Peat Archive

Glycolysis — the anaerobic breakdown of glucose to lactic acid — is a central concept in Ray Peat's framework of disease. While glycolysis is normal during brief intense exercise, chronic reliance on glycolysis (even in the presence of oxygen, known as aerobic glycolysis or the Warburg effect) is characteristic of cancer, aging, and metabolic disease. Peat followed Warburg's insight that this shift represents a regression to a primitive, less organized state of cellular function.

Peat argued that the shift from oxidative metabolism to glycolysis is driven by PUFA damage to mitochondria, thyroid deficiency, estrogen excess, and iron overload — and that reversing these factors can restore normal oxidative metabolism even in diseased tissue.