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Cancer and Antioxidants

Acute chronic stress is unique to humans, the fearful ‘worryers’.  The chart below reveals the amount of adrenal stress hormones (cortisol) released by humans compared to other animals.  This is attributable to the nature of the ‘Matrix virtual reality existence’ that man lives within during the past 100 years of the RESET-1812 period.  It is a thinly veiled reality that appears to avail man of inalienable rights of freedoms, private property ownership and control of destiny.  The only problem is, even for non-thinking men, this veil is so thin that really anyone can see through it.  Man hopes with all his being that these realities are true, but knows that the reality is a mirage that is not true at all.

This experience is confined to the recent 100 years period of the second half of the 200-year reset period…of decline from the pinnacle reached during the first 100 year portion of the cycle.  Prosperity was apparently reached and began the decline phase, the inherent decline from the pinnacle.

Man has found himself, in the most recent 100 years, in a battle associated with the changes inherent in to the decline phase, where seemingly everything has gone awry and what was thought to be permanent is demonstrated to be impermanent.  It was also at the onset of the decline cycle, that Rockefeller, now very wealthy from his oil empire made possible by seed funding from Rothschild, who seed-funded many other robber barons of the new world cycle, invented allopathic medicine out of thin air in a scheme to multiply his wealth by building a pharmaceutical empire that could turn carbon-based organic chemicals from oil into drugs.  These drugs formed the basis for the monopoly takeover of the medical industry by deceiving every living human into believing they needed and endless supply of pills, shots, chemo/radiation therapy and surgeries.

The combination of factors has brought about an unusual state of being where man virtually lives in a state called ‘fight-or-flight’ mode, whereby the autonomic nervous system attempts to establish a survival mode, intended to exist only during brief real dire life-or-death emergencies, but for a brief time, only long enough to resolve the immediate crisis.  But, in the current situation, humans are living almost perpetually in this state due to fears of mortality created by the very allopathic care system that is supposed to be so advanced and effective sustaining life and health.

When the body automatically enters this state of ‘fight-or-flight’, all non-essential systems of the body, such as the immune system, are shut down for the purpose of giving the body all available potential resources to win the fight or successfully flee the from the danger.  Your immune system is not supposed to remain shut-down for extended time periods, but that is exactly what happens in this system of worry and fear that has become normal.  In conjunction with fear, worry, bad diet and bad life-style, the typical body is making adrenalin and cortisol non-stop and releasing into the blood stream.

When comparing humans with various other animal species, such as guinea pigs, fruit bats, and primate monkeys, for example, the problem described above can appear like some genetic flaw preventing the body from synthesizing vitamin C. There is a reason that human mammals do not always synthesize vitamin C (ascorbate) in their liver. A liver enzyme (gulonolactone oxidase) required to produce vitamin C is made unavailable in many humans due to something known as ‘fight-or-flight’ mode, an autonomic nervous system-induced state for facilitating defense from a mortal threat.  When you have an experience that is life threatening, you must either fight and win, or flee and escape.  For this to be possible, your body needs every resource it can make available to fight successfully or to run very fast.  This happens by means of your body’s nervous system performing a shut-down of all non-essential systems for a brief period of time, until you are safe again.  Even your immune system is temporarily incapacitated. This includes liver synthesis of Vitamin C, the essential antioxidant, which is thereby unavailable for its vital role in maintaining alkalinity of body fluids.  This state should be temporary and brief.  Shortly, your body should be back to normal, performing all necessary functions for health maintenance. 

All fluids have a ‘PH’, which is a measure of available hydrogen.  PH is measured on a scale from 0 to 14, where 7 is neutral. Zero to 7 is acidic and 7 to 14 is alkaline.  Acid states are oxidizing, and alkaline states are antioxidizing.  Most people have a vague understanding, sufficient, at least, to know that ‘antioxidants’ are beneficial to the metabolism and ‘oxidants’ are harmful, as in ‘oxidation’, taking available oxygen to neutralize acids, leaving it unavailable for cellular metabolism.

A normal functional cell operates on the ATP system to provide the needed energy for life.  Adenosine Triphosphate is produced using oxygen and glucose.  This is also called the carboxylic acid cycle or the Krebb’s cycle. Without going into detail, this is how a healthy body operates.  Of the food consumed, 85% must be metabolized into glucose, some of which is stored in the form of glycogen in the liver, but which is readily available for reconversion to glucose.  Glucose can be tightly controlled to maintain proper blood sugar levels adequate for cellular ATP synthesis.  The body must have control over blood sugar levels to be healthy.  Glucose is a poly-saccharide, unlike common refined simple sugars, which cannot be controlled and just enter the blood stream based on the amount consumed.  This makes for a very unhealthy body, eventually turning the body into a state known as diabetes.

If your blood were to become acidic, your body would die in short order due to the inability to carry free oxygen between your cells and your lungs. The acidic blood would rapidly use all the available free oxygen to react with acids.  In fact, should your fluids become acidic, your body will sacrifice bone calcium in and effort to achieve a state of alkalinity again.

Animals that function normally in terms of fight-or-flight state, internally synthesize vitamin C, handling stress naturally.  Humans who are unable to handle stress adequately, are busy making cortisol that impairs internal vitamin C production. Unless the body eats supplemental vitamin C from fresh plants, it will become sick.  This is especially the case with cancer cells, that thrive on simple sugars by means of a fermentation process that likes little oxygen and lots of simple sugars, that the body cannot control by means of the liver

Animals that synthesize Vitamin C are known to maintain blood plasma at saturation levels regardless of health challenges, dramatically increasing vitamin C-production internally in response to physical or emotional stress.

Humans do not have a genetic flaw resulting in the inability to internally produce vitamin C as most other animals do. The present-day requirement for vitamin C is variable, based on many factors, but there is no upper limit on the quantity that can be consumed from plant sources.  The amount that will be produced internally is determined by ones’ stress level, life-style and diet.

Vitamin C

Sailors of the middle ages learned about vitamin C when long voyages without availability of fresh produce resulted in a disease called ‘scurvy’. Symptoms include fatigue, anemia, weak blood capillaries, hemorrhage, skin bruising, lassitude, painful joints, bleeding gums, shortness of breath, nausea.

Vitamin C is an essential nutrient involved in the repair of tissue and the enzymatic production of certain neurotransmitters. It is required for the functioning of several enzymes and is important for immune system function as a powerful antioxidant.

Dehydroascorbic acid is an oxidized form of vitamin C. It is actively imported into the endoplasmic reticulum of cells via glucose transporters. It is trapped therein by reduction back to ascorbate by glutathione and other thiols.

Stress and vitamin C

“Westernized Humans” are being exposed to non-stop monster levels of stress by their life-styles, diets and oppression from their governments via the programming presented in schools, TV, movies, newspapers and internet.  Most people know that stress is a factor in bad health but do not understand why. As described above, the ‘fight or flight’ mode is autonomic, not chosen.  It is a survival program in the reptilian part of the brain.  It is only supposed to be a brief state that achieves its goal, one way or the other, and turns the body back to a normal state where all systems function and adrenal/cortisol levels are also normal.

Activation of the adrenal glands, located on top of the kidneys, to secrete stress hormones (called cortisol, adrenalin, epinephrine/ norepinephrine) that in turn release sugar stores in the form of glucose from the liver into the blood circulation.  Said another way, stress induces high blood sugar levels. This is supposed to be brief and temporary.

Diurnal cycles of cortisol levels are found in humans. In humans, the amount of cortisol present in the blood undergoes diurnal variation; the level peaks in the early morning (around 8 am) and reaches its lowest level at about midnight-4 am, or three to five hours after the onset of sleep.

Blood sugar & vitamin C

Experiments have repeatedly shown that humans subjected to mental or physical stress experience a temporary rise in blood sugar levels.  This is because you need extra energy to fight or run at top performance.  Again, this is intended to be brief and abnormal. This is not diabetes, a problem with insulin utilization.

It is categorically impossible for most mammals to develop diabetes/high blood sugar because blood glucose is converted to vitamin C. 

But this stress/sugar relationship creates a more serious problem than elevated blood sugar. 

The Warburg Effect

It was Otto Warburg in the 1930s who observed that tumors take up enormous amounts of sugar.  This became known as the Warburg Effect. 

