At Virun, we stay ahead of the curve on health science.
Our appetite to learn led us to Clearwater Beach, Florida to attend the Metabolic Health Summit (MHS).
What is ‘Metabolic Health’?
Metabolic Health encompasses all elements of our energy production, our capacity for building and breaking down tissue, the elimination of waste, cellular growth, and cellular reproduction. Metabolic Health philosophy premises on the idea that our ability to convert food into energy manifests in all areas of our health: from neurological functioning to cardiovascular health and to the commonly known metabolic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity. The condition of our mitochondria—the powerhouses within our cells—will dictate our metabolic health, energy, the symptoms of aging, and even disease expression—and inexpression.
If our mitochondria are malfunctioning and cannot efficiently power our cells, then the cells cannot do their job. This applies to all cells in the body, from our brain cells to our pancreas cells. When our brain cell function is impaired, we are at risk of brain fog, migraines, Alzheimer’s or dementia. When our pancreatic cells malfunction, we are susceptible to diabetes.
Metabolic health is relevant to supplement brands because all vitamins, minerals and nutrients–including pre and probiotics have an impact on metabolic health.
In Part One of this blog, we highlight key points of learning from the show. And in Part Two, we will showcase the innovative supplements leading the metabolic health space.s
Starve your body—just enough—to induce cellular autophagy, our body’s innate multi system regeneration mechanism to kill aging and mutating cells.
Setting the Stage: Restoring ‘Multi System Regeneration’ through Fasting Mimicking Diets
MHS attendees excitedly await the start of 2024 MHS. Neuroscientist, Dr Dom D’Agostino leads on the stage, engaging the attention of science hungry metabolic health aficionados, researchers, authors, clinicians and invested business owners.
Dr Valter Longo kicked off MHS offering up an ancestrally inspired approach to reversing the symptoms of aging, consequently preventing the onset of age-related diseases: diabetes, cancer, heart disease.
How? Not in a pill, but in the form of a 5 day Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD) a low calorie, low carb and low protein diet, adhered to for five days, once a month, on a monthly basis—at least for three months. Dr Longo asserted that starvation offers an opportunity to kill bad cells, yet we don’t starve anymore the way our ancestors did and thus we lose our opportunity to recycle cells through autophagy and apoptosis, giving more opportunities for malignant cells, i.e. cancerous cells, to grow. This philosophy is the driver behind the popularity of intermittent fasting.
“FMD improves longevity while cutting the risk of cancer and diabetes by half.” – Dr Valter Longo
FMD naturally balances blood sugar levels, which suppresses insulin secretion (the fat storing hormone) and the growth hormone. If you can suppress the growth hormone in adulthood, your lifespan increases, and your chances of diseases diminish in accordance. Longo showed studies of mice (put on an FMD protocol) who lived 10 times longer than their non-growth hormone suppressed counterparts; furthermore, he showcased the mini women of Ecuador whom live long, disease-free lives, as genetically, they have deficient growth hormone binders.
Longo demonstrated how FMD restored participants’ mitochondrial metabolism and biogenesis, reduced fat while preserving muscle mass–even after only 3 months on the protocol. He confirmed that FMD reawakens ‘Starvation escape pathways’ for sick, dying and potentially mutant cells.
An abundance of brilliant talks, here we highlight some of the most notable: Dr Nasha Winters, author of ‘The Metabolic Cure for Cancer’, further reinforced Longo’s case for simulating ‘starvation escape pathways’ to prevent disease. Dr Nasha led an enlightening panel on reversing disease by adopting a ketogenic diet, which reduces insulin secretion, making it more difficult for cells to grow, including mutating cancer cells.
Brains are like Biceps.
Metabolic Health = Mental Health
Dr Chris Palmer brought our attention to the brain and mental health. He illuminated how, throughout history and in contemporary research, mental and neurological health illnesses have almost always been accompanied by physical metabolic illnesses, such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Dr Palmer stipulated that a metabolic impairment and energy mal-metabolism translates to brain energy deficiencies, which can then manifest in mood swings, anxiety, bi-polar disorder, epilepsy, psychosis and depression.
From a different angle, Dr Tommy Wood reasoned that “Brains are like Biceps”. He cleverly likened the ‘Demand, Support, Repair’ method for bolstering cognitive function and delaying decline, that you could build the brains’ function in the same way as you would build muscles: with the right training, nutrition, and recovery time. His argument explains that without stimulating and challenging the brain to continuously learn, synapsis and neural connections atrophy, and this leads to cognitive decline.
Dr Wood is a firm believer that “Dementia and Alzheimer’s are preventable.” What do you think?
Dr Lily Nichols delivered a fascinating talk on how “metabolic health starts in utero” and illustrated that we inherit our mitochondria from our mothers. Dr Nichols demonstrated how a pregnant mother’s unstable blood sugar levels could increase the baby’s risk of type 2 diabetes later in life. Dr Nichols illuminated the stark correlation between Vitamin D deficiency in the mother and an increase in dental deformities in babies. Beyond this, Dr Nichols conveyed that DHA deficiencies in mother not only compromise the baby’s brain development but could even result in increased chances of pros natal depression. She asserted that algae derived DHA is one of the most reliable sources for vegetarians. Have you discovered our highly bioavailable algae derived DHA capabilities? Click here to learn more.
Metabolic Health starts in Utero
Ben Bikman, PhD studies fat cells in vitro—and across human populations—and described how difficult it is to grow fat cells—no matter how much fat or sugar you pump them with, without insulin, they will not grow. This makes it easier to comprehend why low carbohydrate diets work so well, as you need sugar to trigger insulin secretion. Moreover, Bikman illustrated how Caucasian and Asian fat cells in humans) have completely different growth capabilities. Caucasian fat cells grow and multiply more efficiently than their Asian counterparts. Asian fat cells become insulin sensitive more rapidly which predisposes them to diabetes, despite being less obese than westerners.
This clarifies why diabetes is so prevalent within asian populations, even though they aren’t as fat as Americans!
The low carb and keto trend is here to stay! Let us know if you have learned anything new in the comments section below. 👇🏼
Check out Part Two to discover the latest supplement innovations supporting metabolic health.
