Mastering Nutrition

This podcast explores the regulation of ATP production by reactive oxygen species and the role they play in diabetes. It discusses the first two steps of the citric acid cycle and how the electron transport chain regulates ATP production. The podcast also explores the roles of mitochondrial and cytoplasmic acetyl-CoA in energy production and fatty acid synthesis. Additionally, it delves into the concept of energy overload and how reactive oxygen species increase mitochondrial biogenesis and antioxidant defense as a physiological adaptation to handle energy overload.

This podcast provides an overview of cellular respiration, focusing on the citric acid cycle and the electron transport chain. It explores topics such as the role of acetyl coa, NAD+, and FAD, the reduction of NAD+ and FAD to NADH and FADH2, the creation of an electrochemical gradient, and the process of ATP synthesis. It offers valuable insights into the mechanisms behind energy metabolism.

The second MWM energy metabolism looks at how we use enzymes to exert exquisite control over what happens inside our bodies. If the second law of thermodynamics holds that entropy is always increasing, why don’t we reach maximum entropy right away? Why do we observe any order at all?  The activation energy represents the resistance to change that can be found in any substance. We exploit the concept biologically by maintaining a body temperature that provides insufficient energy for most relevant reactions to go forward without catalysis, and imposing upon this backdrop an expansive repertoire of enzymes that can, in a regulated fashion, lower the energy barriers sufficiently for reactions to go forward. This lesson looks at how they do that, and how we regulate their activity. Watch the full lesson at chrismasterjohnphd.com/mwm/2/2 Sign up for MWM Pro for early access to content, enhanced keyword searching, self-pacing tools, downloadable audio and transcripts, a rich array of hyperlinked further reading suggestions, and a community with a forum for each lesson.

The first MWM Energy Metabolism lesson answers the question, why do we have to eat such an enormous amount of food? The answer is to comply with the second law of thermodynamics. If you have a chemistry background, you should recognize this as a light review of the thermodynamics unit from a general chemistry class, with its most essential concepts teased out and packed into a half hour lesson. If you don’t, you can use this as a basic foundation for understanding the biochemistry to follow. The lesson relates the 2nd law to food coloring dispersing in water, how a hydropower plant operates, ATP production, and why we need to eat our bodyweight in food more than once a month. In the process, we have a little fun. Watch the full lesson at chrismasterjohnphd.com/mwm/2/1. Sign up for MWM Pro for early access to content, enhanced keyword searching, self-pacing tools, downloadable audio and transcripts, a rich array of hyperlinked further reading suggestions, and a community with a forum for each lesson.

Masterclass With Masterjohn Energy Metabolism is a structured course that begins with foundational principles and progresses to advanced topics to give you everything you need to know about the biochemistry of how we break down food for energy, use the energy, and store the excess. It broadcasts FREE on YouTube and Facebook twice a week and is now in its 31st lesson. As a subscriber to the Mastering Nutrition podcast, you will now get the cliff notes of these lessons in audio format.  This gives you three ways to engage with the course: If you just want the cliff notes, sit back and relax. As long as you're subscribed to the Mastering Nutrition podcast, they'll pop up in your feed one by one, every day that there's no other content released in the feed. That begins with lesson one later today. If you want to watch the full lessons, you can do so using the YouTube playlist, by going to the videos section of my Facebook page and playing the playlist, or by going to chrismasterjohnphd.com, hovering over "Masterclass" in the main menu on desktop and clicking the dropdown arrow to the right of "Masterclass" on mobile, and choosing "The Free Version." Sign up for MWM Pro for early access to content, enhanced keyword searching, self-pacing tools, downloadable audio and transcripts, a rich array of hyperlinked further reading suggestions, and a community with a forum for each lesson. However you choose to engage, enjoy! 

