Tag: Knowledge recall

Take the fiber out of a meal and its glucose response rises about 41%, and the stomach empties three-quarters of an hour sooner. But fiber content does not predict which foods score high on the glycemic index, and adding fiber back to apple juice does not make it satiating. What the apple has and the juice does not is mostly structure. This companion explores what fiber is measured to do, what gets credited to it that belongs to physical form, and the practical implications of eating carbohydrates with that structure intact. (6 min read)

During a 24-36 hour fast, growth hormone rises, adrenaline (norepinephrine) elevates, and metabolic rate does not fall, the opposite of what is often expected. One study of eleven lean subjects measured resting expenditure rising up to ~14%; a larger trial found about half that at 36 hours and no significant change in men, so treat the rise as real but uneven and the no-slowdown as the solid part. This companion explores the growth hormone surge and what it does and does not settle about muscle, the norepinephrine increase and why the metabolic rise cannot be pinned on it, what happens…

Fasting traditions are widespread: Ramadan, Yom Kippur, Lent, the Orthodox calendar’s 180-odd fasting days a year. The argument this page makes from that is an argument from plausibility rather than a body of evidence, and it is worth reading as one: practices this old and this common are unlikely to be acutely dangerous. This companion explores the traditions, what their spread does and does not establish, the therapeutic history and how much of it can be sourced, and what tradition cannot tell you. (5 min read)

When insulin is elevated the body prioritizes storing incoming energy and restrains the release of existing fat; that much is undisputed physiology. Whether chronically elevated insulin is the primary driver of weight gain in humans is the carbohydrate-insulin model, and its own proponents call that evidence inconclusive. This companion explores how insulin controls fat storage, what keeps it elevated, where the model is firm and where it is a proposal, and how to let insulin fall. (5 min read)

White bread produces a glycemic response comparable to that of table sugar, and the founding study that built the index found neither fiber nor sugar content predicted how a food would score. What predicted it was physical form. This companion explores what the glycemic index actually measures, why milling matters more than the fiber it removes, the insulin response pattern, what “complex carbohydrates” fails to mean, and practical implications for choosing foods. (5 min read)

The three most common fears about fasting (losing muscle, entering starvation mode, damaging metabolism) each get the timescale wrong. During a short fast, growth hormone rises measurably, resting energy expenditure does not fall, and the body burns stored fat. Two qualifiers belong with that reassurance rather than after it: past roughly sixty hours the metabolic picture changes, and the measured rise in expenditure was smaller in the larger trial and did not reach significance in men. What survives both is the answer to the fear: short fasting does not slow your metabolism down. This companion examines each fear, what the…

Insulin resistance means your cells have stopped responding normally to insulin’s signal, requiring higher and higher insulin levels to achieve the same effect. One proposed driver is chronically elevated insulin from constant eating and refined carbohydrates, a model whose underlying physiology is undisputed but whose evidence in humans its own proponents call inconclusive. This companion explores how resistance develops, what the fasting trials do and don’t show, and the reversal process of restoring sensitivity. (5 min read)

Your brain evolved to seek calorie-dense food under scarcity, and roughly ten thousand years of cultural evolution hasn’t changed the genome, and that gap is what “evolutionary mismatch” names. Modern foods exploit it from both ends. Hyperpalatable foods show reward-region activation patterns resembling those of addictive substances, and dopamine governs wanting more than liking, so craving can persist without matching pleasure. Meanwhile satiety falls short: on an ultra-processed diet people ate 508 calories a day more while reporting no difference in pleasantness, hunger, or fullness, and their appetite hormones didn’t move. This companion covers the environment that built your brain,…

Fasting and chronic calorie restriction create different hormonal environments. Chronic restriction can slow metabolism. Short fasts, in the studies that measured them, did not: norepinephrine and growth hormone rose, insulin fell, and resting expenditure held or rose slightly. On that model the difference is not in the calories but in the hormones, an argued framework rather than a settled one. This companion explores the calorie restriction problem and metabolic adaptation, the hormonal cascade that makes fasting different, what the measured contrast between the two actually shows, and why meal timing matters as much as meal content. (5 min read)

Food advertising is a food cue. Viewing food images activates reward-related brain regions and raises measurable markers of appetite, salivation among them, in a response researchers call visual hunger. On one review’s proposed account, conditioned food cues can do this whether or not you are hungry. A craving that arrives right after an ad is worth questioning before it is obeyed. This companion covers the neuroscience of food cues, advertising techniques, and reducing exposure. (4 min read)