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Health, Fitness, and Nutrition; Resource for Women

Category: Scientific Research

What’s All the Buzz About Mitochondria?

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On February 16, 2023

In Healthy Aging, Scientific Research

Image of Mitochondria

Mitochondria…Remember them from high school biology? You may not have known their importance, especially in their role in anti-aging, back then, but more research is revealing how amazing they are!!
Mitochondria are often referred to as the powerhouses of the cell, and for good reason. These tiny organelles are not actually human, but we have developed a symbiotic relationship with them and need them to survive, just as we need the microbes in our gut. Mitochondria are responsible for producing the energy that our cells need to function, and they play a critical role in maintaining our overall health and well-being. The more mitochondria, the better our metabolism (healthy weight). Let’s explore further.
Benefits of Mitochondria
Mitochondria are vital for cellular energy production, and they help regulate several key processes within the cell, including cell growth and division, hormone regulation, and the immune response. In addition, the mitochondria play a critical role in maintaining healthy brain function, and they are involved in the regulation of many physiological processes, including heart function, muscle function, and the regulation of metabolism.
Mitochondria and Aging
As we age, our mitochondrial function decreases, which can lead to decreased energy production, increased oxidative stress, and the accumulation of cellular damage. This decline in mitochondrial function is a major contributor to the aging process and is associated with the development of age-related diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. In fact, studies have shown that increased oxidative stress, caused by a decline in mitochondrial function, is one of the key factors driving the aging process.
Boosting Mitochondrial Health
Fortunately, there are specific ways that we can boost our mitochondrial health and protect against the decline in function that occurs with aging. Here are a few strategies to consider:
Exercise: Regular exercise has been shown to increase the number of mitochondria in our cells and improve their overall function. Exercise is especially beneficial for boosting mitochondrial health in the muscles, as it can lead to an increase in the number of mitochondria in these cells.
Diet: A healthy diet can also play a key role in maintaining and improving mitochondrial function. Antioxidant-rich foods, such as berries, leafy greens, and nuts, can help protect against oxidative stress, which is known to damage the mitochondria. In addition, foods that are rich in coenzyme Q10, such as fatty fish, can help support mitochondrial function.
Supplementation: Certain dietary supplements, such as MCT Oil, acetyl-L-carnitine, alpha-lipoic acid, caffeine, and if you really want to turn back the clock there are anti-aging NAD boosters on the market; Recharge NAD+, NR, NMN and even red light therapy have been shown to help boost mitochondrial function and are offering much hope.
Sleep: Getting adequate sleep is also important for maintaining healthy mitochondrial function. Studies have shown that poor sleep can lead to a decline in mitochondrial function, so it’s important to aim for 7-9 hours of sleep each night to support optimal mitochondrial health.
In conclusion, mitochondria play a critical role in our overall health and well-being, and a decline in mitochondrial function can contribute to the aging process and the development of age-related diseases. Fortunately, there are specific strategies we can use to boost our mitochondrial health, including exercise, a healthy diet, supplementation, and adequate sleep. By incorporating these strategies into our daily lives, we can help protect against the decline in mitochondrial function that occurs with aging and maintain optimal health and well-being.

Go A Little Hungry; Benefits of Ghrelin

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On December 8, 2022

In Scientific Research

Ghrelin, one of the hunger hormones, gets  bad rap, because nobody wants to be hungry when they are trying to lose weight and reduce their caloric intake. However, ghrelin actually signals the body to do some very beneficial things for fat loss and overall health. 

So try going a little hungry at times. Have at least 3 hours between eating. Do Intermittent fasting. Exercise on an empty stomach. Don’t eat to complete fullness; 80% full. Go to bed mildly hungry: eat your dinner earlier and keep the meal smaller. If you’re feeling truly hungry, have a little protein before bed. (My company has a great solution called the Bedtime Belly Buster)

Studies Found:

Benefits of the Ghrelin Hormone in Studies:

Activates Fat Burning Hormones

Autophagy Increases- Recycling parts of damaged cells so they don’t replicate poor copies.

