Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!
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The Real Immune-Boosters
What comes to your mind when we say “immune support”? Vitamin C and maybe zinc? Those have their place, but there are things we can do that are a lot more important!
It’s just, these things are not talked about as much, because stores can’t sell them to you
Sleep
One of the biggest difference-makers. Get good sleep! Getting at least 7 hours decent sleep (not lying in bed, not counting interruptions to sleep as part of the sleep duration) can improve your immune system by three or four times.
Put another way, people are 3–4 times more likely to get sick if they get less sleep than that on average.
Check it out: Behaviorally Assessed Sleep and Susceptibility to the Common Cold
Eat an anti-inflammatory diet
In short, for most of us this means lots of whole plant foods (lots of fiber), and limited sugar, flour, alcohol.
For more details, you can see our main feature on this: Keep Inflammation At Bay!
You may wonder why eating to reduce inflammation (inflammation is a form of immune response) will help improve immune response. Put it this way:
If your town’s fire service is called out eleventy-two times per day to deal with things that are not, in fact, fires, then when there is a fire, they will be already exhausted, and will not do their job so well.
Look after your gut microbiota
Additionally, healthy gut microbiota (fostered by the same diet we just described) help keep your body pathogen-free, by avoiding “leaky gut syndrome” that occurs when, for example, C. albicans (you do not want this in your gut, and it thrives on the things we just told you to avoid) puts its roots through your intestinal walls, making holes in them. And through those holes? You definitely do not want bacteria from your intestines going into the rest of your body.
See also: Gut Health 101
Actually get that moderate exercise
There’s definitely a sweet-spot here, because too much exercise will also exhaust you and deplete your body’s resources. However, the famous “150 minutes per week” (so, a little over 20 minutes per day, or 25 minutes per day with one day off) will make a big difference.
See: Exercise and the Regulation of Immune Functions
Manage your stress levels (good and bad!)
This one swings both ways:
- Acute stress (like a cold shower) is good for immune response. Think of it like a fire drill for your body.
- Chronic stress (“the general everything” persistently stressful in life) is bad for immune response. This is the fire drill that never ends. Your body’s going to know what to do really well, but it’s going to be exhausted already by the time an actual threat hits.
Read more: Effects of Stress on Immune Function: the Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful
Supplement, yes.
These are far less critical than the above things, but are also helpful. Good things to take include:
Enjoy, and stay well!
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Hard to Kill – by Dr. Jaime Seeman
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We’ve written before about Dr. Seeman’s method for robust health at all ages, focussing on:
- Nutrition
- Movement
- Sleep
- Mindset
- Environment
In this book, she expands on these things far more than we have room to in our little newsletter, including (importantly!) how each interplays with the others. She also follows up with an invitation to take the “Hard to Kill 30-Day Challenge”.
That said, in the category of criticism, it’s only 152 pages, and she takes some of that to advertise her online services in an effort to upsell the reader.
Nevertheless, there’s a lot of worth in the book itself, and the writing style is certainly easy-reading and compelling.
Bottom line: this book is half instructional, half motivational, and covers some very important areas of health.
Click here to check out “Hard to Kill”, and enjoy robust health at every age!
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A person in the US has died from pneumonic plague. It’s not just a disease of history
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A person in Arizona has died from the plague, local health officials reported on Friday.
This marks the first such death in this region in 18 years. But it’s a stark reminder that this historic disease, though rare nowadays, is not just a disease of the past.
So what actually is “plague”? And is it any cause for concern in Australia?
Corona Borealis Studio/Shutterstock There are 3 types of ‘plague’
The word “plague” is often used to refer to any major disease epidemic or pandemic, or even to other undesirable events, such as a mouse plague. Naturally, the word can evoke fear.
But scientifically speaking, plague is a disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
Plague has three main forms: bubonic, septicemic and pneumonic.
Bubonic is the most common and is named after “buboes”, which are the painful, swollen lymph nodes the infection causes. Other symptoms include fever, headache, chills and weakness.
Bubonic plague is typically spread by fleas living on animals such as rats, prairie dogs and marmots. If an infected flea moves from their animal host to bite a human, this can cause an infection.
People can also become infected through handling an animal infected with the disease.
Septicemic plague occurs if bubonic plague is left untreated, or it can occur directly if the disease enters the bloodstream. Septicemic plague causes bleeding into the organs. The name comes from septicemia, which refers to a serious blood infection.
The recent death in the United States was due to a case of pneumonic plague, which is the most severe form. Bubonic plague can in some cases spread to the lungs, where it becomes pneumonic plague. However, pneumonic plague can also spread from person to person via tiny respiratory droplets, in a similar way to COVID. Symptoms are similar to the other forms but also include severe pneumonia.
Some 30–60% of people who contract bubonic plague will die, while the fatality rate can be up to 100% for pneumonic plague if left untreated.
Animals such as rats can carry the bacterium that causes plague. marcus_photo_uk/Shutterstock Plague: a potted history
This disease is one of the most important in history. The Plague of Justinian (541–750CE) killed tens of millions of people in the western Mediterranean, heavily impacting the expansion of the Byzantine Empire.
The medieval Black Death (1346–53) was also seismic, killing tens of millions of people and up to half of Europe’s population.
Spread by the growing trade networks of the British empire, the third and most recent plague pandemic spanned the years 1855 until roughly 1960, peaking in the early 1900s. It was responsible for 12 million deaths, primarily in India, and even reached Australia.
It’s believed the bubonic plague was largely behind these pandemics.
Plague in the modern day
First introduced into the US during the third pandemic, plague infects an average of seven people a year in the west of the country, due to being endemic in groundhog and prairie dog populations there. The last major outbreak was 100 years ago.
Deaths are very rare, with 14 deaths in the past 25 years in the US.
Globally, there have been a few thousand cases of plague over the past decade.
The countries with the most cases currently include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and Peru, with cases also occurring in India, central Asia and the US. Cases usually occur in rural and agricultural areas.
Plague can be treated
Plague can easily be treated with common antibiotics, typically a course of 10–14 days, which can include both oral and intravenous antibiotics. But it must be treated quickly.
The recent death is concerning, as it involves the airborne pneumonic form of the disease, the only form that spreads easily from person to person. But there’s no evidence of further spread of the disease within the US at this stage.
As Y. pestis is not found in Australian animals, there is little risk here. Plague has not been reported in Australia in more than a century.
But plague, like many diseases, is influenced by environmental conditions. The risk of climate change causing an expansion in the habitat of animal hosts means public health experts around the world should continue to monitor it closely.
The plague, though often perceived as a disease of history, is still with us and can pose a major health threat if not treated early.
Thomas Jeffries, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, Western Sydney University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Laugh Often, To Laugh Longest!
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Putting The Abs Into Absurdity
We’ve talked before about the health benefits of a broadly positive outlook on life:
Optimism Seriously Increases Longevity!
…and we’re very serious about it, but that’s about optimistic life views in general, and today we’re about not just keeping good humor in questionable circumstances, but actively finding good humor in the those moments—even when the moments in question might not be generally described as good!
After all, laughter really can be the best medicine, for example:
From the roots
First a quick recap on de-toothing the psychological aspect of threats, no matter how menacing they may be:
Hello, Emotions: Time For Radical Acceptance!
…which we can then take a step further:
What’s The Worst That Could Happen?
Choose your frame
Do you remember when that hacker hacked and publicized the US Federal no-fly list, after already hacking a nationwide cloud-based security camera company, getting access to more than 150,000 companies’ and private individuals’ security cameras, amongst various other cyber crimes, mostly various kinds of fraud and data theft?
Imagine how she (age 21) must have felt, when being indicted. What do you suppose this hacker had to say for itself under such circumstances?
❝congress is investigating now 🙂
but i stay silly :3 ❞
…the latter half of which, usually rendered “but I stay silly” or “but we stay silly” has since entered popular Gen-Z parlance, usually after expressing some negative thing, often in a state of powerlessness.
Which is an important life skill if powerlessness is something that is often likely.
It’s important for many Gen-Zs with negligible life prospects economically; it’s equally important for 60-somethings getting cancer diagnoses (statistically the most likely decade to find out one has cancer, by the way), and many other kinds of people younger, older, and in between.
Because at the end of the day, we all start powerless and we all end powerless.
Learned helplessness (two kinds)
In psychology, “learned helplessness” occurs when a person or creature gives up after learning that all and any attempts to resist a Bad Thing™ fail, perhaps even badly. A lab rat may just shut down and sit there getting electroshocked, for example. A person subjected to abuse may stop trying to improve their situation, and just go with the path of least resistance.
But, there’s another kind, wherein someone in a position of absolute powerlessness not only makes their peace with that, but also, decides that the one thing the outside world can’t control, is how they take it. Like the hacker we mentioned earlier.
Sometimes the gallows humor is even more literal, laughing at one’s own impending death. Not as a matter of bravado, but genuinely seeing the funny side.
But how?
