Fast. Feast. Repeat – by Dr. Gin Stephens
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We’ve reviewed intermittent fasting books before, so what makes this one different?
The title “Fast. Feast. Repeat.” doesn’t give much away; after all, we already know that that’s what intermittent fasting is.
After taking the reader though the basics of how intermittent fasting works and what it does for the body, much of the rest of the book is given over to improvements.
That’s what the real strength of this book is: ways to make intermittent fasting more efficient, including how to avoid plateaus. After all, sometimes it can seem like the only way to push further with intermittent fasting is to restrict the eating window further. Not so!
Instead, Dr. Stephens gives us ways to keep confusing our metabolism (in a good way) if, for example, we had a weight loss goal we haven’t met yet.
Best of all, this comes without actually having to eat less.
Bottom line: if you want to be in good physical health, and/but also believe that life is for living and you enjoy eating food, then this book can resolve that age-old dilemma!
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Can apps and digital resources support your child with autism or ADHD?
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Neurodevelopmental conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism affect about one in ten children. These conditions impact development, behaviour and wellbeing.
But children with these conditions and their caregivers often can’t get the support they need. Families report difficulties accessing health-care providers and experience long wait lists to receive care.
Digital tools, such as apps and websites, are often viewed as a solution to these gaps. With a single click or a download, families might be able to access information to support their child.
There are lots of digital tools available, but it’s hard to know what is and isn’t useful. Our new study evaluated freely available digital resources for child neurodevelopment and mental health to understand their quality and evidence base.
We found many resources were functional and engaging. However, resources often lacked evidence for the information provided and the claimed positive impact on children and families.
This is a common problem in the digital resource field, where the high expectations and claims of impact from digital tools to change health care have not yet been realised.
Fabio Principe/Shutterstock What type of resources?
Our study identified 3,435 separate resources, of which 112 (43 apps and 69 websites) met our criteria for review. These resources all claimed to provide information or supports for child neurodevelopment, mental health or wellbeing.
Resources had to be freely available, in English and have actionable information for children and families.
The most common focus was on autism, representing 17% of all resources. Resources suggested they provided strategies to promote speech, language and social development, and to support challenging behaviours.
Other common areas included language and communication (14%), and ADHD (10%).
Resources had various purposes, including journalling and providing advice, scheduling support, and delivering activities and strategies for parents. Resources delivered information interactively, with some apps organising content into structured modules.
Resources also provided options for alternative and assistive communication for people with language or communication challenges.
Most apps were functional and accessible
Our first question was about how engaging and accessible the information was. Resources that are hard to use aren’t used frequently, regardless of the information quality.
We evaluated aesthetics, including whether digital tools were easy to use and navigate, stylistically consistent, with clean and appealing graphics for users.
Most resources were rated as highly engaging, with strong accessibility and functionality.
Most apps and websites we evaluated were engaging. jamesteohart/Shutterstock But many lacked quality information
We ranked resources on various features from 1 (inadequate) to 5 (excellent), with a ranking of 3 considered acceptable. These ratings looked at how credible the resource was and whether there was evidence supporting it.
Despite their functionality, 37% of reviewed apps did not meet the minimum acceptable standards for information quality. This means many apps could not be recommended. Most websites fared better than apps.
There also wasn’t a lot of scientific evidence to suggest using either apps or digital resources actually helped families. Studies show long-term engagement with digital tools is rare, and downloads don’t correspond to frequent usage or benefits.
Digital tools are often viewed as a panacea to health-care gaps, but the evidence is yet to show they fill such gaps. Digital health is a fast-moving field and resources are often made available before they have been properly evaluated.
What should you look for in digital resources?
We found the highest quality resources were developed in collaboration with institutions, such as health, university or government groups.
One highly rated resource was the Raising Children’s Network and the associated app, Raising Healthy Minds. These are co-developed with a university and hospital, and by people with appropriate qualifications.
This resource provides information to support children’s overall health, development and wellbeing, with dedicated sections addressing neurodevelopmental needs and concerns.
The Raising Children Network provides resources for child health, including neurodevelopmental needs. Raising Children Network screenshot Our research shows parents can assess whether digital resources are high quality by checking they are:
- factually correct. Look for where the app or resource is getting its information. Does the author have the qualifications and training to provide the information? Are they a registered health expert who is accountable to a regulatory body (such as AHPRA, the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency) for providing information that does not cause harm?
- consistent across multiple credible sources, such as health institutions.
- linked to supporting information. Look for reliable links to reputable institutions. Links to peer-reviewed scientific journals are often helpful as those articles will also usually describe the limitations of the research presented.
