Upgrade Your Life – by Pat Divilly
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Pat Divilly takes us through the steps to establish what it is we want out of life, adopt daily habits of success, build our self-esteem and confidence, and pursue what’s actually fulfilling, whatever that is for us as individuals.
The general layout of the book is: first, figuring out where you genuinely want to go (not just where people expect you to want to go!), and then seeing about what things you can change, first small and then larger, to get there.
The scope of the book covers work life and personal life, and treats them both as something where you can optimize how things work for you, and those around you. All in all, unless your life is literally perfect in every way imaginable, there’s probably something in this book that will help you to, indeed, “upgrade your life”. And who wouldn’t want that?
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Ageless Athletes – by Dr. Jim Madden
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This is an approach to strength and fitness training specifically for the 50+ crowd, and/but even more specifically for the 50+ crowd who do not wish to settle for mediocrity. In short, it’s for those who not only wish to stay healthy and have good mobility, but also who wish to be and remain athletic.
It does not assume extant athleticism, but nor does it assume complete inexperience. It provides a fairly ground-upwards entry to a training program that then quickly proceeds to competitive levels of athleticism.
The author himself details his own journey from being in his 30s, overweight and unfit, to being in his 50s and very athletic, with before and after photos. Granted, those are 20 years in between, but all the same, it’s a good sign when someone gets stronger and fitter with age, rather than declining.
The style of the book is quite casual, and/but after the introductory background and pep talk, is quite pragmatic and drops the additional fluff. In particular, older readers may enjoy the “Old Workhorse” protocol, as a tailored measured progression system.
In terms of expected equipment by the way, some is bodyweight and some is with weights; kettlebells in particular feature strongly, since this is about functional strength and not bodybuilding.
In the category of criticism, he does refer to his other books and generally assumes the reader is reading all his work, so it may not be for everyone as a standalone book.
Bottom line: if you’re 50+ and are wondering how to gain/maintain a high level athleticism, this book can definitely help with that.
Click here to check out Ageless Athlete, and go from strength to strength!
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What Your Mucus Says About Your Health
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It’s not a sexy topic (unless perhaps you have a fetish), but it is a useful topic to know about.
So, let’s get down to business with this much-maligned bodily fluid:
What is mucus? And why?
Sometimes, it can seem that mucus only exists to be an inconvenience, and to convey disease.
And… Actually, that’s mostly true.
While some kinds of mucus have other jobs beyond the scope of today’s article (did you know semen is mostly mucus? If not, now you do), the primary job of most of our mucus is to stop things (especially pathogens) going where they shouldn’t.
So, in essence, it really does exist to be an inconvenience—to pathogens. And to convey those pathogens to where they can be disposed of safely, either outside of the body, or to be an easy meal (what with being stuck in mucus, and thus at least moderately immobilized) for our various active immune cells. To make matters worse for the pathogens, there are (usually) enzymes in our mucus that have antimicrobial properties, too.
Some of mucus’s protective role can be in other ways too, such as by lining our stomach. You know, the stomach that contains the acid that can dissolve meat, despite us also being made of meat.
The slimiest rainbow
Ok, maybe not the slimiest rainbow—there’s probably a YouTube slime channel producing more colors. But, our noses are capable of dispensing astonishing quantities of mucus sometimes, and the color can vary widely, so here’s what we can know from that:
Clear
This is as it should be, in good health. If you’re getting lots of it but it’s clear, then it’s usually allergies, but watch out in case it changes color, heralding an infection. This “clear is how it looks when in ideal health”, by the way, is why when someone is sobbing in abject grief, any mucus that shows up to add to that picture will generally be clear.
White
As above, but now inflamed. Inflammation is usually something we don’t want, but in the case of a threat from a pathogen, we actually do want acute inflammation like this—the body is assembling its armies, of which, the most visible (when they appear in mass) are white blood cells. Because of their abundant presence at this stage, the mucus will also become thicker.
