Healthy Living

authored by Taylor Appel, MSCN, RH (AHG)

Anabolic and catabolic processes in the body refer to metabolic activities involved in building (anabolism) and breaking down (catabolism) molecules for energy and growth. Each of these processes plays a crucial role in maintaining cellular function, tissue repair, and overall homeostasis (balance) throughout the body. Fortunately, we can use various tests, biomarkers, and current health status to determine which of the catabolic and anabolic processes need the most support, and make adjustments to our daily choices accordingly. By supporting both the natural anabolic and catabolic processes in the body with proper nutrition and lifestyle changes, we then positively impact our immune system health, our overall ability to recover, and reduce the risk of disease and cancer. 

How to Support Anabolic Metabolism

Anabolic, or restorative, processes in the body are those that involve the building and repairing of tissues and cells. This process is crucial for overall health, including optimizing our metabolism and immune system function, and helping the body to recover more efficiently when injured or sick.¹ While various hormones are also considered anabolic, excessive stress and inflammation can negatively impact levels of these regenerative chemical messengers and should be managed effectively. Undernourishment and inflammation can also negatively impact anabolic processes.

Here are a few of my favorite nutrition and lifestyle tips to support healthy anabolic processes in the body and enhance overall health and wellbeing:

Nutrition Tips

Protein Intake: Protein is essential for rebuilding tissues, as it acts like physical building blocks for every cell in our body. Aim to include high-quality protein sources at each meal, such as grass-fed, pasture-raised meats, poultry, eggs, dairy, wild caught fish, legumes, and plant-based protein sources like tofu and tempeh. Always choose the highest quality you can afford, organic and local being the most nutrient dense and best bang for your buck, while supporting your health and community farmers.

Essential Nutrients: Ensure you eat foods with adequate vitamins and minerals each day to support healthy immune function. Vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, selenium, and magnesium are just a few of the many nutrients that should be included in your daily diet. The easiest way to obtain a variety of nutrients each day is from eating a balanced diet that includes high quality protein and fats, a variety of antioxidant rich foods like fruits and vegetables, sprouted or fermented grains, nuts and seeds, and plenty of quality water, herbal teas, and spices.

Hydration: Proper hydration supports all bodily functions, including immune system health and nutrient transport. The quality of your water truly matters, as tap water tends to be filled with chemicals and other compounds that can actually cause more inflammation to occur. Quality water filters made by third party tested brands are a great solution. Spring water is the best option and naturally high in minerals. If you do drink tap water, ensure you are re-mineralizing it so that your body gets the minerals needed to function optimally. Drinking herbal tea is another easy and effective way to add electrolytes to your water. Alfalfa, nettles, hibiscus, milky oats/oatstraw, and lemon balm are a few of my favorite electrolyte-rich beverages. Additionally, packets of electrolytes without added sugar, flavors, or dyes are a convenient option. 

Adaptogenic Herbs: Many adaptogens also help to regulate metabolism, supporting the growth of muscles, repair of tissues, and optimal healing from illness. These herbs nourish various systems in the body such as the adrenal glands, endocrine and skeletal systems. For an anabolic effect, similar to that of anabolic steroids, specific nutrient-dense botanicals such as Rhaponticum (Rhaponticum carthamoides) and Mumie/Shalajit can be highly effective when helping the body to recover from extreme weakness or fatigue, muscle-loss, malnourishment, and much more.¹

Anabolic processes in the body are also supported by healthy lifestyle choices. Remember, it takes more than just food to repair and rebuild the body! 

Some of my favorite ways to optimize anabolic processes include:

Regular Exercise: Physical activity supports muscle growth and repair, optimizes circulation, boosts our mood, and enhances immune function. Aim to include 3-4x per week of a mix of aerobic exercise (e.g., walking, jogging, swimming) and resistance training (e.g., weightlifting, bodyweight exercises) for the best results. Building adequate muscle is also a protective mechanism that has been shown to improve both immune system health and longevity.¹

Adequate Sleep: Sleep is crucial for the breakdown of unneeded cells and for the removal of toxins. Sleep is also critical for tissue repair, regular hormone production, and optimal immune function. Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep per night. You can improve your sleep hygiene by limiting blue light before bed (i.e phone, computer, etc.) and light exposure in the bedroom. Try to get morning sunlight into your eyes each day, and stick to eating meals during daylight hours – skip that late night snack and eat dinner before sunset. Drinking herbal teas such as chamomile, valerian, or lemon balm before bed can help with relaxation and insomnia. Magnesium glycinate, found in Natura Health Products Dual-Mag, is the ideal form of magnesium to promote deep, restorative sleep.

