Ray Peat on protective inhibition

"This polar opposition of estrogen and progesterone also involves the polar antagonism of cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP, and to some extent a related antagonism of various prostaglandins (it has been suggested that this involves different populations of lysosomes, but I suspect it has to do with the superoxide dismutase enzyme system, and its inhibition or activation, since one of my assays to determine the action of estrogen turns out to be an inverse indicator of S.O.D. activity)."

- Nutrition For Women

"During LSD research, it was noticed that people with chronic headaches, asthma, or psoriasis sometimes recovered completely during treatment with frequent doses of LSD. Another alkaloid derived from ergot, bromocriptine, is now being used to suppress lactation (such as is caused by prolactin-secreting pituitary tumor which develops after using oral contraceptives) and is used experimentally to treat Parkinsons disease. Both LSD and bromocriptine shift the ratio of two brain chemicals, DOPA and serotonin, towards DOPA dominance. Among the effects of this is an inhibition of prolactin secretion. Prolactin excess is involved in breast cancer and in other cell proliferation, probably including the rapid cell division in psoriasis."

- Nutrition For Women

"Since both caffeine and adrenalin raise the metabolic rate, fat is presumably being consumed more rapidly. Adrenalin is known to raise blood sugar, apparently by inhibiting the utilization of glucose and increasing the utilization of fat. Coffee normally raises blood sugar, by its adrenalin-like effect."

- Nutrition For Women

"Tyrosine metabolism, which is involved in brain function, is sensitive to vitamin C; also. vitamin C maintains tissue adrenaline levels, possibly by inhibiting its oxidation, and adrenaline is necessary for the chalones to exert their function of inhibiting cell division."

- Nutrition For Women

"The higher rate of oxygen consumption that occurs at higher body temperature corresponds to a high rate of carbon dioxide production, and an inhibition of lactate formation, with maintenance of a more oxidized balance that reduces inflammation."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"the cholinergic parasympathetic system tending to reduce glucose oxidation. Exaggerated activation of this system produces shock, with extreme inhibition of respiratory metabolism, but in normal circumstances, this system’s activity increases during the night and decreases during the day."

- November 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"This effect of stimulants is probably also involved in their inhibition of cell division in cultured cancer cells (ephedrine and theophyllin, for example), and the ability of caffeine injected into the brain to retard tumor growth elsewhere in the body"

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"Memory and attention are impaired by even a slight thyroid deficiency. The Russian paradigm, with its emphasis on energy and inhibition, suggests that thyroid function should be carefully examined in cases of hyperactivity."

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"Magnetic fields presumably act biologically by acting on the structure of water, and Kholodov has established that a continuous sinusoidal magnetic field has a sedative and inhibiting effect, modifying the EEG and raising the level of GABA in the brain (Speranskiy, 1973). The activity of oxygen increases in magnetically treated water (Speranskiy, 1973), so there might be a direct effect on energy production."

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"Y. Kuraishi (2015) said that noradrenaline inhibits pain by inhibiting the release of substance P and glutamate (the excitatory amino acid), and that the suppression of cancer pain results in the inhibition of tumor growth and lung metastasis..., apparently by inhibiting the release of substances from cancer cells (e.g., ATP, endothelin-1, and bradykinin). Things that activate and enliven the patient, and that at the same time decrease pain, seem to be therapeutically appropriate."

- May 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Stresses activate the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, which converts the gaseous CO2 (the form that binds to protein and favors structured surface or vicinal water) into the ionizable carbonic acid/bicarbonate, which leaves cells. Activating this enzyme raises the intracellular pH, tending to excite cells, and inhibiting it lowers the intracellular pH, quieting cells, saving energy."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The oxidative processes that support purposive, creative functioning of the organism, optimize CO2 by inhibiting carbonic anhydrase; this enzyme is inhibited by thyroid hormone T3, progesterone, urea, caffeine, antipsychotic drugs, and aspirin. Agents that tend to cause reversion to the primitive anaerobic energy production activate the enzyme—serotonin, tryptophan, cysteine, histamine, estrogen, aldosterone, HIF, SSRIs, angiotensin, and parathyroid hormone, for example."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The familiar events at the onset of sleep can be understood in terms of the spread of inhibition from the cortex to the brainstem and adjoining structures."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Stimulation and excitation always have a particular structure, according to the perceived meaning, and for Pavlov, the resulting inhibition was also structured."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Serotonin activates the stress hormones, and the cortisol produced as a result can have the protective effect of inhibiting the enzyme that makes serotonin, as well as activating the MAO that removes it (Clark and Russo, 1997; Ou, et al., 2006; Popova, et al., 1989). Estrogen increases serotonin synthesis, decreases its binding, and inhibits its degradation"

- July 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The NMDA receptor (like many other regulatory proteins, e.g, COX, TLR, NOS, aromatase) is activated by reduction of its thiol groups. The reductive state, which activates this excitatory system, can be produced by an actual oxygen deficiency, but also by inhibiting mitochondrial function, creating a state of pseudohypoxia."

- January 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"nitric oxide was a central factor in the shock state, and that inhibiting its formation could alleviate the shock state. The state of shock was often called circulatory failure, from excessive vasodilation, s0 it was easy to see a role for the vasodilator nitric oxide in circulatory collapse;"

- January 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Besides being an antiestrogen, proge a neurosteroid, an antiexcitotoxin, an inhibitory modulator. But these effects in the nervous system have their parallels in the immune system, where it modulates the actions of many cells, protecting the thymus, restraining mast cell degranulation, inhibiting the shock reaction. It is an antitoxin, stabilizing cell structure and function. In the mitochondria, it preserves or restores respiratory efficiency."

- 2000 - March

"While most fatty acids inhibit the oxidation of glucose without immediately inhibiting glycolysis, palmitic acid is unusual, in its inhibition of glycolysis and lactate production without inhibiting oxidation. I assume that this largely has to do with its important function in cardiolipin and cytochrome oxidase."

- 2000 - July

"The inhibition of carbonic anhydrase causes carbon dioxide retention, and this can produce acidosis. Intracellular acidosis has many important cell-protecting effects. By reducing the ionization of the cell’s macromolecules, the cell’s affinity for water is decreased."

- 2000 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In our establishment physiology, there has been no coherent theory of cellular inhibition, which means that cellular activity could hardly be understood correctly, either. Most of the facts are known, but they have seldom been put together in meaningful patterns,"

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The electrical instability of the heart produced by excessive adrenergic stimulation can also make the sinus pacemaker more susceptible to vagal inhibition. (I think this effect can be observed in the skipped beats often experienced by hypothyroid people during stress or fatigue. In other situations, of long and intense stress, vagal! stimulation protects against fibrilJation.)"

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Some inhibitory cells in the brain (including those involved in the coma state of protective inhibition) secrete acetylcholine. The similarity of the effects of histamine and acetylcholine are such that many people used to think of histamine as the systemic cholinergic hormone equivalent to acetylcholine. As a result of their similarity, any chemical which interferes with one of these transmitter substances is likely to interfere with the other, though not necessarily in the same way."

- 1991 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Since excessive excitation of cells (relative to the energy thats available) causes cells to die (in the brain, as elsewhere), it is important to consider as many of the natural means of inhibition as possible, while doing everything possible to sustain energy production."

- 1991 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone’s effect in pregnancy is to assure the availability of oxygen and nutrients for the embryo, but it also has the general effect of inhibiting the formation of lipofuscin, and of other aging signs, by improving metabolic efficiency."

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter