Sloth Metabolism

"Their metabolism is so slow that they may take a half a minute to move a leg a few inches. Their digestive system is so slow that they need only defecate about once a week. They even sneeze slowly."
http://www.zootorah.com/

Some people still don’t get it. When I say “it” I mean the centrality of a high cellular metabolic rate in disease prevention, body composition, and overcoming many common health problems big and small as discussed in THIS FREE EBOOK.

Big names in “alternative nutrition” like Mark Sisson and Joel Fuhrman, who make relatively sound general dietary prescriptions (eat nutritious foods at the exclusion of most junk), have both negated the importance of metabolism – and even believe it’s good to have a low metabolism. Everyone else shrugs it off, typically because they have convinced themselves that they are the healthiest person on earth, and when they see that their body temperature is low they say either:

a) Body temperature must not matter
b) It might even be good to have a low body temperature
c) Matt Stone is a douche
d) All of the above

It’s time for a simpler example to establish the real differences between high cellular metabolic rate and low cellular metabolic rate. After all, that’s all that I’m really concerned with. If you are talking about total calories burned, the best way to “raise your metabolism” is to get as muscular and fat as you can possibly get, like Sumo wrestlers that have the highest metabolic rates of any humans. But I doubt that’s what most people are after. Most people want to be lean, energetic, not have to spend all day sleeping, and otherwise not live like a sloth - or look like a Sumo.

Speaking of sloths, isn’t it cute that the mammal with the lowest metabolic rate (other than hibernating animals which are so lifeless as to be almost indistinguishable from a corpse), is the animal most notorious for having next to zero vitality, vigor, speed, and strength?

The sloth has the lowest metabolic rate of any mammal – and the body temperature to show for it at about 93 degrees F supposedly. Of course, in the modern world we blame our sedentary lifestyles on laziness or modern convenience. Well, my eight year-old niece has access to plenty of couches and televisions and computers, but after spending a week with her I fully understand why she eats 2,500 + calories per day and literally has a little visible (slightly) 6-pack. That kid cannot sit still, and can be hot even when sopping wet in cool temperatures. That’s what happens when you eat ice cream in quantities equal to the size of your head on a daily basis.

Anyway, tail wagging the dog people, tail wagging the dog. I just wanted to say that. I’m not fully sure what it means.

And speaking of tails, does anyone know if sloths have them? I’m not sure. I am sure that I googled “sloth metabolism” (who hasn’t really?) and found a nice article featuring factoids such as sloths having a body temperature of 93 degrees F, a transit time of up to 30 days, they sleep 14-16 hours per day, have very little muscle mass, strength, energy, or speed – and otherwise spend most of their time conserving energy just like a human in hibernation/famine/starvation mode does.

So when I paint a portrait of certain things being quite simple – “Oh, raise your metabolism and your digestion will get better and you’ll probably eradicate constipation for life by the “turd” week of following THIS GENERAL PROGRAM,” in many cases it really is precisely that simple. Not all of course, but a high percentage of cases.

Take sloth digestion for example. They eat, and the food takes 30 days to get out the other end because they digest it so slowly. In a reduced metabolic state, the bowel transit time slows down to extract as many calories from the food as possible. It stays in the gut fermenting and putrefying, causing gas and irritation and inflammation and toxin absorption, bacteria proliferate (in humans this might cause bacterial overgrowth of the small intestine, or SIBO – in turn causing fructose malabsorption, hypoglycemia, yada yada), stool moisture decreases causing stool hardening typical of the constipated, this causes gas and more irritation – potentially wearing away at the intestinal wall and causing serious problems and who knows what else, straining to expel stools can cause hemorrhoids, fissures, diverticulosis, and varicose veins, and on and on and on and on. It is all interconnected to metabolic rate.

The only question one needs to ask is what kind of health experience are you looking for? Do you want to have lots of energy? Strength, endurance, and vitality? A decreased need for sleep and rest or an increased need for sleep and rest?

To me it seems painfully obvious. The modern diet, lifestyle, and other factors seemed to have combined somehow to cause an epidemic of slothlike metabolism. Yes, a sloth metabolism epidemic. That’s what we’re looking at in the world today. This is why a nurse I spoke with recently said that she saw a body temperature of 98.6 degrees F or above in an average of ZERO out of 150 daily readings. Yet, although this body temperature is now an extreme rarity, at one point this was so normal that it helped to establish 98.6 degrees F as normal. We ain’t what we used to be.

Fixing it requires a well-strategized approach in my view. Just eating some nutritious food and not trying to break any records running marathons is probably helpful for a lot of people, but getting out of sloth metabolism and into a state in which your body’s cells are producing energy at a high enough level for it to translate into massive increases in overall vitality probably takes more than that. 

