Obesity Protocol

History of Avocado Sugar (Avocado) Extract
In 1983, standardized avocado extract was introduced as a dietary supplement. This product did not have an enteric coating and therefore could not provide the predicable effect that is now available. In 1983, it was not possible to make health claims about dietary supplements. As a result of having produced side effects such as diarrhea and not having a forum to educate the public, avocado extract failed to establish a substantial presence in the marketplace.

The most striking noticeable effect when individuals take standardized avocado extract is that carbohydrate craving is reduced or disappears altogether. There is also a satiating effect in response to the ingestion of relatively few calories. The net result is that those who have used this supplement eat less and subsequently lose weight.

If avocado extract supplement only reduced calorie intake (without causing chronic hunger), it would help people reduce excess body fat. However, what has been discovered is that overweight people often have such a severe metabolic disorder (including hyperinsulinemia) that they find it difficult to lose weight even when they are on a painful, starvation diet. The reason is that chronically high insulin levels preclude the release of fat from the body's adipocytes (fat cells).

Remember, optimal fasting insulin levels are between 0-3. Obese people often have fasting insulin levels exceeding 20-30, even when they diet. The reason these insulin levels stay so high is that the cell membranes have become very insulin resistant and the pancreas continues to over-secrete insulin.

Using avocado extract can produce the following benefits:

By cutting down the craving for carbohydrate foods, fewer calories are consumed, resulting in a reduced provocation for the pancreas to overproduce insulin.
By inhibiting a pancreatic enzyme involved in insulin synthesis, there is a reduction in serum insulin levels, thus reducing the excess storage of glucose into body fat.
By reducing excess insulin, bloated adipocytes (fat cells) are able to release stored fat.
Individuals who properly consume avocado extract find that they can reduce their daily calorie intake and slowly lose body fat. By cutting down on excess insulin secretion, the body is protected against the many diseases associated with hyperinsulinemia.

How to Use Avocado Sugar Extract
Avocado extract works by normalizing pancreatic production of excess insulin. Reducing insulin overload can suppress hunger, inhibit conversion of serum glucose into stored body fat, and facilitate the release of body fat from storage in the body. The only function of avocado extract is to regulate excess insulin. It has no stimulating properties whatsoever.

Some scientific studies suggest that part of today's obesity epidemic is being fueled by overconsumption of high-glycemic carbohydrates that induce chronic insulin overload (hyperinsulinemia). The ingestion of avocado extract tablets can suppress serum insulin concentrations, thus reducing carbohydrate craving and body fat stores.

There are several ways to use avocado extract successfully. In obese individuals, the best results occur when two standardized avocado extract tablets are taken after dinner and no food is eaten until the next day. Two additional avocado extract tablets may be taken later in the evening if there is an urge to eat.

Some people who cannot resist nighttime eating take two avocado extract tablets after breakfast. They are then able to skip lunch or drastically reduce the number of calories consumed from this meal. Those who take avocado extract after lunch may be able to reduce the calorie content of their dinner.

The most noticeable effect of taking avocado extract tablets is a reduced desire to consume high-glycemic carbohydrate foods, especially sweet desserts and snacks. By itself, this mechanism may induce some body fat loss. The effects of suppressing excess serum insulin are even more significant in preventing ingested calories from turning to body fat.

Another suggested use is taking two standardized avocado extract tablets when an individual does not want to eat or wants to reduce meal portion size. Individuals on diets to lose body fat can find that avocado extract takes the edge off hunger pain, especially for sweets. The accelerated fat-loss effects induced by avocado extract can also motivate dieters to stick with a reduced-calorie program; more important, avocado extract can enable obese individuals to suppress their appetite in the evening hours when there should be no food consumption. It is important to note that in most of the cases when significant body fat was lost, the individuals were not told to diet. However, many of them did report eating fewer calories because they were not as hungry.

Most people will lose weight by taking only two standardized avocado extract tablets a day, while those who want to significantly reduce calorie intake may take two tablets, two or three times a day. The amount of avocado extract consumed will be highly individualistic, mostly dictated by how long the appetite suppressing effects remain. Some people will take more avocado tablets when hunger returns or avoid them to enjoy a sensible meal.

Hypoglycemic individuals may want to take two tablets of avocado extract whenever a sugar-craving occurs. This could help to reduce episodes of reactive hypoglycemia in which excess sugar is consumed that elicits a hyperinsulinemic response, followed by another attack of hypoglycemia caused by the excess insulin secreted in response to the prior high sugar intake.

