Mito Wellness

24/07/2020

Fasting and Brain Health⠀
A lot of neurotrophic factors like BDNF (Brain-derived neurotrophic factor) increase with fasting. The practice of fasting may help to grow new brain cells and creates new connections, it is like fertiliser for your brain. ⠀
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With this increase in BDNF you may be:⠀
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- More motivated to learn new things⠀
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- more excited and more enthusiastic because your body is craving food and your brain is trying to motivate you to find food. ⠀
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Ketosis also helps increase BDNF. ⠀
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Ketosis is where you burn your own body fat to produce substances call ketones. Ketones are anti-inflammatory and they have neuroprotective effects that may increase BDNF. You are fasting, you are reducing inflammation, and at the same time you are giving your body and brain high-quality fuel (BDNF) so it can feel more energising.⠀
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The only way for our hunter-gatherer ancestors to stop starving was to find food.

14/07/2020

Fasting And Circadian Rhythm? ⠀
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Many hormones fluctuate based on circadian rhythms and time of the day. A lot of the repair hormones as well as autophagy activation, and growth hormone, melatonin are all elevated during the night. Most of the autophagy benefits occur in conjunction with the release of melatonin as well as growth hormone which happens in deep sleep. That happens in the earlier parts of the night. If you are eating a large dinner then you are interfering with the process because your body would have to digest food vs repairing itself. Going to bed in a semi fasted state would lead to increased autophagy and increased growth hormone. This is because you’re fasting and your body would be primed to repair itself. ⠀
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When it comes to actual research that compares early time-restricted eating with late time-restricted eating, there is not a significant difference as long as you are still fasting and eating the food within a certain time frame. The main benefits come from the aspect of the fasting window. There should be some sort of fasting in your day to get these benefits. BUT eating right before bed isn’t a good idea because it is going to decrease your sleep quality and make you feel uncomfortable.⠀
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Optimally you want to stop eating 4-5 hours before bed to fully digest this food you ate and go into rest mode. In the morning, wait to eat breakfast. You have elevated cortisol and you are more prone to storing the food as fat if you eat in a high cortisol environment. Cortisol drops after 9am, so waiting a few hours after waking up is a good rule of thumb to keep in mind. ⠀
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If I eat late, I notice a substantial difference in my sleep quality. For example: If I have a social event and I eat at 7:30 and I am in bed by 10 or 10:30 I feel horrible. I am tossing and turning, my gut feels like something is in it, I can’t get to sleep, and then I wake up feeling very crappy because I haven't had good sleep. This is normal for most people because of their baseline. But since I have been doing this time-restricted eating for a while now I can feel the difference.

12/07/2020

How Can People Get Started With Fasting?⠀
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**Disclaimer: If you are going to embark on this, be cautious and seek guidance from a trained practitioner before diving in.⠀
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Fasting should be consistent! If I were to compare fasting hard for 1 month out of the year vs a daily consistent practice, I would say that the one month fast may be good in the short term but not in the long term. A good starting point would be a 16/8 hour fast (fast for 16 hours and eat in an 8 hour window) and that should be the minimum for every person. It fits a lot with the circadian rhythm as well. ⠀
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You may be skipping out on breakfast or dinner every day and you are confining the period of which you are eating for 8 hours or less. That is what most people can do and it should be the “gold standard” There is no reason to be eating more frequently unless you are hospitalised, pregnant, elderly, or a child. Most people don’t need to eat that often.⠀
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If you want to extend it a bit further, there is the warrior diet where you fast for 20 hours and eat your food within 4 hours. The only difference may be that you burn more calories in the fasting period and you must eat fewer calories in the eating window but it is a way of increasing fat loss. You eat 1 meal a day within 1-2 hours, which is a fat loss or a convenience tool. ⠀
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When it comes to an extended fast (one that lasts over 24hrs up to 3-4 days) it is a good idea to have them every once in a while. It is better to have them than nothing at all. They shouldn’t be thought of as something that you do all of the time because your body will adapt to them and you would see diminishing returns from the longer fasts. I aim for at least 4-5 x 3 day fasts per year. This helps to reset the system, the immune system, boost more autophagy and burn more fat.⠀
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Most people should do time-restricted eating daily in some type of form and then have a longer fast every once in a while. The frequency depends on the conditions and your goals. If you are trying to lose fat then fasting is an amazing way of doing that fast. It is a rapid and healthy way of losing weight compared to a prolonged period of calorie restriction.

