6 Lifestyle Factors To Measurably Reduce Biological Age
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Julie Gibson Clark competes on a global leaderboard of people actively fighting aging (including billionaire Bryan Johnson, who is famously very focused on such). She’s currently ahead of him on that leaderboard, so what’s she doing?
Top tips
We’ll not keep the six factors a mystery; they are:
- Exercise: her weekly exercise includes VO2 Max training, strength training, balance work, and low-intensity cardio. She exercises outdoors on Saturdays and takes rest days on Fridays and Sundays.
- Diet: she follows a 16-hour intermittent fasting schedule (eating between 09:00–17:00), consumes a clean omnivore diet with an emphasis on vegetables and adequate protein, and avoids junk food.
- Brain: she meditates for 20 minutes daily, prioritizes mental health, and ensures sufficient quality sleep, helped by morning sunlight exposure and time in nature.
- Hormesis: she engages in 20-minute sauna sessions followed by cold showers four times per week to support recovery and longevity.
- Supplements: she takes longevity supplements and bioidentical hormones to optimize her health and aging process.
- Testing: she regularly monitors her biological age and health markers through various tests, including DEXA scans, VO2 Max tests, lipid panels, and epigenetic aging clocks, allowing her to adjust her routine accordingly.
For more on all of these, enjoy:
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Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
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Savoy Cabbage vs Pak Choi – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing savoy cabbage to pak choi, we picked the savoy.
Why?
Looking at the macros first, the savoy has a little more protein, just under 3x the carbs, and just over 3x the fiber. A modest yet respectable win for savoy.
In terms of vitamins, savoy has more of vitamins B1, B5, B9, E, K, and choline, while pak choi has more of vitamins A, B2, B3, and C. Thus, a 6:4 win for savoy.
When it comes to minerals, savoy has more copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while pak choi has more calcium, iron, and potassium. So this time, a 7:3 win for savoy.
On the other hand, pak choi scores higher on the polyphenols side, especially in the categories of kaempferol and quercetin.
Still, adding up the sections, we conclude this one’s an overall win for savoy cabbage. Of course, enjoy either or both, though!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
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Shame and blame can create barriers to vaccination
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Understanding the stigma surrounding infectious diseases like HIV and mpox may help community health workers break down barriers that hinder access to care.
Looking back in history can provide valuable lessons to confront stigma in health care today, especially toward Black, Latine, LGBTQ+, and other historically underserved communities disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and HIV.
Public Good News spoke with Sam Brown, HIV prevention and wellness program manager at Civic Heart, a community-based organization in Houston’s historic Third Ward, to understand the effects of stigma around sexual health and vaccine uptake.
Brown shared more about Civic Heart’s efforts to provide free confidential testing for sexually transmitted infections, counseling and referrals, and information about COVID-19, flu, and mpox vaccinations, as well as the lessons they’re learning as they strive for vaccine equity.
Here’s what Brown said.
[Editor’s note: This content has been edited for clarity and length.]
PGN: Some people on social media have spread the myth that vaccines cause AIDS or other immune deficiencies when the opposite is true: Vaccines strengthen our immune systems to help protect against disease. Despite being frequently debunked, how do false claims like these impact the communities you serve?
Sam Brown: Misinformation like that is so hard to combat. And it makes the work and the path to overall community health hard because people will believe it. In the work that we do, 80 percent of it is changing people’s perspective on something they thought they knew.
You know, people don’t even transmit AIDS. People transmit HIV. So, a vaccine causing immunodeficiency doesn’t make sense.
With the communities we serve, we might have a person that will believe the myth, and because they believe it, they won’t get vaccinated. Then later, they may test positive for COVID-19.
And depending on social determinants of health, it can impact them in a whole heap of ways: That person is now missing work, they’re not able to provide for their family—if they have a family. It’s this mindset that can impact a person’s life, their income, their ability to function.
So, to not take advantage of something like a vaccine that’s affordable, or free for the most part, just because of misinformation or a misunderstanding—that’s detrimental, you know.
For example, when we talk to people in the community, many don’t know that they can get mpox from their pet, or that it’s zoonotic—that means that it can be transferred between different species or different beings, from animals to people. I see a lot of surprise and shock [when people learn this].
It’s difficult because we have to fight the misinformation and the stigma that comes with it. And it can be a big barrier.
People misunderstand. [They] think that “this is something that gay people or the LGBTQ+ community get,” which is stigmatizing and comes off as blaming. And blaming is the thing that leads us to be misinformed.
