Posts made by Kvirion

I guess that this is a sign that to understand and follow RP ideas one needs to study it deeply. And have an idea about the underlying philosophy (Heraclitus, etc.)...
Novices and fans of superficial approaches should stay away for their own good...

It's good to understand that things like vitamin A do not exist in isolation AND that their actions/effects depend on the context.

Therefore, no one can say that a vitamin is absolutely bad or good...

BTW Never mistake correlation with causation guys...

More about it https://bioenergetic.forum/topic/39/ray-approach-as-real-science/3?_=1706619254334

BTW There is a great interview with Ray about better sleep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ectFSs9nEcw

@paradox Well said, Ray was all about the good method and understanding the individual context.

@chudlord Exacly, to understand Ray, one must read most of his articles thoroughly. Moreover, to understand his philosophical approaches based on for example Heraclitus or William Blake

@newmexico Something for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcEmSgbMfco

Happy you like it guys, be healthy.

@Pulastye Advanced advice - from my notebook

Sleep and Aging -Dr. Ray Peat's March Newsletter -Ray's thoughts to improve sleeping...
"Producing a deficiency of the “essential fatty acids” in animals increases the duration of their slow wave sleep (Dzoljic, 1978). Using aspirin at bedtime, to inhibit prostaglandin synthesis, is likely to be helpful in age-related insomnia. Progesterone and vitamin E act in various ways to prevent excessive stimulation by prostaglandins. Using snacks to minimize the nocturnal increase of free fatty acids and hypoglycemia is an effective way to support restorative sleep, and to retard the brain-aging effects of the accumulation of the unstable fatty acids. Calcium and vitamin D, sufficient to keep parathyroid hormone low, contribute to restorative sleep. Salty snacks are especially helpful for bringing on sleep, probably by stabilizing blood glucose and lowering adrenalin. Ice cream, combining sugar, calcium, and some fat that prolongs the absorption of the sugar, is often effective for improving the quality of sleep.
Thyroid hormone, by promoting the oxidation of glucose, and increasing ATP, is extremely important for the ability to achieve and maintain the needed deep sleep. Hypothyroid people who often find that sleep isn’t refreshing, sometimes enter only the first superficial stage of sleep. Thyroxin, T4, helps to reduce the nocturnal level of the proinflammatory thyroid stimulating hormone, TSH, but 5 or 10 mcg of the immediately active T3 at bedtime will usually produce sleep within a few minutes. Even coffee, if it’s used in the right amounts, at the right time, can improve the quality of sleep, by supporting the body’s energy processes. Bottom line: If you want quality sleep – consume a diet high in CA and nutritional sugars. Use a salty, sweet snack prior to bed to help regulate BS and better sleep. Avoid PUFAS. Use tools like progesterone, aspirin, thyroid and even coffee to support metabolism and improve sleep.

“Good sleep requires fairly vigorous metabolism and a normal body temperature. In old age, the metabolic rate is decreased, and sleep becomes defective.” ~Ray Peat  Use glucose-rich and salty foods.
“When using pregnenolone, men and women alike report feeling a profound mood of resilience and an increased ability to confront challenges successfully.” -Ray Peat

Lowering excessive adrenaline 
• #1 is fixing hypothyroid & efficient mitochondria energy production - low sodium is common in hypothyroid too, Ray said before that adrenaline can be 10x higher in hypothyroid or hyper-PRL,
• joint #1 is getting more sodium; can try 2g-3g baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in a small glass of water empty stomach at night if you have insomnia,
• #2 not sure how impactful but eating enough carbs to prevent low blood sugar (adrenaline pumps to raise it) (if getting adrenaline response to carbs instead could indicate a need for hitting thiamine RDA (not too much at once) or having poor glucose oxidation)
• #3 avoiding acetylcholine stuff in the late afternoon & night is a big one I think (vegetables, fruits, eggs) (acetylcholine is probably already high with continually high adrenaline as it inhibits acetylcholinesterase in the brain) | and inosine maybe, avoiding nicotine.
“Eating salty food around bedtime usually has a sleep-inducing effect, and it helps to maintain blood volume (which tends to decrease during the night), and to restrain the nocturnal rise of aldosterone, and other indicators of stress or inflammation.” ~Ray Peat

