How To Nap Like A Pro (No More “Sleep Hangovers”!)

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How To Be An Expert Nap-Artist

There’s a lot of science to say that napping can bring us health benefits—but mistiming it can just make us more tired. So, how to get some refreshing shut-eye, without ending up with a case of the midday melatonin blues?

First, why do we want to nap?

Well, maybe we’re just tired, but there are specific benefits even if we’re not. For example:

What can go wrong?

There are two main things that can go wrong, physiologically speaking:

  1. We can overdo it, and not sleep well at night
  2. We can awake groggy and confused and tired

The first is self-explanatory—it messes with the circadian rhythm. For this reason, we should not sleep more than 90 minutes during the day. If that seems like a lot, and maybe you’ve heard that we shouldn’t sleep more than half an hour, there is science here, so read on…

The second is a matter of sleep cycles. Our brain naturally organizes our sleep into multiples of 20-minute segments, with a slight break of a few minutes between each. Consequently, naps should be:

  • 25ish minutes
  • 40–45 minutes
  • 90ish minutes

If you wake up mid-cycle—for example, because your alarm went off, or someone disturbed you, or even because you needed to pee, you will be groggy, disoriented, and exhausted.

For this reason, a nap of one hour (a common choice, since people like “round” numbers) is a recipe for disaster, and will only work if you take 15 minutes to fall asleep. In which case, it’d really be a nap of 45 minutes, made up of two 20-minute sleep cycles.

Some interruptions are better/worse than others

If you’re in light or REM sleep, a disruption will leave you not very refreshed, but not wiped out either. And as a bonus, if you’re interrupted during a REM cycle, you’re more likely to remember your dreams.

If you’re in deep sleep, a disruption will leave you with what feels like an incredible hangover, minus the headache, and you’ll be far more tired than you were before you started the nap.

The best way to nap

Taking these factors into account, one of the “safest” ways to nap is to set your alarm for the top end of the time-bracket above the one you actually want to nap for (e.g., if you want to nap for 25ish minutes, set your alarm for 45).

Unless you’re very sleep-deprived, you’ll probably wake up briefly after 20–25 minutes of sleep. This may seem like nearer 30 minutes, if it took you some minutes to fall asleep!

If you don’t wake up then, or otherwise fail to get up, your alarm will catch you later at what will hopefully be between your next sleep cycles, or at the very least not right in the middle of one.

When you wake up from a nap before your alarm, get up. This is not the time for “5 more minutes” because “5 more minutes” will never, ever, be refreshing.

Rest well!

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  • Think you’re good at multi-tasking? Here’s how your brain compensates – and how this changes with age

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We’re all time-poor, so multi-tasking is seen as a necessity of modern living. We answer work emails while watching TV, make shopping lists in meetings and listen to podcasts when doing the dishes. We attempt to split our attention countless times a day when juggling both mundane and important tasks.

    But doing two things at the same time isn’t always as productive or safe as focusing on one thing at a time.

    The dilemma with multi-tasking is that when tasks become complex or energy-demanding, like driving a car while talking on the phone, our performance often drops on one or both.

    Here’s why – and how our ability to multi-task changes as we age.

    Doing more things, but less effectively

    The issue with multi-tasking at a brain level, is that two tasks performed at the same time often compete for common neural pathways – like two intersecting streams of traffic on a road.

    In particular, the brain’s planning centres in the frontal cortex (and connections to parieto-cerebellar system, among others) are needed for both motor and cognitive tasks. The more tasks rely on the same sensory system, like vision, the greater the interference.

    This is why multi-tasking, such as talking on the phone, while driving can be risky. It takes longer to react to critical events, such as a car braking suddenly, and you have a higher risk of missing critical signals, such as a red light.

    The more involved the phone conversation, the higher the accident risk, even when talking “hands-free”.

    Generally, the more skilled you are on a primary motor task, the better able you are to juggle another task at the same time. Skilled surgeons, for example, can multitask more effectively than residents, which is reassuring in a busy operating suite.

    Highly automated skills and efficient brain processes mean greater flexibility when multi-tasking.

    Adults are better at multi-tasking than kids

    Both brain capacity and experience endow adults with a greater capacity for multi-tasking compared with children.

