What is Irisin?

Irisin is an enzyme which is secreted from muscle in response to movement (i.e. exercise).

This protein is also called the exercise hormone and may help in converting white fat (WAT) to brown fat (BAT).

It may help fight obesity and diabetes. 

What is Brown Fat?

Brown fat is also known as Brown Adipose Tissue (as opposed to White Adipose Tissue).

It's called brown because it's darker than white fat due to the presence of mitochondria (the cell engine). This means that brown fat resembles muscle more than it does fat.

Brown fat has a blood supply and burns calories to help keep us warm.

Brown fat speeds up the body's metabolism and people with low BMI's seem to have more brown fat.

Brown fat is hard to find on the body as it's mixed in with white fat cells in fat tissue. 

Which muscle is associated with best brain aging?

A study from Kings College, London looked at identical female twins over a ten year span. They found that the twin who had strongest leg power at the beginning of the study, also had the most amount of grey matter in the brain ten years later.

The boosting of physical activity which enhances leg strength may help with brain health as we age. 

What is N.E.A.T.

N.E.A.T.  stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or the energy expended during normal life which does not include sleeping, eating, or exercise.

N.E.A.T includes things like walking to work, fidgeting, housework, and/or yard work.

Office workers have low N.E.A.T.; farm workers have high N.E.A.T.

N.E.A.T. also increases with overfeeding and decreases with underfeeding.

The mechanism which regulates N.E.A.T. is unknown.

What are 10 easy tricks to stop cravings for food?

These have all been tested in research:

1) Tap your forehead (distraction)

2) Change how you think (MRI scans show that people who think about the ill effects of poor eating, increase the activity in the part of the brain responsible for self-regulation.

3) Play a computer game for 3 minutes (based on Elaborated Intrusion Theory)

4) Imagine colours, smells, sounds which will ground you in present time.

5) Surround yourself with pictures of food (The Instagram Diet).

6) Go for a walk (or any physical activity).

7) Eat protein rich breakfasts.

8) Chew gum.

9) Sleep well (frontol lobes which help provide self-control are less active in the sleep deprived)

10) Pay attention to your emotions.

Does physical activity trump genetic expression?

The Institute of Metabolic Science in the UK report that even small amounts of exercise (30 minutes a day for 5 days a week) can counter the DNA predisposition to obesity. This physical activity can include walking the dog, gardening, or commuting to work by bike.

This study focused on the FTO gene which was first linked to obesity in 2007; people with this gene were measured to have a 30% higher risk of obesity. This gene is common: 74% Europeans, 76% African Americans, and 44% of Asian descent carry this gene.

They found that if people exercised the risk of obesity could drop by 27%.

In order to confirm this statistic, the researchers went back to all FTO gene studies (both published and unpublished) in order to standarize the data.  They found that more than one hour of moderate to vigorous activity a week, was enough to influence this particular gene.

The researchers were not able to determine how exercise trumped the effects of genes, just that it did.