Understanding metabolic syndrome, the root cause of disease, the seasonality of sleep, and double down on yourself.
When you hear the word “metabolism”, I’m guessing the first thing that comes to mind for many of you is its relationship to one’s ability to burn calories, or at minimum, something along those lines.
And this correlation is entirely true, as a faster metabolism is directly linked to a greater ability to burn calories, however, there is a broader picture to paint about metabolism and its role in our overall health.
Let’s unpack the link between poor cellular metabolism and increased risk of disease.
A “calorie” is technically a unit of energy that is consumed and is primarily what the body uses for energy.
Therefore, if calories equal “energy”, a faster metabolism means your body is more efficient at utilizing energy, and a slower metabolism is indicative of being less efficient at utilizing energy.
This goes all the way down to our core cellular level, and includes all degrees of efficiency at the cellular level, not just an ability to effectively utilize calories.
From a systemic perspective then, one’s metabolism is actually how efficiently their cells, namely their mitochondria, utilize energy.
The Mitochondria aka “The Cell’s Furnace”
The mitochondria is often referred to as “the cell’s furnace” or “the powerhouse of the cell”. This is because it's the primary site for cellular respiration, which is the process by which cells convert glucose and oxygen into energy (ATP) that fuels cellular functions.
The process of cellular respiration is key here.
It’s in this equation of taking glucose and oxygen and converting it into cellular energy (ATP) that is behind the term “metabolism”.
The more efficient your mitochondria is at utilizing your energy input (glucose), or the calories you consume, and converting that into actual ATP, the faster your metabolism is.
When you understand this equation, you can see why faster cellular metabolism is directly linked to burning calories more efficiently, and conversely, why slower cellular metabolism is directly linked to burning calories less efficiently.
However, the impacts of slow cellular metabolism go far beyond a greater propensity to gain weight due to one’s inefficiency in burning calories (although, there’s also that).
Poor cellular metabolism characterized as “mitochondrial dysfunction” or “metabolic syndrome” is really the soft white underbelly of pretty much all cf the most common chronic and fatal diseases in the U.S..
Metabolic Syndrome and Disease
Fairly recent research from the American College of Cardiology suggests that 93% of Americans have suboptimal metabolic health.
Yes, that’s correct, it appears that only about 7% of us have optimal metabolic health, and therefore, the other 93% have suboptimal metabolic health, and thus, are at an increased risk of most diseases.
In fact, 9 of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States are metabolic related, and the only primary cause of death in the top ten that isn’t metabolic related is accidents/medical error.
Now, I do want to stress that mitochondrial dysfunction isn’t an either/or, as you can have varying degrees of mitochondrial dysfunction.
For example, of the estimated 93% of Americans that have suboptimal metabolic health, there are some that may have 20% mitochondrial dysfunction, some that may have 40% mitochondrial dysfunction, and some that have higher, even much higher levels of mitochondrial dysfunction.
Think of it similar to diabetes (which is most definitely a metabolic related disease), you don’t one day not have diabetes, and then the next day wake up and have diabetes.
No, you slowly become more and more insulin resistant over time, until you are fully insulin resistant, and then are diagnosed with diabetes.
The same goes for mitochondrial dysfunction. The greater and greater the mitochondrial dysfunction over time, it eventually gets to a point where it’s so severe that it results in what is known as “metabolic syndrome”, and at this point, the risk of those 9 out of top 10 fatal diseases that are metabolic related increases dramatically.
Here’s a quick summary of what goes on inside your body when you have suboptimal metabolic health.
Metabolically efficient cells produce energy inside the cell at very high levels. In a metabolically healthy cell, the energy production is efficient and stays inside the cell.
In a cell with poor metabolic health, and thus, is inefficient at producing energy (ATP), much of the ATP is released outside the cell where it doesn’t belong. This release of ATP outside the cell triggers an immune response, which then triggers an inflammatory response, and the mitochondria has to work even harder to produce sufficient amounts of ATP for the cell. The harder the mitochondria has to work, the more it releases Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), which cause oxidative stress on cells and lead to premature aging.
Sounds pretty chaotic right?
