The Surprising Place Fat Can Accumulate To Shrink Your Brain
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Popular belief: body fat is bad for the health
Counterpoint: body fat is necessary for health
Nuance: not all fat is created equal, and nor does it stay that way depending on where it goes
Let’s get metabolical
Fat (in the human body) has several purposes, including:
- Store energy for use later
- Provide thermal insulation
- Provide physical padding against injury
That latter may seem trivial, by the way, but it’s really not. Aside from subcutaneous fat cushioning certain parts of us in visible ways, the much-maligned fat of our viscera is important too, for it helps prevent damage to our organs—until we get too much of it, and then it can cause its own problems, which we wrote about here:
Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It
Another place fat can get stored that’s not ideal is the liver. This tends to happen when our glucose metabolism gets overloaded, and the body has to start stuffing glycogen wherever it can, and the result is overtaxing the liver, and that’s what happens in the case of what what used to be called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and is now called metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD).
Attentive readers may have noticed that there appears to be a D missing from the acronym. We noticed that too, and were not able to find any explanation of why it’s not MDASLD.
However, you can read about why the change was made, and how the decision was agreed upon, here: A multisociety Delphi consensus statement on new fatty liver disease nomenclature
Anyway, whatever we want to call it, it’s a problem, and we wrote a practical guide to fixing it, here: How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
Further, when it comes to even just subcutaneous fat (i.e. the kind that lives just under your skin, that you can squish, unlike visceral fat or hepatic fat, which you can’t. Or if you can, then you have bigger problems, such your abdomen being open), there are some places it can go that are healthier than others.
For what’s best and worst in that regard, see: How To Make Your Body Fat Heart-Healthier
And, for that matter: Can We Do Fat Redistribution?
Sometimes, it’s the type of fat that makes a difference!
See: The BAT-pause! ← the title here refers to the production of highly beneficial brown adipose tissue (BAT) slowing down during the menopause, if we’re not careful—but there are things we can do to convert white adipose tissue to yellow and brown.
Sometimes, it isn’t!
See: The Fat That Fuels Alzheimer’s Disease
And today, it’s…
Pancreatic fat
No surprises that this should be an issue (the pancreas is where insulin is made, after all, unless you have Type 1 Diabetes, anyway), but it’s not much talked-about, and not well-known.
Recently, researchers (Dr. Miao Yu et al.) examined whether where fat is stored in your body matters for brain health more than overall weight or BMI, and their analysis used MRI and health data from 25,997 participants in the UK Biobank.
What they found, in few words, is that two previously unrecognized fat distribution patterns were most strongly linked to brain shrinkage, faster brain aging, cognitive decline, and higher neurological disease risk.
One of them was the well-known “skinny fat” pattern: this profile affects people who don’t appear fat, but carry a high proportion of fat relative to muscle, with fat tending to accumulate in the abdomen. There’s a lot of cross-over with what we talked about above, in terms of visceral fat, and also waist-centric subcutaneous fat distribution.
The other was pancreatic-predominant fat: this pattern involves unusually high fat in the pancreas, often without high liver fat, and showed particularly strong associations with negative brain outcomes. For example, people in this group had about 30% fat in the pancreas, which is two to three times higher than most other fat patterns, and up to six times higher than in lean people.
Which is a problem, because pancreatic fat appears to pose a greater neurological risk than fatty liver, but it’s often overlooked in routine imaging.
In the words of one of the researchers, Dr. Kai Liu,
❝From the perspectives of brain structure, cognitive impairment and neurological disease risk, increased pancreatic fat should be recognized as a potentially higher-risk imaging phenotype than fatty liver.❞
You can read the paper in full, here: Association of Body Fat Distribution Patterns at MRI with Brain Structure, Cognition, and Neurologic Diseases
Want to learn more?
Check out:
Why We Get Sick – by Dr. Benjamin Bikman ← this is about insulin resistance as the driver of much disease, long before blood sugar management becomes an issue, and this has pancreatic health at its core.
Take care!
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When Carbs, Proteins, & Fats Switch Metabolic Roles
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Strange Things Happening In The Islets Of Langerhans
It is generally known and widely accepted that carbs have the biggest effect on blood sugar levels (and thus insulin response), fats less so, and protein least of all.
And yet, there was a groundbreaking study published yesterday which found:
❝Glucose is the well-known driver of insulin, but we were surprised to see such high variability, with some individuals showing a strong response to proteins, and others to fats, which had never been characterized before.
