Serotonin and the Carbohydrate to Protein Ratio

There is always some war going on against a certain hormone or biochemical. The most common of course is probably cholesterol, which plays many essential roles in the body that you will die without. Another of course is insulin, yet another hormone that low-carb gurus have gone to war against and tried to pin every known disease to. Estrogen also comes to mind, as does cortisol.

One concept I’ve always appreciated, and that I thought distinguished authors like Barry Sears and Diana Schwarzbein from either low-fat or low-carb dogma was insisting that the RIGHT amount of our essential hormones and biochemicals is the great secret to the best health a person can achieve.

Sears developed what he calls the Zone. This zone is a place where insulin and its counter-hormone glucagon exist in balance. To manipulate this balance, you focus on the ratio of carbohydrate to protein. Sears, without any real basis, established this at 1.5 to 1. Schwarzbein is more flexible and takes other factors into account, but is very blunt about never going below about a 1:1 ratio “no matter who you are or what you think” and suggests that a 2:1 ratio is probably ideal if one had to choose.

The reason I bring this up is simple. Along with this carbohydrate to protein ratio which has a big impact on the insulin to glucagon ratio, you also have various neurotransmitters associated with that as well.

In an insulin-dominant state, your serotonin tends to rise in proportion to the drop in adrenal hormone activity. You could call this the fed state, and it is characterized by feeling full, calm, at ease, and relaxed – even sleepy when you really eat a big meal. When you are in a glucagon-dominated state (glucagon is hormone that is secreted to raise blood sugar, unlike insulin which does the opposite) your adrenal hormones by definition are active. This happens when no food is available, typically several hours after you’ve eaten. You hear reports of extreme mental focus and energy amongst intermittent fasters during their fast. Yes. This is because insulin is low, and glucagon and therefore the adrenal hormones are working overtime.

I too experienced this with my initial entryway into a low-carb diet. A low-carb diet (low carbohydrate to protein ratio), quite simply, lowers insulin and raises the catecholamines that give you energy and mental focus. I just couldn’t believe how I could go and go and go all day and NEVER feel drowsy or hungry. It was remarkable.

But after enough time passed, the dark cloud started moving in. I couldn’t sleep. I developed dark circles under my eyes. My sex drive decreased and other ominous signs. But worst of all, my mood became atrocious. Normally a lax, easygoing kinda guy, I reverted to behavior I had in my youth – a temper like the Tazmanian Devil.

After going low-carb long enough my temper became outrageous. Some little idea would set me off and I’d stay up all night sweating in furious anger and fantasizing about inflicting harm to “x” thing or person that I was obsessing over.

But within 24 hours of embracing carbohydrates fully, that disappeared completely. No more sleepless nights. No more dark circles. No more irrational anger. And the sleep. Good lord did I sleep. And I too, like many others, experienced major fatigue after meals for the first 1-2 weeks. The happiness was blissful. I lived up to my nickname of “Stoner,” with a constant smile on my face, a sensation of deep peace and relaxation, and my eyelids half closed.

Anyway, the point of this post is to be mindful of your carbohydrate to protein ratio. Personally, I don’t believe that there is one magic ratio. Rather, I think this ratio can be exploited to do remarkable things – like give yourself great energy and focus during the day and amazing sleep at night, simply by tweaking this ratio at certain times. Not only that, but you can use this ratio to determine what puts you in the good mood, no-cravings, stable energy “zone” throughout the day.

Too many carbs in relation to protein and you have too much serotonin and you feel sluggish and unproductive. Too little carbs and you feel anxious, jittery, nervous, and quick to anger. A big hit of ice cream or alcohol and you’ll send your serotonin on a wild roller coaster and are destined to be out of optimal emotional balance. Even keel is the goal.

This concept was brought up months ago by JT and others. That idea was simply to eat more protein early in the day and less at night. This makes even more sense when you scrutinize our circadian rhythms (next post will be on resetting those rhythms), and how those with metabolic issues and obesity almost ALWAYS have the circadian rhythms backwards – waking up feeling tired and not hungry (low cortisol, high serotonin), and going to bed hungry (craving calorie-dense sugary foods, white flour products, and alcohol specifically) and not tired (high cortisol, low serotonin). This can mostly be attributed to, I believe, the delicate balance between serotonin and cortisol – which is impacted most heavily by the carbohydrate to protein ratio of the last meal you ate, as well as calorie intake. 

