Anatomy of a great breakfast

People often ask me what I eat for breakfast since I don't eat cereal or bread.  For the most part, I stick to a similar breakfast every day as seen below:

This meal consist of 2 sausage links and 2 strips of organic bacon with veggies sauteed in bacon fat and a tsp of Kerrygold butter.  The veggies consist of parsnips, carrots, asparagus, russet potatoes, onions and red peppers.  I cook this in a cast iron skillet, so the added fat is to make sure it doesn't stick to the pan.  Normally I season the veggies with basil, parsley, and garlic but I got a little lazy today.  In the mason jar is 1 tbsp of unmodified potato starch mixed in water.  So let's break down the benefits of this breakfast.

Building a healthy gut

The first thing to notice is the volume of vegetables compared to meat.  Since my diet isn't low carb, I like to eat a large volume of veggies to help support GI health and a healthy community of beneficial bacteria in my gut.  Most people take a probiotic to do this, but in my opinion prebiotic fiber from vegetables is a much smarter direction to go.  Even if probiotics work, and I do believe they have some benefit, if you don't provide the proper food for the little guys to survive in your gut they won't.


Prebiotic fiber from vegetables helps cultivate a healthy microbiome by helping to heal the gut and providing food to help healthy bacteria do their job.  This is also the reason for the unmodified potato starch.  Unmodified potato starch is basically raw potato powder.  Unmodified potato starch is considered resistant starch, as long as you don't heat it you can't digest it but the healthy bacteria in your gut ferment it in to short chained fatty acids that heal the gut.  I've seen dramatic improvements in my gut health and blood glucose regulation by taking unmodified potato starch every day.  I suppose you could just eat raw potatoes if you wanted, I find the potato starch to be a more appealing option.

In addition to the prebiotic fiber, healthy gut bugs like polyphenols, especially quercetin.  Polyphenols help give plant based foods their color.  To make sure I am getting a wide variety of polyphenols, I eat as many different colors of vegetables and fruit as possible over the course of the day.  In this breakfast alone I get red, white, orange, green, and yellow.  In addition, I normally have wild blueberries during the week but tend to remove them during the weekend because I drink beer and that has a negative impact on my insulin sensitivity.

Antioxidant defense

Every 3 days I like to include a vegetable from the cruciferous vegetable family.  I chose asparagus this time, but we often rotate brussel sprouts, broccoli, kale, and cauliflower.  The reason I like to get cruciferous vegetables in my diet 3 times a week is because they activate the NRF-2 pathway, one of your endogenous sources of antioxidants.  Brocoli's anti-cancer benefits are at least partially through NRF-2 pathway activation.  Wild blueberries also have the same effect which is why I eat them during the week.  I cook my cruciferous vegetables and limit my total weekly consumption to less than 6 servings per week because they can have a goitrogenic effect, they can interfere with thyroid function, when consumed too much.  Cooking them lessens this effect, but doesn't remove it entirely.  Since their antioxidant benefit lasts 3 days, I don't feel the need to consume them more than every 2-3 days.

Allowing a little diversity

Every now and again I will rotate in a different meat or eggs for a while to break the monotony of eating the same thing every day.  I also rotate my oils between coconut oil, Kerrygold butter, ghee, and olive oil.  In addition, I rotate different vegetables frequently.  The other vegetables in the rotation that I haven't mentioned include escarole, sweet potatoes, beets, beet greens, dandelion greens, chard, celery, squash, yellow and green zucchini, green peppers, orange peppers, yellow peppers, and all sorts of different mushrooms.  Throughout a week, I like to get at least 20 different vegetables and a few different types of fruit, rotating different vegetables for breakfast helps get me there.

Conclusion

I like to set the tone for the day with a good breakfast.  The large diversity as well as high volume of vegetables helps keep my gut healthy and keeps me full until lunch, most of the time I could probably even skip lunch without becoming hungry.  From a calorie standpoint, this meal provides approximately 500 calories and is my second largest meal behind dinner.

