Oscar-Claude Monet was a French painter, a founder of French Impressionist painting. The term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874.
The Rose Walk is one of his later paintings (1920-1922). He was suffering failing eyesight at the time, cataracts. They became so bad that shortly after he painted this he underwent operations for them. “The paintings done while the cataracts affected his vision have a general reddish tone, which is characteristic of the vision of cataract victims.”
Drinking two cups of plain water can produce “a 60% surge in the adrenal hormone noradrenaline within minutes, as if you just smoked a few cigarettes or downed a few cups of coffee, which boosts your metabolic rate up to 30% within an hour.” – Michael Greger MD. Photo: Cooks Illustrated
Dr. Greger just posted this video about water and metabolism. The concept is new to me. Beneath the video are 9 studies I pulled from his presentation and a quote or paraphrase about each. Beneath that is the video’s transcript if you’d prefer to read. Greger does a great job of summing this all up in 5 minutes. At the very end are my comments.
The increases in REE [resting energy expenditure] over 90 min post drink found in the two studies conducted in the laboratory of Boschmann et al. [they are the following 2 studies] using the same fixed water volume (500 ml) and same water temperature (21–22°) are uniquely spectacular.
Drinking 500 ml of water [16 ounces or 2 cups] increased metabolic rate by 30%. The increase occurred within 10 min and reached a maximum after 30–40 min.
In men, lipids mainly fueled the increase in metabolic rate. In contrast, in women carbohydrates were mainly used as the energy source.
The increase in energy expenditure with water was diminished with systemic β-adrenoreceptor blockade. [So, taking a beta-blocker – say, for high-blood pressure – would defeat this increase in metabolism.]
Context: Recently, we showed that drinking 500 ml water induces thermogenesis in normal-weight men and women.
Objective: We now repeated these studies in a randomized, controlled, crossover trial in overweight or obese otherwise healthy subjects (eight men and eight women), comparing also the effects of 500 ml isoosmotic saline or 50 ml water.
Results: Only 500 ml water increased energy expenditure by 24% over the course of 60 min after ingestion, whereas isoosmotic saline and 50 ml water had no effect. Heart rate and blood pressure did not change in these young, healthy subjects.
Conclusions: Our data exclude volume-related effects or gastric distension as the mediator of the thermogenic response to water drinking. Instead, we hypothesize the existence of a portal osmoreceptor, most likely an ion channel.
A subsequent rise in REE [resting energy expenditure] was observed, which was significantly higher than baseline after 24 min and at most time points thereafter. Maximal mean REE values were seen at 57 min after water drinking which were 25% higher than baseline.
Indeed, water drinking raises resting energy expenditure in normal weight and obese subjects. The stimulus setting off the response is hypoosmolarity rather than water temperature or gastrointestinal stretch.
…
The increase in metabolic rate with water drinking could be systematically applied in the prevention of weight gain and associated metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors. In essence, water drinking provides negative calories.
Results: Absolute and relative increases in drinking water were associated with significant loss of body weight and fat over time, independent of covariates.
This was an odd study. 50 young women drank 2 cups of water 3 times a day, before meals, in addition to any other beverages. After 8 weeks, the women lost weight, their BMIs went down, they lost body fat. However, you don’t know if all that water before meals affected calorie intake. Also no control group. Nonetheless, they drank water and lost weight without dieting.
Weight loss was ~2 kg greater in the water group than in the nonwater group, and the water group showed a 44% greater decline in weight over the 12 weeks than the nonwater group.
…
Thus, when combined with a hypocaloric diet, consuming 500 ml water prior to each main meal leads to greater weight loss than a hypocaloric diet alone in middle-aged and older adults. This may be due in part to an acute reduction in meal EI following water ingestion.
After adjustment, the water preloading group (500 ml 30 min before meal) lost about 1.2 kg (2.6 pounds, not much) more than the comparison group over 12 weeks. Barely reached significance: P = 0.063. However, those who actually DID drink the water 3 times a day lost about 9.5 pounds from baseline.
Given the 60 percent surge in the adrenal hormone noradrenaline within minutes of just drinking two cups of plain water, might one get the weight-loss benefits of noradrenaline-releasing drugs, like ephedra, without the risks? You don’t know until you put it to the test. Published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, the results were described as “uniquely spectacular.” Drinking two cups of water increased the metabolic rate of men and women by 30 percent. The increase started within 10 minutes and reached a maximum within an hour. In the 90 minutes after drinking a single tall glass of water, the study subjects burned about an extra 25 calories. Do that four times throughout the day and you could wipe out 100 extra calories— more than ephedra! You’d trim off more calories drinking water than taking weight loss doses of the banned substance, ephedrine—the active component of ephedra—three times a day. And we’re just talking about plain, cheap, safe, and legal tap water!
Using the 10-Calorie Rule I explained previously, unless we somehow compensated by eating more or moving less, drinking that much water could make us lose 10 pounds over time. “In essence,” concluded one research team, “water drinking provides negative calories.”
