Body by Science – by Dr. Doug McGuff & John Little
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The idea that you’ll get a re-sculpted body at 12 minutes per week is a bold claim, isn’t it? Medical Doctor Doug McGuff and bodybuilder John Little team up to lay out their case. So, how does it stand up to scrutiny?
First, is it “backed by rigorous research” as claimed? Yes… with caveats.
The book uses a large body of scientific literature as its foundation, and that weight of evidence does support this general approach:
- Endurance cardio isn’t very good at burning fat
- Muscle, even just having it without using it much, burns fat to maintain it
- To that end, muscle can be viewed as a fat-burning asset
- Muscle can be grown quickly with short bursts of intense exercise once per week
Why once per week? The most relevant muscle fibers take about that long to recover, so doing it more often will undercut gains.
So, what are the caveats?
The authors argue for slow reps of maximally heavy resistance work sufficient to cause failure in about 90 seconds. However, most of the studies cited for the benefits of “brief intense exercise” are for High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). HIIT involves “sprints” of exercise. It doesn’t have to be literally running, but for example maxing out on an exercise bike for 30 seconds, slowing for 60, maxing out for 30, etc. Or in the case of resistance work, explosive (fast!) concentric movements and slow eccentric movements, to work fast- and slow-twitch muscle fibers, respectively.
What does this mean for the usefulness of the book?
- Will it sculpt your body as described in the blurb? Yes, this will indeed grow your muscles with a minimal expenditure of time
- Will it improve your body’s fat-burning metabolism? Yes, this will indeed turn your body into a fat-burning machine
- Will it improve your “complete fitness”? No, if you want to be an all-rounder athlete, you will still need HIIT, as otherwise anything taxing your under-worked fast-twitch muscle fibers will exhaust you quickly.
Bottom line: read this book if you want to build muscle efficiently, and make your body more efficient at burning fat. Best supplemented with at least some cardio, though!
Click here to check out Body by Science, and get re-sculpting yours!
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Tartar Removal At Home & How To Prevent Tartar
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Three things to bear in mind:
- Tartar is hardened plaque.
- Plaque is an infected biofilm that expands the natural thin film on teeth.
- Healthy biofilm resists plaque and tartar formation.
Therefore, the recommended approach is a multistep program:
The Complete Mouth Care System
Dr. Phillips recommends to use these five products in this order twice daily:
- Zellie’s Mints & Gum: having 6–10 grams of xylitol daily will help to loosen plaque on teeth so that the following program is more effective. Xylitol protects from mouth acidity and help to remineralize teeth.
- CloSYS Prerinse: CloSYS will prepare your teeth for brushing. This pH neutral rinse ensures that brushing teeth does not occur in an acidic mouth and therefore easily damage teeth.
- Crest Cavity Protection Regular Paste: has an active ingredient of sodium fluoride at optimal concentration (not stannous fluoride). This paste has the proper abrasion and no glycerine.
- Listerine: is an effective rinse that targets the bacteria that cause plaque build up and gingivitis with three active ingredients: eucalyptus essential oil, menthol essential oil, and thymol essential oil. As such, unlike many mouthwashes, listerine does not harm the mouth’s diversity of good bacteria or the mouth’s production of nitric oxide.
- ACT Anticavity Rinse: ACT is a very dilute but extremely effective sodium fluoride solution. It helps prevent and reverse cavities, strengthen teeth, reduce sensitivity, and leaves your breath fresh.
She advises us that by doing this twice-daily over 6 months, we can expect significant tartar reduction, and indeed, that dental appointments may reveal minimal or no need for tartar removal.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read our own three-part series:
- Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?
- Flossing Without Flossing?
- Less Common Oral Hygiene Options ← we recommend the miswak! Not only does it clean the teeth as well as or better than traditional brushing, but also it changes the composition of saliva to improve the oral microbiome, effectively turning your saliva into a biological mouthwash that kills unwanted microbes and is comfortable for the ones that should be there.
Take care!
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No, vitamin A does not prevent measles
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As measles spreads in Texas, New Mexico, and other states, a Texas child died from measles for the first time in the United States since 2015. In a March 2 Fox News editorial, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hinted at the importance of vaccination and stated that good nutrition, including vitamin A, is a “best defense against most chronic and infectious illnesses.”