And the greater the mitochondrial dysfunction, the more extreme the above pro-inflammatory, pro-ROS producing process is.
The human body is made up of 30-40 trillion cells.
If all 30-40 trillion of these cells have suboptimal metabolic health, and thus, are going through the above response to some extent, it’s easy to see why at the core of the most common fatal diseases in the U.S. such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, et cetera is poor metabolic health.
Improving mitochondrial health and reversing metabolic syndrome
There are now over 100 different specialties in medicine that a doctor can practice in.
Despite all these specialties, our rate of disease continues to go up in the United States.
I would argue, and this is just my opinion, that with all this specialization, we’re getting too focused on treating symptoms, and not getting to the root cause of our health concerns, conditions, and diseases.
Poor metabolic health is not a symptom of Alzheimer’s.
It’s not a symptom of diabetes.
Nor is it a symptom of heart disease, cancer, or liver disease.
Ideally, you want to be proactive and get ahead of these diseases before they develop, and to do that, you need to address your overall metabolic health.
To use an analogy from Dr. Andrew Huberman, if 90% of automobiles came off the assembly line not running properly over time, you wouldn’t address it by fixing the little things that went wrong with the cars and just accept that almost all of them weren’t running properly from the outset.
No, you’d try to get to the root cause of the problem to ensure the cars come off the assembly line running properly.
Movement Snacks FTW
Amidst all the specialized medicine, we’re losing the functional approach to medicine, which is approaching the entire body as an interconnected system.
A functional approach gets to the core of what keeps the entire system healthy; gut health, hormonal balance, and yes, metabolic health. The individual with the functional approach knows that if you take care of the core of what keeps the entire system functioning properly, and in homeostasis (where disease does not exist) that most underlying health issues and concerns tend to take care of themselves.
Think of and approach muscle contractions like functional medicine.
Muscle is your main glucose disposal agent, and simply put, the more muscle contractions you get in a day, the more metabolically efficient you will be.
This is as easy as walking.
Furthermore, the research continues to point to a greater benefit in getting as many muscle contractions throughout the day as possible, versus, just going to the gym, hitting it hard, and then sitting for the majority of the day.
If you go to the gym, and hit it hard for 60 minutes, sure, you increase your glucose disposal far more than you would in a 5 minute walk, but once that workout is over, and you are no longer getting muscle contractions, that benefit is gone for the rest of the day.
Whereas this idea of lighter, less intense, but more frequent “movement snacks” throughout the day still provides the benefits from muscle contractions, but all throughout the day. If muscle contractions are medicine, these “movement snacks” throughout the day are like a continual pulse of preventive medicine all day long.
Research suggests that getting multiple 2-5 minute bouts of movement, or as I’m calling them, “movement snacks”, is the best way to improve your metabolic efficiency.
Taking walks after a meal have been shown to have a pretty dramatic impact on lowering your blood sugar. In the evening, this is also a great way to relax the mind and set your circadian rhythm for better sleep.
Going for a 2-3 minute walk every 30 minutes, or for 5 minutes every hour, or doing some body weight squats for 2-3 minutes every 30-60 minutes, or pushups, etc, is a more effective strategy at improving your metabolic health than doing a super intense 60 minutes at the gym, and then sitting all day.
I love jumping on a “rebounding” trampoline for 2-3 minutes multiple times per day, and some research has shown that this is the most effective form of movement for the body.
Sure, there are benefits to getting an intense workout in still, especially in the form of workouts that incorporate resistance training as I will throughout the week, but from a longevity perspective (and it does appear also for the waistline), that focusing more heavily on getting many “movement snacks” in throughout the day is most optimal.
I wrote a pretty complete guide that goes deeper into the importance of muscle contractions, especially through resistance training (and this can include body weight exercises) for living longer, and without disease. If you’d like to check it out CLICK HERE.
If you look at all the “blue zones”, the areas of the world where culturally, people typically live much longer than most, and without disease, they get lots of movement throughout the day, most of which is walking.
Even if, and truthfully, especially if you have a job where you are sitting at a desk all day, it’s important to get some movement or muscular resistance in every 30 to 60 minutes at the most to maintain proper metabolic health. Again, this could be a 2-3 minute walk around the office, or some body weight squats or pushups.