Insulin plays a major role in human health, in everything from diabetes, where it is too low*, to obesity, weight gain and even some forms of cancer, where it is too high.
These findings lay the groundwork for personalized nutrition that could transform how we treat and manage a range of conditions.❞
*saying ”too low” here is potentially misleading without clarification; yes, Type 1 Diabetics will have too little [endogenous] insulin (because the pancreas is at war with itself and thus isn’t producing useful quantities of insulin, if any). Type 2, however, is more a case of acquired insulin insensitivity, because of having too much at once too often, thus the body stops listening to it, “boy who cried wolf”-style, and the pancreas also starts to get fatigued from producing so much insulin that’s often getting ignored, and does eventually produce less and less while needing more and more insulin to get the same response, so it can be legitimately said “there’s not enough”, but that’s more of a subjective outcome than an objective cause.
Back to the study itself, though…
What they found, and how they found it
Researchers took pancreatic islets from 140 heterogenous donors (varied in age and sex; ostensibly mostly non-diabetic donors, but they acknowledge type 2 diabetes could potentially have gone undiagnosed in some donors*) and tested cell cultures from each with various carbs, proteins, and fats.
They found the expected results in most of the cases, but around 9% responded more strongly to the fats than the carbs (even more strongly than to glucose specifically), and even more surprisingly 8% responded more strongly to the proteins.
*there were also some known type 2 diabetics amongst the donors; as expected, those had a poor insulin response to glucose, but their insulin response to proteins and fats were largely unaffected.
What this means
While this is, in essence, a pilot study (the researchers called for larger and more varied studies, as well as in vivo human studies), the implications so far are important:
It appears that, for a minority of people, a lot of (generally considered very good) antidiabetic advice may not be working in the way previously understood. They’re going to (for example) put fat on their carbs to reduce the blood sugar spike, which will technically still work, but the insulin response is going to be briefly spiked anyway, because of the fats, which very insulin response is what will lower the blood sugars.
In practical terms, there’s not a lot we can do about this at home just yet—even continuous glucose monitors won’t tell us precisely, because they’re monitoring glucose, not the insulin response. We could probably measure everything and do some math and work out what our insulin response has been like based on the pace of change in blood sugar levels (which won’t decrease without insulin to allow such), but even that is at best grounds for a hypothesis for now.
Hopefully, more publicly-available tests will be developed soon, enabling us all to know our “insulin response type” per the proteome predictors discovered in this study, rather than having to just blindly bet on it being “normal”.
Ironically, this very response may have hidden itself for a while—if taking fats raised insulin response without raising blood sugar levels, then if blood sugar levels are the only thing being measured, all we’ll see is “took fats at dinner; blood sugars returned to normal more quickly than when taking carbs without fats”.
You can read the study in full here:
Proteomic predictors of individualized nutrient-specific insulin secretion in health and disease
Want to know more about blood sugar management?
You might like to catch up on:
- 10 Ways To Balance Your Blood Sugars
- Track Your Blood Sugars For Better Personalized Health
- How To Turn Back The Clock On Insulin Resistance
Take care!
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Stiff In The Morning? Here’s Why (It’s Avoidable!)
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Mobility coach Marina Sarenac shows us how to get things moving better:
Bringing your body to life
…and bringing life to your body!
By this we mean: chances are, your body feels stiff because it adapts to how you live—which for many people means long hours sitting—and generally isn’t an adverse effect of how hard you train. Mobility training resets your joints, improves how you move, and makes workouts and daily tasks feel smoother. This is because stiffness is mostly a matter of reduced range of motion.
So, how to correct that? Here are a couple of ways of improving things for each of the most common “this body area is stiff” contenders:
Ankles:
- Kettlebell ankle mobilization: from a lunge, push your knee forwards over your toes while keeping your heel down to open your ankle joint.
- Barbell calf stretch: place a bar across your calves, and sit on your heels to release deep tension.
Hamstrings:
- Single-leg hamstring good morning: hinge from your hips with dumbbells at your sides, moving slowly to build control throughout your range.
- Jefferson curl: hold a dumbbell and roll your spine down slowly for strength through length.
Groin:
- Half frog get-up: load your adductors while keeping your extended-leg toes pointed up.
- Standing single-leg pancake: keep your chest up, reach towards your foot with a dumbbell, and (as she puts it) wake up your groin.
Hips:
- Banded seated figure four: use a band to open your hip capsule and give your glutes and lower back space.
- Couch stretch: keep your chest tall and your glutes tight to undo hours of sitting; remove dumbbells if needed.