How free radical formation and mitochondrial dysfunction can speed up the disease process

When you look at most of the diseases we see today, many share a few things in common.  Schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, Pakinson's disease, epilepsy, migraines, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, Huntington's disease, and cancer are all diseases that share three common threads.  Every one of these conditions, and even the process of aging itself, is associated with high free radical production, mitochondrial dysfunction, and inflammation(1, 2, 3).  In this blog we will discuss how these three phenomena work synergistically to take you down.

Free radical damage to cells

As discussed in my last blog, mitochondria are little organelles within your cells that are responsible for generating the bulk of your energy needs.  I also discussed how, as a natural byproduct of energy generation through the electron transport chain of the mitochondria, some free radicals are produced.  Free radicals, or reactive oxygen species(ROS) are molecules that have an unpaired electron in their outer shell.  Free radicals are very reactive, and since they are unstable until the unpaired electron finds a partner, they go around to other parts of the cell and try to steal an electron, turning that molecule in to a free radical.  It is important to note that this reaction isn't simply with free molecules that are floating around in your cells, free radicals interact with molecules that make up the machinery of your cells.  Obviously, if you want your cells to function properly, you want to keep free radicals from getting out of hand.

DNA and free radical damage

One of the problems that you run in to when free radicals get out of hand is the potential for the free radicals to alter the mitochondrial DNA.  Every one of our cells has 2 types of DNA, nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA.  The DNA most of us is familiar with is the nuclear DNA.  Both types of DNA contain instructions for building you, but 99.9999999% of those instructions are found in the nuclear DNA.  When your cells divide to form new cells, the nuclear DNA splits in to 2 and replicates to form a set of instructions for each cell.  If there is damage to the nuclear DNA, this can lead to copy errors which leads to unhealthy, irregular cells.

Certain types of radiation can cause damage to the nuclear DNA.  However, the nuclear DNA is surrounded by a membrane that protects it from other parts of the cell, so it probably doesn't get damaged directly by free radicals generated by the electron tranpsort chain in the mitochondria until you are producing huge amounts of them.  Since the mitochondrial DNA is within the mitochondrial membrane and is not separated from other parts of the mitochondria by a membrane, free radicals generated by the electron transport chain are free to react with the mitochondrial DNA.  While most of the important instructions are contained within the nuclear DNA, the mitochondrial DNA is mostly instructions for proteins contained within the electron transport chain.

Accumulation of free radical damage and mitochondrial dysfunction

Perhaps as free radical damage accumulates to the mitochondrial DNA, a tipping point is reached and the DNA is damaged to the point that new mitochondria made from this damaged mitochondrial DNA are dysfunctional and contain a poorly functioning electron transport chain.  This causes the generation of more free radicals leading to an environment of high free radical production and mitochondrial dysfunction.  In fact, there is scientific evidence that damaged mitochondrial DNA and a dysfunctional electron transport chain both lead to an increase in free radical production(4). As free radical production increases, so does systemic inflammation as free radicals activate genes that produce inflammatory cytokines(5).  What's more, since most of your cells contain many mitochondria(up to 2000 in liver cells), having many dysfunctional mitochondria can produce a large amount of free radicals that could eventually destroy the membrane surrounding the nuclear DNA and cause damage to it.

Keeping excessive free radical production at bay

While we cannot say for sure whether an environment of high free radical production, mitochondrial dysfunction and inflammation causes disease or that disease causes this environment, we do know for sure that this environment is not beneficial in any way to you or your cells.  If your goal is to be healthy, you should make it a point to limit excessive free radical generation by reducing the amount of energy going through your mitochondria and making sure your endogenous antioxidant defense system is generating antioxidants to help keep free radical production under control.  The easiest way to both of these things is to not over-consume calories and to get regular physical activity throughout the day, which is probably why doing both is associated with good health and a lower risk of most disease states. In fact, one could make the argument that there is a single general disease state in chronic disease, with each one of us being susceptible to different diseases based on our individual genetic code.

