Growth hormone

Signs of ‘transmissible’ Alzheimer’s seen in people who received growth hormone

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The findings support a controversial hypothesis that proteins related to the neurodegenerative disease can be ‘seeded’ in the brain through material taken from cadavers

A coloured computed-tomography scan of a brain affected by Alzheimer's disease.
A coloured computed-tomography scan of a brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers say they have uncovered more evidence to support a controversial hypothesis that sticky proteins that are a signature of Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted from person to person through certain surgical procedures.

The authors and other scientists stress that the research is based on a small number of people and is related to medical practices that are no longer used. The study does not suggest that forms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease can be contagious.

Still, “we’d like to take precautions going forward to reduce even those rare cases occurring”, says neurologist John Collinge at University College London who led the research1, which was published in Nature Medicine on 29 January.

For the past decade, Collinge and his team have studied people in the United Kingdom who, during childhood, received growth hormone derived from the pituitary glands of cadavers to treat medical conditions such as short stature. The latest study finds that, decades later, some of these people developed signs of early-onset dementia. The dementia symptoms, such as memory and language problems, were diagnosed clinically, and in some patients appeared alongside plaques of the sticky protein amyloid-β in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. The authors suggest that this protein, which was present in the hormone preparations, was ‘seeded’ in the brains and caused the damage.

Contaminated hormone

The work builds on the team’s previous studies of people who received cadaver-derived growth hormone, a practice that the United Kingdom stopped in 1985. In 2015, Collinge’s team described2 the discovery at post-mortem of amyloid-β deposits in the brains of four people who had been treated with the growth hormone. These people had died in middle age of the deadly neurological condition Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, which is caused by infectious, misfolded proteins called prions. The prions were present in batches of the growth hormone.

The four people analysed in that study died before clinical signs related to the amyloid-β build-up might have been observed. But the presence of these amyloid plaques in blood vessels in their brains suggested that they would have developed a condition called cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) — which causes bleeding in the brain and is often a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease.

Collinge’s team also located and studied archived batches of the cadaver-derived growth hormone. In a 2018 study3, they reported that certain batches of the hormone preparation contained amyloid-β proteins, and that when such preparations were injected into mice, this led to the development of amyloid plaques and caused CAA in the animals.

This led the team to wonder whether the contaminated hormone preparations might also have resulted in people who received it developing Alzheimer’s disease, in which amyloid plaques are thought to cause the loss of neurons and brain tissue.

In the latest study, the researchers found that five out of eight people who had received the hormone treatment in childhood — but did not develop Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease — developed behavioural signs of early-onset dementia later in life, between the ages of 38 and 55. Collinge’s team argues that these five people — whom the researchers studied in the clinic or through medical records and brain scans — met the diagnostic criteria for early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Gene test

Early-onset Alzheimer’s is usually caused by certain genetic variants, but the researchers did not find these variants in three of the people who showed signs of Alzheimer’s and whose DNA samples were available for testing. “This is consistent with these patients having developed a form of Alzheimer’s disease resulting from childhood treatment with this contaminated pituitary hormone,” says Collinge. Taken together, the studies suggest that, in rare cases, Alzheimer’s disease could be transmitted through the transfer of biological material, the authors argue.

However, the study’s small size limits the strength of the findings, says neuroscientist Tara Spires-Jones at the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh. “Are the amyloid-β seeds from the hormone treatment playing a role in the development of dementia? It’s hard to know with just eight people,” she says.

It cannot be excluded that some of the people might have developed dementia regardless of the hormone treatment, says neuroscientist Mathias Jucker at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Tübingen. “These people had many different medical conditions which could have increased the risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s disease,” he says.

Researchers including Spires-Jones also question whether the people with dementia actually had Alzheimer’s, despite the clinical diagnoses.

“There are often errors in diagnosing the type of dementia someone has while they’re alive,” agrees neuroscience researcher Andrew Doig at the University of Manchester, UK.

From a public-health perspective, there is no need to be concerned about ‘transmissible’ dementia today, says Spires-Jones. “This treatment doesn’t exist anymore.”

Despite the study’s limitations, the research furthers our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases, scientists say. “I’m glad that people are doing amazing research to help us better understand seeding of neurodegenerative disease by amyloid-β,” says Spires-Jones.

