BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control"

Regina

@Amazoniac Thanks for the thorough explanation.
It's over my head, but I got some of it.

Amazoniac

@S-Holmes said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

@Amazoniac Actually, that was one thing that impressed me. He said by having the digital version we would get updates and corrections because he's certain he isn't right about everything and will let us know when changes are made. I don't sense any ego in his work.

No ego? Good one. Just the title of the article in question is enough to refute the impression:

I SOLVED THE WARBURG EFFECT (A THE CURE FOR CANCER)

It's somewhat irresponsible of him to not curb the grandiose, in special when dealing with cancer. And it wouldn't be difficult:

Silicon in mitochondria: effects on cellular respiration with relevance for cancer metabolism [if it wasn't junk]

To put into perspective, check these out:

Despite the composure, they're Hans Krebs' original works on the TCA cycle.

I HAVE WORKED OUT THE CITRIC ACID CYCLE, EVERYBODY (THE CURE FOR METABOLIC CONFUSION WORLDWIDE)

For more information:

On-topic, TCA cycle seems a preferable term to Krebs cycle for being more meaningful and (as suggested elsewhere) it would otherwise be unfair to him: Hans is responsible for discovering the ornithine and glyoxylate cycles too. Krebs cycle.. but which of them?

Back to our curer, he wrote:

"As would be expected cancer cells consume a great deal of nutrition but produce very little energy, and through further research and experimentation I became satisfied this is the case, as the Warburg Effect can only be explained by active leakage of electrons from mitochondria as opposed to the electron transport chain simply stopping as that would also stop the consumption of substrate, so the failure is in the mitochondrial transport chain such as the loss of insulating silicon would cause."

I often make mistakes, but Sate has his absurds marked by sloppiness and in authoritative tone. It's a problematic combination.

It seems that I get the rationale: for a given amount of 'substrate', if 'little energy' is being produced from it, what else could be happening if not electron leakage to explain the difference?

What about the partial oxidation of glucose that yields pyruvate and then lactate through lactate dehydrogenase (functioning as a pyruvate hydrogenase)?

Pyruvate
↳ ~~Dehydrogenase (PDH): Pyruvate + NAD+ → Acetyl + (NADH + H+)~~
↳ Hydrogenase (LDH): Pyruvate + (NADH + H+) → Lactate + NAD+

It's the means to regenerate oxidized NAD to continue to oxidize more glucose as lactate is exported from the cell.

The electrons (e–) are omitted above, but we have:

           H+ (1 proton, 0 electrons) -- proton or hydron
 H+ + e– → H  (1 proton, 1 electron)  -- neutral hydrogen
H+ + 2e– → H– (1 proton, 2 electrons) -- hydride

NADH is the hydride donor:

NADH ⇄ NAD+ + H–

And we have the typical extra proton next to NADH to indicate that electrons weren't extracted from molecules in excess of protons:

NADH + H+ ⇄ NAD+ + (H– + H+)
NADH + H+ ⇄ NAD+ + (2H)

It's simpler with FAD because it incorporates the two hydrogens, without leaving a lone proton:

FADH2 ⇄ FAD + (2H)

You can find throughout Hans' publications the essence of reactions, with the two hydrogens being released from molecules at the levels where dehydrogenases occur.

Here's a neat diagram showing them:

The hydrogens (and their electrons) are accepted by pyruvate to become lactate:

Pyruvate + 2H → Lactate

It's difficult to reconcile with the assertion that "the Warburg Effect can only be explained by active leakage of electrons from mitochondria". Electrons in this case didn't even reach the mitochondria to be "leaked".

Since lactate is a negatively-charged molecule that's often exported with an additional proton (H+) as the positively-charged counterpart..

Carbonic anhydrase IX and acid transport in cancer

..which contributes to the extracellular acidification of cancer, we have the equivalent of a glucose molecule leaving the cell:

Glucose: C6H12O6
~~2×Lactate: C6H10O6~~
2×Lactic acid: C6H12O6

It's not that the elements of glucose are disappearing in enigmatic ways.

He went further: "the electron transport chain simply stopping [..] would also stop the consumption of substrate". A great deal of glucose is consumed in the cytosol at a high rate, without the need to involve the electron transport chain.

A gymnastic to make the claim reasonable would be to factor in anabolism and tie it in with glycolysis. After all, if glucose equivalents are exported from the cell as glucose is consumed, the cell will lack material to support growth.