Brain Benefits

Sleep Quality Improvements

HGH production increased

Improves Blood Pressure

Anti-inflammatory

When ghrelin is increased it helps the body put on muscle. Ghrelin stimulates the release of growth hormone from the pituitary gland, which, unlike ghrelin itself, breaks down fat tissue and causes the build-up of muscle. In clinical studies mice without ghrelin lost muscle and mice with added ghrelin gained muscle. 

What are the benefits of Marine Type 1 Collagen?

Sticky post

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On January 6, 2021

In Healthy Aging, Scientific Research

New superior Marine Collagen Formula

Collagen has been the rage for a few years now. But with so many types on the market, how do we know which is the best type to supplement with?

Did you know, as we age, our body’s ability to produce new collagen declines, and existing collagen begins to break down? The loss of collagen effects skin, joints, and bones. The decreased collagen may also lead to increased digestive problems, weakened immune systems, and increased risk of chronic illness. Good news! Science has shown that collagen supplementation can protect against and reverse these effects. 

Marine Collagen, which is a type 1 collagen, is made of collagen peptides derived from fish and has the most efficient absorption of all collagen types. Marine Collagen is environmentally friendly and sustainable as it uses parts of the fish that are normally thrown away.

Clear Medicine’s Top Ten Benefits of Marine Collagen:

1. Builds Bone Strength – Studies have shown that marine collagen peptides help the absorption of calcium and other minerals that are essential for bone strength. Check out Dr. Turner ND’s pre-workout cocktail here!

2. Improves Skin, Hair and Nails – Increasing type 1 collagen levels can help your skin look firmer, increase smoothness, and help your skin cells keep renewing and repairing normally. Clinical trials have shown patients who supplement with marine collagen have a decrease in wrinkles and improved skin hydration and firmness.

3. Stabilizes Blood Sugar – 2016 study by the Alberta Diabetes Institute found consistently low levels of circulating glycine among people with type 2 diabetes. Thus, supplementing with marine collagen, which contains high amounts of glycine, may help balance blood sugar levels, which is especially important for diabetics.

4. Boosts Metabolism – a boost in collagen may help improve metabolism by adding lean muscle mass to your frame and helping with the conversion of essential nutrients.

5. Improves Wound Healing and Reduces Scars – Supplementing with marine collagen can lead to accelerated and more efficient healing of wounds. As the main component of the dermal matrix of the skin, collagen is necessary for regeneration of skin after any skin injury or deformation, such as scars, rashes, and burns.

6. Reduces Inflammation and helps with joint pain – With its gel-like, smooth structure that covers and holds our bones together, collagen allows us to glide and move without pain. Studies are showing that it helps your joints move more easily, reduces pain often associated with aging and even reduces the risk of joint deterioration.

7. Brain Health – Glycine makes up roughly 20% of the amino acids in collagen. Some of the glycine benefits range from improving sleep to having inhibitory functions that take action against excessive excitation in the brain. This allows your mind to calm down and focus.

8. Thyroid Boost – Collagen can help boost your thyroid hormone levels by balancing the other proteins in your body. Collagen helps to boost your liver’s ability to convert thyroid hormone into active T3 thyroid hormone by lowering cortisol levels in your blood.

9. Antibacterial Effects – recent research has discovered that peptide fragments contained within marine collagen have antibacterial properties. Specifically, collagencin, a peptide derived from collagen, has been found to inhibit the growth of infection and disease-causing bacteria.

10. Superior Protein Source for Weight Management – is a pure protein source that does not contain any carbs, sugar or fat. Daily intake of marine collagen may help to suppress appetite by keeping you feeling full longer and thus can help promote weight loss.

Source Credit from https://clearmedicine.com/top-ten-benefits-marine-collagen/

How To Avoid And Eliminate Xenoestrogens

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On June 1, 2020

In Healthy Aging, Nutrition Tips, Scientific Research

Type of Xenoestrogens
Avoid endocrine disruptors

Xenoestrogens are found in a variety of items that we have grown accustomed. Most of us don’t think twice about the makeup we wear, the lotion we slather on each day or the plastic container we use to pack our lunch…or worse, the plastic container we use to reheat something in the microwave. We know organic food is supposed to be better for us, but sometimes we just don’t want to pay the extra money. Unfortunately, all of the above may be altering the way our body naturally functions because they all contain endocrine disruptors called, xenoestrogens.

