Heal Your Gut, Save Your Brain – by Dr. Partha Nandi
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The gut-brain axis is well-known, at least to those of us who care to learn about health science, which of course includes everyone reading this (because that’s why you’re here, after all). However, its importance cannot be overstated when it comes to the connection between gut health and brain health, both in terms of the good and the bad.
Dr. Nandi explores and explains this in terms of correct systemic functioning and pathology—in other words, what goes on and what can go wrong. As it happens, what goes on is a lot, and what can go wrong is also a lot, and it’s important to understand how, in order to prevent it and keep our brain healthy.
This is not just about general brain health, by the way. Not that that would be bad; general brain health is a great thing to have. But, the focus here is on the involvement of gut health (for better or for worse) in the specific contexts of stroke, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s, with several chapters dedicated to each of the aforementioned brain health threats, covering how gut health affects the risks, and how specifically to change course to avoid it in each case.
Oh, and three more chapters (i.e. one additional chapter for each of those diseases) with recipes optimized to improve your gut-brain health in the best of ways, to avoid stroke, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s, respectively. Of course, all are good against each; this isn’t a zero-sum game. But, some things have specialities that others don’t, and Dr. Nandi highlights such cases for us.
The style is (aside from the recipes) high-end pop-science, with scientific references at a rate of several per page (sometimes several per paragraph), yet very comprehensible, and while he explains everything as he goes, he also does provide a glossary at the back, so that’s good too.
Bottom line: if you have a gut and a brain and would like to keep both in the best possible working order, this book will help you to do so.
Click here to check out Heal Your Gut, Save Your Brain, and do exactly that!
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Are You A “Weekend Warrior”?
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First, let’s define the term: for our purposes today (and indeed, for the science we will discuss), a “weekend warrior” is someone who gets in 150 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous exercise in just one or two sessions per week.
Some more parameters for our discussion today:
- a “regularly active” person also does 150 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous exercise, but spread over three or more sessions
- an “inactive” person is someone who does under 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per week.
You can probably guess already that the “inactive” person is going to be less healthy, and if you guessed that, then you guessed correctly.
But, what about the other two?
Head to head
Researchers (Dr. Zhiyuan Wu et al.) looked at 51,650 US adults with type 2 diabetes, found that both weekend warrior and regular exercise patterns (per the above definitions) reduced risk of death.
Compared to inactive people…
- weekend warriors had a 21% lower all-cause mortality risk
- regularly active people had a 17% lower all-cause mortality risk
Not only that, but when we look at cardiovascular mortality specifically, the gap widens, and…
- weekend warriors had a 33% lower cardiovascular death risk
- regularly active people had a 19% lower cardiovascular death risk
You can read the paper in full, here: Association of Weekend Warrior and Other Physical Activity Patterns With Mortality Among Adults With Diabetes: A Cohort Study
Why does this happen? What happened to advice such as that from The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More?
It’s unclear, but the researchers hypothesize that weekend activities may be longer, more social, outdoors, or higher intensity compared with weekday gym workouts—all of which can make a difference.
We at 10almonds would also not that the limitations listed in the paper,
❝Physical activity was self-reported and assessed at a single time point❞
…may play a part too. The kind of person who spends their weekends mountain-biking may well say “No, I don’t really do any exercise in the rest of the week” because, comparatively to the weekend, they’re not—even if in fact, due in part to their extra fitness, they’re quite possibly moving more than their non-weekend-warrioring counterparts who, not having the weekend of mountain-biking to point to, start totting up all the other things they do during the week, that the weekend warriors also did but left unmentioned as superfluous. But this too is just a hypothesis, to be clear.
What is clear, and is not hypothetical, is that both exercise patterns significantly reduce all-cause mortality.
In short, it is best to go with which ever works for you and your preferred lifestyle, because ultimately, the best exercise is the exercise that you’ll actually do.
For example:
- How Useful Is “Exercise Snacking”, Really? ← for light bites
- How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body) ← for getting intense
Want to learn more?
If you don’t love organized, intentional workouts, then consider:
No-Exercise Exercise! ← for how to get in a lot of exercise without it feeling like it
Enjoy!
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Get More Exercise Benefits (Without Exercising More Or Harder!)
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Everybody loves the benefits of exercise!
However, not everybody loves exercise itself. And even for those who do love exercise, we can’t always do as much as we’d like!
So, what’s this one all about it?
