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Posted by: | Posted on: September 22, 2026

Food, Not Lack of Exercise, Fuels Obesity


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2026/09/18/food-not-exercise-drives-obesity.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercol     September 18, 2026

Story at-a-glance

  • Obesity is not caused by lack of exercise, as people in wealthier nations burn more calories daily yet still gain more fat
  • Eating ultraprocessed foods is strongly linked to higher body fat because they disrupt hunger signals and make calories easier to store
  • Body fat percentage, not BMI, is the most accurate way to measure obesity and related health risks
  • Modern ultraprocessed diets and lower immune demands in industrialized countries lower resting energy needs, making fat storage more likely
  • You can restore your metabolism by removing vegetable oils, eating the right carbs for your gut health, reducing estrogen and EMF exposure, and avoiding ultraprocessed foods

Obesity has become one of the leading drivers of disease worldwide, claiming more than 4 million lives each year.1 In the U.S. alone, rates have climbed steadily over the past century, transforming a condition once rare into one of the most pressing public health threats. Excess body fat is not just about appearance. It’s tied to a cascade of serious health problems including Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, liver failure, and shortened lifespan.

Most people are told the same thing: if you want to lose weight, you need to eat less and move more. That message has dominated public health campaigns for decades, yet the crisis continues to worsen. The reason is simple — the advice is incomplete. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) analyzed energy expenditure in 4,213 adults across 34 populations on six continents.2

The findings shattered conventional wisdom, showing that people in wealthier nations actually burn more calories each day than traditional farming or hunter-gatherer groups. Despite this, they carry significantly more body fat. The implication is undeniable: what you eat matters far more than how many calories you burn.

Industrialized diets dominated by ultraprocessed foods disrupt natural satiety signals, alter metabolism, and make it easier for your body to absorb and store calories as fat. These foods are engineered for convenience and taste, but the trade-off is metabolic dysfunction and widespread obesity. Understanding why food, not lack of exercise, fuels obesity is the first step toward reclaiming your health.

Diet Explains Obesity More Than Lack of Movement

The goal of the PNAS study was to answer a long-debated question: is obesity driven more by eating too much or by moving too little? This study is one of the largest to use direct measurements of daily energy expenditure among different populations, ranging from hunter-gatherer groups to highly industrialized societies.

• Obesity was higher in industrialized populations despite higher energy burn — The participants from wealthier nations were heavier, with greater body fat percentages and higher body mass indexes (BMIs) compared to those in less developed regions.

Surprisingly, these groups also burned more calories overall. This finding directly contradicts the popular belief that sedentary lifestyles are the main cause of weight gain. The data showed that the rise in obesity was far more connected to food intake than to physical inactivity.

• Ultraprocessed foods were strongly linked to body fat — For the 25 populations with available dietary data, the percentage of ultraprocessed foods in the diet had a strong positive relationship with body fat.

These foods, which are industrial formulations with multiple additives, were not just convenient — they altered how calories were absorbed and stored. By contrast, traditional diets in farming and foraging groups, which included more whole foods and fewer additives, were associated with leaner body composition.

• Eating more explained most of the weight gain — Researchers found that taking in more calories was about 10 times more important for obesity than how much energy people burned each day. Even when people in developed countries weren’t gaining or losing weight during the testing period, they were still eating more overall. This showed that the type and quality of food played a bigger role in fat gain than activity levels.

• Processed foods changed how the body handled calories — The study noted that modern food processing makes calories easier for your body to absorb. Instead of passing some of those calories through digestion, more of them get stored as energy. On top of that, ultraprocessed foods confuse your body’s hunger signals, making it easy to overeat even when you’ve had enough.

• Men and women gained fat differently — When researchers compared men and women, the patterns didn’t look the same. For women, burning more energy didn’t mean having less body fat. For men, those who burned more had only slightly less fat, and the effect was small. Overall, living in a wealthier, more industrialized country had a much bigger impact on fat gain than differences in daily calorie burn.

Food, Not Activity, Was the Strongest Predictor of Obesity

The take-home message of the study is clear: while daily physical activity is important for cardiovascular health, mental health, and longevity, it does not explain the obesity epidemic. Instead, the types of food available, especially ultraprocessed items loaded with additives and polyunsaturated fats like linoleic acid (LA), drive body fat accumulation.

• Body fat percentage told the real story — The study showed that measuring body fat gave a clearer picture of obesity than using BMI alone. BMI often went up in developed countries because people had more muscle or bone mass, not just fat. But body fat percentage rose regardless, making it a better measure of health risks linked to obesity.

• Lower infection rates changed energy use — Another finding was that people in wealthier countries burned slightly fewer calories at rest. The researchers suggested this could be because their immune systems weren’t working as hard. In traditional societies where parasites and infections were common, the immune system needed more energy, which raised calorie burn even without extra activity.

• Modern diets influenced metabolism — The researchers discussed how modern diets further lower basal metabolic rates. This could be another hidden way food drives obesity: by reducing resting energy needs while simultaneously increasing calorie absorption. Unlike in traditional diets where fiber and whole foods limited fat storage, modern diets shifted the balance toward energy accumulation in fat cells.

How to Take Back Control of Your Weight by Fixing the Root Cause

If you’re struggling with weight gain, cravings, or fatigue, it’s not because you’re lazy or lacking willpower. Your body is working against you because your cells are not making energy the way they should. The research is clear: the main driver of obesity is not lack of exercise but the foods you eat and how they change your metabolism.

When your mitochondria — the tiny powerhouses inside your cells — are poisoned by modern food and environmental toxins, your body shifts into fat storage mode instead of energy-burning mode. The good news is you can reverse this by removing the stressors that block energy production. Here are five steps you can take to restore your metabolism and finally feel in control of your weight again:

1. Eliminate vegetable oils to reduce LA buildup — Start by cutting out vegetable oils like canola, soybean, sunflower, safflower, corn, and grapeseed. These oils are hidden in almost all restaurant meals and packaged foods. If you eat out often, this one change could be life-altering. Replace them with grass fed butter, ghee, or tallow.

Avoid chicken and pork, since they are loaded with LA, and focus on grass fed beef or lamb. Every time you swap out a vegetable-oil-heavy meal for a healthy fat source, you give your mitochondria room to breathe again.

You live in a world engineered to make you overeat ultraprocessed foods. These products are designed to override your natural hunger cues and push you into fat storage. If you’re serious about fixing your metabolism, cook at home whenever possible, where you control the ingredients. Always read labels, even on “organic” or “healthy” foods, since many are loaded with hidden vegetable oils and additives.

2. Eat enough healthy carbs to heal your gut and fuel your cells — Carbs aren’t the enemy — your body runs best on glucose, and glucose comes from carbs. The real problem is eating the wrong kinds when your gut isn’t ready.

Your gut is like the command center for metabolism. If it’s inflamed, it floods your body with endotoxins — harmful bacterial byproducts that choke off mitochondrial function. If you notice bloating, loose stools, or fatigue after meals, your gut is likely overproducing endotoxins.

Avoid high-fiber foods until your gut heals, because fiber feeds harmful bacteria in a damaged microbiome. In that case, stick with gentle, easy-to-digest carbs like fruit and white rice until your digestion steadies. Once things are stable, slowly reintroduce root vegetables, then legumes, and eventually whole grains.

Aim for 250 grams of healthy carbs a day to fuel your metabolism and thyroid. Cut ultraprocessed carbs completely, since they inflame your gut and drain energy. Over time, the right carbs help beneficial gut bacteria thrive, producing butyrate — a compound that heals your gut lining, reduces inflammation, and keeps cravings in check.

3. Lower your exposure to estrogen and endocrine disruptors — Excess estrogen throws your metabolism into chaos, affecting both men and women. If you’re storing fat around your waist or struggling with low energy, estrogen dominance could be playing a role. Ditch plastic containers — a common source of endocrine-disrupting chemicals — stop heating food in plastic, and switch to glass or stainless steel.

Reduce exposure to receipts and toxic personal care products. If you’re on estrogen replacement therapy or birth control, understand that these are powerful endocrine disruptors that add to the problem. Supporting your progesterone levels with natural progesterone helps balance estrogen and boosts your thyroid and metabolism.

4. Reduce electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure to protect cellular energy — If you sleep next to your phone or keep your Wi-Fi on overnight, your mitochondria are under constant stress. EMFs raise calcium levels inside cells, slowing down energy production. To fix this, put your phone on airplane mode when you sleep — or better yet in a Faraday bag — turn off Wi-Fi at night, and keep devices out of your bedroom.

If you spend hours on Bluetooth earbuds, know that they constantly beam EMFs directly into your brain. Switching to wired headphones and using wired internet when possible takes an enormous burden off your energy system.

5. Take back control of your food environment — Each time you choose a whole, unprocessed food over a packaged product, you support your energy and your long-term health. Your path forward is not about starving yourself or spending endless hours at the gym.

It’s about clearing out the modern toxins that poison your energy system and replacing them with foods and habits that let your body work the way it was designed. Once you do that, your metabolism begins to run smoothly again, and weight loss becomes a natural byproduct of a body that is finally working for you, not against you.

FAQs About the Main Drivers of Obesity

Q: Is lack of exercise the main reason for obesity?

A: No. Research published in PNAS showed that people in developed nations actually burn more calories than traditional farming or hunter-gatherer groups, yet still have higher rates of obesity. The main driver is food intake and the way modern diets alter metabolism, not reduced activity.

Q: Why are ultraprocessed foods so harmful?

A: Ultraprocessed foods are designed for convenience and taste but are packed with additives, vegetable oils, and refined ingredients that disrupt hunger cues and make calories easier to absorb. This leads to overeating and pushes your body to store fat instead of burning it efficiently.

Q: What is more accurate, BMI or body fat percentage?

A: The study found that body fat percentage is a far better indicator of obesity than BMI. BMI often rises due to more muscle or bone mass, but body fat percentage reflects true fat gain and health risks.

Q: How do modern environments affect metabolism?

A: People in wealthier countries burned slightly fewer calories at rest because their immune systems weren’t working as hard. Lower infection rates, combined with ultraprocessed diets, shifted the body’s energy balance toward fat storage.

Q: What steps can I take to restore my metabolism?

A: You can fix the root causes by eliminating vegetable oils, eating enough healthy carbs to support gut health, reducing exposure to estrogen-like chemicals, limiting EMF exposure, and taking back control of your food environment. These steps allow your cells to produce energy efficiently again, making weight loss a natural outcome of restored health.

– Sources and References

Posted in Exercise, Food, Linoleic Acid, Mitochondria, Obesity | No Comments »

Posted by: | Posted on: June 10, 2026

The forgotten organ that can predict your risk of infections and premature death by up to 50%

Reproduced from original article:
https://www.naturalhealth365.com/the-forgotten-organ-that-could-predict-how-long-you-live-researchers-now-confirm.html

by:  | June 6, 2026

thymus-health(NaturalHealth365)  Most adults have never given a thought to their thymus.  Unfortunately, Western medicine rarely mentions this organ after childhood.  On top of that, the conventional scientific community falsely believes that the thymus becomes largely irrelevant once the body matures.  Now two landmark studies published in Nature are overturning that assumption entirely, and the numbers are impossible to dismiss.

Researchers at Mass General Brigham used artificial intelligence to analyze CT scans from more than 25,000 adults.  The AI assessed each participant’s thymus and generated a thymic health score.  People with the highest scores had a 50% lower risk of death from any cause and a 63% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Remarkably, those adults also showed a 36% lower risk of developing lung cancer.  A second study analyzed outcomes in 3,476 cancer patients receiving immunotherapy.  Stronger thymic health was associated with a 37% lower risk of cancer progression and a 44% lower risk of death.

Your protection against infections and disease

The thymus sits in the chest, just behind the breastbone.  During childhood, the organ trains T cells, the specialized immune defenders that protect the body from infection and disease.

Cancer defense and cellular repair both depend on these cells.  After puberty, the thymus begins to shrink and produces fewer new T cells.  Consequently, most physicians stopped paying attention to the thymus, assuming the work was finished.

However, research from Mass General Brigham reveals that the thymus continues to produce T cells throughout adulthood.  The quality of that ongoing production matters enormously.

Moreover, adults with healthier thymuses maintain greater immune cell diversity.  That diversity, the research shows, translates directly into lower rates of chronic disease and longer survival.  “The thymus has been overlooked for decades and may be a missing piece in explaining why people age differently,” said lead researcher Hugo Aerts, PhD.

Why thymic decline happens faster in some people than others

The research did not simply confirm that thymic health predicts longevity.  Importantly, the team identified specific factors associated with accelerated decline.  Chronic inflammation, smoking, and high body weight each correlated with significantly poorer thymic health scores.

That finding matters because the research places a meaningful degree of control over immune aging in each individual’s hands.  Rather than leaving the outcome entirely to genetics or time, lifestyle choices now emerge as direct determinants of thymic health.

A person managing chronic inflammation, reducing body weight, and avoiding tobacco is also protecting the immune system, which is responsible for long-term disease resistance.  The research makes that connection direct and specific.

What the immunotherapy finding reveals about immune capacity

The second study’s finding deserves separate consideration.  Researchers analyzed cancer patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors.  These treatments work by removing molecular brakes that cancer cells place on T cells, allowing those immune cells to resume attacking tumors.

Patients with the strongest thymic health showed a 37% lower risk of cancer progression and a 44% lower risk of death.  In fact, those results held even after accounting for tumor type, treatment protocol, and other patient variables.

These finding suggests the thymus functions as a reservoir of immune capacity.  When that reservoir is depleted over decades of inflammation and poor metabolic health, the T cells available to respond to treatment become fewer and less diverse.  As a result, the immune system’s ability to fight cancer may be substantially shaped years before a diagnosis is ever made.

Steps that protect thymic function starting now

Address chronic inflammation.  The research confirms that systemic inflammation accelerates thymic decline.  A diet rich in organic dark leafy greens, organic berries, and extra-virgin olive oil provides anti-inflammatory polyphenols, and antioxidants.  Together, those compounds directly reduce the inflammatory burden on immune tissue.

Curcumin from turmeric has strong research support for reducing systemic inflammatory markers.  In addition, high-quality omega-3 foods or supplementation can help to reduce the risk of inflammation at the cellular level.

Support metabolic health as inseparable from immune resilience.  High body weight was directly linked to poorer thymic health in the research.  Reducing visceral fat through consistent daily movement and a diet low in refined carbohydrates creates a metabolic environment that supports rather than burdens the immune system.

Targeted supplementation with berberine further improves insulin sensitivity through pathways that reduce systemic inflammation.  And, finally, magnesium can help you with both blood sugar regulation and the stress response, reducing one of the least-recognized contributors to chronic inflammation.

Prioritize nutrients that support T cell development and immune diversity.  Zinc plays an essential and largely underappreciated role in thymus function and T cell maturation.

Research consistently links zinc deficiency to accelerated thymic atrophy and reduced immune cell diversity.  Plus, selenium supports the antioxidant defenses that protect thymic tissue from oxidative damage.

Vitamin D, maintained at functional blood levels between 50 and 70 ng/mL, supports immune genes critical for T cell activation.  But, keep in mind, most people on standard supplement amounts will not reach that target without testing and adjustments, as needed.

Together, these targeted nutrients supply the biological inputs the thymus depends on to remain functional across the lifespan.

The immune system builds future resilience long before disease arrives

Overall, a 50% reduction in all-cause mortality linked to a single organ’s health status is a finding that should reshape how adults think about immune function.  Most people manage symptoms as they appear.  Very few consider the underlying immune infrastructure that determines whether those symptoms ever develop.

Sources for this article include:

Massgeneralbrigham.org
Sciencedaily.com

Posted in Immunity, Inflammation, Minerals, Nutrition, Obesity, Supplements, Thymus | No Comments »

Posted by: | Posted on: May 24, 2026

Fed a Lie — The Truth About Seed Oils


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2026/05/23/fed-lie-truth-about-seed-oils.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola     May 23, 2026

Story at-a-glance

  • Ultraprocessed vegetable oils have quietly become one of the most dominant and pernicious ingredients in the modern diet. They have driven a dramatic rise in linoleic acid (LA) intake over the past century
  • The documentary, “Fed a Lie: The Truth About Seed Oils,” reveals how marketing, subsidies, and flawed science replaced traditional animal fats with industrially produced oils made from soy, corn, cottonseed, and other crops
  • Clinical and epidemiological studies have linked seed oil consumption to increased oxidative stress, inflammation, mitochondrial damage, cancer risk, and cardiovascular dysfunction, despite being touted as “healthy” fats
  • Ancestral populations thrived on diets rich in saturated fat but free from processed seed oils. This allowed for low rates of chronic disease, even with widely varying macronutrient profiles
  • To reduce your exposure to seed oils and help counter the effects of excess LA, focus on avoiding processed foods, switching to traditional fats for cooking, and supporting your body’s natural defenses with nutrients like C15:0

Chronic illness has become a normal part of everyday life for many Americans. You likely know someone living with heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune issues, or ongoing mental health challenges. These problems are showing up earlier, lasting longer, and affecting more people than in the past. While many factors contribute to this trend, one of the most influential is what we eat every day.

Over the last century, the American diet has undergone a dramatic transformation. Home-cooked meals made from simple, whole ingredients have steadily given way to ultraprocessed products — foods engineered for convenience, mass production, and longer shelf life. These changes didn’t happen all at once, and most people weren’t aware they were even happening.

