Weekly 5-Point Review #8

Poisoned Food, Low T & Exercise, Neck Pain and more...

This is my free weekly newsletter covering 5 interesting points from the week. Subscribe if you’d like to get it in your inbox each week!

0. Losing Weight while Reducing Hunger

Do you want to learn the the ins and outs of fasting, refeeding and the biology behind losing weight while reducing your baseline hunger?

I'm working on a course that aims to download into your brain the fasting, refeeding and various other strategies I’ve learned over the years to lower your baseline hunger and lose up to 7lbs of fat a month, improve mental focus and keep or increase your muscle. The course also aims at delivering a solid understanding of how everything works so the implementation becomes intuitive and second nature.

I’d like to hear what I can do to make it as useful and effective as possible, so please fill out this form if you’re interested! https://forms.gle/8xosPUyHq8Sbm6Bu8

1. Food Documentary on my List: Poisoned

My friend recommended this to me. Sounds like the USDA is basically useless.

One tip for now: Since the measures for preventing salmonella contamination on chicken are paltry at best … If you live in the states, make sure you:
・Cook your chicken to 165° F
・Dispose of the plastic immediately while avoiding chicken juice drip
・Disinfect surfaces you placed the raw chicken on
・Thoroughly wash your hands after handling it

2. Is your T low because of too much exercise?

For decades researchers have reported men who engaged in intensive exercise training can develop low resting testosterone levels, alterations in their hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis, and display hypogonadism.

Overtraining decreasing testosterone levels is a well known phenomenon. While I think people should be aware of this, in my opinion this isn’t something to worry about unless (a) you’re really into running or (b) exercising at least 5 days a week. That’s not a diagnosis, I just mean to say non-athletes should err on the side of worrying that they’re training too little.

What got me thinking about this was my friend who:
・Is 37,
・Eats around 3500 calories a day, while
・Consistently hovering around ripped or very ripped, and
・Trains six days a week which includes a 1-2 hour Jiu Jutsu and 1-2 Boxing sessions
・Is worried about a drop in T.

A 2003 study on overtraining in rugby players found that “testosterone concentration is influenced by tiredness, and is therefore a valid marker of tiredness.”

In another paper by Dr. Leanne Redman, she writes:

Evidence suggests exercise-associated reproductive disorders occur in men, especially in those athletes competing in endurance and weight-dependent sports. Alterations in total and free testosterone levels are frequently reported in male athletes. Generally, cross-sectional and prospective studies of endurance-trained athletes show that suppression of total and free testosterone occurs with chronic training (Wheeler et al., 1984; Ayers et al., 1985; Hakkinen et al., 1987; Hackney et al., 1988; McColl et al., 1989; Roemmich and Sinning, 1997), and concentrations decline to levels that are 65–80% of age-matched untrained controls (Hackney, 1996).

Note that she cites 6 different studies for the claim that chronic endurance training suppresses testosterone. Note that where a 2009 study found sprinting to increase testosterone, a 2018 study found men who participated in endurance running to experience a slight decrease in testosterone.

Sprinters are jacked

The simple idea behind why this happens is that exercise is an acute stressor that the triggers several process in the body to make it more resilient. However, if you are under too much stress, this challenges fertility. If we were to anthropomorphize the human body, it would be saying something like ‘I think I’ll have a baby when the world isn’t such a goddamn stressful place.’

So, it tracks that along with the decreases in testosterone, an increase in cortisol is also observed in the case of overtraining. (However as with most things, there are exceptions)

From Amino Acids and Proteins for the Athlete

Note: A good counterpoint to the less stress = better fertility is: Why wouldn’t the system try to reproduce if it’s on its last legs? Salmon literally destroy their bodies to the point of rotting to get upstream and reproduce.

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3. How concerned are you about declining fertility rates?

The sperm count of men in Western countries has been declining precipitously with no signs of “leveling off,” according to new research, bolstering a school of thought that male health in the modern world is at risk, possibly threatening fertility.

That the downtrend in sperm count is seen in Western countries suggests that “chemicals in commerce” are playing a role, Dr. Swan said.

While this survey did not focus on the causes of these declines, its authors pointed to existing research that showed that exposure to cigarette smoke, alcohol and chemicals while in utero, as well as stress, obesity and age, were factors in the drop.

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4. A Simple Nutrient deficiency causes Depression?

Elliot Overton, creator of the Youtube channel EO Nutrition made a really fascinating video about the various negative effects of an often overlooked deficiency: Thiamine.

He recently posted a tweet suggesting that insufficient thiamine my present as depression.

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5. How a visit to the Dentist screwed up my Neck

I still remember about 18 years back when I was still in High School, I was at the dentist to get a cavity filled. After he was done, one of my molars stuck out slightly higher than before. I told the dentist that the extra height felt really awkward like when you bite down and are surprised by a hard seed stuck in your teeth that’s sticking out. He adjusted it a bit, it still felt weird. I asked him to adjust it some more, it still felt weird. It didn’t take him very long to say that I would just have to get used to it - of course it will feel weird at first because it’s new. That made enough sense to me at the time so I just went about my business with my awkward bite and eventually … I indeed got used to it. That also happens to be around the time when I developed TMJ - a persistent issue with my jaw feeling like it’s not quite sitting properly in the joint. (That’s a story for another time, but I’ve talked about my dealing with TMJ here and here.)

However, now that I think about it, the tooth the dentist worked on shouldn’t have felt awkward if he simply got it to the same height that it was before.

Now that my jaw issues have progressed I’m a lot more sensitive to changes in my bite, probably because my masseter muscles are so developed and abnormally strong that when I clench at night, the small effects of an imbalanced bite are much more pronounced.

About 4 days ago I went to the dentist for some preliminary work for replacing a cap on my bottom right molar. He put in a new temporary cap, leaving my molar slightly higher than before. He was very patient and willing to readjust it multiple times and while I thought it was at pretty much the same height as before, I couldn’t fully tell because he had put anaesthetic in my gums. It wasn’t until I woke up the next morning that I felt the effects of the new molar being slightly too high.

Up until then my jaw had been in a pretty good place to where it didn’t feel so much like the mandible was uncentered in the jaw joint. This morning, it felt like it had slightly slipped out again and it was uncomfortable to open my mouth wide. Worse, the right-side muscle in the neck leading up to the base of the skull felt very sore and that soreness extended all the way into the part of the trapezius muscle that connected to my right shoulder. Even my lats (latissimus dorsi) feel off balance and uncomfortable.

Image source: Muscular Strength

Stretching out my legs, hips, lats, rolling out my upper back and doing some band neck twists helped a bit with this but there’s still a noticeable annoying tightness in my neck and upper back.

The other hint that the problem is indeed that my back right molar is too high is that there is some pain in my upper right canine. If there’s more height to my lower right molar, then understandably it will pivot the mandible such that more pressure falls on the canines.

Considering how well connected the muscles of the head and neck are, it’s unsurprising that this could result in neck and trap pain.

The moral of the story is be more annoying.

If you have to get a cavity filled or a cap replaced or something, bug your dentist to adjust it until it feels natural. Or at least ask a simple question like “I get that it’s a new so I’m not used to it, but if this tooth is the same height as before, why would it feel so awkward like I’m biting on a foreign object?”

(The good thing about the dentist I have now is that he’s very patient and willing to deal with my nitpicking, so I should be able to book an appointment to adjust it come Monday.)

P.S. If you happen to have the exact same neck pain, this stretch really helps:

(Image Source: Prana Yoga)

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