Reverse Many Illnesses
By Dr. Mercola
Life is a journey and for most of us health is an important part of that journey, because if you have health challenges your ability to manifest your passions will be seriously impaired.
One of my primary passions is health, which is one of the reasons I went to medical school. But that was only a start, as most of what I have learned about optimizing health occurred long after my medical school graduation over 30 years ago.
After three decades of managing patients from all over the world and reviewing hundreds of thousands of studies, I have reached some conclusions about how to avoid or reverse most any disease you can acquire.
After 18 years of writing and editing this newsletter I have learned how to translate this information into easy to understand language, which I believe is one of its primary benefits, as it was one of the first sites to translate complex medical jargon into easy to understand language.
For more details on this powerful intervention please review this earlier article on intermittent fasting. The key is to restrict your calories to a 6 to 8 hour window, and eat no calories for the remainder of the day. You can drink water, tea, or coffee as long as there is no dairy or sweetener in them.
But since this an update I have some important new observations for advanced readers. You might recall from earlier articles that I said breakfast was the least important meal of the day. Well, I have subsequently come to realize that for many people it can indeed be an important meal. Let me explain why. I have long taught that it was best to avoid any food or calories for at least three hours before you go to bed. A problem with skipping breakfast is that it does not allow you to fast for even longer before you sleep.
Improving Your Mitochondria for Your Health, Energy, and Longevity
Why is it important to have a long span of time during which you’re not eating before bed? Largely this is due to the way your body creates energy, which is through your mitochondria. These tiny bacterial derivatives live inside your cell and are optimized to create energy from the food you eat and the air you breathe.
The mitochondria create energy by generating electrons that are normally transferred to ATP (adenosine triphosphate). When you don’t have insulin resistance this energy transfer works quite nicely, but when you are insulin resistant or you eat excessively, all hell can break loose. If you eat excessive food and you don’t burn the calories with movement fairly shortly after consuming the calories, the electrons back up inside the mitochondria as there is plenty of ATP that isn’t being used.
The problem is that these electrons are highly reactive and they start to leak out of the electron transport chain in the mitochondria, and if enough electrons leak out they wind up prematurely killing the mitochondria, and then wreak further havoc by damaging your cell membranes and DNA. There are many knowledgeable experts that believe this is one of the keys to accelerated aging.
So how can you apply this knowledge? Simple: resolve your insulin resistance as soon as you can, and do not eat for AT LEAST three hours before you go to sleep. This is because your body will use the least amount of calories when sleeping and the LAST thing you need is excess fuel generating free radicals damaging your tissues.
Interestingly, by applying this principle, if you have insulin resistance this will help you resolve it. This is one of the reasons why I believe skipping dinner may be a better strategy. Clearly that’s more difficult to implement from a social perspective, but it might be a superior biological strategy. Personally, I stop eating now around 4 PM and have 6 to 7 hours of fasting before I go to sleep.
You Must Regularly Move Your Body to Stay Healthy
The average American adult spends about 10 hours (or more) each day sitting, and more than 10,000 studies have now confirmed that chronic sitting is a potent independent risk factor for insulin resistance1 and an early death – even if you eat right, exercise regularly, and are very fit; even a professional or Olympic level athlete. It’s really important to realize that you simply cannot offset 10 hours of stillness with one hour of exercise. You need near-continuous movement throughout the day. Once you’ve sat for an hour, you’ve sat too long.
For a while I recommended getting up every 10 minutes, but for me that failed miserably. The only thing that worked was to restrict my sitting to less than one hour a day. So ideally, strive to sit for less than three hours a day, and make it a point to walk more. A stand-up desk is a great option if you have an office job, and a fitness tracker or smartphone can be used to ensure you’re getting the recommended 7,000 to 10,000 steps per day.
Next, you’ll want to incorporate a more regimented fitness routine, and while virtually any exercise is better than none, high intensity exercises are the most potent. Benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) includes cardiovascular fitness, improved muscle growth and strength, and the generation of “anti-aging” human growth hormone (HGH), also referred to as “the fitness hormone.”
