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Evolutionary Fitness for 25 years

October 23, 2007 10:01 AM

Though I can't pinpoint just when I began Evolutionary Fitness, it was about 25 years ago. I added much along the way, but the intensity, brevity, variety, and eating style were there from near the beginning. The Power Law and elements of chaos and order came soon after and then the intermittent eating.

It has worked pretty well and I am OK at 70 years of age. I just did a physical and blood panel and had a long talk with my doctor. (He hasn't seen me in nearly 3 years.) I weighed 197 pounds, just what I did when I was 16 -- 20.

My metabolic panel is fine. My insulin is below the test limits of the lab, which is to say less than 2. (So is Wonder Woman's because we eat and exercise in a similar way, even though we pursue different kinds of exercise.)

My lipid profile puts me at zero cardiac risk: cholesterol at 200, triglycerides at 49 (the range is 55-149), HDL at 92 (above the range 40-75), VLDL 10 (low for the range 11-29), and LDL at 98. Cholesterol/HDL is 2.2. But, more importantly TRIG/HDL is 0.53. With a blood pressure of 118/70 my doctor says I will live to be 100.

The low TRIG comes from being lean, since most TRIG comes from one's own body fat. High HDL keeps blood vessels clear (and scans confirm this for me) and the very low VLDL assures that these easily oxidized particles cannot stick to lesions and become clots. Even if you worry about my total Cholesterol of 200, you shouldn't because the HDL is so high and I read the literature in a way that suggests TRIG/HDL is more informative. On this ratio, my tests are spectacular.

Testosterone is 660 (lab range 350-720), the highest the doctor has ever seen for someone 70, or even 60. This goes with the low insulin since insulin depresses testosterone production and also puts on fat that aromatizes testosterone into estrogen. Free testosterone is right in the range but on the low side at 78.4 (range 50-210).

In addition to low insulin and low body fat as contributors to high testosterone, I should mention sleep. I sleep well, which is important for GH and testosterone production. Both these are released in pulses or bursts that primarily occur during REM sleep or early morning.

I don't worry about the moderate free testosterone reading. It is well known that there is little evidence, other than theoretical reasoning, to suggest that free testosterone is biologically more active than bound testosterone. Bound testosterone is transported by sex hormone binding globulin, not inactivated by it. Moreover, it is known that the tests have serious errors (partly because the formulas are wrong and for other reasons). The gold standard is a dialysis form of test for free testosterone and this shows that the other tests may error by 400 percent.

In my reading of the literature (and according to two of my doctors who think the Mayo Clinic research points to total testosterone as the crucial variable), total testosterone is what counts. It seems to work for me as I have lost no bone density or muscle mass over the years. I see little change in energy as well.

For those who think genes are the answer I just want to point out that both my parents had high blood pressure, both had high Cholesterol, and my father died at 72 from a heart attack. My mother made it to 90. As I say, it is how you express your genes and that can be managed by eating and exercising the EF Way.

· Evolutionary Fitness

Comments

Posted by: Yuneek [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 26, 2007 6:01 PM

I had for the longest time it seems tried to get my doc to test me on the insulin level. He wouldn't do it. So recently I managed to see another doc in the practice when my regular guy was on vacation. No way do I look anything like the pics on this site, so I figured my number was nowhere near Art's. Yet it turned out to be under 2 as well. I give 100% credit to a little over 2 years of intermittent fasting.

My other numbers are good too, though I don't recall a testosterone number. Yet one more thing to pester for. Maybe its been done already; I don't know.

Oh, that other doc wanted to run an MTHFR test. I'm having that done on Saturday while getting an arterial doppler done on my right leg. Anyone know what that MTHFR is exactly?

Posted by: dfobare [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 23, 2007 9:48 PM

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