    You may have noticed that when you start thinking about a problem, you walk more slowly, and sometimes to a standstill if deep in thought. The ability to walk and think at the same time gets better over childhood and adolescence, as do other types of multi-tasking.

    When children do these two things at once, their walking speed and smoothness both wane, particularly when also doing a memory task (like recalling a sequence of numbers), verbal fluency task (like naming animals) or a fine-motor task (like buttoning up a shirt). Alternately, outside the lab, the cognitive task might fall by wayside as the motor goal takes precedence.

    Brain maturation has a lot to do with these age differences. A larger prefrontal cortex helps share cognitive resources between tasks, thereby reducing the costs. This means better capacity to maintain performance at or near single-task levels.

    The white matter tract that connects our two hemispheres (the corpus callosum) also takes a long time to fully mature, placing limits on how well children can walk around and do manual tasks (like texting on a phone) together.

    For a child or adult with motor skill difficulties, or developmental coordination disorder, multi-tastking errors are more common. Simply standing still while solving a visual task (like judging which of two lines is longer) is hard. When walking, it takes much longer to complete a path if it also involves cognitive effort along the way. So you can imagine how difficult walking to school could be.

    What about as we approach older age?

    Older adults are more prone to multi-tasking errors. When walking, for example, adding another task generally means older adults walk much slower and with less fluid movement than younger adults.

    These age differences are even more pronounced when obstacles must be avoided or the path is winding or uneven.

    Older adults tend to enlist more of their prefrontal cortex when walking and, especially, when multi-tasking. This creates more interference when the same brain networks are also enlisted to perform a cognitive task.

    These age differences in performance of multi-tasking might be more “compensatory” than anything else, allowing older adults more time and safety when negotiating events around them.

    Older people can practise and improve

    Testing multi-tasking capabilities can tell clinicians about an older patient’s risk of future falls better than an assessment of walking alone, even for healthy people living in the community.

    Testing can be as simple as asking someone to walk a path while either mentally subtracting by sevens, carrying a cup and saucer, or balancing a ball on a tray.

    Patients can then practise and improve these abilities by, for example, pedalling an exercise bike or walking on a treadmill while composing a poem, making a shopping list, or playing a word game.

    The goal is for patients to be able to divide their attention more efficiently across two tasks and to ignore distractions, improving speed and balance.

    There are times when we do think better when moving

    Let’s not forget that a good walk can help unclutter our mind and promote creative thought. And, some research shows walking can improve our ability to search and respond to visual events in the environment.

    But often, it’s better to focus on one thing at a time

    We often overlook the emotional and energy costs of multi-tasking when time-pressured. In many areas of life – home, work and school – we think it will save us time and energy. But the reality can be different.

    Multi-tasking can sometimes sap our reserves and create stress, raising our cortisol levels, especially when we’re time-pressured. If such performance is sustained over long periods, it can leave you feeling fatigued or just plain empty.

    Deep thinking is energy demanding by itself and so caution is sometimes warranted when acting at the same time – such as being immersed in deep thought while crossing a busy road, descending steep stairs, using power tools, or climbing a ladder.

    So, pick a good time to ask someone a vexed question – perhaps not while they’re cutting vegetables with a sharp knife. Sometimes, it’s better to focus on one thing at a time.The Conversation

    Peter Wilson, Professor of Developmental Psychology, Australian Catholic University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Want the health benefits of strength training but not keen on the gym? Try ‘exercise snacking’

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The science is clear: resistance training is crucial to ageing well. Lifting weights (or doing bodyweight exercises like lunges, squats or push-ups) can help you live independently for longer, make your bones stronger, reduce your risk of diseases such as diabetes, and may even improve your sleep and mental health.

    But not everyone loves the gym. Perhaps you feel you’re not a “gym person” and never will be, or you’re too old to start. Being a gym-goer can be expensive and time-consuming, and some people report feeling unwelcome or awkward at the gym.

    The good news is you don’t need the gym, or lots of free time, to get the health benefits resistance training can offer.

    You can try “exercise snacking” instead.

    Pressmaster/Shutterstock

    What is exercise snacking?

    Exercise snacking involves doing multiple shorter bouts (as little as 20 seconds) of exercise throughout the day – often with minimal or no equipment. It’s OK to have several hours of rest between.

