Is higher metabolism good for longetivity?
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This is something that I've investigated quite a bit, and I haven't really come to any good conclusions. It is true that animals such as birds and bats that have a high metabolism live much longer than their brethren that have a lower metabolism.
But it is also true that there are very long-lived animals such as turtles that have a low metabolism and live a long time.
Also, there is some evidence that people with lower body temperatures live longer.
However, I think there is also a problem with low body temperatures, which is that it tends to encourage the growth of cancer.
So I would like to keep my metabolism at a reasonable level, similar to what it was maybe 20, 30, 40 years ago when I was young, but I don't want to go crazy with it either. And I don't think that the jury is out on this matter at all.
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This has been discussed many, many times at the Ray Peat site.
https://lowtoxinforum.com -
@AinmBeo what's your point? We're not on that site, are we? If you have a direct link to a pertinent discussion that would add to this thread, but just mentioning it's discussed on another site is not helpful.
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this may not be spot on topic, but maybe it is. it relates to heart rate. And Peat is of the opinion that a higher heart rate is better. But neither he nor anyone into bioenergetics that I know of can explain why athletes all share something in common - having a low heart rate.
I finally have an explanation, and it is a Peaty one too. Meaning that it is consistent with Peat's opinion.
It is because heart rate has a biphasic behavior. This means that with low energy available, it becomes low. But with even less energy, it becomes too fast, as In tachycardia.
It came from me observing my heart rate, as I have been puzzles by it for a long time. And you know me, the nerd with more gadgets to observe biomarkers such as ecg, plethysmographs, spO² rings to go with the usual heart rate measurement devices.
And I have a carbogen machine as well as an oxygen concentrator to help me with breathing.
Anyway, back to the question of why athletes have low heart rates. I think this has to do with them often exerting too much energy that exhaust their oxygen such that their metabolism gets used to running on anaerobic glycolysis. They become rich in lactic acid and poor in CO2.
At this state, they cannot maximize their tissue oxygenation and their energy production is sub-optimal, not fully on mitochondrial respiration when burning sugar. So it can be said that they are low metabolic energy.
With low energy, their heart rate cannot be but low. I notice that when I breathe carbogen, my heart rate tends to increase (but not in a straight line manner).
Based on this, I could infer that higher metabolism is better, because it provides better tissue oxygenation, because of an abundance of available CO2, and this allows the body to run fully on mitochondrial respiration, which makes us produce more energy. Energy being the currency of life, this makes us live longer as well.
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@yerrag Overtraining, with endurance/marathon type exercise probably being the worst, not necessarily being a positive thing, is something that a lot of people with an emotional connection to the act are not ready for. It's become a whole industry, culture, product.
I used to be something of this kind of athlete, and I was pretty good at it. I stopped when exercise started to give me manic episodes, which I associate to the elevated cortisol that it causes.
To be honest, I should revisit it at some point in the near future. Maybe just weight training in the Mike Metzner fashion. Times are getting so rough here that strength might actually become a useful quality for all people again.
There's a lot of literature you can find out there on the NEGATIVE effects of exercise. For example: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.10.561303v1
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I always thought a low heart rate was from having a big heart. Isn't that the case? Work out and your heart grows bigger and has to beat slower at rest. Am I missing something? Dr. Peat said the same thing.
I think a HR in the 70s is good for a middle aged adult or older adult because it indicates good thyroid function. I'm not sure there is any benefit to it. It is a sign of healthy metabolic rate, or can be.
If you look at the studies, many times higher HR is associated with greater morbidity and mortality. Because people with a high HR often are sick and sedentary.
It's the whole picture that counts and it's very complicated. Just like as people get old, a higher TSH can be associated with greater longevity for some reason.
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-abstract/94/4/1251/2596354
Design/Setting/Patients: We analyzed TSH, FT4, and TSH frequency distribution curves in thyroid disease-free Ashkenazi Jews with exceptional longevity (centenarians; median age, 98 yr), in younger Ashkenazi controls (median age, 72 yr), and in a population of thyroid disease-free individuals (median age, 68 yr) from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1998–2002 (NHANES controls).Results: Serum TSH was significantly higher in centenarians [1.97 (0.42–7.15) mIU/liter] than in Ashkenazi controls [1.55 (0.46–4.55) mIU/liter] and NHANES controls [1.61 (0.39–6.29) mIU/liter] (median, 2.5 and 97.5 centiles) (P < 0.001). The TSH frequency distribution curve of centenarians was relatively similar in shape to controls but shifted significantly to higher TSH, including TSH concentration at peak frequency. The TSH distribution curve of the NHANES control group was superimposable to and not significantly different from the Ashkenazi controls. FT4 was similar in centenarians and Ashkenazi controls, and there was a significant inverse correlation between FT4 and TSH in both groups.
Conclusions: The TSH population shifts to higher concentrations with age appear to be a continuum that extends even to people with exceptional longevity.The inverse correlation between TSH and FT4 in our populations suggests that changes in negative feedback may contribute to exceptional longevity.
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could you link to where ray peat says this?
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@Ecstatic_Hamster said in Is higher metabolism good for longetivity?:
Conclusions: The TSH population shifts to higher concentrations with age appear to be a continuum that extends even to people with exceptional longevity.The inverse correlation between TSH and FT4 in our populations suggests that changes in negative feedback may contribute to exceptional longevity.