Today, many of the ingredients found in everyday packaged foods are far removed from anything found in a traditional kitchen. The featured documentary, “Fed a Lie: The Truth About Seed Oils,” takes a closer look at one of the most impactful shifts in our diet — how industrial seed oils became a foundation of the modern food supply and what that means for long-term health.1

The Rise of Seed Oils in the Modern Diet

The featured video lays out the historical pathway that caused the industrial seed oils to dominate the American food supply, drawing on historical records, government data, and expert interviews. These oils were later marketed as “vegetable oils” to make them sound healthy, but they are extracted from crops like soybeans, corn, and cottonseed. This change took place over the span of about a century, but its effects are still unfolding.2

• From trace amounts to a daily staple — In 1865, Americans consumed almost no seed oils. Fats came mostly from animals in the form of lard, tallow, and butter. By 2014, the average person was consuming about 65 grams of vegetable oils per day. As noted by Dr. Paul Saladino in “Fed a Lie”:

“The average American consumes 3 to 5 tablespoons of seed oils per day, and it’s in almost all ultraprocessed food — salad dressings, it’s in cookies, it’s in cakes, it’s in crackers, it’s in breads, it’s in plant milks.

To consume the equivalent of 3 to 5 tablespoons of corn oil, we would have to eat 60 to 70 ears of corn. To consume the equivalent of 3 to 5 tablespoons of soybean oil, we’re looking at more than 2 pounds of soybeans. Amounts that would never ever have encountered historically as human.

So, what we have here is a very striking discordance between what we have done for hundreds of thousands of years and what we’re eating today in our diets — incredibly evolutionary and consistent consumption of seed oils, which are just easy to consume today.”3

• Seed oils are the single most processed food on the planet — “Seeds, nuts, [and] beans can only be made into an oil in a factory. It needs to go through so many industrial steps in order to create the oil,” explains Nina Teicholz, Ph.D., the author of New York Times bestseller, “The Big Fat Surprise.”

Saladino adds that the process involves heating the oils to 500 degrees F, which causes them to become “rancid, oxidized, or rusted in the colloquial sense.” To make them palatable, they have to be deodorized before sale.

• Seed oils are industrial products by design — Cottonseed oil, which is the first of its kind, had originally been used as a lubricant for machinery during the Industrial Revolution. According to Teicholz:

“After we had hunted all the whales out of the ocean — we hunted the whales mainly for their fat — when we lost that source of fat, it had to be replaced. Cottonseed oil came in to fill that need for all kinds of machinery, for making candles and soaps, and that was it. Then, Procter & Gamble came along and said, ‘Let’s try to sell this as a food stuff.'”4

• Crisco marked the beginning of industrial oils as food — The first major shift came in 1911 with the release of Crisco, which was sold as fake lard but made entirely of vegetable oils, originally cottonseed oil. “Butter and lard, and even tallow, began to be replaced and supplanted, and this is what took off in the 20th century,” Dr. Chris Knobbe notes in the interview.

• Crisco replaced traditional fats through marketing, not merit — In 1913, two years after Crisco was introduced, a book titled “The Story of Crisco” was published to describe how quickly the product took over American kitchens. This book was written by the former vice president of the American Heart Association (AHA), with messaging that implied animal fats were harmful, despite being part of the human diet for generations.

“And so, the nation’s cookbook has been hauled out and is being revised. Upon thousands of pages the word lard and butter have been crossed out and the word Crisco written in their place,” Teicholz says. “It was the earnest aim of the makers of Crisco to produce a strictly vegetable product without adding a hard and consequently indigestible animal fat.”5

• Procter & Gamble’s donation transformed the AHA overnight — The American Heart Association was described as a small, struggling organization with little public presence and limited ability to influence health policy. Cardiologists were rare because heart disease was less common, and the group lacked the funding to operate on a national level.

That changed when Procter & Gamble gave the AHA $1.7 million (equivalent to $20 million today) in 1948. With that donation, the AHA quickly expanded its research programs and public messaging. The timing and scale of this gift marked a turning point, positioning the organization to promote dietary guidelines that aligned closely with the food industry’s interests.

• What started as an economic decision became a medical directive — American housewives had already begun switching to seed oils because they were cheaper than animal fats. But once the AHA began promoting these oils as heart-healthy, the shift accelerated. What had been a matter of cost now carried the weight of medical authority, reinforcing the idea that vegetable oils were the responsible choice for families.

• Government policy and subsidies helped entrench seed oils in the food system — Starting in the 1970s, federal dietary guidelines warned against saturated fat and encouraged the use of polyunsaturated oils (PUFAs). At the same time, farm subsidies favored crops like soy and corn, making their industrial byproducts cheap and abundant.

Food companies adopted these oils across the board because they were inexpensive and easy to use in mass production. Once seed oils became standard in processed food and institutional cooking, they were almost impossible to avoid.

What Replacing Animal Fats with Seed Oils Really Did to Public Health

The widespread adoption of vegetable oils is one of the most consequential dietary shifts in modern history, yet their impact on public health remains deeply controversial. For decades, experts have debated whether these oils are truly beneficial or if they have fueled the very diseases they were meant to prevent.6

• The Ancel Keys Hypothesis featured flawed science and cherry-picked data — One of the most influential studies supporting the diet-heart hypothesis was the Seven Countries Study, led by Ancel Keys in the 1950s,7 which suggested a correlation between saturated fat intake and heart disease.

His findings laid the foundation for dietary guidelines that demonized animal fats and promoted vegetable oils as a healthier alternative. However, the study was purely observational and could not establish causation.

As explained in the documentary, Keys “cherry-picked his countries to get the desired results that he wanted.” Countries like Switzerland, France, and Germany, where people consumed high levels of saturated fat but had low rates of heart disease, were excluded. Instead, Keys focused on countries that had been ravaged by war and were eating lower-fat diets at the time of data collection.

• Early warnings ignored: The Rose Corn Oil Trial — This is one of the earliest clinical trials to examine seed oil effects on heart health and was conducted in 1956. Participants were given 19 teaspoons of corn oil daily and followed for three years.

The study was stopped early because the group consuming corn oil experienced significantly more deaths. At the end of the study, the researchers concluded, “[U]nder the circumstances of this trial, corn oil cannot be recommended as a treatment of ischemic heart disease. It is most unlikely to be beneficial, and it is possibly harmful.”

• Clinical trials in the 1980s linked seed oils to cancer — In the early 1980s, a series of high-quality clinical trials began to show a connection between seed oil consumption and cancer, particularly colon cancer.

The documentary notes that this was in a dozen clinical trials, and the results were strong enough to prompt high-level meetings at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Top scientists involved could not agree on an explanation for the cancer findings, but they chose to overlook them, citing the perceived benefits of cholesterol reduction.

• Toxicity concerns from animal studies were dismissed — Teicholz shared that animal research linked seed oils to liver damage and the formation of toxic oxidation products. However, these findings, like the human data on cancer, were not integrated into official guidance. Instead, institutional decision-making prioritized cholesterol reduction above all else.

• Lowering cholesterol showed no benefit — Seed oils do lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and total cholesterol, but that reduction has not translated into better outcomes.

“In large clinical trials, the most rigorous kind of evidence on 76,000 people, lowering your LDL cholesterol by consuming seed oils has never been shown to have any benefit for death from heart disease or death from any cause,” Teicholz notes.8

• Calls for updated research go unanswered — Despite these warning signs, high-quality studies comparing seed oils to saturated fats have not been funded. As Saladino states, “no pharmaceutical company will ever fund a study looking at saturated fat versus seed oils today.” As a result, the public is left relying on outdated and incomplete data, while the known risks continue to be downplayed or ignored.

Together, these studies and years of misguided dietary guidelines point to a deeper issue — industry influence and poor-quality science have shaped public health advice in ways that have harmed long-term health. For a closer look at how vegetable oils affect the body, check out “Vegetable Oils Wreck Your Gut.”

How Does Excess LA Impact Your Health?

The shift toward industrial seed oils has caused a sharp increase in dietary LA, now the most abundant fat in the modern diet. Understanding what happens after LA enters the body reveals how this one ingredient quietly erodes your health over time.9,10,11

• LA builds up in the body and drives oxidative damage — Unlike other fats that are quickly metabolized or excreted, LA embeds itself in body fat and cell membranes. Its chemical structure makes it highly susceptible to oxidation, and once oxidized, it generates harmful byproducts. Knobbe explains:

“These seed oil components, the omega-6 linoleic acid, accumulate in our bodies. It accumulates in our fat. It accumulates in our cell membranes. And this sets up this environment that is prooxidative, pro-inflammatory, toxic, and nutrient-deficient …

Many people know that arsenic, for example, is a very damaging molecule. It’s a very dangerous poison, and it’s dangerous because it’s a prooxidant, and if the dose is high enough, it’ll kill you very fast. But if the dose is really low, then it behaves just like vegetable oils. They’re both prooxidative. So arsenic kills us through oxidation, vegetable oils ultimately maim and kill us mostly through oxidation.”12

• LA stays in the body for years, not days — I discussed this same issue in my reviews, published in the journal Nutrients13 and Advances in Redox Research.14 As explained in these papers, the half-life of LA in the body is about 680 days, meaning it takes up to six years to replace 95% of it. Because it gets stored in adipose tissue and incorporated into the lipid bilayers of cells, its presence is long-lasting and difficult to reverse.

• Oxidized LA metabolites (OXLAMs) drive systemic oxidative stress — When LA is heated, stored, or metabolized in excess, it forms OXLAMs, damaging breakdown products that are biologically active. OXLAMs like 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) are generated during lipid peroxidation and damage DNA, proteins, mitochondria, and even stem cells. These oxidized byproducts have been linked to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative conditions.

• Stored LA contributes to mitochondrial injury — Mitochondria use a special fat called cardiolipin to help generate energy. As LA dominates the diet, it becomes a major building block of cardiolipin, making it fragile and prone to oxidation. The result is impaired energy production, increased oxidative stress, and higher vulnerability to chronic disease. This damage shows up in high-energy organs like the heart and brain, contributing to widespread dysfunction.

• Excess LA fuels chronic inflammation — Once oxidized, LA and its metabolites act like molecular triggers for inflammation. My papers detail how these compounds damage cell membranes and trigger inflammatory cascades that affect the liver, cardiovascular system, and nervous system. Animal models show that dietary seed oils rich in LA promote liver injury, endothelial dysfunction, and oxidative damage in the brain.

• Cardiovascular damage is amplified by LA oxidation — The oxidation of LA in LDL particles is a key step in the formation of atherosclerotic plaque. The byproduct 4-HNE, for instance, is not only a mutagen and mitochondrial toxin but also a direct contributor to foam cell formation and endothelial dysfunction.

Reducing LA intake could be one of the most powerful steps you take for long-term cardiovascular and metabolic health. Learn more in “Linoleic Acid — The Most Destructive Ingredient in Your Diet.”

Lessons We Can Learn from Ancestral Diets

Traditional societies consumed diets that were high in saturated animal fats yet showed no signs of chronic illness. The featured documentary emphasizes that populations around the world thrived on widely different diets, as long as the ingredients were traditional, minimally processed, and free from modern additives like seed oils.15

• Ancestral diets were rich in saturated fat, yet people were free of chronic disease — The Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania were documented in the 1970s as consuming a diet of milk, meat, and blood, with two-thirds of their calories coming from animal fat. In the South Pacific, the Tokelau population lived on a diet based heavily on coconut and fish, with saturated fat making up about 50% of their intake. Despite the high fat content, both groups had low rates of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

• LA levels in body fat have changed dramatically — The average level of LA in human adipose tissue was around 2.8% in people eating natural diets. But in the U.S., levels rose sharply to 9.1% in 1959 and climbed to 21.5% by 2008. These changes reflect how deeply industrial seed oils have altered the makeup of human tissue over just a few generations.

• Bethany Hamilton’s story highlights what’s possible without seed oils — In the documentary, professional surfer Bethany Hamilton describes the benefits she experienced after removing seed oils from her diet. She reported more consistent energy, better sleep, and stronger athletic performance. Her fourth pregnancy, which followed the dietary shift, was her healthiest yet. She also observed that her children became more emotionally stable and resilient.

Take a deeper look at how traditional diets supported long-term health in “The Ancestral Wisdom That Supported Better Health in the Past.”

How to Reduce Your LA Exposure and Mitigate Its Effects

Lowering your intake of industrial seed oils starts with knowing where they hide. Even people who avoid fried foods and fast food end up eating large amounts of LA simply because it’s in so many packaged products, often where you’d least expect it. Below are key tips from the documentary, along with some of my own recommendations, to help you reduce your LA exposure and protect yourself from its damaging effects:16

•Shop the perimeter, skip the processed center — Avoid the central aisles of the grocery store where most processed and ultraprocessed products are shelved. Items like crackers, cookies, chips, salad dressings, and plant-based milks often contain soybean, canola, sunflower, or safflower oil, even when marketed as “heart-healthy.” Instead, focus on unprocessed animal foods, fresh produce, and items that don’t come with long ingredient lists.

• Clean out your cooking oils — Many homes still stock common seed oils like canola, sunflower, and safflower. Toss them out and replace them with traditional fats such as butter, ghee, and coconut oil for cooking. They’re stable, naturally rich in fat-soluble vitamins, and don’t contribute to oxidative stress the way seed oils do.

• Skip ultraprocessed foods and restaurant meals — Many restaurant meals are loaded with seed oils, as they’re used in sauces, dressings, marinades, and other ingredients across nearly every item on the menu. Even meals that appear healthy often contain multiple sources of LA. Cooking at home gives you full control over your ingredients and makes it easier to avoid hidden oils.

The same goes for ultraprocessed meals. You don’t have to overhaul your diet overnight. Start by swapping out one food or snack at a time. Focus on finding a few reliable products made without seed oils and rebuild your pantry from there. Once LA sources are out of your kitchen and off your plate, maintaining a cleaner, more nourishing way of eating becomes far more sustainable.

• Track your LA intake with smart tools — I recommend keeping your LA intake below 5 grams per day — 2 grams or less is even better. To monitor your intake, use an online nutrition tracker like my upcoming Health Coach app, which launches in early July.

• Explore the benefits of C15:0 — This odd-chain saturated fat, found in full-fat dairy, is a metabolically protective compound. Early research suggests that C15:0 supports mitochondrial function, reduces inflammation, and helps counteract some of the cellular stress triggered by LA overload.17,18 Take pure pentadecanoic acid or high-C15:0 butter or ghee concentrate. Split the dose between meals to maintain consistent plasma levels and minimize tissue uptake.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Seed Oils

Q: What are seed oils, and why are they harmful?

A: Seed oils (often marketed as “vegetable oils”) include soybean, corn, canola, cottonseed, sunflower, and safflower oils. They are highly processed industrial products made through chemical extraction, deodorization, and high-heat refining. These oils are rich in linoleic acid (LA), an omega-6 polyunsaturated fat that accumulates in the body and drives oxidative stress, inflammation, and cellular damage.

Q: How much LA is too much?

A: Most people consume 15 to 20 grams of LA per day, largely without realizing it. I recommend keeping intake below 5 grams per day, and ideally under 2 grams. This requires avoiding processed foods, checking ingredient labels carefully, and cooking with traditional fats.

Q: If seed oils are so harmful, why are they still used?

A: Seed oils are cheap, shelf-stable, and widely available due to decades of government subsidies and outdated dietary guidelines. They’re also profitable for food manufacturers. Most public health agencies continue to focus on cholesterol metrics rather than long-term clinical outcomes, which has delayed reform.

Q: Can I reverse the effects of LA once it’s stored in my body?

A: LA has a half-life of about 680 days, meaning it can take up to six years to replace 95% of it. The sooner you reduce your intake, the sooner your body begins offloading stored LA. Supporting your metabolism with nutrient-dense whole foods and minimizing oxidative stress help mitigate the damage over time.

Q: What fats should I use instead of seed oils?

A: Stick to traditional, stable fats like butter, ghee, tallow, and coconut oil. These fats are less prone to oxidation and have been consumed safely for generations across cultures.

Posted in Cancer, Linoleic Acid, Obesity, Oils, Omega-3, Omega-6 | One Comment »

Posted by: | Posted on: April 1, 2026

Hydrogen-Rich Water Reduces Cravings, Improves Sleep, and Raises GLP-1 in Obese Adults


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2026/03/31/hydrogen-rich-water.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola     March 31, 2026

hydrogen rich water

Story at-a-glance

  • Drinking hydrogen-rich water daily for eight weeks reduced food cravings, improved sleep quality, and increased GLP-1, helping your body naturally regulate hunger, and fullness without strict dieting
  • The biggest appetite changes occurred in physical hunger signals, meaning you feel less driven to eat even when food is available, making it easier to stay in control without relying on willpower
  • Sleep improvements included falling asleep faster, fewer nighttime disruptions and better daytime energy, which directly supports healthier food choices and metabolic stability
  • Hydrogen works at the cellular level by improving energy production, reducing oxidative stress, and restoring communication between your gut and brain, which resets how your body manages hunger and energy
  • Supporting this process with the right habits — including hydrogen-rich water, avoiding seed oils, daily sunlight, and proper carbohydrate intake to restore butyrate and GLP-1 signaling — helps correct the root cause of cravings and metabolic dysfunction

If you’re battling constant cravings, broken sleep, and the feeling that your body is working against you no matter what you try — the problem isn’t willpower. It’s disrupted biology. Appetite dysregulation, poor satiety signaling, and sleep disturbances create a self-reinforcing cycle that no amount of discipline can override, because the signals telling you to eat, stay awake, and store fat are coming from inside your own cells.

A clinical trial from the University of Novi Sad in Serbia shows that a single, simple intervention — drinking hydrogen-rich water daily for eight weeks — shifted multiple systems tied to that cycle at once.1 Cravings dropped. Sleep improved. The appetite hormone GLP-1 increased.

And none of it required strict dieting, exercise programs, or medications. The findings reveal a change in how the body produces energy, manages stress, and communicates hunger signals — which sets the stage for understanding exactly how hydrogen-rich water works inside your body.

Hydrogen Water Shifts Hunger, Sleep, and Metabolism at Once

The study, published in the journal Medicina, followed 36 adults with obesity to determine how hydrogen-rich water affects appetite, sleep, body composition, and key metabolic markers like GLP-1, a gut-derived hormone that signals fullness to your brain and helps regulate blood sugar by slowing digestion and reducing appetite — the same hormone targeted by popular weight loss drugs like Ozempic.2

Participants consumed 1 liter per day, split into three doses, delivering a total of 15 milligrams (mg) of molecular hydrogen, while a control group drank identical-looking water with no hydrogen. The design was randomized, placebo-controlled, and double-blind, meaning neither participants nor researchers knew who received the active treatment, which strengthens the reliability of the findings.

• Hydrogen group experienced measurable changes in cravings, sleep, and hormones — The group drinking hydrogen-rich water showed significant reductions in food cravings, improvements in sleep quality, and increases in GLP-1 levels compared to the control group. These weren’t vague or subjective shifts alone.

Researchers used structured tools like the Food Cravings Questionnaire and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to quantify changes in hunger and sleep patterns. At the same time, blood tests confirmed biochemical improvements, including cholesterol optimization and hormone changes tied directly to appetite control.

• Cravings dropped in a way you can actually feel day to day — One of the most striking findings involved appetite. The hydrogen group saw a meaningful reduction in total food cravings score, dropping by about 7.4 points compared to just 1.3 points in the control group.

That difference reflects fewer intrusive thoughts about food, less emotional eating, and better control over when and how much you eat. If you often feel like hunger drives your choices instead of the other way around, this is the exact shift that changes your daily experience.

• The strongest appetite changes showed up in physical hunger signals — Hydrogen-rich water had its biggest impact on cravings as a “physiological state,” meaning actual bodily hunger rather than habit or emotion.

This includes the internal signals that tell you to eat even when you’ve already had enough. When those signals calm down, you stop fighting yourself. Instead of relying on willpower, your body starts cooperating.

• Sleep improvements extended beyond just feeling rested — Participants didn’t just report better sleep in general terms. Specific areas improved, including how quickly they fell asleep, how often they woke up, and how they functioned during the day. Better sleep latency means you fall asleep faster.

Reduced disturbances mean fewer interruptions overnight. Improved daytime function means more stable energy and focus. When sleep improves across all these areas, your metabolism stabilizes, and your appetite becomes easier to manage.

• GLP-1 increased, directly changing how full you feel — Hydrogen-rich water significantly increased circulating GLP-1 levels compared to the placebo group, with a statistically meaningful effect size. When this hormone rises, you feel satisfied sooner and stay full longer. This is the same pathway targeted by many weight-loss drugs, but here it’s influenced through a simple dietary intervention.

Why Hydrogen Works Quickly and Targets the Root Cause of Cravings

All of these changes occurred within just eight weeks, with participants maintaining over 97% adherence to the protocol. That high compliance matters. It shows the intervention was easy to follow and fit into daily routines. You’re not looking at an extreme lifestyle overhaul. You’re looking at something that integrates into your current habits without friction.

• Women showed even stronger responses in key areas — Subgroup analysis revealed that many of the improvements, especially in cravings and GLP-1 levels, were more pronounced in women.

This suggests a biological sensitivity that could relate to hormonal differences, appetite regulation pathways, or metabolic factors. If you struggle with persistent cravings despite doing everything “right,” this finding highlights that your biology isn’t working against you permanently. It can shift.

• Hydrogen calms the cellular damage that drives false hunger signals — At a deeper level, hydrogen acts as a signaling molecule in your body, not just a passive substance. It influences pathways related to oxidative stress, which is the buildup of cellular damage from unstable molecules. When oxidative stress drops, the cells responsible for hunger and energy signaling can finally communicate clearly — so your brain gets accurate information about when you actually need food.

• Gut-brain communication plays a central role — Hydrogen influences the gut–brain axis — the communication network between your digestive system and your brain. Much of this signaling travels through the vagus nerve, a physical nerve pathway that runs from your brainstem down to your gut, carrying messages in both directions.

When hydrogen improves the chemical environment in your gut, clearer signals travel up this nerve to your brain, including the hormones and metabolites that tell you whether you’re genuinely hungry or already full.

• Neurotransmitters tied to cravings are directly affected — Researchers also identified changes in the glutamate-GABA-glutamine cycle, a brain chemistry loop that balances two opposing signals. Glutamate is the “fire up” signal that makes you alert and reactive; GABA is the “calm down” signal that keeps your responses in check.

When this balance is off, every food cue hits harder — the smell of bread, the sight of a snack — and cravings dominate your thinking. Hydrogen helped stabilize this cycle, meaning food stimuli lose their outsized grip on your attention.

• Cellular energy production improves at the same time — Hydrogen supports mitochondrial function, your cells’ energy production system, by acting as a selective antioxidant inside the mitochondria themselves. Your mitochondria generate energy through a chain of chemical reactions, and oxidative damage jams that chain at multiple points.

Hydrogen specifically neutralizes the most aggressive free radicals that cause that damage, without disrupting the beneficial ones your cells need for normal signaling. When this energy production system runs cleanly, your body stops relying on constant food intake as a backup fuel source.

How to Use Molecular Hydrogen to Fix Cravings and Restore Metabolic Control

Taken together, these mechanisms explain why the study participants didn’t just see one number change on a blood test — they felt different day to day. Their hunger quieted. Their sleep deepened. Their energy stabilized. The science points to a body that was finally producing energy efficiently, communicating accurately between gut and brain, and no longer flooding itself with false hunger signals.

That understanding matters, because it tells you exactly where to intervene. The steps below are designed to support each of these mechanisms directly — starting with hydrogen-rich water and extending into the dietary and lifestyle factors that determine whether your cells can actually use it.

1. Use hydrogen-rich water the right way — Drop one hydrogen tablet into a glass of room-temperature water and drink it immediately after it fully dissolves and turns cloudy. That cloudy appearance tells you the hydrogen gas is active and ready to work. Look for tablets that generate 8 to 10 parts per million (ppm) of hydrogen and are independently tested for purity.

Timing matters. Drink it right away, because hydrogen escapes quickly once dissolved. Avoid swallowing the tablet directly and don’t drink any remaining undissolved pieces. The reaction that releases hydrogen produces heat, and taking it dry risks burning tissue in your mouth, throat, or stomach. These tablets are designed to react in water, not inside your body.

2. Build consistency, then cycle your intake to stay responsive — Use hydrogen-rich water daily during periods when cravings, fatigue, or stress are high. Once your appetite and sleep stabilize, take short breaks for a few days or a couple of weeks. This keeps your body responsive instead of adapting and dulling the effect. Think of it the way you’d cycle any training stimulus — you want your metabolism to stay responsive, not adapted.

3. Eliminate the factors that block your cellular energy — If you consume seed oils, you’re working against yourself. Soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil, and similar vegetable oils flood your cells with linoleic acid (LA), a polyunsaturated fat that destabilizes mitochondrial membranes and increases oxidative stress. Replace these oils with stable saturated fats such as grass fed butter, ghee or tallow.

At the same time, remove ultraprocessed foods and most restaurant meals, since these almost always contain high amounts of seed oils. Your goal is to bring daily LA intake below 5 grams and ideally closer to 2 grams. To track your intake, download the upcoming Mercola Health Coach app, which includes the Seed Oil Sleuth feature that calculates LA exposure with precise accuracy.

4. Use sunlight to recharge your cellular energy daily — Get direct sun exposure every day, especially earlier in the day. Sunlight drives energy production at the cellular level and helps regulate your sleep-wake cycle. If your body is full of LA from years of seed oil consumption, your skin is more prone to burning during midday sun.

Avoid sunlight from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. until you’ve reduced seed oils for at least six months, focusing instead on morning and late afternoon light. Once your tissues are free from these unstable fats, you’ll tolerate more sun safely. Over time, this strengthens your energy production and supports better appetite control.

5. Rebuild your metabolism by restoring butyrate and GLP-1 signaling — Your gut bacteria convert carbohydrates into short-chain fatty acids like butyrate. Butyrate acts as a fuel for your colon cells and plays a direct role in regulating appetite hormones. When your gut produces enough butyrate, natural GLP-1 secretion works properly, which improves satiety, stabilizes blood sugar, and supports healthy weight regulation.

Start with easy-to-digest carbs like whole fruit and white rice, then slowly increase fiber as your gut heals to avoid excess endotoxin production. Pair this with adequate protein, about 0.8 grams per pound of lean body mass (or 1.76 grams per kilogram), and make one-third from collagen-rich sources like slow-cooked meats or bone broth. When this system is working, your hunger signals normalize and your body stops pushing you to overeat.

FAQs About Hydrogen-Rich Water, Cravings, and Metabolism

Q: How does hydrogen-rich water reduce cravings?

A: Hydrogen-rich water works by improving how your body regulates hunger signals at the cellular level. In the study, participants experienced a measurable drop in cravings, especially physical hunger signals, not just emotional eating. This shift happens because hydrogen supports better communication between your gut and brain and helps normalize appetite hormones like GLP-1.

Q: What is GLP-1 and why does it matter for weight control?

A: GLP-1 is a hormone released in your gut that tells your brain you’re full and helps regulate blood sugar. When GLP-1 levels increase, you feel satisfied sooner and eat less without forcing it. This is the same hormone targeted by drugs like Ozempic, but in this case, your body increases it naturally.

Q: How quickly do the benefits of hydrogen-rich water show up?

A: The study showed noticeable improvements in just eight weeks. Participants reported better sleep, reduced cravings and improved metabolic markers within that timeframe. Because the approach fits easily into daily routines, adherence stayed above 97%, which means the results came from consistent, realistic use.

Q: Does hydrogen-rich water help with sleep as well as appetite?

A: Yes. Participants fell asleep faster, woke up less often and functioned better during the day. Better sleep directly supports appetite control because poor sleep increases hunger hormones and weakens decision-making around food.

Q: Why does gut health matter for controlling cravings and GLP-1?

A: Your gut bacteria produce compounds like butyrate when they break down carbohydrates and fiber. Butyrate fuels your colon cells and helps regulate GLP-1 production. When this system works properly, your body naturally controls hunger, improves insulin sensitivity and supports healthy weight regulation without relying on willpower.

 

– Sources and References

Posted in Food, GLP-1, Gut, Hydrogen, Linoleic Acid, Obesity, Sleep, Weight Loss | No Comments »

Posted by: | Posted on: January 23, 2026

America’s Favorite Cooking Oil Shows Strong Link to Obesity


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2026/01/22/soybean-oil-obesity-link.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola     January 22, 2026

Story at-a-glance

  • Soybean oil dominates the U.S. food supply. Americans’ intake has increased from about 2% to nearly 10% of calories over a century, alongside sharp rises in obesity and diabetes
  • A recent study published in the Journal of Lipid Research found soybean oil drives obesity independent of calories by generating liver oxylipins that track with weight gain, revealing LA metabolism, not food intake, as the key driver of fat accumulation
  • Soybean oil promotes oxidative stress, mitochondrial damage, gut permeability, and long-lasting inflammatory byproducts that continue to affect your metabolism for years due to LA’s extended half-life in body fat
  • Soy contains additional disruptive compounds, including phytoestrogens, phytic acid, enzyme inhibitors, lectins, saponins, and goitrogens, along with frequent glyphosate residues
  • Reducing LA intake means eliminating sources of soybean and other vegetable oils from your diet, and replacing them with stable fats like ghee, tallow, butter, or coconut oil

From restaurant meals to packaged staples, soybean oil is almost everywhere in the modern diet. In the United States, it’s the most widely consumed oil, with intake climbing from roughly 2% of total calories to nearly 10% over the last century.1 During this period, adult obesity has surged to more than 42%, while Type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disorders have increased in parallel.2,3

Despite these trends, soybean oil and other vegetable oils rich in polyunsaturated fats (PUFs), particularly omega-6 linoleic acid (LA), have long been framed as “healthy” replacements for animal fats like butter and lard. Public health messaging has reinforced this idea for decades, and even as evidence has piled up against it, the myth has been hard to dismantle.

To get a clearer picture of what soybean oil is really doing inside the body, a team of researchers at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), recently set out to look beyond calorie content alone and examine the biological effects linked to consuming it. Their findings, published in the Journal of Lipid Research,4 provide more insights into why soybean oil has been consistently linked to the obesity epidemic.

New Insights on the Link Between Soybean Oil and Obesity

The UC Riverside team used two groups of male mice — normal mice and genetically modified mice with an altered version of a liver protein called HNF4α. This protein acts as a master regulator of metabolism in the liver, controlling which genes get turned on or off. The modified mice produce a different form of HNF4α than normal mice, and as a result, their livers produce much lower levels of certain enzymes that break down LA into other compounds.5

• Both groups were fed high-fat diets for up to 35 weeks — Some mice received a diet where 10% of calories came from LA using a mixture of soybean oil and coconut oil, while others received a diet based primarily on coconut oil, where only 2% of calories came from LA. A third group ate standard low-fat laboratory chow as a control. The total fat content and total calories were identical between the two high-fat diets.

• Normal mice gained far more weight despite identical food intake — Wild-type mice on the soybean oil diet gained back 411% of their starting weight compared to 370% on coconut oil. The modified mice, however, gained much less weight on the soybean oil diet than normal mice did, and their weight gain on soybean oil was essentially the same as on coconut oil. All the mice ate the same amount of food regardless of which diet they received, ruling out overeating as an explanation.

• Soybean oil drives obesity-linked oxylipins through LA metabolism — A key finding was the sharp contrast in oxylipin production. Oxylipins are oxidized metabolites derived from LA as well as alpha-linolenic acid, another fatty acid in soybean oil. Wild-type mice produced more oxylipins, which have been associated with weight gain, fatty liver disease, and metabolic dysfunction.

The study suggests the issue is not just LA intake but what the body converts it into, since wild-type mice generated proinflammatory oxylipins, while the genetically altered mice produced fewer of these compounds due to reduced expression of key enzyme families responsible for converting LA into oxylipins.

• Only liver oxylipins, not blood oxylipins, matched body weight — The researchers also found that oxylipins in liver tissue, not those in the bloodstream, tracked with body weight. That suggests standard blood tests miss early diet-driven metabolic shifts.

Even the lean modified mice showed elevated oxylipins on a low-fat diet, but without obesity. So oxylipins looked necessary for weight gain but not sufficient on their own, meaning other liver proteins decide whether oxylipins translate into visible metabolic harm.

• Blocking oxylipin production failed unless the key oxylipins were reduced — To test causality, researchers treated wild-type mice on soybean oil with a chemical that blocks a final step in oxylipin production. The treatment shifted some oxylipins, but not the four most tied to obesity.

Those levels stayed high, and treated mice gained as much weight as untreated soybean-oil mice. This supported the idea that these specific oxylipins are necessary for soybean oil’s fattening effect.

• The findings explain why seed oils hit some bodies harder than others — The study points to a mechanism where weight gain depends not on how much fat or how many calories you eat, but on what specific compounds your liver produces after you’ve eaten that fat.

Researchers are digging deeper to understand how oxylipins promote weight gain and to see if similar effects occur with other LA-rich oils like corn, sunflower, and safflower oils. According to Frances Sladek, a UCR professor of Cell Biology:

“It took 100 years from the first observed link between chewing tobacco and cancer to get warning labels on cigarettes. We hope it won’t take that long for society to recognize the link between excessive soybean oil consumption and negative health effects.”6

While LA is technically essential, modern consumption levels far exceed biological needs, and that overload creates biochemical damage that continues for years. It doesn’t simply act as a benign source of energy; it becomes raw material for metabolic byproducts that actively shape your weight and health outcomes over time.

How Does Soybean Oil Influence Weight?

Understanding how soybean oil might promote weight gain requires looking at what happens to LA once it enters your body. LA has multiple double bonds in its chemical structure, which make it highly reactive and vulnerable to damage from oxygen, heat, and normal metabolic processes. When LA is oxidized, it breaks down into compounds that can push your metabolism toward dysfunction. Aside from oxylipin, other LA byproducts include:7,8,9

• Oxidized linoleic acid metabolites (OXLAMs) create lasting cellular damage — OXLAMs are created when LA is exposed to oxidative stress. These include aldehydes, such as 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE), malondialdehyde (MDA), and acrolein, which bind to proteins, DNA, and membranes, altering their structure and function.

• LA overload destabilizes cardiolipin and weakens energy production — Cardiolipin is a key fat in the inner mitochondrial membrane that stabilizes energy generation. When LA intake is high, LA replaces more stable fats in cardiolipin, making the membrane fragile and vulnerable to oxidative damage. This disrupts energy production, leaving cells to either shut down or destroy damaged mitochondria altogether.

• LA disrupts your gut microbiome and weakens the intestinal barrier — High‑LA diets have been shown to kill off beneficial gut bacteria while allowing harmful strains to expand, making your gut more prone to inflammation. Researchers also found that LA causes the intestinal epithelial barrier to become porous, increasing gut permeability so toxins can move into circulation and raise susceptibility to inflammatory conditions such as colitis.

• Stored LA keeps producing inflammatory signals for years — Once incorporated into your body fat, LA has a long half-life of around two years. This means that even if you stop consuming soybean oil today, your tissues will continue producing inflammatory metabolites for months or even years afterward. This chronic exposure is what turns LA into a persistent metabolic disruptor.