Functional mitochondria of cancerous cells tend to be geared in favor of anabolism, and they adapt to find a way around metabolic steps that are inhibited, to redirect nutrients for synthesis. If a molecule has to undergo oxidation for this purpose, it may happen as far as needed to prepare it for anabolism.

Cancer Metabolism

"Although many cancer cells rely primarily on aerobic glycolysis for their energy, they still rely on mitochondria to produce precursors for fatty acid synthesis and other biosynthetic processes. How tumor cells with defective mitochondria produce the lipids necessary for proliferation has been unclear. Mullen et al. (2011) uncover new metabolic flexibility in cancer cells. Glutamine can drive citric acid cycle (CAC) reactions in reverse, such that reductive carboxylation yields acetyl-CoA for lipid synthesis. Glutamine-dependent reductive carboxylation has been recognized as a minor source of citrate in mammalian cells and as the major source of citrate and acetyl-CoA in P. falciparum, a parasite with limited respiration. By tracing the fate of carbons supplied to osteosarcoma cells by 13C-glucose or 13C-glutamine, the authors identify reductive carboxylation as the major source of [cytosolic] acetyl-CoA in ETC-deficient cancer cells. Although some tumors carry mutations in ETC components, oncogenic mutations are more commonly found in CAC enzymes like fumarate hydratase (FH). To test whether these types of mutations also favor glutamine-dependent reductive carboxylation, Mullen et al. (2011) examined the metabolism of renal tumor cells lacking FH activity. When cultured without glutamine, these cells stop proliferating. In the presence of glutamine, FH-deficient cells proliferate by employing both oxidative glutamine metabolism (a process well-known for replenishing CAC intermediates that are depleted under normal growth conditions) and reductive carboxylation of glutamine (contributing lipid building blocks). Despite the association between defective mitochondria and oncogenesis, this study highlights the central importance of mitochondria in cancer, even when they aren't generating ATP."

Both are cancerous.

With intact respiration (left), glucose and glutamine can end up as citrate;
With compromised electron transport chain (right), reflecting on a partial inhibition of the TCA cycle (that reinforces the inhibition of upstream pyruvate oxidation), glucose stays out of the mitochondria, that rely on glutamine through the reductive pathway in reverse to derive citrate.
- The oxidation of ketoglutarate is not shown (clockwise), but it's possible for the cycle to be limited in addition to the metabolism of fumarate.

In either case, "consumption of substrate" continues to occur (glucose and glutamine are used up) to form new molecules rather than undergoing complete oxidation.

Sate also wrote that "cancer cells consume a great deal of nutrition but produce very little energy".

Targeting energy metabolism to eliminate cancer cells

"The inappropriate proliferation of cancer cells requires high energy, and the cells generate ATP to satisfy the biomass production. The enhanced glycolytic rate in cancer cells is required not only to meet the need for energy but also to maintain the level of glycolytic intermediates needed for biosynthesis of macromolecules. The biosynthetic activities required for proliferating cancer cells involve high rates of nucleotide synthesis, amino acid synthesis, and lipogenesis."

Another important piece shared in conversations with my masters:

Revisiting the Warburg effect: historical dogma versus current understanding

"Aerobic glycolysis has been described as an inefficient means of energy metabolism, since the net production is only 2 moles of ATP per glucose molecule, whereas the total yield is 32(−33) ATPs (Mookerjee et al. 2017) from the complete oxidation of 1 glucose molecule. However, the speed of the cytosolic ATP generation is approx. 100 times faster (range: 20–300 times) than in mitochondria (‘low yield, but high-speed ATP production’). ATP provision per unit time is higher than in oxidative glucose metabolism as long as an adequate glucose supply is maintained in the extracellular compartment (Vaupel et al. 2019). In cases of greatly increased ATP demand by cancer cells, aerobic glycolysis can rapidly increase while OxPhos remains quite constant due to the much faster ATP production through the Warburg effect."

ATP/glucose:

Cytosol 2:30 Mitochondria
Cytosol 1:15 Mitochondria

ATP/time:

Cytosol 100:1 Mitochondria

Therefore, increasing reliance on glycolysis is more than enough to compensate through speed for the lower yield per glucose, and meet the high energetic needs of cancer cells. Considering that the body tries to maintain a steady level of glucose in the circulation (independent of carbohydrate ingestion), if greedy cancer cells have access, it's a problem. But nothing that 700 mg of silicic acid a day with tartaric acid for sealing up the mitochondria can't cure.

Charnathan concluded his article with:

"As I do not have access to scientific institutions that normally distribute such discoveries please share this information wherever and with whomever you can to document my work and help people suffering from cancer."

