Feel Great, Lose Weight – by Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

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We all know that losing weight sustainably tends to be harder than simply losing weight. We know that weight loss needs to come with lifestyle change. But how to get there?

One of the biggest problems that we might face while trying to lose weight is that our “metabolic thermostat” has got stuck at the wrong place. Trying to move it just makes our bodies think we are starving, and everything gets even worse. We can’t even “mind over matter” our way through it with willpower, because our bodies will do impressive things on a cellular level in an attempt to save us… Things that are as extraordinary as they are extraordinarily unhelpful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee is here to help us cut through that.

In this book, he covers how our metabolic thermostat got stuck in the wrong place, and how to gently tease it back into a better position.

Some advices won’t be big surprises—go for a whole foods diet, avoiding processed food, for example. Probably not a shocker.

Others are counterintuitive, but he explains how they work—exercising less while moving more, for instance. Sounds crazy, but we assure you there’s a metabolic explanation for it that’s beyond the scope of this review. And there’s plenty more where that came from, too.

Bottom line: if your weight has been either slowly rising, or else very stable but at a higher point than you’d like, Dr. Chatterjee can help you move the bar back to where you want it—and keep it there.

Click here to check out “Feel Great, Lose Weight” and reset your metabolic thermostat to its healthiest point!

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  • How to Be Your Own Therapist – by Owen O’Kane

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    Finding the right therapist can be hard. Sometimes, even just accessing a therapist, any therapist, can be hard, if circumstances are adverse. Sometimes we’d like therapy, but want to feel “better prepared for it” before we do.

    Owen O’Kane, a highly qualified and well-respected psychotherapist, wants to put some tools in our hands. The premise of this book is that “in 10 minutes a day” one can give oneself an amount of therapy that will be beneficial.

    Naturally, in 10 minutes a day, this isn’t going to be the kind of therapy that will work through major traumas, so what can it do?

    Those 10 minutes are spread into three sessions:

    • 4 minutes in the morning
    • 3 minutes in the afternoon
    • 3 minutes in the evening

    The idea is:

    • To do a quick mental health “check-in” before the day gets started, ascertain what one needs in that context, and make a simple plan to get/have it.
    • To keep one’s mental health on track by taking a little pause to reassess and adjust if necessary
    • To reflect on the day, amplify the positive, and let go of the negative to what extent is practical, in order to rest well ready for the next day

    Where O’Kane excels is in explaining how to do those things in a way that is neither overly simplistic and wishy-washy, nor so arcane and convoluted as to create more work and render the day more difficult.

    In short, this book is a great prelude to (or adjunct to) formal therapy, and for those for whom therapy isn’t accessible and/or desired, a great way to keep oneself on a mentally healthy track.

    Click here to check out “How To Be Your Own Therapist” on Amazon today, and take appropriate care of yourself!

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  • Butter vs Margarine

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    Butter vs Margarine

    Yesterday, we asked you for your (health-related) opinion on butter vs margarine, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

    • A little over 60% said butter is a health food and margarine is basically plastic with trans fats
    • A little over 20% said that both are woeful and it’s better to avoid both
    • A little over 10% said that margarine is a lighter option, and butter is a fast track to cardiovascular disease.

    Comments included (we will summarize/paraphrase, for space):

    • “…in moderation, though”
    • “I’m vegan so I use vegan butter but I know it’s not great, so I use it sparingly”
    • “butter is healthy if and only if it’s grass-fed”
    • “margarine has unpronounceable ingredients”

    To address those quickly:

    • “…in moderation” is a stipulation with which one can rarely go too far wrong
    • Same! Speaking for myself (your writer here, hi) and not for the company
    • Grass-fed is indeed better; alas that so little of it is grass-fed, in the US!
    • Butter contains eicosatrienoic acid, linolelaidic acid, and more*. Sometimes big words don’t mean that something is worse for the health, though!

    *Source: Quality characteristics, chemical composition, and sensory properties of butter from cows on pasture versus indoor feeding systems

    So, what does the science say?

    Butter is a health food: True or False?

    True or False, depending on amount! Moderation is definitely key, but we’ll return to that (and why not to have more than a small amount of butter) later. But it is a rich source of many nutrients, iff it’s grass-fed, anyway.

    The nutritional profile of something isn’t a thing that’s too contentious, so rather than take too much time on it, in this case we’ll point you back up to the scientific paper we linked above, or if you prefer a pop-science rendering, here’s a nice quick rundown:

    7 Reasons to Switch to Grass-Fed Butter

    Margarine is basically plastic with trans fats: True or False?

