Dysfunctional Hormone Status

By Jeff Young, EP

Dysfunctional hormone status, which can lead to obesity and metabolic disease, can be reversed through exercise independent of what you eat. I’m definitely not advocating an “eat whatever you want” diet, but the argument that dysfunctional hormone status (e.g. high blood sugar, insulin resistance, leptin resistance, low adiponectin, etc…) as an excuse for obesity (“It’s a complex hormonal issue”) is negated pretty much as soon as you start exercising regularly. Exercise reverses and can eventually (and pretty quickly) remove the dysfunction.

Which means you can’t really use the “hormone” excuse. You don’t have dysfunctional hormones because you’re obese. You have dysfunctional hormones because you aren’t regularly active (to include some vigorous activity), which, along with your unhealthy diet, is leading to overfeeding and eventual obesity.

Get active. Strength train. Improve your aerobic capacity.

“The primary finding from this study is that 12 wk of aerobic exercise combined with weight loss favorably alters adipokine secretion independent of the dietary GI, contrary to the original hypothesis that a low-glycemic diet would elicit changes as compared with a high-glycemic diet.

High molecular weight (HMW) adiponectin is inversely associated with metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and blood lipids. We recently reported that 12 wk of aerobic exercise training combined with either a low- or high-glycemic diet improved peripheral and hepatic insulin resistance and severity of metabolic syndrome and that short-term aerobic exercise increased circulating HMW adiponectin and reduced circulating leptin.

Herein, we demonstrate that regular exercise training, independent of diet, not only increases HMW adiponectin but also induces changes in HMW adiponectin that are related to change in visceral fat and changes in leptin.

In conclusion, our results show that quantitative change in fat mass, after exercise and weight loss, seems to be the more important factor regulating adipokine production and secretion in older obese persons. We found no additional benefit of including a low-glycemic diet with exercise on insulin sensitivity or plasma adipokine concentrations.

Further, the favorable changes in HMW adiponectin and leptin coupled to the changes in fat mass and insulin sensitivity suggest an improvement in adipocyte health and function. Adipocytes are of crucial importance, buffering the daily influx of dietary fat while regulating secretion of factors that act in an endocrine as well as autocrine/paracrine manner.

Our data provide further evidence that the relationship between adiposity and adipokine production can be regulated by exercise, and these favorable improvements in adipocyte function can improve health in the older obese.

If you would like some more information about how to keep up your health and well-being during National Heart Month give us a call to schedule your FREE Scientific Health and Fitness Consultation at 310-582-8212 or email me directly at chelsea@phase-iv.net.