THE 5 SECRET PILLARS OF VITALITY
Imagine 2 treadmills...tiny, mouse-sized treadmills.
Now imagine 2 mice running side by side on these treadmills. The mouse on the right keeps stopping to rest and getting hauled to the back of the treadmill, only to have to try to catch up... he’s going back and forth between the middle and back of the treadmill.
The mouse on the left however stays at the front of his treadmill, never seeming to tire.
Would it surprise you that the mouse on the left is actually twice as old as the mouse on the right? And that the mouse on the left ran further than the treadmill was calibrated to run?
You see, no mouse had ever run close to 3 kilometers so the t readmill manufacturer had designed the t readmill to automat ically turn off after 3 kilometers.
The only problem was the mouse on the left wasn’ t done running then.
The poor mouse on the r ight flopped back and for th so many t imes, the researcher mercifully shut the t readmill off over a kilometer before. But the mouse on the left kept going.
Which mouse do you want to be? What did that mouse on the left have going for him that the other mouse didn’ t? He had cracked the 5th pillar of heal th.
Today we’ re going to discuss the 5 Pillars of Heal th you probably haven’ t heard of.
First let ’s talk about the first 4 pillars which you may al ready know about , but may not be paying enough attention to.
The First Pillar of Health
The Gut
Our gut contains about 3 pounds of microflora, tiny bacteria and other organisms living inside our intestines. In fact if you took all of the DNA that comprises US and classified it as human or microbial, you’d find that 99% of the DNA is classified as microbial.
That’s right. You are 99% bacterial and 1% human. Crazy right? These buggers are so important that they decide “how things run” for us. They can tell our body to burn or store fat, they digest our carbs, they make antioxidant molecules like glutathione, vitamins such as folate and K2, and neurotransmitters like the feel-good and motivational chemicals serotonin and dopamine (85% of our neurotransmitters are made in the gut, not the brain. That’s why we call our gut our “second brain”).
It’s so powerful that if you took the bacteria from a healthy person and placed it into the colon of an unwell person, the recipient would begin to get well. These experiments have been done with anxiety, obesity, and autism to name a few. The converse is also true. If you place the microbes from the gut of an obese person into a thin person, the recipient will begin to gain weight. That’s because the type of bacteria in your gut will determine whether you store fat or burn it. Whether you’re in a good, relaxed mood, or are anxious. Whether your brain communicates properly or not.
Which bacteria are you feeding? Well if you’re eating primarily processed, refined starches and sugar, you’re feeding the BAD ones. If you’re getting the recommended 19 to 39 grams of soluble fiber, then the good ones are flourishing. (Hint: only 10% of Americans are. We used to eat over 100 grams of soluble fiber a day as a nation. Now we typically eat less than 10 grams!). Supplementing with a high quality prebiotic that contains inulin and xylo- and fructooligosaccharides and Brown Seaweed Extract is a great idea.
How can you get more of the good guys? Taking a type of probiotic that has the beneficial, health promoting “good bacteria” is a start, but you have to be careful or you’ll just be throwing money away on dead bacteria. That’s because these critters are delicate. They’re sensitive to light exposure, temperature, air (oxidation) and …hello…hydrochloric acid (uh...that’s in your stomach!)...yep...if you take a typical probiotic (whether in a capsule, as a powder, or a liquid, and whether stored at room temperature or refrigerated in a dark container to protect it from light and heat), the probiotic bacteria all hit your stomach and 96% of them are promptly annihilated by your awesome stomach acid (which is there to protect you from the harmful bacteria).
The Second Pillar of Health
The Mighty Mitochondria
Our mitochondria have been called the powerhouse of the cell and that’s because they produce 95% of our cellular energy through a process called “mitochondrial respiration” (kind of sounds like respiration or breathing and that’s because both involve oxygen).
Our mitochondria coincidentally are also bacterial in origin. These ancient bacteria were incorporated into our cells over a billion years ago. They now control things like fight or flight, food cravings and more. They also provide needed energy not only to workout and to think but also to detoxify and repair our cells and build new muscle and burn fat.
These "energy factories" are the first to experience the damaging effects of the free radical "pollution" that's an inevitable by product of energy production. When they're damaged enough, our mitochondria will self-destruct and our cells have to do the same work with less energy. Fortunately there's something called NRF1 (nuclear respiratory factor one) that oversees and facilitates mitochondrial biogenesis, so you can make more healthy mitochondria and get your old vim, vigor and vitality back. You can activate your NRF1 gene through exercise or specific blends of mitochondrial supporting nutrients.
The Third Pillar of Health
The Cellular Membrane
The flexibility of our cellular membranes is so important because cell to cell communication depends on it. Proteins produced by your DNA need to traverse the cellular membranes to do their work and neurotransmitters signal cells by leaving one cell to communicate with another. All of this is dependent on the cellular membrane being fluid and flexible.
Cell membranes
are made up of special types of lipids called fatty acids. There are 2 main types, flexible omega 3’s and relatively inflexible omega 6’s...the cell membrane will substitute one for the other and if there’s not enough omega 3 fatty acids in the diet (hint: there’s not) then the cell membrane becomes relatively rigid from too many omega-6’s (so prevalent in the Standard American Diet), and cellular communication degenerates.