MTHFR is an enzyme that allows folate (vitamin B9) to support the cellular process of methylation, which is important for the synthesis of creatine and phosphatidylcholine, the regulation of gene expression, neurotransmitter metabolism, and dozens of other processes. There are two common polymorphisms that decrease its activity, A1298C and C677T, with C677T having the stronger effect. Genetic decreases in MTHFR activity are associated with cardiovascular disease, neurologic and psychiatric disorders, pregnancy complications and birth defects, and cancer. While discussions of these polymorphism tend to focus on repleting methyl-folate, this should only be a small piece of the puzzle. The bigger pieces of the puzzle are restoring choline, creatine, and glycine.  In this episode, I describe how the methylation system works, how it's regulated, and how it's altered with MTHFR variations. I then use this to develop a detailed dietary strategy and an evaluative strategy to make sure the dietary strategy is working. Show notes coming soon! This episode is brought to you by Ample Meal. Ample is a meal-in-a-bottle that takes a total of two minutes to prepare, consume, and clean up. It provides a balance of fat, protein, and carbohydrate, plus all the vitamins and minerals you need in a single meal, all from a blend of natural ingredients. The protein is from whey and collagen. The fat is from coconut oil and macadamia nut oil. The carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals come exclusively from food sources like sweet potatoes, bananas, cocoa powder, wheat and barley grass, and chlorella. I use Ample on Mondays when I have 12 hours of appointments with breaks no longer than 15 minutes. It keeps my brain going while I power through the long day, never letting food prep make me late for an appointment. Head to amplemeal.com and enter the promo code “CHRIS15” at checkout for a 15% discount off your first order. This episode is brought to you by US Wellness Meats. I use their liverwurst as a convenient way to make a sustainable habit of eating a diversity of organ meats. They also have a milder braunschweiger and an even milder head cheese that gives you similar benefits, as well as a wide array of other meat products, all from animals raised on pasture. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter promo code “Chris” at checkout to get a 15% discount on any order that is at least 7 pounds and is at least $75 after applying the discount but under 40 pounds (it can be 39.99 lbs, but not 40). You can use this discount code not once, but twice! Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/046-living-with-mthfr

Insulin is almost universally considered a hormone whose primary purpose is to regulate blood glucose levels. Indeed, it does this. But is that the whole picture? When we look at what governs pancreatic insulin secretion inside the beta-cell, it's about total energy and the versatility of the short-term energy supply, not about glucose. When we look at what insulin does to energy metabolism, it does far more than regulate blood glucose: it governs how we use energy and what we do with it. What is insulin really doing? Find out in this episode. I can't promise the episode is practical, but I promise it's incredibly thought-provoking. You can find the show notes at chrismasterjohnphd.com/45. This episode is brought to you by Ample Meal. Ample is a meal-in-a-bottle that takes a total of two minutes to prepare, consume, and clean up. It provides a balance of fat, protein, and carbohydrate, plus all the vitamins and minerals you need in a single meal, all from a blend of natural ingredients. The protein is from whey and collagen. The fat is from coconut oil and macadamia nut oil. The carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals come exclusively from food sources like sweet potatoes, bananas, cocoa powder, wheat and barley grass, and chlorella. I use Ample on Mondays when I have 12 hours of appointments with breaks no longer than 15 minutes. It keeps my brain going while I power through the long day, never letting food prep make me late for an appointment. Head to amplemeal.com and enter the promo code “CHRIS15” at checkout for a 15% discount off your first order. This episode is brought to you by US Wellness Meats. I use their liverwurst as a convenient way to make a sustainable habit of eating a diversity of organ meats. They also have a milder braunschweiger and an even milder head cheese that gives you similar benefits, as well as a wide array of other meat products, all from animals raised on pasture. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter promo code “Chris” at checkout to get a 15% discount on any order that is at least 7 pounds and is at least $75 after applying the discount but under 40 pounds (it can be 39.99 lbs, but not 40). You can use this discount code not once, but twice! Here's what you'll find in this episode, and more: 00:55 Cliff Notes 12:45 Insulin is widely perceived as a response to blood glucose, yet there are a variety of reasons to see it as a response to short-term energy status and the versatility of that short-term energy. 14:48 Defining "insulin signaling." 18:00 Dietary effects on insulin and glucagon: fat, protein, and carbohydrate. 21:45 Effects of insulin outside of energy metabolism: for example, glutathione synthesis, production and activation of thyroid hormone, protection against glycation. 28:10 Insulin signaling is directly triggered by the level of ATP in the pancreatic beta-cell. 35:10 Amplification signals in beta-cell: anaplerosis, cataplerosis, lipogenesis, and the pentose phosphate pathway. 45:30 The anatomy and physiology of macronutrient transport mean that fat and carbohydrate are delivered to the pancreatic beta-cell in very different ways, resulting from circulatory routes and the relative expression of glucose transporters and lipoprotein lipase. 01:07:15 Unique roles of glucose in specialized energetic pathways. 01:07:50 Cytosolic ATP generation depends on glucose and is important to red blood cells, astrocytes, the lens and cornea of the eye, the kidney medulla, the testes, and under conditions of high-intensity exercise, stress, hypoxia, or suffocation. 01:11:10 Only glucose can allow a tissue to borrow energy from the liver in the Cori cycle. 01:14:30 Glucose is the primary anaplerotic substrate; protein is secondary; fat has little anaplerotic pathway. 01:15:50 Only glucose can support the pentose phosphate pathway, which provides NAPDH and 5-carbon sugars for DNA; RNA, all of the energy carriers in energy metabolism (NADPH, NADH, FADH2, Coenzyme A, ATP); synthesis of nucleotides, neurotransmitters, fatty acids, and cholesterol; recycling of vitamin K and folate. 01:21:40 Insulin as a response to total energy and energetic versatility. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/045-is-insulin-really-a-response

