105: The Anti-Fatigue Factor in Liver Nobody Can Explain

MK: Hey guys, Michael here. Today I want to dive into a fascinating and frankly, wild kind of vintage experiment from the early 1950s that still has lessons for us today. And the experiment involved rats endurance, swimming liver powder. And an anti-fatigue factor that researchers still can't fully explain.

And I, I decided to record this episode because I think the lessons that we learned from this also wildly inappropriate experiment. Uh. I think it's still valid today, and it can teach us a lot about how we feel our body and what impact it has on our performance because, you know, wonky energy levels are so widespread.

There are a lot of people who wake up not feeling rested. There are those who feel like they need to take a nap in the afternoon because they just can't keep their eyes open. You know, uh, poor performance in the gym, poor cognitive performance. There is a lot of energy problems in our society, and a lot of this, I think, goes back to micronutrients in a way that I don't think you've, we fully yet understand.

And that's why I decided to record this episode and talk about this wild experiment that I just rediscovered. Welcome to the Primer Chief Podcast. This experiment was conducted by Dr. Benjamin ov, and he was a nutritional physiologist working at the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. I guess that's why he could get away with, you know, conducting this experiment.

And in July of 1951, he published What? Uh, what's come to be known as the s of Liver Feeding Swim tests, and his goal was to hunt down any nutrient or factor in liver that might boost stamina and fand off fatigue. And the way he conducted or set up the experiment was he used adult rats, um, three groups of rats that he fed.

For 12 weeks. So for three months, the first group got a basic, what he called purified diet with, uh, vitamin fortified, you know, feed kind of like the standard American diet where, you know, we might eat 45 cereals and fortified this, or biosynthetic multivitamins in the store because we think, you know, those are gonna help us and provide all the micronutrients that the, that we need.

The second group got the same basic diet, but also got synthetic B vitamins in injected, um, with the idea that it might be more. Uh, potent maybe then the, the regular B vitamins from, from diet. And the third group got also the basic diet, but 10% of their diet was made up of desiccated liver powder. So the same or similar liver powder that we sell with MK supplements, you know, in a free stride form because we say, you know, it's a great source of micronutrients.

Well. He put those three groups under an endurance challenge where they had to swim in a water tank until they couldn't keep swimming and would drown. I know. Terrible experiment. Not something that I would endorse obviously, but it has been conducted in the past and now we can, all we can do is learn from it.

So what did he find with those three groups?

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 And now back to the episode. First, he conducted the experiment in relatively warm water in 36 degrees Celsius. That's like 98, uh, degrees Fahrenheit or so, so fairly warm water.

And the interesting part was that all rats, no matter their diet, swam for the full 120 minutes before the test was stopped. So no difference whatsoever. However, once he increased the stress. To those rats by putting them into quote unquote cold water, meaning 20 degrees Celsius cold water, which is like 68 degrees Fahrenheit or so.

What he noticed was that the first group that was on the basic diet swam only for 13 minutes on average before drowning. The second group that was, uh, injected with those B vitamins swam for 13.4 minutes, so virtually identical. They didn't make it for very long. The third group that had the liver as part of their diet.

Three of those rats swam for 63, 83 and 87 minutes respectively. And nine out of the 12 rats were still swimming at the two hour cutoff when the experiment was stopped. And then he repeated the same experiment with juvenile reds. So the first experiment was with adult rats, the second one was with juvenile rats.

And they also showed incredible performance gains, um, in the group that was eating. Liver versus the ones that you know, did get injected or, uh, did get injected with B vitamins that had a unquote 45 diet. And if you think now, well, you know, there was probably some confounding factors. They actually ruled out heat loss.

So all the groups cooled down at the same rate. So it wasn't that one was better insulated maybe than the other. Uh, they also ruled out stress hormones as a factor. So they injected, uh, those rats with a CTH or cortisone, um, in the vitamin only rats. And it didn't replicate the liver effect. Also, it was not, also not a cause of higher stress hormones that made them perform better and withstand the slightly.

Higher stress levels are colder temperatures. So there was something unique in whole liver powder that supercharged endurance beyond just known B vitamins, you know, or a classic adrenal response, like a stress response. And so what could have been the issue? What, you know, or the, the, the, the, the part in liver that made them perform better?

