Mind & Matter

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Keith Baar explains why tendons stop adapting after 10 minutes of loading, why long low-load holds beat fast reps for connective tissue, and how vitamin C, collagen, caffeine and mTOR shape training.
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TOPICS DISCUSSED:
• Signal Architecture: The same total exercise split into two sessions spaced about six to eight hours apart gives bones and tendons two stimuli and fewer injuries than one long session.
• Tendon Design: Tendons grade from compliant at the muscle to stiff at the bone to avoid stress concentrations; people over about 45 are roughly five times more likely to rupture a tendon than 18-year-olds.
• Collagen & Vitamin C: Collagen is a glycine–X–proline triple helix; vitamin C is consumed by prolyl hydroxylase, which collagen needs before it can leave the cell, and scurvy is a failure of collagen export.
• Force Transfer: Strength depends on muscle size, neural drive, and the connective tissue that transmits force; lean “sinewy” climbers can out pull bigger bodybuilders.
• Soreness Is Not Growth: Soreness signals damage from unaccustomed or poorly matched loading, not a stronger anabolic signal.
• mTOR, Failure & Strength: Mechanical load activates mTOR by moving its inhibitor TSC2 away from Rheb; training to failure recruits every fiber for growth, while heavy loads drive strength through other pathways.
• Whey + Collagen: Whey alone lowers glycine after exercise; adding about 5 g of collagen raised both muscle and connective tissue protein synthesis in work by Luc van Loon.
• Caffeine, Keto & GLP-1 Drugs: High-dose caffeine lowered collagen and muscle protein synthesis and blunted adaptation in mice; a saturated-fat ketogenic diet extended median mouse lifespan with less cancer but can weaken bone; GLP-1 lean-mass loss looks larger when a shrinking fatty liver is counted as lean mass.
*Not medical advice.
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Dr. Stephen O'Rahilly explains GDF15, a stress hormone that makes us feel sick and eat less, and why morning sickness, and its severe form hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), comes from GDF15 made by the fetus.
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TOPICS DISCUSSED:
• What GDF15 Is: A hormone made by stressed cells, sensed only in two small regions of the brainstem.
• A Warning Hormone: It rises with toxins, chemotherapy and cellular stress, not with ordinary meals or overfeeding.
• Rate of Change Matters: The brain tracks how fast GDF15 rises, and chronic exposure desensitizes it.
• Mitochondria and Mortality: GDF15 helps diagnose mitochondrial disease and predicts mortality.
• Metformin and GLP-1 Drugs: GDF15 explains metformin's modest weight loss and may overlap with GLP-1 nausea.
• Morning Sickness and Hyperemesis Gravidarum: The fetus makes nearly all the GDF15; women with low prior GDF15 are most sensitive.
• Drugs That Raise or Block GDF15: Disappointing weight-loss drugs, and blockers for cachexia and hyperemesis gravidarum.
• Healthy vs. Unhealthy Fat Storage: Why fat cells largely decide who gets sick with weight gain.
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Robin Carhart-Harris explains why his trial of psilocybin therapy vs. the SSRI escitalopram for depression missed one primary measure but favored psilocybin on almost everything else, and why SSRIs can blunt emotion.
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TOPICS DISCUSSED:
• Consciousness Matters: Why the mind can drive biology, with placebo as the clearest example.
• Expectancy and Response: How beliefs and the quality of the experience shape outcomes.
• The Psilocybin vs. Escitalopram Trial: Not significantly different on the primary measure, but ahead on nearly every other outcome.
• The Blinding Problem: Why double-blind designs barely work here, and the case for open-label trials.
• Emotional Blunting: SSRIs dampened brain responses to emotional faces; psilocybin did not.
• Sexual Dysfunction: Worse on the SSRI, improved after psilocybin therapy.
• What's Next: Metabolic markers, fibromyalgia and a new trial in young adults with depression.
*Not medical advice.
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Nick talks with Prof. Gary Lewin (Max Delbrück Center, Berlin) about naked mole-rats, which in lab tests survived 18 minutes in pure nitrogen by shutting down brain activity, keeping the heart beating, and switching to fructose for fuel.
TOPICS DISCUSSED:
• From Pain Research to Mole-Rats: The work began when the animals turned out not to feel the burn of capsaicin.
• Ecology & Eusociality: Colonies with a queen, one breeding male, workers, and soldiers, spread across semi-arid East Africa.
• Where the Low Oxygen Comes From: Piling into one sleeping chamber, rather than the burrow air itself.
• 18 Minutes in Pure Nitrogen: In lab tests they pass out, gasp about once a minute, and fully revive.
• Brain Off, Heart On: Brain activity drops to zero while the heart holds 50 beats per minute.
• Fructose as Backup Fuel: Fructose transporters in brain and heart let glycolysis keep running without oxygen.
• Queens, Odor & Longevity: One queen molecule (IPM) suppresses breeding; a queen can live 39 years.
• Pain, Acid & Navigation: Acid insensitivity, about 80% fewer pain receptors, and navigation by about 90 hairs.
*Not medical advice.
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Nick talks with Prof. Lutz Schomburg about selenium biology in the endocrine system: selenoprotein P as the liver’s selenium transport protein and status biomarker, autoantibodies that can impair delivery despite normal blood selenium, thyroid autoimmunity (Hashimoto’s and Graves’), diabetes, aging, and what selenium supplementation trials show.
TOPICS DISCUSSED:
• Selenoprotein P: Liver-made transport protein that delivers selenium to tissues and serves as a status biomarker beyond total serum selenium.
• Autoantibodies & Delivery: Anti-SELENOP antibodies can impair selenium delivery even when blood selenium looks normal.
• Thyroid Autoimmunity: Links between selenium status and Hashimoto’s / Graves’ disease risk and course.
• Supplementation Trials: What controlled selenium trials do and do not show for thyroid and metabolic outcomes.
• Diabetes & Aging: How selenium biology intersects with diabetes risk and aging.
• Practical Context: Interpreting selenium blood tests and why a “normal” result can still miss tissue delivery problems.
*Not medical advice.
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Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
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