“I think many other scientists will now look for additional evidence to explore the idea of transmissible Alzheimer’s,” says Jucker.

Low-dose ADHD drugs do not affect thyroid function, growth hormone at 1 year

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Among children diagnosed with ADHD, low doses of ADHD medications did not affect thyroid or growth hormone levels, according to study data.

Trends in hormone indices of children with ADHD who received long-term medication treatment remain controversial, according to Liang-Jen Wang, MD, MPH, PhD, a visiting staff member in the department of child and adolescent psychiatry at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University College of Medicine in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and colleagues. The researchers conducted the prospective study to determine any changes in the GH and thyroid hormone systems in children with ADHD receiving various drug therapies.

Liang-Jen Wang, MD, MPH, PhD
Wang is a visiting staff member in the department of child and adolescent psychiatry at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University College of Medicine in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

The study included 118 children diagnosed with ADHD who were drug-naive and observed naturalistically for 12 months. Among participants, 22 received no medication, whereas 39 were treated with low doses of short-acting methylphenidate (MPH; 14 ± 6.7 mg/day), 40 with osmotic-release oral system (OROS) long-acting MPH (32 ± 9.6 mg/day) and 17 with atomoxetine (29.2 ± 9.7 mg/day). Groups were similar in age, sex distribution, height, weight and ADHD symptom severity, among other variables.

Researchers collected blood samples at baseline and 12 months to measure serum levels of insulin-like growth factor I, IGF binding protein 3 (IGFBP-3), prolactin, thyroid-stimulating hormone, triiodothyronine, thyroxine and free T4.

The four groups had comparable trends for IGF-I, IGFBP-3, prolactin, TSH, T3, T4 and free T4 levels. Researchers noted that changes in serum levels of IGF-I positively correlated with changes in height (P < .001) and weight (P < .001) for all participants. Researchers did note that participants in the MPH group had lower body weight gain than the group that did not receive medication, and that the ratio of MPH doses to body weight was inversely correlated with the increment in height.

“The trends of GH and thyroid function were similar in ADHD children without medication treatment, and patients who received various medication treatments (immediate-release MPH, OROS-MPH or atomoxetine) during the 12-month observation,” researchers concluded. “The results of this study provide new information for clinicians as low doses of ADHD medications exhibited no detrimental effect on children’s growth and hormone systems in a 12-month period. Nonetheless, patients’ growth and the appropriateness of drug dosage should be closely monitored among ADHD patients with long-term pharmacotherapy.”

Intense But Short Exercise Is All You Need to Boost Calorie Burning.

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Story at-a-glance

  • Recent research demonstrates that high intensity interval training burns more calories in less time. Just 2.5 minutes, divided into five 30-second sprint intervals at maximum exertion, each followed by four minutes of light pedaling to recuperate, can burn as much as 220 calories
  • Anaerobic exercises also increase insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, and promote production of human growth hormone—all of which are critical components of optimal health. Previous research has shown that just three minutes of high intensity exercise per week for four weeks can result in a 24 percent improvement in insulin sensitivity
  • If you’re ready to take your fitness routine to the next level, you may want to consider skipping breakfast and work out on an empty stomach. This is a form of intermittent fasting that can greatly contribute to improved weight loss, as it shifts your body into fat burning mode
  • The combination of high intensity interval training, avoiding grain carbs and sugars, especially fructose, and exercising in a fasted state, can help you become increasingly fat adapted, which is the preferred metabolic state of the human body

If you have a difficult time fitting exercise into an already crammed schedule, you’ll be excited to know you can reap truly remarkable results in a very limited amount of time. Can you carve out 20 minutes two to three times a week?

If so, you can dramatically improve your overall fitness and health – as long as you engage in high-intensity interval training, that is.

Research presented at the Integrative Biology of Exercise VI meeting1, 2 in Colorado on October 10-13 this year, demonstrated that high-intensity interval training burns more calories in less time – a mere 2.5 minutes, divided into five 30-second sprint intervals at maximum exertion, each followed by four minutes of light pedaling to recuperate, can burn as much as 220 calories.

According to lead researcher Kyle Sevits:3

“You burn a lot of calories in a very short time… Nearly all the calories are burned in those 2.5 minutes; you burn very few during the rest period.”

