Meal Timings vs Osteoporosis Fracture Risk

…and other items from this week’s health news:

Worse than smoking?

The following factors were found to have the following effects on osteoporotic fracture risk:

1. skipping breakfast: 18% higher risk
2. slow gait speed: 16% higher risk
3. smoking: 11% higher risk
4. late dinner: 8% higher risk
5. regular exercise: 1% lower risk
6. enough sleep: 5% lower risk
7. daily alcohol consumption: 9% lower risk

That last one’s not a typo! But it also doesn’t mean that alcohol is protective against osteoporosis itself, or against fractures.

So, what does it mean? It means that binge-drinking is more likely to result in someone falling over and breaking something, than moderate daily drinking.

Note: the term “binge-drinking” is popularly associated with young people getting intentionally drunk at the weekend, but please understand that if you don’t drink for months and then have several drinks on some special occasion (e.g. Christmas, New Year’s Eve, a wedding), etc, then that is binge-drinking.

So, what’s this about skipping breakfast and the late dinner? We are hypothesizing here, but in all likelihood it has to do with being rushed and frazzled and lacking energy in the morning—which again, makes you more likely to fall over and break something.

Similarly, that about regular exercise yielding a meager 1% lower risk… Actually, taking into account the confidence interval, an argument could be made for 0%. However, that 0% change to risk isn’t because exercise doesn’t make a difference—it’s because (and partly depending on what kind of exercise it is), while exercise does typically make people more robust, you’re also more likely to fall over while playing tennis than you are to fall over while watching TV. So, looking at nearly a million people’s data, those two sides of exercise cancel each other out.

In short: it’s not just about how strong your bones are or aren’t; it’s also about how likely you are to do something that can result in a fracture.

Read in full: Late dinners and missed breakfasts tied to higher osteoporosis risk

Related: Fall Special ← this is about how to not fall, and how to make it less likely you’ll be injured by a fall if you do

Do you know the early symptoms of prostate cancer?

No, you don’t. But don’t worry, neither does anyone else, because prostate cancer has no symptoms in its early stages.

What is cause for concern, however, is that most people don’t know that (or at least: 80% of Americans polled didn’t know that), and thus that it needs to be diagnosed with a blood test.

In the US, it’s recommended to get tested at age 50 (assuming you have a prostate to test), though earlier can be good especially if you have a family history of it, and/or otherwise are aware of a genetic risk factor (such from having done a health genomics test which revealed it).

Since prostate cancer typically progresses very slowly, it’s considered very treatable if caught early.

But that doesn’t mean “don’t worry”; it means “do catch it early”!

Read in full: Most Americans unaware that early prostate cancer shows no symptoms

Related: Prostate Health: What You Should Know ← this also covers the Prostate Screening Episwitch (PSE) test, which is 94% accurate, unlike the usual go-to, the Prostate-Specific Androgen (PSA) test, which is so inaccurate that even its original creator has called it “a profit-driven health disaster” that is “no better than a coin toss”.

Depression, according to the brain cells

Sometimes, arguments are made for depression being a purely psychological thing, and not physical. We reviewed such a book a while back ← it wasn’t good

However, researchers (Dr. Anjali Chawla et al.) have identified two specific brain cell types altered in people with depression. Specifically, a subtype of excitatory neurons linked to mood and stress regulation, and a subtype of microglia that manage neuroinflammation.

Most notably (and showing a clear long-term effect), many genes functioned differently in these cells in depressed people, indicating disruptions in mood regulation and inflammatory systems, respectively.

Dr. Chawla and her team now plan to study more comprehensively how these cellular changes affect brain function, and explore treatment options with this new information in mind.

Read in full: Research sheds new light on depression’s biological roots

Related: The Brain As A Work-In-Progress

Take care!