Of course, the whole concept behind Kathleen DesMaisons’s program for overcoming addiction as discussed in Potatoes Not Prozac is eating starch, WITHOUT accompanying protein (a few bites of a baked potato) before bedtime to assist in getting tryptophan across the blood-brain barrier where it is converted to serotonin, then melatonin – helping you fall asleep, have incredible dreams (you wouldn’t believe what Tom Skerritt was wearing last night!), and overcome addiction. I think this practice goes way beyond just addressing addiction though.

Also it’s important to note that your body and brain have a remarkable ability to adjust. For example, when I started eating very high-carb/low-protein (about a 5:1 ratio) in June, my sleep was incredible at first. However, the longer I continued at this constant level, the more carbs and the less protein it took for me to be able to get a good night’s sleep. Protein just became too energizing and carbs became increasingly less relaxing/calming.

But the last couple of weeks I’ve fine-tuned it and discovered that it’s very easy to get the best of both worlds – energizing protein early in the day and calming carbs at night. I’m not talking about extremes of carb cycling here either – just going from say roughly a 2:1 ratio at breakfast and lunch to a 4:1 ratio at dinner.

This is really an interesting self-experiment to try for yourself if you are curious about the power that minor changes in meal composition have over mood, energy levels, sleep quality, and more.

To reduce your addiction-proneness, lower cortisol levels, restore insulin sensitivity, and more READ THIS FREE EBOOK. 

No Subsitute for Green Foods

There is no substitute for green foods in our diet.  A large vegetable salad every day is one of the best things we can do for ourselves.  As a preventive of disease, it is far superior to all the vaccines and serums ever devised to keep you healthy.  It is important that we eat them every day.  The green leaves of plants are our richest sources of organic minerals and they are rich sources of vitamins.  They also offer small quantities of the highest grade proteins as well as chlorophyll. Chlorophyll gives us the most protection against carcinogens and debilitating diseases. Chlorophyll promotes elimination of toxins from the body. It helps to strengthen cells and the immune system. Collard greens are extremely high in calcium. Green Foods pack more nutritional punch per ounce than any other foods on the planet. Some green foods include spinach, kale, chard, turnip greens, beet greens, cabbage, broccoli, okra, green beans, fresh peas, asparagus, collards, lettuce, celery, Chinese cabbage, Bok choy, etc.  All of these vegetables are good in their raw state.  A salad doesn't have to be a lot of work.  You can just pile the veggies on your plate with out doing much cutting at all.  Serve big lettuce leaves, stalks of celery and a cucumber sliced.  All you really need is 3 or 4 different items for your beautiful creation. 


It is also very important that children have a daily salad.  With the salad you can add a steamed vegetable as well.
Besides green vegetables, I add green smoothies to our diet (made from green barley grass, frozen bananas & parsley).
There is no substitute for green foods in our diet, so be sure to include them every day-your good health depends on it!

Gorp Energy Bars

I woke up the other morning thinking about Gorp bars and how to create a healthy, but delicious version. If you are planning a long bout of exercise and need a simple way to pack the same convenient nutritional punch as an energy bar (with ingredients you know are good for you), try GORP. GORP, which some say stands for “Good Old Raisins and nuts” or “Granola, Oats, Raisins and nuts,” others claim it is a backronym that actually stems from the Old English verb "gorp," meaning to eat greedily:)

GORP is chock full of vitamins and minerals necessary to fuel a long workout. While GORP can be mixed with a number of different ingredients based on an individual’s nutrition needs and taste preferences, some common ingredients include: cashews or almonds, raisins or dried fruit, chocolate chips, oats, and various seeds. You can experiment and add cashew butter instead of almond butter or dried fruit instead of raisins.  Also, adding 1/4 cup of seeds will add even more nutritional value. 

I came up with this creation that I personally love. These bars are made with oats, white whole wheat flour, almond butter, coconut oil, agave nectar, applesauce, Vegan chocolate chips, almonds and raisins.  These are a perfect extra energy snack or treat. 

Gorp Energy Bars
Printable Recipe

2 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. sea salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 cup almond butter
1/2 cup raw coconut oil
1/2 cup raw agave nectar
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup almonds (chopped)
1/4 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix dry ingredients together and set aside.  Mix almond butter, coconut oil, agave and applesauce together. Mix both dry & the wet mixtures together and then fold in the chocolate chips, almonds & raisins. 
Press into 9 x 9 greased baking dish trying to make it level.
Bake for 30 minutes.  Cut while hot (15 bars). Cool in dish.

Serotonin September

About a month ago we were having a big nerdfest about the role of dopamine in weight set point and what Seth Roberts calls the “Flavor-Calorie Theory” of obesity – or what I have started calling, because my coolness rating is so much higher than Seth’s, PCAT (Pleasure Center Activation Theory). But dopamine is only one of the pleasure neurotransmitters that is involved in the human sensation of pleasure – another is serotonin. And weight is only one thing that is potentially influenced by these reward chemicals.

Here is another connection for you.

Author Jon Gabriel in his book, The Gabriel Method, discusses how pivotal emotions are to weight set point specifically. Negative feelings about your weight or body image are very central to weight problems, and take a small problem and blow it up into a big one in a vicious cycle. Other emotions such as anxiety, guilt, stress, sorrow, worry, and fear may often play a central role as well.

Gabriel loves to reflect upon the work environment that he was in when his weight was the highest – and how he lived in a constant state of unease around his moody and hot-tempered colleague who I envision treating the office copy machine like the character Michael Bolton in the movie Office Space. In videos he laughs at how he (Jon Gabriel) would always be on some kind of diet while weighing in at nearly 400 pounds… one week he’d “be eating the burger without the bun and the next week be eating the bun without the burger.”
His business partner, however, would order something like a chocolate milkshake for lunch, would have a few sips of it, and then just throw the rest out – while Gabriel would be starving and could hardly take his eyes off the milkshake. He just wasn’t interested in the milkshake, and kept losing and losing and losing weight while Gabriel gained weight in the same stressful work environment.

But Gabriel, interestingly, would internalize all of the problems at work and all the stress, whereas his colleague would scream and shout and throw things and then move on.  He talks about all this beginning at 6:00 in this video (and at around 2 minutes in he discusses acute vs. chronic stress in terms of exercise which is discussed at the bottom of this post)...



One way of dealing with a situation leads to chronic low-grade stress similar to what is experienced during famine. The other is a more natural way of dealing with stress – a way that you will see any less cognitively-advanced creature dealing with stress and trauma. There one minute, gone the next. An emotional flurry is gone in a hurry (Yeah, I just made that up… I’m the awesomest).

This theme is repeated throughout Peter Levine’s book on emotional and physical trauma entitled Waking the Tiger. Those who remain active during traumatic situations manage to dissipate the trauma and have very little lasting post-traumatic stress. It’s those that internalize the trauma and shut down physically and mentally that have this trauma stored in the body where it resides, causing disease and distress, on a long-term basis which is far more harmful.

I came across this theme again recently while reading Shawn Talbott’s excellent book, The Cortisol Connection. The concept is simple really. There is acute stress, and there is chronic stress – and how difficult and traumatic situations are dealt with makes a huge difference in the outcome as regards your health, well-being, and waist measurement.

This is because these negative emotional states induce a release of cortisol. Actually, a more accurate depiction of what happens is that negative emotional states ramp up the activity of 11-HSD-1, an enzyme in cells (particularly centered around the abdomen) that, for lack of a better description, helps cells utilize a larger percentage of the cortisol coursing through the body at any given time.

In other words blood levels = normal. Actual functional cortisol = high, as this intracellular cortisol cannot be measured via normal blood or saliva tests, which are, like thyroid hormone panels, only useful in cases of extreme abnormality (like Talbott says, if you actually have truly abnormal levels of cortisol, you’re lucky to be able to get out of bed in the morning). Huge and unpredictable fluctuations throughout the day in terms of cortisol in the bloodstream complicate the usefulness of testing even further.

Anyway, you can now clearly see why substances that spike neurotransmitters to unnatural highs can lead to an increase in weight set point. Spike serotonin into the stratosphere using foods with extreme sweetness, unnaturally high calorie density, and rapid absorption rates – or by using psychoactive drugs like alcohol that induces a massive pleasure response, and you do witness downregulation of receptor sites (closure).

