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Excess carbohydrates, or carbs as they are often called, are the biggest interfering factor in the majority of people’s diets when it comes to burning fat.  Although it might appear to be more logical to reduce the intake of fat when trying to lose fat, the hormonal effects of high carb intake will completely block the body’s ability to burn fat. This issue is often how lose weight programs fall short of producing good results - they simply don’t emphasize the importance of avoiding carbs.

Carbohydrate intake blocks the body’s ability to burn fat because it triggers the production of the hormone insulin.  Most people associate insulin with the disease diabetes and with blood sugar control, but it is also directly involved in the storage of fat in the body.  Insulin stimulates the tissues to convert excess blood sugar and store as fat, and at the same time will block the conversion of fat back to sugar so it cannot be burned for energy.

When you eat a lot of carbs, they are quickly digested and absorbed into the blood as blood sugar, also known as glucose.  A rise in blood glucose above what the body needs for its immediate energy needs triggers the release of insulin from the pancrease.  Insulin stimulates the muscles and liver to store the excess glucose as a compound called glycogen, which is a quick energy source.  The amount of storage space available for glycogen is pretty limited, and when that is filled up, the insulin stimulates the fat tissue to store the remaining excess glucose as fat.  This means the more carbs you eat, the more insulin you will produce, and the more fat your body will store. 

Some people think that they can overcome this problem by simply exercising more to make up for eating too many carbs, but this will not work.  Even though exercising more will burn additional calories, they won’t be fat calories!

Exercise does stimulate the body to first burn glycogen, and then turn to burning fat once the glycogen is used up - except when there is high insulin release.  In the presence of high insulin, once the glycogen is gone, the insulin blocks the burning of fat and so the body turns to burning the protein of your muscles to produce energy. 

Initially, people who are trying to lose weight and continue to eat a lot of carbs may have the illusion that they are burning fat, but in actuality, they are losing water weight and muscle mass.  The longer this continues, the harder it becomes to lose weight, because the reduction in muscle mass results in a slower metabolism. The end result is that the person who continues to eat a lot of carbs while trying to lose weight winds up weak and tired and with a higher percentage of body fat than before they began their weight loss program.   

Dr. George Best explains more about how various hormones effect weight loss in his free ebook, which can be obtained at his lose weight help website.

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The balance between the effects of your body’s fat burning hormones and fat storing hormones is the determining factor in whether or not you lose weight.  While the individual fat buring hormones are greater in number than the fat storing hormones, the fat burners are weaker.  As a matter of fact, the entire effects of all of the fat burning hormones combined can be completely negated by a high level of insulin, the most powerful of the fat storing hormones.

It is important to understand how the hormones that burn and store fat work and the various factors that influence the balance and effects of these hormones.  Understanding these hormones will allow you to discover the mistakes you may be making in your weight loss efforts and to make the necessary changes in your approach to maximize your fat burning.

The primary fat burning hormones are thyroid hormone, adrenailne (epinephrine), glucagon, testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin-like growth factor.  A full discussion of how each of these hormones works would be quite lengthy and is beyond the scope of this article, but there are some basic concepts you can apply that will assist you in promoting the effects of the fat burning hormones.

The three main factors involved in the stimulation of the release of the fat burning hormones and to enhance their effects are diet, exercise, and sleep.

The dietary aspects of maximizing your fat burning hormones may not be what you think. With regards to enhancing the effects of these hormones, the main consideration is promoting the health and functioning of the liver. The liver is responsible for the conversion and activation of many hormones, including the ones that promote fat burning. If the liver gets overworked, it cannot do its job as efficiently as possible, and the effects of the fat burning hormones decline as a result. While most people are aware that excess alcohol consumption and medications can be bad for the liver, many are unaware that a diet that is too high in fat and/or animal protein can also put excessive strain on this vital organ.

Perhaps you or someone you know has tried the Atkins diet and did well at first, but then hit a point where the weight loss stopped. This is actually to be expected because the Atkins diet is very hard on the liver over the long-term. While the low-carb aspect of it is good, the excessive fat and animal protein, particularly combined with the lack of healthy nutrients from vegetables and fruits, will make the liver tired and sluggish, and the result is decreased effectiveness of the fat burning hormones.

While there are other aspects of diet to be considered with respect to minimizing the effects of the fat storing hormones and providing lose weight help, the main concept here is to eat a diet that maintains the health of the liver.

In addition to diet, the proper form of exercise is critical to maximizing the work of the fat burning hormones.  Controversy exists about what type of exercise is best to promote fat burning.  While most current research indicates that low intensity, high duration exercise at your target heart rate is the most effective type of exercise for fat burning, there is an important distinction that needs to be made between the fat burned during an exercise session and the overall fat burning effect of an exercise session.

