Wouldn’t it be great if you could eat whatever you wanted and still keep the weight off? Scientists at a few of America’s leading research universities believe they have unlocked the key to this possibility, which before now has been considered just a dream. One study at MIT has unlocked the mystery of how weight loss works at the molecular level, while another has uncovered a way in which resveratrol promotes weight loss through this mechanism.
SIRT1
The key to weight loss in the body is the hormone SIRT1. The MIT study found that when SIRT1 is activated in the body, it in turn activates other proteins and catalysts which send a message out to the tissues where fat is stored. That message?
“Release or metabolize all fat!”
Specifically, the white adipose blood cells in our bodies which store our fat are told either to stop storing fat, or reduce the fat which they have stored. The reason for this is evolutionary. We store fat as a species in order to have energy to survive during lean times. In our current culture, of course, lean times are few and far between. As a result, we just store up all that fat in our Western diet.
If the body were to think you were in the middle of a famine, however, it would release that fat as well as immediately metabolize any extra you consumed. It would know to do this through the activation of the SIRT1 protein.
How is SIRT1 activated?
There are currently only two ways known which activate this important hormone in our bodies. The first, and most common way, is through diet. Diets, of course, are meant to restrict our caloric intake, which in turn says to the body that we are in the middle of lean times.
Of course, diets have been around for decades, and are notoriously ineffective on humans. The main reason for this is will power; not many people can really stick to a diet for a few months, let alone their whole lives.
Other reasons for avoiding diets might be even more compelling. For starters, in order for your body to go into true famine mode, calories must be restricted by at least half. For the average adult, that means eating once every two days.
Even if that is doable for a person, they might not want to deal with the side effects. Calorie restriction is known to cause:
Irritability
- Low Sex Drive
- Decrease in body heat
So, in addition to not being able to eat anything at all, no one will want to have sex with you and you won’t want to have any sex with anyone else. If we’re honest, there really seems to be no point in this kind of lifestyle. Even if it prolonged your life, those would just be extra years of being hungry, frigid, grumpy, and lacking in the physical department.
Extract
Fortunately, there is one more way to activate the SIRT1 hormone, discovered by researchers at Harvard Medical. That way is to take resveratrol in the form of an extract, which has been shown to activate the SIRT1 hormone in studies. After activation, of course, SIRT1 works its magic causing the body to react as if it were in the middle of a famine.
Long and short, if you want to activate that great SIRT1, you have two options. You can diet for the rest of your life, resulting in a significant decrease in your enjoyment of it, or you can opt for taking resveratrol extract!
