Top 8 Habits Of The Top 1% Healthiest Over-50s
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Will Harlow, over-50s specialist physio, compiled some stats from over a thousand over-50s clients:
Checklist
The findings:
- Consistency: the healthiest individuals practised some kind(s) of health habit daily. Consistency was emphasized as more important than perfection.
- Resistance training: 75% of the sample engaged in resistance training for better mobility, strength, and mental health. Not all used gyms; some used household objects like bags of books or resistance bands.
- Walking: everyone walked at least 6,000 steps per day, often briskly. Walking speed, not just step count, made a significant difference
- Purpose: most participants (bearing in mind that 80% of the total sample were retired) engaged in purposeful activities like volunteering, joining groups, or writing. Having a sense of purpose correlated with longer and healthier lives.
- Flexible dieting: participants paid attention to their eating without strictly following specific diets. Portion size discipline and consistency (eating well 90% of the time) were key.
- Mobility: they worked on joint stiffness with regular mobility and stretching routines. And, importantly, they do not accept stiffness as inevitable.
- Social engagement: they maintained at-least-weekly social contact (e.g. clubs, family meetups, outings). Social isolation, in contrast, was linked to severe health risks like dementia and early death.
- Positivity: participants maintained a positive attitude despite hardships, focussing on the things they could control. Broader scientific consensus supports the premise that a positive outlook improves health and longevity.
10almonds note: we’re curious as to how causality was established in some of these, since (for example) it could easily be that someone who is in better health will more readily walk more quickly, meaning that a higher walking speed was not necessarily such a causative factor in good health, but rather a result thereof. Of course, there may also be a degree of two-way causality, but still, we like good science and there seem to be some leaps of logic here that have otherwise gone unacknowledged.
This does not take away from the fact that those eight things are most certainly good things to be doing for one’s health, all the same.
For more on each of these, enjoy:
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The End of Alzheimer’s – by Dr. Dale Bredesen
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This one didn’t use the “The New Science Of…” subtitle that many books do, and this one actually is a “new science of”!
Which is exciting, and/but comes with the caveat that the overall protocol itself is still undergoing testing, but the results so far are promising. The constituent parts of the protocol are for the most already well-established, but have not previously been put together in this way.
Dr. Bredesen argues that Alzheimer’s Disease is not one condition but three (medical consensus agrees at least that it is a collection of conditions, but different schools of thought slice them differently), and outlines 36 metabolic factors that are implicated, and the good news is, most of them are within our control.
Since there’s a lot to put together, he also offers many workarounds and “crutches”, making for very practical advice.
The style of the book is on the hard end of pop-science, that is to say while the feel and tone is very pop-sciencey, there are nevertheless a lot of words that you might know but your spellchecker probably wouldn’t. He does explain everything along the way, but this does mean that if you’re not already well-versed, you can’t just dip in to a later point without reading the earlier parts.
Bottom line: even if you only implement half the advice in this book, you’ll be doing your long-term cognitive health a huge favor.
Click here to check out The End of Alzheimer’s, and keep cognitive decline at bay!
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How To Clean Your Brain (Glymphatic Health Primer)
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That’s not a typo! The name “glymphatic system” was coined by the Danish neuroscientist Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, and is a nod to its use of glial cells to do a similar job to that of the peripheral lymphatic system—but this time, in the CNS. Today, we have Dr. Jin Sung to tell us more:
Brainwashing (but not like that)
The glymphatic system may sound like a boring job, but so does “sanitation worker” in a city—yet the city would grind to a messy halt very very quickly without them. Same goes for your brain.
Diseases that are prevalent when this doesn’t happen the way it should include Alzheimer’s (beta-amyloid clearance) and Parkinson’s (alpha-synuclein clearance) amongst others.
Things Dr. Sung recommends for optimal glymphatic function include: sleep (7–9 hours), exercise (30–45 minutes daily), hydration (half your bodyweight in pounds, in ounces, so if your body weighs 150 lbs, that means 75 oz of water), good posture (including the use of good ergonomics, e.g. computer monitor at right height, car seat correct, etc), stress reduction (reduces inflammatory cytokines), getting enough omega-3 (the brain needs certain fats to work properly, and this is the one most likely to see a deficit), vagal stimulation (methods include humming, gargling, and gagging—please note we said vagal stimulation; easy to misread at a glance!), LED light therapy, and fasting (intermittent or prolonged).
For more on each of these, including specific tips, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Ask Not What Your Lymphatic System Can Do For You…
- The Vagus Nerve (And How You Can Make Use Of It)
- Casting Yourself In A Healthier Light
- Intermittent Fasting: How Does It Work?
Take care!
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Puritans Pride Resveratrol vs Life Extension Resveratrol – Which is Healthier
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Our Verdict
When comparing Puritan’s Pride Resveratrol to Life Extension Resveratrol, we picked the Life Extension Resveratrol.
Why?
