Let"s take a closer look at what happened to my blood and cholesterol after those 21 days in Nicaragua, 21 days of consuming at least 30% of my calories as beef fat and 200300 grams of protein and 4070 almonds per day. I expected the worst. Here is the real impact on two common concerns: cholesterol levels and kidney function.
BEFORE (AUGUST 20, 2009) vs. AFTER (SEPTEMBER 25, 2009) AFTER (SEPTEMBER 25, 2009) Cholesterol Total cholesterol: 200 (borderline out-of-range) vs. 190 190HDL: 57 vs. 57 57LDL: 133 (out-of-range) vs. 108 108VLDL: 10 vs. 25 25Cholesterol/HDL ratio: 3.5 vs. 3.3 3.3Triglycerides: 48 vs. 124 124 (normal: <150) (normal:=""><150) kidney="" function="" bun:="" 17="" vs.="" 18="" 18="" (normal:="" 725)="" (normal:="" 725)creatinine:="" 1.0="" vs.="" 1.1="" 1.1="" (normal:="" 0.71.2)="" (normal:="" 0.71.2)bun/creatinine="" ratio:="" 16.417="" (normal:="" 1020)="" (normal:="" 1020)="">
Even I was stunned.
I took no cholesterol-lowering (or HDL-raising) drugs or supplements, and a 21- day marathon of red meat actually improved my cholesterol/HDL ratio, which most doctors view as an indication of cardiac health. I also lowered both total and LDL ("bad") cholesterol. I ended up within the "low-risk" range for triglycerides, according to the American Heart a.s.sociation, but there was an elevation. I expected the increase for three reasons:
1. Triglycerides transport dietary fat, and I had been consuming ma.s.sive quant.i.ties of fat.
2. Fat-loss can produce transient elevated triglycerides (as it did with my dad, who lost 70+ pounds of fat), and I had lost substantial bodyfat in the preceding 21 days.
3. I had consumed 14 ounces of pulp-free orange juice the morning before the blood draw-the first time I"d done so in at least a year-to measure my blood sugar response. Fructose, the sugar in fruit, is well known for rapidly increasing both triglycerides and LDL.
All cardiac markers were brought within normal range within weeks of stopping the animal flesh binge. When I retested on October 16 (21 days later), my triglycerides had dropped from 124 to 82, and my VLDL had dropped from 25 to 16.
What of the BUN and creatinine, considered indicators of kidney stress? Both were nominally elevated but well within normal range.
I"m amazed that both weren"t higher, considering that muscular damage can increase both BUN and creatinine, and I had done a squat workout 48 hours prior to the "after" blood draw on September 24.
But isn"t cholesterol bad for you?
This belief is predicated on the Lipid Hypothesis of cardiac health (cholesterol = bad), which I disagree with based on the sum total of available evidence. Between 2006 and 2009, I had obsessed over lowering my total cholesterol. The outcome? Lower testosterone and fatigue.
I"ll take my egg yolks, thank you very much.
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It appears that splitting up the 800 milligrams of cholesterol also works for the earlier "Nitro Boost" Protocol 2.
If you know your local sources and can avoid salmonella and raw milk issues, I"ve found the following shake to produce incredible effects when mixed with a hand blender and consumed at both 4:00 P P.M. and before bed. It also helped me achieve the 100+-pound strength gains as detailed in "Effortless Superhuman":
12 oz whole raw milk4 tbsp raw almond b.u.t.ter2 raw egg yolks3 tbsp chia seeds1 tsp vanilla extract tsp cinnamon This is more appropriately called a "fat shake" instead of a protein shake, but I still dropped bodyfat while consuming it. How? The fat-loss was predicated on otherwise maintaining a slow-carb diet and taking the shakes only on workout days, no more than three times a week. If you"ve ever wondered what anabolics feel like, one week of these shakes will give you a good idea.
Here is the nutritional yield, with all percentages of USRDA (recommended daily allowance):
Total calories = 966Calories from fat = 627Fat grams = 73 g (113%)Saturated fat grams = 15 g (76%)Cholesterol = 456 g (152%)Protein = 34 g (69%)Carbohydrate grams = 55 g (18%)Dietary fiber = 20 g (81%)Sugars = 19 gCalcium = 93%Glycemic load = 15 (out of maximum 250) Know your food sources, and the statistics on salmonella poisoning, etc., before consuming this. If raw milk scares you, and I wouldn"t blame you, use organic whole milk instead.