Besides burning more calories, high-intensity interval training, which is part of my total Peak Fitness program, has also been shown to produce greater health benefits overall than conventional aerobic training, such as increasing insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance – both of which are critical components of optimal health. Back in April, I reported on a study that found doing just three minutes of high-intensity exercise per week for four weeks, could lead to a 24 percent improvement in insulin sensitivity.

Another important benefit of high-intensity interval training is its ability to naturally increase your body’s production of human growth hormone (HGH), also known as “the fitness hormone.” HGH is a synergistic, foundational biochemical underpinning that promotes muscle and effectively burns excessive fat.

It also plays an important part in promoting overall health and longevity. This too is something you cannot get from conventional, aerobic endurance training. Other benefits associated with high-intensity interval training include:

Decrease in body fat Improved muscle tone
Improved athletic speed and performance Ability to achieve your fitness goals much faster
Increase in energy and sexual desire Firmer skin and reduces wrinkles

Are You Maximizing the Health Benefits from Your Fitness Routine?

The key that unlocks the many health benefits associated with exercise is intensity. To perform anaerobic exercises correctly, regardless of how you do them (sprinting outdoors, using a stationary bike or elliptical machine, or using weights), you’ll want to raise your heart rate to your anaerobic threshold, and to do that, you have to give it your all for those 20 to 30 second intervals.

Different studies will use different intervals of exertion and recuperation. For example, in the featured study, 30-second bouts of exertion were separated by four-minute rest intervals. I use and recommend the program developed by Phil Campbell, where you go all out for 30 seconds, followed by 90 seconds of recuperation. If you do the recommended eight repetitions, you’ll be done in 20 minutes or less.

Depending on your level of fitness when you’re first starting out, you may only be able to do two or three repetitions of the high-intensity intervals. That’s okay. As you get fitter, just keep adding repetitions until you’re doing eight during your 20 minute session. Here’s a summary of what a typical interval routine might look like using an elliptical:

  • Warm up for three minutes
  • Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should be gasping for breath and feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds. It is better to use lower resistance and higher repetitions to increase your heart rate
  • Recover for 90 seconds, still moving, but at slower pace and decreased resistance
  • Repeat the high-intensity exercise and recovery 7 more times

Greater Intensity = Greater Need for Recovery

To optimize results, do these types of peak exercises twice or three times a week. Again, you only need about 20 minutes per session, and you don’t even need a gym membership to do them. If you have beach access, you may want to take to sprinting barefoot by the water’s edge. However, before you give it a go, make sure to review some basic safety guidelines, which I discussed in depth in my previous article, Proper Sprinting and Warm-Up Techniques to Optimize Your Workout and Avoid Injury.

You can also turn your weight training session into an anaerobic exercise by following the guidelines presented by Dr. Doug McGuff. The key that turns strength training into a high-intensity exercise is the speed. Reducing the speed increases the intensity.

Whichever way you choose to do them, you do not need to do high-intensity exercises more frequently than three times a week. In fact, doing so can be counterproductive, as your body needs to recover between sessions. The importance of recovery should not be overlooked, as your body needs time to rebuild itself in order to function optimally. As explained by Dr. Jeff Spencer:

“To achieve the most beneficial effects from your workouts in the shortest time it’s essential to understand the concept of total load. Total Training Load refers to the total amount of training ‘strain’ on the body over time. For example, one single super-hard workout can strain the body as much as several moderate intensity workouts done back to back can.

The Total Training Load can be increased by increasing the number of exercise repetitions, resistance, length of workout sets and by increasing the speed of repetitions and, also, by shortening the rest interval between exercise sets. If the Total Training Load is in excess too long, the body breaks down, and illness, over-training, burnout, and injury occur.”

Recovery also includes giving your body the proper nutrients it needs in the recovery phase, as your post-workout meal can support or inhibit the health benefits of exercise. For instance, fast-assimilating protein such as high-quality whey protein, eaten within 30 minutes of your workout, will essentially “rescue” your muscle tissue out of the catabolic state and supply it with the proper nutrients to stimulate repair and rejuvenation.

The Synergy Between Exercise and Diet, and Boosting Results with Intermittent Fasting

It’s well worth noting that your choice of breakfast food may play a significant role in altering your metabolic functioning, which can either improve or deter weight loss. For example, eating carbohydrates for breakfast will inhibit your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and reduce the fat burning effect of your exercise. Instead, it activates your parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS), which promotes storage of fat – the complete opposite of what you’re aiming for.