https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/hot-flashes-energy-aging.shtml "One of the things progesterone does is to stabilize blood sugar. In one experiment, hot flashes were found to be increased by lowering blood sugar and decreased by moderately increasing blood sugar (Dormire and Reame, 2003). Hypoglycemia increases brain hormones, corticotropin releases hormones, CRH (Widmaier, et al., 1988), which increases ACTH and cortisol. CRH causes vasodilation (Clifton, et al., 2005), and is more active in the presence of estrogen. Menopausal women are more responsive to its effects, and those with the most severe hot flushes are the most responsive (Yakubo, et al., 1990). | The first reaction to a decrease of blood glucose, at least in healthy individuals, is to increase the activity of the sympathetic nervous system, with an increase of adrenaline, which causes the liver to release glucose from its glycogen stores. The effect of adrenaline on the liver is very quick, but adrenaline also acts on the brain, stimulating CRH, which causes the pituitary to secrete ACTH, which stimulates the adrenal cortex to release cortisol, which by various means causes blood sugar to increase, consequently causing the sympathetic nervous activity to decrease. Even when the liver's glycogen stores are adequate, the system cycles rhythmically, usually repeating about every 90 minutes throughout the day." | Increasing evening’s sugar and protein intake.

 Blood sugar being too low sets off hot flashes in men and women. Snack more. If you feel lightheaded, you know it is coming. The quote from Ray Peat explains what is going on. Low thyroid, rising cortisol, all of it is caused by too few calories and the response that occurs in the body to head off the disaster of lowering blood sugar. The only way to head off low blood sugar is to eat. If you are getting these reactions, you are not eating enough. Every day it has happened is a day your brain did not like your too low energy intake. The brain decides what our blood sugar should be on any given day. We are less resilient to other stressors in our life, even our own negative thoughts, if our body is already trying to cope with the number one stressor... too few calories. | Enough salt & carbohydrates and testosterone should help with this… Hot flashes happen when your body temp is starting to go down. That can be caused by your glycogen stores being low/exhausted, blood sugar reduced, body secreting adrenaline —> CRH to produce glucose from body tissues. Older bodies are less efficient at supplying glucose to tissues. Older livers are less robust at producing glucose on demand. Estrogen helps the body adapt to lower body temps… Answer: Eat well during the day, especially early in the day; enough before bed or when you wake up in the night. Advice from haidut & Ray Peat: taurine & fructose (or fruit juices like apples that contain mostly fructose).

Haidut: The methods for increasing glycogen storage depend very much on the specific organism/person, but if you are interested in trying some new things the first option I would suggest is to get some pure fructose (or fruit juices like apples that contain mostly fructose) and use that as your primary source of sugar for several days. Fructose is supposed to be particularly good at building up glycogen storage. | On the supplement side, taurine is supposed to help with that, but the dose varies wildly from person to person for optimal effects. So, you have to try to find out what works for you. Typically, effective doses are 2g-5g a day. | Another supplement that Peat wrote about is uridine. Read The Problem of Alzheimer's Disease as a clue to Immortality Part 1 | Finally, if you are interested in trying drugs (after consulting with your doctor of course) an older antihistamine and anti-acid drug famotidine (Pepcid) is exceptionally good at inhibiting glycogen breakdown and promoting the synthesis of new glycogen. It is worth noting that famotidine is unique in its glycogen effects among the anti-acid drugs and unlike other drugs it has no known interaction with any other drug or any known effects on liver health or metabolizing abilities. So, you could use that while loading up on sugar. Famotidine has been found to be helpful for several conditions completely unrelated to stomach acid such as schizophrenia and PTSD. A probable explanation of those benefits would be due to the drug improving glycogen storage/usage and thus improving brain energetic profile. Here is one study for famotidine and glycogen.

@Fructose Me too...