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End of Chapter Notes 11. Check out the original at Check out the original at www.fourhourbody.com/enter-dragon. My ma.s.sage therapist later asked me: "Have you been crawling through barbed wire?"
12. Called "exogenous" testosterone (created outside the body), as opposed to "endogenous" (created inside the body). Think of "external" to remember the difference. Called "exogenous" testosterone (created outside the body), as opposed to "endogenous" (created inside the body). Think of "external" to remember the difference.
13. hCG can also inhibit GnRH at the hypothalamus. It"s a serious drug and shouldn"t be taken lightly. hCG can also inhibit GnRH at the hypothalamus. It"s a serious drug and shouldn"t be taken lightly.
14. Though other hormones like FSH also correlate to the increased s.e.x drive, LH shows the most p.r.o.nounced jump. Though other hormones like FSH also correlate to the increased s.e.x drive, LH shows the most p.r.o.nounced jump.
15. This is personal, and I don"t suggest the same unless you"re deficient in selenium. See SpectraCell in the resources, as well as the explanation in "s.e.x Machine II." This is personal, and I don"t suggest the same unless you"re deficient in selenium. See SpectraCell in the resources, as well as the explanation in "s.e.x Machine II."
16. Alb.u.min also does this to a lesser extent. Alb.u.min also does this to a lesser extent.
HAPPY ENDINGS AND DOUBLING SPERM COUNT.
The two ca.n.a.ls, fashioned by the G.o.ds, in which man"s power rests, in thy t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es...I break them with a club.-Atharva Veda, sacred text of Hinduism sacred text of Hinduism "Each man in this room is half the man his grandfather was."
Louis Guillette PhD, a researcher from the University of Florida, opened his discussion in front of a congressional committee without preamble. Named one of just 20 Howard Hughes Medical Inst.i.tute professors nationwide, Guillette was not speaking in metaphor. He had the data to prove it.
The sperm counts of men in the United States and 20 other industrialized countries have been falling since 1942 at a rate of roughly 1% per year in healthy healthy males. males.
The average northern European sperm count in the 1940s was more than 100 million sperm per milliliter (million/ml) of e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e. In 2008? "The sperm counts of the majority of 20 year old European men are now so low that we may be close to the crucial tipping point of 40 million per milliliter spermatozoa...we must face the possibility of more infertile couples and lower fertility rates in the future." In Denmark, more than 40% of men have already dropped below the 40 million/ml threshold and entered "sub-fertility."
The research is, as always, controversial.
Some studies confirm the trend, while other studies contradict the findings, and we all end up more confused than before.
To sidestep the bickering, I tracked my sperm count and quality over 18 months and looked at the trends firsthand. From a selfish Darwinian standpoint, I didn"t care about Heinrich"s b.a.l.l.s in Copenhagen. I cared about my own.
It all started with a trip to a sperm bank in 2008 (see sidebar in this chapter), when I had no intention of trending anything.
I"d had a few too many brushes with mortality, witnessed a 30-something friend get testicular cancer, and decided it was a good idea to begin freezing my swimmies while at their healthiest. Unlike fine wine, sperm count does not improve with age. After all, what if I got married and then had an accident or needed chemotherapy? I wanted a worst-case scenario insurance policy.
Getting an accurate sperm count never occurred to me as important. My blood work was immaculate. I was a strapping 31 years young. My diet was as clean as a Mormon"s breakfast, and I was. .h.i.tting new personal records in the gym. Why would I bother to think about it? It was obvious that I didn"t need to.
Unpleasant Surprises Then the shocker: the lab results, which were available the afternoon after my session, put my sperm count on the low range of normal, borderline problematic. I couldn"t believe it. a.s.suming it was a lab mistake, I repeated the drill three weeks later and came back with an even lower count. The more tests I did over the next 12 months, the lower the results.
Holy Christ. I was terrified.
But what were the possible causes?
Was it the phthalates in everything from shampoo to deodorant? Bisphenol A in everything from household electronics to plastic bottles? Tightie-whities? There was no consensus. It could have been one of a million suspects, or it could have been all of them.
No matter the causes, the real question was: could I do anything to reverse it?
To start, I attempted to remove environmental pollutants from my body using injections (IV DMPS, etc.) and dietary changes, and the changes in blood work were almost unnoticeable.
What else could I do?
Besides avoiding plastics and going organic, the sad answer seemed to be: not much. I called some of the most experienced and innovative urologists in the United States, including Dr. Dudley Danoff, founder of the Tower Urology Medical Group at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, who served as a clinical faculty member at UCLA Medical School for 25 years. His most striking comment was a disheartening one: "Male fertility is a relatively "infertile" field. There is so little one can do."
