Ageless Aging – by Maddy Dychtwald
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Maddy Dychtwald, herself 73, has spent her career working in the field of aging. She’s not a gerontologist or even a doctor, but she’s nevertheless been up-to-the-ears in the industry for decades, mostly as an organizer, strategist, facilitator, and so forth. As such, she’s had her finger on the pulse of the healthy longevity movement for a long time.
This book was written to address a problem, and the problem is: lifespan is increasing (especially for women), but healthspan has not been keeping up the pace.
In other words: people (especially women) are living longer, but often with more health problems along the way than before.
And mostly, it’s for lack of information (or sometimes: too much competing incorrect information).
Fortunately, information is something that a woman in Dychtwald’s position has an abundance of, because she has researchers and academics in many fields on speed-dial and happy to answer her questions (we get a lot of input from such experts throughout the book—which is why this book is so science-based, despite the author not being a scientist).
The book answers a lot of important questions beyond the obvious “what diet/exercise/sleep/supplements/etc are best for healthy aging” (spoiler: it’s quite consistent with the things we recommend here, because guess what, science is science), questions like how best to prepare for this that or the other, how to get a head start on preventative healthcare for some things, how to avoid being a burden to our families (one can argue that families are supposed to look after each other, but still, it’s a legitimate worry for many, and understandably so), and even how to balance the sometimes conflicting worlds of health and finances.
Unlike many authors, she also talks about the different kinds of aging, and tackles each of them separately and together. We love to see it!
Bottom line: this book is a very good one-stop-shop for all things healthy aging. It’s aimed squarely at women, but most advice goes for men the same too, aside from the section on hormones and such.
Click here to check out Ageless Aging, and plan your future!
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An Accessible New Development Against Alzheimer’s
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Dopamine vs Alzheimer’s
One of the key hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease is the formation of hardened beta-amyloid plaques around neurons. The beta-amyloid peptides themselves are supposed to be in the brain, but the hardened pieces of them that form the plaques are not.
While the full nature of the relationship between those plaques and Alzheimer’s disease is not known for sure (there are likely other factors involved, and “the amyloid hypothesis” is at this stage nominally just that, a hypothesis), one thing that has been observed is that increasing or reducing the plaques increases or reduces (respectively) Alzheimer’s symptoms such as memory loss.
Neprilysin
There is an enzyme, neprilysin, that can break down those plaques.
Neprilysin is made naturally in the brain, and/but we cannot take it as a supplement or medication, because it’s too big to pass through the blood-brain barrier.
A team of researchers led by Dr. Takaomi Saido genetically manipulated mice to produce more neprilysin, and those mice resultantly experienced fewer beta-amyloid plaques and better memory in their old age.
However wonderful for the mice (and a great proof of principle) the above approach is not useful as a treatment for humans whose genomes weren’t modified at our conception in a lab.
Since (as mentioned before) we also can’t take it as a medication/supplement, that leaves one remaining option: find a way to make our already-existing brains produce more of it.
The team’s previous research allowed them to narrow this down to “there is probably a hormone made in the hypothalamus that modulates this”, so they began experimenting with making the mice produce more hormones there.
The DREADD switch
DREADDs, or Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs, were the next tool in the toolbox. The scientists attached these designer receptors to dopamine-producing neurons in the mice, so that they could be activated by the appropriate designer drugs—basically, allowing for a “make more dopamine” button, without having to literally wire up the brains with electrodes. The “button” gets triggered instead by a chemical trigger, the designer drug. You can read more about them here:
DREADDs for Neuroscientists: A Primer
The result was positive; when the mice made more dopamine, the result was that they also made more neprilysin. So far, the hypothesis is that the presence of dopamine upregulates the production of neprilysin. In other words, the increased neprilysin levels were caused by the increased dopamine levels (the alternatives would have been: they were both caused by the same thing—in this case that’d be the DREADD activation—or the increase was caused by something else entirely that hadn’t been controlled for).
As to how the causal relationship was determined…
“But I don’t have (or want) a DREADD switch in my head”
Happily for us (and probably happily for the mice too, because dopamine causes feelings of happiness), the experiments continued.
This time, instead of using the DREADD system, they tried simply supplementing the mouse food with l-dopa, a dopamine precursor. L-dopa is often used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, because the molecules are small enough to pass through the blood-brain barrier, and can be converted to full dopamine inside the brain itself. So, taking l-dopa normally raises dopamine levels.
The results? The mice who were given l-dopa enjoyed:
- higher dopamine levels
- higher neprilysin levels
- lower beta-amyloid plaque levels
- better memory in tests
The next step for the researchers is to investigate how exactly dopamine regulates neprilysin in the brain, but for now, the relationship between l-dopa consumption and the reduction of Alzheimer’s symptoms seems clear.
You can read about the study here:
The dopaminergic system promotes neprilysin-mediated degradation of amyloid-β in the brain
Is there a catch?
L-dopa has common side effects that are not pleasant; the list begins with nausea and vomiting, and continues with things that one might expect from having “too much of a good thing” when it comes to dopamine, such as dyskinesia (extra movements) and hallucinations.
You can read about it more here at the Parkinson’s Foundation:
Parkinson’s Foundation | Levodopa
However! All is not lost. Rather than reaching for the heavy guns by taking l-dopa unnecessarily, there are other dopamine precursors that don’t have those side effects (and are consequently less restricted, to the point they can be purchased as supplements, or indeed, enjoyed where they occur naturally in some foods).
Top of the list of such safe* and readily-available dopamine precursors is…
N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine (NALT): The Dopamine Precursor & More
If you’d like to try that, here’s an example product on Amazon… Or you could eat fish, white beans, tofu, natto, or pumpkin seeds 😉
*Quick note on safety: “safe” is a relative term and may vary from person to person. Please speak with your own doctor to be sure, check with your pharmacist in case of any meds interactions, and be especially careful taking anything that increases dopamine levels if you have bipolar disorder or are otherwise prone to psychosis of any kind. For most people, this shouldn’t be an issue as our brains have a built-in mechanism for scrubbing excess dopamine and ensuring we don’t end up with too much, but for some people whose dopamine regulation is not so good in that regard, it can cause problems. So again, speak with your doctor to be sure, because we are not doctors, let alone your doctor.
Lastly…
If you’d like an entirely drug-free approach, that’s skipping even the “nutraceuticals”, you might enjoy:
Short On Dopamine? Science Has The Answer
Take care!
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The No-Nonsense Meditation Book – by Dr. Steven Laureys
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We’ve reviewed books about meditation before, and when we review books, we try to pick ones that have something that make them stand out from the others. So, what stands out in this case?
The author is a medical doctor and neurologist, with decades of experience focusing on neuronal plasticity and multimodel neural imaging. So, a little beyond “think happy thoughts”-style woo.
The style of the book is pop-science in tone, but with a lot of hard clinical science underpinning it and referenced throughout, as one would expect of a scientist of Dr. Laurey’s stature (with hundreds of peer-reviewed papers in top-level journals).
You may be wondering: is this a “how-to” book or a “why-to” book or a “what-happens” book? It’s all three.
The “how-to” is also, as the title suggests, no-nonsense. We are talking maximum results for minimum mystery here.
Bottom line: if you’d like to be able to take up a meditative practice and know exactly what it’s doing to your brain (quietening these parts, stimulating and physically growing those parts, etc) then this is the book for you.
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Evidence doesn’t support spinal cord stimulators for chronic back pain – and they could cause harm
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In an episode of ABC’s Four Corners this week, the use of spinal cord stimulators for chronic back pain was brought into question.
Spinal cord stimulators are devices implanted surgically which deliver electric impulses directly to the spinal cord. They’ve been used to treat people with chronic pain since the 1960s.
Their design has changed significantly over time. Early models required an external generator and invasive surgery to implant them. Current devices are fully implantable, rechargeable and can deliver a variety of electrical signals.
However, despite their long history, rigorous experimental research to test the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulators has only been conducted this century. The findings don’t support their use for treating chronic pain. In fact, data points to a significant risk of harm.
What does the evidence say?
One of the first studies used to support the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulators was published in 2005. This study looked at patients who didn’t get relief from initial spinal surgery and compared implantation of a spinal cord stimulator to a repeat of the spinal surgery.
Although it found spinal cord stimulation was the more effective intervention for chronic back pain, the fact this study compared the device to something that had already failed once is an obvious limitation.
Later studies provided more useful evidence. They compared spinal cord stimulation to non-surgical treatments or placebo devices (for example, deactivated spinal cord stimulators).
A 2023 Cochrane review of the published comparative studies found nearly all studies were restricted to short-term outcomes (weeks). And while some studies appeared to show better pain relief with active spinal cord stimulation, the benefits were small, and the evidence was uncertain.
Only one high-quality study compared spinal cord stimulation to placebo up to six months, and it showed no benefit. The review concluded the data doesn’t support the use of spinal cord stimulation for people with back pain.
What about the harms?
The experimental studies often had small numbers of participants, making any estimate of the harms of spinal cord stimulation difficult. So we need to look to other sources.
A review of adverse events reported to Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration found the harms can be serious. Of the 520 events reported between 2012 and 2019, 79% were considered “severe” and 13% were “life threatening”.
We don’t know exactly how many spinal cord stimulators were implanted during this period, however this surgery is done reasonably widely in Australia, particularly in the private and workers compensation sectors. In 2023, health insurance data showed more than 1,300 spinal cord stimulator procedures were carried out around the country.
In the review, around half the reported harms were due to a malfunction of the device itself (for example, fracture of the electrical lead, or the lead moved to the wrong spot in the body). The other half involved declines in people’s health such as unexplained increased pain, infection, and tears in the lining around the spinal cord.
More than 80% of the harms required at least one surgery to correct the problem. The same study reported four out of every ten spinal cord stimulators implanted were being removed.
Chronic back pain can be debilitating. CGN089/Shutterstock High costs
The cost here is considerable, with the devices alone costing tens of thousands of dollars. Adding associated hospital and medical costs, the total cost for a single procedure averages more than $A50,000. With many patients undergoing multiple repeat procedures, it’s not unusual for costs to be measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Rebates from Medicare, private health funds and other insurance schemes may go towards this total, along with out-of-pocket contributions.
Insurers are uncertain of the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulators, but because their implantation is listed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule and the devices are approved for reimbursement by the government, insurers are forced to fund their use.
Industry influence
If the evidence suggests no sustained benefit over placebo, the harms are significant and the cost is high, why are spinal cord stimulators being used so commonly in Australia? In New Zealand, for example, the devices are rarely used.
Doctors who implant spinal cord stimulators in Australia are well remunerated and funding arrangements are different in New Zealand. But the main reason behind the lack of use in New Zealand is because pain specialists there are not convinced of their effectiveness.
In Australia and elsewhere, the use of spinal cord stimulators is heavily promoted by the pain specialists who implant them, and the device manufacturers, often in unison. The tactics used by the spinal cord stimulator device industry to protect profits have been compared to tactics used by the tobacco industry.
A 2023 paper describes these tactics which include flooding the scientific literature with industry-funded research, undermining unfavourable independent research, and attacking the credibility of those who raise concerns about the devices.
It’s not all bad news
Many who suffer from chronic pain may feel disillusioned after watching the Four Corners report. But it’s not all bad news. Australia happens to be home to some of the world’s top back pain researchers who are working on safe, effective therapies.
New approaches such as sensorimotor retraining, which includes reassurance and encouragement to increase patients’ activity levels, cognitive functional therapy, which targets unhelpful pain-related thinking and behaviour, and old approaches such as exercise, have recently shown benefits in robust clinical research.
If we were to remove funding for expensive, harmful and ineffective treatments, more funding could be directed towards effective ones.
Ian Harris, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, UNSW Sydney; Adrian C Traeger, Research Fellow, Institute for Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney, and Caitlin Jones, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Brain Health Kitchen – by Dr. Annie Fenn
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This is a cookbook built around the MIND diet, which we talked about in our “Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet” article.
As such, it’s a top-tier gold-standard diet to be following for brain health, and having it as a book of recipes makes actually eating this way a lot easier!
The book does talk about the science first before getting to the recipes, so don’t worry, you won’t have to reverse engineer the dietary guidelines from the recipes; everything is explained well.
The recipes (of which there are 100) are diverse enough to be interesting without being so complicated as to be difficult. The ingredients are largely nutritional powerhouses, and most if not all can be found in your nearest reasonable-sized supermarket. Also, the recipes are (as you might reasonably expect), very plant-forward, but not entirely plant-based (as you might have guessed from the salmon on the front cover).
Bottom line: if you’d like to eat more healthily for your brain, but are a little stumped on what to do with the four ingredients you remember are brain-healthy, this book will help expand your horizons—not to mention your culinary repertoire!
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5 Self-Care Trends That Are Actually Ruining Your Mental Health
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Ok, some of these are trends; some are more perennial to human nature. For example, while asceticism is not a new idea, the “dopamine detox” is, and “bed rotting” is not a trend that this writer has seen recommended anywhere, but on the other hand, there are medieval illustrations of it—there was no Netflix in sight in the medieval illustrations, but perhaps a label diagnosing it as “melancholy”, for example.
So without further ado, here are five things to not do…
Don’t fall into these traps
The 5 things to watch out for are:
- Toxic positivity: constantly promoting positivity regardless of the reality of a situation can shame or invalidate genuine emotions, preventing people from processing their real feelings and leading to negative mental health outcomes—especially if it involves a “head in sand” approach to external problems as well as internal ones (because then those problems will never actually get dealt with).
- Self-indulgence: excessive focus on personal desires can make you more self-centered, less disciplined, and ultimately dissatisfied, which hinders personal growth and mental wellness.
- Bed rotting: spending prolonged time in bed for relaxation or entertainment can decrease motivation, productivity, and lead to (or worsen) depression rather than promoting genuine rest and rejuvenation.
- Dopamine detox: abstaining from pleasurable activities to “reset” the brain simply does not work and can lead to loneliness, boredom, and worsen mental health, especially when done excessively.
- Over-reliance on self-help: consuming too much self-help content or relying on material possessions for well-being can lead to information overload, unrealistic expectations, and the constant need for self-fixing, rather than fostering self-acceptance and authentic growth. Useful self-help can be like taking your car in for maintenance—counterproductive self-help is more like having your car always in for maintenance and never actually on the road.
For more on all of these, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read, and yes these are pretty much one-for-one with the 5 items above, doing a deeper dive into each in turn,
- How To Get Your Brain On A More Positive Track (Without Toxic Positivity)
- Self-Care That’s Not Just Self-Indulgence
- The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
- The Dopamine Myth
- Behavioral Activation Against Depression & Anxiety
Take care!
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The Yoga of Breath – by Richard Rosen
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You probably know to breathe through your nose, and to breathe with your diaphragm. But did you know you’re usually only breathing through one nostril at a time, and alternate between nostrils every few hours? And did you know how to breathe through both nostrils equally instead, and the benefits that can bring?
The above is one example of many, of things that make this book stand out from the crowd when it comes to breathing exercises. Author Richard Rosen has a deep expertise in this topic, and explains everything clearly and comprehensively, without leaving room for ambiguity.
While most of the book focuses on the mechanics and physical techniques of breathing, he does also cover some more mindstate-related things too—without which, it wouldn’t be yoga.
If the book has a downside, it’s that its comprehensive nature could be off-putting to readers new to breathing work in general. However, since he does explain everything from the ground up, that’s no reason to be put off this book, iff you’re serious about learning.
Bottom line: if you’d like a deeper understanding of breathwork than “breathe slowly through your nose, using your diaphragm”, this book will teach you depths of breathing you probably didn’t know were possible.
Click here to check out The Yoga of Breath, and catch yours!
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