I am REALLY looking forward to Thanksgiving.  How can it not be great?  It’s a holiday centered around one of my favorite activities – eating.

Thank you for:  waking up with us in the middle of the night, reading us books, feeding us, dressing us, changing our diapers, driving us places, taking us to the park, not letting us throw things, and, most importantly, for loving us.  You’re the best, Mom!

Love,

Your Sons

Why, yes, it was a do-it-yourself haircut.  Why do you ask?

Insulin Control For Maximum Fat Loss
Written by Dan Gwartney, MD
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Fat Attack

By Dan Gwartney, MD

In games and contests, there are always elements that are devastating in their dominance. It may be as simple as rock always beating scissors in the hand game “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” or it may be as complex as the M1A1/2 Abrams main battle tanks loaded with depleted uranium penetrators in Operation Desert Storm. In the battle against fat, the devastator is insulin.

Body fat generally reflects long-term energy balance. In other words, it is a sign of how your eating habits (calories in) compare to your metabolic demand (calories out). It is not as simple as that though, as many people can attest after diligently carrying calorie tables about in a futile effort to match the numbers to the readout of a treadmill or recumbent bike.

For decades, nutritionists and cardiologists extolled the virtues of low-fat dieting to reduce the risk of heart disease and aid in weight loss. On the surface, it made sense to replace the most calorie-dense macronutrient (fat) with carbohydrates, which contain less than half the number of calories, gram for gram. Yet, cardiovascular health was not greatly improved and the prevalence of obesity nearly tripled in the United States.

When dieting pioneers such as Barry Sears (the Zone Diet) and Dr. Robert Atkins (the Atkins Diet) suggested reducing carbohydrates dramatically and thusly adding fat back into the diet, the ideas were scoffed at by experts who staked their reputations on the risks and dangers inherent with such food practices. When the diet programs were newly released to the public’s attention, they were called “fads.” Over the next several months to years, as it was discovered that low-carbohydrate diets were effective for many people and became increasingly popular, the challenge of “no long-term studies” was pulled out of the critic’s handbook. Yet, as studies showed low-carbohydrate diets to be as effective, quicker and resulting in some cardiovascular benefits (not risks) when compared to low-fat diets, fickle America turned its attention-deficit addled focus to other issues. Doughnut sales began to recover from the Atkins-induced drop-off and crowds waited to form about the Alli stands at the local retailers. Even when a reasonable answer exists to a problem as personal and encompassing as obesity, America’s “been there, done that, bought the T-shirt” mentality has caused the nation to move on.

Yet, there is a silver lining to the large-scale social experiment that was the Atkins craze. It stimulated research in the field of fat loss and pressured the editors of medical and science journals to publish articles that otherwise would have been passed over, since weight loss is considered to be a trivial subject by many professionals. A great deal has since been learned about fat loss. Given the success of low-carbohydrate dieting and the focus placed on the hormone insulin, which controls blood sugar, many researchers designed and reported on elaborate studies that investigated insulin’s role in weight management with unprecedented detail.

Though often thought of in terms of its role in regulating blood sugar and treating diabetes, insulin has other functions. Among these is the regulation of fat stores in adipocytes (fat cells). Fat cells are sensitive to a number of hormones that control whether fat is taken up from the bloodstream and stored or if stored fat is broken down and released back into the circulation; chief among these hormones is insulin.

How Insulin Prevents Fat Loss

Insulin carries a double-whammy of obesity, in that it is able to increase fat storage as well as reduce fat loss. This comment has been repeated time and again. Knowing what insulin does (increase fat storage and decrease fat loss), it then becomes useful to understand how that happens if one is interested in fat loss or weight management. Fortunately, an excellent series of experiments were recently published in the Kobe Journal of Medical Sciences revealing how insulin prevents fat loss. How insulin increases fat storage will not be addressed in this article.

