Dark Chocolate & Your Age
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It’s well-established that chocolate has some health-giving properties, mostly because of its very impressive polyphenol profile.
See for example:
- Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain ← this is because foods that are bitter, astringent, and/or pungent, tend to be rich in polyphenols, which as well as their strong antioxidant properties, also exhibit specifically cardioprotective and neuroprotective effects
- Sharp Tastes, Sharp Brain? ← this one’s about how the taste of flavonols (a category under the general umbrella of of flavonoids, which itself is under the general umbrella of polyphenols) itself helps, even before the compound itself is absorbed
- Are You Getting The Right Kinds Of Flavonoids? ← for more about what we just mentioned
So now for some of the latest science…
Come to the dark side; we have chocolate
First of all: why not milk chocolate, doesn’t that have polyphenols too?
And well yes, it does, but in much smaller quantities because the cocoa percentage is much, much lower.
- In the US, 10% cocoa is the norm for milk chocolate
- In Europe, 25% is the threshold that if it’s not met, you can’t legally call it chocolate
- Anywhere, 80–90% is a reasonable range for dark chocolate
So, to get the same polyphenol benefits, you might need to eat 8–9x as much chocolate, and as you can imagine, that might cause different problems.
See also: 10 “Healthy” Foods That Are Often Worse Than You Think ← since milk chocolate often has not just the plummeting cocoa percentage, but also, much more saturated fat and sugar (and that latter’s one to watch out for when choosing dark chocolate, too; some are very different from others!)
Most recently, a team of researchers (Dr. Jordana Bell et al.) did a study with 509 healthy women with an average age of 60, and tested six common cocoa-related chemicals, including caffeine and theobromine, to see whether any were linked to faster or slower biological aging.
A quick note before we continue, about that “biological aging”, we’ve written before about how biological age often gets talked about as a simplified number, but it’s more complex than that, as we can age in different ways at different rates, for example:
- Visual markers of aging (e.g. wrinkles, graying hair)
- Performative markers of aging (e.g. mobility tests)
- Internal functional markers of aging (e.g. tests for cognitive decline, eyesight, hearing, etc)
- Cellular markers of aging (e.g. telomere length)
- …and more, but we only have so much room here
For more on that (including what we can do about each of them to slow or in some cases reverse biological aging), see:
Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
Now, back to the study: what Dr. Bell and her team mainly used as the key epigenetic clock was a DNA methylation model, and what they found was that theobromine stood out—women with higher levels of this chocolate-derived compound had biological-age scores that were about 1.5 years younger.
This association was incredibly statistically significant, p = 3.99e-6, which means the chance of getting these results by chance (i.e. coincidence) is so small that the scientists are putting letters into their numbers to express it. It’s the equivalent of about 1 in 250,627 odds.
You can find the paper in full here: Theobromine is Associated with Slower Epigenetic Ageing ← when you click, on the abstract is visible at first, but if you then click on PDF, you’ll get the rest.
This is a very strong extra benefit, which builds on the previous work we wrote about in Cocoa vs Biological Aging! ← which had to do with inflammatory aging biomarkers
Want to learn more?
You want like to read about…
The “Love Drug” ← this is about phenylethlyamine, a compound found in chocolate that works similarly the amphetamine (but with rather less potential for abuse/harm, for most people).
Enjoy!
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As people live longer and healthier, nurse training needs to respond to avoid ageist attitudes
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Life expectancy in New Zealand has increased dramatically over the past five decades. In 1970, men lived on average to 68. Today, it’s over 80.
These gains reflect major advances in public health and medical technology. But living longer can mean more years with multiple chronic conditions and disabilities, because age is a significant risk factor for most disease.
This demographic shift will reshape healthcare. Future health professionals will need to be aware of the increasingly complex social, technological and ethical challenges of caring for older people.
Ageism, or discrimination based on a person’s age, should be considered as one of these challenges.
Age influences how health concerns are interpreted. In a recent World Health Organization report, nearly 60% of health professionals admitted to making age-based (or ageist) assumptions about their patients’ abilities or needs.
Genuine symptoms are dismissed as part of normal ageing, leading to flawed decisions. There is evidence that older people are also under-treated, raising the risk of disease progression.
Other consequences include missed diagnoses. Inequalities occur where there is limited access to services or inclusion criteria are set to exclude people over 65.
There is the potential for this kind of thinking to creep into health professional education. It shows up in stereotypes that appear in case studies for learning, or in the way programmes are structured and in the kinds of clinical placements that are used.
Getty Images Why ageism matters in healthcare
Our national nursing programme review in the polytechnic sector looked at New Zealand student nurses’ experiences.
It shows case studies often favoured information about older people with dementia, falls or end of life care. They rarely reflected active ageing or older adults’ resilience and agency.
Health professionals may adopt ageist attitudes from the rest of society. Student nurses begin their training programmes having been subject to both societal and cultural narratives about the role and importance of older people.