Berberine for Metabolic Health
In a final point on improving metabolic health through more efficient glucose disposal, there is a molecule called berberine that you can take in supplemental form that is an absolute powerhouse at improving metabolic health.
In fact, it’s also been shown through some top notch scientific research to be far more effective at treating atherosclerosis (plaque buildup) which is a leading cause of heart disease than statins, and was even recommended by the scientists performing the study as a therapeutic for treating atherosclerosis over statin medication.
To read more on the tremendous benefits and research behind berberine as an anti-aging molecule CLICK HERE.
A research report on a sleep study published in 2023 titled, “Seasonality of human sleep: polysomnographic sleep data of a neuropsychiatric sleep clinic” aimed to better understand the effects our seasons have on our sleep, and determine if there was any seasonality to our sleep.
In 2019, 292 patients participated in a sleep study where they were advised to sleep as they normally would, including timing, but were not allowed to use alarm clocks, so that study participants could sleep to full length for the sake of properly measuring their overall sleep, and time in key sleep cycles, most notably, Short Wave Sleep (Deep) and REM.
Study participants were also excluded from using psychotropic sleep agents.
Here’s what they found:
✔️ Total Sleep Time was naturally about 60 minutes longer during winter months than summer months.
✔️ REM Sleep latency was around 25 minutes shorter in fall months versus spring months.
✔️ REM Sleep was naturally about 30 mins longer in winter months than summer months.
Takeaways
If you notice it gets harder to get out of bed as the days get shorter and colder, especially in those cold winter months; it appears there is something biological and very real to it, more than just maybe not wanting to get out of a warm, cozy bed (although on those cold mornings, that is probably a factor).
The key aspect of this study is that participants were not allowed to use sleep drugs or an alarm clock, and were allowed to sleep until full length, or when they got out of bed feeling fully rested.
This variable allowed participants to get a full night’s sleep, or whatever was needed, and thus, allowed the researchers to measure any potential effects seasonality had on natural sleep cycles.
It does appear that you do, in fact, need more sleep during those cold winter months to fully recover, as “Total Sleep Time” was about 60 minutes longer in winter months compared to summer months.
Most notable during these 60 extra minutes, was seemingly a natural need for about 30 extra minutes of REM sleep, which is the sleep cycle where your brain consolidates memories, learns, and detoxifies.
Conclusions
If possible, try to get more sleep as the months get colder, especially during the winter months.
Now, for many of us, that’s a lot easier said than done, so the next best thing is to hack your sleep to get higher quality sleep, which means more time spent in those super important Deep and REM sleep cycles in the time you do sleep.
Here are some quick tips to improve your sleep quality:
- Get as much natural light as you can to start your day (ideally 20-30mins) as that properly sets your circadian rhythm.
- Take a warm bath or shower 30-60 mins. before bedtime.
- Perform 4-6 sets of 4-7-8 breath work when you lay down. This takes 2-3 minutes and can make a big difference.
It’s also worth noting that daylight savings time ends in a week, which means it will feel like the days get shorter, but in actuality they’re not. Yes, the sun will set an hour earlier, however, it will also rise an hour earlier.
As someone who revels in soaking up as much morning natural light as possible, I actually revel in daylight savings time ending and getting that earlier sunrise, as an earlier sunrise is actually far more important for our health and sleep quality than a later sunset.
This is also most likely when the seasonality of our sleep cycle really kicks in, and since getting natural light to start your day is so, so important in setting your circadian rhythm, and thus, getting a quality night of sleep, make a point to use this extra, or earlier morning light to your advantage while you can.
You might be surprised how it then doesn’t feel like the days are shorter, rather, the daylight hours have just shifted.
If you’re going to bet on yourself…double down.
There is no better bet in life to make than on yourself.
It may require courage
putting fear aside
and some steely reserve.
But at the end of the day, you control your fate.
If you’re going to put your fate into your own hands, regardless of the task at hand, or decision needing to be made
If you decide to bet on yourself, go all in, and double down.
There is no better bet in the world that you can make.
You are POWERFUL. Act accordingly.