Avoiding fructose and other grain carbohydrates is a critical element of a successful weight loss strategy. This includes sports or energy drinks and fruit juices (even if they’re freshly squeezed). Exercise cannot counteract the harmful effects of a high-fructose diet. It’s also important to remember that if you consume fructose within two hours before or after high-intensity exercise, you effectively negate the ability of the exercise to produce HGH – one of the MAJOR benefits of interval training.

If you’re ready to take your fitness routine to the next level, you may even want to consider skipping breakfast altogether and work out on an empty stomach. You can review the article I recently wrote on this here. This is a form of intermittent fasting and I believe it’s one of the most profound new developments in weight loss management. This can radically improve your ability to shift to fat burning mode and effectively burn fat rather than glucose.

Also, exercising in a fasted state can help your cells rebuild and repair, keeping them biologically young. I’ve previously interviewed fitness expert Ori Hofmekler on the issue of fasting and exercise. According to Ori, fasting actually has the surprising benefit of helping you reconstruct your muscles when combined with exercise. This is due to an ingenious preservation mechanism that protects your active muscle from wasting itself.

In a nutshell, if you don’t have sufficient fuel in your system when you exercise, your body will break down other tissues but not the active muscle, i.e. the muscle being exercised. That said, neither Ori nor I advocate starvation combined with rigorous exercise. It’s important to be sensible. And you need to consume sufficient amounts of protein in order to prevent muscle wasting. While most people need to address the foods they DO eat before considering skipping meals, intermittent fasting can provide you with many benefits, and is another tool you can experiment with to help you reach your goals. Research has shown that the combined effect of intermittent fasting (IF) with short intense exercise may help you to:

Turn back the biological clock in your muscle and brain Boost growth hormone Improve body composition
Boost cognitive function Boost testosterone Prevent depression

Being Fat-Adapted Can Help Improve Your Health

If you follow the recommendations mentioned above, which include:

  • High-intensity interval training
  • Avoiding grain carbs and sugars, especially fructose
  • Exercising in a fasted state

another side effect will eventually become apparent: you’ll become increasingly “fat-adapted.” Fat-adaption describes the ability to burn fat directly via beta-oxidation. It is the normal, preferred metabolic state of the human body, in which your body burns fat rather than glucose as its primary source of energy. Sadly, the bodies of many, if not most, Americans operate in a state of sugar-dependency, which is an abnormal metabolic state that inevitably results in insulin resistance and related chronic disease. Signs that you’re a sugar-burner and are heading down a path of disease include:

  • Low satiety
  • Persistent hunger
  • Carb cravings

As Mark Sisson explains in a recent article, if you are fat-adapted, you:

  1. Can effectively burn stored fat for energy throughout the day.

If you can handle missing meals and are able to go hours without getting ravenous and cranky (or craving carbs), you’re likely fat-adapted.

  1. Are able to effectively oxidize dietary fat for energy.

If you’re adapted, your post-prandial fat oxidation will be increased, and less dietary fat will be stored in adipose tissue.

  1. Can rely more on fat for energy during exercise, sparing glycogen for when you really need it.

Being able to mobilize and oxidize stored fat during exercise can reduce an athlete’s reliance on glycogen. This is the classic “train low, race high” phenomenon, and it can improve performance, save the glycogen for the truly intense segments of a session, and burn more body fat.

According to Sisson, once you can go three hours or more without feeling hungry, you’re on your way toward being fat-adapted. If you can handle exercising without having to carb-load, you’re probably fat-adapted. And if you can work out effectively in a fasted state, you’re definitely fat-adapted.

Source : mercola.com

The Scientific 7-Minute Workout.