In the fat cell, fat is stored in large globules surrounded by a thin protein-based envelope called perilipin. Think of perilipin as a Ziploc bag. The stored fat is present in a form called a triglyceride, which is three fatty acids, each attached to a common glycerol molecule. It is like a three-legged stool, with glycerol being the seat and each fatty acid being one of the three legs. In order for the fat to be released into the bloodstream, the perilipin envelope has to open so that an enzyme can attach to the triglycerides and break it down to fatty acids and glycerol.

There are a number of hormones and neurotransmitters that stimulate fat loss. People are most familiar with adrenalin, also called epinephrine, and the related neurotransmitter norepinephrine. Adrenalin stimulates fat loss by activating a class of receptors called beta-adrenergic receptors that are present on the surface of a fat cell. In humans, specific types of beta-adrenergic receptors account for the vast majority of the fat loss signal, those being the beta1- and beta2-adrenergic receptors (abbreviated by the Greek symbol β1 and β2). Beta receptors can be stimulated by a number of drugs; ephedrine-caffeine supplements worked well for fat loss by increasing beta stimulation.

In the experiments reported in the Kobe Journal of Medical Sciences, the investigators looked at the effect of insulin on beta2-stimulated fat loss. Those who are really interested in the science of fat loss can read the study online at www.med.kobe-u.ac.jp/journal/contents/53/99.pdf free of charge.

Beta2-stimulated fat loss occurs in a series of steps, with one reaction causing another until stored fat is broken down and released. Using isoproterenol, a potent stimulator of beta receptors, the scientists measured fatty acid release from fat cells exposed to the drug. They compared these results to fat cells that had been exposed to insulin before being stimulated by isoproterenol and found that insulin blocked fatty acid release to a remarkable degree. The researchers then worked down the biochemical pathway, finding that the negative effect of insulin on fat loss also blocked the fat-loss effect of caffeine (which represents the second step in beta2-stimulated fat loss). A third step in fat loss involves an enzyme called PKA, which activates or turns on the actual fat breakdown process. Not surprisingly, insulin also blocked this step from being activated. PKA turns on the enzymes that open the perilipin envelope surrounding the stored triglyceride-fat, as well as the enzyme that attacks triglycerides and breaks them down to individual fatty acids and glycerol.

Clearly, insulin interferes with fat loss in several different ways, making it very difficult for anyone to lose fat when insulin levels are high. Not only that, but under the long-term influence of insulin, fat cells burn less fat, because insulin interferes with the creation of mitochondria, which are the tiny parts of the cell that burn fatty acids to make energy. The experiment did not look at other cell types, but it is likely that a similar effect would be noted in other insulin-sensitive tissue, like muscle.

What It All Means For You

Fascinating as such research is to physio geeks and Biochem nerds (like me), what practical use are the discoveries revealed in the study? First, it gives greater credence to the power of low-carbohydrate and low glycemic-load diets. If insulin is blocking the release of stored fat, it makes little sense to incorporate a diet that periodically stimulates the release of high concentrations of insulin (traditional low-fat diets). When fat loss is the goal, carbohydrate intake should be reduced and the choice of carbohydrates should be limited to slow-releasing, low-glycemic carbohydrates to keep insulin levels from becoming elevated. Secondly, it appears that insulin can severely limit, nearly blocking fat loss, even when the sympathetic system is activated. In other words, it does little good to exercise or take a fat burner sooner than 2 hours after eating if the main intent of training is to break down and burn stored fat. All those bottles of ephedrine-caffeine and other stimulants were wasted if they were taken right before or after a meal, even if they gave a “buzz.” Perhaps some of the success noted by people following Atkins-type diets was due to an increased fat-loss effect of Fat Burners. Third, it also shows the folly of drinking a “sports drink” in the gym. The simple ingestion of a 60-gram carbohydrate-laden drink not only replaces the calories that might be expended exercising, but also prohibits the fat cells from contributing to the energy needs by releasing fatty acids, so the body is forced to use up muscle and liver glycogen stores and rob certain Amino Acids to maintain blood sugar levels when glycogen levels drop. Fourth, it introduces a suggestion that long-term eating habits that stimulate elevated insulin concentrations may reduce fat burning or the basal metabolic rate (how many calories are burned at rest) by inhibiting the production of mitochondria, which is the part of a cell that burns fat for calories.