Well. You probably know by now that liver is nature's ultimate multivitamin. It's rich in, you know, all of those B vitamins from B12 to folate, rebal, riboflavin, et cetera. It's loaded with heme, iron and vitamin A and Co and MQ 10 and coline, and anything in between. And so some of those micronutrients have specific roles in energy production, for example.

So let, let's take B vitamins. There are critical co-factors in energy metabolism. Uh, iron is responsible for oxygen transport and mitochondrial function. Um, the mitochondria, those little power plants that we all have in all of ourselves that produce. Energy and as long as they produce energy at a high level, you don't fatigue, right?

Uh, coq 10 is important for the electron transport chain support. Again, all of this has to do with producing energy in the mitochondria that allows you to perform physically well mentally as well. Um, or colon as an example. It's important for cell membrane health and neurotransmitter synthesis. Again, all of this goes back to producing energy on a cellular level, and it can only, that can only be done effectively if you have all of those building blocks.

So what is now happening with, you know, with the fatigue in two of the groups, but not in the liver fed one. And so the point is that. Even minor deficiencies in any of those individual components can impair a TP production. A TP is the energy currency in our cells. You know, the mitochondria produces energy in the form of a TP, um, Aine, tri Phosphate is what it's called.

And. Any micronutrient deficiency can impair energy production and a TP production, and that can slow recovery and trash your stamina. And so what is this anti-fatigue factor? Well, the thing is we still don't know. You know, RAF's data clearly shows that it's not just the B vitamins, at least in the synthetic ones, or stress hormones that caused the liver group to perform significantly better.

So the hypothesis is that could be a synergy. Of multiple micronutrients in their natural ratios as they occur in liver that cause you to perform better. If you're under severe stress, like if you're in cold water or if you're in in another situation where your stress levels are elevated, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be cold water.

There might also be unknown peptides or polyamide in liver tissue that we don't even know yet what they are and what they do. Or it could be a combination of those lipid soluble compounds like vitamin A, um, working together with water soluble cofactors. You know, so, you know, today we obviously know a lot more than we did in the 1950s about mitochondrial health, but we still don't know exactly what is the factor in liver that has caused those rats to not drown and perform significantly better.

The bottom line, and this really, you know, how this applies to. Our lives today, in our modern world today is that if you are dragging through workouts in our daily life, you know, consider that even subclinical micronutrient gaps. Can sap your energy levels and one of the best ways to ensure that your body has all of the micronutrients that it needs to perform optimally in the levels and ratios that are natural for us.

Then, you know, consider consuming. Fresh liver, if that's your thing. If you like eating liver, by all means eat it fresh. That's the best way of consuming liver. But for all those who struggle with taste or texture or sourcing and preparation. Consuming desiccated beef, liver supplements or freeze liver, freeze dried beef liver supplements such as the ones we sell at MCA supplements is such a low hanging fruit, you know, four capsules a day or five capsules a day, um, give you all of the micronutrients that your body needs to perform optimal.

And now if you are in a, in an environment where. You have no stress, you know where everything is going well, then that might not necessarily boost your energy levels dramatically or at all. But if you are like me, you know, exposed to daily stressors that we not always have under control, where we feel like we are under more stress than we could potentially handle, by giving your body those extra micronutrients and making sure you don't have any gaps and deficiencies, that can mean the difference between drowning.

Um. In, in stress, you know, figuratively speaking or keep swimming, you know, and so that's one of the reasons why, you know, my wife, the kids and I, we consume beef organs and especially liver. On a daily basis so we can keep swimming and we are not gonna drown in all of the things that are going on, uh, around us that we might not have, you know, control over.

Yes, of course. You know, if you can remove stressors from your life, that's a great way of, of reducing your stress levels overall and allowing you to keep your head above water, but it's not always possible. Sometimes we get roped into stuff, stuff gets. Put in our plate and we get exposed to stressors that, you know, we just have to deal with.

And in those situations, making sure your body is fully equipped to deal with it is the best course of action. I hope you like this video and this, uh, very interesting, albeit not necessarily, um, you know, ex not in an experiment that I would support that I would want to do again. Uh, but now that it has been done, you know, let's learn from it and let's eat our liver people because it will help you keep swimming.

With that, we're gonna wrap it up. Um, share this episode maybe with someone who didn't know who is skeptical about the power of beef organs, and I hope I'll see you in the next one.