It's unbelievable.

S.Holmes

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S.Holmes

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Amazoniac

@S-Holmes said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

@Amazoniac TBH, I don't really care (that much) HOW something works...only whether or not it DOES work. I've only just started the protocols so less than a week in and so far, following his suggestions, I have stubborn skin lesions on my arms (I've had for years) clearing up. As per his suggestions, I'm using silicic acid, sodium acetate, sodium citrate, having tannin and beta carotene with every meal, and eating more fruits and vegetables. I'm excited to get to the chapter on bread. I mostly make my own but I know preparation of grains is important and I've neglected that for too long.

@S-Holmes said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

@S-Holmes I should also add that my energy levels and overall sense of well being have improved considerably.

We might as well argue that some people experience similar improvements in restricting poison A and find relief from an exclusion protocol, but does this give the protocolist a free pass to be sloppy and spread confusion?

Authors such as Sate and Garrett are at the root of distorted ideas that plague alternative health circles and sidetrack people from getting to the crux of issues with clarity.

We are witnessing the consequences in real time of what this type of personality can do to communities when they take the lead and find advocates who behave in hypocritical manner to promote their madness, only going by own immediate experiences and not minding the rest.

We had three separate threads on the Garrey Pith Forum dedicated to Sate's hyperphosphatemia cure. Sensationalism sells.

Mulloch94

@Amazoniac Speaking only for myself here...but I would be all for an open forum discussion about "poison A" with normal rational thinking people. It's still a position I profoundly disagree with obviously, but their theories on vitamin A is not what I find cringy. It's this weird religious cult they wrap all this shit up into. And the otherwise authoritarian censorship the ensues when someone isn't drinking that flavor koolaid. I'm also not thrilled about the forum adopting this premium payment thing, but that can take a backseat to the more glaring issues for now.

I don't think Hatch is right either, but in the grand scheme of things he much more rational in that his ideas are on the open market, free to accept or deny with no herd mentality or cult-like personas shoving it down people's throats. But yes, people should be VERY careful about incorporating his ideas, lol.

S.Holmes

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S.Holmes

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S.Holmes

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BioEclectic

@S-Holmes
Have regularly incorporated baking soda via Nate and other forum member's ideas, starting nearly two years ago. Had only briefly experimented prior to that.

Baking soda goes into my weekly homemade fruit punch jug which contains orange, lemon, apple, grape, water. Other additions are 1/8 tsp mag sulfate, 1000mg Quali-C, 10mg Boron and usually 500mg Taurine. I'll only drink 4-6oz's at a time. I empty the leftover over on Saturday then replenish on Monday which allows for a 36-48 hour break. It gives an unmistakeable calm energy that has never wore off.

Have done sodium acetate protocols several times for approx a week or so. For me it seems to have killed the occasional alcohol craving i would get in social settings, restaraunts etc. The effect is pronounced enough where i have to willfully raise a cup to my lips. But mind over matter can be strong so we'll allow for the psychosomatic. The effect still hasn't wore off either btw.

Will also put a pinch of baking soda into any coffee that has that slightly acidic bite, which is fairly often for me.

Agreed with Amazoniac about folks who speak in absolutes and don't insert enough cautionary language. We have to be very careful with everyone's advice and protocols. Side effects can take weeks, even months, to manifest themselves and less aware folks may have trouble backtracking to the cause.

Amazoniac

@Mulloch94 said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

@Amazoniac Speaking only for myself here...but I would be all for an open forum discussion about "poison A" with normal rational thinking people. It's still a position I profoundly disagree with obviously, but their theories on vitamin A is not what I find cringy. It's this weird religious cult they wrap all this shit up into. And the otherwise authoritarian censorship the ensues when someone isn't drinking that flavor koolaid. I'm also not thrilled about the forum adopting this premium payment thing, but that can take a backseat to the more glaring issues for now.

I don't think Hatch is right either, but in the grand scheme of things he much more rational in that his ideas are on the open market, free to accept or deny with no herd mentality or cult-like personas shoving it down people's throats. But yes, people should be VERY careful about incorporating his ideas, lol.

Sate and Garrett are similarly immoderate and pushy. It's not my intention to sort charlatans here, rank us as you prefer, but it's difficult to discriminate which of us is worse.

@S-Holmes said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

@Amazoniac LOL. We (husband and I) tried the "poison A" restriction about 5 years ago. We were happy to leave that one behind. No improvements were noted.

The point is that improvements on any protocol don't found them.