America has been growing in a bad way, getting fatter and fatter over the last 30-plus years. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this occurred during the time when doctors and dietitians were telling everyone to eat low-fat diets that replace fat with carbohydrates. Research, such as the study reviewed herein, suggests that limiting the exposure of fat cells to insulin is a vital first step to controlling and managing weight. It may not be a popular message with grain producers, bakeries and confectionaries. For the health of America, it is important to realize the dangers and long-term consequences of succumbing to the temptation of tasty treats. Sadly, the audience most receptive to this message will be athletes and fitness enthusiasts who are already exercising and following a sensible diet in order to maintain a level of performance or physical appearance.

Elyse, put this mumbo-jumbo in sidebar??

Insulin and Stored Fat: Breaking It All Down

For those of you interested in how many different steps in the breakdown and release of stored fat that are inhibited by insulin:
• High concentrations of insulin disrupt the close apposition of beta receptors with protein kinase A (PKA).
• Insulin increase phosphodiesterase 3B concentration, inactivating cAMP.
• Insulin inhibits the activation of PKA by cAMP or its phosphodiesterase-resistant analog, 8-bromo-cAMP.
• The insulin-based inhibition of PKA signaling results in markedly reduced phosphorylation of perilipin, which reduces the exposure of triglycerides to hormone sensitive lipase (HSL).
• The insulin-based inhibition of PKA signaling results in markedly reduced phosphorylation of HSL, reducing the lysis of triglycerides to free fatty acids and glycerol.
• The insulin-based inhibition of PKA signaling results in markedly reduced phosphorylation of CREB, which results in a marked reduction of mitochondrial biogenesis in the adipocyte.

References:

1. Gardner CD, Kiazand A, et al. Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN diets for change in weight and related risk factors among overweight premenopausal women: the A TO Z Weight Loss Study: a randomized trial. JAMA, 2007;297:969-77.

2. Ranganathan G, Unal R, et al. The lipogenic enzymes DGAT1, FAS, and LPL in adipose tissue: effects of obesity, insulin resistance, and TZD treatment. J Lipid Res, 2006;47:2444-50.

3. Ferrannini E, Galvan AQ, et al. Insulin: new roles for an ancient hormone. Eur J Clin Invest, 1999;29:842-52.

4. Nishino N, Tamori Y, et al. Insulin efficiently stores triglycerides in adipocytes by inhibiting lipolysis and repressing PGC-1α induction. Kobe J Med Sci, 2007;53:99-106.

5. Tansey JT, Sztalryd C, et al. The central role of perilipin a in lipid metabolism and adipocyte lipolysis. IUBMB Life, 2004;56:379-85.

6. Holm C, Osterlund T, et al. Molecular mechanisms regulating hormone-sensitive lipase and lipolysis. Ann Rev Nutr, 2000;20:365-93.

7. Hoeks J, van Baak MA, et al. Effect of beta1- and beta2-adrenergic stimulation on energy expenditure, substrate oxidation, and UCP-3 expression in humans. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab, 2003;285:E775-82.

8. Kaaman M, Sparks LM, et al. Strong association between mitochondrial DNA copy number and lipogenesis in human white adipose tissue. Diabetologia, 2007 Sep 19;[Epub ahead of print].

Studying the distributional properties of the maximum is gaining more of attention nowadays given the relative failure of the conventional tools the quants used before the recession.

Let’s suppose that an insurance company faces the challenge to cover claims incurring in random time and size. The intensity of the process is , and the process itself is (surprise!!!) Poisson. The claims are iid from a lognormal distribution with parameters and , where is the intermediate time between occurence and .

Some Mathematica code from my Graduate Simulation class is the following.

