The way to Optimize Well being and Power — Even when You’re Over 60

The video above options an interview I did with Dr. Marcos de Andrade, a analysis doctor and CEO of BIOHAXS. We met at Dave Asprey’s Biohacking Convention in June 2023, the place we ended up arm wrestling.

You’ll be able to see the result for your self within the video under. de Andrade is 38 years previous and an excessive health buff. I’m 69, however I nonetheless beat him. So, age doesn’t need to be a figuring out issue or excuse for poor health. On this interview, we go on to debate a few my key methods to optimize well being, power and longevity, no matter the place you’re ranging from.

“I need to study all the guidelines and methods that I can to get to the stage in life that Dr. Mercola is in — the identical or higher,” de Andrade says. “I would love for him to share a few of his way of life habits and so forth — no matter involves thoughts to essentially clarify how this was doable. I am a very robust man … After which a 69-year-old man, which I by no means anticipated in my wildest goals, simply yank[ed] my arm like that.”

Blood Movement Restriction (BFR) Coaching

I believe there’s two major causes for why I gained towards de Andrade. One is that I do a type of train generically known as blood circulation restriction (BFR) coaching. The opposite is consuming a weight-reduction plan that minimizes reductive stress in my mitochondria.

Sadly, most BFR taught within the U.S. is lower than optimum. The unique model of BFR was developed in Japan 50 years in the past, the place it’s often called KAATSU. I first heard about it at a biohacking convention in 2017. So, I have been doing it for six years.

Hand grip power — and by extension arm wrestling — is a barometer of your total power and metabolic well being, and KAATSU, i.e., BFR completed accurately, achieves each. The video above explains in additional element how KAATSU is carried out, and the way it helps you preserve muscle mass as you age.

The first distinction between generic BFR and KAATSU is the truth that KAATSU is much safer and causes much less spastic muscle mass than all different types of BFR that don’t use cyclic compression. The opposite is the gear. The KAATSU gadget features a compressor that inflates and deflates the cuffs that you just strap onto your extremities, whereas generic BFR bands present fixed strain (and therefore fixed blood circulation restriction).

The KAATSU bands inflate for 30 seconds after which deflate for 5. They then inflate once more at barely greater strain for 30 seconds and deflate for 5. They do that for a cycle of eight repetitions. The depth of the strain might be modified as properly.

A part of what makes KAATSU so efficient, particularly by way of creating helpful metabolic byproducts, is the intermittent strain. The fixed BFR strain does end in muscle development, but it surely’s not practically as helpful as KAATSU, which is why I now advocate investing in a KAATSU machine in case you’re going to get severe about it.

Mainly, you merely put on these bands, both in your arms or legs (not each on the identical time), whilst you’re performing some kind of resistance coaching. One of many advantages of that is that you just don’t want practically the identical weight to get outcomes, which makes it splendid for the aged.

Distinctive Advantages of KAATSU

As talked about in lots of earlier articles, everybody wants power coaching, because it’s crucial to stop sarcopenia, or age-related muscle loss, which results in frailty and untimely loss of life.

With KAATSU (or BFR), you want solely about 70% of your one-rep max weight (the quantity of weight you possibly can raise one time), so your threat of harm is massively decreased. Because of this, you can too work out way more continuously.

Connective tissue accidents are normally as a consequence of lack of collagen in your weight-reduction plan. The amino acid composition of collagen is totally completely different from that of crimson meat. And in case you’re not getting these amino acids — particularly glycine, proline, hydroxyproline and alanine — you possibly can’t construct collagen. So, you find yourself with weak connective tissue, ligaments and tendons.

However even when you have sufficient collagen, you possibly can nonetheless get injured in case you’re lifting too heavy a weight, or your type is wrong. So, the truth that KAATSU permits you to use such mild weights is a serious profit.

Now, the worth you pay for that decrease weight is an elevated variety of reps. So as an alternative of doing 10 to 12 reps per set, you’re doing 30 for the primary set, adopted by a 10-second relaxation interval. For the second set, do 20 reps, relaxation for an additional 10 seconds, and for the third set, do 10 reps. Ideally you need to get to the purpose the place you are near failure by the tip of the third set.

