Humans evolved in the setting of periodic food scarcity during which we developed the ability to rapidly switch between different fuel sources. We are designed by evolution to burn fat in our fasting state and to burn primarily carbohydrates in our fed state in order to generate energy in the form of ATP. All of…
Autophagy (literally “self-eating”) is the body’s way of cleansing cells by recycling old or damaged components and is a process that appears to have a strong relationship to preventing disease and aging. More technically, it is a highly regulated lysosome-dependent catabolic program used by the body to clear dysfunctional proteins, organelles and other structures that…
How do we measure aging? Certainly, there is the passage of time and how many birthdays someone has had, but we know that aging proceeds more quickly for some people than it does for others. The speed of aging depends on your genes but also various factors such as, for instance, whether you smoke, your…
The real challenge with weight loss is keeping it off. When you lose a significant amount of weight, the body does what it can to return to its original weight and the further from the original weight you drop, the greater the pressure to rebound. The body seems to have a functional weight set point…
At this point I believe that short of bariatric surgery, most people who have overweight or obesity will need medication to keep the weight off. FDA approved treatments for obesity are indicated when BMI reaches 30 (or over 27 with complications related to obesity). Even before drugs, though, the first step is to make sure you’re…
