Recycling — something hardly done a few decades ago is now commonplace. When recycling was built in to the municipality trash disposal process, it was no longer difficult to do and people started seriously participating. Why take precious resources and make everything from new materials, when old damaged materials could be broken down and rebuilt with results that are just as good?
Still, not everyone participates in recycling, and many of us only partially — even though we talk a lot about protecting the planet, when it comes to our putting out personal effort to prepare and sort the trash, we are not always consistent. Recycling takes effort. Your body has recycling processes that it follows when new resources are scarce and it must make the effort, and in doing so it gets rid of the trash very effectively. One of the best ways to clean up your body from the inside is to bring in less, not more.
Living the comfortable, easy life does not give you the best chance of living a long one. Longevity requires living the way a marathon runner handles a race: neither taking it easy nor overextending, but exerting a constant effort to take the next step, and the next, until reaching the finish line. Runners do not skimp on what is needed to finish the race, but deprive themselves of what is not needed, keeping the long goal in mind.
When we shovel in food, consume easy calories, and try to satisfy our cravings, we forget about the marathon. We nap rather than run. We short out the recycling that our body knows how to do but doesn’t need to bother with, because we oversupply it with food. Our bodies will take the easy path if we provide it!
Protein — perfect for recycling
Protein consumption is very popular these days: eat lots of protein and build muscle, protein is great for keeping your blood sugar stable — plenty of (invalid) arguments to encourage us to bulk up on meat and dairy. Proteins are essential building blocks in the body. But like household goods that get a lot of use, some are no longer useful and have become trash.
When new protein supplies are scarce, the body works on recycling existing proteins. And just as you would carefully consider what is trash and what isn’t when you are sorting garbage, the body considers carefully what is trash and recycles those proteins first. We continue to learn just how much care the body puts into everything it does, and recycling is no exception. Your body targets, or “tags”, proteins that it wants to break down into the component amino acids with a marker called “ubiquitin”, which is then recognized by “proteasome” to be broken down. What gets tagged? Misfolded or unneeded proteins, damaged organelles, and other junk get top priority. The trash is taken to the lysosome organelle for recycling.
Eating is overrated
We all need nutrients. Food is (or at least should be) our prime source for nutrients. However, the last thing we tend to ask when going to grab a meal is “how nutrient dense is this meal?” Instead, we consider how tasty it is, or how it satisfies our current cravings. If we are concerned about nutrients, we’ll also take a multivitamin pill.
When it comes to eating, less is more. As we eat less, we bring in less toxins as well and give our digestion less work to do. At the same time, we encourage our cells to go looking for food elsewhere. We know that fat stores are a prime alternative source, but we don’t think about the recycling of proteins that happens when cells can’t get enough from food. The body becomes “lean and mean” when it is deprived of easy food: it seeks out harmful proteins first and makes good use of the trash.
Studies
The Harvard Medical School studied how cells recycle. It is common knowledge that cells break down proteins when starved of food sources, and they expected to see “autophagy”, where cells just search for any and all proteins that they can find and break them down in bulk. However, they found a very ordered process of tagging which methodically determines which proteins are truly trash and prioritizes recycling them first. They found that the body gets to work in “housekeeping”, and saw that it is very smart about what it recycles. Also of interest for longevity, they found that the rate of cell division decreases during deprivation as well — slower cell division means slower aging, as the next generations of cells are generally inferior to the former.
As published in Nature Communications, researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute recorded similar results: they saw “selective autophagy” where proteins such as “p62” deliver trash from worn out mitochondria, misfolded proteins, and toxic proteins to the lysosomes for recycling. Significantly increasing the population of p62 led to a 20% to 30% lifespan extension. Numerous studies on intermittent fasting show similar impacts on longevity. And a study at the University of Southern California of over 6800 adults found that adults in the age range of 50 to 65 with a high protein intake had a 75% mortality increase over the next 18 years over the low protein group. They also found a 4 times increase in cancer mortality of the high protein group, and still a 3 times increase of the medium protein group, over the low protein group. Further, a high protein diet showed a 5 times increase in death from diabetes! Protein intake is frequently suggested as a guard against diabetes.
The apostle Paul says, “I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should.” We are seeing that habitually giving the body what it craves is a great path to a shorter life, while restricting and rationing the body actually strengthens it, because it becomes more effective in recycling the trash. Your body builds muscle when you exercise, and your body builds stronger cells when you force it to recycle. For most of us, “less is more.”
Dr. Nemec’s Comments:
Calorie restriction is proven to be the best and most sound method researched to increase health and longevity. This means the body lives longer when you put less calories in — but the choice of those calories are critical! If animal protein is in your diet (this includes eggs and dairy products) it is time to get them out if you are over 40 and want to age successfully. You will live longer and better with a plant based diet rather than and animal based diet. This is because we want the body to recycle proteins the most, and it can only do that when there is a scarcity, not an abundance. Most people eat 2-3 times too much protein and it is complete animal protein which not only shuts down protein recycling but is perfect fuel to grow opportunistic cancer cells. We have been helping people live longer lives and overcoming major health challenges like cancer for over 35 years. Our teaching and treatment programs attract people from around the world to our inpatient facility. The options to work on improving your health with Total Health Institute’s guidance include the following four options:
- Outpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-has the most benefit of teaching, treatment, live classes and personalized coaching. This program has the most contact with Dr. Nemec with 3- 6 month programs that can be turned into a regular checking and support program for life. This is our core program that has helped so many restore their health and maintain that restoration for years.
- Inpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-is our four-week intensive inpatient program for those that are not in driving distance, usually over 4 hour drive. This is the program that is an intensive jumpstart with treatment, teaching, live classes and coaching designed for all our international patients along with those in the US that do not live in Illinois. This program is very effective especially when combined with our new membership program support.
- Stay at Home Program-is offered to continental US patients who cannot come to Total Health Institute but still want a more personal, customized plan to restore their health. This program also includes our Learn Membership Program.
- Membership Program is our newest program offered for those that want to work on their health at a high level and want access to the teaching at Total Health Institute along with the Forums: both Dr. Nemec’s posts and other members posting. And also, to have the chance to get personalized questions answered on the conference calls which are all archived in case you miss the call. The Membership Program has 3 levels to choose from: Learn, Overcome and Master. The difference is at the Overcome and Master levels you received one on one calls with Dr. Nemec personalizing your program for your areas of focus.