I'm not buying this. I consider the basis the medical system uses to determine the state of the thyroid all flawed, bases on Peat's views.
Here, they make the conclusion that the higher the TSH, the longer lived a person is, which you are well aware to not be in keeping with Peat's views on it.
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@Isaac I cant find the exact quote but it was on danny roddy's generative energy podcast. I remember him talking about the misconception that low heart rate is good foe longevity because of the idea we only have a "certain ammount of breaths." So slowing the body's processes would theoretically extend lifespan in this ideology
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@yerrag said in Is higher metabolism good for longetivity?:
@Ecstatic_Hamster said in Is higher metabolism good for longetivity?:
Conclusions: The TSH population shifts to higher concentrations with age appear to be a continuum that extends even to people with exceptional longevity.The inverse correlation between TSH and FT4 in our populations suggests that changes in negative feedback may contribute to exceptional longevity.
I'm not buying this. I consider the basis the medical system uses to determine the state of the thyroid all flawed, bases on Peat's views.
Here, they make the conclusion that the higher the TSH, the longer lived a person is, which you are well aware to not be in keeping with Peat's views on it.
It doesn’t say what you’re saying. It just says that testing people who are very old their TSH tends to be higher than people that die earlier.
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there are a number of similar studies that show higher TSH correlates with extreme old age.
I think that there may be more at play. Old people have low thyroid activity and lower metabolic rate. Perhaps the ones with higher TSH who are very old have lower stress hormones. Dr. Peat said that stress hormones can lower TSH. There is evidence that this is wrong. I'm interested in investigating this.
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@foobarbaazquux
Your experience and conclusions line up very much with Peat's. As far as exercise goes, Ray is on the extreme end of not doing much exercise but he certainly had a lot of internal metabolism to keep himself trim, and his research and writing that occupied his time uses a lot of cerebral activity which also uses a lot of energy.
I have not been heavy on the workout scene ever since but until about 12 years ago, I kept myself fit on an old progressive resistance program developed and commissioned by the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) in the 60s called the 5BX for men and the XBX for women. It's no longer popular but it had served me very well as even after 12 years of intentionally slacking off the muscle tone has not disappeared. These days, I don't exercise much a la Ray Peat but my internal metabolism keeps me trim without having to engage in new fads such as Intermittent Fasting.
You're spot on when it comes to the benefits of strength training against the wear and tear from endurance training.
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@Ecstatic_Hamster You're right.
Can I take this to mean that as we get older, our TSH tends to increase as a marker of health deterioration that comes with age?
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@Ecstatic_Hamster said in Is higher metabolism good for longetivity?:
there are a number of similar studies that show higher TSH correlates with extreme old age.
I think that there may be more at play. Old people have low thyroid activity and lower metabolic rate. Perhaps the ones with higher TSH who are very old have lower stress hormones. Dr. Peat said that stress hormones can lower TSH. There is evidence that this is wrong. I'm interested in investigating this.
I remember differently on TSH. I recall Peat saying TSH as a stress hormone, and that the lower it is the better.
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@yerrag said in Is higher metabolism good for longetivity?:
@Ecstatic_Hamster said in Is higher metabolism good for longetivity?:
there are a number of similar studies that show higher TSH correlates with extreme old age.
I think that there may be more at play. Old people have low thyroid activity and lower metabolic rate. Perhaps the ones with higher TSH who are very old have lower stress hormones. Dr. Peat said that stress hormones can lower TSH. There is evidence that this is wrong. I'm interested in investigating this.
I remember differently on TSH. I recall Pest saying TSH as a stress hormone, and that the lower it is the better.
yes I recall him saying that too. He may have been wrong?
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@Ecstatic_Hamster I think he's right. As he views TSH as the lower the better, consistent with the idea that the less stressful conditions, the less the need for stress hormones such that zero be ideal.
He has talked if calcitriol, the active vitamin D hormone being one. Others -
PTH
Cortisol
Adrenaline (though I'm not certain)
Estrogen (though I don't think zero is good)Though he hasn't said so, my personal take is that insulin is a stress hormone as well.
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@yerrag said in Is higher metabolism good for longetivity?:
@Ecstatic_Hamster I think he's right. As he views TSH as the lower the better, consistent with the idea that the less stressful conditions, the less the need for stress hormones such that zero be ideal.
He has talked if calcitriol, the active vitamin D hormone being one. Others -
PTH
Cortisol
Adrenaline (though I'm not certain)
Estrogen (though I don't think zero is good)Though he hasn't said so, my personal take is that insulin is a stress hormone as well.
Yes, but if he’s right about that, then why are people who are exceptionally long lived having higher TSH levels? Again I want to emphasize that this one study I cited is just one of several.
Peat was similarly absolute when it comes to estrogen as you know. And yet we have always found that we don’t feel well if estrogen is too low. Everything is a balance and it makes sense that that balance changes as we get older in order to compensate for aging processes.
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It seems to me that the study only says that people get to have higher TSH levels as they get older. This is not the same as saying people having higher TSH levels get to live longer.
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@yerrag said in Is higher metabolism good for longetivity?:
It seems to me that the study only says that people get to have higher TSH levels as they get older. This is not the same as saying people having higher TSH levels get to live longer.
Agreed.
