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Dear Family, Friends, and Members of the Smart Life
Forum,
I am writing to alert you to Rob Faigin’s amazing
gift to the world – just published, Natural Hormonal Enhancement.
Faigin has integrated a very large number of
scientific reports and produced a brilliant and definitive prescription
for fat-loss and body-building. He writes:
“Recent research has demonstrated that aging,
health and body composition are more closely related than previously
suspected and that hormones are the unifying factor. This
realization presents the thrilling prospect of using one grand strategy
to reach three goals simultaneously – to arrest aging while achieving
super health, while at the same time enhancing lean body mass and
permanently eliminating excess body fat.” (page 5 and back cover)
Rob’s book is what it claims to be – “the first
ever comprehensive program for naturally enhancing (inducing and
managing) fat-burning, muscle-building, and anti-aging hormones”. The
hormones he is talking about are insulin, glucagon, growth hormone,
testosterone and cortisol. Like Barry Sears, he believes that one of
the keys to health is control of insulin – that the greatest disaster
of our time is the high carb diet, the Standard American Diet, (S.A.D).
But insulin is far from the whole story.
“Hormonal changes for the worse are the main cause
of the degenerative diseases” (obesity, cardiovascular disease,
diabetes type II, cancer, osteoporosis, sarcopenia and so on.)
See Faigin’s own summary on pages 15 to 20. Also
see his website,
www.extique.com
When the ratio of lipogenic (fat storing) hormones
to lipolytic (fat burning) hormones is wrong, people become fat and
can’t lose weight.
When the ratio of catabolic (protein tissue
burning) hormones to anabolic (protein tissue building) hormones
increases as we age, people shrink, wither, weaken and deteriorate as
they get older.
Accordingly, for good health and successful aging,
there are two goals of overriding importance, “to enhance lipolytic and
anabolic hormones” (page 19).
1. We need to “enhance lipolytic hormones” to
achieve a lean body and avoid obesity and the other degenerative
consequences of chronic high insulin. Efforts to do this by counting
calories consumed and calories burned are misguided. The key to
fat-loss is hormone management, control of the hormones insulin and
glucagon (and testosterone and estrogen) so as to become a fat-burner
rather than a sugar-burner.
2. We need to “enhance anabolic hormones”. The
body is anabolic when it is engaged in protein synthesis - the repair
and strengthening of our muscles, bones, and internal organs. Aside from
fuel storage of sugar and fat, every functional part of our body is
protein. ‘Bodybuilding’ is not just building muscle.
Bodybuilding involves every kind of organ and tissue as well as enzymes
and neurotransmitters.
The body is catabolic when in response to stress,
the hormone cortisol sends the message to tear down and burn as fuel
whatever is handy - protein as well as sugar and fat - in order to be
ready to run or fight and survive the emergency. Chronic stress
literally ‘eats us up’.
The anabolic hormones are growth hormone and IGF-1,
testosterone and progesterone and, surprisingly, insulin.
Faigin’s program has three parts: diet, exercise,
and lifestyle. He does not advocate hormone replacement even for older
people – hence the word ‘natural’ in his title. His prescriptions are
meticulously documented with pinpoint references to over 1700 articles.
Four Comments:
(1) I am confident that Faigin’s analysis will
empower those who are middle-aged to regain control of their bodies,
lose weight without suffering (except for the first three days) and stay
fit. The greatest contribution of the book is to describe the historical
changes in our diet, the changes brought by the Agricultural Revolution
and then the Industrial Revolution. These changes are the cause of the
great American obesity epidemic. He correctly diagnoses the problem and
then he prescribes the ‘cure’.
(2) His well-informed advice will also empower
young persons who want to sculpt their bodies and maximize their
performance as athletes. The same advice will be of inestimable value to
older people, people over 50, like myself.
(3) Nevertheless, Faigin is a young man, 30 years
old. He underestimates the aging process.
I am confident that, by the time he is 55, in
addition to his program of diet and exercise, he will be doing ‘natural’
hormone replacement with testosterone and progesterone, DHEA and
pregnenolone. And, he will be doing some kind of chemical intervention
to optimize levels of growth hormone. Hormone replacement for folks
over 50 is a necessity and there is nothing wrong with it if the
hormones used are identical to the human hormones that human bodies
produce. I am referring to ‘natural’ testosterone, not some steroid
analogue; ‘natural’ estrogen, not Premarin which is horse estrogen from
pregnant mares; and ‘natural’ progesterone, not some
patentable analogue like Progestin.