Nurse education programmes often communicated underlying beliefs about the complexity of care. Placements in aged residential care were typically scheduled in the first year of nursing, implying the work was basic if new students could do it.
Almost all nursing students were allocated to an aged-care facility where the frailest 7% of older people live. This reinforces a narrative that older adults are a homogeneous population of dependent, vulnerable people.
It misses the opportunity to teach health promotion for people who are older but remain active and independent.
What students saw
Students’ reflections highlighted the realities of aged residential care and the impact of their perceptions. One participant said:
While on placement, I saw how conveyor belt life was for the residents. It broke my heart. Residents had lost their individual identities and all fun was gone. The nurses and healthcare assistant staff were all so busy and didn’t have much time to interact on personal levels with each resident.
Others noted systemic issues:
People [nurses and carers] in aged residential care do not get paid what they are worth. This severely needs to be changed. They work so hard to not get appreciated as much as they deserve. [They are] constantly understaffed making the workload insurmountable and overwhelming.
Some worried about career stigma:
Being a new graduate and working in aged care would make me unemployable in other areas of nursing.
These comments illustrate how education and system design shape the attitudes of the future nursing workforce towards ageing and aged care. They also highlight the crucial role clinical placements have in shaping future career choices.
Tackling ageism starts in education
The programme review and student comments demonstrate how ageism influences learning, from case studies portraying older people as less capable to placements that equate ageing with frailty and funding systems that appear to devalue older people.
Addressing these issues starts with obvious steps, such as more appropriate design of learning materials and using placements that reflect a spectrum of health needs in later life.
For students who have little experience of older people, fostering inter-generational connection and building empathy can be a powerful tool to reduce ageist stereotypes.
But there is one more area to which we should be alert: ageism is in fact an emerging social determinant of health in later life.
There is a high risk that ageism will compound existing health inequities as Māori, Pacific people and rainbow communities grow older
Preparing the future healthcare workforce means recognising the diverse realities of ageing in contemporary New Zealand. If we want healthcare to meet the needs of an ageing population, education must reflect this complexity.
Tackling ageism in healthcare professional education is a critical first step.
Samantha Heath, Senior Lecturer in Nursing , University of Waikato
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Sprint vs HIIT, & Why Most People’s Cardio Isn’t Working
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Cori Lefkowitz, of “Strong at Every Age”, explains:
Let’s HIIT it!
Cardio needs both ends of the effort spectrum—mixing full-on sprints with walking (or equivalent gentle movement for other exercises) improves how efficiently our body burns fuel, builds endurance, and recovers.
However, not all interval training is equal: different movements and work-to-rest ratios completely alter outcomes, affecting strength work, fat loss, and recovery differently.
For example:
- Spring Interval Training (SIT) uses short, explosive, 100%-effort intervals that improve our speed, power, recovery, and body composition while keeping our metabolism responsive.
- High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) in general, however, is usually a little less than 100%, because working around 80% intensity can support fat-loss phases, longer circuits, and general conditioning when muscle building isn’t the main priority.
- Steady State Cardio (SSC), otherwise often simply called endurance training, also has its role, but long, continuous endurance work can become catabolic if overused, and as such, can break down muscle unless balanced with strength and sprint work.
How to identify a true sprint: per Lefkowitz’s definition, if you can hold the intensity for more than 30 seconds, it’s no longer a sprint; these sessions should stay short and high-quality.
Remember also that rest is important too, as without enough rest, you train fatigue instead of explosiveness, slowing the benefits.
It matters even more as we get older, because explosive training helps preserve lean muscle, balance hormones, improve reaction times, and counter menopausal shifts that encourage belly-fat storage specifically.
As for when you do want to take it a little easier, that too has its place, since walking lowers stress hormones, improves recovery, regulates blood sugar, and supports fat-burning without adding more stress.
In short, a mix of the above is needed, since high-intensity work is a positive stressor, but still stress; without walking and recovery, you’d soon hit diminishing returns.
For more on all of this plus some admittedly superfluous visual demonstrations (but hey, it’s a video) enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
7 Kinds Of Rest When Sleep Is Not Enough
Take care!
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The Path to Longevity – by Dr. Luigi Fontana
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We’ve reviewed other “expand your healthspan” books, and while they’re good (or else we wouldn’t include them), this is top-tier, up there with Dr. Greger’s books while being more accessible (more on this later).
This book is far more informational than opinionated, and while some reviewers have described the book as motivating them, that’s not at all the tone, and it’s clear that (beyond hoping for the reader to have to information to promote a long healthy life), the author has no particular agenda to push.
One example: while he gives a whole-foods, plant-based diet a “A+” rating, he puts the (often meat/fish-heavy) paleo diet at a close “A-“, depending on the animal products chosen (which can swing it a lot, and he discusses this in some detail).
In the category of criticism… This reviewer has none. Sometimes it seemed something was going unaddressed, but it would be addressed later.