Yellow
As above, but the battle is now truly underway, and the yellow color comes from dead white blood cells. This does not, however, mean the battle is necessarily going badly—the body treats its white blood cells as very disposable fighters, and their deaths in large numbers are expected and normal when doing battle.
Green
As above, but neutrophils (a specific kind of white blood cell) have joined the party. They release an enzyme that colors the mucus green—and kills a lot of pathogens. Popular lore says that green mucus means a bacterial infection, but it’s not always so; these can be deployed against viruses too, depending on various factors beyond the scope of this article (but generally pertaining to severity). In any case, this too does not mean the battle is necessarily going badly, but it does express that your body is taking it very seriously—and you should, too.
Red
Nothing to do with infections, usually—it’s just a little blood (the red kind, this time). Usually it got into the mucus because the mucus membrane got damaged, usually due to some kind of physical trauma (e.g. very vigorous nose-blowing, poking things up the nose, etc) or sometimes if the air is very dry (then the mucus itself can dry out, and become stabby inside the nose; when more mucus is produced, it gets infused with blood from the injury).
Pink
As above, but combined with the “white” stage of infection response.
Orange
As above, but combined with the “yellow” stage of infection response.
Brown
As above, but the blood has oxidized—or, as a completely alterative possibility, it could mean you have been breathing a lot of pollutants. Smoke of various kinds (from fires, from smoking, etc) can cause this.
Black
There are various possible explanations here and all of them are bad. Get thee to a doctor. Superficial examples include:
- Fungal infection (you thought toxic black mold was bad when it was on the wall of the house, wait until it’s on the walls of your respiratory system)
- Blood, in abundance, oxidized (which begs the question of what caused that, but certainly: something wrong is not right)
- Pollutants again, but this time at absurd levels of exposure
That last one might sound very transient and self-correcting, but it’s not, and it comes with many increased short- and long-term health risks.
Want to know more?
Knowledge is power, so read up, and stay well:
- Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!
- The Cold Truth About Respiratory Infections
- Why Some People Get Sick More (And How To Not Be One Of Them)
Take care!
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Healthy Longevity As A Lifestyle Choice
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7 Keys To Healthy Longevity
This is Dr. Luigi Fontana. He’s a research professor of Geriatrics & Nutritional Science, and co-director of the Longevity Research Program at Washington University in St. Louis.
What does he want us to know?
He has a many-fold approach to healthy longevity, most of which may not be news to you, but you might want to prioritize some things:
Consider caloric restriction with optimal nutrition (CRON)
This is about reducing the metabolic load on your body, which frees up bodily resources for keeping yourself young.
Keeping your body young and healthy is your body’s favorite thing to do, but it can’t do that if it never gets a chance because of all the urgent metabolic tasks you’re giving it.
If CRON isn’t your thing (isn’t practicable for you, causes undue suffering, etc) then intermittent fasting is a great CR mimetic, and he recommends that too. See also:
- Is Cutting Calories The Key To Healthy Long Life?
- Fasting Without Crashing? We Sort The Science From The Hype
Keep your waistline small
Whichever approach you prefer to use to look after your metabolic health, keeping your waistline down is much more important for health than BMI.
Specifically, he recommends keeping it:
- under 31.5” for women
- under 37” for men
The disparity here is because of hormonal differences that influence both metabolism and fat distribution.
Exercise as part of your lifestyle
For Dr. Fontana, he loves mountain-biking (this writer could never!) and weight-lifting (also not my thing). But what’s key is not the specifics, but what’s going on:
- Some kind of frequent movement
- Some kind of high-intensity interval training
- Some kind of resistance training
Frequent movement because our bodies are evolved to be moving more often than not:
The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More
High-Intensity Interval Training because unlike most forms of exercise (which slow metabolism afterwards to compensate), it boosts metabolism for up to 2 hours after training:
How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
Resistance training because strength (of muscles and bones) matters too:
Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)
Writer’s examples:
So while I don’t care for mountain-biking or weight-lifting, what I do is:
1) movement: walk (briskly!) everywhere and also use a standing desk
2) HIIT: 2-minute bursts of hindu squats and/or exercise bike sprints
3) resistance: pilates and other calisthenicsModeration is not key
Dr. Fontana advises that we do not smoke, and that we do not drink alcohol, for example. He also notes that just as the only healthy amount of alcohol is zero, less ultra-processed food is always better than more.