When doctors seek to confirm whether a mass revealed in a x-ray is cancerous or not they order a CAT-scan with injected radioactive sugar.   The sugar goes right to the tumor and lights up the scan.   

Because cancer cells voraciously utilize sugar for their growth, this scan accurately displays the size and shape of the tumor mass and sequential scans reveal growth or regression. This illustrates that the body is not able to control simple monosaccharide by converting them to glycogen, which can be stored in the liver and released as needed. 

The term sugar is used as a nonspecific noun to cover all of the organic compounds ending in ‘ose’.  One cannot just say ‘sugar’ to specify the many different molecules that make up the sugar group.  This is a common way they keep people ignorant through insufficient definition of commonly used terms.  Your body runs on sugar, but only on the specific form of sugar called glucose.  Since more than 85% of the food you consume must be converted into glucose, needed for energy, this is of serious consequence.  Meats, for example, are net negative foods in terms of glucose.  It takes more energy from your body to convert meats to glucose than is yielded from the process.

Cancer cells form, often at weak sites of chronic irritation, chemical toxin exposure or chronic inflammation.  But other factors are needed, such as fluid acidosis, from a diet of acid forming foods such as meats, dairy, refined sugars such as in sodas and all types of typical fast junk foods and treats.

This is because cancer cells are very abnormal, using a sugar fermentation process to produce energy rather than the normal ATP cycle.  The fermentation process does not use free oxygen and doesn’t produce CO2 as a waste gas.

Cancer patients are often advised to curb their sugar consumption because cancer cells feed off of all types of dietary sugar, sucrose (cane sugar) and fructose (corn sugar). They do not use the ATP cycle, therefore do not require glucose exclusively.

Glucose is a sugar naturally produced in the liver that is the essential source of energy in all the normal cells of the human body.  The human brain accounts for 2% of the body by weight but consumes 20% of glucose-derived energy (utilizes 5.6 milligrams of glucose per 100 grams of brain tissue per minute).  The brain needs sugar to facilitate thinking capacity. 

Low blood sugar may result in a person seeing spots before their eyes which is resolved with consumption of a sugar cube. 

 So, there is no practical way to put a halt to glucose sugar so cancers won’t grow. But there is a way to reduce simple sugars in the blood.  Just quit eating junk foods and sodas.

Glucose is normal and blood sugar levels are carefully controlled by the liver.  Elevated mono-carbon sugar levels negate programmed cell death, a process called apoptosis which allows for normal cell replacement by mitosis.  Inhibit simple sugars, that cannot be controlled by the liver, and tumor cells are more likely to die off naturally.  But only if the body fluids are slightly alkaline, the blood has normal levels of cortisol and oxygenation is ample.  These factors will totally cure cancer.

Vitamin C  Again

Patrick Holford points out that consumption of 2500 milligrams of vitamin C per day more than triples blood plasma levels compared to “Recommended Daily Allowance” levels despite its rapid excretion. There is no such thing as too much vitamin C intake.

When tumor cells are experimentally injected into animals that have been supplemented with vitamin C, tumor spread (metastasis) is reduced by 71% and growth factors by 98%, and tumor weight by 28%.

Vitamin C Renaissance 

Vitamin C therapy for cancer is undergoing a renaissance.  The failure of modern medicine to discover a cure for cancer has caused researchers to revisit the vitamin C paradigm of cancer.

Cancer patients exhibit very low amounts of ascorbate (vitamin C).

The cancer cell-killing activity of vitamin C is attributed to transient production of hydrogen peroxide.  When high blood plasma concentrations of vitamin C are maintained at 1 millimole or above, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is generated which selectively kills cancer cells and does not harm healthy cells.

A millimole (MIH-lih-mole) is the amount of a substance equal to a thousandth of a mole –a measure of the amount of a substance within a soluble base.

Intravenous infusions cannot easily be administered 24-hours a day for cancer patients without continual hospitalization.  In between infusions of vitamin C the cancer cells roar back to life.  (Chemotherapy has the same problem.)  But what is lacking in simple attempts to elevate vitamin C levels are the factors of PH, highly elevated cortisol and poor oxygenation.  These factors must all be dealt with simultaneously, which require simple, at home interventions.

Humans must obtain vitamin C totally from their diet. Supplements are totally useless.  The typical intake is 110 mg. each day.  Compare that to wild gorillas that consume 8000mg of vitamin C a day largely by eating bamboo and jungle fruits.  Eat more apples and oranges.

Measures of blood levels of vitamin C in the US population reveal serious vitamin C deficiency (below 11.4 micromole/liter blood sample).  Smoking destroys most of your vitamin C intake.  The body does not have the capacity to store vitamin C, so diet must continually provide for replacement.

Most oral vitamin C is excreted within 30 minutes.  The depletion of vitamin C is accelerated during illness, in particular in cases of cancer. 

The average lifespan in developed nations is about 75 years today. If people could obtain and consume viable real food and find relief from the fear-mongering governments, they would live 150 years on average.   Their life-spans would be determined by their Telomeres, not by government.

Oxygen is not Required by cancer cells

The tumor eventually develops its own blood vessels, called angiogenesis or neovascularization.  In this manner, tumor cells are connected to sources of sugars that feed the tumor directly, enabling it to outgrow surrounding normal cells. The fermentation process requires no oxygen.

Contact inhibition

What initially triggers the rapid growth of cancer cells?  The general answer for solid tumors is that there is a lesion of some kind induced by trauma, infection, hemorrhage, smoking habits, aluminum deodorants, etc., that triggers chronic repair mechanisms which become perpetual.  Cancer has been called a wound that can not heal.

Absorption of oral vitamin c

Taking oral vitamin C is not equivalent to making vitamin C internally.  The primary reason is lack of oral absorption.   With advancing age humans secrete less stomach acid (hydrochloric acid) which is required to absorb vitamin C.  The absolute absence of stomach acid (achlorhydria) is reported to occur in 19% of adults in the fifth decade of life and 69% in the eighth decade of life.  About 35% of Americans have H. pylori infection that shuts off stomach acid secretion and therefore limits vitamin C absorption. 

Restoration of internal Production of Vitamin C

Cancer is a disease of the Modern Era.  It was extremely rare prior to the time of Rockefeller’s invention of his fake Allopathic medicine.  Even until the 1950s, in countries not yet taken over by Allopathy, cancer was basically unheard of.  Take, for example, rural China, were most people lived in the food-growing countryside, there was virtually no incidence of cancer.  Chinese doctors had no prior experience with cancers up to the time when ‘Westernization’ arrived. 

Then, very rapidly, in less than one generation, the children of farm families who went to the cities for job opportunities, contracted cancers at a rate equivalent to ‘Westernized’ countries. They did not lose their GULO genes, thus losing the capacity to synthesize vitamin C.  Their bodies went into acidosis from ‘Western’ fast food.

There is no loss of vitamin C synthesis on the part of humans.  There is only horrible ‘MacDonald’ corner junk food, sugary soda drinks and coffees.  Allopathic pills showed up in new drug stores and allopathic doctors opened offices everywhere, pushing pills, shots, x-rays, chemo, surgery.

No genetic changes somehow occurred in any humans anywhere.  Genetic changes take hundreds of millions of years of evolution to occur.  Environmental changes can be sudden and rapid.

I recommend a book entitled The China Study by T. Colin Cambel for those who wish to know more about this ‘once in a million year’ large scale multigenerational live study.

Cancer is easily cured and prevented.  But there is no lucre in it for the crooks.  Cancer is a multi-trillion dollar industry that the US can not afford to lose.  So do not be looking for a big breakthrough that consists of simple and cost-free changes in diet and life-style.  It is never going to happen.

A disease-care system that is focused on any diagnosis with an insurance billing code attached to it becomes a selfish industry solely governed by profits over cures.  Prevention is not profitable.  Treatment without a cure is the unstated ideal paradigm. This is true not only for cancers, but for the entire spectrum of ‘germs’ that each cause a disease symptom requiring a prescription, shot, hospitalization, surgery, chemo or radiation.  Allopathy is the only growth industry in existence in the US.

Unless cancer’s sweet tooth is removed, cancer will continue to be a major cause of death.  Unless the massive government fear-mongering is eliminated, cancers, cardiovascular disease and others will be the real pandemics killing ‘Westerners’. The stress-factors will continue to induce the non-stop autoimmune cortisol disorder.  Oxygen deprivation will also continue unabated due to acidosis and the ridiculous killer mask mandates.

