Deskbound – by Kelly Starrett and Glen Cordoza
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We’ve all heard that “sitting is the new smoking”, and whether or not that’s an exaggeration (the jury’s out), one thing that is clear is that sitting is very bad.
Popular advice is “here’s how to sit with good posture and stretch your neck sometimes”… but that advice tends to come from companies that pay people to sit for a long time. They might not be the a very unbiased source.
Starrett and Cordoza offer better. After one opening chapter covering the multifarious ways sitting ruins our health, the rest of the book is all advice, covering:
- The principles of how the body is supposed to be
- The most important movements that we should be doing
- A dynamic workstation setup
- This is great, because “get a standing desk” tends to present more questions than answers, and can cause as much harm as good if done wrong
- The authors also cover how to progressively cut down on sitting, rather than try to go cold-turkey.
- They also recognize that not everyone can stand at all, and…
- Optimizing the sitting position, for when we must sit
- Exercises to maintain our general mobility and compensate about as well as we can for the body-unfriendly nature of modern life.
The book is mostly explanations, so at 682 pages, you can imagine it’s not just “get up, lazybones!”. Rather, things are explained in such detail (and with many high-quality medical diagrams) so that we can truly understand them.
Most of us have gone through life knowing we should have “better posture” and “move more”… but without the details, that can be hard to execute correctly, and worse, we can even sabotage our bodies unknowingly with incorrect form.
This book straightens all that out very comprehensively, and we highly recommend it.
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Nudge – by Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein
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How often in life do we make a suboptimal decision that ends up plaguing us for a long time afterwards? Sometimes, a single good or bad decision can even directly change the rest of our life.
So, it really is important that we try to optimize the decisions we do make.
Professors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein look at all kinds of decision-making in this book. Their goal, as per the subtitle, is “improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness”.
For the most part, the book concentrates on “nudges”. Small factors that influence our decisions one way or another.
Most importantly: that some of them are very good reasons to be nudged; others, very bad ones. And they often look similar.
Where this book excels is in highlighting the many ways we make decisions without even thinking about it… or we think about it, but only down a prescribed, foreseen track, to an externally expected conclusion (for example, an insurance company offering three packages, but two of them exist only to direct you to the “correct” choice).
A weakness of the book is that in some aspects it’s a little inconsistent. The authors describe their economic philosophy as “libertarian paternalism”, and as libertarians they’re against mandates, except when as paternalists they’re for them. But, if we take away their labels, this boils down to “some mandates can be good and some can be bad”, which would not be so inconsistent after all.
Bottom line: if you’d like to better understand your own decision-making processes through the eyes of policy-setting economists (especially Sunstein, who worked for the White House Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs) whose job it is to make sure you make the “right” decisions, then this is a very enlightening book.
Click here to check out Nudge and improve your decision-making clarity!
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Why 7 Hours Sleep Is Not Enough
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How Sleep-Deprived Are You, Really?
This is Dr. Matthew Walker. He’s a neuroscientist and sleep specialist, and is the Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at UC Berkeley’s Department of Psychology. He’s also the author of the international bestseller “Why We Sleep”.
What does he want us to know?
Sleep deprivation is more serious than many people think it is. After about 16 hours without sleep, the brain begins to fail, and needs more than 7 hours of sleep to “reset” cognitive performance.
Note: note “seven or more”, but “more than seven”.
After ten days with only 7 hours sleep (per day), Dr. Walker points out, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for 24 hours.
Here’s the study that sparked a lot of Dr. Walker’s work:
Importantly, in Dr. Walker’s own words:
❝Three full nights of recovery sleep (i.e., more nights than a weekend) are insufficient to restore performance back to normal levels after a week of short sleeping❞
~ Dr. Matthew Walker
See also: Why You Probably Need More Sleep
Furthermore: the sleep-deprived mind is unaware of how sleep-deprived it is.
You know how a drunk person thinks they can drive safely? It’s like that.
