The diving reflex indicates that selective adrenal hormonal effects are possible.
Thermogenic drugs like DNP can cause people to overheat and die. It can increase your resting metabolic rate by over 300%. The more physiological spread is from a 30 percent reduction in metabolism in people with an underactive thyroid to a 30 percent increase in metabolism when the part of the nervous system that controls the fight-or-flight response is activated. The range is approximately 1/10. In response to fear or acute stress, special nerves release a chemical called noradrenaline to prepare us for confrontation. We experience this by our skin becoming blue, cold, and clammy as blood is pumped to our more vital organs. When your digestive system shuts down, your mouth becomes dry and your heart beats faster. What we don’t feel is that excess fat is burned to release energy for the fight.
That is why people began to take ephedra for weight loss, that is, “to stimulate the release of noradrenaline from nerve endings.”
Ephedra is an evergreen shrub. It has been used for thousands of years in China to treat asthma. This is because it causes the release of noradrenaline, which dilates the airways and reduces symptoms in asthma patients. In the United States, it is used as a metabolic stimulant and has been shown to cause weight loss of about 2 pounds (0.9 kg) per month in 19 placebo-controlled trials. By the late 1990s, millions of Americans were taking it. The problem was that there were also all the other noradrenaline effects, such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. In other words, chronic use caused “strokes, arrhythmias, and death.” Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned of its dangers in 1994, ephedra was only banned 10 years later, after a 23-year-old Major League Baseball pitcher died from a fall. His “autopsy report revealed evidence of ephedra, which the coroner said contributed to his death.”
Current Wild West dietary supplement regulations not only make it completely impossible to “sell a supplement without safety data,” but manufacturers are also not required to disclose any adverse effects that may occur. No wonder, then, that the online vendor guaranteed absolute safety with “no negative side effects to date.” “No harmful side effects, no irritability or underlying anxiety, no moodiness.” “100% safe for long-term use.” “No drug interactions and no harmful side effects.” Ephedra Key Sellers The president of the company, Metabolife International, assured the FDA that the company had never received “any notification from a consumer that a serious health hazard had occurred.” In fact, the company received approximately 13,000 complaints about health hazards, including the following: There have been reports of serious injuries, hospitalizations, and even death.
I wish there was a way to get the good stuff without the bad stuff. As I explain in my video, How to get the weight loss benefits of ephedra without riskthere is. But to understand that, we first need to understand a surprising biological phenomenon known as the diving reflex.
Imagine walking on a frozen lake and suddenly being plunged through the ice into freezing depths. It would be difficult to think of a greater instantaneous fight-or-flight shock. In fact, norepinephrine is released, which causes the blood vessels in your arms and legs to constrict and direct blood back to your core. You can imagine how fast your heart starts beating, which is counterproductive because it uses up oxygen faster. Surprisingly, your heart rate slows down instead. That’s the diving reflex, first described in the 1700s. Air-breathing animals are born with this automatic safety feature to keep us from drowning.
In medicine, we can take advantage of this physiological quirk using something called the “cold face test.” To determine whether a comatose patient’s neural pathways are normal, place a cold compress on the face and see if the heart immediately begins to slow. Or, more dramatically, it could be used to treat people whose heart beats abnormally fast. Remember that episode of ER where Carter submerged a patient’s face in a dish of ice water? I was counting how many times I violated “universal precautions”).
What does this have to do with weight loss? The problem with noradrenaline-releasing drugs like ephedra is the associated increase in heart rate and blood pressure. What the diving reflex shows is that it is possible to experience selective noradrenaline effects, raising the possibility that there is a way to boost metabolism without risking stroke-out. Incredibly, this complex physiological feat may be accomplished by the simplest act of simply drinking water instead of drowning. Really? Yes, drinking water can boost your metabolism. Fasten your safety belts because a wild ride awaits. This drive continues next.
This is the first of a four-part video series. Stay tuned:
You may also be interested in “Friday Favorites: The Best Eating Method for Weight Loss and Disease Prevention.”