PGN: In the last couple years, your organization’s HIV Wellness program has taken on promoting COVID-19, flu, and mpox vaccines to the communities you serve. How do you navigate conversations between sexual health and infectious diseases? Can you share more about your messaging strategies?
S.B.: As we promoted positive sexual health and HIV prevention, we saw people were tired of hearing about HIV. They were tired of hearing about how PrEP works, or how to prevent HIV.
But, when we had an outbreak of syphilis in Houston just last year, people were more inclined to test because of the severity of the outbreak.
So, what our team learned is that sometimes you have to change the message to get people what they need.
We changed our message to highlight more syphilis information and saw that we were able to get more people tested for HIV because we correlated how syphilis and HIV are connected and how a person can be susceptible to both.
Using messages that the community wants and pairing them with what the community needs has been better for us. And we see that same thing with COVID-19, the flu, and RSV. Sometimes you just can’t be married to a message. We’ve had to be flexible to meet our clients where they are to help them move from unsafe practices to practices that are healthy and good for them and their communities.
PGN: You’ve mentioned how hard it is to combat stigma in your work. How do you effectively address it when talking to people one-on-one?
S.B.: What I understand is that no one wants to feel shame. What I see people respond to is, “Here’s an opportunity to do something different. Maybe there was information that you didn’t know that caused you to make a bad decision. And now here’s an opportunity to gain information so that you can make a better decision.”
People want to do what they want to do; they want to live how they want to live. And we all should be able to do that as long as it’s not hurting anyone, but also being responsible enough to understand that, you know, COVID-19 is here.
So, instead of shaming and blaming, it’s best to make yourself aware and understand what it is and how to treat it. Because the real enemy is the virus—it’s the infection, not the people.
When we do our work, we want to make sure that we come from a strengths-based approach. We always look at what a client can do, what that client has. We want to make sure that we’re empowering them from that point. So, even if they choose not to prioritize our message right now, we can’t take that personally. We’ll just use it as a chance to try a new way of framing it to help people understand what we’re trying to say.
And sometimes that can be difficult, even for organizations. But getting past that difficulty comes with a greater opportunity to impact someone else.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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What pathogen might spark the next pandemic? How scientists are preparing for ‘disease X’
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Before the COVID pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) had made a list of priority infectious diseases. These were felt to pose a threat to international public health, but where research was still needed to improve their surveillance and diagnosis. In 2018, “disease X” was included, which signified that a pathogen previously not on our radar could cause a pandemic.
While it’s one thing to acknowledge the limits to our knowledge of the microbial soup we live in, more recent attention has focused on how we might systematically approach future pandemic risks.
Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously talked about “known knowns” (things we know we know), “known unknowns” (things we know we don’t know), and “unknown unknowns” (the things we don’t know we don’t know).
Although this may have been controversial in its original context of weapons of mass destruction, it provides a way to think about how we might approach future pandemic threats.
Anna Shvets/Pexels Influenza: a ‘known known’
Influenza is largely a known entity; we essentially have a minor pandemic every winter with small changes in the virus each year. But more major changes can also occur, resulting in spread through populations with little pre-existing immunity. We saw this most recently in 2009 with the swine flu pandemic.
However, there’s a lot we don’t understand about what drives influenza mutations, how these interact with population-level immunity, and how best to make predictions about transmission, severity and impact each year.
The current H5N1 subtype of avian influenza (“bird flu”) has spread widely around the world. It has led to the deaths of many millions of birds and spread to several mammalian species including cows in the United States and marine mammals in South America.
Human cases have been reported in people who have had close contact with infected animals, but fortunately there’s currently no sustained spread between people.
While detecting influenza in animals is a huge task in a large country such as Australia, there are systems in place to detect and respond to bird flu in wildlife and production animals.
Scientists are continually monitoring a range of pathogens with pandemic potential. Edward Jenner/Pexels It’s inevitable there will be more influenza pandemics in the future. But it isn’t always the one we are worried about.
Attention had been focused on avian influenza since 1997, when an outbreak in birds in Hong Kong caused severe disease in humans. But the subsequent pandemic in 2009 originated in pigs in central Mexico.
Coronaviruses: an ‘unknown known’
Although Rumsfeld didn’t talk about “unknown knowns”, coronaviruses would be appropriate for this category. We knew more about coronaviruses than most people might have thought before the COVID pandemic.
We’d had experience with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS) causing large outbreaks. Both are caused by viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID. While these might have faded from public consciousness before COVID, coronaviruses were listed in the 2015 WHO list of diseases with pandemic potential.