You do not know how sleep-deprived you are, when you are sleep-deprived!
For example:
❝(60.7%) did not signal sleepiness before a sleep fragment occurred in at least one of the four MWT trials❞
Source: Sleepiness is not always perceived before falling asleep in healthy, sleep-deprived subjects
Sleep efficiency matters
With regard to the 7–9 hours band for optimal health, Dr. Walker points out that the sleep we’re getting is not always the sleep we think we’re getting:
❝Assuming you have a healthy sleep efficiency (85%), to sleep 9 hours in terms of duration (i.e. to be a long-sleeper), you would need to be consistently in bed for 10 hours and 36 minutes a night. ❞
~ Dr. Matthew Walker
At the bottom end of that, by the way, doing the same math: to get only the insufficient 7 hours sleep discussed earlier, a with a healthy 85% sleep efficiency, you’d need to be in bed for 8 hours and 14 minutes per night.
The unfortunate implication of this: if you are consistently in bed for 8 hours and 14 minutes (or under) per night, you are not getting enough sleep.
“But what if my sleep efficiency is higher than 85%?”
It shouldn’t be.If your sleep efficiency is higher than 85%, you are sleep-deprived and your body is having to enforce things.
Want to know what your sleep efficiency is?
We recommend knowing this, by the way, so you might want to check out:
Head-To-Head Comparison of Google and Apple’s Top Sleep-Monitoring Apps
(they will monitor your sleep and tell you your sleep efficiency, amongst other things)
Want to know more?
You might like his book:
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
…and/or his podcast:
…and for those who like videos, here’s his (very informative) TED talk:
Prefer text? Click here to read the transcript
Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later
Enjoy!
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Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer – by Dr. Patrick Walsh & Janet Farrar Worthington
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Prostate cancer is not glamorous or fun, and neither is this book.
Nevertheless, it’s a disease that affects 12% of men in general, and 60% of men aged 60+, with that percentage climbing every year after that.
So, if you have a prostate or love someone who has one, this book is worthwhile reading—yes, even as a preventative.
Like many cancers, prostate cancer is easy to treat if caught very early, becomes harder to treat as it goes, and almost impossible to cure if it gets as far as metastasis (i.e., it spread). Like all cancers, it’s better off avoided entirely if possible.
This book covers all the stages:
- How to avoid it
- How to check for it
- How to “nip it in the bud”
- Why some might want to delay treatment (!)
- What options are available afterwards
This latter is quite extensive, and covers not just surgery, but radiation, thermo- or cryoablation, and hormone therapy.
And as for surgery, not just “remove the tumor”, but other options like radical prostatectomy, and even orchiectomy. Not many men will choose to have their testicles removed to stop them from feeding the prostate, but the point is that this book is comprehensive.
It’s asking whenever possible “is there another option?” and exploring all options, with information and without judgment, at each stage.
The writing style (likely co-author Worthington’s influence; she is an award-winning science-writer) is very “for the layman”, and that’s really helpful in demystifying a lot of what can be quite opaque in the field of oncology.
Bottom line: absolutely not an enjoyable read, but a potentially lifesaving one, especially given the odds we mentioned up top.
Click here to check out Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide To Surviving Prostate Cancer, and be prepared!
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Celery vs Rhubarb – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing celery to rhubarb, we picked the rhubarb.
Why?
In terms of macros, rhubarb has more carbs and fiber, the ratio of which give it the lower glycemic index, though both are low glycemic index foods. This means this category is a very marginal win for rhubarb.
When it comes to vitamins, rhubarb has more vitamin C, while celery has more of vitamins A, B5, B6, and B9. A win for celery, this time.
In the category of minerals, rhubarb has more calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, and selenium, while celery has more copper and phosphorus. This one’s a win for rhubarb.
Let’s give a quick nod also to polyphenols; rhubarb has more by overall quantity, and more in terms of “more useful to humans” too, being rich in an assortment of flavanols while celery must make do with some furanocoumarins.