    False and usually False now, respectively, contingently.

    On the first part: chemically, it’s simply not “basically plastic” and everything in it is digestible

    On the second part: it depends on the margarine, and here’s where it pays to read labels. Historically, margarines all used to be high in trans fats (which are indeed woeful for the health). Nowadays, since trans fats have such a (well-earned) bad press, there are increasingly many margarines with low (or no) trans fats, and depending on your country, it may be that all margarines no longer have such:

    ❝It’s a public health success story. Consumers no longer have to worry about reading product nutritional labels to see if they contain hydrogenated oils and trans fats. They can just know that they no longer do❞

    Source: Margarines now nutritionally better than butter after hydrogenated oil ban

    So this is one where the science is clear (trans fats are unequivocally bad), but the consumer information is not always (it may be necessary to read labels, to know whether a margarine is conforming to the new guidelines).

    Butter is a fast track to cardiovascular disease: True or False?

    True or False depending on amount. In moderation, predictably it’s not a big deal.

    But for example, the World Health Organization recommends that saturated fats (of which butter is a generous source) make up no more than 10% of our calorie intake:

    Source: Saturated fatty acid and trans-fatty acid intake for adults and children: WHO guideline

    So if you have a 2000 kcal daily intake, that would mean consuming not more than 200 kcal from butter, which is approximately two tablespoons.

    If you’d like a deeper look into the complexities of saturated fats (for and against), you might like our previous main feature specifically about such:

    Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy?

    Enjoy!

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  • Elderberries vs Cranberries – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing elderberries to cranberries, we picked the elderberries.

    Why?

    In terms of macros, elderberry has slightly more carbs and 2x the fiber, the ratio of which gives elderberries the lower glycemic index also. A win for elderberries, then.

    Looking at the vitamins, elderberries have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B9, and C, while cranberries have more vitamin B5. An easy win for elderberries in this category.

    In the category of minerals, we see a similar story: elderberries have more calcium, copper, iron, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while cranberries have (barely) more magnesium. Another clear win for elderberries.

    Both of these fruits have additional “special” properties, and it’s worth noting that:

    • elderberries’ bonus properties include that they significantly hasten recovery from upper respiratory tract viral infections.
    • cranberries’ bonus properties (including: famously very good at reducing UTI risk) come with some warnings, including that they may increase the risk of kidney stones if you are prone to such, and also that cranberries have anti-clotting effects, which are great for heart health but can be a risk of you’re on blood thinners or have a bleeding disorder.

    You can read about both of these fruits’ special properties in more detail below:

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Enjoy!

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  • Syringe Exchange Fears Hobble Fight Against West Virginia HIV Outbreak

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    CHARLESTON, http://w.va/. — More than three years have passed since federal health officials arrived in central Appalachia to assess an alarming outbreak of HIV spread mostly between people who inject opioids or methamphetamine.

    Infectious disease experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made a list of recommendations following their visit, including one to launch syringe service programs to stop the spread at its source. But those who’ve spent years striving to protect people who use drugs from overdose and illness say the situation likely hasn’t improved, in part because of politicians who contend that such programs encourage illegal drug use.

    Joe Solomon is a Charleston City Council member and co-director of SOAR WV, a group that works to address the health needs of people who use drugs. He’s proud of how his close-knit community has risen to this challenge but frustrated with the restraints on its efforts.

    “You see a city and a county willing to get to work at a scale that’s bigger than ever before,” Solomon said, “but we still have one hand tied behind our back.”

    The hand he references is easier access to clean syringes.

    In April 2021, the CDC came to Charleston — the seat of Kanawha County and the state capital, tucked into the confluence of the Kanawha and Elk rivers — to investigate dozens of newly detected HIV infections. The CDC’s HIV intervention chief called it “the most concerning HIV outbreak in the United States” and warned that the number of reported diagnoses could be just “the tip of the iceberg.”

    Now, despite attention and resources directed toward the outbreak, researchers and health workers say HIV continues to spread. In large part, they say, the outbreak lingers because of restrictions state and local policymakers have placed on syringe exchange efforts.

    Research indicates that syringe service programs are associated with an estimated 50% reduction in HIV and hepatitis C, and the CDC issued recommendations to steer a response to the outbreak that emphasized the need for improved access to those services.

