Re: Leptin (was Low Carb and Trouble Sleeping)

[Guest guest]

Jo-

>OK, what is leptin and why should it be " mastered " ?

I'll repost my earlier message on the subject for you.

Basically, your fat cells secrete leptin, which is a hormone that has a lot

of functions in your body. One of them is to tell your brain how much fat

is on hand: all else being equal, the more fat you have, the more leptin

you produce. This is one of the key signals that your brain (specifically

your hypothalamus) checks in order to decide what to do with your

metabolism (rev it, shut it down, etc.) and how to set your appestat.

Unfortunately, it's easy to become leptin-resistant. Just as eating too

much sugar and other carbs eventually causes your body to become partially

" deaf " to insulin, releasing too much leptin can cause your body to become

resistant to it too. And since insulin stimulates the release of leptin,

the two conditions are tightly related. Worse yet, since MSG damages the

hypothalamus, you can actually take a short-cut to becoming

leptin-resistant. (This is almost certainly at least one reason MSG

consumption causes obesity in many people.)

As you can conclude from the insulin-leptin relationship, leptin levels

aren't supposed to be the same throughout the day. In fact, your body is

supposed to have a sort of rhythm, with peaks and gentle slopes, and that

rhythm is tied into an enormous variety of other systems in your body. It

wouldn't be particularly ridiculous to think of leptin as one of several

" master " hormones, in fact, which is why insulin and leptin problems have

so many complications even if the connections aren't always obvious.

(Leptin is involved in the release of growth hormone, for example, which is

one of the most important hormones in your body.) This is one of the

reasons that snacking is such a bad idea. Snacking keeps hitting your body

over the head, so to speak, with insulin and then with leptin, keeping

levels unhealthily high and pushing the whole delicate system out of whack.

Hence the rule offered in _Mastering Leptin_ that you should always make

sure to go a minimum of 5-6 hours between meals, with no exceptions, and at

least 11-12 hours between dinner and breakfast, in order to restore and

maintain the correct leptin rhythm. Sleep, particularly in the later hours,

is prime fat-burning time, but eating too soon before bed postpones and

even prevents this and also messes up the release of growth hormone, which

is why you need an appreciable amount of time between dinner and bed -- the

larger the meal, the longer the time. If you're getting hungry before bed

or during the night, or if you're having trouble sleeping because of any

kind of food issues, it's a strong signal that your whole system is

disturbed and needs serious adjustment.

Where s goes wrong in _Mastering Leptin_ is in his treatment of

carbs and dietary saturated fat (which he foolishly says is healthy but

should be kept to a relative minimum) but that's food for another post. I

highly recommend the book despite some serious caveats, though, because

there's no other resource I know of which so thoroughly elucidates the

tangled web of bodily systems leptin is involved in, even though there's

vast work on the subject yet to be done.

For the sake of comparison, here's what Rosedale says on the subject of carbs.

>>I have been asked to summarize in a single sentence what would best

>>promote health. It is this: Health and lifespan is determined by the

>>proportion of fat versus sugar people burn throughout their lifetime. The

>>more fat that one burns as fuel, the healthier the person will be, and

>>the more likely they will live a long time. The more sugar a person

>>burns, the more disease ridden and the shorter a lifespan a person is

>>likely to have.

and

>>However, most people become very adapted at burning sugar; your body

>>continues to want to " keep playing " sugar, to burn more sugar, even when

>>you are not eating. When you're sleeping at night, your body then prefers

>>to burn sugar and it gets that sugar by breaking down proteins in your

>>body, which means lean body mass, which includes muscle and bone. I call

>>that metabolic momentum.

>>

>>Your body continues to like to do what it has become accustomed to doing.

>>If you have burned sugar throughout the day, you prefer to burn sugar at

>>night even when you are not eating. Your body does not store very much

>>sugar and prefers to hold onto much of it and, therefore, you'll continue

>>to manufacture sugar by a process called gluconeogenesis from lean body

>>mass. You store fat -- and, in many people, lots of it -- in your

>> " cupboard " and not very much sugar, because fat is the fuel that your

>>body would prefer to store and later to burn to stay healthy.

>>

>>However, when you eat sugar and fat together, your body will burn sugar

>>first. I believe that it burns the sugar off because that is one way to

>>get rid of it. Sugar causes damage by glycosylation and having it around

>>too long is extremely damaging and accelerates aging.

This is ironic, since his dietary recommendations are fairly serious out of

step with his own conclusions. In fact, I can't recommend one of his

articles on Mercola's site highly enough.

http://www.mercola.com/2005/jul/7/muscle_fuel.htm

Here's the opening:

>>Some of you may be thinking, " I may eat a lot of starchy carbohydrates,

>>but at the same meal, I am also eating protein and fat. Why am I just

>>burning sugar and storing fat? " It's a good question, and it gets to the

>>heart of the vicious cycle.

