Tohoku University in Japan Studies Powdered Food Diet in Mice – Great for Active Teenagers and Millennials, not so for Baby Boomers

What happens when you eat nothing but a powdered or Liquid diet?

According to oral-health researchers at Tohoku University in Japan, a lot and it may or may not be good for your health in the long term as it causes an increase in Glucose levels, Blood Pressure and hormones in the Blood. These conclusions are based on a study done on Mice published in the Journal Life Sciences as reported in “What Happens When Mice Eat Nothing But Powdered Food”, published 05.23.2014 at 5:38 pm By Francie Diep, Popular Science.

Many people who are overweight in Jamaica have claimed the miraculous power of drinking only eight (8) glasses of water a day and losing weight. One popular Diet here in Jamaica involves drinking SlimFast, a Liquid Food Drink that claims to make you lose Weight fast.

Many have claimed that it does indeed allow you to lose weight. Some have even done the same thing by just drinking Chocolate Lasco only, being as it does claim to contain all the essential Vitamins and Nutrients.

Any Powdered Diet would basically be consumed in a Liquid form, as any such powdered Food would have to be reconstituted with Distilled or Boiled Water in order to be consumed.

Drinking Food in liquid form would, from a Common Sense point of view, make you lose weight faster, as water helps to keep you hydrated, focused on your work and helps to flush toxins out of your body via regular urination as pointed out in my blog article entitled “How to find work in Jamaica at Call Centers - Drink Bottled Water as Dehydration and Salty Foods makes you lose concentration”.

In the case of a Powdered or Liquid Diet, the Food is already dissolved in Water in particulate and almost Nanoscopic form, allowing the Liquid Food to be absorbed into the blood stream faster.

But it also means you don't have to chew Food, something your body would have to get used to, as without chewing, there's no signal sent to the Brain to get the Digestive Juices and Enzymes in the Stomach and Small Intestine going or Insulin Production in the Islet of Langerhans to ramp up to dissolve Sugars.

It is this lack of chewing that the researchers at Tohoku University in Japan were exploring in their experiments.

Tohoku University in Japan Powdered Food Study – Great for Mice and possibly for Humans

In the study, the researchers at Tohoku University in Japan the scientists did two (2) separate sets of experiments involving eight (8) Mice, one set acting as Experiment, the other as a Control Group.

The two separate experiments were:

1.      Eight (8) Mice were Fed on Powdered Food (Experiment) while another group of eight (8) Mice fed on solid Food (Control Group) for three (3) days

2.      Eight (8) Weaned Baby Mice were Fed on Powdered Mouse Chow (Experiment Group) while another group of eight (8) Weaned Baby Mice fed on solid Food (Control Group) for 17 weeks

In the first experiment, it was observed that the eight (8) Mice in the Experiment Group had higher Blood Glucose levels and consequently higher Blood Pressures than the eight (8) Mice in the Control Group. Apparently their bodies absorbed Glucose into their Muscles, including those of the Heart faster than those on the Solid Food diet.

Ok, so that was expected as I'd theorized above.

In the Second Experiment, the (8) Baby Mice were first weaned from their mothers, a process that took three (3) weeks. The Experiment Group and Control Group of Mice were then fed on the diet described above and after seventeen (17) weeks, they were dissected to examine their islet of Langerhans.

The Researchers discovered that the eight (8) Weaned Baby Mice in the Experiment and Control produced following findings:

1.      The eight (8) Weaned Baby Mice in the Experiment Group had higher levels of the hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline and corticosterone than the eight (8) Weaned Baby Mice in the Control Group.

2.      The eight (8) Weaned Baby Mice in the Experiment Group had lower levels of the Insulin than the eight (8) Weaned Baby Mice in the Control Group

3.      Both Experiment and Control Group Mice were able to maintain their Blood Sugar levels after a Big Meal

4.      Both Experiment and Control Group Mice gained weight equally

5.      Both Experiment and Control Group Mice had the same heart rates

Powdered or Liquid Diet – Great for Active Teenagers and Millennials, not so for Baby Boomers

So some conclusions can be drawn at this point as relates to humans.

A Powdered Diet, which is the same thing as a Liquid Diet but with the powdered Food dissolved in Distilled or Boiled Water, results in Food being absorbed and metabolized faster. Consequently, you’ll have less need for Insulin to help in the conversion of Glucose into ADP (Adenosine Diphosphate) and ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate).

But your body has to produce more adrenaline, noradrenaline and corticosterone to correct for the increased amount of Glucose, as with Food in powdered form, be it Carbohydrates, Proteins or Sugars, it’s more easily and rapidly converted into Glucose ready to use by your Muscles that much faster.

That means that regulatory hormones are now being secreted to increase the use of the ADP and ATP made from the Glucose. One of the effects of increased adrenaline, noradrenaline and corticosterone is that your heart is instructed to pump Blood faster, increasing your muscle’s absorption of ADP and ATP, thereby making you more energetic and ready for action.

Because of this, any stored Fat in the body gets rapidly metabolized and made ready for use as ADP or ATP, as the presence of these hormones causes that process to speed up.

This is pretty much the same way Lucozade and Gatorade works, except with a focus on replacing lost mineral Salts and Sugars in Professional Athletes. If you’re older (ages 45 to 99) and hypertensive, all that excess Blood Glucose, Higher Blood Pressure due to increased hormones and lower Insulin levels may not be good for you. In fact, you’d be better off in the long run by taking the advice of the Cartoon above.

But if you’re a younger Teenager (ages 13 to 17) or Millennial (ages 18 to 28), this is not only a great way to lose weight, but can be beneficial when doing sports or athletic events that require frequent bursts of Energy.