Standardized avocado extract has been shown to help normalize fasting insulin. It is the only product designed to induce body fat loss that functions by this mechanism. One benefit of taking standardized avocado extract is that it can help control the time of day when calories are consumed. This is important because the body typically secretes the hormone cortisol at night. Cortisol is involved in converting ingested calories to body fat, meaning that the calories eaten in the hours before bedtime are most readily made into fat.

As noted earlier in the instructions about how to achieve rapid and sustained fat loss, if a person changes their eating schedule, i.e., eating the largest meal for breakfast, then having a late morning snack, an early afternoon snack, and an early evening dinner, but eating nothing more after 6:30 p.m., significant body fat loss can occur. By taking two additional standardized avocado extract tablets after 7:00 p.m., hunger is reduced along with nighttime snack craving. If hunger returns later in the evening, two additional avocado extract tablets can be consumed.

Overweight people often starve themselves all day long and then snack late into the night--a perfect formula for weight gain! As already noted, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported an elegant study proving that food eaten early in the day generates more energy (diet-induced thermogenesis) than does food eaten later in the day (Weststrate 1993).

When some individuals first try eating in the morning, they often find that they are not hungry. Some physicians have suggested that these individuals force themselves to eat in the morning to re-regulate the eating schedule toward consuming a majority of calories early in the day. If you overconsume high-glycemic foods, including sugar-laden desserts, do so for breakfast when the thermogenic (energy-burning) rate is the highest.

There are serious misconceptions about why people accumulate so much body fat as they age. One overlooked factor is that aging people have startlingly high levels of insulin in their blood. When the blood is saturated with insulin, the body will not release significant fat stores, even when a person restricts their calorie intake and exercises.

Other factors are also responsible for today's obesity epidemic. When an individual's hormones are out of balance, it may be impossible to achieve sustained weight management. Even when blood tests reveal "normal" thyroid hormone status, there is often an inability to convert T4 thyroid hormone into T3, which is necessary for natural thermogenesis (fat burning) to occur. T3 deficiency is another hormonal reason why excess weight accumulates with aging.

Additionally, if testosterone and/or estrogen levels are out of balance, excessive fat gain is often the result. (Very safe drugs and nutrients are available to correct these obesity-inducing hormone imbalances.)

Thyroid Deficiency and Weight Gain

Blood Tests
Assessing Thyroid Function
As already stated, we tend to put on weight as we grow older, in part because aging impairs our ability to metabolize carbohydrates. Because most food is eventually broken down into glucose (blood sugar), decline in our ability to metabolize glucose is a significant cause of degenerative disease and excessive weight gain associated with aging. One cause of impaired carbohydrate metabolism is subclinical thyroid deficiency.

Blood tests are not always reliable to diagnose subclinical thyroid deficiency. A study found that 14% of elderly people who were initially diagnosed as having normal thyroid levels were later found to have significant thyroid deficiency after undergoing extensive testing. Some physicians believe that most people over 40 have a subclinical thyroid deficiency that contributes to their weight gain (Bemben et al. 1994; Samuels 1998).

The thyroid gland secretes hormones involved in cellular energy expenditure. When an individual diets, the enzyme 5-monodiiodinase that is necessary to convert the thyroid hormone T4 into metabolically active T3 is reduced. T3 deficiency results in a slowing down of the body's metabolic rate and less food is metabolized as energy. This decrease in metabolic rate occurs because your body thinks you are starving and tries to conserve energy until more food is found.

Most of those who diet know about the "rebound effect"--the body resists losing weight while you "starve yourself," but then puts the weight back on with devastating speed when you begin to eat a little more. This is why dieting is such a miserable way to try to lose weight. But now you know why--it is because low T3 levels fight you all the way by reducing your energy efficiency to keep you from losing weight. This biological mechanism involving thyroid hormone conversion, evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to counter starvation, is a sabotaging factor even when you deliberately eat less in an attempt to lose weight.

To illustrate how thyroid hormone status dictates body weight, consider the fact that when the thyroid produces too much thyroid hormone, the most common clinical symptom is significant weight loss. Hyperthyroidism is the name of the condition caused by an overactive thyroid gland. In 76-83% of cases, patients' first complaints to their physician are about how much weight they have lost (Anon. 1973).

On the other hand, clinical studies have shown that dieting produces a decline in the conversion of T4 to T3, resulting in a severe reduction in resting energy expenditure. This reduced metabolic rate prevents cells from burning calories to produce energy. If the cells do not take up glucose to produce energy, sugar is stored as fat within the body. The only way dieting can produce significant long-term weight loss is for the cells to take up glucose for conversion into energy rather than into body fat. This is why thyroid hormone supplementation is so important to many people seeking weight loss through dieting. Not only does thyroid hormone replacement maintain healthy thermogenic activity, but it helps fight fatigue, depression, and other common disorders associated with calorie restriction. Individuals who have thyroid hormone deficiency should be prescribed a drug such as Cytomel or Armour (only under supervision of a physician).

While there are studies showing that thyroid supplementation promotes weight loss in some individuals, thyroid supplementation should only be used when there is evidence of a thyroid hormone imbalance, either decreased secretion from the thyroid gland or decreased conversion of T4 to the metabolically active T3 in the peripheral tissues. It is important to remember that as the body attempts to slow the metabolic rate to conserve body mass, many individuals become thyroid deficient in response to dieting.

Therefore, an individual with normal thyroid status before dieting may become thyroid deficient as a result of reduced intake of calories. Thyroid deficiency may also occur when avocado sugar extract supplement is used and carbohydrate cravings disappear. For optimal fat-loss effects, an individual may require Cytomel or Armour drug therapy if they expect that eating fewer calories will result in significant long-term weight control.

Thyroid Blood Tests
There are several blood tests to assess thyroid function. If any of these tests indicate a thyroid deficiency, a physician should consider prescribing the appropriate dose of the drugs Cytomel (T3) or Armour desiccated thyroid to bring the level into the normal range.

If an individual's blood test shows an increase in thyroid stimulating hormone (THS), this means that the pituitary gland is oversecreting a hormone to stimulate thyroid function because of an apparent thyroid deficiency. The normal range for TSH can be as wide as 0.2-5.5 mU/mL. However, if TSH levels are above 2.0, this indicates that the individual may be hypothyroid and could benefit from Cytomel or Armour drug therapy. Remember, the lower the range of TSH, the more likely you are to be thyroid deficient.

A T4 (or total thyroxine) test measures the actual hormone being secreted by your thyroid gland. If T4 is deficient, most physicians will prescribe Synthroid, which is a synthetic T4 hormone. However, we recommend Cytomel (T3) or Armour desiccated thyroid instead of Synthroid (T4) because T3 is the metabolically active form of thyroid that aids in thermogenesis (body fat burning). When evaluating T4 blood test results, the optimal range for males seeking to lose weight should be in a range of 8.5-10.5. Females under age 60 seeking to lose weight should be in the range of 9-11 mcg/dL. Women older than 60 years should be in the range of 8.5-10.7 mcg/dL. Too much T4 is a sign of hyperthyroidism that should receive immediate medical treatment (Tietz 1995).

Measuring the level of T3 (triiodothyronine) is one way to ascertain how much metabolically active thyroid hormone is available to the tissues. Normal T3 range is 2.3-4.2 pg/mL, but to lose weight, consider being in the range of 3.2-4.2 pg/mL. If levels are below this, Cytomel drug therapy is recommended. Most individuals begin at 12.5 mcg of Cytomel twice a day. The dose can be increased if blood T3 levels do not return to a normal range or if symptoms of thyroid deficiency persist. If T3 levels are above normal, this can indicate an overdose of drugs such as Synthroid or Cytomel or suggest hyperthyroidism.

A less frequently used blood test to assess thyroid function measures thyroglobulin (normal range, 1-20 ng/mL). If thyroglobulin is decreased, hypothyroidism is indicated. Another less commonly used blood test to assess thyroid function measures thyroid-binding globulin (normal range, 21-52 mcg/dL). If thyroid-binding globulin is increased, the individual is usually deficient in thyroid function (hypothyroid).

Assessing Thyroid Function without Blood Tests
Some physicians say it is more accurate to assess thyroid function by measuring body temperature in the morning before getting out of bed. This method, known as the Barnes Basal Temperature Chart, is believed to be especially useful in the treatment of obesity.

Every morning, as soon as awakening, before getting out of bed, put a thermometer under your tongue and let it remain there for three (3) minutes.

If your under-the-tongue temperature is less than 97.8-98.2 degrees Fahrenheit, you are likely hypothyroid. To get the most accurate results, repeat this test every day for at least 2 weeks. Write down the date, time, and temperature and bring this with you when you go to your weight-loss physician. Chronic morning basal temperature readings below 97.8-98.2 might indicate a need for thyroid hormone replacement.

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These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease