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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Hawthorn For The Heart (& More)
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Hawthorn, The Heart-Healthy Helper
Hawthorn, a berry of the genus Crataegus (there are many species, but they seem to give more or less the same benefits), has been enjoyed for hundreds of years, if not thousands, as a herbal remedy for many ailments, mostly of the cardiovascular, digestive, and/or endocrine systems:
Crataegus pinnatifida: Chemical Constituents, Pharmacology, and Potential Applications
Antioxidant & Anti-inflammatory
Like most berries, it’s full of helpful polyphenols, with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Indeed, as Dr. Nabavi et al. wrote,
❝Crataegus monogyna Jacq. (hawthorn) is one of the most important edible plants of the Rosaceae family and is also used in traditional medicine.
Growing evidence has shown that this plant has various interesting physiological and pharmacological activities due to the presence of different bioactive natural compounds.
In addition, scientific evidence suggests that the toxicity of hawthorn is negligible. ❞
Read in full: Polyphenolic Composition of Crataegus monogyna Jacq.: From Chemistry to Medical Applications
While “the toxicity of hawthorn is negligible” may be reasonably considered a baseline for recommending an edible plant, it’s still important as just that: a baseline. It’s good to know that berries are safe, after all!
More positively, about those antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties:
This one was a mouse study, but it’s important as it about modulating liver injury after being fed a high fructose diet.
In other words: it a) helps undo the biggest cause of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, b) logically, likely guards against diabetes also (by the same mechanism)
Anti-Diabetes Potential
Curious about that latter point, we looked for studies, and found, for example:
- Hypoglycemic effect of hawthorn in type II diabetes mellitus rat model
- Molecular Mechanisms of Hawthorn Extracts in Multiple Organs Disorders in Underlying of Diabetes: A Review
- Modulation of GPC-4 and GPLD1 serum levels by improving glycemic indices in type 2 diabetes: Resistance training and hawthorn extract intervention
Noteworthily, those studies are from the past couple of years, which is probably why we’re not seeing many human trials for this yet—everything has to be done in order, and there’s a lengthy process between each.
We did find some human trials with hawthorn in diabetes patients, for example:
…but as you see, that’s testing not its antidiabetic potential, so far demonstrated only in mice and rats (so far as we could find), but rather its blood pressure lowering effects, using diabetic patients as a sample.
Blood pressure benefits
Hawthorn has been studied specifically for its hypotensive effect, for example:
As an extra bonus, did you notice in the conclusion,
❝Furthermore, a trend towards a reduction in anxiety (p = 0.094) was also observed in those taking hawthorn compared with the other groups.
These findings warrant further study, particularly in view of the low dose of hawthorn extract used.❞
…it seems that not a lot more study has been done yet, but that is promising too!
Other blood metrics
So, it has antidiabetic and antihypertensive benefits, what of blood lipids?
Hawthorn Fruit Extract Elevates Expression of Nrf2/HO-1 and Improves Lipid Profiles
And as for arterial plaque?
here it was tested alongside another herb, and performed well (also against placebo).
In summary…
Hawthorn (Crataegus sp.) is…
- a potent berry containing many polyphenols with good antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects
- looking promising against diabetes, but research for this is still in early stages
- found to have other cardioprotective effects (antihypertensive, improves lipid profiles), too
- considered to have negligible toxicity
Where can I get it?
As ever, we don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
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Biohack Your Way to Healthy Skin – by Jennifer Sun
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The author, an aesthetician with a biotech background, explains about the overlap of skin health and skin beauty, making it better from the inside first (diet and other lifestyle factors), and then tweaking things as desired from the outside.
We previous reviewed another book of hers, “Unleashing Your Best Skin”, and this time the focus is on things you can do at home—not requiring expensive salon treatments (the other book covers both approaches; this one simply skips the clinic work and instead has a lot more detail in the at-home category).
As for what she covers, it comes in categories:
- Gadgets to consider investing in, how to pick good ones, and what gadgets to avoid
- Basic skincare knowledge and practice; here we’re talking cleaners, tonics, moisturizers, and so forth
- Best topical and oral ingredients for the skin (and in contrast, ingredients to be wary of)
- Nutrition for skincare; not just “your skin needs these ingredients”, but also…
- Gut health for skincare, which gets a whole chapter just for that
- Biohacking hormones for skincare, including in the cases of various common hormone imbalances (e.g. menopause, PCOS, etc) and other complications not generally thought of in terms of skincare, such as diabetes and hypo-/hyperthyroidism.
- Circulatory health for skincare (blood and lymph)
- Mental health techniques for skincare (including improving sleep, managing stress, supplements to consider, etc).
As with her other book that we reviewed, the book is broadly aimed at women, and the section on sex-hormonal considerations is completely aimed at women, but as for the rest of the book, there’s no pressing reason why this book couldn’t benefit men too. It also addresses considerations when it comes to darker skintones, something that a lot of similar books overlook.
The style is directly instructional, albeit light and conversational in tone, and still with 20+ pages of scientific references to show that she does indeed know her stuff.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your skin health, and/but aren’t a fan of going to the salon, then this book will be an invaluable resource.
Click here to check out Biohack Your Way To Healthy Skin, and biohack your way to healthy skin!
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Surviving A Heart Attack? Stroke? There’s An App For That
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❝Stopped.❞
~ The last words of Dr. Joseph Henry Green, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, who had been taking his own pulse
Sometimes, self-diagnosis isn’t so clear as that, though, especially when it comes to life-threatening issues with the heart and brain (i.e. things we can’t readily look at, and diagnose with the same ease we might diagnose a broken arm or such). Indeed, many people have a heart attack or stroke and, upon finding that they are not dead, conclude “I guess I’m fine after all” and continue about their day
Unfortunately, it’s often the case that in fact they still needed medical attention within the hour (literally: the hour after a heart attack or stroke is called “the golden hour” by doctors in the field, as medical treatments are most effective then, and less likely to help so much afterwards).
As a result, a lot of people die because they didn’t seek medical attention because they dismissed their own experience once the immediate symptoms abated.
About The “Emergency Call for Heart Attack and Stroke” (ECHAS) App
This is a smartphone app that can be used at home to identify the signs of heart attacks and strokes, including:
- A virtual exam using questions similar to those asked in ERs.
- A finger-tapping test to detect one-sided body weakness.
- A risk score to advise whether to call 911, a hotline, or a doctor.
In a moderate-size (n=202) study, it successfully detected strokes in under 2 minutes and heart attacks in 1 minute, and when we say “successfully”, it was 100% accurate in identifying patients who were later admitted to the hospital. Obviously, we cannot say about the patients who didn’t go to hospital, because there was (consequently) no further data for them, but we can conclude:
- there were no false positives (that’s the “100% accurate in identifying patients who were later admitted to the hospital” part)
- while we can’t say for sure there were no false negatives, it is promising that there were no reports of “app said patient was fine, patient then deteriorated/died”, which would have been picked up. So, it looks promisingly like there were no false negatives either.
In terms of ease of use, it was rated by the study participants as very easy to use, making it suitable for people without medical training, and for that matter, people without medical training in the middle of a medical crisis who thus might not be at their best when using it.
You can read the study paper in full, here: Assessment of the Sensitivity of a Smartphone App to Assist Patients in the Identification of Stroke and Myocardial Infarction: Cross-Sectional Study
Sounds great; where can I get it?
At time of writing, it’s not publicly available just yet, but the researchers want to trial it on a much larger scale, so we’ll keep an eye out for invitations to that trial (probably in a huge, crowdsourced data way, like ZOE and 1 Million Nights and such) and advise you to do so, too.
In all likelihood, it’ll appear soon for iPhone and Android in their respective app stores.
In the meantime, you might want to check out:
Take care!
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Why You Keep Overeating (It’s Not What Most People Think)
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Dr. Ruth Machin explains the factors that conspire to get us to eat too much:
À la carte
In menopause, diminishing estrogen increases hunger while muscle loss and lower activity decrease the body’s ability to metabolize the extra calories.
So, for many people, there are three things we can do about that already:
- Correct one’s estrogen levels with HRT
- Take care to maintain muscle mass
- Make sure to continue to be active
However, there are more factors at hand than just our own bodies, for example:
- Processed foods and eating speed: highly processed foods are eaten more quickly and can disrupt hunger hormones, leading to higher calorie intake even if they have similar nutritional profiles to less-processed versions.
- Portion size effect: larger portions lead to consistently higher intake without later compensation, so controlling portion sizes when serving is important. You’ve probably heard this tip before but: use smaller plates/bowls!
- Energy density considerations: high-calorie foods that aren’t filling are easy to overeat regardless of being homemade or processed, while low-calorie-dense foods like fruit, vegetables, beans, and lean protein help control intake.
- Liquid calories zip straight into places we don’t want them: drinks like sugary sodas, sweetened coffee, juice, and alcohol add calories without fullness, making them easy to overconsume and overlook.
- Food variety matters (this is both good and bad): greater variety on the table increases consumption by resetting taste satisfaction, but this can be used beneficially by increasing variety in fruits and vegetables!
As ever, slow and steady is the best approach, and gradually replacing processed foods with whole foods and aiming for “mostly whole-food” diet is more effective than strict elimination (that usually doesn’t last anyway).
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
The Science of Hunger, And How To Sate It
Take care!
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Sesame & Peanut Tofu
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Yesterday we learned how to elevate tofu from “nutrition” to “nutritious tasty snack” with our Basic Baked Tofu recipe; today we’re expanding on that, to take it from “nutritious tasty snack” to “very respectable meal”.
You will need
For the tofu:
- The Basic Baked Tofu that we made yesterday (consider making this to be “step zero” of today’s recipe if you don’t already have a portion in the fridge)
For the sauce:
- ⅓ cup peanut butter, ideally with no added sugar or salt (if allergic to peanuts specifically, use almond butter; if allergic to nuts generally, use tahini)
- ¼ bulb garlic, grated or crushed
- 1 tbsp tamarind paste
- 1½ tbsp tamari sauce (or low-sodium soy sauce, if a substitution is necessary)
- 1 tbsp sambal oelek (or sriracha sauce, if a substitution is necessary)
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- ½ tsp ground sweet cinnamon
- ½ tsp MSG (or else omit; do not substitute with salt in this case unless you have a particular craving)
- zest of 1 lime
For the vegetables:
- 14 oz broccolini / tenderstem broccoli, thick ends trimmed (failing that, any broccoli)
- 6 oz shelled edamame
- 1½ tsp toasted sesame oil
For serving:
- 4 cups cooked rice (we recommend our Tasty Versatile Rice recipe)
- ½ cup raw cashews, soaked in hot water for at least 5 minutes and then drained (if allergic, substitute cooked chickpeas, rinsed and drained)
- 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
- 1 handful chopped cilantro, unless you have the “this tastes like soap” gene, in which case substitute chopped parsley
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl and whisk well (or use a blender if you have one that’s comfortable with this relatively small quantity of ingredients). Taste it, and adjust the ingredient ratios if you’d like more saltiness, sweetness, sourness, spiciness, umami.
2) Prepare a bowl with cold water and some ice. Steam the broccolini and edamame for about 3 minutes; as soon as they become tender, dump them into the ice bathe to halt the cooking process. Let them chill for a few minutes, then drain, dry, and toss in the sesame oil.
3) Reheat the tofu if necessary (an air fryer is great for this), and then combine with half of the sauce in a bowl, tossing gently to coat well.
4) Add a little extra water to the remaining sauce, enough to make it pourable, whisking to an even consistency.
5) Assemble; do it per your preference, but we recommend the order: rice, vegetables, tofu, cashews, sauce, sesame seeds, herbs.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Tofu vs Seitan – Which is Healthier?
- Plant vs Animal Protein: Head to Head
- Sweet Cinnamon vs Regular Cinnamon – Which is Healthier?
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
Take care!
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Putin Hopes This Biotech Will Let Him Live Forever
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…and other items from this week’s health news:
Time for a replacement?
❝With the developments of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality❞
~ Vladimir Putin, 72, this week, in a “hot mic” moment
This has clearly been on his mind for a while, as he upped the ante last year in 2024, funneling a lot of state money into his pet project, the New Health Preservation Technologies Initiative, after some years of close connection with the idea, starting 2019 at the latest, including per the company that his eldest daughter (an endocrinologist) works at, owned by his friend Kovalchuk. This too stems from earlier projects dating back to at least 2013, so it’s no flash-in-the-pan whim on his part.
He even oversaw increased funding into organ bioprinting and related technologies fivefold in 2022, when one might have expected his attention (and national resources) to be focused elsewhere.
But… will it work? Per current prevailing scientific consensus… Probably not, no.
This is because for now and the foreseeable future, transplantable organs are scarce, lab-grown full-size organs are still far from feasible, aging reduces recovery ability (organ transplant operations are not trivial), and brains cannot be replaced without losing identity.
Read in full: Putin says organ transplants could grant immortality. Not quite.
Related: Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
Kidney disease deaths are on the rise
Deaths from hypertensive kidney disease in the US increased 48% between 1999–2023, and notably high blood pressure is the second leading cause of end-stage kidney disease and a major contributing factor to cardiovascular and renal morbidity and mortality.
In fewer words: high blood pressure is driving kidney disease and heart disease, which are killing increasingly many people in the US.
Men had higher mortality than women, with 22% higher mortality in those with renal failure, and the West had the highest regional rate, but the highest state-level rates were in Washington DC, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Black people had the highest mortality rates (more than 3x higher than others), and white people the lowest.
Researchers are urging more attention to be paid to early diagnosis and intervention:
Read in full: Deaths from high blood pressure-related kidney disease up nearly 50%
Related: Are your Kidneys Ok? Detect Early To Protect Kidney Health (Here’s How)
No hovering
Do you have kids (or grandkids) furthering their education this fall?
If so, it may be as well to let them fend for themselves unless they actively ask you for help. Researchers (Dr. Lidia Panier et al.) found that students with overprotective parents showed a stronger link between exposure to stressful events and higher anxiety levels.
One hypothesis is that overprotective parenting may limit their ability to develop coping and emotion regulation skills, leaving them more vulnerable to anxiety when facing stress.
Another hypothesis is that overprotective parents are, themselves, causing unnecessary extra stress—which makes other things harder to deal with rather than easier.
All this is consistent with past research linking overprotective parenting to insecure attachment, poor emotion regulation, and greater anxiety risk:
Read in full: Overprotective parenting linked to higher anxiety in first year university students
Related: If Your Adult Kid Calls In Crisis…
Take care!
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