Taken together, these pathways show how chronic high LA intake gradually shifts your metabolic terrain. For a deeper look at how industrial seed oils affect your health, read “Linoleic Acid and Its Links to Chronic Disease.”

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Other Compounds in Soy That Threaten Your Health

The concerns around soybean oil go beyond its LA content and downstream metabolic effects. Soybeans contain a range of biologically active compounds — many of which remain present even after processing — that can interfere with nutrient absorption, hormone balance, digestion, and thyroid function, including:

• Phytoestrogens — These compounds mimic estrogen by binding to estrogen receptors in your body. Chronic intake may suppress testosterone, interfere with reproductive hormones, and contribute to hormone-sensitive cancers such as breast cancer.10

• Phytic acid — A compound that binds to minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc, reducing your ability to absorb them, which can affect your metabolic function, mitochondrial activity, and enzyme systems.11 Soybeans are among the highest sources of phytic acid, and standard cooking methods don’t reduce it significantly.

• Enzyme inhibitors — These compounds interfere with protein digestion by blocking key enzymes in your gut, limiting your ability to access essential amino acids needed for muscle repair, detoxification, neurotransmitter production, and immune health.

• Saponins, soyatoxin, lectins, and oxalates — All of these are antinutrients that irritate the gut lining, increase intestinal permeability, and may trigger immune responses. While small amounts may not pose a threat, the widespread inclusion of soy in processed foods means these compounds are consumed far more often than people realize.

• Goitrogens — Substances that interfere with iodine uptake and block the synthesis of thyroid hormones. This disrupts thyroid function over time, particularly in individuals with borderline iodine status or underlying thyroid issues. Goitrogens are present in all unfermented soy, whether organic or not.12

• GMO and glyphosate exposure — Around 95% of soybeans grown in the U.S. are genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. These GMO crops are heavily sprayed, increasing the likelihood of glyphosate residues in finished products, including soybean oil.13 Chronic glyphosate exposure is linked to microbiome disruption, impaired liver detoxification, and possible endocrine effects.14

If soybean oil shows up regularly in your dressings, baked goods, fried foods, or packaged snacks, then you’re likely being exposed to these disruptive bioactive compounds. Learn more about soybean oil’s side effects in “Soybean Oil Linked to Genetic and Neurological Damage.”

Smarter Dietary Choices and Simple Swaps to Lower Your LA Load

While you can’t undo years of accumulated LA overnight, you can stop adding more today. The goal is straightforward — reduce your intake of LA from all sources, with soybean oil being the most pervasive but far from the only culprit. I recommend keeping your total LA intake below 5 grams per day, and ideally under 2 grams. Here’s where to start:

1. Eliminate soybean oil from your diet — Cutting down on soybean oil begins with knowing where it shows up. It’s not just the bottle in your pantry — refined soybean oil is baked, fried, blended, and sprayed into a wide range of everyday foods. Manufacturers rely on it because it’s cheap, shelf-stable, and neutral in flavor.

Labels don’t always say “soybean oil” outright. Instead, you’ll see vague terms like “vegetable oil” or “soy lecithin,” often tucked into products marketed as organic, natural, or “heart-healthy.” Unless you check every ingredient list, it’s easy to miss. Here’s where soybean oil frequently hides in your diet:

Category Common Products That Contain Soybean Oil
Condiments and dressings Mayonnaise, salad dressings, marinades, dipping sauces, and sandwich spreads
Packaged snacks Chips, crackers, popcorn, pretzels, granola bars, and trail mix
Baked goods Breads, bagels, muffins, cookies, tortillas, and pastries
Frozen and convenience foods Pizza, microwave meals, frozen dinners, meat substitutes, and non-dairy creamer
Restaurant foods Fried items, grilled foods, commercial breads, and buns, and salad dressings
Pantry staples Peanut butter, powdered soup mixes, boxed rice, or pasta dishes
Health foods and supplements Protein bars, energy drinks, plant-based shakes, and soy lecithin in capsules
Infant and toddler products Baby formula, toddler snacks, and puffed cereals

If you’re busy or overwhelmed, use a barcode-scanning grocery app or an AI ingredient checker to flag hidden seed oils fast. To track your intake, I recommend you download my Mercola Health Coach app when it’s available this year. It has a feature called the Seed Oil Sleuth, which monitors your LA intake to a tenth of a gram so you can stay in charge of your metabolism.

2. Replace your cooking fats with stable, low-LA options — Use fats like ghee, grass fed butter, beef tallow, or coconut oil for daily cooking. These options are low in linoleic acid and far more resistant to heat damage than vegetable oils. Coconut oil is well-suited for medium-heat cooking and baking, while ghee and tallow offer better stability at high temperatures and add rich flavor to roasted vegetables, stir-fries, and seared meats.

Here’s a quick guide to common cooking fats and oils, their typical smoke points, and how they hold up under heat:15,16,17

Fat/Oil Typical Smoke Point Stability/Suitability for Cooking
Ghee (clarified butter) ~ 485°F (≈ 252°C) Highly heat‑stable saturated fat, good for high-heat cooking and searing
Beef tallow/lard ~ 374-420°F (≈ 190-216°C) More stable for roasting or frying than most seed oils
Coconut oil ~ 350-400 °F (≈ 177-204 °C) Reasonably stable for moderate heat cooking and baking, low in LA
Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) ~ 375-405°F (≈ 191-207°C) Suitable for low-heat cooking or finishing dishes, but high in MUF
Soybean oil (refined) ~ 450-495°F (≈ 232-257°C) Widely used seed oil; heat-stable, but exposes you to high LA load
Canola oil/generic vegetable oil (seed-oil blend) ~ 400-450°F (≈ 204-232°C) Common cooking oil; high LA/PUF load, stable under heat, but contributes to LA overconsumption
Refined sunflower oil ~ 450°F (≈ 232°C) Another common seed oil high in LA; similar issues as with soybean oil
Peanut oil (refined) ~ 450°F (≈ 232°C) Frequently used for frying, but still delivers high PUF and LA content

3. Choose low-LA animal proteins and skip high-PUF meats — When buying meat, prioritize grass fed beef, lamb, and bison over chicken or pork. Ruminant animals like cows and sheep metabolize LA differently, converting it into more stable saturated fats rather than storing it.

In contrast, poultry and pigs deposit dietary LA directly into their fat and muscle tissue, meaning their meat reflects whatever corn- or soy-based feed they consumed. If you eat eggs, look for pasture-raised options from hens not fed corn or soy. These eggs are significantly lower in PUFs and a better match for a metabolically supportive diet.

4. Cut back on olive oil, nuts, and seeds — Many popular whole foods are surprisingly high in linoleic acid. Almonds, walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and most nut butters are all concentrated sources. If you’re regularly snacking on trail mix, blending nut butters into smoothies, or using seed oils in homemade recipes, it’s easy to push your LA intake far beyond safe limits.

Even macadamia nuts, though lower in LA, are still rich in oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat (MUF) that oxidizes easily during storage or cooking. Large amounts of MUFs have been shown to disrupt mitochondrial function and increase oxidative stress.

Olive oil, another common MUF source, comes with similar risks, especially when heated. The soybean oil vs. olive oil comparison is often used to frame olive oil as the better choice, but that doesn’t mean it’s ideal. Most commercially available olive oils are also diluted or adulterated with cheap, oxidized seed oils, making them far from clean.

5. Get your omega-3s and carbohydrates from cleaner sources — Flaxseed is often promoted as a plant-based omega-3 source, but in a high-LA environment, it’s largely ineffective. Excess LA blocks the enzymes your body needs to convert plant omega-3s into the usable forms EPA and DHA. Flax is also high in fragile PUFs and contains lignans, which are plant estrogens that can disrupt hormone balance when consumed in large amounts.

Instead, focus on small oily fish like sardines, mackerel and anchovies, as well as wild-caught salmon. These deliver preformed long-chain omega-3s without the need for conversion. When it comes to carbs, prioritize fruit, root vegetables, and white rice over packaged or fried products. If your digestion is strong, build in fiber-rich plant foods like legumes, cooked vegetables, and well-tolerated whole grains to support gut health and stable energy.

6. Take control when eating out — Most restaurant kitchens default to soybean or canola oil for frying, grilling, baking, and dressings. Ask what oils are used and request butter or no added fat when possible. Grilled foods may seem safe, but they’re often marinated or brushed with seed oil blends before hitting the heat.

For salads, bring your own dressing or stick to lemon juice, vinegar, and salt. Planning ahead is the only reliable way to stay clear of high-LA cooking oils when you’re not in charge of the kitchen.

Get more tips on how to lower your LA exposure in “Historical Rise of Cancer and Dietary Linoleic Acid — Mechanisms and Therapeutic Strategies.”

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Soybean Oil

Q: Does soybean oil cause weight gain?

A: Yes, animal studies show that soybean oil promotes weight gain independent of calorie intake. In the UC Riverside study, mice fed identical calorie amounts gained significantly more weight on a soybean oil-rich diet than those on a coconut oil-based diet. The difference wasn’t caused by eating more but by how their bodies metabolized LA, the dominant fat in soybean oil.

Q: Is soybean oil inflammatory?

A: Yes. Soybean oil is the largest dietary source of LA in the U.S., and high LA intake is strongly associated with chronic inflammation. When LA is oxidized — either during cooking or inside the body — it forms toxic byproducts like oxylipins and aldehydes (e.g., 4-HNE, MDA, and acrolein).

These byproducts damage mitochondria, activate inflammatory signaling, and continue circulating for years due to LA’s long half-life in fat tissue. LA also disrupts the gut microbiome and weakens the intestinal barrier, both of which contribute to systemic inflammation.

Q: Is high-oleic soybean oil different?

A: High-oleic soybean oil has been engineered to contain more MUF (oleic acid) and less LA. While it may generate fewer oxidized LA byproducts, it’s still not ideal. Oleic acid itself is prone to oxidation, especially with heat and long storage, and high intakes of MUFs have also been linked to impaired mitochondrial function.

Additionally, high-oleic oils still come from genetically modified soybeans and may carry similar risks related to glyphosate exposure and antinutrients unless explicitly purified.

Q: How much soybean oil is “okay”?

A: Ideally, none. LA is technically essential, but your biological requirement is extremely low — ideally under 2 grams per day. The average American consumes 10 times that amount. Removing soybean oil from your diet is the most effective way to stay within that range.

Q: What are good soybean oil alternatives?

A: Grass fed butter, ghee, beef tallow, and coconut oil are all excellent options for cooking. These fats resist oxidation, contain minimal PUFs, and support better mitochondrial and metabolic function. Avoid common substitutes like canola, corn, or sunflower oil, as they are also high in LA.

Posted in Diabetes, Hormones, Linoleic Acid, Obesity, Oils | One Comment »

Posted by: | Posted on: January 11, 2026

Weight Lifting or Cardio, Which Is Better at Preventing Diabetes and Obesity?


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2026/01/10/weightlifting-vs-cardio-preventing-diabetes-obesity.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola     January 10, 2026

weightlifting vs cardio preventing diabetes obesity

Story at-a-glance

  • Resistance training was shown to be more effective than cardio for improving insulin sensitivity and reducing fat accumulation, making it a powerful strategy for preventing diabetes and obesity
  • Endurance exercise strengthened cardiovascular and immune function, helping older adults maintain youthful, energetic immune cells that recover faster from illness and stress
  • Overdoing intense workouts — especially high-volume cardio — increases stress hormones and reverses many of exercise’s benefits, while shorter, moderate sessions support steady progress without burnout
  • Combining brief strength sessions with moderate daily movement creates the ideal balance for stabilizing blood sugar, boosting mitochondrial energy production and improving overall metabolic health
  • Blood flow restriction (KAATSU) training enhances strength and muscle tone using light weights or bodyweight alone, offering a safe and effective option for older adults or those with joint pain

Insulin resistance is one of the most common — and overlooked — drivers of modern disease. It develops quietly over time, long before blood sugar tests show a problem, leaving you tired after meals, hungry too soon and stuck with belly fat that refuses to move. When ignored, it sets the stage for diabetes, heart disease, and premature aging.

Exercise remains a powerful way to restore insulin sensitivity and stabilize blood sugar naturally. But not all movement affects your metabolism in the same way. Some forms train your muscles to burn energy more efficiently, while others fine-tune your immune system and mitochondria — the energy factories inside your cells — to resist stress and inflammation.

New research is helping to pinpoint which types of exercise deliver the biggest benefits for metabolic health, longevity and cellular repair. The latest findings reveal that the way you move has a direct impact on how your body heals and regenerates — insights that could change the way you think about fitness, aging and disease prevention.

Weightlifting Reprograms Your Metabolism to Fight Insulin Resistance

A study published in the Journal of Sport and Health Science compared resistance (weightlifting-like) and endurance (wheel-running) exercise in obese mice fed a high-fat diet.1 Both exercise types limited overall fat gain versus sedentary controls, but resistance training produced greater improvements in glucose and insulin tolerance. In other words, resistance-trained mice managed blood sugar more effectively and displayed healthier insulin sensitivity than endurance-trained or sedentary mice.

• Resistance training reduced fat accumulation without major muscle growth — Mice in the resistance exercise group had significantly less visceral and subcutaneous fat than sedentary high-fat-diet mice.2

These benefits occurred without notable increases in muscle mass, showing that improved glucose control wasn’t driven by muscle growth alone. The metabolic benefits weren’t the result of “getting bigger,” but of training the body to use energy more intelligently. Even modest resistance work was enough to reprogram metabolism and sharpen insulin response.

• Endurance training boosted stamina, not metabolism — The endurance-trained mice developed stronger hearts and better exercise capacity, but their blood sugar and insulin sensitivity barely budged.

This shows that while cardio strengthens the cardiovascular system, it doesn’t have the same direct impact on metabolic repair that resistance training does. If your goal is to fix insulin resistance and stabilize energy, building muscle strength is far more effective than logging endless miles.

• Each training style worked through its own biological pathway — Both resistance and endurance exercise offered protection against fat gain, but the mechanisms were completely different.

Resistance training enhanced insulin sensitivity across multiple tests, while endurance training primarily influenced cardiovascular remodeling and protein signaling related to muscle endurance. The researchers found no measurable changes in mitochondrial function or insulin-signaling proteins, meaning the metabolic benefits from lifting came from whole-body adaptation rather than one isolated pathway.

• Shorter, focused resistance sessions proved highly effective — The resistance-trained mice achieved these metabolic benefits through brief, repeated effort-based lifting — not extended endurance sessions. For people managing blood sugar or insulin resistance, this means targeted strength training offers faster, more efficient improvements than longer, high-volume cardio routines.

• Resistance training trains your body to act younger — Lifting weights — or any form of resistance-based exercise — teaches your body to handle glucose like a metabolically healthy person again. It restores the sensitivity of your insulin receptors, reduces fat storage, and keeps energy steady throughout the day. In the context of modern sedentary living and processed diets, resistance exercise isn’t just about strength — it’s metabolic medicine.

Cardio Keeps Your Immune System Young and Energetic

While resistance training fine-tunes how your body handles blood sugar and fat, endurance exercise targets a different — but equally important — system: your immune defense. The next study reveals how steady, moderate cardio acts like a rejuvenation switch for your immune cells, keeping them energetic, adaptable and far more resistant to the effects of aging.

Published in Scientific Reports, the study examined how long-term endurance training affects immune system function in older adults.3 The study focused on natural killer (NK) cells, a key part of your immune defense that hunts down and destroys infected or abnormal cells.

As people age, these immune cells often lose energy and efficiency, leaving them more vulnerable to infections, cancer and slower recovery. Scientists sought to determine whether years of consistent cardio exercise could reverse or slow this decline.

• Trained older adults had stronger, more energetic immune cells — The researchers compared men over age 60 who had performed endurance training for decades with untrained men of the same age group.

Those who regularly engaged in endurance training showed dramatically improved NK cell metabolism — meaning their immune cells produced more energy and functioned like those of much younger adults. In short, their immune systems behaved as if they had “turned back the clock.” The trained group also had lower levels of chronic inflammation, an underlying factor in nearly every age-related disease.

• Endurance training helped immune cells make energy more efficiently — In people who regularly did cardio exercise, their NK cells produced energy in a cleaner, steadier way. They used oxygen to turn food into energy, which kept them active and strong for longer periods.

In comparison, people who didn’t exercise relied on a quicker, less efficient system that burned through sugar fast and left their immune cells tired. This is one reason older adults who stay active tend to bounce back from illness or injury much faster.

• Long-term cardio training helped the body resist stress and immune fatigue — When the researchers exposed the participants’ NK cells to common metabolic stressors, the trained group’s cells remained stable and continued functioning at a high level.

Inactive individuals had NK cells that were easily disrupted under the same conditions, showing weaker resilience. For anyone over 50, this means regular endurance activity doesn’t just maintain fitness — it teaches your immune system to handle stress better.

• The effects extended beyond immunity into cellular longevity — Endurance-trained participants showed enhanced mitochondrial density and efficiency — meaning they had more and healthier mitochondria in their NK cells.

Mitochondria act like rechargeable batteries that fuel every cellular process. With age, mitochondria often degrade, leading to fatigue, slower healing and increased disease risk. Regular cardio effectively recharged these “batteries,” improving the body’s energy economy at the most fundamental level.

• Too much cardio typically backfires — balance is key — Cardiologist Dr. James O’Keefe’s research found that doing intense exercise for four to seven hours a week actually erased many of its health benefits.4 Pushing too hard too often puts your body under chronic stress instead of helping it recover. The takeaway: find your exercise sweet spot with moderate, consistent activity that leaves you energized, not exhausted.