@S-Holmes said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

@Amazoniac I would actually like to hear from more people who have tried some of the things Nathan recommends and whether they did or did not see improvement on them. So far, I'm seeing some good results and not restricting any food groups, just finding healthier ways to combine and prepare food. As a LONG TIME Dr. Peat follower (I bought all of his books and subscribed to his newsletter back in the day) Nathan seems to be providing the things I need to go to the next level. AND he still uses Dr. Peat's guidelines, and more importantly, gives Dr. Peat credit for saving his life. (He and I have a lot in common.)

I get it if you don't like him. He and I are light years apart politically and maybe even religiously, but I take what I can use and leave the rest. I hope others will give his work a chance. What is there to lose...seriously?

I'm interested in knowing what's working as well, which is why it seemed sound to not dismiss the experiences of people who reported improvements from restricting poison A.

What bothers is the serial misinterpretations communicated as official declarations, but you already mentioned to not care about this aspect. Not sure where to go from here.

Giving credit is an obligation and Sate is not exemplary at it. Forgetting on occasion can happen, but how do you explain the extensive list of claims in his writings and the near-absent attributions? It's all BS, that is, butt-sourced? As for Ray, let's not discard the possibility that there can be more to mentioning him than gratitude, it can be in part for the community appeal.

If I'm not mistaken, you're dealing with a coach that advised an overweight person to ingest a stick of butter a day, who later complained of problems.

Nonetheless, the borrowing of experiments is not the central issue, it's the attached explanations, that deserve to be approached with suspicion and verified.

Mulloch94

@S-Holmes said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

@Mulloch94 Could you be more specific as to what I should watch out for? I'm eating a variety of very nourishing foods, and taking fewer supplements. Is it the sodium acetate? Sodium citrate? Tannins? I'm still reading so maybe I havent reached the danger zone yet.

Go to RPF and read the log on that "Cirion" person. He was a acolyte to Hatch's ideas. Dude had a terrible time, weight kept yo-yoing and gradually kept creeping up. Clearly he was being candid and trying to find a solution to his problems, one of the more clearly detailed logs on the forum IIRC. But it didn't sound like it was working for him, whenever he tried to defy the CICO principle bad things started happening. He ended up becoming an inactive member, I don't know if he left on his own or was banned.

Mulloch94

@Amazoniac said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

Sate and Garrett are similarly immoderate and pushy. It's not my intention to sort charlatans here, rank us as you prefer, but it's difficult to discriminate which of us is worse.

That's fair, I didn't mean to imply Hatch should be softly scrutinized by comparison to others. In my opinion what makes him less dangerous is his ideas are, quite frankly, less popular with people. Charlatans become more dangerous when they start gaining a following.

S.Holmes

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Mulloch94

@S-Holmes Funny that he was "gaining weight rapidly" and admitted to overeating, but was angry at Ray Peat for giving him advice he deemed as irresponsible. Was it though? Or was it adivce he simply didn't want to hear?

I remembered he fired a coach he had because he gained like 10lbs in one week. Also I don't want to call him a liar, but losing weight on 6-9,000 calories? You can't nonchalantly make a statement like that when you were talking about rapidly gaining weight a few paragraphs earlier. Which is it? And is your intake 6,000 or 9,000?

There's a substantial discrepancy there. If he got obese on 9,000 calories then I guess he would lose some weight if he dropped it to 6,000 calories. And either way, he should've posted before/after pics when making bold statements like that (I would also be curious to know how much money this guy was spending on food, lol. Doesn't seem economically viable to me.).

No one needs 6,000 calories a day to lose weight. That's not a sign of an efficient metabolism. Efficient metabolism is when someone can eat normal amounts of food and have enough stored glycogen to last them for several hours between meals. When you can go 6, 8, 12, or even upwards of 24 hours without completely dipping into the cortisol driven beta-oxidation then you've got a good metabolism.

The under-eating type of "hypothyroidism" is actually transient, and will go away when you start eating more. It's not the main cause of hypothyroidism. It's not even really hypothyroidism at all. It's your metabolic rate realizing a substantial drop in caloric consumption so it slows everything down so you don't starve to death so quickly. Ray said that was why those hypothyroid women (he discussed in the interview) could eat like 700 calories and still not lose weight. You need to fix your thyroid before you do any extreme caloric reduction.