Viral pathogens are another fantasy of Rockefeller Allopathic medicine, today’s giant step backward in human wellness. They picked up on an ancient Greek word, ‘virus’ which means ‘corrupt’, an used it to give rise to many more germs that they needed to increase the ‘pill count’. If the word ‘virus’ has any valid meaning at all in medicine, it is certainly not the meaning that has been corruptly applied to it, the worlds must plentiful submicroscopic’ throw-away’. The word ‘virus’ has been applied to the dead waste by-product of mitosis, which is a normal process of eukaryotic cells of plants, animals, spores, fungus, molds, insects, worms existing in the world. It is the mRNA fragments used to assemble the new DNA when a new cell is formed. It is not contagious, infectious, nor is it living. It is just dead molecules, carefully packaged up for ejection from the newly formed cell (an exosome), and discarded from the organism. Forget about viruses. Your epidemics are cancer and heart disease. They are totally curable by giving people real knowledge instead of the packaged up blatant lies of the current failed system.

Patients and loved ones can’t imagine such callous indifference, such intentional misdirection.  It’s slow murder by a different name. 

Cure cancer and you bring down a multi-billion industry, crash the healthcare sector of the stock market, bring down Big Pharma, eliminate millions of jobs, and abolish the need for $6.56 billion in appropriations for the National Cancer Institute.  Cessation of paying for cancer treatment and cures will materialize overnight. 

“The root of all evil is the worship of money.” 

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More on Sarcopenia and Aging

Why am I discussing extending life expectancy in this day of pandemic meltdown and mayhem?  If you are still confused about what is a virus, now would be a good time to get straight on this subject.  Viruses are waste byproducts of cell replication in eukaryotic-celled creatures, which include all animals, insects, worms, plants, fungus, molds, which also includes humans.  They are the used up, now dead mRNA molecules that must be expelled from the interior of the newly formed cell.  This dead waste material is securely sealed in a proteinaceous vesicle called an exosome, which is ejected from the new cell and your body.  Virus are the most numerous entities in existence on the face of the earth.  They are dead, securely sealed and harmless.  They are not infectious, contagious or capable of mutation.  THEY ARE DEAD.  This idea that viruses are insidious malevolent living creatures that infect your body with sickness is utter BS and nonsense.  You are only going to die prematurely if you allow these pseudo-medical criminals to scare you to death. Then, just blame it on your own ignorance. 

What would normal longevity look like if you were not living in a ‘control system’ that causes premature death in a regular on-going system of miseducation or non-education about health, wellness, mental attitude, diet and lifestyle? If you had not been exposed to horrible nutrition and trained to do what is considered ‘normal’ to cause disease and premature death in a totally fake system of totally unnecessary medical treatments? If you were not in a monopolistic allopathic system of pharmaceutical drugs, needless surgeries, chemo and radiation therapy? If you were not taught to believe that normal life-expectancy is 75 years? The answer is: you would die when your telomeres reach their limit on cellular replication, about 140 years. This would be normal. I am not going into details here, as you can find numerous essays on the subject in the archives on this site.

Baby-boomers are members of a sizeable generation that is in the ‘elderly’ period of life. In cases of premature death due to aging, frailty and loss of the ability to move freely plays a major role. This condition, sarcopenia, is only prevented through the practice of regular exercise.  Not just any form of exercise is of equal effectivity.  Specifically, resistance training with weights is the most viable.  All exercise is beneficial, but if you are able, practice weight training.

Your Skeletal Muscle Has Many Functions

Sarcopenia — age-related muscle loss — threatens a healthy lifespan. With society aging worldwide, the prevalence of sarcopenia increases the urgent need to establish prevention and intervention strategies.

Many don’t realize that skeletal muscle not only manages physical activity, but also plays a major role in metabolism, circulation and cognition, as seen in the following figure.

Skeletal muscle not only functions to generate force and movement, but it is now known that your muscles actually serve an important endocrine function. They secrete special cytokines (i.e. myokines) and transcription factors into the bloodstream, thereby regulating the function of other organs. Furthermore, skeletal muscle is a metabolically active tissue with an important role in the maintenance of metabolic homeostasis.

Skeletal muscle is the most abundant tissue, comprising 40% of your body mass, and is the primary sink of insulin-mediated glucose disposal. Muscle is also the major site for insulin-stimulated glucose uptake, as well as the main energy consumer of fat. After meals, about 80% of the glucose is deposited in your skeletal muscle.

How Sarcopenia Sabotages Your Health

The loss of muscle mass with advancing age is a primary driver of insulin resistance in older adults. The declining muscle strength and progressive mobility impairment with age also likely causes a reduction in daily physical activity which contributes to metabolic dysfunction.

The loss of resilience as a result of sarcopenia is underappreciated as a major factor in the ability to recover from life’s inevitable challenges. It is clear that the elderly, with low muscle mass, experience delayed recovery, and have higher rates of complications and infections following injury and surgery, greater susceptibility to drug toxicity and higher disease-specific and all-cause mortality.

Sarcopenia also predicts both the risk for community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly, as well as 90-day mortality in patients suffering from aspiration pneumonia.

Muscle is increasingly recognized as an organ with immune regulatory properties. As such, skeletal muscle cells modulate immune function by signaling through different soluble factors, cell surface molecules or cell-to-cell interactions. It is also speculated that sarcopenia contributes to immune-senescence — the gradual deterioration of your immune system — which is a leading cause of death in the elderly.

Additionally, recent reviews found strong evidence that frailty due to sarcopenia is a risk factor for adverse outcomes, such as longer hospital stays, functional decline at discharge, and both in-hospital and medium, lower quality of life, and long-term mortality.  It can also be a factor in balance and the ability to avoid permanent injury from falls.

Recommendations to Combat Sarcopenia

Many who take pride in their exercise programs come to realize that if they were heavily or exclusively into cardio, susceptibility to sarcopenia is not mitigated.

While cardiovascular exercise can lower your risk of heart disease, it is a highly catabolic activity and will actually lower your ability to build muscle.

What Can be Done at this Point?

The simple answer to this question is to start resistance training. Changes will not occur overnight, so please don’t expect immediate results. It requires consistency and dedication; however, here are a few tricks that should significantly cut your time to get results.

First, do not run at all and use resistance training as the primary form of exercise training. Lift weights about five hours a week, but also spend the same amount of time in a variety of stretching and general body movement exercises, so it is a balanced program. Specifically, practice balance by standing on one foot at a time for as long as you can.  Gradually, you will find the ability to balance for longer periods.  Avoiding accidents like falling from lack of balance can be a real life-saver.  Strength is the real factor here.

It is key to always have a significant exercise recovery period to allow your connective tissue and muscles to recover.  Weight training has two aspects, the tear down and the rebuild. Any exercise done in excess can cause injury and force you to stop exercising for a period of time.

Many gyms offer a personal trainer and there are many GREAT free videos on YouTube that can guide you in lieu of a personal trainer. A good exercise channel is ATHLEAN-X, which has 11 million subscribers, but there are many excellent channels that will teach and guide you for free.

Remember that if you are doing resistance training, avoid doing the same exercise every day. Rotate your routine between upper-body and lower-body at a minimum.

Food Choices Are Vital to Get Good Gains

Don’t fall into the low-fat diet myth and don’t be afraid to incorporate a fasting routine. Eat to achieve and maintain alkalinity of body fluids. An acid state of body fluids guarantees disease, especially cancers.

Going without food for one day per week will not wreck your health or cause the loss of muscle mass from inadequate protein intake.

Your body requires regular intervals where you aren’t eating and failing to provide these intervals is a prescription for metabolic disaster.

Research by Satchidananda Panda, Ph.D., suggests 90% of people are eating more than 12 hours per day, and perhaps 50% of the population eat up to 16 hours a day. There are even many that wake up in the middle of the night to eat.  The proper schedule for eating is to confine the period of food intake each day to a period of 6-7 hours.

Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) Is a Key Health Principle

One of the most important health principles is time-restricted eating (TRE), which is a form of intermittent fasting. Contrary to modern belief, your body isn’t designed to be fed throughout the day, and the near-continuous grazing that most engage in can have serious health consequences.

When you eat throughout the day and never skip a meal, your body adapts to burning sugar as its primary fuel, resulting in the downregulation of enzymes that utilize and burn stored fat. As a result, you become progressively more insulin resistant and start gaining fat.

