Todd Allen

Ron, if you listen to the podcast or read the book you'll find out the inspection and monitoring programs are underfunded, understaffed and inadequate. Manufacturers game the process by hosting the inspectors and providing them lavish accommodations but only at times and locations of their choosing and the inspectors have been corrupted by this and abide by the manufacturers wishes of when and where they inspect.

The claim is we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg, but there have been numerous recalls and several big lawsuits for contaminated generics within the past few years, Zantac/ranitidine and sartans are a couple of the big ones. I think they are still dwarfed by the lawsuits for price fixing and for understating side effects and the industry is so large it can absorb many settlements for tens and even hundreds of million $$. Dr. Peter Attia mentioned a recent for him phenomenon of his prescribing drugs with highly predictable dose response curves and having them massively under perform to where he was accusing patients of non-compliance - until he began switching them to different brands of the same generics. Very few are interested in pursuing an investigation, they just want to move on and find something else that will work. It's even less likely for anyone to notice if the drug works but contains trace amounts of slow acting toxic contaminants.

I believe most digested glucose first goes to the liver by way of the hepatic portal vein. Only if the liver doesn't use it to replete glycogen does it go on to general circulation where skeletal muscle and adipose can get it. Skeletal muscle and adipose tissue use the same insulin sensitive glucose transporter GLUT4 and take up glucose together in response to rising insulin. But each tissue regulates how aggressively they use GLUT4 and in healthy people skeletal muscle will be taking up glucose at many times the rate of adipose until glycogen is replete.

Not a reason for me though, at least not yet. The study points out other factors in play beyond cold such as extreme social isolation. Perhaps things like limited sunshine and lack of fresh food might also be relevant. Even if it is just the cold there is a significant difference between living in the Antarctic year round versus keeping the thermostat at home low and going outside for brief periods under dressed for the weather.

Mccoy thanks for posting the list of tallest people. It doesn't look like any of the tallest women have had good longevity which I find interesting since women typically outlive men. I wonder if there is a stronger inverse correlation between height and longevity for women than for men? I think most super centenarian women were significantly shorter than average. It looks like Martin's record longevity for a tallest person will be broken since a couple others have come very close and there are so many on the tallest list currently living. Although Martin was born in 1837 when life expectancy was barely half of what it is today.

Stumbled on this curious case of a giant of a man living much longer than his peers, died at 81 in 1919. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Van_Buren_Bates Unfortunately his even larger wife died abruptly at 42 and their son also a record holder with a birth height of nearly 30" at 23 lbs 9 oz lived for just half a day.

Needing sugar to walk would be a strong sign of compromised fat metabolism.

I've encountered AI bots on another forum and there is more politeness, less consistency to their thoughtless incoherence and an eventual unleashing of spam. With trolls I've seen more assertive rudeness and higher consistency of opinion. I'd weight your last option higher though I'm not sure confused is the most appropriate description.