However, doctors and public health professionals say that vitamin A is not a replacement for the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Vitamin A is sometimes used to treat measles in the hospital—particularly in developing countries where people with poor nutrition tend to be vitamin A deficient. Experts also say that taking vitamin A when your body does not need it can be dangerous.
“It’s really important to distinguish prevention and treatment, and measles can be prevented, and it can be prevented one way: through vaccination,” Dr. Preeti Malani, infectious disease physician and professor at the University of Michigan, tells PGN. “The best treatment is to not get measles in the first place.”
Read on to learn the facts about vitamin A, what it’s used for, its risks, and what you should do to prevent measles.
What is vitamin A, and what does it have to do with measles?
Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin, which means that it’s stored in the body’s fatty tissue and in the liver, and it’s absorbed with the fat in a person’s diet. Vitamin A helps with our vision, reproduction, growth, and immunity.
Vitamin A deficiency can increase the risk of death from measles, among other infections. The World Health Organization recommends it as a supplement along with vaccination for children at risk of vitamin A deficiency in developing countries.
However, vitamin A deficiency is rare in the U.S. because most people get enough of it through their diet. (Malani says that’s why research about the use of vitamin A to treat measles is limited in countries like the United States.)
“Vitamin A deficiency is a major problem in developing nations, particularly those that don’t have access to staple foods that have vitamin A,” says Andrea Love, PhD, a biomedical scientist and founder of the health communication organization Immunologic, to PGN. “The problem is that that’s been kind of extrapolated to high-income countries [like the United States], where vitamin A deficiency is really not a concern.”
Under Kennedy’s direction, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently updated its guidance to recommend the use of vitamin A to treat severe measles in young children, but specifically in a hospital setting and under a doctor’s supervision.
Does vitamin A prevent measles?
No. Vitamin A does not prevent measles. The MMR vaccine is the best way to prevent a measles infection.
“Vitamin A is not an alternative to vaccination,” Malani adds. “We have a safe and highly effective vaccine that’s been available for decades—it will protect individuals [and] communities from an outbreak.”
Are there any risks to taking vitamin A?
Yes. If your body doesn’t need extra vitamin A, there are risks.
According to the National Institutes of Health, taking too much vitamin A (specifically, the type found in supplements and some medications) can cause nausea, severe headaches, blurred vision, muscle aches, and problems with coordination. In severe cases, it can also lead to coma and death. Taking too much vitamin A while pregnant can cause birth defects.
“If you’re already getting sufficient vitamin A from your diet, then when you consume more than what you need, those levels are going to build up in your body, in your fat stores, in your tissues, and you’re going to be at risk of both acute and chronic toxicity,” adds Love.
Water-soluble vitamins like vitamin C “get filtered out by your kidneys and you would pee it out, but fat-soluble vitamins [like vitamin A], don’t get processed and excreted as quickly; they start to build up in the body,” she says.
What can I do to protect myself from measles?
The MMR vaccine is the best way to protect yourself from measles. The CDC recommends children get two doses of the MMR vaccine: the first dose between 12 and 15 months and the second one between 4 and 6 years old.
Experts recommend that adults who are not sure about their vaccination or immunity status against measles get at least one dose of the MMR vaccine. Additionally, adults who are at high risk for measles (like health care workers and people who travel internationally) may need two additional doses.
According to the CDC, you can also get an MMR vaccine within 72 hours of initial exposure to measles, which can give you some protection or make your illness less severe. Additionally, there’s an antibody (a protective protein called immunoglobulin) that a doctor may recommend for high-risk people within six days of being exposed to measles.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Track Your Blood Sugars For Better Personalized Health
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There Will Be Blood
Are you counting steps? Counting calories? Monitoring your sleep? Heart rate zones? These all have their merits:
- Steps: One More Resource Against Osteoporosis!
- Calories: Is Cutting Calories The Key To Healthy Long Life?