Aging, exercise, and diet: Are free radicals to blame?

Many people have heard of antioxidants and free radicals, but few understand their importance to health.  Much like most health topics, antioxidants and free radicals have been reduced to the simplistic "antioxidants are good and free radicals are bad" explanation.  People certainly like simplicity, but what's the point in a simplistic explanation if it's outright wrong?  This has led to many people wasting money on supplements that they don't need at best, or could be potentially harmful at worst.  When we take a look at how the human body works and what research shows us, we can get a good idea of what we should be doing about antioxidants and free radicals.

It's not a controversial thing to say that eating in excess and limiting physical activity tends to have negative effects on the body.  Physical activity is a good thing whether it's via an exercise program or just regular, everyday chores.  Of course, this is all dependent on other things in that person's life as well as the dosage of physical activity.  A person who isn't sleeping or eating properly is adding to the amount of stress their body is under, so it's important to apply a level stress in the form of physical activity or exercise that is manageable to that person.  If exercise was as simple as more=better, people who run marathons and triathlons would live longer than the rest of us...They don't.  There is a fine balance between diet and exercise that is optimal, and letting that get out of balance may be one of the keys to this antioxidant/free radical relationship.

Free radicals and antioxidants

Free radicals are molecules that have an unpaired electron in their outer shell.  This makes that molecule reactive so it goes around reacting with stable molecules, pulling an electron from them.  While this stabilizes the free radical, it causes the other molecule to become a free radical.  Antioxidants work by donating electrons to free radicals, but this makes the antioxidant a free radical.  So, ingesting antioxidants such as Vitamins C or E really don't reduce the number of free radicals in your body, it just passes the buck from the free radical to the antioxidant.  In this way, antioxidants that you get from your diet really aren't that helpful on their own, they need help from the antioxidants your body makes on it's own, also called endogenous antioxidants.

The 4 endogenous antioxidants are superoxide dismutase(SOD), alpha lipoic acid(ALA), coenzyme Q10(CoQ10), and glutathione peroxidase(GPX).  These master antioxidants work by completely taking care of free radicals rather than just donating an electron and passing the buck down the road.  ALA, CoQ10, and GPX also have the ability to recharge the exogenous antioxidants you get from your diet by donating an electron to them, making them more stable.  Having a fully operational endogenous antioxidant defense system is very important to health, and it's fairly easy to accomplish when armed with the proper information.

Human metabolism and free radicals

It may come as a surprise to you, but one of the natural byproducts of human metabolism is free radical production.  Free radicals aren't all bad, they actually help perform some vital cellular processes so eliminating them is not something you should be looking to do.  Your primary goal should be to develop a balance between your endogenous antioxidant defense system and free radical production, not eliminate free radicals altogether.  This can be accomplished very easily, let's look at the relationship between energy production and free radicals.

Your mitochondria are organelles within your cells that are responsible for most of the energy production.  Mitochondria create energy aerobically which means they require oxygen.  One of the ways mitochondria make energy is via the electron transport chain.  The electron transport chain makes energy by passing electrons between complexes within the electron transport chain.  No machine operates at 100% efficiency, so as a natural byproduct of this process electrons can leak out and react with oxygen to make the free radical superoxide, which is very toxic and highly reactive.

Physical activity and the endogenous antioxidant defense system

When we are physically active, the endogenous antioxidant defense system within our cells is activated.  Gravity has a profound effect on the endogenous antioxidant defense system because when our muscles are activated, so is the endogenous antioxidant defense system.  Looking at astronauts in microgravity, research shows that a lack of or lower amounts of gravity lead to an increase in free radical damage(1).  This isn't from an increase in free radical production, it's from a downregulation of genes that produce endogenous antioxidants.

