Blind Spots – by Dr. Marty Makary
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From the time the US recommended not giving peanuts to infants for the first three years of life “in order to avoid peanut allergies” (whereupon non-exposure to peanuts early in life led to, instead, an increase in peanut allergies and anaphylactic incidents), to the time the US recommended not taking HRT on the strength of the claim that “HRT causes breast cancer” (whereupon the reduced popularity of HRT led to, instead, an increase in breast cancer incidence and mortality), to many other such incidents of very bad public advice being given on the strength of a single badly-misrepresented study (for each respective thing), Dr. Makary puts the spotlight on what went wrong.
This is important, because this is not just a book of outrage, exclaiming “how could this happen?!”, but rather instead, is a book of inquisition, asking “how did this happen?”, in such a way that we the reader can spot similar patterns going forwards.
Oftentimes, this is a simple matter of having a basic understanding of statistics, and checking sources to see if the dataset really supports what the headlines are claiming—and indeed, whether sometimes it suggests rather the opposite.
The style is a little on the sensationalist side, but it’s well-supported with sound arguments, good science, and clear mathematics.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your scientific literacy, this book is an excellent illustrative guide.
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Beyond Guarding Against Dementia
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When Age’s Brain-Changes Come Knocking
This is Dr. Amy Friday. She’s a psychologist, specializing in geropsychology and neuropsychological assessments.
In other words, she helps people optimize their aging experience, particularly in the context of brain changes as we get older.
What does she want us to know?
First: be not afraid
Ominous first words, but the fact is, there’s a lot to find scary about the prospect of memory loss, dementia, and death.
However, as she points out:
- Death will come for us all sooner or later, barring technology as yet unknown
- Dementia can be avoided, or at least stalled, or at least worked around
- Memory loss, as per the above, can be avoided/stalled/managed
We’ve written a little on these topics too:
…or if the death is not yours:
As for avoiding dementia, the below-linked feature is about Alzheimer’s in particular (which accounts for more than half of all cases of dementia), but the advice goes for most of the other kinds too:
How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk
And finally, about memory loss specifically:
How To Boost Your Memory Immediately (Without Supplements)
this one is especially about cementing into one’s brain the kinds of memories that people most fear losing with age. People don’t worry about forgetting their PIN codes; they worry about forgetting their cherished memories with loved ones. So, if that’s important to you, do consider checking out this one!
What is that about managing or working around the symptoms?
If we’re missing a limb, we (usually) get a prosthetic, and/or learn how to operate without that limb.
If we’re missing sight or hearing, partially or fully, there are disability aids for those kinds of things too (glasses are a disability aid! Something being very common does not make it not a disability; you literally have less of an ability—in this case, the ability to see), and/or we learn how to operate with our different (or missing) sense.
Dr. Friday makes the case for this being the same with memory loss, dementia, and other age-related symptoms (reduced focus, increased mental fatigue, etc):
❝We are all screwed up. Here’s my flavor … what’s yours? This is a favorite saying of mine, because we ARE all screwed up in one way or another, and when we acknowledge it we can feel closer in our screwed-up-edness.
We are all experiencing “normal aging,” so that tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon that starts in our thirties and slowly gets worse is REAL. But what if you’re having more problems than normal aging? Is it time to throw in the towel and hide? I’m hoping that there is a group of people who say HELL NO to that idea.
Let’s use lessons from research and clinical practice to help all of us work around our weaknesses, and capitalize on our strengths. ❞
Examples of this might include:
- Writing down the things most important to you (a short list of information and/or statements that you feel define you and what matters most to you), so that you can read it later
- Making sure you have support (partner, family, friends, etc) who are on the same page about this topic—and thus will actually support you and advocate for you, instead of arguing about what is in your best interest without consulting you.
- Labelling stuff around the house, so that you get less confused about what is what and where it is
- Having a named go-to advocate that you can call / ask to be called, if you are in trouble somewhere and need help that you can rely on
- Getting a specialized, simpler bank account; hiring an accountant if relevant and practicable.