Mainly, the blood circulation restriction methods your physique into considering you are lifting a a lot heavier weight. I’ve gained about 20 kilos of muscle mass within the final six years, which is loopy. That usually doesn’t occur when you’re in your 60s. However there’s a organic rationalization for it.

Muscle Constructing and Vitality Manufacturing

Your muscle mass have two sorts of muscle fibers: Kind 1, that are slow-twitch muscle fibers that get their vitality from the mitochondria, and Kind 2, fast-twitch muscle fibers that use glucose.

Your physique can use two fuels for vitality: glucose and fats. In case you eat any kind of sugar or complicated carbohydrate, it is metabolized to glucose. Glucose is then damaged right down to pyruvate. At that time within the course of, there’s a “swap.”

The pyruvate can both enter the glycolysis pathway and switch into lactate, which is definitely very helpful once you’re doing high-intensity coaching equivalent to sprinting — or it may be metabolized into acetyl-CoA by way of cardio respiration.

Lactate — continuously incorrectly known as lactic acid — causes the train burn in your muscle mass. Lactate offers you fast vitality, whereas acetyl-CoA offers you stamina. If we didn’t have the acetyl-CoA pathway, you’d by no means be capable of run greater than 100 meters (about 109 yards) or so. You’d simply collapse and go out since you’d be out of ATP.

Now, supplied your fats consumption is under 30% or so (it is a best-guess at this level, as nobody is aware of precisely what the edge is), the glucose you eat will probably be shuttled into acetyl-CoA.

When it goes to acetyl-CoA, it goes into the mitochondria and electron transport chain. Free fatty acids can be metabolized into acetyl-CoA by way of beta-oxidation, and there’s a contest that happens there, which is why your fats consumption must be low sufficient for glucose to enter this pathway.

Cardio respiration makes use of oxygen within the mitochondria, whereas glycolysis, which happens within the cytosol, doesn’t use oxygen and could be very inefficient. Glycolysis solely generates two ATP molecules for every molecule of glucose, whereas cardio respiration, which happens within the mitochondria, generates 36 to 38 ATPs per molecule of glucose.

Opposite to standard perception, most cancers doesn’t love sugar. It merely makes use of the glycolysis pathway. But it surely makes use of it when your oxygen stage is regular and never low like it’s with intense train. That is known as the Warburg impact and certain not a results of most cancers however considered one of its major drivers.

That is another excuse why it’s so necessary to get your macronutrient ratios proper, as a result of if the glucose you eat is continually shuttled into glycolysis, you’re fueling most cancers. On the identical time, the fats you eat results in fats storage fairly than getting used up for gas.

Finally, you need to burn glucose in your mitochondria — except you are doing high-intensity train. You then’re participating your Kind 2 fibers and may safely use the glycolysis pathway, however that is the exception. Once you’re resting, you need to burn glucose in your mitochondria.

And, once more, the one method to make sure that is to maintain your dietary fats content material under 30% of your whole energy. In case you’re insulin resistant, which implies you’re metabolically rigid, that threshold could also be nearer to twenty% and even 10%. So, in case you’re insulin resistant, you’ll need to considerably decrease your fats consumption till your insulin resistance is resolved. Then you possibly can improve it to 30%.

Helpful Metabolic Byproducts Triggered by KAATSU

Now, one of many causes it’s so troublesome to keep up muscle mass as you age is as a result of your vascular provide, particularly the microvascular provide (the capillaries), decreases fairly dramatically.

This brings us to the second cause why KAATSU is so efficient for constructing muscle, even once you’re older, as a result of once you’re doing KAATSU on a constant foundation you’re activating the Kind 2 muscle fibers, which generates all kinds of extremely helpful metabolic byproducts, together with:

• Myokines (cytokines produced by muscle) equivalent to vascular endothelial development issue (VEGF), which acts like a “fertilizer” for capillaries and blood vessels. In different phrases, it helps you regrow and multiply capillaries and therefore enhance blood circulation. By growing blood provide to your Kind 2 satellite tv for pc stem cells, they proceed to develop and work the way in which they have been designed to.
• Insulin development issue 1 (IGF-1) which, when elevated domestically in your muscle, will improve muscle power.
• Mind-derived neurotrophic issue (BDNF), which is necessary for mind well being.
• Development hormones.

