For over a year now, this has been my "weight maintenance" smoothie at lunch (usually a low-carb lunch) and dinner (often a meal of white rice, lots of different kinds of vegetables, and homemade peanut butter):
Prepare in a jar a little beef gelatin powder mixed with room-temperature distilled water.
In a high-speed blender, blend some fresh, rinsed broccoli florets with rinsed raw cacao nibs and distilled water.
Pour the blender contents once pureed and steaming (that takes about 50 seconds in my Blendtec at its top speed) into the jar of gelatin-water. Mix together in the jar.
Dilute with more distilled water to a pleasant drinkable texture.
I think this smoothie could be helpful because it's contains a molecule similar enough to insulin that it keeps the body from making a lot of its own insulin and/or blocks real insulin from getting to its receptor molecules. We tend to think of insulin as a good thing all round because diabetics need it, but insulin also tells the body to store fat. (Read The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung for insight on how insulin increases fat storage. The endocrine system plays a role in fat storage that is often overlooked in the popular press.)
What does the insulin molecule look like?
Insulin is a protein composed of two chains, an A chain (with 21 amino acids) and a B chain (with 30 amino acids), which are linked together by sulfur atoms. Insulin is derived from a 74-amino-acid prohormone molecule called proinsulin. Proinsulin is relatively inactive, and under normal conditions only a small amount of it is secreted. In the endoplasmic reticulum of beta cells the proinsulin molecule is cleaved in two places, yielding the A and B chains of insulin and an intervening, biologically inactive C peptide. The A and B chains become linked together by two sulfur-sulfur (disulfide) bonds.
"Insulin" Encyclopedia Britannica. Online at https://www.britannica.com/science/insulin
Normally the insulin crystals contain two zinc ions to every six molecules of insulin—a hexamer. The slow solution of the crystals provides a method of delaying the action of insulin that closely parallels the methods adopted in the pancreas itself for the storage and release of insulin. Within many β granules, grains can be seen that almost certainly contain zinc insulin hexamers packed in a crystalline array, and in experimental animals diabetes has been induced by chelating agents, such as EDTA, perhaps simply by interfering with normal insulin storage. It, therefore, seems plausible that ready crystallization of insulin in the presence of zinc is a reflection of the storage processes in the β cell.
Tom Blundell, Guy Dodson, Dorothy Hodgkin, Dan Mercola. Insulin: The Structure in the Crystal and its Reflection in Chemistry and Biology. Advances in Protein Chemistry, Volume 26, 1972, Pages 279-402, ISSN 0065-3233, ISBN 9780120342266, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-3233(08)60143-6. Online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0065323308601436
In humans, insulin is stored as a crystalline hexamer containing two zinc ions and one calcium ion...
The effects of zinc are variously referred to as insulin-mimetic, insulin-like, or insulin-sparing.
Maret W. Zinc in Pancreatic Islet Biology, Insulin Sensitivity, and Diabetes. Prev Nutr Food Sci. 2017 Mar;22(1):1-8. doi: 10.3746/pnf.2017.22.1.1. Epub 2017 Mar 31. PMID: 28401081; PMCID: PMC5383135. Online at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5383135/
Insulin is produced and stored in the body as a hexamer (a unit of six insulin molecules), while the active form is the monomer. The hexamer is about 36000 Da in size. The six molecules are linked together as three dimeric units to form symmetrical molecule. An important feature is the presence of zinc atoms (Zn2+) on the axis of symmetry, which are surrounded by three water molecules and three histidine residues at position B10.
"Insulin" Wikipedia. Downloaded today from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin
Back to my smoothie ingredients:
Sulfur and sulfides, I get from the broccoli.
Amino acids and peptides, I get from the beef gelatin.
What am I putting in the smoothie that could be a replacement for zinc such as to result in a molecule similar enough to insulin to block its fat-storing activity? Hmmm. What is the same size as a zinc ion? According to my chemistry book, if we're looking for something around the same size as a Zn(2+) ion, possible ions include Ni(2+), Co(2+), and Fe(2+); I don't trust cobalt ions due to a vitamin B12-colorectal cancer connection that is turning up in studies, and nickel and iron just seem too commonly present to be "special" in blocking weight gain. Perhaps the zinc in insulin is a bit bigger and looks like a Zn(1+) ion. If that is the case, then silver (Ag(1+)), cadmium (Cd(2+)), and indium (In(3+)) are nearby elements in the periodic chart that are roughly the same size as a Zn(1+) ion.
It's interesting that my smoothie requires raw cacao nibs. If roasting fermented cacao seeds destroys the specific ion that I need for my smoothie, that points to cadmium, since cadmium roasted together with ammonia results in a new molecule (Cd(NH3)4(2+)) instead of the cadmium ions (Cd(2+)) that were originally present. Cadmium does seem to be pretty frequently found in foods that are connected to being thinner. I wonder...could this be one of those trace minerals where too much is obviously bad, but a just-right amount in the right molecular combinations is actually health-promoting?
I'd prefer that the required ion be silver (Ag(1+)) because that would finally explain why silver gets used for fancy tableware even though silver gets tarnished and unattractive so readily! Heating silver ions with reduced iron ions (Fe(2+)) de-ionizes silver back to plain solid silver. There is iron in cacao, per this article: Wijsman JA. Zur Eisenkontamination in Kakao und Kabaoerzeugnissen [On the iron contamination in cocoa and chocolate products (author's transl)]. Z Lebensm Unters Forsch. 1978 Aug 18;167(1):2-4. German. doi: 10.1007/BF01122876. PMID: 706799. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/706799/
Indium, I know nothing about except that the East and West Indies were very desirable destinations during the Age of Exploration. Perhaps those locations were sources of indium? I'll have to learn more about indium. Due to cadmium's toxicity and to silver's unclear intrinsic value, I'm going to look hard at silver in the meantime. Specifically, I will see what I can do in the kitchen to alter the presence of silver ions in my smoothies and see if I notice any difference.
[Update 8/30/2025: While looking at possible compounds associated with weight loss, not just weight maintenance, I came across an interesting one tonight. It is the azide group or ion, 3 nitrogens bonded together with a valence (or charge) of -1: N3(1-).
The azide ion can be created by heating Al(1+) with ammonia (NH3) and hydrazine (N2H4) present; having water in the initial ingredients will deter the production of azide because the ammonia will dissolve into the water. Here's the standard reduction potential information on that reaction per one website:
-0.62 N3 (1-) + 7 H2O + 6 e (1-) --> N2H4 + NH3 (gas) + 7 OH (1-)
I've been experimenting with dry microwaving of alum--aluminum sulfate FCC, per the label, which is a food ingredient used for making cucumbers into pickles--with roasted banana leaf (a source of ash and OH(1-) ions), juniper berries, and dried parsley (possibly a source of ammonia and hydrazine, due to its nitrogen content and processing). Afterwards, I put the juniper berries, which probably function as mere carriers of other more important molecules, in a butter puree and blend them with another mixture that appears to have either lithium or rubidium ions; if so, then I think I could be making LiN3 or RbN3. I'll keep investigating this.
In the meantime, I'm optimistic that I might have found an intentionally hidden "needle in the haystack", for none of my high school and college chemistry books discuss the azide ion, even though chemically it is very interesting: the N has a partial oxidation number of -1/3, it's made from ammonia and hydrazine, and it's composed of nitrogen (78% of our atmosphere is nitrogen).]
