Lifestyle vs Multiple Sclerosis & More
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This is Dr. Saray Stancic. She’s another from the ranks of “doctors who got a serious illness and it completely changed how they view the treatment of serious illness”.
In her case, Stancic was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and wasn’t impressed with the results from the treatments offered, so (after 8 years of pain, suffering, and many medications, only for her condition to worsen) she set about doing better with an evidence-based lifestyle medicine approach.
After 7 years of her new approach, she would go on to successfully run a marathon and live symptom-free.
All this to say: her approach isn’t a magic quick fix, but it is a serious method for serious results, and after all, while it’d be nice to be magically in perfect health tomorrow, what’s important is being in good health for life, right?
If you’re interested in her impressive story, check out:
Doctor With Multiple Sclerosis On The Collapse Of US Healthcare
If you want to know what she did, then read on…
Six key lifestyle changes
Dr. Stancic credits her recovery to focus on the following evidence-based approaches:
The plant-centered plate
This is critical, and is the one she places most emphasis on. Most chronic diseases are exacerbated, if not outright caused, by chronic inflammation, and one cannot fix that without an anti-inflammatory diet.
An anti-inflammatory diet doesn’t have to be 100% plant-based, but broadly speaking, plants are almost always anti-inflammatory to a greater or lesser degree, while animal products are often pro-inflammatory—especially red meat and unfermented dairy.
For more details, see:
Anti-Inflammatory Diet 101 (What to Eat to Fight Inflammation)
Movement every day
While “exercise is good for you” is in principle not a shocker, remember that her starting point was being in terrible condition with badly flared-up MS.
Important to understand here is that excessive exercise can weaken the immune system and sometimes cause flare-ups of various chronic diseases.
Moving thoroughly and moving often, however, is best. So walking yes, absolutely, but also don’t neglect the rest of your body, do some gentle bodyweight squats (if you can; if you can’t, work up to them), stretch your arms as well as your legs, take all your joints through a full range of motion.
See also:
The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More
Mindful stress management
Stress in life is unavoidable, but how we manage it is up to us. Bad things will continue to happen, great and small, but we can take a deep breath, remember that those things aren’t the boss of us, and deal with it calmly and conscientiously.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is of course the evidence-based “gold standard” for this, but whatever (not substance-based) method works for you, works for you!
About MBSR:
No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
Good sleeping habits
Getting good sleep can be hard for anyone, let alone if you have chronic pain. However, Dr. Stancic advocates for doing whatever we can to get good sleep—which means not just duration (the famous “7–9 hours”), but also quality.
Learn more:
The 6 Dimensions Of Sleep (And Why They Matter)
Substance intake awareness
This one’s not so much of a “don’t do drugs, kids” as the heading makes it look. Dr. Stancic assumes we already know, for example, that smoking is bad for us in a long list of ways, and alcohol isn’t much better.
However, she also advises us that in our eagerness to do that plant-based diet, we would do better to go for whole foods plant-based, rather than the latest processed meat substitutes, for example.
And supplements? She bids us exercise caution, and to make sure to get good quality, as poor quality supplements can be worse than taking nothing (looking at you, cheap turmeric supplements that contain heavy metals).
And of course, that nutrients gained from diet will almost always be better than nutrients gained from supplements, as our body can usually use them better.
And see also, some commonly-made supplements mistakes:
Do You Know Which Supplements You Shouldn’t Take Together? (10 Pairs!)
Human connection
Lastly, we humans are a social species by evolution; as individuals, we may enjoy relatively more or less social contact, but having access to such is important not just for our mental health, but our physical health too—we will tend to deteriorate much more quickly when we have to deal with everything alone, all other things being equal.
It doesn’t mean you need a busy social life if that’s not in your nature, but it does mean it’s incredibly beneficial to have at least a small number of people that you trust and whose company you enjoy, at least relatively accessible to you (i.e., their life need not revolve around you, but they are the kind of people who will generally happily spend time with you and provide support when needed if they can).
As for how:
How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
Want to know more from Dr. Stancic?
We recently reviewed this very good book of hers, which goes over each of these six things in much more detail than we have room for here:
What’s Missing from Medicine – by Dr. Saray Stancic
Enjoy!
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Fatty Acids For The Eyes & Brain: The Good And The Bad
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Good For The Eyes; Good For The Brain
We’ve written before about omega-3 fatty acids, covering the basics and some lesser-known things:
What Omega-3 Fatty Acids Really Do For Us
…and while we discussed its well-established benefits against cognitive decline (which is to be expected, because omega-3 is good against inflammation, and a large part of age-related neurodegeneration is heavily related to neuroinflammation), there’s a part of the brain we didn’t talk about in that article: the eyes.
We did, however, talk in another article about supplements that benefit the eyes and [the rest of the] brain, and the important links between the two, to the point that an examination of the levels of lutein in the retina can inform clinicians about the levels of lutein in the brain as a whole, and strongly predict Alzheimer’s disease (because Alzheimer’s patients have significantly less lutein), here:
Now, let’s tie these two ideas together
In a recent (June 2024) meta-analysis of high-quality observational studies from the US and around the world, involving nearly a quarter of a million people over 40 (n=241,151), researchers found that a higher intake of omega-3 is significantly linked to a lower risk of macular degeneration.
To put it in numbers, the highest intake of omega-3s was associated with an 18% reduced risk of early stage macular degeneration.
They also looked at a breakdown of what kinds of omega-3, and found that taking a blend DHA and EPA worked best of all, although of people who only took one kind, DHA was the best “single type” option.
You can read the paper in full, here:
Association between fatty acid intake and age-related macular degeneration: a meta-analysis
A word about trans-fatty acids (TFAs)
It was another feature of the same study that, while looking at fatty acids in general, they also found that higher consumption of trans-fatty acids was associated with a higher risk of advanced age-related macular degeneration.
Specifically, the highest intake of TFAs was associated with a more than 2x increased risk.
There are two main dietary sources of trans-fatty acids:
- Processed foods that were made with TFAs; these have now been banned in a lot of places, but only quite recently, and the ban is on the processing, not the sale, so if you buy processed foods that contain ingredients that were processed before 2021 (not uncommon, given the long life of many processed foods), the chances of them having TFAs is higher.
- Most animal products. Most notably from mammals and their milk, so beef, pork, lamb, milk, cheese, and yes even yogurt. Poultry and fish technically do also contain TFAs in most cases, but the levels are much lower.
Back to the omega-3 fatty acids…
If you’re wondering where to get good quality omega-3, well, we listed some of the best dietary sources in our main omega-3 article (linked at the top of today’s).
However, if you want to supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon that’s high in DHA and EPA, following the science of what we shared today 😎
Take care!
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You Are Not Broken – by Dr. Kelly Casperson
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Many women express “I think I’m broken down there”, and it turns out simply that neither they nor their partners had the right knowledge, that’s all. The good news is: bedroom competence is an entirely learnable skill!
Dr. Casperson is a urologist, and over the years has expanded her work into all things pelvic, including the relevant use of both systemic and topical hormones (as in, hormones to increase overall blood serum levels of that hormone, like most HRT, and also, creams and lotions to increase levels of a given hormone in one particular place).
However, this is not 200 pages to say “take hormones”. Rather, she covers many areas of female sexual health and wellbeing, including yes, simply pleasure. From the physiological to the psychological, Dr. Casperson talks the reader through avoiding blame games and “getting out of your head and into your body”.
Bottom line: if you (or a loved one) are one of the many women who have doubts about being entirely correctly set up down there, then this book is definitely for you.
Click here to check out You Are Not Broken, and indeed stop “should-ing” all over your sex life!
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How to Boost Your Metabolism When Over 50
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Dr. Dawn Andalon, a physiotherapist, explains the role of certain kinds of exercise in metabolism; here’s what to keep in mind:
Work with your body
Many people make the mistake of thinking that it is a somehow a battle of wills, and they must simply will their body to pick up the pace. That’s not how it works though, and while that can occasionally get short-term results, at best it’ll quickly result in exhaustion. So, instead:
- Strength training: engage in weight training 2–3 times per week; build muscle and combat bone loss too. Proper guidance from trainers familiar with older adults is recommended. Pilates (Dr. Andalon is a Pilates instructor) can also complement strength training by enhancing core stability and preventing injuries. The “building muscle” thing is important for metabolism, because muscle increases the body’s metabolic base rate.
- Protein intake: Dr. Andalon advises to consume 25–30 grams of lean protein per meal to support muscle growth and repair (again, important for the same reason as mentioned above re exercise). Dr. Andalon’s recommendation is more protein per meal than is usually advised, as it is generally held that the body cannot use more than about 20g at once.
- Sleep quality: prioritize good quality sleep, by practising good sleep hygiene, and also addressing any potential hormonal imbalances affecting sleep. If you do not get good quality sleep, your metabolism will get sluggish in an effort to encourage you to sleep more.
- Exercise to manage stress: regular walking (such as the popular 10,000 steps daily) helps manage stress and improve metabolism. Zone two cardio (low-intensity movement) also supports joint health, blood flow, and recovery—but the main issue about stress here is that if your body experiences unmanaged stress, it will try to save you from whatever is stressing you by reducing your metabolic base rate so that you can out-survive the bad thing. Which is helpful if the stressful thing is that the fruit trees got stripped by giraffes and hunting did not yield a kill, but not so helpful if the stressful thing is the holiday season.
- Hydration: your body cannot function properly without adequate hydration; water is needed (directly or indirectly) for all bodily processes, and your metabolism will also “dry up” without it.
- Antidiabetic & anti-inflammatory diet: minimize sugar intake and reduce processed foods, especially those with inflammatory refined oils (esp. canola & sunflower) and the like. This has very directly to do with your body’s energy metabolism, and as they say in computing, “garbage in; garbage out”.
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 to read:
Burn! How To Boost Your Metabolism
Take care!
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Related Posts
Ear Candling: Is It Safe & Does It Work?
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Does This Practice Really Hold A Candle To Evidence-Based Medicine?
In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you your opinion of ear candling, and got the above-depicted, below-described set of responses:
- Exactly 50% said “Under no circumstances should you put things in your ear and set fire to them”
- About 38% said “It is a safe, drug-free way to keep the ears free from earwax and pathogens”
- About 13% said “Done correctly, thermal-auricular therapy is harmless and potentially beneficial”
This means that if we add the two positive-to-candling answers together, it’s a perfect 50:50 split between “do it” and “don’t do it”.
(Yes, 38%+13%=51%, but that’s because we round to the nearest integer in these reports, and more precisely it was 37.5% and 12.5%)
So, with the vote split, what does the science say?
First, a quick bit of background: nobody seems keen to admit to having invented this. One of the major manufacturers of ear candles refers to them as “Hopi” candles, which the actual Hopi tribe has spent a long time asking them not to do, as it is not and never has been used by the Hopi people. Other proposed origins offered by advocates of ear candling include Traditional Chinese Medicine (not used), Ancient Egypt (no evidence of such whatsoever), and Atlantis:
Quackwatch | Why Ear Candling Is Not A Good Idea
It is a safe, drug-free way to keep the ears free from earwax and pathogens: True or False?
False! In a lot of cases of alternative therapy claims, there’s an absence of evidence that doesn’t necessarily disprove the treatment. In this case, however, it’s not even an open matter; its claims have been actively disproven by experimentation:
- It doesn’t remove earwax; on the contrary, experimentation “showed no removal of cerumen from the external auditory canal. Candle wax was actually deposited in some“
- It doesn’t remove pathogens, and the proposed mechanism of action for removing pathogens, that of the “chimney effect”: the idea that the burning candle creates a vacuum that draws wax out of the ear along with debris and bacteria, simply does not work; on the contrary, “Tympanometric measurements in an ear canal model demonstrated that ear candles do not produce negative pressure”.
- It isn’t safe; on the contrary, “Ear candles have no benefit in the management of cerumen and may result in serious injury”
In a medium-sized survey (n=122), the following injuries were reported:
- 13 x burns
- 7 x occlusion of the ear canal
- 6 x temporary hearing loss
- 3 x otitis externa (this also called “swimmer’s ear”, and is an inflammation of the ear, accompanied by pain and swelling)
- 1 x tympanic membrane perforation
Indeed, authors of one paper concluded:
❝Ear candling appears to be popular and is heavily advertised with claims that could seem scientific to lay people. However, its claimed mechanism of action has not been verified, no positive clinical effect has been reliably recorded, and it is associated with considerable risk.
No evidence suggests that ear candling is an effective treatment for any condition. On this basis, we believe it can do more harm than good and we recommend that GPs discourage its use❞
Source: Canadian Family Physician | Ear Candling
Under no circumstances should you put things in your ear and set fire to them: True or False?
True! It’s generally considered good advice to not put objects in general in your ears.
Inserting flaming objects is a definite no-no. Please leave that for the Cirque du Soleil.
You may be thinking, “but I have done this and suffered no ill effects”, which seems reasonable, but is an example of survivorship bias in action—it doesn’t make the thing in question any safer, it just means you were one of the one of the ones who got away unscathed.
If you’re wondering what to do instead… Ear oils can help with the removal of earwax (if you don’t want to go get it sucked out at a clinic—the industry standard is to use a suction device, which actually does what ear candles claim to do). For information on safely getting rid of earwax, see our previous article:
Take care!
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Avocado Oil vs Olive Oil – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing avocado oil to olive oil, we picked the olive oil.
Why?
Avocados and olives are both very healthy foods. However, when they are made into oils, there’s an important distinguishing factor:
Olive oil usually retains a lot of the micronutrients from the olives (including vitamins E and K), whereas no measurable micronutrients usually remain in avocado oil.
So while both olive oil and avocado oil have a similar (excellent; very heart-healthy!) lipids profile, the olive oil has some bonuses that the avocado oil doesn’t.
We haven’t written about the nutritional profiles of either avocados or olives yet, but here’s what we had to say on the different kinds of olive oil available:
And here’s an example of a good one on Amazon, for your convenience 😎
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Superfood Pesto Pizza
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Not only is this pizza full of foods that punch above their weight healthwise, there’s no kneading and no waiting when it comes to the base, either. Homemade pizzas made easy!
You will need
For the topping:
- 1 zucchini, sliced
- 1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
- 3 oz mushrooms, sliced
- 3 shallots, cut into quarters
- 6 sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
- ½ bulb garlic (paperwork done, but cloves left intact, unless they are very large, in which case halve them)
- 1 oz pitted black olives, halved
- 1 handful arugula
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
For the base:
- ½ cup chickpea flour (also called besan or gram flour)
- 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ⅛ tsp MSG or ¼ tsp low-sodium salt
For the pesto sauce:
- 1 large bunch basil, chopped
- ½ avocado, pitted and peeled
- 1 oz pine nuts
- ¼ bulb garlic, crushed
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp black pepper
- Juice of ½ lemon
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat the oven to 400℉ / 200℃.
2) Toss the zucchini, bell pepper, mushrooms, shallots, and garlic cloves in 1 tbsp olive oil, ensuring an even coating. Season with the black pepper and MSG/salt, and put on a baking tray lined with baking paper, to roast for about 20 minutes, until they are slightly charred.
3) When the vegetables are in the oven, make the pizza base by combining the dry ingredients in a bowl, making a pit in the middle of it, adding the olive oil and whisking it in, and then slowly (i.e., a little bit at a time) whisking in 1 cup cold water. This should take under 5 minutes.
4) Don’t panic when this doesn’t become a dough; it is supposed to be a thick batter, so that’s fine. Pour it into a 9″ pizza pan, and bake for about 15 minutes, until firm. Rotate it if necessary partway through; whether it needs this or not will depend on your oven.
5) While the pizza base is in the oven, make the pesto sauce by blending all the pesto sauce ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth.
6) When the base and vegetables are ready (these should be finished around the same time), spread the pesto sauce on the base, scatter the arugula over it followed by the vegetables and then the olives and sun-dried tomatoes.
7) Serve, adding any garnish or other final touches that take your fancy.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Which Bell Peppers To Pick? A Spectrum Of Specialties
- Ergothioneine In Mushrooms: “The Longevity Vitamin” (That’s Not A Vitamin)
- Black Olives vs Green Olives – Which is Healthier
- Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More
- Coconut vs Avocado – Which is Healthier?
- Herbs for Evidence-Based Health & Healing
- Spermidine For Longevity
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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