First we set up the intersity function and the generic vectors recoring Claims (Claimsv) and maximums (Maxv)

λ0 = 25; t0 = 1;
λ[t_] := 100 (t – t^2); Claimsv = {}; Maxv = {};

The main program is the following

Do[S = {}; t = 0; n = 0;
X = -Log[Random[]]/λ0; t = t + X;
While[t < t0, If[Random[] < λ[t]/λ0, n = n + 1; S = Append[S, t]];
X = -Log[Random[]]/λ0; t = t + X];
Claims = 0; S[[0]] = 0; Maxx = 0; Do[rr = Exp[
Random[NormalDistribution[0.75*(S[[i]] – S[[i - 1]]), 1]]];
If[rr > Maxx, Maxx = rr];
Claims = Claims + rr, {i, 1, n}] AppendTo[Claimsv, Claims];
AppendTo[Maxv, Maxx];, {10000}]

And plotting the histograms of the simulated distribution of the Claims and the maximum we nearly finished…

<< Histograms`

Histogram[Claims.v]
Histogram[Max.v]

to be continued…

The Excel MAX (Maximum) function will identify the maximum number in a range of cells.
Select the cell where in you want the formula to be entered. (Cell B14)
Next Click on the Sigma  ∑ sign.  The drop down menu will give you a choice of functions - select Max.
The formula =Max(number1,[number2]….etc, Select range of cells, hit Enter Key.
Or type the formula =MAX(B2:B13)  in the example shown below.

This is another digression from the Galois theory arc (and Joe, I don’t know if you read the Not About Apples stuff, but you are definitely to blame for the fact that I call it an arc) inspired by a recent conversation with one of my students in my geometry for teachers class.

A major topic of the class is an exploration of some famous attempts in history to prove Euclid’s Fifth Postulate and what we can learn from how they went wrong.  Among the proofs considered is one due to the French mathematician Gergonne (a name probably best known for the “Gergonne point” in triangle geometry).  In a nutshell, he argued that since there’s no single largest acute angle that can appear in a right triangle, every acute angle can appear in a right triangle.  That’s all you really have to know, since geometry really isn’t what I came here to talk about, so much as a resulting conversation from office hours yesterday.

It turns out the flaw in his reasoning is interesting, and it’s something you’ve probably never given a lot of thought to.  And it has nothing to do with geometry.  Imagine that, in some context, numbers that are small enough are “good” and numbers that are big enough are “bad” (that is, if a number is good, all smaller numbers are also good, and if a number is bad, all bigger numbers are also bad).  The idea underlying Gergonne’s mistake is that if there are good numbers and bad numbers, then there must be a single largest good number “at the borderline”.  But this is not so.  Is there a largest negative number?  No.  Zero is the best upper bound to the negative numbers (the so-called supremum), but zero isn’t a negative number.  Whatever negative number you can think of, there is another negative number closer to zero.  Likewise there is no smallest positive number.

What is true is that, if there are good numbers and bad numbers, then there is either a single largest good number or a single smallest bad number,  Never neither, never both.  In particular, just because a set of numbers doesn’t actually have a maximum doesn’t mean it isn’t bounded; it could just be that the boundary point isn’t the set.

So why is this counterintuitive?  Because most people so often think about integers, and integers are not like that.  Integers are spaced  differently on a number line than real numbers; the technical term is discrete.  If you have good integers and bad integers, then it much be that there is a largest good number and a smallest bad number.

This relates to the fact that the counting numbers are well-ordered.  In other words, in any nonempty set of counting numbers, there is always a single smallest number.  This is the foundational idea for a powerful technique for proving mathematical theorems and grappling with the infinite, so called mathematical induction.  But that’s another story.  For another time.

Now you might think we’ve said all there is to say.  We’ve described the behavior of real numbers (a continuous set) and the behavior (a discrete set), and you might not think any other behaviors would be possible.  But rational numbers behave in an even more unexpected way.  If you divide a range of fractions into small/good ones and large/bad ones, then there are three possible behaviors.

