Functional Performance Systems

Forbes rips into the organic food industry. "Many people who pay the huge premiumoften more than 100%for organic foods do so because they’re afraid of pesticides. If that’s their rationale, they misunderstand the nuances of organic agriculture. Although it’s true that synthetic chemical pesticides are generally prohibited, there is a lengthy list of exceptions listed in the Organic Foods Production Act, while most natural ones are permitted. However, organic pesticides ...can be toxic. As evolutionary biologist Christie Wilcox explained in a 2012 Scientific American article (Are lower pesticide residues a good reason to buy organic? Probably not.): Organic pesticides pose the same health risks as non-organic ones." "Speaking of trust and faithor lack thereof--in organic foods, there was the example of holier-than-thou Whole Foods importing large amounts of its supposedly organic produce from China, of all places. Those imports even included Whole Foods' house brand, California Blend. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Organic agriculture is an unscientific, heavily subsidized marketing gimmick that misleads and rips off consumers, both because of the nature of the regulations and cheating. The old saying that you get what you pay for doesn’t apply when you buy overpriced organic products."

Medicine is great for acute problems, trauma, emergencies, and surgery. It's subpar for chronic health problems. #1: The wrong medical paradigm "Today things aren’t quite so simple. The average patient sees the doctor not for an acute problem, but for a chronic one (or in many cases, more than one chronic issue). Chronic diseases are difficult to manage, expensive to treat, require more than one doctor, and typically last a lifetime. They don’t lend themselves to the one pro...blem, one doctor, one treatment approach of the past. Unfortunately, the application of the conventional medical paradigm to the modern problem of chronic disease has led to a system that emphasizes suppressing symptoms with drugs (and sometimes surgery), rather than addressing the underlying cause of the problem." "Recognizes the mismatch between our genes and our behavior and environment as the primary driver of chronic disease; and Focuses on preventing and reversing the underlying causes of disease, rather than just suppressing symptoms" #2 The wrong delivery model "First, it’s not structured to support the most important interventions. As I mentioned above, the primary causes of the chronic disease epidemic are not genetic, but behavioral. It boils down to people making the wrong choices about diet, physical activity, sleep, stress management, etc.over and over again, throughout a lifetime. This makes it clear that one of the most important roles healthcare providers should play is supporting our patients in making positive behavior changes. Unfortunately, the conventional medical system makes this extremely difficult. The average patient visit with a primary care provider (PCP) lasts about 10 to 12 minutes, and the average PCP has about 2,500 patients on his roster. If a patient has multiple chronic conditions, is taking several medications, and presents with new symptoms, it is nearly impossible to provide quality care during that 10-minute visit. Once the initial intake and review of medications has taken place, there’s just barely enough time to prescribe a new drug for the new symptomsand no time at all for a detailed discussion of diet and lifestyle factors that might be contributing. And since the PCP has 2,499 other patients and is already overworked, there’s no other time or place for that kind of discussion." "What’s more, if 95 percent of the appointment is spent talking about symptoms and medications and only the last 5 percent on potential diet and lifestyle causes and solutionswhat do you think the patient will take more seriously?"

Lavar and LiAngelo Ball seems to be eating all the food at the expense of Lonzo and LaMelo. One can be drafted #2 overall into the NBA with novice-level weight room strength in 2017. UCLA men's basketball strength and conditioning needs help inspiring and/or coaching players.... The NBA needs to get more physical to prevent kids talented enough but not physically ready from entering the draft (and playing immediately). Might help TV ratings too.

Tough road ahead. We can do better than this. "The data revealed that the number of people affected by obesity has doubled since 1980 in 73 countries, and continued to rise across most other countries included in the analysis. Obesity levels were higher among women than men across all age groups, which correlates with previous findings on obesity."... "The United States has the greatest percentage of obese children and young adults, at 13%, while Egypt led in terms of adult obesity, with almost 35%, among the 195 countries and territories included in the study." ""Those half-serious New Year's resolutions to lose weight should become year-round commitments to lose weight and prevent future weight gain," he said in a statement." Health Effects of Overweight and Obesity in 195 Countries over 25 Years http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1614362