A similar effect was found in overweight and obese children. Drinking about two cups of water led to a 25 percent increase in metabolic rate within 24 minutes, lasting at least 66 minutes until the experiment ended. So, just getting the recommended daily “adequate intake” of water—about 7 cups a day for children ages 4 through 8, and for ages 9 through 13, 8 cups a day for girls and 10 cups for boys—may offer more than just hydration benefits.
Not all research teams were able to replicate these findings, though. Others only found about a 10 to 20 percent increase, a 5 percent increase, or effectively none at all––pouring cold water, one might say, on the whole concept. What we care about, though, is weight loss. The proof is in the pudding. Let’s test the waters, shall we?
Some researchers suggest, “The increase in metabolic rate with water drinking could be systematically applied in the prevention of weight gain….” Talk about a safe, simple, side-effect-free solution—in fact free, in every sense. Drug companies may spend billions getting a new drug to market; surely a little could be spared to test something that, at the very least, couldn’t hurt. That’s the problem, though. Water is a “cost-free intervention.”
There are observational studies suggesting those who drink, for example, four or more cups of water a day appear to lose more weight, independent of confounding factors such as less soda or more exercise. But you don’t really know until you put it to the test.
And finally, in 2013, “Effect of ‘Water Induced Thermogenesis’ on Body Weight, Body Mass Index and Body Composition of Overweight Subjects.” Fifty overweight “girls” (actually women, ages 18 through 23) were asked to drink two cups of water, three times a day, a half hour before meals, over and above their regular water intake, without otherwise changing their diets or physical activity. And, they lost an average of three pounds in eight weeks. What happened to those in the control group? There was no control group, a fatal flaw for any weight loss study due to the “Hawthorne effect,” where just knowing you’re being watched and weighed may subtly affect people’s behavior. Of course, we’re just talking about water; so, with no downsides one might as well give it a try. But I’d feel more confident if there were some randomized, controlled trials to really put it to the test. Thankfully, there are!
Oh, I hate it when the title ruins the suspense. Overweight and obese men and women randomized to two cups of water before each meal lost nearly five pounds more body fat in 12 weeks than those in the control group. Both groups were put on the same calorie-restricted diet, but the one with the added water lost weight 44 percent faster. A similar randomized controlled trial found that about 1 in 4 in the water group lost more than 5 percent of their body weight compared to only 1 in 20 in the control group.
The average weight loss difference was only about three pounds, but those who claimed to have actually complied with the three-times-a-day instructions lost about eight more pounds compared to those only did the extra water once a day or less. This is comparable to commercial weight loss programs like Weight Watchers, and all they did was drink some extra water.
Conclusions — Water drinking significantly and rapidly raises sympathetic activity. Indeed, it raises plasma norepinephrine as much as such classic sympathetic stimuli as caffeine and nicotine.
____________
In sum … Drinking a cup or two of water on an empty stomach raises metabolism. Less than that or drinking tea, soda, beer, or other beverage won’t work. Mechanism: When a dilute solution passes over a cell (possibly in digestive tract, liver, or hepatic portal vein), a receptor on the cell’s surface senses that extracellular hypoosmolarity (water is hypoosmotic).
It’s vital that a cell be able to sense what’s going on around it, because:
Indeed, osmotic cell swelling activates anabolic processes including glycogen and protein synthesis in the presence of suitable substrates.
Also, Did you notice? If your metabolic rate goes up and you produce heat, you need to be burning a fuel. What’s the fuel? It’s different for men and women:
In men, lipids mainly fueled the increase in metabolic rate. In contrast, in women carbohydrates were mainly used as the energy source.
There is a whole lot going on here, a whole lot to learn.
The single most important thing you can do to prevent diabetes is lose weight. It almost doesn’t matter how – diet, exercise, fasting, surgery. I advocate a low-fat, plant-based diet because it improves health in so many other ways. But it’s not the only way to lose weight.
There are other factors that increase risk for diabetes besides being overweight … family history, having diabetes while pregnant, air pollution, exposure to endocrine disruptors (like BPA) and other environmental pollutants. And now, taking PPIs:
Conclusions: Regular use* of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) was associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and the risk increased with longer duration of use. Physicians should therefore exercise caution when prescribing PPIs, particularly for long-term use.
* Regular use was defined as 2 or more times a week
PPIs are used to treat acid reflux, peptic ulcers, and indigestion. They are among the top 10 most commonly used drugs worldwide. Long-term use has been linked to an increased risk of bone fractures, chronic kidney disease, gut infections and stomach cancer.
…
A mounting body of evidence suggests that changes in the type and volume of bacteria in the gut (the microbiome) may help explain the associations found between PPI use and an increased risk of developing diabetes.
Examples of PPIs:
Omeprazole (Prilosec)
Lansoprazole (Prevacid)
Esomeprazole (Nexium)
1990: A 100-foot-wide diamond-shaped object was seen by 2 hikers at Calvine, Scotland. They took 6 photographs which the UK’s Ministry of Defence said, after investigation, had not been faked (above is a reconstruction). The object hovered silently for 10 minutes before “accelerating away at immense speed – vertically.” A military fighter jet can be seen in the background.
I worked for the MOD for 21 years. From 1991 to 1994, I was posted to a division where my duties included undertaking these investigations. It was a fascinating job, to say the least.