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How to Supercharge Strength Gains with Blood Flow Restriction (KAATSU) Training

Blood flow restriction (BFR) training — also called KAATSU — was developed in Japan in 1966 by Dr. Yoshiaki Sato and has since become one of the most effective ways to build strength without heavy lifting. It involves placing soft cuffs or bands around your upper arms or thighs to gently restrict blood flow while exercising. This limited circulation triggers your body to adapt as though it were lifting heavy weights, even when you’re only using light resistance or bodyweight.

• The key is mild oxygen restriction that boosts growth signals — When blood flow is partially reduced, oxygen levels in the working muscles drop — a state called hypoxia. This low-oxygen environment activates powerful biochemical messengers known as myokines.

These anti-inflammatory compounds promote muscle growth, improve hormone balance and stimulate protein synthesis, the cellular process that builds new muscle fibers. Your body interprets this “low-oxygen challenge” as intense training, even though the actual load is light and joint-friendly.

• You gain strength and protect your joints at the same time — One of KAATSU’s greatest benefits is that it delivers measurable strength gains with very little mechanical stress.

Older adults, those recovering from injury or anyone hesitant to lift heavy weights can use BFR to maintain or increase muscle mass safely. Because the muscles still experience metabolic fatigue, you get the same cellular and hormonal benefits of heavy training — without the joint pain, muscle strain or long recovery times.

• The secret lies in how your body reacts to the “fake” stress — By briefly restricting venous blood flow, KAATSU tricks your muscles into working harder than they actually are. This encourages your vascular tissue to become more elastic and resilient.

When I interviewed KAATSU expert Steven Munatones, he explained that this “biohack” allows your muscles to work and your vascular tissue to become more elastic. You don’t feel the pain of heavy lifting, yet your muscle fibers and blood vessels are being trained just as effectively. The result is stronger muscles, healthier circulation and improved energy efficiency — especially in older adults.

• It’s simple to integrate KAATSU into everyday life — You can use BFR bands during strength workouts, walking sessions or even while doing light chores. The goal isn’t to fully cut off blood flow — just to apply gentle pressure that challenges your circulation.

Keep each session short, around 15 to 20 minutes, and focus on movements like squats, curls, lunges or pushups using minimal resistance. To learn more, check out my previous article, “How to Stay Fit for Life,” in which I review the science behind KAATSU and explain in greater detail how to use it.

• The main difference between KAATSU and BFR is the tool you’re using — BFR can be done with restriction bands, but KAATSU uses a device that also provides intermittent and not just constant pressure. The KAATSU set is ideal as it is far easier to dial in to the correct pressures. You also get the benefit of intermittent pressure automatically, without having to adjust the bands yourself.

I recommend the C4 model, because the C-series doesn’t have Bluetooth (which emits harmful electromagnetic fields). For a limited time, you can get 10% off any KAATSU equipment by using the promo code DRM.

order now

How to Rebuild Metabolic and Immune Strength Through Exercise

If you’ve been pushing yourself through longer, harder workouts believing that more effort automatically means better results for weight loss or blood sugar control, it’s time to rethink your approach. Your body thrives on balance, not burnout.

Overdoing cardio or spending hours lifting often backfires — spiking stress hormones, exhausting your mitochondria and making insulin resistance worse. The best strategy for managing obesity and diabetes isn’t extremes on either end, but a smart blend of moderate activity and short, focused strength training sessions that keep your metabolism efficient and your energy steady. Here’s how to do it.

1. Lift weights briefly, but regularly — Keep strength sessions short — about 20 minutes twice a week — and focus on quality, not quantity. Compound exercises like squats, pushups and rows train multiple muscle groups at once, improving glucose uptake and metabolic efficiency. This type of resistance work “teaches” your muscles to absorb sugar instead of storing it as fat, helping stabilize your energy throughout the day.

2. Supercharge your results with KAATSU training — If you want to enhance your gains without adding stress or heavy loads, incorporate KAATSU into your strength routine. This method uses soft cuffs or bands around your arms or legs to gently restrict blood flow during exercise. The mild restriction encourages your muscles to work harder at a cellular level, helping you gain strength and endurance using only light weights or bodyweight movements.

You can even use it while walking, stretching, or performing simple mobility drills to boost circulation and speed recovery. For anyone looking to build strength safely and sustain progress long term, KAATSU is a smart way to do more with less effort.

3. Use moderate cardio to recharge your immune system — Walking, cycling or swimming at a comfortable pace strengthens your mitochondria and keeps your immune cells resilient. This type of moderate-intensity exercise increases mitochondrial density and oxygen efficiency, allowing your body to produce more energy with less strain.

Think of moderate cardio, such as one hour of daily walking, as your system’s “reset button” — it clears inflammation, enhances blood flow and keeps your cells functioning youthfully without overtaxing recovery.

4. Alternate intensity to protect your recovery — Mixing light, moderate and resistance-based workouts gives your cells time to adapt and repair. Avoid consecutive high-intensity days — alternate resistance sessions with moderate endurance-focused movement or active rest. This balance keeps cortisol, your primary stress hormone, in check and ensures your mitochondria aren’t overworked. When you finish a session, you should feel recharged, not depleted.

5. Fuel your workouts with real food and protect mitochondrial energy — Even the best training plan falters if your mitochondria are clogged by toxic fats. Eliminate vegetable oils like canola, soybean, corn, sunflower and safflower — all high in linoleic acid (LA), a polyunsaturated fat that disrupts cellular energy production.

Instead, cook with grass fed butter, ghee or tallow, and avoid high-LA meats like chicken and pork. This shift restores energy production and supports faster recovery. Pair this with nutrient-dense whole foods and healthy carbohydrates like fruit and root vegetables to sustain mitochondrial performance and stable blood sugar.

The secret to reversing insulin resistance and aging well isn’t relentless effort — it’s intelligent movement combined with metabolic care. Exercise should energize, not exhaust you. By pairing short resistance sessions with KAATSU, moderate cardio and mitochondrial support through whole-food nutrition, you’ll build lasting strength, endurance and vitality — without burning out your body in the process.

FAQs About the Best Type of Exercise for Preventing Diabetes and Obesity

Q: Which type of exercise is better for preventing diabetes and obesity — weightlifting or cardio?

A: Both resistance and endurance training are beneficial, but they work in very different ways. Resistance training was more effective at improving blood sugar control, insulin sensitivity and reducing body fat, while endurance training primarily improved cardiovascular function and stamina. In short, strength training is more effective for reversing insulin resistance, while cardio supports heart and immune health.

Q: How much exercise is ideal for balancing blood sugar without overtraining?

A: You don’t need long or intense workouts to see results. Just 20 minutes of focused resistance training twice a week, combined with moderate daily movement like brisk walking, provides metabolic and immune benefits. Pushing too hard — such as doing vigorous cardio for more than four to seven hours a week — backfires by increasing stress hormones and inflammation, which worsen insulin resistance.

Q: What is KAATSU training, and how does it help?

A: KAATSU, or BFR training, involves using soft cuffs or bands around your arms or legs to gently limit blood flow during exercise. This mild restriction triggers powerful muscle-building and anti-inflammatory signals, allowing you to gain strength using very light weights or even bodyweight. It’s especially useful for older adults, those with joint pain or injuries, and anyone who wants to maximize strength without heavy lifting.

Q: Why is moderate cardio still important if strength training works better for metabolism?

A: While lifting weights helps your body regulate glucose and reduce fat storage, cardio plays a key role in keeping your immune system strong and your mitochondria healthy. Moderate endurance activities like walking, cycling or swimming improve oxygen use and blood flow, helping your immune cells stay “younger” and more resilient. The key is to keep cardio moderate — enough to energize you, not exhaust you.

Q: How does diet tie into exercise for diabetes prevention and metabolic health?

A: Even the best exercise routine can’t outwork a poor diet. Protect your mitochondria by eliminating seed oils (like canola, soybean, corn and sunflower) and focusing on whole foods. Cook with healthy fats such as grass fed butter, ghee, or tallow, and include nutrient-rich carbs like fruits and root vegetables to fuel your workouts. Together, balanced nutrition and smart exercise retrain your metabolism to stay youthful, efficient and resilient.

Posted in BFR, Blood, Diabetes, Exercise, Immunity, Obesity | No Comments »

Posted by: | Posted on: December 28, 2025

A Surprising Reason Why You May Need More Carbs in Your Diet


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/12/28/surprising-reason-why-you-may-need-more-carbs.aspx
Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola     December 28, 2025

Story at-a-glance

  • A ketogenic diet can be very useful initially when transitioning people who are metabolically inflexible. However, continuing in ketosis long term can lead to problems, including stubborn weight gain or the inability to lose unwanted weight
  • The reason for this has to do with cortisol. Your body needs glucose, and when deprived for too long, your body will release cortisol to stimulate the production of glucose by your liver. Cortisol also promotes inflammation and central obesity, so you don’t want chronically elevated cortisol levels
  • Your metabolic rate is strongly affected by the type of sugar you consume. High-fructose corn syrup promotes ill health while whole fruit, raw honey, and pure organic cane sugar are readily metabolized without promoting weight gain
  • When adding in more carbs, you also need to reduce your fat intake to avoid elevating your triglycerides
  • Restricting dietary fat and/or blocking the oxidation of fat inside of the cell have strong therapeutic effects against cancer by forcing the cell out of its excessive fatty acid oxidation state

In this interview, Georgi Dinkov and I continue our discussion about diet, diving into some of the finer details that can make or break your health. Dinkov is a student of Ray Peat, who passed away around Thanksgiving 2022, leaving behind a legacy of iconoclastic wisdom on how to optimize biological health.

For example, a ketogenic diet can be very useful initially when transitioning people who are metabolically inflexible, which is about 95% of the population of the United States. So, in the short term, the vast majority of people can benefit from going keto. However, if you continue in ketosis long term, you’re going to run into problems.

Elevated Cortisol Leads to Central Obesity

As just one example, while weight loss is a typical response when going on a ketogenic diet, months later, maintaining that weight loss often becomes a struggle again. Dinkov experienced this firsthand. Once he started following Ray Peat’s recommendations, he lost the weight again and kept it off.

“My take is it’s an endocrine problem,” Dinkov says. “So if you’re struggling with weight you cannot lose, I think it’s a good idea to do a blood work [panel] for the steroids … Every single person that has been struggling with excessive weight that has emailed [me] their blood results, without exception, their cortisol is either high-normal or above the range, both the AM and the PM value.

Their thyroid is less than optimal, in fact, pretty bad for most people … They’re at the upper limit of normal. A very large number of people are basically hypothyroid … I think we are eating foods that are lowering our metabolic rate. We’re living an excessively stressful lifestyle.

That’s probably not a surprise for anybody. Many people think, well, stress is good for you. It’s good as a hormetic response in an acute situation, but not when you have chronically elevated cortisol. Every doctor will tell you if you have a chronic elevated cortisol, you will develop the so-called spectrum of Cushing syndrome …

One of the defining features of elevated cortisol is that you have central obesity. So that, to me, is really the problem. We have higher than desirable levels of stress, suboptimal diet, and we’re surrounded by a number of different endocrine disrupters which are now proven to reliably cause obesity in animal models, even in very small amounts. Most of those are found in plastics.”

Why I Changed My Mind About Low-Carb Diets

One of the foundational concepts of health that I’ve had to radically revise my thinking on, based on the work of the late Ray Peat and his student Georgi Dinkov, is the idea that eating a low-carb diet long-term is the best way to optimize your metabolic and mitochondrial health.

I now realize that this was misguided, and the reason for that has to do with the fact that your body requires glucose and if you aren’t eating it you will go into a hypoglycemic coma and die. Obviously, your body has safeguards to prevent that and the major one is the hormone cortisol.

In medical school, we learned that cortisol is a glucocorticoid. Gluco means glucose (sugar) and cortico means it comes from the adrenal cortex. It’s also another word for steroid. We were told that cortisol is responsible for maintaining glucose homeostasis but led to believe its primary purpose was for inflammation.

Well, that’s just not true. While cortisol certainly contributes to glucose balance, its primary purpose is to raise your blood sugar when it is too low and you don’t have enough glycogen reserves in your liver.

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How Does Cortisol Work?

But just how does cortisol increase your blood sugar? It does it by breaking down your muscles, bones, and brain. It sacrifices your lean muscle mass to release amino acids that your liver converts to glucose in a process called gluconeogenesis.

So, ultimately, cortisol also is going to cause inflammation and impair your immune function. And it increases food cravings. So, you do not want your cortisol to be elevated. For a long time, I was a proponent of a low-carb diet, but now I realize that chronic low-carb is not a good idea.

As a fuel, glucose is vastly superior to fat, and this was something I simply got wrong. The same thing goes for fasting. Both low-carb and fasting are great interventions in the short-term for those who are overweight and metabolically inflexible.

However, once you’ve regained your metabolic flexibility, it is important to revise your strategy and add healthy carbs back in, or else these strategies will backfire and lead to decreased metabolic health, compromised mitochondrial function, and impaired metabolism.

Cortisol happens to be the primary aging hormone. If it is chronically elevated, you simply will die prematurely as it is highly catabolic, meaning it will break down your body tissues. To stay healthy as you age, you need to be anabolic and build healthy tissues like muscle and mitochondria. Elevated cortisol will seriously impair those efforts.

Important Cautions Before You Increase Carbs

So, it is clear that you need to be doing everything you can to keep your cortisol levels and chronic inflammation low. But it would also be a major mistake to increase your carb intake if you are still on a high-fat diet. I did this experiment in the mid-80s after I read the book by the Diamonds called Fit for Life.

They suggested having fruit only for breakfast which I tried. Then I did my lab work and found my fasting triglycerides and lipoprotein profiles had exploded for the worse. I prematurely concluded that a high fruit diet was nonsense and remained relatively low carb for nearly four decades.

This was until I encountered Ray Peat’s work and reevaluated my initial impression. I now understand that I was missing important parts of the strategy. And now I eat 3 to 4 pounds of watermelon (without the rind) virtually every morning at 5:30 as my first meal, followed by three eggs and eight ounces of white rice and two ounces of maple syrup 1 to 2 hours later.

That sounds like a lot of carbs, and it is. I have additional fruits later in the day and now my carb intake is about 475 grams a day and comprises about 60% of my daily calories. You might wonder what has happened to my weight and blood sugar with all these extra carbs.

Well, I thought my weight was good at 192 as I increased my muscle mass, but it has decreased by ten pounds to 182 with no change in muscle mass. My fasting blood sugar has dropped ten points. So far it seems to be working for me.

The Vital Metabolic Switch You Need to Understand

This is one of the most important principles in food science that I never learned or understood until later. My strong guess is that this is also true for most natural medicine clinicians. Low-carb diets have helped at least tens of millions of people improve their health for a very good reason and that is there is a stealth switch that controls what fuel your mitochondria can burn as they can only burn one fuel at a time, either fat or glucose.

The switch has been given the name the Randle Cycle, but it is more helpful to visualize it as a railroad switch that changes the tracks of the train, and the train can only travel down one track not both. This is because only one type of fuel can be burned at a time.

The best-case scenario is you metabolize, or burn, glucose in your mitochondria without any reductive stress (a term I will explain in my upcoming interview with Georgi Dinkov). When you do this, you will only generate 0.1% reactive oxygen species (ROS).

Not only does this route generate less ROS but is also incredibly efficient at energy production by creating 36 to 38 ATP for every molecule of glucose that is metabolized. It will also generate metabolic water and carbon dioxide which are also important for your health.

For this to occur you will need to consume less than 30% of your calories as fat. When you consume significantly more than that amount the switch changes to burn fat in your mitochondria and you will not be able to burn glucose until your fat decreases to less than 30% of calories.

Since glucose is unable to be shuttled into the mitochondria to burn it winds up backing up into your blood stream raising your blood sugar. This is a major contributor to diabetes. What little glucose is burned for fuel is done by using glycolysis which is a primitive pathway that bacteria and cancer cells use.

It is great we have this pathway as you absolutely need it for quick fuel when you are activating your type II muscle fibers. But if this is the primary way you burn glucose you are in a catastrophic metabolic state as you are creating loads of lactic acid as a waste product instead of healthy CO2, and you are only generating 2 ATP for every molecule of glucose, which is 95% less energy.

Lactic acid increases reductive stress, which causes reverse electron flow in the mitochondria and causes reductive stress which increase the ROS to 3% to 4% which is 30X to 40X more than when glucose is burned efficiently in the mitochondria. You likely don’t yet understand reductive stress, the opposite of oxidative stress, but will have done an interview with Georgi on this and will be posting it later this month.

How High-Fructose Corn Syrup Causes Disease

One factor that makes a big difference in your metabolic rate is the type of sugar you consume. Contrary to popular belief, there’s a dramatic difference between high-fructose corn syrup and cane sugar. They’re really two different foods. If the high-fructose corn syrup is properly processed to remove all starch, then it’s very similar to cane sugar because it’s about 55% fructose and 45% glucose.

However, studies have shown beverages sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup contain a tremendous amount of starch, which isn’t accounted for in the calories listed on the label. Once the starch is factored in, the caloric content of many sodas can easily quadruple that on the label, so you’re getting FAR more calories than you think.

Additionally, because the starch is made up of such tiny particles, they can enter your blood circulation unprocessed via your digestive system, causing an allergic reaction.

They can also trigger a low-grade inflammatory reaction, which will trigger the release of histamine, nitric oxide, and serotonin. As noted by Dinkov, if you’re sneezing and have itchy eyes even though it’s not allergy season, you may well be having a reaction to something you ate or drank, and high-fructose corn syrup may be the culprit.