Variety really is the spice of life
Researchers (Dr. Qi Sun et al.) examined whether long-term engagement in individual physical activities and/or a greater variety of activities are associated with a 19% lower risk of death, independent of total activity volume.
111,467 people started the study, and 38,847 of them died before it was over.
It’s a little sad that experiments like this always have a large death toll, but let’s make sure it was worth it.
Added up together, this resulted in 2,431,381 person-years of data.
During the time that they had before the end, the participants recorded time spent in up to 11–13 different activities, with energy expenditure estimated using MET-hours* per week.
*Metabolic Equivalent of Task. This is a way of standardizing all exercises per how much energy is expended into them.
Notably, higher total physical activity was linked to a lower risk of death, but benefits plateaued at around 20 weekly MET-hours, suggesting that after that point, more is not necessarily better.
Some activities were better than others for health outcomes: most activities were associated with lower all-cause mortality, but the strongest associations were seen for walking, racquet sports, rowing, callisthenics, weight training, running, jogging, and stair climbing, while swimming—surprisingly—showed no clear association.
We may hypothesize that swimming didn’t score so well as it’s neither particularly strong resistance work, nor is it necessarily training movements that are used a lot in daily life, and thus keeping that mobility.
It can do!
- For example, front crawl and backstroke are excellent for shoulder mobility, but…
- if you’re spending your swimming time on breast stroke, that’s half a range of motion, and…
- if you’re just sculling, that’s nothing at all beyond some mild cardio work.
Here’s the good part, though: engaging in a broader mix of activities was associated with a 19% lower risk of death from all causes, even after adjusting for total activity volume.
You can read the paper in full, here: Physical activity types, variety, and mortality: results from two prospective cohort studies
How to benefit the most
Clearly, what’s necessary here is to enjoy a wider variety of physical activities. And as the above science shows, you don’t have to do a lot at once!
See also: How Useful Is “Exercise Snacking”, Really?
If you do want to do a lot at once, then we recommend considering High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), but carefully:
How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body) ← important, because the “high-intensity” part can cause problems for some people, if not undertaken attentively
Which can further be expanded to: HIIT, But Make It HIRT ← high-intensity resistance training, undertaken per HIIT principles
On which note, do see: Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older) ← for more on resistance training methods in general
If you like that idea but don’t like gyms and weights and such, then don’t worry, we’ve got you covered: Resistance Beyond Weights
And finally, if you don’t like exercise in general, then check out these: No-Exercise Exercise!
Enjoy!
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Music can affect your driving – but not always how you’d expect
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For many of us, listening to music is simply part of the driving routine – as ordinary as wearing a seatbelt. We build playlists for road trips, pick songs to stay awake, and even turn the volume up when traffic gets stressful.
More than 80% of drivers listen to music on most trips. And many young drivers find it difficult to concentrate without it.
We tend to think music relaxes us, energises us, or helps us focus when we’re behind the wheel.
But the science paints a more complicated picture. Decades of studies show music can sharpen some aspects of driving and dull others. And it affects young drivers differently from more experienced ones.
davidf/Getty Images How do researchers study driving and music?
Most studies use driving simulators, where participants drive through realistic road scenarios while researchers change only one thing: the music.
This allows precise measurement of indicators such as speed, reaction time, lane-keeping, braking, following distance, simulated collisions and even the driver’s physiological state under different music conditions.
Because everything else is held constant, any difference in driving performance can be attributed to the music.
Researchers have tested different music and driving scenarios in dozens of small studies – often with conflicting conclusions. To make sense of these results, researchers combine them in “meta-analyses” to see broad patterns.
So how does music affect our driving?
Meta-analyses show music changes how we drive in several ways.
Drivers listening to music tended to have more simulated collisions, poorer speed control and less stable following distances than those driving in silence.
Other outcomes such as lane position, signalling errors and pure reaction time show more mixed or inconsistent effects.
Music often changes the driver’s heart rate and makes it more variable. It also increases their arousal and mental workload, meaning how mentally “busy” or stretched they are while trying to drive.
Music can also help tired drivers stay alert on long, monotonous stretches but only for a short window. The boost fades by about 15 to 25 minutes.
So music can make you feel better and more alert, for shorter distances, even while it’s adding extra cognitive load and competing with the main task of driving.
Does the volume and type of music matter?
Volume does influence driving, but the effects are more subtle than many assume.
High- and medium-volume music tend to nudge drivers’ speeds slightly upward, while low-volume music consistently leads to slower driving. These effects are small, but relatively consistent in direction.
Fast music has a bad reputation, but the pooled evidence is less clear-cut. One meta-analysis found no overall effect of tempo on driving performance for an average driver. But it’s slightly different if you’re a novice driver.
Individual studies still suggest that very high-arousal, aggressive tracks can nudge some drivers toward riskier behaviour and make them more prone to errors. But tempo by itself doesn’t neatly predict safety.
Music tempo itself doesn’t predict safety. Gustavo Fring/Pexels Music you choose yourself tends to be less distracting than music imposed on you. Drivers often select music to regulate their mood and arousal – and that can stabilise their driving.
Conversely, several experiments show researcher-selected or imposed music leads to poorer performance: more collisions and violations, especially when the driver doesn’t like the music.
So it’s not just the music itself, but your relationship with it, that shapes how it affects your driving. Familiar or preferred music tends to maintain mood and reduce stress without adding as much mental load.
Inexperienced drivers are more affected
Inexperienced drivers are more vulnerable to distraction from music.
One study of 20- to 28-year-old drivers found less-experienced drivers were far more disrupted by music than experienced drivers. When music was playing – especially upbeat, “happy” tracks – inexperienced drivers were much more likely to drift into speeding.
Experienced drivers didn’t, suggesting their experience acts as a buffer.
Another experiment found exposing young drivers to more aggressive genres such as metal or certain folk-pop led to higher speeds, more driving errors and reduced attention to road signs.
For novice drivers, fast-tempo music increased their mental load and reduced their ability to spot hazards. This meant they were slower or less accurate in their responses.
Slow music, on the other hand, didn’t raise inexperienced drivers’ mental load and even moderately improved their ability to respond to hazards.
So what does this mean for my driving?
For most people, familiar songs, calmer genres and moderate volumes tend to create the least interference, while still keeping you alert and in a good mood.
Extremely loud, unfamiliar or highly aggressive tracks are the ones most likely to push up your speed, distract you, or overload your thinking.
But if you’re a newer driver, try turning the volume down, or even switching the music off, in demanding conditions.
Milad Haghani, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow in Urban Risk and Resilience, The University of Melbourne
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Foods For Managing Hypothyroidism (incl. Hashimoto’s)
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Foods for Managing Hypothyroidism
For any unfamiliar, hypothyroidism is the condition of having an underactive thyroid gland. The thyroid gland lives at the base of the front of your neck, and, as the name suggests, it makes and stores thyroid hormones. Those are important for many systems in the body, and a shortage typically causes fatigue, weight gain, and other symptoms.
What causes it?
This makes a difference in some cases to how it can be treated/managed. Causes include:
- Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune condition
- Severe inflammation (end result is similar to the above, but more treatable)
- Dietary deficiencies, especially iodine deficiency
- Secondary endocrine issues, e.g. pituitary gland didn’t make enough TSH for the thyroid gland to do its thing
- Some medications (ask your pharmacist)
We can’t do a lot about those last two by leveraging diet alone, but we can make a big difference to the others.
What to eat (and what to avoid)
There is nuance here, which we’ll go into a bit, but let’s start by giving the
one-linetwo-line summary that tends to be the dietary advice for most things:- Eat a nutrient-dense whole-foods diet (shocking, we know)
- Avoid sugar, alcohol, flour, processed foods (ditto)
What’s the deal with meat and dairy?
- Meat: avoid red and processed meats; poultry and fish are fine or even good (unless fried; don’t do that)
- Dairy: limit/avoid milk; but unsweetened yogurt and cheese are fine or even good
What’s the deal with plants?
First, get plenty of fiber, because that’s important to ease almost any inflammation-related condition, and for general good health for most people (an exception is if you have Crohn’s Disease, for example).
If you have Hashimoto’s, then gluten (as found in wheat, barley, and rye) may be an issue, but the jury is still out, science-wise. Here’s an example study for “avoid gluten” and “don’t worry about gluten”, respectively:
- The Effect of Gluten-Free Diet on Thyroid Autoimmunity in Women with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis
- Doubtful Justification of the Gluten-Free Diet in the Course of Hashimoto’s Disease
So, you might want to skip it, to be on the safe side, but that’s up to you (and the advice of your nutritionist/doctor, as applicable).
A word on goitrogens…
Goitrogens are found in cruciferous vegetables and soy, both of which are very healthy foods for most people, but need some extra awareness in the case of hypothyroidism. This means there’s no need to abstain completely, but:
- Keep serving sizes small, for example a 100g serving only
- Cook goitrogenic foods before eating them, to greatly reduce goitrogenic activity
For more details, reading even just the abstract (intro summary) of this paper will help you get healthy cruciferous veg content without having a goitrogenic effect.
(as for soy, consider just skipping that if you suffer from hypothyroidism)
What nutrients to focus on getting?
- Top tier nutrients: iodine, selenium, zinc
- Also important: vitamin B12, vitamin D, magnesium, iron
Enjoy!
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Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety – by Dr. Drew Ramsey
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Most of us could use a little mood boost sometimes, and some of us could definitely stand to have our baseline neurochemistry elevated a bit. We’ve probably Googled “foods to increase dopamine”, and similar phrases. So, why is this a book, and not just an article saying to eat cashews and dark chocolate?
Dr. Drew Ramsey takes a holistic approach to health. By this we mean that to have good health, the whole body and mind must be kept healthy. Let a part slip, and the others will soon follow. Improve a part, and the others will soon follow, too.
Of course, there is only so much that diet can do. Jut as no diet will replace a Type 1 Diabetic’s pancreas with a working one, no diet will treat the causes of some kinds of depression and anxiety.
For this reason, Dr. Ramsey, himself a psychiatrist (and a farmer!) recommends a combination of talking therapy and diet, with medications as a “third leg” to be included when necessary. The goal, for him, is to reduce dependence on medications, while still recognizing when they can be useful or even necessary.
As for the practical, actionable advices in the book, he does (unsurprisingly) recommend a Mediterranean diet. Heavy on the greens and beans, plenty of colorful fruit and veg, small amounts of fish and seafood, even smaller amounts of grass-fed beef and fermented dairy. He also discusses a bunch of “superfoods” he particularly recommends.
Nor does he just hand-wave the process; he talks about the science of how and why each of these things helps.
And in practical terms, he even devotes some time to helping the reader get our kitchen set up, if we’re not already ready-to-go in that department. He also caters to any “can’t cook / won’t cook” readers and how to work around that too.
Bottom line: if you’d like to get rewiring your brain (leveraging neuroplasticity is a key component of the book), this will get you on track. A particular strength is how the author “thinks of everything” in terms of common problems that people (especially: depressed and anxious people!) might have in implementing his advices.
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How To Get Your First Pull-Up
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Pull-ups are a great compound exercise that works most of the upper body. However, it can be frustrating for many, if unable to do more than dangle and struggle while not going anywhere. That’s not actually bad, by the way! Of course it’s not great athletic performance, but in terms of exercise, “dangling and struggling while not going anywhere” is an isometric exercise that has plenty of benefits of its own. However, for those who would rather go up in the world, personal trainer Meg Gallagher shows the way:
The Only Way Is Up?
Gallagher offers a few methods; the first is simply an improvement on the “dangling and struggling while not going anywhere” method, but doing it with good form. It’s called the…
Hollow body hold:
- Hang from the bar with legs and feet together.
- Maintain a posterior pelvic tilt (i.e. don’t let your hips roll forwards, and don’t let your butt stick out more than is necessary by mere virtue of having a butt)
- Engage your core by shortening the space between your ribs and pelvis.
- Turn on your abs and lats, with your head slightly behind the bar.
- Practice the hollow body hang instead of dead hangs to build grip and core strength.
Another method is now moving on from the hollow body hold, and shows that in fact, up is not the only way. It’s called…
Negative pull-ups:
- Jump up to get your chin over the bar, then slowly lower yourself in a controlled manner.
- Prioritize negative pull-ups over other exercises to build strength.
- You can use modifications like resistance bands or feet assistance if necessary to extend the duration of your negative pull-up, but these are “crutches”, so try to move on from them as soon as you reasonably can—same if your gym has an “assisted pull-up” machine, consisting of a moving platform with a variable counterweight, mimicking how a pull-up would feel if your body were lighter.
- Practice resisting throughout the entire range of motion.
To give a sense of direction, Gallagher offers the following program:
- On day 1, test how long you can resist the negative pull-up (e.g., 10 seconds).
- For each session, multiply your time by 2 (e.g., 10 seconds × 2 = 20 seconds total).
- Break the total volume into as many sets as needed (e.g., 2 sets of 10 seconds or 4 sets of 5 seconds).
- After each session, add 2 seconds to the total volume for the next session.
- Aim for 3 sessions per week for 3–4 weeks, increasing by 2 seconds each session.
- When you reach about 25 seconds, you should be close to performing your first pull-up.
For more on all of this, plus a few other things to try, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Take care!
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