CD38 links obesity, bacterial-induced inflammation, and reductive stress

22 Comments / Reductive Stress / By / April 27, 2022

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 …

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The Pro-oxidant Alpha Lipoic Acid makes you lean, Antioxidants make you fat (sometimes)

35 Comments / Reductive Stress / By / April 22, 2022

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 …

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Reductive Stress Causes Oxidative Stress: Antioxidants, Oxidative Stress and Reductive Stress

21 Comments / Intro To Oxidation, Reductive Stress / By / April 13, 2022

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 …

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PUFA Induced Reductive Stress as a Unifying Mechanism in Obesity

14 Comments / Reductive Stress / By / April 11, 2022

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 – …

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Metabolic Rates in the American South in the 1930s: Did Researchers Measure the Origins of the Obesity Epidemic?

9 Comments / Torpor, Sloth and Gluttony / By / March 8, 2022

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 …

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The French Obesity Paradox

24 Comments / The ROS Theory of Obesity, Torpor, Sloth and Gluttony / By / February 15, 2022

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 …

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Pontzer’s Burn and Metabolic Rate Mechanisms

17 Comments / Torpor, Sloth and Gluttony / By / February 10, 2022

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 …

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David Rosenberg increased his metabolic rate by 1100 calories per day with alpha-lipoic acid, succinade, sterculia oil and stearic acid.

6 Comments / Intro To Oxidation / By / January 28, 2022

I was excited when David reached out to me because he is very regimented. He has literally weighed and recorded the macros of every piece of food he has eaten going back to July of 2021. He exercises the same amount each week, the same number of reps of the same exercises. When he jogs …

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FIAB Podcast, Episode 4: Reductive Stress

Intro To Oxidation / By / January 27, 2022

A Google Scholar search for the phrase “oxidative stress diabetes” currently yields over 500,000 papers, but the phrase “reductive stress diabetes” yields only 17,000, a discrepancy of 30 to 1. I believe the underlying issue at the heart of our metabolic woes is reductive stress, which looks to cells like too much cellular energy. In …

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Loss of Mitochondrial ROS Production Causes Obesity

9 Comments / The ROS Theory of Obesity, Torpor, Sloth and Gluttony / By / January 10, 2022

Happy New Year! Fire In A Bottle (FIAB) is back! I’m excited for the new year, I’ve got a great slate of upcoming posts, I’m planning a new “overview of FIAB concepts intended for newcomers and those who are less scientifically oriented. I’m going to continue working on the podcast and launch a TikTok channel! …

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Antioxidants Cause Reductive Stress

36 Comments / The ROS Theory of Obesity, Torpor, Sloth and Gluttony / By / December 14, 2021

Oxidants are electron takers.  Anti-oxidants are the opposite: electron donors. OILRIG: Oxidation Is Losing, Reduction Is Gaining. Oxidative stress can be defined as having too high of a percentage of intracellular “redox couples” in the oxidized state.  Glutathione, for instance, is the body’s “master antioxidant”.  It can live as either the reduced version (GSH) or …

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NAD+, Reductive Stress and the Magic of Superoxide

41 Comments / Intro To Oxidation / By / December 9, 2021

This is the next in a series of posts I am writing about reductive stress as defined by the NAD+/NADH.  This post looks at the uniqueness of superoxide as a reduced electron carrier.  Superoxide is not like the other electron carriers.  Most electron carriers, such as NADH, need to give their electron to something else …

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