28/06/2020

INTERMITTENT FASTING EXPLAINED- NUTRIENT SENSORS⠀
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Your body is always detecting the nutrient homeostasis as a way of making sure it is very efficient with its energy production and making sure that it is surviving. ⠀
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The main two fuel sensors are:⠀
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mTOR- The growth pathway that works under energy excess i.e. when you are bringing in excess amino acids, carbohydrates, and glucose.⠀
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AMPK- This is the opposite. It is the catabolic breakdown pathway that supports burning fat and autophagy as well. When you're fasting or exercising you are activating this pathway and that leads to autophagy and burning fat for energy. ⠀
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Your body is always balancing between these two sides of the coin. It dictates where your body is heading towards. When you are eating, you stop AMPK and you trigger mTOR. This is why Intermittent fasting is such an important part of your wellness strategy.

14/05/2020

Control of Inflammation by Calorie Restriction Mimetics: On the Crossroad of Autophagy and Mitochondria⠀
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Mitochondrial metabolism and autophagy are two of the most metabolically active cellular processes, playing a crucial role in regulating organism longevity. In fact, both mitochondrial dysfunction or autophagy decline compromise cellular homeostasis and induce inflammation. Calorie restriction (CR) is the oldest strategy known to promote health span, and a plethora of CR mimetics have been used to emulate its beneficial effects. Herein, we discuss how CR and CR mimetics, by modulating mitochondrial metabolism or autophagic flux, prevent inflammatory processes, protect the intestinal barrier function, and dampen both inflammaging and neuroinflammation.⠀
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Takeaway: ...growing evidence supports the fact that inflammation is actually a causative driving-aging factor. Applying the knowledge raised by the novel field of immunometabolism to prevent inflammation in age-related disorders and repurposing anti-inflammatory drugs as a therapeutic option for treating several age-associated diseases...or you could start a fasting practice⠀
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Source: https://buff.ly/2zygdI1

13/05/2020

Interferons are cytokines, i.e. special signalling molecules which are known to play a role in antiviral activity. ⠀
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"Until now, we had known only little about the role of Interferon Type 1 (IFN-I) in the basal state (normal/ steady state). Conventional Dendritic Cells, which do not receive this IFN-I signalling during the basal state, cannot fulfil the physiological functions which they perform as part of the body's fight against pathogens," explains the microbiologist. Study results suggest that the microbiome controls our immune system's fitness. It exerts this control by bringing the immune system to a state of 'readiness' in order to speed up its response to pathogens?⠀
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Takeaway: Maintain a healthy, resilient microbiome to optimise Immune function against all pathogens including those of viral origin

12/05/2020

Healthy Nutritious Food
Local
In Season
Cooked From Scratch (using the best ingredients you can afford)
Is the corner stone of great gut health and immune function
Bonus Points for Circadian Eating, Intermittent Fasting and Light Management

02/05/2020

LIGHT EXPOSURE AND SLEEP 😴

In the current turmoil 🌏 it is so important to sleep well. To make sure the immune system is functioning at its optimum, sleep is fundamental.

Here are good sleep tips to consider:

🏃 Finish up intense exercise 3 hours before bedtime

🍱 Do not consume heavy meals within 4 hours of bedtime. You may want to change your lunch to be the biggest meal of your day.

🖥️ Also, make sure to sleep in a dark environment. Blue light produced by LED monitors or screens can disrupt sleep cycles. You can use blue-blocking glasses to help you at night.

🤓 Since your sleep cycle is initiated earlier in the day, do not limit your light exposure early in the day. You would not want to wear blue light blocking glasses or dim the lights early in the day.

☀️ From the time you get up until to 2pm in the afternoon get as much exposure to sunlight or bright light spectrums as you can! Nothing replaces natural sunlight so get as much as possible on your skin and eyes. It will help with your circadian rhythm especially if you have a hard time falling asleep earlier in the night or you want to shift your sleep cycles so you can fall asleep earlier in the night. It all starts with the amount of light exposure in the day

💡Replace your bedroom and master bathroom lights with red light bulbs. This is similar to the firelight or torchlight that our ancestors used. This will allow you to see at night but not disturb sleep cycles with blue light spectrum.

What is your favourite sleep tip❓

12/10/2019

“Deuterium Depleted Water induces several important biological effects in organism (antioxidant, metabolic detoxification, anticancer, rejuvenation, behaviour, etc.)”

Nutrients. 2019 Aug 15;11(8). pii: E1903. doi: 10.3390/nu11081903. Review

24/09/2019

Mitochondria and Fungal Pathogenesis: Drug Tolerance, Virulence, and Potential for Antifungal Therapy

Recently, mitochondria have been identified as important contributors to the virulence and drug tolerance of human fungal pathogens. In different scenarios, either hypo- or hypervirulence can result from changes in mitochondrial function. Similarly, specific mitochondrial mutations lead to either se...

19/09/2019

A good night sleep is fundamental to good gut health

How sleepless nights compromise the health of your gut

It is well known that individuals who work night shifts or travel often across different time zones have a higher tendency to become overweight and suffer from gut inflammation. The underlying cause for this robust phenomenon has been the subject of many studies that tried to relate physiological pr...