• there is a largest good number, but no smallest bad number
• there is a smallest bad number, but no largest good number
• there is neither

The last case may be hard to picture.  Here is an example.  Let’s look at just the positive fractions, and call a number good if and bad if .  Then there is no largest good number and no smallest bad!  The “borderline” in this case appears to be , but that’s not a rational number!  There’s a hole in the number line where the boundary should be!

Neosporin Plus Pain Relief First Aid Antibiotic/Pain Relieving Cream, Maximum Strength 0.5-Ounce Tubes (Pack of 4) Review

It really does help cuts and burns heal faster,with minimal scarring.A must for any household.

Feature

• Case of four 0.5-ounce tubes of pain relieving antibiotic cream (total of 2 ounces)
• Soothes painful cuts, scrapes and burns
• Prevents infection
• Provides maximum strength pain relief
• Number one doctor recommended brand

Overview

This first-aid antibiotic and pain relief cream helps soothe painful cuts, scrapes and burns while preventing infection. Contains neomycin sulfate, polymyxin B sulfate, and pramoxine HCI. Maximum strength pain relief formula. Doctor-recommended brand.

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Nov 06, 2009 22:10:04

+++ All Promotion From Amazon.com –> Promotion!

Laptop Memory footballs Cymbals

Bonjour à tous!

Bon bien je ne sais toujours pas si Moto-Men m’a démasquer, je vais faire l’Autruche, si jamais cela se présente, je serais franc.  Après tout il n’y a rien de vraiment compromettant…. J’avoue que d’Avoir sa vie affective au grand public c’est pas top, mais bon… Comme quelqu’un m’a dit, t’es comme ça! It’s so cool to be uncool….

Hier on a passé une belle soirée et ce soir il revient me voir.  Imaginez  que lundi je le boudais et il en faisait autant, je le voyais sur MSN et il me voyait.  J’avais décidé hier de ne pas le relancer parce que je le boudais parce qu’il m’Avait dit qu’il était incertain de notre relation.  Le pire c’est que nous avons discuté et il m’a dit qu’il ne me contactait pas parce qu’il attendait que je fasse les premiers pas… Tu parles de 2 adolescents…. C’est fou se que la peur peux faire, ce que l’insécurité du début d’une relation peut ammener….  Tous les prétextes sont bons pour s’éjecter.  Comme dirait Janette: ” la communication dans un couple est primordiale!”

Par ailleurs, saviez-vous que le nombre de visiteur dépasse le 1000 en ce moment, c’est donc dire qu’il y a des habitués…. Si vous avez la chance de distribuer l’Adresse, faite-le…. On sait jamais je pourrais en vivre et voyager en mettant de la pub: Priape, Trojan, ville de Montréal, social, Lavalive et voyager et vous informer de mes découvertes…. Faites-le on sais jamais…..

Concernant la cause de la Vilaine Charrue, je me cherche encore, pardon, je cherche encore…. Puisque tout a été dit et fait sur la planète, je dois chercher les trucs déjà existant? continuer à chercher des causes moins noble… Comme je suis idéaliste ça ne fonctionne pas, je dois viser le maximum, frapper fort…. En attendant je Blogue et reblogue….

Une idée pour Miss Peggy, vous connaissez dans Facebook des gars sexy Célibataire, envoyer le nom de la personne dans Facebook et on va matcher notre belle miss Peggy…  Je ne lâche pas on va la Matcher comme Cochonne Nationnale.   Et encore, si vous connaissez des gars sexy dans Facebook, envoyez-les nous! on va coter, ça vous tente?

Et vous avez-vous votre cause?

Bon Mardi.

Another BBK banger. They’re making moves….look out for an album too in the not too distant future!!