S.Holmes

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Mulloch94

@S-Holmes Well I don't believed I used the word unsuccessful, sorry if I made you insinuate that. I guess success needs to be put in relative terms to the goals at hand. All I was trying to get across is this dude applied the lack of portion control principle, said a big "F#$%k you" to CICO and the law of thermodynamics, and proceeded to swell up like a balloon. He did cite Nathan in numerous places, so he made it obvious he was greatly influenced by him. To what degree he applied those principles beyond a general lack of portion control is something I don't know. But you see this trend on several less established log entries on that forum over the years. People disregarding CICO, believe they need to eat more and more foods, then start complaining about weight gain. I don't know what degree Nathan's influence is personally responsible for this held belief, but undoubtedly it's influenced some of them. He was a presence on that forum for a stent of time.

S.Holmes

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Amazoniac

@Mulloch94 said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

@S-Holmes Well I don't believed I used the word unsuccessful, sorry if I made you insinuate that. I guess success needs to be put in relative terms to the goals at hand. All I was trying to get across is this dude applied the lack of portion control principle, said a big "F#$%k you" to CICO and the law of thermodynamics, and proceeded to swell up like a balloon. He did cite Nathan in numerous places, so he made it obvious he was greatly influenced by him. To what degree he applied those principles beyond a general lack of portion control is something I don't know. But you see this trend on several less established log entries on that forum over the years. People disregarding CICO, believe they need to eat more and more foods, then start complaining about weight gain. I don't know what degree Nathan's influence is personally responsible for this held belief, but undoubtedly it's influenced some of them. He was a presence on that forum for a stent of time.

I'm having issues accessing the forum lately, but found this example right on the first page of results in the searchable archive:

"I think Nathan Hatch makes some outlandish claims. He claims to have sat around all day at a computer while eating his high everything diet and all he did was gain muscle and lose fat. I call bull**** on this. I tried doing things his way for about 6 months several years ago and all I did was get fat and my fasting blood sugar went into the pre-diabetic range. I think his claims are ridiculous. My diet now is similar in some ways, but much lower in fat and protein. I'm at about 70 g of protein, as much sugar as I want, a little starch, and 80ish grams of fat. I have eaten this way for over a year now and have lost about 10 pounds rather than gaining weight and my metabolism has kicked it up a notch or two. I feel much younger and healthier than I have in 15 years. I did not feel this way at all trying Hatch's way of just eating everything ad libitum."

@Mulloch94 said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

@Amazoniac said in BIOHACKING by Nathan Hatch, "F*** Portion Control":

Sate and Garrett are similarly immoderate and pushy. It's not my intention to sort charlatans here, rank us as you prefer, but it's difficult to discriminate which of us is worse.

That's fair, I didn't mean to imply Hatch should be softly scrutinized by comparison to others. In my opinion what makes him less dangerous is his ideas are, quite frankly, less popular with people. Charlatans become more dangerous when they start gaining a following.

I agree.

If anyone is looking for assistance, Mike Fave offers the same type of service. He's also familiar with Ray's work, but is competent, careful as a health communicator, and doesn't treat the audience as fools.

T-3

I support Amazoniac's criticism of Hatch's (or anyone's) exaggerated claims, which, as Amazonic pointed out, reveals Hatch's less-than-competent knowledge about underlying mechanisms regarding the multiple ways in which glucose oxidation and cellular respiration may become deranged. The writers I would trust the most would emulate Ray, acknowledging gaps in his/our knowledge about multiple mechanisms relevant to bioenergetics, etc. I also support S.Holmes's interest in self experimentation and openness to learning from writers whose style isn't necessarily our most preferred (emulating Ray). I see no conflict between these two positions of (i) holding Hatch and others to high critical standards while (ii) being open to benefiting from advice they have given that might work for some of us (depending, of course, on context) even though Hatch’s understanding of cellular respiration is obviously incomplete. Even those like S.Holmes who say they don’t care about understanding the underlying mechanism correctly will benefit from much higher-quality insights/coaching/advice generated from those of us who are interested. It’s reasonable to learn empirically (by induction or, in Hatch’s case, even by incorrectly understood theory) that something “works” without understanding the mechanism explaining why the advice has worked. My main point is that we are joint stakeholders (disliking Blackrock’s use of the word): (i) those who want to understand mechanisms, critiquing and vetting Hatch and others and (ii) those who just want to know where to find high-quality advice or even speculative hypotheses that could prompt useful self experimentation. The vetting and critiques by the Amnizoniacs of the world exert adaptive pressure that should improve the performance of and our curation of advice givers. This includes all of us posting on this board, generating potentially useful speculative hypotheses for us to consider experimenting on ourselves with. I am hoping that both rigorous vetting/critiquing and clear/honest reporting from self-experimentation flourish and multiply on this board.