I'd look for things likely sapping your vitality such as chronic stress, poor sleep, nutritional deficiencies, inappropriate potentially therapeutic stressors such as physical exertion and thermal exposure, environmental toxins, infections/parasites, side effects of medications or supplements, etc. You didn't discuss your approach to exercise but if it is mostly cardio type stuff such as aerobics, treadmill and biking you might try an interval style approach of brief perhaps 1 minute maximal give it everything you have got 100% intensity efforts mixed in between several minute long periods of gentle warm up and recovery. Brief high intensity resistance/strength training can also do wonders for jump starting ones metabolism. This can be excellent for improving body composition both burning fat and building muscle. Muscle gains will offset your weight loss progress on the scale but the scale is an inappropriate tool for evaluating health and fitness. Much better would be to take a weekly picture of your body and let your eye be the judge of your progress. We have an innate talent to see and subjectively evaluate health and beauty and should let go of emphasizing objective numbers especially when they represent a mixed signal such as weight which can go up and down for many reasons both good and bad. I expect my final suggestion will be challenged but I'd suggest hyperinsulinemia is a common issue thwarting many peoples' weight loss goals. Insulin is the primary anabolic hormone promoting nutrient uptake. When we are young and metabolically healthy it supports maintenance and growth of muscle but for many of us as we age that propensity diminishes and instead it is mostly driving the maintenance and growth of fat. Insulin blocks lipolysis, if it is chronically high it impairs mobilizing stored body fat and burning it for energy. We can have plentiful fuel as stored body fat but it does us little good if we still get hungry because our ability to burn fat is limited. Unfortunately insulin is rarely measured and most of us are completely oblivious to our insulin levels, insulin sensitivity and its effects on our health and fitness. From standard labs a good proxy with correlation to insulin sensitivity is the ratio of HDL to 12 hour fasted triglycerides. If HDL is low and triglycerides are high one likely has poor insulin sensitivity. Elevated HbA1c, fasting blood sugar and visceral fat (somewhat correlated to hypertension and poor markers of liver and kidney health) suggest hyperinsulinemia. Tracking blood sugar can be helpful to see if insulin resistance is likely a problem. Unstable blood sugar and especially increasingly intense hunger as blood sugar falls are good indicators of a problem with insulin and many benefit from adjusting their diet to foods that stabilize blood sugar. Restricting carbohydrates, especially the high glycemic ones of processed foods rich in refined sugars and starches is effective for many to stabilize blood sugar, lower insulin and improve access to body fat as a source of energy. Some such as myself with severe metabolic derangement find it helpful to aggressively restrict carbohydrates such as in a ketogenic diet which limits all foods rich in digestible carbohydrates such as sugary fruits and starchy grains, legumes and vegetables. Refined vegetable oils such as corn and soybean oil especially when used in high heat cooking have also been linked to metabolic derangement. Although they don't drive immediate blood sugar swings reducing or eliminating them may help restore insulin sensitivity over a longer time frame.

Fernando, I'm surprised to say thank you for the interesting Frank Zane link. He is a good example of an old school approach to body building apparently compatible with health quite different from many young body builders destroying their health and some dying young pursuing maximal muscle with extreme approaches such as high dose hormone injections. Frank looks fairly healthy for his age but appears to be a shadow of his former amazing condition. As we age it clearly gets harder to build or sustain fitness even by those with talent for it and a lifetime developing skill in the process. You have the gift of youth, take advantage of it while you can. It appears you have found satisfaction in exerting the control needed to tear your body down through extreme dietary restriction. Hopefully you will also be able to find satisfaction in learning to build up your body. I suggest you also try to find satisfaction developing your critical thinking skills. You post a lot of questions that look ill considered as if they have just popped into your head. When you have such questions resist the urge to post them immediately. Use your questions to grow a talent for searching, reading and reflection. On your own you can develop answers and then better questions which will provide more meaning and value than answers handed to you in response to poorly posed questions. There is a role for questions and you'll get better at posing good ones if you take more time exploring your questions before asking them.

There are essential fats and essential amino acids.

Just noticed this post due to AlPater's recent post in this thread. The tip accessories of those poles look similar to mine but my poles are segmented and fold as opposed to collapsing telescopically.

I've come to suspect my most recent significant lead exposure was due to home improvement projects I engaged in this spring and through the summer until August when I experienced rapid decline. My house was built around 1900 and had acquired many coats of paint by the time I bought it in 1988. I expect I got a good dose of lead in my 20s when I tore out much of the interior. I had a brutal decline in my 30s and 40s and there is significant overlap between the symptoms of SBMA and lead poisoning. I inquired then with my neurologist about testing for lead and he said it would be a waste of time and effort as we already had genetically identified the cause of my symptoms. Having for the past few years focused obsessively on doing everything I could to maximize fitness and health I had recovered enough to once again engage in projects such as replacing windows and doors which put me in contact with the disintegrating paint on top of the exterior clap board but underneath the aluminum siding. I wasn't eating paint chips but I suspect I have poor tolerance for limited exposures that others would find inconsequential.

I don't have a sauna but have for nearly 3 years been taking a nightly extremely hot bath and typically drop 4 to 6 lbs which I expect is on par with the amount people typically sweat out in a sauna session. I had some urine and blood tests for several common toxins, most were negligible such as arsenic, mercury and cadmium. Tin was above average but not in the toxic range. My baths are in unfiltered water and while one isn't supposed to be able to absorb lead through the skin I wonder if it would rise up in the steam and be absorbed through the lungs?

We monitor the performance of the filter with a TDS/EC meter. This doesn't tell us what's in the water but we can see the dramatic drop compared to unfiltered water and see it creeping up and know it is time to install fresh cartridges. I'd like to test the filtered water for lead along with everything else I ingest but I'd be surprised if it is a significant source of lead.