Cristian Vlad Zot's Blog, page 13

CRISPR/Cas9 for Genome Editing – March 2016 Perspective

This line made the news on March 22, 2016: “Scientists have removed HIV from human immune cells using a new gene-editing technique. They’ve managed to shut down HIV replication permanently.“ It’s based on a study published at the beginning of March 2016 in Nature. It goes to show the power of genome editing technologies such

SNPs #1 – Obesity Associated Genetic Mutations

Introduction Genetics play a significant role in physiology. Yet, as many of you know, your genes do not necessarily dictate your destiny. You can impact the way your genes are being expressed with different interventions, lifestyle and non-lifestyle. This is the field of epigenetics. To make the best of your physiology, I think it is

FGF21 – And what happens when you Fast for 10 Days

Introduction Should I be surprised this article from November 2015 has received no attention (citations) yet? Well, no, I am not. The article discusses about fasting – water fasting, to be more precise – and this seems to be non-taboo. It was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (a reputable publication, imho) and it

Cold Thermogenesis – WBC and CWI for Exercise and for Therapeutic Uses [Long]

Introduction I’ve developed a long-term relationship with cold stress. My early experimentation started in the winter of 2012 when I began taking very cold showers. Cold is not your friend, yet it can help you become more resilient. Cold exposure is unappealing and unpopular. It is only used by the very few. But, why is

Myelin Thickness – The Unromantic Approach to Reaching Mastery [1,2,3]

Introduction The summer of 2011 portrays weeks on end of agonizing urban heat. I can vividly remember it. Most afternoons, you would find me on the track, jogging for 40 minutes to an hour. I was enjoying it, even though it was like walking into an oven. I seldom knew how time flew by. With

Self-Deception – How to Fight your Brain’s Inborn Flaws and Biases [S. Novella]

Introduction Few years back, after getting my hands on Charles Duhigg’s life-changing book The Power of Habit, I became more interested in studying the intricacies of the human mind. Specifically, I wanted to familiarize myself with the logical flaws and fallacies we tend to fall prey to. This is how I found out about Prof.

The Five Stages of Fasting – Dr. Nikolayev [Russian Case Studies]

Introduction During a visit at the local library I stumbled upon a book on fasting (written in Romanian). I do most of my reading on my tablet, for convenience. Trying to locate the book on Amazon Kindle returned an empty query. To my surprise, the book was not available/translated to English. It was only available

The Randle Cycle – How Fats and Carbs compete for Oxidation [Review]

Introduction In a recent Ben Greenfield podcast, Ben and his guest, Denise Minger, discussed about the Randle Cycle – which is also known as the glucose-fatty acid cycle. This cycle describes the competition between metabolic fuels. I read a few papers about the Randle Cycle as it sparked my interest. In this post I’m going

My Low-Carb Journey – Christina B. [Case Study]

Introduction Christina and I have known each other since 2014. Even though she says she’s been struggling with weight management for a long time, I view her journey more like a challenge to finding her personalized (unique) approach to optimal nutrition and lifestyle. Similarly, my own n=1 is a testimonial that it can take hell

Self-Education and Insights from the 86 books I read in 2015

Introduction I read 86 books in 2015. Turning the final page on each one makes me realize how little I know. I shared some of my thoughts from these books: #here #here #here and #here Today I’m about to do the same. I do the bulk of my reading on my tablet. It’s a very