Many biological repair and rejuvenation processes also take place while you’re fasting, and this is another reason why all-day grazing triggers diseases while fasting prevents them.

There are a number of different intermittent fasting regimes, some of which are more extreme than others, but all are based on the premise that you need to fast for periods of time on a regular basis. TRE is one of the easiest to follow as you simply abstain from food for 16 to 17 hours a day and eat all your meals within a window of seven hours. A six-hour window is likely close to metabolic ideal for most.

By restricting the timing of your meals so that you’re fasting for a greater number of hours than you’re eating, your body will, over time, learn to burn fat for fuel again, rather than relying on fast-burning carbs. Eventually, you’ll also start accessing and burning stored body fat

Help Build Muscle by Combining TRE with Exercise

The mechanistic target of rapamycin, sometimes called FK506-binding protein 12-rapamycin-associated protein, is a kinase that in humans is encoded by the MTOR gene. mTOR is a member of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-related kinase family of protein kinases.

The target of rapamycin (TOR) is a highly conserved serine/threonine kinase that controls cell growth and metabolism in response to nutrients, growth factors, cellular energy, and stress. TOR, which was originally discovered in yeast, is conserved in all eukaryotes including plants, worms, flies, and mammals. The discovery of TOR led to a fundamental change in how we think about cell growth. It is not a spontaneous process that just happens when building blocks (nutrients) are available, but rather a highly regulated, process controlled by TOR-dependent signaling pathways. TOR is found in 2 structurally and functionally distinct multiprotein complexes, TORC1 and TORC2. The 2 TOR complexes, like TOR itself, are highly conserved. Mammalian TORC1 (mTORC1) is rapamycin-sensitive and contains mTOR, raptor, and mLST8. TORC1 in yeast and mammals mediates temporal control of cell growth by regulating several cellular processes, including translation, transcription, ribosome biogenesis, nutrient transport, and autophagy. mTORC2 is rapamycin-insensitive and contains mTOR, rictor, mSIN1, PRR5, and mLST8. TORC2 in yeast and mammals mediates spatial control of cell growth by regulating the actin cytoskeleton. Thus, the 2 TOR complexes constitute an ancestral signaling network conserved throughout eukaryotic evolution to control the fundamental process of cell growth. As a central controller of cell growth, TOR plays a key role in development and aging and has been implicated in disorders such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. The challenge now is to understand the role of mTOR signaling to coordinate and integrate overall body growth in multicellular organisms.

With respect to exercise, the “magic” formula is to exercise while you are fasting. For most, this means not eating at least three hours before bedtime and exercising first thing in the morning, before breakfast.

You need to radically stimulate mTOR to build muscle tissue. You really only want to do this once a day, though, because if you are constantly activating mTOR, you will increase your risk of cancer.

The reason you do this is because the mTOR anabolic pathway is maximally suppressed when you are fasting, and suppresses even further with exercise. The mTOR pathway can be likened to a coiled spring — you compress it, and then you eat food and it explodes into action.

The other factor that activates mTOR is branched chain amino acids. Leucine appears to be the most potent, with hydroxy methyl butyrate (HMB) — a leucine metabolite — being the most potent of all. Below is a table of foods with the grams of leucine per 100 grams of the protein:

So, immediately after your resistance exercise, you’ll want to have at least 3 grams of leucine or HMB. This will give your body the optimal anabolic stimulus to increase muscle protein synthesis to boost your muscle mass.

There are other foods that have leucine, like almonds, chicken and soy protein powder, but I don’t recommend them as they have high amounts of the omega-6 fat linoleic acid. If you are over 60 or have kidney impairment, I also don’t recommend whey protein as it is high in phosphate, which can impair kidney function.

Consume branched chain amino acids, essential amino acids or simply HMB, as long as you are getting 3 grams after your workout, as that will maximally activate mTOR. Remember, more is not better, and will not stimulate it more. All you need is 3 grams.

The BEST Strategy to Increase Muscle Size

There are loads of ways to increase your muscle mass but they mostly involve moving, pushing or pulling heavy weights or resistance bands. The problem with this strategy is that if you are not in good shape, and especially if you are elderly, there is a very high likelihood that you will get injured. In most cases, it is not if you will get injured but when.

The answer to this problem is an exercise strategy known as blood flow restriction training or BFR. As the name implies, BFR involves modifying the arterial inflow and venous outflow while you’re working the muscle by placing an inflatable band around the extremity.

Combining TRE with mTOR activation and BFR is largely responsible for producing the most desirable results.

How BFR Works

BFR’s ability to achieve such remarkable physiological benefits is directly related to slowing venous blood flow from the muscle group being engaged and creating a relatively hypoxic environment or low oxygen pressures in the exercising muscle.

Venous flow moderation is optimally achieved by wrapping the extremity being exercised with an inflatable cuff or band. The band needs to be tight enough to slow venous return to the heart, allowing venous blood to “pool” in the region of the limb that is being exercised, while loose enough to allow arterial blood to flow through.

With very light exercise, and in about 15 to 20 minutes, you get an exhaustive workout that sends a signal to your brain that says, “Hey, I’ve done something really hard here — you better help me recover and adapt to it.”

Your brain then sends out hormonal responses that cause your muscles and blood vessels to grow. Most would think that such light weights would be insufficient to provide any muscle strength improvements, but studies show a 36.2% to 40.1% increase in muscle strength after only 12 weeks, depending on your load and health.

BFR Mimics Heavy Weight Training Without Any of the Risks

BFR training is frequently misunderstood as simply a conventional resistance training program with the addition of resistance bands. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Because the exercise is done with such low weights, there’s far less muscle fiber trauma and damage; especially relative to conventional strength training. This means you are able to recover much quicker, so you don’t have to dig yourself out of a hole the next few days. In most cases, you can exercise different body parts nearly every day and rapidly attain the metabolic and physical benefits.

High-intensity training such as sprinting or heavy weight training have typically been recommended for increasing muscle size because they activate the fast twitch Type II muscle fibers.

In order to increase muscle mass and strength, it’s important to activate Type II muscle fibers during training, since these fibers have been shown to be more responsive to hypertrophy than Type I fibers and are generally much larger.

Weight training done at low weights will not activate Type II fibers — unless it’s done with BFR. The reason for this is because the Type I fibers become exhausted in the hypoxic conditions created by BFR, which then allow the Type II fibers to fire and generate high levels of lactate, which are responsible for much of the metabolic magic.

During BFR training the Type I fibers become highly fatigued during the first set, thus necessitating the recruitment of Type II fibers as the exercise progresses. Simply moving light weights with high repetition without BFR will not engage Type II fibers because there is plenty of oxygen for the Type I fibers to work. Hence the fast-twitch Type II fibers just aren’t called into action.

This is the type of training that not only will add solid muscle mass, but also significantly increase your strength and endurance while reducing your body fat. For most people who are not competitive athletes, it’s really the only form of resistance training they need.

Competitive athletes also seem to benefit from BFR, but they would need to combine it with conventional strength training. In short, BFR works on a very simple principle: It tricks your body into believing that it’s moving far heavier weights than you’re actually using, and as a result generates compensatory metabolic responses, detailed below.

Local and Systemic Effects of BFR

If you are elderly, what is really amazing is that your muscle growth with BFR is beyond what strength training with heavy weights can do. This is because you need good blood flow to your Type II muscle fiber stem cells, and virtually everyone’s microcirculation decreases with age. So, even if you send the signal to grow by doing conventional strength training, it won’t work as well if there isn’t enough capillary supply to your Type II fiber stem cells.

BFR increases your microcirculation, your capillaries and venules and arterioles that are associated with them (see image below), largely because your muscles are working in a hypoxic (low oxygen) environment.

BFR Increases Microcirculation

This low oxygen tension causes the release of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1 alpha), that then increases the hormone vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which is one of the most powerful angiogenic signals in your body. BFR has been shown to raise VEGF levels by 410% in young adults.

Essentially it acts as “fertilizer” for growing new blood vessels and capillaries to your muscle stem cells. BFR training has been shown to increase muscle stem cells by 300% after eight days of training. But it gets even better, as VEGF not only increases microcirculation in your muscle stem cells but also in your brain and heart. In Japan, BFR is frequently used for stroke and cardiac rehab precisely for this purpose.

