The Skinny on Fat: Sex and Fat Metabolism with Dr. Ben Bikman

In this episode of the metabolic classroom, Dr. Ben Bikman takes the helm to explore the multifaceted role of fat tissue as an endocrine organ. He begins by challenging the conventional view of fat tissue as merely a storage depot for energy, emphasizing its crucial role in hormone production and regulation.
Dr. Bikman introduces the concept of endocrine organs and highlights the often overlooked status of fat tissue as one such organ. He discusses how fat tissue releases hormones into the bloodstream, exerting significant metabolic effects throughout the body.
The lecture delves into sex-specific differences in fat distribution and hormone production, with a focus on the influence of estrogen on fat storage and hormone levels in women. Dr. Bikman further explores the impact of menopause on fat tissue and hormonal changes, shedding light on how shifts in hormone production affect metabolism and fertility.
Leptin, the first discovered fat-derived hormone, is dissected in detail by Dr. Bikman, who elucidates its role in appetite regulation, metabolic processes, and fertility. He discusses how excess fat can lead to leptin resistance, compromising its effectiveness in metabolic regulation.
Other hormones such as adiponectin, estrogen, TNF alpha, plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1), and T3 are also explored for their metabolic effects and their association with fat cell size.
The lecture concludes with a focus on brown adipose tissue and its production of T3, highlighting its role in regulating metabolic rate, particularly in response to stimuli like cold exposure.
In summary, Dr. Bikman provides a comprehensive overview of the endocrine functions of adipose tissue, emphasizing the intricate relationship between fat cells and hormone regulation, with implications for metabolism, inflammation, and overall health.
00:01 - Introduction to Adipose Tissue as an Endocrine Organ
01:07 - Sex-Specific Differences in Fat Distribution
03:21 - Impact of Menopause on Fat Tissue and Hormone Production
05:45 - Endocrine Effects of Fat Distribution
07:58 - Role of Fat Tissue in Aromatization and Estrogen Production
10:13 - Impact of Fat Cell Size on Hormone Production
12:24 - Detailed Exploration of Leptin
14:45 - Examination of Adiponectin and its Metabolic Effects
18:17 - TNF Alpha and its Impact on Inflammation and Insulin Resistance
21:05 - Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) and its Implications for Clotting
22:16 - Brown Adipose Tissue and its Production of T3
24:30 - Conclusion and Summary
#insulinresistance #metabolicsyndrome #metabolichealth #type2diabetes #type1diabetes #weightloss #intermittentfasting #intermittantfasting #fasting #lowcarb
Learn more at: www.insuliniq.com

[@marydo3175]

I am so happy that professor Birkman decided to give educational lectures like this. I enjoy these lectures over many others' youtube conversations.

[@jobrown8146]

I'm a layperson (66 year old who has remitted my diabetes by changing to a low carb lifestyle and am now metabolically healthy and at my before children weight without trying) and found that some of this was a little bit over my head; but I did get the basic ideas. However, as I listen to more and more things like this more pieces of the puzzle fall into place. I enjoy learning and being reminded of how incredible our bodies are.

[@bn12595]

At 62, I also found the solution to my problem with metabolic syndrome. My fasting insulin over the last two years has gone from 11.8 to 4.2 and my triglycerides have gone from 166 to 117. The solution is 20% bioidentical hormone replacement 20% exercise and 60% what you eat and when you eat it. Low carb and 16hrs a day of intermittent fasting. Sugar is poison. Look for added sugars in everything. I have more muscle than when I graduated military police school 40 years ago.

[@howiesfunware]

The reason "low carb" reversed your health is because it avoids "seed oils". Industrial seed oils is at the heart of the problem and in knowing this, you can relax your low carb standard a bit more knowing you just need to avoid the seed oils and they are in everything. Every salad dressing and may main ingredient is seed oils.

[@jobrown8146]

@@howiesfunware I do steer clear of seed oils. When I eat a meal with more carbs I get hungry sooner than what I do when I keep the carbs low.

[@howiesfunware]

@@jobrown8146 I wasn't entirely clear. By carb I mean a whole food carb like an apple or a potato. Processed carbs bypass our natural satiety system which is why there is always room for another cookie but you'll feel full before you finish that apple.

[@jobrown8146]

​@@howiesfunware I have always felt hungry soon after eating an apples. My regular "carb" foods are avocado, onion, zucchini, garlic, broccoli, brussell sprouts, cauliflower, and these days I will have carrot. Sometimes I will eat strawberries, blueberries or raspberries, and very occasionally kiwi fruit. I've had to stop mushrooms and tomatoes because they cause issues. I've also had to stop eating nuts so I use coconut flour instead.

[@nurjimenez7401]

Sometimes I think the lectures are over my head but that doesn’t stop me from listening and learning! Thank Dr. Bikman for what you do I am a big fan ❤

[@belaburnham2493]

Thanks so much I’m so grateful that there’s people like you to help us to help others ❤🇵🇹 🇧🇷🇬🇧

[@clutchv9156]

Professor Bickman, It has been many years since I have sat through lectures. Back then, I took for granted the knowledge my professors willingly shared with the class. I find It refreshing to listen to you and express yourself. Thank you for being a true teacher.

[@christinaperez254]

How do we support the adipose tissue at menopause to promote proper estrogen production?

[@goldstar846]

Hopefully he will address this. At a guess being fat adapted to utilise the lipods and amino acids in it is the key. So carb reduction is the answer for most body synthesis and optimal performance. Forcing it to go after energy.

[@thomassaddul]

Thank you prof. Bikman!

[@christinaperez254]

So happy when i see the notification here!

[@meatdog]

As infants, humans have a higher ratio of brown fat. I was taught in med school , (1970), this is partially responsible for heat production and regulation in infants and that the brown fat significantly decreases as we grow into toddlers and beyond. The newest information shows this to be inaccurate in the amount of brown fat present throughout the life cycle and I'm curious to know if the ratio does decrease significantly, has the distribution of the brown fat changed and can we stimulate the production substantially to decrease the need for thyroid hormone replacement therapy? If yes, what is the frequent and duration that a human would need to do cold plunges to achieve the desired effect of normal levels of circulating T3? Thank you.

[@AnitaCorbett]

I’m also interested in learning more about brown fat and how to increase mitochondria! A few years ago I recognized that my body had very little brown fat Going through menopause in 2000 I had to work out with the help of Dr Jason Fung and Dr Robert Lustig that the weight creep was not natural for aging as I had been told but insulin resistance that was not even on the discussion board. Once I pulled a better balance together by cutting carbs and fasting my weight was what I would consider healthy BUT I have suffered from cold for years - I mean I wear extra layers in summer as I can’t seem to generate sufficient heat …ever I then tried cold therapy but 3 weeks into cold immersion I got SHINGLES badly …I could only attribute it to the cold plunges I was doing However I do think my T3 is suboptimal- even though on tests my l blood levels are “ normal “ The information one gets from medical professionals seems slower and less accurate than I have found through personal research I am not keen to simply take a tablet of any form preferring to use food therapy and fasting Any extra information on this subject Dr Bikman would be greatly appreciated

[@yulikabodycompass5602]

I love being your student ! Great info

[@tickermum385]

Thank you! Another great lecture !

[@algorillarithm5572]

Thank you for sharing your life's work with us Dr. Ben. I have made great progress with intermittent fasting and making all my meals from foods sourced in their original state as best as i can. Recently I hit a plateau. My 2x waste to height ratio is still out of wack. I have done construction all my life and i know how to read a tape measure so sadly it's not that. I have been watching your metabolic classrooms lately and your appearances on other channels. You are helping me recommit to the matter of improving my health on a daily basis. There is indeed great potential in knowledge and that equals power . Thank you.

[@insuliniq]

Thanks for your kind comment.

[@cristinaameliabailey1028]

Thanks so much Professor Bikman! You are an extraordinary teacher.❤

[@Michael-pn2ye]

Love your information 👍

[@leadimentoobrien1221]

Thank you!

[@carinaliljeblad8222]

Thanks! Very interesting lecture.❤

[@AlphaPrimalLife]

I love your lectures. Thank you very much.

[@annettefowler4704]

Thank you so much ❤

[@robinkraus4361]

I appreciate your information always! I sometimes need to listen a few times to get to real understanding, but it's always helpful and informative. Thank you!

[@sarahhargrave3755]

Amazing lecture absolutely fascinating and so well delivered - easy to understand. Thank you.

[@AnitaCorbett]

Absolutely brilliant,!!!!

[@laluna9998]

Great lecture, thank you!

[@omalouise4504]

Thank you, Dr. Bikman! Your explanations are so clear! Thank you for being my professor!

[@jennymatthews306]

Ben, you're a legend! I can't get enough. As a former Cushings patient, who now has secondary adrenal insufficiency, diabetes insipidus, hypothyroidism & growth hormone deficiency, and I'm in peri menopause, this just fascinates me. Who needs consultant endocrinologists?!! This has been one of my favs so far🙆🏻‍♀️👏🧬

[@paulasmith4933]

Wow! Thank you!

