Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Storage of Fat

Since my post on combating obesity with folinic acid, I've been doing a bit more reading. Dr Peter Tunbridge, an integrative medicine expert, has this to say about the MTHFR gene polymorphism on his website:

How does it affect weight?
The gene defect prevents the body from getting rid of oestrogen (female hormone) down a pathway that ultimately affects how your body converts its food into energy.
In absolute terms it makes the body convert most of your glucose (which ALL your food other than oils is converted into), into Free Fatty Acids rather than Glycogen.
This means your body is converting the sugar into fat. This means you have less energy and feel tired all the time. This means you are making fat, and because most of this is occurring in the blood vessels around the bowel then the fat is deposited centrally. If the oestrogen levels are high, then this accelerates the process, and if you have the gene defect then this will also accelerate that process.
The Cell that lines all the microscopic blood tubes in your body is where this happens. If these cells fill with FFA’s (Free Fatty Acids) then its ability to take in more sugar is slowed. The body responds to this by making more insulin in an attempt to give you more energy. This will cause a sudden rapid loss of blood sugar - this is that profound weakness that overcomes your body occasionally when your legs feel like tree trunks and you just want to sleep. The oestrogen levels are making you store fat and so you do not get anymore energy when this happens – just fatter and fatter and craving more and more sweet things.

Will this folinic acid pill make me lose weight if i just take that and do nothing else?
No! It must be used to full advantage as an additive to a proper diet (in my opinion this should be a low carbohydrate diet) and a gradual increase in excercise as you begin to get more energy.

How does folinic acid stop this?
Giving folinic when you have this gene defect essentially provides the body with what it cant make. It thereby “bypasses the biochemical deficit. It therefore allows a better metabolism of oestrogen and stops the body from converting too much of the food into fat. It essentially negates having the gene defect anymore relative to what it stops from happening in the biochemistry of the body.

4 comments:

Tara said...

hiya Charlotte, wow ur weight is coming off nicely again isnt it!! hope you're having a wonderful week!

tara xx

Charlotte Orr said...

Thanks Tara, it's gone up a bit in the last few weeks (I got sick then my cat died) but am slowly getting on top of things again. Hope you are having a great week too!

Anonymous said...

Great information. It's definitely something you and I have to be more aware and vigilant off in the future. Thanks for sharing Charlotte. xxx

Charlotte Orr said...

No worries, glad you found it useful!