FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE BLOG 

Includes over 800 monographs reporting on emerging studies in the medical and scientific literature of practical clinical importance, easily searched for content.

Sugar calories are worse for diabetes and obesity than others

Attentive clinicians who have been exhorting their patients for years to avoid excessively stimulating insulin production with sugar are heartily welcoming the superb research just published in PLoS One (Public Library of Science) that drives a stake through the heart of the mistaken notions that calories from sugar have the same effect as others, and that obesity causes diabetes.

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Weight loss and insulin resistance improved by branched-chain amino acids

Weight loss and improvement in insulin resistance naturally go hand in hand, and a study just published in the journal Diabetologia confirms that consumption of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) helps both. Isoleucine, leucine and valine are already known to promote muscle growth and repair, influence brain signaling for appetite and metabolic rate, help with burn recovery, and be remedial for autism when it includes genetic mutations in BCAA pathways.

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Statins reduce coenzyme Q10 and glucose tolerance in skeletal muscle

It's long been known that statins impair synthesis of the important metabolic cofactor and antioxidant coenzyme Q10 while inhibiting the production of cholesterol. Clinical research just published in the American Journal of Cardiology further confirms that the muscle pain and exercise intolerance experienced by many taking statins is caused at least in part by decreased CoQ10.

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