    You could do simple bodyweight exercises such as:

    • chair sit-to-stand (squats)
    • lunges
    • box step-ups
    • calf raises
    • push-ups.

    Exercise snacking like this can help improve muscle mass, strength and physical function.

    It’s OK to hold onto a nearby object for balance, if you need. And doing these exercises regularly will also improve your balance. That, in turn, reduces your risk of falls and fractures.

    OK I have done all those, now what?

    Great! You can also try using resistance bands or dumbbells to do the previously mentioned five exercises as well as some of the following exercises:

    When using resistance bands, make sure you hold them tightly and that they’re securely attached to an immovable object.

    Exercise snacking works well when you pair it with an activity you do often throughout the day. Perhaps you could:

    • do a few extra squats every time you get up from a bed or chair
    • do some lunges during a TV ad break
    • chuck in a few half squats while you’re waiting for your kettle to boil
    • do a couple of elevated push-ups (where you support your body with your hands on a chair or a bench while doing the push-up) before tucking into lunch
    • sneak in a couple of calf raises while you’re brushing your teeth.
    A man does weighted lunges in his lounge room.
    Exercise snacking involves doing multiple shorter bouts (as little as 20 seconds) of exercise throughout the day. Cavan-Images/Shutterstock

    What does the evidence say about exercise snacking?

    One study had older adults without a history of resistance training do exercise snacks at home twice per day for four weeks.

    Each session involved five simple bodyweight exercises (chair sit-to-stand, seated knee extension, standing knee bends, marching on the spot, and standing calf raises). The participants did each exercise continuously for one minute, with a one-minute break between exercises.

    These short and simple exercise sessions, which lasted just nine minutes, were enough to improve a person’s ability to stand up from a chair by 31% after four weeks (compared to a control group who didn’t exercise). Leg power and thigh muscle size improved, too.

    Research involving one of us (Jackson Fyfe) has also shown older adults found “exercise snacking” feasible and enjoyable when done at home either once, twice, or three times per day for four weeks.

    Exercise snacking may be a more sustainable approach to improve muscle health in those who don’t want to – or can’t – lift heavier weights in a gym.

    A little can yield a lot

    We know from other research that the more you exercise, the more likely it is you will keep exercising in future.

    Very brief resistance training, albeit with heavier weights, may be more enjoyable than traditional approaches where people aim to do many, many sets.

    We also know brief-and-frequent exercise sessions can break up periods of sedentary behaviour (which usually means sitting too much). Too much sitting increases your risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, whereas exercise snacking can help keep your blood sugar levels steady.

    Of course, longer-term studies are needed. But the evidence we do have suggests exercise snacking really helps.

    An older Asian man lifts weights at home.
    Just a few short exercise sessions can do you a world of good. eggeegg/Shutterstock

    Why does any of this matter?

    As you age, you lose strength and mass in the muscles you use to walk, or stand up. Everyday tasks can become a struggle.

    All this contributes to disability, hospitalisation, chronic disease, and reliance on community and residential aged care support.

    By preserving your muscle mass and strength, you can:

    • reduce joint pain
    • get on with activities you enjoy
    • live independently in your own home
    • delay or even eliminate the need for expensive health care or residential aged care.

    What if I walk a lot – is that enough?

    Walking may maintain some level of lower body muscle mass, but it won’t preserve your upper body muscles.

    If you find it difficult to get out of a chair, or can only walk short distances without getting out of breath, resistance training is the best way to regain some of the independence and function you’ve lost.

    It’s even more important for women, as muscle mass and strength are typically lower in older women than men. And if you’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis, which is more common in older women than men, resistance exercise snacking at home can improve your balance, strength, and bone mineral density. All of this reduces the risk of falls and fractures.

    You don’t need heavy weights or fancy equipment to benefit from resistance training.

    So, will you start exercise snacking today?

    Justin Keogh, Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University and Jackson Fyfe, Senior Lecturer, Strength and Conditioning Sciences, Deakin University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • AI: The Doctor That Never Tires?

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    AI: The Doctor That Never Tires?