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chair-pushup

Story at-a-glance

  • Exercise is a key factor of optimal health; it’s particularly important for controlling your blood sugar and normalizing your insulin levels. When done correctly, exercise can oftentimes act as a substitute for some of the most common drugs used today for things like diabetes, heart disease and depression
  • Compelling and ever-mounting research shows that the ideal form of exercise is short bursts of high intensity exercise
  • Not only does it beat conventional cardio as the most effective and efficient form of exercise, Peak Fitness exercises also provide health benefits you simply cannot get from regular aerobics, such as a tremendous boost in human growth hormone (HGH), aka the “fitness hormone”
  • A recent article by the Human Performance Institute shows how you can fulfill the requirements for a high intensity exercise using nothing more than your own body weight, a chair, and a wall
    • Exercise is a key factor of optimal health; it’s particularly important for controlling your blood sugar and normalizing your insulin levels. I often recommend viewing exercise as a drug that needs to be properly prescribed and “taken” at a proper dosage.
    • When done correctly, exercise can oftentimes act as a substitute for some of the most common drugs used today for things like diabetes, heart disease and depression.

      All of these conditions will improve with exercise and the help of an experienced natural health care clinician. High intensity interval training (HIIT), which is a core component of my Peak Fitness program, is key for reaping optimal results from exercise.

    • There are many versions of HIIT, but the core premise involves maximum exertion followed by a quick rest period for a set of intervals.
    • My Peak Fitness routine uses a set of eight 30-second sprints, each followed by 90 seconds of recovery, as taught by Phil Campbell who is a pioneer in this field. Also, while I typically recommend using an elliptical machine or recumbent bike, you can just as easily perform a high intensity routine without any equipment at all.
    • A recent article in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal1 shows how you can fulfill the requirements for a high intensity exercise using nothing more than your own body weight, a chair, and a wall.
    • Best of all, this science-backed routine only requires a seven minute investment, as the program calls for as little as 10- to 15-seconds of rest between each 30-second exercise, which should be performed in rapid succession.
    • As reported by the New York Times2:
    • “’There’s very good evidence that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,’ says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article.”
    • The health benefits of high intensity interval training are well-established at this point, and include:

·         The Scientific 7-Minute Workout

Significantly improving your insulin sensitivity, especially if you’re on a low-processed food-, low-sugar/low-grain diet Optimizing your cholesterol ratios, when combined with a proper diet Boosting fat metabolism and optimizing your body fat percentage (as a result of improved conservation of sugar and glycogen in your muscles)
Virtually eliminating type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure Naturally boosting your levels of human growth hormone (HGH) Increasing your aerobic capacity
  • One of the added boons of this 7-minute program is that since you don’t need any equipment, you can easily take this routine with you when traveling. You’d be hard-pressed to find a hotel room that doesn’t at least have a chair in it. When done at the appropriate intensity, which should hover around 8 on a scale of 1-10, the following 12 exercises, which are outlined in the report, equate to doing a long run and a weight-training session.
  • The exercises are ideally done in the following order, as this allows for opposing muscle groups to alternate between resting and working in each subsequent exercise.

Contraindications

I believe most people can perform high intensity exercises, provided you listen to your body and work out according to your current level of fitness and ability. I personally modified the Peak 8 to a Peak 6 this year as it was sometimes just too strenuous for me to do all eight repetitions. So by listening to my body and cutting it back to six reps, I can now easily tolerate the workout and go all out. That said, the authors stress that there are some contraindications for their program:

“Because of the elevated demand for exercise intensity in high intensity circuit training protocols, caution should be taken when prescribing this protocol to individuals who are overweight/obese, detrained, previously injured, or elderly or for individuals with comorbidities.

For individuals with hypertension or heart disease, the isometric exercises (wall sit, plank, and side plank) are not recommended. The isometric exercises can be substituted with dynamic exercises.

For all individuals, the Valsalva maneuver should be avoided, particularly for the isometric exercises. Proper execution requires a willing and able participant who can handle a great degree of discomfort for a relatively short duration. It is also essential that participants in an HICT understand proper exercise form and technique. As with all exercise programs, prior medical clearance from a physician is recommended.”

I firmly believe that most people would benefit from high intensity exercises but the key is to start very slowly if you have any of the risk factors listed above. You might actually require several months to work up to a high intensity level. But as long as you start at a safe level and continue to push yourself to progressively higher levels, you will eventually reach a level of intensity that will provide the benefits.

Remember, while your body needs regular amounts of stress like exercise to stay healthy, if you give it more than you can handle your health can actually deteriorate. So it’s crucial to listen to your body and integrate the feedback into your exercise intensity and frequency. When you work out, it is wise to really push as hard as you possibly can a few times a week, but you do need to wisely gauge your body’s tolerance to this stress.