BFR also increases the production of the important regulatory free radical, nitric oxide (NO), which further contributes to an increase in VEGF. NO is an important signaling molecule produced at high levels in muscle by neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS). BFR, by way of increasing NO, has been found to stimulate muscle satellite stem cells and proliferation.

BFR Is a Powerful Myostatin Inhibitor

But here’s the real winner: BFR also downregulates a hormone called myostatin, which is a negative regulator of muscle growth and mass. In other words when your myostatin levels are high you simply are unable to grow muscle. This is important because the elderly have levels twice as high as the young.

In the past, lactate was traditionally viewed as a metabolic waste product, but today it is understood that lactate is an important molecule that is responsible for many metabolic processes and results in many structural adaptations. It is even referred to as a pseudo-hormone.

When you apply the bands and engorge the working muscle, the Type I muscle fibers which require oxygen, glucose and fat to create energy in the mitochondria rapidly give out and your muscle switches to Type II fibers that run on burning glucose without oxygen by the glycolysis pathway illustrated below.

The lactate that your Type II muscle fibers generate during BFR actually down-regulates the production of myostatin and helps improve skeletal muscle loss. Amazingly, BFR can decrease your myostatin levels by 41% to 45%, which has been shown to increase muscle protein synthesis.

The benefits from the lactate don’t stop there. Once you release the bands, the lactate travels in your blood to your brain, where a monocarboxylate transporter shuttles it into your brain to use it for fuel, and also increases brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF). BDNF is a member of brain growth factors that contributes to neuroplasticity, which greatly enhances cognitive performance.

Correct Band Pressure Is Crucial

As mentioned previously, the restriction bands need to be tight enough to lower the oxygen level in the exercising muscles. Arterial occlusion pressure (AOP) is defined as the pressure needed to restrict 100% of the blood flow from the limb, which is essentially a tourniquet. This is a dangerous scenario and needs to be avoided.

Recent research has shown the pressure only needs to be 60% of the AOP. Pressures higher than this don’t seem to provide any additional benefits. The level needs to be at least 40% of AOP; otherwise, the level of muscle oxygenation and deoxygenation is not substantially different from that seen during non-BFR exercise.

Recent studies suggest that the ideal range is about 60% of AOP, although this is highly dependent on numerous factors such as fundamental vascular elasticity and the type of exercise being performed (e.g., anaerobic versus aerobic). There are no additional benefits of combining higher exercise intensities with higher occlusion pressures to muscle hypertrophy.

Again, the bands should not be too tight, as you definitely must avoid cutting off the arterial supply to your muscles. They need to be loose enough to supply your muscle with sufficient blood flow and oxygen.

When manually applying the bands, tighten them so your skin color becomes more pink or red compared to your normal skin tone. You may also see your veins become slightly distended (popping out a bit). They should not feel uncomfortable and your skin color must not become whiter or have a bluish or grayish tone; this means that arterial flow is being restricted.

It is important to realize that your arms will swell during the exercise, which will actually tighten the bands more. Remember, another simple way to determine good “base pressure” is to have the bands tight enough that you cannot fit two fingers under the band, but loose enough that you CAN squeeze one finger under the band.

However, if the pressure is below 40% of AOP you will not occlude your veins. This will prevent the lactic acid produced during your exercise from accumulating, and you will not get the benefits.

One of the ways you can confirm that your bands are tight enough is to measure the circumference of your limb before and after the exercise. You should notice an increase of at least one-half inch to 1 inch after your exercise, up to as much as three or four times that.

How to Confirm Proper Pressures

If the bands are too tight you can actually cause damage to your muscle. It’s important to carefully monitor your capillary refill times to confirm you are getting enough blood flow to your exercising limb. You can confirm that you have enough arterial flow by checking your capillary refill time.

When checking proper band pressure on your arm, it is most easily determined by pressing your index finger firmly into the palm of the opposite hand (on the arm that is under restriction) into the area just under your thumb, then quickly releasing and seeing how long the white blanched area takes to turn pink.

If it takes longer than three seconds, the bands are too tight. If the white spot turns pink immediately while the pneumatic bands are inflated (i.e., under one second), the band tightness is close to optimal. You can also check the capillary refill time on the tissue right above your knee while the pneumatic bands on your legs are inflated. Ideally it should be about two to three seconds.

If you have peripheral artery disease, this could affect these readings. If it is less than two seconds the bands are likely too loose; if the time is greater than three seconds the bands are likely too tight.

!Warning

To avoid any muscle damage from your limbs being deprived of oxygen, the bands are only put on the arms for 15 minutes at a time and 20 minutes on your legs.

Only put the bands on the extremities you’re actually exercising, and remove them before moving on to the next area. In other words, you must not conduct simultaneous BFR on both your arms and legs, as this could decrease your blood pressure enough that you might pass out.

Remember, whatever bands you use, KAATSU or less expensive BFR bands, the pressure that the cuff is inflated or tightened to should not be painful or cause any numbness. You will know if it is too tight as they will likely hurt. They are not supposed to shut down your arterial supply. If it is too tight you need to lower the pressure or loosen the bands.

How to Determine Your Ideal Level of Resistance

Instead of using heavy weights that can increase your risk of injury during conventional strength training, BFR is much safer, since it requires just 20% to 33% of the resistance used in conventional resistance training.

This light weight is then combined with a high volume of repetitions while externally applied compression mildly restricts blood flow to the active skeletal muscles in the legs or arms.

As for weight, your goal is to find the “sweet” spot. If you are elderly or have not been exercising regularly, this may mean no weights at all. Ideally, you would have access to a variety of progressively increasing resistance movements to choose from, including body weight exercises. You typically won’t need to go higher than 25 pounds, though.

Once you have access to the weights you can find the heaviest weight you can do just one repetition of your planned exercise. This is your one rep max (1RM). Then you divide that weight by five (20%), four (25%) or three (33%). For example, if your max weight for a bicep curl is 25 pounds, you would select a 5-pound dumbbell to start.

If you don’t know your one rep maximum, then it is always better to start too low, especially if this is your first time, as your tissues will need time to adapt to these pressures and movements. Eventually you will want to increase your weight so you notice the following signs during your BFR session:

Signs That You Are Using the Correct Weight

  1. You are sweating profusely. In fact, you should be sweating so much that you need a towel.
  2. Your heart rate and breathing can significantly increase, especially if you do intense BFR or any kind of vigorous aerobic exercise.
  3. The first two signs are an indication that you have activated your sympathetic nervous system by firing your Type II muscle fibers. This is because properly performed BFR is a high intensity exercise.

You can measure the circumference of your limb before and after the exercise. You should notice an increase of at least one-half inch and possibly 1 inch or more — or alternatively, the muscle will most certainly feel tighter and appear more toned.

Another great indication is that you will be able to do 30 reps the first set and then 15 to 20 reps the next and, most likely, are unable to do five to 10 reps in the last set because you are in muscle failure. It is important, though, to not fool yourself and stop just because it is hard. Muscle failure means that you are unable to do another rep if your life depended on it.

Unless you are just starting (see warning box below), it is best to start by limiting your weight to only 20% of your one rep max and build up from there if your goal is muscle hypertrophy. By starting at a lighter weight, it will give your body a chance to adjust to BFR and avoid potential injuries.

An additional benefit is that if you stick with lighter weights you can train more frequently because you won’t cause as much muscle damage. For those interested in greater strength or muscle gains, you can increase to one-quarter and then to one-third the weight of your 1RM. If you are doing the exercises correctly it will likely take you about three months to progress up to 33% of your 1RM. There is no need to go any higher than this.

If you don’t know your 1 RM, then all you have to do is pick a weight you believe you can easily do 30 reps with and start there.

If you can easily do all three sets at that weight, then it’s clearly too low a weight and you would benefit from increasing the resistance, especially if you don’t notice an increase of at least one-half inch in the circumference of your biceps after the exercise. Conversely, if you are unable to complete 20 repetitions on your first set, the resistance is likely too high and needs to be decreased.

!WARNING FOR FIRST-TIME USERS

The only exception to these weight recommendations and initial pressure of the bands is when you are first starting out. It is important to realize that your tissues need time to adjust to BFR training. For the first session, you want to start with a light pressure, likely under 40%, and use only 10% of your 1 RM. Then over the next two sessions increase to the minimum recommendations.

