Related Episodes for How Alcohol Disrupts the Brain, Sleep, and Gut

“Drinking two to three cups per day is linked to roughly a 60% reduced risk of developing diabetes, a statistic that highlights coffee's robust metabolic benefits that arise from its ability to activate AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), a critical regulator of cellular energy metabolism.”

“Other hormetic responses to cold exposure include increased production of PGC1-alpha, a protein that promotes mitochondrial biogenesis, the production of new, healthy mitochondria, and the activation of brown fat – a phenomenon once thought to occur only in newborns, but now known to occur in adults, especially after cold exposure.”

“Perhaps the most clear-cut examples of cryotherapy’s beneficial effects are observed in the brain, where levels of the hormone and neurotransmitter norepinephrine – responsible for vigilance, attention, focus, and positive mood – increase markedly when the body is exposed to extreme cold.”

“However, the term "fasting" can comprise a variety of subtypes. Intermittent fasting, a term lacking specificity, usually refers to interventions such as alternate-day fasting, fasting one day per week, or a five:two eating pattern (fasting for two days per week).”

“If you have used a consumer genetic testing service like 23andMe or AncestryDNA and want to learn more about whether or not the data indicates your specific genotype on these SNPs, check out our free viral report here.”

“The most compelling human signal appears when the brain is under acute strain. In a randomized crossover study, a single dose of 0.35 grams per kilogram during 21 hours of sleep deprivation changed cerebral energy metabolites and preserved selected measures of cognitive performance.”

“A recent meta-analysis also found small benefits in selected cognitive domains, including memory and processing speed, with responses that may depend on age, diet, baseline stores, stress, dose, and the cognitive test used.”

“A separate six-week randomized study in 30 healthy young adults found that neither 10 nor 20 grams per day improved the tested cognitive outcomes compared with placebo. The result is an important counterweight to the acute sleep-deprivation experiment.”

“Acute stress may create a different context. In a double-blind crossover study of 15 adults undergoing 21 hours of sleep deprivation, a single 0.35-gram-per-kilogram dose changed brain high-energy phosphate measures and improved selected cognitive outcomes.”

Dan Pardi: Ph.D. candidate studying sleep neurobiology at Stanford and University of Leiden, co-founder of Dan’s Plan online wellness company.