During the exercise session itself, low intensity, long duration exercise does burn more fat than high intensity, short duration exercise.  The overall fat burning effects of high intensity exercise are considerably greater than for low intensity exercise though, even when the low intensity workouts are much longer.  This is because high intensity exercise stimulates the production of certain fat buring hormones and increases the body’s metabolic rate.  Increased fat burning continues for about a day or so after the workout.  In the case of low intensity exercise, the fat burning effects mostly stop when the workout ends.  This means that a high intensity exercise session can produce many times the fat burning effects of a low intensity exercise session.

One of the reasons that high intensity exercise stimulates metabolism is that it stimulates the release one of the fat burning hormones called growth hormone.  The liver converts growth hormone to something called insulin like growth factor, which stimulates fat burning to keep your blood sugar levels steady when you go for long periods without eating.  If you are like most people, you probably consistently go the longest time without eating when you sleep.  When you don’t get enough sleep, you don’t produce as much insulin-like growth factor, and you won’t burn as much fat.

So, how much sleep do you need? For most individuals, about 7 hours of sleep per night will be adequate for maximum fat burning hormone effects. By the way, nighttime sleep is much more effective for producing fat burning than daytime sleep. Because of the effects of light on the pituitary gland, nighttime sleep results in better production of growth hormone. People who work the night shift are advised to make their sleeping area as dark as possible for their daytime sleeping.

To sum things up, in order to maximize the effects of your fat burning hormones, the best action steps are to eat a healthy diet that supports the function of the liver, to do high intensity exercise, and to get adequate sleep.  Failure to do so will decrease the effectiveness of your fat buring hormones and frustrate your efforts to lose weight.

To get a free copy of Dr. Best’s Ebook that explains how hormones effect weight loss, visit his website and download The Total Solution For The Weight Loss Impaired. 

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You may be thinking that the title of this blog post is intended to be a humorous exaggeration, but it is far from it.  The information I’m about to present is extremely serious and you may find it more than a little disturbing.

There is increasing evidence from research in neurobiology that many things we just accept as normal life in the 21st century are quite literally damaging our brains and predisposing us to a wide variety of health problems as a consequence. 

The actual processes that are occurring are somewhat complicated, and for the purposes of clarity, I will be discussing things in extremely simplified terms. 

The first thing you need to know is that the front part of the brain (called the prefrontal cortex - or PFC for short) is responsible for reasoning and determining our responses to our environment.  As information is processed by the brain, the PFC interprets what’s going on around us and then directs how we respond to it. 

Stress, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, poor nutrition, chronic pain, and poor posture/musculoskeletal function all can cause damage to the PFC over time.  The amount of damage is small, but accumulates over time and leads to many health problems, both mental and physical. 

What types of problems are we talking about?  Well, in chidren and younger adults, some of the most common effects are depression, ADD/ADHD, high blood pressure, hormone imbalances, digestive problems, and fibromyalgia, just to name the “biggies”. 

If you think that’s bad, that was the problems in younger people, in older people, this cummulative damage to the PFC is thought to be involved in the development of Parkinsons, Alzheimer’s and dementia. 

Now, most of the things that damage the PFC are preventable, and to a large extent, the damage they cause is reversible.  The key is to start now to reduce the number of PFC-damaging lifestyle issues in your life. 

If you’ve been putting up with a lot of stress, consider ways to reduce your stress through exercise, meditation, simplifying your life, etc.. 

If you know your diet could use improvement, improve it.

If you aren’t getting enough sleep, think about ways to re-arrange your schedule so you get more sleep.

 If you have chronic pain, investigate the alternatives for controlling pain.  Often, chiropractic, acupunture, and/or massage will do far more for pain than any medication or shot.  By the way, a year of chronic back pain has been shown to reduce the size of the prefrontal cortex by an amount equivalent to 10 to 20 years of normal aging!  If you have chronic pain, this is a very important thing to get handled as well as possible ASAP. 

In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more specifics on things you can do to improve the health of your brain.

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A patient remarked to me recently, that judging from all the television commercials and spam email these days concerning cures for erectile dysfunction, if doctors of chiropractic (DCs) could cure ED, we’d have guys lined up outside our offices waiting to get in.  My patient was a little surprised when I said, “Actually…”.

Over the years, I’ve been able to help several men with ED get erections.  Um, perhaps I should rephrase that! 

