MCT for Health

So I was going through some older studies I had saved, and this one caught my attention. I don't remember seeing it at all, but it illustrates beautifully how deceptive things can be. What is it about? Essentially, it is a study of how adding fiber (fructo-oligosaccharide, FOS) to the diet favorably affects metabolism. Perfect. Opinions on fiber vary widely. My view is that fiber in the large intestine triggers signaling similar to overeating. The presence of undigested food in the large intestine signals that we have eaten more food than would have been necessary, and so the intestinal bacteria feed on it as well. What comes out of this is quite a lottery, because each of us has a different composition of bacteria in our gut, so we don't know what those bacteria will actually produce. If things turn out well, the bacteria produce acetate (and other short-chain fatty acids, SCFAs), and this signals to the body that there is indeed enough fuel, and the body adjusts accordingly. ...

Today it will be more of a summary, a more general reflection. In one of my recent posts, I commented on a study that quite clearly showed that if we remove the regulatory processes limiting the rate of fat burning, then the rate of burning is suppressed only after mitochondrial damage, loss of cardiolipin, loss of the necessary phospholipids , simply through oxidative stress . It is not a good idea to switch off regulatory mechanisms and think that things will be better without regulation—they will not. If researchers try to switch mice or rats to a high-fat diet, they almost always damage their mitochondria. We now know that they will probably deprive them of sufficient cardiolipin, a phospholipid necessary for the proper functioning of the enzymes that produce cellular energy in the form of ATP molecules. We also know that this can be prevented by a different composition of fats, for example if the diet contains fish oil , or if it contains MCT oils, or if it contains vinegar/aceta...

The effort to lower blood glucose levels seems obvious, the reason is simple. High glucose levels cause oxidative stress and damage to body organs (eyes, blood vessels, kidneys, etc.). This leads many people to promote and apply low-carb and ketogenic diets. But is it really glucose that causes it? After all, it is the most common fuel for obtaining energy so that cells can function at all. Isn't that strange? Moreover, the cell can easily defend itself against overload by means of insulin resistance. So why doesn't it work? Is it really glucose that is harmful to the body? So let's take a closer look. If you are reading this blog, I think you already know where the core of the problem is. Yes, it is the activation of an enzyme that is supposed to serve only in emergency situations, otherwise it should be deactivated. It is the enzyme aldose reductase (AR, AKR1B1). It is present in the liver, vascular endothelium, cornea, etc. It is the first enzyme of the so-called polyol ...

If you think that vegetable (seed) oils protect your blood vessels, that is probably not true . This is suggested by studies examining their effects in older age or looking at lifespan. Vegetable oils may lower cholesterol, but low cholesterol levels are associated with shorter lifespan. But what would you say to the information that simply adding 1% of a special mixture of polyunsaturated oils—specifically processed linoleic acid—to the diet causes vascular plaque to disappear in an animal model within a few weeks! However, the processing of these vegetable oils was not carried out by any industrial food company. No—the processing was performed by bacteria in the cow’s stomach! The resulting product is called CLA, conjugated linoleic acid. There are several types, but the most interesting is rumenic acid, c9,t11-CLA. Another is t10,c12-CLA, but the first one is found in butter at ten to twenty times higher levels than the second. Could it be, then, that full-fat dairy products—especia...

Many times here I have come across the idea that processes usually considered negative are actually perfect regulatory loops, i.e., processes that respond in a controlled way to the surrounding environment. They are not random malfunctions or mistakes of nature. They are long-tested regulatory processes. Today we will look at intestinal permeability and the endocannabinoid system (eCB). Nowadays, no one doubts intestinal permeability anymore; that is a great success. I remember how about 20 years ago it was a topic that all professionals in the field laughed at, and only a few individuals (e.g., Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride ) tried to convince them to take a closer look, that it is very important. It took a long time, but eventually they did look into it, and intestinal permeability really began to be thoroughly studied. This is also evidenced by the study that will be discussed today . But as usual, I will again try to bring a few of my own thoughts into this issue. It simply seems st...

In this post, I will try to summarize information from previous posts and studies and supplement it with the latest insights on the effect of enzymatic hydrogen sulfide (H2S) production on metabolism. What do we already know? Intestinal permeability A high-fat diet with sugar promotes a composition of gut bacteria that produces a large amount of hydrogen sulfide. There is so much of it that this hydrogen sulfide deprives intestinal epithelial cells of ATP energy, blocks mitochondrial complex IV, and causes leaky gut . A high concentration of H2S damages metabolism. Liver With a high-fat diet containing sugar, the liver is burdened by endotoxins (LPS) from a leaky gut. These activate aldose reductase (AR), increasing the formation of H2O2 (ROS) in the liver. According to the already known scheme, this switches on fatty acid synthesis (DNL) as well as triglyceride (TG) production and activates their export further into the body , either to be burned for heat, to produce chemical energy (...

It is strange. Mechanistically, it is clear that dietary linoleic acid is associated with increased oxidative stress and odd auto-oxidation products such as 4-HNE, which is a molecule that binds to enzymes in a way that prevents them from functioning properly . It even prevents its own removal, so its concentration increases, and it should be easy to arrange a simple experiment: give one group of people more linoleic acid in the diet than the control group receives, and the result should be a clear difference. But that is not how it works. Thus, for example, when Tucker Goodrich, a well-known blogger and proponent of the theory about the harmfulness of linoleic acid, is asked on the X network to support with a human study that linoleic acid causes inflammation, he presents a study with this conclusion : "Our meta-analysis suggested that increasing dietary LA intake does not have a significant effect on the blood concentrations of inflammatory markers. However, the extent of chang...