Then I was on keto and IF but had a lot of issues...

Ray Peat's advice saved my life probably
Now I feel something like 10-15 years younger and my IBS, brain fog, fatigue, etc. are gone.
But I use RP advice in systemic/contextual ways...

@Lukey OK!

More info just in case...
“Eating salty food around bedtime usually has a sleep-inducing effect, and it helps to maintain blood volume (which tends to decrease during the night), and to restrain the nocturnal rise of aldosterone, and other indicators of stress or inflammation.” ~Ray Peat

https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/hot-flashes-energy-aging.shtml "One of the things progesterone does is to stabilize blood sugar. In one experiment, hot flashes were found to be increased by lowering blood sugar and decreased by moderately increasing blood sugar (Dormire and Reame, 2003). Hypoglycemia increases brain hormones, corticotropin releases hormones, CRH (Widmaier, et al., 1988), which increases ACTH and cortisol. CRH causes vasodilation (Clifton, et al., 2005), and is more active in the presence of estrogen. Menopausal women are more responsive to its effects, and those with the most severe hot flushes are the most responsive (Yakubo, et al., 1990). | The first reaction to a decrease of blood glucose, at least in healthy individuals, is to increase the activity of the sympathetic nervous system, with an increase of adrenaline, which causes the liver to release glucose from its glycogen stores. The effect of adrenaline on the liver is very quick, but adrenaline also acts on the brain, stimulating CRH, which causes the pituitary to secrete ACTH, which stimulates the adrenal cortex to release cortisol, which by various means causes blood sugar to increase, consequently causing the sympathetic nervous activity to decrease. Even when the liver's glycogen stores are adequate, the system cycles rhythmically, usually repeating about every 90 minutes throughout the day." | Increasing evening’s sugar and protein intake.

 Blood sugar being too low sets off hot flashes in men and women. Snack more. If you feel lightheaded, you know it is coming. The quote from Ray Peat explains what is going on. Low thyroid, rising cortisol, all of it is caused by too few calories and the response that occurs in the body to head off the disaster of lowering blood sugar. The only way to head off low blood sugar is to eat. If you are getting these reactions, you are not eating enough. Every day it has happened is a day your brain did not like your too low energy intake. The brain decides what our blood sugar should be on any given day. We are less resilient to other stressors in our life, even our own negative thoughts, if our body is already trying to cope with the number one stressor... too few calories. | Enough salt & carbohydrates and testosterone should help with this… Hot flashes happen when your body temp is starting to go down. That can be caused by your glycogen stores being low/exhausted, blood sugar reduced, body secreting adrenaline —> CRH to produce glucose from body tissues. Older bodies are less efficient at supplying glucose to tissues. Older livers are less robust at producing glucose on demand. Estrogen helps the body adapt to lower body temps… Answer: Eat well during the day, especially early in the day; enough before bed or when you wake up in the night. Advice from haidut & Ray Peat: taurine & fructose (or fruit juices like apples that contain mostly fructose).

Haidut: The methods for increasing glycogen storage depend very much on the specific organism/person, but if you are interested in trying some new things the first option I would suggest is to get some pure fructose (or fruit juices like apples that contain mostly fructose) and use that as your primary source of sugar for several days. Fructose is supposed to be particularly good at building up glycogen storage. | On the supplement side, taurine is supposed to help with that, but the dose varies wildly from person to person for optimal effects. So, you have to try to find out what works for you. Typically, effective doses are 2g-5g a day. | Another supplement that Peat wrote about is uridine. Read The Problem of Alzheimer's Disease as a clue to Immortality Part 1 | Finally, if you are interested in trying drugs (after consulting with your doctor of course) an older antihistamine and anti-acid drug famotidine (Pepcid) is exceptionally good at inhibiting glycogen breakdown and promoting the synthesis of new glycogen. It is worth noting that famotidine is unique in its glycogen effects among the anti-acid drugs and unlike other drugs it has no known interaction with any other drug or any known effects on liver health or metabolizing abilities. So, you could use that while loading up on sugar. Famotidine has been found to be helpful for several conditions completely unrelated to stomach acid such as schizophrenia and PTSD. A probable explanation of those benefits would be due to the drug improving glycogen storage/usage and thus improving brain energetic profile. Here is one study for famotidine and glycogen.