(4) Lastly, Faigin has yet to discover one of the
primary problems facing the aging male – the age-associated increase in
the enzyme aromatase and the consequent age-associated increase in the
conversion of testosterone to a carcinogenic form of estrogen. This
conversion problem can not be solved by diet and exercise. By the time
Rob is 55, he will be using accessory chemicals – supplements like I3C
and drugs like Arimidex – to manage testosterone and estrogen.
Phil Jacklin
January 10, 2002
Saratoga, CA.
A Postscript about Rob Faigin and the common
good.
It has been 10 years now since I discovered that,
unbeknownst to all but a few thousand people, there was good scientific
information about slowing the aging process and staying healthy. Since
I was starting to feel my age, I had no alternative but to start
studying biochemistry on my own – something I never expected to do.
Well maybe it isn’t really biochemistry but its close – some of the
chemistry and biology behind vitamins and minerals, diet and nutrition,
proteins and fats, hormone replacement, and so on. I didn’t get a Phi
Beta Kappa key and a PhD from Yale for nothing.
I’ve discovered one amazing thing after another
and I am still amazed that this information is not getting out. Like
most folks, I guess I thought that American society made more sense than
it does and that, if there were ways to avoid the diseases of age, then
the doctors and those in authority would spread the word. (I guess I
should know the terrible truth by now: the world is not well-organized
for truth and justice! Nevertheless, I have never got over the shock
that comes with that loss of innocence.)
Faigin’s book is a work of great strength and
intelligence. I am writing to tell you about it and to urge you to read
it. This is a book that may change your life.
What isn’t captured by my summary of his message
is Faigin’s eccentric brilliance and his passion. This Mozart-like
prodigy was 28 when he finished the book and 30 when it was published
last year. He started his research at 15 and along the way he also
obtained a law degree. The ideas and scientific references stream out
of him in the direct no-nonsense idiom of a kid who is also a
competitive body-builder. His analysis is based in his review of 10,000
scientific articles – 1700 of which are footnoted with pinpoint accuracy
within the text. I suspect that he has an IQ of 180 and a photographic
memory. I have talked with three people who really know biochemistry –
Steve Fowkes, Mike Nichols and Stanford Field – all three rave about
this book and find it amazing, way ahead of anything else. Mike Nichols
gives it to all his patients.
But that is not all. It is the soul of this
genius rather than his mind which is most remarkable. Faigin is moved
by his desire to “synthesize all the information into a coherent plan
that anyone could use to build an age-resistant, sick-resistant,
superbody” (page ix). He hopes, by so doing, “to affect the lives of
millions of people whom I never met and never will meet” (page x). This
kid, bless him, is moved by love for the human race. He is also the
classic angry young man – unwilling to accept a horribly flawed world as
it is. On his website, he writes:
“In working on this project, I am not driven by
love, but by hate…I hate what has become of the fitness/fat-loss
industry…Misinformation is thrown around like rice at a wedding…This is
why Americans are fatter now than ever, and cancer and heart disease are
exacting a terrible toll. This in spite of the fact that Americans
spend 30 billion dollars per year on fat loss and billions more on
‘health’ in an era of fantastic technological advancement – the whole
thing is outrageous…If you like controversy, or if you are fed-up as I
am, you will find the expose aspects of (the book) a welcome reckoning
for some members of the health and fitness industries…When this book
hits the open market, there’s going to be an uprising, mark my words.”
I hope he’s right! Faigin is righteously angry,
morally indignant, that people are living with all kinds of preventable
disabilities, suffering and dying, because no one has figured out how to
take on the established authorities and make an honest buck by giving
people the information they need to be healthy. “The U.S. is the leader
in medical technology AND Americans are the fattest and sickest people
on the planet” (page 32)
Buy this book.
It is a monumental work written by an eccentric
young genius without money or reputation. He reports (page x):
“At one point, (I was) forced to take a job as a
waiter and under attack from the inevitable naysayers” (I was)
“unwilling to sell the rights to my book for any price, but less than
confident in my ability to market it with net worth far below zero.”
Faigin understands what has happened to our diet
and our lives and he has a dream. I share it. You will too. You and I
have an opportunity to help distribute this book and do something for
the common good.
Phil Jacklin
January 10, 2002
Saratoga, CA. |