If you’d like to know how a low metabolism translates to poor fertility and low sex drive I encourage you to research the bear with the lowest metabolic rate. You know, it’s the one that is about to go extinct because of the horrible and biologically-inappropriate diet it evolved to eat during the Paleolithic era (almost entirely vegan, 99% bamboo). It’s the one that zookeepers can’t figure out how to get to have sex, much less reproduce – the one they are now resorting to showing pornographic images to in hopes of getting them in the mood.

The biggest question is, how appropriate is a Baby Ruth candy bar for a Sloth?  Will it help, or will it make your friends insist that you do the truffle shuffle before entering their home?  I would think potatoes and coconut oil would be more helpful, but I'll be damned if I'm not enjoying the heck out of some juice and key lime pie right now.  I don't want to eat foods with a low calorie density like sloths, panda bears, and koalas - regardless of what that might do for my huggability.

Of course I'm terribly torn.  On the one hand high-calorie density foods with a pornographic nature (pornographic foods Sally Fallon calls them - a great term) seem to short-circuit the homeostatic weight regulation mechanism, causing those sensitive to "conditioned hypereating" to eat more without a rise in metabolism.  Yet, the pornographic foods (within reason - low-PUFA sans chemical flavor enhancers), make me strong like bull.  We'll save that for a future masturdebate I suppose.      

Resistant Starch

Not trying to promote resistant starch as the next Acai berry or something like that, but the studies done on resistant starch show that, like fiber - and perhaps to an ever greater degree, resistant starch is something that sets refined carbohydrates apart from unrefined carbohydrates - and that sets starch apart from sugar, particularly refined sugar.   

For losing weight, there's no question that the studies on it reveal a rise in metabolism and a spontaneous decrease in food consumption that is patterned by drops in triglycerides, insulin resistance, and other facets of metabolic syndrome as would be expected with big improvements in insulin sensitivity.  This is most likely due to the increase in production of butyric and propionic acids in the digestive tract, known to exert tremendous metabolic enhancement. 

For more on butyric acid, the importance of a healthy metabolism, and a lengthy discussion on the difference between refined and unrefined carbohydrates in terms of how they influence weight, appetite, digestion, insulin sensitivty, and so on - please READ THIS FREE EBOOK.





Side tangent, sharing some local culture, and attempt at humor:

Resistant starch, the ultimate "prebiotic" also likely plays a role in the microbial environment of the GI tract as well, changing the microbial environment towards one that fosters colonization by the very type of bacteria associated with leanness, heightened immunity, protection from colon cancer, and so on. 

If I had to choose between taking probiotics or consuming more resistant starch for improving gut flora, I'd go all in on resistant starch as being a more effective route.

A good analogy might be that of trying to attract white people to an area, something I'm very familiar with as I live near Aspen, CO where virtually all marketing and business efforts are geared up towards attracting affluent white people and their money to the area. 

Taking probiotics is akin to kidnapping affluent white people and bringing them in by bus to an Aspen filled with Pawn shops, tattoo parlors, Swap meets, discount liquor stores, a Bass pro shop, and an RV Superstore - all things a truly offensively-wealthy white person is terribly fearful of, or being associated with.

Consuming resistant starch is like building golf courses, constructing massive timeshare developments adorned with the name Ritz Carlton, building ski areas, hosting a Classical Music Festival, a Food and Wine Festival, and most genius of all - a Jazz Festival with no Jazz (affluent white people think Jazz is really cool, but don't want to admit that they don't actually like it and would rather see Wilco, the Black Crowes, Skynard, the Dixie Chicks, and Glenn Frey). 

Get that going and you won't need to kidnap any rich white people.  The skies will darken with private planes within minutes, and you will be surrounded by popped collars, sweatered chihuahas, George Hamilton, and rumors of Johnny Depp building a house up Castle Creek. 

"If you build it, they will come."   

Read more about resistant starch at http://www.resistantstarch.com/

For an even more extreme abuse of stereotypes of my semi-hometown (I did graduate from Aspen High School), please enjoy this quality All-American television programming trailer.  I'm so proud.

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RRARF Addendum

As many of you know, over the last couple of months we've been exploring a diet that displaces more fat with starch as opposed to eating more or less equal amounts of the two.  When it comes to lowering cortisol, improving leptin sensitivity, improving insulin sensitivity, impoving body composition, raising metaoblism, and keeping fat gain minimal while eating to appetite or slightly beyond appetite - which are basically the objectives of the eating and lifestyle program created in the FREE EBOOK, starch immediately stands out as being superior to fat in each and every one of those categories. 