The thing is, we all want to keep control. Sometimes we can do that! Sometimes we can’t, and if we’re going to lose some aspect of control, it’ll generally go a lot better if we do it on our own terms, so that we ourselves can look out for future-us in our planning.
Want to know more?
You might enjoy her blog, which includes also links to her many videos on the topic, including such items as:
- Neuroplasticity – #1 Way To Increase Brain Health
- Which Diet PREVENTS Alzheimer’s? | Best Brain Health Diet
- Stop Anxiety About Dementia & Do I Have Dementia?
For the rest, see:
This Beautiful Brain | The Science Of Brain Health
Enjoy!
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How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
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How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
In Greek mythology, Prometheus suffered the punishment of being chained to a rock, where he would have his liver eaten by an eagle, whereupon each day his liver would grow back, only to be eaten again the next day.
We mere humans who are not Greek gods might not be able to endure quite such punishment to our liver, but it is an incredibly resilient and self-regenerative organ.
In fact, provided at least 51% of the liver is still present and correct, the other 49% will regrow. Similarly, damage done (such as by trying to store too much fat there due to metabolic problems, as in alcoholic or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease) will reverse itself in time, given the chance.
The difference between us and Prometheus
In the myth, Prometheus had his liver regrow overnight every night. Ours don’t recover quite so quickly.
Indeed, the science has good and bad news for us:
❝Liver recolonization models have demonstrated that hepatocytes have an unlimited regenerative capacity. However, in normal liver, cell turnover is very slow.❞
~ Michalopoulos and Bhusan (2020)
Read more: Liver regeneration: biological and pathological mechanisms and implications
If it regenerates, why do people need transplants, and/or die of liver disease?
There are some diseases of the liver that inhibit its regenerative abilities, or (as in the case of cancer) abuse them to our detriment. However, in the case of fatty liver disease, the reason is usually simple:
If the lifestyle factors that caused the liver to become fatty are still there, then its regenerative abilities won’t be able to keep up with the damage that is still being done.
Can we speed it up at all?
Yes! The first and most important thing is to minimize how much ongoing harm you are still doing to it, though.
- If you drink alcohol, stop. According to the WHO, the only amount of alcohol that is safe for you is zero.
- You might like our previous article: How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
- Consider your medications, and find out which place a strain on the liver. Many medications are not optional; you’re taking them for an important reason, so don’t quit things without checking with your doctor. Medications that strain the liver include, but are by no means limited to:
- Many painkillers, including acetaminophen/paracetamol (e.g. Tylenol), and ibuprofen
- Some immunosuppresent drugs, including azathioprine
- Some epilepsy drugs, including phenytoin
- Some antibiotics, including amoxicillin
- Statins in general
Note: we are not pharmacists, nor doctors, let alone your doctors.
Check with yours about what is important for you to take, and what alternatives might be safe for you to consider.
Dietary considerations
While there are still things we don’t know about the cause(s) of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, there is a very strong association with a diet that is:
- high in salt
- high in refined carbohydrates
- e.g. white flour and white flour products such as white bread and white pasta; also the other main refined carbohydrate: sugar
- high in red meat
- high in non-fermented dairy
- high in fried foods.
So, consider minimizing those, and instead getting plenty of fiber, and plenty of lean protein (not from red meat, but poultry and fish are fine iff not fried; beans and legumes are top-tier, though).
Also, hydrate. Most people are dehydrated most of the time, and that’s bad for all parts of the body, and the liver is no exception. It can’t regenerate if it’s running on empty!
Read more: Foods To Include (And Avoid) In A Healthy Liver Diet
How long will it take to heal?
In the case of alcoholic fatty liver disease, it should start healing a few days after stopping drinking. Then, how long it takes to fully recover depends on the extent of the damage; it could be weeks or months. In extreme cases, years, but that is rare. Usually if the damage is that severe, a transplant is needed.