Starch particles also serve as fuel for pathogenic bacteria in your gut, and the endotoxins from these bacteria contribute to inflammatory conditions. Small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is one example of what can happen, especially if you’re on a proton pump inhibitor, as these drugs decrease the amount of stomach acid you’re producing. Stomach acid is there not only to help with digestion but also to keep bacteria in check.

“If you’re not producing a sufficient amount of acid, you’re going to get bacteria colonizing your small intestine, either from food or creeping up from the large intestine. And that’s not a good thing. Basically … the portion of the intestine that is supposed to be clean and just focused on absorbing food is now harboring a microbiome.

And then, if you give it any kind of a food that the bacteria can process, you’re increasing the turnover [which] result in the endotoxemia that is now accepted to cause a large number of diseases, especially cardiovascular disease, obesity, and neurological disease.

Alzheimer’s has been conclusively tied to chronic low-grade endotoxemia. They’re still claiming there’s a genetic component to it, but they’re now admitting that endotoxin is a causative factor in Alzheimer’s disease,” Dinkov says.

Can Cane Sugar Be Part of a Healthy Diet?

Most people who embrace natural health believe sugar is a pernicious evil, but Peat’s and Dinkov’s position is that the negative effects are primarily caused by high-fructose corn syrup, and that pure cane sugar can actually be a useful strategy to counteract some of the challenges that people can get into when on a strict low-carb diet. Dinkov explains:

“Cane sugar, if it’s pure, has a very different overall systemic health effect than high-fructose corn syrup … I think most of the sugar sold in the crystal form, especially organic ones, is pretty safe. Heavy metal contamination used to be a problem in sugar distillation but it looks like most of the western countries have sorted this out …

Now, some people that have an issue with sugar are saying, ‘Well, it’s just empty calories and whatnot.’ Multiple studies demonstrated that honey, which is very similar in composition to plain white sugar, does not trigger the normal hyperglycemic response that most of the other simple carbohydrates do. In fact, it improves the hyperglycemia in Type 2 diabetic patients despite being pure sugar.

I think that’s the greatest confirmation that we have that sugar is not evil. It depends how you’re getting it and in what form. One animal study demonstrated that rats, when given free access to [Mexican] Coke sweetened with cane sugar, they were eating the equivalent of 8,000 calories daily … without gaining an ounce of fat.

So sugar is not dangerous. It’s perhaps the only nutrient that we evolved to metabolize for fuel. But the other two micronutrients, even though we can metabolize them as fuel, come with a lot of strings attached …

If you’re oxidizing PUFA, then all hell breaks loose. If you’re oxidizing saturated fats, it’s far less dangerous. But in the long run it still puts you, due to the Randle cycle, into the semi-diabetic state because it decreases your insulin sensitivity.

So pure sugar is what we are meant to oxidize for fuel. If you get it from ripe fruit, great. If you can get it from [raw unadulterated] honey, probably just as good if not even better. But if not, then the pure white variety, preferably organic, that you get from the store, I think is a very good source of most of the carb calories that you intend to eat throughout the day.”

The Glucose-Cortisol Link

In my book “Fat for Fuel,” I argued that healthy saturated fats generate fewer free radical species in the electron transport chain than sugar. However, I’m starting to revise my views on this, based on Peat’s work.

The problem is that if your glucose level is low because you’re on a low-carb diet, your body is going to compensate by self-generating glucose, and that stimulus to make glucose is part of the obesity puzzle, because one of the ways in which your body produces glucose is by secreting cortisol.

And, as explained by Dinkov, if your cortisol is chronically elevated, you end up with central obesity and chronic inflammation, which clearly isn’t good. So, you’ve got to have a certain amount of glucose, and it’s best to get it from your diet rather than forcing your liver to make it, as cortisol is then also being churned out. Dinkov explains:

“If glucose is oxidized properly going through the Krebs Cycle and electron transport chain, it generates more carbon dioxide per molecule of glucose oxidized than do fats.

Now, carbon dioxide has this kind of controversial role in medicine. It used to be considered a metabolic byproduct that could be dangerous. People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have higher than normal levels of carbon dioxide in the blood.

But then, medicine started to look into this more closely, I think, over the last 10 years, outside of Dr. Pete’s research, and said, ‘Hm. Carbon dioxide seems to have a lot of positive effects in the body.’ One of them is vasodilation.

So basically, if your metabolism is not working properly, if you’re not oxidizing glucose properly, you’re not going to produce sufficient amounts of carbon dioxide. What happens then? Vasoconstriction. And since that is actually a problem, it raises blood pressure and all kinds of other things; all hell breaks loose. The body then releases an emergency vasodilator, known as nitric oxide. And that is now acquiring a bad reputation.

Even in mainstream medical circles, they’ve started seeing that people who are taking the drug nitroglycerin, which used to be the mainstream drug for angina — chest pain — for cardiovascular disease and blood pressure.

With nitroglycerin, you’ll quickly lower blood pressure. But over time, the inflammatory nature of nitric oxide ensures that these people actually get worse. And, in fact, most people who take nitroglycerin on a long-term basis die from a heart attack or ischemic stroke.

So, if you’re not eating enough glucose, your body will make it. And, in fact, the primary evolutionary role of cortisol, the acute role, is actually preventing blood glucose from dropping too low, because that will put you into a hypoglycemic coma.

In the longer run its secondary role is to dampen down inflammation. So really, the acute, the lifesaving role of cortisol on a daily basis, is to prevent you from dropping into a coma because your blood glucose went too low.

But we don’t want that process because it’s going to get the glucose from the tissues. So, we need glucose [in our diet]. I think even the ketogenic proponents are now getting to the point of saying, ‘We cannot be always in ketosis.’ In the long term, it’s not good.”

Will Sugar Feed Cancer?

Ketogenic diets have also been hailed for their ability to prevent and treat cancer, but even this may turn out to be a misunderstanding in the end.

“I think some of the ideas around glucose feeding cancer stem from two basic misunderstandings,” Dinkov says. “One is that cancer is an evil cell, genetically mutated, and that your only chance is to kill all of those cells because they’re not going away by themselves.

First of all, that’s not true. Spontaneous remissions of cancer are known, and they vary depending on the cancer. Prostate cancer has a pretty high rate of spontaneous remission … A paper that came about five years ago … from the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas … said it’s always been the position of medicine that cancerous mutations [happen] and after that, the cell becomes metabolically deranged.

But it looks like we’ve had it backwards. It’s the metabolic derangement that happens first, and, over time, this triggers the genetic mutations, because the cell, being in an energetic deficiency, cannot properly maintain its structure. That was a huge admission …

So what we need to be doing here is not trying to kill the cancer cell, because it is not a cancer cell. It is actually a normal cell that is metabolically deranged.

If we could compare it to anything, it’d be a diabetic cell [and] diabetes is now known to be caused by hyperlipidemia — too much fat in the body, too much fat in the blood. Basically, the cells are getting stuck in oxidizing fats, due to the Randle cycle.

And then, the glucose that’s floating around in diabetes, a good portion of it — because it cannot be metabolized — is being peed out … or you’re converting it into lactic acid. This [MD Anderson] paper said the exact same thing is happening in cancer.

We are seeing an abnormal rate of fatty acid oxidation, because the cell is stuck in the cycle due to oversupply of fat.

The glucose, the ‘cancer cell’ cannot actually metabolize it, but because the cell needs its glucose for a variety of purposes — not just synthesizing energy, but also synthesizing DNA and RNA, and those two … can only be synthesized from glucose, not from fats — the cancer cell says, ‘Oh, I’m in a state of extreme deficiency of glucose. Give me more.’

So, it increases the synthesis of these glucose transporters known as GLUT1 through GLUT4. Basically, that’s why when you give a patient with cancer a little bit of radioactive sugar, it accumulates mostly into the tumor, because the tumor has a much higher capacity for uptake of sugar.

However, and this is the key difference, it has a much lower capacity for oxidizing that sugar. So, you’re going to see a lot of radioactive sugar accumulation in the tumor, but most of it will get converted to lactic acid. So this paper that came out said, ‘We need to do something that gets the cell out of its stressed state.’

And I think we already agreed that excessive oxidation of fat is a stress state. Right? We don’t want to produce lactic acid, and as long as we are over-oxidizing fat, we will be producing lactic acid, and we will be uptaking more glucose …

Several studies have come out since then … and they said, ‘OK, how can we restrict the supply of fat?’ assuming the fat is the problem. There’s only really two macronutrients that can go to the cell. Assuming cancer is a metabolic disease, and assuming a cell can only oxidize fat or sugar, then if it’s not the sugar, it’s got to be the fat. There’s nothing else.

And if it’s not the mutations, if the mutations are secondary to the metabolic derangement, it’s got to be one of these two macronutrients that we can manipulate to actually try to cure the cancer. They already tried glucose restriction … That did not cure cancer. It did have a sensitizing effect to chemotherapy, but it did not result in actual cancer remission.

So now we’re back to the other micronutrient, restricting the supply of fat. Multiple studies … I have at least 30 on my blog … have shown that restricting lipolysis by administering the beta blocker propranolol … lowers lipolysis.

The way [propranolol] lowers blood pressure is by blocking adrenaline. If you’re blocking adrenaline, you’re also lowering lipolysis, because adrenaline is the primary activator of the hormone-sensitive lipase enzyme. Basically, you’re going to be restricting the supply of fat from your own tissues to the tumor.

What else can be done? Well, that’s not the only source of fat. You’re also getting it through the diet. Other studies have tried doing low-fat diets for cancer, and are getting actually good results. Not cure, but good results. The propranolol induced full remission in the cancer.”

Summary

Dinkov also cites research in which the beta oxidation inhibitor etomoxir, prescribed for heart disease, induced full remission in neuroglioblastoma, which is thought to be incurable. So, in summary, either restricting dietary fat or blocking the oxidation of fat inside the cell appears to have strong therapeutic effects against cancer by forcing the cell out of its excessive fatty acid oxidation state.

“And, once you do that, there’s no metabolic damage preventing the cell from oxidizing glucose,” Dinkov says. “It’s all functional. If you flood the cell with fat then, basically, that’s what the cell will oxidize, because it’s overabundant relative to the glucose that is getting to the cell. If you stop that process, or at least greatly restrict it, the cell starts oxidizing glucose again.”

The Devil in the Details

Here, I’d like to share a personal story. In an effort to adopt this new knowledge, I increased my carbohydrate intake to about 250 grams to 300 grams, depending on the day and the fruit availability. When I got my blood work back, I was surprised to find my triglycerides were in the low triple digits, just over 100, which is abnormal.

Normally, I’m closer to 50. In my clinical experience, elevated triglycerides is almost always related to excessive carbohydrate intake, which seems to conflict with what Dinkov just explained. But here’s the key: When you increase carbohydrates, you also have to lower fat. If you don’t, you could end up with complications, as just happened to me. So, now I’m lowering my fat intake. Dinkov confirms my experience:

“Most of the animal studies say, ‘High sugar diet causes this. High sugar diet causes that.’ But if you look at their diets, these animals are already on a high-fat diet. All they did was add more sugar on top of it. Well, of course, in a situation like that, you’re going to have an increase in the triglycerides, increase in LDL cholesterol, because the body can synthesize cholesterol from the sugars.

So, you’re going to get these biomarkers associated with cardiovascular disease to increase, but it’s actually not really a fair comparison. What you should be doing is keeping the diets isocaloric, the same. And also, not increase the total amount of calories, just replace some of that fat with sugar …

Another thing that is probably important is that since there’s always some baseline lipolysis going on, when you’re increasing the carbohydrate intake, the excess that cannot get metabolized will get converted to triglycerides and then stored.

When you are increasing the carbohydrate intake, you should be decreasing the amount of fat. If you’re not, then at least you should be taking something that stimulates the oxidation of carbohydrate so that it doesn’t result in the raising of triglycerides.

Aspirin, caffeine, especially vitamin B-3 niacinamide, all of these are known to lower triglycerides and, by now, the consensus mechanism of action is that all three of these components are increasing the oxidation of carbohydrates.

So, if you’re increasing carbohydrates and you’re getting an increase in triglycerides, two things, either you’re eating too much fat or your baseline metabolic rate is not where it should be, so you can use some metabolic stimulation from these substances.”

In addition to increasing the oxidation of glucose as fuel, aspirin, caffeine, and niacinamide may also inhibit the oxidation of fatty acids, specifically linoleic acid, and the most foundational strategy that anyone could implement to improve their health is to lower their linoleic acid, the omega-6 intake. These supplements will also lower inflammation, which in turn will lower your baseline cortisol.

The metabolite of aspirin, salicylic acid, also has an inhibitory effect on the enzyme 11-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase Type 1. This enzyme synthesizes active cortisol from the inactive precursor cortisone.

“So, aspirin will actually lower your synthesis of cortisol directly, not just by lowering inflammation, but also lowering the actual synthesis of cortisol,” Dinkov explains. “A study demonstrated that baby aspirin, 81-100 milligrams daily, decreased fatty acid oxidation by about 30% …

Aspirin also has an anti-lipolytic effect, not as strong as niacinamide, but it’s got these three different things that are basically helping to lower both the supply of fat to the cell and excessive oxidation of fats even at these tiny dosages.”

Be mindful about the aspirin you use, though. Immediate-release aspirin made with cornstarch is the preferred version that is now hard to find. Extended-release aspirin is not recommended due to the additives they put in it. Your best option would be to use a salicylic acid or willow bark supplement.

Benefits of Vitamin E

Dinkov also reviews the benefits of other supplements, such as vitamin E, which inhibits lipolysis, improves glucose metabolism, acts as an estrogen antagonist and helps counteract much of the damage caused by linoleic acid and other polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs).

According to Dinkov, research suggests your need for vitamin E can be directly calculated by your PUFA intake. You need about 2 milligrams of vitamin E from all sources per gram of PUFA that you’re eating. So, if you’re eating 50 grams of PUFA daily — which is about 10 times what you should be getting — you need about 100 mg of total tocopherol.

Importantly, PUFAs aren’t just the omega-6s. It’s also omega-3. In the interview, Dinkov goes into detail as to why omega-3 supplements such as fish oil are mostly garbage and shouldn’t be used. I also wrote an article about this very topic.

Whole food, in this case, small fatty fish and wild-caught Alaskan salmon are really your best bet. It’s virtually impossible to find fish oil that’s not rancid. So, to review, when you’re calculating your PUFA intake you also need to include your omega-3s. Ideally, your daily PUFA intake would be below 10 grams.

Dinkov’s Dietary Suggestions

In closing, Dinkov reviews some of his top dietary recommendations for optimal health. No. 1 is keeping PUFA intake below 10 grams; below 5 grams would be even better. No. 2 is to avoid high-fructose corn syrup when adding carbs. Stick with the simple sugars from ripe fruit, raw honey (make sure it’s not adulterated with high-fructose corn syrup, as many are) and/or pure organic cane sugar.

As for the macro composition of your diet, equal amounts of fat, healthy carbs, and protein seem to be best for otherwise healthy individuals, so he recommends getting one-third or 33% of your daily calories from each. If you have metabolic problems or some kind of inflammatory disease, he recommends cutting down on fats.

Lower fat intake will also allow your body to digest protein better, as bile acids are released in response to fat, and bile interferes with the absorption of protein. Next, he recommends adding:

  • Vitamin E, based on your PUFA intake (as detailed above)
  • Aspirin or willow bark extract
  • Niacinamide at a dose of 50 mg to a max of 100 mg, three times a day. In addition to antiobesity effects, niacinamide will also help synthesize NAD+, which has important health benefits
  • Caffeine — BC powder, sold as a headache remedy, contains both aspirin and caffeine. According to Dinkov, research has shown that taking caffeine with aspirin increases the blood concentrations of both and prolongs their effects. Taking 50 mg of aspirin with 50 mg of caffeine can raise your metabolic rate by about 7% and keep it elevated for up to 12 hours
  • Copper — Copper is the rate limiting factor for cytochrome c oxidase (Complex 4). With aging, the amount of copper in that enzyme decreases while iron increases, and the less copper you have, the lower your metabolic rate. Ideally, get your copper from whole foods such as liver, oysters, shrimp, or acerola cherry. If using a supplement, bisglycinate is a good option with high bioavailability

How to Apply This When Using Time-Restricted Eating (TRE)

If you’re using time-restricted eating, or considering starting, then this final side note will be important. If you’re metabolically inflexible, insulin resistant, and unable to easily switch between burning sugar and fat as your primary fuel, then a TRE program, such as that described by Dr. Mindy Pelz in my interview with her, may be quite beneficial, and this is true whether you’re eating a ketogenic diet or not.

However, once you regain your metabolic flexibility, which can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, you will need to increase your eating window. The reason for this goes back to the glucose-cortisol connection, Dinkov explains in this interview. Your body needs glucose, and if you deprive it for too long, it will produce cortisol to stimulate your liver to make it.

This increased cortisol can contribute to chronic inflammation and cellular damage. Therefore, once you are no longer insulin resistant, it is best to vary your eating window between eight and 12 hours, and avoid going lower or higher than that window. It is also best to avoid eating before sunrise or after sunset and at least three hours before bedtime.

More Information

To learn more, be sure to listen to the entire interview, as we dive into far greater detail than what I’ve summarized here. Georgi is an absolute fire hydrant when it comes to biochemical details.

Also check out Georgi’s blog at www.haidut.me or follow him on Twitter. You can also obtain a major sampling of Ray Peat’s work for free by going to these two sites: wiki.chadnet.org/Ray-Peat and RayPeat.com.