- Sleep: A Head-To-Head Of Google and Apple’s Top Apps For Getting Your Head Down
- Heart Rate Zones: Heart Rate Zones, Oxalates, & More
About calories: this writer (it’s me, hi) opines that intermittent fasting has the same benefits as caloric restriction, without the hassle of counting, and is therefore superior. I also personally find fasting psychologically more pleasant. However, our goal here is to be informative, not prescriptive, and some people may have reasons to prefer CR to IF!
Examples that come to mind include ease of adherence in the case of diabetes management, especially Type 1, or if one’s schedule (and/or one’s “medications that need to be taken with food” schedule) does not suit IF.
And now for the blood…
A rising trend in health enthusiasts presently is the use of Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs), which do exactly what is sounds like they do: they continually monitor glucose. Specifically, the amount of it in your blood.
Of course, these have been in use in diabetes management for years; the technology is not new, but the application of the technology is.
A good example of what benefits a non-diabetic person can gain from the use of a CGM is Jessie Inchauspé, the food scientist of “Glucose Revolution” and “The Glucose Goddess Method” fame.
By wearing a CGM, she was able to notice what things did and didn’t spike her blood sugars, and found that a lot of the things were not stuff that people knew/advised about!
For example, much of diabetes management (including avoiding diabetes in the first place) is based around paying attention to carbs and little else, but she found that it made a huge difference what she ate (or didn’t) with the carbs. By taking many notes over the course of her daily life, she was eventually able to isolate these patterns, showed her working-out in The Glucose Revolution (there’s a lot of science in that book), and distilled that information into bite-size (heh) advice such as:
10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars
That’s great, but since people like Inchauspé have done the work, I don’t have to, right?
You indeed don’t have to! But you can still benefit from it. For example, fastidious as her work was, it’s a sample size of one. If you’re not a slim white 32-year-old French woman, there may be some factors that are different for you.
All this to say: glucose responses, much like nutrition in general, are not a one-size-fits-all affair.
With a CGM, you can start building up your own picture of what your responses to various foods are like, rather than merely what they “should” be like.
This, by the way, is also one of the main aims of personalized health company ZOE, which crowdsourced a lot of scientific data about personalized metabolic responses to standardized meals:
Not knowing these things can be dangerous
We don’t like to scaremonger here, but we do like to point out potential dangers, and in this case, blindly following standardized diet advice, if your physiology is not standard, can have harmful effects, see for example:
Diabetic-level glucose spikes seen in non-diabetic people
Where can I get a CGM?
We don’t sell them, and neither does Amazon, but you can check out some options here:
The 4 Best CGM Devices For Measuring Blood Sugar in 2024
…and if your doctor is not obliging with a prescription, note that the device that came out top in the above comparisons, will be available OTC soon:
The First OTC Continuous Glucose Monitor Will Be Available Summer 2024
Take care!
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How To Recognize Perfectly Hidden Depression
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford shares her insights from 30 years of professional experience:
There’s only one way to know
In this video, Dr. Rutherford discusses several (presumably pseudonymized) cases of people who came to her therapy office seeming to have their lives very much together when they very much didn’t, including the woman who came in with symptoms of mild anxiety, and then tried to kill herself, and the man who was outwardly an overachiever while consumed with feelings of guilt and shame.
She discusses how even the most skilled mental health professionals will tend to miss hidden depression, as they focus on visible symptoms from the DSM criteria, which may not reflect the patient’s reality, especially for those hiding their struggles.
So, the crux becomes: why do people hide their struggles? One does not go to the emergency room with a broken limb and then say to the doctor “I’m fine thank you; how are you?” so why do people do that when it comes to mental health issues?
The reality is that the shame of revealing feelings like shame itself, fear, and self-loathing keeps people silent, and in particular, research (Schneiderman et al.) shows that emotional pain plays a central role in suicide, and (per Blatt et al.) perfectionism can drastically alter the presentation of depression, making it even harder to diagnose through standard criteria than it already was.
As for what can be done about it? Dr. Rutherford advocates for a cultural shift where talking about emotional pain, including suicidal thoughts, is seen as normal and not shameful. That people need to feel safe expressing these feelings, to prevent tragic outcomes. Instead of judging or dismissing someone with suicidal thoughts, she encourages a compassionate and accepting approach to open up dialogue and understanding.
In short, that everyone can contribute to a culture that views transparency and vulnerability as strengths, helping reduce the stigma around mental health struggles.
