The skinny on weight loss

In my June articles entitled "HGH: The fountain of youth hormone," I talked about human growth hormone that keeps us young in many ways even as we age if we can access it. The problem usually is not amounts of HGH but access to it as we age.

I explained that to increase the release of HGH we needed to increase and intensify those factors that stimulate its release from the pituitary gland. One of those factors was producing more PGE (a good eicosanoid). The Ideal Protein Diet/Treatment increases all those factors except for deep sleep and exercise, which are up to the individual.

So what is PGE (the good eicosanoid) and what will it do for me other than help access HGH? Simply this.

Eicosanoids are how the body controls inflammation. The popular omega-3 (ex. fish oils) and particularly the omega-6 (exlinoleic oil) fatty acids are the building blocks of compounds referred to as eicosanoids. Even though they may exist for seconds or milli-seconds before being degraded, they may be some of the most powerful substances in the body in terms of orchestrating profound physiological effects.

These "biological controllers" work inside the cell, but also serve as "mini-hormones" in that they signal adjacent cells to perform specific tasks. Among other things they are responsible for the degree of inflammation associated with the immune response (i.e. how much fever, how much pain, how much swelling is produced during a 'counter attack' on an invading pathogen).

In layman's terms, they "send out the calvary and call it back." In other words, eicosanoids modulate the degree and intensity of the immune response ensuring the minimum amount of "collateral damage" is done. Drugs can only increase the immune response or suppress it, they cannot modulate it.

How important is all of this to you? In conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, Chrohn's disease, pelvic inflammatory disease, colitis or any "itis," there is an exaggerated immune response, so prescribing 'immuno-supressants" seems logical. However, there is only so far you can go with these until the patient becomes immuno-suppressed and all the side effects come back to haunt us. Then the patient is prescribed immuno-stimulants (consider the side effects of steroids and Vioxx).

What role can our diet play in all of this? In my next article I will discuss this.

To learn more about the Ideal Protein Diet/Treatment please call (208) 772-6015 for a free consultation or to attend our next class.