Methionine is one of the most abundant amino acid found in muscle meat and flesh. Restricting methionine is linked to extended lifespan because of reduced IGF-1 and mTOR signaling[iv][v]. However, glycine supplementation has been found to have the same effects on life-extension as methionine restriction[vi]. Glycine is found in organ meats, ligaments, drumsticks and all of these bone broth parts. If you’re carnivore, then you should eat more glycine-rich meat from these tendon and bone broth meats because they have less methionine and more glycine. That’s also the ratios hunter-gatherers would have eaten in the past.

High amounts of protein beyond your body’s needs will inhibit autophagy because of the excess amino acids that raise mTOR. If you’re eating just chicken breast, egg whites, steak and leaner meats, then you’re definitely not triggering autophagy. On a more ketogenic carnivore diet that’s somewhat more moderate in protein and higher in fat, you would be able to experience autophagy more often because your basal insulin and blood sugar levels are lower and more stable.

One of the most potent activators of mTOR and muscle protein synthesis is leucine, which is an amino acid that’s been found to transiently activate mTOR independent of insulin[iii]. However, the activation of mTOR by leucine is short-term and lasts between 30 minutes up to an hour or two at maximum.

There are a few things we know that promote longevity and healthspan. Caloric restriction and intermittent fasting are one of the most effective ways of doing so as shown by research in virtually all species.

Valter Longo, PhD has been studying an aspect of fasting and autophagy that is fascinating enough, I wanted to include it in it’s own section. One area of his research focuses on how fasting induces differential stress resistance to make chemotherapy far more effective. In a food scarce environment, normal cells become more resistant to oxidative stress, but cancer cells don’t. Remember, cancer cells are broken cells. Something went wrong with them and they are replicating out of control. Being broken means they don’t retain all the typical functions and protective mechanisms of normal cells, like antioxidant generation. That’s one of the reasons cancer cells switch their metabolism from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis even in the presence of oxygen. It’s known as the Warburg effect. There are many theories on why this happens, but one is because cancer cells are more sensitive to the reactive oxygen species created during normal metabolism. Eating creates an environment where cancer cells thrive and normal cells are stressed. Cancer cells need an environment rich with sugar, growth factors (like IGF-1) and amino acids like glutamine. For normal cells, metabolism creates reactive oxygen species and triggers an immune response to deal with all the pathogens riding along on top of your meals. However, when you fast, normal cells become 1000 times more resistant to reactive oxygen species, but cancer cells do not. This same starvation-protection also makes normal cells far more resistant to chemotherapy drugs.

Another big cause of age-related degeneration is declining mitochondrial function. Metabolism causes damage to cells so it makes sense that mitochondria, the power plants of the cells, would also accumulate damage over time. This damage leads to decreased energy production, increased aging of the cells, and decreased stem cell activation. A specialized type of autophagy called mitophagy selectively recycles defective mitochondria and replaces them with new organelles. This restores proper function and prevents the cell from further degradation into a senescent cell.

A mouse study looked at fasting to improve autoimmune inflammation associated with multiple sclerosis. In multiple sclerosis, the immune system attacks the myelin-forming oligodendrocytes of the central nervous system causing various symptoms like weakness, dizziness, spasms, and pain. Fasting reduced autoimmune response and promoted oligodendrocyte precursor cell regeneration. It actually completely reversed symptoms in 20 percent of the animals.

Another interesting mouse study used a specific peptide to trigger cell death in the senescent cells in aging mice. They found that the ones that received the treatment to kill senescent cells had hair regrow in bald spots within 10 days and after three weeks they could run twice as far on a treadmill as the control group. They also experienced improved kidney function.

mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) is an important enzyme that regulates things like cell growth, cell survival, protein synthesis, and autophagy. It also promotes the activation of insulin and IGF-1 receptors. This is why the presence of IGF-1 and insulin increases the amount of mTOR. You need to down-regulate mTOR in order to trigger autophagy. As an additional benefit, decreasing mTOR also causes senescent cells to down-regulate the release of inflammatory secretions. This means even if you don’t kill those cells through autophagy, you at least stop them from inflicting damage to the surrounding cells for months afterwards. IGF-1 has a pretty high half life in your body (about 12 hours) so if you want to keep autophagy running at all on a carnivore diet, you’ll also want to practice intermittent fasting.

Carnivore Diet Benefits: Fast FactsAs a diet that is both new and prehistoric, there hasn’t been much clinical research looking specifically at how the carnivore diet affects our health. But the anecdotal evidence of thousands of carnivore dieters, along with what we know about its close cousin, the keto diet, suggests that if done correctly, a carnivore diet may offer a number of powerful benefits including: Eliminating plant toxins and antinutrientsWeight lossImproved insulin sensitivityImproved gut healthImproved heart healthReduced inflammationIncreased testosterone and libidoIncreased mental claritySimplified Dieting

But the story of human carnivory goes even further back, to the Pleistocene some 2 million to 85,000 years ago. During this vast period, many more large animals like mastodons and wooly mammoths roamed the earth. With this abundance of large prey, some researchers suggest and offer compelling evidence, that we simply wouldn’t focus on eating anything else.  Taking these perspectives, we can see human carnivory (or specialized omnivory) as a result of two evolutionary forces:The abundance of large animals for most of the 2 million years of pre-human and human evolution The scarcity of nutrient-dense food sources in the roughly 100,000 years leading up to the agricultural revolution

Each of us faces a threat as we pursue our craft. Like sirens on the rocks, ego sings a soothing, validating song— which can lead to a wreck. The second we let the ego tell us  we have graduated, learning grinds to a halt. That’s why Frank Shamrock said, “Always stay a student.” As in, it never ends.

💡 Hold down the ⌥ key to see "Hook to New As..." One of Hook's handy commands is Hook to New. This creates a new item whose name is based on the name of the current resource. It hooks the new item to the source, stores the new item, and in some cases tags the new item. Amongst other things, this enables you to quickly take bidirectionally linked (hooked) notes about almost anything, while relieving you from the tedium of information management. If you'd like to customize the new item's name, hold down the option key while clicking on the title menu and select Hook to New As... or Hook to New <DefaultApp> As.... If you use them often, then you're in luck because these variants each have a keyboard shortcut. For more information, see All Commands & Shortcuts – Hook.

Useful Tools for Research & Learning Instapaper or Pocket: Both are great tools for highlighting important passages as you're reading articles. Sign up for either one, and then start using them to read all the articles relevant for your capstone project and highlighting important things as you go. Kindle: A great option for reading if you want to be able to easily highlight important passages as you go. If you're reading any books as part of your Capstone project, reading them on Kindle will make it easier to get your notes into Roam later. Airr Audio: Airr is the best podcast player for active note taking. It lets you save audio highlights up to 45 seconds long that you'll later be able to reference and import into Roam, great if you want to listen to podcasts as part of your research process. Hypothesis: Hypothesis is a tool for highlighting and annotating the web. If you don't want to save an article into Pocket or Instapaper before reading it, or if you just see something on the web you want to quickly save, it's a great tool. It's also fun for discussing articles with other readers. Readwise: Readwise plugs into all the other tools on this list and lets you save your highlights in one place, and eventually, export them to Roam. This is going to become extremely useful when we start on the "Research" section of the course.