KAATSU additionally inhibits myostatin, which is a muscle development inhibitor. In different phrases, myostatin inhibits muscle development, so by lowering myostatin, your muscle mass can develop higher.

Eat the Right Fat

Your mitochondrial membranes (interior and outer) are composed of fatty acids, and embedded within the membrane are 5 completely different complexes, as illustrated within the picture under. The electrons you eat within the type of fat or sugar are shuttled to and thru these complexes.

Ideally, the electrons will transfer ahead by way of every complicated. Once they transfer ahead, very low quantities of dangerous reactive oxygen species (ROS) are generated within the electron switch chain — solely 0.1%. In different phrases, the entire system is 99.9% environment friendly. That is about nearly as good because it will get.

Nonetheless, consuming the improper fat can throw an enormous wrench in these works. In case you eat excessive quantities of omega-6 linoleic acid (LA), which seed oils and processed meals are loaded with, then the fat in your mitochondrial membranes will probably be extremely vulnerable to oxidative harm and trigger a reverse electron switch that generates large quantities of ROS — 4% as an alternative of 0.1% (see picture under).

This reverse electron circulation can also be known as reductive stress. I think this reverse electron switch phenomenon is the first cause why we’re having this epidemic of continual degenerative illnesses.

Key Factors Abstract

So, to recap the important thing take-home factors from all this:

Low Glycogen Raises Cortisol

One of many foundational ideas of well being that I’ve needed to radically revise my considering on is the concept that consuming a low-carb weight-reduction plan long-term is one of the simplest ways to optimize your metabolic and mitochondrial well being.

I now notice that this was lower than optimum when you turned metabolically versatile. The explanation for that has to do with the truth that your physique requires glucose. In case you aren’t consuming it, you’ll go right into a hypoglycemic coma and die. Clearly, your physique has safeguards to stop that, and the main one is the hormone cortisol.

The first objective of cortisol is to lift your blood sugar when it’s too low and also you don’t have sufficient glycogen reserves in your liver. It does this by breaking down your muscle mass, bones and mind.

It mainly sacrifices your lean muscle mass to launch amino acids that your liver converts to glucose in a course of known as gluconeogenesis. So, you do not need your cortisol to be elevated. To repeat, for a very long time, I used to be a proponent of a low-carb weight-reduction plan, however now I notice that continual low-carb isn’t a good suggestion, because it promotes chronically elevated cortisol.

Cortisol additionally occurs to be the first growing older hormone. Whether it is chronically elevated, you’ll die prematurely as it’s extremely catabolic, that means it is going to break down your physique tissues. To remain wholesome as you age, it’s essential to be anabolic and construct wholesome tissues like muscle and mitochondria, and elevated cortisol will severely impair these efforts.

Three Dietary supplements Most Individuals Can Profit From

Whereas I strive to not deal with dietary supplements, there are three that I depend on personally, and imagine most individuals can profit from:

• Niacinamide — A type of niacin (vitamin B3) that may be a precursor to NAD+. NAD+ is crucially necessary for good well being and longevity, and 50 mg of niacinamide, 3 times a day, can successfully increase your NAD+ stage. NAD+ additionally helps protect muscle mass.
• Methylene blue — Methylene blue helps mitochondrial respiration and improves mind vitality metabolism. It additionally works synergistically with niacinamide.
• Molecular hydrogen — Molecular hydrogen is a strong selective antioxidant with potent anti-inflammatory results.

Don’t Let Age Cease You

From my perspective, the dietary methods mentioned right here, together with KAATSU, are probably the most impactful instruments I can consider to optimize your well being and construct muscle, no matter your age. As famous by de Andrade:

“So get at it. Do not put age as a block. Do not put any limiting beliefs as a block. The largest factor you may do for your self is get knowledgeable. Not having data makes folks scared. When you’ve got data, you are taking again management of your life.”

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The brand new C-4 mannequin, come out within the fall and has a much bigger battery and a few marginal practical enhancements, however it’s $100 extra and will not be right here till December (simply in time for Christmas). The common costs of the C-4 $1099.95 however together with your low cost it’s $989.95. The C-3 and the C-4 haven’t any EMF, however that’s not true for a few of their different fashions and it’s my robust suggestion to keep away from buying any of their Bluetooth fashions.

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