Other research sheds some light on how this effect occurs.  A study on breaking up periods of sedentary time by getting up and moving around showed that breaking up periods of sedentary behavior led to upregulation of genes responsible for antioxidant production when compared to remaining sedentary(2).  Another study found that exercise increases endogenous antioxidant defense system activity and capacity(3).  Therefore, the positive effect from exercise on free radicals more than likely occurs as a direct effect of exercise on stimulating the antioxidant defense system as well as increasing that system's capacity to deal with free radicals over time by increasing it's output.

Obesity and it's relationship to aging and free radicals

It should come as no surprise that there is a strong relationship between obesity and disease, and for the most part leaner people tend to look younger.  However, the relationship between obesity and disease is just that, a relationship. The fact that there is a relationship between them does not mean that obesity causes disease or that disease causes obesity, only that the two share something(s) in common.  It's quite possible that an imbalance between free radical production and the endogenous antioxidant defense system could be what links the two together.

Obese people tend to overconsume calories and have lower physical activity levels than their lean counterparts.  Despite having lower levels of physical activity, obese people tend to burn more calories than lean people.  In fact, total daily energy expenditure for humans is pretty static when you control for body size.  One study looked at the daily energy expenditure of modern day hunter gatherers and compared it to that of the more sedentary western lifestyle and found the same total energy expenditure when you control for body size.  While the hunter gatherers burned more calories from physical activity, Westerners burned more calories through an increase in metabolic rate(4).

One would have to think that, despite generating the same amount of energy, the hunter gatherers would have had a better balance between free radical production and endogenous antioxidant production than the more sedentary Westerners.  They also tend to have much better health outcomes and lower to non-existent rates of Type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer, and heart disease, all of which share a relationship with an imbalance between free radical production and endogenous antioxidant production.

Perhaps obesity is simply the outward manifestation of putting an excess number of calories through the mitochondria without the beneficial effects of physical activity on endogenous antioxidant production in people prone to obesity.  Cancer, Type 2 diabetes, and heart disease all share the common trait of high free radical levels as well.  The relationship between obesity and  poor health could simply be a mismatch between free radical production and endogenous antioxidant production.  Obesity is what this looks like in people prone to it, but poor health is the outcome for all whether they are prone to obesity or not.  In other words, obese people tend to be less healthy because obesity shows that this process is going on, but some people don't have the forewarning that this is going on because they aren't prone to obesity.

Conclusion

The human body functions best when it is physically active and given a nutrient dense diet that has a moderate amount of calories.  It would be inappropriate to say that excess free radical generation is directly to blame for increased aging, obesity, and poor health outcomes.  It seems more likely that an imbalance between free radical production and endogenous antioxidant production brought about by a lifestyle that is not conducive to our physiology is to blame.  Taking antioxidant supplements or even eating tons of vegetables to provide the body with antioxidants will not put someone on the path to better health.  As I discussed here, certain vegetables can stimulate your body to produce endogenous antioxidants, but even then I wouldn't expect a revolutionary benefit.  A holistic approach that incorporates a nutrient dense, calorically moderate diet with high levels of general physical activity will do a much better job of improving your health while at the same time slowing down the aging process, or at the very least making it look like the process is slowing down.

Next Thursday I will discuss how free radical production and mitochondrial dysfunction, two factors in many of the diseases we see today, can speed up the disease process.

Part 2

Why you should avoid overeating and overexercising for optimal health

Eating less is good for your health in more ways than one.  Most people can understand the detrimental effect eating more calories can have on your health from a weight gain perspective, but it actually goes much deeper than that.  The same can be said about overexercising.  To understand how this works, let's take a look at the energy generating furnaces of our cells, the mitochondria.

The Mitochondria

The mitochondria are interesting structures. For one, they aren't original parts of our cellular machinery.  The current theory is that they were a bacteria that was engulfed by a eukaryote, a type of cell that contains organelles as well as a nucleus that separates the cell's DNA from the rest of the cell.  Eukaryotes are the cells that make up most of the life on the planet.  In exchange for protection within their predator, the mitochondria can provide energy via aerobic pathways of energy that the eukaryotes cannot use.  Without the mitochondria, life on the planet would be quite different, if it existed at all.