Maybe you don’t want to abstain completely, but mindful wilful consumption of something unhealthy is preferable to believing “moderate consumption is good for the health” and an unhealthy habit develops!
Greens and beans
Shocking absolutely nobody, Dr. Fontana advocates for (what has been the most evidence-based gold standard of healthy-aging diets for quite some years now) the Mediterranean diet.
See also: Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet ← this is about tweaking the Mediterranean diet per personal area of focus, e.g. anti-inflammatory bonus, best for gut, heart healthiest, and most neuroprotective.
Take it easy
Dr. Fontana advises us (again, with a wealth of evidence) Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and to get good sleep.
Not shocked?
To quote the good doctor,
❝There are no shortcuts. No magic pills or expensive procedures can replace the beneficial effects of a healthy diet, exercise, mindfulness, or a regenerating night’s sleep.❞
Always a good reminder!
Want to know more?
You might enjoy his book “The Path to Longevity: How to Reach 100 with the Health and Stamina of a 40-Year-Old”, which we reviewed previously
You might also like this video of his, about changing the conversation from “chronic disease” to “chronic health”:
Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later
Take care!
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The Calorie Myth – by Jonathan Bailor
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First we’ll mention: the author is not a doctor, but the book is endorsed by assorted well-known doctors in the field, and the science described is consistent with current scientific consensus (and, for that matter, consistent with what we wrote in our mythbusting feature: Are You A Calorie-Burning Machine?).
It’s often (correctly) said that “not all calories are created equal”, but how should we quantify them? He proposes his “SANE solution”, which is based around the ideas of:
- Satiety: how quickly calories fill us up
- Aggression: how likely calories are to be stored as fat
- Nutrition: how many micronutrients calories bring with them, and how much
- Efficiency: how easily calories are converted
To this end, he recommends a diet high in foods that score well on his “SANE” factors, and provides such things as recipes, meal plans etc to help, as well principles for exercising more usefully in the context of metabolic base rate, and moving (rather than fighting) one’s “set point”, which is usually associated with one’s weight but it really has more to do with metabolic base rate. In fact, Bailor recommends throwing out the bathroom scale and focusing on pursuing good health itself, rather than obsessing over changing one’s relationship with the Earth’s gravitational field.
Yes, it says “lose weight” in the subtitle, but the idea is that this will be a by-product rather than the thing actively pursued. After all, we can control our actions, so that input variable is where we should put our focus, not the output variable of the numbers on the scale which can often be misleading (muscle weighing more than fat, tendency to water weight fluctuations, etc).
The style is a little flashy and salesy for this reviewer’s personal taste (a lot of references to his own businesses and neologisms associated with such), but it doesn’t take away from the quality of the content, and in terms of science, study references come at a rate of about one per page on average.
Bottom line: if you’d like to rethink your relationship with calories, then this book can help give you a much more practical angle.
Click here to check out The Calorie Myth, and take control of your metabolic base rate!
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Evidence doesn’t support spinal cord stimulators for chronic back pain – and they could cause harm
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In an episode of ABC’s Four Corners this week, the use of spinal cord stimulators for chronic back pain was brought into question.
Spinal cord stimulators are devices implanted surgically which deliver electric impulses directly to the spinal cord. They’ve been used to treat people with chronic pain since the 1960s.
Their design has changed significantly over time. Early models required an external generator and invasive surgery to implant them. Current devices are fully implantable, rechargeable and can deliver a variety of electrical signals.
However, despite their long history, rigorous experimental research to test the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulators has only been conducted this century. The findings don’t support their use for treating chronic pain. In fact, data points to a significant risk of harm.
What does the evidence say?
One of the first studies used to support the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulators was published in 2005. This study looked at patients who didn’t get relief from initial spinal surgery and compared implantation of a spinal cord stimulator to a repeat of the spinal surgery.
Although it found spinal cord stimulation was the more effective intervention for chronic back pain, the fact this study compared the device to something that had already failed once is an obvious limitation.
Later studies provided more useful evidence. They compared spinal cord stimulation to non-surgical treatments or placebo devices (for example, deactivated spinal cord stimulators).
A 2023 Cochrane review of the published comparative studies found nearly all studies were restricted to short-term outcomes (weeks). And while some studies appeared to show better pain relief with active spinal cord stimulation, the benefits were small, and the evidence was uncertain.
Only one high-quality study compared spinal cord stimulation to placebo up to six months, and it showed no benefit. The review concluded the data doesn’t support the use of spinal cord stimulation for people with back pain.
What about the harms?
The experimental studies often had small numbers of participants, making any estimate of the harms of spinal cord stimulation difficult. So we need to look to other sources.
A review of adverse events reported to Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration found the harms can be serious. Of the 520 events reported between 2012 and 2019, 79% were considered “severe” and 13% were “life threatening”.
We don’t know exactly how many spinal cord stimulators were implanted during this period, however this surgery is done reasonably widely in Australia, particularly in the private and workers compensation sectors. In 2023, health insurance data showed more than 1,300 spinal cord stimulator procedures were carried out around the country.
In the review, around half the reported harms were due to a malfunction of the device itself (for example, fracture of the electrical lead, or the lead moved to the wrong spot in the body). The other half involved declines in people’s health such as unexplained increased pain, infection, and tears in the lining around the spinal cord.
More than 80% of the harms required at least one surgery to correct the problem. The same study reported four out of every ten spinal cord stimulators implanted were being removed.
Chronic back pain can be debilitating. CGN089/Shutterstock High costs
The cost here is considerable, with the devices alone costing tens of thousands of dollars. Adding associated hospital and medical costs, the total cost for a single procedure averages more than $A50,000. With many patients undergoing multiple repeat procedures, it’s not unusual for costs to be measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Rebates from Medicare, private health funds and other insurance schemes may go towards this total, along with out-of-pocket contributions.
Insurers are uncertain of the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulators, but because their implantation is listed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule and the devices are approved for reimbursement by the government, insurers are forced to fund their use.
Industry influence
If the evidence suggests no sustained benefit over placebo, the harms are significant and the cost is high, why are spinal cord stimulators being used so commonly in Australia? In New Zealand, for example, the devices are rarely used.
Doctors who implant spinal cord stimulators in Australia are well remunerated and funding arrangements are different in New Zealand. But the main reason behind the lack of use in New Zealand is because pain specialists there are not convinced of their effectiveness.
In Australia and elsewhere, the use of spinal cord stimulators is heavily promoted by the pain specialists who implant them, and the device manufacturers, often in unison. The tactics used by the spinal cord stimulator device industry to protect profits have been compared to tactics used by the tobacco industry.
A 2023 paper describes these tactics which include flooding the scientific literature with industry-funded research, undermining unfavourable independent research, and attacking the credibility of those who raise concerns about the devices.
It’s not all bad news
Many who suffer from chronic pain may feel disillusioned after watching the Four Corners report. But it’s not all bad news. Australia happens to be home to some of the world’s top back pain researchers who are working on safe, effective therapies.
New approaches such as sensorimotor retraining, which includes reassurance and encouragement to increase patients’ activity levels, cognitive functional therapy, which targets unhelpful pain-related thinking and behaviour, and old approaches such as exercise, have recently shown benefits in robust clinical research.