- up-to-date. Apps should be frequently updated. For websites, dates of update are usually found on the homepage or at the bottom of individual pages.
Check when information was last updated. fizkes/Shutterstock Beware of red flags
Some things to watch out for are:
- testimonials and anecdotes without evidence and scientific links to back the anecdotes up. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
- no information provided about conflicts of interest. Organisations gain when you click on their links or take their advice (financial, reputation and brand development). Think about what they gain when you use their information to help keep a balanced perspective.
Remember, the app’s star rating doesn’t mean it will contain factual information from a reliable source or be helpful for you and your child.
The role of digital tools
Digital tools won’t usually replace a health professional, but they can support care in many different ways. They may be used to help to educate and prepare for meetings, and to collaborate with health providers.
They may also be used to collect information about daily needs. Studies show reporting on sleep in children can be notoriously difficult, for example. But tracking sleep behaviour with actigraphy, where movement and activity patterns are measured using a wearable device, can provide information to support clinical care. With the promise of artificial intelligence, there will also be new opportunities to support daily living.
Our findings reflect a broader problem for digital health, however. Much investment is often made in developing products to drive use, with spurious claims of health benefits.
What’s needed is a system that prioritises the funding, implementation and evaluation of tools to demonstrate benefits for families. Only then may we realise the potential of digital tools to benefit those who use them.
Kelsie Boulton, Senior Research Fellow in Child Neurodevelopment, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney and Adam Guastella, Professor and Clinical Psychologist, Michael Crouch Chair in Child and Youth Mental Health, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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How Intermittent Fasting Reduces Heart Attack Risk (Directly, Not Via Weight Control!)
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We’ve written before about the benefits of intermittent fasting, such as:
- Intermittent Fasting: What’s The Truth?
- 16/8 Intermittent Fasting For Beginners
- Before You Eat Breakfast: 3 Surprising Facts About Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is mostly enjoyed for its metabolic benefits, such as How To Prevent And Reverse Type 2 Diabetes.
We also covered a very related topic, with intermittent fasting once again being on the suggestions list:
Improve Your Insulin Sensitivity! ← this is actually more important even that blood sugar control itself, important as that latter is!
So, how does it work to reduce heart attack risk?
While intermittent fasting can be used as a weight loss tool (it also doesn’t have to be—it depends on what you eat and what you’re doing in terms of exercise, amongst other factors), this isn’t about that.
Although it is also worth mentioning that intermittent fasting does reduce the risks associated with diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and more, as well as generally improving cardiovascular health by reducing blood pressure, cholesterol, and insulin resistance, amongst other metrics.
However, this is about platelet aggregation. Or in whole: platelet activation, aggregation, and thrombosis.
A team of scientists, Dr. Shimo Dai et al., investigated the effects of alternate-day intermittent fasting on platelets and thrombosis, in two quite different, but both important, demographics:
- Humans with coronary artery disease
- Mice with the ApoE gene (the Alzheimer’s risk gene)
Why the mice? Because they wanted to check the level of cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury (the damage that occurs after a stroke), and no ethics board will let scientists slice up human participants brains at will.
In both cases, the intermittent fasting group enjoyed protective effects that the control group (ad libitum eating) did not.
Specifically, reduced platelet activation, as well as reduced platelet aggregation. Just to be clear:
- Platelet activation = platelets getting deployed
- Platelet aggregation = platelets sticking together
Both are required for thrombosis, which occurs when the platelets, having been activated and aggregated (which is their job, for example to stop bleeding in the case of an injury), block one or more blood vessels.
A healthy level of platelet activation and aggregation rests in the sweet spot wherefrom it can stop bleeding, without stopping blood circulation.
This was found to be associated with increased levels of indole-3-propionic acid (IPA), which is created by certain gut bacteria (C. sporogenes), who proliferate enthusiastically during intermittent fasting.
In few words:
- intermittent fasting triggers the C. sporogenes to proliferate,
- which increases IPA levels,
- which reduces platelet activation and aggregation,
- which reduces the risk of thrombosis,
- and thus reduces the risk of heart attack.
We may hypothesize that this may be a reason to not do intermittent fasting if you have a bleeding disorder, and consult your doctor if you’re on blood thinners.
For everyone else, this is one more thing that makes intermittent fasting a very healthful practice!
You can find the paper itself here:
And here’s a pop-science article that gets more technical than we have, if you’d like a middle-ground in terms of complexity:
Intermittent fasting cuts heart attack risk by preventing dangerous blood clots
Want to try intermittent fasting, but it sounds hard?
Check out this:
Enjoy!
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The Red Meat Dilemma
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When it comes to red meat…
- Good news: it’s very nutrient-dense insofar as it has high-quality protein, and many vitamins and minerals, especially B12 and iron.
- Bad news: it’s a group 2 carcinogen (group 1 carcinogen if processed), and dramatically increases many other disease risks, especially metabolic syndrome diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and more.
How much risk increase is enough for us to describe it as “dramatically”? The numbers vary a lot from risk to risk and depending what else is taken into account, but a 11–16% risk increase for unprocessed red meat is a range that comes up in a lot of studies, and bear in mind, these risks stack, i.e. it’s not 11–16% increase of getting any of the above, it’s a risk increase for diabetes, plus a risk increase for heart disease, plus a risk increase for stroke, plus a risk increase for cancer, plus plus plus.
Fun mathematical quirk: if you roll a fair 6-sided die, you have an approximately 16% chance of rolling a 1 (because 1/6 = 0.16). But if you roll two such dice (to illustrate the chances for two disease risks in the same range), you have more like a 32% chance of rolling at least one 1. Add in a third die for a third disease risk, and you’re at 48% chance of rolling at least one 1. Throw six such dice to illustrate 6 disease risks, and you’re at 96% chance. You see the problem.
For processed red meat, it’s the same deal mathematically but the numbers are higher, and each risk increase is more like 18–35%, which by the time you add in each of the disease risks is really pretty damning.
As usual, we’re not just making up numbers, this is based on quite large datasets, for example:
❝Forty-three observational studies (N = 4 462 810, 61.7% women) for CVD and 27 observational studies (N = 1 760 774, 64.4% women) for diabetes were included. Red meat consumption was positively associated with CVD [hazard ratio (HR) 1.11, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.05 to 1.16 for unprocessed red meat (per 100 g/day increment); 1.26, 95% CI 1.18 to 1.35 for processed red meat (per 50 g/day increment)], CVD subtypes, T2DM, and GDM. The associations with stroke and T2DM were higher in western settings, with no difference by sex.❞
Source: Red meat consumption, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis
If you’d like to not just rely on one source (as well you shouldn’t), here are a bunch more:
- Health Risks Associated with Meat Consumption: A Review of Epidemiological Studies
- Meat Consumption and the Risk of Cancer: A Critical Evaluation of the Constraints of Current Evidence from Epidemiological Studies
- Red Meat Consumption (Heme Iron Intake) and Risk for Diabetes and Comorbidities
- Associations of Processed Meat, Unprocessed Red Meat, Poultry, or Fish Intake With Incident Cardiovascular Disease and All-Cause Mortality
- Meat consumption: Which are the current global risks? A review of recent (2010-2020) evidences
But I need it because of a nutritional deficiency!
It can be so!
And in fact, for example, if you’re 70 with anemia and sarcopenia and non-critical CVD risk and struggling to eat enough food to cover the iron/protein nutritional shortfall, then actually eating red meat may be playing the odds in your case, because you might consider it better to sacrifice your 10-year cancer risk odds in order to avoid, say, falling down the stairs this week and not seeing next year.
That’s obviously not a decision we can make for you either way, and we’d only counsel that it’s the kind of health decision that (whatever you choose) should ideally be made consciously, with objective knowledge of the various risks at hand, and taking your own personal circumstances into account.
While we’re here, if anemia is a challenge you’re facing, by the way, you might want to also swing by: Avoiding Anemia (More Than Just “Get More Iron”)
…for some very helpful tips!
Is moderation the answer?
When it comes to red meat, for most people most of the time, it is certainly true that less is better than more.
And for most people in most situations, sustainable moderation is better than unsustainable abstinence.
That said, remember that paper we quoted up top? Those risk increases were for 100g/day increments of unprocessed red meat, or 50g/day increments of processed red meat.
For the non-metric preferrers, that’s about 3 oz of unprocessed red meat or about 1½ oz of processed red meat.
That’s the amount that’s needed to increase your health risks for various diseases by 11–35% each.
So, moderation is definitely a lot better than immoderation in this regard, but for example a single beefburger made with two quarter-pound beef patties is already increasing each of those health risks by several multiples of the numbers we gave you, and that’s from the beef alone, let alone anything else in there (not just contaminants, but for example the fat for frying, the kind of bread used, anything else being added like cheese, bacon, etc).
So, by these numbers, the kind of moderation that avoids the increases we described looks less like “well I’m not consuming cartoonishly large amounts of meat” and more like “there are some shavings of prosciutto at the side of my salad”
On which note…
This is again something that the Mediterranean diet does well, as it doesn’t expect or require outright abstention from any food, including red or processed meat (and remember, cured meats are processed, no matter how healthy they look in a salad), and/but simply keep the amounts of meat very small:
Want to make the Mediterranean diet even better?
Here are 4 ways to do it, with 4 different health focuses:
Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet
Enjoy!
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Elderberries vs Gooseberries – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing elderberries to gooseberries, we picked the elderberries.
Why?
It’s a fairly straightforward one today!
In terms of macros, elderberries have nearly 2x the fiber and carbs (for a similar glycemic index) making them the most nutritionally-dense option, and the fiber-richness gives them the win.
In the category of vitamins, elderberries have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, and C, while gooseberries have more vitamin B5 (the vitamin that’s in literally everything edible). An easy win for elderberries here.
When it comes to minerals, elderberries have more calcium, iron, phosphorus, and potassium, while gooseberries have more copper, magnesium, and selenium. A closer one this round, but still a 4:3 win for elderberries (and by larger margins per mineral, too).
Looking at phytochemicals, both are good but elderberries have more polyphenols, plus some additional beneficial properties (see the link below), meaning a fourth win for elderberries.
Adding up the sections makes for a very clear 4:0 win for elderberries, but by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
Herbs For Evidence-Based Health & Healing ← elderberry significantly hastens recovery from upper respiratory viral infections 😎
Enjoy!
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Gut Diversity vs Aging
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.
…and other items from this week’s health news:
How A Diverse Gut Microbiome Can Make You Younger
It’s well-known (to regular 10almonds readers, at the very least) that gut microbiome diversity is broadly a very good thing for health. What’s good for the gut is good for the heart, and what’s good for the heart is good for the brain, and also the gut is in many ways a hugely influential factor in our immune system, which includes not just when it comes to fighting pathogens, but also when it comes to healthy immune regulation, i.e. against immune dysfunction and chronic inflammation, which latter is bad for pretty much everything.
However, a new study has found a link between gut health and aging; specifically, that the aging microbiome produces fewer metabolites that are needed for good health, resulting in a compounding effect of aging.
Most interestingly, however, this relation has found to be causal the other way around, that is to say, it’s not just “when older, the gut doesn’t work so well”, but rather, “when given a better gut microbiome, effects of aging are reversed”.
Caveat: this was a mouse study and it wasn’t all aspects of aging, but it was enough aspects of aging to be very worthy of note, and there’s no reason the same principles shouldn’t apply in humans:
Read in full: Metabolic modeling reveals aging microbiome produces fewer vital substances
Related: Stop Sabotaging Your Gut
Maybe you can drink some calories, after all (if you do this with them)
“Don’t drink your calories” is generally good advice; liquids are typically absorbed much more quickly than solids (increasing total caloric consumption, as well as the initial shock to the metabolism), and most sugary drinks (which absolutely includes pure fruit juice, by the way, as it has been stripped of fiber in the juicing process) produce an impressive spike in blood sugars, and thus insulin levels (both are bad things to spike).
However, smoothies do better than juices, due to still having fiber in them. And, research has found, smoothies with seeds in flatten the blood sugar curve even more, likely due to the combination of fiber and fats:
Read in full: Smoothies with seeds may improve glycemic control, study shows
Related: 3 Day Juice Fasting? Not So Fast! ← why you should absolutely not expect the same results from juices
Where there’s smoke, there’s… An increase in mental health conditions?
Wildfires have been raging in some parts of the US lately, and needless to say, these aren’t great for the health. As well as the initial most obvious risks, there are a lot of follow-up risks (including weakened immune systems as well as increased presence of pathogens in the air; people think of smoke as purifying, but it’s not, it’s mostly just hot air bringing germs with it), and, by the numbers, a large increase in hospital visits for mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, and mood disorders:
Read in full: Exposure to wildfire smoke linked to worsening mental health conditions
Related: The Dangers Of Fires, Floods, & Having Your Hair Washed
Take care!
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Figs vs Guava – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing figs to guava, we picked the figs.
Why?
This one’s pretty straightforward:
In terms of macros, figs have slightly more carbs while guava has nearly 2x the fiber (and figs were already good for that), as well as about 3x the protein, but the numbers are smaller there. In any case, a clear win for guava.
In the category of vitamins, figs have more of vitamins B2 and K, while guava has more of vitamins A, B1, B3, B5, B9, C, E, and choline, including for some very notable margins, especially the vitamin C (of which guavas are a very good source, and figs aren’t). Another very clear win for guava.
When it comes to minerals, figs have more calcium and iron, while guava has more copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. One more win for guava.
It’s worth noting that guava also has a much higher polyphenol content, so that’s another point guava.
Adding up the sections makes for a clear overall win for guava, but by all means enjoy either or both; figs are actually great too; they just don’t look it when standing next to guava!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose Cs: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
Enjoy!
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