Tips for Healthy Living: Pillar 7

Being the health nut I am, I try to eat healthily, get to the gym every day and keep up on health & fitness news. For example, the June 2009 issue of Life Extension magazine featured an article about how to successfully shed lbs. which I’d like to share with you. We’ll feature a new pillar in each issue. – Carmelo Sigona

Restore Healthy Adipocyte Signaling

Weight gain occurs when adipocytes (fat cells) enlarge with large amounts of triglycerides. Adipocytes accumulate excess triglycerides, due to overeating, nutrient deficiencies, excessive stress, and other causes. Triglycerides is the form that most fat exists in the body. These factors, however, fail to address the reason why aging individuals put on fat pounds despite eating less, taking dietary supplements, and following other practices that should in theory lead to weight loss.

The aging process adversely affects the adipocyte command signal network, which helps explain the difficulty maturing individuals have in controlling their weight.

Adipocytes regulate their size and number by secreting command signals. The three command signals that regulate adipocytes are:

• Leptin
• Adiponectin
• Glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase.

A West African medicinal food called Irvingia gabonensis has been shown to favorably affect the three adipocyte command centers in the following ways:

LEPTIN

Released by adipocytes, leptin travels to the brain to perform two critical functions. First it signals the brain that enough food has been ingested and shuts down appetite. It then depletes bloated adipocytes by promoting the burning of stored triglycerides. Leptin is much more abundant in the blood of obese individuals, yet leptin functions to turn off appetite while promoting the burning of triglycerides that bloat our adipocytes. The reason why obese people have higher blood levels of leptin is that leptin receptor sites on cell membranes are inactivated by inflammatory factors in the body.

ADIPONECTIN

The second command signal released by adipocytes is adiponectin. The transcription factors associated with adiponectin help determine the amount of triglycerides stored in adipocytes and number of adipocytes formed in the body. Higher levels of adiponectin enhance insulin sensitivity, which is a long established method to induce weight loss. Gene transcriptional factors involved with adiponectin are directly involved in sequential expression of adipocyte-specific proteins.

GLYCEROL-3-PHOSPHATE DEHYDROGENASE

An enzyme that facilitates the conversion of blood glucose into stored triglyceride fat is glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase. The presence of this enzyme in the body reveals why low-fat diets alone fail to achieve sustained weight loss, i.e. the body will take ingested carbohydrates and convert them into stored triglyceride fat via the glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase enzyme.

We recommend tested fat burning foods to stimulate weight loss – olive oil is at the top of the list! It’s actually not the food that burn fat, but the properties in these foods that make it easier to break down fats.

Olive oil is one of the best sources to help burn body fat. Many studies show that when monounsaturated-fat rich olive oil is substituted for saturated fat, the result is less body fat.

Other great sources to help burn body fat are:

• Cucumbers
• Asparagus
• Apples
• Oatmeal
• Cabbage
• Beets
• Garlic
• Beans
• Carrots
• Celery
• Tomatoes