Endocrine disruptors are a category of chemicals that alter the normal function of hormones.  Normally, our endocrine system releases hormones that signal different tissues telling them what to do. When chemicals from the outside get into our bodies, they have the ability to mimic our natural hormones; blocking or binding hormone receptors. This is particularly detrimental to hormone sensitive organs like the uterus and the breast, the immune and neurological systems, as well as human development.

Xenoestrogens fall into of the endocrine disruptor group that specifically have estrogen-like effects. While estrogen is a natural hormone in humans that is important for many important bodily functions in both men and women, when we add outside chemical sources mimicking estrogen, it can be disruptive to normal body functions. When xenoestrogens enter the body they increase the total amount of estrogen resulting in a phenomenon called, estrogen dominance. Xenoestrogens are stored in our fat cells because our bodies cannot readily eliminate them. Some of the build up of xenoestrogens have been indicated in many conditions including:  breast, prostate and testicular cancer, obesity, infertility, endometriosis, early onset puberty, miscarriages and diabetes.

Fasting nutritional cleanses can help eliminate some of the fat soluble toxins such as the xenoestrogens, that are stored in the fat cells. Eliminating these toxins can often make it easier to lose fat and reduce inflammation in the body.

You also want to avoid

Avoid Xenoestrogens by limiting exposure to:

Food

  • Avoid all pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides.
  • Choose organic, locally-grown and in-season foods.
  • Peel non-organic fruits and vegetables.
  • Buy hormone-free meats and dairy products to avoid hormones and pesticides.

Plastics

  • Reduce the use of plastics whenever possible.
  • Do not microwave food in plastic containers.
  • Avoid the use of plastic wrap to cover food for storing or microwaving.
  • Use glass or ceramics whenever possible to store food.
  • Do not leave plastic containers, especially your drinking water, in the sun.
  • If a plastic water container has heated up significantly, throw it away.
  • Don’t refill plastic water bottles.
  • Avoid freezing water in plastic bottles to drink later.

Household Products

  • Use chemical free, biodegradable laundry and household cleaning products.
  • Choose chlorine-free products and unbleached paper products (i.e. tampons, menstrual pads, toilet paper, paper towel, coffee filters).
  • Use a chlorine filter on shower heads and filter drinking water

Health and Beauty Products

  • Avoid creams and cosmetics that have toxic chemicals and estrogenic ingredients such as parabens and stearalkonium chloride.
  • Minimize your exposure to nail polish and nail polish removers.
  • Use naturally based fragrances, such as essential oils.
  • Use chemical free soaps and toothpastes.
  • Read the labels on condoms and diaphragm gels.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive system to burn fat and cleanse your cells of toxins you can find synergistic systems here.

When is Stress Good for You?

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On February 16, 2019

In Healthy Aging, Scientific Research

When Is Stress Good For Us
Hormesis; effects on the body

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? That’s hormesis!

Hormesis is essentially a good type of stress. It’s having a positive response to temporary minor stressors. Having some stress is good, and is necessary to improve the body and mind to become more resilient and stronger, but not all stress is created equal or is beneficial. And obviously, having constant mental stress or physical stress can wreak havoc on our health and have no benefits. So what stress is good and how can we use it to benefit ourselves?

Exercise is a classic form of hormesis. When you’re lifting heavy weights or even light weight to the point of muscle fatigue, you damage your muscle fibers and they built back bigger and stronger. This also applies to endurance exercises as well. 

One of the best types of exercise for boosting your resilience is high-intensity interval training (HIIT). It has a particularly strong hormetic effect on your mitochondria — they become more efficient to deal with the stress, which increases your energy production and slows down aging at the cellular level.

Another great form of hormesis, is Intermittent fasting.