1.  Trick or Treat

2.  Sample your candy, preferably IMMEDIATELY

3.  Head home

BBK are hilarious! smashed it

1. Does your company do a good job of listening to its customers? Give a specific example of how listening resulted in improved service quality to your customers?
2. Reliability is the ability of the company to perform the promised services dependably and accurately. On a 10-point scale, where 1 is unreliable and 10 perfectly reliable, where would you place your company and why?
3. How well does your company perform the “service basics”—that is, knowing and responding to the fundamental service expectations in your industry?
4. How effectively does your company manage the service design elements or systems, people, and the physical environment? Provide an example of how a lack of planning in one of these areas resulted in a “fail point” during a customer encounter.
5. Service recovery refers to how effectively companies respond to service failures. Cite an example of when a service failure occurred in your company and how it was handled.
6. Teamwork is an important dynamic in sustaining service workers’ motivation to serve and in minimizing service-performance shortfalls. Rate your company on its ability to foster teamwork on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 indicates the absence of teamwork and 10 indicates maximum teamwork. How would you improve teamwork if you rated your company low on this attribute?
7. Internal service is crucial to service improvement, as customer satisfaction often mirrors employee satisfaction. To what extent does your company assess internal service quality (i.e., asking employees about the adequacy of systems to support the service, how the systems interact and serve one another, and where service failures are occurring)? Give examples of how internal service might be measured in your company.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Lectures, Line of Sight

Man, do I look festive.

Either I just voted in Iraq, or I ate the mother of all beets for dinner.

There are 3 attributes in the form builder which enable the form owner to control the form’s expiration:
1- Max Rows
2- close form on
3- Force single row per user

With each of these options the form owner can make the form expire under different conditions.

Max rows
Using this option the form owner may enter the maximum number of form submissions allowed to be entered in the form. After this number is entered the form will expire and will not be available for entering data.
This option is suitable for forms which require a pre defined number of submissions that should not be exceeded (like polls, for instance).

Steps to use max rows:
1- Enter the email form in the form builder
2- Go to the “form settings” on the right side
3- enter the maximum number of desired submissions in the “max rows” textbox
4- Press on “apply”
5- Press on “save”

Close form on
This option allows the form owner to determine a date on which the form will expire.
The date entered should fit the following format: mm/dd/yyyy
This option is suitable for forms which should only be active until a certain date (such as invitations to an event which should not be active once it is over).

Steps to use max rows/ close form on/ force single row per user:
1- Enter the email form in the form builder
2- Go to the “form settings” on the right side
3- fill in the form’s expiration date in the “close form on” textbox
4- Press on “apply”
5- Press on “save”

Force single row per user
Using this option the form owner can determine that each user may fill in the form only once. This is suitable for surveys and questionnaires, in which you do not want one person to fill in the form more than once.

Steps to use max rows/ close form on/ force single row per user:
1- Enter the email form in the form builder
2- Go to the “form settings” on the right side
3- turn on the “force single row per user” checkbox
4- Press on “apply”
5- Press on “save”

Boy Better Know, Girl Better Know, You all Better Know wag1. The new tune from the North London collective was premiered on Mistajam’s Radio 1 show. Following on from their last hit ‘Too Many Man’ I was expecting something similar, catchy hook, hype beat etc etc. I guess its good that the boys have switched up on us and not kept it too predictable like their other urban music counterparts or have sold out. (No naming names, its not a ting yet, I will be coming to this subject soon), so in this sense BBK have delivered yet again, truly marking their terrotory in Grime, not only individually but collectively-as forces to be reckoned with. No doubt soon enough we’ll be seeing ‘We’re Going In’ as part of peoples Facebook names, and just like Griminal’s ‘Its Alot’, Ozzie B’s ‘Maybe Ting’ and many more alike we’ll be hearing most of London’s Youth using this catchphrase. What more can I say, I think this tune will have to grow on me the more I play it, I’m kinda glad they didn’t do another ‘Too Many Man’ track because everyone is jumping on the Funky vibes and it’s good to set yourself apart from the crowd, and the BBK team have done so….

Boy Better Know, Girl Better Know…

It’s Serious.

Stay Blessed.