xpost from another group - hormones - long

[Guest guest]

This is cross posted with permission, from

schwarzbein

I thought this might be interesting because of the comments on HGH,

adrenalin/stress, DHEA, etc.. Dr. Schwarzbein is an endocrinologist.

The Schwarzbein group is for people interested in a food lifestyle

that is similar to the Zone. My intent is not to start a thread on

diet, and the merits of one or another diet, since that tends to be

nearly a " religious " issue and likely inappropriate here.

Laurie L.

-----------------

From: " Alan Milliren " <millfe@p...>

Date: Sat Apr 7, 2001 2:46pm

Subject: Schwarzbein Visit - Part One

I tried to keep this first excerpt as short as possible -- If it is

too

long, just delete it. You won't even hurt my feelings if you don't

read it!

Just thought it was an interesting discussion of hormones, etc.

Schwarzbain Visit 12/27/00

Doc: I am a cardiologist, and I'm an endocrinologist,

internist, so

I look at everything from a hormone point-of-view. So everything I

talk

about means, " What is this hormone doing? " Besides, I got trained in

this

because hormones are the chemical communicators of the body. They

tell your

body what to do. So what I call Endocrinology 101 is this: If you are

over-secreting a hormone, you are going to get into trouble, right?

We are

going to work on things that are going to make you lower the

secretion of

that hormone and, it's not just insulin, but insulin is one of those

hormones. If you are under-producing a hormone, and that just happens

as we

all get older, and no one is immune to that, we are living long

enough now

to not be able to keep up the production of hormones, then we going

to go in

there and start working on things that increase the production of the

hormone. And, if a hormone is so low, or there is a disease process

going

on with your glands, where you can't make a hormone, then we do a

hormone

replacement there. So, that's really all I do everyday. What makes

it

really interesting are the people I meet. Otherwise if it was just me

saying the same thing, I'd be bored to death.

Al: It's the problems people have and the variety that

compensates?

Doc: Oh, yeah! And to me it's all very exciting -- How do I get

that

person to do what I want them to do?

: There you go, and there lies the rub.

Doc: Ok, we're going to start with book # 2, that I'm in the middle

of

writing. Okay, so it has to do with more than Insulin. I decided

that the

reason I wrote my book on insulin first, which now, if I could, I

would take

it back and write my book on Adrenalin first, was because the people

I was

seeing were more diabetics, and diabetics have high insulin levels or

are

insulin resistant. And for me to really change their carbohydrates,

I had

to look at them from an insulin viewpoint. But, in reality, you need

to

look at many more hormones than that.

You need to look at Adrenalin and we're going to talk about that,

because,

actually, if you talk about it from your history, nicotine raises a

drum.

Skipping lunch raises a drum; caffeine raises a drum. So you're

going to be

more on a longer adrenalin side. Even though you eat a lot of carbs,

you're

going to be on both sides, but adrenalin plays a big role of what's

going on

with you. And we're going to get back to that.

Insulin is a hormone, which, of course, you know that. Cortozol.

Have you

ever heard of cortozol? It's another hormone we're going to talk

about.

Al: I can't remember what it does.

Doc: Yes, well, I'm going to tell you. The good news is you don't

have to

remember. And growth hormone is a hormone, have you ever heard of

growth

hormone? Okay!

Al: Yeah.

Doc: It's actually called human growth hormone. Now, think about

this.

Hormones, some of them, are growth hormones. Right? Only one is

called

Human Growth Hormone. Insulin, for instance, is a growth hormone,

too. So

insulin tells our bodies to build up and so does growth hormone. But

we can

't just kept building, we do have to break down sometime and

adrenalin and

cortisone tell us to break down. So, in the process of regeneration,

where

I have to get rid of the old and then bring in the new, all hormones

play

this role. Adrenalin, insulin and cortozol are some of the major

hormones

of the body. Now what do I mean by major? If I take away adrenalin

your

dead.same thing with insulin and cortozol if I don't give them back

to you.

Growth hormone I can take away to zero and you would still be

standing, you

may not feel great but you're alive. So that's a difference between

a major

and a minor hormone.

Major hormones tend to over-react to habit; they know if you're going

to be

stressed. Adrenalin and cortozol are the stress hormones. You eat

too many

carbs, your insulin is going to go up, they tend to go really high in

spike.

The minor hormones tend to be the ones we loose as we age. Because

if we

loose this as we age we'll never be alive to talk about it, so again

major

hormones we going to bring down. Minor hormones are going to bring

back up.

What does adrenalin do? Well, as a break down hormone, it tells our

bodies

not only to break down not only proteins but also fats. Every diet

known to

man, including Adkins, triggers adrenalin. Mine does not, if it's

done

right, because I don't want you to eat such low carbohydrates that you

trigger adrenalin. That's the key, what I'm saying is: make sure you

eat

enough carbs for your personal metabolism.

So Adrenalin is triggered by stress, stimulants (again caffeine and

nicotine

would go there), skipping meals, any kind of diets you can think of,

not

enough carbohydrates, over-exercising, which we're not going to worry

about,

but if you've seen some major athletes, that is why they don't last

very

long in life, because they've been running a lot of adrenalin and

they wear

out too.

These are the things were going to be looking at: If you're too

stressed,

or you're drinking too much caffeine or you're smoking too many

cigarettes,

or you're skipping too many meals, or you don't have enough

carbohydrates,

or you're over-exercising, then you trigger this hormone, adrenalin,

and,

for women, low estrogen in menopause women, that's where adrenalin

comes in.

Or, if your thyroid is over producing too much thyroid hormone, you

have too

much adrenalin and you will break down faster than you are able to

build

back up again. And that's not good for the human body.

But why not? High adrenalin always triggers more insulin to be

secreted,

that's really the key. So, if I skip lunch and then I eat dinner and

I try

and keep my carb content at 30 grams for dinner, I'm still going to

secret

more insulin than I would have, if I had had lunch. The signal to

the body

is.no food; .the reaction in the body is.well, the next time there's

food,

we're going to eat more, but we're also going to store more.not just

eat

more.just in case, because, who knows, the next time there may not be

food

again.

So, we have to stop telling the body that it is under stress. And

adrenalin

is a stress hormone. So I can eat really well and I can be

stressed. And

my body is going to say " oh ho, not food.store more.and I can be

eating well

and drinking lots of caffeine, no caloric content to my coffee, if

it's

black, but it's still going to tell me to store more efficiently.

The body

doesn't know that adrenalin went up because you had caffeine.it thinks

adrenalin went up because there's no food.now obviously we can make

it worse

by adding all these together..

Al: So the body is not going to make a sort as to the " why. "

Doc: No, it's not smart enough. It's like signals, respond.

Signals,

respond and that's a very important concept because if it were

caloric.than

you could say, hey, I can choose when and where I'm going to have my

calories.

Al: Ah!, very simplistic . . . ?

Doc: But it's not. It's hormonal. So now we make it more complex

because

there are many hormones that change and my habits change and my day-

to-day,

nobody lives the same life day-to-day. I don't mean me personally, I

just

mean every individual. So, how many adrenalin molecules have been

spiking

for you. Then you can start adding all these different signals, it

really a

binary system, it's a " yes " or a " no. " You start adding all

your " yeses "

and all the " no's, " and we're saying " yes " to our fats or " no, " don't

store

fat or " yes " store or make protein or " no, " don't do protein. and

that's

where you end up over a long period of time . . . .

Now, back to insulin for a minute. Adrenalin and all these things,

as you

know from my book, will make insulin go up. It's indirect, but it

they do

make insulin go up. They make adrenalin go up first. But foodwise,

we've

got really two choices, we've got high carbs, low-fat foods, and we

have

balanced meals, if you will. The third choice is not enough carbs

and too

much protein which triggers adrenalin more than it does insulin. If I

go

back and look at it from a caloric base, I'm going to cut back on the

calories that I eat and I do that, and again, the reason I lose

weight is

adrenalin goes up. What does that make me do? Lose proteins and

fats. If

I lose proteins, I just lowered my metabolism. But, I've also

signaled to

the body that there is a famine. So, now I'm down to my ideal

weight, now I

'm going to go back to normal eating like everybody else. I get off

my low

calorie diet, what happens? I will not only rebound insulin for the

food I'

ve been eating, I will over-rebound insulin. I get this rebound

effect.

That's very important.

So, and if I think, aha, I've been eating less foods but I'm going to

make

sure now that I'm going to eat more carbs because that what it's for,

calories per gram of carbs, and I know that's what I'm suppose to be

doing

because everyone says that's the good thing to do..and I come off my

diet

and go to a higher carb intake.than again I increase by insulin even

above

what I would have if I was eating balanced meals. So, again its like

how did

I come out of my high adrenalin state. How am I going to rebound?