The result is that these things send you on an emotional roller coaster ride in which you feel extremely good immediately after consuming these highly-pleasurable things, but then exist in a low-pleasure state the entire time that you are not on one of these substances - depicted very well in Kathleen DesMaisons short video HERE (sugar – particularly the fat-sugar combo, no-calorie sweeteners, alcohol, drugs, white bread, etc.). This results in chronic, low-grade negative emotional states of stress, depression, anxiety, fear, guilt, worry, an inability to shake off painful past experiences, and a tendency to see the worst in the people, places, and things that you interact with in life.

And it’s this chronic, perpetual, low-grade level of psychological malaise that leads to real problems with your cells drowning in a steady flow of cortisol and the manifestation of metabolic disease, frequent infection (cortisol suppresses the immune system), autoimmune disease, allergy/asthma, and so on.

After all, it is cortisol (along with other counter-inflammatory molecules such as SOCS-3 as discussed in the video below) that blocks the action of leptin and insulin – causing leptin and insulin resistance. This, in turn, leads to lowered testosterone, reduced metabolism, impaired immunity, hyperinsulinemia, impaired glucose tolerance, increased appetite (although your appetite is a lesser factor if you are eating to get a serotonin and/or dopamine high), and so on.  Chronic emotional stress, chronic physical stress in the form of diet and overexercising, and excess tissue composition of omega 6 and other causes of inflammation all contribute to this effect. 



The take-home message from this initial serotonin post is simple though. There are foods and substances (all of them with a drug-like quality due to the influence they exert upon the pleasure centers in our brains) that cause chronic low serotonin levels (via receptor closure) of which chronic high cortisol levels is the counter-result. In this way, the vast spectrum of negative moods, if they are chronic, lead to chronic problems with infectious and degenerative illness including weight problems. When you eat to keep pleasure centers as stable as possible, which will be discussed at great length in this series of posts, it is almost impossible to trigger irrationally-negative emotional states – and the response to stressful and traumatic situations is infinitely enhanced and doesn’t weigh on you for days and weeks like it would someone in a chronic low serotonin state.

In a sense, chronic stress and acute stress are polar opposites, which is an excellent tie-in to the continued conversation we’ve been having on exercise – from a metabolic standpoint, it appears that short-duration, high-intensity exercise improves the stress response – sending it in the acute direction. This is, of course, the exact type of exercise Jon Gabriel recommends as the exercise component of his program. Long-duration exercise appears to be more of a chronic stress, which can easily be observed in the difference in body type between an endurance athlete with a characteristic low-testosterone/high-cortisol profile (low muscle mass, gains fat easily when sedentary) compared to a high-performance/short-duration athlete (high muscle mass to body fat ratio – high testosterone to cortisol ratio).

By the same token, chronic vs. acute consumption of junk food, alcohol, etc. abide by the same rules. In my personal experience, acute consumption of such foods can be equally as beneficial as chronic consumption is harmful.

Stay tuned for more in this series, including how to reset your cortisol clock and stress response, serotonin’s role in our circadian rhythms, serotonin’s role in sleep quality, appetite, cravings, and energy levels, the carbohydrate to protein ratio and how it impacts serotonin, emotional eating, how to potentially keep your serotonin receptor sites from upregulating when eating a diet that keeps serotonin on an even keel, and more.

Toasted Almond-Cherry Ice Cream

Since my daughter Heather, her husband and their little girl were coming over to watch football last night, I decided to make some fun ice cream for them. I put several ideas together & came up with one of the tastiest ice creams I have ever had.  It satisfied all the wonderful things you want from ice cream -smooth texture (for a perfect looking scoop), sweet, flavorful, HEALTHY and a toasted nutty crunch!! I used organic coconut milk, Medjool dates, agave, frozen dark & sweet pitted cherries (No sugar added), vanilla & toasted almonds. As you can see by the picture, this was a heavenly treat that everyone loved!  It passed all my taste testers with a 10!  To freeze the mixture I put it in Cuisinarts Ice Cream Maker.  It takes less than 20 minutes to freeze it to soft stage and then an additional hour or two in your regular home freezer. This Ice Cream maker does a great job and is fairly inexpensive to buy.  It doesn't require salt or ice which is really nice. I hope you will give it a try-it's amazing!