>>

>>Let's assume that you are following the current dietary recommendations

>>that tell you to eat more than half of your daily calories in the form of

>>carbohydrate. You fill your plate with a cup or so of pasta, topped with

>>meatballs, some tomato sauce and cheese.

>>

>> From the minute the pasta is in your mouth, it begins to be broken down

>> into simple sugar. Your body can only store a small amount of sugar at a

>> time in the form of glycogen that is stored in muscle and liver. What's

>> not stored as glycogen is burned off as quickly as possible, forcing you

>> to burn sugar, but your cells can only burn so much off at a time.

>>

>>What happens to the rest of the sugar that isn't being stored or burned?

>>It is converted into saturated fat. What about the protein and the fat in

>>the meal that you just ate? Some of the protein is taken up by the cells

>>for repair and maintenance, but your cells can only utilize a small

>>amount of protein at a time. The rest, largely, is turned to sugar and

>>stored as saturated fat. That leaves just the fat that is not burned when

>>sugar is around to burn, which gets stored away as more fat.

>>

>>Why isn't the protein and fat burned as fuel? Because you must first burn

>>up sugar if it is available. If you eat sugar and fat together, you have

>>to burn sugar first before you burn the fat. Furthermore, your cells get

>>used to burning a particular fuel, in this case, sugar.

>>

>>When you are younger, your metabolism is more flexible, and you can

>>switch fuels more easily. As you get older, your cells get stuck in a

>>rut, and if they are used to burning sugar, they will look for more sugar

>>to burn when they need fuel.

I haven't read Rosedale's book, but s suggests keeping dietary

saturated fat down if you're overweight because you want your body to burn

its stored fat rather than relying on food instead. From my research and

experience, though, that's a grave mistake. Your body burns what it's

trained to burn, what it's used to burning. So eating saturated fat and

minimizing sugar (which includes starch, since it's broken down into sugar)

is in fact a terrific way to train your body to burn saturated fat! (This

raises an interesting question about whether coconut oil and other unusual

MCT sources are really so great in the long run, but this time I mean it --

food for another post.)

I'd also like to point out that metabolism of fat is a comparatively clean

process while metabolism of sugar produces more oxidative stress, free

radicals and general systemic damage. Furthermore, much of what we know as

aging is simply glycation -- the cross-linking of proteins by sugar. IOW,

if you want to stay as youthful and healthy as possible, it behooves you to

AVOID sources of sugar, train your body to burn fat, and of course avoid

unnecessary unsaturated fatty acids, not to mention consume plenty of

antioxidants and other compounds which prevent and even reverse glycation

and lipid peroxidation. (Obviously this is in addition to all the usual

admonishments about eating nutrient-dense foods, getting enough of the

right kinds of exercise, etc. etc. etc.)

Hope this helped.

-

[Guest guest]

--- In , Idol <Idol@c...>

wrote:

> I'll repost my earlier message on the subject for you.

Thanks , this is great info.

<snip>

> Unfortunately, it's easy to become leptin-resistant. Just as eating

>too much sugar and other carbs eventually causes your body to become

>partially " deaf " to insulin, releasing too much leptin can cause

>your body to become resistant to it too. And since insulin

>stimulates the release of leptin, the two conditions are tightly

>related.

Here's a mental leap - if someone was massively overweight, then

severely restricted carbs for a couple of years, could that screw up

leptin production? DH lost 140lbs on a very low carb diet, then

gained it all back while following the same diet. He has since

gained yet more weight, and is over 200lbs overweight. Something is

not right with him, and I just have no idea what. If his blood sugar

dropped too low, and hence insulin too low, leptin could be too low,

right? (Although he didn't show any signs of BS dropping too low

though)

Interestingly, he leaves long periods between eating. Often he eats

once per day or less. Probably less than 1500 cals daily. Then one

day he'll be starving and eat loads, or if we go on holiday he always

eats very well.

Thanks again

Jo

[Guest guest]

Jo-

>Here's a mental leap - if someone was massively overweight, then

>severely restricted carbs for a couple of years, could that screw up

>leptin production?

Not according to anything I know.

>DH lost 140lbs on a very low carb diet, then

>gained it all back while following the same diet. He has since

>gained yet more weight, and is over 200lbs overweight. Something is

>not right with him, and I just have no idea what. If his blood sugar

>dropped too low, and hence insulin too low, leptin could be too low,

>right? (Although he didn't show any signs of BS dropping too low

>though)

>

>Interestingly, he leaves long periods between eating. Often he eats

>once per day or less. Probably less than 1500 cals daily. Then one

>day he'll be starving and eat loads, or if we go on holiday he always

>eats very well.

How tall is he? 1500 calories per day sounds awfully low for a man.

Blood sugar plunges are generally caused by insulin spikes, which move lots

of sugar into cells to be stored or used, and insulin overproduction and

leptin overproduction go hand in hand, though they're not literally in sync

throughout the day.

I'd need a lot more information to make any real suggestions for your

husband, but if you're interested, send it my way and I'll offer what I

can, either onlist or off, at your discretion.

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