Important: You Need to Push Hard to Get the Benefits

It is important to recognize, though, that the level of intensity you use is key. Muscle growth is highly dependent on metabolic factors, and training sets are ideally done to failure to achieve this.

The number of repetitions completed during a training session is less important to cause long term changes in hypertrophy and strength than doing repetitions to failure, which likely causes greater metabolic stress.

Perceived exertion is a major element here. You really need to push hard to muscle failure. This is a very subjective determination, but I hope the featured video will give you an idea of the amount of intensity and effort one needs to put into this short exercise.

You can also notice if you are sweating and you are out of breath. Since BFR is a high intensity exercise and stimulates your sympathetic nervous system if done properly, this is precisely what you should be experiencing when you do BFR training.

A recent study in the elderly showed that physical weakness in aging may be due, at least in part, to impairments in brain and nerve function, rather than changes in the muscles themselves.

The researchers did the study by asking participants to push to failure and once they said they had, they stimulated the muscle electrically and where still get the muscle to contract which indicated that the muscle was not at full failure. In fact, in most cases the muscle was still able to contract about 25% more.

If you are unable to push to failure, you will not receive the maximum benefits possible from BFR. Also, shorter recovery periods between exercises and sets will heighten the metabolic stimulus to enhance your body’s ability to build muscle and strength.

Remember, you can start slowly and work your way up over time. Building muscle is a marathon, not a sprint. This is especially important if you are elderly or if you have been mostly sedentary; you likely will not need to use any weights.

You can start with just the weight of your body and gradually progress to 1- and 2-pound weights. But if you really are interested in triggering the benefits of reversing sarcopenia, then it is key to push hard — otherwise you will not achieve all the wonderful metabolic benefits that BFR has to offer you.

General BFR Workout Guidance

Although you can adapt BFR training to many types of resistance training including machines, it seems the ideal way to implement it is by using simple dumbbells. Because you are using such low weights, it is unlikely you will need weights more than 25 pounds. If you are elderly and weak you may only need a set of weights under 5 to 10 pounds.

Please be certain that you can increase weights in very small increments. You will not want to increase an exercise from 5 pounds to 10. That is a 100% increase in weight. It is far better to go up by 1 or 2 pounds.

Number of Repetitions in Each Set

1st set = 30 reps with 20 seconds rest for arms and legs

2nd set = 20-30 reps with 20 seconds rest for arms and legs

3rd set = 10-20 reps with 20 seconds rest for arms and legs

4th set = 1-10 reps with 20 seconds rest for arms and legs and 60 seconds maximum before moving to next exercise

A common beginner mistake is to remove or loosen the band during the workout to allow the blood to flow back to your muscle and then tightening it again. This does not improve results, and in fact decreases your results, so it is best to leave the band on during the entire workout.

Just remember to remove the bands after 15 minutes on your arms and 20 minutes on your legs. You can reapply the bands after a minute and exercise if you want to do more exercises.

If there is pain or numbness or a whiter appearance in your skin color, of course you’ll want to remove or loosen the band at once, but that should be unusual if you have done your preparation properly and paid careful attention to these instructions.

Typically, upon starting BFR, you’ll notice a high perceived degree of difficulty. However, over a few weeks this perception of difficulty dampens as adaptation to training occurs.56 At that point, it becomes important to continue to push with the same level of intensity.

Training Frequency

One of the major advantages of BFR versus high load resistance training is that you cause far less muscle damage and this allows you to train more frequently. The frequency of training needs to be individualized as it varies widely. It can range from as little as twice a week up to three times a day, depending on your fitness and training goals.

Typically, the lower the percentage of 1RM used, the more frequently BFR can be done. Heart rate variability and the Oura ring can also be used to determine your ideal recovery periods. The Oura ring measures your heart rate all night and will tell you not only your lowest heart rate but also at what time it occurs. The higher your heart rate and the closer your lowest heart rate time is to awakening, the more recovery you need.

Less Expensive Alternatives

Although KAATSU was the pioneer in BFR, their units are relatively expensive. You can purchase a perfectly adequate set of adjustable arm and leg straps on line for about $30.00

You will have to learn how to set the straps for your own body with practice. The straps are located at the upper arm where the front shoulder muscle and the bicep meet for arms, and at the upper leg, just below the groin and the gluteus.

You will be able to do biceps, triceps and forearms, as well as quads, glutes and calf muscles with your BFR straps.

For additional information, please check the archives on this site for the blog entitled ‘Sarcopenia’, published 09/21/2020.

ShamanIAm

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Sarcopenia

How would you like to extend your longevity while improving or maintaining your state of health? Here is the key fact: the more lean muscle mass as a percent of body weight, the lower your risk of death.

Lean muscle mass is replaced by fat

This applies to adults as they age, as lean muscle percentage tends to fall as a factor of age.  Researchers analyzed data from more than 3,600 older adults who took part in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1988 and 1994. The participants included men 55 and older and women 65 and older.

As part of the survey, the participants underwent tests to determine their muscle mass index (MMI), which is the amount of lean muscle relative to total body weight, height and other relevant factors.

The investigators used a follow-up survey done in 2004 to determine how many of the participants had died of natural causes and how muscle mass was related to death risk. People with the highest levels of muscle mass were significantly less likely to have died than those with the lowest levels of muscle mass, while maintaining a better state of overall health.

“In other words, the greater your muscle mass, the lower your risk of death,” study co-author Dr. Arun Karlamangla, an associate professor in the geriatrics division at University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, said in a university news release. “Thus, rather than worrying about weight or body mass index, we should be trying to maximize and maintain muscle mass.”

The study was published online recently in the American Journal of Medicine.

The findings add to growing evidence that overall body composition is a better predictor of all-cause death than body mass index (BMI), according to the researchers. BMI is an estimate of body fat based solely on weight and height.

However, the study only shows an association, not a cause-and-effect relationship, between muscle mass and risk of death, the study authors noted in the news release.

https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html “As there is no gold-standard measure of body composition, several studies have addressed this question using different measurement techniques and have obtained different results,” study leader Dr. Preethi Srikanthan, an assistant clinical professor in the endocrinology division at the UCLA School of Medicine, said in the news release.

Many studies that investigate how obesity and weight affect the risk of death look only at BMI, Srikanthan pointed out. “Our study indicates that clinicians need to be focusing on ways to improve body composition, rather than on BMI alone, when counseling older adults on preventative health behaviors,” she explained.

Future research should focus on pinpointing the types and amounts of exercise that are most effective in improving muscle mass in older adults, the study authors concluded.

How to Fight Sarcopenia (Muscle Loss Due to Aging)

It is common for Sarcopenia to become noticeable around the age of 50, but it can be delayed in the case of people who lead a life-style involving regular fitness training, especially weight-resistance types.  A noticeable onset can be controlled or postponed for a considerable time period simply by staying with the training program. 

However, when an inevitable injury from a fall or failure to modulate stress on joints occurs, a period may ensue where regular workouts must be tabled for a period of time.  Hernias or other injuries requiring surgery and layup can also initiate the problem.  Significant muscle loss can occur very rapidly, making it impossible to pick-up where you left off. Body weight can fall and relative weakness develop.

This may come as a shock to a person who has been strong, agile, well balanced and fit.  It can leave one non-plussed about how this could happen and what to do about it.  Some people will rationalize that this is a wake-up call and they should slow down or stop their physical training program.  That would be a significant mistake.  From the point you find yourself at, you could easily and quickly put yourself on a path to an early death.

Now is not the time to give up and quit or slow down significantly.  You have no choice but to take it at a pace that works for you under your circumstances, but now is the point where you must look at how you are going to recover and continue on to the maximum extent feasible.  You are going to have to reassess your abilities to handle resistance at a safe level, your endurance, and frequency.  You must set up a new program that will be both safe and effective.  This is the point to assess the need for prosthetic support, if your case requires.  But most importantly, now is the point to re-examine your diet and life-style.  This part of your life now requires careful examination to assure you are setting your intake of proteins, essential oils and other dietary factors appropriately to you condition, as well as other aspects of life-style, such as sleep and balance.

While Sarcopenia can decrease life expectancy and quality of life, there are actions you can take to prevent and even reverse the condition.

Although some of the causes of sarcopenia are a natural consequence of aging, others are preventable. In fact, a healthy diet and regular exercise can reverse sarcopenia, increasing lifespan and quality of life.

What Is Sarcopenia?