Toasted Almond-Cherry Ice Cream
Printable Recipe                   Serves 4-6

3 cups organic unsweetened coconut milk (Cold)
2 Tab. raw agave nectar
7 Medjool dates
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 12 oz. frozen package of dark, sweet pitted cherries
          (save a few cherries & some juice for putting on top of ice cream)
1/2 cup lightly toasted almonds, diced with skins on

To toast almonds:
Dice each almond into about 6 pieces. Leave skins on. Toast almonds in pan with 1/2 tsp. olive oil. Watch and stir carefully so you only lightly toast them. Set aside.

In blender add the 3 cups of coconut milk, agave nectar, Medjool dates & vanilla.  Blend until you can't see the dates very well.  You will still see specks of dates and that is normal.

To the blender add your package of unfrozen cherries.  There will be a little liquid in the bag. You can either add this liquid to the mixture or save to drizzle over the frozen ice cream.  Save a few cherries to sprinkle on top as well. PULSE THE BLENDER A FEW TIMES TO CHOP THE CHERRIES-YOU DO NOT WANT THEM TO BECOME MUSH IN THE ICE CREAM BUT REMAIN IN CHUNKS. (So, just a few pulses)

Fold in toasted almonds and you are ready to place in ice cream freezer.

Put mixture in Ice Cream maker until solid. Mixture will still be a little soft. Transfer to regular home freezer and let sit an additional 1-2 hours. 

Enjoy!!

Fresh Pineapple Red Pepper Salad

I love this simple, refreshing Pineapple Red Pepper Salad with butter lettuce.  The salad dressing is made from just blending the fresh pineapple and red pepper together-it doesn't get any easier than this.  Delicious and so healthy. Everything blends so well for easy digestion. The butter lettuce I purchased still had it's dirt & roots attached-so cool and almost garden fresh. (see picture) You can also use some of the fresh pineapple to make a smoothie to serve with it.  Delicious!!


Pineapple Red Pepper Salad
Printable Recipe

1 large head of butter lettuce
1 cup pineapple (diced)
1/4 cup red pepper (diced)
1 cup walnuts (break into small pieces)

Dressing:
4 oz. pineapple
4 oz. red bell pepper

Cut butter lettuce into smaller pieces and place in bowl.  Add diced pineapple & red pepper. Prepare dressing by blending pineapple & red bell pepper in blender.  Pour dressing on salad and garnish with walnuts or your nut of choice. 
Serves 4

 Photo by Debbie (The Health Seeker's Kitchen)

Training Lessons from Scott Abel

For those who don’t know, Scott Abel (http://www.scottabel.com/) is a physique training legend. More than perhaps any other, Scott has immersed himself into the complex science of physique enhancement, physical conditioning, personal training, and more. And his results are impressive. Even approaching his mid-40’s Scott looks like he could arm-wrestle Arnold during his prime, and he has trained over 300 fitness competitors to varying degrees of success as a coach - including many National champions.

His resume aside, which establishes his ability to help others build commanding, muscular physiques and outstanding well-rounded fitness, what lessons does Abel have, if any, for those in pursuit of a fun, relaxing, enjoyable, sustainable lifestyle accompanied by graceful aging and freedom from chronic illness? (I’m not convinced that hardcore exercise and dieting such as that used to enter fitness competitions is the ticket)

As you know, the focus at 180DegreeHealth is raising the metabolism as you can read about in THIS FREE EBOOK, so it is perfectly fitting that Scott Abel pioneered a form of training called “Metabolic Enhancement Training.” With this name going for it, it was impossible for me not to explore his work to see what he was getting at, and to see if very specific and scientifically-generated exercise really could be a part of an overall strategy for great health.

While Metabolic Enhancement Training (MET) is no doubt outstanding for creating a freakish physique, its overall application to the average Joe is extremely limited. The training itself requires excruciating suffering from the participant, huge allotments of time (75-90 minutes 5 times per week), and involves very complex movements and a great deal of equipment to follow it with precision.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t “lessons” to be learned from the training itself, and the how’s and why’s it was developed. There are.

The 3 basic Fundamental rules of MET are:

1) Speed
2) Range of Motion
3) Stable to Unstable positions

And it goes without saying that intensity is a big part of the program as well which can be measured by the degree of “oxygen debt,” which could be fundamental #4 of the training.

