Reproduced below in full is an article I just posted in a private forum for game developers. I've managed to convince a good many to adopt better eating habits over the last few years. Hopefully, posts like this one below continue to help.
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I think the title is a bit awkward, but this hot-off-the-presses article by a leading hormone researcher, Ron Rosedale MD, is one of the best summaries of why we age I've ever read. In bits and pieces I've covered much of it throughout this massive thread, but in one extremely well-written article Rosedale slam-dunks all the key points, and ties it all together better than I've seen anyone else attempt to do.
Insulin, Leptin, Diabetes, and Aging: Not So Strange Bedfellows
http://www.diabetesh...01/13/5617.html
I'm going to quote in italics a few key parts with some of my comments to follow...
o It would be easy to dismiss longevity merely as a function of luck, that is, simply a matter of winning the genetic lottery, but we know that this isn't exactly true. That's a good thing, for it means that we may be able to control our own destiny. We have been controlling the longevity destiny of laboratory animals for decades.
I've been saying this from the beginning, even in threads pre-dated this one. Living to 100 is currently a choice. In fact, given the coming radical advancements we're about to see in biology and nanotechnology, there's fast growing confidence that most of us under 40 have a great chance to live literally 100's of years, based on an engineering approach to repair aging (such as www.SENS.org). It's believed that well within two decades, we'll be able to keep a mouse alive for triple its normal lifetime. And once that happens, billions will flow into replicated this in humans, which will likely take another 1-2 decades to solve. So, staying alive 30 or so years may mean staying alive indefinitely. (And, people will not be stuck at an old age, the repair techniques will restore a youthful appearance and vigor.)
Sadly, most Americans live a lifestyle that will tuck them into their cozy coffin around 75-80, with those last 10 years propped up by energy-sapping pharmaceuticals.
o Our health and life depend on how accurately instructions are conveyed to our cells, so that they can act in harmony. It is the communication among the individual cells that determines our health and our life. The communication is carried out by hormones. Arguably therefore, the most important molecules in your body, the ones that ultimately decide your health and life, are hormones.
Anyone over 40 should be supplementing with hormones, to counteract the inevitable decline that everyone experiences after the age of 35. Why let the natural degradation of the endocrine system weaken your chance to live healthily for a decade or two longer? Besides eating right, this is the next best thing a person can do to extend their life.
o When insulin signals are kept low, indicating scarce energy availability, whether or not, in fact, energy is scarce, lifespan can be greatly extended. Levels of insulin are largely determined by glucose.
The paleo diet keeps insulin levels low, because it's a high-fat, low-carb diet. Carbs = glucose. Glucose raises insulin. Insulin production shortens a persons life. It's that simple.
o If there is a known single marker for life span, as they are finding in the centenarian and laboratory animal studies, it is low insulin levels.
And what raises insulin? Carbs.
This next one is really important:
o What is the purpose of insulin? It is not to lower blood sugar, as is believed by the general public and the medical profession alike. That is a relatively trivial side effect, as it is also the function of other hormones such as glucagon, epinephrine, cortisol and growth hormone. Insulin's evolutionary purpose is to store excess energy for future times of need. It lowers blood glucose levels for the purpose of storing it away, not regulating it. Our ancestors were forced to survive for days, weeks, or even months on little food. High glucose was not a big problem back then! Insulin helped our ancestors store away nutrients for the proverbial rainy day when they would need it.
Note that insulin's purpose is to store energy for future use. Now here's the key: Our body, via insulin, stores glucose NOT as glucose, but as the preferred fuel, fat. Think about that for a moment. Our bodies run better on fatty acids in our bloodstream, rather than glucose. So, when our blood sugar rises, that extra glucose is quickly converted to fat (triglycerides), and tucked neatly away for a rainy day. And when that rainy day does come, our body DOES NOT convert that fat back to glucose, it breaks down those stored triglycerides into fatty acids, the preferred energy source. Everyone who switches to a paleo diet comes to understand that our body runs better and more evenly when we give it the chance to run on its preferred metabolic fuel. And, as a fat bonus, we age less quickly.
I'll stop making comments here. Just read the article. It might change your life.
Edited by DukeNukem, 19 January 2009 - 12:12 AM.