And that’s the only way we’ll ever be able to recognize perfectly hidden depression—if people no longer feel that they have to hide it.
For more on all of this, here’s Dr. Rutherford herself:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- The Mental Health First Aid (That You’ll Hopefully Never Need) ← This is about managing depression, in yourself or others
- How To Stay Alive (When You Really Don’t Want To) ← This is about managing suicidality, in yourself or others
Take care!
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COVID, flu, RSV: how these common viruses are tracking this winter – and how to protect yourself
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Winter is here, and with it come higher rates of respiratory illnesses. If you’ve been struck down recently with a sore throat, runny nose and a cough, or perhaps even a fever, you’re not alone.
Last week, non-urgent surgeries were paused in several Queensland hospitals due to a surge of influenza and COVID cases filling up hospital beds.
Meanwhile, more than 200 aged care facilities around Australia are reportedly facing COVID outbreaks.
So, just how bad are respiratory infections this year, and which viruses are causing the biggest problems?
nimis69/Getty Images COVID
Until May, COVID case numbers were about half last year’s level, but June’s 32,348 notifications are closing the gap (compared with 45,634 in June 2024). That said, we know far fewer people test now than they did earlier in the pandemic, so these numbers are likely to be an underestimate.
According to the latest Australian Respiratory Surveillance Report, Australia now appears to be emerging from a winter wave of COVID cases driven largely by the NB.1.8.1 subvariant, known as “Nimbus”.
Besides classic cold-like symptoms, this Omicron offshoot can reportedly cause particularly painful sore throats as well as gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea and diarrhoea.
While some people who catch COVID have no symptoms or just mild ones, for many people the virus can be serious. Older adults and those with chronic health issues remain at greatest risk of experiencing severe illness and dying from COVID.
Some 138 aged care residents have died from COVID since the beginning of June.
The COVID booster currently available is based on the JN.1 subvariant. Nimbus is a direct descendant of JN.1 – as is another subvariant in circulation, XFG or “Stratus” – which means the vaccine should remain effective against current variants.
Free boosters are available to most people annually, while those aged 75 and older are advised to get one every six months.
Vaccination, as well as early treatment with antivirals, lowers the risk of severe illness and long COVID. People aged 70 and older, as well as younger people with certain risk factors, are eligible for antivirals if they test positive.
Influenza
The 2025 flu season has been unusually severe. From January to May, total case numbers were 30% higher than last year, increasing pressure on health systems.
More recent case numbers seem to be trending lower than 2024, however we don’t appear to have reached the peak yet.
Flu symptoms are generally more severe than the common cold and may include high fever, chills, muscle aches, fatigue, sore throat and a runny or blocked nose.
Most people recover in under a week, but the flu can be more severe (and even fatal) in groups including older people, young children and pregnant women.
An annual vaccination is available for free to children aged 6 months to 4 years, pregnant women, those aged 65+, and other higher-risk groups.
Queensland and Western Australia provide a free flu vaccine for all people aged 6 months and older, but in other states and territories, people not eligible for a free vaccine can pay (usually A$30 or less) to receive one.
RSV
The third significant respiratory virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), only became a notifiable disease in 2021 (before this doctors didn’t need to record infections, meaning data is sparse).
Last year saw Australia’s highest case numbers since RSV reporting began. By May, cases in 2025 were lower than 2024, but by June, they had caught up: 27,243 cases this June versus 26,596 in June 2024. However it looks as though we may have just passed the peak.
RSV’s symptoms are usually mild and cold-like, but it can cause serious illness such as bronchiolitis and pneumonia. Infants, older people, and people with chronic health conditions are among those at highest risk. In young children, RSV is a leading cause of hospitalisation.
A free vaccine is now available for pregnant women, protecting infants for up to six months. A monoclonal antibody (different to a vaccine but also given as an injection) is also available for at-risk children up to age two, especially if their mothers didn’t receive the RSV vaccine during pregnancy.
For older adults, two RSV vaccines (Arexvy and Abrysvo) are available, with a single dose recommended for everyone aged 75+, those over 60 at higher risk due to medical conditions, and all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 60+.