Also, mitochondria have their own DNA which mostly produces structures responsible for a form of energy metabolism called the electron transport chain.  This DNA is similar in structure to a bacteria's DNA and is not protected by it's own membrane.  For these reasons, the amount of energy produced by the mitochondria can have major effects on your risk for diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, Type 2 Diabetes, Cancer, and Cardiovascular Disease.

Free radicals and disease

A common thread among many of these diseases that are prevalent today is high levels of free radicals.  Free radicals are unstable molecules that contain unpaired electrons.  Since these molecules strive for stability, they steal electrons from other molecules making them free radicals in the process and causing them to become unstable.  This can cause your cells to malfunction.  Reducing free radicals is fairly important for health, but taking antioxidants doesn't typically work because antioxidants work by donating electrons, which makes the antioxidant a free radical itself.  The best way to reduce free radicals is to not make many in the first place.

How does this relate to your mitochondria?  Another common thread in all of these diseases is mitochondrial dysfunction.  Recall from above that one of the ways the mitochondria generate energy is via the electron transport chain.  The electron train is a form of producing energy where complexes in the mitochondria pass around electron to generate energy.  Do you see a common thread between free radicals and the electron transport chain?  As a natural byproduct of energy production via the electron transport chain, some electrons leak out and react with oxygen forming the free radical superoxide, which is very reactive.

While the mitochondrial DNA is contained within the mitochondrial membrane, it is not separated from the electron transport chain by a membrane.  This means that free radicals can react with and damage the mitochondrial DNA.  Since the mitochondrial DNA contains the instructions for building the electron transport chain, this can cause the electron transport chain to malfunction, potentially generating even more free radicals that can damage the cell.  A relatively recent study showed that cells with damaged mitochondrial DNA or a malfunctioning electron transport chain generate more free radicals than healthy cells(1).

So why exercise at all?  Why not just sit on your butt all day long?  At the proper dosage, exercise will activate antioxidant systems that will neutralize these free radicals.  In fact, one of the worst things you can do is just sit around as sitting will reduce the expression of genes that make your cells' internal antioxidant system, the NRF-2 pathway.

Breaking up prolonged periods of sitting has been shown to increase expression of these genes which increases the amount of glutathione your cells make, their master antioxidant(2).  Overeating while being sedentary most of the day will generate free radicals in the cell because they have to process that energy, and sitting down will reduce the amount of antioxidants that will take care of those free radicals.  Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, the omega 3 fatty acid DHA, blueberries, turmeric, and most sulfur containing vegetables will activate this system as well.  This is most likely the mechanism by which broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables exert their anti-cancer effect.

Conclusion

So how does all of this relate to eating fewer calories and moderate exercise being healthy?  Obviously you will generate fewer free radicals by generating less energy through your mitochondria because you will be passing fewer electrons around inside of them.  As such, you will cause less free radical damage to your mitochondrial DNA which will prevent the excess free radical production associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and a poorly functioning electron transport chain.

When you overeat, you are generating more free radicals because you are forcing more energy through the electron transport chain.  The same goes for excessive exercise.  Moderate exercise is the goal because some exercise is necessary for other parts of your body to function properly, and just sitting all day creates free radicals without generating antioxidants to take care of them.  It is also necessary to increase the number of mitochondria you have within your cells.  A higher number of mitochondria is ideal because it allows you to generate more energy while generating fewer free radicals within each one.  This causes less damage to each mitochondria and decreases the likelihood that they will malfunction.

So what should you do if you are just looking to be healthy?  Basically what I've recommended in nearly every blog I've written.  Eat a Paleo Diet relatively low in carbohdyrate(150g per day or so), get 10,000 steps per day, stay off your butt, and strength train a couple of days per week to maintain muscle mass.  Avoid things like bootcamps, high volume/high intensity exercise, extremely long duration cardio, and worst of all sitting.