Why High Intensity Interval Training May Be Ideal for Most

Contrary to popular belief, extended extreme cardio, such as marathon running, actually sets in motion inflammatory mechanisms that damage your heart. So while your heart is indeed designed to work very hard, and will be strengthened from doing so, it’s only designed to do so intermittently, and for short periods—not for an hour or more at a time. This is the natural body mechanics you tap into when you perform HIIT.

Repeatedly and consistently overwhelming your heart by long distance marathon running, for example, can actually prematurely age your heart and make you more vulnerable to irregular heart rhythm. This is why you sometimes hear of seasoned endurance athletes dropping dead from cardiac arrest during a race. I ran long distance for over four decades. So please learn from my experience and don’t make the same mistake I did.

Compelling and ever-mounting research shows that the ideal form of exercise is short bursts of high intensity exercise. Not only does it beat conventional cardio as the most effective and efficient form of exercise, it also provides health benefits you simply cannot get from regular aerobics, such as a tremendous boost in human growth hormone (HGH), aka the “fitness hormone.”

What Makes HIIT so Effective?

Your body has three types of muscle fibers: slow, fast, and super-fast twitch muscles. Slow twitch muscles are the red muscles, which are activated by traditional strength training and cardio exercises. The latter two (fast and super-fast) are white muscle fibers, and these are only activated during high intensity interval exercises or sprints. The benefit of activating these fibers is that they will produce therapeutic levels of growth hormone, which many athletes spend over a $1,000 a month to inject themselves with. So there is no need to pay the money or take the risks when your body can produce growth hormone naturally through high intensity exercises.

Getting cardiovascular benefits requires working all three types of muscle fibers and their associated energy systems — and thiscannot be done with traditional cardio, which only activates your red, slow twitch muscles. If your fitness routine doesn’t work your white muscle, you aren’t really working your heart in the most beneficial way. The reason for this is because your heart has two different metabolic processes:

  • The aerobic, which requires oxygen for fuel, and
  • The anaerobic, which does not require any oxygen

Traditional strength training and cardio exercises work primarily the aerobic process, while high intensity interval exercises work both your aerobic AND your anaerobic processes, which is what you need for optimal cardiovascular benefit. This is why you may not see the results you desire even when you’re spending an hour on the treadmill several times a week. So when it comes to high intensity exercises, less really is more...

For Optimal Health, Add Variety to Your Exercise Program

In addition to doing HIIT a couple of times a week, it’s wise to alternate a wide variety of exercises in order to truly optimize your health and avoid hitting a plateau. As a general rule, as soon as an exercise becomes easy to complete, you need to increase the intensity and/or try another exercise to keep challenging your body. I recommend incorporating the following types of exercise into your program on days when you’re not doing high intensity anaerobic training:

  • Strength Training: If you want, you can increase the intensity by slowing it down. You need enough repetitions to exhaust your muscles. The weight should be heavy enough that this can be done in fewer than 12 repetitions, yet light enough to do a minimum of four repetitions. It is also important NOT to exercise the same muscle groups every day. They need at least two days of rest to recover, repair and rebuild.

For more information about using super slow weight training as a form of high-intensity interval exercise, please see my interview with Dr. Doug McGuff.

  • Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back, abdomen and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement throughout your entire body, and strengthening them can help protect and support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury and help you gain greater balance and stability.

Exercise programs like Pilates, yoga, and Foundation Training are great for strengthening your core muscles, as are specific exercises you can learn from a personal trainer.

  • Stretching: My favorite type of stretching is Active Isolated Stretching (AIS) developed by Aaron Mattes. With AIS, you hold each stretch for only two seconds, which works with your body’s natural physiological makeup to improve circulation and increase the elasticity of muscle joints. This technique also allows your body to repair itself and prepare for daily activity. You can also use devices like the Power Plate to help you stretch.

Source: .mercola.com

The Most Effective Strategies for Eliminating Cellulite.

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Cellulite, those pockets of fat that tend to collect on buttocks, thighs and upper arms, are a cause of embarrassment for many. The dimpling, “orange peel” effect occurs when fat cells push against the surrounding subcutaneous connective tissue in your skin. If your lymph circulation becomes sluggish, toxins accumulate in these fat cells.

