory of obesity. Certain chemicals can …
PUFA as an obesogen; How Seed Oils Cause Reductive Stress, Part VI Read More »
In this series, I have argued that consuming seed oils causes reductive stress in the mitochondria as defined by high levels of acetyl-CoA and NADH. You could also call this “too much fuel” in the mitochondira, AKA a flooded engine. If I am correct, it should be easy to demonstrate in the short term that …
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 »