Sarcopenia literally means “lack of flesh.” It’s a condition of age-associated muscle degeneration that becomes more common in people over the age of 50.

After middle age, adults lose 3% of their muscle strength every year, on average. This limits their ability to perform many routine activities.

Unfortunately, sarcopenia also shortens life expectancy in those it affects, compared to individuals with normal muscle strength.

Sarcopenia is caused by an imbalance between signals for muscle cell growth and signals for teardown. Cell growth processes are called “anabolism,” and cell teardown processes are called “catabolism”. You probably already know about this, as fitness-oriented persons usually set up their workout routines based on the catabolic and anabolic processes.

For example, growth hormones act with protein-destroying enzymes to keep muscle steady through a cycle of growth, stress or injury, destruction and then healing. This cycle is always occurring, and when things are in balance, muscle keeps its strength and increases it over time.

However, during aging, the body becomes resistant to the normal growth signals, tipping the balance toward catabolism and muscle loss.

SUMMARY:

Your body normally keeps signals for growth and teardown in balance. As you age, your body becomes resistant to growth signals, resulting in muscle loss.

Four Factors That Accelerate Muscle Loss

Although aging is the most common cause of sarcopenia, other factors can also trigger an imbalance between muscle anabolism and catabolism.

1. Immobility, Including a Sedentary Lifestyle

Disuse of muscle is one of the strongest triggers of sarcopenia, leading to faster muscle loss and increasing weakness. Disuse can be a choice or an inability due to injury.

Bed rest or immobilization after an injury or illness leads to rapid loss of muscle. Although less dramatic, two to three weeks of decreased walking and other regular activity is also enough to decrease muscle mass and strength and to begin a degenerative process.

Periods of decreased activity can become a vicious cycle. Muscle strength decreases, resulting in greater fatigue and making it more difficult to return to normal activity.

2. Unbalanced Diet

A diet providing insufficient calories and protein results in weight loss and diminished muscle mass, thus decreasing strength, toning and agility.

Unfortunately, low-calorie and low-protein diets become more common with aging, due to changes in sense of taste, problems with the teeth, gums and swallowing, or increased difficulty shopping and cooking.

To help prevent sarcopenia, scientists recommend consuming 25–30 grams of protein at each meal.

3. Inflammation

After injury or illness, inflammation sends signals to the body to tear down and then rebuild the damaged groups of cells. Chronic or long-term diseases can also result in inflammation that disrupts the normal balance of teardown and healing, resulting in long-term muscle loss.

For example, a study of patients with long-term inflammation resulting from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or emphysema also showed that patients had decreased muscle mass. Examples of other diseases that cause long-term inflammation include rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, lupus, vasculitis, severe burns and chronic infections like tuberculosis.

A study of 11,249 older adults found that blood levels of C-reactive protein, an indicator of inflammation, strongly predicted sarcopenia.

4. Severe Stress

Sarcopenia is also more common in a number of other health conditions that increase stress on the body.

For example, people with chronic liver disease, and up to 20% of people with chronic heart failure, experience sarcopenia, In chronic kidney disease, stress on the body and decreased activity lead to muscle loss

Cancer and cancer treatments also place great stress on the body, resulting in sarcopenia. Even a sports hernia, like an inguinal canal hernia, can reduce your workout duration and intensity while unrepaired, or have an impact during the recover period.

SUMMARY:

In addition to aging, sarcopenia is accelerated by low physical activity, insufficient calorie and protein intake, inflammation and stress.

How to Tell If You Have Sarcopenia

The signs of sarcopenia are the result of diminished muscle strength.

Early signs of sarcopenia include feeling physically weaker over time, and having more difficulty than usual lifting familiar objects or resistance loads. A hand-grip-strength test has been used to help diagnose sarcopenia in studies, and may be used to keep tabs on oneself over longer durations of time.

Decreased strength might show itself in other ways too, including walking more slowly, becoming exhausted more easily and having less interest in being active as well as diminishing sense of balance. Losing weight without trying can also be a sign of sarcopenia.

However, these signs can also occur in other medical conditions. Yet if you experience one or more of these and can’t explain why, take a look at the other factors offered above.

SUMMARY:

Noticeable loss of strength or stamina and unintentional weight loss are signs of multiple diseases, including sarcopenia. If you are experiencing any of these without a good reason, stop and take time to re-evaluate or see a professional.

Exercise Can Reverse Sarcopenia

The most effective way to fight sarcopenia is to keep your muscles active. Combinations of aerobic exercise, resistance training and balance training can prevent and even reverse muscle loss. At least two to four exercise sessions weekly may be required to achieve these benefits. These sessions should be at least one-hour or preferably more.

All types of exercise are beneficial, but some more than others.

1. Resistance Training

Resistance training includes weightlifting, pulling against resistance bands or moving part of the body against gravity, such as calisthenics.

When you perform resistance exercise, the tension on your muscle fibers results in growth signals that lead to increased strength. Resistance exercise also increases the actions of growth-promoting hormones

These signals combine to cause muscle cells to grow and repair themselves, both by making new proteins and by turning on special muscle stem cells called “satellite cells,” which reinforce existing muscle.

Thanks to this process, resistance exercise is the most direct way to increase muscle mass and prevent its loss.

A study of 57 adults aged 65–94 showed that performing resistance exercises three times per week resulted in increased muscle strength over 12 weeks. However, it is far better to avoid setting a program up that has an ending date.  You should incorporate this program into your daily life-style permanently.

In this study, exercises included leg presses and extending the knees against resistance on a weight machine, but unless you have specific limitations, a complete schedule of all physical muscles should be followed.  You can do this on a rotational basis, if necessary.

2. Fitness Training

Sustained exercise that raises your heart rate, including aerobic exercise and endurance training, can also control sarcopenia.  You can set up a walking routine, or tennis, mixed with a resistance program on different days to keep it fun and interesting. Most studies of aerobic exercise for the treatment or prevention of sarcopenia have also included resistance and flexibility training as part of a combination exercise program.

These combinations have been consistently shown to prevent and reverse sarcopenia, although it is preferrable to perform aerobic exercises with a resistance training routine.

One study examined the effects of aerobic exercise without resistance training in 439 women over 50 years of age. The study found that five days per week of cycling, jogging or hiking increased muscle mass. Women started with 15 minutes of these activities per day, increasing to 45 minutes over 12 months.

3. Walking

Walking can also prevent and even reverse sarcopenia, and it’s an activity most people can do for free, anywhere they live.

A study of 227 Japanese adults over 65 years old found that six months of walking increased muscle mass, particularly in those who started with low muscle mass. The distance each participant walked was different, but they were encouraged to increase their total daily distance by 10% each month.

Another study of 879 adults over age 60 found that faster walkers were less likely to have sarcopenia. Walking over a terrain of hills and valleys is more beneficial than flat terrain.

SUMMARY:

Exercise is the most effective way to reverse sarcopenia. Resistance training is best to increase muscle mass and strength. However, combination exercise programs and walking also fight sarcopenia.

Four Nutrients That Fight Sarcopenia

If you’re deficient in calories, protein or certain vitamins and minerals, you may be at higher risk of muscle loss.

However, even if you aren’t deficient, getting higher doses of some key nutrients can promote muscle growth or enhance the benefits of exercise.

1. Protein

Getting protein in your diet directly signals your muscle tissue to build and strengthen. As people age, their muscles become more resistant to this signal, so they need to consume more protein to increase muscle growth.

One study found that when 33 men over age 70 consumed a meal containing at least 35 grams of protein, their muscle growth increased.

Another study found that a group of younger men only required 20 grams of protein per meal to stimulate growth.

A third study got seven men over the age of 65 to take daily 15-gram supplements of essential amino acids, the smaller building blocks of protein, which resulted in muscle growth.

The amino acid leucine is particularly important for regulating muscle growth. Rich sources of leucine include whey protein, meat, fish and eggs, as well as soy protein isolate.

2. Vitamin D

Vitamin D deficiency is related to sarcopenia, although the reasons why are not entirely understood.

Taking vitamin D supplements can increase muscle strength and reduce the risk of falling. These benefits have not been seen in all studies, possibly because some research volunteers may have already been getting enough vitamin D.

The best source of vitamin D for preventing sarcopenia is currently sunlight.

3. Omega-3 Fatty Acids

No matter how old you are, consuming omega-3 fatty acids via seafood or supplements will increase your muscle.