Since omega-6 and omega-3 share a common metabolic pathway, and our diet is so replete with omega 6's the only way to change the membrane back to a more flexible state is to increase the ratio of omega 3 fatty acids to omega 6 fatty acids. The recommended dietary ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 is 4:1 or lower. However most Americans are consuming a ratio of 20 or even 50 omega-6’s to omega-3’s.
That’s why it’s so critical to supplement with essential omega-3 fatty acids, which are primarily found in fatty, cold water fish such as pollock, cod and salmon. If you’re not eating these fish several times a week, you’re likely not getting enough omega-3’s in your diet and will need to supplement with a high quality fish oil. A word of caution however: 90+% of the omega-3 fish oils on the market are oxidized (rancid) and will cause more damage to the cell membranes through oxidative stress than they will help the cell membranes’ flexibility. It’s critical to get a non-oxidized omega-3, ideally one that can be traced from boat to bottle and is free from heavy metals and PCB’s.
The Fourth Pillar of Health
Reducing Oxidative Stress
Have you ever cut an apple and 15 minutes later looked aghast at the brown, unappetizing flesh that was so juicy and delicious looking earlier?
That is oxidation in action. The delicate “insides” of that apple were formerly protected by its tough outer skin. Protected from what? The AIR.
That’s right… the very air that gives you life is slowly KILLING you.
Oh. wow. Mind blown, right? WE all have delicate “insides” just like that apple. And we breathe the same damaging air. Luckily, when we’re young, we have an over abundance of “good guys” (antioxidant enzymes) that get to work, neutralizing millions of free radicals each and every day. That’s important because just taking “direct” antioxidants (like vitamin C or vitamin E) doesn’t do enough.
Why? Your body makes 37 septillion
(37,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) free radicals a day.
MORE if you’re an athlete! A few thousand mg of Vitamin C or E won’t even touch 1 million of those. But your God-given indirect/innate antioxidant enzymes ARE able to neutralize enough to keep your cells from damage and keep you healthy!
Okay, so why are you “feeling” or “showing” (think gray hair and wrinkles, sagging skin, slower recovery) the effects of free radical damage if these enzymes are so helpful?
Ah! That’s because your body gradually stops making enough of them around the time you’re 20. And that's why we get more slow, creaky and foggy after age 30 than before.
Yep! Each decade after age 20 sees a massive decline in the number of anti inflammatory and antioxidant enzymes your body makes. Want to know the double jeopardy? You’re being exposed to MORE and MORE free radicals with each breath you take and each bite you eat. With each fill up at the gas tank and every airline flight you take.
That’s just not fair is it?
Well the good news is that you can re-activate your body’s production of these enzymes naturally by choosing things that flip a protein switch in your body called Nrf2. Some foods turn this on a little bit (like the dim setting on a dimmer switch)...and there are patented blends of herbs and spices that turn them up back to the level of a healthy child so they can rebalance that oxidative stress equation. We need some, but not too much. And when we’re young and healthy we have just that right amount. The key is to get that balance back by activating our Nrf2 protein naturally.
The Game Changing Fifth Pillar
NAD+ and SIRTUINS
Remember our marathon mouse? How did he get so jazzed on life?
Well, it just so happens that as we get older, we lose more than just our ability to make enough “good guys”. We also see a precipitous decline in the amount of a key molecule our body uses to produce energy, and without this precious molecule, we’d be dead in 30 seconds. It's called NAD and if you’ve been following some of the cutting edge health news, you’ll have heard of it. It’s the “fuel” for a set of proteins called sirtuins that are the “CEO of the cell” … they tell all the other proteins and enzymes (even those good guys we were just talking about) what do do and where to do it. They also repair our DNA when it breaks and silence “bad genes” like cancer and inflammatory genes.
NAD and the sirtuins
they fuel are such a big deal that almost everyone at the research and innovation level in health and medicine is talking about it.
It’s the topic of most of the new podcasts and interviews from thought leaders such as Dave Asprey (author of Super Human: The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever and the original "biohacker") to Dr. David Sinclair, of Harvard and formerly MIT, who was on the cover of Time Magazine as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in the WORLD a few years ago. Dr. Sinclair has also recently written a book called LifeSpan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To...if you haven’t read it, you can get it here (highly recommended! Get it here.)
Dr. Sinclair was able to increase the levels of NAD and sirtuin activity in older mice. While you’ve already heard what it did for their physical stamina and endurance, what was really remarkable is that when they looked at the tissues and muscles of the older mice, researchers could no longer tell the difference between those of an older a 2+ year-old mouse and those of a youthful 4-month-old one!
There are many ways to increase NAD levels and sirtuin activity… one is through fasting. Another is with exercise. These both raise sirtuin levels slightly. If you chronically calorie restrict (eating 60- 70% fewer calories or basically about 700 calories a day) for a long time, you can get a full 94% increase in your NAD levels and sirtuin activity. You can also take some NAD precursors (raw ingredients required for the manufacture of the NAD molecule) but that’s like bringing an extra load of bricks to a construction site and hoping the house will be built sooner. It only results in a 2% increase in NAD at 24 hours (or up to 40% after 8 full weeks.)
A far more effective way is to up-regulate the enzymes responsible for recycling and producing NAD. That’s like bringing more of the raw materials AND a whole lot of construction workers to the building site and results in a whopping 100% increase in sirtuin activity in just 24 hours. Move! That! Bus! (excuse the “Extreme
Makeover Home Edition” reference, but seriously...it’s THAT cool when you biohack your body and brain to be the best version of the only home you’ll ever have… your body!).