Stress Management: Chronic stress weakens the immune system and increases cortisol in the body. Cortisol is the hormone that drives our fight or flight response. Practice stress-reducing activities such as yoga, meditation, deep breathing exercises, or hobbies you enjoy to keep stress levels in check and avoid burnout, mental and physical fatigue, and other unwanted manifestations of unmanaged stress. 

By focusing on these nutrition and lifestyle factors, you can support anabolic processes in your body and strengthen your immune system to better fight disease and maintain overall health.

Cancer and Anabolism

Cancer often exhibits anabolic-like qualities. It generally tends to be an unchecked growth of abnormal cells that continue to proliferate, until detected either by tests or symptoms. This is why many anti-cancer therapies are targeted at pathways that inhibit cellular growth. That said, by adequately nourishing the body and making conscious lifestyle choices, naturally protective and reparative qualities of anabolic processes in the body will thrive. This lowers the chances of symptoms and diseases like cancers to occur. In fact, both anabolic and catabolic processes are needed to maintain allostasis, or rebalance in the face of stress throughout the body.¹ 

Signs that may indicate an imbalance in anabolic activity include:

• Sudden weight fluctuations
• Hormonal changes/mood swings
• Signs of inflammation 
• Frequent illness/feeling of being sick
• Fatigue/energy changes 

Anabolism is an essential process that must be adequately supported in order to optimize metabolic function overall and reduce the risk of disease. But the body also needs another, just as important process in order to truly thrive -- catabolism!

Supporting Healthy Catabolic Metabolism

Catabolism is the exact opposite of anabolism. It is the breakdown of nutrients and cells in order to produce energy for the body to thrive and to protect it against an unchecked overgrowth of cells that can lead to disease like cancer. Catabolism is the process that breaks down complex molecules (e.g., carbohydrates, fats, proteins) to generate ATP, the cellular energy currency. Bone loss and even the natural progression of aging are considered catabolic activities as well, but when we nourish the body consciously, and make healthier lifestyle choices, we can redirect the negative impact of catabolism into a highly protective mechanism. 

Here are some nutrition and lifestyle changes that efficiently improve the natural catabolic process in the body:

Nutrition Tips

Optimize Digestion: Digestion begins in the mouth, at the very first sight of food. As we begin to salivate, digestive enzymes are secreted into the mouth to help us breakdown nutrients. Even more digestive juices and enzymes are added to mix as food goes through the digestive process. Carminative herbs, as well as bitter tasting herbs, are specifically able to improve digestion and increase the flow of chemicals needed to break down food effectively, making them more bioavailable to be used as energy throughout the body. Try using a bitter herbal spray or eating bitter foods such as arugula, artichoke, and citrus before meals to aid digestion. You can also improve your microbiome health by eating a variety of fermented foods such as kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir or yogurt, miso, and sourdough grains.² Additionally, try eating in a relaxed state in order to improve overall digestive fire, or agni, as it is called in Ayurveda. 

Improve Food Quality: Flashback one hundred years when most of our food was grown on our land, methodically harvested, and cooked within hours of being picked. Nowadays, we have an overabundance of choices in our markets, many of which are ultra-processed and hardly considered food at all. In order to optimally fuel the body, we need to be eating nutrient dense, whole foods, grown from the earth, minimally processed, seasonal and locally sourced when possible, and most importantly, grown without chemicals, pesticides, and other harmful ingredients. Organic will always be better than conventional for your health in the long term. 

Manage Blood Sugar Levels: When we eat sugar, a cascade of metabolic processes begins to take place, including the release of insulin (to counterbalance glucose). When we over indulge when eating sugar, we risk driving our bodies into insulin resistance and eventually diabetes. There are many easy ways to manage blood sugar levels that can be implemented to reduce this risk, including adding 1 tsp apple cider vinegar to a shot of water and drinking it before meals, taking a 10-15 minute brisk walk after eating, and/or reducing or eliminating processed sugar intake all together.³ Try replacing white or cane sugar with maple syrup, molasses, or raw/local honey for additional health benefits and sweetness, without the intense sugar spikes. 

In addition to implementing the guidance listed above to support anabolism in the body, the healthful tips below will also help your body stay in a more balanced state and reduce your risk of disease and cancer.

Lifestyle Tips

Engage Regular Movement: Moving the body and building muscle is a fantastic way to protect from degenerative diseases. In addition, muscle mass is directly correlated with blood sugar management and a more ideal metabolic state.⁴ Try to get outside and walk if possible after each meal, or if you are in an office building or unable to get outside after meals, try walking to the furthest bathrooms in the building, around the parking lot, or up staircases for a bit of a blood sugar-regulating movement. Weight training is a fantastic way to build muscle mass efficiently -- just ensure you are eating enough quality protein to build new tissues. Aerobic activities like hiking, swimming, and jogging are also fantastic for increasing endurance and improving cardiovascular health. 

Manage Stress Levels: It’s no secret that stress can cause a host of imbalances in the body. From dysregulating hormone levels to unwanted weight gain, stress can be a highly inflammatory process. Various techniques have been shown to be highly effective for managing stress, including spending time in nature, being in the sunshine, and especially being barefoot on the earth. Daily meditation, gratitude practices, journaling, numerous breathing techniques, spiritual practices or praying, and listening, playing, or dancing to music have also been positively correlated with lowering stress levels and improving the body’s ability to heal. For healthy catabolic processes to occur, we need to avoid the constant inflammatory state of chronic stress.⁵ 

Decrease Inflammatory Activities: I really love the saying “you can’t heal in the same environment that made you sick” -- it truly speaks to accountability for ourselves and our actions. If we truly want to heal, we need to lower or stop consuming toxic things, including unhealthy foods, unclean water, alcohol and cigarettes, and by also removing emotionally draining activities or relationships. Consuming negative media and participating in other variables that affect our emotions can be just as harmful to our health as “bad” foods. A couple of simple ways to combat inflammation include increasing antioxidant-rich food intake (colorful fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices) and lowering overall stress levels -- both internal and external factors. 

Cancer and Catabolism

Autophagy, or controlled cellular death within the body, is a necessary catabolic process that helps stimulate new cell growth, keeping us healthier and aging more gracefully. However, it can also be a “double-edged sword” when it comes to cancer.^1,6 Autophagy provides the body with some nutrients and can help inhibit cancer cell growth by killing off weaker or damaged cells… but it can also lead to an opportunity for cancer growth as well. Various therapeutic agents, including numerous traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicinal herbs, are used to manipulate the signaling between cells to promote greater autophagy, and less cancer proliferation.^1,6 Cellular health, specifically mitochondria function, is a key component to the autophagy equation. Reducing toxin exposure is critical to improving our natural catabolic processes, including autophagy. Through diet and lifestyle choices, we can actively support healthy catabolic functions in the body and optimize the natural autophagy process. This helps to keep us healthier and reduces the risk of cancer progression.^1,6  

Let’s Review

Anabolic and catabolic processes are essential for maintaining optimal health in the body. Thoughtful dietary and lifestyle choices can naturally enhance these protective mechanisms to improve our overall health. If you're uncertain where to begin, consult with a trusted healthcare provider who understands the complexities of chronic disease and can help you determine what your body truly requires to thrive.

At Mederi Center, our practitioners utilize a holistic approach to create personalized recommendations that effectively support each individual’s health objectives. Whether it's offering nutritional and botanical guidance for healthy aging, or for more complex conditions like cancer, Mederi Center clinic offers a supportive environment where you can reclaim your vitality and receive compassionate care and expert support throughout your healing journey.

For more in-depth information on Anabolic Metabolism, read Donnie Yance's blog Anabolic Nutrients: The Key to Optimal Health and Fitness.

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References

1. Yance, D. R. (2013). Adaptogens in medical herbalism: Elite herbs and natural compounds for mastering stress, aging, and chronic disease. Healing Arts Press.
2. McMullen MK, Whitehouse JM, Towell A. Bitters: Time for a New Paradigm. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2015;2015:670504. doi:10.1155/2015/670504
3. Ousaaid D, Laaroussi H, Bakour M, et al. Beneficial Effects of Apple Vinegar on Hyperglycemia and Hyperlipidemia in Hypercaloric-Fed Rats. J Diabetes Res. 2020;2020:9284987. Published 2020 Jul 10. doi:10.1155/2020/9284987
4. Taha M, AlNaam YA, Al Maqati T, et al. Impact of muscle mass on blood glucose level. J Basic Clin Physiol Pharmacol. 2021;33(6):779-787. Published 2021 Dec 3. doi:10.1515/jbcpp-2021-0316
5. Liu YZ, Wang YX, Jiang CL. Inflammation: The Common Pathway of Stress-Related Diseases. Front Hum Neurosci. 2017;11:316. Published 2017 Jun 20. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2017.00316
6. Yun CW, Lee SH. The Roles of Autophagy in Cancer. Int J Mol Sci. 2018;19(11):3466. Published 2018 Nov 5. doi:10.3390/ijms19113466