Do carbs and insulin make you fat? The argument centers on the ability of insulin to promote the conversion of carbohydrate to fat and lock fat in adipose tissue, as well as the necessity of glucose to provide the backbone to fat molecules within adipose tissue. But the argument ignores that all of these pathways are fundamentally regulated at a biochemical level by how much energy you need and how much you have. In episode 44 of Mastering Nutrition, we take a deep dive into the details of the biochemistry and see how insulin serves as a gauge of whole-body energy and glucose availability but simply can't be the thing that makes you fat. This episode is brought to you by Ample Meal. Ample is a meal-in-a-bottle that takes a total of two minutes to prepare, consume, and clean up. It provides a balance of fat, protein, and carbohydrate, plus all the vitamins and minerals you need in a single meal, all from a blend of natural ingredients. The protein is from whey and collagen. The fat is from coconut oil and macadamia nut oil. The carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals come exclusively from food sources like sweet potatoes, bananas, cocoa powder, wheat and barley grass, and chlorella. I use Ample on Mondays when I have 12 hours of appointments with breaks no longer than 15 minutes. It keeps my brain going while I power through the long day, never letting food prep make me late for an appointment. Head to amplemeal.com and enter the promo code “CHRIS15” at checkout for a 15% discount off your first order. This episode is brought to you by US Wellness Meats. I use their liverwurst as a convenient way to make a sustainable habit of eating a diversity of organ meats. They also have a milder braunschweiger and an even milder head cheese that gives you similar benefits, as well as a wide array of other meat products, all from animals raised on pasture. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter promo code “Chris” at checkout to get a 15% discount on any order that is at least 7 pounds and is at least $75 after applying the discount but under 40 pounds (it can be 39.99 lbs, but not 40). You can use this discount code not once, but twice! Show notes for this episode are found at chrismasterjohnphd.com/44. In this episode, you'll find all of the following and more: 00:45 Cliff Notes 10:15 The biochemistry and physiology of the carbohydrate/insulin hypothesis of obesity: insulin stimulates de novo lipogenesis (fatty acid synthesis), promoting the conversion of carbohydrate to fat; insulin stimulates lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and inhibits hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) at adipose tissue, locking fat into fat cells; since adipose tissue lacks glycerol kinase, it cannot reuse the glycerol backbone of fats digested by lipoprotein lipase, and dietary carbohydrate is needed to provide the glycerol 3-phosphate that forms the backbone of newly resynthesized triglycerides. 16:30 All biochemical pathways are regulated by cellular energy status. Key players are ATP, ADP, AMP, AMP kinase (AMPK), NADH/NAD+, FADH2/FAD, Ca2+, CoA and acyl CoAs, and citrate. 30:42 Although insulin promote storage of fat in fat tissue, this can be overridden by low energy status. 40:10 Although insulin promotes fat storage, it causes a proportionate increase glucose oxidation, so no net change in caloric balance. 46:10 Glucose oxidation in muscle is driven by energy status and that determines the availability of glucose to adipose tissue. 01:00:45 Glucose can act as the source of glycerol 3-P for adipose tissue triglyceride synthesis, but it isn’t necessary because of gluconeogenesis and glyceroneogenesis. Furthermore, while it can serve this role, the degree to which it does so is driven by energy status. 01:05:50 Glucose can act as a source of glycerol 3-P for adipose, but it needs a source of fatty acids, which come mainly from fat as long as energy status is high enough. 01:06:50 Insulin can drive de novo lipogenesis, but only when energy status is high enough. 01:20:05 What happens when we eat carbs alone, fat alone, or both in the context of low and high energy status. 01:32:20 The path to weight loss is the path to a sustainable caloric deficit. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/044-the-biochemistry-of-why-insulin