If we were to remove funding for expensive, harmful and ineffective treatments, more funding could be directed towards effective ones.
Ian Harris, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, UNSW Sydney; Adrian C Traeger, Research Fellow, Institute for Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney, and Caitlin Jones, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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All of your hepatitis B vaccine questions answered
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Hepatitis B is a viral infection that can cause liver disease in people of any age or background. Vaccination is 95 percent effective against the virus. But in recent years, false claims, rumors, and myths about the hepatitis B vaccine have become increasingly common.
Here’s everything you need to know about the lifesaving hepatitis B vaccine.
What is hepatitis B?
Hepatitis B is a liver infection caused by the hepatitis B virus. The virus attacks the liver, causing severe short-term and long-term infections.
Short-term hepatitis B infections may cause “fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, jaundice (yellow skin or eyes, dark urine, clay-colored bowel movements), and pain in the muscles, joints, and stomach,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A long-term hepatitis B infection occurs when the virus stays in the body beyond the initial infection, causing chronic illness. Hepatitis B infections become chronic in 90 percent of infected infants, half of infected young children, and between 5 to 10 percent of infected adults.
“Most people who go on to develop chronic hepatitis B do not have symptoms, but it is still very serious and can lead to liver damage (cirrhosis), liver cancer, and death. Chronically infected people can spread hepatitis B virus to others, even if they do not feel or look sick themselves,” says the CDC.
How does the hepatitis B virus spread?
The hepatitis B virus is spread through body fluids, including blood, semen, and saliva. It can also be transmitted from birthing parent to child during pregnancy and childbirth.
“While hepatitis B is an infection that lives in bodily fluids, it can survive outside the human body for several days, which means that sharing contaminated household products is a possible source of infection,” said Dr. Christopher Labos, a McGill University cardiologist and epidemiologist, in a 2019 article.
In 2022, over 250 million people worldwide had chronic hepatitis B, and 1.1 million died from the disease. Most of the deaths were from liver damage and liver cancer. Less than 15 percent of people living with hepatitis B have been diagnosed.
How well does the vaccine protect against hepatitis B?
Hepatitis B vaccination is up to 95 percent effective, providing lasting—and possibly lifelong—protection against the virus. Depending on when the first dose is given, the complete vaccine series consists of two to three doses.
The vaccine is most effective for infants and children. The CDC recommends that infants receive it at birth for the most protection.
The first dose is followed by two to three additional doses administered before 18 months. Children, adolescents, and adults who weren’t vaccinated as infants should also receive the vaccine.
Vaccination is particularly important for high-risk groups, including health workers and those who are in close contact with individuals living with chronic hepatitis B, people who use intravenous drugs, and people receiving blood transfusions, dialysis, or organ transplants.
Is the vaccine safe?
Vaccines against hepatitis B were first developed in the 1980s, and they have been proven safe for decades. They have a low risk of serious side effects and are safe enough to be given to newborns, pregnant people, and immunocompromised people.
We also know hepatitis B vaccines work: “Between 1990 (about the time when universal hepatitis B vaccinations started) and 2006, the rate of hepatitis B infection fell by 81 percent to the lowest level ever recorded, and the decline was greatest among children,” added Labos.
Hepatitis B rates have continued to decline across all age groups, with the U.S. exceeding its goal of reducing new hepatitis B infections by 20 percent.
Why do doctors recommend the vaccine for babies?
Hepatitis B vaccination helps protect infants from a lifetime of potentially life-threatening infections and complications. Nine out of 10 unvaccinated infants infected with hepatitis B will develop chronic infections, which increases their risk of liver failure and liver cancer.
The hepatitis B vaccine is administered at birth to help prevent the virus from being transmitted from birthing parent to child. It also helps protect infants who might be in close contact with someone with hepatitis B. This is particularly important because most people who have hepatitis are undiagnosed.
Have more questions? Talk to your health care provider to learn more about hepatitis B vaccination.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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