And of course, the vast majority of the most metabolically-healthy people on earth eat what could be called a "starch-based diet" in which well over half of ingested calories come from some starchy staple - such as corn, wheat, rice, or root vegetables (Asians, rural South and Central Americans, Pacific islanders (formerly), rural Africans, and so on). 

This is actually a pretty interesting debate amongst the low-fat plant-based gurus.  I score it:  McDougall 10, Furhman 7, Esselstyn 4,
Mills -2,368, Creepy Bald guy next to Mills 0 



Last week I added this "Addendum" to the FREE EBOOK, the first of many to come I'm sure.  Anyway, this is what was added.  Hopefully this brings some clarification to those who have been confused recently.  To read the rest of the book, go to www.180degreehealth.com

RRARF August 2010 ADDENDUM

While RRARF (Rehabilitative Rest and Agressive Re-Feeding) is very successful at raising body temperature, improving digestion and overall well-being – one question remains…. Can it be done more efficiently? Can it be improved upon? Okay, I guess that’s two questions.

By more efficiently, I mean with less fat gain and greater lean body mass gain as well as a greater rise in temperature per calorie ingested.

I believe the answer to those questions is “yes.” So what’s better? Getting more calories from starches or getting more calories from fat?

Upon close scrutiny of the literature on overfeeding, a clear picture emerges. Straight studies comparing overfeeding with a high-fat/low-starch diet vs. a high-starch/low-fat diet yields clear-cut results. The higher the ratio of starch to fat when overfeeding, the greater the lean body mass gains and the lesser the body fat gains. Not only that, but since starch is not something that the body can readily store like it can fat molecules, the excess calories ingested MUST force an increase in body heat and physical energy to a much greater degree than fat overfeeding.

The physics of it all is actually quite simple. The most efficient way for your body to store fat is to pack fat molecules into fat cells. For this to happen in the absence of dietary fat means that a great deal of carbohydrate must be converted to fat – triglycerides, before it can be efficiently stored. However, this is a very inefficient process. When large quantities of fructose are ingested during overfeeding, the effect is very fattening because a great deal of the fructose is converted to fat in the liver. However, this is not true when talking about starch overfeeding.

Thus, when the ratio of carbohydrate to fat is very high, and the ratio of starch to fructose (and also glucose in simple as opposed to complex form as is found in starches) is also high, the more of the excess energy is stored into muscle tissue and the less into fat. There are also implications that a diet with a high starch to sugar + fat ratio is protective against heart disease – increasing the HDL to triglyceride ratio for starters. I never thought that controlling the macronutrient ratios in such a way would have such a direct bearing upon body composition, but to ignore the simple truths revealed in the medical literature regarding such a thing would be sheer denial of irrefutable fact.

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/62/1/19

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/67/4/631.pdf

While choice, personal preference, carbohydrate tolerance, digestive abilities, and more will determine what you personally choose as your version of RRARF, there is no question that eating more starch and less fat by percentage of calories is a route that will produce more body heat and more lean body mass with less body fat than any other method.

Of the starches, those highest in amylose content and resistant starch – such as legumes, red potatoes, corn, and intact whole grains like Basmati rice (vs. those ground into flour as in bread/pasta) – particularly those that have been cooked and then chilled which forms a type of metabolically-stimulating resistant starch known as RS3, are ideal. A version of RRARF where these types of starchy foods are maximized and other foods more or less minimized in comparison is probably the most efficient route to take.

The reasons why that is goes far beyond a larger increase in lean body mass in comparison to fat gains, but incorporates positive changes in the microbial environment of the gut, intestinal production of the most metabolically-stimulating and insulin-sensitizing fatty acids known (such as butyric and propionic acids), and perhaps most-importantly – pronounced appetite inhibition with an increase in metabolism, meaning that weight gain is minimal or weight is even lost eating to appetite while metabolism simultaneously rises (the Holy Grail of health and weight loss).

This is just the tip of the iceberg on the potential benefits of a high-starch diet, particularly one that maximizes amylose and resistant starch-rich carbohydrates. I have tentative plans of elaborating on this topic in exhaustive detail in a future eBook, entitled something like 180 Degree Carbohydrate. Actually, that’s a pretty weak title for such an important topic. I’ll come up with something better hopefully.

Also see 180 Kitchen for a great recipe and meal plan that incorporates resistant starch on a program with a higher ratio of starch to fat.

Further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistant_starch
http://veganmaster.blogspot.com/2008/08/mnp-100-muscle-and-34-selected.html