In the case of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, again it depends on the extent of the damage, but it is usually a quicker recovery than the alcoholic kind—especially if eating a Mediterranean diet.
Read more: How Long Does It Take For Your Liver To Repair Itself?
Take good care of yourself!
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- If you drink alcohol, stop. According to the WHO, the only amount of alcohol that is safe for you is zero.
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The Origin of Everyday Moods – by Dr. Robert Thayer
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First of all, what does this title mean by “everyday moods”? By this the author is referring to the kinds of moods we have just as a matter of the general wear-and-tear of everyday life—not the kind that come from major mood disorders and/or serious trauma.
The latter kinds of mood take less explaining, in any case. Dr. Thayer, therefore, spends his time on the less obvious ones—which in turn are the ones that affect most of the most, every day.
Critical to Dr. Thayer’s approach is the mapping of moods by four main quadrants:
- High energy, high tension
- High energy, low tension
- Low energy, high tension
- Low energy, low tension
…though this can be further divided into 25 sectors, if we rate each variable on a scale of 0–4. But for the first treatment, it suffices to look at whether energy and tension are high or low, respectively, and which we’d like to have more or less of.
Then (here be science) how to go about achieving that in the most efficient, evidence-based ways. So, it’s not just a theoretical book; it has great practical value too.
The style of the book is accessible, and walks a fine line between pop-science and hard science, which makes it a great book for laypersons and academics alike.
Bottom line: if you’d like the cheat codes to improve your moods and lessen the impact of bad ones, this is the book for you.
Click here to check out The Origin of Everyday Moods, and manage yours!
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How To Avoid Slipping Into (Bad) Old Habits
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Treating Bad Habits Like Addictions
How often have you started a healthy new habit (including if it’s a “quit this previous thing” new habit), only to find that you slip back into your old ways?
We’ve written plenty on habit-forming before, so here’s a quick recap before we continue:
How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits
…and even how to give them a boost:
How To Keep On Keeping On… Long Term!
But how to avoid the relapses that are most likely to snowball?
Borrowing from the psychology of addiction recovery
It’s well known that someone recovering from substance addiction should not have even a small amount of the thing they were addicted to. Not one sip of champagne at a wedding, not one drag of a cigarette, and so forth.
This can go for other bad habits too; make one exception, and suddenly you have a whole string of “exceptions”, and before you know it, it’s not the exception anymore; it’s the new rule—again.
Three things that can help guard against this are:
- Absolutely refuse to romanticize the bad habit. Do not fall for its marketing! And yes, everything has marketing even if not advertising; for example, consider the Platonic ideal of a junk-food-eating couch-potato who is humble, unassuming, agreeable, the almost-holy idea of homely comfort, and why shouldn’t we be comfortable after all, haven’t we earned our chosen hedonism, and so on. It’s seductive, and we need to make the choice to not be seduced by it. In this case for example, yes pleasure is great, but being sick tired and destroying our bodies is not, in fact, pleasurable in the long run. Which brings us to…
- Absolutely refuse to forget why you dropped that behavior in the first place. Remember what it did to you, remember you at your worst. Remember what you feared might become of you if you continued like that. This is something where journaling helps, by the way; remembering our low points helps us to avoid finding ourselves in the same situation again.
- Absolutely refuse to let your guard down due to an overabundance of self-confidence in your future self. We all can easily feel that tomorrow is a mystical land in which all productivity is stored, and also where we are strong, energized, iron-willed, and totally able to avoid making the very mistakes that we are right now in the process of making. Instead, be that strong person now, for the benefit of tomorrow’s you. Because after all, if it’s going to be easy tomorrow, it’s easy now, right?
The above is a very simple, hopefully practical, set of rules to follow. If you like hard science more though, Yale’s Dr. Steven Melemis offers five rules (aimed more directly at addiction recovery, so this may be a big “heavy guns” for some milder habits):
- change your life
- be completely honest
- ask for help
- practice self-care
- don’t bend the rules
You can read his full paper and the studies it’s based on, here:
Relapse Prevention and the Five Rules of Recovery
“What if I already screwed up?”