In short, enjoy either or both, but nutritional density is a great reason to get some rhubarb in!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Take care!
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Why are tall people more likely to get cancer? What we know, don’t know and suspect
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People who are taller are at greater risk of developing cancer. The World Cancer Research Fund reports there is strong evidence taller people have a higher chance of of developing cancer of the:
- pancreas
- large bowel
- uterus (endometrium)
- ovary
- prostate
- kidney
- skin (melanoma) and
- breast (pre- and post-menopausal).
But why? Here’s what we know, don’t know and suspect.
Pexels/Andrea Piacquadio Height does increase your cancer risk – but only by a very small amount. Christian Vinces/Shutterstock A well established pattern
The UK Million Women Study found that for 15 of the 17 cancers they investigated, the taller you are the more likely you are to have them.
It found that overall, each ten-centimetre increase in height increased the risk of developing a cancer by about 16%. A similar increase has been found in men.
Let’s put that in perspective. If about 45 in every 10,000 women of average height (about 165 centimetres) develop cancer each year, then about 52 in each 10,000 women who are 175 centimetres tall would get cancer. That’s only an extra seven cancers.
So, it’s actually a pretty small increase in risk.
Another study found 22 of 23 cancers occurred more commonly in taller than in shorter people.
Why?
The relationship between height and cancer risk occurs across ethnicities and income levels, as well as in studies that have looked at genes that predict height.
These results suggest there is a biological reason for the link between cancer and height.
While it is not completely clear why, there are a couple of strong theories.
The first is linked to the fact a taller person will have more cells. For example, a tall person probably has a longer large bowel with more cells and thus more entries in the large bowel cancer lottery than a shorter person.
Scientists think cancer develops through an accumulation of damage to genes that can occur in a cell when it divides to create new cells.
The more times a cell divides, the more likely it is that genetic damage will occur and be passed onto the new cells.
The more damage that accumulates, the more likely it is that a cancer will develop.
A person with more cells in their body will have more cell divisions and thus potentially more chance that a cancer will develop in one of them.
Some research supports the idea having more cells is the reason tall people develop cancer more and may explain to some extent why men are more likely to get cancer than women (because they are, on average, taller than women).
However, it’s not clear height is related to the size of all organs (for example, do taller women have bigger breasts or bigger ovaries?).
One study tried to assess this. It found that while organ mass explained the height-cancer relationship in eight of 15 cancers assessed, there were seven others where organ mass did not explain the relationship with height.
It is worth noting this study was quite limited by the amount of data they had on organ mass.
Is it because tall people have more cells? Halfpoint/Shutterstock Another theory is that there is a common factor that makes people taller as well as increasing their cancer risk.
One possibility is a hormone called insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). This hormone helps children grow and then continues to have an important role in driving cell growth and cell division in adults.
This is an important function. Our bodies need to produce new cells when old ones are damaged or get old. Think of all the skin cells that come off when you use a good body scrub. Those cells need to be replaced so our skin doesn’t wear out.
However, we can get too much of a good thing. Some studies have found people who have higher IGF-1 levels than average have a higher risk of developing breast or prostate cancer.
But again, this has not been a consistent finding for all cancer types.
It is likely that both explanations (more cells and more IGF-1) play a role.
But more research is needed to really understand why taller people get cancer and whether this information could be used to prevent or even treat cancers.
I’m tall. What should I do?
If you are more LeBron James than Lionel Messi when it comes to height, what can you do?
Firstly, remember height only increases cancer risk by a very small amount.
Secondly, there are many things all of us can do to reduce our cancer risk, and those things have a much, much greater effect on cancer risk than height.
We can take a look at our lifestyle. Try to:
- eat a healthy diet
- exercise regularly
- maintain a healthy weight
- be careful in the sun
- limit alcohol consumption.
And, most importantly, don’t smoke!