Previous research into the earlier coronaviruses proved vital in allowing COVID vaccines to be developed rapidly. For example, the Oxford group’s initial work on a MERS vaccine was key to the development of AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine.
Similarly, previous research into the structure of the spike protein – a protein on the surface of coronaviruses that allows it to attach to our cells – was helpful in developing mRNA vaccines for COVID.
It would seem likely there will be further coronavirus pandemics in the future. And even if they don’t occur at the scale of COVID, the impacts can be significant. For example, when MERS spread to South Korea in 2015, it only caused 186 cases over two months, but the cost of controlling it was estimated at US$8 billion (A$11.6 billion).
COVID could be regarded as an ‘unknown known’. Markus Spiske/Pexels The 25 viral families: an approach to ‘known unknowns’
Attention has now turned to the known unknowns. There are about 120 viruses from 25 families that are known to cause human disease. Members of each viral family share common properties and our immune systems respond to them in similar ways.
An example is the flavivirus family, of which the best-known members are yellow fever virus and dengue fever virus. This family also includes several other important viruses, such as Zika virus (which can cause birth defects when pregnant women are infected) and West Nile virus (which causes encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain).
The WHO’s blueprint for epidemics aims to consider threats from different classes of viruses and bacteria. It looks at individual pathogens as examples from each category to expand our understanding systematically.
The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has taken this a step further, preparing vaccines and therapies for a list of prototype pathogens from key virus families. The goal is to be able to adapt this knowledge to new vaccines and treatments if a pandemic were to arise from a closely related virus.
Pathogen X, the ‘unknown unknown’
There are also the unknown unknowns, or “disease X” – an unknown pathogen with the potential to trigger a severe global epidemic. To prepare for this, we need to adopt new forms of surveillance specifically looking at where new pathogens could emerge.
In recent years, there’s been an increasing recognition that we need to take a broader view of health beyond only thinking about human health, but also animals and the environment. This concept is known as “One Health” and considers issues such as climate change, intensive agricultural practices, trade in exotic animals, increased human encroachment into wildlife habitats, changing international travel, and urbanisation.
This has implications not only for where to look for new infectious diseases, but also how we can reduce the risk of “spillover” from animals to humans. This might include targeted testing of animals and people who work closely with animals. Currently, testing is mainly directed towards known viruses, but new technologies can look for as yet unknown viruses in patients with symptoms consistent with new infections.
We live in a vast world of potential microbiological threats. While influenza and coronaviruses have a track record of causing past pandemics, a longer list of new pathogens could still cause outbreaks with significant consequences.
Continued surveillance for new pathogens, improving our understanding of important virus families, and developing policies to reduce the risk of spillover will all be important for reducing the risk of future pandemics.
This article is part of a series on the next pandemic.
Allen Cheng, Professor of Infectious Diseases, Monash University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Comfortable with Uncertainty – by Pema Chödrön
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This book is exactly what the subtitle claims it to be: 108 teachings on cultivating fearlessness and compassion. They are short extracts, entire of themselves, taken from Chödrön’s wider work and arranged to offer her insights and advices on this one topic, in one place.
It is worth noting, by the way, that the author is a Buddhist nun, and as such, the principles and practices are Buddhist in origin. If that’s a problem for you, then this book will not be for you. It does not, however, require that the reader be Buddhist to benefit, simply that one has a will to be calm in the face of chaos, and yet not indifferent—rather, to take on the challenges of life with a whole heart.
And about that compassion? This is about alleviating suffering; your own, and the suffering in the world as a whole, increasingly uncertain as this world is. And being brave enough to do that, in a world that is not always gentle.
The style is idiosyncratic, and you will likely love it or hate it. If you love it, then you will find this book at once both soothing and empowering; if not, you will put the book down and pick up a book on CBT or something instead.
Bottom line: this book absolutely does deliver on its title/subtitle promises—provided you, dear reader, internalize it and practise it.
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Are you over 75? Here’s what you need to know about vitamin D
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Vitamin D is essential for bone health, immune function and overall wellbeing. And it becomes even more crucial as we age.
New guidelines from the international Endocrine Society recommend people aged 75 and over should consider taking vitamin D supplements.
But why is vitamin D so important for older adults? And how much should they take?
OPPO Find X5 Pro/Unsplash Young people get most vitamin D from the sun
In Australia, it is possible for most people under 75 to get enough vitamin D from the sun throughout the year. For those who live in the top half of Australia – and for all of us during summer – we only need to have skin exposed to the sun for a few minutes on most days.
The body can only produce a certain amount of vitamin D at a time. So staying in the sun any longer than needed is not going to help increase your vitamin D levels, while it will increase your risk of skin cancer.
But it’s difficult for people aged over 75 to get enough vitamin D from a few minutes of sunshine, so the Endocrine Society recommends people get 800 IU (international units) of vitamin D a day from food or supplements.
Why you need more as you age
This is higher than the recommendation for younger adults, reflecting the increased needs and reduced ability of older bodies to produce and absorb vitamin D.
Overall, older adults also tend to have less exposure to sunlight, which is the primary source of natural vitamin D production. Older adults may spend more time indoors and wear more clothing when outdoors.
As we age, our skin also becomes less efficient at synthesising vitamin D from sunlight.
The kidneys and the liver, which help convert vitamin D into its active form, also lose some of their efficiency with age. This makes it harder for the body to maintain adequate levels of the vitamin.
All of this combined means older adults need more vitamin D.
Deficiency is common in older adults
Despite their higher needs for vitamin D, people over 75 may not get enough of it.
Studies have shown one in five older adults in Australia have vitamin D deficiency.
In higher-latitude parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom, almost half don’t reach sufficient levels.
This increased risk of deficiency is partly due to lifestyle factors, such as spending less time outdoors and insufficient dietary intakes of vitamin D.
It’s difficult to get enough vitamin D from food alone. Oily fish, eggs and some mushrooms are good sources of vitamin D, but few other foods contain much of the vitamin. While foods can be fortified with the vitamin D (margarine, some milk and cereals), these may not be readily available or be consumed in sufficient amounts to make a difference.
In some countries such as the United States, most of the dietary vitamin D comes from fortified products. However, in Australia, dietary intakes of vitamin D are typically very low because only a few foods are fortified with it.
Why vitamin D is so important as we age
Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, which is essential for maintaining bone density and strength. As we age, our bones become more fragile, increasing the risk of fractures and conditions like osteoporosis.
Keeping bones healthy is crucial. Studies have shown older people hospitalised with hip fractures are 3.5 times more likely to die in the next 12 months compared to people who aren’t injured.
People over 75 often have less exposure to sunlight. Aila Images/Shutterstock Vitamin D may also help lower the risk of respiratory infections, which can be more serious in this age group.
There is also emerging evidence for other potential benefits, including better brain health. However, this requires more research.
According to the society’s systematic review, which summarises evidence from randomised controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation in humans, there is moderate evidence to suggest vitamin D supplementation can lower the risk of premature death.
The society estimates supplements can prevent six deaths per 1,000 people. When considering the uncertainty in the available evidence, the actual number could range from as many as 11 fewer deaths to no benefit at all.
Should we get our vitamin D levels tested?
The Endocrine Society’s guidelines suggest routine blood tests to measure vitamin D levels are not necessary for most healthy people over 75.
There is no clear evidence that regular testing provides significant benefits, unless the person has a specific medical condition that affects vitamin D metabolism, such as kidney disease or certain bone disorders.
Routine testing can also be expensive and inconvenient.
In most cases, the recommended approach to over-75s is to consider a daily supplement, without the need for testing.
You can also try to boost your vitamin D by adding fortified foods to your diet, which might lower the dose you need from supplementation.
Even if you’re getting a few minutes of sunlight a day, a daily vitamin D is still recommended.
Elina Hypponen, Professor of Nutritional and Genetic Epidemiology, University of South Australia and Joshua Sutherland, PhD Candidate – Nutrition and Genetic Epidemiology, University of South Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Eat Real Food and Love It – by Kari McCloskey
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Half the battle of healthy eating is enjoying it—because once you do, it’s no longer a battle!
So that’s what this book focuses on. The author, a Registered Nutritionist, does indeed dispense nutritional advice, as you might expect, but also bids us pay attention to what nature’s foods do for us, and notice what less healthy foods take from us. She goes through these category by category, quite comprehensively, before moving on to the more “active” parts of the book.
There’s a lot about training our senses, and about taking a holistic approach to eating, as well as renewing not just our relationship with food, but also various other parts of our life that are inextricably linked to it (from sleep and exercise, to social considerations, and medical issues that healthier eating will help us to avoid or at least tame).
The style is… Joyful. Much like this reviewer, the author loves food, and it shows. She also (again much like this reviewer) cares deeply about the impact food has on her, and (for a third time: like this reviewer!) wants to share that joy and care with the reader. The priority is readability and helpfulness; scientific references are still provided wherever appropriate, though.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your eating but it seems like a chore, this book can help turn it into an excitingly enjoyable journey instead.
Click here to check out Eat Real Food And Love It, and eat real food and love it!
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