What I mean is that on more than one occasion, men have presented to my office and as part of their health history they’ve mentioned erectile dysfunction.  In nearly every case, these gentlemen have low back pain as well.  These patients are usually happily surprised when their sexual function returns after beginning chiropractic treatment.  In fact, in my experience, most men with ED and back pain get a return of sexual function within just a few chiropractic treatments - and for most men, the improvements in ED  from chiropractic adjustments are lasting.  You don’t have to get adjusted “for the rest of your life” as the myth goes, to continue to enjoy good sexual health.

This really should not be surprising because the nerve supply to the genitals comes from the lower back.  Mechanical dysfunction in the spine can lead to interference with normal nerve signals.  If the nerve signals get too disrupted, so can sexual function (by the way, low back problems can interfere with fertility in both men and women too!). 

This may be the first you’ve heard of this.  So, how can such a simple fix for ED have gone unnoticed for so long?  And if chiropractors can actually reliably help ED sufferers, why aren’t you seeing big ads by chiropractors to compete with the ads for Viagra and Cialis?

It comes down to a couple of things.  First, formal research in this area is lacking.  Despite the fact that most chiropractors who have been in practice for at least a few years probably have some very happy former ED sufferers, that doesn’t “count” when it comes to being able to declare something a legitimate treatment. 

Secondly, even if there was sufficient research to establish chiropractic spinal manipulation as an effective ED treatment, in most states, chiropractors STILL couldn’t legally advertise that they can help ED.  This is because most states limit chiropractic scope of practice to musculoskeletal conditions.  Doctors of Osteopathy who still do spinal manipulation (they are few in number these days - manipulation is a lot of work compared to writing prescriptions!) would be able to do it, because they have a broader scope of practice, but any chiropractor who advertised about treating ED would be shut down pretty quickly. 

So, since you won’t be seeing any ads with “Smilin’ Bob” visiting the chiropractor, I thought I’d pass the word along with an advertising slogan I made up: “Chiropractic - it relaxes your spine while it excites your…” Oh, never mind! 

Anyway, now you know. 

Oh, and one more thing, I need to put in the disclaimer that the ED drugs use:  “Chiropractic treatment will not cure nor prevent sexually transmitted disease.”  Well actually…

Just kidding!

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A complete hysterectomy (one that includes removal of the ovaries) obviously causes changes in hormone production.  Most women are fully aware that they will need some type of hormone supplementation to make up for the hormones that the ovaries produced.  A problem occurs though when many doctors apparently forget some basic facts about what hormones the ovaries produce.

I just finished answering an email from a nice lady who had a hysterectomy about 10 years ago.  She was prescribed estrogen-based hormone replacement. In addition to being concerned about the potential health risks of the prescribed hormones, she (and her husband) were also upset by her lack of sex drive.

A lack of sex drive can be due to a number of factors, both physical and mental, but when it occurs following a hysterectomy, there is a pretty obvious cause to consider first, but for some reason, it gets by many doctors.

You see, the ovaries produce other hormones besides estrogen, most notably progesterone and testosterone.  It is testosterone that is of most concern with regards to libido and sexual arousal. 

Prior to menopause, the ovaries produce about half of a woman’s testosterone.  Of course, women produce much less testoterone than men, but it is still important in maintaining sex drive and also in maintaining muscle mass and bone density.  So, following a complete hysterectomy, a woman’s testosterone levels are cut in half.  But that’s only part of the problem.

 In most cases, women are prescribed estrogen and/or progesterone following a hysterectomy.  Independent hormone levels are important, but oftentimes it’s the BALANCE of hormones that is the big issue.  In a post-hysterectomy case, not only is the testosterone production cut in half, but the woman is supplementing with estrogen and/or progesterone, so the balance between estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone can be severely altered. 

But wait, there’s more…

I mentioned that prior to menopause the ovaries produce about half a woman’s testosterone.  The other half (and the testosterone produced after menopause) comes from the adrenal glands.  The adrenal glands produce many different hormones, and they are particularly involved in the body’s reactions to stress.  Chronic stress over time can result in overwork and fatigue of the adrenal glands, resulting in a decrease of their hormone production.  This can include the production of testosterone. 

Fortunately, women who have had hysterectomies rarely have any significant stress in their lives (well, maybe just a little). ;-) 

 Anyway, between the loss of testosterone production from the removal of the ovaries, the imbalance between testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone caused by the hormone replacement, and the potential reduction in testosterone from stress-related adrenal fatigue, you can bet that most women who have a complete hysterectomy will have very low testosterone function.  Very low testosterone function usually results in very low interest in sex, as well as decreased levels of sexual arousal when participating in sexual activity.

The bottom line here is that following a hysterectomy, women really should be checked (initially and periodically) as to their hormone levels and prescribed the appropriate hormone supplementation that includes testosterone - not just given a standard prescription for estrogen.

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