Stylistically, the text is easy-reading and/but has a lot of references to hard science, complete with charts, diagrams, and so forth. The impression that this reviewer got is that Dr. Fontana took pains to convey as much science as possible, with (unlike Dr. Greger) as little jargon as possible. And that goes a long way.
Bottom line: if you’re looking for a “healthy aging” book that has a lot more science than “copy the Blue Zone supercentenarians and hope” without being so scientifically dense as “How Not To Die” or “How Not To Age“, then this is the book for you.
Click here to check out The Path to Longevity, and optimize the path you take!
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Fall Asleep In 2 Minutes (Doctor Explains)
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Beyond “sleep hygiene”, Dr. Siobhan Deshauer has insights to share:
Rest for your body and mind
First, do still do the basics. That means dimming/filtering lights for an hour before bed, lowering the room temperature a little, ensuring you have nice fresh sheets, not having alcohol or caffeine before bed, and getting out of bed if you’re not asleep within half an hour, to avoid associating being in bed with wakefulness.
Next, the extra tips:
- Progressive relaxation: tense and relax each muscle group from toes to head
- Box breathing: inhale, hold, exhale, and hold for 4 seconds each; helps calm the nervous system (it’s called “box breathing” because of the 4:4:4:4 setup)
- Diaphragmatic breathing: focus on belly breathing, with longer exhalation to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (note that this can, and even ideally should, be done at the same time as the previous)
- Cognitive shuffling: think of words starting with each letter of a chosen word while visualizing them (this is like “counting sheep”, but does the job better—the job in question being preventing your brain from moving to anything more strenuous or stressful)
For more on all of these plus some extra side-along advice, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Non-Sleep Deep Rest: A Neurobiologist’s Take ← a way to get many of the benefits of sleep, while awake
Take care!
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Eat Like A Girl – by Dr. Mindy Pelz
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We previously reviewed Dr. Pelz’s “Fast Like A Girl”, but what about when we’re not fasting? So, this one covers what to indeed eat, with female health in mind first and foremost.
We say “first and foremost”, because most of the advice in this book is applicable to men too, and that which isn’t, is at worst irrelevant to men, and not actually problematic. Contrary to popular belief, eating foods that are “good for estrogen” will not increase men’s estrogen levels in the slightest; in fact, what’s good nutritionally for estrogen is usually good for testosterone too, as they are made of the same fundamental stuff and there’s just one molecular difference between them. Which gets made (if either) just depends on what you have going on anatomically and physiologically before you ate what you did.
But let’s face it, most health books out there that don’t specify female focus, are usually based on assuming maleness as a default condition, and women’s health is the same plus breasts and different genitals, which is simply not the case. So, it’s refreshing to have books like this one.
The advice Dr. Pelz gives here is varied and yet consistent; that is to say, she approaches health from numerous angles:
- She talks about integrating what to eat around fasting, how best to break the fast etc
- She talks about why blood sugars matter but calories don’t
- She talks about what to eat for natural hormone support (for hormone production and hormone metabolism; the latter is often forgotten, but not by Dr. Pelz!)
- She talks about how to handle things nutritionally if you have no cycle (or if you do, but it’s a HRT-mediated cycle and you’re not bleeding)
- She talks about what to do for gut health in the context of both eating and fasting
As the subtitle promises, there are indeed recipes, which take up the latter half of the book. They’re respectable and yet not too complicated; ingredients are the kind that can be found in any large supermarket, though if you live in a rural area you might struggle with some. The recipes are mostly not vegan and many are not even vegetarian, but they are still quite low on meat by default and avoid unfermented dairy, and substitutions are mostly easy and obvious if you are vegan or vegetarian.
Bottom line: if you’d like a dietary approach that’s optimized for female health around intermittent fasting, then this is it.
Click here to check out Eat Like A Girl, and eat like a girl (a healthy one, at that)!
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Carrots vs Broccoli – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing carrots to broccoli, we picked the broccoli.
Why?
These are both excellent candidates that should be in everyone’s diet, but there’s a clear winner:
In terms of macros, carrots have 50% more carbs for the same fiber (giving carrots the relatively higher glycemic index, though really, nobody is getting metabolic disease from eating carrots, which are a low-GI food already), while broccoli has more protein. By the numbers, it’s a nominal win for broccoli here, but really, both are great.
In the category of vitamins, carrots have more of vitamins A and B3, while broccoli has more of vitamins B1, B2, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, E, K, and choline. An easy win for broccoli. We’d like to emphasize, though, that this doesn’t mean carrots don’t have lots of vitamins—they do—it’s just that broccoli has even more!
When it comes to minerals, carrots are genuinely great, and/but not higher in any minerals than broccoli, while broccoli has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc. So again, a clear win for broccoli, despite carrots’ fortitude.
All in all, an overwhelming win for broccoli, though once again, enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
What Do The Different Kinds Of Fiber Do? 30 Foods That Rank Highest
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