Posted in Cancer, Carbohydrates, Cortisol, Fructose, Glucose, Metabolism, Obesity, Sugar | No Comments »

Posted by: | Posted on: December 2, 2025

Obesity Drives Alzheimer’s Through Fat Vesicles and Leptin


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/12/02/obesity-drives-alzheimers.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola     December 02, 2025

obesity drives alzheimers

Story at-a-glance

  • Obesity increases Alzheimer’s risk by altering how fat-derived vesicles communicate with the brain, causing amyloid proteins to misfold and form toxic plaques that damage neurons and impair cognition
  • Specific lipids from obese individuals, including sphingolipids and ceramides, create oxidative stress in brain cells, reduce mitochondrial energy production, and accelerate the formation of sticky amyloid aggregates
  • Excessive fat consumption promotes Alzheimer’s development, though balanced, controlled intake at lower concentrations helps inhibit amyloid aggregation and reduce disease risk
  • Leptin resistance from obesity prevents this protective hormone from reaching the brain, disabling the cleanup process that normally breaks down amyloid proteins while worsening inflammation and cognitive decline
  • Cellular health restoration requires eliminating four key factors — excess linoleic acid from vegetable oils, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, electromagnetic fields, and endotoxins in the gut

Despite advances in health care, the obesity epidemic in America continues to worsen. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 40.3% of adults are already obese,1 and nearly 7 out of 10 U.S. adults meet the criteria for obesity under a new, more comprehensive definition published in JAMA Network Open.2

The new standard — previously proposed by an international panel of experts in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology3 — goes beyond body mass index (BMI) to include waist and hip measurements that reveal hidden fat conventional BMI misses.

The implications of these figures are serious, as excess body fat increases the risk of other health complications, such as diabetes and stroke.4

Now, new research shows that obesity is also a risk factor in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.5 Based on the findings, excess body fat alters how amyloid proteins fold, causing them to clump and eventually cause cognitive issues.6

Obesity Drives Brain Plaque Formation Through the Vesicles

In a study published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, researchers investigated how fat tissue communicates with the brain through microscopic particles known as vesicles. These are tiny cellular packages inside or outside the cell, and they carry fats, proteins, and genetic material.

The study’s focus was on whether these vesicles, released from human fat cells, influence the buildup of amyloid plaques — sticky clusters of protein thought to play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.7

The researchers analyzed vesicles from adults with varying body fat levels and looked at how the fat-derived particles affected the behavior of amyloid proteins. Amyloid proteins are normally harmless, but when they begin to clump together, they form plaques that interfere with neuron communication.

• Obesity is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease — The team found that vesicles taken from people with more body fat changed the way amyloid molecules are assembled. These altered vesicles made amyloid clump faster and form denser, more toxic structures that are harder for the brain to clear away.

What makes this finding important is that it shows how your body fat obstructs cellular communication. The study revealed that when fat cells are overloaded, they send distorted signals through your vesicles. These signals carry lipids that change how brain proteins behave. In this case, those changes accelerate Alzheimer’s disease.

• The specific lipids inside the vesicles were not random — Obese individuals had vesicles rich in certain sphingolipids and ceramides — types of fats that directly influence inflammation and cell death. These compounds act like biological irritants, creating oxidative stress in neurons. Over time, that environment makes it easier for amyloid to stick together.

• The researchers also explored how these vesicles affect brain cells in a controlled lab setting — When human neural cells were exposed to vesicles from obese individuals, they observed increased cellular stress and decreased mitochondrial activity.

As you know, mitochondria are the cell’s energy factories. When they slow down, neurons lose energy, and their ability to process and clear waste — like amyloid — drops sharply. This loss of cellular energy is the same foundational issue that drives many chronic diseases, from diabetes to neurodegeneration.

• The study uncovered that these vesicles alter how amyloid folds at the molecular level — Normal amyloid proteins are flexible, but once these lipid-filled vesicles interact with them, the proteins take on a rigid structure — an abnormal configuration known to trigger plaque formation. This misfolding is what makes amyloid sticky, causing it to glue together into toxic aggregates that choke neurons.

Essentially, the lipid content of your fat vesicles rewires the shape of a brain protein that determines whether your neurons stay healthy or die.

• Too much fat of any kind is harmful — Another notable observation made by the researchers is how both saturated fat and unsaturated fat, at high levels, drive Alzheimer’s disease. In other words, even if you think you’re getting healthy fat from your diet, too much of it will eventually cause a reaction similar to consuming unhealthy fat:8

“[T]he convergent finding is that both saturated and unsaturated fatty acids can promote Aβ fibrillization at relatively high concentrations approaching lipotoxic conditions.”

• Striking a balance in fat consumption is important — In relation to the point above, controlling your fat intake can lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. According to the researchers:9

“Crucially some lipids exhibit concentration-dependent biphasic effects — promoting aggregation at higher levels yet inhibiting it at lower doses — highlighting the need for nuanced control of lipid microenvironments when considering therapeutic interventions or interpreting disease mechanisms.”

Another Study Examines the Obesity Angle of Alzheimer’s Disease

In a paper published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, researchers analyzed how obesity-driven changes in leptin directly increase the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. For context, leptin is a hormone produced by your body’s fat tissue that signals when you have eaten enough. From there, they focused on a concept called leptin resistance, which “perpetuates diseases such as dementia.”10

• What happens to your body when it begins to resist leptin — The researchers noted that leptin is strongly linked to impaired memory, slower learning, and higher risk for brain degeneration. Normally, leptin travels through the bloodstream to the brain, where it interacts with neurons in areas responsible for memory and learning, such as the hippocampus.

In healthy individuals, leptin supports the formation of new connections between brain cells and protects neurons from stress. But in people with obesity, the brain ignores leptin. The result is a double whammy — hunger control worsens, leading to more weight gain, while the brain loses one of its key protective hormones.

• Leptin influences how brain cells handle amyloid-beta — In normal conditions, leptin helps reduce amyloid levels by activating a cleanup process that breaks the protein down. However, once leptin resistance sets in, that cleanup machinery stalls. Amyloid proteins then start clumping faster, disrupting neural communication and fueling inflammation throughout the brain.

• Your weight plays a role in the secretion of leptin — The researchers showed that leptin production is affected by fat mass, and once your body becomes resistant to it, your risk of Alzheimer’s disease increases:11

“It has been shown that leptin is secreted by adipocytes and circulates in plasma in proportion to fat mass, and changes in body weight are associated with the possibility of developing AD [Alzheimer’s disease]. Therefore, it is not surprising that different investigations try to relate dysfunctional levels in leptin signalling with AD.

Thus, in some studies, low plasma leptin levels in old age have been found to be associated with an increased risk of cognitive decline and AD development.”

• Inflammation drives leptin resistance — As found in another study, obesity creates low-grade inflammation throughout the body.12 With this in mind, the featured study noted that this chronic state prevents leptin from crossing the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and into the central nervous system (CNS):13

“Low-grade inflammation due to obesity drives human C-reactive protein (CRP) production by hepatocytes in vitro and in vivo in humans. It has been found that peripheral human CRP can reduce the amount of human leptin that enters the CNS, preventing its transport across the BBB and into the median eminence. Furthermore, once inside the CNS, it reduces the physiological function of human leptin.”

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Tackle Obesity to Protect Your Brain Health

When it comes to managing obesity, the usual advice is to “eat less and move more.” However, this glosses over many important things that need to be addressed to help you lose weight effectively. The real issue runs deeper than restricting calories — it’s a cellular energy dysfunction. At its core, your mitochondria aren’t working efficiently, and that’s what drives stubborn fat, constant hunger, and low energy.

Fortunately, there’s hope to turn things around. You can rebuild your cellular health by targeting what’s interfering with it. As I discuss in my book “Your Guide to Cellular Health,” there are four major factors involved. I call them the Four E’s:

•Excess linoleic acid (LA) from vegetable oils

•Estrogen overload and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs)

•Electromagnetic fields (EMFs)

•Endotoxins from an unhealthy gut

Together, these elements act like toxins that suffocate your mitochondria and throw your metabolism into chaos. When you clear them out, your body’s natural energy systems start working again. Here’s how to do it, step-by-step.

1. Minimize vegetable oil intake — Seed oils are hiding everywhere, such as in restaurant meals, processed snacks, “healthy” dressings, and baked goods. These oils are loaded with LA, a toxin that damages your mitochondria when eaten excessively. Once your mitochondria are saturated with LA, your body can’t burn fuel efficiently, and fat begins to oxidize and impact cellular function. To start reversing the damage of LA:

•Eliminate industrial vegetable oils such as canola, soybean, sunflower, safflower, corn, and grapeseed from your pantry.

•Next, replace them with metabolically friendly fats like grass-fed butter, tallow, and ghee.

•Avoid conventionally grown chicken and pork, which are often high in LA due to their ultraprocessed feed.

•Cook your own food using healthy fats since most restaurants use vegetable oils.

•Check ingredient labels carefully — vegetable oils lurk in items like almond butter, hummus, and gluten-free chips.

Reducing LA intake is one of the fastest ways to improve mitochondrial efficiency and shift your metabolism from storing fat to burning it. I recommend keeping your overall consumption below 5 grams a day, but if you can keep it below 2 grams, that’s even better.

2. Cut back exposure on endocrine disruptors — Excess estrogen affects everyone. Too much of it interferes with thyroid function and suppresses mitochondrial activity. EDCs, which are synthetic chemicals that mimic estrogen, make the problem worse. They’re found in plastics, receipts, cosmetics, tap water, and even certain medications. You can reduce your exposure from EDCs by making a few key swaps:

•Use glass and/or stainless-steel containers instead of plastic. In addition, never heat your food in plastic.

•Choose natural personal care products without chemical fragrances or parabens.

•Limit exposure to synthetic estrogens found in birth control pills and hormone replacement therapies.

•Support hormonal balance by maintaining adequate progesterone levels — progesterone counteracts excess estrogen and promotes healthy metabolism.

3. Shield your cells from EMF damage — Electromagnetic fields emitted by cellphones, 5G towers, Wi-Fi routers, and Bluetooth devices interfere with how your cells handle calcium. Essentially, too much intracellular calcium triggers oxidative stress. You can protect yourself from EMFs with these lifestyle changes:

•Keep your phone in airplane mode when not in use, especially during your sleep.

•Turn off Wi-Fi at night and move electronics out of your bedroom.

•Choose wired internet connections whenever possible.

•Avoid Bluetooth earbuds that constantly bathe your brain in invisible radiation.

•Spend time grounding outdoors. This means walking barefoot on soil or sand to help discharge excess electrical stress naturally.

4. Repair your gut to reduce endotoxins — Gut health is an important pillar of optimal wellness, as it influences every aspect of your metabolism. When harmful bacteria overgrow, they release endotoxins — compounds that damage mitochondria and trigger inflammation throughout your body. This gut-driven toxicity slows metabolism and disrupts energy balance. To fix your gut, follow these recommendations:

•If you have gut problems, temporarily avoid high-fiber foods since fiber feeds bad bacteria in a damaged gut.

•Focus on simple, gentle carbohydrates like ripe fruit and white rice until symptoms calm down. Aim for 200 to 250 grams of healthy carbohydrates a day.

•Once your digestion stabilizes, gradually reintroduce cooked vegetables, roots, and starches. These feed beneficial bacteria that produce short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, which strengthen the gut lining and restore healthy immune balance.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Obesity’s Influence on Alzheimer’s Disease

Q: How does obesity increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease?

A: Obesity alters how the body communicates at the cellular level. Fat cells release vesicles, which are microscopic carriers of fats and proteins, that distort how brain proteins fold. These changes cause amyloid proteins to clump faster and form plaques in the brain, disrupting neuron communication and contributing to Alzheimer’s disease development.

Q: What role do vesicles and lipids play in Alzheimer’s disease?

A: Vesicles from obese individuals are high in harmful fats such as sphingolipids and ceramides, which promote inflammation and oxidative stress in the brain. These conditions make amyloid proteins more likely to stick together and form toxic plaques, accelerating neurodegeneration.

Q: How does leptin resistance connect obesity to dementia?

A: Leptin is a hormone that regulates hunger and supports brain health. In obesity, the brain becomes resistant to leptin, reducing its protective effects. This leads to impaired memory, slower learning, and an increased buildup of amyloid proteins, all of which heighten the risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

Q: What lifestyle factors can worsen or improve brain health related to obesity?

A: Excessive fat intake — whether from healthy or unhealthy sources — can promote harmful amyloid buildup. Balancing fat consumption and reducing obesity-related inflammation are key. Moreover, addressing cellular energy dysfunction through healthier mitochondrial function can protect both metabolic and brain health.

Q: What practical steps can help prevent obesity-related brain damage?

A: Addressing the four E’s will help manage obesity and restore optimal cellular health:

•Excess linoleic acid — Reduce intake to less than 5 grams per day.

•Endocrine disruptors (EDCs) — Products such as plastics hamper thyroid function.

•Electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure — Radiation emitted from these devices affects intracellular calcium, resulting in oxidative stress.

•Endotoxins — Harmful bacteria release these toxic byproducts, affecting mitochondrial function. Repair gut function to minimize production.

Posted in Alzheimer's, Fat, Linoleic Acid, Obesity, Oils, Omega-3, Omega-6, Protein, Weight Loss | No Comments »

Posted by: | Posted on: December 1, 2025

Obesity Causes and Solutions


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/11/30/obesity-causes-and-solutions.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola     November 30, 2025

Story at-a-glance

  • Obesity is not just about eating too much — it develops when your cells cannot burn oxygen and fuel efficiently, leading to fat storage even at normal calorie intake
  • Polyunsaturated fats in vegetable oils slow down your metabolism, mimic hibernation signals, and make your body store fat instead of using it for energy
  • Stress hormones like cortisol and estrogen push your body further into fat storage, lowering energy, mood, and reproductive function
  • Choosing saturated fats, whole-food carbs, and simple movement helps restore your ability to burn both fat and carbohydrates effectively
  • Cutting vegetable oils and supporting cellular energy gives you a clear path to sustainable weight loss and higher daily energy

Obesity is one of the most visible health crises in the world, and it’s far more than just a cosmetic concern. It’s defined as excessive body fat that raises the risk for Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, and even certain cancers. Symptoms often include fatigue, shortness of breath, joint pain, and metabolic issues that worsen over time. Left untreated, obesity shortens lifespan and slashes quality of life.

Globally, an estimated 1 billion men and 1.11 billion women were classified as overweight or obese as of 2021, with over 3.8 billion adults projected to be overweight or obese by 2050.1 That makes obesity one of the central drivers of declining life expectancy. Every year, millions of people attempt weight-loss programs built on the idea that eating less and moving more is the simple solution. Yet, long-term data reveal that most regain the lost weight, leaving them discouraged and metabolically worse off.

That failure points to a deeper problem than calorie math. Researchers like Brad Marshall, a molecular biologist known for his work at Fire in a Bottle, and bioenergetic researcher Georgi Dinkov have been arguing that obesity stems from cellular energy imbalances. They focus on reductive stress, a condition in which your mitochondria — the tiny energy factories in your cells — struggle to burn oxygen efficiently.

When your cells cannot fully burn food for energy, the result is fat accumulation, lowered metabolic rate, and widespread dysfunction. Shifting the conversation away from willpower and toward cellular energy offers a different lens on obesity. This perspective suggests that the fats and fuels you eat directly change how your body manages energy and redefines obesity solutions.

Experts Link Obesity to Cellular Energy Failure

obesity cellular energy failure link

When your cells rely too heavily on burning fat for energy, especially under stress, it backfires. Breaking down fat uses up vitamin B2 (riboflavin), which is needed to keep one of the mitochondria’s key energy complexes (Complex II) running smoothly. Once that helper is depleted, electrons begin flowing backward in a process scientists call “reverse electron flow.” Instead of producing clean energy, this backflow generates a flood of reactive oxygen species (ROS).2

Your body reads the buildup of ROS as a stress signal. To protect itself, it lowers your metabolic rate and shifts into fat-storing mode. In other words, excessive fat burning doesn’t always help you slim down — in some cases it encourages your body to gain weight.

In a video discussion hosted by David Gornoski, Dinkov and Marshall explained why obesity is less about overeating and more about broken energy metabolism.3 They argued that your body stores fat when its cells fail to properly burn oxygen and fuel. This view challenges the standard “calories in, calories out” model that dominates mainstream advice.

• The experts drew from personal and professional experience — Marshall explained that his own struggles with weight led him into mitochondrial science and how cells use fuel. Dinkov, with a background in computer science and bioinformatics, became fascinated by biochemistry and metabolism after years of self-directed study. Their conversation aimed to help people understand why conventional approaches like calorie restriction and keto diets often fail long term.

• The focus shifted to the role of polyunsaturated fats (PUFs) — According to Marshall, “when you consume PUF [such as linoleic acid (LA) in vegetable oils] … it doesn’t burn as much oxygen, it doesn’t create as much reactive oxygen species.” In simple terms, PUF-rich vegetable oils such as soybean and canola reduce your cell’s ability to burn fuel efficiently. This incomplete burning leaves a buildup of unused energy, which your body then stores as fat.

• How this process creates reductive stress — Reductive stress means your cells have too much stored energy and not enough oxygen use to process it. In this state, certain key enzymes shut down, blocking carbohydrate burning. At the same time, fats are also left partially burned, leaving you stuck in a low-energy, fat-storing mode. Marshall described this as the body’s “switch” that favors fat-making when it senses an energy backlog.

• PUF signals mimic hibernation in animals — Dinkov pointed out that squirrels and bears load up on PUF before winter because it lowers body temperature, slows brain and reproductive function, and helps them enter a torpid state, meaning their body slows down into a low-energy, semi-hibernation mode.