Then came August 31, 2009.
In preparation for an unrelated interview with famed strength coach Charles Poliquin, I had asked a friend in the fitness business for his dream list of questions. One of the side notes in his e-mail read:
He won"t use a cell phone due to radiation, states they have a high tested correlation between low T levels in athletes and cell phone carried in pocket.
"T" in this case refers to testosterone.
The interview with Charles was a fascinating romp through all things performance-related, ranging from the endocrine system to intravenous vitamin C treatment and genetics testing. In the middle, as we were shifting topics, I asked Charles if he"d observed a correlation between cell phone use and low testosterone counts.
"It"s not just something I"ve observed. Take a look at the studies."
So I did.
Lo and behold, jumping from article to article on MedLine, there were more than a handful of studies that showed significant decreases in serum testosterone in rats following even moderate exposure (30 minutes per day, five days a week, for four weeks) to 900 megahertz (MHz) radio frequency (RF) electro-magnetic fields (EMF), which is what most GSM cell phones produce.
Then, the epiphany.
In the "related articles" pane next to one such study, I noticed research focusing on the effects of cell phone radiation on sperm.
One click opened Pandora"s box, but let"s cover basics before we look at what I found. There are princ.i.p.ally three things an MD will first look at when evaluating sperm:
1. Count: How many swimmers do we have total? How many swimmers do we have total?
2. Morphology: How many swimmers have the proper tadpole-like shape? How many swimmers have the proper tadpole-like shape?
3. Motility: How many of them can actually swim forward, which is the right direction? How many of them can actually swim forward, which is the right direction?
If the sperm is misshapen or can"t move, it doesn"t matter how many you have. If you have great swimmers but not enough to survive the kamikaze one-way trip, you are equally screwed.
Of the dozens of studies that I found, most done in Europe, more than 70% concluded the same thing:17 cell phone radiation impairs sperm function. The explanation for how it does this varied, but the outcome was never good. cell phone radiation impairs sperm function. The explanation for how it does this varied, but the outcome was never good.
Here are just two abstract highlights from 2008 and 2009:
Three hundred sixty-one men undergoing infertility evaluation were divided into four groups according to their active cell phone use: group A: no use; group B: <2 h/day="" [hours/day];="" group="" c:="" 24="" h/day;="" and="" group="" d:="">4 h/day... . The laboratory values of the above four sperm parameters [mean sperm count, motility, viability, and normal morphology] decreased in all four cell phone user groups as the duration of daily exposure to cell phones increased. . The laboratory values of the above four sperm parameters [mean sperm count, motility, viability, and normal morphology] decreased in all four cell phone user groups as the duration of daily exposure to cell phones increased.* * *Male albino Wistar rats (1012 weeks old) were exposed to RF-EMR [radio frequency electro-magnetic radiation] from an active GSM (0.9/1.8 GHz) mobile phone for 1 hour continuously per day for 28 days. Controls were exposed to a mobile phone without a battery for the same period.... Rats exposed to RF-EMR exhibited a significantly reduced percentage of motile sperm. CONCLUSION: Given the results of the present study, we speculate that RF-EMR from mobile phones negatively affects s.e.m.e.n quality and may impair male fertility.
The rat b.a.l.l.s were exposed for one hour per day one hour per day for 28 days?! for 28 days?!
In California, where I live, 30% of the population relies exclusively on cell phones for communication. I had carried a cell phone in my pocket an average of at least 12 hours a day for the last 10 years.
No more.
It didn"t hurt me to put it somewhere else, and the evidence was strong enough to warrant a trial.
Eleven weeks later, I had my first round of results.
Happy Endings For eleven weeks, I adopted one new rule: my phone was no longer allowed to cuddle with my t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es.
Its new home was a black InCase iPod armband intended for jogging. I could strap it to the outside of my upper arm or calf, or-if headed somewhere jogger fashion wasn"t cool-I could simply turn the phone off before putting it in my pocket. In the latter case, or when running quick errands sans armband, checking messages every 30 minutes resulted in a grand total of zero problems. The front pocket of a backpack or bag also works.
I waited 11 weeks to retest for a specific reason: sperm production (spermatogenesis) takes an estimated 64 days in humans. I wanted to wait at least that long and added two weeks as an extra buffer.
I returned to the sperm bank for my deposit and testing on November 19, 2009, nervous as h.e.l.l.