Our consciousness is like a net. We want the net to be fluid enough to let thoughts that bother us pass through without grabbing our attention, but strong enough to grab on to the ideas and motivations that will drive us to achieve what we value in life. Nutrition has a big impact on this net. In this episode, learn how foods like liver, egg yolks, meat, leafy greens, legumes, collagen, bone broth, spinach, wheat, and beets can impact how fluid or stable your mind is by impacting the methylation of dopamine, and how to achieve the proper balance. This episode is brought to you by Ample Meal. Ample is a meal-in-a-bottle that takes a total of two minutes to prepare, consume, and clean up. It provides a balance of fat, protein, and carbohydrate, plus all the vitamins and minerals you need in a single meal, all from a blend of natural ingredients. The protein is from whey and collagen. The fat is from coconut oil and macadamia nut oil. The carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals come exclusively from food sources like sweet potatoes, bananas, cocoa powder, wheat and barley grass, and chlorella. I use Ample on Mondays when I have 12 hours of appointments with breaks no longer than 15 minutes. It keeps my brain going while I power through the long day, never letting food prep make me late for an appointment. Head to amplemeal.com and enter "CHRIS15" at checkout for a 15% discount off your first order. This episode is brought to you by US Wellness Meats. I use their liverwurst as a convenient way to make a sustainable habit of eating a diversity of organ meats. They also have a milder braunschweiger and an even milder head cheese that gives you similar benefits, as well as a wide array of other meat products, all from animals raised on pasture. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter promo code “Chris” at checkout to get a 15% discount on any order that is at least 7 pounds and is at least $75 after applying the discount but under 40 pounds (it can be 39.99 lbs, but not 40). You can use this discount code not once, but twice! In this episode, you'll find all the following and more: 00:38  Cliff Notes 12:15  Three stories illustrating how foods impact mental stability and fluidity. 13:00  How veganism profoundly worsened my OCD and panic attacks and going Weston A. Price made them disappear.  18:55  Jeffrey is an entrepreneur who uses intermittent fasting and low-protein lunches to remain hyper-focused through the workday, but at the risk of an occasional panic attack.  22:05  Jordan uses methylation supplements to optimize his energy and mental focus, but can experience a spectrum of methylation states that range from bodily tiredness on one end to intense focus suitable for creative and analytic work in the middle, to flighty productivity suitable for errands on the high end, to a severe crash characterized by apathy.  26:50  The methylation system and the roles of sulfur amino acids (methionine and cysteine), magnesium, ATP, B6, serine and glycine, folate, B12, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, choline, betaine, and creatine.  34:18  The two principle fates of homocysteine.  40:10  Glycine as the endogenous buffer of extra methyl groups.  42:40  Obtaining betaine and choline from foods.  45:40  Creatine as a methyl group sparer.  48:20  Niacin and nicotinamide riboside as a tax on the methylation system.  50:25  Tonic and phasic dopamine, and how methylation mediated by catechol O-methyltransferase (COMT) regulates the balance.  57:20  How the balance of tonic and phasic dopamine determines the ease of switching mental states. 1:03:50  Worrier vs. warrior phenotype. 1:09:10  Histamine in the brain as an alertness signal and a potential contributor to panic attacks. 1:11:55  Explaining the three stories. 1:22:00  Practical conclusions. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/043-methylate-your-way-to-mental

In this episode, we look at whether fat can fuel the athlete. We begin with the physiological principles involved, then take a look at the evidence from studies swapping fat for carbs to see how it impacts athletic performance. This episode is brought to you by US Wellness Meats. I use their liverwurst as a convenient way to make a sustainable habit of eating a diversity of organ meats. They also have a milder braunschweiger and an even milder head cheese that gives you similar benefits, as well as a wide array of other meat products, all from animals raised on pasture. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter promo code “Chris” at checkout to get a 15% discount on any order that is at least 7 pounds and is at least $75 after applying the discount but under 40 pounds (it can be 39.99 lbs, but not 40). You can use this discount code not once, but twice! Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/042-can-fat-fuel-the-athlete