Human studies show similar effects: excess PUF lowers metabolic rate, making you tired, cold, and prone to storing fat. As Dinkov explained, “You will actually gain weight because your metabolic rate will drop.”

• The hormonal side of the story — Estrogen, usually thought of as a female hormone, is a stress hormone that swells cells with water and shuts down energy production. Dinkov noted that PUF mimics estrogen inside your cells, amplifying stress signals that push your body toward fat storage. In his words, “The polyunsaturated fats mimic those effects of estrogen quite well.”

Reductive Stress Is Connected to Diseases Beyond Obesity

When cells get overloaded with energy but lack oxygen to burn it, they switch to emergency pathways that produce lactate. Dinkov explained that this is the same process seen in cancer cells and in severe diabetes, where energy is produced inefficiently. In other words, obesity and chronic disease share a root cause: blocked oxygen use at the cellular level.

• Food quality matters more than calorie count — Marshall warned that people often gain fat while eating at a calorie deficit if those calories are heavy in PUF. He contrasted this with healthy carbohydrates and saturated fats, which don’t trigger the same fat-storing pathways. He explained that the process of turning carbs into fat — known as de novo lipogenesis — doesn’t even start until a person eats more than a pound of carbs in a day, which is rare.

• The first step is to avoid PUF-rich oils and processed foods that contain them — Instead, focus on natural saturated fats like grass fed butter, tallow, or ghee, which support oxygen use and energy production. They also stressed that restoring metabolic flexibility — the ability to switch between burning fat and carbs — is key to reversing obesity.

• Shift the blame away from willpower — And move the focus toward making smarter food choices that protect your cellular energy. By avoiding PUFs like LA and supporting your metabolism with the right types of fat and carbohydrates, you give your body the tools to burn fuel instead of storing it. As Dinkov summed up, “It matters what kind of calories you’re consuming.” This means your daily choices — not genetics or endless dieting — are the lever to better health.

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How to Restore Your Metabolism and Stop Fat Storage

If you’re frustrated by weight gain despite dieting, the problem is not your willpower — it’s your cellular energy. When your cells are stuck in reductive stress from PUFs like LA, your body lowers its metabolic rate and shifts into fat-storing mode.

The way out is not starving yourself or running endless miles. It’s about fixing how your body burns fuel. These steps are designed to help you restore oxygen use, protect your mitochondria, and finally shift your body back into fat-burning mode.

1. Cut vegetable oils from your diet — If your meals include soybean oil, canola oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, or packaged foods made with them, you’re loading up on LA that slows your metabolism and mimics hibernation. Replace them with stable fats like grass fed butter, ghee, or beef tallow. As you change your cooking oils and avoid LA in ultraprocessed foods, you’ll notice your energy levels improve because your cells start burning fuel more cleanly.

2. Favor saturated fats for steady energy — Replace vegetable oils with saturated fats, which burn efficiently and support oxygen use. Think of it like putting the right fuel in an engine — it runs smoother, longer, and with fewer breakdowns. Grass fed butter, ghee, and animal fats give your cells the signal to stay active and energized, instead of shutting down into fat storage.

3. Choose carbs wisely to keep your metabolism flexible — If you’re cutting carbs to lose weight, you’re forcing your body into the same low-energy trap. Carbs, when chosen carefully, actually protect your metabolism. Whole fruits, white rice and root vegetables help your cells maintain energy balance and avoid the shutdown that comes with low oxygen use. The key is pairing these carbs with healthy fats while avoiding the PUFs that block energy production.

4. Lower your stress hormones naturally — If you often feel wired, anxious, or can’t sleep, your cortisol and estrogen are likely pushing your metabolism lower. Stress hormones tell your body to hold onto fat. Practical steps like avoiding LA in vegetable oils, getting daily sunlight and proper rest, and reducing alcohol intake help reset these hormones. By lowering the stress signals, your body regains the ability to burn instead of store energy.

5. Train your body to switch fuels with movement — If you’re sedentary, your cells lose the flexibility to burn both fat and carbs. Gentle strength training, daily walking, and light resistance work keep your mitochondria active and improve their ability to use oxygen. Think of it as reminding your metabolism how to do its job. You don’t need extreme exercise — just consistent movement that challenges your muscles and keeps energy flowing.

FAQs About Obesity

Q: Why does obesity happen if it’s not just about overeating?

A: Obesity develops when your cells can’t burn fuel efficiently. Instead of using oxygen to fully burn carbohydrates and fats, your body gets stuck in reductive stress — too much stored energy with nowhere to go. This forces your body to lower metabolism and store more fat, even if you aren’t overeating.

Q: What role do PUFs play in weight gain?

A: PUFs — such as LA found in vegetable oils like soybean, canola, and sunflower oil — reduce your ability to burn oxygen in your mitochondria. This incomplete burning triggers fat storage and acts like a hibernation signal in your body, lowering energy, brain function, and even reproductive health.

Q: How are hormones like estrogen and cortisol connected to obesity?

A: Both estrogen and cortisol act as stress signals that push your body into fat storage. PUF mimics estrogen inside your cells, amplifying water retention and shutting down energy production. High cortisol from chronic stress has the same effect, lowering metabolism and making fat harder to lose.

Q: What practical steps improve metabolism and reduce fat storage?

A: You can restore your metabolism by cutting out PUF-rich vegetable oils, replacing them with saturated fats like butter and ghee, choosing whole-food carbs, lowering stress hormones through lifestyle habits, and moving your body with walking or strength training. These steps work by improving oxygen use inside your cells.

Q: How is this approach different from conventional weight-loss advice?

A: Instead of focusing on calorie restriction or extreme diets, this method targets the root cause: broken energy metabolism. By repairing how your mitochondria burn fuel, you shift from fat storage back into fat burning, making weight loss sustainable and restoring your energy in daily life.

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Posted by: | Posted on: February 9, 2025

Fatty Liver Disease Now Affects 4 in 10 US Adults


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/02/01/rising-rates-of-fatty-liver-disease.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola     February 01, 2025

rising rates of fatty liver disease

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • Fatty liver disease can be caused by metabolic dysfunction or excessive alcohol consumption. While these are commonly divided into metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) and alcoholic fatty liver disease (ALD), they are the same disease
  • Fatty liver disease now affects 42% of U.S. adults and is prevalent among Hispanics (47%) and has no symptoms during the early stages
  • 9.6% of children ages 2 to 19 and 17.3% of 15- to 19-year-olds are now affected by fatty liver, largely due to childhood obesity and poor dietary habits like consuming processed foods
  • Alcohol-induced fatty liver progresses from simple steatosis (fat accumulation in the liver) to alcoholic hepatitis and even cirrhosis. For men, drinking more than 15 drinks weekly significantly increases risk; for women, it’s eight drinks
  • Treatment involves lifestyle changes including proper nutrition, regular exercise and maintaining a healthy weight. Even losing 7% to 10% of your body weight will significantly improve your liver health

Your liver is like a busy factory, working tirelessly to process everything you eat and drink. It performs various functions like filtering toxins, producing essential substances and helping digest food. But when this factory becomes clogged with fat, its ability to function properly is severely affected. This is what happens in fatty liver disease, a condition where excess fat accumulates in the liver.

Fatty liver disease is becoming increasingly common, with 4 out of 10 American adults now affected.1 This makes it more important than ever to understand this condition and its potential impact on your health.

While conventional medicine divides fatty liver disease into nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) or metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) and alcoholic fatty liver disease (ALD), they are still the same disease.

The key difference between them lies in the cause. While ALD is directly caused by excessive alcohol consumption, NAFLD/MASLD is not — rather, it occurs because of metabolic dysfunction.2 In 2023, the term NAFLD was replaced with MASLD (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease) to more accurately highlight its root cause.3

But again, my preferred way of describing this condition is simply fatty liver disease. The additional attribution to cause is just medical jargon that provides no additional information about the condition itself, and all three are synonyms for fatty liver disease.

MASLD vs. ALD — Understanding the Causal Differences

MASLD is a condition where fat builds up in the liver of people who don’t drink excessive amounts of alcohol. It’s a spectrum of diseases, ranging from simple steatosis, which is just the presence of extra fat in the liver, to metabolic dysfunction associated steatohepatitis or MASH (previously called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH).

MASH is a more serious form where the liver becomes inflamed, leading to damage. This inflammation is what sets MASH apart and makes it a greater health risk, as it can cause liver scarring and cirrhosis.4

MASLD is closely linked to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that often occur together. These include obesity, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Metabolic syndrome significantly increases the risk of developing MASLD. It’s like a perfect storm of health issues that puts extra stress on the liver. The presence of metabolic syndrome makes it more likely that simple fat accumulation in the liver will progress to MASH.5

Alarmingly, MASLD is becoming increasingly common in children and adolescents, with some reports saying it’s now as prevalent as childhood asthma.6 MASLD affects up to 9.6% of American children aged 2 to 19 and 17.3% of 15- to 19-year-olds today.7

This rise is largely attributed to the increase in childhood obesity and poor dietary habits, such as consuming large amounts of sugary drinks and processed foods. This is a significant concern, as it means that liver damage can begin at a young age, leading to long-term health problems.

One of the most concerning aspects of MASLD is that it often has no noticeable symptoms in its early stages. This is why it’s sometimes called a “silent” disease. People can have MASLD for years without knowing it, until significant liver damage has already occurred.

As its name suggests, alcoholic fatty liver disease (ALD) — also called alcohol-associated liver disease or AALD — is liver damage caused by excessive alcohol consumption. When you drink alcohol, your liver works hard to process it. However, excessive drinking overwhelms the liver, leading to fat accumulation. This buildup of fat is the first stage of ALD.

ALD progresses through several stages. It starts with simple steatosis, then can progress to alcoholic hepatitis, which involves inflammation of the liver. If alcohol consumption continues, this can lead to cirrhosis, a severe condition where the liver becomes permanently scarred. Cirrhosis can cause to liver failure and other serious health complications.8

The amount of alcohol that increases the risk of ALD varies from person to person. However, general guidelines suggest that heavy drinking significantly increases the risk. For men, this is typically defined as having more than five drinks on any single day or 15 drinks (or more) per week.

For women, it’s having more than four drinks on any single day or eight (or more) drinks per week.9 It is important to remember that for people with underlying liver conditions, there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.

The good news is that in the early stages, ALD can be reversed by stopping alcohol consumption. This allows the liver to heal and recover. However, if alcohol use continues and the disease progresses to cirrhosis, the damage is usually irreversible.10 This highlights the importance of early intervention and making healthy choices regarding alcohol intake.

Fatty Liver Disease Is on the Rise in America

Fatty liver disease is rapidly emerging as a significant public health challenge in the United States. Recent reports and studies paint a concerning picture of its increasing prevalence, affecting a substantial portion of the American population.

A comprehensive 2024 study published in the journal Communications Medicine reviewed the complex interplay of factors contributing to the development and progression of fatty liver disease.11 The researchers looked at 2017 to 2018 data from 5,532 individuals with a mean age of 45.4 years, and explored the intricate relationship between genetic predispositions, environmental influences and lifestyle factors, particularly dietary habits.

They found that by 2018, 42% of adults had some form of fatty liver disease — higher than prior estimates. Hispanic adults in particular were at high risk, with 47% affected.

The study emphasizes that while genetic factors can increase an individual’s susceptibility to fatty liver disease, environmental factors, such as readily available processed foods and sedentary lifestyles, play a crucial role in triggering and accelerating the disease’s development.

In a university press release, Dr. Juan Pablo Arab, a liver specialist at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health and the study’s lead author, said:

“This study highlights a significant health issue that affects a large portion of the U.S. population, and it shows that certain groups are at a higher risk. We hope these findings will guide more targeted health interventions to reduce the burden of liver disease, especially in high-risk communities.”12

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The Obesity-Fatty Liver Connection

Obesity is a major driver of fatty liver disease. Excess body fat, especially visceral fat (the fat stored around the abdomen), is strongly linked to increased fat deposition in the liver. This excess fat overwhelms the liver’s ability to process it efficiently, leading to its accumulation within liver cells. The more visceral fat you have, the greater your risk of developing fatty liver disease.13

Obesity often leads to insulin resistance, a condition where your body’s cells doesn’t respond properly to insulin, the hormone that helps regulate blood sugar levels. When cells become resistant to insulin, blood sugar levels rise, and your body produces more insulin in an attempt to compensate. This excess insulin can promote fat storage in the liver, contributing to fatty liver disease. This insulin resistance is a key link between obesity and fatty liver.14

Excess fat in the liver can trigger inflammation and oxidative stress, which are harmful processes that can damage liver cells. This inflammation is a key step in the progression from simple steatosis to MASH. Oxidative stress, an imbalance between harmful free radicals and the body’s ability to counteract them, further contributes to liver damage.15

Dietary patterns play a significant role in both obesity and fatty liver disease. High-calorie diets, particularly those high in processed foods, sugary drinks and unhealthy fats promote both conditions. These types of diets provide excess calories that are easily converted to fat and stored in the liver. Limiting these types of food and focusing on a balanced diet is very important.

Even modest weight loss can significantly improve liver health in people with fatty liver. According to one study, losing just 7% to 10% of body weight can reduce liver fat, improve liver function and decrease inflammation.16 This shows that even small changes can make a big difference in liver health. Losing weight can also help improve insulin sensitivity.

Dietary changes are crucial for both weight management and liver health. A balanced diet rich in fresh fruits, well-cooked vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and healthy fats is recommended. It’s also important to limit processed foods, sugary drinks and unhealthy fats (including vegetable oils). This type of diet provides the necessary nutrients without overloading the liver with excess fat and sugar.

Regular exercise is another important component of managing fatty liver disease. Being physically active helps improve insulin sensitivity, reduce liver fat and promote weight loss. Even moderate exercise, like brisk walking for 30 minutes most days of the week, can have significant benefits.

Other Factors Taking Control of Your Liver Health

While obesity and alcohol are major risk factors for fatty liver disease, other health conditions can also increase your risk. One example is Type 2 diabetes. Both conditions share risk factors like insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.

People with Type 2 diabetes are much more likely to develop fatty liver disease, and studies have shown a bidirectional relationship, meaning that fatty liver disease can also worsen insulin resistance and contribute to the development of Type 2 diabetes.17,18

Having abnormal blood lipid levels, such as high cholesterol and triglycerides, can also contribute to fat accumulation in the liver. When these levels are elevated, it can promote fat storage in the liver, increasing the risk of fatty liver. Managing these lipid levels through diet, exercise and healthy lifestyle habits is important for liver health.19

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is also linked to an increased risk of fatty liver disease. Women with PCOS often have insulin resistance and other metabolic abnormalities that contribute to liver fat accumulation. This link highlights the complex interplay between hormones, metabolism and liver health.20,21

Addressing sleep apnea, a sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep, is also an important part of liver health as it also contributes to fatty liver disease. These breathing interruptions can lead to low oxygen levels and other metabolic changes that promote liver fat accumulation.22

If left untreated, fatty liver disease can progress to cirrhosis which increases your risk of liver cancer, also known as hepatocellular carcinoma.23 fatty liver disease is also linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke.24 This connection is likely due to shared risk factors like insulin resistance, inflammation and metabolic syndrome. Hence, managing liver health also benefits your heart health.

Early detection and management of fatty liver disease are crucial for preventing serious complications. By identifying risk factors and making lifestyle changes, it is possible to slow or even reverse the progression of the disease. This is why regular checkups are so important.

Strategies to Address Fatty Liver Disease at Its Root

Several methods are used to diagnose fatty liver disease. Liver function blood tests can detect elevated liver enzymes that are released into the bloodstream when the liver is damaged. Having elevated levels indicates liver inflammation or other liver problems.

Imaging tests, such as ultrasound, CT scans or MRI, help visualize fat accumulation in the liver. Aside from confirming a diagnosis of fatty liver disease, they also help rule out other liver conditions. In some cases, a liver biopsy may be necessary to confirm the diagnosis of NASH and assess the severity of liver damage. This is a more invasive procedure, although it’s only done when other tests are inconclusive.

Emerging non-invasive tests, such as FibroScan, are also being used to assess liver stiffness, which can indicate the presence of fibrosis (scarring).25 These tests are less invasive than a liver biopsy and can provide valuable information about liver health.

As mentioned, adopting healthy lifestyle habits, such as being physically active and eating a balanced diet, will help address the root causes of metabolic dysfunction to reduce your risk of Fatty liver disease and promote optimal liver function. Keep these tips in mind:

• Focus on eating whole, nutrient-dense foods — Eliminate vegetable oils, ultraprocessed foods and fast foods from your diet, as they overwhelm your liver and contribute to metabolic dysfunction. Instead, replace them with whole, minimally processed, nutrient-dense foods to stabilize your blood sugar, reduce inflammation and reduce the burden on your liver. For healthier fats, choose grass fed tallow, ghee or butter.

• Optimize your carbohydrate intake — Aim for a minimum of 200 to 250 grams of targeted carbohydrates daily from healthy whole sources like fresh fruits and well-cooked vegetables.

• Balance your protein sources — Ensure that one-third of your daily protein intake consists of collagen, targeting approximately 0.8 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass, which should make up about 15% of your total calorie intake.

• Maintain a healthy weight — If you’re overweight, losing 7% to 10% of your body weight helps improve fatty liver.26

• Consider taking liver-supporting supplements — Supporting your liver with targeted nutrients not only protects against damage but also enhances its ability to detoxify and regenerate. Choline, folate, vitamin B12 and n-acetylcysteine (NAC) are some examples. For a more comprehensive list, read “NAFLD Has Become a Health Emergency Among Children.”

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