Unfortunately, these are not currently subsidised and cost about $300. Protection lasts at least three years.
The common cold
While viruses including COVID, RSV and influenza dominate headlines, we often overlook one of the most widespread – the common cold.
The common cold can be caused by more than 200 different viruses – mainly rhinoviruses but also some coronaviruses, adenoviruses and enteroviruses.
Typical symptoms include a runny or blocked nose, sore throat, coughing, sneezing, headache, tiredness and sometimes a mild fever.
Children get about 6–8 colds per year while adults average 2–4, and symptoms usually resolve in a week. Most recover with rest, fluids, and possibly over-the-counter medications.
Because so many different viruses cause the common cold, and because these constantly mutate, developing a vaccine has been extremely challenging. Researchers continue to explore solutions, but a universal cold vaccine remains elusive.
How do I protect myself and others?
The precautions we learned during the COVID pandemic remain valid. These are all airborne viruses which can be spread by coughing, sneezing and touching contaminated surfaces.
Practise good hygiene, teach children proper cough etiquette, wear a high-quality mask if you’re at high risk, and stay home to rest if unwell.
You can now buy rapid antigen tests (called panel tests) that test for influenza (A or B), COVID and RSV. So, if you’re unwell with a respiratory infection, consider testing yourself at home.
While many winter lurgies can be trivial, this is not always the case. We can all do our bit to reduce the impact.
Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics and 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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How To Stop Ingrown Hair & Razor Bumps From Waxing & Shaving
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Dr. Simi Adedeji shares her expertise:
Staying smooth
Ingrown hairs (pseudofolliculitis) are inflamed hair follicles caused by hairs growing back into the skin—common in coarse, curly hair areas such as the underarms, pubic region, legs, and face.
It can be caused by shaving, waxing, plucking, tweezing, and more—in fact, almost anything aside from “trim it or leave it be”. This is because most methods cause irritation by cutting or pulling hair in ways that make it more likely to re-enter the skin.
Normally, it’s just a case of rash or itchy red bumps appearing a few days after hair removal. However, it can also get more pronounced, in cases of bacterial infection (true folliculitis), hyperpigmentation, or scarring (keloid or hypertrophic).
There are two main kinds of ingrown hair to be aware of:
- extra-follicular penetration: occurs after shaving—sharply cut hairs re-enter the skin beside the follicle, causing inflammation.
- trans-follicular penetration: occurs after plucking, waxing, or tweezing—trapped hair grows through the follicle wall into the skin, creating lumps.
Treatment options include:
- Hydrocortisone: reduces inflammation and redness.
- Benzoyl peroxide: antibacterial effect for inflamed areas.
- Chemical exfoliants: help stop hair from getting trapped
How to stop it from happening in the future:
- First, reset things and let it all calm down—stop shaving, waxing, or plucking for about a month—when hairs grow 10 mm or more, irritation usually resolves.
- Next, consider alternatives, such as depilatory creams, which dissolve hair, leaving a blunt or feathered tip that can still ingrow, but is less likely to than the other methods we talked about above. However, this comes with the tradeoff that the cream itself may irritate the skin.
- Then, consider long-term hair removal methods, such as laser or IPL, if you have dark hair on light skin—this is because laser/IPL superheats melanin in the hair to destroy the follicle, which means it won’t work on light hair (no melanin to superheat), and can harm dark skin (superheats the wrong melanin)—or electrolysis otherwise, which doesn’t depend on pigment. Removing the hair permanently means stopping ingrown hairs permanently, because a hair can’t ingrow if it’s not growing back at all.
If you are going to shave or wax, though, then:
- Shaving tips: shave after a warm bath or shower (or pre-soak the area with a warm towel); use shaving cream or a gentle cleanser for slip; avoid stretching your skin; use a bland, fragrance-free moisturizer afterwards; wait 3–4 days before applying glycolic acid.
- Waxing tips: wax before showering and avoid moisturizers beforehand; taking acetaminophen and antihistamines 30–45 minutes before can reduce pain and inflammation, respectively. Ibuprofen will also reduce both things (pain and inflammation).
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Skin Care Down There (Incl. Butt Acne, Hyperpigmentation, & More)
Take care!
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