Hey guys, I hope everyone had a great week enjoying the weather!  To my friends on the east coast I hope Irene hasn’t affected any of your summer plans too much.  My father Bill and Step-mother Cindy said goodbye to their home in New Jersey which means my BOO, or Base of Operations now lies with the dynamic and catabolic duo of Paul and Tim Epifan when I return, which I shall, to THE GREAT GARDEN STATE! Jersey!

I Just finished reading a study looking at Vitamin A supplementation and its effects on cortisol enzymes…see I knew you’d be interested.  You see Cortisol is a big time HORMONE (chemical messenger)  in your body that is your chief anti-inflammatory and helps you basically run for your life by increasing your blood glucose giving you energy to DO WORK!  Cortisol also happens to be the hormone that wakes you up in the morning.  If you were to plot its daily concentrations on a graph you would see an inverse relationship with Melatonin, or your sleepy time hormone. 

Cortisol is in Black.  Melatonin is in White.  Funny thing about melatonin.  It’s an ANTIOXIDANT and has important anti-cancer properties…hmmm maybe I should get to bed on time? 

Without getting too technical this study shows that in obese rats high-dose vitamin A inhibits the conversion of inactive corticosterone to active cortisol leading to significantly reduced body weight, reduced body-weight gain, and visceral fat mass.  If any of you are interested in the study here is the link:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Vitamin%20A%20decreases%20pre-receptor%20amplification%20of%20glucocorticoids%20in%20obesity%3A%20study%20on%20the%20effect%20of%20vitamin%20A%20on%2011beta-hydroxysteroid%20dehydrogenase%20type%201%20activity%20in%20liver%20and%20visceral%20fat%20of%20WNIN%2FOb%20obese%20rats

I want to point a few things out.

1) I am not recommending high dose vitamin A.  First, find a naturopath here.  Then consult with them. 

2) This is a rat study.  It has potential but only in continuing further research

3) This should bring about how important cortisol and obesity are intimitely linked. 

4) Vitamin A is NOT B-Carotene.  Also many people have conversion problems converting carotenoids from things like carrots to active retinol.  I will discuss this later. 

So rather than always popping the next pill to down-regulate an enzyme, you need to ask why is that enzyme being expressed in the first place… IE. what is the ROOT CAUSE