Liposuction, creams and wraps only temporarily reduce the appearance of cellulite. Without continual treatment, cellulite just reappears…So what, if anything, might actually work to reduce cellulite?

The featured article in The Guardian1 suggests body brushing. Simply give yourself a vigorous scrub-down with a dry body brush before you get into the shower, and then apply a good moisturizer afterward. (I recommend plain coconut oil opposed to chemical-laden creams). According to the writer, this simple technique “really did, honest-to-God, make a remarkable difference in just a few weeks.”

There’s certainly nothing wrong with this strategy; body brushing can help improve circulation and lymph flow, which are important elements for cellulite elimination. The downside is having to manually scrub yourself in areas that can be hard or uncomfortable to reach. Three strategies that I believe might be far more effective, in order of importance, are as follows, and in the following sections I’ll explain why:

  1. Intermittent fasting
  2. Whole body vibration training, a.k.a. Acceleration Training
  3. Rebound exercise

Intermittent Fasting Shifts Your Body from Burning Sugar to Burning Fat

In a nutshell, the answer to eliminating cellulite is to shift your body from burning sugar to efficiently burning fat for fuel, in order to get rid of excess fat deposits. Intermittent fasting is one of the most powerful interventions I know of to move your body into fat burning mode.

One of the mechanisms that makes fasting so effective for fat loss is the fact that it provokes the secretion of human growth hormone (HGH), which is a fat-burning hormone. Fasting also increases catecholamines, which increases resting energy expenditure while decreasing insulin levels, which allows stored fat to be burned for fuel.

Together, these and other factors will turn you into an effective fat-burning machine.

The type of fast you choose appears to be less important, so pick whichever one fits your lifestyle, schedule, and temperament the best. For variations, see this previous article on intermittent fasting. I have been experimenting with different types of scheduled eating in my own life for the past three years, and my preference is to simply skip breakfast and restrict my eating to a 6-7 hour window each day.

For this version of intermittent fasting to be effective, you need to restrict your eating to a window of maximum eight hours each day. This means eating only between the hours of 11am until 7pm, as an example. Essentially, this equates to simply skipping breakfast and making lunch your first meal of the day instead.

This is doable and convenient for most people, but you can restrict it even further — down to six, four, or even two hours, if you want, but you can still reap many of these rewards by limiting your eating to a window of about eight hours.

In the 6-8 hours that you do eat, you want to have healthy protein, minimize your carbs like pasta and bread and potatoes and exchange them for healthful fats like butter, eggs, avocado, coconut oil, olive oil and nuts. (The type of fats the media and “experts” tell you to avoid.)

This will help shift your body from sugar-burning mode to fat-burning mode. Remember it takes a few weeks to make the transition. You have to do it gradually, but once you succeed and switch to fat burning mode, you will easily be able to fast for 18 hours and not feel hungry. Your cravings for sugar will magically disappear and it will be much easier to achieve your ideal weight.

How Acceleration Training Can Help Beat Cellulite

Next, reconsider how you exercise. One form of exercise that provides many of the same health benefits as intermittent fasting is high intensity interval training (HIIT). Doing these kinds of Peak Fitness exercises while fasted (i.e. exercise before you break your fast) will further boost the effects. One of the ways HIIT can be particularly helpful for combating cellulite is that it significantly boosts your levels of human growth hormone (HGH) which, as mentioned earlier, is a fat-burning hormone.

But another form of exercise that is particularly useful for combating cellulite in particular is Acceleration Training, in which you perform exercises on a vibrating platform such as the Power Plate.

Acceleration Training improves your lymph circulation, helping break down cellulite from the inside out. The vibrations cause thousands of muscle contractions that pump your lymphatic fluid out of problem areas, reducing fluid congestion in your tissues. This helps to flush out toxins and ease the load on your immune system. This mechanism has been scientifically shown to actually help rid your body of excess pounds and unsightly cellulite.

In a 2004 German study,2 Acceleration Training alone reduced cellulite on subjects’ thighs and buttocks by nearly 26 percent. When cardio exercises were added to Vibration Training, cellulite dropped even more; just over 32 percent. Other research confirms its benefits for sustained fat loss. For example, one animal study3 showed that Acceleration training caused a drop in the creation of new fat cells, and a 2010 study4 on humans found that:

  • Those using Acceleration Training in addition to a low calorie diet lost twice as much visceral fat after six months compared to those who followed a low calorie diet with cardio and weight training.
  • The decrease in visceral fat remained at the same level in the vibration group after 12 months, while the diet and fitness groups returned to their normal baseline values after 12 months. The researchers suggested that the maintenance of visceral fat loss in the Acceleration Training group might be related to hormonal changes—specifically, increased production of human growth hormone (HGH).

