For Science minded PE'ers
Okay, those of you who know me will be aware that I’m always up to some off the wall scheme or other, trying to understand what the parameters and limitations are with regards PE.
I’ve looked at Pro-hormones, heat, uncouplers, collagenase, prostaglandins, and of course exercise routines.
Today I want to propose an idea based on seemingly innocous comments made by various people here over the years, and combine it with another area of study I’ve recently been exploring as a result. This may ramble on a bit (I’m not sure until I’ve finished writing), but I will get to the point eventually. But first, here are a two generalisations I’ve heard mentioned:
1. Some people seem to be genetically gifted, while others can’t gain much no matter what.
2. Some people notice that they gain better when on a diet, others claim this is untrue.
While it may well be true that some are genetically gifted, or others notice better results from diet, I would like to propose that while the cause may be different, or the outcome different, the result could be traced to the same response, and possibly (at a push), even be predictable.
It is known that different body types react differently to diet. For example: Some people have a real hard time on a low/no carb diet suffering from lack of energy, whereas others can function just fine (the eskimos amongs us perhaps?). A diabetic (Type I or II) person has to take great care over their diet in order to manage their blood sugar and keep it within certain tolerances. Yet another person may eat simple carbs and fast food their whole life and never get fat or insulin resistant.
Diet response is partly genetic and partly lifestyle. For the puposes of the rest of this post I want to blur the two, and just say that it is about sugars.
Using the example of a diabetic person, they have at times, very high glucose levels in their blood. This results in Advanced Glycation Endpoints (or AGE). The simple description of this is that it produces accelerated cross-linking throughout the body, resulting in increased thickness and stiffness of tissues. This results in reduced capacity of arteries, increased renal loads an inefficiency, retinal/cataracts disorders, capilliary restrictions, vascular rigidity, skin remodelling to primarily type I collagen causing thinness, wrinkles etc. which means that the collagen is less soluble, and less digestible to collagenase, pepsin. It’s not just diabetics that get this, we all do (just not normally as quickly). It is one of the greatest limitations to longevity (the other two biggies being telomere shortening and oxiditive stress).
When we PE we cause the crosslinking in the tissues stressed (regardless of whether it is AGE induced or not). The body responds by making them thicker, stronger and of course more stiff. I believe this is why most of us see great newbie gains, but as we continue we must add more workload only to see progressively diminishing returns.
Many find that by taking a ‘deconditioning break’ we find that we can suddenly make some fast (if short lived) progress, before again hitting plateau. I would suggest that the body is able to slowly repair these cross links through normal cell turnover (which in most type I collagen is very very slow, except of course in times of growth such as puberty, where hormonal profiles encourage huge turnover of tissues). The long half life of collagen makes it susceptible to acumulating molecular lesions and axial structure changes that ‘rapid turnover’ tissue don’t have time to suffer. The addition of crosslink inhibitors can help here (more of which later), but the resulting progress depends on crosslink formation versus crosslink repair, and in most cases of modern lifestyle/diet, this ratio is very poor - if not in the negative.
But what if we could not only inhibit these cross links, but we could also actually break existing crosslinks? Well, believe it or not, that possibility is actually on the horizon. There are at least 375 different compounds that may have this ability to a greater or lesser degree, and on different tissues, but for the purposes of this thread we’ll stick to what we actually have a chance of getting hold of, even if it’s not the best tool for the job. In fact I’m only going to mention two products, as these are what I consider the best of the bunch in combo, but if you want to persue your own studies there are many (many!) more.
Carnosine: Widely available amino acid that is known to inhibit cross linking. In simple terms, where a crosslink is able to occur, the carnosine is very effective at tying up one end of the link, rendering it inert. It has the added side benefit of being a pretty good anti-oxidant, and recommended by many organisations such as LEF.
Algaebrium Chloride: Like most crosslink breakers, this is actually a type of salt. It is very effective at breaking ‘ill-formed’ links (loosely speaking, those that are not protein to protein), but does not affect healthy tissues. This means that is can reduce unnatural wall thickness and remodel tissue type of most major organs, and effectively turn back the clock on crosslink damaged tissues. It is not the be all and end all of crosslink breakers (which will probably be a mix of several types for different purposes), but it appears to be quite effective and non toxic in all studies to date, including human trials in the US (Altheon corporation). It can break a crosslink without rendering itself inert or spent, but the downside is that there is nothing to prevent the crosslink from reforming. Algaebrium chloride (AC) can of course break the link over and over, but the real beauty of this is in combination with Carnosine. The AC can break the link, and the Carnosine can be the sacrificial supplement to bind it. Studies show good improvements (40%+) in only a few weeks/months in mogril dogs with AC alone.
Here’s one final bit if good news: Both Carnosine and Algaebrium Chloride have extremely low molecular weight (300-350 daltons), which means both would absorb very well in even a very basic transdermal. That’s not to say that a transdermal is the only way. These are both orally bio-available, and who knows, it might have a huge positive impact on you health(?)
Perhaps (and I don’t want to cause unecessary optimism here because it is just pure speculation) if we can prevent, reduce or even reverse crosslinking to a fair degree, then we can start to see gains like we did as newbies. Then again, perhaps it won’t work at all, and in 6 months time I’ll be writing about another snake oil half-baked proposition :) I don’t know, and I’m just throwing it out there as food for thought with the hope that a few other minds might become interested and bring something to the table.
Regards
Shiver
Last edited by Shiver : 09-15-2004 at .