    That advice has thus far gone unheeded by local officials.

    In late 2015, the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department launched a syringe service program but shuttered it in 2018 under pressure, with then-Mayor Danny Jones calling it a “mini-mall for junkies and drug dealers.”

    SOAR stepped in, hosting health fairs at which it distributed naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal drug; offered treatment and referrals; provided HIV testing; and exchanged clean syringes for used ones.

    But in April 2021, the state legislature passed a bill limiting the number of syringes people could exchange and made it mandatory to present a West Virginia ID. The Charleston City Council subsequently added guidelines of its own, including requiring individual labeling of syringes.

    As a result of these restrictions, SOAR ceased exchanging syringes. West Virginia Health Right now operates an exchange program in the city under the restrictions.

    Robin Pollini is a West Virginia University epidemiologist who conducts community-based research on injection drug use. “Anyone I’ve talked to who’s used that program only used it once,” she said. “And the numbers they report to the state bear that out.”

    A syringe exchange run by the health department in nearby Cabell County — home to Huntington, the state’s largest city after Charleston — isn’t so constrained. As Solomon notes, that program exchanges more than 200 syringes for every one exchanged in Kanawha.

    A common complaint about syringe programs is that they result in discarded syringes in public spaces. Jan Rader, director of Huntington’s Mayor’s Office of Public Health and Drug Control Policy, is regularly out on the streets and said she seldom encounters discarded syringes, pointing out that it’s necessary to exchange a used syringe for a new one.

    In August 2023, the Charleston City Council voted down a proposal from the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia to operate a syringe exchange in the city’s West Side community, with opponents expressing fears of an increase in drug use and crime.

    Pollini said it’s difficult to estimate the number of people in West Virginia with HIV because there’s no coordinated strategy for testing; all efforts are localized.

    “You would think that in a state that had the worst HIV outbreak in the country,” she said, “by this time we would have a statewide testing strategy.”

    In addition to the testing SOAR conducted in 2021 at its health fairs, there was extensive testing during the CDC’s investigation. Since then, the reported number of HIV cases in Kanawha County has dropped, Pollini said, but it’s difficult to know if that’s the result of getting the problem under control or the result of limited testing in high-risk groups.

    “My inclination is the latter,” she said, “because never in history has there been an outbreak of injection-related HIV among people who use drugs that was solved without expanding syringe services programs.”

    “If you go out and look for infections,” Pollini said, “you will find them.”

    Solomon and Pollini praised the ongoing outreach efforts — through riverside encampments, in abandoned houses, down county roads — of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program to test those at highest risk: people known to be injecting drugs.

    “It’s miracle-level work,” Solomon said.

    But Christine Teague, Ryan White Program director at the Charleston Area Medical Center, acknowledged it hasn’t been enough. In addition to HIV, her concerns include the high incidence of hepatitis C and endocarditis, a life-threatening inflammation of the lining of the heart’s chambers and valves, and the cost of hospital resources needed to address them.

    “We’ve presented that data to the legislature,” she said, “that it’s not just HIV, it’s all these other lengthy hospital admissions that, essentially, Medicaid is paying for. And nothing seems to penetrate.”

    Frank Annie is a researcher at CAMC specializing in cardiovascular diseases, a member of the Charleston City Council, and a proponent of syringe service programs. Research he co-authored found 462 cases of endocarditis in southern West Virginia associated with injection drug use, at a cost to federal, state, and private insurers of more than $17 million, of which less than $4 million was recovered.

    Teague is further concerned for West Virginia’s rural counties, most of which don’t have a syringe service program.

    Tasha Withrow, a harm reduction advocate in bordering rural Putnam County, said her sense is that HIV numbers aren’t alarmingly high there but said that, with little testing and heightened stigma in a rural community, it’s difficult to know.

    In a January 2022 follow-up report, the CDC recommended increasing access to harm reduction services such as syringe service programs through expansion of mobile services, street outreach, and telehealth, using “patient-trusted” individuals, to improve the delivery of essential services to people who use drugs.

    Teague would like every rural county to have a mobile unit, like the one operated by her organization, offering harm reduction supplies, medication, behavioral health care, counseling, referrals, and more. That’s an expensive undertaking. She suggested opioid settlement money through the West Virginia First Foundation could pay for it.

    Pollini said she hopes state and local officials allow the experts to do their jobs.