The article discusses the Calvine Incident, and its soon-to-be-released (January 2021) high-definition color photographs which the MOD kept classified for 30 years. The image above is considered an accurate reconstruction of one of the hiker’s photographs, based on actual MOD line drawings and Nick Pope’s memory.
The reason for this interest in a 30-year-old sighting? It’s being reported that the MOD has decided to block release of the photos for another 50 years.
Excerpts:
In the cult sci-fi series The X-Files, Fox Mulder has a poster of a UFO on the wall of his basement office. Underneath are the words “I want to believe”.
In the Ministry of Defence office, which served as the nerve centre of the UK’s UFO project, we had something very similar. But our picture was real.
Most UFO photos are either obvious fakes, or blurry and indistinct – a vague light in the night sky, or a fuzzy dot in the distance.
Not this one. It was up-close-and-personal, had been taken in broad daylight, and showed a large diamond-shaped craft.
I soon got the story out of my predecessor and read the file myself. It was an extraordinary tale: two men had been out hiking near Calvine in Scotland.
Suddenly, they’d seen a massive UFO hanging in the sky above their heads, silent, motionless and menacing. Awestruck, they shot off six photographs before the object accelerated away at immense speed – vertically!
The shell-shocked witnesses sent the photos to a Scottish newspaper and a journalist contacted the MoD press office, looking for a comment.
Somehow – perhaps using a D-Notice or perhaps using some real-life Men-in-Black trickery – someone at the MoD managed to extract all the photos and the negatives from the newspaper, who never got them back.
The MoD’s technical wizards leapt into action. The images were enlarged and analyzed, using the full resources and capabilities of intelligence community specialists.
Even now, years after these events, I can’t discuss the details of this process, as so much of the information is top secret.
The analysis was nothing short of sensational. The photos hadn’t been faked.
They showed a structured craft of unknown origin, unlike any conventional aircraft. There was no fuselage, no wings, no tail, no engines and no markings of any sort.
Because the photos had been taken in daylight with the surrounding countryside visible, MoD boffins could make some calculations about the mystery object’s size. It turned out to be nearly 100 feet in diameter.
…
The MoD’s standard line on UFOs was that the phenomenon was of ‘no defence significance’ – a meaningless Whitehall soundbite that meant whatever we wanted it to mean.
At best it was misleading and at worst, it was a downright lie.
We consistently played down the true level of our interest in UFOs, telling parliament, the media and the public that the subject was of little interest, while all the time, behind closed doors, we struggled to make sense of cases like the Calvine incident.
Despite an extensive investigation, we never found a definitive explanation for what was seen at Calvine.
Like the Tic Tac, this is a well-documented sighting of an unusual aerial phenomenon that remains unexplained.
As of this writing there were 212,789 deaths attributed to Covid-19 in the US this year, placing COVID-19 firmly in the third position.
The flu killed 34,000 people last year. That figure is inflated because not everyone who dies of flu has indeed been tested for influenza. Covid-19 has killed over 212,000 people so far this year. (That figure fails to account for people with medical conditions who die because hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID-19.) And the year isn’t up. So, Covid-19 is considerably worse than flu.
On 21 September, the President said about COVID-19, “It affects virtually nobody.” As of this writing, there have been over 7.6 million Americans who tested positive for COVID-19.
On 8 October, the President said, “When you catch it, you get better. … That’s what happens, you get better.” As you can see, 212,789 people did not get better. They died.
A low-fat diet and cholesterol reduction. They were the prescription for heart disease in 1994, along with smoking cessation and activity. They were the prescription before 1994 and since then too, because they worked. The only thing that has changed in recent years is the influx of money from parties that would suffer: the meat industry, the dairy and egg industries, and other industries with a stake in Big Food. They advertised, they influenced USDA Dietary Guidelines, and, the most insidious? They published studies in peer-reviewed journals to sow doubt.
Here we go. 1994. How to avoid a heart attack without drugs or surgery:
Angioplasty, stents, and bypass surgery fix local problems. But narrowing of vessels is a systemic problem, it doesn’t just happen in one or two places:
Coronary atherosclerosis is a diffuse process in the entire epicardial coronary artery tree, subject throughout to the risk of plaque rupture and associated coronary events in the absence of vigorous risk factor management.
So, what is vigorous risk factor management? Specifically:
Very low fat diets (less than 10% of calories as fat), tend to show greater benefit on regression or prevention of events than studies with less vigorous intervention.
These new approaches to the treatment of coronary atherosclerosis provide a relatively low-cost alternative to traditional invasive approaches that markedly decreases myocardial infarction, death, balloon angioplasty, or bypass surgery in patients with moderate or severe coronary artery stenoses.
For optimal probability of partial reversal and preventing coronary events with a certainty comparable to or better than invasive alternatives, a reversal regimen should achieve lean body mass, total cholesterol of 140 mg/dl or below, low-density lipoprotein below 80 to 90 mg/dl, HDL 45 mg/dl or above, and absence of smoking. At these goals, coronary events are simply uncommon.
Here’s a hearty low-fat vegetable soup to get you started, or to keep you going, or just because it tastes good:
Fanatic Cook 