Many of us are efficient at storing energy and inefficient at burning it when it comes to our metabolism. For instance, I see lots of frustrated people eating what appear to be healthy salads, yet they continue to gain weight. There are two things in our diets that harm our metabolic efficiency. At the end of this post, I will explain what they are and why most people have a metabolism stuck in growth mode while a decreasingly small minority can readily burn the calories they consume. But first, some background.

Cell Metabolism

Cells can either burn or grow, but they can't do both at once. It's like raw wood that we can burn for heat or make furniture out of, but we can't do both at the same time. It's important to remember that both growth and burning are essential for life, and they need to be coordinated for good health. If they're not coordinated, disease is the consequence.

Cell Division

Cell division is the primary process that allows fertilized eggs to develop into a baby and later enables a newborn baby to grow into an adult. It's surprising that the single cell of a fertilized egg, representing the most rapidly growing phase of a human, only needs to divide 36 times to create a baby. Additionally, a baby's cells only need to divide about five more times to mature into an adult. Fetal development and childhood should be the only period of rapid growth, and even then, only 41 cell doublings occur, which is why adults should primarily focus on maintaining a healthy metabolism that can easily burn energy and not be stuck in growth mode. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, most of us experience growth in the form of fat stores and poor energy utilization. I will explain why at the end of this post.

Oxygen and Metabolism

When a fetus undergoes rapid growth, the sugar that could be used for energy is used for the fetus’s growth instead. Since there is little energy being used, a large amount of oxygen is not needed. As a result, the amount of oxygen supplied to a developing fetus is quite low, even lower than the oxygen levels on top of Mount Everest.

In another scenario of rapid cell division and growth, such as cancer, oxygen is not needed. As a result, cancers can grow in a low-oxygen state. This phenomenon is known as the Warburg Effect. You can see from the illustrations above that much more glucose and much less oxygen are needed for growth. I will discuss this more later. Interestingly, cancer cells have few mitochondria, which are known as the powerhouse of the cell because they aren't using energy but simply growing.

On the other hand, oxygen is required for burning to occur, whether we are burning wood in a furnace or sugar in our mitochondria.

The Enzymes of Growth and Burning

Three enzymes—PI3 kinase, AMP kinase, and mTOR—play a crucial role in determining whether a cell is growing, burning, or diseased. The interactions between these enzymes are complex, but to simplify, PI3 kinase is like the gatekeeper that allows glucose into the cell. As glucose is broken down into pyruvate, AMP kinase converts the pyruvate into ATP, our energy source. mTOR, on the other hand, stimulates cell division and growth and down-regulates AMP Kinase to slow down burning. In the growth state, PI3 kinase promotes glucose uptake into the cell because hundreds of times more glucose is needed for growth than for burning. AMP kinase is switched off to prevent burning, and mTOR is used to promote cell division and growth. On the other hand, in the burning state, PI3 kinase and mTOR are turned off, while AMP kinase is activated to promote burning. This results in much less glucose entering the cell, mTOR preventing growth, and AMP kinase promoting burning.

Disease

The two states I discussed above are found in healthy cells; however, the growth state can also apply to cancer. Most other combinations of the three enzymatic states represent disease. You can see them in the chart below.

How You Can Turn off the Unwanted Growth and Turn Up the Burning

First, our ability to burn energy can be negatively affected by eating diets high in processed carbohydrates, which is common in Western diets. The starches in processed carbohydrates are converted into glucose by our bodies, and high blood sugar can be toxic, so we need to clear it from the blood quickly. For example, eating an English muffin can cause a rapid spike in blood sugar, similar to consuming 5.6 teaspoons of sugar. When our bodies have excessive glucose, we store it in fat cells because we can't burn it off quickly. This happens because PI3 Kinase is activated, AMP Kinase is deactivated, and mTOR is activated. As a result, fat cells grow and can also multiply.

Second, the consumption of seed oils like soy, cotton, canola, corn, and sunflower has dramatically increased over the years, with up to 40 grams being consumed lately, compared to virtually zero in 1865. This is a 2000 percent increase in consumption. Normally, naturally sourced foods provide around 2 grams of linoleic acid per day, which is assumed to be the amount that humans consumed for tens of thousands of years without chronic disease. However, our current consumption of seed oils far exceeds this natural amount.

Linoleic acid, the primary component of seed oils, is used to build our cell membranes. When we consume more than about two grams of linoleic acid, too much ends up in our cell membranes. Membranes with high amounts of linoleic acid do not function normally. The special membranes in our mitochondria, which help maintain an electrical gradient used to generate energy (ATP), are particularly affected. The excessive linoleic acid in these membranes disrupts their ability to maintain the proper electrical gradient, leading to a reduction in our ability to generate ATP energy.

In every instance, the introduction of seed oil has led to an increase in once-rare diseases such as obesity, heart disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes where none existed prior. These diseases are now driving chronic illness more than processed carbohydrates. You can learn more about the connection between seed oil and the rise of modern chronic diseases in Suzanne Alexander and Chris Knobbe's book The Ancestral Diet Revolution: How Vegetable Oil and Processed Foods Destroy Our Health.

Conclusion

Now we understand why people who eat salads might be experiencing weight gain and other health issues - it's because of the dressing and the croutons. The nutritional information on the label above of a two-tablespoon serving of Ken’s Creamy Caesar Dressing shows that it contains 18 grams of soybean oil, which is 15 grams of linoleic acid. Incidentally, most people put more than the suggested two tablespoons on their salad. Before 1865, humans never consumed more than two grams of linoleic acid. This overwhelming amount of unwanted vegetable oil is negatively affecting our ability to burn energy. If you want to improve your ability to burn calories and avoid gaining weight, consider following a diet of whole foods that are free from processed carbohydrates and seed oil, including animal-based foods with their innate fat content.

I would like to thank Dr. Robert Lustig for the inspiration and much of the information contained in this post.