11 ms·
This is fascinating and sounds really promising. However, this article also seems to imply that frequent cold exposure that converts your own white fat cells i
by _yb2s 9mo ago
This is fascinating and sounds really promising.
However, this article also seems to imply that frequent cold exposure that converts your own white fat cells into beige fat cells could be effective at both treating and preventing cancer.
They state without explanation that cold therapy cannot be done by cancer patients, but I don’t see why not. I take an ice bath every morning as it helps with my mental health, and its really not that shocking or difficult when you’re used to it as the very adaptation they’re talking about here eventually makes it easy to tolerate cold- your body adapts to be able to keep you warm. I can and do still do it when I’m sick, fatigued, or slept poorly.
Moreover, before modern climate controlled environments and low cost warm clothing humans naturally experienced cold a lot more often and were probably already cold adapted, even in warm climates. Could modern heating systems be predisposing us to cancer by making our metabolism work abnormally?
- OutOfHere 9mo agoThe problem with chronic cold exposure is that it makes one very hungry, a lot hungrier than usual, with the compensatory calorie consumption risking negating the intended benefit.
- _yb2s 9mo agoIf white fat converts to beige fat, it is going to be burning a lot more calories, so you ultimately would have to eat more to maintain a stable body weight. It’s not clear to me that this would negate the benefit. If it does negate the benefit than that would suggest that the entire benefit from the beige fat is from putting the body in a calorie deficit, and you would then expect the exact same effectiveness from calorie restriction. A quick search shows that there does seem to be an anti cancer therapeutic benefit from calorie restriction, so this seems at least plausible. So this raises the research question of if increasing calorie intake to keep weight stable completely negates the anti-cancer benefits of increased beige fat or not. I’m curious if that has been investigated yet.
- bratwurst3000 9mo agoin all respect sorry this is wrong. this is a broad misinformation. It can enhance but also supresse cancer dependig of soo much we dont know yet enough to know if fasting is beneficial or dangerous. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cam4.5577 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cam4.5577 edit:// and the article has imho nothinh to do with autophagy. Its about beige fat cells eating stuff away from cancer not autophagy wich happened in the innercell. And if you go into caloric deficit you could burn away those beige fat cells that "heal" the cancer.
- _yb2s 9mo agoThe paper you posted is just a review on autophagy and cancer that doesn’t contradict anything I stated. It is a mistake to conflate autophagy, calorie restriction, and cold exposure as necessarily biologically identical, which your comment seems to imply. I was only raising questions this research and discussion made me curious about, not making any concrete claims. Although the idea of calorie restriction as a cancer treatment is something still actively debated and researched, I personally doubt it is very useful, or likely to be the main mechanism here in the connection between beige fat and cancer, but it is a possibility to at least be ruled out experimentally in the context of the comment I replied to, which is why I mentioned it anyways. One major concern with calorie restriction in humans but not rodents is that it shuts down your metabolism by limiting t3 thyroid hormone production whereas cold exposure ramps up metabolism by uncoupling mitochondria to produce heat. You are correct that the body can shut down processes and systems that might be important for fighting cancer, in response to calorie restriction. I am a researcher that studies metabolism, and actually think the prominent focus on fasting and calorie restriction as a potential medical cure-all has been mostly a dead end, that people were mistakenly led down largely as a result of these fundamental differences between rodent and human metabolism.
- bratwurst3000 9mo agoyou are right now I better understand what you meant. That was the part that confused me. "If it does negate the benefit than that would suggest that the entire benefit from the beige fat is from putting the body in a calorie deficit, and you would then expect the exact same effectiveness from calorie restriction" As far as I understood the paper its beige fat that can eat away food from cancer and not white fat. And afaik calorie restriction doesnt augment beige fat. My error was thinking you meant calorie restriction while having white fat but you meant with beige fat? And yes this makes sense. And I thinked autophagy because this is the main "thing" happenkng while fasting which is not burning body fuel thanks for the answer
- brandall10 9mo agoHunger, like cold exposure, is an uncomfortable but transient signal. In many cases it peaks and subsides without requiring immediate action, especially once the body adapts. Anecdotally, my first 72-hour fast was revealing. Around the 48-hour mark my body aggressively signaled hunger, esp. for sugary foods. By the third day, however, hunger largely subsided, and at break I wasn’t hungry at all. For the following week the usual sugary suspects in my life went untouched. Subsequent 72-hour fasts were far more manageable, suggesting at least some component of adaptation. My understanding is that this ability to adapt exists because intermittent hunger and cold were regular aspects of human life for much of our history, particularly in environments without reliable food access (pre-agrarian) or thermal protection.
- _yb2s 9mo agoUltimately, regardless of how one feels, you need to (will) maintain calorie balance in the long term, and cold exposure requires a higher calorie intake.
- brandall10 9mo agoFor sure, but my point is that increased hunger doesn’t automatically negate the benefit via overeating; people often adapt through modest adjustment instead. More generally, it seems inconsistent to assume someone can voluntarily tolerate significant cold discomfort while being unable to manage similar degrees of hunger discomfort.
- ricardonunez 9mo agoI have similar findings. I fast regularly and take cold showers. Another thing is one meal days are far easier after you do it couple of times. You don’t even think about food which is harder if you have two to three meals per day. Edit: for those wanting to try this lifestyle, everybody is different. do your own research before jumping into regular fasting or even cold showers. Max time without food I did was 6 days, since then t it he max is 72 hours. Do blood work regularly and if you drink coffee be aware that caffeine withdraws are painful.
- dustbunny 9mo agoHow do you create/store the ice?
- cadamsdotcom 9mo agoHold one sec while I vibecode an ice recipe SaaS website, only charging $10/mo for all the ice recipes you can handle!
- _yb2s 9mo agoI have an inflatable ice tub from costco, and a large aquarium chiller. There is no literal ice involved, just a tub of water that is just above freezing temps. You can buy regular bags of ice and put them in a bathtub full of water, but that is a hassle and expensive to do frequently.