@Fructose Yeah, exactly!

Sources:
https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-issues.shtml
Haidut's explanations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRcXtTjfb-M

@newmexico
BTW you may read my article that things like Ray's advice (e.g. sugar) shouldn't be taken out of context...
https://bioenergetic.forum/topic/39/ray-approach-as-real-science?_=1706571500032

@newmexico said in Ray Peat - quack or genius?:

@Kvirion High sugar intake has been associated with various health issues, including weight gain, dental problems, and an increased risk of metabolic conditions like diabetes. Same goes for high-carb diets. Sorry not sorry!

Ray never asked for high sugar intake, only for a level adequate for one's need - no more than 400 for an average person IIRC. He also advised to never eat sugar alone but with proteins, etc.

If the level of your thyroid is optimal and you have proper hygiene, your teeth will be fine regardless of sugar....

Ray's advice is systemic i.e. one needs to take care of the whole metabolism pathways...

@newmexico
Ray taught us to balance everything
milk with OJ
beef with gelatine
carbs with proteins and SFA fats, etc.

He also said to limit protein, carbs, and fats according to one needs.

His main message was to listen to your body's needs and constantly analyze and adapt i.e. Perceive. Think. Act.

@Lukey
Do you have any other symptoms after a longer sleep? I.e., raised bpm or sweaty palms?

It may be that you may have enough glycogen (optimal metabolic state) for 6hrs, but after that adrenaline and cortisol kick in and lower testosterone, CO2, etc.

@Sugar
Some say that there is a formula that a woman's age should be: a man's age divided by two, then added 7 years...

For example, man's age is 40, then a woman's age should be around 27...

By the way women's fertility declines faster, see the attached image

@footslurper Happy to help!

There is a better/safer version of Clomid called enclomiphene
As explained in this video https://youtu.be/yPm-fuCZbH0

BTW, I love your signature! "𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝔸𝕣𝕖 ℕ𝕠𝕥 𝔽𝕒𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕟 𝔼𝕟𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙" Yeah!

hi @footslurper
Clomid increases testosterone but also increases estrogen...
Its effects may be unpleasant or even dangerous...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26220499
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31216250/

Of men on clomiphene citrate for more than 3 years 88% achieved eugonadism, 77% reported improved symptoms and 8% reported side effects. Estradiol was significantly increased following clomiphene citrate treatment. Results did not significantly differ between patients treated for more than 3, or 3 or fewer years. The most common side effects reported by patients treated for more than 3 years included changes in mood in 5, blurred vision in 3, and breast tenderness in 2. There was no significant adverse event in any patient treated with clomiphene citrate.

Hi guys,

Just wanna describe a scientific discipline that is pretty close to Ray's ideas... You may be interested to dig in

It's called Complex Adaptive Systems science.
It claims that our bodies and our environment are instances of Complex Adaptive (Eco)Systems. It's a pretty new multi-disciplinary science, but well-established and supported by much evidence.

CAS' components (incl. energy) are entangled i.e. interconnected, interrelated, always in flux, and highly context-dependent.

This means that in CAS there is no linear causality - they are dispositional...

In practical terms, this means that two opposing views can be true at the same time because they are true in different conditions (i.e. depending on the context of for example circumstances/environment. epi-/genetics, their interactions, etc.)

For example, a vitamin can be unfavorable for some people living in some conditions, but the same vitamin will be great for other people living in different context...

Another example, if someone has low (hypo) thyroid then fructose/honey may be a bit unfriendly to the teeth. But for someone with optimal thyroid, there will be no problem.

BTW, there is also a variant of Complexity Science dedicated to IT, it's called Residuality Theory. I guess, that @haidut may be interested

What do you guys think about it?

@brad

Hi, I'm happy to join. Thanks for the forum