Sports, diet, metabolism
Fuel routing, not folklore.
How glycogen, fat and amino acids actually move. Why ketones are a signal as well as a fuel. Why sleep is a glucose drug. Why liver fat is the variable type 2 cares about. Carnivore, fasting, protein, mitochondria.
51 min · long read · Metabolism
Reversing type 2 diabetes is a published result, not a slogan
The DiRECT trial put type 2 diabetes into remission by emptying the liver and pancreas of surplus fat. Very-low-calorie and very-low-carbohydrate programmes can both get you there. The mechanism isn't mystical.
51 min · long read · Metabolism
Human metabolism, without the slogan
Calories are bookkeeping. The actual system is a set of hormonally gated fluxes through glycogen, fat and amino acids — with the liver as air-traffic control.
50 min · long read · Metabolism
Fasting, autophagy and the mTOR switch
Eat, and mTOR builds. Fast, and AMPK and ULK1 start recycling the cell. The molecular story is a switch, not a personality.
49 min · long read · Metabolism
Liver fat is the variable type 2 diabetes actually cares about
Ectopic fat in the liver overproduces glucose and VLDL. Empty it — by energy deficit, by carbohydrate restriction, or by both — and first-phase insulin can return. That is the twin-cycle in working clothes.
49 min · long read · Metabolism
Protein, training and muscle protein synthesis
Muscle isn't a mood. It is mechanical tension plus a leucine-gated translational programme. Here is the dose, the threshold, and why the gym still has to happen.
49 min · long read · Metabolism
Regulating blood sugar: the control system
Glucose is a tightly bound variable. Here is the hardware — pancreas, liver, muscle, incretins — and the places it fails.
48 min · long read · Metabolism
When insulin falls, the kidney dumps sodium. That is the ‘keto flu’.
Insulin tells the kidney to hold salt. Carbohydrate restriction drops insulin, you diurese, and magnesium and potassium follow. The headache was not a test of character.
48 min · long read · Metabolism
How a carnivore diet actually works
Eliminate plants, eat animals. The interesting part is not the internet. It is ketosis, gluconeogenesis, electrolytes and what happens to a microbiome when fibre hits zero.
47 min · long read · Metabolism
Mitochondria, VO2 and why training still wins
Endurance work builds the engines. Heavy work builds the chassis. The molecular story is AMPK, PGC-1α, calcium and mTOR — not a shopping list.
46 min · long read · Metabolism
Sleep is a glucose drug you cannot buy
Spiegel, Leproult and Van Cauter restricted healthy people to four hours a night. Next-day glucose tolerance looked like a milder type 2. Cortisol, GH pulses and the hepatic clock are why. The bread did not change.
45 min · long read · Metabolism
Ketones are a fuel. They're also a signal.
β-hydroxybutyrate isn't just what you burn when glycogen runs low. It is an HDAC inhibitor, an NLRP3 dampener, and a message to the brain that the house is running on fat.
45 min · long read · Metabolism
How diets actually work
Calories are conservation of energy. Hormones are the routing table. Palatability is why the routing table keeps getting overwritten. Every named diet is a way of leaning on one of those three.
39 min · long read · Metabolism
Brown fat, UCP1, and heat as a decision
Brown adipose tissue is a heater with a named protein, UCP1, that spends the mitochondrial proton gradient as warmth instead of ATP. Adults have some; PET-CT found it in 2009. Cannon and Nedergaard wrote the review. Occupancy at the glucagon receptor lives in that neighbourhood. It is not a brown-fat drug.
Metabolism essays sit next to the incretin vial. US-made retatrutide — identical molecule to Lilly’s LY3437943 — is in the catalogue.
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