During the Edinburgh International Festival of August 2012 twenty two talks were given at Leith on the Fringe at the Out of the Blue venue. They were free and open to everyone

Name of speaker

Mike McInnes

Title of Talk

Future Sleep: The Nocturnal Fast, Cerebral Energy and the Honey/Insulin/Melatonin (HYMN) Cycle.

Bullet points you would like to cover:

• In the west it is customary to retire to bed with a depleted liver and activate, not sleep and recovery physiology, rather chronic nocturnal metabolic stress, the only way the brain may partition glucose in favour of cerebral provision.
• This cultural practice results from the universal myth, put about by diet gurus and not challenged by the health professions, that it is unhealthy to ‘eat late’.
• Chronic nocturnal metabolic stress rapidly increases risk of metabolic syndrome (diabetes/obesity/heart disease) and alzheimer’s disease.

• Although it is counter-intuitive, sleep is a high energy metabolic protocol, with respect to cerebral energy provision.  When we go to sleep, the brain goes to work, activating neurological and physiological recovery, and returning the body to energy homeostasis (balance)
• After an early evening meal it is easy to replenish the liver by ingesting two ounces of quality honey prior to sleep, the Gold Standard food for selective liver replenishment.
• This forward provisions cerebral energy reserve, promotes quality sleep and recovery physiology, reduces activation of nocturnal metabolic stress, and reduces risk of the above conditions, without digestive burden.
• In addition memory consolidation and learning take place during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, when short term memories are transferred from the hippocampus to the cortex.
• Without adequate cerebral energy reserve, adrenal stress is activated, and memory and learning impaired.
• An added bonus is that 8 hours of quality sleep and recovery physiology consumes significantly more body fat than does a 90 minute work out – again contrary to popular opinion.
• This talk will explain the pathway activated by the poetic and beatific HYMN Cycle, a cycle that optimally forward provisions cerebral energy, promotes quality sleep and recovery physiology, reduces nocturnal metabolic stress, reduces risk of metabolic syndrome, and improves learning.

Websites and / or texts where further information may be found:

Kegg Biochemical Pathways

A few words about you and your passion:

Mike McInnes is a Scottish pharmacist who has been studying the biology of the brain liver axis for some years. There are emerging areas of biological study which are casting new light on why the body acts certain ways under certain conditions. Having worked in Pharmacy for several decades and then moved into the area of sports physiology.

A few lines about the history of your subject:

The study of physiology has gone on for millenia, many of the discoveries culminating in the birth of the age of digital technology. With more information collected together and made available to so many people, the possibilities to arrive at a joined up conception of the human body are causing various emerging understandings.