Youthful, healthy people are using carbohydrate predominantly for energy. This is efficient, high energy, and low stress for cells. The diseased, starving, diabetic, fatigued, and old are using less carbohydrate for energy and depend more on other substrates, like fats, for energy. This is inefficient, low energy, and high stress for cells. Ketosis and low carb strategies are denying people optimal wellness for the sake of fat loss (i.e. using stored fat for energy); but thi...s ultimately results in fatigue cells and, in turn, fatigued people. Correcting fatigue and degenerative issues, as Dr. Peat's work suggests, involves coaxing the metabolism back to using carbohydrate for energy. If you're intentionally avoiding carbohydrate in the diet, your body has no choice but to go the inefficient route. =============== "It’s as if a switch has been flicked. Evidence is mounting that chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is caused by the body swapping to less efficient ways of generating energy." "But several lines of investigation are now suggesting that the profound and painful lack of energy seen in the condition could in many cases be due to people losing their ability to burn carbohydrate sugars in the normal way to generate cellular energy. Instead, the cells of people with CFS stop making as much energy from sugar as usual, and start relying more on lower-yielding fuels, such as amino acids and fats. This kind of metabolic switch produces lactate, which can cause pain when it accumulates in muscles. Together, this would explain both the shortness of energy, and why even mild exercise can be exhausting and painful." "The result is not unlike starvation, says Armstrong. When people are facing starvation, the body uses amino acids and fatty acids to fuel energy for most cells in the body, to keep glucose levels vital for the brain and muscles as high as possible." "Both sexes had high levels of several enzymes known to suppress pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), an enzyme vital for moving carbohydrates and sugars into a cell’s mitochondria a key step for fully exploiting sugar for energy." We don’t think it’s just PDH, says Chris Armstrong at the University of Melbourne in Australia, whose research has also uncovered anomalies in amino acid levels in patients. Broadly, we think it’s an issue with sugar metabolism in general.

Eat foods low in fat or high in saturated fat relative to polyunsaturated. Form fats from carbohydrate which will not be the toxic food/environment-derived, unstable polyunsaturated variety. These two strategies help slow the inevitable unsaturation of our tissues with aging. The relative increase in stored polyunsaturates contributes directly to the age-related degenerative diseases, and the speed at which you accumulate the polyunsaturates is in direct relation to your food... choices. ========================================= Fats, functions and malfunctions. http://raypeat.com//arti/fats-functions-malfunctions.shtml Charts: Mean SFA, MUFA, & PUFA Content of Various Dietary Fats http://www.functionalps.com//chart-mean-sfa-mufa-pufa-con/ PUFA Accumulation & Aging http://www.functionalps.com//01/15/pufa-accumulation-aging/ Dietary PUFA Reflected in Human Subcutaneous Fat Tissue http://www.functionalps.com//dietary-pufa-reflected-in-hu/ Toxicity of Stored PUFA http://www.functionalps.com//fatty-acid-composition-of-di/ PUFA Promote Stress Response; Saturated Fats Suppress Stress Response http://www.functionalps.com//pufa-promote-stress-response/ Ray Peat, PhD: Quotes Relating to Exercise http://www.functionalps.com//ray-peat-phd-quotes-relating/

Polyunsaturating a spouse should be grounds for divorce. Mazola’s marketing campaign in the 1970s put polyunsaturated fats front and center in the American vernacular and placed saturated fats firmly as the bad guy. The marketing encouraged women to polyunsaturate their loved ones while avoiding saturates; in retrospect, this is the exact opposite of what is desired. Polyunsaturating America: Mazola’s Marketing... http://www.functionalps.com//polyunsaturating-america-maz/ See more

Get your knowledge game tight about cholesterol, or you'll quickly be swallowed by stupidity. "Everything that doctors know about cholesterol is wrong." "To deliberately interfere with its synthesis, as contemporary medicine does, reveals a terrible arrogance."

The coconut oil hate train has started in the media recently due to the continued stupidity of the American Heart Association, which resurrected old dumb ideas about saturated fat causing heart disease by raising "bad" cholesterol, use statin drugs, blah, blah, blah. Medicine for chronic disease is in a sad state of affairs. Where are the droves of physicians calling BS on this charade? J Environ Pathol Toxicol Oncol. 1986 Mar-Apr;6(3-4):115-21.... Medium chain triglycerides (MCT) in aging and arteriosclerosis. Kaunitz H. "The Demographic Yearbook of the United Nations (1978) reported that Sri Lanka has the lowest death rate from ischemic heart disease. Sri Lanka is the only of the countries giving reliable data where coconut oil (containing over 50% medium chain fatty acids) is the main dietary fat." Unsaturated Fats and Heart Damage http://www.functionalps.com//unsaturated-fats-and-heart-d/ Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association http://circ.ahajournals.org//20/06/15/CIR.0000000000000510 =========================== Ray Peat, PhD Quotes on Coconut Oil http://www.functionalps.com///ray-peat-phd-on-coconut-oil/ Coconut Oil http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/coconut-oil.shtml Cholesterol, longevity, intelligence, and health. http://raypeat.com/art/articles/cholesterol-longevity.shtml

From: https://www.instagram.com/cowseatgrassblog/ Better info available here: http://raypeat.com/articles/ http://www.functionalps.com/blog/

Emulsifiers used in food are serious intestinal irritants in mice studies. Be careful. "Here’s a fun start to the week: New research suggests a food additive that’s a pretty unavoidable part of the American diet might be linked to cancer. A study in the journal Cancer Research argues that emulsifiers chemicals like lecithin, xanthan gum, and carrageenan used to improve food’s texture and shelf life also seem to be really good at triggering tumors in the bowels of mice." "...The big problem is their ubiquity. They’re necessary to blend oil and water, give bread its crumb, and make ice cream smooth, and go figure found in almost all processed foods. (Typically several at once, too.) Federal regulations won’t let foods contain more than 1 to 2 percent of any one emulsifier, but they don’t cap the total number of emulsifiers that can be used. The study’s lead author Emilie Viennois’s only tip is to try mixing store-bought processed products with some homemade things so people don’t blast the gut with huge exposure to emulsifiers in one meal.' See more

A simple way to lessen cancer chances is to avoid carcinogens in food. This article describes how two food emulsifiers, polysorbate 80 and carboxymethylcellulose, make mice susceptible to colon cancer. Check your labels! Don't depend on your doctor for advice like this; cancer patients are often provided Ensure shakes which are an emulsifier-rich toxic soup (containing carageenan, soy lecithin, cellulose gum, and cellulose gel), not to mention corn oil and canola oil.... "Overall, these findings support the concept that agitating host-microbiota interactions to cause low-grade gut inflammation can promote colon carcinogenesis." "The findings, published in the journal Cancer Research, show regular consumption of dietary emulsifiers in mice exacerbated tumor development." "In this study, the team fed mice with two very commonly used emulsifiers, polysorbate 80 and carboxymethylcellulose, at doses seeking to model the broad consumption of the numerous emulsifiers that are incorporated into the majority of processed foods. Researchers observed that consuming emulsifiers drastically changed the species composition of the gut microbiota in a manner that made it more pro-inflammatory, creating a niche favoring cancer induction and development. Alterations in bacterial species resulted in bacteria expressing more flagellin and lipopolysaccharide, which activate pro-inflammatory gene expression by the immune system. When using a well established model of colorectal cancer, the researchers observed that dietary emulsifier consumption was sufficient to make the animals more susceptible to developing colonic tumors because this created and maintained a pro-inflammatory environment associated with an altered proliferation/apoptosis (cell death) balance. The researchers observed that enhanced tumor development was associated with an altered intestinal microbiota, characterized by an increased pro-inflammatory potential."

Aspirin v. Cancer "If ever there was a wonder drug, aspirin might be it." "In recent years scientists have discovered another possible use for aspirin: stopping the spread of cancer cells in the body after an initial tumor has already formed."... "During the past century researchers demonstrated that aspirin inhibits the production of certain hormonelike substances called prostaglandins. Depending on where in the body these prostaglandins are produced, they may trigger pain, inflammation, fever or blood clotting." "Researchers often inject tumor cells into the bloodstream of mice to approximate what happens during metastasis when cancer cells must navigate the bloodstream to find a new home in the body. When Battinelli and her team fed aspirin to certain strains of mice and then injected them with malignant cells, the investigators discovered that the platelets did not shield breakaway cancer cells from the immune system or produce the necessary growth factors that allow cancer cells to grow and divide in a new location. Thus, aspirin appears to fight cancer in two ways: its anti-inflammatory action prevents some tumors from forming, and its antiplatelet properties interfere with some cancer cells' ability to spread."