Shoulders:
- Band pass-throughs: use a light band, keep your ribs down, and retrain your shoulders to move in a full circle.
- Plate shoulder rotations: keep your core engaged and move smoothly for stable, controlled shoulders.
You don’t have to do all of these, of course, though it’s great if you do! Most important is to do the ones that are most relevant to you, your body, and your lifestyle.
Writer’s example: I spend a lot of time at my desk, but it’s a standing desk and I habitually stand on one leg (I’m trying to correct this a little by consciously standing on my left leg more, since otherwise I unconsciously tend to favor standing on my right leg, so I need to balance it out). This might sound like a strange habit to you, but it’s just one more way all our bodies and lifestyles are unique. But! This means that for me, ankle mobility issues aren’t really a thing, my lower body is very strong, etc. However, my vice is that sometimes I lean in to the screen when reading things, not because of any problem with my eyesight, but just, “I am leaning in and reading interesting paper that has fully absorbed my interest such that I forget my posture”. As a result, sometimes my neck posture isn’t ideal, and if I’m leaning on my desk, my shoulders can have a lot of unbalanced tension (especially because I’m probably on one leg, which means leaning with a shoulder becomes the other support, if I’m just reading instead of writing—for writing, my posture is perfect, because my ergonomic keyboard position demands it, but reading is a wildcard). So for me, shoulder stretches can be important.
How about for you?
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
The Most Underrated Hip Mobility Exercise (Not Stretching)
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Fasting Cancer – by Dr. Valter Longo
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We’ve previously reviewed Dr. Longo’s “The Longevity Diet”, and whereas that one was about eating, this one is (superficially, at least) about not eating. Nor is this any kind of dissonance, because, in fact, it’s important to do both!
That said, he discusses not just fasting per se, but also the use of a personalized fast-mimicking diet, to accomplish the same goal of not overloading the metabolism—as overloading the metabolism results in metabolic disease, and cancer is, ultimately, a metabolic disease of immune dysfunction with genetic disorder*—which makes for quite a deadly trifecta.
*not in the sense of “hereditary”, though certainly genes can influence cancer risk, but rather, in the sense of “your gene-copying process becomes disordered”.
The first three chapters (after the introduction, which we’ll comment on shortly) are devoted to explaining the principles at hand:
- Fasting cancer while feeding patients
- Genes, aging, and cancer
- Fasting, nutrition, and physical activity in cancer prevention
In those chapters, he details a lot of the science for exactly how and why it is possible to “feed the patient and starve the cancer” at the same time.
After that, the rest of the book—another nine chapters, not counting appendices etc—are given over to fasting and nutrition in the context of nine main types of cancer, one chapter per type. These are not hyperspecific, though, and are rather categorizations, such as “blood cancers”, and “gynecological cancers” and so forth. It’s comprehensive, and while it could be argued that it may mean chapters feel irrelevant to some people (à la “I have never smoked and have no pressing concern about my lung cancer risk” etc), the reality is that it’s good to know how to avoid them all, because if nothing else, it’d be super embarrassing to get a cancer you “thought you couldn’t get”. So, it’s honestly worth the time to read each chapter.
In the category of criticism, he did open the introduction with a handful of anecdotes to defend the consumption of (well-established group 1 carcinogens) red meat and alcohol as “secondary concerns that might not be such a big deal”, even discussing how surprised his colleagues in the field are that he has this view. Suffice it to say, it’s contrary to the overwhelming body of evidence, and reads suspiciously like a man who simply doesn’t want to give up his steak and wine despite his own longevity diet forswearing them.
The style is self-indulgently autobiographical and very complimentary, and (in this reviewer’s opinion) it can be tedious to wade through that to get to the science, but at the end of the day, his self-accolades might be needless fluff, but they don’t actually remove anything from the science in question.
Bottom line: as you can see, there are good and bad things to say about this book, but the information contained in the good makes it well worth reading through the stylistically questionable to get it.
Click here to check out Fasting Cancer, and starve cancer cells while nourishing your healthy ones!
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Rushing Woman’s Syndrome – by Dr. Libby Weaver
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It’s well-known that very many women suffer from “the triple burden” of professional work, housework, and childcare. And it’s not even necessarily that we resent any of those things or feel like they’re a burden; we (hopefully) love our professions, homes, children. But, here’s the thing: no amount of love will add extra hours to the day!
On the psychological level, a lot is about making more conscious decisions and fewer automatic reactions. For example, everyone wants everything from us right now, if not by yesterday, but when do they need it? And, is it even our responsibility? Not everything is, and many of us take on more than we should in our effort to be “enough”.