Unfortunately, fortunately
The trick here is to “find a silver lining” that is nowhere near enough to compensate for the bad thing—and it may even be worse! But that’s fine:
“Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do the dishes before leaving for my vacation. Fortunately, I also forgot to turn the oven off, so the house burning down covered up my messy kitchen”
Writer’s personal less drastic example: today I set my espresso machine to press me an espresso; it doesn’t have an auto-off and I got distracted and it overflowed everywhere; my immediate reaction was “Oh! I have been blessed with an abundance of coffee!”
This kind of silly little thing, on a daily basis, builds a very solid habit for life that allows one to see the funny side in even the most absurd situations, even matters of life and death (can confirm: been there enough times personally—so far so good, still alive to find the remembered absurdity silly).
The point is not to genuinely value the “silver lining”, because half the time it isn’t even one, really, and it is useless to pretend, in seriousness.
But to pretend in silliness? Now we’re onto something, and the real benefit is in the laughs we had along the way.
Because those worst moments? Are probably when we need it the most, so it’s good to get some practice in!
Want more ways to find the funny and make it a life habit?
We reviewed a good book recently:
The Humor Habit: Rewire Your Brain To Stress Less, Laugh More, And Achieve More’er – by Paul Osincup
Stay silly!
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Should I take a magnesium supplement? Will it help me sleep or prevent muscle cramps?
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Magnesium supplements are everywhere – lined up on pharmacy shelves and promoted on wellness blogs and social media.
Maybe you have a friend or family member who swears a daily tablet will help everything, from better sleep to alleviating muscle cramps.
But do you really need one? Or it is just marketing hype?
What is magnesium and why do we need it?
Magnesium is an essential metal the body needs to make and operate more than 300 different enzymes.
These enzymes build protein, and regulate muscle and nerve function, help in the release of energy from our food, and help to maintain blood function. The body doesn’t produce magnesium so we need to get it from external sources.
The government recommends a daily magnesium dose of 310–420 mg a day for adults and 30–410 mg for children, depending on age and sex.
This is easily met through a good diet. Foods rich in magnesium include nuts and seeds, whole grains, seafood, meat, legumes and green leafy vegetables.
You can even get some of your magnesium needs met through dark chocolate. It has 146 mg per 100 g of chocolate.
How do I know if I’m deficient?
People at risk of experiencing magnesium deficiency include people with restricted diets, gastrointestinal problems such as Crohn’s and coeliac diseases, type 2 diabetes, and alcohol dependence. Older adults are also more likely to be deficient.
You will only need a magnesium supplement if you show signs of low magnesium. One of the most common signs is muscle spasms and twitches. Other symptoms to look out for include low appetite, nausea and vomiting, or your heart beating abnormally.
Magnesium deficiency can be properly diagnosed by a blood test ordered by your doctor. If you need this test, it’s covered by Medicare.
What conditions can it help?
Commercially available magnesium supplements have been promoted to prevent muscle cramps, manage insomnia and help with migraines.
While magnesium deficiency is linked to muscle cramps, the cause of most muscle cramps is unknown.
And the current evidence does not demonstrate that magnesium supplements can prevent muscle cramps in older adults.
Magnesium supplements come in different brands and doses. Nial Wheate There is conflicting data as to whether the use of magnesium helps with sleep. One study reported magnesium was able to reduce the time for a person to fall asleep by 17.4 minutes while others didn’t show an effect.
For migraines, the most recent research suggests taking 122-600 mg of magnesium supplements daily for 4–24 weeks may decrease their frequency and severity.
Are magnesium supplements safe?
Magnesium supplements are generally well tolerated.
However, they can cause gastrointestinal discomfort such as nausea, abdominal cramping and diarrhoea. Magnesium causes diarrhoea by drawing water into the intestine and stimulating movement in the gut.
It is possible to take too much magnesium and you can overdose on it. Very large doses, around 5,000 mg per day, can lead to magnesium toxicity.
Most of the research investigating the clinical use of magnesium focuses on magnesium in oral formulations.
What other formulations are available?
As magnesium is a small metal ion, it can pass through skin – but not easily.
Magnesium bath salts, patches and topical cream-based formulations may be able to raise your blood magnesium levels to some extent.
But due to the amount needed each day, tablets and foods are a better source.
Things to watch out for when taking magnesium
Commercially available magnesium products can vary widely in dose, formulation and cost. Magnesium supplements have between 150 to 350 mg of the metal per tablet. Your required dose will depend on your age and sex, and whether you have any underlying health problems.
Magnesium supplements sometimes contain other vitamins and minerals, such as vitamins C and D, and the metals calcium, chromium and manganese. So it’s important to consider the total quantities if you’re taking other vitamins and supplements.
Many magnesium supplements also include vitamin B6. While this vitamin is important for supporting the immune system, high intakes can it can cause serious health issues. If you’re already taking a B6 supplement, a magnesium supplement that also includes it can put you at risk.
What if you’re considering supplements?
If you think you might be deficient in magnesium, speak to your doctor who can order a blood test.
If you suffer from migraines, cramps, or poor sleep, talk to your doctor or pharmacist who can advise on and monitor the underlying cause. It may be that a change in lifestyle or an alternative treatment may be more appropriate for you.
If you do decide to take a magnesium supplement, check you won’t be taking too much of any other vitamin or mineral. A pharmacist can help select a supplement that suits you best.
Nial Wheate, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University and Wai-Jo Jocelin Chan, Pharmacist and Lecturer, UNSW Sydney; University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Sweet Truth About Diabetes
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There’s A Lot Of Confusion About Diabetes!
For those readers who are not diabetic, nor have a loved one who is diabetic, nor any other pressing reason to know these things, first a quick 101 rundown of some things to understand the rest of today’s main feature:
- Blood sugar levels: how much sugar is in the blood, measured in mg/dL or mmol/L
- Hyperglycemia or “hyper” for short: too much sugar in the blood
- Hypoglycemia or “hypo” for short: too little sugar in the blood
- Insulin: a hormone that acts as a gatekeeper to allow sugar to pass, or not pass, into various parts of the body
- Type 1 diabetes (sometimes capitalized, and/or abbreviated to “T1D”) is an autoimmune disorder that prevents the pancreas from being able to supply the body with insulin. This means that taking insulin consistently is necessary for life.
- Type 2 diabetes is a matter of insulin resistance. The pancreas produces plenty of insulin, but the body has become desensitized to it, so it doesn’t work properly. Taking extra insulin may sometimes be necessary, but for many people, it can be controlled by means of a careful diet and other lifestyle factors.
With that in mind, on to some very popular myths…
Diabetes is caused by having too much sugar
While sugar is not exactly a health food, it’s not the villain of this story either.
- Type 1 diabetes has a genetic basis, triggered by epigenetic factors unrelated to sugar.
- Type 2 diabetes comes from a cluster of risk factors which, together, can cause a person to go through pre-diabetes and acquire type 2 diabetes.
- Those risk factors include:
- A genetic predisposition
- A large waist circumference
- (this is more relevant than BMI or body fat percentage)
- High blood pressure
- A sedentary lifestyle
- Age (the risk starts rising at 35, rises sharply at 45, and continues upwards with increasing age)
- Those risk factors include:
Read more: Risk Factors for Type 2 Diabetes
Diabetics can’t have sugar
While it’s true that diabetics must be careful about sugar (and carbs in general), it’s not to say that they can’t have them… just: be mindful and intentional about it.
- Type 1 diabetics will need to carb-count in order to take the appropriate insulin bolus. Otherwise, too little insulin will result in hyperglycemia, or too much insulin will result in hypoglycemia.
- Type 2 diabetics will often be able to manage their blood sugar levels with diet alone, and slow-release carbs will make this easier.
In either case, having quick release sugars will increase blood sugar levels (what a surprise), and sometimes (such as when experiencing a hypo), that’s what’s needed.
Also, when it comes to sugar, a word on fruit:
Not all fruits are equal, and some fruits can help maintain stable blood sugar levels! Read all about it:
Fruit Intake to Prevent and Control Hypertension and Diabetes
Artificial sweeteners are must-haves for diabetics
Whereas sugar is a known quantity to the careful diabetic, some artificial sweeteners can impact insulin sensitivity, causing blood sugars to behave in unexpected ways. See for example:
The Impact of Artificial Sweeteners on Body Weight Control and Glucose Homeostasis
If a diabetic person is hyper, they should exercise to bring their blood sugar levels down
Be careful with this!
- In the case of type 2 diabetes, it may (or may not) help, as the extra sugar may be used up.
- Type 1 diabetes, however, has a crucial difference. Because the pancreas isn’t making insulin, a hyper (above a certain level, anyway) means more insulin is needed. Exercising could do more harm than good, as unlike in type 2 diabetes, the body has no way to use that extra sugar, without the insulin to facilitate it. Exercising will just pump the syrupy hyperglycemic blood around the body, potentially causing damage as it goes (all without actually being able to use it).
There are other ways this can be managed that are outside of the scope of this newsletter, but “be careful” is rarely a bad approach.
Read more, from the American Diabetes Association:
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Will my boobs sag if I don’t wear a bra? And 5 other common questions about breasts and bras
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We’re all born with mammary glands – better known as breasts. These are made of glandular tissue, fat and the ligaments that attach them to our chest wall.
For roughly half of us – those born biologically female – our breasts will change dramatically in size and shape at puberty. Size is largely genetic: genes explain 56% of the differences in breast size between people. But breasts may also change during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and can be affected by age, diet and exercise.
So, what about bras?
There are a lot of popular beliefs about when, how and what kind of bra to wear to stop your boobs sagging or make them grow. But is there any evidence behind these?
Before we myth bust, let’s get one thing straight: breasts are sisters, not twins. So, while your bra is symmetrical, it’s normal your breasts aren’t.
Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock 1. Do bras give you cancer?
No, there is no evidence to show wearing a bra is linked to developing breast cancer.
This myth seems to come from the idea bras can block lymphatic drainage, but there is no evidence to support this or any other cancer-causing mechanism.
One study, involving more than 1,000 women aged 55 to 74, compared those diagnosed with breast cancer to those without. Researchers found no aspect of bra-wearing – including how many hours per day and whether it had an underwire – was linked to breast cancer risk in post-menopausal women.
Risk factors for breast cancer are well established and include being female, over 50 years old, having a family history of breast cancer, and lifestyle factors such as inactivity and drinking a lot of alcohol.
2. Does sleeping in a bra stop your boobs growing?
No. Wearing a bra – day or night – won’t affect their size.
Breasts grow thanks to hormones, which are regulated by your brain. Nutrition and overall health can also play a role; for example, if you lose body fat, your breasts may also shrink.
There is no evidence to suggest sleeping with a bra has a negative effect on their growth.
So, it comes down to comfort. Women with larger breasts may find a bra reduces how much their breasts move during sleep, while others may find it uncomfortable.
If sleeping in a bra is comfortable for you, don’t worry – it doesn’t affect boob size. Willie B. Thomas/Getty 3. Will wearing a bra stop my breasts sagging?
No.
Gravity affects everyone, meaning breasts will sag as we age. But larger breasts are affected more by gravitational forces pulling them towards the ground. This may stretch the skin and ligaments over time, making them sag more.
Being pregnant also usually makes your breasts grow bigger and this – along with milk production affecting their composition – can increase strain, potentially stretching skin and ligaments.
Some other factors can also increase this effect, including being older, having a higher body mass index, having multiple pregnancies and smoking. Even surgically reduced breasts sag more with smoking.
However, breastfeeding does not appear to make breasts saggy.
So, while we don’t have evidence to show bras can prevent natural sagging, a well-fitted one may offer support and comfort.
4. Should you only exercise in a sports bra?
Yes. Breasts and bras move with your body. The pull of gravity on your breasts has the potential to cause damage by straining the skin and breaking collagen fibres which support the structure of the breast.
Again, this is more likely to affect women with larger breasts. Researchers found when women with D-cups exercised without a sports bra, their breasts moved up and down about 4 centimetres when walking. When they ran, their breasts bounced about 15cm – the height of your smartphone.
High-impact sports bras are the most effective at reducing breast movement and discomfort, compared to crop tops and everyday bras.
So exercising in a bandeau or “boob tube” bra – like these Roman women in a 4th century mosaic – is not recommended.
These strips of fabric pulled across the chest don’t offer support against gravity and bounce. izanbar/Getty 5. Can underwire bras injure your boobs?
Yes. It’s possible for underwires from bras to escape their casing and scratch or dig into your breast skin, but this has not been studied.
However, one 2023 study found women who wear underwire bras after breast implants are 2.7 more times likely to have them rupture. This suggests underwire bras can put more pressure on breasts.
One case study in 2014 suggested a tight underwire bra was responsible for blocking and inflaming breast veins, causing pain and breast tissue to harden.
However we don’t have evidence this condition is common, and it can be avoided by wearing correctly fitted bras. If you have breast pain or notice unusual lumps or changes, speak to a doctor.
6. Should I get fitted if I have small breasts?
Yes. Wearing a poorly fitting bra can cause unnecessary discomfort, even if you have small breasts.
One study of 309 Australian women, with bra cup sizes ranging from A to K, found only one in ten were wearing a bra that fitted correctly. This affected women with small, medium, large and extremely large breasts equally.
Most had an incorrectly fitting backband (either too loose or too tight) and the wrong cup size. However women with smaller breasts were more likely to have badly fitting bra straps while women with medium or larger breasts were more likely to have ill-fitting front bands and underwire.
A 2018 review of evidence about women with benign but unidentified breast pain (mastalgia) also found most experienced relief when offered bra-fitting advice and reassurance from their GP.
Amanda Meyer, Senior Lecturer, Anatomy and Pathology in the College of Medicine and Dentistry, James Cook University and Monika Zimanyi, Associate Professor in Anatomy, James Cook University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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