    We asked you for your opinion on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare, and got the above-depicted, below-described set of results:

    • A little over half of respondents to the poll voted for “It speeds up research, and is more methodical about diagnosis, so it’s at least a good extra tool”
    • A quarter of respondents voted for “I’m on the fence—it seems to make no more nor less mistakes than human doctors do”
    • A little under a fifth of respondents voted for “AI is less prone to fatigue/bias than human doctors, making it an essential new tech”
    • Three respondents voted for “AI is a step too far in medical technology, and we’re not ready for it”

    Writer’s note: I’m a professional writer (you’d never have guessed, right?) and, apparently, I really did write “no more nor less mistakes”, despite the correct grammar being “no more nor fewer mistakes”. Now, I know this, and in fact, people getting less/fewer wrong is a pet hate of mine. Nevertheless, I erred.

    Yet, now that I’m writing this out in my usual software, and not directly into the poll-generation software, my (AI!) grammar/style-checker is highlighting the error for me.

    Now, an AI could not do my job. ChatGPT would try, and fail miserably. But can technology help me do mine better? Absolutely!

    And still, I dismiss a lot of the AI’s suggestions, because I know my field and can make informed choices. I don’t follow it blindly, and I think that’s key.

    AI is less prone to fatigue/bias than human doctors, making it an essential new tech: True or False?

    True—with one caveat.

    First, a quick anecdote from a subscriber who selected this option in the poll:

    ❝As long as it receives the same data inputs as my doctor (ie my entire medical history), I can see it providing a much more personalised service than my human doctor who is always forgetting what I have told him. I’m also concerned that my doctor may be depressed – not an ailment that ought to affect AI! I recently asked my newly qualified doctor goddaughter whether she would prefer to be treated by a human or AI doctor. No contest, she said – she’d go with AI. Her argument was that human doctors leap to conclusions, rather than properly weighing all the evidence – meaning AI, as long as it receives the same inputs, will be much more reliable❞

    Now, an anecdote is not data, so what does the science say?

    Well… It says the same:

    ❝Of 6695 responding physicians in active practice, 6586 provided information on the areas of interest: 3574 (54.3%) reported symptoms of burnout, 2163 (32.8%) reported excessive fatigue, and 427 (6.5%) reported recent suicidal ideation, with 255 of 6563 (3.9%) reporting a poor or failing patient safety grade in their primary work area and 691 of 6586 (10.5%) reporting a major medical error in the prior 3 months. Physicians reporting errors were more likely to have symptoms of burnout (77.6% vs 51.5%; P<.001), fatigue (46.6% vs 31.2%; P<.001), and recent suicidal ideation (12.7% vs 5.8%; P<.001).❞

    See the damning report for yourself: Physician Burnout, Well-being, and Work Unit Safety Grades in Relationship to Reported Medical Errors

    AI, of course, does not suffer from burnout, fatigue, or suicidal ideation.

    So, what was the caveat?

    The caveat is about bias. Humans are biased, and that goes for medical practitioners just the same. AI’s machine learning is based on source data, and the source data comes from humans, who are biased.

    See: Bias and Discrimination in AI: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective

    So, AI can perpetuate human biases and doesn’t have a special extra strength in this regard.

    The lack of burnout, fatigue, and suicidal ideation, however, make a big difference.

    AI speeds up research, and is more methodical about diagnosis: True or False?

    True! AI is getting more and more efficient at this, and as has been pointed out, doesn’t make errors due to fatigue, and often comes to accurate conclusions near-instantaneously. To give just one example:

    ❝Deep learning algorithms achieved better diagnostic performance than a panel of 11 pathologists participating in a simulation exercise designed to mimic routine pathology workflow; algorithm performance was comparable with an expert pathologist interpreting whole-slide images without time constraints. The area under the curve was 0.994 (best algorithm) vs 0.884 (best pathologist).❞

    Read: Diagnostic Assessment of Deep Learning Algorithms for Detection of Lymph Node Metastases in Women With Breast Cancer

    About that “getting more and more efficient at this”; it’s in the nature of machine learning that every new piece of data improves the neural net being used. So long as it is getting fed new data, which it can process at rate far exceeding humans’ abilities, it will always be constantly improving.

    AI makes no more nor less fewer mistakes than humans do: True or False?