[@cookingketowithlee5001]

Thank you so much for these lectures! I have often said that if I lived closer to BYU I would sit in on all of your classes. This lecture was fascinating and went by so quickly. I would love to learn more on this topic. I hope you will have another lecture on it.

[@nealbrown2978]

Another fantastic informative video, thanks again for sharing your knowledge.

[@WomensTri]

I am loving these lectoures thank you Dr Ben Bickman.

[@insuliniq]

Thanks @womenstri for watching and commenting.

[@mamabear9389]

I am a 69 year old female on the carnivore diet and I lost 25 pounds, now down to 118 and very slim. I am wondering if I still have enough fat for my hormones to work. I eat well, still on carnivore, and remain at 118. I have to stay on carnivore. Otherwise my IBS returns.

[@anneflynn9614]

So if you have Hashimotos Thyroiditis l, you should aim to get cold exposure?

[@erniewhite1382]

Thanks Ben 👍✔️

[@user-tv3de9ok3i]

Thankyou Dr. BEN

[@nictegki]

Muchas gracias

[@pointshealthcoaching8474]

Love this info! Thank you Prof Bikman... leptin and bone density ....

[@derekhaynes4311]

Phenomenal teacher 🤓

[@vitalijussivakovas334]

Thank you ❤

[@ketocajun7451]

Luckily, I understand a lot of mechanisms of the human body but always have a nice epiphany connecting things with other processes that are "in my mind" not connected. Thanks Dr. Bikman. As always, thought provoking!.

[@williamhall6358]

Awesome. 🙏🏻

[@therunningmonk6428]

Hey ben ots always overwhelming to hear your eye opening science backed by data .always better than the previous videos. Please educate people on the cannabinoid system .and the latest updates ..

[@suzanneoleson7580]

I really enjoyed your presentation this weekend at the CoSci conference. I had hoped to have met you but you disappeared soon after you spoke

[@dr.suryanarayanan9256]

This. Is. Fire 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@meatdog]

Who's talking in the background? A bit distracting.

[@truthjustice9803]

In men, since testosterone is converted to estrogen and visceral fat is created, can supplementing with DIM, which prevents testosterone from converting to estrogen, then prevent the forming of visceral fat and mabey even diminishing visceral fat?

[@vv7611]

Really enjoying these lectures. As a 53 year old woman going through menopause and 3 months in to carnivore i am learning so much! Thank you for sharing. Im tall and slim having lost a stone but i do wonder of you can look like youre healthy, with low adipose fat, but in fact the fat cells you have are swollen and unhealthy. Who knows?

[@47retta]

Dr Bikman, do you approve of women past menopause taking bio identical hormones? What if having had a TIA ?

[@bibiberlin6220]

One question I have had for years is - can you be in nutritional ketosis but not be losing fat mass? So although insulin is low enough to ensure you can release free fatty acids and you are therefore making ketones, you can be eating too much dietary fat to need to use any stored fat or does the body 'waste' ketones and so ketosis means you are always losing fat mass?

[@yoso585]

Sure. Not all people in ketosis (which is really a continuum, but we’ve picked an arbitrary number of 0.5) are in weight loss at all. I believe I’m right that all that is required for ketone production is fat metabolism, not necessarily fatty acid release. Probably be in ketosis gaining weight on high fat. The ketones are only really covering for protein sparing.

[@UnRefinedTrends]

There’s a bit of conversation on Twitter right now about fat gain from dietary fat. I saw some people tagged Dr Bikman for comment. I hope he does!

[@thomassaddul]

After training your body use fat energy, make sure to Fast and do resistance training. Building muscles is a must!

[@prunelle19]

My understanding is that you cannot store fat if your insulin is low so if you eat too much fat your liver will turn this extra fat into ketones as they can be just wasted into urine or breath but they could also produce heat. I think I need to eat enough fat to "prime" my body into a fat burning state, but without keeping it from using my own stored body fat.

[@UnRefinedTrends]

@@prunelle19 I think I’m having an insulin increase with protein and that’s causing me to maintain and even gain weight on a near zero carb diet. And experience all of the same symptoms I do with higher BG from carbs/sugar. I need to carefully manage my protein. As well as my protein to fat ratio 🤔

[@prunelle19]

Is walking in cold water or simply taking a cold foot bath would be enough to stimulate brown fat? After all cooling blood in the feet should send a strong signal to the brain.

[@bibiberlin6220]

I understand you do not store fat when insulin is low it's source of the fat being released I am not clear on. Low insulin will allow free fatty acids from the cell to be released and converted into ketones to burn for fuel. Once you are a fat burner through lowered insulin, do you make ketones from fat released from fat cells always or can you consume too much dietary fat so your body can run off this fat instead? You would be in ketosis in the latter scenario but you would not lose fat mass or do you always lose fat mass in ketosis because of the wastage?

[@grochef]

Dr. Bikman. In explaining the function of leptin you mentioned that too much would be bad, leading to leptin resistance. But you specifically mentioned hypertrophic fat growth. Does hyperplastic fat growth differ? Obesity can also be related to PCOS. Since much of your leptin discussion was describing its role in women's health, I was confused that you only called out hypertrophic growth. Perhaps I am picking nits. 🙂

[@YetAnotherCarnivore]

Wow. The human body is a very complex organism, and the nutritional recommendations from most doctors and dietitians make me wonder if they know how a human metabolism works. Why does the science of bioenergetics not be the ones making dietary recommendations 🤔. Oh yeah because big food and big pharma would go bankrupt.

[@bn12595]

I'd be curious to find out if doctor Bikman is a fan of bioidentical hormone replacement? I firmly believe that the death process for humans involves the slow breakdown of hormone production in the body and the subsequent decay of all bodily functions over a 30-40 year period that ends in death.

[@soniamoraes5389]

I would like to know what you can teach about lipedema. People that suffer from this condition cannot loose weight. Does it occur because hormone unbalance or does the fat cause hormone unbalance?

[@insuliniq]

I am doing a Metabolic Classroom session on lipedema in April.

[@emmanuelmendonca3922]

Does anyone have link to a Bikman video on menopause for the layperson?

[@DorotaZ1313]

Try Menopause Taylor -she’s extremely informative.

[@leadimentoobrien1221]

Here it is 9:17;and I'm trying not to eat anything b4 bed. Can't even have water....

[@user-xu1df3cy8r]

😊❤

[@teaheichler9735]

❤❤❤

[@nadernayo]

👏👏

[@haroonmirza1286]

A great video as always BUT Gyno IS ACTUALLY development of breast cells (tissue) in men not just storing fat there.

[@karenf9137]

Don’t most metabolic issues really start at a young age? I’m curious about children and what to (generally) feed them as they are so vulnerable.

[@JasonBuckman]

Feed them real actual food.

[@_Chrissa_]

The first time in my life that I became overweight was due to an overconsumption of junk food. Almost a year later, I crashed my metabolism through excessive dieting, and a year after that, I had to undergo surgery because I was diagnosed with PCOS, which was too late to treat with medication. Everything started at 15. All the years before that, I was perfectly healthy and lean, eating whole foods (we were not allowed processed foods in the house). So, I would suggest doing the same while the children are still too young to fully understand why it's best for them and gradually educating them on the benefits of this way of eating.

[@prunelle19]

Weaning babies with animal food like eggs yolk and finely ground meat, a bit of fish, a bit of liver is the way to go. Dr Berry and his wife Neisha have good tips about it.

[@prunelle19]

​@@JasonBuckman I was an overweight child in the 1950's, always hungry, no junk food....mother at home all the food was locally produced and homemade, so eating actual food is not enough. I was lucky to figure out, at the age of 15, through reading books, that carbs was my problem, solved it by eliminating them.

[@JasonBuckman]

@@prunelle19 You had no cereal, no instant oats, no bread, no juice?

[@leadimentoobrien1221]

Pia1?

[@leadimentoobrien1221]

First i heard of that. I did have a dvt

[@prunelle19]

Pai 1

[@goldstar846]

I think Ben gives us too much credit in the brains department lol. He really needs to dumb this stuff down. We are good for it 🙂 And his expertise is so important to know. Another thing....he probably doesn't realise most (not all of course) people here are sick and not mentally firing on all cylinders. But we are hungry to learn!

[@insuliniq]

Haha. You’re kind. Thanks for commenting.

[@DaveIrish66]

Keep listening and learning until you start to understand it. I need reread info until it sticks. He is about as clear as it gets with the way he explains content, i think .

[@goldstar846]

@@DaveIrish66 good advice dave. we are very blessed for his teachings!

[@smooth_pursuit]

@@insuliniqplease never dumb it down!

[@marktapley7571]

Professor Kay says there is no such thing as insulin resistance but rather only cells that already have taken up too much glucose

[@shoegal7]

I highly doubt Bart Kay would know as much about the topic as Professor Bikman.

[@terrymcnee3568]

I am lucky I didnt start keto vore diet to lose weight I did it to make my GUT healthy. and let the GUT care ALL THE ABOVE. I have lost two stone. as a bonus. I dont want to lose more. Any sugestions on maintaintng goal weight will be appreciated cheers

[@insuliniq]

You may want to go to our website and ask my team: www.insuliniq.com

[@cheriseelliott9230]

Thank you!