It also effectively stimulates your muscles to release anti-inflammatory myokines, which increase your insulin sensitivity and glucose use inside your muscles. They also increase liberation of fat from adipose cells, and the burning of the fat within the skeletal muscle.
Strength training is also an important component, and is recommended for both sexes of all ages, including kids and seniors. Gaining more muscle through resistance exercises has many benefits, from losing excess fat to maintaining healthy bone mass and preventing age-related muscle loss as you age.
High-intensity strength training (a.k.a. super slow weight training) also has the added benefit of triggering greater amounts of anti-inflammatory myokines than regular HIIT. So if you want to combat chronic inflammation in your body, high intensity weight training may offer additional benefits over other forms of HIIT training.
Whatever you choose to do, please do take the time to exercise, and incorporate as much physical activity into your life as you can.
Many of you may not realize that my early life goal was to be an astronaut, but my encounter with the military in the application process made it very clear that government employment was not for me. I also would not go into space because of the radiation dangers. However, it’s interesting to note that the routine scientists have determined to keep astronauts healthy in space is what I wound up doing for myself in a much more comfortable environment on planet Earth.
The two areas of health that coincide are sleep and exercise. Astronauts sleep for eight and a half hours, which is precisely my sleeping time. They also exercise for two and half hours. They need to exercise that long to counteract the effects of microgravity.
While we have the benefit of gravity on earth, I do believe that we benefit from that amount of movement and exercise activity each day and interestingly, that is at least how much I exercise every day. One hour and forty-five minutes of walking every day, fifteen minutes of swimming and at least 30 minutes of stretching and exercise.
You Are Not Special — We All Need to Sleep Eight Hours to Stay Healthy
Most fail to fully appreciate how important sleep is to their health. I know, as I was one of them. However I have since learned to appreciate the major role that adequate sleep plays in recovery, repair, and optimal healing. I used to think I was immune to needing adequate sleep. I would routinely get less than six hours a night and thought I could function this way. But I’ve since realized that most adults really need about eight hours of sleep every night.
There are exceptions to this rule. A genetic mutation resulting in a condition called advanced phase sleep syndrome allow affected individuals to thrive on less sleep, but fewer than one in 10,000 people have this condition. Odds are you are not one of them. I do personally know someone though with this condition: Dr. Michael Holick, world class vitamin D expert. He has done well with only four hours of sleep his entire life.
When I first started using a fitness tracker, I was striving to get eight hours of sleep, but my Jawbone UP typically recorded me at 7.5 hours. So I went to bed earlier and now average about 8.5 hours of sleep every night. The fitness tracker helped me realize that unless I am asleep, not just in bed, but asleep by 10:00 PM I won’t get my eight hours. Gradually I have been able to get this down to 9:30 PM. If I wake up before 4:30 AM I typically try to go back to sleep. But after that time I find it too difficult so I merely meditate for an hour.
Frequent yawning during the day is a major red flag that you’re sleep deprived, as is nodding off when you’re reading or in a meeting. If you need an alarm clock to wake up, and you wake up feeling tired and groggy, you probably need to go to sleep earlier (or get more restful sleep) as well. If you struggle with sleep apnea, skip the CPAP and consider a consult with an oral myofascial therapist. You can review my interview with Joy Moeller for more information.
What to Do Next
If you apply the principles that I review they will likely resolve over 80 percent of your health problems. If you have an area that I have not addressed that you still have questions on, then please use the search box as the top of every page on the site. There are 18 years’ worth of articles there and odds are very high I have previously addressed your concern.
If you still have a question, then I would encourage you to find a natural medicine clinician. There are many good ones out there. A great strategy is to use social networking and go to your local health food stores and get a consensus as to who the best ones in your area are. If you have a rare or complex problem you might need to search the web and forums to find a world class expert. I believe the time and expense will be worth it.
I used to see patients from all over the world and know firsthand how glad and grateful my patients were to make the effort as they typically resolved their health challenge without dangerous drugs or surgery, and are healthy today as a result. It is vital to maintain a positive attitude the entire time and know that if you are committed to finding a natural solution you will find one. It’s merely a matter of time. Always remember that you have the power to take control of you and your family’s health.
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Sources and References
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