  • It makes your cells more resilient to oxidative damage
  • It protects your brain cells and improves cognitive function
  • It burns fat like crazy
  • It gives the body a rest from digestion so it can effectively cleanse itself
  • It produces more growth hormone
  • It helps you live longer.

The ideal window for fasting is between 16-48 hours. Shorter than that and you don’t see the above benefits as much. Longer, and you start to run into downsides, like dips in energy and muscle loss.

Extreme temperatures are also another type of hormesis. Cold exposure, for example, makes your cells produce antioxidants system-wide, protecting your body from inflammation and damage and increases immunity. Heat exposure makes the proteins in your cells more resilient to stress and slows down cellular aging. 

Hypoxia is another example; when you cut off oxygen to your brain for a short amount of time, it gently stresses your neurons. They respond by creating brand new mitochondria, increasing your brainpower and helping you think faster and work smarter. You’ve probably seen the guys at the gym wearing the Darth Vader looking mask. They are doing hypoxia training. 

Another type of hormesis is exposure to sunlight. We all hear warnings to stay out of the sun or cover up and slather on sunscreen to exposed areas because of the damage the sun can do. But the sun in right doses has many health benefits that we need. Sunlight in the right dose actually makes your cells stronger and helps them protect themselves from cancer. An appropriate dose of sunlight also drives your cells to produce more vitamin D, which affects more than 1,000 reactions across your whole body, including testosterone production, antioxidant production, and more. 

But, to keep the body from being overstressed from our perceived stress/ mental/emotional; bills, relationship issues, traffic etc, physical stress ;overtraining, injuries, surgeries, or even chemical stress; viruses, bacteria, alcohol etc, our bodies can benefit from adaptogenic herbs as well as other techniques to keep the cortisol levels in check and not constantly elevated. Our stress is designed to help us when we need to survive, but if that switch is constantly turned to the “on” position, we never have time to recover from stress mode and go back to homeostasis, which can create a chemical imbalance. That is when stress does not benefit us; distress. There are many ways to combat that as well, but I will leave that for another post.

How to Turn on Your Fat Burning Machine

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On January 6, 2017

In Nutrition Tips, Scientific Research

The hormones insulin and glucagon are both produced in the pancreas and work in balance. When one goes up the other goes down and vice versa. This was ideal when food wasn’t always readily available.  But now it is, for most of us, and that’s where the problem starts. 

These two hormones serve opposite functions. Insulin is secreted by the beta cells of the pancreas when your blood sugar levels are high. So, following a meal that contains mostly high glycemic/high sugar carbohydrates, your blood sugar level shoots up quickly past the normal post meal level of 140 mg/dl. This will facilitate storage of glucose (blood sugar) in the muscle tissues and especially fat cells.

 Glucagon is secreted by the alpha cells of the pancreas when blood sugar is low. This primarily occurs between feedings (fasting) and while exercising. Glucagon causes the liver to release stored energy into circulation.

 Insulin promotes storing energy and manufacturing proteins while glucagon promotes the release of stored energy, both glucose and fatty acids.

 If you want to convert your body to a perpetual fat-burning state, it is essential that you keep your insulin and blood sugar levels low. That’s because burning sugar always takes precedence over burning fat. The more carbohydrates in your diet, the higher your blood sugar and insulin levels will be. If you are consistently burning more sugar, that means you end up storing more fat.

If your body is accustomed to burning sugar for energy, as soon as it is out of the bloodstream, your body will start begging for it again. You will have cravings and even experience a “high” from eating sugary foods. As your blood sugar rises and subsequently crashes, you will become edgy, depressed and fatigued until those cravings are fed again. This constant process reduces insulin sensitivity, causing your body to need more. You may call it a sugar addiction.


The ideal way to start burning body fat, instead of storing it, is eating foods with a lower glycemic index and exercising with high intensity. Eating more protein and less carbohydrates. When eating fast burning (high on the glycemic index) carbohydrates, one needs to include fiber, protein or healthy fats, to slow down the digestive process, and in the process making it lower glycemic index.