On the physical level, she covers hormones, including the menstrual/menopausal and the metabolic, as well as liver health, digestive issues, and sleep.
The style is direct and friendly, making frequent references to science but not getting deep into it.
It’s worth noting that while she acknowledges other demographics exist, she’s writing mainly for an audience of otherwise healthy straight white women with children and at least moderate financial resources, so if you fall outside of those things, there may be things that society will penalize you for and expect more from you in return for less, so that is a limitation of the book.
Bottom line: if the above describes you, you will probably get value out of this book.
Click here to check out Rushing Woman’s Syndrome, and take care of yourself too!
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Acorns vs Chestnuts – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing acorns to chestnuts, we picked the acorns.
Why?
In terms of macros, chestnuts are mostly water, so it’s not surprising that acorns have a lot more carbs, fat, protein, and fiber. Thus, unless you have personal reasons for any of those to be a problem, acorns are the better choice, offering a lot more nutritional value.
In the category of vitamins, acorns lead with a lot more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B9, while chestnuts have more of vitamins B1 and C. However, that vitamin C is useless to us, because it is destroyed in the cooking process (by boiling or roasting), and both of these nuts can be harmful if consumed raw, so that cooking does need to be done. That leaves acorns with a 6:1 lead.
When it comes to minerals, things are more even; acorns have more copper, magnesium, manganese, and zinc, while chestnuts have more calcium, iron, phosphorus, and potassium. Thus, a 4:4 tie (and yes, the margins of difference are approximately equal too).
We mentioned “both of these nuts can be harmful if consumed raw”, so a note on that: it’s because, while both contain an assortment of beneficial phytochemicals, they also both contain tannins that, if consumed raw, chelate with iron, essentially taking it out of our diet and potentially creating an iron deficiency. Cooking tannins stops this from being an issue, and the same cooking process renders the tannins actively beneficial to the health, for their antioxidant powers.
You may have heard that acorns are poisonous; that’s not strictly speaking true, except insofar as anything could be deemed poisonous in excess (including such things as water, and oxygen). Rather, it’s simply the above-described matter of the uncooked tannins and iron chelation. Even then, you’re unlikely to suffer ill effects unless you consume them raw in a fair quantity. While acorns have fallen from popular favor sufficient that one doesn’t see them in supermarkets, the fact is they’ve been enjoyed as an important traditional part of the diet by various indigenous peoples of N. America for centuries*, and provided they are cooked first, they are a good healthy food for most people.
*(going so far as to cultivate natural oak savannah areas, by burning out young oaks to leave the old ones to flourish without competition, to maximize acorn production, and then store dried acorns in bulk sufficient to cover the next year or so in case of a bad harvest later—so these was not just an incidental food, but very important “our life may depend on this” food. Much like grain in many places—and yes, acorns can be ground into flour and used to make bread etc too)
Do note: they are both still tree nuts though, so if you have a tree nut allergy, these ones aren’t for you.
Otherwise, enjoy both; just cook them first!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts
Take care!
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How To Get Out Of Any Low Chair Without Help
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Being able to get up off the floor without using your hands is a well-known predictor of healthy aging in later life.
But what of getting out of low chairs? Dr. Alyssa Kuhn, arthritis expert, gives us the low-down:
Don’t get stuck
Tips that help in the moment:
- Lay-flat reclining chairs: scoot forwards until your legs can swing off to the side, use an armrest if available, and check the chair’s stability before pushing up.
- Adirondack chairs: scoot forwards using the armrests or the chair back, place your feet well underneath your knees, lean forwards, and stand.
- Low beach chairs: scoot to the edge, bring your feet underneath your knees, briefly lift and “stomp” your feet to create momentum, then push up using your legs and arms as needed.
In the longer-term, building leg strength reduces reliance on your arms and makes standing up feel automatic rather than effortful.
Two ways of training that in ways that are specific to this:
- Stomp squats: practise standing from a low chair by scooting to the edge, placing your feet underneath your knees, lifting them slightly, and standing without leaning backwards.
- Supported knee bend: with your hands on a stable surface, shift most of your weight onto your front leg, drive your knee forwards while keeping your heel down, then straighten again to build knee and ankle strength.
She also mentions that if knee pain is an issue, then a good approach is to reduce how far your knee moves forwards rather than forcing the depth.
For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
4 Tips To Stand Without Using Hands
…and:
How To Stand Up From The Floor Without Kneeling (3 Simple Methods)
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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