If we all did these things we could vastly reduce the amount of cancer.
You can also take part in cancer screening programs that help pick up cancers of the breast, cervix and bowel early so they can be treated successfully.
Finally, take heart! Research also tells us that being taller might just reduce your chance of having a heart attack or stroke.
Susan Jordan, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, The University of Queensland and Karen Tuesley, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Is It Dementia?
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Spot The Signs (Because None Of Us Are Immune)
Dementia affects increasingly many people, and unlike a lot of diseases, it disproportionately affects people in wealthy industrialized nations.
There are two main reasons for this:
- Longevity (in poorer countries, more people die of other things sooner; can’t get age-related cognitive decline if you don’t age)
- Lifestyle (in the age of convenience, it has never been easier to live an unhealthy lifestyle)
The former is obviously no bad thing for those of us lucky enough to be in wealthier countries (though even in such places, good healthcare access is of course sadly not a given for all).
The latter, however, is less systemic and more epidemic. But it does cut both ways:
- An unhealthy lifestyle is much easier here, yes
- A healthier lifestyle is much easier here, too!
This then comes down to two factors in turn:
- Information: knowing about dementia, what things lead to it, what to look out for, what to do
- Motivation: priorities, and how much attention we choose to give this matter
So, let’s get some information, and then give it our attention!
More than just memory
It’s easy to focus on memory loss, but the four key disabilities directly caused by dementia (each person may not get all four), can be remembered by the mnemonic: “AAAA!”
No, somebody didn’t just murder your writer. It’s:
- Amnesia: memory loss, in one or more of its many forms
- e.g. short term memory loss, and/or inability to make new memories
- Aphasia: loss of ability to express oneself, and/or understand what is expressed
- e.g. “More people have been to Berlin than I have”
- Or even less communication-friendly, Broca’s (Expressive) Aphasia and Wernicke’s (Receptive) Aphasia
- Apraxia: loss of ability to do things, through no obvious physical disability
- e.g. staring at the bathroom mirror wondering how to brush one’s teeth
- Agnosia: loss of ability to recognize things
- e.g. prosopagnosia, also called face-blindness.
If any of those seem worryingly familiar, be aware that while yes, it could be a red flag, what’s most important is patterns of these things.
Another difference between having a momentary brainlapse and having dementia might be, for example, the difference between forgetting your keys, and forgetting what keys do or how to use one.
That said, some are neurological deficits that may show up quite unrelated to dementia, including most of those given as examples above. So if you have just one, then that’s probably worthy of note, but probably not dementia.
Writer’s anecdote: I have had prosopagnosia all my life. To give an example of what that is like and how it’s rather more than just “bad with faces”…
Recently I saw my neighbor, and I could tell something was wrong with her face, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Then some moments later, I realized I had mistaken her hat for her face. It was a large beanie with a panda design on it, and that was facelike enough for me to find myself looking at the wrong face.
Subjective memory matters as much as objective
Objective memory tests are great indicators of potential cognitive decline (or improvement!), but even a subjective idea of having memory problems, that one’s memory is “not as good as it used to be”, can be an important indicator too:
Subjective memory may be marker for cognitive decline
And more recently:
If your memory feels like it’s not what it once was, it could point to a future dementia risk
If you’d like an objective test of memory and other cognitive impairments, here’s the industry’s gold standard test (it’s free):
SAGE: A Test to Detect Signs of Alzheimer’s and Dementia
(The Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam (SAGE) is designed to detect early signs of cognitive, memory or thinking impairments)
There are things that can look like dementia that aren’t
A person with dementia may be unable to recognize their partner, but hey, this writer knows that feeling very well too. So what sets things apart?
More than we have room for today, but here’s a good overview:
What are the early signs of dementia, and how does it differ from normal aging?
Want to read more?
You might like our previous article more specifically about reducing Alzheimer’s risk:
Reducing Alzheimer’s Risk Early!
Take care!
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