It contains not only more resveratrol per serving (250mg compared to Puritan’s Pride’s 100mg), but also contains other goodies too. Specifically, each capsule also contains:
- Quercetin (150mg)
- Grape & berry blend (85mg)
- Fisetin (10mg)
Whereas the Puritan’s Pride softgels? The other top ingredients are soybean oil and gelatin.
Want to check out the products for yourself? Here they are:
Puritan’s Pride Resveratrol | Life Extension Resveratrol
Want to know more about these supplements? Check out:
Resveratrol & Healthy Aging
Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
Berries & Other Polyphenol-rich Foods
Fisetin: The Anti-Aging AssassinEnjoy!
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Will there soon be a cure for HIV?
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Human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, is a chronic health condition that can be fatal without treatment. People with HIV can live healthy lives by taking antiretroviral therapy (ART), but this medication must be taken daily in order to work, and treatment can be costly. Fortunately, researchers believe a cure is possible.
In July, a seventh person was reportedly cured of HIV following a 2015 stem cell transplant for acute myeloid leukemia. The patient stopped taking ART in 2018 and has remained in remission from HIV.
Read on to learn more about HIV, the promise of stem cell transplants, and what other potential cures are on the horizon.
What is HIV?
HIV infects and destroys the immune system’s cells, making people more susceptible to infections. If left untreated, HIV will severely impair the immune system and progress to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). People living with untreated AIDS typically die within three years.
People with HIV can take ART to help their immune systems recover and to reduce their viral load to an undetectable level, which slows the progression of the disease and prevents them passing the virus to others.
How can stem cell transplants cure HIV?
Several people have been cured of HIV after receiving stem cell transplants to treat leukemia or lymphoma. Stem cells are produced by the spongy tissue located in the center of some bones, and they can turn into new blood cells.
A mutation on the CCR5 gene prevents HIV from infecting new cells and creates resistance to the virus, which is why some HIV-positive people have received stem cells from donors carrying this mutation. (One person was reportedly cured of HIV after receiving stem cells without the CCR5 mutation, but further research is needed to understand how this occurred.)
Despite this promising news, experts warn that stem cell transplants can be fatal, so it’s unlikely this treatment will be available to treat people with HIV unless a stem cell transplant is needed to treat cancer. People with HIV are at an increased risk for blood cancers, such as Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which stem cell transplants can treat.
Additionally, finding compatible donors with the CCR5 mutation who share genetic heritage with patients of color can be challenging, as donors with the mutation are typically white.
What are other potential cures for HIV?
In some rare cases, people who started ART shortly after infection and later stopped treatment have maintained undetectable levels of HIV in their bodies. There have also been some people whose bodies have been able to maintain low viral loads without any ART at all.
Researchers are studying these cases in their search for a cure.
Other treatment options researchers are exploring include:
- Gene therapy: In addition to stem cell transplants, gene therapy for HIV involves removing genes from HIV particles in patients’ bodies to prevent the virus from infecting other cells.
- Immunotherapy: This treatment is typically used in cancer patients to teach their immune systems how to fight off cancer. Research has shown that giving some HIV patients antibodies that target the virus helps them reach undetectable levels of HIV without ART.
- mRNA technology: mRNA, a type of genetic material that helps produce proteins, has been used in vaccines to teach cells how to fight off viruses. Researchers are seeking a way to send mRNA to immune system cells that contain HIV.
When will there be a cure for HIV?
The United Nations and several countries have pledged to end HIV and AIDS by 2030, and a 2023 UNAIDS report affirmed that reaching this goal is possible. However, strategies to meet this goal include HIV prevention and improving access to existing treatment alongside the search for a cure, so we still don’t know when a cure might be available.
How can I find out if I have HIV?
You can get tested for HIV from your primary care provider or at your local health center. You can also purchase an at-home HIV test from a drugstore or online. If your at-home test result is positive, follow up with your health care provider to confirm the diagnosis and get treatment.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Nutrivore – by Dr. Sarah Ballantyne
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The core idea of this book is that foods can be assigned a numerical value according to their total nutritional value, and that this number can be used to guide a person’s diet such that we will eat, in aggregate, a diet that is more nutritious. So far, so simple.
What Dr. Ballantyne also does, besides explaining and illustrating this system (there are chapters explaining the calculation system, and appendices with values), is also going over what to consider important and what we can let slide, and what things we might need more of to address a wide assortment of potential health concerns. And yes, this is definitely a “positive diet” approach, i.e. it focuses on what to add in, not what to cut out.
The premise of the “positive diet” approach is simple, by the way: if we get a full set of good nutrients, we will be satisfied and not crave unhealthy food.
She also offers a lot of helpful “rules of thumb”, and provides a variety of cheat-sheets and suchlike to make things as easy as possible.
There’s also a recipes section! Though, it’s not huge and it’s probably not necessary, but it’s just one more “she’s thinking of everything” element.
Bottom line: if you’d like a single-volume “Bible of” nutrition-made-easy, this is a very usable tome.
Click here to check out Nutrivore, and start filling up your diet!
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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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