As You Get Older, Growth Hormone Levels Can Affect Your Fat Deposits

Many tend to gain weight as they approach middle age, and if you don’t stay physically active, you also start losing muscle mass around age 40. Overall, you start burning fewer calories as your body shifts from building muscle to storing more fat. This is in part caused by what’s known as “somatopause” — the decline of your body’s hormone production as you age, which includes dwindling production of human growth hormone (HGH). HGH actually starts declining rapidly after age 21, so by the time you hit your 40’s, your levels can be quite low, contributing to these stubborn fat deposits.

The amount of HGH you secrete depends on how much lean body mass and belly fat you have. The more belly fat you have, the less HGH your body produces. Some resort to HGH injections to maintain youthful levels. According to ConsumerProductsReview.org,5 HGH injections are now also considered a “revolutionary” way to reduce cellulite. But there are significant drawbacks to HGH injections, both biological and financial.

As discussed above, there are at least three different ways you can elevate your HGH levels naturally, either alone or in combination. Each of these can very effectively boost HGH production, and when combined I have no doubt it can rival or even surpass injections, but without any of the associated health risks or cost:

  1. Intermittent fasting
  2. High intensity interval training (HIIT)
  3. Acceleration Training

Even a Mini Trampoline—or Rebounding—Can Help Improve Cellulite

Acceleration training works by increasing the acceleration or the force of gravity on your body. To a lesser degree, a mini trampoline will also increase the G forces on your body and provide similar, yet less extreme, benefits. A mini trampoline or rebounder subjects your body to gravitational pulls ranging from zero at the top of each bounce to 2 to 3 times the force of gravity at the bottom, depending on how high you jump. And, unlike jogging on hard surfaces which stresses your ankles and knees, rebounding helps protect against this stress so it’s easy on the joints.

Some of the benefits rebounding offers include circulating oxygen and nutrients to tissues and organs, and promoting increased muscle strength. It’s an option you can use if the cost of a vibration platform such as the Power Plate is prohibitive. Acceleration Training on a high-quality machine will definitely offer more powerful benefits though, and some gyms do have them, so it’s worth checking around.

Tying it All Together…

Foods high in sugars and carbs, damaged fats (think trans fats) and processed salt are all dietary contributors to cellulite, so addressing your diet should be your first step. My optimized Nutrition Plan can help you do that with the least amount of fuss as it takes you step by step through the changes, from beginners to advanced.

It’s important to realize that dietary carbohydrates, especially fructose, are the primary source of a substance called glycerol-3-phosphate (g-3-p), which actually causes fat to become fixed in fat tissue. High carb intake also raises your insulin levels, which prevents fat from being released, so sugars and grains are really at the root of stubborn fat deposits.

In short, you’ll want to avoid processed foods, as they are loaded with fructose and highly processed fats and salt. Keep in mind that for every gram of excess sodium chloride your body has to neutralize, it uses up 23 grams of cellular water. Hence, eating too much common processed salt will cause fluid to accumulate in your tissues, which can also contribute to unsightly cellulite.

Instead, focus your diet on whole, ideally organic and locally grown foods, healthful fats such as butter, eggs, avocado, coconut oil, olive oil and nuts, and grass-fed or pastured animal protein. If you want to add salt, make sure to use unprocessed natural salt, such as Himalayan salt, which contains about 86 different essential minerals and will not cause the same detrimental health effects as processed salt—especially if you’re eating a diet high in vegetables, as this will ensure a healthy sodium to potassium ratio.

Eating this way will help you transition from being a sugar burner to burning fat as your primary fuel, which is key for lasting weight loss and optimal health. However, do not attempt fasting if your diet still consists mainly of processed foods as proper nutritionbecomes even more important at that stage. Next, revise your exercise regimen to include some high intensity interval exercises, and consider Acceleration Training to further boost results—especially if you want to tackle cellulite.

Source: mercola.com