Abel, while gasping for air in his MET videos, is quoted as saying, “MET is a culmination of everything – strength training, resistance training, interval cardio training, interval strength training – all under 1 umbrella.”

Abel also happens to be fiercely opposed to slow, steady-state cardio training on your typical cardio machine. He feels it ruins physiques and metabolism – and I would agree that is true IF it is taken to extremes of duration and intensity such as that seen in marathon running that we discussed in the LAST POST.

He also has plenty of negative things to say about traditional resistance exercise without complementary athletic movements and conditioning:

“Furthermore, the bodybuilding paradigm myth of program design also delineates certain amount of rest between training protocols based on muscles used. Simply put, what I have noticed is that over time following the bodybuilding training model does not enhance metabolism but somehow slows it down. While muscle burns more calories at rest, these type of workouts do less to enhance the training affect on metabolism than do more movements based protocols.”

MET is really a form of exercise that is designed to mimic those “metabolically ideal” types of exercise in a gym setting, designed specifically for generating power, conditioning, activating all the muscles in complex movements, balance, and a metabolism that supports high-level athletic performance – one with a high level of muscle to fat by definition, which is a telltale sign of high levels of anabolic hormones (such as testosterone – good whether you are a man or a woman for looking good and aging well) and low levels of catabolic hormones that break down muscle tissue and enhance fat storage (cortisol being the king).

Metabolically ideal forms of exercise would be the ones that utilize all of the above-mentioned principles of MET – speed, range of motion, stable to unstable positions, and intensity.

In other words, ballet, sprinting, gymnastics, martial arts, wrestling, plyometrics, etc. – the sports that are defined by the extreme athleticism required to perform them. Sprinting of course lacks some of the elements, and you see speed and power amongst sprinters but not much well-rounded athleticism. Ballet, for females, also lacks the full culmination of all training in that it lacks resistance for the upper body, whereas the males, who are constantly lifting ballerinas, have a level of full body development that is strikingly superior.

U.S. Men's Gymnastics Team

But in general, you can clearly see, in each of these sports, the themes of having to balance in unstable positions, perform within many different ranges of motion, and do so with great speed, quickness, agility, and power is the repeated theme.

Abel is simply trying to get the best metabolic enhancing effect of those sports, but by adding extra weight load, is able to build more muscle mass. He also goes for extra conditioning by making it hard as hell, and not allowing himself full recovery in between sets/circuits. This puts the body in a greater anaerobic state (oxygen-deprived) which fosters greater adaptive response and development. That’s it in a nutshell.

So if you are wondering what the most efficient form of exercising is for looking better and getting your body to undergo hormonal changes that will potentially foster better health (like decreased cortisol), it boils down to training at high-intensity levels (this converts slow-twitch muscles to fast-twitch muscles, increases body temperature, increases glucose burning over fat burning which is more efficient and fosters better insulin sensitivity, and more, including potentially lowering baseline cortisol levels despite acute rises during the high-intensity period), training all muscle groups with full range of motion, performing movements with great explosive power and speed (like jumps as in plyometrics), and, for greater muscle development – adding strength/resistance training into the mix somehow.

You can see that many popular forms of exercise contain SOME of the elements of MET, but none of them contain all of the elements.

If you have any interest in fitness, these principles are all certainly worthy of your full consideration. If you are purely interested in health, the bigger picture view suggests that just moving your body around and not being on your butt on all day long in front of a computer like me is the route to deliver that. Researchers such as Konstantin Buteyko (as Lisa pointed out in the Tabata video I posted on Monday) or Ray Peat can certainly whip up some strong arguments AGAINST doing high-intensity exercise (due to hyperventilation/oxygen debt and resultant lactic acid production), regardless of what it may deliver in terms of physique enhancement and fitness level. So the jury is definitely still out on high-intensity exercise from a health standpoint. 

But just NOT running marathons or doing dumb 140-mile bike rides like I used to do is already a big step in the right direction. 

Here are some of Scott Abel's videos demonstrating some of the MET themes (range of motion, instability/balance, speed, intensity) to better put this into perspective.  Some are very advanced, but they give you an idea of what MET is getting at...