    False! AI makes fewer, now. This study is from 2021, and it’s only improved since then:

    ❝Professionals only came to the same conclusions [as each other] approximately 75 per cent of the time. More importantly, machine learning produced fewer decision-making errors than did all the professionals❞

    See: AI can make better clinical decisions than humans: study

    All that said, we’re not quite at Star Trek levels of “AI can do a human’s job entirely” just yet:

    BMJ | Artificial intelligence versus clinicians: pros and cons

    To summarize: medical AI is a powerful tool that:

    • Makes healthcare more accessible
    • Speeds up diagnosis
    • Reduces human error

    …and yet, for now at least, still requires human oversights, checks and balances.

    Essentially: it’s not really about humans vs machines at all. It’s about humans and machines giving each other information, and catching any mistakes made by the other. That way, humans can make more informed decisions, and still keep a “hand on the wheel”.

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Related Posts

  • What Teas To Drink Before Bed (By Science!)
  • Unprocessed – by Kimberly Wilson

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    First, what this is not: hundreds of pages to say “eat less processed food”. That is, of course, also advisable (and indeed, is advised in the book too), but there’s a lot more going on here too.

    Though not a doctor, the author is a psychologist who brings a lot of data to the table, especially when it comes to the neurophysiology at hand, what forgotten micronutrients many people are lacking, and what trends in society worsen these deficiencies in the population at large.

    If you only care about the broadest of take-away advice, it is: eat a diet that’s mostly minimally processed plants and some oily fish, watch out for certain deficiencies in particular, and increase dietary intake of them where necessary (with taking supplements as a respectable next-best remedy).

    On which note, a point of criticism is that there’s some incorrect information about veganism and brain health; she mentions that DHA is only found in fish (in fact, fish get it from algae, which has it, and is the basis of many vegan omega-3 supplements), and the B12 is found only in animals (also found in yeast, which is not an animal, as well as various bacteria in soil, and farm animals get their B12 from supplements these days anyway, so it is arguable that we could keep things simpler by just cutting out the middlecow).

    However, the strength of this book really is in the delivery of understanding about why certain things matter. If you’re told “such-and-such is good for the brain”, you’ll up your intake for 1–60 days, depending on whether you bought a supermarket item or ordered a batch of supplements. And then you’ll forget, until 6–12 months later, and you’ll do it again. On the other hand, if you understand how something is good or bad for the brain, what it does (for good or ill) on a cellular level, the chemistry and neurophysiology at hand, you’ll make new habits for life.

    The style is middle-range pop-science; by this we mean there are tables of data and some long words that are difficult to pronounce, but also it’s not just hard science throughout—there’s (as one might expect from an author who is a psychologist) a lot about the psychology and sociology of why many people make poor dietary decisions, and the things governments often do (or omit doing) that affect this adversely—and how we can avoid those traps as individuals (unless we be incarcerated or such).

    As an aside, the author is British, so governmental examples are mostly UK-based, but it doesn’t take a lot to mentally measure that against what the governments of, for example, the US or Canada do the same or differently.

    Bottom line: there’s a lot of great information about brain health here; the strongest parts are whether the author stays within her field (psychology encompasses such diverse topics as neurophysiology and aspects of sociology, but not microbiology, for example). If you want to learn about the physiology of brain health and enjoy quite a sociopolitical ride along the way, this one’s a good one for that.

    Click here to check out Unprocessed, and make the best choices for you!

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  • Pumpkin Protein Crackers

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Ten of these (give or take what size you make them) will give you the 20g protein that most people’s body’s can use at a time. Five of these plus some of one of the dips we list at the bottom will also do it:

    You will need

    • 1 cup chickpea flour (also called gram flour or garbanzo bean flour)
    • 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
    • 1 tbsp chia seeds
    • 1 tsp baking powder
    • ¼ tsp MSG or ½ tsp low-sodium salt
    • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Preheat the oven to 350℉ / 180℃.

    2) Combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, and mix thoroughly.

    3) Add the oil, and mix thoroughly.

    4) Add water, 1 tbsp at a time, mixing thoroughly until the mixture comes together and you have a dough ball. You’ll probably need 3–4 tbsp in total, but do add them one at a time.

    5) Roll out the dough as thinly and evenly as you can between two sheets of baking paper. Remove the top layer of the paper, and slice the dough into squares or triangles. You could use a cookie-cutter to make other shapes if you like, but then you’ll need to repeat the rolling to use up the offcuts. So we recommend squares or triangles at least for your first go.