Draw a line under it, now, and move forwards in the direction you actually want to go.
Here’s a good article, that saves us taking up more space here; it’s very well-written so we do recommend it:
The Abstinence Violation Effect and Overcoming It
this article gives specific, practical advices, including CBT tools to use
Take care!
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The Humor Habit – by Paul Osincup
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Ask not for whom the bell tolls… It could be tolling for anyone. Don’t worry about it.It’s probably fine.
More seriously (heh), laughter is good for healthy lifespan, also called healthspan. It eases stress and anxiety, gives our brains neurochemicals they need to function well, and is very pro-social too, which in turn has knock-on positive effects for our own mental health as well as those around us.
This book is a guide to cultivating that humor, finding the funny side in difficult times, and bringing a light-hearted silliness to moments where it helps.
The title suggests it’s about habit-building (and it is!) but it’s also about knowing where to look in your daily life for humorous potential and how to find it, and how to bring that into being in the moment.
The style is that of an instruction manual with a healthy dose of pop-science; first and foremost this is a practical guide, not a several-hundred page exhortation on “find things funny!”, but rather a “hey, psst, here are many sneaky insider tricks for finding the funny“.
Bottom line: this book is not only a very enjoyable read, but also very much the gift that keeps on giving, so treat yourself!
Click here to check out The Humor Habit, and strength your funny-bones!
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Anti-Aging Risotto With Mushrooms, White Beans, & Kale
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This risotto is made with millet, which as well as being gluten-free, is high in resistant starch that’s great for both our gut and our blood sugars. Add the longevity-inducing ergothioneine in the shiitake and portobello mushrooms, as well as the well-balanced mix of macro- and micronutrients, polyphenols such as lutein (important against neurodegeneration) not to mention more beneficial phytochemicals in the seasonings, and we have a very anti-aging dish!
You will need
- 3 cups low-sodium vegetable stock
- 3 cups chopped fresh kale, stems removed (put the removed stems in the freezer with the vegetable offcuts you keep for making low-sodium vegetable stock)
- 2 cups thinly sliced baby portobello mushrooms
- 1 cup thinly sliced shiitake mushroom caps
- 1 cup millet, as yet uncooked
- 1 can white beans, drained and rinsed (or 1 cup white beans, cooked, drained, and rinsed)
- ½ cup finely chopped red onion
- ½ bulb garlic, finely chopped
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp white miso paste
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Extra virgin olive oil
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Heat a little oil in a sauté or other pan suitable for both frying and volume-cooking. Fry the onion for about 5 minutes until soft, and then add the garlic, and cook for a further 1 minute, and then turn the heat down low.
2) Add about ¼ cup of the vegetable stock, and stir in the miso paste and MSG/salt.
3) Add the millet, followed by the rest of the vegetable stock. Cover and allow to simmer for 30 minutes, until all the liquid is absorbed and the millet is tender.
4) Meanwhile, heat a little oil to a medium heat in a skillet, and cook the mushrooms (both kinds), until lightly browned and softened, which should only take a few minutes. Add the vinegar and gently toss to coat the mushrooms, before setting side.
5) Remove the millet from the heat when it is done, and gently stir in the mushrooms, nutritional yeast, white beans, and kale. Cover, and let stand for 10 minutes (this will be sufficient to steam the kale in situ).
6) Uncover and fluff the risotto with a fork, sprinkling in the black pepper as you do so.
7) Serve. For a bonus for your tastebuds and blood sugars, drizzle with aged balsamic vinegar.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- The Magic Of Mushrooms: The “Longevity Vitamin” (That’s Not A Vitamin)
- Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!
- The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
- Black Pepper’s Impressive Anti-Cancer Arsenal (And More)
- 10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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