Exercise, especially intense exercise, is very effective at burning the glycogen stores in muscle tissue. Your glycogen (the storage form of glucose in your muscles and liver that your body can burn as fuel when necessary) is depleted during sleep and fasting, and will be depleted even further during intense exercise. This can further increase insulin sensitivity, which means that a post workout meal (within an hour window of exercise) will be most efficiently utilized. Protein should be consumed at this time to help with muscle recovery, and the body is able to utilize more protein following exercise. 

Interestingly, exercise and intermittent fasting can both achieve some of the same benefits, so why not double up and do both? Some of the things both can achieve are:

  • Decreases blood glucose
  • Decreases insulin level 
  • Increases glucagon
  • Increases growth hormone
  • Increases insulin sensitivity
  • Promotes lipolysis and free fatty acid mobilization
  • Promotes cellular fat oxidation.

Intermittent fasting (IF) has tremendous benefits for burning fat, and getting off the vicious sugar burning cycle. During the fasting process, the body isn’t fed sugars and burns off its glycogen stores. This forces the body to go into fat burning mode for energy.

A few of the additional proven benefits of intermittent fasting are:

-Promotes Fat Loss, longevity

-Starves bad bacteria in the intestines

-Improves; brain function, immune system, allergies, cellular regeneration and repair

-Reduces; inflammation, cravings, blood pressure

-Fights glucose dependent cancer cells

So… as a recap, to start burning fat instead of sugar, you want to increase glucagon production and insulin sensitivity by increasing quality protein consumption, while eating fewer carbohydrates (low GI), keeping blood sugar levels low. Also  including exercise and IF into the plan would be the ideal way get the fat burning machine going.

Natural Treatments for Stress

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On September 1, 2016

In Healthy Aging, Scientific Research

how adaptogens workAdaptogens – What Are They And What Do They Do?

The term adaptogen is used as a part of natural medicine to allude to herbs that is reported to build the body’s resistance to stress, injury, nervousness, and exhaustion. The idea of adaptogens goes back many years to old India and China, yet cutting edge research did not start until the late 1940’s. In 1947 Nikolai Lazarev characterized an adaptogen as an agent that permits the body to counter unfriendly physical, substance, or natural stressors by raising nonspecific resistance toward such stress, along these lines allowing the organism to ‘adjust” to the unpleasant circumstances.

There are almost one million recorded plants, herbs and botanicals on the planet. Of these exclusive 30 have been recognized as adaptogens-nontoxic with the capacity to help the body oversee stress and come back to a feeling of wellbeing.

Pure herbal adaptogens are actually occurring substances contained in a few plants that can help the body restore itself. They have been utilized as a part of Asian societies for a huge number of years to protect against anxiety, weakness, uneasiness and help resistant working, having already been called “rejuvenants”, “tonics”, “qi herbs”, “restoratives”, and “rasayanas” by natural health professionals around the globe.

Stress is a reality of regular life for those around the globe yet especially so in America. Day by day, we are shelled with stress and pressure from each bearing including work, family and the environment. Utilizing pure natural adaptogens may give some protection, relief and escape from day by day pressure experienced by everybody living in the modern world.

Herbal medication guarantees that adaptogenic herbs are distinct from different substances in their capacity to adjust endocrine hormones and the. They help the body accomplish ideal homeostasis. Adaptogens have a normalizing impact on the body and are able to do either toning down the activity of hyper functioning systems or fortifying the action of under-active systems.  These herbs are different from other substances in their capacity to adjust endocrine hormones and the immune system. They are the only natural substances able to help the body keep up ideal homeostasis.

More recently, adaptogens were used widely as a part of the training regime of the previous Soviet Union’s competitors. By considering the effects of training on the athlete’s body and giving them adaptogens to supplement their ordinary eating regimen the competitors performed better and their bodies recouped all the more quickly. Take a look at the medal counts from the Olympics during the 1970’s and 1980’s. The outcomes speak for themselves!!! Today numerous top competitors keep on using adaptogens to help them acquire peak performance.

From my point of view, the thing I like most about adaptogens is that they optimize physiological functioning.  Along these lines, we can create wellness versus treating disease. That, to me, is a better way to live.

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