A study of 45 women found that those who ate fish in their diet on a regular basis, combined with resistance training, increased muscle strength more than resistance training without dietary fish.

This is likely due to the anti-inflammatory benefits of omega-3 fatty acids. However, research has suggested that omega-3s might also signal muscle growth directly.

4. Creatine

Creatine is a small protein normally made in the liver. Although your body makes enough to prevent you from becoming deficient, creatine in the diet from meat or other sources will benefit your muscle growth.

Persons consuming 5 grams, or more of the creatine, got more benefits from resistance training compared to when they performed resistance training with no creatine.

Creatine is not beneficial for sarcopenia if used alone, without exercise.

SUMMARY:

Protein, vitamin D, creatine and omega-3 fatty acids can all improve muscle growth in response to exercise.

The Bottom Line

Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass and strength, becomes more common with age and can decrease lifespan and quality of life.

Eating enough calories and high-quality protein can slow down the rate of muscle loss. Omega-3 and creatine may also help fight sarcopenia.

Nevertheless, exercising is the most effective way to prevent and reverse sarcopenia.

Resistance exercises appear to be particularly effective, including using resistance bands, lifting weights or doing calisthenics like squats, push-ups and sit-ups.

However, even simple exercises like walking can slow your rate of muscle loss. At the end of the day, the most important thing is to get active.

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Antibody Tests Show Everyone has Trillions

Every single study of antibodies so far has implied the same thing:

  • The true number of “infected” (‘infected’ implies you have an infection, but they use the term to mean ‘presence’ of virus. No infection needed.) is, in fact, universal. Everyone on earth carries antibodies because everybody has the ‘presence of 400 trillion viruses in their body’s VIROME while living in a virtual sea of viruses. You can’t call something ‘contagious’ that is already universally present. Your body is producing trillions of viruses all the time. These viruses pose no threat to anyone who is not immune-compromised, in which case they may suffer a cold.
  • The Mortality rate from viruses is zero. When someone dies from some real cause, they have imposed regulations requiring a test for the virus, which is, of course, universally positive, so they ignore the real cause of death and label Cause of Death: COVID. This is laughable, but many believe this lie.

How many more studies do we need before we understand that the fatality rate for Covid-19 is about the same as a cold…zero.  These are the studies that prove this:

Dr. John Ioannidis announces the results of his serology study in Santa Clara, California:

And there hasn’t been a single antibody test that disagreed with this.

This blog is short and sweet, but if you just learn this much, that’s all you need.

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If you think you don’t have viruses think again

This is not what they are telling you, or anything they have educated you about, but you, and everyone else is a virus haven.  As they test more people, everywhere in the world, they all turn up ‘positive’ for whatever virus they are testing for.  That is because viruses make up a large component of the human body, commonly referred to as our microbiome and microvirome, that have evolved with us since life-forms have existed, plant and animal.

Scientists have only recently begun to quantify these microbiome components, and discovered it is inhabited by at least 38 trillion bacteria and 380 trillion viruses.

transmission electron micrograph
No one can see a virus except by electron microscope after complicated preparations

Transmission electron micrograph of multiple bacteriophages attached to a bacterial cell wall.Dr. Graham Beards, CC BY-SA

It has been estimated that there are over 380 trillion viruses inhabiting the body of every person, a community collectively known as the human virome. These viruses can cause minor illnesses like colds, flu or grippe.  More sinister infections, like Ebola, HIV or dengue can be the result of bio-engineering in weapons labs, which has been going on for much longer than you might imagine.

  Viruses are just dead RNA molecules, waste products from mitosis, which is going on constantly on a massive scale in the human body.

So, this is important lesson #1: Everyone is positive for presence of all viruses, therefore there is no contagion, no masks, no distancing, no isolation and the “case numbers” have no meaning when everyone is a positive case.

I am a physician-scientist studying the human microvirome by focusing on how viruses work, because I believe that it is vital that humans know what sneaky little creeps, like Fauci and Gates, are foisting on the world, using nothing but lies, to accomplish a mission they have designed for themselves to bring about a much more heinous crime.  Viruses are not predators and their mere presence presents no danger to your body.

Viruses are just waste material from the replication process which includes junking the old eukaryote cell, and ejecting it in the form of an exosome.  An exosome is formed by the eukaryote to get rid of waste matter by encapsulating the dead molecules inside a protein coating and expelling it from the cell.  This waste matter is not alive, so it is not ‘conscious’, so it can make no plans to infect your body.  It is just something that exists in huge quantity because countless cells are replicating.

In a weapons laboratory, the protein coating can be made to present little spike-like formations designed to get hooked on cleavage sites of cells whereby it may accidently find its way inside the cell after penetrating the cell-wall.  This is not some plan of the virus, it is a plan of the war-crazed military apparatus of some countries that are insanely obsessed with war and killing, even their own citizens. 

So, this is important lesson #2:  viruses, which are dead, can be equipped with mechanisms of opportunity to penetrate the cell wall of a eukaryote cell. The dead molecules can accidently be re-incorporated when the cell replicates again, yielding a defective cell.

This defective cell can become a problem if your immune system is ineffective due to bad diet, bad life-style and fear.  The problem will be of an insignificant nature unless the number of defective cells exceeds your immune systems’ capacity to destroy them.

One might rightly assume that if viruses are the most abundant microbes in the body, they would be the target of the majority of human microbiome studies. But that assumption would be horribly wrong. The study of the human virome lags so far behind the study of bacteria that we are only just now uncovering some of their most fundamental aspects. This lag is due to it having taken scientists much longer to recognize the presence of a human virome, and a lack of standardized and sophisticated tools to decipher what’s actually in your virome.

THE 411 ON THE VIROME

Here’s a few of the things we have learned thus far. Bacteria in the human body are not in love with their many phages that live in and around them. In fact, they developed CRISPR-Cas systems – which humans have now co-opted for editing genes – to rid themselves of phages or to prevent phage infections altogether. Why? Because phages kill bacteria. They take over the bacteria’s machinery and force them to make more phages rather than make more bacteria. When they are done, they burst out of the bacterium, destroying it. Finally, phages sit on our body surfaces, just waiting to cross paths with vulnerable bacteria. They are basically bacteria stalkers.

Viruses, like bacterium, inhabit all surfaces both inside and outside of the body. Everywhere researchers have looked in the human body, viruses have been found. Viruses in the blood? Check. Viruses on the skin? Check. Viruses in the lungs? Check. Viruses in the urine? Check. And so on. To put it simply, when it comes to where viruses live in the human body, figuring out where they don’t live is a far better question than asking where they do.

Viruses live everywhere, in water, air, ground, in your house, car, swimming pool…everywhere.

MICROBES KEEPING US HEALTHY?

It may seem counterintuitive, but harming our bacteria can be harmful to our health. For example, when our healthy bacterial communities are disturbed by antibiotic use, other microbial bad guys, also called pathogens, take advantage of the opportunity to expand their culture in our body and make us sick. Thus, in a number of human conditions, our healthy bacteria play important roles in preventing microbe imbalance.  Your microbiome is an essential aspect of your body, which can not live without it. That is why you eat yogurt, cheese, sauerkraut, kombucha, sour dough breads, etc.  It is bacteria that keep the interior of your body clean and free of organic wastes.

Viruses are little more than nuisances, causing colds, or flus, Viruses do not have or maintain a specific identity. The whole flawed theory of vaccination is a story in failure to treat viral intrusions of any and all kinds. It is commonly known that there is no way to vaccinate against or even treat the common cold.  The entire idea of flu vaccines is just a bad joke.  They would like you to think that vaccines are useful, but, in spite of all the weaponized viruses produced and seeded into our environment, none of them have been effective in producing any epidemic, such as they were intended to do.  They can make a weaponized virus, but virus change constantly and become non-weapons very fast.  That is the reason that this time, they are not making any pretense of maintaining the fake story, they are just issuing new mandates for new forms of human torture and lockdowns and threatening enforcement using contact tracing and steep fines or imprisonment, taking your children away and many other sick measures. 

Important lesson #3:  Vaccines do not work on viruses (or anything else) and you should definitely fear some radical vaccine concepts that are universally mandated and forced by law using the coercive forces of the state.

If nothing else, you should follow these three important lessons in dealing with the state on matters of the non-existent corona pandemic.