    “I would like to see them allow us to follow the science and operate these programs the way they’re supposed to be run, and in a broader geography,” she said. “Which means that it shouldn’t be a political decision; it should be a public health decision.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

    This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • The Unchaste Berry

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    A Chasteberry, By Any Other Name…

    Vitex agnus castus, literally “chaste lamb vine”, hence its modern common English name “chasteberry”, gets its name from its traditional use as an anaphrodisiac for monks (indeed, it’s also called “monk’s pepper”), which traditional use is not in the slightest backed up by modern science.

    Nor is its second most popular traditional use (the increase in production of milk) well-supported by science either:

    ❝Its traditional use as a galactagogue (i.e., a substance that enhances breast milk production) is not well supported in the literature and should be discouraged. There are no clinical data to support the use of chasteberry for reducing sexual desire, which has been a traditional application❞

    ~ Dr. Beatrix Roemheld-Hamm

    Source: American Family Physician | Chasteberry

    Both of those supposed effects of the chasteberry go against the fact that it has a prolactin-lowering effect:

    ❝It appears that [chasteberry] may represent a potentially useful and safe phytotherapic option for the management of selected patients with mild hyperprolactinaemia who wish to be treated with phytotherapy.❞

    ~ Dr. Lídice Puglia et al.

    Source: Vitex agnus castus effects on hyperprolactinaemia

    Prolactin, by the way, is the hormone that (as the name suggests) stimulates milk production, and also reduces sexual desire (and motivation in general)

    • In most women, it spikes during breastfeeding
    • In most men, it spikes after orgasm
    • In both, it can promote anhedonic depression, as it antagonizes dopamine

    In other words, the actual pharmacological effect of chasteberry, when it comes to prolactin, is the opposite of what we would expect from its traditional use.

    Ok, so it’s an unchaste berry after all…. Does it have any other claims to examine?

    Yes! It genuinely does help relieve PMS, for those who have it, and reduce menopause symptoms, for those who have those, for example:

    ❝Dry extract of agnus castus fruit is an effective and well tolerated treatment for the relief of symptoms of the premenstrual syndrome.❞

    ~ Dr. Robert Schellenberg

    Source: Treatment for the premenstrual syndrome with agnus castus fruit extract: prospective, randomised, placebo controlled study

    ❝That [Vitex agnus castus] trial indicated strong symptomatic relief of common menopausal symptoms❞

    ~ Dr. Barbara Lucks

    Source: Vitex agnus castus essential oil and menopausal balance: a research update

    Is it safe?

    Generally speaking, yes. It has been described as “well-tolerated” in the studies we mentioned above, which means it has a good safety profile.

    However, it may interfere with some antipsychotic medications, certain kinds of hormone replacement therapy, or hormonal birth control.

    As ever, speak with your doctor/pharmacist if unsure!

    Where can I get some?

    We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon

    Enjoy!

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  • Green Curry Salmon Burgers

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    These lean and healthy burgers are as quick and easy to make as they are good for entertaining. The serving-bed has its nutritional secrets too! All in all, an especially heart-healthy and brain-healthy dish.

    You will need

    • 4 skinless salmon fillets, cubed (Vegetarian/Vegan? Consider this Plant-Based Salmon Recipe or, since they are getting blended, simply substitute 1½ cups cooked chickpeas instead with 1 tbsp tahini)
    • 2 cloves garlic, chopped
    • 2 tbsp thai green curry paste
    • juice of two limes, plus wedges to serve
    • 1 cup quinoa
    • ½ cup edamame beans, thawed if they were frozen
    • large bunch fresh cilantro (or parsley if you have the “soap “cilantro tastes like soap” gene), chopped
    • extra virgin olive oil, for frying
    • 1 tbsp chia seeds
    • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
    • 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Put the salmon, garlic, curry paste, nutritional yeast, and half the lime juice into a food processor, and blend until smooth.

    2) Remove, divide into four parts, and shape into burger patty shapes. Put them in the fridge where they can firm up while we do the next bit.

    3) Cook the quinoa with the tablespoon of chia seeds added (which means boiling water and then letting it simmer for 10–15 minutes; when the quinoa is tender and unfurled a little, it’s done).

    4) Drain the quinoa with a sieve, and stir in the edamame beans, the rest of the lime juice, the cilantro, and the black pepper. Set aside.

    5) Using the olive oil, fry the salmon burgers for about 5 minutes on each side.

    6) Serve; we recommend putting the burgers atop the rest, and adding a dash of lime at the table.

    (it can also be served this way!)

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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