Proteins That Make Your Body Work

A board certified internal medicine physician talks about how IL-6, a signaling protein released from contracting skeletal muscle during exercise, fine tunes your metabolism and immune system. Want to know why exercise works? I explain on a molecular level.

A board-certified internal medicine physician discusses how tiny proteins called myokines cause big changes in your body during physical exercise.

A board certified internal medicine physician discusses how the same chemical reaction that causes French fries to turn brown occurs in your body. The Maillard reaction, called ‘glycation’ when it occurs in the human body, is one of the ways that elevated blood sugar slowly damages in the proteins in your body over time.

A board certified internal medicine physician talks about why you should care about the level of apoB lipoproteins (fat transporters) in your blood. We follow the life cycle of an apoB fat transporter as it emerges from your liver as a VLDL (very low density lipoprotein), morphs into an IDL (intermediate density lipoprotein) and finally ends up as a cholesterol-rich LDL (low density lipoprotein). We see how all of these tiny lipoproteins can invade the walls of your arteries and cause disease.

A board certified internal medicine physician summarizes how your body’s own adipose tissue macrophages (ATMs) cause chronic inflammation and obesity-related diseases.

A board certified internal medicine physician discusses how the same insulin molecule is able to clear 2-3 times more glucose from your blood when it binds to receptors on muscle cells instead of fat cells. Also, fat stored in the visceral (abdominal) compartment is more likely to contribute to insulin resistance than fat stored in the subcutaneous compartment due to differences in blood flow. The relative amount of muscle and fat (visceral and subcutaneous) in your body can determine how effective your insulin is.

A board certified internal medicine physician explains how plaque forms in your arteries and causes disease. We see how your low density lipoprotein (LDL) level can be a useful lab value to reveal your overall risk for having a heart attack or stroke. For more info on what LDL actually is, please watch my previous video on apoB lipoproteins.