    6) Bake them in the oven for 12–15 minutes or until golden and crispy. Enjoy immediately or keep in an airtight container.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some things to go with what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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  • Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?

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    Carb-Strong or Carb-Wrong?

    A bar chart showing the number of people who are interested in social media and heavy carbs.

    We asked you for your health-related view of carbs, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses

    • About 48% said “Some carbs are beneficial; others are detrimental”
    • About 27% said “Carbs are a critical source of energy, and safer than fats”
    • About 18% said “A low-carb diet is best for overall health (and a carb is a carb)”
    • About 7% said “We do not need carbs to live; a carnivore diet is viable”

    But what does the science say?

    Carbs are a critical source of energy, and safer than fats: True or False?

    True and False, respectively! That is: they are a critical source of energy, and carbs and fats both have an important place in our diet.

    ❝Diets that focus too heavily on a single macronutrient, whether extreme protein, carbohydrate, or fat intake, may adversely impact health.

    ~ Dr. Russel de Souza et al.

    Source: Low carb or high carb? Everything in moderation … until further notice

    (the aforementioned lead author Dr. de Souza, by the way, served as an external advisor to the World Health Organization’s Nutrition Guidelines Advisory Committee)

    Some carbs are beneficial; others are detrimental: True or False?

    True! Glycemic index is important here. There’s a big difference between eating a raw carrot and drinking high-fructose corn syrup:

    Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    While some say grains and/or starchy vegetables are bad, best current science recommends:

    • Eat some whole grains regularly, but they should not be the main bulk of your meal (non-wheat grains are generally better)
    • Starchy vegetables are not a critical food group, but in moderation they are fine.

    To this end, the Mediterranean Diet is the current gold standard of healthful eating, per general scientific consensus:

    A low-carb diet is best for overall health (and a carb is a carb): True or False?

    True-ish and False, respectively. We covered the “a carb is a carb” falsehood earlier, so we’ll look at “a low-carb diet is best”.

    Simply put: it can be. One of the biggest problems facing the low-carb diet though is that adherence tends to be poor—that is to say, people crave their carby comfort foods and eat more carbs again. As for the efficacy of a low-carb diet in the context of goals such as weight loss and glycemic control, the evidence is mixed:

    ❝There is probably little to no difference in weight reduction and changes in cardiovascular risk factors up to two years’ follow-up, when overweight and obese participants without and with T2DM are randomised to either low-carbohydrate or balanced-carbohydrate weight-reducing diets❞

    ~ Dr. Celeste Naud et al.

    Source: Low-carbohydrate versus balanced-carbohydrate diets for reducing weight and cardiovascular risk

    ❝On the basis of moderate to low certainty evidence, patients adhering to an LCD for six months may experience remission of diabetes without adverse consequences.

    Limitations include continued debate around what constitutes remission of diabetes, as well as the efficacy, safety, and dietary satisfaction of longer term LCDs❞

    ~ Dr. Joshua Goldenberg et al.

    Source: Efficacy and safety of low and very low carbohydrate diets for type 2 diabetes remission

    ❝There should be no “one-size-fits-all” eating pattern for different patient´s profiles with diabetes.

    It is clinically complex to suggest an ideal percentage of calories from carbohydrates, protein and lipids recommended for all patients with diabetes.❞

    ~Dr. Adriana Sousa et al.

    Source: Current Evidence Regarding Low-carb Diets for The Metabolic Control of Type-2 Diabetes

    We do not need carbs to live; a carnivore diet is viable: True or False?

    False. For a simple explanation:

    The Carnivore Diet: Can You Have Too Much Meat?

    There isn’t a lot of science studying the effects of consuming no plant products, largely because such a study, if anything other than observational population studies, would be unethical. Observational population studies, meanwhile, are not practical because there are so few people who try this, and those who do, do not persist after their first few hospitalizations.

    Putting aside the “Carnivore Diet” as a dangerous unscientific fad, if you are inclined to meat-eating, there is some merit to the Paleo Diet, at least for short-term weight loss even if not necessarily long-term health:

    What’s The Real Deal With The Paleo Diet?

    For longer-term health, we refer you back up to the aforementioned Mediterranean Diet.

    Enjoy!

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    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: