Does our body chemistry control our weight? Today, we’ll be delving into the topic of hormones and their role in our health. Contrary to popular belief, weight gain cannot solely be attributed to hormonal imbalances, as we’ll explore in this episode. Specifically, we’ll take a closer look at the thyroid gland and the hormones secreted by fat cells, such as leptin and adiponectin.
While conditions like hypothyroidism can contribute to weight gain, Dr. Sal asserts that hormone replacement therapy alone is not enough to explain the staggering weight gains seen in our society today. Instead, this episode emphasizes the importance of self-reflection, engaging in prayer and meditation, and making conscious choices about our eating habits and overall lifestyle.
Key takeaways:
1. The thyroid gland and its hormones play a crucial role in regulating weight and metabolism. However, thyroid issues alone cannot account for significant weight gain.
2. Fat cells secrete various hormones, including leptin and adiponectin, which affect appetite, energy expenditure, and insulin sensitivity.
3. Leptin works by signaling to the brain that we are full and need to stop eating. However, in overweight or obese individuals, leptin resistance can occur, leading to constant feelings of hunger.
4. Adiponectin increases energy production in cells, protects blood vessel lining, and promotes memory function.
5. Our eating habits and lack of physical activity contribute to weight gain and the development of unhealthy neural networks. It is essential to seek balance and follow God’s will for our health.
Dr. Sal [00:00:00]:
Control your thoughts through prayer and meditation. You can change it. You have that power. You work with god. You do god's will. And changes will take place. Welcome to the HealthQuest podcast, your guide to god's will for your health. Hello.
Dr. Sal [00:00:33]:
My name is Doctor Sal, and I've been a practicing surgeon for well over 30 years. And my goal for each episode is that you'll be able to have your mind transformed to god's design for your health and affect the way that you eat and the way that you live. If you're new here, we release an episode every week. And if you enjoy the content, you please leave us a good review? It really helps our ratings and allows us to reach more people. And in turn, we can help more people as a result of your support. Thank you so much. And today's episode, we're gonna be talking about your hormones. Guess what folks? It's not your hormones.
Dr. Sal [00:01:12]:
Let's dive right on into today's health quest. And I wanna talk first of all about the thyroid gland in the thyroid hormone. And back in 18 72. Doctor Theodore Kosher was appointed the chair of surgery in Burns, Switzerland. Now back then in the 18 seventies, About 90% of the children and young adults were afflicted with goiter, which is a thyroid enlargement. And so he developed techniques of thyroid surgery and many other procedures that eventually earned him a Nobel Prize in medicine in 1909. So he was removing these people's thyroids. However, in 18 83, doctor Reverend in Geneva Switzerland reported that these patients develop symptoms of what is known as hypothyroidism.
Dr. Sal [00:02:06]:
And these symptoms led to what is known as mixed edema. And these patients who were later given thyroid extracts in 18 91, and that provided adequate treatment thereafter. But the amount of weight gain was no more than £30, folks. And half of that was edema or what we call water weight. In this picture, we have a a a photo of a gentleman that is suffering from hypothyroidism and developed mixed edema. As you could see, he doesn't appear to be morbidly obese. That was without thyroid hormone replacement. It's routine in today's modern society and modern medical practice to take thyroid hormone replacement, especially if you're have some form of thyroid insufficiency, Hashimoto's disease or on having your thyroid completely removed.
Dr. Sal [00:02:59]:
That doesn't account for 50 to 70 to even a £120 weight gain. That we're seeing in America today folks. Therefore, thyroid insufficiency, Hashimoto's disease, And even thyroidectomy does not account for 50 to 70 to even up to a £120 weight gain that we see in America today. So even having a problem with your thyroid, just taking thyroid hormone replacement therapy would usually correct it. But let's go on and talk about the hormones that are secreted by enlarged fat cells. Now here you'll see in the diagram, actually, there's a list of all these hormones that just fat cells secrete. Now we've talked about before in the past, all the immune cells that are, that are stored in the fat cells. But here are the different hormones that the fat cells actually secrete.
Dr. Sal [00:03:56]:
And we're gonna go over the 3 main hormones. And we're gonna start off with leptin. In leptin, works at two locations. Early on, it works in the peripheral tissue. For instance, when I say peripheral, I'm talking about some thing that's in the body and not so much in the brain or in the nervous system, and it works directly on the muscles. And it turns on the fat burning furnace in the muscle cells. Then the mussels use the little stored fat in it, for fuel. And this helps to prevent the buildup of fat to in the muscle, which is known as lipotoxicity.
Dr. Sal [00:04:35]:
So buildup of excess fat in the muscle causes lipotoxicity And we're gonna talk about that in a later podcast and how that affects our insulin and our sugar levels. Later on, Lepton has a tendency to work in the brain. And this is the most important part because it activates signals that are sent back to the body by way of the autonomic nervous system. And these signals to the brain tells the brain, that we're full or we're and and it's it's called the satiety signal. It tells us to stop eating. So once we get to a certain point, leptin is secreted by the fat cells. It's telling the brain, hey, we're full and we don't need to eat anymore so we stop eating. And it increases with increased fat size telling the brain that we've had a stored energy or enough fat.
Dr. Sal [00:05:30]:
And the third thing is it increases metabolic energy expenditure, which means we need to get up and we need to start moving. Now when leptin decreases or when the levels of leptin start to fall, it tells the brain that we're hungry, and we need to eat more. When fat cells get larger, they increase the amount of leptin production and secretion into the blood to be taken to the brain and suppress appetite or shut down the appetite and increase activity. If this is the case, then why do overweight or obese people always feel hungry? Over time, we keep eating, which is gluttonous, And, of course, this is emotional. Depression is involved, anxiety, and here's when I ask where's god? Now we developed these neural networks that we talked about in previous podcasts. These neural networks become our habits or our addictions and more so we teach our children this. Now remember, Matthew chapter 18 verse 6, but if anyone causes one of these little wants to, who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large milest1 hung around his neck to be drowned in the depths of the sea. And in verse 7, he says, woah, to the world, because of these things, that cause people to sin.
Dr. Sal [00:06:50]:
Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come. So what it's basically saying is folks is here we are a very gluttonous society, and we live in sloth. In other words, we eat too much and we don't do enough activities. So we go off and we eat all as fast foods. We eat chips and we have candy and cookies in between meals continuously. And we pass these habits on to our children because then they watch us doing it. So we're not doing them a favor either. And so we say that it's emotional or I'm depressed and we live in the greatest country in the world, but somehow we I don't know.
Dr. Sal [00:07:31]:
If we're we're not interacting with god, or we're not doing god's will, and maybe this is why we are having these issues. But with overeating, fat cells get large and they secrete lots of leptin. Blank insulin, the areas of the body that leptin works on becomes resistant. Elected doesn't work anymore no matter how high the levels are. And this is interpreted by the brain as if we are starving. Now what are the 3 mechanisms by which leptin becomes resistant? Number 1, the blood brain barrier. Leptin must cross this barrier, and, a, it gets saturated with an increased levels of triglycer rides, and so leptin gets stuck. It can't get into the brain to do its work.
Dr. Sal [00:08:20]:
Secondly, the receptors start decrease or they become down regulated, especially in the brain, in a particular area called the hypothalamus. And thirdly, the intracellular signaling becomes disrupted. So there's 3 areas. It can't get to the brain, the receptors in the brain then down regulate because there's too much. And then the intracellular signaling, which causes all those reactions so the brain could say, hey. Something here's not right. This is what we have to do. All of a sudden, that stops working.
Dr. Sal [00:08:55]:
The second hormone that's secreted by the fat cells, which are as important to us, is adopenectin, adopenectin, So fat cell size increases, but adapenectin decreases. So they're inversely correlated. And the function of adapen in is that it increases energy in the level of the mitochondria. The mitochondria is that little organelle in the cell that generates ATP or adenosine triphosphate, which is basically the fuel that's needed for the cell and the functions of the cell. And it also suppresses, type 2 diabetes, and it protects the endothelial or the lining of the vessels after alpha, which is important TNF alpha, is what basically stimulates the inflammatory response. It all so promotes synaptic, memory function. In other words, it it fires the nerves at a greater rate and and is a result of a lack of adiponectin. It, we have a decrease in memory function or cognitive skills and as a result of a low level of adapenactin, this is associated with attention deficit disorder in adults.
Dr. Sal [00:10:22]:
What's more at a protected protects us from COVID pneumonia. Interestingly enough, and it increases beta oxidation or what we call fat metabolism. So you could see the beauty of what this hormone can do for us that's secreted by the fat cells. But remember, it's inversely correlated. So when the fat cells get smaller, the more adiponectin you start to secrete and look at all the benefits that you get from it as a result of that. Now exercising also increases at a connected levels. And it increases the number of receptors in the skeletal muscle. And so when you do that, of course, by exercising, moving around, doing some kind of physical activity, we're increasing the level, and we're increasing the number of receptors, which mean now in the scale little muscles, we can increase fatty metabolism.
Dr. Sal [00:11:20]:
And it also increases that part of the brain called the hippocampus, which reduces symptoms of depression. Isn't it fascinating that we get tied up in all these mental thoughts? And we talked about this in the previous podcast. And we start to feel sorry for ourselves. We play the helpless victim, and somehow we blame god for all these when god never did anything to do such a thing to us. But we get consumed by that. And then as a result, we start getting emotional, we start eating, we increase weight, and we start causing this this array of physiologic challenges that puts us in poor state of health. And so, folks, this is not doing god's will. There's things that we can do that we can change this as far as the food that we consume and the supplements that we take.
Dr. Sal [00:12:11]:
Number 1, we gotta start off by decreasing the food intake. What's more we could do things like the paleo diet or the ketogenic diet? Okay. And a lot of people think that you gotta consume all this protein. And I understand in there, and it's great for building muscle, but even decreasing the calories, and it's the type of foods that you need to eat. Now, folks, you can get a thou you could do a 1000 calories a day, and you could do that by eating 3 Milky Way bars a day. But that's not a healthy way of approaching the thousand calories. The paleo diet consists of eating, fish, birds, meats, vegetables, nuts, fruits, things that are whole foods and they're organic. A ketogenic diet, of course, you reduce more of the protein and increase your fat intake, but the the good quality fats.
Dr. Sal [00:13:02]:
And then you combine that with taking such supplements as bourbon, your fish oil, turmeric or cuckerman ginger root, green tea, capsaicin, which is in, the hot pepper seeds and not too much of it because it'll cause acid reflux. And so those will start to help reducing the size of the fat cells and then increasing your adapenactin. And, of course, it turns into a positive cycle where it just keeps getting better and better and better. The 3rd hormone that's, that's released and increased with obesity is resistant. Resistant. Interesting that they call it that. And the reason being is because it's involved in insulin resistance. So what it contributes to, insulin resistance and eventually type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Sal [00:13:56]:
And it causes the low density lipoproteins the bad cholesterol to increase, and that increases cardiovascular risks. And this also, increases the production of the bad cholesterol in the liver, and it impairs the liver's ability to process that bad cholesterol and to remove the toxins our body. Also, it accelerates the LDL or the low density lipoproteins accumulation the arteries, causing cardiovascular disease. Now so we've gone over 2 things. This We've talked about the thyroid and being low thyroid. We talked about the 3 hormones that are secreted by the fat cells, the leptin, adaponectin, resistant. Let's talk about the third thing that happens to us as human beings when we get older, and that is menopause and andropause. Menopause for women, and we know that estrogen stimulates leptin.
Dr. Sal [00:14:54]:
And that decreases the appetite. That's why women never really eat that much compared to men. It's because that estrogen stimulates that leptin. And then what ends up happening is estrogen decreases in menopause. And so we have a decrease in leptin and an increase in appetite in food. Now what ends up happening is as we consume an excess amount of food and that increases the fat, and so we start to secrete more leptin as a result of that. However, the leptin levels start getting too high and over time, the fat cells increase leptin output, but the re eventually, we developed the leptin resistance that we talked about earlier where we consume too much fat, which a triglycerides blocks of leptin at the level of the blame, blood brain barrier. It also, down regulates the receptors and it disrupts the signaling inside the cells.
Dr. Sal [00:15:53]:
Now testosterone, on the other hand, suppresses the effects of leptin. That's why you see men eating more ferociously. But testosterone, when it decreases, as a result of Andrew Paws, It decreases the energy, decreases muscle mass. We start to do less work, and we continue to eat in excess. And then over time, the fat cells increase, increasing the leptin levels, which over time results in resistance. So what are the keys here, folks? Number 1, control lifestyle. Control your actions. Remember the words of our lord? I love you.
Dr. Sal [00:16:34]:
I hate your ways, and that's what we have to change as our ways. Control your thoughts through prayer and meditation. You can change it. You have that power. You work with god. You do god's will and changes will take place. The other thing that you could possibly do is hormone replacement. Now when I recommend hormone replacement, I'm not talking about in the old days using the synthetic hormone, that could cause an onslaught of, side effects.
Dr. Sal [00:17:03]:
Today, we have the capability of taking natural bio identical hormones and sometimes you have to see, a physician that does alternative medicine or uses these natural bio identical hormones. These replacement, therapies are very beneficial help you stay young, help you to maintain your hormone balance. If not, then you've got to stick to a good way of life that will keep you putting on all that extra weight. I wanna thank you so much for watching our show. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review and visit our web site and social media accounts that connect with us more. If you'd like to see any of these sources of research in this episode, they'll be available to you on the show notes the description. Until next time, have a great day, and God bless.