So, if I

do carbs and trigger insulin that way, insulin tells carbs to turn

into

fats.

What can do to the fats? I can use them as energy or store them as

fats.

So, if I broke down proteins and fats if I only eat carbs, I'm

building fats

but I didn't build my proteins back. If I go back and eat a meal, and

when I

say meal or food, I mean a balanced meal, here I'm eating my balanced

meal,

and I can regenerate proteins and I'll regenerate fats, and some of

the fats

I'm going to regenerate are call essential fats, so I can make

something out

of them, so I have structure that I can do now. I can use it for

energy or I

can store it as fat. So I still might gain weight from balanced meals

if I'

ve been rebounding from adrenalin, but mostly I'm going to be remaking

myself.

Cortozol it's a break down hormone. It breaks down proteins and it

breaks

down fats. Oops, it stores up fats, excuse me, just the opposite, I'm

giving

you example of different hormones and doing different things.

Cortozol is

also triggered by stresses. Same stresses that trigger adrenalin all

these

things, plus alcohol. Which you don't do right?

And steroids, I don't know you've had steroids for your knee, or any

thing

like that, had they had to give you any cortisone injections or

predisone?

Al: Just once.

Doc: Ok, that would be a cortozol. So it would break you down. It's

anti-inflammatory but it's also an anti-protein type of thing. And

that's

why we say steroids, in a long term, are not a good thing..They harm

you

more than they help you. One shot, I wouldn't be to worried.

Growth hormone on the other hand builds you up, it builds protein and

it

burns fat, oh, we like that hormone. Guess what age that hormone

starts to

go down? Around 30. So youth is the number one way you can have that

hormone.

Al: I could get young again.

Doc: You could get young again, exactly. You can make up your age.

Sleep

which is very important, that's why I'm always asking, " Are you

sleeping

enough? " Getting into deep sleep which we're going to push you into

more.

Because that's when growth hormone is secreted mostly. Enough

protein!

But, if I go on only proteins, that will trigger adrenalin.

What does adrenalin do? Break down proteins. What is growth

hormone, it's

a protein hormone, so if I'm running on adrenalin, I'm lowering my own

growth hormone production or I'm increasing the disposal of it. And

so

again years of nicotine and caffeine will lead to lower growth

hormone than

you should have.

: And there's no way to replace that?

Doc: No, no, . . we're going to work on that. No, no, . . we are

going to

replace it. Again, if a hormone is too high we're going to lower it,

if it'

s too low we're going to work on replacing it. We may not be able to

replace it to age 30 levels or age 25.

: Darn!

Al: I wanted to have a second childhood. Can you give me that?

Doc: Well, I can give you some things that I know will make you feel

better. How old are you now?

: 62

Doc: Had to think about that? Not having reached 63 myself, I

don't know

about that, but at forty, I do know the low growth hormone thing.

And I

work really hard to bring it back up again, and it does work. If you

work

hard at it. Okay? But I don't know how much you can get at 63

verseus how

much I get at forty. At forty I feel I have gone back to thirty.

Al: We'll do it and then I'll tell you!

Doc: That's what I'm saying, you're going to tell me. But I've had

people

come back and say, wow, it went really great. So, that I can tell you!

Serotonin helps the body produce growth hormone. We're going to be

working

on that system. And then there are some growth hormone releasers.

Growth

hormone releasers and even some branch chain amino acids -- there are

things

that help the body make growth hormone. So we're going to do full

court

press on you. Now the other thing is DHEA. I don't know if you've

heard of

that hormone. We're going to be measuring that, because if you don't

have

enough DHEA, you don' make enough growth hormone. So you might be

taking a

hormone called DHEA in order to produce better growth hormone. Why am

I

going to all this trouble and not just give you a growth hormone?

That

really should be the question.

Al: Because you can't do that!

Doc: Right. We don't know how to do it in small quantities yet. We

over-give it, but then again if the hormone goes to high, it's not

good for

you. If it's too low, and we can't get to normal because we

overshoot to

too high, then we have to worry about too much growth hormone, but if

your

making it inside your own body, you can't get too much of it.

Especially

not at 63. But now we go, we say, stress management, healthy eating,

tapering off chemical, exercise and hormone replacement therapy, if

needed.

That's why I do those 5 things cause I'm really trying to balance out

all

your hormones, but I'm not saying.take this hormone, take this

hormone.but

that's what we're working on.

Go gentle,

Al

Al Milliren, Ed.D., N.C.C.

millfe@p...